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Let's save some time: My pile of shame is legendary.

With the advent of HH 2.0 I decided to get into 30k in a big way, what with absolutely hating the direction of 40k for the past decade. I know I know, big grognard energy. I bet you wouldn't even be surprised to learn my excitement was quickly winnowed by Age of Tanks release schedule and its complete dereliction of melee support.

I turned to the 3rd party market in a big way this past april. And this blog is soley for my own accountability, to prevent adding another army sized project to my pile of shame.

So this is the first model I've finished painting in 15 years.

Front view




I'm pretty happy over all with how this guy came out, though I learned an awful lot cranking him out this evening. This was my first time doing any kind of weathering, sponging, or doing any basing beyond gluing the gravel I found in a ditch to the base. The plan is to focus on a simplistic and easily reproduced scheme which doesn't get bogged down in the detail work. So while there are some things with this that I know could be done better, I'm pretty OK with him over all.



This tester came from a batch of despoilers I'm in the midst of batch-painting for an hour or two each evening.



You can see the initial tester front-and-center in this image. This is how he was when I got home today, and it took me about two hours to get him to his end point. I think I could do it in under an hour with some practice.

I did most of the fine details on all of them, then thinned down the batching numbers a little so I could see how I liked some of the finer points such as the bronze detailing. I'm happy with how it all ended up, so I'll be bringing the rest up to speed pretty quickly.

My goal is to have all these guys done by next Wednesday when I'm flying out of state to get a tattoo, but that's extremely ambitious. More likely I'll get them all painted and start on the weathering, but probably not based.

Over the past five days I've gotten most of the way through the other 24 guys, which I feel was pretty good progress. This included all of the bronze work, vision slits, axes, chains, knee-pads, and obviously the weathering. I was surprised to find that the axes were far and away the most annoying (and flatly time consuming) part of the process, mostly because the hand-wound chains meant that no two axes were the same and left lots of tiny nooks to get at.



All they're missing now is blood spatter and basing (which includes mud splatter). So they should be easy to wrap up when I get home next week.



Admittedly I'd meant to take some pictures before tackling the weathering, but in the rush I simply forgot.



While I enjoyed weathering the first individual guy, I absolutely learned a lot from these next 24. Primarily dialing in the amount of time I need to let the paint dry before going at the miniature, dabbing / patting rather than streaking, and being more careful when trying to go for enclosed places such as under the arms. Most of the chests are far too weathered as a direct result of both of these, but it kinda works.

As for the actual streaking itself I'm really not pleased. I messed up by not feathering the streaks out for the first 15 or so guys because it simply didn't occur to me. As a result some are O.K. but a lot look worse for it. I think I'll pass on streaking in the future and simply save that for larger scale models, like dreads and vehicles.



Lastly I wanted to get the bloody-hand insignia on the sergeant, so I tried my hand at a little free-handing with.. not great results. The first one turned out pretty weak, but will pass as a blood splotch later on. Kind of a shame, as this was one of my favorite models of the bunch.



The second attempt (after I tried a bunch of times on my matt and a test mini) came out noticeably better, though still not quite how I wanted it.

Looks like tortuga bay bodies. Those are nice. Great looking WE, the weathering is always a fine line between not enough and to much

Very grin dark so far, really liking the base of the test model and the first 20 are looking equally as grim. Great work

Thank you for the kind words both. Glad to hear you guys like them!

A majority of them are indeed Tortuga Bay bodies. They're some of the best 3rd party stuff I've found and I love how chonky they are, making for some nice and sturdy looking marines. There are a few none tortuga in there, but not many given it's *hard* to find MKIII running that isn't from them. I am excited to finish these guys off and move on, when I'll be starting to tackle MKII as well as terminators. And be able to post some building progress pictures, as opposed to just painting.

I should have a small update tomorrow. I wasn't able to do much for two weeks due to some pretty pointed pain, but I made some more progress tonight and finished almost that entire first batch of despoilers.

Okay, so back on track with a small update.

Got the remaining batch of MKIII despoilers blood spattered and based. Same treatment as the first, but quite happy with how they turned out.



