40k Apocalypse "Big Cap Battle"

Last weekend I posted that I was preparing for a large 40k game.  Turns out it wasn't large, it was colossal!  I had a great time with the Big Cap gamers and we're already planning what we might do next.  I hope you enjoy the pictures and the ramblings that follow, there's a lot of pictures so this might freeze your browser a bit!

Chaos Reaver.  'Nuff said?

The Big Cap gamers are (left to right) "Slash" Ben, "Viking" Tristan , Ross "Whitehorn", Wiggy the Gnome and Rasta Dave.  You are fortunate I wasn't in the shot :)

Loads more after the jump

Sci-Fi Troopers from Mantic and some 40k action

Some weeks a lot of projects come together all at once - its one of those this post.  I've been playing some bits of the new edition of 40k and with so many space marine armies around in our local group I was keen to bring something not in powered armour to the table.  As I've posted previously I'm collecting a Grey Knights army based around Inquisition troops and various other sci-fi miniatures I am interested in.

Very recently I got a copy of Mantic's Project Pandora as I was keen to try the game as I had heard good things from Frontline Gamer and the designer himself.  My ulterior motive was to get some of Mantic's Corporation figures to see if they would be another good source of troopers for my slowly growing force.

The Status Quo guitar swing in full motion

So what do I make of these guys?  They are roughly the right size to go with my Heresy and Hasslefree troops, although somewhat more spindly (possibly more realistic but less fun!).  The figures come with very limited options - a few alternate heads and a few special weapons (which I elected not to use).  Not the end of the world in my experience, but even the repeated 3 fixed pose bodies are very similar meaning the overall look of the squad is very repetitive.

My favourite kind of trooper, one with no face

The figures arrived already removed from sprues so I'm not quite sure whether what comes in the game box is the same as what's in the squad box if you buy them separately.  I also discovered the plastic is somewhat different to the previous plastic Mantic used, superglue being a better choice with this stuff than liquid poly.

The guns I found really hard to paint for some reason, especially given the industrial polymer (or 'grey') look I am using on my guys.  They also look slightly bent to me - see the blue dude above.

One of these things is not like the others...

Like the rest of the troopers so far, I'm continuing the red and blue squad split.  I was originally planning to make each squad a different colour, but this limits the intermixing I can do - especially as I don't know what figures I will eventually put in the army overall.  Inquisition henchmen squads have a lot of options.

The powerfist equivalent thingy is pretty nice actually

Overall I didn't much enjoy painting this squad, the model's details are quite shallow which means most of the detail is sort of hinted at rather than nicely raised and accessible to paint - especially for rank and file troops (potentially as cheap as 3 points each) I'm not willing to spend a lot of time teasing out subtle details!  The guys do fit into the rest of my troopers reasonably well, especially when mixed in.  I don't think I'll be getting any more of these to increase my army size and I fear these chaps will long be the first casualties from a squad (which in the new rules means putting them in front...)

So moving on, and to prove I'm not unfairly judging these guys, its time to show off some other figures from my growing force.  I'm still experimenting with the best way to get photos of my figs (I will give up and get a lightbox at some point) so excuse the spam here!

First up and key to the selections I am making is Inquisitor Coteaz.  By taking this dude as my HQ I get to take henchmen as troops rather than elites, allowing me up to 6 squads!

This is the first Finecast figure I got from GW and despite a few issues (I had to sculpt a new finger, fix a toecap and a few bubbles) the detail is exceptional on this thing.  I've since varnished it, but for the first few games he was unprotected and no paint rubbed away so the material seems to be pretty good if you can get a good casting.  My Mannfred Von Carstein on foot is story for another day...

In contrast to my issues with the Mantic guys, this figure was sculpted to be painted.  Despite the density of the detail in places I had no trouble going to town on him and am very pleased with the final result.  I also changed the skin tone as a nice reference to Samuel L. Jackson in Star Wars - you'll notice the hammer has a purple (s)haft.

Next up is another Hasslefree figure, the Smudgester.  Despite being tiny (that's a 25mm base he's on) he's full of character and perfect for use as a Jokaero in my henchmen.  I quite like the orang-outangs of 40k but this guy is even cooler if you ask me.  He also reminds me a man-hound character from the Ravenor series of novels called Fyflank - we'll come back to his owner in future.  The Jokaero are also quite small and have some unique abilities in game, the key one illustrated by this figure is being able to fire one of a variety of very heavy weapons each turn so I am very happy with this proxy.  I've named him Frank in reference to Men In Black's little alien talking Pug dog.

