All the Short Men - Ratling Kill Team (Part 1)

I guess it was about 6 weeks or so ago when I had the idea. And this was the model that started it all:

'Panadol', sci-fi Halfling psyker from Four A Miniatures.

I'd picked up this lovely sculpt of a sci-fi Halfling psyker sculpted by Paul Muller on a whim. Then I started musing about making a little Kill Team to accompany her - after all, I had half a dozen or so Citadel ratlings that would fit the bill. And then I decided it would be fun to try and make this Kill Team in time for a pre-arranged gaming session of Shadow War: Armageddon with some buddies. Notwithstanding other hobby commitments, the relatively compact timeframe, and the desire to convert and paint a brand new set of figures, I launched into the project with abandon!

Grox Herding - Animal Husbandry in the 41st Millennium

The humble grox is a staple touchstone of 'normal' life in the 41st millennium. You'll often see references in background text and novels (Dan Abnett regularly refers to juicy grox steaks). First referenced in the Rogue Trader rulebook, groxen are an excellent inclusion to any farm-based 40k game!

Fancy a Nice Quiet Pint? More Fogou Terrain

There are many unlicensed drinking dens in the streets of Helsreach.

Choose Your Own Adventurers #4: Short Jern Silvo, Ratling Cook

What a fine mix of reprobates we've seen to date in the 'Choose Your Own Adventurers' project. I urge you to check out Captain Paradox Zeeman by Curis, and Garnier Wangst, Eldar trader by cheetor.

My second contribution is a shorter, nastier piece of work. And that pretty much sums up a ratling cook - a greasy low-life responsible for acquiring supplies needed to feed his crew. I suspect those supplies may not always be of the highest quality!

 

The Listener of Whispers and Helsreach Grows

Without wanting to sound like I'm repeating myself, it's been a little while since I last added to my Astropathic Choir. So I pulled a suitable figure out and daubed some paint to swell the number of choristers.

Astropath Varees holds the title of Listener of Whispers. It is he who seeks out the quiet and the hidden - the secret messages that are transmitted faintly and furtively. Not for him are the mundane and strong signal of corporate entities, inter-planetary political announcements or universal broadcasts. Varees listens to subtler transmissions. Coded tense negotiating positions. Highly sensitive notifications of high ranking births, marriages and deaths. Perhaps subterfuge and espionage. He hears much and speaks little. For this, he is well rewarded by grateful, yet anonymous clients.

 

WIP Helsreach Building

I singularly failed to do any painting over the last few days, so instead I thought I'd share a WIP building I'm working on for my Logan's World / Helsreach-esque fringe world setting.

The building is a 28mm scale Casbah from Black Hat Miniatures Exotic Adventures range. The building is a great looking collection of interesting angles - here's it is unpainted:

Adding Height - Comms Arrays

The trouble with a lot of wargames terrain is that it tends to be fairly uniform in height. Buildings by and large are one or two storeys. Most scatter terrain is no taller than a 28mm miniature. I fancied adding some taller elements to my terrain collection, and spent a bit of time looking at model mobile phone masts.

I stumbled on this pair of N Gauge model railway scenic phone masts on ebay. They were a little short for my needs, but happily as they're 3D printed to order, the seller was happy to increase the height and do a custom order for me.