Genestealer Cult - Brother Scrivello

It's been a while since I added to the cult, but today brother Scrivello steps up. Scrivello is an apothecary of sorts, a loyal retainer to Magus Kurgan and an expert in human and genestealer physiology. He can sew wounds and repair organs that shouldn't even exist. He's also an expert mechanic, which is handy when you're a half-cyborg alien hybrid with a broken ankle.

This model was converted from the Mordheim Aenur, for a painting challenge that saw some fantastic entries. The only common link was every model started out as Aenur. It was a fun exercise, all the more so for seeing what the other hobbyists came up with.

It took some elbow grease to dig out the elf from the cloak, but he succumbed in the end to make way for it's new wearer. The adeptus mechanicus parts are from the kataphron servitor kit and the dark elf wrack kit, both conversion gold. I did replace the syringe needle with brass rod, I could see it snapping in his first game.

Genestealer Cult - Hybrid Aberration Heavy Weapon Servitor

I've had a notion to do a large hybrid servitor as an addition to the squad for a while now. This guy has been cobbled together with blu-tack and left at the back of the paint station for months now, so I thought it time to put him together properly. As with the smaller aberrations, this fellow is a less than perfect blend of human and genestealer dna. He's been heavily augmented, then pumped full of growth hormones and stims, turning him into little more than a massive automaton awaiting the will of the magus.

He'll take the spot of a heavy weapons team in the squad. The autocannon is magnetized in case I want to change out the weapon.

The next member of the squad under the knife is also in the shot, the six-limbed vox caster. He needs some work on his vox set, but otherwise is pretty much ready for assembly.

Genestealer Cult - Aberrant 2nd Generation Hybrid

My hobby has been intermittent lately, due to this, that and the other thing. I did get a few hours in recently though, and I managed to finish putting together this guy, the melta-gunner for the squad of hybrids.

He's not your standard bald bloke with an extra arm for starters, even though he is actually bald. And has an extra arm. Anyway. There will be enough of those in the force, and I wanted the specialists to be a bit more standout. In my iteration of the cult, not every hybrid turns out as expected. I wanted some weirdness in the proportions as the human genes assert themselves over the generations, this fellow being somewhere between 1st and 2nd generation. To reassert a bit of realism I had to add a bit of heft. This became pretty apparent after some discussion about his gun with Cheetor. His arm needed some re-posing to look like he was bearing the weight of the gun instead of waving it about like it was made of foam. I added some straps to make it look still heavier. The tabard was added to make him fit in a little better with the adeptus mechanicus theme, as were the stim injectors on his back. The masked head I plan on using across the force, probably more so on the skitarii, but also on the occasional hybrid.

Genestealer Cult - Parts for Hybrids

I've been back in the hybrid toy box lately. I need a couple of specialists for the squad. My plan was to have the special weapons carried by larger 2nd generation hybrids, so that they would be easy to pick out. This guy here is almost ready for green stuff, but his weapon seems a little off. After some conferring, it became plain that the melta needed either some support to add weight, or a change of pose for the arm was needed. That's where I am with him right now. There are a few cults springing up lately, so outlining some of the more useful parts might help other followers of the Allfather. This guy uses a Deadzone plague model as the base model. The plague are really useful for hybrids. The are quite bestial already with the large spinal ridges and boney spikes, as well as the deformed proportions. I added some dark eldar talos bits to his back. I imagine these are some kind of stimulant injectors. I'm a little short on weapons, so this melta will need to be chopped up and re-built a little. I may add a chain strap, or alter the angle of the forearm. I want his ripped shirt to form the upper half of a tabard so he fits in better with the mechanicus theme, so he needs a dose of greenstuffing for that and to build up the shoulder where the genestealer arm meets the body.

This guy uses the brand new plague zombies sprue. There are two torsos with cowls, which are about as genestealer hybrid as you can get. Lots of useful parts on this sprue. The arm with the hand splayed out to compensate for the weight of the flamer is from this sprue too. The legs are from a Games Workshop grave guard, though at the moment this hybrid has no ass. The head is from Victoria miniatures, though truth be told, after yet more conferring I'll probably pop in a bald human head instead to bring it closer to Jes Goodwin's hybrids.

