I painted a Squat! I’ve never done that before. Firstly I’d like to thank G-Dubs for sending this my way with plenty of time to get at least one mini actually painted, and while I would like to have done more, I did have that fun Goliath Mauler to do as well (make sure you check out that post) and a lot of Golden Demon prep is happening right now too. But I had so much fun working on this chap, I can assure you that more will follow eventually.
Now, I could have gone with one of the colour schemes in the book for my Einhyr Champion, but I decided, as we’ve not seen a Squat (or Leagues of Votann member as they are these days) in 40k for a while (not counting all the ones that have popped up in Necromunda), I went full late 80s/early 90s. I channelled not only some old Squat artwork from the days of Epic, but also, apparently, the Manta Force toys I had when I was a young’un (look ’em up if you want to see some sweet space ships). And the League symbol looks unerringly like the old Fila logo, which was not intended, but that too is very much of this era.
The model itself is a lot of fun to put together with minimal fuss. You get some options to play around with, and the base certainly lends this stocky sod a bit more height, so all is well there. I went with the axe because I had this idea to do a white-marble-looking axe blade, and while it’s not my best marble work, I’m happy enough with how it came out.
I would say, if you like putting together Space Marines, you’ll likely have a lot of fun with the Leagues of Votann stuff. While a different aesthetic, that heavy armour with lots of plates and overlapping pieces definitely give off an armoured super-soldier kind of vibe. Not to mention all of the bolters too of course.
I actually like the colour scheme I’ve come up with here and should I do an army of these fellas, I’d likely stick to this. The bright primary colours can definitely help them to stand out, and that nod to the Squats of old also helps to embed them in the setting for me.
What do I think of the rest of the army? I really like the update to the trikes – those hover bikes are very cool, and their vehicles have quite a unique look too. The basic dudes and other squads are great, though I’d like to see some more characters and some more interesting HQ choices – something that GW will no doubt bring us in the future. But yep, as additions to Warhammer 40,000 go, these are a fine one, and I look forward to seeing the variety they bring to the game in the coming months.
And that’s all from me. I need to get back to the Golden Demon prep – not long to go now. But this Champion certainly helped to distract me from that fiddly work, so he gets a thumbs up from me. Onwards!
Get them engines revvin’ folks! G-Dubs were good enough to send me the brand new Goliath Mauler kit, and I’ve been having a lot of fun getting my Necromunda groove on over the last few weeks. So buckle up, as I show off my brand new wheelz!
First off, I just want to say that this is the coolest looking “bike” GW have ever brought out. It has that predatory look, an industrial heaviness about it, and it brings a new meaning to the term “Chopper” (or should that be “Crusher”?). It’s a laid back Harley-style killing machine, with a brutal beefcake astride it and I was very excited to get this put together and painted. I should say, the box comes with two, but I’m saving the other in case I want to do something fancy with it one day – I have plans…
I’m sure we’re going to see Ork warbosses and Khornate champions riding these machines in the coming weeks, and I for one am looking forward to seeing those conversions, but in the meantime, I’ll talk to you about building it and painting it.
It’s a dream to put together, with very little faff and some well hidden mould-lines too. If you want my advice though, keep the driver and handle-bars separate when painting and affix together when both components are completed. I didn’t do this and made my life a little more difficult than it needed to be.
I started off with the main chassis first employing a modified version of a favourite rust technique best demonstrated by Pete The Wargamer. Along with the steps he demonstrates in the video, I added some oil washing and some other steps, but it produces a great result when you want something to look rusty and old.
If I was doing this for a compeition, I’d want that engine block to be Chrome, but I’ve never tried that and this is more for my own enjoyment than anyone else’s. I was quite happy that I painted in the speedo and fuel-guage – and of course he’s going hell for leather.
The ash wastes themselves were painted first (after I made some grooves to illustrate where the tracks and chompy-wheel had bitten into the surface) and then I hit them with some weathering powder. Well, actually I hit most of it with some weathering powder, to illustrate the dustiness of the wastes. That was a lot of fun.
And that’s more or less all the fun stuff covered. This was a lot of fun, I love the model, and will definitely going back to my 2nd Mauler when I have the time. Onwards!
Hello hobby friends! It’s been a little while since I did a top 10 list here on Heresy & Heroes and so it’s about time I put one together for you, and in this post, I’m going to talk about things that were never designed with the hobby in mind, but can make your hobbying a lot easier. We’re an industrious lot, we painters of toy soldiers, and with each example here, I’m speaking from experience because all of these things can be found in my own setup, so I know of what I speak. Now, I’m not going to include any actual paints, brushes or materials that can be used in the painting of miniatures, this is more about more peripheral things. The odds and ends that can make your hobby easier. Let’s get started…
Knife Magnet
When I moved house, I bought a knife holder for my kitchen. You know the ones. You see cool-looking chefs fling sharp knives at them in the movies (if you watch cooking-centric movies – I don’t know what you’re into). Then when I actually moved in, I found there was one already in place in my new kitchen. So I had a spare, and me being me, I used some two-part-epoxy to affix it to my hobbby desk. It now holds sculpting tools, scrapers, pins, and anything else metal that used to be strewn about my workspace. It has helped me keep the desk tidier, and I now know where all of these metal tools are. Those magnets are strong too so even heavier things like clippers live there quite happilly.
2. Makeup Brush Holder
And speaking of making things tidier, I divide my paint brushes into two categories – Quality, and Utility. That’s my way of saying good brushes, and trash brushes, and I have a lot of trash brushes, many of which used to be good brushes (accidents happen). Now the good brushes get their own special place to live, but the trash brushes don’t need such care. They live in this rather nifty holder which was very cheap, and you’ll find these at many professional make-up stations (I don’t know the correct terminology for make-up-related things, but that sounds right to me). Anyway, when the Quality brushes are put back in their feather beds at the end of a project, the Utility brushes are chucked into the makeup brush holder, and the whole place is a lot tidier
3. Ferrero Roche Tray
I won’t spend too much time waffling on about this one as I’ve written a whole article on turning a Ferrero Roche tray into a wet palette, but it’s worth reiterating in this list. If you want a wet palette, and you don’t fancy splashing out, you can make your own for very little cost, and with this method, you get free chocolates too!
