DON'T TRUST THEM

 The last bit of Kroot I have to show, were never listed by GW, as they were the idea of Mark Bedford, who at the time of his idea was the head sculptor at Specialist Games, before it was then axed by GW, and later brought back as part of Forgeworld.

The idea was that you occasionally get Dark Shaper's who are not trusted by the regular Kroot, as they are willing to experiment with tainted meat, possibly Tyranid, and most definitely Chaos meat from the ruinous powers. Where they create some strange monstrosities called Warp Kroot. Occasionally regular Kroot will employ them for a task, where their payment may be some younglings to further the Dark Shapers experiments, or helpers.

The model was actually built and painted as my first entry into Monster May(hem) run by Keith over at angrypiper but I felt he needed some handlers, which is where these four models come in, I've built them as if they have been fed on a diet of Ork, and Space Marine, to increase they size and bulk, to be able to handle the brute in front of them. 

All four models used standard Kroot heads and accessories, but the rest was made with greenstuff.

Here they can be seen with their Dark Shaper

I've also done some work on the base to show casualties, as the handlers are removed.

That's all for this post, don't know what I'll work on next, so until next time stay safe and have fun ! 

Cheers Dave

THEY'RE FLOCKING THIS WAY

 On one of my recent post Joe pointed out that I hadn't really explained what a Kroot was, and he was quite right to point this out, so for anyone unfamiliar with this species here is a description of them.

The Kroot (Krootis aviana), also designated by the Imperium as Kroot Carnivore, are a xenos species of savage humanoids who are members of the T'au Empire. The Kroot evolved from avian creatures on their homeworld of Pech.

Kroot are tall (a good half-metre taller than most Humans), their avian ancestry giving them a bird-like beak and long quills protruding from their heads like hair.

Smaller quills, possibly the evolutionary remnants of feathers, can be found scattered over their bodies.

A unique feature of the Kroot is that they evolve by selecting genetic traits of their defeated foes to absorb by eating them. Due to this, the many Kroot warbands across the galaxy often look radically different.

Kroot leaders are known as Shapers; they are generally the Kroot with the best ability for recognizing desirable traits in defeated foes and tell their kindred (the word for a Kroot clan) what to eat to reshape themselves to suit the task at hand.

For instance, a Shaper who wants his Kroot to gain muscle mass will campaign against Orks to acquire the suitable DNA, while extensive feeding on flying predators will allow the Kroot to grow wings.

This eating of their foes ties in with the religious beliefs of the Kroot: they believe that when a warrior of any race dies, his warrior spirit should be kept, and the only way to do this is by eating his flesh. The Kroot practice this in their "burial" customs, in which the body of the deceased is consumed by the kindred.

Kroot, who prey extensively on a particular species, will begin to take the characteristics of that creature. In sentient species such as Orks and Humans, they may take on cultural aspects of that people as well. Kroot, who have fed on Drukhari, for example, soon begin to show signs of the cunning and intense cruelty the Drukhari are known for.

In the case of animals, this sometimes leads to evolutionary dead ends. A kindred will find itself locked into an animalistic and unintelligent form, unable to evolve themselves any more. Species such as Tyranids who also absorb the DNA of their prey are hazardous for Kroot to prey upon, as they may acquire too many undesirable Tyranid characteristics.

The ecology of the Kroot homeworld of Pech includes many species of animal that are partially Kroot, the results of a kindred's evolutionary missteps. The Kroot use these related creatures as labourers, pack animals, and even as weapons. The most common examples are the canine Kroot Hounds, the lumbering and powerful ape-like Krootox, the dromaeosaurid Knarloc riding beast, and the massive, dinosaur-like Great Knarlocs.

Another creature of note is the Kroothawk, an animal held sacred by the Kroot, possibly because it may be their evolutionary ancestor. There are other Kroot sub-species that are considered outcasts in Kroot society and are killed by Kroot if found.

In order to gather genetic material from all over the galaxy, the Kroot offer themselves as mercenaries and sell their services to anyone willing to pay them. They travel the galaxy taking limited contracts from both major and minor intelligent starfaring species and are regularly employed by the T'au.

While the contract with the T'au is supposed to be an exclusive one, the Kroot regularly send out their warspheres to continue their mercenary trade amongst the wider cosmos.

Hopefully it makes a bit more sense now, for anyone who didn't know. So this week I've been working on something new, but it's not quite ready to show yet, but I have managed to finish another Vulture Kindred, these Kroot have been fed on birds to regain the gift of flight.

And here he is with the rest of the pack so far, still got 3 more to convert.

The other thing I have managed to achieve this week is getting the rest of the army I have so far based, first up is a standard squad.

Next is the second standard squad, performing their favourite task, gathering meat.

Next is the Master Shaper, and his two personal hounds, I made these a bit stockier than standard, almost like a Rottweiler version compared to the normal greyhound type.

Next we have an elite squad the Headhunter Kindred, these Kroot have been on a diet of all the most poisonous creatures and have a poison attack, hence the one spitting venom, and the frills like the Dilophosaurus in Jurassic Park.

Next up we have the start of my Krotox squad, just need to add 10 Kroot to the unit.

Another heavy unit, is the hunter kindred, they use Kroot hunting rifles, that lose the close combat attacks but counts as a sniper rifle, I removed the blades, and extended the barrel, and added a scope to help represent this.

Last up today is a Great Gnarloc, and herders, this was sold by Forgeworld, just wish I'd got the other 3 variants ! LOL

That's all for today, so until next time stay safe and have fun !

