2014 in review

Greetings all.

Welcome to my final post of 2014!

This has actually been a pretty good year for me hobby-wise. I've painted exactly 80 models (of various shapes and sizes), which is damn good going by my standards.

Not the best picture I know, but I think you get the idea. Everything you see there, bar the boards, was painted this year. To give you a run down, that is:

• Great unclean one
• Nurgle daemon prince
• 16 flesh hounds
• Portalglyph
• Khorne herald on juggernaut
• 12 1st edition horrors
• Slaanesh daemon prince
• 12 2nd edition horrors
• 14 screamers
• Nine familiars
• Three rocky outcrops
• Two tzeentch heralds on discs
• Three flamers
• Chaos bastion
• Be'lakor
• Fateweaver
• Tzeentch herald on foot

Phew, not bad! I'm pleased with my progress so far, but there is so much to do in the next year :S

My goals for 2015 are:

• Paint 100 models! Specifically that is: 40 daemonettes, eight or so nurgling bases, 20 cultists, two soul grinders, three plague drones, khorne daemon prince (forge world), tzeentch daemon prince, slaanesh daemon prince, chaos knight... Plus a bunch of other stuff that I haven't quite decided on yet.
• Play at least 40 games. I've done a lot of painting this year, but not played nearly enough games. Gotta rectify that in 2015.
• Expand my daemons. I've got about 1850 points fully painted at the moment, but I want to paint a whole bunch more to give me options for different lists. I might also mix things up with some unexpected allies (orks, necrons, maybe even "crone world" style eldar or radical space marines like the Relictors).
• Make a start on my chaos marines/renegades & heretics. I haven't quite decided which yet, but either way they'll work well as allies to my beloved daemons. 

So all in all, not a bad year. Roll on the next one!

Penultimate hobby update of the year

Greetings all.

This will be very nearly my final post of the year (I'll be posting a little retrospective in a couple of days), and I'll keep it short and sweet.

I managed to bash out the last three Screamers, and another psychic marker:

This little guy represents "Forewarning", because he can see what's coming...

Now I've got the two units of Screamers all painted, and very nearly all my psychic markers :D. It's been a pretty good year for me hobby-wise, and I'll sum it up in the next few days.

Bye for now.

Quick progress update: Magic marker, Tzeentch, and more Tzeentch

Greetings all.

I'm just dropping in with a super quick update tonight, before taking care of a bunch of boring grown up stuff like paying my credit card and other tedious tasks that get in the way of hobby time...

Got a few more bits done over the last few days. First up was a magic marker to represent "Warp Speed", a power that gives +3 Attacks, +3 Initiative, and Fleet. Something in 40k that has a bunch of attacks at high initiative... How about this little dude:

I also polished off the last of the blue Screamers, just three more pink ones to go (thank the gods):

Lastly, I finished off the herald on foot that I was working on:

I'm not overly pleased with him tbh, but he's not bad and he'll fit in rather nicely.

That's all from me for now. I'm rolling out the Stormbringers for a game tomorrow night, and if there's time I'll snap a couple pics. It's against Alex's excellent Praetorians, so should look pretty awesome.

Bye for now!

Old meets new (WIP)

Greetings all.

I've chilled out on the hobby front a bit, partly due to rekindling my obsession for Baldur's Gate (if you haven't played it, you should do so immediately). I have been doing a few bits of this and that though, and I've got a couple WIP pics just to keep you lot interested...

First up is something that I actually started aaaages ago, but I don't think I ever blogged about (this was in the early days). I've recently picked this guy up again and he'll be getting some paint on him very soon. I fancied putting together a cool champion for my Plague Drones (Plaguebearers on giant flies, for those not in the know), and I had a damaged palanquin of Nurgle rider in my bits box. Mix in a dash of creativity and a dollop of green stuff, and this is the result:

Bzzzzzz!

I'm pretty pleased with how he turned out actually, and he should fit in nicely with the rest of my gribbly horrors.

I've also been slapping a bit of paint on my screamers, as well as this guy here:

Colours blocked in

He's an old champion of Tzeentch from the excellent range by Jes Goodwin. I've got a pile more of that range, as well as half a mind to collect them all because they really are just flawless, and epitomise everything that makes Chaos great.

That's all for now, comments are most welcome.

Just as planned... Fateweaver finished!

Greetings all.

Yet more progress from me, and this is kind of a big deal actually. I've finally got my Fateweaver finished:

This guy is a bit of a white whale for me. He's been sitting primed on my desk for almost a year now, and I just haven't had the motivation to paint him (no matter how indispensable he is in-game). As my motivation and productivity has been pretty high recently, I thought why the hell not??