4. Paperclip
The humble paperclip has all manner of uses in all manner of fields, but in the hobby, it’s perfect as a cheap source of appropiately-sized wire. And wire that you can clip with you hobby clippers too! You can of course use this for pinning heavy pieces of resin or plastic to each other with just a bit of superglue and a pin-vice needed to achieve this, or, you can combine them with our next item to make a very useful tool indeed…
5. Champagne Corks
Now, I suppose you could use any cork really, but a) why have flat wine when you can have the sparkling stuff? and b) due to their shape, champagne corks (or some fancy beer corks) have a little more stability. And what do we use them for? Miniature holders. Hobby veterans will find this very old-hat, but for you newbies out there, before everyone started making mini holders for painting, you’d drill a small hole in the underside of a mini (typically, the sole of the foot or the nether regions), put in a bit of that paperclip wire with some superglue, and then push the other end of the wire into a cork. Now you have a mini holder! What’s more, you have a bottle of bubbly to help you celebrate this accomplishment! Or, if you’re more of a beer drinker like me, and you’re willing to embrace the hobby-magpie in you, you can just swipe them off other people’s tables at the pub.
6. Plastic Bottle Tops
And staying with things that keep fizzy drinks from going flat, the next time you pick up a bottle of Sprite or Irn Bru (or whatever your soda of choice may be), before you throw away the lid, consider adding it to your hobby collection. These act like tiny dishes when turned upside down, and given that we work with tiny things, that can be pretty handy. I’ve used them to make oil washes in, store little balls of greenstuff (which is what I do when I use too much green stuff – they’re handy for bubbles, boils, glowing orbs, etc), spread sand on a base… all sorts!
7. Crocodile Clips
You may have noticed these on the Knife Magnet from earlier, but they’re incredibly useful tools to have on standby. If I’m weathering with a sponge, I will often ball up the spung and place it in the jaws of these clips before using it – it saves my fat fingers from getting in the way while also letting me hit more hard to reach parts, and it keeps me from getting even more paint on my fingers. What’s more, combine it with a bit of clean sponge (to soften the bite), and you can use these to hold small parts of your project and again, not get your fingers in the way. The fact that their resting position is closed is very helpful as this can help to relax your hand which you can’t do if you’re using tweezers.
8. Tool-bit Storage Trays
I’ve been using these for years and boy do they save space and time. If you work with tools, you don’t want to spend hours looking for particular washers, screws, or other small bits and pieces, and the same can be said of hobbyists who are in the middle of a kit bash. A place for everything, and everything in its place, right? Well these are ideal as they’re pretty cheap, and they’re just the perfect size. You can get rid of loads of sprues, label up the sections, and make your life a lot easier.
9. Magnifying Glasses
What my minis see when I’m painting them
I’ve tried using old school magnifying glasses, and desk mounted magnifying glasses and sheets before and I never got on with them – they always got in the way. Then I picked up some magnifying glasses that you wear like spectacles and, wow, does it make life easier. They’ve got 1.6 magnification, and while they make me feel a bit queesy whenever I look up, as long as I’m focussed on the mini, these are a lifesaver for painting eyes, tiny-highlights, and for getting your brush into hard to reach places without painting everything around said space. Also, I think I look quite fetching in these.
10. Smart phone
Me smart
Ok, it sounds obvious, and while the smart phone has changed all of our lives in many ways, let’s not overlook what it can do for us hobbyists too. It’s a quick and easy way of finding reference materials, or watching tutorials when there’s not space on the desk for a big laptop. What’s more, it can help keep us entertained, perhaps by a podcast, maybe made by me? My Life In Miniatures is in its 2nd season now and you can listen to me chat with loads of great hobbyists as you work on your hobby things yourself.
And there you have it! I hope I’ve been able to give you some ideas to help make your hobbying a little easier. If you have any other tips like these, whack them in the comments below. Until next time, Onwards!
I finished a model! It’s a rare thing these days so it warrants the exclamation point. Though in fairness, I may go back and make some further tweaks, but for the purposes of this blogpost, we can call it done. Well, 95…ish percent done. Anyway, here’s my brand new Cerastus Knight Lancer for Adeptus Titanicus. He’s called Praetorii Custos and I’m quietly happy with him.
He’s called Praetorii Custos because that means “Praetorian Guardian” and I gave hime that titl edue to the gold and purple look that I’ve gone for – something Rome’s Praetorian Guard sported when on official duty. It also helped inspire the “P” on the tilting shield, which was very handy as it stopped me trying to paint a skull in that tiny space. Thankfully, I found a larger place to paint a skull.
I’ve never been much of a fan of the Knight Lancer’s frame-shield, but it’s amazing what you can do with a little bit of plasticard and some careful trimming with a craft knife. Ok, so a skull is a little bit of a lazy option for me, but I tried to go with a bit more detail on this one and I think it paid off quite nicely.
My favourite details, are the “P” on the tilting shield, and the softly glowing red eyes – both made me pretty happy with this one.
Working on something this scale was a great exercise in concentration and restraint. It also gave me an excuse to buy some magnifying glasses and they were a great help (though they did make me feel a bit queasy). They gave me a confidence that I needed to try working on tiny rivets, and an oil wash or two helped in lots of places too – it really hits the lowlights adding definition, and makes everything grimy too.
The purples are Xereus Purple fading up to Genestealer Purple with some of the new Druchii Violet helping with the shadows. All metallics were painted using silvers, and then stained with Contrast paints.
And there you have it really. I’m just chuffed that I managed to finish something really. I might add a bit more dirt and grime here and there, but there won’t be too much extra going on. Well, there are a couple of metal patches I could do with tidying up. But I’m still calling it all done for the purposes of this blog post. I really enjoyed the Adeptus Titanicus scale and I really do want to do more so I may well dive into that, but I’ve got so many options at the moment, we’ll see.
