Bust a move - Part one

The following is a repost from my friend Megapopes blog, go look at it..... do it now...... or when your done here.... actually i'm not fussed.... whatever suits you :)

This puts me in a bind now, as if i do a crappy job on the other nine busts everyone will go.... OOOOOOO I REALLY LIKE THE ULTRAMRAINE, HES THE BEST.

And every time that happens, a little part of me will die. So thank you Megapope and f*** you as well!

Megapopes text in bold and italics.... like some wiggly time travel effect in text form.

My good beardy friend Vomkrieg got himself the Relic boardgame a while back and after a few games he's getting around to painting up the character models that represent the various 40K universe archtypes that you can play.

  

And well, since I'm the resident space smurf fanboy, I got the Ultramarine captain to paint up. Hurrah! Here he is. Took me about 6 hours all up, including having to completely redo an entire shoulderpad when like a complete bloody idiot I wiped green tinted brush-cleaning water all over it, didn't realise and then let it dry.

Size comparison. 

Horus Heresy - The game, not the books...... no not the forgeworld one, the other one.

Well, for an IP (The Horus Heresy) that has a bucket load of fans, very few people have heard of this game.

I put that down to a few things, but mostly on the fact that its largest target demographics weren't advertised at.

It didn't appear in any GW stores, because they only sell their own product. By that, I mean they only sell the products they produce themselves, not anything licensed  That stuff has to stand on its own merits.

In some ways that's a real pity as those people who get their gaming news and information only from GWstores, White dwarf and 40k only blogs (screw you Ron) have missed out on some real gems of boardgames produced by FFG. Death Angel is pretty fun and Chaos in the Old World is a master piece. It's a bit of a shame really.

The second major demographic would be the fans of the Horus Heresy book series. This is a huge selling series and some of them are a damn fine read (Especially the Dan Abnett ones). I own a fair few of the books and I never did see a link in advert for this game. Oh right, that's because they are published by GW and they don't offer any support to other companies using their IP.

It's a shame that this game has largely been overlooked, and by many accounts was not a financial success. It has some pretty clever mechanics (The initiative system and order system are both very good, as is the treatment of the Primarchs) and seems to replicate the epic nature of the siege of Terra quite well.

The models are passable, if a little on the mediocre side. Its a real pity there aren't any nice Primarch models, but I guess they probably weren't allowed to do that.

I do have one gripe about the game. It's not "historically" accurate. I know that sounds ludicrous as its a fictional conflict, but in order to get some game elements in they messed up who was actually fighting the siege of Terra.

The loyalist chapters are all there and all correct, the White Scars, Imperial Fists and Blood Angels. They really do form the core counter attacking force for the Imperial player and each legion plays thematically. Dorn and his fists are great attacking or defending fortifications, Sanguinius and the blood angels hit like a 18 wheel truck, and Khan and the White Scars can move rapidly to support attacks all over the place.

Where it falls down is on the chaos side. You see, in order to have the 4 Chaos powers represented they fudged the Legions that were at the Siege of Terra slightly. There are no "Sons of Horus" models, which i find truly bizarre. You would think the first legion to be included in a game about the Horus Heresy would be the Sons of Horus.

The focus is on the four chaos powers and their associated legions. So the Word Bearers and Iron Warriors, along with their Primarchs do not feature at all. It's a minor gripe, less so than when i initially thought that some of the Primarchs included in the game (Mortarion and Magnus) were actually absent.

The Traitor legions do work well and are quite thematic. Angron and the World Eaters are excellent on the offence, not so good on defence, Magnus the Red shoots massive bombardments out of his evil red glowing eye, Fulgrim corrupts imperial army units and Mortarion makes every enemy unit weaker (Hes pretty much as OP as anyone in this game).

I've only run a "theoretical" game at the time of writing this, I look forward to having my first "practical" game in the near future. As a project it was quite fun to paint, and, as you can tell, I didn't go overboard with detail. Drybrushing was my friend :)

Coming up ......... SPACE HULKS IN SPACE!

