Mekboy Junka 22

Just a quick update tonight as I doubt i'll be able to do much till the weekend.

Working on the sponsons, in the end went for the favourite of looting some Leman Russ sponsons. I pondered some sort of Predator like remote weapon but I just didn't think it would look right sticking a Marine inspired thing onto the Junka when everything else is Guard based.

It is still very much WIP with more details to be added and as you can see it is just blu-tac'd to the vehicle at the moment.

I think this is as far back as I will put it, further forward and it'll be cramped around the support arm, further back and it'll look odd I think and also fill the gap where I was planning to put the exhausts.

I added 4mm to the depth of the sponson, partly to ensure the gun didn't shoot into the rear of the Deff Rolla supports and partly so it looked like a Grot would be able to fit into it.

I still need to add a hatch at the back (a Grot flap perhaps).

You may notice in the pictures that the support arms have gained another detail...I forgot to add something before taking pictures for the last update. The washer & nut have been added to show where the arm is attached to the hull. They were (like other bits) recycled from the GW support arms.


Like I said I doubt I'll get any more one on the Junka till the weekend, however with the Meet Up coming up quickly I will probably be turning my eye to things for that so the Junka will go on the back burner briefly.

Recalcitrant Daze - Stuff

Due to work and a headache I’ve not touched the Junka (or anything else) for a couple of days.

So for no real reason I thought I would do one of those posts I used to do monthly (in the grim and dark past).  A nothing in particular rambling affair, so feel free to skip if you so desire.

Still here? Let us begin.

Meet Up:

In a couple of weeks it will be the next meet up for myself, Mealstrom and Nife. We are all plodding along trying to get more things painted in time. I hope to get another unit or two finished of the Daemons, hope is a fickle thing though...You have seen what I have knocked out recently but to see what the other two might be bringing along pop along to Occasional Artwork  and The Rising Sign

Nife's latest WIP

Maelstroms Tau Thingy

Talking of people plodding along another member of our little group, Sheep, who uses the excuse of being on a different continent to not attend our meet ups (pathetic, I know) has resurfaced with some new terrain. Well worth a look here Forlorn Hope

Sheep's big head hills.

As part of the meet up we will be going to the IPMS Model Show. As in previous years I’ll be taking the camera so expect some pictures to appear on RD.

Dark Future.

At the meet up I am determined to get a game in of Dark Future after I bought the game off ebay a earlier in the year. Never had chance at the last two meet ups.

At some point then in the next two weeks I need to build the cars.

And read the rules. Hmm.

Daemons.

So if I haven’t been touching models what have I spent my time doing? Well the answer to that this evening was carving foam to give my Plague Hulk and Decimators some protection...

As you can see there is plenty of spare room in there for more. Let’s face it, we all know the Daemons will continue to grow so best make sure I have some spare room for them to grow into. 

What I really want is a new GUO, I have the old one but it is a shite sculpt. With all these End Times release I was hoping for new Greater Daemons but alas even amongst these big Nurgle kits we have no GUO. Fingers crossed...

There isn't much else I could really add, FW only has the Giant Spawn (which i'm not keen on) and in the GW range there is the Soulgrinder, but that doesn't really fit the force...unless I convert it heavily.

Getting a game in.

I also got a couple of games in at the weekend. The Daemons got a game of Zone Mortalis in, and they were cruelly robbed of victory after a single bloody Terminator survived. 1000 point game against Space Wolf Terminators, Grey Knight Terminators and an Inquisitor in Termie armour backed up by a Dreadnought...all were taken by Papa Nurgle except for just one lone Termie. Cruel and unjust...

No pictures but I also got a game of Dreadball in, the Robot team (who still lack a name) took victory by once again grabbing a score in their first turn. No more points were scored...though I so nearly pulled off a maximum score in the last turn.

Paint Rack.

I decided to go in for the Massive Voodoo paint rack. At the moment my paints are spread across my desk and several boxes. Makes painting a real chore when you can't find anything and most of the time you don't even know what you have.

I won't get it till December but I hope it will help push me to keep painting things, first the Daemons and then who knows what...

