Paint, paint, PAINT!

I've been trying to be a good boy this year and cut back significantly on plastic crack spending. No set rules or goals, I'm just trying to stay away from new kits and work with what I've got. Admittedly, what I've got is pretty significant. :-) In the meantime, I'm trying to catch up on the grey plastic that's already in my inventory. I'm fairly certain anyone with at least 2 armies has a backlog of models just waiting to be assembled, gathering dust while other, favoured models march off to war. Now, ever since producing kitbashed Tycho, I've been feeling inspired to paint more and put in those extra little dabs that make a good-looking army great. I've decided to slowly go over my current armies and, basically, finish painting them. Looking at my Necrons and Deathwing, I've a long, looong way to go.

Anyway, the object of my attention is currently the Dark Vengeance set.  I'm looking at the Chaplain (coz I don't have a plastic chaplain yet), the Librarian (ditto) and the Cultists (coz I understand they're actually rather useful in a CSM list). Mostly, I've been focusing my efforts on the Librarian and Chaplain. Here's the Librarian:

Pretty pleased with how he's turning out. Protip: Leave the arm and backpack unglued when you paint this guy; it makes life a LOT easier. Man, doing force weapons always gives me such a crick in my neck... Here's the Chaplain:

Here's an annoying thing: Nuln Oil. I find sometimes, when I allow large amounts of it to pool in one place, it forms a cloudy white residue. You can see it on the Chaplain's cloak. Shouldn't be too hard for me to cover, but that's really rather vexing. If someone reading this knows what causes it, do tell.

A dab here, a dab there...

So, I've been giving my first army, the Blood Angels, a little love. Mostly I'm looking at the good old mechanized elements. Here's how they're looking...

Still get the feeling there's more to do, but can't motivate myself to do much more really. Right now, I just want to inflict this list:

Tycho (sane)
Librarian with plasma pistol
5 Sternguard with 2 combimeltas, 2 combiplasmas and 1 heavy flamer
Land Raider Redeemer with multimelta
5 Assault Marines with meltagun and infernus pistol in a Lasplas Razorback
5 Assault Marines with meltagun and infernus pistol in a Lasplas Razorback
5 Assault Marines with flamer and infernus pistol in a Lasplas Razorback
Stormraven with hurricane bolters
Baal Predator with twin-linked assault cannon and heavy bolter sponsons
Baal Predator with twin-linked assault cannon and heavy bolter sponsons

1,750 pts precisely. If this doesn't do anything for me, I've a Death Company version, with the Sternguard and Librarian replaced with Death Company and a Chaplain. Suffice it to say, Tycho gets replaced with psycho Tycho.

Anyway, on the face of it, I think the list looks like fun to use. Lotsa plasma and melta and assault cannon death and maiming, with no marine having to walk. And, in true Tycho fashion, the list is brutally direct. No deep striking, no need for jump infantry, just a vicious, fast, armoured assault. It's fluffy, it's painted with love and it's full of some of the nastiest things in the Blood Angel codex. I must test this...

Yay?

Just saw this on Bell of Lost Souls and am feeling kind of ambiguous about it. On one hand, yay! Blood Angels! Given the quality of the starter set plastics, I absolutely welcome it! And Orks! Ooooh, is that the 6th army on the horizon?

Anyway, on the other hand... if the rumour that it's essentially a compilation of 6th ed's Big Black Rulebook , Stronghold Assault and Escalation... I have to confess, I'd feel a bit cheated, having already invested in all of these separate rulebooks... But you know what? I'm not fussed. What I'm really waiting for now is Imperial Guard! Or whatever the hell GW's decided to call them now... Please, oh, please don't let anything in my present collection be rendered hopelessly obsolete...

How to do blood drops

... or any water-drop-ish kind of shape, for that matter. Freehanding a nice, mostly symmetrical blood drop shape is not an easy thing to do with a brush, and it's even more difficult to make sure that drop is in exactly the right place, so here's an easy way to make it happen that I've been using for years on my Blood Angels. Firstly, you have to get out your fine detail brush and draw an inverted cross:

It doesn't have to be perfect, all you need is to make sure each tip of the cross clearly marks the position of the desired blood drop, i.e. .

Breathe slowly and draw in those lines marked in yellow. From then on, all you do is fill in your blood drop and viola!

For a large-ish area like this Land Raider's door, it's usually best to use multiple thin layers until you get a nice, solid coat. I like adding in little scribblings of white text (coz the Astartes do love their inspirational words) so I'd dab in those lines there while waiting for each coat to dry on the big drop.

Suffice it to say, practice makes perfect. I for one have used this trick a few dozen times on my rank and file Marines, and certainly prefer it to fiddling about with decals.

A little Blood Angel love... 3 years overdue!

So, having put Captain Erasmus K. Tycho together, I was spoiling for a fight with my Blood Angels over the weekend, to give the little dude his baptism of fire, so to speak. Alas, it was not to be, as I only managed to get in 1 game, at 1,000 pts. At 1,000 pts, Tycho is something of a meaningless point sink, so I opted for other things, but to cut a long story short, gaming-wise, my weekend was crap.

