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I've finally started getting some paint down again. The guys from my first box of Devastators are very nearly done, with just the shoulder symbols and the sergeant's skin to finish, plus some cleanup:

Of course technically when I play these models will be part of two separate Devastator squads, with Lascannons in one and Grav-cannons in the other.

I've also finished the final squad of infantry for my Battle Company, an Assault Squad:

Now I just need to put some vehicles together. The Drop Pods will be tricky, requiring a lot of painting in subassemblies before I stick them together. I have started assembling the final Razorback, though.

Hopefully I'll have more to show soon!

Good stuff! Nice to see you pumping out another squad. I've not experienced drop pod hell before, so I can't attest to it. But good luck with that!

Inspirational stuff! Should I start rebasing my own Dark Angels perhaps...?

@Justaerin: Thanks!

@Azazelx: I'd love to see what you can do with the Sons of the Lion, so go for it!

Small update today. The Devastators have gotten their shoulder symbols painted, albeit crudely. I'll post a new photo of them when I clean the symbols up a bit. I'm trying to find the right paint consistency for this kind of delicate freehand work. Too often I end up with the paint being a bit thick, and then after I thin it out it ends up too thin and wants to run everywhere. I'll get it figured out. Soon, I hope, as I've got plenty of them to do in the next few months.

I just assembled a box of Chaos Possessed, but not the current ones, from that lot I got from my friend recently:

These are the old-school metal ones, probably dating back to 2nd or 3rd edition. I know the current plastic one is not exactly new. These old metal models are going to be fun to paint and play with. I love the feel of solid metal models.

Ooo they're cool possessed.

EDC

@EDC: Thanks! While I think the newer Possessed kit is way better, the metal guys have a character all their own, which should make them entertaining to paint and play.

Sorry for taking so long getting another update. RL has been pretty crazy of late. I've finished the Devastators' shoulder symbols, so all that's left to do on them is some lens effects on the Lascannon optics and Grav-amps, and the bases. Here's a pic showing the right shoulders:


In the meantime, I've started putting some paint on the Command Squad. Only problem is I went and started with the wrong parts. I should have started with the robes and then painted the green armor. Oh well, live and learn. Now I'll have to clean up the armor. Here's a WIP shot of them:

I've also noticed some ugly mold lines on some of the cowls that I thought I had taken care of. Maybe I'd better take care of those before I continue. The next step will be to add a layer of Ushabti Bone to the robes to make them really stand out.

In other news, my FLGS recently had what they call their "Spring Market Day" where people could come in and buy and sell their old wargaming stuff. I managed to score some nice stuff. From one seller (who happens to be the owner of that FLGS), I got these:

I think those Stormtroopers are probably from 2nd edition, possibly 3rd. The metal miniature is a limited-edition Space Marine Captain from 1999 (holding a Power Axe and Combi-melta). I paid only $5 for each item, which was good. The Stormtroopers will make good Inquisition Acolytes, and the Captain may become a Librarian with a Force Axe.

The big score for me was this big lot of Chaos stuff, though:

The lot included 2 complete 10-man squads of Chaos Cultists including leaders and flamers, a 10-man squad of Black Legion-painted Chaos Space Marines with 2 Plasmaguns, a 5-man squad of Black Legion Havocs with 3 Autocannons and a Lascannon, a converted kitbashed Chaos Lord on foot with a storm bolter and power fist, some kind of metal cultist...thing that looks like a minotaur or something and holding a flamer, 3 Chaos Bikers, 2 Dark Vengeance Helbrutes (one painted, one bare plastic), a Forgefiend with Hades Autocannons (missing his base), and two Chaos Land Raiders (one painted, one primed black). In addition, there is a bag of cultists that are missing arms, a bag of various Chaos bits (including Daemon Prince bits, Daemonette arms, some CSM heads, and a bunch of other stuff), some old Chaos decal sheets, and some sprues with leftover bits from a Daemon Prince and a Maulerfiend (probably the Maulerfiend bits left over from building that Forgefiend). The two Land Raiders are in pretty rough shape, with some missing parts and a lot of broken spikes, but I should be able to source replacement parts easily enough. The painted models are not particularly well painted, but honestly they aren't terrible either, so I'll leave them be for now as I have a lot of other stuff to paint. The bikers are great, as they aren't holding special weapons. This means I can use them to bulk out my Chaos bike squads instead of having to form a new squad. I calculated up the points and it came out to a little over 1400 points worth of models. I only had to pay $50 for all this. Probably the best deal I've ever made for 40k stuff.

