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!

Devastator Sergeant

A real simple post this time.  I had enough spare missile launchers from my bags of salvaged bits to craft a Devastator squad for my Storm Dragons Space Marines.  However, I didn't really have the bits to represent a modern Devastator Sergeant with signum.  I figured using some fancy Mk. III armor and some doodads to "tech up" his armor would suffice.  Not sure what to do about converting a cherub, but I'll figure that out eventually.

Devastating.

I gave him a storm bolter from an old plastic 2nd edition Space Hulk terminator that has evolved in to a Chaos Space Marine Obliterator so that he can contribute some meaningful but affordable weight of fire to the squad.  Eventually I'll craft a few additional bolter marines so that I have some mooks to soak up a couple ablative wounds.  What?  Isn't that how you Imperials do things?

Does he look sufficiently tech-y enough?  Let me know what you think.

The Dreaded Backlog

Collecting photography as well as hobby progress has been a bit difficult at the moment due to the looming holidays, but I thought it might help me to sit down and take stock of all of my projects so that I can better plan and prioritize.  Presented in no particular order.

*sigh*

Build Projects:

• Convert old/broken Necromunda models in to renegades and heretics
• Finish building my "Storm Dragons" space marines
• Clean up/strip paint from reclaimed models
• Minor conversion work
• Build ~3,000 points worth of Tyranids.  A lot of the basics are done but need clean up
• Figure out how to convert this Swarmlord "conversion" I acquired without murdering my fingers.
• Strip old Necromunda gangs ("of legend")
• Build New Goliath and Escher gangs
• Clean/Build Rubric Marines/Thousand Sons contingent
• Clean/Build Death Guard contingent
• Continue plodding through backlog of Word Bearers conversions
• Make second unit of Berserkers and enable both squads to have more variation in loadout (i.e. banners, plasma pistols, more chainaxes, etc.)
• Finish 2nd half of converted bike squad
• Decide whether or not to build 2nd box of Raptors/Warp Talons as more Raptors or Warp Talons.  Build.
• Assemble Heldrake that has been laying in cleaned parts for over a year!
• Convert a 3rd custom Obliterator to meet new minimum squad size requirements
• Build my havocs with heavy bolters and autocannons
• Convert Warpsmith
• Build small subfaction of Alpha Legion(?)
• Finish building remaining daemon models
• Squad of Seekers of Slaanesh
• Squad of Plaguebearers
• Build small Khornate AoS faction that David gifted me.
• Bonus: Make a small Inquisitorial warband for funsies

Sort of *sigh*

Painting Projects

• Paint Tyranid army (no big deal, right?)
• Finish painting 600ish points of Orks (and then I'm done!)
• Paint Storm Dragons space marines
• Continue painting more Chaos stuff
• Custom Daemon Prince
• Regular Daemon Prince
• Berserkers
• Rubrics
• Death Guard stuff
• 3 more bikers
• 2 more Spawn
• Havocs
• Repaint my old Necromunda gangs
• Paint Warhammer Quest: The Silver Tower contents
• Paint new Necromunda gangs
• Paint my hodgepodge of daemons
• Paint AoS Khorne models

*double sigh*

Other Projects

• Magnetize all of my 40k armies to work with my new magna rack
• Strip the surface off of my gaming table and refinish.
• Organize my bits to use my new storage boxes and get rid of old, falling apart kit boxes
• ACTUALLY PLAY SOME GAMES!!!

Phew! That's a lot of stuff, and I guarantee you that I'm forgetting some projects.  This is just what came to mind while sitting in front of the keyboard.  I can't imagine what I'd come up with down by the hobby desk.  How overwhelming is your backlog?

They Might Be Dragons (Space Marines)

Dragon-Shaped Chapter Badges

I was going to possibly play the Executioners chapter because I could also get 3d printed badges for them, but I quickly realized that would likely turn in to a huge and time-consuming conversion project.  I intentionally tried to keep my force somewhat conversion-free with a few exceptions (in the event it fleshed out the force on a budget).

