New Year 2022 odds and sods

 Goodbye 2021, hello 2022. (And bugger you ‘22 for bringing along a sodding beginning of the year head cold!) 

No end of year round up here, I pretty much bumbled along and managed to get up 24 posts - not bad for a year’s worth. My only pledges are to try to get up more posts than that for this year, buy fewer minis and paint more to reduce the Dreaded Lead&Plastic Mountain (And in turn complete a project or two). Should be simple enough, right?

On to the pics! 

A bit of painting done recently. Strayed a little from the Burrows and Badgers kick I have most recently been enjoying and so a mixed bag to show off today. 

First off a late 90’s (I think) Games Workshop offering, this is a Necromunda Ratakins gang Shaman. My very good friend Derek gifted me a small collection of the original Necromunda minis a while back and I got the bug to slap some paint on this fellow last weekend. I thought he’d be pretty straight forward but bow was I wrong… so many (in a typical GW fashion) sculpted details to pick out! Took me ages. Still, the finished effort will work and gives me a place to start off with for the rest of the Ratskin figs in my collection.

I felt a pale skin colour was more logical and less cheesy than the American Indian style studio paint job. The denizens of the Underhives don’t get to see the light, so it doesn’t make sense at all to me that anyone would have tanned skin in those areas with false light and polluted time-and-again-refiltered air. 

With so many sculpted details to pick out, I didn’t have the energy to try to add previously planned tattoos. Seriously, painting this guy was exhausting! 

Second in line is another Burrows and Badgers miniature, the third Holy Mouse I mentioned in my last post, Sister Tomasina. Like her brothers (Both in the cloth and by blood - see last post), she helps maintain and protect the church. Her Holy magics are as potent as her quick temper, woe betide the brigand attempting to thieve from the church coffers!

A grey nun’s habit with white veil. Pretty standard really. I also have her the same green holy book as I’d done for my Mole. I’ll get a pic of her with her brothers together done soon. 

Kept the pages of the book simple. No extravagant lettering , just simple script effects. Works for me.

Appropriate gratuitous mouse bootie shot. Wait! She’s a mouse-woman of the cloth! I’ll burn in hell for typing that…

Last off the paint station is a mini from a long neglected project. After seeing all sorts of great Dark Ages blogposts I decided to grab a couple of my Jomsvikings minis out and get  them done. Well, I only managed to finish one, the other should be finished before the end of the week. It’s a Gripping Beast metal sculpt from their Saga line. I think the official paint job has the animal pelt painted as a wolf, but it looks too small to be a wolf’s pelt so I decided to paint it up as a Scandinavian Red Fox fur instead. 

This one had more detail sculpted into him than the average Gripping Beast metal sculpt that I’m familiar with. Took a bit to get him done but I feel for a rank and file Bondi he looks good enough.

This pic doesn’t show it well but there are at least four layers of shading in all that orange. The lighting messed it up. 

That’s it for now. These three were part of the Paint What You Got challenge ran by Dave Stone on his blog. Not a specific challenge like others I’ve joined, more a “get stuff off your unpainted mountain with the rest of us” effort, which works just fine for me. :)

Hope all are well and safe out there,

- Dai

It's not Necromunda, but close enough.

Rubbish picture

Still, I was rather excited when GW unexpectedly came out with this (not) Necromunda reboot and so I preordered the rules, my first proper GW purchase in a long time. Necromunda was my fav Games Workshop game to play as a teen and with all the up-until-now unused 40K minis in my bits boxes I won’t have to buy anything new just to play. Just need suitable terrain. Add to the fact that Sean (Seans Wargames Cornerblog) and Lasgunpacker (His blog) are planning to come over on the 1^st weekend of June for a game or two and I feel I have just the inspiration I need to get working on stuff for the day. It's nice to have something concrete to work toward rather than just the notion that "my unpainted pile needs to get worked on". 

For the event, I plan to run an Inquisitor's Killteam so I can use a mix of different characters. I think along with the Genestealer cultists that they have the most interesting and varied options to muck about with during team generation. More on these in a later post.

 The above thing is a crude terrain piece in preparation for the games. Looks shite right now, but painted up it'll do just fine for an industrial storage tank scenery piece. Wish I had better options than bend straws, but I'm not about to spend out on custom terrain stuff anytime soon. I also picked up a pack of Hotwheels straight track pieces for walkways between the buildings I plan to make. These will help with the required 3D look and feel to Necromunda/SW:A.