Oh, and in news not related to the above miniature, I managed to get a ticket to Golden Demon. If you see me there, do say hello. I’ll be the hairy one in the check shirt… that might not narrow it down enough but I will be there somewhere. The tiny knight might be there too. 😉
On to the next project. I have no idea what that project might be, but on we go to it. Until then, Onwards!
I, like any other hobby butterfly, have started thousands of projects, but how many have I reached the end of? Well, not as many as I’d have liked. In an effort to inspire me, I thought it would be interesting to run through my top 10 unfinished projects that have a Warhammer-flavour to them (because there are plenty of other, non-GW things half finished and that’s a whole other level of pain), and see if something would give me that spark. Instead, it’s all made me feel a little rotten. So much not yet done, that I started doing! Curse you, hobby butterfly! Curse you!
So, let’s look through some of my shameful false-starts, shall we? Will I ever complete any of these? Who knows. Maybe. Maybe not. Their fate is not yet written, which I suppose, is why I’m writing about them here. In no particular order…
P.S. Yes, I do usually start painting minis from the feet up – it feels like you have time to get your eye in on the shins and get good for when you start working on the upper bits that people will actually look at 🙂
1- The Noise Marine
I love Noise Marines, and especially Noise Marines with Guitars – I paid over the odds on Ebay for the original and had lots of fun painting that up, and I was thrilled when the new version was released but I… just couldn’t get on with it. I still think it’s super cool, but it just doesn’t grab me in the same way as the old one did. I know I sound like one of those old fogeys who thinks the days of Lead minis were better (and I do not think that – modern minis are very much preferred here), but that one was always a favourite that the new one had little chance of living up to.
If I were going to revive this project, I’d undercoat it black (rather than grey) and go completely bonkers on every panel. I’d make it a model of challenges that would result in an eye-bleeding cacophone of colours and patterns. But that takes a lot of time and effort, so we’ll see if i ever get back into that mood.
2- Sister Amalia
I’m a big fans of the resculpted and reimagined Sisters of Battle and I picked up this mini because it does harken back to that classic piece of Karl Kopinski artwork that made the Adepta Sororitas so cool in the first place. But then I made things tricky for myself. I wanted to do an almost metallic dark green for her armour, and give her a pale complexion with red hair because, well, I hadn’t seen that done. Then something else must have dragged my attention away from her, and it was another challenge to myself that I am still yet to complete.
I’d start again from scratch if I went back to this. The model is too damn cool to not do really, and I’d really like to do her justice. And I think I could nail that green armour now, so maybe this goes a little bit further up the queue. Maybe.
3- The Vostroyan
It has been an age since I worked on a Necromunda Bounty Hunter, and this light conversion (if you can even call it that!) from the Cursed City box was a joy to work on and I was being fancy but then, of all colours to stimy me, it was the red of his coat. I like painting red, and I’d even say I was quite cood at it, but I want to get it right and that just felt like too big an ask here. The idea is that this chap is a Vostroyan who now earns his crust (or crusted corpse starch) in the Underhive and that’s too cool to give up on too!
He’s already high on the list, but I just need to stick my courage to the screwing place (something like that) and get on with him. There’s too much lore in my head that I need this mini to help me express!
4- The Imagifier
Another Sister. This was started as part of my yearly “6 paints” challenges and I never got her finished which is a great shame. Between new projects coming along, and the fact that I was going to be stuck tryingto paint her gun bright blue, I just lost interest.
If I slackened my rules on the colours a little, I think i could have fun with this one. I think the sister above takes precedence though.
5- Word Bearers Contemptor Dreadnought
Talk about overreaching! I was going to, many moons ago, try to paint every single one of the Legion-specific Contemptors and I made a good start with the Iron Warriors and World Eaters dreads getting done in good time. Then I went for the Word Bearers and boy did my enthusiasm fall off a cliff. It’s a lovely model, but, meh, I just don’t like the Word Bearers. That, and it was an expensive project that I’m no longer that interested in completing.
If the bug to paint nothing but Contemptors returns, I will for sure get back to this big guy, but right now… I got nothing. Also, as far as pricey projects go…
6- Epic 40k Revival
Ages ago, I found all of my old Epic stuff from when I was a kid, and I decided to try and revive some of it. And I did! Turns out Contrast Paints made it a rather easy job to do actually. But after getting a few little bits done, I just ended up thinking “What’s the point?”. I always wanted a fun Epic scale army, and they were looking good, but it’s not like I’m going to get a game in any time soon. It’s a right weird little project to be honest, and as fun as it could be, it just didn’t excite me.
For Epic to come back? Or for some friends to get mad into old Epic and ask me to join in a campaign? Anything short of that, and I think these gus will be hanging around unloved for some time to come…
7- Kaptin Badrukk
Oh, Kaptin, my Kaptin! This was going to be a Golden Demon entry a long time ago, but I may have decided to steer clear of the Single 40k Mini category because it’s one of the most fiercely contested. That’s not to say I don’t want to give it a shot, and I may still (albeit with another mini), but despite making a promising start with the greatest Ork pirate ever, I ran into some issues. There is just so much detail on that mini, and it all got a bit overwhelming. I still reckon I can make him look good, but the effort and confidence it would take to do the job I want to do, is monumental. One day…
In order to get me back on this project, I will have to feel in top form with the brush, and I still need to formulate a plan for some of the finer details. This one is definitely a case of “when” and not “if”, but the aforementioned “when” could still be some way off.
8- Chibi Space Marine
I picked up a few of the 40k Chibis when they came out. I had an urge to give this unique kind of model a go in terms of painting, and I even made a start on trying to turn him into a Blood Angel, but other projects (I’ve said that a few times already, I feel) made me put him to one side. As he’s not part of a game, and more of a painting exercise, it’s hard to throw my passion behind it, but I would still like to give Chibi painting a proper go one day.
I dunno. Maybe this will never happen, or maybe, if there’s a Chibi painting competition somewhere one day, I’ll make an effort, but it just feels like there’s no real end goal with this one. An experiement – let’s see if it ever reaches a conclusion.
