Egyptian Deamon Prince

So, Army builder attention deficient disorder kicking in again. I was surfing around the net and happened upon an image that just hit my mind with an instant "OHH!" Must make that as a daemon prince!"

Genzomans awesome Anubis!

The image is of the Egyptian god, Anubis. If you're interested in checking out more work from him, I would strongly advise you to check out his deviant art page. But wait! Deamon Princes basically HAVE to have wings to be useful in the game. Anubis doesn't have wings. So what do I do? Add wings? Eh... no. not so much. I had a different idea:

So I built a sort of floating base that will be mounted on a flight stand. 3 layers of insulation foam glued together and then carved down forms the basis of the base.

I applied a layer of sheet styrene with a tile etched pattern on it to the top of the foam, making this look like the Daemon used a spell or power of some form to raise up a portion of the ground he was standing on.

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The Servo-Skull tape meassure

So I've been working on the Servo-Skull tape measure a bit today. Work has been taking precidence lately so I haven't had much time to work on 40k material but I've been able to squeeze an couple hours to at least get a base coat and layer down for the skull:

The servo-skull

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Battle Scenes: Blood Ravens vs Chaos Demons

I got a 2k point game in against a guy I met at Game Vault named Matt. He was running a Khorne centered list of Chaos demons with Chaos Space Marine allies. It was the first time I've faced off against a Demons army. I gotta say that is one jacked up army. Every turn he had to roll for some effect on some table. Needless to say it's an army I won't be touching anytime soon for that reason. Might do some of the models, but not gonna play the army itself. But managed to get some in-game shots from the game.

Challenge accepted!

I was trying out a new combo of wargear and units. In this particular case I took a chapter master on a bike with Teeth of Terra and Shield eternal and rather then taking 3 Iron Clad dreadnoughts I swapped for a bare bones predator and allies in the form of  2 squads of  counts as Imperial Fist Stern Guard Death Watch with a Watch Captain (In the form of Pedro Kantor). 

The chapter master just outright messes with units in Close combat. Sending him in solo he get +D3 attacks, which quit nicely makes up for the lack of extra attacks due to carrying the Shield Eternal which in turn gives him a 3+ invulnerable with eternal warrior. Oh and Chapter Masters have 4 wounds. You're not taking him down fast in a normal game.

I did make a couple mistakes with him, like forgetting the +D3 attacks for 2 rounds of combat, and also I forgot that because I was running him with White Scars chapter tactics, he gets hit and run. That could have seriously changed the course of the game.

The Chapter Master continues to cleave through the Khorne Hound unit.

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Repainting a tool

Okay so I lost my tape measure sometime before last Thursday and I had to buy one at the shop at the last minute. All the store had in presently was one of those Servo-skull looking Tape measures Games Workshop releases with the release of 6th Ed. I never much cared for those ones, but I had little choice so I bought it. While I played the game with it I got more and more annoyed with the coloring of it. So I resolved to dismantle it, stripe it, and paint it to look more like... well like a servo skull. So Here we go:

Got it dismantled:

I had it mounted on some cork board and got it primed today. I was going to take a picture of it, but the black primer made it really hard to see details of any kind. So I didn't take a picture of that. In place of it, see a picture of it assembled after being primed black:

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A Son of Titan

So I'm working on a new project. Yes yes yes, my ADHD is kicking in of late. In the last week I've done an Eldar Phoenix Lord Conversion, was working on painting a DeathWatch detachment while converting a DeathWatch dreadnought, and painted a unit of Ultramarine Terminators after converting them from the Dark Vengeance set. So yeah, it's not stopping today.

A while back I was checking out MiniWar Gaming's Painting a Grey Knight Dreadnight video, and I liked what they did with the base so I tried my hand at a similar base.

And then I started working on the actual Dread Knight. And of course I can't leave it at that.

I wanted to make the weapons swappable. So I turned to magnets once again. I had to be very very careful when drilling out the space for the magnets because the magnet itself is only slightly smaller then the shaft of the hands. if I drilled too far off center I would have ruined the piece. Not something I wanted to do.

In order to mount a magnet in the arm itself I had to get a bit creative as there's just an empty space in the arm. So what did I do? Added some green stuff.

I used a mass of Green stuff in the lower arm and then pressed the 2nd half of the arm into place till fill the void. Once the Green Stuff cured I went in and drilled a space for the accompanying magnets.