Lack of appropriate arms for the hybrids is a biggie, though the modern Cadian arms are about the right size for human size hybrids. More on these lads once the green stuff is on.

Magos Kurgan - Update 1

Work on the genemechanicus continues, this time focusing on one of the characters, magos Kurgan. Kurgan is based on an old Jes Goodwin model that I acquired in a trade. He'd seen better days, missing his horns and the end of his scythe, but he reminded me of some of the old adeptus mechanicus art I'd seen by John Blanche and Jes Goodwin, so he was put aside for later consideration.

I rummaged around for some bits to 40k up this fellow. His plasma staff is made from bits from the ever useful talos kit. I'll paint the ribbed section of the staff like the fuel cells on a plasma gun. I've seen some people attach servo skulls directly to thier models, and this seemed like a great idea to give him a more mechanicus feel and mark him out as a character. The poseable cabling from Dragon Forge is a magical addition to any bits box, instantly adding sci-fi cred to any model. Some green stuff, and he was ready for priming. Here he stands now, awaiting some paint.

I'm trying to get the first half a dozen members of the cult ready for an upcoming demo game at BroCon. Here are two more fellows awaiting some attention. Nothing like a deadline to keep you going.

Genestealer Cult - Aberrant Hybrids

I've not had a ton of hobby time lately, so I've been just going nuts with the blu-tack in the little time I do have. I threw together this guy, an aberrant hybrid. I'm guessing not every genestealer hybrid turns out super cool, and some are a little more deformed than others. These are then taken by their brethren and augmented to carry heavy weapons or combat attachments. In game these will work as weapons teams, ogryns, and whatever else. I'd be super intrigued to get some feedback on ugly here. Bear in mind he still needs cables and other do-dahs.

Genesteal Cult - Hybrid, Update 4

After playing about with the blu-tack for ages, I finally committed and assembled my first hybrid. This is first sci-fi model I've put together in decades. Things have changed. Looking about the net for conversion pieces and bases, there's a bewildering array of companies doing all sorts of great stuff.

I feel like an old beaky Rogue Trader marine who's been in stasis too long and is having issues coming to terms with modern times. Ol' Beaky sounds like a character that may epitomise my efforts to understand modern 40k. Prepare for comments like: "Back in my day, a marine was content with a jetbike if he wanted to go flying about." and "When I were a lad all we had was mark 6 armour, and we were happy."

I have a vague idea of the first squad I want to do, a unit of ten hybrids with special and heavy weapon. The fellow below will be the leader, hence the plasma pistol. This isn't any old genestealer cult, but a corrupted adeptus mechanicus cult, there have to be a fair few bio-mechanical elements in there. Robes will be common, as well as pipes, servos and other Giger inspired monstrosities. This particular fellow has an altered third arm, which will function as a power weapon of some ilk.

He still needs a little filing to smooth the green stuff, and I need to get the solder pen out and distress his robes a little, but apart from that, he's ready for paint. On that note, I've been looking at some potential colour schemes for the cult. As they are mechanicus, I'll probably stick to red for the robes and bronze for masks. That will be enough to identify them with the mechanicus, colour wise.

Flesh will be pale, with some purple and red glazes where appropriate. Where implants meet flesh and so on. These are wayward mechanicus, and not as exacting as their more fastidious forebears. The thing that's giving me the most trouble is the carapace colour. You can see on the colour test, the third arm is still jarring. I may need to look at some natural reference for chitin and shell colours. The spot colour was going to be a cream, but I'm leaning more toward a medium flesh tone now, if the skin colour stays pale. I'd be interested in what way folks lean regarding their opinions on the schemes on our three friends below.

Genesteal Cult - Hybrid, Update 3

Several packages have arrived this week containing various metal, plastic and resin goodies for my cult. I think I have almost gathered a critical mass of parts now where I can assemble the first squad of hybrids without wishing I had some part or other. I am still waiting on some more arms from Anvil Industries to come in, and one or two other bits, but we're mostly there. I didn't realise how many little companies out there serve the wargaming sci-fi market. It's fantastic amazing. Below are the latest bits of tinkering with the hybrids.

I've located a goodly stash of tyranid bits, and the smaller termagant arms make great fodder for hybrid arm conversions. You can see one on the 2nd generation here, with the missing hand. I may swap the mask on his back for a purestrain servo skull. He's shaping up to be a squad leader, I'm thinking.

