Recon, baby

Hey Everyone,

Alex here. I Finally finished up my sentinels: this adds another 5 points to the paint points on the side. (5 per sentinel). Here is the whole group.


Three of them


Three again



Freshly painted sentinel



Freshly painted sentinel


I am also finishing up a squad of ten guys very soon which should bring my army further towards completion and my paint points up to 61. w00t.

Also, kev and I had a really great time the other day testing out a "double's tournament" list with kev. Taking ideas from the Fly Lords we tested a list against a rather unfriendly Space marine list and had a lot of fun. I plan on using this army building tactic more often.

Banner Artwork

Rarely do I sketch something I am proud of (because I am, to put it bluntly, terrible) and this is an example of such a rare occasion. The Astronomican Forums are going to be revamping the layout a bit and the head admin was looking for a little banner to put across so I decided to sketch something up for the hell of it. I figured I could sketch something decent and then photoshop the hell out of it to make it look at least presentable (I've been getting better at the whole photoshop thing as the Terran Forge banner at the top can atest). Here is the sketch:




And then the after effect of coloring it in and stuff on photoshop:



I am very happy with the way it turned out (which is why I'm posting it) because, as I said earlier, rarely do I draw anything that looks even halfway decent. I'd like to think I'm getting better though!

I think I'm going to keep practicing this drawing thing, it can be fun (though I prefer drawing circuit schematics myself :p)

K-K-K-K-K-YEEAAAHHH!

So the results are in and I won the caption contest held on The 25mm Warrior with an astonishing 55% of the votes. To say I was surprised would be a huge understatement. What do I win, you ask? A DEATH KORPS of KRIEG COMMAND SQUAD!!

What's awesome is that Alex and I were just talking about the viability of using Krieg minis, converting them a bit, and using them as Valhallans. I decided I was going to drop some cash on them when we go to Games Day Chicago and then this contest popped up! What a coincidence! The OTHER awesome thing is that these will officially by my squad entry for Golden Demon (boosting the amount of entries I'll have up to four).

To wrap it up: Thank you 25mm Warrior for holding this very fun and original contest and offering this wonderful prize! All the entries were very good (Chris from Order Minoris being my favorite with "Oi Gazgog, I told you ta steal James, red onez go fasta!" :D). Hopefully there will be more From the Warp community contests popping up like this as they really bring the community to life!

Side note: Expect some Valhallan updates in the near future. As I mentioned, my Cadian Battleforce is in and I just need my Pig Iron heads and some ProCreate to come in from The War Store and the conversions will begin!

Magnetic Sentinel

I magnetized my sentinel from the Cadian Battleforce today:







Plasma Cannon:



Las Cannon:


Multi-Laser:



Autocannon:

Preparing for Planetstrike

On Thursday Alex and I got together for a day and did a variety of things, mainly 40k related, and one of them was Terrain building. We decided to build a few things in preparation for Planetstrike and decided, for now, on a Bastion and a Fortress (of sorts). The Fortress will end up being modular walls with assault cannon towers, but they are more or less just terrain pieces that allow tanks to sit behind (we had the fortress from Storm of Iron in mind). To add to that we plan on building some defense turrets and such. However, that is still a WIP, but gives you something to look forward too.

These following pictures are of the Bastion I built tonight which have side Hurricane Bolter turrets, two Heavy bolters in the front, two large coolant fans inv the rear, and a missile launcher up top where Infantry can stand and such. I may add some more to it as, currently, it is kind of bland, but you get the idea! Anyways, comments are appreciated!

Planetstrike rumors: Sicarius Spearhead

Got this over on Astronomican

I have, on good authority, the price is around $1000 AU, and consists of:

Cato Sicarius
Command Squad
9 Drop Pods
20 Terminators
5 Vanguard
5 Sternguard
6? Tactical Squads
10? Devastators
10? Assault Marines

And other stuff. I have been awake many hours. I forget more

Anything with a ? next the number is what I remember hearing, but cannot remember numbers. Also, the staffy was referring to memory, and admitted there were some things he couldn't remember at the time.
I find the price tag a bit incredulous, but with GW these days, you really never know...

So what do you guys think? It's a bit up there in price, but MAN is there a lot of stuff in there!

Applause Applause

I just wanted to say that I love the new look Kev has given our little blog. It looks so sweet.
Between the colors, the graphics, and the new margins, I really love the look. Bravo! Bravo!

Also, update real real real soon! :) The Forge is rumbling to life again in my district.

-Alex (Dictator)

Twitter updates

Yes... I gave in to the new hot trend and got a Twitter account. I feel so....conformist.
Anyways, this actually has everything to do with 40k as I will be using it throughout the summer as a way to do small updates on 40k stuff (and probably promote The Astro Mag a bit more :D) but the real reason is for Games Day Chicago. Now instead of you guys having to wait until GD is over and Alex, Pat and I get back to the hotel to post a real update (which we will anyways becasue there will be better pics and HOPEFULLY some ninja shots of us subtly getting our girlfriends into 40k even more. Yep. They're going too- and because they wanted to. Huzzah!). So the updates are to the right of the page (called "Terran Twitter")

What a good way to use new technology- get you news from "the front" even faster!

