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I actually did a few things different on that librarian. Not that it shows up terribly well, but I did edge highlighting on his psychic hood. The rune on the axe was an experiment, the demon head was a new color of paint (turquoise glaze), as was the overall armor glaze. I actually went though the effort of blending the tabard, but it doesn’t show up very well. That’s not new, but a step I don’t do often.

As for being predominantly blue, this is an Ultramarine blog. That said, the blue metallic has been my accent color for librarians forever. Just keeping up my scheme.

The problem with the middle blue is that it uses the OOP “Blue Ink”. But it is may favorite shade. It’s not horribly out of date (flip top bolter shell pot) which is after the Cote d’arms era I think. I might still use it for the DA, but I am keeping an eye on it’s level and rationing it these days.

I was blocking out some of the other parts of the DA, just to get a better feel of him overall when he popped off his base. So he is going to be on hold a few days at least while I re attach him. Odd, because I normally use plastic glue, and it takes some effort to get those guys off. Even odder because he’s the second one of this batch to pop off.

 Nevelon wrote:
The problem is that while it would tie in with the guardians/dragons, it would not be universal. My Hawks have a darker blue for their armor.

If it was an army-wide thing, I’d do it. But there is already one exception.


The DA just has a sloppy basecoat on. But is far to bright to fit in. Accent color, maybe. But not that much of that light.

All Macragge blue base. From the left: Guiliman glaze, Blue Ink, Drakenhoff Nightshade. (also, if you wondered where the BaC marines got their backpack designs from, it’s an old throwback)

I guess it comes down to do you want them to stand out or be part of a whole. A darker blue closer to the Hawks sounds like it could work and tie in with the other units...but some Eldar armies look so wonderful because of the absolute specialization and colour scheme between Aspect Warriors.

CB

Captain Brown wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
The problem is that while it would tie in with the guardians/dragons, it would not be universal. My Hawks have a darker blue for their armor.

If it was an army-wide thing, I’d do it. But there is already one exception.


The DA just has a sloppy basecoat on. But is far to bright to fit in. Accent color, maybe. But not that much of that light.

All Macragge blue base. From the left: Guiliman glaze, Blue Ink, Drakenhoff Nightshade. (also, if you wondered where the BaC marines got their backpack designs from, it’s an old throwback)

I guess it comes down to do you want them to stand out or be part of a whole. A darker blue closer to the Hawks sounds like it could work and tie in with the other units...but some Eldar armies look so wonderful because of the absolute specialization and colour scheme between Aspect Warriors.

CB

It’s a hard line to walk. You want the army to look like a cohesive whole. But the aspect warriors are classically flamboyant and varied in their garb. I hope the stock colors across all the aspects will be enough to tie them together. Silver guns, red accents, common basing. If not it’s just going to look like the dog ate a box of crayons and puked it out on the table.

I’m going for my basic Ultramarine scheme. Worst case, I strip and start over.

OK, little blurry. And the color is a little washed out in the back pic. And I still need to highlight and put on the blue wash. But here is the scheme I’m running with atm. Not wowing me, but looks pretty solid.

Hope everyone has a good weekend.

So I was perusing the shelves this morning, thinking about army lists. Decided It’s been a while since I took a pic of everything sitting there, and I’d recently reshuffled stuff around.



Although in hindsight, there isn’t any difference between the Feb ’16 shelf shot and this one for the Ultras. Besides everything being based that is. Everything I’ve painted this year is kept on top of the auxiliary white shelf.

The remnants of the Eldar have been moved off the bottom shelf of the Ultra’s space so they can be better organized in their own area. This leaves that whole bookcase clear for the Imperium of Man. Plus gives the Space Elves a little more breathing room of their own. Once I move the YTD stuff to their respective collections, they are both going to need the room.

Also in the news, I scrubbed some of the soaking marines. Damn I hate doing that. Typing this with pained, clawed hands. But should have about 5 more guys ready to tidy up, assemble, and add to the fray.

Really should have used a more upright guy for the test. He’s leaning way forward, makes him hard to photograph. Oh well, done now. Here he is in a comparison pic with his peers:


I think they will do fine on the tabletop. Started getting the basecoats down on two of his fellows.

Also spent a little time clearing mold lines. Of off 20+ year old models, If someone goes back in time, do me a favor and slap younger me. Lazy git.

So when I’m done here that will be 2 more MLs and 6 more bolters. I’ve got 2 of each that I already cleaned up that I primed a bit ago. Also as a pleasant surprise I found another Fire Dragon. I thought I had already cleaned and primed my test mini, but he was in the soup with the marines. If I feel like some GS work, I have another one. He had a mostly hidden bubble in his leg and a little miscast detail, so I got a replacement from GW. Of course, there is not a whole lot of reason to field that many dragons, so I’ll probably never bother with the patch work. 5 basic guys, exarch with the pike, and a RT guy who can be either a normal guy or a naked exarch is probably every option I’ll need.