Update - Scout cloaks

Well, I have a sizeable update coming out tomorrow on my painting but it's on the boys in blue, not the guys in green.

After my update tomorrow I will be targeting the remaining descent models I have left to finish... which is only 18 heroes from the expansion boxes (Only 18.... individually painted dudes..... how long can that take?)

Hopefully not too long as I'm hoping to start up a semi regular descent group in the next week or two. Yep, TWO nights a week gaming!

As for the scouts.... i quite like how the camo turned out on the metal models, not so keen on the sculpted ones.... still it was a learning experience and I have more scouts to paint yet.

Until tomorrow!

ITS A TANK!

Quick Sons of Medusa update here

It's an old school vindicator and i've tried doing some weathering on it. Basically just home built a brush for stippling and blended a series of dark earthy tones onto various parts of the tank. nothing really to write home about but looks passable.

Big update coming soon as I've been working on my Cygnar guys as I have an active warmachine group to play with now.

A short update - Sons of medusa

Righto, due to various things happening this week here is a very short update on my Sons of Medusa army painting task thing. Never fear, a bigger painting update will occur tomorrow on the other not so green project.

Scouts! Yes good old sniper rifle scouts. Its seems to be the season for scouts, although i didn't paint these on pain medication.... unlike some PEOPLE I MIGHT NAME. 

But seriously, follow the link, my friend has been doing a damm fine job of his scouts and they look quite neat with those funky helmets he got them (Watch this space as I made puppy dog eyes when i saw those helmets and he gifted me a few.... BOO YAH).

What to say about these guys.... well they aren't finished for one. The original paint job is 8 years old and I only touched them up a bit. The new thing was the camo cloaks..... and well they look ok i suppose.




This sculpting this is a tricky tricky skill to learn. I'm thinking of redoing them in a more mottled DPM style. Like these awesome pants here.


I think those pants are perfect urban camo.... i like to wear them around the office and attack people as they go to use the photocopier.....

Anyway, this is only half a squad and I need to get some more snipers to finish it off. Sadly, that will be some time as i have pledged not to stock up on new models until I paint what i have at my disposal.

So this week will be working on those three tanks. I hope my dear chum finishes off his weathering guide as part one is good and the final results i've seen are amazing.

Sons of Medusa - Progress report 2

Tactical Squad two is complete.

Well mostly, I finished them off this evening but took photos of them while the light was still good.

This squad has black should pads and guns to act as Squad Marking. I'm not one to mark my squads with little numbers on knees or anything, I like to know from one side of the table what squad is what. So my markings tend to be a little ham fisted in that regard. 

The highlights of the squad for me are the guys below. The Veteran sergeant who had a prior life as an Iron warriors Iron smith, I just swapped his regular limbs for standard gear from a tactical squad pack and gave him a back banner.

This tactical marine uses some of the bionics from the Iron Hands pack and a cut down version of the Irons Smiths back back. Finally, for complete ridiculousness I made an old devastator marine in a walking melta gun. I figured that if servitors can have melta arms why can't space marines?

On to the armour pool.

Well i've got three vehicles to paint up in the next we while. A brand new rhino/razorback kit, an old school vindicator and a very very old razorback. You might notice the terrible half complete paint jobs on the Vindicator and old school razorback. Well, these were a few of the models from the original attempt to do this army.... I figure that they are still in good condition and repainting them will save me a few dollars that I could use elsewhere.

I will post more pics of these tanks in the near future once i get around to repainting them.

Sons of Medusa - Progress report

Time to show you what i've got done so far on this Sons of Medusa project.

Sternguard Squad 

First up, was the first squad I painted, a unit of Sternguard. So called because they are staunch and all that.... not because they hang around at the back of ships...... no sir.
Ok, so they do tend to hang around the back of the battlefield, but they could be described as dead shooty (especially if you are the orkoid persuasion)
 
The squad consists of six Sternguard led by a veteran serageant armed with a power weapon. I've also included four combi-meltas in the squad and plan to mount them in a razorback. (I happen to have a retro Razorback with a lascannon and plasma guns that i can fix up)

The squad contains a number of conversion jobs, in fact all but one model has some for of sculpting or conversion.

