Even after my seaside vacation, my current enthusiasm for working on my World Eaters remains. While that may be bad news for all those of you who frequent my blog for one of my other projects, don’t fret: I am very likely to resume work on the INQ28 and Custodes stuff before long! I just want to make the most of the motivation for working on my main army while it lasts. So let me show you the things I am currently working on, most of them squarely falling into the category of heavy fire support…

1. Just for fun…

The first thing I did after finishing my – rather involved – Wargrinder conversion was to kitbash another humble gladiator for my growing squad of gladiatorial World Eaters. Working on a humble 28mm footsoldier was a great way to relax, and so I was quickly able to get this guy built. Take a look:

I believe I have mentioned before how I wanted to try and feature different kinds of gladiatorial weapons across the squad, so the newest recruit is wielding the ever-stylish chain glaive. Not a big project, to be sure, but a nice way to unwind after a more involved piece…

2. The Forge never sleeps….

Next up is a Forgefiend. I picked up the kit way back when I started working on my Heldrake conversion and never really managed to move beyond the basic construction. So I sat down to assemble and undercoat the model right after returning from my holiday — must have had something to do with renewed energies and all that…

While I realise that many people don’t like the Forgefiend design, dubbing the model “Dinobot” (or even worse), I have to admit that I am really rather fond of the kit: It adds a visual flourish to the CSM army that other forces don’t have. And for a World Eaters force, the fact that the fiend looks a lot like a larger Juggernaut of Khorne (the model was even inspired by the juggernaut, according to Jes Goodwin) helps, of course.

So I almost feel a little guilty admitting that I left the stock model virtually unaltered — I know, a shocking turn of events

Here’s a look at the model so far:

Due to the fact that almost every model in my army has been converted in some way, leaving the Forgefiend as it was almost felt a little lazy. However, I didn’t really want to convert for the sake of conversion, and I didn’t feel I had any huge changes to make to the model. Using the Maulerfiend arms and the Forgefiend cannons at the same time (with the cannons mounted on the model’s back, as has been done my multiple hobbyists) would have been a pretty cool idea, but in the end I decided against it. That way, I had more leftover bitz to play around with — one of the Forgefiend cannons was already used on my Wargrinder, as you might recall, and you can expect to see those Maulerfiend arms pretty soon, as well.

Anyway, my main addition to the model, apart from some decorative skulls on the shoulder armour, was the tail of an Ogre Kingdoms Stonehorn: I really love the horrible, bony growth at the tip of the tail, and I also thought having a longer tail really improved the model’s overall silhouette:

Oh, and I also added a juggernaut’s collar to the Forgefiend’s neck, representing the archetypal Collar of Khorne:

All in all, I am rather happy with the model, a slight lingering guilt over not doing a super-involved conversion notwithstanding… I guess that this will be the next bigger model to be painted, once I manage to summon up the motivation for it.

3. The Behemoths

And finally, what is probably my most ambitious project at the moment: The Behemoths. So what is this about?

It’s no secret that Obliterators are a rather valuable part of the Chaos Space Marine army list. At the same time, I also have this strange urge to own an appropriate version of all (or at least most) of the unit selections in the Codex for my army. So far, this has made me convert a custom Dark Apostle and Warpsmith for the HQ slot, come up with some renegade Space Wolves to serve as “regular” CSM, and so on.

The one selection I could not find a suitable approach for were the Obliterators: I really dislike the current models for these guys, for one. And the mutated, fleshy look really didn’t fit the concept of my army (where mutation is kept to a minimum, due both to my aesthetic preferences and background reasons). I also didn’t want to go the easy route of simply getting some stock Obliterators, painting them in the colours of a different legion or warband, and using them as “allies”, because that seemed like a rather cheap cop out to me.

So I waited and collected pictures of Obliterator conversions I liked and quietly prayed for inspiration to hit. And I swore to myself that I wouldn’t use Obliterators until I had found a way of representing them on the table in a way that felt true to both my taste and the overarching concept of my army. I didn’t find such an option for the best part of two years.

But then, the new Space Marines were released, and as I mentioned in my recent review, the longer I looked at the new Centurions, the more I felt that these could be my ticket to finally building the Obliterators that I wanted: not mutated and unsightly giants, but hulking and baroque combat suits, a holdover from the more civilised days of the 12th Astartes Legion. So I started throwing around some ideas, and I ended up with this small background sketch:

Even in an army as focused on combat at close quarters as the World Eaters‘ 4th assault company, there are those who hunt by different means. These brothers of the company are called the Behemoths, and they are an enigma to even their brethren.

During the Great Crusade, the armies of the Legiones Astartes were faced with an ever increasing number of deadly adversaries. Often enough, wars were only to be won by attrition, and the head-on assaults led by the death seeking Primarch Angron were threatening to bleed the 12th Astartes legion dry before long. While Angron seemed oblivious or even indifferent towards such concerns, there were those among his officers who sought a more balanced kind of warfare, at least until the bite of their Butcher’s Nails consumed the remnants of their sanity.

It is said that, during this time, First Apothecary Fabrikus himself experimented on a number of battle brothers, trying to adapt their cranial implants to a different kind of fight. These warriors were outfitted with heavy combat suits, almost on par with the fabled Dreadnoughts. Their suits were equipped with a plethora of heavy weapons, and where the regular World Eaters would throw themselves at the enemy with wild abandon, the so-called Behemoth squads would hang back and lay down a barrage of heavy fire. For Fabrikus had changed the battle brothers’ minds yet again, hardwiring their implants to their weapons systems. The members of the Behemoth squads started to find grim joy in killing, just like the rest of their legion, but the greatest joy for them was to pick out enemies from afar, tearing through flesh and steel alike with bursts of laser fire and plasma, and seeing a red marker turning green in their targeting recticles.

The Behemoths remained and experimental unit that only saw limited use during the Crusade and subsequent Heresy: The weapons systems they were outfitted with proved too difficult to maintain during the arduous campaigns, and Angron would always favour a more hands-on approach. Yet some of the Behemoths endured, most of them among the warriors of Khorne’s Eternal Hunt.

There, these frightening giants still fill the role of heavy fire support, yet the long centuries and millennia have wrought havoc upon their minds: Growing ever more divorced from their humanity, Behemoths are more machine than man, gripped by a tranquil fury where their regular brethren are openly angry. They can only perceive life through their targeting systems, and each situation becomes an equation that can only be solved by heavy fire. They tend to see living beings as either targets or inconsequential elements, even referring to their battle brothers as “fleshkin”.

When away from the battlefield, the Behemoths are normally content to spent time in deep, deathlike sleep. They dream of worlds burning and planets shattering under a barrage of heavy fire, while the other members of the company take relief in the knowledge that their troubled brethren are not at large. Even in an army of frenzied killers, the Behemoths are perhaps the most inhuman of all, since for them life and death are the only variables at any given time, and death is always the preferable outcome…

So it was decided: I would build a squad of counts as Obliterators, and I would use the Centurion kit for it. I won’t lie to you, there was also the fact that I had the somewhat silly ambition to build something cool from the kit everybody loves to hate

So, ironically enough, the most-reviled kit of the release was actually a day one purchase for me.

It has to be said, though, that I am at the very early planning stages of this project, and am currently just messing around in order to discover what I could do with the kit. Nevertheless, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the kit as I go along — maybe it’ll be helpful for you too! So consider this a mini-review/early WIP kind of affair — seems like you’ll be getting quite a bit of mileage out of this one post, dear readers…

Anyway, after picking up the kit, this is what I ended up with:

Let’s not talk about the decal sheet, obviously, because it’s standard fare. The instruction booklet is a rather hefty tome, however, on account of the kit being rather complex. Each of the three sprues that come with the kit is packed with bits, containing all the possible equipment options as well as a unique pose and individual (loyalist) decoration for each of the models:

The thing to note here is that assembling a Centurion with any given kind of equipment will invariably give you lots of leftover weapon bitz: You get three sets of long range weapons (lascannons, heavy bolters and a grav cannon) and one set of CC weapons (siege drills that come with optional flamers or meltaguns) for each model, so there will be a lot of leftovers.

As an interesting aside, I also discovered that the Centurions’ bases (slightly bigger than a Terminator base in diameter) are a perfect fit for those resin parts that come with the 40k basing kit:

So it obviously wasn’t some kind of production slip up after all…

Why GW would make these resin parts fit a type of base that virtually never gets used across the whole catalogue instead of the much more prolific terminator base is clearly beyond me. Still, mystery solved!

Deciding how my Obliterators will be armed will take some time, I believe: I will probably go for mixed weapons, representing their ability to use different weapons each turn. The lascannons can be used out of the box. Beyond that, I guess I’ll convert the heavy bolters to look like autocannons / assault cannons. Plus I’ll swap in a flamer or plasma cannon here and there. For now, let’s focus on some of the bitz that come with the kit, because these could come in handy even if you’re not trying to build Centurions in the first place!

The kit comes with seven heads: four of them with helmets, three bare. The helmet crest that you can see on the sergeant in the official photos is a seperate, optional part (which is pretty cool). I played around with the heads a bit and took some photos to show you how they look on regular Marine models:

First up, the helmeted head variant on a regular (Chaos) Space Marine body: Although it seems a little clunky, it clearly works. With its look halfway between a terminator and regular power armour helmet, this could be an interesting option for Iron Warriors or Iron Hands. Or a suitable headdress for a Techmarine/Warpsmith? Unfortunately, the heads don’t fit into a terminator body’s head cavity, so you won’t be able to use them on your terminators without some serious cutting.

Even more interesting are the bare heads, since those are scaled to perfectly fit the existing Marine models. Take a look:

I chose the one with the open mouth and mohawk, since I thought it was a pretty good fit for a World Eater. These have pretty nice facial expressions, and while I think they do look rather silly when combined with the hulking Centurion bodies, they should be really useful for your other infantry models.

They also look really good on Terminators:

Another thing you can see in the picture above is that the Centurions’ shoulder pads are great if you want to add that special Pre-Heresy/artificer armour look to your Terminators, since they make for rather convincing terminator pauldrons as well:

So there’s really nothing stopping you from replacing those shoulder pads with something different on the Centurions and using the originals on your army commander or something similar.

And finally, the flamers and meltaguns that come with the kit are just about the right size to be used on regular infantry, if you want to be thrifty:

Granted, the meltagun might need some work to fit perfectly. But if you ask me, the slightly shorter muzzle on the flamer makes it look more special ops like, if that makes any sense.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg, really. So whether or not you like the Centurions, the kit will give you lots of extra stuff. Even if you use it to build a squad of three Centurions, there will be quite a few leftovers, which is always a plus in my book.

As for my own “Behemoth” squad, like I said, I am in the very early planning stages. It quickly became obvious that the Centurions are a rather complex kit, and I will need to take some sound decisions about what to glue together before painting, so I will take my time with this project. For now, I have tacked together one Centurion body and begun experimenting with a couple of bitz. This is all really WIP, and nothing is finalised. So if you think the model looks rather silly, rest assured that I’ll be doing my best to change that

Anyway, here goes:

So far, I have only shaved some loyalist engravings off the right leg armour and replaced them with an icon of Khorne. Apart from that, the body’s still as stock as can be (as evidenced by the sprawling Aquila on the chest plate). As for the conversion, I am considering replacing the armour plates on the upper legs with ogre gutplates or Chaos Marauder shields for a more chaotic look (and a visual connection to the rest of my army).

Apart from that, my one main experiment for now was to use several chaotic heads on the body:

As I said, nothing spectacular so far — although it’s nice to know that some of the heads look quite alright (I really like the WoC skull helmet). All in all, I’ll probably be using the regular Centurion heads with added bunny ears, though.

Anyway, I am still in the very early stages of this particular project, although I can promise you I’ll give it my all to make these guys look as cool as I have envisioned them.

So yeah, those are the next World Eaters projects I am working on! I’ll keep you updated about their progress, of course! And I would love to hear your opinion, so you’re very welcome to share any thoughts you might have in the comments section!

And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Only a short update this week, since I am still completely snowed under with work. What little hobby time I have goes towards working on my counts as Obliterators though, and I would like to show you what my test model looks like right now.

When we last saw the model, I was still playing around with bitz and trying to settle on a look. Here’s where we left off last time:

The next step was to work out an actual build for the model, to get the overall shape to work before then adding the kind of detail that will make my Behemoth test model look suitably heretical and baroque.

So far, work has been going on at a pretty slow pace: partly because I am up to my ears in work, partly because I don’t want to mess up this concept by hurrying it along.

Regarding the head, I decided to use one of the standard heads from the kit with some added bunny ears for the Khornate touch. I think those heads are a pretty good fit because they look emotionless and somewhat brutal, which really lends itself well to what I imagine the Behemoths to be like.

I also carefully shaved off the Imperial imagery from the chest plate – which made me feel a little guilty, to be honest, because it’s so beautifully detailed. I also realised the ogre gut plate was simply too big to go on the model’s torso, so I ended up using a Chaos Marauder shield instead. This is what I was left with:

In order to fill the empty space on the chest plate with something suitably Khornate, I then built a bandolier of skulls strapped across the chest — you can never really go wrong with skulls on a World Eater, after all:

I do realise that the leg armour still poses a problem, although I am already hard at work finding a solution for that. Since I don’t see myself trying something fancy, such as adding GS trim to the armour, the solution will probably depend on a bitz influx. In any case, like I said, my main objective is to sort out the overall build of the model and make it all work out, then go back and add detail, accessories etc. So the next step was to figure out how to build the arms:

As you can see, I tried to turn the heavy bolter into an autocannon by adding a new barrel. It still needs some more work, but I quite like the overall effect. I also played around with some pieces of armour to use as alternate pauldrons — the jugger headpiece is just a placeholder, though, since I really don’t have enough of those to just use them on any model I like. I also made my first bad decision, trying to replace the left hand with a chainfist from a Chaos Terminator. That would have added a suitably chaotic element with very little work. The problem, though, was that the Terminator fists are a good deal shorter than those of the Centurions. While not immediately obvious when looking at the parts, once you add a chainfist to the model, you realise that the arm ends up looking far too short, rendering the model’s already slightly funny proportions even more off-kilter. The one exception I can see is the slightly bigger chainfist from the Chaos Lord in terminator armour. Since I wanted to keep that particular piece of a possible use on the squadleader, though, I carefully re-attached the Centurion’s fist I had cut off earlier — we live and learn…

The next big step will be to sort out the leg armour. I am currently experimenting with some armour plates cut from Ogre fists:

I rather like the look so far, although it will need some more work. All in all, getting the Centurions to look suitably chaotic for my army is quite a challenge. I knew what I was getting myself into, though. And the good news is that fellow hobbyist and World Eaters player Biohazard has now entered the fray as well. So I guess that between the two of us, we will manage to come up with an awesome Centurion conversion sooner or later. On a related note, Dave Taylor has figured out a pretty nifty alternate way of mounting the Centurion weapons and significantly change the models’ silhouette! Check it out here .

So yeah, that’s the current status of my test model. It’s still a fairly early version of the model, of course. Nevertheless, feel free to let me know what you think! Getting some additional perspectives on this will be a huge help. And let’s hope that I’ll soon be able to produce some more substantial content for this blog — I, for one, am keeping my fingers crossed.

Until then, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Even while I was spending time salivating over the new Dark Elves, work on my Centurion conversions continued unabated, of course. Since I last showed you my “Behemoth” test model last week, I undertook a continuous process of trial and error to figure out the best basic template for turning a Centurion into a counts as Obliterator for Khorne’s Eternal Hunt.

Just to remind you, here’s where we left off last time:

The ogre armour plates on the upper legs were a winner, so they stayed. But most of all, the time had come to build an actual left arm for the model. Since I wanted to represent the Obliterators’ ability of using different weapons each turn, I decided to give each of my Behemoths two main weapons. In this case, I chose a Multimelta to complement the Autocannon on the right arm. I also tried a number of additional bitz on the model in order to settle on a final look:

The multimelta was built by adding some melta barrels to one of the siege drill weapons from the kit. I also added a flamer in the intended spot, although that ended up looking slightly over the top… As you can see, I also experimented with some additional bitz: The marauder shield was replaced with a chain tabard, and a blade/horn from the Mournfang Cavalry was added to the model’s helmet — while I liked the look that resulted from that, the blade did seem a little clunky, though.

Here’s a comparison shot with one of my Terminators to show you how massive the Behemoth will be:

Some feedback over on Dakka and ToS helped me to further refine my recipe: Biohazard suggesed adding an additional armour plate on top of the chain tabard (which I did), and I also replaced the huge blade on the nose with a smaller horn:

I also added a trophy rack, which I am not really sure about: On the one hand, it makes the model look even more clunky, but on the other hand, if ever there was a squad of ponderous, clunky giants, it’s going to be this one, right?

In any case, and give or take a few bitz, I am fairly confident that I have managed to find the basic template for my Behemoths. Ladies and Gentlemen:

The Behemoth pattern heavy fire support suit

Even in an army as focused on combat at close quarters as the World Eaters‘ 4th assault company, there are those who hunt by different means. Those brothers of the company are called the Behemoths, and they are an enigma to even their brethren.

