Double Trouble

Two in one week! Crazy! As I said, Etako was done in some random spare time I found myself with. This next one is my Thursday effort for this week, just a generic chainsword Grey Hunter who is, as yet, nameless.

Here he is looking right at camera. I tried to get a pose like maybe he's blocking with his chainsword.

This is straight on to the body, I tried to position the legs and torso as if the weight was towards the boltgun. Perhaps he just fired his gun and is blocking down as he raises it after the shot? You might notice the grenade, the first green I think in all the space wolves so far. Actually I lie, I think one of the lenses on Loki (the venerable dreadnought) is green. Anyway, I was happy with how it came out given I'd not painted one before.

Simple too, though finicky. Knarloc Green then with a tiny brush the raised bits got Camo Green and afterwards a Thraka Green wash.

Company marking side...

Back view, the camera has washed out the highlights on the swordy thing, but it's not really a big deal, nothing fancy there.

Oh, and I used a different Bronze technique this time, I used Boltgun Metal, then Tin Bitz, then Dwarf Bronze. Dunno if it's really any different in the end. Maybe a touch darker. I might practice it a bit more though as it has more layering potential. I find it hard to paint with my bronze, it's very old and been watered down many, many times over the years!

Lastly, here's a squad shot. I've taken out the one guy from the other squad, so this is all legitimate squaddage. Six Grey Hunters with a Wolf Guard leading. I've got an old power-axe that I painted a really long time ago. I have to decide if I want to do another power weapon as I think I can do a better job now. We'll see anyway =)

You can see my super-awesome planning that I do on the paper above. It may be simple, but I find that writing things out first helps me when I put the paint on. Simple tips from White Dwarf magazines. Like starting with the letters in the middle, then the end, then putting the others in to space them well.

So in Etako I did the A, then the E and O, then the T and K last.

Anyway, there you go =)

Etako Ironfist

Well, well, well, what do we have here... some sort of LotR and 40k crossover?

Here's my squad leader for my first pack. He's a wolf guard named Etako. He has one eye and a powerfist. The similarities kinda end there. No axe, instead a combi-melta. Small difference there.

I have a few power armoured wolf guards that I'll use for pack leaders. I had the choice of termie or power armour for them. I do have some in terminator armour, but I like the idea that I can fit Etako and 9 other marines in the squad into a drop-pod or other transport. Also it means that the squad can follow up attacks, I can't remember what that rule is called, where terminators are too slow to do so.

Anyway, without further ado...

No helmet as I needed to show that he had one eye! Also helps keep the "special characters" a little more distinct as all of my normal marines (except for the banner bearer) have helmets.

You can see the left shoulder has the same symbol on it as he's still part of Skodi's army and that's his symbol. I also did the rims of the shoulderpads in bronze instead of the usual silvery/grey.

You can also see that he's on a raised rocky bit to give him a bit of extra height. That and the back banner thing easily differentiate him as different from the other troops.

 The Wolf Guard pack marking that he belongs to is partly covered here, but you can see enough of it. It's yellow with three black triangles, it ends up sort of making an "M" shape. Also here you can see a parchment I added to him. It contains the three rules that everyone he leads must follow. Not sure what the three rules are yet. Something along the lines of "if you're dead, the wounds had better be to your front" "the only good xeno is a dead xeno" "save the big one for me" etc.

And here's his squad. You can see I've put some lava on his base to help match the general lava wolf theme. Oh, and on his knee-pad I've put the pack markings that are on the shoulders of the other guys.

How did I get time to paint him? The lad had a 2 and a bit hour nap the other day when my wife was looking after him so I got a fair bit done then. Since then a few 15-20 minute sessions did each other bit.

Tempted to do a terminator next when I should be working on finishing the other squad members...

Awooooooooooo

The post title is meant to be a sort of howling sound. Obviously I thought it didn't do a good enough job in words, so explained it for you =)

It's taken me two weeks (had a big assignment to do, lawns to mow and there was the matter of the Orcs that Must Die) but I've finished my first wulfen troop.

The Wulfen guys are meant to have been given slightly over too much to the crazy blood inside them. As a result in close combat they are overwhelmed by psychoness and go all out at the enemy, losing control over themselves in the process. To sort of show that, I've given them the wolf style helmets, lots of fur and two guns instead of a close combat weapon.

Rather than using a sword or axe etc. they just drop their guns when close enough and go mental with cybernetically and DNA enhanced power suited fist and boot to baddie action.

Here's the front view...

And here's looking down the barrel of the gun (if I was a modelling and painting genius I'd put some smoke coming from the barrel of the raised gun as though he'd just finished firing it before starting with the pistol.)

Oh, and the wulfen guys I've also modelled with the wolf skull embossed shoulderpad. You can see faint triangular stripes on the fur, they're even more subtle in real lighting, but help break up the otherwise fairly uniform expanse of the fur.

