Warp Lightning Cannon

Cannon Engineer

 What's this? Two posts in one week? Yeah, well the cannon was a great model to put together and paint. It went together extremely easy with a few options and some colorful crew too. I had to paint it in four sets. The first set being the crew as you can see here with the Engineer. The other sets were the base, very simple nothing much as the vehicle pretty much covers all of it. You can see the base, prepainted below the three crewmen. The other two pieces were the cannon itself and the vehicle frame.

The Crew

The reason for the crewman to be painted separately is obvious. It would be almost impossible to paint them when glued onto the frame. The other two were done apart to paint them easier although I primed them black. I painted the cannon a boltgun metal for a base while the frame was done with a 1-1 mix of Calthan brown and Astronomicon Grey.

Cannon, left side

Cannon, right side

Afterwards I used boltgun for most of the metal on the vehicle with some chainmail in other parts. If you see a lighter silver then that would be the chainmail paint. On the cannon you will see some bronze-like parts, the ones on each side of the warpstone. Those were based boltgun as I mentioned before, but then I used a couple layers of Gryphonne Sepia wash. I let the first layer dry before the second. I spent several minutes rotating the cannon by hand to get an even coat. I did use a gold on the symbols along the side of the barrel

Cannon, rear

The frame, after painting all the metal, was given a good wash of Devlan Mud. Some did puddle around the spikes. Again I tried to rotate the vehicle so the wash didn't pool, especially on the wheels. After it had dried, I used the sepia wash on select beams and planks in order to get some variation. I then gave the all the wood a light drybrush of Codex grey to bring out the wood. I also lightly drybrushed the metal with chainmail. When I finally decided to stop with the painting, I glued the crew and cannon on. Remember that with the plastic cement, it will not work on painted surfaces. You have to scrape the paint off in order for it work. In my case, I used superglue! It also doesn't work as well, but it is strong enough for what I needed it to do. I also added grass to the base before gluing the cannon onto it.

The cannon needed to be pinned for it to attach to the base. The pins are in the bottom of the large wheels. The pins are in the shape of an 'L'. The vertical part goes up through the base into holes I placed there, with the horizontal part of the pin glued underneath the base. I hope you can picture that. If I didn't do that, the cannon would fall off of the base through regular usage.

The last picture I have here shows the crew placement. Not following the instructions, I purposely placed the cannon facing to the back. So actually I have it point to the rear. I just liked it better that way. On second thought I should have re-arranged the crew. Putting the Engineer in the front, the driver behind and to the side of him, with the rat with the wrench on the back platform. Oh well, at least you can see Engineers scope. I used blue as it stands out. It is the only blue in my entire army. It came out pretty good, using Mordian Blue, Midnight Blue, Lightning Blue, and white, mixing appropriately.

Next up will be more Grey Knights, then I have the Vermin Lord and more skaven in line behind them.

Thanks!

Doom Flayers

The latest addition to the army are a couple of Doom-Flayers. I now have more weapon teams than I have units they can attend to. This just means I have more choices! The weapon teams can be quite expensive. Some are basically the cost of another core unit. Try them out before you settle on them. They really are hit or miss, pun intended with regards to warpfire throwers, plague mortars, and ratling guns. These guys can make for a decent flanking unit and can give light cavalry a headache with their 3+ armor save. They were really easy to paint up. I kept to my simple pallet. I did add some other bronzes and such to the metal to get some variation.

Doom Flayers

Look close!

 I had to pin the two halves together through the center frame, else they would just flop over while drying due to the weight. If you look at them from the front, you can see a shiny piece of metal paperclip horizontally in the center. I should have blackened it before gluing it in, but I just got excited about gluing them together. I'm sure you know how that goes. The pics were taken with my phone mostly, so not that great.

 What's next? Well, I have the new Warp Lightning Cannon almost done. I really like this model. Lots of simple detail and also easy to paint and assemble. Which brings me to the old metal one.... I hate that model. About as much as I hate putting together the drop pods! Also, the skaven pushing it are on bases unlike the actual machine, which adds some difficulty to simply basing it. Either way, I will give it away to who wants it. It's still in the box with the front wheels glued on. Just drop me a line. I'm just gonna get another of the plastic ones!

Red Driver

Yellow Driver

Oh yeah, you can see a shot of my ancient Doomwheel in the back. That is from... 1999 or 2000, so don't judge me by how that looks. I was younger then!

