Third Set of Heroes for Blackstone Fortress:

 Hi All,

As promised, here are two additional heroes for Blackstone Fortress, Neyam Shai Murad, a Rogue Trader and her Crusader colleague, Godfret de Montbard.

These two come from the Ascension expansion which is well worth its cost as it has a huge amount of excellent content for the game.

Neyam is essentially a badass gunslinger, who sports a brace of enormous 'Negotiator Pistols'. Yup, a bit mental. She's my primary go-to character when I'm not playing the Bad Guys - great fun. 

The model has such wonderful character. I particularly like her bladed peg-leg and the two floating servo-skulls (one helping to spot targets and the other to reload her pistol).

Godfret is our main 'tank' in the game. He's basically designed to taunt enemies and take the resulting punishment. A true meat-shield. Peter's been having a load of fun with him, holding chokepoints while the party scampers around, trying to achieve the missions' objectives. 

After the astonishing battering he took during his first few games I decided to paint the oath marker on his shield with 'Nope' as it pretty much sums up the result of most incoming attacks.

Next up: A Hobby Studio Update!

Traitor Commissar and Ogryn Bodyguard

Ok, so I fibbed. There are no heroes in this post. I know, I know, I promised - My only excuse is that I got carried away finishing these two guys for our game this past weekend and the other ones got bumped.

So, here's a traitor commissar and his Ogryn bodyguard from the 'Traitor Command' expansion.

I really don't know how a traitor commissar 'works' in the 40K universe. Aren't commissars supposed to be the ones who bring order from chaos? Well, this doesn't work when Chaos is signing your paycheque. Hmm. Perhaps the best way to peg him is to just think of him as a cheerleader for the Ruinous Powers. That is if cheerleading means executing the nearest traitor guardsman for spelling Khorne incorrectly, or for not saluting with the proper tentacle. I dunno, it sounds like a pretty thankless job to me.

Anyhoo, the Chaos Commissar's badassery is further enhanced by him having a hulking Ogryn as his bodyguard. 

'Well, it's great for opening jam jars, but lousy for texting...'

As you can see this poor fella's been skewered by a huge piece of wrought iron - but he's obviously making the best of it. Sure, it looks very uncomfortable, but it's probably quite handy for hanging laundry on. 

'More socks for the sock god! More starch for the starch throne!'

A very fun set of models which help add further character to our games of Blackstone Fortress.

Next time: Some heroes. No, really!

Denizens of Blackstone Fortress from the Core Box

 Hi All,

As I've been banging on about the heroes of Blackstone Fortress, I thought it fair to feature some of the denizens who creep its halls and vaults.

This group is what you receive in Blackstone Fortress' core box set. Similar to the protagonists, I kept myself to a fairly rigorous timeline to get them on the table, so the paintwork was fast and furious.

Traitor Guardsmen

I really like these figures as they're so varied and characterful. I decided to use fairly punchy colours for their armour in order to make them easy to identify on the tabletop. I did one group in yellow, and, in honour of Barks' Pinkstone Fortress motif, another squad in lurid Pepto-Bismol pink. Fun!

Ur-Guls

I liked how other painters have done the Ur-Guls' claws in spooky contrasting tones, so I gave it a whirl as well. The well-defined musculature on these guys make a great surface for using GW's Contrast paints. Nasty little blighters in the game.

Spindle Drones

I sorta see these as the white blood cells of the Fortress, being as they are indigenous to the station and come out when things need 'attending to'. Sort of like a malicious version of Google Home.  As such, I kept them sorta techie and simple.

Beastmen

My first fantasy army was Beastmen so I'm rather fond of these guys. 

Baahahaa!

Rogue Psykers

A little incongruous with the ball and chain thing. Do they always have these on? Why? I would have preferred them just floating using those clear acrylic flying pegs. Nonetheless, I still like how these look overall.

Negavolt Cultists

These guys are a bit of a howl. Sort of a S&M version of your power utility guy. Armed with 'Electro Goads'. Yeeash. Sounds nasty.

Obsideous Mallex & Chaos Space Marines

When I was working on these figures I realized that, after all these years of collecting GW stuff, these are the first Chaos Marines I've ever painted. How'd that happen? No matter, I quite enjoyed working on them. Kept the colour pallet fairly stripped-down and simple. 

And to lead all these miscreants is our main villain, the top dog, the head honcho. AND queue the ridiculous villain name: 'Obsideous Mallex'. Really? This guy sounds like he was a wash-out from a Sith Lord  training camp. Why can't these guys be called something like 'Norm' or 'Bill'? I think it would be quite menacing to face off against a huge chaos marine named Jeremy. 

So there you have it, a nice mob of baddies to mess with our intrepid heroes. 

Hmm, speaking of which. Next up: More Heroes for Blackstone Fortress - Weee!

Have a great week everyone!

Curt