Tales of a hobby butterfly

Many years ago I built up a platoon of death korps of kried using a couple of sets of the forgeworld gorgon pasengers and lots of green stuff. They moved on years ago but with 10th edition dropping recently i thought it would be cool to star a krieg army up again but this time with the fancy new plastic kit.

This week I have mostly been sticking 6mm deathkorps to metal washers.

These models are from vanguard miniatures, I’m amazed how much detail they fit on such tiny models.

The army so far, I’m going to be using the epic armageddon uk rules.

When I find my old reaver titan this should be 3000 points, just need to finish putting filler on the bases then splash on some paint. Hopefully I can get 1000 points painted  before another shiny thing takes my eye, at least that way I can try the minigeddon rules whilst I get the rest of the force painted.

Cheapest bases i could find were metal washers from wilco you can get as many as you can fit in a bag for 3 quid so i now have enough 25 mm and 38 mm bases to last a life time, plus they can be stuck to magnetic sheet which helps with sorage.

I find cheap filler is great for hiding the puddle bases on the figures a bit of fine sand and glue hides any edges I miss. I was finding that the filler chips a bit when used so fixed that by adding  a layer of mode podge to the bases then letting it dry fully before painting.

The local gaming club is planning a day of 500 point kings if war games to get new players into the game.

I have not played kow before but really enjoy warhammer fantasy so thought I would make a force up to have a go.

I do have a halfling ambush but am going to save that for another day as I liked the idea of the kingdom of men army, old school humans vs the masses of daemons and fantasy creatures is always cool.

Hunted through the pile of shame and found some half painted empire spearmen, a pile of 3d printed great swords, some empire handgunners and some halflings on gryphounds I built for an age of sigmar army that never happened.

This should make a force with good close combat units, a bit if shooting and cavelry of sorts which will give me a good overview of the rules.

The last couple of weeks the butterfly has landed squarely on the horus heresy.

Last year I printed load of marines and shoulder pads for the plastic chaps as well as reconditioned an old broken rogue trader landraider. Then put them in a Box, now it’s time to get some paint on them

I wanted a quick and easy scheme so after lots of Web surfing I followed the mid winter minis tutorial.

Base them in black, cover in vallejo royal purple, dry brush with royal purple mixed 50/50 with said pink then paint light grey on tubes and leg wrinkly bits, dark metal on the weapons, paint the gold bits. Paint the base khaki, once dry cover everything in a 50/50 mix of army painter strong tone and water then leave over night to dry.

The final bits to do are to edge highlite with squid pink, some bright silver to highlite the gold, dry brush the base with khaki then ushabti bone, paint the base edge black and bam job done

This model had been through the wars the last cannons were broken off so I had to pin them and stick them back on, there was a big hole in the side so I stuck some card on the inside then skimed with milliput, the front had a bit missing and had glue damage so I put a plasticard cover over it, this looked a bit plain for the emperors children.

After looking through the horus heresy art book for inspiration I thought a swish shiny eagle would look good on the front as in the fluff I think that  they are the only chapter that can  wear it at that time.

To start I made the basic shape with thin card then stuck it on the front. The symbol was then built up a layer at a time with fine white milliput and lots of swearing when I squishe it multiple times with my clumsy ham fists

These dudes are 20mm figures from the platoon 20 Arvn range and some of the brittania miniatures Us specisl forces range

the platoon 20 sculpts are awesome and have loads of detail.
This smaller scale is great to be  able to get a whole squad completed quickly before i zoom off to another project

So on sunday i visited the local gameing club in illford to play and loose my 4th ever game of saga.

my normans took a swift beating from a force of viking raiders i woukd like to say the dice were against me but it was more down to poor generalship on my part and a rather gung ho attitude for my cavelry.

however a game of horus heresy was also being run and it looked awesome which reminded me i had a pile of sprues and 3d prints that were ment to be built a while ago.

so when i got home i plundered the pile of shame and found about 2000 points of bits that should make a good force. The bits origionaly started as emperors children then before i painted them they became world eaters so i printed some land raider doirs and pads, before deciding green would look cooler so restarted the army as sons of horus. After trying to find a green i liked which took a long time and was mostly me painting a model to find out i had painted it brown or grey and not green (being colour blind is fun)i kind of gave up so had a box that had bits of three chapters but not enough for one army on its own.

so today i spent my day off pulling bits off and sticking things together to remake them as the emperors children they started as…..

This week has mostly been a week of painting muddy troops.

i tried undercoating in brown for a change then drybrushing lighter browns and khaki before washing with strong tone from army painter. Once that was dry i went back over the uniforms with some greens to add some colour and a dull metallic for the metal bits.

i need to decide on a colour for the bases and may look into a way to create a wet mud finish to add to the look of the force.