A surprise from Blight Wheel!

Last week I received a surprise package from Blight Wheel Miniatures (a cool European outfit that I've mentioned a few times before). Laurent had sent me a copy of his brand new (currently-titled) Military Truck - a six-wheeled flatbed transporter that is based very much on the conversion I did many years ago. It was also sculpted by another friend of mine, which is very cool. I haven't had a chance to put it together (the painted version above is from the Blight Wheel blog post, here).

Laurent also sent me a couple of surprise pieces (seen below). Two sprues with torsos - all ten torsos in rough and ready armor plates with various icons of allegiance attached.

And a sprue of five heads on various helmets and mempo masks, with optional horns.

I couldn't resit putting at least one guy together, combining a head and torso from the batch with a set of arms and legs from Victoria Miniatures. Without the arms (above) to see the breastplate.

And with the arms to see it all ready to go.

He's finished off with a backpack and rebreather hose from Dragon Forge Design - I sculpted those backpacks!

I hope you like the potential of these kits - get out there and support your favorite manufacturers of cool stuff : )

Daemon Engines? Excellent choice!

A long time ago (or so it seems) I built this Stalk Tank to fight alongside my Blood Pact army. I've always had the desire to build another one, but have lacked the time required. There also wasn't really a pressing need or an easy way to integrate them into a "proper list".

But now 6th Edition has brought along Allies, and the Chaos Space Marine codex has brought some tasty new Daemon Engines. I think I might have to start bulking out the Blood Pact.

First up, I have a Mantis Tank to put together. It was sent to me by my friend Laurent of Blight Wheel Miniatures. It was designed by one of my favorite sculptors (and new addition to the Citadel stable), Morback! Obviously this saves me a great deal of hassle in building one myself, which means I can get stuck into the painting : )

If you are interested in picking up a Mantis Tank you can buy them online here.

Photos of Forgefiend and Maulerfiend from the GW website, used without permission.

I'm also loving the two new plastic Daemon Engines from today's GW releases. I think one of each of the Fiends will do nicely.

Photo of Blight Drone from the FW website, used without permission.

I have two Blight Drones from back in the day, one of which is already painted. This seems like a great time to get the other one painted up too.

Photo of Helbrute from the GW website, used without permission.

And finally, I now have two Helbrutes. Perhaps they'd do well supporting my Blood Pact infantry too?

Lots of great Daemon Engine fun on the way. It'll take some time, but hopefully it'll be worth the wait.

Cheers

Dave

PS. I have no idea if they'll actually be any good in the game, I don't have my Codex:CSM yet, but I'm sure I'll enjoy the building and painting part ; )

The Artillery Train of Nuln (Part 6)

Before I jump into this post about my ongoing Artillery Train project, I want to share with you a revelation that I had last night while watching a classic sci-fi movie, Dune. The David Lynch movie of 1983 was one of the first I was able to see on the big screen, and a lot of it has stuck with me over the years. Seeing it again last night was very cool, and one line in particular struck a chard with me (in regards to my blogging). Now, to paraphrase Gurney Haleck poorly, "Not in the mood? Mood? Mood is a thing for cattle and blogging"

What do I mean by this? Well last week I was pretty psyched to get a few blog posts up, show you folks what I'd been working on, and so forth. There was a post on Monday, another on Tuesday, and a third on Wednesday. I was about to bang out another post for Thursday when I noticed my Wednesday post had disappeared, along with a few comments. WTF? As many of you know, Blogger had some kind of issue last week that could only be solved by pulling 30 hours worth of posts and comments. I'm not sure what that issue was, or even if I'd understand it if I was told. All I know is that it took the wind out of my sails, left me "not in the mood". So you've had to wait until now to see what I've been up to.

Let's kick off by pointing out the very cool model above, part of the new range of models brought to the world by Laurent of Blight Wheel Miniatures. I've mentioned Blight Wheel before. They are the ones who produced the cool vehicles I showed you in this post. Take a look at their site, and make sure you let Laurent know what you think of his range.

And now, on to the Artillery Train of Nuln. Here you can see the first of my new Handgunner units completed. I have another of this style primed and ready for paint. Then it's on to the two units of Nuln Ironsides. The models are very nice, crisp, characterful sculpts, and I'm looking forward to getting some paint on them soon.

Back rank.

Front rank.

Above you can see the progression on my first cannon base. I've been inspired by a number of historical wargaming artillery bases I've seen recently, so I hope to tell a story with the artillery bases for this army. Below you can see the cannon. I've chosen to paint the gun carriage with Tau Sept Ochre, one of the accent colors I'm using in my force. I like the muted tone that almost looks like it could be unpainted wood (with a great yellow tinge to it to offset the dark metal of the fittings).

And here is the first artillery base I started on, the Helstorm Rocket battery. You can see the "story" arrangement here. Not long and I'll have this finished up completely.

In my first few games, the Helstorm did not treat me well. However, on Tuesday night, while fighting against Jake's Skaven, it did manage to take out over half a unit of Plague Monks in the first turn, so it can't be all bad.

Finally, here's a look at the Battle Standard Bearer I've assembled for the army. I know he technically can't have that pistol, but I think it looks good and fits with the blackpowder theme of the army (as does the crazy clockwork cherub).

Cheers

Dave

Wait a minute Mr Postman!

The last couple of weeks have been fun on the "What's the postman going to deliver today?" front, with a few orders turning up, along with my copies of WI281 : )

First off I'll show you some stuff from Secret Weapon Miniatures. Earlier in the month I ordered some Raphael 8404 from misterjustin, along with some of is backpacks. You can see the three different types of packs below going onto the next batch of Tanith I'm working on.

From left to right you can see the small backpack, the large backpack, and the comms backpack.

They're all very nice, and will mix in well amongst the various GW packs I'll also be using.

Nice guy that he is, misterjustin also threw in a few of his very cool Oni Mask heads. Perhaps I'll have to use them for some Blood Pact models later this year? Now if someone just made backpacks like the ones I modeled for my Pact it would be much easier.

Last week I also received my order from Victoria Lamb Miniatures, in Australia. I first met Victoria many, many years ago when I lived in Adelaide, opening up the first GW store in South Australia. She's a lovely lady and one hell of a creative person. If you've got a bit of time, make sure you trawl through her website. Lots of great stuff there.

Along with the conversion parts for 45 Highlander Guardsmen, I also ordered her fantastic Imperial Noble and Billy Bagshot (Halfling Gunslinger) models. You can see the first model assembled below. I think these models will be modeled and used as an assault platoon of veterans for my Genswick army.

The final package to arrive this week was from a fledgling mini company in France. I've been emailing back and forth of the last six months or so with a former colleague who has been doing some wonderful scratchbuilding work. This work is about to see the light of day as Blight Wheel Miniatures edge ever closer to getting their webstore up and running (around late March I believe, I'll let you know once I know). Laurent is slowing building an interesting inventory for a post-apocalyptic universe. I'm looking forward to seeing more from them.

Thanks to my friendship with Stephane, Laurent was able to sell me a few early casts of the Staghound Mk4. The models are very cool, a little smaller than I was expecting, so I think I'll use them as Centaur stand-ins for my Blood Pact and fill them with nasty vets! The casts are incredibly crisp, and look like they'll be a real treat to work with.

Lots of fun on the horizon with all these great kits : )

Cheers

Dave