Black Knight conversion
March 7th, 2010 Subscribe To Our Feed
Well, I wasn’t really satisfied with the first prototype for the Black Knights. I wanted something a little more unique then basically a weapon-swapped chaos marine. I also would like more details but without all the work. Aaand I happen to really like the grey knight models. So I cooked up an idea to convert them for use as Black Knights. Some time with a file, greenstuff, exacto-saw, superglue and some pinning later…
For refference, side by side with the 1st prototype after I head-swapped it…
I plan to paint the armor metallic black, red trim and glowy red rune insciptions, silver iconography for normal knights and gold for the squad leaders. And paint the “purity” seals up like heretical prayers scribed on the flayed flesh of their enemies. The skull on the chest center might get an actual bone paint job as the skull of great foe slain by the suit’s wearer that earned him the right to join the Black Knights. Skulls of Grey Knights being particularly prestigious.
No one expects the Inquisition (In Black)! Pt 2
March 1st, 2010 Subscribe To Our Feed
I’ve been cooking up conversion ideas a plenty. The sisters are fairly simple (if time-consuming) conversion idea at the moment. Use some trimmed-down chaos marine backpacks to replace their normal ones, file off the normal inquisition symbols, and cover their places with green stuffed skulls and chaos symbols.
The exorcists will be chaos rhinos with the turret hatch on back with a set of havoc launchers on it like an old-school chaos whirlwind tank.
I already have a Reaper mini in mind for converting into the priestess for the sisters.
The inquisitor is still up in the air, but I do have a spare chaos sorcerer mini I might use. The retinue will be some odd cobbled up things.
The guardsmen will be converted catachans most likely as I think they’ll fit best and the new plastics should be easy enough to work with. Add the odd mutation, maybe a robe here or there and a little greenstuff should play out fine.
The Black Knights are the ones I’ve been contemplating building the most because the GK models are just plain sweet. But they’re basically just blinged-up space marines with different weapons. Chaos marines are already pretty blinged-up as is. So I built a prototype with converted gauntlet-mounted storm bolter, halberd / pike thing, and a slimmed down backpack to help him stand out from normal chaos marines. I also added a smidge of greenstuff in the waistline to lengthen the torso a tad, though I think I may add a little more in the future. The rest will be in the paint job. Might do head swaps over to ones with plumes instead of the various horns as well. Have a look:
No one expects the Inquisition (In Black)!
February 27th, 2010 Subscribe To Our Feed
So I’ve toyed with re-starting my first 40k army, Witch Hunters. Then that turned into Daemonhunters. Then just plain Inquisition, etc. Well, over the years I’ve come to realize my true love in the 40k universe is Chaos, and thus I have stuck with my Chaos Marines despite occasionally seeing other armies (such trysts never last).
I’ve gotten an idea to build a chaos version of the Inquisition, however. Fallen Sisters of Battle are a cannon occurrence. And some catachans would make great cultist conversion fodder for an IG contingent. As for some Grey Knights, well they’re incorruptible. However, after 13+ Black Crusades, I think it’s high time Chaos made their own dark mocking mirror: the Black Knights.
The army’s concept sprang from a radical inquisitor that pulled in an entire convent of sisters and a regiment of guardsmen to hunt down a chaos sorceress. The sorceress being my own previously converted fallen sister in my chaos marine army. The Inquisitor and friends get pulled along and eventually most of them either become corrupt themselves or are killed. With the right persuasion they come to see things the renegade’s way (Emperor is a false god and unworthy of worship, etc) The remainder found a new sub-group from my chaos marine army as a mirror inquisition out to destroy the fools of the Imperium’s Inquisition.
The army list is based on a Witch Hunter core with inducted guard and some allied Daemonhunters.
–HQ–
High Magus (fallen inquisitor), with mystics and multi-melta servitor
High Priestess (Cannoness) and her retainers (celestians, 2x flamers, eviserator vet) in an Immolator
–Troops–
2 squads of 10 Sisters, 2 meltas each, vet with book and melta bombs, all in smoke-rhinos
2 squads of 7 Black Knights (PAGKs) with frags and melta bombs on the justicars
1 mob of cultists (IG platoon) consisting off:
Autocannon squad with commissar and dozer-chimera
Autocannon squad with dozer-chimera
Command squad with mortar and chimera
–Heavy–
3 Exorcists with smoke
Grand total 2000 pts exactly
The Knights pile into the chimeras with dozers, and the Magus parks it in the last chimera. The cultists make one big mob with the leader hiding behind them lobbing shells. The sisters and knights rush the enemy with everything else giving fire support.
The great thing is that the knights get good dozers and good front armor for a frontal assault but can also go slower to pop the hatch and fire off 5 extra storm bolters. And if they get popped out of the transport they still get some shooting cover from the Shrouding. The sisters are providing close fire support with 2 anti-tank squads, and one all-around assault support unit in the priestess. The army as a whole has great anti-psyker defense from both a hood on the Magus and the innate abilities of the sisters and knights. Good Leadership, and some anti-deep strike in the firebase to ward off some unwanted surprises. Lots of bodies, and lots of tanks, and up to 7 scoring units available.
