Here is wave 1 of the #40k2ndAC IV for May. We have 10 entries in this wave. The flag above the badge denotes where the participant is currently operating, while a small terminator honours logo means that the participant has been honoured by his peers for a previous entry.

Grakk…temples of some kind ==[censored drawings]== …found the remnants of the others…Stormtroopers mostly, those skrag’s. The presence is causing the interference….fighting retreat     ==[illegible writing]== well that explains everything. Grakk.  

 – Recovered writings within margins of Uplifting Primer identified as belonging to : Trooper Karbeiss Gravers, Catachan XCVIII Regiment, Red Company, Blue Platoon, 2nd Squad, taken D-Day of the Nedirid Incident. 

This month I got to paint one unit that I’d never owned before, in the form of the mysterious and deadly Imperial Stormtroopers. These guys always looked the business when I was growing up, but their later release from the initial codex blitz meant that I never got hold of them first time around. Since then the models have become one of the more expense monopose kits and the prospects for me getting my hands on some and fielding them appeared to be fading. Then I saw the recent Wargames Atlantic Bulldog release. I was already excited for the Praetorian possibilities in the box, but then there appeared to be some interesting options in the box that could be used for a classic stormtrooper look and Im pretty happy with how they turned out. Ive kit bashed them with some classic Cadian parts as well as some weapons from Stargrave kits to make them stand apart from the standard troopers. 

Stormtroopers 

Mortar, Flamer, Sword, Freedom Fighters vet. ability 173pts 

So a simple 173 points for 10 models this month. With the challenge more focused on WYSIWYG veteran abilities for normal squads are a bit of a cop-out, however the Storm Troopers have to take a veteran ability. I waited till the rest of my army way pretty much tied down points wise before I selected Freedom Fighters, as I had a better idea of how many points I had left to spend, and also there were a number of other options for 10 points so it would be possible to mix it up a little bit without needing to start changing things elsewhere across the list, which can cause some serious disruption as you try to fit an extra 10 points here by taking away 10 points somewhere else, as Ive found in the past.  

My final subgoal is now in play, with a game in the final two months – but I really wanted to get the whole force painted up and with just a single model left to paint (all be it a tank) the finishing line is certainly in sight! The brave men of the XCVIII regiment will find themselves face to face with an unnerving enemy who somehow appeared out of nowhere to defend their secrets deep in the Nedrid Basin. I’m sure it’s the Robots who have something to fear. 

This month I painted a few more of the classic Alaitoc troops, Eldar Scouts, and finished off the ruined bunker.

I added some heavy support in the form of two war walkers, and more-or-less finished another terrain piece, a collapsed wayshrine / webway gate with some kind of broken Imperial force fence surrounding it.  Maybe the forcefield was there to keep away large Genetic Park creatures that might damage it…

I was inspired to paint a winding thorn design on one, after being reminded of a Biel-Tan war walker in the first White Dwarf I ever bought, but freehand painting is so faffy I mainly stuck to using transfers to add decoration.

5 Scouts 105 pts

War Walker, Scatter Laser, Lascannon 150pts

War Walker, Scatter Laser, Lascannon 150pts

Total for the month: 405 pts, 13 models (counting vehicles as 4)

Hi all, back again

I have discovered that unlike my previous challenge army I am really enjoying painting these figures.  However, because of the sameness of the figures that I have entered, I am running out of things to write about them.  Like previous months I’ve done a little bit of conversion with the helmets and the positioning of heads and power swords.

I did enjoy painting a nice orange gradient on the missile launcher.

My additional reveal this month is one of my monthly subgoals.  After 3 months of struggle (with a dodgy cheap airbrush followed by a really nice new one) I have finished the backdrop piece for my army.  It’s not perfect – but I think it does the job that it needs to do well.

I started with just brush on canvas but have gone over it a lot with airbrush to blend it and make it look prettier.  I wanted areas of two very different colours so that the figure standing in front wouldn’t blend in to all of it.  So dark figures could go over the bottom half, brighter figures could be over the upper half.  It was a period of significant education as I have barely used an airbrush before – my skills have improved – at least somewhat..  

