Stu's Wolves and Nids- BUGS! BUGS EVERYWHERE!

[codyrstuart]

So, I managed to find some motivation and put some paint on the LRC for ETL tonight. 

 

 

At first, doesn't look much different from the last update on the LRC, but I finally finished all of the SW grey. Only things to be done now are touch ups and reattaching the armor plates to the sponsons. I may even have it done tomorrow. I also broke down and ordered a Sicaran that may make it here in time for a follow-up vow.

 

I am also beginning to prioritize my hobbying. First off is to build a Laser Destroyer cap for my second Vindicator, since the first one worked so well for me. Next, while I will not be submitting my ETL vows with bases done, I have finally found a theme I like that's easy and cheap. While I work on the basing, I'm continuing my rearming troops with weapon variety, including reconfiguring my pistol scouts to bolters and missile launchers, and magnetizing my shooty terminators for power weapons and combi weapons. I will also begin work again on my Storm Eagle conversion. I saw on Flint's blog where she used the Testor's plastic putty, which she said was easier to work with than Liquid Green Stuff. I have a love-hate relationship with LGS, so I'll give this stuff a try. By the time all that is completed, I should not only have the Sicaran, but I should have the funds for my final two assassin conversions, my second rendition of Bran Redmaw, and possibly able to round my army out with a Typhon and a Knight Crusader. All that should make for quite an army that's very tactically flexible, as Redmaw's Company is portrayed.

[codyrstuart]

As promised! I present my LRC!

 

 

Granted, it was a very poorly put together and painted ebay purchase that had no hopes of correcting, I'm fairly pleased with how it turned out. I've already got a few ideas for it after ETL including decals, but for now, it is complete. Next up is the group of HQ choices I pledged. This one should go quicker, as they are (for a majority) already basecoated and ready to go. Maybe a week to do it. I may actually get this vow done.

[codyrstuart]

Hola, everyone. Progress on ETL is slow, but it is progress. I'm going to buckle down and make some post-able progress this weekend. However, I have been working on something else. In previous posts, I have mentioned about replacing my current Bran Redmaw model. Well, I got brave and tried some new techniques, but the end product works pretty well for me.

 

 

So I used Brother-Chaplain Kage's Kleenex cape technique for the cloak, and Veteran Sergeant's leg-lengthening technique to help make him a little larger than his brothers. He's currently pinned to a 40mm base, as I want to start working on basing. What do you guys think?

[codyrstuart]

More hobby progress done. More importantly, ETL progress. Decided to power through one model at least tonight, and finished my vowed Wolf Lord with Armor of Russ and Fangsword. 

 

 

The base of the model was a Scibor Celtic Knight with a Powerfist and Thunder Hammer. With some careful cuts, I replaced the arms at the elbows, since the stock arms were from the elbows down. I did a different paint job on the armor than what I usually do. Since this is supposedly the armor Russ himself wore, my base color was a grey from the Vallejo Model line. Then to depict the cold aura around the armor, I washed it with GW Drakenhof Nightshade. I think it worked out quite well, and may use this for any other armies that I may start with blue armor (casts wary eye towards Smurfs and Night Lords before the Wolf Priests notice). Any critiques/comments, guys?

[codyrstuart]

Posting 3 days in a row, wow! That's a record so far. No progress to show tonight. Kids kept waking me up last night, so it's gonna be an early one tonight. I did get a gift of resin, though...

 

 

Sadly, this is not an official Forge World shipment, but I have to say, I am impressed with the quality of the kit so far. The only major mold slippage is on one of the autocannons (which should be easily repairable), and very little air bubbles. With all resin, there is some warpage, but not as bad as what I am always reading about. Out of all of the resin products I have bought so far from various vendors, this is the one purchase that I can say I am fully happy with. If I finish my ETL in time for another vow, this tank will definitely be in it.

[codyrstuart]

No post yesterday, but some much needed rest was had by all in my household. Today, more progress! Behold, my Ulrik the Slayer!

 

 

Should have him done and started on another tomorrow. Even though I put in alot of effort into the original head, I decided it didn't quite meet my expectation. Not really having a better head, though, I just went with the wolf helmet. It works well enough for me though. Also changed out his backpack, as I found an old OOP plastic one. Gave it the same treatment that I did with Bran's backpack with the Thunder Hammer heads, and I think this model will do just fine standing out as the Slayer.

[codyrstuart]

More ETL success! I present Ulrik the High Wolf Priest!

 

 

Very pleased with how he turned out, especially with the amount of detail that is on this model. I also began making headway on the other wolf priest in my vow.

