Tag: Black Templars

Mind blowingly unproductive! yes! that’s me!

Yes, it’s true. I haven’t picked up a paint brush in a few weeks now… That pesky thing called ‘real life’ keeps getting in the way. Inbetween remodelling my bathroom, birthdays, financial/work related stress, consistent travelling to the future-in-laws and then a double whammy of being told that my home is now worth only 50% of what I paid for it, painting has been far from my mind. Actually, not strictly true. I just finished ‘Age of Darkness’ in the Horus Heresy series, and wasted no time in starting the Blood Angels omnibus. I’ve actually wanted to be painting, but just could not be arsed to do it. Oh, and then there was that other small distraction that I have had lately – playing Space Marine on the Xbox. How frakkin’ good is that game? i’m addicted!! I was getting a little bored of just dealing with greenskins and got a total nerd boner when frakkin Chaos marines turned up, even some Blight Drones! So, I guess in a sorta roundabout way, I have been keeping my hand in the hobby… sorta…

Although I haven’t been committing brush to miniature, I have been constructing. I based up a bunch of my Flames of War chaps on some sweet scenic bases that Gale Force 9 recently put out. I also assembled my Wolf Priest for my fledgling Space Wolves force and I also picked up the Finecast Emperors Champion, which I felt needed a little extra ‘something’.

I lucked out again, as it seems that this mini had no issues in the quality control area, so assembly was a snap (and thankfully nothing snapped). I decided to put him on a scenic base, rather than a standard one and add sand. I dug around in my bits drawer and found a MicroArt Studios base which I thought would do the trick nicely. I pinned him to the base, putting a little hint of an angle in there to hopefully give the image of movement. He is stepping forward and I wanted it to look as though he was going to step over the piece of ruin on the base.

Given the medieval feel of the Black Templars, and especially this miniature, I felt that he was missing something. I find it hard to believe that this guy would just march out into a battlefield without some other form of protection other than his battle plate. So, I gave him a shield. This was from the Scibor range of 40K friendly accoutrements. It’s big, and it fits the image perfectly, so, I cut off his hand and repositioned it, then added the shield. I made a green stuff handle as well, to make it look like he’s actually holding it:

I know it’s not a game legal piece of kit, but for decorate purposes I think it looks bad ass. I’m hoping to make a start on him this weekend, but we’ll see…

Ta ta(s) for now!

100th Post! Today is Old Stuff Day… Black Templars revisited!

Rob over at Warhammer 39,999 had a great idea for resurrecting old blog posts that may have been missed by newer readers, or just forgotten about in the annals of internet time.

I guess When Cannons Fade is still in it’s infancy when you look at some of the other big players out there, but thats ok. I’ve never really been one to post up army lists, dissect rules, or start working on the math behind my beloved hobby (I leave all that complicated stuff to Dethtron 🙂 ).

I do however, enjoy focusing more on the hobby side of the game, the painting, converting, WIP side of it, so thats what this contribution to Old Stuff Day will be, a look back on my boys in black, my Templars.

This post from back in February 2009 showcased my efforts for the founding of my Templar chapter. I had acquired the Assault on Black Reach box set, and given the Orkses away to my buddy Evan. I thought that this would be a great way to start an army, or at least bulk up the plastics I had already been amassing.

First to be tackled was the Dreadnought. The snap-fit style of the set was good, although I think they used a harder type of plastic, because cutting and trimming it was a bitch! Eventually, after some blood, sweat and tears were expended the honored brother, in all his resplendent glory, was finished:

Don’t forget to check out the original post for more views: http://whencannonsfade.com/2009/02/27/completed-the-aobr-dready/

Fast forward to August of 2009. After tinkering around with some other bits and pieces, I did a test run on how I would be painting my boys in black. I was very happy with the results:

Before

 

 

After

 

 

 

You can see the post and pictures in it’s entirety here: http://whencannonsfade.com/2009/08/27/chaos-lord-wip-and-black-templar/

November 2009 sees the appearance of my Black Templar Assault Marines. Exactly as the label says:

So there we have it, a couple of snap shots from WCF’s past. Since then I feel that I have improved on my painting skills (i’m pretty pleased with my Templar Rhino with xtra armor, and my Landspeeder). There will be more Templar goodness to come, but I do hope you’ll swing by the WCF TARDIS and have a look back through the archives!

Yes, this is an old picture of me with the TARDIS...

Cheers!

Paul

Black Templar Rhino with xtra armor/armour

This seemed to take waaaaay too long to paint. I’m not too sure why. Maybe because you can’t be as ‘slap happy’ with marine vehicles like you can with say, Imperial Guard vehicles. Well, I guess you can, but it just doesn’t work as well, IMO.