A package of good stuff from Victoria Miniatures provided these resin arms and alien (Cthood) heads. I think they make great early generation hybrid heads, particularly from Ymgarl variant purestrains. They work with the Games Workshop ghoul bodies very well indeed. A little warm water bending will be required for the arms to fit, which were a little roughly cast, getting them off the gate in one piece will be a chore, for example. Great parts for all that though. The bases are from Dragonforge. My basing will be wrecked urban, so these do the job nicely.

Another welcome item from Dragonforge are these poseable metal cables. You can't have infected adeptus mechanicus without some cabling attaching various bits to other bits. I did consider guitar string, but the fact these can be bent to the required shape is a winner for me.

All very exciting. Once the ettin is wrapped I may dive in and start building hybrid squad one. I've recently amassed enough original hybrids for another squad, problem now is making the originals and converted ones look like they are from a coherent force.

Genesteal Cult - Hybrid, Update 2

Now that I'm generally happy with the look of a standard hybrid/broodbrother for the cult, I've been tinkering with more plastic to construct some more bestial hybrids. These will carry special or heavy weapons in the various units. I'm leaning towards using the Astra Militarum book as a guide to unit construction, but I'm not really big on loads of tanks, so the jury is still out. The Militarum Tempestus book looked promising, but the f@$k*%g thing is sold out.

The fellow above uses a Deadzone plague model as the base. (Many thanks to Paul from the excellent sho3box blog for some great leads on parts for the hybrids.) His original head is teeny tiny, which is great as the mask fits on lovely in it's place. He's so deformed that it looks suitably grotesque.  The third arm is verging on too large, but I'll be chopping it up to pose it better anyway. I still need some proper weapons, I guess the Cadian Imperial guard kit will furnish those, I can use the arms on my metal hybrids as well I guess. I have some dark eldar talos sprues coming my way, which are loaded with biomechanical goodies. Seeing as this is an infected mechanicus cult, they should fit in great. Tubes, limbs, odd spinal augmentations, this kit has them all. I think that should then finish the main quest for parts, and the assembly can really kick off. I'm already looking forward to converting crypt horrors into oversized mechanically augmented hybrids.

Genesteal Cult - Hybrid, Update 1

At lunchtime today I received some bits and bobs in the post, namely some empire flagellant pieces. The flagellant kit is one of those utility kits, like the ghoul or forsaken kit. It's full of useful stuff that can be applied to a myriad of modelling projects. I wanted to make a couple of test models to see these parts would work for hybrid/brood brothers for my genestealer coven, so I spent the rest of my lunch hour digging in bits boxes. Here's the original concept I did a while ago.

The heads (from the witch elf kit) sat well on the neck, so first obstacle passed. The old eldar power fist is a nice scale and reinforces the mechanicus connection. I did find I am desperately short on 40k plastics though. I have container after container of fantasy bits, but not so much for 40k, so I'll need to acquire some guns, and hands to hold them. I had thought maybe the flagellant arms would be too beefy, but nope, they look fine. (Does anyone know if Catachan Imperial guard arms are much bigger than empire flagellant arms?) I'll also need to find some company that does human scale bionics. Most seem to be designed for orks or space marines. Lastly, the old hybrid arms looks massive on this lad. The new plastic genestealer arms look even bigger, which means I may have to sculpt some hybrid arms to fit ordinary human size models.

Originally, this was going to be a chaos-worshipping coven, masquerading as a mechanicus cult. That might be a bit to many themes, so I may drop he chaos angle, I'm still mulling it over.

Still though, first model!

Curs'd Ettin - Update 1

The ettin, or fomorian as I'll be using him as, crawls along. I've not had much time over the last week with work, but I have gotten him mostly assembled. His lion cloth is going to be a bit of a bollox to do as it hangs loosely over his groin, well, where it would be, anyway, had he one. Gluing it on first would mean you'd need some pretty bendy brushes to get paint it the back of it, so I'll need to paint it separately and then attach it, which means pins, as there's no point gluing paint to paint. Same with the big rotty animal head and his pointy rock. I was going to give him a bigger weapon, but the angle of his arm would make it look awkward.

