I demand, RETRIBUTION!

Yes, the bad puns continue. Well, Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope you are all ready for a few days off to eat vast sums of food, spend lots of money shopping, and hopefully paint some toy soldiers!

I realize it has been a month since my last posting, but I have to say I haven't had much interest in miniatures of late. There is a time each year where I need a bit of a break from the hobby and this year it has been the past few weeks. Sure I still scour the internet each day for news and new models, and I have still bought a bunch of new figures, but the actual time to sit down and paint has not been there as of late. I blame my crappy job, way too many cool new video games (especially the new Call of Duty) and general craziness of this time of year.

I did venture up to Gettysburg about two weeks ago to the Fall In show that HMGS East puts on. It was a decent show. I only went for a few hours on Saturday to roam the flea market and dealers' area. I picked up some models for the recently released Malifaux game from Wyrd miniatures and I am looking forward to painting those up. I also found some great bargains in the flea market (5 Tzeentch Screamers for $2 anyone!).

I have also been reading through the new Hordes Mark 2 rules released yesterday and I am lookign forward to giving them a try. I played some Warmachine Mark 2 last week and I am getting used to the changes and liking what I am seeing.

My Skaven and Space Wolves are still lurking (and now I have amassed a ton of Skaven stuff to paint as well) as are lots of Privateer Press models for Warmachine and Hordes. I have been painting a bit today on some Trollblood Whelps to try and reinvigorate my desire to paint. It is starting to work...

Ok, enough of my ramblings. I am also planning on a Retribution force for Warmachine (hence the pun filled title) and here are some test models I painted a while back for the new faction. I am very happy with the color scheme. Let me know what you think!

The scratching of rats and howling of wolves...

Finally I return to the blog with a proper update. My hobby time has been rather sporadic as of late. I find that without a driving force such as a tournament or other big event, I don't have as much of an urge to complete an entire army (which I am sure I have mentioned before). However, I feel all that is about to change.

Originally my plan was to crank out a small Space Wolf force focused on Wolf Guard. In preparation for that, I completed the following test model.



I opted for a more true grey color scheme than the blue look GW goes with on official Space Wolf models. This particular model was converted using the ForgeWorld Space Wolf parts along with parts from the Cullen special character model. I really like the overall look of the model and I think the army will look really sharp on the tabletop.

So as I made preparations to gather the necessary models for the Wolves, I found myself playing a game of Warhammer with my buddy John Shaffer. While we played what turned out to be one of the best games of Warahmmer I have played in years, I had the opportunity to check out the new Skaven army book. My history with the rats is long and troubled. The first Warhammer models I ever purchased (almost 20 years ago - yikes!) were some Jes Goodwin Plague Monks. Over the years I planned on doing a proper Skaven army many times and I have amassed quite a bit of stuff for the force. This new book blew me away. It was written by my friend Jeremy Vetock (one of my previous bosses during my GW tenure) and it is by far one of the coolest army books I have seen. The amount of options available are staggering and there are plenty of great conversion opportunities (which I love)! So I decided that I will still work away at the Wolves here and there, but for now my attention has been sucked in by the ratmen. I have had a few test models done for some time now, and they are some of my favorite paint jobs.






In addition to these models, I have begun putting together a unit of Plague Monks and a few other characters to prepare for the Skaven's arrival on November 7. The new Clanrats and Stormvermin are amazing and I can't wait to start working on them! I am also in the process of sketching up some ideas for the units in the book that don't have any proper models so far, and I began construction on the Plagueclaw Catapult. This is very WIP at the moment, but I thought I would show you where I am trying to go with it.

You can see this is just the basic structure so far using parts from the old Screaming Bell, Siege Tower, Siege Attacker Mantlet, and more. I have a lot of work to go on this, but when it is all done, it should be an awesome war machine to rain warpstone death down on the enemy!

Well, this has been a long post getting back into things. I should be able to update more regularly from here on out. Look for my next post to cover something I have been thinking a lot about lately - how to come up with the proper bases for an army. I will also be featuring a lot of great resin bases from Dragon Forge in my Wolves and other Hordes/War Machine projects so look for some features on using those items to their fullest.

Until next time, have fun with your hobby!

Derailed!

I had all the intentions to get a bunch of new posts done over the weekend but I got a cold and my daughter has also been sick all week so things have gotten a bit off track. Sorry, as soon as everyone is better the updates will flow! My Space Wolf test model and some models for my upcoming Skaven army are waiting to be seen!

Stop being a slacker!

So my blog updates have been few and far between as of late. The new school year starting and juggling all that with the kids has taken up lots of time. But things have finally settled into a good rhythm and I should be able to return to blogging on a more consistent basis.

Like many others, the "shiny new toy" syndrome has gripped me and I find myself working on some Space Wolves. I wanted to make sure that this army is different enough from my Shadow Hawks so I am focusing on a Wolf Guard heavy force lead by Logan Grimnar. This will also be a Drop Pod army as it seems fitting for an army geared toward getting into the thick of things as quick as possible. I have finished a test model and I just need to get it photographed. I am really pleased with how it came out. I am going with an Adeptus Battlegrey base color instead of the blue that the GW studio uses on the Wolves.

I will also be basing all of my Wolves on some fantastic bases from Dragon Forge which I will be showcasing on here in some upcoming posts.

I plan on getting photos done tomorrow of the Space Wolf and a few other recent paint jobs, so check back for an update this weekend.

