Hammertime

Hi,

This update will be a small one with a few pictures of a "finished" Hammerhead. Quotation marks as I still have to finish the Ion Cannon and some small stuff on it, but I deemed it field ready so here you go!

My painting scheme is similiar to my earlier Devilfish (this can easily be "downgraded to a Devilfish also). I continued with the trend to add some red\organge colour on the model to make it stand out a bit, as I did for my Broadsides. The gun turret is magnetized so you can switch the Rail cannon for a Ion Cannon. The turret is removable all together so it can transform to a Skyray, The nose turret can be changed to a burst cannon and you have a Devilfish. Assembly took about 2-3 hours and painting about 6-8 hours during three evenings in a row.

Next up will probably be my two Piranhas. After that I have quite a solid 1000 points painted army.

Front

Front/side

Interior

Broadsides and Get stuff done

Hi there readers!

I love suprises and this time I have a suprise for you! Unlike my assumption in my last post that I would be working on the Riptide or the Hammerhead I instead have been busy with two XV88 Broadside suits for the Taus.

I will have a 1200 point game this Saturday and I have been hard working on getting my armylist togheter and at least a few of the new models painted. The new(ish) Broadside miniatures are quite lovely, especially with the rail rifles so it was a joy all the way to paint them even if it took me 3+ h/model to paint.

During the process of assembling my force I also discovered that for me it is quite a efficient way to work. With a clear deadline and a bit of self-pride on the table I was motivated at a completley different levelt to get stuff done. I suppose that most Wargamers are familiar with the syndrome that you have more cardboard boxes filled with plastic to be glued and painted than you can count but you are indecisive what you want to start with or just procastrinate and think "I can do that tomorrow". I suggest that you try this method then. Make your armylist that includes at least one or more of those shiny METAL DETH BAWKSES you always wanted to get painted and a set a date not too long in to the future, 1-4 weeks at most and try to get it done within that time period. Then you can start a new 1-4 week cycle with a plan what you want to get done during that period. Rinse and repeat and don´t forget to reward yourself for completing something. I had to scale back on my initial goals, but it then felt much better when it was achieved. If you are familiar with agile development methods I think you recognize this,

Anyways, after that life advice here is what I have got ready between tuesday and thursday. You may notice that I have magnetized them differently. I suggest the method where the magnet for the ball joint is horisontal position instead of the vertical one. It will get so much more support and keep the gun up instead of letting gravity turning the gun towards the floor. When painting I also experimented with adding a srtriking colour into the mix and I must say the red/orange is really nice with the blue/gray colours.

Front view

Back and side view

Both models taken into parts. All of the parts have a magnet or more attached to it

My first attempt to magnetize the arms for the rail rifle. This is not the way I recommend it as there will not be any uppward support for the gun. 

My second attempt. Here the magnet is horisontal and will rest on top of the ball joint

 

Aspiring for greatness

Hi,

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!

Front

Side with Power axe

Back, note tenctacles on bolter. 

Alternate front pic

Complete squad

A first step into chaos

Hi there,

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.

Space Marines from front

Pictures of some added items and conversions

Recon Cadre sent to action

Hi,

There have been reports from spy drones situated on planets on the outskirts of our Empire that the Imperials have been more active than usual. Only a week ago one of the spy drones went offline. Without the drone we are blind.  I, Aun'La Sa'cea Shaseira, of the Ethereal caste have been dispatched with a small Pathfinder recon cadre to investigate the situation further.

We left our home Sept Sa’cea a week ago and tomorrow we will make landfall on the planet near where the drone went offline. Something is clearly going on the surface. The first objective is information but if I deem the threat to be substantial we will try to neutralise it with the forces at hand. I held a small ceremony this evening for the Fire Warriors to calm their souls and remind them that we all work for the Greater good for all beings in the galaxy and it gives us all resolution and a purpose. The humans maybe need our guiding hand, even if it is a harsh one, to set them on the correct path to enlightenment.

