Choices, Choices: Xenos or Imperium?

I'm trying to get back into a regularly scheduled hobby habit, but I've run across a problem: which army do I focus on? Right now I'm interested in two factions, Eldar and White Scars. More specifically, I'm attracted to the new hotness Codex: Harlequins, as my love for space clowns is an odd but enduring part of my 40k experience. And look at this magnificent model:

The details on the new Solitaire are incredible, and his rules look really solid as well. Getting to move 12" ignoring terrain at all times is a huge boon for an assault model. Plus, painting this guy will be a blast. Notice the domino effect on the back of his coat.

I hate paying $26 for these new plastic character kits, but you really do get what you pay for with GW's new sculpts. I've got this guy, a voidweaver, and two skyweaver jetbikers waiting for me, plus whatever conversions I want to make to my Dark Eldar venoms and wyches to incorporate them into a Harlequins force. 

On the other hand, with my recent Imperial Knight acquisition I've been itching to work on my homebrew White Scars chapter, the Ravening Angels. The schtick is that this is a spaceborn chapter that's spent a bit too much time in the Eye of Terror and relies on xenos tech to outfit their marines. Here's my take on a multi-melta attack bike:

The conversions here probably demand some explanation. The base kit is a Dark Vengeance biker. The head has been swapped for a Dark Eldar Scourge helmet, the chainsword has been replaced with a Wraithblade, and the back wings have been clipped from the bike and replaced with a brass banner from http://www.steelfistminiatures.com. 

To represent the second rider and the multimelta, I've added a chaos warhound toting two of the Necron deathmark rifles, slung over its back with a bit of greenstuff. The idea is that, like Space Wolves, the Ravening Angels have conscripted some beasties into service, in this case carrying heavy weapons. The greenstuff should represent some hard tack, and the warhounds will also see use as Fenrisian wolves for a small detachment of counts-as Thunderwolves. I've been using bits of the deathmark rifles as various special weapons, including grav guns and meltas. It's a really cool jumble of tubes and wires!

But now I have to decide: Imperial semi-chaotic bikers with an Asian theme, or xenos space clowns? Eldar are always my first love, but I'm already pushing 6000 pts of painted elves already. The Ravening Angels, however, require a ton of TLC per model. For some insane reason I decided to drill out all the bolters, for instance, and each bike involves at least four additional bits of kitbashing. And don't get me started on how long it takes to paint a bike....

Any suggestions for what I should focus on next? Leave your comments below!

~Doctor Sprocket

Back in Blue

The last six months of my life have been...interesting to say the least. I've finished and defended my dissertation, applied to over eighty jobs, and generally twisted myself into and out of intriguing shapes and situations. I am exhausted! And the process is ongoing: I have a Skype interview at 10:00am tomorrow morning, and I'm still waiting to hear back from two others.

I haven't had much time for 40k in all that time. The Redstone Rumble back in October was a blast, and it marks my last real hobby progress with my Eldar. I bought a second Wraithknight kit and used the extra bits to finish off a troglodon conversion I'd been musing over for a year. An Exodite Wraithknight, or 'Dinoknight.' I got the two models to a decent three-color standard by the Rumble and went 4-1 in the tournament, losing to Jeff O in the last round. Not too shabby. And then, job applications, dissertation writing, and 40k burnout.

Fast forward to this past weekend. I missed out on the 2015 CAGE match thanks in large part to shenanigans in professional life, so when my friend Josh from Georgia told me about a small 40k tournament in Macon at the MGA Convention, I jumped at the chance to see my college friends and throw some dice. The missions were going to be 1850 pt BAO standard fare, and as I had never played in that format before, and had no idea what competition to expect, I set my sights mostly on painting. I finished the Dinoknight.

I'm pretty pleased with the way this guy turned out. The base kit is the GW Carnosaur with two suncannons attached to the sides (counts-as heavy wraith cannons), an Eldar rider courtesy of the DE Venom sprue and some spare Kabalite Warrior bits, the spirit syphon from a Cronos, and a brass banner from Steel Fist Miniatures. Also, SO MANY GEMS!

These three fellows performed quite well, all said and done. Backed up by triple Wave Serpents and fifteen lesser Iyanden wraiths, I went 5-0 in the tournament and snagged Best Painted! The swag:

I'll try to find the time later in the week to write up some battle reports. I faced some high quality opponents from Valdosta (Team Bird Dog) and put Iyanden through its paces, facing Eldar, Imperials, and Demons over the two days. Now if I can only find the motivation to finish my Tenshi-Tachi Marines and have a reason to field that Knight!

~Doctor Sprocket

A Little Modeling...

40k has been in a lull at the Castle of late, so I have turned that lack of game time to a little modeling instead.

With the rising prices and GW's ever changing rules, magnets have become a good investment on dual kits (Exocrine/Hausprex) or units with various
weapon load outs (Tau Suits).

First thing I decide to tackle were the Tau stealth suits, as it only has one option, 1 in every 3 suits can take a Fusion Blaster. I used 1/16 magnets for this project. A caveat on magnets this small, they must make flush contact to hold. If contact is flush plenty of holding power, if not flush or not making contact they rapidly lose pull.These little magnets look huge on the suit:

After drilling both guns out I can now swap weapons:

After the success here, I moved on to a bigger a challenge, the Piranha. This was a bit trickier to do as you have to magnetize the turret mount instead of the weapon, also need a bigger magnet so went to 1/8, which has a lot of hold.

