Bad Moonz Army (7th time's the charm, right?)

Two weekends ago, Brian Smith and I got the crazy idea that we should drive to Chicago for Adepticon. Like all truly great ideas, this one was formulated at the last minute. So perhaps it was the lack of sleep or the incredibly savvy Brit who was working the booth, but we both walked away from the Forge World booth with much more than we had anticipated.

Without intending to, I’ve apparently re-started my Bad Moon army; I hope to finally get it to feel right this time. Each time I’ve started the army previously, it’s just never quite felt Bad Moony enough; the army hasn’t felt like it’s had enough Dakka.

Well, I think I’m on the way to solving that little problem. I give you the Dakka Trakk:







For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Forge World’s “Imperial Armour 8: Raid on Kastorel Novem”, there is plenty of tasty Ork goodness contained within. One such vehicle is the Ork “Big Trakk” which can be taken in squadrons of 1-3 as a Heavy Support slot.

These bad boys can sport a whopping 6 Big Shootas, plus a Flakka Gun that basically has the same stats as a Hyrda (minus the twin-linked, dammit). On top of all that shooty, they still have a transport capacity of 6 and Front Armor 12!

Now, to be fair, two of the Big Shootas are actually “Grot Sponsons”. Meaning they get one higher Ballistic Skill, but have the chance of getting smeared across the hull every time your vehicle takes a Glancing or Penetrating hit. Forge World makes their own kit for these little guys, but I just slapped together some random bits to create mine:




Next up, I’ve got a unit of Nobs with lots of nice, loud twin-linked Shootas. Granted, it’s not the best kit-out for a Nob squad, but they look flashy and that’s what being a Bad Moon is really about. The models are based off of Micro Art Studios Long-Coat Ork Torsos . Ian converted up all the guns for everyone (plus the Painboy), I simply added the Nob heads and Armored Gubbins.









So, all in all, I think I have a good start towards an army with more bullets than sense. I’ve still got a second Big Trakk to build and I need to make a Big Mek Junka with Kustom Force Field to protect them.

Thoughts?

Advanced Basing Techniques

Basing can make or break a model. Even if your painting skills rank only a "meh", complete and uniform basing can make your army really pop. But if you're looking to make your army look super-sharp, complex or creative basing can be one of the most important steps.

I recommend devising a theme for your army. For example, I thought it'd be fun for my Dark Eldar to be assaulting a Mechanicum Forge World. If you've read Graham McNeil's "Mechanicum" or Dan Abnett's "Titanicus" then you know what a Forge World looks like in my mind's eye: dusty, gritty, utterly polluted, littered with scrap machinery and junk parts left to rust for eternity. My Dark Eldar would be raiding this Forge World to steal items and technology to sell to other races or to use for themselves, as well as grab a few Tech-Adepts and menials for the torture tables! Therefore, they'd be blowing holes in buildings and assaulting through to nab all the cool stuff. I itemized what I wanted to do, and wrote down how to do it.

1: Dusty/Gritty: The obvious starting point would be gravel/sand glued to the base, what really mattered was the color choice. The sand would be painted GW Vomit Brown and then dry-brushed GW Plague Brown, with a few spots of dry-brushed GW Bleached Bone. I also added stones and boulders buried in the sand, using my old standby of cork glued to the base before the sand. Here's the type of cork I use: Linky-link!

2: Junk: I glue anything to the base that looks even remotely mechanical. My favorite are lock washers because they look like cogs or gears. Plastruct and Evergreen make a variety of useful types of plasticard rod such as I-beams or ladders, and all sizes of round tubing. GW bitz are also super-useful. I've been using the inside gubbinz of Space Marine Drop Pods, (because I don't use them on the inside of the Drop Pods, I just glue the SoB's shut!) because they can be easily cut to look like ubiquitous machine parts. Searchlights, jerry cans, ammo bins, IG stowage, grating cut from SM Razorback hatches, exhaust ports, anything! A $20 box of Cities of Death terrain can supply an entire army's worth of basing material! Just start digging through your bitz bins until you can find something that could be mistaken for machinery. Even just brass rod bent at rounded 90 degree angles can simulate laid wiring.

3: Buildings: Of course I can't construct buildings on bases, but I can hint at them. Remember, the miniature is a little display of another reality plucked and placed onto a base. It's perfectly fine to have just a portion of something showing on a model's base. Once again, I return to Evergreen and Plastruct for plasticard sheets with diamond plate patterns, tile patterns, corrugated sheet patterns and siding patterns. I like Evergreen's 1/4" Tile pattern plasticard because it has a very defined cut, snaps easily into workable pieces, and looks just like a tiled or paneled floor! I add pieces of standard plasticard sheeting to simulate a broken wall, just leave on edge flat to glue to the base where the tile stops, and rag up the other edge with snips or a knife.

4: Pollution: This mostly came down to choice of paint. Having "oil" leaking from pipes or into drainage ditches by layering on green, brown and black washes to flavor. Most of the metal things were painted with splotches of rust, using a progression of GW Bestial Brown, VGC Hot Orange, then VGC Fiery Orange in a stippling pattern.

