Vindicator of Khorne (part 4)

With much perseverance I have completed this model! Yay!

Looking for Blood & Skulls in the Mosslands of Backyardistan IV

When we left off in part-3, I had the gunner and the add-on bits left to do. These were done fairly quickly in the fleeting moments I could find, and I think they turned out OK.

The add-on bitz

The chains were done to look old and weathered, or a better word might be used. Next time you see a big truck (or lorry for my English audience) look to see if you see any chains on it, and you'll note that they usually look rusted and brown as opposed to shiny and new, which is typically how you see these chains and spikes painted on the chaos tanks in GW's sales presentations.

Skulls, The Khornate answer to trucknutz. 

Also added a bi more chipped paint. I assumed that any of these heavy powered armor bastards tried to climb up the side ladder that some paint would wear off. Also, bullet holes. And yes the scroll says "blood". Original, I know, but it's a small scroll and couldn't think of anything else. Which is appropriate as that's all these Khorne gusy are supposed to be able to think about. And skulls too, but that seemed sillier to but on the scroll than 'blood'. Not sure why this is hang up for me considering that these psycho all have "blood bunny" helmets, but I digress...

Next was the gunner who was a bit more tricky as I had to assemble him as I painted the model.

I painted up the shoulder pads and added the World Eater decal to his left shoulder pad. Micro Set and Micro Sol are proving to be heroes for me this area. My pal the Doctor has been using this stuff for years but I was impressed with the first examples he showed me, but with some experimenting I have been able to make it work for me, and I am pleased with the results so far..

Wrong shoulder, but check 

I got the shield glued back on the side, however this is a piece I will have to continue to watch out for as it could easily pop off on me again during transport.

 I lightly brushed on some Chaos Black paint to the tip of the main gun's barrel to give it a look that it has seen some use, and also did some similar darkening to the nozzle of the combi-flamer.

 I might do a few minor touch-ups, but this is essentially done! It's come very far since I acquired it from Da Masta Cheef who had passed on to me directly from Necron Bob (whose blog appears dead?) and you can see how much work I did to this thing.

(Lots of work)

And here it is again rampaging across the fields of Backyardistan IV for a nice red/green contrast shot in natural lighting.

 In hindsight, I forgot to add the Dark Angel helmets! Drat! I have to collect more during the inevitable rematch... it will have to be against my Chaos Space Marines though as I discovered the other night while flicking through the Khorne Daemonkin Codex, that the Khorne Daemonkin can not take Vindicators!

Vindicator of Khorne (Part 3)

Slowly but surely, the Vindicator of Khorne grows nearer to completion! After the last game I played my Vindicator took on a wee bit of transport damage, and since I have been focusing mostly on Khorne anyway, it only made sense to conclude this project. And just in case you haven't seen this thing from the start, check out how this project started. And here as well.

First off I had to tighten up the Blood Red painting, and then highlight the edges using Ruby Red.

After that I had to get the bronze areas completed. Also the hydraulics were finished by using Mitheral Silver.

I wanted this thing to look old, so rusting up the ventilation system seemed like a logical thing to do.

I added a Khorne decal to the front panel, which then used thinned paints to color over the transparent part of the film. This was my first time using decal solutions (more on that stuff in a future post).

I added an older style decal to the rear door.

Additional highlights now in the form of Mitheral Silver for the rivets, bullet holes, and other miscellaneous scratches and scrapes.

The last thing to do is the gunner and his gun. Slowly continuing to make progress on him, though I am kinda stuck on how exactly I want to paint the combi-bolter. I should have that figured out soon.

And skulls. There are a lot of bits with skulls on them that are also being worked on as well. I mean. it IS a Khorne tank, it's GOT to have skulls, right?!

And I need to add a few Dark Angel helms as well, right Bob?... :)

Vindicator of Khorne (Part 2)

Work continues, albeit slowly, on this Vindicator of Khorne. Continuing where I left off in part 1, I decided to go with the taller option for the crewman that will man the twin-linked weapon on the top. I added some more bits to the tank as well in order show allegiance to Khorne and Chaos.

Now with spikes!

I primed the model with Testers spray enamel flat metallic brown and flat black. This creates a great undercoat for the Scab Red to build on as well as any Rust effects I might try to come up with. This worked very well on the World Eater Land Raider i did back in the Spring.

"What's a Rusty Venture?"

Somehow I neglected to snap a photo of the scab red coat, I guess the blood-lust overcame me and I went straight to applying the Blood Red.

The Blood Red has been added.

 The Blood Red is thinned down at this point, and once I paint the other features I will go back and add solid color on the edges to build a highlight effect.

