New Year, new start!

Well that was a longer break than I intended!

I have not been completely idle however!  I have simply turned my intentions on my mental although and family for a while!  I have gotten some hobbying in however.  I have assembled 2k worth of Chaos Iron Warriors which I am busy painting before moving on to anything else which is proving quite difficult at the moment!

See for a while I have been toying with the idea of using Dark Angels as the basis of my Executioners.  The Executioners have never struck me as a Codex chapter, and while Pedro and Lysander can give that stubborn feeling, it was never quite enough for me.

The one part that drew me to the DA's more than anything else was the parallels I could draw between the Death Wings Native American influences and Dorns frozen home world of Inwit.

So using the Inuit as a rough basis I came up with a background for the peoples that the Executioners recruit from.  I will put this in another post as it is rather long.  It is intended as a piece of fiction to fit within the 40k grim dark universe an no offence to anyone, or anyone's culture is intended. (Not that I think it is offensive or puts a negative view on beliefs or mythology, but for the sake of being PC, I apologise if you are offended)

The joys of getting older!

So , getting older sucks in some ways, but in others it does get better!

One of these ways is getting better presents as an adult "from your kids", at least that is the excuse I use to pick stuff up for myself while the kids are too young to realise that I am pulling the wool over their eyes!

So they were excited to "gift" me this nice package!

A nice bunch of Forge World stuff, to make a BIG start on an Siege Vanguard list for my Executioners!  Now I am not a player who likes to win all the time!  I much enjoy trying to theme a force and then roll a bunch dice a couple of times a month, win or lose!

My plan is to take Pedro (or whatever I name his Executioner equivalent for my army), a Siege Assault Squad, a Dreadnought Talon, with 2 Ironclads and a Siege variant, as well as 10 Sternguard, and thanks to the 6th allies rule, I added Lysander, a Tactical Squad and for anti air support and cause he looks cool a Contemptor Mortis also another Dreadnought wouldn't go astray!

So here is what I have got together so far, 3 of the Dreadnoughts, half of the Assault squad and I fiddled with the arms of my Pedro.

Chain Axes are from the Chaos accessories range but where possible I want all my guys to have axes.  I have also magnetised their back packs and will put magnets in their jump packs later, so I can use them as regular assault guys in standard SM lists if I need to.

I am going to go on a good scrounge for a set of terminator legs, torso and shoulder pads and convert up a Lysander as well.  Plus save money for another order, including a Contemptor Cyclone Missile Launcher, and another 20 Marines of different marks for the Tac and Sternguard!

I also kitbashed a Thulsa Kane the other week, and also grabbed a second Death Speaker.

Stop! Banner time!

Ok quick update today, placed an order with Forge World for some dreadnaughts' and assault marines!  Going to work on a Siege Assault list for my Executioners first up!

To go with them I am converting up a High Chaplain Thulsa Kane, and trying to get together ten combat shields!

While waiting on my order to makes its merry way across the globe I quickly knocked up this banner, hope you guys like it!

I used the Dark Elf Har Ganeth Executioners logo as the basis for it and simply did some recolouring in photoshop!  As such the original images contained within are not mine and used without permission and all rights are still held by the owners!

Compulsive non finishing!

G'day!

Seems like I have once again started something with all intentions of following through and not doing exactly that!  Oh well lets give this another crack!

I have been busy (ish) since my last post.  On the Marine front, I started painting some Crimson Fists, thanks to the anniversary model, and some Forge World goodness.

Pretty happy with the results and it is a nice easy paint job.  Start with Necron Abyss and then dry bush right up to ice blue.  Follow with a nice heavy wash of Asurmen blue.  I used this technic based on an article I read on Kantor Base.  Hugely helpful!
The bases are from Back 2 Base-ix as I was planning.  These are great quality resin bases made right here in Australia.  I also added some Swamp Tuft from Army Painter that I won in a local Blood Bowl tournament for my Lizardmen Stadium.

I have also added some paint to the man eaters that I showed last post.

The water turned out really well I think, it was simply some sausages of green stuff that I flattened down one edge in a rough uneven manner to try and create some ripple.

Below is a purchase that I would not have made if not for my 5 year old son and his love of skeletons!  Amongst everything else, he told me one day he wanted some "Space Skeletons" and he wanted me to paint them!  How can you argue with a kid who wants you to buy more miniatures??

Painting and theme wise I decided to do something quite different.  I had been watching an episode of Grand Designs Australia and one of the people on there wanted a Mondrian inspired interior.  I determined at that moment to tap into my dutch heritage and do something outside the box.

