Greater Daemon of Khorne Progress

The legacy moves on. The colour of the torso and limbs is now close to the base colour planned. The armour edges need need highlighting and shading down and the wings are just starting. They are intended to be back at the end of the day. the level of detail on the forge world sculpt is truly amazing so only the armour has been painted. Other The flesh if you can call it that for a daemon is the result of 3 washes - ogryn flesh x2 followed by Leviathan purple. The wings are adeptus battle grey diluted down 6 to 1 to give a dark grey wash. Next for the wings will be black and red washes before highlighting.

From a gaming perspective who should win - the greater daemon or Karamazov who is almost finished. A duel seems a good idea. 

Inquisitor Karamazov Progress

Karamazov on the painting table today after the main components which had been painted individually were glued together. While White Dwarf often recommends assembly then painting it often is easier to paint discrete sub components and then paint. For Karamazov these were the legs of the throne, the throne its self minus the engine and exhausts, Karamazov him self and the 2 servitors individually and also the multimelta gun.

Karamzov is the sole finecast mini tried so far. As previous posts have indicated this has been a disappointing first finecast mini. Yes some detail is nice and sharp but there a plentiful mould lines and flashing to be trimmed off. The quality of the moulding seems no better than the previous older metal minis. Perhaps GW is using the same moulds hence the same casting problems remain. Perhaps minis that a originals in finecast come out better.

Why choose Karamazov over Coteaz for a Grey Knight's Inquisitor. Coteaz at 100 points is half the price of Karamazov and allows the use of multiple henchmen war bands as troop choices. In a Grey Knight force expendable IG stormtroopers are of limited value when terminators and purifiers can be taken as troops choices. Karamazov is a complete army by himself. A close combat monster with  a master crafted power weapon, WS 4 strength 5, wounds 4  and a 2+ save. He is also shooty with a master crafted multimelta and to cap it all he can bring down artillery in the form of an orbital strike. Whats not to like.

Here are the previously blogged images of Karamazov showing the amount of flashing and the poor fit of components:

6th Edition Woe

Argh. despite advanced ordering the 6th Edition, which is on sale on the 30th, which is today it has not arrived here. Which there was an email from GW 3 days ago stating that it was in the post. The post has been and gone and no 6th Ed. Very disappointing especially as previous advanced orders have arrived either on the day or the day before. Has everyone else got it? Should have gone down the local store early and picked up a copy.

Anyway in its absence the last game of 5th ed was played as a tank tank conflict, like Kursk. Here is turn 1. I lost with 4 tanks destroyed by turn 2. drat drat drat.

6th Edition 40k - Previous editions and old White Dwarfs

The old 40 rule book is dead.
Long live the new 40k rule book

What to do with the outdated 40k rule books, old codexes, and White Dwarfs. What is going to happen to the old much loved and thumbed 5th edition rule book on the 30th June? Its no longer much use. It can't in all honesty be sold except as a curio. It comprises 304 pages of high quality print plus some book marked pages. The same questions apply to the old codexes when superseded and old White Dwarfs. Do they head to the recycling bin. Is there some residual affection for the old book. Is it worth keeping as a hobby reference and if so for how long?

Would you keep it?

None of these question have been answered here as can be seen from from the photos of the shelves in the under stair cupboard.

And that's by no means all of them.

Purity Seals

Certainly  purity seals are the bling of the Inquisition, Grey Knights and Sisters of Battle. The question is can they get enough of them. The GW provides molded on purity seals on some minis and customizable purity seals for some such as Grey Knights. But if you want to up the purity and worship of the Dead Emperor stakes more purity seals are needed. There are a number of options to getting more purity seals to add to minis. ForgeWorld sell a packet of resin purity seals for £6.50 plus p&p. These seals are well sculpted as might be expected but are a bit pricey for what you get. 

Grey Knight Terminators and perhaps other Grey Knight plastic sets also have spare purity seals that can be used elsewhere.

Finally it is possible to make your own purity seals with paper superglue and some green stuff. Here are some made recently. 
 The pictures speak for themselves I think. Stick the bits of paper together

 Add the green stuff and depress the center with the end of a paint brush handle.

Undercoat and then paint.

And finally cut out of backing paper ready to apply.

To this.

Sisters of Battle Time to Audit

This Sisters of Battle project originally started a few years ago and has evolved in its own direction without conscious guidance as models were chosen for availability, fluff, looks, or changes in the codex last summer. Do other collections armies evolve in this casual way or are they as appears in the 40k blogosphere carefully planned for mathhammer. I don't know. These Sisters have had a few outings along the way with mixed success. One lesson learned has been that the extended Seraphim wire connection to the base ( as seen on a previous post) does make them a tad unstable on the table, but psychologically intimidating to their opponent as there seem to be more models present than actually is the case. The collection has been listed with Army Builder which is posted below showing the planned final listing. The only minis yet to be collected painted and added are 5 boltgun armed sisters, one sister superior and one heavy flamer and one meltagun to complete that 3rd troops choice. And that's it, 1996 points.

One of the first units collected were the Seraphim which gave the detachment the honor of being named the (Emperors) Jumping Girls.

How many projects are too many

The second Sisters of Battle Exorcist is still not finished although there has been some work on the crew with the servitor/loader almost done. Time has been spent instead on the greater daemon of Khorne and Inquisitor Karamazov. On the shelf at the same time is an unfinished unit of Arbites. Started with the rumour last summer that the new Sisters of Battle Codex would again include the Arbites, also there on the shelf is the squad of rouge trader era Bob Olley sculpts that were to be fitted out as IG veterans for the Belisimite abhuman IG army. Lying under the painting table is an untouched Hellhound in its box.  On the shelf beside the painting table is the Steel legion. 2 partly finished platoons of 2 squads each, plus 3 special weapon squads with missile launchers, lascannon and mortars.


All these projects don't register as unfinished business but rather as future pleasure. As each project gets finished another gets initiated so that there is always a buffer of several painting or modelling projects to attend to or ignore. This seems to be the way this Artificer's Workshop moves forward Is this a common way or do most gamers start and finish each project as the materials come to hand?

Heavy Support for Sisters of Battle

One problem with the Sisters of Battle is that their heavy support choices are limited. 3 choices and only the Penitent engine can be taken in a squadron.

Penitent engines are random fun up to 3 can occupy a single organisational slot. Hence at 85 points a mini using them in strength can be done. This is needed due to their high target potential and also their unpredictability. The downside of the all metal penitent engine is the work to construct robust mini. If this were not so off putting there could be a horde of up to 9 of these crazed beasts to deliver mayhem across the entire battle field.

Exorcists are more robust but again the random number of shots from these venerable machines can be irritating, and the ability to take several of these 135 point tanks in a squadron would be great.  Always add a storm bolter to the Exorcist to give it a little greater survivability, by leaving it with a weapon once the first choice weapon is destroyed by your opponent.

Finally there is the sensible choice with a Retributor squad armed with heavy bolters and mounted in a rhino or Immolator. Sigh