Purchasing new models; assemble the new ones, or paint the old ones?

So, there's been a bit of a lull here, and with my hobby. I've taken a bit of a break, so to speak. But now that I got a nice sum of funds as a gift, I decided to jumpstart this here hobby again!


Introducing, the new arrivals;

Now, unfortunately, buying new things makes me all giddy about them. I want to start assembling them NOW, GODDAMNIT!!! ...whereas I still have a bit of a backlog of unpainted models that need care first...<.< I'll go more into detail about them in a bit, as first, I'll go through my backlog!

Like these unpainted merry men!

3 random Space Marines! I got them as a gift (small, cheap, box of only three models, quite bad quality compared to standard GW products, to be honest), and slapped them onto my existing squad of 5 Grey Hunters.

Other than that, I have my Thunderwolf Cavalry (3 models) that aren't painted yet, as I've been scared as hell I'll ruin the fur, due to lack of experience... BUT FEAR NOT! Found a nice tutorial-video on how to paint fur!

Moving on, I has... A drop-pod! Will be interesting to try to get that one done, as big flat surfaces are surpricingly difficult to get smooth. One of the employees at the local Warhammer-store suggested using some proper Lahmian Medium to thin the paint, rather than water, to avoid the bubbliness, yet still getting a nice smooth surface. Will try it out with the drop-pod, methinks...

And then, finally, a very specific character...

Njal, the Stormcaller!

A very highly praised and warmly suggested tactic with the Wolves, is to have a Long Fang squad (Devastators, for those more strict to the codex), filled with missile launchers, accompanied by a Rune Priest as a divination buffing machine! Other than that, I've ran him once into the thick of it, accompanied by a terminator retinue to wreck havoc in close range! ...aaaand I did all that with tiny bits of blue-tac to keep him standing. Yes. I feel very much ashamed. He's primed (and awaiting painting) in parts to make it easier.

Then, we also have Bjorn, and his base... I want to base all my models, but I'll add some extra effort to my HQs (especially NAMED HQs).

More in-depth on the new-comers!

I love to browse a Warhamme 40k -subreddit. There's a lot of good info about lore, helpful ideas and thoughts about army-lists, and plenty of pictures or awesomely painted models! Naturally I've used them for help and advice, while still keeping my own visions and goals in mind; not exactly copying anyones lists with anything I'm doing, I'd rather create something of my own, while modifying it perhaps a little.

Long Fangs are always reccommended. I've used my older brothers Devastators as stand-ins for my Long Fangs, and I've had a lot of success with them, so they were a natural choice for purchasing. Most probably going to run Njal with them for buffs (sweet Psyker level 3 buffs, yo!) and Deny the Witch in the vicinity.

After that, I was a bit perplexed... I need boots on the ground, so Grey Hunters were a nice choice. More Thunderwolf Cavalry for the Thunderwolf Cavalry -God is a good idea as well. Other than that? Transports? Who knows?

The start collecting-box is a nice deal on a lot of good units (albeit a little lack of transports, but derp), so I figured I'd go for it. Plans include a Wolf Lord or Wolf Guard Battle Leader (depending on points-range of game) on a thunderwolf (expect some sweet conversion-stuff coming up when I start doing that), accompanied by a squad of 5 TWC.

Thoughts on procrastination and other things...

A lot of this has been put on hold, unfortunately. A lot of PC-games on my game-backlog, I've also started to handcraft some terrain (for example these craters here)...

So how does one easily combat procrastination and pouring attention on several things? I don't know... One thing that is for certain would be to have a project-table at the ready, or having my painting-projects out constantly, so I don't have to break out the project-box and the paints and everything, which takes ages in and of its own...

So, time to convert my desk to a paint-shop! LET'S GET CRACKIN'!

Bjorn the Fell-Handed

The venerable.

The ancient.

The dreadnought.

The Fell-Handed.

Yes.

Bjorn.

So, I've been watching a lot of battle-reports on youtube, and read Battle of the Fang by Chris Wraight, and decided that I want Bjorn on my team. Doesn't matter how I'd build my army, Bjorn has a place in my heart, and on my list.


The fluff
Bjorn walked the stars in the age of the primarchs. He was part of Leman Russ', the Space Wolves' primarch, personal Wolf Guard!

