New Blood Pact links

I've decided to post when I update the links here so you, my kind readers are updated when I find a new resource or an old one changes.

Welcome FortWargame to the Blood Pact links.  His work was already over there but is now easier to access on his own blog.  Lots of great vehicles and scratch-building there so give it a look!

JackHammer's fantastic scratchbuilt AT70 is well worth a look.

Walker90234's xenos mercenary gallery shows off his Loxatl, Hrud and Tarrelian dog soldier conversions for use with the Pact.

This wiki page on the Loxatl has great information and a couple pieces of art I hadn't seen before.

_blacklibrary built lego versions of quite a few Gaunt's Ghosts, but more importantly he also did a lego Blood Pact soldier.

I also added links to Blood Pact appropriate heads from Secret Weapon and Blight Wheel, as well as the Blight Wheel mantis tank which would be a great stalk tank.

In other news, I finished painting my chaos rhino!

New Blood Pact models & desk

I was pretty excited a couple months back and posted that Blight Wheel minis would be making a model that was perfect for use as Loxatl.  Well the model will never be put on the market; GW issued a cease & desist order.  So the search for good Blood Pact models continues!

I found these great heads from Blight Wheel that are perfect for Blood Pact.  They're right up there with the ones from Maxmini.  I ordered them as well as their walking tank for fear of GW trying to make them stop production of those as well.

I can finally stop converting helmetless heads to have a mask!

The helmet is bigger than my other models, but it still works.

Grotesk!

The mantis walking tank is much bigger than I imagined a stalk tank, but it certainly works!  Only the large pieces are pictured here, the smaller leg bits and forward grasping arms & top gun are still in their baggie.  I cleaned all his parts up, not too many mold lines, but they usually ran across a smooth surface so they were a bit annoying.

A titan must have stepped on him.

I also went through my Blood Pact links here, deleting the dead ones and putting in more specific links so you don't have to trawl through an entire photo album to find the Pact pictures.

Lastly, I picked up a new painting desk from IKEA that is tall enough I don't have to hunch over to paint or build.

Loxatl sighted!

Updated with five new pictures: March 25, 2013

I just saw this update from Blight Wheel: a perfect Loxatl figure!

Sadly it is only available as a freebie at Salute this year.  If anyone gets one and doesn't want it, I would be happy to take it off your hands!

 

I asked if there was any way I could get them without going to Salute and they said no but they might do a line based on the figure in the future.

UPDATE:

Additional pictures surfaced and it's easy to see the chest flechette gun rig. The base looks like a 40mm round, which sounds right for these guys.

 

Dreamforge Kickstarter unboxing part 3

Part 1 is here.
Part 2 is here.

I managed to build a leg tonight.  Just one.  The leg is still articulated, even though it is glued together.  The thigh swivels, the knees bend, the ankle is a ball and socket joint that rotates, the toe even has a small range of motion.  While all this is happening, the hydraulic pistons extend and retract!  On top of this engineering genius, there have only been mold lines on two parts of this leg.  Two.  Once I progressed to the point where the armor plates go on I had to stop.  Covering up all this detail just felt wrong.  Ah well, you know that means I'll just have to buy a Leviathan Mortis. 

So how big is this thing again...?

The assembled leg is remarkably sturdy and balanced well on its own.  The only way I can make it fall over is by rotating the ankle joint all the way to the left or right.  It balances with the leg itself extended all the way to the back or front.  The hydraulic pistons do pull out if the leg is fully extended but that is no criticism, just the limits of the kit.  As neat as all these moving details are, I will be finding a cool pose and then gluing the joints down for added stability and ease of painting.


Speaking of great details, check out the Stormtrooper accessory box below.  Tons of bits!  So many bits!

Accessory box sprues and instructions.

Accessory sprues.  That's a lot of bits.

Accessory sprue #1.

Accessory Sprue #2.

Accessory sprue #3 (three mules).

Dreamforge Kickstarter unboxing: Part 2

Part 1 is here.


In part 2 of the unboxing I take a look at the DreamForge stormtrooper infantry.  Tons of pictures of the sprues themselves are at the bottom of this post.

The stormtroopers are hard plastic, injection molded and are 10 parts each.  While this may seem like a lot, it's the same number for Space Marines.  Mold lines are faint and easily scraped off with a blade, details are crisp and the plastic will flex.  I love the peg on the foot of the model and the hole in the base.  It makes for a sturdy join and allows you to easily build a model without needing to glue it down first.

10 parts each, plus base.  Notice the peg on the foot?

Before you build: certain arms line up with certain rifles.  The stock of some rifles have a section cut out of it so it will perfectly align with one of three right arms.  The left arms are also meant to work with certain right arms, so read the little color coded chart that comes in the box before you build!  I was not so careful and I ended up carving a small part out of a rifle stock to get it to fit.

Left to right: GW IG-based Bloot Pact, DreamForge Stormtrooper, GW Space Marine.  In the background are the older metal Stormtroopers from DreamForge, another plastic Stormtrooper and a GW Space Marine scout.

