The Codewraith

I am in the signals. I am the hiss of static from an untuned radio. I am the flicker of snow on your screen. I am the blocky glitch in the video, the hitch in the music. I am the frequency on the edge of hearing, the colour you can't quite see, the ghost in the machine. 

And I am here for you. 

This was a simple little noodling about with a ghost. It wasn't started with any sort of a plan, just one of those nice evenings sat in front of the bits box and seeing where the muse takes you. In this case, it led me here. I took the opportunity to play with my new greenstuff cable maker which allows me to produce something a little more flexible than guitar strings.

Overall very happy with the final outcome and it's given me a couple more ideas to so with some ghosty chaps.

Undercover Nurglings

Klaxons blared. 

"Sector Five containment down--"

"Security breach in Third Quadrant--"

"Core cogitator shutting down, someone's rewired the--"

"Explosions in barracks Alpha--"

Magos Trismegistus span around, breath rasping from his augmentic lungs. +++How is this possible?+++ he demanded. The officers and skitarii around his looked panicked. +++This is supposed to be a secure installation!+++

The Magos span back to try and get a handle on the constant flow of catastrophic data from all areas. For a moment he paused - one of the skitarii had been shaking. Was it... laughing? He shook his head and tried to focus on the hellscape his life had suddenly become. 

This is one of those idle thoughts prompted by having some leftover bits. What would happen if....? In this case, what would happen if some nurglings found a way to pilot a skitarii round like a suit? The answer: something magical.

From a construction point of view, the coat had to be split open and be widened. I did this with plastic putty. I then had to trim off some the bits of the nurglings to make sure they fit - and end of a horn here, a pointy elbow there. Then a pole for them to operate the gun and we were all set.

I painted them the same as my existing Skitarii to allow for maximum infiltration fun. I imagine I can play these as a poxwalker in a nurgle kill team or as a skitarii in an admech kill team just for fun.

Vindice Tempesta

We were hard pressed by the enemy. Pinned down in the radioactive ashwastes, no way to advance. The Serjeant was gone, our vox operator dropped with a hole through his head. A few of us started praying to the Throne and I slapped the last powerpack into my lasgun. The we heard it. It began with a beeping, high and clear. A figure, man size, strode through the smoke and choking dust long coat snapping around mechanical legs. It stood there as slugs and lasbolts whipped past it. I remember thinking, Is this is it? Is this the help we were promised?

Then the earth shook.

Something massive stepped over me. Rusted metal screeched as a chainblade the size of a wall crashed down into the barricades before us. A toothshaking roar of some sort of cannon as the enemy were torn to a red mist. And still it strode on.

I realised I was standing like an idiot, my mouth open. The mechanical soldier looked at me, making a scraping noise I slowly realised was some form of laughter. "The Storm Of Vengeance Has Passed Over You," it rasped, "And You Have Been Saved." It nodded, and then strode on into the smoke.

This has been, as you can imagine, something of a long term project. I've been chipping (pardon the pun) away at it for the last few weeks in between marking exams and surviving until the end of the year. this was also partially as each step of the process required curing time before I could move on to the next. I am, I have to say, quite happy with the final result.

This required the use of the chipping fluid just like the Tank I did. the difficulty here was masking each different colour to allow the chipping to be carried out before every new stage.

All transfers were applied over a gloss coat and then chipped away with a scalpel to match the chipping of the paintwork underneath. In some cases they had green or beige painted in to show a lighter level of chipping. 

Finally painted, he looked pretty good. I added some rust streaks and oil but he needed some environmental effects. 

Again, I used weathering pigments on the lower half and flat surfaces; the model here was how muddy I get after a walk in the woods with the boys.

The base was constructed out of various bits of junk with bricks cut from old sprue. 

The overall colour scheme was the same as for the previous Knight Armigers I produced; I left the faceplate detachable to match these as required. 

I have one last little thing to finish up before Christmas and then I have the decks clear for new toys. Merry Christmas everyone!

Building Better Worlds

"There was no wall left unbroken, no building that had not been fought over a dozen times [...] won, lost then won again, until men were fighting over the wreckage of a hundred previous defeats. By the end, it was a war fought in the carcass of a city by men tired exhausted and horrified beyond the telling of it. The waking dead fighting over the corpse of a giant."

I bought the Kill Team box set; not only because it was the game that the school club was most interested in but also because I love some decent scenery and I'm always looking to expand Hive Karhonnen. 

And the new scenery is really rather lovely. 

The basecoat was applied with an airbrush - as with previous stuff I decided on the Lynch Harkonnen colour scheme. So blue grey on the outside and sickly green for the interiors. 

The exterior was drybrushed with grey and the interiors washed with heavily watered smokey ink. 

Interior before wash:

After Wash:

As you can see, they have a massive scale and add a real cinematic feel to the tabletop:

And here's some detail shots:

The box set comes with the playing mat allowing some really interesting set ups. 

This is a pretty good deal I think - two complete squads, the rule book and all this scenery for £60 is not to be sniffed at. 

And finally:

"Ah, Control, this is Fire Team Alpha. We've reached the unidentified object as ordered and... well..."