Yesterday, I finally got a chance to run my Slaanesh CSM list, “Pink is the New Black“, in two different variations. I’ll write more about that tomorrow, but first, there’s something else I started working on yesterday. When I first started putting together my Slaanesh list, I was pretty adamant about not wanting to use a Daemon Prince. However, while I was on vacation a few months ago, I happened upon a gaming store that had the Urban Legends variant of Reaper’s Sophie succubus mini on the shelf. Once I had it, I wasn’t sure exactly what to do with it, other than to just paint it up as is. After some reflection, though, I decided to make it into a Daemon Prince. I don’t feel like GW’s Daemon Prince kit was a good fit for Slaanesh, so this seemed to fit my army’s theme better.

Rather than just run her as-is, I wanted to “monster” her up a bit. I had a Chaos Spawn sprue that I wasn’t planning to use otherwise, so I took some of the bits from that. The large crab claw arm – very Slaaneshi in style – was attached, along with a couple of insectoid legs springing up from where her wings would be. Why didn’t I just use the wings that came with the mini? Frankly, because I didn’t want to use them. Yes, wings are great on a Daemon Prince, but I feel like they’re a bit overdone. True, you see a lot of Slaanesh DPs with Lash of Submission, but honestly I don’t mind footslogging her around. I can keep her in cover – that’s what the Rhinos are for. The claws were also a bit of an homage to Andariel, one of the demonic bosses in Diablo 2.

Here’s a few pics of how she’s coming along:

The horns are made from daemonette tails. Unfortunately, all of the tails in the daemonette box are unique, so I couldn’t have two of the same horn. I’m not too bothered by it; being a bit asymmetrical fits the theme as well. The base is a 60mm resin base from Micro Arts, and represents my first time working with anything resin. I had to drill into it a bit to make space for the peg on one of her feet. I trimmed that peg down a bit to fit, and trimmed the other peg off entirely; while she wasn’t 100% stable before the glue set, it’s held her in place quite well.

There’s still some work to do before she’s ready for priming, mostly involving the use of green stuff. There are still open holes in her back where the wings would have been that the insect legs don’t fill completely. I want to fill those in, and I also want to smooth in the joint between the back and the crab claw arm. In addition, I want to add a shoulder pad to one of her arms, although I don’t know if I want to use a standard marine pad or one for a Terminator. Her shoulder is actually slender enough to fit a standard one, but I’ll try both and decide which one I prefer. Once that’s done, she should be ready for priming and painting. I haven’t decided if I want to prime white or black yet, but I’ll need to decide soon.

On a side note, I also received 6 of the metal Juan Diaz daemonettes for my birthday (thanks, Dennis!) and got them together as well. Right now, I’m planning on using them as lesser summoned daemons in at least one of my Slaanesh lists. I’d like to get at least 6 more; they seem like they fit best in larger units that can absorb some fire before they get into assault with something.

As promised, I managed to get some pictures of my army in its current build state. Everything but the Rhinos are fully assembled, apart from basing. The Rhino chassis are built, and just need to be ‘Slaanesh-ed’ out. Above is the sorceror I’m using. He’s an older one, salvaged from a lot of 2nd Edition minis. He might actually be pewter, rather than the newer white metal blend. He’s been stripped of paint and reassembled as-is.

Here are the Possessed that will be accompanying him in their (appropriately enough) Daemon-possessed Rhino. The icon bearer is the one on the left, with the tentacle. The possessed champion is the one in back with the wings. These guys were fun to assemble just because of all the options in the kit; each one will definitely look unique on the table, and I still have bits left over to play with for other marines (such as an eventual squad of Chosen).

And the squad of Noise Marines. These guys have a pretty standard setup – a Noise Champion with a doom siren and a power weapon, one Noise Marine with a blastmaster, and four more with sonic blasters. I still have bits for making two more sonic blaster Marines, but it was getting late, and, frankly, the arm assemblies on the sonic blasters are frustrating to get onto the torso. Oh, for a plastic Noise Marine kit.

Here’s the first squad of standard Chaos Marines – the melta/anti-vehicle squad. The actual meltaguns are further in the back of the squad, but up front is the Aspiring Champion with his power fist, the icon bearer, and a Chaos Marine with a head taken from the GW Mutations sprue. That is a fun sprue to work with when it comes to making Chaos Marines that don’t just look like loyalists with horns.

