Realms of Chaos divide!

I really do not like square bases.  I realised my army of vintage chaos figures are just going to sit on the shelf unless I did something about it.  Inspired by Donvoss of Berlins brilliant 6 man warbands for Realm Of Chaos recently posted here on Lead Adventure I decided to move it across to 30mm round bases for Skulldred.  You can see my rant about how brilliant I am finding my new bases in previous posts.

Daves 'Eavy Meddlers -Skulldred Warband
Converted citadel warriors, Chaos Champion

Remember this conversion?  The spikey club (aka Dil-dorr- wrecker of retreats) unfortunately was just not strong enough to stay on such a heavy model, so I am replacing it with a suitable metal weapon from Reaper minis.  Needs some milliput to form a rigid support and perhaps a chain to tie it all together.

Original Chaos Warrior - Big Bertha conversion

The other conversion is just a headswap- taking the modern chaos sorcerer head and situating it on an old chaos warrior and dressing the join up a bit.  Think I will add some severed heads to that one to really tighten the look up.

The brilliant think about skirmish gaming is you really get to focus on your individual models more.  Huge armies look great, but a skirmish warband is real narrative delight.  With Skulldred, I am focusing on making a game that can play smoothly with around 20 figures per side.

Asgard, Hasslefree, Rarities and my new 30mm Ply Bases

I got a few hours to base up and partially paint Hasslefree minis Svala and dynamic kaylee-For one of my Skulldred demo game warbands (aka the orange team!).  Kev White, as usual, rocks my socks with two awesome figures, understated details, fluid, dynamic and paintable as heckaroonie on a stick.  Yep, well worth your cash - get em here.

Hasslefree Svala and Kaylee (converted) WIP paint jobs

I lightly converted Kaylee, shaving off her chaos symbol and replacing it with a grinning monster face, as well as adding extra fabric to her arms to give more space for her team colours.  All this was done with greenstuff.  I then decked out her base with mushrooms, creepers and leaves to make use of all the new space on my BRAND NEW BASES!!!!

So the story with my bases is that I really needed some extra room around my figures so they dont bump up against each other in gameplay.  I also like decorating them, so having the extra room is great.  I made a bunch of lipped deep dish bases, since I hate the way you cannot pick up lipped bases, but have had issues with leeching oils through the resin- clearly my resin is out of date :(
I decided to try out some laser cut 30mm ply discs and you know, I love them!  I am sorely tempted to move my whole collection across to them now.
What can I say?  Cheap, roomy, easy to pick up, easy to modify, light, have a little bounce to protect the figure, soak black paint up so they chip black, and look the business.  At 30mm, they are the exact same footprint as Malifaux or Warmachine bases, but without the annoying lip.  You know, I am totally sold on this.  Very surprised, considering my experience with plywood bases for HotT has been less than spectacular.

Converted Hasslefree Kaylee framed with some Asgard gems- Lizard man and Poisonous Stalker
Kaylee's shield sculpted by me.  All Work in progress paint jobs.

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Kaylee vs. Lizardman wips - playin' Skulldred, naturally!
The lizardmans pokerchip base gives me room to sculpt a torn apart
adventurer using procreate.

 The figures shown are all part way through painting, really needing neatening up and a bit more shading.  The next ones are even more WIP...

Citadel WF6 Aggressive Aardvark, LE-4 The Black Dwarf and DL2 Hobgoblin shaman
Primed and ready to be drooled over.

So you can see the raw wooden bases onto which I have mounted some dead sexy rare citadel gems- including the 'other' black dwarf (see my earlier posts for the Jes Goodwin masterpiece from Asgard).

The only pain with the ply bases is that the laser scoring around the edge needs sanding off.  I found if you use two grits- course to get the lines off and a really fine to polish it really shiney, it looks just like plastic once painted.  Using a diluted chaos black wash allowed the paint to soak in- making the base absorb the paint deeply and so it chips to black- which will keep my collection looking a little less played with hopefully.  The underside, being perfectly flat, also looks nice when you flip a model on its side too- no ugly slottabase grooves.


