The Unpainted Miniatures' Revenge

Hi

That's it, after several months being unsatisfied with canablog, i've finally decided to create a new blog at google's.

It will be a bilingual blog to make sure most people feel welcome.

If you want to keep following my adventures, you're welcome HERE

And just to try to attract you to my new lair, i've just posted the final stone to my Legion of the Damned army project, reaching 2000 points and closing it.

Hope i'll see you there soon :)

Cheers

Hi

Something hard & heavy today with this 2nd edition Dreadnought. This big chunk of metal is a milestone in my 2nd edition Legion of the Damned army since thanks to him i have now a full 1500pts force painted an ready to go argue about political vertues of a feodal regime to anyone pretending not to get it.

This is my third dreadnought ever and it's always nice to do one. Considering its age and full-metalness, the kit is still amazing in my opinion. No huge gaps to fill, no pinning needed, not many metal kits in history were so well done even decades after.

Like the company icon, i wanted a big & colourful banner from the 4th edition Warhammer: Undead army. While painting it i realised the skull was weirdly shaped. Do you see what i see ?

That's totally a Genestealer Hybrid skull ! Come on it can't be a coincidence !

Anyway, with this force assembled it may sound like a good time for the group shot, but i've decided to bring it to 2000pts before by adding a small squad and a librarian so, to be continued...

Hi

Some lazy batch today with the growing of my Aliens hives. I failed to clean the resin correctly before painting the minis, resulting in my first layers of pure ink to be much more difficult to put on. This minis felt a bit cursed in the end: a brush was destroyed in the inking process, the gloss varnish dried full of bubbles and the result is far from what i wanted, even by my "easy and speed" standard.

Ah well, it's still done.

The Crusher. This bad boy stands on an 80mm base, making it quite a monster. Originally from the infamous Colonial Marines (i think) video game, it brings a powerhouse to the hive without getting too ridiculous like the xeno-t-rex featured in some comic books. The initial plan was to paint big stuff only after every infantry would be done, but it felt frusrating to play the army without a single heavy hitter. Painting wise, this is the most disappointing piece to date: layers of inks were a complete failure, the successive brown dry brushes almost disappeared and seem to have blended together after varnish, and the varnish itself dried with a lot a bubbles... Ah well, at least after that i've ordered quite a lot of browns and ochres paints since it's true i still have only a few.

The Spitters: the only infantry featuring some kind of shooting, sold only with the Hot Landing Zone expansion which explains why i have only 5 of them. The plan was always to make these very dark, without any brown or blue used on the other aliens so that they would be easily recognised and also have their yellow acidic pus packs stand out. So the ink failure was less of an issue with them. I've decided to remove them from the 3d bases they were printed with by Prodos to have them included better on their lipped bases since i'm not very happy with the evolved bases i made before..

That's it for today. Next batch for te hive will be the last infantry with some Infants before getting to the real monsters..

Second (and probably last) squad painted for my Warhammer 40k 2nd Edition Legion of the Damned army: the Devastator

Assembled and painted in the same batch as the Assault squad displayed yesterday, i'm not gonna rant more about the arms but these were the real buggers ;)

Fun facts: this squad is equipped with all the different boltguns made for the range, and none are doubled. Also, with these 20 warriors done, almost every single body sculpted for the range is now part of my army, only 2 bodies and the plasma gun are missing. If i managed to find the two remaining bodies, i'll probably build a last 5 men squad with the plasma gun, meaning every single sculpt made for the range will be in the army with only 2 bodies doubled. Finally, no single marine wears the same shoulder pad combo as any other. Yeah that's part of the fun.

Anyway, group shot:

Sarge and the heavy weapons dudes:

And the boltgun brothers:

Did you notice ? They are supposed to be some kind of undead ghost thing, and they are already walking among flowers, like in a graveyard. How goth is that ?!

Next step will be an even deadier guy: the Dreadnought ! When ? Who knows ?!

Batch painting is the worst !

By the end of 2020 i had reach the point in my W40k 2nd Edition Legion of the Damned army when i had to start painting squads. Fortunately, these goth fellows are so expensive i knew i didn't need many. In fact, the whole point of this project is that the complete set of bodies made for the whole range perfectly fits in a 1500 or 2000 points army, preventing from any batch painting frenzy.

Getting these done has taken me some time. It took some time to gather the last part of the army i needed, and assembling them was quite a pain.I mean seriously, 2nd ed Marines' arms, what happened ? How the heck did GW managed to have so many of them sold ! These were not my first by far but still a horror to do. So i've decided to pin every arm, every should and every weapon of every marine.

With days passing i finally chose to assemble my complete two squads and have them painted in a single patch of 20 dudes. So today is about the Assault Squad but the Devastator are ready too and will quickly be shown. I just have a small issue with the Sergeant's banner to solve before sharing the pictures.

Anyway, pics!

The classic & mandatory group shot:

Focus shot on the first 5:

and the erm second five

Sculptwise, this is definitely not the greatest range one can find, but i knew it before starting. These marines are classic sculpts on which some bones and flames have been added. I don't know who's work it is but it's often a bit awkward with bones on forefronts or stacked wierdly. And who the hell puts nails to hold fires ?! Also, bolt pistols are decorated with very small skulls. Where is it from ? children ? small aliens ? Not very worthy foes...

Still funny to do, the big skull belts and all the heavy gothic gothicness is reaching a pinacle here. Also after those 10 (and soon 20) done, i'm very close to highfiving my younger self by closing this project.

