Kastelan Robot and Light Box

It's been a busy month, and the trend may continue for the next couple months, though I am going to try my hardest to stay on schedule. I almost made it this month by getting some more Deathwatch near-complete and getting one of the Kastelan Robot maniples near-complete. Unfortunately, they are not entirely complete. The most complete model of the group mentioned is one of the robots, which has the basic scheme and washes done, almost has its highlighting done. The other robot and the datasmith have both passed the wash stage, but do not have highlights.

Kastelan Robot Alpha from maniple Lambda-Meitner

Kastelan Robot Alpha from maniple Lambda-Meitner

Kastelan Robot Alpha from maniple Lambda-Meitner

These pictures were taken inside the light box I made. However, you can see in the photos above that the printer paper I used has a couple problems with it. The first is that it's not a continuous sheet so shadows from paper overlap are still visible. The other problem is that it's too opaque to use for the light diffusion panels on the sides of the box, so not quite enough light is getting through. I will be attempting a second version by the next post. I also only had two lamps, which will be remedied in the next version, too.

Light Box V.1

Test picture of Vael Donatus; the camera detail is good, but the light looks off.

Again, goals for next month are to have another unit finished, or at least have my current units completely finished, and build Light Box V.2. No promises.

Kill Team and Kastelan Magnets

Although the primary theme behind the new army I'm building for next year is "radiation", I couldn't resist adding a Dominatus Kill Team from the new Adeptus Astartes: Deathwatch book, as well as a Corvus Blackstar flyer for them to get around in. The Deathwatch rules themselves are fantastic, centered around small units with lots of firepower and an abundance of re-rolls. The justification for including them in this army comes from the Ordo Xenos Inquisitor with the rad grenades; the Deathwatch marines serve as his bodyguard.

Since the models are from the Kill Team Cassius box, I outfitted the unit with the weapons present in that kill team, which is more or less outfitted for close-in shootouts before a close-combat assault. This works out well for running with the Inquisitor since the rad grenades decrease the toughness of the unit they assault. For the kill team, I included the five models in the Donatus Kill Team, which act as a Veteran Squad, and Edryc Sedorax and Antor Delassio, who act as Vanguard Veterans

In terms of painting, I tried to paint them as close to the schemes from the box as possible, with the exception of the Dark Angel. The Zameon Gydrael model has his most obvious Dark Angel iconography chopped, filed, and smoothed away to make him into a Black Shield. I'm only showing the Veteran Squad for now since that's all I got to. Apologies for the bad quality pictures; making a good light box is on my list of things to do for next month.

Vael Donatus

Rodricus Grytt

Zameon Gydrael model, now the Black Shield Iton Atasas

Ennox Sorrlock

Drenn Redblade

Squad Donatus

I also figured out a way to make the weapons of the Kastelan Battle Robots modular using magnets. I drilled a magnet hole into the upper arms and should piece and super-glued a 1/8" x 1/16" neodymium magnet there. The insides of the phosphor blasters are hollow, and unfortunately don't easily lend to mounting a magnet. Instead, I snipped part of the sprue frame to the right length, super-glued a magnet to it and glued it to the inside of the phosphor blaster. Below is a shot of the mounting before the other half of the weapon was glued on, showing the two magnets connecting.

Kastelan robot phosphor blaster hand with sprue piece and magnet inside.

Kastelan robot phosphor blaster hand and arm held together by magnets.

Thought for the day: Only in death after highlighting does duty painting end.

OFCC 2016 and Building an Atomic Army

It's been a while, again.

Now that's out of the way, first thing is to plug for the Ordo Fanaticus Club Challenge. The Ordo itself is actually a club that meets in Portland, OR, but their members and forum (www.ordofanaticus.com) and Facebook page gather gamers from all over the Pacific Northwest. Every year, they put on the Ordo Fanaticus Club Challenge (OFCC). Most years I've been, it's in Vancouver, WA, just across the Columbia from Portland. The event actually has several different tournaments within it, including individual Warhammer Fantasy and 40k tournaments, and now an X-Wing tournament, I think. The main event for me is the Warhammer 40k team tournament. It is a tournament where painting and sportsmanship truly are valued just as much (if not more) than actually winning games. It's an event where one could bring a Chaos Space Marine army based on all daemon-possessed models and still have fun, not-one-sided games. It's an event where having no flyers and no way to deal with them won't be a critical failing of your list. It's all about bringing a fun army (super-tough, competitive armies are actually not admitted) and having a beer with your opponent while you find out what crazy situations your armies get into. Competitive tournaments and armies of course have their time and place, but it is not at OFCC. My record this past year was 2 wins, 3 losses, and a couple of those losses were some of the most fun games I had, despite being wiped off the board! If you get the chance to go, even if it's a long ways because you're not in the PNW, I highly recommend it.

