Another box that has been sitting around for a while was a Chaos Space Marine Combat Patrol that I got for a birthday gift. The miniatures are lovely, though I have to say that the lack of options means they’re not as much fun or as satisfying as earlier heretics. I like to build! I have never painted Word Bearers before, and these guys seem far more like Word Bearers than any other type of nasty heretic, so Word Bearers it was. I am quite pleased with them, and it was nice to do a few squads together to give far more of a unified army look than I normally achieve.
A few years ago, just before the 2nd ed. Oldhammer boom, I bought the o.g. Gorkamorka boxset for a very reasonable price. Included were lots of ork boyz and some random metal orks and I was very pleased. Then I put it aside! Now the wheel of time has turned, and the compass needle points due-ork and I am pleased to present a collection with enough Orks to form a decent sized mob of Gorkas and Morkas with spannezs, slaverz, and Nobz and a trukk each.
These have been done quick and dirty for the most part, these are gamepieces rather than ornaments, but I still wanted to do a decent job. I hope I have succeeded.
When the whole Primaris thing was new and fresh and Reaver Squads were introduced in a box set called something like Shadowspear, Big Jim Workshop in his infinite wisdom introduced a small box set of Reavers, 3 for a tenner. And I bought some. Then, as things go, I put them away for a decade because time is a lie and I am middle-aged and there are lots of miniatures that needed painting before I got to them. Anyway, I was having a rearrange and found these at exactly the same time that I was looking for something simple to paint. But did you know that there is no way of legally fielding 3 Reavers? I only learned that once I had painted them and was looking to see how many points they were worth (I have a spreadsheet, the Steel Guard are currently worth 11,235 points and I am less than a quarter through). How fortunate for me that I have foiled GW’s cunning scheme by never playing any games (though if you’re in Caerdydd and fancy a game of 40k 2nd edition do drop me a line, I’ve been grooving on 2nd ed a lot recently and really fancy it). So yeah, this is Sergeant Giono, and Reavers Poreby and Mann, who got a couple of layers of contrast paint and blackened metal weapons to give them a ghostly kind of greyness rather than the military grey of the SG. But being Space Marines they were unable to get rid of the red trim and golden skulls of their chapter. Some things are more important than camouflage.
I impulse bought a resin multipart drill vehicle on ebay a few years ago and was intending it to be Orked. However it was a bit too small for Orks in the end, so i decided that it was ideal for a scruffy bunch of industrial saboteurs who can enter the battlefield from the sewers. This was mostly about practice making the metal bits look old and worn, and I was reasonably pleased with the result. The Imperium of Many will emerge from underground to strike at its enemies!
Here we are nearly four months since my last completed miniature, what have I been doing all this time? Well, I’ve been working on a project that has been rattling around my brain for a few years now. I really enjoyed Aaron Dembski-Bowden’s Black Legion books, which tell of the creation of the Black Legion from the ashes of the Sons Of Horus. The Black Legion will take any Chaos Space Marines who feel drawn to Abaddon’s big project, so it includes former members of the other Legions who are now wearing the colours of the Black Legion. This offers some fun modelling and painting prospects, the chance to try and create a unified look using disparate models. I have not attempted to create the models by slavishly following the descriptions in the book, because that’s not my jam, but I have to make them conceptually relevant by using miniatures and parts that I feel represent the characters in the novels.
