Author Archives: terryshithole

Assault Squad Plaid! flying obsolete marines! with christmas marine! (!)

12 Sunday Jul 2020

Posted by in Finished Work, Space Marines

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The final thing I’ve finished recently is another squad of obsolete marines for the Steel Guard. Apparently Assault Squads are completely pointless in 8th edition because there are flying primaris marines who are much better. I expect the same to be the case in 9th, but if oldhammer is about anything its about playing for the love of the game and not picking your team based upon a complex series of equations most guaruanteed to deliver victory. I hope to play more games of 9th edition than I did of 8th (i.e. five or more games), but I reserve the right to throw an assault squad onto the table if I feel like it.

The highlight in this squad is that Ive slipped in a christmas marine, as I felt that his wobbly stance would work as a landing pose. You will probably agree that is doesn’t particularly, but that’s life. Sergeant Plaid is a Space Crusade sergeant whose fat power glove should have been painted as a foam fist really. Next time!

Hunea’s Reavers, a Warhounds warband

10 Friday Jul 2020

Posted by in Chaos

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This is the second of the three pieces I’ve finished since March, an experiment that failed. Having painted a Night Lord next up on my journey through the Chaos Legions was World Eaters. Now the World Eaters started out as the Warhounds, and were blue-grey and white. When Angron took over he called them the World Eaters and reversed their colours. When Khorne took him over their colours gradully migrated to the red and brass we know today. So I thought that I’d paint a squad of each!

Hunea’s squad were based a long way from the rest of the Warhounds on garrison duty in a distant stronghold, with irregular updates by astropath. They followed at a distance the change from Warhounds to World Eaters, the butcher’s nails, the rebellion. They were able to hear the Legion break down into madness and bloodlust but not be part of it. Finally there were no more astropathic transmissions, the galaxy was at war, and the squad had to decide which side they were on. They decided that no-one cared for them so they cared for no-one, and started to carve out a petty empire for themselves on the edges of known space. After the heresy came the Scouring, and Hunea and his gang fled in the face of overwhelming Imperial retribution. They tried to use a warp storm to hide in and wound up in the Maelstrom where they made a base which they used to raid the Imperium and in which they gradually succumbed to the lure of chaos. They act as sell-swords and security detail for lesser chaos warlords in the Maelstrom, and are mostly trying to avoid notice by bigger fish like Huron Blackheart!

I didn’t enjoy painting Hunea’s squad that much, it felt like I was fighting the minis’ natural ‘feel’; a colour scheme that works for the clean lines of loyalists doesn’t work very well for the complex lines of chaos marines. It felt like I was forcing the paintjob. One of the plastic marines was one from a parts lot that had been stripped but was very badly built. I should have just chucked it in the bitz box and used a different marine instead of trying to repair and reuse it, it looks crap! But you live and learn, innit.

Obsidius Mallex!

09 Thursday Jul 2020

Posted by in Blackstone Fortress, Chaos

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Well, hasn’t it been a while! What a few months its been. Some people have had a chance during lockdown to paint and paint and paint but sadly I am not one of them. My partner came down with a light case of covid in March which wasn’t too bad, but it turns out that covid can have knock on effects in many different ways. She’s been suffering a variety of symptoms including fatigue ever since, and so I’ve had to do everything in our household. Its not been easy, caring for her, looking after two dogs, and trying to keep the household functioning at a basic level – I’m the disabled one and she’s the powerhouse in our relationship. We’ve had no real income, I can only work part-time and don’t earn enough each year to even pay any tax. We dont know anyone else in this country and haven’t seen any of our family or friends since Christmas. So its been a challenge and there hasnt been a lot of time for painting toy mans. But I’ve found time here and there, because you need to take care of yourself, and it doesn’t matter what your limits are, how resilient you are, whether you’re weak or strong or whatever you want to call it, you need to spend some time looking after yourself or you will be no use to the people you need to care for.

Obsidius here is from Blackstrone Fortress and whilst he’s a Black Legion chappy in the game I painted him as a Night Lord because I’ve been working my way through the Chaos Legions over the last few years and Night Lords are where I’m up to.

Lovely miniature, fairly pleased with the paintjob, but there’s not a lot to say about him. I resolved not to buy any more minis until I’ve painted Blackstone Fortress and a Chaos Knight, but that might be tested by Indomitus….

Village of the Witches!

30 Monday Mar 2020

Posted by in Finished Work, Midgard Miniatures

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Last one from me for a while… plenty more on the painting desk waiting to be finished. Some time ago I backed Midgard’s Village of the Witches Kickstarter, though I can’t remember what it was that I particularly wanted. I think that I felt a box of assorted witches would come in useful in some project or other, which is as good as reason to buy minis as I’ve ever found. These were part of it, there is a witch model to match each of these ladies. It felt like a nice change of direction so I got to work. Again, most of this is contrast paint over gloss white primer. When all this is over (will it ever be over, or have we just fallen into the quasi-fascist dystopia we’ve been expecting all our lives) I must get some Grey Seer and see how that goes. Some of these ladies I really enjoyed, but the posh one I struggled with. Finally the Witchfinder also suffered the ravages of the chaos puppy so he’ll go for stripping and maybe become part of another project. Oh yeah, finally part deux, I’m going to play my first game of D&D tonight… I’m anxious in case I’m crap at it! Seriously need this brain to give it a rest ffs… Thanks for reading, stay safe and take care of each other!

