The Inquistion, the Last Part (edit): GUNHEDS and Walkers...

Recently it was pointed out to me that I wasn't leading with my strengths, so I went back through and gutted this article for reposting.

The three GUNHED's above were my answer to the appalling vulnerability of the common Penitent Engine. Where the PE is slow, underarmored, and underarmed, (and based on those woussy mecha from The Matrix)  the GUNHED is fast, heavily armed and armored, and has a Sister Repentia in the crew compartment (which is, of course, featured open to show off said pilot). I kept the flamethrower buzzsaw arms and pseudo-sentinel legs (I only used the right one for uniformity) and ditched the rest. That said, it's based on this manly hunk of steel:

That's GUNHED Sergeant MBR-507, from the Japanese movie GUNHED, which came out some time back in 1989. It was pretty standard fare for a Toho movie, in that it was shot in glorious Tohovision and featured giant monstrous things trying to kill each other. The plot was thin, the acting was... adequate, but overall, the star is the Studio Nue-designed monstrosity you see there. GUNHED is an acronym for "Gun Unit/Heavy Elimination Device", and were meant to be entirely unmanned drones deployed in battalions to fight... other unmanned war machines. Interestingly enough, that Kawamori design is also the precursor for the mecha in the underrated Eureka 7.

Anyhow, my take on it was this (and no, it doesn't transform) :

A lot of bits went into #507. That long-barrelled vulcan in the turret came from an old, large scale Heavy Gear weapons pack. The metal turret and tread assemblies is from a pre-Flames of War tank wargame (three lead tank blisters for a mere $6 apiece!) and the rest are Penitent Engine parts, plastic bits, Inquisitor icons, and other things. The legs I extended by use of plastic i-beams and the tread bits from the tank models.  I tried to keep it gothic, keep it dark, and keep it, as other 40k designs, looking like it should have had more tacked onto it, but after thousands of years had been boiled down to its basic ugly funcitonality. Yes, the penitent inside is a Dark Eldar Wych (pun intended):

In the old days you used to be able to order practically any manner of bits from practically the entire range of GW minis, and life was good. Now you can't, of course, because maintaining a massive bitz inventory is evidently too much of a bother for the powers that be to handle. Now we have to scrape and scrabble on eBay for plastics that aren't even marginally as interesting as all of the things we used to have access to whenever we wanted, as much as we needed. 

Those thrusters, of course, are for turbo-boosting into battle so you can flame/buzzsaw them after to you Punisher cannon them to pieces.  I like the book on the engine section, there. I was really into the WH design motif of covering things with shrines and scrolls. This thing remains one of the jewels of my collection, and I liked it so much, I built another one, #508 (or "Flame-HEDD")  with an emphasis on fire:

That giant flamer in the turret belonged to an action figure a long tim ago; I found it at the bottom of a drawer, I think. Having the accelerant tanks on the outside of the turret seems like an awfully good way to get them blown up, but then again, having an open cockpit on a war machine is a terrible idea, too. Maybe it closes like a clamshell, retracting up into the chest? If that's the case, that Rackham babe needs to tuck in her legs:

Yes, I noticed the glare spot on these. The angle on the bottom of the chest section seemed to catch the light no matter what I did. I suppose I should have sealed these with matte instead of semi-gloss, but every time I use a matte spray-seal it just kills the metallics. 

You'd think the Ecclesiarchy would lock up all of their scrolls and relics in museums, but they seem to delight in carelessly nailing them to tanks and other monsters of the battlefield. You might also notice the engine sections are slightly different; these pre-date my current standardization kick. At the time, I did make sure to use only the right-hand PE legs, certain torso bits, etc. that matched up to connect the models, thematically.  It didn't take me long to discover the (then) newly-released Warmachine range:

The Grey Knight version, the X-252 "Melta-HEDD", uses Khador warjack parts (I forget which one) and Inquisitor Karamazov's tri-barrel multi-melta. In retrospoectAlong with the PE and other parts, this model fit together really, really snugly. The Dark Age Reaver girl even fits nicely in its little command throne. More than that, she actually looks like she wants to be sitting in there, and isn't chained to anything.

Well, she's not enthusastic about it, but she's not writhing in anguish, either. 

Compared to the other two it looks a little under-armed; my intention was for that boxy thing on the turret to read as a psycannon, (even though it reads, visually, as some kind of sensor). Being a Grey Knight construct, it has the obligatory Force Weapon in that bigass gauntlet. You didnt think I'd cut away  a dreadnought-sized axe, did you? Likewise he carries a Liber Demonica just in case he has to call out a demon's true name in the middle of combat to subdue it. There is no plastic on this model at all, so it weighs as much as two old-school metal dreads. I shit you not. This thing is fucking heavy.

Man, I do love that cluster of exhausts in that big, solid torso (if I was in the black again I'd start a Warmachine hobby in a NY minute) Sharp eyes will note the old-school Battletech Marauder torsos as boosters on the engine sections. I am almost (at long last) completely out of bits and bobs from the old B-Tech range, too, so unless you want half of a leg or torso that's been smashed beyond recognition, I wouldn't bother asking. 