Lastly, the pack marking side. All in all, not a brilliant paint job, but not too bad, especially given the way I tend to do a couple minutes here and there rather than having a chance to sit down and spend a good chunk of time.

Well, that brings my first pack of marines to five guys! Just three "normal" guys, a power weapon and the pack leader to go!

Grey Hunter Melta

Well, I know it's not Thursday, but we've had some timetable shifting this week, so here's the effort for this week a little early, the first squad's melta gunner.


I had a friend ask about the scale, so to reiterate how small these are I'm holding him. When I see the photo's I amaze myself, and I'm only an average painter! The pics you see on other blogs and particularly in White Dwarf magazine and stuff are truly phenomenal when you see highlights and stuff on such tiny, tiny things!


I'm holding these right under the light, so they don't look as good, the highlights are way off to under natural light, but it's night time so little option there.


Anyway, here's my new melta-gunner. Pack marking side...

It's amazing how long it takes to do these with all the little furry bits, trinkets and other additions that aren't on "normal" marines. Back with some of the other shoulder pad showing...

Front on. Note that I'm using the beak style helmets (I'm sure there's an official name for them for people who know what they're talking about!) for the special gunners (plasma, melta etc.)

And just for fun, here they are so far. Note that I painted the melta in the same way on the troop as I did on the dreadnought, with the red cylinder thing with yellow bits on it. I quite enjoy little touches like that. Also you can see that the bit of the gun that their left hand supports is always in brass. I'm hoping that they look just a little more "together" with those touches. 

And here they are from the front. It's nice to have enough guys that I feel like I'm actually adding to a small force with each guy I finish now. It's also sort of fun to see the pack markings on the shoulders all looking the same to tie them all in. I think next up I'll paint my Mark of the Wulfen guy, so look for him late next week!

Bannerman

Another babysat Thursday, another marine done!


I'm surprisingly happy with the face, normally I find them the weakest part, but I quite like the job I did here. Again, the photo is taken a little too close to the light bulb so it's a bit glary.


Here's the banner bearer. Not entirely happy with the black wolf on the banner, I think it's just too plain.

Rear view, only ever seen by his packmates, the enemy will only ever see the front of him as he charges in bolter blazing...

I'm quite happy with the purity seal on this one too, got the little scorched brown squiggles nice and fine.

And the pack markings don't look too terrible this time, though still so hard to get the red and black triangles right on a curved surface!

Well, until next Thursday's paint session...

Three down...

Well, today the little guy went off to his Nanna's and gave me almost a whole day! Among sleeping and a chore or two I managed to paint an entire marine and finish off the shoulderpads on the guy I did a test paint on ages ago.


In other words, now I have three!


So here are my completed minis, Drop Pod, Loki and three marines...

Front view. 

Left view...

Right view...

Could do with a touch up or two that I only really noticed when looking at the close-up pictures. I'm still not super happy with the pack markings (red and black). Due to the curvature of the shoulderpad they look like triangles from some angles but not from others! Maybe I'm just being too sensitive.


You'll have to excuse the slight over-brightness from the light bulb being too close also.


Anyway, there you go, some progress, slow but steady!

Grey Hunter

Well, in small blocks of time over the last week I've put some paint on one of the Grey Hunters.
Sorry about the slightly overexposed pics, too close to the lamp, but you get the idea.


Fenris Grey -> Black Wash -> Shadow Grey for the basic armour, with two highlights, one of 3:1 Shadow Grey/Space Wolves Grey and one tiny hint of 1:1 of the same. Still think I might need some more highlighting, but I'm not very good at it.


Metals are Boltgun -> Black Wash -> Boltgun highlights -> Chainmail highlight -> tiny bit of Mithril.


Bone is Astronomican -> Bleached Bone -> Gryphonne Sepia wash -> Bleached bone highlight -> Skull white highlight.


A few bits of Dwarf Bronze for trim and some browns for bits and bobs.

The insignia is a black wolf head on a lava patch with blue tinted sky (same as Loki the dreadnought but with a black wolf instead of white).

Pack markings I'm not 100% sure of, so for now just doing standard Grey Hunter stripes.

So one down a bazillion to go =)

Another mini-battle report for 40k.

Well, I took these photos quite literally months ago when we last played a game, so I'll only barely be able to remember what actually happened!


My folks are back from their trip, so hopefully I'll have a bit of time again now - though my lamp seems to be blowing bulbs so will have to get that looked at before I can do any more painting.


Anyway, here's another brief report. This was a small game between our two armies. We have been rolling random missions. This one restricted our opening forces to two troops and an HQ. Bad for me because I wanted my drop-pod to come down with my commander and termies! Oh well, I couldn't do that because the mission made me put my HQ down at the beginning. In the end I just put my Long Fangs in the drop pod instead.


Well, here's the opening shot...

