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Good progress mate. Only 6 weeks behind is pretty good when you have had spells of bad weather stopping you priming etc. I think you will pick the pace up enought to finish...

Worst case scenario I just slap some paint on the skeletons lurking in the back. I figure I can bang those 6 guys out in an hour. But I’m trying to avoid just painting random stuff to boost my numbers…

With the talk of random stuff in the background of pictures, I figured while I had the camera out I’d take a newer pic of my workspace. I have an older one that I trot out from time to time in “show your space” threads, but it’s a little dated.


Here is the old pic. I’m almost afraid to play the “spot the differences” game with the shot two years old. Some stuff in the the exact same spot, still waiting for paint.


While not the best shot to showcase his gear, here is the combi-plasma sarge I just finished up.

Turned out OK. The two pod blades I was working on are ready for the wash step, and then are done. So two more after that, final assembly, and finished.

Done with the wash and touch up. 3/5 of the way done on the blades.

Something new for the to-prime box:


HG with an axe. I've had a lot of fun building stuff out of the veteran boxes, this is probably the last full marine from them. And he's not 100%. Still lots of spare guns and other toys, but the torso/legs/shoulders/heads are mostly gone. The gun arm is just tacked on for now, will paint it seperately.

Love that mini...

Basic banner with lots of scrolls, tapestries, and purity seals. Not pictured is the back, where I stuck the nunchuck scroll case and a hanging scroll w/ seal. So this gets stuck in the to-prime box for now.

Not a lot of progress to report for last weekend. I just got back from a 4 day road trip out to south of Pittsburg (about an 8 hour drive) where I was visiting family. Lots of cute babies, not a lot of painting.

I did get the black layer down on one of the remaining pod bits. Going to do the other one now.

Deathwatch marines built. I gave the DA a combi bolter, partially for theme, but mostly because I needed to poach the bolter I has set aside for him for that last HG.

So, in order:
Space Wolf
Dark Angel
Raven Guard
White Scar
Crimson Fist.

Right now they all have both arms just tacked on. Normally I'd just glue the left arms on, but with the deathwatch paint scheme, I figured I'd do them separately.

On the paint bench the last pod bits are done with the black and silver, awaiting the blue.

So my days of whining about drop pods are over. At least the personal, in-progress whining; I can’t promise I won’t wax bitter with my 2 cents in other P&M threads about them. I’m sure you all were as irritated hearing me whine about it as I was actually working on it. In other good news, school started back up today, so The Boy is out of my hair for the bulk of the day. Which is good, we were getting a little stir crazy towards the end of summer. But it does mean my hobby time is back to full!

So what to do with all that time? Right now I’ve got the first blue coat down on one of the vanguard vets. They are going to be the next marines across the bench. I think the next vehicle I do will be the LSS. It’s one of the things I really want to try out on the table. Particularly if I play a maelstrom mission.

On the build side I’m not sure what to work on. I was thinking a mk. VI sarge with a c-flamer to join the new HB marine in 4th squad might be worth it. But I should also work up some command squad marines. That, and possible a new captain, are the last things I need to get my company where I want it. Other things on the radar are another land speeder and to kit-bash some LotD. We’ll see where the mood takes me.

Just a quick update:

Two command squad marines and a mk. VI sarge. All the arms are magnetized. The prime box has nine marines and a banner in it now, time to keep a weather eye out for a nice day...

Nice to see your summer had more hobby time than mine!

Those deathwatch marines look awesome. How are you going to play them, rules wise. Sternguard or regular tacticals?

Glad to see that DP is all done now. How long did it take? Awell, you dont have to do another for a while. 3 DPs are quite versatile and offer a lot of different builds. Next stop, 5 DPs

 Zambro wrote:
Nice to see your summer had more hobby time than mine!

Those deathwatch marines look awesome. How are you going to play them, rules wise. Sternguard or regular tacticals?

Glad to see that DP is all done now. How long did it take? Awell, you dont have to do another for a while. 3 DPs are quite versatile and offer a lot of different builds. Next stop, 5 DPs

Box to table, the pod took almost a year. I thought it might be fun to sift through my blog and actually get a timeline on it. Dates given are the closest blog post referencing the event.

