Better Late Than Never - Nameless Guard

The Nameless Guard project had been progressing so smoothly and efficiently. I really thought I could finish that army in 5 months. Miniature after miniature, unit after unit, war machine after war machine.

That was a good plan. To paint a full army in 5 months. To make an old dream of having my own painted army come true. Oh well, I failed. When I had just last 8 models remaining, real life kicked in and kicked my ass off the painting table.

"Failure is like a wind. It makes you stronger, but only if you oppose it"

No, it's not a quote from Sun Tzu's  Art of War. It's not another Paulo Coelho's brilliant thought. It's mine. I just came up with it.

Sorry for the poetic intermission. Back on topic.

I didn't fail completely. A full army in 8 months is quite a feat in itself for me. The last unit, Plague Havocs was made of old plastic plague marines and metal slaaneshi heavy weapons. Two of these look like missile launchers and two like... I don't know... lascannons or plasma cannons?

Yes, you may have noticed a standard space marine on the pic. Well, I ran out of plague marines, ok? Anyway, the unit got most appropriate name of Squad End and I was free to move to the last model for my army....

Nameless...

I'd added Reaper Sophie wings (54mm model) to the Scibor's chaos lord to make a leader for Nameless Guard and painted it in the very same way as all the other models. And when I finished it, I sat down and felt joy and pride streaming through my veins.

After 20 years in this hobby I proved to myself I could paint an army.

NAMELESS GUARD

7 war machines. 7 units with 7 miniatures each. Nameless. 57 models in total.

Slideshow presenting the (almost) unstoppable growth of the Nameless Guard

Now, before I get too sentimental. I'm not a gamer anymore. I will not use this magnificent army on a table-top. And I'm sure it deserves to be taken to a real battlefield to destroy anything that stands in its path.

Anyone wants to have the Nameless Guard deep-striked straight to a gaming table? Give me a reasonable offer and who knows, maybe I will add a virus or two to the deal. No, seriously, this army is for sale.

Rotten Harvest 2013

With painted Mr. Bones on the shelf I was ready for more painting. The Rotten Harvest contest held at the Wyrd forum gave me a good excuse to take another miniature and motivation to paint it quickly.

Quick research in my boxes returned this Pegaso Models demon in 54mm scale. I thought "Sure, why not" and painted it. Yeah, just like that.

Fight Fire With Fire

Frankly, I'm really proud of this paintjob. One of my best. Maybe THE best. Anyway, I finished it a lot faster than I'd expected, so I've returned  to my boxes.

Fire Walk With Me

This Red Box Games mage was my second entry. I tried to limit palette and used reddish tones all around. Not sure why am I telling you this, you sure can see that without my explanation.

Quite happy to get two entries for the contest I found out that they had extended the deadline. Another day or two? OK then, here's my third entry.

Sick Leave

No success whatsoever in the contest, but who cares? Three more painted miniatures are what matters.

Mr. Bones

As you already know I did not paint for few months. In the meantime I've received my Reaper Bones kickstarter set. I have a lot of plastic miniatures lying around now. I do mean a lot!

When I had decided to get back to the painting table I just put my hand into the bag and pulled few miniatures out of it. Mr. Bones, the kickstarter project mascot was one of them. Looked like a good way to start painting that huge pile of Bones.

That new plastic material is very interesting indeed. Not sure yet if I like it but it has some advantages. Oh, it has some drawbacks as well. For instance, it doesn't react well to aerosol primers... Yeah, I should have read about it BEFORE priming, not AFTER. The primer layer has not cured completely making it pretty difficult to paint over it. Oh well, I painted Mr. Bones anyway. Cute little sculpt originally comprising part of this 54mm set. No, I didn't convert it, it came with a shovel.

I came with a rather long title for this piece.

HEY, YOU! REAPERFOLKS! I DIG YOU...

I was back and ready for more painting!

Sinusoid

Sinusoid is one of my favourite mathematical curves. Up and down, up and down....

Up and down... You can use it to picture almost any aspect of your life. Health, love, money, job... Yes, miniature painting too.

Up and down...

For four months I was down with miniatures. Very, very down. Then I went to Hussar 2013 and it all changed. I am now very, very up. In less than a month I managed to paint one start-up mini for fun, prepare three entries for the Rotten Harvest contest, finish my Nameless Guard (8 remaining models) and kick the oldest piece out of my Hall of Shame. Not bad, not bad. Quite a lot of things to show you.

Oh, and Hussar was such a blast! Just google it out, check the galleries and read enthusiastic reports.

Stay tuned for more!

Nameless Guard: Squad Fly

This Nameless Guard could look quite boring... Plague marines, rhino, plague marines, rhino, plague marines, rhino...

But, then came the terminators... and demons...

