Obliterator Group Shot

What we gave gere us my Apoc formation, Cult of Destruction. Twelve Obliterators hell bent on destruction. I've been converting these guys for the past 3 months or so. Some conversions are more extensive than others, but all are satisfactory for playing. I plan on pumping out at least three more... but bumping it up by six couldn't hurt. Haha.

On a side note, I really need to find a new blog template. While I like the colors of this one, the content block is too small if I want to place pictures. As you can see, any time I align a picture to the side of a text block it takes up too much room and squishes the text into a small column. Very annoying. Any suggestions?

Fluffin It Up

What do Warhammer 40k and pillows have in common? Fluff! Haha, lame joke.

Been digging through the history books the past few days trying to find some good names to incorporate into my (fallen) chapters story. For any new readers out there, I'm digging through history because my chapter is heavily based off of Mark Antony of ancient Rome.

Anyways, I've managed to coral up this list of names to use for characters, ships and planets. For the longer names I found I'll probably cut them into pieces and use the parts for various characters.

Names
· Lucius Vorenus
· Titus Pullo
· Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus
· Purefoy
o Name homage to actor who played Mark Antony in HBO's Rome.
· Marcus Junius Brutus
· Posca
· Quintus Valerius Pompey,
· Aulus Gabinius
· Helios
· Valarius
· Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus
· Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus
· Publius Cornelius Lentulus Spinther
· Lucius Cornelius Lentulus Crus

Plantest
· Tarsus
· Ephesus
· Armenia
· Phoenicia
· Actium
· Cilicia
· Ephesus
· Parthia
· Media
· Pharsalus
· Dyrrhachium
· Gaulico

You might notice that I borrowed some names from HBO's mini series Rome. I couldn't help myself with that, it was one of the most addicting tv series' I've ever watched. Ranks up top next to SciFi's Dune.
Comments or suggestions?

Look What Just Came In The Mail

Got some goodies in the mail today. Finally my copy of Planet Strike (yay), some more Chaos Terminators (more yay), glue (whooohooo) and a new pair of clippers to replace the pair my buddy left at the GW in Vienna. :p
Also got some Land Raider upgrade kits. My original intention was to use them for my oblits... chopping them up and such, but after looking at them I don't think I could bare to do that... yet... Haha.
I'm thinking maybe I'll convert one of my Rhino's into a Predator. Is the CSM Predator any good? What would be a decent load out for it? Hmmm.... I'll have to look into that. Deffinately going to make it a Rhino that transforms into a Pred by means of magnets though. Darn behicles are too expensive. Haha.
Whats this? Why, looks like a bunch of skulls! And green stuff? Molds! Time for scenic basis! Whats more suiting of a base for an Obliterator than a floor covered in the skulls of his victimes? I'm gonna try to get as much of my money's worh out of these skulls as possible.
And finally, my latest Obliterator. This one was made using mostly the bits from my new Terminator box. He's got a CombiFlamer with a Meltagun undertow on one arm and a PowerFist toting a Plasmagun and Lascannon on the other arm. Sorry for the blurry picture. I really need to set up a proper photo box. That'll be one of my first tasks when I rotate back to the states.

Where was I....

Been slacking on the hobby work the past few days... work tempo is picking up and my time gets very tight when I'm working evenings. A lot of my free time is invested into going to the gym and keeping my (currently) long distance relationship alive. Its a rough life being a Marine.

Anyways.... been plowwing along at a decent pace with Abnett's Eisenhorn series. Got only two more chapters of the first book... I'm loving it. Gives a much deeper look into life in the grim dark of 40k. With other novels all you ever really see it war, but with Eisenhorn you get the chance to see what the norm of living is like in a peaceful locale of the Imperium. Still grim dark, but not full of despair. I like it.

I obviously am not the most talented of writers. I've noticed my writing style has degressed substantially over the past three years... I'm so relieved that I'll be free to return to higher education in a year. Not that I can't attend university now... I've tried online course, however the disapoint me terribly. Out of the three classes I've done, none were challenging enough to really captivate me... I feel more like these online universities are degree mills. They'll give just about any one a passing grade so long as they complete their work.

On my hobby table things have been slow as I've mentioned. Been conducting work... Arms dealings with a Rouge Trader whom I know only as Gener Suft.
Alright... that was pretty lame. Truth be told, I'm committing heresy. Green Stuff molds... nothing big really... just some purity seals, melta bombs and flamers. The big item is the flamers... I don't have enough of them to adequately arm my forces and they're too hard to aquire at a reasonable price... Shame on me I know... But, to each his own.

