WIP: BA Assault Terminators and Assault Marines 2

Spent chunks of the weekend catching up on painting. Assembly line painting is BORING, but at least it makes for consistent results:


I'm quite pleased with how the red turned out. Remember, this is the first time I'm using the Spray Gun on infantry models. Here's a pic of a couple of jump marines with a couple of my Razorback Marines for contrast:


Thanks to the new camera you can see I've some way to go. They should come to about the same shade of red when I'm done hightlighting. I'll be looking to field 2 10-man squads of jump marines (with 2 meltaguns and a powerfist, of course). Just assembled 5 today, out of my bits box, together with a converted Sternguard Veteran with heavy flamer and one more Sanguinary Priest.


Since the heads of ALL of them won't be in Blood Red, I'm doing them seperately. The Sternguard's Heavy Flamer was made by clipping off the end of a Multimelta, then just plugging on an appropriately clipped and filed nozzle from a Terminator Heavy Flamer.

I picked up a Terminator Squad over the weekend. Since I already had Lightning Claws left over, I built 2 more Lightning Claw termies, and one with a Cyclone Missile Launcher. The others will be saved for later. Drawing inspiration from the Blood Angel Supreme, Jawaballs, I've decided to field my Assault Terminator Death Star as follows:

1) 5-man Assault Terminator Squad. 4 with Lightning Claws, 1 with Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield.
2) 1 plain Librarian with Unleash Rage and Sanguine Sword (or whatever power I decide is fun, but Unleash Rage is a must).
3) 1 plain Sanguinary Priest.

That's 355 pts of pain right there, which, of course has to be delivered in a suitable brutal assault transport, like a Stormraven or a Land Raider Crusader. Here's a couple of them as they are now:



As for other elements in the army, I'll go through them item by item:

Sanguinary Priests:


I intend to have 3 in total. 1 plain one to hang with the Assault Terminators, and 2 jumpy ones to go with the Assault Marines. I was a little worried that splitting bits that were meant to make 1 Apothecary would "dilute" the look of the Sanguinary Priests and make it a little hard to spot on the battlefield, but after painting the white banding on the pauldrons, I'm pretty content with the Priests as they are.

Sternguard Veterans:
Here's a typical member of my Sternguard:


You may not have seen it in previous pictures of my Sternguard, but that little wing thing on the right pauldron is the unifying element to the look of my Sternguard. Anyway, I've fielded Sternguard once or twice, as a squad of 5 or 6 loaded with combi-weapons. They're great fun, but now I'm looking to try and play them as a squad of 5, with 2 Heavy Flamers, hurtling around the board in a Razorback armed with twin-linked heavy flamers. And combi-flamers for everyone else. I might have to call them Squad Trogdor.

I love Blood Angels. There are just so many things to try out! Not all of which are efficacious, obviously, but it's all fun...

Anyway, it's late, so that's it from me. Until next time...

Yay! New Camera!

I've just gotten my hands on a lovely Sony Cybershot and have been snapping away at bits of my army...


Here's the Captain, Aphael of the 2nd Company. Why 2nd? Well, for the benefit of those not intimately familiar with the fluff...

Don't mind the Japanese. Anyway, 2nd Company's markings are nice and easy to paint, is what I'm getting at. Of course, a Captain in a Blood Angel army is about as useful as an immobilized Death Company Dreadnought. Here's a more useful HQ choice, with the obligatory bodyguard:


And here's what I did with a Lemartes model, for use on the rare occassions when I decide to field Death Company.


Next, my Chaos Lord, because I'm just rather pleased with how that arm turned out :-D


I went back and went over the Daemon Prince with Ogryn Flesh, then layered again with thinned-down Blood Red, to deepen the shadows a bit. Also decided to highlight the tips of the fingers to Bubonic Brown.


Okay, next up, a closer look at the current WIP...

WIP: BA Assault Terminators and Assault Marines

Decided to take a step backwards over the weekend and dig up some old models that I'd picked up out of early enthusiasm but then ended up on hold for several months as I went in the direction of mechanized BA. Here are the Terminators, shortly after spraying with Krylon Burgundy and Blood Red:

5 Hammers and shields, 2 Lightning Claws. In the front row, centre and left are a couple of Space Hulk models, painted the hard way

And the Assault Marines:

10 marines, 2 meltaguns and a Sarge with Powerfist. Standard stuff, really.

The meltaguns are the metal ones from the GW site. Some of these models were constructed before I got my hands on a drill, so you may notice a couple of bolt pistols haven't had their barrels bored out yet. Also, some of the marines in the back row haven't had their heads glued on yet. I figured it would be easier to leave them off for the moment, seeing as, keeping with Blood Angel fluff, I intend to paint them yellow.

