Last project for 2009!!

Well it's been a rough 2 weeks.  My laptop broke and took everything with it, and with the holidays I don't feel like looking at it.  But I managed to get myself to finish one last project before the years end.

 

Here's my completed DH Stormtrooper squad.  These guys will also play as my ST's in my IG army as well, so they are actually duel hatted but hey as long as they the Emperors enemy's that's all that matters.

On a final note for the year,

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!   

See you all next year.

Horus Heresy

This is one game I'm going to have to buy! Coming from a small town in the frozen wastes of Wisconsin getting Updates to or new models for 40K as a kid was always put off until we visited the "Big" city.  Needless to say that wasn't very often.

And when we did go the 2nd problem was that the friends and I always needed (read wanted) more than what we could buy.  16 years later and I have a wife, a car payment and responsibilities that still keep me from getting everything that I need (want) for 40K.   But the Horus Heresy board game is going to have to be one of next years purchases.

On the thirteenth day of Secundus, the bombardment began…

In the greatest betrayal the universe has ever known, the Warmaster Horus – once humanity’s greatest general, now corrupted by Chaos – has turned against the Emperor and hurled the Imperium of Man into ferocious civil war. The galactic conflict has risen to its climax. The Warmaster’s ruinous legions have assaulted Holy Terra itself, the Emperor’s seat. Here the fate of humanity hangs in the balance during the greatest military campaign ever seen.

In the Horus Heresy board game, this legendary battle unfolds across the razed plains of Terra and in the frozen orbit above. Deadly fighting ranges from the Emperor’s golden Inner Palace to Horus’s flagship, the Vengeful Spirit. Taking the side of either traitor or loyalist, two players control either fearless Space Marine legions or deviant Chaos Space Marines, mighty Titans, Imperial Armies both loyal and traitorous, and a fearsome array of other units, including the Emperor and Horus themselves....


Horus Heresy includes over 120 detailed miniature models including 10 plastic terrain pieces, and more than 200 cards to bring this sweeping conflict to life on a stunning map of the war-torn Terra.
 Horus Heresy Boardgame at Fantasy Flight Games

Just reading that gets the blood pumping, wanting to prepare the mighty forces of the Imperial Army to defend Terra.  Now all I have to do is convince the wife and hide the money...

 

Stormtrooper Sgt (part 2)

Well I did a little more work on the ST Sgt over the weekend as you can see below.

I removed the powersword and replaced it with a PF that I had in my bitz box.  The PF is actually from the original SM box from way back when and originally had 2 missles on the back.  Those were carefully removed so that they can be used later.

As you can see the highlighting on the fist is a little different, in my mind I envisioned the red highlights to actually be part of the armor color and the grey highlights are just that, highlights.  I still need to paint the unit numbers on, but I need to buy a new bottle of white paint as mine was left next to the heater yesterday and has become a brick...

Hvy Wpn Squad completed

Just to show that I'm actually making progress... and to give myself a kick in the arse to get back to painting.  Here is my finished heavy weapon squad.  We had company the past week so my hobby time was non existent.

The bases are pretty crappy, but I needed these guys done by tomorrow so I just threw them onto whatever I had lying around.  I've also almost completed the Stormtrooper Sgt. from last post.  He took a little longer than I had planned because I removed the power weapon and replaced it with a power fist.

Stormtroopers

After reading quite a few discussions lately on the pros and cons of Stormtroopers I decided I might have to give them a go and find out myself.  Now seeing that I'm not a big fan of playing with unpainted mini's that's going to mean that I finally drag my ST's out of retirement and paint'em up.  Below is Sgt. Isavia, I wanted the colors to be different from my normal joe's for two reasons.  One to represent the fact that they are "Special Ops" and second so that they could also fit in with my DH/WH Inquisitors when I get them done.

Of course it could be years before I make any sort of progress on my Inquisition forces so we'll see where this goes.  Now all I have to do is finish 9 more of these guys so I can start trying out their rules, I'm especially looking forward to have some troops that can Deep Strike again.

In the last edition I almost always played my IG as drop troops (maybe the Rgt. name gave that away already) but with the release of 5th, and no cheap way to get your normal platoons to drop I've been playing them as of late as either mech or light infantry.  But ST's come with Deep Strike and the special mission "Airborne Assault". Allowing you to the chance to re-roll your scatter dice if need be.  That combined with the improved hot-shot Lasgun could cause major problems behind my opponents lines.

