Stormhawk Interceptor (Part 6)

With the assembly done, all that is left is to focus on the final paint coats.

Assembly complete! 

The next paint stage for the main hull was a careful strategic dabbling of Russ Grey blended toward the edges. The edges had a thick line of Russ Grey applied.

Russ Grey dabbing and edges.

And from the anothe angle.

After that I applied a thin dabbling of Space Wolf Grey which, was added near the edges, blending into the Russ Grey. Again, a solid line of Space Wolf Grey was applied to the edges.

Space Wolf Grey layer.

Next, the final step was a thin application of Skull White was added to the edges, bolts and upper most points as a final highlight for the hull.

The Space Wolf colors are done! 

All I have left to do are the details (guns, a few more sensors, etc) and determine what the iconography I will use will be and where it will go.

Stormhawk Interceptor (Part 5)

Hot on the heels of the progress I was making in Part 4 I have continued to capitalize on what free time I could spare to continue working on this model.

Lower Engine assembly.

As I continue to assemble this model I am covering large areas of it with GW's The Fang paint in order to darken the model more for when I get to the proper painting.

The Fang low-lights are painted on.

At this point I realize that this model is smaller than a Rhino but with a ton of parts. And it's starting to become heavy from the weight of all the bitz and glue. Astoundingly, the kit has an entire Sprue that is untouched (all the options for the Stormtalon Gunship). I consider this to be a waste on GW'S part. I'm sure the excuse to include the extra sprue was to save shelf space or some logic like that. But I guess it does provide the modelers out there an opportunity to make unique versions of these things also,  so maybe that's a win? But you do pay more for this box than you do for just the Stormtalon Gunship kit, so it's a win with a cost if it's a win at all.

Too many parts!!!

This thing is coming together nicely though. I noticed after I glued on the sensors with the little fins that their weight is pulling the front fuselage from the cockpit. I apparently did not feel that I needed glue on this area when I joined those sections together but now I see that I was mistaken.

Front fin sensors now painted.

A careful application of glue, a strategic binding of a rubberband and about two hours of time and those gaps are now gone.

For a tighter bond.

The wing and engines are assembled next.

Wings and main engines.

The underwing weapon pods are assembled and joined to the engines. As a happy bonus I discover that the front plates that distinguish the specific weapon options on the pods can simply pop on and off! No magnets required!

Engine mounted weapon pods.

I continue on from here adding the last few bitz from sections 1h and 1i. Then I circle back and add the tall wings that the instructions wanted us to add way back in section 1a. Having seen how fragile the Ork Fighta Bomba's tall fins are, I decided it was best to save that for last with this kit.

All together now! 

And with that, assembly is now complete!!! Hoorah!
...Now onwards to the painting stage, a lot of which is already done.

Space Wolf Primaris Reivers (Part 1)

In a recent game of Kill Team I was schooled in the awesomeness that are the Primaris Reivers (well, in Kill Team anyway). So impressed was I that I bought another three-man set before heading out that day. I wasn't so eager as to buy the full 10 man box that GW sells, or the Space Wolf Kill Team five-man boxed set, but a squad of three would work out just fine for future Kill Team games. That weekend I set about assembling these models. I used a few Space Wolf bits to customize these guys, simple stuff really, nothing too advanced.

You might recall that this isn't the first time that I have painted these models. When they first came out in 2017 I painted a box of these for my Ultramarines. I was impressed with how those turned out and how easy they were to work with overall.

After some set backs, I found a few brief windows in my fleeting time to work on these guys a bit, and I got them mostly basecoated.  Hopefully I can get these models painted soon, along with their Intercessor brothers. At the time of this writing  I have actually progressed a bit beyond the pic below, as I have been dabbling with them as I work on the Stormhawk Interceptor. Hopefully I will have more pics to show you soon...

Basecoated with The Fang.

Stormhawk Interceptor (Part 4)

Got some more work done on this thing since Part-3.

Current progress level.

