Argus the Brazen

Contrary to what I said last week, you will still have to wait for a bit longer for that lavish feature showing my fully painted HeroQuest set, bot because I simply haven’t managed to take the required photos yet — but also this cheeky gentleman here just happened to jump the queue:

Indeed, it’s the FW World Eaters Dread I already shared with you a while ago and originally given to me as a gift by fellow hobbyist Augustus b’Raass.

Originally, I only really brought the Dreadnought along to one of my recent hobby sessions at my friend Annie’s place so I would have something to keep me occupied during the drying times for my HeroQuest furniture. But then I was able to complete the feet and base really quickly:

And why stop there, right? So this is what I had when I headed home that evening — on top of the painted HeroQuest stuff, no less! 😉

And after that, it was mostly a matter of painting piece after piece. Dreadnoughts are rather enjoyable to work on in that it’s easy to paint one part after the other and assemble the model as you go.

One thing I definitely knew I wanted to feature was a stunning contrast between the red armour and a striking, blue-turquoise colour for the planet that is part of the World Eaters iconography adorning the Dreadnought’s sarcophagus:

The colour was achieved by basecoating the planets with a mix of Vallejo’s Magic Blue and Milenario Turquoise (always great for a bit of pop, those two!) and a drop of white. Then the entire area was washed with a mix of Drakenhof Nightshade and thinned-down Milenario Turquoise. And then I carefully drybrushed the area with white to just pick out the slightest bit of surface texture. Anyway, I am pretty happy with the way the area has come out on the finished body:

While we are on the technicalities, let me also give another shout out to the Dreadnought’s head, a brilliant little piece that I think is just a wonderful sculpt — and one that is unfortunately obscured quite a bit by the rest of the body:

I think there is something wonderfully menacing and gladiatorial about the design, and the cabling evokes the World Eaters’ Butcher’s Nails implants rather beautifully. And while the head doesn’t shine quite as much as it could on the finished model, it’s a good thing, then, that I have already used the design on several models, such as one of my 30k World Eaters Contemptors and, of course, on Worker #9:

Anyway, I soldiered on and was able to finish the entire body in fairly short order:

Which left we with only the arms left to paint — I gave special care to the right arm I had converted from plastic bitz (whereas the rest of the model is all resin), trying to make it look like a stock part of the Dreadnought. Here’s a picture from midway through the painting process:

In the end, things came together fairly quickly. So here, without further ado, is the 4th assault company’s newest member:

 

Argus the Brazen
XII Legion, 4th assault company

Gosh, it feels like it’s been ages since I have managed to paint a proper World Eaters model. And what’s more, I surely took my sweet time getting this model painted, seeing how Augustus gave it to me back in 2017!

But in my defense, I did want to do the Dread proper justice, especially since it was a gift, and I also needed to come up with a proper, modernised recipe for painting World Eaters that wasn’t just a lazy knock-off of my older, defunct World Eaters recipe. In fact, my new approach has ultimately evolved out of my work on my Imperial Knight and, more recently, the first of my Armiger Warglaives:

And to show you how my painting has – hopefully – evolved, here’s a comparison shot with Argus next to a Dreadnought using my old recipe — incidentally the first Dreadnought I ever painted, back in 2011 or so, Marax the Fallen:

While the photo – invariably, it seems, – eats up some of the finer points of my newer paintjob, I hope you’ll agree that my recipe has become a bit more sophisticated.

So yeah, I am pretty happy with the finished model. And of course, thanks must go, once again, to Augustus b’Raass for providing me with this lovely OOP model! Cheers, buddy! 🙂

Oh, and after a bit of a dry spell on that account, this model also sees me rejoin Azazel’s regular community challenges, as I feel Argus just makes for a very fitting contribution for Azazel’s Mechanismo May challenge, wouldn’t you agree?

