Sin Eaters Raptors: Squad Boyle

Posted on 18/08/2010 by sho3box

Sergeant Boyle and Melta Gunner

Squad Boyle was a pretty late addition to my Sin Eaters army.  They nonetheless got used in a tournament or two as well as in a number of casual games.

Jump Packs

My income levels at the time were pretty low (a perennial condition at sho3box towers Im afraid) and so I used a few components that up until that point I had been avoiding, in the interests of keeping things cheap.

Sergeant Boyles Head

Most notably in that regard was the use of the quite goofy zombie head with the beard and the tongue hanging out from the GW zombie sprue.  For the earlier squads I had avoided that head as I regarded it as a bit too wacky for my purposes.  Finances were low and I had a number of those heads sitting around so I decided to use one along with the new-at-the-time Space Wolf heads (and a Khorne head).

Bolt Pistol & Chain Axe, Plasma Pistol & Bolt Pistol

At that late stage of painting an army (roughly about 80 models or so into the project I would say) painting techniques tend to have evolved, usually in the interests of expediency.  In addition to that slighly more oddball units and concepts start to crop up, usually in my case in an effort to keep interest up.  Hence the heavily armed unit of jet pack-ing zombie space soldiers.

Plasma Pistol & Chainsword, Bolt Pistol & Chainsword

There has been some crazy talk about playing some small games of 3rd ed 40K amongst SOS and MT recently.  If my resolve breaks and I engage in some of those shenanigans it will likely involve games that include the more elite and oddball units like Squad Boyle.

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Sin Eater Plague Marines: Squad Klaus

Posted on 11/08/2010 by sho3box

Sgt Klaus (left) and Plague Marine

Squad Klaus was the first unit that I painted for my Sin Eaters, waaay back in 1999.  As the Sin Eaters was going to be an exclusively Nurgle Chaos Marine force I decided to start with two ten man Plague Marine units, the first of which was Squad Klaus.

Plague Marines

Squad Klaus is made up of plague marines with bolters.  Half of the miniatures are the old plastic plague marine three piece plastics and the other five are old metal plague marines, including the original, very first ever plague marine model, Klaus himself.

Corrupted Defenders of Humanity

The all plastic plague marines are a lot cruder that the stuff that GW has made since.  In the interests of keeping costs down I squeezed them in alongside the nicer metal figures.

Zombie Soldiers

Like Squad Damien, I painted these guys a certain way.  As time went on and I painted more and more Sin Eaters the techniques evolved a bit.  The figures still look like they are part of the same uniformed force, but the paint application techniques changed.  Compare the white armoured areas on the marines in Squad Nemesis with these guys and you should be able to see the difference.

Plague Marine and Plague Marine Plasma Gunner

Squad Klaus hasnt had as much time on the tabletop as I would like, mostly because while carrying a bolter may be iconic in terms of the 40k-verse, in terms of gameplay it doesnt cut it (or it didnt when I used to play.  I dont know what its like now really).

I hope to remedy this with some skirmish games that feature Klaus and co at some point over the next year or two.

Squad Klaus Combat Squad 1...

...and the plastic Combat Squad 2.

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Iacon Eldar: Striking Scorpion Squad Seth

Posted on 21/07/2010 by sho3box

Striking Scorpion Exarch Seth

Squad Seth was painted up in 2002 along with most of the rest of my Iacon Eldar.  The concept was vaguely Egyptian themed, for a few different reasons.  I am not a Stargate fan but I do like the look of some of the elements.  Nonetheless, Stargate wasnt really an influence.

Mostly the colours chosen have Egyptian relevance.  Gold is the colour of the flesh of the Egyptian gods.  Lapis lazuli/faience (the turquoise/blue) is a common feature of Egyptian decoration, as is red.

Each squad is marked with a unique glyph.  While I used hieroglyphs as reference when coming up with these, they are not really very Egyptian in look.  Thats fine really though as while I like using that imagery as a reference, that is all it is supposed to be: a reference.  These guys are supposed to be spacemen after all.

Some of the glyphs worked out better than others.  Painting bright red detail on black like that was time consuming.

Biting Blade and Shuriken Pistol

Another element of the Iacon force was that I used a lot of Dark Eldar parts in with the regular Craftworld bits.  While this was justified conceptually it was mainly just because I wanted to put together some stuff that wasnt directly off-the-peg.  Additionally the variety helped to keep me interested while painting.

