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!

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!

1,000 Sons

What Am I Going To Do With All Of These Sons!?

There are literally 1,000 of them.

I can't decide if I want to paint them like Thousand Sons.  Here's my debacle -- GW has officially pronounced that other chapters have created rubric marines.  I acquired the new Ahriman model for 18 dollars.  But I have red marines.  Ambiguously red kinda/sorta Word Bearers marines.  Therefore, I intend to simply run the Rubrics (with Ahriman occasionally) as a Thousand Sons detachment that is only Thousand Sons in name.  The sticking point is Ahriman, because I feel lame for having my cake and eating it too.  On the other hand, the Thousand Sons did originally wear red...

Not bad for 55% off.

I didn't even intend to acquire a mono-tzeentch army.  It just kind of happened via trades and bargain bin acquisitions.  They're not flashy new plastic rubric marines and whatnot.  They're old mono-posed metal marines combined with some paint-stripped multi-part plastic and metal rubrics of the previous mark.  Several of them required a little TLC to make field-able again.  I'm not sure what paint the previous owner used on one batch of them, because not even denatured alcohol could completely get the paint off.

Serviceable as an Aspiring Sorceror, right?

Here's the real clever bit though.  Everybody loves the new and expanded weapon options for the rubric squads.  In particular, which 40k player do you know that doesn't appreciate a nice mini gun equivalent?  But how does one represent a Soulreaper Cannon without hunting down those overpriced bits that are probably a little too large on my elderly rubric marines?  I think you'll agree that my FW rotor cannons work pretty darn well!  They're just the right size from the looks of it.

"Soulreaper Cannons"

I also ordered a baggy of warpflamers (which are in far greater abundance than the soulreaper cannons out in the wild) for a song.  Once again, David came to the rescue by gifting me some Blood Angels hand flamers to use as a basis for warpflame pistols.

Don't judge my "warpflame pistols".  It's not like Chaos is
in to "standard issue".

...besides, I've got actual warp flamers.
How many are appropriate in a squad do you think?

There, that's all sorted!  Now I've got all of these rubric marines, but who will lead them?  I managed to convert one sorceror using a combination of left over rubric bits, marine with missile launcher arm, tzeentch aspiring champion head and an old chaos marine sword that I think you'll agree is a pretty believable aspiring sorcerer conversion.

Next up, David was generous enough (after buying Burning of Prospero and then suddenly winning a second copy!) to gift me with the 30k version of Ahriman.  There's aspiring sorceror number 3 sorted.

Two Ahrimans in one army.  Even though he's the 30k
version I intend to convert him a bit.

With all of my acquired rubric marines and parts and 3 sorcerers, I magically have 27 models to use as squads of rubric marines.  A multiple of 9, hmm...perhaps this was fated to happen.  After perusing my models that I own, I have the following to make up a Tzeentch themed contingent:

• HQ
• 1 Tzeentchian daemon prince
• 1 "Could be anything" daemon prince
• 1 Chaos Sorceror in Terminator armour
• Ahriman
• 1 Gaunt Summoner
• Who I feel makes an amazing stand-in for The Changeling
• 1 Ogroid Thaumaturge who is a convincing "on foot" Daemon Prince
• Assorted Silver Tower Kairic Acolytes
• Which I feel make pretty cool Heralds of Tzeentch
• Troops
• 27 Rubric Marines (with 3 aspiring sorcerors to go around) with a combination of potential warp flamers and soulreaper cannons
• 10 Pink Horrors of Tzeentch (shout out to Joe for the old daemons battleforce box)
• 2 "pink horrors" serving as Iridescent Horrors (because they're bigger) from the Warhammer Quest: The Silver Tower box, 4 blue horrors and 4 stands of brimstone horrors.
• This gives me enough horrors to split them up in to two squads of 1 Iridescent, 5 pink, 2 blue and 2 brimstones for a total of 10 per unit, or combine them in to one large squad.
• 20 Chaos Cultists with autoguns/heavy stubbers
• 20 Chaos Cultists with autopistols/flamers
• Elites
• 3 Flamers of Tzeentch
• 3 Helbrutes, 2 of which have magnetized arms
• Fast Attack
• 15 Screamers of Tzeentch.
• They don't seem particularly cost efficient in 8th for what they do, but I acquired them in trade for 4 classic eldar warlocks that I picked up as a potential bargaining chip for trades...this is what I got.
• My reasoning was twofold: trade off the warlocks to prevent myself from starting an Eldar army and build out my available daemons, which could see improvements in the forthcoming daemon codex!
• 5 Chaos Spawn
• Heavy Support
• 1 Land Raider
• although it's sporting Word Bearers FW doors ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
• 1 Predator Annihilator
• liquidated from a local guy's Space Wolves army that I need to "chaos-up" a bit
• 1 Defiler
• shout out to Andrew for gifting me this fellow
• 1 Forgefiend
• Flyers
• 1 Heldrake
• Dedicated Transports
• 2 Rhinos

It burnssss ussss!

I might be forgetting a unit or two.  I dont' have any Tzaangors (other than the 6(?) from Silver Tower), which don't feel necessary, but I like them.  Minimum unit size is 10, sadly.

