My experiments trying to create a convincing crackle effect on Plague Marine armour using the new Citadel Technical Paint Agrellan Earth continue, as do my attempts to rediscover the joy of painting. One of these goals seems to be working out quite nicely, the other one…not so much. So, what are we looking at:

As you remember, I painted a first test model, trying to bring out a rather pronounced crackle effect on the models armour. It worked, but not as well as I would have liked:

So I figured I would try a slightly different approach for the next model in line: Paint Agrellan Earth - undiluted – on areas of the entirely unpainted model and hope for a more convincing crackle effect to set in, then add all the remaining paint on top, trying to preserve the effect as much as possible.

First I had to come up with another model to use as a guinea pig, though, so I kitbashed a Plague Marine, using some of the more decrepit bitz I had lying around. And then, I added Agrellan Earth on top. Here’s the effect, after a bit of waiting:

As you can see, the crackle effect was far more pronounced this time around. So far, so good, right?

In principle, yes. But it is rather hard to retain the effect through multiple layers of paint without covering it up. While it worked until after undercoating, the following layers of paint destroyed some of the subtler touches. I tried to counter that by adding a bit of Agrellan Earth on top again, but it performed just as unevenly as before:

Apart from that, I once again used several simple weathering effects (as well as a generous helping of Nurgle’s Rot) to make the model as disgusting and decayed as possible. Here’s the result:

From a crackle perspective, the effect is still not as pronounced as I would have liked. Nevertheless, I really like the overall look of the model — and Nurgle’s Rot once again performed admirably, as you can see, with green goo leaking from the model’s armour in many places. This guy may not have crackled as much as I had wanted him to, but he surely looks like a follower of Nurgle: As a matter of fact, I can almost see myself painting a small squad of Plague Marines, just for fun, crackle or not crackle.

Here are the two test models I have completed so far:

And a colour comparison with Nurglite champion Malchius Blight, completed as part of an earlier project:

As you can see, the colour is somewhat different, with Malchius much closer to the Nurgle Terminator Lord I build as a smaller side project:

You can learn more about this guys here and here.

Tell you what, seeing how this is turning into a bit of a Nurgle showcase, let’s throw in some of my really ancient Plague Marines from the 90s, complete with my vintage paintjobs, trying hard to emulate the “official” ‘Eavy Metal paintjobs from second edition 40k:

I still love that icon bearer model, by the way — maybe I should strip the paint from it and repaint it in the “modern” style?

Anyway, here’s one of those old guys with his “younger” brother:

I somehow can’t help feeling immensely fond of those simplistic early 90s plastics — at the very least, they have aged far better than their loyalist counterparts: Just take a look at the Space Marines that came with the 2nd edition starter box!

But wait, where does all of this leave us with regard to the crackle effect?

Well, I believe I will have to give a dedicated crackle medium a go next, maybe the one offered by Vallejo will do? I could also use Agrellan Earth and use washes and shades to do the actual colouring, as some of you suggested after my last post.

In any case, this experimentation has been quite a lot of fun so far, and definitely a much needed boost for my painting modjo!

As always, let me know what you think! Thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Hey everyone,

there I was, happily rediscovering the joy of painting while finishing one Plague Marine after the other, easy as you please. I should have known that Nurgle would visit his gifts on me sooner rather than later, but I was too enraptured by all the decay and rot.

Possibly as a consequence, I’ve been hit with a major case of the flu — that’s what I get, I suppose So, long story short, I cannot show you the post I originally wanted to show you because I didn’t manage to finish it. That’s the bad news.

The good news is that I can fill the update slot with yet another Plague Marine I painted, so you do get something new to look at, after all!

This time, the model in question was kitbashed in late 2010, so it was high time I slapped some colour on this guy. Here he is:

And a closeup of his lovely face

Here are the three finished Plague Marines together:

Crackle or no crackle, painting these guys has really been a blast so far, so I am considering adding some more models to the squad: I have two of the 90s metal Plague Marines, plus that old icon bearer from the same time. Giving those models the updated painting treatment would bring the squad up to seven — Nurgle’s sacred number, conveniently enough

But that’s a smaller project for the future! For now, let me crawl back to my bed and try to shake off the visitations of Papa Nurgle. And, of course, let me know what you think!

We’ll be returning to the regular content soon. Until then, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Some of you may already have wondered whether my recent focus on Plague Marines, apart from earning me Nurgle’s blessing by way of the flu, had made me forget about the 4th assault company altogether. Far from it! In fact, thoughts of Khorne’s Eternal Hunt have been slowly coagulating at the back of my head, and the recent rumours of possible new plastic kits to be released for Chaos Space Marines have only added to that pile of half-formed ideas. What’s more, I could never abandon this army, especially not in favour of followers of weak and inferior gods. Anyway, it’s time for another servant of Khorne to grace this blog! So, for now, let me show you a project that actually started quite a long while ago, but that only finally came to fruition in the last weeks:

Back in late 2012, I watched The Hobbit – An Unexpected Journey – as, no doubt, many of you did. And one of the most interesting things about the film, at least in my opinion, was Azog. His character design had been kept a closely-guarded secret just up to the release of the model, and so he became one of the visually more surpising elements of the film, and one that really inspired me: There was something about that pale, overmuscled creature and the sheer audacity of going into battle stripped to the waist that really made me think of the World Eaters’ gladiatorial leanings — and as a matter of fact, I had already begun exploring that angle with my first gladiator models:

But what if I were to take that idea even further? What about a model straddling the line between those gladiatorial World Eaters and Azog? The idea fascinated me, to be honest! And the model resulting from such a project would be the perfect character to lead a squad of gladiators in battle.

The next step towards transforming these half-baked ideas into an actual model was coming across kevinholcomb’s Angron conversion on CMoN. He had used the upper body of Hasslefree Miniatures’ “Wolf” barbarian model to great effect in order to come up with a model very similar to the look I was trying to achieve. So while ordering stuff via a big German hobby retailer some time ago, I picked up one of these as well, just in case:

I really love this sculpt, because while the model has the ‘roided-out look expected of an Astartes, there is also a certain nobility, even dignity, in both the pose and the face (on a mostly unrelated note, I found out by sheer coincidence that the model looks amazingly similar to this particular picture of Nathan Jones).

But I still needed to find a suitable lower body for the model, and experimenting with various Terminator legs didn’t amount to much. So the project seemd to be on indefinite hold…

…until it picked up steam again when I purchased a rather beat-up, incomplete metal Abaddon as part of a bigger ebay auction:

As you can see, even after I had stripped the paint off it, the model remained pretty rough in places, and there was also the fact that the Abaddon model looks rather puny when placed next to more recent Terminators. So the model was basically surplus to requirements — until I put it next to the Hasslefree barbarian:

Dear old Abby might no longer cut it as a model in tactical dreadnought armour, but what if I were to use the legs as part of my Azog-inspired conversion to represent power armoured legs for a giant of an Astartes instead? Things just fell into place at this point…

One thing bothered me, though: Both models were made from metal, and I am certainly not a fan of conversions involving all-metal models. But this time, there seemed to be no easy way around that, so I started sawing. The first part was to slowly disassemble poor Abaddon piece by piece, so as not to damage any of the parts I wanted too heavily:

The so-called Warmaster of Chaos — armless once more…

Then I cut off the barbarian’s legs model, unfortunately taking off part of his lower stomach as well. Both halves were then pinned together using a piece of paperclip:

As you can see, both parts of the model had been slightly damaged during the sawing, so a touchup with liquid GS would be in order. Before that, though, I greenstuffed a stomach section to fill the gap between upper and lower body. Then I used some more GS to sculpt a Triumph Rope scar for the torso.  And this obviously wouldn’t be one of my conversions without some additional plastic bitz stuck on. Here’s the finished conversion before painting:

I added a double-headed battle axe to the model — the bit, originally from the Marauder Horsemen kit, had been lounging in my bitzbox for quite a while, and this seemed to be the perfect opportunity to finally make good use of it! I also added a CSM shoulder pad and a Marauder shield to the left arm, both because I liked the asymmetrical look and because it was a nice way of making the guy look at least slightly more plausible. Most of the damage to the model was also repaired using Liquid GS.

When it came to painting the model, I really stuck to my usual formula, content in the knowledge that the contrast between the bare torso and armoured legs would make for an interesting effect. This being the first World Eaters model I painted in quite a while, the paintjob turned out slightly rough around the edges, but I didn’t mind too much.

So here he is, ladies and gentlemen:

Being my first (and quite likely my last) conversion involving metal models like this, I do of course realise that the model could look smoother. I am not to bothered with that, however, because I think that the overall effect still comes across rather nicely.

But who is this half-dressed giant of a man? As usual, figuring out a background for the model was the last stage of the project:

Vorl Dustwalker, Lord of the Pit

Some members of the War Hounds Astartes Legion may have loathed the brutal, gladiatorial style of warfare introduced by the Primarch Angron, but Vorl Dustwalker was not one of them. Even before the legion’s reunion with its Primarch, he had already established himself as a master of the fighting style that would become a trademark of the legion in later years. On the War Hounds’ vassal world of Bodt, Vorl was one of the Astartes tasked with training the legionaries in combat at close quarters. And many mighty champions of the World Eaters still hold in their hearts a feeling of shame at being brought low by him during sparring matches, the acrid taste of Bodt’s volcanic soil still etched into their memory as a reminder of their failure.

After gladiatorial fighting had become one of the mainstays of the World Eaters’ cobbled-together warrior culture, Vorl became known as the Dustwalker, a legend in the fighting pits, almost on par with mighty Delvarus, the legion’s uncontested champion on the Hot Dust.

How the Dustwalker came to be a member of Lorimar’s 4th assault company after the madness at Skalathrax is difficult to ascertain. But ever since, he has been serving as a combat instructor and an insurmountable contestant in the fighting pits nestled in the bowels of the company’s capital ship.

Vorl Dustwalker is not often seen outside the pits, for ordinary fights tend to be beneath his notice. Once the Dustwalker’s interest is piqued by a battle or an adversary, however, he may take to the field, accompanied by a coterie of his most talented gladiators. Their only partly armoured bodies and comparatively primitive weapons are both a mockery of their opponents and a testament to their skill, and Vorl is the first among these capricious warriors.

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

It’s been quite a while since I was last able to show you a finished INQ28 model, but now my – mostly – rediscovered painting motivation has allowed me to finally put the finishing touches of another character for this particular side of the hobby.

In fact, the model I would like to show you today really shouldn’t be a stranger, at least not to regular readers of this fine blog: It’s a model I already showed you twice: Once as an unpainted WIP and once during the later painting stages.

The original plan, as I might have mentioned before, was to build a model inspired by the original Quovandius artwork from the Inquisitor rulebook:

Quovandius artwork from the original Inquisitor rulebook. Image owned by GW, obviously.

While the actual 54mm model for Quovandius is faithful to the artwork in many ways, the model itself ends up looking somewhat pitiful and sickly, while the guy pictured in the artwork above seems like he really means business. I also really wanted to incorporate the shotgun used as a crutch, since that has to be one of my favourite parts of the artwork!

Anyway, using an old Ork boy as a base model, here’s the model I came up with:

Not a perfect match, surely, but you should still be able to recognise where the inspiration came from, I believe. And, true to the artwork, this twist really looks like one mean mother, if I do say so myself.

And while painting him may have taken ages – he had been mostly finished for a long time, but I only went back for the finishing touches now – the model is now finally finished, and I am also quite pleased with the result. Take a look:

You might think I am crazy, but making the loincloth look more vibrant on the finished model may have been my best decision while painting. I also gave some extra care to parts of his equipment, like his knife, to make them look well used but deadly:

And finally, the model’s face received an extra layer of highlights, making the scars and seams slightly more noticeable. I really think he’s a bit of a character, to tell you the truth:

All in all, the model looks scarred and malformed, but this twist is also clearly his own man: You may find him horrifying, but you certainly wouldn’t pity him like you do pity the awkward and sickly looking Quovandius, right? Even though he has a bad leg…

But what about the model’s backstory? How did he end up even more ugly than your average twist? And why does he look so angry? As is my usual approach, finishing the model also entailed coming up with a bit of background for it…

Decius Freeman, twist bounty hunter

“Say, you ever heard of Decius Freeman?”

“Nah, couldn’t say I have. Wait, you mean that twist revolutiory riling up them workers on Silon Minor? The one sold out his fellow conspirators in the end, trying to save his hide before the cartels brought in the heavy hitters?”

“That’s the one, although that’s not the way I hear it told. Ask the right people, and they’ll say he was actually the one being sold out, only that, once that rebellion had been quelled and the dust had settled, no one was that all intent on finding out the truth of it.”

“What’s it to you, though? You turnin’ into some kind of historical expert on the matter of the twist freedom movement, or what?”

“Feth, I was getting to that, right? So, just the other day, a twist hunter came by the Virgo, down in sector eleven. One big fether, I tell you. Ugly too. All muscle and scars and gristle, and with a gammy leg. And I gak you not, he was using a mean looking shotgun as a crutch.”

“So?”

“Said he was looking for Reuban Nonus. Said the two of them go way back. That he owed him. Only thing is, he got that look in that one good eye of his when he said it, made you feel like old Reuban wouldn’t be all too pleased to be paid back what he was owed, if you get my meaning.”

“And did you tell him?”

“Me? Throne, no. I reckon if someone needs to find me, they ought to know where to look. And if they have to ask others for my location, well, maybe I don’t want to see them all that badly. That twist didn’t get a word out of me, and he was putting on his best scowl too, by the look of it. Told me to come find him if I remembered. Told me he goes by the name of Decius.”

“But you didn’t remember anything?”

“Nah, course not. But you know how it goes in the hollows: Some Asher down on his luck musta told him where to find his old friend, because next thing you know, Old Reuban’s floating face down in one of them culture tanks, down at the hydroponics.”

“Gak! I hadn’t heard that! Say, didn’t Reuban used to work on Silon hisself?”

“That he did. Never did want to talk about his time in the mines, though. I figured it must have been terrible on that world during the riots.”

“And you think that twist did him in? The one with the gammy leg?”

“I’d bet my last cred on it. And you know what? If there are any more guys in the sector being owed by that Decius fellow, they had best keep out of sight. Throne, all that talking is giving me a sore throat. You still drinkin’ that?”

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

“The Emperor, for all his supposed faults, understood war had come full circle. In his Imperial wisdom, he’d bred soldiers to win those ancient wars that would be fought again in the future”

Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Betrayer

Today I would like to talk about a project that has managed to more or less take on a life of its own lately, and has become a rather interesting facet of Khorne’s Eternal Hunt. So what is this about, and why that quote?

Those of you following this blog for some time may remember that, every now and then, I will build models channelling the gladiatorial origins of the World Eaters: Everything started in 2012 with a first test model, then a second gladiator, resembling a particular, very angry video game character, followed about a year later. Then a third one last autumn. And then I recently unveiled my model for Vorl Dustwalker, the champion to lead this gladiator squad:

That last model, along with the growing squad, received some pretty positive comments on the various boards and forums I frequent, along with some pretty nifty suggestions and ideas for future gladiators: I had always seen ancient Roman gladiator types as a vague inspiration, of course. But I hadn’t delved too deeply into historical sources, fearing that the results would be too Roman and not World Eater-ly enough. But with the various suggestions by fellow hobbyists came a renewed interest in the classical side of things, so I checked out various Roman gladiator types and reflected on how to best adapt them to the world of 40k.

I do of course realise that the whole concept is a bit silly: Partially unarmoured warriors fighting with rather primitive weapons are probably not all the rage on the battlefields of the 41st millennium. But still, exploring this particular side of the World Eaters’ cobbled-together warrior culture was far too interesting and rewarding an option to ignore: It’s fun to imagine a band of World Eaters that endeavours to mimic the Primarch Angron even more closely than the rest of the legion, fighting like the gladiators of ancient times. And when I discovered the quote prefacing this article while reading Betrayer, everything started falling into place.

So, through the input of my fellow hobbyists and a strange chain of coincidences, the gladiator squad became a very interesting hobby project rather than an idle distraction. For the last days and weeks, I have tried to come up with new members for the squad, with each of them fighting in his own way, with a unique set of weapons. Some of the models I will show you today (and those that are yet to come) will be patterned after classical gladiators, while others will be less historically recognisable, but just as gladiatorial, I hope. Anyway, let’s take a look at where the squad is headed at the moment:

These two were the next two models in line to be painted:

On the left, you see a guy I already built some time ago. Like all of the gladiators so far, he was kitbashed from a mix of Khorne berzerker, (Chaos) Space Marine, Beastman and Chaos Marauder parts. Those bitz allowed me to achieve the partially armoured and slightly feral look I wanted. In this case, the model received a chain glaive, a fitting weapon for a follower of Khorne (even though the more recent fluff seems to have transformed it into a traditional weapon of the VIII legion).

While painting this guy, I stuck to my usual recipe. Here’s what I ended up with:

Once again, the model is wearing a tatoo reminiscent of Angron’s own warpaint:

I am calling this kind of gladiator a “Glaivex” for the chain glaive he wields. There wasn’t any similar gladiator in ancient Rome because glaives and halberds were apparently invented much later, but since it’s a weapon I definitely wanted to incorporate, I had to improvise. I still think he rather looks the part though:

The next member of the squad was patterned after the classical Secutor, a gladiator fighting with sword and shield and usually paired with a Retiarius. The Roman Secutor was armoured on one of his arms and had a special helmet, designed to repel the trident wielded by the Retiarius.

Transforming the historical design into something fitting the overall look and feel of my World Eaters did take some doing, but here’s the model I came up with:

As you can see, the weapons and equipment were somewhat “de-romanised”, with a suitably chaotic sword and shield in place of the Roman Gladius and Scutum.