Striking Scorpions

Part of the concept was to make the Aspect Warriors bare headed.  As the helmets are an intrinsic part of the Aspect Warrior concept, using different heads was going to make the Iacon Aspect Warriors unique immediately.  It was a lot of work chopping off all of those heads and replacing them with others, something that I am not going to be in a hurry to do again.

Rear shot showing armour banding.

The concept of these Eldar walking the line between light and dark which is pursued a little via the bare headed Aspects, was pushed a little further with the Exarch.  The Dark Eldar Incubi are essentially a “dark aspect”.  This origins of the dark aspect come from the only Eldar Phoenix Lord to turn to the dark side: Ahra, Father of Scorpions, the Fallen Phoenix.  Incubi have tall helms with a blaster mounted on the top that functions similarly to the Striking Scorpion Mandiblasters, so I went with a similar look on the Exarchs helmet.

Dark Aspect Warriors

Looking back at these guys I quite like how they turned out.  Painting the gold areas was a huge chore however.  Even if I had the patience to go to all of that trouble converting those figures again I would approach the painting of the gold areas very, very differently and probably more effectively now.  I still think that the gold areas mostly look good, but they dont really reflect the large amount of grief that they caused me.

Chainsword and Shuriken Pistol

Despite all of the hassle that I had with these guys I do get a kick out of taking a look at them again some years later.  I think that they are a cool looking unit and there is something about the slightly unusual colour scheme that I like.

Squad Seth gets ready for ritualised bloodshed.

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Sin Eaters Chaos Marines: Squad Damien

Posted on 07/07/2010 by sho3box

Sgt Damien (right) and two Chaos Marines

Squad Damien is the third squad that I painted for my WH40k Chaos Space Marine force back in 1999.  The figures used are vintage Chaos Renegades made by GW in the 1980s.

Chaos Renegades

I needed a unit to represent possessed space marines.  I had some ideas about converting up my own figures (which came to fruition a year or two later with Squad Nemesis) but in the interim I thought that I would get some fun out of painting up these classic figures.

Nurgle Twins

Squad Damien took the field as possessed marines more often than not.  The heavily mutated style was satisfyingly more extreme than most of the other marines that I used for my force, so they fit the role of possessed admirably.

Degenerate Chaos Space Marines

Like anything that I painted a long time ago (over a decade in this case) there are lots of things that I would do differently if I painted these figures again now.  I still like these guys though: they were fun figures to paint, they are very characterful and amusing looking and I also played a lot of games with them over the years.  Satisfying.

Squad Damien takes to the field.

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Alien Queen Basing

Posted on 23/06/2010 by sho3box

Uncharacteristically good weather plus an even more uncharacteristic busy social life has meant that my hobby time has been curtailed of late.  As a result todays post is a bit half-assed.  It does show that at least I am making some progress with my Aliens re-theme of Space Hulk.

Alien Queen Basing

Mikko at Dawn of the Lead has been making a lot more progress on his identical project here.  His latest addition of a very nice looking Alien Queen that came from a gashapon toy is in need of a base.  As I recently made a basic but functional base for getting my large Horrorclix Queen on the Space Hulk board, I decided to put up a quick photo.

Grid Markings

After removing the model from its clix base I stuck some styrene with a treadplate pattern on it to a 60mm plywood base.  I then added some styrene strips in a sort of tic-tac-toe pattern that matches the size of the squares in a game of Space Hulk.

While obviously using such a large figure will make some parts of the game feel a little cramped, the grid marked on the base should make it apparent where the Queen is standing in rules terms.  Adjacent figures will have to stand on small parts of the queens base but I dont foresee that being a big problem.

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Mostly Space Hulk to Aliens Rules Conversion Ideas Mostly

Posted on 01/06/2010 by sho3box

WALL OF TEXT WARNING

I am finally making some progress on the miniatures side of the Space Hulk to Aliens project, of which more will follow.  Funnily enough, in one of those weird internet-ty ways it seems that lots of other people are dusting off their Colonial Marines, Aliens and Predators to tackle the same or very similar projects on both Lead Adventure Forum and Frothers.  Mikko at Dawn of the Lead has been doing some very solid work too, elements of which I intend to rip off use to inspire me.

To go along with the miniatures I want to hammer out the basic rules conversions required.  I mostly intend to game with these figures in Space Hulk (mostly), simply because it is such a tight and satisfying system.  Ideas for many these rules have been going around in my head for years while others have been as a result of talking to similarly interested Aliens and Space Hulk nerds and and I want to write them down somewhere.  That somewhere might as well be here.

