Short update

I've gone back to painting my Blood Angels lately, after playing Ash in a game of Blood Angels vs Blood Angels.(It ended in a draw)

I'm currently working on one of my devastator squads. It already had 3 elements finished - The sergeant and two missile launchers. The remaining elements are coming along nicely at present, and will look better than the rest when they are finished. This is because i have changed my approach to painting and now work on what I am inspired tp paint rather then forcing myself to work on the next thing on my list

The downside to this is that with my new approach, everything will look better than previous work. Long term, this means that I am going to have to rework almost my entire blood angels army. Squad by Squad into the simple green for stripping, and then repaint the units. I am going to have to put a small investment into my painting gear soon, and buy an airbrush and compressor

On another note, I have the new Tyranids codex, and my first thought was seroiusly disapointed in it. Where are my flesh hooks? In fact, where are half my mutations? Why do I now have too many Hormagaunts and Termagants (Max brood size has shrunk). The new codex means a major reoganization for existing tyranid players, with the only gain being the new units.

Return of the Damned

I gave in recently, and bought my first White Dwarf in over a year, mainly because it tied in with the release of the new Tyranids. In it I found the new rules for the Legion of the Damned for 40K.

My first thought was I wouldn't mind running a squad of them in a battle or two, although I don't think they are legal in a Blood Angels army. Of course I can't just go out and buy a box of them at present, but I have had a box of them stashed away for years. These are the older models, still packing the chunky style bolters from 2nd edition. Still cheaper than buying a new box.

I've assembled them overthe last couple of days, and had been planning on using one the  new style plasma cannons for the heavy weapon in the squad. A quick test fit with the cannon revealed that old school devastator bodies are not compatible with  the cuurent style of marine heavy weapons. So I guess my legion squad are going to be like half my blood angels force - retro. The heavy has the shoulder mounted Heavy bolter.

The Legion squad will get a test run on wednesday when I take on Ash with a 1500 point force.

Hopefully my new Tyranids Codex and Vampire Counts army book will arrive soon, and I can reorganize those two armies so i know where I stand. and of course the new Blood Angels codex in April

The fleet grows

I've been expanding my fleet over the last couple of days in small working sessions.

Two hours on thursday afternoon saw my vanguard drones expand to six, with a small modification on the design. with two options for armament I decided to give them pyroacid batteries. A heavily trimmed spine fist was mounted underneath the nose of the drone. Later, I'll be making some drones with feeder tentacles, but I can't do that until I get my hands on some old pens that I can remove the springs from.

Vanguard drones with pyroacid battery

Today I've built two of my prototype Krakens. One with pyroacid battery, and the other with torpedoes

Kraken with pyroacid battery

Kraken with torpedoes

I also commenced building my first cruiser, using a spare back plate from a carnifex, with a pair of massive talons coming out from it. Two warrior barbed stranglers form the back end, with a spore mound as the underside. A spare armour plate forms a beak at the prow.

I still have to add the armament to the cruiser, but I'll come back to that next time i work on the fleet.

Unarmed cruiser

Another new project

I've just started another new project after browsing trademe's WH40K listings.

I found an auction for Battlefleet Gothic, consisting of The rules, a Chaos fleet, and a conversion fleet of tyranids. Being a bug player myself, the tyranid fleet was of great interest to me, and I asked the seller if he had details on how the fleet was built.

He replied that he found the details on site but it was no longer around. Being a curious person, I did some browsing, and found a site that may or may not have the one he used , but had some good advice on scratch building tyranid vessels. One page added to favourites later, and I was off to my bits box, digging out a few items.

A gaunt devourer was removed from the arm, and three scything talons from my genestealer sprues were worked on, removing the arm from the elbow up. The small spurs from the elbow were kept, and the rest of the arm tossed. The arms were cut to a better size after that, and test fitted to the devourer. Once I was happy with the cuts to the arms, I glued them on, and added one of the small spurs to the top of the devourer. I now have my first vanguard escort drone, and the means to make a large number of them.

The site I got the details from also suggest using Raveners as Hive ships, with a few alterations, and I just happen to have three older raveners lying around, along with a 3rd edition Hive Tyrant. So I could have the makings of a fairly large fleet just lying around in my bits box. Not too bad, one army's left over parts forming an entire new force for another game

Warhammer 40K

When I took up 40K as a game, it was still in 2nd edition, and my decision was to make a Blood Angels Space Marine force. I've stuck with them through to 5th edition so far,reorganizing the structure of the army as I go. With the current edition, I've created a masterlist of what I have, and at present, My list extends to 7000 points. This includes multiple incarnations of the command staff.I started adding images to the masterlist, which is why I included the photo shown here. I have a similar masterlist for my Tyranid Army, which is still only at 4th edition organization, and plan to add images to that also.