Spread the Word - Resurrecting my Word Bearers

A brief history lesson - way back during the 3rd edition, I started up a Chaos force. They started out as Emperor's Children, but later evolved into my own Renegade chapter, the Nameless Ones, another Slaanesh-aligned army. Eventually, I grew bored of the limitations that entailed, and I changed again to Word Bearers. However, my army were left in limbo due to my other 2 armies, Orks and Dark Eldar. With the coming of the new Codex, though, I figured it was time to dust off my Chaos models (literally, my shelves get very dusty!).

The Fist of Lazarus
Lazarus is the Champion of my first unit of Troops. He named his unit after the Power Fist he wears. The unit is a typical unit of Chaos Marines; 10-strong, with 2 meltaguns and Lazarus of course, who also bears the unit's Icon of Chaos Glory to summon a bunch of daemonic goodness should he need to.




You'll probably notice I've not highlighted the gold areas, yet. I'll finish that off when I grab some paint from GW next week.

After a game against my friend's Imperial Guard, my Chaos Marines got absolutely annihilated; it wasn't even close; owing in no small part to my complete inability to make any armour saves! But anyway, that game forced me to mount all my Chaos Marine units in Rhinos.




Please excuse the thick, gloppy-looking paint in some areas; leftovers from the previous 2 paint attempts which I failed to clean up properly.
Also, the red looks a lot brighter on the tank for some reason.
And, this is my first attempt at free-hand work; its only a basic 'text' effect, but I think it looks ok. I also added tiny little Chaos Stars, like the red one on the flesh hanging on the exhaust.

The Soulrakers

What's a Word Bearers army without a host of daemons in tow? The new Allies rules are great, and I intend to make full use of them. The Soulrakers are my Daemonettes. There are 8 in the unit, as you can see, and the one with the big, flappy hair has Transfixing Gaze. The unit is so small because I initially wanted 500pts of daemons, and I wanted to include a Soul Grinder, which ate up a fair chunk of that.

 

Future Plans



I have a bunch of Chaos stuff left over from my previous forays into Chaos. Back in those days we were a bit more lax when it came to points values, so I have a ton of Chaos Marines left. However, in my 'main' cohesive force, I have a second unit of basic Marines, some Noise Marines, Raptors, Vindicator, 3 Obliterators and of course, a Dark Apostle.
My daemonic allies will feature a Herald of Tzeentch, some Horrors, and a Soul Grinder, but I don't have any of these yet.
I'm attempting to get all this done before I get my grubby mitts on Dark Vengeance, which will add some awesome new models to my army and probably bump my Word Bearers up to 2000pts, not including the daemons.

Da Boss is Back!

During a recent clash around a small, but none-the-less vital Imperial stronghold, Gorzag finally met his match atop the structure. After a fierce ground battle, the orks had breached the Imperial Guard defences, but their ranks were in tatters. Not wanting to lose, the Warboss Gorzag Irontoof broke off from his mob and charged the bastion solo.
Crashing through the entryway, he cut down the few remaining guard on the ground floor, and barrelled up the stairwell to the roof; his eyes set firmly on his quarry. Erupting from the roof with a roar, Gorzag launched himself at the Imperial Guard Commander Mordecai.
After a fierce battle, the Penal Legionnaires showed their true repentant colours, sacrificed themselves in the name of the Emperor. But it fell to Mordecai himself to land the killing blow. Shattering the Warboss's bull-like helmet with his power fist, and casting the foul xeno over the battlements to his doom... or so he thought!
During the clean up operation, no trace of the Warboss's corpse could be found!

Fast forward to now...

WARLORD GORZAG IRONTOOF
Some say he was too embarrassed to show his face after the kumpin' he took from an 'oomie. Instead, he was carted away by his most loyal grotz, and taken back to their Base ov Oparashunz on the world of Ragd, the Big Teef's homeworld, of sorts!
From there, Gorzag led a series of lesser Waaaghs into the surrounding star systems, mostly against the Tau, and he would not threaten Imperial space for some time.

However, the time has come for him to seek revenge.
Armed with an even bigger shoota and even bigger power klaw, Gorzag is ready to bust some heads... with the help of his pet squig, Chompa.

LOOTAS
I've also painted up a batch of 8 lootas. In 6th edition, they appear to have had a bit of a buff in terms of damage output, especially against tanks. The fact that glancing hits can now destroy tanks (given enough shots), and they can Snapshoot on the move and against charging foes, Lootas have recieved some major improvements. Snapshots are basically made a -1 BS for orks, so its not much of a change.
I'm even considering having them drive around in an opne-topped looted tank, and having a mekboy with them to keep it going, but I'll wait and see how they do on foot.

LOOTED TANK

Loadsa looted stuff today...
Can you tell I used to be a Deff Skulls fan before I made my own clan?
Unfortunately, the camera I use doesn't pick up the orange very well on my models. Its probably the lighting, in that I usually photograph my models at night under artifical lighting. Even the camera's flash doesn't seem to help. Does anybody have any ideas about this?




