Mk III kit from Forge World

Well, it's old news now I suspect, but Forge World has released pictures from their upcoming range of Mk. III "iron" power armour. These look very cool to me. Not only are they appropriate for both loyalist and traitor marines, but there is a supporting range of weapons available as well. The weapons (bolters, pictured left (copyright: Forge World), and special weapons) look as if they are straight out of the original plastic RTB-1 space marine boxed set of 20+ years ago.

The Umbra pattern bolters are able to have close combat accessories (bayonets) attached to the front of the bolters. As pictures, this can take the form of a traditional knife extension, or a chain-axe like extension. Both are great looking for space marines and have the advantage of counting as the close combat weapon for melee (i.e. no more glueing combat knife accessories to the waists of space marines). Thanks Forge World!

Slaanesh Possessed Marine (or Sorcerer?)

Hot on the heels of the bloodletter possessed marine, this chaos devotee has allowed himself to be possessed by a Slaaneshi villain. I'm not quite sure whether it is a daemonette, or something more sinister, but it is very Slaaneshi!

The bits consist of a back-2-basix resin base on top of which I've attached a Dark Angels veteran body (with imperial iconography scrubbed away). The back pack comes from the possessed chaos space marine kit. The marine's right arm is a regular chaos marine arm, but cut off at the hand. Pinned to the stub of the wrist is a daemonette banner hand and icon. Meanwhile the left arm is a standard possessed marine arm - chosen to be the clawed arm to be suggestive of Slaanesh once more. The shoulder pads are just standard chaos space marine ones (the right pad being the aspiring champion shoulder pad of Slaanesh). The head is taken from the daemonettes plastic boxed set -- it is actually the instrument! The excessively long tongue on it immediately cried out to be used as a Slaaneshi head when I first saw the daemonette sprue, and I've been wanting to use it as such ever since.

The marine could be used in a number of roles, much like the bloodletter possessed one. I'm thinking not only a standard possessed marine (with icon?), but also a chaos lord or a chaos sorcerer of Slaanesh with the Lash of Submission psyker ability (where the icon will be a force weapon).

Plague Marine Squad Number Three (and Variant)

My third plague marine squad varies in its content depending upon the opponent and the mission (if either are known in advance). The first is a standard load-out of a flamer, a melta gun, a plague champion with power fist, and an icon.The second load out swaps the special weapons for a pair of plasma guns. Although dangerous, they can be worth their weight in gold if I can settle these guys in some cover during a game. The plague champion here has a combi-plasma and a melta bomb at the ready incase a dreadnought gets too close. These guys are ideal for taking out squads of bikers and taming some terminators before they charge in to close combat. But they often need support if they're not to become a simple road bump.

Painted Bloodletter Possessed Chaos Marine

The painted up possessed chaos space marine. There is lots of detail here ranging from red and black washes, gold highlighting, and a wet blended power weapon in frost brand colours. Some images of this guy in action can be found in this battle report. I'll say little more and let the images do the talking.

Gallery: Thunderstrike

The lone surviving Blood Raven strikes against a chaos predator in a last ditch attempt to cripple it before casualties mount.

Imperial Ruins Project - VI. Entrance

Continuing my mini-series on CNC's Imperial Ruins scenery, this is the Entrance fully assembled, but not glued or painted just yet.

Notice the extreme left and right hand sides of the building: they tessellate with each other and can connect up to the other pieces in the series in a modular fashion.
The size of the entry is large: a dreadnought can easily stand guard in the middle of the main gate way. The finished painting will be shown in a future posting.

Was Alpharius a Twin From the Outset?

We now know that the primarch of the Alpha Legion, Alpharius, had a twin; Omegon. In the novel Legion, they are actively described as one soul that occupies two bodies. My question today is this: were they always twins?

Why do I ask this? Well, when the emperor created the primarchs, he created twenty of them. Two of them were lost forever, leaving the 18 we know about ... adding Omegon to this would make 19. So, when the Emperor set about gestating the primarchs, did he see one or two beings in legion XX's capsule?

One theory I've heard toted around is that the Emperor only created one primarch for the Alpha Legion. However, when Chaos spirited the primarchs away and scattered them throughout the galaxy, they probably mutated (or tainted) at least a couple of them. Notably, Sanguinius displayed wings, Conrad was a strong clairvoyant (particularly about his own doom; although that psychic ability could have been inherited from the Emperor), etc. Some the traits seen in the primarchs probably originate with the Emperor -- Magnus's strong psyker abilities were most likely a reflection of the Emperor's at least, rather than a mutation.

