Evening all. It is a bit quiet here on the western front, and I have been flitting from project to project over the last 2 weeks, unable to settle down and commit to anything. I started my secons talos but lost motivation fairly rapidly (no reason why, just did not feel like painting anything).
Whilst flitting I did some thinking about the huge number of projects I have or am planning to do, and decided I needed to cull even further than I had originally planned. I had bought a Betrayal at Calth box set with the set intention of making a Word Bearers 30k force. I did loads of work converting and adding 3rd party bits to the marines, only to stall on painting, and have since left them languishing in a box on my shelf. I made the harsh decision to bin the project and purloin the miniatures for my Space Wolves. You will be pleased to know that I still plan to continue my foray into 30k, but it will be my wolves that follow me. The reason for this is I already have a substantial collection painted in a scheme that fits the 30k universe, and with a little tweaking and a few additions down the line I will have a fully multipurpose force (which also saves me ££ and time).
Once I had made this desicion I started to plan out what I wanted to do. One of my bits purchases were some Maxmini jump packs, and I also raided my bits box for any spares I might have. The plan was to convert my blood claws to also be used as assault marines in 30k (with a few future additions from the BAC box for some more heresy style marines). The increased flexibility of this unit is also appealing as I can now use them as either blood claws or skyclaws in 40k, or assault marines in 30k. Win win :)
The work itself was a bit of a pain as I had to carefully chop all the (substantially) glued back packs off my painted marines and then magnetise all the parts so they are all interchangeable. Pretty pleased with the results, and once painted it will all look good again :)
Whilst doing all the magnetising I also decided to upgrade my basing using tabletop adapters that I recently bought to update to 32mm bases for all my infantry. After seeing the HH marines and others on the tinterwebs mounted on the 32mm I realised that they look soo much better, creating more space for the marine to stand on and look much more epic :). The tabletop adapters are very good quality. They are plastic and much more superior to the mdf or resin ones also on the market. The 25mm base slots into a slanted recess within the adapter, creating an (almost) seamless fit, and you really can't tell the difference between proper 32mm bases and these, as they are the same height and slant as the proper GW ones when attached
I also decided to upgrade my basing scheme by adding some frozen tundra grass tufts. This adds a little more variety to the base I feel and also offsets the very dark colour scheme on the marines. The plan is to go slowly through the rest of my army, adapting and upgrading as I go. This will give the army a bit of a boost and it has also had the effect of increasing my enthusiasm for my wolves again, after the burnout (more of a rage quit really) I experienced nearly 6 months ago painting my stormwolf.
Hopefully my hobby mojo will settle down again soon and I can get cracking on some painting, but until that happens I will just continue to be a hobby butterfly :)
Ciao for now
NafNaf
Looking nice there. Interesting to see your work in a different way.
ReplyDeleteCheers Rory. It was good to get back to the Wolves again, and I always enjoy magnetising stuff (I know, weird right? :D )
DeleteWolves were actually my first army, always been tempted to try again honestly. Funny since how I moved on to their most hated enemy.
DeleteTraitor! ;)
DeleteFunny enough chaos were my first army, but always loved the wolves, so after my hiatus from wargaming I dived back into my fave faction. Been painting and collecting them for 6 years now. They are my first and only fully painted army so far
Those bases look fantastic, the icy grass tufts are awesome! I'll have to pick up some of those adapters, there's a few minis that I'd like to update and I'm very impressed with how those turned out. Love the magged backpacks/jump packs too - good stuff!
ReplyDeleteCheers dude. I am pleased with how those tufts look. It was more of a spur of the moment thing to try them out ( bought them for my frostgrave warband that is still languishing in a box somewhere) but they do give the bases more character and interest.
DeleteThe adapters are very good. Still a little work to do to make them fit sometimes, but a little greenstuff and emery paper soon sorts it out.
Really pleased with the multipurpose squad now. Love me a bit of magnetising :)
I wanted some of those maximini jump packs for some of my older metal Rogue Trader assault marines. They're suitably 30k looking and I think they'll work better than the the ones that have vents coming over the top of the shoulder pads. It seems they're harder to get hold of now, or with stupid delivery costs grrr. I may have to just use the 5 Sanguinary guard jump packs (minus wings] that look like one of the Forgeworld 30k varieties, even though I didn;t think they worked well either.
ReplyDeleteStill, the Wolves look great [coming from a Dark Angel player that's all the praise I can muster ;) ]
Thanks Dave. Yes I really enjoy the heresy aesthetic that those packs have. I do much prefer them to the standardacks, although I will be using a mix to save a few pennies, and I do quite like the variety as well. I also have 4 of the sanguine packs too, and they do look pretty good, although not as bulky as the maxmini ones. Shame about the delivery costs. I found mine on ebay from the troll trader, but sadly it looks like he has no more in stock
Deletegreat work on magnetizing those jump packs, a truly versatile unit now! I had used a set of the resin adapters and they were a pain to get to fit right and never went back and looked at the plastic ones, but totally agree that they look so much better on the larger base.
ReplyDeleteYour Wolves look fantastic and looking forward to seeing more 30k units done for them.
Thanks dude. I had forgotten how much I enjoy my wolves, and doing the basing upgrade has certainly given me a taste for them again.
DeleteYes I remember your post about the resin adapters, and they did look a bit painful to use. Really quite pleased with the plastic ones, although a small amount of work is required sometimes as not all bases fit flush for some reason
I got a bunch of those adapters, too, and I love them. As far as I can tell, the gaps are left because they were sized for an unpainted base, and the primer+spatter+touchup layers on the rim of the old base makes enough extra that the fit isn't quite right. The ones that I sanded back down to the original plastic before gluing on fit perfectly.
ReplyDeleteAh I thought as much. Considering the layers I have on some of the older ones it is no wonder not all fit :D I have heard n the grapevine that the older style GW bases are also a slightly different size which is another reason for the slight fitting issues. Tbh they are still fantastic and I cant complain at all about them. I expected a little work and compared to other material ones on the market they are far superior.
Delete