Site News: Waiting on bit's And 2012 Plans

Things are slow on the Minotaurs front, but for once it's not due to lack of motivation! The seasonal holidays has meant the postal service has (understandably) been a little slow. I am waiting on numerous small and fiddly bits for the Terminator squad as well as shoulder pads for the second MK 8 Tactical squad. I have put in bids for the last three Space Hulk Blood Angels Terminators meaning I can bump the unit to the full size of 10, I will be converting the flamer model to an assault cannon but leaving the Lightning Claws intact for a future Terminator Assault squad. I am estimating that the Terminators; due to its size and detail; will take around 2 months to paint if i really knuckle down and work them every day. As for the rest of 2011, I am getting ready to sit down and finish the backpacks and weapons for the first tactical squad. Pigment dust for the bases are en-route but I doubt those will arrive until after after the New Year's weekend as the order is coming by second class post. I have to admit, seeing the Tactical squad  with power packs on is a real confidence boost and will be a major achievement for me once finished as it will be the first time I have finished a full GW infantry kit; just for me; in quite a few years. At the same time, it is painfully obvious that painting speed must be addressed when dealing with personal projects, while my clients always get their stuff quickly the same can not be said for my own stuff.

Badab War: Christmas Loot

So Santa gas been and gone, what did he leave you? This year had a very Forge World theme (yar!) and is a perfect compliment to my growing Minotaurs force, this years loot is: A Caestus Assault Ram.

I will be having a lot of fun putting this beast together in the coming weeks and with news of a new Space Marine flier vehicle in development for 6th Ed, I sense counts as coming into play next year.

Thanks for reading,

DiStudios

The 14th legion

Merry Christmas!

Just taking time between cooking the turkey, to say Merry Christmas and thank you to all my readers for continuing to follow my little toy soldier rants. I am looking forward to sharing this years loot with you all next week!

May your stockings be filled with resin, plastic and metal and not lumps of coal!

DiStudios

The 14th Legion

Badab War: Minotaurs Tactical Squad wip 22/12/12

All that is left now is the small details such as bolters, grenades, gun flash and of course the bases. I am little stuck as to how I want the bases, half of me wants ash waste grey with snow to offset the warm bronze colour. What do people think? Overall I am very happy with the final colour scheme, and am looking forward to working on the second tactical squad once I get it built. As I mentioned before, due to work, procrastination and the need to get 'the right look', my first units always take a long time.

I will do as much of the guns and back packs tonight (they still need cleaning) with the intention of complete finish (not bases though) tomorrow. It would be great to have the entire thing finished before the Christmas Eve parties but this will ultimately depend on how I want the bases, if I go for the ash grey I will have to put a small supply order in.

So thoughts?

Thanks for reading,

DiStudios

The 14th legion

Forge World: Deimos Pattern Predator

Forge World strike with a last minute announcement, the Deimos Predator has been announced as available to order. Like the Deimos Rhino, the Predator is a Forge World re-imagining of the Rogue Trader classic Tank design.

Also announced is the Macharius Omega, a nasty looking tank bearing a Plasma Blast gun.

Both vehicles look to have a shipping dates of the 6th of January 2012, plenty of resin treads to start the year with.

Merry Christmas indeed!

Thanks for reading,

DiStudios

The 14th Legion

Badab War: New Terminators Phase 1

I mentioned briefly in my last post that although the old Assault Terminators were shelved, I was to be working on a new Terminator unit. Parts of the new unit have arrived, with the remainder due to turn up over the Christmas holidays, so what did I decide on? Well its 'Tactical' Terminators; your standard stormbolter and power fist wielding Terminators; and I have even decided to use an Assault Cannon..I can almost hear cries of "why!" across the Internet. The simple truth is, I have not liked Terminator models since the old Rogue Trader box set I got decades ago and this unit will be a tribute of sorts to that very box set. So the next question is, what parts arrived in the post?

Badab War: Some resin to tie me over...

The last bit of Forge World resin for the year to tie over my Minotaur's project this holiday, has arrived. I ended up grabbing two bags of each item apart from the Minotaur Terminator shoulder pads, and decided to try the newly designed extra armour kit for the Rhinos and Predators. I ended up getting these as I want a generally bulkier look to my Minotaur force to represent the siege tactic nature of the chapter as a whole. So extra armour all around for my army!

