The week is at an end. I had a great game of WH40k with Space Marines & Tau vs. Astra Militarum (aka Imperial Guard). It was the first game I won since we started playing so that was nice. I will post a mini report on that game in a separate post.
Today I spent half a day painting a Chosen Chaos Space Marine that will be an Aspiring Champion for my CMS squad.
I wanted to push my boundaries of my paintig skills with this one as the sculpt deserves a great paint job. A few challenges I set out for this one;
-Power Axe effect with Object Source Lightning (or OSL)
This is aa first time for me painting a power weapon effect and I wanted to make it look that the gem in the blade looks like it lights up the rest of the blade -A smooth gradient from dark to light on the shoulderpad.
I wanted that neat almost gemlike gradient for the shoulderpad from dark to light
-Neat edge high lightas
I tried to be as neat as possible with the edge highlights and tried to avoid large blobs.
I am quite pleased with the end-restult, the axe took me a few retries and experimentig before I had an end result I was pleased with. Even if it took me about 5 hours to complete I had tons of fun and learned a lot in the process. Here some pictures, enjoy!
Last time we had some pirate hats, but after all the name of the army is Chaos SPACE MARINES, so the Stars today are the Space Marines. With this I am really setting the tone and style for the rest of the army exploring the coulour scheme of the Red Corsairs. These models of Dark Angel SMs that have been tuned with pirate gear and a few skulls (for that chaos flavour).
During the process of painting these guys I was amazed how much time it takes to just paint them in two different coulurs and two highlights, even if spray primed them with red. I am quite pleased with the end result though. After highligting I dipped them in Army Painter Quick Shade, I might take a notch back on the quality of basic marines and concentrate on the fantastic Chosen models I will use as aspiring champions for the basic CMS troop and the crazy lord on bike idea I have in mind that will set the whole backstory of this little warband. ( a different post will be just about him).
Regarding the "chaosy" stuff with mutations, spikes etc. I think that I do not want to restrict myself too much regarding conversions and just cool miniatures that are totally wicked looking and demonic by limiting the fluff that they are just pirate versions of codex astartes marines. As the army evolves there will be more chaos specific units like warp talons, obliterators and demon engines that will probably fit into a bit of fluff story about a starting chaos warband that with time embraces more and more of the dark powers to gain an edge over their loyalist prey. It gives some motivation and fun things to do with the army beside painting and playing it. I should probably do the same with my Tau, but at the moment I am totally into all the crazy and cool stuff you can do with chaos.
So here is the first 4 marines and they are waiting for their Aspiring Champion to get his paint job done back in the Eye of Terror.
I will quickly show you some progress and experiments I done with green stuff and the instant mold over the weekend. I also played with what kind of army list I could get together that is not too shabby but sticks to my Space Pirate theme (and not buying insane amounts of new miniatures).
So as the topic says the way of the pirate is to accessorize with piraty things, and what comes to my mind is skulls and hats. The hats are the most notable on a small miniature so I started with them. Unfortunately burely space marine with pirate hats would be a bit silly, so I turned my gaze to the cultists who already look the part..
Cultist champion with his blunderbuss and cutthroat friends. Scarfs and hats.
Above is my tutorial on making pirate hats out of green stuff as I had a hard time findig any. Hope any fellow aspiring pirate appreciates it.
For other piraty accessories I scavenged my bit box and found the Kroot sprues with perfect looking flinlock pistols and knives and sharp things. Using the instant mold I produced a large pool of Chaos and pirate looking bits that I will glue on the space marines and cultist to give them that pirate vibe.
Lots of bits inside the instant mold
Assorted stuff ready from the mold.
As for the 1000 point list I had in mind you can see it here. I need a box of bikes and a Rhino to be set and go with the list. I dropped the Chosen squad and use the lovely models as Aspiring champions for my CMS troops. My three way punch of the army is the terminator squad that will probably guard the lord, the 5 bikes and the hellbrute. The rest will camp on objectives and support, I have a healthy dose of plasma guns in the army to deal with other Space Marines, Terminators and light vehicles. Note also the lack of Marks or Icons of chaos, my bikes might get the mark of Khorne or Slanesh for extra attacks or higher iniative. If I had to choose a cult I think that Slaanesh would be a good candidate for Pirates that enjoy their space rum and gold.
Until next time!
Red Corsairs (982pts)
Chaos Space Marines: Codex (2012) (Combined Arms Detachment) (982pts)
HQ (157pts)
Chaos Lord (157pts)
Lightning claw, Power fist, Sigil of corruption, Terminator Armour
Elites (259pts)
Chaos Terminators (159pts)
Terminator
Powerfist
Terminator
Powerfist
Terminator
Powerfist
Terminator Champion
Lightning Claw
Combi-Weapon
Combi-flamer
Helbrute (100pts)
Multi-melta, Power fist
Troops (371pts)
Chaos Cultists (65pts)
8x Autogun, Heavy stubber, 10x Squad models (champion included)
The new year is
here and I hope it will mean for my part a lot of painted miniatures and lot of
slaughter and damned souls fuelling the dark chaos gods, ahem I mean battles of
WH40K. You may know that I obtained the Dark Vengeance starter set with
Dark Angels and Chaos Space Marines a while ago and fell in love with the cute
small cultist and insanely detailed Chosen marines. I have now decide that the
Dark Angels will give in to Chaos and join the other side. The whole pack will
apply for Space Pirate jobs at the Red Corsairs Renegade Space Marines under
Huron Blackhearts leadership (Link to Lexicanun). My
Taus will be in the backseat for a while until my reinforcements arrive with
more magnets.
