The Reaver Wild

As I'm posting this it must mean October is nearly over and another year is zooming to completion. Where has it gone?

Octobers quota, 5 Ellyrian Reavers, done!
Quite enjoyed painting these. They have come out a little more identical than I had planned but at the same time I'm trying to keep some kind of colour uniformity going. Leave all those random colours to the Empire and Orcs!
Tomarse is trying a similar thing by leaving all his models grey.............
















You'll notice I changed the horses to Wood Elf Glade rider horses. The unbarded Elven steed is really showing its age and I never liked it when it first came out! The barded ones are fine though as you'll see in a few months when the Silver Helms get done!

Next month I'll be back to archers, the second unit of 10 AND (as it was a low points/cost month for Oct) the repeater bolt thrower!

Eldar-rado

We've been muttering for a while about some Xeno terrain so here's my first foray into that

area.
The idea is it can be used as a bit of scatter terrain or even an objective for a Apoc game.
The head itself is made from plaster using a "wet sand" mould of the Armorcast phantom titan head.
Bit of an experiment and I think it just about worked.

Sling yer hook.........

The Celt project continues! 16 slingers and a druid (the old man in the middle waving a stick about!) all dipped up!












This brings the total to a warrior unit (30), 16 slingers and a druid!
304 points in total, Rome must be trembling!

Usual blah, blah re: picture quality! Dark day....


Picture with flash! Somewhere between the two is an accurate image!

Adding some character

As the month quickly closes in I've been in a painting frenzy and added 3 more elements to my force.

This month I've done a Skink Shamen,



















A Saurus Scar Veteran,




















and a Salamander Hunting Pack.
















Next months planned choices are 2 more Hunting packs and having painted the Salamanders a bit lighter than the Terradons will go back to them and bring them in to line with the rest of the monsters.

Last of the Smurfs

Well finally finished Big Jon's Ultramarines, another 15 Tactical squad members to increase the number of Troops choices he has to hand.

Im sure Jon will have some other things for me to dabble with in the future, the offer to do Marneus is still there :O)

Lazy Weekend

Well another good weekend of painting, I thought I'd give myself a little treat and paint the grey seer for the screaming bell ready for any large games of fantasy that may happen in the future. So I sat in front of the TV watching a good few games of rugby and got started. I wanted him to stand out a little and went for an off shade of white for the cloak and a nice grey skin tone as befits a grey seer. Still with the new washes and foundation paints.

This guy has more warpstone bits hanging around him than can be good for any Skaven but who cares when it gives you more power to cast those nasty spells...... Got so carried away with doing the grey seer I thought I'd carry on and finish the whole thing, was surprisingly easy really and has come out quite nice, a few little touches of green and red to blend it in with the rest of the army and job done.You'll see the whole unit of Stormvermin that will accompany the bell when they are finished for next months quota.

Boss Boss........

Must admit I don't think this is one of my better models, I was liking the idea when I first converted the model. He is the old warlord model that I've had since I worked for GW and I've always wanted to use him for something, not being a big fan of banners (can't seem to paint them properly) I had a really struggle to get this how I liked it. Having said that it may still be replaced at a later date with a more fitting model. There just seems to be something about it that doesn't look right. he didn't give me a lot of chance to have the army colours on him so that's why the banner has the red symbols. I think some sort of cloak/cloth bits and pieces to enable me to have him fit more in with the army may have helped.
This guy will be leading the storm vermin who of course don't have much cloth so maybe he'll fit in more then, we'll just have to wait till for next months quota to be done.

From a differant angle so you can see a little more of him.

Well here's the second of the two characters from my 1000pt army for this tale of x gamers. I wanted the colour scheme to be shown through out the entire army and seeing as the red is worked so well on the weapon crews and the ratling guns I thought lets keep it going. This guy was surprisingly easy to paint, it's keeping to a simple pallet that does it. the metal is easy tin bits with boltgun dry brushed over the top, the copper is just dwarf bronze, the skin and fur is the same as I had done for all the other models so far, washes are then used over the entire model and then the highlights are added to finish. This guy will go in with the clan rats when they are done.

