The First Hobby Day of 2012

.. for me was actually two days ago.

Frozencore Joe and I decided that it was time for us to dust off some models that needed glue and paint on them and we quickly deployed my room, which is juuuust big enough. It's not a dedicated Man Cave (although it sometimes might look like one...) but at least it's not the elevator room from Borat. 

I had plenty of stuff to build. Brian from A Gentleman's Ones gifted me the Khadoran contents from the 2-player Warmachine Starter Box. He's just über nice like that. The box contains the Sorsha model, a Destroyer, a Juggernaut and 5 Man-O-War Shocktroopers to boot! I also decided to finally build the Juggernaut from my very own Starter box, because everyone was sick and tired of watching just a pair of legs not even glued to a base...

I wish I looked like that... *sniff*

I also picked up Koldun Kapitan Valachev (trivia: the word "koldun" is a Slavic word meaning "sorcerer, warlock" ) just because his last name is almost identical to mine. Seriously, I was able to show the miniature at the register when asked for my last name (Games Plus keeps discount cards in alphabetical order) and just told the owner to drop the second "a". I'm probably the only Khador player that has ever been able to do that. Now I just need to get Epic Vlad.. Oh, I bought the trusty War Dog! I know that Silly Wishnailer is the thang right now, but he is just a dirty bald Retributionist elf. Now the War Dog, the War Dog is your best friend. He'll follow you anywhere, he has no other agenda other than protecting your life. Will Silly Wishnailer take a bullet for you?
Will he charge a Warjack to save your life? No, he won't. But the War Dog will. 

From top to bottom: Karchev the Terrible, Destroyer, Leman Russ Exterminator, Juggernaut, War Dog, Koldun Kapitan Valachev

Above you'll see the models that I was workin' on. Karchev the Terrible was actually given to me by Frozencore Joe who had bought him ages ago just to paint him. He's a little chipped here and there but I'll do my best to restore his beauty. This is my 3rd Khadoran Caster - he's joining Sorsha and Harkevich (who I'm starting to resemble, because I've vowed not to shave until the release of Diablo 3. It's been 3 months and a half now." The two resin-plastic Khadoran Warjacks were easy to assemble, but hard to clean.. especially their damned legs, man. Their axes were slightly warped, but nothing nuking some water in the microwave couldn't fix.

The War Dog and Valachev were much easier to clean, but some Liquid Green Stuff was needed to fill in the gaps and I had to pin Valachev's sword-holding arm, which was the most time-consuming part of the day. Twas a tricky pinning..

 Last on the list, but most important (yea.. I know) was the Leman Russ Exterminator which is still very much WIP. So far it has been a bitch to build, but the hard part is done. It's the OLD Leman Russ Battle Tank version and you have to build the friggin treads and all that crap. Oh, and I had no instructions.. So Joe helped. A lot.
There's also no hull-mounted heavy bolter bit in the old kit, nor is there the actual Exterminator twin-linked autocannon turret thing.. sooo for now this Leman Russ counts as a tank with all of its weapons destroyed... probably because there's a crazy Russian robot-man jumping on it.
I am also currently working on an Space Wolves Apocalypse Formation for 3 Leman Russ Exterminators..
Hopefully when I do get the other two kits the assembly will be much easier.
Actually.. I don't know why I'm complaining. I've had to build worse. Way, way worse. Like.. the metal Screaming Skull Catapult-worse. *shudder*

I finally convinced Joe to !@#$-ing paint his Space Wolves that he has had from their 2010 release. He has been talking about how he never got into them because Games Workshop never released the Fenrisian Wolves and Thunderwolf Cavalry models, which while true and unfortunate was still not a good enough reason. Joe is a great painter and I have learned a lot from him, so it was kind of nice to watch him paint his Space Wolves. Plus, I was able to give him a few pointers on how to paint the power armor and fur on the models since I have some experience with that. He's doing Harald Deathwolf's Great Company, which is what I've been doing as well, so hopefully it will motivate me to revisit my hastily-painted Space Wolves and start highlighting and painting their faces.

I am also not going to mention the fact that Joe primed inside my building and managed to get Grey primer all over my door and on one of the walls. Oh, wait.. ;D That's what Safety Deposits are for, I guess.

There's a reason this Khadoran Warjack is Unique..

A White Russian..

