Nameless Guard - Squad Decay

Squad Decay - as promised - in all its decayed (pun intended) glory!

It's very similar to the first unit I painted, the only difference is just one melta gun instead of two plasma guns.

Monthly Report for March to be posted tomorrow.

Nameless Guard - Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust

The end of March is almost here and works on my Nameless Guard are progressing quite nicely, I must say. As I'd planned I got a dreadnought from my friend. Here's a proof photo with a code for this painters' activation event I'm taking part of.

My converting skills are non-existent, but I had to make this standard (old and metal!) space marine dreadnought look more chaosy. So, with a bit of milliput I "sculpted" an eye and three... blobs and I drilled few bullet holes. A zenithal drybrushing technique was applied and here it is - dreadnought Ash!

I was lucky enough to get an additional set of Forge World arms with that dreadnought. Quick research was carried out through my bits boxes and a plan was forged...

Legs and torso came from a GW Inquisitor game model (54mm); Tyrus was its name, if I recall correctly. Head is a spare part I was left after painting a MaxMini cyclops (their model had three head variants) and you already know about the arms and weapons. This time I sculpted a letter "S" which formed guts and three holes by the left knee. After some painting the hellbrute Dust was created!

If you read one of my previous posts you surely know that I assumed painting 2.5 elements of my army to have it finished by the end of July. Squad Virus and two big guys I've just shown make for 3 elements already, but I'm almost 100% sure I'll have another unit finished today or tomorrow. 4 parts in March? That's better than I've expected!

Size Does Matter

We are going to do a scientific experiment today. OK, maybe not scientific, but an experiment nevertheless. I will show you three human males, so that we can compare their sizes.

No, it's not about what you think.

Back on topic, shall we? Here's the first specimen. As you can see, he has no hands, but they are irrelevant for this comparison we are about to make.

After the ranger, here's specimen no. 2 - a pirate.

Finally, the third specimen, a musketeer (actually, he is a pirate too, but that's a subject for another story).

See, three human males, as promised; and now - as promised - we shall compare their sizes.

Comparison no. 1

Comparison no. 2

SIZE DOES MATTER!!!

Nameless Guard - Squad Virus

As I've written earlier, if my plan to finish an army in 6 months is to be successful, I need to paint 2 - 3 elements (unit or machine) every month. Precisely speaking, 2.5 elements per month.

For March I've picked 2 units of plague marines and 1 dreadnought. You can see them on the photo below.

Oh wait, you actually can't see a dreadnought. Well, that's because I don't have it... yet. I should visit my friend's place tomorrow to collect it.

I tried not to waste my time and started working on the first unit while waiting for that dread. My speed amazed me. What you can see below was finished in one evening...

The second evening was spent on bases, and here it is - Squad Virus in all its dirty, rotten, sickening glory!

7 plague marines, including 2 special weapons (plasma guns) and a champion with a power fist and plasma gun. As you can see, they are heavily converted. Some conversions look good - I bought them from someone. Other conversions are mine. I will write few words about paintjobs in a separate post. What matters now is that I found a quick way to paint these miniatures, which makes my plan slightly more feasible!

35, and Still Counting

My Holy Quest is to paint at least one miniature from every possible company.

The progress, as of today (20 March 2013):

1 Andrea Miniatures
2 Avatars of War
3 Black Scorpion Miniatures
4 Corvus Belli (Infinity game)
5 Dark Age Games
6 Darkson Designs
7 Darksword Miniatures
8 Enigma Miniatures
9 Freebooter Miniatures
10 Games Workshop
11 Gamezone Miniatures
12 Grindhouse Games (Incursion game )
13 Hasslefree Miniatures
14 Heresy Miniatures
15 Hobby Products (Demonworld game )
16 Ilyad Games
17 Impact Miniatures
18 JMD Miniatures
19 Kingdom Death
20 Latorre Models
21 MaxMini
22 Pegaso Models
23 Polaris Minor
24 Privateer Press
25 Rackham
26 Reaper Miniatures
27 Red Box Games
28 Romeo Models
29 Scibor Monstrous Miniatures
30 Smart Max
31 Studio McVey
32 Tales of War
33 Titan Forge
34 Urban Mammoth
35 Wyrd Miniatures

Nameless Guard - Seven

This seventh post of my still new and fresh blog is sponsored by number 7.

Every army needs an army list specifying models, their equipment and point values. Nameless Guard is no exception, but as I am totally out-of-date when it comes to GW rules and codexes, my army list will be very generic. I will base it on whatever I remember from previous editions of Warhammer 40 000. Hopefully, there are some 40K players among readers of my blog. I'm counting on your help with this issue, though frankly speaking, full compliance with current rules is not my main goal; neither is army strength.

I had this idea for my plague army and I'm going to stick to it.

7 - being the sacred number of Nurgle - will comprise the main theme of my army.

7 units of 7 models, and then 7 war machines, plus 1 big mothafucka, who's gonna represent Nameless (i.e. me) himself. Demon prince or something similar to it. Am I stupid? Yes, I am. But I'm going to go for it anyway. At least I'm gonna try...

