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Legions Imperialis – Painting Tiny Tanks is EPIC!

Posted by johnnya10 on 18/11/2023
Posted in: My Painting and Modelling, Product Reviews. Tagged: , , . Leave a comment

Hello hobby pals! Games Workshop were good enough to send me a copy of the new big box full of tiny toy soldiers – Legions Imperialis (and some smaller boxes of equally tiny toy soldiers), and I have been having plenty of fun painting the miniest of minis. So today, I’m going to show you some of the mini-projects I’ve been working on.

legions imperialis box

I could take you through the rules and the like, but others will be doing that who are far better than me at such things. And aside from a few Nostalgia pangs, I don’t know what I’d really comment on. It looks like a really solidly worked game to me. I love that it brings Aeronautica Imperialis and Adeptus Titanicus together with the tanks and little people, and that its name gives my spellchecker as much of a headache as those previous titles. It even comes with whippy sticks, just to give your nostalgia feels an extra bit of excitement. Therefore, I shall leave the rules to the experts and focus on putting brush to plastic with a selection of fun things that I’ve been putting together. Now, where to start…

The Glorious IXth Legion

Well, I wasn’t going to not paint some Blood Angels, was I? I had lots of fun working on this small force, but I certainly have plans to expand it. And if you’re interested in how I painted them, I have an article on How To Paint Blood Angels ready for you.

legions imperialis blood angels

The tiny Contemptors were a highlight for sure. Long time fans of the blog will know that the bigger versions of these are among my favourite miniatures ever, and the tiny ones had me grinning and sawing “Awwwwww…” quite a bit. You need four of them for a full talon and honestly, it was a treat to work on each. Alongside those, a full 20 man tactical squad and 10 terminators rounded out the Infantry element before I started work on the command squad.

legions imperialis blood angels command squad

So can you do freehand work on such a small set of models? Damn right you can. And did I give my captain here a leopard skin cloak? You know I did! All of the tiny men were so much fun to paint, and what I really like about this is the sort of instant gratification you get. If I were painting 10 terminators at Heroic Scale, that would take me more than a month, most likely – maybe even two. These guys took me less than an afternoon, and I’m happy with them. That is one of the true joys of Epic scale painting.

legions imperialis blood angels tanks

And for a bit of armour, I’ve got a couple of Kratos tanks armed with their plus-size melta guns, and a lone rhino to help the command squad get around. The tanks were so much fun to put together and as fast to paint as the infantry too. They look amazing as well. Am I tempted by a full on Battle of Tallarn build? You better believe it.

What About the Leftovers on the Sprue?

legions imperalis shattered legions

As I was building and painting my Blood Angels, I noticed that I was left with quite a few spares – a nice touch that allows you to do alternative builds. But what to do with the leftovers? I decided to have some fun and put together a little base of Shattered Legions marines. It gave me a chance to paint some different colours, and I might use them as a fun little addition to some narrative games. I painted the base for these a little different – to represent the Dropsite Massacre, but if you liked the bases I did for my Blood Angels, I’ve got a tutorial on how I based my Legions Imperialis miniatures for you to enjoy too.

A Bit of Nostalgia

For many, many years now, I’ve kept hold of my ancient Citadel Combat cards. They’re a fantastic resource of Oldhammer paint schemes and ideas, and the miniatures remind me of my childhood too. When I found out that I’d be getting the new Legions Imperialis Baneblades, I knew exactly how I wanted to paint it up…

retro baneblade paintscheme

It’s such a treat recreating the old with the advantages of the new. I had to make my own little flag (plasticard and paperclips are versatile things), but otherwise, it was pretty easy to map the whole thing over. I updated the painting style a bit, but it’s again mainly just drybrushing and contrast paints with a few minor details picked out here and there. As more bits and pieces come out for this game, I may well do a few more of these.

legions imperialis baneblade

And speaking of old models, as I have a small but growing force of old-fashioned epic Blood Angels, I thought I could give you a good sense of the scale shift. The older stuff is a lot smaller than the new things, and yet those old bases seem to be a lot more intrusive in size, but that might just be the Goblin Green and flock. It’s interesting to see though, and you can rest assured that the quality of the new stuff is lightyears ahead of the older bits and pieces.

old and new epic scale warhammer

If you want some tips and tricks to painting miniatures at this smaller scale, I’ve got an article on that too.

The Future…

Well, I’ve still got a lot of Blood Angels to paint, but I’ve got a few other things I’d like to try too. I’ve been playing around with some test paint jobs for other legions already, and as mentioned, I’ve got some retro-inspired paint jobs I’d like to try out as new models get released.

legions imperialis rhinos

Other than that, well, I have about six Warhound Titans now so I guess I should start thinking about those at some point. And I have no idea what I’ll do with my Solar Auxilia, so I’ll have to have a think there.

