The Children of Carrion and Chaos Mutants

So, like many people across the world, I bought the Dark Imperium boxed set. Admittedly, it was a spur of the moment thing when I preordered it, and I really only bought it for the Primaris Marines (since I was mainly toying with doing a Raptors Space Marine army, which I still plan to do) and I was just going to paint the Death Guard models in the most basic colours, or perhaps even sell them. I had no idea what to do with them really.

But then I looked at them, and they. Were. Gorgeous! In a rotting, decayed and disgusting way, but still. Needless to say... I got hooked. Hard. What started as a force of the 31 models from the Dark Imperium boxset has now expanded to encapsulate just over 100 models.
It's horrifying.

If my life was bit less lacklustre because of work screwing me over by not giving me a good amount of hours during the week which would give me enough money to buy more stuff as well as enough time off to paint said models, I'd probably be more along the line with how my army stands. But I digress.

For the list of what I currently have (as of February 26th), I have:
[Models from Dark Imperium will be marked as DI]
Lord of Contagion w/Plaguereaper [DI]
Malignant Plaguecaster [DI]
Noxious Blightbringer [DI]
Foetid Bloat-drone [DI]
Lord on Contagion w/Manreaper (Lord Felthius)
Chaos Lord in Terminator Armour
Aspiring Champion
Foul Blightspawn
Biologus Putrifier 
Tallyman of Nurgle
5 Chaos Possessed 
8 Blightlord Terminators
27 Plague Marines total (mix of DI, regular kit and Easy to Build kit)
20 Chaos Space Marines
26 Poxwalkers (mix of DI and Easy to Build kit)
13 Chaos Cultists
Myphitic Blight Hauler
1 Chaos Spawn
1 Beast of Nurgle
5 Chaos Mutants

Ugh... I'm not going to be stopping anytime soon with this. I'm already working on a unit of Chaos Chosen made with the left over bits from the kits used, and that unit of Chaos Mutants is going to need expanding in a massive direction.
Still! No-one else to blame but myself. 

So let's get cracking with this.
First, I want to show off my Chaos Mutants. Lorewise, my Chaos army, which I realised I should have given the name which is The Children of Carrion, is made up of several segments, ranging from Long War Veterans of the Death Guard at the top to the lowest dregs being made up of mutants, beastmen and Spawn. And here I'll show some of the mutants!

First up is the 'leader' of the group. Since I imagined that in a mutant rabble, then they would most likely follow a 'might makes right' mentality. So their leader is a large, imposing beastman armed with a chainaxe and a plasma pistol. 
The torso and head are obviously from a GW Beastman (a Gor specifically) while the arms and holster are from Victoria Miniatures Broolian Beast Guard Officer sprue, with some extras added from some left over Guard bits. The arms are a bit skinny compared to the torso, but it does look better in person, I swear. I just need to do some greenstuffing to cover up the shoulder joints.

Next up is mutant #2. Made using a GW Flagellant as the base (since I just like the look of it) with a pistol arm from Victoria Miniatures Bare Close Combat Arms Male and a clawed tentacle from the Maxmini Mutation Set. This guy is kind of the more bogstandard concept of a Chaos Mutant I feel. (Boy I wish GW hadn't discontinued their Chaos Mutation sprue. Man I should have brought that when I had a chance)

Just a little size comparison between the two models. The beastman is definitely an imposing figure.

Mutant #3. Again, practically the same fair as before, but with a switch between the arm holding the pistol and more of claw mutation than just a tentacle. I like how this guy looks just that bit much wilder than the last guy. It's definitely the beard.

Mutant #4. Went with the fly head from the Maxmini Mutation Set this time, while the arms and lasgun are from the Victoria Miniatures Penal Guard 5 man squad. I like the look of the lasgun and arms since it says two things: that this guy was recently released from Imperial detention and and was given probably THE SHODDIEST rifle that exists in the armory. Perfect for Chaos Mutants.

