With very little time on my hands at the moment, I unfortunately lack the patience (and motivation) to crack out the paints and finally finish some of the stuff I have built, while my painting backlog is getting bigger and bigger. That is the bad news.

The good news is that, even while being completely swamped in work at the moment, my urge to create something hobby related remains as strong as ever, so what little hobby time I have at the moment is almost entirely given to converting and kitbashing, those most delicious of hobby activities — at least in my opinion

But what do I have to show for it? Well, today I would like to talk abouta pretty long running project of mine that started out as merely wanting to do something productive with some leftover bitz and then quickly spiralled out of control, as will occasionally happen with my hobby endeavours. So what is this about?

Everything started over a year ago, when cousin Andy gave me a WFB Chaos Lord on Manticore for my birthday. Now it shouldn’t surprise anybody that I quickly found a use for the fantastic Chaos Lord bitz that came with the kit: Some were used to create a wretched Chaos Sorcerer (to be used as a traitorous Primaris Psyker for my Traitor Guard), some others went into the creation of a Khorne Lord on Juggernaut that I have yet to show you.

But when all was said and done, there was still a whole Manticore left, and I didn’t really have any good ideas for that guy: He was simply too fantasy to be seamlessly absorbed into one of my 40k projects. The one idea that seemed to have some merit, then, was to try and use him for building something daemonic.

You see, my Khornate army is fairly short on daemons. And there’s a reason for that, of course: The image I have of my army doesn’t gel all that well with the stock daemon models: The warriors of the 4th assault company are doing their damnedest to keep functioning as a coherent fighting force, so it’s hard to picture hordes of daemons prancing around among them. If I were to use any daemons, they would have to fit the look and feel of my World Eaters, and the most obvious way of achieving that would be to make them fit the underlying metaphor of Khorne’s Eternal Hunt. So instead of regular Bloodletters, I might use packs of (slightly) daemonic hounds, hunting ahead of the legionaries. And instead of a standard Greater Daemon or Daemon Prince, I might use a huge daemonic beast an Avatar of the Hunt, if you will — hence my original idea to use the Manticore in that capacity.

However, my plan to build a four-legged monstrosity – not unlike a titanic Flesh Hound of Khorne – didn’t quite get off the ground: I would simply have needed too much sculpting to make that work, something far beyond my abilities (and my patience). So back into the box the Manticore went.

But then I came into the possession of some leftover Maulerfiend bitz, and my creativity was rekindled: What about using those to turn the Manticore into a hulking, biomechanic monster?

Here’s my first attempt at building such a beast:

As you can see, the combination of the Manticore body and the legs and arms from a Maulerfiend led to a hulking, almost apelike silhouette. While the model seemed malproportioned and brutish, I rather liked the look, though. It also got me thinking what this model would actually represent in my army, beyond simply being a way of using some leftover bitz.

The idea I came up with was that this monster would be used whenever a champion gets transformed into a Daemon Prince by a roll on the Chaos Boon Table. Now you might say that a) that seems to be a pretty specific and limited use for a model of this size and b) this monster doesn’t really fit the established look of a DP, right? Hear me out on this:

You see, A Daemon Prince doesn’t really fit the background of my army for several reasons: Lord Captain Lorimar is the supreme commander of the 4th, for one, so there wouldn’t possibly be any DP with more authority than him, least of all serving under him. What’s more, I feel the ascension to daemonhood wouldn’t necessarily be seen as a boon by the warriors of the 4th: The legionaries have done their best so far to keep mutation and madness at bay, rather electing to remain “human”, for lack of a better word. For them, being elevated to daemonhood would not be an ultimate price to be craved, but rather a horror not so far removed from the curse of spawndom. And with its hulking body, the WIP model seemed to reflect that: Where a “normal” Daemon Prince is a sinister, darkly angelic figure, and an embodiment of chaotic power and boundless ambition, I wanted my DP to look like this huge, malproportioned monster that is part ape, part hound and part Astartes. I imagine that, upon ascending, all the rage and fever for the hunt that a member of the 4th assault company has been bottling up for so long will overflow and turn him into a huge hunting beast, mindless and terrible.

So the next step in the conversion was bascially to make this guy look like he could actually have evolved out of an Astartes. And, of course, to add all kinds of bitz to make him look suitably imposing and monstrous:

As you can see in the pictures above, I added the warped remains of a CSM backpack and the shoulder pads from the regular Daemon Prince kit to hint at this guy’s Astartes origins. And the tail from the Manticore kit made the DP’s silhouette more interesting and ambiguous: The pose and proportions may seem pretty much like those of a gorilla, but the head and tail point more toward a hound or entirely daemonic creature.

I also started to use some GS to blend together the seemingly disparate parts:

You might have noticed that the model was still lacking some feet at this point. That was to become quite an issue, as fellow hobbyist Ben kindly sent me two sets of Maulerfiend hooves for this conversion, only for them to both be lost by those geniuses at the German postal service. Nuts!

Understandably enough, Ben didn’t have a third set of those hooves to spare, and with that setback, the conversion ground to a hold for a couple of months until another fellow German, Sagal, was kind enough to let me have some hooves from the WFB giant. That finally gave me the motivation I needed to work on the model some more. Here’s the model as it looks right now:

As you can see, I also changed the pose of the left arm to achieve a slightly different look: With both arms held in front of its body, too much of the model seemed to be obscured. The new hooves also gave the Deamon Prince a more upright pose than I had originally planned, and that particular element might need some more work.

At the same time, more GS and Liquid GS were used to make the transitions between the different parts of the body more organic and plausible. And I also emulated Dave Taylor’s really clever idea of adding metallic sockets to the creature’s body, using GS. I did this in order to represent the ports that used to connect the former Astartes’s black carapace to his power armour (For all those interested, Dave succinctly explains how to create this effect here).

The finished model will probably be gripping some crushed masonry (or maybe an equally crushed loyalist Astartes) in its right fist. And it goes without saying that I will have to design a suitably impressive base as well. Maybe I’ll use the base to make the model lean forwards a bit more, making it look like it was preparing to barrel forward on all fours, as suggested by DexterKong — as a matter of fact, the longer I keep working on this guy, the more questions arise. But even though some parts of the model still need to be sorted out, I rather like the overall effect. It is an eclectic creature, to be sure, but eclectic and malproportioned was what I was going for in the first place

While this project seems to come a bit out of the left field, I have really been working on this guy on and off for about a year now, and it seems like he’s finally nearing completion. Much has happened in the meantime, and TJ Atwell’s fantastic “Bull God” , using a slightly similar premise, almost made me ashamed to show you this silly little conversion of mine. But then, I think that, with a bit more work, this could really become yet another model to define the specific look and feel of my army, and I like that a lot!

And in gaming terms, I imagine the model could even be used as a reasonably convincing GD or Maulerfiend: Maybe that spiky tail could even count as lasher tendrils…?

Anyway, I realise that this model might be a bit of an acquired taste. But working on it has taught me a lot, and actually using these bitz for something is certainly preferable to keeping them in my cupboard of shame forever, right?

That said, I’d be happy to hear any thoughts and ideas you might have! Let me know what you think in the comments section!

And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Another week, and here I am, still happily pottering away in the small amount of hobby time I have. Let’s take a look:

First up, my kitbashed Daemon Prince. While reactions over here were pretty sparse, unfortunately, the forums provided more feedback this time around: I was happy to find out that the model was far better recieved than I had anticipated, plus I did get some extremely useful criticism out of the deal as well! So I ended up spending some more time on this guy, trying to take the various suggestions on board and further improve the model.

DexterKong, among others, remarked that he felt the original, more crouched pose was a better fit for the bestial, animalistic feel of the model. Dexter said that,

(…)in my mind I keep seeing this guy bounding forward on all fours.  In most of my visions of him, his front “paws” are on the ground, and his rear legs are kicked back in the air as he savagely runs at a target, like a wolf or a wild boar.  On the off-chance the limbs are not all attached, I would experiment with lowering his chest and head toward the ground, and go for more a quadrupedal pose.

Now while the original pose didn’t work for me (because it made the prince look like he was trying to hold on to the base for dear life), I certainly wanted to channel the look Dexter was talking about. So I slightly changed the pose of the left arm and made sure the model was posed closer to the ground. Here’s the result:

I am pretty happy with the pose and think that this is really the best of both worlds: The left arm is still held away from the body in a more open pose, but now it somehow looks less like the Daemon Prince is giving one of his underlings a paternal pat on the back and more like he’s mid-swing while tearing something apart.

Some people on the German forums pointed out that the model’s back seemed to feel a little empty, making it look too much like the monstrous mount it originated as. So I used a leftover Crypt Horror back piece to add some suitably gross vertebrae to the Daemon Prince’s back:

Since this picture was taken, some GS and Liquid GS have been used to blend in the new additions with the surrounding area, and the effect is pretty convincing. The picture also clearly shows the lumps of modelling putty used to fix the model in its more crouched pose — this will obviously have to be achieved by the design of the base on the finished model…

Speaking of which, the piece of wall on the base is really just a placeholder for now! Myfavourite approach would be to have the DP clutching the fallen window piece from the Honoured Imperium kit in its claw, although I’m not sure whether I should purchase that kit just for the one element. It’s a fantastic kit, though, so I am at least a little tempted…

All in all, I am hugely thankful for the constructive criticism I have received regarding this model,  because I think it has really managed to improve the Daemon Prince:

But the Daemon Prince is not the only model on my desk: Having to wait for the various coats of (Liquid) GS to dry left me with some time to kill, which I used to revisit and touch up some older models.

The first of these I tackled were some additional, kitbashed Raptors (called “Harriers” in my army). You might remember the first bunch of those I built and painted, back before the new plastic Raptor kit had even been released. Well, my Raptors were still missing some Meltagunners, so I whipped some up. I also built another champion for good measure, while I was at it

All three models are based on some leftover Khorne Berzerker bodies I picked up as part of an ebay auction a while ago. Most of these were in a pretty rough condition, but I swore to myself that I would find a way to use them. So with an influx of fresh bitz, I believe I may have managed to rescue them from the rubbish heap. Let’s take a closer look:

The first model is a fairly simple kitbash, just adding some new arms, a new head and weapon as well as a dash of chainmail to the existing berzerker body. I imagine all of these will look far less rough around the edges, once they are completely undercoated. I also added a MaxMini jump pack, since my other Raptor models so far are using the same bit.

The champion originally started out as an additional icon bearer, but I was just never all that happy with the icon, so I remade him as a champion (because you can never have enough champions, right?):

A Warp Talon claw nicely complemented his pose, so I used it instead of his original arm. The helmet is also a slightly more involved kitbash — a cookie goes to you if you manage to spot where the original helmet came from…

And finally, the third Raptor with another Meltagun:

For this guy, I was feeling a little more adventurous, so I borrowed an idea I had seen on somebody else’s thread (GuitaRasmus’s, I believe) to build a more interesting looking weapon for him.

Once I manage to get those painted – whenever that will be – I will have quite a few Raptors at my disposal. And I really like those guys, because they seem so right for a World Eaters army. Also, there is a special kind of joy in revisiting existing models after a while to give them a little extra flair and further improve them.

As a matter of fact, you might remember my post about going back to older models to spice them up, going the extra mile, as it were. Biohazard’s World Eaters bikers were what originally inspired me to write that post (and work on my squad of bikers back then), and now Brother Heinrich’s fantastic Night Lords bikers made me pick up the same squad yet again in order to add even more detail

Nothing big, though: I just added a couple of trophies and small weapons here and there, to make it look like these guys were used to living in the saddle. I also spent some time cleaning up the conversion work, drilling out all the barrels and exhaust pipes, etc. I only have the – slightly fuzzy – group picture right now, but I hope I’ll get around to showing you some better pictures (and maybe even more bikes) at some point in the future.
So yeah, as you can probably see, today’s post is not so much about breaking new developments as it is about incrementally doing small things that make your army better and better. Not as flashy as some huge centrepiece model, I’ll admit, but both approaches are important for an army, and both can be fun!

I am always interested in your feedback, so let me hear what you think in the comments section!

And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Those of you who have been following this blog for a while may already have asked themselves: What about all that INQ28 jazz? Any news? And indeed, it was with a bit of a shock that I realised how long it has been since I last showed you some servants of the Ordos.

Well, fear not, because I’ve recently begun to get some more work in on my various INQ28 retinues. Some of the following models may already be known to those who also frequent my forum threads, but that’s really all the more reason to post them here as well. Plus I could really use the relaxing effects of painting an INQ28 character or two at the moment, so there may be a couple of updates soon (I hope!).

Anyway, today I would mainly like to focus on the retinue of Inquisitor Titus Alvar, a member of the Ordo Xenos.

Alvar himself is a rather dapper fellow, and also an Imperial noble, so I thought he would merit a rather colourful collection of retainers. I picture Alvar as a bit of an adventurer, always taking expeditions to uncharted regions of Space in search of some Xenos artifact or other, so his warband should incorporate some muscle as well as some brains, with a dash of the exotic for flavour. Let’s take a look:

The first member of Alvar’s retinue is this veteran of the Imperial Guard I built quite a while ago:

I like the big gun and the “tough as nails” look and imagine this is the kind of guy Alvar makes use of when negotiations turn sour and diplomacy is no longer an option.

The second member of his retinue was also completed a while ago:

Kroot Pathfinder T’l'kess lost his entire kindred in an atrocity committed by a Tau officer (it’s a long story). He realised that his last chance to keep his bloodline alive might be to travel the stars in order to find members of the brood who left the planet prior to the genocide. During his travels, he met Inquisitor Alvar whom he now serves as a scout and pathfinder.

I imagine this character as a very dignified and honourable individual, a bit of a “noble savage”, if you will. It is also very much in character for a socialite like Alvar to have an “exotic” retainer like this in his warband, even though it might make the more puritan members of the Ordo Xenos foam at the mouth…

It also stands to reason that an Inquisitor exploring Xenos ruins would have need of a specialist in the field of archaeology. And indeed, while painting the model for Inquisitor Alvar, inspiration struck and made me want to convert one of the most underappreciated WFB plastic characters, the Empire Master Engineer — at least, it’s the only model that’s ALWAYS available at the FLGS and never sells out. And to be honest, it used to be the one model I couldn’t see myself using for anything. But it just seemed perfect for this:

Professor Abelard Marbray, of the Bastold Imperial Akademy, formerly one of the sector’s pre-eminent specialists on Xeno-archaelogy. That was before his scientific theories on the warp affinities of certain Xenos were shot down by Inquisitor Alvar at a social function, which rendered him the laughingstock of his colleagues. Alvar visited him afterwards, revealing that all of this had been a conscious move to discredit the Professor, since his theories had been too close to the truth for the Ordo Xenos’ comfort. The Professor was outraged at this, yet when Alvar offered him to join him – not to attain academic merits, but to learn the actual scientific truth – he eventually accepted.

As you can see, the model is a fairly straightforward conversion, with a couple of techy bitz and doodads added. Oh, and of course I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to have the the professor holding and contemplating a Necron skull:

After posting my model for Professor Marbray on the forums, fellow forumite (and actual archaeologist) Llamehead rightly pointed out that the model didn’t really carry all that much gear for excavations, considering his profession. So my options were to either clutter the model with yet more bitz, or construct an assistant for him to do the heavy lifting (or rather, digging). And even though I wanted to resist the urge to build yet another retainer for one of my Inquisitor’s retainers, I couldn’t help it. So I dived into my bitzbox and made an early mockup of a xeno-archaeologist in training:

In my imagination, this guy is a devout student of Professor Marbray and is thrilled by the chance to do the dirty work for his idol. I wanted him to look like he was checking something on a map in his left hand, while his right is holding a trusty old Laspistol. Oh, and I also added a guard backpack to him, as you can see, so he at least has a shovel

The rather frightened looking head from the Celestial Hurricanum kit seemed to be a perfect fit for him, plus it also creates a visual connection with Inquisitor Alvar, which I like. The model still needs some additional detail work, of course, but I think it already works reasonably well.

To round out Alvar’s scientific staff, I recently good a really good deal on the FW Tech Serrvitor for Inquisitor Solomon Lok who should make a pretty great Magos Xenobiologis with a bit of work…

A dandy like Alvar should also have some female members in his warband, of course. Finding suitable models across GW’s catalogue can be quite a bit of a challenge, however, so I had to improvise:

First up, I picked up Reaper’s Sasha Dubois model:

I normally stick to GW models, by and large, but in this case, I made an exception: I have loved this particular sculpt for a long time, plus I think she makes an excellent addition for an INQ28 warband. Granted, she may look slightly “stripperiffic” with that bared midriff, but it should be easy enough to paint that area as covered by a bodyglove. Here’s a link to a very nice, painted version of the model.

My plan for now is to call her Millerna Acheron and use her as an Interrogator for Inquisitor Alvar: It suits his character to have an attractive woman around as his assistant. At the same time, he’s shrewd enough to consciously give the impression that he just chose her as a pretty face to accompany him.

I also bought a box of Necromunda Esher gangers before GW sold out all their Specialist System models, and one of them will probably be added to Inquisitor Alvar’s retinue as some hired muscle:

Shiv Korlund is probably an ex-hive ganger and gunslinger and could be Alvar’s operative for whenever he has dealings in the underhive of a particular world. I also imagine she might have a rather interesting “kiss kiss slap” relationship with the guard veteran…

So those are the members of Inquisitor Alvar’s retinue so far: I think it’s a rather interesting cast of characters, and it will be fun to further flesh them out. It’s also remarkable how things just started falling into place once I had begun to work on the warband! Of course I’d like to hear any suggestions you might have!