I hope to have more to show soon!

The Dark Angels are looking good. I always liked those robed guys. Also, that's a magnificent haul for very little money. Well done!

Dark Angel's are looking good.

Some nice scores in that haul!

EDC

Awesome stuff mate - a great haul! The Devastators and DA Vets look good. The Devastators' badges have come up well.

@Josh: Thanks very much, the guys with robes are my favorite too! Those models make it easy to tell which guys are the veterans, certainly.

@EDC: Thanks!

@Azazelx: Thanks! I'm glad you think the symbols turned out good. They certainly took more work than they probably should have.

Nothing to report on the painting front as yet, but I've gotten another squad of plastic Possessed built, which brings me to 3 squads total (2 plastic, one metal). This is enough to run the Favored of Chaos formation from Traitor Legions. I had to get kind of creative with these new Possessed, as I only had one of the two sprues from the kit to work with (it was the one from that lot I got from a friend about a month ago). As a result, I actually reallocated some models between squads, so these pics will reflect that. Here they are:
Squad 1:

Squad 2:

I was lucky that I was able to scrounge up some backpacks without having to sacrifice building a model from other kits. I had just enough backpacks left over in two CSM kits, and I had not used either of the two winged backpacks from my first box of Possessed that I bought way back when I started my Daemonkin army. I split up the models so that each squad would have a winged model; this will make it much easier to tell who the unit champion is. Thanks to that big lot of Chaos stuff, I acquired a few extra Possessed arms. This really saved my bacon. I still ended up taking one claw arm from a Raptors/Warp Talons kit, as well as one Warp Talon head from that kit. I actually like how the kitbashes turned out; no one else has Possessed that look exactly like mine now!

I also kitbashed a Chaos Lord with a Jump Pack in order to run the Raptor Talon formation from Traitor Legions:

I used bits from the Chaos Space Marines (head, body, legs, decorations, shoulder pads), Raptors/Warp Talons (Power Fist, Lightning Claw) and Space Marine Assault Squad (Jump Pack) kits. I added a couple of trophies from that bag of bits in the big Chaos lot as well, as there were some Dark Eldar heads as well as Space Marine ones in there. I just love kitbashing miniatures! This one saved me having to buy the Failcast Jump Chaos Lord from GW, which I really don't like.

I'm back. I haven't made much progress, but I have gotten a couple more colors onto my Command Squad:

The robes are basically done as far as basecoating is concerned, although the sashes still need some paint and one guy has a Dark Angels symbol on his chest that will be done before shading. The Ushabti Bone really helps make the robes contrast with the dark green armor, so I'm glad I decided to do it. I also painted the basecoat for the white symbols and a bunch of areas on the Apothecary in Celestra Gray. I probably will shade before I brighten up these areas with Ulthuan Gray. Still lots to do on these guys, but I intend to finish them by the middle of next month for a tournament.

In other Battle Company news, I've gotten one of my four new Drop Pods assembled (into subassemblies, anyway) and primed, so I should be able to start painting it anytime. I really need to get on that, as I've got four of those pods to do!