During the Great Crusade, the armies of the Legiones Astartes were faced with an ever increasing number of deadly adversaries. Often enough, wars were only to be won by attrition, and the head-on assaults led by the death seeking Primarch Angron were threatening to bleed the 12th Astartes legion dry before long. While Angron seemed oblivious or even indifferent towards such concerns, there were those among his officers who sought a more balanced kind of warfare, at least until the bite of their Butcher’s Nails consumed the remnants of their sanity.

It is said that, during this time, First Apothecary Fabrikus himself experimented on a number of battle brothers, trying to adapt their cranial implants to a different kind of fight. These warriors were outfitted with heavy combat suits, almost on par with the fabled Dreadnoughts. Their suits were equipped with a plethora of heavy weapons, and where the regular World Eaters would throw themselves at the enemy with wild abandon, the so-called Behemoth squads would hang back and lay down a barrage of heavy fire. For Fabrikus had changed the battle brothers’ minds yet again, hardwiring their implants to their weapons systems. The members of the Behemoth squads started to find grim joy in killing, just like the rest of their legion, but the greatest joy for them was to pick out enemies from afar, tearing through flesh and steel alike with bursts of laser fire and plasma, and seeing a red marker turning green in their targeting recticles.

The Behemoths remained a highly experimental unit that only saw limited use during the Crusade and subsequent Heresy: The weapons systems they were outfitted with proved too difficult to maintain during the arduous campaigns, and Angron would always favour a more hands-on approach. Only few of the valuable suits have endured over the millennia, and only those warbands of the XIIth Astartes legion who still count a Warpsmith or Dark Mechanicus ally among their numbers can hope to make any kind of use of this hallowed equipment. For most members of the World Eaters, the kind of warfare exemplified by the Behemoth squads remains forever beyond their reach, replaced by frenzy and costly head-on assaults. Yet within the ranks of the 4th assault company, some of the Behemoths have endured, and in Khorne’s Eternal Hunt, have become hunters in their own right.

These frightening giants still fill the role of heavy fire support, yet the long centuries and millennia have wrought havoc upon their minds: Growing ever more divorced from their humanity, Behemoths are more machine than man, gripped by a tranquil fury where their regular brethren are frenzied. They can only perceive life through their targeting systems, and each situation becomes an equation that can only be solved by heavy fire. They tend to see living beings as either targets or inconsequential elements, even referring to their battle brothers as “fleshkin”.

When away from the battlefield, the Behemoths are normally content to spent time in deep, deathlike sleep. They dream of worlds burning and planets shattering under a barrage of heavy fire, while the other members of the company take relief in the knowledge that their troubled brethren are not at large. Even in an army of frenzied killers, the Behemoths are perhaps the most inhuman of all, since for them life and death are the only variables at any given time, and death is always the preferable outcome…

 
So yeah, this will be my basic approach for the rest of the squad and the vibe I am going for. Here’s the basically finished test model for you:

After looking at Biohazard’s awesome Centurion conversion, my own model was extended slightly more at the waist, and I think the visible waist improves the overall proportions. I believe I won’t try to cram any more weapons onto the model, going with two main weapons for each member of the squad. Some chains and spikes may yet be added, and I’ll maybe rethink the use of the Marauder shield on the right hand: Another option would be to use some of the very cool Ogre fists that come with the Mournfang Cavalry:

Once again, the imagery of the Great Maw makes for very convincing World Eaters symbols, don’t you think? I only have very few of these, unfortunately, so I can only use them very sparingly.

I am also considering leaving off the hydraulic struts on the sides of the legs, because I really don’t like their look. The ones on back of the feet are great, though, because they look so similar to the Dreadknight (or, in my case, Wargrinder) legs. Oh, and on a related note, you should also check out Candleshoes’ “Contemptor Centurion” over at The Bolter and Chainsword: also a very awesome project, although it’s not the look I need for my own models.

In any case, I am looking forward to beginning work on the next model. The next Behemoth will be armed with an assault cannon and a heavy flamer, methinks. Or a Plasma cannnon? I’ll keep you posted

Until then, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

I am still working on my Centurion-based Obliterators — in all fairness, I did warn you beforehand that this would likely turn out to be a rather extensive project

The good news is that, after having figured out a basic recipe for turning the stock Centurions into suitable Obliterators, the second model went together quite a bit faster than the first: I already roughly knew beforehand which elements I was going to use to make the model look more chaotic, so assembling the legs and torso was reasonably easy work this time:

As you can see, I kept several of the elements that had worked on the test model, using the tried and tested bunny ears as well as the additional horn on the forehead. I also used some more armour plates cut from Ogre fists for a more archaic look, although I positioned them slightly differently this time around. The bandolier of skulls was replaced with a beastman trophy skull, and instead of a chain tabard I used a loincloth (again from the Chaos Lord in Terminator armour, though). Since this mode had a more dynamic pose, I tried to match the loincloth to the forwards movement of the legs.

I also stole Biohazard’s very cool idea for chest mounted flamers, even though it’s not all that easy to make out in the photograph above.

Here’s a photo of the model’s early build together with my first Behemoth:

Once again, the next step was to add the arms and weapons. My original plan was to arm the model with a Lascannon on the left and a heavy flamer on the right arm. A suitable lascannon came with the Centurion parts, so I was at liberty to spend more time kitbashing a custom heavy flamer from a siege drill housing and a Terminator heavy flamer:

This also made me realise that the siege drill housings can basically be turned into any weapon you desire by just adding some new barrels and some additional bits. At the very least, my flamer above (complete with added meltagun on top) turned out reasonably convincing, don’t you think?

Unfortunately, though, when added to the actual model, it ended up looking far too cumbersome, even for the impressive frame of a Centurion/Behemoth. We live and learn…

So a change of plans was in order: The Lascannon originally intended for the left arm was moved to the right instead, and the left arm received a converted assault cannon (built by combining a Centurion heavy bolter anda gun barrel from a Heldrake’s weapon, no less).

Here’s the model with both arms:

As a matter of fact, I am tempted to call the changed weapons a lucky coincidence, since the assault cannon really works rather well with the pose of the left arm. As you can see, I also added some more bitz (and the beastman skull received another horn; the mono-horn look was far too Slaaneshi for my taste). So while the model may still be a little rough around the edges, I am prepared to call the basic setup a success.

I also experimented with yet another Ogre fist from the Mournfang Cavalry kit:

I really like the result so far!

While I was at it, I also took another photo of the first test model:

With two of the conversions now mostly finished, I think these will make for rather convincing Obliterators: At the very least, they’ll be a much better match for the rest of my army than the fleshy, bloated stock models! And they do look pretty badass together!

Putting quite a bit of time into working with the Centurion kit has also had the nice side effect of discovering the great conversions done by other people! Though the Centurions don’t seem to be all that popular at the moment, people like Dave Taylor, migsula, Biohazard or candleshoes are really putting the kit through its moves! I did a more detailed writeup about the cool conversions I have discovered so far over on Dark Future Gaming, and you are very welcome to check it out, in case you are interested!

And of course, I am always interested in hearing your opinion, so let me know what you think of this newest WIP model!

As always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

After spending so much time on my converted Centurions/counts as Obliterators, I wanted to build something smaller and less involved for a change. So today’s post will deal with a model I completed just for fun and on the side. But why is that even interesting?

Well, you see, for this small gaiden project, I returned to an abandoned army project of mine: When I returned to the hobby in late 2010 after a longer hiatus, my original plan had been to use the (then) brand new Dark Eldar models to build some kick ass additions to the Dark Eldar army I built during the 90s. But then I found out that kitbashing Chaos Space Marines was simply more fun (at least for me). So I returned to the clutches of chaos and endeavoured to build a Word Bearers army, the Piercing Gaze Chapter. I had a fairly complete background in place, and so I began the project in the same way I always begin my projects: By building lots and lots of characters.

In this case, I built several Dark Apostles, because I really loved the idea of daemonic preachers leading a force of superhumans into battle. Among the several models I built during this time was also my model for Dark Apostle Gemnon, built, in fact, on Christmas Eve 2010:

One of the first models I built after my hobby hiatus, Gemnon was created by combining some leftover bitz from my first Khorne Berzerkers with some old WFB chaos parts and stuff from the brand new box of Chaos Space Marines cousin Andy had just given me as a christmas present back then. I didn’t even have a suitable head in my bitzbox to represent a Dark Apostle, so I went with a Tzeentchian head, which doesn’t really send the right message, visually. Still, I rather liked the model.

My Word Bearers army, however, didn’t quite get off the ground: Looking back now I can see that this was both due to a lack of suitable bitz (never start a Word Bearers project without lots and lots of books and purity seals) and a lack of vision: I thought the Word Bearers were cool, but I didn’t have an overarching theme in mind for the army, which proved to be my undoing in the end. So, long story short, I ended up playing around with my old World Eaters model which instantly reawakened my love for the followers of the Blood God. And what had originally been planned as a mere sub-faction in my Word Bearers project quickly took over, becoming my main army and the entity you might know as Khorne’s Eternal Hunt. And so on, and so forth — you know the rest…

Dark Apostle Gemnon and his buddies kept mouldering away in my cupboard of shame, and at some point there was even a small accident that broke the model apart at the hip. So he ended up spending his days in a miserable little pile of bitz on my desk.

But even while I am certainly not about to start a Word Bearers army, whenever my gaze returned to that pile of bitz, I felt that I owed this little guy another chance. So when I was looking for a small project to serve as a distraction between building all those lumbering Behemoths, I felt that Gemnon would have his day in the limelight. So I gathered a handful of bitz and got to work.

The Tzeentchian head needed to go, obviously, and I also wanted to reflect the fact that some pretty cool bitz have been released since I built the original model, so I needed to update the model a bit. And finally, I decided that, instead of yet another Dark Apostle, I would rebuild Gemnon as a Coryphaeus, a military commander of the Word Bearers Legion that serves as the Dark Apostle’s right hand man.

So after a bit of work, Gemnon was reborn as Coryphaeus of the Piercing Gaze Chapter:

It only took some additional bitz, really: The bare head from the WFB Warriors of Chaos is one of my favourite sculpts anyway, and it’s certainly perfect for a Word Bearer, bellowing dark catechisms at the top of his voice during battle. I also thought the power sword from the new Raptor kit made a pretty awesome weapon for a war captain, and while I was at it, I also replaced the original left hand and weapon for a plasma pistol from the same kit.

The (Night Goblin) emblem on the chest represents the symbol of the Piercing Gaze chapter, by the way, and would have been a recurring visual motif in my Word Bearers force.

Oh, and the ridiculously over the top backpack is a very conscious callback to the brilliant Wayne England artwork of yore: He would always portray his Chaos Space Marines with extremely ornate backpacks, so I wanted to approximate that look:

All in all, building this model was a fun little project, and it also put my guilty feelings regarding this character to rest. And who knows, maybe the Piercing Gaze Chapter under his Dark Apostle Belzas Azalon will yet make a triumphant return? It’s definitely not a priority at the moment, though.

Anyway, thanks for listening to my rambling! And let me know what you think in the comments section!

As always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

And now, as they say on Monty Python’s Flying Circus, for something completely different…

Today I’d like to talk about Aaron Dembski-Bowden’s novel Betrayer, which I finally managed to read this last weekend. Seeing how I am a really big fan of the World Eaters, you could certainly say that I took my sweet time for getting around to reading the book, right? Well, there’s a reason for that — several reasons in fact. Allow me to elaborate:

For starters, I have to admit that I am not perfectly sure how to feel about the whole Horus Heresy business. And by that I don’t mean the actual (fictional) event, but the business part: It’s easy to see how the HH franchise has turned into a huge business opportunity for GW and its subsidiaries Black Library and Forgeworld: On the modelling and gaming side of the hobby, FW’s release of Horus Heresy themed models and rules has been a dream come true for countless hobbyists. And the accompanying series of tie-in fiction seems to have opened up the 40k (or rather, 30k) universe to a readership beyond the diehard fans, at least if the sales based awards heaped upon the series are to be believed.

Now everyone’s allowed to have their profit, of course, but you may agree with me when I say that the prospects of huge amounts of money to be made are never the best thing to boost narrative integrity: There are countless instances in literature, film and videogames where the monetary success of a franchise served to replace any semblance of telling a great story with what us mere mortals refer to milking the cow (well, I refer to it as that, anyway).  Therefore, I am reasonably sure that I am not going to burst your bubble when I state that a series of tie-in fiction might not be the perfect place to look for literary greatness. But even then, there’s actually decent storytelling and there is money grabbing. I also harbour the subtle fear that there might come a day when every single hour of every single day of the Horus Heresy is firmly documented within its own novel — just like each and every creature in the Mos Eisley cantina now has a rather detailed CV available in the Star Wars Expanded Universe (go ahead, do some research — I dare you!)

And, in all fairness, my first foray into the literary side of the Heresy (the short story collection “Tales of Heresy”) didn’t leave me exactly optimistic, since I found some of the stories to be pretty horrible, some merely tolerable (among them a Dan Abnett story, which was really a disappointment for me) and only two truly good: Graham McNeill’s haunting “The Last Church” and Matthew Farrer’s seminal “After Desh’ea” — the first story to ever make the World Eaters’ Primarch Angron actually read as an interesting character.

So it was with some trepidation that I approached the first real BL book to flesh out my favourite legion: I have gone on record stating that the prospect of new material for “my” legion always fills me with equal amounts of anticipation and dread: While I love to get more input on the World Eaters, the rather hamhanded current background for them leaves me wishing as often as not that GW would just leave them alone. So when I learned that Aaron Dembski-Bowden would be writing the novel, I wasn’t exactly sure how to feel about it: On the one hand, I would have perferred Mathew Farrer, the one guy so far who seemed to have understood the legion’s narrative potential, to get another shot at writing these guys. On the other hand, ADB’s credentials and the quotes he posted on his (higly recommended) blog made me cautiously optimistic. But I was still feeling a little scared — does that make sense? In all fairness, I also didn’t want to read the digital version, since I am a printed on paper kind of guy. Anyway, hence the delay.

Betrayer tells a surprisingly momentous tale (interesting for a series that often seems content to over-embroider minor plot points to the point of ridiculousness) that ends with what may truly be called a bang. Without spoiling the plot for you, let’s just say that the end of the model does have enormous ramifications for the future of the XIIth Astartes Legion. Before that, though, the World Eaters get lots and lots of opportunities of rampaging across Imperial worlds, among them the Ultramarines’ war world of Armatura and Nuceria, the Primarch Angron’s own homeworld.

For a book dealing with a legion that is mostly about frenzy and senseless butchery, the plot is also uncannily character and dialogue driven. It’s all for the best, though, because in my opinion, ADB is just very good at writing Space Marine characters: He manages to combine their supernatural powers and majesty with a believable amount of humanity and of course just the right blend of gravitas and theatrics. The interactions between the different Primarchs are just as good, with the fabled demigods truly feeling like a race apart but remaining relatable nevertheless. The Word Bearers’ primarch Lorgar stands out as a inscrutable character, sincere and utterly manipulative at the same time, impossible as that may seem.

The book’s greatest feat, however, is how it treats Angron. You should think that a guy who is “always angry all the time” and whose name is, for crying out loud, ANGRON would not exactly turn out to be a narrative goldmine, but Matthew Farrer already disproved that notion in “After Desh’ea”. I had hoped that ABD would take the look and feel of that story and run with it, and indeed he did: His Angron is a tragic, damned figure, scarred in body and soul and utterly beyond redemption. So far, nothing new.

But ABD’s characterisation truly excels at making Angron believable and, dare I say it, sympathetic in his background and his pain, while also making it clear that the Primarch is monstrous. It’s a very delicate balance to maintain, but it works: You cannot help feeling sorry for the broken Primarch, but you could also never really like him. He has the best possible reasons to be this way, but he is also irredeemable.

A similar high point, then, is the relationship between the Primarch and his gene-sons: There has been a discussion over at Throne of Skulls whether or not the World Eaters hate their Primarch, and I would argue that the truth of the matter, at least according to Betrayer, is far more ingenious and believable than that: It’s clear that the World Eaters are very aware that the Butcher’s Nails implants that they let themselves be outfitted with in order to feel true kinship with their Primarch have irrevocably damaged the legion: Kharn and several other characters show feelings of resentment and melancholia at the realisation that their legion can never be as inspirational or cultured as most of the other legions due to the bite of the nails. And who would be to blame for that other than Angron, right?

Yet at the same time, it’s obvious that the World Eaters take fierce pride in their brotherhood and martial honour. They have eagerly cobbled together their own warrior culture from the snippets of lore brought back by Angron and those traditions from their legionaries’ myriad homeworlds, and while they clearly acknowledge that it’s not a shining example of human endeavour, it’s the only kind of culture they have, so they cling to it fiercely. And this culture does of course encompasses Angron and his past at Nuceria.