The intention is to translate existing rules for various elements in Space Hulk into their Aliens equivalent and not to write new rules unless absolutely necessary.  Eventually I plan to write up a simple Force List in the style of the Force List in Deathwing that allows players to pick a simple Colonial Marine force for playing any Space Hulk scenario.

Finally, while I like the idea of Predators I have never really enjoyed the movies that much.  I really think that they are pretty shitty to be honest, even though even suggesting that to most of my colleagues tends to send them into a fit of nerd rage, complete with bad Schwarzenegger impersonations.  So, while I have a pile of Predators waiting to be painted they are not a priority for me in terms of rules conversion.  It will happen eventually but not for a while as I dont really care that much about them and they will be harder to legislate for anyway due to their stealth and all that.

So here goes.  Everything is as in 3rd Ed rules unless otherwise specified:

M41A Pulse Rifle armed Colonial Marine = Storm Bolter Terminator Marine (ignore the Grenade Launcher part of the M41A.  It is considered to be intrinsic to the weapons standard effect in the game.  Consider it represented by the sustained fire bonus if that floats your boat).

M41A Pulse Rifle armed Sergeant= Power Sword and Storm Bolter armed Terminator Sergeant (+1 in assault is fine for a veteran NonCom.  Parry from the sword can be seen as whatever you like, kung-fu grip, sixth sense, Riddick levels of badass-ness: whatever.  Regardless, Sergeants have it.  Just like they allow the CP redraw).

Shotgun armed Corporal (Hicks) = Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield Armed Terminator Sergeant (this one is a bit of a fudge.  Assuming that the shotgun is only effective at point blank range is pushing it, but it does make the shotgun very deadly at that range, just like in video games.  The Block given by the shield is explained away just like the Parry for the other Sarge.  It also makes Apone and Hicks different, but similar which is cool.  The utter absence of Hicks Pulse Rifle (Storm Bolter) is a bit counter intuiticve, but as it will then slot in cleanly to all of the 3rd Ed missions I think that that has to be way to do it.  Finally, this ties in with one of the few extra rules that I intend to use, Acid Splash.  If it works out then having the Shotgun guy run the risk of acid burn will feel just like the movie 🙂 ).

M56 Smart Gun armed Colonial Marine = Assault Cannon Terminator

M240 Flamethrower armed Colonial Marine = Heavy Flamer Terminator

M41A Pulse Rifle armed Colonial Marine with Welder and Electrical Equipment (Hudson) = Storm Bolter and Chainfist Terminator (both troopers open doors/bulkheads that are otherwise difficult to open. Simple and accurate conversion).

Caterpillar P-5000 Powerloader = Lightning Claw armed Terminator (I was initially hesitant about this but the more that I thought about it the more that I liked it.  The LC Terminator has no ranged capability and will shred most opposition, most of the time.  It will also have a decent chance to best the dangerous Alien Queen (Patriarch/Broodlord) in hand to hand, which is reasonable.  It is a neat solution I think).

Company Man Burke, Newt and Jones the cat= C.A.T., Relic or other scenario objectives (I might try to come up with rules for Burke at a later date but having to rescue his sorry ass seems just as appropriate I think).

Synthetic/Artificial Person = Terminator Librarian (I know, I know but bear with me for a second.

Having watched Alien 4 last weekend, the idea of a synthetic with potent, situation based powers like Prescience (some sort of CCTV based thing) and Force Barrier (overriding a blast door or similar) seems fine to me. Psychic Storm might be pushing it a bit but whatever: maybe Bishop/Cole/Ash has overridden the Liquid Nitrogen spraying thing or activated the sprinklers after causing a short or switching on sentry guns in that area or something else just as Deus Ex Machina.

The Librarians close combat prowess is a bit at odds with Bishops performance but not so much with that of Ash (super-strong, but not super-tough). Considering that Bishop is three laws compliant, the idea of the synthetic going to extraordinary lengths to beat up potentially harmful Xenomorphs is ok with me.  Apparently the comics had combat synths that used to get stuck in quite regularly too, although the three laws tell me that Bishop would be compelled to help whether he was built for it or not.

Funnily enough the thing that doesnt sit well with me is that the Librarian has a Storm Bolter.  It doesnt seem right that Bishop should have a rifle (and the figure that I have to represent the synthetic has a piece of technical equipment in place of a weapon too.  Does Cole use a gun at any point in the 4th film?  I dont think so.

