Space marines

I felt it was time get rid of a big box, so I decided to assemble some Space Marines.
I've had the Dark Vengeance boxed set with Dark Angels and Chaos Space Marines laying around for ages. From what I have been able to find out my box was released back in 2014, and I guess I must have gotten it about then as boxes like these usually sell out quite fast. Seems like the base sizes for some of the units have changed since then (from 25mm to 32mm bases) so I will have to fix that.
For some reason they are on slotted bases and not just bases with holes to stick their legs in, so I will have to do like I did with my Night Goblins and cut the "taps" off them and glue them on bases that aren't slotted. Luckily some of the models like the Terminators and bikes for the Dark Angels and the Chaos Cultists and the Chaos Hellbrute can use their original bases.

It seems like the Chaos Space Marines are followers of Khorne originally, but I figure if I just paint them up in the same scheme as the rest nobody will need to know. They will just look a bit blood-thirsty. I don't think I can explain that my Chaos army has a third faction, it was hard enough comming up wtih a story explaining why I have two so different types as the regular Chaos Marines and the Nurgle stuff so I don't want to even try to explain why some are red and worship Khorne. So I will paint them the same dark green as the rest of my regular Chaos Marines and just say they are blessed a little bit more by the Chaos Gods. Or maybe it is the other way that the regular Chaos Space Marines have not been blessed by the Chaos Gods (at least not yet). But no matter I will find good explanations why it is so as I would like to use all the models I have. 

One thing that I really like about the Dark Angels in this box is that they have printed shoulderpads both with the Dark Angels symbol and the unit designation. There are two small problems though. The first is that the shoulderpds are molded on to the minis as they are snap/fit and monopose. The second probleem is that I don't have a Dark Angels army, so I will either have to cut it awway, explain why there are regular Dark Angels in a Ultramarines successor chapter, or run them as Dark Angels. The Dark Angels I have in my army todayhave given up their colors to have their armor painted like the Gatekeepers. This is in agreement with the current leaders of the Dark Angels and is a rather complicated agreement that I will try to explain in the back story and it has to do with The Fallen and where these Marines were at the time when those events took place. But even though they might have a shield or a weapon with Dark Angels symbols on them, they look like Gatekeepers in most matters. This will not work with the Dark Angels in this box though. It would be a shame to cut away the symbols as they are excellent. I will not think too much about that at the moment as I am sure it will take some time before I get around to painting them and things might look different by then. I guess they could be a separate Dark Angels army just fighting alongside the Gatekeepers on the same battlefield or something like that. Well see when we get there.

I have built my Aspiring Champion for the Chaos Marines today, he was the only model in the set that was not snap/fit, and I believe he was a special character added to the box to give it more value and give the box something exclusive. I know they did the same for the 2012 version of the box, when they added an Interrogator Chaplain. I remember getting him off Ebay as it was awesome. Now you can get them in the regular range though, but back then you couldn't. Next up will be to build either the Chaos Cultists or the Dark Angels Terminators or Bikers as they will go on the bases that are in the box. The main reason for this is that when my wife has to go to the office we get up a bit earlier than when she can work from home, and then I have some time from I have walked the dogs to when I have to log on to to my work, and I have found working with miniatures in that time is a good way of getting stuff done. 

And the Gloomspite Gitz army keeps growing...

I have managed to work some more on my Goblins, but not as much as I would have liked as I have been distracted with some other not miniature related stuff like watching my favorite female football team (or soccer team depending on where you are from) loose another game (but we'll beat the next team for sure!) and watching Formula racing on the TV.

I have re-based my Goblins that were on grass turf and they have now moved from their square bases to new round ones. So now I have a complete unit of forty Night Goblins armed with Spears and shields. Also I have fixed up seventeen Night Goblins that was armless and placed them on new round bases. I had planned to glue their arms on this weekend but I will do that one of the days next week. They will be armed as Stabbas with swords, clubs and different one-handed weapons. I had three extra Night Goblins from the bag I brought with me back from storage that will go with these seventeen to make a unit of twenty. One of them already has a stick with a spike through it, and the other two is a spare icon bearer and a spare leader. Then I just need to bring another box home to make this grow in to a unit of forty.

