Sam Green's Death Guard

An acquaintance of mine who used to manage my FLGS has had his army featured on the Games workshop website. Admittedly they've spelt his name wrong...but you can't have everything I suppose...

As usual Games Workshop are a little behind the times as his army was featured on my blog fucking ages ago. Right here in fact ;-)

Their pictures are marginally better quality than mine though.....

The full article can be found by clicking on the following link,

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/blogPost.jsp?aId=17800009a

Thoughts and comments are (as usual) most welcome.

Completed 'Wolf Scouts' and Some Appropriate Fluff.

Lieutenant Antus looked around the bunker that he’s chosen for this briefing with the same feeling of irritation that had been his almost constant state of mind for the last three days. The fact that it’s use was forced upon him due to it being the only location solid enough to have a meeting without being deafened by the near constant bombardments coming from the base of the traitor Guardsmen they’d been sent to eliminate in no way increased it’s appeal.

Antus had never completely understood why a Marine would put aside his Power Armour and willingly replace it with the Carapace armour that the majority of the Veterans before him wore. Of course that wasn’t strictly true, he understood the necessity of the compromise he just had no desire to make it himself…

Of course the difference between these warriors and the neophyte Scouts that normally wore this type of armour was immediately apparent. These men were completely confident in their individual abilities and had proven them on myriad battlefields across the Imperium. If their demeanours and the Dark Grey cloaks worn by all Night Reaper Veterans were not enough to indicate the difference then their weapons certainly were as they were marked with decorations and kill markings from a dozen campaigns. Chainswords that had tore apart everything from Orks to Eldar, Bolt Pistols of many designs some of them so ancient that they were fed by belt rather than clip, Power Swords that were in many cases Chapter Relics, not to mention the Meltaguns, Flamers and other exotic weapons that some of their number carried marking them as warriors of considerable experience.

“You may have noticed” stated Antus matter of factly “that we are having some issues closing with the enemy…”

Grim smiles appeared on the faces of a few of the Veterans as the Lieutenant continued.

“The terrain is unsuitable for any move forward with our Rhino or Razorback transports and even if they could move over it it’s unlikely they’d get very far before being blown to pieces by the enemies artillery…”

As if to punctuate the point a particularly well-aimed shot landed close enough to the command post to drown out his voice and cause dust to fall from the ceiling.

"...Additionally the Artillery support is protected by Hydra batteries which makes an aerial insertion an equally  suicidal proposition..."

A second shot more precise than the first landed directly above their position causing the lights to blink out for a moment and adding another shower of dust to settle on top of the first, several of the Veterans wiped the new layer of detritus from their weapons while awaiting for their leader to continue.

“As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted” continued Antus  “The artillery needs destroying before we can move troops to eliminate the other elements of the enemies force and for that I need your expertise”

“We’ll need to take a particularly circular route to get to that artillery unnoticed…”

The Marine who had spoken was armoured not in the Carapace Armour of the others but rather the normal Power Armour of a full Marine though his weaponry was anything but standard. His left hand wielded a Lightning Claw of ancient design while a Combi-Meltagun of equal if not greater age was clamped to his thigh. He was one of a small number of Marine Veterans whose experience was such that he could keep pace with his lighter armoured comrades without in anyway compromising their stealth.

“How you accomplish your mission I leave entirely in your hands” finished Antus “I just need it done as quickly as possible”

“Not a problem” said the second of the two Power Armoured Veterans “consider it done”

No further words were needed, so Lieutenant Antus left the meeting to ready the rest of his force for an assault knowing with full confidence that by the morning there would be no artillery left to prevent it…

Wolf Scouts and Wolf Guard.

Wolf Scout Unit 1.

Wolf Scout Unit 2.

Wolf Scout Unit 3.

For those of you who are interested they're made from cloaked Sniper Scout bodies, legs and heads with various types of Chainswords and Bolt Pistols from my Bitz box grafted on to appropriate arms and adapted to fit where the Sniper Rifles normally attach. They're painted in the Dark Grey colouring of my other Wolf Guard and Veterans Cloaks with the armour pieces painted in the metallic Blue Chapter colours that I normally use.

I suppose technically they should be called 'Night' Scouts and 'Night' Guard but that would probably create a bit to much confusion for those people unfamiliar with my army concept ;-)

Thoughts and comments are (as usual) most welcome.

Some Painting Progress

So in between giving out awesome advice, helping out people with army lists, writing guest articles for blog networks and desperately trying to get my followers count above the 100 mark, I occasionally paint some models.....I know it's an action packed life I lead.....

These 'Wolf Guard' are good enough for normal games now and I'm much happier with the new darker grey colouring I've gone with on the 'Veterans/Sergeants/Champions' in my units. The old blue colour was a bit to shiny and bright to fit the armies general theme.

Wolf Guard - Angled View 1

Wolf Guard - Angled View 2

My 'Rune Priest' still needs some highlighting and unit markings. Unfortunately the Chaos Shoulder pad that I've put on the models right shoulder is a bit of an odd shape to put the Night Reapers Chapter symbol on. I may have to put the symbol on the wrong side and his 'I'm a Librarian' rank marking on the other.

