Grey Knight Librarian conversion

Finally, the Grey Knight Librarian is finished, it's a fairly common conversion but an effective one I think:

For anyone spotting bits this is the standard metal librarian plus a few GK bits (Halberd head, hand holding daemon head, shield and storm bolter), I didn't have the original backpack (which is a pretty cool book thing) so I added the double-headed eagle that used to be the end of the Librarian's force weapon - frugal and cool enough for this chap.

Grey Knights vs Blood Angels

Just spotted this pic on another blog and it summed up the issue of the day - to whit - how do I ensure that my Grey Knights will give a good game to both me and my opponent. I'm told that 6th edition 40K has toned them down a bit but the internet chatter still suggests that they're a tough nut to crack. With my forthcoming game in mind (against Blood Angels) I've posted a request for some help over on the Bolter and Chainsword forum (here).

Here's the first draft list I thought I might try out:

HQ

Inquisitor Coteaz 100

TROOPS

Terminator Squad (Psycannon, 2 halberd, hammer, psybolt ammo) 230

Strike Squad (10 marines: 2 Psycannon, hammer, halberd, psybolt ammo) 255

FAST ATTACK 

Interceptor Squad (Incinerator, 1 pair falchions, psybolt ammo) 180

HEAVY SUPPORT 

Dreadnought (autocannons, psybolt ammo) 135

Defence Line + Quad Gun 100

And here's how that would look:

Another recruit for Coteaz's retinue

I managed to find an hour or so of painting time today to finish off another of Coteaz's retinue.

It's a quick paint job (can't have been much more than an hour all told) but I think he looks ok though he really doesn't look like he belongs on the battlefield. I may have to paint up an inquisitorial Rhino APC for all these non combatants to hide behind!

Next up I really will paint a terminator. In fact, I've cleared the paint station of everything but the Terminator Librarian. As he's meant to be the army commander he really does need to be painted up before the army hits the tabletop for its inaugral game in January.

Another gimp for the Retinue of Lost Souls...

Yet again, the implacable terminators look on as another of Coteaz's pets leaves the paint station ahead of them. This time it's this chap (if you ask me he looks a little peeved, could he be about to turn traitor?):

I don't know what his battlefield role will be but for now he's doing sterling service recording Coteaz's every move for his forthcoming autobiography.

Terminators (finally)...

Finally the first terminator squad is done, here they are (they're blurry because they've only just materialised from the Warp!):

 Here's Draigo, he'll be the squad leader for now:

And here's the army as it currently stands (roughly 1200 points so far):

Heirophant...

Another member of Coteaz's retinue has snuck past the Grey Knight terminators in the painting queue. This was a really quick paintjob but I'm happy with him. Once again I'm not really sure what he does in the game but he does add a bit more character to the silver army and he'll get a slot in the list for that reason alone.

He's not this shiny...

Here's the latest recruit to the Grey Knight army, an unfortunate-looking dude with a multi-melta in place of one arm and some kind of Swiss Army knife screw thing where his other hand used to be. I can only assume he's had a bit of a rough ride in the service of the God Emperor. Perhaps the shine you can see on his forehead is the cold sweat of a very scared man who knows it's his legs that get replaced next...

Here he is:

Next up it has to be the Grey Knight Terminator squad that I pushed to the side of the paint station in order to make space for Lobot here.

Dark Angel Rumours

As the owner of too many unpainted Dark Angels including a Landraider type that's not in their current codex I was delighted to read rumours of a new codex in January which suggest that the Landraider I want is going to be in.. Huzzah! Here's a link to the rumour thread on BOLS:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/showthread.php?24243-DA-Rumours

Time to get the Grey Knights done ready to shift from silver to green marines in the new year!

And while I get ready for the next challenge, here's a link to a Dark Angel guide on one of my favourite painting blogs, Tale of Painters:
http://taleofpainters.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/tutorial-how-to-paint-dark-angels-from.html

Draigo and Librarian part 2

I've managed to grab ten minutes today to finish off my two characters; the Librarian and Lord Kaldor Draigo.

The Librarian seemed to be missing a bit of bling so I added a fancy ornament to his armour (it's the end of his force staff which I'd removed to make into a Grey Knight halberd). Draigo was literally missing some bling as I hadn't got his back banner. The gap got filled with an Iron Halo from the bits box. For me it works because I doubt he'll ever be Draigo so having him helmeted and down-scaled in the banner department makes sense (for now he's just a lowly squad leader, I guess this is early on in Justicar Draigo's career).