Now this is actually the second version of Fateweaver I've painted. The first one was the failcast version and was rife with casting problems. Even once I'd fixed him up and painted him, his staff had *ahem* a bit of a droop to it. This was... less than ideal, so I tracked down a metal version on eBay. Just haven't had the motivation to slap some paint on him until now.

You can see the original version here:

Nothing wrong with the original scheme, but I wanted to change it up a bit and match it with my current models a bit more (plus I don't really like that much blue in retrospect).

As a side effect of finishing Fateweaver, I do in fact have a fully painted and fairly effective 1500 point army (and there was much rejoicing)!

Tzeentch & Nurgle, together at last.

Comments are welcome!

Master of puppets: Be'lakor finished!

Greetings all.

In keeping with my frenzy of activity lately, I've got another little something finished. Not quite as little as the familiars, but still pretty small by current 40k standards. This little beauty is Be'lakor, the Dark Master:

Very sensibly directing the battle from afar

This guy has got to be one of my favourite models, at least from recent years (although he didn't make my top 10; I guess I'm just fickle like that). He's beautifully sculpted, although weirdly small by the standards of other Daemon Princes. 

This model almost got used as a Slaanesh prince a while back, but I'm rather glad I didn't go ahead with that plan. GW have since released a tidy little dataslate (whatever the hell that even is) for Be'lakor, and he's a supreme badass. He provides some great defensive powers, and can chop up even superheavies with relative ease. He costs a big chunk of points, but is well worth it.

Hope you like him.

More Magic Markers

Greetings all.

So it seems that my usefulness around the home and my productivity in painting are inversely proportional... I had every intention of cleaning the spare room out this weekend, but instead this happened:

Now I do apologise for the frankly appalling picture, not really sure what happened there. These little chaps represent "Enfeeble" (left) and "Endurance" (right). The model on the left is "Jinx" from the Hell Dorado daemons range, and probably one of the most disturbing models I've painted (yes that is his umbilical cord that he's dragging along... gross). The guy on the right is from Pendraken. He's not exactly a stellar sculpt but he has a lot of character. I did have to avoid painting him any shade of brown though, to avoid it looking like he was made out of turds.

Now to be fair, these two are no excuse for doing sod all around the house this weekend, given that I painted them both up in about 20 minutes. That's mostly down to the other model I've been working on, but his varnish isn't dry yet so you'll just have to wait for that ;)

Comments are welcome as ever.

Tower of terror: Chaos Bastion finished

Greetings all.

My uncharacteristically productive streak continues. I've finished of my Chaos Bastion (in Word Bearer colours):

It was a bit of a tedious beast to paint, but I'm pleased with the results. The textured paint worked really well and gives it a much more non-Imperial feel, and the skulls around the doorframe were worth the time it took (forever, btw). Also, how badass does it look against that background?? Chaos reigns!

As it stands, this is the only model I have in Word Bearer colours, but I intend to change that in the future (more daemons first though, must stay focussed...).

Comments are welcome :)

Great balls of fire: Flamers of Tzeentch

Greetings all.

As promised, I have another little update for you.

I got three old school Flamers of Tzeentch painted up for the occasional summoning:

These were just a quick paint job, but I'm happy enough with them. I do like the weird original Tzeentch sculpts, before things went all shiny and Egyptian.

Comments welcome chaps (and chapettes).

Magic markers part 2

Greetings all.

It seems like forever since I posted... I think it's important that I rectify that right this minute.

I've actually got quite a bit done recently, but most of it still has a few bits left to finish, so no pics just yet. I have however got a pic of some more familiars that I got painted the other day:

For those of you that play 40k, these guys will be used to represent (from left to right) the psychic powers "Iron Arm", "Invisibility", and "Shrouding". 

Enjoy!

Painting progress... kinda

Greetings all.

Managed to squeeze in a few hours painting last night and get some work done on my chaos bastion. So much work has gone into this so far, and it's still miles away from being finished :S

I decided on a dark red and silver colour scheme, with gold detailing, as a reference to the coolest Chaos Legion (oh yeh, that's Word Bearers, hands down). This will be the scheme of my CSM when I final get round to it, so I thought I'd get some practice in now. Plus, if anyone is going to be hanging out with a bunch of gribbly daemons, it's the Word Bearers. In the meantime, I'll also be using it to hide Fateweaver behind, so he doesn't get hammered by first turn Eldar shooting... So I wanted to keep in fairly generic and "undivided".

