Mark of the Wulfen

Sorry about the picture quality, but it was 5:00 AM when I took these photos. I am quite happy with how the skin tones turned out. I know its hard to tell in the pictures, but there really is a more distinct highlight on the actual model.



I'm not sure what to do as far as tattoo markings, so I left him as is for now.
Well, time to get ready for work...

A modeling tutorial for my Grey Hunters

Thought I would do a quick tutorial on how I have modeled my Grey Hunters. Now, this is not a new conversion by any means. I did a few years back with my Space Wolves army, I have seen an entire Black Templar army modeled this way, Jawaballs has made some excellent looking Blood Angels with these bits, and another tutorial can be found on a Space Wolves blog (I'm going to have to add that to my following list, as I really like that site.

Anyways, I am posting mine here simply to show how I go about doing my version of this popular conversion.

Above you can see, I take the back half of a Chaos Warrior Torso, and make a mess of it with my Dremel. The grinder bit I have attached is the perfect tool for this job. I also cut the top half of the front of the Chaos Warrior apart from his legs (I like the full front torso, but I like the look the Marine legs give with this conversion better)

After I'm finished making a mess of things, I clean it up with some Green Stuff. I am not too concerned with how it looks at this point, I'm just trying to smooth it out a bit. Most of it will be covered with the rest of the model anyway.

I then attach the front, I should note here that I hollowed out the back of the front piece, as well as hollowed out the waist area of the back piece with the Dremel, this is to allow for a better fit for the legs. I also fill in the gaps between the front and back torso pieces with a little Green Stuff.

Using a small ball of Green Stuff, I put it on top of the legs of the Marine, then using my sculpting tool, I make a small Wolf Pelt around the waist. This fills in any gaps between the torso and legs, I then use floral wire as my pins for the arms.


The above two photos show the army attachment, the gap on the right arm will be filled with Green Stuff, I'll also bulk out the shoulder pad a bit.


I attached the Plasma gun, and the head, I had to use some Green Stuff here as well in order to raise the head to a level that looked and fit well with the torso.

I added a few bits around the waist where I didn't like the join, to hide any deficiencies, and here he is ready for his base.

I hope you all enjoyed this, please if you have any tips or comments for me, then fire away!

First model completed!

Wow! what a nice sculpt, but what an absolute pain in the ass to paint...

Space Wolves 2011

After the Colonial GT and after speaking with Chris "Jawaballs" and seeing his new Blood Angels, and some of his WIP for his new army, I got myself motivated to attempt to step up my game a bit.

What does this mean for me? a brand spanking new Space Wolves army of course!

Now, to do a new Space Wolf army, I need to set myself some ground rules.
1. It needs to have a new theme (I've already done Rhino rush, Drop Pods, and Biker heavy lists)
2. All new models, I have a sizable collection, but all of the models I currently have, I've already used in a tournament of one type or another. I need something new.
3. Conversions all around. This part is a bit tricky as the new Space Wolf models are great and not in need of much converting.

My current thought, is to do a Logan Grimnar army. Not an all Wolf Guard force, but one that does take advantage of his ability to use Wolf Guard as a troops selection. I want variety in the force while trying to have as many boots as I can on the ground. I also want to use lots of Wargear, and kit-out some squads. This is the Great Wolf's Great Company after all, and they should be equipped as such.

Normally I write a list, and then work on building the army. I have tried this approach several times already, but just can't seem to stick with one list that I want to build.

Here is what I consider "must haves" in the list so far:

• Logan Grimnar (Of course) I am going to convert my own model. The current one is great, but I am going to build my own, kit-bashing some plastics. His axe is going to be a double bladed Khorne Chain-axe
• A Long Fangs pack, max-size this group is old friends of the "Old Wolf" maybe even members of his original pack. They are going to all tote Heavy Bolters. This is a Space Wolf standard option with a twist (No missile launcher spam here). My hope is to use The Old Wolf's special abilities of giving Relentless or Tank-hunters to the pack to make the Heavy Bolters not just a good option, but a great one.
• A ten strong Wolf Guard pack all in TDA. This is the "Core" of the army. I normally go with Assault Cannons, so for a twist, I am going to go with 2 Cyclone Missile Launchers.
  
• A Grey Hunters Pack with all the goodies I can squeeze in
• A Blood Claws Pack
• A Wolf Priest

This should leave me with a couple of hundred points to play with. I have one pack of each of the Troops choices allowed in the Codex. I may try and do a Scout pack as well, I'll have to play with some more detailed lists to see what I can squeeze into this army.

Here are a couple of teaser pics,


Above you can see the start of my first pack, some Grey Hunters. This will be a pack of 9 led by a Wolf guard. Lots of kit-bashing and green stuff, I'm really trying to push my converting skills on this project.