Then there’s the fact that they do, in fact, feel pity for Angron — a notion that would probably send the Primarch flying into a rage, ironically enough. They share his feeling that he never had a chance to begin with, and what little glory was his to claim was taken away during the battle of Desh’ea.

And finally, even though Angron’s condition is perpetually deteriorating, there are moments of brotherhood and kinship between him an his sons: The book describes how he shares in his sons’ rituals and battles, how he drinks and laughs with them like few other Primarchs do, even though there is a gulf of conflicting emotions between them.

So what we have here is this hugely complex (and beautifully written) mix of resentment, love, hatred, disappointment and what have you. I think this is as true to life as fiction dealing with transhuman supersoldiers can possibly be, precisely because it echoes real life: You might feel resentment or embarrassment or even hatred for one of your close relatives, but they will always remain your family, and there’s no escaping that fact.

Below this main storyline, I also loved how ADB managed to partly flesh out the fleet and Titan legions — actually my least favourite parts of the whole background so far: By creating interesting and noble characters (like the Conqueror’s flag-captain Serrin or the Legio Audax personnel) and by injecting both organisations with a healthy dose of WWI air warfare chivalry (with officers complimenting their opponents on shrewd maneuvres and elegant tactics), he succeeds at actually giving the non-Astartes characters a voice of their own, without their parts of the novel ever feeling boring or unnecessary.

And for all those who are understandably sceptical of GW’s focus on Space Marines, feeling they are all just reskins of the same basic design template, it should be interesting to see how the author manages to give a different feel to the Legiones Astartes: From the fierce brotherhood (and battlefield frenzy) of the World Eaters to the priestly nobility (and insane zeal) of the Word Bearers, you get the impression that the Legiones Astartes are very different from each other indeed, if only written well. Even the Ultramarines, serving mainly to be beaten up very badly, get a few moments in the spotlight, and we are afforded glimpses at their warrior culture that make them look more interesting than they have any right to be (their battlefield commanders issuing orders in High Gothic is a great little touch).

In fact, ADB’s writing of characters always seems to be at its best where it deals with duality: Lorgar’s inscrutable motives, Angron’s position between a tragic hero and a monster, the legions’ duality or even the surprising depth of minor characters.

And, beyond all that, the book is of course a goldmine for little bitz and pieces of lore, from the World Eaters’ battle traditions and gladiatorial bouts to their affected bastard language of Nagrakali: These guys may fall to frenzy and bloodlust when on the battlefield, but for what may the first time ever, you can actually imagine them off the battlefield as well — no mean feat!

So, are there any negatives?

For one, this is, after all, only one book in a series. This means that most of the plot will only make sense to you if you do at least have an idea of the overarching narrative: If you’ve never heard about the Word Bearers’ machinations, about what happened on Calth or about the Thousand Sons’ being torn apart by the Space Wolves, you’ll be left scratching your head more than once. And even if you have a relatively good grasp of the bigger events, some references and allusions might still go over your head. That’s not really the author’s fault, though — if anything, I feel dread at the prospect of now having to read other HH novels written by less talented people…

Nevertheless, if you are simply looking for a great SciFi novel to pass the time, this might not be it: Too much stuff will be lost on you, and there are probably enough self-contained storylines of similar quality that are easier to get into. And it goes without saying that the book will prove utterly impenetrable to those without any knowledge of the attached GW universe.
If, however, you have a general idea of the overarching HH storyline – not necessarily from reading other HH novels, but from a mix of reading the different (Chaos) Space Marine codizes over the years and doing a bit of scrounging around for background at places like the Lexicanum or the Warhammer 40k Wiki – you’re good to go: That was my preparation going into this novel, and I belive it was enough.

For every World Eaters player, Betrayer is, of course, a must buy, for the amount of background lore alone. But there’s a great story beyond all that, and the book is truly great as tie-in fiction, and still very good on its own terms: I, for one, will probably pick up more of ABD’s novels (I am told his Night Lords stuff is the shitz) and look forward to his Black Legion series — or maybe some more World Eaters stuff?

But what does it all mean for Khorne’s Eternal Hunt? I’ll be honest with you: I did of course fear that parts (or most) of my own fluff would be ivalidated by this novel. But not only does ABD himself address the fact that several versions of events exist in the background (in a surprisingly clever throwaway scene), but he also succeeds at creating a canvas for your own fluff rather than enforcing his own view of things (as some authors have been known to do…). So while small readjustments to my own background may be in order, I relish the chance to make the 4th assault company even more interesting and colourful. In fact, there might be a separate post in that somewhere

What about you, though: Have you read the book? How do you feel about it? And was this review helpful to you? Please feel free to share whatever thoughts you might have in the comments section!

And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

P.S. Oh yeah, before I forget; In case you didn’t gather as much from my rambling above, this book is also totally worth it.

Another week, and I am still happily slicing and shaving my way through the Centurion kit in an attempt to build a squad of three counts as Obliterators for my World Eaters. I do of course realise that you have been seeing quite a bit of this particular endeavour, but in all fairness, it has been a rather complex conversion project to pull off.

So, today I will show you a look at both the updated models you already know as well as the third and final member of my “Behemoths”

First up, I have finally managed to find a solution for the last thing I wanted to add to my Behemoth models: the clawed feet. After having experimented with numerous options to add some claws to the Centurion feet without having the whole thing end up looking ridiculous, I tried using the claws from Warp Talon feet. And while this element was mainly an attempt to make the models look less loyalist and more brutal, seeing how those talons make the feet look better proportioned as well for some reason really was a nice surprise! So it goes without saying that I picked up that element for the rest of the squad as well.

Here are the two models you already know, complete with clawed feet and all:

These are pretty much 100% finished at this point, and I hope I’ll get around to painting one of them soon.

But, like I already said above, I couldn’t help myself and had to start working on the third model. Here are some WIP impressions:

The body came together fairly easily: The Centurions are a rather complex kit, but after putting together two or three of them, you basically know the drill — hence the title of this post! Once again, I added some additional armour plates and some sinister detail in order to make the model look like a member of the traitor legions.

I also added some chest-mounted plasma pistols at the suggestion of fellow hobbyist meade over at Dakka:

“Plasma nipples”, he called them. Some people…

The next step was to sort out the arms, and I once again tried to use two different weapons in order to represent the Behemoth’s versatile armament:

A stock lascannon from the Centurion kit ended up on the left arm — and might have to be decorated with some suitably chaotic bitz. The right arm wields a Plasma cannon (converted from the Dark Vengeance Plasma gunner’s weapon and a couple of bitz).

Since the weapon couldn’t be made to use the same points of attachment as the stock Centurion weapons, I had to improvise slightly. This was also the one instance where I needed to build my own cabling instead of relying on the stock parts that came with the Centurions, and it was more work than it had any right to be. This is also why the cables turn into a horrible, spiky Talos spine somewhere along the way:

All in all, though, I am really rather happy with how these conversions have turned out: At long last, I have a squad of Obliterators that actually fits the overall theme of my army. That said, I really don’t see myself getting another box of these: The kit is great and building these models has been an interesting experience, but the Centurions as a kit are just slightly too complex for wanting to build lots and lots of them.

The next step, obviously, will be to paint up a first test model for the squad. I also really want to see one of these guys painted at last, so let’s hope I’ll be able to give you an update on the progress soon. Until then, you’re always welcome share any feedback or criticism you might have!

And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

With very little time on my hands at the moment, I unfortunately lack the patience (and motivation) to crack out the paints and finally finish some of the stuff I have built, while my painting backlog is getting bigger and bigger. That is the bad news.

The good news is that, even while being completely swamped in work at the moment, my urge to create something hobby related remains as strong as ever, so what little hobby time I have at the moment is almost entirely given to converting and kitbashing, those most delicious of hobby activities — at least in my opinion

But what do I have to show for it? Well, today I would like to talk abouta pretty long running project of mine that started out as merely wanting to do something productive with some leftover bitz and then quickly spiralled out of control, as will occasionally happen with my hobby endeavours. So what is this about?

Everything started over a year ago, when cousin Andy gave me a WFB Chaos Lord on Manticore for my birthday. Now it shouldn’t surprise anybody that I quickly found a use for the fantastic Chaos Lord bitz that came with the kit: Some were used to create a wretched Chaos Sorcerer (to be used as a traitorous Primaris Psyker for my Traitor Guard), some others went into the creation of a Khorne Lord on Juggernaut that I have yet to show you.

But when all was said and done, there was still a whole Manticore left, and I didn’t really have any good ideas for that guy: He was simply too fantasy to be seamlessly absorbed into one of my 40k projects. The one idea that seemed to have some merit, then, was to try and use him for building something daemonic.

You see, my Khornate army is fairly short on daemons. And there’s a reason for that, of course: The image I have of my army doesn’t gel all that well with the stock daemon models: The warriors of the 4th assault company are doing their damnedest to keep functioning as a coherent fighting force, so it’s hard to picture hordes of daemons prancing around among them. If I were to use any daemons, they would have to fit the look and feel of my World Eaters, and the most obvious way of achieving that would be to make them fit the underlying metaphor of Khorne’s Eternal Hunt. So instead of regular Bloodletters, I might use packs of (slightly) daemonic hounds, hunting ahead of the legionaries. And instead of a standard Greater Daemon or Daemon Prince, I might use a huge daemonic beast an Avatar of the Hunt, if you will — hence my original idea to use the Manticore in that capacity.

However, my plan to build a four-legged monstrosity – not unlike a titanic Flesh Hound of Khorne – didn’t quite get off the ground: I would simply have needed too much sculpting to make that work, something far beyond my abilities (and my patience). So back into the box the Manticore went.

But then I came into the possession of some leftover Maulerfiend bitz, and my creativity was rekindled: What about using those to turn the Manticore into a hulking, biomechanic monster?

Here’s my first attempt at building such a beast:

As you can see, the combination of the Manticore body and the legs and arms from a Maulerfiend led to a hulking, almost apelike silhouette. While the model seemed malproportioned and brutish, I rather liked the look, though. It also got me thinking what this model would actually represent in my army, beyond simply being a way of using some leftover bitz.

The idea I came up with was that this monster would be used whenever a champion gets transformed into a Daemon Prince by a roll on the Chaos Boon Table. Now you might say that a) that seems to be a pretty specific and limited use for a model of this size and b) this monster doesn’t really fit the established look of a DP, right? Hear me out on this:

You see, A Daemon Prince doesn’t really fit the background of my army for several reasons: Lord Captain Lorimar is the supreme commander of the 4th, for one, so there wouldn’t possibly be any DP with more authority than him, least of all serving under him. What’s more, I feel the ascension to daemonhood wouldn’t necessarily be seen as a boon by the warriors of the 4th: The legionaries have done their best so far to keep mutation and madness at bay, rather electing to remain “human”, for lack of a better word. For them, being elevated to daemonhood would not be an ultimate price to be craved, but rather a horror not so far removed from the curse of spawndom. And with its hulking body, the WIP model seemed to reflect that: Where a “normal” Daemon Prince is a sinister, darkly angelic figure, and an embodiment of chaotic power and boundless ambition, I wanted my DP to look like this huge, malproportioned monster that is part ape, part hound and part Astartes. I imagine that, upon ascending, all the rage and fever for the hunt that a member of the 4th assault company has been bottling up for so long will overflow and turn him into a huge hunting beast, mindless and terrible.

So the next step in the conversion was bascially to make this guy look like he could actually have evolved out of an Astartes. And, of course, to add all kinds of bitz to make him look suitably imposing and monstrous:

As you can see in the pictures above, I added the warped remains of a CSM backpack and the shoulder pads from the regular Daemon Prince kit to hint at this guy’s Astartes origins. And the tail from the Manticore kit made the DP’s silhouette more interesting and ambiguous: The pose and proportions may seem pretty much like those of a gorilla, but the head and tail point more toward a hound or entirely daemonic creature.

I also started to use some GS to blend together the seemingly disparate parts:

You might have noticed that the model was still lacking some feet at this point. That was to become quite an issue, as fellow hobbyist Ben kindly sent me two sets of Maulerfiend hooves for this conversion, only for them to both be lost by those geniuses at the German postal service. Nuts!

Understandably enough, Ben didn’t have a third set of those hooves to spare, and with that setback, the conversion ground to a hold for a couple of months until another fellow German, Sagal, was kind enough to let me have some hooves from the WFB giant. That finally gave me the motivation I needed to work on the model some more. Here’s the model as it looks right now:

As you can see, I also changed the pose of the left arm to achieve a slightly different look: With both arms held in front of its body, too much of the model seemed to be obscured. The new hooves also gave the Deamon Prince a more upright pose than I had originally planned, and that particular element might need some more work.

At the same time, more GS and Liquid GS were used to make the transitions between the different parts of the body more organic and plausible. And I also emulated Dave Taylor’s really clever idea of adding metallic sockets to the creature’s body, using GS. I did this in order to represent the ports that used to connect the former Astartes’s black carapace to his power armour (For all those interested, Dave succinctly explains how to create this effect here).

The finished model will probably be gripping some crushed masonry (or maybe an equally crushed loyalist Astartes) in its right fist. And it goes without saying that I will have to design a suitably impressive base as well. Maybe I’ll use the base to make the model lean forwards a bit more, making it look like it was preparing to barrel forward on all fours, as suggested by DexterKong — as a matter of fact, the longer I keep working on this guy, the more questions arise. But even though some parts of the model still need to be sorted out, I rather like the overall effect. It is an eclectic creature, to be sure, but eclectic and malproportioned was what I was going for in the first place

While this project seems to come a bit out of the left field, I have really been working on this guy on and off for about a year now, and it seems like he’s finally nearing completion. Much has happened in the meantime, and TJ Atwell’s fantastic “Bull God” , using a slightly similar premise, almost made me ashamed to show you this silly little conversion of mine. But then, I think that, with a bit more work, this could really become yet another model to define the specific look and feel of my army, and I like that a lot!

And in gaming terms, I imagine the model could even be used as a reasonably convincing GD or Maulerfiend: Maybe that spiky tail could even count as lasher tendrils…?

Anyway, I realise that this model might be a bit of an acquired taste. But working on it has taught me a lot, and actually using these bitz for something is certainly preferable to keeping them in my cupboard of shame forever, right?

That said, I’d be happy to hear any thoughts and ideas you might have! Let me know what you think in the comments section!

And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Another week, and here I am, still happily pottering away in the small amount of hobby time I have. Let’s take a look:

First up, my kitbashed Daemon Prince. While reactions over here were pretty sparse, unfortunately, the forums provided more feedback this time around: I was happy to find out that the model was far better recieved than I had anticipated, plus I did get some extremely useful criticism out of the deal as well! So I ended up spending some more time on this guy, trying to take the various suggestions on board and further improve the model.

DexterKong, among others, remarked that he felt the original, more crouched pose was a better fit for the bestial, animalistic feel of the model. Dexter said that,

(…)in my mind I keep seeing this guy bounding forward on all fours.  In most of my visions of him, his front “paws” are on the ground, and his rear legs are kicked back in the air as he savagely runs at a target, like a wolf or a wild boar.  On the off-chance the limbs are not all attached, I would experiment with lowering his chest and head toward the ground, and go for more a quadrupedal pose.

Now while the original pose didn’t work for me (because it made the prince look like he was trying to hold on to the base for dear life), I certainly wanted to channel the look Dexter was talking about. So I slightly changed the pose of the left arm and made sure the model was posed closer to the ground. Here’s the result:

I am pretty happy with the pose and think that this is really the best of both worlds: The left arm is still held away from the body in a more open pose, but now it somehow looks less like the Daemon Prince is giving one of his underlings a paternal pat on the back and more like he’s mid-swing while tearing something apart.

Some people on the German forums pointed out that the model’s back seemed to feel a little empty, making it look too much like the monstrous mount it originated as. So I used a leftover Crypt Horror back piece to add some suitably gross vertebrae to the Daemon Prince’s back:

Since this picture was taken, some GS and Liquid GS have been used to blend in the new additions with the surrounding area, and the effect is pretty convincing. The picture also clearly shows the lumps of modelling putty used to fix the model in its more crouched pose — this will obviously have to be achieved by the design of the base on the finished model…

Speaking of which, the piece of wall on the base is really just a placeholder for now! Myfavourite approach would be to have the DP clutching the fallen window piece from the Honoured Imperium kit in its claw, although I’m not sure whether I should purchase that kit just for the one element. It’s a fantastic kit, though, so I am at least a little tempted…

All in all, I am hugely thankful for the constructive criticism I have received regarding this model,  because I think it has really managed to improve the Daemon Prince:

But the Daemon Prince is not the only model on my desk: Having to wait for the various coats of (Liquid) GS to dry left me with some time to kill, which I used to revisit and touch up some older models.

