Tale of Gamers - new goodies & Rydell's fate

I think we've all been there, after a way too long, horrible day you come home to find a mysterious package staring at you, tempting you to see what's hidden inside. Today was indeed one of those days, luckily a joint Forge World order with several members of the Astronomican forum turned it into a salvagable, and eventually even great, day.

First of the 'boring' stuff, some Astral Claws shoulderpads, Iron armour bits and a set of Rhino doors:

Pretty awesome stuff in its own right that will help great to enhance the Space Marines in the Legion, yet nothing compaired to the true gem of the box - the Arvus Lighter:

The Arvus is a small, short-distance cargo/crew transporter that I've wanted to buy every since it first showed up on the Forge World site. Both it's design and detailing really appealed to me, but I just couldn't justify simply buying one for the hell of it. That was until Imperial Armour IX, in which the Tyrant's Legion has access to Maelstrom light transporst, which include the Arvus Lighter!

I simply can't wait to get working on this vehicle, there's just so much choices and techniques that can be unleashed on this mini. Everything from weathering to source lighting, time will tell though how far I'll end up taking this one.

Secondly, sad as it may be, my current Prefect Rydell is going to be replaced by something a little more suitable.

Even though old Rydell (pictured above) certainly has swagger and style, he does stand out in a wrong way. The model/conversion is just slightly too tall in comparisson to the rest of his command squad and the regular auxilia troops. Secondly his outfit also look somewhat out of place, so unfortunately 'the general' is going to get shelved again. Eventually I'll find a use for him though, such a cool mini needs to be used!

Now as for his replacement,I came across the perfect mini in Tabletop Fix's daily news update (link). Say hello to the Artillerist:

The Artillerist is one of the first releases of Full Borer Miniatures (link) and was originally designed for the Heroes of Armageddon Charity project (more info). Fantastic mini for a great charity project, that will also work perfectly for use in my own humble, little force. Now I certainly can't claim to have the talent of the mini's sculptor and painter Chris, but I definitely feel inspired by his work:

Now to find enough time for some actual painting!

Tale of Gamers - it's not the size of your gun, but rather what you do with it.

Update time ladies and gentlemen, and what better way than with a new unit. Today, my work in progres Thunderfire Cannon. The Tyrant's Legion is allowed to take a single Heavy Support unit from the regular Space Marine Codex if the army also includes a Cohort (large unit of Astral Claw Space Marines) and given the urban defensive war-theme of the army I simply had to squeeze a Thunhderfire Cannon in there. Besides, I already had a half-finished conversion that was begging for some attention.

The cannon is a scratchbuild consisting of a broad variety of bits including:
- Leman Russ tracks;
- Leman Russ rocket launcher;
- Space Marine command vehicle upgrade;
- Chaos Biker front;
- various plastic tubing and bits

I'm actually rather fond of the regular Thunderfire Cannon, the Techmarine in particular is a fantastic sculpt. At the same time though, I figured I could do the unit justice by making something unique myself. Which, as is quite often the case with my wargaming, lead to me going massively overboard. A Cannon by itself just wasn't good enough, such a dangerous and technically advance piece of kit needs the diorama-treatment.

So the end product will also include two servitors. First up the heavy-duty loader/mechanic. This guy is an old Techmarine servitor, with added, converted Fabius Bile gear:

Secondly there's the data-processor, who will be directly plugged into the cannon:

Naturally a cannon needs somebody firing it, which is where this true-scale Tech-Marine comes in. Though he certain needs some more work, I am rather happy with how he looking thus far:

It really comes together when he has his servo-harnass on, though as said there are a ton of little mistakes and spots that still need finishing touches:

I figured I might as well go all the way and make the contrast between the regular Legion troops and the majestic (well, evil majestic in the case of the Astral Claws) Space Marines a bit clearer by going true scale with the Marines.

Let me tell you, true scaling is quite a challenge but I absolutely love the end result. Battle-brother Octavian above isn't quite finished yet and was actually just a tester, though I really, really like how his pose turned out. So chances are good he'll end up in the Retaliator Squad, every rapid-response, counter-attack unit needs a melta gunner after all.


And that does it for this week's update, though I'll be having a closer look at the true scale Space Marines later in the week. They make for an interesting challenge / learning experience, particularly when it comes to planning and tool use. Have a good week everybody!

Tutorial - Green Stuff, dynamic posing and storing leftover modelling putty.

I. DYNAMIC POSING

Converting miniatures has always been one of my favorite elements of the wargaming hobby. There's just something special about getting that perfect pose on a squad leader just right, even something as simple as placing a head at a slightly different angle can already make a world of difference.