9- Custodes Character
No, I don’t remember the exact name of this guy. He’s a “Blade-something” right? Maybe? The thing is, if I wanted 1000 points of Custodes, I already have that, but painting this guy came at a time i was trying to make every mini look absolutely perfect and it was this chap that made me realise that that attitude was burning me out. I’d forgotten how to paint for fun, and I was just trying to break myself on every project, and if I’m being honest, it’s still hard not to go down that route. So I guess I already have some mixed feelings about this mini.
If however I get into a 40k gaming mood some time soon, I may well want some Golden Boys on my side, and this would be a fine way to kick off that project. Who knows though. We’ll see.
10- Marshcrawler Sloggoth
When the Kruleboyz were released, I fell in love with this mini. He’s so ugly! Utterly hideous and his lot in life is arduous and ghastly, and yet, I see only a fantastic kit full of flavour and fun. I wanted to paint it up for Demon, but after the first step – the skin, I realised I’d made some mistakes and it didn’t look good and, well, there that dream died. I don’t know how to fix the skin without starting over, but maybe that’s what I’ll have to do to get this going again. It was quite heartbreaking really, when I realised I’d got this all wrong.
For next Demon? Maybe? The one after the upcoming one? It sure would be nice to get this fella all sorted and righted, but I need to up my resurrection game to get him back on track.
Bonus- The Titan
I am getting sick of seeing these pictures of the only armour panels I’ve worked on. It’s embarrassing at this stage really. I always joked that it would be done by 2024 but I may need to revise that at this stage. It’s just so time consuming, and despite how happy I am with the results of what I’ve worked on already, the actual painting intensity makes me a right grumpy git and I don’t like being that person. But I will get it done one day. Just to prove I can.
And there you have them – 11 in total of my unfinished projects, why they remain incomplete, and what it would take for me to get onto going them again. The muse isn’t really with me right now, but I am working on some projects when I get a moment. Fun things, that I need to stick with for the time being until the funk is lifted. In the meantime, I hope you’re having every success with your own projects, and that you are getting lots of lovely toy soldiers done and finished. Onwards!
Hello friends! Well, this has been quite a journey and in a relatively different sort of article, I have been chronicling my painting of Khorne’s hugest and newest servant through photo AND video, as I’ve been spending a long time now painting one of the biggest models I’ve ever worked on – the brand new Ka’bandha from Forge World. Games Workshop were good enough to send me this heckin’ chonkin’ kit, and I’ve been beavering away on it for weeks now. Whenever I had any time, I got my brushes out and recorded my progress, so let’s go back in time to when this all began…
In the beginning…
When G-Dubs contacted me to let me know that they were sending this incredible brute my way, I was very excited. I thought about how all of the Heresy releases coming soon would be in plastic and how much fun I would have. Then it arrived and when I saw the shape and felt the heft of the box, I realised what I was in for. Resin. Now I have no problem with working with resin, but I had rather been looking forward to working on a plastic mini (lol, “mini”) and this of course meant a lot more prep work. Rather than shaving down mould lines, I’d be hacking off big hunks of flash and scrubbing release agent from its surfaces. Here’s the fist of my video diaries…
The wings were a bit of a nightmare. Each wing comes in two parts and these needed a fair amount of gap filling as the two halves of each wing only fit together in a looser sense of the word. Valejo Plastic Putty was a life saver here though, so it took a while, but it was relatively painless. I also pinned the wings in place. In fact, there’s a fair bit of pinning involved with this mini, so be prepared to get the old pin vice to hand for this beast.
The whip was also a bit of a pain, and in all honesty, it would remain a pain all the way through the process of bringing this model to life. There’s plenty more on that, but when you’re building it, for the love of Khorne himself, pin, and get your angles right – I didn’t and so I will forever have one strand of the whip dragging and chipping on tabletops – my bad.
There was a can of Chaos Black, and a can of Mephiston Red and they gave me my starting point when it came to painting – here’s the big fella still drying after he got a coating. Black all over, red just from the top down – that’ll help me with the shadows on his skin at least!
A Wing And A Flayer
So, as mentioned in the first video, I started out with the wings, and boy did they take some doing. Here’s the next video, but you’ll note (as I did) that it almost looks like I’ve done nothing. Thankfully by the time he’s done, they look a bit more complete, but I was happy to get this massive job done early doors. Now, unfortunately, because WordPress have a rubbish video player as default and I can’t be bothered to upload to Youtube and faff around with embedding, my second video entry about the wings won’t display here. But you’ll see them in all the other vids (presuming they work) so not much to cry about there. There was a lot of glazing, some swearing, and I sponged on some fire damage. Oh, and I painted the talons black and then coated them in Ardcoat instead of trying to paint the light effects on – let’s let the actual light do some heavy lifting where we can. When all of that was done, this is what my hand looked like:
With those done. I turned my attention to the axe as it seemed like a fun place to start on the armour and metals. Let’s see if this video works…
So the axe is sorted out! I got that lovely brass colour by working up from a Leadbelcher base, up into Iron Warriors, then a blend of Iron Warriors and Abaddon Black, and then a highlight of Ironbreaker. This is then coated with a thinned down Nazdreg Yellow and there you have it – brass. And with that axe done, I had to then use pretty much the same technique on all of the rest of the armour. This was going to be a slog, but it wasn’t super tough to do. Indeed, by this stage I had the idea of trying to keep this simple so that even people like me who are not fans of painting massive kits, can get some enjoyment out of the whole thing.
Armour, Armour And More Armour
This is something worth bearing in mind if you’re not familiar with working on massive kits like this; they induce fatigue and throughout the project, you will fall out of love with it. Don’t worry, you get the love back at the end, and it’s definitely worth putting the effort in and keeping going, but boy can it be a slog getting to those happy shores.
In another video that failed to upload, I was so tired of painting the armour (and at this stage I had completed one arm and one leg) that I filmed vertically. There are few greater sins in smartphone videography, and I’m actually glad the upload failed (thanks, WordPress) but I’m also happy because I sounded so down on it. I was super exhausted and desperate to work on something different but I was also determined to get this out the door and carry on.