The industrious Earth Caste sent us a few examples of the new Recon Drones with homing beacons and positional relays. The Pathfinders are eager to use their new toys so I decided to take one with us. It should give us real-time pinpoint co-ordinates at all times to guide our forces. 

The hunt begins!

Recon Drone side view

Recon Drone, front view

Recon drone inside the Devilfish

State of the Greater Good

Hi,

It is night before Christmas eve, so I decided to go through the status of the Greater Good (I don´t want to compete at new year with state of the union). What it all means is that I will go through what I have painted at the moment in my Tau Army and my future direction with it. My taus are from the Sa'cea sept, and therefore have the orange markings on everything. 

At this point i calculated that my current painted army stands at ~800 points (according to 2013 Tau Empire Codex).  

Tau Painted (800pts)

Tau Empire: Codex (2013) (Combined Arms Detachment) (800pts)

• HQ (50pts)

  • Ethereal (50pts)

• Elites (156pts)

  • XV8 Crisis Team (156pts)

    • Crisis Shas'ui

      Missile pod, Plasma rifle
      

    • Crisis Shas'ui

      Missile pod, Plasma rifle
      

    • Crisis Shas'ui

      Missile pod, Plasma rifle
      

• Troops (236pts)

  • Fire Warrior Team (118pts)

    11x Fire Warrior Shas'la with pulse rifle
    

    • Fire Warrior Shas'ui

      Pulse rifle
      

  • Fire Warrior Team (118pts)

    11x Fire Warrior Shas'la with pulse rifle
    

    • Fire Warrior Shas'ui

      Pulse rifle
      

• Fast Attack (358pts)

  • Drone Squadron (168pts)

    12x Gun Drone
    

  • Pathfinder Team (190pts)

    10x Pathfinder Shas'la
    

    • Devilfish

      Two Gun Drones
      

Created with BattleScribe

800 pts of  painted Greater Good

My most recent addition were the 12 Drones you can see to the right. This time I experimented to make orange much more prominent colour. I really like how it gives that extra punch that make them stand out. This made me think that should I revisit my fire warriors to either paint the helmets light grey with a orange antenna or vice versa? The current colour scheme is more realistic, but to be honest they look a bit dull on the table. Either way I most revisit them to complete their bases. As it stands now they have only a fine grain sand glued on the base without colour. I will probably add some grit and go with a grey colour (look at the pathfinders)

Latest addition were 12 Gun Drones

Pathfinders got an additional 5 members with  pulse carbines and markerlights

That was the current situation. What about the future? I have made lists after lists for 1000 and 1750 points and tried to think about what I like. The core army I have now is very light on anti-tank and a Sentinel or Dreadnought will have a breeze walk in the park as long the front points in the direction of  my pulse rifles. Worst case a Sentinel could walk up to my gun line and shut down an entire unit from shooting.  My battlesuits equiped with fusion blasters (Str 8, AP 1, melta) and some markerlights is the only option at the moment. So the remedy for armour would be broadsides or/and Hammerhead. My standard setup will include 1-3 broadsides and most of the time probably with all missiles and missile drones. While thinking about how to add more AT to my list I got the idea to have a Mecha-suit list. The king of the suits is of course the  XV-104 Riptide. A Monstrous creature with jetpack and a freaking battle cannon  equivalent as the main gun. The Riptide together with Broadsides and XV8 suits would form the hardhitting core of the army, FW, PF and Drones would be support units. My warlord would probably be a commander in a suit with buffing wargear.  With only one elite slot left I could opt to go for more XV8s or Stealth units. If maximum number of suits is the order of the day it would be a squad of 6 Stealth suits and my commander would take two XV8 Bodyguards (does not take a force org slot). The Stealth team would probably have a homing beacon so my XV8s could deepstrike precisely where I want them to be. This could be squeezed under 1500 points.

