Crimes Against Design, if not humanity....

New from Forge World, it's THE UGLIEST FUCKING AIRCRAFT I HAVE EVER SEEN. 

If your eyes had balls, this would be a direct punch to them, followed by a series of kicks delivered rapid fire, plus a stomp or two. The thing is fucking awful. Oh, and the fluff? It's meant to RAM INTO THINGS. FROM THE FUCKING SKY.  I mean, really? Who told them this was a good idea? 

Want more? Click here for the page and here for the rules. It costs nearly as much as a Land Raider and isn't even as remotely as useful. 

The retro Iron Armor and weapons packs? Nice. Criminally overpriced, but nice. 

Image used without permission, and quite frankly, they can have it back. 

On the bench this week...

A prototype Mycetic Crypt, made out of some bargain-basement Monolith bits and plasticard, waiting for detailing. Is this large enough to carry 20 infantry or 1 monstrous creature? Hmmmm.

In other news, we have these:

Looking through the backlogs and bits boxes this week, I fished out these little gems. You may have heard about DP9's Gundam tribute game, Jovian Chronicles. Before taking it to their own game system, they published it under the auspices of R. Talsorian's Mekton line, a clunkier, far less popular mecha game than Battletech. The JC mecha had a rounded, baroque look, and some were a little derivative of Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory, among other series, but were otherwise nice designs. 

Okay, more than a little derivative, but Bandai has yet to sue the crap out of them, so it's safe to assume they dodged the bullet, I think. 

Hmm... there is such a thing as living too dangerously.


DP9 cranked out larger miniatures for this and their VOTOMs game, Heavy Gear, by way of a company called RAFM.  (I should mention that I wrote fluff material for four or five of their books back in the late '90s, so there you go) DP9 has since had some kind of stroke, redesigned their JC mecha (among others) to look crappy, and halved the scale of their minis. (Don't ask me why, although I do have some theories.) RAFM  had major quality control issues, but their sculpts were pretty damn good, so I picked up one of each and then.... never got back to them. These models have been sitting around for a DECADE.


Anyhoo,  I dug them out, and after they're finished, I'll be featuring them here. After all, who doesn't love giant robots?

Inquisitorial Adversaries...

These poor guys deserve a medal.

I bought them on the cheap and painted them up to serve the "misc villain" purpose. Ex-guard, gangers, you name it. I figured seven were enough. Though I'm anal retentive about things looking uniform, I switched up the basing a bit to keep things fresh (after all, you don't always get in fights in sunny meadows) and kept them looking grungy yet well-armed. 

As you're no doubt aware, there are no shortage of people to burn  suspects in the 40k universe, and when you're starting out an investigation in the mean streets, the first people you usually end up torturing questioning are gangers and assorted toughs. If you need an example of just how powerful the classes are, our Metallican Gunslinger took out fifteen of these poor schmucks without pausing to reload. Many of them right through the head.

If you only ever pay attention to the codexes, you figure there are enough armies already. Not so, says the fluff. Behind the lines everybody manages to hire a private army of some sort. Those guys accompanying the IG tank commander are from some obscure range that dared make close facsimiles of old GW models, which got them sued and shut down. They came with a field gun, too, which made them a steal for $12. If you look closely, you can see Sgt. Castro there on the left flipping you the bird. Class. Sgt Tonto on the right was supposed to be drybrushed up to reasonable skin tones, but I left him the way he was, post-wash. 

I have twenty-five of these guys as a block of Grave Guard in my Vampire Skaven army, but since these days my games of WHF are few and far between, they end up as generic monsters in DH (and AdMech servitors in 40k). Not that we've ever run into steam-zombies, but I like these better than generic undead or demons; they just fit the "dark future" feel of the game better. 

Got these guys as part of a bits lot that happened to include nearly all of a metal  Devastator squad. Yes, we did run into some Dark Eldar, and yes, you can scythe them down like wheat, just like in 40k. The only problem is, they're really, really nasty, especially when backed up by warp beasts. Also, there was this traitor dick in the space hulk that sort of turned on us. Turned out he was working for/with the DE, and stabbed my Arbitrator in the back (literally)as we were getting mobbed by weedy space elves.

Because I don't use chaos oriented armies generally, I don't have a lot of what could be construed as truly evil characters. This one is a start, a Dark age mini painted up as a heretical Magos. I brought her cloak up to a nice scarlet before washing it back to near black. If you quint, you can still see the remnants of the cog motif at the hem. Her flesh doesn't look as pale and necrotic as I would've liked, but I didn't want it getting all white and chalky, either. For other enemies, I suppose it's time to repurpose some fantasy models...

