Thursday 28 July 2011

Space Wolves

As previously mentioned Space Wolves where my first army and although my much coveted Leman Russ is somewhere on a land fill in the north of England I decided to start again.

This time though I decided to use this as a showcase army. So far this is my slowest painted army and I'm currently averaging one mini in a day of a  painting. Most impressively I've manged to make this army out of 2 boxes of space wolves 2 boxes of wolf guard and 2 single miniatures.

I stared with a ten man squad of Blood Claws, but to emphasise the wild nature of these young marines I swapped out the standard legs for assault marine running legs. Now with ten spare normal SW legs i could order torsos from a reliable bits store and hey presto, 20 marines from a ten man box. I think in total it cost me about an extra £10.

Then came the Wolf Guard, I bought a box to make a standard squad of 4 Wolf Guard and My Customised Wolf Lord. Unfortunately one of my miniatures went missing after taking them into work so my wonderful fiancee forced me to buy another box. (She really did, we had an argument in GW over it that left the staff speechless. It was the first time in their careers they have ever seen someone shouted at for not buying miniatures.)

This second set allowed me freedom to play around, from this I constructed a Wolf Priest, Rune Priest, a Wolf Guard, Lone Wolf and most importantly Arjak Rockfist.

I've added a few more embellishments to the army with a custom built Wolf Priest in Power armour and Some Wolfen.
Oh and I went on a massive scrounge to find all the missile launchers I could to make my long fangs.

All I need now is about six Razorbacks with converted las-plas turrets and I'm sorted.

So Images, first up Sven Bloodhowl. The fluff of this great company really ammused me. Gotta love guys who set themselves on fire for entertainment.


Sven Bloodhowl

That cape was a nightmare!
This guy won me Best Single Miniature on Grey Knights release day in the Middlesbrough GW Store.

Lone Wolf, Einar Stormcrow

Raaaaargh!

Ulrick The Slayer
Ulrik The Slayer
Grey Hunter with Mark Of The Wulfen
Another cunning conversion, the clawed hands are from the rear set of an old Genestealer. Then I just greens stuffed a little fur over the cuffs.
Hairy Palms, nights must be quiet on Fenris!
Ingvar The Bloody
Battle leader of one of my Grey Hunter squads.
Ingvar The Bloody

Wolf Banner
Why wouldn't you field these? Re roll everything for a turn, yes please!

Blood Claw
The running legs really enhance the feels of these guys.


Finally...

Arjac Rockfist
This heavily converted miniature draws it's inspiration from the codex image. The Thunder Hammer was shortened to represent it's special ability (That of Mjolnir, Thor's Hammer).
The Shield was crafted plasticard and green stuff, the cape was cut repositioned and greened to fit and the anvil (perhaps the trickiest bit) was sculpted from a spare Thunder Hammer.

Arjac Rockfist

Arjac Rockfist

Arjac Rockfist

Arjac Rockfist


Next time, Necrons.

Wednesday 27 July 2011

Sons Of Ignis part 2

OK just to round out the days posting on Space Marines here a few more images of my minis.

First up, My crazy converted chapter master. I have lost my list for the army so his name escapes me right now. The Helmet is made from Dark Angel wings attached to a modified chaos marine helm. Many would say that twin thunder hammers is a little silly, and they would be right. However it was just to awesome not to do. I rarely include him in a list anyway as he is a massive points sink. He was however great fun to make.
Bren gave him the unofficial name of "Captain Baddass McAwesome".
If you have a big enough hammer, all your problems look like nails!

Assault Marines

I've got two ten man squads of these guys to compliment my second company, fairly basic lay out and sticking with the plasma weapons that match the fluff of my army. All my squad sargeants have Corvus helmet with a white stripe. If money where no object i would give them to the entire army.

Charge!

Devestators

Again to compliment a full battle company I have two full ten man squads, plus enough heavy weapons to load out the 6 tactical squads.


Captain Perun, Master of the Second company

Perun is a fun little mini, converted from old rogue trader stuff that had seen better days. The cyber leg is from an old terminator. The thunder hammer also hails from left over terminator parts from about 20 years ago.

He's more machine than man now.
So that's all from the Sons of Ignis for now. I'll update  you with some of my other projects soon.

Tanks, I love em!