Over the years I have spent many an evening test fitting and refitting bits while trying to acquire some dynamic poses. This also means that I've messed my fair share of conversions, forcing me to take things apart again. Which, as any hobbyist will tell you, can be a ordeal when dealing with glue and often suprizingly fragile plastic/white metal bits. One of the tricks I have learned during those conversion-filled nights is using green stuff (and other modelling putties) during assembly.

Click the picture for a closer look at these old Relictor Scouts.

II. USING GREEN STUFF TO ASSEMBLE BITS

Green Stuff, and modelling putties in general, are normally used to fill gaps or for sculpting purposes. It does, however, have another charactertistic that makes it ideal during the assembly of bits that will benefit from prolonged posability - it reacts almost instantly with super glue.

Time for a quick example, below you can see two pieces of plastic card which had glue applied to them, after which a ball of mixed green stuff was placed in between them:

What is going here is that where the Green Stuff comes into contact with the super glue-covered plastic is hardens rapidly (1), while the center keeps it flexible nature till it fully dries (2):

This characteristic allows us to be much more flexible when posing bits, while once dried it will provide just as strong a bond between bits as super glue by itself. So if you want that bit to face the other way, well all that is needed is a quick twist:

So it is pretty simple, mix yourself up some modelling putty and apply super glue (NOT plastic glue) to the two pieces you want to connect. For example, the head and body of a Dark Eldar Warrior:

Next apply a small ball of modelling putty to one part, making certain it really comes into contact with the super glue. The ball of green stuff pictured below is about the right size for a head/neck socket-attachment, for arms and hands I'd suggest using a smaller amount of putty.

Now press the piece unto the other bit, again making certain the ball is connecting with the superglue. Wait for a few seconds, et voila, you have a connection between two pieces that will remain flexible for a while. Depending on how you want to make use of this technique you may want to leave your green stuff to harden a bit more before using it. This will make it more rigid, making it more usable for heavier parts.

This technique also comes in quite handy when using bits from other gaming systems or companies (heads in particular), as these quite often don't provide a perfectly snug fit. For example, I used the same method to attach a different head to this System Troop by Pig Iron (and did some additional clean up on the neck):

You can just as easily use the same technique on arms, hands and various additions to bases. It only takes a simple twist to completely change the pose of a mini, you can easily turn 'battlecry' into 'defensive stance' without the risk of doing damage to the mini:

III. LEFTOVER GREENSTUFF

Everybody who has used green stuff or similar modelling putties has at one time (or in my case each and every time when using it) mixed too much of the stuff, only to see it go to waste as it fully hardens in a couple of hours.

Next time you end up with unused, mixed modelling putty simply store it in the freezer. Though the effect is of limited length, it will greatly slow the hardening effect of your putty. This will give you enough time to put together another mini or two and use that excess putty, effectively expanding the time span for putty use from an hour or two to a a day or two!

Though it may seem like the Green Stuff has hardened in the freezer, simple squeeze it a couple of times between your finger (heating it up in the process) and you'll definitely cut down on wasted putty. I can't garantee though that your family won't look at you strangely when you start storing small, unidentified blobs of green of brown material in the freezer. It may be a good idea to warn them in advance ;-)

So keep it cool people and have fun building those miniatures!

Tale of gamers - armylists & first conversion

Time to get started on the Tyrant's Legion and under the conditions of the Tale of Gamers I'm partaking in, that means I need a 1500 point army in about six months. My personal goal is to have a force that can be used at 1000 and 1500 points in fun, storydriven games. This also means that my armylist is anything but suitable for competitive play, this is a force ment for converting and fun. Though this doesn't mean they'd be chanceless, the mixture of power armour and IG-level troopers and armour make for a nice challenge to play with and against.

Prefect Commander Rydel, more on him next week!

1000 point list:

HQ - Legion Centurion (power weapon) = 70 points.

HQ - Auxilia Command Squad (meltagun & grenade launcher) = 60 points.


ELITES - Retaliation Squad (8 Space Marines, meltagun, power weapon & rhino) = 200 points.

ELITES - Corpse Taker (4 servitors, power weapon & rhino) = 115 points.


TROOPS - Legion Cohort (2 missile launchers & storm bolter) = 185 points.

TROOPS - Legion Auxilia (23, heavy stubber, frag grenades & bolt pistol) = 104 points.

TROOPS - Legion Auxilia (22, flamer, grenade launcher & frag grenades) = 96 points.


