OFCC Aftermath

Last weekend, I went down to Portland for the Ordo Fanaticus Club Challenge. It's a team event, superficially similar to the ATC/ETC, but with a major difference: The goal when making matchups with the other team isn't to set them up so you'll win more, but to set them up so that everyone has the best chance of getting a fun and interesting game. It's pretty much always a great time, and is the one 40K event that I never miss, even in years when I'm not really otherwise playing 40K, or I'm too broke to go anywhere else, or whatever. 11 years in a row now, I've made it happen.

N went above and beyond, getting us this awesome banner and some cool 3D printed tokens to give to our Opponents

I've tried a couple of times in the past, but this was the first year I've ever managed to pull together a themed team. I went down this time as the captain of the Infil-Traitors, with each of us running one of the four Traitor Legions dedicated to one specific God of Chaos. We had R with a World Eaters force, L representing the Thousand Sons (including both Ahriman and Magnus), N with his Death Guard (including both Mortarion and Typhus), and then me, mostly following the theme in general, but running only a Patrol of actual Emperor's Children alongside a much larger contingent of Daemons of Slaanesh and a Renegade Knight.

Anyhow, that's mostly just the lead-in to the pictures. The three big projects I've been working on were for this event, and two of them (my army and a Sector Mechanicus table) were sufficiently finished to use.

My army as a whole. This was my big impetus for getting the Keeper of Secrets finished, as you can see.

A better picture of her. All of these can be clicked for larger versions. They were posted by the TO; I was way too frazzled to get pics myself.

My Renegade Knight. I included it in the project for two reasons. First, I wanted to reduce my model count, since I'd had issues with my back the year before, and it was giving me trouble during the months running up to the event. Secondly, and more importantly, I had the idea for the conversion, and really wanted to make it happen.

You can sort of see part of my Noise Marine Dread at the bottom of that pic, and it's visible, along with my Daemon Princess and Chaos Lord on Steed of Slaanesh, in the first one, but I can't find the better shots of them that I thought were in the album. I'll have to do dedicated photo shoots for those now that I actually have some room available to set my light box up again.

Here's my Sector Mechanicus table. The railings on the walkways and platforms were unfortunately another area where I didn't manage to get everything I wanted done, but it still worked well. This was apparently taken during round three, since that's me sitting there, and my opponent for that game (who was a great dude, with an awesome Custodes Army) standing there, but I don't remember the pic being taken at all.

Pulling over a pic of his army, because it was too awesome not to share

Honestly, I'm still really not recovered from it. My sleep schedule is a mess right now, and I'm trying to edge back into getting some modeling/painting done. I'll hopefully get around to taking more pics of my various conversions for the Army at some point soon. Until then, y'all have a good one, y'hear!

WiP...All Is WiP

OK, it's clearly been way too long since I've posted here. Frankly, it's been because I haven't actually finished anything so far this year. I finally decided I just needed to do something, so here's a pile of what I've been working on over the last few months:

First up, Shadespire! I also have Magore's Fiends built, but they're currently primed black, so nearly impossible to photograph well.

I don't like un-armoured Dwarves, so these guys have been getting some serious work done. It's been taking forever, but it's the most ambitious sculpting project I've ever attempted, so that seems reasonable.

The Skaven are close to done. They're certainly usable, but there's more I want to do with the metal and their skin and fur, plus touching up around the bases.

The Farstriders have all been converted with heads from Statuesque Miniatures, and some trimming on their armour. The heads look a little small, but it's just because the regular helmets have so much bling on them. The actual heads are about the same size.

I'm taking a mixed CSM/Daemon Slaanesh Army to the Ordo Fanaticus Club Challenge this August. I have essentially none of it done, so I really need to get my butt in gear. Some of the stuff for it is getting pretty involved, like this Noise Marine Dread (with groupie):

The pose is supposed to be doing the Steve Harris foot-up-on-the-amp-playing-out-to-the-crowd thing, but Castaferrum Dreads don't really have the joints necessary to make that actually work. I still like it.