I'm talking of course about the Black Ivan warjack: the newest, meanest addition to the Khadoran Empire.
First of all, why wasn't it named Black Jack? Would have been perfect seeing as how it is a black warjack but I guess Privateer Press really wanted to enforce the Soviet vibe of their new model.
But seriously... Have you ever seen a black Russian? I haven't. It has to be a pretty rare sight, right? We are talking about a culture so monochromatic that it has a drink named after its whiteness... ;D

Reminds me of this guy...

There is, however, a legitimate reason for his Unique status. Actually, two reasons in one.
Reason #1: The plastic/resin/whatever abomination that Privateer Press is using is crazy hard to clean! I bet this is not the first time you're hearing this. The Khadoran warjacks are pretty easy to assemble, but getting rid of the flash and mold lines is definitely harder than penetrating their ARM in the game. There were mould lines around and on top of the numerous rivets, around a lot of the fine details as well. Mold lines were also found in places that were hard to reach with a knife but still very visible (behind the knees, feet, etc.). Two big chunks of extra resin were also a pain in the butt to clean - they were located around the head of the warjack. Some pieces like the actual arms had to mold lines at all, but some took hours to clean. Hours. And that's not even including the time I'll need to spend washing them, because.. you know... resin is gross. 
Reason #2: WTF BEAR CLAW? Such a cool weapon, but so annoying to pin. You have to pin all three fingers. That took like 2 hours. The head was a good fit and the shoulder spike thingamajiggers were actually very well done - you don't have to file down the rivets around the shoulders to put them on, because they have little indentations for the rivets. All of the flash is on the bottom as well, so you don't even need to clean it.

Black Ivan fresh from the factory. Pre-paint.

Man am I happy to be finally done with this model... It has great stats and some great synergies with Kommander Harkevich. I would say something about its fluff but you know.. the book that he's supposed to be in has yet to be released so all I have is this lousy black Russian robot with a bear claw. But hey, that's my first Warmachine model. Not 100% built - still needs some green stuff where the claws are, but he's lookin' alright for now.

Getting there!

Our Space Wolves Adepticon 2011 army is slowly unfolding. Pretty much everything has been built -
Last night I help one of my team mates to build his 10 Grey Hunters. He still needs to build his only Rhino and then he has to fix his warped Space Wolves Rhino doors. Vince has already built his Rhinos and will also need to put the doors on his two Rhinos. Other than that all Thunderwolves have been built... except my Wolf Lord on a Thunderwolf.

Yesterday I finished building the 2 remaining Long Fang members with Missile Launchers. I had just enough actual missile launchers but was missing the supporting hands that hold the weapon in place. Instead I used bolter hands and put a small missile in each as if they were loading the missile launcher. Looks pretty good! I also drilled the muzzles of all of my bolt guns and bolt pistols. That was like 40 drilled miniatures and some of them had a bolter and a bolt pistol, tee hee! And then I primed them. That took a while. I'm a perfectionist when it comes down to priming my models and I revisit every miniature to make sure that it has been properly sprayed. I must have primed around 60 models that day (I am responsible for assembling and painting two out of the four 1,000 pt. armies). And those were just the infantry models. I will prime the Thunderwolves and vehicles later - maybe when we are done painting the Grey Hunters and Long Fangs.

I still need to build one more Rune Priest and add some jib-jabs to my Rhinos and my Vindicator. We should start spraying Shadow Grey on the models pretty soon. 

Mr. Dandy's "Battle-Wolf War Mounts"

If you have not heard of Mr. Dandy's resin Thunderwolf Cavalry models, then you need to visit his website and fall in love with his models. So far I think they are the best Thunderwolf variants circulating on the Internet both when it comes to quality and price. There are 5 different poses: baying, sentry, rearing, tracking and lunging. A full set of 5 (or whatever 5 poses you want) runs you $90 + $5 shipping. Each individual wolf is $20 otherwise.

About a month and a half ago me and my buddy ordered 17 of them. O_O
Yeah, I know... tons of money... but money spent well nonetheless.

I am here to describe the process of assembly and to post some pictures of the assembled Thunderwolf Cavalry. Also included are pictures of 5 out of my 6 guys on Thunderwolves. My Wolf Lord is not yet assembled.