The helmet was a bit of a lucky find: It’s from the WFB Chaos Chariot, and while wasn’t all that fond of it to begin with, I really think it works in this case.

So here’s the painted model:

I think this guy has a rather brooding, sinister presence, due to his pose as well  his “faceless” helmet. So while the model was made from a hodgepodge of bitz, it has really become a favourite of mine, to tell you the truth.

Here are both models, completely painted:

With these two new recruits, the squad is now playable (and already looks fairly nice as well):

So what do we have so far? From left to right: A Secutor, Dimachaerus (wielding two swords), Vorl Dustwalker with his huge war axe, another Dimachaerus (sword and axe, this time) and the Glaivex.

I am really happy with these, and yet I am already hard at work on the next additions for the squad. Some are even halfway presentable, no less:

First up, a Retiarius, to serve as a playfellow for the Secutor:

The Roman Retiarius is certainly one of the most iconic gladiators, wielding a net and trident. In my case, I used a leftover net from the Dark Eldar Wyches and one of the weapons from the WFB plastic Chaos Lord: It may not be a trident, but it looks suitably imposing and chaotic!

Again, getting this guy’s pose right took a bit of work, but I really couldn’t be any happier with the result! The model is basically finished at this point, and definitely next on the paint station!

But there’s more: Here’s a (slightly more WIP) model not patterned after a classical gladiator. I am calling this guy a “Carnifex”, after the latin word for executioner — rather than a huge alien-dinosaur, people

Please ignore the blue grenades: a rather dubious colour choice taken by the previous owner…
Anyway, even though this guy will need some more sorting out, I think he already reads as a gladiator.

Here are the two next squad members together:

And even beyond those, there are some more gladiator types that might warrant further exploration: What about a Cestus, wielding dual power fists (or suitably spiky gauntlets)? Or a Bestiarius, complete with his trusty chaos hound? Or an Andabatae, with a completely closed helmet, blindly charging at the enemy like a wild bull? We’ll see…

Another important thing to note is that the gladiator theme is something that gets repeated throughout the army, even beyond this particular squad. The two visual leitmotifs for my World Eaters are that they are hunters (adorning themselves with trophies and pelts of their prey as well as acessories like war horns, skinning knives etc.) and that they are gladiators, wielding weapons and equipment that sometimes seem slightly gladiatorial. Brother Hokar would be an example of that:

Or, indeed, Lord Captain Lorimar himself:

Or consider, if you will, the Veredus pattern Assault trike, a vehicle straight from the arena, if ever there was one:

For now, though, thinking about new models to add to my gladiator squad and getting them built and painted serves two objectives: It allows me to finish models that I am really happy with, and it gets me in the mood for building (and painting!) more World Eaters, and that’s always a good thing, right?

In closing, let me say that this project wouldn’t have become so much fun without the constant feedback from fellow hobbyists. So thanks to all those who have helped shape these models, and please keep those comments coming!

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

Today, let me show you something that provides a bit of colour contrast in between all the red and bronze: Parallel to working on a squad of gladiatorial World Eaters, I’ve also been painting some more followers of Nurgle. And this time around, we are talking about some models that have been in my collection for quite some time!

Since we last saw my growing squad of Plague Marines, I’ve added two more models. And even though I have precious little love left for metal models at this point, the Dave Andrews Plague Marines from the late 90s still range among my favourite chaos models for a number of reasons:

First, they are quite iconic: With their gas masks and “Pickelhauben”, they have a decided WW1 Trencher feel — quite fitting for warriors who fight surrounded by virulent gases and noxious fumes (albeit in a slightly inverted way: One could almost imagine that the Plague Marines are actually wearing their protective gear in order to keep the fresh air out). Their helmet design also nicely combines historical sources with the “mono-horn” typical of Nurgle.

Then there’s the fact that the detail on these guys is very nice: The damage to their armour seems believable and not overstated. All of them are modelled with a trusty plague knife at their side. And there are delicious visual cues, such as desiccated heads (serving as plague grenades), small Nurgle icons worn on chains, leaking (and poorly patched up) pipes or all kinds of vile pocks and fungal growth marking the armour.

All these qualities notwithstanding, I am a little ashamed to say that the metal Plague Marines I own have mostly been mouldering away, pun intended, in my bitzbox, ever since I purchased them sometime during the late 90s/early 2000s.

That turned out to be a good thing, though, because my recent foray into the wonderful world of corrosion and decay made sure that I could finally do justice to these models — in my small way, at least.

I left these completely unconverted, both because I hate cutting apart metal models, but also because I think the models are pretty much perfect as is. My only concession to modern design was to outfit them with some new arms and bolters, instead of the old plastic versions from the 90s (clown hands, anyone?).

So, without any further ado, here are the finished models:

The first model seemed to be built for a very classic pose, so I just added two arms holding a bolter. I really like the model’s subtly implacable look! Painting-wise, the Plague Marine was given the same treatment as the rest of my Plague Marines, with lots of rust and corrosion (and a fair amount of Nurgle’s Rot leaking out of the armour joints and vents).

The second model seems to have been designed with a more open pose in mind, so I obliged by arming it with a chainsword/bolter combo. Here’s the finished model:

And what do you know, when I had almost given up hope, a nice and subtle crackle effect began to develop on the right shoulder pad, courtesy of all the Agrellan Earth I used in the paint for the armour:

I also really like the pocks, dappled all over the model’s left greave. Such a fun little detail:

All in all, these guys were a blast to paint. Plus they have really managed to age ridiculously well: They perfectly embody all that a Plague Marine should be, in my opinion, with their only shortcoming being that they are slightly on the small side when stood next to more recent models, but that could well be explained in-universe as their bodies slowly collapsing from rot. The best thing about them is how they are quite sinister without being overly twisted or mutated. In fact, part of the body horror for these guys comes from wandering what’s beneath the armour (instead of being able to see it outright). It seems like Forgeworld’s recently released Death Guard conversion kits are, in no small part, an attempt to create uncorrupted Pre-Heresy versions of these models’ design. The later metal model from the 2000s seem a little lacklustre, by comparison — I wish I had bought more of those older models while I still had the chance, because they are all great!

So, where does that leave us in regard to the overall squad? Let’s take a look:

I am really quite pleased with these guys, even though I have little to no plan to use them in Khorne’s Eternal Hunt. There’s still the 90s metal icon bearer – now stripped of his former paintjob – left to paint. And then? Maybe I’ll just spin these guys off into a small Nurglite killteam? After all, I already have a suitably decayed Terminator Lord to lead them:

I have half a mind to throw in a decayed Traitor Guard soldier or two. And a plague zombie. And maybe some hulking mutant creature? Shoot, there I go again…

For now, though, painting these guys has proven to be a lot of fun. And I love the fact that I have finally managed to finish some models that have been part of my collection for ages. Go me!

Let me know what you think! And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

First of all, let me apologise for posting an incomplete version of this post a couple of hours ago — I didn’t pay attention and messed up. However, what better incentive to finally finish that post, right? So here goes:

I surely took my own sweet time to finally get around to talking about this kit! But while the internet was already abuzz with all kinds of unboxing videos, sprue diagrams and what have you, I did want to take it a bit slower, carefully looking at the kit and waiting for the first builds and conversions to appear. But when it comes to Imperial Knights, some pretty sweet content has begun to appear online over the last few days, so I guess the time is right!

I’ll gladly admit that my jaw pretty much hit the floor when I first saw the Imperial Knight: Once again, as they did with the Lord of Skulls, GW have taken a model from the days of Epic (or, indeed, Adeptus Titannicus) and brought it over to the 28mm scale — and what  model it is!

I have gone on record stating that the 40k universe feels really unique to me. Sure, there’s a number of possible inspirations for the setting, but no other IP mixes medieval, renaissance and futuristic elements with quite so much aplomb! The Imperial Knight is a perfect example of that in that it is clearly both a futuristic walker and a wildly eclectic, medieval looking machine. It also really does look like a knight!

The model also clearly improves on the older versions of the model, keeping hallmarks of GW’s classic titans (the spindly arms carrying comparatively huge weapons, the hunched over look with the head emerging from the chest,…) while bringing it all in line with the more recent design.

I can still remember one of the first pieces of 4ok artwork I saw while browsing through the instruction manual for Space Crusade: It was a battle scene focusing on what must have been a Knight Titan, with Space Marines scurrying antlike between its legs. I can remember my wonder at that piece of artwork, specifically at the strangely medieval banners and heraldic elements adorning the huge robot-thing. Looking at the new Knight recalls that moment and provides the best possible kind of nostalgia: I remember the older Knight models not as they actually looked but as they should have looked.

The kit is also full of amazing details: The heraldic plate on the right shoulder, the banner between the legs or the hatch leading to the cockpit, all of these are great little touches. The chainsword is a bit of a no-brainer, because it’s so iconic of the GW titans, but the weapons for the other arm are really nice as well.

The different faceplates have got to me my favourite elements, however: It actually took me a while to realise that all of them use the same basic head construction and merely function as masks, but they are all great: From suitably knightly to creepily skeletal, there is much to like about the designs — even using the bare head without any masks on top is a cool option, leading to a suitably inhuman AdMech look:

The model is also really interesting in the way it uses heraldic elements: Much has been said about the various decal sheets for the Knight, but while I am feeling mostly apathetic about decals in the first place, the Imperial Knight is a stunning example of what can be achieved once the decals are basically turned up to eleven:

On the other hand, I was surprised to see that the Knight also works with relatively simple colour schemes. In fact, one of my favourite Knights so far has one of the simplest colour schemes:

Already, people all over the internet are coming up with visually stunning Imperial Knights, and it will be fun to see what can be done with the model over the coming weeks and months.

One last thing that I love about the Imperial Knight is not so much the model itself but the lore surrounding it: The Imperial Knights are, at the same time, a perfect embodiment of the 40k universe and yet also avatars of something even more archaic and medieval: The whole culture surrounding them is really interesting, and the concept of knight world and knightly households is not only very interesting but also hasn’t been done to death — a much needed breath of fresh air, so to speak!

There are also the possible myteries surrounding those huge warmachines: How does the Throne Mechanicum work? What does the cockpit of a Knight look like? Is it your classic mech cockpit with lots of screens and HUDs? Is it a steampunk extravaganza, complete with analogue gauges, brass piping and an upholstered pilot chair? Could it be more like an amniotic tank, with the pilot floating suspended in liquid (the top hatch does have something sinister, doesn’t it?)? It’s fun to imagine all kinds of stories about the Knight, and to explore the parts you cannot see as well — is it any wonder that there are enterprising hobbyists endeavouring to fill the gaps, so to speak? And to great effect, I might add!

While we are on the subject of other hobbyists, let me point you towards several really useful resources for all your Imperial Knight discussion needs:

• First, a supremely useful series of posts on Tale of Painters, discussing the kit and its various properties (one and two)
• Then you should definitely check out JeffTibbet’s thread over at The Bolter and Chainsword, where Jeff builds a Knight from the ground up with an enviable amount of perfectionism and attention to detail — highly recommended!
• For those who want to delve into the history of Imperial Knights and their models, this thread should be an awesome resource as well.

So, isn’t there anything bad about the kit?

As much as I love the model – and love it unequivocally, I might add – I once again feel that I am not exactly comfortable with the direction of the game as a whole: Sure, the Knight is amazing, and everybody and their cousin want one. It stands to reason that it should be given workable rules, because what use is a toy we don’t get to play with, right? But entire Knight armies consisting of multiple of these beasts? What role does that leave for the average infantryman?

I do of course realise that I sound a bit like a broken record here, but I think it needs to be pointed out that we are now basically playing with action figures, scale wise. This is both good and bad: Good because we get to use stuff that only ever had a place in Epic before, and this is very much like our children’s dreams come true, right? Bad because there’s this constant danger that any game below the Apocalypse level could end up more or less devalued.

Then there’s the fact that we should also consider alterntives to the Imperial Knight: I already mentioned Dreamforge Games‘ excellent models at an earlier date, and they are certainly first on my list of possible alternatives for a Knight model:

Leviathan Crusader by Dreamforge Games

Leviathan Mortis by Dreamforge Games

The great thing about the DFG models is their almost ridiculously high amount of articulation, poseability and cutomisability: You can basically get these guys to look any way you want, and this is certainly the one area where the GW model falls a little flat. There’s also the fact that the Leviathans are available in loyalist and chaotic flavours, as evident from the images above. Plus they certainly provide some amazing value for the money. Strong contenders for the Imperial Knight, surely?

The one problem seems to be their size: There’s a pretty helpful side-by-side comparison of the Knight Titan and 15 mm Leviathan Crusader here on YouTube. The gist of it is that the 15mm is about 2 inches shorter than the Knight, while the bigger 28mm version is about two inches taller. So either will not be the same height as the “official” Knight kit. That’s certainly not the only important consideration here, but it does make a difference. Meanwhile, the bigger, 28mm Crusader would certainly make for a brilliant alternative to a Warhound Titan.

And you know what: You can call me crazy, but maybe we wouldn’t even have the Imperial Knight today if it hadn’t been for the Dreamforge Games models meeting with such positive feedback last year.

The good news is that, in this particular case, you, my dear readers, can have your cake and eat it too: While I might be endeavouring to build a chaos knight using the Imperial Knight kit at some point in the near future, fellow hobbyist Chris Harman has the Dreamforge Games angle covered — and knowing his conversions so far, we’ll definitely be in for a treat!
So, before I wind up this rambling post, let me take a look at some of the conversions that have begun to crop up all over the blogosphere. It probably won’t astound you that my main interest lies in seeing the Imperial Knight suitably desecrated and brought into the service of the ruinous powers — rules and allie matrices be damned! Fortunately enough, some fellow chaos worshippers have already done some truly spectacular work:

• First up, Insane Psychopath’s conversion, making heavy use of a WFB warshrine of chaos — and to great effect, I might add!
• Then there’s the ever-inspirational GuitaRasmus, with a more twisted vision. That head is just amazing, isn’t it?
• Another – fairly straightforward but still absolutely awesome – conversion comes from greg0985: I thought the skull mask was a no-brainer for a chaos knight conversion, but this model seriously made me reconsider that…
• And finally, there is this beauty, courtesy of Troy, that left me almost speechless: Troy also made good use of the warshrine bitz, but the red and gold really sold me on what clearly seems to be a Khornate Knight.

And there’s that most elusive and expensive of kitbashes: Combining the Lord of Skulls and Imperial Knight kits to make a truly enormous Khornate walker — many are theorising about such a conversion at the moment, but none have tried it so far. Maybe it’s the price tag? At 200 Euros, such a conversion certainly wouldn’t come cheap. Maybe it’s the fact that the kitbash would leave you with two leftover halves without much use for either — although some have pointed out that a Knight upper body and Lord of Skulls undercarriage could be combined in order to build a Kaban Machine. Anyway, sooner or later, somebody will take the plunge…

The Lord of Skulls was admittedly a bit of an acquired taste: While it stayed true to its roots in several old Epic models and nicely managed to transport them to the 2st century, it was too goofy for some and was thus derisively called the “Skulldozer”. The Imperial Knight tries the same, but with vastly more success and to near unanimous excitement. And rightly so: From a design perspective, it’s an amazing model. It has set the hobby scene abuzz with a thousand possibilities, and there’s no small amount of anticipation: Whatever may be next?

For now, let’s be happy with the Imperial Knight we got. It’s a stunning piece. Great job, GW!

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

I have been making some serious progress on my squad of gladiatorial World Eaters which means more World Eaters for you to look at. This squad comes together really fast, both because these guys are a lot of fun to convert and paint and there’s an ongoing stream of really helpful feedback from fellow hobbyists. So let’s take a look at the latest additions to the squad, shall we?

First of all, I revisited one of the gladiators I showed you in my last post: Leave it to fellow World Eaters players to sort out your conversion problems for you: Biohazard suggested some simple changes to my Carnifex gladiator that instantly made the pose 100% better and improved the model quite a bit:

Before:

After:

Just by tweaking it ever so slightly, I managed to make the model’s pose look quite a bit more plausible, don’t you think? Thanks for the amazing tip, buddy!

I also finally painted the Retiarius. Here’s the finished model:

Seeing the photos up close now, there may be one or two areas that could do with a slight touch up, but I am generally happy with the model: There’s a very nice sense of movement, which, I think, really fits this particular gladiator’s fighting style.

Here he is together with his “opposite”, the Secutor:

The next thing I did was to build another gladiator from the ground up: One of the classic gladiator types I found pretty interesting was the Bestiarius, used to fight against wild beasts. Now for my own gladiator squad, I wanted to adapt this concept as some kind of beastmaster, taming all kinds of feral creatures and siccing them on his opponents. As a matter of fact, this gladiator also provided an excellent chance to revisit an older idea of mine:

Quite a while ago, I built a modular base for two chaos hounds and a beast handler. The base itself was a fairly simple affair:

Now the idea was that the models could be slotted into the larger base to form kind of a mini-diorama, while also staying useable as single models. I did finish the base and hounds, but the beast handler didn’t happen, for one reason or another:

So what better way to finally make use of these already completed assets than to incorporate them into my plans for the Bestiarius, right? So I threw together a quick WIP model of the gladiator:

My original idea was for him to hold the two hounds by chain leashes, so I used a suitable gauntlet and planned on converting it to be holding two chains:

But in addition to being a rather fiddly conversion to get right, I realised that this would mean that the gladiator himself would only ever look good when slotted into the larger base. On his own, he would be holding two chains strangely suspended in thin air, ending in nothing. That didn’t work!