Of course, seeing as I'm headed in the direction of using BA up close and personal, I couldn't not have a Sanguinary Priest or two. I picked up an Apothecary some months back and split it to get more bang for my buck, resulting in...


I've still got an Apothecary torso lying around waiting to be put to good use. Another jumping Priest, methinks.

Here's a pic of the inking phase, where I slosh Baal Red onto all the bits that are meant to be red, just to make sure the red bits are really, really red:

2 are inked, 2 are not. Can you tell? I bloody can't. Seriously gotta get a better camera...

I'm currently slogging through the horrible tedium of blacking out all the bits which aren't meant to be red. Here's the Assault Sarge and another grunt:


Blacklining done with the handy-dandy pen, of course. The Terminators, though, get a bit more love. They get shaded using a mixture of Scab Red and Chaos Black that I also use to shade my vehicles (more on them later, you can be sure of that!). So here are the Lightning Claw Terminators...


As yet, I haven't quite figured out how to fit them in my army list, but I'm thinking of having 5 Assault Terminators, a plain Sanguinary Priest and a Librarian (with Unleash Rage and Shield of Sanguinius) riding a Stormraven in, with a Chaplain and some Death Company and a Death Company Dreadnought riding in another. Points wise that 580pts and 650pts respectively, leaving not much at all for the rest of the army. Ah, well, no rush. I'll just paint first and sort out fiddly details later...

WIP: Chaos Biker Lord

After assembling the lovely plastic Daemon Prince, I found myself with a couple of bits spare, most notably these:


And of course a conveniently narrow daemon prince head. And with bits leftover from the Possessed Marines (which, I understand, are a terrible waste of points) I found myself happily clipping and filing and glueing until I came up with this:

Bits from: 1 - Daemon Prince, 2 - Possessed Marine, 3 - Chaos Rhino

No green stuff was used. Here's where the cut was made to fit the daemonic exhausts:


Suffice it to say, when putting him together, I'd decided that at a glance, everything about this guy must say that he's the boss and getting charged by him is DOOM. CSM being what they are, I went with a very simple aesthetic: More spikes = more badass. Observe:

L to R: Difficult terrain just got more difficult, Fist of DOOM, meh.

And of course, paintjob-wise, the boss gets the most love as well. Given that the army is entirely Black Legion, except for the Berzerkers, there was only so much I could do in terms of overall colour scheme. I mean, black with gold trim - what could I do, make the black bits blacker? Some swish artists can, I suppose. I can't, so I went with the next best thing, which is daub a couple of fiery runes on any suitably flat surface I could find...

The last thing any poor sucker who gets charged by him sees...

Well, I didn't have the imagination to come up with my own runes. On the bike, the ones on the left are randomly picked from the Warriors of Chaos WFB Army Book. The ones on the left, known affectionately on certain parts of the internet as Moon Runes, is simply Japanese katakana. Roughly translated: "Get the **** out of my way! A Great Devil approaches!" The left shoulder pad is simply more Japanese (or Chinese, if you like). It simply says "demon", a manifestation of the Lord's insecurity over his bike being closer to daemonic ascension than he is...

The runes were done quite simply with Blazing Orange. Then I went over them again with Golden Yellow. I'm fairly pleased with how the writing on the shoulder pad turned out, and I'll quite likely be using it on other elements in my army. Not the same word, of course, but maybe a couple of random words and phrases that fit the mood of a CSM army, like: 悪魔、殺せ、倒せ、ぶっ殺すぞ and so on and so forth.

So what next for the Biker Lord? I'll probably do something to the exhausts. Maybe deepen the red, or do a little blending or some such. And maybe see if I can fit a few more runes in there somewhere. Until then, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the next game isn't the one where he stabs himself with his daemon weapon...

WIP: Blood Angel Sergeants

In any of my armies, Sergeants will stand head and shoulders above the rank and file, in terms of stats, wargear and general badassery. As such, I'll spend a little extra effort making sure they look suitably swish. Here's my current collection of active Sergeants:

L to R: Koris, #1, Wallace, #3, #4. I really have to get round to naming my sergeants...

They're arranged more or less in the order I painted them, from left to right. The guy on the left isn't really active, seeing as he's the Sarge of my very first Tactical Squad. His red may look a little richer, but don't let that fool you; he's the only one there whom I've varnished. I'm not sure if you can quite see it, but #1's armour is a little duller than the rest. Alas, it was only after I was done painting the 1st assault squad that I got my hands on Baal Red. Apart from 1st squad, the rest of the army has been washed with Baal Red, resulting in a deeper, richer red. Here they are again from the left side:

Conga to the left!

You can see here that it was only after I got my grubby paws on Koris that the Death Company plastic set was released. Since then, I paid bit more attention to making sure the Sgts stood out more, i.e. Black background for the pauldrons and a nice emblem for the left pauldron. And here's a pic from the right:

Conga to the right!

