477 - Check Hedgehogs! [...sorry.]

A Merry 40K Christmas to One-and-All!

Thought I'd see the yuletime out with some 40K for once, as it's been an awfully loooooong time.

Months ago (in the summer, I'm pretty sure) Zzzzzz over at the brilliant Devos IV sent me a bunch of tanks to make - these fantastic 'Ratgard' Hedgehogs [please follow this link here to see the beautifully painted examples on their website]: an swish-looking Anti-Aircraft system atop a Chimera chassis in a proxy Hydra role.

Last week, after a gentle and suitably tactful reminder from the great Zzzzzz, I remembered that I actually needed to finish them. 

Here they are in all of their multi-pose awesomeness. NB: Please excuse the background: my modelling space (such as it is) has been overtaken by a 3' tree and a 4-footed grumpy-ass cat:

Lots of super-exciting things are afoot hobby-wise - trust me: there will be news for sure before this year is out...

All the very, very best to you and yours,

- Drax.

424 - "New Wyvern Pics"

You'll note the quotation marks. Sorry GW - Drax got there first on this one.

From my original post in April 2009, may I present the Imperial Guard Wyvern:

Ach! "Imperial Guard" - maybe that's where I went wrong. I guess I should have called them "Astra Something-or-Other" instead - "IG" is just too damned prosaic these days!
Anyways, a rumour's popped up over at the wonderful Faeit 212 [link] suggesting that this is the direction the new Astra Militarum is going. Let's play, shall we...?

• Chimera chassis? - CHECK
• Pivot-mounted mid-range indirect fire weapon? - CHECK
• Alternative mount for hydra flak cannon? - CHECK.

This is my version in its original post, by the way - if you're still interested: link. I was pretty proud of it at the time: it was intended as a support weapon for command squads, hence the typically Draxian grenade launchers at the back! The turret-front weapon, by the way, has been down-scaled to a heavy stubber. I detailed the whole design and realisation process on the blog too, including the Drax-style swept-back hull - it's all there under the 'wyvern' tag [here].

Oh yeah - this is the version with the hydra:

 

...You'll note it's the same chassis. Sadly, it's my hydra version which has seen all the gameplay. booo-ring.

 

By the way - if you came here under false pretences, then I apologise. It's just a bit of fun. I'm as excited as you are about the new incoming codex!

 

- Drax.

319 Fighting Siph's Relictors...

...was absolutely great...
...and I took an absolute thrashing. Six of the best, trousers down. Seriously - it was the most comically unfortunate game I have played in a long, long time.

Don't get me wrong - I was squarely and fairly beaten by the very personable Siph Horridus and his beautifully painted Relictors, and Siph played a good game, but I was definitely unlucky with my rolls. Comically unlucky.

Siph's done a great job of relating the story (did we really only manage three turns? Jeez!), and I implore you to visit this link to his site, but he also sent me copies of the photos, so for the sake of completeness I shall include a selection of them forthwith.

Key moments in the game?
- With all my units neceassarily bunched and half in the open, Siph steals the initiative. Ouch!
- His shiney new storm talon flies 36" (thirty-six bloody inches?!) across the board and promptly gets blown apart by my hydra;
- Both his chaplain-led jump pack squad AND his close asault terminators fail their charges through terrain and are elft standing there like loonies.
- My lone meltagunner and his sergeant...flawlessly failing to hit the landraider 4" in front of them and yet resolutely steeling themselves for an onslaught of very slicey terminators. 
- My reserves not really bothering to show up. Especially Marbo. Git.

Until next time...thanks, Siph!

- D.

218 Hydra Conversion Finished

Hullo!

Well, many of you saw this in its early (and middling) stages, but here is my completed Hydra conversion:

I even managed - against the odds - to spray varnish it sans frosting:

For those of you who are interested in any of the earlier stages, HERE is my post on how I converted the Aegis defence turret, and HERE is the some of the backstory of the converted hull, whose previous incarnation was (and still is) the 'Wyvern' variant (HERE).

I love it when a plan (finally) comes together!

- Drax.

199 Hydra from Aegis Conversion Details

WOO-HOO! IT'S HALF TERM!

That means I've a week off and - hopefully - some fine weather in which to take photos of my army for 'Post 200'.

In the meantime (and somewhat anticlimactically) here are my notes and annotations for converting the Aegis defence line autocannon into a relatively convincing Hydra. I'll mostly let the pictures do the talking.

First, pre-planning in my Fifth Book of Arcane Scribblings. Some of you have seen this before: it's the exercise book into which I vomit all my hobby thoughts by candlelight late at night as Mrs. Drax dozes next to me. Bizarrely, these particular pages read anti-clockwise [ignore the stuff top-left!]:

Now all the constituent parts:

And the end product - albeit still not quite finished (I've not had the energy to paint of late):

See y'all next post!

- Drax.