And with a proper new World Eaters recipe now sorted out, who knows: There may be even more chaos in the cards sooner rather than later. Just sayin’… 😉

For now, however, I am pleased with having finished something suitably Khornate again! And I would love to hear any thoughts you might have, so feel free to leave a comment! And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more! 🙂

3rd birthday and some tributes to the Hunt

Oh my, Eternal Hunt has turned three! I think we can actually call this blog settled now, can’t we? 😉

Seriously, though: I am very happy to have managed three years of constant blogging about my various hobby projects, and I am also quite proud of the numbers: There have been 256 posts overall (62 of those in during my third year of blogging). What’s more, this blog has managed to attract about 360,000 views in total — and more than 175,000 of those views during my third year of blogging — just to put things into perspective: That’s only slightly less than the overall number of views on this blog in its first and second years together! All of this is really pretty amazing, given the fact that it’s just little ol’ me and my shoddily painted little plastic men here 😉

I am also really proud of having managed to attract 177 followers and receive visitors from as many as 138 counties! You guys rock, and I want to assure you that every single comment is really important for keeping me on track and for bolstering my (often fleeting) hobby motivation! So please keep reading and please keep participating! You guys are the only proof that I am not just talking to myself here, in my little bubble within the warp!

But I don’t just want to bombard you with numbers today, I would also like to promise you that I will keep updating this blog with my latest conversions, paintjobs and my thoughts about new model releases. There will be quite a bit of red and bronze, seeing how my World Eaters continue to be my most important hobby project:

But there will also be more shadowy figures from the underhive. And blinged-out guys in golden armour (hopefully). And grennskins n football gear, I suppose?!

 

For now, by way of celebration, allow me to share two things that may not have been intended as birthday gifts for this blog in the first place, but that nevertheless please me very much. And either of these would not have come into existence without my venturing out into the wilds of the internet in order to chronicle my hobby endeavours 😉

 

I. A portrait of an angry man

First up, I believe I may have mentioned some time ago that I managed to win a small competition run by fellow hobbyist Greyall. For those who don’t know Greyall, he is known for producing extraordinarily detailed and awesome line artwork depicting (Chaos) Space Marines, so it won’t be a big surprise to you that I’ve craved such a piece of artwork showing one of my characters for quite a while.

So imagine my joy when Greyall liked my conversion for Lord Captain Lorimar well enough to render him in his trademark style! Allow me to share the result with you. Just to remind you, here’s my converted (but yet unpainted, alas) model for Lorimar:

And here’s Greyall’s take on the character, showing the Master of the Hunt during a duel with a warp-spawned monstrosity in service to Slaanesh:

Lord Captain Lorimar by Greyall

What can I say? Finally having such an awesome piece of art depicting what may be the most important character from my favourite army project makes me so happy! A huge thank you to Greyall! And definitely make sure to head over to Greyall’s thread at The Bolter & Chainsword or to his DeviantArt page and check out his amazing work! Now the only thing left to do is to find someone to professionally colour this piece for me…

 

II. A hunter’s story

The second thing I would like to show you today is a bit of a cooperative project: Some time ago, Flint13 (also one of my hobbyists of the year 2014, in case you forgot) approached me with an idea for a fun hobby challenge: Flint wanted to build and paint a character from Khorne’s Eternal Hunt as a bit of a shout out to my army, and I was to compose an accompanying bit of fluff. Knowing that Flint usually doesn’t relish the prospect of doing 40k chaos, I was pretty honoured by this idea, and a short time later, she showed me this picture of the completed model:

Model converted and painted by Flint13

Certainly a worthy addition to Khorne’s Eternal Hunt, wouldn’t you say? But what about this guy’s background? Well, let me share the story I came up with. Enjoy!

 

Hunters

Flames were already billowing from the ramshackle habs as the Hunter strode into the settlement. He turned his horned helm this way and that, surveying the destruction and slaughter surrounding him. What remained of the poor wretches who had eked out a meagre living here in the freezing wastelands of a backwater world at the fringes of Imperial space spoke of violent, careless slaughter, but there was something more underneath it: A frantic need the Hunter understood but found distasteful.
He paced around the main square of the settlement, his warrior’s mind piecing together the events: the desperate but eventually futile struggle. The bloodletting. And what seemed to be the pursuit of a few settlers that had somehow managed to escape the slaughter. The Hunter examined the tracks leading through the outer parts of the settlement and into the wilderness beyond, already being covered up by the falling snow, here where the heat of the flames was not as intense.

