Futuristic halflings

 Talk about a break from the blog. Five years?!?

Anyway here are some ratlings/futuristic halflings I painted up that have been released as part of 40k kill team. I'll probably use them for that game system or Grimdark Future Firefight. I have been having a lot of fun with the latter system with a friend.

I love the little details on these miniatures such as the sandwich and the steaming cup of joe. Apologies for the quality of the photos - it's difficult to capture details of minis at this size on a phone camera.

40K Chaos Cultist and Genestealer

Just a couple of finished models tonight. First up, is a 40K Chaos Cultist I converted just because I hadn't assembled my own converted creation for many a month and I had an itch to scratch.

Work in progress pictures

This smelly devotee of the Plague God was made up of Empire, Fantasy Chaos, Imperial Guard and Gorkamorka Ork parts and was a pretty easy job to ease myself back in. Here are the pics of the final painted model.

The second model is a test model for the Genestealer v Genestealer BOYL game next year. I'm sold on the colours but I think I might go for a lighter pink on the extremities. The purple is quite rich - it's just that the colour seems to have become washed out in the shot.

And in case you're feeling in a philanthropic frame of mind, I'm doing a 20 mile walk with work fellows into the rugged climes of the Peak District and back again to Sheffield this weekend if the rain holds off. It's all to help assist UNICEF in their work to support children in war zones so any donations made are much appreciated! Just follow the link if you wish to contribute :)

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Ashley-Rogers2

Until next time!

Onwards and onwards...

  Bring Out Your Lead is an inspiring event and one that reminded me I really need to actually game more so with that flame being lit I've now committed to a number of projects and actually got a couple of things painted!
  I loved the idea of the Tale of Four Gamers resurrection performed by Paul, James, Chico and Steve so I've enrolled some like minded souls (Adam, Matthew and thantsants) to participate in the same challenge this year with Paul stewarding. 1000 points of Fantasy Chaos Slaanesh - 100 points a month. No problem (*cough*)

  I've also enrolled in Paul's 2nd ed 40K Genestealer Coven V Genestealer Coven bloodbath for next BOYL which sees one side try to cleanse the impure evolution of the other, much in the same ilk of a Dalek civil war. Test model for that coming soon!

My watchmen crew for the Batman Miniatures game has another addition (the Comedian). At the rate of one model every six months I might get a game in by the end of 2017.

   

The Comedian...

And 'pals'...

I've played some Dredd again recently and painted up this combat droid as a merc to accompany my mobsters. It's about time my Goliaths were retired as proxies for this game (I have a few unpainted minis hanging around for this game) so I'm resolved to get a proper gang.. and a non-PDF rulebook!

   

There's also the Freehammer event coming up this October at Warhammer World where I'm probably going to be playing a Mordheim scenario against Richard Irvine and some Rogue Trader versus Curtis. Quite fun putting together those unused and unloved models from my collection for the random encounters for Nordheim.

     The Facebook link to that event is here. It's an event where like minded people can play GW games from any era with Citadel miniatures with impunity and should be great fun.

And I still haven't talked at great length at the Oldhammer Night of the Living Dead event,  Warlord Paul's Blood Bath at Orc's Drift game (using Mordheim rules), my first stab at epic this winter, my ongoing Blood Bowl league or the Winter Chaos Blood Bowl tournament in November!

  Until next time...

  

Blood Axe Warband Update - Oddboyz and Snotlings

One unit I really wanted to include in the army was Snotlings. The thought of them being turned crazy by being hurtled through warp and throwing some smackdown on a space marine within his terminator armour was, and still is, quite funny.

  For this I need a Shokk Attack Gun and to have that I need a Mekboy while the little guys need a Runtherd to be allowed to be taken, it all coming together in a beautiful kind of way.

I acquired most of the snotlings from the talented Mr Rusty Painting. I painted the snotlings in brighter colours than the rest of my Ork force, as I didn't want them to be dwarfed simply because of their size and figured Warp transit does strange things to one's colouring.

One of the snotlings got so scared by his journey he couldn't control his bowels.

Keeping these guys in check is the Runtherd. 

I've decided each oddboy type will get its own signature colour and this one gets a brownish-yellow colour that reminiscent of an explorer's get up. This synchs with my vision of runtherdz as collectors and organisers of strange creatures rather than slave drivers.

Mekboyz get a blue uniform reminiscent of the jumpsuits car mechanics wear (which made sense in my head at least) This sculpt is woefully underestimated in my opinion - just looks at the detail of the gubbins on the gun - it has an egg timer, a tap and all sorts. As my fiancé pointed out it's really steampunk! 

The contraption looks like something the Doctor would assemble from odds and sods lying around in the Tardis. I imagine the Mekboy follows the same MO but probably doesn't know how the resulting machine works. It just does....

Until next time...

Blood Axe Warband Update - Completion and Vehicles

It's with great pleasure I can announce my Blood Axe Ork warband is complete in time for BOYL. And with a week to spare!

I'm quite proud as it's a bit of milestone for me as I have never created a force from scratch with a deadline, more just pottered around growing a force organically as I see fit.

Sometimes it's hard going painting units especially so if the troops are uninspiring and uniform - but not so with this one. You may have noticed around 70% of the figures have been sculpted by the Goblinmaster Kev Adams that being the reason did not have this problem at all. His humorous and 'humanisation' of Orks breathes a new life into painting making it effortless. These greenskins have a variety of moods. They are bored, bemused, smug,  mischievous - none of the universal violent rage you often see in Ork models.

If you'd like to see the Goblinmaster in action himself he will be sculpting faces by request for charity at BOYL this Saturday. Something surely not be missed! There's more detail about this on Orlygg's excellent blog here.

Over the next few days I'll be showcasing the different characters and units of the force but right now I need to confess I had a big helping hand from Mustafa Bekir of Pantheon of Chaos fame. The land raider at the back is the centre piece and if its design seems slightly unfamiliar it's because he scratch built it only using materials from the 100¥ shop!

The construction of it is magnificent and really catches the sense that it has been kept running by being patched up after being stolen from an Imperial force. The painting complements it's battered design perfectly.

I'd already base coated my own Rhino when this had arrived in the post from Japan. Once I saw this paint job I just had to try and replicate it! After applying Mustafa's recipe this was the result.

I think the two vehicles have a good consistency in style now. I even tried to paint the blood axe symbol and vehicle numbering by freehand to link them together.

Until the next instalment....

Blood Axe Ork warbike

Another edition to my little blood axe warband.

I'd picked this model up in a job lot in Oz with hundreds of other already (badly painted) mostly plastic miniatures. I decided not to strip this one as it was already painted close to the colours I had intended but this did mean many hours of removing mould lines on a painted miniature! I might think differently next time...

It's a second edition 40K ork plastic warbike, one of the few minis in this warband who I think wasn't sculpted by Goblinmaster, Kev Adams.

He's a bit smaller compared to many of the other minis but I like that he is bit overweight with his burgeoning pot belly. I need to add a flag to the pole on the back of the bike but first I need to make sure I get most of the rest of the warband done.