The pod was purchased: 7/9/13
Cleaned/built: 9/10/13 - 24/10/13
Primed: 6/4/14
Painted 3/5/14 - 5/9/14

I picked it up as part of the supply drop accompanying the new codex, bundled with the strikeforce box. Cleanup and subassembly went surprisingly quickly, considering the size of the drop it arrived in. It spent a little longer in the prime box then normal, due to my rattle-can running out of juice and winter falling before I got a replacement. After sitting ready for paint for about a month, I started slowly painting it in parts, taking over 4 months to finish it.

While the gamer side of me would like to have two more pods, if I even think about it too loudly, the modeling side of me will do unseemly things to the gamer side. I have zero plans of purchasing more pods. Even if I was given some as a gift, unless they were assembled and painted, I’d consider exchanging them. But then, if I had another one [i]in hand]/i] the gamer side of me might be able to convince the modeler to do one more…

The Deathwatch are almost certainly going to be fielded as sternguard. I’ve got more then enough tacticals, and frankly don’t see the need to field a 5 man squad of more bolter boys. I suspect they will be used as unit filler in a second sternguard squad if I ever decide to field two. I don’t have enough to field a full squad of them, and really prefer to drop them in 9/10 man squads.

Summer progress is always a little slower then I like. Weekends are often spent doing family stuff, rather then getting games in, and The Boy being out of school eats into my painting time. But overall, it was a reasonable one this year. Glad we are heading into fall though.

Sorry for the iPad pic, The Wife has the good camera.



Not bad progress for the week. One marine is done, but his arms/pack still need work. The other is progressing though similar steps, just a little behind. If I buckle down, I might be able to finish both by the end of the weekend. But I try to post a progress reports on Friday, so you get a WIP shot instead.

While there is a double’s tournament this weekend, I don’t think I can spend the whole day at the FLGS playing. Need to do the responsible homeowner thing and do some chores like stripping the paint off the deck so we can re-stain it before winter hits. But I do want to head up there and pick up a/o order a bunch of things.

A good red base paint (for Eldar)
Stormraven
King of Tokyo (fun boardgame)

There are a bunch of things on my “maybe” list that I haven’t made up my mind about:
Another box of sternguard (to be mixed with spare tac bodies and the bits box to make both more SG and HG)
More tanks. Either a Whirlwind, Hunter/Stalker, Vindi, or another Pred. For a collection my size, I have very few metal boxes. Could use more treads.
Centurions. They’ve grown on me. I’ve seen some nice, simple, mods that make them look much better. Mostly leaving some of the leg plates off. And they are mechanically strong. They are one of the things that’s if it’s on the shelf, I might walk out with them, but probably don’t care enough to order.

As I run down on the pile of grey plastic, I think again of the LotD idea on my to-do list. And that gets me thinking about bits and options. I like the concept of boarding marines as a counts-as, with GK teleporter backpacks and stormshields for the 3++. But then I think of the bits I’d need to pick up. Especially since I’d need another Dev box for a MM. Is it worth 3 boxes of marines for one squad? Sure, there would be plenty of spare parts. I know I can get some bits separately, but that would cost real cash, rather then store credit. And some places want $10+ for the MM. A third of the cost of the box for one bit? I don’t think so. A lot of the GK sprue could be re-purposed, lots of good bits there.

But on the flip side, I’ve got an extensive bits box from WHFB, where my armies were/are undead and chaos warriors. Tons of bones, skulls, and the like I could just glue onto tac marines, add some black paint and some freehand flames and I’m good to go. Problem is, I’m not 100% sold on the classic look of the LotD. It’s OK, just not my favorite. Cheep and easy though, so it has a lot going for it.

Oh well, enough rambling for now. I should go for a walk then put another coat of paint down. Or the opposite order, so the layer can dry while I’m out getting exercise.