Tyracron Update: The Wrathful Poltergeist, Zoanthrope

This one was a bit of a pain. 


For some reason whilst in the early stages of building them out I was fighting with what they were becoming, and trying to go in a different direction with the designs. At one point they resembled a cross between a Moai and Slave I, and at another flying squids. All the while I think I was consciously avoiding the "floating cranium" design and going for more of the "flying head cannon" idea. Anyway, as usual, once I got over that it was all downhill. 

There are only four for now, although I anticipate getting a lot of mileage out of their warp-blasting abilities and add more over time. For now, these is all I had parts for, so these are all there are. Two squads of two and either a Doom of Malantai or Deathleaper should fill out those Elites slots nicely, don't you think? Until 40k follows Fantasy down the "25% of this/15% of that" hole, which strikes me as being a stupid way to do things. Who computes out the percentages of their lists? Well, Fantasy players do, now. 

Thank goodness for the fantastic (and cheap) sampler pack of power cables from Dragon Forge. They make lovely tendrils among other things, and are easily bent and twisted, something metal will always have over plastic as a medium. Unfortunately, they also break, so after twisting them together, I had to glue them at certain points to keep the tentacle cluster structural. The Necron torso front clicks right into the Destroyer hull bottom (with some trimming on the hull). The spinal cord is a bit brittle, so I had to drill all the way up to the main section to insert the rod. He's not coming off there. 

The whole thing went together rather tenuously, but once glued became like a rock. I liked the use of glowy nubs on the Tervigon so much I used them again here on the Zoan's huge cerebellum. Their massive craniums are white, of course, because they're synapse creatures. I bent the tentacle masses back to give a sense of motion, and would have put a similar mass on the bottom of the spine if there was room. I toyed with the idea of putting the rod between the back and the particle collection vents so I could do just that, butit did bad things to the silhouette, so I didn't. What? Oh, you thought they were hover-engines, didn't you? Well, no, sorry. Just like Harpy, Zoanthrope needs to constantly suck up subatomic particles to power up his brain-gun and other power-hungry systems. 

Luckily I had the undercarriages of more Destroyer hulls, thanks to the Harpies, so I could give the Zoans the extra-long brains they deserved. This does make any future mass-production more complicated, however, but I don't foresee needing that many more. Nine Zoans would just be too overkill, wouldn't it? I ordered a small pack of scenic bases along with the power cords, and this was my chance to use them. If only Dragonforge cranked out 60mm ones for IG gunnery teams. What? They do? Well, then...

Not much to look at from the rear. If you're seeing this view, either you're very sneaky or he's done blasting the shit out of you with his giant turbocharged brain. The vents in back link visually to the original Zoan model quite well. I was thinking of going with the wings/spine route, but found this fit the Necron aesthetic better instead. 


Now if only someone would buy some stuff from my ebay auctions so I could build Tyrannofexes.... or Trygons. I still haven't decided. 

Tyracron Update: General Grievous

Before finalizing and mass-producing the Zoans, I decided to finish of Grievous, so here he is in all his glory . For all the time I took hemming and hawwing about his weapons, once the decision was made it was all downhill from there. Now that I look at him, four matched sabers would really have been pretty dull. Anyway, let's begin the walkaround....

This is another model that's pinned all to hell and back. There's a rod that runs through that right leg all the way up to the knee, and those plastic Cryx shoulders have three rods running through them each at odd angles. He almost had a sweeping loincloth to cover up the HT tail nub, but some diligent sawing got rid of it handily enough.

Really, if the Jedi he took those sabers from was in scale, they'd be... well, they'd be Hive Tyrant sized Jedi, I guess. Using Sentinel legs was a no-brainer with this one, really; the Tyrant legs with their little hoofs and such will go somewhere else; probably as armored forelegs for the Tyrannos. You can see where the right leg lost its gap, but honestly, if I hadn't put a rod in there the thing would have snapped like a twig. He has a little pinion on the back of his foot, but it's hidden under the basing rubble.

I almost buried a rod in his left leg, too but it's so far back it would've shown right away, so I have to rely on that right and be careful with the model. It was more worth it to have him really stalking forward. That said, he's tremendously top-heavy, and even with extra lead bits weighing down the base, will tip right over at the wrong angle. 

His big round beetle-back makes him considerably burlier than the original Grievous ever was. On the other hand, the profile's more in synch with the Necron's trademarked hunched over posture. I purposely kept his metal bits dark so the bone-colored armor would stand out more. 

