Graham McNiell's God King

The third installment of the Sigmar trilogy is Graham McNiell's God King. This is the third major event or battle that Sigmar overcomes in his reign as Emperor. Nagash has come to plague the lands of men once more, and he wants his crown back. You know, that crown that messed with Sigmar's head in Empire. Sigmar, says "no deal" and undead conflict ensues. I found this novel hard to get into at first, whether I was coming down from reading Prospero Burns, not really in the mood for reading fantasy or just the simple fact that the pacing is somewhat slow in the beginning, being the reason. It is a good read, especially for fans of the Empire, Sigmar and fantasy in general. It has a short McNiell interview at the back for those interested, and McNiell states that he may be writing other novels on Sigmar in the future, to flesh out his history and explore the wackiness of the Empire in its fledgling state. Again, a good, entertaining read, but easily skipable if you haven't read the rest of the trilogy. I'm slowly making my way through Dead Men Walking and will post a review when i finally do. So far though, color me not impressed.

Dan Abnett's Prospero Burns

I know I said I wouldn't post again until after the New year, however I just finished reading Dan Abnett's Prospero Burns. In the beginning, I really felt this book had been over hyped. Everyone was gushing about how it would blow A Thousand Sons out of the water. I was prepared to believe this, after all, it was Dan Abnett writing it. This is the story of the destruction of Prospero through Kasper Hawser's eyes. He is kind of like a remembrancer, but more interested in preserving all knowledge than recording the great crusade. The story is twined with his memories and his experiences with the Space Wolves. One thing Abnett does, is add more Norse flavor to the Space Wolves. Nordic terminology is used, or adapted to make Fenrisian culture more present in the story. So I started out expecting this to be a great novel. About halfway through, I felt like it was falling flat in the way that Hunt for Voldorious did. By the last quarter of the book, it was back on track and really clicked for me. I think everyone will enjoy this novel, especially fans of A Thousand Sons and Abnett in general. A good read, with great insight into the Space Wolves and a very interesting plot twist at the end.

Merry Christmas to All!

I hope everyone got the model kits or books they were hoping for! Here is my Christmas present to myself, the MKIV Ironclad from Forge World. I love the way the hunter killer missiles mount on this model (from the back of the torso top). The detail is great, and while I'm not 100% sold on the eagle headed seismic hammer, I do like the novelty of it.




Happy holidays and seasons greetings to all. I'll be back in the new year with more of my Ultramarines, more book reviews and more modelling and painting projects. Until then, merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Forge World Warhound

I pulled out my warhound to play a game of apocalypse the other day and it reminded me that i hadn't photographed it yet. I built this warhound years ago, and learned a lot about the weakness of super glue doing so.



The first game I played with this titan, the chassis split in half while I was getting ready to place it. Having a poor transport option didn't help either. Luckily I was able to reglue it, and it has stayed fairly together since then (with the exception of a toe which was repaired pretty easily). The gluing did cause fogging, and I had to touch that up as well.



The most difficult part of this model are the hosing for the plasma blast guns. Their are rubber, and need to be heated in order to bend them into the right shape so that they will hold and be glue able.



The pistons are kind of a pain as well, as they need to be trimmed once the legs are posed.



The white is just multiple coats over white primer, and the rest of the model is painted the same way I did the Reaver. I like to think the Reaver was an improvement on the technique using an airbrush to create a smoother white.



The interior brown is Kommando Khaki over black primer.



Anyone who is thinking of building a big model and doesn't know about two part epoxy should investigate it. While it has a longer cure time than super glue, that also gives the model increased bond strength.



My final thoughts on the Warhound revolve around weapon choices. I bought the Mars Pattern Warhound back when Forge World didn't sell the gun arms separately. So it has the Plasma Blastgun and Vulcan Megabolter. Both are great weapons, though their role is a bit different. The Blastgun is very flexible, while the megabolter is more anti-infantry oriented. Eventually I would like to get a super heavy hunter with two turbolascannons.

Honor Guard part 2

The last week or so I have been slowly chipping away at my honor guard figs. Here are the two that are reasonably finished. First off is, what is my favorite of them, the fig who looks similar to the marine on the cover of the 4th ed SM codex.



The main thing I did differently for these models is to add a wash of Asurmen Blue, and a second coat of Ultramarines blue to add a bit more depth to the models.



The only detail I might add in is either a water slide decal or some freehand to include the Word Bearers heraldry on the chaos shoulder pad. Not sure if I feel up to that yet, but if I do it, i will add a pic in a future post.



I used P3 Trollblood Highlight, a wash of Thraka Green and then a highlight of P3 Cryx Base Highlight with a final small wash of Baal Red to add some goriness to the twin mutant heads.



I kept the cloaks dark, with coats of Scab Red, Red Gore and an extreme highlight of Blood Red.

Sevrin Loth and Honor Guard

It's been a good couple of days since I posted about the Sevrin Loth kit. In that time I've been busy with a lot of things, my daughter was baptised, Thanksgiving passed, and a whole lot of other stuff got done (mainly reading in my spare time). But I also did some chipping away at the honor guard to get them ready for priming.



I built Sevrin Loth first, his was the easiest build, and only required me to remove the Red Scorpions insignia from his shoulder pad and replace it with an Ultramarine symbol from the Ultramarines Brass Etched sheet. I chose an Ultramarines symbol inside a circle for this shoulder pad, as it seemed to fill the space best.



For the honor guard, I used the Sevrin Loth kit (and the command squad sprue it comes with), an Ultramarines brass etched sheet, bitz from the Sanguinary Guard sprues, and the character upgrade set from Forge World for the bionic legs and the power sword. This let me build seven honor guard instead of the four that Forge World shows on their site. Where I could, I removed Red Scorpions insignia, and for a pair of the shoulder pads, I removed the Inquisition symbols from two Death Watch shoulder pads.



I then used two part epoxy (stuff that's the same as green stuff, though for obvious color differences it's grey stuff) to fill in the inset blood drops on some of the power weapons. I then rolled out some blobs to make cloaks. These are pretty rudimentary, I made rectangles and then cut out the space needed to fit around the join for the backpacks. Then I smoothed out the putty at the top to attach the cloaks. Finally using two sculpting tools, I pushed and rolled the putty to create motion in the cloaks. Finally (although it was actually the first thing I did), the bases all have chaos bitz to give a combat theme to the models.