Closing in on the finish of those vets
I'm just wondering why there is the SS painted blue, but not the arm? Is he going to have a different colour arm? Surely it would've made sense to do the blue on the SS and arm at the same time..?
I might have missed it, but did you say the jump packs are magnetised? The could make a nice double as VV w/ packs, VV w/o packs a/o honour guard...

Some paint for the Eldar... Does that mean they'll be getting some attention?
You could get the Citadel red spray can. Would definately speed up the base layer painting (just a heads up, they're not primer, so you'll need to prime first).

A stormraven would be awesome, but also take an age to complete Perhapse you can accompany the potential red spray can with a blue spray can and speed up the process across the board.

As for what else... Get what you'll be motivated to paint. LotD are cool (both models and rules - imo). I like the original models, so I wont comment on how to make alternatives. IIRC, you haven't painted much armour recently. If i'm not mistaken, you already have a vindicator(?), another one would be cool on the table top...

 Zambro wrote:
Closing in on the finish of those vets
I'm just wondering why there is the SS painted blue, but not the arm? Is he going to have a different colour arm? Surely it would've made sense to do the blue on the SS and arm at the same time..?
I might have missed it, but did you say the jump packs are magnetised? The could make a nice double as VV w/ packs, VV w/o packs a/o honour guard...

Some paint for the Eldar... Does that mean they'll be getting some attention?
You could get the Citadel red spray can. Would definately speed up the base layer painting (just a heads up, they're not primer, so you'll need to prime first).

A stormraven would be awesome, but also take an age to complete Perhapse you can accompany the potential red spray can with a blue spray can and speed up the process across the board.

As for what else... Get what you'll be motivated to paint. LotD are cool (both models and rules - imo). I like the original models, so I wont comment on how to make alternatives. IIRC, you haven't painted much armour recently. If i'm not mistaken, you already have a vindicator(?), another one would be cool on the table top...

On the partial paint: It’s one of my bad habits. I’ve found that if I touch the paint before I wash a part, the oils on my skin cause the wash to bead and not flow properly. So instead of temporarily mounting the part on a paperclip or something else sensible, I just paint and finish one half, then do the other. You might also notice the bottom half of the jetpacks are the same way.

Yup, backpacks are magnetized. I suspect these guys are going to be my go-to models when I need something unusual in my list. On my list of things to do is to rig up some bolter/combi-bolter arms for them so they can sub in for sternguard. Need to make sure I have enough vet shoulder pads kicking around. I’m pretty sure I have a lot of the old ones from the command squad, even if I’m out of the new ones from the stern/van kits.

I’ve had problems color matching sprays, and bad rattle cans of primer, so I think I’m going to stick with the old fashioned brush work. While a good idea generally, I’ve had enough bad experiences to swear off it.

The Eldar are getting more attention. I’ve got a farseer on the bench I’m trying to fix. Last summer when I was cleaning mold lines off him, I snapped the head off of his staff. As he’s metal, fixing it is not that simple. Carefully working to pin it. IIRC from when I was originally working on him, I was going to magnetize his head, so I could swap it with the jetseer. Or I might have just be planning to make two heads for the one on the bike, I’ll have to sift through bits and figure out what I was thinking.

I have a predador, not a vindicator. So if I get another “real” tank, the question is if I want to go for variation or redundancy. While I prefer the flexibility of the pred, I already have one, and you need to respect the pie plate. But both work for armor saturation and mechanized lists. Given the way I put lists together, I generally like to have a wide selection of units on the shelf, so the vindi will probably win out. Assuming I go with the big guns, and not one of the support tanks.

One advantage of just puttering along building my collection is I don’t need to make any decisions unless I want to. So if I can’t make up my mind on what tank to get, or how I want to do the LotD, I can just procrastinate. At the very least, it means I can spend more time getting the Eldar up to speed, which is getting closer and closer. I need to finish getting them a fresh coat of primer and in the to-do pile before winter hits.

Speaking of primer: After my walk I sprayed the stuff in the prime box, so another 9 marines can line up on the paint bench and wait their turn.