For that tournament point level of 1750 points I could get an secondary detachment with say a second riptide or another XV8 team and maybe some kroot to fill the points. Looking from my opponents view the horde of robosuits would look both awesome and intimidating. But looking from my side I could as easily be intimidated with the 6 tanks or the likes coming in my general direction (thats why the melta suits pops the tanks from behind),

After all this ranting you got a general idea where my future plans are. That said I also have a vision for a fast recon army with flyers and piranhas as the main theme. But my next step is to get the unit of broadsides assembled and painted to get the current army up to 1000 points.


Merry Christmas!

The Ethereal

Hi again dear readers!

Christmas is almost upon us, That means I have more time to work on my projects. During the weekend I have been busy working on Aunshi, hero of the empire as he, probably in mistake, defeated a tactical Space Marine in close combat. Anywys many thanks to my friend "Decorus" for donating the miniature. I hope you approve of his new home.

I replacde the normal 20 mm base with a 40 mm one, so that I would have more space to modell on it. I had to ponder a bit on the choise of larger base. He will look a lot cooler but in games he will stand out as a sore thumb and be the height of a XV8 crisis battlesuit. I still decided I wanted to go forward with the larger base, and from an artistic stand point I am really glad I did. Here are pictures and videos of  the miniature. My next project will either be the horde of drones or the rest of the Pathfinders with special weapons. Until next time!

Material used for the base:
-40 mm generic base (not GW)
-GF9 cement rubble (for stairs)
-Brown card board
-GF9 rocky basing grit
-PVA Glue
-Quick dry putty to fill holes in the card borad
-Paints: black, greys and browns.
-PlayStation 4 as background for picture...

The base assembled. The white stuff at the bottom is putty

Aunshi painted without base

Aunshi from back

Aunshi standing on his new base

I am really happy with this end result.

All Your Bases belongs to the Pathfinders

Greetings follower of the Greater Good!

Yesterday evening I started a small project of basing my XV8 Crisis Suits and my 5 Pathfinders I almost got ready.

I had just acquired some cement rubble and coarse grain from the hobby store (brand is Gale Force 9 and costs about 4.5 euro) so I put my skills to the test. My goal was to make it look that the bases would belong into a ruined cityscape. Here follows the work steps:

Step 1 

In Step 1 I glued on the empty bases the white cement pieces and the grains with PVA glue. I also glued fine grain sand after the larger pieces had dried a while.  I let everything dry completely overnight

Step 2 - base coat and drybrush

  In Step 2 I first base coated the bases with brush and watered down black. The fine grain sand soaks in the watered paint much better than thick one. After the undercoat had dried I dry brushed all the bases with a darker and lighter grey. It is really easy and the end results look really good. I could have ended here, but I decided to go one step further. 

Step 3 - Finished bases

  In Step 3 I watered down a dark brown and brushed over the bases, not at every spot, but here and there to add some dirt colour to the base for a warmer tint. After it had dried I glued on some Citadel dead grass. I really liked the end result, but maybe for the ruin feeling I would have better stopped at Step 2. The finished bases have more natural rock formation look than ruins and rubble.

Crisis Suits with their new bases. 

Pathfinders leading the way. Sergeant is in the middle with binoculars and radio

Pathfinders from other view. I added some small details like gun holster and knifes to the models. 

Ready for Battle

Hi there, 

Last time we visited the vehicle factory, this time we take a look at the finished product, namely the Tau Devilfish. The whole project took about one week calendar time. One Sunday and several evenings to finish. 

I must say I am quite pleased with the end result, this being my first painted vehicle and even with a camouflage pattern. I think that next time I maybe skip the pattern stencils altogether and do the pattern with a brush directly on the model itself. 

But enough with the text, here are some picture and video of the thing. 

In my next update I will re-visit Super Dungeon Explore and I promise you it will be very cool! Until next time. The Devilfish will also get some more love in an upcoming update when my next project with the Pathfinders are done. 

Fire Warriors taking postions after exiting the vechile

Front

Side

Back

Top

A Short visit to the Vechicle factory

Hi,

Yesterday I worked on the engines of the Devilfish and here are some pictures of the results.