To say that these guys come out messy is an understatement, but I really like it. WE were rough on their equipment and gave zero feths about upkeeping it beyond making sure their limbs moved and their axes chopped, so the heavy weathering feels about right for them. With that said I'm not quite happy with how the weathering looks on the bronze and blue, so I need to fiddle with that a bit to find something I like. I am liking how the mud balances out the near uniform white of their lower body, making the models far less boring than they feel once I'm initially done painting.



I'm honestly turn on what to do next. I have some MKII for assault squads I should work on painting, and a few more despoilers... But I also got a big box of what is (hopefully) my last order for this army, so I'm looking forward to doing some building.

I'll probably focus on the painting so that my hobby space doesn't spread and take over the entire area I use, as I doubt that would go over well.

Been silent for longer than intended so wanted to break that with a smallish update. October is the second busiest month of the year for me work wise, and contains our busiest week of the year, so I haven't been keeping a great pace.

But I did find some time to do a little GS work for a couple of sergeants. Not much to write home on about this, I'm not too good at GS and have very little experience. But I'm looking forward to getting these painted, as I know they'll look a lot better with paint.





Otherwise, I put together a Leviathan and did some GS stuff with him too. This was definitely a bit more involved, and I quite like the intestine-string from the bisected corpse. These pictures are SLIGHTLY before it was finished, as the cabling isn't on and I still did a little more cutting down on the flashing.

They are coming along really nicely, and definitely fit the darker 30k aesthetic imo.

Fantastic bunch of World Eaters! Love the dirty blood splattered armour, very fitting for them.

W.I.P Wednesday?

So I haven't posted in this thread in quite awhile. Life's been busy with with and other responsibilities. That's not an excuse though because I've been quite busy; it's more so that I just... keep putting it off. Every time I've thought about posting, I've said "after this next step / squad / batch is done."

So let's get to it.



Painting table spoilered: On it are 80 assault marines, 20 despoilers, 20 inductii, and a handful of other models. The current batch I've been working on (since april). Not pictured are 19 rampagers, some more despoilers, and a10 man HSS squad with multi-meltas. ; so about 50 more models which are either ready for weathering or almost ready.

First up, the despoilers.



This was the first batch of MKII I got to tackle, which I'm hugely fond of. These are a slightly altered print, as I feel the gorgets are perfect for WE despoilers; they're expected to be very much in the thick of it, so they were given a little extra armor to hopefully keep them around for longer. This was also the first squad I tackled Power Lances for, and I'm very happy with how they came out.

Obviously these guys aren't done; they're ready for bloody-spatter and then mud, at which point they will be done. So a few more steps, but I wanted to stop putting this post off.

The sergeant for this squad (last model on the right of the last picture) is my favorite model I've made so far. I'm going to be painting him last because I want to try and put some extra detail into him.


Now for the assault marines.



I actually really like these guys. Given I had a lot of torsos without straps I used chains to make it clear they're still jump troops. An unnecessary, but really cool (imo) addition.. And also one that was a fething nightmare to paint. The chains are the worst part of any of these models, so it's a great thing I'm painting world eaters.

A few of these guys are missing jump packs, but that'll get solved very soon. Below is a smattering of jump troops. I won't be photoing the entire 80, as I'm not bloody insane.



Lastly, a glimpse at the inductii and rampagers.

In terms of the inductii, I wanted to distinguish them from standard despoilers in a lot of ways. As such they've been given heavy chainswords, which I feel would be a less desired weapon for the WE, so it's given to their chaff. Like-wise I have them all unhelmeted to help show their monstrousness, and they will be the only non HQ's in the entire army who do not wear helmets.



And finally the rampagers.

These guys got more color than most models, as they have some (almost invisible) blue on their torso to highlight their fancy chest plates. The swords are my take on Falax Blades, as I'm not fond of the piddly dual swords and have a serious obsession with chain weapons. They feel very WE. I'm not too worried about clarity given how they're held, but I also painted them blue to help further distinguish them.

The plan is to have 30 of the falax rampagers. I'm going to magnetize their backpacks as well, so they can switch between standard MK2 and jump packs depending on the list.



Hoping to have this massive batch of infantry done mid next month. At that point I'm hoping to transition to either terminators or dreadnoughts. The motorpool is coming along slowly when I want to stop doing infantry; so far the Fellblade is all built and painted, the Mastadon is well under way paint wise, and the first spartan is also close-ish to being done.

