Assault (-n-pepa)

05 Wednesday Jun 2019

Posted by in OldHammer, Wolf Time

≈ 45 Comments

Tags

, , ,

Greetings Terrans, how goes it? I have another bit of progress to share today – the super-vet hardcore Space Wolf assault team of death! These guys are pretty bad-ass in the Wolf Time campaign… all the Marines have Champion stats, the Sergeant is a Minor Hero, and they are all tooled up with some nasty hardware… Take a look!

 

These guys took a bit of converting – I couldn’t get hold of any examples of period flamer or meltagun Marines – a mini does exist for each, but they are very hard to get hold of… I knew time was a factor in this project, so I ended up converted my own. Let’s take a look at the Melta/Chainsword guys first. The one on the right is an old Captain mini – he just had his bolter converted into a meltagun, (a barrel swap and some sculpted fuel tanks on the side – pretty straight forward stuff). The dude on the left is based on a medic – he needed a full weapon swap for another homemade Meltagun, (based on an RTB01 Bolter), and I also sculpted on a holstered bolt pistol:

 

The flamer guy on the left is also converted from an old medic, (actually the first ever Marine medic), but I didn’t want two quacks in the squad, so he had his bling removed before being given a hand-swap and flamer from the RTB01 set. The conversion is a bit meh to be honest – he looks a bit awkwardly posed, but he fits the bill & will definitely do the job for now. The other flamer guy is based on the famous Needlegun Marine – it’s a slightly more involved weapon conversion, but he is more naturally posed than his squad-mate. By happy coincidence, both minis look like they are wearing over-gloves of some kind – no doubt to protect them while handling the volatile flamer fuel:

 

The Sergeant came perfectly equipped with power Glove & bolt pistol, so I just added a spare helmet, (mainly so I had somewhere to paint his Sgt’s helmet stripe):

 

The paint job follows my approach to all the other Marines so far – I went for Red to denote ‘assault’, but as this is the only assault squad, I painted both exhaust ports the same. I also borrowed a bit of Middlehammer lore around Spacewolf Bloodclaws, and gave them all red gloves… no real reason other than I think it looks good & marks them out as being a bit special. Finally, I added some blood spatter to the Chainsword guys, because hitting people with a chainsaw would be FUCKING MESSY!!!

Anyhow, that’s it for now folks – just the support squads to paint, and then we’re on to the characters… Onwards and upwards!

Never mind the Bullocks

31 Friday May 2019

Posted by in OldHammer, Spacewolves, Wolf Time

≈ 30 Comments

Tags

, , ,

Greetings Terrans, how goes it? Oh, happy day – I’ve finished up another unit of Space Wolves, and, as an added bonus, it’s the unit I was least looking forward to painting! As you might guess from the title, it’s the 5 dudes on the dreaded Mk1 ‘Bullock’ jet cycle, and getting them painted first is kinda like getting the Brussel Sprouts out of the way before you eat the delicious roast chicken :-)

Now, the Bullock jet bike is an interesting bit of kit – if you don’t include Dreadnoughts, I believe it is the first 40k vehicle ever made by Citadel, way back in 1987. Ironically, that means that Marines had Jet Bikes one year before the Eldar got theirs! The models themselves are two-piece affairs, cast in lead, with the main body of the bike being separate from the wings. Objectively, they are a bit shite, but they ain’t bad at all when you consider their age and place in 40k history… they do have a certain charm I think:

 

Putting the minis together was fairly simple, but I did have some challenges to overcome. One thing you might notice is the complete absence of handle-bars, or any kind of control system on the bikes – they have auto-drive in game terms, so that’s fine, but it makes for some awkward ‘no hands’ posing which just didn’t sit right with me. Also, they were designed to work with the RTB01 plastic Marines, but me being me, I opted for slightly later metal riders. I converted three of the riders to be ‘in motion’ by leaning them forward at the waist, and re-positioning their left arms to look as if they were holding on to the faring – they might be pretend space men with flying bikes but the laws of physics must still apply, and you’re going to want to hold on to something when you’re accelerating hard!

