The Lippizaner Mournfang: Conversion Craziness!

About a month ago I headed to Adepticon, that mecca of geekery and gaming, and I only had two events in mind: the "It's How You Use It" Warhammer Fantasy tournament and the 40k Warzone tournament. I haven't been playing a whole ton in the past... gosh, year or so, so I figured that a couple of 1k games would be just the thing to finally kick my hobby mojo back into high gear.

So, to do that I needed to finally modernize the Ogre Circus army to take advantage of our "new" codex... it's still new to me dangit! And that of course means one thing- Mournfangs, mournfangs, mournfangs! Those bear-cat cavalry hit extremely hard for their points cost and at least in the opinion of this gamer look pretty darn cool to boot.

Now of course if you are at all familiar with my Ogre Circus you know that I couldn't just let the bear-cat cav go on the table without dressing them up a bit. So I went to Google image search and tried to decide what would be an appropriate "circus-y" look for them. Pretty quickly I found this image and it was game over:

http://www.lipizzaner.com

The Lippizaner stallions are world renowned and look very prim and proper with their admiral hats and military jackets, so that's what I went with. Because if any two things go together well, it's Ogres and formal wear :P

So, I started fixing up the Mournfangs. The actual mounts have a lot of bare patches of skin that I filled in with greenstuff fur. I also decided to make them rear, which was a simple matter of chopping off the legs, stick some pins and greenstuff in the middle and then cover the whole bit with fur.

The riders were the part that took the most time. Apparently making jackets for Ogres is a more trying job than I originally planned, especially the coat tails, but with enough layers of greenstuff I think I got the effect to come out pretty well.

Next time there will be a few more pics of the completed models as well as how I built the epaulets. Until then, thanks for reading!

Psyker Psolitaire: Done!

They're fairly quick and dirty, but that's what kind of time I have before Adepticon. I finished these guys up over the weekend, leaving me with a few tanks to finish painting (damn you faulty spray primer!). I'm using my Psyker Primaris as the Overseer of the squad.

I'm debating whether or not to do a display base. I was going to do one with all of the troops on different cards, but I don't think I'll have the time or inclination to make one between now and Adepticon. Plus it would need to be rather large to get everyone on, especially the Valkyries, and it's only worth 5 points at most (which I certainly won't be getting for my idea).

We'll see if I feel like it, but chances are that I won't. Besides, there's tanks to paint first!

Psyker Psolitaire!

First, some great news... I have 100 followers! Best birthday present EVER! Thanks all for reading... we'll try to get some more regular posting going on here to accommodate you fine people.

And speaking of posting, I happened to finish modelling up my Psyker Battle Squad yesterday... enjoy!

All of the psykers are blindfolded and have "purity cards" placed on their uniforms and over their soulbound eyes. The cards were made out of pieces of old Magic cards... one hobby feeds another I guess!

The above guy is my favorite :)

I wanted to have a few soldiers with levitating cards, so pieces of gauge wire and cardstock did the trick. I'll paint up the gauge to look electric, and hopefully everything will turn out well...

I also needed a levitating guy, though I cut out the warding cards just to make him possible to transport.

I hope you enjoyed, and thanks again for following!

How To: Mk II "Drax" Pattern Hydra

This tutorial is based off of the wonderful Hydra conversion created by Admiral Drax. I loved the look of the conversion as well as the price at which it could be acquired, but I wanted a bit more adaptability to my design. So, drawing on the pictures at his blog as well as my work with the "SandWyrm" pattern Chimeras I came up with the following conversion.

What you'll need:
1 Chimera kit
1 Aegis Defense Kit
At least 8" of 1/8" diameter wooden rod (obtainable at most hardware stores)
Plasticard
Possibly some modeling putty if you are as poor at crafts as I am.

Step 1: Form the basis of the turret
This part is pretty much straight out of the Aegis Defense kit instructions. Take the four sides of the turret base and put them together, then put the top of the turret (with the circular opening) on top. See the picture below for an example.

Step 2: Prepare the autocannons

The autocannons are not long enough, so we'll need to saw these apart after gluing the ammo barrels to the turrets. Make the incision just in front of the small targeting vane on the bottom of the autocanon barrels, then file down the newly formed edges. See the picture above for reference

Next we need to saw the wooden rod apart into 2" segments. File down the ends of the rods.

Now using a small dremel tool drill into the center of both ends of each wooden rod and into the interior surfaces of the autocannon barrels. Put small pieces of paper clips, gauge wire, etc. to act as pins, then super glue the three segments together as below.

