HERESY - Death Guard Moritat

It has taken me a little while to get him finished, but my DeathGuard Moritat is finally ready to take the field. I know that the "twin plasma pistol devastation" is a thing of the past, but I still love the gunslinger look the paired pistols gives him.

Here's a quick size comparison. My Moritat stands tall, very tall.

And a quick reminder of what he looked like pre-paint.

HERESY! - Death Guard Contemptor finally complete!

It has been a while, but since I finished the Warlord, I've gone back and taken a closer look at what I need to work on for my Death Guard. This Contemptor Dreadnought has been sitting on my painting table for a little over TWO years! I've painted on it here and there, so it was a relatively simple matter to finish it up. Here's a reminder of what it looked like before paint.

With another contempt packing twin Kheres assault cannons, I thought it might be a good idea to create something not quite as fierce, but with a bit of a punch. Multi-melta and a Power Fist with heavy flamer.

I hope you like him : )

Cheers
Dave

Behind those shields, boys!

You'll notice a bit of a theme over the next few months in my personal hobby posts. I'll be switching gears back and forth between building and painting units for either: a) my Death Guard, b) my Mechanicum, and c) my Solar Auxilia. The theme will, of course, be the Horus Heresy era.

Anyway, here are a the first ten of my Breacher squad that I managed to complete last weekend. I have another nine assembled, I just need to get my hands on one more, possibly the FW Breacher Marine event special (if anyone has a spare).

And I have finally put together a squad of Heavy Support Death Guard rocking the Volkite Culverins. Their Heavy 4 firepower and Deflagrate special rule will make them especially dangerous against lightly armored opponents : )

Cheers
Dave

Charity efforts, an update. And a Death Guard Moritat.

Well, let's get the Moritat out of the way. I've only faced one of these guys in my handful of 30K games. It was at the Old Line Massacre back in June, and the Night Lords Moritat armed with two plasma pistols took out my Arch Magos Prime in a single round of shooting. Impressive to say the least. Many online will decry this particular loadout, and many gamers have banned it from play in their gaming groups. Is it a nasty combination? Yes. Will I get t use it all that often? Not really. Did I just want to model a BIG guy for my Death Guard? You betcha.

In the photo above he's standing next to one of my recently finished Breachers, both are on Dragon Forge bases.

The last two years I've participated in the charity activity that is Movember, growing a mustache to both raise awareness of men's health issues, and money for research into same. This year I have a lot going on, and couldn't divert energy away to keep up with the regular promotion required to make such an endeavor a success. So, I won't be growing a mo this year. Instead, I urge you to check out the page of my friends Brien and Chris who'll be rocking the 'stache all month long!

To make sure I'm still giving this November, I'll be donating these two units of 15mm American Civil War models to the Toys For Tots auction being run by the Wednesday Night Painting Group at Fall-In this coming weekend. Shawn and the team have been running this for a number of years now, and each year it continues to grow. If you are in the market for 15mm ACW units and are going to Fall-In, please stop by the Silent Auction and put in the winning bid ; )

Finally I can now announce that, following the success of the 2014 NOVA Open Charitable Foundation activities, I've been invited to join the board of the NOCF. Last night I attended my first board meeting, and I am happy to say that we'll be growing the offering of the raffles and auctions and other activities. As soon as our plans are locked down we'll start to roll out the good news : )

Have a great Wednesday, everyone!

Cheers
Dave

A quick tease, and Kickstarters arrive!

I have a few other things on deck at the moment, but I thought I'd show you two WIPs for my Death Guard. The one on the right is my second Contemptor (who will be wielding a multi-melta and a power fist), and the guy on the left needs a couple of plasma pistols ; )

Anyway, on to the next thing. Three Kickstarters that I've backed over the last 18 months all delivered this month. Mars Attacks from Mantic and Games & Gears' brush sets were the first two to arrive (more on these later). Today, it was these two snazzy boxes from the Secret Weapon Tablescapes Kickstarter. Of course I haven't had the chance to get any paint on them yet, but my daughter was able to help me out by designing the layout you see below. The compression clips were easy to snap into the tiles, and held them together really well.