Whilst no painting has been done since my last post, I did (This very day infact.) manage to purchase off a work mate these  boys, the original metal Orlock gang that GW made for Necromunda's initial release. Stupid thing is I used to own them already but sold them off a few years ago! Wont be making that same mistake again though... 

A big lad

The need to paint something wholly different from WW2 continued in my head, so I plucked an old fig from a neglected project and got to work. It's a metal Reaper Miniatures "Plague Harbinger", a really nice sculpt from 2004 by Werner Klocke that I'd bought originally upon release and had left on the shelf of unloved minis with the intention to paint up as the last member of my Inquisimunda/INQ28 Nurgle Coven! (I need to have a serious word with the "Hoarder" in me.)

Hadn't realised, but I had not worked on this project since 2012, the previous entry being a bits-mash-up deamonhost! O_o This feller is representing a "Big Mutie" in the rules, as well as being unnaturally large, he also has a "Claw" (Originally represented by an old metal Great Unclean One hand, but since replaced with a more manageable and better looking plastic hand from the GW giant kit.) and some sort of rotten flesh-type "toughness" mutation. Overall in-game he'll be awful when shooting with his ancient pistol, but nasty in hand-to-hand combat.

Dark pits for eyes made him seem more creepy in my mind. Check out the dirt under those fingernails - ew...

This brute claims to have taken those Templar pauldron shields from Space Marines he had slain in one-on-one combat. Whilst the rest of the team doesn't believe this story, they aren't about to risk a good  kicking saying so. 

Bone-handled knife is a cool bit that adds I think to the scummy wastelander feel of this mini.

Rust on most all of the exposed metal areas. (Looks good enough for me.)
Between his feet are a pile of bloodied bones - a previous meal/victim/captive/pet?

The scheme was an attempt to blend in well enough with the rest of the Coven, but be individual enough that he’ll still stand out in a group shot. The stripy cloth on his hood was an attempt to make the image more interesting, yet not distract for the overall look. As well as the plastic giant’s hand that replaced his Sickle armed left hand, I added some sort of Warhammer Fantasy holstered pistol, Warhammer 40K Kroot knife and a grenade that I think comes from the Kroot sprues as well. Overall it really is a sweet mini and I think the additions “Grimdark” it up enough to fit in the Warhammer 40K universe.

No idea on a name for this mutant as yet, though I’ll happily take suggestions.

With him finished, that sees my Chaos Coven complete. Still lots to do on other teams though for the future and after really enjoying painting this mini, I’m rather hankering to finish up some of the members of the (also) neglected Inquisitorial investigation squads. We’ll see what takes my fancy.

(I’ll get a group pic up in a future post when it’s not so rainy and nasty outside.)

One Year

Today is this blog's anniversary I believe. I also passed the 9000 views mark.

Not bad for my lazy arsed self.

Just a quick post to say thanks for coming by, offering advice and being a general all round encouraging bunch. Being the antisocial jerk that I am, it's nice to know my hobby offerings can be presented before you lot and get some fair responses.

So applaud yourself, cos I wouldn't have kept up with this otherwise. Thank you.

I managed to keep my New Years Resolution as well, having 65 total posts and so averaging more than one post a week. I call that progress folks. (You can call is modesty.)

Hopefully in the near future I'll have something exciting to post up included but not restricted to:

1. I've stuck all the RT Guard troopers on their bases aside from Heavy Weapons Squads (I have no 60mm bases - anyone know of a super cheap resource for these?). Heads will be next, then it's time to prime.

2. Creed, his Vox 'porter, the three Plague Marines are all getting wee spots of paint, though still far from done.

3. The big Mutie from the Nurgle Chaos Coven for my Inquisimunda campaign is near complete. Somehow found some enthusiasm for the model, which is nice considering it's been a hard slog to want to paint this up until now.

4. After jumping on the Dreamforge Kickstarter, I find myself now with the impending delivery of a further bunch of miniatures (Couldn't resist, they looked so darn good.) and who knows, I may well dive into the game too once the rules are released.