The different parts of the backdrop can be seen for the front and back views of the figures.

Other than that, my entry so far (including the entry for this month) has already entered the field of combat – battling Martin Taylor’s incredible chaos marines.  It was a close fought battle where this particular squad played its part honourably despite unexpected perils.  Expect a battle report from Martin soon!

Half Devastator squad

150

Multi melta, Missile launcher 110

Sergeant with power sword 6

Slice 6 266 points

Welcome back dear architecture enthusiasts! How’s the blood fountain on the patio going? Ah well never mind, I’m sure the blood clots will clear once the bloodletter is installed… err I mean summoned and bound into the pump mechanism.

Speaking of daemonic architecture and DIY, this month I have managed to finish the last of my three official subgoals and I have completed my faction-specific terrain! Without further ado, may I present the Citadel of Flesh (AKA Castle Gloryhole) and the Lady of Anguish! These have been a LOOONG time in the making and an even longer time in the planning, but in the end I managed to finally bring everything together. The parts are all too numerous to list  (and also censored by the Inquisition) but I can tell you that they include *EXPUNGED FROM IMPERIAL RECORDS**EXPUNGED FROM IMPERIAL RECORDS* , pine bark, an anatomical model of a  *EXPUNGED FROM IMPERIAL RECORDS**EXPUNGED FROM IMPERIAL RECORDS*, some rosemary root, a pendant of unknown origin, an assortment of liquified  *EXPUNGED FROM IMPERIAL RECORDS* and of course the requisite amount of blood from various hobby knife accidents. The Lady of Anguish statue is in fact an old World of Warcraft action figure with some added horns, a suitably wicked sword and of course she is mounted on a chaos star with a pool of blood that wells up from some unknown source.

Now, to the juicy bits… the models themselves! The initial pledge for this month was five Noise Marines led by an Aspiring Champion of Slaanesh. I have to say, these were some of the most painful models to assemble and paint that I’ve ever had to deal with. However, in the end I persevered and they turned out pretty alright if I don’t say so myself! I attempted to create my own metallic tones with silver ink mixed with saturated inks of varying tones and then followed that with some glazing. 

After that though I had the urge to pervert some more models and so ran to my “dead model” box to see what I could make. I managed to rustle up nine Warhammer Fantasy Saurus Warriors who were missing limbs and heads. After a couple of afternoons with the bits box I had finished assembling nine twisted beastmen and I also managed to revive five Khorne Berzerkers as well! 

Finally (and perhaps my favourite part of this month), my fellow Australian challenger Adrian Bell and I managed to actually get together to have a game for the Return to Hamelia XI Cowabunga Journal campaign and WOW it was a blast! I won’t say too much more except to say that there will be a battle report here on the Journal soon – watch this space!

As always thanks again to all of you and see you next time ;D

Tain

MONTH FIVE’S CONTRIBUTION:

One Aspiring Champion with doom siren, power fist, chainsword and mark of Slaanesh (62pts)

Five Noise Marines: Four sonic blasters and one blastmaster. (235pts)

Five Khorne Berserkers: Two power axes, three plasma pistols and three chainswords.
(210pts)

One Chaos Beastmen champion: Sword, bold pistol and flamer. (34pts)

Eight Chaos Beastmen: One autogun, one lasgun, two laspistols, four bolt pistols, one double-handed club. Assorted swords and axes. (133pts)

Total points: 674pts

Total model count: 20

Subgoal completed:

Build a faction specific piece of terrain/objective (why not both?!?)

Unintentional subgoals completed:

Play a game with what you have so far (and what a game)!