It's always a great feeling when you know you've been able to help a great company afford to create such a cool product : )

Cheers
Dave

Death Guard - Some old school reinforcements and some new models.

While searching around for some Ogre bits a few weeks ago, I stumbled on a handful of old school Rhino-based vehicles. Some were missing parts after years of neglect, others had never seen paint (beyond their black primer coat), so I decided to resurrect them as reinforcements for my Heresy-era Death Guard. I little scraping here and flipping there and I'd managed to salvage the four you see above. The two blue vehicles were originally part of the Crimson Fist Space Marine army that I built in 1997, that graced the back cover of White Dwarf sometime in 1998 (I think). I had a few hatches handy, but hot enough exhausts to replace the damaged ones. I decided to replace all of the exhaust tops with plastic tubing to tie them in with the current Forgeworld homage to this old transport.

Since this photo, they've all been primed and are awaiting a session with the airbrush (which is in turn waiting for me to complete the assembly on my Spartan).

But enough of the old school stuff, here are a few photos of some shiny new models I've assembled using some of the great new parts from Victoria Miniatures!

First up is a trooper using a head, arms, and legs from the Arcadian kit, and the all new Cloaked torso from the Borderworld Rangers kit. Despite being planned for a different set of legs, this particular cloak falls wonderfully over this set of advancing legs. This guy would make a great stand-in for a Vervunhive recruit to Gaunt's Ghosts!

I love breaching shields like this (I currently have 20 for my Death Guard!). Although there aren't any immediately obvious analogs for the shields in my Imperial Guard collection, I thought it would look cool on the arm of of this Scion. For close-quarters action I switched out his laspistol for the great compact stub-pistol. I love it!

And finally, I have decided to use my already-painted Vostroyans to represent a Solar Auxilia force. I have pulled out the models armed with lasguns to form three different 20-man lasrifle sections. This has left a few heavy weapons teams awaiting an indication from Forgeworld on how they'll fit into the new list. A search for spare Vostroyan models, coupled with the arrival of the package from Victoria Miniatures, lead to this lascannon team. I'm excited to get my hands on some more : )

Cheers
Dave

Calling in the Support!

I finally managed to get this guy wrapped up. He's been sitting on the edge of my desk for the last few weeks, biding his time, unsure of when he was going to slip into the queue. Now, for my larger games of 30K, I have another way for my Death Guard to bring down some pretty nice damage.

I love the wonderfully executed homage to the original, Rogue Trader-era, communications Space Marine. This is the right way to update a model.

And don't forget you have just over 72 hours to purchase your raffle tickets for the NOVA Open Charitable Foundation 2014 army projects. To by tickets for the Ultramarine army, click on the image above. To buy tickets for the Tyranids, click on the image below. To buy tickets for the other armies, click HERE.

All the best to those who have supported the projects this year!

Horus Heresy - Death Guard Rapier complete... and all the bits you could want!

I have finally completed the painting on the Death Guard Rapier. I first posted about this little find (and subsequent kit bash) back in February. Where did the time go? Do you have a few hours to sit and listen? ; )

Anyway, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, although the weathering powders look a little too orange in these shots.

Here's a link to the original post, some six months ago.

Additionally, my mate Alex is selling off the last of his GW Bitz inventory from his old business (Battleroad Games & Hobbies). He is doing it in typical Alex fashion - all or nothing. But this means you get a great chance to walk away with 4.5 pounds (just over 2 kilograms) of Warhammer and 40K bits. Enough to keep you and all your buddies converting for years (possibly decades) to come!

You can find a link to his eBay auction HERE.

Next up? My very first trip to GenCon!!!

Cheers
Dave

Horus Heresy - Death Guard characters (and my 500th post!)