Great World Eaters! The big crowd of marines is quite intimidating

That’s an insane volume of world eaters! Must be the best part of the legion!

Looking real good, they are clearly World Eaters but not yet fully fallen.

Good work on these guys, looking very nice so far.

Very nice. The lack of critical melee weapon kits has been a real let down for AOD/HH2.0. I held out as long as I could for the kit but folded this week and ordered chain axes for some SoH Reavers. Keep it up!

Thank you for the kind words!

So far as the army goes, it's primarily meant to represent loyalists on Isstvan III. Outside of that there's some light head-canon about a crusade force sent off half-a-decade prior to said atrocity, which had the nails but weren't pleased with Angron, that returned right before Calth and decided they were all going to go on a suicide mission to try and kill their traitorous Primarch.

With that said, a smaller update this time.

I finished up the MKII despoilers, sergeant and vexilla bearer not withstanding.



So the lighting was a bit off this evening when I took the photos, and as a result I had to use phone flash. It makes them look a little washed out, but I do like how it brings out the different shades of blood; the dried darker vs the fresh gloss. I went heavier on the blood but I also tried to spread it out a bit, getting more onto the shoulders and such to make them look both bloodier but also more realistic. Like-wise these guys are far muddier than before, but I think it works out.

There are only 17 here, as I guess I forgot one when I was pulling them out of their big-ass foam tray they share with all the other non-jump infantry.



I also got the MM HSS done. There isn't much to say about this one, they are what they are. I tried to keep their blood MUCH lighter, to show that they're not nearly as in the thick of it as your standard WE, but that they're still not above smacking someone to death with their heavy weapons. In fact they probably prefer it.





I have the 80 assault marines all done (!) but I'm just not up for photographing them tonight. Hell, even the HSS I actually took pictures of almost a week ago. So instead, let's talk terminators.

I want to have a bunch of terminators for this army, and I also want them to be distinctly WE's. After a bit of soul searching I decided that the best way to convey the savageness of WE terminators - while not being butchers, as those are freaking awful - is to screw with their weapons.

And so I give you my first cataphractii, equipped with a thunder hammer.





I'm going out of town on Monday, so it'll probably be a good 2-3 weeks before I post again (it's an almost two week trip). So I might as well end on a bang and include the Fellblade I finished awhile ago.








Automatically Appended Next Post:

 rryannn wrote:
Very nice. The lack of critical melee weapon kits has been a real let down for AOD/HH2.0. I held out as long as I could for the kit but folded this week and ordered chain axes for some SoH Reavers. Keep it up!

I feel you. A majority of my stuff is 3d printed, and all of the GW stuff (aside from the original AoD boxes I got) is purchased second hand. There's just so many amazing prints out there to use.

Huzzah, back from vacation.

Not an actual progress update, but I managed to get my first game of 30k in yesterday. AFAIK no one around here plays, but I've a friend who lives in a town about an hour away who's interested. I put together a couple of lists and packed everything up so we could play a game, and he brought along his son so it could be a bit of learning all around.





We got War of Lies with Vanguard Strike deployment and I (WE) got first turn. The game was an extremely close WE victory, in the end coming down to my 1 wound dreadnought chasing down the 3 remaining breachers who still had two melta guns, but who whiffed their shots.

I'm really glad I finished building that melee dreadnought (my first contemptor) the day prior, as it was was definitely MVP, being the only thing that could handle the grave-warden road block that decimated both of my despoiler squads, and also coring their LR transport like an apple. If it'd taken a teeny bit more fire I probably would've lost.

Been a little bit, so time for an update on some WIP stuff.




First hand, Red Hand Destroyers.

Paint wise these guys obviously aren't done yet. In addition to weathering and some final cleanup / details, the transfers on them are still pretty poor. I'll be hitting them with Microsol over the next few days to take that issue off, after which point weathering them should be pretty fast.

Fun fact: This is one of the oldest units I've had to work on, as I began piecing them together right after the original 40 despoilers. However there've been some issues with sourcing parts and deciding exactly what I'm going to do.

