40k - "A Knight before Christmas" event report.

No-one can deny that Imperial Knights are cool. A giant stomping robot with building levelling amounts of firepower and all the heraldry and chivalric traditions of medieval Knights, what's not to like?

Our local GW manager ran an event yesterday in order to try to gain the record for the most Imperial Knights on a 6'x4' table as possible.

There are 58 Knights of varying types there, including some Forge Ones lurking about.

Impressive photo's you have to admit.
Alas, we missed out on the record by 4 Knights, it still stands at 61.
There is always another try for the record though.


Until next time.

 - Lewis

ToH - Masahiro and Warrior Monks.

It's been a while since I posted anything about Test of Honour, the whole thing with 8th edition 40k and some Age of Sigmar seems to have distracted me from the game.

At the moment I am trying to clear various half finished projects from my painting table in order to be ready for a new project starting in January, more on that in another post.

So with no time to spare, these models were finished off ready to take the Test of Honour!

These are all the monks I require for the warband, there are the normal Ashigaru Masked Men to add yet.
Masahiro is the main character who has his own card, he is the monk at the front with the staff.
There is a group of spearmen, a lone spearman and banner bearer.

With these guys out of the way, I will concentrate on the archer multibase I want to add to the warband, then there is just a spearman multibase and a Sergeant of Archery to do.

I may add a ronin type character using a Samurai card to the warband, maybe some wandering brigand who helps the Monks out maybe?


I am hoping to get some more of these miniatures from Warlord and Perry Miniatures at some point in the future to run my own Campaign based off of the Shogun PC Game, but that is still in the embryonic planning stages if i am honest.




Until next time...


 - Lewis

40k -Knight Crusader Chemosh.

Knight Crusader Chemosh of House Raven.

A veteran Knight pilot, Mistress Chemosh has sat on her Throne Mechanicum for almost 600 years.

She has seen all, fought all, and most importantly, emerged victorious over all.
She purged the Chaos taint from the Hives of Ludia with Shell and Missile, alongside the Sorroritas of the Order of Our Martyred Lady.
Was instrumental in the destruction of a tendril of Hive Fleet Jormungandr.
The Aeldari of Craftworld Ilthansar were given cause to be wary of her after she smashed aside the "Two Brothers" - twin Wraithknights which were protecting a webway gate from being destroyed.
 Although they do not show emotion, the noospheric links of the Skitarii of Forge World Metalica buzz with extra traffic and energy when Mistress Chemosh is posted alongside them.

Most recently, she has been fighting alongside the forces of Forge World Metalica as they fight with the Crimson Fists chapter to clear sections of the Loki Sector from the Greenskin menace left over from the invasion of Rynn's World.

This is a model which has been sat on my workbench for quite some time as I just didn't know how to finish her off.

Firstly, she is not mine, I am not a professional or commission painter (I barely get enough time to finish my own projects), but the Knight was part of a Small force of Adeptus Mechaanicus I offered to paint for a friend who has vision problems when working close for periods of time.

The only brief I got was Forge World Metalica, as he has purchased a Warhound Titan already painted in their Legio colours.

Some brief research led to House Raven who are allied with the Forge World, so that was easy. Then came Dawn of War 3, with their Matriarchal Knight character who aids the Blood Ravens through the campaign, thus the short backstory was born.

One thing which typifies House Raven is Hazard Striping and Chevrons. I wanted to include these as they hark back to 2nd Edition when they were everywhere from Chainsword and Boltgun casings to Leman Russ Dozer Blades and LOTS of other things.

However, I didn't want to go overboard with them as it would make the model look too busy I thought, so a few stripes of them and the tilting shield were all.
Many of the other markings are either Adeptus Mechanicus homages or the army campaign marking which is the small red stripe on the field of white which runs down the left hand side of the model and on the tabbard between her legs.

I attempted early on to do an oil streak/heat stained effect on the Cannon barrel, but I am not happy with it as I can do it a lot better now I have had more practice at the effect. I may come back and redo the Cannon at a later date, I may not.

One thing I was keen on making sure I got was the dual colours of the Adeptus Mechanicus seals, half black and half white with a metal skull in the centre, it is such a major point of their imagery I had to make sure I got it.