HEAVY SUPPORT - Lemann Russ (heavy bolter sponsons) - 170 points.

This list provides me with tons of room for conversion work (the Auxilia units in particular), a nice mixture of Astral Claw and Badab Auxilia troops, as well as infantry and vehicles and also suit well with the theme of the full 1500 point list below.

Upgrade to 1500 points:

HQ - Centurion replaced by Carnac Commodus = +35 points.


TROOPS - Auxilia Armsmen Cadre (12, meltagun, missile launcher team, meltabombs & carapace armour) = 115 points.


FAST ATTACK - Maelstrom Arvus Lighter (2 twin-linked heavy stubbers) = 100 points.


HEAVY SUPPORT - Leman Russ Annihilator (heavy bolter sponsons) = 150 points.

HEAVY SUPPORT - Thunderfire Cannon = 100 points.

At 1500 points a Tyrant's Legion force has to take a mandatory Centurion, representing Huron's tactic of deploying champions to warzones as generals to keep the Auxilia troops in check. After some bitsbox searching, combined with my wishlist units (Arvus and Thunderfire Cannon) I was left with exactly 35 points. So, naturally, I have to include Carnac Commodus in the list, he's one of the extra characters Forge World released (link).

Commodus is also a rather nasty piece of work, as Arch Centurion he was in charge of the secret operations of Saphrias from where the Corpsetakers (perversions of the Apothecary tasked with harvesting geneseed from loyalist Space Marines) operated. Which is where the theme of the big list comes from:

"Defensive Badab battles prior to the fall of Saphrias, in which the Astral Claws throw their defensive assets at the loyalists (aka use the Auxilia as a human shield). Naturally the true purpose of this tactic is to draw more Space Marines into the fray only to strike back with a powerful counter-attack intent on inflicting maximum damage at as low return casualties for the Astral Claws......while harvesting even more geneseed for Legion expansion."

In essence this force emphasizes Huron's tactic of drawing out the conflict, hoping he could isolate and outlast the Loyalist forces set against him. Naturally things don't end well for Commodus, in fact he finds his brutal demise in the incident known as the Red Hour. Which not only costs the Astral Claws their operations on Saphrias, much of the harvested geneseed stored there, but also their alliance with the Executioners!

First Conversions:

That's enough about armylists and themes, time for the first unit - the Auxilia Armsmen Cadre. These guys are pretty much the only well trained and potentially well equipped Auxilia troops available to the Tyrant and the perfect opportunity to final use that batch of Pig Iron system troopers (link) I've had for ages. A quick head swap an added lasgun barrel and voila, the closest thing a Tyrant's Legion player will to an elite Auxilia trooper:

The real building fun with the squad definite came from the special weapon - the missile launcher team and the meltagun. I'm particular happy with the feel of the latter, so the other two meltaguns in the army will get a similar look. Meltaguns are nice, but an industrial melta cutter is just a little cooler:

The actual work on the miniatures was minor, the slab on which the come had to be cut of while the new heads were easily attached using some green stuff for added posability and some quick finishing once fully dry. I should have time this weekend to put up a quick tutorial on this as well, so stay tuned for some quick and easy sculpting putty tricks!

And that does it for today's update, though this weekend there will be another update on some of the other units. Including how I plan to tackle to Corpsetaker and his servitors, hopefully the first painted Armsmen and a quick tutorial on how to use green stuff to help pose your miniatures.

Tale of Gamers - introduction

Starting from next week, I'll be working on my own project for the Astronomican forums' Tale of Gamers. Along with ten others I'll be working on building up a 1500 points, 40K army in only six months time, which will also mean there will be a weekly project update and a monthly progres overview (both for myself and the other hobbyists involved).

It is particularly fun to seem that there are a lot people joining in on the fun for very different reasons. Some just to start a new force, others will use the Tale to finish an already running project, for me personally it will be an extra motivator as well as a chance to combine a ton of smaller, old projects into something new and useful.

I - THE PROJECT

For my 1500 point project I will be going with the Tyrant's Legion, an armylist included in Forge World's Imperial Armour 9.1. This list provides the gamer with a rather interesting combination of Space Marine, Guard and unique units to play around with. While normally the Space Marines are seen as a surgical knife, striking with great purpose and precision, the Astral Claws of the Tyrant's Legion are different though. Under the ruse of training duty, the Tyrant hid large Space Marine units among the Auxilia troops of the Badab system. When, eventually the Badab war started nearly every warzone not only included large number of militia, but also fully functional Space Marine cohorts who were more than willing to use the auxilia forces as a human shield.