His base is pretty much ready for primer though, I just need to smooth it off a little. Again, I'll add pins to his feet and paint the base separately. I'm continually delighted by the detail on the model, it's just a wonderful sculpt, and it needed almost no clean-up, which is a major bonus.

More soon!

Major Hobby Train Derailment

Over the course of the weekend I've been inundated with hobby-based tribute to soften the blow of hitting forty years old. The softening effect was considerable.

My normal steely resolve has been heavily eroded, and I've cleared the decks to make room to work on a model I've been hankering after for some time. Here he is laid out on the table.

The Ettin awaiting a good scrub.

The curs'd ettin from Forgeworld is a nasty model, in the best possible way. He's like some kind of horrible Francis Bacon sculpture. The deformities make him a great candidate to represent a fomorian in my fimir army. I'll add some extras to him, maybe give him a bigger weapon than the tiny rock he comes with, some armpit hair, couple of boils and so on. I'm very much looking forward to working on this fellow.

Literally sweeping away all current projects for something groovy like this is kind of symptomatic of how my approach to the hobby is changing lately. After chatting to a few folks on how they tackle painting and how they manage the teetering piles of lead, resin and plastic most of us own, I've decided to step back a touch from a military style plan of painting x units and y armies in z time to something more laid back. I won't be leaving pile of half assembled and black-primed models all over the place either, as that would drive me utterly insane, but I'm going to be a tad more whimsical and try to remember this is a hobby, not a job. With some shiny new boxes of yum piling up from the weekend, I think this is the right road.

Is there any greater joy than a box of models?

I think it's part of the rules that once you get to a more, ah, mature gamer, you receive a mandatory interest in historical gaming. I've been cooing at Bolt Action for a bit, and my bluff was well and truly called with a bloody great brick of a boxed set as a present. I'll be posting on this box of WW2 goodness soon. The thing is now I'll have to figure out how to paint WW2 lads with the right gear, colours etc. I hear that's a slippery slope.

Fimir - New Models Spotted

Noble

While perusing the Oldhammer Group on Facebook the other day, I came across a post from Diego Serrate from Troll Outpost Miniatures. The post got me rather excited, as they were greens for new fimir models. Or, bog raiders maybe? Or Fenfolk? A few companies have now tried their hands at fimir-type models over the last couple of years. As far as I understand it, these are private sculpts, and nothing to do with Troll Outpost. They are, however, some of the best fimir-style models I've seen. They look quite large too, judging by the scale comparison shot. So far there are plans for a noble, dirach and meargh, hopefully more are in the pipeline if they prove popular. I have several fingers crossed in the fervent desire that they are available soon.

Dirach

Scale comparison with 40k orc.

Fimir - Fianna Fimm Reboot

After finally managing to pack everything away from KnaveCon and get back on track, I've decided to roll up my sleeves and get cracking on re-doing the fianna fimm. I've been sore tempted by the hobby butterfly of late, being almost lured away by ideas of greenstealer Gorkamorka mobs, skeleton warriors, infernal guard, genestealer hybrid parts, bloodbowl teams and so on. I stayed strong though. There's still a lot to do with the fimir, and added to that the fenland display board is starting to demand some time as well.

I painted the fianna a little too hastily for the the KnaveCon participation game, and I wasn't happy with them once they were done. Here's how they looked at the time:

Serviceable, but far from where I wanted them. I'm going to take a little more care with them this time around. Looking at the models again, I decided they needed a few more points of interest. They are almost all skin, so some shields and cloth, bags and such might be an idea. I'm generally loathe to alter such rare models, but these lads need something.

The first model up is this lad, to whom I've added a hood. A lot of my fimm are hooded, so it fits in nicely with the rest of the army. I'll freehand some knotwork around the edge of the hood to reinforce the focal point of the model. I think this is alteration enough for this particular fianna fimm, I don't want to load them up with stuff just for the sake of it or they'll look like the end of a game of Buckaroo.

I'm working on the next fellow, and the addition of one of Scibor's wonderful Celtic style shields really does help immensely. I'll be raiding my rapidly diminishing stock of ogre bits for maybe a rack of meat or a bag of bones to add some more jazz. I'm still putting off dunking the four painted fianna in the Dettol as I'm unsure how it affects greenstuff, so I'm delaying the date of execution until I find out more on that.

