Reaver Titan!

 

Following on the heels of last week's Titan Banners, I can't wait to try my hand at mimicking the banner placement and paint schemes of these classic Titans.  Now if only I could find some Reavers and Warhounds for sale that cost less than a used car...

WH40K 2nd Edition Army Challenge II - March Completed!

Scout Squad Rhellion 

It's probably not obvious from the quality of these photos but I think these minis rank among the best painting I've done on my collection so far.

It is very exciting to be engaged in the second season of the 40k2ndAC.  Not only were these scouts my favorite models to paint in the challenge so far, I also reached a personal goal in the first month of the second season and finished this unit several days before the entry was due.  No more midnight emails to Dr The Viking on the day of the deadline or not painting the back of the backpacks , this entry was actually submitted a full 36 hours before the cutoff.  Follow along after the jump for more photos of these great looking sculpts...

Cover Gallery - White Dwarf #118

Was Advanced Heroquest More Or Less Advanced Than Advanced Dungeons And Dragons? Discuss...

Twelve Days Of The Deathwing - Day Twelve

The Waiting Is The Hardest Part...

The last model to be featured for the proposed Deathwing project is one of my favorites and also, in a another bit of synchronicity, the character model for my 40K2ndAC II 1,000 point army.  This beautifully sculpted Terminator Librarian dates to the era of Rogue Trader but was present in many 2nd Edition and even 3rd edition studio armies.  These highly detailed Terminator character models always held my fascination when they were featured in White Dwarf and I am very excited to finally get to paint one of my own after a 30 year wait.  It is also fitting to have the last entry in this series be a classic and gorgeous model that is both long time wish fulfillment and is detailed enough to field beside modern Terminators (after some sleight heightening is added in the pre-production process).  There will be posts in the future as these models get painted and join my ever growing 1st Legion, so for the current state of the project of updates in the future just click the tab for the Deathwing page above.  Also in case anyone was keeping track, this series I started to coincide with the twelve days after Christmas actually wrapped up in mid March which is about par for this blog ;-)  Thanks for reading and stay safe out there!

This picture's imprint on my teenage brain is the thing driving my excitement to finally paint a Terminator character model from this bygone era.

Titan Banners

 War Griffons, Stormlords, Morning Stars, And Flaming Skulls

I love these vintage banners from Codex Titanicus so much I might paint one of my two Epic scale Warlord Titans as a Morning Star or War Griffon just so I can use these banners.  That original Jes Goodwin art of the Titans with their kill banners hanging from their weapon arms has always been a big part of my love of Epic so I'm excited at the chance to finally try and model my own interpretation.  Please feel free to avail yourself of the above image if you would like to print out and paint some Titan banners of your own and enjoy the vintage Adeptus Titanicus fiction that is printed alongside.

Twelve Days Of The Deathwing - Day Eleven

 Galactic Synergy

The next project on deck is a level of synchronicity that occurs for painters only during periods of rare interplanetary alignment.  The unpainted member of the Deathwing shown above will be my April entry for the 40K2ndAC II while also being the first terminators I will be painting as part of my project to get some units that are currently good in the "meta" into my army that will hopefully see some use on the tabletop as things seem to be improving here in the states.  Follow along after the jump for more words and a Deathwing project update.

Cover Gallery - White Dwarf #117 Back Cover

White Dwarf #117 Back Cover 

This amazing diorama was definitely one of the hooks that drew me into a love of the WH40K universe.  The use of 28mm figures on the top and 6mm figures one the bottom gave the impression you were seeing a blow-up of the same scene (even though no Space Wolves are in the lower photo).  Throw in that one of the figures in the upper illustration is the first primarch to be made as a mini, Leman Russ, and this diorama scores 5 out of 5 on the coolness scale.  Feel free to stare into the wonder for as long as you need to, my 13 year old self is still gazing and imaging all the things I could do if I owned all these models ;-)
 

WH40K 2nd Edition Army Challenge II March WIP

 Squad Rhellion Inches Towards Completion

The blending and highlighting are almost complete so I'm hoping to wrap up this squad by the weekend.  That way I can submit my entry before this month's deadline and begin work on next month's miniatures well ahead of schedule.  These scouts have been so much fun to paint and I'm really enjoying picking out all the details on these classic metal sculpts.  Thanks for reading!

#Dadgoals - The Battle Is Joined

 Beware The Ides Of March...

My son started collecting his first official 40K army back in the fall and he chose the elite Space Marines of the Deathwatch.  They are a perfect army for a ten year old I think, due to the low model count and ability to arm them with any thing that takes your fancy.  By February he had enough forces assembled and painted so that we could get in his first game with his new forces.  We still played with 8th edition rules, since my update to 9th edition had not arrived in the mail yet.  He placed the scatter terrain and we used my recently completed table tiles in all their wooded wonder.  As per usual he won handily, his small Deathwatch force laying waste to the numerically superior Red Corsairs.  My only moral victory was that the Predator won the tank duel and destroyed his Land Raider.  Once I digest all the 9th edition rules we are excited to start a Crusade campaign so hopefully I'll have some updates on that situation this spring.  Thanks for reading!