The Forge World armor pieces were pretty much a pain in the arse to work with. Some parts were bent, others ridiculously warped and at least 2 pieces had shrunk, yes shrunk. Making the best of a bad situation, I forged ahead (geddit? Forged? Forge World? never mind…) and this was the finished product:

The Templar cross was masked off and sprayed onto the roof, then weathered to show wear and tear. I’m pleased with the results, I just hope that my other vehicles (i’m looking at you, Vindicator) won’t take as long.

In the meantime, having OB’d (over blacked) i’m going to take a few days off from painting Templars, and having a go with something with a bit more color to it (well, slightly more, I guess). I started one last night. Here is a teaser:

As always, C+C always welcome!

A dream of wolves in the snow…

OK, 1,000 extra internet cool points if you can guess the reference in the post title 🙂

I actually finished my Wolf Guard in TDA last night, and boy was I glad. I’m keen to get rolling on some other projects I have lined up. I’m guessing there is about 12 hours of work in this mini, give or take. I’m pleased with the results, although I have to say that the whole waterslide transfer thing on marine shoulder pads is very frustrating. 3 attempts at securing one on this shoulder guard (even with applying Microsol) proved fruitless and saw me wanting to take a hammer to the figure, as the Microsol actually started taking the paint off the mini.

After cooling my jets and repainting the shoulder guard, I though f*ck it, I’ll stick with what I know is a tried and tested method – hand painting the bastard on. So I did. I think it actually turned out pretty well.

I’m still going to have a shot at painting a Space Wolf in darker grey armor, to satisfy my curiosity, but it will have to wait for now.

In other news, my loyal Black Templars have been sorely neglected, but no longer! I bought a couple of torsos from Ebay from the ‘Masters of the Chapter’ set, with the intent of converting them into Castellans or Marshalls or something, to lead my zealous Templars into the fray.

My first selection was the Master of the Arsenal (not the football team!). I chose this basically because of the feet (nothing kinky). The feet look like they are from an old suit of armor, so that sold me straight away.  Over my lunch break yesterday I got to sketching a rough idea of what this chap will look like with some simple additions and converting. I’m still unsure on the power weapon, so that is subject to change. Here is what I have:

You can see my notes there too, as I would’ve probably forgotten which bits I needed.  My son saw this drawing when I took it home last night and wanted it, so I told him I would get a copy and he can color it for Daddy. I told him I’d post it on here before I stick it on the fridge too 🙂 Bless him!

OK, thats it for now. More to come shortly!

Some WIP updates – multi-tasking aint so bad.

Throwing caution to the wind, I have actually been working on several projects at once. I’ve actually found it somewhat liberating, as I can see progression on a number of different things at once, instead of painting one mini/unit and then thinking ‘wow, I still have a shit load of stuff to do’.

Did some more work on Evan’s Nurgle Rhino. I figured I should as I was running out of excuses lol! Weathered it a little, using the same technique I had used on my Chimera a little while back:

Next i’ll be adding the rusted metal colors on there, and figuring out what color to do all the gross bits. Painting this up prompted me to start another side project, which happened frighteningly quick, but I won’t go into detail here, as i’m writing a separate article about it. I’ll show you a teaser though:

I also started on a Wolf Guard Terminator as well. He’s painted using the recipe I used on the other shap I showed  y’all recently.  I’ll be redoing the flesh though, as I wasn’t happy with the way it turned out with this formula:

Arse shot!

There are some spots that need tidying up, but I want to add some weathering too, so I’ll wait till i’ve done that. I also have a Black Templar Rhino sitting on my worktop that keeps honking it’s horn impatiently at me. I suspect that little bugger will get worked on over the Thanksgiving holiday.

Thats it for today! i’ll be back shortly, enjoy!

Paul

Rally round the flag, boys, rally once again!

Last Sunday, in all its warm sunny glory, saw myself, my good lady Diana, my son and my future mother-in-law high-tailing it down I-80 to Minooka, Illinois to go to a pumpkin patch. We were to rendezvous with Colin (Dethtron) and his Dr. Girlfriend there shortly after noon. This place was pretty cool, it was relatively cheap and there was a lot of stuff going on, including, much to my excitement, an American Civil War battle re-enactment. Anyone who knows me well will know of my love for the ACW, and will know that I was once a ACW re-enactor myself in ol’ Blighty (yes, we really do have ACW re-enactments over there!). I was a private (later Corporal) in the 24th Michigan, part of the ‘Iron Brigade’.