 

 

His head is also different than the before picture of the vow. I decided to half-way go with uniformity with my wolf priests. This one has a bionic arm, so I may do all of the decoration and trim in silver. I may change the color of the fur if I do that. Any thoughts?

[codyrstuart]

Man, where was this motivation a month ago? Got the other wolf priest knocked out tonight, finishing another part of my ETL vow. 

 

 

Now all I have left is the rune priest and the 5-man terminator pack. With how long it took me to do the last terminator pack, those 5 may just take the whole month of July. 

 

I also plan to take the Sicaran I received last week and start doing the cleaning and the small repair work needed to get it assembled in the off-chance that I can squeeze in one more vow. Don't really think it will happen, but it won't hurt to at least try.

[codyrstuart]

Well, back from the outage (Praise the Allfather, Omnissiah, and Brother Argos). Finally have some progress to show. First off, finished another part of my vow. Gaze upon my rune priest:

 

 

Close-up on my Helm of Durfast for him:

 

Group shot of my HQs for ETL:

 

 

Started on my last part of my vow, the 5-man ranged Terminator squad. They're a little further along now, but do not have any current pictures:

 

Close up on my idea for the wolf claws (got tired painting blue power weapons). I may do this for the rest of my regular power weapons to break up the monotomy of blue/grey:

 

Little over a week left, with a whole lot of real life ahead of me! Cutting it close, but I should come out victorious! Press on with your vows, brothers!

[codyrstuart]

Greetings! I realize that it has been over a week, but I have progress to show. I completed my last unit of Wolf Guard termies just in time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And a group shot:

 

And with that, my ETL vow is complete! All 1,478 points of it! While it was strenuous, it was a blast, and rekindled my love for the hobby aspect. Now, looking at post ETL, I have quite a project ahead of me. During ETL, I developed a crazy idea of trying to build a list around a skyhammer formation, keeping everything Space Wolf themed. Luckily, the only thing I need to purchase to make it happen is 10 jump packs to convert some blood claws (who needs two full packs anyway?). But, I  need to start working on the Sicaran, convert my other Vindicator to a Laser Destroyer, and continue weapon swaps for my Grey Hunters. Probably won't paint again though until I restock on paint (have to order from Army Painter, no seller nearby). So expect a lot of unpainted progress, but progress, coming soon.

 

[codyrstuart]

First work post-ETL. Putting this behemoth together. 

 Last image shows the substantial gaps between the sidewalls and engine block. Gonna have to do some plasticard shims, but overall, went together better than can be expected for a kit that came from less-than-reliable sources. Actually, there is not really a lot of warpage, and manageable mold slippage on small parts. My only real complaint is the damn fumes from working with the resin. After the first minute, I dug out an old shirt to use as a dust mask. The white stuff is Testor's plastic putty. I've heard its easier to work with than liquid Green Stuff. Since it was only $2 a tube, it's worth a shot. 

[codyrstuart]

Wow, over a month since my last post. A lot has happened to draw me away from the hobby. Buying a house, moving and painting has all taken time out of playing with my plastic and resin. I do have some time freeing up now that I'm back on the job hunt. Doing some internal prioritizing for my Wolves, here's what I came up with.

 

- finish the Sicaran

- redesign the lascannon caps for the Vindicators

- repurpose Blood Claws and Wolf Guard with jump packs for use as Sky Claws, Jump Guard, or even as part as a Skyhammer

- kitbash quad-bolter Rapiers (using Taurox tracks with bolters I currently have)

- convert Scouts (cloaks, bolters, splicing Mk 6/7 lower legs)

- magnetizing Iron Priest to have a set of regular legs

- various weapon swaps and basing to break up the monotony

- magnetize other weapon choices for the Storm Eagle conversion to use as a Storm Wolf

 

Quite a list, and on top of painting, it gets even larger. But, it's a list I think will be doable moving forward. I hope to have some progress on the Sicaran posted early/mid next week. Stay tuned!

[geektom]

Wow, this is a great looking thread aND a really impressive collection. I have always been a big fan of the wolves.

 

Have you heard of the "army dip" product from Army Painter? Since so many of your models are base coated already, it could be an efficient way to get some shading done. I have used it myself on my old Fantasy army and it works great.

 

Following!

[codyrstuart]

Thanks! Im flattered. Funny enough, I use almost exclusively the Army Painter line. I have the wash in the dropper bottles, though. Once I run out of those and wolf grey, ill have to put in an order and then will probably get the big can for dipping.

