Legio Cybernetica Cohort

Though their bases could use (and will get) some more attention the Legio Cybernetica Cohort of Iacobus Lacedaemonem are ready to take to the battlefield...

December 2013 Games Workshop Inverness Showcase

A selection of my work is currently being showcased in Games Workshop Inverness' cabinet. To say I'm proud would be an understatement. While I know it's nothing like winning a Golden Daemon, it still feels fantastic!

Faded Glory

Just finished painting a couple minis so I thought I'd share some pics:

As an update to this post, the WFB Chaos Lord won the 'November 2013 Games Workshop Inverness Painting Challenge'! 

'The Betrayed' - Isstvan III Loyalists Update

I'll get some better shots taken soon but for now this will have to do unfortunately, this is all of the models I've painted for this colossal (and still growing) project so far:

Still a lot of mini's to paint up but it feels good to have a chunk of the army painted.

Adeptus Astartes Centurion Warsuit - WIP

Like many people, I wasn't exactly overawed when I first saw the 'new' Space Marine Centurions. But after the more in focus official pictures appeared and then the kit was released I found myself beginning to like them. After building one for a friend shortly after the release I liked them even more, the kit is fantastically detailed and has a lot of potential, I just don't think the ones in all the official photos fully realise that potential.

With this in mind and having 'acquired' a single Centurion from a friend, I set about trying to create a dynamically posed miniature.  While I'm still playing with a couple of elements I think that I've mostly succeeded:

Maximorc Decimator Maridiius - WFB Orc

His name is Maximork Decimator Maridiius... taken by the Dark Elves and forced (encouraged? He is an Orc after all...) to fight for the entertainment of King Malekith in the gladiatorial pits of Naggrond.

GW Inverness's painting challenge this month was to paint something with skin, while our way of celebrating the new Dark Elves releases was to organise an 'Arena of Death' for single Fantasy Heroes and Lords to duke it out and see who emerges victorious. I decided to try and kill two birds with one Orc.  He's now ready to enter the arena and I'm reasonably sure that using him as a Black Orc Warboss to represent his long 'career' as a Glad-y-ata... as I envision him calling himself he'll give a good account for himself...

"The Betrayed" - Update

After a furious couple of weeks painting I managed to finish up the Legion Champion, Master of Signal and both Tactical Support Squads:

Spurred on by the completion of these, I've now got another Tactical Squad on the way in Sons of Horus colours, two World Eaters Apothecaries and just for fun a Legion Moritat and Siege Breaker in the works as well. 

I won't be able to field all of my Centurions in the same army, but having 5 of them adds more tactical flexibility and more importantly gives me the opportunity to make some cool minis...

"The Betrayed" - Death Guard Tactical Support Squad WIP

As the deadline for the online painting challenge I'm using to spur me to paint my Isstvan III Loyalists army looms ever closer I've been painting power armour quite frantically. This squad is nearing completion but there's still 5 Sons of Horus Tactical Support Marines, 10 World Eaters Tactical Marines an Emperors Children Legion Champion (you can just make him out on the right of the photo) and a Sons of Horus Master of Signal (you can just see him in the background on the left).

Prophet of the Flesh Coven, Urien Rakarth - Completed Mini

I actually started this mini a couple of years ago but after recently digging it out of storage and deciding to sell him I thought I'd best finish up the last couple of bits so he was ready for his new owner (although the base is remaining black so that the new owner can match the base to his existing Dark Eldar collection):

Mechanicum Thallax Cohort - Redux

With the Horus Heresy Book Two: Massacre looming ever closer with the rules for some very tasty Mechanicum units in it I decided to do a little more work on my Thallax Cohort (although I should really have been working on my Astartes for the HHE 'Time of Legends' challenge).

 Firstly I decided that in order to create a playable, if small army, that I wanted two 3 Thallax Cohorts as my compulsory troops choices with a Magos Dominus (that has been dispatched from Forge World this afternoon) as my HQ and if I can scrape together the money a Castellax Battle-Automata as well.