The K stands for Kitbashed!

That having been said, I dusted off some of my older Blood Angel models for the first time in ages, and you know what? I felt inspired to dab a little love on the old tanks and bring them to war...

These 2 Baals served me for yonks, and only this weekend did I get round to putting the finishing touches on the lenses and jewels. Still need a little more work and cleanup here and there. I've decided these guys absolutely must be part of my next few Blood Angel lists, simply because I have something of a soft spot for these models.

I've decided to spruce up this guy, too. Did up its lenses and am currently working my way through washing all the rivets with Devlan Mud and touching up the shading here and there.

So many nice, big open areas to work with! Suffice it to say, I absolutely have to slap on a decal or two or three...

And when the decals are done, there will be weathering. Nothing more fancy than a quick dirtying with Calthan Brown planned, but it'll do for now.

Kitbashed Tycho!

I mentioned previously that I was in the mood to paint something nice.Well, since then a whole bunch of other stuff came up and after painting a fortification or two for the FLGS, I decided to throw together some bits to make a Captain Erasmus Tycho for an Armageddon-themed Apocalypse event that's kinda slowly taking off.

Frankly, I just knew I had to kitbash my own Tycho. It's pretty easy for any Blood Angel player to scrounge up the right bits. And I think the original model looks meh. Not nearly dynamic enough. That is not the wrathful angel that is Erasmus Tycho. That's just some grizzled, wounded pretty marine posing for a photo. And I definitely don't approve of that absurd breastplate... Or that absurdly bulky and unwieldly combi-melta... Or even his trademark mask, which is way too bulky to even look like a mask...

So, sod original Tycho; here's my version in grey plastic:

Combi-melta and legs from the lovely new Sternguard Veterans kit.
Arms from the Command Squad.
Backpack and wing-thingy on the left pauldron from the Death Company.
Front torso, head and right pauldron from the Sanguinary Guard.

Note that at this point the head is not glued on yet. If you're gonna follow how I did this, do bear in mind I'm using a lot of Citadel's older colours, so do bear with me...

Getting Fortified!

Been busy helping the FLGS paint up some fortifications to bolster its scenery pool and, of course, let the place have some nice fortifications to experiment with, the better to showcase the joys of Stronghold Assault. That said, no-one's really dived into Stronghold Assault yet, but I've been poring over its pages quite a bit and I like it. I've always fancied the idea of having an attacker and a heavily fortified defender and Stronghold Assault does exactly that, with some consistent rules and a range of pretty nice fortification models to go with it.

One fun idea that I think would be cool to try is to field an Imperial Guard army and replace ALL the vehicles with an epic fortification network. It probably won't be all that effective, but man, it'll look awesome...

Here's a quick pic of stuff I did last week:

The Aegis Defense Line is also done and tabletop ready. Right now, I'm working on the next fortification that will give us the minimum required to field a proper Fortification Network - a Bastion. It's a BIG model, constructed with big slabs of plastic, so it'll need a bit of extra effort to make sure everything fits nicely. Here we see my method of choice - rubber bands!

Being an older model, the Bastion is also pretty flimsy. Big sections of pretty thin plastic, held together by rather weak joints. So, during the course of its construction, I reinforced it where I could by snipping up bits of the plastic sprue to use as supporting struts and gluing them in place: 

A quick spray and lotsa drybrushing later and here's where we are now:

Let's see if I can get this ready for the weekend...

In other news, the new Tyranid codex has just been released. My heart goes out to all the Nid players out there. I myself started dabbling in 40k with Nids back in 3rd edition. I've no idea where that army is right now. Anyway, if Frontline Gaming's batrep is anything to go by, the Nids got their narrative forged pretty hard...

WIP: Chaplain Whatsisface

Seriously, I've forgotten his name. The limited edition guy from the Dark Vengeance set. Not really fussed, seeing as he'll quite likely march alongside my Blood Angels as a counts-as Reclusiarch (coz he's PLASTIC. Did I mention how much I love plastic?). Anyway, I'm just putting up this pic of painting in progress as it's been a hell of a long time since I painted something nice.

More to come as he gets closer to completion...

Guard needs moar gun...

Adding a little more to the Red Thunder - I've more or less expanded as far as I'm willing in terms of vehicles, so the only thing left is to fill in the infantry element. Those of you who know me will know I'm fairly cautious in collecting. When I choose a model, I generally go for things that:

1. Look good on the tabletop; (I will never field Centurions, Dark Talons, Land Speeder Vengeance, Nemesis Dreadknights...)
2. Pop a can of whupass on said tabletop (admittedly, some units may need a little coordination to achieve said whupass, e.g. the Catachan Devils)
3. Have cool fluff; 
4. Probably won't get nerfed into total uselessness. (Alas, poor Sanguinary Guard...) 
5. Are PLASTIC. Coz I hate how paint chips off metal so easily and Failcast is full of fail. 

So, with that in mind, here's more crew-served dakka for the Red Thunder!

Woot! More dakka!