I hope to get back to the Junka for the next couple of evenings, I am out Friday night for a Halloween gig (five bands on the bill, should be good) so I could do with getting some work in by then. The aim will be to get the sponsons done.

Expect an update this Thursday...if none appears it'll be over the weekend.

Mekboy Junka 21

I have been plodding away with the Junka, not done an update till now due to wanting to get the thing I was working on finished.

That thing was the Deff Rolla.

I took the GW Deff Rolla, assembled it then removed all of the details - plates, rivets and spikes, before cutting it in half and widening it by adding internal support (just strips of offcut styrene) then bulking out the gap.

Then it got plated and riveted up...

The GW support arms were cut up and contributed parts to new support arms. Main part of the arm is some H beams I trimmed down to form C beams. Extra beams were then added in for strength with GS weld lines.

Naturally they are magnetised for ease of transport and painting.

And in place it looks like this...

Now the Deff Rolla is done I can go back and finish the sides, including the sponsons.

Alas I also have to change the drivers vision slit as it just doesn't quite see over the deff rolla...

IA13 - War Machines of the Lost and the Damned...redux

Small follow up post to the one I did a few days back on IA13.

I got my infantry out and read more of the army list rules to see how I could re-arrange them to suit the new list and to decide what direction I wanted to go.

So Devotion wise I selected Arch-Heretic Revolutionary.

This would give me a Command Squad which were Zealots, which combined with their Fanatic rule (allowing me to roll two dice and discard the lowest score when determining their Ld value) should give me a solid Command squad which will hopefully stay around - once boosted with a Sigil and Enforcer (+1 Ld to the squad) they will be solid...well as solid as they can be.

I want the army to be somewhere in the middle of the Chaos line - if one end is just rabble, an untrained horde while at the other end they are resolute, devoted elite these guys will be the middle ground, trained but nothing out of the ordinary. While they need direction and encouragement (the Devotion allows more Enforcers to be taken than normal) they have some level of 'professionalism'.

So above you see the infantry laid out.

We have four 20 man infantry squads (all one Troop slot). These are made up of my old infantry squads, special weapon squads, platoon command squad and two heavy weapon squads.

Three squads form a gun line with 2 missile launchers and 2 plasma guns. With a vox, chaos sigil and attached Enforcer they have the best chance of not running away at the first opportunity.

The fourth squad will be held behind the lines to plug any gaps. Armed with CCW, pistols and toting 2 flamers and a melta gun they'll be hurled in to any dire situation.

I will need to break down and rebuild a number of the models and I'll have to convert a couple of new standard bearers.

My old Demo Charger guys won't be taken apart after all, they instead join the 4th squad. The bombs they wield will stand in for the krak grenades the squad carries.

Top left in the pic is the HQ squad including the Demagogue. To take advantage of the squads BS4 they have a Lascannon and a plasma gun.

Meantime top right are seven Enforcers, enough for these five squads plus my second Troop choice which at the moment I am leaning towards a small Mutant squad, mainly for the fun of converting them...though I may go for Plague Zombies if I take the Covenant of Nurgle for my Demagogue.


Talking of Covenants I haven't decided what to take for the infantry squads. I may go for a mix (such as Khorne for the reserve assaulty squad, with Nurgle on the others to give them more survivability). I may play around with taking different ones to begin with before I decide what to stick with. With my Devotion I also have the option to upgrade these squads by making them Fanatics, but this is pricey so I may go without for now and see how they perform.



Alas I can't find a place for these three:

Those two renegade psykers are two of my favourite models in the CRM range, but I just can't find a place in the army they fit. I would have taken the Primaris-rogue Psyker Devotion but it really didn't suit what I wanted the army to be.



To get more heavy weapons in the army I am thinking I will take a HW Squad as a Heavy Support slot. I have five remaining Lascannon teams which I can form into one squad. Might be a bit overkill but it should get the job done.

I am tempted though to mix mortars in with them. Partly because I want to use the models I have built and partly because no matter what the squad will be able to do something - when the Lascannon can't see a target the mortars can still fire at something, plus it would give the squad some very cheap ablative wounds in the shape of the mortars. Something to ponder...

It took me ages to make all of these mini-dioramas for the HW teams...

