New Astra Militarum (Imperial Guard) Codex cover & leaks

We've had our first looks at the new Imperial Guard, and their shiny new name the "Astra Militarum."

Why Astra Militarum? I'm guessing it's because it'd be really tough to copyright the name "Imperial Guard."

Without further ado, here's the Codex cover (these shots snagged from facebook)

It looks nice, and is very much in keeping with the 6th Edition theme of iconic character front & center. I think the new name is a bit silly, but part of that stems from my feeling that the term Imperial Guard is so entrenched in the setting. Also their "high gothic" name is Departmento Munitorum, unless this book retcons that. Guess we won't know til we see inside.

For me, the most exciting leaked shot is the new Tempestus Scions. I believe these are the new Storm Trooper unit, which makes me wonder what'll happen to Kasrkins.

 They're clearly meant to look like an elite unit. I just hope the fluff matches the crunch, since Stormtroopers tend to be an ablative unit. They have chic angular armor that's akin to what you'd see on a Fantasy Empire general, so there might be some conversion potential there too. I like the look of the sergeant, but I'm not sold on the helmet. I think with a few spikes & greenstuff he'd be an excellent cultist leader too.

The Taurox has been getting a fair bit of scorn. I like it though. I don't think it's as boxy as everyone thinks it is. The tread wheels are a little silly to me, but at the same time I can't wait to see the first Orky conversion

The only other image I've seen so far is the release page. The only real revelations are that the Tempestus Scions appear to be $35 for 5 minis (I'm not a fan of the fact that they added the command sprue into the box) and that the Militarum Tempestus will be a codex supplement.h ow will they play? what'll be their schtick? we won't know until the codex comes out.

~Muninn

Building an $8 Ethereal

I'm a big fan of kitbashing. It's fun to take two (or more) disparate models and merging them into something all it's own.

My most recent conversion is a Tau Ethereal that cost me all of $8.09 (not including the bits I already owned). It's not quite finished, but it's really close. It's taller than your average Fire Warrior by half a head, but I'm good with that (IIRC, Ethereals are closer to Water Caste in stature, so a little taller anyways). Up to this point all I've done it carved away plastic to make it fit into place. The greenstuff will come further down the road.

The majority of the body is the Celestial wizard from the Empire's Celestial Hurricanum model. I modified the staff a bit by adding a topper from the Empire Wizard box (I also removed some of the fancy gilding & details to make it appear more sci-fi).

I cut away the wizard chest and replaced it with a standard Fire Warrior chest bit. To make it fit properly I had to cut away part of it's back, and trim off the belt. The head is one of the three new bits from the Pathfinder box set.

I'm still on the fence about which head to use. I like the "yelling" head, but the one I have placed on it currently looks more contemplative.

There are a few more small things to do before it's finished.
1. Carve the feet into hooves
2. Greenstuff the cloth to fit seamlessly with the chest armor
3. Greenstuff the belt buckle to be the symbol for the Tau Empire
4. Paint (after I'm done with my current commission)

Hope you like this, and that it gives you a few ideas for your own conversions.

~Muninn

My tour of Reaper Miniatures, Part 3: Minis galore

Part 1: Entering the Reaper's lair
Part 2: Casting & Paint

About 30 minutes into our visit of Reaper's warehouse in Denton, Tx. the tour was starting to wind down. We'd seen the molding process, casting, packaging, and paintmaking, but my favorite part was yet to come.

On our way out the warehouse our tour guide Matt shared an interesting anecdote. When Reaper was first attempting to make their way onto game-store shelves they were having difficulty because the industry standard (Ral Partha, Grenadier, etc) was 25mm minis. All the stores wanted them to be a similar scale. Reaper however make 28mm+ which made it tough to get their foot in the door.

Finally, after dealing with this issue long enough, the CEO, Ed Pugh, started saying they were 25mm "heroic scale" instead of giving their actual size. This satisfied the buyers, and got them onto the shelves. So the term "heroic scale" that I hear so often was *completely made up* by Ed as a way to sell his over large minis.

Finally, the second to last two stop was sculpting. We left the open warehouse and started walk down a few hallways in the vicinity of the storefront. After turning a few corners we entered a room with a small case of greens on the wall. They weren't minis I recognized, but seemed... old? several of them had a style similar to what you'd see in the late 80's early 90's. I didn't take any pictures of the case, but now wish that I had.

The next room was better anyways. It looked like a good old fashioned gaming workroom, complete with shelves of minis, and a sculptor hunched over his work at a table, fashioning his latest mini. That sculptor was Kevin Williams, and one of the minis he was working on was the (recently revealed) Kickstarter II Frog Demon.

Kevin was kind enough to give me a few pointers on modeling with green stuff. Namely he works on several sculpts simultaneously and uses excess greenstuff to build up the structure of the sculpt, only paying close attention to detail once you get to the final exterior layers.

He also suggested creating a hard putty base to keep from having to touch the soft greenstuff.

You can also see from the comparison of the concept art to the actual sculpt that they made a few changes. The CEO, Ed, wanted the demon to be looking down. This makes a good bit of sense to me since most adventurers are going to be smaller than the frog.