I do worry about acids from sap in the plywood leeching into the model and causing leadrot.  A few really old models I have prised off wooden bases show damage where they contact the wood.  I have kept a thin layer of epoxy around the figures to protect them, and sealed the surface with superglue here and there.  That ought'a hold it.


I think its about time citadel allowed 30mm bases for 40k- the models have scale creep'ed to a point where they could really do with the extra stability and protection.  Don't you agree?

Kill Team Charlie recruits

Kill Team Charlie - Reaper Chronoscope bot, Hasslefree female marine
Citadel C100 space marines and Rogue Trader Adventurers Assasin

Okay, so my favourite project just got a shot in the arm after this weeks Stripathon.  Here is a family pic of the team, missing the six dudes rocking out in a jar of dettol right now.  Yay.  More scrubbing.

C100 ultra rare Female Marine, C100 Marine

Okay, I am just messing with you... there was no female marine in the c100 line.  But there is now, thanks to the wonders of green stuff.  The model on the left was made by taking the model on the right and carefully whittling out the torso and head section.  the key word here is whittle - only work with a brand new blade and peel away thin layers at a time, like scraping off tin foil- never apply force, as your knife will snap and probably take out an eye.  Always cut away from you and use safety goggles.  A round blade is safer than a pointed xacto for this job.  A dremmel is better!
Anyway, the face and torso was scratch built using greenstuff over a bent paperclip.  I widened her hips too, to give a better female proportion.  I also added some more tech and wires to break up the model a bit more- I have several of these figures that need to look different.  I will start the next one with correcting the pressed down nose cone... it looks like the master was not reinforced and got squished a bit in vulcanizing... all the other marines masks are sharp and pointy.

C100 marines

Not sure you can see it, but her face is pink and scarred on one side from a laser burn.  Forget bullets in THIS universe!

Converted Rogue Trader Assassin, Hasslefree Libby female marine

Two more recruits are Libby, from Hasslefree and a broken Assasin from the Rogue Trader Adventurers.  She is actually quite rare, but arrived in a bitz lot - so languished in my bits box for a long while.  The original owner had converted her to be a superhero by shaving off her backpack and shuriken.  What better job than joining a Rogue Trader inspired team!  I fixed up her damaged torso with GS and upgraded her arsenal.  I also improved her weaponry (boom tish).  Note her arm weapon is a copy of the one built onto the captain figure from the c100 range.  A cool weapon that should have stayed in 40k!

The Hasslefree conversion is a no brainer... anyone can stick a back pack on her and she is a great stand in 40k model.  However I wanted to go a bit deeper into the conversion, trying to integrate her into the look and feel of the c100 range.  Kevs sculpt is so clean and crisp, and just aching for smooth shading!  (Do grab yourself one, its a great figure).  As you can see I took the chainsaw arm from a c100 death guard and am currently constructing a C100 style 'wobbly' backpack and another cool fist mounted weapon arm.  A little bit more work to go on her before she joins the team, but you can see the gist of it coming along.  Note the under support layer I am building is a mix of milliput and green stuff - giving a rock solid support so the arm is nice and solid for gameplay.  Mixing the two putties allows you to file and drill the result well.  Great for armour.

See ya!

Convert or die! Chaos Bertha, Modernised Red Goblin, Kill Team Charlie and the Hyperbole Base

First up today is a couple of conversions...

Left. Vintage Chaos warrior.  Right.  Big Bertha.

I always loved the figure to the left, but by the time I was in the hobby he was a faint memory in a citadel journal.  I was rubbing my hands together with glee when I finally found one on ebay.  I was horrified when it arrived badly broken.  Fortunately another appeared in a job lot chaos army I rescued.  Then Big Bertha made the pain all go away with a relaxing night at the sculpting block.

I love converting figures.  I always start with the best intentions.  Fix a weapon, add a little hood... but I always end up going a teensy bit over the top.  I have some converted figures that it would have been just as quick to scratch build.