I have also built the last of my Goblin Regiment. I ended up with sixteen instead of seventeen as I managed to loose one torso. I talked to the boys at GW in Oslo and they told me that I could use the unit with less troops and just pay for a full unit. So I will do that for this unit. For my Wolf Riders I bouht a box with three wolves originally for Warhammer underworlds. The wolves look a little different, but I already have two different wolves in the unit so that will probably be ok. I will have one too many, but then I can use one of them as an extra Boss, and the one armed with a spear can become a standard bearer if I just change the angle of his spear and put some sort of banner on it. Either I find a banner in one of my bitz boxes  or I'll have to make one with greenstuff.

The task for tomorrow - more Goblins/Grots

While I was at the cabin the last time, I brought with me some painted minis that needs to be converted to the new standard of basing. 

I need to remove the old square bases that was done with flock and rocks and move the minis to new round bases. This is the minis I have left to re-base. For the ones in the back, I have round slotted bases. but the ones in the front needs to have their "stem" removed and the minis glue to plin round bases.

These are the few models I have managed to move to new bases today. I plan to repaint the squigs, as I've seen so many armies that looks great where they have just one color. I might also repaint some of the figures, if they seem to need it but I hope I don't have to do them all as they have the right colors for the most part. Maybe I'll just repaint their skintones to get it uniform throughout the entire army.

Building Goblins

I have started to build my Goblin units, and today I finished the Wolf Riders. They were ten in a box, then I had one Big Boss that came in a blister pack. Also there were three extra wolves with some weird riders that was thrown into the box. The three wolves was larger than the others, but the Goblins were smaller. I was thinking they may have been from the Middle Earth range, but I see now that the Wargs they hvae there looks quite different. These are old though, so they may have changed them in later years. Anyway, I am sure that they are a Games Workshop product, as they had a slot on their legs and the old square slotted bases just like the wolves in the box had. A clue that they were of a certain age was not just that they were on square slotted bases, but also that the bases was painted green.

So to make it all look like one unit, I decided that I needed to boost the regular wolves a bit if I could. Originally the wolf belonging to the leader has armored headgear, but I found I had enough armored heads to give it to all the smaller wolves and I figure that makes them as tough as the big ones in combat.

I decided that I wanted to assemble my Wolf riders as archers, but putting the cog with spare arrows on their backs would hide the nice details and probably be hard to make to stay glued on, so instead I glued them on to the sides of the wolves so the riders can reach behind them when riding and pull out a new arrow instead of grabbing it from over their shoulder. I also had enough left arms holding an arrow to give one to all the Goblins holding their bows in their right. Like the armored wolf heads there was one arm on each set of sprues, so I had an arm for all my regular riders. The Big Boss is a metal figure holding a spear in his right arm and a severed head in th left so he didn't need such an arm. The leader for the ten man strong unit from the box has a sword in his right arm, so he got a left hand without anything in it, same goes for the banner bearer and the musician who holds the banner and a horn in their right hands.

Next I plan to add two metal squig hoppers to round bases, and also some resin Gnarly Cave Squigs. 

When that is done I will build my Goblin Regiment as my next unit, and I will use them together with the box I have already assembled as a forty man strong unit. I had to use three Goblins as wolf riders so the unit will only be thirty-seven strong, but I figue I can find  way to sneak in three bases with something else as unit fillers. Then if some in the unit gets killed in combat I will remove the unit fillers from the tabletop first. I will just have to use my imagination and see what I can come up with.

Goblins for the Gloomspite Gitz army

I was over at my cabin in Sweden today to check that everything was ok there and it was. But while I was there I also rummaged through some of my boxes and brought home some fun.

