Boyz Toyz

As I come to write this post, I realise that I should have waited a year, so I could be painting these models on the 30th anniversary of first acquiring them, and the 15th anniversary of me saying on this very blog that I intended to play some Gorkamorka.

Still 29 and 14 years respectively is still objectively a Long Time, so that's... something.

Here we go then. I have, at long last, painted a mob for Gorkamorka and got some games in.

Since I'm also currently the custodian of my brother's 2nd edition 40k ork army on the flimsy rationale that I might paint some of it, I decided to do these in "sort of able to pass as Goffs" colours - so the paint scheme is basically exactly the same as the one I've used for my brand new 40k orks. 

The only real difference is that I started these earlier, and so I've stuck with the plain grey undercoat, rather than drybrushing, for the boys on foot. I did go for the "sort of slap chop" method for the vehicles.

Models are a combination of the official Gorkamorka models from the box set, semi-random metals, and a few 2nd edition 40k models with 3D printed bases. 

I'm also insistent that the glyphs on the vehicles and backplate things are at least vaguely the right ones (or very roughly make sense). The 2nd edition Ork codex is good for this - looking at later codices the set of glyphs printed gets smaller and smaller, which is a shame. 

More importantly than any of this, Kieron and I are 3 games into a campaign, which he's helpfully been posting about here and here. It's an entirely bonkers game which I really like, so hopefully I can earn enough teef for it to be worth painting more of this stuff. 

I suppose, although unlikely, we might bore one of the others into joining in too. We'll see...

40k Combat Patrol Delivery 11 - Now look what I've started

I think it's sensible if I just pretend there hasn't in fact been a huge delay between these posts, and plough on regardless. We'll ignore the fact that I'm no longer receiving these, and I'll just continue to work through the huge pile of plastic that I own as a result.

With that established as Official Blog Policy, here we go with the next delivery from the Combat Patrol Magazine subscription. 

This one finishes off two of the forces that have already started, and starts another. 

First up, Chaos Terminators!

For these I did something that wasn't on models I'd already painted - some of them have power weapons, which I've done with orange drybrushing over a black base. It's an effect that I quite like, and which doesn't really show up in the photos. So that's nice, but you will have to take my word for it to some extent.

So, that finishes off the standard chaos guys. There will be World Eaters to come later, but now we're moving on. 

Next, the eldar receive some Wraithguard. 

Really not much to say about these are they're pretty simple models with nothing to call out especially. 

This leaves me with about 800 points of Eldar in 5th edition, which is an amount so specific that it only crops up as useful every so often. That said, I fielded them in a 3-way scenario a few weeks ago and won, so it might be best to retire the whole force on a high anyway.

And finally, it's the start of the Orks, and as usual the magazine does this with a commander. This one is a warboss in mega-armour.

I considered not bothering with this model - I could see a path of "great big horde army" stretched out before me, and I wasn't sure I was up for it. 

I eventually decided that I'd at least assemble the model and see what it looked like. I didn't really want to break the flow of blogging about these one delivery at a time (ignoring the fact that months go by between me doing that). So, I put it together, looked at the details, and immediately decided it was extremely cool and I was in fact entirely up for painting an ork army. 

I opted for the Goff colour scheme of red and black with some white details - mostly because "huge circular-saw-based axe" seems like a Goff-style weapon to me. Modern ork models don't go in for clan-specific versions, so it's all down to painting - so as I assemble an enormous waaaagh I'll have to figure out schemes for the others as I include them.

Colours will vary a bit between models I expect, but here's the basic scheme I've used here (and on other orks, of which more to come later):

Skin - Fastpaints Orc Skin

Red clothing - Fastpaints Blood Red

Black clothing - Fastpaints Grim Black

Black Armour - Contrast Black Templar

Red Armour - Contract Blood Angels Red

White Details - Corax White

Leather/brown clothing - Fastpaints Dark Wood, Hardened Leather, Sand Golem or Pallid Bone

Teeth - Fastpaints Pallid Bone

Tongues/Fingernails - Fastpaints Absolution Green

Metals - Either drybrushed Leadbelcher or Fastpaints Enchanted Steel, washed with Agrax Earthshade

Base - Vallejo US Field Drab

I did all of that over a sort of halfway-slapchop undercoat - I sprayed it black then drybrushed up through grey and white shades, but without being too fastidious on lighting direction beyond "generally sort of top-down" which seems to have given more highlights than I'd been getting by just using a grey undercoat. I'll play around with that some more but it seems like the future!

All of that sounds like a lot but the huge advantage of these guys is that you don't need to be careful with any of it - provided everything is covered it generally looks fine. 

We're back in business!

Just a Random Psyker

Given it's been eight months since I last posted on here, it seems like I need a huge splash to get back into it, something mind-blowing that will really announce my triumphant return.

