Storm Troopers Painted

My two small units of Stormies, painted.

Squad 1:  Brown fur trim on the hats:

Squad 2: Grey fur trim:

These guys were a fair bit of work, but ultimately worth it to get Storm Troopers that fit in with the Vostroyans.

Storm Troopers Ready for Paint

A quick update on my two squads of Storm Troopers; the building and conversion work is done.  I included the prototype with the remainder of his squad.  One thing about Stormies; unlike most other IG units, the Sergeant has the exact same equipment as the Squad, so I used the posing as the means of distinguishing the Sarge from his squad.   In this squad, he's waving his squad forward, while in the other squad the sergeant is pointing at their (destination/target/whatever)

I realized rather belatedly that I missed an opportunity for distinguishing one squad from the other -- the ear flaps on the hats; up versus down.  I'll just have to do it with the color of the fur trim on the hats instead, like I did with the Vostroyans.

Bjorn? Is that you?

Is it just me or would this new Contemptor pattern dreadnought just make a great Bjorn?  Fluff-wise Bjorn is the oldest of dreads in existence so this guy would just make all kinds of sense.  So I'm really tempted to buy one of these to wolf up into a Bjorn.

Armies on Parade 2011

So I entered my Vostroyans into my (sorta) local GW's Armies on Parade contest.  Did I win?  Umm.. No.  Did I expect to?  Not really, but I wanted to enter because I had said that I would.  We ended up having a good turn out; 8 entries.  Full disclosure; I started on my display board the night before.

Here's my humble entry:  Vostroyan CO, with CCS, Firstborn squad (Veterans), Al Rahem (err Alexi Romanov) and platoon, Marbov,  two chimeras and my Katyusha Manticore

Here's the First place winner, Sam's awesomely converted Ork army:

Second Place went to Val's Son's of Medusa, on an awesome diorama:

Val's army includes some great free-hand work:

Third went to a nicely painted WHFB Chaos army (Sorry, I didn't catch the owner's name)

In all we had 6 40k entries, a WHFB entry, and a LOTR entry.  Nice full spread.  In addition to the ticket, the winner got his choice of recent Black Box models -- he chose the Dread Knight which he plans to Orkify -- replacing the Termie with a Nob.  After the top 3 got their picks, the rest of us got a crack at what was left -- I ended up getting a unit of High Elf Dragon Princes which my son plans to convert for use as Blood Knights.

Ecclesiarch -- Super Heavy Exorcist, Part II

Wow, it's been over a year... Here's an update on the Ecclesiarch.  When I last posted, I had the basic superstructure of this beast built and needed to add details.  First up was some over-the-top bling for the sides.  I took some inspiration for the side plates from the Fortress of Arrogance field of skulls combined with the Sister's Fleur-de-Lis icon.  For the skulls, I made a casting from the Cities of Death Imperial Basilica.  I combined the skulls with the Fluer-de-lis from the Immolator kit.  To tie it in with the Baneblade chassis, I framed the icons with 0.10" C-channel and added rivets with 1 mm plastic rod.

 

Plastic Storm Trooper - My version

Here's my prototype storm trooper.  He's made from Cadian torso/legs, green stuff, Wargames factory Shock Troop shotgun arm modified with the muzzle from a Catachan lasgun, and the ever popular Pig Iron head.  More on the conversion process after the jump.

Wargames Factory Shock Troops Heavy Weapons -- Preview Review

WGF - used without permission

Wargames Factory has posted up a preview of the Heavy Weapons crews to go with their Great Coat Shock Troops.  I love the basic troops -- they're great conversion fodder, as you can see here, here, and here.  Here are my thoughts on the preview.

The preview appears shots of the CAD drawings so hopefully they'll still be able to incorporate some of the comments folks have left.  First off, it looks like WGF is trying to step up the level of detail on the new models -- this is both a plus  and a minus -- on the plus side, the upper torsos feature a new, more detailed armor design that will make great carapace armor.  On the minus side, they aren't cohesive with the old Shock Troopers.  Likewise with the new helmets -- they look good but they remind me more of french WW1 helmets than the coal scuttles of the original troopers.  Of course, I'll probably use pig-iron heads anyway so not a big deal for me.

The kneeling pose on the mortar-man is welcome but the squatting pose on the other gunner is a bit of a miss  in my opinion -- I can't quite see using it with a heavy weapon though perhaps with some thought I can come up with other uses for it.

 Finallly the heavy weapons themselves are a bit of a mixed bag -- the twin-linked gatling gun has potential (Hydra conversion anyone?)  the beam weapon not as much.  The missile launcher and the mortar look fine, though I'd lose the paws on the bipod.

I'll probably buy at least one box of these guys just to play around with.  I can solve some of the cohesiveness problems with a razon saw to mix and match the upper torsos from the standing shock troopers with the kneeling legs.  Likewise that will enable the use of the new torsos for Carapace Armor.