The Hunter cocked his head, listening and sniffing. Again, his head turned this way and that, as he tried to find a trace of his prey. Suddenly, he paused. And if someone had been very close by, they might have noticed a telltale glint of bared teeth behind his helmet’s mouth slit: a feral, hungry thing of a smile. But nobody was there to see. All that remained in the settlement was death. His ancient warplate thrumming, the Hunter set off towards the east. Towards his prey.

***

The thrill of the hunt started to recede, and already Iriralar Nightclaw was feeling a flutter of disappointment. He had spent hours artfully stalking his prey, slowly separating each of the Mon’Keigh’ from the group, then taking them down one by one. If he had just wanted to kill them, it would have been a quick task, but Iriralar had wanted to wring every possible drop of pleasure from this particular hunt, and he had succeeded in that. Nevertheless, with the game so very nearly over, he couldn’t help feeling a nagging sense of regret.
He looked at the poor wretch scrambling away from him now on hands and knees, leaving crimson traces in the snow. Still so desperate to get away. Iriralar almost had to smile in recognition of his prey’s perseverance. Alas, all good things must come to an end.
Slowly, ever so slowly, Iriralar drew his blades, the curved steel only giving the faintest whisper as it slid from its twin sheaths. The Mon’Keigh stared at him in utter horror and despair, but still kept crawling away from him. Iriralar bared sharp, pearly white teeth in a predator’s smile:
“So then, shall we dance?”

When it was over – and it was over far too soon – Iriralar stepped back from what remained of his prey. It was not much, and even that would soon be lost under a blanket of snow. Iriralar slowly breathed in the sweet scent of a dying soul. He would have to return to his raiding party soon.
Going after a pack of Mon’Keigh cattle on his own was an indulgence, surely, but nobody would dare reprimand the Lord Archon’s own son for such behavior. Iriralar smiled to himself…
…and froze.

There was something close by. Iriralar could smell it. Surely, none of his prey could have eluded him? He focused and inhaled. Indeed, it was a Mon’Keigh. But there was something more: The creature’s animal stink was compounded by the acrid tang of a metabolism retuned, a body crudely reshaped into something else…and there was something underneath all of that, something even more sublime… Iriralar smiled to himself. Maybe this hunt was not over after all…

***

The hunt had been going on for hours now, and Iriralar’s earlier exhilaration at the prospect of worthy prey had begun to turn into a nagging sense of irritation. It felt like his quarry was leading him around in circles, but there seemed to be little point in it: He kept his distance, yet always stayed in sight. There was something decidedly off about this situation, and Iriralar craved some kind of resolution

He had at first thought the Mon’Keigh to belong to one of the primitive warrior orders that had pledged themselves to the carrion god. But not this one – just a few short glances at his ancient power armour were proof that the Astartes served one of the lords of the warp: the Blood God. Which made this game of cat and mouse all the more irritating and strange.
Suddenly, the towering form came to a halt, standing at the center of a clearing Iriralar was sure they had passed before.  With a hum of servo motors, the Mon’Keigh turned to face Iriralar.

The towering figure seemed like a heathen idol dreamt up by a madman: The bulky Astartes armour was jagged and baroque, with talismans and trophies dangling from its shoulder pads. Across the Mon’Keigh’s chest was a bandolier of skulls that clacked softly with every move. And though encrusted with hoarfrost, the arterial red and brass of the armour was clearly visible beneath.

Iriralar had learned the Mon’ Keigh language, not out of a fascination with their culture, but for a far more practical reason: He enjoyed being able to understand his prey’s last whimpered words.  He had thus become very familiar with the intricacies of the Mon’Keigh’s blunt and primitive emotions, and it was for this reason that he was able to hear a smile in the Astartes’ voice when he called out to Iriralar: “Time to end this, don’t you think?”
As if to accompany his words, he slowly drew his weapons: a huge axe and an ancient, baroque chainblade. He gunned the chainblade’s trigger, as if to check its function, and the axe’s head flared up in a blue white power field. Iriralar thought he could make out the glint of a smile underneath the warrior’s horned helmet, but before he could be sure, the massive Astartes threw himself at Iriralar with astonishing speed. Iriralar’s blades hissed from their sheats, and the dance was on.