So, anyway, here's an imperial psyker that's been sat on my desk for ages. I'd had him painted but only just flocked the base (where "only just" means about 6 weeks ago but I took photos and then didn't do anything with them for a while).

I'm back, baby!

The Commissar, Man's Best Friend

As I'm working through a fair amount of Imperial Guard at the moment, it's obvious that I need representation and encouragement from the glorious members of the Commissariat.

So, part one - I've owned my Guard army in some form or another since the mid 1990's, so some models have paint jobs I consider distinctly ropey. Case in point:

This is a Rogue-Trader-era model, that I really can't remember acquiring in the first place, but I clearly painted at some point. 

He wasn't actually too terrible, just a bit unfinished. Some parts were untidy, some just needed finishing off, and it was worth trimming off a couple of bits of flash that I'd left in place back in the day.

This took me a satisfyingly short amount of time, with this result.

Much more like it. So there you go, probably has a name like Commissar Egrin Glint or something. Is a bit short since he's such an old model, but definitely now useable.

And then, of course, there's this.

A deeply silly idea that I clearly picked up off Cults at some point and printed, then forgot all about, then found and printed. He revels in the name Commissar Chomp, and was quite handy in a recent game against Pete.

Claw and Order

In a quest for variety, I've stepped away from painting 40k units to keep up with (or trail massively behind) my Combat Patrol Magazine subscription, and gone towards painting some other 40k units that were just lying around the place.

First off the pile was a unit of Tyranid Gargoyles that have been sitting around in their box since I had a sudden burst of GW enthusiasm about 4 years ago and suddenly bought several new Chaos fantasy things (some of which are, of course, still in their boxes) and for some reason threw these into the order as well. 

I normally like plastic kits with lots of possible variety on the sprues, but these are the exact opposite. Other than being able to pick which head goes on which body, and the exact angle of the arms, you don't have any choices at all with these. This was actually quite helpful given I was treating them as a quick 'n' easy job. Bish, bosh, new unit ready. 

I also had some terrain bits lying around. I printed out a couple of big aquilae waaaay back when I made some buildings using old Necromunda bulkheads and then never painted. I decided, since these would take about 15 minutes to paint, that I should probably get on with it.

Then, the main event. I'd had a metal squad of Rogue Trader/2nd Edition era Adeptus Arbites sitting around for well over a decade. I randomly painted a couple in advance of our first Apocalypse game for Christmas 2024, then they disappeared to the back of the queue again. Suddenly, it was time.

But that's not all. A while ago I'd been taken by the idea of having several squads of these to accompany an Ordo Hereticus inquisitor, so I bought some files from Monstrous Encounters on MyMiniFactory, which sat unused on my hard drive for a while, and then Monstrous Encounters had a deal to get their whole back catalogue for cheap, so I did that, and then that sat unused for a while, and then, eventually...

I got a bit carried away. 

I realised that I can use them as veteran Imperial Guard squads, which have options to take all shotguns and to have carapace armour - so it's a perfect fit.

I also had files for some Makers Cult penal legion proxies, so I've printed some of those and given them a Mordian sergeant as a penal custodian. This is another unit I'd like to do more of, although at a fixed 80 points for each squad they're unlikely to form the backbone of an army by themselves. 

I'm definitely in a Guard mood at the moment so there's likely to be more of this before I wander off somewhere else. Stand by for that!

Techno Techno Techno Techno

For no obvious reason, I decided it was time to paint the tech priest I got from a bring and buy some time ago. 

He actually made it onto the table last weekend, and had a go at surviving his first game, until I flung him into a heroic yet doomed charge in the last turn. Still, I like how he's turned out, and he actually allows the surprisingly flexible squad of servitors into an Imperial Guard army.

As an added bonus, I also painted an Astropath who was just lying around on the desk. I have even less to say about him than I do the tech priest, and I expect his main role will be "extra body in the command squad". But here he is anyway.

There you go. Some posts are short!

40k Combat Patrol Premium Delivery 2 - Howling into the Void

My insane decision to pay for the Premium level subscription for the Combat Patrol magazine has struck again, so I've been forced to paint some more things, and then, much later, take photos of them in suboptimal lighting. 

The big hitter in this set is a daemon prince.

As with the previous premium set, I've ignored the magazine's suggestion for how to assemble it, because I want huge models that have wings.

I really enjoyed painting this guy, although for some reason he took ages to get finished. 

He's using the same colours for armour as the chaos marines I've already done, but the armour is really secondary to the overall daemon-ness.

Also in this set - some Eldar Howling Banshees (which my brain for unknown reasons keeps wanting to call Striking Scorpions). 

I can't find a lot to say about these - they're nice enough if slightly boring models. 

One of them has a sword stuck out to the side, which makes it hard to arrange them in a neat line for a photo.

Also there's a little statue. How many units get one of those?

This post appears to have fizzled out. But still, stuff has been painted, so it's all progress. Or something.