Slap Chop Starship

A friend of mine has got me into the Monday Knight Productions game "Glactic Knights", the successor to the ancient "Star Fleet Wars" game using the Superior Models ships sculpts. I still have mine from the mid 80s (Aquarians, mostly), and had bought more from MKP in anticipation of playing "A Billion Suns" with them - a game, I might add, that really didn't resonate with me. With our first game coming up, I resolved to have a small fleet done by mid-October. To do that I'll need to take some cheap and dirty shortcuts, which I really don't have a problem doing with these ships. Here is the first off the production line, an Aquarian Piranha-Class Destroyer named U-96 (the word "destroyer" starts with "U" in Aquarian, really) of the 9th Aquarian Floatilla :D...

As you can see, no real fucks were given to neatness or scheme - the colors just happened as I noodled along, the only real stipulation is that my Aquarian fleet is dark grey. In fact, it's almost exactly the same scheme as the one I settled on in the 80s (but slightly better, and with less Testor's enamels). It'll be good to get these old ships back out on the table again - hope there's an option for self-destructs, because I really want to play this at least once during the game:

Shoot - didn't work - it's a video of the 10 minute countdown of the Nostromo's self-destruct sequence. Maybe I'll fix the link (no probably not ;) ).

A Lesson Learned (Wrong)

 KLAAANNGGG!

Brother-Sergeant Darius, quite simply, loved his job. As a veteran Ork hunter, it fell to him to mentor new recruits and train them in the ways of Greenie-slaughter. Today was another lesson in "how to take out stationary Ork dreadnoughts" - rather conveniently, they came across a stalled out red one not too far from base and went to work.

 KLAAANNGGG!

After ensuring the dread was blinded/immobilized, Darius climbed on top of it and had a recruit throw a good-sized stone to him. Grinning from ear to ear he began to smash the stone on the locked hatch, knowing that the greenie inside would get annoyed enough to unbutton and come out, giving the marines yet another easy kill. Glancing around, Sgt. Darius saw his recruits edging forward, bolters at the ready. "Any time now, lads. Get ready.", he said through the vox, raising the stone for yet another strike - 

- quick as a snake, and as loud as a thousand rusted gates, the dreadnought's Klaw grabbed Darius around his middle and easily snipped him into two sections. In shock the squad of recruits began to fire ineffectually against the now-active dreadnought's hide.

Smeggit the gretchin was a smarter than the average Grot - he heard that some of da Boyz were being wiped out by some sneeky Beekies using the ol' "Smak da Kan Wiv a Rock" trick. Vowing to not be as stoopid as the other ladz, he patiently played dead and waited until the Beekies came around to try their trick on them. "Well, Smeggit, me old lad, so far so good.", he muttered to himself. "One Beekie Boss in two pieces, and a bunch more in flama range. Time ta cook!"

Knowing that he shouldn't, but absolutely unable to resist, Smeggit cracked the hatch just enough to give the old wun-finger salute (in stereo!), and then thumbed the trigger...

A rude lad.

I love me some 3-D printing. This model is entirely so - it doesn't appear to be a scan, but a ground-up digital sculpt based on the Rogue Trader Ork Dreadnought (Killer configuration). It's modular - there are also parts to make the Super-Attack Onslaughter variant - but I wanted to keep it simple for the first print. The rude pilot is obviously an original sculpt.

A Bad Lad at all angles.

Didn't feel too original with the paint job - when in doubt, red and simple is the way to go for Ork gear. Interestingly enough, flamers are not an option for RT era Dreads. I always liked the Ork flamer though, so I printed it anyway. If I ever use it in an RT game, it can be counts-as.

Yes, Yes, It's The Miniature From THAT Show...

 ...don't make a fuss about it.

The Rock wonders who this jabroni is.

Like most painters, I usually have a few different things on the go on the painting desk - mostly just to keep from wasting paint (if I have some left over from my current project, I'll put it on another miniature). I started this guy before I started the miniatures for Ral Partha Legacy, and took it over the finish line at the same time I finished the stuff in the previous post. Scratch that - I REALLY started this guy in 1984, but didn't get much further than some dark red on his back (demons are red, donchaknow). I decided to paint him for real last year, but wanted to use a Reaper paint called Retro Slate, so no all-red demon.

Blue Angel? Nooo, not really...

Looking at the pics for this guy, I probably just need to stop trying to be clever with some sort of backdrop, as these are actually decent (3D print The Rock giant looming in the background not withstanding...)

The miniature is kinda goofy and flat and wasn't super fun to paint, what with the transitions in texture and me putting contrasting colors next to each other (SO much touching up). However, it's nice and large (I put him on a 40mm base for those keeping track), so I had little trouble painting the details. Groovy critter, I'll probably use him as a warp entity or chaos spawn in future games.