This past OFCC, I ran a hodgepodge of Unbound units collectively called "Inquisitor and Friends", including an inquisitor, some Skitarii, some Militarum Tempestus, some Blood Angels, and a couple Astra Militarum Vendettas. The Skitarii I used included a squad of rangers with three transuranic arquebuses. Our team captain asked me why I didn't use Skitarii Vanguard, both because our team name is "Glows in the Dark" referencing the radiological cleanup site near Richland, WA from whence the team hails and because I have multiple degrees in radiological-related studies. I did not have a good answer, and it has inspired me to build a radiation-themed army for OFCC 2017. Units that will be included specifically for the radiation theme are:

Skitarii Vanguard - rad carbines and Rad-Saturation rule

Skitarii Rangers - transuranic arquebuses

Onager Dunecrawlers - neutron laser

Kastelan Robots - Cybernetica Datasmiths armed with gamma pistols

Ordo Xenos Inquisitor - rad grenades

My plan for this blog is to post once a month at least until OFCC next year showing my progress as the army comes together, as well as making other preparatory materials like objective markers, display board, etc. I'll finish up the year by making sure to record my army's battles at the next OFCC.

inquisitors and veterans

Another spurt of updates, but since I finally got my hands on a camera, I figured I should put some more up here. This time, it's about the Inquisitors (counts-as sergeants), the squads of 22nd Thracian Veterans they lead, and Inquisitorial operative Winter, one of Rosenadel's agents.

First up is Inquisitor Yjan Malkom Lobo, "Venom". I haven't quite worked out the backstory for the other inquisitors that Rosenadel is teaming up with, but they are all radical, to greater or lesser degrees. Accordingly, I have named, code-named, and modeled them all referencing radical or chaotic characters from other fiction. Yjan Malkom is a reference to Ian Malcolm from Jurassic Park, a subscriber to Chaos Theory. Originally, his code name was "Lobo", a reference to a Marvel Comics alien mercenary villain/anti-hero who killed off his own race for a "high school science project". Tell me that's not the embodiment of Chaos in a nutshell. However, upon modeling Yjan, it came out looking more like Bane from Batman, so Lobo became the surname, and "Venom" the codename, after the drug Bane uses.

Venom is based on the Khorne Exalted Hero body, inspired by a sweet conversion elsewhere. I gave him a Chaos Space Marine head, a CSM sword arm, and a loyalist bolt pistol arm. Added a grenade/pouch/knife combo from a Blood Angels kit. Inquisitors need personality, so I decided to add the flamer pack from the IG Squad kit, along with hoses made from guitar wire. And thus, the Bane look came into being.

Yjan Malkom Lobo, "Venom"

Yjan Malkom Lobo, "Venom"

Next is Inquisitor Jonathan Olivus, "Archer". While not exactly a chaotic or radical character, Oliver Queen, Green Arrow, does become an activist for lower classes, something unheard of in the Imperium. I chose him because he helped Batman fight Superman in The Dark Knight Rises graphic novel, which is radical enough for me. I'm not sure anymore why I chose Jonathan as his first name, though his code name is obvious enough.

Accordingly, the model has a green cloak, and a lasgun mounted on his back in place of a bow. The model itself is the Empire Witch Hunter. The lasgun is from Chapterhouse studios, the SCAR lasgun bit (http://chapterhousestudios.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=77&product_id=192). I added only that and a grenade/pouch from the IG Squad kit to give the model a more 40k appearance. I couldn't really add more bitz since I thought it would take away from the super-sweet model.

Jonathan Olivus, "Archer"

Jonathan Olivus, "Archer"

Next are some finished 22nd Thracian veterans. As mentioned previously, these lads are inspired by the 22nd SAS regiment. Accordingly, I wanted to make them look as close to the classic 1980's image of the SAS as reasonably could. The conversion actually ended up being pretty simple. I knew I wanted gas-mask heads, but it turns out that most such heads look more like WWI German gas masks. But, I found the "Gas Masks - Rolled Helmet" on Secret Weapon Miniatures (http://www.secretweaponminiatures.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=47_48&products_id=458), and they're almost perfect as-is. However, I decided to cut off the filter in the front and add it to the side of the mask, since 1) the front still looks to German/Krieg-ish, and 2) the classic SAS mask also has the filter on the side. This is what I'm talking about:

SAS, baby!

