Redeemed chaos champion : How the emperor loves you more than you hate yourself

Now we come to one of the best parts of the Sensei background. You may remember from the starting post on them that there is a little detail in the rules that intrigued me a lot :

 

Chaos renegades complete collection (part 1) ...

...almost

Note from the author : Be prepared for an unhealthy dose of bragging and showing off in the following post, future posts should not stay in that vein or keep that same tone but this one is a sort of cathartic way or releasing the pressure from this long-term quest. Thanks you

Aaaanyway, guess what appeared in the mailbox the other day? Well, I'm going to show you right now :

A Rogue trader Tzeentch renegade? that's all? not even remotely unreleased or limited edition? The kind you could order via the mail order service until the early 2000?

YES ! THAT kind of renegade but the one I've been running after for quite a while and more importantly, the one that seals the first stage of my collection.

I can proudly announce that the collection of foot renegades for my chaos renegade army is now OVER.

Part of my youth : the Fallout soundtrack

Hi all, 

Today's post is only remotely related to the hobby but any of you who has already played the first 2 Fallout games will mostly have had the video gaming experience of their life.

I won't go into the history behind Fallout but it was first published in 1997 and was based on the RPG Wasteland by Steve Jackson (the american one, not the GW one...).

You do not want to try Bob's Iguana bits...

The game is a pearl and I can't count how many games my younger brother and myslef have played, using every kind of character our twisted youthfull brains could come up with...

Rogue trader Mad punk

A lot of work in progress at the moment, most of which being for the upcoming Oldhammer week-end in Newmark. This means a grey sensei, a space adventurers gang and on a totally unrelated note the 2nd edition eldar avatar (WIP pics to come to get your thoughts on the process).

The model I have to show today is the Mad punk form the rogue trader adventurers range.

It is a lovely model with some very pretty parts and some more bizarre ones (just look at the size of those gloves) but I found it very pleasant to paint. I am very glad to have a feminine member in the crew at last. She also adds a little more etnic diversity with a middle-eastern scout friend and the halfling which shows in the grim darkness of a dark future there may be only war but not only WASPs fighting it.

The space rooster

An here we are with another model. This one arrived last week in the mailbox from my colleague Cheetor/Shoebox and as soon at it arrived, it was based and primed and good to go.

The miniature comes from Interloper Miniatures who produce excellent anthromorphic animals. You can also note that the model has been sculpted by no other than Bob Olley which is always a sign of quality :

I did not mean to paint this one as fast as I did and it was actually very low in my priority list but when I had it in hand I felt compelled to prime it and work on it. in a couple of sessions, it was done to a reasonable standard thanks to the great proportions of textures and details (juts the right ratio to have an easy and lovely model).

Give-away results

OK there's been time enough for all the people who wanted to enter the competition to do so. Now is the time to decide who is winning the most sought after reward of all : an unloved model modelled and painted by no other than me with the winner's touch.

Having received nuemrous propositions, I've decided to list them in an Excel Sheet. Why would I do that?, well I'm a engineer during daytime so numbers the lies you can get out of them is part of my job and skills so I guess it came as the way to go for me. That and it is very convenient to actually draw a winner from the list.

Sooooo, here are the entries and their associated propositions :

Looking at the Charts you probably realise that some models inspired the contestants more than the others : 

 But let me show you in a more graphic fashion :

Everybody loves a good pie chart right? No? Ah OK, guess my love of numbers is not shared by all...

Funny to see Aenur and the imperial preacher were the 2 most wanted models with the Slaanesh Daemonette a close 3rd.

So maybe you'll like how I chose a winner ?

Oh yes you're right, with Excel's random command (that's the french version but I'm pretty sure the english one has it too :D)

 Just add a little database search in here...

And we're good to announce the winner! (simple as that).

All it took was a lunchbreak of typing and a few formulas here and there, why give the task to an anonymous online random generator! 

I have to say if I had a D25 I would have obviously opted for it but I'm pretty sure you'd have missed the pie chart even though you won't admit it.

Well you must have understood by the heavy Spoilers in the pictures above who the winner is . I am very happy that Mr Gates via his microsoft software decided to award Warlord Paul of this random because though I've had very friendly contact with most people on the list above, he's been a very enjoyable person to deal with via all this blog/forum/facebook/interwebz thing. (that and his proposition is one of the rare I can actually achieve in a reasonable amount of time...). 