The largest theme behind this project is momentum, meant to directly counter how so many WH models feel very static and stationary. I wanted the entire army to look like it's surging forwards, about to make contact with enemy lines. With most units this is easy, but when it comes to meteor hammers... It gets harder, because chains are hard. In the end I decided to cut corners by merging real jewelers chains with some 3rd party resin flails I clipped. Over-all I like the look, but the transition from one type of chain to another kinda bothers me. Fortunately it's not very noticeable from the table top distance, so I can deal with it.



Next up, some dreads.



Due to my inability to focus on a single project for too long (see thread title), I've spent the last few days banging out several contemptors; about one a day.

There's not toooooo much to say on these. Keeping with theme of surging forwards, I wanted my dreads to convey movement and closing to melee. In this regard I feel they've knocked it out of the park; with the only static one still making me quite happy (that one's an armless ebay snag which I turned into one of mine. The hand prints are mine though, doing some practice at something I'm terrible at. ).

It's been quite awhile since I've done magnetization so the magnets are a bit sloppy on these, but they work well enough. The models still require a bit of clean-up here and there, but the surfaces are smoother than the perceived flashing would suggest.



I've got four contemptors down, but in the end I'll be for six. I've made some progress on the base for the second to last one, and I'm particularly pleased with how it's coming along.

Small update today, to keep things regular.

I got the fancy-base contemptor done.





I think I miiiiiiiight have gone a little overboard with the tubing here, but I'd rather have it than not have it so no complaints. I also may put some chains on him for that WE flair, but other than that he's ready to be primed. I'm really looking forward to painting this guy.

His little buddy not so much, as I suck at painting skin.

Embarassingly, I was today-years-old when I discovered the "forum" link on gallery images, so I'm going to pick through this thread and use that everywhere; so that a single image doesn't take up multiple screens for any poor unfortunate soul that opens this thread.

Thats a pretty great conversion. Nice job!

The destroyers are looking great, their chain flails are very appropriate for world eaters. That dread is superb, love the guy screaming defiantly at him!

That base is fantaaastic, good job with the gs. Agree with the chains, will be a good addon.

Cheers all, thank you very much. Very glad the angry world eater pilot yelling into his death resonates.

The Red Hand Destroyers are looking good, the black and red is a nice palette cleanser from all the white and blue!

Awesome to see you getting a game in. That's what it's all about and so good to see the table full of the fruits of your labour! Hopefully it sparks something up and you get a few more in with your mate and his boy.

Echoing the love for that dread, a seriously impressive build. What a lovely centerpiece for the army he'll be all painted up.

Thanks for sharing, and for your beautiful voiceover work.

Hey this thread looks pretty abandoned.

So I haven't gotten much done this year. Fiance and I had our kid (a daughter) mid december, so I've been far too busy with learning to Dad to actually accomplish much in the model department.

But holy gak was I productive last year.



That center squad of 26 (ish) despoilers? Those are the first few posts I made on this blog back in 2023. Everything else was painted in 2024.

Everything.

Now obviously not everything's done. Many vehicles aren't done being weathered. A few sergeants are missing some details. Some jump groops don't have their jump packs. Five terminators need full weathering, and a lot of them need matte-varnish than ardcoat highlights on gore and mud to give it that fresh, wet look while protecting the model. But I'm still pretty proud.



I hope to post the various units I've gotten done over the next few months, to pass the time while we hopefully get the newborn off of being a newborn. Here's hoping I can be able to devote a LITTLE bit of time to painting here and there. Lord knows I need it, as I've still got soooo much to paint.

Now that is a productive 2024! Mighty impressive army you’ve put together. Congrats on the new arrival hopefully she’s not khornate and you get a bit of hobby in every now and then.

That chainwork really makes the army.... uhh... work. (Sorry can't find a better word right now).

What size is it? And how much do you think you used? Because it's effective as heck.

Excellent work.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
That chainwork really makes the army.... uhh... work. (Sorry can't find a better word right now).

What size is it? And how much do you think you used? Because it's effective as heck.

Excellent work.

Would you say it chains it all together?

I've used a variety of chains; originally I think I was using 1mm jewelers chains, but now I've normalized everything to 1.5mm (I can check this later) on account of them being more durable and 'readable'. They're a little oversized if you really get down to it, but I don't think it's very noticeable.

EDIT: I use 2mm chains apparently. I've thought about using some 3mm for vehicles and dreads, but haven't done it yet.

Small update today, as I've actually got more to post than I thought I would but don't have all my pictures and such uploaded.

