Chaos Space Marines: Heretic Astartes

Chaos Space Marines: Heretic Astartes

Looming on my hobby horizon is my Chaos Space Marine Army. At present it is a small force of World Eaters:

The models are a mixture of second, third and fourth editions. Some metal, some early plastics. This goes against my wish to keep my armies to a particular period but I cannot see myself wanting to divide them into viable armies. The best I can achieve will be to create a number of detachments that comprise of models from an period in time.

New models will be added. These are mainly the Chaos Marines from the Dark Imperium Box and Shadowspear Box Sets.

This is of course a problem because the Death Guard and the Daemonkin are not Word Eaters.

It has bothered me for a while that my World Eaters was very restricted in terms of units I could add. No sorcerers of havocs in particular.

However, I now have a plan to re-visit Chaos as the Black Legion. A bit of an obvious choice but one I guess that many decide upon as very few models would not feel at home in a Black Legion Army.

Luckily, the fluff is very accommodating. The World Eaters will now be: Hounds of Abaddon. The Death Guard models will become: Bringers of Decay. And any other new additions will be Black Legion. With scope to add Sons of Cyclops and Children of Torment units too.

All of this has reminded me of my thoughts on Chaos Space Marines and why, despite being the 'old enemy' and number one nemesis of loyal Space Marines they are never treated equally.

I will put down my thoughts in a follow up post.........

Nick's News! Blog Update

General Update

It has again been a good while since my last update. I have continued to try to keep track of my hobby by taking photos of models as they progress from being unboxed to being battle-ready.

The main additions have been to my Eagle Marines, and in particular the new Primaris Companies. The introduction of Vanguard Primaris Marines has caused me to remove the Reiver models from the Company X rosta and add them along with the contents of the Shadowspear Box to a new Company V.

New Genestealer Cult models were purchased but they remain unboxed right now. I am still not certain how they will fit in my existing Genestealer/Chaos Cult collection. There is still a lot of work to do on adding the eBay bits and bobs to create a 'Space Marines who have really gone off track and now worship the Four-Armed Emperor' army.......
I have bought and built some 'Big bugs' though so however the army turms out it will have some io-tanks as support.

The other Wharhammer 40,000 armies have not seen much attention. Although my Grey Knights received some additions off eBay and they all got 32mm bases and a KR Carrycase too.

It was the 75th Anniversary of D-Day back in June and both Flames of War and Bolt Action came out with new books and models. I need to re-visit both of these collections. Particularly Flames of War as it is now in Fourth Edition......

Nick's News! - On the Table - Forgefathers

Warpath - Forgefathers

I purchased a whole lot of Warpath goodies from the Mantic Games open day last year.

As I already enjoyed assembling some metal Forgefathers a couple of years ago, I thought I would put together the plastic Forgefathers.

The weapon options I considered carefully to try to make the models work in the three Warpath games systems......

The assembly process is not yet complete......update to follow......

My plan is not to paint them up in Urban Camouflage, as my metal miniatures were....
But to paint them up in a silver and blue colour scheme which would compliment my other Forgefathers and also be similar to my Dwarf Army for Warhammer Fantasy Battle.....

Nick's News! - On the Table - Eagle Marines

Warhammer 40K 

The third company of the Eagle Marines has been On the Table on and off a fair amount over the last twelve months. Primarily because it was the last to be repainted from Eagle Warriors to Eagle Marines.

Bikers

This is a quick update of how the bikers were brought up to a battle ready standard.

The two biker squads were incomplete......

A box set of three bikers was acquired to even out the squads.

 The captain and chaplain of the third company are on bikes too.

The bikers have a little heavy weapon support from two attack bikes.

The first job was to take the bikers off their old rectangle cavalry bases.

Once the white armour had been repainted blue they were based on biker bases.

The squad with melta guns was next on the table

 Again, the white sections of armour were repainted blue, and bike bases used.

A quick look at the battle ready 3rd Company bikers next to the 5th company bikers.

The Chaplain and Captain got updated too

 Ready for battle.....

The attack bikes needed bases.

I am not one hundred percent sure that the round bases are the perfect ones as there are some great oval shaped bases available now, but they will do for now.

The third company is battle ready.....

Nick's News! - On the Table - Eagle Marines

Warhammer 40K

This post is a little update on my Eagle Marines. The third company is a 3rd Edition WH40K army.
I have tried to keep all the models in the company and the attached support from that era.
The squads are the first all plastic space marines produced by Games Workshop since the RTB01 box. 2nd Edition WH40K saw metal and metal/plastic hybrid miniatures.

As with all of my miniatures from this period, they spent some time as Eagle Warriors but have since been overpainted as Eagle Marines.

The tactical squads were the first to begin the transition......

They each received a very basic Basecoat covering.....

In the future they will get some shading and highlighting. But for now they are battle ready.

Squad 4 is tabletop ready....

Squad 5 is tabletop ready........

Squad 6 is tabletop ready.....

The third company, plus support, is now tabletop ready and I will show further updates in future.....

Nick's News! - On the Table - Raven Guard

Warhammer 40K - Horus Heresy

When I purchased the two Horus Heresy boxed sets, Betrayal at Calth and the Burning of Prospero, I considered what Legion I wanted the miniatures to be modeled and painted as.

My initial thought was the Ultramarines, as my Eagle Marines are a successor chapter. But I felt that I had already painted enough 'blue miniatures' and so looked at the other potential Legions. My chaos army is World Eaters and so that was a consideration, but 30K era World Eaters are not red and gold so they might not be dual purpose - being a 30K army outright and a boost for my 40K chaos army.

Whilst assembling them I considered that my usual black primer might be also good as the base coat for the army - and that is when I decided that the Raven Guard would be the chosen legion/chapter.

Not only would the 'Ravens' be different enough to my 'Eagle Marines' but as they are both named after birds there was some synergy too.

There is still a lot more to do

\But I have made a start

With plenty of troops, and terminators and a couple of dreadnoughts (one from the Talons of the Emperor set) there is a good core army for both 30K and 40K

Once fully assembled, the next step will be to give them a base coat of Chaos Black spray

The Raven Guard project is probably third or fourth in line in my current schedule

The next update will hopefully be in a month or two...........

Nick's News! On the Table - Stug III

Bolt Action & Flames of War

This is a project I started a year ago. I was looking to create a Stug Zug in three differnt scales.
15mm (Flames of War) 20mm (Airfix) and 28mm Bolt Action.

The intention is to have the same squad markings and camouflage patterns on each size. The thing that halted me was the lack of schirzen on the Airfix models. My skills with plasticard are not great, but that will be what I attempt next to get them to the next step. I am also working on a similar project involving SD.KFZ 251 'Hanomags'........