So, that took some very, very careful doing, but all of them are side-mounted now. The only other conversion was the lasgun. Since the guns are very long, and such special forces often work in close quarters, they often have guns with shorter barrels to better navigate doorways, narrow hallways, and other tight spaces. They also usually have sweet scopes. So, I snipped off the barrels of the lasguns and reattached them on top to make scopes. I also added some cylindrical bits for extra laser-sights on some. Can't have too many laser-sights.

Examples of the 22nd Thracian veterans.

Veteran, front.

Veteran, side.

Finally, Winter. She is inspired by two characters from Star Wars: Mara Jade, former Emperor's Hand, later Jedi, and Winter, Leia Organa's longtime friend and Alliance spy. Both are highly-skilled covert operatives, and totally bad-ass. Especially Mara Jade. So, this Inquisitorial operative is known only as "Winter", and has Jade's orange hair. This model has quite a few non-standard bitz. The legs and body are Combat Armor Legs (http://www.maxmini.eu/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=22_26&products_id=129) and Combat Armor Torso (http://www.maxmini.eu/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=22_26&products_id=129) from Maxmini. They're a little bigger in size than the normal IG legs and torso, but they look cool, and the difference isn't too noticeable. The arms are both standard IG trooper arms. The one holding the knife has the hand cut off and replaced with a heavy gunner stabilizer hand to better look like she's gripping the knife. The gun is a  "M-gun" (http://www.maxmini.eu/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=22_25&products_id=77), again from Maxmini. These are a little bigger than lasguns and are obviously based on the M-16. But again, they look really cool. Finally, the head is a Dark Eldar wych head, with the spot to glue on a topknot cut off. All this special stuff for this model is because Winter counts as Guardsman Marbo, perfect for Winter's role in Rosenadel's group of henchmen. Though Winter is painted much the same as the 22nd Thracian, she bears a golden triangle on her left shoulder guard signifying her status as an operative, and a red "=][=" on the other, signifying that she works directly for the Inquisition.

Winter, inquisitorial operative.

Winter, inquisitorial operative.

Winter, inquisitorial operative.

That's all the updates for now. Four more inquisitors are on the way, including Rosenadel himself, as well as pictures of the snipers once they are painted.

inspiration

Salutations,

It's been a while since a new post has gone up, but all pict-recording devices seem to break when I touch them, so I haven't had any pictures to show. But I got my hands on a camera, and took some picts of my recent work. I'm still working on Inquisitorial Operations Cell "Accipiter" (counts as Imperial Guard). My plan is to end up with a somewhat modular list that can be toned down or up depending on what kind of game I'm playing. While this army probably won't be done for a while, I am taking a few units in it as an ally to the Angels Malleus for OFCC this year (a friendly tournament in Vancouver, WA run by Ordo Fanaticus; http://www.ordofanaticus.com/blog/).

The story behind this army is that Inquisitor Rosenadel has founded an Imperial Guard regiment through his inquisitorial influence to act as his personal special forces. These are the 22nd Thracian Irregulars. However, when fighting the most dangerous of enemies, even this is not enough, and so he enlists the help of a cell of fellow inquisitors, who take direct control of squads. I have indeed decided that the sergeant in each veteran squad will be modeled as an inquisitor, and these models will come later. As mentioned previously, this army is inspired by modern-day special forces, and I've done what I can to model units like their real-world equivalents as well as name them similarly. For example, the Irregulars are the 22nd in homage to the 22nd SAS regiment, the most well-known of the SAS and whose training and methods are the basis for most other special forces units the world over.