Vergnitz IV pattern Chimera’s (part 6)

 

Finished!!  Well after a week of not touching 40k I finally got around to finishing the last two chimeras that I had.  The weathering isn't that great, so I may go back later and try again, but these needed to be presentable for a game coming up on Monday so I had to at least give it a shot.

 

Here's a shot showing one of them from the right side.  The Regimental symbol was painted on after the weathering so it looks better than the rest of the tank.

And of course the rear troop doors.  Not much to really say here.  I originally wanted the wings a larger but all my attempts at free handing them looked like arse so I just hacked up one out of plastic and said that's it.
Hope you all enjoyed these.

Must have unit +++FtW+++

What is my must have unit...    I'm sure many of you have seen this topic floating around the 40k blogs lately, it's originally a question asked by Ron over at FtW, and I thought I'd put my .02 cents in.  Well I think the picture above says everything I need to say. 

I love the Basilisk.  It may not have the armor that a Leman Russ has, but it can cause so much damage.  In fact in my last game one of my Basilisks took out 7 SM's in a single shot.  I think what I like the most with the Basilisk is it's ability to adapt.  You can set this guy up back on the edge of the board behind some terrain and lob shells all game long.  Then if enemy units start to get close you always have the ability to pull out of cover and fire directly if need be.   Personally I try to find cover that only hides the hull and leaves the main gun open.  Although not as great as sitting behind a hill for the entire game this option gives me a cover save and still allows me to engage just about any target either firing direct or indirect.

So there you have it, my "Must have unit", it may not be the greatest but so far they've never let me down.

Hvy Wpn Squad (Part 1)

So I had some more time today and just didn't feel like doing the weathering on my other 2 chimera's so I decided to give these guys some paint.

I know they're on the wrong base's but that'll be fixed later after I get them painted.  I plan on making a base where I can remove them if I want to, probably just by adding cutout spots where the current base fits in.  There's not much to look at right now, just the pants and jackets have been colored, and even those aren't finished.

After these guys are done they will be added to my heavy weapons section which is in dire need of support.  I currently only have one of each Hvy Wpn squad, and would really like to be able to field 2 of each if needed.

Manticore and Chimera Finished

Well, Well, Well, I finally got around to finishing the Manticore this weekend and in the process also finished the first of my 3 Chimeras.  So, I produly present the Vergnitz IV pattern Manticore and Chimera.  

I had planned on making the backgrounds white in the other pics as well, but I just don't have the time to play around with Photoshop today.  Instead I plan on replacing or updating the photos with proper table top photos later.

And here is the Chimera.  It's pretty plane right now, and in the future I may build removable stowage to place on the back when the Manticore parts are removed.  The TC is from Old Crow models and although he is a little bit smaller than GW models, I just loved the way he looked so had to include him.

Comments and critiques are always welcome.

Is my blog worth it....

So this theme originally came from a post over on "From the Warp", "Really, is your blog worth it".  It's something that I read with great interest and something that got me to thinking about my own blog.  To bad I started this post a month and a half ago and forget that I had saved it as a draft....  At last today it's finally seeing the light of day. So on to my way justifying my blog.

I'm sure many of you have noticed that I'm not one to write about 40k rules, or my views on 40k. Ok, so I have done it before but very rarely.  The thing is though that everyone and their brother do this, and that's not a bad thing as it shows different points of view.  It's just that it's just not my thing.  And besides sometimes it feels like everyone's just:

In fact I don't even do tutorials, as I feel there are quite a few modelers that are much better than I am.  And besides, I typically forget to take pictures or when I do take them it's random at best and normally once the darn thing is complete.  So what do I do then...

I write about what I'm doing with my army and how I hope they fit it with my overall theme. I post up pics of scratch builds or mini's that I've done, basically I post about my army.   See the thing is, I like to play the game, model, paint, you know enjoy the hobby more than all those other things.  So this blog is how I Hope that I can share my part of the hobby with everyone else.  And maybe, just maybe,  if I bring inspiration to someone else than my blog is worth it.

Heck my blog is worth it just because it gives me something to do, and helps encourage me to do more and better.  Besides I like watching the visitors number go up.   ;)

Manticore Missle Launcher (part 1.5)

Well as promised here's a few more pics of the Manticore I've been working on.   As I briefly mentioned in an earlier post the missile launcher is from Old Crow Models and really is a superb cast.  There was no flash at all on the turret and little bit on the missiles themselves.  Now compared to the FW Manticore it may not be quite as detailed and is just a little bit smaller, but fits perfectly on the chimera.  The only issue was the base, as it didn't really fit with any of the Rhino top  that I wanted to use it with, so for now it's just set on top until I figure a good way to do it. 

