Painting And Modelling Progress - Hobgoblins & Knight Titan

My painting and modelling tools all piled up on the shelf

RPGs have predominated recently but this started as a wargaming blog and I've finally got some wargaming updates to share with you.  Today it's an update on what's happening on my assembly line, while next post I should have a couple of battle reports to share with you.  Inevitably there will be an Age of Sigmar update too, since the new Warhammer Fantasy rules are a bit of a Bloodthirster in the room.

Painting wise, the last project you saw me work on was the Hobgoblins.  Remember when I only had ten?  Now I have more.

Let 'em 'ave it, boyyos!

Twenty models have now been painted up, with a unit commander joining the musician in the middle.  All of them rank up rather nicely and, in this post-Age of Sigmar world, may end up back as Night Goblin Archers rules wise until I have formal Chaos Dwarf rules to use.

Close up of the command squad.

I was a little unsure about the commander at first because the wash made his otherwise bright orange outfit go rather muddy and lose the spark that made it so eye-catching.  A bit of dry-brushing and highlighting helped, in particular using Vallejo's Flourescent Orange as the very top layer to give some life back to the model.

While rule changes may make this irrelevant, my original plan was to make all my Hobgoblin units 30 man so that they could benefit from rules bonuses that 3 x 10 units received in Warhammer 8th ed.  I suppose I should still paint some more, and another ten are ready to start with their bases painted Astronomicon Grey to start us off.

Excuse the shaded and glazed models in the middle, that was me messing about.

 You will notice on the bottom left a Night Goblin netter, which I think will proxy as a standard bearer until such time as I can find one on eBay.  I tried to convert one from a spare Goblin but....

 ...it isn't going well.

Moving from fantasy to science fiction, remember a birthday present that I received at the start of the year?  A foot long, plastic and put a smile on my face? 

Mind out of the gutter, you.

Yes, that's right, the Knight Titan.  A behemoth of destruction that has sat on my to do pile for a while, awaiitng assembly and Chaosification.  Awaiting.... today.

Assembly so far - core components all together, but weapon points still to be magnetized.

The model has been assembled with the exception of the weapons, which I'm leaving off for now - we'll cover that shortly.  I've not glued the arms or waist so the model remains posable.  The conversion work I undertook did mean I lost rotation in the head and small gun, though.

Speaking of conversion work, this is something I mentioned back in January.  I wanted my knight to clearly be in league with the forces of darkness, so some chopping and changing took place.  I'm still not quite finished and opinions are very much sought for what else I can do to make it evil-looking.

Close-up of head showing changes so far.

The big thing is the head from a Chaos Heldrake, a biomechanical beast whose head was attached using some glue, Milliput and a staple for pinning.  I gave the head a slightly off-center pose, which made Sister Superior think the whole thing resembles the Skeksis from Jim Henson film The Dark Crystal: considering these were villains she was absolutely terrified of as a child, I'm not sure if that's a compliment or what.

Spot the resemblance?

The gun, meanwhile, is a Spellcrow sonic weapon - I got a job lot of these a while ago because they are must more useful for conversion than Games Workshop's official sonic weapons. Those have integral arms, while these ones are guns that can be clipped and posed on a figure or vehicle as you wish.   Here it replaces an otherwise generic Heavy Stubber.

I flirted with putting wings on the thing - either Hive Tyrant wings for a more biological look, or the Heldrake's wings to keep with the robotic style - but Facebook seems to mostly think that's overdoing it.  I think I agree, if only because the wings would make the model even harder to store than it's going to be already.  Do still want to make more alterations, though -  a few speakers for Warp Amps, probably,

The core weapon choices.

 I mentioned not gluing the weapons on - I want to magnetise these so they can be switched.  There's a variety of different armaments one can give Knights using rules form both Games Workshop and Forge World - I could at least four different melee weapons and six different ranged weapons and some come in varying combinations.  I want my Knight to be as multi-purpose as possible.

This includes scratch-building and converting some more Chaos-y weapons.  Yes, the above picture shows I've added some gargoyle heads to the Battle Cannon but that isn't quite enough.  I need something else, something more Slaanesh, something more.... metal.

Sister Superior and her collection of goth action figures may come to the rescue here.  I have stolen something for casting which I think might make a good basis for a new Knight Titan weapon.

Don't look, don't look, the shadow's breathe....