The WH40K 2nd Edition Army Challenge II Has Begun!

 

A little behind on our promotional work since the challenge was kicked off at the start of March, but better late than never even when it comes to the ephemeral world of WH40K blogs.  There are 24 challengers this time so that means double the amount of fun that we all had last time, and so many more cool models for the spectators to take a look at. Head over to Dr The Viking's site to check out the starting point for the participant's projects.

WH40K 2nd Army Challenge Link

Cover Gallery - White Dwarf #117

 The Beginning...

So while it seems crazy to post the cover of a White Dwarf that is a truncated version of the banner picture you can see every time you load this page, there is a method to my madness.  I recently picked up a few more classic issues of White Dwarf to add to my collection and combined with the recent publication of Herohammer fanzine, I was inspired for a new feature on the blog.  I have mentioned many times how pivotal these old issues of White Dwarf were in kindling my lifelong love of the hobby, so I have decided to utilize my scanning abilities and feature the covers of these amazing magazines from my youth.  As cool as many of the front covers are, the back covers in those early days were really amazing.  I spent so may hours staring at the dioramas the 'Eavy Metal team would create thinking about the narrative established by the image and how I'd love to be able to own/paint the miniatures pictured.  I used the first of these cover diorama scans to promote Herohammer's premiere this week and I will be featuring a scan every week to highlight the front and back of these fantastic periodicals.

White Dwarf #117 was the second issue I ever purchased but given the subject nature of my blog and army collecting you can see what an influence this one issue had on me.  My scanner is perceptive enough to catch the wear and tear of thirty years on this illustration when compared to the banner pic above so you can see what a well loved gem this was in my collection.  Someday I would like to do in depth reviews of the contents of each issue but I think I'll need my kids to go to college before I have that much free time on my hands to do the reviews justice, so for now I'll just settle for highlighting the covers.  Thanks for reading along and stay safe out there!

The Herohammer Strikes!

 Remembering When...

White Dwarf #128 Back Cover Diorama

After several months of hard work, the first issue of Herohammer magazine, the unofficial fanzine of early 90's White Dwarf has been released and it's amazing!  Be sure to check out the link below where you can read or download the issue.  It is packed with more than 90 pages of content that includes Battle Reports, 'Eavy Metal, and even a spotlight article about the 40K2ndAC.  This fantastic product is the labor of love from a great group of amateur contributors (that includes the mysterious Dr The Viking) and is well worth the read if your White Dwarf sweet spot is between issues #100 - #200.  

Click Here For Issue #1 of Herohammer

Revenge Of Old Stuff Day!

The Blog Feature That Wouldn't Die...

When reading over my post from Tuesday, besides the inevitable spelling and word errors I found after publishing I realized I left out a couple more blogs I wanted to be sure to highlight.  These blogs are both great reads and their authors are very supportive commenters in the WH40K blogging community.  They are also both Dark Angels players, as were several of the authors of Tuesday's links, strange how that happens ;-)

First up is St Andrew's wargaming, a great blog that has really informative reviews of rules, codexes, and models for both WH40K and Horus Heresy, plus some cool battle reports as well.  For a highlighted post I am once again not going too far back, but I am spotlighting a post that I missed earlier this year, a wonderfully painted full Primaris Dark Angels army:

The other blog I wanted to be sure to highlight is the 262nd Death Korps of Krieg.  This is an awesome blog whose author collects and paints Adeptus Titanicus, the aforementioned elite Imperial Guard formation, plus my favorite: Dark Angels armies in both 40K and 30K.  I am desperate to get involved in the world of WH30K but my model backlog is such that the project to paint my Age of Darkness army is several years off so I have to live vicariously through those who are already playing the game.  DAM, author of 262nd DKoK, has constructed a well though out and beautifully painted WH30K 1st Legion army and the post below will show off some gorgeous Dark Angels dreads he painted for Dreadtober back in 2019:

Thanks for rejoining for a few more interesting reads and stay safe everyone.

Old Stuff Day 2021

Celebrating Hobby Gold From Around The Blogosphere That May Have Been Overlooked...

One of my goals this year with my hobby was to participate in more community events like painting challenges (Dreadtober, 40K2ndAC II, etc) but today's post is actually another kind of community participation: Old Stuff Day!  Invented a few years ago to highlight great posts from around the blogosphere that may have been overlooked or were just awesome and could use some more looks.  My research did not go super deep this year, but follow along after the jump for some great blog articles I've read in the last year or more...