-Kevin

The NEW Terran Forge!

I finally had a little bit of extra time in between studying for my finals/packing up my room to revamp the layout and header and, personally, I'm in love :D

Some of you who visited sporadically throughout the day may have noticed as I was updating the page, but here it is, TOTALLY finished (for now). What do you think? What is your opinion on the way everything is set up/your opinion on the banner (which I made :D)? Any cool little things you think we should add somewhere?

-Kevin

Blood Ravens codex??

Well I stumbled across this thread on Astronomican and the poster stated that Blood Ravens may be getting their own codex because GW has been looking to make even more of a profit off the already successful Space Marine line. Now while I may not be a fan of this idea, it is interesting none-the-less. Here is the post:

According to my source (which cannot be named due to his/her fear of getting in trouble for leaking goodies), the Blood Raven Space Marines will be getting a Codex all of their own for 40K "sometime before 6th edition". Said source insists that Games Workshop has been looking to further capitalize on the excellent sales on the Space Marine range and as such have been grooming the Blood Ravens for the spotlight via the Dawn of War series of computer games.

Apparently the Blood Ravens will get a whole bunch of goodies in order to distance them from the typical Codex Chapters and therefore justify a dedicated Codex - the large number of psykers in the Chapter being one of the main themes. After all, there's already the balanced Chapter (Ultramarines), shooty Chapter (well, sort of at least, in the form of the Dark Angels before their new Codex release and Imperial Fists), and a bunch of close combat focused Chapters (Blood Angels, Black Templars and Space Wolves, to name but a few), so a Chapter that stands out by relying on a large number of Librarians makes sense. Aside from Librarians, the Ravens will apparently make use of some "lost, ancient Imperial Technology" which, coupled with the unprecedented foresight of the Chapter's psykers, will allow many of the units in the army to "begin the game in advantageous positions or receive bonuses".

That's all I've heard so far, but my source informs me that we'll be hearing progressively more about the Blood Ravens, both in further Dawn of War games as well as from the Black Library to prepare the way for the Ravens to arrive in the limelight.

While this may seem fantastic and unlikely, this source is the same that hinted about the addition of the Tau a number of years ago, as well as a contributor to the Planetstrike rumors that we began hearing about over two years ago.

Hopefully this makes for an interesting discussion if nothing else.

Thanks for reading.

Obviously take this with a HUGE grain of salt, but it gives your mind something to nibble on. A very cool rumor, yes, but I really don't want it to happen personally.

Belial...done?

Well here is my (hopefully) finished Belial. Depends on if my client wants more done, or something changed or whatever. I love this conversion, personally. So simple, but when it's painted it will look so cool (i think)

Squad Gaius!

So I finally finished Squad Leonus for my Knights of Orion Space Marine chapter (bar Sergeant Leonus- forgot about him :p). These guys have been sitting on my desk for, I kid you not, three months. I am SOO glad I got them done!



9 more points!

Also, in collaboration with another member on the Astronomican forums, I finished the new version of a tool called Astro-Hammer. Details can be found here, and I'd love some feedback!

Valhallan casts: first squad painted!

Well I finished painting my first Valhallan squad. Meh. I'm so used to painting high quality Games Workshop models that going to casts I made is, well, different. The coats aren't very detailed which was very confusing for me to paint. Also, since the casts had imperfections, they really messed up the way I paint because the final product looks very sub-par. I'm, suffice to say, disappointed at the quality of the models (but hey, it was my first attempt at casting!) but I'm happy with the scheme so far. Not with the quality of the squad because, as I said, it's very sub-par IMO. At the same time, at least I got them done. Only 30 more of these to get done :/

Luckily I already pre-ordered the Cadian battleforce so those conversions will, I promise, look LOADS better painted. I think I'm going to use my casts as Conscripts where I can. For now they are my troops though!

Anyways, onto the pics!




10 points for me :D

Female Heads

Well I began sculpting heads for another commission, female heads. Now these are a challange because you have to make them look distinctly female and for someone who works strictly with male figures its... well, yeah, a challenge!

Anyways, besides the swollen left part of the lip (its the way the camera is angled, in person it does not look like that at all) what do you guys think?


EDIT- different angle

Belial Part I

I recently received a commission to convert Lysander into a Belial model and magnetize the arms so my client can choose between a Thunder Hammer/Storm Shield, Twin Lightning Claws, or Storm Bolter and Power Sword. I received the bits in the mail today (still waiting on Lysander) and decided to do some mild work. Since 40k-stuff will be showing up slowly this month on Terran Forge (Alex and I are both coming upon our respective exam weeks and Pat is lost in Arizona until June) I decided to post this. Not much, but I'm still proud of the greenstuff work! Since the other weapons already ahve Dark Angels iconography, I just needed to give the Lightning Claws a little extra pizzaz (and magnetize the arms as well).

Here's what I've got (the other claw is drying and I knew if I picked it up I would mess it up somehow :p):




Expect another few commission-updates soon including some female heads (when that one is done I'll have casted 120 resin female heads!). If you're interested in commissions, check out my site at norksminis.com