Reluctant Badass Lieutenant Ellen Ripley = Space Hulk First Edition Captain (another fudge.  The Captain in 1st Ed is very potent: he adds +2 to the CP total every turn, adds +2 to combat rolls and has a Power Sword, Grenade Launcher and Storm Bolter.  I have found that the Captain is roughly equivalent to the 3rd Ed Librarian in potency and I have swapped the characters when playing 3rd Ed quite successfully.

I suppose that Ripley is shown to have leadership qualities in the movie so ok to the CP bonus. The Storm Bolter/Pulse Rifle is perfect and the Captains GL can simply be seen as an alternative way of using the Incinerator that Ripley carries.  Thats OK with me.  The +2 combat plus Parry is harder to explain away but in the interests of keeping the rules standard I think that I can live with it.  I will justify it to myself as Fate or Hero points: the things that make the Hero, the Hero.

So, thats the Humans dealt with.   Bugs now:

Xenomorph = Purestrain Genestealer

Alien Queen = Broodlord

Face-hugger or Chest-burster = First Edition Unarmed Hybrid (these guys will get wiped out by fire very easily.  Once converted from Blip to model they move more slowly too.  They will be a fun, straightforward way to add some variety to the Alien players forces without much additional complexity and the rules are already written.  As I will use the 1st Ed blip sets, including the Hybrid blips it will be easy to throw in a few small aliens.  I havent decided on a way to incorporate it into the standard 3rd Ed blips yet.  It will probably be something similar to how the Patriarch can be brought into play, except that a “1” Blip can be exchanged for 3 Face-huggers twice a game or something like that.)

Lastly, Acid Splash.  Some players have added rules for this.  In many ways I think that it is an unneccesary complication for little gain.  Still, after mulling it over I had an idea: rather than roll to hit any/all adjacent models when an Alien dies (which would be tedious and could easily spoil the rapid flow of the game) I want to try out an idea based on the Scatter rule from Blood Bowl.

See Mikkos comments below.

Acid Splash: Acid Splash occurs when an Alien is hit from a shooting attack and that attack rolls at least two “1”‘s rolls at least two “6”‘s. If the target Alien is adjacent to one or more non-Alien figures then one of the non-Alien figures is chosen by the shooting player.  The chosen figure is removed from play.

As noted below this gives only a 1/36 chance of damage and is incorporated into the existing rolls and game mechanics.  It also makes point blank shooting a tiny bit risky which is both thematic and entertaining.  It also means that a blast from an Assault Cannon/Smart Gun is more likely to cause Acid Splash while the Heavy Flamer cannot ever.  Quite satisfyingly accurate to the relative strengths and weaknesses of the weapons as I see them.  Nice one Mikko.

Phew, that was a long one.  Congrats if you endured it this far.  Comments and thoughts on that much are welcome.

EDIT 02/06/10: replaced Acid Splash idea with Mikkos version from comments below.

EDIT 02/06/10: replaced Acid Splash “1” with “6”.

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Dr Braga & Umbrella Security Service NBC Squad / Red Shadows

Posted on 01/06/2010 by sho3box

Umbrella NBC Sergeant & Trooper

I have wanted some NBC troopers for zombie games for a while, but I couldnt decide what way to paint them.  While army greens or khakis may have been apt I figured that I would try to tie them to the Umbrella forces that I have been painting, just to be a little different.

As I plan to get some white-clad HazMat suits at a later date (like the suits at the end of the first Resident Evil movie) I didnt want to go for that.  I decided instead to use the other colours from the palette in the Umbrella logo: red and black.

Umbrella Elite Troops ("Blood for the Baron!")

Painting red is a pain in the ass. Trying to get a shaded yet vibrant red (rather than a brown or orange or pink) is irritatingly difficult.

I went for a bright rubbery red in this case and some liberal application of Tamiya Clear red helped to keep the colour vibrant while still shading it.  I am happy with the rubbery look that the red ended up with (aided by a liberal gloss varnish, which in turn makes the shading hard to see in the photos.  Its there all right).

As I painted the black on to the predominantly red figures I realised how Nazi or James Bond-bad-guy they look.  In particular they remind me of the Red Shadows from the UK Action Force toy range that preceded and was subsequently absorbed into the G.I. Joe franchise.

In response to how cartoony looking the final figures ended up looking, I decided to add a cheesy lightning bolt transfer to the miniatures backs.  I think that it is a GW Space Marine White Scar chapter logo and it was a hell of a lot easier to do than paint an Umbrella logo on a red background.  Plus now it shows them to be some sort of elite squad or something like that.

