Collecting the Dust

I've begun work on adding a Summoned Greater Daemon to my CSM army, and have posted a few pictures to show my progress.

I've started work on a magnetic display base for my CSM army. I have currently got two metal plates (which I am waiting to get cut to size), one of which will be entirely for my regular CSM's (6 squads of 7 men), with a line of either havocs or raptors along the back (10 marines in total), as well as space for a couple of obliteratos.

The second base will be for my 4 Daemon Princes, and possibly also for my 3 rhinos and predator.

Although I am toying with using the metal offcuts to make some bridges etc to add some height to the display base, on which I may put my DP's and oblits, and any other special characters I may have.

I will plan it all out in detail when I have the plates cut and I can see how it all fits in the box I have for it to go in.

It has been a while since I updated here, but just to show that I am still alive, I would like to introduce you to "War", the second of my planned 4 Daemon princes. He has taken about a month to build, and he was painted in a single sitting this evening (still not quite done, but it is more painting than I have done for the whole of this year so far, so :P).

And here he is:

My first of 4 Daemon Princes, Famine. Note the little Shroom on the base

If anyone knows what the model is (head, torso and legs), I would be happy to know.

Because in the grim darkness of the future, you need something with long legs and lots of shooty guns.

Each was created from 3 Defiler legs, 1 defiler body, 2 defiler arm weapon mounts, some wooden dowel, 6 Vampire Counts round shields, 1 hatch, 2 hatch covers, lots and lots of chopped up bits of cotton ear bud stems, cardboard, greenstuff, bits from my bits box.

Walker 1 is somewhat less "Chaosy" than walker 2. It was also my test model.

Walker 2 recieved more chaos bits to make it more evil. I also decided that I needed a weapon on it which could be used as an anti-titan gun in any Apoc game I played. I also have a bit which goes into the end of the gun to create a 4 barrel auto fire gun which looks pretty damn cool too.

Because a half man, half daemon, half killy stabby shooty thing is something you can't do without.

I've painted and based the 3rd Chosen Marine squad. I will update with pictures later.

Been slightly inspired by littleboyblues' freehand tutorial

and have had a go at my on bit of freehand painting. To say it looks rubbish would perhaps be too harsh, but it is not all that great I will have a bit more of a go at it and put up some pictures.

Painted up and based Squad V (I am not painting stuff in order for some reason :P).

Their bases need finishing with some grass and rocks, but you can get the general idea

Armour is trimmed in cammo green rather than the darker olive green, as they are regular troops, rather than chosen.

Painted up a second squad of Chosen Marines and the first squad of regular "plague" marines.

Though there was not all that much difference... well, certainly not enough of a difference for me anyway. I am quite annoyed that nothing really stands out on these models. Not even some of the brighter colours I put on for the eyes etc really seemed to show up very well.

Anyway, I decided to add an orange band around the left leg of the Chosen Marines to denote their specialness and I think it looks much better.

Now they are mostly based (they just need some rocks adding to the base).

I went into my local GW yesterday to get some advice on how to make my CSM's look a little better, and their ideas on how I was planning the bases.

They suggested making the bases quite dark, though they seemed to quite like the straw coloured grass I was planning on using. Their dark basing kind of throws my tundra basing idea off a bit, but I suppose that I can still have a few small patches of snow.

On idea I had now was to have a few small pools/streams of dark "water" on the base. I've seen a few tutorials on how to do it and I think I could ruin a few bases doing it, so I will have a go

While I was down there, I also had a quick demo game with one of the guys who was working there (since I had never really played all that much, and I was interested in seeing how the new rules would work compared to the old ones I had last played under).

Have to say it was very good. We played with the Black Reach boxed set models and although he didn't go through all the rules while we were playing, I think I grasped the basics and would be interested in playing some more.

I will get up some more painted units and then I will see about going down for one of their games nights.

Well, as my first entry, why not check out my first attempt at painting up some Chaos Space Marines. They were base coated black, washed white and the details were painted with a mix of chaos black and olive green. They were then given a 1:1 water and flesh wash.