I still plan on taking a couple of more squads of infantry in the form of either Disciple Squads (Elite) or Vet squads (Troop). They are very similar, while Disciples are BS4 Vets are WS4 and both can take Carapace armour and have access to special weapons - though very limited in number. If I take Vets I may drop the Mutant/Zombie unit.

Disciples can take a heavy weapon but Vets can take a USR's (such as Deep Strike, Scout etc). Overall the two options are pretty equal so I'm a little uncertain which way to go at the moment.


Whatever I do I am currently looking at around 120 infantry models (including Command squad, Enforcers & HW teams). That's a lot. What I will do next is start fleshing out the rest of the army, When I get a better idea of what else I want to take I may come back to the infantry and have a re-think, possible dropping one of those infantry squads. This will come down to points, I can't neglect the tanks and other choices I so definitely want in the army. So many choices...


Oh I will also have some Rough Riders eventually...


Quite a rambling post that...mainly me thinking out loud. Next one will make more sense. Almost certainly.

Mekboy Junka 20

A bit more progress has been made.

The core of the hull build has been done, onto this more will be built. Also added the track covers.

I've not added any more detail to the front yet. I'll come back to that front flat area later - no point adding anything that might be fiddly to it yet as I am still handling it roughly as I build the main components.

As you can see in the pictures I angled the rear, this was to give it a more interesting shape and also give me more room up top for later. The Chimera rear hatch got recycled as the Mek and his krew need to be able to get in and out, I also used the Chimera hatch up top. No krew will be added as they would just get hit round the head by the SAG.

Unusually for me I am not doing all the detail as I go along. I thought I would crack on with the main building work at the beginning and come back later to detail up. This has meant things have gone quickly so far, but may also mean I'll have a bitch of a job later with potentially hundreds of rivets to do in one sitting...

Blessings of the Plaguefather - Plaguebearers 8

I wanted to get these three finished yesterday but due to A. a headache and B. IA13 arriving I didn't touch them at all.

Today I was therefore determined today to get them done.

'Them' are of course the last three Plaguebearers I have.

Last minute I decided to redo the banner poles white. The brown they originally were just looked very flat and boring. I decided to redo them white so they nicely tie in with the tree on the Blight Drone base.

I think the white looks far better than the old brown was.

Now the hands on the one banner pole I will return to at some point. I'm not happy with them but I am undecided what to do instead. I will wait until after I do the tree terrain I have as the one tree is covered in hands...




Others could have done them better but frankly they are good enough for me. I now have three full 10 man squads finished. This is surprisingly considering my past record with painting armies (i.e. I don't).

The core of the army - Plaguebearers and Beasts are now finished...

...or they would be if I hadn't just bought another Toad off ebay. The thought of a 7 beast squad was so right I had to.

IA13 - War Machines of the Lost and the Damned

Slight distraction for today.

I had the latest Imperial Armour book arrive yesterday and today I have been nipping in and out of it and putting some thoughts together in my head.

When the last Guard codex came out I started looking at my Militia with thoughts of bringing it up to date and possible re-organising everything. One reason why I didn’t get that far with this was the hope FW would provide an updated list(s) from their Vrak books.

And here it is.

So the first thing that grabbed me was the options you have when picking the sort of army you want. 

The choices given open up many opportunities for you to theme your force and no two armies ever need to be the same.

There are two things which help create your theme.

The first is the option to upgrade your Demagogue (your Warlord basically) who leads the army with one of six ‘Devotions’. 

Each Devotion brings something different to the plate such as affecting the FoC e.g. moving choices from one slot to another or unlocking other choices, it may bring additional upgrades to your force such as turning Vet squads into grenadiers, it can affect the Demagogue itself but there may also be limitations or stipulations you may have to follow.

So thinking out loud here are the Devotions and the sort of themes you can go with each one...

Primaris-rogue Witch – A dangerous psyker gathers a coven and twists the minds of Imperial citizens and unleashes his dark desires onto the unsuspecting populace...This devotion makes your Demagogue a Psyker and allows you to take Rogue Psyker Covens as Elite choices (they are normally HQ). Potentially that is 20 of them roaming the battlefield.

