On the Painting Table... Kzinti Battle Cruiser

Just finished the first of my Kzinti ships for Star Trek - A Call to Arms. This one is the Kzinti Battle Cruiser, an old time favourite of mine from back in my Star Fleet Battles days. I wanted to test out a Babylon 5 Narn style of paint scheme for the Kzinti, with a reddish style base and black camouflage tiger stripes.

Here's the result...

...and this is the paint scheme:

• Basecoat in Chaos Black
• Paint the windows Temple Guard Blue
• Paint Disruptor Tubes in Blood Red

• Drybrush whole model in Scarab Red, being careful not to cover the windows or disruptor tubes.

• Paint the nacelles and rear engine in Warpstone Glow. For the rear engine, I then drybrushed Scarab Red very lighted over raised bars on the rear engine, being again careful not to cover over the Warpstone Glow that was deeper inside the engine recess.

• Finally, paint the tiger stripe camouflage in Chaos Black.
• When dry, outline the tiger stripe in Skull White. And try to do a better job than I did!

I might try some other colour combinations to help distinguish different ships on the battle table. But I like how this colour combination has turned out.

On the Painting Table... Update on Sepulchral Stalkers for Warmaster

I've just finished making two more of the Sepulchral Stalkers and thought I would post some more images to give an idea of what is possible with using the GW Tomb Guard bits. A previous post shows how I made the first one. Now these slithering nasties are off to get basecoated in Chaos Black. I'll post at a future time a painting guide for them.

On the Painting Table... How to make 10mm Wamaster Sepulchral Stalkers

In a flash of inspiration, I hit upon an idea on how to make Sepulchral Stalkers for Warmaster. I saw one of the Malifaux miniatures and got to thinking.

The end result was this...

It was a fairly simple process to make this. I started with the Malifaux Arcanists Razorspine Rattler miniature (the new version!) and some GW Tomb Kings Tomb Guard, and some green-stuff and super glue.

I cut the serpent jaw from the Arcanists Razorspine Rattler miniature, being careful to keep the neck frill intact. I selected the Tomb Guard bits that I wanted to use and then used some green-stuff to make a secure connection for the head of one of the Tomb Guard to the Rattler neck. I also added some super-glue both where the green-stuff connected the rattler body and Tomb Guard head to make sure it stuck fast.

A word of caution: the Arcanists Razorspine Rattler mini is a right royal pain in the backside to put together and more than a few choice words were spoken during this process. Super-glue, Razorspine Rattler bits and human fingers don't go together well, so be careful when gluing this damned thing. Moreover, the Razorspine Rattler pieces don't fit together very well in some places, so be prepared and do a lot of testing before you glue!

I then chose the Tomb Guard weapons I wanted to add to the body. All the Tomb Guard weapons are in the left hand and their shields are in the right hand. So I had to get creative with the right side of the mini. Fortunately there are some free unarmed/unshielded right arms that were meant to have shields attached. I cut some left handed weapons free (complete with their left hand still attached) and joined them to the right arm after cutting off the right hand. Again, you'll want to do some testing before you start to glue the arms and weapons in place.

And that was about all I did!

Size wise, the Arcanists Razorspine Rattler mini is a fairly good fit for a Sepulchral Stalker in a 10mm to 12mm army. Some comparison images can be seen below. I placed this on a 4x4cm base as the body of the Rattler extends out far enough to warrant such a sized base. It's my intention to do two more of these and thus make a Unit of Sepulchral Stalkers comprise three models.

When I get around to painting this, I'll post some more images of the final job and add the house rules that are used for Sepulchral Stalkers in Warmaster.

Gandalf in 10mm... Happy New Year!

Well Christmas and New Year are over and things are starting to get back to normal, so time is freeing up for me to be able to get back to blogging about the hobby we all love. So to kick off the new year I thought I would, in the theme of The Hobbit - The Battle of Fire Armies, show off a few pictures of Copplestone Castings excellent hero miniature who just happens to look like Gandalf the Grey. This mini comes in the group of good guy heroes from Copplestone Castings.

So what's ahead for the blog this year? Right now I am working on some ideas for 10mm Sepulchral Stalkers. I have been playing with Shapeways to design some Tomb Kings style shields. And I'm in the middle of a 3,500 points per side stoush between the Beastmen and the Vampire Counts. A big battle report will get posted on this sometime in the near future. So a few things to look forward to in the months ahead.