Here they are awaiting some silver spray:

Grey Knights Librarian

I couldn't face painting more silvery marines tonight so I built up the librarian - he's the standard Space Marine Librarian with a few bits of Grey Knight plastics to help him fit it. 

If things go to plan I'll get him silvered up tomorrow...

Grey Knights Dreadnought

Another update... As expected the Dreadnought was pretty quick to paint and here he is:

And here's Coteaz, now with cold feet...

Inquisitor Coteaz is (almost) done

Much to my delight, Inquisitor Coteaz is finally finished after what feels like hundreds of six-minute painting sessions spread over several weeks. Here's how he turned out (the base is still to be flocked):

       
And at a slightly different angle:

This means that once his base is done I've got myself a legal army of around 1000 points. Next up I think it'll be the dreadnought for a slightly quicker painting win...

Grey Knights: What is this thing?

I've just finished the next recruit to the Grey Knight army, this time it's a weird cherub thing. I'm not sure what he actually does (or is) but I really like the figure, he makes a nice change from all the Grey Knights so I'd like to think he'll make it onto the tabletop. Here he is:

A quick edit... It turns out that he is a familiar and, under the last codex he'd have given +1 initiative to the Inquisitor. Sadly, there doesn't seem to be the option for this in the current codex so he's more likely to be a stand-in servo skull or maybe a mystic or a psyker. I seem to remember that there are at least two other creepy cherubs out there (one with a book and one with a bolter) and I'd quite like to collect them all so that they can flutter around Inquisitor Coteaz looking suitably weird!

Here are pics of the two I've found online:

Cake for the Cake God!

With the Warmaster One Dayer this coming weekend the Grey Knights have been put aside in favour of one more unit of Chaos Knights. Here they are, ready to cause mayhem on Saturday:

As you can (maybe) see, I've added in a trumpeting hero from the Character pack (one of the knights had gone astray), and snipped a couple of strips in order to mix up the position of the Knights to mask the lack of variety.

Grey Knights: Quads...

A cheap and cheerful bit of painting today sees the anti-aircraft wing of the Grey Knights arrive. Two Quad guns and a Lascannon thing, along with a bit of wall for hiding behind.

The Fat lad of Nurgle

Alright Dude,
I am having trouble uploading photos on to the blog tonight - trying to do so has caused my computer to freeze twice already, so I'll give the description here, then the related photos in a 2nd post - if I can get it to work.
I started off with a black undercoat (can't beat it) then did the base and watched the arm fall off...
I then dry brushed the whole thing with dark flesh. In a moment of inspiration I also did the rust on the monster's mighty blade, so that is almost ready to go!
Then the big lad recieved a thorough dry brushing with a 50:50 mix of catachan amd camo green. This has then been followed by a dry brushing of camo green and finally a dry brush of rotting flesh. That's where I'm up to. Next up I'm going to paint (not dry brush) the guts a deep red, then it's the very fiddly painting of the bone parts. Bleached bone for that. The fat lad is littered with these, so that will take a while...

Pictures to come.

Grey Knights: Hammertime

In the words of MC Hammer, 'you can't touch this.' Why? Because the second helping of snow flock is still drying. So here he is, the Dreadknight: I'll concede that he looks like he's armed himself with a toffee hammer but he is still a most fearsome engine and a rather nice centrepiece to the army so far.

With this model painted, my army stands at 755 points (with the following list):

• Vindicare Assassin
• Grey Knight Strike Squad (5), Hammer, Psycannon, + psybolt ammo
• Grey Knight Strike Squad (5), Halberd, Psycannon + psybolt ammo
• Grey Knight Interceptor Squad, MC Falchions, Incinerator + psybolt ammo
• Nemesis Dreadknight, Hvy Psycannon, Daemonhammer

Next on the paintstation will be Inquisitor Coteaz, which will mean I'll have a legal army of 855 points. At the same time I'll paint up my quad gun which, with the defence line that's already painted, will bring this up to 955... Nearly there for the 1000 point game we're planning.

Grey Knights: Reinforcements from Titan

A little bit of work today sees the next unit of Grey Knights complete. This time it's an Interceptor Squad with their teleporer-stick backpacks.

Here's the army as it currently stands:

Right now I'm wondering if these dark and dirty Grey Knights might like to be splattered with Daemon blood. Thoughts?