Mutant #5. Bits wise, this guy had more going for him, since he was made up from a leftover Cadian Shock Troop torso with the Aquila scraped off, a head from the Genestealer Cult Upgrade kit, and arms and legs from the Victoria Miniatures Penal Guard kit. The model I feel kind of tells a small story, since he's wearing a scrappy penal outfit and still has his chains on shows that he's been recently freed from Imperial detention, given the same shoddy lasrifle as the mutant above, then has killed an Imperial trooper and looted his flak armor for his own protection. The arms and legs are a little bit skinny compared to the Cadian kit, but I feel that it make him seem undernourished/underfed, which kind of fits with the narrative I feel.

And now a group-shot. Ready to bring death and destruction to the Imperium, for the Dark Gods!

Stay tuned for more pics of this work in progress army.

Frostgrave Chaos Cultist

Now, I know that I'm not alone in the wide world of wargaming to think when the Frostgrave Cultists were released that they'd make brilliant Chaos Cultists.

I bought one of the single frames from North Star a little while back for a Game of Thrones project I'm working on (that will appear later on, trust me), but I only used two of the bodies, so that left me with three left over bodies, and I also had a box of Cadian Shock Troops lying around too, so I put two and two together.

Sizewise, the Cultist bodies are close enough in scale to the Cadian bodies, although the body I chose is a bit lower because of his posing. The arms fit up nicely to create a nice dynamic pose for him. The body is plain enough that you can really paint the clothing as belonging to nearly any sort of environment/group/whatever you can think of, and I do like the capirote since it will always have that unknowable vibe to it. If I had planned it better in advance (or had more money earlier in the year), I would have ordered some of the heads from tabletop-art.de with the gasmasks. Hindsight, eh?

If I do any more, I'll either use the arms from the Genestealer cultists kits, or the arms and guns from the Renegade Militia Weapons kit, or the arms and guns from Victoria Miniatures or Mad Robot Miniatures to create a seriously disparate force.

My only real critique, and it's mainly because of my own folly, is that I could only attach the ammo pouches and grenade to the model instead of them and the other accouterments I had in mind.

1938: A Very British Civil War BA-6

So I finally got around to buying some of the books for Solway Crafts absolutely brilliantly and wonderfully barmy tabletop wargame, 1938: A Very British Civil War.
Now, in my haste to become one of the many people who have this game, I may have not really been paying that much attention to what I bought from North Star Figures since I bought the Concise (which it really is) Source Book and A Guide to Tanks and Military Vehicles. I thought the first one was the rulebook.
BUT enough about my mistakes.

A good week or so ago, I purchased possibly my... fifth? No, sixth purchase ever of a Warlord Games product, the Soviet-built BA-6 armoured car.


Now, when I first saw anything to do with 1938:AVBCW, one of my main thoughts was; "Okay, so the single largest imperial and political faction in the world in the 1930s is having a civil war, during a period when one country is gearing up for a war and another is also preparing to go to war too. There is no way in hell that either country would not try and use this to their advantage."

And I was right. Since in A Guide to Tanks and Military Vehicles, we see examples of armoured fighting vehicles from Nazi Germany (the Panzer I and the NbFZ or Neubaufahrzeug "New Construction Vehicle") and Fascist Italy (the Lancia armoured car and the Fiat tankette) being used by the British Union of Fascist and examples of armoured fighting vehicles from Soviet Russia (the T-26 and the T-28 being the examples used) for the socialist forces. This example is reinforced by the inclusion of the fact from the source book which says that the Soviets did send advisers, crews and equipment to aid the socialist forces. Which settled it for me: I would paint the BA-6 for use with the armed wing of the socialist forces in Britain during the conflict, the People's Assault Column.

I had ideas for originally starting with the BUF, but buying the BA-6 kind of clinched it for me.

As you can see, the model is resin and metal. The resin is pretty good quality, although some bits on the turret needing filing down and it turns out those bits on the sides of the rear part of the chassis that I thought were simply flash turned out to be actually a part of the vehicle, as it shows in the very first picture above. Whoops. And the holes for the guns in the turret and in the drivers compartment needed to be drilled in before I put them in, along with the holes for the headlights, which was a pain simply because of where they were.
The metal was a bit... hit and miss. The guns in the turret fitted all right apart from a minor bit of filing for the gun in the hull. The wheels were all right, but the axles for the front and the rod for the two wheels at the middle had a habit of simply falling off so I had to be careful with those. And the steps in to the drivers compartment really did not want to stay in, especially the one on the right hand side! In the end, I just had to get rid of that one all together, which you will see at the end of the post.