To successfully
turn the Dark Angels gone bad I went shopping for Green stuff, Instant mold,
red primer spray and sculpting tools. I will tune the loyalist marines with a little
chaos bits here and there made of green stuff. To save time I will use the
instant mold to replicate bits I need, like skulls, swords etc. To work with instantmold you pour hot water in to any container and drop one bar of the stuff in the water. A few minutes later it is soft and you can press in the master object in to it and let it cool down. Voila, you have a mold you can use then to replicate the object. When the mold is not needed anymore you can just throw it into hot water again.
Green Stuff, Sculpting tools and Instant mold.
Red Primer
Other people
have done similar projects with the DV box and it seems doable. I think I will
leave most of the DA emblems on the miniatures and just paint a red X on them
at least on the shoulder pads to signify that they are now part of the Red
Corsairs. They should probably retain their Dark Angel colours on the armour,
but I say that they have had time to paint them with the Crimson and Black of
their new allegiance.
I today finished
the assembly of the all the DA miniatures, I am really impressed how they were
just plug & play and how it was practically impossible to stick the
wrong bits together as the pins would not fit the holes or otherwise not fit.
What you see in the picture is all without glue. I calculate that the whole
assembly and cleaning of the plastic parts took me around 3-4 hours in total.
So if you have a friend or two you could be blasting each other on the
battlefield in just a few hours with all the models assembled and quick start
booklet. How cool is not that for new people coming in to the hobby!
Krampus and his to be Red Corsair space pirates. Amazingly there is not a drop of glue holding this band of brother together (pun intended)!
This is more of a
filler update with nothing new finished. It is more like a preview what I will
work on the next months.
Today after work I
took a stroll to my local game store (Poromagia,com) with the intent to by some
material for bases, rubble and the like. Tuesdays are gaming days and there
were 20 or more people playing Warhammer 40k games at different tables. I watched
the games for a moment after picking up the stuff I came for and saw that Tau
are quite popular. Then from nowhere the consumer demon possessed me and I
picked the Dark Vengeance starter set (7th Edition) with some additional secret
boxes of Tau tools of destruction. After spending ten times more then I
intended I walked out of the store feeling like Santa with a sack of presents
for myself. The staff was very nice in the store and even gave me a free card
game in addition to the purchases.
I opened the box
and looked through the model sprues in the box. The box comes with about 500
points worth each of Chaos Space Marines and Dark Angels. "Holy cow"
was my first impression. The details on the plastic sculpts are insane now
days. I remember buying GW plastic stuff over 10 years ago and it doesn’t
even come close in quality or detail of modern sculpts. One specific Chaos
Space Marine sprue made me fall in love with the Chaos Gods and I let out a mad
cackling cultist laughter. You will see soon which one. But here follows an
"unboxing" of the starter kit and some impressions. Overall I felt
that I got value for my money. Enjoy!
Box Art, a bit bland in my opinion. The newer Dethstorm is much more eye catching
All the contents in one picture
The gaming aids and paper contents of the box. The "how to play" guide is really nice with a simple go-through of the rules a phase at a time with clear examples. Notice that only 6 dice + scatter dice are included...c´mon. You include miniatures worth 100 euros, but only include six dice. Also I see that the horrible measure sticks are the same that first appeared in WH Fantasy 5th edtion box 16 years ago. The templates are nice though.
Size comparison of the 6th Edition Rule book and the one in the box. A4 vs A5 and ~700 pages vs 208. Nice and handy to only have the rules in one small pocket sized book. It is full colour and the quality is ok. The cover is very soft and will probably look like hell after a few months.
Comparison between page designs. These ones are almost identical, The design language in the 7th edition feel fresh and striking while the 6th edition is more traditional. I like both .
Then onwards to the first sprue with Chaos Chosens and a hellbrute. This one is absolutely spectacular
These 3 dudes made me fall in love with Chaos. The horns, the horns...and the crazy axe wielding cultist champion. Insane details. Admit it, after seeing them you also want to embrace the dark gods. The left side one with two horns is Krampus himself (Kranon the Relentless IRL) .
Details of backside of the Hellbrute, I am not a greates fan of the flesh mechanical look, but again awesome details.
The box contains two of these sprues. Bikes, Space marines and cultists.
Just look at these! They look adorable with their gas masks and spiky periphelia, Would go well wiht the Dark Eldar SM look.
The Special Edition miniature inside the box, Vrosh Tattersoul, aspiring champion. The miniature is ok I guess, but Krampus sweeps the floor with him.
Dark Angel Sprue
The Dark Angels are great sculpts with lot of cool details, but... put three horns on the Deathwing terminator in the middle and he would be awesome.
More details of a terminator with a power sword. I really like the stuff that hangs from his belt (is the spehere a incense burner?)
Details of the bike. The banner pole annoys me tremendously and oterwhise they look a bit meh. If it must have wings I would put them as details from the front wheels going upwards or as covers for the legs.
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