With this in mind I've secured a 6th Thallax so I can create the two Cohorts and re-based the existing 5 so that they can actually be gamed with and added a little more colour to them by repainting some of their armour plates to match their pauldrons

Alpha Cohort:

Theta Cohort:

When the 6th one arrives I'm going to set about converting his Lightning Gun to a Photon Thruster Cannon, a very nasty Mechanicum weapon that fires disintegrating beams of howling blackness that tear their screaming targets asunder, even armoured vehicles offer scant protection from their wrath. I'll also be getting the Magos Dominus assembled and painted as soon as I can as well.

XIII Legiones Astartes Auxilia Chimera APC

A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine gave me a brand new Imperial Guard Chimera kit. After some thought I decided to try something cool and paint it up to match another friend's Heresy Era Ultramarines Army since the XIIth Legion have been shown to fight with their own human forces. I've also never seen a Chimera in Legion colours although in all likelihood they would have been abundant back in the 31st millenium.

This was great fun and I hope you and my friend like the results as much as I do.

Mechanising the Minotaurs

The chapter forges of Kraetyr has been working overtime to provide APC's for my Minotaurs army.

I needed a way to represent the Extra Armour upgrade that I don't think any vehicle that can take it should leave home without and hit upon the idea of using a spare pair of side hatches I had lying around to up-armour the glacis of each Rhino.

Once I've got the bits I need sorted out I'll be adding a pair of Storm Bolters to the cupola mounts of each Rhino as well, for an extra 5 points the Rhinos can actually harass lightly armoured troops with with their armament.

I'll also be adding a pair of Whirlwinds to the army soon too...

Minotaurs Space Marine Army - WIP

Once the jump packs are attached to the Assault Squad tomorrow night this lot will be ready for undercoating and painting...

Front and centre is Veteran-Captain Laeonydaes who is armed with the Burning Blade and a Storm Shield, expensive? Probably but the Astartes of the Minotaurs Chapter are not known for their subtlety.

 On the left Squad Andronicus 'The Hammer' -Veteran Sergeant Andronicus carries a Powerfist while his squad includes two Meltaguns which will be run as flamers in games due to the new Codex: Space Marines removing the Meltagun option from Assault Squads... fingers crossed this will get FAQ'd but in the meantime it's still a brutally effective squad that has 39 attacks on the charge if they haven't jump packed (and 29 if they have which isn't too shabby)

Finally on the right is Squad Alkaios 'The Stalwarts' - Veteran Sergeant Alkaios refuses to carry anything more ornate than his Combi-Grav Rifle into battle. His squad's armament includes a Grav Rifle and a Meltagun to support their volleys of Bolter fire.

I plan on adding another Tactical Squad which will give me a legal army that should look good and perform reasonably on the tabletop too...

Minotaurs Epistolary Lykourgas - Completed

Epistolary Lykourgas is finished :). This mini was a joy to assemble and paint and I tried out some 'corner-cutting' ideas with some of the colours on him as well.

And here's how the army looks so far....

While a Librarian and a Contemptor pattern Dreadnought don't constitute an army as such, there is a Tactical Squad and an Assault Squad on their way as well....

Minotaurs Epistolary Lykourgas, Kraetyr's Oracle - WIP Update

Today's somewhat limited progress. Progress has been hampered slightly as I've been having some problems with my sinuses which has made painting trickier than usual...

Minotaurs Epistolary Lykourgas, Kraetyr's Oracle - WIP

I've not been idle in my absence over the last couple of weeks as I've been trying to get my Chaos Dwarves finished for a series of small Fantasy games at my local GW as well as assembling a small army of Mymeran Eldar for a similar series of 40k games next month. But I've still found time this weekend to work on some power armour... Still heavily WIP I couldn't resist painting up one of the new Space Marine Librarians for my slowly growing Minotaurs army.

Battle Brothers - Legiones and Adeptus Astartes

While I'm not abandoning my Chaos Dwarves at all, the next few months of work will have a distinctly Power Armoured flavour to them...