Rune Priest - Front View

Rune Priest - Rear View

Some of you might remember my first attempt at making a Space Marine on Jet Bike to use as a Command Squad guy for a potential Bike army (I have most of the models, just not the inclination currently). Well I tidied that first attempt up a little and gave it a splash of paint and am pleased enough with the result to consider making the other five that the army would need.

Space Marine Jet Bike - Side View

Space Marine Jet Bike - Opposite Side View

Space Marine Jet Bike - Top View

Space Marine Jet Bike - Angled View

Space Marine Jet Bike - Opposite Angle View

I've also made a start on 'Counts As' Kharn the Betrayer

'Counts As' Kharn the Betrayer - View 1

'Counts As' Kharn the Betrayer - View 2

And my 'Counts As' Iron Hand Straken who's justification 'fluff' can be found here.

'Counts As' Iron Hand Straken.

Your comments and constructive feedback are (as usual) most welcome.

Another distraction...

Done a little work on this guy between other projects over the last few days.

From a 'Fluff' point of view he's my 4th Companies Captain. Not sure what he'll be 'Counting-As' yet though or if he'll ever see the 'Table Top' at all.

The uncanny way that photographs of models manage to show up imperfections that you never notice when your actually painting them never ceases to amaze me.....

'Counts-As' Straken and some 'Fluff'.

The economy of the Imperium is reliant on the tithes required from the planets under it's control. Though these resources can be almost anything, the most common is also the most expendable...manpower...


Arcturus Prime, largest planet of the Arcturus system and main recruitment centre for the Night Reapers Chapter is of course no exception. Having a strong martial tradition, those amongst the population of Arcturus Prime that fail the extensive testing needed to become a Neophyte of the Night Reapers are still easily forged into more than capable soldiers and Arcturan regiments have fought in battles all across the Imperium of mankind.


Early on in the creation of these first regiments it was announced by the then Night Reapers Chapter Master that their progress would be monitored in order to evaluate training methodologies and to ensure that their conduct in no way dishonoured their home world and by extension the Night Reapers themselves. By attaching small units of Marines to these Regiments data on anything from enemy fighting methods to environmental conditions and any number of other important information could be added to the Chapters databases. Of course there were other reasons as well...


In the wake of the Horus Heresy the Legions were not only split into smaller fighting units but also lost control of the vast resources provided by the Imperial Navy and Imperial Guard. However there was no rule that prevented a Space Marine Chapter from offering advice and guidance to those same organisations. It was therefore decided that these duties would become the responsibility of the Night Reapers 12th Company. The 12th were instructed to join these regiments at locations scattered across the galaxy and to return all knowledge gained to their masters in the Fortress Monastery for analysis.


Numbering anything from a single Marine, but rarely anything larger than a Combat Squad these 'advisers' became a common site in all the Arcturan Regiments. Though these advisers were rotated from Regiment to Regiment in order to maintain the greatest flow of information (as well as to prevent those men from 'going native') occasionally issues of logistics resulted in particular Marines staying with the same units for considerable periods of time.


One such Marine has been attached to the 100th Arcturan regiment for several decades and is now so integrated into its structure that he has the honoury title of Company Commander...

Straken has a better than Marine Stat-line in most areas so why shouldn't I use a Space Marine to represent  him?

I'll tidy-up the model and if I decide I like it I'll paint it in Chapter colours with the exception of the bare arms which I plan to paint a Metallic Colour in order to represent certain of his bionics as well as to justify S6 and a  6+2D6 armour penetration roll, lol.

Thoughts and Comments are (as usual) most welcome.

A Bit of a Makeover...

A long time ago what started off as a small Chaos war-band known as 'The Knights of Shibboleth' gradually began to evolve into the 'Night Reapers' Space Marine Chapter.

That early war-band had a far more relaxed attitude to mould lines, model poses and highlights than the Chapter they were to become. As I'm also one of those bastards who uses 'Counts-As' a lot, my Marines have gone through a lot of unit configurations...Some more use than others...

So I've decided its time to update the ten Tactical Squads that make up part of my 2nd Company in both appearance and usefulness.

As my Space Wolves generally have a 5 Man Squad that sometimes also have a Meltagun,


Troops: Grey Hunters Pack (6#, 155 pts)
   5 Grey Hunters Pack @ 155 pts (Meltagun; Razorback)
      1 Razorback (Lascannon and TL Plasmagun)


and my Space Marines are usually either,


Troops: Tactical Squad (6#, 165 pts)
   4 Tactical Squad @ 165 pts (Razorback)
      1 Sergeant (Bolt Pistol; Bolter)
      1 Razorback (Searchlight; Smoke Launchers; Lascannon and TL Plasmagun)

or,

Troops: Tactical Squad (11#, 220 pts)
   9 Tactical Squad @ 220 pts (Meltagun; Missile Launcher; Rhino)
      1 Sergeant (Bolt Pistol; Combi-Meltagun x1)
      1 Rhino (Searchlight; Smoke Launchers; Storm Bolter)

or,

Troops: Tactical Squad (11#, 205 pts)
   9 Tactical Squad @ 205 pts (Flamer; Multi-Melta; Rhino)
      1 Sergeant (Bolt Pistol; Bolter)
      1 Rhino (Searchlight; Smoke Launchers; Storm Bolter)

I needed to find a way to maintain useful squad types without having a lot of superfluous models. In the end I decided to reconfigure four of the units to ten men units with Meltagun and Missile Launcher and three to Flamer and Missile Launcher. This war-gear load-out when combined with my already made Wolf Guard with Combi-Meltaguns would enable me to create any of the above combinations. As I have been gradually making my Rhinos modular this also meant that I only had to paint one Rhino and an alternate Razorback turret per Squad.

