Reinforcements Inbound - Warp Fiends Helbrute

It's been nearly a year since my last post.
Fatherhood, work and all other aspects of real life have conspired to push hobby time into the background.
However here I am posting and hoping to ease myself back into a little painting and modelling over the next few months.

I still have nuclear renaissance gangs to finish and the rumoured upcoming release of a chaos codex late in 2016 has given me a little kick to start work on the Warp Fiends again.

For Starters here is a dreadnought / Helbrute that I actually purchased off eBay for greggles tabletops excellent 'dreadtober' event last year.
Unfortunately he never arrived in time for me to get him painted and entered into the competition.

This old, rather awkward mini was well in need of replacement by the time the new plastic brutes arrived, although to my eyes he has a certain dated charm, perhaps coloured by a nostalgia for my younger years!

At least he's got a decent loadout with reaper autocannon and the  power scourge, plus he makes a nice mini - centerpiece for my otherwise all infantry CSM at the moment.

Thanks for stopping by, hopefully less than 10 months till my next post!

Warp Fiends - Slaaneshi Sorcerer

Got my Sorcerer painted up. Pretty pleased with how he turned out in the end.

The disparity of bits used definitely makes him a tad 'incoherant' looking as a mini but if anyone can get away with it surely it's a Warp twisted magician?
A heavy coat of nuln oil certainly helped to disguise many a hobby sin.

Might have to make him my Warlord!

I think will run him as a level 3 psyker with mark of slaanesh (rolling once on telepathy and twice on slaanesh), spell familiar for the excellent rerolls,  An aura of dark glory (5++) force stave and combi bolter.    

WIP - Chaos Space Marine Sorcerer

Just a quick update with what I've been messing around with, a slaaneshi sorcerer for my Warp Fiends CSM warband, along with a Spell familiar.

Not so much an 'inspired conversion' as much as having both a leftover noise marine body and a grim determination to stick bits onto it until it looked wizardy enough!

I'm well aware the combi bolter is a bit of a crap equipment choice rules wise, as I'm paying 3pts to lose my 'free' pistol and CCW attack in return for a very marginal increase in firepower.... I just thought it looked cool.

Spell familiars seem to be a must have for any self respecting evil space wizard so I quickly knocked one of those up from a skink's head, a Genestealer's claw and a Skaven tail, I think he looks a bit like a fish out of water!

Hopefully I'll have a painted mini to show soon...

Warps Fiend CSM - Noise Marines

Here are the latest fruits of my labour, a six strong squad of Noise marines.

I picked up these minis second hand on eBay mainly as all six had noise marine sonic backpacks, including one of the large doom siren packs from the emperors children Lord mini.

The picture wasn't great but at the end of the day I was getting five of the current design of metal sonic blasters, a blastmaster and the aforementioned backpacks at a reasonable price.

The second generation of noise marines were multi part metals with 'all-slaaneshi' parts, I have managed to pick up a couple of these for the cool bits, a champion body was used in the CSM squad in my previous post, and some bits I used in this squad.

Unfortunately the way games workshop packages noise marines these days is either a arm/weapon pack of sonic blasters and a blastmaster, or alternatively a bits pack with one paltry backpack to represent a doom siren, one of each sonic gun, a power sword, three heads and a torso. This, for me anyway, would be prohibitively expensive to create a squad with enough of the 'good stuff' to look how I wanted.

I decided to take the plunge, if the bodies were junk (there was no way of knowing from the fuzzy snap) I would still have a nice horde of slaaneshi bits, but when the box arrived I was in for a pleasant surprise...

The miniatures had been skilfully chopped about with some great conversion work seamlessly mixing chaos and loyalist bits but had not been painted. Each marine also had a nice touch in the form of an 'eye of horus' / black legion pauldron which doesnt really match the imagined fluff for this warband but who cares!

The champion had a cool left handed sonic blaster conversion, which unfortunately appears not to be a legal option in the current codex.

Of course to make them feel 'my own' I had to do a bit more conversion work, admittedly much more minor bits and bobs but hopefully enough to make something personal and slightly more in keeping with the look I had originally envisioned for the squad.

Sorry for the long preamble but I didn't feel right taking all the credit for some nice conversion work by someone with much more talent by me!