I think this army may actually stand a chance competitively, and provide a lot of fun flavor 
An Ogre’s Tale: Part I
October 3rd, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed
Journal of the ogre tyrant Morag the Hungry
As recorded by Kresh, his faithful gnoblar scribe and joke-teller
Today the butchers smelled an unusual scent wafting on the air. They said it would be good eating. Boss agreed so we marched after it with his buds.
We found a lot of scary-looking thinlings in lots of metal armor. Some rode horses. One rode a dragon! He seemed to be thier leader. If I had a dragon, I’d be a leader, too.
We met them in battle, and at first the leadbelchers did quite well, making grand noise and knocking several bare-chested thinlings off thier horses. 2 of the ogres got lost in some woods though. They didn’t show thier faces until later. I could still smell them though so they must not have wandered far.
Then the horsemen all charged, and so did the dragon. Some of the ogres tried to get away, but it didn’t work. Dragons must really like ogre meat the way it ate one of the leadbelchers. The big scary armored knights though, they met Muscles the Butcher and his boys. They had a right good fight there, and a couple of the boys went down (good eatin’ later!) but they held them scary men up for a long time.
Then the dragon came in behind the boss’s bunch and tried to breath all over them. It smelled pretty bad, but not worse then some of Muscles’s gas so the boys were ok. I think them other gnoblars hanging around the boss’s legs got sick from it though, ’cause they never tried to hit anything after that.
Boss must not have noticed the dragon’s breath because he just charged on after a bunch of armored men with a biiiiig banner that hurt my eyes. They whomped em good when they charged in. And the Boss, he got to that banner man, squished him up good, then tossed him into that aweful maw on his belly. Smished up scary man reminded me of last gnoblar that got under boss’s foot. Not pretty sight.
Then dragon sneak up behind boss’s gang and start eating his iron gut guards. Good thing Grinder the Butcher had worked his mojo, becuase one of the boys got his gut almost ripped off, but it grew back and then he swung up with his big stick and knocked the scary smelly pussy man off the dragon. Too bad the banner bruiser get willies and run. Other ogres think he know where more food was, but he didn’t. He just lose nerve. Boss find out later, eat him, give banner to iron gut that knock off pussy-man. Now he’s new bruiser.
That’s about when the gorgers started showing up and eating thinlings. Some leadbelchers decided to get some thinling meat before gorgers ate it all, and between them they kill or scare away whole lot of men with not much armor on them. Ogres always like meal with more meat anyway. Iron not taste as good. They still fill men’s banner with lots of meat before heading home.
Muscles and his loud friend finish killing scary armored men on horses and decide it good time to head back towards camp, taking banner with them for new apron.
By then though, fight was over and everyone head back to camp to cook dinner.
rest of this entry »
The Ogre Kingdoms are Coming…
September 6th, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed
So I finally broke down and got a hankering for square-basing. I had dabbled in Warhammer Fantasy Battles before using the cheap dwarf models from the Skull Pass set. Alas they just didn’t do it for me and I wound up setting the game aside for quite some time. With all the sci-fi I’ve got going on now (3 RPg campaigns, 40K, EVE, watching SG-1 and Galactica…) I really felt the need to cleanse the palate with some good old fashioned fantasy mayhem.
Now, there’s a few things I didn’t like much about WHFB the first time we met. I didn’t enjoy the big blocks of unwieldly infantry for starters. Playing dwarfs made this dramatically worse with thier pitiful move allotment. For you WHFB players out there, imagine being used to everything in your army being M6 skirmishers all the time, then adjust to just blocks that don’t want to move. So I wanted an army with at least a decent bit of speed to it so I could feel like it actually moved on the battlefield instead of crawled.
After spending a good deal of time painting and still never quite finishing off a complete 40k army, the thought of building and painting those blocks of infantry is depressing. Multiple units with 15-20+ guys each and every model virtually identical in every way. I’d have to paint 150-300 models to complete an army. That sucks at my rate of model painting. So I wanted an army that had as few models as possible while still being viable and fun.
Beyond that I was pretty open. It needn’t be a beginner’s army. It could be good at shooting or stink; good at magic or not. In the end, I settled on the Ogre Kingdoms. For my first 2000 point army I’ll only need to build and paint a scant 25 models. Each one is larger then most I’ve done so I’ll get to enjoy painting on a somewhat larger scale, and I can put some more effort into them. It’s also feasible to convert most ogre units from the plastic kits in the battallion box set, which is a big draw to a customization nut like myself. So, I ordered up my fist half of the army and some new paints to flesh out my vallejo range for use on ogres. They should be arriving later this week
What’s more, I’ve signed up to play the part of some raiders that wander around the map in a new campaign in town. So I should be seeing some action fairly soon with them. As I get the army converted, built, painted and played, I’ll be keeping you up to date on how the venture pans out. Personally, I’m really looking forward to this
