Announcement

I have good news and bad news for my readers this week, and I will start with the bad news.

Bad News

As some of you may know, I have a notorious lack of focus when it comes to projects. I haven't really been posting a lot in regards to my Dalek project and for that I apologize.

The project is still ongoing, it might be relegated to "back burner" status until I sort things out, especially in regard to obtaining the models for the project. Suffice to say if I were to build a Dalek force with the miniatures I want to use, it would not be feasible with my budget. Though I am considering a few options, one of which is sculpting my own Dalek miniatures. In the meantime, I will focus on painting what I do have for future installments of Predations of the Xenos.

Good News

Since I do lose focus on projects literally all the time, I always move onto something a little more exciting every time. I have made my first little baby steps towards two other Great Crusade era projects, both of which have some sort of foundation in the Warhammer 40,000 universe.

To kick things off, Squats.

I painted this fellow two weeks ago, give or take. I never had an opportune time to upload a good picture until now. He will be a force commander for my Warp Cults and Militias army further down the line. You will see more of these guys once a friend of mine brings back the Squats from extinction, if you catch my drift.

As well as Squats, I am kick starting my Great Crusade Era Ultramarines ...

 ... In the only way I know how, by picking up a Betrayal at Calth box. Most of my Legionnaires in Mark IV armor will be representing fresh recruits from Macragge, newly assigned to a largely Terran born company. I do plan on getting a lot more Mark III and II armor to represent the time period a lot better, seeing as Mark IV was introduced a lot later in the Crusade.

I also purchased a ten man squad of Mark IV tactical marines on eBay to further bolster my Calth force, giving me nearly half a modern company to play around with. The first thing I did was blunder up a conversion with a sergeant, irreparably damaging a Mark IV helmet. I ended up shaving down a Catachan head to replace the lose. I will one day give him his helmet back. Or maybe I will end up keeping him as it is, once he gathers some battlefield honors. 

That's all for this week, I'm afraid. Take care and beware the Predations of the Xenos!

4/24/2016 Progress Report

I apologize profusely for not posting anything in a long while as there has not been much to discuss!

I've been thinking about doing bi-weekly progress reports to introduce more content to the blog, as well as giving me deadlines for modelling, painting, etc.

This week I'll be discussing my Daleks.

Since my last post, I have painted ten Dalek drones and a Strategist. They will serve as "counts-as" Necron Immortals and Crypteks respectively. I apologize for the photo quality in advance, I don't have access to the best of lighting conditions.

These blighters even saw some action one night at my local game store. Though they obviously didn't win, I consider them fully blooded, tempered in the fires of war. 

The full battle report can be seen on iToysoldiers.com, a site I wholeheartedly recommend for any war gamer.

That's it for tonight's progress report, take care and beware the predations of the xenos!

Daleks WIP - Painting

So I woke up this morning and decided to work on some of my Daleks.

I did do some preparation work on the figures the other night, sanding down mold lines and filling some gaps in the armor plates with Green Stuff.

 I had to wait a day for the weather to clear up, but I did get to priming them this morning. I used Army Painter White Matte Spray.

After an hour or two of waiting for the paint to dry, I brought them inside and did up a little test model.

I'm planning on finishing five more drones and my HQ's today and paint up the rest over the weekend. It's so much easier once you get over the first model.

Please leave comments and likes and tell me what you think!

Beware the Predations of the Xenos!

Dalek Project Kick Start

I have a fairly significant update for you lot this week.

This week, I begin my first of many 30k Xenos Projects. I just got my packages of Doctor Who Adventures collectible miniatures today. Among them, Daleks.

That's right, we're building Daleks. Now I know what many of you are thinking.

"But, Seb! Daleks aren't really from Warhammer, are they?"

Now you'd be right in saying that, Daleks have never made an appearance in Warhammer 40,000 nor are they really part of the franchise. They are a race of cyborgs from the popular British show, Doctor Who. However, one of Citadel's first plastic miniatures were, in fact, Daleks and Cybermen as pictured below. The scale was a tad smaller than the modern "heroic" scale Games Workshop goes along with nowadays, but then again, so were many of their early miniatures.