Now I have to wait for the Virginia weather to figure out what season it wants to give us before I can prime the model. You know, having snow coming down makes it a bit of a challenge to prime.

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Jain Zar!

So I ran across a partial conversion a while back where the converter had used the Lylith model as a base for an Eldar styled gladiator of some form. Looking at it I was struck by the fact that Lylith would make a great base for Jain Zar model. I was somewhat shocked to learn that the Jain Zar model hadn't been switched over to FineCast, yes it is still metal! Still, that worked out to my advantage somewhat:

Jain Zar! The Phoinex Lord of the Banshee!

So the first thing I did to create this conversion was I used instant mold to create a cast of the face and head of the Jain Zar. I didn't need a total cast, just of the mask and from of the hair. The rest I felt confident in being able to sculpt to match up with the details of the model.

While I waited for the instant mold to cool I worked on shaving down the spikes and more angular armor pads on the model to remove much of the Dark Eldar feel from the model. I then used a portion of green stuff to both cast up a green stuff copy of the face and fill in the sections on the segmented pads. This again helped to move the model away from its Dark Eldar origin and closer to the Eldar Phoinex lord I was aiming for.

With the mask casting cured I removed it from the mold and worked to cut away the extra material in the hair and neck of the cast. I just needed the mask itself. I used my dremal to shave down the face of the Lylith model and to carve out a section in the mask casting. Once I felt the mask would sit properly on the model I used some super glue to attach it.

From there it was a matter of re-sculpting to hair to go from the Mask to the hair plum for Lylith.

Here you can see how the mask joined with the head itself.

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Remember these guys?

Do you remember back... hmmm about 8 or 9 months ago when I said I was working on De-Dark Angeling the Terminators from the Dark Vengeance set? Well I've been working on those guys again on and off as the mood hit me. Mainly for a difference in pace, but also because I had wanted to try out the then new GW paint range, I painted the first member of the squad in Ultramarine colors. So following in that first members foot steps I've continued working on the squad in Ultramarine colors.

Ultramrines terminators stand ready, mostly.

The above image shows the models in mostly the base colors, though the blue has been highlighted using the directions from one of the Games Workshop tutorials.

One thing I very consciously did was follow the color directions for the Captain Sicarius painting tutorial from the Digital Codex Collection. While the Terminators are from the first Company of the Ultramarines, I wanted to make it look like they were perhaps attached to the 2nd company and thus be under the command of Sicarius. I really like this deep rich red color which can be seen on the Sergents sash:

The, and most of the reds in the squad are done using a base color of Khorne red with a Baal red wash (The equivalent wash in the current series is Carroburg Crimson) gives the sash a deep crimson coloring that I then highlighted using Khorne red, followed by mephiston red followed by Blood red (wazdakka red).

I tried doing some wear and tear coloring on some of the models, again using the tutorials from the digital collection. The best example of this I can show is on the helmet of the Sergent.

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The Death Watch assemble

So I've got the infantry members of the Death Watch like 95% complete. I can do more work on the paint jobs, highlighting and picking out details, but as far as table top worthy go they are such.

The first Death Watch Squad

The Second Death Watch Squad

The Death Watch Captain

I tried to build each marine to be diverse and different but still part of a unit. That's the big appeal of the Death Watch RPG game. You might have a Dark Angels Marine playing alongside a Space Wolves Marine along side an Iron Hands Iron Father being commanded by an Ultramarine. But they are still a unit. So there are lots of little conversions like the addition of a strap to some bolters, or the use of pieces to give some marines the Marksmans honour. I did something with the paints to mark out each squad. Can you see what it is?

I have decided to expand the force by adding a Dreadnought and probably 2 rhinos. The Dreadnought I've been working on by dipping through my bitz boxes. It sometimes shocks me when I manage to find nearly complete kits in there.

The Dreadnought thus far.

I've followed a similar approach to building the dreadnought with what I did for the infantry, subtle conversions to change the model but not re-design it to be something else. In this case I wanted to give the dread some dynamism and reposed the legs to better adjust to the terrain of the base. It's a bit difficult to see from the front the conversion work on the legs, so here's a different angle of the model:

A side on view of the dread on the base

The base by the way is from Dragon Forge Design's Ancient Ruins series. If you're looking for super high quality bases with fantastic detail I would recommend you check out his sight. I have never been disappointed by his bases.

