Weekly War Diary #1

One Week Hobby Challenge

I did not get the Meganobz finished. There are still a lot of metallics to do. Life got in the way, oh well. Getting the whole unit done in a week, a week when I knew I had stuff on as well, was overambitious and the only answer to being too ambitious is to be even more ambitious!

This week's challenge is to paint twelve models! Twelve tiny and much simpler models, to be sure, but still twelve models: the Skink Skirmishers from my Lizardmen Battalion. I want to get decent head start on this project and these are the smallest, simplest models in the box. They're mainly skin and scales, in fact the only complicated component on them seems to be the blowpipes which have little bits of detailing along them.

Completed models this week

Model 2015.8: Inquisition Psyker Junko Antioch

I'm so stupidly happy the white on the Ultra came out this well its genuinely pathetic. Anyway, this is the second member of the Inquisitorial warband: the Ultramarian Sanction Psyker Junko Antioch. If his fatigues look overly simple its because they're meant to be. Psykers are a pretty disposable resource in the Guard and I imagined he'd just be handed a boiler suit-esque uniform when he was enlisted and sent on his way.

2015.9 and 2015.10: Orks Gretchin with grot blasters

2015.11: Typhus the Herald of Nurgle

Typhus is absolutely one of my favourite models ever made and he was a joy to paint, even if I was constantly finding new metallic details on him that needed going over before he was done. The green on the armour is the same green I've been using for Ork flesh and it works surprisingly well on armour plate. Death Guard are one of those armies I've always wanted and maybe I'll pursue that after the Orks are a bit closer to completion (by which I mean having significantly more than seven small figures finished). 

2015.12 and 2015.13: Orks Gretchin with grot blasters

One Week Hobby Challenge end of week review

(Okay, long story short: when I looked at these pictures on my laptop while I was writing this post they looked fine. Now I look at them on my desktop as I post them they look far too shadowy. Hopefully they look okay but I really need to get one of these daylight bulbs people on hobby forums enthuse about and maybe that'll solve the problem once and for all.)

A productive week. Not only did I get the Glade Lord finished for my One Week Challenge but a few other bits and pieces along the way. I've got a head of steam up now and hopefully I can carry that momentum forward and get more done next week.

This week's models, in order of completion:

Model 2015.1: Astra Militarum Silvik 23rd "Fixers" Guardsman with lasgun
(Statuesque Miniatures head conversion)

Test model for my Astra Militarum regiment the Silvik 23^rd “Fixers” using the Statuesque Miniatures heroic scale female heads conversion set. As previously noted the head doesn't have the right connector to fit the torso, at least for any pose other than ironsighting so I'll need to learn to sculpt a join before doing any more.

I think a darker grey for the flak armour would compliment the grey better in future, though. I'm rather proud of the red edging, though.

Models 2015.2 and 2015.3: Orks Gretchin with grot blasters.

These Gretchin represent something important to this project: easy victories. Small, simple models that can be dashed off in a session or two. Its a nice feeling to finish something and it gives you a boost to your momentum. Since between the twenty-strong Gretchin mob, Mek Gun crew and other random Grots I've got about thirty that I can stick on one side of the painting table one or two at a time just to chip away.

Model 2015.4: Alvin Callum, Inquisitorial Acoltye with laspistol

The first of my Inquisitor's warband: Alvin Callum,Imperial Strategist and former scrivener for the Avalon Free Press' devotional pamphlet The 700 Wonders Of The Imperium. He's a polymath recruited by my inquisitor to act as his mission operator. His strategy commission was part of a longterm undercover assignment. I've been using this character for over ten years in every Imperial army I've ever had and its actually a bit of a treat to myself to finally make a model for him.

Models 2015.5: Wood Elves Glade Lord with great weapon and Asrai longbow

The main event, of course, is the Glade Lord I was painting for my One Week Challenge. Its a lovely model to paint, at least once you've worked out where the loincloth ends and the cape begins. I “highlighted” the armour using a shade since its far too delicate for me to even attempt it with an actual brush. I'm really going to have to work out some background for this guy as I want to use him a lot, I absolutely love this model

Model 2015.6: Mehendri Korendorf, Vampire Counts Necromancer

 

I've been using this Necromancer model for the better part of a year with it very nearly almost completed and I took the chance to finish him off. I'm not entirely satisfied with the pale flesh method I tried but I really didn't feel like repainting it.

