Updates

Well back again.

It's been a well over a month since my last post. I was intending to have this particular post posted a week or so after the last but I ended up having quite a bad flare of crohns/colitis, which got to the point of getting me in hospital for a few days. Le Joy.

But all is well now; my health had deteriorated quite a bit over the past 3 months, and though having to go into hospital it was what I needed to get back to a point where I can keep on top of it.

Back to the hobby!

I have started to go through all my GW projects to work out what needs to be done. For the most part none of them are painted (with the exception of a few test pieces for High Elves and some of my Eldar which were painted many years ago in a different scheme to what I intend to do now)

40K

Eldar

My 40k projects are mostly centred around Eldar, being my primary army/detachment. I also have an Inquisitorial and Dark Eldar force in the works but as Allied/Inquisitorial Detachments.

Currently my Eldar consist of:

HQ

·         The Avatar of Khaine (Both GW and FW Variants)

·         2 Autarchs

·         2 Farseers

·         7 Warlocks

·         Eldrad

·         Asurman

·         Fuegan

·         Baharroth

Troops

·         10 Guardian Defenders

·         10 Storm Guardians

·         20 Dire Avengers

·         5 Rangers

Elites

·         6 Striking Scorpions

·         12 Howling Banshees

·         6 Fire Dragons

·         6 Harlequins- Including Death Jester and Shadowseer

Fast Attack

·         6 Warp Spiders

Heavy Support

·         5 Dark Reapers

·         1 Fire Prism

·         2 Wraithlords

·         1 Wraithseer

The army is primarily centred around Aspect Warriors. I was originally going to paint them as Siam Hann, but I've slowly leant towards Biel Tan. The Biel Tan Fluff is more fitting to my play style/list building, and their colour scheme and iconography has grown on me.

I would like to add a Falcon/Wave Serpent and a Wraith Knight at some point for some more heavier mobile support. I may also add a flyer and some Wraithguard/blades later down the track. I would like the add more Storm Guardians if I can track down the metals. Overall it's a fairly straight forward project; most of the models are metal, either solid piece or just need an arm or two glued on. The main assembly work will be the Wraithlords/Seer and the Prism.

I am planning to do some conversion work, mainly for the Phoenix Lords, Autarchs and some Exarchs to make them more unique.

Dark Eldar

Dark Eldar is an army I have considered for a while, but mainly in the role as an allied detachment.  I picked up some of the metal DE characters in the 2010 release, being the Archon, Lelith and Urien , and acquired a mix of Incubi, both new and old metals. My aim is to use them as a fast support army with my Eldar, though I may grow them to a larger size to use as a primary detachment. I have picked up a few boxes and so far have:

HQ

·         1 Archon

·         Urien

·         Lelith

Troops

·         2 Boxes of Kabalite Warriors

Elites

·         6 old school Incubi

·         5 Current edition Incubi

Fast Attack

·         8 Scourges

·         3 Venoms

Heavy Support

·         1 Talos

All currently NIB except the Metals. I also have been picking up a ton of bits for conversions, primarily for True Born and Hekatrix Blood Brides. I'm mainly planning to run multiple small units in Venoms, to balance with my Eldar which lack fast units (With the exception of the Battle Focus ability). I may pick up a Raider or Two down the track to use larger units sizes, but will see what happens.

Inquisitorial Project

This project is rather ambitious, though not large...with the exception that I'm hoarding whatever relevant Daemon/Witch Hunter metals as I can and endless amounts of conversion bits. I have always loved the background and imagery surrounding the Inquisition, and whilst I was in hospital I finally finished reading the Eisenhorn omnibus by Dan Abnett. Definitely worth a read if you ever intend to build an Inquisitorial force, it really gives you an insight in how they operate and the character development of the Inquisitors and their retinues- You will just be bubbling with character ideas and conversion possibilities.

Primarily this a modelling project, and  will vary greatly in content, mostly focusing on the Inquisitors and their retinues/henchmen. I do intend to run them as an Inquisitorial Detachment with my Eldar/Dark Eldar, but the modelling itself (primarily for Henchmen) wont strictly adhere to the unit entries. Basically I will model units based on having character and unique composition/background rather than trying to strictly to matching unit entries.  I intend to make at least Inquisitor of each Ordo with an array of henchmen, but likely will end up have multiple of each. I currently just have a pile of bits and metals that I have been acquiring over the years, and will keep updates whenever I start putting things together.