As always, forgive the complete newbie mistakes that I make both in strategy and rules! If you click you can see a bit better. There are four objectives. Two crates on the side closest to the camera, a crystal and a crate on the other side of the board.


My brother got to set up first, so put a squad of guardsmen down behind some defensive lines on the near (west) side and around the crystals on the east. I put my first squad (big squad with leader) behind some ruins near the middle of the board and my second squad (smaller with wolf guard to lead them) near the edge of the board close to another objective.


Well, I advanced at a run with my big squad and terminators towards the heavily defended IGs in the west.

My drop pod landed on the eastern side near the edge of the board and unloaded the Long Fangs. I also ran my other Grey Hunter squad behind the defense line near the eastern crate objective.

Then my brother's sneaky infiltrator guys came in on the board right behind me! The hot-shot lasers burned right through my power armour, with no cover from that side!

And if that wasn't bad enough, the same thing happened behind my Long Fangs! Oh no! They were almost wiped out, just a plasma cannon left alive. He saved his leadership test so stayed put.

Darn template weapon smacked down into the crater where my big squad of Grey Hunters were and smashed a whole heap of them down to the ground! Darn sentinel plasma cannon was right on target!

So I really hate the Imperial Guard shooting phase =) Well, the lone plasma cannon trooper took aim, fired, and though he was slightly off target still managed to kill three guardsmen...

Before the sneaks shoot him in the back in the next shooting phase. I don't feel so bad about dying to painted guys, serves me right for having unpainted troopers =)

Just to the south of that the wolf guard who had been attached to the smaller grey hunter squad charged headlong into the nasties that had shot their squad in the back. The thunder hammer may hit slowly, but it hits hard and out of the two squads clashing and two rounds of close combat, he was the only man left standing!

On the other side of the battle, the commander and his terminator armoured companions have weathered the fire of the guardsmen and made it into close combat with predictable results...

Oh, I didn't mention before, but I had a lone wolf (who because of the scenario had to start on the edge of the board and walk). He finally succumbed to enemy fire, but managed to soak up the attention of a lot of guardsmen.

Some more combat later and the guardsmen have all run away, but the Sentinel takes out the space wolves commander with that pesky plasma cannon!

Here's the eastern side. My remaining wolf guard arrayed against a sentinel and lots of IG!

The termies take out the plasma cannon sentinel and turn towards the running guardsmen.

My remaining wolves on the west take out a sentinel that came in from the side with their meltas. 

Which they gun down... leaving just one last guardsman.

And in the last turn, the IG hold the crystal objective on the east. My wolf guard isn't a troop so doesn't count as claiming his objective. 

And on the west my remaining wolves hold their crate and the termies are holding off the few guards on that side of the board. So I guess that makes it a draw!


Well, that's from memory anyway!

Hopefully will get some more stuff up in the next few weeks =)

Space Wolves Army

Haven't used the computer in a while, hence the lack of posting! 


Baby is still only letting us sleep a little at night and keeps me busy all day long, except for Mondays which are filled with getting uni stuff done!


As a result, I haven't done anything for aaaaaaaages miniatures wise.


Here's a picture I took a long time ago...

It's my whole army (except for the scouts)!


Clicky for the bigger version...


A: First command group. Wolf Lord plus four Wolf Guard Terminators.
B: Second command group. Wolf Guard Battle Leader plus three Wolf Guard Terminators.
C: First Grey Hunter pack of 9 plus a Wolf Guard in Power Armour to lead them.
D: Second Grey Hunter pack of 9 plus a Wolf Guard in Power Armour to lead them.
E: Third Grey Hunter pack of 6.
F: Fourth Grey Hunter pack of 6 with a Wolf Guard in Power Armour to lead them.
G: Lone Wolf with Wolf companion.
H: First Long Fangs group with pack leader.
I: Second Long Fangs group with pack leader.
J: Venerable Dreadnought and Droppod.


And, of course, there's also a scout squad with Wolf Guard to add to that.


A link to more details from a previous post: http://simbattleboard.blogspot.com/2011/06/final-army-list-and-cyclone-missile.html


Really sorry for the lack of progress, but life has just been waaaaaay too busy to get anything done bar survival. Things will get better =)

Space Hulk

As promised, here's my space hulk force of Space Wolves.
Pretty simple stand-ins but they fit on the squares of the board, so that's good!

As I mentioned previously the two sergeants are in terminator armour, the others are in power armour. Now I've just got to go through and name them proper space wolf names!


We played a game just the other day, I'm enjoying it, not as much as a proper game, but WAY quicker and therefore probably all I'll be playing for a while.


As I mentioned in a previous comment, unless someone is offering me babysitting services (for free) there won't be much happening here for a while. I still have some photos taken a couple weeks ago of a game we squeezed in so I'll get around to posting them soon. 


I'll squeeze in some time whenever I can though =)