May Motivational

 

Until next time, have nice day...

Hobby Spending - May 2023.

 

When Chris sent me this image we were discussing our own respective nostalgia moments when entering the hobby.

For my own part, I still have the memory of picking up the issue White Dwarf when Inquisitor was released and reading the battle report avidly in the back of my dad's car whilst we were on our way to a garden center...that's got to be about twenty-four/five years ago* now...

*****

A historic month for 21st century Britain as we celebrated the coronation of King Charles III this month.

However, in far more important hobby related matters, we discus how the monthly budget has been spent on toy soldiers instead.

Firstly, I began with the Monthly Rescue Challenge which I actually found my project for as soon as I finished posting the original post.

I was discussing with Chris about it after posting and just idly scouring eBay, when I came across Kharn the Betrayer (What a Guy), complete and at a low price as no-one had bid on him.

Being a miniature which I had always wanted and been looking for for a while, this was perfect.

He's now been "finished (add link)" and is available to lead the charge against the Imperial Palace in the future.

To go with Kharn, I have been building some Horus Heresy World Eaters using my own methods and based upon the artwork in the "Visions of Darkness (add photos)" books.

I dislike the everyone factory fresh in Mk.VI armour like GW is pushing, the narrative is for the most brutal civil war in human history which itself is longer then longest major wars in the last century.

Without an army of menials to polish their armour, I took inspiration from the old school method of making Pre-Heresy marines from before Forge World started making the mini's for the period.

Combining Space Marines and Chaos Marines from the 2000 era, I made a mishmash of armour marks, but was lacking heads.

Enter the 3D printer market, and this batch of heads which feature the Butcher's Nails prominently.

Perfect! 

Looking ahead, I was thinking about a summer project which I can take as a portable wargame.

World War One doesn't seem like it would work, but it's a period I've been looking at gaming on the tabletop, ever since I played Battlefield One (link YouTube) when it was released, and lately watching 1917 (link YouTube) which was an experience. 

For the cheap bid of £3, I picked up this copy of Great War for Flames of War, and plan to create the forces using Pendraken 10mm miniatures ready for the summer.

Once again we turn to the World Eaters, a bit later in the month, I was looking through some suggested bits after I bought the 3D printed heads and stumbled across these Cataphacti Shoulder Plates for £5.

As I wanted to add a unit of Red Butchers I clicked buy-it-now and waited.

Whilst good and with the legion symbol clearly on the pauldron, sadly they are quite thick when compared to the normal Cataphacti Shoulders but, still worth the punt as they give the Butcher's a much more heavy set, brutal look with the big plates.

The monthly rundown:

Classic Metal Kharn the Betrayer - £5.50.

3D printed World Eaters heads - £10.

Flames of War, The Great War - £3.

3D printed World Eaters Shoulder Pads - £5.

Total for May: £23.50

Budget for April: £50.

Over/Under Yearly Budget: under budget by £74.72.

Still well under budget, as I'm heading to Stockport and Element Games in June, this will come in handy as I usually buy quite a bit when I visit, something to do with the 20% discount in the store maybe?

Until next time, have nice day...

*Where the hell does the time go?

Revelation, a tale of Kharn.

 

 He had walked the endless shore for days?,Weeks? Centuries? 

Time had no hold there, it was less than a joke to the Neverborn and things that had once been human. He remembered a battle, and when his mind wandered he could see his killers avatar in the blood of the sea. Perhaps it was a reminder that he was bested, perhaps the reverberation of the loss had shifted something fundamentally in the eternal tides.

He would continue to walk, the foolish or the insane would challenge him and he would strike them down. They screamed as he tore them apart even as the sea of souls pushed what remained beyond the endless horizon. Perhaps he would have found it amusing at one point, now it had simply become a chore. They were flawed monsters, creatures born of murder and war but ultimately lacking some intrinsic quality that would make them a challenge. Those washed ashore however.....those he looked forward to seeing.

Some asked where they were, others had already been damned in their lives and understood where fate had deposited them. They knew no rest, death was a non-entity on the shoreline. Some he recognized, warriors that had fought along side him in the Crusade and the war for freedom from the Corpse God which followed. Some were warriors who had fought for the Imperium, confused at their ultimate destination they would lash out. All died in the end, and then the cycle would repeat itself.