 Next up is the painting. After undercoating the model with a Chaos Black spray, I basecoated it with the Army Painter primer spray, Angel Green, since from what I've seen in photos, that's pretty damn close to the simple green used for Soviet military vehicles.

Next began the drybrushing. I used a liberal drybrush of Castellan Green. Technically, the primer wasn't official Citadel paint, so I think that I can get away with using the basecoat paint over the primer/basecoat.

Now I'm not 100% sure whether this is because the picture is darker or whether it's because of the wash I applied, but at this stage of the model, I applied a wash of Agrax Earthshade, probably the best thing created by Games Workshop for painting.

May have skipped taking a photo of the step after the application of the wash, but I used a drybrush of Loren Green to get the colour up a bit. After that, I started painting on the more detailed parts, mainly painting on the initials of the People's Assault Column and the Red Star. The star is... it's not good. I really should have used the decals I got with the T-34/85 I got a few months ago (photos of that will be coming up), but right now I'm sticking with it. I am pleased with the PAC initials on the turret though. The details were painted in Khorne Red first before going over them with Wazdakka Red.

And here are the finished photos. I plan to buy some period relevant terrain and also some militia models for the PAC so I can take some proper photos of the BA-6 and infantry support in action. But all in due time.
To get the weathered look, I applied a light drybrush on areas at the front and around the edges of Leadbelcher, while using a fine detail brush to apply relatively thick patches of Leadbelcher to areas that I think would most likely have been nicked by terrain and enemy small-arms fire, before applying small patches of Runefang Silver to those areas to make them pop a bit. The mud splatter was achieved by drybrushing, quite heavily, the lower portion of the model with Mournfang Brown. Mud is mud.

And so the model is finished! All in all, I pretty damn pleased with model. It helped me work out how to paint a military vehicles in a single uniform colour, which is something I thought I'd struggle with, while also helping me get out of the sci-fi/40k hole I'm slightly digging myself in to.
While this isn't the first historical model I've ever bought (and I have a good number of them still left unfinished), it is the first one I've completed fully to a standard I feel comfortable showing off to people.

Progress is made.

Work has been kicking my ass, and my creativity's ass. I have made some small progress though, like buying the Dark Imperium boxed set (pictures of that will come) and also a new light box for photography. Still getting the hang of it, but I think I'll get there.

So anyway, onto the models!

All right, first things first. I've been working on the the crew for the first heavy bolter team in my Morphean Highlanders army. So we've got the assistant gunner below, made from a mix of GW Cadian bits, Forge World's Cadian Respirator upgrade kit and Victoria Lamb's upgrade kits, both some of her old metal and newer resin bits. The idea I had behind the posing was for him to be rushing back from the resupply truck/half-track with a fresh box of bolter shells for the main gunner.
He's recently been undercoated and so needs to be painted.

Next up is probably my most extensively converted model to date, the commander of the First Platoon for my Highlanders 101st Regiment of Foot. Again, made from a mix of GW Cadian bits, both the standard infantry box and the command kit, and Victoria Lamb bits too. The sword though is made from one of the Executioner Greatswords from the Sisters of Silence kit which I bought online from bitzbox.co.uk.
I was originally a little bit worried since, obviously, the Sisters of Silence are female and generally, women have smaller hands than men, so the fear that the hand wouldn't sync up with the arm was there. And I was proven right too. It was far too small. So I had to basically cut off the hand, then the grip and the sword while also cutting off the hand off one of the banners and then do a bit of filing and shallow drilling to get it all right, but overall, I'm pleased with it.

