October commitment update and extension

Last months commitment has been a disaster for me, I've managed to get a hole filed and some skulls painted. I thought I'd have plenty of free time when I got back from Canada but work and jet-lag pulled me down to a handful of hours.

I'm extending my current project in to November.

I did finish The Unremembered Empire and Deathwatch. That's hobby progress, right? :)

Buying is hobby progress... right?

Yes! It must be! Because that's my hobby progress for the moment. I've added a droppod, thunderfire cannon, Land Raider,..... battleforce.... and megaforce. Each step just gets bigger and more complicated.

Once I get all of this done I could field a tactical company and a small portion of the 1st company along with plenty of dreadnaughts. I've also increased my bitz range with a random bag of bitz from ebay. Some nice stuff in the bag, old stuff I make use of and some.. terrain perhaps. I can always melt the remainder in to mishapen plastic lumps

I've added everything to my Kanban board which is turning in to a Kanban monster.


If you need something to get yourself organised I recommend setting up a kanban board for hobby progress. I've started using https://kanbanflow.com/ after hearing The IC podcast talking about it. I haven't made much hobby progress, for other reasons, but at least now when I sit down I can just load up the page and pick something to work on based on the time I have available and move it one step closer to Fin.

This will be the last of my purchasing for quite awhile. If you can tell from the board picture above I have quite a backlog to get through.

Hobby commitment for October!

I keep starting projects but seldom finish, this changes with this month.

As part of a hobby challenge with another (http://lordscrambles.blogspot.ie/) I'm setting goals each month to start and finish a unit in my expansive Crimson Fists army.

I realise I have posts about previous projects and they will tie in a little to this one. The March of my Elites and Techmaine workshop posts will feature here and this first goal is a good example.

Hobby Commitment for October:

1 Razorback - Twin Linked Las
1 Squad of plastic Sternguard (5 marines)

No movement on the Razorback yet, that will require a few hours to smooth out the gaps and see what parts need repainting.

The Sternguard are from the new kit released recently by GW. I've assembled the torso/backpack/legs before I realised I wanted to use the heavy flamer, oops! I'll just make another marine up for it and throw some bling on to make him look more like a veteran at a later stage!

I'm aiming to have both units assembled/repaired and have the primary colour applied to them by the end of next week.

This will be an elite+transport added to the army, next month I plan to chose from the Heavy Support section.

The Techmarines workshop: Razorback I

The Techmarine is called to fight on the battlefield, to shepard his machines in the fight. Afterwards many of those machines, weapons and pieces of power armour will need to be repaired by serf's and techmarines in the chapters workshops.

This is my battle damaged workshop.

In the hobby there are many half finished projects and scratch-built models and in order to clear out my half finished backlog I'm going to focus on these models for one hobby session a month.

The first, a Razorback transport tank that has suffered damage to it's hatches, side doors and and severe hull damage just above the driver section. The tracks also took catastrophic damage and must be entirely replaced.

The whole front section of this Razorback has been replaced but still gaps remain, the chapter serfs will spend many hours smoothing out any imperfections and we must enact the correct rituals to placate the machine spirit.

A busy summer

A recent house move AND the birth of my daughter has put my 40k habit on hold for a bit, the assembling half of it anyway. I've continued the purchasing half...

• Squad of Cataphractii Terminators
• Legion MkIV Outrider Squadron
• Forgeworld Open day model (Krieg Commissar)
• Gantries from the Lasercut MDF terrain kickstarter (okay that's a long term one)
• Stormraven
• The Stormraven conversion kit from Chapterhouse Studio's

I had a ticket for the open day but my daughter decided to arrive a month early a few days before the open day so I wasn't going anywhere.

Current projects involve unpacking boxes and feeding the baby, once all the boxes are gone I'll be working on setting up a work area for myself. We have a nice sun-room in the back that'll be good for gaming in but I don't want it to get cluttered up with a gaming table so my summer project will be to build two wooden items. First will be a box for spray painting that can double as a photobox. That won't take long to build and once it's set up I can spray away without marking anything I shouldn't :) The second will be a folding 4x6 game table.

My job is event centric so once June hits it goes in to overdrive and having a newborn to look after will mean I'll be lucky if I get to half finish this by September. I can't forget my other on-going projects either!

