My ongoing Warhammer projects

We've got Havocs!

Slowly, very slowly, my Chaos army is growing. Since The Cleaved are defined in the lore by their sealed suits of armor, I figured some Havocs would suit them well. Some day I'd like to add another squad to their ranks too, so that I'd have two squads with weapon loadouts that actually make sense rather than this half anti-infantry half anti-tank group. Still, these are cool models and I'm happy with how they look. Heavy weapons are cool.

My army of The Cleaved is growing!

It's been slow going, but I've finally finished my second squad. I still have some Havocs and Terminators to do, but it's nice to make progress. I've even ordered something else in that's rather cool, so I'm looking forward to that.

Hey folks, I'm looking for a bit of help.

I've been struck with the inspiration to build a Malcador Defender, but unfortunately they no longer sell it. RIP Forgeworld. Luckily, I found the exact conversion kit I need to 3D print some parts that will fit on the new plastic Malcador.

A friend of mine has a 3D printer and she offered to print it for me, which is great, but now I see that 3D printed models are covered in layer lines. I can't paint it this way, so I was hoping someone here might be able to offer some input.

What can I do to fix this? I've done a little research and found some ideas that might work, but I'd like to hear from other people first. What's the best way to smooth these pieces so they're ready to paint? Or is this a lost cause, and I'm better off finding someone with a better printer or something?

My first full squad of The Cleaved is complete!

Well, almost. The bases are still very basic, but I'll add rocks and stuff when I have more of them to do in bulk. But the painting is done!

Coming back to it a couple days later, I decided I wasn't happy with the oil oozes on my first Cleaved Marine after all so I re-did large parts of it. It was my test model so I knew things might not be pretty, and I'm not stoked to paint over what I already did, but I had to do what I had to do.

At the same time, I painted a couple more. Turns out the old saying is true in this case: less is indeed more. I went way too heavy on the oil drops the first time around, and making them more sparse (though still present) is far more effective. I also remembered to paint the Cleaved iconography on their shoulder things this time.

Not sure what I'll do about the bases though. I'll figure it out eventually, but I don't think my normal "pebbles and grass" is suitable for these guys. I'm open to suggestions.

Okay, here's my first prototype Cleaved marine!

I hear they call these things "Chaosed Space Marines."

My new army project begins! I'll prime these fellows shortly, and hopefully I'll have a "patient zero" for my paint scheme sometime soon.

If you've been playing Warhammer for a while, you might recall this tidbit of lore form the 5th edition Chaos Space Marine codex:

We've got Orks!

I've finally finished painting the box of Orks I shared a while back, and with this my Tankbustas and Lootas should be up to code.

Tankbustas have some sort of weird squad size now, so my old squad of 10 has been changed into two squads of six. That meant I needed to make another Nob to lead them, as well as a couple more "bomb drones." The Nob I used (on the right, in the mask) was actually one of those monthly "paint-a-model" things they give away at GW, so it was nice to give him proper life in one of my squads. I also had to change the equipment that my original Nob had, since they can no longer have Rokkits. They both have Choppas and two (for some reason) Rokkit Pistols each.

The five Lootas are all armed with Kustom Mega-Blastas, cobbled together out of plasma and melta weapons from the Guard and Tau to fit the theme. Lootas were always a core part of my army, so now that they require one of these "mini-meks" for every four Lootas I had no choice but to make them. That also means I have 25 Lootas now, which is a little excessive. Oh well, they always were some of my favorite models to convert and they help clear some of the random bits off of my desk.

I don't post a lot of works in progress, but here's a box of Orks and Ork accessories I'm currently working on.

They keep changing the rules, so every now and then I need to do a bit of an overhaul on my armies. In this case, it's for my Lootas and Tankbustas.

Apparently I can't just field a mob of Lootas anymore, and they need a mekboy friend for every 4 Lootas now. Fine. So that's what five of these are, armed with "Kustom Mega-Blastas" made out of whatever plasma or melta weaponry I had lying around. They're still Lootas at heart! Sure, I could have given them other weapons, but where's the fun if they can't fry themselves? This brings my Loota horde up to 25 models.

My Tankbustas were a newer squad to begin with, and then they changed the rules to something completely nonsensical. I wasn't going to do all that work, so they sat on a shelf for a while. Now they have more manageable rules again (only rokkits, please!), but the squad size is smaller. Again, not a big deal, I just need to make a new boss nob and an additional rokkit boy to split my original 10-ork squad into two six-ork squads. No problem! The boss nobs themselves need to be kitted out a bit differently, so that's what the random rokkit-pistols lying around are for.

Oh, and of course, the new squad of Tankbustas will need their own "bomb drones" to launch at enemies. Unfortunately, they will be cannibalizing a couple drones from my Tau army that will never go anywhere.

Another project: done!

This is my "conscripted" Sentinel squad of various industrial Sentinels with Autocannons slapped onto the side. There's a lifter, a demolisher, and a snowblower. I just count them all as Sentinel close-combat weapons.

It's not every day I have my Valhallans out of their case, so I figured I'd take a quick picture. This is roughly half of my Valhallan infantry; six of my 10 squads. Not pictured is their substantial armored division.

Well it took me almost three months, but I've finally finished my squad of Valhallan Ogryns! I figured since everyone seems to be playing marines these days, I'd better have some heavy infantry of my own.

At least on paper, Ogryns seem to be a pretty solid unit. Those Ripper Guns are nothing to scoff at! I just wish they didn't take up 3(!) transport slots each. I might not be able to take the entire squad anywhere at once.

Small update today as I continue to work on my Ogryns. I made a little Pulverizer Cannon for what is now my Valhallan Rogal Dorn tank. In case you missed it earlier, this started out simply as a massive Leman Russ but then the Dorn came into existence and the new rules seemed to fit it better.

Looks like my next major project is well underway. I don't think I've ever done this much green stuff sculpting at once, and I hope I never need to again! These are the Ogryns for my Valhallan Guard army. Naturally they needed masks to match the rest of the army, and they needed jackets to keep warm.

I knew it would be an ordeal to make these, but it took weeks of sculpting layer upon layer and piece by piece to get them to this point! After all, it's not like I could simply build them and then give them their parkas over top in their given poses. No! Almost everything had to be done separately and then pieced together after the fact, with their masks done last. But in the end I'm quite proud of how they turned out, so I suppose it was worth it.

Hey folks, here she is! Right from 1998, it's the Gamesday promo Lady Commissar model. Now outfitted to match my Mordian guard army, much of which is (surprisingly) even older.

Speaking of being old, oooooh boy, am I finding it more difficult to paint the finer details these days! I think I say this every time I paint a random model for my Mordians, but I feel like this might be the final one. At least I don't need to paint pupils (or lipstick) on my Orks or Valhallans! I mean, I guess I could give the Orks lipstick if I wanted. Hmmmmm.

Hey everyone, small update today.

First of all, here's a cool addition to my collection: the Lady Commissar model which I believe was an old Game Day promo from 20 years ago. I've always sort of planned to pick one up, but they've never been super easy to find at a decent price and I figured now was about time to get it done. She will be painted up nicely to go with my Mordian army!

Second, I actually have a handful of projects on the go for my Valhallans. I just need to find some "Green Stuff" modeling putty since apparently they don't sell it at GW (sorry, at 'Warhammer') any more. Expect more images in the foreseeable future!