Artificer's Workshop - Work in Progress

Sisters of Battle Tank Reinforcements Continued

2012-01-17T09:45:00.000-08:00

Slow progress here. Time flies, no time for minis or painting. Also an obsession with painting the interior of the Rhino which is the 3rd tank reinforcement planned, consumed what little time there was. Sanding the flashing off the metal components of the Exorcist also took time with little progress to show. In total the Sisters will be getting a 2nd Exorcist, a 2nd Immolator and a 3rd Rhino.

Things look like this at the moment -

Sisters of Battle Tank Reinforcements

2012-01-01T08:55:00.000-08:00

Only one of the 3 tanks on the workbench got some TLC today. The current Sisters of Battle Immolator from Gamesworkshop is supplied as an exorcist plastic kit plus a box of additional metal components. But and it is an important but, there are no instructions supplied. Work out for yourself how these components go together. In addition the fit of the metal components to the plastic is not precise. To get a snug fit or an apparently snug fit requires some green stuff and some adjustment of the Immolator components. It is not a kit for the faint hearted or for those without some modelling tools.

One other problem here is that the GW design is a bit naff. There are 2 extra armoured panels for each side fore and aft yet in the centre of each side there is no reinforced armour, a ballistic nightmare. At the rear a ramp still opens in to a troop carrying compartment yet this lies under the exorcist missile launchers and should rightfully be a magazine for these weapons.

The solution is as shown on the previously blogged Exorcist is a bit of plasticard and some green stuff. To get the added metal panels to fit snugly requires some confidence and surgery on the plastic components, plus a good bit of sanding on the metal components.

To make sanding off of mould lines, flashing from metal parts two things are necessary - these are the excellent GW mini vice and some emery boards. Forget the GW boards, Tesco etc are much cheaper something like 10 for 69p in the value range and they work perfectly well.

The pictures are from this afternoon.

Brettonnians Magnets and a side step

2011-12-24T09:20:00.000-08:00

Hopefully these pictures are self explanatory. But if not the Brettonians have been magnetised to their movement tray. 3x1mm neodymium magnets from eBay glued to the movement tray and 2 bits of a paperclip glued discretely inside each mini's base. That's all there is to it, and no more collapsing units while manoeuvring. Cool for me at least.

Photos now back in place. The loss was due to a reorganisation of the Picassa Web album they belonged to.

Grey Knight Terminators

2011-12-17T12:15:00.000-08:00

The Terminators are basically done. What is not yet doe is naming the minis. Artificer struggles to create appropriate names for these minis. They are therefore the Anomes of the Grey Knights. In this squad we have 3 with force halberds, one psycannon, one deamon hammer and one warding stave and 5 storm bolters. Total 250 points if the Justicar has a master crafted weapon. Great.

Each of the bases has been sculped with liquid green stuff. The outcomes have been great for a first attempt. Liguid green stuff is definitely something to use.

Here are some images of the individual minis.

Grey Knight Terminators Progress and Green Stuff Basing

2011-12-04T06:04:00.001-08:00

Here they are on the painting table. There is still a bit of detailing to do. The colour scheme is straightforward with mainly metallics and some reds. The tips from "From the Warp" regarding base coating the eyes and the flexi connectors between the armour have proved most helpful. On thing that was problematic was the the bases for the minis. These are such finely sculpted and dynamic figures that covering the bases with gravel as usual seemed inappropriate. Liquid green stuff the the rescue. The two bases in this image have been contoured by paining them with liquid green stuff and then shaping it as desired. The paining was then the usual base colour plus some washes to pick out detail and make the overall effect more interesting. Removing the old bases from the minis also had the benefit of allowing easier touching up of some of the more inaccessible parts of the minis.

Grey Knight Terminators - The archetype approaches

2011-11-26T09:18:00.001-08:00

When starting a new series of minis a pilot model is often painted to try out the colour scheme or technique. So it goes with the Grey Knights. Last week all 5 were undercoated and then given a careful boltgun metal over coat except for the embossed text on the armour which along with the weapon got a coat of dwarf bronze mixed 50:50 with tin bitz. Then came the archetype. A wash with devlan mud followed by a thin highlight of boltgun metal on raised armour surfaces or a thin coat of mithril silver on shiny bits of the armour or weapons such as
the blade of the halberd. Some red for the purity seals and power cables, a light dry brush with shining gold on the decorative lettering and that's it so far.

The remaining 4 terminators in the kit are now getting their devlan mud wash while the heraldry is planned. Next up however is an improved base. Looking at the mini it seems that a standard dry brushed sand base would not do it justice. What seems better might be a base that combines the styles of the daemon hosts and Grey Knight Dreadnought that have been used before.

Grey Knight Terminators Progress 2

2011-11-20T10:23:00.001-08:00

First pass paint on the Grey Knight Terminators. The idea was to use the "From the Warp" paint suggestions. It is possible that the minis might have strayed from this excellent advice. Anyway all the base colours are on. Next to come are some washes and highlights or highlights then washes to pull all together. The question is should the armour wash be devlan mud or badab black.

Sisters of Battle Tanks

2011-11-13T03:19:00.001-08:00

Tread head madness for the Sisters of Battle progresses. The extra armour for the Immolator has been trimmed down to the smooth space marine type. It proved easy to remove the extra decoration from the resin components as the resin proved quite soft. Getting the extra large dozer blade magnetised proved rather harder as the small 3mm x 1mm magnets embedded in the mounting arms of the blade proved too weak to hold the blade to the hull. More powerful and slightly larger N50 magnets have been orderd and hopefully will do the job. Work has commenced also on the 2nd Exorcist. Initially there is little to see as additional plasticard side panels and decoration need to be constructed similar to the original Exorcist conversion seen also in this image and in previous blogs. Secondly the metal panels need to be sanded to fit snugly to the hull and each other.Some green liquid green stuff has also been acquired. The usefulness of this in sealing joins will also be explored later.

Below is the original converted Exorcist. This project should create a similar conversion but not identical as these ancient and revered instruments of the God Emperors Justice are individual crafted by the Techpriests of Mars and not mass produced in the Imperium like lasrifles.

Sisters of Battle Immolator Treadhead Madness, Grey Knight Sanity

2011-11-06T11:36:00.000-08:00

The Sisters of the Order of the Verdant Deed started as a single Immolator with rhino extra armour and the Forgeworld rhino large dozer blade. The Order has expanded to include 2 SoB squads mounted in rhinos, a celestinian squad, a cannoness with command squad body guard, a squad of 8 seraphim, a penitent engine and an Exorcist as well as a couple of priests. Most have featured in this blog at some time or other.

The new madness is the decision to add a second Immolator, a second Exorcist and a third Rhino simultaneously. 2 Immolator kits have been started and a third has been ordered with Exorcist bits. But Forgeworld had stopped producing Rhino extra armour, and the Predator extra armour package. Bargain extra armour on ebay slipped through the workshops fingers literally while the bits shown in the image on ebay were checked against the requirements. Gnashing of teeth.

All that was left was to buy the Chaos Rhino extra armour package from Forgeworld and tweak it for the Immolator. That path was chosen, bits arrived and started in to the production line. And what happens next is that Forgeworld announces new predator/rhino extra armour priced slightly less than the stuff just bought. More gnashing and some foaming at the mouth. Anyway the path has been chosen and lets see if a better cooler magnetised second SoB Immolator can be made with these bits. If not it's back to spending with Forgeworld. Below in order is the archetype, next is what has been bought from Forgeworld after washing in detergent and while drying on some kitchen roll, and finally what is also on the painting table for moments of sanity - some Grey Knight Terminators to be painted a la "From the Warp" tutorial about painting metals.
Busy times.

Sisters of Battle Command Squad Finished

2011-10-30T08:43:00.000-07:00

The Command Squad is finished for the time being. With the new codex 2 celestinians had to be removed and a hospitaler and a dialogus added. Given that these 2 are not truly combatants I decided to make their bases differently form the rest of the squad. Its probably not obvious but the hospitaler is standing on planking and the dialogus on the remains of a tiled floor. All irrelevant to this image of the completed squad based in a ruined building. They have not been tried out yet so how the squad will perform with the blessed banner, a laud hailer, and chirugeons tools is an unanswered question. The fluff is important, otherwise why involve the 40k universe where life is a dark struggle against the encroaching gotterdammerung of the end of any remaining sanity within the order of the universe.

On another note Artificer was moved to comment on a post on the "from the warp" blog regarding a realistic style of painting for 40k. Realistic was used to mean the gritty well worn, battle scarred style of painting. Fair enough but there is nothing realistic about 40k, and not even the realistic style of painting. Have a look at photos of combat vehicles and combatants from any modern conflicts. Only the knocked out vehicles and weapons are are battle scarred as the realistic style of 40k painting. Having said that it still looks good and adds to the fluff.

Hospitaler Sisters of Battle Command Squad

2011-10-27T09:15:00.000-07:00

Sisters of Battle command squad progress to date. Here silence does not mean that nothing is happening. Both the Hospitaler and the Dialogus have progressed and are close to completion as is a squad of Celestinians. The posture of the Hospitaler as can been seen from the pictures is not the best that GW has managed. She seems to be flinching as if horrified at the cruel things her Celestinian colleagues in the command squad are inflicting on heretics and aliens, or perhaps she is cringing at seeing what they have inflicted on her Canoness commander.