One of my favorite bits about being there is seeing the minis in a scale that I could grasp. "Sir Forscale" is nice & all, but I almost always think about minis based on how big they are in my hands.

Here you can see Matt holding Mashaaf, Great Old One. It's no Cthulu, but it's bigger than I expected.

The final stop was the gallery. Just a big room full of their finest painted minis. I could have spent forever looking at each individual mini, but at that point my wife & I were getting tired of holding the babies, and our family dinner was fast approaching, so I only spent a few short minutes.

There were so many great minis there. I was most excited to see Derek Schubert's Trista, the White Wolf. The photo doesn't really do it justice. There were a few neat surprises as well, like the Kraken.

and one of the Demon Lords, printed. Definitely not a Balor.

All it all, I had a really great tour thanks to Matt and the rest of the Reaper crew. Everyone was gracious and happy to answer any questions. If I could do it again I'd have plugged both kids were into strollers since our arms were getting pretty worn out from lugging the pair around by the end.
 My wife in particular, since I kept passing her a kid in order to take pictures.

Thanks again to the staff there, and I'd recommend a tour to any nerd that finds themselves in the Dallas/Fort Worth area of Texas.

~Muninn

My tour of Reaper Miniatures, Part 2: Casting & Paint

Quick recap: My wife, twins & I went to Texas to visit family for Thanksgiving, and I managed to coax my wife to join me on a tour of the Reaper warehouse a few days before Thanksgiving.
More here:
Part 1: Entering the Reaper's lair
Part 3: Minis galore

After seeing the rows upon rows of minis we were taken to see the area where miniatures are cast.

You turned a corner to see a hallway broken up into several bays. Matt picked up a small brick of pewter (another proprietary mix) and told us to watch how quickly it melted.

 He rested it in a smelting pot, and waited for about 5 seconds before the whole thing shifted and slipped completely into the melting pot.

A pile of recently cast Gloom Wraiths. If you think about it, this pile of metal is probably worth about $125

On the way to our next stop I saw this table of familiar looking minis. If you watched the Kickstarter 2 countdown you probably saw these at one point or another. I was most excited to see the "Heroes & Villains" minis.

These were all metal, primed white. I personally prefer the heft and feel of metal, and it gives me hope that some of the bones I like will make the shift to metal one day.

Next we visited the packaging area. Here, high-tech machines tirelessly printed cardboard backings and shuffled miniatures into their proper boxes.

 Just kidding. It's done by hand, by this guy (I don't remember his name, sorry).

Two guys were in charge of the boxing process while I was there. The wood boards had cutouts that held up to ten plastic box fronts. They placed the mini inside, and glued the back in place. The backs themselves were pre-printed by another company, but labeled in-house. (Matt inferred that that was going to change in the near future)

 From there we went to see "Thomas," Reaper's new plastic casting machine.

It took me far too long to figure out why they called it Thomas. My wife had to point out that it looks like a blue train engine (she might have been rolling her eyes at the time).

 This is one of the purchases the company made with the proceeds from their first Kickstarter. They'll be able to pump out miniatures nearly 24/7, only stopping to refill the machine with Bones plastic (if I remember correctly). Here Matt passed me a handful of plastic Warlord bases to show what it could do. I've already started using the bases for minis (more on that later).

We then stopped over in the corner where paint was being produced & pots filled. Matt made sure to point out that Reaper is the only game company that makes it's own paint.

Apologies for the poor photo quality. This shot was far blurrier that I'd like to post, & I did my best to make it passable

The paint mixing and filling was also done by hand. One person was tasked with making sure the colors of each new batch were spot on, which is pretty incredible. All the paint pots are filled by using kidney laboratory pumps (above). *edit: One reader pointed out that they couldn't be dialysis pumps, and since I can't read the writing on the pump to confirm I downgraded it to "laboratory"*

Here they also had walls full of their paints organized into tubs. I typically use Citadel & P3 for my painting needs, but I might have to give Reaper's line another shot.

Next: Sculpting & Gallery

My tour of Reaper Miniatures, Part 1

At the beginning of the 2013 school year my wife realized her union negotiated several furlough days into the last week of November. Sounds boring, yes, but since it coincided with Thanksgiving it meant she'd have a ten-day vacation.

We hadn't traveled outside of the state since the twins were born, so we decided to jump at the chance. Long story short, we decided to accept an invitation to visit my cousin's family in Texas. I'd never been, and my wife had only ever gone as part of a college swimming trip. Plus, I figured South was a pretty good direction to travel in late Autumn, so we booked a flight to Fort Worth.

Over the course of the Reaper Bones II kickstarter I'd noticed the company's headquarters was in Denton, Texas. Lo & behold, it was a 30 minute drive from my cousin's house.

My wife thought I was kidding when I said we had to take a tour.

The exterior of the shop looks more like a warehouse than a game store, (Probably because that's what it is) but had my wife not pointed out a few signs noting that this was the place I probably would have passed it by.