After I used decals on Koris' squad, I decided that I'd just paint on the company markings. I figured it would be good freehand practice, doing a relatively simple shape as a mellow yellow drop. Besides, getting the decal to follow the curve of that shoulder pad is a right pain.

So, how do I paint my Blood Angels? Currently, assuming a black undercoat:

Armour: Mechrite Red, then Blood Red base. Then, I use this to blackline:

It's absolutely brilliant, I can't tell you how much trouble this has saved me in blacklining my marines. That's a 0.05mm tip, by the way. Just right for catching all those little lines on the thighs and forearms. After blacklining, a wash of Baal Red, then line highlights with Blazing Orange and that's that. Now, with the infantry, all this was done by brush. Later on, I stumbled upon this stuff:


It's about half the price of GW's stuff, and thanks to this, my Razorbacks are now all the same lovely shade of red. Sprayed with this, then used the Citadel Spray Gun to coat everything with Blood Red. The result:


So yeah, one day, when I get round to the next expansion of my Blood Angel army, I'll be using Krylon Burgundy and a Blood Red spray to start with. Only downside is Krylon smells a bit nasty at first. The smell does go away, eventually, but still, yuck.

And that's the current state of my sergeants and how I my my Blood Angels red. This post has gotten a little long, so I'll save writing about the other details for later posts. Until then...

Booorn to be Wiiiiild....

... and spikey!

At the time I wrote this and the previous 2 entries, I had just finished my first game with my WIP Chaos army. I dunno what possessed me to turn from the Emperor's Light. Oh wait, I do. The plastic Daemon Prince is SUCH a cool model!


I really should get round to giving him a suitably cool name. For the moment, I just call him the Flying Upyours Daemon. Oh, what's that in his hand...?


Oh, my... he's been busy...

So, anyway, I picked up the Daemon Prince, built him, painted him, then wondered... Where now? Chaos Daemons? Or Chaos Marines? I've already got Grey Knights and piles of Blood Angels, so Daemons? In the end, it came down to 2 simple things:
1) There are no PLASTIC Greater Daemons. Boo...
2) After Blood Angels and Grey Knights, I'm too lazy to paint Troops choices any more complicated than Black Legion marines...

So to make things at least a little different from the Angels and Knights, I went with a different direction. Here's the army list I used today:

HQ
Chaos Lord on a bike with Mark of Khorne and Daemon Weapon
Daemon Prince with wings and Warp Time

Troops
7 Khorne Berzerkers, with 1 Skull Champion with power fist and 2 plasma pistols, in a Rhino with Havoc Launcher
9 Chaos Marines, with 1 Aspiring Champion with power fist and 2 meltaguns, in a Rhino with Havoc Launcher

Heavy Support
Defiler with Havoc launcher
Vindicator with Daemonic possession

Fast Attack
6 Chaos Bikers, with 1 Biker Champion with power fist, 2 meltaguns and an Icon of Khorne

Total PV: ~1495pts

I built this list mostly around fun. I love the idea of having crazed spikey bikers slamming into enemy lines at breakneck speed. Also, watching Cpt Slaughter's Rejects as much as I do, I had to have a Deffy!

Much love went into the construction and painting of the Chaos Biker Lord. Since I didn't expect to be using any Possessed Marines from the CSM Battleforce anytime soon, I cannibalized them for parts, resulting in...


It's an absurdly spikey model. Most people ask to have a closer look, then spend a few seconds wondering just how one is supposed to pick him up! It's often remarked that the bike seems closer to daemonhood than the rider. I for one am pleased with him, especially with how the Daemon weapon turned out.

I just played my first game with him against mechanized Guard, using the list mentioned above. Truth be told, I'd have been happy if he could just debut by getting into close combat for the first time and not accidentally stab himself with his Daemon weapon. As it turned out, he managed to charge the Company Command Squad all by his lonesome and wipe them out! So yes, I was very chuffed indeed, and the fact that the next turn, he and his biker gang were vapourized by half a mechanized Guard army's worth of melta weapons and ordnance did nothing to dampen my spirits. Eventually, I would get tremendously lucky and win that game, 6 kill points to 5. The Skull Champion was my one and only model with legs surviving.

So yeah, with this post my introduction to my 3 armies is concluded. It's late now, so until next time...

Grey Knights!

First of all, let me say that I don't seriously play Grey Knights. I just built this teeny tiny army because I totally fell in love with the fluff for Grey Knights aeons ago, back in the days of 1st edition Space Hulk, Rogue Trader and 1,200pts for a squad of 5 unspeakably ugly Grey Knight Terminators.

See?

