Some New Death Guard!

Still inexorably grinding through my Death Guard models.  Here's some stuff that I've painted since completing the Daemon Prince.

Malignant Plague Caster 

I decided to treat myself and picked up this special edition Malignant Plague Caster from the Space Marine Heroes 3 set.

Myphitic Blight Hauler

For this happy little guy, I decided to challenge myself and learn how to paint fancy lenses, which ended up being a nice focal point.

Deathshroud Terminators

Finally, I slowly plodded my way through finally painting my Deathshroud Terminators.

At this point, I'm pretty darn close to 1,000 points of painted Death Guard! Now I need to figure out what to prioritise painting next. My first 1,000 points ended up taking to the field for my first game of 9th edition Warhammer 40k, and I had a blast. The Death Guard won, but it was a very close match vs. the Drukhari.

Some New Orks!

Weirdboy

I've had this converted Weirdboy sitting around for years and decided to take a break from painting my Death Guard and knock him out.  He's been staring at me begging to be painted for quite a while.  I decided to represent the old editions mentioning weirdboys carrying around a copper staff to ground their barely controlled Waaagh! energy by simplifying the base model's staff with a piece from the Bubblechukka mek gun.

Kommandoz

Years ago I converted 10 of these Kommandoz and then proceeded to never paint them.  The squad represents one of my initial attempts to use green stuff, and it probably shows.  Several of these models are cannibalized 2nd edition starter box plastic Goff Orks who have had their base model cut up to accept some more modern parts.  They're slightly shorter than newer models and of course predate Boyz coming with 32mm bases.  Oh well.  Here's the first 5, just in time for an amazing new plastic Kommandoz kit to be  teased.

Mek Gunz

I painted one Mek Gun (no crew yet) and converted a 2nd Smasha Gun out of spare bits and old toys, and am pretty pleased with the result.  I couldn't resist painting Pong on the screen.

Here's a spread of my converted Smash Gun next to one from GW's site using my leftover bits from building my Kustom Mega Kannon.  It uses part of an old Gorkamorka trukk as the main chassis.  I have it primed and ready to go on my painting desk after I took these photos.

I'm both excited and terrified with what the new 9th edition Ork Codex might mean for my Ork collection.  What's looking good for Orks to you?

Nurgle Daemon Prince

 A Nurgle Daemon Prince After A Long Absence

Hopefully I'll start updating this again more regularly.

Don't have a ton to say, just that it's 2020 - a frustrating and exhausting year for everyone so far.  During quarantine, I've managed to paint 22 models, which I'll hopefully gather photography for to share in posts soon.

In the meantime, here is a Daemon Prince of Nurgle I've finished.  It is set to lead the Death Guard army I've vowed to finish a Battalion for before the 9th edition of Warhammer 40k arrives.  I have 5 plague marines and 1 HQ (TBD) on my painting desk left to meet this goal.

This daemon prince utilizes:

1. The Age of Sigmar Khorgorath model as a base
2. The mouth of a goblin
3. A nurgling from a Death Guard kit
4. An Imperial Guard Ogryn head
5. Claws from the Space Wolves "Murderfang"
6. Wings from an AoS Vargheist
7. Some maggots from a Death Guard kit
8. An icon from a chaos space marines kit
9. A decent amount of sculpting to fill in gaps/making the original model less "Khorne-y"

Painting this up went really slow as I experimented with new inks and washes I hadn't used yet, as well as new colors I had purchased but never cracked open.  My motivation to paint died off for a while.  I used to want to paint entire models in one sitting and I simply cannot do that anymore, so a change of mindset was required.  For a larger model like this, I used to take multiple sittings but would typically block out entire stages at once.  This went a lot slower and gradually than that.

Addressing the Backwaaaagh!

Oops!

A while back I said I was going to finish my ork army!  I went on a quest cleaning, assembling, converting and priming every last possible model or potential conversion I could make for my Ork army, and I actually accomplished that task.

...But I never got around to painting.  My desire to actually play 40k meant that I did a bit of a sidebar to assemble a small Space Marine force for guests who aren't quite prepared to bring their own forces to play at my house.  Well, I got *that* built too, but I still haven't played yet.  After getting approximately 1350 out of the planned 2000 points of Space Marines built.  I decided that I wouldn't continue with them until I actually got a few games in against them with my planned opponents.

So, what to work on next?  After trying to decide between painting my orks, working on Thousand Sons, Death Guard or my Tyranids.  I decided I'd take another crack at finishing my Orks.