Next up are a couple more ABC warriors (from Foundry) - I'm getting close to having them all done now.  This is Deadlock who despite being generally a nice model has a pretty awful sword blade - I might replace it at some point.  So aside from being armed with a spatula like weapon this is another figure I like a lot with a lot of cape to go to town painting.  In game so far I've used him as a lone Paladin - yes I've actually got a Grey Knight (proxy) in my Grey Knight army, don't worry there wont be many!  Turns out having a unit of one is quite a lot of fun and the rules aren't a bad match for Deadlock's character.

Here's Ro-Jaws.  He's a toilet cleaning bot in the stories, so I use him as a servitor, it sort of fits.  I've upgraded the heating unit in his head to a multi-melta so he can do more than just fling poop at my opponent.

Finally (usually for me) some sneak previews of future bits for this force.

First up is a Knight Paladin figure.  Based on a design a friend of mine came up with using pieces from all sorts of GW kits, this huge figure (that's a Dreadnought base) is a reference to the Epic games of yesteryear. I've decided to use this as a Dreadknight - if I ever get my Mongrol built I'll have 2 then!

To finish here's my first Chimera proxy.  Its a land train/ bull dozer thing from Ramshackle games. This was a bit of a pain to build but it looks great (and check out the prices) so I may just get several more when they reopen their store.  They are roughly the right size and again fit in with another character theme I am working towards in this force.

Sci-fi Troopers from Heresy and Hasslefree

Been a few weeks last my last update, I've been very busy with holidays and other things - more on some of this next week.  For now, here's an update on my Rainbow (Grey) Knights as I've painted up a number of henchmen recently and another ABC warrior, enough to field a small force now and try them out with the 6th ed rules hopefully.

I really liked the idea of an inquisitor commandeering troops from all over the place as and when he needed them, especially if they were good at their job.  This was totally inspired by Dan Abnett's Eisenhorn and Ravenor series and offered my a really good opportunity to use figures from outside of GW's range.  Initially I was just going to supplement GW guardsmen and other henchmen with a few extras, but as time as gone on I have found so many excellent sci-fi figs out there, there's very little GW in my army yet and this may continue as there's been some amazing things  released I still don't have and think would be fun to paint and use.

There's a female trooper in this squad, can you spot her?

First port of call was Heresy.  Andy has made some really great sci-fi troopers that I've bulked out 2 squads of henchmen using.  The helmets really made me think of Halo so I've gone for Red vs Blue squads.

Follow me boys!

Painting these figures was pretty easy, they've been sculpted with this in mind I think!  To start with I painted the guns, boots and jump suits dark grey.  This was then washed with black ink (the new GW Nuln Oil is excellent with a couple of coats) to darken this down and the effect is good enough that no highlighting was required.  The boots get an extra couple of coats to really darken their colour.  After that its pouches, a mid brown with a brown wash over is good enough.  The armour plates are easy to pick out and each is a three stage (base, thick highlights, edging) process.  The visors are GW shining gold with GW Devlan mud to create the contrast.  The guns are based coated over the dark washed grey with GW codex grey to a mod grey and then edged with GW astronomicon grey.  Spot of GW blood red for laser sights and we're done.

Adding unique style to my squads

I am also a fan of Hasslefree miniatures and while I only have a few troopers from Kev (there are more you'll find) I do have plenty of his pulp, sci-fi and fantasy adventurers to use as other things in my army I'll hopefully show off in future.  These 4 ladies were actually from the Mantic special box set, I think one of them is exclusive to that set.  They were painted much the same as above, only these have skin! 

The lighter tones are GW tallarn flesh highlighted to GW elf flesh.  The darker tone was Coat d'arms Chestnut highlighted a blend of GW tallarn.

The final showcase this post is Joe Pineapples.  Another ABC warrior I've based very closely on the colours and art of Kev Walker.  Joe has looked different in many of the comics, the figure has all the details Kev added, but is posed based on Simon Bisley's work (see both pictures below).

Vindicare Assassin anyone?

My Joe is slightly converted to make his sniper rifle closer to the first art work pose and suggest the sniper role more obviously, using a spare Space Marine sniper rifle barrel I had.  Painting was a mixture of the techniques above for the leather jacket and a lot of blues and blending for the armour plates and goggles.  The base isn't quite finished and I may yet highlight the gun a bit more.

ABC, it's as easy as....

This week I found myself tidying up all sorts of bits and bobs hanging around on my hobby table.  They aren't all 100% finished (I've been a bit under the weather this week) but I wanted to get these guys up on my blog.

The now infamous bro fist image

I've been thinking about 40k allies a lot this week with the information leaking in from the 6th edition rules and then confirmation yesterday.  I've been toying with a Grey Knights army for a while now, but I was focusing on Inquisitors and henchmen, not space marines, in my plans.  These ally rules mean that I can get them on to the table sooner than I previously thought as I can bolster then with my Dark Angels or vice versa.

