Exo-Armour Squats - Counts-as Custodes w/ Guardian Spears

Hello Peeps, Thanks for dropping by. Something quite old today, but re-purposed. I bought these many years ago and didn't really look at them at the time. Years passed and when examining the lot I saw that these were quite a rough re-cast of the Originals, I know as I did once own the originals. The Bolter arm detail lacks a lot of the finer detail on the three nubs and the multiple cast lines give the game away.  I didn't fork out much as I remember, it was in the early days of eBay and Squats were not quite as sought after. Now stuck with them and cannot re-sell them I put them in the drawer of doom but eventually came to realise that I could use them as Terminator or more recently as Custodes!

With this new sense of purpose and my anger at being duped fading, I thought about what scheme I would like - as counts-as Terminators they could be any colour, but as counts-as Custodes they ought to resemble the Emperor's finest golden warriors - would gold suit Exo-Armoured Squats? Hell yeah, and a plan was hatched.

I used these as a practice for my eventual Custodes gold, so armed with our Lord Duncan's advice, I did the golds as described, Retributor Gold, washed Reikland Fleshshade - (okay Ogryn Flesh) - Highlighted Auric Armour Gold and further highlight of Liberator Gold. I cut off the (fake) tabs under the feet and mounted them on slate to give them more height (so I wouldn't claim modelling advantage on the battlefield) and these are the result.

The Squad Leader has a banner made from a SM Bike aerial, and some gubbins from the Ironbreakers kit (a forthcoming squad of counts-as Space Marines), which worked out nicely.

I used the leather colours Our Lord Duncan used in his Custodes video to see if they looked nice, tick, Custodes scheme sorted now. The Power Axes would nicely counts-as Guardian Spears or Terminator Powerfists, painted using Regal Blue (Kantor Blue), washed with Nuln Oil and highlighted Temple Guard Blue and white washed with Asurmen Blue.

I used the Primaris Marine Dark Angel knee decals to make the basis for a winged Hammer, the Squats favoured icon, this can be seen on the (Storm)Bolter arm.

The slate gives some nice variation in look and height and helps fill the 40mm bases quite nicely. I chose to glaze the slate sightly with Calthan Brown and used the highlight colours from the bases to drybrush the rock edges, linking the rock to the base - but kept the nice purple hue.

The rear shot..

There you have it, a nice salvage job, now back ready for the tabletop to fight once again alongside my Marine forces, as Termnators or Custodes... awesome sauce.

Thanks for checking in, cya, Siph.

Spartember - Week 2 - Building the Spartan WIP

Welcome folks, thanks for dropping in. Alas not much progress with my Spartan so far in Spartember as I have been away on holiday in the Warp, so only managed to clean up just over half the tank pieces.

Here is the current state of the mighty Spartan after a week! But fear not, progress will continue in good stead now I am back in the light of the Astronomican!

The Techmarines have yet to remove the vents and flash and straighten out the machine spirits of these bits. But elsewhere on different Forge Worlds, Tech Adepts have been busy with their constructs:

Objective Secured – NafNaf is striving ahead with his Spartan amid difficulties with bubbles, gaps and pieces not fitting together properly.

Turkadactyl - is having a frenzy with elastic bands getting his central superstructure solid and straight.

Temple of Thutmos – Thutmos was cleaning up his Typhon and getting the basecoat on by brush so far.

Kharybdiss - Has forged ahead with his Typhon, with a relatively simple build without difficulties except the treads! I'm not looking forward to that bit myself either.

Please feel free to check out the other participants efforts at the links and thanks to Turkadactyl and NafNaf for organising this mad jolly jaunt. Thanks for dropping by. Cheers, Siph.

Necromunda Gang - House Escher

Hi All,

I've seen the news that Necromunda is due to return, so I thought I'd better get my old Escher gang out from the vast WIP pile, and hopefully have them ready for the launch!

I've got a few other 'members' from 3rd party sources which I plan to build into the force to have options for load outs. The unit includes the original Escher Gang Leader (1 I think..) 3 gangers and 2 Juves, as well as a heavy stubber ganger.

I've also got the model for 'Mad' Donna (If I remember rightly..) who will be added to the group. I've then got a few Kabuki and Maulfaux models that I plan to add to the unit. I think for the scheme I'm going to have to go for bright and colourful.. its escher after all!

Thanks for Looking! LH

Rhino Tank Size Comparison - Modern and Mk 1b

Hello Readers, thanks for dropping in. On the back of last week's post, I thought I'd share what struck me when painting the old Mk 1b Rhino, the size is sooo tiny compared to the modern Rhino, and that isn't actually large enough to fit in 10 Mk7 Marines!

View from the top down

Strikingly different side profiles

Front view

I love the design cues the modern Rhino took from the old Mk 1b, the modern one is definitely a Rhino, and a great one which has stood the test of time up to now. Great fun, thanks for dropping in, Cheers Siph.

WIP- Nurgle stuff

Hi all,

Just a very quick update post on some Nurgle goodies I've been working on..

Plague Toads..

Each one has had a few washes over the death guard green- I'm toying with repainting the 'slimer' toad the same colour to match the other 2, I really like the way they look. I will be adding a further wash of Nurgle Rot to had a hint of slime to the models, then details..

