Minotaurs Ivanus Enkomi Painted and Kill Team Campaign Rules

Its taken me a while to paint this bad boy as I've had to wait until I acquired all the new paints I needed. Even then I've still used the old black and greens. Not too happy with the blending on the cloak still, but at least it's finished!

Minotaurs Ivanus Enkomi

I don't think I'll be using the actual Ivanus Enkomi rules from Forge World (even though they are awesome) as I attend a few tournaments, but he will suffice as a Chaplain with Power Fist. Although I have no idea who to put him with in my army, usually I would put a Chaplain in with the terminator squad to add Fearless and extra punch. But in my 1500 list they deep strike... Seems a bit of a waste to put him with a Tactical Squad!

That will be last Minotaurs painting post for a while, as I'm going to go back to my Lizards for a month or so, and also because of the leaked product sheet for 2013... wow so much cool Space Marine stuff is in the works and a new Tactical Squad box! It may take serious willpower but I'm going to try and hold off buying any new stuff until the new Marine Codex comes out.

Kill Team Campaign Rules

They're done and you can find them on the Kill Team page. The rules are based off the Mordheim rules with a crap load of tweaks and additions. There are only a few Legendary Heroes available at the moment, but will be adding more in time.

I'm on a drive to get a load of Kill Team army lists done soon. Next up is Orks, then maybe Eldar as I'm waiting on the Chaos codex to come out before I delve into them.

Darth Meer

Minotaurs Colour Scheme Part 3 (Plus Scouts Built)

Minotaur Space Marine Colour Scheme

Here's the final paint scheme I'll be using for my Minotaurs. I've gone for a quick-to-paint scheme, rather than display cabinet quality. Created a little step by step guide for people who still want to see the new GW paints in action.

Armour
First, I painted two very watered down layers of Screaming Bell (like, 50/50 water to paint) to give the model a solid basecoat for the bronze. Then, a couple of layers of Sycorax Bronze. Again I watered down to create a smooth coverage.

I very lightly drybrushed Golden Griffon to give the model a bit of highlight. To finish the armour, I gave the model a wash of Reikland Fleshshade. This both gives the model some shading, while smoothing down the effect of the drybrushing. I think doing a drybrush then wash really makes the armour more subdued, and allows me to pick out all the other details with line highlighting, making them stand out over the shiny armour.

Details
The chest eagle was based with Celestra Grey, washed with Nuln Oil, and highlighted with Scar White. Skull was Zandri Dust, Agrax Earthshade, Zandri Dust again, Ushabti Bone, and Screaming Skull. Armour joints are Mechanicus Standard Grey and washed with Nuln Oil then highlighted with Grey again. Eye lenses and metal bits were painted in the same manner as the boltgun below.

To stand out from the armour a bit, and to compliment the 'veteran' red pauldrons for sergeants and the like, I decided to paint weapons red - including chainswords and boltguns. For the metal: Base with Leadbelcher, wash with Nuln Oil and Highlight with Runefang Steel. For the red: Base with Mephiston Red, Shade with Carroburg Crimson, then highlight with Evil Sunz Scarlet.

Base
Sand glued with PVA, washed with Nuln Oil, heavy drybrush of Mechanicus Standard Grey followed by a light drybrush of Celestra Grey. Paint the rim black. For the snow I used the GW stuff on top of PVA - needed at least three layers, leaving a bit of the previous layer shower for a 'melting' effect.

Transfers
The Forge World transfers are awesome, so I picked up a sheet for my Minotaurs. Prepared the area with a couple of coats of 'Ardcoat first to aid in decal placement. Once the transfer is on and completely dry, I gave it another coat of 'Ardcoat to seal and a couple of coats of Lahmian Medium to matte. I was thinking of using some sort of decal softener (like micro sol), but wanted to try it without first.

And we're finished! Fairly quick and painless:

Minotaur Scouts
I picked up a pack of sniper scouts for my Minotaurs too this week, converted up the sergeant as well. I'm going to give all my sergeants mk4/5 armour so didn't want to leave him out! Just because he has scout armour doesn't mean he can't have 'armour lips'. Not too good with green stuff but looks ok. Also positioned and green stuffed another one of the scouts so he wasnt in a boring 'forward facing' pose. You can't really see it in the photos, but I've green stuffed a lip around his bracers too. Hopefully it will look decent when smoothed and painted.