Here's what I've done so far:

1. 2 shoota boyz that had had (poorly) converted big shootaz removed and replaced with regular shootaz
2. 2 boyz armed with actual big shootaz
   
   
   
3. One of my 3 warbosses who had been given a newer, larger axe (an old Ogryn conversion who has been leading the charge since the early days of 3rd edition).
   
   
   
4. A brand new Nob to replace the somewhat unconvincing (and small) Cybork that was previously leading my Shoota Boyz.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. A Nob bearing a Waaagh! Banner.  This is the old Nazdreg model with some modifications, mainly a banner I built out of some spare parts and a steel nail.
   
   
   

Yay!  Seven models so far.  Trying not to get disheartened, but here's what's left.  Keep in mind they're all assembled (or as assembled as I'm willing before painting) and primed.

1. 4 deffkoptaz
2. 3 Killa Kanz
3. 1 Warboss
4. An Attack Squig for the last of 3 warbosses
5. 3 more Stormboyz
6. 8 Kommandoz and 1 Kommando Nob
7. 1 Scratch Built Trukk
8. 1 Painboy
9. 10 Gretchin
10. 1 Runtherd
11. 5 Mek Gun Gretchin
12. 1 Kustom Mega Blasta Mek Gun
13. 1 Nob with Waaaagh! Banner (mostly painted, just need to paint new banner arm)
14. 4 Meganobz
15. 1 Big Mek in Mega Armor with Kustom Forcefield
16. 1 Big Mek on bike with Kustom Forcefield
17. 4 Burna Boyz
18. 3 Nobz not affiliated with any squad but give me options to run smaller units of boyz

I'm pretty sure "that's it".  Seems like a lot, at least at the speed that I paint.  That's 54 models, but if we're going purely by numbers, I did 6 already...that's 10%!  Hooray for...double digits?  Some of the larger models will take me a while, but there are quite a few small models that will go pretty quickly too.

I'm thinking that part of my strategy will have to included periodically doing one of the deffkoptaz or kanz or the trukk to break things up.  It will be too intimidating if I leave all of the large things for last.

How do you break up your work?

Magnets: How Do They Work?

Magnetized Helbrutes

At some point, I had a total of 4 Helbrutes: 3 from the Dark Vengeance kit, and 1 from the Multi-part kit with all of the options.  I acquired the first Dark Vengeance Helbrute from the set itself.  Number two came from eBay (~5 dollars I believe).  The third was a gift from David (surprise!).

Dark Vengeance Helbrute with magnetized arms and modified sarcophagus.

Since the one I acquired from David was painted and assembled, I used my completely unpainted Helbrute as collateral in part of the trade that garnered me more than 3,000 points worth of Tyranids.  I stripped the paint from the one David gave me.  It was completely painted, but did not match the style of my army, and I had other plans for it...

Originally I was just going to run two Helbrutes, but once I acquired the multi-part kit, I was inspired to try my hand at magnetising as many of the weapon options as I could manage.  Originally, the combi-bolters on the power fist arms were magnetised, but it became too obnoxious and I glued the guns on permanently.

...and besides, combi-bolters are cheap and effective in 8th edition!

What inspired me to magnetise 2 of my 3 Helbrutes?  I came to realise that the multi-part kit had multiple arm mount joints for the same arm.  Two for each, I believe.  After fighting with some knives and green stuff, I managed to carve away the Dark Vengeance arms and slot in some magnetised stumps to join my weapon arms to.

The guns snap over the bit on the left with no need for magnets.

I was able to magnetise the following:

• Reaper Autocannon
• Twin-Linked Lascannon
• Multi-Melta
• 2x Power fists with combi-bolters
• Missile Launcher
• Thunder Hammer
• Plasma Cannon

All Magnetized and ready to go.

I didn't want to deal with figuring out how to magnetise the Power Scourge and in 7th edition the Heavy Bolter option seemed kind of lacklustre.  All of the gun arms save the missile launcher slot in to the gun mount without the need for additional magnets.  It's a rather tight join, which I imagine will occasionally wear away the paint once painted.

Enter 8th edition, and I've traded off the statically posed Dark Vengeance Helbrute.  I have two magnetised Helbrutes and a painted copy of the Dark Vengeance Helbrute.  Since I'm not super enthused about the multi-melta in 8th, I once again decided to try my hand at converting a replacement 3rd Helbrute with my leftover weapons.