Fast though he might have been, the Mon’Keigh was too slow for Iriralar: It was almost too easy to avoid his swings and sidestep his towering form. At the same time, however, his thick warplate deflected most of Iriralar’s probing slashes, so he would need to wait for an opening, for an exposed joint or a bared throat. But he was patient enough – his earlier irritation had been replaced with a feeling of rapture that made his blood run hot.

On and on, the dance went, the snow underneath slowly turning into a slippery trap. Iriralar noticed the first telltale signs of fatigue in his enemy, the strain of having to keep up with a much faster opponent. His lips peeled back from his white teeth in an amused smile: Time to end this.

The huge Mon’Keigh attacked. Too slow. Always too slow. Iriralar almost laughed out loud as he ghosted out of the way and saw his enemy stumble forward due to his momentum, opening up an opportunity to strike. This was it. Iriralar saw his stumbling enemy as though in slow motion as he jumped forward. He would end the Mon’Keigh beast. So close now. Just a hearbeat until the kill.
The moment his feet touched the ground, there was a sharp, metallic sound. Then pain, unbearable pain. Iriralar’s eyes snapped to the ground, seeing the ugly, serrated metal jaws that had lain hidden underneath the thick blanket of snow. That had closed with a whip crack when he had disturbed the trap, punching through his legs, tearing flesh and breaking bone. With a cry of anguish, Iriralar crumpled to the floor in a graceless slump.
He felt the rush of the combat stims that took the white hot edge off the pain, and he tried to get up, to get away. But the jagged metal teeth would not let go, pinning him to the ground. Over his own panting breath, Iriralar could hear a low chuckle, as the towering form of the Mon’Keigh approached him:

“It is an old trick, I will give you that. But one that does not produce any heat or scanner readings. All it requires is a bit of preparation.”

Iriralar frantically tried to reach his fallen blades, but it was impossible. He could not get away either. The strain made the blood pump from his legs at an alarming rate, and he could feel the spike of pain even through the haze induced by the combat drugs. The Mon’Keigh slowly circled him, seeming amused by the situation. He pointed to the scrimshawed bone trinkets adorning Iriralar’s armour:
“I see you enjoy taking trophies”, he growled, “In that, we are not so different, you and I.”
Irialar spat a gob of bloody phlegm at the Astartes and bared his teeth in a rictus grin: “Do you expect me to be afraid, filthy Mon’Keigh? There is nothing you could possibly do to me that would scare me.”

Once more, Iriralar could hear the smile in the Mon’Keigh’s words: “Ah, but that is where you are wrong. You see, a good hunter learns all there is to learn about his prey, is that not right? And I have had a very long time to learn…”

With that he pulled something from a pouch at his belt and held it out. A glint of metal was visible as the small object fell from his hand, dangling by a fine silver thread. A jewel, it seemed. Iriralar focused on the gem, in spite of the pain, in spite of the danger. It seemed important somehow. He focused and felt his blood run cold:
Dangling from the Astartes’ fist was a spirit stone.

“So, then. Shall we begin?”

***

When it was over, the Hunter stepped away from his prey. He had learned much, more than he had anticipated. It had been a successful hunt.

He opened a vox channel and said but a single word:

“Hokar”
“Acknowledged”, came the Huntmaster’s reply. His spireborn sneer of a voice managed to make a single word sound haughty, even over the temperamental vox. The arrogant high-rider bastard.
“Scouting complete. The Eldar pirates have moved on the main settlements. They do not suspect our presence and should be blind to anything but their current…entertainment.”
“Numbers?”
“Only a raiding party about a hundred strong. It seems they did not expect much resistance. In that, they were wrong.”
“And the Archon?”
“He is with them. He has led us a merry dance, but now the hunt is nearly at an end.”
“Maybe. Did you get visual confirmation?”
“Of course. What do you take me for?”
Hokar did not miss a beat: “What I take you for right now, hunter, is a soldier two hundred clicks off his mark, which I am certain you have a perfectly valid reason for. What, pray tell, have you been doing down there?”
“Tying up some loose ends. But fear not, I am on my way.” Again, anybody near enough to witness this exchange might have seen that telltale glint of teeth that gave away the Hunter’s smile as he terminated the vox link.
And maybe, just maybe, such a person would also have noticed  a small gem now dangling from the Hunter’s belt. A strange touch of beauty on the legionary’s jagged and pitted armour, the stone was now  imbued with a fire that rendered it even more beautiful. But nobody was there to witness this, so it went unnoticed.