The first of these I tackled were some additional, kitbashed Raptors (called “Harriers” in my army). You might remember the first bunch of those I built and painted, back before the new plastic Raptor kit had even been released. Well, my Raptors were still missing some Meltagunners, so I whipped some up. I also built another champion for good measure, while I was at it

All three models are based on some leftover Khorne Berzerker bodies I picked up as part of an ebay auction a while ago. Most of these were in a pretty rough condition, but I swore to myself that I would find a way to use them. So with an influx of fresh bitz, I believe I may have managed to rescue them from the rubbish heap. Let’s take a closer look:

The first model is a fairly simple kitbash, just adding some new arms, a new head and weapon as well as a dash of chainmail to the existing berzerker body. I imagine all of these will look far less rough around the edges, once they are completely undercoated. I also added a MaxMini jump pack, since my other Raptor models so far are using the same bit.

The champion originally started out as an additional icon bearer, but I was just never all that happy with the icon, so I remade him as a champion (because you can never have enough champions, right?):

A Warp Talon claw nicely complemented his pose, so I used it instead of his original arm. The helmet is also a slightly more involved kitbash — a cookie goes to you if you manage to spot where the original helmet came from…

And finally, the third Raptor with another Meltagun:

For this guy, I was feeling a little more adventurous, so I borrowed an idea I had seen on somebody else’s thread (GuitaRasmus’s, I believe) to build a more interesting looking weapon for him.

Once I manage to get those painted – whenever that will be – I will have quite a few Raptors at my disposal. And I really like those guys, because they seem so right for a World Eaters army. Also, there is a special kind of joy in revisiting existing models after a while to give them a little extra flair and further improve them.

As a matter of fact, you might remember my post about going back to older models to spice them up, going the extra mile, as it were. Biohazard’s World Eaters bikers were what originally inspired me to write that post (and work on my squad of bikers back then), and now Brother Heinrich’s fantastic Night Lords bikers made me pick up the same squad yet again in order to add even more detail

Nothing big, though: I just added a couple of trophies and small weapons here and there, to make it look like these guys were used to living in the saddle. I also spent some time cleaning up the conversion work, drilling out all the barrels and exhaust pipes, etc. I only have the – slightly fuzzy – group picture right now, but I hope I’ll get around to showing you some better pictures (and maybe even more bikes) at some point in the future.
So yeah, as you can probably see, today’s post is not so much about breaking new developments as it is about incrementally doing small things that make your army better and better. Not as flashy as some huge centrepiece model, I’ll admit, but both approaches are important for an army, and both can be fun!

I am always interested in your feedback, so let me hear what you think in the comments section!

And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Those of you who have been following this blog for a while may already have asked themselves: What about all that INQ28 jazz? Any news? And indeed, it was with a bit of a shock that I realised how long it has been since I last showed you some servants of the Ordos.

Well, fear not, because I’ve recently begun to get some more work in on my various INQ28 retinues. Some of the following models may already be known to those who also frequent my forum threads, but that’s really all the more reason to post them here as well. Plus I could really use the relaxing effects of painting an INQ28 character or two at the moment, so there may be a couple of updates soon (I hope!).

Anyway, today I would mainly like to focus on the retinue of Inquisitor Titus Alvar, a member of the Ordo Xenos.

Alvar himself is a rather dapper fellow, and also an Imperial noble, so I thought he would merit a rather colourful collection of retainers. I picture Alvar as a bit of an adventurer, always taking expeditions to uncharted regions of Space in search of some Xenos artifact or other, so his warband should incorporate some muscle as well as some brains, with a dash of the exotic for flavour. Let’s take a look:

The first member of Alvar’s retinue is this veteran of the Imperial Guard I built quite a while ago:

I like the big gun and the “tough as nails” look and imagine this is the kind of guy Alvar makes use of when negotiations turn sour and diplomacy is no longer an option.

The second member of his retinue was also completed a while ago:

Kroot Pathfinder T’l'kess lost his entire kindred in an atrocity committed by a Tau officer (it’s a long story). He realised that his last chance to keep his bloodline alive might be to travel the stars in order to find members of the brood who left the planet prior to the genocide. During his travels, he met Inquisitor Alvar whom he now serves as a scout and pathfinder.

I imagine this character as a very dignified and honourable individual, a bit of a “noble savage”, if you will. It is also very much in character for a socialite like Alvar to have an “exotic” retainer like this in his warband, even though it might make the more puritan members of the Ordo Xenos foam at the mouth…

It also stands to reason that an Inquisitor exploring Xenos ruins would have need of a specialist in the field of archaeology. And indeed, while painting the model for Inquisitor Alvar, inspiration struck and made me want to convert one of the most underappreciated WFB plastic characters, the Empire Master Engineer — at least, it’s the only model that’s ALWAYS available at the FLGS and never sells out. And to be honest, it used to be the one model I couldn’t see myself using for anything. But it just seemed perfect for this:

Professor Abelard Marbray, of the Bastold Imperial Akademy, formerly one of the sector’s pre-eminent specialists on Xeno-archaelogy. That was before his scientific theories on the warp affinities of certain Xenos were shot down by Inquisitor Alvar at a social function, which rendered him the laughingstock of his colleagues. Alvar visited him afterwards, revealing that all of this had been a conscious move to discredit the Professor, since his theories had been too close to the truth for the Ordo Xenos’ comfort. The Professor was outraged at this, yet when Alvar offered him to join him – not to attain academic merits, but to learn the actual scientific truth – he eventually accepted.

As you can see, the model is a fairly straightforward conversion, with a couple of techy bitz and doodads added. Oh, and of course I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to have the the professor holding and contemplating a Necron skull:

After posting my model for Professor Marbray on the forums, fellow forumite (and actual archaeologist) Llamehead rightly pointed out that the model didn’t really carry all that much gear for excavations, considering his profession. So my options were to either clutter the model with yet more bitz, or construct an assistant for him to do the heavy lifting (or rather, digging). And even though I wanted to resist the urge to build yet another retainer for one of my Inquisitor’s retainers, I couldn’t help it. So I dived into my bitzbox and made an early mockup of a xeno-archaeologist in training:

In my imagination, this guy is a devout student of Professor Marbray and is thrilled by the chance to do the dirty work for his idol. I wanted him to look like he was checking something on a map in his left hand, while his right is holding a trusty old Laspistol. Oh, and I also added a guard backpack to him, as you can see, so he at least has a shovel

The rather frightened looking head from the Celestial Hurricanum kit seemed to be a perfect fit for him, plus it also creates a visual connection with Inquisitor Alvar, which I like. The model still needs some additional detail work, of course, but I think it already works reasonably well.

To round out Alvar’s scientific staff, I recently good a really good deal on the FW Tech Serrvitor for Inquisitor Solomon Lok who should make a pretty great Magos Xenobiologis with a bit of work…

A dandy like Alvar should also have some female members in his warband, of course. Finding suitable models across GW’s catalogue can be quite a bit of a challenge, however, so I had to improvise:

First up, I picked up Reaper’s Sasha Dubois model:

I normally stick to GW models, by and large, but in this case, I made an exception: I have loved this particular sculpt for a long time, plus I think she makes an excellent addition for an INQ28 warband. Granted, she may look slightly “stripperiffic” with that bared midriff, but it should be easy enough to paint that area as covered by a bodyglove. Here’s a link to a very nice, painted version of the model.

My plan for now is to call her Millerna Acheron and use her as an Interrogator for Inquisitor Alvar: It suits his character to have an attractive woman around as his assistant. At the same time, he’s shrewd enough to consciously give the impression that he just chose her as a pretty face to accompany him.

I also bought a box of Necromunda Esher gangers before GW sold out all their Specialist System models, and one of them will probably be added to Inquisitor Alvar’s retinue as some hired muscle:

Shiv Korlund is probably an ex-hive ganger and gunslinger and could be Alvar’s operative for whenever he has dealings in the underhive of a particular world. I also imagine she might have a rather interesting “kiss kiss slap” relationship with the guard veteran…

So those are the members of Inquisitor Alvar’s retinue so far: I think it’s a rather interesting cast of characters, and it will be fun to further flesh them out. It’s also remarkable how things just started falling into place once I had begun to work on the warband! Of course I’d like to hear any suggestions you might have!

Those were not the only INQ28 models I have been working on, though: Some of you might remember the WIP Sun Cultist I posted a while ago:

The model is based on a Dark Eldar Wych and a couple of different bitz. Getting this character to work turned out to be quite a task! However, I have recently managed to complete the basic build of the model:

I now see her more as a bodyguard than a cultist, to be honest: I believe her ostentatious quasi-renaissance outfit makes her look like the trained personal guard of a powerful spirelord, with her movements like those of a dancer: elegant but deadly. The model will yet need some more work, and I’ll need to find a warband for her as well, but I am now feeling really happy with the overall look of the model for the first time.

The last model I want to show you today is still very rough around the edges. It is also merely a fun little project, inspired by a brilliant little conversion I discovered on one of the German forums. I give you the TAU SAMURAI:

Granted, I am certainly not the first person to notice the distinctly japanese look about the new Tau models. Still, building a mockup for a Tau samurai has been a lot of fun so far, even if the model will need quite a bit more work — and I’ll admit it’s a slightly goofy idea, of course…

All in all, building some new INQ28 models – or combining existing models into a warband – is always a breath of fresh air. I hope I’ll be able to get some of these characters painted some time in the next weeks — let’s keep our fingers crossed! Oh, and let me know whatever feedback you might have, of course!

As always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Nothing new to look at this week, since my weekend was spent meeting old friends and visiting my godchild (six months old now). Both activities were really awesome, but neither had anything to do with tabletop wargaming, obviously, so I didn’t get any new content out of the experience

The good news is that you can probably look forward to a more substantial update next week! And just so you don’t feel completely neglected, let me share a piece of fluff I wrote to add some additional texture to my World Eaters army, Khorne’s Eternal Hunt. Enjoy:

Rites of Passage

The cavernous chamber rang with the sound of a thousand hammers striking an anvil. Flames blazed in the furnace at the end of the hall, casting their haphazard light across the countless trophies and weapons arrayed on the monumental walls, creating an ever changing play of jagged shadows.
One by one, the hammers fell silent and the assembled hunters waited.

With the sound of grinding metal, Khoron the Undying, Keeper of Trophies, strode from the shadows to where a bier had been placed. On it lay the dead body of Huntmaster Ferax, his armour torn and broken in a hundred places, his pale flesh still smeared with both his blood and that of his enemies. Ferax had finally collapsed amidst a circle of corpses, with all of his assailants dead around him, before he had allowed himself to die. Now he was cold and dead, his scarred features strangely peaceful.

The ancient Dreadnought addressed the assembled members of the company, his voice impossibly deep and metallic, the flames casting their flickering light on his brazen skull mask:

“We have assembled here to perform the rites of passage for this servant of Khorne. He took the lives of his enemies, and now his life has been taken in turn. He died a warrior in this long war, and I call him worthy of the eternal battles that await him in our lord’s realm. Let he who would say otherwise speak now or forever hold his peace.”

Nothing but silence greeted Khoron’s challenge: Ferax had been a champion of the company, and nobody would have dared to doubt his prowess.

After a moment of silence, Khoron turned away from the hunters “It is time”, he rasped.

From the shadows emerged Huntmaster Torus, the Taker of Skulls. His face was gaunt and entirely without expression, his eyes hooded in deep shadow. With the soft scraping of armour, Torus hefted his enormous axe, and with one swing, ritually severed the corpse`s head. Then the bier holding the now headless body slowly glided towards the furnace.

“This hunter’s passage is paid for”, Khoron intoned, “Lord of battles, take his skull as you have taken the ones that he has offered you before. Lord of hunger, feast him at your table. Lord of thirst, give him drink, that he may endure in your realm. Great Khorne, welcome your servant and know his worth.”

“He broke his chains and knew freedom”, Khoron boomed.

“He died a free man”, came the answer of the hunters.

“His hunt is now over.”

“But he still has his honour.”

As the final words were spoken, the body had been completely engulfed in the flames of the furnace. The flames played in the eyes of the assembled Astartes, and all was silent once more.

***

“Step forward and be counted.”

Lord Lorimar’s abyssal growl matched that of the ancient dreadnought. Five hunters moved into the light, each of them stripped to the waist, their triumph ropes plain for all to see amidst their corded muscle and scarred flesh. They were Ferax’s lieutenants, each of them now a contender for the position of Huntmaster. In the dim firelight, their faces were masklike and unreadable.

“Ferax’s hunting party is in need of a new leader. As was taught to us by our primarch and lord father, his successor will be chosen by a trial of blood and fire. I shall name he who is the last to stand on the Hot Dust Huntmaster, as it has always been.”

“And evermore shall be so” , came the murmured reply of the assembled hunters.

Lorimar nodded solemnly.

“Let the games begin.”

As always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Right, I promised you a more substantial update for this week, and I fully intend to keep my promise! So what is this about?

World Eaters riding juggernauts of Khorne, often referred to as “Brazen Knights”, are a bit of an ongoing dream for those of us who have pledged themselves both to the Blood God and the XIIth Astartes Legion. Even the fact that no rules for using such a squad on the table are available doesn’t stop hobbyists all over the world from building their own version of this Khornate cavalry. As a matter of fact, I myself also built and painted a test piece some time ago:

My original plan was to add a couple of models to form an entire squad, but for some reason the plan fell by the wayside for a while, and then GW went and released their spectacular Skullcrushers of Khorne for WFB.

And of course, it didn’t take me long to pick up the kit: After all, it’s chock-full of fantastic Khornate bits and bobs to squirrel away for conversion projects: If you want to add some extra flavour to your World Eaters army, that kit is the place to go! Plus you get three juggernauts and their riders on top — what’s not to love?

Well, here’s the problem: So far, I had mainly been using pieces from the kit to spice up some Chosen and Biker models as well as building special characters for my army, such as my custom Warpsmith, Huntmaster Deracin, or even the supreme commander of the fourth assault company, Lord Captain Lorimar. The actual centrepiece of the kit, the juggernauts and riders, sat mostly untouched in my bitzbox while I squandered all the beautiful little bitz on different models

But no more, because this last weekend finally gave me some time to build three Brazen Knights! Of course I do realise that this leaves me with even more unpainted stuff in my backlog, but I simply cannot help it — kitbashing World Eaters is just so much fun!

So what did I want to achieve? The Skullcrushers are fantastic models in their own right, but I did want to make them look a little more 40k: The body and legs of the Skullcrushers are very archaic and medieval looking, but they are also fantastically detailed (and, to make matters worse, a bit bigger than your standard Marine parts). So I wouldn’t cut them up in the attempt to make them look more futuristic, but would rather try to incorporate elements that are fairly representative of Chaos Space Marines, such as chainswords, power weapons, backpacks and CSM shoulderpads.

I also didn’t want to use the – admittedly really cool – lances that came with the kit, because those would make the models look a little too static and encumbered for my taste. I went for less cumbersome weapons, and since there are no official rules for these guys anyway, I was free to do as I pleased, with the Rule of Cool as my only guideline.

And, my last objective: I wanted to make each of these guys look like a true champion: Winning the gift of a daemonic steed from the Blod God is certainly no mean feat! So each of the models would have to look the part, impressive enough to serve as a Chaos Lord in any lesser force.

Now while the models were taking shape, I had yet another idea: Fellow hobbyist Brother Heinrich has been offering people to name models in his (fantastic) Night Lords army for a while now. I myself have been thus immortalised as a heavy weapons specialist in the Night Lords’ 15th company (more on that soon, I guess). And while I was working on my Brazen Knights, or Brazen Hunters, as it were, I realised that I too wanted to take the opportunity to honour some fellow hobbyists who have enormously inspired me in the past.

Now choosing three people to be honoured in this way might seem a tad unfair — after all, there are many more people who have managed to inspire me and influence my hobby life over these last years, and each of them would be worthy of their own model. So for now, in order to keep things fair, I chose the three guys whose work has provided the most inspiration for my actual World Eaters army — after all, it makes sense that they should earn a place in the army they helped to shape, right?

Anyway, before I knew it, my three Brazen Hunters had been assembled. Of course they will need some more work and attention to detail here and there, but I am already pretty pleased with them. Let me introduce you:

Brother Hynnark:

Since I knew that one of the juggernaut bodies would be charging forward aggressively, I wanted a rider to match that look, swinging his sword in a wide arc and aggressively snarling at the oncoming enemy. I think the finished piece captures that look fairly convincingly!

The sword came from the Bloodletters of Khorne, since I think their sinister, serrated Hellblades make for a perfect weapon for any champion of Khorne. The arm holding the blade was slightly tweaked in such a way that it looked like Hynnark was swinging his sword at his opponents while plowing through them on the back of his daemonic mount.

When it came to choosing a face for this guy, the bare head of the GK Nemesis Dreadknight pilot came in handy, since the cabling on the head made for perfect Butcher’s Nails. The rim of the psychic hood was carefully shaved down to make it look like the cables were emerging from the champion’s very head. And finally, a very cool plastic power fist from the mid-90s was used on the model’s other hand. I only ever had one of these in my bitzbox, and I thought this was a worthy occasion to use it!

