058 - My Favorite Iron Warriors Units

As the new Iron Warriors are being created I think it is time to consign the old models to storage to make way for the new guys. I have painted up quite nearly 150 models for this army with painting ranging from "okay" to "my first paint job". But before they go into a KR case here are my three favourite units from the army.

The Heldrake was the first big kit that I had to put together and man is it complicated. Its looks huge when it is finally completed. Just don't try and pick it up without using the flying stand!

The cultists get in here not just because of the natty paint scheme but because this is when I felt i had cracked batch painting and could churn out a decent amount of models at a good pace.

The Helbrute was one of the more complicated miniatures with alot of detail to paint but I feel I did model justice. The dynamic pose is pretty cool too!
Despite the Iron Warriors being a little rough round the edges I will always have a soft spot for this army due to it being the one that got me back into the hobby. However I feel it has had it's day and I now have to crack on with my 30k Iron Warriors and do the sons of Olympus justice!

044 - Best Book Ever!

I finally got my grubby little paws on the Crusade Imperialis book for the  Horus Hersey. It's absolutely brilliant. I got it mainly for the militia list to add a few extra units to my 30k armies as allies but was blown away by the quality of the whole book. It has three complete army lists in it, the Solar Auxilia Crusade Army List, the Questoris Knights Crusade Army List and the Imperialis Militia and Cults Army List.

The first section is the Solar Auxillia. I really like these guys especially the Ogryns! Sadly until I get a lottery win I have no chance as they are very expensive to buy from Forge World. The models are beautiful and some of the colour schemes I have seen really make them standout from other armies.The second is the  Questoris Knights and while I have not had a massive yearning for an army of super heavy walkers this updated section makes me want to add a Knight to my Word Bearers which you can do with the newly released Age of Darkness Army List book.
My favourite section is the Imperialis Militia & Cults. The list is one of the most versatile and flexible army lists I have seen in all the years I have been involved in the hobby. The wide selection of troops and the way you can customise them with both wargear and provenances of war open up massive opportunities. You can go from swarms of rabble to power armoured elites and pretty much everything in between.
The Militia list would be an excellent choice for a guard player who wanted to port their army over from 40k but equally could be used with other units that Games Workshop sell. For example, got a Beastman army? You can now represent it in 30k? Same with Flesh Eater courts or even a Bloodbound force. Obviously not everything will fit in but use your imagination and you can have a really crazy army with a really strong theme in no time.
After a round up of spare cultists models in my collection and small splurge on Ebay I have quite alot of cultists ready to go. I can do some allies for my Word Bearers and see where I end up. With the large squad sizes in 30k I will be doing a fair bit of speed painting to get them table top ready but the advantage of having 50 models in a unit is that the eye looks at the whole rather than just individual models.
So I have a few more of these guys to paint up!

The red books are excellent value. They may not have any fluff but that's what the big books are for. With these red books you can have almost a complete new game system for just over £30. They are an absolute bargain and I would recommend them to anyone interested in playing 30k!

030 - Puppies Vs Hobbies

I have added a monstrous creature to the collection. This little guy.

So my wife and I got a puppy recently as we wanted to get one for ages. Me being the man of the house said he would take two weeks off work to look after the little monkey. After reading on Google that puppies have eighteen hours of sleep a day. I thought great, that's hours of hobby time for two weeks I'll get so much done. How wrong I was!
Apparently puppies are very full on so my hobby marathon was curtailed due to playing (which is good) and cleaning up mess (which is bad). I had twenty minutes here and there during nap times so I got all of my small hobby jobs that I could find and set about seeing them off one by one.

I have varnished and based some cultists which have been sitting in a box for a year. It has bumped up my large cultist unit up to 31 members which is a nice blob of expendable troops to have.

I am going to have to find smaller tasks to do like this  while the puppy is really young but it is nice when real life is full on as a little hobby goes a long way.