Mutant Overlord – The undermasses rise, an enigmatic leader unites the scum and unwanted who lurk in the underhives and they rise to claim their rightful place...basically if you want mutants this is the one. Huge mobs of mutants backed up by Spawn and Mutant Ogryn.

Master of the Horde – an unending wave of heretics and traitors...Infantry squads can be 30 strong  and as they are wiped out they turn up again.

Arch-Heretic Revolutionary – true believers with an unshakeable faith, no mere dupes these but the fanatics who believe they will take their rightful place...With the option of upgrading Infantry and Vet squads to Fanatics and taking up to 10 Enforcers the army will have more chance to stand their ground.

Heretek Magus – What started as an innocent step to expanding more knowledge led to a dark path of corruption...the closest thing you can get to a Dark Mechanicus list (until FW get to them in the HH series I suppose). Decimators and Defilers plus feel no pain to troops as an upgrade.

Bloody Handed Reaver – When the rock upon which your castle is built turns to sand your castle will soon fall...You want Traitor Guard with added gribbles, this is the one for you.

So the Devotions allow you to tailor your force into a theme or story, you can then add Covenants to your army.

These are dedicated to each of the four Chaos Gods. When applied to the Demagogue it again opens up new options.

No Covenant – This opens up taking Marauder units as an option, think Space Pirates/Mercenaries.

Khorne – Unit of Blood Slaughterers for an Elites choice.

Nurgle – Unit of Blight Drones as Elite and Plague Zombies may be taken as a Troop choice.

Slaanesh – May take a unit of Noise marines and/or Sonic Dreadnought.

Tzeentch – Can take up to 3 Spawn units as Troops.

Covenants give bonuses when purchased for squads, such as Feel no Pain for Nurgle. You don’t have to take the same Covenant for each squad giving you lots of variety and conversion potential throughout the army.

While GW is busy happily ripping out options from Codex books (like being able to use the Ork Codex to field Speed Freaks or a Dredd Mob) FW are happily sticking in as many as possible.

The Devotions remind me of the options you get in the Heresy books to upgrade your Praetor. Each options opens up a theme for the army (planetary assault force, armoured column type and so on). Based on one army list you can create radically different armies in both play style and visual make up.

Now onto the actual army options – these are not all of them as frankly I haven’t got the patience to do all of that, these are just the highlights I have picked out.

The basic trooper is, well, basic, only BS/WS 2 and no armour but with up to 20 men in a squad and up to five squads in one Troop choice. You can create masses of cheap cannon fodder if you want. 

However they can be upgraded to bring them basically on par with Guard.

They have kept the random Leadership value from the Vraks list, attached Enforcers (a HQ option) can give a boost and there is equipment to give you a bit more hope of them staying around.

You lose the option of Special and Heavy Weapon squads (which for me is a big loss) but those big squads can take more weapons, to a point as you have to chose between taking more special weapons or taking the Vox or Chaos Sigil to help keep the squad in place.

More troops come in the shape of Mutants – up to 50 strong. If you give them a Covenant as well these could be a right pain in the arse to face, and if you took the Nurgle Covenant Plague Zombies, again up to 50 strong with the potential to ‘recruit’ more to the fold.

Now one thing that has bugged me is that FW have taken a few weapons out, the squads have the usual options for special and heavy weapons...except no Demo Charges or Mortars (for infantry/vet squads) or Heavy Flamers. To me I find it odd. I can understand, and fully agree, that the Renegades should get some restrictions and not have exactly the same choices as Guard to help show the difference. Renegades may be a rabble, poorly equipped and trained so it makes sense they can’t get everything. However mortars and demo charges are simple weapons which are easily built and maintained. They can be even be improvised and thus seem a perfect fit for this type of force. Yet they don’t get these and instead still get plasma, melta and lascannon – surely high end weapons hard to manufacture and maintain. The only way to take mortars are part of HW teams selected as Heavy Support. So do I take tanks or Heavy Weapons...?

On a personal note my demo charge guys and mortar teams are some of my favourite conversions I did ...

Buy buy Demo Charges...

Other things of note...

Cheap light tanks in the form of Salamander squadrons.

Cheap sentinels, only BS and WS 2, with up to six in a unit. These can be upgrade to WS & BS 3 but I am liking the idea of six cheap sentinels with heavy flamers running amok for about the cost of two chimeras.