The Hunter set out towards the west, where new prey waited.

 

Flint seemed to be happy enough with this little vignette — in fact, she even changed the model to incorporate an element of the story. Take a close look:

Model converted and painted by Flint13

So thanks to Flint13 for building and painting such a worthy new recruit for the 4th assault company! And for making me get off my arse and write a suitable piece of background!

 

And, of course, thanks to you all! I am always happy to hear any feedback you might have — just drop me a comment! And stick around for year four, alright? 😉

As always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Blood and Brass, pt. 2: Once more into the breach!

Welcome to the second instalment of this mini-series about my latest additions to the ranks of Khorne’s Eternal Hunt, in which we meet yet another friendly face from the 4th assault company. And while the Doomwall was already pretty heavily armoured, we’ll be cranking up the heavy metal factor a notch for this guy — that’s right, we’re talking about another Dreadnought/Helbrute for my World Eaters!

Everything started when I bought myself a Dreadnought sprue from the Black Reach boxed set a while ago. Since working on my earlier Dreadnoughts had also resulted in a rather sizeable collection of different Dreadnought weapons, I felt that building another customisable Dread would be the best way to make the most out of all those weapon options. And since I wanted to keep things easy and cheap, using the AOBR Dread as a base model seemed to be the sensible way to go here.

When the model arrived, I found myself messing around with a couple of bitz to find out which approach I was going to take for the Dread. Here’s a very early version of the model from that time:

But while some of the characteristics of the early WIP above did indeed carry through to the final version, I just couldn’t really seem to get a grip on figuring out what kind of model I wanted. Once more, the Call of Chaos event was a nice occasion to finally force myself into action and get my act together, so I pledged a Dreadnought/Helbrute as part of my vow. With that, I had set myself a firm deadline, and even for a lazy slacker like me, there’s nothing quite as conductive to creativity as a bit of well applied pressure 😉

One of the main problems was that the AOBR Dread comes in only seven pieces, and the entire body is basically made up of two pieces — an excellent piece of economical design, to be sure, but it makes converting the model slightly more difficult. There was also the fact that I couldn’t get too adventurous with the arms, seeing how I wanted to keep them detachable.

In the end, thinking about what kind of character I wanted this Dread to be really turned out to be the breakthrough. I already have a frenzied berserker Dread (Marax the Fallen), a noble ancient of the company (Khoron the Undying) and a tragic, malformed monster (Khorlen the Lost), so I wanted this newest Dreadnought to fill yet another character archetype: the stoic line soldier.

In the end, I decided that he is a former Breacher Sergeant, and from there on out, it was pretty easy to design the Dreadnought around that concept and include some visual touches that would underline that background idea: A chaos knight shield was attached to his left shoulder as a kind of stylised boarding shield, for one. I also souped up the (really boaring) standard power fist by adding some spiky bitz from the WFB chaos chariot, in order to make it look like a miniature version of the siege claws wielded by the Chaos Decimator. And I found out that one of the Skullcrusher helmets – minus the Khornate “bunny ears” – made for a pretty convincing Mk III helmet.

And, like I said, what really made this model happen was the pressure of having to get my act together for the Call of Chaos vow 😉 Here’s the finished conversion again:

Painting the Dread was a relatively straightforward affair, but then it has to be said that I really like painting Dreads to begin with: There’s just something to their scale and angularity that makes them really enjoyable to paint. The one thing that was slightly more difficult on this model was that the torso and legs came in one big piece, so I had to paint it all in one go. Apart from that, however, it was smooth sailing all the way.