Next time and soon: the Devastator squad

Hey there

Once upon a time, some great painter made a Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower with only old minis. 

silver tower

Wargame and RPG Miniatures

https://www.ninjabread.co.uk

As with many things, i wanted to do it too but since i totally despise both setting and tiles, i also wanted to make it a classic dungeon. Long story short, this project never bloomed. Then came Blackstone Fortress which tasted a lot like old school tribute. I felt like it was a good way to have some parts of my collection painted, and the game seemed fun too. GW being GW, a lot of expansions were coming before i even started to paint the made-old core set. Since i wanted to have everything ready before starting, i simply never started.

Recently my friend JB at Leadplague started some fun challenge to have pairs painted. The range being now over, at peace (don't talk to me about Cursed City), i felt like it was a good time to have it started with the pair of bare-feet dudes from the explorer group. Or maybe i can paint for a game only once it's dead...

Anyway, i've gathered almost everything i need and plan to paint everything needed to replace modern crap with old goodness, with maximum hostiles number. Will see how it goes and if it ends well.

Meet now Rein & Raus please :

On their ugly modern version, Rein & Raus are depicted as a sniper and some kind of alpinist (don't ask me, i haven't read a single rulebook or card of the game). Having only my pair of awesome old ratlings, i needed to put up some heavy conversion skills. Some hours and heavy duty tooling later, we had this :

Here goes a new (yet old) project

Hi

The beginning of the year has been pretty quite on the miniature part for me. I've tried to get back to painting desk with something fast and satisfying, so i've finished the painting of three Aliens Evolved Warriors.

As their name suggests it, Evolved are warriors on bigger bases acting as heroes. I've painted them the same way i did with regular warriors since the point of the army is to be painted fast. I'm not too keen on scenic bases so i've ben in minimum effort mode for them too.

With these three characters, i'm finally able to field an actual army in any game of AvP: Unleashed, which is a good milestone.

Hi

This is the time of the last message of the year. 2020 has been quite a strange ride in many ways, but at least it allowed me to launch several projects i had since a long time. This is even the first year i have something to share on the very last day i believe.

So today it is with Sergeant Centurus of the Legion of the Damned that i close the year, making my roster of characters for my 2nd edition army complete.

It was a limited edition released in 1996 and also the very first miniature specifically produced for the Legion.

I've tried to make its skin as ghastly as possible to remind of its health state. You may notice the banner is the same i gave the Commander, which is on purpose. Banners are used to make individual identity shine, and i imagine the dying Legion to forfeit all matter of ego and self identity since their change.

Here it goes:

With Centurus i'm reaching an amount of 114 minis painted in 2020! Well, some are very small 6mm stuff so i've counted bases with 2 Squat bikes as only one, seems more than enough.

Let's hope 2021 allows to play with them..

Hello

First episode of a side project: getting into Battletech

Battletech is one of the elders in the miniature game world. I've had two occasions to try it, the most recent one being at the last French Oldhammer Day thanks to a friend who's a big fan.

The universe itself is very dense and well written. Rules can seem a bit overcomplicated but they are stable and give that taste of classic wargame i enjoy. In Battletech, you put robots in the mud to fight but you keep track of ammos and engine heat.

This last game made me want to jump in but the official range of miniatures was not appealing to me. Moreover, the game suffers from a major flaws: you have to be a rocket scientist to get how to organize an actual game, rules being spread in a lot of various books.

I still believe the narrative simulation aspect of the game, finding its roots in classic historical wargames, makes it worth it, hence my decision to get in through this door.

With the recent Kickstarter (still messy as hell) relaunching the game and the video game, an official campaign starting where the video game story stopped has been published. I've decided to paint all the miniatures of every mechwarrior fighting this campaign to have some kind of deluxe star set to discover the game with friends.

I've started with the Lyran Commonwealth lance featured in the first scenario. Sorry for bad pictures quality, i didn't manage to handle the white and the light..

Let's start with Sergeant Ian Connoly piloting the Thunderbolt TDR-5S

65 tons of steel makes this heavy class mech a powerful foe with its weaponry: long range 15 tubes missile launcher on the shoulder, large laser in the right arm, 2 short range missiles and 3 medium lasers in its torso, and a pair of machinguns on the left arm.

Then comes Karl Schneider in his Griffin GRF-1N. This 45 tons medium class mech is coming with a cannon particules projector, nothing less! You can also see on his shoulder a 10 tubes long range missile launcher

Third mechwarrior, Jean Bernard in a Wolverine WVR-6R. Another medium class mech of 55 tons with an autocanon on its arm, short range missiles in the torso and a medium laser attached to the head where Jean sits. Sounds safe!

I close this lance with what may be my favourite of the team, the Catapult CPLT-C1 driven by Lotte Janssen. This heavy class mech brings two long range missile launcher able to deliver 15 candies each and four medium laser, isn't that nice ?

The whole family gathered together:

Since Battletech can be played on grids or regular boards, i've chose clear bases with names of pilots and machines written on the edges.

To be continued...

All right.

Last time i published about my Epic Squat army project, i promised something heavy, and i think i'm delivering now.

Like all the miniatures of this era, scale is a bit off and the miniature itself might look pretty small, but this is nonetheless a massive engine (and cute!) engine of destruction: the Squat Land Train !

I'm not sure anything could me more impractical on a battlefield, especially trying to shoot on the sides with the giant flamer of death (aka "Dragon Car") with a gun that obviously does not have any gear to turn on itseld but whatever!

The land train is to me one the most emblematic machine of this range. Bulky, stupid, and overly weaponized

In a game of massive combat like Epic, being as a Squat player the only one who can bring an actual NUCLEAR BOMB on the battlefield is a tasty pleasure. You brought walking guys with guns and axes ? Cute, but you should cover your eyes now 'cause i just pushed the red button.

The little castle on rail is actually home of Berzerkers warriors ready to storm on any ennemy that would come to close and yet survive the roar of the dragon car.

I feel like it's a good milestone event for the army. Now, let's see if we can find some even more massive guns to support this creature of beauty...