All of our Geckos have had a busy summer, painting away in the safety of their homes whilst their family and friends have been out enjoying the sun – but don’t feel bad for them, look how beautiful their painting is! (and if you want more, each Gecko’s insta tag is in the description!)
What a beautiful bunch of minis – let’s see what the gang can cook up this autumn!
Last month Alan and Eliot had a chance to fire up a classic rivalry on the table top – the Angels of Caliban vs the Wolves!
Orbital Search
Mausolia Angelis, fiefdom of the First Legio Astartes. Now held by the Dark Angels Chapter, vital fortress monastery guarding supply routes from forge worlds oathed to Caliban.
Strike fleet Morkai, led by the First Jarl, Bjorn, called the Fell-Handed. Leading the Vlka Gungnir, awoken to judge the primaris by Jarl Grimnar himself. Thrown from the warp requiring repairs, Mausolia Angelis, offers no replies to hails.
Scanners locate a powerful energy source, as the First Jarl orders planet fall to investigate, the Dark Angels issue dire warnings, the planet is oathed to the Sons of the Lion and is no place for the dogs of Russ.
Meanwhile on the Mausolia Angelis…
5 days. 5 more days and the Chapter Master makes leave for The Rock once again.
Interrogator-Chaplain Izkeil has been almost 2 weeks chasing rumors of Fallen activies on Mausio Angelica, and nothing. Nothing but a few weak minded Cult leaders to ‘converse’ with. The secrets held here are safe, for now.
Izkeil knows that if the word gets out as to what the first company has contained here gets out, the Chapter Master will be the least of his worries.
A flair across the sky draws Izkeils attention, and he tears himself away from the viewport of the fortress. A hail on his vox.
+ Brother-Chaplain, we have visitors. Battle stations ready, possible fallen activity. Take no prisoners +
Izkeil replaced and locked his skull plate onto his helm.
+ No secrets will leave this place Master Azrael+
It began to rain.
Taking up formation the Vlka Gungnir vector into the energy source, an ancient mechanical relic from the Age of Darkness of unknown STC provenience. As the Wolves advance to claim the relic, proximity alerts sound… the Dark Angels have revealed themselves.
+++ Hail the First Legion Astartes +++ The First Jarl orders his Wolf Guard. ‘They fail to answer hails Jarl’. The hails are finally answered as bolt, plasma and lascannon erupt from the Dark Angels lines.
+++ Engage protocols active, slay the enemies of the Allfather+++
The landraider ‘Wrath of Morkai’ surges forward towards the objective, the howls of the blood claws inside accompanying the roar of the engine. Bjorn surges forward, ancient pistons driving the mighty war machine forward, blood claws surging around the Old One, desperate to fight with the living legend who fought with the Allfather and Russ himself. Long Fangs open up with lascannon and missile, covering the advance of the Rout.
The Dark Angels respond with devastating affect, long fangs obliterated as the feared Ravenwing roar forwards. A mighty redemptor and predator supporting the assault directed by the Chapter Master himself.
Pack Hati charge from the ‘Wrath of Morkai’ hurling themselves in a berserk charge at the enemy lines. The wolf guard surge forward in support, power fists crackling in anticipation of the slaughter. A crack of energy as the mighty Arjac Rockfist arrives on the field of battle, a beastial roar as the berserk wulfen charge into the field, Azrael himself the subject of their rage.
Blistering fire overwhelms the DA redemptor dreadnought, the ancient warriors duty has come to an end.
Azrael is mortally wounded in a flurry of blows and the wulfen surge into the predator. The DA infiltrators and intercessors are cut down by chainsword and fist and the relic seems secured.
Energy cracks stun the Wolves as the dread Deathwing arrive in reinforcement. They slay long fangs with ease with ancient power weapons.
Bjorn the Fellhanded charges into the Deathwing as Intercessor pack Torvigsson rush to assist. The Ravenwing are destroyed in furious combat leaving only the Deathshroud and a last tenacious surviving Deathwing Sergeant.
With the unknown Relic claimed by the Rout, the remaining Dark Angels retreat into the darkness.
Looks like an ancient rival is rekindling!
Eliot has been dabbling in the Middle Earth SBG universe and has started a Mordor army – check out his orcs below!
When it comes to geek franchises, I have a natural affinity to naughtyness and tend to side with the big baddies. For Star Wars it’s Vader. In DC it’s the Joker. In 40K it’s… well it’s everyone. In Lord of the Rings, for me it’s always been about the Witch King.
