Tuesday 20 April 2010

My Orks so far...

My ork boyz arrived today. 60 AOBR ork boyz, come on the waaagh!


Here's the rest of my ork models, 10 grots, runtherd, squig, 3 nobz, my converted warboss and my new big mek with the kustom force field. With the new models i now have around 800pts, the army is growing slowly but surely, i'll maybe get it on the battlfield sometime in the not so distant future.


This is a closer picture of my ork warboss. I made this conversion years ago when you could still order any individual bits from the citadel journal through mail order. His body and left arm are from the old metal 40k warboss, the right arm and head are from one of the old fantasy warbosses as is the banner top. I made his twin linked shoota (on his back) from plastic ork bits.

Sunday 18 April 2010

Dark Eldar Wych Cult Army


So, its been a while since my dark eldar have seen a gaming table. The raiders and ravagers have gathered a fairly substantial amount of dust. With all the rumours i've been hearing recently about the dark eldar being rereleased before xmas my enthusiasm for the sadistic pointy ears has been relit. I've decided to take a wych army to play at geekathon tomorrow night. I've never used a wych cult list before so i've decided to keep it fluffy, it's all wyches. Well I obviously won't be going to war without my three ravagers to back them up. There are quite a few models in the army that are looking a bit ropey but they will do the job. Here's the list i'm going to be running.

HQ Lelith Hesperax 90pts

Elite Beastmaster + 4 beasts 63pts

Elite Beastmaster + 5 beasts 75pts

4 Troops 7 wyches, wych weapons, plasma grenades,succubus with agoniser
Transports 4 raiders with nightshields
One wych succubus has the goblet of spite 789pts

Fast Attack 6 Hellions, succubus, agoniser, plasma grenades, haywire grenades 150pts

Heavy Ravager with 3 disintegrators 120pts

2 Heavys 2 ravagers with 3 dark lances 210pts

TOTAL 1497pts

Thats 15 kill points, 53 models, 28 points per model

I think the plan is pretty self explanitary. Open any armour with the dark lances and assault everything else.

Friday 16 April 2010

Sister of Slaanesh conversion

I have added some sisters of battle conversions into my Emperors Children Chaos army. This is the first of these conversions. I use her as an aspiring champion with power fist. Sorry about the rubbish quality of the photos. She is made using the sister superior with power sword model with a choas backpack. i stuck skulls on her shoulders and gave her a chaos power fist. Her left knee pad was filed off and replaced with a deamonette face. Her base is a chaos rhino side door set at an angle to give the model more height for when she is standing next to the larger chaos space marines.

Slaanesh Deamon Princess conversion

This is my slaanesh deamon prince next to my damonettes.She is made using the Serevina Devout inquisitor model and the wings from the winged nightmare. The base is just slate from the garden. The photos don't show it that well but i sculpted all the damonette bases using greenstuff and a couple of bits of stone then painted it to look like the ground is cracking beneath them and glowing purple.


Scratch Built Space Marine Dreadnought Drop pod WIP

This is my WIP three door dreadnought drop pod pictured next to an unpainted drop pod kit. It is slightly taller and ever so slightly wider than the kit which it needs to be to carry my ironclad dreadnought (it's not actually big enough to put the actual dreadnought model complete with base inside). It is almost completely made from 3mm foamboard so far except for the door hinges which are made from two different thicknesses of plastic pipe which fit snugly inside each other. The black pipe at the top is a pqd till roll tube. The next step, should i get round to it, is detailing which i plan to do with plasticard and possibly do detailing on the floor using double tred textured plasticard.




Asdrubael Vect Conversion

My Asdrubael Vect conversion in all its glory. It's basically a falcon and a ravager spliced together with a converted dark eldar lord and converted incubi atop.


The base is a cd with bits of painted slate, flock and lichen on it. This conversion is in 3 parts for easier transportation, the base, the hull and the 'throne'. Also it means i can use it without the top 'throne' just as a normal ravager.