The sergeant is an old techmarine model, all I did with him was get rid of the servor arm and give him a banner. Nothing dramtic, but he does look very thematic for a Sons of medusa army will all those bionics and pipes.

The servo arm from the techmarine ended up this this chappy here. Where I mounted a melta gun on the end of the servo arm.

I don't really care that it makes no sense as a weapon, I just think it looks cool.

The four combi-meltas in the squad should be a nasty weapon in the right situations. At close range they ahve a very good chance of killing any armoured target with one round of firing, and at 5 points a pop thats fine value.

Of course, you can't just get loads of combi-melta guys in a pack of marines so I had to convert a couple from tatcical melta guns and even a land speeder multi-melta go carved up.

One last thing to note about the squad is this guy. Who I added a book arm from a sister of battle and then sculpted a cloak on the back.

This was my first real attempt at sculpting a large part of a model and i think it turned out ok.... it kinda looks like a cloak.

Also of note is that the squad colour is red, which indicates the veterans linkage to the Mechanicum. There aren't any hard rules for Sons of Medusa squad colours, so I'm just marking each squad with a different colour on the shoulders.

So that's the Sternguard, the elite dudes in my army. I really hoped to make a characterful unit that epitomized what it means to be a bright green technophile with a thing for self mutilation. 

Tactical Squad one - Still to be named

I really should name my squads, and my veteran sergeants. I had an old squad of marines back in third edition lead by a Sergeant Brok (Who was an Advanced Space Crusade Sergeant). Brok was a serious hero and had won many games with his terminator honours, power sword and melta bombs.

I even had a little song about him I sung when he charged......  needless to say my opponents hated Sergeant Brok.... just hated his little guts.

So names are important and character is important in an army. I think this tactical squad has some character right now.

The Veteran Sergeant is another Techmarine and is armed with the Iron Warriors Iron Smith Power Fist (tm).
He checking a scanner and has all manner of cables and stuff. The rest of the squad has a smattering of bionics from the Iron Hands tactical squad set, but my favorite guy is on the right.


The full metal skull tactical marine with a snazzy bionic arm and bolter. The head is from an old noise marine model and he just looks suitably scary and deranged. A great juxtaposition of the bright green pop of the medusa colour scheme and the grim nature of the Iron hands.



Brother Uzziel - Dready number one 


I finished this guys just as I set this blog up, which is why he is in the banner on the front page.



Uzziel is an old school heavy metal dreadnought, no plastic to be found here just lots and lots of metal.

He's held up pretty well considering he came into my possession back in 1996 I believe. He was blue first, as he was purchased 2nd hand. I then painted him gray for another army, then red for blood angels, then green for my 1st attempt at the Sons of Medusa. Thankfully, he survived the paint stripping process and has been repainted from the ground up.

Oh, and the banner is a medusa head thingy. Snakes and stuff

Work in progress - Tactical Squad two

Just showing what's on the paint board at the moment. And yes, that is an attack bike multi-melta and yes I have just stuck it to the side of a marine. You got a problem with that?

Master of the Forge - Sons of Medusa HQ

What happens when you combine the following models into one terrible gestalt? (yes gestalt is a word, look it up)

• An Attack Bike
• An old 2nd edition predator
• A old 2nd edition Baal Predator
• A land speeder
• A blood angels techmarine
• A cyclone terminator (2nd edition)
• A Iron Warriors warsmith
• A chaplain bike

Well simply put, you get the following.

A bad ass Master of the Forge on an attack bike with an epic conversion beamer. 

I am really looking forward to fielding this guy in a game. Every army needs an HQ choice to lead it, and I can't think of a more appropriate choice for the Sons of Medusa than this.

If your wondering where all the parts went ill explain. The chassis is obviously the attack bike. The blood angels techmarine torso forms the rider with the Iron warriors Iron Smiths servo arm on his back.

The Chaplain on bike gives us the wonderful winged front to the bike.

The old school cyclone terminator contributes the left hand that is functioning as a targeting device for the conversion beamer.