And here’s the other standard Marine squad, the plasma/anti-power-armor squad. From left to right, there’s another mutated Chaos Marine, an icon bearer, an Aspiring Champion with a power sword and plasma pistol, and one of the two plasma gunners in the squad. I really like how the champion turned out in this unit; the spike rack and the Slaanesh champion head really make him stand out amongst the rest of his squad.

And finally, here are my two squads of Obliterators. Working from left to right, you can see the gaps on the torso belt on numbers 1, 3, and 4 that I’m going to have to fill. The first one isn’t too bad, and really just needs a tiny amount of gap filling, but the gaps on 3 and 4 are very noticeable and are going to require an extra ‘link’ in the belt to be sculpted. It should be an easy fix, but it’s still a bit of a bother to have to do it in the first place. Still, I’m happy with how these guys look, with guns and blades at all angles. I may not be happy with the actual casting job GW did in some cases, but the design/sculpt is great. I will say, though, that it’s another model that I’d love to see in plastic.

So this weekend, I hope to get some work done on at least one of the Rhinos. I’ll also likely be getting some basic basing done with sand for the various marines so I can get to priming them. Once primed, then they go into the much-neglected painting queue, where I still need to finish up my first squad of Berserkers and get two more Tau Devilfish painted.

The build phase of my Slaanesh Chaos Marine army is just about complete. Last night, I finished up the last Chaos Marines and Noise Marines for my list. A few days earlier, I finished assembling Obliterator #4, so all of my Heavy Support choices are assembled as well. I wouldn’t say that they’re completely built. There’s a number of gaps that need filling with green stuff. These aren’t just small cracks where the two metal pieces didn’t quite join completely. There are a couple of really noticeable spaces where the figure was not quite molded correctly, especially at the front of the model, where I’ll have to resculpt bits to make the Obliterators seem complete.

In fact, I’m going to take a moment to rant about GW’s metal pieces. The casting process they use must be horribly random at times, and it seems to have gotten worse over time. The first three Obliterators I put together – the ones that I acquired from the collection I purchased – went together decently well. I even disassembled their torsos (to clean off some clumsy overgluing) and reassembled them with no problems. Actually getting the weapons on was occasionally tricky, but they all ended up fitting decently with some patience and careful filing/drilling. The fourth Obliterator, though, was a pain to assemble. Nothing seemed to fit quite right, and even getting glue to bond, especially on the arms, was a nightmare. I had to use a combination of Zap-a-Gap and Gorilla Glue to get it to bond, and even then I had to basically immobilize the mini for the better part of an hour for it to set properly. It’s similar to the situation my friend Dan faced when getting his Thunderfire Cannon put together. The pieces were so badly cast that we had to bring in our modeling expert Richard, who was able to basically beat the thing into submission. I’m glad I didn’t have to deal with these issues when assembling my Tau – any metal minis were in one piece.

Anyway, the infantry are all put together. Next on the list is to pimp out the two Rhino chassis I have put together. I’ve got a box of Daemonettes to hack apart and glue on to represent Daemonic Possession, and I’ve got some ideas for sculpting some custom green stuff details, so this should be fun. I’ve also started work on a Daemon Prince; it’s not part of the list, but I’m thinking of building one anyway, just for flexibility’s sake. I’m inspired by this model (somewhat NSFW, due to daemon toplessness), and I just happen to have the base model he used (which I picked up as a lucky find on vacation). I’m going to follow his lead and use some Chaos Spawn bits to customize her, along with a couple of scraps of Chaos Marine armor. I don’t know if it would be a tournament-legal piece, but for friendly play it’s all good.

And after that, it’s time to sell off the metal terminators and pick up plastics in their stead, because I see this list going to 2000 points and beyond! Also, I will try to get some pictures this evening of what I have built so far. No good talking about the build if I can’t show my work.