Kill Team
For those of you who are interested, I've updated the main rules to v1.1b - just a few tweaks, including some rules to allow for Campaigns. Of which I am almost finished writing rules for now, so check back soon for them (should be done next week). Also added rules for Necrons and Blood Angels teams.

Darth Meer

WIP Photos and 6th Edtion

Wow I really haven't posted for a long while, been on holiday and been trying to sort other life shit out (damn you life!). Posts have also stopped due to trying to get 6th edition games in (rather than painting). I've been trying to get some models sprayed so I can do a 'Minotaurs Scheme Part 3' post, but weather has not been good in Nottingham (in fact, I would say apocalypse-esque, but that would be over exaggerating). So I thought I'd post up some work-in-progress shots of a few things I've been working on.

I ballsed up the cloak on my Enkomi model to start off with. I thought I would try the new crimson shade from GW as my experience with them has been pretty good so far. Yeh, didn't turn out very well. Turns out they do pool still. I think I've managed to save it though, with some hasty wet blending and highlighting.

Been painting this guy in small steps simply because I don't have all the paints yet - trying to use all new GW paints for my Minotaurs and haven't got round to completing the collection yet. Next, I've been trying out a new sand mix with my Minotaurs now all my Blood Angels have been based. Mixed my regular stuff with some super fine sand and some slate chips. Gave it a whirl on my Stormtalon base:

Painting wise, it's Nuln Oil shade, heavy drybrush of Mechanicus Standard Grey, then a drybrush of Celestra Grey. I've used both 'base' paints to give good coverage over the sand. Finally, been cracking on with finishing off my Blood Angels vehicles. Here's the current parking lot on my desk:

Just need to finish up the highlighting and do some weathering then BA are done!

6th Edition
I'm not going to assign too much blog space to 6th edition, Emperor knows there are a million other bloggers that have already talked about it to death. I just wanted to give my quick impressions.

I've had six small games with the new rules so far, and overall its pretty awesome. Seems to still be fairly swift to play, with an added layer of intuitive complexity. After the first few games we all started to get our heads around the new rules and started to be quick to play again. Love all the new cool little special rules, adds so much more to the game. I'm also liking the fact that most of the special rules are actually in the book, rather than littered in all the different codexes. Feels like its going to become a great unified system once the 6th edition codexes comes out (of which I am informed the first will be very, very soon).

Honestly, I didn't like the way Alessio simplified the ruleset down in 5th. It was too much, games got stale fast. It seems like 6th edition has been designed with an open-ended mindset, I can see many, many narrative expansions coming out for this game - and am looking forward to playing all of them.

Now I just need to convert my Kill Team rules! I can see some awesome skirmish games with a ton of the battlefield debris rules.

Darth Meer

Lizardmen Progress: Chameleon Skinks Painted - Plus Minotaurs

Some more Lizardmen progress today. Spent a little bit more time on these chameleon skinks than the regular skinks as there are only 8 of them at the moment. Wanted to give them a different paint scheme to regular skinks as well - to distinguish them on the battlefield. I wanted to include at least some red, as the rest of the army has red as its spot colour (usually on the shield, or on the mount/beasts). So I decided to try a red 'stripe' of scales:

Lizardmen Chameleon Skinks Front

Lizardmen Chameleon Skinks Back

I thought it worked well :-D. Also had a few pressies for my birthday (always nice to get hobby gifts), in the form of Moloc and Enkomi models from Forge World and a Stormtalon! A nice start to the Minotaurs army. Would have got these sprayed today but the weather in sunny Nottingham has moved towards the.. er... stormy side.

I actually really like the Stormtalon model. I know it has gotten some stick on the internet, but it's really cute in person! Check out this size comparison shot with the Stormraven:

Cat included for reference...

Can't wait to get it painted. Also ordered some Minotaur decals from FW, so expect transfer shenanigans in a future post (new territory for me).

In closing, here's my obligatory 6th edition comment: "It's awesome and cinematic, I can say no more" ;-P. Also, there are a load of crap rumours out there so don't believe everything you hear! Wait a couple of weeks and get the book in your own hands before you make judgements. I'm already planning a day of 1000 point games with multiple armies to test everything when the final rules are out.