5. A pal of mine has been asking me to get on board with his Flames of War group. I plan to make my first attendance (For any game in a few years since Warmachine 1.0) on the 12th to see if I like it. If it grabs my attention, then I guess for my birthday (the 20th of this month.) I think I may well put some funds into that new starter set to get a British force going. We'll see though.

That's it. Go drink, paint and be merry and I'll do the same.

Ain't Getting on no Plane!

"Ben Bones, a former pit slave from Hive world Kolos XII, caught the eye of the Ordo Malleus Interrogator Scheiner whilst on mission to rescue the daughter of the Imperial Govenor from the clutches of a small Genestealer Cult. The hulking pit fighter managed to save the Interrogator's life and tore a purestrain Genestealer limb from limb in single combat. The Governor's daughter had sadly already been indoctrinated by the xenos and so had to be purged along with the rest of the evil sect, though Bones' efforts had been noted as more than beneficial to Inquisitorial investigation. The Interrogator ordered the Ogryn released from his indentured servitude and offered the brute a position within his team, which Ben Bones accepted eagerly, seeing his new lease on life a 2nd chance from a personal representative of the God Emperor Himself. "

Okay, blurb for this chap may be a bit crap, but writing with a 7-year-old next to you asking incessant questions tends to make a clear stream of thought somewhat tricky. :) Took me an age to finally get back to this character as I had been out of ideas for an effective scheme to deck him out in. The sculpt itself is from the Heroscape kids boardgame, some sort of Ogre (though I can't find the figure online for the life of me.). It's made of very soft plastic though, so modding it was a rather interesting affair - though it turned out okay in the end. (Only real complaint I have about the sculpt is the silly join between his right arm and shoulder/chest - a bicep growing out of there is rather weird, but there you go, it was a free fig afterall.)

The stripes on his back are meant to be scars from the whippings he would have taken as a slave. And eventually I'll make some sort of stencil to add some sort of code type text to the bomb on the base. The devotional adornments and graffiti on his blade are a tribute to the original fluff written for Ogryns in the 40K Compendium where they were said to look up to Commissars as their personal voice of the Emperor himself.

Below the pics (In natural light for once!) of Ben Bones are a few shots of my display case and the mini's I have painted thus far.

Lastly, done a little more work on the Brother Captain Stern commission. I so do not like this sculpt. Not as bad as Draigo, but still annoying to paint.

Interlude 3

Bit quiet around here eh?




Not been totally idle though.



1. Remember those old Rogue Trader Guard I scored and bragged about a couple posts back? Well they have all been clipped from their sprues and sorted into some wee containers I managed to drum up, ready for when I finally get to them. I also added in the other Guard that I’d already owned and I think I should be able to put together about three or four 10-man squads along with some extras to fill out both heavy weapon teams and platoon squad members. Score right?



2. Speaking of Guard, I read in some blog that I was too silly to bookmark about a Guard player who had found an awesomely cheap alternate model to use instead of the $30+ GW Chimera model. The blogger had chopped the gun off the turret (Or maybe replaced the entire turret?) and shoved on a GW gun instead and added a few 40K-esque details on top of that. I only saw pre-paint pictures of the finished tank, but I liked what I saw and the price of the finished piece even more! On top of the blogger’s mods, I plan to switch out the abominable wheels for something more beefy, though have yet to find an affordable option for this. (Prefer a wheeled transport as opposed to tracked, just seems meaner to me.) This is the shop where I plan to buy 4 of these to make my armoured platoon – http://littlegreenmentoys.com/Tim-Mee-Tan-Armored-Car-02-0001.htm and here’s a pic of the piece pre-mod:

3. O and painting! Well yes, I’ve also managed to get some painting in too. The hobby room got flooded a couple weeks back (Along with the upstairs landing.), which was rather annoying and will prove to be an expensive fix I fear. Thankfully only the flooring was affected so I’ve been able to go in and work, though not often due to the fact that my wife doesn’t like going in there with bare floors. But I have gotten some painting done: a. Work on the Brother Captain Stern commission has started and I’ve got the base metallics started. Customer wants a similar scheme to the studio one, so red next.

b. My Raven Guard dreadnought and Captain Sicarius models have been primed black. Doubt I’ll get to Sicarius anytime soon, but the dreadnought has been calling to me for some reason of late.

c. I am close to finishing the paintjob on the Ogryn from the Radical Ordo Malleus team for my =][=munda project. Shading and all sorts is done on almost all areas of the fig, just need to break up the large bare areas of skin with some freehand tattoo’s and scars. The scars are going to represent his former slave status and will hopefully look as though he’s been lashed a good few times. With the tattoos I’m hoping to effect a design that reflects some sort of devotion to the God Emperor with script work or Inquisitorial seal-type imagery. I’m rather intimidated by the prospect though so we’ll see just how well it all turns out. Hopefully will have an update with pictures by Sunday.



