Shhhhhh

Shhhhh, don't let the Shaman hear you!
Nasty pieces of work those Shamans.


Anyway, done a fairly simple paint job on him, I don't really like using magic in LotR, but I guess it has a place if used very sparingly. 


My end goal is to have one shaman for my goblin army and Druzhag (the beast shaman) for my critter/monster army. Hopefully I'll get some more wargs soon and get that army rolling along!


For now, here's some extreme close-up of Shar'lok the Shaman. Hmm. Didn't realise I'd done that Sh word for the Shaman until just now! As always, the camera has done some extreme lighting increases, so picture it a little darker than this. Also you'll never see it this close up, so most of the colour transitions are far smoother when you look at it at a normal distance.

I noticed in the rules that the staff a shaman carries counts as a spear. So that gave me the idea that some shamans start off as regular goblins that only realise they have some supernatural power in the course of some battle or other event. Shar'lok here was a normal goblin warrior until he found himself beset upon in the course of an argument by an Uruk! With the pressure on and in the midst of being throttled, he narrowed his beady little eyes and uttered a guttural phrase. The Uruk was transfixed and, shortly thereafter, gutted. Shar'lok "appropriated" the pike and his fellow goblins were awed.

Since then, Shar'lok has maintained most of his original armour and can still win a fight if he has to. He has also become somewhat of a rat-kin, and you can almost always find one of the verminous horde nearby. Some say that he can communicate with them and uses them to find secrets. Others say that he just eats the best ones for himself without sharing.

His mangy brown cloak isn't even long enough to completely cover his body, but he keeps it cowled over his head and covering his old shield arm. Nobody knows why. Some say it's deliberate to show that he is still wearing his warrior armour. Others say that his magic has shrivelled his arm to a husk of bone and tissue. Perhaps it's just to deliberately cause mystery? Or maybe he doesn't want to share the rat-drumstick that he's got there.

I may do some more little touches, like the rat teeth for example, or some runes or something. But I may not =)

In any case, now I don't have to proxy Druzhag as my goblin shaman, so that's all good.

I'm relatively happy with the way he turned out, though my greenstuff skills are pretty lame. I'd have liked the cloak to be thinner, I think, particularly the hood. More practice necessary!

EDIT:

Did a little shading around the face, added some teeth to 3-D it up a little more:

Happy Birthday to me!

Well, good news and bad news. Good news is all for me, had a great birthday, the boy was off to his Nanna's and my wife took the day off work. To cut a long story short, no game played and my parents are away for a fortnight holiday, so no game for another few weeks I'm afraid.


On the plus side my wife got me an army carrier case (she's been concerned about my minis getting scratched in their cardboard boxes) and the other two Gamezone eagle poses! So I'll have some hobby work to do if I get the time for it and will keep you informed =)


Any ideas on the best foam to use for larger models like wargs, giant spiders, cave trolls, terminators and the like?


Oh and I just noticed I went past 100 posts! Most of them are WIP and Battle Reports, so if you need something to do over the next few weeks, why not look back at some of the old reports!

Oh, and my current shaman work...

It's a shielded goblin, with a greenstuff cloak covering the shield and around his head. He has a companion giant rat (I'd like all my shamans to have something with them!). I've yet to do the staff, which will replace the sword, and to mount him up on a higher rock or something like I do with my heroes.

Once the greenstuff hardens I'll score the edges to make the cloak a little more ragged.

Another combi-melta conversion and a scout group.

Well, I had my scout group sitting there and couldn't resist putting it together in the end!


For this group I wanted:


Wolf Guard Pack Leader with combi-melta and Thunder Hammer.


Melta, Mark of the Wulfen, Power Weapon and Plasma Pistol. A fully tooled up and ready to cause havok group. Also I loved the idea of them being really individuals that happen to be working together at this moment rather than a completely uniform group.


So I needed another combi-melta and decided to make it in a different way to the last one.


Here you can see where I cut this time. For this combi-melta conversion I was going to use a storm bolter and a melta gun. I cut the barrel off, the tubing underneath and with my fairly dull hobby knife I slowly pushed and sawed through the side bit as shown in red below.

Then it was a simple matter of filing and cutting down one side of a storm bolter and then adding on the metal bits from the melta.

And here's a top view. I also glued another boltgun tip to the exising storm bolter tip to extend the barrel a little. I think they look cooler that way =)

And here they are with the Wolf Guard. To help him be a scout guard I used a scout torso on him. This didn't perfectly fit with the rest of the power armour, so I had to add a few other bits to hide the join. The front banner will have something freehanded on it when it's painted. 

And the big back shield indicates that he has had other jobs in the past...