Hence: here's the idea. When being dispersed through space by Chaos, perhaps Alpharius was mutated by being twinned / duplicated / cloned along the way. What do people think? Plausible or just plain silly?

Battle Summary: Daemons vs. Chaos Space Marines (200 points Kill Team)

A small, pictorial battle report today on a kill team game (200 points) between Slaanesh daemons and Chaos Space Marines with a Khorne berzerker orientation.

Slaanesh Daemons:
10 daemonettes of Slaanesh (140 points)
2 fiends of Slaanesh (60 points)

Chaos Space Marines / World Eaters Warband:
8 Khorne Berzerkers, including 1 skull champion with a power weapon (198 points)

All the miniatures in the pictures are my own in this friendly battle.

In order to tell you what happened in the battle, I'm going to try out one of Ron's ideas from a year or two ago: I'm only going to post the pictures and let you figure out what happened. The end result should be obvious!






The only question remaining is whether you can pick the miniatures that had special rules (e.g. feel no pain) associated with them :)

Plague Marine Squad Number Two

All manner of exotica and conversion work is going on in this squad!

This squad is kitted out in the same fashion as the first one: it features a plague champion with power fist, a flamer, a melta gun and an icon.

Just to give a run down of the bits that were included, here's an approximate guess (left to right):
1) metal plague marine
2) plastic chaos marine, zombie bits, forge world shoulders
3) assorted chaos marine and space marine bits
4) forge world bits, green stuff work, metal back pack, marine power fist, and a real shell (more detail here)
5) zombie bits, space marine, chaos space marine and mutation sprue bits
6) zombie bits, green stuff, space marine and chaos space marine bits, plus forge world shoulders (I'm quite fond of this particular miniature -- the look in his eyes especially!)
7) chaos space marine bits with green stuff work.

My third (and last) core squad will be posted at a later date.

Underground Building Entry

Inspired by Forge World's creation of the same name, I decided to have a go at scratch building an underground building entry of my own design. I had a number of assorted bitz lying around which suggested the shape of the bunker to me: some assorted Hirst Arts blocks that weren't needed for other projects, some Dark Angels icons, a pot of just-add-water modelling stuff (think: liquid green stuff), rhino top hatch doors that weren't required on my vindicators or predator, and a circular MDF drinks coaster from the local hardware store.
The result is a bunker / underground building entry whose doors have been painted (stippled more accurately) in green to be suggestive of the Dark Angels chapter. The blocks have a more black and white finish, whilst the liquid green stuff on top has more of a brown effect -- suggestive of a quickly constructed bunker entry that has had concrete poured over the top of it for extra protection.

In game, this building blocks the line of sight of marine height models very readily. We haven't made up any rules about it, but if we did, I'd suggest something like AV12 for the entry and up to 5 infantry models could hide inside it, below ground, but they would not have any line of sight to the outside world. Not quite sure what use that would be (in case of a planetary virus bomb?), but I like the look of this scratch built scenery regardless!

Gen Con Oz 2010 Announcement

This is a quick message for the Australian gaming community who may not be aware about what has happened about Gen Con Oz this year. As of earlier today, the event has been cancelled due, primarily, to the global economic circumstances.

I have had great fun there in previous years and am personally sorry to see it go. The guys who worked behind the scenes (in particular Ian Houlihan, and the folks from Alpha Hobbies) deserve a good round of applause for their sterling efforts -- I know how hard organising a large conference-like gathering can be. I for one hope to see Gen Con come back Down Under in the future.

Planetary and Mighty Empires Map Progress

The map slowly grows! I have a few more tiles painted than what is displayed here, but I simply wanted to give an indication of where I'm up to in my Planetary and Mighty Empires Map painting whilst simultaneously showing how well the two types of tile seamlessly blend in to one another with the right, cohesive painting scheme.

I am tempted to explore a few different colours on some future tiles. I'm figuring the reverse of the river tiles could at least be painted in desert (sandy yellow, or Martian red) colours ... or maybe even a grey / black barren colour would be worth exploring for a few tiles. I might paint a few "transition" tiles and see how they look.

New Plastic Chaos Daemons - Opinions

It is no longer news that the chaos daemons are finally seeing the second wave of miniatures released. I'm personally excited by their release as I have been waiting for them (sometimes impatiently!) for a long while now.

