Scribd

I chanced upon Scribd a couple of week ago, and I can't recommend it highly enough. It's basically like a giant library, but its got loads of fan created 40k and Warhammer stuff. You'll probably also find Codexes on there which is useful for a quick check on an army you might be facing. I wouldn't have said it would replace buying a proper codex or rule book (GW still need the money to keep producing stuff after all), but its useful to check out something before you buy it.

How cool does this look?

Bell of Lost Souls has got some pictures of a rumoured new Nurgle Daemon Prince from Forgeworld. Looks awesome, I'll add this to the list of things I really want but can't afford (I'm looking at you Dark Heresy...).

Morbus Legion of Nurgle Army List

Here's the current list for my Nurgle army:

HQ: Morbus the Foul, Daemon Prince of Nurgle, Wings, Mark of Nurgle, Warptime (175)
Elites: 5 Chaos Terminators, Mark of Nurgle, Reaper Autocannon, 3 combi-weapons (1 flamer, 2 melta), Lightning Claw, Chain Fist, Power Fist (265)
Troops: Anthrax Squad: 7 Plague Marines, Plague Champion with Power Fist and melta bombs, one Personal Icon, one Flamer, one Meltagun, Rhino with extra armour (276)
Botulism Squad: 7 Plague Marines, Plague Champion with Power Fist, Plasma Pistol and melta bombs, one Personal Icon, one meltagun, one Plasma gun (251)
Canker Squad: 7 Plague Marines, Plague Champion with Power Fist and melta bombs, one Personal Icon, one meltagun, one Plasma gun (236)
Heavy Support: Defiler (150)
Vindicator, daemonic possession (145)

Total 1498, 8 kill points.

This is by no means an optimized list, I mainly chose it for flavour and modelling opportunities hence things like the 7 member squads. If I could make up the points somewhere else I might even swap Warptime for Nurgle's Rot as I like it better for flavour. The plan is for Morbus, the marines in the rhino, with close support from the Defiler and Vindicator, to bring it in the enemies face. At least three of these will be fire magnets, but something will get through. The other two marine squads bring support in and hold objectives with the terminators deep striking where needed.

Probably the list needs more than three troop choices, so I'd be better changing to some plain CSM squads rather the Plague Marines, but I went for flavour and I like the legion of disease theme.

The 1750 point list (I've yet to get the models for this many points), it's as above with a couple of tweaks and the additional of a fourth Plague Marine squad in a rhino.

Morbus Legion of Nurgle

With the whole army complete, here are some pics of the finished product:

Morbus Legion of Nurgle:


Anthrax Squad of Plague Marines:



Chaos Terminators, Chaos Vindicator and Spawn:



Defiler, and Botulism Squad:



Morbus the Foul, Bringer of Pestilience, Destroyer of Karvin VI, Daemon Prince of Nurgle:



This army has taken me a long time to complete, due to time constraints but I'm pleased with the final result and they look good and coherent all together.

I'll post the army list once I've re-jigged it (thought I had already but I can't find it...)

A Fanfare!

Here it is, at long last, ladies and gentlemen I give you the final model in my 1500 Chaos list: the Chaos Vindicator!





Techniques and painting job was pretty much the same as the Nurgle rhino I completed early for the project.

Conversion: Some light conversion work was done on this tank. I simply added some manky skin bits to the unit. These were done pretty simply. I started by sticking a lump of miliput on to provide bulk to the work, and then added a green stuff skin over the top. This was done for the lumpy bits on the top and the gun barrel.

Painting: The green armour was done with Catachan Green (the green standard for the whole army), and then washed with Thraka Green. The skin lumps and gun barrel then had an additional wash of Devlan Mud and then Leviathan Purple. Finally the whole bit was drybrushed with Catachan Green+Bleached Bone mix, followed by an light brush of Bleached Bone..
The purple dozer blade and details was based with 2:1 Liche Purple/Chaos Black mix, and then drybrushed on the edges with 3:1 Liche Purple/Chaos Black.