Brother Hynnark was named for fellow hobbyist Brother Heinrich, whose brilliant Night Lords army is not only a constant source of inspiration, but who has also made me look at the individuals in the army in a new way. Cheers, mate!

Next up, Brother Rask:

I knew I wanted to make use of the fantastic banner that came with the Blood Crushers, so Brother Rask became a favoured banner bearer of his god. To balance out the extra archaic element, I went for a chainsword in his left hand — the essential 40k weapon, if you ask me. The model also received a rebreather head as another piece of visual shorthand for the futuristic setting. I also like this particular head a lot, since it seems grizzled and scarred without being over the top.

The model was named for none other than the ever-inspirational GuitaRasmus, who owns some of the snazziest World Eaters on the interwebz and whose mindblowing kitbashes are a constant motivation for me to push the envelope on my own conversions instead of just settling for “good enough”.

And finally, a champion among champions, I give you Brother Garic the Hound:

I really went all out on this model, making it look like Garic was issuing a challenge to an opponent. A sword from the WFB Chaos Knights made for a suitably impressive weapon, while the left arm came from the Raptor/Warp Talon kit, featuring one of my favourite lightning claws in the entire set.

Maybe you’ll remember that shouting head with the mohawk from my look at the Centurion kit. Even then, I was sure that it was the perfect face for a World Eater, and I believe this model offers pretty good proof of that!

Garic is my favourite model in the squad, and who better to choose as his alter ego than my buddy Biohazard, whose boundless generosity in exchanging bitz as well as ideas have made many of my projects possible in the first place. And his kitbashes, particularly his amazing daemon engines, are truly something to behold as well! Here’s to you, buddy!

So cheers, guys! I hope you like your new function in Khorne’s Eternal Hunt! And I hope you like the models I chose for you! As for the names, I tried to find a middle ground between the design sensibilities of my army and either your true names or forum handles. If any of you should want to come up with a better name for “his” model, though, just shoot me a message! Likewise, if you have any suggestions regarding what to add to the models, let me know as well!

In any case, these guys do need some more detail work as well as a couple of additional bitz. And there will have to be a Chaos Lord on juggernaut to lead the squad, of course…

Oh, and I actually think I may continue to name models in the honour of fellow hobbyists! And with a long list of spectacularly talented and generally awesome people to work through – PDH, TJ Atwell, DexterKong, migusla or Kari, to name just a few – I imagine this army will keep expanding for a looong time

So yeah, here are my three Brazen Hunters together, ready for a new day of hunting:

So what do you think? Was I successful in coming up with some badass models? Are they 40k enough? I’d love to hear your feedback in the comments section!

And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Today I would like to talk about one of my favourite hobby blogs as well as one of my favourite hobby artists. So what is this about?

It has been almost exactly one year since Ron Saikowski last updated his blog, From the Warp, and told the community he was taking some time off from blogging. And even in a hobby scene as full of amazing hobby blogs as this, the absence of new content on FTW is still very keenly felt — at least by me.

But why? And what was/is so great about FTW in the first place? Allow me to elaborate:

When I got back into the hobby in 2010 after a longer hiatus, I was amazed and cowed in equal parts by the quality of the hobby content that could be found online: While I had been away, it seemed like everyone and their cousin had become expert painters, wielding superior techniques and baffling creativity. The presence of such a treasure trove of hobby related content proved to be equally exciting and intimidating: How was I to get back into all this and hope to build an army that I could truly be proud of? In any case, it seemed like an even more daunting task than it had been during my teens.

And then I discovered FTW, and things started to fall into place.

You see, like many other hobby blogs on the internet, FTW is full of beautifully painted models and valuable hobby advice. But while I love many blogs and read them regularly, no other site has come close to FTW when it comes to actually helping hobbyists, to teach them new stuff and to encourage them to step outside their comfort zone. At the same time, if you are simply in it for the pretty pictures, FTW should be right up your alley: Ron’s style of gritty realism is one of the most effective and elegant approaches I have seen in our hobby. And I’ll just take the liberty to intersperse my ramblings in this post with pictures of some of my favourite models of his — it goes without saying that none of these were built and painted by me. I own none of this stuff. Credit must go to Ron Saikowski.

This Cataphractii Terminator showcases one of Ron’s trademark conversion recipes, using cardboard-turned-into-plasticard to transform standard plastic terminators into Pre-Heresy individuals before FW ever released their own versions and before “Cataphractii” was even a word.
Model built and painted by Ron Saikowski.

It’s hard to pick my favourite part of FTW, as a matter of fact: The stunningly effective, yet surprisingly simple, recipes for achieving certain painting effects? The clean and seamless conversion work? The useful reviews of hobby products (and the mention of possible alternatives) or the insightful commentary about the hobby at large? All of these were reasons for why FTW still seems like such a great blog.

A fantastic converted Astartes chaplain, based on the pose of GW’s Gabriel Seth model.
Model built by Ron Saikowski

But at the heart of it all lies Ron’s own approach to matters: When posting on his blog, he was always, in the truest sense of the word, a scholar and a gentlemen: always helpful and willing to explain every step of his work until everyone was content and carefully addressing comments and suggestions made by the readers. And while Ron’s work taught me countless neat things, his posts never seemed like he was trying to lecture people of convert them to the “right” way of doing things in our hobby.  In fact, there has probably never been a nicer, more pleasant blogger in our particular neck of the woods..uh webz

Ron’s stunningly effective Pre-Heresy jetbike conversion: I have used the same approach to build jetbikes for my small Custodes force.
Model built and painted by Ron Saikowski

Another great thing is that Ron’s recipes and techniques are so great precisely because they can be used by normal people. Now we all enjoy looking at some GD level painting from time to time, but when it comes to getting our armies painted, we are happy enough to find a recipe that works and stick with it. FTW has always been a perfect resource in this respect, featuring countless wonderful painting recipes without the need for twenty extra-thin layers of paint in order to build up a certain hue. No freehanding under a microscope with a paintbrush the width of a horse hair here, but rather a way of doing things that produces awesome results with a modicum of work.

Ron’s Alpha Legion recipe is an example of a fairly simple approach that still yields awesome results.
Model bult and painted by Ron Saikowski

In fact, I’ll go out on a limb here and say that Ron remains one of my favourite painters for the reason that his pieces are perfectly realised: Poe described a thing called “Unity of effect”, arguing that all parts of a literary work should work towards the intended effect in an interlocking pattern. And this is very true of Ron’s paintjobs: While there may be painters who can pull of even more amazing stunts when it comes to blending, glazing, freehands or what have you, Ron’s models always look completely realised: All of the different colours and effects work together to create a model that looks like a perfect little slice of the 40k universe. Nothing detracts from the overall effect. The models seem like they could just step down from their bases and lay waste to your desktop. I cannot, for the life of me, think of a more successful way of painting!

The Novamarines’ colour scheme always seemed pretty gimmicky to me. But given Ron’s “unity of effect” approach, it is transformed into something that seems quite plausible.
Model built and Painted by Ron Saikowski

And while the blog is mostly about Space Marines, not only will non-Astartes players find much to like about the recipes and tutorials featured on FTW, but Ron is also sometimes at his best when he isn’t actually doing Marines. Take a look:

A fantastic DKOK model built using second party bitz.
Model built and painted by Ron Saikowski

A very successful attempt at kitbashing an Eversor Assassin from nothing but plastic parts: This guy inspired me to build my own “Operative Sigma”.
Model built and painted by Ron Saikowski

A very evocative and “Blanchian” Imperial Mystic, unfortunately Ron’s only foray into the wonderful world of INQ28.
Model built and painted by Ron Saikowski

If all of this reads like a gushing love letter to you, that’s because it it: To date, FTW remains one of my favourite hobby resources, and I think it’s a crying shame that it isn’t updated anymore. In fact, I still regularly check whether there are any new updates — just in case…

The good news, though, is that all of the existing amazing content is still there for you to check out and discover. Ron’s tutorials are still every bit as helpful as they were when he first posted them. And the models are still inspiring and beautiful, a testament to effective painting. In fact, I would argue that From the Warp is still one of the most important hobby resources for those active in the hobby or just getting into it, and a priceless treasure trove of hobby knowledge.

Oldies but goldies: Ron’s own “Lustwing”, an army of Emperor’s Children Terminators. Just check out the scratchbuilt Pre-Heresy armour!
Models built and painted by Ron Saikowski

So, Ron, if you’re reading this: Thanks for all the amazing work! We owe you big time! And here’s hoping that you’ll eventually get back to updating your blog! And to you readers: FTW should really be part of your regular hobby diet, if only to check out all of the great ideas and tips. So head on over there right now and bookmark that page! And if you’ve been a regular reader of FTW before, well, you know what I am talking about anyway, right?

In closing, while most of the content on FTW is truly amazing, here are a couple of personal favourites of mine that I think you should check out:

Ron’s Pre-Heresy Jetbike conversion

Converting a skull helmet for chaplains or Dark Apostles

Ron’s very own “Lustwing”, a counts as Deathwing force consisting of Emperor’s Children Terminators.

Truly heartwarming: Ron’s Chaos Daemon based on a sketch by his daughter

How to make your Space Marine Captain stand out

His collection of advice on basing is still essential reading for every hobbyist, if you ask me.

So what’s your opinion on FTW? And has anyone been hearing from Ron, perchance? Let me know what you think in the comments!

And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

A Dark Vengeance Chaplain painted by Ron: One of his most recent models, and possibly my favourite!
Model painted by Ron Saikowski

There I was, thinking that my holiday vacation would give me more time for hobby-related stuff, but so far all the Christmas preparations have rendered this hope null and void — out of the frying pan and into the fire, so to speak.

Fear not, though, because I am in the priviledged position of letting other hobbyists do my work for me. For today’s update, I’d like to show you glimpses at two highly inpirational hobby projects that double as crowning hobby moments of awesome for me – but we’ll get to that in a minute…

1. “Mini Me”

You may already have heard of Brother Heinrich’s amazing Night Lords thread over at The Bolter and Chainsword, and I already mentioned that Heinrich was awesome enough to immortalise various hobbyists as models in his army (I chose to repay the favour by turning him into one of my Brazen Hunters). Anyway, Brother Heinrich has been hard at work for the last few weeks, and so I can now proudly present a miniature version of me serving in the Night Lords’ 15th company under the nom de guerre of Brother Berias. Check this out:

Models built and painted by Brother Heinrich

I am the guy on the right, rocking that awesome custom Reaper Autocannon. On the left you can see the Night Lords avatar of fellow hobbyist Dragonkin Arenis, now my partner in bloodshed for the millennia to come.

models built and painted by Brother Heinrich

Not only do I love the weapon and choice of helmet, but my favourite part may be the half-deathmask Brother Heinrich painted onto the model’s helmet. Take a look:

models built and painted by Brother Heinrich

Together with three other weapon teams, these guys will be used as counts-as Obliterators in Heinrich’s army — a perfect way of representing that particular choice, if you ask me! Here’s the merry little band of rascals:

And while the models are amazing enough on their own, 1000Heathens also did a killer job on the accompanying piece of background he wrote. So be sure to check it out, along with the rest of this stunning force, over at Heinrich’s B&C thread. And, of course, a huge thank you for Brother Heinrich for this fantastic opportunity!

2. Images from a past life

Now this second thing is just as awesome, and for slightly similar reasons. Fellow German hobbyist AgnostosTheos has been building and painting one of the most impressive Pre-Heresy World Eaters armies on the net. And while I myself have no ambition to start a pre-heresy Astartes army (or rather, yet another one next to my kitbashed Custodes), I couldn’t help but wonder what “30k” versions of the characters making up Khorne’s Eternal Hunt would look like. So I approached AgnostosTheos and asked him whether he was game for a small experiment: Would he be interested in building some 30k versions of my characters for his army? Being an all around nice guy, he agreed.

And now imagine my happiness when he just posted the first two characters just the other day. So let me show you both of these characters, with their background as well as their 30k and 40k versions, respectively. Here we go:

model built and painted by AgnostosTheos

Brother Marax the Fallen

When Lorimar ascended to the rank of captain of the 4th assault company, brother Marax stood at his side. Likewise, during the years of the Great Crusade, he proved to be a loyal retainer, time and time again.

But after Marax had undergone the psychosurgical treatments introduced to the legion by its primarch Angron, he began to change. The occasions when Marax would succumb to frenzy and insatiable bloodlust on the field of battle grew ever more frequent. But the negative effects of this development were ignored, for Marax had become an insurmountable warrior. While the World Eaters grew more and more fervent in their worship of Khorne, Marax was one of those who welcomed the bloody rituals. During all this time, Lorimar kept his brother under close scrutiny, for he feared what Marax might become. Though he was a force of nature on the battlefield, his frenzy made him more and more difficult to control.

The Skalathrax campaign, during which the legion tore itself apart in a single night, marked the decisive point in the tale of Marax.  After Kharn the Betrayer had begun the senseless slaughter, Lorimar had to use all of his authority to keep at least his company together as an organised force. But amidst the chaos of blood and flame, he was opposed by Marax. The once loyal battle brother considered Lorimar’s refusal of bloody slaughter to be treason and threw himself at his captain, filled with daemonic rage.

While the World Eaters were tearing each other apart, Lorimar and Marax were locked in a fight for life and death of their own.
Marax was an unfathomably powerful warrior, and his anger transformed him into a whirlwind of destruction, but in the end, it was his rage that spelt his doom: He fell for a feint and was almost cut in two by Lorimar’s axe. The battle was decided.

Even with death drawing near, Marax still tried to reach his foe. When he breathed his last, Lorimar, towering over his shattered body, promised him this: He would receive a grave that was worthy of a true warrior. And he would be feared for eternity.

Apothecary Dumah had to employ every mystery of his art to trap the last spark of life within the shattered form of Marax. But he was successful: Marax was interred into the sarcophagus of a dreadnought and thus sentenced to an eternity of war – truly a worthy grave for a warrior.

Being trapped inside the dreadnought for millennia has irrevocably shattered Marax’s mind, and all that might have been left of the once proud warrior has been drowned in a sea of bloodlust and insanity. When the 4th assault company is not at war, his eternal grave is secured within a stasis field, which is only deactivated once the battle begins. On the battlefield, he rushes forward like a wild beast, tearing apart enemies and war machines alike with crackling lightning claws, howling with rage and hatred. And it is not easy to decide who fears Marax more: Those who have to face him in battle or the warriors of the 4th assault company themselves, to whom he has become an undying reminder of what will befall them, should they give in to the curse of blood frenzy.

So, meet the 30k version of Brother Marax: By the look of the model, Marax is already well on his way to becoming and unstoppable madman by this point. And isn’t it heartening to see how he has stuck with his trademark weapons for over 10,000 years? Awww….

model built and painted by AgnostosTheos

And here’s the second character in his “youth”. Take a look:

model built and painted by AgnostosTheos

Brother Khoron the Undying, Keeper of Trophies

In a way, Khoron the Undying was old already when the World Eaters legion was still young. Having been a warrior from a very early age, he was already a battle-hardened veteran, forged in the fires of the Unification Wars, when Lorimar ascended to command of the 4th assault company. Brother Khoron had seen battle and he had the scars to prove it. He served unter Lorimar’s command, but he was a trusted friend of the young Captain, full of experience and wisdom and gifted with a deep understanding of what it was that bound the legionaries together as brothers. He stood with Lorimar during his search for an identity for the legion. And he stood with him when the Captain decided to follow his Primarch to Terra to depose the false Emperor. For many years, he was a tower of strength for the company and came to be respectfully called “older brother” by the legionaries.

Shortly after the Skalathrax campaign had sundered the legion, Khoron was mortally wounded during a hunt. The man who had survived a thousand battles was powerless in the end, as the alien powers of a Xenos weapon tore his body apart. With his dying breath, he implored Lorimar to let him continue fighting, accepting the dangers of being entombed within the sarcophagus of a Dreadnought. Lorimar was hesitant, for he had witnessed the effects of such incarceration on the Fallen, but in the end he granted his old friend’s wish.

And thus the “older brother” became the being known as the Undying. For the last millennia, his colossal frame has continued to be a sight of inspiration to his brothers. Where Marax the Fallen is a warning of the damnation awaiting the company, the Undying symbolises a way of keeping this grisly fate at bay. It is only at the most chaotic moments of battle that he will succumb to rage and frenzy, and each time this happens, his brothers hope that he will come to eventually. And they fear the day when their older brother’s mind will finally cave in on itself.

When not in battle, Khoron the Undying serves as a master of rites to the company, residing in the Hall of Hunters aboard the company’s capital ship, Aeternus Venator. There he guards the trophies and weapons assembled by the Warriors of Khorne’s Eternal Hunt and presides over the ceremonies held by the legionaries since the times of the Great Crusade.