To summarize the history a little: way back in the day, in the middle of a feast back on Fenris, Leman Russ got a vision. He got up and gathered his Wolf Guard, all but Bjorn, and left! He said that he would return on the eve of the Wolftime (basically when rangarok, the apocalypse, the end of days, occurs), and left Bjorn in charge. Russ went for the Eye of Terror, and no-one has seen him since. For starters Bjorn was "temporarily" in charge, until it became clear Russ wasn't returning any time soon. Bjorn took the mantle of being the first Great Wolf (chapter master), and several centuries later, he was severly wounded in battle, and interred in a Dreadnought. He spent a lot of time on the front lines as a walking beheamoth of destruction, until he was entombed in stasis sleep like a lot of the dreadnoughts of the Space Wolves.

Every one hundred years he is awoken, unless situations arise that require his wisdom, expertise or skills in battle, to hold court at the Great Feast, where he retells the sagas of old.


The crunch
Bjorn is a really strong combatant, stronger than your standard Venerable Dreadnought. Comparing his base-stats with other dreadnoughts:
Bjorn is more pricey than the standard dreadnoughts; 220 points for Bjorn, 120 for a Venerable, and 95 for a standard. With the extra points his WS, BS and S is upped by 1, front armor upped by 1 to 13, and a standard of 4 attacks. Furthermore, he has a 5+ invulnerable save, and improves the Sieze the Initiative -roll by one (5+ to steal first turn!). He does, however, lose 1 point of initiative, down to 3, most probably because of his old age.

In a clearer format:

WS	BS	S	Front	Side	Rear	I	A	HP
6	6	7	13	12	10	3	4	3

Weapon-selection? He comes with a standard Assault Cannon, which can be swapped FOR FREE for the Helfrost Cannon or Plasma Cannon, or pay 5 points for the Twin-Linked Lascannon.

Assault Cannon, S 6 AP 4, Heavy 4 & Rending

Helfrost Cannon, focussed, S 8 AP 1, Heavy 1, Helfrost

Helfrost Cannon, dispersed, S 6 AP 3, Heavy 1, Helfrost, Blast

Plasma Cannon, S 7 AP 2, Heavy 1, Blast, Gets Hot

Twin-Linked Lascannon, S 9 AP 2, Heavy 1

Helfrost, bitches!

I'm running with the Helfrost Cannon, due to me, not having a proper amount of good anti-tank at the moment, BUT I left it unglued, so I can swap the gun for something else, should the need for it arise! The Helfrost special rule forces the target to make a strength-test when he suffers an unsaved wound. If he fails, he's frozen solid, and dies outright. Having a BS of 6, the scatter is lessened by 6 inches, so there's a high chance for it actually hitting dead-on, and insta-killing any T 4 units, and has a chance to freeze any multiple-wound characters with a higher toughness than 5. Quite sweet!

For his other hand, a heavy flamer and a relic, Trueclaw. S 10 AP 2, Master-crafted, Shred. Get in melee with him, and suffer 4 hits from that, with a WS of 6. First game I ever played, he slaughtered 2 Tau drones with a Hellfrost-blast and his heavy flamer, and slaughtered 2 Crisis suits in melee, before they fell back, and he destroyed the commander with a sweeping advance.

"I'll just pinch him a little there..."

The model

Okay, enough of the crunch... Here's the assembly and the painting... Unfortunately I didn't take much pictures during assembly, but I learned something annoyingly drastic, which I will cover next to a picture further down. I assembled and painted him in pieces, but decided that this is the last time I do that, as it gets VERY tedious.

There he is, still halfly unfinished. Painting the gold on the front wasn't as hard as I first imagined. On with the base, on with the layer. Didn't even shade it, and it turned out awesome. Also, what's up with the sarcophagi where the character inside has his head sticking out?

Like, come on, Murderfang. Really? One headshot, and you're out of commission!

That little drastic thing I mentioned? Yea, so I've sprayed a lot of things in the same cardboard box on our balcony, right? Problem there was, that the bottom got quite gunky from residue spray. Said gunk gets stuck on a modle-piece if it's resting against it. If your model is assembled, and standing on his base, then you're fine! Who cares about some gunk on the bottom of the base, right? Well, this was sprayed in pieces, and here is the result of what happened. Gunk, futile effort of scraping it off with a toothpick, aaaand the plastic's ruined.

An example of how it SHOULD look...

The claw itself... The box and Games Workshop has a lot of neat art on their site, and I tried replicating it. Turns out, using Lothern Blue as a base for it and White Scar for highlights/drybrushing had the wished effect of it!

