Huh. I guess it's time to do one of these article thingies... Damn... Lazy... Anyway

I started painting around 8 or 9, doing WWII and Modern combat Dioramas. One of my buddies got me into 40K when he brought over his Dark Angels. This was some time around the early days of 3rd Ed, back when everything was still freaking metal (I'm looking at you, shoulder-mounting pewter Devastator Marines! I hope you burn for all eternity in the black pits of Hell!)

So after playing a few games with his DA I guess I decided to get into it. I picked up a Space Marine codex the following week and tried to decide what army to go with. I decided on Black Templars. Mainly because they had one of the new 3rd Ed Marines as their display mini, and because Black and White would be a mind-numbingly easy paint scheme for a 9 year old. Well, my first few models (read, 20 or so >.<) turned out looking like a steaming pile of feces. Buuuut, eventually I started to get the hang of it. Within the year, I noticed a lot of improvement. One thing that did suprise me was that I never made the mistake of layering on way too much paint like most people do when they start. I guess I credit this to my time spend with painting my WWII miniatures. That definately helped me avoid that whole problem.

I got bored with the BT's though, and their lack of a proper Codex (note: these were the days of Codex: Armaggeddon. Back then the BT's had all of 3 or 4 pages that made up their 'dex') and decided to do a custom Chapter. I played around with the painter in DoW and a few around the net before settling on a Black and Grey scheme, which meant that I could avoid most of the repainting and still have a nice set of GRIMDARK colours (Or... ...Shades... Whatever.) So this was what I decided on. I started repainting my BT's the day before the first Codex: Black Templars was released. There was much profanity spoken, and even more anger quenching beer drunk, upon hearing this news. After working steadily on the tedious task of repainting all those BT's I decided I needed something to break up the repetative painting of armoured plates. I decided I had always liked the Imperial Guard, and wanted to give them a shot. I tinkered with schemes (again) but this time, couldn't settle on anything.

At the same time, I had (and still have) a novel in the works. Looking it over, I decided I hated it, deleted all of it, and started again. This time, focusing on my Guardsmen instead of my SMurfs. This time, I felt a lot more interested in the writing. The topic of the average human soldier was something I was able to relate to. Early on I decided I didn't like the start though, and deleted it, starting from the end of the Prologue again.

This gave me great inspiration for my Guard's camo scheme through the story of the world. That being that during the great Heresy, a Traitor Legion fleet appeared in the system and the Legion made planetfall. One of the Unknown Legions, and several varied forces from the Known ones had been contributed to oversee the world, which sits on the border of the Segmentum Pacificus. When the Heretics attacked, the Loyalist Marines were tied up attempting to break through the fleet blockading the Capital world of Ariminium. Using the time that the blockade had bought them, Chaos Psykers unleashed a terrible spell across the heartland of the continent. A massive shockwave was unleashed from a massive arrangement of Cairnstones, the purpose of which had been unknown until that point. The shockwave spread out, covering nearly the entire continent. It finally ran out of energy a few thousand Kilometers from the coastlines, but the damage had been done. 95% of the planet's surface had been turned to solid, black stone. All unafflicted advanced organic life caught in the spell had been vaporized. The plantlife of the affected area became little more than statues.

The Astartes finally managed to breach the blockade and assault the forces at the Cairnstones, eventually coming out victorious after several days of combat. But the damage had been done. With almost no plant life left, the air on the world became dangerously thin at even minor altitudes. All structures over thirty stories had to be equipped with an air supply or advanced ventilation systems. Rebreathers and air tanks were needed even to climb small mountains. The Astartes saw this level of devastation as an utter failure on their part, and a disgrace to the Emperor. When the Legions were broken down, the thousand or so Astartes posted on the Capital moon of Veritas IV were formed into a Chapter. Painting their armour shades of black and grey to represent their failure to stop such devastation, they became the Obsidian Brotherhood.

While the Astartes view their saving of the planet as a failure, the Guardsmen of the world lauded the marines for preventing the complete loss of their new homeworld. They've adapted to their new world and are still, to this day, thankful for the actions of the Chapter's predecessors 10,000 years ago. In honor of this, and to adapt to their new environs, all of Ariminium's Guard regiments adopted black uniforms with grey Flak armour. With the two conflicting views as to the state of the world, this has undoubtedly led to some sour exchanges and a certain level of tension between the Astartes and the Guard on the Capital world of the 3 planet system.

That's the story behind the semi-matching colour scheme for my Marines and Guardsmen. If Elysians end up coming out in Plastic, I'm buying em' up and doing a regiment in Woodland camo for my second world. If the greatcoats and gasmasks kit comes out, I'll be doing a Desert/Ash Wastes army for my 3rd world.

I guess I'll start with my Guard, as they're the most actively painted/used of my two armies at the moment (That and I only have one picture of my Spehss Mehreenz on Dakka :P) I paint for tabletop. Not display. So no fancy stuff. Details like eyes are a must-have for me, but again, tabletop. Eyes are about as detailed as I get.

So without further adieu, here are some old of the fighting men of the 51st Ariminium. Check my blog for more recent content. The link is in my Sig.

The full shebang as is right now. Second Chimera, Platoon of Guardsmen, and an Armaggeddon pattern sentinel assembled and waiting to be primed & painted.

My Colonel. Go figure I sculpt him a Field cap with an X-Acto knife and a few months later, GW comes out with the Cadian Command Sprue, which has one anyway. WHY DOES MY TIMING ALWAY SUCK!? Anyway, name suggestions are welcome for him. Think Latin.

My Lieutenant. And again, sculpted the Beret, and then the Catachan box shows up and bitz orders for the Beret head via websites pop up everywhere. Seriously? I mean... Seriously? That's it. Someone is going to die if this happens again.

My Officer of the fleet. I didn't want to bother buying a crappy metal mini when I had the perfect chance to make one out of plastic, which is 150% less of a pain in the arse to work with. The shoulderpads gave me trouble, and the Sceptre was annoying me, so after much cutting, filing, shaving, sanding, and stabbing (most of this was done more to my hands than to the mini, might I add) I finally emerged with something I liked. The sceptre was gone, one of the fingers was gone, and the remaining middle finger became a convincing cigar. I tried to cut more off of the armpit, but I had already stupidly glued him together. I decided this was good enough and give him a coat of primer and about 2 hours later he came out as you see here.

That's all the Officers, save for my Captain whom I forgot to take a picture of >.<

I was thinking about some shots of the common soldiers, but I think I'll add some of those in once I finish the box of Guardsmen, the Chimera, and the Sentinel that're all waiting to be added.

OH! I know! Here. No one seems to be putting up suggestions on my gallery so I'll post him here:

This is the Sergeant for my Recce team. I'm looking to add some badass kit to him, but I can't decide what else to toss on. He's got super-awesome-cool spec-ops gloves, he's got a sweet looking autogun, I was thinking about greenstuffing some Ballistic goggles onto all their helmets like I did for the one Guardsman in my "Tactical Advance" gallery image, but that sucked without sculpting tools (stupid local hardware stores not carrying anything people actually NEED!)

Any ideas? Head swaps? Odds and ends? Anything? Don't suggest anything Forgeworld related or I'll find you and bury my boot in your arse. Other than that, you're safe.

Anyway, hope y'like em'. I'll be adding more pictures with time, so stay posted.

Oh, and just to go out with a 'bang'... ...Pun intended.

Thanks for looking!