Lack of New Pictures

Maybe I am not the best at updating this little blog. My camera has taken a turn for the worse. Something inside has busted and it wont autofocus anymore. And whenever I try to focus it manually it kind of grinds inside the lens and the  pics turn out crap. That being said, I have taken SOME pics of the work I have been up to with my phone, but they are not as good.

So update on the Throng. I bought a box of Ironbreakers/Irondrakes. I turned ten into drakes and made them up. I was not a fan of the brass instrument, so I made a drummer because I love the drums in my units. I also had to heavily convert some old bits to make a real banner for the drakes. Other than that they are pretty normal...just took off the shoulderpads for all but the champion. It makes him stand out more, and with the rest of my army in the chainmail look...the shoulderpad-less drakes fit in way better.

I then went and eBay'd 10 more bodies to put together a small group of ironbreakers. I had all the other bits so saved like 15 bucks there. Also made a custom banner for them. I am thinking about shoulderpads only on the champion as well, but the shield and unique axe make him obvious enough that I may do them all.

Ok, so for the only good pictures I have right now. My bare-assed slayer. This is by far one of my favorite models I have ever painted. Was chuckling the entire time. And to boot, he is actually pretty decent in game as a dragon slayer. When he does so-so...he is still fun to play. And when he does well...oh my god does he do well. Played a game of Blood and Glory (break point mission) against some brets and he charged in and killed the general and BSB in 2 turns. Just slaughtered them. The little guy won the game by himself. Master Rune of Alaric the Mad is CRAZY good. Oh well, here he is.

Yeah, so as always let me know what yall think. I love this little guy. The guys at my shop named him Cody. After another player in the group who displays...slayer-like qualities, including general crazy eyes. 

As soon as I get the money for a better camera I will once again take more pictures. Mostly though, its just been painting models I have already started in the throng. If I get anything new and impressive I will of course post it.

The Full Karak-Graey Throng

It has been months since I gotten all of these little stunties, and I put ALL of these little ones together way back then, primed them...and was sort of Dwarfed out for a while. But now...now I'm back with my squatty friends. So here is everything that I am working with. This will be a longer, picture heavy post. LOTS of works in progress here. Lets start with the characters.

**Note: I don't think these get bigger, so if you want to see the REALLY close up versions of all my work, including these guys, I keep all my WH40k and WHFB photos at DakkaDakka

Link to my Gallery there: http://www.dakkadakka.com/core/gallery-search.jsp?dq=Isean **

Dwarf Lord on Oathstone

My Dwarf Lord still needs one last layer of lighter skin tones. Trying to get the mix right. I will also be lightening the stone and maybe doing something to make the runes pop out.

Runelord / Runesmith

The Runelord/smith is complete and sealed. My favorite model so far out of all my dwarfs.

Thane with BSB

The BSB was hard, but a lot of fun to paint. Very minor touch ups are left. He is just about as complete as I will make him.

Slayer

I have been toying with the idea of the bright orange hair, but with bright green highlights to show some of the hold colors.

Master Engineer

This model was from the old old set with 1 piece as-is dwarfs. I liked the special wrench, so I gave him a pistol and an artillery emblazoned shield to make him my MASTER Engineer.

Ok, so now that the characters are done, here is a few of the whole throng on the table. And then we will get down to my unit blocks.

Everyone

Longbeards

These guys are all going to have white beards, but more than that, they will also ALL have cloaks. I pulled all of the cloak bodies out of my core blocks, excluding command teams, just to give these vets the better looking bodies. Really makes them stand out from behind. Plus these are the sword and board guys...sorry axe/hammer and board.

Warrior Block 1

Warrior Block 2

Miners

Quarreler Block 1

Quarreler Block 2

Thunderers

Pony Cavalry

I had been talking to shop buddies and jokes kept arising about pony cavalry. And I just happened to have a few spare bits of...everything, including a bunch of ponies. So here they are, a rank of 5 of the rare Pony Cav Troop.

Cannon 1

Cannon 2

Organ Gun 1

Organ Gun 2

So that is the entirety of my dwarf collection as it stands. Hopefully in a year I can come back and look at all these pictures and remember what these guys looked like in a lot of black. Because I want to get this army in color within a year or so. As always, let me know what you think below, thanks.

Explaining the Absence

Army life is the life for me. Unfortunately, being active duty military can be...rough on my gaming schedule. I have still been gaming, even if it has been lighter than usual. So that is where I have been these last few months, just very busy.

On a high note however, I have gone from lightly gaming to lightly gaming AND modelling again. I will break down everything that I have on my Gaming Desk right now.

Gaming:
* The shop is getting more and more into Warhammer Fantasy Battles (at last)
* Just played 2x 500 point Dwarf games against Lizardmen and High Elves. Both were very close and very fun.
* This upcoming Saturday I have a 3000 Point battle against High Elves coming up, so I am mustering up nearly the full Throng.