It’s been a good 15 or so years since I took to the field amidst the rattle of musket fire and the earth-shaking boom from the artillery, and it was great to see the field pieces set up ready for action. We all walked around the living history camps before the battle started, in both US and CS areas. I was like a big kid and was loving every minute of it. I had to share my nerdy knowledge of the Civil War with the others as we wandered about. I remarked to Colin that this was ‘Wargaming on a larger scale’. It was great to hear the fife and drum music, to which I could sing the old marching song words to. Dr. Girlfriend found a new friend in one of the the Cavalry’s mounts, and apparently spent the rest of the afternoon mentioning about ‘getting another horse’. Good luck with that one Dethy. I’m sure you’re garden is big enough for it and Loki won’t mind 🙂

Cannons roared and muskets sung their battle hymns as the confederate forces tried to repel the armies of the North, and seemed to do well in the first instance, but then the line began to crumble and the Army of the Potomac gained more and more ground by the minute ending in a defeat and surrender for the Confederate forces.

After the display we hauled ass all the way back down the hill to the farm, where it dawned on me that I had caught the sun pretty well. Dammit! Dethy was asked (read: told) by the little fella to ‘pick me up’ and was consequently carried back down the hill for the most part. I’m pretty sure that he was being taught how to spit as well. Thanks Uncle Dethron!

Probably up to no good...

Man, was I bitten by the bug again! I did mention that I would like to get back into re-enactment, but I got ‘the look’ from Diana, which told me ‘don’t you dare!’ So I guess I’ll have to assuage my hunger for this by attending other events and actually painting my 15mm ACW army and playing the rules system I have. Not suprisingly, a lot of the people on the ‘scene’ (back home, at least) who were re-enactors were/are also ardent wargamers…

So, we saw lots of pumpkins, a couple of tantrums (boy that was fun…) and ate way more unhealthy food that we probably should have: funnel cake, pizza, chocolate preztels, real lemonade etc etc.

On my signal... ...unleash hell!

 

In other news, played a game of 40K against my buddy Evan on Saturday. I fielded my holy Black Templars against his foul traitors of Chaos. Evan managed to squeak out a win, due mostly in part by a couple of stupid decisions on my part later in the game. The dice gods were certainly not with me that day either. I’m not a sore loser (for the most part, lol!) but I really did seem to be making constant lousy rolls throughout the game, so, after we finished, I filed them in the garbage can… So, I need to get some new ones. I’d actually heard about the GW dice cube die having air bubbles and whatnot in them (not that I’m using this for an excuse) but I thought I should just try some new ones anyway.

I’ll be starting on a Black Templar Rhino this week, and I’ll be posting a tutorial on that as well, so stay tuned!

Cheers!

Paul.

Product review – Scibor Monstrous Miniatures

Product review – Scibor Monstrous Miniatures.

I happened upon this company some time ago when I saw some one off custom Primarch sculpts they had produced. I was also very interested in the excellent sculpting articles that they have too (check them out!) Scibor appear to be a small independent company based in Poland who are relatively new to the marketplace. They seem to be gaining a lot of momentum with their own lines of Dwarves, Goblins, priests, beasties and conversion bits (amongst a plethora of other products), and it’s easy to see why people will shop with them. Quite simply, their products are great!

I had been meaning to purchase something for a while, and with me wanting to personalize my Black Templar forces, I figured Scibor would be the place to start. I placed an order on their snappy and rather slick looking website for some ‘Big Templar shields’ and some ‘Templar shoulder pads’ to get the ball rolling. The ordering process is nice and simple, and they accept PayPal, which is also very convenient. The prices are very reasonable, and the standard of the detail means you’re getting a pretty good deal all round. After my order was placed I got a confirmation email from them, which unfortunately I couldn’t understand a word of, due to the language barrier, but I got the general gist of it.

It took about a month for the order to get to me, which is not so great, but then it is coming from Poland, hardly just down the street! I did notice on the site it says they mail out orders seven days after receiving payment, and that it takes two to three weeks for delivery.

After receiving a ‘final notice’ slip from the post office (even though it was the first one I’d received, weird!) I picked up my order. It had been sent in a small bubble pack envelope, which was pretty flimsy. Inside were two little baggies, one with the shields, and one with the shoulder pads. Two of the shields had been broken, which I am sure is a result of USPS taking their upmost care in handling packages, and also a chunk had snapped off one of the shoulder pads. This was disappointing, especially after waiting for a month for it to arrive.

Initial disappointment aside, it was nice to get this stuff in hand to get a good look at it, and I have to say, it’s really nice quality workmanship. The resin that it’s cast in feels quite substantial and pretty heavy duty. The breaks were clean, so I’m sure I’ll be able to repair them with no problem. I’m looking forward to having some plastic Sword Brethren now!