Fortunately, my bitzbox didn’t leave me stranded, and some fellow hobbyists provided a couple of awesome suggestions via the forums. In the end, I decided to replace the leashes with a whip: This element would communicate the beastmaster concept just as well, plus it would make the model more flexible. And so, little by little, the Bestiarius took shape. Here’s the finished model before painting:

As you can see, I added a couple of additional bitz to make the model a bit more interesting. Most of these parts were also chosen in order to make the model look slightly feral, in keeping with its profession, so to speak.

Here’s the Bestiarius, preliminarily slotted into the bigger base:

The fact that the bigger base and hounds were already finished provided just the right motivation to get the gladiator painted as soon as possible. So a short while later, the Bestiarius was mostly finished as well:

Again, I might go back and add some last highlights, but I think you already get a pretty good impression from these pictures. Here he is, complete with his hounds:

I am pretty happy with both the new model and the ensemble. And choosing the whip instead of the chains means the gladiator is far more flexible (and could be used for different beasts as well…).

I do of course realise that he doesn’t have any rules per se, but this was mainly a fun project, and I am quite pleased with the result!

Here are the two newly painted  models together:

I actually managed to paint both of these in one day, with is almost spectacularly productive when compared to my usual standard… ;-)

And finally, since coming up with new gladiators was such a blast, I went and built another one: This time, I wanted to adapt the concept of the Cestus for my squad, a gladiator fighting with his fists (pretty much a precursor to modern boxers).

Getting this right once again took some doing, because while the whole gladiator squad may not be all that plausible to begin with, a warrior merely using his fists as a weapon on the battlefields of the 41st millennium just seems completely out there. My initial idea was to produce something like this…

…but that just looked far too stupid. Fortunately enough, some of the clawed gauntlets from the Raptor/Warp Talon kit had just the gladiatorial look I was going for:

It’s still not exactly a prudent weapons choice, but it works better than just the twin power fists, don’t you think? And who doesn’t love a little Wolverine every now and then (Snikt, anyone?)? The one thing I am not perfectly sure about, however, is whether to use the head as is or add a crest to it:

There’s arguments for both options, really: The bare helmet looks brutal and no-nonsense like, which is a nice fit for the character. The helmet with crest seems more arrogant and flamboyant, which seems rather fitting for a warrior thinking he can cut it on the field of battle using nothing but some clawed gauntlets.

I think I’ll just have to think about it for a while. It’s only a minor detail, to be sure, but it’s a pretty tough aesthetic decision — I know, I know: first world problems, and all that…

In any case, as you can see, the gladiator squad is coming along rather nicely. As of today, there are seven painted models in the squad. Here they are, assembled for a family portrait:

That leaves me with the Carnifex and Cestus to paint. And after that? I’m not sure, actually: My original plan was to stop at eight, but these guys are serious fun to come up with, so don’t be surprised if I decide to add yet another model or two…

For now, though, I am pretty happy with how the squad is coming along. And all mostly thanks some really kick ass suggestions by fellow hobbyists. Thanks a lot, people!

It goes without saying that I’d be interested to hear any comments you might have! And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Work abounds this week, so in place of a larger, well-considered update, let me just hit you with a jumbled mess of disparate things, if it’s all the same to you ;-) Most of them are related to my World Eaters, though, if that is any consolation…

1. In search of a past…

“No. No! Not the sarcophagus… Khorne damn you, you disloyal curs, just kill me! JUST KILL ME!”
- Khalos the Ravager, last words prior to Helbrute internment

I added some final touches to the Helbrute model you saw in my last update, but the changes are nearly invisible at this point, which is always a sure sign of the model being finished. And while I am pretty happy with how this big guy has turned out, there’s the problem of tieing him into my army’s background:

You see, I try to come up with a background for any squad or bigger model I use, and a Helbrute/Dreadnought is certainly big and impressive enough to warrant his own name and story, right? Well, therein lies the problem:
One of the defining factors of Khorne’s Eternal Hunt is that its members cling to their martial honour, in spite of suffering from the bite of the Butcher’s Nails and the steady degradation of their sanity over time. For them, apart from periods when they are “lost to the nails” during battle, the thought of permanently devolving into mindless beasts is the ultimate horror. And in order to slow down the inevitable decline of the company, those physically or psychologically corrupted beyond redemption are organised into separate suicide squads, to die in a last blaze of glory before their corruption spreads to their brethren.

Roughly the same goes for the company’s Ancients, of course: So the last two Dreadnoughts I built for my army exemplify opposite ends of this spectrum, with Khoron the Undying remaining mostly sane, in spite of his millennia of internment in an ironform (with the danger of finally succumbing still always present), while Marax the Fallen was already forever lost to the nails prior to being transformed, so for him the internment was an eternal punishment, and his function is to act as a reminder to his brothers what their fate will be if they permanently give in to madness and anger.

So far, so good, right? But now I have this third Dreadnought/Helbrute that is visibly mutated and corrupted and seems just as angry as Marax, if not moreso. So where does he come in? How do I explain him as a character? And what will be his name?

I agree that this is not really a huge problem, and I will certainly present the model proudly alongside all the others, even without any background or justification. But as someone for whom the background of an army is an inseparable part of the whole project, this does bug me — so in case you have any suggestions, I’d be happy to hear them!

2. Reborn in Blood

The most terrible fate (at least from a hobby perspective) recently befell fellow hobbyist Legatho: A fallen tree crashed into his garden shed during a hailstorm, where most of his various hobby materials were stored, and almost all of his models were lost in the deluge (check out his Ammobunker thread for the whole story, complete with cringe-inducing photos). Seeing the results of that catastrophe made me realise that I wanted to help, and so, a couple of other guys and me each sent Legatho some bitz in order to help him rebuild his bitzbox, Here’s the box of assorted stuff I sent on its way to France :

And then the most awesome thing happened: I had also included a converted World Eater in the package, a model that, for one reason or another, I had never bothered to paint: I just thought it might be a nice personal touch to send along something World Eater-ly, along with the other stuff.
Well, it turned out that this was the first model Legatho chose to paint following his personal hobby Armageddon. Take a look:

He also made some fitting additions to the model, like the Ogre gut plate and some additional skulls and chains. And I particularly like the spears on the base, since they closely echo the basing motif I used for my own model for Lord Captain Lorimar.

The best thing, though, is that Legatho included a small plaque on the base as a further shout out:

That one really made me smile! All in all, I really couldn’t be any happier with the outcome: I think Legatho really managed to do the model justice with his paintjob, plus it was great to be able to help out a fellow hobbyist! And I really love the thought that a “goodwill ambassador” from Khorne’s Eternal Hunt  now resides in France. Way to go, brother-slaughterer ;-)

The best thing, however, is that Legatho seems very motivated to keep building and painting models, and I think that’s really admirable! I am not sure my own hobby mojo would have recovered from a hit like that, but there you have it! Anyway, helping out felt good anyway, but as you can see, I also got an awesome hobby moment out of it as well!

Oh, and while we’re at it, be sure to take a look at Legatho’s thread and blog and leave a comment or two. Somebody who rebounds from such a hobby catastrophe so easily certainly deserves some recognition, plus there are some really cool kitbashes on show — all the more precious for the knowledge that they have been permanently lost…

3. Some new recruits

It goes without saying that I haven’t been completely idle, either: After the tour de force of painting the Helbrute model in a rather short amount of time, however, I needed to take it slow and engaged in some kitbashing in order to relax. So let me show you some of my latest smaller conversion projects:

First up, there’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while: I’ve repeatedly been tossing around ideas for a squad of World Eaters Havocs (to represent the classic “Teeth of Khorne” and add some versatile firepower to my army). I found myself thinking about the squad members just armed with a regular bolter (and used as ablative wounds): I wanted to make them slightly more interesting, and when I sifted through my bitzbox in search of inspiration, I found myself looking at some WFB chaos warrior shields: What if I built the ablative wounds guys to resemble breacher marines, only post-heresy?

Anyway, I messed around a bit, and here’s what I came up with:

Just a very early WIP, nothing’s glued together yet, but for some reason, I really like this guy — maybe this approach warrants some further exploration? In any case, I’ll hold off on this until it’s clear whether we are getting the rumoured new Havoc kit anytime soon or not. But it’s an interesting experiment nevertheless, don’t you think?

I also built yet another gladiator: I wanted to have at least one model in the squad wield a meteor hammer, a weapon appearing  in the recent World Eaters fluff and featured as an equipment option in Forgeworld’s World Eaters Rampager squad. Oh, and Imagine my surprise when I found out that it is also an actual chinese weapon!

Anyway, I wanted to kitbash a gladiator wielding a meteor hammer, so I tried to achieve a fairly close representation of both the FW look and the actual historical source. Here’s what I came up with:

Once again, the feedback on the forums proved invaluable, with fellow hobbyists El Diablo and MasterBuilder offering some extremely useful feedback on the model’s head and making me think about a way of making the meteor hammer even more accurate.

After a bit of additional cleanup work, here’s the finished build for the gladiator:

I am quite pleased with this guy, plus I think I managed to build a pretty close approximation of FW’s “official” meteor hammer! I did cave in, though, and used a FW resin head — it just looked too good.

Expect the remaining three gladiators to see some colours sooner rather than later ;-)

So yeah, that’s pretty much it for today: Just some smaller projects for now, although I can assure you that bigger things are on the way! It goes without saying that I’d love to hear any feedback you might have!

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

This week, Eternal Hunt hit the 200,000 views mark, less than nine months after attaing 100,000 views. Now this is certainly not world record material, but I am still immensely proud that a blog describing my pottering away at my various hobby projects has managed to attract so many visitors! So thanks to all those who have taken an interest so far, especially those of you who regularly comment or are even following this blog! You guys often provide me with the motivation I need to tackle the next project on my list, plus you provide some nifty ideas every so often. Cheers for that! ;-)

As for this blog’s high points over the last nine months, my retrospect of Year Two is still fairly recent, so I’ll just point  towards it for all the dates and facts. What’s far more interesting, though, is how I decided to celebrate this event:

Because what better way to celebrate than to get a nice present for myself, as a reward for all the hard work, right? Relax, though: There’ll be something interesting for you as well. So what is this about?

Some of you may remember when I posted about fellow hobbyist AgnostosTheos building 30k versions of two of my World Eaters characters a while back. This was pretty cool, because his World Eaters army is easily one of my favourite Heresy-era representations of my chosen legion.

Now imagine my dismay when AT recently announced that he would be selling his amazing collection of World Eaters — what terrible news! I, for one, would have loved to see further additions to this force, and maybe even some more 30k versions of characters from Khorne’s Eternal Hunt.

However, and I almost feel guilty for admitting it, this also provided me with the chance as well as the obligation to purchase the 30k versions that already existed.

Now I normally have pretty strict rules when it comes to buying painted models or commissioning people: I don’t usually do it, period.

I have various reasons for this: I don’t want to let other people do the work that actually constitutes a sizeable part of the hobby for me, reluctant as I sometimes am to take up a paintbrush. I also have the creeping suspicion that once I start to commission people like the Spiky Rat Pack, for instance, to build and paint some of their amazing models for me, I’ll never stop until all my money’s gone.

And there’s also the fact that it’s really an all or nothing choice: Either you only buy single pieces and end up with them looking markedly different from the rest of your army, or you commission an entire army, pay through your teeth and actually have no hobby activities left to do yourself — apart from the playing, admittedly, but that has never been the greatest draw for me.

So, to make a long story short: While I usually lack any impulse control when it comes to buying little plastic men, I have so far managed not to buy fully painted ones, at least.

I made an exception this time, however, because the thought of somebody else owing AT’s Heresy-era versions of “my” characters was pretty much unbearable to me.
And due to the fact that I have zero interest in assembling a 30k World Eaters force, it seemed a safe enough endeavour to buy a couple of AgnostosTheos’s models without running the risk of becoming addicted to yet another army. So I made him an offer that he could have – but didn’t – refuse and purchased four models, all in all, along with some supremely useful resin bitz and an almost complete sheet of World Eaters decals. While the latter two will become very useful for my work on Khorne’s Eternal Hunt, it goes without saying that the painted models were definitely the stars of the show. Here are three of them:

From left to right, we have a model representing Marax the Fallen in the days before his internment into a Dreadnought, a World Eaters officer based on the WFB plastic Chaos Lord, and Khoron the Undying, once again before being interred into an ironform. Let’s take a closer look:

First up, Marax the Fallen, in both his 30k and 40k incarnations:

The twin lightning claws on both models make for a pretty clear recurring element, and the blood spatters all over 30k Marax’s armour and face show that this warrior was dangerously unhinged, even before becoming a dreadnought.

Then there’s Khoron the Undying in both versions:

Although blood spattered, Marax seems less feral and uncontrollable than his brother. His patrician features are also a nice and subtle way of representing his function as a figure of respect among the warriors of the 4th assault company. In the 41st millenium, this face has forever been replaced with the brazen skull mask of a dreadnought, however.

Actually having these guys in my hands to display them alongside each other is a really awesome feeling, you know ;-)

And then there’s the unnamed World Eaters officer: While the model wasn’t based on any of my characters, the fact that it uses the same base model as my own Dark Apostle makes it fun to imagine that it might represent a younger Huntmaster Stian Gul:

Plus the model was actually a steal, so what choice did I have? My favourite part has got to be the way AT used etched brass parts to add World Eaters iconograpgy to the medieval looking armour.

There is actually one more model I purchased from AgnostosTheos, although one I am not prepared to show you just yet. It will also need some final touches to complete it. As a little teaser, let me just show you the weapons I intend to use for this mysterious warrior:

Maybe that should give some of you a clue as to the character this model will represent…

All in all, not only was this a great occasion to add some texture to my force, but it also serves as a very suitable celebration for my blog reaching 200,000 views. I really couldn’t be any happier with these guys:

While we’re on the subject, though, be sure to check out AgnostosTheos’s WIP thread and Flickr gallery: Though the various models may have found new homes, they remain one of the coolest 30k World Eaters armies, and those links allow you to check them out in their entirety — highly rec0mmended!

So a very warm thank you to AgnostosTheos for letting me have these models for a quite reasonable price! And thanks to you for reading this and taking an interest! To the next 200,000!

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

Hey everyone,

just a teeny tiny update today: You may remember how I recently lamented my inability to come up with a suitable justification for the totally twisted and mutated Dark Vengeance Helbrute joining up with the rather “pristine” (insofar as that word can be applied to followers of Khorne) warriors of Khorne’s Eternal Hunt.

Well, fortunately, many of you came to the rescue and offered ideas, suggestions and snippets of fluff. That input really provided me with lots of great ideas for the Helbrute’s background, so I had everything I needed to come up with a suitable piece of writing channelling the elements I liked the most. Many thanks to everyone who contributed one or several ideas to this process, especially to monkeytroll, Llamahead and DexterKong!

Here goes:

Khorlen the Lost

Ever since the Skalathrax campaign, the warriors of Khorne’s Eternal Hunt have been trying to keep the inevitable descent into madness that has claimed most of their legion at bay, instead clinging to their fierce martial pride. However, Lord Captain Lorimar’s retreat from Skalathrax earned him no small number of opponents amid the ranks of his own legion. One such enemy, Karakar the Exalted, considered Lorimar and his company cravens and hypocrites, unworthy of Khorne’s blessings and ignorant of the true nature of chaos: Karakar was furious about the Eternal Hunt looking down upon daemonhood and the gifts of the Warp, and he vowed he would educate the fourth assault company about the true meaning of chaos.

In late M39, Karakar and his warband fell upon the Fourth in a series of rapid assaults. During the initial phase of the fight, Huntmaster Khorlen, then a senior officer in the company, and his retinue were captured on the daemon world of Skabrea. Lorimar himself led an attack into the heart of the enemy stronghold, in order to rescue his battle brother and put Karakar to the sword.

When they reached the innermost sanctum of the fortress, the warriors of the fourth discovered a chilling scene: Karakar had wanted to punish the Eternal Hunt for their selfish pride, and for clinging to their long-obsolete past, so he had undertaken a sinister ritual to call the forces of the warp into the vessel provided by Huntmaster Khorlen’s body. He had paid dearly, however, as Khorlen – his body twisted and wracked with the raw powers of chaos – had broken his chains and slain everyone present in the ritual chamber. There his brothers found him, crippled and bloodied, his form twisted beyond reason, but yet imbued with a sinister resilience through the powers of the warp. And against all odds, Khorlen remained completely sane, and aware of the horrible changes that had been wrought upon him.

Lorimar and his warriors were at a loss: Had Khorlen’s mind been shattered by the ritual, it would have been easy enough to put him out of his misery. But their brother was still sane, and begged them to allow him to continue fighting. So a compromise was reached: Khorlen’s twisted remains were interred into a dreanought ironform, in an attempt to keep him combat worthy.

But the ritual had been so powerful that even the internment did not protect Khorlen against the forces of the warp: His ironform began to change and mutate, turning Khorlen into a hulking beast of steel and fleshmetal. Yet at the heart of the hellish contraption, the proud spirit of Huntmaster Khorlen still remained, untainted and unbroken.

Khorlen spends most of his days hidden deep within the great forge aboard the Aeternus Venator, his condition closely monitored by Huntmaster Deracin. Only in times of battle is he released to walk among his brothers once more, seeking a worthy death in battle as long as he is still himself...

Have a great weekend, everyone! And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Don’t worry, a detailed look at the whole Astra Militarum release is still forthcoming in the near future, but seeing how everyone (myself included) seems to be all over the new Tempestus Scions at the moment, let us put the cart before the horse for once, so to speak, and allow me to share my first hands on experiences with the kit. We’ll also take a look at options for building Stormtroopers for your IG (or Traitor Guard) force in general, and I dear it’ll be a rather wordy post, all things considered. I am also fairly confident you’ll get a few ideas out of the deal, though, so bear with me here!

