The Daemon's Claw

So far it has been a very productive holiday season. I have built 4 Kastellan Robots, 3 Kataphron Destroyers, 2 Plasma Reactors and a Cybernetic Datasmith. The Robots are great to make, you can cut the retaining lugs out of the legs to get a lot of posability. This is contrasted by the arms which are just one piece so you get a sleep walking zombie pose. I magnetised the weapons. So I can swap between fists and phospor blasters.  I have also been making the bases for all the units and the getting started with Adeptus mechanicus. This is my current standard recipe of bark for the rocks, sand and then mixed herbs for the vegetation. Next I need to make the snow and maybe do some highlights to the rocks. I also magnetised the weapons on the servitors so I can swap between plasma or grav cannon.

I am getting some Kastellen robots for Christmas. There has been a lot of controversy about the heads, especially that they don't fit the 40K universe. Given these robots are supposed to be from the Crusade or before it's not surprising that fashions have changed a bit in 10,000 years. So I thought I would have a go at changing the heads to look like the Cylon Centurions so something like this. However if my sculpting skills are not sufficient I might end up with something like this. I think I will mold the heads, so If it doesn't work out I can stick the original heads on the models. Getting these done and the other models will enable me to field an Adeptus Mechanicus army.

I took my knights down to the club and got involved in a big game of 40K. We had about 8 people all with 2000 points each so it was an opportunity to bring out the big models that don't normally get much on table time. My knights were by no means the biggest models on the table. Infantry were just a blur of little red specks on the thermal scanners as they ran backwards and forwards trying not to be squashed out of hand in the engine war. Things I learned: Shadowswords are as brutal as I remember against enemy vehicles. Thomas used one and it killed perfectly healthy knights in one shot twice. One knight took 30+ wounds. Tau Tiger sharks are nasty as well, this one had railguns and the ability to kill super heavies easily. The Eldar knights are no better or even slightly worse than the Imperial knights. My Errant knights had some good duels with them even with their traditional Eldar "immunity from the rules". Try being immune to damage 6 chain swords. Playing a...

Luke has been watching hobby videos on YouTube. Just like his Dad:-) He wanted to make some Pokemon characters. After making some figures with DAS which wasn't working out like he wanted, I went down to Spotlight and bought some packs of coloured Sculpey clay. This turned out to be really useful, you can mix colours to make shades and highlights and it takes paint well when cooked. Here is a picture of Grima and Ghastly. They survived a day at school requiring only minor treatment by the medicus. I will be getting the Sulaco deck mould back this weekend so will be putting my new Sculpey skills to the test rolling out sheets of deck tiles. I am making some more progress on my War of the Roses army. There are a lot of interested people down at the Warlords so we might have a new and diverse period to keep people occupied in 2018.

I got done some more work on the legs of my knights. I had been painting the armour panels separately and now I have got them to the point where I can attach them to the legs. I really enjoyed painting the metallic colours on the legs with the Vallejo model air colours. I have used 4 different shades of silver paint. The colours go on really well with a brush. The silver then got some shades of nuln oil. The gold is a mixture of copper and gold with a wash of Agrax. That stuff is really liquid talent.  Here are the Knight legs. The next steps are to paint the cables and then add the transfers. The dragons on the banners are all hand painted. I may add kill markings if I can get some transfers to work. Some white or black skulls on the bottom of the banner might look cool. Here is the white Knight, I have also painted the gold on his top panels, so they got included in the shot. I need to do some more variation on the gold for the front of the carapace. ...

I have been assembling my latest shipment of Adeptus Mechanicus. My son Luke really likes this model and because it has been assembled with the weapons magnetised and the legs are adjustable he thinks its a toy and wants to play with it with his action figures. The poor thing wont last 5 minutes in that kind of environment. Luke also wants to advise me on how to paint my tank.  Based on his taste, it will end up looking like it comes from a super hero movie. So I have given Luke a Dreadnought from a 40K starter set and he is OK with painting that. The model is currently depicted with the eradication beamer, probably not something I will use much. But it's luke's favourite weapon and he knows how to change the weapons. I think I will probably use the Neutron I have been making some Adeptus Mechanicus tokens, these can cover the canticles, the warlord traits and the dogma's. I forgot a couple of them so I need to make some more. Here is my tech priest Dominus. He...

I got in quite a bit of hobby progress last week. My War of the Roses Stanley retinue took some steps forwards. they are an ideal kind of unit because many of the colours I am going to paint on other units can go on them as well. I do need to get out the Khaki colours this week to do some of the natural fabrics.  The orange and green colours are down on them to give them their livery. they also got a coat of Steel. I got some of the Vallejo air metallic colours and they are great. I thank Vince Venturella for his advocacy for these paints they are great either through the airbrush or via the brush. They will get some brighter metallic colours soon because I will also be using them on my adeptus mechanicus models.  Here are my Skitarii painted up in the colours of Stygies 8. I also got done some progress on their bases. I am going for rocks and snow on the bases. So by next meeting these should be on bases and looking better. Here are some...