Pre-Heresy Fabius WIP

I haven't posted for a while. Between finishing uni and starting a new job where I'm on night shift four times a week, the entirety of my hobby time has been taken up with painting as and when I can. This obviously leaves me no time for blogging, despite the amount of progress I've been making on various stuff. I'll try and do a bit of catching and post up some of my projects, but knowing me this probably won't happen.

So what have I been working on? Well, I'm still focused almost completely on my Horus Heresy stuff, although my attention has shifted slightly away from my Sons of Horus 15th company and onto the Iron Warriors and Emperors Children. I've wanted a force of both of them ever since I read Angel Exterminatus a few years ago (and again recently during my 2am 'lunch breaks'), so I thought I'd give it a try.

Despite the source of my inspiration, I'm not likely to be fielding the two Legions together, due to me wanting to make use of the extra Heavy Support slot which the 'Hammer of Olympia' Rite of War brings, meaning that my Iron Warriors can't take allies from other Legions. They are quite likely to receive Imperial Army allies when the next FW book arrives though.

The Emperors Children are going to be a small allied detachment for my Sons of Horus, then maybe expanded to be a force in their own right. I'm really just using them as an excuse to do some interesting conversions though, so that might be a long time coming.

Anyway, here's a taste of what I've been up to whilst I've been away:

This is my Pre Heresy Version of Fabius, based on the GW model. I know at first glance it doesn't seem that different, but this was a much more involved conversion than it looks.

-First of all I had to remove his arms, saving the Xylos Needler for later (his cane's going into a different conversion).

-The next step was to gouge out the Mk7 legs which 40k model had for inexplicable reasons (this part was made easier by the fact that it was finecast), replacing them with Mk4 legs from Forge World, cut to shape to fit inside his flesh cloak.

- Then I transferred the Needler from his 40k arm to a Mk 4 one and gave him a pair of Mk 3 pads

- A Narthecium (a Deathwing one i think) acquired through a trade with a friend, plus a 40mm base completed the conversion

I'll let you judge the results for yourself, but I personally like how it's turned out, as far as the conversion goes at least. I'm going to be using him as a Primus Medicae until Forge World finally get round to specific rules for him.

His paint job's an experiment I'm running, trying to replicate the darker, grittier style which Forge World use for the EC's in their various publications. I'm not exactly sold on it so far, but that might be because I haven't done the gold on him yet, which may help alleviate the overall dullness of the model.

I'll let you know how I get on

Dreadclaw Conversion finished

Wonders will never cease - I actually got something finished!

Granted it wasn't any of the things which I've been working on for the last few months, but at least it's progress.

The converted Dreadclaw has been sitting on my hobby desk since last January, waiting for me to finish it so I could use it for my Justearin. With the updates to the Heresy list in the Crusade Army List book making Justearin actually viable points-wise, I actually had the motivation to finish it up.

Let's hope this productive streak continues.

Basilisk Part 2 and Ebay find

 Considering the awful state it arrived in, the Basilisk hasn't actually cleaned up too badly. It only took a few hours soak in Fairy Power Spray to get it to a nice workable state.

The next stage will be harder though, as it will involve carefully prising off all the 'improvements' the previous owner made without damaging the model beyond use. It could take a while.

In the meantime I've got another restoration project on the go:

I found this ancient Master of Signal whilst trawling through Ebay, caked in about half an inch of paint, meaning nobody was bidding on it. Never one to pass up a bargain, I bid a quid and forgot about it. Five days later I got an email from Ebay saying I'd won the auction. Result!

The paint came off with just half an hour in the Power Spray, leaving me with a rather nice classic miniature to add to my Sons of Horus. I'll be painting him up at some point, although I want to finish up my Reavers first.

Basilisk Restoration Project Part 1

 A friend of mine at my local club runs a hobby shop on Ebay, so he often gets in junk lots or models which need serious TLC as part of larger job lots. He also knows that I enjoy restoring such otherwise lost causes, so often gives me first dibs on them at massively reduced prices.

His latest finds might just become my greatest challenge yet though:

That's a Chimera and a Basilisk, both in pretty bad shape. To be fair, the Chimera really just needs a strip, a reworking of its weapons and a repaint. The Basilisk on the other hand is horrendous.

First up was the horrible splotchy paint job which looked like the work of a 5 year old. I had to give it a basecoat just so I could get a look at what work needed to be done with it. Once I'd done that, I almost wished I'd told my friend 'no thank you' when he first showed it to me. Take a look at the gun shield for example:

The previous owner clearly tried to add some extra armour to it by using track pieces, but failed to line them up with the existing lines of the shield, meaning I'm going to have to try and pry them off at some point. The person who built it was clearly going for an armoured look, judging by what they've done with the crew platform at the back:

That's more stuff to remove and before I can start on the restoration work. Considering the rails are the most delicate part of the model, I'm probably going to have to rebuild these completely.