What I want to leave you with is that I am having so much fun with these models. The scale is challenging, yet freeing and easy to work with. The game looks like a tactical dream, and I can’t wait to see folks playing some truly massive games with all the planes and titans… This feels like the first really “Fun” with a capital “F” games that have come out for a while, and with the miniatures being so much fun to paint, I can’t wait for more of it. Onwards!

How to paint Legions Imperialis Blood Angels

Posted by johnnya10 on 18/11/2023
Posted in: Tutorials. Tagged: , . 1 Comment
blood angels for legions imperialis

Hey friends! As GW were kind enough to send me the new Legions Imperialis boxes, and because I’ve been very much enjoying painting up some Blood Angels, I thought I’d put together an article all about how I’ve been painting them. If you’re looking to paint up some extra-tiny IXth Legion, I hope this little walk through will help you out!

I should also point out that this is a basic tutorial – this isn’t going to win you any awards, but it should help you have a lot of fun getting your army done quickly. So let’s get to it…

Prep the Sprue

prepped legion imperialis sprue

Ok, so painting on the sprue requires some minor prep work. Before starting with the paints, you need to remove the mold lines, if a tiny mini is connected to the sprue anywhere else than the base, you’ll need to snip and clean that, and if any minis come in two parts, it’s worth actually building them on the sprue. For that last one, think of the heavy weapons support squads on the Space Marine sprue – stick the Missile Launcher onto the Devestator before undercoating. Once all of that is done (it really doesn’t take long), you’re ready to start spraying.

Black Then White Spray

undercoated legions imperialis terminators

I started off with a light spray of Chaos Black, Spraying up the sprue from below. You don’t want a thick coat – you just want to fill in the shadows really. Let the black dry and then hit them from above with a healthy coat of White Scar. You want to cover over 90%(ish) of that black, but keep it in those shadows. Let that dry, and get your brushes ready!

Blood Angels Red

base coated legions imperialis terminators

You’re going to want that magical “one thick coat” of this read all over the miniature. Don’t worry about trying to avoid anything – we’ll use thicker paints for later steps and they’ll cover this easily. So get that appropriately named paint all over.

Fire Dragon Bright

And once the red is dry, crack open the Fire Dragon Bright, work some into the bristles of your favourite dry-brushing brush, and give the mini a light dry brush all over. And the red is done!

Block in the Black

I wanted black knees, bolters, and shoulders on these terminators, so I blocked those in here with Abaddon black. Once the black was dry, I added some highlights with Dawnstone on the edges. And we can call that done!

Silver and Leather

For any areas that were going to be metallic, I simply applied a coat of Leadbelcher, and for the leather straps on their arms, I gave these a covering of Rhinox Hide, before putting down some tiny lines of XV88 to highlight these. I then gave the leather areas a thin wash of Seraphim Sepia, and the Leadbelcher was given a thin coat of Nuln Oil.

Stripy Fists

Next up, I went to work on those power/chain fists. I carefully painted on a couple of thin coats of Averland Sunset, and once this was dry, I did a couple of thin lines of Abaddon black. Remember; at this scale, you don’t need to be hyper-accurate to get things looking good.

Clean the Bases

The last little step is to clean up the little bit of base that’s actually on the model – the bit between the feet. My bases start off with Grey Seer, so I just painted these over with a couple of coats of that. And once this is dry, you can stick your minis to their base and get ready to finish them off. But we’ll save the basing for another article…

painted legions imperialis terminators ready for basing

That base was pre-painted with Grey Seer before the terminators were stuck down – that makes things soooooo much easier.

There you have it! I hope this was fun and enjoyable to read through, and that it’s inspired you to tackle your own teeny termies with some added confidence. These models and this scale is very forgiving, so I really suggest just diving straight in. Onwards!

Legions Imperialis – Marble and Rubble Bases

Posted by johnnya10 on 18/11/2023
Posted in: Basing. Tagged: , . 1 Comment

Hey folks! Continuing in my series of new Legiones Imperialis posts as I try and revive the output of this blog, I’m going to show you how to create a marbled base with a little bit of rubble on the side. To do this, I’m going to be basing one of my itty-bitty, teeny-weeny Contemptors (they’re so cute!) and I’ll be taking you through all the steps.

blood angels legions imperialis contemptor talon

And as ever, thank you to Games Workshop for sending me this miniatures, and thank you to those of you reading this article – I hope it proves useful. Now with that admin out of the way, let’s get cracking!

basing step 1

So here’s our base. The Contemptor is done to a standard I’m happy with for gaming and a little has been done to the base already. I’ve put down some fine sand and some tiny gravel pieces to help represent our rubble. The tiny stones were put in place first with some thin super glue, and then sand was drizzled over the same areas before the glue dried. It’s the perfect way to give a little bit of something to your epic-scale bases.

how to base legions imperialis tutorial step 2

Next up, I painted the base up with a couple of thinned coats of Grey Seer. I left the model on the base, but you could take it off if you wanted to spray it. Honesty though, as long as you’re careful, it dries so quickly, I just did like this because I had a pot to hand and it was no bother. 

