Mark: Project Ultramarines #3

I have the first group of Ultramarines ready for the water slide transfers  to be applied. I'm going to hold off until I have the next batch finished so I can do the whole squad at once, fingers crossed for next week.

Trev from Triple Helix has donated some of his old and now unused Salamanders to the cause, they are currently soaking in Simple Green. I didn't do a head count before sealing them in the container but I believe that there should be enough for at least another two squads with heavy and special weapons. He handed them to me in one of his old army cases but I didn't think to ask if he is donating that as well, so I'll confirm this along with numbers and weapon load outs next week.

Until next time .......

Mark

Travis: Harad Crew

Hello fellow gamers, Travis here with not much to report. I'm back to Uni so I Haven't played any games, I painted a little and saw Spiderman that was my week.

Like i promised I've been working on a Mumak for my Harad army and i might have finished it but my Watcher turned up in the post and the inner child inside took over and i spent nearly a whole day building that. (Which is an awesome model)

So progress on the Mumak travels well, I'm not the kind to show WIP shots so here is a picture of 4 of the Mumak's crew painted and ready to ride.

I decided to use the old Suladan model to represent my Mahud commander, having a strong Harad theme means i have nobody tribal looking and the Mahud Commander would have stood out a little.

Da Crew

 
 Most LoTR players will tell you a Mumak is not worth its points, but how could you pass it up its so big and powerful, but they all say stuff like one bad courage test will send it scampering in the wrong direction. So to counter that I'm putting a War Horn in the Howdah to give the army +1 Courage and in the Howdah means if he is in combat I've already lost the Mumak. Problem solved right? Anyway the Hornblower is Finecast and the box i got is great all 4 of the Command models are in perfect shape and will look awesome once painted.

Thats is for this week, I'll get stuck into the Mumak at Paint night this week and see how we go.

Mark: Project Ultramarines #2

I'll be honest I've been doing more than my fair share of procrastinating this week, and combined with the weather making undercoating difficult I didn't get a great deal of painting done this week. So my progress is merely a group of 5 black and blue Marines. I'm planing on getting in a couple solid painting sessions early next week in the hope of getting this batch finished and the next at least started.



I did manage to break intense procrastination for a couple of minutes and get a little more sculpting done early in the week.

Antman donated an AOBR Terminator Squad that he had laying around, so I'll be adding them to the squad I painted in April. I have a spare terminator that came with the AOBR release White Dwarf and a couple of Assault Cannons that I'll be adding to the squad. This will mean that whoever ends up with the the army will be able to have two squads of five or a single squad of ten.

Until next time .......

Mark

Mark: My First Commission

Trev form over at Triple Helix asked me to sculpt a couple of Space Marine shoulder pads that he could use to represent Omega Marines and Sons of Orar in his Deathwatch army. I'm glad that I'm able to help him out with this slow burn project.

I have fond memories of facing up against his Deathwatch from across the table from as far back as 3rd edition, and I'm looking forward to lining up against them again in the future.

Not much has been happening on other hobby fronts Project Ultramarines, procrastination and indecision have been taking up most of my hobby time of late and of course Queensland's beautiful weather has made it difficult to get anything new undercoated over the last couple of weeks.

A pretty consistent view for a couple of weeks now

 Of course it hasn't all been doom and gloom of late, a small package arrived the other day with some new basing materials and some Army Painter paints. From what little I've used so far I'm really liking the Army Painter paints. I picked up the Soft Tone Ink at the same time, I'm not sure why but I was under the impression that it would make a good Gryphon Sepia replacement, but it seams that I was wrong.

Yeah, just a little off ;)

 While it isn't what I was looking for, it's almost an exact match for the mix I use for turning silver into a base for gold or bronze.

I'm told these guy's are better to face off against as status than Paladins

I did want to try the Army Painter Dark and Strong Tone ink's as well but they were both out of stock when I placed the order.



Until next time .......

Mark

Travis: A Reason not to Live in Middle Earth

Middle Earth is a scary place to live, the free people are fighting against all sorts of ancient evils; and if not for Elves and epic Heroes the Good Guys wouldn't stand a chance. This is very apparent in the minis, as my armies grow my good guys gets more horses and guys running around trying to hit things with a sword. My evil forces have recently acquired some large beasties. I'm working on a Mumak, ordered a Watcher and present to you what is described as Cirith Ungol's most Ancient Evil.

Give me a Hug!

Who Would Win?  The Hobbits apparently...

The model is of course Shelob, i found the model fairly difficult to build, but once completed and painted i would have to say she is my favorite GW Spider. In the game she doesn't really accomplish much. Just pounces around tormenting troops. A Solid hero should see her scuttling off the board.

I also managed to finish the Walking version of Suladan, so when his horse is inevitably shot out from under him i have model to use.

Like i said earlier I'm working on a Mumak, I'll try to finish it this week but it is a big model.

Mark: Project Ultramarines #1

Okay I know this isn't Saturday but I had some unforeseen technical issues and wasn't able to get the post done last night. In the past week I've managed to scrape together a Tactical Squad and sculpt the Ultramarines icon onto their shoulders. Midway throught he process I switched from GW to Kneadatite green stuff which has different properties, and in the photo's I could see a gouple of mistakes I made with the first couple I did with the Kneadatite. So I'm aiming to get them fixed up and ready to start painting on Monday.

After getting my head around using the Kneadatite I found that it was a great deal easier to work with on a smaller scale than GW's, so I decided to start experimenting.

Other than a couple of comments regarding my sanity or perhaps lack there of, the response from the clubs members has been positive and they've gotten behind the project. A couple members have offered to donate miniatures to the cause and I'm looking forward to seeing what they will add to the project. 

Until next time .......

Mark

Travis: Return of the Haradrim

Hey all, its been a while. When i started i planned to update every week but that didn't account for Diablo 3.
But now Diablo is out of my system, i played it quite thoroughly and must say i have quite enjoyed going back to Tristam. But i haven't found myself drawn to it for nearly a week which has given me time to sit down and get some stuff painted.

This week ive been building a Mumak for my Harad list, its looking quite awesome and it is a really big model. Here is a pic of it squaring off against an Arachnarok.

 To lead my Harad list ive painted up Suladan as my army general. I'm gonna use him on a horse leading those Haradrim Raiders i started a few weeks ago. Suladan is a Harad king who found the sword of an ancient Harad leader and took it and his title and become the Serpent Lord. In the novels Theoden killed him on the Pelennor fields. In the minis he is a good leader with "lord" level stats.

 

And to follow the Serpent Lord is some Raiders, they are the cheapest cavalry in the game. They will stand in the way of arrows and probably die against any foe who isn't a Hobbit. But someones gotta stop those insidious Hobbits. Right?

 

Also a couple of games have been played, but only one of note. Mark and i recreated the Mines of Moria scenario. The game ended in a draw but the Cave Troll managed to kill Legolas, which was a moral victory for the forces of Moria.

Okay on to next weeks endeavor...