Bloodthirster Greater Daemon of Khorne Progress

Almost finished. Mounted on a larger base to add some heroic Imperial Guard.
Those with sharp eyes will note that its dangly skulls are missing. An unfortunate handhold weakened the chain and as it is so thin it will not superglue easily back. Job for the green stuff later.

Greater Daemon Wing Attachment

Those of you who have been following this blog will have seen that a Forgeworld Greater Daemon of Khorne had been inherited. While it has not featured in recent posts work has been progressing. One hold up to finishing the model has been how to securely attach the wings to the body of the figure. The wings themselves are quite heavy and the curvature of the under surface of the wing attachment and that of the locations of the wings do not match. It proved impossible to locate the wings snugly into the body sockets. Initially it was hoped that some pins would support the wings but pinning and superglueing did not prove robust enough.




The next attempt used green stuff to raise the level of the torso sockets for the wings and to match the curvature of the wing attachment surfaces. 4 pins were also fitted to each wing socket. Finally the dried sculpted green stuff socket surface was covered in liquid green stuff to try to ensure aherence between the surfaces across as large a surface area as possible. The pins were superglued into holes on the opposite surfaces as well. Once the superglue had dried and ramining gaps were sealed with liquid green stuff. Painting the joints back up to the colour scheme has now commenced. More on this in a later post.  

Steel Legion Veterans 1st Squad

The first Steel Legion veteran squad has only just commenced. There are 6 minis available. A missile launcher team, 3 riflemen and a sergeant. Adding 2 veterans squads to the existing 2 Steel Legion platoons will give the Steel Legion army 4 troops choices and extra assault and heavy weapons. It will also allow the Steel Legion IG army to ally with the Sisters of Battle with minimal but hard hitting troops choices (2 veterna squads when finished) allowing the maximum allied  points to be spent on long range artillery of some sort, which the sisters tend to be short of.

Adding a heavy flamer to the veterans squads gives a squad with 2 heavy weapons, which sound good, so the second heavy flamer steel legion conversion is underway. The mini for this conversion is the vanilla sergeant from the Steel Legion boxed set, which by the way can still be bought from GW for around £20 (UK), including p&p. No need to pay crazy ebay prices for 10 Steel Legion. Last weekend a used boxed set of 10 standard vanilla steel Legion went  on ebay at auction including p&p for £25. Why, when GW are still selling them?

Back to the conversion. this requires one vanilla sergeant with detachable laspistol arm and attached chainsword other arm. To fit the heavy flamer simply saw off the chainsword arm (GW saw recommended) and remove the bedroll and water bottle from the back of the mini (GW clippers and emery boards from where they are cheapest). Next the heavy flamer and 2 replacement arms need to be constructed.

Here is the start position after removal of surplus bits :  

Steel Legion Mortar Battery Finished!

Finally done and sheltering behind the remains of Osgiliath. Where next with the Steel Legion - perhaps some veterans. The question is how to distinguish them from the standard Steel Legion minis given the difficulty sculpting metal figures.

Battle Reports : How do you do it

GW is looking for a "cinematic feel" for playing a game of 40k. On the other hand the battle reports in White Dwarf have more of the feel of match of the day and a learning experience.

Here is a battle report from a local campaign. Each side was able to issue its own report. Can you tell which side won this particular battle.  The idea was to have some fun in the campaign and its off board milieu.

Easy question to answer actually. The question answers itself.

Is there a place for this type of fun reporting of 40k games?

What is done and What is not done

Its near the end of 2012. So here it was thought that there should be a review of what had been completed. This thought was initiated by a review of posts being viewed yesterday. One from the list was titled project pipeline:- here  This was a post in 2011. And there has been little progress with the three projects mentioned therein.

But there has been progress elsewhere. 2012 has been the year when the Grey Knights project's shape took form and the Sisters of Battle and the Steel Legion projects came close to completion. Ideas in planning include an Ogre Warhammer army and a 40k minimal, veteran artillery allied army for the Sisters of Battle, more terminators for the Grey Knights, and some tweaks to the Steel Legion to add more special and assault weapons, plus of course the 3 projects still in the pipeline, and then there are still the Space Hulk minis to paint. Ideas come faster that the time available to paint, as ever.

Have a good 2013 when it comes and thanks for reading this blog.

Steel Legion Mortars Progress

Getting there, but not done yet. Much effort has been spent on bits of Osgiliath on these bases. The standing Mortar loader is missing his left hand as it is glued to the mortar shell at the moment. That dark blob at the base of the shell. This time of year makes progress slow.

Once the mortars are completed the only remaining steel Legion minis here at the moment are a half squad of troops, perhaps to be promoted to veterans - but how to differentiate from non veterans in an easy way. There is also another recently acquired via ebay sergeant that is intended to be converted to another heavy flamer trooper. BTW a basic original box of 10 steel legion on the GW site is still competitively priced at at £20.50. Don't pay crazy ebay prices for steel legion.

Troublesome Preachers Redeemed

Preachers are a fluffy addition to Sisters of Battle force, yet what exactly is their place in the battle line. As independent characters in the SoB codex a basic Preacher costs 45 points. Up to 5 may be included in an army for a whopping 225 points for 5 assault orientated basic humans with strength 3, weapons skill 3 and leadership 7 with flak armour, eek. This is supposedly offset by initiative 4, attack dice 2. Initiative 4 only puts them on an equivalent status to most SMEQ opponents, no real advantage there when going toe to toe with power armoured power fisted chaos space marines etc. Perhaps the real value of the preacher is with the available options, yet there are few options and the only interesting one is the eviscerator giving 2 strength 6 yet initiative 1 attacks. Unlikely to be useful against anything that can hot knife and butter slice through flak armour. Yet wait , the Preachers have an invulnerable save, actually they have 2 which is markedly odd as well. They have the special rule Shield of Faith giving a 6+ invulnerable save and as standard wargear they have a rosarius giving a 4+ invulnerable save!

Obviously the rosarius save is useful yet the Shield of Faith special rule must have contributed to the points value of the basic Preacher, as does the rosarius.

The final special rule of Righteous Rage possibly pays for the fluffy ambivalence of the other rules for this mini. Add a Preacher to a squad of death cult assassins and put them in an Immolator for toasting the target prior to assault. Then you have 5 x Weapons Skill 5, Initiative 6, Strength 4, Power Weapons Attacks 2 with re-roll for any misses. Give the Preacher an eviscerator with 2 attacks and a re-roll and rosarius for survivability for a total of 145 points plus Immolator at 65 points. Becomes slightly scary as a serious total disruption and decapitation assault unit, no?