[codyrstuart]

Wow. Boy did I lie. No progress to report, but I did get my first game in since May. First time facing the Khorne Daemonkin. Lists are from memory. Points were around 1570

 

His: (was broken down into the slaughtercult and charnal cohorts?)

Jugger lord with Goredrinker, Axe of Khorne, combat familiar

5 Possessed with Rhino

8 Cultists

Herald of Khorne on Juggernaut with combat familiar

3 Bloodcrushers

4x8 Bloodletters

4x5 Flesh hounds

Skull Cannon

 

My List:

Company of the Great Wolf

Njal in terminator armor

5 PA Wolf Guard, sergeant had power sword

5 Wolf Scouts

CAD

2 Rune Priests, ML 2, force stave, force axe

2x9 Grey Hunters, CCW, power axe, melta gun, Drop Pod with deathwind launchers

Drop Pod with deathwind launcher

2 Land Speeder Typhoons

5 Long Fangs, 4 Lascannons

Vindicator with Battle of Keylek Legacy

Whirlwind

 

We played the 1st Maelstrom mission. Main things I wanted to do was knock the rust off, get more experience with Maelstrom, and try the Tempestas :cuss-storm with Njal and Rune Priests. Without getting into too much detail, I won 12-5 after turn 5, but only had the pods, Long Fangs, Whirlwind, and one Typhoon left. He had the Skull Cannon (came in turn 4), 4 Hounds, 15 Bloodletters, 3 Possessed. MVPs of the game, surprisingly, were my Long Fangs with first blood, holding a drawn objective twice, and negating the FNP of much of his army. The busts were the Vindicator, and majority of the Drop Pod forces.

 

Lessons learned-Being my first game against Khorne's hordes, I didn't realize how many attacks and how much AP 3 was in the army. And I dropped two pods, including my Tempestas-bomb, dead center of it. Njal and his buddies blew my opponent's mind with the sheer number of attacks during the psychic phase, but didn't really have much of an impact. I also didn't realize exactly how fast his army moved. By the end of Turn 2, 2 of my 3 podding units were wiped by assaults. The only thing that could've saved me was activating Force on my priests, if I had the warp charges left over from shooting. Having only rolled a 1, I had 8 warp charges, but got carried away. Morale of the story- be a little more tactical with the pod placement, and don't get over-excited with bringing the pain psychically.

 

Luckily, my opponent was a good sport, more-so of the fact that he actually gave me some good pointers, paint to restock my diminishing supplies (Army Painter that he never used) and helped me with some leads for employment. Can't wait to get back to the club. Can't wait to get back over there. 

 

Hobby-wise, my goal is to get the Sicaran fully assembled this week. Hoping that it will get me back into the groove with the hobby part. Until next time!

[codyrstuart]

Hey everyone! Long story short, Sicaran is on hold for the time being, so once I get my permanent hobby station set up tomorrow, work will begin on the Vindicators and Jump Packs. Once those are set, I should be in a place financially to pick up the Sicaran again. Stay tuned, there may actually be pictures this week!

[codyrstuart]

Today actually saw hobbying done while the kids were napping. Anyone remember when I did this?

 

 

It was my first attempt at scratch building a lascannon cap for my Vindicators to use the laser destroyer variant. It was big, blocky, and ugly. Revisiting it today, I decided to give it another shot. I was able to streamline it, making it somewhat bearable now. It actually slides into the housing over the barrel, instead of sitting over the whole cannon assembly.

 

 

Now I just have to assemble another one for my second Vindicator. Then, no armor shall threaten my troops! C&C welcomed and encouraged.

 

[codyrstuart]

I had a little time last night, so I went ahead and banged out the second lascannon cap for my Vindicators. May I present the twins, Freki and Geri.

 

 

Affectionately named after Russ's two wolf-brethren, these two will leave destruction in their wakes. Their main roles in my lists will be super heavy/ gargantuan monster hunting, opening vehicles up to expose the fleshy insides, and occasionally sniping that HQ that is causing me trouble. Paired with my Sicaran (once I get it finished), there will be very few armies that can weather that type of beating. I am holding off on painting for a while, hoping to see if the Space Wolves forum will have another Solstice Advance this year.

 

[codyrstuart]

So this evening saw alot of me rummaging through my bits, and a little bit of work being done on my jump pack units.. No pictures as of yet, but will have 1 or 2 tomorrow morning.

[codyrstuart]

Photo dump day. I repurposed one of my Blood Claw packs and some of my WGPL builds with jump packs to use as either Sky Claws, Jump Wolf Guard, or even as the assault squad element of a Skyhammer Annihilation Force. Enough chattering, time for pics.

