Rockets For Clowns

There used to be such a thing as a Harlequin jetbike squadron. I liked the idea of laughing eldar zipping through the webway on brightly-colored rockets. So, I am building a troupe of flying clowns.

They will be included into my exodite list (counting as shining spears in regular games) and I might create a apocalypse datasheet for them in the future. This particular bike will be for my "Muse", who will count as an exodite autarch on jetbike.

I was hoping to combine the bike kits more, luckily I still need to pick up two more bikes. At the moment, there is one bike done for the troupe master (above), as well as two bikes with flamers.

I just have to say, the new bikes are awesome.

This of course gives me all kinds of ideas, the predominant being making novice Harlequins out of wytches to count as storm guardians as well as a transport (waveserpent-ish). More to come.

Ricalope.

PS- The Mechanicus drop lander will be done, likely in January. Thanks for voting, but the clowns won.

A Day in the Life of Adept Majoris Phoboes (2)

Adept Majoris Phoboes stood behind his artillery and watched the heretics approach. Skold, the stormsword at his disposal, threw a massive shell into the chaos marines, the rest of the Imperial guns followed suit.

The ogryn servitors charged towards the enemy lines tearing at heretics while artillery rained overhead. Phoboes received a incoherent message about the fluctuations in the warp, but the arrival of a large chaos host would do that.

The walkers on the left flank were being held off by the lascannon-armed sentinels and the line seemed to be holding. As the ogryns threw berserkers around, the techpriest calculated his odds. As long as he had Skold, the ogryns, and that Artios could hold the Choir together, they stood a really good chance at surviving.

But the daemon prince known as Mr. Huggy repelled the ogryn assault, killing them all. To make things worse, Artios was reported to be on his knees vomiting. Then, looking up from his auspex, he noticed the jetbikes. The eldar were here to defend their ruins. He watched as a troupe of brightly colored eldar bounced off one of the chaos walkers, as each landed a weapon would hit the ground at the same time, within seconds it was an invalid.

Crimson II, one of the forward squads, was targeted by a handful of the hardest of the heretics. They were shot at by the quadraped and Mr. Spikey (a defiler), leaving only the commissar and sergeant alive after the smoke cleared.

Sgt. Owen was found wanting in the face of such trivial odds and executed moments before the commissar's evisceration.

Behind the front line a trio of obliterators teleported behind Skold and they threw everything they had at the super heavy tank. Without any other support, Phoboes prepared to discourage them strongly with his servitors.

The xenos allies were regaining the left flank along with the Imperials. Artios was ordering the 609th to avoid shooting the aliens, who were complying the best they could. The chaos forces were being bolstered by daemon princes and lesser beasts and even a greater daemon. The daemonic presence made the xenos almost encouraging. The Primaris said the farseer was in communication with him, and that they were here to assist the Imperial defense.

On the right flank, the Wolf Pack had engaged the greater daemon with plasma. Even with most of its body molten warp-goo, the creature still managed to assault the veterans, killing over half of them in hand to hand combat. Yelling his usual assortment of obscenities, Vet. Sgt. Huckish pounded the overgrown chaos spawn back to the warp.

The obliterators managed to stun the storrmsword, keeping the massive tank between them and the loyal servant of Mars a little longer. Te extra time they bought themselves won them nothing at all.

The quadraped was digging into the Imperial line, it was constantly shrugging off shells from the medusa and was assaulting the center line. On the left flank, the Wolf Pack was preparing to banish another daemon prince. Opposite from them, the farseer was leading an assault on Dragger himself.

To be continued....

A Day in the Life of Adept Majoris Phoboes

Due to the increased activity of eldar forces south of Hive Tempestus, Adept Majoris Phoboes and Primaris Atrios are sent to investigate, and possibly shut down, the warp disturbances originating from the area. Deploying the 609th on a wide perimeter, they set to work.

The Choir was restless and complaining, worrying themselves about marines. Artois knew the chapter they spoke of, specifically their librarian Dragger. They were loyalists, but there were rumors of heresy, but with all the chaos traffic who could be sure? And there was the part about being surrounded by wraithbone, even he could feel it's energy. It felt as though it was alive and growing, thinking, around them.

As Phoboes tested the structures with the Mechanicus tech at is disposal, Artios sent him a warning regarding Dragger. The psyker knew that a librarian like Dragger would likely attempt to use the xenos structures, because that is what he would do in the marine's place.

The Choir began to probe the wraithbone with their minds. It resisted, only showing them a single shard of the future, simply that chaos was approaching. As Artios ordered them to cease, contacts reports were beginning to come in from Zero and Recon Squadrons. Adept Phoboes called their defensive line tighter.

TBC...

Even Zombies Have Doctors

This is the model that made me want to paint Warmachine. She is so elegant and necromantic. Her nonchalant pose in difference to the undead around her. Her obsession with reanimation.

Although, I admit there is a techpriest deep within me which made the third arm seem too asymmetrical, a fourth arm was needed. She is very thin and detailed, so I made the arm from the smallest rod I had around and a paperclip. A plasticard blade was then added to the end.