Iskandor is a Tzeentchian sorcerer, painted in blacks and dark blues, with sword and staff. The magic hands carrying him into battle were a right pain but I hope show him as a battlemage moving into battle. Nefertari is a Hasslefree elf, whilst Gyre is a wolf from a box of animal companion miniatures I bought a few years back. Ashur-Kai I chose a bird-headed sorcerer because of his affinity for birds. Like the Rubricae his black paintjob offers hints of the former bright-blue. Abaddon is Abaddon, though his sword is a parts-swap. Falkus has hints of Abaddon about him, his lightning claw references the Talon of Horus, but his mutations show that he is Possessed. The daemon Nagual miniature was chosen because its lots of animals, and Nagual was said to take many animal forms. The Ragged Knight is a fan-sculpt of the Hero Quest Gargoyle, itself based on the first version of the Bloodthirster. Tokugra, well, I liked the miniature, though I can’t remember where it comes from. Ilyaster, Telemachon, and Amurael are all vintage Chaos Space Marines, which is conceptually accurate. Ilyaster was a Death Guard, and his mini feels like a solid infantry slogger, with antler-esque horns and a face that reminds me of Nurgle. Telemachon was a swordsman of the Emperor’s Children, and his mini is lithe, ribbed, and preparing to use that chainsword. Amurael is an apothecary, so it seemed fair to use the only chaos apothecary miniature in existence, but without the bits that make it Fabius! Valicar was an Iron Warrior, so the Iron Warrior Captain miniature made sense. Sargon was a Word Bearer, but it was his damaged voicebox and zombie voice that really stood out. I thought that this head, with its sewn-up lips and blindfold, would do the job. The zombie miniature came out of the pile and I liked its pointing fingers, this is no mindless shuffler but a creature being controlled and animated. Note that both characters are pointing with the same arm. The Zaidu and Vortigern minis aren’t a good photo, sorry. Zaidu was a Night Lord, so I picked a spiky mini, and I felt that the unhelmed head would help me because I could do a skull mask on it. The maul had broken off, but that enabled me to fix it differently – a chainglaive is a very Night Lords weapon. Vortigern was a Fallen Dark Angel, so I wanted something vaguely knightly and the big sword, full armour and chainmail loincloth both worked. He also has a plasma pistol, a very Dark Angels weapon. Both these minis are from the Sixth Edition box set, some of my favourite Chaos Marines. For the former World Eaters Lheorvine, Delvarus, and Ugrivian I needed Khorny minis and found some vintage Berserkers and a vintage Possessed for Delvarus. Lheorvine needed a bit of work to find the right heavy weapon arm, but I got there eventually, I think that is from an early metal Havoc. Finally the mortal contingent. Ceraxia was a mini I bought on kickstarter years ago and was an absolute nightmare to build because there were so many fine parts. Ultio, well, the cyborg version of the Vengeful Spirit’s machine-spirit seemed an obvious choice of the Space Crusade Chaos Android. Tzah’Q was a beastman so I used one from Blackstone Fortress, and Moriana is another kickstarter mini, a witch whose staff-hand needed extensive pinning. And that’s it! I hope you enjoy them.
With this wee fella another landmark is complete – I have worked my way through a pile of broken old vehicles, repairing, restoring, and returning them to life. I have no idea if Razorbacks are legal in 10th edition – the last time I played a game was 8th ffs (if you’re in South Wales and want to play a game of 40k, any edition, and don’t mind that I am a complete novice and that we have to take some infection control precautions, I would be up for a game, drop me a message). But in 8th Razorbacks were a thing, even if no-one ever played them. One opponent was so amazed by my antique models he called all his friends over to examine these weird things! He tabled me in 3 moves with his Dark Angels and was terribly embarrassed about it, but really it was an experience and style of playing mismatch. I had very little, and he was a tournament player. No shade to the guy, as long as he’s enjoying himself, there are no wrong ways to play as long as you’re not cheating or being a shitty opponent. I think I enjoyed the game more than he did though, it was no challenge for him to table me and he wouldn’t have learned anything along the way. I learned a lot and had fun and saw some cool models and got to show off my minis from a time when the grim far future seemed so very far away.
Oh yeah, so this Razorback has been converted a bit. It started life as a Looted Rhino, rebuilt and orkified. I prised off the most orky bits, but kept the basic frame as the previous owner had left it. I thought it looked quite good and different, whilst still being acceptably Imperiumy. The Razorback turret was all in one piece in my bitz box, fit into the hole in the roof, and looked alright. A bit of filling and plasticard, a couple of bits of copper wire, and pow! All that was left was to paint it. This one is painted as a first company support vehicle. I named it ‘Peace Is Tyranny’ because I have been thinking about Megatron a lot today! Enjoy!
