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...

Astra Militarum Hydra - Royal Kaylan Lancers

Finally finished my Hydra for the Lancers Regiment, quad autocannons are cool no matter how indifferent the rules are!

It's a nice kit, although definitely needs painting in sub assemblies, no matter how tempting it is to go ahead and glue it all together, my only complaint is the general laziness of its design In regards to the Wyvern, the mortar tank that can be built instead. In my opinion changing the ammo boxes and lopping off the barrels does not make for a convincing light artillery piece. However there have been some interesting conversions popping up on the net recently that have have piqued my interest in getting another one of these kits at some point.

You can't really see it on the close up photo, but I tried to do a bit of freehand on the targeting display with slightly disappointing results, it's definitely something I need to practice more. 

After work and parenting I'm only left with a couple of hours hobby time every week so getting the hydra done has taken me a lot longer than I would have liked! Hopefully not such a big gap till the next post!

The Tactical Auto Reliquary of Lord Tiberius

Having hit a bit of a hobby wall in terms of motivation with regards to my various projects over the holiday period I went back to basics and just decided to make something out of my bits box,

I love Servo skulls, plain and simple, they're also a great little thing to knock up if you just fancy five minutes with the superglue, and if you've got a skull in your bits box, you're pretty much there...

I came up with the idea of making a skull to represent one of the relics (heirlooms of conquest) in the new codex 'the Tactical auto reliquary of Lord Tiberius'. A servo skull containing the memory and personality of a foul tempered, patronising old general who floats along behind the senior officer blaring a endless succession of tactical 'suggestions' from its speakers and cutting into the vox net and countermanding anything it deems a mistake! 

Very 40k in my book, but to be honest any excuse to have a servo skull in my company command squad will do, it's also interesting to think that prehaps this particular relic was created to give a use to the nice servo skull that comes in the Cadian command box...

My 'Tiberius' was made from an undead skull with space marine backpack vents for the engine pods and vox grille, space marine decorative bits and bobs like a banner top, and some technical doodads shaved from a Cadian helmet - simples really - but better than Turning up with a list and saying 'oh he's got this' I suppose. Here he is WIP, pre painting, and lacking a few little details.

A group shot of all my servo skulls...

I haven't been completely idle otherwise, I have sub assembled a hydra for the Kaylan Lancers - just need a paint restock now and I can get cracking on that one.

I had been using two old metal 'vehicle crew on foot' miniatures as bodyguards in my company command squad but that option has been axed from the latest codex, wanting to put a use to two great sculpts I envisaged making up a remnant unit.

" As squads take casualties and are merged to bring them up to strength, inevitably there are leftover troopers forming an under strength section. In the lancers these are bolstered by the surviving crew of knocked out vehicles and formed into squads tasked with providing a protection detail to the more vulnerable support vehicles such as the griffons, wyverns and hydra. Thus allowing the 'regular' units to concentrate on archiving their objectives." 

I dug out the third miniature in the 'vehicle crew on foot' set, which I had never painted as he had 'the wrong type of lasgun' for the lancers, and converted up another crewman from a frateris miliaman I had tried and failed to use as a starting point for an Inq28 character. Add in a couple of spare guardsmen and I'm halfway there allready!

Lastly I also finished up a heavy Bolter team to add a bit more firepower to the veterans, here they are with the company command squad, but they'll probably end up in the remnants squad, with the company command squad getting the missile launcher team from one of my veteran squads and said squad getting an Autocannon as replacement.