Comingtagetcha! He's also considerably larger than the Grievous model I built to use as a foot Necron Lord. That one will have to wait for a Necron Lord posting later. 


Since the last FAQ sort of nerfed a lot of what made the 'Nid codex good, here's a seriously overbalanced rules set based on his movie antics. He's as expensive as a Swarmlord, but not as... well, he was really the wrong choice for to be a general, wasn't he? Sidious should've just hired him as some kind of specialist Jedi hunter or something. Anyway, this is in no way meant to be balanced or fair in any way, nor do I ever expect anyone to actually let me use the below profile in a 40k game. 



General Grievous

WS 9 BS 3 S 6 T 6 W5 I6 A4 LD 10 SV 3+ (inv)

Points Cost: 280

Unit Type: Monstrous Creature

Weapons and Biomorphs: Bonded Necrodermis

Lightsabers: Grievous wields four of these arcane weapons, trophies of from his undending persecution of the Jedi. General Grievous's attack inflict Instant Death regardless of toughness, and any successful invulnerable saves made against his attacks must be re-rolled. Against vehicles, roll an additional 2D6+2 for armor penetration.

Special Rules: (Tyracron) Synapse Creature, Shadow in the Warp, (Tyracron and Necron) Hit & Run, Eternal Warrior, Fleet

Four Armed Whirling Death: After rolling to wound for Grievous’ attacks, roll an additional attack for any unsaved wound. Continue rolling in this way until  you fail to wound or Grievous runs out of opponents.

Blade Parry: Grievous is a master swordsman, and can instantly parry with his double-articulated limbs. His armor saves are invulnerable. In addition, during any melee phase, the first melee attack made by an opponent always misses.

Your mind tricks don’t work on me, Jedi! General Grievous is immune to all psychic powers.

Out of my way! Grievous is exceptionally lithe and flexible, bounding from place to place like a spider monkey. He ignores difficult and dangerous terrain. He also has the Fleet and Hit & Run abilities.

Get them, you fools! General Grievous thinks nothing of throwing minions or equipment into harm’s way to save himself. At the beginning of any melee phase, Grievous may switch places on the battlefield with any friendly unit within 12”. He may do this even if engaged in combat.

Make yourself useful, idiot! If Grievous has joined a unit and suffers a wound in any phase, he may instead allocate the wound to a member of the unit he has joined instead.

Gah! Grievous carries a hidden Gauss pistol, and spitefully fires it at his opponent when the fool least suspects. At the end of any melee phase, an enemy model in base-to-base contact takes a singe S4 AP3 attack.

Grievous always escapes! Having long cultivated his instinct for self preservation, General Grievous is a master of saving his own ass. When he loses his last wound, allocate the wound(s) instead to the nearest unit, friend or foe, and remove Grievous from the battlefield. Grievous is always worth zero kill points. 

Happy Fourth of July! (also a WIP Zoan....)

No money to buy new parts for Tyrannos, so I'm building Zoans out of spare bits today. In addition to their fashionable blast-a-matic hats, I was thinking they should have vestigial arms, if not tentacles. 


You eldritch horror fans out there.... any thoughts?

Forces of the Holy Inquisition Part III: Inquisitors and Stranger Things....

Where GW really dropped the ball was not announcing a companion miniatures line to go with Dark Heresy. Fortunately, there are a bazillion other companies, like Rackham. I only wish they hadn't gone the badly-prepainted-plastic route, but what can you do? They're French. 


Above is a set of minis I don't get to use often enough, (which is good, because they stay intact that way); Ordo Malleus Inquisitor Thetis and her advisors, Doctor Phobic and High Canoness Vespera. All three are lovely (overpriced) minis from Rackham, minimally converted. I weaponized the staffs on Phobic and Thetis, turning one into a chain-glaive and the other into a force weapon with integrate plasma pistol.The High Canoness I left stock, because I love the freaking miniature the way she is; she has a nice high-holy look without being a frothing-at-the-mouth zealot. 

Yes, I know, square bases on models meant for 40k, it's a crime. I need to get some more Warmachine bases to transplant them to. 


In the grand tradition of high Imperial muckety-mucks, they carry their scriptures around with them, and miraculously manage not to maul themselves with their enormous weapons. I didn't add any purity seals because, quite frankly, they have enough detail, and additional bits would have obscured that too much.  If you look closely at that second photo, I did attempt to do a "vitruvian man" type sketch on Phobic's back banner, but... well, don't look too close. I also dirtied up his storm coat a little too much, I think; I wanted to show he'd been mucking about in battlefield trenches, not Imperial streets. The Rackham range has (or had) a lot of nice models that fit directly into the whole Inquisitorial aesthetic, including quite a few gun-toting weirdos. 