The two Leman Russ tanks slowed down, not wanting to stop in the middle of battle. Colonel Voss and his men jumped down from the back of the vehicles and quickly settled down into the cover beside Zek’s squad. Spitting out plumes of black smoke the two tanks revved their engines and continued forward, catching up with the Hellhound that had accompanied them. Voss looked at the men scattered around him in the small dugout. ‘Where’s your sergeant?’ he yelled at one of the guardsmen. ‘Sir, I think he’s down there Sir’, the guardsman replied pointing over the edge towards the jungle. Voss followed the man’s direction as his eyes scanned the perimeter closer to the jungle, damn it was hard to make out anything in this chaos even with the fire going. ‘Got ‘em Boss’, Kraag said next to him as he scanned the area through the sight of his launcher, ‘Hunched down behind a pile of dead xenos, I think there’s three…no four of them Sir, can’t see how many are still alive’, ‘Show me’, Voss replied calmly. ‘I hear you Boss, tube is hot…aaaand away she goes’, with a whoosh the missile flew across the dunes and impacted some 50 yards from the jungle, sending dust and sand across the area and the small group of guardsmen, who indeed where hiding amongst a pile of dead aliens. ‘We’ve got eyes on the prize boys’ Voss called to his men, as he turned to the rest of Zek’s squad. ‘As long as you guys are still packing some heat, I wanna hear those lasguns cracking. Cover our ass and we’ll get them out’. The guardsmen quickly scrambled about, distributing the last powerpacks amongst them and getting into position. With a spark of energy from the powersource on his back, Voss activated his powerfist. The low constant buzzing hum from the old weapon was a welcoming sound to his squad. It never really felt like combat until the Boss got the buzz on. Voss looked at his men and the remnants of Zek’s squad. They all looked at him expectantly, patiently waiting for his command. He grabbed the edge of the dugout with his powerfist, and with one mighty heave he jumped over the edge. ‘For the Camels’ Voss screamed as he started running down the dune towards the jungle. His squad quickly followed suit and soon after the lasguns began cracking behind them, sending red hot beams towards anything that still moved.

The end of month 5 and the end of infantry for me…or well at least for this challenge, unless I find more bonus models in the box that is. What good is an army without a leader, and as the final piece of infantry on my challenge cake I present to you, the Catachan Colonel with retinue. With another small pledge this month, I was quite confident that I wouldn’t have an issue finishing in good time and hopefully with time to spare to work on other bonus projects. This didn’t go exactly as planned though, when does it ever really, as I somehow ended up spending more time on the bonus projects and almost forgetting the actual slice.

The weirdest part about though, is that I haven’t got much to show for it. Instead of concentrating on doing a few terrain projects and actually getting them done, I kept finding new things to build and add to the mix, leaving me with quite a lot of terrain pieces, none of which are done. Luckily there’s no number on the terrain subgoal, so I should have time to finish at least some of the projects next month, to complete one of two subgoals that I’m still missing. Anyway, back to the slice. Like I said before, it took quite some time to get this model done. Honestly the retinue were done like five or six days into the month, but for some reason I struggled a lot with the Colonel. The main issue for me was the amount of green I was going to put on him (boltgun, backpack and powerfist). Before doing it, I kept going back to the model looking at it without being able to decide which way to go. Earlier in the challenge I settled on doing all weapons and armor green, to keep a kind of coherency in the army. But looking at the Colonel I really wanted to do something else, as I was afraid he might end up just a little too green. As you can see I ended up doing him as intended, green on all three. I’m not saying it’s perfect, but it’s the best I could do at the time, and despite my concerns I’m actually pleased with the outcome.

At some point in the future I might go back and see if I can add a little bit more color to him, maybe some hazard stripes on the powerfist or something like it, but it works for now. Sometimes it’s just dangerous to poke at the pile of shame, you never know what might poke back at you. This month I found a few snipers hiding in the pile. As my luck would have it, a few days later I came across a quite cheap lot for sale, containing just the snipers (and a little something extra for later) I needed to make a small squad. Technically one is a Cadian and one is ‘Scope’ from the Last Chancers, but I decided to go with 5 different models instead of just using Catachan snipers. And like so many other Catachans of the era, even though these aren’t 2nd edition I think they fit the older models better than the newer plastics. In case you’re wondering, these will obviously be used as a squad of Ratling Snipers.

