Other Side of the Portal: Another Hellcannon

With my Infinity figures painted and my motivation for the Arabian Knights is rock bottom, I decided to do a project that I had in mind for quite some time now. Some of you might remember my other hellcannon, her sister actually (yes, it is a she, problem?). The monster is in fact a SPAWN action figure. It was in the form of siamese twins, both of which I used as the monster part of my hellcannons now.

The idea I had in mind was a scene of the summoning, with the monster is just about the step (stomp?) in from within the portal. I first started with the portal. The portal was done brick-by-brick with Pegasus Hobbies' bricks. Then I glues a cardboard between the brick frame and did the swirling portal effects with Vallejo's Oxid Paste. That stuff also helped closing the gaps here and there. Before it was completely dry, I buried some tiny skulls in the portal.

After the foundation of the portal was done, I had to decorate it with some bits. I started with a couple of torches. I think they were Ainsty Castings stuff; but since I had them forever, I really can't recall. I thought a couple of hooks and hanging skulls on the side were enough, all of which were GW's bits. Finally, I cut a Hashut symbol from balsa to go on the top of the portal.

As for the crew, I must say my bitzbox made me a very happy man. There's a metal hellcannon crew (guy that carries the chain) with his hand bits are from OOP dwarfs box. There's the other guy with the hook. His body is from Forgeworld's infernal guard, head from Mantic's abyssal dwarf and weapon from OOP dwarf box. And the last guy were made of FW torso-Mantic head again, and also his scepter was from Mantic's halfbreeds. The bit with the book on top should be from Ainsty Castings again.

Originally, my plan was to place the summoner guy on a higher ground, only accessible with spiral stairs; but since the monster occupied a huge portion of the base, I had to drop it. Baaad planning...

So, that's all for today. Here are some more photos, enjoy...

Breaking the Promise... Fiery Way

Surprise, surprise... Last weekend, I was tidying my drawers in my painting room (balcony actually) when I found these guys, lying in one of the drawers gathering dust. I was this close to put them on eBay, cause you know, I am done with the CD army; but I thought what the hell... :)

This figures are the K'daai Fireborn from Forge World. When I first started collecting my Chaos Dwarf army, I converted mine from miniatures from different vendors. Forge World's k'daais have been around for quite some time now and it would have been a shame for me had I not have these in my army.

Painting these was pretty straightforward for me. Learning from my past mistakes where I did the flames backwards, this time I started with Yriel Yellow as a base and worked my way up to Blazing Orange and Mechrite Red. Finally, I touched the hot spots with a mixture of white and yellow. The metallic parts were done with Boltgun Metal base washed with Crimson wash for heating effect. Then I finished them with Boltgun and Mithril highlights. Mr. Lee wasn't impressed with the armor and told me that they need more contrast and offered me to use some blue wash on the armor. Also on the tips on the flames while I am at it. I'm intrigued to be honest and will give it a try soon.

Now some rant... In the Tamurkhan book, these guys don't have any armor save at all, just ward saves. I don't want to be "that guy" but come on, look at them. Other than the fact that they have no resemblance to anything chaos-dwarfy, do they look like they don't have any armor saves? In my eyes, this is just one of the many examples of how sloppy was the Legion of Azgorh army list created by Forge World guys. Sad... really sad...

Ok rant over, enjoy the photos...

Wrapping the Army Up: Magma Cannon

Don't you roll your eyes at the sight of yet another war machine. Come sit by the magma and let me tell you a story... :)

Today's miniature is Magma Cannon from Forge World. I must say that, after working on miniatures of many different manufacturers, I really enjoyed working on FW stuff. The quality is there, the detail levels are awesome; but you already know that.

Some of you might be surprised to see that although I have a sizeable CD army, this is my first magma cannon. In my opinion, it is the most powerful, if not broken choice in the Legion of Azgorh list. I can hear you scream "Destroyer!"; but believe me, I'd not make many friends if I fielded a couple of those fiery, clunking contraptions. And they would still cost less than a single destroyer.