The Dreadnought is going to be the Dreadnought version of Brother Quintus. Yeah, remember him from way back when? So in order to carry the story of Brother Quintus forward I'm going to arm the Dreadnought with a heavy bolter and explain it as being master crafted so I can play it as being twin-linked. If my opponent raises an issue with Dreads not being able to take Heavy bolters out of the current regular codexes, fine. I'll let it count as an assault cannon.

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The Deathwatch detachment

So I'm continuing to work on the Death Watch Detachment for the upcoming Apoc game. All of the models are at least primed, all but five of them have the silvered arms of the Death Watch armor, and some of them even have the shoulder pads for their chapters painted!

Group 1 of the Death Watch detachment

The Three hands. Get it? Crimson Fist, Iron hand, and Imperial fist.

A crimson fist, an Imperial Fist, and an Ultrmarine

I've also found the parts and pieces to build most of a dreadnought to dd to the Detachment. I might go all out and build an army level Death Watch detachment. Toying with the idea. I'll already have 2 Sternguard squads, a Dreadnought and a Captain. That's a fairly sizable starting core.

Anyway, the Dreadnought. I wanted to keep the Dreadnought in an similar design to the marines so I wanted to add the lettering to the left shoulder guard.

The Death Watch Dreadnought's shoulder guard

Reasonable success I would say. I had to file down the surface enough to leave a slight 'burr' so that the the layer of green stuff had something to adhere to. I then used instant mold to make reliefs of the letters on the various parts of the Venerable dreadnought kit. Using those reliefs I could then press mold the lettering on the shoulder guard. I'll need to add the Inquisitorial sigil to it later. But one step at a time.

As an aside I am putting together an online Death Watch RPG game. If you are reading this and are interested in joining in, drop me a comment with you email address and I'll send you the info for it.

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Death Watch detachment

And construction of the Kill Team Detachment has been completed (You know baring the possibility that I want to build a Death Watch Dreadnought just because I can, or I have that Land Speeder I could build. And a Storm. A little speedy transport wouldn't be unwelcome for a Death Watch team).

Anyway. 20 Death Watch marines with a watch captain:

 Placed in command of the detachment is a Death Watch Captain:

 Each Squad is lead by a Sergent. In this case, both Sergents are from the Ultramarines Chapter.

 Covering the heavy fire part of the detachment is a Quartet of heavy bolter armed marines:

4 Heavy Bolter armed marines provide the heavy support the rest of the detachment needs.

As with all Death Watch Kill teams, the detachment is comprised of Marines from various chapters. Here we see the 4 Fists (2 Imperial Fists, 2 Crimson fists).

2 Imperial fists along side 2 Crimson Fist marins

 2 Blood Angel marines:

2 Blood Angels serving in the Death Watch

 The members of the Death Watch detachment who come from the Aurora chapter

Aurora Marines serving in the Death Watch

The Ultramarines have 3 Brothers serving this detachment:

a trio of Ultramarines serving in the Death Watch

 While the Dark Angels have likewise provided capable team members

Dark Angel Death Watch members

The children of the death world Fenris, always eager for a fight, have provided members to the detachment:

2 Space Wolves in the Death Watch team

Honor bound to destroy those that would endanger the Imperium of Man, the Black Templars have a presence in the Death Watch.

With the cold methodical logic that makes them so dangerous, the Iron Hands provide fire support for their Death Watch Brothers:

I use very simple conversions through out the entire detachment to keep it as uniform as a Death Watch can reasonably be. Mainly part swaps. the Iron Hand marines are good examples of this as I use the torsos and one set of bionic legs from the Iron Hands upgrade kit for the pair of them.

There were only a hand full of 'free form' conversions through out the entire detachment, and by free form I mean I didn't simply decide to use a different part to accomplish the effect.


This Sergent is the first example. I use a pin in the left Wrist to angle the sword outward to signify him declaring a charge.

I angled the wrist to tilt the chainsword forward, as he signals a charge.

Another example is basically every one of the Heavy Bolter armed marines.