Not much to see just yet. I've been getting the basic colours on, then going on to do the detailing and tidying up later on. You can also see that I've finished putting all those damn skulls around the doorway.

Comments welcome!

Hobby update (I'm still alive!)

Greetings all.

I realise I've been a little quiet of late, despite a flurry of updates just before that. Just thought I'd drop in to let you know that a) I'm still alive and well, and b) that I have in fact been rather busy with hobby stuff. Prepare yourselves for something of a picture dump... I've got my fingers in many pies at the moment, frantically assembling and working on various things just to get them off my "to do" list (and on to my "to paint" list...).

Here we go:

The last of the Screamers are assembled, finally. They're a gigantic pain in the arse to assemble, so I'm glad they're done! That's three more for each unit (pink and blue if you've been following).

More classic familiars for psychic power effects. From left to right: Iron Arm, Enfeeble, Shrouding, Invisibility.

Some cool Realm of Chaos era Flamers for summoning.

A trio of horrors to boost up my existing units. I love the expression of the little guy on the left.

Three Nurgle spawn for when I get the momentum/time to get on with the CSM portion of my army.

Chaos Bastion. Quite a lot of work has gone into this already, though it may not show yet. I shaved off the icons of the false emperor (a right pain btw), and covered the lot in textured paint. I've also added a sprinkling of Chaos icons, and am in the process of adding a whole bunch of skulls around the door frame. That's the bit of the project I *kinda* wish I hadn't started, as it seems to be taking forever, but I think it'll be worth it at the end.

Right, that's me. Comments welcome of course!

A quest for self-improvement: Painting process and better photos

Greetings all.

I'm pleased to say that this time round I've made some pretty decent progress. I've finished off the second Herald of Tzeentch (which was a pleasure to paint, but fiddly as hell), and I managed to build my display cabinet that has been sitting in the corner for the past month...

The Lost and the Damned (Nurgle & Tzeentch)

Slaves to Darkness (Khorne & Slaanesh)

Blood Bowl (Undead & Necromantic)

Another little development is that I got some inspiration recently from the excellent tutorial posted on Orlygg's always brilliant blog. I've been promising myself that I'll make more of an effort to take decent photos for aaages now, just never really got round to doing it. By "decent" I don't just mean better lighting etc, I'm also referring to making them more interesting to look at and maybe telling a bit of a story, or at least setting a scene. 

So I printed off some suitably epic backdrops and gave it a shot...

Gibberdoom, Herald of Tzeentch

With his brother, Blastgnaw

Gibberdoom with his Screamer retinue

Blastgnaw with his Screamers

Group shot

These are my first attempts, so the lighting isn't perfect, but I'm pretty pleased all in all. Let me know what you think!

The bird is the word: Tzeentch Herald (bird face) finished

Greetings all.

I'm delighted to say that I have yet another update for you! I managed to sneak in a little brush time the other night and got one of my Tzeentch Heralds finished:

I've said it before, but I really love all the Realm of Chaos champions. I think they're all Jes Goodwin, perhaps someone can correct me if I'm wrong?

I went for predominantly blue on this guy, as he'll be accompanied by the blue Screamers in battle, but I also worked in some secondary colours that I've used / am using across the rest of the army. All the different gods' minions can make for an eclectic mix, so I try to stick to a palette and use that selection across the army.

Next up on the list is this chap's brother, Moon Face.

Comments are welcome guys and girls!

Quick and dirty terrain: Rocky outcrops

Greetings all.

Now that the missus and I have moved into a bigger place, I actually have room for a table! I've got a fairly decent terrain collection already, but I thought the table needed a few large LOS blockers too. With that in mind, I picked up some cheap vivarium ornaments and reappropriated them for the battlefields of the far future (where the only giant lizards climbing all over them will be ridden by exodites).

They aren't the same quality as the GW plastics, but they are cheap and super sturdy. I painted them grey, gave them a quick drybrush and a dip, and then they were ready to roll (after a coat of varnish).

Comments welcome of course (not that there's much to say about three rocky outcrops...).

Workbench update: Heralds of Tzeentch

Greetings all.

Just a quick WIP update today to show what I'm working on right now.

I've started work on my Heralds of Tzeentch (partly to put off painting the 'grinders a little longer...). Just started blocking in the colours so I can get an idea of what they'll look like. One is mostly pink (to go with the pink Screamers) and one is mostly blue (to go with the blue Screamers).

These two are amongst my favourite GW models of all time (as are any of the Realm of Chaos era champions tbh). The quality of casting isn't quite as crisp as a modern sculpt, but they're still covered with detail and oozing character.

I'm hoping to get some more work done on them tonight, so look for an update soon!