Badab War: Shaprias Checklist

Ok so I have a revamped format and a bunch of figures in various states of completion (mostly built but unpainted). I am posting up a check list of sorts to give readers an idea of the scale of this project and also as a motivator for me for 2012. Upon closer inspection, this augmented battle company is quite large, mainly from the addition of lots of armour. The fact that it features Thunder hawk transports as well, will make the cost a more daunting prospect but not impossible..who knows, by the time the primary elements are complete a plastic Thunderhawk may have already been released by then.

Numbers in red indicate how many of listed item I already have:

Badab War: A small adjustment

Still suffering from some jet lag this morning and now flu (joys of coming from 31 degree to 0 degree temps)! hence the early start and post. At least this means I can get some of my thoughts (and hopefully some paint) flowing. The problem with being away for 6 weeks, is that it is easy to lose focus on a project which is already moving as slowly as this. Getting wrapped up in list writing is a sure fire way of losing time and having bare plastic toys on the field. So in an attempt to simplify this project I am again stepping away from list writing and looking for a new fluffier focus. I have many Forge World toys kicking around including a number of dreadnoughts and the Achilles Land raider, all just sitting in boxes. While the intentions of including them in an army list of sorts was genuine, the chimeric state of my list writing means that stuff keeps getting shelved and products keep getting bought...as you can imagine, the girlfriend and bank are not to happy with this (but Forge World probably love it).

And we are back!

After a gruelling 16 hour flight I am back! and ready to break out the MInotaur space marines once again (assuming I don't get knocked out by the jet lag!). As many of you already know, Forge World has released a bunch of goodies related both to the Minotaurs chapter and pre-heresy, and you can be sure that some of those goodies will be appearing in my army and on this blog. Due to more support from Forge World, interest in the Minotaurs chapter has grown a great deal and I have received a number of emails asking for the palette I use on my lot. While I have tried to answer each email personally while I was away, I am sure I missed a few, so I will be prioritising the tutorial I was working on last month with the intention of posting Monday.

So thanks to everyone for visiting while I was away, its good to be back and I am looking forward to sharing next weeks progress with you all.

Thanks for reading,

DiStudios

The 14th Legion

Site News: AWOL

Sadly real life has called and I am now away from my beloved modelling projects. The Minotaurs will be left under the watchful eye of my dog...

Regular updates will (hopefully) resume in December.

See you all then :)

DiStudios

The 14th Legion

Badab War: Master Of The Forge

Valthex arrived yesterday afternoon, which means I can no go ahead with my Master of the Forge conversion. Due to the static nature of the sculpt there is very little you can do with this figure outside of an arm swap. I do have arm bits on the way to complete the figure but most likely I will start cleaning the figure tonight, perhaps paint and add the arms next week when they arrive.

Badab War: Ironclad Dreadnought wip

Ok I did not get half as much done over the weekend as I intended, but I had a 40K (ish) reason as I got sucked into Space Marine (Xbox) again. I probably spent more time customising my digital Minotaur than my real Minotaur Space Marines...However I have started making up for it this afternoon by creating a base for the Ironclad and taking photos for the bronze armour tutorial I am working on.

This is the first of two Ironclads I will be taking in my list, I opted for a more static pose to prevent losing too much time on converting since I am keen to start painting something that isn't infantry or tanks, I may go OTT with the second Ironclad though. The base is sculpted up from greenstuff with two coats of Vallejo Grey Pumice for texture. I am hoping to start adding paint towards the end of the week, assuming the weather is good enough for priming and I don't get distracted by the arrival of Valthex. However the weekend did yield some painting success as I finally managed to add a crimson/red to my Minotaurs that I like, which is great as I procrastinated a lot on painting my Minotaurs due to this. The crimson palette I am using will look great on the Sternguard and on dreadnoughts with the 'Red Hand' award.