Then next we have a Ministorum Priest, one of the old ones which I bought from my 'local' (it's about 20 miles away from where I live). I am a little annoyed that these guys have been swapped from the Guard army list to the Adeptus Ministorum list in 8th Edition, but beggars can't be choosers. Plus, I've still wanted to paint one and I've never been able to find the actual one that I want, but still. The plan for this guy is to paint him up like a priest/vicar that followed the Scots Covenanters during The Wars of the Three Kingdoms, so basically just plain black all round, but also adding a little bit more stereotypical Scots flair with him (ginger hair and blue facial tattoos).

Then my last model, my scratch built Recon Salamander. Now, it's nowhere near the same as the actual Salamander model, especially since the official model had sloped armoured around the crew compartment, but in all honesty... I like my version. It kind of brings to mind the Universal Carrier from WW2.
Still currently adding some bits to the outer hull, like the fuel drum at the back along with the pannier full of jerry cans on the other side. I do need to buy the Astra Militarum Tank Accessories kit to cover the tank treads at the front since having just one track guard is just... daft. The crew is currently at a mix of being built and being painted, but I'm quite happy with the result so far.

Morphean Highlander #1

And I have finally finished him. After having him sat unbasecoated for nearly three years and unpainted for one year, lo and behold, here is one of my Morphean Highlanders.

Built with a mix of Victoria Lamb bits (kilt legs, bayonet sheath, which you can't see because of the shadow from the lasgun, and the lasgun barrel), vanilla GW Cadian Shock Troop bits, a few Space Marine Scout biker bits, Forge World's Cadian Respirator kits and Anvil Industries weapon sights.

Another WIP

Well work has been a pain since it has cut my creativity to a huge degree.
But I finally pulled my thumb out and did something.

One of my Morphean Highlanders in... some of his painted glory.

First Update of 2017

So I'm back home now. It was quite a fun end to 2016. Made some new friends at Debenhams, met some very nice people, had a job most of all.
But now I'm back home, job hunting again. *sigh* I hope that this year goes better for me than last year.
Anywho, on to the models.

Now, there was a little drama for me early in January. Basically, since I was away, my parents decided that I would switch from my old bedroom to my sister's old bedroom (a nice switch to a bigger room). Unfortunately, that means putting a lot of my stuff in to storage in a pretty narrow but deep cupboard. Wherein they also put my box of paints and brushes. So, understandably, I got a might bit panicky since I couldn't find them right away. But luckily, after moving some stuff around, I found my box of paints. Huzzah!

First up, I'll give a list of models that I got when I was in Liverpool but not able to do.
I bought:
Legion Primus Medicae in Cataphractii Terminator Armour
Ultramarines Legion Herald
Space Marine Librarian
Imperial Guard Basilisk
Horus Heresy Mark IV Space Marines
Adepta Sororitas Sisters of Battle Canoness Veridyan
Airfix British Forces Helicopter Support
and lastly, Team Yankee British Mechanised Company.

Quite a list. And I plan to do even more stuff this year. If my budget allows me.

So let's get cracking.

First up is a model that I've had sitting on my desk for well over a year now. It's a freebie model I got from The Assault Shop when I ordered some metal sandbags from them last year. Since I bought the sandbags from their WW2 US range, they sent me a model of a WW2 US Marine Corps trooper with M2 Carbine.

Much better quality photos with my new camera. I'm proud of the camouflage on his helmet (even though you can't really see it that well in this light) and also the stubble I gave him, which is basically watered down Eshin Grey applied to his face. Simple.

Next up is the first Space Marine of 2017.

These pictures were shot a little later in the evening, hence why the flash was on in the first one. I had a little problem when he was being sprayed (as in, the wind knocked him off his perch and knocked some of the sand off of his base). But I've got some foliage that I can use to cover those bits. Unfortunately, the model is not 100% finished. I don't know where my sheet of Raptor decals are or whether they have been binned (I fucking hope it's not the latter). So... yeah.
I do love the Mark IV kit though. It's such a nice kit, so sleek and easy to use. And the pieces REALLY fit together well with other Space Marine armour kits.

And last but not least, some WIPs.

The first one is the Basilisk kit which I am converting in to a Recon Salamander for my Imperial Guard army.
And the second one... well. I'm keeping that one under my hat.

Thanks for reading guys. See you next time.