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just a quick look at what's on my desk:



the baggies are models that I've finished cleaning and prepping all the parts for (minus some greenstuff work, which I'll do all at once later). 4 down, 2 to go. I might even manage to start base coating before the end of the month!

Pretty pretty drop pod... Looks great! Can't wait to see those bikes done!

Any progress to report?

as a matter of fact, yes! got my biker captain and command squad done just the other day. everything's all packed up for my move, though, so probably won't have a chance to take photos for at least a week. will post some up once I get settled. thanks for checking

I look forward to seeing them

ok, finally unpacked in the new apartment and I've had a chance to photograph the bikes:



and here's a larger head-on shot:



all the arms that stick out are magnetized at the shoulder, as are the two storm shields, for easier transport. I've also put magnets into the tail of each bike so I can stick on things like plasma/melta guns or melta bombs. there was a fair bit of conversion on each of these guys, which made assembly a very slow process. I also spent an absurd amount of time cleaning up the wheels so that you wouldn't see the join line between the two halves of each tire that seems to be so common. *shudder*

pretty happy with them overall. they look sexy on the table. unfortunately, so far they've been an embarrassment in terms of performance. I've fielded them twice now. in each game I've lost one bike to terrain (3+ armor and 5+ feel no pain and he still kills himself driving over some pebbles ). they've won both combats I've managed to get them into, but it was far from a crushing victory each time. I'd originally hoped these guys would be my close combat beatstick, but I just don't think marines have that in them. for 500 points, I expected more... I'll try them for a few more games before I start to proxy them with all plasma or something. here's hoping the new codex breathes a bit of life into the command squad

project for next month is a predator. fully magnetized, naturally!

predator complete:



this was a fun model. it actually went together a lot faster than I'd expected. all weapons, turrets, and hatches are magnetized so I can swap them in and out as needed. all the guns retain their full articulation, so I can point them any direction I want. I opted not to paint the inside of this one, even though I may field it as a rhino every now and again. I felt like the return on investment just wasnt there, since I never look at the inside of the other two rhinos I painted. as a result, painting went super fast. pretty happy with this guy and I desperately needed the heavy support unit in my list

next up, I'll be painting more heavy weapon marines. two heavy bolter marines and 2 more plasma cannon marines, I think. I'm looking over various list options now that the new codex is out, but I'm really torn on what I should run. at the moment, I'm leaning towards adding a lot of bikes to my army for grav and melta along with vulkan. I made the mistake of buying a box of centurions when I picked up the new codex, but unless their cost gets faq'd I can't imagine ever running them :(

Haha heavy support is also something I lack. Glad to see that magnetizing is too complex, it's something I've been meaning to try.
Pred/Rhino looks ace love the crisp paint job

cheers nash. I appreciate the kind words should have some heavy weapon marines done by the end of the week. pics to come!

They're looking awesome! It's good to see Salamanders getting some attention - they often seem to be forgotten by people. Great work - I'll be keeping an eye on these

 Warpig1815 wrote:
They're looking awesome! It's good to see Salamanders getting some attention - they often seem to be forgotten by people. Great work - I'll be keeping an eye on these

I think they'll be getting a lot more with the new codex. especially for folks that want to run drop pod lists, sallies got some great buffs even without vulkan. 5 assault marines in a drop pod with 2 TL flamers for less than 100 points? yes, please. can't wait to try out LotD with vulkan. who needs sternguard? :p

Whoops... there doesn't seem to be anything here.

@varl - I wouldn't know too much about the gaming side of 40K - I just prefer the P&M side of it. That said, I'd love to see the Salamanders get a spin-off range of models - be it in the style of the Black Templar upgrade packs or a direct individual codex and the army that accompanies that - ala the recent Dark Angels release. But that's not gonna happen anytime soon (Especially considering that they have a limited edition codex for themselves). Guess I'll just wait until FW release Salamanders stuff

@sillycybin: I prime with vallejo's gray primer and then base coat with vallejo's goblin green, both with an airbrush. edge highlights are done with a 3:1 mix of white to goblin green and a bit of retarder (not necessary, but makes it a bit easier). I'm experimenting with a two-stage edge highlight now where I do all edges in a less bright mix of white & green (1:1ish) and then just do the upper edges that would catch light in the 3:1 mix. don't think I have any photos up of that, though.

@warpig: yeah, not much on offer for that. FW has a pretty sweet dread and there are some good shoulderpad options from GW. chapterhouse has a few nice bits as well (great storm shields). sadly, I doubt we'll be seeing a full salamanders line anytime soon.

@varl - Sooner than you'd think. It's HH mind you, but with the release of the new HH book Massacre there should be the release of Firedrake Terminators (Rumoured to be the only HH unit with Storm Shields) and Pyroclasts - a unit with advanced Flamer tech. Sounds good, but I don't know when they will be released. Presumably sometime between now and Christmas. I'm itching to see them, but I don't think they turned up at UK GD so...

oooo... well, damn. that might require some purchasing if that ever comes to be...

Start saving your pennies then (Or more likely cents ). I imagine that if October is going to be the Iron Hands and possibly Word Bearers month (Maybe with some Emperor's Children thrown in), then November will most likely see Salamanders and Night Lords. Of course that's not taking into account the Death Guard and World Eaters stuff that was being shown at UK GD. All I know for certain is that it is coming soon.

uh oh... I also happen to collect night lords. this could get spendy...