Quick update: Just got back from the FLGS with some 60mm bases and a pot of khorne red. On order from the 40k side is a box of vanguard vets and the stormraven. I might trade for the GK backpacks I want (one guy has some spares) but the GK box has some nice bits in it. I was thinking of making a jump librarian, and there is the long term possibility of one on a bike as well. An investment in a 5 man box now would pay off on those projects later. Psychic hood backs, all sorts of force weapons; good stuff.

The vets on the table are progressing. Rainy day out put an end to most of the weekend projects, so I've been puttering about all day.

Two down, three to go. Once again, need to get the good camera from The Wife. The next marine on the bench is going to be the c-flamer sarge I just put together for 4th squad. I’ve put the first layer of black down on the LSS. My neck/back is reminding me again of why I’m not a huge fan of painting vehicles. So much area, not enough easy stopping points to stretch.

Hope everyones weekend is going well.

Sarge: So I’m here to replace you in charge of 4th squad.
Marine: But I’ve been acting sergeant for years! You can’t just step in and kick me out.
Sarge: “Acting” being the key word there. You don’t have the proper helmet strip, or even insignia on your arm. Your only claim to fame is the fact that you are flying your back-banner. With a fairly nonsensical number, considering who we are.
Marine: You can’t boot me to the swap shelf that easily! The squad will back me up.
Sarge: I’m pretty sure the heavy will side with me, and the flamer dates from post-3rd edition, so I wouldn’t count on him if I were you. You might have some bolter boys, but we’ve got all the toys.
Heavy: <ca-chunk>
Sarge: Look, if we ever need to combat squad, you can lead the second half, OK? Now off to the swap shelf, you won’t be the first sarge to head down there.
Marine: <sulks off>
Heavy: Sarge, we’re HB/F and you’ve got a combi flamer, we’re never going to combat squad!
Sarge: I know that, but I wanted to toss the poor guy a bone. He has been in charge of this squad for a couple of decades.

So without further ado, I give you the 4th squad, at full shelf deployment:


So the only marines I need to finish for my revised shelf list is the command squad, and they are built and primed. I’m still debating if I want to build a more flexible PA captain. I like the one I have, and he has a lot of history, but stormbolter/power sword (even relic blade) is just so mediocre on the table. Not a big rush, foot captains are pretty low on the list of things I field anyway.

On the paintbench: LSS WIP. Yes, it’s green. My scouts are mostly in forest camo, with the exception of a pair of snipers in grey/black night uniforms. Rather then just stippling on brown/black, like I did with my scout bikers, I might actually cut up a sponge and give that a try. But I need a second coat of the DA green first, and to do the trim. I just did a rough coat with a huge brush, need to get out a smaller brush for the tight places. And then do the crew (the pilot/gunner, not bothering with the guys in back) and the extra bits.


Next week I’ll probably start on the new command squad guys, just so I can formally close the company. Plus more progress on the LSS, not sure if I can get all that done in a week. But I do need to try to get more then one thing done a week if I want to meet my goal for the year. Not only am I a little behind, but once the holidays hit, I’m going to loose a few more weeks, so it would be best for me to make up ground while I can.

Quick update, just to keep me honest. A little more detail/trim work done on the LSS. I’ll probably give it another coat of DA green and then the camo. Plus the crew and bits. The two command squad guys are almost done. Just need to blue wash the lot and finish the storm shield. Might have to wait until Sunday to finish. Lots of distractions this week, so progress was slow.

I pinned the snapped head back onto my farseer’s staff, and glued him together. So the to-prime pile is growing again. I’ve also started to take a knife to the Eldar rangers I picked up. Finecast. So far not a lot of flaws, but cleaning up all the injection points is a pain. I replaced the blade in my hobby knife, which helps, but you still need the blade skills of a sushi master to get things done right. Hopefully I can clean them up to something passible. There is a narrow window in the middle of the day where I can work with that level of precision. After the morning caffeine jitters have worn off, but before the evening’s beverage kicks in. Not that I have a drink every night, and some are stiffer then others. The fact that one of my ongoing chores is pressure washing my deck does not do go things for my hands either.

Oh well, enough griping for now. The Boy only had a half day at school, so I need to rustle up some lunch for us. Hope everyone has a good weekend.

