Long time readers will recognize this guy from my first avatar here on Dakka, although I used a crappier picture. Looking at him now, I know I could do a much better job, but at the time I was quite proud of him. And he still holds up OK. Ultra-zoom is not kind to him. He also holds a special place as one of the early RT officers, the Lt. Commander, a rank no longer in use. Basically second in command of the chapter. He was also the first specific model outside of RTB01 marines allocated to my Ultramarines. Before him all metal minis were Blood Angels.

If you thought this was just going to be old stuff, sorry, some new things will show up that I’m proud of. Also, not everything may be mine. OK, just this one.
The Boy has been painting for a bit now. This is not his first work, his last, or even what he considers his best. But it is the one he is most proud of. He really like the way he got the pose, and how the paint came out. After I took the pictures and did the collage, he sent it to his grandfather, who at first didn’t believe that he was the one who painted it, it looked so good. (As an aside, I’m always shocked at how impressed non-painters are with even table-top level paintjobs). It is also his first entry into the painting comp. I think he might try again this month, but first he needs to find where the cats have hidden his black paint.

Nevelon the Betrayer, Vampire Lord.
The theme of my Undead army was (is?) undead bretonians. They were almost always led into battle by Nev here, normally a stock vampire lord, but sometimes a special character, the Red Duke. His normal gear was something for an invuln, the crown of command, carstein ring, and a cheep magic sword, normally a +1 to hit one. The named character let him wear armor and still cast spells, but locked him into an expensive +3A sword. He cut a bloody swath through the old world (and the FLGSs in the area) leading the Wights of the Relm, a solid block of mounted wights. They might not have dome a whole lot of damage as backup, but could soak wounds like nobody’s business. Nev was the blender. I’d take the charge, hold, and then cut my way out. There were very few things that could stand toe-to-toe with a tricked out vampire lord, and fewer who could manage to kill him two times. Bretonians, the cheese shaped power army at the time, were especially vulnerable. They needed to kill you on the charge, and had a one shot magic item (tress of isulde (sp?)) that let their general do massive spike damage. But the wights could take the squads’s hit, and while Nev might get staked once by their general, the Ring let me stand back up. After that the bretonian was just a bloodbag on a pony.
Nevelon was based (loosely) on a character I played in a Rolemaster campaign. The premise was that all the players had sold our souls to a demon, and banded together to try to get them back. I played a fallen Paladin, who sold his soul to be the finest knight in my order. The demon arranged to have the whole order wiped out, so by default I was the best. I also got some magic items and a shapeshifting nightmare as a companion. Bum deal, but a fun fall/redemption story. No vampirism in the game, but I worked a number of the characters from that campaign into my undead and chaos armies.

The Falcon. I own two, but this is the first, both date from late 2nd edition. Not the first eldar I own. I’ve got a selection of RT lead that were used when we played it more like an RPG to flesh out the rouge’s gallery. But the Falcon is the first model for my eldar army. I’ve always been a big fan of hover tanks/grav armor, and the flacon really is a prime example of one. Sleek, tough, deadly, elegant. Despite the kit being ancient at this point, it still holds up as a model. Shame the rules had played second fiddle to the wave serpent for pretty much it’s entire life.
I painted this in my “black wash EVERYTHING” days, and it shows. I prefer the cleaner look of my modern eldar. But I’m in no rush to go back and re-do it.

Bonus fun fact: the first WD on the shelf is the one where it released.

On the back of the RT painting guide there were some blank banners that you could photocopy and paint. That same book also listed the Ultras as the 3rd chapter of the 1st founding. Lore hadn’t settled in to what we know today quite yet. This is the reason when it came time to reach for fielding a full battle company I went with the 3rd. That path started sometime mid 3rd edition. While I could claim to have had a finsihed company for a while, I was counting things like landspeeder pilots and a chunk of the assault marines were stuck on bikes, rather than their iconic jump packs. It was only in recent years, chronicled in this blog, that I finished it to an acceptable level.
Banner pole is a clipped bit of coat hanger. We work with what we have. Battle damage might technically be my first attempt at “weathering” if you can call it that. Not that it shows, but the red is testor's gloss enamel, which I still occasionally used for spot details even after I switched to acrylics. Might also be the first proto-squiggles I attempted. He’s got tactical squad markings on his shoulder, no idea why.