Saturday, January 29, 2011

Chaos

Hello there,

A while ago I started building a chaos army. Really, I have almost 2k points in stuff built yet most of it isn't primed or table top ready from a painting standpoint.

The first thing I tackled were some older models I inherited from a friend.

First off, Raptors. I love the old models, I had some fun mixing in new shoulder pads, hands, and weapons to bring them up to date a little bit. The photography still needs some work, but mostly I need a better camera.

Not shown - the one raptor that I managed to break on th way to being photographed, I need to redo the base, and do some touch ups.

Click on the pictures for a much better view. The detail is much clearer in real life I'm afraid.






And there's the dreadnought. I'm really proud of how this guy turned out.



Sunday, January 16, 2011

I'm back baby!



Months after the cuteness invasion in my life, I'm back into hobby. Sadly I have no pictures for this post, since my cameras are bursting with pictures of my sweet Ava.

Some of the more exciting news comes in the form of the life changes that came with my baby. I've bought a house, which turns the hobby dial up. I have 500 square feet of basement to play with, and a garage, which opens the doors for ease of priming, setting up my air compressor permanently (for basecoating etc.), and creating a real hobby space with a game table or two. Finally I can get into building terrain and making my own little slice of hobby paradise.

Hobby Update

I squeezed in my fist game since my baby's birth just a week ago. Orks vs Tau, I tried out a list with stealth suits rather than Crisis and included a load of Kroot. It was a fun infiltration/outflanking list. Very close game, came down to the last turn, but ultimately the Orks squeezed one out ;).

Tau-wise I haven't painted too much more. I finished a few more of my Chaos hounds turned Kroot hounds, painted a Fusion stealth suit and basecoated my second Broadside and final Crisis suit team. I'm so sick of painting blue-grey that it's becoming a chore to finish the Tau. Sometimes I wish I picked a different colour scheme for them, but they look sharp on the table and for my first complete army it's a great first effort. My painting skills have really grown with the army.

My Black Legion project progresses slowly, but I'm not in a rush with this one. I love how the chaos models look, and I'm really taking my time to get a close look at the detail as I paint. I put together my plastic Daemon Prince finally and he's a real monster! I knew he'd be around the size of a dreadnought, but he is so much more dynamic. Can't wait to paint him and field him.

My squad of old school Raptors is almost complete. I basically inherited 5 of the old raptor models from a friend. They were missing a few limbs, but Chaos Space Marine parts filled the gap and look real natural. It really updates these models using modern weapon and shoulder pad sculps. I can't wait to post a photo when they are done. I really went to town on them and hand painted their shoulder icons when adding detail and it makes them pop. I wanted to give them each different versions of the Eye of Horus, inspired by the codex rather than using the bunk transfers that come with the kits.

Tenatively, I'm starting with a 750 list as a goal. I plan to cut on some painting time by making my chaos hound as kroot hounds be summoned demons for this army as well. This doesn't represent a competitive list, but rather one of the easier/fun lists to put together.

HQ
Demon Prince - Wings, Warp Time

- wish I could spare points for a mark of Nurgle here

Troops
10x Chaos Space Marines, Icon of Chaos Glory, Rhino, 2x Melta
5x Lesser Demons
5x Lesser Demons

Fast Attack
5x Raptors, Champion with power sword, Icon of Slaneesh, 2x Melta

- a bit pointy for this scale of game, but useful when used correctly. Great for armour hunting or wiping out squads of 5 men or less (stragglers).

Heavy Support
Predator with Sponsons

That's off the top of my head, probably some small errors in there. Nice and basic, has some flaws of course, but I've played some variations of this list and had a lot of fun with it. Normally I'd run a squad of Khorne Beserkers at this point level rather than raptors, but I'm a Fast Attack sort of guy at the heart of things.