Also, I tend to be somewhat impatient when it comes to painting. I prefer doing things by the quickest possible means, and because of this I very often miss certain details or fail to spot any mistakes. If you see any feel free to let me know, I'd be very appreciative :)

But yeah... its a tank, and it goes boom, in more ways that one. I'm not sure how it'll perform under 6th edition, as I've not had a game under the new rules yet.
I hear the new vehicle rules make anything less than armour 12 a bit redundant, and even armour 12 is rather questionable, but we'll have to wait and see. Either way, I love tanks, and I have 3 more in the pipeline.

Out of retirement...

It's been quite a while again.

I've not been doing much in the way of The Hobby these days, but I do have a few things on the go. Namely, bringing some of my old ork models out of retirement. These models aren't ultra-old; I got them in 3rd edition. They were my second army, and their paint schemes were trash, so what to do?

Well, my good friend Darren (http://arcadian107.blogspot.co.uk/) introduced me to the wonders of Dettol a few weeks ago, and this stuff is a Gork-send. 1 night soaking in this and the paint just peels off easy, with some white spirit and an old toothbrush for good measure. So that's what I've been doing:

Here are some of the gits on the go...

And here are some after the soaking...

I also had some meganobz, which I tried it out on first.
They're currently a work-in-progress...

At the moment I'm finishing painting up a tank and some extra boyz for my existing boyz mobs. Add to that the slew of old orks being repainted, that will give me 3 mobs of 30 boyz, which is quite nice. I'll try to take some piccies of my army as a whole, and write up my full army list on here. Comes to around 3,500pts, if I'm not mistaken. That's a lot of painting still to do.....



You wait all day for an Incubus...

... then 4 come along at once!

Sentinels of the Face Shrine
Yup, that is a Legend of Zelda reference!

The background for these guys is they take the skulls of their victims, manipulate them into weird shapes, stretch flayed skin over them, then wear them as helmets. That's why I painted their helmets in flesh colours, with red washes to look like blood. The gold kind of overpowers the black of their armour, but that's ok. It will make them stand out more and look more regal and important.

These guys form the bodyguard for my Haemonculus, who is yet to make an appearence. There are only 4 Incubi in his retinue because I will be mounting them in a venom.

I try to break the mold whenever I can, and the 'Blasterborn' loadout makes an appearence in EVERY army list I see on the internet, so I decided to change things up and have 4 Incubi riding in the venom instead. Speaking of which...

This is my attempt at converting a venom. It's still very much a work in progress, as you can see. The official venom kit has been out for a while now, but I was sitting round one day and saw an old Eldar vyper sticking out my bits box, so I decided to put it to some use.

I will be painting the glass carapace, so I glued it on. The vyper actually belonged to my brother, but he quit the hobby ages ago and gave me all his models; I was going to make them back into a full-fledged list, but then Dark Eldar came along. The grey scrapes along the side I made to make way for gluing the spikes on, and removing the old transfers.

Obviously, it still needs its 2 guns. This is the thing I said I needed spare splinter cannons for in my prvious post. It will have a gunner on top, from the raider kit, and and underslung cannon at the front.

The Scions of Flesh
And finally, I have another WIP squad of dudes (oh, how I spoil you so...). This is my first unit of Wracks, the Scions of Flesh.

As you can see, I've melded the Finecast wracks with some Empire Flagellants. The result was better than I expected. The flagellants are actually much smaller, but I think it adds to the eccentricity of the collective... hmm, that sounds like the title of a philosophical book.
I still have to green stuff their backs, though, so their bony hunches actually look like they belong there, and not just stuck on top of their tattered robes.
There are some spare dryad parts in the mix, too.
Loadout is fairly typical; 2 liquifier guns and an acothyst with an agoniser. They will be mounted in a raider.

I guess that's it for this post. I was going to add some more stuff, but I don't want this blog to turn into a bloated mess of random units. I have so many things in the pipeline; its a wonder I get anything done. I'm painting some Reaver Jetbikes at the moment, but when they're done, I'll finish off the venom, wracks and their transport.

Back to Dark Eldar...

As is usually the case with me, I've not stuck to 1 particular project. So my natural progression in all things 'the Hobby' is to go back to my other army, the Dark Eldar. I've re-written the list, and changed the colour scheme. Gone are the wyches and archon, and in comes a Haemonculi and their relative constructs. Well, they will do. For now, I'm concentrating on what I have. Beginning with another warrior squad:
Scorn's Slaughterband
I figured every kabal and haemonculi coven could make use of warriors. Plus, warriors are easily some of the coolest models in 40k in my opinion, so I kept them in my army. They're the ones who capture unwilling test subjects for the Haemonculi during their slave raids.