Thanks for reading,

DiStudios

The 14th Legion

Badab War: The List 1750pts

Where possible I try not to write lists as I find it so distracting that it I end up having no time to make the army I designed! However I have bitten the bullet with my Minotaurs and after maybe 4 revisions I have come up with a list that I like in terms of fluffiness and most importantly unique modelling options. It is really difficult to get out of the notion of competitive list building as the recent decade has provided a wave of competition gamers and why not? After all competitions means prizes and who doesn't want to win a prize? 

Now I am not against competitive gamers but there is a time and a place for that and the concept of "winning at all costs" does not translate well when going up against someone trying to run a fluff based narrative or fielding a fluff army like say all scouts... Anyways the focus of the army I have written is Dreadnoughts.

Badab War: Reinforcements En Route

After the disappointment of the Terminator assault squad, my Minotaurs project is striking back with no less than 3 new units! First up is a my new HQ choice: A Librarian who will naturally be leading/gating the Sternguard squad. Like many before me, I could not resist the awesome Sevrin Loth Forge World sculpt, however it does have a little DiStudios conversion work in the form of a force staff to (hopefully) make him stand our a little. To finish him off I am envisioning a huge sweeping cloak, which will cover the power pack.

Badab War: Assault Terminators Axed!

Yep pretty much as the title says. I didn't like the way the reds came out on the Terminators and also the bronze looked pretty poor compared to the tactical squad. However its not all bad news, I dug out a concept squad of Minotaur Vanguard Veterans, I think I was intending on entering them for a Badab Bloggers competition but ended up spending 6 weeks away on contract -_- Anyways I have done away with the combat weapons and re-armed with blotters and shields to represent Sternguard/Boarding marines. I have 3/5 figures built but am too tired to photograph them, so I will be posting the pictures up of the full squad tomorrow. I won't make the mistake of launching in and splashing paint on these guys but I will aim to get some painting done on them over the weekend. 

Thanks for reading,

DiStudios

The 14th Legion

Updates from the front

I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of my Khador Bombardiers box set, these will fill a large void in my army lists (as well as the Demolisher). The unit is due this week and rest assured it will see a big reboot of both my Khador list and Warmachine gaming over the Autumn/Winter period. The Minotaurs are on slow burn once again as thoughts turn back to my Dark Angels (not Pre-Heresy). 

I would also like to take this opportunity to introduce a new blog: Planet Hulks. This is my latest blog charting the collecting of Incredible Hulk Statues and other memorabilia. It will also take a close look at display cabinet options which collectors from all genres will find useful. So if you like comic books, the Incredible Hulk or are just curious, please pay a visit to Planet Hulks.

Thanks for reading,

DiStudios

The 14th Legion

Badab War: Assault Terminator Update

Yesterday I started painting my Terminator assault squad. It was a mixed bag painting wise, on the one hand the bronze turned out ok like the Tactical squads, but on the other I struggled with the reds (again) and the verdigris. For some reason the verdigris came out to strong on the Terminator helmets, so I am limiting the amount applied completely.

Quick Tips#4: Seriously easy bases

Normally I can spend as many days working on a figure base but sometimes; like in the case of army painting, this is just not practical. So here is the way in which I do batch basing. You will need the following tools and items:

Vallejo Grey Pumice

Cork/chopped plastic bits

Old paint brush

Badab War: Holy smokes an Update!

It's amazing what one week of playing Space Marine can do to a guy. I had pretty much resolved myself to do no more miniatures until Forge World release the discussed MK 8 Errant armour Space Marine, but lo and behold I found myself very inspired by that accursed computer game. With almost all my infantry choices out of the question, it was really a choice between a whole bunch of metal boxes (boring) or loads of drop pods (equally boring). So in the end I wrote a new list which hits closer to the Minotaurs lore and provides me something fun to work with and the result? A whole bunch of Terminators!

Kingdom Death: King's Man and Great Game Hunter Unboxing Pt 2

Part 1 HERE

The Great Game Hunter is the second figure of Kingdom Death's double August release. It is part of the Pinup line and as a result has a general/unlimited release. As with previous Pinups, the character is a heavily sexualised fantasy female with the typical fantasy armour archetype i.e. less armour to show off more assets. 