Speaking of weirdos, this bunch was positioned together for the sake of the pictures, but I think they make a pretty neat team. The Inquistor in the center is a Dark Age Bane model, with the rocket-thing flattened into a staff and various bits added.  He happens to own a powerfist-wielding servitor (a Cryx thrall; I love these models) to take down those pesky doors. Plus, there's the ever-present servo skulls, a fearsome looking mercenary (courtesy of the Iron Kingdoms range), the hot bald chick (a psyker; aren't all bald babes psykers in the 40k universe?) and that assassin-looking lady on the end with veil and wicked-looking rifle. (a Shirow Masamune ripoff design from the Corvus Belli "Infinity" range, also woefully overpriced; I got this one on sale from the Warstore, I think) . A lot of these are intentionally painted dark; with a few exceptions I generally start from black and work up. Some of these people shouldn't be walking around in bright, day-glo colors anyway, particularly if they're supposed to be assassinating someone. Speaking of assassins:

Yes, I know, I'm behind on my basing. Get off my back already. 

I'd like to think assassins come in other forms than just chicks with swords wrapped in lycra.  When I saw that Privateer Press mini on the left I had to have him, just by virtue of the hat and gas mask, never mind that his primary weapon is the grenade, of all things. Likewise, the Rackham sniper on the far left with the enormous rifle and puritan hat. I resisted the urge to put his =I= icon up there and mounted it on his belt instead. The other two are orc-suited Corvus Belli troopers with nasty rifles, painted to tie in with my chosen SoB order. The real jewel of my assassin corps is this lady:

Sometimes I have terribly poor impulse control when it comes to really beautiful models. She's so delicate and thin I can't even bring myself to put her in a case for use in an army. All that armor is positioned so that as you turn the model it becomes almost an entirely different miniature. It's just lovely. The rest of the faction she comes from is equally exquisite, but I'd bankrupt myself collecting them all, so I had to stop at this one. I still keep the catalogs, though, which are chock full of fantastic photos. You gotta dream.

I chose this Reaper model to serve as my Living Saint, although honestly I can't picture an army featuring one that would work effectively, badass as she supposedly is in combat. You get the feeling they wrote the WH codex right after reading a bunch of Dan Abnett novels, and tried to cram in as much as they could including the Inquisition co-opting IG forces. Well anyway, in contrast to other companies, Reaper's models are both cheap AND good, and I thought this haunted-masthead construct was perfect for a dark future supernatural dynamo. Luckily, the SoB Canoness model comes with a bunch of spare bits, including a wealth of gauntleted hands holding things (like that book). The flamberge-style sword is from a Reaper weapons option set that is also, helpfully, extremely cheap and well-sculpted (see a trend here?)

Tyracon Retakes...

Ooooh, the OCD part of my brain is acting up again. It's making me retake pictures after looking at old posts here that were dark as fuck, so here we go, in more or less chrono order:

Tyracron mk 1. Hmm, still a little yellow (damn tungsten filter...) and, shame on me for not photoshopping out some warps in the paper. Still, hmm...

Doomy. Brighter, but still looks like I've been taking pictures through popcorn butter. I still have a bunch of those heads... maybe I'll use them on my Zoans.

Deathleaper. I gotta say, I'm tempted to chuck the lights at this point and move to a room with more direct sunlight+mirrors. In its defense, Deathleaper's silver bits were dark-washed way down, since I wanted more muted stealth metal. I also color-dodged the hell out of and spent half an hour color-balancing out all the bits of yellow tungsten flare that the filters missed. I have GOT to get some yellow-blocker bulbs for these lights. 

Harpy. Man, I've forgotten A) how much I liked the model and B) how fucking GOLD it got, against my meaning it too. I'm still verrrrrry tempted to just strip it and start over, or at least add some mottling to the thorax and wings. 

Tervi. Painting-wise, I kept him dark, as I meant to, including the carapace, which is why he isn't shiny as hell like some of the others. By the way, before sticking the Tervi models to the bases, they STOOD UP BY THEMSELVES, BALANCING PERFECTLY. Seriously, it's fucking creepy when that happens. I mean, it's good, because I don't have to search for lead scraps to weight the base, but man. Creepy. 

Overall, I think I'm doing a pretty good job at sticking to the whole "eldritch robots who want to eat your soul" theme, but my lighting system (such as it is) is going to need  a lot of work. I thought it was a matter of photoshop skills, but you can only do so much with what you have, so obviously, there are going to be a lot more experiments where these came from. 