I'm also very happy that the model to get some love is one of those which would have been the least likely to get some attention from me so it's actually a triple win !!!

Now I have to find a way to tie this :

This...

And this :

 You can see there is already a little idea spawning here...

I've actually strated prepping and basing the model and there should be just some little conversion job to make this one look good...

Next post will probably be about another Rogue Trader adventurer OR maybe about the Grey Sensei I'm building for BOYL2014... Only time will tell...

Oriental adventurer for a Sensei band

And here comes a new follower for my sensei. His name is Moulay Abd An-nour and I really enjoyed  painting him and imagining a background for him. I see him as a scout used to rough environments which is why I painted him a pair of blue Jeans and a leather Jacket to give him a sort of traditionnal adventurer look. He has some very fancy weapons one of which being a shuriken pistol. I think it is a interesting weapon in terms of Background since it either means he got it from black-market or that he got it from an eldar (which I strongly think he did)

A rebel's tale in the Rogue trader universe

Hi people, today let me present you Poakey, a rebel underhive dweller who has seen the light of the Starchild and joined the band of Lucas Stern, Sensei extraordianaire. 

Poakey is a youth whose athletic skills have always been reliable and which earned him a good place in the local Deathball league. Poakey was playing in the Human League until he won his admission in the trans-species league but severe repression by the Hive authorities made him chose a life of rebelion instead of a sport career. It was on this occasion he met Lucas Stern, a Sensei, hero of the Starchild and defender of the oppressed. he has then been following him across the universe to help for the good cause.

This model is a Hive worlder and like quite a lot of thsoe you'll see here, it comes form the excellent Rogue trader adventurers range which integrated a lot of older references and some very good additions.

Pictures from Solegend

But what were the inspirations for that miniature and the way I painted it? Hum well, I can't hide that the quite peculiar haircut with short hair on one side and long hair on the other immediately make me feel about someone most 80's fans know :

Phil Oakey form the Human League

I strongly advise you to read Zhu's excellent article about his particular haircut and how you can see it on other references like Kaleb Daark.

We can note that the model is wearing a pair of power armour legs on top of his regular outfit. I really like this detail because it reminds that in conforntation (Laserburn's heir and Necromunda's predecessor) it was possible to get power armour parts and to wear them even though the real benefit of a power armour only came when the power pack was worn with the rest.

As it is now, those pieces are probably more of a burden than anything else but I like to think Poakey is expecting to find a complete set over time ! I painted the parts in rusted steel to represent the fact he probably scavenged them from some sort of sordid place.

Another thing I like about this model is the strange set of weapons he holds. A wooden crossbow is quite unexpected in a cyberpunkish setting and the chainsword is looking more like a sort of tuned butchering tool than a real weapon. It enhances the fact this fellow armed himslef with what he had under hand.  I also painted the shoulder pad as if it could have been a sort of sport protection to remind his past.

The belt's been painted green against all colour theory logic for the sole reason it reminded me of the belt on this guy (yeah I know, pathetic fanfoyism form a pathetic maniac) :

Roronoa Zoro from Manga One piece

Now here is the traditional group pose with the 3 members so far, the 4th being nearly done and the 3 on their way.

While we're at it, I thought I could show you the next Rogue trader band I'm working on. It's the band of Roger Ferrero, rogue trader and space adventurer. You can see that his band has changed a little from last time but the background is still the same (yeah, the space skelleton is going to be a playable member of the crew).

Another thing which has had my interest lately is the preparations for BOYL 2014, the Oldhammer event in Newmark this summer. Since I 've decided to join a little game implying several sensei, I thought it was the good occasion to make myself a grey sensei (aka BAD sensei). I decided to base my model on Christophe Lambert in the Highlander series and here is Connor Mc Lambert, grey sensei and ennemy of all good things.

I had particular fun making him a perveted katana from different sources and I'm quite pleased of the result. The kendoka in me is particularly pleased that his right hand is holding the saber the right way but that's the part most of you won't care about...

What you can see here has been done in 2 nights and I only need to add some green stuff to make a new collar and to refine the sword and he's good. I used the dark vengeance cultist as a base and it's a really good model to work with. I love how a simple modification can make him look completely different (I have even as we speak some other plans for the very same model) :

Oh and while we're stillat it, let's have a look at some henchmen I kitbashed for my imperial nobles with fantasy imperial trooper, scion tempestus and regular IGs

In the next episode, I'll declare the winner of my little give-away so stay tuned !