In case you're wondering where he got the tracks from, here's your answer:

Yup, they took them from underneath. They didn't even bother putting them on the underside of the front of the vehicle, so it would be have been very obvious that there were missing tracks, even from across a table. Luckily I had some spares which I used to patch it:

It's not brilliant, but it'll do for now. I want to see if I can prize those tracks from the front of the tank and return them to their proper place, but that's not my main priority on it The majority of my work is going to be sorting the back platform.

As you can see, it's in the worst state of the entire vehicle. I think I may have to pretty much rebuild this from scratch, due to the state that it's in. I'll see what I can do though.

Before I do anything else, my first step is going to have to be to give it a good soak in a tub of Fairy Power Spray. I'll keep you updated on how I get on

30k Thousand Sons Demi-Squad WIP

I've managed to get quite a bit painted recently, but unfortunately I havn't had much time to get many photos of what I've been working on, due to uni commitments. I'll try and remedy this in the next few weeks if I can find some free time.

For now though, I'm happy to announce I've actually made some serious headway with my Pre-Heresy Thousand Sons after three long years of planning and experimenting with them! The main thing which has been holding back progress on them has been trying to find a good recipe for their red armour. Every attempt I've made on them in the past just hasn't looked right. Then a few weeks ago I picked up some Army Painter Dragon Red basecoat spray and it all just seemed to click into place. I followed the basecoat with a Carroburg Crimson shade and a bit of weathering and I think the end result looks excellent.

The marines were built using the SM Tactical squad kit (with a lot of conversion work) and some Warriors of Chaos helms. I'm still wondering whether or not to add helmet crests to them, as the Thousands Sons are shown in Collected Visions, or whether to save those for the veterans of my force. I'll leave them as they are for now though, at least until I have a full squad of them. The sergeant is a combination of the Thousand Sons and FW Iron Armour kits

They still need their bases finishing up and markings added, but I'm thinking about saving the latter for when the FW Prospero book arrives, so I can mark them correctly. For now though I'll just be happy to get a whole squad done to a battle-ready standard. At least five more members will be added when my next bitz order arrives, then I can turn my attention to some characters for them and the Alpha Legion I've been inspired to build by the release of Extermination.

Sons of Horus vs Necrons

 I managed to get a game in tonight for the first time in a few weeks, pitching my Sons of Horus against a Necron army down my local club. It ended in a victorious slaughter for the Necrons, with the XVIth Legion being torn apart by gauss fire, or else utterly failing to do anything against his Wraith unit, resulting in three of my units being tied up in combat and unable to support the rest of the force. This coupled with a few tactical errors on my part and my usual atrocious dice luck meant that I really struggled to do much all game.

On a plus note it did allow me a chance to field my Squats as allied Imperial Army before the new IG codex hits. Interestingly enough they did the most damage out of all my units, defeating a Scarab Swarm in combat after it had munched through my Javelin Speeder.

I also managed to get some pics of the game and, even more amazingly, I actually remembered to post them up - wonders will never cease. I only managed to get a few, but here they are:

My XVIth Legion/ Squat Alliance post-deployment. I left the Army forces to look after the objectives, while the Astartes advanced.

The Necron force: A few units of Warriors, a unit of Immortals and a whole lot of shooty vehicles. He also had a unit of Deathmarks coming in via Night Scythe along with a Cryptek carrying a nasty flamer thing which demolished my big Tactical Squad.

 The Wraiths advancing on my Reaver Squad. Given the fact that they butchered their way through a CSM army last game, I thought I'd be fine...

 How wrong I was! This was the scene after a single round of combat. Only Morkaddon, the Apothecary and a single Reaver were left standing. Reinforcements soon arrived in the form of a Tactical Squad charging in, but they didn't managed to do much either. When the Techmarine with Rad Grenades failed his charge from 4 inches away, I knew the dice gods had abandoned me once more and my fate was sealed.

That's all I've got for now, but I'll make sure I take more when I go to have the rematch me and my opponent said we'd have at some point  By then I should have most of my force painted up- another awesome thing to come out of the battle is that it's sent me into a painting and fluff-writing frenzy, so expect to see a lot of stuff posted up on here in the next few weeks.

Sons of Horus Techmarine WIP

 I've been looking over all the options in the FW Legion list and I found a hidden gem: Techmarines!

I realised that Techmarines in a Legion list can take Rad Grenades and can be fielded in groups of 1-3 Techmarines as a single unit choice. That's not too shabby when you consider that they're also cheap enough to allow you to take one for every squad in your army without too much of a dent in your points. I decided I had to try it, so converted one up and gave him a go in my assault orientated Reaver squad. This what I came up with just from my bits box:

It's nothing too fancy. The most complicated part of the conversion was making the Graviton Gun (which I gave him to stop him just being a grenade caddy) from a Necron Gauss Flayer and a spare vehicle accessory (I don't even know where it's from tbh), and meshing together Space Marine and Necron legs to make his bionics. After his performance in-game though, I'd say he's earned himself a decent paint job and a general upgrade. Facing a CSM list, the Reaver squad he was attached to managed to kill Typhus and his entire Terminator bodyguard without even breaking a sweat, thanks to the -1 toughness from the Rad Grenades. I can't wait to see how he does against regular marines!