... and then came this cool guy, Jabberwocky, with a set of converted wings and a very short instruction: "I want you to use them".

So I did.

Thank you Sean! You've made my army more interesting and varied. This shall not be forgotten.

Nameless Guard: JUNE Was Not Immune

Ouch, my first failure in this very surprising project...

I wanted to paint a Rhino, Plaguebearers and Raptors in June. Unfortunately, my exams made it impossible to get all these minis done.

Rhino? Check...
Plaguebearers? Check...
Raptors? Ouch again... Wings only...

I'm now even more motivated to finish the whole army as planned...

Nameless Guard - Looking for Nameless

This whole army project is slowly coming to (hopefully) successful end. The problem is I don't have the most important model yet...

Nameless...

There are many different options on the market, I'm trying to pick the best one. Wanna help? I haven't yet decided who Nameless actually is, but generally speaking he could be a greater demon, demon prince or chaos lord. Let's check these three groups separately. The basic assumptions - it should fit the army, doesn't need to be a GW product and should be relatively inexpensive.

Greater Demons

A greater demon would be a great centerpiece in my army. There is the official GW model...

... but it's a Finecast model. Forge World model is even bigger and most probably of a higher quality...

Of course, there are other large demons on the market. Here are examples from MaxMini, Scibor Monstrous Miniatures and Ultraforge.

The problem is that these impressive models have even more impressive prices. I think that even the second-hand models will be outside my acceptable price range, unless there is a company willing to become a sponsor of the Nameless Guard.

Let's move with something smaller then...

Demon Princes

We are still within the large-and-eyecatching-models range, but also reaching the acceptable price level. The GW Nurgle demon prince would be one the most obvious choices, if it wasn't the Finecast model...

Maybe if I found the old metal copy? Forge World has a demon prince too in its range, but it's rather pricey.

Ultraforge again

Spellcrow

Something less nurgly, to boost your invention - two Cryx warcasters from Privateer Press

Finally, the third group...

Chaos Lords

By chaos lords I mean models resembling GW Typhus (Finecast again...) - bigger than a standard marine, terminator armour etc.

Maxmini has this one...

Scibor sculpted these three

Another Polish company, HiTech, released this model...

... but I could also use one of their Terrorizers

By the way, I have two spare sets of demonic wings, so in fact any of these models (demon princes and chaos lords) could get them for some additional oomph factor.

So, what do you think? Any suggestions? Have I missed something cool? Do you have anything I could buy from you?

Please, leave your proposals, sponsorship and sale offers in the comment or contact me. Without Nameless this army will not be complete...

Nameless Guard - Bonesmobile

The weekend had been full of tests and exams and Monday was full of painting. Rhino in half a day, anyone?

This APC was provided for the Squad Bones painted in May, so here's one more pic to show you the whole unit.

Getting closer to the end of this project... oh yeah, it may actually be a success. Surprise, surprise!

Nameless Guard - Too Long

"Long" in the post topic has nothing to do with the time I spent on painting this new unit or the whole army. It's just that I wanted to show you what happens if you stay too long in the Nameless Guard.

Well, basically, you rot...

Squad Rot

That was a very welcome break from painting the guardians' armours. Welcome and very short, too. Cutting these plaguebearers off the sprues and assembling took me more time than painting and basing, I believe.

I wanted them to look quite different from other models in the army, yet still achieve the overall coherency. Yellowish skin distinguish them from the rest of the Nameless Guard, while bases and orange elements tie them together. Hopefully.

Now, back to power armours...

Nameless Guard - Plans for June

Let's see how many models I can finish between my exams and other duties...

June is a "Troops" month in the Painters Activation event. Again, I will miss the theme completely, kind of getting used to it. You know, it's a tradition of mine.

What you can see on the photo below are three new elements for my army.

The first one is a continuation of the last month painting - Rhino APC for a unit painted in May. Then, still on the sprues, plaguebearers. 10 of them, but I will paint 7 only, as planned from the beginning. Finally, another unit of 7 plague marines with a champion - a mix of old metal and converted plastic models. This unit will get wings so I can field them as Raptors.

That's it folks. As always - keep your fingers crossed.

Hip Hip Huron

Well, I didn't get Huron just to write a review. I got it because someone wanted me to paint it for him. It's always encouraging when somebody else thinks your paintjobs are nice enough to be part of a collection or an army.

This particular model will hopefully be a killer machine at table-tops somewhere in the US. My good friend always says that painted miniatures get better dice rolls.

Huron Blackheart was painted to rather strict instructions from a customer. I think I've only picked colours for Gollum... I mean that demonic puppy.

As they say - client's happy, so I'm happy too!

