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!

Thousand Sons Librarian WIP

Now I'm not the biggest fan of Christmas, but I have to admit it has it's uses. It's normally the time of year when my hobby fund gets a healthy top-up, courtesy of friends and family who are perpetually stumped as to what to buy me, so end up handing me gift cards or money instead. This year netted me enough to put in a good-sized FW order, so I've decided to give my Thousand Sons some reinforcements.

The plan is to use this second Heresy-era army to field fun stuff which doesn't suit my airborne Sons of Horus, such as the Sicarian battle tank and Mechanicum allies. Before I can add those though, I need to fill the minimum requirements of Troops and HQ. With this in mind I've been working this guy to lead my force:

I'm not sure if he's going to be a Librarian or a Praetor yet, but to be honest the line between the two positions is so blurred in the case of the Thousand Sons, I don't think it really matters. He'll probably fill whichever role I need him to on a game by game basis.

Once I finish up some detail work, add cult markings and finish the sword, he'll be the first fully painted model for my Thousand Sons. It's about time really, seeing as I've been working on and planning them for three years now!

Blood Pact Priest WIP

Now Uni's out the way for the Christmas period, I can actually focus on getting some models painted. This Guy's been sitting undercoated on my hobby desk for nearly 3 years now, so with the release of the new Technical paints from GW, it seemed the perfect opportunity to try out Blood for the Blood God.

I've found that while the blood effect works well for dried blood, it's actually quite rubbish if you want wet blood, say on a weapon or something. It's a only a small flaw though. Other than that, it's a fantastic addition to the range. It's almost inspired me to dig out my old Blood Pact army and give them a spruce up. That's a project that can wait though, at least until I start finishing up my current projects.

I still need to find a right arm for him, but that can wait. I need to consider what I want to arm him with. I'm thinking probably a shotgun, so he can lend a bit of fire to the squad he's attached to, but the idea of dual-wielding chainswords appeals to me, as it seems like the kind of thing the Blood Pact would do and would look awesome.

For now though, I'm calling him done. Basing will come later,as I like to base huge batches of models at once.

Watch this space! 2014 hobby plans

It's been a while since I last posted, so I thought I'd put something up to let you know my current projects. It's more distract myself from the mountain of work I've got to get through for my Uni dissertation than anything, but some of you might be interested.

As you might have noticed, I haven't been posting much up here recently. You can blame that on Uni work more than anything, but I have been working on various projects between my studies. I'll be working on them in earnest come January when I have much more free time, but here's a quick run down.

Sons of Horus

I'm still working on these in between my other projects, but they havn't been my main focus for months now. I still don't have even a basic 2000 point list fully painted yet, but that's going to change very soon. I've got a big Apocalypse game with them down my local club on Sunday, which will no doubt inspire my to finish them up.

The biggest recent addition to the force has been me finishing up my Warmaster Horus conversion, ready to lead my force in the Apocalypse game. It's a bit annoying that the official for him will be out soon, completely overshadowing my efforts, but on a plus note, he'll be my first Primarch purchase!

Thousand Sons

My eternal work in progress. I've been working on them three years now, chopping and changing models and constantly re-doing them, but I still don't even have a single squad finished. My problem is that the Thousand Sons are my favourite Legion. They always have been. This means that if I'm going to make an army of them, they need to match up perfectly with the idea of them which I have in my head. On the converting side of thing, I think I've finally nailed it, but (as ever) my painting lets me down.

I'm going to have another attempt at painting them in January I think. My painting has improved massively over the last year, to the point where I actually think I can do them justice this time round. Even if I only manage to get one squad done to the standard I want, I'll be happy.

Song of Ice and Fire

I'm still working this, having finally managed to drum up enough interest to give me a decent pool of playtesters to work with. The first draft of the Stark list is done, barring a few characters. Lannisters are next, then probably Renly's host. These I'm hoping to be able to work on next year and get a playable set of rules ready by April-May time.

Model-wise, I've got enough to field reasonable sized forces for both Stark and Lannister, including named characters like Robb Stark, Tyrion and Gregor Clegane.

I've got big plans for the ruleset in general, but Uni's really eaten into my time to develop it properly

Hochland Empire

Another seemingly constant WIP. Four years for the initial conception of the project and the Airship which is to be the centerpiece of the whole force is still sitting half finished on my hobby desk. The good news is that I will get it done soon. There's an escalation fantasy campaign running down at my local club, which gives extra points for fully painted and well themed, as well as an extra prize for a fully develop background story. In other words, my favourite kind of campaign!

So the Glorious Army of Hevig von Nearostaffen will finally be finished in all the glory it deserves. To aid me in my inspiration on all thewse projects, I'm going to invest in getting myself a display cabinet for my finished models, so I can sit back and admire my work when each project is finished. I think it'll act as a good incentive for me.

So those are my plans for 2014, hobby-wise. If it's anything like previous years, I won't even achieve half of those, but I find it's good to have an ideal goal to work towards.

What your hobby plans for 2014?

This hobby is expensive? Not really..

I had an interesting conversation in the pub the other day about wargaming. It may seem an odd subject to come up in that situation and to be honest, I don't entirely remember how the topic of conversation came round to it, but when I mentioned that I play tabletop games on a regular basis, someone said to me "why do you waste your money on that 'stuff'' (not their actual words, but edited for language). It's so expensive". I don't know what it was, but the question stayed with me, buzzing away in the back my mind in the way that such questions often do.

The thing that struck me was the person who said this to me spent a good 30 to 40 pounds on alcohol that night, with nothing to show for it afterwardsexcept possibly a hangover in the morning and some hazy memories. He did this without even thinking twice about it.

That same 30 to 40 pounds, if invested in hobby stuff could have bought me a box of models or two from an online stockist, which I'd then have spent hours building and painting, then I would have had further hours of enjoyment by going to my local gaming club with them and playing with those models. I'd use those models for years on end, through hundreds on evenings worth of gaming sessions. I'd get creative inventing background for them, inventing names and watching their legend grow (or diminish) on the gaming tables. I'd have the opportunity to socialise while playing with them, meeting some great people. All for the price of one night out down the pub. Plus it has the added bonus of you waking up the next day without hangovers and possible regrets.

Most hobbies are expensive, but in the grand scheme of things, ours is actually quite a cheap hobby, even with GW's constant price rises. I have a friend who does Astrophotography as a hobby and recently shelled out two grand on the latest camera equipment. That's not even including what she spent on the camera itself. She'll probably spend even more in a year or two when better equipment comes out, but I'll still have the same armies I have now, unless I take the plunge and start a new project. Even then I'm only paying a fraction of what she pays for her hobby.

Another, more common example would be video gaming. I have many friends who are fanatical gamers, often getting the latest games on the day of release. Even discounting the cost of the console, you're looking at about 40 to 50 pounds for the latest games, with two or three being released every month. That's £120 a month, just to keep up to date. Again, I may buy a new unit every now and then, but I'm still spending on average a fraction of what console games pay, even when most of my purchases are from Forge World.

Yet despite all this, many people still look down their noses at wargaming as an expensive waste of money. It's strange how the world works really. It's the reason why I've written this article, to share it with my friends who say wargaming is a waste of money and open their eyes to how it actually fits into the strata of hobbies as a whole.

What do you guys think? Am I right? Or have your experiences of this been different?