Let me start by saying that the Tempestus Scions are an amazing kit, regarding both the quality of the sculpt and the amount of bitz and options you get. I have been asking myself for a long time why so few of the actual IG models (the fantastically eclectic Vostroyans notwithstanding) actually channel the anachronistic design elements that permeate the rest of the 40k universe, but with the Tempestus Scions, the combination of high tech and baroque, sometimes even medieval, elements is finally available in model form. I won’t get into this part any further, since it will probably play a pretty big role in my upcoming review of the Astra Militarum release. Suffice it to say for now  that I am all for more ostentatiousness and baroqueness in the IG catalogue!

Beyond the exciting design, though, the kit also provides an extremely versatile and extensive toolbox for building five excellent models. And the kit is full of opportunities right though the gate, enabling you to build elite soldiers for your Guard regiment as well as Inquisitorial Stormtroopers of any stripe and even Traitor Guard — because the decorative armour trim adorning all the Scions’ armour plates make it really easy to turn these guys to chaos.

Indeed, my current plan is to turn at least four of the models into the beginnings of a squad of elite soldiers for my detachment of Traitor Guard,  although I will probably use one model and some of the amazing Tempestor Prime bitz to buy an Inquisitor/Imperial Noble/senior IG officer/whatever…

That’s a plan for the near future, however. For now, let’s do some experiments in order to explore the kit in more detail!

I. Initial kitbashing

Taking inspiration from Jeff Vader’s recent experimentation with different head swaps on the Tempestus Scions, I did something similar, collecting various heads from my bitzbox and trying them on my first Scion test model, in order to see how they would change the overall look and feel of the model. Now don’t get me wrong, the whopping seventeen heads that come with the kit are just as amazing as the rest of the parts. But I still wanted to see how a mere head swap might turn one of the models into very different characters.

I filed my findings into several different categories. Just click for bigger pictures, by the way:

Experiment I: Inquisitorial types

I wanted to explore several options for creating shadowy and/or hi-tech-y Stormtroopers. My first experiment was to use a leftover head from Inquisitor Coteaz I still had lying around, and not only was it a great fit, but the resulting model is quite similar to the Sergeant of the Kasrkin models, don’t you think? I am seriously considering using that head for my Scion-based Inquisitor.

I also tried two robed DA heads, and while Marine heads tend to be a bit clunky when used on non-marine bodies, these might actually work (although it would be necessary to shave down the neck portion, which I didn’t do for my experiments). The sergeant from Jeff Vader’s wonderful squad of Tempestus Scions uses one of these heads as well, by the way, so you don’t need to rely on my word alone!
Oh, and I also like the faceless SpecOps look of the fourth head (a Valkyrie pilot head, I guess? Just bought it via ebay some time ago).

Experiment II: Medieval types

There’s quite a bit of overlap with the Inquisitorial types on these, although I wanted to see how to make the Scions look even more archaic and medieval. I mostly used Bretonnian heads during this attempt.

I actually really like the Brodie-helmet like look of models on the left! These might look great for a fire-and-brimstone Hereticus retinue (or in a particularly medieval IG regiment). The helmets do interfere with the antenna and sensor array on the shoulders, however, so some cutting might be in oder if you want to take this route. The knight helmet was mainly a joke, as was the shaved down berzerker helmet on the right (just the thing if you’re going for the old “Boba Fett” look, though).

Experiment III: IG veterans

I think that using various heads from the IG, WFB Empire or even Space Marine catalogues could be a great options of making the Scions look less like freshly-pressed parade ground soldiers and more like hard-boiled veterans from some of the more colourful regiments of the Astra Militarum.

I particularly like the one with the wolf scout head on the far right ;-)

Experiments IV and V: Traitors and Renegades

Ahhh, now we’re talking: I tried various chaotic heads in order to make the Scion model look like a Traitor Guard soldier: Like I said, the trim on their body armour makes them equally viable for chaos, if you ask me. I did already shave off some of the beautiful IG iconography, too. Anyway, here’s my first set of traitor experiments:

As you can see, slightly shaved down WFB chaos warrior helmets will work, as will heads from the plastic cultists.

I tried even more heads, though:

I really liked one of Jeff Vader’s experiments, where he used a head from the WFB Marauder Horsemen, and indeed, those heads work brilliantly on the Scion bodies: They are instantly recognisable as chaotic, but they still seem orderly enough so as not to damage the elite soldier look. My absolute favourite has to be the head from the Dark Vengeance cultist champ, though: While it may look slightly goofy on virtually any other model, here it instantly transforms a Scion into a warrior of the Blood Pact – BAM!

I didn’t limit myself to trying different heads, however, I also did a couple of smaller experiments involving different body parts:

For those of you who might be thinking of using the scions as a base for (Dark) AdMech Skitarii conversions, the following pictures might be helpful as well:

You can combine the scion torsos with flagellant legs:

For the real Skitarii look, you would probably need to replace the bare feet with something suitably tech-y and bulky (Necron feet, perhaps?). And you’d need to either add a cowl sculpted from GS or use the AdMech-styled cultist head.

As an alternative for making Skitarii (or, indeed, trenchcoat scions), you could use the legs from that very cultist:

While the legs may seem to be a bit on the thin side, the trenchcoat idea is nevertheless pretty interesting, because you end up with something only one step away from one of my favourite pieces of IG artwork by none other than the great Jes Goodwin.

One last early kitbashing idea: I just had to try and combine one of the masked Scion heads with the helmet of a Bretonnian Man-at-arms, again creating something resembling a futuristic Brodie helmet/gas mask combo:

The resulting model basically looks like a more detailed, more baroque GW version of one of my beloved Warzone 2nd edition starter minis:

Might be a useful idea for IG as well as Inquisitorial Stormtroopers or Traitor Guard, though…

2. Playing around with Tempestus Scion bitz

Interestingly enough, the first mostly finished model to come out of my purchase of the Tempestus Scions wasn’t even a Tempestus Scion: I used the voxcaster bitz from the new kit to salvage a FW Vraksian Militia torso I had seriously damaged during another conversion, and thanks to the new bitz, I was able to build a traitor soldier with voxcaster:

Even though he uses Chaos Marauder legs and a FW torso, he should still work well enough as a squad member for my chaos elites. He looks good enough next to my test model, at least:

On a semi-related note, the idea of this guy making prank calls during battle really cracks me up: I imagine nothing will mess with your battle logistics like someone calling in the middle of an offensive demanding to speak to Commissar I.P. Freely…  :-)

Anyway, back to the traitors: As it happens, I have some Vraksian torsos lying around (courtesy of fellow hobbyist PDH) and I think I will use more Marauder legs and a couple of bitz from the Scion kit to transform them into further models for the elite squad:

Again, they should work well enough from a scale perspective:

So, not only are the Tempestus Scions themselves great for different conversions, but the amount of extra bitz will also be really useful in converting even more models, both for my Traitor Guard and, I imagine, the odd INQ28 model. On a related note, make sure to check out little brother’s scion conversions over at his Ammobunker thread: His models are a great proof of concept for how easy it is to make the Tempestus Scions into traitors with just a minor influx of bitz! And Adam Wier has some very interesting ideas about slightly modifying the stock models as well.

I imagine that the coming weeks will bring a cornucopia of inspiring Scion conversions, so you actually might want to leave your sprues untouched for now… ;-)

3. Alternatives

So, once again, I am really happy with the Tempestus Scions and the conversion and kitbashing options they provide. But my love for the kit notwithstanding, let me discuss yet another source for possible Stormtroopers. As you will see, this is clearly not a case of favouring one kit (or manufacturer) over the other, but rather an attempt at outlining several, partly interlocking approaches for building just the Stormtroopers and elite soldiers you need:

Quite some time ago, I participated in a Kickstarter to make some of Mark Mondragon’s designs available in glorious plastic. The kits coming out of this Kickstarter, namely the different plastic Titans and the Eisenkern Stormtroopers, were one of my favourite hobby releases in 2013, as some may recall. And it’s the latter of the two I would like to talk about:

The Eisenkern Stromtroopers provide an alternate set of models for your Imperial Guard. Granted, these are not GW models, so you won’t be able to use them in any GW events or GW stores, but the models are still definitely nice enough to showcase them here! As a matter of fact, I was already feeling bad for not making the time to talk about them in more detail earlier, but now it turns out that the opportunity to discuss them back to back with the new Tempestus Scions is just the perfect way of taking a closer look at the kit. So let’s look at both kits, shall we:

On their own, the Eisenkern Stormtroopers provide a kit for making very cool looking elite soldiers with a very distinct WWII vibe. Incidentally, the background of the Eisenkern faction basically has them as “Germans IN SPACE!” (and the name certainly is a dead giveaway…). My personal reason for supporting their creation in plastic was that they really reminded me of the Wolf Brigade in Jin-Roh, but those designs were of course based on historical German uniforms again, so it’s a bit of a circular argument.

Anyway, the kit comes with so many options for customisation that it’s almost ridiculous, and these options are further multiplied if you decide to purchase an additional set of conversion and equipment bitz, giving you lots and lots of different weapons, heads, hands and various gear. Therefore, the humble test model pictured above is really just the tip of the iceberg.

Here’s a scale comparison with the Tempestus Scions:

As you can see, both models are more or less of the same height: The Eisenkern Stormtrooper is ever so slightly taller, yet less bulky than the Tempestus Scion. From a structural perspective, there are quite a few parallels, though, ranging from the body armour and rebreather helmets to the power plant-like section on the model’s back.

The overall look is still ever so slightly different, though: Where the Tempestus Scions are full-out baroque and grimdark, the Eisenkern models are more hi-tech, albeit with a clear retro element.

But let’s look at some more scale pictures, this time with a “regular” IG model, a cultist and an Astartes as additional parts of the comparison:

As you can see, both Stormtrooper models nicely fit into the gap between “regular” humans and Astartes: While both are basically just as tall as a regular Marine, the added bulkiness still nicely separates the Astartes from the unaugmented models.

One obvious problem with the Eisenkern models lies in the slightly more realistic (and less “heroic”) proportions when compared to GW kits. While this certainly isn’t a shortcoming per se, it can become a bit of a problem when trying to combine the Eisenkern models with GW bitz.

For instance, where the Tempestus Scion bodies will happily accept even Marine heads with a bit of cutting, even fairly slender heads like the wolf scout head pictured below will look slightly too clunky on an Eisenkern Trooper:

That said, some heads work better than others: I have collected some cases where the GW heads worked reasonably well below:

In any case, the important thing to keep in mind here is that these parts certainly weren’t designed to be mixed, so the fact that it still works out in some cases should be treated more like a bonus — but more on that in a minute.

The main problem from a design perspective is that the Eisenkern Stormtroopers are far less useful for “classic” chaos than the Tempestus Scions, because the smooth lines are not nearly baroque and archaic enough for your average traitor guard, whereas the extra decoration on the Scions makes them very chaos-y right out of the box. The common Eisenkern Stormtrooper fares less well when combined with chaos bitz.

But, again, this is obviously not really a fault of the kit itself: It wasn’t even designed to allow for shenanigans like that.

The big surprise, then, is that the Eisenkern Stormtroopers work amazingly well with the Tempestus Scion heads:

The beret heads from the Scions are perfect for Eisenkern officers — and actually much better than the somewhat generic bare heads that come with the Eisenkern kit (one of the few failings of an otherwise brilliant kit, I might add).

The same goes for the helmeted Scion heads:

And finally, the beret head with gas mask, one of the coolest heads in the kit anyway, is pretty much the perfect officer head for an Eisenkern Stormtrooper. Take a look:

Quite a nice reward for the adventurous kitbasher, don’t you think? Plus this information might be interesting both for those who are contemplating a purchase of the Eisenkern Stormtroopers as well as those who already own the kit and want to tie it in with their IG army: Just get some Tempestus Scion heads, and you’re golden ;-)

Another interesting fact: Female Eisenkern models will eventually be available, filling a  gap GW’s catalogue has mostly refused to address so far: Here’s a regular Eisenkern trooper next to Kickstarter exclusive model Ada:

So which one should you choose?

I’ll be honest with you, I couldn’t even tell you which kit is the better one, because a) both are awesome and b) which is better for you depends on what you are looking for: Both kits are great and, in their respective ways, provide great value for the money. The best possible approach would be to ask yourself what kind of Stormtrooper you are looking for and make your decision from there (or, of course, to just buy a box of each):

Do you want your Stormtroopers visually in line with the eclectic, sometimes outlandish and anachronistic 40k universe? Do you love the little medieval and renaissance touches and are looking for colourful models that channel this particular part of the setting? Then the Tempestus Scions are your thing.

Do you want slightly more futuristic, tactical looking troopers without too many baroque design elements but a noticeable retro feel and tons and tons of options (you can actually use the accessory sprue to build models conversing in SWAT-like sign language, for crying out loud!)? Great, the Eisenkern Stormtroopers are the kit for you.

But even if you come down on either side of this argument, the other kit would still be an awesome purchase. And, owning both kits, I am perfecly sure that I am going to have lots of fun with both types of models.

In the end, it’s really all about being aware of all the options, and that’s what this post is about too: Describing more options for you. In any case, you way want to check out the Dreamforge Games website — chances are, you’ll find something to like there. At the same time, I cannot recomment the Tempestus Scions enough: They are an amazing kit and quite reasonably priced for GW’s standards.

Ultimately, the choice is yours. And I really hope that this post has given you food for though and ideas for possible conversions or kitbashes instead of confusing you. If you have any thoughts or questions about either of the kits (or about my first rough conversion attempts), I’d be happy to hear them in the comments section.

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

I am trying my best not to overdo it, but I still find myself playing around with those Tempestus Scions. And after doing all those experiments about different heads and whatnot, I think it’s time I finally show you some (mostly) finished models, right? So let’s take a look. But before we look at the stuff that’s actually close to finished,…

1. By request

…several people suggested I show them a couple of additional headswaps, and how could I refuse? I’ll be keeping this short and to the point, though ;-)

First up, in case you wondered what the scion heads looked like on bog standard Cadians:

They are actually a perfect fit: You need to shave down the neck portion, though — which I failed to do for the above pictures, hence the slightly hokey proportions. But from a scale perspective, I think you’ll agree that it should work. And while I was at it, I also tried an Eisenkern Stormtrooper head on a Cadian body…

…and it instantly created that wonderful Jin-Roh look. Even more cutting involved in this case, though, because the neck portion on those Eisenkern heads is huge.

Oh, and while we’re at it, here’s the Eisenkern head on a regular Tempestus Scion, for the sake of completeness:

This may actually be one of my favourite combinations so far! Unfortunately, the fact that the Eisenkern heads only come as part of the larger kit and that you only get just enough heads, this kind of conversion is hardly economical. But if you should find yourself in the possession of some leftover Eisenkern heads, it’s definitely a very interesting option!

2. Straight from the trenches…

After my last round of experiments, I pulled together several of my earlier ideas in order to create a new model: The running cultist legs, Tempestus Scion bitz and Bretonnian head-kitbash were combined to create a soldier with a very distinct WWI trencher vibe. Take a look:

Additional bitz are a backpack with an entrenching tool (a bit of a no brainer, really) and a trench knife (one of the daggers from the Tempestus Scions). My experiments in creating a bayonet for the rifle fell flat: While it was easy enough to attach a blade to the rifle, the barrel ended up looking way too long, thereby throwing off the model’s whole composition. However, I believe that the dagger, worn to be quickly available during combat, works well enough as a replacement.

To tell you the truth, I am stupidly happy with this guy, since he is both suitably grimdark and reminiscent of actual trenchers as well as those Warzone minis I keep going on about. I hope to be able to paint him sooner rather than later — a suitable base, complete with duckboards and a muddy surface, has already been built.

Once again, let me show you some possible, different heads for the model, in case you’re going for a different, maybe even more medieval feel:

While the head I used on the model was spliced together from a Bretonnian helmet and a Tempestus Scion head, the heads from the Bretonnian Men-at-arms can also be used on their own:

I actually think those work just as well, and would basically be ideal if you were after building, say, a Genswick IG force.

I also tried the head with mask and beret from the scion kit…

…and it looks just as awesome as it did when used on the Eisenkern Stormtrooper I posted earlier. I have a sneaking suspicion that this head will always look awesome, no matter the model you use it on.

And finally, another really cool option would be to use an Eisenkern head:

3. Meanwhile, back in the Archenemy camp…

During all those head swaps, though, let’s not forget the intended use for my first batch of Tempestus Scions: I want to turn them into a squad of elite soldiers for Urash’s Marauders. So, any progress on that? You bet!
Here’s my first, basically finished, traitor soldier:

As you can see, I have kept the conversion fairly straightforward: The imperial iconography has been shaved off and a couple of chaos-y bitz have been added, a horned helmet from the Marauder Horsemen chief among them. While not everyone might like the horned look, that helmet instantly says elite Traitor Guard to me, plus I believe the paintjob will go a long way towards suitably blending together the different parts.

No follower of chaos would be complete without a CC weapon, of course, and I think I may just have found a great use for all those slightly tacky swords that come with the Khorne Berzerker kit:

Every World Eaters player should have dozens of these lying around, but I think they actually work rather nicely, strapped to the traitor’s backpack like that: The sword is just ornate enough to suggest that it may have a ritual significance beyond its use as a backup weapon.

I have begun working on a second traitor and have also made a first mockup of the squad’s champion (or should that be Damogaur?):

In this case, the scion chainsword was replaced with a suitably chaotic sabre from the Dark Vengeance cultist champion. The head with the grotesk came from the same model. And while a laspistol may not be the most exciting equipment for a squadleader, I chose the arm for its pose, at least for now. One of the two small shortcomings of the Tempestus Scions, in my opinion, are the sometimes freakishly long arms, so choosing a combination that looks right takes some doing (on a semi-related note, those cables connecting the rifles and backpacks are the other element I don’t like: Getting all those parts lined up just so without gluing the model together outright is very fiddly business…).