And here we have him, with his arms off of him. Left these pieces unglued, so I can swap out his main weapon of I need to, or to just show the "Weapon destroyed" effect on him.









So yeah! There he is! One of the corner-stones of my army! What I've learned from painting and assembling him? Assemble first, paint later. A lot easier. Also, if using the same spray-box, use a sheet of paper or something to make the bottom less gunky every now and then... Again, highlighting and detailing is left to a later date, when I'm more confident in my skills.

Wolf Guard, with jump packs!

So a bit of a hiatus here... Well, here's the newest update!

Been a bit busy with a squad of Wolf Guard. Wanted to make something heavy hitting in melee, and ended up making a squad with jump packs! Costs way more than any other squad I currently have! ...ouch... *sheds a tear*

So, I didn't go for the Space Wolf box, I went and bought a Space Marine Vanguard Veteran Squad! Painted with Space Wolf colours and equipped with leftover bits from my Stormclaw -box (mainly wolfy weapons), and it looked quite neat in the end!

The main problem here, though... painting them in bits and pieces. I couldn't assemble before painting, mainly due to the shields blocking a lot of the torso, so I had to do paint before assembly. It was tedious and annoying as hell. If I can in future projects, I'll assemble before painting. Makes life so much easier when you have the full piece infront of you, rather than a handfull small pieces...

Thunderhammers and Storm Shields in all their might are awesome, but fekke they're tedious to paint around!

And here, the squad in all it's glory! Counting in at 290 points, the most expensive squad I have so far! With a single wound each! ...that's... a lot of points just thrown away in a single daring assault... Still, though! The specifics:

• Frost Sword & Plasma pistol (pack leader)
• Thunderhammer & Storm Shield
• Thunderhammer & Storm Shield
• Dual Wolf Claws
• Dual Wolf Claws

So yeah! That's another squad down! Counting up to 1k points in my army right now! These things will be a beast in melee, if they get close enough!

What I've learned here? How tedious it is to paint single pieces, compared to a whole model. Sure, artistically it looks better, but it's a lot more tedious... 

Time passes, skills improve, people grow better, aaand paint dries!

So, my models have been so far a bit... meh, right? I figured I'd go back to them, when I had decided on the Bloodmaws, to do some fine-detailing. This was also after I'd checked out Games Workshop's painting tutorials, so I had learned quite a lot, from only those 4-5 videos...

Other than that, I noticed some interesting things in the paint jars... A lot of people reccommend a palette. And here's the reason why:

That's dried paint, scraped off from the inner edges of the lid. Now, before I adopted the palette, I used the lip, and scraped off excess paint onto the edge of the jar. That excess pain accumulated, and when you closed the lid, it started drying there... There will always be some small amounts of dry-age, but by using a palette you reduce it by quite a lot.

Also, watering down your paint, just a little bit, can do wonders. Here's an example of a Grey Hunter with a slightly watered down white, and a Blood Claw, whose white has NOT been watered down. On the left, two brush-fills of white on the palette, and a brush once dipped in water. On the right, just dry paint.

Other than that, let's jump into the models, and how I've touched up on them! As a note here, the Grey Hunters had nothing to "touch up on", as I watched the tutorials while painting them.

Wolf Guard Terminators

Before, no wash, no finer detailing, no company shoulder-markings.

After, applied some shader (Agrax Earthshade) to the faces, painted the shoulders white in wait for the Bloodmaw company-symbol transfers. Oh, and the leader's hair/beard got a re-do as well.

Blood Claws

Before...

And after. Applied shader in the faces, detailed their backpacks with Balthazar Gold, painted their left shoulders white, and fixed their red/yellow pack-marking on their right shoulder. I also drybrushed the plasma pistol in the same way I did the plasma gun on the Grey Hunters.

Krom Dragongaze

Before, he had his shoulders still in bone-white, his axe didn't have any highlights, and his detailings were a bit dull...

Final product! Drybrushed the axe with white, giving those upper edges a little sheen, painting the details with Gehenna's Gold, to differentiate him from the other troops, who have the more bronze-like Balthazar Gold!

The Stormclaw box, part 3! Grey Hunters, company choice, and me, actually watching tutorials!

So, I actually started watching tutorials on youtube, both by Games Workshop, and by Miniwargaming, on how to paint properly! ...but only after I was finishing up with these guys, and had settled on what company my army heralds from...

