Warhammer 40K - Black Templars Army from Days of Ol'

So a friend of mine was all into getting back into War Hammer 40K....until he got himself a new girlfriend...then he forgot.  ANYWAY, he made me dig out my old army of Black Templar Space Marines.  I still have a bunch to paint I guess.  Need to find these photos of our game. 

As I was setting up the army, I forgot just how much I actually had and more that are new in the box!  Holy COW!  Not the best photos, but at least you get the idea!  Need to get a few more games in.  I really liked what they did with this game. 

These models were all painted between 12-10 years ago....give or take a year, maybe more. 

 The Terminator dude was a special character with a power hammer.  I cut off the hammer and took two Dark Elf Executioner swords and glued them into a phase sword and painted him into a Black Templar instead of the Imperial Fist that he was.  I also removed any Imperial Fist references. 

 My Land Raider Crusader

 The doors are Forge World.

 The entire army.  I need to finish painting it. 

 Templar Squads

 Small group of Kill Team on left, from the old days, NOT the new plastics but older metal bits. And metal Grey Knights and Inquisitors. As you can see not finished



I hate the Dread.  I need to repaint it.  You can see some vehicles.  In the old game, Black Templars couldn't use certain things, with the new rules, they can use anything.  Much Better! There is a demolisher somewhere in there. 



Misc. Miniatures

Rough summer.  It's getting harder and harder to find time to post updates, but I will try harder.  Been hibernating from my KV-1 and P-47, soon but in the meantime been making and painting minis. 

Here is what I have been working on:

 

 New Henchmen members of one of my Mordheim war bands. 

 Ghouls for an Undead Mordheim Warband

New Wyrdstone that I made

 What I used to make the Wyrdstone

 Used the glaze to give the illusion of the stones glowing.

 

 Making the bases with GreenStuff

 Green Stuff rollers from Green Stuff World

 First use the smooth roller, then the patterned one.

 Just trim the edges and you are done.  VERY simple and looks AWESOME

One of the new Kickstart Lawmen models from Black Scorpion.  I got a bunch for playing Legends of Old West and Tombstone. 

This is my priest before the washes (shade)

This is him after.  Nice and simple.  Love the Citadel Shades.  I used 4 different washes. 

 Priest.  Pray or die outlaw!

 Quick paint job for the deputy

My Sheriff/Texas Ranger.



More Figure Painting

I have taken a bit of time off from painting and building.  I have a number of things on my work bench from KOW units to finish painting, to Bolt Action, to Konflict'47 to 4Ground buildings to Black Scorpion Western miniatures.  LOTS. 

Forgot to mention, we have passed 100 posts!  This is post #103!!!

But, here are some of the latest miniatures I finished.  They are an OLD, and I mean OLD War Machine mini that I bought and started over 10 years ago....that's ONE LONG ASS artist block.  I chose to make the War casters colors reflect WW2 German Officers. 

 

Below we have a GW miniature.  Wight King. 

 

Below a finished GW figure that is part of a new Mordeim War Band. 

 

Finally finished this GW Mordheim figure for my Marianburger miniature. 

 

Repainted figure.  I had finished this one years ago, but did not like the wash.  I repainted the skin tones, feathers, gloves and leather items and rewashed using the Citadel shades.  

Same here.  

 

and here.  MUCH better. 

 

I will get back to building and painting very soon.  Enjoy these for now. 

Game Mats: UrbanMatz

My buddy Salibaba introduced me to this idea of playing table top games on a pre printed image of terrain on a neoprene mat or similar.  I was like "WHAT?  THAT'S BLASPHEMY!" 

Fast forward a bit, and I am hooked.  It started with playing X-Wing on a 3x3 vinyl matt and now I have a small collection of neoprene mats.  The thing is though, I only have Urbanmatz mats.  Nothing else.  For an excellent comparative review, please see my friend Salibaba's blog at: http://paintingtheleadpile.blogspot.com/2017/02/comparative-mat-review.html

My review here will be on UrbanMatZ products, their customer service and my experience with them and their product. 