Anyway, this guy isn’t finished yet, but I think the model will already give you a pretty good idea of where this is going. Here are the three WIP models for the squad together:

That’s not all, however: Since the scion kit contains so many bitz, there are enough leftovers to use on different models as well. As I told you in my previous post, I will be using some of these bitz to build some more traitor elites, mostly based on some Vraksian Renegade Militia torsos.

You already know the voxcaster guy:

I added some armour plates I shaved off the trencher model to bring him more in line with the scion-based models.

And I also found out that the rifle arms work fairly well on those Vraksian torsos:

By combining these bitz, the model looks a bit like a missing link between a Tempestus Scion and one of my regular traitors, which could signify the encroaching influence of chaos, I suppose?

A third model uses the plasma gunner arms from the scions for now. Here are the three traitors together:

I also built another champion/squadleader model that I am really happy with. Take a look:

The torso came from the Vraksian Enforcers, while the legs are from a WFB chaos charioteer: Both bits were leftovers of earlier conversions, so it was really nice to finally put them to good use! The arms are from the Tempestus Scions, although the weapons and hands were replaced (with a Space Marine Scout pistol and chaos warrior sword, respectively). The head came from a Dark Vengeance plastic cultist. And I also added some additional pouches and gear:

This model takes quite a bit of inspiration from PDH’s traitor soldiers which range among my favourite renegade models. I am really happy with how this model has turned out, because it really fits my idea of Traitor Guard to a t!

And here are all the “Vraksian bases” traitors so far: Keep in mind that these were all basically made from leftovers from my bitzbox:

What I especially like about these models is that they could arguably be used alongside the scion-based traitors in one large squad – granted, there’s a bit of variation, but that’s chaos for you – but they could also be the beginnings of a second squad of traitor elites.

So yeah, after all the headswapping businesss, I hope I’ve managed to convince you that some actual models will be coming out of this in the end! I would love to hear your feedback on any of these!

Have a happy Easter, everyone! And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

With the first leaked pictures of the coming Wood Elves release already making the round, I am confident we can consider the Imperial Guard …erm Astra Militarum release completed for now. So what better time to take a fairly comprehensive look at the new kits and the various conversion opportunities they bring, right?

As per my usual approach, this post will focus on the models to the near exclusion of all rules-related stuff. However, let me make one small exception, because the release of the Codex Astra Militarum seems to introduce a rather dubious element: It looks like, as of this book, GW will be using universal naming conventions for all of the various units, even across several languages. What this means is that the English unit names will be used, even in a rulebook that has otherwise been fully translated into German, French, Spanish or what have you. Now this shouldn’t be such a big thing, right? After all, games between 40k aficionados are already a gobbledygook of different languages anyway, so what’s the big difference? Besides, there are certainly sensible reasons for this decision: There will be no disconnect between the translated hardcopy rulebooks and the digital supplements only released in English, for instance. And yet. And still…

I realise that this need only concern non-native speakers of English to begin with, and then a blog written in English may not be the perfect venue for a criticism like this. But GW have always gone through quite some trouble to produce fully translated books in the past. Sure, the Blood Angels were always the Blood Angels, the Leman Russ was always the Leman Russ. But this new approach just leads to books that seem awkward chimerics, lost somewhere in limbo between the original English and the different language version. It reads terribly, to tell you the truth, and while it may make lots of sense, both from a business and rules perspective, this development actually makes me consider getting all my 40k related books in English from now on — I’d rather have the whole book in English than being served snippets of it at every turn. And I don’t suffer horrible prose style.

Anyway, excuse the minor rant: Moving on to the models now!

Officio Prefectus Commissar

I think I am not the only person happy about a commissar model being available in plastic at long last, and the Ordo Prefectus Commissar is definitely a fine specimen to boot: Suitably grizzled and gnarly, this guy looks every part the discipliary officer one might have expected. One interesting thing about the model is that its pose is more dynamic than what we are used to from past commissar models. This dynamism leads to a rather striking silhouette, though:

The face is another really strong point, looking suitably lined and pinched for a veteran commissar! In fact, the one thing I am not completely sold on is the saber: It seems a bit too clunky for once, and there’s also the fact that the blade tapering to a point as much as it does seems slightly wrong, for some reason: I think I would have preferred a more slender saber in the style of the DKOK commissars.

A closer look at the sprue for the model, however, reveals that not only should it be possible to replace the saber without a hitch, but further modifications to the modelt by way of using a different head or change the equipment in the right hand should be really easy, too:

This makes the commissar model even more useful: Having a plastic commissar is already pretty cool in and of itself, but being able to use him for all kinds of INQ28 kitbashes makes the purchase of the model even more tempting, the slightly inflated price tag notwithstanding. Definitely one of the high points of the release for me!

Hydra/Wyvern

I have never made much of a secret of my general lack of interest in tanks, so it may not surprise you that the Hydra/Wyvern kit didn’t exactly set my heart aflutter. Based on the same undercarriage as the trusty Chimera, these tanks are not exactly visually exciting, at least if you’re not a tank nut.

For tanks like this, the one thing that usually interests me are the little touches used to individualise the vehicle, and I am happy to see that GW have included a suitable crew of gunners for once:

If anything, this is where the character of the piece comes from, if you ask me! On a semi-related note, I always thought it was a shame that the Basilisk loading crew was only available as a set of semi-obscure, OOP metal bitz.

Where the Hydra is mainly used for AA duties, as it seems, you can also assemble the tank as a Wyvern and use it for anti-infantry work:

Again, what can I say? Another chimera-based tank? I certainly won’t go wild over this. I will say that the gunner models and various cogitator arrays that come with the kit might be fairly interesting for a variety of conversions, even though the overall model leaves me rather cold. Sorry!

Taurox Prime/Taurox

Quite the opposite for this vehicle though, but I am getting ahead of myself. A better place to start would be to point out that this is obviously that one divisive kit that every self-respecting GW release needs! Already, the Taurox has emerged as the one kit that many, many people love to hate, probably due to its somewhat unconventional design…

…which, in all honesty, really isn’t just as preposterous as many people seem to believe, pointing to several real-world sources, ranging from some rather gimmicky German WWII vehicles or armoured transports used by the English Army during the 70s and 80s to the modern MRAP. As a matter of fact, those influences make for a nice bit of realism that become all the more striking when combined with the hallmark heraldic and baroque elements of the 40k universe! The seeming clash between these elements enhances the model for me instead of ruining it.

If anything, the model instantly becomes less interesting when you leave off the extra bling and use it to create a standard Taurox:

But that’s just my opinion, of course. If nothing else, however, the Taurox provides a much needed breath of fresh air in a setting where nearly all of the tanks seem to be based on the same two or three basic kits. I’ll admit I’ve been waiting for a kit like this for ages, in order to be able to build a slightly more interesting vehicle for my Traitor Guard, and the Taurox perfectly fits the bill. Again, this is clearly a matter of personal preference, but I really like the design!

Beyond questions of personal taste, I think we can all agree that the production values are ridiculously high, with lots and lots of customisation options and even an entirely sculpted interior:

I am really looking forward to what all the crazy converters and kitbashers will do with this kit! Commissar Molotov recently pointed me towards an amazingly thorough thread outlining lots and lots of possible Taurox conversions, so even if you don’t like the model out of the box, there’s nothing stopping you from modifying it to your heart’s content, but more on that later!

All in all, this is one of the more exciting parts of the release for me!

Tempestus Scions

Now these are definitely the stars of the show for me! Which, in all fairness, shouldn’t be much of a surprise considering my rather extensive recent experimenation with the kit. Still, let me explain why I love these guys so much:

One thing that always baffled me was how much of the potential coolness of the Imperial Guard went mostly unused: When I was still a newcomer to 40k, the Guard mainly seemed to be a mashup of pretty much every histrocial military force: Red Army (Valhallans), Germans (DKOK), American Troops during the Vietnam War (Catachans),… the list goes on and on. Then there were some slightly more futuristic elements thrown in (the Cadians would be a good example). And the tanks were mostly based on various WWI and WWII designs.

And while I can see the appeal of an army like that, it was only when the more colourful regiments began to emerge that the Guard really came into its own for me: I love the idea of thousands of years of military history mashed together, but why should it run along the lines delineated by the 20th century? Why not more hi-tech soldiers in overblown 19th century garb (like the brilliantly eclectic Vostroyans)?  Why not more WWI Trenchers with noticeable medieval influences (I am looking at you, Aexe Cardinal)? The more Gaunt’s Ghosts novels I read, the more it felt like the actual models on offer were failing to address the possible coolness of regiments hailing from a million worlds.

Now the Scions are finally fulfilling at least a part of that promise: They are clearly hi-tech soldiers, but with a very noticeable baroque, maybe even medieval feel:

There are design cues from many different centuries in their armour and equipment, which not only makes for stunning models but also perfectly channels the look and feel of the 40k universe.

The other really great thing about the kit is the amount of equipment options and bitz you get: Whether you want to assemble a brilliantly ostentatious command squad or just some – only slightly less impressive – “standard” Stormtroopers, it’s all there in the kit:

And finally, as I myself have tried to prove, the kit is also brilliantly versatile, because the barqoue design makes sure that these guys will be useful for all kinds of conversions:

They can become your elite Imperial soldiers, sure. But it’s also easy enough to imagine them as AdMech Skitarii with a bit of work. Or they could be your faceless Traitor Guard elites. The kit really allows for all these different options with only a minimum of modification.

In short, it has taken GW ages to finally release a plastic Stormtrooper kit, but the result is definitely worth the wait!

Ogryns/Bullgryns/Nork Dedogg

These guys are the other slightly divisive kit to come out of this release, with many people already hating them with a passion. In all fairness, running against a kit like the Tempestus Scions seems like a pretty dire prospect on the best of days, but are the new Ogryns really that bad? Let’s take a closer look:

One really amazing feature of the kit is that it can actually be assembled in four different variants, and that alone deserves a round of applause. So let’s address each of those variants in turn, shall we? First up, the bread and butter option: The kit will give you three bog standard Ogryns:

I think these are getting some flak due to the somewhat …nonplussed facial expressions on some of the heads. But let’s not forget that Ogryns aren’t exactly rocket scientists. So maybe the faces are a pretty good fit, after all? The good thing is that, even if you don’t like the Ogryn heads, you can always use some of the extra heads that come with the kit, but more on that in a minute. For now, let me just point out that I really like the screaming head with the aquila brand on its brow!

Beyond that, these guys look more or less like you would expect standard Ogryns to look: There are the sleeveless shirts, the crude armour plates and the robust (and somewhat improbable) Ogryn gun. Certainly not the most exciting models in the world, but a great replacement both for the old metal/Finecast Ogryns and for the option of having to work with those extremely static WFB Ogre bulls!

Oh, one thing I really love is how these guys are using gasoline cans as canteens — what a brilliant little touch! ;-)

There’s also the option of assembling your Ogryns as Bullgryns, heavily armoured giants protecting the less robust part of your army. And these can, in turn, be armed in two different ways. The first option is to equip them with a combination of grenadier gauntlets and slab shields:

The armoured bodies themselves look rather cool, and I really like the tank treads used as some kind of heavy duty loincloth! The slab shields have some rather nice touches (for instance, the spikes at the bottom to ram them into the ground, and the fact that the three shields in the squads were designed to look like they interlock to form a makeshift defense line). My problem with them, however, is that they look slightly too busy with the Imperial iconography, the sculpted chevrons and all the additional lines: There’s just too much going on, from a visual perspective. I would have preferred a more restrained approach, something similar to the elements of the Aegis Defense Line, for example.

The grenadier fists may be my least favourite part of the kit, because while the idea itself may be awesome, they just look goofy: Maybe they should have been designed to look less hi-tech? Maybe shoulder-mounted panzerfausts would have been cooler? Whatever it is, that element just doesn’t work for me. So in my opinion, this loadout would need some work to make it look really cool.

The one part of the Bullgryns I love unecquivocally, however, are the heads. Well, maybe apart from the bearded one…

“I say! Apparently, they are letting all kinds of riff raff join the fighting these days, old boy!”

…but even that has a kind of corny charm. Maybe the beard’s an attempt at emulating the finesse and elegance of a high-ranking officer by the slightly more refined Ogryn squad leader ?

The gas mask  heads are absolutely amazing, though, especially the one with the goggles:

Not only are these your readily apparant solution if you don’t like the standard Ogryn heads, but they would also work great for a DKOK or Steel Legion sinpired force! Or for traitor Ogryns — there’s just something sinister about those gas masks, you know…

As for the Bullgryns themselves, I much prefer the second equipment option for them: battle mauls and suppression shields:

These seem far less awkward and actually nicely complement the Bullgryns’ lumbering poses. Again, I think it would be really fun to transform these into a squad of hulking traitor berserkers! But then, I have some very fond memories of building traitor Ogryns, so I might be biased…

The final option would be to assemble one of your Ogryns as the special character Nork Dedogg, trusty Ogryn bodyguard extraordinaire:

And, like the whole kit, this guy is just one more case of love it or hate it.

Let’s start with the good part: He really looks like an elite Ogryn, which was probably the whole point. There’s also an inherent goofiness about the model that certainly was a deliberate choice on the designers’ part, but much of the goofiness has been stripped away from the Imperial Guard over the last years, leaving this guy a little stranded, so to speak.

My main gripe with the model from a design perspective is that his armour, intended as an updgraded version of the Bullgryn equipment, looks quite unlike every other armour in the IG catalogue: The decorative trim actually makes it resemble chaos armour more than anything else. Plus that goofy vox skull with the commissar cap needs to go, in my opinion.

That said, I cannot help looking at Norg from a chaos player’s perspective, and see him as great conversion fodder for a traitor ogryn: The armour would need precious little work to suitably chaos-i-fy it, and just imagine a gas mask or crudely implanted vox grill instead of that cigar-smoking grin. Very promising!

In any case, I really love the fact that the option to build a special character from extra bitz included in a kit has now made it to 40k as well! I’m all for more plastic characters, and having them as some kind of bonus in a regular kit really rocks!

All in all, there are some slightly goofy elements in the Ogryn/Bullgryn kit, but maybe that’s at least partially due to the fact that Ogryns are in fact rather goofy in and of themselves. That said, I think it’s also a kit with lots of promise — and maybe the models would actually look much cooler with less colourful, grittier paintjobs?

Conversion opportunities

While some of the new kits are already really awesome as they are, the possible conversion options are probably the best part of this whole release for me, so let me share a couple of observations and ideas:

The Tempestus Scions really take the cake here, because they are just amazing, both as a kit and as a toolbox for all kinds of conversions. My own experiments have shown that it’s very easy to use scion bitz for all kinds of craziness, be it to build specialists from more colourful Guard regiments or,  indeed, elite soldiers for your Traitor Guard. Another excellent example for the kit’s versatility would be Jeff Vader’s wonderful Primaris Psyker that just uses a couple of bitz from the Tempestus Scions to make a wonderfully characterful miniature. And don’t even get me started on all the possible uses for INQ28 related conversions: Those scions could be Inquisitorial Stormtroopers, or the bitz could be used to accessorise your Inquisitorial agents, or even your Inquisitors. The scions could even be turned into Arbites, with a bit of work. And whatever approach you choose,  the remaining extra bitz will prove helpful for a myriad of conversion projects.

For me, the Tempestus Scions are easily one of the best kits GW have released in a while, and if you’re at all interested in INQ28 conversions or kitbashes, they are pretty much a compulsory purchase. The fact that they are pretty reasonably priced – considering the amount of stuff you get in the kit – helps, of course!

And while many people online already love to hate the Taurox, the same goes for that kit: I can easily see the Taurox being transformed into a transport for Ogryns (just make it look more like a mobile cage than a mere APC), a civilian or industrial vehicle for games of INQ28 or Necromunda, a traitor APC heavily reminiscent of Dave Taylor’s amazing Blood Pact lorries and half-tracks or even something as exotic as a modern Genestealer limo. The thread I linked above is basically just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the possible conversions, and seeing all the crazy vehicles coming out of this kit will be a very special treat — trust me! As for my own detachment of Traitor Guard, I can easily see myself picking up a Taurox kit: The prospect of building and painting it certainly excites me far more than any old Chimera ever could!

Then there’s the Commissar — another really nice model to serve as conversion fodder: PDH already pointed out some time ago that this guy would be a great base model for a fairly easy Rogue Trader conversion, and I am sure the model would fare just as well as any kind of high-ranking officer or even as an Inquisitor (preferrably one with ties to the Ordo Militum).

But there’s more: Just add an Ork power claw and he could become a pretty cool Commissar Yarrick stand in. Or replace his bionic arm and face and turn him into a plastic model for Ibram Gaunt. Long story short, I imagine this model will be extremely popular with converters in general and INQ28 aficionados in particular, and I certainly intend to pick one up at some point.

And even the Ogryns are quite interesting from a conversion standpoint: Like I said earlier, turning these into a squad of sinister, crudely augmented and/or mutated traitor ogryns or big mutants should be quite a bit of fun! Indeed, if I didn’t already own an entire squad of converted traitor ogryns, I am pretts sure I would already have picked up a box of the new guys.

In fact, and this is just brilliant if you ask me, this release is just as interesting for Traitor Guard players at it is for actual Guard players: Until now, building suitably impressive traitors and renegades (without falling back on Forgeworld’s – admittedly wonderful – Vraksian Renegade Militia) was always a bit of a challenge. The new kits should make this quite a bit easier and more interesting, and I applaud GW for that!