The mandatory inclusion of these 2 minis in the command squad allows 2 extra special rules for this squad. With the Hospitaler it is the feel no pain special rule. Hence other than instant death wounds there is a 50/50 chance the mini will survive. The squad already has the Shield of faith special rule giving them a 6+ invulnerable save. Also the unit has the Endless Crusade act of faith giving the relentless and move through cover special rules but they do not have the Celestinian's own act of faith of Hand of The Emperor, which is odd as the unit is composed of the most dedicated and distinguished Sisters of Battle.

On the other hand they benefit from the Canoness's Act of faith of Passion. This gives them the preferred enemy special rule but even so some extra strength would be handy.
The result of these special rules suggests a squad with 2 heavy weapons and perhaps a Blessed Banner to support other units and win any combats.

Has anyone else spotted the GW used 2 different spellings of Hospitaler in the 2 White Dwarves. Sad isnt it.

Rant ..... PCs Windows and Security on the Internet

2011-10-16T12:14:00.000-07:00

Suddenly this week blogger images from blogspot.com became undisplayable on my PC. When I browsed Bols (Bell of Lost Souls) website - no images, but images on From the Warp, but not on Admiral Drax or Fritz 40k and so on. Most blogger images hosted on http//*blogspot.com/* had disappeared. How or why, it was not clear. Artificer had installed nothing. The PC was protected by Kaspersky, and Windows defender and kept up to date on Windows 7 by automatic updates. Firefox was affected and so also was IE (exploder). The only thing that had preceded this loss of functionality was an update on windows - thank you Microsoft. Quickly the laptop was turned on. It was OK blog sites images were OK. Wait a minute, as it was shut down it installed some windows updates. Lo and behold the laptop had the same affliction once it was rebooted. Logically blogger.com was being blocked by some security change but what as the lone user had done nothing! Eventually a solution was realised by the humble user - help pages and requests for help rendered as much assistance as a mirage in the desert - set blogger.com to be a trusted site for Kaspersky. Ok, but why did windows update break the usability of blogger? Is it deniable collateral damage from the war for dominance between Google and Microsoft. Is it a bug in Kaspersky uncovered by the latest Microsoft updates. Actually here at Artificers Workshop we do not give a damn. If software houses had to pay compensation to consumers for their waste of consumers time as a consequence of their dysfunctional behaviour there would be a massive change in behaviour. My bill to Microsoft and Kaspersky for the time wasted by their incompetence is prepared. As users we need to campaign for a change in the law. If petrol companies sell petrol with too much water in it and it breaks engines they are liable. If software companies update software without explicit permission for each change that breaks the Internet for users they must be liable also.

Back to Sister of Battle Command Squads :

Work has progressed.

Sisters of Battle Command Squad

2011-10-09T02:07:00.000-07:00

The new command squad or Celestinian Body Guard caused some reconfiguration of the order of battle for the Sisters of Battle.

Also the acquisition of 2 new models, doubtless part of GWs cunning plan to shift some of the less popular minis - here is one below. The basing for these two has been causing some thought as neither would be front line types. Here therefore is an attempt at a wooden strip floor in progress.

Sisters of Battle Seraphim

2011-09-25T02:02:00.000-07:00

The Seraphim have finally come off the painting table having reached a point where old and new minis have merged into one squad.

Sisters of Battle against a corrupt Imperium

2011-09-24T12:25:00.000-07:00

Deployment :

Artificer had one of his infrequent games of 40k today. No table, the gaming area was one of the GW battle mats. The game was fun and played for fun. Rules were adhered to but reinforcement were allowed. Total points were not exactly matched. Shooting was accurate but saves were made expertly. As a result a fund draw was achieved and both players had a good time without any dramatic change in the opposing forces.

Here is the situation at the end of the final turn :

Sister Superior, Exorcist and Priest - Whats on the Painting Table

2011-09-18T11:10:00.000-07:00

Sometimes its difficult to finish a project either because something extra keeps on being added, sometimes because new projects get started before existing ones are finished. On the painting table at the moment are 3 Seraphim to add to an existing unit of 5, one sister of battle with a heavy flamer to replace the standard flamer in an existing squad, 3 additional sisters of battle to add to the existing Celestinian squad, 8 Brettonian, 1 grey knight terminator from a squad of 5 assembled and undercoated only. Finally there are the Brettonian shields that have turned out to be the most intricate part of the Brettonian regiment. Painted brown wood on the inside with a boltgun metal rim washed with devlan mud and painted blue outer surface with added transfer and matt varnish to seal. It takes longer to do a shield than a Brettonian.

An example of an extended project was the Exorcist.
Ideas to enhance the mini kept coming as the project progressed. Here it is being led out by two battle priests. It is to be joined eventually by a second Exorcist. The kit is bought and it is waiting some clear space on the painting bench before work commences. The aim is to build on what has been achieved with the first kit bash to produce a second and more interesting variant.

Brettonian Shield Wall Again

2011-09-11T11:50:00.000-07:00

Back at the Brettonian. Some time ago a large unit of Brettonian men at arms was started and then languished as the paint scheme failed to fall in to mind. Things have changed. Ideas have cystallized. Now there is a project rather than an idea of trying painting a Brettonian unit. Colours are muted browns, apart from metal objects, even those are washed down with devlan mud. The project is using a lot of devlan mud and gryponne sepia and even ogryn flesh as washes on base brown colours such as graveyard earth, tausept ochre,bleached bone and vermin brown.

The project has become to create a peasant revolt Brettonian peasant army compatible with the current Brettonian codex.

Shield Wall

2011-09-04T11:50:00.000-07:00

A while ago some Brettonian Men-at-arms were acquired, and languished primed in white. The plan was to create a regiment of 28 minis as a core for a peasants revolt Brettonian Army. The problem was painting that many minis. A simple scheme for painting was needed. After a while a scheme evolved and her is the start of the shield wall :

Adeptus Arbites

2011-09-04T08:10:00.000-07:00

Disappointingly the Arbitrators no longer feature in the WD Sister of Battle codex. The only troops choice allowed as SoBs. Anyway here are the Arbites acquired sometime ago for use in a SoB army now progressing to completion. Colours have been chosen to blend the the Chapter of the SoB being recruited locally - the Sisters of the Verdant Deed. Colour scheme was as follows :

Base coat white spray
Knarloc Green washed with Thraka Green
Shoulder pad Iyanden Darksun with white highlight on insignia
Shotguns, boltgun metal and Tausept Ochre washed with Devlan Mud

Sisters of Battle Seraphim and their Bases

2011-08-29T12:39:00.000-07:00

When the original, to Artificer's Workshop, boxed set of Seraphim arrived a few years ago the attachment of the feet to the jump to the base was seen to be naff. The Seraphim seemed unable to get higher than a tired child could jump. With little further addoo the feet were cut clear from the base attachments and the minis made up as if they were on the jump. Some time passed as other SoB minis were acquired and added to the army.

Eventually a latent dissatisfaction surfaced. The Sister Superior. While the other minis were reasonably cool the I am pointing my power sword to the side pose grated on the overall coolness of the squad. It made no difference to performance on the table top none the less but it detracted from the hip poses of the other girls. Browsing eBay and the GW site it became apparent that an alternative Sister Superior existed and was cooler, plasma pistol and power sword pointing up. She looked as if she planned to serenely jump over her enemies and then plasma them in the back.

At the moment the prices of the SoB minis on the GW site is exorbitant. Looking on eBay for a bargain demonstrated that prices there for single SoB minis were as bad as on the GW site. You know - auctions that start at 0.99p with 1.99 p&p for a basic bolter foot grunt SoB mini. That's a minimum of 2.98 for mini with no special attributes - 2nd user and perhaps needing a strip paint job. From GW at 10.75 for a pack of 3 makes £3.58 per mini, no p&p required. So the start cost of many eBay used SoB minis is only 0.60p less than that of GW. Doh. On eBay amazingly many when p&p is added in go for more than buying from GW. Duh. Perhaps many eBayers do not realise that GW still sell SoBs.

Anyway to shorten a long story I bid not for one but for 5 as no one seemed interested in this auction - after all any spare could be sold at profit on eBay. And I got a bargain - a squad of 5 for £12.50 including p&p - makes it £2.50 per mini £1.08 less than basic SoB minis and when you think about Seraphim its just over £5.00 per mini less. In the end 4 are keepers, so one of the 5 and one of the originals, the sister superior are going on ebay and the Seraphim squad is growing to 8 from 5 with a plasma pistol instead of a boltpistol.

Moving on to the the bases which is why this post was started. Here the preference is for the Seraphim to show a bit of shapely leg with a good bit of air under. Some thin wire, courtesy of paper clips and the GW pin drill forms the basis of this procedure. The base end of the wire is curled into a loop and superglued flat to the plastic base. A coin in supeglued inside the base and polyfilla is used to elevate the base surface and add some extra ballast for the metal minis floating impailed on the unfolded paper clip several inches above the table. The point end of the metal post is slotted into a hole drilled in the tabard or foot of the Seraphim. Here below is the original squad, now sundered as the Sister Superior has been cashiered.

Sisters of Battle Exorcist and Sororitas Command Squad

2011-08-28T09:09:00.000-07:00

The Exorcist is now close to finishing. There are two brass plinths above the side doors that have icons to be attached and there is a bit of touching up to finalise it, but it seems to finally have acquire the baroque quality that has been sought in the rhinos and the Immolator.