War Machines

Skaven Slaves

 I believe there was a request a few posts ago for some slaves. I added another thirty slaves over the past few days to make a unit of 55. That is a mess of squeak! Armed with spears, in horde formation, set to receive a charge, they could possibly create some damage. I don't count on that, but that is a possible 40 attacks.  I have also included my unit of slave slingers. Useful? That depends, it is another horde formation of 25. They can put out some shots, but won't hit very often. I have also included some pics of the guys in the units as well as the rat swarms. I do miss the option to give them poisoned attacks. The movement trays will be completed soon too, so please don't jump on me about that.

Slaves! To the front!

Slingers

Slave Musician, the last to die

Member of the Slaves

Rat swarms

Thanks!

Grey Knights

I have finished my latest squad of Grey Knights. Not really a complete squad, but a unit of jump pack troops and some additional footsloggers. Already I have 35 regular Grey Knight troops with 9 terminators including Stern. I plan to add another 5-8  guys soon enough. Some of them are the metal ones. I will be adding in at least another hammer and at least one with a warding staff on a Justicar.

The basics of how these guys are painted are fairly simple. I did do something different than previously. I used a spray gun for the initial coats. A black undercoat with the Army Painter, then a spray of boltgun metal to get the basic shading down. I didn't aim for the crevices. Then a coat of chainmail spraying down from the top to about 3/4 of the way down. This left a graduation from the bottom recesses to the top. Also, the colors came out very smooth.... 

Here is the first guy, a Justicar using the kneeling legs from a regular space marine bit. As you can see I have him on a stick to make things easier to paint. I usually put no more than 4 minis to a stick, depending on what they are, such as skaven. On items that require more detail, then no more than three per stick. I will consolidate when I can. It's the laziness in me. I tried to make each one unique as I already have quiet a few sets of twins from the metal ones. 

 Here is the first of the Interceptors, 3 halberds, one hammer, one sword, and the Justicar with the falchions. They basically use three colors, black, white, red, silver, and gold. Very simple to  paint and quite quick, then you get to the detail.

To make them unique, I gave each guy a different shoulder pad and/or name. It's getting more and more difficult as there are only so many ways to paint a shoulder pad. I am also running out of names, but I do have a book of names used by writers. The designs are simple, a stripe, or a half, or other splitting of colors. I hope to make a collage of the other shoulder pads to show how many variations I have come up with.

Here are my new footsloggers. I made two with psilencers just to add to the armory. You can also see a Justicar with a hammer and another guy with falchions. The hammers are bleh, due to you can only pose them in one way. The falchions will be appearing on other models in the near future as they are easy to add, look good, and can fit onto any marine.



Here is a better view of the shoulder pads. I have a huge amount of decals and will cannibalize them for swords (dark angels) or skulls to be used on these guys. Many of them are from the Sisters of Battle decal set



Thanks again!

Scythes of the Emperor

First off, I must point you to this site. This is from where I garnered my inspiration:
The Scythes.com There is a crapload of great models and history here, my stuff is decent, his stuff is awesome.
Anyway, a quick background of my Scythes. They are survivors of the battles that took place on Miral. I have made the army mostly out of scouts with some veterans as Sternguard thrown in. Since most of the Scythes fell, the Chapter must replenish itself quickly. Per Codex doctrine, members of the Scythes must rise through the ranks beginning as lowly Scouts. This is why the army is predominately Scouts.

As with most of my projects, I build for character not victory. This doesn't mean I like to lose! The army is very quick, and geared towards anti-infantry. With all the flamers in the army, I can catch a player off guard very quickly. I did my best to make each guy unique, either through head swaps, different accoutrement, or other manipulations that you will see in the future.

Here are the first of my Scouts...

Speeder Scout Squad

The Speeder itself was hand built. As at the time of my creating the army, GW had not yet released theirs yet. I am always willing to use pre-made models, but sometimes you just have to make your own. I can go into that later if I get enough requests. I did document it incase I had to make more.

The veteran sergeant is equipped with a handmade combi-flamer and a really old terminator power fist, Rogue-Trader era I presume. I got the powerfist from my friend Mike.

As for the symbols. I modified a decal sheet from Bell of Lost Souls.

Speeder Scout Squad Vet Sgt

Some News.....

Finally, right? Good news and bad news. First the bad, we put down my good friend Penny today. We will miss him. Thanks friend! More bad news, no pics of Grey Knights, but the good news is I have pics of my Scythes of the Emperor coming soon, very soon....

Where Have I Been?

Sorry, it has been so long. I will have something up in a few days, more like a week. Bear with me. It has been a tough few weeks, school, trip to Sarasota for a Skills USA competition (my guys didn't place), and now find out our cat has cancer and about three months to live.

As the british poster says, 'Keep Calm and Carry On'