Alternative Space Marine models - Exo-Lords

There was a recent annoucment from http://www.anvilindustry.co.uk for a newly released set of models, the Black Ops Fireteam after a quick look over the models and photos I went for it and bought a set. I don't think they'll fit in with my regular marines dues to the scopes, scilencers and helmet accessories but I thought they'd make a good addition to my tenth company Cirmson Fists, scouts in void-hardened armour, for use in boarding actions where they need to strike deep at a vital system or for activities on barren, airless or toxic worlds. You can't expect scouts to stick to nice oxygen laden planets! I felt the look of these models would fall in to that section fairly well.

It would be nicer if the weapons where a bit more modular for ease of assembly and to give a good range of poses but these guys will be fairly unique in my army. The backpacks look like they're flat but just at the top they have two small notches that line up with the cabling just behind the head, it was quite hard to see and not very useful to keep the back pack aligned, if it could be deeper it'd be a great aid to align and keep the backpack in place when your attaching it.

and here's the assembled Exo-lords without bases.

There's even a pointing one! :)

The Exo-lords range has some nice options for space marine players, plenty of bionic limbs for those that want to add some variety to their army or even build themselves an Iron Hands army. Capes over backpacks would be nice, camo cloaks for the void scouts :) The range of bases are decent as well, I went for some cityscape bases for these guys.

There's a night weight to these bases. Now they enter my painting queue and it looks like they might be finished sometime next month.

Other projects

I've some other small projects on the go to give me different activities to do when I get bored of whatever I'm doing on the main project. I'll be making posts of them once they get to a section where I can start taking photos of them.

Forgeworld - Mk V Heresy Armour. A new-year purchase of 5 marines. I'm undecided on what to do with all the pieces, I'm thinking of using them in a Sternguard squad and mixing in a small amount of other armour types for a bit of variety. I also have a Legion MK IV power weapons set, plenty of options to play with to bling these guys out, except for combi weapons :( There's a double handed chainsword in this so perhaps there's a Gabriel Seth model in it's future.

Techmarine - I like Techmarines, so much so I want a third one that I can say I've made myself. I have msot of the parts picked out except for legs and a backpack. I have spare parts from some servitors so that should take care of the servo arms so just need a backpack I can modify and have it look like it fits.

Ebay purchases to be repaired/fixed and unfinished projects - I have a good few devastators with metal shoulder pads, assault marines with the same and a bunch of Legion of the Damned that need a bit of work to get them fit for base-coating. There's one assault sergeant who is looking as his power sword as if it just appeared in his hand "Holy shit! I have a power sword!" Two landspeeders and a Landraider that need the paint stripped off them and some holes filled, a Landraider with the lascannons in the wrong position (my mistake). There's a Predator that I did a botched magnetising job on a few years ago I really should finish and a squad of scout bikers that I also botched the magnetising on and are pretty close to being finished, I just never get there.

Stormtalon basing - I'd like to make a good diorama base for this model, something to show that it's flying high overhead of a battle, swooping down to make lightning strikes so I bought some marine epic models on ebay again, old style rhino's and marines. I need to lay out a design before starting this one.

Dark Vengeance - As a marine player I couldn't avoid this purchase, cheap power armour! They're assembled and based but I'm not sure how to paint them. I may go for a Crimson Fist scheme and call them something like the Crimson Angels or Fists of the Lion, a custom Dark Angel successor chapter so they can blend in with the rest of the marines when I need them or allies or I can use some Fist units in a Dark Angel list.

Firestorm Armada - I've a small Terran fleet for this game, I like parts of the game and I like the models. The plan with is is to paint the Terran ships in the Crimson Fist colours and maybe add some iconography to them. They won't be battle barges or strike cruisers but it's the closest things I'll have.

Other 40k models - There are few other models I like from 40k that I won't be building an army with, the Tyranid Trygon and the Imperial Guard Valkyrie. They just stand out as models I want to build, paint and display.

March of the Elites: Project update 2

I've made some progress, less than I'd like but more than I expected considering the amount of time I've put in.

While cleaning some of the black reach Terminators I... pulled the arms a bit too much. I thought I'd be able to get them off without breaking them, that only worked for one arm. Easily fixed with a bit of plastic glue but then I got to thinking, magnets! Magnets and lightning claws that is. It's a perfect opportunity to make some changes and expand the versatility of my Terminators without expending a considerable amount of cash on a new set of Terminators (or going to ebay to get bodies without arms, that route wouldn't save me that much)

The paint stripping worked well, some of the thickly painted models required a few soaks in power spray to get nearly everything off. They'll need one more soak to get the stuff stuck in the corners but otherwise they're just like bare plastic. I have some ebay landspeeders that I've been trying to strip as well, the hard to reach spots in between the marines are a pain in the ass.