To cut a long story short, I've been waiting YEARS for nice, PLASTIC Grey Knights, and they're finally here! So, this post isn't so much a serious gaming post about an army as much as it is a gallery of some WIP Grey Knights I've cobbled together.

So, here's the guy proxying as my Draigo, until I get my grubby paws on one:


And a closer look at the right-hand sword:


I'm fairly pleased with how the force weapons turned out, because it's a really quick and easy technique:
1) Coat the blade in Mithril Silver.
2) Wash with Asurmen Blue, taking care to avoid the edges where you want the Mithril Silver to show.
3) Wash again, this time about half a cm further down from the tip of the blade.
4) Repeat step 3 as necessary.

The back banner is my first time freehanding. I might take another shot at it at some point. There's a fair amount of drilling and pinning among my Grey Knights. I LIKE double weapons, especially double ended weapons. Here's my Brotherhood Chamion:

DOUBLE double ended falchions, bwahaha!

A look at the right blade:

And the left:


More double-ended joy...


And one more, cue that music from the scene where Darth Maul does his thing...


And something a little different, a Nemesis Force Seriously Big Spear, shown alongside a halberd for comparison:


Of course, I use these conversions to count as master-crafted weapons.

As with almost every miniature in my possession, each of the Grey Knights need a little more love before I can varnish them once and for all. Will post pics when that happens. And maybe one day, we might concievably see a coherent army list for my Grey Knights...

A long, LONG overdue update...

Oh, man, has it really been nearly a YEAR??

Well, a lot has happened since the last post. Really, a LOT has happened, most of which isn't within the scope of this blog. That thing I mentioned about painting is gonna have to wait. So, I guess I might as well be organized about this. The next few posts will be as follows, starting with this one:

1) My Blood Angel mechanized army as it is today.
2) My Grey Knight Draigowing army
3) My fall from the Emperor's Grace into the depths of CHAOS...

Just a brief update with a couple of pretty pictures for each. I'll go into details in later posts. So, here's the Blood Angel list as it stands today:

HQ
1 Librarian with Shield and Lance

Troops
4 x 5-man Assault Squads, each with Sgt power weapon, Infernus pistol and a meltagun, mounted in a Razorback armed with a Lascannon and twin-linked Plasmagun (the infamous Stronos pattern)

Fast Attack
2 x Baal Predators with Heavy Bolter sponsons

Heavy Support
Predator with Autocannon and Lascannon sponsons
Stormraven with Multimelta, Twin-linked Assault Cannon and extra armour (Librarian goes here)
Stormraven with Typhoon Missile Launcher and Twin-linked Assault Cannon

Total PV: 1745pts

The army in all it's glory:

I made this board with kitty litter!

That's the whole army as stated on the list, plus a few Sternguard flanking the Librarian, coz they were designed to look cool standing next to characters. Photo courtesy of 40kWong. One thing about all my armies: 100% plastic. I loathe metals. That having been said, there is ONE metal model in this army - the Librarian:


I plan to replace him with something cobbled together from plastic kits at somepoint. Besides being metal, the Librarian is also guilty of the sin of not being WYSIWYG. Anyhoo, here's a couple more pics of some key elements of the army...


I keep meaning to get round to naming my Seargeants, but it never happens. Alas, Sarge isn't WYSIWYG. That's something I intend to getting round to sorting out when I'm done painting every mini here. I know it looks kind of like the army's painted, but honestly, it isn't. LOTS of tiny little details to sort out. Text on scrolls, headlights, line highlights... The list goes on and on and it really doesn't help that I'm really easily distracted, particularly by work and my other armies. Anyway, more pics:

... and only AFTER I paint 5 kneecaps do I realize I've chosen the flag of Scotland as the squad emblem. The Sarge is now affectionately known as Sgt Wallace.

I know I could probably play something more efficient and killy than 2 Baal Predators, but I've a soft spot for Assault Cannons, ever since I blew up a Land Raider with a lucky shot from my Terminators (who are now gathering dust...). Last pic, the #1 dakka magnet...


It's a very rare thing indeed for my Stormravens to see the end of a game. And thanks to my growing Black Legion army, it's rarer still that it sees the end of my paint brush.

So how well does this army perform? Well, I don't get shredded every time I play, which is a good thing. Won some, lost some. I usually lose to marine armies (i.e. vanilla marines, jumping Blood Angels, Grey Knights, Chaos Marines... ), and I'm guessing the Baal Predators and Stormravens are eating points better spent on less flashy, more straightforward killy things, like maybe more Razorback assault squads, or a Vindicator or two. But hell, I just like those models, so they'll be staying for now. Besides, the sheer amount of violence Baal Predators inflict on squishier targets, like Guardsmen, Tyranids or Tau makes them oh-so-worth-it...

And that's my mechanized Blood Angel army. Will take a closer look at it in later posts, but first...