And now, back to Eisenhorn. Terribly hard to put this book down.

Converting Obliterators!

One of my absolute favorite Chaos unit choices is the Obliterator. They're just so damn bad ass! And insanely versatile to boot, well worth a measly 75 points a piece. Two wounds, basic space marine stats and every weapon to choose from. Lovely! Deep strike, slow and purposeful! Move and shoot! Lascannons ahoy! Multi-melta them closer tanks! Twin link roast some fools! Or crank up the heat with the heavy flamer! :D

Today I found my surplus of green stuff. Two huge tubes of it. What did that mean to me? Painting is kept on hold and a new squad of Oblits are in demand. I want to push my count up to Twelve this week. Mwahahaha!

I never cared for the fleshed out monster look of the GW models. And they're so ridiculously expensive I could never shell out the cash to feild an adequate number of them. Thats when I turned to google... I didn't find any decent tutorials so I made my first scratch built Oblit, and boy was he caked with green stuff.... I tried to make him look 'fleshed out', but it resulted in a tree bark look.
Shortly there after Black Matt posted some tutorials on scratch building Oblits. I was inspired to try again, so try I did! I've cranked out a lot since then, and I feel my work has improved slowly over time. Hopefully soon I'll amass a suitable sized force as I mentioned in my previous post.
Enjoy some more photos. ;)

On My Workdesk

My room isn't the neatest of places... For the first time in my entire Marine Corps career my room actually belongs to me. No crazy field day inspections, nothing. I'm free to do as I like.... and that happens to be leave my hobby stuff out and never make my bed. :p

I haver here some pictures of some of my current projects going on... woke up this morning to learn one was a complete fail. Damn you green stuff! But the rest are still good to go!



One we have is my true scale Marine that I've been working on for ages. I'm having a hard time deciding what choice of weapons and arms to go with for him.... Pretty sure I want to use him as an IC.

Up next are some various pictures of weapons amassed on my table as well as some Terminator bits. What do massive amounts of weapons and Terminator bits have in common? Well, in my world its Obliterator converts! :D

I plan on eventually fielding 15+ scratch built Obliterators for an Apoc game. At the moment I have 9 Oblits already built, spare parts for another 4 or so and another box of Choas Terminators and Land Raider upgrade sprues and various weapons on the way to bolster the numbers. I just need to nap another foam tray for Terminator sized models soon so I can safely transport all my models when I move again...

You should take a peak at page 59 in Apocalypse Reloaded. The Cult of Destruction formation is one nasty behemoth! With enough models you can reach across the board easily and snipe some baddies with the Las-Destructor, a concentrated Strength D shot! Or you could drop an AP3 (-1 AP as you model count rises) Hellstorm template! But honestly... who needs those when you could just stomp around and create mayhem!

The last picture in the line up is a crap one I took of my latest painted figure. This here is one of Antony's three surviving 1st Company 'Gypo Legionnaires'. He's part of a squad of three. The other two are only base coated at this moment, but I plan on finishing them soon.... Terminators are a damned pain to paint!

General Musings

Been a bit slow on my painting lately. At the moment my work schedule really clogs up my free time which I unfortunately can't make much room for painting in. However, I did manage to accomplish painting one Terminator in my chapter colors. I forgot how much a pain they are compared to simple marines!

Been reading a lot of batreps in the blogosphere lately. Lots of cool ideas floating around out there... got me looking through my C:SM codex yet again for new tatica. Normally I run interference with Flame toting Rapter Squads, but I'm looking into Infiltrating Chosen with Icons and Flamers instead. Maybe a detachment of 3 Terminators deep striking to really light things up.
Also been wondering... I know 'shooty' Marines are not the best of lists to run but.... Hmmm... A shooty list of Noise Marines with Lash HQs to keep the opponent in optimum range? I do want to try out a single squad of Noise Marines some time just to get a feel of it.

Turns out one of my fellow Marines (real life Marines) might be interested in learning to play 40k. That'd boost 40k players in this country by 200%! Haha.
I'm looking at building a SM list and a C:SM list at 500 pts a peice. I want to keep them both as simple as possible so at to ease the guy in.

Also, finished the Soul Drinkers Omnibus recently. Over all it was a decent read, I wouldn't have ever finished it otherwise. As it progressed it started to grow stale though. The first book was fairly captivating, the second interesting and the third seemed to be just the same package redone. The preview snippit at the end of the 4th book however has piqued my interest. I'd buy it now.... but I'm afraid that will have to wait. My Eisenhorn and Ravenor Omnibus's are in!