Before I show you the whole model, I’d like to share a small detail that I am quite happy with: I have wanted to feature a mostly destroyed Necron warrior on one of my bases for a long time — as a shout out to the iconic ending of the original Terminator movie, and now I finally went for it:

t’s certainly just a small thing, but there’s a nice irony about two dead guys who both inhabit machine bodies sharing one base like this, don’t you think?

Anyway, without further ado, here’s the finished Dread:

And the remains of that poor Necron again, leaking oily fluid onto the ground…

One thing I really wanted to do this time around was to use some decals on the Dreadnought’s armour, in order to give him a slightly more businesslike, soldierly feel. I chose one of the excellent legion symbols from the Forgeworld World Eaters decal sheet for the armour panel on the Dread’s right side. For the other panel, I wanted to include his legion number — but it was actually pretty difficult to find a numeral XII in white that would fit the fairly limited space! The solution was to use a decal from the Cadian shock troops and cut it down to size. It’s a small detail, to be sure, but one that I really think adds to the model as a whole:

In fact, I like the effect so much that I am seriously considering going back to my earlier Dreads and adding some decals to them as well..

And since I’ve kept the arms detachable, the model can now be used with all the different extra Dreadnought weapons I have built so far. Here’s an example of a more “shooty” loadout:

It seems pretty shocking to me in hindsight, but this is indeed my fourth Dreadnought! But like I said, there’s just something about these guys that appeals to me, rules be damned! 😉
In fact, I think I may have one more Dreadnought in me at a later date. The only thing to decide is whether I want it to be a Dread for my fallen Space Wolves (who are allies to my World Eaters) or a huge, warp-infused beast. Or both?

For now, however, the only thing left to do was to come up with a bit of background for this latest ancient of the 4th assault company and then call it a day. Enjoy:

 

Brother Damokk, “The Breacher”

Originally a member of the fabled Triarii, Brother Damokk quickly found his true calling as a Breacher Sergeant and member of the 4th assault company during the turbulent days after the purging of Nuceria. He excelled as a warrior in shipboard actions and when it came to breaching fortified positions, and his prowess was so great that, upon suffering fatal injuries during a boarding action, it was decided to grant him the honour of serving the 4th as a Dreadnought.

Damokk’s ironform still bears many cues of his former station, such as his stylised boarding shield or the visor of his primary visual interface unit, shaped like an Mk 3 helmet. And his favourite armament, a combination of Multimelta – complete with underslung chainblade –  and siege claw, serves as yet another reminder of his time in the World Eaters’ Breacher squads.

On the battlefield, Damokk implacably dismantles enemy fortifications with a surgical precision not often seen in a World Eater. In fact, Huntmaster Deracin has been known to jest that, if not for the numeral “XII” emblazoned on his ironform, Damokk would probably forget the fact that he is not an Iron Warrior…

 

I would love to hear any feedback you might have in the comments section! And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Big guns never tire, pt. 4

Since my birthday will be coming up later this week, let’s just start celebrating now with an out of turn extra post on Monday. Huzzah! Plus I really want to show you the finished Obliterator, so we all win 😉

Anyway, since the last update, I finally added the shoulder pads to the model, added quite a few additional painting touches – not all of them really all that noticeable, unfortunately – and completed the model’s base.

So, with everything in its right place, I now call this model finished. Take a look:

As you can see, I also added some “last minute bitz”, since some fellow hobbyists suggested that the model needed some kind of loincloth or tabard. A normal loincloth was out, though, because I did want to keep at least parts of the pelvis area visible, not as a strange kind of fixation on Obliterator junk, mind you, but rather because the fact that the pelvis is designed to strongly resemble that of the new Helbrute is a really cool touch. So, in the end, I went for a rather cool bone trophy from the WFB Vampire Counts Skeletons.

I also added some small plates to the shoulders to cover up the slightly awkward area where the arms meet the torso. And finally, let me show you a closer look at the model’s back, both for the brilliantly gruesome spine emerging from the Obliterator’s armour and for the additions I made there:

It felt like the rathe huge, empty area to the left and right of the spine needed some additional detailing, so I added two chains from the WFB Chaos Chariot kit, making them look like they were being used in order to hold the Obliterator’s armour plates in place.