You can see the launcher on the left and the missiles on the right in the photo above.  The middle part is the base that I'll be using to fit onto the back of my Chimera.  This way I can use the Chimera in normal games or just add the missile launcher turret if I want to.  The small radar is also removable so that I can put the normal Chimera turret there.

 

And here you can see about what it will look like when it's done.  I'm still working on the missile and rails so they're just sitting next to the tank for now.  Oh, and don't worry the tank itself isn't finished either so just ignore the spots with sloppy painting.

Sometimes I hate Change

and yet I brought it upon myself.   So my old template wasn't compatible with Blogger, and that leads us to the new "temporary" format that we have now.  What I noticed with the old one was that anyone who was using Internet Explorer couldn't see anything outside of a green screen.  My first question is, why the heck would anyone still be using IE?   My second and 3rd questions led me to change the format for the foreseeable future until I get the chance to go through the CSS code and fix it.

So, everyone, I hope you've updated the RSS feeds to the one posted on the right, and here's to hoping I get the old format back up soon.  Of course if all else fails I'll just have to come up with something better.

Oh, and just to wet the appitite a little, here's another pic of my upcoming project. I'll put up more pics tomorrow or the day after, depending on how much time I spend working the blog format.

Jumping Ship

Well some of you may have noticed a few problems with the blog this morning, some of you might even notice that the blog looks just a little different... Well if you did notice, the reason is that I've moved from Wordpress to Blogger. Don't get my wrong I like WP, hence the reason I installed it on my server, but the issue was the server itself. I looked into moving my blog to WP's free blog, but without having to pay I couldn't keep my layout, so blogger won out. But it's not a bad thing.


I've been working on importing my content from one to the other over the past week and finally got it done last night. I was going to wait a bit longer to do the swap but finally just decided to take the plunge and do it today. So, I'm hoping for a seamless transition, but I know there will always be issues. The old URL "313th.dsnetz.com" will redirect you to my blog, in fact for those of you subscribed, you don't have to change a thing as the feed has been transfered as well. The only links that won't work were links that brought you to specific pages. Unfortunatly WP and Blogger use different naming conventions for their posts, so old links won't work. For those of you that I know have links to my sight I'll send out a short email with the updated links. If you need to update your feed the new feed is:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/313thDtr


Well I guess that that's it for me, I hope the change has payed off and the rest of you can still see/enjoy the site. If you want feel free to leave a comment or join the Allies/followers on the left, at least than I'll know if this bloody change worked or if I should brink back the old sight until I find a better solution.

Coming soon

Well I finally got some of the parts I had been waiting for to finish of my Chimera's.  It took a while (3.5 weeks) but was well worth the wait.  The bits were all well formed and there weren't any miscasts, broken, or bent parts either.  The resin parts were so much better than FW's.  Nothing was damaged or warped, I was VERY Impressed.  So Old Crow Models gets TWO thumbs up from me!  Oh, and in addition I got this little baby here:

Can anyone guess what its going to be?  If not just wait a few days and I'll have the next post finished and hopefully this along with it.

Vergnitz IV pattern Chimera’s (part 5)

Well here's the latest on my Chimera's.  I decided to change the color and and added some green in there to match my Infantry.  My fluff originally had these guys as being part of my Armoured Regiment, but that's going to change in the future as well.  There's still quite a bit of detailing to be done yet, I haven't added any scratches or dirt or dirt or weathering at all, and it probably won't get done for a few weeks at least.  You see, I'm STILL waiting on the bits I ordered to finish these guys, and don't want to redo anything if I muck up adding the bits.

You can see that the backs of the tanks are pretty empty, this is just one of the places that my missing bits will fill.  Fuel cans, rucks, and misc gear will go here.  Once the weathering/detailing is done I'll be happy to get close up shots but until then I don't want anyone to see how crappy of a painter I am.   :P

Inquisitor (Part 2)

Well I'm still waiting on the bits to finish my chimera's but while digging around the celler I did find the book that belongs to my Inquisitor so I was able to get him finished up. Below are the pics...

I have the loved the idea of an Inquisitor in blue armour ever since I saw the original artwork for Hand. In fact I kick myself quite often for getting rid of him years ago, why oh why oh why... Anyways, I guess this makes up for it a little bit... I used the picture of Hand in the "Inquis Exterminatus" book as a reference to try to paint the face.

