From JamieM: 30k and Dark Elves

As the title said, a few bits and pieces from me, still concentrating on my themes for this year, AoS and 30k.

First up, 30k.  I must confess a slightly unhealthy obsession with the Contemptor class dreadnought.  This is the 6th one I've painted up during the last 3 AHPCs and I want more..... this one is a plastic one from the Betrayal at Calth set but I wanted to convert it to match the Thousand Sons I started a few weeks ago so I did a head swap with a 40k Daemon Prince Magnus head.

Magnus was the Thousand Sons Primarch/head honcho in 30k times and as he turned to Chaos and survived, the Chaos gods turned him into a Daemon Prince and so he is still alive as a massive scary chap in 40k.

The sword is also from the Magnus kit (it's a dagger for Magnus to give you an idea of his size!) and there's a pleasing symmetry for me in using the future Thousand Sons kits to convert the 30k Dreadnought.

Loads of decals from the frankly brilliant decal sheet that Forgeworld produce.

Next up are a couple of Apothecaries for my Salamander 30k legion.

I started the Salamanders a couple of years ago but never got around to finishing the apothecaries.  One had a metal backpack which made him overbalance, and so I shoved them in a box until I recently got of my backside and bought a plastic one and finished them in two days!  So much the way of wargaming toys, ignored for 2 years, finished in 2 days once properly started...

These chaps help keep the legionnaries alive and when they can't, they harvest their "gene-seed" - the organs that make them more (and less) than human.  The shoulder pads and arm equipment are from 40k marines, but they work really well with the Mk IV bodies, heads and legs.  I went with white panels to mark them out, but I suspect, given the treachery of Horus' mob, that this will only mark them as juicy targets rather than save them under war conventions.

I'm off to Nottingham this weekend to visit GW HQ to get a load of AoS gaming in with my gaming buddies (including NickJ and MarkW who are in the AHPC this year) so I was keen to get a couple of pieces finished for it.

These are Dark Elf repeating bolt throwers, which have been around in one form or another since the start of WFB.

These are the newest versions and are made of the big mistake material Finecast.....

The only benefit was being able to use a hairdryer to straighten out the bits that had gone wobbliest.... but if they just made them from plastic they wouldn't have gone wobbly in the first place!

Still, I do like the design and here's hoping they can skewer plenty of enemies this weekend.

Lastly, this chap from the Silver Tower boardgame.

He is a "Stormcast Eternal" - the new race GW shoehorned into AoS for all the fans of space marines to buy.  He's a big chap (40mm base) as GW like to bulk these guys up.

Took me ages to get around to him as we've played through (and really rather enjoyed) the Silver Tower campaign already.  I kept the armour and cloak cold colours and went for a nice warm topknot to finish him off.

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What a wonderful assortment of GW miniatures you have for us today, Jamie. 

I really like these head-swaps you've been doing with your Dreadnoughts. The Magnus noggin and his dagger(!) are terrific additions and work very well scale-wise (and I agree, those FW decals are brilliant).

Congrats on getting those Salamander apothocaries done. Great work (their med-gauntlet always makes me cringe). You're not alone on having lingering figures for long held projects, I have loads as well. Then again, we can take heart in always having something ready-to-go when we're feeling the urge to come back to the project. Always a silver lining.

Great work on the iconic bolt-throwers, the MG42 of the classic WH Fantasy universe.  Gosh, have they changed the models for the crew in the past 20 years? I seem to remember that fellow with the upheald sword back in the days of Oasis. Nonetheless, you've done a lovely job on them.

Age of Sigmar. The less said by me the better. Nevertheless, your Eternal looks very majestic in his silver armour and blue cloak. The addition of the the flaming topknot (?) does add a nice bit of warmth to the figure.

This excellently painted range of GW goodness will score you 70 points with a bit more for the modifications on the Contemptor. Thanks for the eye candy, Jamie.