Fimir - Mud & Bone

I've been doing a lot of base work of late. This is no great trial, as I love basing in general, but it's been there have been no actual models attached to the bases I've been doing lately. The reason for this is that both are bases that models magnetise to, allowing me to get more bang for my buck as it were. My meargh can now sport either a 40x40mm or 50x50mm base. The 50x50 gives her a little more height too, which she badly needs when she's masquerading a a daemon prince. The other is a 100x150mm size base for Crom, so I can use him as a hellcannon as well as his regular 50x100mm chariot base. The 100x150mm base is almost done now, some more details and it's ready for the table.

I've made extensive use of ogre parts for the fimir, as there are so many fantastic bits. Bones, hooks, traps, bags, weapons, buckets and so on, basically conversion gold. You can see here a really tasty bit from one of the ogre sets, probably the thundertusk kit.

Genestealer Cult - Hybrid Bits Hunt

After some chatting on among the bloggers the fire is once again upon me to work up a test hybrid for my cult. The fellow above is the look I've settled on for 2nd and 3rd generation hybrids. The bits hunt is in full swing, but I've hit an impasse. For the lower body I think Empire flagellant legs are bang on. The heads will be from the sisters of slaughter dark elf kit, but the upper torso has me stumped. For some hybrids I'll use the existing flagellant torso, and for 2nd gens the warhammer ghoul kit is perfect. Mantic plague models will also come in handy, but what I REALLY need are some bare torso and arms. I looked at dark eldar wracks and mandrakes, which have the wiry worked out looking proportions I'd like to use, but they are not ideal with all the hair on the mandrakes and also the expense. I thought I had it with plastic beastman torsos, but they're too hairy. Chaos marauders are a bit too buff. One is stumped.

Therefore, I put out the call, if anyone knows of a kit/model/conversion pack that contains bare humanish torsos/arms, one would be most grateful.

Painty Time 2

Last weekend I continued the tradition of getting some mates down for a bit of a painting session. We set up in the man cave and settled down for day's clipping, gluing, painting and basing while talking shite and listening to various stand-up comedy routines on the interwebs.

It's rather amazing when your hobby usually comes in one hour bursts of an evening, how much you can get done in a full day. I managed to build a 50x50mm base extender for my meargh, a small but necessary job I had been putting off. Plundering other folks hobby supplies is an unexpected boon as well. I was offered a stash of volcanic rock for tarting up the base extender which, due to whatever way it forms, scales excellently to 28mm miniatures. I managed to fix a fimm standard bearer who had been damaged in battle, a fiddly job as the standard broke at the top of the pin I had put in, meaning I had to pare back the plastic to reveal enough pin to allow me to glue it back into a newly drilled standard pole. A real pain in the h$*e. He still needs a little paint before he is re-admitted to the cabinet.

Finally, I painted three wyrm daemons which I'll be using as 'crew' for the hellcannon version of Crom. All in all a goodly day's work. My hobby brethren assembled manticores, artillery, hellpit abominations and terrain along with a bunch of other bits and bobs. I am still chuckling after one irate comment: "Argh! There's nowhere I can put my fingers on the plagueclaw catapult where there aren't f@$king spikes!!"

A very pleasant surprise was a box of dark elves that was presented to me as the owner had left the hobby some time ago and they were just hanging about. Delving in I discovered a cache of 3rd edition dark elves, warriors, command and characters, some Marauder, some Citadel. Lovely.

Some games were then played. The very simple bit tremendously fun Ribbit. A great game for kids as well as bitter veteran gamers.

Next up the excellent Letters from Whitechapel. This is a cracker. Similar to Fury of Dracula, it pits the London constabulary against the infamous Jack the ripper. Essentially a game of cat and mouse, Jack must escape from the scene of the crime back to his lair before the police close in. I did manage to do in all the girls and confound the coppers this time round. Muahhahahaaa...

After wiping off the blood of the innocent, we thought we'd give Triumph and Treachery another go. I enjoy this expansion, and this time proved no different. Skaven, Orcs & Goblins and Fimir (chaos warriors) played hold the centre using only 500 points each.

Over the course of the game it tooed and frooed with pleasant regularity, the skaven initially causing terrible damage with thier ranged weapons while the goblins shoved two fanatics in front of my chariot, smashing it to splinters. Of course, the next thing they did was panic off the table along with the spider riders. Heh.