They'd all need tidying up though...

Luckily I already had made an alternative Sergeant/Champion with basic armament from when I used a Marine unit configuration that later became known by the Internet as 'Melta bunkers'. A Missile Launcher Marine from an unpainted Devastator squad has also been transferred to '1st' Squad together with a weapon-less Marine that I found in a tub with nineteen other weapon-less Marines.....No I've no idea why either and I actually own them.....With the addition of a shiny metal Meltagun he finished off the squad (from a configuration point of view at least) nicely.

The 3 original squad members that they replaced have been put to one side till I can work out a use for them, lol.

Now it was time to tidy them up a little. Due to the amount of models I need to sort out I decided to keep the tidying up to a minimum 'tabletop' standard. They didn't need to win any awards, just not look like a blind, thumb-less, four year old had painted them.

Firstly I removed Mould lines from the more obvious locations like the top of the heads and outer sides of legs, etc.

Then I re-undercoated them and touched up the 'bare' spots with my usual mix of metallic blue.

Then I touched up a few more bare spots in the models due to general wear and tear and changed the cloak to match the newer greyer look of my Wolf Guard. I also changed the weapons from a light dry-brush of Boltgun metal to a more 'painted' look.

And also gave the new guys appropriate '2nd' Company shoulder-pad rim colouring.

My earlier models had always had a plain look to the guns so I decided to paint the outer casing of the guns black to at least give the appearance of having put some effort into the project ;-)

I also took the 'skull' part of the Chapter logo and made a fairly average attempt at some free-hand.

Previously I simply used the Chaos Runes for numbers as squad markings as they nicely represented a fall to Chaos and were also pretty easy to paint. As my Chapters history was subtly retconned to make them a Chapter that used Chaos artefacts but kept quiet about it to everyone else ;-) I decided to make the runes a bit less obvious. Instead I used a circle in the 2nd Companies colours and put the rune for 'one' in the middle as a squad marking.

I then based them grey with a couple of layers of highlights and painted the purity seals with a simple red seal and writing on black colour scheme that was simple but still looked fairly striking. I touched up the Rhino a little and added the skull to it at the same time. At some point during the process I've added a 'Badab Black' wash to all the Boltgun Metal but can't remember exactly when...

I then did a freehand white arrow with the centre in the Company colours on a removal hatch for when the vehicle is in 'Rhino' mode. I also painted a detachable 'driver/gunner' for the vehicle and added a squad marking to the front.

And then painted a Las/Plas turret for when they're in 'Razorback' mode as well as a mounting for it and a hatch to replace the 'driver/gunner'.

Looking at the pictures now I can see a lot of little imperfections that will probably bother me later but that I can live with for now.

One down, six to go.....

Thoughts and comments are (as usual) most welcome.

'Counts-As' Grey Knights

I've made myself a 'prototype' squad that will potentially become the start of my 'Night Reapers' 8th Company. I'm thinking that 8th Company will be the best fit as the shoulder pad rim colour of that Company is traditionally Grey ;-)

Grey Knights Strike Squad.

The moderately converted Reaper Autocannon will be representing the units Psycannon.

He's just a 'concept' model at the moment but I like the way he turned out.

'Psycannon' Marine.

If I decide I still like it by tomorrow, I'll tidy up this one and then see if I've got enough bits to make another couple of squads.

Thoughts and comments are (as usual) most welcome.

Some 'Long Fang' progress

So I've got a bit of painting done,

They'd already been dry-brushed my Chapters metallic blue colour but they also now have the first coat on their weapons and the basic colours done on the shoulder pads and rims as well as small other small details which you probably can't see very well on this picture.
I'm also changing my usual bright blue colour on the cloaks for a more pleasing grey colour. All the cloaked Sergeants/Champions/Wolf Guard etc. will gradually get changed into the new colour scheme.

Also as a relief from the boredom of painting the same thing on 18 models I cleaned up and partially based this recent e-bay acquisition

Not much to comment on, but go ahead if you feel the need......

Some current bits and pieces.....

I've been updating some of my 'Counts-as' guys as a few of them are showing their age now.
I also figured that I needed a Rune Priest model that was more in keeping with the style of my Wolf Guard. Then I realised I'd have to make a 2nd one as my Space Wolves list now has two of them in it......but that's a job for another day.....

'Counts-as' Kharn.

'Counts-as' Lysander.

'Prototype' New Rune Priest.

Thoughts and Comments are (as usual) most welcome.