Space Marine Rhino and Dreadnoughts

I love space marine dreadnoughts. I have always loved space marine dreadnoughts, so why did I have so few up until now? Who knows. Maybe it was fear of those fists. I decided to start remedying this problem by picking up a couple of Black Reach dreadnoughts and painting them up for the Divine Exorcists. I now have a trio of them when they are added to the existing dread, Damascinos.

I also decided that the space marines in the force needed some transportation (they currently have zero transports!), so I have quickly painted up a rhino, and I will probably add a second. I'm pleased with the icon on the rear door. I have no idea where it came from, but it looks like part of some Empire kit (icon of Sigmar?) from Warhammer Fantasy / Age of Sigmar - I got it in a random selection of bitz from a bitz website.

An'ggrath the Unbound

The FW Bloodthirster model has long been one of my favourite Citadel miniatures. I've coveted it as long as I can remember, so I'm extremely pleased to be able to now make this post. I finally picked one up and have built and painted it, and damn, am I pleased with it!

I wasn't really feeling the whip in the model's left hand, for a couple of reasons. 1) things like that are a real hassle to build and paint, and 2) Any sort of dangly bit on a model is fairly likely to break off (as I have experienced in the past). The last thing I want is to spend a week fixing the whip on, only to have it snap off during a battle. So I sought something to put in the left hand. I thought about another axe, but the right-hand axe has quite a unique style, and unless I found another identical one, it would always look weird. I didn't fancy a sword, so I thought of making some kind of clubbing weapon - perhaps a maul or other similar weapon. Then I found the piece you see in the picture, from the Ogre Thundertusk model. The top 'prong' was taken from another part of the kit and glued on top. I also changed the left shoulder guard for another part from the Thundertusk kit.

Building the rest of the model wasn't easy - the torso wouldn't seat well in the legs and needed a lot of work, the wings needed heating to fit into place and I had to pin every single talon on the wings! But after many months, it was finally finished and ready to paint. Painting was fun. As I said on the hive tyrant post, I love painting big models, and washing and drybrushing bloodthirster skin is particularly enjoyable. 

I kept the base quite simple. I didn't want to make a huge scenic base as the model is very heavy and felt better when pinned directly to the MDF base. So a couple of dead space wolves seems just enough to represent the carnage that would litter the battlefield around An'ggrath the Unbound.

 And here he is with the Cohort of Blood - six other bloodthirsters, with one more on its way!

Tyranid Hive Tyrant

Although I'm continuing to worth through the big box of Tyranids for Peter's swarm, I thought for Christmas, I'd get and paint him something a bit more special. Thus I picked up a Hive Tyrant. I wanted it to tower over everything else in the swarm, so I created a scenic base for it to stand on. I also added an element of diorama, with a soldier, sitting, holding his lasgun and peering up at the monster looming overhead.

Painting the green skin and black carapace is fairly quick, so I spent most of my time painting the glorious purple wings. It came out quite well, and Peter was really pleased with it.

I really do enjoy painting massive models, so I guess it's a good thing that I have a few sitting around waiting to be built!

Some scenery

Posted today are some images of a couple of scenery pieces; one each for my two gaming boards. One board is set up as an Imperial city covered in snow and the other is a desert board that represents the homeworld of the Bloodstorm, Bohemus.

The first piece of scenery is the one I'm most proud of, and this is a little diorama piece showing a girl scavenging materials from the wreckage of a Land Raider and placing the materials into a cart. The base is plasticard and the Land Raider is a the middle section of an actual LR model (you'll see what I did with the rest of it soon). I can't remember what range the girl is from but it's obviously not GW. I'm quite pleased with the composition and the paintjob on the LR. The aim of this piece was to show a snapshot of life on an Imperial world that has been destroyed by war.

The second piece is for the world of Bohemus, and represents a temple built by the cultists. The model is a plasticard kit that I have embellished with chaos iconography. It's not a big temple - I think of it as something built in one of the smaller settlements of the planet, perhaps by an apostle who went out to convert inhabitants to the worship of Khorne. I have plans for more scenery for Bohemus, so watch this space!

 

Carnifex

I've been slowly painting up the models for my partner's Tyranid swarm, and this was the latest, fun model from the pile - a Carnifex eating a Black Legion marine!

I also painted five gargoyles. As you can see, purple has now become a part of the colour scheme.

Chaos update

The most important model in this post is the Daemon Engine, Zničeni. This is made from a variety of parts, including Blood Slaughterer, Maulerfiend and Verminlord parts. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out, and now it's mounted on a base that includes a skeleton from  https://tabletop-art.de .

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This Kairic Acolyte model is one that I saw and just liked the look of, so what the hell, I bought it and painted it. I added a gun to the belt to give it a 40k vibe and I plan to use it as a sorceror or cult leader in the Champions of Plufestea army.

Next up are some models for my burgeoning Black Legion force - a dark apostle and a tactical squad. The dark apostle has been slightly converted, with an alternate mace. The tactical squad was not built by me - I found this squad on eBay for a very cheap price and was impressed by the conversions - the marines have less squat poses than normal and the berzerker parts have had the icons of Khorne removed. They're very good, and I hope I've done them justice with my paintjob!

The last two models are two new additions to The Unknown. These converted poxwalkers will represent zombie cult leaders who receive orders from Lord Knar and use them to direct the zombies (if such a thing is possible...)

 

Imperial update

Hey readers, I haven't posted in a while (despite working on many models) because my computer was down. But now it's back, and I can post what I have been working on recently. First, I'll post the Imperial models.

I created a Dark Angels rhino with Forge World doors to transport the tactical squad into battle:

 

I wanted to add some scouts to the army. I really wanted some sniper scouts (and I have one already). I was looking around on eBay for some second metal snipers when I came across a sprue of scouts going cheap. I bought them, but it wasn't until I went to build them that I realised they were the scouts from the Landspeeder Storm kit! This was a bit of a problem as these models are meant to crouch and hang onto a landspeeder, not stand up on a base. With some kitbashing using catachan legs, I managed to build five them, adding a metal close combat scout as a sergeant. Now I think I have a very unique looking Dark Angel scout squad!

Next up was the final model from the Dark Vengeance set, Captain Balthasar. Not much to say about this model - you've all seen it! Funnily enough, I ended up painting the cloak the same as in the Codex even though I wasn't looking at the Codex at the time. I wonder if it was in my memory somewhere!

My final Imperial model for the day is a kitbashed Grey Knight Brotherhood Champion. I haven't added to Grey Knights force for a while, and looking through the Codex, I liked the look of a Brotherhood Champion. I picked up parts as time went by, gradually finding things that fitted the look of a BC until I eventually had all the parts. So here he is - Brother Romulus, with storm bolter and force sword.