One of the Inquisitorial piles

WFB

This post is already quite long, so I will cut this part short for the moment. I have of course my High Elves, which have only changed slightly since my last updates in regards to them . I no longer have a White Lion Chariot, Bolt Thrower or Dragon Princes as I wasn't really using them. I did acquire more Sword Masters to make a unit of 21 and a Sea Helm. Other than that not much else. Most things are assembled and waiting to be primed, with the exception of some of my Lords/Heroes. I have found with Fantasy that I end up with a large amount of character models and bits because I can't decided how to equip them- a sign I need to get playing :P. I plan on picking up another box of Phoenix Guard and White Lions to bring them up to units of 20, and I'd like to get a Dragon down the track.

I have started also started both Skaven and Dark Elves. So far I have the Warhost of Naggaroth, 20 Witch Elves, 10 Dark Riders, 10 Executioners, a War Hydra and a Cauldron, all still on sprue with an assortment of Characters for Dark Elves. As for Skaven, I know I have 20 Storm Vermin, a Hellpit Abomination, a Doom Wheel, a Screaming bell/Plauge Furnace (1 kit magnetised for both), 7 rat ogres and an assortment of characters. As for Clan rats, I don't recall how many I have. I have at least 2 IOB boxes worth, then plus a few more clanrat boxes worth. I would say around 80-120. I will likely be going through and picking out unarmoured ones to use as slaves. I will give more detailed listings of them when I end up going through them.

Well those are my GW projects which I will be working on. I do have some historical projects, but I touch on them on an off, so will only update those when something actually happens with them.

I am wanting to start getting into the gaming side of things proper, so have been a bit more motivated to get my armies together. There is a Gaming Open Day coming up in a few weeks for the Canberra Northern Suburbs Gaming group, which will be a great way to meet other gamers and get involved. I may even be participating in a Apocalypse Game on the day which will be a good way to get a grasp on 7th ed 40k, so I am wanting to try and get 1500-2000pts of Eldar and Dark Eldar together to use for that. I also intend to take advantage of Battlefoams likely Black Friday Sale at the end of November, and order a 720 case. I have a 432 for my HE and one for my Skaven, but would like to pick up the 720 so I have 1 bigger bag for a larger force/models. As I will be designing custom trays, I always prefer to have the models on hand and assembled so I can make the right measurements- especially as I can incorporate magnetisation into it. So getting my Dark Eldar and some of my Dark Elves together will be of great benefit to that since I plan to pick up trays for my 40k as a whole and my Dark Elves.

Another long post, I intend to start getting some things together over the next few days so will update as I go.

Farseer heads

Continuing on from my last post, I have been playing around with my Farseers head options.

Other than the ghost helm, I have 2 other candidates:

The first option is using a head from a reaper model, specifically Professor Laura Pringle. I wanted the head to have an 'open helmet' feel to it, so I took a Dire Avenger helmet and removed most of top parts, leaving the neck and jaw parts. I then shaved down parts of the head to socket it in, Still playing around with it, I may need to redo the Avenger helmet and green stuff. The plastic hair piece was removed from one of the Dark Elves dragon sorceress.


 Which brings me to the second bare head option. Using one of the Sorceress heads from the Dark Elf Dragon kit. I removed top knot which I added to the first head, and used a different hair piece from the Dark Eldar Wyches kit. Works quite nicely, however, the head doesn't have a neck, I'm currently working out how I want to go about that, either doing something similar with the reaper one, or sculpting a neck. I want to have all 3 magnetised to I can interchange them all.

Why 3 heads? As I said before, I like options even if they are just aesthetic. In this particular case I wanted to use the ghost helm and a bare head. The reaper head was the first one I worked on, and since its using a non GW part, I wouldnt be able to use it in a GW store. I haven't played in a long while, and don't know if I would do so in a GW store, but I wanted to make a 'GW friendly' bare head anyway. I quite like both so far, so will see how they look with the end result, whenever that may be...

I'm currently going through all my Warhammer/40K armies to work out what I had in the works (which is without a doubt, a lot),My next post will probably be an outline of everything I am currently working on, noting down any planned conversions or anything out of the ordinary. I'm currently wanting to work on my Dark Elves, but I will likely jump around between them all.