Photo taken from the Wargames and Railroads blog

Inside however is a fully functional game store, similar to many I've seen throughout the US. It had a full complement of games, dice, and HOLYCRAPTHAT'SATONOFMINIS. Seriously. Wall to wall.

(There weren't any Games Workshop inventory, but I certainly can't fault them for that.)

The cardboard boxes on the right-hand table were filled with plastic minis I'd never seen before. They appeared to be stylized grey aliens, some in sci-fi armor.  Apparently it was a commission for another gaming company that they'd produced and were sorting out before shipment.

They had every available Dark Heaven, Pathfinder, Chronoscope, Bones, etc just lined out across the wall in numerical order. The only thing they didn't have in the main room was their Warlord line. One of the workers had to run to the factory to get one that I wanted.

My wife, myself, and our 10 month old twins were all super excited to get to see where miniature magic happens*, so we asked if anyone was available to give us a tour of the factory. Fortunately one of their services guys, Matt, was kind enough to show us around. So with that we were escorted into the warehouse itself. (*enthusiasm on the part of any family members is greatly exaggerated)

The warehouse itself was all business.

These suits of armor came from fan who'd a local armorer. They're fully functional, and apparently have been worn on a few occasions

 The first place Matt took us was to the very back of the warehouse where the casting process begins. They press minis into wheels of almost gooey rubber to create molds, then vulcanize the wheels to make them as hard as car tires.

Funny story, I was asked not to take any images of a bit of proprietary swag on the table, so I carefully positioned myself so it'd be behind her arm as I took my picture, only to discover that she was reaching for a whole trey full of the same proprietary items (I shopped them out though)

This is the cast for Kargir Tundra Beast Rider from Warlord. If I remember correctly Matt said each wheel is good for about 20 "spins" so this wheel could make upwards of 100 minis before being replaced. Smaller casts that don't have a lot of width (like weapons sprues) can go for much much longer since they don't cause as much wear & tear when they're pulled from the rubber.

They had row after row of these wheels in the warehouse with their individual codes written on the side to identify what they were

That's a lot of potential minis right there.

And here's a lot of actual minis

They also had row after row of small yellow bins filled with minis waiting to be needed. I could have spent a good while peering into each bin deciding which to buy while ignoring the sticky-fingered devil on my shoulder.

More here:
Part 2: Casting & Paint
Part 3: Minis galore

Stonehaven Miniatures Kickstarter

I don't really involve myself in many Kickstarters. Most are neat enough to watch & follow as they progress, but few catch my attention enough that I actually invest. This month found the creation of two such kickstarters. The first is the crazy-popular Bones 2 kickstarter, and the second is from the less well known Stonehaven Miniatures.

Stonehaven already has two KS drives under their belt (Dwarven & Gnomish adventurers). They first caught my attention with their Gnomish Adventurers drive. Their gnomes were fun & whimsical while staying close to their fantasy roots. Plus there was a wide range of fantastic classes & schemes they covered (who wouldn't want a Gnomish Knight on a riding dog?) Sadly, I didn't notice the group-funding effort until it was already over & done.

I heard they were doing another one, & I wasn't going to miss it. Their new kickstarter is Elven Adventurers.  had a fun variety of wee folk. So far they've shown some intriguing concept art such as the Kitsune, Necromancer, and Sorcerer below.

Art from Stonehaven Miniatures, Copyright 2013 Michael T. Evans

They also toss in some fun nubbins with their pledges like, like familiars, musical instruments, character biographies. Their scale is similar to Reaper, although judging from the size comparisons they probably aren't on the "heroic" side of 28mm. After this Kickstarter they've made comments for a few other races they want to produce. Most notably for me are Half Orcs and Halflings, two poorly represented races in fantasy minis.

Art from Stonehaven Miniatures, Copyright 2013 Michael T. Evans

 The Kickstarter has 20 days to go at this point, and I'd encourage you to go check it out.  Of the concept sketches they've shown so far I've been a big fan of over half, which is a good ratio for me (I like the other half too, but don't necessarily feel the need to own them). This is definitely a miniature company to watch and support. Go check it out.

~Muninn

Easy Dragonborn Paladin Conversion

A few years back I picked up a Dragonman Conversion Kit to build a Dragonborn sorcerer a few years back and have been looking for easy conversions for the rest of the bits ever since. Head swaps can be a little finicky, so I always kept an eye open for a good pairing.

With the onset of bones, I found it. the Bones Duke Gerard mini was right on several levels. It looked spot on for a Paladin or Warlord, and being plastic meant it was easy to carve the head away. I couldn't stop the sword from curving, so I swapped it out with a blade from the Black Templar's Emperor's Champion (Games Workshop).

I've already painted blue and red dragonborn, and this time around I really felt like making a black one, and keeping in mostly monochrome (there are a few blue, gold and brown accents though). Black can be a bit tricky, since it can tend to look unfinished, so to combat this I'm not going to keep the mini a bit darker, hence the black shield and cloth. I also added a little bit of a blue tint into his scales, and am using the blue accents to hopefully tie it together.

The armor is mostly done, but most everything else needs at least 2-3 layers before I'm happy, but you can see where I'm going.

~Muninn