Yes! While assembling and painting my Grey Hunters I decided on what company I want my army to be! Reading through the Space Wolves codex again and again, wrecking my head about which company I want them to be, as fluff is important for me, I was going back and forth between Ragnar Blackmane's great company, The Blackmanes, or Bran Redmaw's company, The Bloodmaws... They all had their "thing", their way of waging war... Krom Dragongaze, an HQ-unit I already had, is... not quite in my taste... Still, though, Ragnar Blackmane is a bit too... popular, I guess, for me to use? I'm not a hipster, it's just that I don't want to use something that's been overused! Also, I read a little into Bran Redmaw, as all the codex said about the Bloodmaws, was that their savagery is legendary, with enemies being torn to shreds, and that they're cunning; "Bran's numerous Grey Hunters will often lie in wait for the foe after the fury of his frontal attack forces their retreat." I found out that Bran Redmaw has the curse of the Wulfen; in laymans terms it would be comparable to him, transforming into a HUGE-ass werewolf-sort of creature in the middle of battle, due to rage. The Wolf takes him, and he slaughters anything in his way.

...so why did I pick the Bloodmaws? Don't know... Sounds relate-able, doesn't it? The rage within a man? It's one of the reasons I picked Space Wolves to begin with, with their pagan, savage ways...

ANYWAYS! Getting side-tracked here... Without further ado...

The Grey Hunters!

Okay, so for these I actually took some progress-pictures! First, the undercoat, then the basecoat, then the layering... Though for these I had to do something differently; couldn't attach their arms just yet. Their bolters would've covered up their torso, preventing me from painting their chest or the "inner" side of the bolter properly, so I had to do them separately...

Once that was all done, the models' torsos and guns painted, it was just a matter of slapping on their arms, curse them for not sticking, and continue with detailing! Note the center-one's power fist. I wanted it to have the company color on it, because why not? Plenty of people paint their Wolves so they have their company color on various pieces of gear (kneepads, gloves etc.).

Shoulder-pads and a banner! Now, at this point I checked that Miniwargaming "layering white" -tutorial. In said tutorial they talked about watering down your paint, so I tried. And I liked it! I started using a palette, adding just a little bit of water to the white when going for the shoulders, AND I LOVED THE RESULTS! ...you can see in the background some Blood Claws with white shoulders, but I'll cover that in a post in the future, how I had improved my skills since initially painting them...

There we go! Their right shoulders painted as well! As regular Space Wolves (not in terminator-armor) have their left shoulder for company-symbol, their right is reserved for their pack-pattern. Here is a standard red base with black "teeth", red/black being the color for Grey Hunter packs. I also tried drybrushing: the plasma gun has a green base, drybrushed with white, and drybrushed with green again for that plasma-shine. The plasma gun -user has his furs drybrushed with Ushabti Bone as well. Didn't really turn out as planned, but live and learn again...

So, there we have it! A Grey hunter pack with a plasma gun, and a Wolf Guard pack-leader, wielding a power fist!

Home-made battlefield terrain! Watchtower 1.0

To start off, I measured a handfull infantry models, to know how big these buildings have to be. I also started toying around with a software I got introduced to in school (studying electric/electronic/medical engineering), mainly used for designing both indoor and outdoor lighting for buildings, called DIALux. A simple enough 3D-modelling software, in which I could design my buildings somewhat easily, and see exactly how large something must be, etc. etc. etc...

...speaking of unit-measurements, have you ever heard of a rule, saying "Measure twice, cut once"? Yea, so have I... Though I still measured only once, it bit me in the arse quite heavily (which will become obvious at the end).


The image-layout didn't want to work, so the top two pictures are placed awkwardly. Live with it.

Watchtower 1.0

I found an image online, and decided I want to create something similar. BEHOLD! A WATCHTOWER! ...now only to make my own...

Crude concept-drawing.

Planning-phase: 10 cm from ground to tower-floor, 9 cm width to house 3x3 units (9 units max), and still be within 6 inches for squad coherency with ground-floor units. The base-pillars would be supported by cross-beams, all made of plastic. Base-pillars would reach all the way up to the roof of the cabin to support the roof. Cross-beams would have one of the beams cut in half to fit into eachother, and glued on a small cardboard-tile.

A word about concept-drawings, by the way... If you want to build something, don't just start building. Planning is half the work, and concent-drawings or sketches give you a good idea of what you're doing, and thoughts on how it'll be easiest to achieve.

DIALux 3D-model. Took me a couple hours to
figure out the software, and make something
I could be satisfied with.