The right shoulder of the Heavy Bolter set up has the ammo belt coming right across the edge of the shoulder pad meaning the shoulder pad is actually one piece with the ammo feed and a couple cables. So I couldn't pop on the shoulder pad of the respective chapter. I had to literally cut away the old shoulder (minus the shoulder for the Black Shield mind you. He can just be a flat shoulder pad). I then had to use should segments from other arms (I used the shoulders from the tactical marines for reason I will explain in a bit) to replace the upper arm and then added the shoulder pad to that effectively rebuilding the bit with the chapter iconography.

Through out the entire detachment I wanted to keep the various little accoutrements and symbols that so characterize space marines. These include:

The Servo Skull on this Heavy Bolter Marine

 The bolter strap on this Iron Hands Marines
 

The tooth on the grip of the bolter of the marine on the right

The Templar on the left as been awarded a Marksmanship honor

The Marksmanship honor hanging from the barrel of the bolter on the left.

So, I mentioned I used the shoulders from the Tactical marines arms for replacing the shoulders of the heavy bolters and I alluded that there was a reason for this choice. Here's why:

In the new tactical kit, the hands are built into the bolters while the arms are separate pieces. You attach the hand and arm at the wrist. Nice option for conversions, but in this particular case it created a little bit of a head ache as it means I had to cut out the hands from the bolters, and then attach them to the Death Watch Bolters. 15 times... It gets a bit boring after a while. Anyway, This now means I have 15 arms, that I don't have hands to go with. So I further canalized 4 of the arms to rebuild the shoulders of the Heavy Bolters.

And there we have a 21 man Death Watch Detachment complete and ready for paint.


... you know, I do have all those extra Dreadnought pieces. I might just do a Death Watch Dread.

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work and projects

Okay, so I'm still alive. I survived retail hell and I'm working on various projects again. Also got a really big project I'm working on, an Apocalypse game! I hosted an apoc game last year. It had its ups and it had its downs. The folks who played in it had a lot of fun and they've asked me if I was going to do another one. So I am! But I'm gonna push it out several months for several reasons. First reason being is giving people a chance to get ready for the game, mainly by getting all those models they want but can't really using in their armies. But also to give people a chance to get coordinated and synced up with one another in the game. Also I need time to get ready for it. I've got some plans that require the construction of specialized terrain. So  I need time to build that terrain. I've set up a website to provide a single location for interested parties to get information on the game.

In the last Apoc game I put together 3 4'x8' tables to create a 12'x8' table and saw about 35,000 points on the table. For this upcoming game I'm hoping to get 50,000+ points on the table. But I'm also going to be setting up a far larder board. So large that I've talked to the owner of Game Vault and have reserved the front gaming room for the battle. Which also gives me some 136 square feet of table top space to work with.

But the Apoc game isn't the only thing I'm working on. Well sort of anyway. I'm also working on some other 'cool' stuff that is being motivated for use in the Apoc battle. The first of these is a Death Watch detachment which will consist of 2 ten man Sternguard squads with a Captain. I ordered 2 tactical squads, Pedro Kantor model, 3 different chapter shoulder pads, a Death Watch conversion kit, and an Iron Hands conversion kit.Well the order came in and I've gotten to work on my plan for the detachment.

Deathwatch Captain

So I've converted Kantor into the Death Watch Captain. The biggest point of conversion on this model was the storm bolder arm. I speciffically wanted to have a Death Watch shoulder pad on the left shoulder. Originally I had hoped I would be able to shave down the existing shoulder so I could mount the shoulder pad on it but the way the arm is designed made this not viable. The ammo feed connects at the back of the shoulder in such a way that I would had to disconnect the ammo feed while the original shoulder pad came low enough on the arm that I would have to replace the upper arm anyway to keep details that were previously covered.

So I had to replace the entire upper arm. I used one of the straighter arms from the tactical marines sprue for the replacement.

For the rest of the detachment I'm going to build 20 marines, decked out to be representative of Stern Guard, with a varied assortment of chapter markings. I have the bits and pieces so that I'll be able to build 3 Ultramarines, 2 Iron Hands, 2 Crimson Fists, 2 Imperial Fists, 2 Black Templar, 2 Dark Angels, 2 Blood Angels, 2 Space Wolves, 2 Aurora Chapter Marines and 1 black shield to round out the two squads.

Another project I'm working on is Egyptian Chaos Marines:

Egypt styled Mauler and Forge Fiend

These will be a ForgeFiend and Mauler Fiend respectively. I'm going to mount the cannons on the sides of the Howdath of the WarSphynx.

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