I am always amused by the many different tools and materials used in the building of models. With her I used a pin vice, set of needle files, crochet netting, "sidewalk" groove plasticard, epoxy putty, a paper clip, guitar wire, an empty pencil and a sculpting tool.

A piece of guitar wire was added to give it that augmented feeling and bulk it out more. Putty was added to the arm, venting on the blade and connecting the wire to the arm. The pencil was used to make rivet-like impressions in the putty, while a paperclip was used to poke the holes in the venting.

Ah! The sun!!
...Ricalope.

The Sunstorm Project - Hull Designs

Greetings all, and welcome to the first of the Sunstorm posts. On the shelf of shame there was once two fire prisms, the rear-heavy, metal kind. Then the new kit came out, and at once I knew it would be the 'squadron leader'. After some assembly, and tricking out the engines, the Sunstorm squadron was ready for paint. I knew that if I attempted to paint each one separately the third one would never be finished. On the other hand, if I painted them all at once. it would take me forever..and thus the blog posts. Hopefully, this will prompt me to work on them.

I begin with a vomit brown basecoat over white primer. I am not too worried at getting all the nooks and crannies at this point as there is a wash eventually. I know what a nook is, but a cranny?

Second, a generous coat of bleached bone was applied. With no designs in mind yet, both of these coats were applied everywhere. Still haven't seen a cranny though....

Next would be marking out the designs and green/turquoise sections with catachan green. In an attempt to keep the tanks very bright, the designs were kept to a minimum. This will also stop my head from exploding.

The green was given a second coat of camo/catachan green mix. I decided to create a triangle connecting all three tanks which connects each prism cannon.

Here's a top view. The burning triangle rune is the squadron's rune, while the larger one is Craftworld Apseraph's.

Next, with catachan green/hawk turquoise, apply the turquoise basecoat. Only half of the runes were given this basecoat, as well as the ends of the fins, which will start the color change.

A second triangle was created with the turquoise, diamonds on the hull, flames on the turret. All the highlights have been left for the last stages, as it is easier to finish them after touch-ups.

Until next time,
Ricalope.

Growing Wraithbone ~ Part Two

With the exception of a few touch ups, the wraithbone forest is ready for the table.

I decided not to put extra bitz on these, as I wanted to keep them basic. My personal opinion when it comes to terrain, is that scenery provides background. It seems weird when the battlefield looks better than the models fighting on it, at least to me.

So I tried to keep the highlights few and sketchy. Admittedly, I started off attempting to dust them with white primer, which might have worked had I not run dry.

I think there will be more pieces like these involving a cat-waterer and bottles. Those might get some bitz, as there might only be two or three of them (good for objectives I'm hoping).

Static grass mat, jungle trees, some eggs....should make a sweet eldar/tyranid table? Until next time around,
Ricalope.

Growing Wraithbone ~ Part One

It's pink, tastes like nothing, and smells bad when you burn it. Yup, it's styrofoam! GottaCon is fast approaching, and the 40k tournament needs an eldar table (and so do I for that matter ;P ).

With hotwire in one hand, and fine sandpaper in another, I decided to work on that hole in my terrain collection, the eldar kind. Cutting the shapes out was easy with a wire cutter, but I caution you to keep all the windows open, (unless you like to breathe hazardous chemicals).

The wraithbone structures are sanded down with fine sandpaper which creates some awesome dust to inhale. One should really be wearing a gasmask for this kind of thing.

In one of the kitchen drawers I found a stash of bamboo skewers. With these, I skewered the pieces together with a bit of pva glue. Luckily, none of those cause respiratory problems, so I closed the window and took off the gasmask.

Now, on to a brief stroll through the bitz box, and they should be ready for paint.

See ya,
Ricalope.

Caution: Necromechanics in Progress

Things have been dark and cold out here, so I figured that raising the undead would be appropriate. Here are some WIP shots of the slowly growing Cryx force that lurks on my shelf.

They will count as 'mechani-thralls', and there is probably more to come after this, but I call them steam-zombies. I chose to start with the minimum unit size, which is six. Along with this unit I also have two brute-thralls to add in and another four steam zombies to make after.

These zombies are made from Warhammer zombies, with their hands cut off, attached to Warmachine bases. New hands, as well as the occasional leg or arm, were made from plastic tubes and rods (from the friendly neighborhood model train store). Once that was finished, guitar wire was glued on, then some putty to plug the wires into the hands and create furnaces.

While the putty was wet, more tubes were added to make smoke stacks. I cut some of them at angles to emulate the Cryxian style. It might be the grins, but they do seem happy.

Ah, yes. The Iron Lich. He accumulates paint very slowly, maybe I just like him on the painting table...

I am tempted to paint the same tone of red that Deneghra has on his hood and skirt...err....robe. Hmmmm.....hopefully this will get me painting him again...

Beware of clones,
Ricalope.