Step 3: Attach the autocannons to the turret

Look on the sides of the paired autocannons for a circular knob. One of them has an additional cube jutting out from it, which you should saw off and file smooth.

Then, attach the autocannons to the sides of the turret like below. Make sure that the slanted side of the turret (the one with the tiny little window) is towards the front. I like to make mine slanted upwards a bit, but orient to your own taste

Step 4: Turret base and top

We're going to close off the top and bottom of the turret and make it so that it can rotate on top of our Chimera. Cut off a rectangular piece of plasticard that is [NUMBER] by [NUMBER] inches, then cut a circular hole in it that is [NUMBER] inches in diameter. It should fit snugly around the circular piece from the Aegis Defense kit pictured below. Make sure to save the circular piece that you cut out.

Superglue the piece of plasticard around the disc:

Next, attach that completed piece to the bottom of the turret.

Now take the circular piece of plasticard that you cut out from before and glue it on to the top of the turret.

Step 4: Start building the Chimera

Begin by building the base of the Chimera just as you would normally do so, but stop before gluing on the top of the Chimera.

Next, take the top part of the Chimera and saw it in three like below. The front part is along the line of rivets just behind the turret and the back part should be cut right where the bottom angles off of the straight line. This is a bit farther back than in the "SandWyrm" Chimeras but I think the extra bit of movement towards the rear of the vehicle makes the Hydra turret look more believable.

You can discard the middle section. Attach the front and rear sections to your Chimera hull, making sure to sand the edges of the rear and front edges to match cleanly with one another. I failed at this task, so be careful :)

You will need to cut out a few pieces of plasticard to cover up the rear hatch, forward hold and the tiny hole in the front, as seen below:

The small yellow piece is a small piece of metal ruler tape; I'll use it to swap in and out magnetized hull weapons.

Step 5: Done!

The Hydra turrets can be placed on top of the Chimera chassis and will fit snugly around where the normal Chimera turret would go. This way they can rotate freely and be easily swapped out with a normal Chimera turret if you so desire.

I've added a few bits from the Aegis defense kit onto the turrets to spruce them up, specifically the vox caster on the rear and the targeting sight on the front.

I hope you've enjoyed this tutorial, and many thanks of course go out to Drax and SandWyrm for giving me the basis of this conversion.

Psyker Psketches

I'd like to start out by thanking Berks Warhammer 40k for including my Battleforce Tactica as part of their 40k News, Rumors and Stuff You Should Read segment- it's an honor!

Now for the sketches. I may have been... distracted in a few meetings of late so I took the time to doodle out what I'm planning for my Psyker Battle Squad conversions. Take a gander:

If you can't read my chicken scratch at this size, please click to embiggen!

As you can see I'll be using standard Guardsmen for the basis of my conversions. I see my psykers as part of the regular army, soldiers that just happen to be gifted with psychic ability. I really like making blindfolds for my figs, as can be seen from my Gorger conversion- something about the blind warrior trope really hits it for me.

I'll be making the playing cards out of plasticard (though I may have to purchase some thinner stuff than what I use on my vehicle conversions). It'll be a pain but I think the overall effect will be awesome. Tiny pieces of paper that are coated to keep them stiff like in some banner conversions that I've seen might also work.

The tricky part will be making the levitating cards and soldiers. I think I'll be using more of my thin gauge wire that I'll paint up to look like electrical currents racing out and warping around the cards.

And then there's the solitaire... sometimes I just love my theme. Can anyone else think of any playing card game tropes that I should include in this squad?

I also managed to convert up another set back Chimera:

I'm slowly getting to a more uniform look for these gents, but there's still a few hiccups in the ol' STC to work through.

I hope to have some time to get to those conversions this weekend, but that'll really depend on what my psycho governor has to say about axing all of the public employees' unions. If it's looking bad I may be out on the street campaigning for our teachers, social workers and other public servants of Wisconsin, not to mention my girlfriend's healthcare. Yay!

Politics aside, thanks for reading and see you on Monday.

Hobby: Beginning Hydra Conversion

Despite what I may or may not have said in earlier posts I'm pursuing Hydras and a Psyker Battle Squad as part of my Adepticon army list. I like the concept of Medusae but they just seem a bit too fragile to me, especially since two of them together would be a significant weakness in the very first game of the tourney. Two AV 12 chassis just don't have a lot of staying power, especially since the have to shoot straight. Better to leave the most expensive unit award to the Executioner, as apart from melta he's a pretty survivable gent.