So this was the next video (above) and as fatigued as I sound here, that’s nothing to how I sounded in the video that wouldn’t upload. At least now I was able to laugh about things. Even though I was painting it all in techniques i was familiar with, and that were not too hard, it was really starting to get to me and at this stage, I really only had a week left. It was time to enter…
The Endgame
Happilly, after the above video, when I did get time to work on it, I was working on it like a machine, and that’s what you need for a big hobby product (sorry, calling it a “miniature” just seems silly given its size). I was going at it with the end in sight and then I realised that I needed to have it done by, well, today! The day this post comes out! Here’s where I was just a few hours ago!
So it was time to get cracking! There really wasn’t too much to do, but with only a lunch hour left to get it finished, would I get it done in time? Would I be able to paint something worthy of the Blood God’s praise? Would I get a chance to sneak in a bag of crisps and a piece of toast before I had to get back to my day job?! Let’s find out:
Well, given the photo at the top of this post, that probably wasn’t the reveal I was thinking it would be, but still, you can hear my most recent elation in my voice. And since then, I’ve found a tiny bit of time to upload that last video and write these words. What a journey! Happy that I don’t have to work on him any further, but a little sad to not have the stress and pressure of this project still hanging over me – it really does make you feel alive! Also, you’ll have to forgive any spelling errors in this post. I have had literally two minutes to proof read all of it. 😉
If I had to pick out some highlights, it would be the face and the axe. Both are amazing and for very different reasons. The face is emotive, full of character and it really is the best Khornite set of features I have ever seen. Great work by the sculptors there. And the axe I love because it’s enormous and brutal like you wouldn’t believe. It’s crying out for Blood For The Blood God to be dashed all over it and I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to have fun there.
Lowlights? Well, it’s a big heavy kit that’s got a fiddly whip, but that’s a combination of things I’m not a fan of that others are, and me screwing up the build. I can’t blame either of those things on Forge World, and while this sort of massive miniature is not my cup of tea, some people live for them. If you enjoy it, have at it. If not, you’ve been warned. And I do wish it was plastic, but there’s nothing wrong with a bit of resin from time to time.
I’m now off to go and paint something really small. A Hobbit or a Snotling or something. Something that doesn’t hurt my wrist when I go to pick it up. That’s what I’m dreaming of. Onwards!
P.S. You may notice, those sleuths amongst you, that some of my timing is a bit off. That’s on me – I got the dates wrong in terms of when I was supposed to have this ready by. By about a month. It’s not my fault “June” and “July” look similar. So yes, this has been waiting to go live for some time now, but I quite enjoyed the videos and didn’t want to discard them, and it just shows how quickly you can paint him if you need to, and still make him look passable.
When I was but a slip of a lad (the lad being my Father, and the slip being me), my Dad read me a story – the Hobbit. I’m sure many other lucky boys and girls had a similar experience growing up, and there are a lot of people who still love Tolkien’s work today because of experiences like that. My Dad (and mum – she was better at story telling, but my dad did the voices better) read me a few pages every night for a few weeks until I dropped off and fell asleep. I was a very lucky boy indeed.
It is now many (many… many many… many many many…) years later and my Dad’s birthday is coming up. He’s notoriously hard to buy gifts for as he doesn’t really cling on to too many material possessions and his preferred ways to pass his time are free or cost little (walking, drinking coffee, more walking…) and his typical response to “What would you like for your birthday?” Is “Peace and quiet”. Well, it was his typical response until the year when I bought him a can of peas and a blank cassette tape. We both have a silly sense of humour so this was appreciated.
So when I asked him this year, his response surprised me, somewhat. “Why don’t you paint me one of those little monsters you paint?” was the newest answer to the gift question and it was definitely not one that I was expecting.
Now don’t get me wrong, my dad has always been at least vaguely supportive of my hobby, but it’s never really been something he’s had a great interest in. He bought me some Airfix kits when I was wee, and he and I used to play chess a fair bit together when I was younger (we stopped after I started to defeat him), but Toy Soldiers were something he quietly admired but cared not much for. He liked the history of toy soldiers, but has never really cared for the things himself.
So what was I going to paint for him? I toyed with the idea of a Space Marine – a Space Wolf specifically as my father’s thick strawberry blond hair and beard (which he still has at 72 – please let me have that part of his genes!) would fit the look of that chapter. Then I toyed with the idea of Monster of some sort – that had been part of his response, but I think he just generally refers to minis as “monsters” so there was no need to go and pick up a massive dragon kit to knock out.
And then, as I have been rewatching the Hobbit films recently, I had the idea to work on Gandalf and Bilbo, the stars of that book. I still have the copy of the book that my dad bought to read to me over 30 years ago too, and that sat with me on the workbench as I got to work creating a little bit of Middle Earth for this gift.
I’ll do a full post on how I created the base because I have some photos and I’m really happy with it, but that was the first thing. I got out one of my larger plinths, and created a stone staircase, perhaps somewhere in the foothills of the Misty Mountains, or on the road to Rivendell, to be my setting. It’s maybe a little bigger than I needed it to be – I’ve never worked on any Middle Earth minis, so their slightly reduced scale wasn’t fixed firmly in my mind yet. But I think it works nicely enough.
So it turns out, I love painting Middle Earth minis! They’re so teeny! And I’m not just talking about the hobbits either. That slightly smaller scale just seems to work really well with how I like to paint in blends and glazes, and not having to worry too much about the eyes is a blessing too. Gandalf was a symphony of greys with a dirty finish, while I used the films as a loose basis for Bilbo, and I’m particularly happy with the coat, but really, all of it was enjoyable to paint. There was a bit where Bilbo really started to look like Martin Freeman which was cool, but a little “uncanny valley” too, but I got over that pretty fast.
It’s safe to say that after this experience, I will definitely be painting some more Middle Earth minis. Not sure what yet, but I’ve got a bunch of elves in the to-do pile that should be pretty fun to paint, and I’m hoping I’ve got some time to work on a few of these projects soon. Fingers crossed!
Anyway, that’s the story of why I have painted Gandalf and Bilbo, and I hope you enjoyed that. I hope my Dad does too – they’ll be in his hands very soon (don’t worry – he doesn’t really do the internet so I won’t be spoiling it for him here). Until the next post, I hope you get to do a lovely bit of hobbying as well, and that you get to work on some fun projects that mean something to you. Onwards!