Al looking good mate. Will be nice to see some Eldar on your page again and I know what you mean about the finecast injection points. I'm alright with any NUrgle bits as they can look bad and be good if you know what I mean haha...

Supply drop has arrived. So here is the plan for what to do with it:

Stormraven is pretty straight forward. Once I break the box open I want to see how feasible it will be to rework the top. Not a fan of the giant intake scoop or top turret. I think getting rid of most of the crap up top should re-ballance the mini and make it look a little less ungainly. The turret is definitely going. If it can be swapped for a razorback, that’s the easy option. I might look into getting a FW or 3rd party one. They are nice and low profile, and look more appropriate for a flyer. Another option would be to build a TLAsC rig similar to what I made for my razor. Maybe have a marine sticking out a top hatch working it like a pintle mount. We’ll see.

A 5 man squad of LotD counts-as. I’m using Voidstalker Veterans as a working unit title. A specialist squad designed to teleport into spaces too tight for terminators, for precision strikes on critical targets. Formed after the Battle of Macragge and the lessons learned in the space battle there. Made from GK and VV parts.

5 more VV. These guys are probably going to be cut with some tactical marine parts, as they are secondary to the LotD build. Still, I’d like to be able to field a full 10 man squad if I want. I suspect they might get a lot of the CC toys from the GK box.

Jump Librarian. If I can’t make a decent looking librarian with a jump pack out of these two boxes, I should just hang up the hobby tools and buy pre-painted minis. Looking at my collection of HQs and the options to field them, I’m getting close to a full matrix. Both captains and chaplains are good with all four options (PA, TDA, JP, Bike) and I already have a PA and TDA librarian. So once I get a JP lib, that just leaves bike lib and MotF as the unfilled options. It is tempting to use the spare GK bits to boost my librarian count to 5 so I can field the formation in apoc games. Who doesn’t love vortex pie plates that might end up sinking into the ground and eating the planet?

I tried to sponge apply camo, it seemed to work OK. Not 100% on how it turned out, but I like it enough that I’m not going to fiddle with it. Still need to pick out a few details, do a little touch ups, and then the accessories and the crew.



The final members of the command squad. All the arms are magnetized, so I can swap things around as needed. I was odd painting the veteran shoulderpads without the white trim. But while vets, these guys are not from the first company, so no trim. Here is the full squad:



Apothecary (BP/chainsword)
Standard Bearer (bolter)
Company Champion (power sword/BP, combat shield)
Veteran (flamer/SS)
Veteran (power axe/BP)

175 points, so not that outrageous, but I wanted some gear on them. Mostly a pure CC squad. In an ideal world the standard bearer would have a BP/CCW rather then a bolter, but I like the way he looks, so he’s not getting replaced. The guy with the flamer and SS is first into the breach. I was going to go with just a bolt pistol, as his job is to eat fire and die. But the flamer is only a few points, and it might be useful to burn things before I charge.

So I opened up the GK box. So many nice CC bits in there. Also one of the legs has a tabard, which means I might put together another HG marine, probably with a relic blade. Some of the halberds might get turned into power spears for the VV. While some of the shoulderpads are firmly GK, others are a little more generically inquisition. I think that incinerator is going to find its way over to the Deathwatch, and a HF salamander is going to join that growing squad. The psy-cannon might end up part of a MotF with a c-beamer, but that project is still in the fuzzy stages of idea formation.

Also on the workbench I’ve mostly cleaned up 2/5 of the rangers. Very slow going, as prepping finecast requires a large amount of focus and precision. As that is not particularly relaxing, it’s a chore to be hunched over the table slowly carving away flash and injection ports. I don’t want to back burner them again, but they might have to step down and let marines through the workbench so I can get them primed before the weather runs out.

So I was over in this Battletech thread and was feeling a little nostalgic. So I decided to break out some of the old lead for a photo shoot. After all, one of the goals of this blog is for me to get pictures of my old stuff. So here we go. Set the wayback machine for 3055, it’s giant stompy robot time.