Those were not the only INQ28 models I have been working on, though: Some of you might remember the WIP Sun Cultist I posted a while ago:

The model is based on a Dark Eldar Wych and a couple of different bitz. Getting this character to work turned out to be quite a task! However, I have recently managed to complete the basic build of the model:

I now see her more as a bodyguard than a cultist, to be honest: I believe her ostentatious quasi-renaissance outfit makes her look like the trained personal guard of a powerful spirelord, with her movements like those of a dancer: elegant but deadly. The model will yet need some more work, and I’ll need to find a warband for her as well, but I am now feeling really happy with the overall look of the model for the first time.

The last model I want to show you today is still very rough around the edges. It is also merely a fun little project, inspired by a brilliant little conversion I discovered on one of the German forums. I give you the TAU SAMURAI:

Granted, I am certainly not the first person to notice the distinctly japanese look about the new Tau models. Still, building a mockup for a Tau samurai has been a lot of fun so far, even if the model will need quite a bit more work — and I’ll admit it’s a slightly goofy idea, of course…

All in all, building some new INQ28 models – or combining existing models into a warband – is always a breath of fresh air. I hope I’ll be able to get some of these characters painted some time in the next weeks — let’s keep our fingers crossed! Oh, and let me know whatever feedback you might have, of course!

As always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Nothing new to look at this week, since my weekend was spent meeting old friends and visiting my godchild (six months old now). Both activities were really awesome, but neither had anything to do with tabletop wargaming, obviously, so I didn’t get any new content out of the experience

The good news is that you can probably look forward to a more substantial update next week! And just so you don’t feel completely neglected, let me share a piece of fluff I wrote to add some additional texture to my World Eaters army, Khorne’s Eternal Hunt. Enjoy:

Rites of Passage

The cavernous chamber rang with the sound of a thousand hammers striking an anvil. Flames blazed in the furnace at the end of the hall, casting their haphazard light across the countless trophies and weapons arrayed on the monumental walls, creating an ever changing play of jagged shadows.
One by one, the hammers fell silent and the assembled hunters waited.

With the sound of grinding metal, Khoron the Undying, Keeper of Trophies, strode from the shadows to where a bier had been placed. On it lay the dead body of Huntmaster Ferax, his armour torn and broken in a hundred places, his pale flesh still smeared with both his blood and that of his enemies. Ferax had finally collapsed amidst a circle of corpses, with all of his assailants dead around him, before he had allowed himself to die. Now he was cold and dead, his scarred features strangely peaceful.

The ancient Dreadnought addressed the assembled members of the company, his voice impossibly deep and metallic, the flames casting their flickering light on his brazen skull mask:

“We have assembled here to perform the rites of passage for this servant of Khorne. He took the lives of his enemies, and now his life has been taken in turn. He died a warrior in this long war, and I call him worthy of the eternal battles that await him in our lord’s realm. Let he who would say otherwise speak now or forever hold his peace.”

Nothing but silence greeted Khoron’s challenge: Ferax had been a champion of the company, and nobody would have dared to doubt his prowess.

After a moment of silence, Khoron turned away from the hunters “It is time”, he rasped.

From the shadows emerged Huntmaster Torus, the Taker of Skulls. His face was gaunt and entirely without expression, his eyes hooded in deep shadow. With the soft scraping of armour, Torus hefted his enormous axe, and with one swing, ritually severed the corpse`s head. Then the bier holding the now headless body slowly glided towards the furnace.

“This hunter’s passage is paid for”, Khoron intoned, “Lord of battles, take his skull as you have taken the ones that he has offered you before. Lord of hunger, feast him at your table. Lord of thirst, give him drink, that he may endure in your realm. Great Khorne, welcome your servant and know his worth.”

“He broke his chains and knew freedom”, Khoron boomed.

“He died a free man”, came the answer of the hunters.

“His hunt is now over.”

“But he still has his honour.”

As the final words were spoken, the body had been completely engulfed in the flames of the furnace. The flames played in the eyes of the assembled Astartes, and all was silent once more.

***

“Step forward and be counted.”

Lord Lorimar’s abyssal growl matched that of the ancient dreadnought. Five hunters moved into the light, each of them stripped to the waist, their triumph ropes plain for all to see amidst their corded muscle and scarred flesh. They were Ferax’s lieutenants, each of them now a contender for the position of Huntmaster. In the dim firelight, their faces were masklike and unreadable.

“Ferax’s hunting party is in need of a new leader. As was taught to us by our primarch and lord father, his successor will be chosen by a trial of blood and fire. I shall name he who is the last to stand on the Hot Dust Huntmaster, as it has always been.”

“And evermore shall be so” , came the murmured reply of the assembled hunters.

Lorimar nodded solemnly.

“Let the games begin.”

As always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Right, I promised you a more substantial update for this week, and I fully intend to keep my promise! So what is this about?

World Eaters riding juggernauts of Khorne, often referred to as “Brazen Knights”, are a bit of an ongoing dream for those of us who have pledged themselves both to the Blood God and the XIIth Astartes Legion. Even the fact that no rules for using such a squad on the table are available doesn’t stop hobbyists all over the world from building their own version of this Khornate cavalry. As a matter of fact, I myself also built and painted a test piece some time ago:

My original plan was to add a couple of models to form an entire squad, but for some reason the plan fell by the wayside for a while, and then GW went and released their spectacular Skullcrushers of Khorne for WFB.

And of course, it didn’t take me long to pick up the kit: After all, it’s chock-full of fantastic Khornate bits and bobs to squirrel away for conversion projects: If you want to add some extra flavour to your World Eaters army, that kit is the place to go! Plus you get three juggernauts and their riders on top — what’s not to love?

Well, here’s the problem: So far, I had mainly been using pieces from the kit to spice up some Chosen and Biker models as well as building special characters for my army, such as my custom Warpsmith, Huntmaster Deracin, or even the supreme commander of the fourth assault company, Lord Captain Lorimar. The actual centrepiece of the kit, the juggernauts and riders, sat mostly untouched in my bitzbox while I squandered all the beautiful little bitz on different models

But no more, because this last weekend finally gave me some time to build three Brazen Knights! Of course I do realise that this leaves me with even more unpainted stuff in my backlog, but I simply cannot help it — kitbashing World Eaters is just so much fun!

So what did I want to achieve? The Skullcrushers are fantastic models in their own right, but I did want to make them look a little more 40k: The body and legs of the Skullcrushers are very archaic and medieval looking, but they are also fantastically detailed (and, to make matters worse, a bit bigger than your standard Marine parts). So I wouldn’t cut them up in the attempt to make them look more futuristic, but would rather try to incorporate elements that are fairly representative of Chaos Space Marines, such as chainswords, power weapons, backpacks and CSM shoulderpads.

I also didn’t want to use the – admittedly really cool – lances that came with the kit, because those would make the models look a little too static and encumbered for my taste. I went for less cumbersome weapons, and since there are no official rules for these guys anyway, I was free to do as I pleased, with the Rule of Cool as my only guideline.

And, my last objective: I wanted to make each of these guys look like a true champion: Winning the gift of a daemonic steed from the Blod God is certainly no mean feat! So each of the models would have to look the part, impressive enough to serve as a Chaos Lord in any lesser force.

Now while the models were taking shape, I had yet another idea: Fellow hobbyist Brother Heinrich has been offering people to name models in his (fantastic) Night Lords army for a while now. I myself have been thus immortalised as a heavy weapons specialist in the Night Lords’ 15th company (more on that soon, I guess). And while I was working on my Brazen Knights, or Brazen Hunters, as it were, I realised that I too wanted to take the opportunity to honour some fellow hobbyists who have enormously inspired me in the past.

Now choosing three people to be honoured in this way might seem a tad unfair — after all, there are many more people who have managed to inspire me and influence my hobby life over these last years, and each of them would be worthy of their own model. So for now, in order to keep things fair, I chose the three guys whose work has provided the most inspiration for my actual World Eaters army — after all, it makes sense that they should earn a place in the army they helped to shape, right?

Anyway, before I knew it, my three Brazen Hunters had been assembled. Of course they will need some more work and attention to detail here and there, but I am already pretty pleased with them. Let me introduce you:

Brother Hynnark:

Since I knew that one of the juggernaut bodies would be charging forward aggressively, I wanted a rider to match that look, swinging his sword in a wide arc and aggressively snarling at the oncoming enemy. I think the finished piece captures that look fairly convincingly!

The sword came from the Bloodletters of Khorne, since I think their sinister, serrated Hellblades make for a perfect weapon for any champion of Khorne. The arm holding the blade was slightly tweaked in such a way that it looked like Hynnark was swinging his sword at his opponents while plowing through them on the back of his daemonic mount.

When it came to choosing a face for this guy, the bare head of the GK Nemesis Dreadknight pilot came in handy, since the cabling on the head made for perfect Butcher’s Nails. The rim of the psychic hood was carefully shaved down to make it look like the cables were emerging from the champion’s very head. And finally, a very cool plastic power fist from the mid-90s was used on the model’s other hand. I only ever had one of these in my bitzbox, and I thought this was a worthy occasion to use it!

Brother Hynnark was named for fellow hobbyist Brother Heinrich, whose brilliant Night Lords army is not only a constant source of inspiration, but who has also made me look at the individuals in the army in a new way. Cheers, mate!

Next up, Brother Rask:

I knew I wanted to make use of the fantastic banner that came with the Blood Crushers, so Brother Rask became a favoured banner bearer of his god. To balance out the extra archaic element, I went for a chainsword in his left hand — the essential 40k weapon, if you ask me. The model also received a rebreather head as another piece of visual shorthand for the futuristic setting. I also like this particular head a lot, since it seems grizzled and scarred without being over the top.

The model was named for none other than the ever-inspirational GuitaRasmus, who owns some of the snazziest World Eaters on the interwebz and whose mindblowing kitbashes are a constant motivation for me to push the envelope on my own conversions instead of just settling for “good enough”.

And finally, a champion among champions, I give you Brother Garic the Hound:

I really went all out on this model, making it look like Garic was issuing a challenge to an opponent. A sword from the WFB Chaos Knights made for a suitably impressive weapon, while the left arm came from the Raptor/Warp Talon kit, featuring one of my favourite lightning claws in the entire set.

Maybe you’ll remember that shouting head with the mohawk from my look at the Centurion kit. Even then, I was sure that it was the perfect face for a World Eater, and I believe this model offers pretty good proof of that!

Garic is my favourite model in the squad, and who better to choose as his alter ego than my buddy Biohazard, whose boundless generosity in exchanging bitz as well as ideas have made many of my projects possible in the first place. And his kitbashes, particularly his amazing daemon engines, are truly something to behold as well! Here’s to you, buddy!

So cheers, guys! I hope you like your new function in Khorne’s Eternal Hunt! And I hope you like the models I chose for you! As for the names, I tried to find a middle ground between the design sensibilities of my army and either your true names or forum handles. If any of you should want to come up with a better name for “his” model, though, just shoot me a message! Likewise, if you have any suggestions regarding what to add to the models, let me know as well!

In any case, these guys do need some more detail work as well as a couple of additional bitz. And there will have to be a Chaos Lord on juggernaut to lead the squad, of course…

Oh, and I actually think I may continue to name models in the honour of fellow hobbyists! And with a long list of spectacularly talented and generally awesome people to work through – PDH, TJ Atwell, DexterKong, migusla or Kari, to name just a few – I imagine this army will keep expanding for a looong time

So yeah, here are my three Brazen Hunters together, ready for a new day of hunting:

So what do you think? Was I successful in coming up with some badass models? Are they 40k enough? I’d love to hear your feedback in the comments section!

And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Today I would like to talk about one of my favourite hobby blogs as well as one of my favourite hobby artists. So what is this about?

It has been almost exactly one year since Ron Saikowski last updated his blog, From the Warp, and told the community he was taking some time off from blogging. And even in a hobby scene as full of amazing hobby blogs as this, the absence of new content on FTW is still very keenly felt — at least by me.

But why? And what was/is so great about FTW in the first place? Allow me to elaborate:

When I got back into the hobby in 2010 after a longer hiatus, I was amazed and cowed in equal parts by the quality of the hobby content that could be found online: While I had been away, it seemed like everyone and their cousin had become expert painters, wielding superior techniques and baffling creativity. The presence of such a treasure trove of hobby related content proved to be equally exciting and intimidating: How was I to get back into all this and hope to build an army that I could truly be proud of? In any case, it seemed like an even more daunting task than it had been during my teens.

And then I discovered FTW, and things started to fall into place.

You see, like many other hobby blogs on the internet, FTW is full of beautifully painted models and valuable hobby advice. But while I love many blogs and read them regularly, no other site has come close to FTW when it comes to actually helping hobbyists, to teach them new stuff and to encourage them to step outside their comfort zone. At the same time, if you are simply in it for the pretty pictures, FTW should be right up your alley: Ron’s style of gritty realism is one of the most effective and elegant approaches I have seen in our hobby. And I’ll just take the liberty to intersperse my ramblings in this post with pictures of some of my favourite models of his — it goes without saying that none of these were built and painted by me. I own none of this stuff. Credit must go to Ron Saikowski.

This Cataphractii Terminator showcases one of Ron’s trademark conversion recipes, using cardboard-turned-into-plasticard to transform standard plastic terminators into Pre-Heresy individuals before FW ever released their own versions and before “Cataphractii” was even a word.
Model built and painted by Ron Saikowski.

It’s hard to pick my favourite part of FTW, as a matter of fact: The stunningly effective, yet surprisingly simple, recipes for achieving certain painting effects? The clean and seamless conversion work? The useful reviews of hobby products (and the mention of possible alternatives) or the insightful commentary about the hobby at large? All of these were reasons for why FTW still seems like such a great blog.

A fantastic converted Astartes chaplain, based on the pose of GW’s Gabriel Seth model.
Model built by Ron Saikowski

But at the heart of it all lies Ron’s own approach to matters: When posting on his blog, he was always, in the truest sense of the word, a scholar and a gentlemen: always helpful and willing to explain every step of his work until everyone was content and carefully addressing comments and suggestions made by the readers. And while Ron’s work taught me countless neat things, his posts never seemed like he was trying to lecture people of convert them to the “right” way of doing things in our hobby.  In fact, there has probably never been a nicer, more pleasant blogger in our particular neck of the woods..uh webz

Ron’s stunningly effective Pre-Heresy jetbike conversion: I have used the same approach to build jetbikes for my small Custodes force.
Model built and painted by Ron Saikowski

Another great thing is that Ron’s recipes and techniques are so great precisely because they can be used by normal people. Now we all enjoy looking at some GD level painting from time to time, but when it comes to getting our armies painted, we are happy enough to find a recipe that works and stick with it. FTW has always been a perfect resource in this respect, featuring countless wonderful painting recipes without the need for twenty extra-thin layers of paint in order to build up a certain hue. No freehanding under a microscope with a paintbrush the width of a horse hair here, but rather a way of doing things that produces awesome results with a modicum of work.

Ron’s Alpha Legion recipe is an example of a fairly simple approach that still yields awesome results.
Model bult and painted by Ron Saikowski

In fact, I’ll go out on a limb here and say that Ron remains one of my favourite painters for the reason that his pieces are perfectly realised: Poe described a thing called “Unity of effect”, arguing that all parts of a literary work should work towards the intended effect in an interlocking pattern. And this is very true of Ron’s paintjobs: While there may be painters who can pull of even more amazing stunts when it comes to blending, glazing, freehands or what have you, Ron’s models always look completely realised: All of the different colours and effects work together to create a model that looks like a perfect little slice of the 40k universe. Nothing detracts from the overall effect. The models seem like they could just step down from their bases and lay waste to your desktop. I cannot, for the life of me, think of a more successful way of painting!

The Novamarines’ colour scheme always seemed pretty gimmicky to me. But given Ron’s “unity of effect” approach, it is transformed into something that seems quite plausible.
Model built and Painted by Ron Saikowski

And while the blog is mostly about Space Marines, not only will non-Astartes players find much to like about the recipes and tutorials featured on FTW, but Ron is also sometimes at his best when he isn’t actually doing Marines. Take a look:

A fantastic DKOK model built using second party bitz.
Model built and painted by Ron Saikowski

A very successful attempt at kitbashing an Eversor Assassin from nothing but plastic parts: This guy inspired me to build my own “Operative Sigma”.
Model built and painted by Ron Saikowski

A very evocative and “Blanchian” Imperial Mystic, unfortunately Ron’s only foray into the wonderful world of INQ28.
Model built and painted by Ron Saikowski

If all of this reads like a gushing love letter to you, that’s because it it: To date, FTW remains one of my favourite hobby resources, and I think it’s a crying shame that it isn’t updated anymore. In fact, I still regularly check whether there are any new updates — just in case…

The good news, though, is that all of the existing amazing content is still there for you to check out and discover. Ron’s tutorials are still every bit as helpful as they were when he first posted them. And the models are still inspiring and beautiful, a testament to effective painting. In fact, I would argue that From the Warp is still one of the most important hobby resources for those active in the hobby or just getting into it, and a priceless treasure trove of hobby knowledge.