And slowly I paint away at this thing when time allows...

Vindicator of Khorne (part 1)

Hello again,  In my last two posts I showed you the tank I was stripping the paint off of. You can see those details here in I'm a stripper part one and part-2. This post-thread continues to show the fate of the primary model of those posts, a late '90s era Warhammer 40,000 2nd edition Space Marine Vindicator.

After over a week of bathing in Superclean, the tank was all but separated, mostly due to being joined primarily with super glue. The yellow/orange color that was underneath the black paint job has been really resistant to the superclean, but most of it has come off. What is left can be easily painted over and no one will be the wiser (unless they follow this blog I guess).

 After cleaning off the super clean chemical, I got down to scrapping off the more stubborn paint and glue chunks. Particularly the glue chunks which you can see dotting the paper towel that these parts are resting on in the pic below.

Scrapped down to the bones! 

Here is a close up shot that I took right after I put the first track assembly back on. As I noted at the end of the last post, this reminds me of a photo you might see in an old talk/army surplus or other such industrial machinery graveyard. Just add weeds and graffiti!

I took this next pic to illustrate the correct way to assemble the original Rhino chassis. When the sides of the hull are put on you want to make sure the center joins touch and that both ends are left with a sort of 'bumper' that sticks out, otherwise you'll end up with gaps in the top and bottom of the model.

The propa way.

With both track assembles added back on, we have a tank looking more like a Rhino again!

Now to add the metal bitz:

This was kind of fun to put together, but man does it make this model heavy!

A reassembled Vindicator.

 This model was missing some parts when I got it, the back door and bottom hatch mostly. Luckily after 25 years of collecting these models, one tends to collect a few bitz for just such a situation:

Release the bitz!

 Now, and here's where I hope for some input: how do you like the gunner:

Do you like the gunner low?

Or do you like him high? 

I'm eager to know.

Oh, and yes, if the title wasn't a give away, this is going to be completely turned into a Vindicator for my World Eaters Chaos Space Marines! Blood for the blood god khorne! Because the idea of a support vehicle for a bunch of chain axe wielding loons seems amusing to me.

Until next time...

I'm a stripper! Part 2

The tank from part one has soaked in Superclean for a few days now, and here are the results after running them under warm water and scrubbing them with an old toothbrush.

With the black paint gone, another layer of  orange was revealed beneath. 

The metal parts were stripped clean! 

 All-in-all, I am quite pleased with these results. The metal in particular was stripped down to looking almost like new again! The Superclean did what Warfrog told me it would do to superglue: it completely eliminated it! Thus this model is mostly in pieces now. The under layer of orange-yellowish paint was revealed when the black was removed, however the superclean had a tougher time dissolving it on the plastics.

Just add some tall grass and more debris and it look like a scene from an Imperial junk yard!

 These plastic bits, and any bits that still has some paint on it, were put back into the Superclean. Also, I placed into the jar the following models that my pal Brian Hunter gave to me. I think these guys will end up joining my Celestial Lions squad at some point, but who knows for sure?  Once I have them cleaned up, I'll have them ready for whatever fate awaits them!

The next batch of strippers. 

I'm a stripper!

A paint stripper that is!

Tonight I have begun the process of soaking a model tank in Super Clean. I'm only using a big-ass mason jar that I picked up at Walmart for like  $13.00. I put the model in first and poured the Superclean on top of it. Warfrog's Turtorial will teach you more about this stuff (and then some).

A while back, July I think, I met the legendary Necron Bob who was in town to give his old army to Da Masta Cheef. You can find out more about this event, that Da Masta Cheef titled The Demise of the Black Consuls, here and see pics of the other models as well. I ended up with one of his models, a Black Consul 2nd Edition era Vindicator.  I am probably going to turn this into a World Eater Vindicator. This model's paint scheme is thickly applied and I didn't want to paint over it for fear of losing details, so it just has to be stripped.

It is now sitting in the jar in the first pic, in fact, it's in that pic, going through the early stages of the stripping process. I will check on it again tomorrow night and see how it's going.

Saturday Night Waaagh!

So took the ol' Battle Barge to Planet Hobbytown, in the JC System, where Sven and the Wolves stood valiantly against the combined Waaagh! of Da Long Wayz Dezert Group controlled by the archfiend himself, the Masta Cheef and Waaagh! ...actually I have no idea what he calls his Orks, so for now I'll just call it Waaagh! Murl.

Due to a lack of players (5 of us showed up) I challenged 2k of Space Wolves vs. 1K Each of Orks (the other 2 player had their own game-Space Wolves vs. Necrons). Sounded like a fun challenge. Only I didn't have a 2k list prepped, so I had to modify an older list. Without going all full-blown Battle Report, I will simply discuss the highlights of this challenging and enjoyable game!