Another batch of Space Marines finished. These are mostly newhammer with some older bikers from the Dark Millenium (or was it the Dark Imperium? fucked if I can remember) boxset and some really battered Land Speeders from my junk pile. A solid slab of grey and red moving swiftly and angrily towards aliens and heretics! The hardest part of this lot was working out the points values at 10th edition! I had to fudge it, there is no way of doing it! You might notice a lot of Dark Angel kibble on these guys.. well this is the fluff for it. Steel Guard aspirants are trained according to the perceived disciplines of all the (loyalist) primarchs. Within the chapter each of the primarchs are honoured in the formal name of one of the companies (the first company is The Emperor’s Company, whilst the second company are The Lion’s Company. Whilst all Steel Guard are expected to be equally proficient in all aspects of battle, some are more attracted to certain styles of battle or philosophies. They are able to express this through trinkets, gewgaws, and honour marks that are associated with those primarchs or their legion. Thus Ancient Ypsima who leads this group is clearly a devotee of Lion’el Johnson (they so should have retconned that name at some point) and has probably picked for the job a few others who feel similar.
I’m pleased with these. Should have used a different green for the company colours, should have used a different colour for the bases as grey on different-grey doesn’t work. I experimented with a different way of painted the red flashes on the backpack, which works for the newmarines but not the old ones. I have decided that any future newmarines will have the new style of red but the oldmarines will stay the same. Steel Guard are flexible enough to be able to handle different paint jobs on different styles of armour… this might alarm the inquisition, who have already had to deal with this chapter’s flexibility when ***REDACTED***PLEASE REPORT TO THE NEAREST INQUISITOR FOR RE-EDUCATION***
From the moment the Nighthaunt range began I was struck by the urge to make weird Mechanicum chaos creatures out of them. I picked up a load of Nighthaunt models in one of the Hachette partworks series, which I have come to think of as GW sales, and then I left them for years! Eyes bigger than my stomach, as my dear old Mum would have said, etc etc. Anyhoo, throw in some spares from various Skitarii and other bits from my bitzbox and here we go… I tried to use a blanchistu set of tones too, just to pretend like I knew what I was doing….
Up next we have a small force of Astartes, a combat patrol to use the current parlace, led by a Librarian, Brother Cheres Sprung. Brother Sprung is in disguise, wearing phobos armour and a cameoline cape, so he isn’t using the blue armour more normally associated with the librarius. Either that or some foolish chapter serf got confused during armour maintenance rites. Ahem…
So I pulled the tank out of my leadpile and decided to build a small force around it. I needed a leader, and at least one squad. Grabbing at random from appropriate piles gave me a librarian and a suppressor marine. This is all looking very newhammery so far. The patrol needed to be a bit bigger, so I selected a couple of minis at random from Space Marine Box A and Space Marine Box B, which gave me another squad and an apothecary.
Brother Sprung is ably assisted by Brother Ploug of the apothecarium. Clearly this is a mission where they are likely to need a field medic. The Repulsor (ably piloted by techmarine Brother Janni) is a bit big for just the two of them so a tactical squad is just the thing. Led by Sergeant Rucker, this tactical squad is about as oldschool as it gets. With a lascannon for tanks and a flamer for troops this lot are determined not to be overshadowed by their bigger brothers! Finally to support the Repulsor some suppressors. I am not sure about the physics of these guys, but flying men with giant autocannons is definitely pretty cool.
The final miniatures from the Leviathan Starter set have been finished. The new monopose Terminators are very pretty, scaled well to earlier Terminators, and are nice and dynamic. Pleasure to paint, as Space Marines often are. It’s always nice to finish a box set, I feel a sense of achievement, and pride knowing that if someone came over for a game (if I had any friends in this city :rolleyes:) we could play using a fully painted army. Next up: the new HeroQuest…
Doris Plunger's Lead Mess 