What drew me to their products was that they included the carry bag into their price AND removed the entire VAT for American (non-EU) customers.  I was torn between their product and Deepcutstudio's products.  Deepcut does not remove the full value of the VAT and you have to purchase the bag separately.  More on Deepcut another time though, this is about Urbanmatz (UMZ). 

UMZ has a selection of nice mats.  They offer them in 4x4, 4x6, 3x3, 3x6 and they are all neoprene.  Their website is https://www.urbanmatz.com/.  The neoprene (mousepad material) it great.  The mat is heavy enough to lay flat (most of the times) and light enough to put away or carry and not hurt yourself with some heavy bag (hahaha).  The print quality is very good and as I mentioned, they offer a number of different types of "terrain" patterns. 

My first order was the 4x4 grassland, the 4x6 Dirty Roads mat and  4x4 cobblestone with NO blood stains mat.  My second order was the 6x3 space mat, the 4x4 dirty roads mat and the 3x3 space mat.

All of them were good and came quickly, after all, you are paying top dollar for air freight shipping.  They arrive in protective tubes.  I did have a problem with my 3x3 space matt though and minor issues with some others.  It was badly wrinkled, could not stay flat and the 4x4 dirty roads carry bag was damaged.  I took photos and emailed them to UMZ.  Within 1 hour, I had a response from UMZ (Martin) and he was very helpful.  He asked me to confirm my address and that he would send me a new mat and a replacement 4x4 bag to take care of the damaged bag.  He also asked me to check my other products to make sure they were ok.  I did.  The 6x3 space matt was NOT perfect, BUT it wasn't that bad.  I didn't want to be that critical.  I could live with the minor wrinkles.  You can see them in the photos. 

Within a week I had my replacement items.  The funny part was I got a 3x3 mat and a 3x3 bag, NOT a 4x4 bag, BUT....that's ok.  Martin was very helpful, and very on top of the issue until completion.  Even emailing me later to make sure I received my replacements.  I felt silly telling him of the error.  I made the damaged bag work.  So no harm after all. 

Here are some photos of the mats.  Some pics I have thrown some models on top to show them in scale. 

Grassland.  I am going to buy a 6x4 as well.   

Here is a photo from a recent Kings Of War game using the UMZ Grassland mat.  The river is not part of it. 

 4x4 Dirty Roads.  This is perfect for Bolt Action, Mordehim or any other 28mm miniature game that you can set up a city or town. 

 AS you can see, this one had a fold at the end that did not want to stay flat.  I rolled it the other way and it was somewhat corrected. 

 Some models for effect. 

 Cobblestone Mat.  One of my favorites. 

 Details

 4x4 mat and carry bag.

 Name tag for easy identification.

 Just for scale and effect.  I plan on making a nice Mordheim type town soon. 

 6x3 space mat for X-Wing Epic.

 Waves...annoying, but not end of the world.

 Rebel Scum!

 Evil Empire on the move. 

 You can see the wrinkles here.  The pattern is very nice.  Just plain ol' space.  No distractions. 

 6x4 Dirty Roads.  I liked this pattern so much, I bough both the 4x4 and 6x4.

 Close Up.

Here is the 4x4 Dirty Roads with a bunch of terrain on it to look like a realistic scene.  Items are unfinished (hedgerows, and trees) but you get the idea.  Great for any WW2 skirmish game, Modheim or fantasy or other skirmish game that will take advantage of this type of terrain. 

 

Easy storage under the gaming tables (IKEA).

 

In conclusion, I highly recommend UrbanMatZ.  They have a very nice product, very nice looking patterns to choose from, all the standard sizes and their customer service is TOP NOTCH.  I was SO satisfied with them, I placed my THIRD order for a 4x4 Desert mat.  I just hope that UMZ comes out with some more patterns. They are due for some new ones.  They also have some pre-painted terrain now.  Def worth the time and money.  So, order up! 

 

*UMZ did not pay me or supply free samples to me at any time to date of the posting of this review.  I purchased all these on my own.