March 2022 Modeling

 

March turns out to be busier than expected with a return to full time commuting to work, more sibling illness and even a short road trip to see our oldest daughter.  No hobby activity until the last week of the month which meant I had enough time to finish off the metal sculpts of the four Imperial assassins and a Catachan plastic conversion of a bounty hunter/Inquisitorial acolyte/sniper or some such thing.

January 2022 Modeling

January modeling was limited by time and enthusiasm.  Managed to finish a unit of xenos counts as storm trooper models I converted many years ago as part of a Inquisition/Space Marine/Imperial Guard set of forces for 5th edition 40K or something like that.  Never got very far besides lots of buying and some converting but maybe I can finish up some of these ideas in lieu of buying more models.

Somewhere there's a brainstorming model in my hobby notes with ideas for all three types of forces that probably includes puritanical and radical Inquisitors along with the allies they'd gather to take to the 40K battlefield.  Have to assume these tree storm troopers were for the Radical Xenos Inquisitor.

 

August 2021 Modeling

 August Completed Model List:

I completed 20 models and 5 pieces of scatter terrain in August.

• 5 converted BFG ships for my Ad Mech fleet

• 5 bolter armed combat automata

• 6 arco flagellants converted from ghouls

• 3 hired scum

• 1 Reaper crocodile

• 5 pieces of scatter fencing/walls

  
  

  
  
  
  

A Week of Doing Little

A week of intensive painting effort, for me, has been followed up by a typical hobby week.  Minimal modeling, some basing work to see if doing it before painting makes the process go any better or easier and a smattering of base coating on long primed models.

Basing on the remainder of the Steel Legion platoon and company command squad was completed last weekend with mixed results.  Watered down glue doesn't seem to hold the modeling grit I've been using on their bases when initially applied.  Coming back with a second coat to seal the grit to the base was equally uninspiring with clumps coming off the base to stick to the brush.  Put my first tufts onto a few bases as well as painting all of the base rims black.  Now I need to clean up the feet of the models that have grit on them and paint them.

I did paint the trousers of the unpainted models and added a wash to the bases of the painted models.

Base coat colors were applied to several of the Mechanicus drone or hovering special weapon servitors I've converted weeks or months ago.  Second heavy bolter drone has been built from bits that have sat on my hobby desk for a long time.  I think they were intended to be the gun portion of heavy weapon teams for a tech guard IG army or some such thing.  They'd be accompanied by an ammo servitor on the 60mm base.

I was never brave enough to buy the previous version of the penitent engines due to all the horror stories I read or watched on Youtube about how difficult those models were to build and keep in one piece.  New versions are chock full of detail and allow you to build two units so I did a bit of reading and will build my initial models as Mortifiers and not normal penitent engines.  Don't really play 40K but might as well have some effective in game models if I do.

 I did come up with a plastic counts as penitent engine awhile back using Sentinel and Ork Killa Kan arms as part of a SOB counts as ally force for my Arbites.  Prisoners as arco flagellants and penitent engines along with other units to buff the main Arbites army using the Astra Militarum codex.

A Week of Painting

The excellent Youtube hobby channel Midwinter Minis just wrapped up a week long get some of your hobby pile painted challenge.  I probably managed to put in 15 hours or so over the course of seven days which is probably five times or more what I put toward painting in a given week. 

Started work from this starting picture dubbed the "Closet of Shame/Opportunity".

The challenge only allowed one starting photo and this seemed to capture my overall hobby approach/style.

I managed to get a decent bit of models moved a bit along the path from grey plastic to painted.  Others in the challenge painted multiple squads while my progress meant finishing the assembly of models that I had the bits for but were never finished along with priming said models.  I also used a brush to finish the priming on many models that had been hit with a grey or Zandri Dust primer, in the case of my Steel Legion models, so that they could actually be painted.

The only truly finished models in the picture are the three crates...another indicator of my hobby approach/style.

I did manage to finish painting the second squad for my Steel Legion platoon which brings me to 21 of 71 painted infantry models in the army picture below.