Here's the twist.  My army will mostly be made of non-GW figures.  Its going to be made of pop culture, geek culture and just generally cool figures.  Now this means I'll never set foot in GW with this force, but hey, I don't go in there to game generally anyway.  I'll hopefully revisit this army over and again in coming months as I add new figures to it, but lets start with what I did this week.

Spread the word

I've been a long time fan of 2000AD and really its no surprise that I was a big fan of the original Rogue Trader version of 40k, the settings, art work and indeed even the artists were all fairly interchangeable in the mid 80s.

The ABC warriors in particular got me started on this alternative Grey Knights force.  Foundry miniatures do a fair old range of 2000 AD figures so I've managed to collect all of the ABC warriors they've created (more on this below...).  The models I think are largely based on the characters as imagined by Kev Walker (seen above) - who also did the art for the original Dredd movie (in which Hammerstein cameos) and plenty of GW and Magic the Gathering art too.  I'm trying to paint my warriors in the same scheme he used.

Removing the metal base he was standing on was a pain

I've had Mek-Quake sitting on my desk for months barely base coated.  He's a fairly big 'bot and one of my favourite characters.  The miniature here has him in a fairly unusual shape (actually based on art in the Nemesis comic), he's more often in his 'kill dozer' body (he can swap his head onto other bodies you see).  Now a kill dozer version is a potential future project for me, especially seeing other people have done excellent versions.  Critically, the kill dozer body has the big screen on his chest where I can paint his catch phrase "Big Jobs" in an 80s digital font.

So here he is, in the blue-grey colour seen in Kev's art work.  I'm quite pleased with the result, just need to do the skull and shell cases and generally tidy the base.

I think it was worth it, the 40k round base is a nice finish

Now to keep Mek-Quake company on this post, I fetched my Hammerstein down.  He's been painted for at least 3 years, but recently re-based.  Painting this chap entirely in bronzes was not much fun, I think I would approach the project differently now but he doesn't look too bad, certainly resembles the art work and the film incarnation nicely.

Now he did he get his name then?

This figure really closely follows the art work in terms of the detail - the helmet damage is a fairly typical state to find him in for some reason, he's always getting it knocked off.

Just waiting for an opponent to start using chaos marines so I can paint this helmet

Now in terms of using these guys in game I'm leaning towards using them as dreadnoughts.  The scale shot below shows how big they are next to scale marine (poor guy).  Not quite a bulky as the walking coffin dreads, but certainly tall enough.  I quite like this idea because the ABC warriors spend a lot of time on Mars, which in 40k is the home of the Adeptus Mechanicus so they could be advanced dreads/bots perhaps?  Maybe they got a retro fit after some adepts found them in storage after 25,000 years or something.

They're right behind me aren't they?

Now the big burning hole in the Foundry range is my absolute favourite ABC warrior Mongrol.  A Frankenstein mix of different robot parts, the monstrous ape with the heart of gold is a great character and sadly missing an official figure.

The story seems to be that one was sculpted but the green was crushed during the mould making!  I've yet to find a version of this figure anyone's produced that does him justice.  It doesn't help that he's rarely drawn completely, certainly not till the recent Volgon wars series where, as awesome as he is, he both looks and acts quite differently to the classic character.

Mongrol SMUSH!

So I have decided to try and make my own version.  Now there's a more than one image showing Mongrol at a fairly epic size.  The key reference here for me was that he was able to subdue and hold Hammerstein using just his hands - that makes him huge!

Big hands, tiny legs

Now this version I have here is just a mock up to see the sort of scale I am working to and how his arms and legs could actually work.  The character in the comic often knuckles his way around a battle and the rare shots of his legs do seem to show them being really small compared to the rest of his giant physique.

Run!  He's hungry!

So can he subdue Hammerstein?   I hope from this shot you can see he most certainly can.  In terms of 40k Mongrol will be used as a Dreadknight.  This allows him to be both hard to kill and hit really hard as he's a monstrous creature rather than a vehicle, suitable representation I think.

I'm supposed to be inspired by this fallen statue?  Worked for Frodo you say?

I also quickly finished off a space marine ruined statue I had collecting dust on a shelf.  In 40k 6th edition various bits of scenery can have special rules, much like in WFB 8th.  An Imperial Statue is one of these special pieces so this was reason enough to give it a quick dry brush.  Needs some Martian grass and then its done.


Finally an update on the Spirited Away display piece I was working on for my Wife's birthday.  I've finished sculpting, painting and positioning all the characters now.  As well as No-Face, I've created some soot sprites (including one carrying a piece of coal) and also Boh (the baby) when he's been turned into mouse.  They are all mounted on a nice chunk of wood.  The wife is very pleased with the final piece.

3 little speckled frogs, sat on a speckled log... no wait!