Yes, I do also own the Penitent Engines that the GUNHED was supposed to supplant. I even used GUNHEDS as stand-ins for PE's at one point, but was so disappointed by how quickly the PE's got chopped apart that I retired the models from that dubiously helpful duty out of shaming them. Yes, really. I went and got real PE's out of pity for the made-up ones. 

I always thought the Penitent Engine had  a lot of potential, if only it didn't have the major stumbling blocks of being open-topped and badly armored. It's far more interesting to look at than the average Dreadnaught, and is closer to being some kind of Dark Eldar construct  than an Imperial design. I mean, a machine powered by a tortured sinner that carries blades and shoots fire? It may be shit on the battlefield, but it's one hell of a neat idea. Unfortunately, neat fluff rarely translates well into the game. 

Remember, this was my first 40k army, and so the idea I had was to run some of these up behind Rhinos or Immolators and let them go to town on the opposition. Of course, Rhinos are terrible to hide behind longer than, say, a turn, and the PE's are so lightly armored that a violent sneeze chops off a vital engine part. Despite this, they were such a neat gothic concept that I even took advantage of some bargain-basement priced Sentinel parts, along with some of the nicer metal Specialist range bits:

The Inquisitor range was a treasure trove of cool-ass parts, like cyborg gladiator arms and devotional scripts. Unfortunately, big metal arms plus light plastic parts equal trouble, and this thing was so forward-heavy I had to build up the base on the bottom to it'd stand properly. Nowadays, my models are much better balanced (uncannily so, in the case of the Tervicrons). 

Like my other sentinel-legged constructs, both of these need a rod up the grounded foot to keep them on the base and stable, but the parts allow for such great poses that I don't mind all the extra drilling.

I'd cap off this edited entry with something witty, but there's a hostage crisis right now at Discovery in Silver Spring, where my friend works. I'm praying for the hostages safety, and that a police sniper will fucking blow the gunman's head off.

Wednesday's a bitch, gang.

Mmm.... Minty.

Remember the old Judge Dredd film? With Stallone? The one that was complete shit because it was written and directed by people that hated the character? Well, wash your memory out with this:

Someone's making a fan film, and the teaser vid looks really, really, good. More about it (along with the video) here.


Now, by "fan film", you'd think it was two guys with a video camera and a copy of Premiere pro. Uh-uh. From the blog, it's an involved, full-blown production; greenscreening, location shoots, the works. See that Lawmaster? Wait till you see it in motion. 

And here I am, working from my kitchen. 

Stupid universe....

International House of Paincakes

Out of the fell shadows of August  comes a new blog network, courtesy of Lauby and Dethtron.  I was asked kindly to contribute an article or two, and contribute I shall. Of course, my kind of article requires building things and documenting that with a camera, so it'll require some planning. 


Anyways, check them out (and sign up, while you're at it: Int'l House of Paincakes

No, I don't know what a Paincake is, but I suspect it has something to do with ham. 


In other news, it appears the new Tyrant is going to be a horrifying centaur monster, along the lines of the Berserker shown in the last post. 


Maybe I'll call him "Ultima".....

Hey Otto! Do Berserker! Girls think is big sexy!

I've been playing Final Fantasy XII on the PS3, and it's so visually gorgeous I'm willing to forgive the woefully neglectful lack of gameplay. Anyhoo, as my team of emo teenagers were beating the bejeezus out of these giant centaur automatons, the design struck me as something the Necrons would leave lying around. As if its size and enormous amount of HP weren't enough, when the thing is sick of dealing with you, it summons an enormous fucking sword. 


So I'm thinking it's a good jumping-off point for the second Hive Tyrant? Maybe a Tyrannofex?


In other news, I've started on an Emperor's Tarot deck for my DH group. We also play poker the same evening, so I thought it'd be cool to have a deck you could also use for that (less the 24 Major Arcana and 4 Trump cards, of course) . Here's my proof-of-concept prototype, the Ace of Thrones:

From my research, the suits are Thrones, Bolters (or Bolts), Shields, and Novas, and the four Trump cards are something you don't even see in regular Tarot decks. The other major difference is that these will be playing card size to facilitate Texas Hold 'Em as well as divination. The Minor arcana will be easy enough, but it still leaves me with 40 or so small illos of varying complexity to do. It'll be a nice long-term project. 


No, I will not, as others have, be stealing Jon Blanche artwork from the rulebooks. Others have done that, and that's cheating.


Next time we'll wrap up the Witch Hunters series with something interesting to look at. 


Happy Saturday, people. 

Forces of the Inquisition Part V: Yes, Mother Superior...

I have never had a Canoness blast through a close combat, Mephiston style. No matter how I kit her out and spend those fate points, it just doesn't end up happening. Maybe it's because mine routinely faced off against steroided-up Ork Warbosses..... Well, what can I say about WH tactica that hasn't already been said ad infinitum? Get her a Book of St. Lucius, a combi-melta, and an Eviscerator (also a good weapon in Dark Heresy) and let her loose. Just don't say I didn't warn you. 