I love how the face used by AgnostosTheos captures Khoron as an older, more grizzled veteran, even during the days of the Heresy. And the skull on his chestplate could even be seen as a shoutout to his later countenance…

model built and painted by AgnostosTheos

Anyway, this is clearly a fantastic chance of getting a glimpse at the past lives of the legionaries in the 4th assault company. And AgnostosTheos‘ paintjobs and conversions are more than worthy representations for the characters — in fact, his versions are more than giving me a run for my money

Will we see more glimpses at this unremembered empire, I wonder? What would Lord Captain Lorimar have looked like at that time? Hmm…

In any case, many thanks to AgnostosTheos for this lovely and unexpected Christmas present! Be sure to check out his WIP thread as well as his awesome Flickr gallery!
So yeah, two awesome examples of me somehow managing to wiggle my way into other people’s hobby endeavours
So, in closing, I wish you all a very happy Christmas, and be sure to check back in the coming days, when we’ll be taking a look at this year’s installment of the annual Eternal Hunt Awards!

As always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Hey everyone, update time

While the first week of my longer vacation was mainly spent sleeping, eating and playing up all the videogames I didn’t have time for during those last  stressful weeks and months, I do of course hope that you all had a very merry Christmas! Now with the end of the year fast approaching, it’s time again for a retrospective on the releases, hobby developments and outstanding hobby achievements of this past year. So I welcome you to the second annual Eternal Hunt Awards!

Let’s kick it off with a look at the industry. Let me tell you what I did and didn’t like this year, and for what reasons:

Best release of 2013:

1st place: Khorne Lord of Skulls

Now I do of course realise that this may be a controversial choice, but the longer I thought about it, the clearer it became to me that this model deserves the top spot in my personal list. Is it because I am a huge Khorne fanboy? That’s certainly a part of it, yes. But there’s more: For one, I can still recall the moment I first laid eyes on this model when pictures were leaked over on Dakka. I actually sat there with my mouth open for a while, and that doesn’t happen all that often. I was stunned — and not the bad kind of stunned where you’re just preparing to emit and earth-shattering groan.

While tons and tons of scorn may have been heaped upon this model online, I love it, pure and simple. It embodies the kind of models we dreamed of during our childhood and teenage years, but that could never have been possibly produced. Heck, GW even had to introduce a dedicated scale – Epic 40,000 – to feature battles between models at that scale. And looking back on those models now, we would never have guessed that it would one day be possible to add huge walkers, tanks and all kinds of superheavies to our forces at 28mm. Then Forgeworld came, and provided you were willing (and able) to sell a kidney, you could use Titans and Greater Daemons that really deserved the name. And then, a relatively short time ago, GW proper actually started to produce plastic kits at that scale. And here we are now, with a kind of model we could only imagine in our wildest dreams when we were children, available in glorious plastic. GW have taken my childish dreams and given them form. Is the resulting model realistic? Certainly not. Is it too OTT and corny? Quite possibly. But face it, guys and girls, this hobby of ours is certainly not the most grown up pasttime in the first place.

So while it may be a corny, ridiculous model in certain respects, and while I am not even sure I like the fact that the game has to get bigger all the time to accomodate stuff like this (more on that below), and while I am pretty sure that I’ll never get one for myself, there was one perfect moment in 2013 when my mouth hung agape in amazement at the coolness of a model. And if that model doesn’t deserve the top spot on this list, then nothing does.

Read my detailed opinion of the model here.

2nd place: Dreamforge Games releases

Mark Mondragon certainly deserves a place high on his list for his amazing models. Be it the amazing Eisenkern Stormtroopers pictured above or the two variants of huge walker, the Leviathan Crusader and Leviathan Mortis, these models are certainly giving GW a run for their money. The Stormtroopers may be slightly more futuristic than 40k players are used to, but they have that retro, faux-WWI/II aesthetic I enjoyed so much about the old Warzone models, and that alone was reason enough to pick them up. The sprues abound with extra bitz and conversion options, and I am more than a little ashamed to say that I have yet to complete my first test models — it’s certainly not due to any lack of quality!

The walkers are equally impressive, with lots and lots of options for customisation, and they even come in “good” and “evil” flavour, for those of us wanting to induct them into their 40k forces:

Leviathan Crusader by Dreamforge Games

Leviathan Mortis by Dreamforge Games

Dreamforge Games‘ releases deserve this spot on the list for another reason, though, even if the quality of the models would normally already be enough: These kits were made possible by a Kickstarter that spectacularly exceeded its original goal. It is only the one Kickstarter I have ever backed so far. And my first experience with this medium could not have any better: Mark Mondragon worked tirelessly to let the backers know which decisions had been taken and why and how far the products were along. He posted regular updates and went out of his way to accomodate backers’ wishes, even squeezing some additional bitz onto the sprues when it turned out there was some capacity left. If GW ever want to improve their communications with their customers, they could certainly do worse than take a look at how Mark approached these things.

So head over to Dreamforge Games’ website and check out their models. Chances are, you’ll be amazed — just as I was.

3rd place: Redesigned Dark Elves

GW’s designers always seem to be at their best when designing spointy, evil, elf people. Another case in point: This year’s complete revamp of the Dark Elves. And they are glorious! The redesign certainly puts them on par with their 40k cousins, the Dark Eldar, and that alone is no mean feat! Will I get a Dark Elf army and return to the Old World? No, certainly not. But just looking at these new kits already provides enough eye candy to tide me over until the next amazing chaos release…

Read my two-part review here and here.

Honorary mention: Betrayer

World Eaters players had precious little to go on when it came to their legion’s background and identity. The Horus Heresy releases from FW and Black Library did alleviate that problem, especially with the excellent short story “After Desh’ea” by Matthew Farrer. But the one book to really flesh out the legion was Aaron Dembski-Bowden’s Betrayer, and I cannot recomment it highly enough. Read my review here, in case you are interested.

II. Worst release/biggest disappointment of 2013

Well, good news first: As far as I am concerned, when it comes to the models GW have released this year, there really haven’t been all that many slipups from a design perspective. Sure, a couple of models were hit or miss, like some designs for the new WoC models, while others were just downright awkward (yes, I am looking at you, Loremaster of Hoeth). But all in all, not only did GW manage to keep up a relentless pace with their release schedule, the overall quality of the different releases also ranged from solid (High Elves) to mostly really cool (Space Marines) and even to  outstanding (Dark Elves). So instead of focusing on particularly bad models, of which there were precious few, let me instead address my biggest disappointments:

No Inquisitor-based Skirmish game

Well, it was certainly to good to be true: For quite a while there, the forums and rumour sites were awash with whisperings of an Inquisition-themed skirmish game at the 28mm scale. A codified version of INQ28/Inquisimunda, if you will. Unfortunately, nothing came of it. The good new, obviously, is that we still do have INQ28, Inquisimunda and the original 54mm Inquisitor, so the lack of new rules certainly doesn’t hurt all that much. Still, seeing the Inquisition being given the Dark Vengeance or Space Hulk treatment, complete with a unique collection of delicious plastic models would have been totally awesome – oh well, one can always dream…

Inquisition Codex

Instead of a skirmish game, we did get a digital codex to better use and represent the forces of the Inquisition in games of 40k. While the idea itself is great (and hints at the more obscure factions of the Inquisition in the new codex are a nice bit of fanservice), the overall book seems to be a rather slipshod effort, by the look of it. Which could become a problem if this digital release were to be used by GW to gauge the interest in the Inquisition: This codex could have been a great way of getting people who mainly focus on INQ28 these days “reacquainted” with 40k proper. That doesn’t really seem to have worked all that well, though. And if the codex leaves most of the people interested in the Inquisition cold, what hope is there of future Inquisition releases? Seems like a bit of a vicious cycle…

No love for the sisters

The Sisters of Battle, or Adepta Sororitas of late (can anybody explain to me why it’s not “Adeptus Sororitas”, like in the German version btw? Surely the fact that it’s composed of women doesn’t make the order itself feminine…), also got the short stick — again. Sure, waiting for plastic sisters seems a bit of a running gag at this point, but still…

I realise that all three things on this list effectively tie back into the same problem: GW just cannot seem their act together when it comes to the various factions of the Inquisition, their military arms and supporting organisations. Which is really mind-boggling, if you ask me, because they already really nailed it before. Twice.

The various Ordos of the Inquisition as well as the Adepta Sororitas are easily among the 40k universe’s most iconic and recognisable features, yet they somehow seem to mess up whenever they get near one of these factions. It’s just a crying shame…

Honorary mention: Azhog

On second thought, there was one model that really, really disappointed me:

Azhog was the star of the first Hobbit film for me. His hulking, malicious presence provided an excellent villain, even though he certainly isn’t the most well-rounded of characters. Then GW dropped the ball (or were possibly forced to drop the ball, due to some NDA nonsense) by not releasing an appropriate model for ages. And when the model finally was released, it somehow ended up far less impressive than I would have liked. I couldn’t even tell you precisely what’s wrong with the model, since it seems like a fairly accuate representation of the character design. But it doesn’t feel like that hulking, malicious brute I remember from the film.

III. Still on the fence about…

• Digital supplements and codex releases: Maybe this is just me. Maybe I just like paper too much. But I have yet to decide what I think about all those digital releases. It’s complicated too: On the one hand, releasing digital supplements seems like an awesome way of not only keeping the codices and rulebooks updated but also of introducing new models and squads. And they even bring back some of that “Chapter Approved” flavour, with alternative army lists and scenarios. I am even okay with the fact that they all cost money — I’d rather pay for something than never get it at all. But like I said, I like books on paper. A lot. And it somehow seems wrong that the (more expensive) book becomes the lesser product. And some of those smaller supplements and background pieces do seem a little…unconventionally priced, if you ask me. All in all, it still seems like a bit of a two-edged sword at this point: If GW manage to use this additional channel of publication to release meaningful content and test the waters for future releases, that’s great. If they just wanted to find a way to introduce micropayments into the world of tabletop wargaming, that sucks. Big time. But like I said, maybe it’s just me…
• 40k plastic clamshell characters: Last year, one of my favourite releases were GW’s plastic characters for WFB, released in a clamshell. And I wished for GW to introduce similar models for 40k, which they did. One year later, I have to say that I appreciate the effort! And some of those characters, like the Space Marine Librarian, are really awesome. But I don’t see why all of the 40k characters have to be more expensive than their WFB counterparts. Nice try, GW, but not quite there yet…
• The scale creep: Well, I’ve said it before: The fact that the games (and models) keep getting bigger and bigger all the time seems slightly discouraging to me, because it really runs counter to the idea of customising and individualising each of your models: With infantry squads only cannon fodder and superheavies the true stars of the show, the game somehow becomes less interesting for me. But this is strictly a personal preference, of course…

IV. Also pretty cool:

• The Horus Heresy: I said last year that I am not perfectly sure whether or not to like FW’s focus on the Horus Heresy, and that still holds true — which has nothing to do with the – mostly excellent – models so far, but rather with the fear of a Star Wars-like state of affairs, where every minute of the Heresy will be accounted for at some point. My philosophical musings aside, though, the one thing I love unconditionally about the setting is how it has given rise to a couple of amazing and astonishing hobby projects that take a look at this very different period of Imperial history — just check out projects like Pooms’ Pre Heresy World Eaters , Agnostos Theos’ force from the same Legion or my favourite HH thread at the moment,  and you’ll see that there’s lots and lots of inspiration to be had, even if you have no plans of starting your own HH army.
• The new White Dwarf: I’m going to go out on a limb here and confess I really like the “new” White Dwarf. By now, the novelty has worn off, and the shape of the mag has congealed into something more solid, and I have to tell you I like what I see. Sure, we can always go back and compare today’s WD with the 90s’ version. But if we judge the mag against itself, I think it’s really a good concept: I like the focus on the staff’s and hobbyists’ armies over ‘Eavy Metal pieces (even if the armies of the editorial staff seem to appear a little too often…). I like the look at kitbashes and conversions and the army showcases. I love Blanchitsu, obviously. Is it still a sales brochure? Undoubtedly. Is it more of a coffee-table book and less of a fanzine? Yes, possibly. But looking at it gives me new ideas and inspirations more often than not, and that is certainly nothing to scoff at.

So yeah, all in all, I think we can call this year an overall success. With a constant stream of new releases and some amazing products by different manufacturers, we have lots and lots of new toys to play with. As always, there’s always quite a bit of stuff to bicker about, but I suppose that par for the course at this point

The hobby’s more than just the official releases, though: It’s really about the hobbyists. So in the next installment of the 2013 Eternal Hunt Awards, let’s take a closer look at this year’s oustanding hobby projects and talented artists. Until then, I’d love to hear your feedback in the comments section!

And, as always, thansk for looking and stay tuned for more!

Here we are back again with the second part of the 2013 Eternal Hunt Awards. This time, let’s take a look at the hobbyists.

Hobby blog of the year

1st place: Officio Convertorum

Though a fairly recent addition to the blogosphere, Jeff Vader’s Officio Convertorum has nevertheless managed to shoot straight to the top. There’s more than enough reason for that, though, since during his first year of blogging, Jeff has barraged us with a relentless stream of excellent kitbashing, fantastic painting and very interesting background: The guy even managed to create a plausible and interesting fifth Chaos God, for crying out loud!

So a clear winner this year. Check out Jeff’s fantastic blog and prepare to be amazed!

2nd place: Gardens of Hecate

Every once in a while, even in a hobby as multifaceted as ours, we may have the chance of stumbling upon something truly different and original. And the most original blog of 2013, at least in my book, has to be Gardens of Hecate. Strictly speaking, it deals with Malifaux, chronicling Ana Polanscak’s work on a fully customised warband, complete with accompanying scenery, markers, tokens and what have you. While that may seem like a daunting enough job, however, putting things so simply would entirely miss the point of why the blog is so great: Ana not only shows highly inspired kitbashes and conversions, ending up with models that may use GW bitz for ingredients, but end up looking very distinct and original; Gardens of Hecate is also an exploration of medieval imagery with a slightly apocalyptic bend. It’s hard to put into words, although the closest possible description would be that those models look like what Hieronymus Bosch would be up to today, if he were alive and into tabletop gaming.

Trying to describe it doesn’t do it justice, though: You’ll have to take a look for yourself. Like me, you’ll probably come away from it with the impression that this is an extraordinary source of inspiration, and that there’s really nothing quite like it.

3rd place: Opus Maius

Now you see it, now you don’t: As of this writing, Opus Maius is not accessible. This is due to the fact that Neil101 likes to take the blog offline every now and then, presumably to force himself to do more actual hobby work instead of just blogging about it. Whenever Opus Maius does return, though, fading in and out of realspace like a  Space Hulk, the blog manages to find a very distinct voice and never ceases to inspire: You see, Neil is the genius behind hobby projects like the fabled Arrke game board, and while showcases of his work are certainly one great part of the blog, his writeups of the games taking place in this strange and demented world are just as impressive and inspiring. So keep your eyes peeled for whenever Opus Maius returns from the Empyrean, because you can be sure we’ll be in for a treat!

Hobbyist of the year

Like last year, this is a tough call to make. But then, there are those hobbyists who manage to make the hobby into something special not only for themselves, but for others as well. And the three people on my personal awards list this year certainly managed that admirably. Here they are:

1st place: PDH
Those who have had any form of contact with Peter know that he’s not only a highly talented converter and painter in his own right, but also a tremendously nice guy. Both should be enough to win him any price, certainly, but he landed at the top of this list for another reason:

in 2013, Peter was the guy to make wonderful things happen: He came up with the utterly brilliant “Secret Yggdrassillium Pilgrimage”, involving hobbyists from several different countries and making the day truly special for his fellow players, among them John Blanche. He helped Commissar Molotov with this year’s Inqvitational and took a big stake in the INQ28 community. He sent me bitz, got me involved in fantastic hobby projects and offered supremely helpful criticism and feeback whenever I asked him. Here’s to you, Peter! A first place well earned!

2nd place: Jeff Vader (of Officio Convertorum)
Jeff is certainly winning big in this year’s Eternal Hunts Awards, but to be fair, his contribution to the hobby was simply amazing: His Inquisitorial models sent the INQ28 boards abuzz, his blogs is a daily must-read for me, he invented a new chaos god. And he produced pieces that make me want to push the envelope on my own hobby projects. So thanks, Jeff, for the boundless inspiration you provided in 2013! And I really hate you for being such a fantastic painter, you know?

3rd place: Natfka (of Faeit 212)
I suppose you all know Faeit 212 as the go-to site when it comes to tabletop rumours. I also suppose you all go there for your daily hit of rumours and leaks — and if you don’t, well, you definitely should: It’s an enormously helpful and interesting site, but this last year has made me realise it might actually be run by one of the nicest guys imaginable: Even while Blogger took Faeit 212 down due to a copyrights claim on GW’s part, even while having to deal with the fallout from that and trying his best to keep the project alive, Natfka never got angry but always stayed productive, positive and eminently likeable. That mindset also clearly comes across in his posts: Natfka doesn’t like to bicker, he likes to see the positives, the potential. Does that make him a fanboy? No, certainly not. It makes him someone whose site  always like to visit and whose tireless service to the community I find admirable. My hat’s off to you, sir!