As you can see, this is enough stuff that calling it the "beginnings" of a Tzeentch army seems silly.  I'm well past that point already.  The thing is, I just kind of acquired most of this stuff through trades or on the cheap over time.  I believe it amounts to about 3,000ish points in Matched Play.

What paint did they use one some of these!?
This is AFTER stripping...

It's worth mentioning that some of these models also serve in my non-aligned "main" chaos army as well as components of a similar and unintended Death Guard force.  Hence the painting conundrum.  For example, I don't want to own more than 2ish Chaos Rhinos.  It seems silly.  I intend to find a neutral, ambiguous paint scheme for my rhinos so that I can use them in my mono-Nurgle or mono-Tzeentch armies and still make sense within the paint scheme of my larger Word Bearers army.

Almost all of these models that weren't acquired 2nd hand were either cost-effective as part of a starter box, battleforce, or completely free due to trades or whatever.  The parts I purchased for the rubrics were simply because I realised what else I had!  The only thing that I legitimately paid top dollar for was the Forgefiend.  Even the Heldrake was a sneaky acquisition (although still not assembled) when I realized that there would an influx in them available online due to Stormcloud Attack.

Five bucks and a lot of paint stripping/cleaning later...

Ultimately, this stuff was all still a pretty good chunk of change, but an equivalent force would cost substantially more.  You also have to take in to account all of the time I spent stripping paint, replacing broken parts, sourcing parts, shipping (although there tends to be a decent amount of free shipping on eBay if you're patient to wait for it).  The cost of entry in to 40k can be daunting, but there are ways to soften the blow.

...Now if only had them all built and playable.

Perhaps I should write an article on how I spun some daemons I acquired from a bargain bin in to an entire 3,000+ point Tyranid army.

Let me know what you think!

A Green Light At the End of the Tunnel?

Backstory

I've been working on Orks for 40k on and off for 23 years at time of writing.  My brother convinced me to split the 2nd edition 40k boxed set 50/50 and immediately exclaimed "I call Space Marines!".  Orks were never my first pick, because I, like many others, were drawn to the weird high fantasy space opera of power-armored knights plying the stars amidst a ruined empire.

A horde-style army is a serious and monetary commitment, and as a kid with limited finances, Orks were a difficult contingent to stick to.  I tried my hand at scratch building and converting to stretch the spare parts in my kits to the maximum and save money.  This resulted in some rather regrettable models from time to time, but at some point I hit a baseline level of quality and consistency that has stayed fairly "modern" that I'm happy with.

Scratch Built Trukk

Yes, my army still contains models that were acquired from the old Gorkamorka boxed set, so they're hardly 100% current.  I have a mix of sizes in my army and I think they hide each other well.  There's enough uniformity in color scheme and basing style to tie the whole force together.

My old Warboss based on a metal Ogryn.  Just in
time for Chapter Approved to gift us with a Big Choppa relic!

All of those identical 2nd edition Goff Ork Boyz?  Every single one of them has been hacked apart and combined with more modern parts, using only the legs and chest as a conversion frame.  All 20 (it was 20, right?) have been re-purposed to bulk out my slugga boyz, shoota boyz or scratch build kommandoz at this point.  Some of them took a brief tour as stand-ins for Runtherds or other models.

Old Nazdred is now a Nob with Waaagh! Banner.
I felt bad pulling this guy apart...13 year old me
won enough in-store credit to purchase my old metal
stormboyz in a painting competition with him.

A couple months ago, I took a long, hard look at every single ork model that I owned and tried to plan what I could do with them.  With my 8th edition index in hand, I set about finalising my force -- completing conversions that I never got around to, assembling squads still on sprues, breaking apart models with outdated armaments, etc.  I even demolished one of my two Gorkamorka trukks and a scratch built Battlewagon (considering I was a teenager at the time, I got some pretty amazing feedback on this Battlewagon before the modern kit came out) to scratch build a larger trukk that matches the modern aesthetic.

I acquired 5 metal meganobz for 5 dollars from a used bin and modified
them with Nob parts from the Stormclaw box...

The start of this project was also the first time I used my new methodology of only feeling beholden to 30-60 minutes of hobby time per night.  Keeping it in small chunks that could be accomplished.  As a result, I have ~3,000+ points of Orks that are cleaned, assembled, based and primed.  I would say that approximately 80% of my army points-wise is completely painted.  After two months of short spurts of hobbying, all that remains is to paint them, but new distractions have arisen...

...The 5th meganob became a Big Mek with Kustom Force Field.
He also claimed Nazdreg's old Power Klaw.

Always wanted a weirdboy so I acquired this AoS
shaman for relatively cheap on eBay and gave him a slight
staff modification courtesy of the Mek Gunz kit.

My five deffkoptas from eBay came with no flying stands.
Five 40mm bases and some steel roofing nails later,
I have something far more durable.

This guy had a brief stint as a stand in Nob for a unit of
Slugga Boyz.  He's built from an old metal Evil Sunz Nob
some green stuff and some parts from a few ork kits.  I believe
the spanner head is from the Lootas/Burnaz kit.

Let me know what you think of these conversions.  Hopefully I'll get some photography of the rest of the force in the near future.