Shifting Gears

The painting bug really took hold over the past few weeks and I found myself completing a number of models over the last days of summer vacation. Once again the Warmachine/Hordes models drew me back to them and I finally completed a few things that had sat half started or primed for ages.

First up, I new I needed a second Warlock for my Trollbloods. I have loved the Grim Angus model since I first saw him and I finally got around to painting him. I wanted to really make him stand out, so I decided to go all out on his base and really add some extra details to him.



The tree on his base is from the GW Tree's and I used some Hudson and Allen leaf scatter on his base and on the branches.
Next up I finished off a Troll Impaler that had sat primed in my "waiting to paint" pile for some time.


I had recently finished my Troll Champions unit, so to go with them, I completed the new Troll Hero model.


In addition to the painted models, I also got another unit ready to paint for the Trolls - the Pyg Bushwackers. While I like these models a great deal, I wanted to add something extra to them. The model that is laying down had a coonskin cap on, so I thought about giving the rest of them hats. The Perry Civil War plastics have some great hats on the sprues so I added these to the models. I also created a scenic base for the prone model with another GW tree branch.


Finally, I wanted to experiment a bit with the Army Painter line of sprays. I like to use sprays as often as I can to cut down on the painting time and speed up completion of units. The Army Painter line has a great selection of colors to choose from. However, they are very expensive for what you get. A can is $16.99. That is a very steep price. But I gave it a shot anyway, just to see how they worked.
I sprayed a unit of Cygnar Stormblades with the Navy Blue spray. Since they are all armored up, it was a good choice to get the armor done quickly. After they were sprayed, I washed them with GW's Asurmen Blue to deepen the color a bit. I then went on to highlight them with the usual process of Cygnar Blue, Cygnar Highlight, and Delta Mediterranean Blue. Below are some shots of the Blue sprayed model and the final model.


Well, that's what I have been working on for the past weeks. Next up on the painting table is to finish up the Stormblades and paint the Pygs. I also have a few Cryx models I have been wanting to finish up I am experimenting with. Until next time, enjoy the models and have fun with your own hobby projects!

The Return of the Blog - Shadow Hawk Designer Notes

So I finally return to the blog! Sorry for the delay, it has been a hectic summer. I haven't found much time to work on too many models, though I have been working on a bunch of Planetstrike terrain. I'll have more on that in a future post. Now, onto part 1 of my Space Marine army details.

The Shadow Hawks

I created the Shadow Hawks around 4 years ago now after ages of trying to decide what Marine Chapter to do. I had planned on Imperial Fists for a long time, but all that yellow was too daunting. I was then going to go with Crimson Fists, but deep down I knew I wanted to do something unique.

Now I needed a cool chapter symbol that I could easily replicate or find a good source for. It was around that time that Forge World released the Raptor Rhino and Land Raider doors and Terminator Shoulder pads. I immediately loved the iconography and jumped at the chance to use these as my Chapter Symbol. Plus, there are eagle/bird icons everywhere in various Marine bitz so I knew that would come in handy. I just needed to figure out a way to do my Power Armor Marines in a simple way. Luckily, Dave Taylor was nice in enough to volunteer to sculpt me some shoulder pads for my Power Armored Marines. I then had another friend cast me up a big batch for the army. Things were underway!

I experimented with a few options but really lucked into coming up with my color scheme pretty quickly. It is based on a Delta color called Charcoal as the base with a few other Delta colors to achieve the deep red of the accent. I am a big fan of the Delta Ceramacoat line available at Michaels. They are inexpensive paints with good coverage (for the most part).

With the basic color scheme worked out, it was time to figure out the other details, like what to use as the basis for the army's composition and rules.

When I created the army, I used the now nonexistent Trait system from the last Marine Codex. The Traits I chose were Bolt Pistol/Close Combat Weapon for Tactical Squads and two Special Weapons for Tactical Squads. I always found these to be very useful in my Black Legion army and wanted to use some tactics I was already familiar with.

Once the new book was happening and you could no longer use these things in your army, I needed to figure out what to do next. I settled on Blood Angels as the primary list since I could use the BP/CCW options as Assault Squads without Jump Packs. It also fit the idea I had for the army as a rapid striking force with Marines who were quick into the fight. Lots of Assault Squads would be perfect for this!

Overall I wanted the army to be able to represent a variety of different options though. With that in mind, I am not really settling on any one army book for the Chapter. I love Terminators, and I wanted to be able to field a First Company army at some point. For that I would use the Dark Angels book with Belial (and I created a Chapter Master based on him - pics in an upcoming post). I also have been incorporating some of the new units from the Marine Codex (Sternguard, Vanguard, Ironclads, etc.) so I will also be working on making the main army more based on the regular Marine book.

I want to explore all the various things you can do with a Marine army in my Chapter. Scout armies, bike forces, Techmarines and lots of Dreads, and more! So to that end, I will be continuing to grow the army with as many options as I can so I will have endless options!

In my next post, I will delve into the background of the army in the setting (Founding, History, etc.). I will also get a bunch of photos done finally to start showcasing the army's models. Until then, here are some pics of my Librarian in Terminator Armor. He is built off of a Lysander model as the base and he is one of my favorite conversions in the army. Enjoy and I welcome comments!

Apologies!

Hey all,

Sorry I didn't get a chance to post this past week as I had planned. The little guy has kept us busy and we left today for vacation to the beach. I am hoping that this relaxing week will allow me time to write up my plans for the Space Marine Army as I had planned. Just wanted to let everyone know that I am working on it and I hope to get it up soon. Updates are coming!