Giant Spawn

I've always liked the model for the Lord of the Rings Watcher of the Deep, I think it might be because of my fascination with Octopus and Squid, so the plan was done to build one as a giant spawn I'm looking at options for basing him so that it feels 40k- at the moment he is on a spare FW carapace piece that was miscast, which I had replaced. Although I've also looked at options for a rhino, or building.

Cor'bax Utterblight, Daemon Prince of the Ruinstorm

Then the new addition, Cor'bax, Who now has rules for 40k- and the moment I saw these I had to get the model, I've always liked the look of it- it oozes 'Nurgle' and I think he'll be a nice centrepiece to my Nurlge daemon horde.

Thanks for stopping by! LH

Relictors Old School Rhino APC Mk1b - for my RTB01 Marines

Hi Readers, thanks for dropping in our humble corner of the blogosphere. Today I have a gem, a reconditioned original Rhino Mk1b, I was lucky enough to get this in a job lot of old Warhammer gear that someone was clearing out.

I sanded and resprayed the Rhino with Army Painter Uniform Grey which is a great match for Codex Grey (Dawnstone). I washed the Rhino with Nuln Oil and drybrushed with Administratum Grey.

The Rhino is ideal for the RTB01 Squad I finished for Squaduary in February, they are in the 4th Company as I already have 6 Tactical Squads in my 5th Company. The Company colour is green, hence the green background. The old rhino had some cracked rear lights which was quite fitting for its age.

I replaced the bent aerials with skull topped aerials from the SM Bike kit and added a modern Storm Bolter as the original Bolters were missing.

The front got the same treatment of the other Rhinos with a Chain and a Skull Motif.

The Tactical Arrow was masked off using tape and painted on, which worked really well and matches the others with FW Transfers.

And finally, a shot with the RTB01 Marines and their new ride! A great addition to the Relictor forces, albeit the growing 4th Company! Next up, something bigger, time to start that Spartan Heavy Assault Tank as part of Spartember.  Thanks for dropping by, Cheers, Siph.

Spartember - WIP Build the Spartan Heavy Assault Tank

Hi Everyone,

Two hobby Blogger Buddies of mine Turkadactyl and Naf Naf announced they were setting themselves a challenge to build their Spartan's they both have languishing in the To-Do piles, and put out a shout to anyone else to join them... here's what they said:

"Naf Naf and I announced that we were starting a new hobby challenge- Spartember.  We discovered that we both had the same problem- a large Forgeworld Spartan tank sitting in pieces in the hobby closet.  It was decided that we will rely on each other for motivation to assemble these large kits and we extended the invitation to interwebs."

"Do any of you suffer from hobby hoarder syndrome? That procrastination of your tank build getting you down? Well fear not, I NafNaf, and my fellow adventurer & blogger Turkadactyl  (check out his awesome blog, are here to help you move forward with your hobby life (by building a spartan assault tank!)"

As it happens, I too have a FW Spartan hiding in the massive To-Do pile (seen above in it's current state) and this year's Hobby Goal was to reduce that in size, so this fits in great! I left a message in their comments and now I'm onboard! (Although, I do fear the individual track segments, I know their is a problem with this kit, two of the pieces track links male/female links are backwards so some trouble is ahead..)

I'll be posting my progress during September, I'll aim for the build and maybe stretch to the painting too... and not forgetting October is just around the corner, that inevitably means Dreadtober!

There you have it, click on their names and check out their awesome blogs, and join in if you like.

Magnus the Red - Daemon Primarch of the Thousand Sons

Hi Readers, thank you for popping by.

Over the last few weeks, you've seen my progress with Magnus the Red, and in this post I will show the final results!

As posted before, I've opted for a different scheme to that shown in the GW art and as painted by the 'Eavy Metal team. I've used a gold basis for the armour, with a wash incorporating purple to add a 'magic' feel to it and to move away from the Khorne style gold/brass.

I've also gone for a combination of colours for the wings, going from Red, to Blue and then Green, these were all highlighted with Sotek Green, with the edges of the Green tips highlighted with a dry brush of yellow.

For the base, I really wanted to go all out, with a base that would add to the model - I didn't really like the single dead Dreadnought arm, so when for something a little extra.. A dead/broken Bjorn the Fellhanded (I'm sorry, to every Space Wolves Player - he's awaiting recovery, honest) I've built him around rubble from a smashed building with most of his legs trapped under the rocks. I've used normal rocks for this, and added extra bits to add '40k' to it.

He is a picture before Magnus is glued into place.. I've added 'Magic' damage to the dreadnought with blue highlights to the areas I've cut into the dreadnought.

The head of the staff of Magnus - I've left off the 'ball of energy' off the model for now, I am toying with trying to add an extra dimension to the model using this but need to plan that a little bit more...

For his horns, I've got for a marble effect, using browns, greys and whites. I saw this style of marble whilst at a family wedding, and thought it might contrast well with the gold armour. This was my first attempt at marble, I'm happy with the results, however I would like to improve my painting skills further.

The eyes were all picked out the same, apart from the one in Magnus' hand- this has no iris just an edge of blue around the eye itself.

Here are the last two pictures, with Magnus on the battlefield. The first surveying the surrounding area...

...the next, confronting a returning Brother Primarch... Roboute Guilliman.

Thanks for reading, and for your comments during the build, I, we, really appreciate the comments and feedback! Cheers, Lord Halfpenny.

###EDIT### I've changed the pictures, as the black background isn't giving off the same 'flash' as the white was.