I took with me two units of Chaos Space Marines (10 Marines in a unit) and a Hellbrute.
I checked what is left in storage for this army, and there is not too much. I have two boxes of terminators, one box of resin Obliterators, two boxes of Raptors (if I remember the name correctly, they are the ones with jump-packs) an Aspriring Champion and then there was one more blister that I don't remember what was.

I also have two boxes of the Horus Heresy boxed set that came out some years ago and I think one of those boxes could be made up as chaos. If they don't look very "chaosy" I will refrain from adding them to this army and instead make everyone up as Gatekeepers, since they have a lot of old warsuits still in use. I plan to bring these boxes with me back home next time I go over.

But it wasn't just Chaos Space Marines that came home with me from the Warhammer 40K range, I also found a box from the Ork range that I took with me. That was a special box with Kaptin Badrukk and his Flash Gitz. I think that box was just available for a shor time, and it contained the Kaptin and ten Flash Gitz and some quite cool looking Grots I haven't seen before. I had planned to have some Flash Gitz in my army, so I look forward to building and painting this box. I also found I had two mor boxes of five Flash Gitz each in storage, so I will at least have twenty of them in my army. I also found one Morkanaut, a box of Boyz, four boxes of Mek Gunz, two boxes of flyers, a Big Mek, a box of Nobz, a box that can be Burnas or Lootas,  two boxes of Big Meks in Mega Armor and finaly two boxes of Deff Dreads with one in each box and a box with two in one box. I also have a box with a Stompa standing  in storage. 

I also went through my Greenskin army and brought with me some goodies to build and paint. What is left in storage now is three boxes of Night Goblin, a few small plastic boxes with Night Goblins with spears from the Battle of Skull Pass starter set (these are monopose figures) and a box of Night Goblins without arms. 
I have lots of spare arms, so adding arms to the ones that are missing them is no problem, although I am sure somewhere there is a plastic box or a ziplock back with their arms. I think I will bring these boxes home with me next time I go to the cabin.

There are also a few weird metal figures that I will take a closer look at. Some of them I believe are old Netters, and some are cool but not from Games Workshop.

What I did bring home though is some blisters. A Goblin Boss on a big spider, a boss on a giant squig, a boss on a wolf and a blister with squigs. I also brought home a bag containing what looks like resin Gnarly Cave Squigs, or something like that. I look forward to putting them together and adding them to the ones I already have assembled. 

The last two boxes I took with me was a box of Goblin Regiment and a box of Goblin Wolfriders. The sprues are identical, in thee boxes, but the Wolfriders have wolves added to the box.

I have started on the Wolf riders first. Tuned out I had three extra wolves in the box, but their riders is either from another range or non Games Workshop so I need to replace them. I have thought a lot on how to do that, and the only solution I can find is to take some of the troops from the Goblin Regiment and turn them in to Wolf riders. This means I will get an odd number of Goblins in the Regiment, but I think that will be the best solution. I plan to use the Regiment box together with the Regiment box I already built as one unit and the numbers will just have to be what I can make them.

For both the Wolf Riders and the Goblin Regiment I will end up with a weird number of troops, so I am thining I could make a few Unit fillers to even the numbers. I am not sure if that is allowed in the AoS rules as of today, but I will check with the staff at Games Workshop Oslo if they recommend doing this or if I should just keep the odd numbers. Not sure what I will end up with for the Goblin Regiment, but for the Wolf riders I will end up with 13 and the normal would be 15. 

More Sylvaneth and Deathwatch ready for priming

This weekend has been quite productive, and I hope I can be productive for a few days of my short holliday as well.

I have built my Warsong Revenant, and I must say that this was one of the more tricky minis to assemble as there were some parts that was almot impossible to fit together in that exact spot they needed to get to. But it worked out in the end, and I got it on it's base on Saturday. After that I started with my last Treelord on Sunday and finished it this morning by gluing on the owl and a few "flies". 

So as of now all my Sylvaneth miniatures are assembled. Then starts the job with priming and painting, but I need to have some better weather before I can prime as it is raining right now and I need to prime outside because of the fumes from the rattle cans. I might also need to go to the store and get some more double sided tape to use for placing the minis on the cardboard box I use for priming. But I will use what I have first and see how far that will get me.