The last thing was the wounded Crimson Fist on her base.
I had originally picked up the wounded Marines set from GW to make some objective markers with, however after playing about with the base for the Knight, I stumbled across the idea of having her towering protectively over the Space Marine, a very heroic image ad just the sort of thing I imagine the knight pilots doing given their background stories from their old codex.
Crimson Fists were picked because when questioned, if he ever wanted a Space Marine army, my friend would want Crimson Fists because they are badass to come back from near extinction as they do.


I am glad I have gotten this model finished, and in plenty of time for our local GW which is having a Knight event on December 23rd. They are trying to gather over 70 Knights on one table to beat the record for most in one place.


Until next time...


 - Lewis

AoS - Defenders of Ancestor's Fyrd, part 2.

The Stormcast Liberators of Prime Galerius.

Aside from Lord Casellant Jaresh, Liberator Prime Galerius and his unit have the distinction of being the longest lived members of The Celestial Legion stationed to Ancestor's Fyrd, having gone fifty years without being reborn in Azyr.

They have defended the town against numerous incursions from hostile forces, earning particular renown against the Black Axe Brayherd.

With more forces being drawn to Acenstor's Fyrd in recent years, the Stormcast have made the decision to move from defence of the walls to active patrols beyond the city limits in an effort to counter potential threats before they can cause a serious danger.

 I have been painting this unit in my (not much) spare time recently. Switching between these and other projects to keep momentum rolling.

Not wanting the traditional "In yo'face" Gold of the standard GW colours, but wanting to try an army of mainly metallic colours, I opted for a Bronze scheme tied with red to keep the colours warm. Additionally, I wanted to try drybrushing as a main technique rather then just for weathering which I have always used it for. I also used a Crimson wash over the basecoat o Screaming Bell, before drybrushing up through bronze colours with a final drybrush of silver. This I feel gives a very rich and warm saturation to the metallic, as opposed to using something like Earthshade which would have given harsher shadows int he armour plates.

I am happy with how the unit turned out, they felt very Romanesque as I was painting them so the idea of the "Legion" was born, I see these guys as being the Sledgehammers to the other Order units Anvils when they are all ready for battle.

As these Stormcast have been based in Ghur for their entire career so far, I decided to convert a few bare heads using Space Wolf spares from the bitz box. These have a more wild look to them and do give the impression of the Liberators starting to "go native" as it were. It also breaks up the endless masks of the force as well.



So with two units for the Defenders, the Chaos forces need some serious bolstering for their side. I may focus on those a little more until the new year, when I have a new project in mind!


Until next time...


 - Lewis

40k - Thoughts about 40k and introducing kids.

Earlier this morning I noticed a post on Facebook about introducing a child to 40k. The universe is quite nasty and brutal at times as you would expect with a central theme of warfare and sci-fi.

I posted about a personal experience I had with my youngest niece. I'll paste my comment below:

"One important thing for when she gets a bit older is to try to "kiddify" some of the more mature stuff. Back in 5th edition my youngest niece (who is a giant fantasy fan of LotR and HP) picked up my shiny new Grey Knights codex which I had just bought and left on the side when I got home.

Straight away she is sat. Ext to me asking about who the guys with the horns are in the art and why the good Knights are killing them. Then came the question :

"What's an exorcism?"

So there I am having to explain what a Daemon is (it's a bad thing created by a person's thoughts in this game) and an exorcism (is them getting rid of the daemons by a ritual). Which satisfied her curiosity and didn't go too far down the rabbit hole.

The problem came when the next Monday at school to answer the question "what did you do this weekend?" She wrote down that she had learnt about daemons and exorcisms from her uncle...

I ended up being called into the school to talk to her teacher who tried to scold me for telling her about it.
"My niece is a smart girl" I replied, "she can use Google better then her mother... imagine what she would have found if she had typed 'exorcism' into the search engine. By me telling her the cliff note version I saved a lot of problems so why wouldn't I explain it to her?"

The point is that kids are smarter then we think and given some of the bits of fluff which will be uncovered by inquisitor little ones, don't shy away from a basic version, as they will understand and you can head off problems which may come in the future".

I stand by this advice as imagine a seven year old (as she was at the time) googling "The Exorcist" movie or getting some historical references, if I hadn't tried to explain things simply...

Likewise she asked about the Blood Angels when they were released in 5th as well. "Well they are Angels who fight to defend normal people against everytbing, blood is part of their theme and to represent the blood they defend".
I decided to avoid the whole vampire, psychic backlash, etc.
Which she understands now she is older.