Delta Squadron snipers, 22nd Thracian Irregulars

The Delta Squadron snipers above will count as ratlings, but are modeled as humans because Rosenadel is very much against abhumans. He's a radical, but everyone has their prejudices. The models are based on Cadian troopers and modified with some non-standard bits. The first is the head, which is the "Boonie Hat Heads" from Maxmini (http://www.maxmini.eu/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=22_23&products_id=200). These kind of hats are worn by special forces guys a lot in various movies and games, so I thought it an appropriate choice. Next, the backpacks are also from Maxmini (http://www.maxmini.eu/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=22_26&products_id=19), given to these guys to make it look like they are ready for an extended stay in the field to set up a sniper nest and wait for their prey. Finally, each lasrifle has a sniper scope from Anvil Industry (http://www.anvilindustry.co.uk/index.php?route=product/product&path=60_103&product_id=208) and has the barrel clipped off and replaced with a suppressor (http://www.anvilindustry.co.uk/index.php?route=product/product&path=60_103&product_id=160) to make them look like sniper rifles. The Thracian Irregulars have four squadrons, just like the 22nd SAS, but these guys are from Delta Squadron in homage to the two US Delta Force snipers, Randy Shughart and Gary Gordon, who gave their lives protecting the crash site of black hawk "Super 6-4" in Mogadishu, Somalia, as made famous by Black Hawk Down.

Two Vendettas at the ready.

Next are the two completed Vendettas. These two are from the 160th Thracian Special Air Wing, inspired by the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR) of the US military, also in Black Hawk Down. 

Clear and Present Danger

 The names on the two Vendettas are titles of Tom Clancy books (if that wasn't obvious): Clear and Present Danger and The Sum of All Fears. 

The Sum of All Fears

Interior of The Sum of All Fears.

Shown above, the interior of The Sum of All Fears is representative of how all the insides are/will be painted for the four Vendettas in the army. Red lighting is used in the interior so that personnel can see, but don't have their night-adjusted vision ruined.

Sum of All Fears interior shot, with green "go" light and gunner shading.

All of the Vendettas will have the door-mounted heavy bolter option, and I have attempted to shade the gunners and their gun mounts to look like the light is originating from inside the doorway. Inside The Sum of All Fears in particular, I have painted two green "go" lights (I don't know what they're really called) signifying that the troopers inside are clear to jump out the ramp at the back. I fully intend to use the Grav Chute Insertion rule a lot, and especially for The Sum of All Fears, I intend to model a kneeling and pointing jump master telling the troops to "GO! GO! GO!".

Magnetized battle damage representing hull point removal.

Finally for now, a picture of the finished battle damaged that represents a lost hull-point. It's in a different location than the previous post since this is a different model. I put some extra bits in the landing gear pocket to make it really look like there are exposed components, as well as some Leadbelcher to make it look scuffed-up.

Storm Troopers and Hull Points

Two posts in two days? It's like Christmas!

I have the pictures I promised. First, I have some Storm Troopers painted up in the final scheme, ready to get some flock.

The colors are Chaos Black armor and Astronomicon Grey for the cloth uniforms underneath. Guns are Boltgun Metal, satchels are Snakebite Leather. The uniforms and metallic bits were washed with Badab Black, and the satchels with Delvan Mud. The second picture is a bit blurry, but hopefully the =][= of the Inquisition can be seen.

Now, the Hull Points bit. It's a big change in 6th edition, making glancing hits worth a lot more. Hull Points represent a vehicle being worn down over the course of the battle, taking damage gradually and eventually being reduced to inoperable wreckage. What better way to show this than by magnetizing part of a vehicle so that they can be removed to show damage?

Below are some pictures of the first Vendetta I am trying this idea on. The number of magnetized, removable pieces is equal to the number of Hull Points the vehicle has. Every time a Hull Point is removed, one of the magnetized sections is removed. Once all of the magnetized sections have been removed, the vehicle is a wreck. Once it's done, it will be easy to keep track of visually and make things much more Cinematic (the new theme for 6th).

top section; somehow i don't have the before shot. the bit in the middle is from the plastic sprues the model came on, and will be made to look like a power cable or some such.

wing before

wing after removal of a hull point; inside the depression in the wing underside piece are straightened parts of a chopped up paper clip which will be made to look like cabling. the green stuff is helping keep the magnet in.

To make the removable wing panel, I performed a very risky operation to actually cut out that panel from the solid plastic upper wing piece. The method I used was to repeatedly score the area between the panels with my Exacto knife, cutting deeper each time until I was through the plastic. Once that panel was removed from the upper wing piece, the lower wing piece was glued in place, the magnet holes drilled, and the battle damage applied. It's important to leave the lower plate intact: the point of this is to have obvious visual indication that a Hull Point has been removed. So simply gluing the wing pieces together first, and then cutting through both the top and bottom panels and removing the entire piece, while removing a sizable chunk of the wing, could be mistaken for a modeling choice and not a lost Hull Point. Plus, the point is to be able to model some small-arms damage and exposed internal components.

door before

door after removal of a hull point

I did not, at first, realize that the door was held in place by the tail boom piece, so I had to chop off part of the top of the door to make it able to be removed. But now it simply slides up and out: the top of the door where it's cut can't be seen because of the tail boom, but it's still removable.