In particular, I focused on making the main guns interchangeable. The interior cavity above the weapon mount is perfectly sized for a magnet.

The hole is made.

I used a drill bit that would make a hole smaller than the magnet that would sit in that cavity.

Testfitting the magnet.

I superglued the magnet over the hole. This will allow the smaller magnet, that will be attached to the gun, to make direct contact and therefore have a stronger connection.

Defining the hole.

I had to work on the hole with my exacto to whittle away the excess plastic to allow the smaller magnet to connect better.

Working with the magnets.

With patience and tenacity, I was able to get this to work perfectly!

Success!

Next I tested out the fit of the cockpit section with the fuselage. It joins beautifully. This is an amazing designed kit, and I am impressed with how nearly snapfit it is!

Fitting it together.

Once I got the the guns together I made sure to test how well they joined up before final assembly. Once I glue these main sections together there will be no going back.

Trying out the guns.

Satisfied, it was time to permanently glue the two halves of the cockpit together. Like I did with the fuselage, I applied a rubberband for a few hours to assure maximum bonding. After this, I glued the cockpit and fuselage together, completing section 1a of the assembly guide. For those keeping track, the two guns complete the bottom subsection of section 1e of the assembly instructions.

The tighter the bond...

You may have noticed I have been painting some parts as I make progress. I will discuss this more detail in a later part...

Stormsire's Cursebreakers (Part 3)

After a quite a period of time, I have managed to complete my first warband for Warhammer Underworlds: Nightvault. Presenting Stormsire's Cursebreakers:

The Cursebreakers. 

I finished Stormsire himself in the last post in this series. Since the previous posts were WIP posts, I chose not to do that with Rastus the Charmed and Ammis Dawnguard since the steps are virtually identical. So here they are finished and ready to pound down some foes!

Rastus the Charmed.

Ammis Dawnguard.

I am very pleased with how they turned out, however these three models alone have satisfied any interest I had in Stormcasts so it's very unlikely you'll see me going 'full Sigmar' with them.

My next warband will be the ghosts from the Nightvault starter set.

Stormhawk Interceptor (Part 3)

Making some progress from last time, I have began the assembly steps on this kit. As you can see in this first pic, the main body is being assembled. In the instructions pamphlet this is section 1A, and we will cover just the two subsections of that section in this post.

Yay 1A!

The first part of 1A is to assemble the main body. Quickly you discover the, almost absurd, details this kit has when you see that you are required to put a tiny grill into a port.

Grill about to go into a port.

 I decided that this needed to be painted prior to placement,  as painting this post-assembly could be challenging. I did this, and some of the other grills, by using a dark metal color (Boltgun Metal from the older Citadel Color range) and washing it with Nuln Oil.

The grill is placed.

 After that, I glued the body together and tightened it with a rubberband. It will stay like this way at least overnight, but more likely until whenever I next get to it.

Rubber bands for a tighter join.

 Next came the 2nd half of the sub-assembly, again a tiny, and hard to paint, piece that needed to be painted prior to assembly. This piece is a sensor lens array,  which I assume is how the pilot sees what's going on outside the aircraft. I painted this pretty close (-ish) to how it appears on the box.

Sensors painted.

And with that painted, I inserted it into the cockpit.  However I did not yet fully assemble the cockpit as I am considering placing a magnet into the primary weapon port. I have made a decision on that by the next part of this series.

Sensors attached. 

Review: The Eye of Night

Eye of Night CD cover.

Back in the fall of 2018 I picked up an audio drama while visiting the Warhammer store in Richmond VA. The one I picked up was Eye of Night by Gav Thorpe.  I listened to it on the long way home, but decided I needed another listen before I could give it a proper review. Well, I have finally done that and what follows are my thoughts.

It's a fun audiodrama, and I enjoyed it, particularly the cheesy bits.

