Raise the Black Banner

They are coming

Da future is Green

Hello! Back again to regale you all with more bollocks and some pics of old models, you lucky people! The subject of today's ramble is an army that has always been close to my heart, but has taken nearly twenty years to get anything done with. The archetypal antagonist of the 40k universe, the Orks!
I've always wanted an ork army, when me and my little brother bought the 2nd edition 40k boxed set, it was the orks I wanted. Those plastic Goffs and gretchin served me (fairly) well for the first year or so of my gaming life, before the chaos codex came along and stole me away. Thinking about it, the main reason I moved away from the greenskins was my budget at the time, you needed a lot of boots on the ground with an ork army, whereas a chaos army was a lot more compact, and therefore affordable for a young teenager on a pocket money budget. But I always hankered after an all conquering green tide, and resolved to one day own one. That day is coming my friends, and I like to think I've made a good start, have a look and judge for yourselves :

So far, this is what I've got done

This is Da Gaffer, built from a goff nob with the addition of the arms from a nob biker. He took quite a while to get finished, mainly because I didn't really have a plan other than to build a cool Warlord, and you know I think I pulled it off! 

 The start of the nob Council, nothing spectacular here, but that cybork is one of my favourite miniatures, so was a must have for the project

Da big mob. Just your bog standard rogue trader ork raiders. Ten for now, I'll see what I have left over after I've added the support squads, like this one:

More orks raiders, backed up with a heavy flamer. They're not gonna last long on the battlefield but as long as they go down swinging their job is done!

And the start of my favourite mob in the army, da Ballz Öwt madboyz! I love the madboy models, but I can't help look at them and think they're dancing, so where better to put them than as a mobile mosh pit for my own orky metal maestros Ballz Öwt? I have another five models to add to this unit, and they're currently on the painting table, so they should be along very soon! 

So that's a wrap for another indeterminate period, as always thanks for looking! 

The saga of Lord Boddicker and that bastard tail

Another month whipped by and the cobwebs are needing to be blown off again! As always, I've been busy, mostly melting under this heat we're "enjoying", but managing to get some paint applied when it's not drying on the brush before I can use it!
Today's post was planned to be about my orks, but sitting at the painting table yesterday, I spied something at the back, looking  at me accusingly, unfinished and unloved for months...
I've always loved the old citadel chaos steeds, and have managed to collect four over the years,but I've never been overly enamoured with the knights that sit on them. They're nice and all, but I think they're not impressive enough to be on those magnificent horses,especially compared to the warriors on foot. A few years ago, I first saw Nicos magnificent chaos knights. That was the seed planted,and the hunt was on for the steeds. A while later, Whiskey over at The Leadpile converted a fantastic leader for his chaos marauder warband, which you can see here, got the seed sprouting. I actually ended up using the same marauder for my conversion, because I loved the pose of it on the horse.
So, the steed and donor model were put on the table, and then promptly ignored in favour of something else. Along came my good mate Ned with the final nail in the coffin. That was it, the model was finally happening!
So after chopping, trimming, press molding and calling the model a prick on more than one occasion, I was left with a piece that was almost there, but it needed a head. Not just any head, but a head that only a warrior of chaos could have, something impractical but dangerous(ish) looking, something to make him stand out. And yet again the project foundered as I lost my patience looking.

And then, I remembered Airbornegroves homage to Tim Prow. Of course he should have an animal head, because Chaos. An old Judge Dredd Klegg was duly hunted and decapitated before I spent a leisurely time slapping the model about with the auld hairy stick. I was quite chuffed with the results, and showed the rest of the Combat Burgers, who duly pointed out that the steeds tail looked like trouble, and so was born the back story........