Here’s a breakdown on how things have been going:

• Chaos Sorcerer: Already owned it. Already assembled. Just need to prime it. The easiest part of the army, hands down.
• Possessed Marines: My list called for 6 possessed marines, but the kit only had parts for making 5. Fortunately, it’s a kit that allows for a fair amount of customization, so while there may only be 5 torsos and 5 sets of legs, there were heads, backpacks, and arms for six or seven possessed. I threw a standard CSM torso and pair of legs into the mix, along with a tentacle arm from the Chaos Mutations sprue, and everything came together. However, all the strange arms with their claws and blades added a new complication. This squad needs to carry around an icon of Slaanesh, and no one has any useful hands with which to carry one around. My solution was similar to one I used for my Raptors, and was inspired by a picture from (I believe) the 5th Edition rulebook. In that book, there’s a picture of a Chaos Marine with one of the vehicle sprue Slaanesh icons mounted on a spike coming up from his backpack. I took one of the backpacks, snipped a spot in the middle flat, and mounted a vehicle trophy-spike on it. I filed one side flat and glued the vehicle icon in place.

I want to take a quick moment aside and talk about Chaos icons. I don’t like them in 5th Edition. Back in the days of 4th Edition, they may have been a bit easier to use effectively, but with the way wound allocation works in 5th Edition the icon bearers risk being picked off any time there’s a volley of fire or flurry of blows. They’re also not cost-effective for smaller units. You don’t often see blobs of 11 to 20 Chaos Marines on the table; you’re far more likely to see squads of 10 or less inside Rhinos. For large squads, the icon is very cost-efficient, as it’s got a flat cost regardless of how many models it actually effects. Personally, I’d rather have the option of forgoing the icon and just buying marks for each model at a per-model cost, or even a per-unit cost. It would simplify things, both from a gameplay perspective and from a modeling perspective.

Anyway, I digress. Back to the list.

• Noise Marines: I like the weapons for this unit. I don’t like how they’re packaged. With the other three cult units – Khorne Berzerkers, Plague Marines, and Thousand Sons – when you buy a box of them you get exactly what you’d expect: a box full of one of those three units. Noise Marines, on the other hand… well, for starters, there is no “Noise Marines” box. There’s an “Emperor’s Children Noise Marines” box. This is a misnomer on two counts. First, there’s nothing besides the Emperor’s Children icons on the decal sheet (which are included in every Chaos box) that would mark these as being Emperor’s Children marines. Secondly, only three of the eight models in the box actually have sonic weapons. There’s one Doom Siren, one Sonic Blaster, and one Blast Master. I can’t exactly make a full unit of Noise Marines with that. (To be fair, the image that GW uses for the product is accurate for what’s included within.) I’ve had to order an extra pack of sonic weapon bits to make my unit of 6. I’ll have enough sonic blasters that I can probably fill out the other 5 models in the box with sonic blasters; I’m just annoyed that it’s costing me an extra $20 to do it.

  All of that said, these models came together relatively easily, and having the standard plastic CSM sprues with it makes these guys easy to customize.

• Chaos Space Marines: I was working on these late last night, and I have five of them about 2/3rds completed. They’re lacking heads, backpacks, and pauldrons, but they have bolters in hand and are just about ready to go. It took me a bit to get used to working with the two separate arms and getting them to line up right with the bolters, but I think I’ve got it down now. I haven’t decided if this is going to be the plasma or melta squad yet, so I still have to pick which special weapons to throw onto the assembly line. I’ll also have to get the icon bearer and the aspiring champ built, but they should come together pretty quickly.

By Sunday night, I’m hoping to have all the non-metal infantry together, including the noise marines (assuming I get the bits pack in time). If I can get a Rhino put together as well, I’ll be pretty happy. I imagine the Obliterators will be an adventure in pinning, but I have everything I need to get them together, so it’s just a matter of getting it done. I also need to figure out what I want to do for the possessed Rhino. I’ve been inspired by this Rhino I found on CoolMiniOrNot.com, so I’d need to pick up a box of Daemonettes to cut up and embed into the vehicle. I do wish that the new Daemonettes looked at all like the previous version, but I guess we can’t have everything.