I came to my decision, like many of my hobby decisions, by going to the game store. I hadn't been down to the Last Square in some time due to a combination of family and work concerns, so it was nice to chat around with the guys even if I didn't have time to play a full game.

I know that I fully intended on walking away with just a pot of paint and a new flamer template, but discussions with the one of the guys who happens to work there added a few items to that list. And I mean, I can hardly be blamed that they just happened to have an Aegis defense kit just sitting there, right?

I'll be pursuing Admiral Drax's fine Hydra conversion with my own personal twist. I'd like to see if I can alter his plans such that I can switch the Hydra back and forth between awesome anti-aircraft gun and troop transport. The set-back Chimera design almost works, so I think with a few minor tweaks and maybe a few magnets I'll be able to better justify the two new Chimeras that I just ordered... man, I'm glad I make actual money rather than a living stipend now... :P

I'll be able to finish up painting my infantry this week and maybe put the final touches on assembling my final Vet Chimera. After that I have 8 psykers, an overseer and two Hydras to complete before April. I have some ideas for the psykers that I might be able to scribble down during the lunch hour tomorrow at work if we're lucky. Think of  a cross between daemonhosts and psychic indian poker and you'll have a basic idea of what I'm going for :)

Al'Rahem Counts-As: Catherine "Kitty" Carde

First step of my round 4 painting/modeling is finished- my version of the famed Cpt. Al'Rahem!

Biographical Information:
Catherine "Kitty" Carde is the Hearts-Queen (commander of Hearts platoon) of the 24th Fortunan, but she wasn't always this way. Though born into the ruling House of Carde her future on Fortuna stepped into Glory's path when she signed up to join the Imperial Guard. Although accepted into an officer training school due to her noble lineage, Catherine decided to instead slog it through the ranks, beginning her career as a simple Guardswoman.

Due to her psychic potential she was placed in the Hearts suit, but the one of the only facet that she excelled at was manipulating the psychically resonant crystals that are one of Fortuna's main exports. With this, as well as proper conditioning from her mentor Hearts-King Remy, she was able to use her abilities to form Prism, a blade of radiant energy that can easily slice through any known material, and some say also the soul itself.

Removing the lasgun from the model was a bit of work. A bit of filing and greenstuff was needed before the final paint job.

She also seemed quite adept at picking up on astropathic signals through the shifting colors of her blade. This, combined with her natural leadership talents, inspired Clubs-King Heinrich to appoint her Queen of the forward patrol platoon, as he knows that when he needs her aid she will arrive, unasked but definitely not unwanted.

In game she has already proven herself time and again, and now she has the paint job to go along with the pained grimaces my opponents have when I announce that my army is coming from EVERYWHERE.

Hope you enjoyed.

Escalation League, Round 1: The Models

So, a bit late from when I wanted to post it, but it's still this week! Yesterday was spent doing 10 hours of straight painting trying to get my guys all finished up for the first round of the Escalation League. The fruits of my labor can be seen here:

 

For the League I'm trying to use all new (or relatively new) models in order to increase the size and flexibility of my Guard. I was aiming for two Vendettas in my 500 list, but the lascannons won't get here for some time yet so I decided to go with the forces above.

The Vendetta was finished up with a Badab Black wash over pretty much everything. Some Dwarf Bronze and Boltgun Metal on the thrusters, but besides that I stuck for a pretty simple color scheme. For the pilot paint scheme I was getting tired so just drybrushed them with the color of the screens in the cockpit.

The "assault weapon servitors" for Diamond squad turned out pretty well I think. I last minute added some more wire leading up to their left hand which really helped hold the entire model together.

The rest of Diamond squad was given an improved paint job as well as some more cyber implants (most of those being ocular in nature). Note: magnetizing a Guard sergeant is dumb, as the power fist is on the right arm instead of the left like the chain and power swords.

The real star is my Psyker Primaris, built mostly from the Guard Command sprue. I'm going to rip the green stuff piece off of his left hand as it looks kind of dumb, but otherwise I'm pretty happy. I tried to make him look like Gambit from the X-Men with his red eyes and metal bits around his head, and the psychic power will be represented by him throwing an energized card.

 As you can see, he was intended to be a palette swap from my Company Commander.

And the view from above to show off his crown.

Next time: secret project unveiled! Then, some battle reports from the 500 pt edition of our Escalation League.