I haven't had a chance to use him yet unfortunatly. He can only be taken if the army is at least 2000pts and we mostly just play 1500pts at the geekathon. Although, everyones armies are growing so he'll maybe see the battlefield yet.

Ork Fortress WIP


I am currently working on an Ork fortress to use at the geekathon. It's based largly on the one in the 3rd ed ork codex. Its mainly made with display board (from the skip at work) and plasticard and is mounted on a sheet of mdf. The main structure is all glued together using my hot glue gun. It's almost finished actually, it just needs some windows and doors then it's ready to flocked and painted so i can get it out the flat and up to the pub.

Kathryn's Deathskull Battlewagon (The Squig Jesuz)


I built this as part of Kathryns christmas present to bulk out her ork army and to give Gazkul something to ride in. Afterall, all the biggest warbosses in the galaxy command at least one battlewagon.


I started off with the tracks. I took them from a toy tank that only cost £2.99. The only part of this toy i wanted to be visible in the final model was the tracks themselves. The top platform section was built out of wooden lolly sticks with panels added using plasticard and various scraps with interesting textures to give it that scrapheap look.


Next i built the hull. The core cylinders are till roll tubes from work, they give the whole thing strength. I then built the hull shape using old display board, also rubbish from work.


I then started to take shape quickly by adding the crew cabin. I filled in the big hole on the left hand side by cutting up some of the battle for macragge scenery. I wanted the top section to be kept unattached so that i can build an alternative top in the future so it can be fielded with an 'ard case and killcannon, basically as a gun platform instead of a transport, it's nice to have the option.
The back section i wanted to be open so that i could build and engine room and also because it fits in nicely with the rules. It has a front armour of 14 and a rear armour of 10 so it made sense to me to make the rear look vulnerable. The engine itself is made from an old paint pot and some guitar wire, all the other bits ar from raking in my bitz box.


Orks often build their battlewagons to resemble the various monstrous beasts from their homeworlds (i.e. squigoths) so i felt it was rude not give the wagon a face. This adds so much character to the model and has earned it the name 'The Squig Jesuz'.


All that it needed now was detailing. I made loads of small panels out of plasticard and wethered them all with chips using my craft knife. I used them throughout the model, particularly round the bottom to create a 'skirt' to protect the tracks. I made a few glyphs, again with plasticard. Then came the rivets. I had no idea how much it added to the overall miniature by simply adding rivets but i had heard it was well worth it. I set to work cutting up a thin plastic rod and gluing on countless rivets. I have no idea how many are on there but my guess is around 150. It felt like 40,000! but it was worth it.


Here is the Squig Jesuz next to a chaos landraider and various othet models as a size comparison.

It was then primed with chaos black spray and drybrushed silver. This is the basic hull before guns and gubbinz were added. There are holes on the main platform to slot in gunz to give it some dakka but i don't have photos of them just now. It also now has a rusty deffrolla which i don't hav pics for yet either.

Fully Airborne Ork Army

My lastest idea is to collect my very own fully airborne ork army. The basic idea is to field a bunch of zeppelin or helicopter battlewagons full of boyz backed up by a couple of squadrons on deffkoptas. I like the idea of these guys taking to the air in heavy 'scrapheap challenge' style airships that earth physics wouldn't allow to float on water, let alone fly, but they can succeed through ork mek insanity, orky will power and of course the helping hand of gork and mork. Imagine orks decending upon you from the sky, bomb squigs bouncing off the ground below and exploding above the heads of thier enemy. Picture orks abseiling out of zepplins, unleasing endless rounds of slugga fire followed by a feirce heading charge into the melee.

I think its a great idea, so i've written a draft army list, scetched (really badly) some design ideas and took a walk to games workshop to buy a big mek (with kustom force field, imagine battlewagons with a 4+ save, mwah ha ha) and then to wonderland models to pick up some foamboard to begin work on the zeppelins. I didn't quite get started on the scratch building today, because i've been creating this blog, but i do have my big mek assembled. Here's the army list i'm running with for now.

