Tuesday 28 June 2011

Out with the old and in with the new....

No pictures today.

After almost 18 months of solid play I find that I have grown bored with my Deathwing. Dont get me wrong, I still love that army but it is stale at the moment. Every game feels the same. I am starting to deploy the same way every time and doing the same thing with my squads.

So I am moving back onto my first love, my Ultramarines 2nd Company. I have to say that its been an experience using them again after all this time. I have forgotten a few of the rules and I am seriously missing my 2+ armour save.

However all in all its been good. Played a few games with them though have yet to win a game. 2 close fought games vs Necrons and Orks which were good fun and a thrashing to GK which was not (my disgust with GK will form another post)

I have also starting the process of completing the company. I currently have 80% of it done with only 2 tactical squads left to paint. Of that the one tac squad is almost done. Just need to paint weapons and put on decals and it will be done.

Quite what I am going to do with 106 marines I dont know but it sure will look pretty when I am done :)

Wednesday 27 April 2011

Kitbashing - fun for the whole family

Recently, Ron over at FTW put up a post on converting your independent characters. (http://fromthewarp.blogspot.com/2011/04/converting-your-independent-characters.html) In it he talked about a number of ways to do this.

I want to talk about my favourite method which is kitbashing. With the plethora of plastics this makes things much easier than it used to be.

Because I am at the stage where my army is fully built I find myself spending much of my time making my IC's looking awesome. I am also on a drive to purge all metal from my Smurfwing army to make it as light and easy to transport as possible.

I enjoy kitbashing as you can get a great look without resorting to too much greenstuff or cutting. I love going through my bits box or perusing bits sites looking for inspiration for my next mini.

Anyways, on to my 3 IC's for my army. Captain, Librarian and Chaplain.

Captain:

First up. Captain Agemman of the First Company. I have previously posted this chap but I am going to explain a bit about how and what I used to build him.



Firstly, he is mostly based off the Chaos Terminator Lord. His legs, torso, arms and cloak come from that kit. Other bits come from: Tactical Marine Box, Venerable Dreadnought box, Dark Angels Veteran upgrade, Space Wolf Terminator box and forgeworld.

Firstly I greenstuffed in all the holes in his cloak to make it less tatty.I then cut away the chaos bits off his legs and replaced them with a DA terminator shoulder shield and a banner top.

Torso was made by cutting up the chaos torso and then cutting and fitting in the front of a venerable dreadnought. Some minor GS was used to make sure they blended into each other.

Apart from that everything is standard. So with a nights worth of cutting and GS I have made a very unique looking IC that looks good and that stands out.

Librarian.

When I saw the new GKT box I just knew I had to use the bits to make a librarian. They came with a ready made Hood for instance. I have also previously posted a model I made to use as a librarian and I admit that I used the arms off that model for the new one.



The majority of the chap is from the  GKT box. However there are bits from the Sanguinary Guard, Assault Terminators and the DA veteran box. There was no cutting involved in making him and only a teeny bit of Greenstuff to cover up some of the GK iconography on the left leg and the hip guards.

Not much work but again, I am left with a unique and good looking librarian who stands out on the table top.

Chaplain

Now this guy is my pride and joy. I am so thrilled with how he came out. He actually has the most GS work done on him, primarily on the helmet. I used one of Rons tutorials for this(http://fromthewarp.blogspot.com/2010/11/chaplain-skull-helmet-conversion.html)
I learned that this takes a lot of effort for a novice like me so have commissioned him for a second helmet that is going onto another Chaplain that I have planned.



This guy has bits from all over. Torso came from from the Chaos Terminator Lord with the iconography removed and a random skill put in its place. Legs from the GKT kit. Shoulder pads from Forge world. Storm bolter arm from the Terminator Kit. Combat arm from the Chaos Lord kit and the horrifying flail bit from an Empire Flagellant. The skull that makes up his helmet came from one of the new Tomb King Boxes.

I wanted to make him as vicious looking as possible which is why didnt give him a traditional Crozius. This flail makes him look like he is bringing it down onto the bodies of the Emperors Enemies.

So there we go. Three IC's that have been built by kitbashing and looking good. Have a look in your bits box and see what you can come up with.

Wednesday 20 April 2011

Upcoming minis

Once again been awhile since my last post. Life has intevened a bit and time has been at a premium.

I have however, been able to kitbash a few new figures for my Smurfwing. Using the lovely new GKT kit I have made up a Librarian as well as started on a Chaplain.

The Librarian is painted and has already been used in a game to good effect. The chaplain is about 90% done except for a helmet. I want a nice skull helm but lack the skills to do it well. Thus I have, for the first time in my life, commissioned one from Ron of "From the Warp" Hopefully will be done in the next few weeks and I will have my Chaplain ready to go out and do battle.

Tuesday 8 February 2011

Updated Banner Bearer

My 40k Hiatus has ended. After almost 5 months I am back in the saddle and rearing to go. It was mostly caused by burnout and also having to go back to South Africa for 2 months to deal with some personal issues. I am currently working on getting my guard stuff painted so that I can maybe get a game in with them sometime later this year.

Anyways, one of the first things that I did on my return was to update the banner bearer of my First Company.Before he was just a plain terminator carrying the banner but I figured that the chap who carried the sacred banner of the First would be a grizzled old veteran, bedecked with honours etc.

Thus I took the banner off the old chap (who has since had a CML and stormbolter added in its place), hacked apart a Space Hulk terminator (also previously seen on this blog) and grafted the bits together.

And viola, a really good looking banner bearer.



My aim is to get the whole Deathwing "Command Squad" looking like this using the most ornate bodies I can find.