Brothers Revenge 2 ElectricBoogaLoo 30k Horus Heresy Doubles Event!

So Yesterday was the second 30k event for the Warrior Lodge club here in sunny Brisbane, Australia. We have been working hard to bring a friendly and chilled atmosphere to the 30k scene and to the club as a general rule

I finally finished painting my Scoria delivery system army and had a blast watching him eat all the HQs and elite units people would feed him only to find out his hunger for tears is infinite.

We had a great turn out with a good diversity of lists and all the painted armies on the painted terrain with FAT MATS was a nerds dream to see and play on. The work that has gone into furnishing the clubs gear has really paid off. If your in the area hit up TheWarriorLodge on facebook for times and days or just a chat. We play almost all the major systems out there not just Heresy.

Anyway here some of the pics I took on the day, I was going to get heaps more but I was hellishly sick the whole day and was just happy to be present and able to roll dice!

And here are some "action" shots of my teams games

Word Bearers Horus Heresy 30k Project: Word Bearer Cataphractii Terminators Conversion

What to do when you have some spare betrayal at calth terminators lying around? turn them into dirty traitors and convert them with dark angels terminator bits of course!

These guys were a combination of the deathwing 40k kit and the calth cataphractii termi 30k kit. I took the front of the deathwing models and shaved the back so it was flush with the rear torso of the cataphractii kit. Also I had to cut away most of the leg to chest lug off the cataphractii kit because it no longer fit in snug with the new converted torso or robes. 

Paint was done with a airbrush base of black, then top down highlight of white, then mahogany red, then top down highlight of a crimson red then washed with drakenhoff nightshade to blend it all together and give that darker look I have been chasing with the rest of the army.

Night Lords Kharybis and Dreadclaw, Word Bearers troops and Scoria works in progress for multiple Horus Heresy projects

Busy couple of weeks and finally got my Night Lords forge world drop pods in the mail so I was keen as beans to get these at least built this week and base coated. Also while I was waiting with baited breath for them to arrive I was working on some more dark channeled Word Bearers troops because why not!

So the Kharybis and Dread claw are pretty challenging to assemble but a real pain to paint. The multiple legs, fins and spikes make for a real paint to try and get smooth total coverage on all the panels in 1,2,3 or in my case 4 passes............

My Word Bearers desperately needed more bodies after putting together and painting all those tanks last time, so I cranked out some more conversions based off the dark vengeance and betrayal at calth boxes.

And to round it all off I got a little bit more work done on Anacharis Scoria, woo!

Word Bearers Horus Heresy 30k Project: Tanks Tanks Tanks!

Testing out a new paint scheme for a Word Bearer force for 30k I am putting together on the side of my other projects because cause I am a terrible person and can never just finish one project at a time!

Going for a deep dark look with these guys with what is going to be very sharp edge highlighting of bright reds. Hopefully this will give them a more evil/daemonic look.

Paint recipe is the usual, black base, white highlight on raised with the red base colour over the top of that. Red used is Vallejo model air Mahogany. Big change from my usual though was a coat of Darkenhoff Nightshade GW wash that was not watered down. This gave that really deep almost black red look I was chasing. This first pic below is pre wash:

And now post wash. You can see the huge leap in depth and smooth contrast the wash gives.

Anacharis Scoria Horus Heresy 30k Project: Dark Mechanicum Legio Cybernetica Army Building and Painting Part 2

Progress on my Scoria conversion as well as some progress on my Thanatar Calix and Domitar battle automata. Continuing on my paint scheme for the rest of the army of dirty metal and worn bronze I feel it fits the early Dark Mechanicum 30k theme. Scoria's model is a real monster to paint there is just so many details on his Abeyant and himself. The Domitar and Thanatar Calix are a dream to paint on the other hand, lots of simple armor plates and cabling. Note this is just the early stages, I will bring the cables down with a wash of dark green and then build them back up with bright green highlights to make them come across and evil and spooky. 

I was thinking lava bases for these guys but might leave it until I am happy with the models once finished just in case I change my mind. 

Anacharis Scoria Horus Heresy 30k Project: Dark Mechanicum Legio Cybernetica Army Building and Painting Part 1

Anacharis Scoria is legit a face smashing army buffing monster, and as such will be leading my Dark Mechanicum Cybernetica army I am quickly trying to assemble. This article will show my conversion attempt for Scoria and which was made all the harder due to the only official art that exists is a head shot portrait of him (including cute evil spider familiar), so no body shots or real description of his appearance or his Xanathite Abeyant.

Scoria's rules and book 6 entry build him up to be the arch heretic that overthrew the Xana forge world during the heresy. He uses the warp to infuse his creations with a bestial and primal intelligence that makes them a handful in close combat. He is credited with creating one of the first hellforges and is all round a cool dude if your a heretic. My plan for converting him was a hooded head and Xana themed Abeyant. Xana's local wild life is giant scorpids and arachnids that the local Knight houses battle and use them on their heraldry. So in light of this as well as Scoria's beastial cyberthurgy buffs I want to push the arachnid look as well as some cute little spider familiars!

Models used in this conversion are: 40k GW Magos, 30k Forge world Draykavac Abeyant, several GW skull pass spider rider spider legs, tiny spiders from the GW Arachnarok giant spider kit, 40k Dark Angels mace head, and a bunch of spikes and skull from chaos marines vehicle kits. 