Apologies for the out of focus Contemptor (if you thought my photography was bad before, Epic scale has given me some real trouble!), but you should be able to see that I’ve added a coat of Aggrax Earthshade to the rubble areas. Allow this to dry completely before moving on to the next step – seriously, it can go very bad if you don’t!

Next up, we have a heavy coat of Space Wolves Grey all over our base, and the rubble. My tip for this would be to dab it on rather than brush it on – more chaos (not that sort of Chaos), means a more organic look, so don’t try to apply it too neatly, except in terms of keeping the paint off the dreadnought.

Allow this to dry and then we move on to drybrushing. Using very small amounts of Grey Sear/White Scar (1:1 mix), I focussed my drybrushing efforts on the areas of the base with some detail, but don’t go overboardyou really want almost no paint on the brush. And for the rubble, I just used Grey Seer for the drybrushing.

Now, you want to make a mix of Skeleton Horde and Contrast Medium, in a 1:3 mix (so 3x as much medium) and you’re going to put a thin coat all over that base to help make this scene look more like a dirty warzone.

based

Finally, using a steady hand and a straight brush, paint the rim of the base black. You’re done!

And here’s the same basing technique done with some tiny dudes – just for something different and vaguely in focus. 😉

I’ve painted all of my Blood Angels’ bases like this and I really enjoy the effect it gives me. Sure, I was tempted by doing some Goblin Green rims and simple sand/flock green bases, but I think this looks better. If you have any good recipes for bases like this, let me know in the comments below, and until next time, Onwards!

5 Tips For Painting Legions Imperialis

Posted by johnnya10 on 18/11/2023
Posted in: Thoughts and Comment. Tagged: . 1 Comment

Hello hobby fans! G-Dubs were good enough to send me a copy of the New Legions Imperialis and I thought I’d give you a few tips for painting your tenny tiny Space Marines. As someone old enough to have played Epic in a GW store (where are my Werther’s Originals and dentures…?), I have a little history with painting very small minis, and I wanted to pass on a few pearls of wisdom that might make your first forays into extra tiny dudes go a little easier.  

Paint The Little Dudes On The Sprue

legions imperialis sprue prep

I remember this trick from years gone by – painting the mini-marines (and other factions) on the sprue is the best idea. Take the Space Marine sprue here as an example. You do need to do a little prep – most models are just connected at their feet, but some have a few other connections to the frame that you need to remove. I also put the Missile Launchers on the marines that heft them, and tidied up a few of the more obvious mould lines, but with all of that done, it was way easier to paint them like this. If you base them before painting, you will have issues getting them completely covered, and taking them all off to paint is inviting the black hole beneath every hobbyist’s desk to eat up at least a few of these teeny minis. This is actually why, those of use old enough to remember, really liked the long thin bases from the Epic 40,000 era, but in the era before that, with square epic bases, on-the-sprue painting was really a must.

Contrast Paints Are Your Friends

gw contrast paints

When Contrast Paints came out, we were all told that they didn’t work best on Space Marines. They were at their best on flesh, cloth, or other organic materials. Well, at this tiny scale, they work great on Marines! With the tiniest amount of preshading (I literally sprayed them black, and then gave them a quick spray from above of White) they look amazing. What’s more, one quick drybrush over that, and you’ll be down to picking out those tiny details. It feels like Contrast Paints were really made for this scale, and even using them to paint the larger tanks works a treat. It saves a hell of a lot of time too! I really wish we’d had these around all those years ago. I have used them on some of my older models, and they look great on those too, but for the new stuff, they are just perfection.

Magnifiers Help

magnifier glasses

Now, I happen to have excellent eyesight, so when I say a pair of magnifying spectacles is a worthy investment, I relaly mean it, especially if you’re planning to do any freehand at this scale. But even just picking out the finer details, it’s a good idea to have some of these to hand, even if it’s just to give you a confidence boost. By the same token, I’d recommend some of those tiny brushes that we all go through a phase of using – the ‘000’ sort of brushes. These are really only useful when your vision and hand movement is limited at 28mm scale, but at Epic scale, when you’re trying to hit tiny things, they genuinely have their place. Just get yourself prepped to deal with teeny, tiny details.

You Can Go One Step Less On Metallics

metallic paints on legions imperialis tanks

So the normal Citadel method for doing metallics is Base – Wash – Highlight. Honestly, at this scale, you can just go Base – Wash and leave it to that. Now if you do want to highlight, I would recommend using the base coat you used again, but really, I don’t think there’s any need. if you tried to put in a highlight of a really bright silver, I think it will look out of place unless you spend a lot of time blending it and glazing over it, but honestly, unless you’re trying to win a painting competition, it’s not worth that amount of hassle. Those bright highlights work great at 28mm/Heroic scale, but at Epic scale, they look a little too cartoonish and overbearing.  