In other news other than my Battle Company, I played in an ITC tournament last weekend using my Tau. I went 1-2, which is not great, but I had some tough opponents for the two games I lost (one was running Magnus, the other a huge Genestealer Cult horde with many, many models). I had some store credit at that FLGS left from the previous month's tournament (where I won the random door prize), so I bought a box of Khorne Berzerkers to use with my CSM and KDK armies. Now I can try out the Hounds of Abaddon from Traitor Legions. Here's a pic of them all assembled:

They are cool looking, but the kit is a real PITA to work with. Some of the poses look kind of awkward despite my best efforts. This is one plastic kit that GW desperately needs to replace with an updated version. I assembled mine straight from the box, which means a mix of chainswords and chainaxes, but since it's never worth it to pay points for chainaxes, I'm just going to invoke rule of cool and say everyone has a regular CCW and some of them just look more badass than others (I do love the chainaxe models!). Since I may never run these guys in a competitive game, it probably won't ever be a problem.

I hope to have more to show soon. RL has been tough, but that's the same old excuse, isn't it? I have made some changes in my lifestyle habits, such as going to the gym regularly (I really need to lose some weight) and eating less, so we'll see if that affects how much I paint. Hopefully as I get healthier I have more energy and can get more done. Wish me luck!

Time for another update, I think. I've made progress on that Drop Pod that I primed the other day. In fact, it is nearly done, at least the bottom half is. Some work to do yet on the top half, but it's coming. Here's the latest WIP on the bottom:

Still some cleanup to do, and I intend to put some decals on the outside of the doors, but this subassembly is mostly finished. The hazard stripes on the doors look hard to do, but aren't really once you have a good method. I used a guy's method found here. They do take some time, though. No pic of the top part yet, as it has a lot more to be done.

I've also assembled my box of Pink Horrors of Tzeentch:

These little guys weren't too hard to assemble, and had a lot less mold lines compared to the Bloodletters of Khorne kit. These will be the last Daemons that I'll assemble, and I won't buy any more, until after 8th edition drops, as I won't know how Daemons stand until then.

More to come soon, including final pics of those Devastators that have continued to elude my paintbrush all this time (this time they're really done, I promise!).

Wow, quiet in here, huh? Guess it would help if I had some real progress to show...oh wait, today I do! As promised, here are the final pics of my Devastators, finally finished after over a year in painting limbo:



I honestly don't know why I left these guys sitting on my painting bench unfinished for so long. They are very cool models. I'm just glad I have them done and can now stop worrying about them. The paintwork is far from perfect, but ultimately at the end I was just trying to get them finished, so I'm not too worried about it. They are tabletop standard, which is fine for me.

For the May painting challenge, I've begun painting my Tau Hammerhead tank. Here's a WIP shot:

Fortunately this thing breaks down into nice subassemblies for painting. The hardest part may in fact be the Longstrike figure, as it is fairly detailed. I haven't completely finished the blue, as I had to wait with the underside of the tank so that I could hold it while I painted. I also need to touch up a few areas that my big tank brush was too clumsy for. Shouldn't be too hard, though.

With the upcoming release of 8th edition 40k, it looks as if the current formations and detachments are going the way of the dodo. So I won't be mainly focusing on my Dark Angels Battle Company anymore. A pity that these models will only see one tournament together as one army. Of course it may still come in handy to have all these models, so I'm not too sad, just disappointed that 7th didn't last a little bit longer so I could play around with my Lion's Blade more. At least I'll be able to say I tried it. I will still attempt to finish my WIP Drop Pod and Command Squad in time for the tournament. My yearly model count really needs me to do that, as my numbers are looking pretty sad for 4 month into 2017.

Feel free to vote for my Devastators in the Dakka Gallery, and keep watching this blog for more progress updates!

Nice work on the DA. Your freehand work looks great.

I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with the Tau. I sold off all of mine a couple of years ago, and I regret doing so to this day.

Nice updates dude (not sure how I missed the first one).

I feel your pain relief the droppod as i'my currently buildings and painting one of those suckas. Mine doesn't have fancy hazard stripes though.

Lovely work on the Dev Squad. Judging by the profile for Lascannons in 8th they'Lloyd see plenty of table time, you you needn't worry too much.

EDC

Nice work mate. I like the effect on the Lascannon lenses. Chainaxe issues may be a thong of the past with 8th coming out (hopefully), and remember, you can always use loyalist bits like backpacks on your CSM!

