The Hive Fleet continues to grow....

   I finally got around to building some Aegis Defense line weapon mounts.  I plan to use these for campaigns/scenarios and use Razorback weapons making them tarantula like platforms.

Finished Mucolid Spores.  The initial planetary assault of spores is now up to 12 spores.  I like the forgeworld spores more than the new plastic ones that come with the Tyrannocyte.  Not only do they look better but forgeworld provides three instead of only one plastic from GW.

 

The fleshy skin tone meshes with my color scheme better than I anticipated and I really like it. 

 

 

 

I have several Carnifexes that still have not been assembled after several years and I want to make some more flying hive tyrants so naturally I began to think of conversions.  I wanted to magnetize the weapon arms so when rules change the model does not need a whole lot of work to make it competitive again. 

 

I began and magnetized the torso in the arm sockets, then magnetized the devourer arms.  The issue with the arms is they are so thin at the socket that only three small magnets can be glued and they were not strong enough to hold the arms in the position I wanted. 



 

 

So I ended up having to scratch that idea and just glue the arms in place.

 

 

Although I have over a hundred genestealers I only have four Brood Lords.  The rules for Brood Lords are good but I still don't use them when I play.  They are just really scary and vicious looking models.



 

This Brood Lord is hovering over a wounded terminator that had his arm ripped off.  The Terminator is actually from the Toxicrene model with a little green stuff.

 

This is the fist Toxicrene model I have built and I was not a huge fan of the model at first.  As I was building it the more I began to like it.  I had to modify the rear legs quite a bit to have it more in a standing pose vice the standard crouched pose.  You can see some of the green sculpting I had to do.

 

This 2nd Toxicrene is more standard and I can't stand it.  I will have to come back to it later for some conversions.

The model is very complex and I love the lashwhips but they hang out way too far for my liking.

 

 

A few months back I picked up 9 pairs of the forgeworld shrike wings so I began putting them together.  Rules wise the shrikes are horrendous because they only have a 5+ armor save and get shredded by bolters.  Fluff and model wise they are really cool.  I can envision a swarm of them flying swooping down and killing Marines and dragging them into the sky.

 

I couldn't just let it be the shrikes on the base they had to be in some action pose and I decided I wanted the brood to be in combat with assault Marines.  This one is armed with lash whip and bone sword against a dual pistol wielding assault Marine. 

The Marine is showboating a little firing one pistol behind his back.

Carbon fiber rod adds a little extra cost to building but it is worth it as the plastic rods break too often.

My new hobby cart that I work on at the couch.  It was a sewing cart from my parents house I have had in the shed.  I decided to finally replace the TV trays I have been using for the last 16 years. 

A second shrike is armed with a devourer firing at another assault Marine wielding dual pistols. 

A third shrike armed with rending claws and scything talons rips open the chest of a veteran sergeant assault Marine.

A small conversion to another wounded terminator from the second Toxicrene.  I cut off the sword and pinned a power axe on it.  This will probably be a mission objective.

A bag of extra resin pieces from the forgeworld scraps.

Still working on my first Tyrannocyte but I really like the model.  I don't like how far the tentacles hang out but there is not really anything to be done about it.  I have not decided on the paint scheme for it yet.  Is it going to be the fleshy tone or the grey skin tone.

The Harridan is built finally.  It was fairly difficult to pin this model, but its done now.  I tried pinning the wings with carbon fiber rod but that was an epic fail.  I did not get the rods to line up properly and the wholes are too big to drill any more.  I plan to magnetize the wings but I will have to purchase stronger and larger magnets.

The lower jaw is not glued yet because I need to pain the inner mouth first.

I plan to have a little larger of a base for the Harridan but that will come later.  I did reinforce the resin stand by drilling a hole in the stand and putting carbon fiber rod to provide extra support.

 

 

That is it for this week more to come.  Thanks for looking and may your paint brush never be dry.

 

Emperor's Shadows Inquisitor Retinue

I cannot focus on one project at a time, so when the Sons of Horus were started I also started on one of the Inquisitor's and his Retinue in the Emperors Shadow Legion.

I have not named them yet but they are basically unmodified models of Inquisitor Rex and his retinue.

Basing will come later of course.  I had to het up some water to soften Rex's sword and bend it back in place so it looked proper.  I would love to cast a bunch of Rex's shields so I could arm all his terminator retinue with them (forth coming) in a few years I'm sure.

Imrik will be the Forge Lord for the Emperor's Shadow's.  I shaved off the Iron Hands symbol and will put an Inquisitor "I" there.  I had to heat up and bend his axe and servo arm into alignment as well.  For the basing I leaned him in a more forward pose so that he was striking the ground with the top of the axe head.   I will have some stone flooring raised up as if it were smashed by the blow.

