On my list of hobby targets this year I have Armies on Parade. Now I started this last year so I’ve got a good head start and my idea hasn’t changed either, which is also good, I do have a habit of changing direction mid project 🙂
The inspiration for this project comes from three pieces of art work.
These pieces, all done by John Blanche, are three of my favourites and I have spent untold hours staring at them as a teen. Now I want to create something special which combines elements from each one but with my own interpretation and all three images lend themselves greatly to inspiring an Armies on Parade project.
So lets take a look at my progress so far.
Lots of materials have been combined, from 3D printed elements and plastic bits to natural parts like the branches. The ground is textured resin parts and wall filler and there are a few GW bits used as well. Long way to go before I can get priming and so far I’m pretty pleased with how things are turning out. A few more gothic building pieces are needed I think and I’ve been toying with idea of giving it a painted back drop.
Oh yes, I nearly forgot! It needs skulls. Lots more SKULLS!!!
Below is a not very good teaser shot of what my Dark Angels are going to look like. I’ve opted for a Dark Angel Horus Heresy era armour colour as I have never really liked my Dark Angels green. They were black in the Rogue Trader days and they shall remain that way! The Death Wing bone is a must as well, with feathers! 🙂
The start of my Blood Angels HH army started with making some dice boxes. As is appropriate with Blood Angels the boxes are coffins. I bought the blank boxes from a craft store in town and then designed the inserts using CAD and 3D printing them in a lovely shiny red flexible material. I then filled the lid section with Blood Angel bits to make it look like a relic. All this was then painted with the usual red and gold.
The dice fit perfectly and because the material is flexible they are easy to get out but will not fall out. The ultimate goal of this project is to make a relic type box to store the army in along with these dice coffins and other gaming essentials. I have the parts now, so all I need is the drive and time. Keep watching this space!
Here’s a a bit of fun I’ve had putting together a few pages of old school Eavy metal, just like the ones from the old days. Oh how I miss them! Such great sources of inspiration then and now, I often have a look back through old White Dwarfs to find a spark for an idea and the Eavy Metal pages have always been great for that. They were bright and bold and showed the wide range of wackiness that is Warhammer. Glorious!!
The Order of the Black Cross, a small but extremely deadly militant order of the Adepta Sororitas. With bone armour, white robes, pale skin and a large tattoo of a black cross down the length of their faces, they cut a striking and intimidating image. But, by far the most unsettling thing about them is their eyes. They are a milky white. The reason for this is one of their traditions of ascension to full Battle Sister. Upon ascension a battle sister will have a special graft set upon each eye, once healed the eye’s are then tattooed with minute scripture of the Litanies of Faith. It is said that upon waking the script is clear and all encompassing in their vision and it is also said that upon death this is all the sister will see in her final moments.
Sister Resira. Order of the Black Cross
So I’ve finally settled upon a colour scheme and name for my Battle Sisters army. I have also painted my first Battle Sister. Now the problem I have is that they have tattoos of black crosses down their faces. Have you seen how small the battle sisters faces are? Bloody small! This will not stop me though, I am committed! I shall, however ,have to paint all the heads separately as this should make this mission I have inflicted upon myself easier.
All this painting small fiddly stuff made me want to wade in with a brush and get all experimental on something big! That big thing is one of the many Relic Chapel Tank of the Order of the Black Cross. These large relics are of shattered ruins of sacred places. They are given an ancient tracked base, a radiant statue of a Saint placed upon the highest point and go to war covered in Sisters all crying their hatred at the enemy and raining righteous death upon them. The sight of one of these behemoths of Imperial faith rumbling over the fallen and surrounded by purifying fire stirs the sisters to fight on no matter what and once it falls the track unit is recovered and waits for the time another sacred ruin is found.
Those who have skulls for faces and hearts of ash. They roam these parts and haunt it’s woods. They seek you and covet that which lay’s beneath your skin.
A little AoS28 project that’s on the go at the moment. This project uses models designed by like minded hobbyists and myself to create an unusual group of characters that inhabit the places in between the large cities and fortresses of the realms. They gather the bones from the living or the dead to sustain them, as the marrow is much coveted and the source of their survival.
They gather under the Arch of Roots.
Top Left is model sculpted by the very talented Helge from WilhelMiniatures . I converted the original sculpt by cutting its head and inserting a skull from the GW skull boxset. Can’t wait to paint those fleshy folds!
Top middle is a model sculpted Andrew may from Meridian Miniatures who based them on the drawings of the very talented and grim artist Blackartcrab. I did a head swap for this model.
All the others are of my own design and 3D printed. Some of you may recognise a few from earlier projects.
Flesh, pain and pleasure! The sadistic lovers of Chaos. SLAANESH!!! Sssaay she who thirsts name with rapture!
So I’ve been adding to my Slaanesh war band the forbidden fruits of which are the subject of this post. This is one of those projects that is on the slow burn and I’m pretty sure, in fact I know, I will be adding more to it over time, I already have a few unopened boxes of Slaanesh goodies in the model draws and The Keeper of Secrets will be mine ( oh yes it will be mine ) very soon.
As projects go it’s been one of exploring new techniques and pushing myself with converting and modeling (CAD and traditional) plus with the release of Contrast paints it has given me the opportunity to do some speed painting, a method I used to do the cultists. All in all then it’s been great fun and some of my most satisfying hobby moments have come from it. May they continue in Slaanesh’s name!
The Leader of the War band. Slaanesh Witch and her Daemonettes
Psyker and BeastmenPossessed Emperors Children MarineCultists
The above images are of the Chaotic war engines of the band. The Impulsor Engine and Rapture missile launcher.
