Visions of Heresy

Well, I didn’t mean for it to take quite this long before the next update, but hey, that’s just the way things go sometimes, isn’t it?

 

Anyway, as I mentioned in my last post I’ve got a rather large project on the go right now, hopefully some of you will have picked up on it from the title of this post, it’s all Horus Heresy (HH) related. There’s really 2 parts to this, the first small part is some of my ongoing commission work, Sons of Horus. As you can see from the pics there are some boarding marines, some Justerian Terminators, a Contemptor Dreadnought to go along with them and Abaddon and Loken.

 

The basic brief for these was for them to be of a similar colour scheme to a unit that was featured in White Dwarf just after Christmas, a little brighter than the norm, with the Justerian and Contemptor in the black and red scheme. This is just the start of this commission I’m assured there’ll be plenty more of these to come.

 

So, that’s the first part, the next much larger part is a combined project that I’m doing with Craig, the lad who bought the first lot of World Eaters off of me. Throughout our various dealings back and forward we’ve become pretty good friends and he recently asked if I fancied going to the HH Betrayal campaign weekend at Warhammer World (WHW) near the end of August, I looked in to it and thought well why not, it'd give me a bit of a deadline and purpose to get painting another army.

 

Now the thing is between us we need a 6000 point army selected from the Legion army list in the Forge World (FW) Betrayal book. Tallying up what I’ve already painted for Craig comes to around 2000 points which means I’ve still got to paint 4000 points of World Eaters for the event!

 

With that in mind I’ve made a couple of large FW orders and also made a start on painting. The basics of my list are as follows;

1x Praetor (love the new FW Praetors, got them with the 2nd order :D)

1x Centurion (Legion Champion)

2x Contemptors

1x 8 man Rampager Squad

1x 10 man Destroyer Squad

2x 20 man Tactical Squads

1x 8 man Heavy Weapons Squad (Autocannons)

1x Phobos Land Raider

1x Spartan Assault Tank

1x Typhon Heavy Siege Tank

So really, 68 marines, 3 tanks and 2 dreadnoughts and that’s not including the rest of what Craig needs but he’s looking at needing 22 marines, a Land Raider, a Rapier and a big Mechanicum Cohort. The only things I still need to get are the Spartan and The Typhon, so I’m almost there as far as purchases go. Here's a pic of the first box of stuff I got;

 

So yeah, I’ve got just over 2 months to get this all done along with a house move somewhere in the middle, I do have a couple of weeks off of work at the beginning of August though, I will try and get alot of it done before then.

 

So far I have 10 tactical marines done and should have the rest of that squad done by the end of next weekend, so there will be more pics then.

 

Think I’ll get it done in time?

Lets get going again

Right it's about time I got this thing off of its feet again and started to get some more regular posts out for you all.

Here's a bit of a run down of what I've been up to over the last few months.

First up I'll start with the wolves, as you can see from the picture above my Space Wolves that were featured in the main 40k rule book have increased in size significantly. A few months ago I was talking with a good mate John Jasinski, we were chatting about army's and stuff as you do, at that point I was still a bit frustrated with 6th ed 40k and still couldn't really get the feel for it. John suggested I go back and try something I did for a while through 5th ed, Space Wolf Drop Pods, knowing I had an event to go to about 3 weeks later I thought why not, I have a bit of time off of work, I reckon I could get it done. So I got home and got into the book and came up with a list, let John have a look, tweaked it where needed and submitted it for the event with about two and a half weeks to go.

So with the list submitted I started sorting out what I needed for the event, on final tally I had to paint up 24 Grey Hunters, 2 Wolf Guard, a Rune Priest and 6 Drop Pods!  Ooh...... Didn't realise it would be quite that much, it's was going to be a bit of a slog. Well it was quite a tough couple of weeks as I had to balance real life(looking after my 5 year old daughter whilst mum was at work) the FW open day and a lot of fitness in there as well. As you can see from the pic above I did actually manage it all with a day to spare as well, some more close ups below.

The event I attended was the Aldershot Ardboyz 1850 tournament based in the Games Shop in Aldershot, I'm not going to do a full report on the event as it's a bit of a distant memory now, needless to say, I had a great time, won 3 lost 3, came 13th overall(out of 32ish) and managed to pick up best army which was nice considering the effort I'd had to put in over the previous few weeks.

 

After that event, the next thing I was planning was ASMOH over at Triple Helix Wargames, unfortunately due to real life issues I just couldn't make it :-( never mind, I had Throne of Skulls coming up in a few weeks so I could start planning for that, at least I wouldn't have to worry about painting anything else for the army.