Here is how the Exorcist now looks -

In addition a Sororitas Command Squad has been acquired. 5 Celestinians led by a sister superior all mounted with the Cannoness in an Immolator. The actual banner bearing mini seems to have dropped from the GW catalogue. On ebay the mini and banners go for exorbitant prices. Here I have chosen to have a banner implanted beside the SoB. The banner has been made in paint supplied with windows and printed on a cheap printer. Looks acceptable. As the latest WD has missed its deadline here its not yet known if this level of hardware is still allowed in a Cannonesses body guard. Finally another SoB project is also on the go. While attempting to get another Seraphim on ebay somehow 5 were acquired. Actually they were a bargain. Single Seraphim minis seemed to go for £4 plus while 5 were obtained for a tenner. 4 are for keeping and one to be returned to ebay.

Finecast Inquisitor Karamazov and Grey Knights Inquisitorial Warbands

2011-08-21T11:32:00.000-07:00

The new and only Inquisitor finecast mini has reached the Artificer. The GW site states that due to the expected demand orders for finecast are limited to 5 per customer. In the local independent stockist the boxes sit on the shelf, no restrictions and a 10% discount from list price. Why would anyone want 5 Karamazovs anyway? As a independent character and as a legendary individual how could you field more than one anyway. Actually this is a question I have never seen asked anywhere probably because the rules clearly identify unique characters of which only one is allowed per army. So why would anyone want more than one.

The box was disappointingly small for the price. There is one concept that GW have dropped at the moment which is value added. If the mini had come with a unique sculpted base that would be something perhaps, or a bit of scenery etc. Here are the contents of the box :

The components are highly detailed as promised. The attachments to the sprues and the mould lines on the components suggest a degree of skill required to assemble and paint this satisfactorily. The progress of this mini will feature on the blog, like the immolator and the exorcist - which is still finishing up.

The www has had some debate regarding the worthiness of Karamazov inclusion in a competitive listing. A number of reasons have been suggested but.... In the Grey Knights codex Inquisitorial henchmen warbands listing the Jokaero weaponsmith the question is does the inconceivable customisation rule apply to Inquisitors that join this unit. And if not why not. Imagine Karamazov with a 1+ save, or an on the move multimelta with rending, or an invulnerable save. Worthy of thought. Why shouldn't the JRO not customise his employing inquisitor. It makes no sense that the warband gets it but the Inquisitor does not.

New Penitent Engine finecast mini?

2011-08-15T11:50:00.000-07:00

Finally got hands on a copy of the latest WD380 to look at the first part of the new SoBs Codex. Everywhere I had heard that it was nothing new and whether it would be a good thing or not depended on the points costs of the minis - which will be in the next part. But look at the penitent engine on page 97, perched on on foot, with a banner and no silly flame projecting horizontally from one of the flamers. Is this a new penitent engine???

Change in Focus or Not

2011-08-12T05:30:00.000-07:00

The workshop has realised that over the past 4 years of blogging that the GW world has moved on. The Daemonhunters and Witch Hunters codices have gone. In came this year the Grey Knights with their own codex, and now through White Dwarf a release of of dedicated Sisters of Battle codex.

The Daemonhunters are dead! The Witch Hunters are dead!

Long Live the Inquistion! Long live the Inquisition!

The inquisition in the mordant and morbid universe of 40k is the superglue cement that fixes the order of the Imperium together through the living manifestation of the Emperor's will, his arm of justice and worship of the true believers. Decay, disorder, corruption and Chaos manifests elsewhere within the defenders of humanity including all Space Marine Chapters, the Imperial Guard and the vile alien menaces.

The Inquisition is the truth and the life of Humanity!

The change in the codices has resulted in some losses and some gains. The SoBs have a more Ecclesiarchial face now - hurrah. Sadly the Inquisition appears to be described as an appendage to the Grey Knights in their codex whereas in reality the reverse is true.However see the previous post suggesting ways around this.

Grey Knights and the INQUISITION

2011-08-07T05:26:00.000-07:00

The Grey Knight's codex has been about for a while. The first part of the new Sisters of Battle Codex in the latest White Dwarf, this month. For Inquisition afficionados there seems to be little hope for collections of minis. What to do with all the stormtroopers squads apart from another squad in an IG army. What to do with the Inquisitors and their retinues. Doubtless the Witch Hunters & Daemon Hunters codices are not continuing to shift as many minis as GW wished, while SMEGs (Space Marine Egguivalents) still do. SMEGs do well in tournaments, at least in the minds of the hottests hard list internet list followers. Some 40k afficianados feel that this is not actually helping the hobby. The game is about fun : - states GW! Obviously ULTRA-kill is for some the end in itself, a bit like go faster stripes on cars. What the ULTRA-kill listers want is that wargames succeed or fail on the genius of the back bedroom armchair general regardless of tabletop skills. What ULTRA-kill listers forget that in real life and on the table top battles are settled by the skills and superiority of the opposing Generals. There is no ultimate list to guarentee a win and compensate for or hide bad gameplay.

This finally brings Artificers Workshop to the trigger for this post which was the post by Caldera on BOLs regarding Dark Eldar vs Grey Knights. In this post he disses the Inquisition and Inquisitors retinues to laud the Grey Knights as yet another SMEG (YASMEG). What is the point of another codex if its YASMEG? Actually the Inquisition embedded in the GK codex has oodles of potential for throwing out some interesting and fun units to play with. Retinues are no longer limited to a specific number of types of henchman. Think about it, a retinue with 3 stormtroopers with meltaguns (18pts each) plus 3 multimelta gun servitors (10 points each) plus 2 Jokearo weapon smiths (35 points). Total - 154 points for melta goodness plus weapon and armour upgrades guarenteed each turn, the weapons smiths can fire lascannon, multimelta of heavy flamer firepower at the commanders choice! Add a an Ordo Malleus Inquistor with terminator armour, psycannon and force sword plus hammerhand psychic power for 110 points total. Add transport and here is mobile doom for any armoured vehicle commanded by a terminator with potential for a 1+ armour save and its not YASMEG!! And it can be assembled from existing daemonhunter mini collections. Amazing. Great.

Immolator - when to stop part 2

2011-07-31T02:51:00.000-07:00

The workshop is going to add a pintle mounted stormbolter and a towing hook to the Exorcist for completion. Originally it was thought that given the role of this tank on the battle field a stormbolter would be a waste of effort but here is a paraphrased bit of advice from the GW site advice on the use of an Exorcist -

"A pintle mounted storm bolter adds very little to an Exorcist's firepower But, the way that the vehicle charts are organized, a tank is destroyed if all of its weapons are destroyed and it is subsequently immobilized. So the enemy has to destroy it as well to render your tank destroyed if it gets immobilized."

Survivability and the denial of scoring points makes the stormbolter a good idea. The towing hook will only add to its looks.

Sisters Of Battle Exorcist - when to stop

2011-07-24T12:21:00.000-07:00

Is it time to stop working on the Exorcist? The workshop is pondering this question. Photographs can be significantly informative, brutally identifying details that remain unnoticed to the ordinary eyeball. So there is some touching up required that has been missed but the real question is should more detail and greater baroquification be added. Perhaps a few brassy bronzy icons attached to the hull. Some more purity seals, some more holy testaments or a pair of laud halers or even a storm bolter. All of these have been prepared and considered and now are possibly rejected, perhaps.

The changes form last week are the lights on the front hull, the testaments on the hull, the assembly of the upper superstructure, the smoke launchers, and the detailing of the mini including highlighting of structures, purity seals, bolts etc.

The Sisters as the militant arm of the ecclesiarchy should be both formidable and religiously righteous, I don't say holy as the Imperium of the 40k Universe is based more on ancestor worship than on religion and belief in god, even if the dying in stasis god emperor of humanity has some characteristics of a deity, the main belief of all strata of this society is in the existence of daemons in the Warp. As the righteous, the sisters war machines should be decorated with symbols of the justness and purity of the cause of the Sisters of Battle. The machines should be movable temples to the God Emperor. Therefore they should not appear as malicious or dark to the denziens of the Imperium. They should be symbols of hope even if the only hope is a quick clean death at the hands of the emperors hand maidens. Paint schemes should therefore reflect this. I hope this one does. Anyway below is another pic of this weeks sate of play and then last week's image and the first posted pics of this mini. Back to the original question - is it done or not besides touching up?

Exorcist again

2011-07-17T09:30:00.000-07:00

OK, short post today, a quick update on the exorcist work in progress - here it is on the painting table. Work has started on the body details and is close to completion for the upper hull. The launcher tubes need the purity symbols finished and text added to the various banners. The pilot and loader are finished. The pilot and missile rack are now fixed in place. The loader await final fixing of the upper hull structures. It still needs baroque detailing for the upper decking, perhaps text with icons presented above. I am not yet certain of this. A lot depends on how the hull final detailing goes. The mini has an enormous amount of detail, some of which is my own fault as I have added this beyond that designed on to the model. While it is a pricey mini from GW for the modeller there is plenty to work on which makes it reasonable vfm.

Besided the Exorcist the Sisters of Battle collection is getting some Celestinians as a body guard for the Cannoness. The challenge for this group is the addition of a sacred banner. GW no longer produce this mini although it seems that they did in the past. On ebay these minis seem to go for unreal sums. So the plan is to add a banner to an existing bolter armed SoB in the simplest fashion. The hard part remains the banner itself. Designs would be appreciated.