Kingdom Death: King's Man & Great Game Hunter Unboxing Pt 1

Part 2 HERE

Kingdom Death struck again with two fantastic post Gen-Con releases this mont; the King's Man and Pin-up Great Game Hunter. Naturally I ordered mine as soon as the newsletter hit and yesterday I was happy to see a parcel from Poots waiting on the door step...

Badab War: What to do?!

It seems I may have to put the bulk of the Minotaur army on hold. After a little bit of research, it is almost certain that Forge World will be releasing Mk8 armour packs complete with ankle/glove reinforcements and a new helmet design, further more there are also plans for a Mk 8 assault pack. While in the long term this is great news, as the army was always intended to be fully Mk 8, but in the short term is makes the tactical squad I have not worth finishing! I might just go ahead and finish it, then mix and match the new armour when it finally releases.

With this in mind, I guess this would be an opportune time to work on the non-infantry elements of the army, such as the Contemptor dreadnought and tanks...I also have my HQ choice waiting to be finished, perhaps today should be dedicated to his completion ^^

Thanks for reading,

DiStudios

The 14th Legion

Join the Badab War! Reinforce your army with: Wayland Games - Discount Wargames

Badab War: Minotaurs Tactical Squad wip

Long over due post, showing the progress of my first Tactical Squad. As a squad, the colours seem to work and are fairly quick to do (compared to how long I normally take to paint stuff!). The only real issue I am having is weapon colours. The reds I chose for my test figure were a little too rich/bright so I am looking for a more crimson colour similar to Scab Red or a Scab Red/Red Gore mix. I will have to experiment and figure it out this week, as I intend to add 'Red Hand' markings to the my Contemptor Pattern Dreadnought. The intention is finish the Tactical Squad this week and start the lovely Contemptor next, I still have the Achilles waiting, but there are some really cool ideas I have sketched up that need to be translated into models.

So, now that I am happy with the standard and palette of my Space Marines, my thoughts turn towards army lists. I only dabbled in 5th Ed a few times in the last 3 years, but was put off by the overly competitive attitude of the gaming group, in what was meant to be 'friendly games' and preferred to play Warmachine (pay back for the poor 40K experiences :P). But my interest in the Badab War has re-sparked the interest in some friendly/themed games. 

Thanks for reading,

DiStudios

The 14th legion

Join the War! Pick up reinforcements from: Wayland Games - Discount Wargames

Blindwater: Swamp Horror!

Tentacle madness will be joining the Blindwater congregation this autumn in the form of the Swamp Horror Heavy Warbeast. Pictures speak a thousand words and I have to admit, I am feeling more inspired to paint gators over Khador (heresy!). This thing reminds me of a giant mutant Thrullg so I am expecting some form of magic suppression aura and multiple magical attacks from its many tentacles, I can also envision/speculate some form of Fury generation also from kills.

I am looking forward to seeing more of the new Hordes: Domination Heavy beast/machines, but so far (and ok I am biased!) Blindwater looks to be winning the creepy awesome factor! This has given me a real boost in the Privateer Press purchase area. Ever since I started playing Hordes (since last year) I have found myself moving further away from Warmachine; to the extent that I collect Khador for the sake of collecting and do not even game with them anymore. On the plus side, I have a bunch of gators sitting in front of me,; built, primed and ready to have paint applied! Things are stirring in the Bayou...

Thanks for reading,

DiStudios

The 14th Legion

Reinforce for Domination today! Shop at Wayland Games - Discount Wargames 

Kingdom Death: New figure releases

Kingdom Death have added two new releases to their web store: The King's Men and Pinup Great Game Hunter.

It has been a long time since the last Kingdom Death release, but these two figures more than make up for it. Both figures are available now, from the Kingdom Death web store.

Thanks for reading,

DiStudios

The 14th legion

Site News: The weeks ahead

This is the last week I will be out of town, and I get to return to the comfort of my own home and miniature desk. There are number of projects that require attention but undoubtedly the most popular is the Minotaurs Space Marines, complete with Contemptor pattern Dreadnought(s), I am expecting to blitz the painting for a solid week, with loads of updates, and more importantly photos of the army as it grows. While the focus is on the modelling aspect, I will be actively looking to game as it will give me more incentive to sort the gaming table out (finally!).