II - WHY THE TYRANT'S LEGION?

The force has a very strong theme and a lot of units that are challenging to build and use. I've had a soft spot for the Badab War ever since I first read about it and Forge World did a fantastic job on both books discussing the conflict. The Astral Claws and Lufgt Huron in particular have always intrigued me, though certainly renegade they did always differentiate themselves from the pure evil of the Chaos Space Marines. In fact, the first book really discussed in great detail the intricasies and difficulties the chapter dealt with, both when dealing with neigbouring greed-driven, loyalist systems and the vile Maelstrom they were intended to defend and/or conquer...................eventually though, they would become nothing more than cruel taskmasters and piratical raiders. They are certainly the bad guys, but their struggle has something rather tragic about it.

Secondly, the armylist in question has a very nice mixture of elite units (Astral Claw Space Marines) and the rather unlucky, conscripted souls that got stuck in the middle of the Badab conflict (remainder of local troops and en mass conscripted workers and civilians). Tons of room for both uniform heraldry, conversion work, as well as plenty of opportunity for future expansions. The Renegade Marauder entry in the Elite section in particular is bound to get my creative juices flowing before the project comes to an end. And there's always the big guy himself - Lufgt Huron!

Finally, this project will allow me to do something useful with a range of old & unfinished hobby projects. These include:
- scratchbuild Thunderfire Cannon, that needs paint and a new Techmarine
- series of unfinished servitors
- various Pig Iron miniature conversions

III - THE GOAL

The overall goal for all participants is to build a 1500 point army, personally though I'm going for a 1000 point list that can be expanded to 1500 points. At 1000 points it will give me a nice, easily playable force should I get the chance for a game or two, while the expansion to 1500 will lead to the inclusion of a named character and some extra fun stuff (including the Thunderfire Cannon).

IV - THE GOODIES

Naturally a new projects warrants some new purchases, so over the next couple of months there will be some Forge World and Pig Iron bits and units passing by. Speaking of which, the next update will focus on the armylist as well as the first unit - Auxilia Armsmen Cadre. Like many of the other regulars in the force I will be using Max Mini sculpts as a starting point, so the Master at Arms below will be getting plenty of company very soon!

Thanks everybody for reading and hope to bug you all on a regular basis with this project ;-)

Sweet Horus it is good to finally get some time off!

It has been a couple of stressful weeks with tons of work, deadlines and overtime, but that is all about to come to an end. Come next week I will have regular free time, each week and nearly every weekend till the summer. Finally there will be some time again for regular hobby antics, which means I'd better get some goals sorted for 2012. Sure it is still just a hobby, but there's nothing wrong with set oneself some challenges and goals! So what do I want to achieve in 2012:


1 - Astronomican Tale of Gamers.

Nothing motivates better than talent and inspiration and these are two ingredients that are never far away when a Tale of Gamers get started. A Tale of Gamers comes down to a group of hobbyists starting a new project while chronicaling your project over a fixed period of time.

Recently the recruitment for a new round was started over at the Astronomican Forums (link), which just happend to coincide with me reaing up on the Badab War and Forge World's books on this topic. I've had a soft spot for many of the chapters involved in this conflict, the first volume also contains an armylist to represent the troops available to Lugft Huron of the Astral Claws.

Without giving away too much just yet, I've found this armylist to contain units for almost a dozen of my old, unfinished & fun projects and minis. As such it fits in perfectly with the more 'fun, rather than competitive'-approach I've decided to adopt for this year. Over the course of the coming six months there will be regular updates on the Astro Tale of Games, which will include such things as various Pig Iron Miniatures conversions, the dispicable Corpse Taker and, just because I can, an Arvus Lighter.

Oh very well then, one quick sneak peek the first unit for the army - the Auxilia Armsmen Cadre (click image for a bigger version):

2. - Dreadfleet.

My copy of Dreadfleet still needs to be taken beyond the level of testgaming and those wonderful miniatures are just begging for paint. So this year I want to really get stuck into the ruleset and get some painting guides, custom rules and other goodies written up. Which brings me to an overall blog goal:


3 - More tutorials and general useful stuff.

Though I am hardly the most talented hobbyist out there, I do get a couple of decent ideas every now and then. New projects and minis often lead to new ideas and realizations, which I will be more than happy to share with my fellow bloggers. Not in the least the 'Lesser known miniatures ranges and companies'-list, which certainly in due for an update.


Seems simple enough right ;-)