So here are my motley group of scouts. They aren't very "wolfed up" and I'm not sure if I'll accessorise them or not yet (let alone use them in a game). I didn't enjoy putting them together as much, the torsos just didn't really easily fit, nor did the arms. I think the newer kits are much more clever.

Here's melta-boy (with metal under his base to balance the heavy gun), wolfen dude (with power armour torso for the wolf fur on his back and wolf helmet) and the wolf guard you've already seen.

And here we have power sword (hard to tell from this angle, but it's the big sword from the space wolf kit), plasma pistol guy (just cut the plasma pistol from a space wolf and swapped it with the default bolt pistol) and the one I like to call Norm the normal scout (but with a space wolf scout head).

Next time I'll show you the full army pic =)

Hrun Hornblower and second grey hunter plasma squad

Well it's Monday and I've got the day to myself again as my lovely wife looks after the little man =)


I've been busy and put together my second grey hunter plasma squad. It was pretty straightforward with only a few tweaks to arms and one conversion using the horn from the terminator sprue.


So here is Hrun Hornblower, when enemies hear his horn they tremble in fear!

And here's the second squad, if you'll recall they are the defensive squad, tasked with taking objectives. I've stuck with my plan of giving the pointy helmets to the heavy weapons users and tried to make it so that all the guns were different. There is one copy gun, but I'll swap that with one of the guys in the other plasma squad =) Seeing as how I haven't painted their pack markings nobody will ever know!

Here they are rotated ninety degrees. I've started to hit the end of all the bits and pieces so you'll see some ordinary marine legs, torsos and shoulder pads in the squad. After I've done all the sandy bases I'll put the two divisions out on a board so you can see the whole army. Still have the scouts to go, but lacking enthusiasm for them at the moment.

My brother got a good e-bay Space Hulk without the miniatures and he has some small tyranids. I didn't realise that the terminator bases wouldn't fit the board game, but it doesn't matter so much as we'll just proxy normal space marines instead.


We'll use terminators for the sergeants, I've got one with a sword and storm bolter and another with hammer and shield (as you've seen previously).


So instead of terminators with storm bolters and power fists we'll just use my Grey Hunters with boltgun and close combat weapon.


Instead of the terminator and chainfist we'll use a Grey Hunter with a chainsword.


Instead of a terminator with heavy flamer we'll use a Long Fang with a plasma cannon.


Instead of the terminator with dual claws we'll use a Wolf Guard in Power Armour with dual claws (made him yesterday). He probably won't ever be part of my army, but you never know I guess!

Instead of the terminator with assault cannon we'll use a Long Fang with a heavy bolter (also made yesterday).

You may have seen some heads that you don't recognise from the space wolf sprue, I didn't like all of the super spiked up hair, but I don't mind the braids sometimes. So I took off some of the top knots and filed the head as flat as I could.


Anyway, that's where I'm up to, might sit back, watch some old X-files and glue some sand to some bases now.

Long Fangs Dual Squad

Well I had a few hours, yes, that's right, HOURS off today as my lovely wife took the baby boy out for a while. So I decided to do a bit of mucking around as well as finishing off the two long fangs squads. Also a guy wielding a missile launcher like a baseball bat =) I had to do an Imperial Guard missile launcher conversion of sorts to work with my space wolf long fangs.


Here are the results. I give you the Wolf's Breath Long Fang squad, dealing massive AoE damage with two plasma cannons and two missile launchers. The templates will hammer all enemies! To make sure they looked like space wolves and not just devastators I've used bits from a normal space wolf box and a spear from some really old fantasy, I think skeletons. They also all have bare heads for a more wolfy feel.

And here's the Fang of the Wolf, heavy hitting piercing damage through two lascannons and two missile launchers. Here's where I had a bit of fun. Given that I didn't have enough space marine missile launchers, my brother let me have some of his Imperial Guard ones as compensation for gluing together a squad for him. To bulk them up a bit (and enjoy myself) I did some cutting and reposing for some wolfy action. One of them is reloading or something, the other has just wielded his launcher like a baseball bat to kill some local wildlife. The backpacks on them, I think, are meant for the sergeant to use, but I couldn't have just two guys with ordinary packs when all the other Long Fangs had special ones =)

Vjork took quite a bit of work, and I'm looking forward to painting him up. Firstly I had to find some arms that were roughly in the right poses. I actually stood up myself holding a vacuum cleaner pole to get the pose right, as though he's just returning from a big swing down by swinging back up. The hands had to be cut at both wrists.


The right hand was cut and filed down to make a groove for the missile launcher to slot into, there's a nice flat rectangular bit that worked well. Another one of the big open hands was the right size to grip the bottom of the missile launcher. After that it was just a lot of fiddly repositioning with some greenstuff to help get the arms in the right position. 