Oldies but goldies: Ron’s own “Lustwing”, an army of Emperor’s Children Terminators. Just check out the scratchbuilt Pre-Heresy armour!
Models built and painted by Ron Saikowski

So, Ron, if you’re reading this: Thanks for all the amazing work! We owe you big time! And here’s hoping that you’ll eventually get back to updating your blog! And to you readers: FTW should really be part of your regular hobby diet, if only to check out all of the great ideas and tips. So head on over there right now and bookmark that page! And if you’ve been a regular reader of FTW before, well, you know what I am talking about anyway, right?

In closing, while most of the content on FTW is truly amazing, here are a couple of personal favourites of mine that I think you should check out:

Ron’s Pre-Heresy Jetbike conversion

Converting a skull helmet for chaplains or Dark Apostles

Ron’s very own “Lustwing”, a counts as Deathwing force consisting of Emperor’s Children Terminators.

Truly heartwarming: Ron’s Chaos Daemon based on a sketch by his daughter

How to make your Space Marine Captain stand out

His collection of advice on basing is still essential reading for every hobbyist, if you ask me.

So what’s your opinion on FTW? And has anyone been hearing from Ron, perchance? Let me know what you think in the comments!

And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

A Dark Vengeance Chaplain painted by Ron: One of his most recent models, and possibly my favourite!
Model painted by Ron Saikowski

There I was, thinking that my holiday vacation would give me more time for hobby-related stuff, but so far all the Christmas preparations have rendered this hope null and void — out of the frying pan and into the fire, so to speak.

Fear not, though, because I am in the priviledged position of letting other hobbyists do my work for me. For today’s update, I’d like to show you glimpses at two highly inpirational hobby projects that double as crowning hobby moments of awesome for me – but we’ll get to that in a minute…

1. “Mini Me”

You may already have heard of Brother Heinrich’s amazing Night Lords thread over at The Bolter and Chainsword, and I already mentioned that Heinrich was awesome enough to immortalise various hobbyists as models in his army (I chose to repay the favour by turning him into one of my Brazen Hunters). Anyway, Brother Heinrich has been hard at work for the last few weeks, and so I can now proudly present a miniature version of me serving in the Night Lords’ 15th company under the nom de guerre of Brother Berias. Check this out:

Models built and painted by Brother Heinrich

I am the guy on the right, rocking that awesome custom Reaper Autocannon. On the left you can see the Night Lords avatar of fellow hobbyist Dragonkin Arenis, now my partner in bloodshed for the millennia to come.

models built and painted by Brother Heinrich

Not only do I love the weapon and choice of helmet, but my favourite part may be the half-deathmask Brother Heinrich painted onto the model’s helmet. Take a look:

models built and painted by Brother Heinrich

Together with three other weapon teams, these guys will be used as counts-as Obliterators in Heinrich’s army — a perfect way of representing that particular choice, if you ask me! Here’s the merry little band of rascals:

And while the models are amazing enough on their own, 1000Heathens also did a killer job on the accompanying piece of background he wrote. So be sure to check it out, along with the rest of this stunning force, over at Heinrich’s B&C thread. And, of course, a huge thank you for Brother Heinrich for this fantastic opportunity!

2. Images from a past life

Now this second thing is just as awesome, and for slightly similar reasons. Fellow German hobbyist AgnostosTheos has been building and painting one of the most impressive Pre-Heresy World Eaters armies on the net. And while I myself have no ambition to start a pre-heresy Astartes army (or rather, yet another one next to my kitbashed Custodes), I couldn’t help but wonder what “30k” versions of the characters making up Khorne’s Eternal Hunt would look like. So I approached AgnostosTheos and asked him whether he was game for a small experiment: Would he be interested in building some 30k versions of my characters for his army? Being an all around nice guy, he agreed.

And now imagine my happiness when he just posted the first two characters just the other day. So let me show you both of these characters, with their background as well as their 30k and 40k versions, respectively. Here we go:

model built and painted by AgnostosTheos

Brother Marax the Fallen

When Lorimar ascended to the rank of captain of the 4th assault company, brother Marax stood at his side. Likewise, during the years of the Great Crusade, he proved to be a loyal retainer, time and time again.

But after Marax had undergone the psychosurgical treatments introduced to the legion by its primarch Angron, he began to change. The occasions when Marax would succumb to frenzy and insatiable bloodlust on the field of battle grew ever more frequent. But the negative effects of this development were ignored, for Marax had become an insurmountable warrior. While the World Eaters grew more and more fervent in their worship of Khorne, Marax was one of those who welcomed the bloody rituals. During all this time, Lorimar kept his brother under close scrutiny, for he feared what Marax might become. Though he was a force of nature on the battlefield, his frenzy made him more and more difficult to control.

The Skalathrax campaign, during which the legion tore itself apart in a single night, marked the decisive point in the tale of Marax.  After Kharn the Betrayer had begun the senseless slaughter, Lorimar had to use all of his authority to keep at least his company together as an organised force. But amidst the chaos of blood and flame, he was opposed by Marax. The once loyal battle brother considered Lorimar’s refusal of bloody slaughter to be treason and threw himself at his captain, filled with daemonic rage.

While the World Eaters were tearing each other apart, Lorimar and Marax were locked in a fight for life and death of their own.
Marax was an unfathomably powerful warrior, and his anger transformed him into a whirlwind of destruction, but in the end, it was his rage that spelt his doom: He fell for a feint and was almost cut in two by Lorimar’s axe. The battle was decided.

Even with death drawing near, Marax still tried to reach his foe. When he breathed his last, Lorimar, towering over his shattered body, promised him this: He would receive a grave that was worthy of a true warrior. And he would be feared for eternity.

Apothecary Dumah had to employ every mystery of his art to trap the last spark of life within the shattered form of Marax. But he was successful: Marax was interred into the sarcophagus of a dreadnought and thus sentenced to an eternity of war – truly a worthy grave for a warrior.

Being trapped inside the dreadnought for millennia has irrevocably shattered Marax’s mind, and all that might have been left of the once proud warrior has been drowned in a sea of bloodlust and insanity. When the 4th assault company is not at war, his eternal grave is secured within a stasis field, which is only deactivated once the battle begins. On the battlefield, he rushes forward like a wild beast, tearing apart enemies and war machines alike with crackling lightning claws, howling with rage and hatred. And it is not easy to decide who fears Marax more: Those who have to face him in battle or the warriors of the 4th assault company themselves, to whom he has become an undying reminder of what will befall them, should they give in to the curse of blood frenzy.

So, meet the 30k version of Brother Marax: By the look of the model, Marax is already well on his way to becoming and unstoppable madman by this point. And isn’t it heartening to see how he has stuck with his trademark weapons for over 10,000 years? Awww….

model built and painted by AgnostosTheos

And here’s the second character in his “youth”. Take a look:

model built and painted by AgnostosTheos

Brother Khoron the Undying, Keeper of Trophies

In a way, Khoron the Undying was old already when the World Eaters legion was still young. Having been a warrior from a very early age, he was already a battle-hardened veteran, forged in the fires of the Unification Wars, when Lorimar ascended to command of the 4th assault company. Brother Khoron had seen battle and he had the scars to prove it. He served unter Lorimar’s command, but he was a trusted friend of the young Captain, full of experience and wisdom and gifted with a deep understanding of what it was that bound the legionaries together as brothers. He stood with Lorimar during his search for an identity for the legion. And he stood with him when the Captain decided to follow his Primarch to Terra to depose the false Emperor. For many years, he was a tower of strength for the company and came to be respectfully called “older brother” by the legionaries.

Shortly after the Skalathrax campaign had sundered the legion, Khoron was mortally wounded during a hunt. The man who had survived a thousand battles was powerless in the end, as the alien powers of a Xenos weapon tore his body apart. With his dying breath, he implored Lorimar to let him continue fighting, accepting the dangers of being entombed within the sarcophagus of a Dreadnought. Lorimar was hesitant, for he had witnessed the effects of such incarceration on the Fallen, but in the end he granted his old friend’s wish.

And thus the “older brother” became the being known as the Undying. For the last millennia, his colossal frame has continued to be a sight of inspiration to his brothers. Where Marax the Fallen is a warning of the damnation awaiting the company, the Undying symbolises a way of keeping this grisly fate at bay. It is only at the most chaotic moments of battle that he will succumb to rage and frenzy, and each time this happens, his brothers hope that he will come to eventually. And they fear the day when their older brother’s mind will finally cave in on itself.

When not in battle, Khoron the Undying serves as a master of rites to the company, residing in the Hall of Hunters aboard the company’s capital ship, Aeternus Venator. There he guards the trophies and weapons assembled by the Warriors of Khorne’s Eternal Hunt and presides over the ceremonies held by the legionaries since the times of the Great Crusade.

I love how the face used by AgnostosTheos captures Khoron as an older, more grizzled veteran, even during the days of the Heresy. And the skull on his chestplate could even be seen as a shoutout to his later countenance…

model built and painted by AgnostosTheos

Anyway, this is clearly a fantastic chance of getting a glimpse at the past lives of the legionaries in the 4th assault company. And AgnostosTheos‘ paintjobs and conversions are more than worthy representations for the characters — in fact, his versions are more than giving me a run for my money

Will we see more glimpses at this unremembered empire, I wonder? What would Lord Captain Lorimar have looked like at that time? Hmm…

In any case, many thanks to AgnostosTheos for this lovely and unexpected Christmas present! Be sure to check out his WIP thread as well as his awesome Flickr gallery!
So yeah, two awesome examples of me somehow managing to wiggle my way into other people’s hobby endeavours
So, in closing, I wish you all a very happy Christmas, and be sure to check back in the coming days, when we’ll be taking a look at this year’s installment of the annual Eternal Hunt Awards!

As always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Hey everyone, update time

While the first week of my longer vacation was mainly spent sleeping, eating and playing up all the videogames I didn’t have time for during those last  stressful weeks and months, I do of course hope that you all had a very merry Christmas! Now with the end of the year fast approaching, it’s time again for a retrospective on the releases, hobby developments and outstanding hobby achievements of this past year. So I welcome you to the second annual Eternal Hunt Awards!

Let’s kick it off with a look at the industry. Let me tell you what I did and didn’t like this year, and for what reasons:

Best release of 2013:

1st place: Khorne Lord of Skulls

Now I do of course realise that this may be a controversial choice, but the longer I thought about it, the clearer it became to me that this model deserves the top spot in my personal list. Is it because I am a huge Khorne fanboy? That’s certainly a part of it, yes. But there’s more: For one, I can still recall the moment I first laid eyes on this model when pictures were leaked over on Dakka. I actually sat there with my mouth open for a while, and that doesn’t happen all that often. I was stunned — and not the bad kind of stunned where you’re just preparing to emit and earth-shattering groan.

While tons and tons of scorn may have been heaped upon this model online, I love it, pure and simple. It embodies the kind of models we dreamed of during our childhood and teenage years, but that could never have been possibly produced. Heck, GW even had to introduce a dedicated scale – Epic 40,000 – to feature battles between models at that scale. And looking back on those models now, we would never have guessed that it would one day be possible to add huge walkers, tanks and all kinds of superheavies to our forces at 28mm. Then Forgeworld came, and provided you were willing (and able) to sell a kidney, you could use Titans and Greater Daemons that really deserved the name. And then, a relatively short time ago, GW proper actually started to produce plastic kits at that scale. And here we are now, with a kind of model we could only imagine in our wildest dreams when we were children, available in glorious plastic. GW have taken my childish dreams and given them form. Is the resulting model realistic? Certainly not. Is it too OTT and corny? Quite possibly. But face it, guys and girls, this hobby of ours is certainly not the most grown up pasttime in the first place.

So while it may be a corny, ridiculous model in certain respects, and while I am not even sure I like the fact that the game has to get bigger all the time to accomodate stuff like this (more on that below), and while I am pretty sure that I’ll never get one for myself, there was one perfect moment in 2013 when my mouth hung agape in amazement at the coolness of a model. And if that model doesn’t deserve the top spot on this list, then nothing does.

Read my detailed opinion of the model here.

2nd place: Dreamforge Games releases

Mark Mondragon certainly deserves a place high on his list for his amazing models. Be it the amazing Eisenkern Stormtroopers pictured above or the two variants of huge walker, the Leviathan Crusader and Leviathan Mortis, these models are certainly giving GW a run for their money. The Stormtroopers may be slightly more futuristic than 40k players are used to, but they have that retro, faux-WWI/II aesthetic I enjoyed so much about the old Warzone models, and that alone was reason enough to pick them up. The sprues abound with extra bitz and conversion options, and I am more than a little ashamed to say that I have yet to complete my first test models — it’s certainly not due to any lack of quality!

The walkers are equally impressive, with lots and lots of options for customisation, and they even come in “good” and “evil” flavour, for those of us wanting to induct them into their 40k forces:

Leviathan Crusader by Dreamforge Games

Leviathan Mortis by Dreamforge Games

Dreamforge Games‘ releases deserve this spot on the list for another reason, though, even if the quality of the models would normally already be enough: These kits were made possible by a Kickstarter that spectacularly exceeded its original goal. It is only the one Kickstarter I have ever backed so far. And my first experience with this medium could not have any better: Mark Mondragon worked tirelessly to let the backers know which decisions had been taken and why and how far the products were along. He posted regular updates and went out of his way to accomodate backers’ wishes, even squeezing some additional bitz onto the sprues when it turned out there was some capacity left. If GW ever want to improve their communications with their customers, they could certainly do worse than take a look at how Mark approached these things.

So head over to Dreamforge Games’ website and check out their models. Chances are, you’ll be amazed — just as I was.

3rd place: Redesigned Dark Elves

GW’s designers always seem to be at their best when designing spointy, evil, elf people. Another case in point: This year’s complete revamp of the Dark Elves. And they are glorious! The redesign certainly puts them on par with their 40k cousins, the Dark Eldar, and that alone is no mean feat! Will I get a Dark Elf army and return to the Old World? No, certainly not. But just looking at these new kits already provides enough eye candy to tide me over until the next amazing chaos release…

Read my two-part review here and here.

Honorary mention: Betrayer

World Eaters players had precious little to go on when it came to their legion’s background and identity. The Horus Heresy releases from FW and Black Library did alleviate that problem, especially with the excellent short story “After Desh’ea” by Matthew Farrer. But the one book to really flesh out the legion was Aaron Dembski-Bowden’s Betrayer, and I cannot recomment it highly enough. Read my review here, in case you are interested.

II. Worst release/biggest disappointment of 2013

Well, good news first: As far as I am concerned, when it comes to the models GW have released this year, there really haven’t been all that many slipups from a design perspective. Sure, a couple of models were hit or miss, like some designs for the new WoC models, while others were just downright awkward (yes, I am looking at you, Loremaster of Hoeth). But all in all, not only did GW manage to keep up a relentless pace with their release schedule, the overall quality of the different releases also ranged from solid (High Elves) to mostly really cool (Space Marines) and even to  outstanding (Dark Elves). So instead of focusing on particularly bad models, of which there were precious few, let me instead address my biggest disappointments:

No Inquisitor-based Skirmish game

Well, it was certainly to good to be true: For quite a while there, the forums and rumour sites were awash with whisperings of an Inquisition-themed skirmish game at the 28mm scale. A codified version of INQ28/Inquisimunda, if you will. Unfortunately, nothing came of it. The good new, obviously, is that we still do have INQ28, Inquisimunda and the original 54mm Inquisitor, so the lack of new rules certainly doesn’t hurt all that much. Still, seeing the Inquisition being given the Dark Vengeance or Space Hulk treatment, complete with a unique collection of delicious plastic models would have been totally awesome – oh well, one can always dream…

Inquisition Codex

Instead of a skirmish game, we did get a digital codex to better use and represent the forces of the Inquisition in games of 40k. While the idea itself is great (and hints at the more obscure factions of the Inquisition in the new codex are a nice bit of fanservice), the overall book seems to be a rather slipshod effort, by the look of it. Which could become a problem if this digital release were to be used by GW to gauge the interest in the Inquisition: This codex could have been a great way of getting people who mainly focus on INQ28 these days “reacquainted” with 40k proper. That doesn’t really seem to have worked all that well, though. And if the codex leaves most of the people interested in the Inquisition cold, what hope is there of future Inquisition releases? Seems like a bit of a vicious cycle…

No love for the sisters

The Sisters of Battle, or Adepta Sororitas of late (can anybody explain to me why it’s not “Adeptus Sororitas”, like in the German version btw? Surely the fact that it’s composed of women doesn’t make the order itself feminine…), also got the short stick — again. Sure, waiting for plastic sisters seems a bit of a running gag at this point, but still…

I realise that all three things on this list effectively tie back into the same problem: GW just cannot seem their act together when it comes to the various factions of the Inquisition, their military arms and supporting organisations. Which is really mind-boggling, if you ask me, because they already really nailed it before. Twice.

The various Ordos of the Inquisition as well as the Adepta Sororitas are easily among the 40k universe’s most iconic and recognisable features, yet they somehow seem to mess up whenever they get near one of these factions. It’s just a crying shame…

Honorary mention: Azhog

On second thought, there was one model that really, really disappointed me:

Azhog was the star of the first Hobbit film for me. His hulking, malicious presence provided an excellent villain, even though he certainly isn’t the most well-rounded of characters. Then GW dropped the ball (or were possibly forced to drop the ball, due to some NDA nonsense) by not releasing an appropriate model for ages. And when the model finally was released, it somehow ended up far less impressive than I would have liked. I couldn’t even tell you precisely what’s wrong with the model, since it seems like a fairly accuate representation of the character design. But it doesn’t feel like that hulking, malicious brute I remember from the film.