The most sensible way to see how underpriced this war machine is to compare it to its dwarven counterpart: Flame Cannon. Their template is the same (S5 d3Wo) and both cause panic upon casualties. The most important advantage the MC has over FC is the range. While the FC follows the flame thrower rules, the MC has a range of a whopping 24", plus the arty dice of course. Moreover, the ability to reroll the arty dice when there's a daemonsmith within 3" is gold. The only thing that the MC is not as good as the FC is the crew guys. MC crew trade the stubbornness for heavy armor; but then again, if a WM is charged, most of the time they are gone so... Oh all of these, you can get for only 5pts higher than its dwarf counterpart. Sucks to be dwarfs... :)

With this magma cannon complete, I can call my CD army, Zharr Naggrund Gentlemen, finished. As you know, this has been my second army. I enjoyed looking for suitable minis, building the army and I learned lots while I was on it. Now, it is time for me to concentrate my efforts on my third army, the Arabian Knights... I think a full army picture is in order now.

Enjoy the photos...

Projekt Core: Infernal Guards with Fireglaives

Projekt Core continues with yet another update; but no hobgoblins this time. As I promised before, here is some Forge World stuff this time, in form of fireglaives.

Although I don't use fireglaives in most of my lists, I had 10 of those guys lying around. During a weekend of extreme laziness, I decided to get them over with. The bodies and arms of the miniatures are the same sculpt with their hand weapon & shield counterparts, meaning the only differences between the two kits are the hand and weapon bits. A good example of reusability from FW's side there.

The miniatures were OK, nothing too fancy with them though. Building them was very straightforward as you can guess; but you have to be extremely careful with the cocks of the rifles. A couple of them were snapped off already and I fear that it may easily happen during occasional gameplay. My biggest problem with FW minis, ranking up, wasn't really an issue this time due to their "Guitar Hero" poses. Whether you can play it with ten guitarists or not remains to be a mystery to be solved though.

While painting, I used the same recipe for the bronzes again: 3 heavy washes (sepia and flesh twice) over a silver undercoat. The rifles were done with silver undercoat again, followed with a black wash. Then finished with boltgun and mithril highlights respectively.

The worst part is, I am out of painted bases again and will have to prepare some more, argh...!

Forgeworld Bull Centaurs at Games Day Barcelona 2012

Rumors were around that Forge World guys were working on bull centaur models for quite some time and finally they showed up at Games Day Barcelona it seems. The photos are not the best; but it can be seen that they are very bulky, yet dynamic looking models. I really liked them to be honest. The only criticism I can come up with is the ridiculously small looking shields and it is no biggie, no biggie at all...

BUT, and yes, there is always a but, well, they are BIG. I'm afraid they are so big that it will not be possible to mix-match them with GW's bull centaur models from 90s or Mantic's half-breeds, which are to be released by the end of July. Non-FW ones will just look so tiny beside them.

Another crucial point is that they seem to be on 75x50mm bases, which is the same with giants or demigryph knights of The Empire. Previously, an FW employee answered an e-mail of chaos-dwarfs.com community member, stating that the BCs will be on 50mm bases. The bull centaurs I have are on 50mm square bases and I will be very upset to see that they move it to 75x50mm. Not just because of the effort required to do it; but also my old BCs will really look tiny on those bases, basically rendering them unusable.

Oh well, already rambled more than enough. Below are the photos of the new bull centaurs, enjoy...

Borderline Cheese: Second K'daai Destroyer

Hello! Is it me you're
looking for?

I assume everybody who plays with or against Forgeworld's chaos dwarfs have heard about the K'daai Destroyer by now. I already have a Destroyer in my army which is built and painted by Mr.Lee and running it in my lists with mixed success. These infamous monsters have made a remarkable entrance to "The Cheesiest List" since the release of the Legion of Azgorh army list. So the question is, if you have a cheese monster in your army list, why not make it two and guarantee the bad sportsmanship scores?

This 6" high miniature (!) is an action figure actually. It is called Tremor 3, from SPAWN Series. It is made of hard plastic and comes pre-painted; but of course it needed to be painted to suit for its new role. Being an action figure, the joints of the miniature were designed to be moved, so the first thing I did was to fix them in their places and fill the gaps with a mixture of putty and liquid green stuff. I can't say I managed to do it perfectly though since some of the  joints can still be seen unfortunately.

I took a leap of faith when basecoating the miniature and went with bright yellow. I call it a leap of faith because I never painted over yellow basecoat before and also I didn't know how will the action figure material will take the paint. Luckily for me it went OK and saved me from spending considerable amount of time and yellow paint. Once the basecoat is done I drybrushed my way to darker colors again:

- Vallejo Gold Yellow
- GW Blazing Orange
- GW Blood Red
- Vallejo Red (Bermellon)
- GW Mechrite Red (Foundation)
- 1:1 mixture of GW's Codex Grey and Chaos Black

When drybrushing, I made sure to drybrush lightly as the color darkened, not to overshadow the fiery layers underneath. After these steps, I applied a very light yellow wash to the miniature. I prepared the wash myself by diluting Vallejo's Pale Yellow with water. Once the wash was dry, I picked the "hottest" parts with Vallejo's White.

