Even more Space Slann

It's all about Space Slann this (and hopefully next) year. I've recently finished an almost complete set, plus my mate Evo is showing off his collection on his own blog. I have a few more on the go, and while I've never seen a complete Space Slann army in all my gaming career (which includes a stint in GW retail in the early 90s as well as more than a decade at GW HQ!) maybe we will soon (unless other shinies distract us...)

11 of the original 12 Space Slann, plus an unreleased one.

The Leadpile Rogue Trader Battle Report

It's been a while since we've been able to organise a seasonal Rogue Trader battle report, but Colin over at the Leadpile blog has posted an awesome one, so go read that :-)

http://theleadpile.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/christmas-is-saved-rogue-trader-battle.html

Clutches of Chaos Crossover Project

Greetings people of Terra! 

So, a week or two back I was reading through some old blog posts pondering how my promise to update more regularly has turned the interwebs into a den of unspeakable falsehood, when I came across some pictures of a Realm of Chaos warband I'd converted up, followed by the comment that I'd decided to re-do them as the Citadel Dark Vengeance set had at that time just been released and I really liked the look of the plastic cultists in that set. That coincided with my mate Curtis of Ramshackle Games fame prodding me for a game of 1^st ed 40k, something we've been meaning to do for ages. So, I rolled up a new warband and got converting, and here's what I came up with.

Its a Slaaneshi warband, and the leader is a Navigator Major Hero with the Face of a Daemonette and Resilient (+1 T) rewards. Her crew consists of 11 humans, all with bolters, plus a missile launcher and a lascannon.

As these things will, this all coincided with a chat I'd been having with Paul, who runs the Sho3box blog. This blog is really worth checking out and to be honest everything I wish I had time to do with Tales from the Maelstrom he's doing better than I could anyway, so go check it out. Anyway, we got chatting and decided we'd do a conversion exchange, inspired by the fact that we're both starting our own 40k Realms of Chaos warbands. The plan is to each convert a model and post it unpainted to the other, who will then paint it and use it in a battle report to be posted on their own blog. As Paul hasn't revealed the exact theme we've agreed on I won't either, but suffice to say its inspired by the choice we've both made of Chaos Patron...

Click on Rogue Trader Ramirez to be transported to the Sho3box blog...

So then, we've agreed a rough deadline of Easter 2015 to carry out the exchange, so we hope to have our warbands completed by then so we can both present our battle reports at around the same time. I'll post my progress on my warband as I go along, and in fact I've started painting the models shown above since I took the pictures, so I'll have more progress to show soon and hopefully spur me along the way.

Until then, cheers!

Rainy bank holiday hobby

With gardening rained out, I got the chance to do some hobby today, in the form of converting an army standard bearer for my 3rd edition Warhammer Norse army. Here he is, alongside King Krakenwolf and his Valkyrie household.

Old School Inquisition

A while back, I showed a picture of my 'retro rebuild' Ordo Malleus Inquisitor, a conversion I made based on the old Rogue Trader / Realm of Chaos era miniature. 

The classic Inquisitor, and inspiration for my conversion....

The conversion itself.

And then, it was featured in White Dwarf, a fact I totally forgot about until I came across this picture while browsing this blog...

http://www.ozdestro.com/blog/white-dwarf-issue-6-its-chaos-time

So no one can say there's no old school in White Dwarf! ;-)

Cheers!

3rd ed Warhammer Norse

So then, a while back I started a Warhammer 3rd edition Norse army, largely driven by the fact that I first attempted this as a kid back in the late '80s when the original White Dwarf army list was published, but didn't get very far (Rogue Trader took most of my attention I guess!). However, this little collection, along with the box of various other miniatures I've collected for it but not yet assembled, has been glowering in an accusatory manner at me for the last few months, reminding me to carry on.

The army's mostly Foundry Vikings (including some ex-Citadel, which aren't yet assembled), Gripping Beast plastics (great for amassing a proper shieldwall!) plus the Reaper Storm Giant and various bits from Ral Partha Europe and elsewhere.

Then, recently, Gripping Beast released some new plastic Arabs, which got me thinking about doing a Warhammer 3rd Arabian army. They'd certainly be a nice match up with these Norse, perhaps fighting over some lost treasure in the Border Princes, where I'd love to set a campaign. Gadge has a 3rd ed Skaven army on the go and thanks to an unexpected but thankfully brief spell of unemployment, Evo has an entirely painted 3rd ed Dark Elves army which is a thing of glory, so there's scope for plenty of old school fantasy fun.

Or, I could get around to painting the last three unpainted Space Slann in my collection and sourcing the one that I need to complete it, or I could finish painting the Warhammer Quest set...or...

That's why I posted this really, in the hope that putting up a work in progress picture will spur me on to finishing them (as if...)

Cheers!

Painted Rogue Trader

And here's the Rogue Trader I kit-bashed last week. I think his face is the spitting image of Stephen Lang as Khalar Zym in the 2011 Conan movie, so he shall be named Lord High Admiral Lyng is his honour!

Rogue Trader conversion

I've always loved the Rogue Trader as a character type, and as such I'm always looking for miniatures to do it justice. I've converted a few over the years, and here's my latest effort.

He can be used in 1st edition 40k easily enough, as the random equipment tables can easily accommodate his power sword, needle pistol and whatever other toys might prove useful. In 6th edition 40k he can very easily use the rules for the Ordo Xenos Inquisitor, as these also have access to the needle pistol, servo skulls and various other gear a Rogue Trader would definitely have, plus Inquisitors can be taken in lots of armies, representing his household troops.

I plan to paint him up in in traditional naval colours- dark blue coat, white uniform, lots of gold trim and the like. I'll post a picture once he's painted. After that I'll do some pith helmeted imperial guard painted in the uniforms of victorian era Royal Marines :-)