Urban Ruins and other 40K Terrain features

Back in December 2018 I finished some new terrain to go with my new battle mat. With limited space in my new apartment, it was time to clear out the old bit boxes and make as good use as I could of pieces that had been in storage for several years. My goal was to produce enough terrain pieces so I can fully field two gaming tables for private gaming events at home. With this project, I managed to do that. (Good news, everybody!)

My bit box contained doors from Forge World, old left-over sprues from the old GW city terrain sets, and miscellaneous other bits and parts accumulated over the last 10 years. I wanted to build playable “line of sight blocking terrain” and to add some new features. From various battle reports, fences caught my eye. Nice to have some terrain that some units struggle to pass through/over/under etc. For some variety, and trying to complement what I wanted to achieve, I bought some containers, barrels and storage cases. Now I am done with terrain (at least in Norway).

First out, a couple of pictures during construction, and then pictures of the finished terrain. Looking forward to trying them out on the gaming table.

Cheers

Ørnulv

Death Guard - Foul Blightspawn

One small step for mankind. A somewhat bigger leap for mr. Hauge. Finally managed to finish this fantastic elite choice from the not so fresh Death Guard codex anymore.

The background and rules are just fun, not least the container built in to his body, letting him spray his foes with plague gore. The unholy death's head grenade carried by the funny nurgling is also worth mentioning, making him and another character throw a blight or hyper blight grenade 2D6 times - once per battle.

Combined with mister Biologous Putrifier, a squad of Plague Marines and the Blight Bombardment strategem, these guys can dish out a massive amount of grenade hurt.

Chose a quite familiar color palette, although I plan on trying out the dirty white variant on the armour plating on other future painting projects. As you all know, the new GW minis are full of details - therefore quite time consuming. Hope to be able to paint other characters in a more assembly line like way to try to get projects done quicker.

Dark Eldar – Venom

So, it was time to add Venom number six to my army. This time I chose a “different” head on the gunner, so that it stands out from the other ones, making it easier for my opponent to single it out if I want to use it as a HQ transport etc.

Originally, I built all my Venoms with 2 X Splinter Cannons. This time I have magnetized it, so I have more flexibility, and when I need those extra points elsewhere. I have tried to match the colour pallet from back in 2011, and I am pretty happy with the result.

Venom

Old and New

What next? Moving to a new flat will take some time, but my Coven faction needs troops.

Cheers,
Ørnulv

Dark Eldar - Talos

I love the «Dark Eldar» Codex, and the models! During the last couple of years, I have been expanding my army, adding new units to the original Pirate Skiff MSU style list I built and painted back in 2011. Well, it’s not fair to call that army an MSU army (only). It was a considerable force / number of models. But the new Index and new Codex gave so many options, so I have been steadily added units like Bikes and Hellions to the army. Now it was time to revisit my Coven fraction. Why, because they are awesome!

Having built 3 Talos / Cronos a couple of years ago, I decided to expand my Coven fraction. Hence, I decided to add 4 more Talos. I have been playing with the idea to field 9 of them, but painting all 4 of the new ones in one go, I am glad that I only did 4. Reason being that they take a long time to paint (all of those lovely details). I also magnetized them extensively, both Melee weapons and Ranged weapons, but chose to focus on the Talos variant this time.

As I have mentioned in previous posts, that I constantly struggle to match the colour scheme of my older models. My eyesight is not was it once where, and the colour range have changed. But I feel that I came close enough.

Enough said! Here are some pictures of the new models, showing different weapon configurations.

Talos with Chain Flails and Haywire Blaster

Talos with Ichor Injector and Splinter Cannon

All four of them

What next? Well, I have only 5 Venoms…

And I would like to expand my Coven fraction further so I can field them as a battalion (needing troops).

Cheers,
Ørnulv

Yesteryear's Production (Architecture of Aggression LVXIIwhatever)

I've been thinking about my almost complete lack of blogging last year lately. It seemed like I got nothing hobby-related done, but then I sorted through the "Camera Uploads" folder in my Dropbox and discovered quite a few WIP pics...

2018 did start slow. All I really did for January and February was to pop the right arms off my Chaos Bikers, magnetise them and add a set of Chainsword arms to the Bolt Pistol ones I already had. I remember several evenings of carefully cutting the swords off of the left arms they typically come on and gluing them onto right-handed Bolt Pistol arms.