Sisters of Battle Exorcist Marches on

2011-07-10T08:38:00.000-07:00

What's new today? The servitor loader is finished. The Sister organist gunner has progressed. I bought some new detail brushes an managed her eyes. Although the mini is designed with them shut, eyes open is more 40k Universe ethos. It is a grim place with humanity fighting for survival as the Universes slowly shreds in to the Warp. Where unrational and unreal creatures are fought with barely comprehended science. It all going down so so slowly simply due to the size of the Universe. Space Marines and the Imperial Guard humanity's answer to the impending messily chaotic terminus are actually ensuring the chaotic madness of the end of mankind while at the same time slowing its howling decent into madness.

Philosophy aside here is the latest pics :

Another week and another view of the SoB Exorcist

2011-07-03T06:22:00.000-07:00

Some 40k blogs are educational, some are a show case for painting and modelling talents, some are lists and some are news reporters. This one is a blog, log of Artificers painting and modelling ups and downs in real time. Thanks for looking. So here is another snapshot of the Exorcist inching towards completion. The tracks are on now and the magazine largely painted. the servitor is mainly done. The iconographic side panels are finally glued in place and just need some fixing and the maddened organ playing gunner needs to be completed. Here it is :

Sisters of Battle Exorcist and the 100th Post

2011-06-26T08:46:00.000-07:00

The workshop has reached a mile stone - the 100th post. The blog has been going since November 2007. Another few months and it will have managed 4 years. Considering what to put on this 100th post I wondered about using some of the best viewed images form previous posts, but then while it is interesting at least to the Workshop it may not be to you as you may well have seen them already. The first post actually featured an Immolator that took until August 2008 to finish. Hence in an act of symmetry this 100th will feature an update on the Exorcist that is on the bench at the moment. Work on this mini started in November 2010. To maintain the symmetry I must finish it by August this year. Despite blogging and modelling for 4 years clearly the workshop has not managed to speed up! Unsuprising since the operational parameters of Artificers Workshop are unchanged.

Any way here is where the Exorcist is upto :

And just to finish here is the picture from the last 99 posts that has got the greatest number of hits : - 4535

Sisters of Battle - Heavy Flamer almost complete

2011-06-20T12:00:00.000-07:00

Here is a round up of the SoBs work in process. First off with a list. Totalling 1210 points using Army Builder. Also I have just noticed that a multimelta may not yet be a legal option for a squad of Sisters. May change with the upcoming rewrite of the Codex, I hope. The arbitrators joined the list to give the priest someone to attach to. No sense in having a priest filling the SoBs with bolters with so called righteous fury. Does not matter too much with shotguns, and can hold objectives.

The plan is to fill out the points with at least one more Exorcist and a 3rd SoB troops choice. After that if possible a third Exorcist. And then more celestinians and a dominion squad perhaps. Depends on the points values after the rewrite. Below is a glimpse of them all together. Click on the image to obtain the full picture. Must learn more HTML

Sister of Battle Multimelta progress

2011-06-19T06:00:00.000-07:00

In the workshop the best part of any project is usually the finishing. The SoBs are getting close to finishing, at least the 2 basic troops choices. Work has focused on the multimeta addition for the first squad and here it is. The is nothing like a close up pic of a mini to show how poorly painted is that mini you thought was superb. Having said that it looks OK in real life. Here is is and at the end how it was last weekend.

Sisters of Batlle some more Progress

2011-06-12T06:27:00.000-07:00

Work on the second squad has gone forward fitfully what with this and that requiring my time else where. So here is where it is up to, which is close to finishing but needing some detailing and tidying up in the main.

Also on the table are the spare arbitrators minis are being painted up in similar colours to theme the army and give it a bit of variation.

Elsewhere on the www rumours of a new release of the SOB codex in WD over the summer abound. There are also some images of what appears to be a draft version of the codex incorporating some changes . There is also a rumour that Inquisitor Lord Karamazov (The Pyrophant Judge of Salem Proctor), the second bit of his title has been dropped in the Grey Knights codex, is scheduled to be in the next round of finecast minis, something that here in Artificers Workshop we are all looking forward to.

Thanks to Dark Future Games

And even more

Thanks to HERO's Gaming Blog

The Dark Side

2011-06-05T11:11:00.000-07:00

In the news are potential dates for the release of the updates for the Sisters of Battle from GW. While the Sisters and the IG, Steel Legion and abhumans, are my favoured collecting strata in the past I have dabbled with the darker side of the Warp. Here are 2 older minis from those days that might just see some action again with the Sisters of Battle and the Grey Knights.

Steel Legion Platoon Command Squads

2011-05-29T08:44:00.000-07:00

There is a limited range of metal Steel Legion minis. Here is progress with the 2 platoon command squads. Perhaps the Steel Legion will reappear as finecast.

Sisters of Battle Round Up

2011-05-22T11:31:00.000-07:00

Painting and collecting a variety of 40k Inquisition and abhuman related forces gives a magnificent variety of models and figures to acquire and even to use in apocalyps type battles. But it means each force progresses so so slowly. Here is the sitrep for my Sisters of Battle force that has been in Gestation for 4 years. As you can see below. One HQ, 3 troops choices, one of which is not quite completed, 2 heavy support completed, one fast attack, one elite. It is possible that the whole force organisation will have to change in the face of a new codex come the autumn. Never mind the fun is in the collecting an completing.

Here they are : HQ

Troops Choices

Fast Attack

Heavy Support

Elite

Scary ladies. A bit like the lady I chatted with last night.

What next for the Sisters firstly there is an Exorcist on the painting table and after that I like the Inquisitor Karamazov mini as a second HQ choice. Then some more Seraphim. Competition listing has nothing to do with this collection.

Sisters of Battle Again and Steel Legion Commissar from Forgeworld

2011-05-15T08:32:00.000-07:00

Painting has been glacial for a few weeks. Dog minding for a friend for a week and sightseeing in Prague for another week. Now its back to the bleak war is all there is 40k Universe and 2 of the on the table projects. The second Sisters squad is beginning to shape up or at least the end is now in sight. Finishing up is one of the pleasure of painting. Doing all those last details and touching up everything and every bit that has accidentally been forgotten. This is more fun that starting on a squad. Anyway here is where the 2nd Sisters Squad is up to at the moment.

Two heavy weapns have also been acquired and started. One for each of the Sisters squads. So only early progress with this one. Base colours are Knarlock green given a green wash to darken and tone. Boltgun metal given a wash with devlan mud to define the metal.

Finally a little bit of work on a Kreig Commissar from Forgeworld. This is an exquisite mini and the plan is to paint it in with the Steel Legion project. Suprisingly it appears that a company command squad cannot be allocated a Commissar, only platoon command squads. A Lord Commissar as an HQ choce could of course join any squad. Being a Lord Commissar will suit this mini.

Simple Scenery

2011-05-07T10:42:00.000-07:00

A lot of time and effort can go into making scenery. Battles can be fought with pleasure with minimal scenery.
If part of the pageant of enjoyment is viewing the minis that have been laboured over in a suitable setting then some scenery is needed. And it usually needs to be made quickly and easily from common materials. Here is some. Materials used were newspaper, kitchen roll paper, wall paper paste, aquarium plants, polyfilla (which in the UK is a fast setting easily available DIY shop wall and plasterwork crack filler), and some hardboard from discarded cheap picture and photograph frame backing. Here is what the results look like.

These bits are about 10 years old. OK, the tower of black rocks is newspaper torn up, mixed with wallpaper paste and squeezed in to the shapes seen. Shapes may vary. Then left to dry. Glued into a tower, or any other agglomeration of pieces. Once the glue is set sprayed black with citadel black spray and when dry, dry brushed up with codex grey. The bases are all the other bases is a bit of hard board cut with a large pair of strong scissors in to an irregular shape, sand glued on with PVA glue and pointed with goblin green and dry brushed yellow.

The bushes are aquarium plants fixed into mounds of polyfilla, then sanded and painted as above. Finally the trees. The trunks are kitchen roll sheets soaked in wallpaper glue and twisted in to a ribbed pipe. Once dry the trunks were set in to a mound of polyfilla with root like trails leading away from the trunks. The bases were sanded and painted as before. Small bits of aquarium plant were glued to the tops of the trunks. The trunks were painted red and washed with brown ink to produce alien type colouration.

Skill required to produce these bits was virtually zero. Hope you consider they are effective as I do.

Steel Legion Comany Command Squad

2011-05-01T05:37:00.000-07:00

Finaly some more progress with the steel legion. All minis in the company command squad are conversions.
I will let the picture speak for themseves.

One sniper rifle, one heavy flamer and 2 meltaguns.

Some close ups of the company commader and below of the heavy flamer.

Conversions in 40k

2011-04-29T12:18:00.000-07:00

One feature of the modelling component of the 40k hobby is conversions. GW and White Dwarf encourage this. The drive to an all plastic mini catalogue is clearly intended to encourage this. GW provides rules to incorporate conversions in a legitimate fame work to unleash the imagination of their hobbyists. White Dwarf (WD) features conversions a plenty as do many 40k web site. Do you convert. Below are 2 of my build projects from some time ago. The chimera with the twin hull mounted heavy bolters and and a turret mounted autocannon come from the Chapter approved vehicle rules published in WD. The Ork gobsmasha is a scratch built vehicle from plans published in WD many moons ago, but was built around the time of the Gorkamorka launch and for use in Gorkamorka. If anyone is interested in which actual WD published these rule let me know and I will dig out the issue numbers.

The picture quality I hope is better than previous blogs as I am running in a new more powerful camera.

