Possible Bran Redmaw Model?

I saw the new Ariadna release for Infinity.  Take a look:

Either one of the warewolves would be a fantastic model for when Bran transforms.  Replace the gun with an axe and boom, done.

We begin the hunt tonight...

Scibor Celtic Shoulder Pad Review

I have put most of the Scibor Celtic shoulders on my wolf guard terminators.  The overall sculpts are really good.  They have fine detail but all of the relief sculpture on all of the pads is perfect.  This suits me fine since my painting/theme is beat up and battle worn.  But if you're looking for perfectly crisp detail, it might not fit the bill.

 Each pack comes with eight pads, two of each of the four varieties.  It is a little unusual since the terminator boxes have 5 models.  But the variety is nice and each one is uniquely identifiable from the others.  One set is larger than the other three, making it an obvious choice for a sergeant or special character.

 The sprues are thick and must carefully be sawed to reduce the chance of cracking.  I made the mistake of trying to clip one out, and chipped part of the pad off.  Like I mentioned before, this probably helps my aesthetic, but might not help yours.  It will not be noticeable from normal view however.

Here is my TH/SS from all angles.  He is going to be my Lonewolf/Arjac stand in for now.  I gave him the large ornate set of pauldrons.  

These are probably not the best bits for a beginner.  Working with resin is quite different than plastic, and these need to be shaved down to fit the terminator arms.  I used an x-acto knife to hollow out the inside of the pauldrons little by little.  Test fitting after a few layers until they fit over the arm.  Test fitting is not super necessary, since if you shave too much, green stuff can be added to get the perfect fit.  This was the only downside I found.

The shoulders have a combination of celtic knots, runes, and diamond shaped gems that fit nicely with the Space Wolf theme.  They do not have any fur on them.  I can't wait to paint these up for the full affect, and will not hesitate to try out other Scibor products.

Conclusion:

Pros

• Nice detail
• Unique design
•  Space Wolf Motif
• Easy to find online and in stores
• Other varieties available

Cons

• Some cutting required for proper fit
• Come in an 8 pack instead of 10

Would I recommend to a friend: YES

Overall quality: 9/10

Hope you enjoyed my review!

*I was in no way incentivised to give these a good review.  I paid my own money, and have no affiliation with Scibor Miniatures.

Thunderwolf Idea

I don't have any Thunderwolves yet.  Come to think of it, I don't have any Fenrisian wolves either.  I think that both of these are important to the fluff, and important to the overall theme of a Space Wolf army (go figure).  I was planning to get some Thunderwolves and model them up like normal, but I started to think hard about it.  I stumbled across some forum threads from before there were models back in 5th ed, and listened to the points people made about Space Marines riding wolves. 

I tended to side with the people who thought it was a little over the top to have SM riding wolves.  Not because of realism or because it was ridiculous looking, but because I am a dog lover, and I feel like these warriors are too.  They have their pet wolves accompany them into battle, and they jump in front of bullets, and lay down their lives for their masters.  These wolves are not saddled and ridden, they are comrades, and fellow warriors, and hunters.  They probably live with the marines and eat with them.  I wouldn't saddle my friend.  But I'd go to war with him...

As I thought of how I was going to model them up, I came across some Space Wolves riding Chaos Knight steeds.  This conversion was born out of the lack of models for a unit in the 5th ed. codex.  Take a look:

These look amazing to me.  Don't get me wrong, I love the wolf model of the Thunderwolves, I just don't like a marine riding it.  I was going to field just the wolves alone, and maybe a few guys along side the base or something, but then how would they keep up? But if hey are on a horse, it's obvious how they keep up. 

I plan on getting a box of Chaos Knights, which has 5 horses, and a box or 2 of the Wolf Cav, and fitting the wolf riders onto the horses.  All the models will represent TWC but it will look like a marine unleashed his giant wolves and is following them in the hunt.  This is way more interesting to me.  The stat line of the TWC represents the rider and the wolf both attacking the target.  I feel like it would be impossible to hit something while riding an agile canine who happens to be mauling your target.  But to let the wolf maul some guy and you ride up beside it and smash it, that's more like it!

There are two main themes of a Space Wolf army, space Vikings, and warewolves.  I tend to lean more toward the Viking aspect and don't get too heavy on the warewolves.  I like Bran, so I may make an exception for him, but that's it.  These models scream Viking to me.  Throw in some axes and shields, and you got yourself some real space Vikings.

Here's to some sweet TWC conversions, cheers!



Update on Special Weapons

This is the first time that I am going to put the guns on after I paint the torsos.  I keep hearing how it is basically cheating, but usually I'm in too big a hurry to get them on the table.  I don't have a problem playing with plastic or basecoated models most of the time.

I gave a chainsword to one of the meltagunners because... hes a viking.  'Nuff said.

Since I used some Black Reach Terminators to make Wolf Guard, I am short several sets of Terminator shoulder pads.  My local FLGS carries Scibor so I am going to pick up a few of these:

These are the Celtic #2 set for Terminators 

These are the ones for regular Power Armor.  

I want to put these on my special weapons for some added uniqueness.  I forgot how fun these models are to put together.  The wolf models have so much more opportunity for customization compared to the codex marines.

Hopefully more progress to come!

I had 12 Space Wolves new on the sprue from when I started this army.  I wanted to keep some guys in case I needed some new options. I have taken the opportunity to start building my Grey hunter special weapons to fill in some gaps in my infantry choices.  I had built four wolves with melta guns in 5th ed.  One for each pack, since the pack leader wasn't an upgrade, and he didn't count towards the unit to get the second weapon.  In 7th ed that has changed.  I can now take six in my three squads.  I would also like the option of bringing some plasma guns.  I am building four to start.  That will give me up to two packs with dual plasma guns, and one with melta for some mid field tank hunting.