Seeing that this Inquisitor is going to be part of the Ordo Xenos I tried painting a Tyranid inside the book. I'm not the best at free hand but I think it look ok. At least I think it "looks" like some sort of creature, which was the point of course. Now he'll get put on the shelf to collect dust until I get around to finishing up the DW Kill team that will go along with him.

Visitors and info

Well as of yesterday I have enough visitors to fill the stadium.

First off I'd like to say thanks for all the visitors, 313th just went over 20k visitors and the number is still growing. My biggest thanks has to go out to Ron over at From the Warp, in the time that I've been part of the FTW blogger group I have seen my traffic quadruple, I have made contacts throughout the 40k community, and have even had the pleasure of meeting a couple of fellow 40k bloggers. So thanks Ron for coming up with the Blogger Group. Now what I don't know is if anything I put up is really useful...

Which brings me to the next point. Some of you may have also noticed I changed the layout of the blog a little bit. I added a Followers widget and a recent comments area, additionally I removed my old links area and made a few of them into images lower down. I think or hope, that by allowing followers it'll give me, the blogger, that push to actually update the blog more often, and hopefully connect with a few more of you. On that note I hope to get a few more posts lined up to present my views on modeling, and blogging. (yup, FtW has given me a few ideas lately that I'd like to write about.)

see ya'll next time.

++and as I posted this another thanks to "The Engineer" for being my first follower.++

Vergnitz IV pattern Chimera’s (part 4)

**** Sorry about the earlier unfinished post, the problem has been fixed...

Well here's the latest on my Chimera's. I knocked up a turret for the 3rd Chimera this morning, and added Hvy Bolters to each of the turrets as well. Although I screwed up part of it, it still came out looking OK I just had to add a plate of the greenstuff and call it "battle damage". I also added some "L" shaped plastruct to the front and rear, and the headlights and headlight guards.

You can see in the above pic that I added the wheel cover thingy's on the side like most GW tanks. I really don't know the technical term for them, but thingy's works for me. I'm hoping that after the rivets are added they'll look better because I'm not overly impressed with them as it is. Below I cut an Aquila in half and added half to each side of the door.

And a new shot of all three together.

Tonight I'll sit down and make a ton of rivets and over the next few days I'll glue them all in place. After that these guys will be back on hold for a few weeks as the bits I need still haven't arrived. It's not that bad though as I found the missing book from my Inquisitor so at least I'll have a few things to do.

Marshal Argos (Part 3)

Here he is finished... There's not much I can say about him other than the fact that I really like the way he came out. The more I look at him the more he reminds me of a Napoleonic era General. I'll try to get some close ups done here soon if anyone is interested. Now I just have to get on and finish his bodyguards...

Oh, and seeing that yesterday was the birthday, my wife got me this....

I think she got tired of me leaving models all over our office and house.

Vergnitz IV pattern Chimera's (part 3)

..... 1 Year Later....

Well it's been a whole year since I touched these guys and I finally decided to pull them out and get'em finished. As you can see from the pics no two actually look the same, just one of the many items on my list to correct. The one in the middle is probably the closest to being finished, as it was also the first of the 3 to be built.

The paint job on them was done in one night about 10 months ago because I wanted to use them in a game and I refuse to use unpainted models so... They'll have to be touched up as well. None of the doors or hatches have finished hinges, and the sides look horrible.

Ah yes... Here's the sides I was referring to. There's almost no detail on the sides and that's something I would like to fix over the next week or so. Additionally the chimera on the right has a different turret than the rest. Yes this will also be rectified, I think, I haven't decided on that point yet.

So in the end I have my work cut out for me. I'm currently waiting on bits I ordered, and some items from "Old Crow Models" as I want to be able to use one of these as a Manticore as well. That's going to mean creating a removable back plate to cover up the rear cargo points... We'll see how this all works out....

Psyker/Astropath

Well here's the finished Psyker or Astropath. For the time being he is tasked out to the Imperial Guard as I search for the missing parts of my Inquisitor and his warband. I don't think think he is exactly great but he meets the table top standard and that is the most important part of painting for me.

Ok, so maybe TT standards isn't exactly the most important, but I believe that if a mini hits the table it needs to be painted. Hence the reason it's taken my 4 years to build up my current IG army, and the 1k or so points of unfinished models waiting to be painted. Heck, I've had my Black Templars army since the '98 and still have models that haven't been used because I don't feel the paint job on them meets "MY" table top standard.