I'm going to attempt to make the sections for lost Hull Points different on every vehicle in the army. I will, of course, also be magnetizing all the weapons on the Vendettas so they can be removed to properly show Weapon Destroyed results. I've also magnetized the landing pads on this Vendetta, but I think I may dispense with that since it looks like they're supposed to be permanent. Removing them makes the model look a little sleeker, and I thought it might be a good way to differentiate between Zoom and Hover modes, but it will probably just be disruptive.

More modeling shenanigans with Vendettas, and the rest of the army, to come.

Inquisitorial Task Force

Greetings,

First, I went to the OFCC, held in Vancouver, WA again this year. A great time was had! It is truly a great event, and (nearly) everyone is sporting, friendly, and there to have fun. That said, my Angels Malleus did pretty poorly this year. I took a list like this:

Librarian, jump pack, Shield of Sanguinius, Unleash Rage

2 Sanguinary Priests, x2 jump packs

2 10-marine Assault Squads, each with x2 meltaguns and one power fist

9 Death Company with jump packs, x3 power weapons, x1 power fist, and Chaplain Lemartes

x2 Baal Predators, both with assault cannon turret and heavy bolter sponsons

x10 Vanguard Veterans, all with jump packs, x2 power weapons, x2 thunder hammers, x2 storm shields

I was basically wiped off the board in 4/5 games. I did manage to win the other game, but it still wasn't pretty. So, that obviously didn't go very well. I don't think I made any big tactical blunders, so I mostly blame the list, like any good 40k player.

Second, I am constructing a new army! I have a deep, abiding love of airborne infantry and special forces, particularly the Special Air Service (SAS) of the United Kingdom, after whom nearly all other special forces and counter-terror units, including the US SFOD-Delta, are modeled. The obvious choice for such an army was the Imperial Guard, where I could have veterans acting as stormtroopers with their BS4 and by taking the Grenadiers upgrade to give them 4+ armor saves. The Other part of the plan was to mount everything in Valkyries and Vendettas (6 total in the original list) and fly in, deposit troops on objectives, and fly off to provide support. This was all while 6th edition was only rumors, and no word had gotten out about flyers or new reserve limitations. I was wisely advised to wait until 6th dropped before starting this venture. Now that 6th is out, the list has gone through a few modifications to make it more compatible with 6th ed. So, here it is:

Company Command Squad
- carapace armor
- astropath
- officer of the fleet
- vox-caster
- x2 meltaguns
- x2 plasma guns
- chimera

Storm Troopers (10)
- x2 melta guns

Storm Troopers (10)
- x2 melta guns

Guardsman Marbo

Veterans
- Grenadiers
- x1 flamer
- x2 meltaguns
- vox-caster


Veterans
- Grenadiers
- x1 flamer
- x2 meltaguns
- vox-caster


Veterans
- Grenadiers
- x1 flamer
- x2 meltaguns
- vox-caster


Veterans
- Grenadiers
- x1 flamer
- x2 plasma guns
- vox-caster
- Chimera


Veterans
- Grenadiers
- x1 flamer
- x2 plasma guns
- vox-caster
- Chimera

Vendetta Gunship Squadron
- x2 Vendetta Gunships
- x2 sets of door-mounted heavy bolters


Vendetta Gunship Squadron
- x2 Vendetta Gunships
- x2 sets of door-mounted heavy bolters

The idea is that these are Imperial special forces. Initially, I had nothing beyond that as a theme, but as I thought more about it, it occurred to me that the equivalent of Imperial special forces exist: the Inquisition! I won't be taking allies, but instead modeling this army as a cell of Inquisitors leading inquisitorial storm troopers to snuff out some unlucky heretic (or even renegade Inquisitor, as the infamous Gregor Eisenhorn did when hunting down Quixos). To that end, sergeants in most (maybe all) of the Veteran squads will be modeled as Inquisitors, as will the company commander in the Company Command Squad.

Pictures of some finished storm troopers and a modeling method for keeping track of Hull Points in 6th edition coming soon!