And thus an era comes to a close, as the Dev squad escapes from paint desk limbo and reaches completion. And what an excellent work they are! I've stayed away from Drop pods in my army, going with rhinos instead. Though I suppose we all bite that bullet sooner or later.
As for the tau, I'm still lovin' the blue you've gone with for them. The Hammerhead is probably one of my favorites from the entire range, behind the ghostkeel and broadside. I look forward to this big gun sitting alongside the rest!

@Josh: Thanks, I'm glad you like it. As for the Tau, I'm going to stick to my usual paint scheme, with the same blue camo as I used on my Piranha last year.

@EDC: Thanks! The stripes took some time, but weren't as hard as they might look. I am pretty hopeful after seeing some of the previews of 8th edition that all the weapons will be good. Fingers crossed!

@ Azazelx: Thanks! I'm pretty happy with how the lenses turned out too as I've been working on making them look good on my models. On Chainaxes, I just built the models with the weapons that came in the kit, no rhyme or reason beyond that. They do look cool, though!

@Justaerin: It is kind of the end of an era, isn't it? I only went with Drop Pods like this because I got a good deal from a friend. Otherwise I wouldn't be using so many. I'm glad you like how the Devs turned out; I worked hard on them, so thanks! As for the Tau, I too am a big fan of the Hammerhead, and hope fervently that it gets a boost in 8th edition.

I've worked a little bit more on the Drop Pod, so here's a WIP shot:

I need to finish the metals, after which I'll be ready to add some shades. Drop Pods aren't too fiddly in terms of small details to pick out, but there are a LOT of surfaces to paint.

I recenly picked up a couple of things on eBay. One of them was this metal Daemon Prince model:

This is the metal version of the Finecast prince from GW. He's missing a few parts, mainly his head and right hand, but the seller did include a bunch of still-on-sprue plastic Daemon Prince parts, including a pair of wings, so I can definitely make a Prince out of this.

I also got this lot for my budding WarmaHordes Circle Orboros army:

The lot included the current Circle starter (with Tanith, a Pureblood Warpwolf, a Gorax Rager, and an Argus) as well as a Circle Orboros token set and the 2016 Circle Faction Deck. Not a bad haul for 30 dollars!

That's all for now, I hope to have more to show soon!

I don't even play Chaos and just for painting purposes I need a Daemon Prince solely for painting purposes. Likin' the green you've chosen for your hordes minis as well, very rich and forest-like.

Believe it or not, that green is not paint, the models are molded in green plastic. I probably won't get around to actually painting those models for a while.

Nice progress.

Have you ever tried washes for faces? It’s a simple step that can add a lot to the mini. I didn’t bother for years, but once I started I don’t think I could go back. Just looking at your dev sarge, it’s a step that I think could add a lot.

I could be wrong (and apologize if I am) but the face looks like a flat coat of paint, with the shadows being from the lighting.

I love washes. It’s like 90% of the work for 10% of the effort. Almost every part of every mini I do gets at least one.

Drop Pods can go die in a fire. So much hate for those things. Love them on the table though.

I’m hoping that 8th does good things for Tau tanks. Just so I see more out there. Back when the army first released I was a hair’s breadth from collecting them, simply because of the hammerhead. But my weakness to hovertanks is well known. I’d love to see them edge out suits in Tau armies. Or at least be a viable choice.

@Nevelon: I actually did use a wash of Reikland Fleshshade on the sergeant's face. The shadows you see are from that shade. Maybe I should add more? I do admit it looks flatter in these pics than it does in person, so maybe my photography skills are still lacking. I also highlighted the brow and nose with lighter flesh color (Kislev Flesh). Doesn't really show in the pic either.

 ZergSmasher wrote:
@Nevelon: I actually did use a wash of Reikland Fleshshade on the sergeant's face. The shadows you see are from that shade. Maybe I should add more? I do admit it looks flatter in these pics than it does in person, so maybe my photography skills are still lacking. I also highlighted the brow and nose with lighter flesh color (Kislev Flesh). Doesn't really show in the pic either.