So what about the release as a whole? It probably won’t surprise you that I’ll call this a strong release. The Tempestus Scions alone would probably be enough to carry the day here, but I love how nearly all of the new kits (the slightly underwhelming Chimera-based tanks notwithstanding) seem to have multiple possible uses and allow for lots and lots of neat conversions. The release has certainly re-invigorated my interest in the Traitor Guard side of my chaos army, so don’t be surprised if you see some projects towards that effect in the future!

So what about you? Are you as happy with the potential conversion projects as I am, or were you underwhelmed by the new Astra Militarum release? Are you already planning a couple of conversions yourself, perchance? I’d be happy to hear any ideas and impressions you might have in the comments section.

Now, if you’ll excuse me: I still need to wring the last possible drops of conversion fun from that Tempestus Scion kit ;-)

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

A warning in advance: I realise that today’s update quickly degenerates into rambling. Bear with me, though, there’ll be new stuff to look at partway down the page ;-) So what is this about?

While I virtually lack any sort of impulse control when it comes to buying new plastic crack, the one area where I have thus far exhibited an almost shocking amount of restraint is buying from Forgeworld: Sure, I’ll purchase some heads, shoulder pads and smaller doodads every now and then, but with the exception of Lord Zhufor, still possibly the best World Eaters model ever released, I haven’t bought any complete Forgeworld kits yet.

There’s a number of reasons for this, but lack of sculpting quality certainly isn’t a part of it: I love many of FW’s models as much as the next guy — if anything, the amount of detail alone is usually intimidating enough to prevent me from purchasing any models, for fear of being unable to do them justice with my painting.

Then there’s the fact that it sometimes seems to me like Forgeworld models are the easy, albeit expensive, way out of pretty much any modeling conundrum: Want a super awesome model? Just use a stock piece from Forgeworld! Want to own Marines in Pre Heresy armour — gee, Forgeworld is releasing an entire line of models for you!

Where Forgeworld models used to be a supremely rare sight, being used to add the most sublime amount of awesome to an army, it has all become a bit of a battle of materiel  nowadays, where some people just add  Forgeworld stuff to their armies until they suddenly become awesome by sheer resin saturation. And, by a strange twist of faith, armies making heavy use of FW models actually often end up looking more samey than the “standard” GW armies of old. Does that sound bitter?

Maybe, but here’s the thing: I think that having to work around the shortcomings of kits and the gaps in GW’s catalogue can sometimes be the best catalysts for creativity. And, for instance, before Forgeworld released more Horus Heresy Space Marines than you could ever shake a stick at, coming up with kitbashes and conversions to approximate your own version of Pre Heresy armour marks was huge fun.

Anyway, all of this is my rather roundabout way of explaining why my various projects use fairly little Forgeworld stuff. That said, there has to be an exception to the rule, of course, and when I first saw early pictures of Forgeworld’s World Eaters Red Butchers, it was instantly clear to me that some of these might find their way into my collection at some point:

I really love the way their Cataphractii armour is encrusted with stylised depictions of the World Eaters’ legion badge, for one.  At the same time, the brutal, spiky design of their armour is a nice fit for post heresy World Eaters as well. So when I recently had the chance of picking up some of the models as part of a bitz order, I jumped at the opportunity and purchased two Red Butcher bodies for experimentation purposes.

From my hands on experience as well as a bit of research, I have to say that these models are a bit of a mixed bag, their really cool overall design notwithstanding: The Red Butchers’  bodies are  single piece, with only the arms coming as separate parts. While this obviously makes them fairly easy to put together, it also severely limits their flexibility. Plus some of the poses seem a bit wonky — just check out the guy on the right, for instance.

What’s more, when prototypes for the Red Butchers were first shown at UK Games Day 2013, the models sported a set of individual, bare heads. While some of these may have seemed a little hokey, they perfectly communicated the sheer rage of these guys and worked really well with some of the poses. Alas, the finished models ditched most of these individual head sculpts, instead opting to use the same helmet for all the models in the squad except the champion, who retains one of the bare heads from the earlier versions. Now while I like the helmeted head well enough, this decision is rather hard to understand, because it really makes the finished models less cool than the prototypes. And while getting rid of the helmeted heads should still be possible with a bit of work – as the supremely talented poom has done on some of his Red Butchers , but the operation seems needlessly complicated, with a very real risk of ruining a rather expensive models in the process.

But even in their hobbled state, I still think the models still have lots of promise, and are a great addition to the World Eaters catalogue. And since I have honestly never seen them painted in the World Eaters’ post heresy colours yet (and FW’s own paintjob is, well, atrocious), it was clear to me that these guys would be drafted into my 40k World Eaters force.

Since I had only purchased the bodies, I needed to add some bitz in order to finish the models, and my first test model turned into a bit of a lucky coincidence right off the bat: I had picked up a two-handed weapon from the Deathwing Terminator kit as part of the same bitz order, and I realised that it worked pretty well with one of the Red Butchers. Here’s my test model:

As you can see, I took some additional steps to make the additions to the model seem suitably chaotic: I added some Daemon Prince armour plates as shoulder pads, slightly converted the two handed weapon and added some Warp Talon “toenails” to the model’s gauntlets . To give credit where credit is due,exchanging the halberd’s blade happened courtesy of a pretty sweet model by AMaximus, while the clever use of  the toenails was originally an equally awesome idea of my fellow German hobbyist Lucutus.

Since chains seem to be a recurring visual motif for the Red Butchers, I also added some chainy bitz to the arms holding the halberd as well. I also glued a brass etched Khorne rune to the model’s Cataphractii armour.

The pose was also slightly inspired by this screenshot I found online:

While painting this guy, I subjected myself to the challenge of trying to finish the model in 3 hours, as part of a small, friendly challenge between several like-minded hobbyists. So I tried to be fast.

Here’s the model at shortly before the two hour mark…

…and, a while later, after precisely three hours:

Not bad, but clearly not finished either. Just to give you an idea, Jeff Vader managed to completely paint an absolutely amazing Plague Bearer in the same amount of time. Nuts!

But while I had sort of failed the three hours challenge, the work I had managed to accomplish during those hours went a long way towards getting the model painted, so it was all good. I ended up putting in another hour or two, and here is the finished model. I give you Raas the Butcher:

As you can see, some of the additional touches really sell the model, at least in my opinion: The planet at the centre of the stylised legion badge on the model’s helmet was picked up in turquoise for that additional bit of pop. And I even added some blood to the halberd’s blade, because the Butcher really seems like that kinda guy:

A similarly bloodspattered Space Marine helmet and a skull were added as decoration to the model’s base:

Painting a whole Forgeworld model for the first time certainly has certainly been an interesting experience as well, although it made me realise that not only do I dislike converting resin models, but I am also not all that fond of painting them: The Forgeworld resin provides all those tiny nooks and crannies on the model that I remember (with dread!) from my past experiences with metal models, and all that scrubbing and soaking beforehand, in order to get rid of the mold release agent covering the model head to toe, also isn’t that much fun. So while I can see myself painting the odd FW model every now and then, assembling an entire army of models made from this material seems like a bit of a nightmare to me, to be honest…

Oh, and one more thing: While I am rather pleased with the finished model, it does look slightly puny when stood next to one of my plastic models in Terminator armour. Justs sayin’…

I’m happy enough with the result, though: One down, one to go! I suppose the second Red Butcher I purchased will end up looking more or less like this:

I might just replace the right arm with an arm holding an axe or sword, though. Hmmm….

On a semi-related note, I realised that some of the Red Butchers’ design elements, especially the torso and helmet, are quite reminiscent of that old metal Terminator Lord I picked up used a while ago:

The resemblance is really quite uncanny, don’t you think? So maybe these guys will end up hanging out together in the end? In any case, it’s especially delicious to find visual consistency where you hadn’t even expected it, so yeah…
Oh, one more thing, by the way: My finished test model, Raas the Butcher, was named for fellow hobbyist Augustus B’Raass. This is a small thank you to him, both for providing lots of inspiration with his kick-ass Night Lords army (seriously, what is it whith all the amazing NL armies lately?) and for indulging me when I instigated a rather egg-headed (but nevertheless pretty fascinating, at least to me) discussion on his thread lately.

Thanks for taking it all in stride, mate! ;-)

Anyway, here’s the model’s background:

Raas the Butcher

The warrior known as Raas the Butcher is one of the 4th assault company’s oldest veterans and serves in Lord Captain Lorimar’s personal guard, known as Lorimar’s Fist. Even among this band of ruthless killers, his thirst for blood excels, and his penchant for tearing his opponents limb from limb is well known and feared by those who have to stand against him: Watching Raas charging the enemy with surprising speed, a blood curdling howl on his lips, is terrifying to behold, and usually the last sight his victims are afforded before his mighty war halberd effortlessly shears through their armour and flesh. His bloodlust is so great that he spends most battles completely lost to the nails, as much of a danger to his friends as to his enemies. Chains decorate his ancient suit of modified Cataphractii armour as if to bind him, but it is clear that the Lord Captain’s abyssal growl is the only thing that will bring this wild hound to heel…

I’d love to hear any feedback you might have in the comments section! And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Whoa, what a day: Imagine my utter amazement as I browsed through the latest issue of Warhammer:Visions today, only to turn the page and see this:

Seems like my dear Legion is really going places, eh? Anyway, it probably won’t come as a surprise to you that being featured in an official GW publication – and in Blanchitsu, no less – is really a hobby dream come true for me! And the whole story of Legion has been one chain of awesome moments, ever since PDH was nice enough to get me involved! Read all about our favourite AdMech monstrosity here, in case you’re not yet in the know.

Anyway, a huge, huge thank you to John Blanche for featuring my model in his wonderful column! And to Peter, of course, without whom none of this would have happened! This is so amazing! I might as well quit the hobby now, because I’m not sure how exactly I will ever surpass this…NUTS!

In other news, two people nominated me for a Liebster Award on the same day: Thanks a lot to Henry South and Jimmy Grill!

In case you’re not familiar with the Liebster Award, it’s basically a friendly kind of Ponzi Scheme, with the single goal of giving readers the opportunity to discover new and interesting blogs. So not only am I happy to receive this nomination, but I’ll also happily help to spread the word:

As per the rules of the award, I am required to…

• tell you eleven truths about me
• answer eleven questions posed by the person who nominated my blog
• nominate eleven blogs for a Liebster Award
• pose eleven questions of my own, to be answered by my eleven nominees

So, without further ado, here we go:

Eleven Truths:

1. I am supremely lazy, which often proves to be a challenge in this hobby, especially while painting, and also unbelievably impatient when working on models, which has ruined more than one pretty cool paintjob or conversion, because I just couldn’t wait until everything was dry.

2. The GW kit I have purchased the most often is the plastic Chaos Lord in Terminator armour: I could always build another one of these.

3. My “grownup” reasons for picking up blogging were to teach myself stuff about blogging software and to keep practicing my English: Both missions accomplished, I suppose ;)

4. Fairly surprisingly for a devout follower of Khorne, I am not into Heavy Metal.

5. I still believe that the Police are the greatest band on the planet!

6. I love everything written by Neil Gaiman

7. If you try to interest me in a new tabletop game, make sure I am excited by the actual models: I am terrible with rules and forget them as quickly as I learn them, so the models have to be awesome enough to capture my interest.

8. I am a huge videogame nerd and have a pretty big collection of game systems.

9. Believe it or not, I have never been to an English speaking country – although I plan on remedying that sooner rather than later.

10. I love being complimented on my models (who doesn’t?), and I will sometimes feel awful when a model I am extremely proud of doesn’t get a lot of feedback online.

11. I am not actually a scientist ;)

Eleven blogs:

Since I know that several of my favourite blogs have already received a Liebster Award, they will be missing from the following list. That said, these eleven blogs are amazing and definitely deserve more traffic. So, in no particular order…:

1. Le blog dè Kouzes:  some of the most stunning kitbashes and paintjobs you will ever see. Definitely worth learning French for ;-)

2. Die Würfelwiese: the blog of an extremely talented, fellow German hobbyist. Just check out his magnificent Tallarns!

3. K.M.B. Some of the best World Eaters kitbashes and conversions on the net. I just wish AMaximus would update more often…

4. Beneath the Mire: Great content from a group of bloggers, especially noteworthy for Drone21c’s wonderful INQ28 models.

5. CerxiS World: Another fellow German’s blog, and some of the best Alpha Legion models and miniature photography you’ll ever see!

6. Thenickeninja’s blog: Amazing Blood Bowl conversions and the best underhive terrain in existence, period.

7. Miniature Tim: A very talented and friendly artist, and a pleasantly levelheaded and costructive take on our favourite hobby.

8. Tarvick the Artisan: wonderful conversions and inspiring paintjobs — what’s not to like?

9. Ex Profundis: Wonderfully creepy stuff by Bruticus and meade, masters of the bizarre. Dark Mechanicus craziness galore!

10. Eldritch Epistles: A wonderful look at models from the olden days. Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside!

11. Mordian 7th: One of the most productive hobbyists you’ll ever see: The pace at which Mordian7th finishes great armies has to be seen to be believed!

Eleven answers…

…although, seeing how two people nominated me on the same day, I think it’s only fair to answer both sets of questions. Plus I love interview-ish stuff like this, since it makes me feel like a true rock star ;-) So here goes:

Eleven Answers (questions by Henry South):

1) Your most satisfying moment while painting.

Quite a while ago, I started following an approach for quickly achiving great results while painting as laid down by Steve Buddle : Paint the base colours, then generously apply washes, then go away and let them dry, then come back to the model and apply any highlights and details you want. This seems common sense now, but back then, it looked like witchcraft to me. Anyway, after applying all the base colours, the model looked so terrible that I could have screamed. Then I slapped on the washes, already considering the model a lost cause. When I returned to it after a few hours, I found the model completely transformed by the washes, which gave me a huge kick and really changed my approach to painting: I’ve been using that technique ever since (although I still feel terrible right before the washes come out ;) ).

2) Your worst painting disaster.

Saving up a lot of allowance money during my youth in order to be able to buy a Dark Eldar Raider, then finding out I hated painting it and ending up with a paintjob that was less than exciting – scared me away from painting vehicles for more than a decade, I suppose.
3) Can you “cheat” while painting. And is it wrong if you can?

Hmm, I guess you can cheat by only painting areas that will be clearly visible on the finished model and leave the hard to see parts mostly untouched, by that doesn’t work for me because I will always know that when I look at the model ;-) The other possible kind of “cheating” is to use shortcuts and easy recipes for creating reasonably good versions of effects that would need many, many working steps otherwise, but that’s not really cheating and I’m doing it all the time ;-)
Oh, and you can of course try to make your models look even better by taking really good photos of them, but again, that’s what you should be doing anyway, so can this really be considered cheating in the first place.

4) The one tip you would tell yourself when you started painting

Don’t try to slavishly follow the ‘Eavy Metal approach to painting: You’ll never be able to paint like that anyway – at least not at first. Find a technique that you’re comfortable with and go for a nice, clean paintjob. All else must follow. Don’t try to force it!

5) How do you get over your painting block?

- by stepping away from the model I am working on for a while, returning with a fresh perspective later
- by painting something completely different from what I am currently working on
- by painting something that I know will be fun (followers of Nurgle usually work like a charm)
- by looking at other people’s inspiring stuff until I get that itch for painting again

6) Pub garden or trendy winebar?

Pub Garden all the way. But then, I am not a great wine aficionado anyway, so yeah…

7) Which Chaos god would you sell your soul to?

Khorne. Definitely Khorne. My soul belongs to him ever since I painted my first chaos warrior, so it would have to be him. I am probably the least aggressive and brutal person you will ever meet, and I would likely suck in a fight, but there’s always the reassuring knowledge that Khorne cares not from whence the blood flows, only that it flows.

8) Who do you blame for getting you into miniture painting?

Hmm, I suppose it was a combination of my fascination with the painted models on the back of the HeroQuest mission booklet and the gentle urgings of a childhood friend who had already started to paint his own HeroQuest models (using terrible enamel colours and markers, no less).

9) What hobby would you be doing if you didn’t do this?

Hmm, I think I am somehow juggling all the nerd hobbies that interest me (videogames, RPGs, tabletop wargaming) at the same time, so I suppose this hobby doesn’t prevent me from any other hobby. Maybe if I wasn’t spending so much time cutting up little plastic men, I’d be free to do something grownup like learning another language or finding a cure for cancer, though. We might never find out ;-)

10) Chocolate or jellybeans?

Tough call. Though I really like jellybeans, I’ll have to say chocolate, though, because it forms the base for so many awesome things. Why does it have to be one or the other again?

11) What do you listen to while painting?

I usually have my ITunes on shuffle while painting, since I have a fairly extensive musical collection. That said, chances are there’ll be something indy rock-ish in the playlist, with the odd, tacky 80s pop number thrown in for variety ;)

Eleven Answers (questions by Jimmy Grill)

1) If you could wish for one thing except more wishes, what would that be?

Robust health for me and those close to me, I suppose, because health is so very important for our lives, but something we all tend to take for granted until it’s no longer there.

2) What was the first miniature you painted?

A HeroQuest Zombie: I gave him bright blue skin and bright yellow eyes…and then stopped painting because it looked utterly ridiculous. Still have that model lying around somewhere, come to think of it…

3) What was the best miniature released last year?

Hmm, I’ll have to say the Lord of Skulls: I realise many people hate it, but it really blew me away and I think it really pushed the envelope and paved the way for a number of really impressive releases (the Imperial Knight, for example).

 4) What was the latest movie you watched in the cinema?

Huh, the second Hobbit film, I believe. It has been ages since I went to the cinema – and I didn’t even think it was that good a film either – too much CGI and silly acrobatics, even for my taste.

5) Would you rather die now or live forever?