All in all, I am really extremely happy with this model! I think the custom and standard GW parts are blended together much better than I had anticipated, without looking hastily slapped together. The model is also rather massive and not quite as covered in random fleshy bitz as the stock GW models.

I really couldn’t be any happier with this guy, to tell you the truth, and I am really extremely thankful to thamier for providing the awesome custom Obliterator bitz that went into the model’s creation! And thanks as well to all those who provided helpful suggestions and criticism during the model’s completion! In fact, my only fear is that I will now be unable to return to any non-thamier-pattern Obliterator models or conversions…

Oh, and of course I also produced a suitable little background vignette for the model. Take a look:

Hadrak Firebringer

He appeared in a flash of light, immense even in his crouched position. With the noise of grinding metal, he rose to his full height, the hoarfrost of void teleportation trickling off his armour.

The battlefield lay ahead of him as an endless grey expanse. One by one, his brothers appeared. He could feel their spirits through mind link, feel their hunger. The sizzle of the nails, surgically changed in nature, yet not in intensity, a constant buzz that would soon grow into an all-consuming fire.
Before him, countless red target markers flared into life and gave him purpose. The hunt began.

Advance!

His command remained unspoken, issued only via mind link, yet the hulking shapes of his brothers began to move as one. They advanced across the grey plain, slow but relentless, sending a hail of fire towards the enemy lines. He was dimly aware of figures running past them: the fleshkin. But they were unimportant, insubstantial almost. More a nuisance than anything, making the task of calculating trajectories and fire corridors more difficult than it needed to be.

A blast from his Lascannon caught an enemy tank, making the vehicle explode in an enormous fire ball. First blood to them. The nails rewarded him with a wash of adrenaline, and beyond that, he could feel  the dark joy of his brothers, shared through the bond that connected them.
The enemy returned fire, but the pinpricks merely burned new scorch marks into his ancient, pitted armour. He and his brothers shared a moment of derisive amusement. Then they returned fire, and watched another score of target markers flicker out of existence. The nails drove them onwards, promising a reward that never came. But it did not matter. All that mattered was fire and heat and destruction and death.

It was over too soon. It always was.

A figure appeared before him, laughably small to his eyes. Yet he could make out the red and bronze armour. The badge of the XIIth legion. His legion. The figure addressed him, looking up at him through a snarling Sarum pattern helmet:

“I salute you hunter!  You have hunted well, but your work here is done. Deactivate your weapons and await extraction.”

A targeting marker appeared over the legionary, flaring from green to red and back to green. One impulse, one tiny movement was all it would take to give the nails their due. He could feel his brothers’ anticipation and the nails knifing into the meat of his mind. Red and green. Red and green.

“I repeat. Deactivate your weapons.”

With a mind impulse, he powered down his weapons and disengaged the targeting lock. The nails pulsed hot in his mind, punishing his hesitation with a white hot lance of pain. And beyond that, he could also feel something from his brothers – disappointment? Disapproval? He focused on the fleshkin before him, seeing the legionary as if for the first time. It seemed as if the he allowed himself to relax now. Was that relief?

“Compliance”, he growled at last.

 

As always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Big guns never tire, pt. 3

Maybe this should actually rather be part 2.5 of this mini-series, but I am pretty hard at work on the converted Obliterator at the moment, and I thought it would be cool to just show you the model’s current status:

Here’s the – mostly finished – body:

I was initially slightly apprehensive about the slightly rubbery texture of the resin thamier used for casting the parts, as I feared the material might be problematic to paint. It turned out that my worries were entirely unfounded, though — in fact I was pleasantly surprised with painting thamier’s custom parts: They accepted the colour without a hitch and were really almost as easy to paint as stock GW parts.

In any case, I was happy enough with the result to immediately start working on the arms as well, so here’s the model as it looks like right now, with both arms attached:

The model’s still missing its shoulder pads, base and a ton of finishing touches, of course, but I am enormously pleased with it so far. So I thought I’d just share my progress. Expect to see the finished Obliterator rather soon 😉

Anyway, let me know what you think! And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!