Zone Mortalis and Update

Last Week  I recieved my Zone Mortalis terrain from Forgeworld.  There's plenty of unboxing videos and pic guides on the internet so I'll spare you the details and tell you to google those.  I got enough for a 3x3' setup using two of the Zone Mortalis Sets and a Zone Mortalis Alpha Complex Tile (the L shape) as well as a set of small doors and a large door.  Why only one set of each of the doors?  Well I've been learning to use Smooth-On's products and <Redacted by order of the Inquisition> and plan to have 10 Large and 10 small doors to scatter about the tiles.  That's what my rough calculation figured I needed to make all the possible logical rooms with randomized tile arrangements on a 3x3 board.  My doors look pretty good!

As far as planned color scheme, I was at a loss until I came across some this pic of the London Museum of Natural History:

 

I  felt like the dark grey floors accented by worn brass, with mottled tan and grey walls, and amber lighting (I keep tossing around the idea to install LEDs) will convey the interior of an Imperial starship perfectly.  I'm looking to get started on the project this weekend.  What I need to do beforehand is make a greenstuff mold of the floor details so I can make some Zone Mortalis bases for my Blood Ravens and Delaque Pirates. 

In other news I've started airbrushing miniatures.  I've been practicing on turning some BfM Tactical Marines into Blood Ravens following Lester Bursley's great tutorial here:

I've been through 5 marines now (thank goodness for purple power cleaner) and can't seem to get that nice rich red tone he does.  Mine always come out this rusty looking brown color.  I figure I just need more practice, so I'll keep trying.  I also tried some Sky Raiders Corsairs following Nigel Bartlett's awesome formula and got more or less the same result as my blood ravens. 

Anyway, stuff in progress more to come, and hopefully some good photos soon!

Void Dreamer WIP

Ielenia Shadowheart, Neshani's youngest sister.  Once on the path of the spiritseer in her craftworld, Ielenia left because she felt her older sister was in trouble.  She now guides Neshani and her crew on their misadventures in the void.

The model so far uses the following components:
Island of Blood Mage lower torso
greenstuff cast of the Chapterhouse Studios Farseer Jetbike Conversion female torso
Avatars of War Wood Elf Hero bare head
Kabalite Warrirors Sybarite head bit
Reaper Fairy wings, smaller than Neshani's
FW Corsair Jetpack
Voidraven bomber pilot back
greenstuff and plasticard

Still more greenstuff work to do.

I'm open to suggestions for bits that would complete the sheath.  I'd like to keep her witchblade stowed.  She'll carry a staff in her right arm that will have ornamentation resembling the sky raiders symbol.  Her left hand will be casting.  I'll probably put a pistol on her right hip and some plasma grenades in place of the potion bottle on her left hip. 

The elemental base will probably be removed in favor of some ancient ruins. 
More to come. 

Coming together

Well, let's open with some pics:

Neshani Shadowheart, known by some as the Void Sylph and others as the Fae of Death, she's the Pirate Princess for my corsairs. I started on this conversion in early january but figured I'd post her now as I'm kicking off this blog.  It's always good to show some pictures, right?
This past Friday was a great first step in the direction I want to take my 40K gaming.  A large parcel from Forgeworld arrived.  It contained my decal sheet, a corsair conversion kit, a corsair heavy weapons kit, and 4 Wasp Assault Walkers.  For my buddy, it had 3 Arvus lighters and the Titan Crew that will be the basis for the Imperial Navy Armsmen I'm going to convert and cast for him. 
What's more, Forgeworld Released their Zone mortalis expansion.  The terrain looks nice if not a little pricey.  While my buddy Ian and I agreed that it was quite simple looking, and something we could assemble ourselves, I figure with the expense of materials and factoring in how valuable I think my spare hobby time is, it'd be more cost effecient to purchase these pieces.  I was originally considering some Hirst Arts molds to do the terrain, but really after buying the molds and the plaster for a small board, I'd easily be out $200 Which would get me more than half of where I need to be for a 3'x3' ZM board. 

MOre important than the terrain is the ruleset available on the FW site.  It's a very simple addition to the main 40K ruleset and generally stuff that's been batted about in house rules over the years.  In it's somewhat playtested, compiled form, it's everything I need to execute boarding actions in the 41st millenium.  More to come on that in the future, but I imagine we'll be gearing parts of our 40K armies towards these missions.

On the rest of the corsairs front, I've got less than 2 weeks until my first 1850 tournament and I must admit, I'm a little unsure if I'm going to have everything assembled in time.  I like to do a lot of converting if Neshani wasn't evidence enough of that.  Here's what I have ready to go:
1/1 Pirate Princess
0/1 VOid Dreamer (WIP, I could field her as is)
0/4 Bladesworn
4/6 Voidstorm
7/10 Kabalite Warriors
0/1 Raider (I'm torn between assembling it as is and converting the snot out of it.  It'll probably be assembled as normal)
0/5 Fire Dragons (I could probably field them as is.  They're missing grav chutes and some greenstuff details.
10/10 Corsairs
3/5 Corsairs
0/5 Corsairs
2/2 Wasps
0.5/2 Wasps
0/3 Jetbikes (Very WIP.  I've spent as much time on this 85 point unit as the rest of the army combined.  I'm trying to turn Reaver Jetbikes into bikes that look more like the Jes Goodwin prototypes.
1/1 Nightwing (The pink seahorse Nightwing, it's done as far as it's former craftworld is concerned.  For me, it's a whole other project of stripping reassmbling and painting.
1/1 Phoenix (I could field it I guess.  My pilots need heads and I need to do some cleanup work from the stripping job.  But I built a Pulse laser for it, and it's otherwise good to go.)

I'll post some pics of my Void Dreamer soon.  She's looking very good!

Introduction

Welcome to Call of the Void. I'm not sure what the format of this blog will be or how it will develop.  Suffice to say, my buddies and I love the Warhammer 40,000 Universe and the Battlefleet Gothic game.  Despite being in the hobby we're only now realizing that the spacefaring aspect is what we love the most and are starting to customize our forces across 3 game systems to reflect this.

I've been playing Eldar Corsairs since the release of Battlefleet Gothic in '99 and have always wanted to do a proper corsair army for 40K.  I tried when the most recent codex was released in 2006, but I found the craftworld list to be too restrictive and too tank heavy to represent a fast pirate force.  Forgeworld's release of Imperial Armour 11 and the corsairs army list has resolved any issues I had with the Eldar codex and I'm going all ahead full on a Sky Raiders boarding/landing party. 

Simultaneously, my close friend has always had a 40K army to represent his imperial navy crew.  Previous editions of the guard codex and restrictions on percieved gaming always meant that it was basically a tank heavy cadian army in look and play.  With a change of perspective we've decided on a force that uses the current guard codex, using Arvus Lighter models from Forgeworld to represent Valkyries, Thunderbolts as Heavy Support, and some custom sculpts to fill out the ranks of naval armsmen that would be sent dirtside or to board other ships. 

There will be other themes here too, like another friend with his Ork Freebooterz, a Rogue Trader contingent, human pirates, terrain to represent these boarding actions, and campaigns.