So, in summary:

  • A great company with some really nice products.
  • Some incredible sculpting talent.
  • Some nice tutorials!
  • A little slow on shipping (but this is a variable that you can’t control unless it’s through a carrier like UPS or something).
  • Scibor could take a leaf from Forge World’s book on shipping. Ship breakable stuff in boxes, not mailer bags, with plenty of cushioning, if you have to charge more for shipping to do so, do it! People will still buy your products!

I’ll give Scibor 3 ½ mortar shells out of 5 for now. I will be purchasing more from them soon. In the meantime, check out their website at:

http://www.sciborminiatures.com/

Painting Black Templar marines

I just finished up a couple of articles (over there, in the ‘pages’ section ==>) on painting Black Templars. There is also a separate page for painting the robes, as I have had numerous requests as to how to do it. Hopefully  it will give you all a helping hand to get your loyalist zealots on the field quicker! I may add a couple more pictures up in the article, but my camera seems to be acting up, so I want to get that sorted out. Grrr!

You can clicky on this linky right here to get to the article.

Let me know what you think!

Cheers

Paul

An unnerving talent….

I was spacing out the other day, wondering what was going to be next on the project table for me to tinker with when I realized that all the armies I choose to collect, painstakingly paint and game with all seem to be obsolete (pretty much) or do so shortly after my decision.

Sisters of Battle.

Well, we all know where this is right now, well, we don’t, thats actually the whole point. I started collecting my Witch Hunters force back in about 2004 when I wanted to just start collecting and painting minis again. I bought the codex too. It wasn’t until I went uber serious with gaming again (thanks Colin) that I decided to ctually get a playable force together and went out nd bought the 40K rulebook too. Double whammy on this one. No less than 6 months after me buying the rulebook, then that edition was updated to the current edition. DOH! No matter. I picked up the mini ‘rules bits only’ book from the AoBR set, which I still use. Then, all of a sudden, we find out that the Inquisitorial forces of the Imperium are slowly vanishing. Are we getting an overhaul? are we going the way of the Squats? will we actually get plastic Sisters? The last few months have seen Witch Hunters stock disappearing from shelves, including the codex, and then, in turn, the stock becoming unavailable online through GWs web portal. There’s been a lot of nay-sayers and doom bringers on the interwebs, but conversely there have also been some very positive hints and possible ‘leaks’. For the most part, it seems to be the way of GW to snipe a line from sale for it to be released further down the line. This seems positive, although I hope it’s not going to be another year or two off. 50 points for a rhino? pffft! updated codex please!

Black Templars

I decided I wanted to dabble with the Emperors finest, Space Marines. I didn’t want a vanilla force, and certainly not Smurfmarines. I saw the codex for Black Templars and fell in love (figuratively speaking). Maintaining an almost grim, medieval kvltness about them, I thought they were perfect. Well, now I hear that these chaps will be getting a makeover soon, although I also heard on the grapevine they might be axed. I’m more inclined to believe the former rather than the latter, considering the fluff, and the the fact they are a progenetor chapter of the Imperial Fists. Still, I guess we’ll see. Just as well I am putting together an auxillary of Salamanders…. 😉

Tomb Kings

I got bitten by the WFB bug again, and with Colin amassing an Empire force, I wanted to get in on some axes and maces action. I went with Tomb Kings – Skeletons =cool. Egyptian skeletons with a host of nasty stuff and something akin to the Lost ark of the Covenant = epic WIN. I have managed to score an obscene amount of stuff on Ebay for this, which is awesome, so I don’t feel too bad about collecting this army. It wasn’t until I was surfing one of my regular haunts that I started picking up on other TK players getting twitchy as the army doesn’t seem to be getting any love, apparently because of it’s somewhat ‘fringe’ status, and it not being as popular as the usual Orcs, Chaos etc. I’m hoping for a new army book, although it has just been announced that Orcs and Gobbos are to be released in May, so yet again, something else that will probably be the end of this year, start of early next year. I’m reaaaally hoping they make some new minis to coincide with this, as the Liche Priests and Bone Giant minis = f*cking awful.

With so much being up in the air, i’m wondering whether to shelve the SoBs and TKs, concentrate on my Templars see what happens. At least I can proxy the marines :p

Which leads me to my Lizardmen. A newly refurbished army, new book, new minis, and i’m collecting them! HA! nothing can go wrong with this one….

Templar Landspeeder completed! (at last!)

Finished my first Templar landspeeder last night. It’s taken a little while, but I am pleased with the results. I am still trying to perfect my weathering ‘skills’, but i’m pretty happy with the results on this. I have a second landspeeder thats in the ‘to do’ line, but I am still trying to locate a flamer to mount under the nose. I guess I’ll start on some troops next, as I’m a little burnt out on doing vehicles lol! >eyeballs Land Raider Crusader warily<

C+C very welcome, cheers!

Paul