Midgard’s Village of the Witches

Elucia Vayne and the Starstriders

29 Sunday Mar 2020

Posted by in Finished Work, Kill Team

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Another completed set. Now, fourteen months after purchasing it, I have completed the Kill Team: Rogue Trader set… not that I ever play it, but these are lovely miniatures. I mostly enjoyed painting them, although I had a few moments of crisis along the way… in the end Vayne turned out well, nothing was a write off, and I learnt from the experience… mostly I learned that my finished miniatures shelf wasn’t as safe and secure as I’d thought… one of the Starstriders fell in action to a puppy of chaos… (I also painted the canid so its markings matched those of my first dog…)

Elucia Vayne and the Starstriders

Giant Hayhouse! a Warhammer Giant

29 Sunday Mar 2020

Posted by in Finished Work

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Thinking about it now I probably should have turned this lad into a daemon prince or something like that, but its always nice to have a giant around in case you need anyone stepped on. Giant Hayhouse is a mid-period Warhammer miniature, and area that is usually out of the scope of my interest but he came to me as part of a joblot so why not eh? More contrast practise on this lad, I’m feeling my more confident about them now. Should have given him a coat of varnish though…

warhammer giant
what’s big and ugly and bad for halflings?

Uzbog’s Nobz: Bad Moon retinue nobz

28 Saturday Mar 2020

Posted by in Finished Work, Orks

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Its been a funny few months hasn’t it? At the end of January we got another dog, a puppy to be a friend to our traumatised whippet. We brought a charming little lurcher puppy into our household, and we’ve had two months of stress since then as we’ve all had to learn about the new format of the family unit and how we fit together. There have been a lot of days when I’ve said to myself,if I find it this hard caring for a puppy then I am not going to manage kids…; plenty of times when I’ve wondered if we haven’t taken a household of two happy adults and one happy dog and made a household of four unhappy creatures; and times when I’ve disappointed myself at my own failings. In amongst all this there hasn’t been a lot of time for painting. I’ve barely been outside for two months! So pandemic and lockdown hasn’t made a lot of difference to my day-to-day life! Its still mostly about ensuring the needs of my doggies are met… things are much calmer now, the dogs are friends, we’re not house-trained yet (70 days and counting, but to be fair to her she spent the first four months of her life living in a barn and pissing where she liked, so its kind of engrained), and the biggest hit is that our dog socialisation has had to go our of the window and we’re worried that she’ll pick up insanity from him rather than him picking up sanity from her…

I don’t normally write about my life because its not really very interesting, but I wanted to give some context to my work. and the pictures I post over the next day or two. I hope everyone is staying safe and being sensible to protect themselves and their loved ones.

Warboss Uzbog, featured a few posts back, already had a Big Mob, and so he needs a retinue. This post will show off his retinue nobz, and their custom battlewagon. I enjoyed building and painting the battlewagon particularly, I was influenced by a piece in Fantasy Miniatures. That guy’s work is far better than mine but I hope that the spirit of Orkish kustomisation is with me too.

  • Uzbog’s retinue nobz
Uzbog’s nobz in their kustom battlewagon… 280 points of orks

Queen Tarus’s Face-slicers, a Chaos Warband

15 Saturday Feb 2020

Posted by in Chaos, Finished Work

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Hello again and welcome to 2020. Since my last post its been Christmas and New Year, and then we’ve done something silly and got ourselves a new puppy. I’ve not had a lot of painting time since then 😦 She’s lovely though.

Now, the two main points of “interest” with this warband were 1) further experimentation with contrast paints; and 2) painting a random selection of miniatures in the way that I did when I was a kid! Point 2 needs no explanation, but point 1 maybe does. I followed some intructions for painting with source lighting from above. So I sprayed these minis black all over, then gave a grey spray from above, and then a white spray from above. I was hoping that the white would help the colours to pop out, as if there was a strong sun above – this warband is wandering parched chaos wastes. I think I’ve had mixed success. Mostly the source lighting failed and I don’t really know why. Likewise where it worked I don’t know why it worked. Was it my choice of colours or paint? Why are the mutants so dull whilst the Warqueen looks great? Still, I think I’ve learned a few things and I’ve painted some lovely miniatures. I really enjoyed painting the Warqueen – one problem with the beautiful modern minis GW is churning out at the moment is that they are so very detailed that it is hard for us mediocre painters to do anything with them. This one has just the right amount of stuff on it, a challenge but not impossible. The chap with the warhammer was fun too…. his tab just says OLDHAMMER but I can’t remember getting him. The chaos toilet was great, I really enjoyed painting it but I think that I could have done a lot better. The zombie ninja was fun too and simple. I messed up the shaman lady, I should have used different colours. The chaos warriors were tricky, I am not pleased with any of them really. The not-chaosette was a nightmare to paint, lots of faint detail, hard to get any of it right. The rhino-monster I enjoyed and I felt like I got the tattoos right too. In true chaos style, even the paineous bits were a pleasure!

  • Darkoath Warqueen
  • Hammer of chaos!
  • Shaman, familiar, and zombie ninja
  • Warriors of Chaos Undivided
  • Khornate warrior and Nurglish warrior
  • chaos mutants
  • giant snail cavalry and chaos toilet-spawn
  • giant rhino mutant