It wasn't until May that I picked the knife and glue up again. I'd had my eye on the Wrathmongers/SkullReapers kit for a while, to replace the Bloodbound Blood Warriors I had used as Possessed with something more fitting. I included a Slaughterpriest model from an older White Dwarf as the unit champion, and stretched the kit a little with a pair of legs from an even older Possessed kit to bring the unit to seven models in total.

While I was collecting the models and bits I needed to build the Possessed, I came across several forgotten Raptors/Warp Talons kits. I built around twenty Raptors and ten Warp Talons in-between painting the Possessed, and drybrushed them up to my pre-ink stage after the Possessed were finished. They've since been sitting in a box since, but I'm currently in the process of adding Red Ink hoping to get them on the table soon('ish).

After having played several games with Missile Launchers on my Havocs, I decided I wanted them to have a little more 'Punch'. At the time, Lascannons cost the same number of points so I ordered an upgrade set from Forge World and re-purposed some leftover Chaos Space Marines. I also built a set of Havocs armed with Autocannons, but haven't found cause to finish those - yet.

Over the summer holiday in August, and into September, I had lots of fun building several of the new Sector Administratum ruins. I started with the ones from the Kill Team box but soon added a couple more, along with a few from the Sector Mechanicus series. I still have to mount the ruins on bases but hope to start painting these up once the temperature outside rise to the point where I can spray-paint. Seeing Ørn's ruins from a few months ago prompted me to cut and start preparing the bases, at least.

In September I added three squads of Cultists with Autoguns to my army, to be able to split my force into two Battalion Detachments. I would have added more if only the models hadn't gotten so hard/expensive to get ahold of by then.

I built and drybrushed a couple of Sorcerers with Jump Packs in October, and followed those up with adding a few Aspiring Champions and weapon specialists to the Raptors they're meant to support.

November saw me assembling three boxes of Munitorum Armoured Containers and lots of Plasma/Promethium Pipes, to add to the pile of unpainted terrain. I may still add a couple Sector Mechanicus kits, but then I should probably call it quits and actually start painting what I've got. I have a couple of ideas about magnetising the pipes, though, but I'm not sure how much work it's worth putting into it...

The Blackstone Fortress set, which you've already seen here, kept me occupied in-between Christmas-related activities during November, December and January.

All in all, it seems, 2018 wasn't as 'dead' a year as I thought when I started writing this. I just failed completely regarding write-ups here.

Blackstone Fortess - the Antagonists

Welcome back!

For the second BSF-article we'll be going over the models that will be 'getting in your characters' way' when playing the game. Being able to alternate between protagonist and antagonist models, as I worked through the pile of models in the set, really helped with keeping the pace up until the end.

Spindle Drones

Ur-ghuls

Negavolt Cultists

Traitor Guardsmen

Rogue Psykers

Beastmen

Chaos Space Marines

Chaos Lord Obsidius Mallex

Next? I suppose I'll have to get The Dreaded Ambull when i comes out, but I hope we can manage to try the game out before then too... I've been looking over the rules (Insert playing-with-myself-jokes here.) and think the game would be the most fun with a group of four gamers and a 'GM'.

In the mean time, I have a batch of the new ruins and a sizeable number of Word Bearers models in progress too...


J

Blackstone Fortess - the Protagonists

Hi all...

Long time no see. 2018 turned out to be my least productive year here since the inception, more that... whoa! ...ten years ago now. Seems I didn't even catch/mark the anniversary last spring... (There are reasons, but they're far from hobby-related so let's skip those and focus on some actual painted miniatures instead!)

A couple of months ago, I picked up GW's latest board game "Warhammer Quest: Blackstone Fortress" as an early christmas/birthday present for myself. I put all the miniatures together over a couple of evenings, and have had a few at a time 'on the got' up until last weekend.

In other words: It's time for a comeback on the blog, with a couple of articles showing off my efforts.

Janus Draik

Espern Locarno

Taddeus the Purifier

Pious Vorne

UR-025

Rein and Raus

Grekh

Amallyn Shadowguide

Come back next week, for a look at the antagonists...


JørnN