House Kurita assault lance. Warhammer, Awesome, Battlemaster, Phoenix Hawk. While the P-hawk is a little light, IIRC he’s there so the tonnage ballances out with:


Federated Commonwealth assault lance. Marauder, Thunderbolt, Warhammer, Archer.


I think this is mearly a heavy lance. No affiliation. Thunderbolt, Rifleman, Crusader, Griffon. For all you 40k players out there, the second guy from the left is the reason 2xTLAC dreads are called “riflemen” Although any battletech purist will tell you that a TLLC/TLAC dread is closer to a “true” rifleman. But then it should also be AV11/10 and have the Gets Hot! rule. Battletech riflemen were notorious for paper armor and heat problems...


House Davion recon lance. Shadowhawk, Centurion, Wasp, Locust. (good chance I got some of these wrong, always had problems telling the light mechs apart)


And a random assortment of Inner Sphere mechs. Catapult, Atlas, Locust, Highlander, Stinger, Wolverine.


And a big ol’ pile of clan mechs. Plus the inevitable pile of parts that fell off.

I know I’ve got some unpainted stuff somewhere, at least one more omnimech and some incomplete mechs with bits missing. Should be a mechbuster aerospace fighter around somewhere, and I think a chopper. I’d have to dig around. Lot of infantry as well, mostly unpainted, but a decent amount made it over to the OGRE side of the fence and is on 1-3 man pennybases.

And for curent projects, I’ve got the first two layers of green on the LSS crew. DA green for the hard armor, goblin green for fabric. Looks like rain this weekend, so I should be able to get some work done painting, rather then outside. This is good.

That mech stuff is amazing mate. Loving the ideas with the stormraven too. Intersteing to see a different turret

That certainly is quite different. Mechs! Nice.

Just tacked together ATM, but a good mock up of what the squad should look like. He’s the sarge, with a c-grav. I think my build is going to be meltagun/plasma cannon, combi-grav. Although I should probably swap out the melta for a plasma gun. I’d like to run M/MM, c-grav, but don’t have a MM kicking around. And I’d need an old (or FW) over the shoulder one, so that’s probably not happening. I might magnetize the heavy/special arms, we’ll see. I also noticed that these guys can’t take melta bombs, which makes me sad.

GK head, backpack, legs (for some)
Tactical torso (most are the ones with the vent and bulky cables) legs for non-GK ones, bolters
Shoulders are mixed for the squad, mostly command squad w/ t-honors, with simple ones for the other. Sarge gets a little fancy to stand out.
VV Arms, storm shields
Sternguard for the special weapon.
Old RT-era plastic orc plasma cannon. Which I need to find a decent arm to hold. Might require some work.

While it’s still a ways off, I’m trying to think about paint jobs that will differentiate these guys, but still tie into the army. I might do white helmets, as that’s something I don’t normally do for my vets. Other options would be to actually paint the trim on the shoulderpads, or the pads themselves in a different color. Black or silver come to mind for options, but green trim is also a possibility. As I put together some fluff for these guys in my head, they use precision teleports to zip in, evaluate the situation and set up a perimeter. Unlike terminators, which are slow and ponderous, or assault troops who get stuck in and can’t react well once committed, the PA/SS/bolter combination makes for a fluid, durable force. Being that they were developed initially for boarding actions, green trim for the 4th company (headed by the Master of the Fleet) makes some sense. But as they also have a veteran++ statline, white for the 1st company can also work.

Like most vehicle projects, it got tedious at the end. All the scale problems of vehicles and finicky internal detailing (that you can’t just glue the doors shut on) coupled with the “I’m not just blue” paint scheme I do my scouts in. The only thing left to do is figure out how I’m going to keep it on the flight stem. I might sink a magnet into the mounting hole and put one on the peg, so it doesn’t fall out when I lift it to move. Still, just a minor thing.