Hello fellow Heresy fans! If you’re anything like me, you’re positively giddy about the new incarnation of Space-Marine-Fight sorry, I mean Horus Heresy and Games Workshop were good enough to send me the new Liber Hereticus and Liber Astartes books to review and that’s what I’m going to do right here, right now.
First off, no, I’m not going to go through every single rule and points change – there are plenty of other people out there far better suited to that sort of thing than I. No, instead, I’m going to give you a general overview of these books, and tell you about my experiences building an army with them. I’ll start with the very first thing that I noticed…
8 pounds. No, not pounds sterling (£), but instead, lbs (mass). Both of these books together weigh more than the average baby born in the UK (which is around 7.4 to 7.8 pounds). That’s 3.6kg for those of you using the new-fangled (and far more sensible) metric system, or 2,048 drams for the obtuse amongst you. That’s massive! However you want to measure it, this pair of books will put a bow in your bookcase and will likely be the cause of several slipped discs among delivery drivers.
Technically, this isn’t anything new in the Heresy – the old Black books and Red books weighed a lot too, but as I’ve not rolled a scatter dice in anger for a couple of years now, these hefty tomes had me taken aback. However, one is unlikely to be hauling these books about to tournaments, but instead, one gets the impression that they’re going to be used more as reference material for people to build lists and cheat sheets from at home. If you’re in a gaming group that meets regularly and you want to play some Heresy, it’s probably only the book collector of the group that need pick these up, while the rest of you borrow them for brief spells to concoct your armies.
That being said, they are very nice books. They serve a similar purpose to the Indexes that arrived with 8th Edition 40k, in that they contain a vast amount that will be relevant to more than just one army. If GW had tried to put out 18 different codex-like books (something that the HH game has never had), we’d be waiting until 2032 for this game. But along with all of the “vanilla” unit types that all armies can take, and their associated rules and points costs, there is some lovely model photography, illustration, and lore available here, along side rules for all of the legion-specific units in their own legion-specific sections in the second half of the book.
These books also make it clear that rules will also be released in White Dwarf, via PDFS from the GW website, and “other sources” in the future, so hopefully this means that the Horus Heresy will not be belaboured by the constant battletome/codex-release schedule which some feel is starting to hamper AoS and 40k. If all is as it seems, you can bag these books, and any new rules will come at a minimum of expense – welcome news indeed in this more-pricy-than-most game.
Now, I have a Heresy army, my Blood Angels, and I wanted to see how easy it was to use these books to put together a list for my force. So I made myself a strong coffee, did some stretching exercises, and hauled one of these books onto the table.
Firstly, it is so much nicer having the points costs written on the page with the unit entry. You forget how much you miss things like this. I know the data cards in 40k look nice, and they have the “power level” value on them, but us old fogeys of the game like points and gosh-darnit, it’s just nice to not have to flick backwards and forwards between the unit-build rules and an index of point costs. If I could bring one thing back from old 40k to new 40k, it might well be this.
I was tripped up on my first try though. I have a Praetor in Cataphractii armour who is armed with a combi-melta and when I looked down the list, I saw that we now have “magna-combi” and “minor-combi” weapons. Hmmm. One could guess by the name that the old combi-melta would fit in the “magna” section, but it did take me a little while to find the answer to this. Now, some will have no issue at all, but with so much packed into these books, and with the big rulebook as well, it did take some searching to find the weapon profiles. Once found, I think this makes sense and helps to declutter the page a bit – the stronger combi-weapons now cost a few more points than the softer ones, and that’s all fair and dandy.
It was a breeze going through the rest really. When I got to my Company Champion, I was able to flick over to the Blood Angels section of the book and equip him with a Blade of Perdition with very little fuss. I did get slightly confused when I reached the Javelin Speeder as it makes no mention of its Cyclone Missile Launcher in the wargear section, but it does say you can replace said weapon with others further down the page. In books this size, if that’s the only editorial snafu that I could find, I think GW have done very well there indeed.
I was able to easily find the Rite of War I wanted to take, and a warlord trait too. Maybe it’s because this is so close to the Warhammer that I’ve played for most of my life, but it really was a lot easier to put an army together here than it has been using the most recent Codexes for 40k. In no time at all, I had put a 1997 point army together, and I had a keenness to get it ready for the battlefield too. There was a great sense of fun about putting the list together, and it just made me want to get gaming again.
After working on my Blood Angel list, I then tried to create a Thousand Sons army with units I’m far less familiar with and it was still a breeze. I really want to emphasise how well put together these books are – as long as you know of the old ways, they’re novice friendly, and a treat for veterans too. It’s nice having all these rules and units in the same place.
So, Ich liber the libers and I must confess that days after receiving them, I’m still enjoying flicking through them and putting lists together. I hope the Ad Mech, Auxillia and Daemon fans get their rules soon so we can all play together on these new battlefields. These are great books, but as mentioned, they feel like they’re more designed for list building at home than hauling them to games. Just make sure you get all the special rules you need written down on your cheat sheets! More Heresy content will be coming soon to Heresy & Heroes so stay tuned for that. Onwards!
Hello friends! It’s the exciting day when the brand new boxed set of the Horus Heresy game goes up for pre-order, and Games Workshop were good enough to send me a copy of this incredible box for review. As many seasoned readers will know, I have been a fan of this game since its inception, and I have over 2000 points of IXth legion to show it. That being said, because of that pesky pandemic and all of my other commitments, I haven’t been able to play a game of it in quite some time. Therefore, if you want an in-depth review of this game from a seasoned and hardcore HH player, there will be better places for you to go. With that being said though, I am going to do an unboxing here, and I’ll take you through some highlights from the book, followed by 10 observations that I have made based on my first impressions of this release. So join me in this personal look through this summer’s must-have hobby box.
