Crazy little thing called…

Raw concept. Fairly simple. It’s hard for me to find anything to modify on the body of those AoS dwarves. They are so great for squats. Sculpting and adding more techno coming.

The idea is a group of pirates xenos raiding abandoned Space Hulks for anything they could find … good or bad. Encountering genestealers, orks and space skavens. They are not necessarily armed to the teeth but rather engineers. I tried several head but the bearded traditional ones look the part for my nostalgia. I’m not going for grimdark but rather space opera style. More on the Tau and Elder style of scifi.

This project will help me to use other xenos races minis I’ve been playing with.

 

 

SaveSave

We will rot you !

 

So here is my first Nurgle warrior. I think technically it is truly my first Nurgle mini ever. I used a Khorne SkullReaper body, trimmed its amor of it Khorny details. The head and the mace are from the Putrid Blightkings, the shield is from the Beastmen range. I chipped the armor just a little. This is a big fella but I like my warriors big, Adrian Smith big actually. It´s as big as a Blightking but I wanted to keep it still “healthy” like a pre-Blightking, not too rotten. I´ll go with a pale skin tones to give a feel a pre- degenerescence. The armor has not received any engraved Nurgle symbols showing that he pledged allegiance to its Patron and judging by the state of its armor for quite sometime. Yet he still has to prove himself. Not as a Blightking.

Let me know what you think.

Do not hesitate to mention idea or details that I missed.

So 9 warriors left to go. The question is should I go for something similar or for something completely different in the spirit of Slaves to Darkness.

All ideas are welcome !

 

 

 

Rollin´, rollin´, rollin´

Following bigbossredskullz advices I succumbed to the Path for Glory. Putting my fate in the Dark Gods, I rolled a random god, a random level of supplicant and a warband.

Here is what I ended up with :

Nurgle

Champion table : 1 chaos lord named Egilax the Necrotic

6 d6 throws later

Retinue follower table :

• 12 chaos warriors
• 5 Putrid Blightkings
• 5 marauder horsemen

Hero follower table : 1 sorcerer

Brayherd follower table : 10 ungors

Warherd follower table : 3 minotaurs

This is actually a pretty good list.

I have most of minis and I was looking for an excuse to buy minotaurs.

My original project before assembling “it” was actually a 40k Nurgle horseman so I already have some ideas.

Here it goes again

It´s been a while since I posted anything.

I recently found my bits box and started to built again.

Strangely enough I started a rather complex Nurgle character and ended up building this. I consider her the third part of my maybe-one-day-finished Invitational inspired character. The idea is that “it” is a dark mechanicus/slaneesh clone mostly in charge of dissection in the lab.

“it” will received a few tube, mask, cable and another additions to hide the original daemonette.

Here It Goes Again

Oh, just when you think you’re in control
Just when you think you’ve got a hold
Just when you get on a roll

OK Go – Here It Goes Again

So…, dear reader, a little bit of explaining why this blog was so quiet.

Why because after my injury and recovery, I recently learned that I was getting a new job in a new part of the old world : London. I will celebrate in October my 10th year abroad but also the 4th country I will be living in since I left France.

On the plus side, apart from air quality, fast and uncontrolled internet, democracy, efficient international post services and so on, I’ll be getting access to more hobby bits and tools than here in China. Yes you might think that everything you buy for the hobby is made in China. It is true but it’s also exported so it’s rather difficult to find here.

I’ll be also getting close to some of my fellow hobbyists so we might have a chance to share a pint. Who knows?

So now that I’m able to sit down again at my work station after my injury, time is slipping again through my fingers.  I’m reluctant to start to build anything knowing how fragile minis are to travel. So I´m just  preparing my bits for traveling.

 

Brother in arms

Being unable to work on anything recently I decided that I should have a guest. Visiting some doctors in order to find a cure I stopped by the one who initiated me to the hobby, my older brother. What comes first the Living Ancestor or the Living Ancestor who initiate him? Or should I say whose the more fool ? The Living Ancestor or the one who follows him? 🙂 In terms of hobby addiction, I´m proud to say that my brother is hopeless. It´s quite a satisfaction knowing that he is the one who offered me my first GW model, a Keeper of Secrets. I will only show a fraction of his current WIPs and only in the GW collection (and contemporary) but be aware that he works in very mysterious ways and different scales. He inherited a part of my collection when I left France, a drop in his ocean of plastic. I guess if we were in the Marvel universe my brother would be “The Collector”. His approach is, in a way, very refreshing to me. He basically buys any models he likes, modify them heavily or slightly, or not. His inspiration is often an illustration from GW background that he decides to translate into plastic trying to be true to GW imagery. I think he gets seduced by the model first while I get interested in the potential of conversion offered by a model to do something new. He´s not a player, at least not anymore but we spent days playing Epic and 40K together. I don´t play anymore either but I´m somehow incapable of approaching a model without thinking of a following Invitational group, warband, army. He thinks groups and armies and build them or just built one model. He is interested in amies I´m not (anymore).

“Where is my mind?” :  hive guard with a “shaved” head that make it look like an Alien and a modified carapace.

“Harpy go lucky” : it will receive 4 wings and obviously needs a dentist consultation.

“Ork this way” : Spot on conversions from NFL inspired helmet, to the black orc helmet and Jaws (probably from a James Bork movie)

“No, I´m not a kitchen robot. I´m a blender…

… and a juicer. “

We are oldhammerers. We discovered W Fantasy with the Lost and Damned and Realms of Chaos. What I particularly like about it (apart from its legendary illustrations) is the possibility of building a warband mixing anything from knights to thugs or deamons or beastmen and chaos dwarves. At that time, my brother also introduced me to John Boorman´s Excalibur, Conan´s opening scene (the one with barbarian in the snow), Simon Bisley and many others so we both like our chaos warriors big, armored (and hairy?).