"Today we visit the Earth Caste Vehicle factory and specially the Engine workline. Here they work night and day to produce the engines that will power the vehicles that will liberate the galaxy. Today they are working on the most common engine of the Vector Thrust Nova type. These engines power both civilian and military vehicles alike."

Camo pattern design station

Stencils cut out from foil

First stencils attached to the engine

To the left engine after first paint layer, to the right after second paint layer

Results with stencils removed (and after cleaning with brush)

Engines ready to be attached to the Devilfish

Back in Action! Crisis and Fishes

Hi Dear Reader,

I have been absent from this blog over a year my apoligies. A lot has happened tha last year. A few weeks ago I and a group of friends played some Warhammer 40K in our local Games Workshop store. I played as Tau, champion of the greater good against the oppressive forces of the Imperal Guard. That day the Tau left the field with a bloodied nose, thanks a lot to IG sentinels I could not hurt. That game and my friends got me returning to painting and collecting minis.

Today I have been working on two projects:

1. "Modular Weapon initiative (MWi)"
2. "Flying Fish"

First I almost finished my 3 XV8 Crisis Suites, the bases must be done, I will put some ruins and debris on the bases at some point. For the suit weapons i started the MWi. For this purpose I drilled holes in my suites and weapons the whole morning. 3x4 holes in the suites and some more in the weapons. In these holes I glued 5mm disc magnets carefully checking the polarity of the magnets. I put the magnet on the tip of my craft knife and checked if it would attract or repulse another magnet and glued the repulsive side downards (relative to the hole),

Here are some pictures of the project:

XV8 Crisis suit with magnets in arms and shoulders

My Crisis Suit team and their stash of MWi weapons (all magnetised)

My Second project is the Devilfish. The transport is crucial for the Tau to take and hold objectives and keep the firewarriors alive. I primed the body and other parts with Wolf Grey. Then I decided i wanted camouflage. I watched some youtube videos where they used stencils for camouflage painting. It seemed easy enough if you hade some stencil material and air brush, I got neither. But the Earth caste beeing resourceful I found some white paper stickers. I drew some polygon shapes on them and cut them out. For the first layer I would paint Deep Blue. Below is picture before and after.  

First Stencil layer on

Deep blue painted and second Stencil layer on. 

I almost knew for certain that my material choise for the stencil was a bad idea, but I went forward with it. After removing the stencils after the Ash Grey coat I almost cried. My Devilfish looked like some hippemobil from Berlin painted by a three year old. All the colours where a mess as the paint from the layers had gone under the stencil and mixed. I did not give up but took a small brush in my hand an started to define and clean up the patter. 3 hours later I was fairly happy with the result. The engines, hatch and landing gear are still unpainted. Until next time.  

Final camo after a lot of patching up with brush and wash,

SDE - Here comes the Kobolds!

Hi again fellow readers!

So it is November and this is the second SDE Theme post. As you might guess from the topic the Super Dungeon Explore Kobolds are in the spotlight.

In the box there are enough Kobolds to make up two identical Kobold Spawn hordes. I tought about for a second if I would paint all the Kobold with the same colour scheme. In the end I decided to have two "Tribes" of Kobolds with different  colours. This will make it easy to identify all models belonging to one spawn card.

My Tribes need some cool names so please leave suggestions in the comments! For the time being they are called "Green" and "Blue" tribes.

But here is my progress so far. Enjoy!

Work In Progress - Base  Coating

The Green Tribe Gougers

Gougers - Your run of th mill Kobold minions with spears. As with other Kobolds they are stronger in mobs. Don´t let them gang up on you heroes!

The Green Tribe Knuckleheads

Knuckleheads - Armed with a sword and shield and armour they can take a bit more punishment than Gougers. Also stronger in large mobs.

The Blue Tribe Gougers

The Blue Tribe Knuckleheads

All the painted Kobolds in a group shot

Total Progress painting the Kobolds, I would say bout 42% ready.