I was a big fan of the Lord of the Rings miniature range when I was young, and I had been looking for an excuse to paint up some tasty models. So when I saw the Pellenor Fields box-set announced with some of my favourite models of all time included – the Fell Beast and the Mordor Troll – it was a no brainer purchase.
I started this journey with a whole bunch of Morannon Orcs – I ended up with 40 in total! I wanted my Mordor force to be super elite, and these black gate bad boys are tough.
One thing about the Morannon kit is that there are only actually 12 poses… So I grabbed my green stuff and clippers and converted the heck out of these orcs. I ended up making sure each model was unique, re-enforcing this through painting. I did 4 different skin tones in this kit, really wanting to show the variety in orcs who are here to defend the Black Gate.
I also saw these chaps as an opportunity to try some free hand painting on shields. I trawled through the Return of the King footage looking for glimpses of the orcs, and then just went ham with the Orc Skulls.
My favourite model in this unit is actually a metal banner bearer from the magazine that I picked up super cheap online. I had loads of fun painting the banner.
Now so far I have actually only painted 20 of these dudes, so I have 20 more ready, but I’m breaking it up with some troll painting. Hopefully I will have some more LOTR minis to show in the near future!
Stay tuned for some more army and Model spotlights in the near future!
Each month, a bunch of Geckos pledge to complete a certain amount of miniature painting – with varying success rates (its all beautiful though). So we are a bit late, but here are a selection of our completed painting pledges for March.
The April pledges are already well underway, let see how the Geckos get on with painting this month.
Today, Eliot will be sharing with you his Adeptus Mechanicus Battalion, the Disciples of Rael!
In January of this year, I finally finished painting an army to a standard I am actually happy with – The Disciples of Rael. After partially finishing a number of armies (more on that another time), it shames me to admit that has taken me 3 long years of painting, gaming and collecting piles of grey plastic for me to get to this point. However, I am super happy with the end result and love my grimy robo children to bits.
One of the key drivers for me picking Adeptus Mechanicus as an army was that I was tired of playing as Dark Angels, and wanted something thematic to eventually pair with knight. I also love the 40K lore around enhancing the human form with augments and the questions that that raises about humanity. Picking a colour scheme was tricky, but I ended up settling for a dirty blue with the offset of a martian base – the plan being to give the minis a very sharp look, but to then pile on the grimdark-ness of 40K.
For me, the highlight of this army is Archmogos Tys (Belisaruis Cawl). The Archmagos rose through the ranks of the Cult to become the Fabricator General of the Migale System, piling on extra augments as they went. Tys often travels with a retinue of servitors and menials, and one can be seen carrying the half destroyed relic of Knight Raeluis Supremos. This model is packed full of detail and was an absolute joy to paint.
The first mini I actually finished was my heavily converted Tech Priest Dominus, Adept Grattus. I’m a big fan of conversions and this was one of my favourites to do so far, especially at the concept stage. I took the bottom half of a destroyer and green stuffed on the top half of the classic Domunis model. He turned out better than expected, and I think my boy has a lot of character.
The backbone of the Disciples of Rael are, well, the Disciples! I knew that I was going to have lots of Rangers in this army from the get go, and have ended up with around 25. Not gonna lie, I got reaaaaly tired of painting these dudes (and have more still to build…), but love how they have turned out. Plus there is a cheeky squad of vanguard in there too.
I’ve been a big fan of the Ad Mech models ever since I got back into the hobby 3 years ago, but one of the models that particularly caught my eye was the Onager Dunecrawler – so I have squeezed 2 of them in this army! These guys proved the heavy support much needed for the Disciples when they go on the hunt for their lost Questoris relic knight.
One of the key elements in building an army for me is to make it unique, and that was always going to mean Forgeworld! I love the grimness of the 30K models and was actually toying with a Dark Mechanicum army for a short while (before a visit from the Ordo Hereticus). I picked up some Myrmidon Secutors to use for Tech and Data priests, then converted to my hearts content.
Ah but the Forgeworld purchases didn’t stop there! Nest up were a bunch of Castellax models to use as Kastelans, as I’m personally not a big fan of the plastic Kastelan kit. So with just a few minor conversions I had myself a small battlegroup of Kastelans with maximum shooty power! I have one more yet to be built, but 4 of these boys with the Wrath of Mars is already scary enough…
And there we have it! I actually have a few more rangers, sicarians, one castellax and a few destroyers to add to this army, but I’m enjoying having these guys painted on the table for the time being. The knighty boys that the Disciples of Rael support (and worship) are currently on the production line – stay tuned!
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