Subtle shades are often washed out by the camera. If it looks good in person, that’s what maters. But I might try to get the darks a little deeper and the highlights a little brighter on the next guy, see how it looks.

@Nevelon: Thanks for the advice, I'll give it a shot on the next guy. I've got plenty more bare headed Space Marine sergeants to do.

Not much of an update this time around, but keeping this blog updated helps me make progress. I've gotten the rest of the Genestealers from the Lost Patrol boxed game put together. Those were the last models that needed to be assembled from that game, so here's a pic of all the models:

These are low priority for painting right now. Lots of other things need paint first.

Sadly, disaster has struck. It seems that due to a high number of people at my workplace needing this Saturday off, I will be forced to work instead of playing in the 40k ITC tournament that day. Which means I will never get to run a Battle Company list in a tournament since that detachment will be gone when 8th edition drops. The reason I have to work is that the high schools in my hometown are having their graduation ceremonies this Saturday, and many of my coworkers are either graduating themselves or have kids who are (I work at a store). Oh well, maybe I'll be able to get a game with the Battle Company against a friend or something. Since I no longer have any reason to rush the Battle Company, I may switch and paint other things. I really wasn't getting much painting done anyway, but this has really let the wind out of my sails.

Hopefully I can rally and get excited about painting again soon. I do want to paint that Tau Hammerhead for the monthly painting comp, at least.

Aw man that's terrible news. I hope you get to play with the battle company at some point .

Looking forward to seeing what you do with the deamon prince, incidentally I just picked that model up, the fine cast version.

Nice job getting all the Lost Patrol built, it'seems a great (if slightly frustrating) little game.

EDC

@EDC: I'll live, don't worry. With the spoilers for 8th edition it looks like at least the models will be decently good anyway, so I really haven't lost much. As for Lost Patrol, reading the rules it seems like the Scouts have a very uphill battle. I do have a couple of issues of White Dwarf with extra rules that should help them out some. I look forward to playing it with my friends at some point.

I've been working on my Tau Hammerhead some more. I've got it completely basecoated now:

Next step will be to add the camo pattern, similar to the Piranha I did last year. I was happy with how that vehicle turned out, so we'll see if that camo scheme translates well on a larger vehicle. After that, it'll be on to shades and highlights. At some point I also need to paint the Sky Ray turret so that the model will be truly complete, but one step at a time for now.

The Longstrike figure for the turret has been started, but I haven't made a whole lot of progress so no pics as yet. Hopefully I can get him done quick so he's ready to command this tank.

I am strongly considering playing Tau in a tournament in a couple of weeks. The tournament format is aimed at being less competitive, so I won't be running my Stormsurge or anything like that. I do hope to get some more stuff painted for that tournament, so I may be painting some more Tau in the next couple of weeks if I don't wear myself out at work. Wish me luck!

Good luck! You should do well with the Tau. From my experience even soft Tau lists are pretty strong!

Really Lost Patrol. Yeah it's awfully balance against the Scouts, still a good laugh though.

EDC

Looks good. I really like that blue.

@EDC: Thanks for the vote of confidence!

@Josh: Thank you, I couldn't be happier with any other color. Really glad that my color choice has panned out so well and people like it.

More progress! I've gotten the camo pattern applied to the Hammerhead:

It's crude, but to me it works. It breaks up the outline of the tank, which is the primary function of camouflage after all. Now I need to shade all the panel lines and stuff. After that all I need are the details like some symbols and stuff.

I've also gotten Longstrike himself completely basecoated:

He will also need shades and highlights, but he's otherwise done.

Hopefully I can finish this thing by Sunday at the latest. That way I'll have time to bash out some Crisis suits or something next week.

Nice work there on the Hammerhead and the commander for it. I picked up LP awhile ago but haven't done anything at all with it yet. That's the trouble with these GW boardgames, needing to assemble and paint the minis to actually play them.