I’ve cleaned up and partially glued 4/5 of the LotD vets. Changed my mind about the special; replaced it with a plasma gun. Mostly. What I did was use a wrist mount magnet, same as my biker specials. So once I get it painted, I’ll be able to swap for a melta or grav gun. Not that the legion can take grav, but my parts will be compatible. I’m not sure what I’ll build after I finish those guys. The raven is calling, but looking at the GK sprues has triggered a bunch of ideas, so I might just run with those. We’ll see. Not sure who is going to get paint next either, I should start on a tank to work on in the background, while getting some troops down.

Hope everyone has a good weekend.

Quick update: LotD almost done. PC is just tacked on ATM. Getting the arm right on that is going to be rough. Might have to greenstuff a wrist, extend an arm, or rework the bottom of the cannon.


Edit: Quick update update: Jump librarian is done. Staff arm is magnetized, jump pack separate for painting. Cut parts for HG w/relic blade and Deathwatch Salamander with HF. Not that he’s actually got any Salamander iconography, but he’s the guy with the burner, so that’s who’s going on the shoulder. Just need to clean and assemble them. Not sure if I’m going to leave the SB on the HGs arm. He’s got the GK bits, so two hands on the sword, which is cool. But if I need to diverge from WYSWYG is it better to have no bolter at all, or a SB rather then a normal one?

Continuing in the Deathwatch/Librarian/wacky non-Ultramarine theme of late, I’ve started a little side project. Gitsplitta is running a Mantis Maker competition and I’ve decided to toss my hat into the ring. I’m going to put together a MW librarian, serving with the deathwatch. Odds of me getting this done on time are low (even though I have until mid-November) Odds of me winning are non-exsistant, judging from some of the entries in the last one. Heck, if I place anything but dead last I’d be amazed. But it’s a fun thing to do in the Dakka community, and I’ve got the bits and some modicum of motivation.

The thought was to have him kneeling, bloody sword at rest, focusing his powers with arm outstretched to divine his next target. I might swap some bits around, but here is what I’m working with:


We’ll see how it turns out. I think the weather is about to get damp here for about a week, so I might not be able to get him assembled before it hits.

Best of luck with it

You have a cool idea for a pose, so that's got to be worth some points before they even look at painting.

I had a hard time working out what those bits are on the backpacks of the LOTD. What are they? You'll have to be careful with them, they look like they have a very fragile join.

Those are GK interceptor backpacks. They use them to teleport around. I’m using them to convey the accurate deep strike ability on PA troops. And they are fiddly.

So I don’t think I picked up a brush at all this last week. Well, not to paint minis, I did use one to help base. Yup, you read that right: Basing.



On Ultramarines even. Surely the end times are upon us. Experimented with another technique (seeing how much flock would stick to a freshly painted white base) Not very happy with the results, will stick to the paste method.

Had some reasonable weather (and some bad). But all it takes is one good day to get some primer down.


I ended up using an old RT arm for the PC. While it is smaller then a modern arm/shoulderpad, I don’t think it’s noticeable hiding under that massive cannon. I built up the area where the hand holds the gun, you will probably get a better angle when I paint it. Also done is my MW libbi. I think I’ll paint some of the normal DW marines to work on my technique before I start on him.


While I’ve had a few shots of my painting space, I’ve only done close ups of WIPs on my assembly workbench. So here is a far shot. In progress is the stormraven. While I think I’m just going to glue it closed, right now it’s rubber banded together in case I need to access the insides for the turret work I have in mind. I’m doing the landing gear as retracted; it’s blocky enough without stuff sticking out at all angles. One thing I have in mind is to take one of the rear landing struts that I’m not using, and have it partially stick out the top turret ring. The guns could either be mounted on the top, or sides, of the strut. This should give the look of a gun that retracts into the body of the flyer for orbital drops, but pops up for combat. And should be lower profile then the big, blocky, servitor gunpod.

I have to re-jigger the HF salamnder I’m working on. I think I was glueing faster then checking, but the rimmed DW shoulder pad (which I already glued to the arm) is conflicting with the backpack (also glued on). As I use plastic cement, rather then superglue, fixing this is not easy. What I might do is cut and rotate the HF, so it’s pointing to the side, and do a hand swap for the formally supporting arm. Maybe a grenade or ausepx. Back burnered for now.