Taurox 8 Wheeler WiP

I promised myself Eldar were next. I'd finish the Dark Angels, sell the Grey Knights and redo all my old, beloved 'Dar.

Then GW took it upon themselves to release the Knight Titan and I had to have one. That was the quickest I've ever bought-built-painted something to finish ever. I love it, I'll be getting another. But now onto Eldar...

Then GW took it upon themselves to release Scions and the Militarum Tempestus. I would resist. No more distractions from my one true love of 40K. Eldar time!

THEN my friend gave me some Scions because I spent he whole of the Friday at Throne of Skulls helping him paint his Tau. Bugger. Now I had Scions I might as well have a Taurox right? Right??

From The Chopping Board - Darkshroud Progress

I've been adding little bits and bobs to the bikers this week and finishing off the last few riders. It's not the most exciting for photo's so I'll show them when it's time to paint.

Yesterday I went back to working on the Darkshroud. I'd started working on it a few weeks ago and then put it to one side as I couldn't decide quite what to do with it.

Whole bunch of pictures after the jump...

Ravenwing Building Progress

My work bench has been in full production mode this last week or so.

Stacks of sprues. Two trays (and a frisbee) full of various bits and parts. Bikes pulled apart by hand. Thumbs sliced apart by knife.

You get the idea.

I came to a point of indecision with the Darkshroud - I think I'm going to entirely rebuild the front turret as part of the body. I put it to one side so I can come back to it after sourcing some parts and having thought about it a lot.

In the mean time I've been doing all the tedious jobs involved with this hobby - scraping flash lines and drilling bolter barrels (two different diameter drills per barrel). You know the stuff.

Today I started on the Command Squad which will be five men with the grenade launcher and banner option built as well making 6 total. You can see where I'm up to in the top picture. Aside from that I've added a few slightly different riders to break up the standard rather static pose. Here's a couple of them for now:

This Sgt is a super simple bit swap with a head from the Drakshroud and a Grey Knight hand. I also doubled up his wing banner things on the bike to bring it in line with the Dark Vengeance Sgt.

This guy is using one of the very old Dark Angel upgrade pieces (I think from early-ish 3rd edition?).

This chap is the rider from the Heresy era jetbike which I converted into Sammael (see last post). He didn't fit the bike too well so he needed leaning right forward to reach the handlebars and is pinned at each joint.

Lastly here's one of two attack bikes. This is the old metal-plastic hybrid model and I lost the gunner and used the melta for the old converted Stormraven. The old version like this had the gun on the stand rather than the rail so I could have built it all but decided to have a little fun instead. 

Initially the gunner was going to be stepping from the sidecar but it looked like he's kneeling. Not cool. So then I thought 'why would he be not staying sat down?' well if his driver is dead leaving him a sitting duck of course.

So I killed the rider. 

Open hand from the Sang Guard kit, straight bolt pistol arm, drill holes. Job done. His other hand has been blown off but still dangles from the handlebar! I showed a few friends this on Facebook and they said I had to play it as single wound, no +1 toughness (as he's off the bike) and either no move or always difficult terrain. I said 'hahaha, no'. 

I'll be making a downed biker for one of the other squad too. I also have a couple of (hopefully) cool flamer conversions on their way too. Pics of all that soon.

See you all soon!

Dark Angels Mk.II - Ravenwing & A Little Deathwing

Table top::most of new army
Table below: so many more bits to add!

Hi All,

I'm finally getting back into the hobby swing of things here at the Grotto. After my 'quick' Deathwing project ground to a halt over the last couple of months I've finally had another couple of games.

Getting the dice back rolling is always a good boost to anything gathering dust on the work bench.

With a mixed bag of results under my belt from the Deathwing I'd built up it's time to take a step back and see what I can change with plenty of time before ToS rolls round in November.  

The gist of it is - add more bikes!

After the break check out where I'm at with a few conversions and general plans...

From The Chopping Broard - Cataphractii Deathwing Knights

Hey folks.

I'm keeping this brief today as I really, really need to go eat, but I know I won't have chance to post after food tonight or over the Easter weekend.

So, we went to Throne of Skulls. I got my arse kicked 4 out of 5 games. Kinda expected. Two losses were close (the kind I'd have won if the game hadn't ended on turn 5), two I got tabled. One I won. I had a good weekend but I'll leave it there before I start complaining to make myself feel better!

While there I (of course) bought some stuff I really didn't need from Forgeworld - Cataphractii Terminators and a Scimitar Jetbike:

The Scimitar is destined to become my own version of Samael, I have quite a bit of work planned for that model, though it'l be well after I start painting the Deathwing.

As for the fancy Terminators they're in the process of becoming my Deathwing Knights. I've not done much in the way of WiP but will do a post on how I built them another time. For now, just a quick blu-tac mock up will have to do for you. I'm THAT hungry!

Hope you like the look of them, more to come after the weekend hopefully. Happy Easter :)

Left Handed Frag Cannon

I know, I know - not the promised painting progress. Instead of painting one thing a day I'm doing bits of everything all at once so there's not yet much to show.

What I have done inbetween layers drying/whilst watching the first Grand Prix of the season is fit my Furioso with a Frag Cannon.