Cheers Dave 

LET LOOSE THE HOUNDS

 Continuing on with the Kroot, I've finished the shaper, for the hound pack. I used the head I did the test colour scheme on, and the arms and accessories came from my spares, I had to greenstuff the body, legs and coat to tie it all together, I also put it on a slightly larger base, to make it more stable, as he is only stood on one leg.

Here he is in a group shot with all the hounds which are all now based.

When I can find some plastic Kroot, I'll finish the squad, and I'm thinking of doing them all female, to have all the paler tones in one squad.

That's all for this post, so until next time stay safe and have fun !

Cheers Dave

A NEW SHAPEr

 I feel like I need a break from a galaxy far, far away, so have moved over to a Grim Dark one instead (break from Star Wars, onto 40K). Long time readers of the blog might remember I have a Kroot army, and I fancied doing some work on this. I currently have 4 squads left to finish, the hound pack, the Krootox herd, the Vulture Kindred, and the Knarloc herd. I currently have the parts for the Vulture kindred, just need to finish the conversions, but need about another 24 Kroot to finish the other squads. I had a quick look on GW site, and the plastic box set is still out of stock, and ebay prices have gone silly, so will have to keep my eye out in the meantime. Two things I know I want to include is an albino as a shaper, and some female Kroot, as I have a lot of spare heads, I decided to do a test paint for the above. for the Albino, it looks a bit like a Cockatoo, but as that's a bird that's not a bad thing. For the Female, I didn't want to go the route of stick some breasts on it, as these creatures evolved from birds, I've gone with a muted colour scheme and less plumage, following birds in nature.

The next thing I've done is the Shaper for the Knarloc squad, now I don't have the Knarlocs that Forgeworld released, as I didn't get them while they were available (always had other bits I wanted to buy first ! LOL) so using some eagles I already had I made Great Crested Knarloc's. The shaper was made from greenstuff, except the arms, head, and accessories. Still have another 3 troopers to do, but need to get hold of some plastic Kroot to make this job quicker and easier.

Still working on some other bits, so will probably be more Kroot in the next post, so until next time stay safe and have fun !

Cheers Dave

EMPIRE ABOUND

 I have now finished Frank's wonderful gift, with the completion of the following units, although I still haven't thought of a use for the Darth model, but until I come up with an idea, I'm calling it done.

First up today I have 4 Emperor's guards, now a couple of the paints I painted my original 4 in, I no longer have, so had to come up with a new method, which I will now need to duplicate on my original 4, which isn't too much of a bother, as one looked different to the other 3 any rate.

Next are the 3 officers I got, I've done all 3 in the black colour scheme, as I'm currently looking for a better green that, matches the reference material better.

Last up today is the imposing AT-ST , have played with making this one a little dirtier, and now means I have quite the impressive walker force to populate the gaming table.

That's all for this post, so until next time stay safe and have fun !

Cheers Dave

MORE THAN A DIRTY DOZEN

 I've managed to finish all my stormtrooper repaints now, including doing all the dusty dirty ones now. First up is a squad of standard Stormtroopers, I've added shoulder pads to these, as I spotted a few troopers in episode 4 A New Hope, that didn't have the back packs or heavy weapons, and I thought it would help mark out the unit.

I also got the 4 heavy troopers from the Imperial Assault box set done.

Then I moved on to the one mounted on Dewback.

I also got the captain dirtied up, but didn't have to repaint the armour, as I had already used the new recipe when I first painted it.

Finally I got my two scouts with E-Web cannon repainted as well, bringing my total up to 4 with the two Frank sent me.

As you can see above I've included the original scheme below each batch, so you can see the advance I've made. Just got a few more models from Frank's gift to finish off, so until next time stay safe and have fun !

Cheers Dave

A BIT OF CULTURE, AND A BAD TIME IN HISTORY

 So where was I last week ? My wife and I went to Prague to celebrate our 10 th wedding anniversary that we had last month, it was somewhere we had both wanted to visit and have never been before. We stayed in a nice hotel just on the outskirts of old town, so had plenty of opportunity to explore all the great Architecture that is part of old town. Even the standard buildings have fantastic detail work, but then you have the more elaborate buildings with brass roofs, or gold detailing, and lots of statues, here are some of the pictures we took.

We also found a art exhibit being set up, with some great pieces and interesting vehicles.

While there, we went on a day trip to Terezin, originally built as two fortresses in the 18 th century, and known as the small fortress, and large fortress. It never fulfilled it's original purpose, and later the small fortress was used as a prison, and even held Gavrilo Princip  as the glass panel we photographed shows.

In world war 2 the small fortress became a SS prison camp, and the whole of the large fortress, became a propaganda camp for the Jewish community, from here they were then transported by rail, to the more well known concentration camps, or death camps, some were actually sent from the death camps, back to the large fortress, if they proved useful, but not many.

Propaganda films were made here to show that the Jewish community were thriving in this new place for them, but was far from the truth, although never set up as a death camp the mortality rate was extremely high, due to overcrowding, malnutrition, and disease. Here are some of the pictures we took.

Small Fortress Pictures

Large Fortress Pictures

What also surprised me was that one of the barracks in the large fortress was set up for Germans that they wanted out of the country, including world war 1 veterans, which had to pay for the privilege but were then treated just as bad as the Jewish community . If you haven't heard of this camp, have a look on google or other search engine, as it was one I knew very little about until visiting. It was an experience that I will always remember.

That's all for this post, so until next time stay safe and have fun !

Cheers Dave