Lastly, the goddamn Inquisition codexes. I expected some kind of neutering rewrite, but what we got was shoddy editing consisting of someone basically deleting pages (oh look, they nuked a 2-page illustration!) and leaving things like points costs, glaring errors, and so on alone. GW didn't like the IG armies having anti-pysker and invulnerability save-defeating gear, so they screwed the players on that. 

Without fixing anything. 

Well, screw 'em. Now the Inquistion models are only good for Dark Heresy, and you'll NEVER run into/use Grey Knights/Battle Sisters in there unless the shit has really hit the fan. If there's a monster that you need a Grey Knight Terminator squad to handle in DH, then your little group of acolytes is truly fucked, and you need to roll up new characters. 

Ah well. 

Forces of the Holy Inquisition Part II: Character Matters...

So 40k aside, I've been playing a lot of Dark Heresy. Our Inquistorial Acolyte team's 5 strong and consists of my Arbitrator, a Techpriest, a Guardsman, an Imperial Priest, and a Metallican Gunslinger. Aside from being an excellent (and nicely art directed) game, acting as miniatures wrangler for DH lets me field many models that would otherwise never see the light of day on the 40k battlefield, so I thought I'd share. 

(I'm experimenting with the light box, so bear with me)

Adeptus Arbites officers, converted from Dark Age Coil miniatures. I found a cheap "St. Mark Warband" on eBay a while ago, and have been painting converting as needed. I like them a lot better than the overpriced (and half-assed, design-wise) GW Arbitrator minis.  Since they're based on Brom illustrations, those chicks are monstrously fit and muscular, so people either love or hate them. (personally, I like strong women a lot, but man...)  In case you were wondering, I used the chap with the big revolver as my character mini when I was lower-level, but modified and painted up the chainsword version when I finally got my chainsword and bolt pistol, several levels later. The reds on their tunics don't match because I wanted to convey used, secondhand digs with the lower-level model and more of a polished, Judge Dredd feel with the higher-level one. Strangely, it's the non-combat investigative skills where this character really seems to shine; I just rolled better on some stats than on others, and if you don't have high WS/BS/Agility, then... well, you're better off acting as an investigator/ human sensor array/smooth talker.

Our GM pointed out, and rightly so, that the Chaliced Commissariat isn't actually a bunch of Imperial-Sanctioned Commissars, to the chap that's 3 from the left is pretty much just for looks. He usually stands in for Creed when I field a Mechanicus army. (strangely, though I'm curious about Warmachine, I just keep tossing the cards for the minis) The Priest is a Reaper mini that was originally a just some friar holding a cross. Since our priest uses a flame pistol full of holy promethium, I stripped and upgraded him a bit (with the book, Emperor icon, and flamer, natch), and his new home is in the DH box. That guardsman is a polyglot conversion job using Tau legs, Scout Marine boots, and IG bits and bobs from the odd vehicle sprue (all of my tanks are buttoned up anyway).

Though we've been using an Engineseer mini, that 3rd chap with torch has been a fine stand-in every so often, the others (well, except for Flamer Arms, there on the end) have been seeing pretty good use as adepts, servitors, and other academic types. I wish someone would put out some kind of old lady cyborg, since we seem to be running into the odd eccentric old biddy once a module. 

I converted these guys up as a couple of hunter/trapper types, and intentionally kept their colors drab, so they'd look like they just fell of the (interstellar) turnip truck. That flintlock and pistol came from a Mordheim dwarf sprue, and the enormous pick hammer belonged to... well, another Warmachine mini that's since gone on to other pastimes. 

Yes, you'll see her in the future. 

Yes, she works for the Inquisition, too. 

Yes, she's hot ;)

This is Greg's fault.

Greg tactfully pointed out the less-than-stellar lighting conditions from the last shoot, so I dug around on the web and found a tutorial on lightbox building and lighting. I still have to get some nice cool (ie not-yellow) bulbs for the shop lights, but the abovewas shot in the result. I papered the inside of a box with white shelf paper,  leaving a curved surface on the back and minimal seams (they can be photoshopped out anyway). Is it too small to me to do whole armies and tank companies? Yes, but for squads, monsters, etc, it should work okay. 


So thanks, Greg, for telling my lighting was shit. Now it's bright as fuck. 


As you can see, the Angels of Fire color scheme is a dark palette anyway, but it does light up nicely. 


No, I won't retake every damn photo I've done already, even though the OCD section of my brain is screaming at me too. 


Happy Father's Day, people. 


You too, Greg, if you're a father. ;)