While there is the Valk as an option you can also take Arvus squadrons with improvised mounts. Dirt cheap air support with transport capacity.

All the tanks come with the same base of BS2, but with the option of upgrading to BS3. Which in most cases I think you would take.

Heavy Weapons squads can be taken numbering 3 to 6 teams. You can’t take a platoon of multiple squads, so if you want two squads you would fill two Heavy Support slots. Seems very limiting when you consider the options allow you to take things far more powerful such as five Wyverns or four Thudd Guns in each HS slot.

Mortars or Tanks...what a choice to make me make. Bastards.

Rapiers! Enough said.

The Lords of War which are available depend on your Devotion, though many Malcador variants are open to everyone.

So, what are my thoughts?

Keep in mind I have not fully read everything, this is just first impressions.

I like the list, bar the odd thing I find a bit strange what Forge World has done gets a thumbs up from me.

This isn't ‘Guard with Spikes’ - it has its own flavour and has many, many options that allow you to undertake a wide range of themes. This results in many modelling and painting possibilities which is exactly what I want to see in an army list and what I think is missing from the latest round of Codex books.

Am I going to use it I wonder to myself...probably, almost certainly. I will miss some of the things I have in my army that I can't move over and I will have to make some hard choices.

Even though it means having to pull apart some models and some things, like my Marbo conversion are completely dead now (but then he is dead when it comes to the Guard 'dex as well...thanks GW), the list is what I want. A proper Chaos Renegades list. I use the Guard codex at the moment as it’s the only thing available but now I have this in my hands it is hard not to feel the pull.

I'll miss you Mr Chaos Marbo man.
We had fun you and I.

I now need to finish painting the Daemons so I can free up the time to sort the Militia out, then I’ll get to painting the tanks and vehicles while Sheep gets to painting the infantry...

Oh and build the Warhound I've had sitting in a box for years.

This post wasn't meant to be this long or wordy. If you got through it congratulations. Have a biscuit to recover.

Mekboy Junka 19

I wanted to get a bit more done by now but alas work has took up too much of my time but as I want to get back to the Daemons over the weekend I thought I'd get an update up now.

The front is getting there, not a huge amount left to do. Still need to finish off the top area and add a bit more detailing.

Didn't want the front to become too slab like, though as this will have the Deff Rolla in front of it you wouldn't have noticed probably either way.

Spent an age trying to decide what to do for the drivers window/view port. Need to add something to that flat area on the right, thinking of a light made from the one that comes from the Chimera.

Mekboy Junka 18b - A riveting time.

Just a quick update tonight (something of a mini update if you will).

I got the mini-turret done and detailed up.

First rivets I've had the pleasure* of doing in over ten months. One cannot control the joy this brings.

And thus the mini update on the mini-turret is done.


* I use the word 'pleasure' quite incorrectly.

Mekboy Junka 18 - First step on the road...

So my first Ork build in ten months or so.

So to begin I knocked up a couple of sketches and did a few mock ups.

So the plan is widen the deff rolla, build up the hull and interchangeable turrets - one with a SAG, the other with a KFF.

The three Big Shootas will be mounted in a forward hull point by the driver and in two sponsons.

The mock ups are just to get an idea of the general design, the sponsons may be LR ones, scratchbuilt or based around a different tanks sponsons.

The turret size will be determined by the SAG, it needs to be clear of the hull and anything sticking up from it. The KFF may be domed shape, it may not...again just knocking ideas around.

So once the customer was happy with the general direction I started cutting up the Chimera and building the basic kit. I also began building the hull up:

I had to carve away the flotation tanks and a few other bits on the side panels to allow me to add the Orky plates. I won't be detailing the sides up until the sponsons are built and the Deff Rolla sorted. No point adding details only to then have to remove them later.

I also carved away all the details on the top panel and flattened it off. It will give me a solid, flat surface to work on.

I cut away the front and started to build the drivers cab and the position for the forward gun position. The forward Big Shoota will be mounted in a small turret. The washer you can see is because the mini turret is magnetised.

Top left is the beginning of the mini turret.


So the Junka has started, but there is a shed load left to do yet...