A little post today regarding the the Preachers that travel with my Adepta Sororitas army. The preachers of SOL are a fiery bunch and can be found within the Battle Sisters line shouting the litanies of faith and adding their own voices to the chanting and singing of the sisters around them.
This model was great fun to paint and I made heavy use of the Contrast paints. They are a great addition to the paint range and are extremely good at creating glazes. As for the colour choices, I really wanted the banner to contrast heavily with the grey, drab cloth of the Preacher and yellow does this perfectly. I think he will stand out well on the tabletop. The ruin he’s standing upon is a failed 3D print of a free file I found ( forget where) and was the basis for the whole model. I worked from the ground up!
He’s not been made as a combatant but more like a piece of scenery that will accompany my army. I have a few such models planned. Now I must get around to actually painting some sisters!
“Welcome those who seek the Ink. Let me tell you of a very fell thing. A construct that should not be and one that can only be made by mad minds. As you are well aware the sprawling libraries of Otera have been over come with chaos, the means by which this has happened is the very ink the scribes work with. Blasphemous texts have been written, and read from, unleashing untold horrors within those sacred halls, but their evil knows no bounds and a more destructive way was devised. The Daemon Wells. These works of mad genius contain vast amounts of corrupted ink, the result is that of a gateway. Chanting scribes surround each one and corrupted souls sacrifice the captured innocent until the Well bubbles or smokes and spews forth hell spawn from the realm of chaos itself.
Halls have been lost to them already, countless priceless tomes and knowledge gone. They must be destroyed! Do you, Noble Lord, have what it takes to enter this underground hell and take back what is rightfully ours. Others have passed through but none have returned. Let us hope for your sake, that they are dead and not turned. ”
Escaped Librarian Omero. The surface of Otera.
This is a Daemon Well. I designed this one and 3D printed it but they can take many forms. Through out this campaign I will be setting little challenges, to all those who want to, you can take part and create your own visions of the objects and events that take place during The Daemon Ink. So what’s your idea of an ink black spawning pool of the damned!?
Post your creations up and don’t forget to #thedaemonink or link to this page.
Greetings flesh things! Today I have something different to share. It’s a small project for Killteam or Inq28 and it’s all about this character called Keprix Cyba Mon. Keprix is a Hunter Knight of the Mechanicum and that means she is charged with the duty of hunting down and slaying the Dark Mechanicum. I always liked the idea of a noble Knight type Ad Mech character who was sworn to bring justice to those who strayed from the Omnissiah with blade and flame. The war band, so far, is very medieval in theme as I wanted that crusader image of Knights to be present and the colour palette is lighter tones, with red as the spot colour, to show their purity and belief in their cause. I think it contrasts well against the more traditional red attire you see the servants of the Mechcanicum wear.
This project has also had an influence on how I will paint my Adepta Sororitas, which is great, because I’ve been stuck on that for ages now. Below is the Censer Bearer cause every Knight needs their favourite fragrance whilst dealing out punishment.
Also to go with the group, when they are all present and done, is a custom box for them to live in. It’s a 3D designed and printed insert that is magnetised and has a section for holding the Mechcanicum Killteam Dice. Nice and cosy!
Still very w.i.p at the moment and I’m yet to decide on the symbols I will paint/transfer onto it.
Hello ladies and gents! So it’s happened! I’ve found myself inspired enough to finally write up a campaign, last time I did one it was The Chapel event and that was way back in 2017. Time flies and as most of us have ended up with more time I’d thought I create an event again with aim to play it next year, once all this weirdness is over. The invite is for everyone and if you’d like to join me for the actual games when they occur then, as time passes, let me know. Numbers will dictate where it will be held.
The Daemon Ink is an ][nq28 campaign, which will set war bands of either pure intent or corrupted madness against each other as the fight for control of a valuable Fortress Library World of the Inquisition. The name of that planet is Otera.
So this is the setting now lets take a look at some of the characters and NPC’s that populate the libraries of Otera.
Stewards : These guys have already been introduced in the short story Morde’rya. They are the order that attends to the daily running of the vast libraries. The order is split into units. Each unit has it’s own section of the vast library to care for and their knowledge is limited to that section. No Steward can activate the Portals that lead to other sections. Many Stewards have been sacrificed by the Scribes and their masters, but there is hope that some have survived.
Librarians : Keepers of the knowledge. Their wisdom is great and they are the ones who attend to the books, data stacks and scrolls. They have access to all sections of the Library and are very adept at using the Portals. No area is off limits to them. Some seem to have turned to the dark powers and many are missing. The hope is that they are in hiding using their knowledge to keep them safe or they may be taking the fight to their corrupted fellows and joining a war band pure of soul to reclaim the holy library.
Scribes : The corrupted ones. The scribes are the playthings of the dark gods and are the ones who have spread the corruption. It is unknown if any avoided this fate. They gather in groups around their constructed Daemon Wells and chant the corrupting litanies that break the veil allowing daemon spawn to spew forth. Directed by fallen Inquisitors larger groups have been found and truly destructive forces have been unleashed.
I’ve made really good progress on the boards the first of which was the Mag Bellum setup shown here. That set will be used to create parts of the vast sections of the library but first you’ll have to get in.
This is the entrance.
Who will be defending this entrance? That is something you’ll have to wait for. It’s not going to be pleasant though and war bands will have to be smart with how they go about it.
When creating your characters for your war bands please use the guide below.
As a rule no heavy weapons are allowed but I’ll elaborate on the details in a follow up post but for now go get kitbashing!
If you want to take part please be sure to reference this post or use the #thedaemonink
That’s it for now I think, so I’ll leave you with another image of the Entrance board to get the mood flowing. Until next time.
heresy of us 