 

In the mean time I thought I'd best get on with some more commission work and managed to get 20 World Eaters assault marines done.

 

 

 

Managed to get these done a few days before ToS which meant I had a couple of days to chill and spend some well deserved time with the family before being away for the weekend.

 

Throne of Skulls was a cracking weekend, had 5 great games with some nice opponents, if you've never been to a ToS event before I strongly recommend trying one out, it's very social and for the most part players approach it in the way it's intended, I only really saw a couple of what I would consider hardcore tournament army lists over the whole weekend. Again I took Drop Pod Wolves, here's what I had in the list;

 

Wolf Lord, Thunder Hammer/Storm Shield, Saga of the Bear, Wolftail Talisman

 

Rune Priest, Meltabombs

Rune Priest

 

4 Wolf Guard, 4x Combi Meltas

Drop Pod

 

7x Grey Hunters, Meltagun, Drop Pod

7x Grey Hunters, Meltagun, Drop Pod

7x Grey Hunters, Meltagun, Drop Pod

8x Grey Hunters, Meltagun, Drop Pod

10x Grey Hunters, Flamer, Meltagun, Drop Pod

10x Grey Hunters, Flamer, Meltagun, Drop Pod

 

Fairly straight forward, 6 pods with guys in, 1 without. It's quite surprising how much an all Drop Pod lists really throw your opponent off balance.

 

Went with codex powers for the Rune Priests initially then had a go with a couple of the rule book powers once I'd got a better feel for the list, really like how some of the book powers work.

 

As I've said I really enjoyed the weekend over all, I came away with 4 wins and 1 loss and was pip'd by 1 point for best Space Wolf. I managed to come away with 3 of the large ToS certificates as well which is always nice. Got a best army nomination, won Hero of Legend and probably the award I'm most proud of, one of the 6 players to get all 5 best sportsmanship votes. The best sportsmanship (I forget what it's actually called, I'll update later) is really pleasing as of the 4 games I won I can't remember one that went beyond turn 4! Really chuffed.

 

Anyway, I'll leave you with a pic of the mini that got me Hero of Legend, the next post will be all Horus Heresy related along with including details of the massive project I'm just about to undertake.

 

Far too long.....2!

Well it's been far to long since I last posted, to be honest I've not actually been up to much on the hobby side of life, I have continued painting and have pretty much finished up the Mentors commission, I do have a lot of faces to do for the same client though so it's still ongoing for the short term anyway.

 




On the personal side of life, might have mentioned it before but I've gained back the Fire Hawks at the cost of the World Eaters, may well have to re-visit the Horus Heresy at some point, Space Wolves anyone?!, but for now I'm trying to get back in to regular 40k so the Fire Hawks are perfect in order to help me do that, I've actually added a bit more weathering to them as well, similar to what I did to the World Eaters and am currently building and making a very slow start to painting a small allied force of Guard to go along with them.

The Guard force is still very much in it's infancy though, so it's still very far off being even remotely done.




Whilst the Guard army is coming together I'm continuing with other work in the shape of more World Eaters for the new owner and then some Sons of Horus with potientially some Charcaradons after that, so there will be alot of marine goodness coming over the next few months.

As I've previously said I am still champing at the bit to get playing more often though, sadly real life takes alot of precedence over that, something I am working on to try and negate though, not in a bad way, just trying to get my job shifted slightly.

That's it for now, short I know but i just wanted all the folks following to know that the blog isn't dead, well not just yet anyway :D

Far too long

Yep, as the title says it's been far too long since I posted last, to be honest that's probably because I've been far to busy painting stuff, which isn't necessarily a bad thing :D

So, what have I been painting since the last post I hear you say, well with the event of the Dark Angels being released I was asked to do some more terminators for the Mentor Legion army, 16 to be precise, 5  normal Deathwing, 1 command squad, one squad of Deathwing knights and Belial.

 

I've really enjoyed painting these so far, after painting battered stuff for the last few months it's actually quite refreshing to paint something that doesn't need weathing. I've taken some of the more obvious Dark Angel markings off of them, really like how the colours work together, I suppose that's why I was drawn to the army all those years ago.

 

I'm just starting the command squad as I type this blog post, it should be done at some point in the not too distant future, then it's on to Belial. I've also got some DA characters to do once the terminators are finished, I'll make sure I post pics of then when they're done.

For myself I've finished another Contemptor for the World Eaters, unfortunately after a few games with them I've decided they're just not for me so I've managed to work out a deal which will see me getting the Fire Hawks back along with some DA bits :D

I'm actually planning on starting to play alot more 40k now, probably because I'm more settled in work, and am planning on starting to go up to the Spiky Club in Reading alot more often, in all honesty I think marines just work for me better anyway so the Fire Hawks will bring alot of fun my way (hopefully).

