I’ve slowly been settling down to the new digs and the new schedule. While I’ve painted a bit less than before, I’ve now managed to finish a few new models! Here are the rest of the Poxwalkers from the ETB kit:
Not too much to say about the painting that I didn’t say last time – these guys were basecoated with Contrast paints and then refined with “regular” ones. For some reason the whole process was a lot longer than last time. I think I was a bit more careful with the painting and did a bit more back-and-forth in some areas. The extra time probably doesn’t show anywhere (I hope they’re consistent with the last batch), but nevertheless I found the painting very enjoyable and relaxing.
While some of the sculpts have room for improvement (the big guy’s pose being a prime example), I’d quite like to get a hold of the Dark Imperium Poxwalkers as well. As I said, these models are fun to paint and would make good conversion fodder, models for dioramas, or just a nice looking horde for a plague lord to boss around. But as they’ve now gone OOP, they might soon cost as much as the Dark Vengeance Cultists, at which point there are other cool models to consider. I guess I’ll have to keep an eye out for eBay “bargains”..
One of the perks of moving down south for work is that Finland’s one and only Warhammer store is now quite a bit closer. As in, a 45min drive instead of seven hours! When Games Workshop recently announced that each of their stores would sell Sergeant “Ripper” Jackson from 12th-20th of September, I thought what the heck, I’ll go and get her. And while I’d be in Helsinki I thought I’d check out a couple other hobby shops as well!
The result of my shopping spree
I ended up going to four in total and buying an item or two from each. First stop was Poromagia, an independent hobby shop / gaming club. Not only did they have a great supply of GW’s products, they also stocked a lot of AK Interactive and Greenstuffworld products. This is great, as I’ll be able to get all the cool things without waiting 2-3 weeks for a delivery! But the highlight of the store for me were the many display cases, all filled with beautifully painted models. I even found the “Orange Mechanicus Orks” I saw in the Warhammer store a couple years back, and stupidly didn’t take a photo of. They were a big influence on my own orange Orks, so I was very happy to be able to correct my mistake and take a picture of them. I bought some GSW barbed wire and a bottle of VMC Gold.
Noa Kaistinen’s Orks @Poromagia
Next I visited Hobby Point, which is a big crafting and model making store. It doesn’t sell wargaming miniatures, but scale models and model railroad stuff (among other things). They had a lot of Noch stuff, which could be useful in the future. Now I just grabbed a trio of paints and additives before proceeding to the Warhammer store. It’s a rather small space, and with Covid-19 there wasn’t as many gaming / display tables as there used to be, but it’s well stocked with minis and the staff was friendly and helpful. I got my Ripper and grabbed a copy of Helsreach novel too (I’m a bit excited about Black Templars at the moment).
Finally, I decided to check out Fantasiapelit as well. They are a bigger company and have a store in many/all of the big cities here, but I guess this one in the capital is the biggest. Certainly well stocked with GW kits! The biggest surprise was stumbling on some really cool models in an unassuming, largely empty display case surrounded by manga books. I saw the models and thought to myself “whoa, someone’s really pulled off the Blanche style..” I then circled around the case and read the card beside the models – “Creator: John Blanche”. So now I’ve seen genuine models from GW’s creative mastermind in plastic and paint! Of course, while I was surprised, I remembered that mr. Blanche visited Helsinki for Mordheim 2019, so that’s how the models got here. Apparently, the models were gifted to Tuomas Pirinen (the creator of Mordheim), who then loaned them to Fantasiapelit so that everyone could see them. Kudos, Tuomas!
John Blanche’s Nighthaunt models @Fantasiapelit Helsinki
I almost made it out of Fantasiapelit without buying anything, but then I noticed a copy of Gretchinz!, a board game which I remember reading about quite a while back and liking the look of. As the price wasn’t too bad I grabbed it. Don’t know when I’ll get to try it out or with whom, but that’s beside the point!
So yeah, four really cool shops with amazing inventory. I’ll surely be visiting them at least a couple of times before my eventual move back north. Oh, if only I’d have the space and time, I’d buy all the things..
Time for another work in progress post, and a pretty exciting one at that! I’ve finally built my first model from the wonderful Cawdor box, and I’ve jumped straight to a conversion.
I wasn’t around when the original Necromunda was available, but after seeing some of the old metal Cawdor cultists with heavy stubbers (thanks, Azazel!) I got the idea of making my own, modern and plastic version. Now, I know there’s a heavy stubber in a Forge World weapon set, but as that costs almost as much as a new box of gangers, I can’t really justify getting it. Plus, making your own unique model is always cool! I ended up ordering a Chimera stubber from eBay for a couple of bucks, as it was the cheapest option and the scale looked about right.
In the Cawdor box there wasn’t a complete body that would’ve worked “as is”, so I needed to combine the body and arms from one assembly with the legs from another. Thankfully the sawing and glueing went much easier than expected, and the seam doesn’t stand out. Attaching the stubber was a bit fiddly and required slightly trimming the body/noose for the gun to fit as well as it could. The barrel was also shortened quite a bit, about a centimeter, to make it look more manageable (there’s “heroic scale” and then there’s “silly big”). The barrel might still be just a bit too thick, but as I don’t have the materials to scratch-build a new one, I say it’s close enough. The original ammo box was likewise way too big to use, but I found an ancient SM vehicle storm bolter from my bits box, which seems to fit very nicely. I finished the gun with a piece of an equally ancient CSM heavy bolter ammo belt. Finally, to balance the model a bit more I gave it a GSC heavy stubber backpack, which actually has ammo boxes on it quite similar to the storm bolter box!
Now, I don’t actually envision him to be a Cawdor ganger, strictly speaking, but an Imperial cultist wreaking havoc with Uriah Jacobus and friends. So rather than going with a stock Necromunda base I built a chapel-themed, tiled base. For added scene-setting I glued on some kind of a hose made out of greenstuff. Hopefully it’ll add some 40k techno flavor to the (eventually) white marble floors.
Looking at the pictures now I see there’s a couple of small things I need to fix/add to the model, but on the whole I’m really happy with how it has come out so far. The pose looks feasible and the gun functional, now I just have to think about the specifics of the color scheme!
mcmattilaminis 