Review: Huron Blackheart - Games Workshop

Due to customer's request I was kind of forced to delve into the world of Finecast again... I placed an order and waited for my copy of Huron Blackheart with shaking legs and trembling heart. You shouldn't be surprised with my concerns if you remember my first contact with GW resin model.

I've marked two important pieces of information on the blister card - it is the "Finecast" miniature indeed (we'll come to the "fine" part of it later) and there is an age restriction for buyers. Two questions come to my mind immediately. Are elven mages without weapons of mass destruction, mutations and demonic companions 12+ too? Are trained sellers working in official GW shops selling these to children younger under 12 years? My answers (or rather assumptions) would be "yes" in both cases. Back on topic, though!

The miniature came without any transport damages even without foam protection inside. Interesting thing about the packaging is that the blister is welded and you can't open it to check all parts closely. This is not a big issue, as the model is "Mail Order" only anyway...

The miniature comes on two sprues. Two miniatures in fact, there is this little demonic puppy that my son called "Gollum" as soon as he saw it. Anyway, quality seemed pretty ok. Of course, there is stupendous amount of pieces you need to cut off to get bits out, but I couldn't find any obvious casting defects.

No one is satisfied with just a quick quality check, so let's get in a little bit deeper.

Finecast strikes again... I could have made more pics to show you other bubbles or miscast details, but what for? What's the point? Anyone needs another "BEWARE!" sign? Just stay away from Finecast, that's all I have to say.

And to anyone who would like to tell me again they are getting better with quality... do it when GW Finecast look like this.

Nameless Guard - MAY I Continue?

The plans for May regarding the Nameless Guard were simple: to paint 2 units (plague marines and terminators) and 1 war machine (land raider). That's 15 models, including one stupendous.

30 days, 15 models.... that's like 1 model in 2 days? Gotta love maths, it makes planning easier.

The problem is when you start painting after the 20th. Then you stop doing maths and switch to painting...quick painting.

Calculations will not get you this, painting will:

Plans for May executed in 100%. Oh yeah, it feels good. Even more when I see what I have after three months:

Oh yeah...

Nameless Guard: Squad Bones

Last time I've asked if 2 days are enough for me to paint a whole unit of plague marines. Well, this is my response...

Squad Bones, made of standard plague marines box. The models are interesting and unique enough to leave them without conversions. The only additions to parts found in a box were a standard and power fist (to unify the champion with leaders of previously finished units). The power fist in fact is an arm taken from the very old obliterator model.

The unit does not have a rhino... yet.

Nameless Guard: Squad Rust

The empty Land Raider would be a waste of transport capacity, so I'm going to fill it with this unit of 7 terminators, Squad Rust.

Painted and based as all other Nameless Guard models. Four of these were converted with parts of loyal and chaos terminators by an unknown person I bought them from. I can take credits for adding a standard to the champions backpack only, nothing else. Three remaining terminators are standard plastic miniatures.

Don't ask me for their weaponry - it's a mix of everything.

The third element to be painted this month is a unit of plague marines. Two days to paint it from the beginning to the end? I've proven already it is possible, but can it be a habit of mine?

Google

This blog is getting popular. Some people search for it specifically.

That's nice.

Today I had a visitor who searched for "porn+sex+warez+crack+serial+fuck+free+torrent".

That's weird.

Nameless Guard: Land Raider

Why do I make plans for a whole month if I use just the last few days anyway?

The approaching deadline made me get back to my army. Land raider is ready, terminators are in progress. Now, will I have enough time for a plague marines unit I scheduled for May?

Review: John King - Figone

I needed a model in 54mm representing a pirate boy. This cute little sculpt from Figone was just perfect for the job.

It came in a blister without any card, artwork etc. At least there was a piece of foam for protection. Minimalistic approach - all necessary elements (packaging, protection, model itself) were there, but Figone sure could  improve the presentation.

The resin cast was almost perfect with all details crisp and without defects. No mould lines in weird places, no air bubbles, no flesh to be removed.

Great stuff, highly recommended!

Review: Constance Blaize - Privateer Press

Constance Blaize, Knight of the Prophet (PIP 31090) is a Privateer Press model from the Warmachine game (Cygnar army).

As you can see, the sculpt is very intricate. Hail to the sculptor for all the ornaments on the armour, but they will be a pain in the ass while painting...

 Packaging comprises a pretty standard blister with a printed card. The miniature is protected with foam.

Quality of the cast is good. No troublesome mould lines, details are pretty crisp. Not the best cast I've seen maybe, but also far better than the worst.

Also, there was some oxidation (or whatever happens to metal, I'm not an expert in this field) visible on the face. Unfortunately, my photo-fu was not strong enough to show it properly on the picture and it looks just like a natural shadow. Anyway, the darker place under her right chin - that's the spot.

Summarising - good product lacking few things to be assessed as excellent.