The Land speeder contributes the communications aerial at the back of the bike. (My land speeders are munted and have been consigned to the bits box of the damned).

The Baal Predator adds in the triangular armour plates that appear below the cannon on the front of the model.

The old school predator adds in the cupola and cannon that forms the conversion beamer itself.

I used green stuff to make the funnel on the end of the conversion beamer. It's not a perfect job, but making a funnel out of green stuff is a very very annoying task.

The last thing left to do with this guy is mount him on a base. I popped into GW Wellington earlier this week and grabbed a set of bases to use. The pack comes with some 40mm bases, some bike bases, some regular bases and a 60mm base.  I wanted to put him on the 60mm base but its just too small. I may leave him unbased for the time being.

Oh, the big cable out the back of the conversion beamer into the bike is a guitar string. 

Not my most amazing paint job of all time, but certainly the most conversion work I've done on a single figure. I may return to this guy later and do another level of highlights and detailing. Until then hes going on the shelf of honour in the games room.

Army planning - Sons of Medusa

Ok, so getting down to planning out the army. I like having a pretty solid idea of how the army will look, and i like to build up to around 2000 points or so. That allows you to play some big games and mix and match at 1500-1750 points.

Chances are it will go slightly over 2000 points, but that's not really a big issue.

Also of note is that i have a big box of marine models from an old crapily painted 4000 point marine army that i am stripping and reusing. This will limit my selection somewhat as i want to reuse as many of these models as possible. (many models are wrecked or being reserved for a different themed army in the future. A hint is that my Sons of Medusa won't require 20+ jump packs but these guys will). I even started painting a small amount of them in the army colours years and years ago but never got anywhere with it.

HQ selections

Well I have a terminator captain, hes even painted quite well (not by me) in the army colours. There is only one problem. Hes an old model and the new terminators make him look like a midget. In fact all the old terminators look tiny these days so that's two squads from the old army going into the box of the damned.

So a new HQ is required, and it's pretty obvious who its going to be. A master of the forge is a no brainer for an army of technophiles. So I look up the master of the forge and i see he can have the servo harness or a conversion beamer. Seeing as started playing Warhammer 40,000 back in the rogue trader days I had to have the conversion beamer.  I then made a startling discovery

The master can carry the conversion beamer on a bike.

WTF? A bike mounted conversion beamer, that's just insane. A few Google image searches later and I found people had done just that. Amazing!

Also, bikes can look hot in the Sons of Medusa colour scheme as shown here.

Someone probably paid that hooters girl to sit on his bike so he could get this photo, a bit sad really. But the bike looks cool!

Any way I dug  into my pile of spare parts and found an attack bike to use as a basis for this model, HUZZAH!

Troops selections

Marines are not blessed with a great variety of selections, it's scouts or tactical marines. Digging through my box of models I find i have 15 scouts, at least 20 tactical marines, and a plethora of heavy weapons. That's very good.

I also found that games workshop sells an Iron Hands tactical squad complete with bionic bits

One credit card transaction later and these bad boys are on their way to me.

I also have a few techmarine models and decide to make these guys my squad sergeants (I may order some more for the other squads as well)

I'm looking at 2-3 Tactical squads and possibly a scout squad with sniper rifles. Close combat scouts don't really fit the theme of this army to well, but i really would like some variety in my troop choices and cloaked snipers look like a good option. A rhino or two would help out here as well. (the box of the damned contains at least 3 old rhinos)

Fast Attack selections

This army isn't one I imagine will use a lot of land speeders, scout bikes, or assault troops. It's not really the flavour I'm going for. (Also, the assault marines are set aside for another project and my land speeders are broken)

Digging through my box of marines (The good box, not the damned box) I find a Bike squad. Now normally I wouldn't think a bike squad would be 100% thematic with this army, until i remember my master of the forge is on a bike. He really needs a escort squad and the idea of bionic bikers has a certain amount of appeal. Also, I have the models.