Javelin Attack Speeder Base - WIP

Its a bird, it's a plane, no it's just an unholy fusion of resin, cork and sand!

I thought I'd put up some photos of the WIP base for my Javelin Attack Speeder which is currently being converted to carry a multimelta. I know that technically the Javelin should be on a round base but this idea just seemed too cool not to do.

I'm planning on making similar albeit less fancy bases for my Scimitar Jet Bike Squadron as they'll be escorting the Javelin into battle.

Legion of Azgorh Expeditionary Force - Test Paint

Because I've given my Infernal Guard a full Command Group I had 3 spare Dwarves left over. Two of them have been assembled as an unofficial bodyguard for the Daemonsmith while the third can be seen below, fittingly used as a sacrifice to Hashut, or more accurately to test out the paint scheme I've come up with for the army.

So what'd you think, Dawi Zharr worthy of patrolling the wastes surrounding the Dark Lands or fit only to be cast into the pits below Zharr Naggrund?

Legion of Azgorh Expeditionary Force - WIP

Not much to look at so far I'll admit but this is my Chaos Dwarf Army so far. I'm planning on adding another unit of Infernal Guard to give me a solid (and from what I understand Chaos Dwarves are ROCK solid) battle line. I'm keeping the units small partially cause they're not cheap to buy but mostly because I want this to be a small expeditionary force of Dawi Zharr.

As a someone who is used to assembling squads of troops that aren't going to be ranked up building the Infernal Guard was a somewhat blood pressure raising task but seeing them all together in their movement tray the time spent was very worthwhile as no one is stabbing anyone in the back... well not yet anyway.

Now that I've got this lot built I'm planning on using the 'spare' Chaos Dwarf as a test mini to develop a suitably infernal colour scheme for the army.

Bring them down! - Rapier Destroyer Battery

As a veteran of the hobby with very fond memories of some of the more 'kooky' elements of the older versions of 40k I really liked these when they were first released but then completely forgot about them until very recently when I was looking for interesting, characterful and useful units to add to the Last Stand at Istvaan Army.

Adhering to my over-reaching principle of go big or go home I decided to include 2 Rapier Destroyers in the battery both for redundancy and because you can have up to three of these beauties. I decided to adapt their glacis plates slightly because I wasn't overly keen on the 'jabby bits' at the bottom. I know it's supposed to be some sort of bulldozer type adaptation but I just didn't really like it... after all these tank killers don't really want to be moving unless they really have to.

I also decided to do a little kit-bashing with the Rapier crewman as their entry in the Legion army list states they only have bolt pistols but the spotters come with bolters. I also reasoned that since technology was much more firmly understood before the Heresy so I gave the gunners wrist mounted remote controls for their guns enabling me to keep them separate from the gun carriages. Finally just to satisfy my own sense of pickiness I repositioned the backpack mounted targeting arrays to be facing in the direction that their wearers are looking.

Dystopian Wars Empire of the Blazing Sun Fleet - Update

Still very much a work in progress but this Battle Group is coming along pretty well now I've got the colour scheme worked out.

After playing a couple of games with the fleet I decided to add some reinforcements in the form of an Assault Carrier and a squadron of Gunships both of which pack a pretty heavy punch. My main opponents at the moment are the technologically advanced Covenant of Antarctica and the rock solid Chinese Federation so some extra guns and rocket batteries are definitely going to come in handy.

With escorts and the reinforcements the fleet now totals 1220 points and can dish out as well as take quite a bit of punishment... perfect for getting in position to unleash some fearsome broadsides!

Last Stand at Istvaan III Army - Update

Not a massive update mind you but I now based everything that's built. This was the last chunk that needed doing:

I still need to build two Rapiers and their crew who are being converted slightly and a Seeker Squad who are waiting on next weeks Seeker Bolter set release from Forge World. After working on a couple of other things I feel re-energised about working on this monster of an army as well as looking forward to adding a couple more new units to it over the coming months.