III. Still on the fence about…

• Digital supplements and codex releases: Maybe this is just me. Maybe I just like paper too much. But I have yet to decide what I think about all those digital releases. It’s complicated too: On the one hand, releasing digital supplements seems like an awesome way of not only keeping the codices and rulebooks updated but also of introducing new models and squads. And they even bring back some of that “Chapter Approved” flavour, with alternative army lists and scenarios. I am even okay with the fact that they all cost money — I’d rather pay for something than never get it at all. But like I said, I like books on paper. A lot. And it somehow seems wrong that the (more expensive) book becomes the lesser product. And some of those smaller supplements and background pieces do seem a little…unconventionally priced, if you ask me. All in all, it still seems like a bit of a two-edged sword at this point: If GW manage to use this additional channel of publication to release meaningful content and test the waters for future releases, that’s great. If they just wanted to find a way to introduce micropayments into the world of tabletop wargaming, that sucks. Big time. But like I said, maybe it’s just me…
• 40k plastic clamshell characters: Last year, one of my favourite releases were GW’s plastic characters for WFB, released in a clamshell. And I wished for GW to introduce similar models for 40k, which they did. One year later, I have to say that I appreciate the effort! And some of those characters, like the Space Marine Librarian, are really awesome. But I don’t see why all of the 40k characters have to be more expensive than their WFB counterparts. Nice try, GW, but not quite there yet…
• The scale creep: Well, I’ve said it before: The fact that the games (and models) keep getting bigger and bigger all the time seems slightly discouraging to me, because it really runs counter to the idea of customising and individualising each of your models: With infantry squads only cannon fodder and superheavies the true stars of the show, the game somehow becomes less interesting for me. But this is strictly a personal preference, of course…

IV. Also pretty cool:

• The Horus Heresy: I said last year that I am not perfectly sure whether or not to like FW’s focus on the Horus Heresy, and that still holds true — which has nothing to do with the – mostly excellent – models so far, but rather with the fear of a Star Wars-like state of affairs, where every minute of the Heresy will be accounted for at some point. My philosophical musings aside, though, the one thing I love unconditionally about the setting is how it has given rise to a couple of amazing and astonishing hobby projects that take a look at this very different period of Imperial history — just check out projects like Pooms’ Pre Heresy World Eaters , Agnostos Theos’ force from the same Legion or my favourite HH thread at the moment,  and you’ll see that there’s lots and lots of inspiration to be had, even if you have no plans of starting your own HH army.
• The new White Dwarf: I’m going to go out on a limb here and confess I really like the “new” White Dwarf. By now, the novelty has worn off, and the shape of the mag has congealed into something more solid, and I have to tell you I like what I see. Sure, we can always go back and compare today’s WD with the 90s’ version. But if we judge the mag against itself, I think it’s really a good concept: I like the focus on the staff’s and hobbyists’ armies over ‘Eavy Metal pieces (even if the armies of the editorial staff seem to appear a little too often…). I like the look at kitbashes and conversions and the army showcases. I love Blanchitsu, obviously. Is it still a sales brochure? Undoubtedly. Is it more of a coffee-table book and less of a fanzine? Yes, possibly. But looking at it gives me new ideas and inspirations more often than not, and that is certainly nothing to scoff at.

So yeah, all in all, I think we can call this year an overall success. With a constant stream of new releases and some amazing products by different manufacturers, we have lots and lots of new toys to play with. As always, there’s always quite a bit of stuff to bicker about, but I suppose that par for the course at this point

The hobby’s more than just the official releases, though: It’s really about the hobbyists. So in the next installment of the 2013 Eternal Hunt Awards, let’s take a closer look at this year’s oustanding hobby projects and talented artists. Until then, I’d love to hear your feedback in the comments section!

And, as always, thansk for looking and stay tuned for more!

Here we are back again with the second part of the 2013 Eternal Hunt Awards. This time, let’s take a look at the hobbyists.

Hobby blog of the year

1st place: Officio Convertorum

Though a fairly recent addition to the blogosphere, Jeff Vader’s Officio Convertorum has nevertheless managed to shoot straight to the top. There’s more than enough reason for that, though, since during his first year of blogging, Jeff has barraged us with a relentless stream of excellent kitbashing, fantastic painting and very interesting background: The guy even managed to create a plausible and interesting fifth Chaos God, for crying out loud!

So a clear winner this year. Check out Jeff’s fantastic blog and prepare to be amazed!

2nd place: Gardens of Hecate

Every once in a while, even in a hobby as multifaceted as ours, we may have the chance of stumbling upon something truly different and original. And the most original blog of 2013, at least in my book, has to be Gardens of Hecate. Strictly speaking, it deals with Malifaux, chronicling Ana Polanscak’s work on a fully customised warband, complete with accompanying scenery, markers, tokens and what have you. While that may seem like a daunting enough job, however, putting things so simply would entirely miss the point of why the blog is so great: Ana not only shows highly inspired kitbashes and conversions, ending up with models that may use GW bitz for ingredients, but end up looking very distinct and original; Gardens of Hecate is also an exploration of medieval imagery with a slightly apocalyptic bend. It’s hard to put into words, although the closest possible description would be that those models look like what Hieronymus Bosch would be up to today, if he were alive and into tabletop gaming.

Trying to describe it doesn’t do it justice, though: You’ll have to take a look for yourself. Like me, you’ll probably come away from it with the impression that this is an extraordinary source of inspiration, and that there’s really nothing quite like it.

3rd place: Opus Maius

Now you see it, now you don’t: As of this writing, Opus Maius is not accessible. This is due to the fact that Neil101 likes to take the blog offline every now and then, presumably to force himself to do more actual hobby work instead of just blogging about it. Whenever Opus Maius does return, though, fading in and out of realspace like a  Space Hulk, the blog manages to find a very distinct voice and never ceases to inspire: You see, Neil is the genius behind hobby projects like the fabled Arrke game board, and while showcases of his work are certainly one great part of the blog, his writeups of the games taking place in this strange and demented world are just as impressive and inspiring. So keep your eyes peeled for whenever Opus Maius returns from the Empyrean, because you can be sure we’ll be in for a treat!

Hobbyist of the year

Like last year, this is a tough call to make. But then, there are those hobbyists who manage to make the hobby into something special not only for themselves, but for others as well. And the three people on my personal awards list this year certainly managed that admirably. Here they are:

1st place: PDH
Those who have had any form of contact with Peter know that he’s not only a highly talented converter and painter in his own right, but also a tremendously nice guy. Both should be enough to win him any price, certainly, but he landed at the top of this list for another reason:

in 2013, Peter was the guy to make wonderful things happen: He came up with the utterly brilliant “Secret Yggdrassillium Pilgrimage”, involving hobbyists from several different countries and making the day truly special for his fellow players, among them John Blanche. He helped Commissar Molotov with this year’s Inqvitational and took a big stake in the INQ28 community. He sent me bitz, got me involved in fantastic hobby projects and offered supremely helpful criticism and feeback whenever I asked him. Here’s to you, Peter! A first place well earned!

2nd place: Jeff Vader (of Officio Convertorum)
Jeff is certainly winning big in this year’s Eternal Hunts Awards, but to be fair, his contribution to the hobby was simply amazing: His Inquisitorial models sent the INQ28 boards abuzz, his blogs is a daily must-read for me, he invented a new chaos god. And he produced pieces that make me want to push the envelope on my own hobby projects. So thanks, Jeff, for the boundless inspiration you provided in 2013! And I really hate you for being such a fantastic painter, you know?

3rd place: Natfka (of Faeit 212)
I suppose you all know Faeit 212 as the go-to site when it comes to tabletop rumours. I also suppose you all go there for your daily hit of rumours and leaks — and if you don’t, well, you definitely should: It’s an enormously helpful and interesting site, but this last year has made me realise it might actually be run by one of the nicest guys imaginable: Even while Blogger took Faeit 212 down due to a copyrights claim on GW’s part, even while having to deal with the fallout from that and trying his best to keep the project alive, Natfka never got angry but always stayed productive, positive and eminently likeable. That mindset also clearly comes across in his posts: Natfka doesn’t like to bicker, he likes to see the positives, the potential. Does that make him a fanboy? No, certainly not. It makes him someone whose site  always like to visit and whose tireless service to the community I find admirable. My hat’s off to you, sir!

Best models of the year:

There were so many amazing models this year that pointing out favourites at all seems pretty unfair. Still, some pieces were so astounding and inspiring that I want to share them with you — in no particular order, mind you, because I really couldn’t be expected to choose any one of these over another. So here are my favourite models of 2013:

Decimator conversion by Chris Harman

While many models I see online make me want to borrow ideas and replicate effects I like, it is not often that a conversion has me run out to grab the models to attempt the same thing near instantly. Chris Harman’s excellent Decimator, kitbashed mainly from a GK Nemesis Dreadknight, was the exception to the rule, though, and possibly the single most inspirational piece I saw this year.

People had attempted making the Dreadknight into a chaos walker before, but Chris’ model was really the first one that really worked for me — which is why I shamelessly pilfered the idea and built my own Wargrinder in a fairly similar pattern: It turns out imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, after all…

My only gripe with this model is that, unfortunately, so far there are only tantalising glimpses at a partly painted model:

But what we can see so far gives rise to the hope that the finished piece will be just as amazing as the conversion. Fantastic job, Chris!

Bull God by TJ Atwell

TJ Atwell, of Dark Future Games, is certainly no stranger to amazing conversions. And it seems like he’s on a roll with a recent army project of his, the “Army of the Apocalypse”, a combined force of Necrons and Daemons. Sound whacky? Well, trust TJ to prove that the ally rules can be used to come up with fantastic and original army concepts: He’s been cranking out brilliantly disturbing daemon engines like crazy for these last months, one of them cooler than the next!

The one to rule them all, though, is TJ’s fantastic Bull God, to be used as a Daemon Prince, Maulerfiend or Greater Daemon. The whole conversion is so flawless that I wish I had come up with something like that. And the paintjob is equally impressive, combining TJ’s highly effective recipe for distressed flesh with bright yellows and blues (recurring spot colours in this particular army). Simply a marvelous piece!

Questing Knight by Jeff Vader

It seems like all INQ28 aficionados are drawn towards building true scale marines at one point, and Jeff Vader is no exception. While many of those models don’t end up all that impressive, though, Jeff’s Questing Knight is an astonishing model: Like all of Jeff’s models, this is a delicious kitbash (making exceptionally great use of what may just be the coolest Space Marine head ever), and the lush paintjob shows off some of the hallmarks of Jeff’s work: the gritty realism evident in the paintjob itself, the amazing freehand symbols and patterns and the highly expressive face. Job’s a good ‘un, Jeff!

Take a closer look at the model here.

Arco Evisorators by Kari Hernesniemi

Kari’s Stryderre was already my personal star of the show at the “Secret Yggdrassillium Pilgrimage”, so I was really happy to see him build yet more of these disturbing, emaciated killers. He has since spun off the concept into a whole warband of so-called Arco Evisorators, and each of the models is a treat! Case in point, it’s certainly an honour to be commissioned by no other than John Blanche himself to build a warband of these brilliantly horrible guys, but in Kari’s case, the honour is well-deserved! Discover all of the models here.

Another glimpse at the Arco Evisorators in action. The sinister lady in the background is a converted Femme Militant model by John Blanche.

Honorary mention for best effect on a model: Ms. Binky by Rednekkboss

One of the most disappointing moments in our hobby is when a finished model (or an effect we were really trying to get right) doesn’t work out. And one of the things that I’ve witnessed going wrong more often than not over the years was people painting huge eyeballs on some of their models. So for all those who have struggled to get it right, prepare to be amazed by Rednekkboss’s model for Ms. Binky, a daemon engine that is equal parts disgusting and adorable. The huge eyeball which makes up the main point of focus for the model could have gone so very horribly wrong. But Rednekkboss really, really nailed it:

How can something be so cute and so disgusting at the same time, I ask you?
The astonishing step by step documentation to the effect can be found here.

Best armies/warbands of the year

And where there are single models, there are also armies and warbands. Again, I witnessed too many great hobby projects to count this year, but some just take the cake. Let me share my favourites with you:

1st place: Brother Heinrich’s Night Lords

I cannot possibly say enough good things about Brother Heinrich’s Night Lords 15th company: It’s a fantastic hobby project, above all else. The fluff accompanying the models is equally impressive. But maybe my favourite thing about the army is how much thought is given to each and every model, making it seem like these guys are really veterans of the Long War. Brother Heinrich’s work has made me think about building Chaos Space Marine armies in a new way while also featuring some of the snazziest conversions around. It’s a beautiful army, and like I told you recently, I myself make an appearance as well

So if you’re one of the few people reading this blog who have not yet checked out Brother Heinrich’s brilliant NL army, do yourself a favour and go take a look.

2nd place: migsula’s Legion army

A true labour of love, this one: Migs has been hard at work on this army for quite a while now, and it shows: Each model has been expertly customised and converted, the narrative oozes from every pore of this hobby endeavour. Then there’s the fact that the entire army was painted to look like it was operating under a pale moon, which is an astonishing feat in itself. And lastly, you really get three armies for one here: Is it a Grey Knights army? Or an IG army (with some Inquisition sprinkled on top)? Or indeed a Chaos Space Marine army, given the fact that these guys are all Alpha Legion Operatives (and let’s not even get into the AL’s true loyalties…)? As you can see, the narrative comes creeping in, even when you simply want to decide what kind of army this is in the first place. Astounding work, migs!

Discover the army here.

3rd place: Dave Taylor’s Adeptus Mechanicus army

The Adeptus Mechanicus has always been a fascinating, if disturbing, part of 40k lore for me. And rarely has it been captured so well as in Dave Taylor’s AdMech army. We all know that Dave is an expert at building characterful armies, of course, but even so, this one’s special. Words really don’t do it justice…

…so you had best take a look at the project here.

Honorary mention: Inquisitor Klein and retinue by Drone 21c

INQ28 has become really popular during this last year, and rightly so. And while the increase in interest has also lead to an increase in awesome warbands and retinues, every now and then there’s something even cooler than the rest. Drone 21c’s retinue for Inquisitor Klein is such a case: It may just be the perfect blend of modern painting techniques and retro flourishes from the good old days of Rogue Trader and 2nd edition. The retinue also works as a perfect embodiment of the eclectic styles and cultures prevalent in the 40k universe, evident in the uniforms and outfits alone. Plus those models simply look so lush in that photo that you’d like to eat them! Check them out here.

So, with this deluge of fantastic hobby inspiration, I think it’s the perfect moment to wish you all a happy new year! Keep your eyes peeled for the third and final installment of the 2013 Eternal Hunt Awards, where I’ll be speaking about my own hobby year. And, of course, let me hear your feedback in the comments!

As always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

I realise I still owe you part three of my 2013 review. No worries, it’s still coming, but I want to do it justice, event though I may run the risk of it being totally outdated by the time I get around to posting it. But while we are all waiting for my creative juices to get flowing, why not take a look at the new Tyranids in the meantime?

The Tyranids have sometimes been dubbed “Alien Dinosaurs”, and it’s a strangely fitting description. Sure, they are taking design cues left and right from sci-fi staples like Giger’s Xenomorph, the bugs from Starship Troopers and many other slimy and chitinous monstrosities we know and love. But in order to make a range of creatures into an army, there also has to be a pecking order of sorts, an ecology of bigger and smaller creatures that nevertheless need to look like they are part of the same species, at least at the basic level.

Getting this particular element right took GW quite a while: The Tyranids started out as a wildly disparate race, with models that shared very little common ground except for a general “alien-ness”. There were also enslaved races (like the Zoats) and genetic “infection” of other races (the Genestealer cults, only added into the Tyranid background after the fact, IIRC), the latter possibly leading to the general idea that the Tyranids as a race would make use of their prey’s genetic makeup. So a pretty large redesign during the late 90s/early 2000s saw the codifying of some common anatomical traits (the six limbs, the bone protusions on the forehead) as well as the idea of mirroring characteristics of certain races in the different creatures’ design. Since then, this has been the basic design template for the Tyranid race. Tyranid players received a new model here and there, but things had grown rather quiet for the fans of omnivorous alien gribblies. And now, a new release that finally brings the Tyranids up to snuff for the 6th edition. So, what have we got here?

Harpy / Hive Crone

Most Tyranid players were dearly hoping for a big flying creature, I suppose, in order to get their part of this new aircraft fad. The Harpy / Hive Crone neatly fills this role, giving us…well, a huge, flying Tyranid creature.

The model features all the hallmarks of  Tyranid design, while also striking a pretty good balance between a living creature and an attacking aircraft. If anything, I’d say it adheres to the design formula a bit to closely, essentially making the model look quite a bit like a flying Carnifex, but that might just be me:

I’ve always felt slightly ill at ease with the idea of flying Tyranids not having any kind of hind legs (to serve as landing gear, as it were): It just seems biologically dubious to have a flying organism that has no way whatsoever to land and then take off again. But then, this might actually become a bit of fridge brilliance when you imagine that those creatures are either intended to deliver their payload to the battlefield and then get back to the mothership to be reabsorbed, or the Hive Mind doesn’t even expect them to survive their first attack run in gthe first place, in which case any legs would be surplus to requirements anyway. It’s a small detail that actually begins making more sense the longer you think about it

The one thing that doesn’t make sense, however, is the fact that the wing membranes have these open spaces instead of being fused to the creature’s carapace, as can be seen here:

Now I am not a biology major, of course, but it just seems off to me for some reason. Maybe there’s an explanation (apart from the requirements of the model’s production process)?