Dreamforge has gone above and beyond to make negative space work for you.  The backpack is a perfect negative of the torso back.  The detail is so fine that the backpack clicks into place when it aligns thanks to four tiny ribs that insert themselves into four tiny vents in the torso back.

Torso (with vents) on top.  Backpack with matching ribs on the bottom. Click!

The rifle stocks are the same way: any part that would have clipped through another on the 3d model has been removed, leaving a perfect negative space to receive its neighbor.  Even the drum magazines have an imprint of the rifle's side!

Even with mismatching arms and a chopped rifle stock I couldn't make him look bad!

Not glued to the base.  Attached only by the peg.

The plastic version took half as long to build and involved 100% fewer glued fingers.

Stick legs in peg on base, build torso, glue gun to right arm, glue arms to torso, glue torso to legs.

Squad option box and squad box dwarfed by Leviathan box.

Stormtrooper box.

Stormtrooper squad and diagram.  Pay attention to the diagram!

Stormtrooper sprues.

Stormtrooper sprue #1.

Stormtooper sprue #2.

Stormtrooper sprue #3.

Dreamforge kickstarter goodies arrived! Unboxing part 1

Intel reported an Eisenkern force moving aggressively into my area and for once they were right!

A big brown box sat on my porch when I arrived home.  So without pause, and with fervor equal to the littlest Eisenkern on Weihnachten I tore it open!

Inside was part one of my Kickstarter bundle from DreamForge games.
(Click the pictures for larger images.)

Stuffed to the gills!

The plastic baggies are the kickstarter extras stuffed in on the left and the lower right.

Kickstarter bonus figures Ada with Shadokesh & handler.  Excaliber sword option on the right.

Huge base and some foam padding for the Leviathan.

Instructions and sprues.

Leviathan sprues just keep going down into that box.

Two sets of sprues & some foam on the side.

There's more underneath?

All the parts without frames come in their own formed-plastic holder.

Leviathan bits without framed sprues.

Screwdriver and screws included.  Wait, nobody said anything about screws! :-)

New Pacter, Dawn of War Blood Pact and a Paper Tank

I shook some of the rust off and built a new Blood Pact trooper.  I found the bits to make him as I was organizing the consequences of my hording: boxes and boxes of models.  I think I've heard it referred to as the Cupboard of Shame and I should certainly find a cupboard to hide mine.

Not my greatest work, but it felt good to get out the plastic glue and sprue clippers again.

In other Blood Pact news, I found a paper model of an AT83 Brigand that looks pretty familiar.  Click the pic to see the papercraft site.

They did a great job!

Which reminded me of a Dawn of War mod from a while back who's tank also looks pretty familiar.  Click it to see the mod's page.

Looking pretty sharp there, Blood Pact mod group!

My AT83 "Big Red" for reference.  Click it for a screen full of dirty red awesomeness.

Do you hear the voices too?

Honestly I didn't hear the voice of chaos until I pulled all my painted models out and put them in this very nice Ikea case.  It was a gift from my adoring wife a couple years ago and is a quality set up.

Skulls, Blood Pact and coconut monkeys, those Dark Angels must be worried.

I put in a few painted models I had at hand.  Looked pretty good, too.  Then I remembered the Ikea light set I picked up to add more light to each level.  Surprisingly easy to put in!  Then I needed more models since all that light showed how few their really were.  Out come the boxes and all the Blood Pact take to the shelves.   

That's when I started hearing the voices.  The sibilant whispers telling me how great the Pact are, and how proud I am of them.  Just a few models. It couldn't hurt. Besides, lots of people play 40k and when's the last time you got a game in since you left 40k?  Lots of games out there, lots of scales and genres and beautiful models, it's true.  But how many games?  Not enough, that's how many.

So I poke around at the interwebs and find a few new Blood Pact armies online and come here to add them to the links.  (Blood Pact Links on the right, now moved up to the top of the page for ease of community access.)  Blogger has changed a bit since I last logged in, so why not have a look around, post something up?  Sure, I think to myself.  But then I realize that I'm not married to GW anymore, and there were always vehicles I wanted to do but didn't want to scratch build.  Uh oh.

Credit to SniperOne for the pic.

I had thought about picking up a Sd.Kfz 251 in 1:48 scall in the past.  Pretty good fit for size and scale.  Sadly the 1:48 kits are about $30, more for the variants with turret or 75mm gun. This is about the same as GW's $35 for a chimera.  Wait, why am I even shopping?  The voices tell me to hush, and mention that Warlord games just released a plastic half-track for their 28mm game Bolt Action.

Do you have any in red?

Why yes they do, and it's only $24.  Now I always leaned towards the US M3 half-track for the Blood Pact due to a line about a pacter standing in a pulpit on his vehicle, I think any pintle mount is sufficiently pulpit-like to make it work.

So now what?  Are 40k's flesh-hooks in me?  Will I ever pick a damn army?  Ooh shiny, a Bolt Action hanomag construction step-by-step.  Thanks Mr Hairy Painter sir!  Click the pick for more pictures on his blog.

Where do you keep the blood in this thing?  You know, for the blood god?