I'm not even sure if this is a legal army. I don't know how many points are there. The original army list I prepared for the Activation event mentioned in previous posts looked like this:

HQ Nameless
HQ Typhus + EL 6 plague terminators + HS Land Raider
EL Dreadnought
EL Dreadnought
TR 7 Plague Marines (champ, standard, special weapons like plasmas) + Rhino
TR 7 Plague Marines (champ, standard, special weapons like plasmas) + Rhino
TR 7 Plague Marines (champ, standard, special weapons like plasmas)
TR 7 Plague Marines (champ, standard, special weapons like plasmas)
TR 7 Plague Bearers
HS 7 Plague Havocs (lascannons, missile launchers etc)
HS Predator (may be used as a 3rd Rhino, I don't really care for WYSIWYG)

It will have to be revised in the war machines section. I failed to make one deal and I now need to hunt down other vehicles. So, you know the general structure, but the final effect may look slightly different.

Now, that's a lot ... for me. 7 units and 7 machines in 6 months. This means I need at least 2 pieces of my army (be it unit or machine) each month. Funny, old me...

Keep your fingers crossed!

Nameless Guard - Motivation

The goal is clear. A fully painted army. How do I achieve it though?

There's this cool motivational event called Malarska Aktywacja (Painters' Activation) managed by one Polish chap, FireAnt:

http://malarska-aktywacja.blogspot.com/

Rules are very complicated, but on a basic level it's a Tale of Gamers. People have 6 months or so to paint an army. For every painted mini you get points, plus there's a lot of chances to grab some bonus points. A theme for March is "Heavy Support," so war machines are to be awarded more than usual. There are also additional tasks and categories... In the end they add up the points and there are some rewards to be given to the best participants.

You know what? Screw points, themes, best painting awards, largest army awards...

I'll try to use this Activation event as a motivation for my own goal. Thank you FireAnt, I hope you can help me. If Nameless Guard is finished in July, I'll owe you a beer or two.

Nameless Guard - Start Up

You already know that I've started painting as a gamer. Painted armies are always a sight to behold. Thing is, I never had a painted army. Never. Not one. Some heroes, parts of units, single monsters... far from a full army though. Not enough patience, not enough motivation.

Nameless Guard was supposed to be my second 40K army. I got quite a few plague marines models... and that's it. That army has never been built; not one miniature has been painted. Why am I talking about it today, when I can't even remember when my last game took place*?

Well, Nameless Guard shall be called to arms now! I want to prove myself I can paint an army. I want to feel pride and joy at the sight of my own painted army.

The army, that will never see a battlefield...


* 5 years? More?

Safety First

An hour ago I've let my dog into the garden, so that she could do whatever dogs do in gardens.

That gave me few spare minutes to spend on a hobby activity. I decided to prepare and assembly a musketeer model. During these few minutes I managed to inhale some resin dust and glue vapour, cut myself with a modelling knife, hit thumb with a pin vice and superglue fingers to each other and the model itself, which of course means I lost a bit of skin.

I should have picked a safer hobby... diving with sharks, anyone?

Sophie

I admit, I have a soft spot for Reaper Miniatures.

Reaper is best known for pure heroic fantasy miniatures with quality range stretching from "oh, crap" to "oh- my-god". I guess one needs to cherry pick to find the sculpts he likes. I'll come back to this in another post.

They are also quite famous for their mascot, a succubus called Sophie. There were so many versions of her...

Reaper released different Sophies to celebrate ReaperCons, Christmas, Halloween, New Year... Reaper sculpted her in so many scales - 32mm, 54mm, 72mm (heck, there's even a 12" resin version comprising the ReaperCon award); in many genres (fantasy, SF, steampunk); in many different disguises - as a pirate, cowboy (cowgirl, pardon me), archaeologist, biker...

That's a lot of Sophies and you can check them all right here. See, I wasn't lying abut the variety, was I? The most recent version (not released yet, actually) is this Derek Schubert's sculpt provided for ReaperCon 2013.  You will be able to get it at the event or from their online store, but only during the RC'13.

There's also one interesting story about Sophie, specifically about Sophie shown on the first photo in this post. For a long time a rumour was spreading... a rumour of another version of that sculpt... a version showing all Sophie's private parts (yes, I do mean all). Some time ago Reaper decided to cut the rumours and made it a public release as an Urban Legend version. Now you can enjoy your Sophie in many new ways.

Is it possible that Reaper just made a new sculpt? Of course it is, but let's not delve into this. Legends should not be killed, even Urban ones...

As for me, I painted one 54mm Sophie long time ago. It was a gift for my good friend, avid snowboarder without much interest in fantasy genre, who had left our country of Poland. Hence the white&red colour scheme and lack of wings. He liked boobs the most. His girlfriend didn't.

Oh, there was a small rabbit accompanying this Sophie. Half-pipe was not a good place for it. I found a better one.

True Hero

I can't remember details of my first Warhammer game... Was I leading the goblin invasion or defending some elven village? Who won the battle? 

One of the things I recall is that the greenskins' general was Grom da Paunch of Misty Mountain, represented by a card with a drawing. Just like this one:

Quite a few years later I finally painted a true model of Grom. The irony is I was not a player anymore at that time. Oh well, I never said I had quick reflexes. If you look closely, you'll notice that two of the wolfs are not GW products. I used Reaper Miniatures wolfs, just to introduce some variety. 

Grom was great. Always. He's not a true hero though. The true hero is Niblit, his trusted standard bearer. Niblit somehow managed to survive every single battle under my command and that is quite a feat, if you ask me.

It is time to find a new home for Grom, Niblit, their wolfs and chariot... If you feel like adding this out-of-production, classic model to your army or collection, use the "contact me" feature. You'll find it at the right-side menu.

Why?

Because every journey begins with a single step...

Because every blog begins with a first post...

Because every miniature has its story...