Best models of the year:

There were so many amazing models this year that pointing out favourites at all seems pretty unfair. Still, some pieces were so astounding and inspiring that I want to share them with you — in no particular order, mind you, because I really couldn’t be expected to choose any one of these over another. So here are my favourite models of 2013:

Decimator conversion by Chris Harman

While many models I see online make me want to borrow ideas and replicate effects I like, it is not often that a conversion has me run out to grab the models to attempt the same thing near instantly. Chris Harman’s excellent Decimator, kitbashed mainly from a GK Nemesis Dreadknight, was the exception to the rule, though, and possibly the single most inspirational piece I saw this year.

People had attempted making the Dreadknight into a chaos walker before, but Chris’ model was really the first one that really worked for me — which is why I shamelessly pilfered the idea and built my own Wargrinder in a fairly similar pattern: It turns out imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, after all…

My only gripe with this model is that, unfortunately, so far there are only tantalising glimpses at a partly painted model:

But what we can see so far gives rise to the hope that the finished piece will be just as amazing as the conversion. Fantastic job, Chris!

Bull God by TJ Atwell

TJ Atwell, of Dark Future Games, is certainly no stranger to amazing conversions. And it seems like he’s on a roll with a recent army project of his, the “Army of the Apocalypse”, a combined force of Necrons and Daemons. Sound whacky? Well, trust TJ to prove that the ally rules can be used to come up with fantastic and original army concepts: He’s been cranking out brilliantly disturbing daemon engines like crazy for these last months, one of them cooler than the next!

The one to rule them all, though, is TJ’s fantastic Bull God, to be used as a Daemon Prince, Maulerfiend or Greater Daemon. The whole conversion is so flawless that I wish I had come up with something like that. And the paintjob is equally impressive, combining TJ’s highly effective recipe for distressed flesh with bright yellows and blues (recurring spot colours in this particular army). Simply a marvelous piece!

Questing Knight by Jeff Vader

It seems like all INQ28 aficionados are drawn towards building true scale marines at one point, and Jeff Vader is no exception. While many of those models don’t end up all that impressive, though, Jeff’s Questing Knight is an astonishing model: Like all of Jeff’s models, this is a delicious kitbash (making exceptionally great use of what may just be the coolest Space Marine head ever), and the lush paintjob shows off some of the hallmarks of Jeff’s work: the gritty realism evident in the paintjob itself, the amazing freehand symbols and patterns and the highly expressive face. Job’s a good ‘un, Jeff!

Take a closer look at the model here.

Arco Evisorators by Kari Hernesniemi

Kari’s Stryderre was already my personal star of the show at the “Secret Yggdrassillium Pilgrimage”, so I was really happy to see him build yet more of these disturbing, emaciated killers. He has since spun off the concept into a whole warband of so-called Arco Evisorators, and each of the models is a treat! Case in point, it’s certainly an honour to be commissioned by no other than John Blanche himself to build a warband of these brilliantly horrible guys, but in Kari’s case, the honour is well-deserved! Discover all of the models here.

Another glimpse at the Arco Evisorators in action. The sinister lady in the background is a converted Femme Militant model by John Blanche.

Honorary mention for best effect on a model: Ms. Binky by Rednekkboss

One of the most disappointing moments in our hobby is when a finished model (or an effect we were really trying to get right) doesn’t work out. And one of the things that I’ve witnessed going wrong more often than not over the years was people painting huge eyeballs on some of their models. So for all those who have struggled to get it right, prepare to be amazed by Rednekkboss’s model for Ms. Binky, a daemon engine that is equal parts disgusting and adorable. The huge eyeball which makes up the main point of focus for the model could have gone so very horribly wrong. But Rednekkboss really, really nailed it:

How can something be so cute and so disgusting at the same time, I ask you?
The astonishing step by step documentation to the effect can be found here.

Best armies/warbands of the year

And where there are single models, there are also armies and warbands. Again, I witnessed too many great hobby projects to count this year, but some just take the cake. Let me share my favourites with you:

1st place: Brother Heinrich’s Night Lords

I cannot possibly say enough good things about Brother Heinrich’s Night Lords 15th company: It’s a fantastic hobby project, above all else. The fluff accompanying the models is equally impressive. But maybe my favourite thing about the army is how much thought is given to each and every model, making it seem like these guys are really veterans of the Long War. Brother Heinrich’s work has made me think about building Chaos Space Marine armies in a new way while also featuring some of the snazziest conversions around. It’s a beautiful army, and like I told you recently, I myself make an appearance as well

So if you’re one of the few people reading this blog who have not yet checked out Brother Heinrich’s brilliant NL army, do yourself a favour and go take a look.

2nd place: migsula’s Legion army

A true labour of love, this one: Migs has been hard at work on this army for quite a while now, and it shows: Each model has been expertly customised and converted, the narrative oozes from every pore of this hobby endeavour. Then there’s the fact that the entire army was painted to look like it was operating under a pale moon, which is an astonishing feat in itself. And lastly, you really get three armies for one here: Is it a Grey Knights army? Or an IG army (with some Inquisition sprinkled on top)? Or indeed a Chaos Space Marine army, given the fact that these guys are all Alpha Legion Operatives (and let’s not even get into the AL’s true loyalties…)? As you can see, the narrative comes creeping in, even when you simply want to decide what kind of army this is in the first place. Astounding work, migs!

Discover the army here.

3rd place: Dave Taylor’s Adeptus Mechanicus army

The Adeptus Mechanicus has always been a fascinating, if disturbing, part of 40k lore for me. And rarely has it been captured so well as in Dave Taylor’s AdMech army. We all know that Dave is an expert at building characterful armies, of course, but even so, this one’s special. Words really don’t do it justice…

…so you had best take a look at the project here.

Honorary mention: Inquisitor Klein and retinue by Drone 21c

INQ28 has become really popular during this last year, and rightly so. And while the increase in interest has also lead to an increase in awesome warbands and retinues, every now and then there’s something even cooler than the rest. Drone 21c’s retinue for Inquisitor Klein is such a case: It may just be the perfect blend of modern painting techniques and retro flourishes from the good old days of Rogue Trader and 2nd edition. The retinue also works as a perfect embodiment of the eclectic styles and cultures prevalent in the 40k universe, evident in the uniforms and outfits alone. Plus those models simply look so lush in that photo that you’d like to eat them! Check them out here.

So, with this deluge of fantastic hobby inspiration, I think it’s the perfect moment to wish you all a happy new year! Keep your eyes peeled for the third and final installment of the 2013 Eternal Hunt Awards, where I’ll be speaking about my own hobby year. And, of course, let me hear your feedback in the comments!

As always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

I realise I still owe you part three of my 2013 review. No worries, it’s still coming, but I want to do it justice, event though I may run the risk of it being totally outdated by the time I get around to posting it. But while we are all waiting for my creative juices to get flowing, why not take a look at the new Tyranids in the meantime?

The Tyranids have sometimes been dubbed “Alien Dinosaurs”, and it’s a strangely fitting description. Sure, they are taking design cues left and right from sci-fi staples like Giger’s Xenomorph, the bugs from Starship Troopers and many other slimy and chitinous monstrosities we know and love. But in order to make a range of creatures into an army, there also has to be a pecking order of sorts, an ecology of bigger and smaller creatures that nevertheless need to look like they are part of the same species, at least at the basic level.

Getting this particular element right took GW quite a while: The Tyranids started out as a wildly disparate race, with models that shared very little common ground except for a general “alien-ness”. There were also enslaved races (like the Zoats) and genetic “infection” of other races (the Genestealer cults, only added into the Tyranid background after the fact, IIRC), the latter possibly leading to the general idea that the Tyranids as a race would make use of their prey’s genetic makeup. So a pretty large redesign during the late 90s/early 2000s saw the codifying of some common anatomical traits (the six limbs, the bone protusions on the forehead) as well as the idea of mirroring characteristics of certain races in the different creatures’ design. Since then, this has been the basic design template for the Tyranid race. Tyranid players received a new model here and there, but things had grown rather quiet for the fans of omnivorous alien gribblies. And now, a new release that finally brings the Tyranids up to snuff for the 6th edition. So, what have we got here?

Harpy / Hive Crone

Most Tyranid players were dearly hoping for a big flying creature, I suppose, in order to get their part of this new aircraft fad. The Harpy / Hive Crone neatly fills this role, giving us…well, a huge, flying Tyranid creature.

The model features all the hallmarks of  Tyranid design, while also striking a pretty good balance between a living creature and an attacking aircraft. If anything, I’d say it adheres to the design formula a bit to closely, essentially making the model look quite a bit like a flying Carnifex, but that might just be me:

I’ve always felt slightly ill at ease with the idea of flying Tyranids not having any kind of hind legs (to serve as landing gear, as it were): It just seems biologically dubious to have a flying organism that has no way whatsoever to land and then take off again. But then, this might actually become a bit of fridge brilliance when you imagine that those creatures are either intended to deliver their payload to the battlefield and then get back to the mothership to be reabsorbed, or the Hive Mind doesn’t even expect them to survive their first attack run in gthe first place, in which case any legs would be surplus to requirements anyway. It’s a small detail that actually begins making more sense the longer you think about it

The one thing that doesn’t make sense, however, is the fact that the wing membranes have these open spaces instead of being fused to the creature’s carapace, as can be seen here:

Now I am not a biology major, of course, but it just seems off to me for some reason. Maybe there’s an explanation (apart from the requirements of the model’s production process)?

Anyway, the other option to assemble the kit gives us a slightly different weapons loadout and a bioconstruct that’s named Hive Crone:

This version of the kit definitely gets a thumbs up in the extra grossness department, what with the fleshy ammo feed running directly through the creature’s mouth. Ewww…

And there’s the way those evil little spore mines (or whatever they are) attach to the underside of the wings. You have got to love that attention to detail…

A (smaller gripe) I have with the kit is that, while we do get different head variants for both builds, the heads still end up very similar – not only to each other, but also to the rest of the bigger Tyranid creatures’ heads:

Visual consistency notwithstanding, this seems like a bit of a missed opprtunity.

All in all, Tyranid players get a big flying monster that looks more or less like everyone expected. No more and no less.

Haruspex / Exocrine

It falls to the release’s second big monster to feature some kind of craziness, and boy does it deliver:

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves! We’ll take a closer look at that maw in a second. Before that, let me just say that I am certainly not going to lament the fact that neither the Haruspex nor the Endocrine look anything like their Epic 40,000 forefathers, because those models really didn’t look like anything, and they also came from a time where the only unifying characteristic of all Tyranid kits seemed to be that they all looked completely different and highly disparate.

Their updated versions conform to the basic design outline for the Tyranids once more, which is probably for the best.

So, back to the elephant in the room: The Haruspex’s gaping map (that clearly reminds me of a certain scene from Beetlejuice, by the way):

So yeah, this is certainly something different, an element not seen so far in the army. Good job! While the look may be a bit of an acquired taste, I think the mout cavity certainly offers painters around the world a very good chance to really let rip with their colours and gloss varnish, in order to create something truly disturbing. After having the Tervigon model actually give birth to Gaunts, this was probably just the next logical step…

There’s one problem with the model, if you ask me, and that’s the fact that the whole layout of the maw, including the tongue, seems to be perfectly symmetrical. Take a look:

I think some of those “feelers” (for lack of a better word) should have been a little less symmetrical. And the tongue might have looked better if it had been coiled in a more erratic way. Again, this might be due to the production requirements, but an organic horror could have used a little more visual chaos, if you ask me.

Since this is yet another multi-kit, it can also be assembled to make an Exocrine:

There’s not much to be said about this one: It’s basically a giant walking cannon, and the design nicely communicates that. In fact, my one gripe with this guy is the head, once again: It really doesn’t look all that threatening, but rather cartoony, if you ask me.

It feels like this model would really have profited from a more sinister design: What about an eyeless head? Seeing how the Tyranid cannons seem to be covered in eyeballs anyway (which is a bit of a strange concept, come to think of it…), wouldn’t it have been cool for the model to actually feature an eyeless head? It would have been fun to imagine by which senses the creature does its actual targeting. Instead, we get yet another rehash of the Carnifex look, only that this particular head looks far less interesting than all of the heads from the Carnifex kit for some reason.

Again, the kit gives Tyranid players what they were looking for, although it doesn’t seem all that surprising (apart from that Haruspex mouth region, of course) — do we see a theme emerging here?

Hive Guard / Tyrant Guard

The Hive Guard and Tyrant Guard were only available in metal and Finecast so far, so making both unit types into a plastic combi-kit seems like a very sensible choice indeed! But do they hold up to their older incarnations?

The Hive Guard took a hit, if you ask me, but that’s because I really loved the older version:

When seen in silhouette, the model just looks perfectly proportioned to me — well, as perfectly proportioned as is possible for an alien horror, of course, but I think you get my point. Much of the effect relies on the dynamic between the head and the carapace above, that seems to act almost as a cowl of some sort. The new version has a more recessed head and gives the Hive Guard a slightly more hunched pose. Not all that different, to be sure, but it somehow ends up looking more awkward than the older version, at least in my opinion.

And again with the eyes… I mean, I get it: These weapons are symbiotes, creatures of their own. But why would they have eyes? I realise that this is a characteristic that can be found on nearly all the Tyranid kits, but I only realise now that it seems like a strange choice somehow…

Then again, I might have the answer to that one:

Buddy, I realise you are doing your best to hit the opponent, and even though the cocentration is clearly evident in your face, shooting without eyes seems like a pretty bad idea…

Seriously, though, I actually like the eyeless head! It makes the model look more alien — there is a reason why Giger designed the Xenomorph without eyes, I suppose…

So while the Hive Guard gets the short stick in this particular deal, the Tyrant Guard are much improved:

Where the Hive Guard look more awkward, these guys have finally come into their own thanks to the slight overhaul: They seem more massive and threatening. And I like that they now seem able to actually do something with their frontore legs, even if it is only seen on one of the models:

A lovely detail, that

All in all, I am going to call this an improvement. Sure, that subtle bit of extra coolness on the Hive Guard is lost, but considered the improved Tyrant Guard and versatility that comes with a plastic kit, it seems like a fair deal. Definitely one of the high points of this relase for me!
Tyranid Warriors

These one are not exactly a surprise: The design remains the same, but the new kit finally gives us all the weapon options we need — and then some. Yet while the added flexibility when arming them is a big plus, it’s not easy to get all that excited over the models, seeing how these are exactly the same designs as before.

As an extra bonus, the kit also contains the parts needed to build a Tyranid Prime:

It’s a bread and butter kit for any Tyranid player, so the selection of bitz is clearly a step forward. Then again, the kit also seems to have received quite a price hike. The sensible compromise seems to be that the new kit contains far more weapons than you’ll need for three models, so for those of you who still have lots and lots of the older models lying around, getting a box of these for the equipment options should last you a while.

Conversion potential

Hmm, this one’s a toughy… The very firm design guidelines in place for the Tyranids mean that all the parts from the kit will always look like Tyranid parts. That said, I suppose there are some uses for the new bitz if you’re feeling slightly adventurous:

The wings and tentacles as well as some parts of the carapaces might come in handy for your daemon conversion needs, especially for Slaaneshi daemons. There’s a certain combination of elegance and grossness in the Tyranid design that should nicely fit the servants of the Dark Prince. For the same reason, some of the parts would probably work like a charm to convert flesh-constructs for your Dark Eldar army: There are some hobbyists who are using Tyranid appendages to great effect when converting their Grotesques and Taloi (among them Mechanicum Jon with his beautiful Cabal of the Drowned Gardens), so I guess that might be a good use for all those bitz as well.

And it goes without saying that Tyranid players should find it easy to use some of those leftover bitz to make the rest of their army more interesting.
I’ll go out on a limb here, though, and state that this doesn’t seem like a release overflowing with cool new conversion bitz. But if you have fantastic ideas, you’re very welcome to prove me wrong — maybe I’m just lacking the necessary creativity here…

All in all, this release seems like a  solid effort, yet one that is also far from groundbreaking: It’s great that the new release (and the new rules) will bring the ‘Nids up to snuff with the requirements of 6th edition, giving them stuff that seems to be standard nowadays (a flyer, for example). But it feels like this release lacks any real surprises: No bold reinvisioning, no huge kit, no characters (for obvious reasons). It’s a necessary update, but mostly one without any bells and whistles.

Let me also point out that one thing I would love to see for the future is a more fleshed out concept for Genestealer cults: In my opinion, these are one of the most interesting aspects about the Tyranids, and the one area where the Tyranids can actually transcend the – very obvious – source material that went into their creation. There’s also the fact that a Genestealer cult offers all kinds of crazy conversion opportunities (and a lot of potential when it comes to INQ28). Granted, the main codex release might not have been the perfect place to revitalise this rather specific background element. But I think it’s a shame how Genestealer cults have more or less fallen by the wayside, and a dataslate or supplement release would be a fantastic way of reintroducing them into the game, if only for those who like that particular element of 40k lore.