 

I modelled the other two to look like they had pulled up somewhere to take a shot at something – not too much conversion work needed here, other than sourcing some helmets for them, (again, they might be pretend space men, but only a lunatic would zip around at 300” per turn without a lid). The only other change was sculpting the Lieutenant’s hand so that he’s casually holding on to his helmet, (phnar).

 

Nothing major to report on the painting front, other than it taking me about twice as long to paint them due to the increased surface area. I chose black for the exhaust vents on their backpacks to denote the squad – it’s the only recon squad in the list, so I was happy to paint both vents the same. As with all the squads so far, I’ve gone for an eclectic mix of minis – there’s a Chaplain, a Medic and a Lieutenant, although all will be played as regular Marines in the campaign.

Anyhow, that’s all for this post – we’re on the home stretch now, and I’m hoping to get through the remaining 21 Space Wolf minis in fairly rapid order. I’ll keep you posted of course, but meanwhile, I’ll leave you with some individual pics of the flying squad:

Growing the pack

22 Wednesday May 2019

Posted by in OldHammer, Scuplting, Spacewolves, Wolf Time

≈ 22 Comments

Tags

, , , ,

Greetings Terrans, how goes it? It’s a bit of a slow news week from me I’m afraid… it isn’t that I’ve been idle – far from it! It is just that I’ve been tied up with building Spacewolves rather than painting them. Usually I don’t do WIP posts, but I figured you’d rather see some progress rather than nothing at all, so here goes.

First up, we have two support squads:

I used a high proportion of the venerable ‘C100’ Marines from 1986 here – I think that apart from the LE2 Marine, these guys were the first of their kind. The missile launchers are unmolested, and the Heavy Bolter dudes (not C100) are unchanged apart from the addition of the circular badge on the right shoulder to match the other C100 dudes. The Las Cannons are a different matter. The one facing to his right in the first pic is an original C100 ‘Heavy Laser’ guy, and I really like him, so I converted up three more C100s to give them similar weapons. This was quite a fiddly job, but I’m hoping that they’ll pass muster once painted. I also sculpted over the lower legs of all the las cannon operators to make them look a bit more substantial – as with a lot of early minis, they suffer from having pathetic little legs, so I bulked them up a bit & sculpted in some detail to echo the Heavy Bolter guy’s legs. Again, I hope that they’ll blend in convincingly once painted. The Sergeants are both wearing older armour marks – Mk3 ‘Iron Armour’ in the first pic, and Mk1 ‘Thunder Armour’ in the second. I had these minis in a job lot, and wanted to fit them in somewhere – their static poses are perfect for support squads in my humble opinion. I don’t expect these guys to ever have to use their bolters in a squad with a minimum range of 40”…  They both have Bolt Pistols sculpted on them somewhere as well, but with even less chance of using them! :-)

 

Next, at the other end of the range spectrum, the assault squad:

These guys mostly involved weapon swaps – the two Chainsword guys were both converted to have meltaguns, and both have bolt pistols sculpted on them somewhere. The two flamer dudes also had weapon swaps & bolt pistols, but the Sergeant was perfect as is, so no changes needed for him. I’m really looking forward to painting these guys – they are the elite squad of the army, with minimum Champion stats throughout, so deserve a bit of extra attention with the brush.

 

Finally, the Jetbikers:

These were probably the most involved conversions of this batch – I tried to get three of them looking like they were ‘in motion’ (on the right of the pic as you view it), while the other two are more statically posed. I made sure that the dudes not wearing helmets at least had one to hand – even Marines would be mad to zip around on a Jetbike without a lid! The more dynamic guys were variously re-posed to get the left arms holding on to the bike cowling, and all had some filling done around the back to account for their forward leaning pose. I also included an officer in this squad, even though the list doesn’t include one – he was just too cool a mini to leave out! Much like the various medics, techmarines and chaplains, he’ll be played as a regular Marine.

So that’s all I have to share today –the characters are mostly built as well, but I didn’t want to share them with you guys just yet. One thing is certain though, with a little over 9 weeks to go, and all of the terrain yet to do, I’m really going to have to get a move on!