With that in mind I'm actually planning my next army which is looking like it'll be pure Ravenwing, has anybody got the new kits yet? awesome, I've played a pure Ravenwing army before and really enjoyed it, it's got to be worth a try in 6th ed. Sorted out an army list so I'll work from there.

Anyway that's far too much rambling, I entered a tournament last week so I'll do a write up of that for the next update.

Until then,

Laters :D

More Painting

As you can see above I've managed to get a fair bit of painting done over the last couple of weeks, decided I should try and get the army to a decent size whilst I had some spare time (is there such a thing?) and as I need the army for a forthcoming tournament that gave me a target :) So fully painted it sits at just shy of 1250 points using the Chaos Codex.

So what's new then? well you've all seen the terminators and most of the tactical marines, the mkIII squad have a nice new transport in the form of a Demios Pattern Rhino.

And the mkIV squad has an extra few guys making it a 15 man strong squad, there will be more for this squad aswell, got to get it up to 20 strong.

Then there's some heavy support in the shape of an autocannon squad, again there will be a few more guys for this squad to give them a bit more of a cushion.

And what would any Heresy era army be without a Contemptor Dreadnought!

The army also got a leader, hadn't ever planned of this guy but I had the mini in the box ready to go and Angron wasn't anywhere near dropping in yet.



And that's it for the 1250 point army, I am currently painting another Contemptor, the actual World Eaters one this time and I recieved a nice little box from Forge World the other day with Angron in it, so he's finally arrived.The eventual size for the army will be at least 1850 as it's what I'm intending to use at the Indy GT final in March, but then the Dark Angels have arrived so who knows what I'm going to use as I wouldn't mind doing some Deathwing.

I also painted this guy for ebay;

If you're interested have a look here, I've also got a few unused gaming bits on there as well.

Over the next few weeks I'll also be doing some more Mentors as part of an ongoing commission job using the new Dark Angel models, if you want to see more of the Mentors I've done look here, just in case anybody doesn't know, the army in it's infancy was featured in the Apocalypse book.

So that's it for now, just a bit of a ramble and to show you all what I've been up to over the last couple of weeks, I'd like to know what you all think of what I'm putting in here and if there's anything you'd like to see me do.

Thanks

James

Getting on with the World Eaters

Well I'm now free from any commission work so will be getting on with my World Eaters (WE) that I'll be using for the next few months at least, anybody who knows me knows that I tend to sell armys after a few months use, not sure if this one will go but then again I say that about almost every army I do (any offers :) ).

My initial thoughts for the WE were that I'd use the Space Wolf codex however having looked a little more at the latest Chaos book I don't think it's a coincidence it was released at the same time as the HH Betrayal book, with a few exceptions, Contemptor Dreadnoughts being one :( , the books seem to work well for building an army for use with both. I'm glad alot of the events I go to now allow the use of the FW "40k Approved" units, Chaos Contemptors aint that bad when you look into them :D

So with that in mind the first event I'll be going to in the new year is a one day event ran by Tony at Core Games, the points level for the event is an unusual 1250. The army I'm planning on taking will consist of roughly the following; Deamon Prince (Angron) although this might change, 5 Terminators (Cataphracti), 1 Chaos Contemptor, 2 squads of tooled up Chaos Marines and a 5 man Havoc Squad with Autocannons, so it's not all that big an army.

The one thing that's letting me down at the minute is that I'm just not getting enough gaming in at all, I've just not had enough time, or motivation if I'm honest, to get out and play enough, I've still not really played enough 6th ed 40k so really just don't know what's good and what's not, can't honestly remember that last time I actually had a game. Hopefully I'll be able to remedy that over the next month or so prior to actually going to the one day event.








In other news the Fire Hawks were featured on the Death or Glory Blog they've got alot of varied articles from painting to hard tournament gaming definately worth a look if you want to know what's going on on the UK tournament scene.

Anyway, as you may have noticed, I've finished the Cataphracti squad, think they came out ok, I'm moving on to a Contemptor next and will hopefully have it done by the end of this weekend just in time for the new year so pics of it will be in my next blog post.



 
Until then I'll leave you all with some more pics of the terminators from different angles so you can get a better feel for what they actually look like. As always comments and feedback is always welcome.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Sorry it's been a few weeks, real life does get in the way sometimes. So what's coming in this post, as promised I'll do a short write up on my feeling after the "Eavy Metal Masterclass, Space Marine Commander" event I went to a couple of months ago and show some of the other bits I've been painting over the last few weeks, really starting to get my mojo working again :D

So, here it is.