Dr. Braga and Laser Armed Umbrella NBC Trooper

I painted a Moonfleet scientist miniature at the same time as the NBC guys and christened him Dr Braga, after a Star Trek writter known for his technobabble filled writing.  The doctor fits in well with these elite Umbrella troopers I think but he would be equally at home playing God in a lab or antagonising Xenomorphs in their cage or in any number of other sci-fi toy-soldier-y applications.

Since 2008 I have found myself painting scientist spectacles with 3D glasses style red and blue/green.  It doesnt make a lot of sense, but I like the look and so I keep doing it (Dr Jacoby from Twin Peaks wore a pair, didnt he?  I could be wrong).  It works well on Dr. Braga I think.

I bought a toy vehicle last week to transport these guys around in their own hi-tech, HazMat truck.  I hope to get to that at a later date, probably at the same time that I get the two humvees for the USS guys finished.

Collecting Samples for the T-Virus Project

Note that since August 18th, 2010 I have retconned these guys to be Umbrella Special Forces Unit Epsilon.  Not that it really matters, but for the sake of accuracy 🙂

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“C.Hi.M.P.s”

Posted on 19/05/2010 by sho3box

Something even more frivolous than usual today 🙂

Chimpanzee Hirsute Maglev Patrol

Officers Wilcox, Estrada, Baker and Poncherello from the

Chimpanzee Hirsute Maglev Patrol

are on the case. Continue reading →

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Dr Flint Leghorn

Posted on 11/05/2010 by sho3box

Dr Flint Leghorn

Dr Leghorns momma was one of the Standard Falls townsfolk but his pappy was a member of the Lab Rats tribe.  This gave Flint a unique perspective on life in and around the town and the wastes around it.  It has also contributed somewhat to his eccentric perspective.

Like Sir Reginald Beef Wellington O.B.E. (a close friend of the doctors), Leghorn doesnt live in the town itself but a couple of hours travel from it.  Nonetheless his unusual combination of tribal and scientific medical knowledge means that he gets visited by a lot more townsfolk then one might expect.

"Ahm afraid that there aint nothing ah can do. That there leg done have to come off."

Dr Leghorn is a Copplestone Casting from their awesome “Wasteland Desperadoes” pack, like Beauford X. Tinction.  Like every Copplestone sculpt that I have come across, it is of a very high standard.   I rate Copplestone and Hasslefree miniatures right up at the top of the industry standard.

I had some problems with the flesh tones on this figure, mostly because I decided to “fix” some of it while pissed late on a Saturday night.  After that less than successful evenings “work” the figure sat on my painting table for a few months while I painted other stuff, while I waited to find the enthusiasm to get painting it again.

Like the red stripes on Sir Reggie, I decided to try something that I hadnt done before on this figures trousers.  After doing a little bit of research into leopard skin print online I managed to get the pattern painted to a level that I was happy with on the first attempt.  Which was nice 🙂

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Sir Reginald Beef Wellington O.B.E.

Posted on 05/05/2010 by sho3box

Sir Reginald Beef Wellington O.B.E.

Sir Reginald Beef Wellington OBE lives on the outskirts of Standard Falls, mostly keeping to himself.  He has a few friends in the area, the most notable being Doctor Leghorn.  His eccentric and slightly peculiar nature keeps him at arms length from most of the the towns inhabitants.

“Top hole! And rather spiffing too actually”.

Reggie is the first post-apocalyptic figure that I have painted for quite a while, probably over a decade.   As a child of the ’80s when post-apocalyptic movies were particularly in vogue I will always have a soft spot for the sub-genre.

Reggie is a classic sculpt by Mark Copplestone currently for sale from EM4 as “0041 Gentleman Scavenger. Stunbrella. Bowler hat. Morningsuit (tattered)”.  There is something  about the “stiff upper lip” gas mask and torn morning suit look that is very appealing.

Most versions of the figure that I have seen are painted to look like the figure is wearing a formal suit, usually black.  Just for a little variety I decided to paint Reggie in a “boating” jacket, for that Oxbridge look.   The figure always reminds me a little of Mr Bland (from Bland and Brass) in the Rogue Trooper comics from the 80’s.

Since I painted and photographed the figure I have tidied up the stripes on the back of Reggies left arm.  A few of them were a bit off.  I also put a teeny bit of lichen on the rear of the base, but thats really hardly worth mentioning.

I have a lot of post-apoc stuff in the pipeline, so more inhabitants of post-apocalyptic Standard Falls will be showing up here as time goes by.

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