Firstly, the pink horrors. I know some people don't like them, but I actually like the look of them. The icon holder in particular looks like it is holding on to an impressive Tzeentch icon, all bursting with eldritch fire! I like the arms and what appears to be their inter-changeability. But what I am going to miss is the blue-in-pink variety of horrors that we've been used to having. The long tongues of the horrors are also reminiscent of the bloodletters extended tongues -- an interesting development that I'm not sure I'm totally sold on, but we'll see.

The daemon prince -- we've seen pictures of this guy for so long now that I was wondering if he'd ever show up. I like the miniatures that have been painted up on Games Workshop's web site. I'm not totally sold on the arms and I can see myself modifying them (perhaps dual-weapon-weilding?). On the plus side, it is plastic. Horrah!

The seekers are all kinds of sweet goodness and I can see myself fielding a unit of these miniatures regularly. I simply can't wait to get them. Oh, and they're plastic!!!

Still no sign of the bloodcrusher in plastic, or fateweaver though. I'm a bit sad about the former. Perhaps it'll be placed on the advanced orders section soon?

July 2010 Army List Challenge Cancelled

Due to a lack of entries, the July 2010 Army List Challenge is cancelled for this month.

I think I'm going to take a break from issuing these challenges for a couple of months now. I'll try one again later in the year (or next year?) to see if interest increases. Suggestions for future challenges are most welcome (either by email or comments below)!

Plague Marine Squad Number One

Although I've long had my plague marines painted up, I realize that I've not posted a group portrait of them. Today's post rectifies that over-sight and more whole troop squad pictures will follow at a later date.
This squad features a plague champion with power fist, a flamer, a melta gun and an icon. This set-up is one of my favourites as it gives me flexibility, and when combined with other units kitted out in a similar fashion and a rhino thrown in: multiple redundancy and good movement.

Many of the squad members feature unique conversions that include pieces from the zombie range, various green stuff works, mutations, florist wire, dark angel veteran pieces, old metal plague marine miniature parts, old and new chaos space marine bits, chaos tank upgrade bits and a paint scheme to match their rusted and gribbly appearance.

Blog Roll Rationalization

Warpstone Flux's blogroll contains links to many blogs that I've been interested in reading over the years. However, a high fraction of blogs disappear, don't get updated for 5 months or longer, or simply fall by the way-side for one reason or another.

Therefore today, I've done a little bit of pruning to the blog roll by removing links to blogs that appear to be defunct.
There's two point I'd like to make:

If I have accidentally removed your blog and you'd like it to appear in Warpstone Flux's blogroll once more, just comment below and I'll rectify it.

Similarly, if I have never linked to your blog, and you would like me to, then just leave a message below and I'll do so (a reciprocating link would be appreciated on your own blogroll)! Although Warpstone Flux is primarily a 40k blog (with a self-admitted chaos focus), I'm more than happy to link to WFB, LotR (etc.) blogs if those games are the prime focus of your own blog.

Bloodletter Possessed Chaos Marine

This dynamic miniature is a triple purpose miniature! The three roles that I have in mind for it are:

(a) Possessed Chaos Space Marine;
(b) Skull Champion (possibly armed with a power weapon?);
(c) Khorne Lord.

The miniature is mostly parts from a possessed chaos space marine. The right arm, however, is made from the old mutations sprue and features the spiked fist. On the top of the fist, I've attached a bolt pistol that I had sitting in my bits box. The left shoulder pad is the Khorne icon shoulder pad from the chaos marine set. The base is a resin one from back2basix and I have drilled and pinned the miniature to the base. The base should still be easy to paint given the pose of the miniature (I sometimes paint a resin base prior to pinning a miniature to it).

My original thinking for this chap was that this was a bloodletter possessed marine. This largely grew out of a consideration of the head which I think looks very much like a bloodletter's face -- the horns for me are very reminiscent of bloodletters. From therein it dawned on me that this guy could readily double up as a skull champion and it went from there. I'm looking forward to painting this one!

Mighty Empires: Woodland Tile Painting

This tile explores a grassy path established through a forested / woodland area that is otherwise devoid of other interesting features. For this tile, I wanted to try to experiment a little with different tones and hues of green to make the "path" through the woods a little more obvious than if I had simply painted the whole thing in a mono-green colour.
The painting consisted of dividing the tile up in to a number of distinct regions and going at them with a different colour (green) basecoat, washing or inking in different shades of green, or green plus black; followed by highlighting and drybrushing with a selection of lighter greens, with a tint of yellow or cream added for effect here and there.

Not only has the trodden path been picked out by attacking the tile with different hues, but I also feel that the trees on one side of the tile don't "feel" like the same species of trees on the other side of the tile. This was a little bit of an unexpected boon for me, and I'm pleased with the end result.