Anyway, the other option to assemble the kit gives us a slightly different weapons loadout and a bioconstruct that’s named Hive Crone:

This version of the kit definitely gets a thumbs up in the extra grossness department, what with the fleshy ammo feed running directly through the creature’s mouth. Ewww…

And there’s the way those evil little spore mines (or whatever they are) attach to the underside of the wings. You have got to love that attention to detail…

A (smaller gripe) I have with the kit is that, while we do get different head variants for both builds, the heads still end up very similar – not only to each other, but also to the rest of the bigger Tyranid creatures’ heads:

Visual consistency notwithstanding, this seems like a bit of a missed opprtunity.

All in all, Tyranid players get a big flying monster that looks more or less like everyone expected. No more and no less.

Haruspex / Exocrine

It falls to the release’s second big monster to feature some kind of craziness, and boy does it deliver:

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves! We’ll take a closer look at that maw in a second. Before that, let me just say that I am certainly not going to lament the fact that neither the Haruspex nor the Endocrine look anything like their Epic 40,000 forefathers, because those models really didn’t look like anything, and they also came from a time where the only unifying characteristic of all Tyranid kits seemed to be that they all looked completely different and highly disparate.

Their updated versions conform to the basic design outline for the Tyranids once more, which is probably for the best.

So, back to the elephant in the room: The Haruspex’s gaping map (that clearly reminds me of a certain scene from Beetlejuice, by the way):

So yeah, this is certainly something different, an element not seen so far in the army. Good job! While the look may be a bit of an acquired taste, I think the mout cavity certainly offers painters around the world a very good chance to really let rip with their colours and gloss varnish, in order to create something truly disturbing. After having the Tervigon model actually give birth to Gaunts, this was probably just the next logical step…

There’s one problem with the model, if you ask me, and that’s the fact that the whole layout of the maw, including the tongue, seems to be perfectly symmetrical. Take a look:

I think some of those “feelers” (for lack of a better word) should have been a little less symmetrical. And the tongue might have looked better if it had been coiled in a more erratic way. Again, this might be due to the production requirements, but an organic horror could have used a little more visual chaos, if you ask me.

Since this is yet another multi-kit, it can also be assembled to make an Exocrine:

There’s not much to be said about this one: It’s basically a giant walking cannon, and the design nicely communicates that. In fact, my one gripe with this guy is the head, once again: It really doesn’t look all that threatening, but rather cartoony, if you ask me.

It feels like this model would really have profited from a more sinister design: What about an eyeless head? Seeing how the Tyranid cannons seem to be covered in eyeballs anyway (which is a bit of a strange concept, come to think of it…), wouldn’t it have been cool for the model to actually feature an eyeless head? It would have been fun to imagine by which senses the creature does its actual targeting. Instead, we get yet another rehash of the Carnifex look, only that this particular head looks far less interesting than all of the heads from the Carnifex kit for some reason.

Again, the kit gives Tyranid players what they were looking for, although it doesn’t seem all that surprising (apart from that Haruspex mouth region, of course) — do we see a theme emerging here?

Hive Guard / Tyrant Guard

The Hive Guard and Tyrant Guard were only available in metal and Finecast so far, so making both unit types into a plastic combi-kit seems like a very sensible choice indeed! But do they hold up to their older incarnations?

The Hive Guard took a hit, if you ask me, but that’s because I really loved the older version:

When seen in silhouette, the model just looks perfectly proportioned to me — well, as perfectly proportioned as is possible for an alien horror, of course, but I think you get my point. Much of the effect relies on the dynamic between the head and the carapace above, that seems to act almost as a cowl of some sort. The new version has a more recessed head and gives the Hive Guard a slightly more hunched pose. Not all that different, to be sure, but it somehow ends up looking more awkward than the older version, at least in my opinion.

And again with the eyes… I mean, I get it: These weapons are symbiotes, creatures of their own. But why would they have eyes? I realise that this is a characteristic that can be found on nearly all the Tyranid kits, but I only realise now that it seems like a strange choice somehow…

Then again, I might have the answer to that one:

Buddy, I realise you are doing your best to hit the opponent, and even though the cocentration is clearly evident in your face, shooting without eyes seems like a pretty bad idea…

Seriously, though, I actually like the eyeless head! It makes the model look more alien — there is a reason why Giger designed the Xenomorph without eyes, I suppose…

So while the Hive Guard gets the short stick in this particular deal, the Tyrant Guard are much improved:

Where the Hive Guard look more awkward, these guys have finally come into their own thanks to the slight overhaul: They seem more massive and threatening. And I like that they now seem able to actually do something with their frontore legs, even if it is only seen on one of the models:

A lovely detail, that

All in all, I am going to call this an improvement. Sure, that subtle bit of extra coolness on the Hive Guard is lost, but considered the improved Tyrant Guard and versatility that comes with a plastic kit, it seems like a fair deal. Definitely one of the high points of this relase for me!
Tyranid Warriors

These one are not exactly a surprise: The design remains the same, but the new kit finally gives us all the weapon options we need — and then some. Yet while the added flexibility when arming them is a big plus, it’s not easy to get all that excited over the models, seeing how these are exactly the same designs as before.

As an extra bonus, the kit also contains the parts needed to build a Tyranid Prime:

It’s a bread and butter kit for any Tyranid player, so the selection of bitz is clearly a step forward. Then again, the kit also seems to have received quite a price hike. The sensible compromise seems to be that the new kit contains far more weapons than you’ll need for three models, so for those of you who still have lots and lots of the older models lying around, getting a box of these for the equipment options should last you a while.

Conversion potential

Hmm, this one’s a toughy… The very firm design guidelines in place for the Tyranids mean that all the parts from the kit will always look like Tyranid parts. That said, I suppose there are some uses for the new bitz if you’re feeling slightly adventurous:

The wings and tentacles as well as some parts of the carapaces might come in handy for your daemon conversion needs, especially for Slaaneshi daemons. There’s a certain combination of elegance and grossness in the Tyranid design that should nicely fit the servants of the Dark Prince. For the same reason, some of the parts would probably work like a charm to convert flesh-constructs for your Dark Eldar army: There are some hobbyists who are using Tyranid appendages to great effect when converting their Grotesques and Taloi (among them Mechanicum Jon with his beautiful Cabal of the Drowned Gardens), so I guess that might be a good use for all those bitz as well.

And it goes without saying that Tyranid players should find it easy to use some of those leftover bitz to make the rest of their army more interesting.
I’ll go out on a limb here, though, and state that this doesn’t seem like a release overflowing with cool new conversion bitz. But if you have fantastic ideas, you’re very welcome to prove me wrong — maybe I’m just lacking the necessary creativity here…

All in all, this release seems like a  solid effort, yet one that is also far from groundbreaking: It’s great that the new release (and the new rules) will bring the ‘Nids up to snuff with the requirements of 6th edition, giving them stuff that seems to be standard nowadays (a flyer, for example). But it feels like this release lacks any real surprises: No bold reinvisioning, no huge kit, no characters (for obvious reasons). It’s a necessary update, but mostly one without any bells and whistles.

Let me also point out that one thing I would love to see for the future is a more fleshed out concept for Genestealer cults: In my opinion, these are one of the most interesting aspects about the Tyranids, and the one area where the Tyranids can actually transcend the – very obvious – source material that went into their creation. There’s also the fact that a Genestealer cult offers all kinds of crazy conversion opportunities (and a lot of potential when it comes to INQ28). Granted, the main codex release might not have been the perfect place to revitalise this rather specific background element. But I think it’s a shame how Genestealer cults have more or less fallen by the wayside, and a dataslate or supplement release would be a fantastic way of reintroducing them into the game, if only for those who like that particular element of 40k lore.

Oh, and one more thing: What I am really looking forward to is to see these kits with a very different paintjob: In my opinion, Tyranids should look more visceral, more disgusting: I want lots of glistening carapaces, distended fleshy parts and huge amounts of gloss and slime. All of this is lacking in the “official” ‘Eavy Metal treatment of the army. They are beautifully painted, make no mistake! But I think a more realistic treatment would go a big ways towards making the new models look slightly less cartoony and far more disturbing!

So, what’s your take on the new models? Were you, like me, ever so slightly underwhelmed? Or am I being unfair here? I’d love to hear your opinion in the comments section!

And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

While it may already be a little late for the third part of my look back at 2013, bear with me while, having already pointed out my favourite releases as well as the most amazing models and hobbyists of 2013, I wrap this up and tell you about a couple of my personal hobby moments in 2013:

Looking at the bare numbers, 2013 may not have been my most productive year: I only painted around 45 models (compared to 2012′s 90) and converted around 72, further adding to my backlog of unpainted stuff. That said, I feel that at least the first half of 2013 was fairly productive, and some of the 45 models I managed to get finished were complex and/or huge enough to count for several regular models, in any case. At the same time, it’s true that during the second half of the year, hobby time became more sparse as RL issues took over, but I think that every hobbyist is familiar with this: It just happens, from time to time.

Nevertheless, looking back on the stuff I managed to finish, I am reasonably pleased with myself. Let’s take a look, shall we?

Khorne’s Eternal Hunt

Ah, yes, my World Eaters. The one hobby project it always comes back to: Above, you can see the World Eaters’ 4th assault company, more or less as it looks right now: While I only managed to add some 15 models to the collection, the army does look slightly more impressive than its 2012 incarnation. I also tackled some pretty interesting projects, among them a squad of custom Chaos Spawn, some traitorous Space Wolves and my converted Heldrake, the Hellrazor.

And I tried to come up with some additional characters for my army, trying to build suitably World Eater-esque versions of the Dark Apostle and Warpsmith, respectively:

As a matter of fact, my heavily converted Warpsmith, Huntmaster Deracin, is clearly one of the 2013 models I am most proud of:

Assembling this guy from a huge pile of plastic bitz was just as fiddly as it was ultimately rewarding!

By sheer coincidence, one of Deracin’s own engine of destruction is the other World Eaters model I am most proud of: the Wargrinder:

Inspired by Chris Harman’s excellent kitbashed Decimator Daemon Engine, the Wargrinder was quite a bit of work, and also basically the first time I tackled a walker conversion of this scope. To be honest, I am immensely pleased with the result, and the model makes for a pretty cool centre piece of my World Eaters! Although some people really didn’t like the head…

Anyway, check out these posts, in case you’re interested to learn more about this big boy.

A Legion of one…

And while we’re on the subject of models I am really proud of, let’s not forget my favourite AdMech monstrosity:

The creature called Legion is one of my most involved conversions so far, and arguably one of the projects that really made me step outside my comfort zone. The model and the history surrounding it also double as one of my personal crowning hobby moments of awesome in 2013: PDH was cool enough to involve me into an international hobby project featuring lots and lots of supremely talented artists producing excellent models for a very special game of…well, Necromunda, I suppose, if you wanted to be technical about it, set aboard the mysterious Arrke. The models were to be given to none other than John Blanche afterwards, and the moment when JB himself sent me a picture of Legion going about his business on the banks of the underground rivers of the Arrke will remain a moment that’ll be hard to surpass!

Fun fact: While I did myself to make Legion (essentially a devolved amalgamation of several Tech Priests and explorators of the Adeptus Mechanicus) as grotesque and disturbing as possible, the more recent AdMech releases by Forgeworld are even more disturbing. Seems I was overtaken. Oh well, I still love this guy!

In fact, I really loved the whole project, and waxing poetical about it comes naturally to me. Instead of indulging my urges, however, let me just point those of you who want to read the whole story here.

The wonderful world of INQ28…

…is still going strong, and has been for the whole of 2013! While my own output of INQ28 characters may have been a bit lacking, I did at least manage to build a fairly important NPC for last year’s Inqvitational, one Inquisitor Zuul: a radical Xanthian and enemy to Inquisitor Tybalt:

Zuul was built to resemble a particular piece of artwork, which was a novel and interesting challenge. And sending him off to the Inqvitational on his own meant I was once again in the delicious position of receiving pictures of my model doing its thing during a game:

Zuul is now a permanent part of PDH’s collection, and while his prospects may look bleak (being pursued by a fanatic puritan will do that to you), I am looking forward to finding out whether the old rascal still has some surprises up his sleeve…

Learn more about Zuul’s creation and fate here.

In any case, the INQ28 scene with its many talented members remains one of the most inspiring influences in my personal hobby life: From Commissar Molotov’s and PDH’s work on the Inqvitational and Jeff Vader’s constant stream of awesome new minis to the fruitful exchange of background ideas with DexterKong, INQ28 simply rocks — even in those cases where I don’t have anything to show for it…

Da Boyz

Another thing I am quite proud of is how I managed to build and paint a complete Orc Team for Blood Bowl in a pretty short amount of time (and mostly from leftovers, no less) — the Orkheim Ultraz:

Working on those guys was a wonderful change of pace, and an opportunity to build some rather humorous models for once! And the brilliant recipe for painting Orc skin I discovered on A Gentleman’s Ones really made the painting side of things a lot of fun as well!

If you want to learn more about the Ultraz’ antics, take a look here.

The rest…

Of course, there were even more great hobby moments in 2013: Being immortalised as a member of the Night Lords 15th company by Brother Heinrich for example:

Or AgnostosTheos building 30k versions of two of my World Eaters characters:

Click here for the whole story.

When it comes to the blogging side of things, WordPress was nice enough to compile a report on 2013 for me, so in case you’re interested, take a look:

Click here to see the complete report.

All in all, it has certainly been an eventful hobby year! And with the blogosphere currently abuzz with all kinds of crazy news and developments, it doesn’t look like that will change anytime soon. So here’s hoping that I’ll be able to keep up and keep going. There’s certainly enough on my plate — now if I only had more time…

In any case, thanks for taking an interest in this blog and my ongoing hobby projects during the last year! Here’s to a new year of hobby-related craziness — in fact, I’ll be seeing you next week with some actual new content! Promise!

Until then, as always, thansk for looking and stay tuned for more!

Having been unbelievably lazy for a couple of weeks, I have recently undertaken a couple of steps to get back into hobby mode. As is so often the case with restarting an engine that has lain dormant for a while, the first moments aren’t pretty, with lots of sputtering and grinding. But it finally feels like I am slowly getting back into the swing of things, so today I would like to show you a number of smaller projects I am currently working on:

1. The Brazen Wall – revisited

First up is an Aegis Defense line for my World Eaters. I started working on this some time last summer, but then it more or less fell by the wayside. So, time to get some more work in! Here’s the aegis as it looks right now:

While I wanted the defense line to look like it clearly belonged to my army, I didn’t want to go overboard with the spiky bitz. I basically used some spikes an armour plates from the chaos vehicle sprue to spruce up the different segments. Nothing amazing, certainly. But the true achievement was to get rid of all those pesky Imperial aquilas.

To be fair, though, after I had found the right approach for doing this, it turned into an almost relaxing task. I was able to shave off all the loyal iconography in a single evening.

And while the defense line will still need some additional bitz, mostly trophies, skulls and impaled Astartes, it’s definitely getting there! Again, not the most creative and groundbreaking endeavour in the world, but just the right project to slowly ease me back into hobby mode!

2. Death from Above

Let’s continue with something slightly more involved: I also finally found a way to make what may be my favourite model from the Dark Vengeance boxed set into a member of my World Eaters:

I always thought that the Chosen wielding lightning claws would make for an excellent jump infantry officer or lord, so I added a raptor jump pack and some clawed toes from the warp talons. It’s a rather simple conversion, of course, but one I am nevertheless rather pleased with. It also resembles GW’s own Chaos lord with jump pack (as a matter of fact, I had originally intended of using that model’s jump pack for this conversion, but abandoned the idea when it turned out to be far too unwieldy).

Oh, and I do of course realise that using a flowing cape like that directly underneath what ultimately amounts to a jet engine may not be the smartest idea in the world, but there’s always the Rule of Cool, isn’t there? Let’s just pretend it’s made from flame-retardant fabric, okay?

3. Hammer Time!

Building chaos lords is one of my favourite hobby activities, of course, and with the Raptor Lord out of the way, another traitor officer was quick to follow. I was beginning to feel more adventurous, too! But we’ll get to that in a minute.

First things first: Does anyone remember these guys?

Long before FW redesigned the whole Pre-Heresy stuff, there were a number of highly interesting older models put out by GW proper. One of them was the Mk I Tactical Dreadnought Armour, indeed going back to one of Jes Goodwin’s concept sketches for the later Terminators, I believe:

Image owned by Games Workshop

There was actually a model for this particular armour design as well! And as luck would have it, I even have a picture of a chaos conversion of an Mk I Termie. Take a look:

This must be one of the first wargaming related pictures I ever downloaded from the internet, back in the early 2000s, when the blogosphere was far less developed than it is today. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you who originally built and painted the model, since the blog seems to have disappeared. If anyone knows the creator, please let me know!

Anyway, these scraps of half-forgotten lore were lying around in my various inspiration folders. And then I came across an illustration by the ever-inspirational Greyall, depicting an Imperial Fists marine wearing an updated form of Mk I TDA.

Seeing that image made me realise that it might be interesting to build a model that took design cues from that rather ancient design, and another piece of the puzzle fell into place.