I ran in to an unforeseen issue with the two ebay dreadnoughts, the leg guards. They where nice and cheap but I never realised that the legs where missing the leg guards that all other dreads have, a stupid mistake as I'll have to go hunt for parts now. I'm fairly sure the dread kit comes with spares with different designs, a search of the bitz box is in order and I'll have to get creative if I come up short.

Landraider (MultiMelta, pindle storm bolter) - More assembly required. (No change)

Terminator Assault Squad (Thunder hammers and Storm Shields) and Lysander (200) - Moved to next phase early, they are now coated with the main armour colour so they're in to the detail paint phase now.

Terminator Squad (Cyclone launcher) - Cyclone Launcher repaired. Paint stripping finished. A spare Terminator is being used to test magnetised arms to allow swapping out for lighting claws to increase their versatility. Once the magnets work they'll be need a basecoat applied.

Dreadnought (Default load-out) - Basecoat needs to be removed. (No change)

Dreadnought (Plasma Cannon) - Paint stripped. Legs repaired but missing leg guards. Icons/accessory's to be added and then moved to base-coating phase.

Dreadnought (Assault Cannon, Missile Launcher) - Paint stripped. Legs repaired but missing leg guards. Icons/accessory's to be added and then moved to base-coating phase.

Ironclad Dreadnought - Moved to next phase early, it's now coated with the main armour colour so it's in to the detail paint phase now.

Contemptor Dreadnought (Kheres Assault Cannon) - Assembled and weapons attached with magnets just below the elbow. The CCW is missing the internal weapon, something I didn't realise until I had the arm assembled for several days. I thought it would just slot in but you have to do it before attaching the fingers and the ring they're glued to. It doesn't matter as I'll just fill the hole with milliput and cut off excess resin from the weapon to get it in. The mould release was nearly impossible to get rid of on the leg joints, it seemed that no matter how many times I scrubbed it the super glue wouldn't take until eventually I got a good contact. (shown here with a heavy conversion beamer instead)

A new list: March of the Elites

A new year and a new list. I've massed up 25 Terminators and 6 Dreadnought's that need to undergo assembly, paint stripping, re-basing and painting again, plenty to do and I'm starting it off with the Bolter and Chainsword Librarium Painting Challenge (LPC) to keep me motivated. This addition to my Crimson Fist army comes out just over 1500 points and it's nearly all elites so I realise that it's not a legal army list without troops, I have plenty of them to field a valid army.

For basecoats I've used Armypainter ultramarine blue and I plan to use an airbrush with Kantor blue for the next layer, I've used Necron Abyss for my other Crimson Fists so I want to get a colour close to that again.

There's a few ebay purchases here and I've had to strip the paint off some of them so I've used Fairy Power Spray to get most of the paint off them. The only problem I've had is with two of the broken dreadnoughts, they had layers of paint on them and one of them was thick layer of bronze which was a bit trickier to shift, and the crevices are damn hard to clean out with a toothbrush. I had to dig out a box of toothpicks to get in there. 

Phase one: Have all models primed with blue spray along with any paint stripping, magnet attachment and model repairs to be done.

Army list:

Landraider (270)  (MultiMelta, pindle storm bolter) - More assembly required.

Terminator Assault Squad (200) (Thunder hammers and Storm Shields) and Lysander (200) - Based, waiting for next phase.

Terminator Squad (230) (Cyclone launcher) - Paint stripping in progress, Cyclone Launcher needs to be repaired.

Dreadnought (105) (Default load-out) - Basecoat needs to be removed. I used gesso on it originally, while it worked well on other, smaller, models but the flat areas on this dread appear uneven and you can see brush strokes. I have the same issue with a predator but I won't be stripping that one, too much work.

Dreadnought (115) (Plasma Cannon) - Paint stripping in progress, legs need to be repaired and then re-based.

Dreadnought (125) (Assault Cannon, Missile Launcher) - Paint stripping in progress, legs need to be repaired and then re-based.

Ironclad Dreadnought (135) - Based, waiting for magnets on DCCW mounted weapons.

Contemptor Dreadnought (190) (Kheres Assault Cannon) - Needs assembly and magnets.