Lets turn back the clock...

Hello!

Well, it has been a while...nearly 14-15 months since my last post...

I have noticed that the blog has still had some regular viewing traffic throughout the hiatus, so if you were awaiting my next post, which was to detail my female Farseer conversion, I do apologize.

The past year has been interesting. I started University, studying European history, German and English. It's the first proper academic study that I have done since finishing high school back in 2010, so it has taken some getting used to; particularly getting back into the gist of essay writing, researching, and general punctuation and grammar (which I am likely completely butchering here). Early July this year I also moved interstate to the ACT, which has been quite full on, but I'm now settled, in the routine of things, studying, started an awesome job, and ready to pick up from where I left off.

A few things have changed hobby wise since then, due to moving I sold of excess models and a few collections. The main collection I sold was my Flames of War, which isn't a big deal since I never made a post on them. I do intend to pick it up again at some point, but I'm going to wait until more of the new plastic kits come out, and when I'm more solid on a list (As I can never decide, ever). Other than that I sold off excess kits that I could easily acquire again, such as my Eldar Grav tanks, Wraith guard and Wraith Knight (both of which were still in the box).

Of course, I have also acquired some new things. I have started Skaven and Dark Elves, picked up a few Bolt action models, and also started a Malifaux crew, being Hamelin. It's a never ending cycle of culling and growing really.

I am aiming to try and get in a post a week/fortnight, and also some regular modelling and painting going. I really dropped the ball in this area of late, so I'm hoping to keep things consistent, even if I'm only doing one model a week or fortnight; as long as I am doing something.

Now for the female Farseer conversion...

Witchblade

The conversion was fairly simple for the most part. I removed the top half of the torso above where the sash/belt started, and replaced it with a Sister of Avalon torso. Cutting down the torso to fit snugly was a bit tricky at first, so If you do use this method, make sure you have a few on hand, as I ended cutting a few down too much. But once you get it snug it works great. I also filed parts of the cloak interior to help with getting it in. I then green stuffed any gaps, and part of the sash where I had made some cuts. When doing this, be careful of the wraithbone loincloth thing. It can be easy to accidentally apply pressure to it, so be wary of that so you don't end up breaking it.

The head and blade arm is also magnetised, since I like to keep the options open, even if some are just aesthetic. I had also removed the 'beard' on the Ghosthelm and smoothed it to make it more feminine. I do plan to give her a bare head option, but I am still playing around with that.

Overall it was a relatively simple conversion that achieved a great result. That is all for now, I hopefully will have another update sometime next week.

No weapon arm

Singing Spear

All the things Elfar

Well it has been a while since my last post, having been kept busy with other commitments. Not too much has been done hobby wise other than cleaning up a few things, but I thought what better to make a post on than the double whammy of having both my beloved High Elves and Eldar updated over May and June. I picked up a portion of both releases, so not to render my wallet to a state of comatose, and have slowly begun to get them together.

Part of the acquisition

                                                                                                                                                           











Other than what's pictured, I picked up the Handmaiden and Lore master characters, and I also caved and got a Wraith Knight and another box of Wraith Guard, so still quite a few new acquisitions but there is still the Sky Cutter, Sisters of Avelorn (Going to build the Shadow Warriors first up) and the Eldar Flyer kit left...which I'm sure I will pick up eventually (i.e in two weeks after the compelling need to have them overcomes and causes me to buy them and then shelve them forever)  

So I guess my aim over the next few weeks is to get these guys all assembled and ready for painting. I am likely to be starting Uni in late July, so having them all fully assembled and set to be painted before then would be ideal, and for me an achievement at the rate I assemble things. Plus I am going to magnetize most of the load outs for the Wraith units, and probably parts of the Phoenix like the rider and wings/head. The characters so far will be mostly disassembled where appropriate and put onto corks for ease of painting, most of the other unit should remain assembled for painting bar a few pieces if I deem it necessary to paint them separately.

Following up from my post regarding Finecast I have gone and opened the finecast products, being the Hand Maiden and Spirit Seer, and have found them to be very nice sculpts, with only minor flash and mould lines needing to be removed and some re-positioning of the staff and spear.