Don’t Fear The Freehand

alpha legion space wolves freehand examples
Blood Angels freehand legions imperialis

Now if you know this site, you know I like to talk Freehand a lot. And yes, I’ve done some relatively elaborate freehand at this scale already. I couldn’t help myself. 😉 But if you’re just getting into freehanding, this is quite a nice scale to try things out at. You can be a lot more “representitive” than “exact”. You can focus more on getting the right shapes and colours than the perfect blends and finer details, so I do urge you to give it a go. What’s more, because you can do things as more abstract, it can save you from having to worry about transfers and I have many memories of using those back in the day on Epic things. Those memories are usually full of swear words and tears, so I’m happy to avoid that with this newest release.

I hope that this has given you some useful advice and/or ideas. If you have any other pearls of wisdom yourself, do pop them in the comments below – I look forward to reading them. Onwards!

My Appearance on The Painting Phase!

Posted by johnnya10 on 26/09/2023
Posted in: Silliness and Stuff, Thoughts and Comment, Uncategorized. Tagged: . Leave a comment

Hey folks! You may well have spotted this on your hobby-focussed YouTube by now, but if you haven’t, I made an appearance on The Painting Phase hobby chat show with Peachy, Geoff and Pat. We talked about my role as Commissioning Editor for Games Workshop (which I left a couple of years back), Blanchitsu, Necromunda, Blood Bowl, and my podcast – My Life In Miniatures. I had an absolute blast doing it and it’s one of my favourite hobby-centred shows on YouTube so it was a real honour for me to be able to appear. It may well be their least successful show, but it’s a highlight of my hobby career for sure.

I wanted to put this little post together as a companion piece to the video. Once you’ve given it a watch, it might be fun/useful to refer to the notes below to get some more information. There were also a number of questions from their Patreon that I didn’t get the chance to answer, so I’ve answered some of those below too. Anyway, I really hope you enjoy the show, and I hope the stuff below is interesting too.

Show notes/useful links:

1 – For those of you looking for more information on the fascinating Mechanical Turk, here’s a Wikipedia article for you to enjoy on the subject. And a little more on what it means today in the context of digital marketing. 

2 – Just as an aside, when I used to go to those meetings where we worked out how many of each product the marketing team would need, I kept notes in my notebook before updating the spreadsheet. I once left that notebook in Bugmans after a meeting. It sat there for 15 minutes, entirely unguarded, and not a single person looked into it before I got back to rescue it. But that could have landed me in a great deal of trouble if someone had! Thankfully, the people who go to Bugmans are largely excellent people and so I wasn’t responsible for the biggest leak ever. Phew.

It’s also worth noting that there is a much more complex process for working out how much stock may be needed, but it’s still a very difficult thing to try and work out.

3 – Genuinely, Dead of Winter is an amazing game and well worth your time if you can get yourself a copy. Here’s a bit more info if you’re interested. 

4 – Go look at some webcomics! They’re still on Warhammer Community and there’s still a lot of laughs to be found there. And stay tuned to Dr Geof’s website for news of Biscuit Wars! 

5 – If you’ve never read it, here’s my tretiese on Freehanding and I hope you’ll find it useful. 

6 – Here’s John Blanche talking about his art. Also, I don’t know if I am talented enough a painter to be any authority on Blanchitsu, so if you want to see some real exemplars of this art style, check out Iron Sleet – those guys do it 10,000 times better than I do it, and were a big part in organising The Pilgrym – what Peachy mentioned.

7 – If you want to see the John Blanche Femme Militant models, you can take a look at them here. 

8 – Honestly, leaks are the worst thing when you work at Warhammer Community. It’s like having to deal with the kid who has not only looked at their own Christmas gifts on December 14th, but they’ve also looked at everyone else’s, and they tell everyone. Bastards. No, GW have never fabricated a leak – they are genuinely the most annoying things in the world, and even before I worked at GW, I made a great effort to not look at those grainy images. 

9 – If you are just now discovering that I have a podcast, My Life In Miniatures, you can find all of the episodes (25 at the time of writing) on Audible, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and you can listen to them all directly from the MLIM Podcast page!

10 – Oh my! 

hedonism bot gif

11 – If you’re ever going to be teaching someone how to play a game, to help ensure that they have a good time, it’s well worth watching this video from Shut Up & Sit Down. 

12 – Shout out to the guys in my old Blood Bowl league! And also, Daughter, should you ever read your dad’s old blog in many years’ time, I was in no way blaming you for me missing out on Blood Bowl. You were way more entertaining than any game could have been and changing your nappies, and being shouted at by you when you were hungry was my pleasure.

13 – Kevin Kanner’s Carcharodons (Space Sharks) for you to take a look at. 

14 – Zoats! 

zoat gif

15 – I lied about my favourite toe. It’s actually this one.

16 – I got the young Space Wolf’s name wrong – it was Brand. I apologise for the mistake. It was a heartbreaking instance, and the studio, the publications folk and writers did such a lovely thing. You can learn a little more about it here. 