Chapter Fluff (REVISED)

I wrote up the first rendition of my chapter's fluff a good while back but have never posted it as it hasn't really sat right with me. Originally the cause for my chapter turned from the Imperium was that the chapter was investigated for 'heretical' acts, namely a festivilised cannibalism that stems from the chapters homeworld and recruiting pool. The chapter was issued an ultimatum to cull all members associated with it and to take up a penetence crusade. While in the midst of a hopeless battle that would spell the end of the chapter, they were rescued by Chaos Marines and have turned their backs on the Imperium since.

That did not sit well with me at all. For one, it was too far fetched. Also, it didn't have enough historical character (the chapter master is Antony the Marked after all). And to top it off, it didn't have enough depth.

Now a few days ago I was busy lurking on the BoLS forum and found a 'background story' thread. I decided to write something... motivation and inspiration kicked in and here's what we got. I present to you my new rough draft!

Name: Imperial Light (loyal name)
Later Name: The Eclypsed Light
Founding: Unknown
Status: Excommunicate Traitoris
Homeworld: Actium (Ceded in act of repentence)
Leader: (Former) Chapter Master Lucius Sulla
(Current) Antony 'the Marked'
Founders: Unknown
Warcry: "We Carry The Torch of Enlightenment!"
Colour scheme: Turquis armour with Crimson trim.

Chapter Master Sulla was a man of extremes. For him life was a matter of black and white. When ther was a battle to be fought, commitment to it was to be absolute. He shaped the chapter into a more assault unit based organization and encouraged the use of any and all methods required to accomplish the mission. He was overly proud and terribly ambitious, and for reasons unknown one day lead the chapter in open rebellion against the Imperium.
Sulla's rebellion failed miserably. None of the handful of chapters he attempted to sway to his side answered his call. He was alone and unwilling to back down from the path he choose. He met his death at the battle of Actium when his Battlebarge "The Lords Beacon" was boarded by Inquitorial Forces.
Following the death of Chapter Master Sulla, a new leader had to be chosen on the spot for purpose of negotiations of surrender with the Inquisitor at hand. None of the chapters senior members were present to elect the new Master, and thus he was chosen by the common battle brothers in arms. Brother Sergeant Antony was elected to take the mantle.
Antony and the Inquisitor spoke at lengths in private, none can be to sure the specifics. The result of which was that the Chapter would live, but must repent. Their homeworld of Actium was to be ceded to the Inquisitor, one tenth of the chapters geneseed given up, and the chapter was to embark on a hunder year penetence crusade in the eastern Austian sector.
Upon arrival in the Austian sector, Lord Antony found himself besieged by another Space Marine chapter; 'The Legion of Titans'. He was accused of being a traitor to the Imperium and was attacked at every enconter. A nine month campaign between to two chapters took place focused primarily in the Billas and Krottenbach systems. It concluded with the Legion of Titans purposefully awakening a Necron Tomb underneat the city of St. Marie as part of a trap to eradicate the Imperial Light chapter. The entire population of Billas and close to 900 battle brothers where lost as a result. The Legion of Titans escaped unscathed.
Lord Antony and the survivors of his chapter barely managed to escape with their lives. Their honor and pride had be dirtied by those who'm were of the same caste. Battle brothers had fought and killed battle brothers and the Imperial Light had be betrayed by most diabolical means. Enraged by the insult done to them, Antony and his brothers cast aside the mantle of Imperial rule and declared themselves renegades.
Since the conclussion of the Austian Incident, Antony has been a wanted fugitive. He now holds the title of 'the Marked' and has accepted into his ranks renegades from the many other chapters he has crossed paths with. To this day he has under his command detachments of Alpha Legionaires, Dark Wolves, and Reavers. They have taken to piracy with an emphasis of Space Marines as targets. They search the galaxy for Cruisers of loyalist chapters traveling alone. Easy prey with great rewards whether it be power armor, weapons, gene seed stores or willing converts to their cause. Antony the Marked has become a force to be reckoned with.

***
The Legion of Titans is a friends chapter of Space Marines. The planets named are based off of stores and streets in Vienna, where I was living at the time I started playing. The chapter's history is all based off of the games I played in that short span of time.Antony the Marked, the chapter home world, and the previous chapter master are all based off of historical figures and places.

Finished! Sort of...