Oh, and one more thing: What I am really looking forward to is to see these kits with a very different paintjob: In my opinion, Tyranids should look more visceral, more disgusting: I want lots of glistening carapaces, distended fleshy parts and huge amounts of gloss and slime. All of this is lacking in the “official” ‘Eavy Metal treatment of the army. They are beautifully painted, make no mistake! But I think a more realistic treatment would go a big ways towards making the new models look slightly less cartoony and far more disturbing!

So, what’s your take on the new models? Were you, like me, ever so slightly underwhelmed? Or am I being unfair here? I’d love to hear your opinion in the comments section!

And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

While it may already be a little late for the third part of my look back at 2013, bear with me while, having already pointed out my favourite releases as well as the most amazing models and hobbyists of 2013, I wrap this up and tell you about a couple of my personal hobby moments in 2013:

Looking at the bare numbers, 2013 may not have been my most productive year: I only painted around 45 models (compared to 2012′s 90) and converted around 72, further adding to my backlog of unpainted stuff. That said, I feel that at least the first half of 2013 was fairly productive, and some of the 45 models I managed to get finished were complex and/or huge enough to count for several regular models, in any case. At the same time, it’s true that during the second half of the year, hobby time became more sparse as RL issues took over, but I think that every hobbyist is familiar with this: It just happens, from time to time.

Nevertheless, looking back on the stuff I managed to finish, I am reasonably pleased with myself. Let’s take a look, shall we?

Khorne’s Eternal Hunt

Ah, yes, my World Eaters. The one hobby project it always comes back to: Above, you can see the World Eaters’ 4th assault company, more or less as it looks right now: While I only managed to add some 15 models to the collection, the army does look slightly more impressive than its 2012 incarnation. I also tackled some pretty interesting projects, among them a squad of custom Chaos Spawn, some traitorous Space Wolves and my converted Heldrake, the Hellrazor.

And I tried to come up with some additional characters for my army, trying to build suitably World Eater-esque versions of the Dark Apostle and Warpsmith, respectively:

As a matter of fact, my heavily converted Warpsmith, Huntmaster Deracin, is clearly one of the 2013 models I am most proud of:

Assembling this guy from a huge pile of plastic bitz was just as fiddly as it was ultimately rewarding!

By sheer coincidence, one of Deracin’s own engine of destruction is the other World Eaters model I am most proud of: the Wargrinder:

Inspired by Chris Harman’s excellent kitbashed Decimator Daemon Engine, the Wargrinder was quite a bit of work, and also basically the first time I tackled a walker conversion of this scope. To be honest, I am immensely pleased with the result, and the model makes for a pretty cool centre piece of my World Eaters! Although some people really didn’t like the head…

Anyway, check out these posts, in case you’re interested to learn more about this big boy.

A Legion of one…

And while we’re on the subject of models I am really proud of, let’s not forget my favourite AdMech monstrosity:

The creature called Legion is one of my most involved conversions so far, and arguably one of the projects that really made me step outside my comfort zone. The model and the history surrounding it also double as one of my personal crowning hobby moments of awesome in 2013: PDH was cool enough to involve me into an international hobby project featuring lots and lots of supremely talented artists producing excellent models for a very special game of…well, Necromunda, I suppose, if you wanted to be technical about it, set aboard the mysterious Arrke. The models were to be given to none other than John Blanche afterwards, and the moment when JB himself sent me a picture of Legion going about his business on the banks of the underground rivers of the Arrke will remain a moment that’ll be hard to surpass!

Fun fact: While I did myself to make Legion (essentially a devolved amalgamation of several Tech Priests and explorators of the Adeptus Mechanicus) as grotesque and disturbing as possible, the more recent AdMech releases by Forgeworld are even more disturbing. Seems I was overtaken. Oh well, I still love this guy!

In fact, I really loved the whole project, and waxing poetical about it comes naturally to me. Instead of indulging my urges, however, let me just point those of you who want to read the whole story here.

The wonderful world of INQ28…

…is still going strong, and has been for the whole of 2013! While my own output of INQ28 characters may have been a bit lacking, I did at least manage to build a fairly important NPC for last year’s Inqvitational, one Inquisitor Zuul: a radical Xanthian and enemy to Inquisitor Tybalt:

Zuul was built to resemble a particular piece of artwork, which was a novel and interesting challenge. And sending him off to the Inqvitational on his own meant I was once again in the delicious position of receiving pictures of my model doing its thing during a game:

Zuul is now a permanent part of PDH’s collection, and while his prospects may look bleak (being pursued by a fanatic puritan will do that to you), I am looking forward to finding out whether the old rascal still has some surprises up his sleeve…

Learn more about Zuul’s creation and fate here.

In any case, the INQ28 scene with its many talented members remains one of the most inspiring influences in my personal hobby life: From Commissar Molotov’s and PDH’s work on the Inqvitational and Jeff Vader’s constant stream of awesome new minis to the fruitful exchange of background ideas with DexterKong, INQ28 simply rocks — even in those cases where I don’t have anything to show for it…

Da Boyz

Another thing I am quite proud of is how I managed to build and paint a complete Orc Team for Blood Bowl in a pretty short amount of time (and mostly from leftovers, no less) — the Orkheim Ultraz:

Working on those guys was a wonderful change of pace, and an opportunity to build some rather humorous models for once! And the brilliant recipe for painting Orc skin I discovered on A Gentleman’s Ones really made the painting side of things a lot of fun as well!

If you want to learn more about the Ultraz’ antics, take a look here.

The rest…

Of course, there were even more great hobby moments in 2013: Being immortalised as a member of the Night Lords 15th company by Brother Heinrich for example:

Or AgnostosTheos building 30k versions of two of my World Eaters characters:

Click here for the whole story.

When it comes to the blogging side of things, WordPress was nice enough to compile a report on 2013 for me, so in case you’re interested, take a look:

Click here to see the complete report.

All in all, it has certainly been an eventful hobby year! And with the blogosphere currently abuzz with all kinds of crazy news and developments, it doesn’t look like that will change anytime soon. So here’s hoping that I’ll be able to keep up and keep going. There’s certainly enough on my plate — now if I only had more time…

In any case, thanks for taking an interest in this blog and my ongoing hobby projects during the last year! Here’s to a new year of hobby-related craziness — in fact, I’ll be seeing you next week with some actual new content! Promise!

Until then, as always, thansk for looking and stay tuned for more!

Having been unbelievably lazy for a couple of weeks, I have recently undertaken a couple of steps to get back into hobby mode. As is so often the case with restarting an engine that has lain dormant for a while, the first moments aren’t pretty, with lots of sputtering and grinding. But it finally feels like I am slowly getting back into the swing of things, so today I would like to show you a number of smaller projects I am currently working on:

1. The Brazen Wall – revisited

First up is an Aegis Defense line for my World Eaters. I started working on this some time last summer, but then it more or less fell by the wayside. So, time to get some more work in! Here’s the aegis as it looks right now:

While I wanted the defense line to look like it clearly belonged to my army, I didn’t want to go overboard with the spiky bitz. I basically used some spikes an armour plates from the chaos vehicle sprue to spruce up the different segments. Nothing amazing, certainly. But the true achievement was to get rid of all those pesky Imperial aquilas.

To be fair, though, after I had found the right approach for doing this, it turned into an almost relaxing task. I was able to shave off all the loyal iconography in a single evening.

And while the defense line will still need some additional bitz, mostly trophies, skulls and impaled Astartes, it’s definitely getting there! Again, not the most creative and groundbreaking endeavour in the world, but just the right project to slowly ease me back into hobby mode!

2. Death from Above

Let’s continue with something slightly more involved: I also finally found a way to make what may be my favourite model from the Dark Vengeance boxed set into a member of my World Eaters:

I always thought that the Chosen wielding lightning claws would make for an excellent jump infantry officer or lord, so I added a raptor jump pack and some clawed toes from the warp talons. It’s a rather simple conversion, of course, but one I am nevertheless rather pleased with. It also resembles GW’s own Chaos lord with jump pack (as a matter of fact, I had originally intended of using that model’s jump pack for this conversion, but abandoned the idea when it turned out to be far too unwieldy).

Oh, and I do of course realise that using a flowing cape like that directly underneath what ultimately amounts to a jet engine may not be the smartest idea in the world, but there’s always the Rule of Cool, isn’t there? Let’s just pretend it’s made from flame-retardant fabric, okay?

3. Hammer Time!

Building chaos lords is one of my favourite hobby activities, of course, and with the Raptor Lord out of the way, another traitor officer was quick to follow. I was beginning to feel more adventurous, too! But we’ll get to that in a minute.

First things first: Does anyone remember these guys?

Long before FW redesigned the whole Pre-Heresy stuff, there were a number of highly interesting older models put out by GW proper. One of them was the Mk I Tactical Dreadnought Armour, indeed going back to one of Jes Goodwin’s concept sketches for the later Terminators, I believe:

Image owned by Games Workshop

There was actually a model for this particular armour design as well! And as luck would have it, I even have a picture of a chaos conversion of an Mk I Termie. Take a look:

This must be one of the first wargaming related pictures I ever downloaded from the internet, back in the early 2000s, when the blogosphere was far less developed than it is today. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you who originally built and painted the model, since the blog seems to have disappeared. If anyone knows the creator, please let me know!

Anyway, these scraps of half-forgotten lore were lying around in my various inspiration folders. And then I came across an illustration by the ever-inspirational Greyall, depicting an Imperial Fists marine wearing an updated form of Mk I TDA.

Seeing that image made me realise that it might be interesting to build a model that took design cues from that rather ancient design, and another piece of the puzzle fell into place.

Things really got underway when I started messing around with a couple of leftover armour plates from the Heldrake kit, because they almost look like those Mk I shoulder plates, if you only look at them long enough

So I formulated a plan for yet another chaos lord conversion: I would build a chaos lord wearing custom armour that would take inspiration from both the Mk I and Cataphractii designs. Not a straight recreation of either, but something that incorporated elements from both in order to create an armour that looked archaic and massive. And of course, my beloved plastic Terminator Lord would be at the heart of the conversion once more.

Anyway, after messing around with a pile of bitz for a while, here’s an early mockup of the model:

As you can see, it’s a fairly simple kitbash, any by no means an involved recreation of either armour pattern. But some of the elements are inspired by those seen on the Pre-Heresy armour: The shoulder pads and slightly recessed, helmeted head recall a more ornate Mk I design, while the topknot and pteruges skirt are a clear reference to the Cataphractii armour. And the decorative trim and heretical symbols clearly communicate the fact that we are dealing with a member of a traitor legion, after all.

I wanted to create a hulking character in highy archaic armour, and that much seems to have worked. And while the thunder hammer was only intended as a placeholder, I think that it really nicely complements the overall look of the model — even though it’s not really a weapon associated with followers of Khorne…

Another possibility would be to use one of the mauls from the Deathwing Knights that I have conveniently lying around:

As you can see, the model’s only tacked together for now, held together by lots of modelling putty and my prayers. But I am already rather fond of this guy, even though he’s only a rather simple kitbash and nowhere near as involved as, say, Dark Rage’s faithful – and incredibly cool – recreation of actual Mk I armour.   I can imagine this guy as one of Lorimar’s bodyguards, encased in ancient armour and ruthlessly efficient: a silent and deadly warrior crushing everything in the Lord Captain’s way…

Update: In a rather interesting development, Fellow hobbyist carnosaur93 over on B&C suggested I turn around the shoulder pads in order to make them look even more similar to the Mk 1 design. And while I didn’t believe him at first, I tried it and was amazed:

Consider my mind blown! The model actually looks 100% more like the old Mk I Termies now! It even has that slightly “alien” look to the shoulders, I don’t know how to describe it any better: The curvature of the shoulders is quite unlike anything seen on modern (traitor) Astartes models.

I have yet to decide which version I actually like better, but the changed one really looks more like the older armour pattern. And it also has a certain “je ne sais quoi”…food for thought, definitely!

Anyway, these are my first small hobby projects for this year! And of course, I am always happy to hear any feedback you might have! In any case, it’s  good to be back in the game, especially considering all the crazy rumours about new CSM kits to be released soon-ish.

Now if I can only find my misplaced painting modjo, everything will turn out fine…

Anyway, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Among the first steps on the way to rediscovering my missing painting modjo was to do some experiments using two of the new Citadel Technical Paints. Yes, I realise that I am rather late to the party when it comes to using these, but I had picked up a bottle of Agrellan Earth and Nurgle’s Rot, respectively, shortly before christmas, and now it was time to put them to the test.

And what better way to play loose with paints than to paint a follower of Nurgle? Not only do the Technicals chiefly lend themselves to doing rather squicky effects related to decay and bodily fluids, but painting Nurglite models can also be a ton of fun — and if something goes wrong, you can usually pretend it was planned to look that way, too…

That said, I didn’t want to sacrifice a highly involved conversion, so I chose a really old, early 90s’ plastic Plague Marine as my test subject. I also rather like the slightly corny charm of these early plastic models (the Khorne Berzerkers from the same time are still one of my favourite retro designs). A missing arm was replaced with a mutated CSM arm from my bitzbox (which also gave me the added benefit of being able to paint an area of distressed flesh). Then I broke out the paints and let rip with all the effects at my disposal in order to create weathering, decay and just general unpleasantness.

Here’s the finished model:

As you may be able to tell from looking at the pictures, I went for a quick and dirty paintjob, mostly using washes and brushing techniques to achieve the effects I wanted. I wanted to make sure painting this guy would be fun and not get bogged down by intricate detail work. And it worked, I mostly had a blast — even though the resulting model is not very likely to win me any trophies

But what about those Citadel Technical Paints? How did they perform?

As you can see, Nurgle’s Rot was used to create…well, Nurgle’s Rot, actually: I added a healthy amount of it to the Plague Marine’s twisted claw, for one, to make it look like a daemonic stinger of sorts, leaking virulent fluid:

The colour was also used on the model’s backpack, creating disgusting slime leaking out of the vents:

And finally, it was added to the torso, showing where the rot is actually breaking through the legionnaire’s armour, especially around the tubes and cables:

All in all, it basically performed like you would expect it to, creating a wet-looking, glossy slime in a pretty evil green hue. It’s a really easy and effective tool for adding slime to followers of Nurgle, but I think it would fare just as well when adding puddles of toxic sewage to your bases or terrain pieces. Granted, it may be a bit of a one-trick pony, but being able to open up a bottle and just add the slime is definitely preferrable to having to mix your own stuff by combining green colour(s) and gloss varnish (or having to work in several coats). The fact that it’s semi-translucent also really helps, making it actually look like slime instead of green colour with gloss addded on top.

The picture above actually nicely leads us to the second technical colour in question: I experimented with Agrellan Earth, hoping to create an effect at least slightly similar to the corroded armour on LuckyNo5′s excellent Mariner’s Blight models. I think we can all agree that having a simple way of creating flaking paint and a general crackle texture on the armour of Nurgle Marines (or on terrain pieces, of course) would make hobby life easier and more interesting. Well, here’s how that went:

I began my experiments by adding Agrellan Earth undiluted (and in a rather thick coat) to a base. I followed the instructions given by GW themselves, and this was the result:

A rather nice crackle effect, don’t you think? In fairness, it is slighly less pronounced if you see it with your own eyes instead of having an enlarged photograph. But the effect’s pretty cool — and also proof that I didn’t get a bottle from one of the bad batches.

So my next step was to add the colour to the marine’s armour, mixing it with a different colour to arrive at a suitably Nurgly colour scheme. Having to add light brown to the green led to the armour having a slightly lighter shade of green than I had originally planned, but that was quite alright.

The problem, however, was that getting a noticeable crackle effect here was way more difficult than when working with the colour on its own: I actually used several passes, experimenting with the ratio between Agrellan Earth and green paint. But even when using only very little green (and slathering the mix on rather thickly), I only managed to get a very slight crackle effect on the model’s stomach and shoulder pads. It’s nice and subtle, but it could be a bit more pronounced. Plus it’s really hard to get the colour to perform consistently: Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, with no discernible explanation for the inconsistency.

Worse yet, when mixing Agrellan Earth with Vallejo Negro Black for the base, the paint refused to crackle at all. Take a look:

Maybe this means that using non-GW paints messes with the crackle effect somehow? Or maybe I just couldn’t get it right by that point…

To be fair, GW themselves are advertising the colour as a means for base design, above all else. So painting flaking armour with it might never have been all that promising a plan in the first place. Still, I would have hoped for the colour to be somewhat more flexible — or am I doing something wrong? Anybody out there among you readers who knows how to make the most of this particular Technical colour?

Anyway, while I am slightly disappointed with Agrellan Earth, I do believe the colour warrants further experimentation. Here’s an idea, for starters: Do you think it would be possible to paint the colour onto an unpainted model in order to create the desired crackle effect, then add the undercoat on top of that, thereby conveniently sealing the effect in place? I may just have to try that next…

In any case, the overarching goal in this small project was to have fun painting again, and that worked out swimmingly. So we can maybe look forward to some more painted stuff in the near future? Keep your fingers crossed!

Until then, though, let me know what you think! And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!