I think the plasma are a little more fluffy since the Space Wolves are supposed to be the Space Marines that kill other Space Marines when the need arises.  AP 2 here we come!

This also got me thinking about these guys:

I have all my turrets built as twin-linked lascannons.  This add-on looks great, and  I am a huge fan of kitting my Wolves out to the max (just look at my Wolf Guard).  They also have some great claymores that I want to kit out some more infantry with.

These look amazing.  They really have a future greatsword/claymore  feel to them.  While poking around I also stumbled accross these:

I'm not a fan of all of them, but one handed axes are not as easy to come by as I would have hoped.  I have also thought about cutting the upper hand off the 2h axe that comes in the SW sprue.  I will give it a shot and see how it looks.

Pictures to follow.

 So here we have the final product! At long last she roars to life.  In this configuration to the right, we have the Razorback with twin linked lascannon, bolter, and dozer blade.

I love the number of options I have with these.  And since I incorporated to magnets under the top hull, I have the option of adding more later. And remember folks, options are good!

The next is the Rhino shown here with the Razorback turret option next to it, and the dozer blade removed.

The final picture is all the options show separately. I did not magnetize the round hatches, as I thought this was far enough for me, but you are more than welcome to go bananas.

Good luck on your magnetizing projects, and have fun saving some serious dough while doing it.

 Now I have added two magnets to the bottoms side of the top hull piece. This is for future additions like spot lights or hunter killer missiles.

 As you can see all the turrets have been assembled. They can articulate and with the magnet modification they won't fall off while playing.

 The next step is to cut off a bit of sprue and attach it to the turrets and the Rhino hatch doors.  This is probably the trickiest, but most important part. You need to measure the distance between the floor of the Rhino to the height of it, minus the thickness of the magnets you are using.  I also used a rotary tool to make a space in the floor to accommodate the magnet.  If you are going to do this, be careful not to puncture all the way through the model.
As you can see I have done this with both the Rhino door and the lascannon turret. If you want you can use a few of the Bolters, but I chose not to.

 Once we have all the doors and turrets magnetized, we can make any combination of Rhinos and Razorbacks. Shown here is 5 Rhinos and one Razorback. Below is the configuration I will use to start, 3 of each.

Now the only thing left is the round hatches.

The next step was to start gluing the hulls to the tracks.  Now we start to see how fast these come together once we get cookin'. 

Now my desk is starting to look like a Martian Forge world production plant.  I just nerded out there for a second.  This is the point where I start to magnetize the inside of the front of the hull.  That is where the dozer blades will attach to.  Then I may try and figure out a prettier way to magnetize the rear hatch shut.  On the prototype I just glued magnets to the inside and out.  But the outside magnet is visible.  Not a huge deal, but now i have a dremel, and can bore out a spot for it.  Lets see if I can make it flush.


That's all for now.  But Pete you better be ready, my army is almost fully operational...

Tank Building!

Back to the Razorback/Rhino building!  Well I finished the prototype and am now at the assembly line stage.  It is way faster than finishing each model individually.  But I haven't gotten to the custom work yet. The tank treads were a cinch though.

I used my new Dremel rotary tool (new Christmas present) to bore out a spot for a magnet inside the hull (left).  And the top of the tank is glued on with 2 magnets underneath it for hunter killer missiles and spot lights for later.  I love the added customization that magnets award to models like this.  It makes the WYSIWYG so much easier, transporting easier, its just the tits.  Plus we now have options, and options are good.

I used sprue bits to make the support for the magnetized turret.  This is what holds the turret/doors to the hull (right).  These little rare earth magnets are so strong for their size.  This is essentially the difference between a Razorback and a Rhino (Razorback at top, Rhino below).


Once this one was completed, the next step was to do the other five in an assembly lined fashion.  This is the way to build multiple tanks let me tell you.  Once I cut out all the bits and separated all the individual tanks into bowls, gluing them together was super quick.




Now all I have to do is keep this going, and do one section at a time, then glue them all and I'll be done.  This will give me any combination of 6 Razorbacks or Rhinos.  More to come...




Happy New Years!

This is what 5 razorbacks in sprues look like, I know, I'll wait...  I also received 5 plastic scouts for free because the guy I purchased the Razorbacks from had to split the order into two parts.  This was a nice surprise, and it awarded him a nice feedback rating in return.  A big thank you to discount_games_store for that.  See folks, it does pay to take care of your customers!  These guys will become my first batch of Wolf Scouts.  My other scouts are not optimized weapon-wise, and I already started painting them as Salamanders.  So I'm glad I don't have to strip them.  I also have some left over meltaguns that I had from the combi-melta conversions I made for my Wolf Guard pack leaders.  I wish those weren't so hard to come by, but GW knows how to get your money (engineered demand).  These scouts are convenient because I had just wrote up a list that used them, but I had not purchased them yet.  And now I don't have to, which makes me very happy. 



I also ordered a terminator with a cyclone missile launcher.  I don't know why these guys are so hard to come by, probably because of the plastic kits now.  It is a Deathwing terminator from the Dark Angel line, but there's not too much that needs to be filed off.  I might not even use the body right now, since he doesn't have a power sword.  I might just stick the missile rack onto a different model. 

This is what my first Razorback currently looks like.  The dozer blade on the front is magnetized for easy removal.  I have also put two magnets under the top of the hull.  This will be for the spot light and hunter-killer missile.  I like magnetizing because not only do I have more options, but I can dissemble the model during transport.  Nothing is worst than opening your army case and seeing little bits of tanks floating around.