State of my hobby

Normally I do a review of my projects at the start of the year, but with me being so busy recently, I never quite got round to it this year. Now I have actually time to focus a bit more on my hobby, I figured now would be a good time to do to have a look over it all.

This is what I have on the go at the moment:

Sons of Horus

As I said in my last post, I'm currently rebasing all my Sons of Horus to 32mm, giving them a spruce up as I go.

The plan is to write out the full fluff for each squad as it gets renamed, finally putting their background to page. My initial expansion of my Sons of Horus was so rapid that quite a few units got skipped over the first time, even though they were fully fluffed out in my head. It'll be nice to spend the time sorting it all out properly.

Ordo Xenos forces

My other major project. Starting as a good excuse to make use of all the odds and sods from various projects I had laying around, this has grown to encompass Warbands, Deathwatch and Scions/ Stormtrooper forces, as well as eventual Harlequin allies.

This project will grow alongside my Sons of Horus, switching between them as the mood or inspiration takes me. These should be fully fluffed out at some point too.

Squats

What started out as a counts-as Solar Auxila force has grown into an idea to produce a full 2nd Ed-legal force, after a friend of mine introduced me to playing 2nd Edition 40k and I fell in love with the system.

Whilst I can't afford to use the original Squat models, I'm going to continue with my Fantasy Dwarf conversions until I have a full force to use for 2nd Ed, plus in a variety of roles in the current 30k and 40k rules.

Mercenary Tau

One of my side projects to make use of everything in my hobby cupboard, some of which were some battered old Tau I got in an eBay job lot with some classic marines. Whilst they were in no state to be used as Empire Tau due to their abundance of missing pieces, a meshing with Imperial bits from my spares should yield some decent results and provide me with a small allied force to make use of with my Inquisition.

Hochland Engineer Army

This is very much on the back burner, due to the total collapse of my interest in Fantasy which came with the End Times. Even if I don't use it, I plan to at least get a 2000 point force finished at some point for display and completion purposes, but my other projects are taking priority right now.

Song of Ice and Fire

This is still a project I want to do, as I think it'll work fantastically, however a combination of a lack of interested playtesters in my area, lack of money to buy the models for my first scenario (Tyrion &Catelyn being ambushed on the way to the Vale) and very little time to work on rules has pretty much killed my motivation to move this project forward.

Hopefully between the new series on TV and a Winds of Winter release being finally in sight, I'll be able to get the motivation going to reignite this project soon.

Lost and the Damned

This is a possible project in the works, after a friend of mine suggested the possibility of running a 13th Black Crusade campaign at some point next year.

Lost and the Damned are something I've wanted to collect for a very long time, but  due to the fact that I started 40k literally the month after the original worldwide campaign finished I've never had the chance to do it. This is despite having been inspired by numerous versions of the FW Traitors & Renegades lists (which I'll be using rules-wise if this project happens).

It'll give me a good excuse to dust off my old Blood Pact and Deamon models too, which will be nice, plus gives me a chance to convert up swarms of mutants and 40k Beastmen, which is always nice.

This could also tie in nicely with my Heresy projects, considering the sorry state the mortal followers of Horus had devolved into by the time they reached Terra!

So there you are. It's a much more restricted project list than previous versions, but that's mainly due to the fact that I have now graduated, so I have much less time to game. It's still more than enough to keep me going though. Hopefully by the time I look over my hobby again, I'll have actually got a project or two finished, so I can start dwindling down my vast 'to do' list. As ever though, I'll likely start with good intentions, then get sidetracked again!

Wish me luck.

Revisiting the Sons of Cthonia

So with the new Space Marine base size from GW rolling out, I decided the time was ripe to revisit and spruce up my Sons of Horus as I transfer them to their bases.

With about 6000 points to revisit and me being skint, this is going to take a while. On the other hand, having to do it in stages also means I can take the time to get each squad up to the very best standard I can before moving onto the next, so I don't mind it too much.

I decided to start with my Preator, a Reaver squad and my first Tactical Squad, seeing as they form the core of any list I write. Here's the first of the redone Reavers:

I still need to finish the base, but the effect of the new base is immediately obvious. It makes him much more imposing and seriously adds to his presence on the tabletop. A success in my book!

Preator Morkaddon's having far more substantial work done to him. As the first SoH I ever painted, I felt he'd benefit from being stripped down and completely redone to take advantage of theimprovements in my painting skills since he was first painted. Here's the stage he's at right now:

Not the best of photos, but he's definitely looking a lot better than he was. He's gained a snazzy new Combi-Flamer too to replace his old Bolter. He's also got it held ready to fire rather than being held neutrally as his his previous incarnation did. This ties in with how his backstory has developed over the last few years, going from a Captain of a footslogging line company to the leader of a highly aggressive airborne force.

His helmet crest went missing in the stripping process. I'm still debating whether to replace it with the bit from the Sternguard Veteran set or to give him a topknot to bring him more in line with the Sons of Horus aesthetic. I'll let you know on that one.

Full background right-ups will follow at some point, but what do you think so far?

Classic and New Terminators WIP

I finally managed to get enough of the paint off the Space Hulk Terminators to start sprucing them up, so along with my HH Indominatus conversions I've been working on, I've been painting two generations of Terminators tonight. Both are destined for my Sons of Horus and still very WIP, but they're turning out nicely I think.

I have to say the Space Hulk Termies are lovely, but I'm terrified of making mistakes when I'm working on them as they're older than I am!