Command HQ @ 150 pts – Colonel w. power fist and Boltgun – Flamer, Missile launcher

Catachan Snipers @ 80 pts

With swift precision, the Predator engaged its target. Its cannons unleashed bolts of darkness, tearing through armor and flesh alike. The crew, their eyes gleaming with sadistic pleasure, relished the screams of anguish that followed each devastating salvo. The twisted laughter of the Night Lords melded with the cries of the dying, creating a cacophony of horror.

***
My fifth slice consists of a Chaos Predator with an Autocannon turret and two side sponson Lascannons! This kit was released in May 1999, so it’s technically a 3rd edition model, but it fits well with the 2nd ed range.

I once again broke out my Nostalgia ’88 paints, and more or less used the same techniques as on the Rhino from last month. It’s just a Rhino kit with some added metal bits after all!

***
“Soulreaper”
1x Chaos Predator with Autocannon and 2x side sponson Lascannons – 180 points
Total: 180 points

***

This month I also managed to finish the last of my subgoals!

-Paint a backdrop for your army

The backdrops from the 90’s GW publications always looked really nice, so I wanted to try and make something along those lines. I went for a fairly generic sky, a treeline and some hills in the foreground. I used cheap acrylic craft paints (not something I would use again if doing another one – they dried too quickly) and as canvas I used a length of old wallpaper glued to a sheet of insulation foam. The backdrop measures about 120×50 cm.

***

My Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/oddgits.hut

Cheers!

Month 5 has almost been a total success – the pledged minis are done but I was aiming to get the diorama base done and I’ve not quite managed that. Just failed to paint the roof before I had to head off on holiday for a week!

Anyway, the completed minis are three Flamers of Tzeentch – I’m now back in the realm of the daemonic for this month (as I will be in Month 6). I was aiming to get these as close as possible to the only image I could find of them in the Chaos Codex, and I don’t think I’m that far off. With hindsight I probably needed to bring the top of their bodies slightly brighter blue to match the top of the arms, but overall I think they are pretty close. Managed to tick off one of my sub-goals by wet blending the transitions on the arms and also on the bodies.

As this might seem like I’ve not been doing much this month I have almost completed one of my sub-goals. In classic fashion I’ve manage to keep scaling the scope of this up and up and up! Having started by thinking a ruined temple to Tzeentch, this has now morphed into a something with two tiers, eight columns and a ruined roof with all the tiles individually punched from cardboard!!! Funnily enough its not quite finished – but all the construction is done and the only thing left to paint is the roof. It should be a centrepiece that I can display the whole army on.

Models Completed – Month 5

3 x Flamers of Tzeentch (120 points)

Subgoals Completed

Use a new technique (wet blending on the bodies and arms of the flamers)

I’ve made it to the final month – which will be the largest month of models so far. I’ve also got to find the time to finish the diorama base and also paint a scenic backdrop. This will be a very busy month I suspect!

Tom

About half way through the month I realised I was in a bit of trouble. I had made a good start on a whole bunch of Tyranids but, as often happens, life took a turn and I started feeling the burn at work. I have been in this position before, most notably whilst I was painting my Legion of the Damned Tactical squads last year. This time around I performed some early triage and focused on what I had to get finished to stay in the challenge. Even so, it is around 10 pm here in Australia on the night of the deadline and I have only just finished the last model!

For this slice I painted a stock standard Carnifex and a Licter. For the Carnifex I really focused on getting a decent blend on the claws, which has always been the most iconic feature of the classic scheme for me. I had a second Carnifex on the table that I was initially painting in parallel, but had to stop halfway through to get the job finished on one of them.

I have actually painted a Lictor before, many many Moons ago. A good mate of mine bought one back in high school and didn’t know where to start with the paintjob. I offered to have a craic for him and ended up painting a green camouflaged bug with some brighter parts on the claws. I remember being pretty proud of it at the time, but he was expecting something more like the box art. Well, here I am again, with something that still doesn’t look like the box art! Like the Carnifex, I had another one of these I was painting in parallel, but had to set it aside to just get through the month. 

