Platoon Flag Carrier

Continuing my assault against similar looking models in my army, I whipped up a flag carrier from a couple of pieces of pinning wire and some green stuff. I also plan to make a company standard in the future as soon as I get some decent plasticard; and I plan on making it more exciting than this one (just need to get a workable design first)!

First Valhallan Basilisk Painted

First of all apologies for no posts recently; real life has got in the way of my painting campaign. But to make up for it I have a couple of posts.
So this is my first Valhallan Basilisk fully painted. This is one of a few camo ideas I'm going to use for my artillery. It's done quite simply: Base coat of chaos black. Heavily dry brushed in a mix of 1:2 scorched brown:bleached bone. Then using one of the foam pieces you get in blisters, sponging on skull white. It gives quite a good rustic snow effect. I'm going to use this for my 'older' looking basilisks, while the new ones will have a more factory fresh and uniform camo of light greys and whites in a classic camo pattern.

Vox Caster Variants

Just to mix up the squads a bit I'm converting a couple of models. This is the first of the simple conversations: I just put some Catachan commlink backpacks on a few different miniatures.

Heavy Weapon Snow Bases

I haven't written in a while so this is the first of several updates I need to make. I have been experimenting with bicarbonate of soda mixtures to make the perfect bases. It took a lot of trial and error to get it to the right consistency but I settled with roughly 1:1.5:2 water:PVA:bicarbonate. It fizzes up give a lot so you need to keep stirring it to let out the carbon dioxide. I stuck mine in a pot and gave it a shake every minute or so (make sure you keep the lid off when not shaking or the pressure will build up with humorous consequences!). I'm going to use this to base most of my miniatures, but since so few are painted at the moment I used this batch for my heavy weapon bases. I need about 15 60mm bases and at £2.50 for 3 from GW that's quite an expense. So I got some cut from plywood; worked out pretty well at £1.50 for 25! I also got some resin rocks and made up some sandbags to add a bit of variance and plan on using some razor wire as well. These are two of them:

Winter/Snow Camo Patterns

Exams are over, Uni's back in the swing of things and that means I can get back to the project. The first order of business is making a bit of variety in my army by producing a few camo patterns. I looked through lots of real winter and snow camos as well some 40k ones. These are the ones I've chosen: A mainly white with black smudges camo; a winter pine forest camo with catachan green splodges; and a uniform grey and black geometric pattern from the GW website. I reckon with the pure white uniform as well these will add great variance in the way my troops will look. I might even add some in brown and/or tan coats; maybe to represent veterans or conscripts. See what you think:

Pattern 1: black smudges

Pattern 2: Catachan Green Splodges

Pattern 3: Grey and Black Geometric Camo

Apologies

Apologies for the lack of posts recently. January means exams for us lazy students, so I've had no time for WH. But I will have some exciting posts soon; New camo patterns, and cool winter bases!

Valhallan Fluff/ Info

Greetings all! I know I have a couple of Valhallan fan's reading my blog and this is for them (no update on the army, I'm still in the process of removing flash etc. and drilling 100 odd lasgun barrels... Fun!): I recently got hold of White Dwarf 183 from March 1995. It has a good 5 pages on Valhallans including their background story and some tactics! If I can get hold of a scanner I'll pop a couple of pages up on here. Also I found out who the Valhallan designer and sculptor was; the famous Alan Perry. That's all for now, hopefully next time I will have an update on some different camo patterns in response to the feedback I got (Thanks for that BTW, its much appreciated!).

White Dwarf 183

Off Topic: Converted Emperor's Champion

Something off topic: just thought I'd show off my Converted Emperor's Champion that I've been working on for my Templar army. Still a bit of blending work to be done but I'm hoping to enter him into the singles category for the Golden Bolter competition; I don't expect to win anything, but hey why not!

Couple More Basilisk

Not much to update you on. I have however finished the other two of my Basilisks that came in the Battery boxset. The Command Basilisk:

It has this extra command unit on the side. I haven't seen these anywhere else, but if I'm wrong please correct me.

Also a battle-hardened Basilisk:

Needs a bit of a clean up, and I think I'll add some sandbags on the sides when I get some more green stuff

Painted Valhallans Ahoy!

I finally painted the first of my Valhallans. I decided to go with a white uniform to match their environment (in keeping with the fluff). I've got three painted atm but there will be more to come:

Voxcaster

Valhallan Flamer

Valhallan Trooper

I was worried that a white colour scheme wouldn't have much contrast, however, I'm pretty damn happy with how these guys turned out. My general painting formula was:

Primer: Skull White
Basecoat: Astronomican Grey
Wash: Badab Black
Layer 1: 1:1 Astronomican Grey/Skull White
Layer 2: 1:2 Astronomican Grey/Skull White
Layer 3: Thinned Skull White
Layer 4: Thinned Skull White
Extreme Highlights: Skull White

I also tried a couple of different techniques for the bases. The flamer has the GW snow baser on it. I personally don't like this... It has a very fluffy (not 'fluffy') look to it, not the right type of snow for me. I also experimented with bicarbonate with PVA for the Troopers base, this is closer to what I want. I might take some advise from Müller's Minatures from Valhall.

Since it has been snowing pretty heavily I couldn't resist taking some photos of these miniatures in the snow. Have a look:

Valhallan Basilisk

What did I want all those sandbags for? My slightly converted Basilisk of course!

Vahallan Basilisk #1

I decided to make a converted interrior gunner (another use for my Pig Iron heads) instead of a tank commander/ stubber gunner to give it a unique look and because I dont plan on spending any points placing an extra gunner on my artillery.

How To Make Sandbags from Green Stuff

A quick and easy tutorial on how to make decent sandbags from green stuff.
You'll need:

• 4-6" of Green Stuff
• Modelling knife/ Stanley Knife
• Pot of water to make sure your fingers/work surface don't get stuck to the green stuff
• Sieve/ Strainer/ Metal Gauze/ Netting

Step 1: Grab your green stuff and mix it together until you can no longer see and yellow or blue streaks.

Step 2:
Roll your green stuff into a long thin cylinder about 8" in length and 1/4 - 1/2" in diameter.

Step 3: Grab your knife and cut the green stuff into 1/2" chunks:

Step 4: Flatten out the chunks and round off the edges. Use the side of your thumb to rub off any fingerprints.

Step 5:

Using the knife score a line into the edges of the bags.

Step 6:

Grab your sieve

Press the gauze gently into the top of all the sand bags. This gives them a nice material texture. The finer the netting of the gauze the more realistic it will look.

The Final Result:

Looks half decent and doesn't cost a lot. Use them on bases, heavy weapon emplacements, defence lines or anywhere else!

Command Squad

Ok then, Cadian Command Squad + Pig Iron heads + small big of Green Stuff = Valhallan Command Squad. This is my first proper attempt at Green Stuffing, so don't laugh! I'm happy with everything apart from the over sized megaphone on the commander. I'm going to down size this. But for now this is how my command squad looks:

Valhallan Commander with (oversized) Megaphone

Valhallan Sniper

Valhallan Medic with Bedroll and Bandage

Valhallan Voxcaster with Bandolier

Valhallan Company Standard Bearer

Pig Iron Heads

Just got some Pig Iron heads through the post:


They are the Militia winter head sprues: 20 heads for £4. I plan to use these heads on Cadian bodies for veterans, and for my command squad.

I also bought some Catachan commlinks to make some cheap voxcasters (£7 a piece for a Valhallan voxcaster). I got them off a quality guy on eBay that I've bough off before who mainly sells bitz: miniaturmen07. Check him out if you need a few bitz 'n' bobs.