I have also finished putting shoulderguards on the last 10 Marines of my Deathwatch army (unless there is a box with Space Marines that can not be used as Gatekeepers that I just neeed to have for something else, or some very cool new Deathwatch that is released). The Space Wolves I just finished was part of the box with the new Ghazghkull Thraka model and I got the box to get him. And that is also the same with the last Space Wolf box I got as they were part of a box with another army I wanted. 

Because of them the Watch fortress Alamo Bexar had to add a sixth watch company. This last unit of Wolves were Primaris Marines and they were not supposed to have solid shoulder guards on both sides. They also came with plain shoulderguards as they were supposed to use "stickers" for the Space Wolf symbols and I couldn't have that since all my other Marines in the army has chapter symbols that are made from plastic. So I had to do a lot of cutting on their right shoulders to get them small enough to fit the shouder guards I bought at Games Workshop outside of the existing shouders. On their left shoulders they have the Dethwatch shoulder guards like everybody else in the army, and this is where the Space Wolf symbols were supposed to go originally. I got a new, sharp blade in my scalpel and got to work. I managed to get all the new sholder guards on, but during the process I also cut myself several times in the right thumb, one of the times so deep I had to stop for a while to stop the bleeding and get a bandaid on. These Marines will also be primed first chance I get.

The next thing I have planned to build now is an old campain set with Space Marines and Chaos Space Marines to get that big box out of the house.  And also some units for my Gloomspite Gitz army and Orks as I plan to go to the cabin in Sweden tomorrow to check that everything is ok there, and then I will bring some more stuff back home with me. Not too much though as I have so many things at home to build, but I figure if I bringsomething there to store for a while, I can bring something home to build...

Treebeard is built

Finally managed to finish building Treebeard. The job itself didn't take more than two sessions once I got started. Had a hard time with some of the instructions as the illustration pictures was even worse in the Middle Earth range than in the regular range of Aos and Warhammer 40K.

Here we see the Ancient Treebeard standing next to the Treelord Ancient. As we can see there is quite a difference between them,. Treebeard has thicker and more natural looking legs, but the rest of the body is skinnier and has a lot less branches. 

I was surprised that Treebeard looked so small when I built him, but I see when he is built that he is about the same size as the Treelord Ancient. 

it is impossible to see on this picture, but to make Treebeard blend in a little bit more to the Sylvaneth range I made sure he had an owl sitting on him. The owl is sitting on a stump on his head, just about where the Hobbits could sit if I would like to have them on the miniature. I had originally thought I might replace them with a Duardin, but when I saw how tiny the Hobbit figures were I scrapped that idea immediately.  

I stopped by Games Workshop in Oslo yesterday afternoon and picked up what I was missing to finish the Treelord minis (or rather Treebeard and the Blood Bowl tree) and that was 105 mm oval base. I had ordered them a little over a week ago together with a Skitarii Marshal for my Mechanicus army in 40K and a White Dwarf magazine and the new Sisters of Battle codex that was released this weekend. 
With the bases in house it means I can finish the treelords and prepare them for priming. Treebeard just needs to be glued to the base, so he is easy to fix. For the Blood Bowl tree I want to add some height to the base, so I will have to work a bit with that. The idea is to build up a platform of rocks, and maybe some cork in the middle, and then place the tree on top of that. If I end up with cork in the middle I will make sure it is painted with Astrogranite technical paint, but if I can get the same result just using natural rocks I think that would be best. Another positive thing with doing that is that I can add some branches (leftover back parts from the Dryads) in the cracks to make it look a lot more that it is part of the undergrowth in a forest. I have lots of  packs with rocks from Games Workshop, so it is just a matter of finding rocks that is stack-able enough.

I also picked up my Warsong Revenant, and I will build that and the final Treelord next, before working on some of my other armies. I have a unit of Space Wolve that I need to do some work on to get them in to the Deathwatch, and ots of Necrons and Space Marines to build.