Daemonic Possession

Dark Apostle
By Anthony Reynolds
Reviewed by Drazilek



I have never stood on a battlefield, hot air from the engines of behemoth tanks propelled towards my unprotected face. With the sounds of gunfire skimming just over my head and explosions that devastate all that is within its path. Anthony Reynolds the author of Dark Apostle has done a fine job of bringing me to such a place from the comfort of my arm chair.

This book is a fine example of good versus evil, where the damned seem to have an unrelenting thirst for blood and corruption, never letting their foe rest. At no point during this epic adventure did I find myself getting tired of bored, I ever more wanted to turn the page and find out what was on the horizon for the characters followed.

Of all the characters within the book, I found myself sympathising with Varnus the most, his epic struggle with what was unfolding and how the torment was never ending; we all suffer from this at some point. While moving from one quest to another I could feel myself being pulled from one force to the other in who I wished to succeed, everyone seemed a hero while reading it and any of the armies was worthy of triumph.

When taking away the story of the book I found the writing to flow freely and at no point did I find myself struggle to carry on, which is all credit to the author. The battle scene descriptions were amazing, especially with the Dreadnought Warmonger and his comrades, which gave a new insight into how we look at them outside of the codex. The only area of the book I’d liked to have seen expanded is possibly Word Bearers background and more of an insight into the legion itself, however I am aware there are others books and that these may do so.

To anyone reading this review and wondering if you should get it, or if you’ve been undecided about getting the novel, then I’d say go for it. I thoroughly enjoyed the read and will be picking up the other two in the series as soon as I’ve finished the next book of the ‘heresy’ series Fulgrim (for me anyway as I’m a late starter on them). Anthony Reynolds is a fine author and is up there with Dan Abnett and Graham McNeill in regards to Warhammmer 40k novels.

Until the next review
-Draz

I started painting today, out came my Vallejo Game Colour paints (love the dropper bottles); the first of which was the black for base coating. When I started I thought it a bit strange that the first two Khorne Berzerkers I base coated were slightly shiny, and I'm not talking primer shine, I'm almost considering Citadel brush on undercoat.

However, after those first two they came out all nice and matt, I think there may have been some unshaken paint in the nozzle of the bottle and that could have caused the issue, either way it's all fine now.

I've had an issue with the models on their bases, I didn't pin the models into the bases and cork, and as a result two came loose, so I've pinned them now and they seem more stable than they did, I'll do the others as and when needed, Dunc at the club can help with that one. Haha.

Anyway, to the point, I've decided I don't like metallics paints. I painted a practice model along with the base coating of the berzerkers; this is just standard bolter guy in the Black legion colours. As you can imagine it was mostly painted in golds and silver like metallics, and I really don't like it. Even with the gold highlighted with a bit of mithril they look so meh.

The more I've been looking at guides on painting and colour and the like the more I've moved away from the realism miniatures, the one that look as if they could be a real person or object, and the more I've moved towards Kevin Dallimore style of painting, more cartoonified and colourful. Models in my opinion are now painted in to dark a scheme, I know this is whats going to win you a Golden Daemon, but I don't care, I want vibrancy!

So, with this in mind I'm going to paint the Black Legion is black and yellow with either highlights of a lighter yellow or white. I haven't decided how I'm completley going to do it, but I'll try and come up with a decision by the end of the week.

Anyone out there happen to have any tips on yellow?

-Draz

Today things didn't go as planned, and thus I am at home with a high temperature, aching ribs, a bad back and a headache. With no will in the world to do much constructive beside eat tomato soup and soldiers I decided to have a gander on the Internet with regards to my beloved Chaos.

While having a look around I came across an amazing retro computer game design for Windows 95 by the name of 'Chaos Gate'. Personally I've never heard of it, but the cover to the game caught my eye, and one particular bit.. the glowing green chain-sword.



I think you'll all agree that the art work is beautiful, especially the fact those pesky Ultramarines are getting the righteous, self worth arses kicked. The the chain-sword rocks.

I've decided I'd possibly like to have a similar style chain-sword on my Aspiring Champions and the like, or whole squads with chain weapons. My question to you all, is how do you think I'd paint a similar style weapon. I realise that unless I use glow in the dark paint it's not going to glow, but I'd still like the vibrancy of the weapon.

Any tips, hints or links would be greatly appreciated.

-Draz

Hail,

I haven't made a post in a while, there are a number of reasons why, but unfortunately the biggest one being procrastination. I have made a bit of progress with the army, the chosen are built, I've started the priming of the units and the Daemon Prince has wings.

Not much considering I've had 2 weeks or so of not posting, but after 12 hours shifts and finishing at 9pm I can't really be arsed if truth be know. I have plenty if ideas and hopes, but work does at times get your hobby mood down.

Anyway, here are a few picture of the army in it's present state, bar the Rhino's.









As of Thursday I have nearly 10 days off due to having a minor day operation, so hopefully I'll be able to get a good chunk of the army painted in that time as I won't have much else to do at home. Only models left to build are the obliterators, which I plan to make from Chaos terminators, with one arm using the possessed marines mutated arms as powerfist stand ins, and all the other left over guns.

See you soon.

-Draz

The other day I was reading a post by Ron at From The Warp that gave tips on making a blog more successful. One of the points made by Ron was to give credit to those that deserve it, that got me thinking.

Before i started creating my chaos army I put in a lot of thought as to what the initial list was going to be; this was so I had a set plan I could follow and wasn't continuously buying models willy nilly with no set structure. At the time I had no idea of what was going to be in the army, how I was going to play it, or whether it would work as a competitive list (I plan to try GT's at some point), I just knew it was going to be Chaos.

While scouring the Internet for info I came across a tactical thread on Heresy Online by a user going by the name of Broken Sword. The posts contained within the thread were amazingly informative and unbiased to any specific units. Some of the units were less favourable than others, however there were still tactics and strategies given to the less favoured regardless. An emphasis was also placed on trying things, and simply not just reading what was being said, but to get out and experiment, find out what fitted you.

Within the users signature is a link to a blog called Dark Future The blog is filled with tactica, and not just for Chaos, but for other races such as Dark Eldar. Some nice conversions can be found within the blog, such as the Brass Scorpion and Imperial Rider.

So from this blog I have managed to find a list I'm happy to build, and many more ideas for future progression. Thanks dude.

-Draz.