17 – Sorry if I butchered your name, Seyni! Here are his Carcharodons and his West African inspired Ad Mech army – it was a joy to help bring these to the wider community.

Extra Questions

And now, here are some answers to some of the Patrreon Questions that we didn’t get time for on the show. I’d also highly recommend the Painting Phase Patreon and I hope you’ll be able to support them.

James asks: Was there pressure to make it more ‘marketing’ than genuine community? And did that mean there was influence from outside of Warcom on who to interact with?

John answers: Not really. The only real pressure came from being a team that GW had never had before – a marketing team. We needed to prove that we were needed, and all that ever meant was that we always tried our hardest to get great content out there, but as mentioned in the video, sometimes you had to focus on the really important stuff, and the fun stuff would have to wait a spell.

Michael asks: How hard did you have to work to get GW to start working with external people?

John answers: Personally, not hard at all. It was the start of the era where the company was starting to understand that it needed to interact more with the community. The Partner programme was a great way of getting the product out there, and the articles we generated were the best advert for the hobby.

Josh asks: Were there any influencers/channels that wanted nothing to do with GW that you regularly tried to tempt? 

John answers: Nope. I always approached people respectfully, and if they said no, they said no. That was the end of it. Maybe once or twice we would start doing something new that I thought might tempt them to join the programme, and I’d test the waters again, but that was the limit of it.

Kristinn asks: Did you work with the White Dwarf team? What were the differences between Warcom and White Dwarf?

John answers: Occasionally, but not as often as I’d like to. We’d occasionally share photo assets, or give each other leads on good hobby, but they’re two very different entities that do very different jobs these days. Honestly, I think White Dwarf is amazing these days, and they’ve really found the perfect niche for them in in supporting and developing the hobby through idea-led content. White Dwarf remains an excellent publication with a great team behind it. And I was always thrilled to contribute to it if I could with their painting/modelling challenges – I did a few of those 🙂

Richard asks: If you were an animal, what would you be?

John answers: Kommodo Dragon. Because they’re awesome.

Andrew asks: How does one get their minis featured on Warhammer Community?

John answers: Send it to the Community inbox. If you’ve got an army, I would always ask for about 800 words, in-focus images on a white background, and an assurance that no non-GW bits had been used. This may well have changed since I was there, but I’m sure they still like to see good hobby as much as possible. Here’s the email address: community@gwplc.com

In Closing

Like I said earlier, this has been a highlight of my hobby career. It was so much fun reminiscing with Peachy, and meeting Geoff and Pat was great too. And it’s been so nice to read so many positive and complimentary comments too, both from people just discovering my slice of the hobby and my Podcast for the first time, and from old friends, colleagues and those partners that I used to work with. It’s been the most delightful of ego-strokings!

I hope you are enjoying your hobby and having an excellent time with clippers, glue and brushes. Onwards!

john ashton painting phase podcast

The New Blood Bowl Vampires

Posted by johnnya10 on 23/09/2023
Posted in: Lists and Tactics. Tagged: , . 1 Comment

Hello sports fans! GW were kind enough to send me a box of the new Blood Bowl Vampire team to review (Fangs for that!) and while life as a new dad has left me with little time to work on the miniatures, I am writing this epistle to assure fellow veterans of the game that Blood Bowl Vampires just got a lot more interesting. Tempting even! 

Now I’m a sucker for new Blood Bowl team, and this one in particular has my veins pumping with excitement. You see, I had a Blood Bowl Vampire team about 4 years ago and do you know what? I hated them. Oh I had fun converting them, using Cawdor gangers for my thralls and Namartii for my Vamps (see below), that side of the project was great. But playing with them, I certainly got a lesson in why Vampires have always been seen as a team meant more for the game’s better players. 

They were always an unforgiving bunch, so much so that most tacticas would suggest playing no more than 2 actual Vampires and taking as great a throng of Thralls as possible and that kind of sucks when it’s the Vampires that are your real stars and the minis you want to play with. Thralls, in comparison were then (and remain now) pretty much the worst players in the game. No skills, the stat line of a hobgoblin, but for 40,000 a piece, you get what you pay for. They are only really there for one reason – they are walking blood bags for when your Vampires roll a 1 when checking for Blood Lust. 

That was another problem of the old team. Your Vampires are your stars and yet they have this flaw that they may have to end their turn injuring their own team-mates. And their stats, while decent, were not too much to shout about. You had to suffer through the first couple of games of a league season, carefully accruing star player points, in order to get Block and Dodge on them before you became confident in them being able to do what you needed to do. A Blood Bowl veteran would see this team as a cryptic challenge, but to a newer (or in my case “worse”) player, they just, well, sucked. 

Then you got the Season 2 Update a couple of years back that, I’ll confess, very much passed me by but it certainly didn’t seem to improve things. Animal Savagery replacing Blood Lust just seemed cruel and unnecessary so I was even less enthused to try and get some game time out of them. 