Model 2015.7: Orks Mek Gun Crew Gretchin

Another Grot, this time crew for my Mek Guns, and probably my favourite of all the Grot sculpts. I like the little welding mask and the comical little pose. It also have me a chance to experiment a little with what I wanted armour plate to look like in the army. I didn't want to go with any of the usual Orky colours and the blue-green of Stegadon Scale Green suits my idea for a navy theme.

One Week Challenge #2

If there's one thing my Ork army needs its more heavy armour, plus I want to try something rather larger than a single character. The Meganobz seem relatively simple: once I've got the green flesh and the armour painted there's just the details to fill in. Also, they were a birthday present (well, three of them were) and it seems ungrateful not to have painted them. 

The heads are in the mail (not a mafia thing)

Statuesque Miniatures have finally restocked their Heroic Scale Female Heads conversion kits. Not only that but they've also got a second set of female heads out with berets. Since I anticipate they'll sell out again quite quickly I ordered four sets (one with berets, three without). That's forty heads, that's as many as forty cakes...

… and that's awesome. Now I just have to figure out what to with them.

Mainly I want to use them for Guard: bare heads for troopers and berets for officers, command sections and storm troopers, I think. Still debating whether to do a mixed gender regiment (in which case I will need to find a lot of bare male heads) or an all-female regiment since these conversion sets are dirt cheap (£4.75 for ten heads and a small discount for purchasing multiple sets).

I might make some female Battle Wizards and certainly the Inquisitorial Warband could use some ladies on hand: fallen Inquisitor Gemini Rooper; Adepta Biologis Jessika Tremayne, Tank Commander/getaway driver Captain Koleen-Callum and Storm Trooper Sergeant Juliana Kelt being long-standing members in my background who have never made it to the table.

I am very much looking forward to these things turning up. 

Hobby Goals for February and March

FEBRUARY HOBBY GOALS

Passed: 2 of 3

I did get my 1000 points Space Ork built, which was good for getting some games in (another one tomorrow) but bad from the perspective that I now have a huge number of barely painted Orks sitting to one side of my paint station.

I did get a start on my Inquisitorial Warband with the models I've already posted and ordering some others to do more conversions.

Failed: 1 of 3

The Heroic Scale Female Heads are currently out of stock at Statuesque Miniatures so I couldn't order them. Sadly, I'm also getting cold feet on them since I've been working on other projects in the meantime. Also, they're metal, not resin as I originally believed and I bloody hate working with metal.

MARCH HOBBY GOALS

Goal the First: Paint 250 points of Space Orks

With most other armies I'd have said 500 points but this is a horde army we're talking about so 250 it is. I really, really want to beat this goal good and hard but getting a quarter of the army up and finished seems a decent goal for what's looking to be a sunny month where I won't want to be indoors much during the day.

Goal the Second: Build my Looted Wagon

I've got it mostly planned out, I just need to get the glue and clippers out. It also gives me something to do with all the Mek Gunz parts I have left spare.

Goal the Third: Paint the first four members of the warband

Striking while the iron's hot, I don't want to lose inspiration on this project now I've finally started it. 

Inquisitor Hex's Warband pt.1: The Inner Circle

Apologies for the quality of photographs, can't seem to get good light today. Still, good enough for unpainted miniatures and I did so want to post the conversions before the end of the month, starting the warband being one of my hobby goals for February. So here they are: Inquisitor Hex and the most longstanding members of his warband, his most trusted lieutenants (click pictures to embiggen):

Inquisitor Laurento Hex of the Ordo Xenos

I didn't want Hex to be too showy. He's not the blood and thunder type of Inquisitor who storms into combat clad in power armour and swinging a thunder hammer. Rather, he's an investigator who prefers to work undercover, adopting a role and playing just a little larger than life. He was an actor before he was an inquisitor. The Empire Witch Hunter seemed low key enough, especially once I'd sawn off the huge Puritan hat and substituted a head from the Cadian Command Squad.

Alvin Callum, Imperial Strategist

Callum is a very old character of mine, my point of view character for every Imperial army I've collected. He started as a reporter for The 700 Wonders Of The Imperium, reporting on an Imperial Crusade. Yes, he was Ford Prefect 40k, I admit it. He ended up joining the warband where his multi-track mind and genius for finding connections soon made him Hex's closest confidante and even, though Hex would never admit it, his closest friend. They've been apart for a while with Callum deep undercover at Imperial Strategy, but now they're together again and I don't intend to part them again any time soon.

