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Tag Archives: 40k

MtC 4: The Kyphus triplets

The Kyphus Triplets are inseparable. They dress alike, fight alike, and talk alike. No one knows for sure if they are identical twins or not, as even during the most debauched orgies they refuse to take off their masks. Ostensibly Arxus is the oldest of the three by a few minutes and Kurron is the youngest. While they don’t claim to be telepathically linked, they frequently do that annoying twin thing where one of them (usually Kurron) starts a sentence and another (usually Arxus) finishes it. Still, the middle born Rurlan usually does the bulk of the talking even if the other two start and end the thoughts.

Recently they’ve been hoping to do a better job of garnering Slaanesh’s favor and so are eager to volunteer for any raiding party or warband which might afford them the chance to earn glory.

MtC 3: Arals Thatira

Arals Thatira

While many in the cult have become enraptured with Seanan‘s silver supplements, Arals instead opted for the healing Power of the Atom. It’s more likely that it is the beneficence of Slaanesh that has kept him alive than a misreading of some Dark Age lore books. Arals isn’t concerned with other’s doubt, and not being the brightest he sees no issues with worshiping both Slaanesh and the Atom. It is a little unfortunate that the hideous orange tan, and slight glow makes him a bit of a target, but it is a testament to some ruinous power that despite this he still has not been struck down.

Arals claims is knife was licked clean by a Keeper of Secrets in the aftermath of a raid, but everyone who was at that battle was otherwise occupied in the post battle orgy to corroborate his story.

Keeper of Secrets #6

So last week’s keeper (from Creature Caster) is assembled:

And my Keeper problem might be worse than I thought. I complete forgot I’d backed Toughest Girls in the Galaxy 2. Well it came today, in addition to a ton of other beautiful miniatures is The Avatar of Shaah. Over 40 pieces of finely detailed resin. I spent about two hours working on it and only got a little over halfway through trimming the flash off (admittedly I was watching Game of Thrones so was a little distracted) but still, this is definitely one of the more complex kits I’ve assembled. Aside from on the legs the mold lines are nearly invisible… And the most obvious offenders are on the back of the legs, so I might paint them like stockings with a seam at the back…  Once I get them painted I’ll have to start giving them names as well. Eldritch emissaries of Slaanesh are people too right?

In addition to the Avatar of Shaah I also picked up some harpies to possibly use as

Slaaneshii Furies. That said I’m also thinking about converting them to be more Raptors or Warp Talons… I think they’d be pretty good Warp Talon stand-ins. That said there is also any hope that Emperor’s Children and Slaanesh Daemons will be getting some love soon. GW is just releasing a Start Collecting Slaaneshii Daemon’s box for Age of Sigmar and there’ve been rumours of a revised Fulgrim for quite a while now. And basically all three other ruinous powers have received love; it’s certainly Slaanesh’s turn if anyone’s.

MtC 2: Gurand Hetrix

Gurand Hetrix

Gurand Hetrix joined K&RAFB many years ago. Like many others he’s adopted Seanan’s colloidal silver supplemental diet leading to a rather weird skin color. Fairly early in his career he earned a mark of favor from Slaanesh which has left his skin far to sensitive to wear a shirt or armor so now he trusts in Slaanesh to protect him.

A couple of months ago he lost for the third time at Karoake night and is now been forcibly prohibited from singing, but this hasn’t dissuaded him from his devotion.

Keeper of Secrets #5

Keeper of Secrets needs a bath (most resin models do!) Click to Embiggen.

I might have a problem. No, GW has a problem. If they would release some new Slaanesh Daemons or Emperor’s Children models I’d give them my money. However they haven’t, and probably won’t for the near term future, so in my desire to expand my Slaaneshii army I end up turning to third party models. This, my 5th Keeper of Secrets, just arrived today. I was exceedingly pleased with the Creature Caster Spider Demon (the first of the 3 KoS I kickstarted, and the last to arrive) so when my friend Rick told me they’d made a new Demon I couldn’t resist picking up the Lady of Corruption. She’s a bit smaller so might be better as a Daemon Princess, though I don’t know how well Khaslillie would deal with competition.

If you are interested in alternate Keeper of Secrets models, I also highly recommend the Pleasure Demon from Mierce Miniatures. I also have two Lords of Lust from Titan-Forge. They are really much too small to be a good Keeper of Secrets, and they might be a bit big for a Herald. That said, the Banshees of Lust make excellent alternate Daemonettes, especially if you don’t like the aesthetic of the new models and can’t get your hands on any of the Diaz one.

Stripping for fun and profit

Okay, so it was for fun and experience, but that doesn’t sound as good.

Today* I stripped… a bunch of deamonettes… All of the pictures in this are clickable for larger versions. Some are cropped pretty close already though.

