The Stuff - An Unboxing #2

Back again. The next box in the pile also says Orks on the top though this one looks to have a lot more plastic sprues in it.

While I'm going through these boxes I am also cataloguing what I have Hopefully it will help me work out what forces I have at my disposal or even help me rearrange the parts into better groupings for storage.

19 Goffs still on sprue from Warhammer 40,000 2nd Edition. I already have twenty of these painted up do this will double my Goff boyz strength. Still 60 short of a green tide but you can't give these things away so it shouldn't be too hard to source some more.I have a lot of affection for these lads as they appeared a lot duringmy formative hobby years.

Where there are Goff sprues there has the be gretchin sprues close by. Again, I have a load of these painted already, forty in fact. I think that's plenty enough for the Goffs so I'll be painting these differently.

A squad of flash gitz to accompany Kap'n Baddruk and those freebooter boyz.

A squad of fifteen boyz, mostly from a Black Reach set. Once I know how many boyz I've got I can start divying them up into clans. These are based on some random resin bases I got off ebay.

Another five gives me a full squad of ten. I bought these already made from a second hand toys shop for a fraction of their normal price.

Various parts of artillery, or big guns as they are now. The only complete model is the ancient hop splat gun but I know I have the parts to complete the others. There is a smasha cannon, squig catapult and pulsa rockit battery here.

A selection of nobs including the very nice Banna Waver. This is enough to spread across my clans or just build a big nob force for Ghazghkull.

A collection of characters. Another bad dok who can be attached to a different clan though I converted up this one to be a Bad Moon., Zogrod Wartsnagga 2nd edition special character runtherd who fields super grots! I'll need to find out how many a good unit of these little buggers are and get some models together for that unit. Nazgrub Wurrzag is a scrap prospector from Gorka Morka. He was a weirdboy which is good as I always need more of those. As a scrap prospector he'll fit right in with the Deathskullz. Lastly is Bad Dok Dreggutz. He is missing his head and an arm. The arm I have seen in the first ork box, the head hasn't come around yet.

A random boss pole that is big enough I could use it to convert up another banner.

Da Red Gobbo! The resistance figure head from Gorka Morka.It is another lovely Brian Nelson sculpt that pacs a lot of detail into such a small miniature, I am looking forward to getting some paint on him.

The Red Gobbo did not come alone, here are 39 assorted grots from the Grot Revolution range from Gorka Morka. That's enough for one clan's worth of Gretchin.

Assorted metal Gretchin from the 2nd edition era that can be used as crew for artillery pieces of oddboy helpers.

A complete smasha gun. I reckon I have two if these but I'll have to keep digging to be sure.

Some more Rogue Trader era orks. The clans did not exist when these guys were cast so I am free to add them to any clan though the banna wavva looks very Deathskull.

A lone night goblin and some miscellaneous miniatures including some Cawdor gangers for when Necromunda rolls round again. That's box two. Can't wait for box 3.

The Itty Bitty Tank Commitee

A few months back I went all Epic mad and ended up buying quite a lot of the stuff. It's not easy. Epic has officially been dead for a while and getting hold of miniatures is expensive, particularly the infantry. I lament selling my Epic armies; Eldar and Emperor's Children but apparently food is essential to life so whatever.

Out in the world there is a thing called Forumware. This is where fans of Epic who have way more talent than you or I have sculpted their own models that they cast up for personal use. This stuff is amazing. I have seen entire Horus Heresy Legions sculpted to resemble Forge World's current fare and painted to a standard worthy of full sized Golden Daemon standard. Unfortunately you cannot get hold of that stuff so I have been scrabbling around ebay and anywhere else I can think of to build up my collection.

Out of the blue I received a solicitation email from one of the small independent companies I have used for unique and interesting miniatures in the past. I can't tell you who they are as they went to great lengths not to publicise their awesome but obviously plagiarised designs. Still, if Games Workshop won't sell me the things I want, I'll get them elsewhere.

The kit is a metal resin hybrid. The resin parts are the main hull and track sections cast on a single sheet of resin. The resin is very good quality and a crisp cast with no air bubbles and plenty of detail. The plain sides of the resin parts were very smooth so I took a few minutes to rough up the texture to help the glue bond the parts together better. The metal parts are the hatches. These drop in parts could easily be replaced with turret and sponson alternative parts to create Razorbacks, Whirlwinds and Predators. Vindicators would need a different hull and probably could get away with no metal parts at all. There is a final piece which I will discuss further down but it is a solid piece of metal that is not meant to be part of the model.

Clean your resin in warm soapy water. Doesn't matter who the manufacturer is or the type of resin, give it a good soak and dry by wrapping it in and then dabbing it with kitchen roll. It is soft and absorbent and will get rid of that moisture. Moist. Why do people have a problem with that word?

The big solid bit of metal is actually a tool to help you construct your rhinos. There are no guide marks to allow your track sections to be applied correctly so that both sides fit in exactly the same space on either side of the main hull. Using this tool you can position all the parts so that when the glue is dry you have a perfect Rhino and not a lopsided mess.

Once you have completed your mini-me Rhinos you have an attractive and highly detailed miniature for your efforts. These Rhinos are slightly larger than the standard plastic Epic Rhinos but are a better fit scale wise for the Epic infantry.

I really like these models and wouldn't mind having a whole army of models in this design. Forge World announced that Adeptus Titanicus will herald the beginning of a new Epic system that will see tanks and infantry added after the Titan range has been fleshed out. The scale is different so whilst we will see more recent versions of standard template vehicles they will not be compatible with existing Epic collections so this is the only way to boost your forces with new shiny marks of tanks.

There has been sighted an Ultramarine specific version of these Rhinos on the horizon for those of us you can't sculpt for crap. Not a Ultra player myself so fingers crossed for something Dark Angels alongside these.

PS... they do Necrons too.

Lee

New Worlds

I've been harping on about it for a while now but the move to a larger home has now happened! Masterfullymalevolent Towers is currently home to many half unpacked boxes which are taken and added to a pile with no consideration to order or any kind of overarching plan. 

While this is going on I have no painting area. As we have bought all new furniture I am not allowed to risk getting paint on any of it so will need to purchase a painting table and chair that can go in my temporary hobby room. In the meantime I am cleaning and building any models within reach. As an example:

10 Graveguard built

10 Black Guard built

Domitar Automata cleaned

Scimitar Jetbikes cleaned

5 Ashen circle cleaned

5 Recon Legionaries cleaned

Nurgle Daemon Prince cleaned

Eldar Warp Hunter cleaned

Various resin upgrade bits

In between doing that I am putting some work into our Warhammer 40,000 Second Edition revival project. I was halfway through painting the first three units of my 2E Ulthwe force so they will be the first things on the painting table once that is set up.

Allen is busy putting together a Necron force he recently acquired so I am looking forward to getting to grips with them using my Eldar. This also adds another army to our play test pool for 2E which will boost the models I already gathered for it myself. Plenty to be getting on with.

Lee