Above we have the Wolf Guard he is armed with a Thunder Hammer and a Combi-plasma. I know, I know not the wisest of choices, but he just looks so damn bad-ass!
I used one of the Scibor models that I purchased at the Colonial, I purchased 4 different ones, so I have one for each of the packs that I have planned for this army to represent all of my Wolf Guard.

I will have more close up pictures of the other models soon, and I will put up some notes on how I made the models.

Colonial GT (all the rest of the stuff...)

Above you can see my army (again I know) this time with the objective markers I took. I kept it simple, and just used my old ones from my "Empire" themed IG army.
Here is an action shot from my first turn against Nick, even this early in the game things are looking scary.
Captain Vindicis, surrounded but refusing to fall, this last stand looked to me like something from a movie scene.
Above you can see Chris's Blood Angels (Jawaballs) fantastic army, and a really super display
A dark shot, but I tried to get a close up of his Venny.
Above we have the Daemons of Ashley, from game 2. Yes, I fought another Daemons army. This was a wonderful game against a lovely young lady who was playing in her first GT and came along with her husband. (who was many tables higher in the brackets than either of us).
Even though I scored very high in this game with Battle points the game was much closer than the points indicated, with it coming down to the very last couple of turns.

And yes, it just gets better and better... Game 3 is against Tyranids. I forget the young mans name, nice fella and a good gamer. Spanked me good. He had these flying bone sword guys that just killed everything they touched. I was loosing Terminator squads before they could even swing.
This was actually my last opponents army, a really cool Dark Eldar force. This game ended in a tie, and was one of my favorite over the weekend. Again with everything coming down to the last turn.
Sadly the pictures I took of my friend Ronen's army didn't turn out. It was very dark in the hall, and about half of my pictures you can barely even see. Ronen fielded a fantastic Blood Angels list, and was probably my favorite opponent from the weekend. I have known him for quite a long time from various events I have attended, and I finally got to face him on the battlefield. Great game.

Over-all a fantastic weekend. for some more coverage of the events you can check out my follow list in my side bar. Jawaballs, and Stout Smurf both have coverage on their blogs.

More on the Colonial GT (game 1)

Above we have Nick Nanavati's (sorry if I butchered the spelling here) Daemons Army. Let me just say that Nick is a great kid, and has been hitting the circuit for a couple of years now. I had the pleasure of facing Nick my first game at the Colonial.

I don't really know how to explain the level of ass whooping I took this game. Let me start by saying Nick gave me first turn.

I took this turn to consolidate my position, attempt to secure objectives early and open up lanes of fire, while keeping my army in a position that my units could all support one another.

In his turn, the army half he chose comes in, with a minimal amount of shooting he passes the turn. I attempt to concentrate my fire on the units I feel are most dangerous. I whittle one of the Bloodletter units down to just a few models. I think I attempted an assault here, but failed to make the distance through difficult terrain.

In Nick's 2nd turn he begins rolling for reserves. EVERYTHING comes in, did you see the picture above?! wow, suddenly I'm surrounded.

The game then became a situation where I was trying to keep my Land Raiders alive and moving so that I could capture, or contest objectives. This effort became futile against the massive swarm of Daemons that took over this planet that was being defended by just a handful of DeathWing.

1st game was over, and I was crushed...
Fun game though, and a great kid. I would play Nick anytime, and am looking forward to a rematch.

The Colonial GT

Hey all, the Colonial GT was an absolute blast!

Chris Nanry and his staff really did a nice job putting this one together, and I really believe that the first 40k showing at the Colonial (which has always been strictly Fantasy before this year) was a great success.

I decided to do something different for this tournament, and took a DeathWing army that I had been building. It is by no means a Tournament winner, or even a best painted contender, but I wanted a change of pace.

I got my ass kicked all weekend, and ended up 25th I think over-all with a very surprising 5th for painting?! I was happy with the way my army turned out, but I really didn't take my time on many of the units, and some of it was literally rushed, but hey can't complain for such a high finish on that end.

Best of all I got to hang out with some old friends, and make some new ones. Which is really what it is all about. I will post some more details on all of my games along with some pictures so stay tuned.

Things have been a bit crazy around here...

Man, things have been nuts lately.

What with both my vehicles in the shop last week at the same time, trying to get ready for the Colonial, work, kids...

I even forgot to get the Grey Knights codex on my way out of the store the other night.

Anyway, tonight I will not be able to make it in for league night, I need to pack, and do some final touch up for this weekend.

I'm going to try and get some good pictures of some armies and in game action throughout the weekend, and I'll post details after I get back.

See you next week!