Hand Maiden

Quiver and Spear

Detail is very crisp, so still so far my only real issue that persists with finecast is areas being bendy/flimsy and that there can be quite a bit of excess resin, not exactly flash but chunks of resin that are left on parts of the sculpt, where the model is being held on the frame, which can be easily missed if you don't check over them carefully. Other than that they are very good sculpts, and so far have been relatively easy to get prepped and mounted onto corks

Spirit Seer Front

Spirit Seer Back

Seer parts back

Seer parts front

I am planning to do the inevitable female Farseer conversion that is in the back of every Eldar players mind (dont deny it :3) I have had such a project in the works for a while but haven't been able to properly pull it off thus far due to most Farseer models being quite bulky and not suited for a female figure. However the latest Farseer release is very well suited, being far more slender than the last few and the way it assembles means it will be very easy to convert. I am still going over exactly how I want to go about it, as I have a few different head options, and obviously making the body more feminine which I will cover in my next post.

I also completed my Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon commission which I had in the works for a while. Was pleased with the end result. I had him in separate parts for painting so it was really nice to see the final result when I put him together. Was a pain to get wrapped and secure for postage however, so much paranoia when waiting for the owner to receive it, but he survived the transit quite nicely :D

So that's it for now. I will try to update as I go as best I can and not jump massively ahead, but I will try to get a post out at least once a week/fortnight to show my progress.

The Finecast Theory

As the title suggests, this post will be delving into that of Finecast, specifically in terms of product/casting quality and what I have personally found in my experience with finecast.

A range of Finecast products both new and old.

This post isn't going into anything on why Games Workshop switched or any 'Theorys' on the company and the product in terms of marketing or what have you, I mention this because there are quite a few posts and articles out there that delve into that that may be titled similarly. This simply goes into my experiences using the products, and a 'theory' on the product in terms of good and bad quality casts.

When GW switched to finecast back in early 2011, I was both greatly annoyed and intrigued  I personally prefer metal as a medium, but it was interesting to see the advantages that a product such as finecast has such as being easier to assemble and convert, the detail is far more crisp and defined, and is very light in weight. However, the material can be quite flimsy and sometimes brittle, and for me, I do prefer a bit of weight to models, so I do find their weight a bit of a downfall for me. I am yet to paint onto finecast, so I can't say anything in terms of that, but I presume it would be similar to working with Forge World resin or plastic.

So the key points for Finecast are:

PROS

• Light weight
• Easy to convert and assembly
• Crisp detail

CONS

• Tends to be flimsy
• Can be brittle

You will probably notice however I have left out one key problem that is generally associated with finecast products. Miscasts.

A miscast being any Finecast sculpt that hasn't been properly formed during the casting process, and results in warpage, areas not being casted at all resulting in parts of the model missing, air bubbles, and poor surface quality. I have chosen to leave it out for the moment because I am going to touch on my findings when it comes to miscasts.

I have picked up several Finecast products, both when they were first released, and at later stages up to a few weeks ago, and from different game systems. In total I believe I have gotten 10 FC products (10 individuals, 1 a box of 4 models) over the period since early 2011 to present. Out of 14 casts, 5 were of an average standard that needed some minor work to either re-sculpt/fill parts of it, or had minor warpage, but overall were decent casts, 2 have been that bad GW had to send me another or will require a lot of work and re sculpting to fix, and surprisingly 7 of them have been perfect, if not flawless casts.

Now when you think about all the bad rep that FC has received, It is quite odd that 50% of the casts were perfect, compared too 5 being average and 2 being terrible. The two terrible casts, were recent purchases, and out of the 5 average casts, 2 were early, and 3 where recent. Now its when we get to the perfect casts it gets interesting. 5 of the casts are completely new models that were released after FC was brought in, so are not old metal sculpts being re-casted, and thus are being designed with Finecast in mind. The 5 in question are the Cockatrice, Necron Overlord, Bolg, Yazneg, and Elrond, in order of release and purchase. They are also the only post-finecast new releases I have, so currently making it a 99.5% perfect cast rate on new releases, the other 2 were metal recasts, an Eldar Autarch and a LOTR Uruk Hai Shaman.

