Throne of Skulls - Could this be the best looking Tyranid army

Well Throne of Skulls was a roaring success, 5 lads from a small town called Ormskirk in Lancashire, went to Warhammer World in Nottingham, had a blast and won a couple of awards, 8 in total with 3 or us being nominated for best painted army, Chris Otterburn, Dave Western and myself and Dave Western's Tyranids as seen on http://40kaddict.blogspot.co.uk/ winning the award, congratulations Dave your army truly dominated the cabinets.  Although I didn't do too bad my self, nominated for best painted army, I also won the Scribes award (with my Khorne Helmet), best painted Beast (with my Nurgle Deamon Prince), best painted Engine award (with the Hellfly) and finally I won best Chaos Space Marine Player.

Dave Weston's Winning Tyranids

Chris Otterburn's Nids and my Chaos Space Marines, just happy to be nominated :)

 

One of the things that stood out over the weekend was being drawn against Dave's Tyranids on the second game, It stood out because on the journey down Dave asked me for a game on the Friday night before the tournament, I had to admit to Dave that I had been ignoring his calls for a game and I really didn't fancy fighting his nids because they give me the fear, "I'm not fighting you I'll get my ass kicked" was one of the things that came out my mouth, this went down really well and we didn't have 20 minutes of banter and name calling, mostly at my expense, honest :)

 

Now I'm not one for typing up battle reports generally because I cant remember what I had for breakfast never mind what happened on a turn by turn basis on a game I had last week :)  luckily for me Dave writes up all his games and it's worth a read.

http://40kaddict.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/throne-of-skulls-march-2014-battle-2.html

Can you tell what it is yet?

With Throne of Skulls right around the corner I got a lot painting to do, but I have finally finished my Scratch built Chaos Shadowsword  that's had a bit of fun with a Fellblade and is legal in 40k Apocalypse.

Nurgle Chaos Daemon Prince

Not long now to Throne of Skulls and I'm back on track with my Chaos Nurgle army.  I should have left painting my Daemon Prince until last as he is not necessarily in my army, I created him for the off chance roll of 65 or 66 on the Boon Table, I've had 20 to 30 games with this army and I've never come close to rolling it and now I have him, I'm never going to roll it :) 

Now I'm not a negative gamer and I almost always have a positive out look on the game, but between you and me when it really matters I try and use the old Jedi mind trick on the dice, you can see veins popping out of the side of my head just like in Scanners, but they are not week minded fools and they know the score, if I need those 6's they will only turn up for morale purposes.  But that's fine being unlucky at those crucial moments in my eyes makes for a better tactician when gaming, I've learnt not to put all my eggs in one basket, i.e. not to rely on the one chances happening to happen because they very rarely do.  I rely on the old tried and tested method of having a back up plan, backed up with a further back plan and just in case another back up plan.

Is it just me or do you think I should have put the wings on the other way round and have the talons facing forward?  mmmmm.



I've included this image for numerous reasons firstly you van see how the Daemon Prince fits in with the rest of the army, by having the same wings and a similar head but also you can see the scale of the different aspect of the army.

Lord of Skulls conversion, WIP images.

As promised - this week I give you my Lord of Skulls Conversion, warts and all.  The build isn't completed and has been troublesome, but I am fairly happy so far.  Although it is true that the feet are a little to big and even though both arms have been extended, they still look a little short, plus the head is to small.  But apart from that, I'm fairly happy :)

The main problem I had with this build was not to copy any other conversion I had seen on the web, their are some fantastic conversions out their and great ideas, some easy and effective and some elaborate builds, but I wanted to keep it simple but put my own stamp on it.  Hopefully someone else will like it. 

Side view with the axe trailing behind waiting for the fatal death blow.  As you can see the wrist has been extended by almost 2cm.

Early on in the build, when the legs were coming together it was apparent that he needed something on his back, so I moved the two central exhausts forwards and moulded the tank onto his back so not to look too out of place and bolted on, as an afterthought.

As the right wrist was extended so must the left gun arm, first I cut the lower arm off at the elbow and glued it back straight, hoping it would make it long enough but it wasn't, so I inserted the spare exhausts into the gun, I think they look like cool plasma vents.  I added some additional pipes and wires and hey presto their we have it.

Rear shot, not fully complete and you can see them big feet of his. 