No idea what to do with conversions at this stage, but i'll think of something to make them look like cyber bikers from a post apocalyptic future

Dreadnoughts totally rock

First things first, the Master of the forge allows me to take dreadnoughts as Elites and Heavy support. Looking in my box i find 4 metal dreadnoughts and think "BRILLIANT I'LL FIELD THEM ALL!"

Then i realize a few things.

One, that those dreadnoughts include a Furioso (can't field it) a Chaos dreadnought (too disloyal) and Bjorn the fell handed (too specific)

and two, I really really really want an Ironclad Dreadnought in this army

Look at this bad boy. If anything screams "I MUST BE IN AN IRON HANDS ARMY' it's this guy right here.

Steam powered seismic hammer that looks like an industrial mining tool? YES SIR!

So I settle on using my current Lascannon metal dready, buying an Ironclad and possibly another dready or two.

Other Elites

Fitting with the technophile theme I decide to go with a Sternguard squad as an elites choice. The idea of custom ammunition, high-tech bolter variants and combi-weapons really fits well.

I'll make sure they have lots of bionics to show their veteran nature and mount them in a razorback.

Heavy Support

Well, the obvious selection in the heavy support section is obvious.

A techmarine armed with a giant seismic death cannon..... it's almost as though this unit was designed with this army in mind. Gentlemen, I present the Thunder Fire Cannon

Now apparently these aren't out in finecast yet, and the metal ones are a pain to put together..... but hes so dam cool. I will certainly add one in. But that might be later on in the project.

The other selections are more contentious

I have a lot of heavy weapons guys, enough for 2 Devastator squads. I'm torn between having a dedicated Devastator squad or painting them so they can swap in and out of the tactical squads as optional weapons.

Devastators are very expensive points wise to field as a dedicated squad and at that cost it limits what else I can field. A compromise could be fielding a small heavy bolter equipped squad and putting the lascannons and plasma cannons in the tactical squads.

I'm also considering a vindicator, I have one currently, painted in the army colours but its an old model and the pain job is just terrible. But it served me well in the past and the new model is totally boss.

And of course, I can field Dreadnoughts in this slot as well. So many choices, if only dreadys were troops :)

Sons of Medusa – It ain’t easy being green

Alrighty, so the current project is a Sons of Medusa army for Warhammer 40,000

I’m already under way but I thought I would outline why I chose these guys.

I chose them for one reason and one reason only, that amazing shade of bright green.

Oh sure they have some cool fluff and some back story but none of that was around when i initially wanted a Sons of Medusa army (not long after the release of the 3rd edition space marines codex).

Seriously, that green is just that compelling.

Ok, so i clearly have a thing for bright colours, but beneath that shockingly garish exterior beats the heart of an Iron Hands successor chapter.

Now the Iron hands haven’t been given enough love in my view. They diverge significantly from the codex astartes, operate in war clans instead of companies and have close ties with the mechanicum. They also have a thing for ritual self mutilation and replacing flesh with technology.

So creepy technophiles with masochistic tendencies, that’s definitely something to work with.

According to the back story the Iron Hands are from Medusa and during some civil disorder in the mechanicum the Iron Hands split over ideological views. The majority stayed Iron Hands and the rest left to become the Sons of Medusa trading in their jet black armour for some super green stuff in the process.

Talk about teenage rebellion, “screw you mum and dad, im not gonna wear black, I’M GETTING A LIME GREEN SUIT”

So we end up with an off shoot of the Iron Hands, which seems to have kept similar ideology (Machine good, Warclans, Codex bad,  Techmarines good).

I will leave the exact army build discussion for another post, this is just answering the question “Why Sons of Medusa”

But I will tell you what to expect

1. Bionics
2. Techmarines
3. Dreadnoughts
4. A master of the forge
5. GREEN! And lots of it!

I will show you how i plan to paint them however.  The Bolter and chainsword peeps have a handy tool called space marine painter, give it a go

Seriously, its so fun playing around with this thing.

Thats the core look, the bright green on the armour, white helmets, red eyes, white eagle.

The shoulder pads and weapons will probably change depending on the squad. Veterans will have some red to show their link to the mechanicum.