The Chaos Genestealer Cult Was Always a Thing (Part 4 - A New Year & more WIP's)

There’s a lot that’s been happening my end that explains my lack of posting these past months.

My lady and I got married, we also moved to a larger apartment and then add in all the traditional Holiday fun that comes with attending my wife’s family gatherings. No complaints from me on this though, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed being welcomed into her family and returning those sentiments as best as I can.

On the hobby side of things, a New Year is here once more and I’ve at least not been completely idle, O no.

I’ve been slowly assembling some of the model kits I have sat on my hobby shelves in preparation for the projects I intend to get done this year.

 A Kellmorph for my Chaos Genestealer Cult from my Kill Team box. "Chaos" cos he has horns alright? Actually, I really liked the stock sculpt as is, but realised he would look like anyone else's and he also needed something "Chaos" about him, so yeah - horns. I like them, though there'll be some cursing as he tries to get through the lower doorjams.

Next, a Games Workshop Leman Russ tank that was a birthday gift last October from a very good friend. The kit doesn’t seem to have changed that much since the Leman Russ was first released (I got one on release day even) and went together pretty well. In lieu of the wholly uninspiring commander mini that is supplied on the sprue, I instead stuck in an old re-casted Forge World Imperial Guard tank commander that I’d had in my bits box for around the last 10 years. I’ve also added Genestealer Cult badges on it’s hulls and a Chaos back-banner cut down to show it’s leanings toward the Chaos god Khorne.

After that, I got inspired by the preview picture of a future supplement for Bolt Action, D-Day (Brit/Canadians) and began putting together a Warlord Games Churchill tank that I built as a Mark VI. The kit was not at all simple to assemble like the Leman Russ as the instructions were bloody vague. After a few evenings of cursing and fingers glued together, I finally ended up with this beast. Not a bad finished result and like the Leman Russ above, I used an alternate metal tank commander (Produced by CompanyB) as the one on the sprue was awful.

Somehow the rear didn't sit flush against the lower chassis, so I had to get creative and cut down sprue pieces to fill the gap. It'll do for me.

Lastly and assembly completed just last night, is this full section of Commonwealth infantry by Warlord Games for my Dieppe Landing project. These lot were a flippin pig to assemble and I had no fun at all during the process. Why on earth the designers thought that making all of the water canteens, pouches and so forth separate was a good idea, or that separate arms and weapons was “fun”, I have no idea… I’m not even sure I’ll make the remaining 15 in the box the process was so painful. Any future additions to my commonwealth will be metals for sure, though once done this ten-man squad at least looks half decent.

And that's it for the now. New place doesn't have a spot to spray paint at and I'm not sure I could get away with trying to do so on my balcony, but I'm going to see if I can't sneak in a late night effort. In the meantime, I'll be assembling more things to empty my shelves a little more and try to get posts up at least once a month as that's not really asking too much now, is it???

Squeak I tell you, Squeak!

Things have been plodding along in a fair fashion this week on my hobby desk. 

There’s always plenty to be done in my hobby room, but as it stands my required minis for next year’s rpg campaign are almost all painted up. Just waiting on my RedBoxGames Barbarian Hordes Kickstarter lot to arrive (Including 2 more Player Character minis and 9 more zombies) and then there’s terrain pieces to add some flavour to encounters.

But in further readiness, I got these critters out. Giant Rats or Dire Rats depending on which flavour you prefer. They’ll be at least an interesting encounter.

These Singles are by Reaper in their plastic Bones medium. Super cheap and okay for detail considering so. They painted up easily and I really didn’t want to spend too much time getting such disposable vermin painted up so it’s just base colour and wash with a slight highlight here and there. I added simple roman numerals to the backs of their bases (Something I need to do to all my badguy minis) so it’ll be easier to keep track of their health in combats.

My son demanded I paint them with red eyes, though I'm not sure they show up that well in these pictures.

This pile of Timorous Beasties is (I think.) an old Ral Partha Giant Rat Swarm. I like the cartoony sculpts to their faces, the crisp sculpts made painting easier than otherwise. Again, super simple and dirty paint job to patch the single rats. No idea how I’m going to use these, but they look fun and should at least provide some visual fun to the planned encounter.

I think the size of base I used makes them look less... "swarm-ish".....

.....But considering how much use I'll get out of these blighters, I really don't care.