Things really got underway when I started messing around with a couple of leftover armour plates from the Heldrake kit, because they almost look like those Mk I shoulder plates, if you only look at them long enough

So I formulated a plan for yet another chaos lord conversion: I would build a chaos lord wearing custom armour that would take inspiration from both the Mk I and Cataphractii designs. Not a straight recreation of either, but something that incorporated elements from both in order to create an armour that looked archaic and massive. And of course, my beloved plastic Terminator Lord would be at the heart of the conversion once more.

Anyway, after messing around with a pile of bitz for a while, here’s an early mockup of the model:

As you can see, it’s a fairly simple kitbash, any by no means an involved recreation of either armour pattern. But some of the elements are inspired by those seen on the Pre-Heresy armour: The shoulder pads and slightly recessed, helmeted head recall a more ornate Mk I design, while the topknot and pteruges skirt are a clear reference to the Cataphractii armour. And the decorative trim and heretical symbols clearly communicate the fact that we are dealing with a member of a traitor legion, after all.

I wanted to create a hulking character in highy archaic armour, and that much seems to have worked. And while the thunder hammer was only intended as a placeholder, I think that it really nicely complements the overall look of the model — even though it’s not really a weapon associated with followers of Khorne…

Another possibility would be to use one of the mauls from the Deathwing Knights that I have conveniently lying around:

As you can see, the model’s only tacked together for now, held together by lots of modelling putty and my prayers. But I am already rather fond of this guy, even though he’s only a rather simple kitbash and nowhere near as involved as, say, Dark Rage’s faithful – and incredibly cool – recreation of actual Mk I armour.   I can imagine this guy as one of Lorimar’s bodyguards, encased in ancient armour and ruthlessly efficient: a silent and deadly warrior crushing everything in the Lord Captain’s way…

Update: In a rather interesting development, Fellow hobbyist carnosaur93 over on B&C suggested I turn around the shoulder pads in order to make them look even more similar to the Mk 1 design. And while I didn’t believe him at first, I tried it and was amazed:

Consider my mind blown! The model actually looks 100% more like the old Mk I Termies now! It even has that slightly “alien” look to the shoulders, I don’t know how to describe it any better: The curvature of the shoulders is quite unlike anything seen on modern (traitor) Astartes models.

I have yet to decide which version I actually like better, but the changed one really looks more like the older armour pattern. And it also has a certain “je ne sais quoi”…food for thought, definitely!

Anyway, these are my first small hobby projects for this year! And of course, I am always happy to hear any feedback you might have! In any case, it’s  good to be back in the game, especially considering all the crazy rumours about new CSM kits to be released soon-ish.

Now if I can only find my misplaced painting modjo, everything will turn out fine…

Anyway, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Among the first steps on the way to rediscovering my missing painting modjo was to do some experiments using two of the new Citadel Technical Paints. Yes, I realise that I am rather late to the party when it comes to using these, but I had picked up a bottle of Agrellan Earth and Nurgle’s Rot, respectively, shortly before christmas, and now it was time to put them to the test.

And what better way to play loose with paints than to paint a follower of Nurgle? Not only do the Technicals chiefly lend themselves to doing rather squicky effects related to decay and bodily fluids, but painting Nurglite models can also be a ton of fun — and if something goes wrong, you can usually pretend it was planned to look that way, too…

That said, I didn’t want to sacrifice a highly involved conversion, so I chose a really old, early 90s’ plastic Plague Marine as my test subject. I also rather like the slightly corny charm of these early plastic models (the Khorne Berzerkers from the same time are still one of my favourite retro designs). A missing arm was replaced with a mutated CSM arm from my bitzbox (which also gave me the added benefit of being able to paint an area of distressed flesh). Then I broke out the paints and let rip with all the effects at my disposal in order to create weathering, decay and just general unpleasantness.

Here’s the finished model:

As you may be able to tell from looking at the pictures, I went for a quick and dirty paintjob, mostly using washes and brushing techniques to achieve the effects I wanted. I wanted to make sure painting this guy would be fun and not get bogged down by intricate detail work. And it worked, I mostly had a blast — even though the resulting model is not very likely to win me any trophies

But what about those Citadel Technical Paints? How did they perform?

As you can see, Nurgle’s Rot was used to create…well, Nurgle’s Rot, actually: I added a healthy amount of it to the Plague Marine’s twisted claw, for one, to make it look like a daemonic stinger of sorts, leaking virulent fluid:

The colour was also used on the model’s backpack, creating disgusting slime leaking out of the vents:

And finally, it was added to the torso, showing where the rot is actually breaking through the legionnaire’s armour, especially around the tubes and cables:

All in all, it basically performed like you would expect it to, creating a wet-looking, glossy slime in a pretty evil green hue. It’s a really easy and effective tool for adding slime to followers of Nurgle, but I think it would fare just as well when adding puddles of toxic sewage to your bases or terrain pieces. Granted, it may be a bit of a one-trick pony, but being able to open up a bottle and just add the slime is definitely preferrable to having to mix your own stuff by combining green colour(s) and gloss varnish (or having to work in several coats). The fact that it’s semi-translucent also really helps, making it actually look like slime instead of green colour with gloss addded on top.

The picture above actually nicely leads us to the second technical colour in question: I experimented with Agrellan Earth, hoping to create an effect at least slightly similar to the corroded armour on LuckyNo5′s excellent Mariner’s Blight models. I think we can all agree that having a simple way of creating flaking paint and a general crackle texture on the armour of Nurgle Marines (or on terrain pieces, of course) would make hobby life easier and more interesting. Well, here’s how that went:

I began my experiments by adding Agrellan Earth undiluted (and in a rather thick coat) to a base. I followed the instructions given by GW themselves, and this was the result:

A rather nice crackle effect, don’t you think? In fairness, it is slighly less pronounced if you see it with your own eyes instead of having an enlarged photograph. But the effect’s pretty cool — and also proof that I didn’t get a bottle from one of the bad batches.

So my next step was to add the colour to the marine’s armour, mixing it with a different colour to arrive at a suitably Nurgly colour scheme. Having to add light brown to the green led to the armour having a slightly lighter shade of green than I had originally planned, but that was quite alright.

The problem, however, was that getting a noticeable crackle effect here was way more difficult than when working with the colour on its own: I actually used several passes, experimenting with the ratio between Agrellan Earth and green paint. But even when using only very little green (and slathering the mix on rather thickly), I only managed to get a very slight crackle effect on the model’s stomach and shoulder pads. It’s nice and subtle, but it could be a bit more pronounced. Plus it’s really hard to get the colour to perform consistently: Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, with no discernible explanation for the inconsistency.

Worse yet, when mixing Agrellan Earth with Vallejo Negro Black for the base, the paint refused to crackle at all. Take a look:

Maybe this means that using non-GW paints messes with the crackle effect somehow? Or maybe I just couldn’t get it right by that point…

To be fair, GW themselves are advertising the colour as a means for base design, above all else. So painting flaking armour with it might never have been all that promising a plan in the first place. Still, I would have hoped for the colour to be somewhat more flexible — or am I doing something wrong? Anybody out there among you readers who knows how to make the most of this particular Technical colour?

Anyway, while I am slightly disappointed with Agrellan Earth, I do believe the colour warrants further experimentation. Here’s an idea, for starters: Do you think it would be possible to paint the colour onto an unpainted model in order to create the desired crackle effect, then add the undercoat on top of that, thereby conveniently sealing the effect in place? I may just have to try that next…

In any case, the overarching goal in this small project was to have fun painting again, and that worked out swimmingly. So we can maybe look forward to some more painted stuff in the near future? Keep your fingers crossed!

Until then, though, let me know what you think! And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

My experiments trying to create a convincing crackle effect on Plague Marine armour using the new Citadel Technical Paint Agrellan Earth continue, as do my attempts to rediscover the joy of painting. One of these goals seems to be working out quite nicely, the other one…not so much. So, what are we looking at:

As you remember, I painted a first test model, trying to bring out a rather pronounced crackle effect on the models armour. It worked, but not as well as I would have liked:

So I figured I would try a slightly different approach for the next model in line: Paint Agrellan Earth - undiluted – on areas of the entirely unpainted model and hope for a more convincing crackle effect to set in, then add all the remaining paint on top, trying to preserve the effect as much as possible.

First I had to come up with another model to use as a guinea pig, though, so I kitbashed a Plague Marine, using some of the more decrepit bitz I had lying around. And then, I added Agrellan Earth on top. Here’s the effect, after a bit of waiting:

As you can see, the crackle effect was far more pronounced this time around. So far, so good, right?

In principle, yes. But it is rather hard to retain the effect through multiple layers of paint without covering it up. While it worked until after undercoating, the following layers of paint destroyed some of the subtler touches. I tried to counter that by adding a bit of Agrellan Earth on top again, but it performed just as unevenly as before:

Apart from that, I once again used several simple weathering effects (as well as a generous helping of Nurgle’s Rot) to make the model as disgusting and decayed as possible. Here’s the result:

From a crackle perspective, the effect is still not as pronounced as I would have liked. Nevertheless, I really like the overall look of the model — and Nurgle’s Rot once again performed admirably, as you can see, with green goo leaking from the model’s armour in many places. This guy may not have crackled as much as I had wanted him to, but he surely looks like a follower of Nurgle: As a matter of fact, I can almost see myself painting a small squad of Plague Marines, just for fun, crackle or not crackle.

Here are the two test models I have completed so far:

And a colour comparison with Nurglite champion Malchius Blight, completed as part of an earlier project:

As you can see, the colour is somewhat different, with Malchius much closer to the Nurgle Terminator Lord I build as a smaller side project:

You can learn more about this guys here and here.

Tell you what, seeing how this is turning into a bit of a Nurgle showcase, let’s throw in some of my really ancient Plague Marines from the 90s, complete with my vintage paintjobs, trying hard to emulate the “official” ‘Eavy Metal paintjobs from second edition 40k:

I still love that icon bearer model, by the way — maybe I should strip the paint from it and repaint it in the “modern” style?

Anyway, here’s one of those old guys with his “younger” brother:

I somehow can’t help feeling immensely fond of those simplistic early 90s plastics — at the very least, they have aged far better than their loyalist counterparts: Just take a look at the Space Marines that came with the 2nd edition starter box!

But wait, where does all of this leave us with regard to the crackle effect?

Well, I believe I will have to give a dedicated crackle medium a go next, maybe the one offered by Vallejo will do? I could also use Agrellan Earth and use washes and shades to do the actual colouring, as some of you suggested after my last post.

In any case, this experimentation has been quite a lot of fun so far, and definitely a much needed boost for my painting modjo!

As always, let me know what you think! Thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Oh boy, what a week!

Even before my own respective copies of White Dwarf Weekly and Warhammer: Visions arrived in the mail last Saturday, I could already learn online that this was supposedly yet another catastrophy of epic proportions: The internet was already awash with reviews by Friday evening, and none of them were positive. And a sinking feeling was slowly growing in the pit of my stomach — was this the truth? Would the new magazines, especially Warhammer: Visions, really be as awful as everyone said?

Now, after spending the last weekend looking through both publications, then taking a few days to collect my thoughts on the matter, I have to say that the answer is not that simple, at least not for me. Allow me to elaborate:

Before we take a look at the magazines proper, let me first say that the decision to split a running publication into two offshoots, if you will, all against the background of an economy where print publications are closed down rather than newly established, is still baffling to me. It would also be interesting to learn whether all of this was really part of a well-considered long term plan, or rather a more or less spontaneous endeavour (although I doubt magazines at that scope can truly be manufactured “spontaneously”). What I do understand, at least, is the fact that the return to a weekly release schedule necessitates an adjustment in the accompanying publications: If you want to be the one showcasing your own releases, you need a weekly publication alongside them, period. But to produce larger editorial content beyond the actual release info for a weekly publication can be a rather daunting task. So you split your existing magazine down the middle, right?

At least, that’s what it seems like at first glance: White Dwarf Weekly is basically a WD with all the fat trimmed off, while Visions is basically the remaining fat, to put it very briefly. But let’s take a closer look and allow me to tell you what I think about the new publications:

White Dwarf Weekly

What I liked:
Well, the mag is bascially identical to the first half of the “regular” White Dwarf we’ve been seeing for a little over two years now, and I have gone on record stating that I rather like the format. You still get a visually fairly comprehensive coverage on the new model releases, along with glimpses at new BL stuff as well. There’s also a stripped-down collection of editorial content, from Jervis Johnson’s usual column to articles on assembling and painting the new models. Nothing new so far, and if you’ve been comfortable with the latest format of WD, you’ll know what to expect.

The inclusion of rules for new models is also a really nice touch, and a return to earlier incarnations of the mag, albeit only a small one: It remains to be seen if this feature will only be used to tide people over until they get the expanded rules for a new character or unit with their army book (released in the same month, no less) or if GW will use this platform to actually release new rules that will not appear anywhere else — at least not for quite a while. For now, this could really go both ways, but it definitely has some potential for the future development of WD Weekly.

What I hated:
Here’s the thing, though: The fact that WD Weekly lacks virtually all the showcase elements of the latest monthly WD issues means that this basically feels like the first 20 pages torn out of a regular WD. And while the section depicting the new releases is thorough enough, this is really content that I can find for free on GW’s own website. The lack of kitbashes and custom armies to go back to and pore over really eats into the mag’s staying power, if you ask me: I read through it in about half an hour and only went back once to take a closer look for this review.

Verdict:
While most bloggers and commenters saw WD Weekly as the winner in this particular race, it was clearly the opposite for me: Dropping many of the showcase features leads to a magazine shorn of everything I personally find interesting. There’s the information on new releases, sure. But, like I said,  I can find plentiful information (and better pictures) of that stuff online, even on GW’s own website. The prospect of having new rules introduced through this publication alongside new kits is possibly the most interesting thing about WD Weekly, and I might get those issues dealing with kits and rules that interest me. But by and large, and especially at 3,20 Euros a pop, I think I’ll pass on this more often than not.

Warhammer: Visions

What I liked:
Warhammer: Visions is definitely a fascinating product because it seems so experimental in many ways: I am not all that sure that there is a noticeable market for a wargaming coffeee table book like that, to be honest, and it remains to be seen whether it will find its feet in the future or just turn out to be a way for GW to fulfill existing subscriptions before being unceremoniously canned.

That said, it really felt like some of the carry-over categories from WD really work much better in the new format:

The “Army of the Month” feature, for one, gets quite an expansion (at 14 pages), which is great: I’ve always loved looking at well-conceived armies, even if I don’t play that particular faction or system, and 14 pages are enough space to really showcase the intricacies and little details. In the latest issues of WD, the Army of the Month feature was always too short for my taste, and the new format really works for me!

And while I can get tired of looking at GD winners for too long, there are some rather nice pieces in this issue’s showcase section, and even quite a bit of stuff I hadn’t seen before, such as Will Hahn’s amazing Nurgle Daemon Prince:

Sure, you can always argue about the choice of content here, but such matters usually come down to personal taste. What I do like is that the section gets enough room to really showcase some of the more interesting detail, and it doesn’t overstay its welcome, either.

It’s also great to see that Blanchitsu and Kitbash make a return, although either of these could (and should) be expanded in the future, especially the former: I do realise that not everyone shares John Blanche’s taste in miniatures and design. Neither is everyone a fan of INQ28. But Blanchitsu represents a wholly unique voice in this hobby of hours, and INQ28 is the embodiment of “anything goes” in design terms: You can play any character you want. The model representing your character can be as restrained or as crazy as you want. You can experiment with kitbashing, painting or what have you. Towards this end, if you’re going for a mag that should showcase the versatility of GW’s models, Blanchitsu is basically your ace in the hole!

Oh, and one last thing: Quite a few people online are arguing that the smaller format is a step back, but I tend to disagree here: I really found it rather pleasant, and it somehow makes the mag feel “special”, less like a catalogue and more like an artbook. Sure, this is really a matter of personal preference, but the argument that the decrease in size allows for less content seems like a bit of a non-issue to me: I don’t believe they would have changed much about the mag’s content had it been any bigger: Like it or not, the layout and content of the mag seem to have been a deliberate choice on GW’s part.

What I hated:
Well, first of all, there are two things that I didn’t actually hate, but that puzzled me nonetheless, the first one being the very small amount of text in the mag. At least for the showcase sections, I would be okay with this, though: I realise the age of finding sprawling fluff and background sections in WD is well behind us, and I realise that, these days, extensive reading is not what I want from GW’s monthly or weekly publications. I come for the eye candy and stay for a couple of insightful comments and snippets of text here and there. Don’t get me wrong,  I love my background as much as the next guy (or, indeed, moreso on most occasions). But there’s so much excellent background fluff available online that GW is no longer my main outlet for that kind of content anyway. So, by and large, I don’t care about the lack of text all that much, except for two cases:

One, I would love to read something about the conception of the new models, even if it’s just some small designer’s notes – I’ll be getting to that in more detail in a minute. Two, I think that, at this point, they should really drop the battle reports altogether: If they are not prepared to give us either background context or rules and tactics discussions, the report is ultimately hollow. To wit, the most interesting thing about this month’s battle report was the opprotunity to get a closer look at Matt Hudson’s CSM army, if you ask me.

