40K Motivation - GK2

With the release of 6th edition motivation is of course pretty high. This is tempered by the new baby time vaccum, but I have found time to finish building my second Grey Knight.

The actual time spent on him was much less than the first yet I feel the Green Stuffing went much better. I hope that by plugging away I'll reach a point where I can sculpt some basic details as well as flat surfaces.

Number three is all clipped out and ready to convert. Let's hope I can get a squad going soon.

When I popoed into my local FLGS to pick up some Army Painter spray for my Imperial Strongpoint I saw the new LOTR LEGO. Helmsdeep in the window is amazing.

OK, this is my first 'blog on the go' using the Blogger iPhone App. Please let me know if any technical problems come up.

What We've Made Recently

So clearly very little has happened here in the past couple of months. After all the build up and preparation to the Deathwatch campaign it was nice with a little rest. And since then it's been full speed ahead on a nursery for my (then) upcoming first child.

 Then 12 day's early Sebastian turned up, tiny, lovely and time consuming.

So in all honesty I have done next to no hobbying since my last post two and a half months ago. D&D has been carrying on, even including a play test round of D&D Next, So far so good with that, I look forward to more. Before people start expecting more geeky discussion I am of course not allowed to tell about D&D Next, but I'm sure all that want to be in the know are involved in the play testing. I will say I like where it seems to be going. So far!

During D&D this past Tuesday I found time to start building my second Artscale Grey Knight. Excitement for the upcoming 6th Edition release has got me keen for more time to the hobby but with the little man in the house now I don't know how it's going to go. But I will keep a record of it all here for people to see.

At this point he is half built, a lot of sculpting is done but much is just blu-taced together.

On that front I want to say a big THANK YOU to all of you who have been visiting this blog, 2,500 (circa) hits since the previous post. I see from the stats that most of you have been in to see the Samurai Grey Knights so I'll use that as some extra motivation to make things happen with them. I have a few other plans for articles and posts coming up. The fictionalisation of the Deathwatch adventure 'The Greatest Good' is almost finished and will go up in a slowly rolling release. I also thought to show pictures of my collections of figures from various ranges and armies I have. 

If any of you people visiting this blog read this please comment below and explain what brought you here and what you would like to see more of. Thanks

"A Classic Greyhawk Adventure"

Last night I joined a Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 campaign. The DM, an old friend and one of the players in my Deathwatch campaign had asked me if I was interested in joining their new group over Skype and I jumped at the chance. I hadn't played any D&D since our 4th ed. adventure/party fell apart shortly after completing Keep on the Shadowfell (H-1) when it was new. Now some of the old group along with a younger generation had got together and were going up against the original AD&D module T-1 with a 3.5 shine to it. They had cleared the moat house and got underway to the temple as I joined them.

In a blaze of raw combat prowess and polyhedral good fortune the party was introduced to one Steffen Hawk, Paladin of Heironeous. As you can imagine the party rogue was overjoyed.

All in all the group seems great and after five hours of dungeon crawling and illusion fearing we found a safe bolt hole, dinged (Lvl. 5), killed a par of 9th level villains and, I hope, became a party of six.

Steffen, a human found himself allying with:

Talin, an elf mage who wants to learn to control flames.

Lokken, a human barbarian with a prelude to bad fortune.

Mathryn, a human monk with a mighty beard.

Aelidia, an elf rogue of great beauty and deviousness.

Teal, a gnome druid and his mongrel companion.

As a bonus during the game I also got some nice base coating done on my prototype Artscale Grey Knight.

Plenty of tidying up before he is even base coated properly. 

But as a concept I am liking it more and more.

The Shogunate Brotherhood 1850 List

Well in this mornings post about my converted up Grey Knight I mentioned the names of my force and the source that inspired them (James Clavell's Shōgun). Then I showed the model and gave no names. :facepalm:

Well here is the 1850 list I was referring to and it includes a load of names that I intend to use for my army. Now I haven't ironed out fluff for these guys, as I said when I introduced them last week the inspiration came from a desire to make the models. However I can quite see a version of Samurai's codes of honour being appropriate to the Grey Knights so it feels like a good place to start from.

The List:

The Shogunate Brotherhood

Grand Master Toranaga

            The Willowblade (Nemesis Force Sword)

            Psychic Ammunition, Rad Grenades, Melta Bombs

            The Hatamoto Council (3 Servo Skulls)

220

5 Daimyo Paladins of the Brotherhood

            A Master-crafted Daemon Hammer

            A Psycannon

            A Halberd

            A Brotherhood Banner

            An Apothacary

            Psychic Ammunition

420

5 Samurai Terminators of the Brotherhood

            A Master-crafted Daemon Hammer

            A Psycannon

            A Brotherhood Banner

            2 Pairs of Katana (Falchions)

            Psychic Ammunition

285

6 Samurai Terminators of the Brotherhood

            A Master-crafted Daemon Hammer

            A Psycannon

            4 Pairs of Katana (Falchions)

            Psychic Ammunition

310

Brother Murasama, Dreadknight

            Heavy Psycannon

            The Tachi (Nemesis Greatsword)

195

Brother Buntaro, Dreadnought

            Twin-linked Autocannon

            Psychic Ammunition

            Extra Armour

            Searchlight

146

Anjin, Stormraven

            Hurricane Bolters

Psychic Ammunition

Extra Armour

Searchlight

271

1847

I would love some guidance on the list here, whilst I'm happy with it overall I'm not good with the ins and outs of list building so all tips welcome.

Giant Samurai Grey Knights

First none Deathwatch related post (the story intro will resume after the weekend). I am planning on creating a new Space Marine army, my Knights Templar that got me back into the hobby around '04 time don't look all that special now and after seeing Kromlech's Samurai helmets I knew what I wanted to do.

Samurai Grey Knights!

The reason for picking the Grey Knights codex was the elite nature, I figured this would allow me to focus more on the individual models and keep to my goal of making a force that looks something special. Spending a few days looking for further inspiration I picked up a moulds block to help me create the Samurai look. As I played around with the figure I was pleased, but then I remembered something I'd seen a while back. True Scale Space Marines. Some searching around on the net led me to the works of the Master of the Forge. This guy is amazing and I realise that I won't be achieving anything like his works but they are an inspirational goal.

Artscale Grey Knights by the Master of the Forge.

So to go along side my first box of Grey Knights I went and picked up a box of the Termies as well. This evening as my friend over from England tries out Skyrim I've done a bit of blu-tac trialling and I like what I am seeing.

Artscale Grey Knight next to a regular Space Marine of the Knights Templar Chapter