If all goes well, I’m heading down to the store to try to get a game in tommorrow. Packed up a 1,850/2k mech list. After building smaller lists for so long, it feels odd to drag out so many guys for a battle. Was used to 1k and 1,500 lists.

Is that an 1850.2k eldar list? Do you have that many?! Although scrolling up and looking at the shelf pictures it looks like a lot.

You know you have loads of stuff when your not supprised by just finding models...

 Zambro wrote:
Is that an 1850.2k eldar list? Do you have that many?! Although scrolling up and looking at the shelf pictures it looks like a lot.

You know you have loads of stuff when your not supprised by just finding models...

Hey, I was surprised to find him!

Nope, the list is just Ultramarines. Basic mechanized CAD

The difference between the 1,850 and 2k is adding the TFC and sticking Chronos in the pred.

While I have a little over 2.5k painted Eldar that could potentially be fielded, it’s more like 1.6k actual. Is the Avatar worth fielding alone? Jain Zar? Eldrad on foot with 2 spare warlocks for a council? How bad are wraithlords? Once I get the DA painted up, I think I’ll be a lot more comfortable at 1,850. Right now it feels like I’m stretching to make points, which generally works poorly on the table.

I managed to clean up all the RTB01s on my workbench, so I’ll assemble them shortly. Need to get the to-prime box stocked.

That's a very nice looking army Nev.

And it did pretty good on the table! Victory for the Ultras, with some surprise friends.

Opponent was a new player, who had picked up a a DE army he was refurbishing, plus some harli/eldar allies from the DW box (Eldard and a pair of seers) When he was putting his list together one of the guys asked if I would mind cutting 400 points from my list and ally in his deathwatch team. Sounded like fun, so I cut the speeders, scouts, and the 2k add-ons from my list to make room.

We roll up the maelstrom mission with 3 cards, draw up at the start of your turn. All of the objectives are close to my side of the table. He reserves almost everything, with just 3 bikes squads starting on the table. Risky, but he’s hiding in the backfield, it’s nightfight, and I’m not that mobile. Works out for him.

This is what it looks like once the boats start dropping out of hyperspace.


Fighting DE went about as well as I thought it would. The’ve got some nasty tricks, both shooting and CC. But at best, the toughness of slightly soggy cardboard. At least the stuff he was fielding. Mostly wyches/warriors. He had the incubus deathstar with the pychers in it, which I didn’t do a whole lot to. The deathwatch dropped in to try to do something, and did tie him up for a bit. Which was a good thing. I had pretty much cleaned up my backfield by the time they made it across the table, and by then the game was over.

Maelstrom. This was my first full game playing it. Yes, it’s random. But I like how it makes you do fun and crazy things for points. I know “forging the narrative” is often said in snarky tones, but it can be entertaining. One thing I found enlightening, is that my TAC style of list plays it very well. Not just for the mobility, but the assortment of assets. Need to wipe out a unit in CC? OK, time for the terminators to deploy from the LR. They were waiting for the proper moment to commit, and it’s now. And while I’m not normally a fan of issuing challenges, my sergeants will call them out for a free VP. It will also shuffle up plans. For example, I flew my talon on, with a planned flightpath that would take him across the table, to get 2-3 good turns of targets before having to hover/exit. But I drew the “kill an elite” card. His trueborn were in my backfield, so I hit the breaks, went to hover and went to help shoot them off the table. Successfully.

Ended up scoring 21 to 7 VPs.

Fun game, all around

Edit for year-end math: While unpacking I remembered that I had picked up more meadow tufts, as I was almost out. So another $6 in hobby supplies. I’ll try to sneak them into my next WIP shot from the bench, so I can remember to add them to the tally. Also while I’m editing, I went to the bank yesterday to cash in loose change, a traditional source of guilt-free hobby money. It had been a while, and it showed. About $120. I’d like to keep it guilt free, but it went into my personal account for now. Hopefully things will settle down and I can get a grasp on my situation sooner, rather then later. Sigh.

Nevelon,

Nice little battle report and thanks for the action shots.

Cheers,

CB

I don’t generally do in-depth battle reports, but I do like to log the doings of my armies.

I forgot to do the fresh point report, but I’m not sure if it was the first time out for anyone. Might have been for the capheracti terminators. The did pretty good, but honestly, shredding DE is not that hard for them. The sarge did get punked in a challenge though. I5 witches and a 1 on an armor save. But the rest of the squad blendered the xenos in retaliation. This list was mostly an excuse to knock the dust off some older models.

