Ultramarines

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Warhammer 40,000 - Collecting an army for Warhammer can be a massive commitment, particularly if you invest in a specific faction. Some players are happy to just build a 2000 point force and play with it until they find something else they want to play. But most players will pick a faction and stick with it for a very long time. I mean my own space marine force is approaching full chapter strength - I’ll never field it all together but at this point it’s a matter of just having three of each unit option just in case.

This batch of Ultramarines should fill out my friend’s “Primaris” Space Marine force. I’ve been painting elements of this off and on since before COVID hit so he’s got a really solid collection to play with.

Wordbearer's

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Warhammer 40,000 - I’ve been painting Wordbearer’s for a friend for quite some time now. He’s taking the time to convert 30K models to 40K and building up his Crusade force which is quite good considering we’ve been playing the same crusade for the majority of this edition.

Worldeaters - Angron's Angry Army

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Warhammer 40,000 - The first models I ever bought was a metal three-pack of Khorne Beserkers, they were so cool when I was a kid. I mean angry dudes that just wanted to KILL< MAIME, BURN! really spoke to me at the time. Of course as I grew older Slaanesh became the chaos god I collected, and still do. But every time Khorne models come across my table I remember that first blister pack.

This batch is Angron the Primarch, Kharn the Betrayer and a squad of Eight-Bound, I don’t think these models are going to see the tabletop but rather live on a display shelf.

Kill Team - Aquillion

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Warhammer 40,000 - This is the other half of the most recent Kill Team box. These deep-striking guardsmen were quite a terror on the tabletop when they were first released. Since then they’ve been brought back in line as a pretty reasonable squad that can drop in and take an objective while your gun line holds the rest.

Dark Eldar - Proxies Painted - Boarding Actions

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Warhammer 40,000 - I’ve been playing with the same group of guys for 20+ years it’s really amazing when you think about it that we still get together once a week to play with miniatures until late in the evening. I imagine most groups have a guy that loves to play but just doesn’t have the time, skill or what have you to get an army together and keeps bringing the same(ish) force he’s been using for 20+ years. It’s still mostly gray plastic or metal, probably missing some parts and every game starts with explaining what is standing in for what this week. It’s just a thing with an expensive time consuming hobby like this.

Well last year (probably right around the time I stopped posting regularly on this Blog) my wife and kids got me a 3D printer. I had been reluctant to get one because it seems like a time consuming hobby that would eat into my already limited time. Well I was right about the time eating but it opened up a whole new world of getting crazy idea for an army or project and quickly cranking things out for a really reasonable cost.

After years of playing against a headless gray army of mismashed Dark Eldar I was inspired to help my friend out. We were playing boarding actions at the time and it seemed pretty reasonable to crank out a 500 point force in a weekend. I dug around and found some reasonable proxy models for a Dark Eldar force and started printing.

After the printing and assembling was done I sorted out a simple three color scheme that would be easy for him to replicate if he wanted to continue with the force. I primed them dark grey and did a heavy dry brush of pallid flesh which gave me a nice base to use contrast paint and metallics to get them battle ready.

At the next game night he was very happy to have a nicely painted force for our boarding action campaign.

Kill Team - Vespid Stingwings

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Warhammer 40,000 - Killteam is a game I really enjoyed in the first edition. I haven’t had a chance to try the new edition yet but many of the teams keep crossing my painting table and I’m starting to think I need to check it out.

Vespids were a cool addition to the Tau line ages ago but they never had very good models. The metal ones were very flat and ugly looking, well this Killteam has really upped the anti with a set of very nice sculpts. I really enjoyed painting these in the traditional color scheme.

I haven’t looked at the 40k rules for the stingwings but I’m sure if they are any good I’ll be seeing more of these models on my table soon.

Fulgrim - Primarch of The Emperor's Children

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Warhammer 40,000 - Fulgrim has ling been one of my favorite Primarch’s, back in third edition I had a pretty cool force that had sonic weapons on bikes and summoned daemons for melee. I’ve long since parted with the force but the memories from playing it are fond. So much so that I’ve been looking at the current Index to see if I might want to try and recreate my old force.

Sadly this model isn’t usably in 40K proper so it’s going to live on a display shelf with the other Primarchs.

Knight Falls

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Warhammer 40,000 - This Imperial Knight is part of a Space Marine army with a custom color scheme. I’ve painted some Armigers that go with this and they are usually played as allies to a Gravis themed force.

The Lion Returns

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Warhammer 40,000 – The Lion came back at the end of 9th Edition during the Arks of Omen books, he didn’t make a huge splash at the time and in 10th Edition his rules are pretty solid in the index so it’s odd you don’t hear more about him. With Dark Angels set to get a full tenth edition codex soon he may make a bigger splash soon.

Thousand Sons - Additions

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Warhammer 40,000 - It seems a 40k army is never truly complete. As is evidenced by this Thousand Sons force.