Kev Adamsified red goblin

This classic fiend factory red goblin (see previous posts) was too near my brand new sculpting block I have made when I needed something to test sculpting on it.  I decided to fix it up a bit.
  I started by grinding off the shield boss to make space for a decorative shield.  To give him a more stooped look I sliced off the head (easy with this old soft alloy) and pinned it further down the chest.  Its amazing how this little change stops the models head looking too long.  A hood was added to exaggerate the hunch.
  I then filed back the fingers and toes slightly and added freshly mixed green stuff putty.  After leaving it to set for a while I poked in the fingers with a dremmel blunted and rounded off xacto knife- my 'Tom Meier tool'.  The blade was filled with milliput so later it can be filed to a flat, sharp blade.  Finally I added the missing eyes and lip, some belt string and a strap for his shield.  The whole job took about ten minutes of actual work, and turned a few cents of figure into a perfectly good dungeon critter!

Converted citadel Fiend Factor Red Orc

Pre-Rogue Trader (Warhammer 40k 1st ed)  C100 Space marines
And the Dave King Hyperbole base.

I was going to call my next trick the Dave king awesome base of utter brilliant awesomeness, but shortened it to the hyperbole base instead.  My new motto for this year is if it is broke, quit winging and fix it, and one thing I whine on about is how lipped bases are great, but impossible to pick up during a game.  This leads to sticky fingers on models, and that just ain't cricket.  But oohh, they look pretty, and the extra size makes for more stable models with more protection against scratching.  Whine, whine, whine.

So I fixed the damned things by making my own.  Taking a regular base, I extended the depth down using plasticard and bevelled this to create a rounded lip just big enough for fingers to find purchase on and fingernails to roll under as you lift.  I then sanded and polished the whole thing shiney smooth and hollowed out the base to create a deeper, wider bowl.

  The deep dish allows for integral bases to sit inside, flush with the lip, deeper scenic features and cappers.  Since I only had a few lipped bases, I decided to cast the cappers separately.  That also means I can make a couple of cappers that have slots already cut, so all I have to do is just fill in the gap.  Rather than cut out custom discs and sculpting the cap onto this, I widened the dish so it would accept Australian 10c coins.  Whenever I feel like making a new cap, I just work on a 10c coin and know its going to fit.  Nice.

The final change was to glue a 10c coin to the bottom of the master to act as a pouring spout.  This means the lip of the base is perfect without having to grind flat.  A quick adventure with Pinkysil and Easycast (Barnes casting supplies) and my first test base was ready a half hour later..

My pre-rogue trader c100 space marine team, (Kill Team Charlie) are my first victims.  I am basing them up for corridor sci-fi skirmish gaming.  I have a few more in the post, and some in the dettol at the moment, and have bravely decided to convert some of my doubles.  I am toying with the idea of making a second team to go up against them using more of my old Rogue Trader, Judge Dredd and Paranoia minis.  However I think these guys may need some retro alien scum to blast away instead.

Well thats me for today.  Later lead heads!

Superior Sisters 2

Converted Reaper battlenuns

I took a better set of photos today for them battlenuns I hacked up a while back- and strangely I found myself picking up another pack today at the game store on my lunch break.  I do not know what my evil subconscious has planned for them yet.

More nuns arrived today

Sister superiors

 Battlenuns, original and buggered around with

A break from vintage Citadel today- decided to paint something else for a change.  Heres a wip of what I did tonight after work.  Camera playing up, so its in a crappy format.  I say that, of course, meaning I dont have a clue what buttons I am pushing wrong.  Anyway, my photo skills aside, here are some conversions I had laying around for a while.  Simple stuff, just arm swaps and a little sculpting to fill in gaps and add packs and rosaries.  Fun stuff.
These figures are converted Battlenuns from Reaper, sculpted by Bobby Jackson.  Like all his stuff, it towers over most miniatures- they dont stand very well next to a 40k figure, for example.

  I loved messing with the figures so much I grabbed another pack so I could paint the originals too.  You can grab yours at...  Battle nun me baby  Perhaps I will  get a few more sets and convert them to gothic horror and post apocalyptic for fun.  Perhaps a chaos version.  Yeah, thats what I need, another project.