For the base, I used some balsa again. Also there is a small bit from Fenris Games with runes on it. There is also an island of rock between the legs of the monster. That was originally the stand of the other destroyer. Recycling FTW... Also, I should mention that there's Vallejo's Black Lava applied on the base to give it some texture.

So, there you have it, the second Destroyer. Now it is time for me to play a poor soul who is willing to play against an army with not one but two notorious Destroyers. I've also included a comparison shot of my two destroyers. The new one is HUUUUGE... :)

Enjoy the photos...

Spreading the Word in Style: Sorcerer-Prophet on Great Taurus

First of all, sorry for the lack of updates. I was out of the town to attend to MetuCon, the biggest convention in Turkey. We played a mega-game with Mr.Lee there: A 6k pointer dwarfs vs his infamous green horde; but more on that later...

Now, here I have a sorcerer-prophet on great taurus figure for you this time. This kit is from Scibor Games and it's called Moscal General on War Bull. A truly awesome model, way better than Citadel's OOP great taurus model in my opinion. To be honest, I'd even choose Scibor's over ForgeWorld's Bale Taurus; but I've never seen it in person, so no more comments on this...

Let me talk about the miniature itself first. It's a no-brainer choice for any chaos dwarf general who wants to field a mounted sorcerer lord. It looks cool and affordable among the other alternatives, so I think that it is selling quite nicely. The packaging however, was very poor. Thrown in a box with no protection other than a couple of ziplock bags, the packaging neither does justice to its contents nor helps it to brave the dangers of international shipments. One of the legs of the taurus was broken when it arrived to me; but the packaging was so bad that I was just grateful that it was only a leg what was broken.

Rambled enough already... OK, this beauty stayed on my desk more that enough so I decided to finish it asap. Finished it on last friday and even managed to field it in a couple of games on saturday. As you can see from the stock photos, no conversion work done on the mini, it is beautiful as is... The building of the mini was fairly quick. Although there are 8 pieces plus the body, they caused no problem at all. Just a warning for you though: Be careful when removing the wings from the sprues. The parts which connect to the sprue might get damaged and you might lose some of the details easily otherwise.

As for the painting, I really can't remember how many layers there are... really... Basically what I did was something like this: For body, the "hottest" part is the inside of the taurus, right? So, I started with a white undercoat and then painted the mini to a very bright yellow. Then I highlighted my way up: darker yellow, orange and three different reds, the final being the mechrite red. For the wings, the hottest part is the parts which are closest to the body, so I used a phoenix-like painting there.  I think it turned out quite well, although I've never done anything like this before. Oh, and if you haven't done any Hot Wings or KFC jokes when reading this paragraph, gratz to you... :)

Remember I noted that I took this beast to a couple of games on saturday, right? OK, while I was playing, one of our club members noticed the figure, then came and asked me:

Guy - Is that a flying bison over there?
Me - Why, yes? Why are you surprised?
Guy- I find it weird for hairy animals to have feathers on them...
Me - ...? :: roflmao ::

So anyways, enjoy... Hope it was worth the wait.

Murder King: Whipper Unit Filler

In my last post, you read me rant about the ForgeWorld Infernal Guards, especially about the ranking up bit. I thought, the only way to make it right was preparing an unit filler and distribute the troopers around it. So I went on and did a big one, which is 60mm square. Normally I make 40mm unit fillers; but I can't stress enough how disappointed I am with this ranking up issue.

So, what do we have here? It's a slaver & slayer scene. I shamelessly "borrowed" the idea from Abecadar who is a Chaos Dwarfs Online user. The idea was just too good to pass. Not entirely happy with the end product to be honest; but it is as good as it gets.. for now... As for the ranking up issue, it's still there :( This time, I am to blame I think...

Below are some photos of the unit filler. I also took one with some troopers around it. Enjoy.

FW 101: Introduction to ForgeWorld

Recently, Forge World's siren song proved to be too strong for me and I went on to buy an infernal guards package. My plan was to use the Mantic guys as cores and the ForgeWorld ones as elites. This way, the cores and elites would look different from each other, yet have decent amount of character in them.