His unipue pose required it to be on the wrong side though - here's how I made it work...

Deathwing Build: Belial x 3 Done

Good morning (it's just after 1am in the UK). Just a very quick post tonight as I just finished gluing a whole bunch of Terminators including all three variants of Belial.

While I don't dislike the original model of Belial (holding is sword up) I do think he's a little too static in the legs and face for that. He needs to be striding forward or shouting...anything better than silently waving his sword in the air.

I gave the static body the Thunder Hammer and Storm shield combo. For the other two I used spare matching torso, head and legs from two of the Deathwing command sets. One got he resin arms, the sword now pointing down with him looking down the blade (at his defeated foe). The other is all plastic kitbash, he just look tear someone apart.

With the rest I have 15 of 20 regular Terminators done and dusted. The Land Raider is also built. 5 more Termies, the 6 bikes and 2 attack bikes by Sunday I'm hoping...

From The Chopping Board - Articulating a Dreadnought: Build Finished

Two posts below this, there's the first half of this article, so go read that first if you like (and haven't already).

Done that? Right, let's crack on...

From The Chopping Board - Articulating a Dreadnought Part 1

Hey folks.

Regular service of chopping up things and making them a little different resumes! I've been a bit 'meh' about all my projects recently, having stared a cool Ork conversion (but not bothered to finish), purchased and built and Eldar War Wlaker (but not bothered to paint) and dabbled with a couple of small, insignificant projects. None have held my attention for more than a couple of days.

Then, last week, I played a 1,500pt game vs my friends new GK army. All went well (I won 14-1) but I took two Dread's, one being my old metal Furioso. The thing weighed a ton! It didn't come apart to fit in my army bag! It looks dated!

Something had to be done...

From The Chopping Board - Easy Vendetta Conversion

It's been a while since I did one of the ever popular From The Chopping board posts.

Along with two friends I'm heading back to Throne of Skulls at Warhammer World next month. Imperial Guard allies are along for the ride with the Angels Sanguine with a Vendetta included in their number.

I've been busy digging out all my old metal Guard guys, it'll probably be the next post later in the week as I start to strip and re-paint them. For now, here's a nice, simple way of getting a cool looking (I think) Vendetta.

From The Chopping Board - Scavenged Devastators

Heading to Throne of Skulls in April has made me think a bit about my force selection as, in recent months, there ain't be too much winning going on!

The Scout snipers I run serve little purpose in games apart from sitting round the back of the table and holding an objective before they die relatively easily.

I decided to fit in some (hopefully) more effective ranged shooting and, at the same time, increase my anti-tank ability - both of which I'm currently lacking in my list. The cheapest way to do this was with missile launcher armed Devastators. The cheapest way to afford them however was not to have to buy the launchers, which go for anything between £4 and £8 each. Here's the results of a very successful bits box raid last week...

From The Chopping Board - True/Art Scale Marine

Yesterday I posted my month of Hobby Limbo and included a shot of a few components for a True Scale/Art Scale (anyone know the difference?) Marine.

Click on to read more with some better detail shots...

Jan & Feb - Hobby Limbo

We're already in February, January whizzed by yet I've been so busy NYE seems so long ago!

My new job has kept me pretty busy since Christmas so I've been the model equivalent of Jack of all trades, master of none.

The morbid picture above there is from the game Limbo, it's the best I could do to tie it in with the title!

Anyway, as ever, after the break there's plenty of catch up pictures of the bit and bobs I've been up to.

From The Chopping Board - Cheap Ork Shoota Boyz!

They're cheap 6 point models, you probably want about 90 of them. You go to the shop. Can I have 90 Ork boys please? Sure, that's £162 please.

Suddenly not so cheap.

Black Reach provides Slugga Boys for us all but what about the Shoota Boys? They need love too!

Here's how you can cheaply, easily and effectively do Ork boys with Shootas for half that price.

From The Chopping Board - Grey Knight Brotherhood Champion Conversion

In an attempt to get some direction back into my 'hobby time' here's the first of my catch up articles - A converted model for the Grey Knight Brotherhood Champion.

Read on dear visitor, read on...

From The Chopping Board - Librarian Kit Bash

With the release of the new Grey Knight plastic models, and more importantly the psychic hooded bodies and Nemsis Force Staff (Warding staff...what ever) parts it was time to see what I could make from that and a couple of other boxes. Namely my first ever Space Marine Librarian and Honour Guard. This post will focus on the former, sometime this week I'll post about the latter.

Stormraven Part 4: Built (An Overdue Update)

As everyone who knows 40k will already be aware the 'proper' Stormraven model came out last month and made me realise I'd failed to update the progress of my own scratch buit 'Raven I started last year. Well the build's finished and it's pretty much painted, here's the last build update.

From the Chopping Board - Chaplain and BA Character Kit Bash

Back in July I did a post called 'Chopping Board Teaser'. It was essentially a bit of a space filler, a way around 'writers block'...i.e at the time I didn't have too much to post so I took pictures of lots of little bits and filed a post with them!

To this day it is my most viewed post on this blog...

Stormraven Part 3.5

A mini update of the days progress - almost complete!

Stormraven Part 3

A short update of progress on the Stormraven. Things are starting to come together...