Guardians of the Emperor - Legio Custodes Test Mini

Now, i don't know about you, but when the Horus Heresy range first dropped i remember thinking "Aw man, how cool would it  be if they eventually did Custodes!?" Well, that day of course did arrive, and I'm just as excited about them now as i was then! More so given the insane levels of cool that the model range has shown so far!

So true to form, as soon as Mrs Gungraves back was turned, i casually logged onto Forgeworlds website and ordered myself a....modest....selection of Custodes!! More on those in the coming weeks. First up though i had to nail down a colour scheme. 

I have to admit, GW's tutorial on these guys was pretty good, so i more or less followed their guide for this mini. I did swap out some of the paints for the Vallejo Game Air equivalent in some cases. 

I base coated the model in white, then hit it with Vallejo Game Air Glorious Gold. Once dry, i applied an zenithal highlight of Polished Gold, again using the airbrush. 

I then washed the whole model with Seraphim Sepia (or whatever its now called!)

I then started refreshing the gold with thinned down Polished Gold, being careful to leave plenty of shadow in the recesses.

Then finally i applied a tiny highlight to the apex's using Vallejo Game air Silver. I called the gold areas done at this stage, so i blocked out the other areas in their base colours before doing any more. I was still happy with the gold afterwards, so left it at that!

As the Custodes are going to be quite a special army for me, i wanted to make sure i got some sweet bases for them. I always wanted the theme of this army to be the Webway, where they spent so much time fighting daemonic incursions with the Emperor! No i haven't read Master of  Mankind yet, so no spoilers please!

Scibor's do a great range of bases, so i was confident I'd find some there. These are some of their SF Elven bases in 30mm (2mm off the standard size for some reason, but i don't think anyone will notice!) As the Webway was build by the ancient Eldar, i think these fit my theme perfectly!

I basecoated them in Army Painters Desert Yellow.

I then dry brushed them with Ushabti Bone.

Then lightly dry brushed them with White Scar.

Finally i added some shadows to the bases. I did this using an airbrush with Vallejo Beasty Brown and then Dark Fleshtone for the deepest recesses. I then edged the bases in Abbadon Black. Suitably ancient Eldar-y i think!

Here's the (nearly) finished test model on a finished base. I completed the shading and highlights on the other base colours, but ran out of thinner before i could get onto the power blade!! I will go for a blue glow effect on the blade initially, but i may do it in silver metallics. We'll see.

I'll get this guy in the light box once I've done the blade. In the meantime please let me know what you think!

The GunGrave

Dropfleet - Magnetising UCM Cruisers

Things have been pretty busy on the Dropfleet front. My appetite for the game and the models continues to grow, especially after success with the Frigates. As the Cruisers come with an equally large amount of options and configurations per ship, i wanted to make sure i could take advantage of  them all.

There is quite a lot of tutorials on the Internet regarding Cruiser magnetisation, so working it out wasn't difficult. Here's how i got on!

The first bit to address was the upper hulls of the Cruiser, of which there are two. One where you can mount turrets on the upper hull and one where its just armour plating. I used the weponised upper hull to map where the magnets should be placed on the main hull. I did this by holding the upper hull in place on top of the main hull, then i used a pin vice to drill a small hole through the weapon socket and into the main hull. I then used a larger drill bit to make a cavity to counter sink the magnet inside. I used 0.5mm thickness by 2mm diameter magnets for these ships. You can pick up 50 for about £1.50 on eBay!

I then 'reverse-mapped' the position of the magnets onto the upper hull without the weapon mounts.

The under side of the main hull was easy, as the magnets sat perfectly within the weapon sockets.

I  moved onto the weapon options; 2 turrets, 2 bombardment cannons, one burn through laser, and one troop lander module-thinggy! I just stuck the magnets straight on here, no drilling or counter sinking required. The magnet sizes turned out to be perfect, as 2 magnets stuck together was the exact height/depth of the weapon sockets! Oh, and i suppose it goes without saying, but keep an eye on your magnet polarities when your doing this, or your magnets wont stick to each other!

So these are all the options i was left with after magnetising.

The rear hull segments didn't require any magnetisation, as they just clipped on nicely to the main hull. I did glue these weapon turrets in place here, as the sosckets were specificallly deisigned to fit onto these area of the hull only, so i wouldn't be changing them around.

Finally for a little extra flavor, i drilled the engine's!

Done! For the time being i have bagged up each Cruisers options separately, just in case the magnet polarities aren't inter changeable between ships (despite my best efforts!)

Straight onto painting! I hit the whole lot with Army Painters uniform Grey. As you can see, i spent a bit of time mounting the pieces for ease of painting.

Firstly i washed the whole model lightly with GW Nuln Oil. I then highlighted the edges with Vallejo Stonewall Grey (i think!) and a small white highlight after. The engines, weapon barrels etc were painted in metallic, washed and highlighted.

And here's the sneak peak of the finished Cruiser with all of its Class options! It does take a bit longer to paint up the Cruiser when you do all the options as well, but not that much longer. I'm pleased i put in the effort, but we'll see how i feel after doing 3 of these!!

Proper pictures to follow soon!

The GunGrave

Army Showcase - Elysian Drop Troops 2017

Along with my beloved Kriegy Boys my Elysians also flew the nest. They were fortunate enough to have a fleet of flyers and an armed escort to travel with though.

I put this army together during 5th edition 40K. I tried them out a few times in 6th edition but it just wasn't the same! And the moans and groans of your opponent when you turn up with 6 outflanking flyers wore a bit thin as well...Sadly they got relegated to the display cabinet for the last years of their time with me, but they gave me many many fun and victorious games in 5th edition 40K! There is actually a Tarous Assault vehicle, a Company Command Squad and a Scanner Squad to add to this showcase, but i have mislaid them in the move (or they have disserted!) Never mind.

So here they are for the last time, flying away victorious into the distance!

The GunGrave

Plugging Away

Well it's been a little while since my last blog update, but I've not been idile. I've completed my Dark Age Force, ready for the tournament at the end of the month. I've only played the one game so I'm not expecting to do fantastic, but I should come away with a far better understanding of the game, and it's a great excuse for a whole day of gaming.
The week after I've got an infinity tournament lined up. I'll be travelling up with Luke to the uk games expo where we will get to compete with some of the more experienced players. As there are no local veteran players, I'm hoping to see stuff I don't normally see and learn some new tricks. If I remember I'll take some pics whilst I'm there

Army Showcase - Death Korps of Krieg 2017

As some of you may be aware, i parted with my long term army of Death Korps a few weeks ago. I started collecting these guys around 2009 so they have been with me for a long time (longer than any car i've owned!!) Needs must i'm afraid, but a good friend of mine took them off my hands, so i'm sure they have gone to a good home. It was admittedly very tough to part with my Kriegy Boys, they had a very special place in my collection. Bless them, they never won a single game! Not one...ever!! Dispite that they were still my favorite!

I did takes some photos for eBay, which are much better than the origional ones i took here. So i'll use them to showcase them for the final time! Wave lads!!

The GunGrave