Weathering effects were then drybrushed on the bottom of the tank, as per my earlier post, however this time I did it more as drybrushing rather than dappling and I think the effect is better. As a final touch I used some Chestnut Ink to add some rust effects, drips and dribbles.

So, all done. Next up: play some games with the army ;)

Things I wish I'd known

I found a very old copy of "How to Paint Citadel Miniatures" today, published in 1989. This little booklet was all the painting advice I had in my early painting career, long before the internet was around of course ;) I might put a few pictures of the guide up if anyone is interested in seeing some of the old skool models in there.

Anyway, it got me thinking about some of the things I didn't know when I first started out which I wish I had. Here's a few points:

You don't have to undercoat in white: This was the only colour I thought you could undercoat in at the time, and while there's nothing wrong with a white undercoat, I feel a black undercoat is a bit more forgiving.

Thin your paints: A lesson I still forget and end up with crappy results. Thinned paint goes on better and smoother. For a base you don't need to make it watery thin, I just thin it a little to improve the way it goes on to the model. For highlights, then you want it much thinner. Guides say you need to experiment with thinning, or it needs to be the consistency of milk whatever that means, which didn't help much when I was learning, but unfortunately it's accurate, you just need to try it to get a feel for it. The down side to thinning: you may need more coats to acheive an even colour.

You won't be able to paint like the 'Eavy Metal team: You look in White Dwarf, you look at pictures online, you see awesomely painted figures. You paint, it looks like a three year old has done it. Getting to any level of proficiency in anything in life takes time and practice. Each mini you paint you get a tiny bit better so keep going.

How many paints do you need?: Often painting articles will list dozens of paints used to finish a mini. Do you need all these from day one? Probably not, because at the beginning you should focus on simple neat paint jobs. I started out trying to do fancy colour schemes or detail and they just look pap. Get the colours you're going to be using for your army, or the most common paint colours (like black, white, metal, flesh colour, a basic green, a basic blue etc) then build up your paint collection as you need it.

I'm sure there are many other tips as well, if anyone would like to share.

Sisters of Battle Canoness

This is the HQ choice for my SoB army, and I'm pretty pleased with the way it has turned out, though the picture doesn't seem to reflect that *sigh*

I've put alot more effort into the face this time and it's paid off greatly so I will be using the same technique again with skin and faces in future. Namely:

-Tallarn Flesh base coat
-2 washes of Ogryn Flesh wash
-1:1 mix of Dwarf Flesh and Bleached Bone
-Highlight with Bleached Bone

At this point the flesh looked really chalky, so I did another light wash of Ogryn Flesh and it really bought the highlights down and reduced the chalkiness.

The flame was done "inside out" so I started from white and "highlight" up to the dark colour on the tips. This was done with a Skull White base, Sunburst Yellow next, then several layers of Sunburst Yellow/Blazing Orange mix, Blazing Orange only and then the tips with Red Gore to finish it off.

My next project is my Chaos Vindicator tank.


Edit: Here's a slightly better photo:

Back in the saddle

Given it's been two months since my last update, I guess this one is overdue. I've not been doing much painting recently with Christmas and New Year and work. I'm also back playing City of Heroes, an MMO which dominated my free time for several years. I'd taken a break of almost two years, but I reactivated my account before Christmas. It's still an awesome game.

Anyway, on the painting front, I find it hard to get motivated for painting when the work I'm producing is total crap. I just find it de-moralizing. All I've managed up until this week was to build, convert and undercoat a Chaos Vindicator (this was over a two month period). This week I've started putting some work into my Sisters of Battle Canoness, and I think she's looking pretty good. Since I suck at painting faces (see my Seraphim below for evidence), I've spent some time on the face for this one and it's really made a difference. There's a good painting article in the current issue of White Dwarf (UK WD350) which goes over some techniques that I have found really useful. I'll post pics when she's done.