They were out first resin models. At first we were worried and bought some masks to protects us from airborne dust particles, but we never ended up using them.
The Thunderwolves came in Ziploc baggies. Each one contained the pieces needed to assemble the models, a resin base and for the dynamic poses the sculptor included clear plastic rods for support.

Sentry Thunderwolf with Bolt Gun

To get rid of any chemicals stuck on the models we filled each baggy with some liquid soap and lukewarm water. We then closed each bag and put them in a cooler filled with lukewarm water outside for about an hour. Proceeded to scrub each and every piece with a brush and some liquid soap, then rinsing them in some more water. It is very important to clean each individual wolf and take your time. Do not forget to put them back in the baggies so you don't mix the parts.

Tracking Thunderwolf with CCW/bolt pistol.

There was plenty of flash that was very, very easy to remove and of course lines that had to be filed down using a GW file or a hobby knife. We then carefully rinsed each wolf with water and dried them using paper towels (again, placing them in baggies).
The followed assembly was a piece of cake. Each leg is labeled whether it is left or right, all tails (except for Sentry wolf) are identical and positioned the same way. I really recommend GW's new Super Glue with the applicator - it did wonders for gluing the tails on. No pinning was necessary, although we had to green stuff a lot of cracks.

Lunging Thunderwolf with CCW/Storm Shield

We pretty much had to fill in any connection points with green stuff to hide the gaps. For example, there were visible gaps where the jaws connected to the head, where legs and tails attacked to the body. However, green stuffing over fur is a piece of cake. All you need is some patience, green stuff, the sculpting tool and a hobby knife and you are set.

For the lunging and rearing, we had to drill a hole in the body to put the plastic rods in and then used green stuff around the area where it connected to the base and the body. These wolves were also pinned to the bases for extra stability.

Baying Thunderwolf with Thunder Hammer

 The rider legs are universal Space Marine legs. They are all the same and fit on every wolf. We had to make a little ball joint out of green stuff on top of the legs, because the flat, rectangular surface did not match the oval part of the Space Marine torso. Some filing was needed to make sure they fit. We used super glue to connect the legs to the saddles and the legs to the torso. If there were any weird gaps, we just sculpted some fur accessories. You might need to pin/use green stuff on the rearing rider, because he'll end up leaning waaaay back.

Rearing Thunderwolf with Melta Bomb

As you can see, the Thunderwolf models look phenomenal. I personally think that they are worth the money and the extra work, because the models are so spectacular-looking and good in the game. It is a shame that Games Workshop has not yet released their own official models for the Thunderwolf Cavalry unit from the Space Wolves Codex. The big, bulky monstrosity that is Canis Wolfborn is too static and awkward for me to spend 40+ dollars on, jsut to chop it up and cover most of it with green stuff. I cannot wait to start painting them.

New Puppies!

Just a quick post about what I've been doing these past few days. I opened a new boxed set of Grey Hunters and finally built them. This time I took my time picking their gear, poses and carefully cleaning any imperfections, since from the two previous boxes I have half a dozen models with gear that I don't plan or using or equipment that was just plain.. plain wrong (Yes, I was dumb enough to give a Grey Hunter a storm bolter... Okay. I gave it to TWO models.)

I even played around and made two Wolf Guard models equipped with a Power Fist and a combi-melta (which apparently comes only if a few boxes, but I was lucky to find a metal and a plastic one).
Notice the wolf tail on the combi-melta to the left.
43 pts. for a model that gives my Grey Hunter pack +1 LD and TWO ways to deal with vehicles and other nasty things, especially when they can dish out 3 S8 attacks even when charged? Deal.

Finished assembling my Long Fangs pack. Not very happy with the sergeant guy, but they look cool. It was kind of nice that so many people decided to give me so many missile launchers for free. They go for like $9 on bits order websites and Games Workshop does not sell them separately. Go figure. They kind of look intimidating.

I also worked on the rest of the packs.. and here's what pissed me off. There are no melta guns. NONE. They don't come in the box. I guess GW was too busy stuffing the box with plasma guns and plasma pistols. Oh, also.. no flamers. ; ( I had to order the blisters containing melta guns and even then they were a pain in the butt to put. Whatever. Melta weapons are so awesome they deserve the hassle. I also decided to be silly and for my Mark of the Wulfen guy decided to try a double-sided, double-edged chainsword... just because. Will make sure to give him orange and black face paint. ;P

That's right. He's gonna pop a melta cap in your heretical ass.