Managed to wrap up the last of this IG Vets squad today with the addition of my Demolitions Expert. Took a lot of digging through my bits box to decide what would be a proper demo charge. I decided to go along with a 'satchel' look rather than the 'coffe mug' look I've seen featured by other players.
That rounds the squad off at five men... WAIT! Five men? Yes... I'm short on parts to build any more. Gotta order another SM Scout squad before I can continue. Think I'll order a Catachan Command Squad as well.
My squad has Harker, the Demo Expert (shotgun strapped to back), one Lasgun vet, and two Shotgun vets. I regret not converting that one lasgun into a shotgun. If I had I could easily use this as a SM Scout squad as well.

Harker looks simply bad ass! I think the demo man might need more bombs though.

The demo expert's head is a SM sergeant head. It has several service studs on the forehead that I'm going to represent successful missions/detonations in the characters career.

Still Working on My Distraction

My IG squad recieved yet more attention from me today. Decided since I only have enough bits (scout legs) to make 5 men, and I'm already 3 deep I should get started on my Veteran Sergeant. For a bunch of hard nosed apes like these, who better than GySgt Harker!?
Coincidently, his new model is available for pre-order on GW's site as of today. Screw that though, I don't like the big bulky monstrosity look. I want my Gunny to be built like your average grunt, only difference between him n the rest is he's freaking HARD! This dude should make Rambo look like a pansy!



A tad blurry still, I know. I don't have a proper photo box nor a decent camera. Just gotta live and make due.

Still distracted by my WIP IG squad. I gotta say, these Hardened Vets sure look the part! These guys are just solid!

A pic of the bits I'm in the process of chopping up from various boxes. Also a pic of the backs of my two finished Vets.


And here we have some pics of my newest WIP. I posed him to look like he's actually aiming the shotgun.
Gonna need to green stuff the buttock of the shotgun a bit, it looks like garbage at the moment. Finish his back pack, throw on some more gear and he's done.

Afriel Strain Guard

Awhile back before the new IG Codex game out, AstroMag released issue #4. Inside it had a section on Abhuman doctrines from WD 304 and one in particular caught my eye. The Afriel Strain. Essentially these are some weird "clone" experiment of the IG greats such as the Lord Solar Macharius. They perform amazingly, however they attract animosity from allies and enemies alike and tend to come upon bad luck. Whether their "bad luck" is actually "bad luck" or commanders sticking them in un-winnable situations purposefully remains to be answered, however they are amazing soldiers none the less. Awesome conversions to boot as well.
AstroMag suggest SM Scout legs and heads, Catachan arms, and Cadian torsos for the conversion. I used all of those, CSM top-knot heads and SM power packs with wargear added. The powerpacks had the bottom and side exhausts trimmed off to give a more "backpac-esque" look. Worked out fairly well IMHO.

FOC and Paint Tracker

Saw this on one of the blogs I follow. Had to give it a spin myself since its so nifty.
EDIT: Admiral Drax's Blog


Image lists every model I've built in more warband, has room for expansion and shows the state every model is in not to mention the equipment. Very handy for me when writing lists while at work since I always forget what weapons my terminators have.



In other news, I got a bit distracted again this morning. Didn't quiet feel like painting since I don't know what to do with the Rhino on my table, so I instead fooled around with my Afriel Strain IG. Got a box of Cadians, Catachans and SM Scouts. Scout Legs + Cadian Torso + Catachan Arms + SM Packs + various bits. Used a top knot CSM head for the first one... looks slick. Pics to come.

Skyrar's Darkwolves, Part Two!

Finished the last man of my Darkwolves squad. Love the look and feel of them so much, I think I'm going to build another squad of them in October when the Space Wolves are released.
At the moment I'm working on the Rhino attached to my Darkwolves. Base coated it black, then followed up with a coat of Catachan Green. I'm at a loss from this point on though. Not too sure What to paint Shadow Grey and what to leave Green.


And now some pics of my workspace and army...

Alpha Legionaires Finished

After a couple mornings for painting prior to work I've managed to wrap things up on my Alpha Legion squad. The only thing they're missing is their flamers/melta guns. Fortunately those just arrived (along with my bits box and modeling tools) in the mail today from Vienna. Woohoo. Gotta love government shipping. ;)

Now without further ado, my completed squad.
Things I need to keep in mind for future works; Take Your Time!
I tend not to water down my paints enough so that I can get a thicker, albeit detail obscuring, layer of paint. This only tends to happen when I do batch painting though. When I keep to one model at a time I tend to stick to dry brushing and glazing techniques.