Making 40k Army Listings

2011-04-28T13:38:00.000-07:00

There are many cool or "killer" listings published on the web. Caveat emptor. I like "fluffy" armies. But whatever you like the easiest way to make a listing that I know of is - Army Builder - a PC application from www.wolflair.com. Here is a screen shot of a build in progress of my Abhuman IG army.

The painting table

2011-04-17T07:32:00.000-07:00

Slow progress again this week. A combination of severe toothache and root canal treatment has kept me back this week. Some work ghas been done but very little as can be seen. 2 heavy weapons for the sisters have been acquired and their painting commenced as well.

Poject Pipeline

2011-04-10T06:30:00.000-07:00

Work on my current projects or the second Battle Sisters Squad and the Exorcist has been slow. A combination of the erosion of inspiration and the deamnds of work and life and a bad bit of toothache. Not working on the projects releases time to think about other projects in the pipeline such as the Steel Legion Mortars and these below.

I have a forgeworld Mars Pattern Mk II Tank Hunter Destroyer conversion that could be better. I am sure that the resin components could be paint stripped fairly easily. A new Leman Russ might be needed. An appropriate weapon for the tank ace Knight Commander Pask surely even if not mentioned in the codex. A more sinisterly lethal shape and high powered weapon for instant kills. The forgeworld rule from The Citadel Journal issue 34 gives the Turbo Laser Destroyer weapon a range 72 inches, strength 10 AP 1, ordnance 1 characteristic. Combine this with Pask's ballistic skill and crack shot special rule for a true tank and monster killing machine.

Then there are the Bob Olley minis. Rare but I plan to have a squad with shotguns as veterans eventually.

And finally a partly collected squad of Arbites.

Grey Knights Codex

2011-03-30T11:30:00.000-07:00

The new Grey Knights Codex has arrived via advance order today. Cool codex 96 pages. 7 types of nemesis force weapons. Terminators as troop choices. Orbital Relay Strikes, Heavy Support includes the obvious Landraider, Landraider crusader and a Landraider Redeemer with flamestorm cannons. Choice of Inquisitors and assassins. Seems Daemon hosts are OK with Grey Knights now and more and more and more.

Exorcist and Sisters Progress

2011-03-29T12:30:00.000-07:00

The tank and the Sisters survive. No not a 40k mission but a domestic with a vacuum cleaner! Here is the small amount of progress lately. Hopefully some more soon. Will the new Grey Knights Codex have scope for some Sisters as well?

Sisters of Battle Squad #2

2011-03-19T12:28:00.000-07:00

There is only a little progress this week. Life gets in the way of painting. Also this blog is different from the many tutorial type blogs for 40k. This is just the real progress of a lone blogger, so there are good days and weeks and bad days and weeks. The Sisters have had a little more work and here they are:

I had hoped to finish the squad by the end of the month but this is looking less likely at the moment. Likewise the Exorcist is marking time also.

Sisters of Battle and Steel Legion Mortars

2011-03-13T09:41:00.000-07:00

Only a small bit of progress on the hobby front. Work, family, changing the car and a PC game called UFO Afterlight has restricted the time for 40K this week. But there has been some progress with 2 projects. The second squad of sisters, acquired via ebay. These minis go for unreal sums on ebay but are still cheap there compared with the GW prices which are so mega far above unreal.

Second project is some mortars for the steel legion. GW does not do specific minis for these but combining the loader from the missile launcher team with the controller from the lascannon team plus a mortar does the business reasonably convincingly, at least I think so. Mortars are not every one's choice and lets face it there are other weapons more capable of inflicting more serious damage but I like mortars for the indirect template "bolter" fire. It drives opponents mad often and makes them forget their game plan under fire.

Sisters of Battle on the Painting Table

2011-03-06T09:01:00.000-08:00

The sisters are back on the painting table. A second squad of Sisters has been acquired via ebay. This one has an Imagifier, cool. The plan is to finish this squad as the previous one and then get via ebay or worst case scenario GW 2 heavy flamers and another meltagun. Now that there is a mix of helmeted and bouffanted sisters it would be good to squad them by hairstyle. Very Sisters. The extra sisters can be promoted to become the Celestinians accompanying the Cannoness in the Immolator. Cool. If This squad is finished soon next must be a 3rd squad from ebay before the new plastic sisters are launched with the new codex. BTW the Exorcist is progressing also but slowly.

What a messy painting table, yuk.

5th Ogryn Cadre

2011-02-26T07:52:00.000-08:00

A stand of Ogryn. As before the old style Ogryn are one of my favourite minis. I have gradually accumulated them over the years with the last 4 coming from ebay during the last 12 months. Parking the Exorcist on the painting table the ogryn have been finished. The paint schemes date from the 2nd or 3rd edition of 40k. Some of the older minis have been over painted over the years to modernise their colours. Bases have been replaced as well as the original Ogryns came with square bases like WFB bases. Finally having a total of 10 here they are together. A Stand of Ogryn.

Abhumans

2011-02-13T07:22:00.000-08:00

Just finished 3 more Ogryn for the Lord Commisar Belisimites personal crusade. Old style acquired form ebay. These I feel are more characterful than the new style GW Ogryn.

There is one more to do which will take my Ogryn Cadre to 10 in total once finished.

Lord Commisar Erik Von Belisimar

2011-02-06T01:15:00.000-08:00

Commander of the Belisimite IG personal army. This mercenary force dependent on abhumans, penal legionnaires and chemically impressed citizens is used by the imperium for its most underhand and marginal internal agent provocateur military activities and also to support field armies when lives are consumed as the currency of time. What Erik Von Belisimar uses in his rebreather system is unknown but rumours suggest that the chemicals he uses are mixed to boost his physical strength and augment his intellect while erasing his conscience. Other stories suggest that his breather system is a sham covering a system of consuming blood syphoned from humans and abhumans of his forces and his enemies.

As a leader with victories over Chaos as well as rebellious Imperial planetary governors Erik Von Belisimar is tolerated rather than trusted.

The leaders of the units of his force are below.

Sanding

2011-01-31T08:07:00.000-08:00

From time to time bits of the minis need sanding down. The easiest way to do this I find is to use an emery board, Usually come with a rough sanding surface and a fine surface. The big plus for an emery board over a proper file is that smaller strips can be cut off the board or the end shaped to sand in to small or difficult bits on a mini.The other big plus is that they are dirt cheap.

Grey Knights

2011-01-30T03:12:00.000-08:00

There has been some prelaunch publicity for GW about the Grey Knights Space Marines. This Daemon hunting Chapter. The previous release of minis was fairly limited but the rumours surrounding the planned re-release suggests plastic minis and an increased range of types. One rumour on the web is that they will have access to the newly released Storm Raven Gunship!

Anyway here is my Forgeworld Grey Knight Dreadnought from my current collection that I have dusted off in anticipation of the Easter release of new daemon hunters.

Steel Legion Heavy Flamer

2011-01-23T12:08:00.000-08:00

Using the same base figure as for the meltagun conversions, that is the sergeant mini that comes with the boxed Steel Legion set, here is a heavy flamer conversion. The flamer parts come from the Cadian flamers and the arms again from the Empire militia. Everything is patched together with green stuff and the component arms are pinned and superglued for strength. Painting is still required but the whole Steel Legion is marking time until all the conversions required are completed.

Beside the heavy flamer are the 2 meltagunner conversions and a sniper rifle conversion. By the way don't pay the silly prices that Steel Legion minis are going for on ebay. The sergeants generally get £5 to £8 sterling plus p&p and individual minis up to £3 each. Heavy weapons teams can command up to £10. But the basic Steel Legion squad is still available from GW under collectors for £20.50 at the moment. It should be possible to buy from GW and sell on the unwanted components for a profit!

Steel Legion Meltaguns #3

2011-01-07T10:03:00.000-08:00

The meltagunner saga for the Steel Legion continues. I have a fondness for IG meltaguns as a consequence of the character of Jurgen. A Forgeworld Krieg meltagun has been acquired. This one has a hand holding it from below. New arms have been fashioned from spare Warhammer militia arms. The size of these arms is appropriate for the Steel Legion minis. The plastic arms have been pinned and superglued in postition with joins yet to be filled with green stuff. Here is how it is along with the pictures of the first metagunner conversion. The next project for the Steel Legion is a heavy flamer conversion.

Latest Meltagunner conversion

Previous meltagunner conversion

Imperial Guard Platoon or Lord Commisar Belisimite's Personal Army

2011-01-03T10:58:00.000-08:00

This is a personal project that has been progressing since the previous Imperial Guard codex. The idea of chem dogs, imperial guard troopers imprisoned, disciplined and given courage through the involuntary utilisation chem inhalers seemed to be the ethos of the dark millenium of 40k.The Imperium having unwittingly unleashed and then at the last gasp opposed the powers of Chaos sways on the edge separating stasis and slow entropy from a precipitously inevitable descent into disaster, obliteration and assimilation. In this ethos the end justifies the means on most occasions. Parts of the Imperial forces therefore themselves teeter on the edge of disaster. They may fight for the dead god emperor or for the forces opposed, depending on circumstances. Here lies the origin of the Belisimite personal army for Lord Commissar Vlod Belisimite.

There is still a bit to do :::

The command squad :-

Yes that's a meltagun next to the officer and the grenade launcher will also be metlagun in the near future.

Squad #1 - Sergeant with demolition charge, missile launcher and grenade launcher, shortly to be a meltagun.

Squad#2 - Missile launcher and grenade launcher, soon to be a meltagun.