And when I say small, I mean a Leviathan.







This is the first of my big dreads I've done. To warm up to it I did a couple of small boxnaughts, to get down a dark-metal color I liked (and have subsequently mixed a gak ton of) and also do some practice for for weathering it.

In the end I had this guy built in mid january, but finally tackled him in mid March. The absolute worst part of painting him was the spikes and the blue around them, as I had to block everything in for those sections and then it was incredibly tedious hunting all the spikes down while having to be careful to not then remove the paint by holding the damn thing. Most of them had white on the tips by the end, but I just covered it with a good amount of weathering, as is the norm for wold eaters. All in all it was a maybe 5 day process of 1-3 hours a night after the kiddo finally went to sleep, so not as bad as I thought it'd be!



I knew going into this that I wanted my leviathans to have at least the options for harpoon guns, as it's explicitly mentioned in Betrayal that world eaters outfitted their dreadnoughts with such brutal weapons. Even so I think I prefer the buzzsaw, as it's just so a gnarly addition to the model.

My favorite little detail is the "Kill, Kill, Kill" on the left chest area. I just wish my phone camera did justice to the model itself, as the camera is definitely a lot more grainy than I like for these little tiny bits.

Your gore effects are brutal! Love the GS spines, intestines etc. These World Eaters are having a fantastic afternoon out. The force as a whole looks like an orgy of violence and it's GREAT to see. Great theming, brilliantly realised.

 Tek wrote:
Your gore effects are brutal! Love the GS spines, intestines etc. These World Eaters are having a fantastic afternoon out. The force as a whole looks like an orgy of violence and it's GREAT to see. Great theming, brilliantly realised.

Thank you! I've always wanted to do a very gorey, corpse-heavy project ever since I got into the hobby, so it's great to hear that it scratches that itch for more than just myself.

And speaking of gore...

Doing the unthinkable and posting an update before a month or two has passed. Definitely on a roll here.

Around this time last year I accepted my fate; that this project was going to have enough of everything to run, quite literally, any list. Flyers and flying transports, drop pods, armor, dreads, and a literal mountain of infantry (though probably only 20 bolter boys). Part of saying 'feth it' and leaning into the madness was also deciding to make a set of HQ's for each type. Both terminator types, bikes, boarding shields, normal PA, and jump pack. And with a full spread of HQ's comes a full spread of command squads.

Which brings us to my Tartaros command squad and praetor.



These were, frankly, the the most fun models to assemble and paint. The flails were a big learning experience (which I've since gotten MUCH better at), and the bodies were a huge joy to piece together and create, then even more fun to actually paint and gore up.



Originally I was planning for every armor type to have a herald AND a banner bearer, but I've since decided to let the banner boys pull double duty. I figure worst case I can do a little bit of mixing and matching / terminator subbing, but even then I doubt it'll be necessary. I don't think I'm going to end up running a bunch of heralds at once, tbh.



Admittedly, all of the non-banner / preator models also double as unit leaders. Especially the lightning claws guys, who have frequently been called upon to lead a squad of legion terminators rather than be part of the command squad.



The praetor was especially fun to create, being far and away my goriest model to date (prior to the Leviathan, possibly). In the end I think I went a LITTLE too blood heavy with her. Not enough to ruin it, but I do wish I'd dialed it back a bit. Then again being covered from head to toe does kinda fit when you look at how many bodies are around, and that's not even including the scenic based.

The model itself is based on Tiberius from Tortuga Games. That's where the base and left arm is from, the rest are Voidwalker Exo parts, combined with a few odds and ends. Guts and such for all models is of course a mixture of greenstuff and uhu glue.

Moving onto projects that I'm actually working on, rather than touching base on those finished awhile ago.





I've been working on shooty dreads too. Not much to say about these ones; originally only the one on the right had a complicated base, but after putting the base together I decided to give them all what I affectionately refer to as their 'eternal war' bases. They're busier than most of the basing in my army will be, but I couldn't resist putting it all on their and then piling on a crapton of skulls.

The 'weapon core', as well as the missles, are magnetized. While these are the cores that're built currently I'm working on assembling - and magnetizing - three of each deredeo option. So I've got a ton of painting ahead of me for these guys, which I'll almost certainly never all of in a game.