All bodies in the army will be a nice rich red, all vehicle blue, all weapons green.  Cloaks will be yellow and detail white or black.  I plan on placing them on some sort of tiled base and continue with the Mondrian look on those with nice big white flag stones, black lines between and primary colours on some of the smaller flagstones.

The barge has been painted using only the new citadel paints and they are a pleasure to use.  Each colour I started with Base paint and then built it up through layers, followed by a shade and then a glaze.  The white has gone straight over the top of these colours in practically one layer!

The other thing about the new paints is I have no found a way to the Executioners armour justice and in an easy enough method for my poor painting ability!  Again simply dry brushing starting with Leadbelcher Base and working right through to Runefang steel.  Wash with the new blue shade, and then two covers with the blue glaze and you end up with this:

Bad iPhone picture I know, but you get the idea.  A really nice blue steel look, now to just win the lottery and buy everything I need and I will be good!  I still want to wait for 6th to make any MAJOR purchases for these guys, but may well end up buying some more older mark armour from Forge World.  I figure there will always be Tac marines and a veteran squad of some sort should be fine!

Ok well I think that just about brings me up to date!  I will try and post more regularly from now on.  really I will!

A New Start

Hello, and welcome to the start of a new adventure into the world of blogging!

First I guess I should start out with a little about myself.  I am a 30 year geek, happily married to a closet geek with 3 wonderful children.  I have been playing GW games since I was about 10 years old, starting with the old Milton Bradley games of Heroquest and Space Crusade before moving on to play Blood Bowl, Epic then eventually second edition Warhammer Fantasy, before moving on to second edition 40k.

Over the years I have collected far too many little grey men and most aren't painted!  Now there are various reasons for this.  To start with I am inherently lazy! Not a great excuse and something I am always trying to better myself with.  Secondly my eyesight is terrible, so bad in fact that when I was 18 my ophthalmologist said I had the eyes of a 40 year old! Couple that with an essential tremor (my body produces to much adrenaline causing my hands to shake) and it makes painting challenging!  Finally the biggest killer of getting my armies painted now days is time!

Now that isn't to say I don't paint my armies, cause I do!  In fact in terms of painted miniatures I have more in my collection than some of my friends who I started gaming with!  I admit I will never win any painting awards, and on close inspection people will notice that not all the detail has been painted (I never paint eyes for example), but if my army looks cohesive and finished from the other side of a gaming table then I am happy with the results!

So why did I start this then? Umm, I dunno really!  I guess I hope to use this blog as motivation to actually finish projects, to share the hobby that I love and occasionally brag about my children or the rare game that i actually manage to win!

Now recently I have decided that I want a 40k army to spend time on and actually paint to the best of my ability and to try and push my painting further than I have before.  Also seeing as this is going to be a long term project, and not a force I want to get onto the table top quickly, I am going to go with an almost all Forgeworld marine army (all on nice resin bases, most likely from "Back 2 Base-ix" as I have used them before and have never had issues with any of their products, plus their Aussie)

The big question was, "Which Chapter?"  This had me stumped a little.  I knew I wanted to use the MkIV, V, and VI armours, as well as the old Rogue Trader style special and heavy weapons!  The problem was that none of the original legions jumped out at me.  I didn't want to do one of the traitor legions, I don't like Ultramarines, neither of the Angels appealed to me.  Raven Guard?  I painted my AoBR marines as Raven Guard, but do I want to do them again?  Nope.  Imperial Fists? Well may Dark Eldar have tons of yellow on them so something else maybe?  A successor chapter then?

The only successor chapters that I really like are from the Badab War, what with all their cool camo and stuff, but I had already done that 5 years ago!

I had done these Executioners back in 2007, but my painting has improved since then!  It was settled, I will revisit the Executioners!  This time I will use use them in the new Forgeworld colour scheme.  Since they are now a 3rd founding chapter, if I put my Veterans in MkV Heresy plate and the other guys in MkVI that should work.

So I have nutted out a list that includes the IA:10 Chaplain, Pedro Kantor, Sternguard, Tactical Squads and some Vanguard, all riding around in Rhinos and Razorbacks.  Still 6th edition is not fr away now according to the winds of rumour, so collect small and slow and if it needs to change I won't be fully committed to a certain course. 

So there you have it, a new blog, a new long term plan, and hopefully soon some test pics (or pics of something else if I get distracted!)