Slightly different angle here, I found that it was easiest to get the greenstuff stuck in a fairly big blob, then glue the hands on and wait for the glue to partially set. Then I could reposition things by swivelling and moving just slightly and the glue was set enough to keep it together, but not so set that it wouldn't move around some.

Here you can see a bit more of the hand that had the most work done to it. I cut a thumb off and reglued it back on in a better position (originally it was bent down into the fist). A bit of paint and you'll never know =)

Vjork Verminslayer has a somewhat psychotic hatred of creepy-crawlies. His pack leader recently gave him a big dressing down after he launched a frag missile at a Fenrisian spider nest, narrowly avoiding killing some nearby Blood Wolves. On their current mission a massive rat-like beast skittered across the field of battle right in front of Vjork. With his sergeant's condemnations still ringing in his ears he chose not to waste a missile, but still took care of the rat-beast in an efficient manner.


The rat is a giant rat I got cheap on eBay (well, a whole pile of them) that I planned on using for my LotR army at some stage. I'm not sure if it's visible really in any of the shots (actually, in the one a couple up from this one it is) but I also indented near the top of the missile launcher by filing away a bit then putting some plastic glue on it. Once the plastic glue had sat there for about half a minute I scraped it away, leaving a slightly misshapen, but roughly semi-circular indentation on the barrel for where it has impacted the poor rat-thing. When painted I'll leave that bit metallic, as though the paint was stripped and put a matching colour paint in a similar shape on the head of the rat-thing to show where it was hit.

Anyway, being completely new to 40k I don't know whether this sort of tom-foolery is allowed, but I had a blast doing it and now have my two long fangs squads!


Next on my list are the remaining few Grey Hunters and then after that the scouts (though I'm not rushing to get them done).

Final Army List and Cyclone Missile Launcher Conversion.

Well, have been on a little holiday, so sorry about the absence of recent posts.
On the plus side I got my next (and last) delivery of miniatures!


Last because GW have decided to try and force us to continue paying exorbitant prices for our miniatures (about 200% of overseas costs) by restricting sales to Australia from overseas.


I'm sure some eBay shenanigans will ensue, but in the meantime I'm all set anyway.


On the negative, my brother needs to save up for a new computer, so his army will be stalled for a while =(


Still, now I have an army list that I will share for your amusement. Why amusement? Because it's to look nice put together and to enjoy painting etc. rather than for any actual combat effectiveness.


I know I haven't done the backstory I keep promising, but suffice it to say that these guys are expert subterranean fighters and hence don't use tanks and heavy vehicles. They will use drop pods to get to the right places on a planet to head underground.


So I've sort of split the army into two divisions.


First Division: Skodi leads...


Wolf Lord in terminator armour with dual claws (Skodi, you've already seen in action).


4 Wolf Guard Terminators as his bodyguard - 
Hammer and Shield, Storm Bolter and Wolf Claw, Storm Bolter and Power Fist, Assault Cannon and Frost Sword.


Pack 1 - 9 Grey Hunters plus a Wolf Guard Pack Leader in Power Armor, combi-melta and powerfist. Pack has a melta, a power weapon, a wolf standard and a mark of the wulfen.


Pack 2 - 6 Grey Hunters, one with plasma gun.


Pack 3 - 4 Long Fangs (2 missile launchers, 2 lascannons) and a pack leader.


Second Division: to be announced leads...


Wolf Guard Battle Leader in terminator armour with dual frost axes.


3 Wolf Guard Terminators as his bodyguard -
Storm Bolter and Thunder Hammer, Storm Bolter and Frost Sword, Storm Bolter and Powerfist with Cyclone missile launcher.

Pack 1 - 9 Grey Hunters plus a Wolf Guard Pack Leader in Power Armor, storm bolter and thunder hammer. Pack has a melta, a power weapon, a wolf standard and a mark of the wulfen.

Pack 2 - 6 Grey Hunters, one with plasma gun.

Pack 3 - 4 Long Fangs (2 missile launchers, 2 plasma cannons) and a pack leader.

Auxiliary Elites:

Loki the Venerable Dreadnought, Heavy Flamer and Multi-melta.

Lone Wolf in terminator armour with chainfist, shield and wolf companion.

"Extra" wolf guard with combi-plasma and thunder hammer (for bringing squads up to number if needed).

Scouts, 5 with a Wolf Guard Pack Leader in power armour, combi-melta and thunder hammer. Scouts have a Melta, Power Weapon, Plasma Pistol and mark of the wulfen.

Roughly 2200 points all up, depending on extras like sagas and meltabombs etc.

The first Division is 905 points, second is 765.

From this I can mix and match squads and elites to field all sorts of different armies.