I also got to last minute work the previous evening on this Reaper Bones big cat from their Animal Companions pack. Saw a Snow Leopard on the tv and felt inspired to try to copy their beautiful pelt scheme. So far, it looks like a 9-year-old has painted it, but I’ll see if I can’t change that some and make it look more realistic. Once it’s finished, the druid in my rpg will then have two animal companion choices.

Pink noses. All of them have pink noses when I searched online for images. So damned cute, if these things weren't so deadly.

Basic markings are black dots and circles with a slight darker grey inside. Got the basics down, but they look like some crappy kids toy from Walmart right now...

Then there’s this handy little Treasure pile, again by Reaper in their Bones plastic. It was a quick and dirty paint job, just enough to look enticing enough for my player characters in my rpg to want to fight for it. J

A chest on a pile of Gold, Silver and Copper coins. A lamp and...

Even a huge green gem on a gold necklace....

Also with Cameron’s Firestorm D-Day Flames of War campaignnow started, Densmol is coming over on Wednesday to get our first game in in a while. It’s D-Day boys and girls and the Longest Day is about to begin. (Not that we’ll be playing a beach landing… as I don’t have beach terrain stuff and Densmol has no fortifications. *facepalm*) For our first game and to at least keep with the D-Day theme I’ve started work on a Breaching Group composed of a regular Sherman tank, two Sherman Crab Flail tanks and a pair of Churchill AVsRE tanks & a short platoon consisting of a pair of Churchill Crocodiles. As this pic shows, all but the Sherman Crabs have been Primered and based coated with Vallejo Russian Green (The Crabs are now primered as well and should be base coated in green also by the end of this evening.).

Along with the tanks, I also started basing my ACW Confederate artillery. These should also be finished up this evening and I’ll get another post submitted to show the finished batteries.

AVsRE on the left, regular Sherman in the center and Crocodile & Fuel Trailers on the right. The ACW artillery are along the front, their crew and guns all painted, just needing dirt painted and grass glued on!

My pair of Sherman Crabs prior to primer being sprayed on. These were a pain in the rump to assemble, with no instructions on the Flames of War website! Still, they look great all stuck together. In the background, you can see my in progress ACW infantry regiment on lolly-sticks.

Lastly (!!!), my good pal Stew came over yesterday and we got my first game of Chain of Command (By TooFatLardies) in. It was played in 15mm as that’s what my current terrain collection is made up of with his appropriately based Heer Germans versus my inappropriately based Brits. Sadly no pics were taken as I quite forgot as I was nursing a sorry post Halloween party hangover. I REALLY liked the way this game played though; the rules were easy to pick up and even though I lost due to some awful dice rolling, I really felt like I was on the edge of my seat in a great tactical battle with some great maneuvering by the attacking germans and brave hunkering down by my Tommies. I feel it was perfect for 15mm scale gaming and it’s a game I’d love to play again. I might have to pick up a set of the rules in the near future or at least stick them down on my Xmas list.

If you made it this far, then well done! This post grew out of proportion, but it was fun to show what I’ve been up to of late. Should have the next one up in a couple days or so.

We Generals Three (ACW Project - Part 1) & Kingforce Completed!

Bit of a quick aside to keep from burning out on painting desert colouring, here the three miniatures that will represent my generals for my 15mm ACW Confederate army.

I have no idea who produces them or if they were even supposed to be Confederate Generals int he first place (As opposed to Union), but they are full of character and were fun to paint. 

These are 15mm on 1" circular bases per the Regimental Fire and Fury rules.

Think this chap is supposed to be regarding his map.

Add caption

As you can see, I just couldn't get the rider/saddle to sit flush on this horse.

Tried to show a "Dapple-Grey" effect on the horse's rump.

My least favourite of the three and obviously an inferior sculpt, but damn he sports a nice moustache!

This will be my Cavalry commander, so he gets the light blue trousers.

My fav of the three. Love his dashing facial hair and sash (Looks messy here, but I cleaned up the red since.)

Add caption

Tried to make this horse look like a Palomino.

Also got the last of the KingForce Chuchills done! Commander is painted the same method as my other infantry, but the lighting makes him look a lot darker skinned than he actually is. With him done, I've finished painting half my platoons for my Desert Brits, well on target for the next tournament March 23rd (or 14th or whenever that weekend is...). Next up will be my Heavy Machine Gunners!

Looking a bit "extra" sunburnt here. I'll be going back over all my skin shades for this army once I've got them all tabletop ready.

Closeup of poorly done stowage. I really need more boxes of stuff to add too.

And here's the platoon all together.