The hero of the Gods held his position along with his warband in the gorge, awaiting their prey. His reptilian eyes blinked slowly as he lost himself in increasingly faint memories, Lord Clarence Boddicker, scourge of the bandits that infested the forests of Ostermark. He dimly remembered the honours heaped upon him by the small folk, and the songs sung in his praise in taverns across the province. 
He also remembered the priest that had arrived with his witch hunters, and recalled with unusual clarity the bite of his axe through the priests chest after he found the burnt carcass of his wi- " Claaaareeence, come on, let's get the bastards!!"
Lord Boddicker swung his arm backwards with a savage growl, feeling his blow connect with a crack of iron on bone. "You absolute shit! You're here to do a job you scaly prick, get on with it!!"
Not for the first time, Lord Boddicker closed his eyes and expelled a long low breath, trying to calm himself. His career in service of the gods had been a steady rise until he'd killed that sorcerer. He'd snapped the tzeentch creatures spine like a twig, and left his faithful steed, grown massive on a diet of meat and blood to feed on the carcass. He'd awoken the next morning to find a thick, plated tail sprouting from its rump, a dripping maw at the end screaming obscenities at him. He'd crushed it almost immediately  but it grew back within hours, and had done in the uncountable times he'd done it since. He'd even killed the horse once, although it galled him to do so, but he was driven to it by that damned tail shrieking with laughter at the reptilian horror his head had become. He'd torn the horses throat out in one massive bite, but the next morning he was woken by that bastard mouth shrieking at him again.
" snap out of it you bastard, they're nearly here, and I'm huuuunnngryyyyy!"
God's damn that creature, he'd been distracted to the point that he'd almost missed his chance! He directed his warband with short curt gestures, as impressive as his crocodilian head was in battle, it made normal speech nearly impossible. They moved quietly into position as the patrol got closer, and Boddicker unstrapped his shield, ready to sow carnage amongs- "CHAAAAAARGE!!! KILL THEM AAAAALLL"
Boddicker roared in frustration as that accursed mouth ruined yet another ambush. Nothing for it now but to reap a harvest and count the cost in the aftermath. He was going to kill that fucking tail once this was done. Again.

Thanks for reading that wall of text folks, see you at some other time with some other project! 

Back Again!

Hello there folks! Neglected the blog yet again, but with so much fantastic content being displayed by my fellow Combat Burgers I feel like I should make some sort of contribution to the cause. For those interested, but that haven't seen the sterling work on show, have a look here, here and here, along with some sterling ponderings over here, I've probably missed some, and I hope my fellow burgers will forgive me, but feel free to add the links in the comments and I'll edit accordingly!
Anyway, a while back I was thinking on how to add to my Saturday Morning Space Pirates mini project but was drawing a blank. I want a nice ensemble cast of ne'er do well anti heroes, travelling the system, righting wrongs (and wronging rights on occasion) ,and generally being great fun. I've mentioned before my love of Red Dwarf, so imagine the boys from the Dwarf smashed together with the A Team and you won't go far wrong.
Now as much as I want a good sized crew of lads (and lasses, calm down)  I'm being very particular about the models I'm using, as well as their paint schemes. I have a small pile of likely candidates, but as this project is very close to my heart I'm taking my sweet time making sure it all fits together. So, how do I keep the momentum of the project while still maintaining the standard I've set? With the baddies of course! Now as we all know, most cartoons involve one or two main bad bastards in charge of hordes of inept grunts who are only there to have their faces kicked off by the heroes, and given the theme of the project there was only one port of call:

Yep, the good old foot clan from your favourite and mine, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! I spent many an hour watching the these lads getting the shit kicked out of them, and it's something that will make me very happy to simulate on the tabletop, so the next job was to find suitable models to represent them, and Moonraker miniatures had just what I needed:

I've gotten three painted so far, with another three on the way at some point in the future, but right now I'm super happy with the results. Fair enough, they have space guns, but they're in space so fuck it! Following on from the theme, they needed a Shredder type leader to lead them to continuous defeat, so I raided an old project that I've semi abandoned (it was a bit too po-faced and serious, and that's not me) and I present to you (again), the renegade inquisitor Baal Revan

He should do nicely as a stand in until I find a more suitable evil "genius" to lead the drones anyway. 

Last but not least is another refugee from yet another project, a slightly converted space marine medic who now follows Revan around repairing damaged drones and creating mutant hybrids to increase the evil forces (and the variety for me, there's a lot of tmnt characters that I'd like to port across) :

I think now that that's quite enough bollocks from me, but it's good to have a rough mission statement for a project that I can dip in and out of ,so here's to the next sporadic update! Any and all suggestions for expansion are most welcome by the way, I can't promise I'll use them all, but they will be appreciated! As always, thanks for looking and see yis all soon (well, soonish, I'm a terrible lazy blogging bastard)! 

March of the Titans - Malleo Hominis, warlord titan

Hello!

So it's been a bit quiet again, and truth be told the past few weeks have seen a massive downturn in my productivity. I'm still plugging away at those skaven for the OWAC, but I've also got to get my arse in gear and get painting for other people too. Despite the best efforts of myself and some good mates, I just couldn't seem to get into anything long enough to get a run at it.