But oh what a difference this update has made! The rules for the team were the most interesting thing here for me and so, given that I’ve not had time to paint my Vamps, I can talk to you about why I think you have some really excellent options with this new box in terms of rules.

However, I will briefly say, before getting into the rules, that the new miniatures are fantastic. I get real 1990s Warhammer Vampire vibes from the befanged in the box, and the new thralls are just really fun. Great sculpting all round, and I will definitely be painting up this team at some point in the future. Now, back to those rules…

First off, having Vampire Positionals is huge. You used to just get Vampires, and in the Season 2 Update, Vampire “Blitzers” (which had no particular Blitzing Skills) but it was all very one dimensional. Now you have Throwers, Runners and Blitzers (who have Juggernaut, which, while not as good as just having “Block” does help a little more both on field and thematically). This means that you can tailor your team to suit how you want to play. Want to play an elf-like passing/running game? Take a couple of Runners and at least one Thrower, and you’re golden. If you want to take a bashing team, a couple of Blitzers and a Vargheist (sold seperately) and you can do just that.

Personally, I’d favour running the former option over a fighting style Vampire line. Your Vampires are too valuable to risk them in the scrum, and while having access to a Big Guy for the first time ever is great, I think they all suffer from having Blood Lust 3+ instead of 2+ (Throwers and Runners are still 2+, Vlad be thanked) and that suffering makes them too much of a liability. 

Also, a cheeky 10,000 knocked off the rerolls is a great boon to the team.

So here’s the team I’d take:

10x Thralls – 400,000

2x Vampire Runners – 200,000

2x Vampire Throwers – 220,000

3x Re-rolls – 180,000

Now, this is still early days, but I think this team has some balance, and while I still wouldn’t recommend the Vampires to brand new players, this is a great deal more forgiving than in the olden days. Ok, so you’re going to be a mainly S3 team, but the runners have an excellent burst of speed, and being able to use Hypnotic Gaze to neautralise threats negates their lack of S4 somewhat. 3 rerolls should also help you to keep some of the Vampire’s negative quirks at bay, and the Throwers look excellent with Pass and a PA of 2+. This also means that you’ve got plenty of Thralls to chew through, and 4 Vampires from the get go – not too shabby.

For Tactics, I’d probably have a single Thrower starting, both Runners and a big mess of Thralls to act as a screen/shield. Without the ball, I think things could get a little tough, and Hypnotic Gaze will do a lot of Heavy Lifting, but while carrying, you could tear through a defense with relative ease. Movement 8 on those Runners is immense, and a Thrower with pass of course means you could set up some really fun plays.

But is an all (bar the throwers who are S4) S3 team a bit risky? Let me know you think if I’m howling at the wrong moon on this one by leaving a comment below!

So to summarize, I’d say I’m cautiously optimistic for this team. Things have massively improved for the Vamps, and I think they still provide a stiff challenge for any coach willing to give them a try, though they will still provide a level of difficulty due to the unique way in which they play. But the new options really help to make them interesting again, and over longer leagues, I think they could have real potential to challenge the better teams. 

But if you’re playing for high stakes, the classic Vampire issues can still bite you in the… neck, I suppose. Onvards!

Skaven Deathmaster – The Ratsassin That Helped Me Paint Different

Posted by johnnya10 on 05/05/2023
Posted in: My Painting and Modelling. Tagged: . Leave a comment

Hello friends! I’ve finished another model – quite the run I’m on at the moment. I have just completed work on this Skaven Deathmaster and it’s a model I’ve been using to force myself to think a little differently about how I paint. As I share these typically “not-awful-but-not-that-good” photos, let me tell you about how I approached this miniature…

skaven deathmaster

The first thing to cover is NMM. Non-Metallic Metals are not something I’ve ever spent too much time worrying about, but it’s on my list to add this technique as a new arrow to my painting quiver. I think I did an ok job on the dagger and throwing weapon, but it was on the smaller areas I think I need to improve. Small spikes and rivets – my work there needs some effort. Oh, and the gold hilt on the rusted sword in the foreground turned out nicely, I thought. Still room to improve though.

skaven assassin

I decided to change up the way I paint rust too. I’ve gone for a more limited set of colours, and I’ve applied them using a stippling technique to illustrate the glorious randomness of iron-oxide. I went really controlled with the sword, but for the gate and ring on the wall, I was purposefully a little more sloppy (just to see what happened) and I’m happy with all of it – I look forward to putting that to more work in the future. The cloth on our ratsassin friend here is done using much subtler methods, relying a tad more on natural shadows, and trying to really punch up the highlights and get some high contrast in the right places.

skaven miniature

I’m really happy with his tail too – the blending on those subtle pinks came out really nicely, and the red bits of armour came out a treat too. For said armour, I chose to use fewer colours than I usually do for my solid reds, but I used thinner paints and lots of drawing pigment to where I wanted the highlights to pop.

poisoned blade miniature

And there you have it really. As well as showing off a miniature I’m proud of, I wanted to write this post to encourage you to try new things in your painting too. I know that I can very easily get stuck in a bit of a rut, and that my enthusiasm for painting suffers a bit as a result, but trying new things is a great way to get your creative juices flowing again. Having a bit of fun, and not really worrying about “failure” (which, btw, isn’t a thing as long as you’re enjoying yourself), is one of the nicest things you can do for yourself in this hobby. I hope you are having fun with your mini painting too.