Unboxing
And what a box it is. It’s a chonky one which I dare say will come with a hefty price-tag (if you weren’t expecting to have to fork out for this one, you’re living in dreamland), but it certainly has plenty of allure to it. The artwork is thrilling, the cardboard glossy, and while this offers a shiny new toy to those venturing into “30k” for the first time, seasoned gamers will very much enjoy the “Army in a box” plus rules combo that this set provides. Now let’s get stuck in.
Whippy sticks!!!
…huh-hmm. Straight to the plastic! I’ll stop making that comment in these reviews one day, but it’s worth reiterating here that I love this approach. No extra boxes or sheets of card to remove – you open the box, and get straight to the good stuff. There is a huge amount of plastic here, and all of it looks fantastic, including the whippy sticks, which are a real blast from the past that’s very much welcome here. But here’s how much plastic is in the box:
Now that’s a pretty good haul, and there’s a lot of cool things in there that I’ll cover in my observations later on, but that really is an army in a box – very easily over 1000 points. Very nice.
Below that we have a nice bit of card (that has an advert for some other plastic heresy kits on the other side of it. And beyond that…
We have the big book. This is really the biggest win for this release. Just having the core rules for this game has been a pain for a while now, and the fact that I can finally put my 7th Edition 40k rulebook away, is a great relief. It’s a mighty tome at around 330 pages, and it’s all sorts of pretty too. Again, we’ll look at this a little more later on.
Tucked away beneath the cardboard inserts that hold the book in place, we have a bunch of bases, some transfers, dice and construction guides – all the useful stuff that rarely gets any press.
Lastly, bound up with the book, are some very useful cheat sheets, and another advert to convince you to read the Horus Heresy books.
And I’m spent. It’s a glorious box full of gorgeous things that really get the hobby centre of the brain whirring away. 10/10 – well done, GW. Unboxing this one is glorious, and those whippy sticks really are the cherry on top. Now, let’s take a look through that massive book…
The Book
As much as you may be looking to pick this up for the toy soldiers, the book really makes it for me. As mentioned, my 7th Ed rulebook can now spend time gathering dust, as finally the Horus Heresy has its own rulebook. That really is a big deal. For all of those beautiful black books, and those useful red books of yesteryear, as lovely as they were, not having an actual basic rulebook really was a barrier for entry into the game. This solves that problem, and it solves it in style. As we might expect in this golden age of GW publications, this is one heck of a book.
Here’s the contents page and it’s a familiar running order of what we’ve got to look forward to. There’s a bucket load of lore, as one might expect for a setting that easily rivals the other big games in GW’s stable in terms of how much has been written about it. Then there’s a decently sized core rules section, some example armies, some campaigns, and the ever-handy appendixes. I always thought 6th edition 40k was one of the best rulebooks ever put together, but this book may take that crown because it’s concise (yes, it can be concise at 330 pages) and yet lavish (it is 330 pages after all). Here are some of my personal highlights…
Thanks to the ever-popular and extensive Horus Heresy books series from Black Library, there’s already plenty of artwork to draw on for this publication, and it has been used well, but there’s plenty of new art, cartography and model shots too. The look of this book is stunning and there are so many pretty pictures to enjoy within these pages. Every Primarch gets a portrait, the galaxy is comprehensively mapped, models are made to look marvellous, and even the incidental illustrations are illuminating. This book is very much a looker.
One particularly enjoyable illustration is the “Vitruvian Space Marine” which highlights all the augmentations of the Astartes, and yet is censored enough to leave us continuing to wonder if the average Space Marine hangs dong or not. Seriously though, this is a fun one, and I appreciate the nod to Leonardo’s many legged man. But this is of course indicative of something else that this book does wonderfully – tell you about Space Marines. This is a game of Space Marines of course (I know there are others, but come on, it’s about Space Marines) and if this is your favoured faction, then you will want to own this book. You’ve got well over a hundred pages telling you all you need to know of their origins and changes through the years.
Every legion gets a look in too, with several pages devoted to where they come from, their Primarch, how they wage war and what they look like. I of course have been very much enjoying the Blood Angels section, but whatever flavour of legion you favour, you’ll have something to enjoy.
The rules section is well rounded and sensible, and I’ve not the brain to over-analyse all of that, but I’ll touch on it later. The example armies (about 50% of which seem to have been painted by the machine that is Mark Bedford) are great fun to look at, and the campaign section is full of fun scenarios to play around with. Honestly, this is a cracker of a book, and even if you’ve not the budget or inclination to pick up the big box, the rulebook alone is well worth your time and money.
John’s Observations
1 – Split Shoulder pads – why?
Given that this review has been overtly positive so far, let’s kick my observations off with a bit of an annoyance (and also because it’s one of the first things I noticed). The studded shoulder pads, so much a part of the mark of armour represented in this box, each one come in two pieces with a split running right down the middle. Why? I appreciate that this likely had something to do with how the sprue frame worked in the mould, but if this was the best fix the designer of this sprue could figure out, it’s lazy. We’ve had all manner of things on shoulder pads, so if it was the studs that caused this design quirk, I call laziness. Each one will require a touch up for the perfectionists out there.
2 – The Plastic Spartan
I own a Spartan (well, now I suppose I own 2), but that was one of the old resin ones, which effectively came in three hefty (and pricy) chunks. The new plastic one is almost unnerving in that it fits on a few sprues. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan, but it’s just kind of odd seeing like this. Great work to the team who split that into its plastic components – this’ll save a lot of fans from a lot of resin mould lines and gap filling!
3 – The Contemptor – what a stunner
I’ve built more than a few Contemptors in my time, and it’s a model I’ve always adored, but the old plastic version was, well, static and dull. This new one though looks like it will be a delight to work with. The flexibility and possibility has been made part of the kit and lots of different weapon options being included is a real treat. I may well be picking up a few more of these in the future!
4 – Details mean fiddly bits?
The two new character minis are both delightful. They look splended, but the kits look overly fiddly to me. Both of them have tiny folds of cloth – part of their cloaks – that come separate from the rest of the cloaks. Again, this is almost certainly down to fitting the cloak on the sprue, but again, especially because they’re such small slithers of cloak, it just seems lazy. But like I said, both characters look amazing – excellent praetors the pair of them, but boy am I not looking forward to all those mould lines. Not to mention my fat fingers snapping or bending some of those tiny pieces. Surely there must be a way to get the details in there without the needlessly flimsy and fiddly bits?