So there you have it, my first attempt at a Anacharis Scoria Dark Mechanicum conversion including his Xanathite Abeyant, all arachnid mechanical animaled up. I hope you enjoyed my attempt to convert a iconic character and stay tuned for more Dark Mechanicum painting and conversion as well as my usual jumping from project to project each month!

Word Bearers Horus Heresy 30k Project: Converting Tactical Squad and HQs part 1

I had a few games on the weekend with some mates starting off a slow grow 30k campaign with my Cult Militia (totally chaos crazy cult themed too) and got inspired to make an allied Traitor Legion force to go along with them. After mulling over some of the fantastic pics coming out of Adepticon and the bits and pieces I had lying around I figured I could attempt to replicate the success of a Word Bearers force that Ryan Kimmel had with his and put my own spin on it.

So I happened to have 3 sets of the 40k Dark Vengeance chaos sets lying around in a cupboard (don't ask) and heaps of left overs from a couple of Betrayal at Calth sets as well, the perfect storm! I wanted these to represent post Calth fully corrupted Word Bearers and more specifically in game terms Dark Channelling tact or veteran squads for the random buffs.

I spent allot of time cutting out helms and molded limbs from the snap fit dark vengeance models so I could include more notable B@C set weapons and helms to help the models fit into the theme and timeline better. A simple head and backpack swap along with weapons goes a long way, especially with previous static pose models.

 For the paint scheme I was aiming for very old corrupted dry blood look, I wanted the base armor colour to be very mute with highlights making the model look more 3 dimensional. This is only about 50% done but you get the idea. I have no idea what kind of base to do yet, although I do have a lava mat waiting for an army to match it.........

Night Lords Horus Heresy 30k Project: Converted Night Lords Breacher Squad and Caestus Assault Ram Part 1

Another month another project for my Night Lords 30k army. This month I am attempting to paint up a 10 man breacher squad and their spiffy punch a hole right in your ships side Caestus assault ram. As my forces theme is a loyalist faction of post Istvaan renegades with a space based raiding/corsair fleet I'm reflecting this with lots of boarding or orbital assault units and the Ram is right at the top of the list for awesome tied with the Kharybis Claw. So onto the converting!

 I started off with the basic conversions, so breacher torsos and then Night Lord terror squad helms, this is simple enough and will fit in with the rest of my infantry but I wanted to spruce up the coolest part of a breacher and that is the boarding shields. I raided my bits box for hands, feat, skulls on hooks/chains/and dangley bits. I also chopped up some smaller jewellery chains and stole a few spikes from the chaos marines kit. Chainglaive for the champion is from anvil industries this time instead of my usual custom job.

Time to prime and shade

 So priming and shading are the same airbrush recipe as before, black primer, white highlights from above and then 2 coats of Vallejo blue .004. I had a 3rd party drop pod lying around as well so used the time to give that a hit as well.

 

 Once the priming and shading is done its time to give it a quick seal with some kylon flat matt sealant, this is especially important with the Ram as I will have to handle this model extensively to be able to paint it and the coat of varnish will provide a protective layer for the paint and stop it rubbing or peeling when I handle it.  

 I use warplock bronze as the base for the metal trims and then hit it with a wash of nuln oil. you can see the difference here in this picture between the base colour and it washed. I also do the start of the base here as well as it helps me get a better feel for the scheme on the models as I am painting them and brings out the colours

 So far I have only done all the gold trims and the start of the death masks for the terror squad helmets but I think its coming together well. Hopefully I can punch the squad and maybe even the Ram as well before the end of the month, but that will have to be another update. As always any questions just leave a comment and thanks for reading!

Night Lords Horus Heresy 30k Project: Calth Terminator Lord and Chainglaives Part 2

Welcome to the next step on my loyalist Night lords 30k army built mainly from the flexible Betrayal At Calth boxed set. My previous article for the terminators and terminator Praetor was about making the chainglaives that are the signature weapon of the Night Lords, this time lets get into painting them. I have yet to finish basing this unit but I am waiting until I get my Night Lords decals from Forgeworld, then I can finish them off and seal with some matt varnish all in one hit.
Please note this is a Loyalist Night lords force so it is far more clean and bright then most of the traitor forces seen, this is a deliberate direction and theme for the army.

Step 1: Undercoated and completed the shading of the base colours with an airbrush as detailed here

Step 2:  Paint all the trims and details in a bronze gold colour

 Step 3: Paint all the weapon and chain details in silver and then wash the gold and silver parts with nuln oil wash, Also start painting the power weapons, powerfists, chainfist teeth and Chainblade/Praetor paragon blade-chainglaive with a dark green and then highlighted with a light green on the tips.

 Step 4: Drybrush leadbelcher silver onto all the gold trims too highlight it and give it a more worn look. Paint the lapels and red areas with khorne red, then hit it with a red wash and then highlighted with a lighter red. This shot also shows the custom Combi Plasma Bolters I kitbashed out of the Calth set. Let me know in the comments if you want a quick guide on how to do them.

 Step 5: Lightning and Clean up stage. Lightning is done by a 4 step process of gradually lighter shades of blue and then highlighted where the forks break or hit with a dot of bright white.

 Step 6: Almost done now just do decals and bases to your own taste!