Need to focus

Ok, I say this a lot, but I need to sort out the volume of projects I have on the go. It's getting somewhat ridiculous now. With the addition of Squats and Imperial army, I have the following on my 'to do' list.

• 4000 Points of Sons of Horus (admitedly broken down into Squad-by-Squad chunks)
• Thousand Sons allies
• Random World Eaters and Death Guard squads I converted up in an effort to clear my bits box
• Hochland engineer force (that eternal WIP)
• Squat/ Demiurg allies
• Imperial Army
• Song of Ice and Fire Lannister troops
• A couple of display pieces
• Harlequin force (admittedly these have been delayed to issues with an Ebay seller)

That's a massive amount of models. I can't even remember the last time I saw my hobby desk in a tidy state. I need to clear my backlog, but I keep getting sidetracked by uni, my girlfriend and preparation for Pokemon VGC Regionals, which happen at the end of this month. There just isn't enough time atm.

I've got a few days to myself from Thursday this week though, so hopefully I'll make some progress then. I just need to stay focussed and finish some models.

Squat/ Demiurg allies

I promised unusual allies and here's the start of them:

Squats! Or Demiurg, depending on your particular views on the subject. The point is that I've started converting a few squads of them from Dwarf Thunderers and various bits and pieces from my bitz box, to be used in my Imperial Army forces. The plan is to use them as veterans in carapace armour to represent their hardiness and also to crew any vehicles I include in the force.

The idea of including Squats in my force came about with the release of the new fantasy Dwarfs from GW. The new models are gorgeous and were more than enough to tip me over the edge of starting a Dwarf army, but I couldn't really justify starting a new Fantasy army when my Empire and Dark Elves were still unfinished. I was going to wait and start Dwarfs at a later date, but then someone down my local club suggested that the Burlock Grimmson character would look more at home in 40k than fantasy and something clicked in my brain. I could have my dwarf army, only instead of fantasy, I could tie them in with my Pre-Heresy projects. The idea just grew from there

I'm having a lot of fun putting together my Imperial army contingent. It gives me a lot more creative freedom than a standard IG force does, as the Imperiums force were a lot more open minded and diverse during that time period. I'm thinking of adding Beastmen after the Squats are done. For now though, the Space Dwarfs are my main project.

Imperial Army troopers

I've managed to get a few games in with my Sons of Horus recently, making excellent use of my new favourite unit, the Reaver squad. These guys are amazing. They're really versatile and flexible on the battlefield, just like the Sons of Horus should be. I like these guys so much I've reassigned most of my previous Veteran squads to Reaver duty and given them a new paint job to match. I'll post up some photos when they're finished.

Alongside them I've been working on some Imperial Army allies, an addition I've made due to the fact that everything's so expensive points-wise in the Legion list that I need some cheap bodies to babysit my home objectives.

After a bit of tinkering, I managed to throw these together:

I went for a look which tries to represent the individuality and lack of standardization which the Imperial Army was known for, whilst still giving me a coherent force. I built them using Cadian bodies and various Space Marine and Space wolves heads I had laying around.

I think they look pretty good, even though they still need their bases finished. I need to find a transport for them, as well as obviously bump up their numbers. Hopefully they'll do the job of keeping my backline safe quite nicely. They'll also soon be joined by some more unusual allies, but more on those soon.

Unexpected World Eater

I really need to stop getting distracted. I ordered some bits for my Sons of Horus, including some WoC Marauder arms for the axes, intending to finish up a squad this week, but after clipping the weapons off the arms I found myself left with some bare arms. One thing led to another and i built this:

It's World Eaters character of some description, thrown together from bits lying around my hobby desk. Once he was put together, i figured I may as well paint him up as well:

I think he looks great. The GW blood effects work really well on him. I'm not sure what I'm going to use him as yet. Had I planned a bit more, I could've given him a plasma pistol and used him as a pre-heresy version of Kharn, but I never really think these things through. I might expand him into a full squad to be used as a small World Eaters allied detachment, but I'm not sure yet.

Harlequin Venom WIP

Ok, so I I've gotten distracted again.

I saw some Harlequins going cheap on an ebay auction, so I put in a bid and won a squad. This led to me deciding to buy a transport for them, which led to this:

As you can see it's a WIP Harlequin Venom, which is the start of my Harlequin army project. It's going to be a slow burn project, due to the amount of effort which needs to go into each and every model, but I'm rather looking forward to it. It's a project I've wanted to do for a while and I finally feel my painting skills are good enough to do the models justice.

More soon!