 

While the models will get the weapon swaps to keep from duplicating chainswords, these two got special conversions to be used as power mauls if I want to.

Also, came up with a conversion for flamers, since I somehow managed to lose two. As they say, necessity is the mother of invention. While they are heavy flamers, they will be used as regular flamers.

 

So when I'm not using them for a Skyhammer, I will probably run them as 2 packs of 5 Skyclaws with 2 flamers each, then a pack of Jump Wolf Guard Pack. I know assault squads are not exactly optimal performers, but having deep striking flamers or units that can keep up with and screen for TWC seems like viable uses (plus I have a soft spot for jump packs). C&C, as always, is welcome.

 

[codyrstuart]

So, more work has been completed. 5 of the jump packs from earlier received weapons from Chaos Marauders and Dwarves to add spice to the unit. Even though I will be using the Marauder spears as force staves on my Rune Priests, I couldn't help but put a couple on these models, falling from the skies impaling their enemies.

 

 

Big completion for yesterday was converting PA legs for scouts. I like the idea of having a little more armor on the scouts, and this idea also adds height to the models. Sadly, this took my last 5 pairs of legs to do, and have another 19-20 to do. My non-Sniper scouts will also be receiving PA bolter arms, and all will be receiving paper tissue cloaks to bring them all in line aesthetically. These 5 turned out pretty decent as my first prototypes.

 

 

So, until my employment situation improves, that's all the converting/building I  can afford right now. While I am hoping for the Space Wolves forum to launch a Solstice Advance, my main goal will be to get a tourney list I'm testing out fully painted for December. Fortunately, this list actually will not take much to paint, mainly painting Vindicators and Drop Pods, 6 PA models, and touching up weapons. Here is kind of a conglomerate photo, and a rundown of the list

 

CotGW:

Njal in Termie Armor

Ulrik

Iron Priest on TW

5 Wolf Guard- 2x Combi-plasma, 3x Combi-melta, 1 Power Sword

CAD:

2 Rune Priest- Runic Armor, ML2, 1 Runic Stave, 1 Runic Axe

2x 9 Grey Hunters- 1 Melta, 1 Power Axe, 8 CCW, Drop Pod

2 Landspeeder Typhoons

Drop Pod

Predator Executioner- Heavy Bolter Sponsons, Battle of Keylek LoG

2 Vindicator Laser Destroyers- Storm Bolters, Dozer Blades

 

 

Once again, C&C is welcomed and encouraged.

 

[codyrstuart]

Evening everyone. I was on a quasi-work trip, and brought some things to work on during my down time, mainly finishing assembling my Sicaran (which is a nightmare right now). I did not have as much time as I thought during my trip to hammer out the Sicaran, but I was able to finally get my assassin conversions painted.

Since I did not have a skull laying around, for the Eversor, I decided to modify an Eldar helmet and use the face plate to paint a Night Lord-esque terror marking to sub for it. As for the Vindicare, I finally got some green paint to play around with, and am happy with how it turned out. These two show how my painting may evolve in the long run. I'll begin going back and painting power weapons the red to white shown on the Eversor, and, minus certain exceptions, I'll go back and use green for helmet lenses and plasma weapons. I will keep the blue to white seen on some of my other models for runic/force weapons. This week will definitely see the Sicaran assembled, and my Lukas counts-as I threw together displaying a test scheme for all these paint ideas, plus some not mentioned yet. As usual, C&C is welcomed.

[deathspectersgt7]

Nice Kit bash on those Assassins.

[codyrstuart]

I managed to break out the brushes today and finish my kitbash of Lukas the Trickster. I tried a couple different things in attempts to figure out the way ahead for my force paint-wise. Without further a-do:

 

I believe I am finally getting my power weapon effect how I would like it. It is almost a combination between drybrushing and blending. I need to work with the green plasma a little more, but it should work better instead of blue. Also, he was my test to see if my wolves would look better in grey. Here is a comparison to my current scheme:

I really like it, but I'm not sure if I like it enough to repaint everything I've done so far. I will probably reserve the grey color for relics (i.e. vehicles, wargear, one-off HQs). My next project for the upcoming month will be actually attempting to field a completely painted army at a tournament Dec. 20.

I may even go as far as trying to get everything based (but probably won't). I only have 6 PA bodies, 3 drop pods, and 2 vehicles to paint entirely, and everything else will just get touch-ups from where they may have lost paint or had weapons replaced. Seems doable in a little under a month. And as usual, C&C is welcomed and encouraged. Thanks.

 

[deathspectersgt7]

 Lukas looks good!!!