Thamian is the first of two apothecaries being built.  I wanted him to have a little combat umpf so I replaced his chainsword with a power sword.  I have also decided that I will use the 32mm bases on my characters and independent characters for them to stand out more.  I bought some base extenders from a guy on ebay.  I got 50 extensions for $4 so I bought 150 base extenders.  I am not going back and rebasing but all future characters will have the base extensions.

Niamiah is the second apothecary and I again swapped out the chain sword for a power maul.  I cut off the axe head and glued the head off a chaos warrior (WHFB...I mean Age of Sigmar) and tada... a power maul conversion.

Thanks for looking and may your paint brush never be dry.

Sons of Horus are coming!!!

Well it has been well over a month since my last post.  It has been crazy around here but I have been busy after dark.  I have not posted my progress but I will start catching up on my posting. 

I had to take a break from painting my Nids the Yellow is killing me.  I love the look as I think it really pops against the grey skin tones but it takes 3-4 times longer to paint than anything else.

I needed a fresh project and with my inability to focus on one thing, I started three projects at the same time over the last three weeks.  I have always wanted to have a Sons of Horus army as they are THE Legion in the fluff.  No other Legion could compare against their battle honors.

So I have finally begun to build them from the models I got a while back.  I have never played the Horus Heresy game and I know nothing of the rules I am building models based on the narrative I want to run and think look cool so keep that in mind.  I will eventually read and play but I am a modeler and painter first and gamer second.

These two Sons of Horus are in Cataphracti Terminator armor.  Korsal has  a Reaper Autocannon, Chainfist and a nasty attitude.  Borias has a heavy flamer and power sword ready for the loyalist dogs. 

I want to note that these forgeworld models are absolutely worth every dime as they are gorgeous when finished.  They are difficult to build as super glue and pinning is a must.  You have to pin the hands to the arms and arms to the torsos and the torsos to the legs.

Sethba is firing into the oncoming enemy with what looks like a double barreled plasma gun, and the lightning claw is flickering and ready for blood. 

Callibus is the Sergeant for the squad and is a dual lighting claw beast.  Callibus will be staring at a loyalist head in his outstretched claw.  This pose will be very similar to the 13th Black Crusade artwork with Abaddon His out stretched claw will be holding a loyalist head with the spine hanging down. 

Zakiel had some minor conversion with the Hammer arm as the terminator armor does not allow you to be flexible with the poses.  In order to raise the arm I had to do a little green stuff work and reposition the hand as well to demonstrate the downward thrust of the power axe coming down.  Zakiel has a combi-flamer ready to roast some loyalist scum.

Thanks for looking and may your paint brush never be dry.

The Motor Pool

Here's the motor pool for the list I've come up with. 

3 Rhino's with havoc launchers, dirge casters and dozer blades. I'll be honest I don't care for the dozer blade look on a standard Rhino. For now I'll leave the Rhino's without them. 

The Vindicator is a fun model to build. I love how sturdy the armour looks. It's equipped with a havoc launcher and a dirge caster. Paint to come after the rest of the army is built.

This Rhino is a stock model with one exception. I added a top hatch from an old Rouge Trader Rhino.   It changes the profile a bit by leaving off the outer ring on the top hatches. (Just noticed it's missing a headlight)

You can notice on this Rhino I went for the traditional havoc launcher. For the riveted look along the top hatch I glued on the chaos spikes from the accessory sprue. The next step was simple, I just broke the spikes off and Boom! The top hatches were applied to the Rhino again without the outer rings. (These will be repainted).

This Rhino was already 85% built when I received it from my Dad. I used the second Rouge Trader too hatch for this Rhino. My Dad placed the aquila and banner on the front both of which I usually avoid. For this one will leave it as is. It's one of his last projects before he died.  

Here is the first predator with the new lascannon turret. I may have to trim it down at the base to lower it's overall profile. It's different and I feel aggressive.

The latest predator has the other predators turret. This was built a long time ago, notice the dust. It had some old and broken up lascannon side sponsors which had to be replaced. Luckily I had them from a Land Raider upgrade sprue I'd bought a while ago. There were several spikes and a dozer blade on the front end. I removed them filed and sanded it down. To help add some flavor and cover up anything I may have missed (which appears during paint) I added the cables to the front. It's a nice touch.

That's all for now. Next up will be a couple of spawn (I have 8 more to make) and a heldrake. Until next time 

Iron Warriors: Predator Part 3

I've started building up my model count for a tournament in 2 months. I'll focus on building them,

applying  a basic paint job on them, then coming back to tidy things up. 

Here is a Rhino I had painted a couple of years ago. I need to touch it up and it will be ready to go. The predator is at a stopping point for now. Once all the models are built I can play a few games of 40k. Throughout the week I'll revisit them.

I'll be switching out this turret for another one I got from Hivemind a while back. This is mostly to fit with the second "standard" predator.

I'm really pleased with the look of the model. 

Here's a peak at what I'm building next.