During painting, I used my usual recipe. The painting process was rather quick, due to the fact that they are armored to the teeth. I spent some time on the freehands on the shields though. I think the flame designs turned out to be quite OK; but it is up to you to decide.

There are two points that left a sour taste in my mouth. First, the ranking up issue. I generally took my time and plan ahead of time before placing the miniatures on their bases to avoid the ranking up problems. In this case, no amount of nudging, tweaking and moving around solved it unfortunately. Checked the stock photo after I gave up and I still can't see how it could be done. Maybe they used bigger bases, hmm...? :)

Another point which bothers me was the size of the minis. Don't get me wrong, their scale is correct; but they are small compared to the Mantic ones. The Mantic ones have decorations on their helmets and that's the main reason that they look bigger; but as are the old-skool GW chaos dwarfs. I don't see that the ForgeWorld guys will blend in with them nicely too to be honest. I have 10 of these guys now; but I think I won't be buying more of them.

You can see the photos below. I'd recommend you to check the size comparison shot with Mantic mini to get a better feeling about the size difference.

Thinking Big: K'daai Destroyer

K'daai Destroyer with
a summoning diorama

I must admit that this article is kind of embarrassing for me. I'm about to write about and show off a model which I commissioned out to Mr. Lee to build and paint for me. There are certain services, for which gentlemen must not pay money; but since I don't have an airbrush, I had no choice but to hand it over to him. Although I am perfectly aware that he will torment me every day and night for allowing him to paint for me, I am more than happy with the job he has done on it.

According to the ForgeWorld guys, K'daai Destroyers are supposed to be on 150x100mm bases. Currently, this is the biggest base size in WHFB and very few models, including the dreaded Arachnarok Spiders are mounted on those bases. The would-be K'daai model should be big, that's granted; but with such a big base, it was almost mandatory to populate the base with other miniatures, creating a diorama in the process.

So, what was used in this project? The base model for the destroyer is the Titan Overlord of Crocodile Games. This 4.5" long beast is completely metal and as heavy as a beached whale... almost... The summoner guy (which is removable) and the snail are from Scibor's Shaman and Mutant Snails set. As for the stones and menhirs, they are from Fenris Games, bought long ago for a reason that's long forgotten...

Since I was not the one who painted this, I can't give you recipes; but Mr. Lee has a project journal in which you can see the progress, the recipes and his whines. Make sure to check it out too.

Below you can see more photos of "DA BEAST". I don't want to drown the page with the images, so I added just a few of them here. You can see them all in this album. Oh, and also there is a size comparison shot with one of my Mantic infantry. Have I said that this thing is huge... :)

FAQ and Errata for Tamurkhan is Available

Still haven't got a chance to read the Tamurkhan The Throne of Chaos book thoroughly except the Chaos Dwarf army list; but the guys at Forge World were quick enough to publish a FAQ & Errata. This three page document is intended to clarify some of the vague points on gaming aspects, like what weapon does a daemonsmith carry or can a K'daai destroyer be wounded always on natural 6s.

The document appears to be released due to huge demand from the chaos dwarfs community, since it only contains stuff about the Chaos Dwarf army list section and nothing more. If you are interested, it is available from Forge World website.

Starting a Chaos Dwarf Army

With the new Forge World book, Tamurkhan The Throne of Chaos is out now, I am one of the jumpers on the bandwagon to collect a Chaos Dwarf army.

The Tamurkhan book is a campaign book actually; but there is a Chaos Dwarf army list called The Legion of Azgorh, which is a sanctioned army list and can be used in tournaments and such. Encouraged by that, I went on to buy a couple boxes of Mantic Games's Abyssal Dwarfs army deal. This product line is essentially Mantic's regular dwarfs, plus some metal, "chaosy" bits to make them Abyssal Dwarfs. I didn't know that when I bought them and was very surprised to see Mantic, making me to convert their minitures; but you can only build & paint what's put before you, so, who cares... :)

From those boxes, I had 60 infantries, 20 ranged guys and 2 warmachines with 2 crew each. Not a big number actually, especially when you think that you can get almost twice this number of miniatures if you buy regular dwarfs. I think including metal bits took its toll there.

Anyways, that was a quick review of the Mantic miniatures. I will be posting what I do with them soon.