IMG_20130513_202915_746IMG_20130513_202855_434My friend Will gave me a bunch of abused and neglected minis he had no intent of ever using. Poorly (and incompletely) painted, sloppily assembled, bases long gone. So if I’m going to repaint these (hey, it could happen some day. I’ll certainly catch up on Dr. Who and Buffy before I run out of mini’s to paint, but that’s another conversation) I’m going to need to strip them. I have a crap ton of other bequeathed minis in terrible shape which could be useful if stripped and reassembled (we’ll come back to this) so I figured starting with the ones I’m most likely to paint next would be good.

 

 

If you’re going to use this guide, here’s what you will need:
Patience – Lots of it!
Pine-Sol – Might as well go economy size, the extra you can use to clean your house.
Glass Jar or Plastic tub – Make sure it has a tight fitting lid unless you really like the smell of pinesol.
Stiff toothbrush – You want hard bristles here.
Dish Soap – You’ve probably already got this.
Gloves – Not a requirement with Pine-Sol, I didn’t use them but my finger skin is now all dry and crackly … it doesn’t hurt, but it’s a little unpleasent.

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So there are lots of guides out there, touting all kinds of different chemicals, most of which are more hazardous than Pine-Sol. I like low hazard and biodegradable for pretty much anything I’m going to be dipping my hands in, plus I happened to have a bottle of Pine-Sol under the sink already. So I tossed the minis in a plastic tub, poured Pine-Sol in until they were submerged just, and the let it sit for two days. Depending on how caked on the minis are, you might want to give it longer. Certainly you’re going to want to wait at least 24 hours**. I didn’t think to take a real before picture, but the mini in the pictures above is straight from the tub. A little of the paint has flaked right off, but most is still loosely attached and you can see not much care was put into painting her.

So I set up a bowl of warm water in the sink, and about 1 minute of scrubbing w/ the toothbrush, occasionally dipping it in the soapy water and/or rinsing under running hot water, yielded this version of the mini. You’ll notice there is still a little bit of paint here and there. Mostly in the nooks and crannies. I may toss these minis into a fresh batch of Pine-Sol for another couple of days to see if I can get them spotlessly clean.

Now, on the mini to the left, youIMG_20130513_210104_867 may notice has a huge green and white splotch on her leg, back and butt. I’m fairly certain that is superglue. I wasn’t really able to remove that even w/ a hobby knife. This is where some of the other more toxic chemicals might do a better job. That said, the Pine-Sol did detach all of the arms, and I was mostly able to pick off the superglue with my fingernails, only occasionally having to resort to my hobby knife.

And at the bottom of this post you can see the complete minis drying on a thoroughly soaked paper towel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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*Actually, I did this earlier this week, but my webhost was suffering a DDOS attack and took WordPress down for a few hours. Conveniently the hours when I was going to post this.

**One of my other friends Duncan, who is possibly the best painter I know, has apparently also used Pine-Sol to great effect. He claims that only 3-4 hours are really needed to get most of the paint off.

You leave no alternative but Peace

So I got to, nay had to, shout this today, in my most enraged voice, during the 40k Campaign meeting. You may already know this, but the “motto” of Warhammer 40k is In the Grim Darkness of the Far Future there is only WAR. We are playing a 40k campaign at the store, and I’m playing Tau. Every race has a special rule, and my rule is each turn I can “diplomacize” one opponent, who then can not attack me or otherwise wreck my shit. Of course, I’m not allowed to do this to the same person twice in a row. I really only have one opponent to worry about, “The Northern Alliance”, a vile collaboration between Necrons and Grey Knights. Space is tight, and planets grow scarce. We were discussing the possibility of them breaking their alliance, or other changes to the political situation, and complaining about not being able to attack me. I offered several possible, mutually beneficial outcomes, to Ryan, but none were deemed acceptable, so I roared, “Then you leave no alternative but Peace!” It’s was pretty epic.

 

40k takes too long

 

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I like games. You might have noticed. Actually, let’s be fair, I love games. Another thing that I like doing is assembling models. Papercraft, or plastic, metal, glue and modelling clay. Yet another thing I like doing is painting models. So one might think (and I fall into this trap repeatedly) that Warhammer 40k or Warhammer Fantasy would be the perfect game for me. The problem is that when I’m spending literally one third of my waking hours playing a game that’s probably, usually too long. I mean sure, the occasional game of Axis and Allies or Civilization the Board Game or Diplomacy.

However something I’m putting this much time and money into, just to get to the point where I’m able to play a game, shouldn’t cost nearly this much of a time investment to play.  A couple hours for a game, sure that’s reasonable. I’m going to try and do some 1000 point “quick games” and we’ll see how that works out. Maybe with a bit more experience I can get the game times down.