I mentioned 3D prints - I have managed to do that a good bit over the past few months - I mean, you set it up, and come back a few hours lated to a (hopefully) successful print, great for how lazy I've been for the past many months. Of course, I really need to start painting them before they completely take over my painting table :/

This guy? He IS the painting table.

Yeesh, Been A While...

 Been a non-starter of a year for me, thanks to work and general life. Sucks, because I have people waiting on me to get stuff painted for them - Jacob at Ral Partha Legacy for one. I managed to get a couple big pieces done for him, just so he doesn't have to wait forever to get something. By the way, Jacob Fathbruckner is a top-shelf, patient guy and you should buy tons of miniatures from him.

The cannon was fun to paint. The tiny crew? Less fun.

First off, here's a steam cannon with human crew. Once I figured out how to assemble it, I really liked painting the cannon itself. The crew, on the other hand, were a bit of a chore as old RP sculpts are SUPER tiny compared to today's miniatures. On top of that, my eyes aren't quite up to the task anymore (see older post with glasses), so I regretfully have to forgo things like eyes on most of these - in fact, only the leader has them as the sculpt has larger, accessible eyes. Still, happy with how they turned out, despite how crappy the picture looks (also see older posts concerning my inability to take good pictures. The camera on my Galaxy 21 is a pox...)

What's worse than a bunch of goblins? Blurry goblins.

These got done too, and are kind of the reverse of the steam cannon - the crew and wolves went quick, but the chariots were tedious. Probably because of all the stuff I tacked onto them, like shields, weapons and heads. Me being me, I just couldn't glue them to the chariots - oh no, I had to PIN the suckers on (these tiny, tiny pieces). Worth it, as (once again) the models look great in real life over my pictures. I/m probably going to poach the pictures Jacob takes and put them up here later, just so I don't look so bad ;)

Welp...

 

"But They Don't Live In A Cave..."

 Tonight's offering is a set of Reaper's "Black Bear Clan" cavemen - plus one - for the game "Palaeo Diet - Eat or be Eaten" game.

L to R - Thug, Klunk, Ooga, Thunk, Ugh.

The "plus one" is, of course, a Citadel "Big Momma" barbarian girl (aka, Ooga). I found her while I was getting minis together for Palaeo Diet, and figured that she'd fit in well as an extra spear if needed. Naturally, she's a metal mini where the guys are all Reaper Bones Black.

"Werewolf?" "There wolf!"

Bones Black, as I may or may not have mentioned, is a vast improvement over original Bones, but it can still be a pig's ear to work with. As you can see, I left more than my usual share of mold lines on them, because they don't come off all that easy. Also, there is still a problem with warped parts, as seen with Ugh's spear. No matter how many hot water treatments it got, it still went back to the curved position. 

A solo of Ooga, cos I liked how her face turned out.

A fun little diversion. Of course, I still have a lot of wildlife to paint and some appropriate scenery (including a warped - surprise, surprise - hut) as well, but this stuff is fairly quick and easy to paint. I'll also look to see if I have any other "Big Momma" figures that might work for the game (seriously, who at old Citadel came up with that name?).

"Klunk, yoo idgit!"

Well, time to get on my backlog of commission work for Ral Partha Legacy - work and such was keeping me from getting that stuff done, but now I better get cracking!

Chaos Amazon

 ...or Kinky Chaosette, if you wanna be nasty.

/Janet Jackson

The Hair that ate Marienburg

Here she is, Michael Perry's Chaos Amazon/Amazonia Gothique/Kinky Chaosette, painted as a Champion of Khorne (naturally) and a shield design that came out of nowhere. I didn't really want to do the usual asymmetrical demon face shield that you usually see given this mini, but I wanted to try something challenging.

Needless to say, unless you've been living under a rock (or just not into gaming miniatures - so why are you here? :P), you know that this figure was based off of John Blanche's excellent "Amazonia Gothique" painting.

The face of a woman who is not worried about you.

Supposedly this is a rare-ish mini (recasters aside). Having said that, I really don't remember when/where I got this one. I got her a long time ago, but surely not way back in the 80s when she was sculpted, so not part of the White Dwarf promotion. Ah well, I guess it is a mystery.

A year or two ago, Games Workshop released a special character for the new Necromunda that is heavily based on this miniature. 

Strong family resemblance.

...yeah, I really need to get her too. Probably paint her the same way, as well.

A last shot of her against an experimental canvas painted by the missus:

Seems fitting!

Hmmmmmmm, just learned that Hasslefree has been working on this one too...

Yes, please, I'll take two!