Armies on Parade #1: Space Orks

I was thinking it would be fun to have the Conscripts show off some of what we've been working on over the winter, and this dovetails nicely with Games Workshop's current promotion for its upcoming Games Day - "Armies on Parade".  So I am hoping that some of the crew will wheel out their toys for an old-school photo shoot to get the rest of us inspired.

 So I'm starting with my Rogue Trader-era Space Ork army.  This started out as a mini-project over a year ago and like these things do, grew...

The current count is 65 or so models plus vehicles, with another 40+ metal models in the painting queue.  You can never have enough Orks, right?

The latest additions to the "Red Star Boyz" came courtesy of Conscript Mike A., in a trade that brought me several dozen metal models painted by Conscript Kevin, and very nicely done they are too.  I like to think of my Orks as "multi-racial" and that's helped by the fact that Kev's Orks tend to have brighter green skin while the ones I've painted are much more muted in tone.  I did a little work to unify the armt by painting camo pants on most of the new models, to tie in with the rest of the force.

 I also added a looted Rhino for some of the lads to ride in.  The buggy came in the trade as well.

Although this model isn`t part of the army proper (it`s from the second edition, post-RT) I wanted to include some pics as it`s a simply amazingly-painted model.  Well done Kevin!



So let`s see some Armies on Parade from the rest of you lot!

"You Lookin' at Me??"

A few days ago I posted about the Nurgle Daemon Prince I had converted using parts from Troll-Forged Miniatures. Since that post, I re-did the model's right arm as I wasn't so happy with it. Now I think it's a bit better balanced in terms of posing, since I used an Inquisitor Space Marine right arm to match the left. 

I painted him in my standard Nurgle colour scheme of Graveyard Earth, Rotting Flesh and Camo Green.  I used weathering powder on the sword and am pretty happy with how that turned out.  I diluted the powder with Tamiya acrylic thinner and just dabbed it on, works a treat and makes a nice texture. 

From what I've read a winged Daemon Prince is a must in a CSM army so I'm looking forward to trying him out!

Send in the Hussars

With the Dragoons out of the way, I have one last unit to complete as part of my own Black Powder Challenge - a regiment of Austrian Hussars. Hussars have very colourful uniforms, and a lot of flair, so I left them for last. I managed to get started on them this weekend, and here are a couple of pictures of the first "test" models.

The Regiment is the 10th (Meszaros). Painting these suckers will take some time (all the cords make for slow going), but the end (of this project) is in sight! Now that I have worked out the colours to use, I hope the speed will pick up. It took a month to finish the Dragoon regiment, and I am going to try and finish these guys within about the same period.




One catch - I was short three figures to do a complete 24-figure regiment. I ordered an additional pack from Foundry in February. Foundry sent an email saying it was in the mail February 28. Still no sign of the package, however...thanks Foundry!

Maple Leaf Up

After a flurry of posts on my 2nd Canadian Division in January and February, things got rather sparse in March. Painting slowed down a bit, but I got some additional figures completed: a 25 pounder howitzer with crew and limber, a 6 pounder anti-tank gun with crew and limber, two 3 inch mortars with crew and a group of eight Foundry French partisans. Battle Honors 25 Pounder with crew and limber. I have been looking for a vehicle to tow this but nobody seems to make a Quad Gun Tractor in any scales other than 1/72 or 1/35 Battle Honors 6 pounder anti-tank gun and crew. It came with an ammunition limber but my research seems to indicate that these were not used. One of my Universal Carriers will be the vehicle used to haul this around the battlefield. Battle Honors 3 inch mortars with crew. While I find that the sculpting of the Battle Honors range is not up to the same standard as the Bolt Action or Crusader range of miniatures, I like the fact that the crew are in shirt-sleeve order. Having fired an 81 mm mortar, I know that hauling that around and humping ammo can be sweaty work. Foundry French maquis. I picked these up years ago just because I loved the sculpting on these figures. They are equipped with a mixture of British and captured German rifles, pistols and sub-machine guns. I always find painting motley attire more difficult that uniforms, often because I can't decide what colours would look right. I ended up with a range of blues, browns, grays and black that seemed appropriate for 1944 French civilians.

Dragoons Finished

The "Black Powder Challenge" has another completed unit.

I have finally finished my first unit of 25/28mm Napoleonic Cavalary - a Regiment of Austrian Dragoons. These are the 5th Dragoons, a Moravian Regiment, with green facings. The figures are all Foundry castings, a 24-figure unit suitable for our "grand manner" style of gaming. This is the first unit of cavalry I have ever painted for 25/28mm Napoleonics, and I have to say I am very pleased to have it under the belt! I started these back in early March, so to me this feels like pretty slow going. A whole month on the same unit is like an eternity for someone with my lack of focus.

This leaves me with one final unit left for the roster I committed to last July - a Hussar Regiment. The Hussars have a very flashy uniform - shako, pelisse, sabretache. Getting 24 of them ready will take a bit of time for sure, but the end for this project is in sight!

Troll Forged Alien Larva Brain

Troll Forged Alien with Emperor's Champion and Tyranid Zoanthrope

In my last post I wrote about getting some Daemon parts from Troll Forged Miniatures to use in a Daemon Prince conversion.  Actually, I'd stumbled across the Daemon parts while browsing for Alien-style models to use in my 40K Tyranid army, Hive Fleet Nostromo.

Turns out that Troll Forged makes a very sweet Alien-style monster (the "Larva Brain") that would make a nice Zoanthrope, or in my army, will stand in for the Ur-Zoanthrope, the "Doom of Malantai". 

The Troll Forged model is a very clean one-piece casting in white resin, with a small integral base, and includes a large GW-style round base.  It cleaned up easily with mild soap and water, and took primer very well.  The only small caveat I have with the model is that the resin is somewhat "bendy", and didn't really straighten out even when run under hot water.  But this was not much of a problem in the end as it's not noticeable once the model is positioned on the large round base.  The Alien represents decent value for money as well, retailing for $12 in the Troll Forged online store.

Big Brother (Nurgle Daemon Prince Conversion WIP)

For awhile now, I've been looking for a suitable Daemon Prince to lead my Warhammer 40K Nurgle Space Marines.  I wasn't "feeling" GW's plastic Daemon Princes, and while the metal Daemon Prince of Nurgle is a really nice model in most respects, I always thought that that model was making a face like it smelled something bad, and didn't bring across the full diseased yuckiness of Nurgle.  These are the guys that wear gas masks to keep poison gas in, for Pete's sake!

So, I decided to convert a Daemon Prince of my own.  I had been wondering what to use as a base model, when I remembered that our FLGS had a broken up "Battle Brother Artemis" from the 54mm "Inquisitor" range in its used model bin.  This would make a great start on a Daemon Prince, since they're just overgrown Space Marines anyway, right?

Unfortunately, the parts model wasn't complete, and was missing its left leg.  Fortunately, I'd just come across Troll Forged Models and in particular, its range of modular Daemon Lords.  So I picked up a pair of legs, two arms, a loincloth and head from them for about 12 bucks.  (The wings also came from the FLGS)

The resin is great quality and virtually flash-free.  Once I got these parts, the model went up in an evening and a bit.  I used a ton of green stuff to make the diseased bits and to cover gaps.  Chains came from a Dollarama jewellery purchase today - $2.  The sword was made from thin plasticard.

We'll soon see how he paints up but I'm reasonably happy with him so far.  Thanks a bunch to Ed at Troll Forged for the quick service!