Warmaster Dark Elves

I've finally finished rebasing the Warmaster Dark Elves I bought on ebay (several months ago). If it wasn't for the Warmaster One Dayer next month these would never have been finished. So, as Kylie and Jason once said, 'Especially for you', here's the army you'll be taking to Warhammer World:

In this tiny picture you can (or perhaps can't) see: General, 2x Hero on chariot, 1 x Hero on manticore, 3 Heroes, 3 Dark Riders, 2 Crossbows, 5 Spearelves, 2 Bolt throwers, 4 Cold one riders, 1 Harpies, 1 Hydra, 3 Witch Elves. From that you should have a decent choice for a 2000 point army.

Purely from an experimental point of view, here's my 'wobbly-cam' video of the same:

some daemons

As you can see, the daemons have arrived from the warp and are trying to gain supremecy of the entire  Kitchen Sector of the Old World. The Empire are nowhere to be seen, nothing  can stand in their way, other than a large frying pan and a couple of George's milk bottles.

The flamers were finished some time ago - not sure when, but certainly within living memory. There are 6 of the blighters in total and they were quite good fun to paint as they required quite a bit of blending / layering which I am quite fond of doing.

The nurgle dudes have just been finished off and as you know, I followed the GW recipe. I think they look sweet. Quite disapointing in a way, as there is very little to doing them other than dry brushing.
There are a completed unit of Khorne dogs and a huge unit of Khorne dudes in the front line for the kitchen too. Unfortunately, the photos of these units showed how quickly I had dashed off the painting - especially the dogs. I do have another unit of these to paint one day, and when that day comes I promise to do a better job!

Warmaster hamlet...

I must be getting bored of painting Grey Knights as I've finally finished the base for my Warmaster hamlet. Here it is in all its glory...

Ok, so glory is perhaps not the right word here, but it is eminently practical, the houses can be removed once the hamlet is occupied to make things nice and easy. 

Here's how it looks then (and here's it's very obvious that I didn't wait for the PVA to dry before taking the picture:

And here are some plucky men from Talabheim getting ready to defend themselves:

Officio Assassinorum

The Officio Assassinorum have lent their support to the Grey Knights, sending this Vindicare sniper from Terra to join their ranks. There's a good chance he'll be putting down the Exitus rifle in favour of a Quad Gun to take on enemy fliers.

Also finished this week are another six Grey Knight marines, and more to come soon...

The Lord of the End Times...

It's taken over two years but finally my Warmaster Chaos army is finished. More accurately, I've got it to a playable 2000 point army, there are about another ten units left in the lead mountain (and at some point I'd like to replace the daemons who are standing in for Marauders too). Here they are, ready to shed blood in the name of their despicable gods...

You might just be able to tell that this lot are led by none other than Archaon himself. It's a figure I've wanted to paint for ages. Here he is, in true GW style I stuck him onto a suitably skull-laden base:

With this lot painted I'm hoping to get on with the Grey Knights for a while but I am rather tempted to get on with my Man O War Empire fleet (and buying some Chaos ships hasn't helped much either....).

Oh, and is it just me or does the sign of Chaos Undivided look rather like the Union Jack?

Incoming: Grey Knights

The first squad are done... It's a quick and easy paint job but I think they're perfectly playable and there's actually a chance I might finish the army if I don't try to do anything more complex with them. Oh, and the pen I blogged about a while back works really well (I can't blame the pen for my inability to write tiny Gothic script).

Blood for the Blog God...

Here's the latest addition to the army, a unit of mighty, if tiny, Chaos Knights for my Warmaster army:

And here's a picture of them with the rest of the army:

 

I think that lot comes in at about 2000 points. Next on the paint station are two units of Warmaster Ogres and then I'm going to revisit the green harpies you can see in the picture - they're going to be far less green and far more black and red to tie in with everything else.

The Inquistion are coming...

It may not look much, but these four servo-skulls should be enough to strike fear into the dark hearts of any foolish enough to turn from the Emperor's light. Why? Because these four skulls-on-sticks are the vanguard of Inquisitor Coteaz and his Grey Knight strike force. That one with the big red eye, he's looking at you...

What the skulls haven't spotted is that they're hovering just in front of the latest box to land in the games room. Dark Vengeance is in the house and ready to be unboxed tonight!

Man O War Dwarf Fleet

Today's offering is a little different. After an hour or so of faffing about with tiny gyrocopters, my Dwarf Man O War fleet is finally done. For better or worse I decided to forgo the traditional 'Red Period' colours and went with a more muted scheme that's fairly close to the Dreadfleet Dwarf ship.

The Fleet:












Dreadnoughts:










Ironclads:

Monitors:

Nautilus:

Gyrocopters:
















Balloons: