HORUS HERESY - The Mechanicum - Hammer of the Omnissiah

I know that a lot of you have already checked out the raffles for the NOCF this year. We have literally dozens of raffles running in order to raise a ton of money for wonderful causes (Doctors Without Borders, The International Rescue Committee, The Breast Cancer Research Foundation, and The Fisher House Foundation). 

Among the offerings is this wonderful Mechanicum army. Designed by Marc Raley, one of the 30K event leads at NOVA Open and AdeptiCon, this army is a walking and crawling, and hovering edifice to the Machine God. 

First up is the Arch Magos on his Abeyant. He is ready to lay low the enemies of the Omnissiah and take their technology for further study. This beautiful model was painted by Jake Landis.

The elites of this force are the deadly Myrmidons. This squad are equipped for ranged combat with a variety of dangerous and esoteric weaponry. Painted by Andrew Gray.

This is a very elite, compact force, and the Troop slots are filled by these deadly Thallax. Two units, both painted by Joel Moon.

Such a small, elite force, needs to be able to meet a lot of opposing threats head on, and this Krios can certainly pack a punch when pointed in the right direction. Model painted by Max Dubois.

The leader of the Mechanicum team was Marc Raley, the man who devised the lists for the 30K armies, and the guy who is doing so much to raise extra funds for the NOCF and their causes. He also contributed to the army by painting up this excellent Vulturax!

 

The massive Thanatar Automata, with its mind-blowing, shoulder-mounted plasma mortar, stands ready to stride across the battlefield and get stuck in. This one was painted by newcomer to the team, David Sampson.

And finally we have the wonderfully towering Cerastus Knight Atropos, able to lay down some heavy firepower from range against the enemies of the Mechanicum. Veteran team member John Steining applied the paint to this big project.

So, there you have it. I hope you love this as much as I do, and will click on the link HERE to buy some (more) tickets in the raffle to win this army! Things are looking very good so far this summer, let's help them look even better : )

HORUS HERESY - The NOCF 2017 Sons of Horus army!

I have no doubt that a lot of you have already checked out the raffles for the NOCF this year. We have literally dozens of raffles running in order to raise a ton of money for wonderful causes (Doctors Without Borders, The International Rescue Committee, The Breast Cancer Research Foundation, and The Fisher House Foundation). 

Among the offerings is this wonderful Sons of Horus army. Designed by Marc Raley, one of the 30K event leads at NOVA Open and AdeptiCon, this army is ready to hit, and hit hard! Everything is tucked away in a drop pod of some sort and ready to rain death and destruction down upon the lackeys of the False Emperor. Below are a slew of photos so you can get to see everything up close (and personal). 

The Warmaster, Horus Lupercal, was painted by Michelle Blastenbrei. At the start of the project, Michelle asked if she could paint the Warmaster in gold armor. I'm typically a stickler for canon paint jobs on characters, but decided that when someone as talented as Michelle has an idea about creating a unique model, I should listen. As you can see, she has absolutely nailed the deep gold look that is a loud echo of Horus' "canon armor" but brings new life and depth to it.

Veteran contributor Ken Webb painted up this Terminator Captain (above) and these Justerian Terminators (below). Ken was concerned about painting so much black armor on the Justerian, but he did an absolutely wonderful job.

This squad of Marines was painted by yours truly. I really enjoyed messing around with the SOH green that we chose (VPA USMC Tank Crew Green).

AJ Taflan painted up our second 10-man squad and went for a silver trim on the shoulders to help differentiate the two squads.

Sean Fulton painted up this Quad Mortar Rapier and did an absolutely spectacular job. Typically Sean works on one of the commanders or centerpiece models. He brought the same level of attention to this support piece AND these were the first models to arrive at my house for photography : )

Brian Moll joined the NOCF Artists' Consortium this year, and knocked it out of the park with this great Leviathan Dreadnought. The weapons are all magnetized, so the winner will be able to switch in new weapons if they so choose!

Another new member of the team, Ryan Kimmel not only painted this Dreadnought Drop Pod, but he also donated this ultra rare model when we were struggling to track one down. Thanks, Ryan!

The army called for three regular Drop Pods (one for each of the Marine squads and one for the Quad Mortar). As with previous charity armies, I volunteered to paint these up too. There's something about all those interior hazard stripes I just can't resist (there are about 270 black stripes hand-painted on these three pods).

And finally, the Kharybdis Assault Claw. This monster of a kit was built and painted by Joe Johnson. Not only that, Joe used kits from Powered Play and lit the whole thing up with over 20 LEDs. Three AA batteries can be slid into the center of the pod and the engine ports start to light up. It is absolutely fantastic!

So there you have the first of two Horus Heresy armies. If you'd like to buy tickets for this army, please click HERE. And please tell all of your friends about it!

The 2017 NOCF Raffles!

Another year and another host of wonderful armies and collections and individual models up for grabs! We have had a lot of wonderful people donate their time and talents in order to raise money for the various causes supported by the NOVA Open Charitable Foundation. This is my seventh year involved in some sort of charitable painting effort, and I couldn't be prouder of all those who have joined me along the way. Excellent models from lovely people. 

Over the course of the next two months I'm going to be featuring these armies and calling out these folks. I hope you'll show them, and the charitable causes they have represented, by buying lots of tickets in these raffles. Each of these banners links through to the page to buy tickets : )

• Tickets will be available from the website (novaopenfoundation.org)
• Tickets can vary in price (between $2 and $5), but there is a minimum $10 purchase
• Tickets can be purchased from ANYWHERE in the world
• The winners DO NOT need to be present at the NOVA Open when we draw their names
• The NOCF will ship ANYWHERE in the world

HORUS HERESY - Leman Russ and his Wolf-kin

I recently had the chance to work on my first Forgeworld Primarch model, Leman Russ. It was interesting returning to him after I had converted and painted one a bunch of years ago (almost seven years! Check it out HERE).

Obviously the Forgeworld model is a better sculpt, and my painting has continued to improve over the last few years (or at least I hope it has), so it was a lot of fun. The Wolf-kin (Freki and Geri, not sure which is which) were also a lot of fun to paint, as were the bases.

The front part of the larger base for Leman Russ is separate (connected with magnets), so that the Great Wolf himself can slip out and spend some time on the miniature battlefield.

I hope you like them : )

BURNING OF PROSPERO - An new addition!

One of the earliest NOCF raffles was won by a guy named Jake Schneider. Jake lives in Tasmania, so we had to send the army all the way to Tasmania, which is now our running joke about how far we'll go to get your prize to you (Tasmania is over 12,000 miles from Washington, DC).

Anyway, Jake just happens to be a digital sculptor and has his own freelance business, Dark Wolf Studio. If you want to have something digitally sculpted, contact Jake via his FB page HERE.

When he heard about the Burning Of Prospero project, he offered to sculpt us up a banner for the Thousand Sons. Of course, we said yes : )  Just last week we received two pieces from Jake, one is the Legion Vexilla you see above you, a completely new model added to the project and painted by Brian Sobb (thanks, Brian!), and below you can see a Squad Vexilla added to one of the models Brian had already painted for us.

So, thanks to Jake Schneider, a former winner of one of our armies, and to Paul Figgins at Trenchworx* for the 3D-prints, we have something else completely unique for this project.

Don't forget to grab your tickets for the Burning of Prospero raffle HERE very soon. The raffle will be drawn on February 5th!

* If you want some very cool WW1 and WW2 tanks, or have a file that needs 3D-printing, check out Trenchworx. Their printing quality is spectacular!