With quite a few broods in various stages of completion now, I am predicting that the final month is going to be a real scorcher. Let’s see what I can actually get finished…

Bel-Annath released his concentration. Unparallelled psychic power swept from his hand, dooming the Tyranid monsters before him. Shuriken barked, blades of energy sweeping by his helmet and striking flesh and bone. Their Dire Avenger operators let loose a shout, storming forward into the gap created by their firepower. Bel-Annath’s wraith assassin slipped among the scaled masses, slicing and disappearing by the moment. They were so. Close. The six soulstones glittered from their place in the glacial ice; now dyed green from the ichor of their foes. A roar and a monster, tyrannical in size and strength lept upon those stones. A hive tyrant. Bel-Annath felt an alien psychic will press upon his own, grinding him down with unbelievable force. Bel-Annath could feel his sanity, centuries in training, begin to fray. Shrieks erupted. A massive pair of wings swept down from the ceiling and grenades and lascannon fire lanced from the sky. Baharroth had arrived! Bel-Annath stood tall. The time was now! The battle for the soul stones is joined!

* * *

This month we’ve got 13 models and six soul stone objective markers, completing my second subgoal. Just got to play a game, now! I also have officially wrapped up all my pledged models; everything else is a bonus now. I have trouble deciding on my favorite model this month.

Baharroth turned out great, in my opinion. It was a lot of fun doing his bronze armor and the highlights on his wings. I really feel like I’m finally getting the hang of these small soulstones as well; the one on his chest I’m particularly proud of. This month we also have a mix of proto-Dire Avengers and two copies of Commander Avele Swifteye from the ’87 RT Space Elf Command.

Swifteye was a blast to paint; I love the mask over the guardian style helmet. The amount of cloth on a few of these forced me to add another color to the models. After lots of trial and error, I decided on an orange wash followed by a yellow wash. I’m pretty happy with how it contrasts with the blue/green.

Finally, the soulstones are made from glass beads. I painted the backs of them silver and glued them onto their bases before covering them with a mix of modgepodge and toilet paper. I used a purple ink to paint the stones, which allows light to still get through. It’s hard to capture in a photo, but they actually are translucent and shine in person.

I’m very happy with how they turned out! I had some extra time this month and started prepping 5 shining spears and two bike warlocks, but they didn’t get finished. I’m not too disappointed, as, imagine my embarrassment, when I realized the shining spears were from 3e! Shameful! 🙂 We might finish at least the warlocks next month – or maybe, another, “titanic” project. We’ll see how much time summer camping leaves! Till next month!

Total Model count: 13 

Total Points count: 618

10 Dire Avengers with Shuriken Catapults: 220 points

1 Farseer: 170 points

1 Wraithguard: 35 points

1 Baharroth with Lasblaster and Blade of Destruction: 198 points

What’s the point of being a warboss if you don’t have any mobs to boss around? And if you’re going to venture into “Genetic Park,” you’re going to need all the help you can get.

When coming up with the army list for the challenge, I based my selections upon the figures I wanted to paint rather than any sense of game strategy. I wanted to keep these mobs small so that I could paint twice as many special/heavy weapons, rather than have a big mob of 12 models that could only have 2 special/heavy weapons. I’ve always loved plasma guns, so I made sure to fill the mobs with as many plasma-toting models as I had available. One of the plasma boys seemed to be wearing a cutoff leather jacket, which gave me the feeling that he must be a fan of the ‘Main Man,’ so I added my nod to Bisley’s 1992 cover for “Lobo’s Back,” issue #1.

The real work this month was spent getting ready for the good doctor’s campaign: “Return to Hamelia XI.” I haven’t played a game of 40k in many years, and I don’t have a wargame table. All of that stuff was at my friend’s house, and he moved a long time ago. After reading the campaign PDF, I was inspired to build a whole setup. Since I now have a fair amount of Orks complete, and because I want to teach my daughter how to play 40k, I figured there’s no better time than now to finally get a proper wargame table.