I’ve got some really fun projects coming up, beyond this stabby skaven fella, and I’m really looking forward to sharing those with you in the future. Onwards!

Frenzi Da Gobbo – Miniatures as Souvenirs

Posted by johnnya10 on 23/04/2023
Posted in: My Painting and Modelling, Uncategorized. Tagged: . Leave a comment

Hello hobby people. I want to introduce you to the latest miniature to come off my personal painting production line. This is Frenzi Da Gobbo and I’m very happy with him, and we have a tale to tell you…

old metal goblin painted in a florentine fashion

Now, for Frenzi’s part of the tale, I can only speak to the last few months. I purchased him In Florence, Italy, from a delightful little hobby store called Stratagemma which you can find very close to the Duomo in what is possibly my favourite Italian city. It’s a treasure trove for “Oldhammer” minis, board games, Magic cards, dice, etc, and if I had a limitless baggage allowance and a couple of extra thousand euros, I’d have snaffled up the entire shop. But without said luggage space, and with a baby on the way for me (arriving almost imminently) I restrained myself and picked up a single, metal goblin. And boy has he been a treat to paint.

Stratagemma florence
oldhammer cabinet

I wanted to pay homage to Stratagemma, Florence and Italy when I painted this miniature, and that’s what I’ve done here. His robes are the purple and red that I associate with Fiorentina, Florence’s football team. The yellows represent Stratagemma’s logo, as seen above, and you’ll notice the wings and skulls on his staff are distinctly “Il Tricolore” inspired. Even the potion on his belt is blue (squint and you might see it) – the royal colour of Italy, still used by the Italian national sports teams to this day. Oh, and the name of course – Frenzi – a play on Florence’s Italian name “Firenze”. I think I got enough Italian seasoning in there, right?

back of the goblin with snail on base

But as to the tale I was talking about earlier, like I said, Frenzi has been with me for only a few months, so where he was before, I have no idea. But at some point, presumably decades ago, he made the trip from Nottingham out to Italy, and I have since brought him home with me. Who first purchased him from GW? Who painted him (he’d been stripped when I bought him but there was still a hint of old paint here and there)? How long had he been waiting there for me to buy him? What a life this little metal goblin may have lived.

My story is easier to tell, though probably not as interesting (so I’ll skip it here – you can read the “About” section of the blog if you’re that interested), however it did all lead me to walk into that delightful hobby shop in Florence and pick up this goblin that I have now completed. And while I did buy myself a fridge magnet and a football scarf, Frenzi Da Gobbo will always be my favourite memento of this particular trip to Florence.

italian themed goblin

So I suppose that it got me wondering; have you ever bought a miniature while on holiday to paint up as a souvenir of your trip? I think it’s a rather nice idea and certainly beats a lot of other souvenir alternatives that are usually just tat that falls apart or gathers dust. And the funny thing about our niche and supposedly unpopular hobby is that every city you visit around the world will likely have one shop that sells some sort of miniature. If you’ve ever decided to paint up a mini as a memento of a trip, do let me know in the comments below.

I also want to say thank you to Alberto Font – the legendary painter of goblins whose exceptional work was very useful for helping me to work out what each tiny detail was. I wish I could paint as well as him, but thankfully images are on the internet and they certainly do help to clear things up! Go check out his stuff if you can find it.

And I hope you like the little snail on the base – that’s a real Scottish sea-snail shell on there 🙂

Anyway, I hope you enjoy Frenzi. I certainly had a blast painting him up, and whenever I gaze upon him, I shall be transported back to sunny Florence. And the next time I find myself in foreign climbs, I shall do my best to pick up another miniature to paint up in tribute to my trip. Onwards 🙂

The Lion – I painted a *shudders* Dark Angel (and I liked it)

Posted by johnnya10 on 15/04/2023
Posted in: My Painting and Modelling. Tagged: , . 4 Comments

lion el johnson miniature

*For full effect, the above title should be sung to the tune of Katy Perry’s I Kissed A Girl…

Now, many hobbyists who know me, know exactly how I feel about the 1st Legion and their successor chapters – I hate them. I hate their stupid green armour, their silly secret stuff, their soppy robes, and everything else about them. They’re just so… extra. In my list of best to worst Space Marine Legions, I had them at 20th. Behind the Word Bearers. Behind the two Legions we know nothing about even! It all comes from my time back in 2nd Edition when my beloved, glorious Blood Angels had to share their codex with them. That just wasn’t fair.