As you can see I went with magnetizing the chin cover to hole it all in place and still give me a swiveling gun.

Previously I had done one of the big bugs, the Hausprex/Exocrine dual kit. This guy used a lot of magnets of the 1/8 (arms) and 3/16 (heads) to get good holds.

Exocrine

 

Hausprex

 

In fact the holds are strong enough on the heads you can carry it around by either one. I learned a few handy tricks doing the heads on this one.

Trader's Remorse

I have really missed my Orkz a whole lot. I traded them awhile ago for Eldar because I wanted to try something new. I should have never done so. The Orkz were probably the funniest army I have ever played. I loved the randomness in the army. For instance, my Shokk attik gun once blew itself and the lootas it was with. The next game, he took out phalanxes of Necrons. 

Don't get me wrong. I still like my Chaos stuff, but they are not orkz. 

So I picked up the new codex (still have some mixed feelings about) and set out a game plan for collecting. 

Right now all I really have is da warlord, da Kernel Kurtz. Inspiration for this army came from watching Apocalypse Now. The warband that Kurtz has is intriguing to me. Translating into Ork Kulture, my Waaagh! will have Blood Axes and Snakebites. 

Here is da Kernel so far:

Here is Da Dead Shiny Shoota

And finally a size comparison

He has Finkin' kap on as well. I have some interesting background for the Aporkalypse Now themed army, which will be posted soon. 

The body is from an Ogre. That is Commissar Yarrick's hat, da dead shiny shoota is made with necron bits, and everything else is from the Nobz box set. 

I plan on doing some painting very soon, and the other warboss in the tribe will be converted from a fantasy savage warboss

Update: Furtive Foxes and Fantasy

I am switching to Dark Elves for Fantasy. Maybe it is because I have been playing dread fleet, but I want to have a dark elf raiding army. Plus, I love their miniature line. 

On to the bigger update, my chief shaman is modeled, and the green stuff is being cured right now. I cannot wait to paint this model. It is one of my favorite conversions I have ever done. Here is the list of kits that was used: space marine librarian, space wolf box set, Fenrisian wolves, chaos aspiring champion, chaos terminator lord. 

Progress

First, I must begin by saying this is the first time in a long time that I have been excited about putting together an army. I am still working on the background on how the Space Foxes became corrupted by Tzeentch to become the Furtive Foxes, but I have made progress in the hobby aspect of them. 

You might notice a little green stuff on these Chosen from the Dark Vengeanxe box set. I have attempted to turn the tattered cloth into pelts. It was a pretty easy thing to do, and I am pretty happy with the results. This is really my first time working with this much green stuff. I wanted to show how it turned out before I put paint to it. 

This is the cloak to the champion of the chosen. This wasn't terribly difficult to do seeing how it was applying green stuff and sculpting it to look like fur. 

This cloak, however, proved to be a lot more difficult. This is my first entire cloak constructed out of green stuff for one of my sorcerers. It took me a lot of trial and error to get the size down correctly. In the end, it seems worthy enough to trail behind one of my commanders. 

Now here is what I have painted. So far I have only completed one Chosen model that was a test model. He cloth also had green stuff applied to it to make it seem like a fox pelt. 

It's a bit blurry, but it shows the general idea. I really like foxes. They are gorgeous animals, and I mimicked the colors as best as possible. Instead of just orange, I figured out how to do a metallic orange. Gloves, forearms, shins, and boots are painted black, and the ab area is white. Blue was used for gems and eyes to make it pop a little. Weapons are bone white. 

A couple of friends who are big fans of Alabama football have said that they had to be chaos since they were Auburn colors. 

And finally the Helbrute. The color scheme worked well for it as well. Skin was done with Rakarth flesh washed with Fuegan Orange, then again with Rakarth flesh. His abs are also white. 

Although my Eldar was the first army where I came up with my own color scheme, I have a huge love affair with my growing chaos army. In all my years of warhammer, I don't think I have put this much effort into converting and bit bashing an army. Nothing was added to the helbrute, but the pelts on the Chosen take the models a little away from being Crimson Slaughter to my vision. 

I'm really looking forward to fielding completely painted models soon. 

Extremely Hairy Chaos Space Marine Redux

The call of creating my own chapter was just too strong to continue working on my Word Bearers. Currently all models in traitor's red are enjoying a nice mean green bath. 

I love Space Wolves a whole lot, and I love Chaos a lot too. And this new edition coming out has me really excited. Some might gripe about the unbound organization chart, but here are my plans with it. I am going back to the Chaos Space Fox chapter I have came up with. I think I might stick mainly with Tzeentch, detailed background coming soon, but I want Khorne berserkers to be like blood claws, thousand sons to be like grey hunters, and noise marines to be like long fangs. 

If not allowed to use the unbound organization chart, I will be going all Tzeentch with daemons as allies. 

My army has it's paint scheme ready, just need to test it out. It's going to a lot of blitz bashing and converting. I plan on having a daemon with a fox head and fur if my commanders ever get dark apotheosis. 

More to follow soon.