King Force (Part 2 - Two down and something in the air)

More for my Desert Brits – a second King Force Churchill tank and an RAF Hurricane Mk iiB (This one sports Machine Guns and Bombs ingame, but I left the bombs off the model as I felt they made it look too clunky.).

The plane was loads of fun to paint and took me far less time than I’d at first anticipated. The only time swallowing aspect of it all were the decals. They were obviously quite old and so took yonks to lift off from the paper. Regardless, they went on well and after a coat of first gloss, then matt varnish, I have my air cover.

 

Painted the canopy-glass up to match the windows and lights of the rest of the force. I think the light blue makes for a good spot colour on the desert browns and tans.

The Hurricane certainly struts an impressive sleek profile.

Ready to rake infantry positions with those MG's!

Now I'm really gunning to pick up a Spitfire in the same scale!

Not sure the camo scheme is historic, but it'll do.

The Churchill is more of the same from my last post, except this one has different stowage across it’s rear quarters. Again, fun to paint and only the weathering to be done that I’ll get to once all three tanks are finished.

 

Dust Dodger on this one looks better than the previous.

The blue/black breath mint tin that I had been using to prop my mini's upon for pictures has perished. Instead, a static grass container has stepped up to fill the void. Interesting eh?

Am super excited to get to field these in game!

Churchill's rump. So to speak.

An idea of what exactly I added. This one is stowage-light but I think still looks good.

After I finished up the Hurricane, I then went on to start on the Heavy Machine Gun platoon for my desert Brits. Not much to show so far, just helmets, boots and socks done so far, but I hope to have these boys finished up (Along with their truck transports) by the weekend. 

King Force (Part 1 - One down, two to go)

King Force was a unit of 6 Churchill Mark iii British Infantry support tanks that were sent over to North Africa in October 1942 under the command of Major Norris King and deployed within the 7th Motor Brigade. This was the Commonwealth's first time trying out Churchill tanks in action since the failed Raid on Dieppe in August of the same year. Unlike in Dieppe, King's Churchills performed admirably and proved very durable against German Anti-tank fire and although they were deemed too slow to join in chasing Rommel into Tunisia, their example lead to the Churchill seeing service through the rest of the war and beyond. 

In my Mid War Flames of War Motor Company list for North Africa I am able to field two platoons of these. (One with 2 tanks, the other a full 3.) But they are super expensive points-wise, so I've stuck to the one platoon of 3 tanks in my 1650 list. (This is the points level for the next tournament I intend to attend next month) In Mid-War desert, they are only really afraid of Pak40's, Semoventes, 8.8" Flak36's and Panzerfausts - and even then they have a fair chance at saving when hit by AT rounds. 

Modelling-wise, mine are by The Plastic Soldier Company and were a great kit to put together with crisp detail and (mostly) clear instructions. As you can see in the picture above, I've also attempted to model the canvas "screen dodger" across the front that was utilised to deal with the mass amount of dust and sand that would get thrown up and into the driver's face as the tanks rumbled on through the desert. It wasn't a very good solution to the issue and post 2nd Battle of El Alamein the crews instead resorted to removing the front fenders altogether which proved a far more successful fix. (Hence why supposedly most pictures of any Churchills in Tunisia are seen sans front fenders - though I've not researched this bit very much to date.)

I tried to match the camo that I was able to find in Google searched photos from 1942. Some sources claim the darker colour painted on was left over from when the tanks were originally delivered and then the crews would slap on the desert "pink" on top. Other sources I have read would have us believe the darker parts are instead brown or dark blue even. I feel the green makes most sense.

Here is the first of my squadron - done aside from some weathering and dust to be added. Another thing I researched was the almost total lack of unit markings on these. Aside from a strange and otherwise little accounted for a tiny "Cluster of black grapes" symbol on their front right/back left fender Kingforce Churchills supposedly had no other Regimental markings. I neglected to add this onto my tank as what little I've seen of the grape marking are that they are tiny and I really don't have the patience to try to replicate the look. 

The Screen Dodger canvas skirt. I have painted this probably darker than the originals actually were, but felt a darker colour stood out better.

Imposing beast of a tank. 

A little stowage made out of greenstuff. Looks better in person mind.

For those interested, here's a small comparison of the Churchill next to a Crusader iii tank to give a sense of the size. 

Crummy picture, but you get the idea. Big bugger.

I'll hopefully have the 2nd and 3rd tanks of the platoon finished by the weekend. 

*Which, btw also signals the start of the 2015 Six Nations Rugby Tournament! Wales versus England will be the 1st game and I am pumped! Cymru am Byth!*