A rare find

It looks like my Tau mini-project and larger Inqusition force need to be put on the back burner for a few weeks, owing to the fact that I have finally acquired something I have wanted for a long time.

When I arrived at my local gaming club tonight, a friend of mine gave me these:

They're not the best of photos but I'm sure you can see what they are. Six Space Crusade Terminators and a 2nd Ed Tactical Squad. Both need to be stripped and have some TLC applied, but  they're still quite the find, especially as they didn't cost me anything!

I've been after the Terminators for years, but I've always been outbid on EBay whenever they come up.

I'm not sure how I'm going to use them yet, but the Terminators will probably going into my Sons of Horus or be used as Exo-suits in my fledgling Squat force. Either way they're going into the stripping tub tonight, ready for me to work on them on my free day on Wednesday. 

Tau Mercenaries

So I was rooting through a cupboard the other day and I came across some Tau I got in an Ebay job lot a few years ago. They really weren't in great condition, with about half an inch of paint obscuring most of the detail on them but I figured I could either try rescuing them, or I may as well just chuck them out.

So into the stripping tub they went.

After a week of repeated soakings and scrubbings, I finally hit bare plastic. The basic Fire Warriors and set of Sniper Drones seem fine and just need a repaint. The Stealth Suits were likewise and are likely to be siphoned off to become a set of Exo-Suits for my Squats, but the bigger Battlesuits need far more work.

From what I can tell from the parts I have, I've got one Crisis Suit and one Broadside, with one or two more possibly stashed away in some unknown cupboard somewhere. Both are missing their feet, some weapon systems and a few details.

This basically means I'd have to either order in replacement parts (not easy with me being skint and them being OOP) or scratchbuild a solution to the problem. I don't think I need to tell you which I chose.

Whilst pondering ways to rebuild the legs with what I had to hand, an idea hit me. Seeing as I have zero desire to collect an entire Tau force, these guys (if they ever see the tabletop at all) would be fielded as allies for my Inquisition, Squats or Space Wolves. This means I'd need to find some fluff justification for them being there. This brought me to the idea of Mercenary Tau.

Basically this force will have, for whatever reason, decided to put aside the principles of the Greater Good and are fighting for coin/ tech/ survival/ whatever. This would put them beyond the reach of tradition supply and repair lines, meaning they would have used whatever tech they had to hand to repair their gear. This will let me build mix in Imperial parts with the Tau and go to town with the conversion, whilst also giving me a strong narrative theme which I can tie in with my other armies.

Anyway, enough talking, here's my early progress on my  first rescued Broadside, with the legs rebuilt. I made it a little more spindly than the original model, partly to make it look non-standard, but also so I can use it as a counts-as Sentinel if I ever want to use it with my Squats.

I'll post more soon.

Inquisitor conversion WIP

Well it's happened again: I've gotten distracted.

This time I can honestly say it's not my fault. One of the hobby groups I follow on Facebook has launched a group project where every member paints up a Deathwatch marine, which we then field as a group when we meet up. This pretty much provided the perfect excuse for me to indulge in the long-held ambition of mine to field an Ordos Xenos force.

Of course, any good Inquisition force needs a couple of Inquisitors to lead it. Here's the first one I've started working on:

It's converted from the DE Lhamean model, which I've had laying about doing nothing nothing for ages. a quick weapon swap later and I had my first Inquisitor ready to paint.

More soon, including my first Deathwatch Marines

30k Thousand Sons Veterans WIP

What's that? Two posts from me in the space of a week, showing progress on the same project? Wonders will never cease!

Joking aside, I'm getting really excited about my Thousand Sons project. Now the ball is rolling on it, things are coming together really quickly. Before I get distracted by shiny toys though, I've turned my attention to the Tactical and Veteran Squads which will form the backbone of my force. So far I've got these three nearly done:

These are the start of my first Veteran Squad. I view this force as a group who fled Prospero in the wake of the Space Wolves assault, so a hardened band of veterans seem to be the perfect core for my force. I'm still working out the marking system, but I'm liking the idea of one white pad and one red pad indicating veteran status, whilst the Egyptian-style crests mark out squad leaders. I have a feeling that the FW book will overwrite this when they finally get round to covering the XVth Legion, but that could still be a few years off yet, so I won't worry too much.

I've got seven more of these to finish, plus fifteen Tactical marines and some characters. Then I can turn my attention to the Disc Skimmer conversion I have planned.

Thousand Sons Moritat WIP

I've just realised that I haven't posted anything on here for about four months now. I hadn't realised I'd let things fall so far behind.

I'm currently working on my Thousand Sons allies, which I seem to have been making more progress on in the last couple of months than I have in the last four years put together! Having a definite idea of the colour scheme has really helped, as it means I'm not constantly tweaking and repainting the red.

I'll post more of the army in general in the next couple of posts, but what I have on my hobby desk right now is this:

This is going to be used as a Thousand Sons Moritat. I figure that a psycho fireball-throwing psyker suits their character better than the traditional gunslinging variety of Moritat.

Obviously he's still very much WIP. I'll be painting him up over the course of the next couple of weeks. The main change I'm considering already is to change the colour of the flames from yellow to blue/white. This will not only provide better contrast with the red, but helps imply the flames are hotter too!

As soon as I get the money to order them, he's going on a new 32mm base too, along with all my other 30k marines.

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.