Hehehe, join the club then - my wallet is already weeping. I'll have to check out your Night Lords as I was going to do a contingent of them myself a while back, but I put it off in favour of more Salamanders.

they're on hold for a bit until I get my salamanders army up to a fully painted 2k list I'm happy with. the catch is that I keep changing my list, so I end up having to paint new models in a never ending cycle :p some day I'll get back to my NL, though.

it's always a tough choice for me between sticking with earlier painting styles to maintain consistency in my army or applying things I've learned along the way and ending up with parts of my force looking way better than other parts. I've been erring on the side of consistency for the most part. the work I did on my NL let me push things up a notch since I didn't have any early work I had to match definitely a slower process, though. all those lightning bolts...

I have to admit - they do look awesome. May I have permission to nick that scheme when I get round to doing my own NL?

My own experience of painting Salamanders is to try and push myself to do more advanced techniques, but I have a limited budget to spend on 40K so I'm loath to try techniques that I'll muck up. I think I really need to get an airbrush as a large part of my 40K spending goes on spray cans alone. An airbrush would massively cut down on primer costs.

by all means, have at it. I claim rights to nothing in this hobby

I hear you on being afraid to mess stuff up. it's definitely slowing me down in terms of getting more comfortable with the airbrush. I know I'm only scratching the surface of what I could do with it, but the thought of having to strip a mostly-painted model and start over makes me very conservative. I need to just suck it up and try stuff or I'll never move my painting game forward

Easier said than done though, isn't it. I'm pretty much terrified to take a stab at wet blending even though I could do with being able to do it for Lava bases.

 Warpig1815 wrote:
Easier said than done though, isn't it. I'm pretty much terrified to take a stab at wet blending even though I could do with being able to do it for Lava bases.

a couple things that might help with that:

- practice on the backs of plastic spoons. prime them up like you would any other model and they make great test beds for colors and techniques. and if you mess it up, recycle it and grab another out of your 200 count box :p

- try it with oil paints. they stay workable for hours instead of seconds, so you can focus more on the actual blending instead of racing to beat the clock before both colors dry on you. just have to remember to seal the end result with a bit of varnish before moving on

Well that's food for thought! Thanks a bunch - guess I will be having a go at it sometime soon

got two more plasma cannon and three heavy bolter marines done, to round out heavy weapon options for a few squads:





nothing ground breaking here, but I'm definitely getting faster at painting these guys. it's nice to feel some improvement in that arena

next on the list is a squad of fully magnetized centurions. I only plan to run them as a dev squad, but since every single possible bit of wargear for these guys comes in the box I figured I'd just magnetize it all.

Yet more smooth paintjobs! Love them

cheers, mate. slaving away on the centurions right now. so many freakin' tiny magnets... I think each model's going to end up using 26 magnets in the end, but damn if those things won't be configurable!

just in time for the end of the year, I've finally sat down and taken some photos of what I've worked on recently. it's been a fairly busy time for hobbying; I've just been a slacker about documenting it all. without further ado, here's what I finished up in 2013 (in order of completion):

Devastator Centurions



these guys were fairly simple to paint, but a royal pain in the ass to prep because I magnetized *everything*. 18 magnets per model and that's not even counting the assault loadout, which I didn't bother to paint up (I mean, really...). they look dead sexy on the table top, though.

Legion of the Damned



I'm running vulkan in my list these days, and what goes better with vulkan then deep-striking, relentless, master-crafted triple melta-squads that ignore cover and have a 3+ invuln? mmm, melta. these guys were built from the new tactical marine box (and a spare MM I had in my bits box). I hate finecast, so while I do love the LotD sculpts it wasn't going to happen. I had fun painting these guys; great departure from painting green. got a bit more comfortable painting flames as a result of these guys. I'll be doing a second unit in the near future.

Vulkan He'stan



speaking of vulkan, here's the man himself! I hadn't intended to pick up this model, because finecast and I really don't get along. my original plan was to do my own conversion so I could change up the position of the spear and such. however, while browsing the racks at my FLGS last month, I came across this model. apparently the store had special-ordered it for another customer, but the guy never came in to pick it up. I figured it was a sign, so pushed aside my distaste of finecast and picked it up. painting him up didn't take as long as I'd expected it to. I used buypainted's video for color inspiration in several spots. I'm glad I have the model and I think he came out well, but ugh... finecast.

and just for fun, here's a full army shot I took the day after christmas as I was setting up for a 2900 point game. this is every salamanders model I currently own (rhino at the bottom is the magnetized predator), minus a couple of spare heavy weapon marines and a terminator captain. even better, the imperium was triumphant that day!



I'm very close to where I want to be with this army. currently, I'm painting up a few spare marines to sub into existing squads now that I don't always bring a heavy weapon. I have another stormtalon and 5-man LotD squad to do and I'm considering a thunderfire cannon (ugh, damn you finecast!). I may add an inquisitor, some servo skulls and a 3-bike squad over the next few months, but I plan to spend most of the year working on my long-neglected night lords army.

happy new year and thanks for visiting!

Truly inspiring, bravo sir