The big yellow/orange die is the Turn Counter, this was an Annihilation mission, an after I placed my sniper scouts, da Boyz got the first turn. Here you can see the bulk of Cheef's force which was mostly mechanized completing 1st turn moves with Murl starting on his moves. Yes that is a Forgeworld Grot Megatank! The big tank in the back is a Battlewagon.

My left flank, eyeing Murl's Mob. He took a list I never have tried (I'm always enticed by the Elites, Fast Attack and Heavies to do this): All Boyz Mobz, one Joined by a Warboss, a Nobz Mob with Painboy (Feel No Pain would equal pain for me!). The plan was to pie plate the crap out of the big mobz with my Whirlwind and Vindicator and get my Landspeeder Tornado up there with the Heavy Flamer and do likewise.

Here's my middle ground and some of the right flank. The Epicast Vindicator is eyeing the masses of Murl's Mob, The (truly) Venerable Dreadnought is poised to start popping tanks with his twin-link las cannon. (The rhino has a model on it to help me keep up with what unit is inside of it.)

This next pic shows the rest of the right flank. I believe we're seeing Murl taking his first run moves. Pay particular attention to that far off rhino (stuffed with a full 10-man squad of Grey Hunters) and those two trukks of Da Masta Cheef...

...here my lonely rhino exchanges fire with the trukks, though it escapes me what actually happened...

 Here my Venerable Dreadnought blows the converted Matilda Battlewagon to smithereens, prompting an encouraging response from Cheef (at the moment, he thought I was targeting his precious Grot Megatank! LOL! "No dude, I targeted the Battlewagon!"

And during that 1st turn of mine, Sven Axegrinder shows up in his Drop Pod! (he's the mostly painted guy with no arms! I really should finish that model...hmmm...) The green die on my rhino is to indicate that I had popped smoke.

This is a view looking down the field after the 2nd Ork movement phase... Oh yes, the Rune Priest in the rocks was whittling down the mob that the Murl's Warboss was tied too with both Jaws of the World Wolf and Living Lightning. Those Orks know how to dodge! LOL!

The first two rounds of firing I was able to greatly reduce the Ork numbers... but they were closing fast! Then, disaster struck! The Ork Truckers were able to charge and totally surround the rhino with the marines in it! THey did if in such away that my Grey Hunters were unable to escape the rhino once it was wrecked into a raging firestorm, and, well, they died a blaze of glory!

 The boyz get stuck in! With charges against the Rhino by Murl's Mob, and a charge from a Grot mob and survivors of the mob that was in the Battlewaggon piling into the Wolfguard at the Drop pod. The Sven and the Wolfguard would trimumph and the Ork and Grot units would flee off the board. Meanwhile Murl's mob would immobilize the Rhino, which the Grey Hunters would disembark from (after hearing what happened to the other pack over the com, they weren't about to stay put!)

On my Left flank, the beefy Nob Mob of Murl, smashed through the Blood Claw's rhino! On my turn I shot them, and charged, but the combined toughness of the Nobz and the gifts of the Painboy proved too much for the Blood Claws who were struck down!

In the final throes of the game, you see the Nobz moving to intercept the Runepriest once they had wrecked the Whirlwind. He would take out another nob before they ripped him apart...

In the middle, after taking fire from the boyz in the trukks, the Grey Hunters routed. For the next two rounds the trukk boyz would Sheppard the Grey Hunters right off of the table, who where two close to the foe to not know any fear!

At the top of the blog, you can see the Warboss who engaged the Vindicator in close combat and power clawed it to death! The Venerable Dreadnought dove into close combat with the Warboss, who was down to his last wound, but it was to be as the dread was slowly being dismantled by the Warboss as the game reached it's conclusion...

Here we have Da Masta Cheef's final bombardment of the abandoned bastion in another vain attempt to wipe out the sniper scouts on top of it. Those scouts survived many attacks up there, and although they killed a fair share of orks, they were unable to prevent the green tide from taking the field.

The game went to the Orks!

Orks 10 kps Space Wolves 5 Kps.

Despite blasting a heap of Orks, my inability to eliminate entire units cost me the game, plus getting the Grey Hunters cooked in that Rhino was just a major game changer for me... The Landspeeder managed to survive, it cooked a lot of orks, but once it got their attention and had it's Heavy Flamer ripped off, I moved it very far to make it's KP difficult to grab. Also I grossly overestimated my Terminator's ability to survive and massive ork assault, and should've whittled the unit down more before diving into it like I did. -Whoops! LOL!

Fun game!