Have started putting together the next five terminators (how could I refuse!)

I didn't have a cyclone missile launcher, but had a leftover missile launcher from the drop pod, so with a bit of greenstuff I'll save myself some more money...

Here's the Wolf Guard Battle Leader. I wanted him striding purposefully forward with axes slightly wide, kinda like the Dwarf Champion from LotR SBG. I had to do some cutting and pasting of axe bits to get it to work and will need to greenstuff some bits where the arms attach to get the pose right, as you can see by the blu-tac.

Here's a powerfist and storm bolter guy. I want to keep each wolf guard unique, so they've all got a different weapon load-out. This is sort of the traditional terminator look.

Here is the power sword guy, raised as though ready to strike down and the thunder hammer guy in just a sort of interesting pose, at least I thought so. I've also tried to keep all of them fairly open, not covering their chests and looking as though they're really not caring about any laser shots or boltgun shells pinging from their armour as they stride forward or launch their attacks. 

And here's the cyclone missile launcher guy. I'll take a side on shot later, but basically I've got him so that he looks quite dynamic from the front, from the side you can see that his body leans forward, with the missile pod to the rear in such a way that the center of gravity is still above his feet. Like he's leaning forward under the weight of the missiles a bit.


Oh, and the three terminators accompanying the new leader have termie helmets, the other four are bare-headed. Just another way to distinguish them a little. I figured the missile launcher guy needed the face protection for the exhaust! Also that these terminators are slightly less senior ranked than the ones accompanying the Wolf Lord. Or something.

A wedge of greenstuff under the missile pod, when painted, will hopefully not look too out of place.

Back view. I plan on adding purity seals or wolf tails or something to cover up any joining mishaps.

Anyway, there you go, a bit of kit bashing to make a cyclone missile launcher from bits I had lying around!


As always, progress will depend on the sleeping habits of a four and a half month old (which is mainly very little sleep still).

Conversions - Chainfist conversion, combi-melta, combi-plasma.

As promised, here are my super easy conversions.


Firstly, making a right handed chainfist.


I wanted a chainfist and storm shield guy, as you saw on the previous page, but the storm shields and chainfists provided are both left handed!


So with options for converting either to a right hand, I wanted the pose you saw, so went for a right handed chainfist.


It was so super easy.


You just get the chainsword you want from the Space Wolf sprue - I chose one with a wolf head because it was easy to cut along the marine's hand in a neat, straight line and had maximum length of gluing potential.

Choose any chainsword, doesn't have to be right handed for the right handed chainfist.

Then choose the Wolf Claw you want from the Space Wolf Terminator sprue. Now carefully chop off the claws. The one I chose (not pictured) had a nice straight line of claws, all the better for gluing on the sword part.

Choose a right handed wolf claw for the right handed chainfist, the less curvature the better.

And voila, a chainfist. Super, mega easy with a total minimum of fuss.
Here it is from the inside.

And from the outside.

Next up the combimelta or combi-melta or combi melta, not sure if it's hyphenated or what. Anyway, I got the pack of metal melta guns from GW so that I'd have a nice supply of them. Not having played 40k or having a previous army I don't have bitz like some people do! It was cheaper to get 5 from GW than buying individual bitz from ebay or bitz websites - some of them are stupidly expensive.


Anyway, firstly I clipped off the melta barrel from the front of the gun (red). Then I used my clippers and some filing to cut away the part shown in green. This was tricky and I didn't do a very good job, the clippers warped the metal a bit, but hopefully a bit of paint etc. will stop that from being way too noticeable. I'd recommend cutting and filing instead, though it might take some time.

Next I glued the barrel back on, but down where I'd cut that section away (green). Then I added bolter bits from a bolt gun (red). I put the ammo feed bit underneath, the muzzle tip above the melta bit and the clip ejector bit on top.


Voila, combi-melta. Oh, you can also see the washers I glued underneath the mini to help with weight imbalances caused by the metal gun. Some people have found it difficult to get an arm that can hold the gun appropriately and cut off the stock/brace bit at the back. I just used one of the arms that is normally reserved for holding one of the big axes/hammers instead of an arm for a bolt gun. 

For the combi-plasma I used a storm bolter. It already has two sides, so was easy to adapt. On the bolter side of the weapon I just added an extra muzzle tip bit to make it a bit longer to match the plasma side.

Then I just got a plasma pistol, cut off the part shown in green and used some careful cutting and filing to remove roughly half of the storm bolter. Once it was shaped to fit I just glued the plasma pistol part into place. It was a bit messy so I added a wolf skull (red) as decoration to hide the rough part of it.

So there you go. Pretty easy, pretty cheap conversions, no drills, saws or anything fancy like that!