Both seem like pretty bleak prospects, when you think about it. Can’t choose one, they are both horrible ;)

6) Whom do you consider the worse geek, yourself or the hobbyists around you?

Aha, that’s a bit of a Catch 22 there, isn’t it? Of course I could easily name people who are worse geeks than me, but then, is there anything geekier than taking comfort in the fact that others are worse geeks? ;-)

7) The discontinued GW game you wish GW would bring back the most?

Hmm, this would be a neck and neck between Necromunda, Mordheim and Inquisitor. Each of these would be brilliant, especially with new models. All things considered, I’d have to say Inquisitor, though: at the 28mm scale, please ;)

8) How many DVDs would the internet take up if you removed all the porn?

Loads. Don’t forget all the Lolcat videos and borderline retarded selfies, though! It’s not all porn, you know ;)

9) In how many years will tabletop miniatures be 3d holograms?

Hopefully never:  Where’s the fun and artistry in using 3d holograms? I like obsessing over little plastic figures far too much to find such a prospect interesting.

10) If John Blanche and H.R. Giger had a child together, what would it look like?

Like something not even a mother could love. I am guessing lots of nipples, augmetic implants and a dashing renaissance costume.

11) I accidently the box. Is this bad?

I don’t understand the question, so I guess it might be…

And finally, eleven questions for my nominees:

1) Warhammer 40k or Warhammer Fantasy Battles? And why?

2) Who’s your favourite miniature sculptor?

3) What’s your best hint for painting (“Thin your paints!” doesn’t count!)

4) Who’s your favourite author?

5) What’s your favourite Traitor Legion?

6) Which Ordo of the Inquisition would you belong to?

7) Which army would you never start and why?

8) Which is the most important part of the hobby for you?

9) Your favourite band or musician?

10) Which is the most spectacular conversion/kitbash you would like to do, provided you had the bitz?

11) What was the best moment in your hobby life?

So yeah, what a day! Make sure to check out the blogs I nominated! Have a great weekend! And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Still full of energy from my recent “hobby apotheosis” (sorry, couldn’t resist), I would like to show you a new finished model today, and a rather massive one, at that.

Those of you who have been following this blog for a while may recall my ongoing work on a couple of World Eaters riding massive juggernauts of Khorne. Even though there are currently no rules for such a formation, every self-respecting follower of Khorne should have some juggernaut riders in his army, period.

Anyway, my first test model on the way to a whole squad was actually built and painted quite a long time ago:

I am still reasonably happy with this guy, especially since the WFB Skullcrushers of Khorne had not yet been released back then, so building the rider actually took some doing (erm, and the “borrowing” of an idea from Sprugly’s amazing thread here).

Speaking of the Skullcrushers, the release of that kit did of course make my whole life a lot easier, and I snatched it up for the bitz alone. But the kit also gave me the opportunity to build three more juggernaut riders, my Brazen Hunters:

These were actually named for fellow hobbyists who had greatly inspired me with their respective chaos projects. And I imagine the squad will be a sight to see, once I finally work up the motivation to get them painted (fingers crossed ;) ).

But during all this time, I did not yet have a suitable Chaos Lord on juggernaut, even though such a model is the one highly viable way of currently using a Chaos Space Marine on a juggernaut to begin with! However, I am basically addicted to building Chaos Lords, and it was entirely clear for me that this guy would need to be really impressive.

It may surprise you to learn that I have been quietly pottering away on a suitable Chaos Lord for a rather long time now. In fact, a first test version was built as early as 2011:

But while I look back on that first effort with some fondness, the model really wasn’t as cool as I wanted it to be. So the rider was ditched, I kept the juggernaut and waited for a suitable rider model to go on top.

I finally found a solution to my problem when my cousin Andy gave me a Chaos Lord on Manticore as a birthday gift in 2012. I have gone on record stating that the kit is basically worth it for the rider bitz alone, and you even get two riders (and the Manticore can have its uses as well…).

Anyway, while one of the Manticore riders was turned into a rogue Primaris Psyker for my Traitor Guard, it was always clear to me that the other one would end up as the lord riding that leftover juggernaut — but the project still stalled for some reason.

Until the recent 14th Painting/Converting Contest over at Throne of Skulls provided the perfect occasion for me to finally clean up my act and finish the model. So I sat down and combined rider and jugger. Here’s a look at the WIP version of the model:

Granted, this conversion might have been quite a bit more exciting before the release of the WFB Skullcrushers, but I think it still holds up. The Manticore kit comes with some absolutely brilliant bitz, among them the heavily scarred head I used for the rider. The chain cloak is another personal favourite of mine, since not only does it look badass on any Chaos Lord, but chains feature rather prominently in the World Eaters’ legion aesthetics, so what better place to use this wonderful bit.

In order to suitably “40k-i-fy” the fantasy model, I added a plasma pistol (if only to give me an excuse for paining some light blue plasma coils every once in a while ;) ), some grenades on the model’s belt and a backpack from the Dark Vengeance Chosen. The juggernaut was also subtly converted in order to make it look a little more impressive: The main additions were two Marauder shields on the hind legs and two tusks (made from a set of horns from the Chaos Knight horses). The latter idea was borrowed from an excellent diorama created by Keith Robertson and Kornel Kozak and published in an issue of WD:

Picture from WD. Copyright: Games Workshop

When it actually came to painting the model, I had to be really disciplined for once, since I had let the deadline for the ToS contest approach without lifting a finger, lazy bum that I am — maybe this was a subconscious attempt at forcing myself to perform well under pressure?

Anyway, I actually painted rider and jugger back to back over a matter of three days, which was quite a drag, but also didn’t give me any time to dawdle or lose interest. I started with the rider, because I instinctively realised that he would be far more fun to paint. Here’s the finished rider (looking like the victim or a particularly nasty groin hernia without his steed):

The funny leg pose notwithstanding, painting this guy really was a blast! I basically used my usual recipe for World Eaters, but this model gave me the opportunity to combine two of my favourite effects on the same model: glowing plasma coils and a turquoise daemon weapon. As a matter of fact, I added another light blue area to the model’s backpack, making it look like some kind of reactor core:

Painting the juggernaut was mainly an exercise in patience and perseverance, because the model is pretty big and has quite a few nooks and crannies (and I had, of course, been idiotic enough to glue together all the different parts, save the head, before painting). I went for the same, dark turquoise I used on my last juggernaut, both because it makes for a nice contrast against the red of the rider’s armour, but also because it provides an added bit of visual consistency for my army: my daemon weapons or daemonic steeds all use variants of the same turquoise.

Painting this guy in such a relatively short timespan was quite a bit of work. Fortunately, when I was already on my last leg, my copy of Warhammer:Vision arrived and seeing my model for Legion in Blanchitsu helped me release some hidden reserve of power ;)

So, without further ado, here’s the finished model. I give you Lord Valkar, the Scarred One:

The one problem with the model, from a construction perspective, is that the chains of Valkar’s cloak seem curiously gravity-defying.  Unfortunately, there was nothing I could have done to change that, short of cutting apart the entire cloak — and I was too much of a chicken for that ;)
Let us just presume that Valkar’s a) gallopping so fast that even the heavy chains are streaming in the wind or b) some kind of sorcerous power is keeping them afloat?! Yeah, sorcerous power, that makes sense! Let’s totally go with that!

Anyway, let me share a couple of detail shots with you:

I am actually really happy with the model’s face, even though I just used my usual, minimalistic approach. The scars actually play into this guy’s background — but more about that in a minute.

So yeah, that’s my finished Chaos Lord on juggernaut of Khorne, at long last. Only what, three years from inception to finished model? That’s really slow, even for my sloppy standards. But well worth it, of course ;)

Seriously, though: I really am pretty pleased, both with the model and with the fact that I finally managed to complete this particular task. Whatever his chances might be in the ToS contest, I am already super happy at having added another bigger model like this to my collection.

And, of course, a tried and true tradition here on Eternal Hunt, let’s get to know the latest model better: Who is this guy? What are his dreams and ambitions? Allow me to share the background I came up with for the model:

Huntmaster Valkar, the Scarred One, Lord of Chains and Master of the Brazen Hunters

In the latter days of the Great Crusade, Brother Valkar was fighting as a line officer in the 12th legion’s assault formations, and it was during the pacification of a cluster of feudal worlds in the eastern fringe that he incurred a wound that would change his life forever: A maddened cultist attacked him with a weapon wreathed in sorcerous flame, taking Valkar’s right eye and leaving him with a hideous, eight-pronged scar over the right side of his face. To make matters worse, the damaged eye socket wouldn’t take any augmetic replacement for some reason unfathomable even to the Legion’s Apothecaries, leaving Valkar permanently one-eyed. In any other Astartes Legion, that would have surely relegated him to the place of an Auxiliarii or a diplomat – a bleak prospect for one who had been bred for war. But Angron’s legion had little use for diplomats, and even crippled officers could hold a command as long as they knew how to hold their own in the fighting pits. So Valkar learned to balance the consequences of his disability and returned to battle, seemingly as effective as before.

However, it seemed his scars ran deeper still, as Valkar started hearing voices: Harsh whispers now spurred him onward in battle, inciting him to ever growing acts of bloodshed, bellowing excitedly at every kill, and howling in frustration at each denied killing stroke. Valkar feared he might be growing insane, but in a legion wracked with the influence of the Butcher’s Nails, sanity was not exactly a priority.

For Valkar’s seeming descent into madness only mirrored that of his legion: The World Eaters became ever more brutal and uncontrollable, finally siding with the Warmaster Horus and becoming one of his most effective terror weapons. And Brother Valkar was always there, swept along with the tide.

The last time he heard the mysterious voices was when the drop pods of the XII legion rained down on the blasted hellscape Istvaan III had become: When the doors of his Dreadclaw hissed open and Valkar began charging at his erstwhile brothers and their fellow loyalists with a blood curdling roar on his lips, the voices broke into triumphant laughter one last time – and then fell silent. The pact had been sealed.

Over the following centuries and millennia, Valkar has become a mighty champion of Khorne. He was one of the first officers in the World Eaters’ 4th assault company to be granted a daemonic steed by the powers of the warp, and riding this beast wrought from brass and hellfire, he became nigh invincible. He has gathered similarly gifted brethren around him, forming an elite cadre of mounted legionaries called the Brazen Hunters.

And once again, there are voices: Whispers in the shadows that Valkar the Scarred One could one day challenge the Lord Captain himself for the command of the company.

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

Ever since I’ve managed to complete my World Eaters Lord on juggernaut, I have been in the clutches of a veritable, INQ28 related kitbashing spree, building model after model — let’s just hope I’ll manage to get some of these painted at some point! ;)

Anyway, over the next couple of posts, I would like to show you the models I have come up with during this pleasant burst of inspiration. As usual, many of these have been hammered into completion through the very helpful feedback of fellow hobbyists on the forums I frequent, so a heartfelt thank you to anyone who helped me sorting out the smaller kinks on these pieces.

Anyway, for today, let’s forego the shadowy side of the Inquisitor universe in favour of some more ostentatious servants of the Emperor:

I. A pair of colleagues

One thing I did was to touch up a pair of Inquisitors that I had already built a rather long time ago. Upon closer inspection, it seems I have never shared them here on the blog, so that alone should be enough reason to talk about them ;-) So let’s take a closer look:

The first of the two was built to be instantly recognisable as a psyker: By choosing bitz of psionic equipment like a warding staff and psychic hood and by trying to look him tall and gaunt, I believe succeeded at communicating that idea. Take a look:

As you can see, the kitbash itself is fairly straightforward, with an upper body mostly made from GK plastic parts combined with the robed legs of the WFB Chaos Sorcerer. But while I had originally used GK shoulder pads on this guy, PDH rightly pointed out that those made him look a tad too much like an Astartes, so I replaced them with some Chaos Marauder shoulder pads for a less “Marine-y” look. This also had the coincidental side effect of making the model look quite a bit like a piece of artwork in the Inquisitor rulebook, but this wasn’t planned.

In order to further obscure the GK origins, I improvised a nonstandard “power plant” for the model’s back, combining the lower half of a GK backpack with some tanks from a Vraksian Renegade Militia soldier:

The other Inquisitor was designed to be pretty much the polar opposite of the psyker: I wanted a bulky, ostentatious, very physical type, inspired by characters like Witch Hunter Tyrus or Inquisitor Coteaz:

Again, a couple of Marine and GK bitz are very much at the centre of this conversion. So I tried once more to prevent the model from looking too much like an Astartes by combining the Marine bitz with stuff from different sources: The legs came from the WFB chaos warriors, and I added a couple of additional armour plates (the shoulder pad based on a radar array was inspired by a similar conversion in the old Codex Witch Hunters, by the way). And I added a half cape over the model’s shoulder, making use of possibly the last part I had left over from the Chaos Lord on Manticore rider bitz ;-)

All in all, this guy is a real beefcake, but back then, it was a lot of fun to build an Inquisitor who wasn’t a gaunt, shadowy figure for once.

While I have not yet decided which Ordo these two will belong to (I suppose it’ll be a neck and neck between Malleus and Hereticus), I definitely think they have some chemistry together: There’s certainly a bit of a “brains and brawn” thing going on, don’t you think?

Maybe, these two work together as a team, hunting down rogue Inquisitors and Heretics. It might also be  interesting to have them be far more divided than is apparent at first glance: Maybe the bombastic, monodominant Witch Hunter secretly detests his colleague for his reliance on the powers of the warp? Maybe the Psyker has discovered he has a taste for the more radical rituals and pratices? Maybe they are the estranged former pupils of a common master, now brought back into an uneasy alliance by circumstances beyond their control? In any case, there could be some delicious friction between the two…

II. A Sister of Battle

The next model I want to show you today came together surprisingly quickly and was a ton of fun to convert. But I am getting ahead of myself! Let me start by telling you that I have a huge soft spot for the Adepta Sororitas and think it’s a crying shame that GW have shown them so little attention over the last years. For me, the Sisters of Battle are one of the most eclectic and quirky elements of 40k, and one of the things that really sells the setting as something different and interesting. The Sisters are iconic and recognisable and – rather surprisingly, both for GW and wargaming in general – not a highly sexualised depiction of female characters (let’s just forget the Sisters Repentia for now, because they clearly aren’t all that sexy, unless you are that way inclined…). Maybe that’s why the Sisters aren’t selling enough models to warrant a substantial new release?

Anyway, long story short, I have wanted to build a Sister of Battle for my INQ28 collection for quite a while now, and after having converted a small squad of Sisters of Silence for my Custodes, I was reasonably confident that it could be done, and could be done in plastic, no less. So a short time ago, I picked up a leftover Dark Eldar Kabalite Warrior and a couple of bitz and built this model:

I am really happy with the model, to tell you the truth, even though I clearly recognise that it’s not without its faults: For the head, I had to fall back on the one plastic Sororita head available (from the Sisters of Battle vehicle conversion kit, I believe), resulting in a head that might be ever so slightly too big for the body. The backpack may be a bit too bulky as well, although I am actually rather proud of the actual build for that part.

All in all, even though it may be a slightly flawed model, I am enormously fond of it, if only because it was entirely built from plastic parts, without any actual sculpting involved. And I hope that a classic Sisters of Battle paintjob will go the rest of the way towards selling the model.

III. An Angel of Death

And, last but definitely not least, let me show you my latest conversion (and a model I am immensely proud of):

I imagine most of you will have heard about a certain trend of “truescaling” or “art scaling” Space Marines. Not to delve too deeply into this discussion, but the main argument behind this movement is that the scale of the actual Space Marine models doesn’t fit the depiction of Marines in the art and written background published by GW: While the Marines in the art and fluff come across as veritable titans, much taller and wider than any mere man, an actual Marine on the table will often literally see eye to eye with any Cadian or Chaos Cultist.

So quite a few hobbyists are going the “true scale” route, converting and/or resculpting their Marines to be closer to the depictions in the background. And while I am perfectly happy with the scale of Marine models in my regular 40k army (for practicality reasons, if for nothing else), the wonderful world of Inquisitor provided the perfect excuse for building at least one true scale Astartes.

You see, one of the things the original 54mm Inquisitor models truly excelled at was to communicate the fact that people come in all shapes and sizes: While most infantry models for 40k will usually be scaled to equal size, the 54mm Inquisitor models represented a wide range of heights and builds — and Brother Artemis, the Space Marine model released for Inquisitor, was definitely the tallest and most imposing guy in the catalogue.

And with the focus on making individual models look as good as possible in INQ28, I think we should also try to incorporate that variety in heigth and build into the smaller scale, even though it means more work. And while there’s admittedly not that much use for a Space Marine in INQ28, I still wanted to build one, both due to the challenge involved and because such a character would fit into the background for my little slice of the galaxy.

Now actually building the model turned out to be a veritable odyssey: Everything started when I saw Commissar Molotov’s Deathwatch Marine many moons ago:

Deathwatch Marine converted by Commissar Molotov and painted by ElDiablo

Molotov himself may no longer be all that fond of this model, but ut really served as a trailblazer for me in that it convinced me that building and painting a truescale Marine would be a very worth hobby endeavour! And indeed, I started kitbashing right away (back in 2011), coming up with this:

But while it may have been a valiant first effort, the model didn’t convince me, even back then: The proportions were a bit off, the legs were clearly Terminator legs, and I feared I would have to get my feet wet using GS to sort out the build of the model. So this first test model was scrapped, and I put the project on the back burner, there to simmer for a while…

And simmer it did: Whenever I saw my fellow hobbyists come up with amazing truescale Marines of their own, their work would prove to be both inspiring and intimidating to me: Inspiring because it gave me the motivation to take another shot at my own model, intimidating because all those models always seemed so much cooler than what I could come up with.

