Mawloc!

So after a brief absence I return with gloriously crappy pics of the mawloc and termagants. After a lot of hesitation in painting the armour plates I must say I really enjoyed painting this guy,though the magnetised arms were somewhat fiddly (though having said that I'm glad I did magnetise them as it would have been very difficult to reach a lot of spots with the arms in way).

The sensory spines on the head were a last-minute addition as i felt the model was beginning to look a bit bland, so I blended them up to the old GW warlock purple with a few coats of quick drybrushing which turned out nicely considering the few minutes it took to do them. I'm trying to think of other models/areas where I can use this effect. perhaps the lictor feeder tendrils when i get round to making one.

I also had my first game of 40k in... 4-5 years a few days ago, against my best buddy's IG. a mech list with 3 leman russes, 2 basilisks, a hellhound, 2 storm trooper squads, 2 vet squads and a platoon. My army was slightly less coherent with a hive tyrant (2x twin linked devourers and old adversary) with 2 tyrant guard. 3 carnifexes, the mawloc, 2 units of 4 shooty warriors. 2 units of 25 termagants 2 hive guard and 2 units of 4 burrowing rippers.

the idea with the army was to use the rippers to DS in front (or behind, set-up permitting) of the opponent causing him to waste fire on them, and to DS right in the middle of the enemy's force, causing casualties and disruption while the rest of the army approaches.

the mass of tanks wasnt helpful, with all my monstrous creatures having died on the enemeies second shooting phase (the mass of high s/low ap ordnance and emperor-knows how many rapid firing plasma guns left the monstrous creatures dead or close to death) and the presence of a regimental advisor that reduces my DS rolls by 1 left me missing the mawloc until turn 4... by which point it was too late. 2 mawlocs will offset this and changing the old adversary rule to hive commander and perhaps taking a lictor or 2 to add further disruption might help.

im not giving up, as i feel this is one of the hardest armies to come against as the armour-14 leman russes are a bitch to shoot up with 'nids. I was impressed with the hive guard and toughness of the warriors tough will probably swap them for raveners and if i keep any of the carnifexes ill probably cchange their bl devourers for stranglethorn cannons or heavy venom cannons.

conversion-work on the hive guard continues and im looking forward to getting 4 of them painted. im also thinking of a lictor or 2 to add to the army, though am still thinking of conversion ideas for them and will likely go with something lictor-like but more akin to a praying mantis, with the large scything talons on  the front of the thorax and somewhat longer and spindlier than the talons we're used to seeing. another conversion based on by beloved plastic warrior sprue :)

I am ripper...

so, a stop-gap unit to give me something to do whilst waiting for bitz and kits to arrive (i had a bit of a mix up with wayland games, though everythings' settled now and I should have a few orders on the way, including 4 boxes of warriors, some gaunts and a tyrant and tervigon).

Anyhow, this is the first of 3 batches of rippers that ill be working on to add to the army, giving me about 15-20 bases-worth (depending on how many i can get out of forthcoming kits and what I can find in my bitzboxes). I doubt I'll be using these guys much as theyre pretty crap (though I'd still like to try 20 deep-striking bases, if nothing else, deep striking close to the enemy will cause him to devote quite a bit of shooting against them, giving my other units a turn of freedom in which to advance, at least that's the idea...)

you'll have to excuse the rather crappy pics though my lightbox is out of action for the moment, explaining the low quality balcony pics etc!

I'm also working on some zoanthrope commissions at the moment (pic below) and am starting work on some spore mines (another left-field tactic id like to try is a battery of biovores and spore mine clusters, with hive guard and warrior support).

And now, for something completely different...
Well, not that completely different... My tentative second project, a Tzeentch marine/daemon/IG army. of course, I can't use all 3 options in the same game (though luckily, the addition of cultists and dark apostles means I can sort-of use IG traitors as standard in the army, with daemon allies).

The plan is to have a core of thousand sons and/or mark of Tzeentch marines - I'm envisioning a core of 2 thousand sons units, with some marked marines, chosen, havocs, raptors/warp talons, all in the style of the new Dark Vengeance chosen models. To that I'll add Tzeentch daemons (I have an idea for a Tzeentch flying circus daemon army with fateweaver, 3 lion-headed feathered-winged daemon princes and lots of screamers and flamers) and imperial guard units, the latter of which will be heavily converted, with lots of highly individual character models; making a sort-of fallen =][= lord and retinue... though that's in the future...

For now I received 18 chosen from the DV box (to add to the actual box I'd like to get by years' end), forming a good core to the army; 24 'chosen' (likely to be converted and used as standard marines), 1 lord. 1 helbrute and 20 cultists (to add to the considerable fallen guard models and bitz I already have - always fun to model!) looking forward to trying this army out, and experimenting with converting the chosen into different poses and equipment.

Also on the agenda is finishing off the Howling Griffons and (likely when the marine codex is re-released in hard-back) the Angels of Censure... though I wouldnt hold my breath if I were you!