That said, whenever I see a model that makes a good SoB character, I can't resist scooping it up. The above models were a joy to paint up, and I must admit to harboring a secret hope of rolling up a Sororitas in Dark Heresy (mostly because the abilities they get, especially at higher levels, are fucking sweet). 

I wanted to keep Sorscha's hammer, I really did. Unfortunately, it was so bloody long and ungainly the thing would've stressed apart in transport eventually, so I gave her the more hardy pair of matched power swords. The sword hands came courtesy of the Canoness upgrade sprue, which itself was the gift that keeps on giving, as you'll see. 

The Warmachine range continues to deliver sweet minis like you wouldn't believe, and in a lot of cases, you can find them cheaper than those of other ranges (don't worry, Dark Age, you're still my go-to range...). That said, this weapons this one was packing were pretty underwhelming until I added the gauntlet-mounted Eviscerator (hey, it's powered armor, right?). The Warmachine fluff seemed to think she was based around fire, but honestly if she wades through her own infernos that skirt of hers should be a lot shorter and a lot more charred. Of course, it probably shouldn't be any easier for her to dance around with gigantic chainsword,but oh well. 

Her newer (Warmachine) iteration had more of an aggressive pose and a better weapon than just the understated flamey gloves, so I went the extra mile and made her something you should never, ever field (until the next SoB codex comes out and makes them somehow better) : a flying Canoness. I truly regret having not sheared off that long glaive.  As nice as it looks with its forward thrust and purity seal,  the white metal is verrry thin and verrrrry bendy, resulting in her occupying two slots in the miniatures case when she needs to travel. That reliquary on her hip is from the lovely Black Templars sprue, which I highly recommend procuring for your hobby needs if you haven't already. 


Next and final in the series (until they redo the codex and release 5 new miniatures for me to replace with cheaper ones by other manufacturers): Walkers, and I don't just mean Penitent Engines, I mean GUNHEDs.... 


Also, I seem to be getting glare spots with the Lightbox mk. 1, and I just plain can't use it for some of the larger models like I want to, so soon it'll be time for Lightbox mk 2. Suggestions, amateur photogs? I understand Brent has been getting good results with an over-the-counter rig. What say you?

Forces of the Inquistion, Part IV: This is what 12 years of Catholic School does to you...

That Caestus was so ugly I think the last post threw me down a depression-hole of some kind, so today's entry is a little stroll down memory lane. 

Ah the Sisters, my first 40k army, ever. No, they didn't all fit in the light box. I had to improvise with some hardware, light-bouncing white plasticard, and more lights: 

 

The average Battle Sister model is a perfect example of what happens when GW designs something right; they're so off-the-rails from all of their other releases that, like the Tau, you'd think they were made by another company. I think that's what made them so appealing to me as I looked through the army lists, way back when. They were just so not marines I had give them a shot. I mean, look at 'em:

Oh, but they don't even have the humble missile launcher for anti-tank, do they? That's fail. Multi-meltas are nice, but yeah, no. It took me a few games of valiantly trying to make Retributors and Exorcists work before I figured out you want Inducted Guard for their anti-tank, and from there it's a slippery slope to the Heavy Weapons Nirvana of a full Guard army. Speaking of batshit crazy ideas:

 

Yes, I managed to get them to their target under the previous edition rules (four survived) and yes, they did chainsaw apart the Avatar.  No, they didn't survive, nor have I used them since. 

Overall, the SoB not a good codex by any means (Immolator spam notwithstanding), and certainly not the army I'd recommend to anyone starting the hobby, but hey, what did I know back then? I still trot them out to support my IG army when needed, but until their codex gets a complete rewrite, I think their days of serving as a standalone force are pretty much done. There's a Dominion squad in there too, I think. Everyone's seen SoB before, so I didn't want to dwell on the rank n' file, especially rank n'file  I painted forever ago...

Oooh this was a mistake. Seraphim are okay, but not as great as, say, all of the assault troops in the other books. Sure they have decent mobility and are better than the average Sister in melee, but man, if you don't exterminate whatever it is you're assaulting in that first round, then you're hosed. Faith Powers? Eh, they're really not great when you're rushing an ork horde, to be honest. Making your flamers sort-of AP1 helps, but not often. Making your girls S6 I1? Not helpful at all. Ever. 

I like building armies on the cheap, and these girls, sold as "Shock Sisters" for an obscure game company called Demonblade Games came 4 to a blister for 8$, with the sergeant and heavy weapon girl for 6$. Demonblade has apparently vanished into the recesses of time; I can't find a web page link for them anywhere, otherwise I'd have provided one. Anyhoo, I thought they'd work well for an Inquisitorial Storm Trooper squad, or a squad of SoB in a pinch, so I bought a set and painted them up. Yes, they look like Astartes, but take a closer look at them, and I assure you, there's  a chick in there somewhere.

Speaking of Space Marines, maybe I'll start using the Seraphim as Assault Marines in Blood Angels list. Hmmmm......

Next time, characters or walkers. I can't decide which. Walkers, probably, because I know you people can't resist my crazy-ass mecha.

Speaking of which, this week's poll is for Grievous' companion general. Enjoy. 

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.