He wondered why he was the only constant in a realm that resisted even the notion of order. It was not punishment, it was simply the way of existence. He had been here before, in his dreams and in the times when he had been bested, but never for this long. He felt it though, eternal eyes set upon his form, he knew their source but had never given a thought to looking up. 

On some instinctual level he knew that to gaze upon the Lord of Murder would be to end his reprieve from the pain. In this realm at this time he was still Kharn of the World Eaters, no nails singing in the back of his ruined skull, no loss of self, here he merely existed.

It was all a lie though, the best lies are those that the weak would tell to themselves, to seek comfort away from reality. Kharn had been many things in his existence but weak was never one of them. 

"I leave behind the sea of blood for an ocean of it among the stars...."he smiled as he spoke those words and looked into the shadow which towered over all. In an instant of searing pain he gazed upon the form of the Blood God......and the Blood God gazed back.

Eternals had no need to communicate with lesser creatures, their Daemons and worshippers fulfilled those tasks. The Master of the Skull throne smiled, in that instant Kharn saw reality shatter before him. He witnessed the first murder ever committed by a sentient creature, he saw war as an eternal cycle every conflict that ever was and ever would be. Only in bloodshed was true clarity granted. He saw himself battling creatures that had yet to evolve, things that would not even remember humanity as he knew it. He understood that the one truth of the universe was that there would always be war.

Kharn screamed as he awoke from the false death which had claimed him. A smile crossed his lips.

"There is no end to it, there is merely a different stage".

Until next time, have nice day...

May Hobby Challenge - Kharn Complete!

Steam guttered from the vox grill of his helmet, a helmet altered with enhancements by the artificers on their march to Terra.

He had torn off part of his armour leaving his left arm bare, just chains wrapped around his wrist in a mocking tribute to the slavery the false emperor wanted from them.

His father's axe, the mighty Gorechild, snarled in anticipation in his left hand, the cooling plasma pistol in his right hand making the air blur with the was of heat dispensing from its cooling baffles.

Gorechild growled again, the teeth of the chainaxe moving of their own accord, as if to take his own skull if he didn't give it more enemies to feed on soon.

The devastated outskirts of the Imperial Palace laid out infront of the gathering World Eaters, howls and warchant's echoing across the dust strewn ruins.

Kharn the Bloody, Equerry to the Twelfth Primarch and leader of the Eighth Assault Company turned his head and looked upon the mountain of scorched skulls they had piled up.

Each one a macabre, grinning visage of death. Each one an offering to the Lord of Battles, Khorne, the Blood God, the legion had taken to their new patron quickly, only openly displaying their new allegiance before the Solar War began, it all seemed so familiar. 

With an insistent thumping in the back of his head, the Butcher's Nails bit hard and Kharn turned and leapt from his vantage point.

Normally he would give an advance order, this time he signaled the start of the next assault with a new, but oddly familiar chant

"Blood for the Blood God!"

*****

So, my own miniature rescue for the month is now finished.

I've painted Kharn up as his Horus Heresy incarnation as I prefer the colour scheme of the World Eaters during this period, and they haven't devolved into the idiotic memery which comes with most 40k tropes because Games Workshop lean hard into just one aspect of an idea and can't have nuance and character to their creations.

Anyway, the white and blue armour are one of my favourite combination's of colours, and I had to add the red flourishes to Kharn to show his descent into worship of Khorne.

I chose to use the actual chaos version because I always liked the older background where the traitors looked completely different, wearing the corruptions and such on their armour when they got to Terra.

So the learning daemonic skulls and armour trim work for this idea, rather then the smooth plate of the Forge World models.

Whilst I like the Forge World story expansion and they did a lot for the setting, even giving us the first edition of the game.

I don't see the legions all turning up to Terra with fresh and matching suits of Mk.3/4/6 armour after nearly a decade of civil war, and each legion having its own way to going about things.

So Kharn with his warped Mk.5 suit and missing left arm of armour fits my interpretation of the setting and story better.

They're my models so tough...

The white is Ulthuan Grey and the Blue is Macragge Blue, whilst the brass is Hashut Copper.

This all then got a wash of "Marine Juice", a Forge World army painted trick which mixes an equal part of Nuln Oil, Riekland Fleshshade and Lahmian Medium to make a reddish, blackish weathering wash.

Then White Scar and Calgar Blue highlights were applied.

The joints and cables were given a coat of Contrast Black Templar and his flesh is Contrast Guilliman Flesh washed with neat Riekland Fleshshade.

