Brettonnians Magnets and a side step

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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.