The Twin BlastMaster was made from a couple of Plasma Cannon, along with some heavily modified 90s searchlight bits

The Big Bad. I started working on this because I was getting nowhere trying to make myself finish some painting before I started another Modeling project. It's also going to be in my OFCC list, and part of the reason for doing it is that it cut my Model count by like a third, and it's easier for me to do one big project like this than another 20 Daemonettes and dozen Noise Marines.

I always go overboard when I do anything even remotely scenic with a large base. There's going to be so much more cork and talus and sand and stuff when I'm done.

Very loosely inspired by the general idea of the old Epic Hellscourge Chaos Knight. In particular, that had a Castigator Cannon, and when FW did the Knight Castigator, that turned out to be a dual gatling gun-type thing, so this ended up with dual Avengers

Slaaneshi stuff is supposed to be more agile and maneuverable. It's hard to get a good pic of it, but in person, the motion works out pretty well.

Also in the Chaos Folder, I got some Plague Toads a while ago, and finally got them put together. Took me a while because they were just terrible casts. So much gap-filling needed. Going to use them as extra Beasts of Nurgle.

The one with the greenstuff on the base is going to have the whole thing be a giant lilypad that it's sitting on.

Necromunda! Still haven't managed to play, but I've got several gangs in various stages of progress. Hopefully going to get to try it with my brother next week. Not pictured here are The Violet Hellcats (Escher, because they're shuffled away somewhere and I didn't feel like digging them out), and The Children of the Emperor's Embrace (Stealer Cult. Like Magore's Fiends, they're newly primed and impossible to photograph).

The Reds. Basically done, I'm keeping these guys simple because I'm not really into the Goliaths, but I want to have as many options as possible for other people using my gangs. Also going to use them as Iron Warriors Chaos Culties, which is why they're on 25mm Bases.

The Rustbucket Crew. Heavy overbrush to help me see the detail while I'm working on them, and I find it kind of pulls the whole lot together. Did the same for The Reds with Leadbelcher. They were also the first Gang I built after realizing how much of a pain it is to paint the Sector Mechanicus bases with dudes on them.

As with the Farstriders, some of the Orloks have also been converted with Statuesque Miniatures heads. I like having more variety than GW tends to provide.

Last, but not least, the stuff I was supposed to have finished back in fucking February for various challenges:

I mentioned Statuesque Miniatures a couple of times in there. I found out about them from Azazel, as I recall, and was really happy when I finally got around to picking some up. The heads used here are from the Heroic Scale Narrow line, which I think worked out pretty well, tho I'd like to get some of the regular Heroic Scale ones as well at some point. The Orloks' gear is heavy enough that they actually work pretty well with just the head swap, and no other conversion work. If you're looking for conversion bits for female Models, I highly recommend them.

Hopefully I will soon have something actually finished to share, and until then, y'all have a good one, y'hear!

Kytan Build Complete plus Half-Painted House Phantos Imperial Knight

Got the Kytan built. Had to get kinda creative in a couple of places, since I was working from the feet up, with fixed positioning on them due to the basing, and ended up a bit beyond the limits of the posing FW intended, largely thanks to screwing up the angle of one of the ankles. Still looks pretty good overall, if I do say so myself:

Blood Claw to display futile bravery. Also scale.

This is pretty pic heavy, so I'm putting the rest below a cut. Click for more:

Warp Shield Generator: Scale Check

Doing a bit of a check on size now that I've got the thing roughly hacked to shape. I'm using a Knight as comparison because in part I'm working from this pic:

Mine's a bit bulkier, and it's a complete LoS blocker, but otherwise I think I've got it about right. The LoS bit shouldn't be an issue, because if I'm hiding anything behind it, it's going to be stuff like Culties or Flesh Hounds, that wouldn't come up to the point where the difference really starts.

I carved some stonework patterns in it, and gave most of it a coat of Mod Podge (Thanks for the rec, Thor!). Tomorrow, when that's dry, there are a few bits I'm going to patch up with spackle, and get Mod Podge on the rest. Then probably one more thinned down coat, just to make sure I've gotten all the cracks and crevices sealed, glue some Chaos icons on it (Mon-Tues), spray it black (Weds), and get it all drybrushed on Thursday so it's ready to head over to Bellevue for TSHFT when I take off Friday afternoon.