The cabin would be 5 cm high to support the full height of units, and then some, for back-mounted banners or sword-waving lunatics. Walls would be made out of styro-foam, ceiling out of corrugated cardboard.

Building-phase: So, styro-foam is a no-no: it requires pre-handling or shite-tonnes of paint, which I don’t have. So, going to use cardboard for this, then! Double-layered corrugated cardboard again, filling the gaps with filler. Using the plastic frames from the model-material-frames for the posts.

The cabin-base, 3x3 units wide, with some Blood Claws to stand as models.

Cardboard for the walls around the base, had to make it double-layered to be thick enough. Again some top layer dents here and there for battle-damage.

Filler almost in place, we’re getting there! The sharp-eyed will notice holes in the floor, in the corners of the cabin. That's where the base-poles will come through!

Walls filled in, the units fit in there all good and proper. Next day's agenda: the base-poles.

Base-posts almost done! Turns out they’re a bitch to glue together, without glueing them to the table. Also, ladder is in progress… Don’t know how that’ll turn out, or even how to glue the pegs to the posts... Also: the cabin got its basecoat of black spray, painting it in the dark grey as the wall last time. Maybe going with a lighter sort of drybrush to have the blackness come through, don’t know yet...

The legs and the ladder are made from the unit-model-bases, right? The ladder was pure hell, because I decided to glue the steps inbetween the legs, instead of ontop or drilled in. Had to hold them there for quite a while until they dried, but it looks a lot nicer like this, in my opinion.

Ladder’s done, and the legs are in place. Got the cabin sprayed as well.

The Blood Claws are modelling ontop of the cabin. Need to make that hatch out of something, don’t know what yet, though...

Drybrushed dark grey on the cabin, and realized it made a LOT of a sweeter finish, than the ruined wall –bit I did on my first project, using only a thick layer of grey paint on black basecoat. The details, dents and cuts in the walls come out a lot clearer like this and it actually looks worn-out, rather than brand new! I don’t know yet if I’ll leave the white bits in the legs as they are, or if I’ll patch it up with grey... In other news, the roof-tiles are in a pile on the left side as well. Thinking of stripping the top-layer off to get a corrugated top (rain pouring straight downwards). Just need to figure out how to make a rust-coloring for it...

After browsing the net a bit again, I found something. How to create rusted sheet-metal! Awesome! So, for rust-effect: red – brown – metal, corrugated cardboard, ripping off the top-layer for the sheet-metal effect. First layer of red (Mephiston Red) looks good, no undercoat, and bottom-side got sprayed black because I can’t be bothered doing anything proper about it.

Then, the brown (Dryad Bark)...

And finally, the metallic grey (random acryllic dark grey)! Turned out alright! Too much grey was easily done over with a brown drybrushing. Fitting the roof ontop of the cabin was easy as one-two-three.

Only problem I ran into was the question of height. I first had the idea that it would only be a slit to shoot through; mounting wall to the roof, but after cutting the tower down to size it became apparent it wouldn’t really be possible... unless I wanted to heighten the roof by a couple centimeters...

As of right now, I’ll stick with this. One downside I noticed straight away that sword-waving lunatics are having a VERY hard time being inside the tower, due to the height (remember the "Measure twice, cut once" -rule? Yeah...). No-one carrying a banner can enter it either. OR I’ll just have the roof for dramatic reasons, and while in gameplay use it as an open-top, whilst saying “the roof is there”!

Finished product:

To raise the roof (and produce a slit to shoot through) I could easily just glue a piece of wall to the roof, and have said wall to rest on the base pegs, where the roof is now resting. Make the wall just so thick so it reaches the pegs and is safely an extension, but not going all through as to leave a ceiling for banners to get stuck on...

THOUGHTS:

• Only drybrushing the walls make them seem older, more worn, compared to slapping on a thick layer of paint
• Going open-topped allows units to actually be placed into a structure (or removed as casualties) during gameplay
• Plan for way more space. Model-base is 3 cm wide, I planned for character-width (arms and all) to be 4 cm, and it's TIGHT! Same goes for height. Model height is 4 cm, planned height was 5 cm. A little bit was taken off for thickness of the floor, and the banners/idols/sword-waving is way higher than 5 cm. "Measure twice, cut once" really shines here...

AFTER EVERYTHING WAS DONE:

...so, I tried fitting in a terminator in the tower... Terminators have the Bulky -special rule, sure (Bulky models count as two models for the purposes of transport capacity), BUT COME ON!!! ONLY 3 FIT IN THERE?!