Painting:
* I just finished my Dwarf Lord on his Oathstone, and my Thane with BSB. Pics coming soon as I seal them.
* I am hating all my black primed dwarves, so the units will ALL be getting the primary colors (Green) and metal for their armor and weapons at a minimum. Just to break up the black. I will do a full throng picture of before and after.

Modelling:
* I am making like 30 something MDF bases for terrain for a friend, which means terrain craziness soon to come.
* I have a 3 building complex that can be together or apart. Its in the ruined 40k theme and the final touches are happening now as well. So my few readers will see the terrain skills I have.
* I have completed the entry ramp to my Dwarf Fortress. All that is left is painting the spare sprue bits I have tacked on to make it extra dwarfy. I will put up a WIP shot soon.
* And what I am MOST excited for is for some REAL HAMMERERS!!! GW just put up the pre-orders for them and I have to kick myself not to immediately buy a 40 block of them. They look THAT awesome...I just dont have the 200 bucks for them. Oh god the prices :( I WILL get them eventually, but for the moment I have PLENTY to paint, so it may be a while.

Anyways, that is it for now...sorry for the long absence, but Isean Grey is still in the game.

The Graey Throng Test Scheme (Plus Cannon)

So, these were the very first models I received when I made my bulk dwarf purchase...and I immediately went about testing colors and mixes and shades. I think I finally found what I wanted, save one detail. I will cover that at the end.

Kazak-Graey's first Cannon and Crew:

So The dwarf scheme. I went with a heavily agrax earthshade washed Waaagh Green for the cloth. Black for boots, gloves, cuffs. Ironbreaker for the metal bits, a leather for the leather. The wood is a mix of like 5 browns in different layers. The skin was a leather, washed with agrax, then a 50% blend of leather and a dwarf skin tone, then washed again. Overall I was super pleased with the skin. And also...I think I am very happy with this as being my color scheme.

The one thing I am unhappy about, the "stone" carriage for the cannon. I wanted a mottled, stony look that would resemble a dappled granite or some such. I don't think it looks BAD, but I am not completely happy with it.

If you have any ideas for getting a stone look, please comment below. Thanks.

The Banners of Kazak-Graey

The Graey Throng has been under rapid assembly. My first focus has been a test group of dwarves to test color schemes, and then the identifying models of the army. THE BANNERS!  One of the biggest differences to me between the fantasy world and the 40k world is the banners. I love how each unit can have a standard bearer and I wanted to put a lot of mind towards those.

So I haven't fully completed any, but I have finalized the majority of the assembly and just had to show them off. To the bannerdwarves!

This is the BSB to the left, and the banner of my Longbeards to the right. The dwarf BSB is pretty awesome on its own but I spent a lot of time thinking about how to do the other banners. I decided to go with 3d relief banners based on bits from the sprues. Its simple and I think it looks great.

The two Dwarf Warrior block banners. I decided to go with the pointed tip banners for all melee units, the squared off banners will be ranged. The banners are simpler, as the unit is not the more elite such as the elaborate longbeards. I could have done Great Weapon axes because that is how I did my warriors...but shields looked better I think.

The thunderer banner on the left. The original icon was taken from the Battle for Skull Pass thunderer bits. On the right is the more simple GW Quarreler unit banner.

On the left is my new second unit of quarrelers' banner. I couldn't do the same, so I did an unloaded crossbow and made a little bolt quiver. On the right is the miner banner. They have a pretty nice banner all by itself, all I had to do was add the pick and a stick of dynamite.

And ALL TOGETHER now. These are the eye catchers of my throng. Dwarves don't go out with all fancy monsters and machines and stuff, even our cannons are small. The standards are where the focus is. Can't wait to get these all painted up.

Drowning in Dwarfs

So, most of the guys at my game shop already know this, but in addition to my already formidable tau and black templar armies...I picked up a third. This time it's in warhammer fantasy, and I may have gone a bit overboard.

Most people start an army small and build up unit by unit. In fact that is how I built up my Templars and tau. But not this time. This time I had NTC coming and being gone from the hobby for the next month and a half only meant I had like 4 paychecks for minis all at once. I found great deal after great deal and soon had a whole dwarf army before I even started assembling them.