Tanks, fantastic things. I've always had a love of tanks even from a young age so it's only right  I should include a few in my Marines.
This Land Raider is a project I'm really proud of.
I Bought the Land Raider Crusader/ Redeemer kit and through careful planning, bits stores and the cunning use of neodymium magnets I have managed to make tanks that can be swapped out to be all 4 versions of the basic land raider (Terminus Ultra included).


Another Important thing for me is the interiors. I spend a lot of time making sure all my tanks have nice detailed interiors even if people never get to see them.

The engine bay.


The Shrine, including terminator helmet.

Control Panel with knobs and dials
Can't quite get the angles right but I custom built a shrine in the Land Raider just by the doors as well.
More tanks to come later when i get them finished , mostly my fleet of magnetised Rhinos/ Predators/ Razorbacks.

My Dreadnought and the Sons of Ignis

So how did my blog get it's name? Well from this guy
Venerable!
I love this guy, he's awsome. Getting on for 20+ years old now. Beaten up, Painted and stripped several times, but still loved. His arms have gone missing long ago, probably in a house move or in the 15 years of loft storage. I rebuilt his arms using a host of bits from my spares including venerable dread shin pads, rhino driver bodies for shoulder sockets and a guard sentinel close combat arm.

I love using him at the local store, all the kids and even some of the staff are very confused by him, but he's GW so table legal.

The Sons of Ignis project continues at a slow pace but here a few of the minis I've finished so far.

Sticking with Dreadnoughts for now

Iron Clad Dreadnought Battle Brother Vernius

Battle Brother Tyrus

 
Battle Brother Janik
I have a venerable dread in progress at the moment. Most of all I have tried to make as many weapon options for these dreads, the arms are all interchangeable and I've even made weapons for them which currently have no pre made options (Twin linked heavy bolters, Heavy Flamers and Autocannons).

Terminators
First Company Terminators lead by Veteran Sgt Khan

Brother Chaplain Lucianus

First Company Assault Terminators lead by Veteran Sgt Ferox

Still have on more terminator squad and a terminator librarian in the wings.

Not a bad start really, will leave it there for now and post some more later on. Right now, in true British form i need a cup of tea.

Monday 25 July 2011

It's A Kind Of Magic

The new defence against teh dark arts proffesor?
So, first real day of the summer hols and the first mini rolls off the production line. This guy is the new Chaos Sorcerer from GW's new plastic range for Storm Of Magic.
The army seems to be heading down the slaanesh route at this point with a lot of purple making it's way into the armour. Still a few finer details to add but overall I'm happy with this guy. Made a slight conversion to the original by repositioning the arm and adding a flaming skull from the empire wizards kit.

Tuesday 19 July 2011

Dabbling With Heresy

This weekend gone marks my return, after some considerable absence, to GMing. My play group (currently consisting of Bren and Coz) have allowed me to run Dark Heresy, the 40k RPG from Fantasy Flight.

I've been pretty nervous about running anything after so long but decided the best approach was just to do it like I was taught to swim, jump in and see what happens.

After some playing with the character generator both of my players settled on the role of Arbiters. So now I basically have Judges Dredd and Hersey running around the Calixis sector. The first game session, although a little slow went well and I really feel that this game has potential.

There are a few key points that really draw me to this game:

1. The Mythos, the 40k universe is wonderfully rich with a healthy mix of sci-fi and fantasy elements that allow for dark humour and even true horror at times.

2. Random character generation. I've always loved this aspect of games; it’s incredibly liberating and good for breaking players out of their comfort zones. I love games that actually encourage role-playing, there's nothing worse than that one player who just rolls the same dull warrior in every single game. As an unrelated note perhaps the best game I've ever played for random generation has to be the now well OOP Cyberspace bye ICE.

3. Combat. It's brutal, violent, bloody and most of all deadly to players.
Again this comes down to my love of actually role-playing, if going in with guns blazing just gets you killed you’re far more likely to use the old grey matter to solve a situation.

I'm looking forward to continuing the game now, feed back has been positive and hopefully this could become my next big game.

Tuesday 12 July 2011

From The Frozen Wastes

I've done it again!
My willpower regarding the collecting of small plastic models seems to be about as strong as a Grot with the flu. So after mumblings and murmurings over the weekend we went to GW and left with a regiment each. My friend opted for Orcs where as I am now the proud owner of Chaos Warriors.

Looks like my summer hols will involve plenty of painting.

More images coming soon, just bought a new camera.

Oh and if you like classic board games like Hero Quest and Space Crusade keep an eye on our joint project over at Send The Dwarf In!