As I said on FB, children are far smarter then we give them credit for, they will understand and ask questions.

I look forward to when my son asks about my hobby, if he does great, if he isn't interested (like at the minute) then that's fine as well.

Until next time...

 - Lewis

40k - Aearion, Protector of the Solar Priest.

Another character model I have finished recently was Aearion.

When 8th edition came out and the Dark Imperium box set, one of my friends bought two boxes for the Death Guard and gave me one of the Primaris Captain models from it. I will admit to not being the biggest fan of the Primaris themselves, as I feel that GW could have made their release an awful lot better by simply looking at their fluff and giving Chaos something badass which caused the Imperium to HAVE to react and make the Primaris, but I'm not a writer for GW.

So here was this model, which I wasn't really a fan of, but my friend was expecting me to do something with as we were taking part in a painting competition at our local GW store.

Here is the result:

He is a standard Primaris Captain in Gravis armour, but the head and backpack come= from one of the Ravenwing sprues. His arms and shoulder pads are from the Tactical Marines box and the icon on his backpack is from the Mk.4 marines box. The Ravenwing and Mk.4 Icon I got from my friend as well.
I wanted to do a pale gold colour scheme as I felt that would contrast well with the red of the cape I was planning, with a little white as a spot colour, limiting your pallet of colours like this makes the miniature a lot easier to paint, but also much more interesting to the eye.
For an added feature, I added some classic chequerboard patterning around the hem of his cloak, most of which got drybrushed over with dust as I messed bit of it up and the deadline was looming.

Whilst I was painting him, I came up with a backstory to go along with the model:


 Aearion, Protector of the Solar Priest.

A Manifestation in real space of the Emperor's will in the Astronomicon itself, sightings of the "Solar Priest", as it has become known, were once common whilst undergoing warp travel, reported by all from lowly Imperial Guardsman all the way up to Lord Generals.

Since the coming of the great tear in space known as the Cicatrix Maledictum, sightings of this being have become rarer, lacking the frequency of reportings from before. Reports abound of a floating skeletal apparition clothed in ragged robes. There is no denying that the authoritarian power comes from the Emperor.

Aearion, was tasked with his protection orders after the Solar Priest presented itself before Primarch Robute Guilliman. Two days of tense conversation convince the Avenging Son that this WAS a manifestation of the Emperor and not some warp fiend trick.

Clad in pale gold Gravis Armour and bearing a simple power sword and plasma pistol. Once he had taken his Oath of Moment before Guilliman himself, he stoically accepted his arms and armour and has not uttered a single word since.

Aearion keeps a faithful watch over his charge, who seems to be moving with a purpose towards worlds in the grip of Chaotic Invasion.

Why this is so, remains a mystery...


In the event, I didn't make it to GW with him as I was sick on the day of the competition, but he was a good little project to do. I do have plans to convert the Solar Priest model in the future however, so I'll have the duo done at some point.

Until next time.


 - Lewis

40k - Commander Dante of the Blood Angels

Continuing my recently finished character models spree, we have Command Dante of the Blood Angels:


"For eleven hundred years, I have fought and I have seen the darkness in our galaxy. I have seen the vileness of the alien and the heresy of the mutant. I have witnessed the sin of possession. I have seen all the evil that the galaxy harbours, and I have slain all whose presence defiles the Emperor. I have seen what you will see. I have fought what you must fight, and I have slain what you must slay... so fear not and be proud, for we are the sons of Sanguinius, the protectors of Mankind. Aye, we are indeed the Angels of Death."

Dante has been one ofmy favourite characters from 40k since I started the game waaaaay back in 2nd edition.

Him along with Asodai of the Dark Angels were two of my all time favourite models.

This model was the first one my girlfriend ever bought me, and I am sorry that it has taken me nearly six years to get him finished for the cabinet, but he is done now, that is all that matters.

He is a Finecast model and was a good cast overall, apart from the haft of the Axe Mortallis was more bent then a ten bob note. With the axe and jump pack replaced by Sanguinary Guard versions he was ready to go.

His standard Gold colour scheme was easy to pull off, more difficult was the fact that I made the decision to attempt the glowing effect you can make out in the vents of his jump pack, some drybrushing of soot around it and some dust for his feet and he was ready.


Until next time.


 - Lewis