How big an army? 200 dwarves. Exactly 200. Only cost me a total of around $380 so I wasn't kidding when I said I got them at great prices. Anyhow, I got pdf copy of the codex while I was waiting for my hardcover to arrive back home, then I spent the next month and a half in the desert writing out army plans so I could immediately start assembling when I got back. And now I am back...and here is what I have:

• Dwarf Lord on Oathstone
• Runelord with Rune Staff
• Thane with BSB
• Slayer
• 27 Longbeards - 3 metal full command and 24 cloak bodies (BSB will attach)
• 30 Dwarf Warriors - Great Weapons
• 30 Dwarf Warriors - Great Weapons
• 12 Dwarf Warriors - Hand Axes and Shields (Auxiliaries to Longbeards)
• 20 Quarrelers - With Great Weapons
• 20 Quarrelers - With Great Weapons
• 14 Thunderers - With Shields
• 28 Miners - With a Blasting Charge and Steam Drill
• 2 Cannons - Crew plus Engineer (8 total)
• 2 Organ Gun - Normal crew (6 total)
•  Master Engineer - Kitbashed from last crewmember and bits 

So there I am, a whole dwarf army. Just recently started and my thumbs already have the cut up pleasure to prove it. Further posts will have pictures of the units as I progress and I will even do a basing tutorial for the cobblestone them I am going for, trays included.

Es'run Sept Hunter Cadre - Current Status

Hello again,

Just like I did with my Black Templars, I will be doing a current status on my other 40k army, the Tau. I have done them all with my own paint and camo scheme, so I based them on a sept of my own. I happened to paint them all a red scheme before the new codex released...which turned out great because now I am going to have the sept be a Farsight Enclave breakaway sept. Farsight kept all his goodies from 4th and they removed all the bad stuff in my opinion. I want to get his model and paint him in my colors...so it will be a "counts as" but still red so it should hold on to the fluffy-ness that I like. I would LOVE to do a farsight/shadowsun cadre, but its just a little too unfluffy for me...even though stealth teams will always have a spot in my heart.

Es'run Sept Hunter Cadre

Current Battle Roster

Shas'o - While the commander of my current tau forces, will probably be demoted to a mere bodyguard when I get a farsight model. Fully magnetized.

Crisis Suits - 2 suits at present. Fully magnetized.

Broadside Suit - Forgeworld broadside. While smaller than the new broadside suits, this model is STILL the sweetest looking broadside in my opinion.

Ethereal - He served his sept well by dying on nearly every battlefield in order to spur the tau on to victory. With the new codex he got EVEN BETTER...but with all the other unique HQ choices, I dont know if he will get a lot of use. Was my first model to try wet blending on for highlights. Improved my painting skills a lot with this guy.

Firewarrior Team - 10 Firewarriors. Has Shas'ui and all rifles.

Firewarrior Team - 10 Firewarriors. Has Shas'ui and all rifles.

Pathfinder Team - Currently uses 4 firewarrior models as stand-ins.

Kroot Squad - Shaper and 11 Kroot. Man I love my kroot. They got nerfed some with the new codex from my point of view. But my cadre just wouldn't be complete without them. Fluffy...and sweet models. I really was hoping a kroot HQ would make a show in the new dex, then I could dream of a whole kroot mercenary force on its lonesome. Maybe some day.

Stealth Team - 3 XV25 suits. Right now my FAVORITE tau unit. They always do crazy awesome things in my games. Usually they die...but they do it in great ways. Got buffed with the new codex, but got easier to kill as they can't bubble wrap themselves in drones now. Shas'vre is magnetized.

Devilfish - I love the model. I was hoping they would make it a little cheaper. Its a tad expensive as a transport...but I cant complain. Good armor and jink saves to deliver my troops to their objectives.

Hammerhead - Convertable to a skyray and fully magnetized for every option. My first REAL tank. Love this thing. It has only gotten blown up ONE time in all the games I have ever fielded it in. Its kill ratio is insane.

A load of drones - No rhyme or reason. Not sure how many I have really.

White - Unit is assembled, but still grey.
Red - Unit is primed.
Orange - Unit is partially painted.
Yellow - Unit is painted but not based or sealed.
Green - Painted, Based and Sealed.

Future Fighting Company Additions:

Farsight - I love the model. I love his fluff. I will have him.

Crisis suits - I want a full bodyguard for Farsight. Super Tau blob of deepstricking doom.

Pathfinder Team - I will use the box to make 2 pathfinder teams. One of the additional models will be customized to be a "counts as" Darkstrider

Sun Shark Bomber/fighter - The tau flyer. It looks awesome. Great stats. Cheap. And not killer of my wallet. It will be mine.

More stealth suits to fill out team or to serve as a second team.

More firewarriors. I want a farsight enclave sept. Means firewarriors are even more important than usual. They will be my anvil. A tempting gunline to draw them in so my hammer (farsight blob) can deepstrike and cause death. Very fluffy tactics...so I need more warriors

Farsight enclave shoulderpads. Because I can...and they look sweet. I need like 4 dozen of them lol.

2 Piranhas - My last priority...but they have always been a cool looking model and I am tempted to try them out.