Next Steel Legion step is to finish the basing on the left hand side of the army and then the paint jobs on the 3rd infantry platoon, the platoon command squad and the company command squad.  After that will come the right hand side elite and heavy support units.  Looks like I'll need to find some of my Savlar Chem Dogs to get a second troop choice into the force.

Arbites Detective Branch - Magus and Biophagus

Psyker Detective Heath - Tried to make some modifications to a metal fantasy model to bring it more in line with 40K.  A GSC Magus has an autopistol, cultist knife and force stave.  The kukri in her belt takes care of the knife while a Scion command rod becomes the force stave.  She's busy manifesting a psychic power so the gunskull will be her pistol.  It's more of a needle pistol in look with one of greatest bits, a more ornate double vial of who knows what from the Dark Angels Veterans sprue as the ammo feed, but it fits with a detective potentially working more quietly than the standard Arbite in carapace armor racking their shotgun in the middle of the street.

 Magos Krieger is a Mechanicus magos biologus assigned to the Arbites detectives divison.  He'll run closely with the Ogryns who will count as the Aberrants in the force to boost them in game.  I gave him an Escher chem thrower arm as the injector goad while a Mechanicus radium pistol counts as the auto pistol.  The little servo arm coming over the shoulder is a camera recording the combat for later analysis 

The magos and their counts as alchemical familiar.  More usage of the double vial as extra ammo since a single vial is the ammo for the injector goad.

Counts as Patriarch - Judge Press

Less time commuting and more time walking through my neighborhood the past two weeks has given me time to brainstorm more modeling ideas and even follow up with a conversion or two to see how things might work.  Below is a picture of Arbitrator Judge Press built to serve as the Patriarch of a counts as Genestealer Cult force.  Counts as forces are always fun to brainstorm and in this case the intimate local knowledge and the ambush/skirmish nature of the GSC seemed like it would work well for representing how the Detectives and Specialized operatives of a large enough Arbites precinct might function on the battlefield if it had to transition from everyday life to a war footing.

Judge Press and one of his psychic familiars.
I knew the GSC Patriarch was perched on a pipe so I built up the base for
him to stand on.

Then I found the Patriarch model from the Deathwatch Overkill boxed set for
a quick size comparison.  I'd forgotten how big the Patriarch model is on it's own.

So I went back and added some more height to the Judge's base.  Much better.
The downside to counts as modeling is that you can't always match the
presence of the original model. 

Gore Half-Horn, Grendl Grendlesen, and 40K Poultry

One of my favorite parts of the latest Necromunda game are the bounty hunters and other hired guns introduced in each book release.  It's a bit like a slow motion release of a big book of NPCs that I remember buying a couple of when I was into the 2nd and 3rd edition of D&D a long time ago.  That plus the opportunity to convert your own "counts as" models for them leads to that much more enjoyment in my case.  Gore Half-Horn is all GW bits while Grendl Grendlsen is a re-purposed Reaper Bones dwarf ranger.

Somewhere in the 40K universe someone is raising dangerous birds as sources of protein for uphivers, planetary governors or just because that's what was there when the colony ships landed.  Narrative games of 40K, RPGs or a Necromunda scenario style random monster all seems like potential homes for these two.  More Reaper Bones models.

All the models are base coated with a coat of Agrax Earthshade.  Dry brushing, bases and final details still to be worked out.  Getting to this point is an accomplishment giving my history of buying and building with no painting at all.  Finishing paint jobs and actually playing games with the miniatures is still to come.

Steel Legion Reinforcements

Some reinforcements for my Steel Legion force arrived this week from Victoria Miniatures.  One of their Kangaroo APC miniatures purchased as part of the excellent fund raiser they organized in January in response to the massive brush fires in Australia.  They also have an ever growing collection of wonderfully characterful miniatures that can be added, for free, to orders for each $50 US in the order.  I was able to pick up two of my favorites in the set along with a mortar battery on wheeled chassis that make more sense to me if I am going to model my Steel Legion force as mostly mobile infantry.