4. Someone needs to take down Kickstarter by the way – along with the awesome Sedition Wars KS, I also have found myself putting down some $$$ on the Relic Knights KS with a mate. And now I’m drooling over the lovely Dreamforge plastic Eisenkern trooper boxed sets and Leviathan titan-thingy. It’s a good thing I have the thriftiest budget-conscious wife in the world, else I’d be in the hole terminally if my hobby urges were allowed to have free reign.



5. Lastly, a mate recently found this boxed set from his gaming days of yore. He knew I am a painter and (still) a roleplay gamer and so gifted me it along with a handful of hero-esque miniatures from the same age. Can’t wait to get painting those pig-faced orcs! (After the commission. After the Ogryn. After the dreadnought. Etc. Etc. Etc.)

Again, next update with actual hobby pics will sometime before the end of Sunday.

A Pretty One

In service to the almighty Emperor of Mankind is reason for existence, regardless of the paths through life that we might find ourselves lead along. A Sage in the employ of Interrogator Pince, Lillit Rebko was not always engaged in such important employment. She had at one time been courtesan to no less than the Rogue Trader Glablenka herself. Her position was lost due to infighting between herself and the Trader's son, who framed Lillit for theft consequently losing not only her prized position of comfort, but her left hand as well (A common punishment thieves receive in the Romonovski Sector.). Little did Glablenka or her son realise, that Lillit Rebko had acrued quite an impressive amount of evidence of the Trader family's crooked dealings and tax evasions during her time with them and so the last laugh was on them and the Trading family were arrested by local Arbites personel. The ability to gather such a hoard of personal data did not go to waste and the former courtesan was quickly snapped up to serve Interrogator Pince as his personal Sage.

The model is a Reaper sorceress fig with a bionic hand and holstered hand cannon. I tried to make her pretty, but I'm not sure it worked well enough. She has purple eye shadow, green irises and wierd coloured hair. My wife says the colour of her garb doesn't "pop", I'll let you decide if you agree.

Trust the Mutant (REDUX)

Right, a few modifications to the paint job on the beastman. I like the red/pink eyes, but gave him some pupils. I also took the advice given on my previous posting and added somemetallic paint to the sword as scratches, etc and think this has made the striping not look so bad. Also added a bit of shading via washes here and there. I have also written a little fluff for this fellow to be found after the pics.

Living the life of shame Keyes the mutant has time and again tried to attone for his sin of being so malformed in the eyes of the God Emperor. He signed up as an Auxilary trooper to the local Planetary Defense Force. Often he had attempted to show his devotion regardless of his affliction, but his lot would not change. In despair he turned to throwing himself into the most dangerous situations, missions where even a skilled warrior like himself would have trouble, but he would not die as he wished. The peace of death in the Emperor's name eluded him time and again.

When on business in the industrial hives of Tsinguzh IV, Interrogator Pince heard of the mutant's prowess when on Inquisitor Tharlborough's business and met the freak himself. it was quickly evident that the Beastman's skills would be better used if pressed into the service of the Inquisition. Offering a small salary, Keyes was officially discharged from the PDF Auxilaries and added as a member of the Interrogator's own investigation unit.

Sometimes, the foulest of tasks are better to delegate to the foulest of abominations.

Trust the Mutant

"Beastman bad. Bad Beastman. Dirty. Emperor no like.
Beastman love Emperor. Give blood to Emperor, Give heads to Emperor. Say sorry."

This is the quote that got my attention in the original 40K Compilation army book.

Beastmen not being soley in the "badguy" forces was one of the coolest parts of Rogue Trader 40K. Beastmen being mutants, should be available to Imperium forces commanders, afterall, Psykers, Ogryn, Ratling and Squats are all tolerated by the Imperium to certain degrees and they are all mutants of varying degrees?