5 – Incidental art, or actual clues?
As I was leafing through this lavish tome, one piece of incidental art caught my eye and I wonder if it hints at something coming in the future – a new Terminator kit? The classic 40k Terminators are really starting to show their age, especially next to the newer plastic Horus Heresy alternatives, and this little illustration made me think of much older Terminators and how this game may well be the best way to introduce a classical design in modern plastic. Only Tyberos sports a similarly studded aesthetic these days, and were I a betting man, I think this might be something we get soon. It would certainly be more welcome than bloody Saturnine armour.
6 – Example images
As I was reading through the rules section, it just struck me that something GW has always done really well, and that they never seem to get credit for, are the example images when illustrating how movement, line of sight, squad coherency and other things like this work. As I stared at the images of these new marines from a top down angle with various arrows and measurements illustrated beside them, it took me back to 2nd Ed 40k, all those years ago. These shots are as useful now as they were then, and I just think they’re neat. Well done to the team who included these.
7 – The sneaky Spartan
I just think this pair of images look really funny. It’s like the Spartan has coyly sidestepped over to hide a little more. Perhaps it’s feeling a little bashful.
8 – Universal Special Rules
Oh how I have missed these. I know they’ve always been part of HH, but I miss them in 40k, and to a lesser extent in AoS. I’d rather a model just had “5+ Invulnerable Save” than “Special Helmet of Shininess” that, when you read the description, tells you it confers a 5+ Invulnerable Save. It’s just also nice that my years learning about Blind, Move Through Cover, Slow And Purposeful, It Will Not Die and others, have not been wasted. It’s nice to see them printed again here and I understand and remember them all with fondness in an age of “Spiky cloak of redness”, “FT1084 Drone” and “Laser field” which all mean the same thing but they have different names (and invariably they’ll all confer a 5+ Invulnerable Save.
9 – Reactionary Opinion!
Reactions look really fun, and I’m looking forward to trying them out. Some of them seem familiar, but others look new to me, and I’m interested in seeing how the mechanic works out. It’s nice to see a game so grounded in tradition still find the scope to evolve and improve. Nice one, rules team.
10 – Whippy sticks still hurt
Yep, I had to test them out, and they do indeed still sting like they did when I was a lad. Many a friend or sibling will get the occasional thrashing with these and that’s exactly how it should be. Having these lethal weapons back in play makes the world seem right again.
Conclusions
So there you have it. A bit of a monster post from me, and I hope it has in some way helped to keep you informed, though I imagine there will likely be a thousand other reports and insightful write ups or videos that are probably better than mine. But if you still come here to Heresy and Heroes, you come, in part, for the expulsions from my brain, and this has certainly been one of those.
It’s a cracking box, full of wonderful things, and I think it’s a great entry point to Heresy for newbies, and for us fogeys, it’s a great excuse to start a new army or add to our existing forces. Top tier release with very little to gripe about, and it’s damn good to put the Heresy back into Heresy and Heroes again. Onwards!
Well, there you have it. The reason why my hobby has been a bit quiet of late. A dual between a noble dwarf, and a warpstone-crazed skaven. This one has been long in the making, and while I’m relieved it’s done, I’m not as happy with it as I hoped I would be. Not unhappy, but a long way from giddy. Let me explain…
So, a long time ago now, I had the idea for this piece. A dwarf vs a rat, with the former looking prepared and poised, and the latter leaping maniacally into the fight. I thought it would be a fun exercise in contrasting warriors, but it took a lot of work to get there. When it began, it was a stream of lava, and I had a Fyreslayer, big axe raised, charging in, but I switched the stuntier warrior for a couple of reasons. First off, I couldn’t get on with painting the slayer. I don’t know why, but I couldn’t get his hair or skin to blend smoothly, and the runes on his body were getting lost. So I ditched him in favour of a more classical dwarf. This meant doing away with the lava, which also made me a bit happier as I was being rather indecisive about whether or not that would produce a glow, and what that would mean for my painting. When I switched that to a swamp, the whole piece started to roll forward. I started this about a year ago, and it was only 3 months back that I started working on this iteration of the miniatures.
It’s been a lot of fun, but it has stollen all of my effort and attention. The idea came into my brain probably 2 years back, and once I’d worked out the particulars, I have been very much laser-focussed on the project. Because I just needed it done, but with Golden Demon coming around again this year, I had half a thought that it might be good enough to enter, so I wasn’t rushing anything.
But I don’t think this is good enough for that sort of stage. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t hate it, and while there are some bits of this that I really like, there’s too much I don’t. That being said, it’s only my second ever duel, and I learned much and had a lot of fun, so it’s been a very useful jumping off point. I’ve got another silly idea for the next one, so stay tuned for that!
The plus points? I really like the dwarf’s beard, and the gem stones on him are, by and large, a step up for me. On the rat, the red armour works very nicely, and that green glow on the eyes is something I really like. To be honest, I think 25% of this is top drawer.
There are too many mistakes though. My metallics don’t pop enough, the banner, while a fun addition is all wrong. I had thought about doing something more in keeping with my freehand style but I bottled it when I couldn’t find an image I wanted to transpose. Instead, I borrowed the design from some classic art, and while it’s fine, it’s also lacking. There’s a lot more I’m not happy with, but maybe 25% is enough to be happy about for now.
Other plus points to come out of this include my renewed enjoyment of Skaven – they are a lot of fun and I want more in my life. I enjoyed the duel format – even if I don’t think this story is told we’ll enough, I like the added challenge of trying to tell a story between two minis. And if I’m being honest, I’m so relieved that it’s done and that I get to look at something else now. I’ve got some big things on the horizon, and it’ll be good to pay attention to those for a spell for sure.
Thanks for taking the time to check it out. It was fun, and while I’m a little dissatisfied, I’m more than happy that it’s now done and finished. Oh the joys of being a perfectionist with lacking skills 😉 Onwards we go.
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