The 11th Company Podcast

This is a short plug for The 11th Company podcast, their website can be found at http://www.tangtwo.com/11thcompany/. The podcast is also available via iTunes, and episodes are released weekly. The show has a bunch content squeezed in, with the length of each episode ranging from 2 to 4 hours.

Anybody that doesn't already listen to The 11th Company podcast should really head over to their website and grab it. The podcast is focused on Warhammer 40K and covers a range of topics from army lists and tactics, to terrain and tournaments. The guys are most entertaining to listen to, and I find myself eagerly awaiting the next episode to become available each week.

I recently received some swag in the mail from them, delivered all the way to South Africa. If you want in on some of this, then send them a donation (make sure to donate on their main page, and not on their forum). These guys put together a quality show that really deserves the support.

Denizens of The Pit

Over the past couple of years I have been playing primarily with Space Marine based armies, using different codexes and getting a feel for how they work. Over this time I have amassed a fair number of models, almost all of which are still unpainted. What I've found is that I like how each of them play to their own specialties. As such, I've decided that instead of painting one generic catchall army, I want to actually paint up a bunch of different chapters.

This has a few benefits. First, it gives me an opportunity to paint a number of different colors so I don't get bored of painting the same thing continuously. Second, with the new allies rules, it will make my armies clearer on the battlefield (which obviously translates into a more fluid gaming experience). Third, this gives me an opportunity to create armies that are more themed to their specialties (again, I can tie the units together using the new allies rules).

The first of my armies is Dark Angels. I like terminators, I like bikes, and I like land speeders, so Dark Angels makes sense. I primarily run a Dual-wing list, but once we get a new codex I may bring in some power armor and create some more long range fire options.

My second army is Salamanders. I've picked up the first of the Salamanders novels, but I'm still trying to find time to sit down and read it. From what I've found so far, I really like the background on these guys. This makes up my more mechanized force, as Salamanders tend to have better tech.

My third army is Blood Angels. While I'm not overly excited about the Blood Angel fluff, I really wanted one of my armies to be red. They also tend to have more of a fast assault feel to them, so this fits together nicely for my assault force.

Army number four is Chaos Marines. I had been bouncing the idea of a Fallen army for a while, but I held off committing to it until the new Chaos Marine book landed. Once I saw the new book, I knew I had to dive into this. This is a homebrew Fallen army with a Slaanesh theme, and it forms my gun line army.

My fifth army I had reluctantly parted with in order to help a friend get into 40K. Due to unforeseen issues in life on their part, this army is finding it's way back to me. What army is this? Orks. ORKS. WAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!! I love Orks. I love the silliness that is Orks. I don't think I'll be parting with these guys again once they return.

So there we have it. A breakdown of all my armies, and a hint of all the work that lies ahead. This post serves as an introduction to, what will be, a series of painting logs.

Custom Built Autocannons

 

In the name of more dakka, I've decided to put together some kit-bashed  autocannons for my Chaos Havocs. My reasons for building these my self is 2-fold. First, the Havoc box only has one autocannon, and I'm looking for 8 of these puppies. Second, the autocannon in the Havoc box is technically actually a reaper autocannon, not a standard autocannon (some fluff justification to make myself feel better about it). Since I've got a bucket load of spare terminator assault cannons, I figured this would be a good place to start.

With the terminator arm as a start, I chopped off the assault cannon barrel and the terminator arm, and carved out a space for a regular space marine arm.

I then took a regular bolter space marine arm, and chopped of the hand, preferably close to the hand to give more plastic to work with when trying to align the arm to the gun.

For the autocannon barrel I got some styrene tubing, cut to taste. My goal here was to try mimic the Predator autocannon barrel to a certain extent.

Here are all the bits together to form the autocannon:

Of course, before mounting the barrel we need to drill a hole in the gun to secure the styrene barrel.

And the final product, add detailing to taste. I still need to cut some vent slits into the end on the barrel, but I'm still deciding if I'm happy with the length of the barrel.

And there we have it, custom built autocannons!

Introduction

Hello World!

So at long last I delve into the world of blogging. I've created this blog with the intention of keeping track of the numerous projects on the go in my miniature war gaming hobby. This will primarily focus on game systems from Games Workshop, but may extend further if I feel so inclined.

I'm hoping to put together detailed write-ups of how I convert and paint my models. I'm certainly not the greatest painter, so this would mostly be for my own reference, but perhaps somebody else will stumble across these and find them useful.