The cards provided constant hilarity, frustrating skaven shooting phases and removing rank bonuses. Not before the warp lightning cannon blasted Crom off the table though. I managed to take the centre and rack up a couple of turns worth of victory tokens before charging Grunsgul into the remains of the savage orcs and getting butchered. MVP certainly went to the savages, who chopped their way through skaven globadiers, the lightning cannon, stormvermin and finally my dirach. Still, I managed to come out with the most coinage and stole the win. Great fun.T&T rewards aggressive abandon combined with ruthless back stabbing, so perfect for my group.

All in all a good weekend, we'll certainly be doing the painting/chatting/drinking thing again.

Fimir - Dirach Grunsgul

After something of a break, the fimir train is leaving the station. The first one-eyed marsh fiend of the new year is a character, the aged dirach Grunsgul. Originally this model was merely a base extender for my meagh to giver her a 50x50mm base, but has somehow ballooned into an entirely new model. The meargh sitting on the floating rock just looked, well, lame, so I had to make a rider that would sit more naturally on the plinth. I also wanted to be able to use Grunsgul on foot. If I had to build a whole new character, I was going to get the most out of him. Thus it was time for magnets. I hadn't used them before, but once I'd located the appropriate drill bits all was well. The most nerve wracking moment was drilling into the already finished plinth with a power drill, but all went swimmingly.

The model is from Oakbound Games, with some small conversion work. I added horns, as befits a dirach, and also a torc on his arm and a tathlum (concrete balls on a chain) hanging from his belt.

On the plinth itself I added some more bits and pieces. A jawbone, book of spells and scroll, as well as the little familiar. Dirach are also known as daemonfriends, and have a particular daemon they forge a close alliance with. In this case the diminutive scroll carrier.

Now, I guess I better start on the actual base extender for the meargh then. Keep it simple, that's the ticket...

2014 Hobby Kick Off

 After a rather hobby-free Christmas, I have taken up the sculpting tools once more. (I blame Warhammer Quest directly for this lack of progress) My poor neglected dirach finally got green stuffed and is ready for priming. I also cleaned up his diminutive familiar. I love old metal Citadel minis, but by hell, sometimes the flash, mould lines and general clean-up can be a nightmare. Thus it was with this guy. I suspect the mould was beginning to deteriorate when he was cast, as there was some miscast under his arm that required some serious elbow grease to remove. Now all that remains are some wizardly paraphernalia to add to the plinth. A book, a scroll, a cup or some bones should do it. I really want to get this guy done so I can get back to painting Crom's hellcannon base and maggoty crew.

I've also been looking at some Bloodbowl miniatures with an eye to building a new team. The Necromantic Rain Dogs have been a team of mine online for some time, mayhap it's time to make the jump to miniature form. I've been ogling Willy Miniatures' (wait, that sounds odd, doesn't it?) range of undead, in particular the wights and werewolves. The local game shop runs a Bloodbowl league, and it's time I got in on the action.

Ah yes, the hobby butterfly has been visiting.

 

Course, a fimir team would be a thing now, wouldn't it?

Fimir - Dirach Grunsgul, Update 1

Since I decided that my floating rock plinth needed a dedicated rider, I thought I'd use the the opportunity to build a human size dirach. I don't want him stuck on the plinth, so I'm going to magnetise him to it, and make another magnetized 25x25mm base for him should I want to field him on foot. This comes of the back of some salient advice from the various forums. Indeed, the idea for the model to use as a dirach came from Chico of Oldhammer on a Budget, who is a bit of a fimir fan as well.

As you can see, I've converted the head to make him a bit more dirachy. It's a really characterful head, and it suits the horns which serve to lengthen the face even more. I may convert the tail too, as dirach have smooth tails. (It does dawn on me that most folks won't know what the hell a dirach even is, let alone what kind of tail he has, or why I needed to add horns. Just go with it. It'll be grand.)

He's going to have a familiar on the plinth with him, a scroll carrier to help the ageing fimir remember his spells. I can feel a back story coalescing already. Anyhow, I'm going to use this little fella, who has been sitting in a box for years awaiting some attention.

I'll probably add a little paraphernalia to the plinth too, some scrolls and such to add a little more detail. To think this all started out as a base extender...