Then there’s the one thing that I really hated, and that’s the amount of repetition in the issue: We get 70 or 80+ pages of Tyranid models and colour schemes we have already seen last month (or online). I realise that GW need to feature the “flavor of the month army” prominently, but why use the same models and images over and over? And why compile a sprawling book of excellently painted miniatures and then complement it with painting guides that are really basic and unsophisticated? GW are welcome to feature the army of the month as much as they like, but they should be prepared to make the content dealing with that army as exciting as possible (instead of using twenty closeups from the same sprawling battle scene).

Verdict:
All in all, I am disappointed with Visions, but only midly so: If done right, I believe that this could be the kind of hobby publication I would be really interested in. As it stands, though, the first issue (which should have been a real killer) seems like a bit of a missed opportunity. They should really have let rip with this first installment, in order to win skeptics over. They settled for “kinda okay-ish” though, which is very unfortunate. Still, I believe Visions could become something special if handled right (and I will share some ideas with you in the next paragraph, be prepared). Whether it can be economically successful is a wholly different question, of course. But out of the two mags on offer, Visions is the far more interesting one, at least in my opinion. The mag has been derisively called “Miniature Porn” by many commenters, but you know what: That’s actually its appeal! I don’t know about you, but ogling beautifully converted and painted miniatures has been one of the core features of the hobby for me ever since my childhood friends and me sat hunched around a 40k 2nd edition colour section during our school breaks, marveling at the quality of the miniatures on display.

As it stands, both premieres are slightly underwhelming, which, of course, is hardly ideal when you’re replacing a long running product with two new ones. But I don’t want to be all negative here, so let me share some ideas on how to improve future issues. Some of these may be realistic, some of them may be crazy. But hey, I am just a blogger, so don’t expect any realism from me, okay?

I’ll also be focusing on Visions here, because it simply seems like the more promising format. So here goes:

1. Get rid of the countless rehashes:

Instead of reusing stuff we already know over and over again, why not compile a spotlight article for the faction that gets the most releases of the month? Such an article could feature enough pictures of the studio army, but it could also encompass concept art, short blurbs by the designers or even images of classic models. All of this would show how that particular army has evolved over time, what it means to the designers or what its central characteristics are. I firmly believe this would generate more buzz for any given army than just featuring the same 50 models in ever-changing arrangements. Also, instead of only featuring the studio armies, why not tap into the limitless supply of fantastic images available: The last issues of monthly WD were really good about using hobbyists’ armies over studio armies, so why not continue that trend? Speaking of the Tyranids, for example, Jes Bickham’s own hive fleet has been featured to death, but now it’s missing from the one issue of Visions actually dealing with ‘Nids? What gives? And why do they only show Adrian Komarski’s amazing models – easily some of the best ‘Nids I’ve ever seen – on the homepage but neglect to feature them in the mag? Each of these armies could have replaced four pages of rehashed photography! In short, if you want to show us 80 pages of Tyranid models, go right ahead! Just make sure it’s the most exciting inspiring collection of Tyranids you can come up with! And add some conversions, while you’re at it!

2. There’s so little text that you should make it meaningful — or drop it altogether

Here’s an edgy idea for you: Why not present most of the short blurbs of text as in character flavour pieces and soundbites? For example, a sentence like this

“The Haruspex crushes victims with its claws before dragging them into its maw with its vile grasping tongue.”

could become something like this:

“I swear Commmissar Helsrich was still shouting the Emperor’s catechism while his bones were being crushed by that thing. I still remember his face as that hideous …tongue dragged him into the creature’s maw. And I believe I will until the day I die.”
Trooper Constan Heral, 115th Palthian Grenadiers

Sure, it’s a bit longer, but you know what: Just drop the French and German translations while you’re at it! I daresay I speak for my fellow Europeans when I say that we would be able to cope. When all the text in your publication fits onto an A4 sheet, there’s a fair chance that your audience will manage to understand it, even if it’s only presented in english.

3. More dialogue with the community

This goes for more than the new mags of course, but in a hobby with such an amazingly vibrant hobby scene, why not work with those hobbyists more? We’re not even talking about democracy, here — you still get to call the shots when it comes to the business side of things, GW. But give us some information, for crying out loud! Ask us for our opinion! Will you have to deal with the – sometimes overwhelming – negativity? You bet! But you’ll also find many, many hobbyists that are eager to engage in some kind of honest dialogue with you, and even if nothing else may come of it, your publications would be the better (and more interesting, and possibly commercially viable for it)!

If I am disappointed with the new mags, it’s mainly because they are less than they could have been, but that problem should be fixable. Of coure, I am in the comfortable position to have been given my subscription as a christmas gift, so I can sit here and watch the mag develop without having to burn any money on it. But it goes without saying that I would rather see it flourish than go under. And there may just be a very real danger of that. To quote a remarkable comment by fellow hobbyist Matt Charman I found over on Faeit 212 some time ago:

It vexes me – I’m terribly vexed!

Now I’m usually the first to defend GW (former staff etc) and to slate economically illiterate whining about their policies. One of the things I haven’t bashed people as much about is their curious revisionist history of WD (where they refer to some golden age where its hobby content was much better). Now I have WD going back to the 80s, and the content and quality has gone through waves. For examples, in 1998 it was bloody awful, in 2002 it was amazing, in 2006 it was terrible, in 2013 it was awesome. Different trends and styles have given it a see-sawing history of quality whatever haters say.

But the Visions thing bothers me a lot. Now, my expectation was for a mix of imagery, original stories and hobby articles – leaving the rules, release information and Codex/AB commentary for WD. Maybe I misunderstood, who knows. That’s not what bothers me.

What bothers me is that all of the pages displayed, we’re seeing studio armies or very polished GD winners. Intending no disrespect to the great talents of these painters, I don’t find that hugely inspiring. Technically competent, yes – but we’re seeing things we’re familiar with (for example Empire troops in Talabheim colours, Tyranids in Leviathan/Kraken colours and so on). If I were to to produce a primarily pictorial magazine in this format, I think I’d have got for the diversity angle and compiled images of hobbyist collections. I find that a fresh perspective is more inspiring than a familiar one, even if said fresh perspective isn’t executed to studio quality.

To give an example of what I mean, remember Blood in the Badlands? There was a lovely conversion where one of the chaps had created a Tzeentch lord’s disc out of the vortex fulcrum. That idea had never occurred to me before, and I still want to steal it!

But here we’re being shown things which we’re already familiar with from our Codices/Army Books – albeit photographed at different angles and in different combinations. I’m honestly not sure what they’re trying to achieve here. But sadly, and as much as I’m a supporter of GW, I can’t get to grips with the idea of it being worth £7 per month.

 

So yeah, GW, just make sure it’ll be worth it in the future, alright? We’re all willing to help here, if you only let us

So, what’s your opinion? Did you love or hate the new mags? Do you have any ideas you would like to share? Let me know in the comments section!

And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Hey everyone,

there I was, happily rediscovering the joy of painting while finishing one Plague Marine after the other, easy as you please. I should have known that Nurgle would visit his gifts on me sooner rather than later, but I was too enraptured by all the decay and rot.

Possibly as a consequence, I’ve been hit with a major case of the flu — that’s what I get, I suppose So, long story short, I cannot show you the post I originally wanted to show you because I didn’t manage to finish it. That’s the bad news.

The good news is that I can fill the update slot with yet another Plague Marine I painted, so you do get something new to look at, after all!

This time, the model in question was kitbashed in late 2010, so it was high time I slapped some colour on this guy. Here he is:

And a closeup of his lovely face

Here are the three finished Plague Marines together:

Crackle or no crackle, painting these guys has really been a blast so far, so I am considering adding some more models to the squad: I have two of the 90s metal Plague Marines, plus that old icon bearer from the same time. Giving those models the updated painting treatment would bring the squad up to seven — Nurgle’s sacred number, conveniently enough

But that’s a smaller project for the future! For now, let me crawl back to my bed and try to shake off the visitations of Papa Nurgle. And, of course, let me know what you think!

We’ll be returning to the regular content soon. Until then, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Some of you may already have wondered whether my recent focus on Plague Marines, apart from earning me Nurgle’s blessing by way of the flu, had made me forget about the 4th assault company altogether. Far from it! In fact, thoughts of Khorne’s Eternal Hunt have been slowly coagulating at the back of my head, and the recent rumours of possible new plastic kits to be released for Chaos Space Marines have only added to that pile of half-formed ideas. What’s more, I could never abandon this army, especially not in favour of followers of weak and inferior gods. Anyway, it’s time for another servant of Khorne to grace this blog! So, for now, let me show you a project that actually started quite a long while ago, but that only finally came to fruition in the last weeks:

Back in late 2012, I watched The Hobbit – An Unexpected Journey – as, no doubt, many of you did. And one of the most interesting things about the film, at least in my opinion, was Azog. His character design had been kept a closely-guarded secret just up to the release of the model, and so he became one of the visually more surpising elements of the film, and one that really inspired me: There was something about that pale, overmuscled creature and the sheer audacity of going into battle stripped to the waist that really made me think of the World Eaters’ gladiatorial leanings — and as a matter of fact, I had already begun exploring that angle with my first gladiator models:

But what if I were to take that idea even further? What about a model straddling the line between those gladiatorial World Eaters and Azog? The idea fascinated me, to be honest! And the model resulting from such a project would be the perfect character to lead a squad of gladiators in battle.

The next step towards transforming these half-baked ideas into an actual model was coming across kevinholcomb’s Angron conversion on CMoN. He had used the upper body of Hasslefree Miniatures’ “Wolf” barbarian model to great effect in order to come up with a model very similar to the look I was trying to achieve. So while ordering stuff via a big German hobby retailer some time ago, I picked up one of these as well, just in case:

I really love this sculpt, because while the model has the ‘roided-out look expected of an Astartes, there is also a certain nobility, even dignity, in both the pose and the face (on a mostly unrelated note, I found out by sheer coincidence that the model looks amazingly similar to this particular picture of Nathan Jones).

But I still needed to find a suitable lower body for the model, and experimenting with various Terminator legs didn’t amount to much. So the project seemd to be on indefinite hold…

…until it picked up steam again when I purchased a rather beat-up, incomplete metal Abaddon as part of a bigger ebay auction:

As you can see, even after I had stripped the paint off it, the model remained pretty rough in places, and there was also the fact that the Abaddon model looks rather puny when placed next to more recent Terminators. So the model was basically surplus to requirements — until I put it next to the Hasslefree barbarian:

Dear old Abby might no longer cut it as a model in tactical dreadnought armour, but what if I were to use the legs as part of my Azog-inspired conversion to represent power armoured legs for a giant of an Astartes instead? Things just fell into place at this point…

One thing bothered me, though: Both models were made from metal, and I am certainly not a fan of conversions involving all-metal models. But this time, there seemed to be no easy way around that, so I started sawing. The first part was to slowly disassemble poor Abaddon piece by piece, so as not to damage any of the parts I wanted too heavily:

The so-called Warmaster of Chaos — armless once more…

Then I cut off the barbarian’s legs model, unfortunately taking off part of his lower stomach as well. Both halves were then pinned together using a piece of paperclip:

As you can see, both parts of the model had been slightly damaged during the sawing, so a touchup with liquid GS would be in order. Before that, though, I greenstuffed a stomach section to fill the gap between upper and lower body. Then I used some more GS to sculpt a Triumph Rope scar for the torso.  And this obviously wouldn’t be one of my conversions without some additional plastic bitz stuck on. Here’s the finished conversion before painting:

I added a double-headed battle axe to the model — the bit, originally from the Marauder Horsemen kit, had been lounging in my bitzbox for quite a while, and this seemed to be the perfect opportunity to finally make good use of it! I also added a CSM shoulder pad and a Marauder shield to the left arm, both because I liked the asymmetrical look and because it was a nice way of making the guy look at least slightly more plausible. Most of the damage to the model was also repaired using Liquid GS.

When it came to painting the model, I really stuck to my usual formula, content in the knowledge that the contrast between the bare torso and armoured legs would make for an interesting effect. This being the first World Eaters model I painted in quite a while, the paintjob turned out slightly rough around the edges, but I didn’t mind too much.

So here he is, ladies and gentlemen:

Being my first (and quite likely my last) conversion involving metal models like this, I do of course realise that the model could look smoother. I am not to bothered with that, however, because I think that the overall effect still comes across rather nicely.

But who is this half-dressed giant of a man? As usual, figuring out a background for the model was the last stage of the project:

Vorl Dustwalker, Lord of the Pit

Some members of the War Hounds Astartes Legion may have loathed the brutal, gladiatorial style of warfare introduced by the Primarch Angron, but Vorl Dustwalker was not one of them. Even before the legion’s reunion with its Primarch, he had already established himself as a master of the fighting style that would become a trademark of the legion in later years. On the War Hounds’ vassal world of Bodt, Vorl was one of the Astartes tasked with training the legionaries in combat at close quarters. And many mighty champions of the World Eaters still hold in their hearts a feeling of shame at being brought low by him during sparring matches, the acrid taste of Bodt’s volcanic soil still etched into their memory as a reminder of their failure.

After gladiatorial fighting had become one of the mainstays of the World Eaters’ cobbled-together warrior culture, Vorl became known as the Dustwalker, a legend in the fighting pits, almost on par with mighty Delvarus, the legion’s uncontested champion on the Hot Dust.

How the Dustwalker came to be a member of Lorimar’s 4th assault company after the madness at Skalathrax is difficult to ascertain. But ever since, he has been serving as a combat instructor and an insurmountable contestant in the fighting pits nestled in the bowels of the company’s capital ship.

Vorl Dustwalker is not often seen outside the pits, for ordinary fights tend to be beneath his notice. Once the Dustwalker’s interest is piqued by a battle or an adversary, however, he may take to the field, accompanied by a coterie of his most talented gladiators. Their only partly armoured bodies and comparatively primitive weapons are both a mockery of their opponents and a testament to their skill, and Vorl is the first among these capricious warriors.

As always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

It’s been quite a while since I was last able to show you a finished INQ28 model, but now my – mostly – rediscovered painting motivation has allowed me to finally put the finishing touches of another character for this particular side of the hobby.

In fact, the model I would like to show you today really shouldn’t be a stranger, at least not to regular readers of this fine blog: It’s a model I already showed you twice: Once as an unpainted WIP and once during the later painting stages.

The original plan, as I might have mentioned before, was to build a model inspired by the original Quovandius artwork from the Inquisitor rulebook:

Quovandius artwork from the original Inquisitor rulebook. Image owned by GW, obviously.

While the actual 54mm model for Quovandius is faithful to the artwork in many ways, the model itself ends up looking somewhat pitiful and sickly, while the guy pictured in the artwork above seems like he really means business. I also really wanted to incorporate the shotgun used as a crutch, since that has to be one of my favourite parts of the artwork!

Anyway, using an old Ork boy as a base model, here’s the model I came up with:

Not a perfect match, surely, but you should still be able to recognise where the inspiration came from, I believe. And, true to the artwork, this twist really looks like one mean mother, if I do say so myself.

And while painting him may have taken ages – he had been mostly finished for a long time, but I only went back for the finishing touches now – the model is now finally finished, and I am also quite pleased with the result. Take a look:

You might think I am crazy, but making the loincloth look more vibrant on the finished model may have been my best decision while painting. I also gave some extra care to parts of his equipment, like his knife, to make them look well used but deadly:

And finally, the model’s face received an extra layer of highlights, making the scars and seams slightly more noticeable. I really think he’s a bit of a character, to tell you the truth:

All in all, the model looks scarred and malformed, but this twist is also clearly his own man: You may find him horrifying, but you certainly wouldn’t pity him like you do pity the awkward and sickly looking Quovandius, right? Even though he has a bad leg…

But what about the model’s backstory? How did he end up even more ugly than your average twist? And why does he look so angry? As is my usual approach, finishing the model also entailed coming up with a bit of background for it…

Decius Freeman, twist bounty hunter

“Say, you ever heard of Decius Freeman?”

“Nah, couldn’t say I have. Wait, you mean that twist revolutiory riling up them workers on Silon Minor? The one sold out his fellow conspirators in the end, trying to save his hide before the cartels brought in the heavy hitters?”

“That’s the one, although that’s not the way I hear it told. Ask the right people, and they’ll say he was actually the one being sold out, only that, once that rebellion had been quelled and the dust had settled, no one was that all intent on finding out the truth of it.”

“What’s it to you, though? You turnin’ into some kind of historical expert on the matter of the twist freedom movement, or what?”

“Feth, I was getting to that, right? So, just the other day, a twist hunter came by the Virgo, down in sector eleven. One big fether, I tell you. Ugly too. All muscle and scars and gristle, and with a gammy leg. And I gak you not, he was using a mean looking shotgun as a crutch.”

“So?”

“Said he was looking for Reuban Nonus. Said the two of them go way back. That he owed him. Only thing is, he got that look in that one good eye of his when he said it, made you feel like old Reuban wouldn’t be all too pleased to be paid back what he was owed, if you get my meaning.”

“And did you tell him?”

“Me? Throne, no. I reckon if someone needs to find me, they ought to know where to look. And if they have to ask others for my location, well, maybe I don’t want to see them all that badly. That twist didn’t get a word out of me, and he was putting on his best scowl too, by the look of it. Told me to come find him if I remembered. Told me he goes by the name of Decius.”

“But you didn’t remember anything?”

“Nah, course not. But you know how it goes in the hollows: Some Asher down on his luck musta told him where to find his old friend, because next thing you know, Old Reuban’s floating face down in one of them culture tanks, down at the hydroponics.”