Next up: I finished Marshal Argos*

* that means sometime in the next 7 days I'll post the pics...

Unfinished Projects

So I sit here thinking what shall I work on next, and as I look around my desk, it dawns on me that I have a crap ton of unfinished projects. That said I decided to dig deeper and looked in the box's under my desk and in my carry bag to see what else I have to finish. Here's a list of what I found:

3 Vergnitz IV Pattern Chimeras: 1 is 80% finished while the other 2 are sitting around 60%, I'm thinking of making one so that it could double as a Manticore.

DH Inquisitor and Retinue... Oh I'd guess the whole group is about 70% done.

Marshal Straun and Bodyguard: about 90% finished. With the new IG codex this guy will take the place of Creed.

2 Storm Trooper Squads: Oh, they just need to based and have the unit marking painted on but it's still an eye sore when I look at them.

Projects that are still under 30% completed:

2 Squads of IG

1 IG Veteran squad

Commissar Gaunt model

The new IG advisors.

Marshal Argos (Part 2)

Well I had a couple of hours today to do some painting, and below are the results. The pics didn't turn out as well as I wanted them though and to be honest I don't have the time now to go back and retake them. Here's hoping to good weather tomorrow so I can get new photos.

So seeing that I was unable to decide where to go with the colors I started digging around old photographs and painting of Russian generals in the 1800's. The paint job so far is where it has lead me.

The white pants need to redone... My white was a little thicker than I wanted so it's been thinned out now and I'll finish that part later. The face and hands only have base colors, and I still need to go in and shade a few of the ribbon/jewels on his uniform. The base is only temporary until I decide how I want to base him for good.

Hope you guys like 'em...

Marshal Argos (Part 1)

Well with GW releasing the new Advisors a while ago, I just new that I wanted to turn the Navel Attache into my new Marshal. Now I'll finally have a Mini to represent Marshal Argos on the table top. Eventually I plan on creating an entire HQ to go along with him but for now I'm happy with how he's progressing...

The first step was to remove the Aquila and misc item from the tunic, I really liked this model as it was and didn't want to change to much. About the only thing that I wish I could have done was shorten the tunic just a little bit, but that would take way to long, and besides, my skills are not that great.

So from top to bottom, I added a little bit of a side burn just to give his face a different look. Next up was adding the sash and was probably the easiest as It's just a long flat strip of green stuff . After the sash was added on I went in and did the Epualettes using this Tutorial by Col. Gravis. I have to admit following that Tut was one of the easiest things I've done in a long time and it was absolutely easy to do. In the end I think they look great and give him just look he needed to show that he was going to be my Marshal.

After that it was just a matter of adding a few awards and decorations and he was done. I think the hardest part is going to be deciding on what colors to paint him up in. I've been thinking about dark blues almost like the old Napoleonic uniforms. The thing is though is that I need to have a colors that look good on him and yet still fit in with the rest of his command squad later whenever I get around to doing them.

*** Oh, and there won't be any update to the Inquistor from the last post because I seem to have mis-placed him while cleaning up my desk last week....

FAO Finished, Inquisitor started...

Well I finally got around to basing my FAO this weekend. With that process done "Maj. Niven" of the 73rd Armored Regiment is finished. Now I just have to wait until the glue on the base dries and he'll be spirited off into the black case of stagnant death, otherwise known as my carrying case. So named because I haven't had a game in almost a month (more on that in a later post), but enough of that lets move on to the pictures.

All things considered I didn't really spent a lot of time on this guy. He's not my General, nor a major leader in my army. In fact I'm not really sure if I'll use him outside of Apoc games.

I like this model, but don't like the rules for him, last edition I had a model painted up in the 73rd's colors in my HQ as well, but only for fluff reasons as an Armored Liaison officer. Maybe I'll continue to do the same thing now. Ah yes, the famous 73rd Unit markings on his shoulder.

And his fancy dancy radio.

Ooooohhh... Aaaaahhhhhh.... That's right, here's my Inquisitor and he's blue. I always liked the artwork of Inquisitor Hand, so I used it as inspiration for this guy. He doesn't have a name yet, nor is he finished, the bolter and missing hand/book both need to be finished.

and his trusty sidekick the Astropath/Psyker/Mystic dude. This guy will change roles about as often as we change the TP, depending on which army he's in. My goal is to build a DH and WH warband, where he will be one of the Inquisitorial Henchmen, and in my IG army he'll either be my Astropath or Primaris Psyker. For some reason "Bob" sounds a like a good name, doesn't he look like a Bob to you?