Necrons - Feeling a Little Blue

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Warhammer 40,000 - A client asked me to paint this batch up to match a force he bought out of a second hand bin. It’s a weird scheme that looks really different from any Necrons I’ve painted previously. He also had some random Imperial models that needed to be added to his other forces.

Leagues of Votan - Playable Again?

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Warhammer 40,000 - Leagues of Votan were in a weird place with the initial Index10th Edition release. However the recent updates and balance data slate seems to have moved them into a playable state.

Tenth Edition Additions - CSM and Space Marines

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Warhamer 40,000 - Now that tenth edition is actually here and evolving as a system many players are looking to add some units to their existing forces. Terminators and Inceptors are solid choices to bring a bit more survivability to a force.

Ork-tober 2023

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Warhammer 40,000 - Happy Ork-tober! I painted these earlier this year but have been seriously behind in posting here with my various projects. This project was a pretty simple paint scheme to make some dirty rusty Orks. I used a variety of contrast paints to give them varied skin tones and to block in the base colors before rusting everything up to make it look grimey.

Scarface 1920 - Fully Painted

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Board Games - There are some genres of board games that are overdone. I mean how many times do you really want to rebuild Rome, fight zombies or build a railroad? One genre that there aren’t enough games about is the 1920’s the era of Al Capone it seems like something that would be overdone but I can’t actually remember another game I’ve painted or played that deals with gangsters expanding their bootlegging empire.

Scarface 1920’s is a combination work placement / deck builder with some really nice components. Each player gang has unique sculpts for the various gangsters, their vehicles and buildings. The components alone make this worth considering.

The publishers description is a little vague, but sounds interesting:

You can go a long way with a smile. You can go a lot further with a smile and a gun.” -Al Capone

Chicago in the Roaring 20s. Prohibition has made liquor business illegal and now criminal gangs operate in the underworld to try and take control of the city. Blood, influence, power, and money add up to a dangerous mix on the streets.

In Scarface 1920 you will lead a gang of mobsters aiming to rule Chicago during the Dry Era (1920-33). To succeed you will have to rule every inch in gangland, expand your racketeering, run bootlegging operations, bribe the city officials, and make sure the coppers are on your side.

Scarface 1920 blends worker placement with deck-building mechanics in a game where you will have to recruit new associates, break new deals, fill the streets of Chicago with your thugs, enhance your headquarters —and do some dirty jobs along the way.

Every gang has a distinct set of abilities embodied in their boss, and in every game you will be able to choose a different path to victory. However, in this turf war you will have to confront other rival gangs that share an identical goal: growing their criminal empire. But they are not the only challenge you will face —Eliot Ness and his Feds are out to get you too!

Prepping for 10th - Word Bearers

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Warhammer - 40,000 - Word Bearers are a pretty cool force, way back in 3rd edition I had a force that I loved playing being able to summon daemons mid-game was really fun. Since then they’ve had a bit of an up and down in regards to their rules feeling like the story describes them. Between 3rd and the 8th edition codexes many rules variations were attempted but nothing was really inspiring. The current 9th edition book finally really captures the feel of each of the traitor legions and the crusade rules let you take that to the next level. It’s really a shame that Games Workshop finally nailed a good Chaos Space Marine book and is invalidating it this summer with the release of 10th edition. Hopefully some of that flavor can come through in the new edition because what has been released as far as how the game works looks promising. I personally have really enjoyed 9th edition mostly because the narrative crusade rules don’t really suffer from the ups and downs of the rapid rules changes that attempted to balance out the matched play tournament scene.

Anyway this Word Bearers force was created as a crusade force with a focus on playing boarding actions. It has been converted from the Horus Heresy line and has a really unique look. All the crusade advancements have been focused on making them more daemonic and it’s really flavorful. Also being on the receiving end of some pretty nasty loses it is also very good.

Getting Ready for 10th - Chaos Marines and Thousand Suns

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Warhammer 40,000 - I’m really hoping that some version of soup makes it to the new edition of Warhammer 40,000. There are some armies that just love to be mixed with others like CSM and Daemons. It’s fluffy and I miss the days of old where you could summon a unit of daemons with an Icon or Spell.

I’m sure everyone has a bulk of new unpainted chaos stuff sitting around since many of the most recent updates made some unconsidered options viable. Sure it’s a little late in the game to be jumping on the new hotness but I’m guessing the revised unit cards are going to be similar to the Indexes of 8th edition where everything was pretty playable early on.

Getting Ready for 10th - Orks

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Warhammer 40,000 - A new edition of Warhammer 40K is due out this summer which means it’s the perfect time to get your armies in shape and painted up so you can start the new edition with a fully painted force. Now knowing that EVERYTHING is going to change you can’t really focus on exactly what you plan on playing but you can take the time to get that grey plastic pile of shame up to snuff.

This is the first of several batches of Orks that I’m painting up, ultimately it will be an entire collections worth of stuff but I’m batching it out to avoid getting burned out. Most of these are newer kits so it’s unlikely they’ll be invalidated by the upcoming rules changes.