These guys will take the role of a typical mechanised force, sitting atop their vehicle and shooting the enemy to bits. If... sorry, WHEN their transport gets blown up, they can dive for the nearest cover. They will adoubtedly get assaulted at some point, so I gave the sybarite a pistol and a venom blade for some combat ability. Hopefully, he won't ever have to use them.

The squad's raider is fairly typical with a Dark Lance and Flickerfield. I also gave it splinter racks to assist in all the dakka this squad will be throwing out.

They're not going to win any awards, but they're fine for the tabletop, which is where they'll always be found. I posted my first warrior squad far too long ago, but ironically that's only a few posts down the page. I'll probably end up repainting them to match this new scheme, but that's at the bottom of my agenda.

So that's it for now. I'm working on the next brand new unit as we speak, if I could only figure out how to get some spare splinter cannons (hint, hint).

Cheers, guys.

Pastry Sticks and Fungus Beer...

As I wait for the glue and green stuff to dry on my Forest Spirit army, I think an ork update is on the cards. I have a plate of cheese and tomato pastry sticks, and I'm ready.

Orkz iz da best... COZ I SEZ SO!

Snagrat's Boyz

My first mob of trukk boyz. Snagrat is probably my favourite nob. He's actually the oldest model in my ork army at the moment. That's why he's a bit... bitty. Loads of tiny scraps of paint when I tried to strip off his previous coat. The bosspole is a new addition, which is why it isn't painted yet.                                         I'll have to try and paint it without an undercoat, but that's fine. I've done it loads of times, haha. To the left of Snagrat is 'caveman guy', then 'german helmet guy', and to the right is 'mace guy'. I tried to make every ork individual, so they all have a name ending in 'guy'. But I digress...

Gorgutz's Boyz

Here is Gorgutz, and my second trukk boyz mob. He's flanked by 'mega-mace guy' on the left, and 'bolt-eye guy' on the right. The nob's 'nose' plate on his helmet is bunged up, cause he has a rotten cold. His stikkbommz are purely for show.            

Trukks



This is Snagrat's trukk... not that it really matters. Each mob just bundles into something that goes fast, and zips forward. As long as they get to grip with the enemy as fast as orkly possible, who cares, right?                                      The rust looks very orange in the pictures, and the orange colour scheme also looks a lot darker than in real life. I tried messing around with the pics' colours and the like, but couldn't get it right. Oh well, you get the idea.

                                              Gorgutz's trukk... It has tusks on the front, sort of a running theme with his helmet, and the tusks there-on, but not quite.

Haven't updated in 40,000 years...

Well, almost 1 year, at any rate. The reason for my lack of updates is simple laziness. And also the fact I wanted this blog to cover my Dark Eldar army progress only, and I haven't made any progress on them for quite some time.
So, I figured, hell to it, I'll branch out my blog to cover all the things I'm working on. Not only will it mean I get to update more regularly, it might also make it more interesting, and appeal to a wider range of people. So, to kick off...

ORKS, ORKS, ORKS, ORKS,
ORKS, ORKS, ORKS, ORKS...
What I consider my 'main' 40k army, da orkz. Da Big Teef, to be exact. It was my unofficial title for them in their early days as Freebooters, but it kind of stuck. They don't have an abundance of teef like, say, the Bad Moons, but their teef are bigger on average, so worth more. Something like that!
Ol' Lug'ead

A few games ago, my Warboss, Gorzag Irontoof, had an unfortunate defeat at the hand (should that be Power Fist!) of my friend's Imperial Guard Commander (and a squad of Penal Legionnaires). The Warboss was cast from the roof of the Imperial Stronghold, presumed dead, but his corpse could not be found. The warboss has not been seen since.                                            In his place, however, the army is led by Ol' Lug'ead. Former subordinate mek, turned wannabe Warlord, Ol' Lug'ead has since transformed the army from a footsloggin' horde into a Speed Freek force by fashioning a bunch of trukks for da boyz. He rides into battle atop the best trukk he has made, joined by another of his prize 'invenshunz', the mostly-cybork 'ard boyz.

The 'ard boyz are still in their building stage, at the moment, but they should be done soon. How many times have I said that in the past about my unfinished projects?

Stormboyz

No ork army is complete, in my opinion, without a mob of Stormboyz. Here is Razzik along with 4 of his boyz. The mob is 10-big in total. This is also the first mob I've completed with my new colour scheme, so they're a little different from Ol' Lug'ead, who uses the old scheme.             They are primarily a kamikaze squad. They're there to charge forwards as fast a possible, and assault something. Anything. They do, however, have a unfortunate reputation for being shot up and dying and/or fleeing after 1 round of shooting, and never actually doing anything.



You'll notice that their bases are not finished. I have a knack for never finishing bases.

That's all for now. The camera I used for these piccies is being a daft git, so I have to faff around with it and try to take pics of my other stuff. I'll get the grots to hammer it about a bit and throw it out the window, that should get it working.

Cheers!