So when GW very kindly sent the new The Lion and Retinue box to me, it was with some trepidation that I opened it. And what I have to tell you next will be shocking, upsetting and a betrayal of all my aforementioned beliefs; it’s a really cool model.

the lion without paint

Ugh. Yuk. Did I just say that about about a Dark Angel? Well, yes, I did. This miniature is actually quite fantastic and I had an absolute blast painting him up. I suppose I should tell you about that process but I just need to choke back the rising bile in my gullet first.

When I first saw the miniature in the flesh (or plastic) I got a real Arthurian Knight sort of feel from it. It fits with the idea of the Lion’s return that he should be striding forth like an avenging, armour-clad knight, with ideas of chivalry, heraldry and holy vows at the forefront of his mind. So that led me to the decision that rather than paint his armour green (or even bone-coloured), I would go with a metallic Iron look. Green would be an accent, and details would be wrought in brass (which looks like gold but you’re more likely to feel ok about taking it to a fight). To contrast the silver armour, and stick with the lore a little, the Emperor’s shield would be a faded gold, also representing the decaying decadence of the Imperium; a marked difference to the workmanlike Steel of the rest of his garb.

lion el johnson striding

The only rule I had is that I didn’t want to use Red anywhere on a model that was primarily accented with Green, as I do hold that the two colours can very easily look a little too Christmassy when put together. So glowing eyes and gems would have to be blue, and the wax of the purity seals black – this all helped to give the model a very natural, and even understated look. 

lion el johnson cape

This was a remarkably easy model to tackle really and the simple scheme meant that I wanted the base to have some punch. And as I had so much gold and silver, a bit of bronze felt like the right way to go. I’ve been doing this a lot recently because that weathered bronze is so simple and satisfying to do. 

So there you have it. I enjoyed painting a Dark Angel and I’ve admitted that it’s a pretty awesome model. I may need to paint Commander Dante next just to reaffirm my beliefs that red angels and far better than green ones. 

the emperor's shield and lion el johnson

If you want the challenge of painting a very big Space Marine, I’d pick this one over Bobby G too – less tactical rock, more cape. Does he need to come in a box with some Bladeguard Vets? Probably not, but there is something thematic about it and this is just the limited edition version as I understand it. Another great piece of work from GW. Just don’t ever remind me that I said that about a Dark Angel. Ugh. Onwards.

Back to the Underhive!

Posted by johnnya10 on 25/03/2023
Posted in: My Painting and Modelling. Tagged: . 1 Comment

I am back again! I know I said last time that you should expect more posts from me and that didn’t happen, but I’m back now and the hobby mojo is strong with me. What’s more, it has taken me back to the Underhive and so I’ve been working on some new Dramatis Personae for Necromunda, including this special lady…

Lady Haera 13th daughter of Lord Helmawr Necromunda

First off, I have to thank GW for sending Lady Haera in my direction. I had loads of fun getting grimy and gribbly with this miniature, and it inspired me to start creating a few more things for the Underhive too. I kept her very dark and wanted to push the decaying Imperium theme with her look. The weathered bronze armour, oil washes all over the place, the rusty floor and minimal lighting… it was loads of fun.

And it’s a really nice kit to put together too – mostly very easy and almost no mould lines that I had to worry about. Well done to those at Forge World working in the resin mines for getting this one so spot on.

But as I said, she also inspired me to work on a few other creations too. Let me introduce you to my Beastmaster…

Necromunda beastmaster

I am a firm believer that every miniature is a Necromunda miniature and I’ve had this idea since the Cursed City box arrived with me (it’s just taken me this long to do anything about it). Give him a gun and a cattle-prod and those beasties around hime become potential companions for Hive Scum and Nobles alike. What’s more, he has some retro Milliasaurs to keep him company (thanks to @VioletSun on Instagram for those). 

necromunda milliasaurs
necromunda hive scum conversion

And then there’s this sorry so-and-so – a basic Hive Scum/lasp-pistol-for-hire who’s just kickin’ around in his rusty breaches. This guy helped to remind me about how fun it is to just cobble some bits together to make a basic dude, and that really is a joy when it comes to Necromunda. But from little joys, we must now turn our attention to giant horrors. It came from the Sump…

necromunda sump monster conversion

I really like the idea of the Sump. This underground sea, its shores lapping in the perpetual darkness, is home to all sorts of mutated horrors and I think this may be one of the biggest beasts down there (or is he…?). This was so much fun to put together, and I now have a plan for a mad doctor who helps to create these brutes, forging them from the mutants that he can snare in the shallows. 

sump monster

It’s mainly the Vargskyr from that same Cursed City box, but between some ork, dark eldar and AT titan kits (as well as plenty of unknown bits from the bits box) I’ve created a monster who snares his prey with his harpoon gun, and then carves them up with his circular saw. How’s that for grizzly? 🙂

And so I am firmly back in the Underhive and looking forward to creating some more horrors from the depths of the Underhive in the near future. Onwards!