I managed to polish of a few more Death Guard over the holiday weekend. These three Apothecaries that will sit nicely among my big squads, or I can pick one of them to act as a Primaris Medicae (probably the one in the middle with the lovely servo skull).

And my Centurion (Praetor in larger games) is finished up too. I'm very happy with the result. I'll get to use him this week in a 1,000 point game : )

Additionally, I've just discovered that this post will be number 500! That's quite a lot of posts, even over the course of five and a half years. An average of 1.8 posts per week.

Anyway, expect a few more posts this week ; )

Cheers
Dave

Horus Heresy - more WIP Death Guard

I have the first of two Heavy Support Squads complete now, my lascannon-toting buddies : )
It has been such a long time since I fielded the first three guys, as part of three different squads back when we were forced to use the Space Marine or Chaos Space Marine codices.

Although the Death Guard don't really go in for ornamentation, I figured it would be alright if I added a little Devastator insignia to their right shoulder pads.

My gaming group's little Kill Zone campaign is escalating next session, to games of 1,000 points. I figured it might be important to get my army leader painted up. Not sure if I'll run him as a Praetor or Consul for the 1,000 point games.

These Apothecaries are also underway : )

Cheers
Dave

Horus Heresy - WIP Death Guard

Just a quick one today, I managed to get in 90 minutes of airbrushing time on the weekend. The result?

Basecoats and two highlights on 40+ models to expand my HH Death Guard army. First up on deck are my Heavy Support squads (one with 5 lascannons and another with 5 missile launchers). Then it's on to some more detailed fun stuff : )

Cheers
Dave

Horus Heresy - Look at what I found!

As I was doing some cleaning up/rearranging in my office the other day, I stumbled across this old Rapier Laser Destroyer. It may look at bit odd, but that's a layer of black ink over the top of the bare metal. It must, therefore, have been used in the GW Promotions studio in the US at some point foraMail Order catalog or something similar. My, how the times have changed.

Anyway, I never really had any plans to add a Rapier to my collection, but when one is dropped in your lap...

The two crew are kitbashed from various FW and plastic parts, and I think they turned out pretty well.

In addition to assembling the Rapier crew (and sticking the Rapier on a base), I built these five Tactical support Squad troopers, all with Volkite calivers. As a typical Imperial Guard player, I really like the idea of any weapon that causes automatic hits. Put that same weapon in the hands of someone with BS4 and I'm sold : )

Cheers
Dave

Horus Heresy - Second Contemptor assembled

I've finally had a chance to assemble the second Contemptor Dread for my Death Guard. This one is carrying a multi-melta and dreadnought close combat weapon (with heavy flamer). I wanted to give this  guy a proper hunched feel, as though he's being very precise with his shot placement.

Hope you like him : )

Cheers
Dave

Horus Heresy - Heavy Support Squads

Back when I first put together my Death Guard (for use at AdeptiCon 2007), I was using the Space Marine Codex of the time. My Tactical squads each had a lascannon-toting Marine (seen in the back row above). I decided now was the time to pick up a few new lascannons and missile launchers (below) from Forgeworld to round out two Heavy Support squads.

Additionally, I took a few old plastic parts and new resin legs and backpacks to build three Death Guard Apothecaries. I've decided to go with Black Templar torsos, the tabards will be painted in a deep red. Should look pretty cool against the green of the shoulder pads.

Cheers
Dave

Horus Heresy - Terminator Refurb

With the success of my Tactical squad refurb, I figured I'd try it out on the Terminators I built seven years ago. These took standard Terminators and added a few details here and there in an effort to create what would later become Cataphractii. The broad, curved pauldrons, the peturges at the shoulder, and the enhanced chest plate/gorget. Anyway, I think they turned out nicely (Note: the assault cannon will be used as a reaper autocannon).

I've also put up a post on the Guns Of April blog, showing off my latest French Infantry. Check it out, I hope you like them. : )

Cheers
Dave