“I can see Altdorf from my house” : a clever (simple and efficient) conversion of the Champion of Chaos with a Reiksguard helmet

I´m might do a little bit of Fantasy finally. I´m wondering what GW is going to launch soon. I love the idea of a skirmish game with round bases (yes I know. It sounds like Confrontation) mixing races. Well dear reader, if you liked the photo´s of my bro´s minis, let me know in the comments. I think it should be interesting and refreshing to have him here as resident guest and hopefully increase his productivity. I´m sure it should not be too hard to have work on some Inq28 challenge.

Come on sucker, lick my battery

“We no longer say “yes”, Instead we say affirmative”  

Flight of the Conchords, The Humans are dead

I must say that I´m quite surprise by the editorial choices of GW these days but it´s a pleasant surprise. My immediate reaction is to rush for commenting it without reading the other comments or blogs so forgive me if this is redondant with other comments.

I wasn´t expecting the martian troops to be like that. I can´t wait to see what other artists are going to make how of it. Since I can start to sit down now I´m going to enjoy watching artists take it to new dimensions.

Of course, as usual, I can´t help to see the potential use of the parts for something else that what they were originally conceived for.

For Inq28 I see potentially some Adeptus Arbites obviously but also the usual retinues. I think the legs separate at the level of the knee. Space pirates maybe ? Definitely Dark Mechanicus, Traitor Guards or mutants…

I see also Eldar exodite walkers or scouts.

What I like the most about this release is how Blanchien it is. It seems to be coming from the Sister of Battle old codex imagery. It really defines an dark grim universe that I´m particularly fond of. It impacts how the rest of “human” troops should look like. It look retro, would work in the 30K universe too. It looks mismatched and junked so well.

I think GW is trying to get close the oldhammerers´ heart which is also the place close to their wallets. Kit are getting nicer and nicer an offer variations

They are tons of bits that can be repurposed. So thumbs up, GW !!

Off with their heads

Inspired by Jeff Vader and Krautscientist´s reciprocal articles on the scions (and more scions) and the latest skavens,  I decided also to do an article about my favorite kit of the moment : the Skaven Stormfiends.

I spent quite some time without being able to physically sit down at my work table and this gave me the opportunity to decide what I wanted to do with my blog. 

I left the hobby before the explosion of the blogosphere. I find it great that people share their tips, technics, interests, point of views, and motivations.

In my personal case, I have a pretty serious ADHD hobby syndrome. I started the hobby last century (do I qualify as an “oldhammerer” ?) and was introduced to it by my older brother who taught me (maybe wrongly) that “the models from the box should only be the base for your future models”. A great legacy but also a curse. I can´t help but to convert a model or more precisely kitbash it as the youngster call it these days.

Living in China is a curse for my wallet : There is no bits store ! Shipping from the rest of the world takes about a month and the distribution of your parcel is … quite aleatory. Of course, this is based on the assumption that your parcel will be cleared by the customs. 

During my convalescence, after filling several notebooks of ideas, I realized that I have more ideas than I have time and that GW is offering more parts than I can offer here in China. So since I have to buy a box for a bit (don´t get me wrong, nobody is putting a gun on my head to do so) I thought I would save you time, dear reader, and present you some heads that would make the Stormfiends look interesting or not.

I like to take the Fantasy model and drag them into the futuristic 40k universe. 

I´m French and I was (and still am) a big fan of the Confrontation games and models by the Rackham company. I bought the Stormfiend kit with the idea of creating a futuristic Wolfen. Here is the result when you combine it with a wolf head

Use of the head (Fenrisian wolf)

For the purpose of the exercise, I´ll keep the same body (ignore the wolf tail) to give a sense of the proportion and a close up of the head on the side.

Vargeist head

Might be a good base for a mutant or a xeno but the other heads for the Crypt Ghouls from the same kit are spot on!

The obvious choice for Grosteques as Jeff Vader demonstrated here. I just used the other helmets.

   

Another of Jeff´s ideas

 

I really like this one. It´s a very interesting Xeno with the long neck. But as you can notice on that photo, the neck needs a little bit of filling and work. The head comes with the bits and reins that would have to be taken off. The reins could be repurposed as a necklace for example. The neck can be shortened too but the long neck distances it from the original kit. Of course the hair has to be shaved.

Orcs

The savage Orc head fits really well the Stormfiends body.

  

How does an Ork head fit so ?

A squig´s head

Parts of bits and reins too but the model has some cartoony features.

Ogryn´s heads

 

They do work quite well for a big muscular character. The gas mask especially.

Morghast Harbringers

Pink horror head

Would need a lot of work but could work.

Chaos spawn heads

 

They need some work on the neck

An ogre dragon head

The neck also needs some work

新年快乐

The Chinese New Year started on a quite originally for me.

I spent the last two weeks in bed suffering a back pain. I discovered the techno music played by an MRI machine and that an xray in the “frog position” (ironic for a French) apparently could reveal that my hips are not in great shape.  So I appologize for not posting more progress.

More MRI concerto is scheduled but I can actually seat now.

Spending weeks in bed gave me the opportunity to put on paper some ideas, to think of tons and tons of ideas for conversions, to look for bits, to modify slightly my blog, decide what I wanted to do with it (articles to come), updated my Pinterest but resulted in postponing my (un)Invitational.

I guess it´s ok since I was not invited to begin with.

Happy New Year of the Goat to you dear reader(s?)

We´ll see if the Living Ancestor needs the assistance of the some servo-motors in the end or not.

Lullaby

Quietly he laughs, shaking his head
Creeps closer now, closer to the foot of the bed
And softer than shadow and quicker than flies
His arms are all around me and his tongue in my eyes