Squad#3 - Heavy Bolter, and flamer.

Squad #4 - Heavy Bolter and flamer.

Evey mini in this platoon is a conversion as are all the minis in the next troop choices.

Second Troop Choice - Penal Legion Squad #1 -

Third Troop Choice - Penal Legion Squad #2 -

Finally the conscripts -

It is a dirty and dark millenium and Lord Commissar Vlod Belisimite needs a mini to encourage his personal redemption.

There is a bit to go with this one but hopefully it will be completed extra soon.

Sisters of Battle Exorcist a bit more progress

2010-12-19T08:08:00.000-08:00

It still does not look like much, but its the way I paint! There are more layers of bleached bone to apply lightning to almost white on the upper surfaces. The plan is to use the new washes on the reliefs of the side panels to give some colour to the pious imagery. The launchers need a baroque heated and stressed metal finish a bit like the penitent engine here . Bits still look loose because they are. Hopefully more progress next week.

First Exorcist post
Second Exorcist post

A Discovery - working with green stuff

2010-12-18T08:55:00.000-08:00

The Belismite Chem Dogs masks and hoses are made from green stuff. This is my first attempt to add to minis with green stuff as opposed to filling in gaps. There are four squads of Belismites. The 4th is in the process of finishing, I have always found it difficult to manage the green stuff as it always prefers to stick to my fingers or the GW sculpting tool rather than the model, even when using water to reduce that stickiness. Too much water and it does not stick to anything. Today I discovered the easy way to stick a tube of green stuff to a mounting and shortly after have a bond sufficiently strong that the tube can be bend, and manoeuvred to fix the other end correctly - use super glue to stick it to the first position and then the next. Any one else found this ?

Soon I hope the full Belismite platoon will be finished, part of Lord Commissar Belismite's private army.

Sisters of Battle Exorcist progress

2010-12-11T11:18:00.000-08:00

It does not look like much but there has been quite a bit of effort to get to this point. GW has some odd ideas sometimes. The Exorcist kit comes as an Immolator plus some special metal parts to convert to an Exorcist. But without instructions how to fit it together. So on to the GW site to see pictures of a completed Exorcist. Clearly if I had been less experience in modeling there could have been significant difficulties. Anyway here is where it is at at the moment:

The side panels where the doors were to be have been glued in place and baroqued into coherence with the GW supplied front and rear metal panels representing extra armour. The launchers have been partially assembled. Everything had been undercoated white and a base coat of TauSept Ochre applied. Bolts/rivets have been added to the surround for the door replacement panels through the simple expedient of cutting off rivets/bolts from spare IG tank metal work and gluing them on. Better than superglue rivets and easier than plasticard dowel..

Rhino for Sisters of Battle Finished

2010-12-05T11:56:00.000-08:00

Work on the Exorcist progresses, but there is little to see.The metal components need quite a bit of flashing sanded off and pins placed to hold the components together. The finish is not what you would expect with GW plastic kits. So while the Exorcist progresses unseen a bit of work has gone on with a new Steel Legion meltagunner using a Kreig meltagun from Forgeworld, the last Belisimite squad is almost finished just needing a bit of green stuffing and there has been a bit more work on the second Sisters Rhino, which is good as I just got the second sisters squad from ebay. A lot cheaper than GW at the moment. Here is the Rhino including its interior. Flash used for the interior, otherwise the flash is not used for my photos.

So what has changed since you last saw it? The purity seals, and the Sisters insignia on the rear door.The purity seals are Forgeworld. £6.00 a packet plus P&P from them or £2.49 including P&P from ebay. The rear door insignia has been cut from a spare top hatch. The oil drum and trenching tools from the IG and a spare storm bolter from the Exorcist. Thats it.

Sisters of Battle Penitent Engine - A Dark Redemption

2010-11-28T06:34:00.000-08:00

From this to that. The Penitent Engine is finished. The Penitent Engine mini epitomises the dark side of the Imperium. Even the purity of the Battle Sisters has a dark side. Who should be strapped into such a lethal machine of painfully visceral redemption? The wicked are punished formally and through the law. And in any case are too untrustworthy to be made a component of such a powerful weapon. Hence the troubled innocent troubled with a great conscience over trivial misdemeanours will be strapped in for their redemption and doom. Once importuning for punishment and forgiveness reaches an unsatisfiable pinnacle the Cannoness ruling their order will have them strapped into one of the Engines. These Innocent Penitents demand that their sins require a purgation through sacrifice in the fire of battle such that no mission may be permitted by their conscience to be merely a suicide mission to end their suffering. Endless battle and suffering is their fate until the inevitable happens and they are pitted against a superior foe. Should the battleground be held by their Order the remains of the engine and penitent will be salvaged to be patched together with other components for the next penitent. In trying to create the feel of such a machine the only colours used for the engine itself were metallics and washes.

Sisters of Battle Exorcist Kit Bash

2010-11-21T04:57:00.000-08:00

The 40k rumour mill predicts a new Grey Knights codex for next year. Originally I was going to post my Grey Knights here, see below but in the meantime kit bashing instead of painting or finishing has been happening.

To the kit bash. The GW Sisters of Battle Exorcist has many fine details to recommend it. The 40k stat line making it a powerful bit of hardware in the game. And the mini itself. The Kit comes as an Immolator with additional metal bits. But no instructions. However it is straightforward to assemble if a due regard is paid to the images on the GW site and the supplied parts are carefully dry tested.

The model itself has amazing detail which is not immediately noticeable on the GW site images. The Launcher is loaded by a servitor loader with an automated missile magazine and and missile rack. There is a maddened battle sister playing the launcher keys. Aspect of the kit that gave me trouble were extra armour supplied by the metal plates and the access rhino hatches. After all its not a transport anymore. Access is required for the missiles to be loaded and the driver to climb in but otherwise nothing else. So the plasticard was brought out and new side armour and a rear door assembled. Here are the pictures below. Nothing is glued at the moment so there are gaps. Blue tack is the master.

Second Sisters of Battle Rhino Progress

2010-11-14T05:45:00.000-08:00

Here it is. Not yet finished. The hull top and one side are still not finally glued together to allow access to the interior to finish painting this. I have forgotten to photograph the interior so that will be left for another day. Now it`s almost complete I am thinking of acquiring another squad of the Sisters. Costly as the price with GW has rocketed and also in parallel the prices on ebay have gone up. Anyway needs must. Here it is with laudhaler, pintle mounted storm bolter and hull mounted storm bolter. The paintwork needs tiding up and some additional tank tools added.

Penal Legion

2010-11-07T01:53:00.000-07:00

The second squad of penal legionnaires approaches completion. Left to do are the shoulder pad transfers. Skulls to indicate condemned men and seals with indictment's of their crimes on the opposite shoulder. Here are the 2 squads:

Bits from the bits box used usefully I think.I like the second custodian with his Mordian head and WFB militia club. The "kilted" 2 were bretonnian archers. All the heads were catachian and balded to fit with the codex description of the penal legion.

Next time I hope to have some progress on my second Sisters of Battle Rhino conversion.

Favourite Minis - a bit off topic

2010-10-30T00:54:00.000-07:00

A favourite range of minis from the GW has to be the Mordian Iron Guard. These are now on the collectors pages of the GW site but are not out of production. I find the poses and facial expressions better than the current Cadian plastic range which is reminiscent of modern infantry. The Catachians with their simets and US marine combats are too jingoistically yankee for my taste. Perhaps my preference is just nostalgia on my part as the Mordian Iron Guard were the first IG regiment I collected. I still have one squad left. The remainder have over the years been given away or sold on ebay. Whenever I can use them as veterans such as in an Inquisitor Lords Retinue, or as a veteran squad I do. The formal dress uniform of the Mordian Iron Guard is a bit a a Dan Dare type of futuristic army. Other IG minis I admire and feel are suitably scifi are the Steel Legion naturally and the Vostroyans. The plastics as on the box are unfortuately too retro for my tastes. Unfortunately because metal minis are so expensive now and getting ever more expensive as the GW refocuses it range on its plastics.

Penitent Engine Progress

2010-10-25T07:34:00.000-07:00

OK, here is some progress with this. I envisioned the penitent engines to be recyclable. Strap in a penitent and throw him of her into battle until redeemed through glorious death for the Emperor. Repair the engine and strap another penitent in. These machines would be functional easy to repair and crude and battle filthy. The scheme I chose uses only metallics and washes except for flesh and banners. I have used magnets to hold the 2 parts of the body together making it easier to assemble and paint. The arms are to be attached with wire or possibly magnets if I can find small ones strong enough. Here are the pictures.

Steel Legion Meltaguns #2

2010-10-15T12:49:00.000-07:00

I posted some time ago about a Steel Legion meltagun conversion that I attempted here . I was not too happy about the pose but as a first attempt I thought it could be OK. Later blogger stats revealed that the post was getting quite a few hits and the unease that I felt about the conversion was shared by Tyrus and Dizzy here .

The consequence is a revision and here it is with what seems to be a more convincing pose. Note the mini is not yet painted. Same mini by the way, different arm. More later.