The campaign setting of a Genetic Park is perfect for getting a variety of terrain features into play. Honestly, as I was reading the PDF I knew exactly what I wanted to design for each campaign scenario. I tried to build enough items to cover a variety of the special conditions, and still be able to store it all. I picked up a bag of plastic dinos at the thrift store that had the right look for a sauropods stampede, and I painted them up right away so that I could use them for inspiration as I worked.

The table itself is a large, framed, cork bulletin board from the thrift store ($5 USD). It saved me so much time and money finding that bulletin board. I wanted to make sure that all the terrain I made would match the table, so I worked on all of the landscape at the same time so that I could ensure the paint color and style would blend from the table itself to the terrain upon it. In the past I used static grass and flock to cover my gameboard and terrain.

It looks amazing, but I find that they shed from pushing miniatures across the table, and I get annoyed by static grass clinging to all my electronics. For this table and terrain, everything is covered with different types of sand, from fine to coarse, sprinkled randomly to give it variety. It’s basically the same as you’d do for a miniature’s base. Then I base coat it to seal all the sand in place by using house paint mixed with wood glue, 3 parts paint to 1 part wood glue. Dries solid as a rock. It’s the same method I used for my army display base in the challenge.

I wanted the trees to look suitably alien, and those weird puffballs jumped out at me as being the perfect fit for the majority of the jungle stands. “West Indigen Lilac” was made using a weird floral piece composed of tiny red balls. I’m not sure what it was supposed to be, but I found it in the fake flowers section of the thrift store.

The “maintenance sheds”/Kawah Bunkers are made from mushroom cartons, wire nuts, a flying hex base, and a Hirst Arts plaster cast door.

The “tourist transport wrecks” were inspired by the little gyrosphere vehicles from Jurassic World, and were made using ping-pong balls, key rings, and legs from dollar store toys. The “large electrical fences” are styrofoam and metal screen, and I tried to give them the same feel as the “Jurassic Park” gateway from the first movie. The “alien cacti” is of course everyone’s favorite spikey boy from White Dwarf. I never had any of these back in the day, so I had to make some. They are damn dangerous to handle.

I used really cheap styrofoam balls from the dollar store (a pack of 6 for a dollar) but they were made from a brittle styrofoam, so I coated all the cacti with the same sand/glue method that I used for the table/hills/bases. The structures and vehicles were tied together using the Genetic Park color palette of a menacing industrial grey, highlighted with some purple and yellow. I printed up a bunch of little signs that I added to buildings, fences and vehicles to give them all a lived-in look. The weathering was done using salt-chipping, like I used on my Ork vehicles.

Everything in that table picture was created this month for the campaign. It’s more terrain than you’d ever use in a single game, but I figured I’d get as much done from the special rules, scenarios, and terrain suggestions all at once, so I wouldn’t have to mess up the basement again later to make more pieces. I still have 4 more terrain items that are almost finished (2 more hills, a greenhouse, and an heretical shrine), but I’ll need to complete them next month. I’m exhausted, but all the effort was worth it.

x5 Jungle stands

x3 Alien Cacti stands

x2 West Indigen Lilac stands

x3 Dinosaurs

x2 Maintenance Sheds / Kawah Bunkers

x3 Tourist Walker-Pods

x1 Fence Gate

x3 Intact Electrical Fence

x2 Damaged Electrical Fence

x3 Hills

x2 Mesas / Cliffs

x1 Table

Next month: the last 2 mobs of Blood Axe boys. The finish line is in sight.

——————-

MODELS AND POINTS:

Blood Axe Boys Mob #1 (5 @ 12) 60

Bolters (4 @ 1) 4

Heavy Plasma Gun (1 @ 26) 26

Nob 13

Plasma Gun 6

Blood Axe Boys Mob #2 (5 @ 12) 60

Bolters (4 @ 1) 4

Heavy Plasma Gun (1 @ 26) 26

Nob 13

Plasma Gun 6

Game table and terrain

—–

Points: 218

Models: 12