Finally the red starts at Khorne Red, washed with Earthshade and highlighted with Mephiston Red and Evil Sunz Scarlet.

His base starts with Mechanics Standard Grey, gets washed with Earthshade and then drybrushed with Mechanics Standard Grey and Ulthuan Grey with a final very light highlight/drybrush of White Scar.

I have enjoyed this project and am working on some other World Eater miniatures with the intention of doing a Siege of Terra collection for 5th edition 40k (the best edition), featuring all the major players in some form of another, so I'll be posting them shortly as I've almost got a command squad for the legion finished.

Working with finecast had its own challenges, it's a useful material for conversion work, but it's crap at holding detail. Indeed I can see where Kharn has lost a few bits of detail, simply through the material used.

But that was a mistake of the selling post of eBay because I didn't realise that he wasn't the metal casted mini, I do need to glue a coin under his base to give him some heft.

I'm looking forward to seeing other people's rescue contributions coming soon as I know people have started to receive their miniatures they've bought, so keep an eye out for that future post.

Until next time, have nice day...

May Hobby Challenge - Kharn arrives!

With the Monthly Hobby Challenge laid down, I went scouring eBay for my miniature.

I had a couple of ideas, but when The Betrayer popped up in the search bar, I was sold.

I'd been after a classic Kharn the Betrayer miniature for a while, and this was the catalyst to pick him up, the fact that no-one else had put a bid in at all was even more of a bonus. 

With an opening bid of £5.50 and time running out, I decided to have a punt and see what happens.

The next morning there is an email, "You've Won!".

When he turned up, I grabbed a photo before work began in earnest!

That's a nice coat of Khorne Red (fittingly) on him, although those area where is has flaked off or not been applied worry me...that doesn't look like metal...

And...it wasn't, the screenshot above shows my reaction when talking to Chris about it...le sigh...

Once he was dried off after his bath in my Diall/IPA mixture I managed to use my knife to scrape a fair bit of the paint away, but couldn't get it all due to not wanting to damage the details.

Fortunately the paint wasn't applied thickly, whoever had Kharn before hadn't used an undercoat and so I could get quite a bit off.

I broke him down into component parts, accidentally broke his right leg off at the knee, and rooted through the bits box to find a few embellishments...

As Chris alluded to, he got a "Hero Base" from Cork, with a few Skulls thrown in*.

I am going to add a few other details to the base in due course to match the rest of my urban base scheme.

Let's try to get a better photo:

Black Background and a Wraithbone Primed Kharn, much better.

I added the skull and parchment from his belt to hide the damage to the rear of his kneepad, the chain and hook added to his backpack were the other end of the detail piece, from the Wrathnongers kit I believe.

His right arm and Plasma Pistol are converted from the Raptors kit, to give him an actual aiming/firing pose unlike the original which was drawn much closer to his body.

Finally I added the skull on a spike to the top of his backpack as a final detail and offering to Khorne.

I'll post again once he's finished, and to round out the project when people send me their before and after photos of their rescues.

Until then...

Have nice day...

*It is a GW thing after all, to add skulls to everything!

May Hobby Challenge - Miniature Rescue!

 

As you may have seen in previous posts, me and Chris often set each other a monthly challenge, wether that be to paint a specific thing or play a game, etc.

Well, inspired by eBay Miniature Rescues I set the challenge to buy a second hand miniature from eBay, strip it back as far you can to it's component materials and then renovate it up to your current standard of hobby.

I'll lay out the ground rules here:

*****

May 2023 Miniature Rescue Challenge:

• Go on eBay.
• Purchase a rescue a miniature*.
• Strip it. 
• Paint it.
• Make a display/competition base for it**.

The miniature must be a rescue, but can be anything you want as long as it's 28/32mm scale.

We'll need a before photo, a stripped photo and the finished painted photos.

Challenge starts now, ends on May 31st and I'll post everything up Saturday 3rd June.

*****

If anyone wants to join in, feel free and leave a comment on this post and we'll arrange a method to get in touch for the photo's.

Until then, have nice day...

*Now don't go breaking the bank on this, the idea isn't to flex as to who can save the most expensive or rare miniature. It's just a great way to motivate for something different then usual toil each month.

**Don't feel like you have to do Golden Daemon levels of interest for the base.

I'd be perfectly happy with a well modelled gaming base, which was a bit more then just sand glued down and painted.

If you want to add a proper display base or mini-diorama, then feel free, just remember that deadline is the 31st of May!