I mentioned having to drill out a broken flight base in my most recent post. What I hadn’t mentioned was the drilling process itself. About a year ago,  I picked up a Gale Force 9 pinning drill, but other than drilling out the odd broken flight base (as a Tau player, I deal with this more often than I would like), I hadn’t really used it too much. The standard bit it ships with is a bit large for pinning 28mm mini bits. Fortunately, they sell a pack of extra bits and rods that includes a much slimmer bit, and I had purchased one of those a few months ago once my local shop had them back in stock. I wanted to avoid drilling a new flight base hole, so I got out the thin bit in the hopes of being able to drill a hole into the small nub of flight stand inside the mini and pull it out. However, I was disheartened to discover that the small bit didn’t work in the drill. The drill’s chuck was constructed in such a way that it could close around the bit, but could never grab it – there was actually a cylindrical section of the inside of the chuck cut away that was just slightly larger than the small bit. I ended up having to use the larger bit and making a new hole (which did work).

This was not at all what I wanted out of my pinning drill, so I did what any frustrated customer should do: write a letter to the manufacturer. I sent an email to Gale Force 9 expressing my dismay that their product did not work as intended, and asked if there was any possible resolution. This was on Sunday afternoon. Monday morning, shortly after the start of business, I received a response telling me that they were investigating the issue. Less than an hour later, they returned with what they’d found – that a batch of drills made a few years earlier had bad chucks – and asking for a mailing address where a new one could be sent. Since my drill could have been sitting on the shelf for a while, it’s very possible that it was in that batch.

This afternoon, my new chuck arrived in the mail, along with a few extra slim brass rods for good measure. That’s a three-day turn around between them receiving the initial complaint and my receiving a replacement part. I can happily report that the new chuck works wonderfully with the smaller bit. I’m very, very pleased with Gale Force 9. I’ve sung the praises of their micro files before, and now I’ll praise both their pinning drill and their customer service department. I can guarantee that I’ll be buying more of their products in the future.

This week, I finally got back on the painting horse and made a fair amount of progress on my first Hammerhead. I figured that this would be a great opportunity to show where I do my mini work. There’s about a 16″ square of space on my desk that I devote to my miniatures projects. That’s where I keep my brushes, a couple of plastic cups for water, and whatever paints I’m using at the time. I also keep my bottle of super glue at my desk; I tend to squeeze in assembly and repair time whenever I can, so it’s always ready to go. Here’s a closer view of the work area itself.

Besides everything I keep at my desk, I also have a set of rolling shelves just to the side, topped with a tacklebox full of paints. Each shelf has a certain purpose, which just helps keep me organized and functional. The top shelf holds minis that are assembled, but not yet based or primed. Next, a shelf of bases and basing material, including grit, flock, stone, and even a resin base for my Chaos Dreadnought (whenever I put it together). Next down is the tool shelf – my clippers, files, hobby knives, spare palettes, etc. Finally, there’s the shelf just for unassembled minis, mostly occupied by old pewter Chaos minis in pieces (including the aforementioned Dreadnought). Below that, three more shelves of miscellaney, including everything from spare paint bottles (mostly old Apple Barrel craft paints) to spare bits (such as a cup full of CSM backpacks).

Finally, a picture of my current project. Work on the Hammerhead has been progressing very well. I have all the flats and inking done, so this next week will see doing minor cleanup, edge highlighting, and detail work. I’m using the same colors as my Devilfish, but there’s more Knarloc Green panels amongst the Goblin Green ones; I wanted my tanks to have a different look from my transports.

One thing this week has taught me (or at least, reminded me) is that when it comes to getting something done, there’s no substitute for getting intentional and doing it. Sometimes, just blocking out an hour or so of time is enough to get the ball rolling. I’d planned on only working around one hour on one night last week; instead, I ended up working two nights and one morning to get to where I am. It’s nice to be making progress again.

Also, I still have to figure out how to mount an Icon of Khorne on one of the normal Raptors. I’d like to do something more visible than just a symbol on a shoulder pad, but I’m not sure what yet. I suppose I could cut off one of the chainswords and mount something that way. Ponder ponder ponder…

In the meantime, I’ve been working on a couple of assembly projects when I haven’t been blowing my brains out through my nostrils.