Heres a list of all the models and where they ranked:

Miscasted:

• High Elves Tyrion
• Eldrad Ulthuan

Average

• Korhil
• Harlequin Death Jester
• Uruk Hai Banner Bearer
• Uruk Hai Captain
• Uruk Hai Drummer

Perfect

• Eldar Autarch
• Uruk Hai Shaman
• Cockatrice
• Necron Overlord
• Bolg
• Yazneg
• Elrond

So my conclusion based on my findings is that it seems post-finecast new releases seem to have a much higher successful cast rate, most likely due to being designed with finecast in mind. Not to say they wont have any issues or miscasts, but seeing that all the new releases I have purchased are close to flawless it does seem more likely that they will be decent. The 9 Metal recasts had mixed results, 2 being terrible, 5 being average, and 2 being perfect, which evens out relatively nicely, but there was a mix of earlier and later purchases/releases, so I cant say for certain whether its improving over time.



I would highly recommend making FC purchases in a local GW store and inspect the casts before leaving. It's what I normally do, mostly when it comes to old metal recasts, since you can usually swap a bad cast out for another on the shelf, or they will order one to be sent to me from the main warehouse after being inspected on site, which I thought was very good of them to do, plus I got to keep the miscast, which allowed me to draft my conversion I had planned for him.

Of courses this is just a theory, I dont know whether this is definitely the case in terms of metal recasts and post FC releases, this is just based on what I have found from the small quantity I have purchased, so I thought I would share my findings. If you have your purchases to be similar, or completely the opposite, feel free to comment! I would really like to hear whether this seems to be the case or whether I just ended up being lucky with some purchases :P I will also keep updating on my findings with FC as I make purchases, to see whether it continues following suit, or whether It ends up changing completely.


I was going to add photos of most of the casts as examples, but its currently quite late, and I found that some of the photos ended up being too bright so you cant really see what going on with the FC, so I will have to take new photos and upload them at a later date, either added to this post or in a 'Part 2'.

Napoleonic French

Lately I have been kept busy with my personal life, but have managed to get make progress on some of my projects, notably my Napoleonic French.

 I currently have a reasonably sized force, probably with more cavalry than what I need. I some how ended up with 3 boxes of Dragoons, giving me 24 of the foot sloggers which is handy, but 39 of the mounted men is a bit excessive when I have other cavalry on the field. So far I have assembled 1 box of Perry French Infantry, 1 box of Dragoons, and 1 box of Heavy Cavalry as Carabiniers. I also have assembled a few Victrix French infantry, but are far more tedious and time consuming to assemble due to being multipart, and having instructions which can be tedious to follow since most of the parts go together in certain ways. I have gone and removed all the bits of the sprues and sorted them into their 'assembly orders' to speed up the process

2 boxes of Victrix French all organised and sorted accordingly

In total I have 2 boxes of Perry French infantry one of which is assembled as is standard, the other which is in the process of being put together using some of the head variants in the box, a box of Perry hussars, the Dragoons and Carabiniers, 2 boxes of Victrix French Infantry 1807-1812 and a few Victrix metals. I would like to add some more command models, since I plan to use these for the Black Powder ruleset, and thus need Brigade commanders and a Commander in chief as the head of the army.

Infantry Colonels and Sappers

As you would expect with Perry Miniature products, the quality is superb, with all the details being crisp and accurate. The Victrix sculpts are nice but the quality of the plastic itself is a bit sub par in some areas, with bayonets being brittle, and the quality of the casts not as clean as other comparisons. However their two main French Infantry kits were some of their first products, and went through a lot of the teething issues to began with, and have since overcome the issues with their newer products. The main difference between the Perry and Victrix kits are of course the uniforms being different, Victrix covers the period from 1807-1812, and Perry is based on the uniform regulations of 1812, thou the new regulations didn't fully come into effect, or simply weren't available, and thus older uniform standards were still kept in many areas. I plan to base my force primarily on conflicts in 1812-15 so both work fine in terms of historical accuracy.

Perry French Infanty 2nd box command with alternate heads.

Victrix 1807-1812 Line Grenadiers

I have taken some photos of most of the Perry set sprues in order to do some proper review of each kit, and made sure I did so before assembling ( or removing much of the sprues in terms of the second Infanty box set). I have found that I always try to find an 'unboxing' of kits before making a purchase, so will try and do my own reviews on things where I can. I should have some up at some point, along with several other things I have been revving working on.  