Dynamic falling forward pose :)

So their we have it, I have 6 weeks to paint 30 Zombie cultists a Daemon Prince and my Lord of Skulls, no pressure then.....  If only I could leave my Riptides alone.

Nurgle Chaos Spawn conversion pt 2.

Happy new year to all, sorry it's been a while, I've had my converting head on and found no time for blogging :(  I'll endeavour to create regular post in 2014, that could be my new years resolution.

I mentioned converting didn't I, so not only have I converted/created my own Nurgle Spawns, but I'm also in the middle of creating a walking Lord of Skulls and from the remaining track section a chaos Fell Blade similar to the Horus Heresy era, the latter is just bare bones but the Lord of Skulls is almost fully constructed and will be posted next week.  I've also started the ball rolling for Novembers Throne of Skulls tournament were I hope to be taking Tau and I have already converted 3 Riptides, primarily I have altered the shields slightly to emulate the Farsight Enclave and given each one a new and individual head about 3 times the original size to bring the head back into proportion to the rest of the model, which I absolutely love by the way and I think could be one of my all time favourite models, hence why I have 3.

In the mean time I have more WIP images of my Chaos Spawns or (Maggoty-grub-leech-thingy) or (it's a bit spiky) or (I need a plaster).  I'm very pleased with 4 of the 5 Spawns but not so sure about the main head from the Dark Elf Kharibdyss kit, it doesn't seem to fit with the fly and maggot theme, but it could be useful for the Chaos Boon table.  All thoughts and comments welcome.

The spikes are from the Dark Eldar Raider kits and I used 150 in total (not counting the 10 or so that pinged off in random directions in the living room, never to be seen again, until I'm bare foot).  Each spike has been recessed into the body of the spawn, extremely time consuming but worth it I feel.  I did consider giving them armour plates on their back like the Plague Drones and I also considered basing this conversion around the Plague Drones but after watching Deadly 60 with my son, were it showed a Burrowing Botfly that grow in the camera mans scalp (fantastic and gross at the same time) it had to be spikes!

My Throne of Skulls Nurgle Army - Typhus, Heldrake and Possessed Landraider

Finished painting more stuff for my Throne of Skulls army and we have purchased our tickets today woohoo, bring it on :)

First up Typhus (I always fail psychic tests Typhus) and the poor unsuspecting Imperial guard commander. 

Second my two Hellflies which are not having much luck recently, they have been shot down 3 times in 3 games and has cost me all three games :( 

And third my lucky possessed Landraider

Build your own life size GW's 40k Chaos World Eater's helmet part 2

From last post I asked "I will be building up the rounded areas of the helmet and seeing how many clamps I can fit on it?"

And the answer is 6, I didn't even know I had that many clamps, the clamps are holding the the 6mm MDF in place as the Evo-Stik fast drying wood adhesive dries.

Build your own life size GW's 40k Chaos World Eater's helmet part1

Last year I made this helmet for Throne of Skulls with my army list painted on the back, quite a few people commented on how much they liked it. So I though tmay be other people would like to try it with the plans I made, it's not for the faint hearted but it was fun to do. It took a couple of weeks to make and some basic knowledge on using an electric jigsaw, but other then that most people will be able to attempt it, also note that it's a little heavy so cardboard or plasticard could be a suitable replacement and negates the use of a jigsaw.

Below are the 5 x A3 print outs used for the templates for the helmet and I copied/traced them onto 6mm MDF board to cut out, note the blue line is the join for parts 1 and 2.  I glued the parts together with Evo-Stik fast drying wood adhesive because its extremely strong and while this was drying it was held together with dabs of glue from a hot glue gun because it sets in seconds, but watch out for blisters the hot glue gun can be nasty because surprisingly it gets very "hot" I never learned and got hot glue on a blister, getting burnt once is ok but to do it twice in the same place, now that's stupid! 

plan - side view pt 1

plan - side view pt 2

plan - top view

plan - front view pt 1

plan - side view pt 2

Below are the images after the frame work has been glued together, as you can see I used the plans to build up flat plains, edges and batons to make the basic shape extremely strong if a little heavy.  Another thing to mention is; I have a large round head so the plans are a little large but you could always make it smaller or larger, so if you are going to embark on this project make sure your head will fit inside it before you start :)  

basic MDF shell "front"

basic MDF shell "back right side"

basic MDF shell "back"

basic MDF shell "front right side"

Next time I will be building up the rounded areas of the helmet and seeing how many clamps I can fit on it, good luck and enjoy.