With this in mind, I like to think Daleks (and Cybermen to an extent) existed in the Warhammer 40,000 universe but were wiped out during the Great Crusade, along with a great many other species. It's a bit of a stretch, being a bit of a head canon. Anyway, let's get started with a quick review of the miniatures themselves.

The models themselves are really nothing more than cheap toys, at least in Britain. I paid less than ten dollars for the lot of them. Because of this, the casting is quite terrible and would require a great deal of work on my part to make them worthy of the tabletop. 

A good deal of filling, filing and gluing will be needed to fill in those gaps. Of course, I just picked out the worst of the lot, most of them aren't this bad, nothing a sausage of green stuff and a bit of sanding can't fix.

Now I haven't mentioned the other beasties I got in my package. A lot of them are just little figures of enemies from the show. The sculpts range from okay to downright rubbish. They are made of this soft, rubbery plastic that just isn't really conducive to paint. 

The whole cast!

Like I said, rubbish.

Anyway, now that I have the models, what rule set will I use to represent the children of Skaro? I thought about this for a good long while and I decided on using the Necron codex. The natural toughness of Necron infantry really feel like something Daleks would play on the tabletop. Remember, Daleks had layers of shields and armor to defend themselves against attack, making very nearly impervious to modern fire arms. Of course, due to the limitations of the Dalek background material, I won't be able to properly represent a few units. Namely, Ghost Arks and other transports, save for maybe the flyers.

I have twenty two of these models in total. I've decided to use twenty of these "Paradigm" style Daleks as Necron Immortals. The last two will be a Dalek Supreme and Dalek Strategist, a Necron Lord/Overlord and Cryptek respectively. Dalek ranks are color coded, so it makes the creation of characters really quite easy!

Now, any good Necron player will point out that Immortals are not the most optimal troops choice for a proper Necron force and with that I agree. I will need to procure some proper Warrior counts as and I know just the thing.

Black Tree Miniatures make perfect, run of the mill Daleks. I plan to paint them up in the bronze color scheme synonymous with the 2010 version of the Daleks which made a relatively recent appearance in the show. The bronze Daleks are mean't to be the baseline soldier with the colored variants usually denoting status. It will take me some time to get a sizable amount of these guys, however.

Stay tuned, I might have some work in progress shots for you lot in the coming days.

Beware the Predations of the Xenos! 

Introduction and a Good Idea Where We're Going

Introduction

Welcome to Predations of the Xenos!

Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Sebastian, I've been playing Warhammer 40,000 for about four or five years now. I live in Windsor, Ontario. I got back into the hobby through a friend who reintroduced me to the background story behind Warhammer 40,000 and I got immediately hooked. It was not too long after I started reading up on more background fluff, the older and more obscure the better. I played Warhammer 40,000 all through high school and then some. I am blessed to have a tight knit community of players in my home town, our narrative campaigns are (usually) great fun!

Anyways, my first army of choice was Orks. I don't remember what quite drew me to them in the first place. Perhaps it was a combination of me not wanting to play another, thrice-cursed, Space Marine army as my starter force. That and the truly barbaric (and almost comedic) nature of the Orks, not to mention their play style! There's just something about putting down a hundred plus miniatures on the table that makes me all giddy. Anyway, while I read up on fluff, there's was always something that fascinated me about the aliens, or Xenos, in this universe. There was precious little known about them, all the little background races that get mentioned but are never truly represented on the table top.

With my blog, I'm hoping to bring these creatures into the light, onto the world of the table top just so I don't make things too boring for our human counter parts!

Where We Are Going

I have many projects planned for the near future and although many of them don't tie exclusively to Xenos, they will bill quite interesting and fun nonetheless! Expect to see the following in the coming months, in rough order.

- Adeptus Mechanicus
- Inquisition Task Force
- Xenos and Abhumans of the Great Crusade

- Great Crusade Era Legion

- Several small things in between major projects

That's just a little bit of a hint for the future, I hope we will have a bit of fun with it!