Carry on screaming: Screamers of Tzeentch 2

Greetings all.

Between work and the many trials of being a grown-up person (currently revolving around shopping for blinds, followed by putting up said blinds around the house), I have actually managed to get some painting done.

I got another four Screamers painted, making up the unit of eight in my 1000pts list. You'll notice that these are blue primarily, while the others are pink. In my 1500pts list I'll have two units (one pink and one blue), so I thought I'd paint a blue group and a pink group now, just to mix things up a little.

Here is my latest offering, the blue (man) group:

And here they are swimming through the aether with their buddies, in search of prey:

Hope you like em. Comments are welcome as ever.

Magic markers: Cursed Earth & Grimoire

Greetings all.

I've managed to get in a bit of gaming time recently, as well as doing a spot of painting (a double win there). Oh and the missus treated me to a trip to Alton Towers last weekend, so been quite a busy boy.

It occurred to me that with all the new psychic powers of 7th edition 40k, plus the usual daemonic trickery, I needed a way of keeping track of everything. There can be numerous different status effects all in play at one time, particularly with such a highly psychic army as daemons. Instead of using a bunch of differently coloured dice and/or counters (like a chump), I decided to make my own markers (like a boss).

These two represent the psychic power "Cursed Earth" and the daemonic gift "The Grimoire of True Names", respectively. They're both made from the old Chaos Familiars and are a little tongue in cheek, which is why I love them. They had their debut at the club last week, and they were so well received that I felt obliged to slap some paint on them:

Hope you like the little guys, let me know what you think. I've got a few more in mind for some other psychic powers (for those of you who play 40k: biomancy and telepathy have plenty of scope for more of these guys).

Ta ta.

Carry on screaming: Screamers of Tzeentch 1

Greetings all.

I've had a couple days off boring work recently, so I spent the time in the best way possible: Painting and playing Halo 4.

Made some progress on my first unit of Screamers. I'm going to have one pink unit and one blue unit to help identify them in battle. Here are the first four of "pink" unit:

Another crappy pic, I know... I went for a pretty quick paint job on these guys because they're not much fun to paint, and I have another 10 to get through...

Comments welcome as ever!

Soul-searching: Slaanesh Soul Grinders finished

Greetings all.

Well it has been a little while since I've posted. I've been doing a bit of this and that though and managed to get the Soul Grinders finished at last... Until the painting odyssey commences that is.

I deliberated over the Harvester cannon for a while. I was originally intending to use the Defiler autocannon, but I wanted something a little different. I also didn't want two of the same as the Harvester is rapid-firing but not twin-linked. With this in mind I decided on a "mismatched" approach to the gun. I think this works well enough though as Soul Grinders are meant to be cobbled-together remains of destroyed machines.

The guns themselves are from the in-no-way-copyright-infringing "Forge Planet". They do some really excellent bits, and the quality is good (although not quite as good as the picture). Take a look before GW catch up with them!

That's all for now folks.

Cheers all.

Soul-searching: Slaanesh Soul Grinder(s) WIP (Part Four)

Greetings all.

A pretty short post from me tonight, just to keep you in the loop. I've made some good progress on the Soul Grinder... So good in fact that I've now built two! I've built them both to the same "template", with a few details to separate them. Sadly I can't finish them quite yet as I'm waiting for a few bits to build their 'gun' arms. Anyway, a quick picture and I'm done for now:

The Last Stand at Eidolan: Just as planned...

Greetings all.

After much planning and mounting excitement, the last stand at Eidolan took place this weekend! After the swirling vortex of the Warpstorm cleared, the nexus remained in the hands of the Imperium...

I'll send you on over to Alex's blog for the full rundown of events, but I shall leave you with a huge picture dump depicting some key moments. A great battle was had, many skulls were taken and many more daemonic footsoldiers sent screaming back to the Warp. We'll see how the story progresses (all according to Tzeentch's plan of course).

Enough talk, picture time:

The scene is set

Daemons are banished back to the warp by the score!

Another wave

The men of Praetoria face down the daemonic horde

A daemonic herald appears behind the defenders' lines!

Ready to mount a fresh assault

The minions of Slaanesh and Nurgle make it to the battlements

Cavorting Horrors blast the defenders with warp fire

Another wave approaches

A much larger force is spewed from the Warp

The might of Slaanesh and Tzeentch face down the men of Praetoria

The Scions move to reinforce the defenders' position...

...and this is why!

Darkness falls across the land as The Stormbringers are joined by their master for the final wave

Hope you like the pictures guys. Be sure to check out Alex's blog for a more complete write up!