Then this happened. Go on, go read it, I'm glad to wait.
During a conversation with the rest of the Combat Burgers, four of us had a mind to mix up the painting a bit and have a go at a titan each, and here's the results of my end of the deal!

Went for the War Griffons in the end, it's probably my favourite titan scheme, but it's also a bit of a bollocks to pull off

But I sat down yesterday afternoon and got stuck in, and by midnight this beefy bastard was ready for war

With a little brother that I'd painted during the productive times I used to have.

Anyway, I'll leave it at that for now, back to trying to get these skaven sorted (amongst others) there'll hopefully be another couple of Titans from the Combat Burger stable, but I'm not going to name names just in case they pussy out 😉 

Pirates in Spaaaaaace

Hello! I've been busy again so I thought I'd slap it out on the blog for all to see, so here we go!
After my brief return to the undead the switch flicked again and I had a dozen "better" ideas that I could be getting on with as a side project for the skaven I'm working on. The skaven will be up here once they're up to 1000 points, but you can see their progress over here, alongside a bevy of gorgeous new armies mustering on both sides of the pond.
One of these ideas was sparked by a project a few of my esteemed fellows have embarked on on their own blogs, an example of which can be found right here, where they're working through the classic Rogue Trader adventurers range. I don't have a very many of these models, but as an occasional break from the skaven challenge, it could work out quite nicely.
So, first model I picked was a talisman space pirate, who I picked up for a pittance on eBay on account his melta gun was fucked

Gun fucked

So after he arrived in the post a quick rummage yielded an old dark eldar blaster which was promptly chopped down and stuck on

Gun unfucked 

A couple of leisurely evening sessions later and my new pirate captain was ready to commit petty crime and mischief across the vastness of space.

 

His colour scheme is a conscious departure from my usual style, I want these lads to be flamboyant and brash, so the bright colours got broken out, and I'm quite happy with the results even though the new palette did slow me down quite a bit

Once the captain was done, I cast my eye across his crew and decided on a Bob Olley sculpt, and as is the norm with Mr Olley, what started as a bit of a struggle ended with a lot of fun being had. This time I chose Nightwing from this range here:

Top left

He's a funny old sculpt him. Firstly I wasn't fond of the colour scheme on the ad, and started working on a slightly military look, which quite frankly looked dogshite, so I scrapped it and started again. On the second attempt I kept in mind that I wanted these lads to stand out, and so this is the result 

I'm quite happy with how he's turned out, the carapace like armour was a little tough because the detail is very shallow, so I had to use sharper highlights than normal to make it stand out, but I'm happy to have him done to a fairly satisfactory finish

The crew so far

I'll leave you with the above group shot of the latest two models joined by a Worldburner and Ventolin Pirate who were painted a good while ago but have now been press ganged, at least until I get some more crew painted. 

Thanks for looking folks, and tune in for the next exciting (ahem) installment! 

Good man secret Santa!

Hello there!
Tonight I managed to finish up a little something and thought I'd do a little bit more than just another Facebook post.
During December I was involved in a secret santa where we had to send one another a model and have it painted by the end of January. When my parcel arrived, I was delighted to find a model that's been a favourite of mine for quite a while, a lovely old citadel barbarian

Look at him, all noble

Now, as happy as I was to get this guy, I do already own him, and have painted him accordingly

While there was no question of the new arrival being painted, I didn't just want to do another standard job, and as it was a gift to boot, I wanted to do something special with him. I've had an idea bubbling at the back of my head for a while, and so took the opportunity to try it out. 

A few hours later and a bit of a think about some background and here we are, with the story of.....

Bjarke Caldersson, the Beastkiller. Eldest son of a chieftain, his sword had bitten countless times in defence of the tribe. He earned his name during the murder-make against the savages of the deep woods, those who lay with demons and begat monstrosities that would prey upon the woodsmen and their families. Bjarke took four of the beasts himself that day, a feat unmatched by any in his tribe. Marked for greatness, he was loved by his people and sat with honour at his chieftains side at the feast. And so it was until the völva came to the chieftain with dire portents of a new evil in the woods, a necromancer who had taken advantage of the relative peace afforded by the slaughter of the savages and begun the looting of the ancient cairns. Of course Bjarke was the first to offer his sword to the cause and he and his warriors ventured out amidst great fanfare, shouting boasts to the crowds that gathered to see them off.
Weeks passed with no word, until one night a shriek of agony split the air. Torches and weapons were gathered, and the gates of the chieftains stockade were thrown open just in time to witness the return of Bjarke. The first of those rushing to meet their returning hero came to a dead stop as they got close enough to see the pallor of his flesh, and the witchlight glowing in his one remaining eye. No notice was paid, however, to the fact that his cloak, once the rich red of his tribe, was now displaying the colours of another master. Bjarke dropped the head of the völva he had been carrying and hefted his sword.
The sun rose on a field of the dead, and the draugr that was Beastkiller returned to his new "chieftain" .