The 40k Universe is a Horrible Place or the Belisimite Dogs

2010-10-09T01:45:00.000-07:00

The 40k future where there is only war to sustain humanity is a bleak and vile anti utopia, an idea germinated from the black future visions of the 1970s when it seemed that the world would shortly end in a nuclear holocaust. Yet when getting down to construct an army for the board killer lists abound with space marines, or chaos space marines or mechanised IG battle forces. The dark elements of the 40k Universe are sanitized out of the picture with the squeaky clean elite units of the Imperium. Yet billions of unknown souls toil hopelessly living in polluted hive cities to serve vast planet spanning industrial factories. The IG is essentially an infantry army using hordes of poorly equipped and trained guardsmen thrown into battle unprepared in the face of unpredictable threats as the elite forces of the imperium are stretched to respond to recognized attacks.

Hence one of my battle forces is the IG Belismite Dogs. Work started on this with the previous IG codex. I am slow I know . But today I feel it is getting close to shaping up. Here is a first picture of the grimy fluff.

There are 3 troop choices, and 2 elite choices, one HQ

Battle Sisters Rhino Progress with Magnets

2010-10-03T09:55:00.000-07:00

Magnets and more magnets. With this second Rhino, 2 sets of magnets have been used. Firstly the floor magnets to hold the imperial dozer blade in place, making dozer blade switchable with the first rhino here. A second array of magnets gives it the ability to hold the Sisters Rhino Ram as supplied. The ram itself is a little bit too small for magnets so this time 4 steel staples have been superglued into a groove scored in the ram. Gives a little bit of flexibility in advance of the expected the Witch Hunters Codex in 2011. See pics below. Apologies for the blurriness of the last image. I had nothing to rest the camera on.

Penal Legion More Progress and some causality

2010-10-02T10:43:00.000-07:00

The second penal legion squad is progressing towards completion. I like the idea of the penal legion squads adding some randomness to the force they are attached to. In a competitive gaming environment where players select a power list to ensure a win by blowing or munching the enemy away typically the only factor that determines the winner is the chance of dice rolls. When this happens you can be certain that the winner is simply the luckiest player not the best general. Power list games often result in a draw. That's the law of averages. Adding a variable element to your force allows a player to rise to the occasion and show some generalship. What made Napoleon, Julius Caesar, Hannibal and Alexander the Great stand out was their ability to turn adverse circumstance to their advantage repeatedly and win despite conventional wisdom that they should lose.
Adding the handicap of not knowing exactly how your force will perform allows the player to demonstrate generalship. Winning through power listing shows the soul of an accountant.

Here are the 2 squads :

Inquisitor and Retinue Styles

2010-09-26T12:29:00.000-07:00

Styles for Inquisitors. There are two basic styles. The shooty Inquisitor and retinue - 2 sages are a prerequisite or the combat munchies Inquisitor and retinue. The last challenge is fitting it all into a reasonable points debit. Here are my 2 attempts. firstly the shooty Inquisitor and retinue and then the combat munchies.

Question - how many points in each squad?

Easy Shotgun Conversions for Imperial Guard Veterans 40k

2010-09-25T09:26:00.000-07:00

One long term project is the completion of a squad of veterans armed with shotguns. There are a few conversion guides around on the internet but they all seemed fussy. Here is another way to do it.

Ingredients are one catachian flamer barrel for the shot gun barrel. One lasrifle cut down to provide the body and one crossbow from the warhammer militia box. An extra hand is also helpful. The pictures should be self explanatory.

Basic ingredients

Nascent shotgun in center with extra hand at top

The models chosen for the veterans are naturally veterans themselves. They are original games workshop imperial guard, Bob Olley sculpts. It seemed appropriate to use older minis for the veterans.

Sisters of Battle Rhino progresses slowly

2010-09-20T12:55:00.000-07:00

Some more work on the gunner. Anyone who has built an Immolator knows that the gunner sister is just a front shell to be glued to the seat back. To sit in an open turret ring requires a back to be fashioned. It could be scuplted from green stuff I suppose. My solution was to add a cope using the hanging skull drape supplied with the kit and fill the gaps with green stuff. Reasonably effective I thought. Here it is and the tmin linked bolter. Hands form an IG heavy bolter team. Turret ring modified to support a mount for the bolter. Here are some pics, low quality as the lighting is poor at the moment.

Penal Legion Progress

2010-09-19T12:33:00.000-07:00

Time is not on my side. Progress has been incredibly slow, partly due to multiple projects and also down to life. House moving and work, fighting with windows on my PC etc has eroded time for painting and modelling. Anyway some progress has been made.

Question, what type of comand squad is applicable and game legal if all troops choices are filled with penal legion squads?

Sisters of Battle Rhino #2

2010-09-05T05:28:00.000-07:00

Too many projects and not enough time. Anyway a little progress with the second rhino for the Sisters. The stormbolter gunner has been essentially created from the original immolator gunner. The torso, head and arms come from the original immolator kit. The hands and attachment to the storm bolter are from an IG bolter gunner while the mounting comes from the central control box on the immolator. A bit of green stuff and glue should finish it all off.

From above to the almost completed turret gunners on the right.

The other projects on the workbench are some Ogryns from ebay. The second squad of penal legion and another squad of the Belisimar chem dogs.

Inquisitorial Henchmen Conversions

2010-08-14T08:01:00.000-07:00

Some simple conversions:

The mystic -

A simple conversion from a bright wizard.
Remove the staff and substitute a spare chainsword and glue a spare IG pistol in holster at his side.

The acolyte #1 -

I have never been a fan of the games workshop acolyte figure with the plasma pistol and a backpack full of grimoires. Acolytes have only 15 points for wargear the plasma pistol costs 15 points by itself. In the game the principal job of the acolyte is to take a hit for the inquisitor. There is no point then in giving an acolyte an expensive plasma pistol when he could be dead in the first turn. So here is the conversion. Chop off his plasma pistol hand and give it to an IG officer. Give hime a spare hand. Chop off his head and attach a catachian cool sunglasses head. Finally chop off the shrine at the top of the stick and give him a spikey weapon head. One cool acolyte at 8 points read to take the bullet for the Inquisitor.

The acolyte #2 -

This is an elf figure that came free with one of the White Dwarfs. Add one storm shield. Originally the base of a IG tank mounted hunter killer missile and one 18 point acolyte that might take several bullets for his inqisitor and survive

The close combat warrior -

This model started out as one of the Black Templars Chaplain Grimaldus' retinue of servitors. One of the flame throwing arm mounted balls has had spikey bits glued on to make it into a power club. The other arm attachment was removed, a blob of green stuff attached and bits of the plastic cadian circular vox arial attached to make a power fist.

Movement Trays Need to be Used

2010-08-06T11:30:00.000-07:00

Movement trays do need to be filled. The Bretonnians caught my eye while browsing the latest Warhammer rule book. So here they are :

Two boxes of them have been combined to give a mega squad of 28. Each box has 16 minis but 3 in each box are suitable only as part of a command squad. No shields yet except for the standard bearer. His is held in place by blu tack. Shields make painting difficult so won't feature until I have the squad finished.
Out front are the 2 dog mascots. Next step is green stuff to fill some gaps, then sand and PVA glue for bases. After that its onto base coat spray and then painting in worn browns and grays. That's the plan anyway.

Here is one of the spares :-

Next time back to the steel legion or the Sisters new rhino. These are the main projects. I find that a bit of variety helps develop each project to fruition. Does anyone else find this?

Movement Trays

2010-08-01T02:35:00.000-07:00

Slightly off topic I decided to build a squad of Brettonian men at arms. In the process I came across the GW modular movement tray. A cunning bit of stuff allowing the collector to build any size of movement tray. Just cut the floor size you want and then cut and glue the edges as desired. The only limiting step is the provision of only 16 corner pieces which limits each pack to 8 movement trays.

Here is is with the 7 x 4 tray for my Brettonians just built.

Progress with Penal Legion Squad #2

2010-07-25T00:22:00.000-07:00

Here they are

Progress with the Steel Legion

2010-07-24T03:35:00.000-07:00

No posts as time has been spent on holiday and painting 2 platoons of steel legion. They are not finished yet. What I am trying to do is to keep all the minis at roughly the same level of paintedness all the time. I find completing on squad at a time is disheartening when there are loads of models to do. The scheme is simplicity.
A white sprayed base coat. This was followed by a 50/50 mix of rotting flesh and bleached bone finely sprayed on. The coats were then washed with gryphonne sepia to give depth, then boots and helmets painted with calthan brown, trousers gey and weapons gun metal and all washed with devlan mud. Straps and respirators have been painted dheneb stone and are due to be carefully toned with gryphonne sepia and devlan mud. After that the coats need highlighting and tidying up.

Start of a new Sisters of Battle Project

2010-06-25T00:38:00.000-07:00

Just another rhino, but with the existing immolator and rhino and an exorcist as yet unmade I have a few bits and pieces to customise anther rhino. This time I decided to have 2 cupolas on the top of the rhino with a battle sister firing a storm bolter from one. I used the spare immolator gunner for the figure. Its easier to convert plastic than metal.

Here is it so far :

A Blast from the Past

2010-06-20T07:23:00.000-07:00

There are some quite good old models. Do they have a place in5th Ed 40k?. The Arbites models with their carapace armour could be used as veteran Grenadiers? The problem is converting the modern special weapons, basically heavy flamers and meltaguns. Are there any guides out there?

Penal Legion and Steel legion

2010-06-14T12:48:00.000-07:00

For now a second squad of penal legion have been constructed from the bits box, while the steel legion paint job progresses. Here is the Steel Legion Command HQ with senior officer on veteran with a sniper rifle, one with a meltagun, one with a grenade launcher and a medic. The paucity of Steel Legion officers left me with the question of how too identify one as a senior officer. This has been done by making his helmet slightly more ornate and adding 2 death heads as rank badges to a side sash painted on his greatcoat. Simple but effective.