Dribs and drabs of painting done in the last week or so but not much progress on squad 2 of the Steel Legion blocking in the main colors.  I primed some models last weekend to give me options to paint when I tire of guardsmen but only a bit of paint put on two small models from those models.  I did look through another box of conversions and bits for warband models for Cardinal Vindrix and there are some potential entourage members I will try to organize into a unit under the old Agents of the Imperium codex.  I hope the Inquisition get a more robust set of rules building off the White Dwarf article at the end of 2019.

Cawdor gangers made from GSC, zombie and Frostgrave Cultist bodies.

Painting Progress, Inquisitor Axne and Cardinal Vindix

Getting close to finishing painting on my first squad of Steel Legion troops while starting the painting of squad #2.  11 out of 71 models with paint on them for the force.

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Minimal progress on painting has me looking at all of the in progress/built models that are visible in my hobby area and thinking about what to paint next.  One possibility is Inquisitor Axne built after seeing many interesting conversions from the easy to build Sequitor Stormcast models.  I'm working on some background for her and her Inquisitorial warband.  I see her as a positive, pragmatic force committed to both preserving and improving the Imperium.  It is a position that would, sadly, generate more enemies rather than fewer I suspect.

"An Escher ganger taken at age 10 in a Goliath raid, Axne was used as a test subject in Goliath growth stimulant experiments.  She escaped five years later having endured a litany of substances that left her standing well in excess of six feet tall with a strength to mass ratio the envy of many front line battle servitors. Alone in enemy territory, Axne then spent the next several years haunting the nearby territories as she collected resources and tried to determine how best to enact her revenge on the Goliaths. During that time she observed and eavesdropped on all manner of settings, people and transactions slowly developing an affinity for finding ideas and areas of worth."

Inquisitor Axne and acolytes recruited from her former Escher gang.

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If Inquisitor Axne is envisioned as a positive Inquisitorial force then Cardinal Vindix is quite the opposite.  He is a Ministorum Cardinal that will use Inquisitor rules if he ever takes the field.  Cruel and vindictive, his quest for Ministerial justice is always focused on maximizing fear and imposing his version of the Imperial Truth.  I assume his hood is made from the flayed skin of his opponents real and imagined.

Painting Progress and Conversion Chaos

Painting on the first squad of Steel Legion continues.  Weapon bodies painted black and helmets giving a coat of Castellan Green.  Both need a Nuln Oil wash and I've got at least one portion of a kneeling models coat to paint and wash since I somehow managed to miss it despite multiply passes over each model in the past week.  Lots of other details and clean up left, I'm sure, once I look closely at a given model.  Still it's progress.

The Steel Legion squad were occupying the corner of the mat holding the conversion pile I've been fiddling with the past week or so.  Ministorum agents, MicroArts mechanicus bodies, the one squad of new Scions I can't decide how to build...the list goes on and on.

Arbites "Army"

I've long wanted to have an Arbites army despite their place in the background of 40K making army sized deployments extremely unlikely.  In a universe focused on war, amidst other Imperial organizational factions like the Inquisition and the Ministorium who are much more likely to field army sized forces, I wanted them to be able to take the field in narrative moments of insurrection, invasion and insanity.  

Over the years I have attempted to start such an army several times with the help of other hobbyists like Tim Hucklebery and BoLS.  There were conversions to go along with those attempts, of course:

March 2007

January 2013

Sometimes many conversions inspired again by other hobbyists like John's Toy Soldiers...

February 2013

...but like all of my 40K projects they got no further.  Maybe a few more years passing and blogging about the next attempt will improve upon my current track record.  

2020 Update:  Never finishing means you can always start over which I did in the summer of 2019 with bits from Anvil Industry including their medium armor torsos, shortcoat legs and armored arms combined with the Skitarii Vanguard heads which is another idea borrowed from the hobby community.  The plan has generally been to run them as Astra Militarum veterans with three special weapons.  The 2013 Arbites will be downgraded to local enforcers to fill out a basic infantry platoon and maybe a maxed out squad of conscripts.

June 2019