First up are two noise marines with sonic blasters that I left alone and just painted up as I received them, Im not sure which chaos mini the flayed skin face body is from (fabius biles enhanced bodyguard perhaps?) but I like it a lot, the other guy has the amusing gimp mask head.

Next is the champion, originally he was the squads icon bearer, with a well executed single handed pose for his sonic blaster, which I used on one of the following marines, and a weird blindfolded head. 

I tilted the model forward changing the pose from leaning backwards, supported by the pole to charging forwards, added the big doom siren pack, along with a doom siren head from the older generation mini, a bolt pistol arm and the tip from an old rogue trader grey knight terminator halberd to make a power lance out of the banner pole. 

The power lance seems like a particularly apt weapon for a slaaneshi warrior, both aesthetically and rules wise.

Next up the squads blastmaster, all I did with him was to change the backpack to the older generation version, the look I was going for being a specific backpack for each type of sonic weapon, it also helps to differentiate him from the regular dudes.

The first of the final two noise marines just received a different head from the older generation, needing a little ball of greenstuff to act as a neck. The second marine was the previous owners champion, with the doom siren pack and a cool if a little unbalanced looking left handed sonic blaster, held outstretched like a pistol, I removed these and I put on a different backpack and the converted sonic blaster arm from the standard bearer, along with a bolt pistol wielding lower left arm.

I was somewhat apprehensive when it came to painting these guys not only due to the sheer amount of trim and detail on the models but also in my ability to create a bright and contrasting colour scheme that didn't look an utter mess! 

It seems to me that when it comes to painting slaanesh there's a very fine line between what works and what looks frankly silly but In the end I chickened out and painted them in a very similar scheme to the rest of my Warp fiends, but with less black armour and lighter blues, purples and pinks, as a squad I'm pretty happy with the result but an unintended side effect is that at a gaming distance they have less obvious contrasting colours and actually look a lot less bright and colourful than my quickly and shoddily painted Havocs, which wasn't the idea at all.... Oh well, I'm not too annoyed about the warband lacking uniformity across different squads as, well, it's kinda fitting and chaotic isn't it?

"Right then brothers, we have decided to cast aside our vows to the emperor, and instead dedicate our lives to destroying all order wherever it can be found and worshipping pure, unbridled chaos.....Now everyone repaint your armour red and black..."

Anyway completing this squad also marks a milestone for the warp fiends... I now have a playable force, albeit only at a 750pt skirmish level, with a HQ, two troops and two heavy support; and to prove it I have a list (!) and a crappy flash group shot...

-1- Chaos lord (65) w/ mark of slaanesh (15) terminator armour (40) combi melta (7) & lightning claw ( 5) - 132pts

-2- Noise Marines x6 (112) champion w/ gift of mutation (10) power lance (15) & doom siren (15) blast master (30) x3 sonic blasters (6) - 191pts

-3- Chaos Marines x6 (88) Meltagun (10) mark of slaanesh (12) - 110pts

-4- Havocs x6 (88) champion w/power sword (15) x3 Lascannon (60) Missile launcher (15) & x1 close combat weapon (2) - 180pts

-5- Havocs x6 (88) champion w/plasma pistol (15) x2 Heavy bolters (20) Autocannon (10) Plasma gun (15) -  148pts

Total - 761pts

Next stop Nuclear renaissance... 

Reinforcements inbound - Warp Fiends squad

Despite my lack of blog updates I've actually been doing quite a bit on the hobby front recently.... 

Half way through my third and most ambitious gang yet for nuclear renaissance I hit a bit of a wall in terms of motivation and so decided to move my attention over to the warp fiends, sat unloved for many moons with only two squads of Havocs and a basic Lord completed.

Rather pleased with myself after converting my post apocalyptic cannibals I thought I'd try and knock up a basic troop choice of chaos marines from the bits and bobs I had to hand.... Like the Havocs they're very rough and ready and definitely only 'tabletop' standard, but fill in one of my mandatory FOC selections.

Six strong (holy number) with a meltagun, when writing my final list I'll prob swap the aspiring champion with the power sword wielding champ from the Lascannon Havocs for obvious reasons.