And here are the second penal legion squad, close up and then a long shot

The models are plastic and have been stripped using Tesco's own dettol equivalent. This is quite good with plastic models that have been undercoated with GW white primer. With the black primer is leaves a stick black coating on the model. The guys with the kilts were brettonian archers. All the heads need sanding to leave a bald surface. The Custodians head came from a spare Mordian torso. The expressions on the Mordian Iron Guard is quite ideal for a penal custodian figure.

Production Switch

2010-05-15T12:30:00.000-07:00

Remember the Steel Legion minis being stripped at least a year ago. More minis have been accumulated via ebay. There are enough now to have 2 platoons, each of 2 squads, plus a Command HQ platoon with 2 heavy support squads, if allowed, one with lascannons and one with missile launchers.

The time between then and now has been spent on other projects and also on considering any modifications to the squads and how to paint them.

Anyway here are the 3 command squads. Given the paucity of Steel Legion officer minis from GW, the question was how can one of the 2 officer variants be converted minimally to appear as the senior officer.

The paint job is not yet finished. The colour scheme is close to that of the classic GW minis. Spot the sniper rifle conversion and meltagun conversions.

More Sisters of Battle

2010-04-30T09:04:00.000-07:00

Just posing to mark their acceptance into the troops choice list. Besides that I posted a while ago regarding stripping paint from steel legion minis. Yes they are in the schedule and are progressing, the camera has just not found them yet. Back to stripping, I decided to try to paint strip some plastic cadians quickly painted some time ago to a very basic table top standard for a campaign. Lo and behold tesco dettol equivalent strips plastic minis as well and without softening the plastic but only if they were base coated with GW white primer. For reasons I don't recall now some were primed with black GW primer. With the latter the topcoats of paint were removed but the black primer became a sticky smear over the plastic. I have left the 3 black primed minis in some more dettol to see what might happen with a longer soak.

Penal Legion Squad - Almost Done

2010-04-24T09:02:00.000-07:00

Here they are in action :

I am quite pleased they way these minis have turned out so far as they were created from the bits box. The heads were catachian or warhammer militia, the torsos cadian, catachian or warhammer militia and the legs were mainly cadian with 3 conversions. The poses are supposed to be characterful. The eyes have been deliberately left white to show the desperation and berserker madness of these troopers forced through the explosive collars to redeem themselves by their own inescapable mortality on the battle field.

The minis still need a bit of hard edging on the shoulder pads and some insignia there. To accompany the identity tattos on their foreheads I thought that in Hells Own, Penal Legion 666 the official description of their crimes might be inscribed on one of their shoulder pads to accompany them to their battle field redemption.

Penal Legion

2010-04-18T11:58:00.000-07:00

It does not look like much but here is a bit of what I managed this afternoon. More to come.

Penal Legion Progress

2010-04-18T02:26:00.000-07:00

For me the penal legion troopers should wear parts of standard IG uniform. No one in their right mind would want to spend money on a bespoke uniform for the scum sentenced to the Penal Legions. If the squads continued to wear the uniform they were wearing when they were arrested, this could create a multicoloured rainbow legion, which to the military mind might not suggest punishment or proper discipline.

The IG would be unlikely to design and supply a bespoke uniform for these short lived troopers, yet the military would want uniformity of appearance if possible. The troopers would be unlikely too survive long enough for for than 1 or 2 to in any squad to be in rags.

In some legions as part of military discipline the Legion Quartermaster could have siezed the uniforms from all prisoners as they arrived have them dyed a dark grey to hide the grime and dirt and then redistribute them in the wrong sizes to the newly arrive troopers. This is what I have attempted to achieve with this squad.

The Custodian has a different uniform to distingish him from the criminals. It would be unlikely but not impossible in some circumstances for the custodian to be a criminal of the same magnitude as the troopers as he will have access to the explosive collar controls.

There is still a bit to go before the paint job is finished.

Penitent Engine

2010-04-16T15:19:00.000-07:00

Started a while ago. Paint scheme only recently decided on. Basically metallics washed with the new Games Workshop washes. Expect slow progress.

Off Topic Ratlings

2010-04-03T08:08:00.000-07:00

Both Ogryns and Ratlings are two of the updated Imperial mini releases where I think GamesWorkshop have not done themselves any favours. I still prefer the old mid 1990s style. I discovered I had some surplus ratlings, here they are prior to going on ebay.

Even a squad of only 3 ratlings in cover has caused distortion of an enemy's plans out of proportion to their points cost, a measly 30 and despite their relative fragility with low leadership and toughness only 3 and a 5+ save.

Battle Sisters Rhino and Squad Done or is it!

2010-04-02T03:43:00.000-07:00

Here it is finally done or can you spot the omission? Look carefully and you will see that the upper bodywork on the rhino is still not fixed to the chassis. The two parts stick pretty well together without glue but the sem lines are just a little bit bigger without glue.

To get the rhino with the ecclesiarchial superstructure you need the immolator kit from games work shop and assemble without the turret. I preferred the flat hatch at the front of the model and the observation bubble at the rear but where they go and even if they are used is upto the modeller.

The dozer blade is held by magnets and so is easy to mount or remove depending on the role of the rhino. The purity seals are green stuff with little strips of photographic paper.

Almost finished Rhino

2010-03-28T12:29:00.000-07:00

The first squad of Battle Sisters awaits their Rhino. Its almost finished. But I have not yet got around to gluing the top onto the hull!

Simple kit bashing for Chimeras

2010-03-21T09:27:00.000-07:00

The Battle Sisters force assembling on the moon of Bubo IX uses indentured Imperial Guard and Ecclesiastical Storm Troopers to deliver a wide front for its attacks but the core punch naturally comes from elite Battle Sisters Units. This force known locally as the Emperors Breath combines Imperial Guard support units from a variety of sources. The mechanised elements therefore need to look can look different.

Here are 2 of the looks that I hope add a bit of character to this force.

As supplied to the indentured Imperial Guard Light Infantry armoured fist units.

The basic chimera has been modified with the addition of a fascine carried in front as a rough terrain modification.
The hull mounted lasguns have been blanked off with spare track as extra armour. The glacis plate hatch has been modified by moving it higher on the hull. Sisters of Battle iconography has been added to the rear entrance to hull. The turret has been markedy modified. The turret I always feel is the weakest part of the Chimera. Here a twin linked heavy bolter has been mounted. The turret hatch has been raised and spaced added armour plates, derived from spare dozer blades and hull bits from the spares box have been added. Overall it gives the model a more substantial presence. The twin linked turret heavy bolters have been mightily feared by opponents when the rules allow them to be deployed.

The Ecclesiarchial Storm trooper's Chimera
has have a simpler modification process. tracks have been added to give extra armour protection. The turret still sports a multilaser, this time one from a sentinel kit. Extra armour plates around the turret, a raised turret hatch and comms equipment give a slightly superior feel to this model. Remarkably this model is also on its second paint job. Originally it was a dark brown while serving with the Steel Legion but on transfer to the Stormtroopers and Bubo IX a lighter sand coloured scheme was required.

On the bounce Seraphims

2010-03-20T11:41:00.000-07:00

To give these jump pack fast attack battle sisters a bit more oomph I have detached the thick toe tips from their bases and using a pin vice attached them to their bases with unfolded paper clips cut to various lengths. I have in mind to add vines or shrubs to these thin metal supports to hide them further. Anyone else done this to their Seraphims?

An older model

2010-03-20T08:46:00.000-07:00

I have many older minis, and here is one that will be coming off the shelf when the witch hunter's rhino is finished.

Demolisher finished

2010-03-01T12:20:00.000-08:00

In keeping with the up close and personal approach to Imperial tactics the demolisher besides it cannon has a hull mounted heavy flamer as its principal defensive weapon.
The Lady mascot/icon on the turret comes from a spare Brettonian knights helm.
The rebreather mask was added to the commander to fit in with the Belisimar Imperial Guard theme. I am working my way through 4 squads of these conversions.

Sisters ( of Battle) and Magnets

2010-02-28T06:00:00.000-08:00

First experiment with magnets. 2 inside the hull of the rhino and two glued to the arms of the bulldozer blade. Magnets from ebay!

The bulldozer blade that comes with the Sister's tanks is so weedy that I decided to attach a spare IG blade using the magnets. Here is the rhino all together.

It is still a work in progress. Exterior paint job to finish and the interior to start.

Here it is with an immolator completed previously

Demolisher Progress

2010-02-14T12:14:00.000-08:00

Here are the latest photos of the paining progress. There is still a bit to do but so not much.

The Mordian with the meltagun is one of my Inquisitorial retinue that is also in progress.

Steel Legion Meltaguns

2010-02-08T09:46:00.000-08:00

Meltaguns are in vogue with the current Imperial Guard Codex and 40k rules. The Steel Legion range of models special weapons - only in collectors on the GW site is limited to plasma guns and grenade launchers. I wanted a meltagun for my command HQ. Here is the conversion. First I used a sergeant body. The one with the detachable laspistol arm and the chain sword. The chain sword arm was amputated just above the elbo.

Next the melta gun was constructed and then 2 composite arms from the Warhammer militia bits. Gaps wer filled with green stuff. All the composite bits were pinned together for strength. The model needs a bit more trimming and tweaking. The pose is not comfortable but is acceptable, I think. But not now. The mini has had a rework here : meltaguns v 2