Number 3's load out of Power Scourge and Twin-Linked Heavy Bolter seems like a pretty efficient horde killer unit, and I'm excited to get it painted up!  Modelling this guy was very similar to carving up my magnetised Dark Vengeance model, but I had to fill gaps and attempt to make it "fit" without having any more arm mounts to utilise.

Power Scourge and Heavy Bolter.

How did I do?

Get Pelted

And Now For Something Completely Different

So far, all of my posts have more or less been about Warhammer 40,000.  While I've never played Age of Sigmar (yet) or its predecessor Warhammer Fantasy Battle, I played a metric ton of Necromunda.  My love of Necromunda and wanting to stick a foot in to the Old (old) World made Mordheim: City of the Damned a lock for my interests.

Instead of showing off a current work in progress, I'm going to showcase my Human Mercenaries from the realm of Middenheim.  Replete with beards, hammers, wolf pelts and a much more savage appearance than the other mercenary bands, I was ecstatic to crack open my starter box and dive in.  I was equally enthusiastic to build my Skaven warband, and the split between the two (and lack of enthusiasm for the hobby side of things by my regular opponent) meant that it took me quite a while to finish either.  I don't think I ever finished an entire Necromunda gang or any of my Mordheim warbands save this one.  I don't know what happened, but at some point I buckled down and finished the entire group.

Yay! Finished!

The warband is painted in a much simpler style than what I tend to do now.  There are almost no highlights or shading.  My goal was simply to paint as cleanly as possible.  I arrived upon a striking blue as my primary color, paired with some greys, browns and greens for their no-nonsense clothing and fur cloaks.

Mercenary Captain with Sword, Buckler and Dueling Pistol.

Despite shields being fairly inefficient and costly in the initial rules set, I couldn't resist including these wolf's head shields that I had acquired in trade along with some old WHFB goblins.  I aimed to have a significant amount of variety between models while still having a functional and competitive warband, and I really enjoyed playing Middenheim quite a bit.

Hammer Bros.

There are some questionable painting decisions here and there, but I think they hold up pretty well.  They have a very no-nonsense appearance and the paint jobs are neat and tidy.

Please Hammer, don't hurt'm!

Most importantly, they're something I actually finished (if you ignore the bases)!  Despite a similarly simple painting style, the larger number of models and constantly shifting armaments meant that my Skaven never got finished.

Youngblood, armed like the Hammer Bros.

With the release of the new Necromunda and Mordheim being "dead" for several years, I content myself by occasionally playing the Mordheim PC game, which has a pretty steep learning curve.  It's not a flawless game by any stretch of the imagination, but after butting heads with it on several occasions, I came to enjoy it quite a bit.

Swordsmen with bucklers...I found these two to be super effective!

At some point I'd like to double back and put all of my Mordheim stuff on circular bases.  Square bases never made sense for a skirmish game, and now that AoS is also using circular bases, there isn't much reason not to.  I'd like to touch up some of the paint jobs since they're so basic, but I've got so many other projects...probably not the best use of my time.

Youngblood with dual hammers! Notice a theme?

Mohawk'd Scouts

Dakka Dakka Dakka.

Here's a group shot of my new Space Marine Scouts.  I have two squads of plastic scouts, one of which you can see here, and 2 Scout sergeants.  The one pictured had a bolt pistol that I replaced with a storm bolter I pulled off of a Deathwing Terminator from the Dark Vengeance boxed set.  The storm bolter was ruined from when I removed it, and I had to replace the part back by the grip to make it look more convincing.  Removing the bolt pistol from the metal model was a pain.  Thank goodness for a good pair of clippers and some heavy duty metal files.

The other scout sergeant that I have is a metal space wolf scout that I picked up in a bag of used models.  He'll be joining my sniper rifle armed scouts in a similar fashion.

You can see that I've opted to give my younger scouts all heads with mohawk heads to honor my roots in 2nd edition.  I even remembered to carefully remove the service studs!

A lot of these mohawk heads came from (you guessed it) David.  I believe a lot of them are from the Vanguard Veterans kit.  Apparently all of the scouts from the old Space Crusade board game grew up to be Vanguard Veterans?  I guess.

Ready to pity some fools.

While these conversions were very simple, I definitely made it harder on myself than I needed to.  I kept breaking bolter barrels or losing parts on the carpet.  I have to accept that sometimes I'm just too tired to assemble models.  I drilled out all of the neck holes on the bodies so that the heads would fit in, but I had to carefully carve down all of the necks to fit.

In case extra pitying is required.

I think the extra effort was worth it.  Hopefully you do too!