Grubnards Painting Table

Or... My next phase of the hobby.

It feels good to finally get back to painting. As you know, the past few weeks I have been pretty busy with helping run the 40k event at the Running Gagg and playing a handful of X-Wing games. While all of this has been fun it has left very little time for me to do what I love most in the hobby… building and painting my minis. While taking a break from painting and co-running the event, I began to ponder on what direction I want to go with regards to my 40k armies.


Last year saw the release of two of my favorite xenos armies, Eldar and Tau. The Tau were my very first army that I started collecting them towards the end of 3rd edition with their original codex. I started collecting the Eldar around 2011 as a new army to run in the Da Boyz GT that year. During those years I grew fond of those armies and when the new books came out I was happy to see so many new upgrades and options. I have gotten in many games with the new eldar and a fair amount with my Tau but strangely I feel myself coming back to my Word Bearers.

While many people don’t like the latest incarnation of the Chaos Marines codex, I find that there are a lot of fun options to run and now that the allies chart allows me to field Daemons with my Word Bearers I see plenty of new options open up to my lists. Lately my standard marine list runs something like:

Dark Apostle
Chaos Lord

10 Marines w/ Rhino
10 Marines w/Rhino
20 Cultists

Heldrake
Raptors on occassion

3 Obliterators
7-8 Havocs

On the Daemon side I tend to run:

Herald of Tzeentch (Exalted Reward/ML3)

10 Pink Horrors

Soul Grinder of Nurgle

This list has been a lot of fun but now I want to take it further. I recently bought a Daemon Prince and some Flamers of Tzeentch but I have also been toying with the idea of running a 20 man/girl squad of Daemonettes in my allies list. But the thing that has me most excited for my chaos army is the prospect of the new imperial guard book. I’ve always wanted to run a traitor guard allies list with my marines and if the new book is any good then I will definitely go that route. To me, chaos tanks have always been a little lack-luster and expensive. However, with guard I’d be able to field a Leman Russ or two, sentinels, or even a basilisk, if they are any good. So I think I will keep my Tau and Eldar on the shelf for a while longer while I have fun building expanding an growing my Word Bearers army.

Now onto my recent projects.

I have just about finished my Maulerfiend this weekend.

I had fun building and painting this beast, but much like the Heldrake, I had to hold off on assembling the full model until each section was painted, otherwise there would have been sections that I would not have been able to reach with my brush. I still need to do some highlights and finish up the base so I should have the final look ready by next week.

Next up on my to-paint list is my Daemon Prince and these recently purchased Flamers of Tzeentch.

I want my flamers to be a little more different than the standard blue body with orange flame. I think I will prime them white and then go with a pale white/albino look with some of the flamers having purple shades/washes with blue/white flames and others having a very light blue/wash with purple flames. Hopefully I will have some test shots done in the next week or so to show on the blog to get some feedback.