Coming in at 125pts With the power sword, meltagun and mark of Slaanesh they're a fairly cheap little assault unit.

Champion and renegade

Traitor and melta gunner

Heretic reavers 

More nuclear renaissance and some noise marines coming up soon!

Warp Fiends CSM - 2nd Havoc Squad

The 2nd Havoc squad for my Slaaneshi renegades has finally been completed, this squad is equipped for anti-tank / monstrous creature duties with three Lascannon and a missile launcher for a bit of flexibility, at the 1000pt level I'm aiming for with the warband this squad should be able to pose a serious threat to almost any unit it faces, the major downside being inefficiently expensive per marine  another large proportion of my 1000pts eaten up by six models.

First up the champion, as seen in the original incarnation of my Havocs, he's an old space wolf scout, one of the originals I believe, another of the old survivors that I've owned for nearly twenty years...
Definitely a veteran of the long war!

Icon bearer / regular marine, a quick kit bash of leftover bits and bobs including skaven, space wolf and possessed parts to create a model that May or may not be an icon bearer depending how the finalised list pans out.

Standard Lascannon havoc....

Havoc with old Imperial army Lascannon and skaven tail tentacles....

Havoc built from mainly imperial parts (recent convert) with another old Lascannon....

Missile launcher Havoc, with an imperial head and abbaddon style topknot that's either elder of equine in origin! Not 100% sure!

Apologies for the crummy flash photos, no sunlight outside of working hours at this time of year!

Heavy Support - Havoc Squad
x6 Havocs (88)
Mark of Slaanesh (12)
Power weapon (15)
x3 Lascannon (60)
Missile launcher (15) w/ flakk missiles (10)
Icon of excess (30)
x1 close combat weapon (2)
Total - 232 points

Warp Fiends CSM - Havoc squad (mk 2)

The little havoc squad I'd built as the first unit in a slaaneshi warband were, in retrospect, pretty piss poor. As far as test beds for a colour scheme went, they were ok, and I had fun making them; but as a unit they were rather ineffectual with a mix of weapon types that suited no particular role, and were quickly and badly painted and converted.

I managed to pick up some really cheap CSM reinforcements from eBay, including a set of the old metal Havoc parts consisting of an Autocannon, heavy Bolter, Lascannon and missile launcher. Now the aim is to have two havoc squads, each six strong (slaaneshe's holy number) one kitted out for anti tank with triple Lascannon and a missile launcher, and this one built for anti personnel.

An aspiring champion with a plasma pistol, a plasma gun, two heavy bolters and an Autocannon mean they should be reasonably effective against light to medium infantry with the plasma weapons enabling them to have a fighting chance against heavier stuff and light vehicles.

the aspiring champion was built from my old multimelta havoc, which was a particularly crude conversion, even by my standards, not to mention a illegal weapon choice. Instead he recieved an ornate plasma pistol from the SM commander sprue and a loyalist chainsword. The regular Bolter havoc remains pretty much unchanged, apart from a bit of extra detail and paint touch ups. The back banner is there so I can chose to run the squad with or without an icon bearer.

Plasma and Autocannon Havocs, whilst the Autocannon havoc was built stock, the plasma havoc had some minor conversion work, I had had the old plasma gun / cannon knocking around in my bits box for years waiting for a suitable recipient, I've no idea what's it's from (it's lead) but I'm quite pleased with the end result. Some very crude green stuffed tentacles and a skull helmet make him look quite menacing IMHO.

Lastly are the two heavy Bolter Havocs, one is just a standard heavy Bolter mini, whilst the second (seen in earlier post) has some necromunda orlock bit thrown into the mix.
Throughout the squad I've tried to mix in some regular space marine parts, arms backpacks etc to try and add a variety and make the chaos dudes look less uniform in appearance.

The second squad is now half finished, so more updates soon....

Heavy Support - Havoc squad.
x6 Havocs (88)
Mark of Slaanesh (12)
Plasma pistol (15)
x2 Heavy Bolters (20)
Autocannon (10)
Plasma gun (15)
Icon of excess (30)
Total - 190pts

'Traitor' Guard Veteran Squad, Brotherhood of Sin

When I bought a job lot of chaos bits recently, these were a lovely surprise, you couldn't really see them in the eBay photos under a pile of csm bodies and boltgun arms but lo and behold there were ten van saar gangers with greenstuffed gas hoods and a leader with a power fist from the old plastic eldar sprue.