Eavy Metal Masterclass

Decided to go to the Space Marine Commander masterclass when it was first advertised, can't remember when exactly. The main reason for going was to try and spark a bit of development in my painting as I've been stuck in a rut for far to long now with no real progression to my standard, if I'm honest I feel I've got a bit worse since my Mentors and Ultramarine days, if I'm honest mainly due to the pressure I put on myself to get things done quickly. So this was an ideal opportunity to try and gleam a few development tips. Oh, and I managed to drag my mate John along as well.

So the day arrived and after a night in Nottingham we arrived at Warhammer World (WHW) bright and early at around 0930 on a Sunday morning, we were guided into the bottom floor of what I believe is the Forge World (FW) building, where they had a class/lecture room set up ready for the event, the room was well laid out with lots of space and individual paint stations with strip lights laid out for everyone. Each station had the paints, brushes and miniature we were going to use set up and ready to go, there was also complimentary drinks (tea/coffee) laid on as well.

We sat around and chatted to the other folks there for a bit prior to the Eavy Metal guys (EM)  arriving at around 1000. So with the arrival of the EM a quick brief and we were set, initially there was a bit of confusion as the minis we had were modelled with an Ultramarine shoulder pad so the initial painter was going to start with blue, a colour we didn't have on our paint station, they quickly realised that they were meant to be doing red armour, quick re-set and we set off getting a nice even red colour painted on the mini and gradually went through the process of doing the armour from start to finish up until lunch at 1300. We were asked during the hour leading up to lunch what we would like from a set menu as this was also part of the ticket price which meant there was little faffing about during lunchtime ordering etc.

After an hour long lunch break spent in WHW spending yet more money on FW stuff we then went back into the classroom and began doing some of the other bits, over the course of the next 4 hours we covered Gold, Cloaks, Faces and electric effect on Power Weapons (you can see a bit of a try on my WE Sgts power weapon, still more work needed). Throughout the whole day there was a camera above where the EM were painting allowing us to see what they were doing throughout. Finally there was a Q&A session which after all questions were answered they wrapped up and informed us that all the paints and brushes we used we could take home with us, not to bad!

So, what are my thought's on the day as a whole I hear you ask? I'll try and list them all below.

Initial impression, good but then, wtf!? these guys don't even know what colours they're meant to be using, here we go......best give them a chance though.
Initially both myself and John were thinking we were going to come away with a complete painted mini as we painted the whole of the armour.
We spent 3 hours painting the whole of the armour and then took 4 hours to cover 4 other subjects which lead to them rushing things in the latter part of the day.
The above lead to at least one person leaving an hour early and another commenting (when I met him at the services on the way home) that alot of it went straight over his head.

So really, the day could have been so much better, just to try and justify my comments a bit, I've done alot and I mean alot (it's pretty much been my job for the last 10+ years) of instruction, so I have a rough idea of how to put info acoss to people.

Initial setup, Good, however, if you're instructing people in a practical skill, at least know what you're meant to be doing.
An actual brief of what we were aiming to achieve during the day would also have been good.
Structure, the day had little to no structure, which isn't always a bad thing, however a bit more time appreciation would probably have lead to more people understanding what was going on and not leaving early.
Why didn't they just do the marine arm (enough different armour plates, power weapon, gold etc.) would have made a bit more sense and probably lead to being able to give more detailed explanations during each stage.
Planning, on the set-up side of life, would have been much easier to follow if they had maybe employed the use of power point with descriptions of each stage, would also have meant people wouldn't have constantly been asking for colour recipes and stuff.

Overall, the event wasn't that bad, and yes I would go again as I now understand where I could gleam the info I need, but going in blind means you may not always get what you want. Did I get what I wanted, not really but I'm more aware of my abilities now and know what I need to do to improve. I really feel it could have been done so much better, marks out of 10, I'd give it a 4. Just not sure if GW think that giving you the amount of paints etc. you get from the event justifies the mediocreness (is that even a word) of the day?.........

I'd like to hear your thoughts on the above, I feel quite passionate about the whole thing, anyway, what have I been doing over the last few weeks, well apart from the usuall drinking and merryness that come with this time of the year I've managed to get a fair bit of painting done, I've got the following completed, 10 Sniper Scouts, 1 Chaplain Dread, the mkIV and a mkIII squads for the WEs and also built Autocannon and Cataphracti squads and 2 contemptors again for the WEs, so a few pics below.

 

So that's it for this (slightly drunk) blog post, as you can see above I have painted the first of the Cataphracti, hopefully I'll have the whole of the squad done by the start of 2013.

 

Hope you've all had a great Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone, as always thanks for reading.

 

James