I suggest gathering your materials before you start your project, and make sure you have enough for the whole army. Take an hour and go to your local hardware store and check out their supply of washers and nuts, something is sure to catch your fancy. If they do window screen repair, ask for some scraps of aluminum screen, it makes great decking and grilles. I bought a piece today from Grieve's that was 12"x 24", it cost me $1.10, and it's more than I'll ever use. Stop by Hobby Lobby or Michael's and just look for doodads. Most of the stuff can be picked up cheap, and it's dead-useful.

So, I'll leave you with some shots of my DE bases, and I'll be back next time with some more basing techniques ,or whatever I damn well feel like!

De-Emoed Astorath

Hey all!

Just quick update for all you faithful SGS viewers. I'm here with an Astorath "Counts-as" model for my all-Death Company army. I really don't care for the Astorath model, so I tried to come up with an appropriate substitute. When I do "counts-as" models or armies, I strive to make sure that when playing games, my opponent will be able to immediately associate my "counts-as" model with its intended rules.

I read the fluff, and kept in mind that Astorath's job is to mercy-kill Death Company before they go so insane as to become a danger to their fellow battle-brothers. He also has a two-handed executioner's axe. I figured that a Grim Reaper, with its visage and scythe personified this role perfectly. Astorath also has a jump pack, so I had to make sure I included that.

The starting point for the model was the new Lemartes figure, but including a two-handed weapon was stumping me for a bit. GW doesn't produce a whole lot of figures that are actually wielding a weapon two-handedly that wouldn't add another $15 to the overall cost of the conversion, (my first thought was Typhus, but I didn't want to pay $25 to get his Manreaper). I searched through my Marines bits box and found the new Blood Angel Death Company Thunder Hammer bits (right-handed) and the Space Wolf Pack Frost Blade bits (left-handed). Based on Lemartes' posture, the Frost Blade looked best. I cut the Frost Blade axe head off and the handle below the right hand off. Two lengths of shaft were added to both sides from an old "Custodes Halberd" bolter/halberd/force weapon bit. The bottom of the Frost Blade was reattached to the bottom of the weapon shaft, and the power core of the BADCo Thunder Hammer bit.

The trickiest part was the scythe blade, which was made from scratch from plasticard. It took a long while to get the shape right, and even longer to get the blade part smoothed down. Some thin wire and dots of plasticard rod were added for the power weapon "nodes", the power cable from the BADCo Thunder Hammer arm was attached to the back, a top spike from the BA Librarian Dreadnought Force Weapon, two of the BA wing/blood drop icons from the BADCo box and a few purity seals.

All in all, it came out like this:



Be back soon!
-Ian

Dark Eldar Wracks

Hey everyone! Sorry for the egregious lack of updates. We’ve been super busy with commissions and the Iron Builder competition that Ian mentioned a few posts back. To placate what few followers we have, I present some Dark Eldar Wracks. I know they’re not perfect, but they’ll be good enough for my purposes.











Components:
Empire Flagellant Bodies and Arms
Chaos Warrior Heads (sans horns)
Vampire Count Ghoul Bodies (for Liquifiers)
Kroot Arms and Shoulder Pads (for Liquifiers)
Skaven Hand Weapons (for Spikey Bits)
Necron Flayed One Hands (for Leader’s Scissor Hands)
Leftover Renegade Ogryn Bit (for Leader’s Toxin Injector)
Diodes (for Toxin Injectors)

Construction is fairly straight forward. The Leader and Liquifier guns still need hoses and such attached to them.

The Diodes can be found at nearly any RadioShack (25 for $3). Basically, you just cut the wire off of one side and trim it down on the other; then you can just plug it into a pre-drill hole in the model’s back.





Comments and criticism welcome, but these guys have to be painted by Saturday evening for a competition, so they won’t be getting changed. However, all good ideas will go towards the second batch I’ll have to make.

Machinations of an Unfettered Mind - Ironclad Dreadnought Conversion

So yeah, I was bored of Slaanesh for the evening and decided to take an Assault on Black Reach Dreadnought I'd saved from the bargain-bin and try to salvage it into something cooler. So with several bits bins, some plasticard and some Green Stuff, I've come up with this little guy. I recently finished up James Swallow's Nemesis book, and throughout it the author gives the characters gizmos and doodads that are compact and rather clever, much unlike the ornately baroque and unsubtle grim-dark devices we're used to. I used that take on 40k technology when I was building my new mechanical buddy. He's not festooned with purity seals, he has no filigree that would take artificers years to repair if a child's errant rubber ball ricocheted into him, his Hunter-Killer missiles aren't launching from the butts of golden cherubs.

Enjoy:

Seismic Hammer Close-up

GenCon 2010 Breakdown Pt. 1

I'm back from GenCon with some exciting news! On a personal note, my Wazzdakka Gutsmek model took Third Place in the Machines of War category in the painting contest.

Painted by Ian Villamagna, converted by Aaron Given

I'm actually really happy with the model taking Third Place, since he was painted over the course of two days in a rush for a tournament. I actually had forgotten that GenCon held painting competitions, and I just happened to bring some of my flashier stuff to attract attention at the Mongoose Publishing booth. So for a "oh-what-the-hell-might-as-well-see-what-happens" I'm pretty pleased.

I was introduced to Tom of www.MiniatureReview.com at the convention. Hopefully SGS.com and MiniatureReview.com will be able to do some work together in the near future.