Silent killers

To wrap up the Inquisitor retinues, we have some assassins.  The figure on the right is my favorite of all the assassins that I made.  I had converted a Vindicare assassin, but had no luck there.  When I made myself an Eversor, that proved to be much more fun.

For the 2012 tournament, I made a bunch of Death Cult Assassins to go with the Eversor.  I used some Dark Eldar Wyches... getting the idea from the Demonifuge book.

I have some WIP images of these in a previous post that show the cloaks under way.  I honed the green stuff and tin foil system with these cloaks.

Also, they were similar in scale to the old GW DCA's, which is the figure with the crossed swords.

I combined these with the Arco-Flagellants, a few Crusaders, along with servitors, familiars and the like.  When they did get into combat with things, they could dish out 60+ attacks at high inititaive, high weapon skill... mostly of the power weapon variety.

I put them in a Land Raider with Coteaz.  I suppose that it would have been more fun if they were in a Storm Eagle :-)

Wiped minds and big guns

Here's some of my favorite retinue figures.  Time for some gun servitors!  Back in the 4th edition days, these guys were like a cheap devastator squad with even more abilities.

When you accompanied them with sages and mystics, you had re-rolls, higher ballistic skill, and the ability to drop a plasma cannon template on a unit that deep struck too close. :-)  How I miss those days.

These figures started out as plastic Blood Bowl minis.  I sculpted heavy bolters and a plasma cannon out of sculpey, and attached it to the arm socket.  I added purity seals and a few other do-dads. 

It was pretty hilarious fooling around with the big sculpey guns, and making the servo arms with their saws!

After a particularly devastating blast against a unit of Noise Marines, the plasma servitor got himself a trophy helmet!

So he's mind wiped... he still earned it!

In this image, they are teamed up with my newest Coteaz conversion that I made for Adepticon 2012.

Seeing these makes me think of the good old days and the crazy campaigns that we used to do, like the quest for the Warp gate, and Defend the Factorum.

So, this leaves one last set, and that would be the Assassins.

The gang's all here

OK!  Group shots!

As satisfying as it is to see the individual images, the group photos are usually the most fun!

They can be much harder to compose, and get things in focus, but it truly represents the effort involved.

Army shots are a bit tougher, though... as much fun as those are!

Ever since I started painting, the theme has been squads, regiments, teams, etc.  I get a real kick out of making each figure match the previous one, so that it is all one cohesive group.

Next up, some Blood Angels...

Quick Blood Bowl conversions

Here are some Blood Bowl Lizards that I converted a while back using some basic Warhammer figures.  It was something that I had been wanting to do for a long time, especially since I had actually started playing WFB at the time with my Lizard army.

I had the most fun with the Saurus...

Some of you might recognize the head crest on this Saurus.  It was the testing ground for the crests on my converted Temple Guard unit!

The shoulder pads were fun to sculpt as well.

Here's the full set of six!

And now for the skinks.  Obviously a bit more simple, but just a little hint of armor here and there adds a nice extra touch.

There were a lot more of these than I thought when I shot the pictures.  There were 9 of them all together.

I could not resist putting the little number disks on a few of them.

Watch where you swing those things

Time for another review of the retinue minis.  The Inquisitor and servo skull were original figures done bak in 2008, I believe.  The Psycannon was made from sculpey.

The Arco-Flagellants (or Arco-Flatuents as I lied to call them) were made for Adepticon 2012.

I remember them doing some damage in a few games.  Most of the time, however, they just got shot by Space Wolves missile launchers.

At least I got to use the servo skulls in the 2012 tournament.  I forget what it is that they do in the Grey Knights book, but I had 3 of them, which was enough to cover the whole table.

It is a bummer that in the world of 5th edition, none of this can even hope to stand up to plastic titans and fleets of flying stuff. :-(

Anyway, I think I may just set up some of my own battles between the Dark Eldar and the old fashioned Inquisitor list.  Besides, innocence proves nothing!!!!!  Every day is a great day for an Exterminatus.  Let's play two...

Another Banner day

Yes, another Imperial Fist.  Banner time.  The design is a compilation of previous freehand on vehicles, shoulder pads, and so on.

Since the embroidered look is all the rage now, I thought I would do a little bit of that on the opposite side of the banner.  Lots of empty space, and it can get pretty boring if you don't put something there.

However, it is always a balance between going nuts and keeping it calm, especially when the figure is all yellow.  Still very fun, though. ;-)

Osprey vs Eagle

Now this is something that I hadn't thought of.  All the while I was painting the Osprey video, I kept thinking about how different it was to paint that mini as an eagle.

So, I dug through my Lord of the Rings army box and found Gwaihir!  I set up the lights really quick so I could snap some side by side bird action.

Obviously I carved the saddle from Gwaihir, but that aside, it is very neat how all the different markings and colors play out on the wings, etc.

The eagle version was definitely easier to paint, since it was more about coloration than actual markings like the Osprey.

All those markings on the ends of the feathers on the Osprey drove me a little nuts, but it was still worth it. :-)

The view from above...

You can really see the differences in this view.  So many white feathers!

I did have a blast dropping this rather unfortunate disciple of Sauron on this base!