So there you go folks, thanks to you for looking and thanks to my secret santa for the model! I've got a bit of a bee in my arse to expand on this idea a bit more in the future, so watch this space!

Don't fuck with a necromancer 

Chaos Mk2

Hello again folks! Today is a sort of continuation of one of the first posts on this blog, about my (then) chaos warband which has slowly but surely turned into an army. It all started with me beginning to collect the older chaos models I had lusted after since I was a nipper, with a vague plan to have a warband for each of the four gods. That's developed into the army I'll be showing today, so let's get to it shall we?

Firstly, the slaanesh contingent:

The whole lot 

Chaos warriors (or marauders) led by Hermann Lustfist, the army commander

Some centaurs for flank molesting

Hounds for extra molestation 

A trio of horned up minotaurs. The lad in the middle is one of my all time favourite sculpts, amd one of the first models painted for the project. The lad on the right came in a job lot minus a head, so a 5th ed minotaur lord made the ultimate sacrifice 

Now the Khorne contingent :

The lot together

Chaos thugs

The Bloodthirster!! This was a very kind gift from Diego Serrate of Knightmare Games. It started in a bit of a sorry state, which Diego sorted by sculpting a new axe arm for and also gave him a neck for me to attach a flesh hound head. Scary dog headed bastard.

The three heroes, from left to right Thunderfist, Lord Gorebastard (also the contingent commander), and then Kharth the Decimator on the end. This contingent is based around the three champions as heralds of the Bloodthirster, with the thugs standing in as devoted (and mental) disciples

Another view of Gorebastard 

And now we come to the final contingent, Nurgle:

You can almost smell them, can't you

Five Nurgle warriors, made up of the fantastic Jes Goodwin champion sculpts and joined by Festemus (dead centre) from Knightmare Games 

The Pus Duke. Contingent commander and another jewel in my collection. I do have the banners for this lad somewhere, but I'm buggered if I can find them

The first of many beastmen! I have a good amount of different beastmen from all the chaos powers, but there was no way I wasn't doing the pestigors first! There's also a really old (and peculiar looking) mounted beastman raider in the mix, for a bit of variety. And let's not forget Father Wormtaste the Great Unclean One waving from the back! 

The Shaggoth. Speaks for itself really. The best dragon ogre ever made

So, there yis go, that's the majority of the army showcased now. For those wondering where the Tzeentch part is, I've only got three wizards and a lord of change for that so far so they'll be along a bit later, alright? 

Thanks for looking as always, and stay tuned for more!

I'm Baaaaaaack!

Hello! Ive been a terrible lazy bastard haven't I? No excuses, I just haven't been arsed keeping the blog updated so sorry about that folks, let's try and appease all three of you with some fresh pics of an old and ongoing project :

Now, this game is probably single handedly responsible for my involvement with the whole Oldhammer thing we all know and love. And because it belongs to my wife, that makes her responsible for all those toy soldiers she keeps finding all over the house. So there.

Anyway, I've never been one to enjoy using cardboard counters, so once Cheryl had cracked this open I went rummaging for miniatures to represent the characters we'd picked and while it did the trick for a while, we ended up talking about looking into collecting the original range sculpted by Aly Morrison 

(picture courtesy of SoL)

So, off to eBay we went, and over the course of quite a few years now between eBay and trading sites we've managed to collect 45 of the original set for reasonable prices, not bad, but still a ways to go. Of those 45, I've so far painted the following 18. They're quite a nice range to pick away at bit by bit, and besides the game they were intended for, they make some lovely (in some cases) civilians for larger skirmish games, so Brucie bonus there!

That's plenty of shite out of me now, here's what you've all (probably) been waiting for

Some of these were painted a few years ago, and I should really revisit them to get them up to standard (the barbarians face would be a glaring example),  so maybe between projects this year I can sort them out amd get a few more in the cabinet. Thanks for looking folks, and happy new year!