So what's it about? As you can see from the cover it involves Inquisitor Greyfax. She has been assigned (or "volun-told") by Primarch Roboute Gulliman to seek out an artifact that could aid the Imperium against Chaos in these troubled times. While catching up on some of the history he has missed while he was sorta dead, the Primarch has discovered that Inquisitor Horst had located the Eye of Night but was never heard from again when he went searching for it. She is sent with a squad of Grey Knights to go seek out whatever happened to Horst and retrieve the Eye of Night. The Eye of Night, which is an ancient artifact that Abaddon once razed Ornsworld (a Rattling world) to obtain.

OK, that was my synopsis, now for some breakdowns and some possible (and likely) spoilers!

After getting her orders from Guilliman, Greyfax and a small squad of Grey Knights take a jaunt out to the ruined world of Savaven which was blasted apart by Abaddon's Planet Killer during the Gothic War. It;s now an asteroid field mostly.  In fact this whole story is clearly inspired by the background from the Battlefleet Gothic game, and I can't help but wonder if a copy of the book was one of the many tomes described to be on Guilliman's desk in the first scene. 

After slaughtering some traitors, they find the body of Horst in an Inquisitional crypt, who is strangely animated and conscious despite being a skeleton in power armor. After some back and forth, Horst earns enough of Greyfax's trust enough for him to lead the band to the lair of Moriana the Crone, an old chaos witch who further directs the band of Inquisitors to another foe who she says will reveal to them the location of the Eye of Night. It's a bit of a convoluted path which ends in a straight up psychic battle with a Daemon Prince that doesn't disappoint. 

• Did I like it? Yes. 
• Was it hard to put down? No, it was engaging despite some cringe-worthy moments. 
• Could I care about the characters? Yes, but more so the secondary characters. I thought Inquisitor Horst was far cooler than the zealous hardline depiction of Greyfax. But I also had a hard time accepting that the Grey Knights would continue to allow a skeleton in armor, pious good guy or not, to continue to exist let alone walk around giving orders, after all this was over, so you can imagine that his fate was somewhat sealed regardless of how this drama played out. 
• Did the writer  "get" the 40K universe and how it works? It's Gav! Of course he does. However I can not be sure that some of the actors do. How it's written and how it's  said can come off differently when heard by the listener and intention or tone can be distorted or even lost. I maybe paraphasing, but there is a quote that Harrison Ford once told George Lucas that "you can type this stuff, but you can't say this stuff." I think there is a little bit of that taking place. There are some stand out examples of this: The Imperial Palace Custodian that tried to stop Greyfax in the very first scene was almost corny. He sounded so...campy. Seriously, it reminds of kind of pantomime-esque performance one expects to see when visiting London's tourist destinations. Moriana steals the show in over-the-top creepy/cheese witch. Yet I was enthralled by her, and sort of rooted for her over the crazy zealous attitude of Greyfax (hey, she appealed to my inner heretic).. 
• Was I being talked down too? No, but there are some cheesy moments, especially Greyfax's final speech at the end of the tale. 
• How predictable is this story? Fairly, yet not. I mean, the whole concept of dead Horst getting up and walking around and assisting the Grey Knights and Inquisitor Greyfax was pretty unpredictable. I guess the story isn't so much predictable as some of the dialog is, particularly the battle banter. However, the ending, Greyfax reflecting upon the cost of her victory which culminates with her unsheathing of her sword and yelling out "For the Emperor!" struck me as unintentionally funny. It was as if Gav just didn't know how to end this thing, and a rally cry (to apparently no one) was what made the most sense in the face of a deadline. 
• Do I recommend this book? Yes, good fun, but not vital, unless you are a fan of Battlefleet Gothic background. This stands alone just fine. In fact, I was unaware that the Eye of Night has been in the 40k background since 1999 (ugh, I suddenly feel old!) and didn't uncover that info until I researched the Battlefleet Gothic material for this review. So if you see it some where, this one is a fun one to pick up and give a listen. it does have less cringeworthy moments than good content. But you will cringe when those moments happen, of this I am sure!