The as-yet-unnamed Hellhammer just got a little upgrade: Heavy bolters! Now I can try out a strategy of keeping the Hellhammer at arm's length with greater efficacy...

I've also added a teeny bit of weathering: A quick drybrushing around the lower edges with Calthan Brown. 

So, the only question left is... 1 pair of sponsons or 2?

Bunker done!

And here it is, in all its glory:

I'm really quite pleased with the big golden winged skull. That one was a little experiment with a technique for doing large areas of golden I'd read about somewhere. Basically, you coat the area with a dull yellow colour first (Iyanden Darksun, in this case) and only then put on some gold. This makes the area look like it's been covered with a nice and even coat, with far fewer coats of paint than would be necessary if you painted gold straight onto black. Trust me, I've tried.

What I'm wondering now is just which among my armies can make the best use of this...

1st weekend of hobbying for 2014!

Got in a game with the Necrons:

1,750 pts vs Chaos. I've never been so badly betrayed by my dice. Ever. Soddit, the less said the better. On to more cheerful things...

The Boss of my lovely FLGS has entrusted me with the construction of an Imperial Bunker for public use at said FLGS. I figured that a lot of people are a bit iffy about Stronghold Assault, so having a couple of readily available fortifications to experiment with would persuade more gamers to give them a try and maybe start building fortification networks of their own.

The bunker is really easy to construct. For those of you who are looking to station your heavy weapon teams on the battlements, note that only one side can comfortably fit one. Try to place a heavy weapons team on the other and it won't quite fit, as seen below...

That big fire port on the skull side, however is a nice place to put an autocannon...

And that's it for now. Stay tuned, will post pics when I finish painting it...

What 2014 holds for the 5 armies...

Happy New Year, everyone! I've just been browsing through my lists and I am pleased. It took years to build them up and, for the most part, they do look rather nice on the battlefield. So, here's an army-by-army look at what mischief I've planned for this year:

Blood Angels

 No plans for major expansion. More experimentation. One notes that Tau and Eldar are getting popular around here, so I'd like to see what I can cobble together to bring the pointy-ears and the blue commies some pain. Just last weekend I saw Fear of the Dark used to devastating effect on the Tau - much hilarity ensued. Ideas I've got milling about in my head:

• Massive mechanized spam involving a Land Raider, 3 Razorbacks, 2 Predators and 2 Baal Preds. 
• Tactical Squads. At least 3, fighting as Astartes were meant to fight - with bolters.  

Other than that, if the rumours are true, the Blood Angels might see a new codex this year... New models needed: None.

Deathwing

Haven't put these guys on the board in bloody ages. I really need to finish painting them. Or at the very least finish the Deathwing Knights. There's a list I've been meaning to try out, pairing them with Grey Knights, so I'd like to get that done at some point. New models needed: 2 Terminator Librarians, 3 Grey Knight Terminators.

Chaos Space Marines

I just finished reading Ahriman - Exile and man, I really want to field him! But, Rubricae are stupidly expensive to field and I really don't want to invest in 3 squads of Rubricae knowing that they'll just let me down on the field.

A more practical variant I'm looking to field will require some more melta and plasma. That is, a true Black Legion list using Chosen as Troops.

New models needed: 4 CSM with plasmaguns, 2 with meltaguns. Maybe a Sorcerer on a bike.


Necrons

No major plans, but I'd like to get my hands on a Transcendent C'tan. ~800 pts in one dinky little miniature that flies about wielding obscene amounts of firepower. Hell, yes...

New models needed: Transcendent C'tan, preferably without the Tesseract Vault/Obelisk, because they're absolute rubbish.


Imperial Guard

I'll be first to confess that, barring Deathwing, this has been the most difficult of my armies to learn to use. That said, they're also the most fun. The Hellhammer has certainly gone a long way to making the Red Thunder the most interesting army I've put on the board for a long time. That said, I'm still learning how to keep the Hellhammer alive.

I've been poring over the Stronghold Assault book for quite a bit, and after some thought, I've decided against using fortifications. It's not that I think they're crap or anything; I just favour attack over defense.

In other news, a new Codex looms for the Guard, so here's hoping the Leman Russ will get a buff of some sort, because as it stands, they're not easy to keep alive in this edition. Also, I'm looking forward to seeing what changes will be made to the Stormtroopers. They're awesome as they are, I think, but at their current points cost, they're awful. Also, plastic Stormtroopers! Verily, I'm excited about the new codex, and Red Thunder is quite likely going to be the major investment of 2014.

New models needed: Unknown, but I'm guessing I'll want 2 boxes of these fabled plastic Stormtroopers and a Chimera.


New armies?
NO. Despite how cool I find the Tau (specifically, the Broadside), I will NOT succumb to the temptation. There will be NO new armies for 2014. At the very most, if I get bored enough (not bloody likely) I might change doctrine and start learning to fight defensively, i.e. with fortifications, but for the moment, my thing is attack, attack, ATTACK! And I don't see much cause to change that just yet. Here's looking forward to another of pure, unreasoning, and rather nicely-painted tabletop violence.