Real Scouts have mohawks.
Thanks, once again, to David for the mohawk heads.

This Imperial Space Marines force is comprised of mostly things I already owned or acquired cheaply online or through trades.  It's intended as an army to use primarily for visitors that either don't want to travel with their army or are just getting started.  It was pretty easy for me to flesh out what I had bits and pieces for and turn it in to ~2000 points of Imperial Space Marines.  This force is also the first to get the 32mm base treatment (other than scouts).  I doubt my Chaos Space Marines force is ever going to make the change, but I'm using my surplus of 32mm bases from Betrayal at Calth and some extra from...David (notice a theme here?)

Acquired the apothecary chest and gauntlet
from a bag of bits.  No backpack, but I think my
chunky MKIII bits make it work.

I wanted to make my own homebrew chapter and I wanted to use a 3d printed chapter badge of some sort to make painting heraldry easier.  After much deliberation, I settled on this Dragon Head designed by Pop Goes The Monkey on Shapeways.  I realize that it's intended to represent the Black Dragons chapter, which are one of the cursed foundings rife with mutations.  They are rumoured to be a Salamanders successor.  Perhaps their failed founding is why there aren't any other confirmed Salamanders successors?

I reasoned that it's highly likely that the Black Dragons are going to be one of many chapters to utilise a dragon head as their chapter badge.  There are a decent number of other chapters that have the exact same badge as another chapter and differentiate themselves by their armour colour, I reasoned.  I'm even considering using the Salamanders chapter tactics, but not to represent a successor so much as to use it as a template.  I haven't decided yet.  I've been entirely too wishy-washy about picking something and sticking too it.  So far, all I know is that dragons are involved!

After planning out approximately 2,000 points (which was immediately thrown off by the release of the Chapter Approved book), I first set aside everything that had Imperial markings that I couldn't see myself converting for my much larger Chaos Space Marines force.  Metal models, in particular, were strongly considered.  I have no desire to tediously scrape and smooth metal models.  Currently I own one sprue of MK III power armored marines from 30k (Burning of Prospero; acquired from a friend) and the entire contents of Betrayal at Calth.  I'm using a lot of the riveted MK IV armor pieces on my Chaos Space Marines to represent a mix of salvaged and mutated armor pieces.  Between MK IV and MK III, I've got 30 marines to use as materials.  I'll only be using about half of these for this force, I believe.

Incorporating some of these models is easier than others.  For example, I've got the Dark Angels captain from the Dark Vengeance boxed set.  This guy is just covered in Dark Angels iconography, and it took me quite a while to remove it.

That's a rather large sword.

I've also got this classic metal sergeant model.  I always really liked the pose of this guy, but never owned one back in the day.  I didn't from the angle that he has some kind of weird mullet/rat tail hairstyle!  I set about turning it in to long hair, mainly because I considered it easier than trying to remove or hide the tail.

Pictured: Hairesy.

I also had to make some repairs to this model.  Whoever owned it previously had made an attempt at removing purity seals and other imperial iconography, and had quickly given up.  I had to reattach a plastic purity seal to the gun holster as well as slap a "veteran" icon over the belt buckle.  Since I can't leave well enough alone, I also removed his bolt pistol and replaced it with a storm bolter (which I consider quite an efficient option at 2 points, adding the firepower of an additional tactical marine to a squad).  A chainsword arm and a new backpack later, and all I had to do was slap on my 3d printed Dragon badge.

Here be dragons.

Here's a group shot of what else is built so far (minus what I built today).  I'm not quite sure what to do with the Stormtalon yet.  I acquired it for a decent discount, but didn't realize the cockpit was glued shut.  There's a fellow wearing chaos marine armor inside, so I'm afraid I'm going to have to paint the canopy.  I was hoping to retain a clear canopy, but alas.  Even if I had a replacement, I'm not sure how I would remove this one without damaging the model.  It's frosted like it's superglued on.

Getting awfully Imperial in here.

Let me know what you think!