The chaplain model to the right is my one of my ICs, Seti Ubaid. He's not really a IC but a Slaneshi Jump Lord with Lash. Yes, I'm a cheezey bastards. According to chapter fluff he's one of the original members of the "Imperial Light" (former chapter name while still loyal) before they fell from grace. He's still devoted to the Emperor, as are many of his surviving chapter brethern, however he has sold his soul to the dark lords to appease the ruinous powers to give him and his brothers safe transport through the warp. Devoutly loyal and faithful, tragically doomed for his compassion. Love it. He's got some possessed C:SM wings somewhere, just need to find a way to magnetize them to his back.

Up next on my agenda, finish my Dark Wolves since I finally have glue to fix the last Marine again. Then on to their Rhino.

Color Deilema

Alright, here's the situation. I'm painting a squad of Alpha Legionnaires right. Well, I'm leaning towards a odd blue/green/purple hue like that on the cover of the HH book Legion. I'm pretty happy with the armour color at the moment. Looks a big greener/purplier IRL that this picture btw. However, I can't decide on what would be a suitable color for their cloaks. I tested straight purple on one and it looked horrid. Doubt even darkening it with badab black wash would help either....
Not quite sure what color to go with. Perhaps a dark green like Dark Angels green. Thats about the darkest I have anyways. Hmmm....

*UPDATE*

Tried experimenting with green and here's what I got.
One person on the BoLS forum suggested trying a blend of red, however that adds a worry of xmas tree syndrome. This however might cover the model in too many like colors.... Very difficult. I do like this green cloak though.

Painting Progress

Well, I promised pictures so here they are. Took me darn long enough. But excuses aside....

On my painting table thats so neatly wrapped in plastic wrap from the kitchen we have the rest of my Skyrar's Dark Wolves C:SM squad. For their pain scheme I went with a base coat of Catachan Green and Shadow Grey for the blue segments. Some models got a light drybrushing of SpaceWolf Grey over the Shadow Grey... but I got lazy towards the end and stopped with that.

One model broke in transit to Oman and won't be painted till I put him back together. (I'm outa glue and being lazy. :p)

Here is the rest of the squad. I really should learn to take better pictures btw. Haha.

Sgt with Power Weapon, two CCW C:SMs and a melta gunner. I'm not a fan of glueing special weapons onto the models, they fit in nicely enough on their own. If they have any problem staying set a small bit of sticky tac will help. I like to be able to switch between melta and flamers for list building.

And no, these are no exactly WYSIWYG. Stupid rule... I don't have the patience to dig up all those ammo pouches and grenades and such. "Heretic!" I know.

Now I'll leave you with some pictures of the rest of my squads I'm in the process of paint.

Say What? I Have a Blog?

It's not that I forogt I had a blog really, it's just that I've been to lazy to get around to it. Not even that really... I haven't accomplished much of anything worth blogging about. My army has steadily built up over time into a rather menacing Apoc sized force, however I've neglected to paint just about any of it. Heheh.... but that's changing as we speak.

The main reason behind me not painting or developing my blog can be directly contributed to a few things. Europe and girls. I'm young, I'm a Marine, I have enough money to live fairly well and I was living in Vienna. It was always work work work, party party party, and spending time with the girl friend. I'd spend some time building my models and converting stuff (9 converted Obliterators). And when I was lucky I'd have enough time off during the day (thanks gunny) to find my way to GW and play a game against my buddy. Typically I'd loose as I've just started playing this past year and have yet to learn the ins and outs of winning tactics. Thankfully blog reading (FTW) has changed that for me. *Insert BlackMatt shout out*

So why would things change now for me and my army's developement? Well, I moved. Where to? The middle east! Gah! *cries* No women, no girlfriend, no alcohol and sadly, no GW either. No one to play and not crap to do but work, gym, internet lurk and paint. My modeling supplies are still in transit (mail) but I do have the bulk of my army here and have started making way on painting. I've successfully painted a full squad finally! *cheers* I've been doing a lot of painting actually, and will have hopefully another couple of squads done this week.

On another note, I've changed my army up a bit. I've been busy writing fluff and what not and trying to decide on a proper background story to give my (fallen) chapter justification. While originally my entire chapter was going to feature the same basic themes (Egyptian), I've now decided to model it as a warband. Having lost so many members as casualties when breaking ties with the Imperium its only right that the chapter has turned to taking rouge Marines from other chapters into their fold. So far we have a squad of Alpha Legion (chosen space marines), a squad of Skyrar's Dark Wolves (MOK space marines) and a squad of Plauge Marines of unknown origin (read undecided).

Thats all for now. I'll post some pics when I get home from work.