“Gak! I hadn’t heard that! Say, didn’t Reuban used to work on Silon hisself?”

“That he did. Never did want to talk about his time in the mines, though. I figured it must have been terrible on that world during the riots.”

“And you think that twist did him in? The one with the gammy leg?”

“I’d bet my last cred on it. And you know what? If there are any more guys in the sector being owed by that Decius fellow, they had best keep out of sight. Throne, all that talking is giving me a sore throat. You still drinkin’ that?”

As always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

A word in advance: When GW changed their magazine publications, part of the collateral damage also extended to my regular look at the new releases: Until this month, I always wrote up a comprehensive look at the releases for the new “flavour of the month” army at the beginning of that month. With the releases now arriving in weekly spurts, that approach no longer works, obviously. But instead of doing a partial review each week, thereby cluttering up my posting schedule with additional posts, I have decided to stick with my usual approach, only that the comprehensive review will now be posted towards the end of the month. While also less stressful for me, I hope that this works for those of you actually reading my pointless ramblings on the new plastic crack

So, without further ado, let’s cut to the chase: GW’s mags may have changed, but we still get a huge update for one particular army, and this time it’s the Dwarfs’ turn (actually, I was really hesitant to write dwarfs instead of dwarves, until I learned that even Tolkien himself wasn’t all that pleased with the latter way of spelling the plural, so yeah…):

The Dwarfs are one of the archetypal fantasy races, along with Elves and Orcs, so everyone interested in fantasy generally has a picture of them in his mind: heavily armoured, bearded warriors armed with heavy axes or hammers. And, indeed, GW’s own treatment of this particular fantasy race has always been patterned after this archetypal look, broadly speaking. Still, I guess we all know what we expect when we hear the word “Dwarf”. So what do we get? And does it look like we all think dwarfs (or dwarves, or dwarrow) should? Let’s take a closer look:

Belegar Ironhammer

Isn’t this guy actually a bit tall for a dwarf? Anyway, the model has all the hallmarks of both a dwarf and an ostentatious WFB commander model: Beard, check. Hammer, check. Enormous, massively impractical back banner, check. It’s fair to say that Belegar makes for a nice enough centre piece model for any dwarf army!

I do have two minor gripes with the model, though: The first one is the Oathstone, which seems like a slightly dull manner of making the model taller: Personally, I would have preferred a rocky outcrop or something similar. But in all fairness, not only is this purely a matter of personal preference, but the Oathstone is also completely optional, making this a non-issue.

The bigger problem is the model’s face: In my opinion, the face is a point of focus on every model, but especially so for dwarfish characters: Whether you want to go for the “grizzled veteran” look or are trying to take a more humourous approach, the face is a major point in selling a dwarf as a character.
In this case, however, the helmet design actually obsures the face, especially the eyes, leading to a slightly bland look. Now this wouldn’t be all that bad for a rank and file model, but on an army commander, it seems slightly unfortunate. Again, just my personal taste, of course, but I would have liked a more expressive face…

Dragon Slayer

…which really leads us to this guy: You actually couldn’t get much more expressive than the Dragon Slayer model: The pose is amazingly dynamic, and the stylised dragon head seems like a great way to both add to the model’s dynamism and height and make the character interact with his base in a meaningful way: The slayer really looks like he’s in the middle of throwing himself at a huge enemy, which is basically the perfect look for the character!

At first glance, the face seems a little unwholesome…

…but then you remember that this guy has quite likely lost most of his marbles by now, so the pinched, not quite sane expression really works, after all. My one nitpick is that the hair seems a little hokey, because those three-piece hairstyles never ever work. That’s only a fairly minor concern, though: The model looks great and is both iconic and fun — certainly one of the high points of the release for me!

Grimm Burloksson

Ah, yes, now we’re getting to the steampunk part: Master Engineer Grimm Burloksson surely looks tech-savvy enough, with all the crazy steampunk equipment of his! He also seems like a guy who can really hold a grudge, judging by his facial expression — another really characterful sculpt, even though there is so little actual face visible underneath that huge beard.

As for the various equipment options, the Cog Axe is far more interesting from a visual standpoint than the pointy hand:

I also really love the rifle, but the great thing is that you really get to choose which option you prefer with this kit, because Grimm seems quite modular, especially for a one-pose plastic model:

Of course this means that, regardless of which options you choose, you also get some bitz out of the deal, which is always a plus. And even though I think that the back mounted furnace may be a bit much, once again, there’s no one stopping you from leaving it off or converting it into something more suitable. In fact, this kind of modularity is something that also extends to the third plastic character:

Dwarf Runelord

A generic HQ this time, but once again a pretty modular one: The kit gives you enough parts to build your Runelord with several different equipment options and one of two different heads (with the remaining bitz once again a sweet addition to your bitzbox!)

The book and hammer combo has a classic quality, for some reason, while the ornate armour really makes it clear that this guy is not you average rank and file dwarf. Personally, speaking, though, I like the tongs gripping a blazing rune even more, both because it’s such a cool and iconic idea, but also because it could be a really cool element to paint!

It’s a good thing we get two heads to choose from, though, because it seems like the dwarfen [sic!] faces seem to be a bit hit and miss this time around:

The left one seems slightly…strange for some reason, with a fairly angular beard and piggy little eyes. Luckily, the second one is quite a bit better, and once again, it’s easy enough to choose your favourite combination:

This versatility and modularity in plastic characters is certainly something I would love to see much more of! All in all, the Runelord is a pretty competently designed model. Good job!

Gyrobomber/Gyrocopter

Ah, now we are getting to the really quirky stuff! Both the Gyrobomber and Gyrocopter are just unabashedly goofy, and really all the better for it. Of course, a flying machine that seems quite early 20th century-ish may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but for me it’s just a part of what makes the WFB universe so eclectic and recognisable!

The bomber is quite a monster, and I am certainly not going to argue for or against its realism. Could it actually stay in the air? Who cares! The bumblebee shouldn’t be able to fly either, after all…

In all fairness, the rotor design does take a little getting used to:

The design is quite effective, though, in that it instantly reads as both a bomber and a dwarfish war machine. There are also some really nice touches, such as the pilot looking like a dwarf version of an WWI biplane pilot (only missing the trailing shawl) and the impressive cluster of bombs:

The kit can also be assembled as a Gyrocopter:

This flying machine looks like it uses a shortened version of the bomber’s chasssis, making the whole thing look even quirkier, if you ask me: There’s just something about its bublebee-ish proportions that you simply have to love! Using the kit to build a Gyrocopter should also give you lots and lots of leftover bitz, by the look of it.

While I usually like my wargaming serious, these flying machines are just adorable: Yes, they are quirky and goofy and not at all realistic. But they are also totally awesome, and a perfect embodiment of the inherent eclecticism (and even silliness) of the WFB universe, and you’ve got to love them for that!

When it comes to the new infantry kits, the Dwarfs actually yet more combi-kits, making this whole release quite versatile. Let’s take a closer look at the foot sloggers:

Hammerers/Longbeards

The first combi-kit gives us two varieties of heavily armoured dwards with imposing weapons: The Hammerers really look like they mean business, and I like the correspondence between their two-handed war hammers and the anvil-inspired helmet design! Their armour is also fairly ostentatious and ornate, making them look like the elites they probably are!

The Longbeards manage to look even more blinged-out, probably due to their highly ornate axes and helmets and the odd stylised shield popping up. Again, the detail on these is awesome, and they look like the living legends the fluff makes them out to be.

I will be honest with you, though: While I quite like the design of both kits, I somehow cannot shake off the feeling that they look subtly different from the older dwarf kits. And I don’t just mean different as in newer, more recent: The overall design approach seems to have slightly readjusted, and my first impulse was to think that these, while awesome, don’t look like GW models — is that weird?

Granted, the feeling gradually wore off after some time, and I couldn’t really quite explain to you what gave me the impression. But the new armour design seems quite different in places — which, of course, doesn’t have to be a bad thing!

Ironbreakers / Irondrakes

Another infantry combi-kit, and just like the Hammerers/Longbeards, these guys also seem excellently detailed, with lots and lots of neat little touches. The Ironbreakers also get quite a few equipment options, from hammers and axes to twin pistols:

Yeah, that’s the ticket! The picture above serves to illustrate two things, though (apart from the blue armour looking beautiful): One, the bare head’s pinched features once again seem a bit off, underlining the impression that the designers either really nailed the faces or ended up with some pretty …original material, for lack of a better word. The other thing is that this model once again illustrates how the armour design seems quite different from the older models: Look at the legs and feet, for example.

The alternate assembly will give you a kit of Squat…erm Dwarf Irondrakes, wielding what is, for all intents and purposes, flamethrowers:

These may actually be the most heavily armoured dwarfs so far, with even their beards appearing as stylised, metal parts of their protective helmets. I really like how the dragon motif is repeated across several pieces of their equipment:

And man, those drake guns are awesome: If you’re going to have a steampunk flamethrower, you might as well go the whole hog and make it look like a stylised dragon. And the Trollhammer Torpedo pictured below doesn’t only look awesome, it also wins the award for the best weapon name ever!

The different heads used in the combi-kit are once again very interesting, with the Ironbreakers quite heavily armoured, but their natural beards still visible. The Irondrakes, meanwhile, seem to subscribe to the “safety first!” rule, with their protective gear incorporating stylised, metal beards:

Another expertly designed kit, and the Irondrakes add yet more steampunk-quirkiness to the army, which is a plus in my book!

My main question for all of the new infantry kits is this, however: How will any of these look next to the older models? Compare the new Longbeards…

to this…

Granted, these are different unit types, and the extra detail in the new kits is certainly a result of better technology being available today. But the difference seems more fundamental, somehow, and it’ll be interesting to see whether these will still read as one army on the tabletop — it seems like I’ll have to wait for Warhammer: Visions 80+ pages of dwarf pictures for my answer, though…

Conversion options

When it comes to the question of using the new stuff for non-dwarfish projects, that really seems like a bit of a toughie: The models and bitz are usually very recognisable as dwarfish in origin, from the shape of the blades to the dwarfish runes everywhere. Sure, some of the steampunk-y bitz might be useable in various 40k armies, and the dragon-themed accessories from the Irondrakes kit might be an interesting addition to a Salamanders or Black Dragons Space Marine army. But by and large, all of the new stuff seems very dwarfish and rather difficult to adapt to other armies.

The truly interesting approach, then, might be to use the kits and bitz for dwarf projects with a twist: Could it be possible to use some of the new infantry kits as a base for a Chaos Dwarf army? Sure, none of them look especially chaos-y at first glance, but the Irondrakes could become really sinister with some added spikes and horns. And experimenting with the new plastic kits might be quite a bit cheaper than going for FW Chaos Dwarfs…

The real elephant in the room lies in the options for 40k, though: If you’ve ever wanted to build a Squat army, this release should give you lots of useful toys: The Irondrakes and Ironbreakers would need nothing more than some back packs and slightly modernised weapons to fit the 40k look, and Grimm Burloksson even has what looks like a bionic eye, for crying out loud! I think the new kits would make it really easy to build an all-plastic Squat force used as a counts-as Space Marine army of your choice. Just imagine the Gyrocopter/Gyrobomber kit used in conjunction with Storm Talon parts — wouldn’t that be a kitbashing extravaganza?

Granted, the result would be a blast from the past, but if retro is your thing, and you’ve waited for the Squats to make a reappearance, this might just be your best bet!

All in all, I’m going to call this a pretty strong release for dwarf players! Granted, all the armoured dwarfs can get a bit long in the tooth, and the new design paradigm might need some getting used to, but the versatility and modularity of the new kits is really nice! And the sheer quirkiness of a kit like the Gyrocopter almost tempts me into getting one for fun…

Seriously, though: My WFB days are over, and even if I were to return, I wouldn’t choose dwarfs as my army. But the models are still beautiful and just on the right side of humourous, and the release feels comprehensive and creative enough to be interesting nevertheless. And certainly more inspired than the Tyranids’ bread and butter update last month — but that’s just my opinion.

So, what do you think of the new dwarfs? Were you as charmed by the bumblebee-copter? Did you feel the same about the different design? Do you have any crazy conversion ideas for the new kits? I’d love to hear from you in the comments!

As always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Oh my, Eternal Hunt is actually two years old now — and has been for a week, to tell you the truth: I just missed posting this last week, although I have to say that showing you a new model just seemed more important than celebrating myself

Seriously, though: Who would have thought that this blog would actually survive for two years? That I would manage to publish 195 posts (this one included), 94 of them during this last year? That the blog would manage to attract about 183,000 views and a sizeable crowd of followers? Not me, that much is for certain!

Not to bore you with numbers, but I am really proud of the fact that the number of views has actually tripled, compared with last year, and that attracting 10,000 views a month, something that seemed like a one-off success last year, has now become an almost regular occurence — nuts!

Indeed, I could go on all day about how awesome this blog is, of course, but I would only be tooting my own whistle and reiterate huge swathes of my look back at 2013, and you can just as well read that part yourself, if you are that way inclined.

For now, let me take this opportunity to say thank you to all of you reading my pointless ramblings week for week! Being able to post my stuff here and in my various threads and getting feedback has become and integral part of my hobby experience, and one that I wouldn’t want to miss. I am especially thankful to those of you following this blog or commenting (regularly), because it’s the discussion with fellow hobbyists that has made my hobby life what it is today and has given me many cool ideas for my various ongoing projects.

Chief among these is my beloved World Eaters army for 40k, Khorne’s Eternal Hunt, which continues to be a project that gets my creative juices flowing:

If you have looked at this blog before, you should already know these guys. And if you don’t, well, what are you waiting for: Go read up on them!

Beyond this army, there are many bigger and smaller projects, from various smaller armies (like my Traitor Guard or kitbashed Custodes) to my INQ28 models and all kinds of stuff in between, my productivity has certainly profited a lot from getting in contact with many talented hobbyists and from getting your feedback here and on my various threads. So this is certainly something I would like to continue!

At the same time, I also realise that making time for blogging can become a bit of a challenge from time to time: There are times when RL issues take over (and rightly so: this is a hobby, after all) and getting some new content up in time seems like a slog. At the end of last year, for instance, I really needed to take a break after a couple of pretty stressful months, and blogging wasn’t exactly my foremost interest.

But then the strangest thing happened: Through a number of smaller projects, I rediscovered my motivation (as well as parts of my painting modjo), and some recent developments in the hobby have also managed to pique my interest. So while I cannot promise you that there won’t be times when I take small breaks every now and then, cutting back on the number of posts when necessary, I can safely say that this blog is something that I want to keep working on!

So, to dispense with the self-referential stuff, do I have something for you to look at? You bet!

Last year, I celebrated my blog’s birthday by showing you a real blast from the past, namely my very first 40k (or rather, Space Crusade) models. This year, let’s do something slightly similar: To begin with, here’s what might be one of my very first models altogether. A partially painted HeroQuest barbarian. Behold it and weep:

Yeah, I really didn’t know what I was doing, did I? My only excuse is that I realised it even back then and stopped painting, never finishing the model. This was a stain upon my honour as a hobbyist, of course, so a while ago, I went back to finish the job: The thick coat of piggy pink was (mostly) stripped away and I gave the model a second try. Here’s the result:

Granted, the model was too thickly covered in the dregs of that dreadful pink to be completely salvaged, but I am still reasonably happy with the result. What’s more, I still have a second, completely unpainted, Barbarian, so there is still hope.

In any case, painting that old model gave me an appetite for working on even more HeroQuest models, and so I tried to speedpaint some of them, trying to finish each model in no more than an hour. So here’s an Orc I painted sometime during the mid to late 90s:

And here’s a similar model, painted fairly recently:

You all know how it goes, though: Once you get started, it’s hard to stop, so I then painted a Goblin:

I realised that these models are actually quite a lot of fun to paint, and if you’re trying to keep each paintjob below the hour mark, it’s a short and sweet romp for each model, and the results are still pretty convincing, don’t you think?

Before I knew it, I had moved on to the undead, painting a skeleton…

…a zombie…

…and a mummy in relatively short order:

The mummy was especially interesting, because the model was basecoated using GW Rakarth Flesh and then merely painted by using different washes for the bandages and skin and slight drybrushing afterwards.

Revisiting those old models has really given me a new appreciation for their design: They are almost unbelievably characterful, especially given their age and single-piece nature. And there’s that hugely nostalgic feeling, of course, related with HeroQuest being my (and many hobbyists’) entry to the hobby — I am pretty sure there’s a sizeable Totally Worth It article in there somewhere….

For now, painting these has mainly been a fun exercise, but the models are also a look at what may or may not become a full-blown project. Don’t hold your breath, but like many hobbyists, I would love to own a completely painted HeroQuest set, and seeing how I still have a mostly complete boxed set in my possession, it seems like an actual possibility. And even the missing parts didn’t end up being a problem — fellow hobbyist Alexander was actually awesome enough to send me the HeroQuest Chaos Sorcerer model (possibly the coolest model in the box, and, invariably, the first one to be lost) — yet another example of the amazing things that happen when you start blogging.

Which nicely leads us back to the beginning: Maintaining this blog as a part of my hobby life has become a very interesting and enriching experience, and I hope you’ll all stick around for the coming twelve months! As always, feel free to contribute feedback, criticism or any idea you might want to share! I would love to hear from you! On a semi-serious note, I am also accepting bitz donations, of course (doesn’t hurt to try, you know… ).

Here’s to the next year! Thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!