So with sadness it was, that after 2nd Edition, I came back to find that along with deleting my beloved Squats, that Games Workshop had also forced a rather sad and bland state upon the Imperial Guard as a whole.

But not in MY vision of 40K.

So here I present you with the Beastman Mutant Acolyte from the Radical Ordo Malleus team. He has a name, but I'm at work and for the life of me I can't remember it. (Think it was Marvin or Normon or some such.) I'll write a little background info on my next post cos he's a cool and rare character type (I think) for an Inquisitorial Cell to take so a proper job reason for this deserves a little more work.

Took two sessions to paint him, so he's pretty quick and dirty. I felt that a true mutant needed some not-human eyes, so I went for the red, though now I'm thinking I'll go back and add a little watered down orange and a black pupil or something? (And yes, I know the hazard stripes are pants, but after doing and re-doing them, I ended up saying "feck it" and decided he'd painted them himself to explain their rubbishness.)

*if he seems a little shiny, that's cos I've yet to give him a layer of Clear Coat.*

Whispers from a Xenos heart

Frallitus Thorayne is of an unknown species, from a very far off part of the galaxy. It lives in the darkest recesses of society where not even the despicable Hrud feel safe. A Psyker of prodigious power, this xenos has otherworldly control over the minds of any beast or vermin within his locale, able to send them to attack any threats it feels might be in it's adopted territories.

Found time today to finish this little wonder of a fig. Illithids are my all time favourite D&D beasties and this has to be one of my favourite sculpts. I had to use it in my campaign. Now I just have to come up with a cool enough group of vermin creatures for it to control and kill off the player teams! :)

2 and 6!

Sadly no hobby update as I've been sick as a dog this weekend.

But in my rambling about in other blogs, I saw that Pulp Figures are soon to release these and thought that with a few brass etch aquilas here and there, how cool a ship's crew they'd make. (Very 5th Element too.) Perhaps some npc's to rescue in a mission or some such?

Promises promises

Wrote a little while back that I'd show my small painted Guard section and to be honest, forgot just how small the amount of painted figs were. But here they are regardless. Hope you like. They are the troops of a personal army belonging to a Rogue Trader of House Draquon. As well as the stuff pictured below, I also have about 7 or 8 infantry, veteran and/or heavy squads of both Rogue Trader plastic Guard and metal and plastic Squat models. I used the idea that the Trader Prince had rescued the dwarf contingent from a Tyranid threatened base during the Squad purge. So lots not pictured below. One day I'll look into buying them a tank or two. :)

Also there is a small WIP of what I've been adding a little lick of paint too for my =][=munda project.

Commander Isiah Tholme, Pay Master Scheiner (Commissar) and Gorrt, Mutant Standard Bearer and Trusted Protector of the Lord Trader Draquon's family crest. The Commander will probably end up being a 3rd Pay Master.

Armaud Destrierre, trusted Astropath on board the Lord Draquon's trading vessel,  Sergeant Lorch, overseer of the Beastmen Penitents and Ukko, Gretchin member of the Ratling sniper squad.



This squad was my tester squad for the Burgundy and cream scheme. I like it as it seemed the kind of thing a showy Rogue Trader would have his ship bound troops wear.

Squat command group with unpainted beastmen penitents in background. Squats will be stripped and repainted as they have a 14-year-old-me paintjob right now. :)

Trying to fit these Grotz in the list. Was thinking some sort of veterans or bodyguards to the Rogue Trader.

Creed model is my Rogue Trader along with his Command group. The two "white" no arms figs will be removed I think and added to a normal infantry squad so I can fit in the above Grotz. The Fleet advisor will be stripped also in order to be painted in the correct colours.

Washed out pic of (Left to right) Ratlings snipers, 2nd Platoon command, Catachan squad who will be painted as ship's hands and the start of another infantry squad.

Why so much infantry? Well, fair question, seeing as how tanks are the thing right now with Guard. but I always LOVED seeing pics of the masses of RT guard marching across a battlefield with titans in the background and little else to help them aside from their numbers. So I always wanted a Guard force made in such a way. All praise the meat grinder!

Lastly a wee WIP of what I've been painting of late. (Commissions aside.)