Another view of the engineer

Got a little carried away this month with the rat painting, but then I only had two models to paint. With that in mind I thought I'd start doing other bits to help with my big skaven army (4k in total). This lot only took a Saturday afternoon so that was easy, looking at getting the screaming bell and warp lighining done soon too.

Kantor + buddy

Well here he is, when I first saw the model I thought love it but I didn't think it was spot on for me. When Big Jon mentioned that he had brought the spearhead and wondered if I wanted the Kantor model I of course jumped at the chance (swapped for the old Cassius model). When I got the model in my hand I knew what I wanted to do, something simple just to make him different and look a little more in proportion, so I did a head swap, I cut off the head from the old metal chapter champion (still got a few lying around) and used that instead of the head that you get with the model. I think it looks a little more the right size and looks more regal as is fitting for a chapter master.

Here's one of the Sternguard Vets that I've decided to model myself, I've made them stand out from the rest of the army by having all of them with the raised chest piece and the veteran heads from the command and commander sprues. As you can see this one has a combi-flamer made by my own fair hand seeing as GW still haven't done one themselves yet.

Here's a close up of the combi-flamer, don't take any notice of the shiny bits that's just the poly cement. Let me know what you think.


The whole squad will be one when they are all painted.............knowing my speed that will be around 2010...........December time!!!

Crate, Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr..................

What cracking weather this weekend!
What better way to spend it then in the garden doing terrain!
I prefer "terraining" in the garden (to gardening!) as stuff drys quicker, the mess isn't so much of a problem and it's generally a pleasant place to be!

Was once again handed some terrain by the Zed on Wednesday and couldn't resist getting it done.
These craters are well detailed, drybrush up nicely and all set for Weds fight night!
That's about it really.

Taxi!

Yes im still painting Ultra Marines for Big Jon and really should be doing the final 15 Tactical Marines but decided as I had a few spare hours would paint up a Rhino for him.

I wanted to make it a bit more exciting than a plain blue box on wheels so have painted it to put his new Sternguard in.

Hope you like it Jon

Wolfully Good

I bought a selection of Terminator arms and bodies several years back to create a hard hitting unit that would ride to battle in a Crusader Landraider. They are armed in a less than conventional manner and I'd like to be able to explain my thoughts behind it but the best I can recall is that I armed them like that because you can. Anyway there is nothing like moving house to make you realise you have stuff you don't need or want any longer. I will be doing a Space Wolf army when the new codex gets done but these fellows wont be in it. I know i could break the arms off and make them more sensible but I'd prefer to use the new plastics and some Forge world parts.

So expect to see the on eBay next weekend.

Boxing Day

Check this out!



















My new terrain piece based on the monolith from the start of "2001: A Space Odyssey"!

Cool, huh?

Not really!!

Its stage 2 in the magnetic movement tray saga. Actually its probably stage 3 as I've not made the actual movement trays yet!

Anyway what we have here is my new idea (nicked from our Historical wargames "cousins") for storage and transport.
See piccy, note paint pot is there to show which way is actually "up"!!

All bases have magnetic material placed underneath them and the black stuff you see is adhesive backed ferrous material (sometimes called "steel paper") that the magnets cling too. All neatly placed inside a box file!
Even a good shake doesn't shift 'em! Nice! Easily stored, easily carried and a lot smaller and cheaper than the big ole foam lined cases that we all use.

The next part of plan (stage 2!) is to make the movement trays lined with the steel paper and then place magnets underneath them so each unit can be stored and lifted from the box ready to play!
I hope it works!
Probably going to be some kind of magnet breakdown at some point and the entire army will end up in one ball of magnetised mayhem, won't it!?

Apparently "Gale Force 9" make copies of GW bases which are already magnetised underneath and come ready packed with steel paper. I'm going to look into these as a time saving device.

For the future there is a high possibility my Eldar and marine armies are going to be magnetised! Bigger (metal) miniatures will have to rely on more traditional methods though, or bigger magnets!!

I'll give a report in a year or two on the robustness of this method!