There are many, many cool truescale projects out there, so naming favourites seems a bit unfair, but let me at least mention the models that proved the most inspiring (and/or intimidating) to me: Jeff Vader came up with a wonderful series of truescale Marines, but I couldn’t get his recipe to work for me, much as I tried. The Strike Force Helmawr project proved tantalising, showing not one but many, many true scale models (and convincing me I could never pull it off). Bruticus’s amazing Sun Titan Space Marine made me salivate at the mouth and gnash my teeth at the same time, because the model and backstory were fairly close to what I had been planning for my own model (on a related note, the model is made even better by the wonderfully grimdark background provided here and here). And there was always migsula with his outstanding Alpha Legionaries, of course, but I knew right away that I myself could not hope to aspire to something as lofty as that ;-)

Meanwhile, I made another attempt at building my own truescale Marine:

But while the model did feel like an improvement over the first version, the look I wanted still wasn’t there. Would I be forever unable to come up with a suitable Astartes for my INQ28 collection?

What finally pushed me over the edge to try it yet again were Jeff Vader’s Deathwatch Marine (using a GK Terminator torso instead of that of a regular Marine, something I hadn’t even considered before) and Ukos’s really nice and clean truescale model (also using plastic Terminator parts). So, last weekend, I gave it yet another try, and this time I persevered:

In hindsight, it’s truly baffling how quickly the model’s body came together after all that prior deliberation. The main challenge was to get the proportions to look plausible enough, but I think I have finally managed to make it work! As for the parts used, the legs came from a FW Tartaros Terminator (I’d probably always recommend these over regular Terminator legs, because their design means that they won’t need any additional greenstuffing to look accurate), while the torso and arms are from the Grey Knight piloting the Nemesis Dreadknight. I also added shoulder pads from the Sternguard kit and a particularly arrogant looking head from the Vanguard kit. Oh, and the cap of a felt pen provided the plasticard collar I needed to make the armour work — another good piece of advice for lazy people like me ;-)

After the main build had been sorted out, it came to making the armour look less utilitarian and more ostentatious and baroque. I quickly found out that I couldn’t add nearly as much bitz and bobs as I would have liked, and I really had to reign myself in so as not too overclutter the model’s silhouette! Anyway, here’s the model with added gear and decoration:

In addition to providing a bit of extra bling, some pouches and grenades were used to bulk out the hips and help create the illusion of “correct” proportions.

The final step was to add weapons to the model, and I clearly knew I wanted this guy to be wielding a sword and a pistol of some sort. And while I had several options for either, in the end it turned out that many of the possible weapons weren’t useable because they would have looked like mere toys in the hands of this huge model — a very real complication with truescale models!

In the end I settled on a FW plasma pistol and a Grey Knight power sword. And with that, the conversion was completed. I give you Brother Sergeant Janus Auriga, of the Golden Legion Astartes Chapter:

And, of course, no post about a true scale Marine would be complete with a scale comparison shot showing the model next to one of its “regular” counterparts. Take a look:

Quite a beast, don’t you think? :-)

I won’t lied to you: I am super happy with the finished model, especially since it has taken me such a long time to come up with a true scale Astartes of my own! Since I don’t plan on building any more TS Marines, I knew that I should give it my all on this guy — and I did ;-)

So yeah, those are the first results of my recent INQ28 kitbashing spree. As usual, I would love to hear any feedback, suggestions or criticism you might have! And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Right, sorry for the late update, and for getting ages to get back to any comments — work is crazy at the moment. Please bear with me, while I try not to lose my mind ;-)

Anyway, let me show you another batch of (fairly) recently kitbashed models from the wonderful world of INQ28: Maybe due to the recent release of the new Astra Militarum Codex, this update will mainly be featuring characters with a bit of an IG background.

With one notable exception, however: In a bit of an addendum to my last post, I have come up with two possible retainers to Brother-Sergeant Auriga, my true scale Marine:

1. An Astartes’s Servants

First up, I’ve had this little guy in my bitzbox for ages now:

But while I love cherubim – they’re such an ironic part of what makes 40k interesting – I never got around to finding an actual use for the model: That bolter the little guy is lugging around didn’t seem like such a good match for any of my Inquisitors, and I didn’t want to chop it off for fear of permanently ruining the model.

Brother Sergeant Auriga, however, is a Space Marine. And by virtue of being a Space Marine, he would own and wield a bolter, right? Well, so much the better, because now he has a servant to carry the weapon for him, at least when it’s not actually required on the battlefield, but rather as a “sign of office”, as it were. And it really fits my idea of the Golden Legion that they would not be above a bit of ostentatiousness like this.

Once I had seen the Marine and cherub together, there was no stopping me, and so I started working on yet another retainer for Brother Auriga: My original plan had been to have options for both a bare head and a helmeted one, but then I really liked the idea of having a chapter serf carry the Brother-Sergeant’s helmet. Here’s an early mockup:

These three really look great together, if you ask me:

At the same time, this growing retinue illustrates a bit of a challenge I am facing at the moment: My problem, if you can call it a problem at all, seems to be that some of the models I have recently built seem to warrant further retainers and familiars, just because it’s such a great way of further exploring them as characters. You’ll be seeing another example of this in a minute, and while building some additional models (for additional narrative texture) is a blast, I wonder whether I’ll ever be able to finish all of these… Then again, as long as it’s fun, it certainly can’t be all bad, can it?

Anyway, moving on to the Astra Militarum guys:

II. The Rank And File

I suppose some of you will still be remembering my kitbashed Trencher, right? Well, messing around with a Dark Vengeance chaos cultist and an Eisenkern Stormtrooper head lead to a model that might be a playfellow for him (or maybe a soldier of the opposing army?). Take a look:

Then there’s a special ops trooper I built, heavily inspired by one of Commissar Molotov’s conversions:

This guy was built by combining two sets of Cadian legs (you’ll quickly see the area where the conversion still needs some evening out) and adding some bitz from the Tempestus Scions (nothing says “elite soldier” quite like a beret worn in combat, right? ;) I also added some bitz to the lasgun, in order to make it look like a custom model:

III. Ordo Militum?!

I have also begun to mess around with the Tempestor Prime bitz, creating a model that could become a high-ranking Guard officer, or maybe even an Inquisitor with strong ties to the Ordo Militum? Take a look:

This model is not yet finished, of course. For now, the most involved change to the base model was to add the saber of the plastic Ordo Prefectus Commissar — which I think fits this model rather better than the model it originally came from. I’m also not yet sure whether I like it better held vertically or horizontally:

Thoughts?

Speaking of the Ordo Prefectus Commissar, I have begun to turn him into an agent of the Ordos:

I quickly realised that the model had a bit of a “gunslinger” vibe going on, so I experimented with different weapons setups (and added a head with a bionic eye that seems to support the character’s targeting prowess:

As for the actual weapons, the plasma pistol seemed a little too clunky for me, and while I liked the Dark Eldar pistol well enough for its sleek silhouette, it just seemed too xenos for a military man like this — it would probably be ideal if one were to build a Rogue Trader from this base model, however. Just sayin’…

In the end, I opted for a custom weapon, kitbashed from a Dark Eldar fusion pistol and a strut from a GK backpack:

I am reasonably pleased with the outcome, because it looks clunky enough to qualify as Imperial, but could also conceivably have xenos origins. In any case, it has a bit of the classic, retro-futuristic “SCIENCE!” look, don’t you think?

Another fun experiment was to use some different legs on the model:

In this case, I tried some legs from the Eisenkern Stormtroopers, and while the result might look a little off, I think it might be an avenue of conversion that definitely warrants further exploration.

For this particular model, though, I am going to keep the standard legs:

So who is this guy? I think he’s looking a bit too ostentatious to be a “regular” gunslinger. He might be an actual Inquisitor, but there’s a cockiness in his pose and expression that makes me think he might make a better Interrogator — maybe a servant of the Ordo Militum Inquisitor above?

IV. An Officer And A Gentleman…

There’s one last set of models I would like to show you, and these are another example of my recent fancy when it comes to going off on a tangent in order to kitbash some “spin off” miniatures, so to speak. But let’s start at the beginning:

A rather long while ago, fellow hobbyist and all around great guy PDH let me have a tank commander commissar from the FW DKOK Commissar set — on the condition that I would use it for a conversion.

Well, it took me ages to finally come up with a conversion opportunity for the model – mostly because the tank commander is lacking the legs below the knee, for obvious reasons – but when the Tempestus Scions appeared upon the scene, I finally had my solution (and a way to give this guy new legs). Take a look:

As you can see, I just added in the lower legs of a Tempestus Scion — which worked like a charm, with only minimal cutting and GS’ing involved! In order to make the model look more like a noble and austere character, I also replaced the DKOK gas mask with a bare head (from the Empire Knights’ White Wolves sprue, of all places…). On a related note, I did keep the commissar head perfectly intact, in order to be able to use it in a future conversion:

Anyway, when I posted the DKOK conversion on my Ammobunker thread, fellow hobbyist Logan pointed out that the model reminded him of a painting of Karl Franz of Austria. And then it hit me: This guy actually looks like he is posing for a portrait, isn’t he?

I actually embraced this effect, and in order to further emphasise it, I added a servo-skull and a small plinth on his base, making the “portrait look” even stronger:

And then I finally lost my mind when DexterKong suggested I built a small diorama showing the officer’s portrait being painted by an Imperial artist. And I really loved that idea! So I began to plan accordingly (wanting to build the diorama, but also endeavouring to keep the models useable individually).

Anyway, for the painter, I chose an Imperial acolyte I had picked up during a bitz swap some time ago:

This seems to be everybody’s favourite model from back when Codex: Daemonhunters was released, but on my copy, the eye section of the face was unfortunately rather miscast/damaged, leaving him without eyes and giving him an ugly splotch of metal over the upper half of his face. So, as you can see above, I added a new bionic eye to him, in order to repair the model.

It works rather well, I think, and the strange “welt” running over his right eye now looks more like a cable feeding into his bionic eye — how very 40k, to replace and eye and thereby fething up the other one, right? Especially on a painter!

Because this guy will be serving as a “painting servitor”, or as an augmeticised master painter, for that matter. I think he will be commanding a coterie of servo-skulls, that are taking care of the actual painting, while he is making preparatory sketches and adjusting the skulls’ work.

The servo skulls will be darting around a suitably grimdark easel. I have already started building it:

Ironically enough, one of the servo skull diceholders that were released alongside 6th edition served as the main recource for building the easel. I added some parts from an old model truck kit, as well as some cabling and an Imperial aquila. And, like I said, a couple of servo-skulls will be floating around the completed easel:

I am currently using a CD as a makeshift base for the diorama, figuring out the basic composition before starting on the actual build:

So this will be a scene depicting a powerful Lord Militant of the Astra Militarum having his portrait taken by an augmeticised master painter of the 41st millennium and his coterie of servo-skull assistents — is this utterly brilliant or completely idiotic? Or a little bit of both? I’ll let you be the judges of that…

Anyway, so much for the Astra Militarum side of things for now! See you all next week, when I am going to show you the third batch of my current INQ28 kitbashing results. Until then, feel free to let me know any suggestions and feedback you might have!

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

Welcome, dear readers, to the third part of my INQ28-related kitbashing showcase! I have yet more Inquisitorial agents and ne’er-do-wells to show you today, but where the first and second installment of this mini-series dealt with more ostentatious, “in your face” style servants of the God Emperor, today sees a return to the somewhat more shadowy and quirky parts of the 40k universe. Let’s take a look:

1. Xenobiology

First up something rather simple: Some time ago, I picked up one of the servitors accompanying FW’s Hector Rex model from a fellow hobbyist for a really great price. Rather than using it as a servitor, however, I believe I’ll make this guy into a Magos Xenobiologis:

I really like the look of the model, both because it’s rake thin, which makes for a rather unique visual footprint, and because it’s really close to my archetypal idea of a Magos of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Like I said, I believe this guy will become a Magos Xenobiologis, maybe to join Inquisitor Alvar’s retinue. The one thing I have done so far (apart from scrubbing the mold release agent off the model, mind you) was to cut off the tangle of cables serving as the model’s left hand. It will be replaced by a fairly regular hand — or maybe by that DV cultist champ hand with the blade tipped fingers? Anyway, this guy is not very far along yet, but I really love the base model!

II. Familiar faces

As evidenced by the retainers I recently built for Brother-Sergeant Auriga, I have developed a bit of a soft spot for servants, retainers and familiars — the kind of characters you always see loitering around in the background of the GW artwork, but that usually aren’t all that well represented in model form. Well, what better setting than INQ28 to do these unsung characters any justice?

First up, a small conversion that is really close to my heart: A while ago, fellow hobbyist and all around great guy PDH let me have a wonderful little powder monkey from one of the WFB Empire kits. The monkey is pretty much perfect in and of itself, and so the minuscule changes I made to the model were only intended to bring it more in line with the 40k setting.

I added some very subtle touches to turn the little guy into an augmeticised familiar, either for my Rogue Trader, Iskander Gagarin, or for a particularly eccentric AdMech priest (maybe even the WIP Magos pictured above)? In any case, here’s the model:

Since the model’s so tiny, the conversion had to be rather subtle: I gave the monkey a tiny bionic eye and replaced the tail with a cable from a servo-skull, in order to make it look like it could be used to interface with machines. I would have replaced the barrel held by the monkey with a servo-skull for an even more grimdark look, but the very real danger of losing that perfectly sculpted little paw was enough to scare me off ;-)

I also needed to make the monkey familiar a little taller, and I used this opportunity to add even more of a 40k-feel to him by putting him on top of a techy bit (actually pilfered from an old model truck kit):

I really love this guy, to tell you the truth. Oh, and since Peter was awesome enough to give this wonderful model to me in the first place, what better way to thank him than to name the character after him, right? So, henceforth, this little guy will be called “PeeDee” by way of thanks ;-)

The other familiar I built was a really fast and dirty kitbash that I completed one evening after work when I needed to do something creative in order to relax: I decided to build a servo-skull heavily inspired by the type of extra-grimdark skulls that appear in the Witch Hunter artwork. Take a look:

Again, a really easy conversion: I just added the top of a Empire flagellant’s head to a resin skull and blended in the seams with a bit of GS. Then a parchment was added, making it look like the skull was carrying around Imperial liturgies. And finally, some cables were used to provide a suitably tech-y look (and a certain sense of movement) to the whole affair. The whole thing didn’t take longer than rougly half an hour, but it was a fun little exercise to take my mind off things.

III. A charioteer to the stars

Last but definitely not least, a combination of different circumstances led me to build yet another, slightly more involved model: Maybe everything started when I first laid eyes on weirdingway’s absolutely spectacular Navigators and their household guard. I then read up on the Navigators’ background over at the Warhammer 40k Wiki, where I was also confronted with a particularly evocative piece of artwork done by none other than John Blanche himself:

artwork by John Blanche, Copyright: Games Workshop

I really love this piece because it perfectly combines some of the most interesting characteristics of the Navigators: The fact that they are shadowy and secretive, but with a certain flair and ostentatiousness. The subtle mutations and deformity created by millennia of incestuous intermarrying between the same cluster of houses. And the strange combination of hi-tech and mysticism that is so typical of the 40k setting. Anyway, all of these circumstances together really made me want to build a Navigator of my own!

There was also the fact that FW’s new event only model is a Navigator, providing a further motivation to come up with my own version in glorious plastic. So I merrily kitbashed away. Here’s the result:

As you can see, a WFB Empire Battle Wizard formed the base for the conversion, and the same kit did indeed provide most of the bitz I needed. The two things I wanted to push the most, from a visual perspective, were the Navigator’s ostentatiousness and his possible physical deformity (the exact degree of which is rather hard to ascertain, due to his billowing robes).

For the former effect, I took a page out of Forgeworld’s book for the model, giving the Navigator a rather flamboyant feather collar instead of one made of fox tails. The staff from the wizard kit is also the perfect sign of office for a powerful representative of an ancient Navigator house.

In order to achieve the latter effect, I had to be rather crafty, since the model’s robed body left me precious few options to hint at mutations, but a careful selection of bitz helped in giving the impression that the Navigator was somewhat …twisted. Chief among these bitz was the head from the Dark Vengeance Chosen champ — actually the bit that inspired the whole conversion in the first place! The model’s nose had already been slightly damaged and flattened during transport when I opened the box for the first time, and so I ultimately decided to replace the head. The third eye wasn’t all that fitting for a servant of Khorne anyway, but just the right thing to build a Navigator! And the slightly misshaped nose could be explained away as yet another manifestation of the poor chap`s rather limited gene pool. Beyond that, I added several additional subtle hints at physical deformity to the model — can you spot them all? ;-)

This guy will be used as a high-ranking representative of House DeVries, the Velsen sector’s pre-eminent navigator house. I also cannot help seeing this character as a bit of an evil guy: Not a clear-cut villain or a follower of chaos, mind you, but a schemer and slightly depraved individual. Here’s a short quote that came to my head – unbidden – while I was working on the model:

“I am aware, my lord, that my kind disgust you. I need not look into your soul to see your revulsion, for it is written all over your face. You shiver at our nature, and at our perceived unwholesomness. But oh, my lord, if you could only see us how we really look, in the realms behind the veil…” (insert malicious chuckling here)

Another thing I would like to do is to add a couple of retainers to him, representing members of his personal household guards. These will be ruthlessly inspired by weirdingway’s amazing rag tag Navigatorial retainers, so take a look at his thread (wait, you should do that anyway!) and you’ll know what to expect.

So yeah, so much for my recent fit of kitbashing inspiration. I hope this mini-series has been interesting enough for you to follow — now I’ll have to work up the motivation to break out the paints, lest all of these models end up in my cupboard of shame. Let’s keep our fingers crossed, shall we? ;-)

In any case, I’d be happy to hear any feedback or criticism you might have! And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!