In my opinion they were really nicely converted. Paint wise however they looked like they had originally been khornate cultists in a dark crimson scheme, but had been horribly overpainted at some point in a bright green nurgle type paintscheme. They took a lot of carefully stripping back, as I had to be carefull not to damage the Greenstuff heads.

In the end I was still left with a lot of red in the crevices. The only minor changes I made were to swap a plasma pistol back to a laspistol on one mini to make him into a 'regular' trooper.

One miniature had a multimelta (now carried by one of my havoc's) now he has a lasgun and a slightly oversized mace, and I added a skull to the leaders power fist for a bit of character.

I repainted them in a homemade purple mixed from blood red and regal blue. I think the green cabling works really well with the purple bodygloves and dark grey firearms to give them a corrupt, decadent, but well equipped and organised feel.

Originally I had thought they could be one of the new cultist squads in the 6th edition CSM codex, but after having checked out the rumors and scuttlebutt on the excellent faet212 blog, it doesn't appear that lowly cultists will be allowed such luxuries as powerfists, plasma pistols, or even meltaguns.
So instead they will become the mandatory troops choice in an 'traitor' guard 6th edition allied detachment; the Brotherhood of Sin.
I had thought about getting some more van Saar models off eBay and trying to model them to match. The plan being to end up with two veteran squads, and a command squad as a standalone miniforce. But the van saar models seem to fetch a premium, especially the more unusual ones like the plasma heavy and meltagun leader.
So instead I think I'll find an interesting mini to proxy as a primaris psyker / lord Commissar for the HQ choice. And a vehicle (or two)

Ive been looking at ramshackle games Gnu armoured transport and thinking it would make a great proxy chimera for traitor guard. If you haven't checked it out. I would recommend taking a look at their website. The new releases page has the best pictures of their recent range of resin vehicles and figure. I haven't actually bought anything from them yet. But I'm very tempted by a lot of their cool looking stuff that has a lot of 40k potential. Especially if you were building blood pact or similar and wanted a whole range of armoured cars/tanks to represent the urdeshi made vehicles in Dan abnetts excellent series of gaunts ghost books.

Veteran squad - 70pts basic. Champion with plasma pistol and power fist +25pts. Meltagun +10pts. Total 105pts.

Warp Fiends Chaos Terminator lord - Ghastus Draik.

The mandatory Hq Choice for my little WIP chaos marine warband is this metal terminator mini, I bought this back when they were first released end of 2nd edition /beginning of 3rd?? he was one of the few miniatures to survive me leaving the hobby in my middle teens.

I gave him a quick repaint to match the warp fiends colours and that was that. Armed with a lightning claw and a combi melta ( I still need to do a little painting on his gun) I particularly like this head option as well. The first (post rogue trader) chaos marines were my favorite of my little armies back in the day.

Warp Fiends - Havoc Squad

A couple of months back, in anticipation of the upcoming chaos codex, I bought a large job lot of chaos bits and pieces with the intention of putting together a small Slaaneshi / pirate warband. In this box of bits were a few plastic and metal csm bodies, a load of broken plastic bits and bobs; and most interestingly...a load of necromunda van-saar gangers converted to chaos cultists (more on them later!)...........After a hefty raid on my bits box, this squad of havocs was the end result.

The champion is an old space wolf scout. for the lascannon marine I found an old rogue trader imperial guard shoulder mounted lascannon which I really wanted to use as I thought it had a ancient, pre heresy look to it, like he's been carrying that cannon for centuries, his tentacles are actually two skaven tails.

The chap with the back banner has a bolter made which is actually half a stormbolter from the imperial guard chimera sprue. The severed hand is another skaven bit, as is his extra tentacle.

The heavy bolter marine has an arm and backpack from a necromunda orlock heavy. I built the multimelta havoc more out of wishfull thinking in regards to the upcoming codex than anything else. If havoc's can't be given multimeltas, I'll just have to count it as a (badly maintained) meltagun.