Yay crappy phone pic!


Some RTB01 guys ready for priming. If tomorrow is the same as today, that will be soon.

Nice to see some battle photos

Ooo old school beakies with the old school missile launchers

EDC

And primed:


Also took some time with the brush to polish up another 4 marines. It’s not so much the scrubbing that bothers my hands, it’s the death grip I need to keep on the tiny piece of wet plastic to keep it from popping out of my hand and flying across the kitchen.

So this makes 4 primed old school MLs waiting for paint. I’ve got one in active service, and another Mk. VI beekie with a homemade ML. That should be enough for a 30k heavy support squad. As more RTB01 bolter boys get cleaned up and ready for war, my ability to field legion tactical squads will increase. It might not make for a tactically deep 30k legion army, but I make do with what I can. Not ordering any FW anytime soon.

Interesting seeing the genestealer cult stuff being leaked. Almost makes me want to sift through what I have to see if I could make a valid army. But the point values are so low, I suspect I could barely make a killteam out of it. Talk about horde armies...

One thing I didn’t mention in the battle report was my vindicator ignobly ramming into a building, trying to get in range of the Eldar deathstar. While I normally just trust in the Emperor when making difficult terrain tests, I think the Vindi might need a little assistance if he’s going to be doing that sort of thing regularly.

So fun with masking!

I started with a roll of tape, obviously too wide, so I measured and cut a 1cm strip. First stripe was laid parallel to the angle near the middle, the rest were just freehanded down.

OK, this is not going to work. Angles and widths of the stripes are all over the place. Next attempt, use a spare strip of tape, lay it parallel to the first, and then they the next one parallel against that one. Remove spacer strip. For the corners, the spacer acted as a guide to trim. I found it easier to just put tape in the corner first, rather then cut the thin strip out of a wider one.


Iron Without, Iron Within!
Ahem. Much better. I know the stripes don’t extend to the top. That’s intentional. The whole thing is going to be done in my black/silver drybrush. Probably a little extra silver near the dozer blades. Then the stripes will be yellow. But knowing how well yellow paint covers, I didn’t want to paint it over black. Hence the tape.

The 2 DA on the paintbench are progressing nicely. Put the brown wash on the golds. Next step it to tidy up the blue, and then wash. And probably put another thin coat of white on the helmets. Speaking of lousy coverage...


Automatically Appended Next Post:


OK, difficult terrain can now get stuffed.

There was a little seepage under the tape. I put down a layer of white, and then 2 yellow coats over that. Then drybrushed silver over the whole thing.

DA are ready for their cleanup pass and then highlights.

Edit: DA are done being painted, just need their gun arms glued on and to be based. Moved the next two to the ready line, will start on them tonight.

Wow, that really adds something! It looks aweomse, good job!

 Zambro wrote:
Wow, that really adds something! It looks aweomse, good job!

Thanks. I alway felt that the siege shield was an integral part of the Vindi’s look. Penny-pinching wargear miser me balked at the 10 points it cost though. I’m used to my preds sitting back and shooting, or my rhinos which were mostly OK without dozer blades. Odds are, if they got caught up on a rock, the troops inside were probably close enough to the objective to walk the rest of the way.

My game experience Monday might have swayed the miser in me. I wanted to field it with the shield for aesthetic reasons anyway. Looked naked without it.

And from a painting POV, gets the thing off my paintbench. Getting better at masking is just a nice side effect.

Also in painting news, put the blue down on the last 2 DA, and glued the arms on the recent ones. Might flock them tonight, or just wait for the remainder to be done.

Although once The Boy goes to bed I need to re-watch The Fellowship of the Ring with my daddy eyes on to see if it’s appropriate for a 10 year old. He’s read the book, but I need to check for excessive violence and gore. I know there is no sex, and don’t recall any language. Well, nothing he hasn’t heard on the school bus. So that’s going to be a chunk of my evening (and probably tomorrow as well, we only own the director’s cut)

So September is almost over, so let’s look back at the third quarter. Here’s the year to date pic:


Not bad, not bad at all. Not pictured are the orc that was sent off and the webway portal terrain piece. 56 items total counting those. Using my fuzzy math (and counting the portal as a vehicle) brings us up to 69 model equivalents. According to what I’ve entered into battlescribe to track, I’ve painted 2,095 points worth of stuff. This is not counting the Zoat, Ork, or marauder. Eldar are about 475 points at the moment, and will break 500 once I finish the DAs. Overall, feeling very good about my progress this year, and there is still 1/4th of it left.

This is also the time of the year I start to evaluate my stocks for the winter. Here is what the primed pile looks like:

It’s been fuller, but there is a reasonable amount of stuff there. But even at my current rate (which is closer to 2 minis a week then 1) that should be enough to last me until spring. I would like to get one more batch of stuff primed, just to be on the safe side. To do that I’d need to get cracking on stripping the rest of the old stuff, which I need to finish anyway.

