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Hi there,

I've recently got back into 40k and I've decided to play it safe and kick off with Space Marines. I was going to do an Imperial Fists army because I liked the yellow colour scheme but then I wanted to write my own fluff and the Ferrus Fists (a founding of the Iron Hands Chapter) is what came out.

You can read the fluff on my chapter here.

I've entered myself into a 1750pt tournament at the end of October so I have a nice little deadline to work to. As such I'm on a schedule and I'm going to get everything to a reasonable tabletop quality as quickly as possible and then try and go back and make things sexier where necessary. The List I'm building towards is here, it's the third post down, I've decided not to go with a TFC this time.

I'm not a great painter so I hope you'll take a look and give me advice where you can and with any luck you'll see my kung-fu improve as this goes along.

Anyway, here's some images of where I am at the moment:

Thin ya' Paints mon!

But really, do thin em' down for your infantry. And if you're doing them with yellows and reds as their primary colors, you should be undercoating with white, not black. You go with black primer and you're going to be using far too much yellow to get a good result anyway, so buy some white next time you're out on a supply run (Or ASAP, whichever works best for you). You'll see a big improvement in quantity and quality of paint used on the mini.

I do like the color scheme though. Very "Imperial Fists"-ish. Did you use Devlan Mud? The shading came out well.

Other than the thick paint on the marine, these guys look pretty good. It's not like they're for display only anyway. You're going to be using them, just as ya' should

For sure! The tac marine does look like he's been blobbed doesn't he! I thin my paints much more now but I'm still working on getting the consistency ... consistent! If anyone's got any tips on this I'm all ears.

I've been painting over black primer with Iyanden Darksun which seems to cover well but does require a couple of coats. I'll probably stick with a black base for the Dreads so I can quickly drybrush the metal parts at the start but I have a new Tac squad to paint so I'll deffo try out white primer on those!

Shading is with Gryphonne Sepia, I find the consisency of the wash OK but it does have a tendancy to pool on some of the flat surfaces and not run into all the cracks. Again any tips on this would be fantastic.

Thanks for taking the time to comment.

Use an eyedropper for adding water. You'll get a nice, measured amount that way and it'll keep it pretty consistent.

For the dread, just prime white and then paint the metallic areas with a coat of black before drybrushing them

And again, wtering down your washes to about 50/50 water/ink ratio will definately help. It'll also lighten it a bit so it doesn't come out so dark and grimey looking (Unless dark and grimey is what you're going for in which case 30/70 mix would be better)

Hope this helps

This week I have mostly been assembling. I've sorted a 1000pt list out from the 1750pt tournament list so I can get some gaming in to sharpen my skills.

So far I've put together 3 Drop Pods, 1 Librarian in Terminator Armour, a Predator and a tactical Squad.

I decided to experiment with Army Painter Yellow Primer, but rather than doing the sensible thing and priming one model to see how it goes I decided to prime the whole Tactical Squad in one go and the Predator and 1 drop pod on their sprues.

Downside no. 1 I ran out of primer
Downside no. 2 the primer is sufficiently thick that it made assembly of the first drop pod very tricky indeed
Downside no. 3 I've read about a technique which I think will work very nicely with my scheme and now I'm in half a mind to strip the tac squad and start again.

Before I do that though I'm going to paint one up and see how it looks.

Many lessons learnt this week!

I thought I'd post some pics of the Yellow primered miniatures.

I've been greatly inspired by a couple of the WIP blogs here notably LBursley's WIP and Roleplayer's Blood Raven's WIP.

Once the list is painted to a basic level I'll definitely be revisiting the paint-jobs and trying my hand at some conversions to personalise the force and tie it in with my fluff.

The first image shows the primer, the Iyanden Darksun based coat, and a post Gryphonne Sepia Wash

The second is a close up on the post wash model, I'll just do one more level of highlights on this and call it tabletop ... I am on a schedule here

OK it's been a while so I thought, before I go away for the weekend, that I'd better get some more pics up.

