Saturday, October 21, 2023

Another converted (epic-scale) Traitor Knight painted!

Finally got primer and paint on another of my converted Traitor Knights for playing (3rd edn.) Epic: 40,000. 

I still plan to spruce up the base, but I think he looks suitably business-like to chase around those loyalist dogs...


 As with the others I've blogged about, this started as a Battletech 'mech mini, which I then heavily converted using bits from 40k or other sources. 

Wednesday, October 4, 2023

[AHSOKA] A few happier thoughts about the season 1 finale

 Well, having recently usurped the role of pontifical cultural commentator, I wanted to note - in counterpoint to my recent grumpy comments - that I watched the season finale of Ahsoka last night ... and left happy, overall. 

Now, I will say (with only a minimum of spoilage) that there was a lightsaber battle in the episode that really cheesed me off: the opponent was fun, but Ahsoka's own strategy seems to be: "Fool! I shall defeat you by keeping my back turned toward you for 25% of our combat!" I shall not comment on the ongoing issue of that reversed-grip saber-hold (for fear of becoming utterly churlish).

Ok, enough grumpiness. The show had a few opportunities to take the easy way out, giving us nice clean TV-showish endings that were a bit too tidy (something the last Mandalorian season really rolled around in). Instead, the show-writers took a different route. The ending of Ahsoka felt like it respected the story being told, wanted to give it some room to breathe, recognized that this takes time. The story was much more satisfying as a result. I hope that becomes normal.  

There are big things afoot, here, for the entire Star Wars-verse. Despite some hiccups, I'm enjoying the ride. 


Sunday, October 1, 2023

Epic-Scale Primarch Perturabo conversion / completed Epic-scale light Traitor Knight detachment!!!

 My efforts to build up a heavily kitbashed, converted, and/or scratchbuilt force for the ol' 3rd-edition Epic: 40,000 wargame are finally getting me somewhere! For team Gundobad (facing off against an Imperial army commanded by my kids) I've been working on an Iron Warriors Chaos army, with help from various other plunder-minded auxiliaries. 

I finally got around to making a kitbash-conversion for my general/supreme commander. Allow me to introduce Perturabo, Primarch of the Iron Warriors traitor legion (famous for his grumpiness and his big hammer). Note that this is specifically ascended daemon Primarch Perturabo - he'd be way too large otherwise, as this is a 28mm miniature that looms over the regular infantry. I chopped up an old Reaper Bones mini (some kind of steampunky engineer fella who also looked goofy to me) and added Terminator and Chaos Marine bits to round him out. The Reaper mini had a steam backpack that sooooooorta looks like a 6mm tank turret once it's chopped off, so I tweaked his stance to have the dude stomping on that. I might yet add a cannon, but otherwise he just wants paint. 




I've also now converted enough of those Battletech 'mechs into Traitor Knights that I can run a detachment of War Dogs (smaller Knights) in my army. Among the last few conversions, one looks quite "traditional" to my eye, although I may have gone rather overboard with the other, more mutated one:



I'm still working on some larger figures. In 3rd ed. Epic, the more abstract rules just give you larger knights that are slower but have more firepower, and smaller knights with more mobility and close assault strength. I had planned to run a single detachment combining both, but I think I might end up running two smaller detachments, one for each specialty. 

Anyway, here for now are the makings of a Knight household from a far, grim future: 





Saving $$$ compared to official GW Knights was a key concern when I started this project, but I've also really enjoyed the creative exercise and how individualized each of these weirdos became.