I put more thought into this one than any of the other conversions: he's wearing a Cadian officer's uniform but the head (from the Empire Pistoliers sprue) has long, flowing hair to show he's not “proper” Guard and the pile of scrolls in his hand (from the Empire Luminark) refers to his past as a scrivener and his current role as the warband's researcher and mission co-ordinator.

Junko Antioch, Sanctioned Psyker

I've been reading Graham McNeil's … of Mars trilogy and one concept that really grabbed me was the idea of “Ultramarian optimism”. I never gave Junko much background back in the day so I decided he's from Macragge because the idea of an optimistic sanctioned psyker appealed to me, hence the Ultra on his stave. He's a powerful telekine and very much the muscle of the warband, though he has some talents as a prognosticator.

Legs and torso come from the Cadian Command Squad, the arms from a Leman Russ tank commander and the stave is made from the Ultra out of the Space Marine Commander atop pole from the Empire Flagellants.

Punichello “Punch” Texman, Rogue Trader

Every warband needs transport and in this case its provided by Punch, the eleventh son of rogue trader Julius Texman. Julius' life was saved by Hex many years ago and in return he lent the inquisitor a spaceship, a skeleton crew and one of his less immediately useful sons on indefinite loan.

I've never liked the plastic Commissar sculpt, I think its overdone and badly proportioned but what it does have is ridiculously ostentatious clothes. I got rid of the silly sword, replaced with with a hand from a Cadian Command Squad special weapon and swapped out the head for a Bretonnian Knight Errant (with a ruff made from a purity seal to cover an embarrassingly raggedy join). Paint it in ludicrously clashing colours and I should have a typically over-dressed rogue trader. 

Army Building 2: Matching the picture in your head

Sometimes when you're building a model, especially a conversion, you get a picture in your head and you won't be happy until its perfect. I had this idea for a character in my Inquisitorial warband, an Imperial Strategist called Alvin Callum (a very old character of mine) where he would be dual wielding a pair of laspistols. I was going to do this using a pistol from the Cadian Shock Troops box and one from the Cadian Command Squad...

… except that I misremembering the laspistol from the Command Squad being held in the model's left hand so now my cool gunslinger idea doesn't work. I thought there was an off-hand version for the standard bearer but clearly I was imagining things. He'd have been aiming along the Command Squad pistol as he held the Shock Troops one up against the side of his head. Would have looked great.

So now I'm going to ridiculous lengths to make this happen. There are two options: try to shave down a Tempestus Scions hotshot laspistol (which is left-handed) to look enough like the Guard one or this:

… which I found on the project log of one Kierdale over at Bolter &Chainsword. Why am I going to all this trouble for a character who will not be that impressive to look at, won;t be that powerful in-game and doesn't matter all that much?

Because this character is actually important to me. He's been a part of the background for every Imperial army I've had: he started as a scrivener who fell into the orbit of my Inquisitor, he's worked with my Space Marines, joined Imperial Strategy and became a regimental advisor to my Guard. Yet he has never had a model, not in ten years and I really, really want to get this right.

That project log also has a great tutorial for making Guard veterans with shotguns, by the way, and is really worth checking out. 

Hobby Goals for February 2015

Last day of January and so I'm setting myself some goals for the shortest month, which promises to be snowy and ideal for getting things done.

Goal the first: Finish building my Ork army

Dave's 40k campaign kicks off this month and I really need to get some more work done on the Orks. Most of my opponents don't mind fighting “in progress” miniatures so all I need to do is get the things built and slap some base colours on them.

Solid commitment is to get the 1000 points list built, which just means getting my Deffkoptas and Killa Kans done. If I can get the physical tally up to 1500 so much the better.

Goal the second: Order those head from Statuesque Miniatures

Because I really, really, really want to make some female Guard.

Goal the third: Make a start on my Inquisitorial Warband

A project that I have been meaning to get around to for some time: making the models to represent my Ordo Xenos Inquisitor Laurento Hex and his retinue. Since I'm planning on doing some loyalist Guard it seems like high time to get around to this little side project.

I'm not sure what “making a start” will actually mean but I want to at least build Hex himself and maybe some other members of the warband by the end of the month.