HQ Big Mek with Kustom Force Field and 'Eavy armour 90pts

HQ Warboss with big choppa, TL shoota, boss pole and 'eavy armour 90pts

Troops 19 boyz, 2 rokkit launchas, inc nob with power klaw and boss pole 159pts

Troops 19 boyz, 2 rokkit launchas, inc nob with power klaw and boss pole 159pts

Troops 20 boyz, 2 rokkit launchas, inc nob with power klaw and boss pole 165pts

Fast Attack 5 deffkoptas with twin-linked big shootas 175pts

Fast Attack 4 deffkoptas with twin-linked rokkit launchas 180pts

Heavy Battlewagon, Zzap gun, 4 rokkit launchas, grot riggas and armour plates 160pts

Heavy Battlewagon, Zzap gun, 4 rokkit launchas, grot riggas and armour plates 160pts

Heavy Battlewagon, Zzap gun, 4 rokkit launchas, grot riggas and armour plates 160pts

TOTAL 1498pts

Da plan
Put all the boyz in the wagons, the mek in the middle one so all three can get the use of the kustom forc field. Scout the deffkoptas up the sides, use the RL deffkoptas to try to take out tanks that will threaten the wagons, use the BS deffkoptas to try and kill infantry that will threaten the wagons (i.e. devastator squads). Move the battlewagons 12" straight forward 1st turn then disembark on turn 2 or 3, waaagh! and charge. If i come up against a fully mechanised enemy then i might need to use more of the battlewagon guns to open a couple of transports before the boyz have something juicy to charge.

Well thats the plan!

Emperors Children Obliterators


These obliterators have worked really well for me in battle. At first they would get shot dead quickly (targetted even before my vindicator) because my opponents 'knew' they are scary, now they are usually a second thought which means they can get on with their job of picking off the opponents scary stuff. Out of their ridiculously versitile choice of weaponry I tend to use the plasma cannons mostly (against elite infantry), lascannons if there is something worth shooting or if i get the chance i use my favourite weapon in the game: the heavy flamer.

These two chaos obliterators are two of my favourite conversions. I modelled them about a year ago for my emperors children army. For the one on the left (Bowser) i used the obliterator body and arms and added a head from the chaos vehicle accessories sprue, i then added various weapons; some from the obliterator blister, flamer from the chaos vehicle sprue, a couple of plastic chainswords and a plastic plasmagun. After a bit of work with some wire and greenstuff, he was then completed with a scenic base made from slate (from the garden) and a pile of skulls from the 40K basing kit.

The other was made in much the same way. His right arm is the top half of the obliterator arm combined with a terminator reaper autocannon and a metal chaos flamer from my bitz box. The left arm is just the oblits arm with a plastic power sword added. His head (well, his main head) is the new plastic deamonettes trumpet. The deamonic tenticle protrusions out of his back i made with wire then stuck heads and a lascannon nozzle on the ends then made them look good with greenstuff.

Here are some photos before they were painted.
Obliterator 1 (Bowser);



Obliterator 2

Geekathon Battle: Black Crusade



















Here are a few pictures from the multiplayer battle we played at the geekathon the other week. Black Legion, Emperors Children and the mysterious necrons vs the bizarre trading alliance of orks and tau. I'll be sure to take more (and better) photos next time.

We played the black crusade mission in the new battle missions book, it was brilliant. All non vehicle units who were completely destroyed arrived again in reserve. The ork bikers were killed 3 times, once by a lone necron lord. The orks and tau however did pull a narrow victory on this occasion.

Dark Eldar Raven Start


A good while back i decided to scratch build a dark eldar raven based on the forgeworld model. Here is a picture of my effort so far.

These wings were the second attempt (i might have ended up gluing the first set to some paper i had on my desk).

There's still alot of work to be done.





Here is the web address for the forgeworld dark eldar raven:

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/Dark_Eldar/DARK-ELDAR-RAVEN-FIGHTER.html