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!
Caught up in the wave of recent Primaris releases, Alan has added some of the new Vanguard units to his Rout…
Seeing the Shadowspear release was a real thrill, GW are knocking it out of the park at the moment with amazing sculpts and seem to have upped their game in relation to social media.
I managed to pick up two boxes of Shadowspear for the Rout and have utilised the infiltrators, eliminators, suppressors, wolf guard battle leader, wolf lord and rune priest. The sculpts are amazing, really detailed models although somewhat limited with the monopose and repeats within the packs. Mine will be painted as part of my Space Wolf Primaris army, the Vlka Gungnir or in low Gothic ‘the Wolf Spear’ and part of the NÍDHÖGG Great Company.
Led by Wolf Lord Sigurd Fraegr, known throughout the Rout as the ‘NÍDHÖGG’, in low Gothic translated as “dreaded striker.” Feared for his ability to strike without notice or warning causing chaos and destruction amongst the enemy. His Great Company is utilised when a finer touch is needed. They are the spear tip, striking at high value assets, enemy commanders, logistical lines before the rest of the Rout arrive.
Wolf Lord Sigurd Fraegr was created using the primaris captain in phobus armour, a head swap with a KF studios skull helm and a space wolf belt. A forge world cataphractii chain axe was swapped in for the pointing figure, as every space wolf needs an axe!
My favourite model in Shadowspear is the librarian in phobus armour, or in the case of the Vlka Gungnir he is Torrvald Tostig the Rune priest! I found on eBay the most amazingly painted head with tribal tattoos on a deathwatch veteran body, managed to win the auction and have been looking for a suitable body worthy of the head – and here it finally is! The rest of the model was ‘wolfed up’ with an icon and neck charm from the space wolf primaris upgrade set.
The primaris lieutenant was turned into a wolf guard battle leader. The head was again swapped out for a Kf studios skull helmet and an axe from the space wolf upgrade sprue swapped in. I then attempted a first – green stuff-ing a pelt. For a first attempt I’m quite pleased and will try and utilise these through my army.
The infiltrator pack is a lovely kit. It does have a few duplicates, however the models were simple to kit-bash. Heads swapped out with space wolf upgrade sprue from the Grey Hunter kit as well as wolf tail charms and belts used. The pack leader was given a Forge World grey slayer head and axe to separate him out. It’s a gamble arming him with an axe – which at the moment will be his close combat weapon – but hopefully as with the Intercessors, the pack leaders will be able to take a power weapon when the multipose separate kits come out.
The eliminators are stunning sculpts and fit nicely into the space wolf fluff wise, veteran scouts. ‘Pack Volsung’ Grizzled veterans of centuries of war in the Allfathers name. Ulrik Volsung directing his pack brothers to deal death from. Using knowledge and experience gleaned throughout the Sea of Stars, their steady aim and rate of fire assists the young pups on the battlefield.’ To fit them in with my existing army, Forge World grey slayer heads were used along with wolf tails and icons.
The suppressors I left until last, horror stories abound of the stands with not only these but also primaris inceptor set. I resolved then to ditch the stands and mount them on the base, hopefully I will have no problems with modelling for advantage! Again a Forge World grey slayer head was used to denote the pack leader. The right pauldron will be marked with blood claw markings of yellow and red, in my fluff they are brash recruits with an interest in big guns!
Only the infiltrators have seen the battlefield as yet, they did a fantastic job of preventing deep striking genestealers! I’m looking forward to getting the rest on the table soon and finding how they work alongside my current forces. ‘Fenrys Hjolda’!
Nice one Alan, looking forward to seeing how the Wolf Spear perform on the table!
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!
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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