And current events:

Two more DAs getting work done. There is a spare trooper torso that can share legs with the exarch if I just want to run a naked squad. Or if I want to use the old RT lead captain as an exarch and field a 6 man squad.

Hope everyone enjoys their weekends.

--Nev

Love that siege shield, really makes that vindicator stand out.

Great minds think alike - I started rewatching the LotR last night. Completly forgot how long the extended edition ones are!

So far so good for this year!

Yorkright wrote:Love that siege shield, really makes that vindicator stand out.

It’s been a while since I was so happy about how something turned out. Normally I just see the flaws in my own work. Not that the shield is without flaws. There is a little yellow where it doesn’t belong on the bottom edge of one stripe, the gold on the eagle is a little uneven, etc. But overall I really enjoy how it turned out. Had a lot of fun with the masking and the stripes. Always neat to get a new technique down.

Zambro wrote:Great minds think alike - I started rewatching the LotR last night. Completly forgot how long the extended edition ones are!

So far so good for this year!

I’m giving the first half of Fellowship an "acceptable to view” rating**. Didn’t get around to watching the second half yet. The Nazgul are creepy. Probably more so then the dementors from Harry Potter. Same basic look/idea, but the ringwraiths in the movie are very real and very creepy, with bugs and blood and such. The creation of the Uruk-hai is a bit bad, but within acceptable parameters. There is some severe peril, but as The Boy has read the first book (and is partway though the second) he know how things turn out.

** Not responsable to any issues that might arise vis-a-via long term emotional scarring or trouble with the Better Half if you follow my rating system.

Anyway, back to paint.


Getting pretty close to done on the DA. Need to do the second blue coat and edging, plus pretty up some more gems and the like on the shimmershield. And the sword, which I might get fancy on. Plus basing etc.

October’s competition is “Something this way wicked comes” so I’m pulling an old mini from the back of the bench. Chammady Drovenge, one of the Big Bads from the Council of Thieves adventure path. Although I don’t recall her being particularly bad, I think we punked her in 2 rounds. Still, she’s wicked, evil, and needs paint.

OK, difficult terrain can now get stuffed.

Missed commenting on the Vindicator blade, but it sure looks good!

Heh, thanks guys.

Dire Avengers are basically done. I say that because I’ve moved the spare torso and RT captain to be painted next. But they're a playable squad now.


Onward, painting progress!

Loving the DA, they look fantastic.

Looking good, Nev. And they're based...

Inevitable_Faith wrote:Loving the DA, they look fantastic.

Zambro wrote:Looking good, Nev. And they're based...

Thanks. And I’ve been much better about my basing. Part of it was the massive backlog of un-based stuff that needed work. But I think I can keep up with current production. Snow bases I might still wait to do in batches. My process there works better with multiple minis. I make a batch of the glue/flock paste, and keep doing minis until I run out. I’ve been putting excess on my old chaos army. Although now that I have a lifetime’s supply of flock (rather then the tiny GW bag) I’m less worried about waste.

Some painting progress for the day:


Getting the base colors down on the one and a half DAs and Chammady. Making good progress there. I think the only basecoat I need to do on the DAs is the gold, then just touch-ups and washes. The evil little Chelaxian still needs quite a bit more done on her. Most notably the gold, hair (probably going with an off-blonde) and the flame on the dagger. Then all the assorted detail bits. Not looking forward to those strappy sandals. Why can’t people wear sensible shoes? Her dress is also going to end up more bright red. I just wanted to start with the deeper red for the recesses.

Made some decent progress this week. DA are done.


There are models that politely ask for edge highlighting. That captain demanded it. So many sharp edges. I was forced to comply. Probably did more highlighting on him then I’ve done all year. Here are some more shots of him:


Fun guy. Love the old stuff. Here is the full squad:

If I want to run a 5 man squad with the shimmershield exarch, this guys swaps torsos:


Over in the P&M section, Buttery is running a very informal Armies on Parade contest. Display board is optional. Just an excuse for people to get a nice army together and share some pics. At this point with the DA done, I feel that I can actually put down a reasonable Eldar army, so thought I’d toss some pics up that way.

Here is roughly 1.850 points of space elves, ready for battle!


Hope everyone has a good weekend. The Boy and I are heading cross country. Going to drive 8ish hours to south of Pittsburgh to visit some family for the long Columbus Day weekend. If the weather holds, the drive should be spectacular. We are just about peak for the foliage here, so the trees are vibrantly on fire with a cascade of colors.

Great looking DAs there Nev. Your AoP force is looking quite snazzy, I dig it.