Reminder: July 2010 Army List Challenge

Entries are still open for the July 2010 Army List Challenge. How will you tackle the robot building factory that has run amok? Looking forward to seeing what you all come up with. :)

House Rules: Dismounting

In 40k, there are a number of "steeds", cavalry or machines such as motorbikes that occur in various army lists. In my own armies, seekers of Slaanesh without their mounts of Slaanesh are simply daemonettes. Chaos marine bikers without bikes are just chaos marines.

Every once in a while, I'd very much like to be able to dismount a special character or a squad of miniatures from their assorted steeds. The main reason I find I want to do this is so that a miniature can climb to the upper levels of ruins. Take daemonettes and steeds of Slaanesh for instance. Without their steeds the daemonettes would happily hop up to upper ruins levels to take on any opponents, but their steeds get in their way from doing this (rules wise).

So: as an optional special house rule, I've been mucking around with this idea. At the end of a movement phase, any mounted miniature may discard their mount and replace their miniature by an appropriate un-mounted version (e.g. a chaos marine biker gets replaced by a regular chaos marine, etc.). They lose any applicable bonuses that result from being mounted (extra attacks, toughness and special rules like furious charge if applicable). Moreover, they may not recover their mounts -- they're presumed to have wandered off (frightened by all the noise and clamour of the mordant of battle in the case of horses ... sprayed by accidental bullet fire in the case of bikes). The unit or character is still worth the same points value or kill points (depending on the mission) as before they dismounted. Their unit type changes to infantry (or whatever is appropriate), but they retain any special weapons that were hand-held before they dismounted (e.g. melta guns).

Feedback welcome.

Noise Marine Painted

What better colours to paint a noise marine in than the Emperor's Children colours? This miniature was one that has been sat on my shelf for some time since being assembled, largely because I wasn't happy with how tough it was to get it together -- largely a result of trying to fit the metal arms flush with the shoulder of the torso.

The main colour for the armour is purple, washed down with a darker purple hue and highlighted around the edges. The trim of the armour is metallic gold with some sunburst yellow highlighting. For the sonic weapon itself, I wanted something in bright colours that stood out from the main torso of the marine itself. Hence I chose a sickly green colour with some blue bits (because we all know blue and green should never be seen together -- I figure the noise marine would like that). The one problem is that the blue and green on the sonic weapon makes it look quite plastic-like. Perhaps this is not too much of a problem as I contend that the deviant noise marine would paint it any colour he so enjoyed. Finally, the piping on the marine was simply dry brushed in bolt gun metal. Overall, I like the feeling of the miniature, but I might have painted it in different colours if I had it over again. I'll look forward to assembling and painting up more of these guys at a later date.

Imperial Ruins Project - V. Corner

More akin to an Escher drawing, the interior of the Imperial Ruins Corner piece is a great piece of terrain! The building allows for play on multiple levels and can readily intersect with the other pieces of terrain in CNC's Imperial Ruins Range.

The images depicted below are of the corner piece fully assembled, but not glued together yet. They await some glue as well as texturing before they are painted up in a similar style to my straight section of the ruins. These pieces of terrain are awesome -- I really like them and they have the potential to make any gaming board look very cool (not just Warhammer 40,000).

July 2010 Army List Challenge

Welcome to the July 2010 army list challenge. Yesterday, I posted about a new scenario based off an old Rogue Trader idea: The Robot Building Factory. This month's army list challenge is to construct a 1750 points army list to take on this scenario. In the scenario, the robots will be represented by necrons. Hence each player turn 9 necrons will be placed on the board (18 necrons per turn!!). The winner will be the one to control the most objectives by the end of the game (there are 3 objectives -- one placed by each player in their deployment zone, and one in the centre of the factory which is located at the centre of the board). If the number of objectives captured is tied, then the winner will be the player to have killed the most necrons by the end of the game.

Rules.
(1) Design a 1750 points army from any codex to take on this mission.
(2) Post your army lists as a comment to this posting and suggest why they're well suited / well themed to this mission.
(3) Entries close at 01:00 GMT (i.e. 1AM GMT) on July 14th.
(4) On that same day, I'll open a poll for Warpstone Flux readers to judge which army list they consider to be the "most effective army list that also best articulates the theme" (whatever readers interpret that to mean) out of all entrants.
(5) Winner will be tallied and announced on July 21st (and entered in to the hall of fame!).
(6) One entry per person please.

Remember that there are no prizes for these contests, beyond kudos, honour and entry in to the hall of fame.
Good Luck!!!