Carabiniers in their brass cuirass' and helmets issued in 1809

I also recently acquired some Storm Guardians for my Eldar, which I managed to nab of Ebay for a nice price.

Them Shortly after being removed form the package. May re-position some arms, but all good otherwise

 Been trying to get some for a while, and GW recently repackaged the kit to just be the head and arms in finecast, and instead of having enough for 10, only included 8 for just a bit over half the price of what it costed to get 10 Storm Guardians with the bodies. So I am quite happy to have finally gotten my hands on some, whether they are good or not in games terms is besides the point, I just think they look awesome :P

High Elves and Commission update

Well this next post has ended up being later than desired due to a busy week sorting out some things in relation to my personal life, but nevertheless here it is...

Coming off from Eldar in my last post, I thought I would touch on their fantasy counterpart, High Elves.

My High Elves are one of my later projects, but ironically probably my most together one. Most of what I have is assembled and based, or needing to be based. I have only a few unassembled items, being my Lord and Prince kit, which is because I can't deiced how to equip them, and my Dragon Princes due to being a recent purchase and are still in the box.

The army so far consists of:

• 40 Sea Guard- split into two units of 20 ( I think I may actually be 1 or two short)
• 12 Sword Masters
• 10 Ellyrian Reavers
• 1 White Lion Chariot
• 10 Phoenix Guard
• 10 White Lions
• 1 Eagles Claw Bolt Thrower
• 1 Prince of Griffon 
• 3 Mages- the Island of Blood one and the two from the mage box set
• Korhil
• 5 Dragon Princes (not pictured)
• and 2 Noble/Prince models (Not pictured)

and that's about it. The whole army is plastic, with the exception of Korhil being Finecast.

The bulk of it is from the Island of blood kit, which I cherry picked what I wanted off Ebay to avoid ending up with a mass of Skaven. However I have had to convert a few models, mainly being the command duplicates from the Island of blood models so I don't have a heap of similar command models among the rank and file ones.

Second Sea Guard Unit conversions

In the picture above are some examples of the converting done. The main issue was with the Second unit command, since I wanted to keep the unique I had to convert the musician and Champion, which I did by changing the champions weapon to a halberd from the Noble/prince kit, and had the musician pointing with his horn holstered under his shoulder. On the far right is a ranker converted from a musician, by removing his arm and replacing it with another.

Converted Duplicate sword master champion.

I also had to convert a Sword master. I only ordered one lot of 10, but for some reason I was sent 12, and the 12th being an extra unit champion, which was both nice but annoying at the same time, since the unit champion is quite unique and would look odd having two in the unit. So I removed the sword arm and replaced it with left over Sea Guard champions sword, and replaced his head using one of the bare heads from the white lion kit.

So the army itself its pretty much sitting waiting to be painted. I am going to be using the scheme that is used in the Island of Blood kit, which I assume is the generic scheme shown. I actually did a test paint for the sea guard a while ago, which is shown in the picture below

Left: White undercoat                        Right: Black undercoat

I painted two up as a test, using both black and white undercoats, and I was actually shocked to find the black undercoat turned out much better, especially for the bright, clean colours. Probably because I've been painting on black undercoat for years, and that's what best suits my painting style. The white one also took me far longer, and is a lot messier since Its harder to cover up mistakes. I followed the Island of Blood painting tutorial for the Sea guard, which is actually why I haven't painting more due to GW taking down all the tutorials shortly after I began painting them. Really should have noted them down, If anyone has a copy of them somewhere or anything, I would love to know about it!

So that's it for the High Elves at this stage, they most likely wont grow beyond that for a while. I'd like to bulk up some of the special units, and add a Prince on a Dragon, but I will hold off until they are all painted.

Speaking of painted, I did complete part of the commission I am currently working on. All matt varnished and ready to be posted!

Game Zone Blood Knights

High Queen Khalidia

 Glad to have completed them, they were quite enjoyable to paint, but now I am onto the biggun of the commission being the Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon.

I will probably hit up on some of my Historical in the next post. I was going to try and do a post on every Project first before working on any, but some are all over the place and wont be worth going over until I start working on them, or like my Warhammer Dwarfs, are just the battalion box set, so not even worth making a post on at this stage.
So from here on in I will update on what I'm currently working on, and if I start working on something that belongs to a project I haven't gone over, I will go over it in the same post.