I took on a commission recently to sculpt a 13th Company Wolf Lord based off the new plastic Daemon Prince model. My job is to kit him out with hair aplenty, a new wolf greave on the right forearm, and a howling wolf head.
The model is coming along quite nicely and you'll notice the basic structure of the head and mouth.
I've dabbled a bit with a 54mm style head. I am happy with most of the features but the eyes gave me a lot of trouble. The eyelids don't look quite right, so I will have to try a different technique.
While I am sculpting away on these projects, I am attempting to sculpt on plenty of Blood Angel iconography onto regular Space Marine Terminators in an attempt to bring them up to the outstanding quality of the Space Hulk Blood Angel miniatures. Pictures to come!
Meet Chuck the Blood Angel Space Marine. Years ago, GW had a set of Space Marines create to be 'life-size' and this Blood Angel was one of them that was sent over here to the good old US of A. He didn't have a name and the Promotions Department named him Chuck. He's been to more shows than I can remember, and I enjoyed the chance to catch up with him. I'd gotten the chance to play Artificier with Chuck years ago and patched him up for battle.
In the grand tradition of Games Day wackiness, here's a photo of a life-size Empire Cannon. Why anyone would want to be a crew member of a device that will explode in your face 16% of the time is beyond me, but my Empire Cannon crew never complain to me about the explosions.
These big wacky things always made Games Day quite a bit of fun. For the 1999 Games Day, I build a large 40K Bunker for the Big Game, and I can't remember the year that I built the life-size Chimera. That one blew people away (sometimes when they had to pick it up and move it around). I'd really like to have some photos of that Chimera so if you see any, let me know!
I had a lot of fun at Games Day this year and got to see old friends again. Sadly, this will be the last Games Day in Baltimore for who knows how long, but we'll get together again for some East Coast events.
I painted this a few months back to win an online painting contest and thought I should share it. Its a Blood Angel Death Company Marine who's subject to a moment of clarity during the madness and has taken the time to admire some natural beauty. Too bad for the Chaos Marine but that's the price they pay when the turn from the light.
The flower was sculpted onto a length of paperclip. The leaves from the flower are simply strips of painted paper bent to have a nice curve, then affixed in place with a drop of super glue. The roots were added by placing a drop of super glue at the root bottom and dipping it in static grass. When the glue was dry I just painted the roots brown.
Dante 225
Librarian w/ Jump Pack 125 Powers -Blood Lance and Might of Heroes (now to be Shield of Sanguinius)
2 Sanguinary Priests w/ Jump Packs 150
Furioso Librarian w/ Drop Pod 210 Powers- Blood Lance and Wings of Sanguinius
Furioso Librarian w/ Drop Pod 210 Powers- Blood Lance and Wings of Sanguinius
5 model Assault squad w/ Melta gun, power fist, and infernus pistol 150
5 model Assault squad w/ power fist, and infernus pistol 140
5 model Assault squad w/ flamer in Razorback with twin-linked lascannons 160
10 Death Company w/ powerfist 225 and w/ dedicated Landraider w/ multi-melta 260
Death Company Dreadnought w/ magna grapple and drop pod 175
Death Company Dreadnought w/ magna grapple and drop pod 175
Vindicator 145
Vindicator 145
Total 2495
Give every dreadnought a grapple. If it can't kill a vehicle when it lands, then hit it with the grapple and drag it closer and kill it in an assault. The grapple is an additional weapon that can be blown off by a damage result.
It is interesting to note that a Vindicator costs nearly the same as an upgraded assault squad.
Librarian Dreadnoughts - taking Wings of Sanguinius was a novel idea and seemed to be pretty good. I think the better choice might be to take the Shield of Sanguinius to absorb some incoming fire at the start of the opponent's shooting phase. Add in a locator beacon or two to the drop pods and the Librarians and DC Dreads can boost their survivability.
Hmmm, lots of different lists are rolling in my head.
I had the hardest time figuring out how to attach the wings to the Sanguinary Guard models. The instructions provided by GW were worthless in trying to figure it out and since they are all digital diagrams, a reasonable person would expect that they'd show how it assembles. But the finer points of model construction are not GW's bag.
So, the wings contain a spot that fits into the round bubbles on the back side of the marine torso. Yeah, its complicated to describe, so check out the picture for a more accurate description. The areas that are circled are glued together. Hope that helps.
First off, thanks to The Warstore for fulfilling all of my purchasing needs. You guys rock.
Second, it's been many a moon since I've posted and I'm back! Thank all of you for your comments and I will be responding more as your comments pop up. The truth is so much easier to handle! I'd rather be known for telling it like it is than one who can't face the facts! So on we go.
I've been a rabid Blood Angel player since I played Space Marine Epic with the black armored Salamanders on the cover way back in 1991. I've always like the color red, the glorious Red Wings and I think part of the draw of choosing the Blood Angels for Epic was they were always pictured in White Dwarf magazine. So I got my copy of the Blood Angel Codex last week. Thanks Warstore!!!!!!
I'm very pleased with the Codex. There are a few things I'm still digesting and figuring out, more on that later.
But today is a discussion on Sanguinary Guard. These are some great models with some solid rules. I haven't used them yet in a game but overall I think they are a pretty good choice. A player may take 5 models at the cost of 200 points. It's pretty expensive, but I think there are a few good bits in there. Each one has veteran stats and thus have 2 attacks. Artificier armor gives them a 2+ save and they are fearless. With Descent of Angels, they can drop in nearly anywhere they want. The Glaive Encarmine is a two-handed master crafted power weapon so they can be devastating when they engage in combat and Death Masks can be taken that force opponents to make a leadership check and if they should fail, they will be at Weapon Skill 1 for the duration of the assault phase. I would bet that during playtesting they tried the Glaives at Str. 6 and found it to be too much with the Artificier armor and Fearless rules and thus reduced it to merely a master crafted power weapon. I think that losing the attack of the additional hand weapon to be rather silly for Blood Angels. Why shouldn't the Sanguinary Guard have 4 attacks each when they charge? They are the Elite of the Elite! I'd like to take units of 10 models, but alas, I can only take units of 5. Guess someone figured out just how good they were.
Add in a Sanguinary Priest to give Furious Charge and Feel No Pain, and a player has one fantastic and dangerous unit of 5 models, and sadly not 10. Taking Dante as an HQ choice allows a player to take Sanguinary Guard as Troops choices. That's awesome and allows for GW to really sell lots of these models which is what they want to do anyway, so why not give players that opportunity! Good job, GW.
The models are fantastic too. My only real complaint is that the sprues come with only one Infernus pistol, one Plasma pistol, and one Power fist. The options in the book allow me to take as many as each of these as I'd like, but I'm limited by the number of pieces in the box. GW dropped the ball here. It took me about 15 minutes to figure out how the wings attach to the model and I'll post up how that's done in the next few days as a proper customer service bit!
I like the way the Death Masks and armor look in that Italian Renaissance sculpture style (think Michelangelo's David), but I'm not a fan of the bare heads behind the Death Masks and they have the exact same hairstylist! Upon closer inspection, the un-helmeted heads have the same stylist too! I like my Marines with close-cropped hair. These hairdoos look like they should belong in the Emperor's Children Fulgrim pretty boy camp. (Note: I like the Emperor's Children and Fulgrim, so this isn't a slam on them, just a statement of truth). But I do applaud GW on the amount of different bits and shoulder pads on the sprues.
If you plan on taking Blood Angels Honor Guard, I'd recommend using most parts from the Sanguinary Guard models for your models. Just paint them red instead!