Darth Meer

Minotaurs Colour Scheme Part 2 (Plus Weathering)

Grabbed a pot of Sycorax Bronze this week and tried a different scheme for my minotaurs. The model on the left is the previous scheme with Hashut Copper, the model on the right is the latest scheme with Sycorax Bronze:

What do people think? Which one looks better? Its simply Screaming Bell over a black undercoat, followed by a couple of thin layers of Sycorax Bronze and a Reikland Fleshshade wash. Also had a go at highlighting it with Mithril Silver (haven't got the new version yet):

Im not sure about this. Highlighted it very quick with a big brush - which may have something to do with the starkness of the highlight, but I think Mithril Silver is a bit to much of a contrast. I would rather have an 'out-of-pot' highlight colour though, as I need the army to be consistent throughout. Hmm... any ideas what colour I should use to highlight? Maybe a gold rather than silver?

I want my new Minotaurs to look rugged and worn rather than spangly and fresh (like my BA). Especially being so shiny in the first place. So I had a go at the weathering/chip effect that was in last month White Dwarf Space Wolves painting section. I used Mithril Silver again to begin with, then Scorched Brown (the old version of Rhinox Hide that was in the tutorial):

Turned out OK, but I think the chips need to be thinner! Very rugged though. I also bought some FW weathering powder and some isopropyl to try some weathering on my BA tanks.... so expect a post on that soon!

Darth Meer

Minotaurs Colour Scheme With New GW Paints

Now my Blood Angels are finally nearing completion, and 6th edition is on the way, I'm thinking it's time to start thinking about a new 40k army! Now I cant actually afford to buy an army straight off (and don't want to - will need to get used to the new rules, etc. first before I commit), so another marine army is a logical extension. I can use my existing models to proxy armies, while slowly replacing squads as I get used to playing them.

The army I've chosen is based on modelling potential, ease of painting (I'm not touching line highlighting for a while!), and background coolness. I bring you the Minotaurs! Picked up a set of paints when I was at WW on Wednesday and had a go at a bronze colour scheme (found at this great blog). No comments on the thick paint, I was using it straight out the pot on a tester model (which already had a coat), and will be spraying the layers when I do it properly!

First, Screaming Bell over a black undercoat. The new base paints really are thinner than the foundation paints, and needed a good two coats for decent coverage, but they are a lot less gloopy than foundations, and thus produce a much smoother base.

Stage 1

Second, Hashut Copper. Again, the paint is pretty thin and needed two coats. Good coverage on the second coat though, although you can still see some of the base colour through - which I actually like. Nice and smooth again.

Stage 2

Third, a Reikland Fleshshade er.. shade. All over. Really sorry about the blurry photo, I forgot to check if the photos were decent before I drybrushed the model... fail. The shade is REALLY nice though, much better flowing than the washes and didn't pool at all. Really looking forward to experimenting more with these bad boys. Also, has a nice matt finish which dulls down the metallic nicely.

Stage 3

Lastly, a drybush of Golden Griffin. To be honest, I don't like the effect of drybrush highlighting man sized models (vehicle are fine), so not really too impressed with the result, I think I will be sticking to a quick line highlight. Good to see what the new Drys are like though. Here's the finished bronze:

Stage 4

There you have it, new paints seem pretty cool, especially the shades! Not too impressed by the Dry range, but then again I hardly drybrush anyway.

After the uber competitive weekend that was the GT, me and my mate went to Warhammer World on Wednesday and had a more friendly game. We basically took lists that contained units that we don't usually play with. I used the vanilla marines codex for a change and tried thunderfires, bikes, tactical squads and vanguard vets. Now, as a Blood Angels player I've never really used these option, so was a complete novice. But I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised!

My mate took a chaos list with his uber lord of doom, berserkers, raptors and possessed. The raptors died pretty quickly as expected (they really aren't very good), but the possessed were pretty badass as they rolled power weapons and butchered the vanguards! Note to self, take more storm shields. Or maybe shoot the bloody things first.

The bikes are the glass hammer they're famous for, killed plenty but were charged by the berserkers and munched. Really want to learn how to use them, as I want to paint up a small squad for my Minotaurs (as they're something I've never used and look badass). I think a small unit of them would be able to hide pretty well and provide some quick counter punch to the army in the same was a assault marines do, but look more badass when doing it.

What really surprised me was the thunderfire cannon, this thing is awesome! Seriously, why don't people use these? The tremor shot is great against jump infantry and vehicles, and you get a techmarine who bolsters its cover (so isn't really as fragile as people think).

Overall, I'm really looking forward to using a different army, even if it's still encased in power armour and rhinos. Expect more reports of me finding out how to use proper Marines in the future. Well, until Tau eventually arrive... in which case I'm selling a kidney.

Darth Meer