On my workbench

The last couple of weeks I've been more or less living work :o( well we all have to pay the bills. My work bench is looking pretty cluttered, in fact it's well on its way into chaos. Maybe this is how the warmaster started his decline into insanity? Taking on too many projects at once is filling my head with an exponentially increasing mass of ideas and pushing out things like remembering my brothers birthday (sorry bruv). On the list at the moment.....

legio Cybernetica- Enough parts for 20 (at a push) rogue trader robots, I really need to sit down, draw up a list, design a paint scheme and paint these great robots.

RTB101 Marines- Another squad awaiting paint in my green and purple colours (think I'll call them Knights of Atreus as my IG regiment was from 'Atreus' and I wrote up a nice background for the world)

RT Landraider- I have an old old Landraider in Ultramarines colours that needs renovation, to remove the thick several layers of paint and remodel the weapons so they articulate, I want this to be an article with pictures and I'll paint it up to be my SM captain's ride.

More RT bits lying around- Ok writing this all down has shown me the madness of taking this all on at once. A lesson learnt, starting projects is easier than finisheing them, I need to rationalise the workbench and finish something!!

Ok time for bed, and a proper posting with pictures soon! Promise!

Robots, robots, robots

My endeavours on a certain auction site, combined with some treasure unearthed from my gaming past mean that I can count enough robots in my collection to field maniples of all but the Crusader class. Why the Crusader eludes me I'm not sure, did GW make less of them in the 80's? I deigned to buy Crusaders back then as I prefered shooty firepower from my 'bots, though now I'd quite like a maniple or two of the sword wielding ones.

Be warned, collecting RT robots makes a severe dent on your wallet, I could be sporting one of these by now if i hadn't developed a yearning for 20 year old bits of lead. Make no mistake this is an army sized project and all i have decided on so far is the Legio name- Void Hounds

Paintings

The last few weeks have been a veritable painting frenzy, well pretty quick for me. Somehow between all the overtime and nightshifts work seems to be throwing at me I've managed to paint up another 10 marines to a nice standard, throw in a tech priest and get the base layers on dozens of other minis too. Here's to more productivity in the coming rotations....

Some major downtime....

I'm back, after 8 months of hiatus involving an abandoned career in teaching, a period on jobseekers allowance and no internet I suddenly remembered that I had a blog that needed some urgent attention!

Recent developments in my Rogue Trader collection involve me painting up some RT Space Orks and most excitingly i have procured a quantity of Legio Cybernetica robots from ebay, combined with my existing collection these will be getting a strip down and repainting as the Legio Cybernetica 'Void Hounds', a body of the Mechanicus that can trace it's history back to before the Horus Heresy.

For those of you not as old as me, the original rules for robots in WH40k were written by Rick Priestley and published in White Dwarf and the 40k Compendium. Five varieties of imperial robot were described, the Crusader, Conqueror, Colossus, Cataphract and Castellan. Each type fulfills a different role from long range support to close combat and siege assault. The robots have their own 'program' which governs their actions on the battlefield, making them an inflexible if very tough unit to take on the field. Although the modern 40k background hints at the existence of Adeptus Mechanicus robots there aren't any rules for them nowadays, a shame really since they were so much fun to play.

Munitorum transporter

I little while back I was musing over the type of vehicles in use by the Department Munitorum for getting troops and supplies around. Forgeworld have a grand line up of vehicles availible for non-combatant roles and it was while browsing these I noticed a gap in the vehicle pool. A soft skinned multi- purpose transporter a bit like the ww2 Opel Blitz or the United States Mack truck would fill this gap, while the Imperial Guard would save their precious Chimeras and super heavy transports for the front line. Such a vehicle would be very basic, dependable and get stuff from A to B without fuss.

After looking around on thee internet I came up with this rough sketch and went down to the local model shop to procure some styrene section and sheet....

The transporter (I'm yet to think of a name for it) will be unarmed but will have the option to mount a heavy stubber in the turret above the cab. I thought a transport capacity of 20 with armour values of 10/9/9 would do the trick. I need to have a play with the Vehicle Design Rules soonish. With a transport capacity of 20, three vehicles should be able to manage a (maxed) IG platoon with a support squad which seems a fairly realistic. Imagine three of these in convoy taking urgently needed reinforcements to the front.

I have so far fabricated three chassis, so now for the hard part of doing the cabs and body work. I was stumped over what to do about wheels for a while until it struck me that LEGO makes nice chunky 40kesque truck wheels, twelve of which I procured from these friendly people for a few quid.

Well here's the work in progress, I'll hopefully have something looking truck like soon.

Something from the archive

Having a root around for a plasma rifle the other day I turfed up this bad boy, my Blood Angels standard bearer from back in the olden days. He's seen action under Rogue Trader, 2nd and 3rd edition rules. It was my first (minor) conversion and I remember being pretty chuffed with him back then, although the paint job is looking a bit ropey nowadays.

I remember under 2nd ed rules the Bionic leg was a potent kicking tool indeed causing D3 wounds in close combat, something me old Orky opponent begrudged when he gave Ghazghull a good thraping in close combat (admittedly after half a dozen assault marines got brained first).

The Dark Oppressors

I have my first batch of 'beakies' painted up. No mk7 Imperator armour for me, no sirree! These are the first nine (not sure why I painted nine instead of ten but there you go) of about 50 beakies I have waiting to be painted. Most of the plastics are stripped down from my old Blood Angels army I played under RT rules, before there were rules for death company and blod sucking librarians. The metals I have scrounged off ebay, mainly on the cheap but it seems there is a bit of a racket on oop minis nowadays, probably because of people like me.

I have a sketched out background for the chapter- the Dark Oppressors. Founded from Dark Angel geneseed 250 years ago, the chapter has struggled to gain its honour and recognition. Their combat doctrine is characterised by swift and brutal action (nothing new there for Astartes then) and they have seen much action in suppressing mutant hordes and rogue psykers, often being used as an internal force of subjugation. So for 40k v5 this means they will have the traits of 'cleanse and purify' and 'have faith in suspicion'. This stern and zealous practice has got the chapter into trouble, and during a recent pacification in the Damocles Gulf the third battle company got a 'little' over zealous in rooting out the xenos threat and launched a purge of Imperial citizens considered to have fraternised with the Tau invaders. The casualties that resulted almost caused further insurrection in the politically sensitive climate.

The Dark Oppressors have thereby identified themselves as a blunt instrument of warfare. By way of apology the Master has seconded the third battle company to the next Rogue Trader expedition to the Eastern Fringe, and they await orders....