1. My first Chaos Defiler, which is roughly one-third of the way done. The legs and arms are built, as is the abdomen. Last night, I started getting the torso/cannon assembly together. After that, it’s a matter of assembling two CCWs  (this is a Khornite Defiler), and then I’ll just put it all together. Maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow. The sooner  the better, though – I want to try out my 1000-point CSM list, although I still need to get the Raptors assembled as well.
2. Four Crisis suits to pad out my latest Tau list. So far, I just have the torsos put together, and that alone has been an exercise in shaving, filing, and filling with green stuff. The torsos themselves fit together well, but the jetpack assemblies were not so kind. It took a fair amount of trimming down some miscast curves in otherwise-flat surfaces to get them to fit even remotely flush, and even with that there were still gaps that needed filling. Thanks to this, I’m also down one hobby knife blade – one of mine snapped mid-shave, ricocheted off my forehead, and landed on my wife’s desk. Fortunately, no one (besides the knife blade) was hurt in this incident. The green stuff has cured and has been sanded down, though, so I’m ready to move on to limbs and weapons.

My painting schedule should resume in November, so I’m planning on getting my Hammerhead done then. Hopefully, I can get some priming done before it gets too cold to do it outside.

One thing I’m still of a mixed mind about in the Chaos Space Marine Codex is the whole icon thing. Having to have one model in a unit being an icon bearer is a bit of a pain when it comes to WYSIWYG modeling. It’s not so bad for vanilla CSMs, as they have the parts for having someone tote around an icon on the sprue. For terminators, though, it’s a bit trickier. For one thing, there’s no comparable parts. For another, they don’t have any free hands. At a loss for what to do, and not really feeling like drilling into a terminator’s body, I pulled out my Green Stuff. Now, before the other night, I’d never really used Green Stuff for anything but patching gaps and doing pseudo-pinning, but suddenly I felt brave. What if the icon bearer’s armor itself was the icon? Of course, this meant one thing – putting the mark of Khorne on him, and that meant sculpting. That’s the mark of a good hobby – it encourages you to stretch yourself and try things you haven’t done before. Getting my Green Stuff, hobby knife, and cup of water ready, I got to work.

I was happy enough with the results to repeat it on his shoulder, and then again on my Terminator Lord, who also bears the mark of Khorne. So, how’d I do it? Here’s how:

1. Put a small blob of Green Stuff where you want the mark, and smooth it out a bit until it’s the roughly the shape and size you want.

2. Using a hobby knife (and remembering to keep it wet/lubricated), trim the excess away until you have a square.3. Cut away a triangle from the top center of your square.4. Carefully cut away a thin, rectangular piece with one angled end, trying to keep close to the angle of your triangluar cut above.5. Just below your rectangular cut, cut away another triangle.6. Repeat the cuts on the other side, trying to stay as symmetrical as possible.7. Okay, now comes the part where you cut away the triangle in the middle of the mark. You could just try to dig out a triangle, but that doesn’t work terribly well. It’s cleaner and easier to subtract more than you need, and then add back pieces of what you cut away. Cut away a triangle from the bottom of your Green Stuff, larger than the one on top. Set aside the piece you’ve removed. You’re going to need it for the next (and final) step.8. Finally, take part of the triangle you just removed – approximately half of it – and reshape it into a narrow horizontal piece. Place it at the bottom of the area you just removed, and smooth the ends so that it’s one piece with the rest of your mark.

Trim up any rough edges from the ends, and you’re set – one mark of Khorne wherever you want it. Once it’s cured, you can sand it smooth to even out any marks from your fingers/sculpting tools. Throw it on shoulder pads, backs, the sides of Rhinos, or anywhere you might need to venerate the Blood God!

• cleaned up flash and mold lines
• filed holes larger or pegs smaller to provide a better fit (particularly useful with plastic flight bases, which never seem to be sized properly)
• scored/roughened metal surfaces to help glue adhere better
• filing off old, stubborn super glue from older minatures
• added grooves and depressions to a bit to make it join with a different part

Of course, a good tool requires good care. Fortunately, these are relatively easy to take care of. I keep them in their plastic sheath when not in use, and after using them I run them lightly between my thumb and forefinger to clean off any material hiding in the filing surface. By keeping them clean and dry, you can greatly extend the life of your files.

There are also sets of larger files available, but for miniature work I prefer the smaller, more delicate micro files. They’re a good set of precision tools, and not badly priced for the amount of work you’ll get out of them.