Your early stuff was a bit meh due to coverage problems. Your latest stuff is looking brilliant. Yellow is a total bind to paint properly but I think you have the gist of it

I have spent most of this week attempting to strip the poor paint job from my first tac squad. I've been using the dettol method, soaking them for up to 48 hours, then transfering to warm water with a bit of fairy liquid and scrubbing with a toothbrush. While it has got most of the colour off, the black base coat is proving impossible to shift, it just turns into a sticky stringy mess! So I've done the best I can with them and I'm going to see how they look with some primer on them ... I'm not hopeful!

In other news I managed to finnaly find some heavy flamer bits on the internet, from the cadian imperial guard sprues I think. Anyway, after a bit of ham-fisted cutting and gluing my dreadnoughts are now WYSIWYG. woot!

fudal78 wrote:For sure! The tac marine does look like he's been blobbed doesn't he! I thin my paints much more now but I'm still working on getting the consistency ... consistent! If anyone's got any tips on this I'm all ears.

I've been painting over black primer with Iyanden Darksun which seems to cover well but does require a couple of coats. I'll probably stick with a black base for the Dreads so I can quickly drybrush the metal parts at the start but I have a new Tac squad to paint so I'll deffo try out white primer on those!

Shading is with Gryphonne Sepia, I find the consisency of the wash OK but it does have a tendancy to pool on some of the flat surfaces and not run into all the cracks. Again any tips on this would be fantastic.

Thanks for taking the time to comment.

You might want to take a look at my thread in painting a similar colour scheme, it would appear to me that your ware watering down your foundation paint too much
It might be better if you give it a 50.50 mix with skull white.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

fudal78 wrote:This week I have mostly been assembling. I've sorted a 1000pt list out from the 1750pt tournament list so I can get some gaming in to sharpen my skills.

So far I've put together 3 Drop Pods, 1 Librarian in Terminator Armour, a Predator and a tactical Squad.

I decided to experiment with Army Painter Yellow Primer, but rather than doing the sensible thing and priming one model to see how it goes I decided to prime the whole Tactical Squad in one go and the Predator and 1 drop pod on their sprues.

Downside no. 1 I ran out of primer
Downside no. 2 the primer is sufficiently thick that it made assembly of the first drop pod very tricky indeed
Downside no. 3 I've read about a technique which I think will work very nicely with my scheme and now I'm in half a mind to strip the tac squad and start again.

Before I do that though I'm going to paint one up and see how it looks.

Many lessons learnt this week!

APYP I find a little to light,(in colour ) have a look at airbrushing if you are thinking following this route.
If you are finding the primer to thick , spray further back and lightly in a number of strokes rather than trying to get it covered in one go.


Looking forward to seening more of your work ! keep it up.

Lots of painting this week, 2 Tac Squads, more work on the (counts as) Pedro model, work on my Librarian, a Drop Pod and a Predator!

Most of it's done to a standard I'm happy with for tabletop, the Predator needs details to be painted and some drybrushing done. I plan to tidy up "Pedro" to a slightly higher standard than the rest and the Librarian needs a lot of work. I'm finding the level of detail on this model to be very challenging!

My last set of purchases for the tournament list are due next weekend and will consist of; 3 scout bikers, a Rhino and 8 Sternguard (I'm going to get the box set and a tac squad box to convert the other 3 from).

In order to stay on schedule I need to finish off the Predator this week and paint 2 more drop pods ... I think I can manage that.

I have a little over a month left and I have all the army built and it's well on the way to completion. I took some time to kit-bash the extra Sternguard I need rather then buy two boxes, I'm pretty pleased with the results, not too convinced on one of the combi-flamers though

I finally got off my lazy butt this weekend and bought some flow release/mixing medium. I bought a big pot of the Daler Rowley stuff for acrylic paint for about £6. You have to dilute it with water (20 parts water to 1 part flow release) so this stuff is going to last me forever. I also bought a pipette bottle from Boots (I had to ask for one at the pharmacy counter). I mix the flow release and water into the pipette bottle and use the pipette to add the water to my palette to thin my paints.

All I can say is that this stuff is a revalation! My paint stays wet in the palette for a good 30-40 mins now. The paint goes on so much better, it flows off the brush so evenly and lays on the model nice and evenly too. I cannot recommend this stuff enough and it will last you for absolutely ages so it's a total bargain!

The other thing I got myself was a reasonably expensive sable brush. I got a number 2 as I wanted it for painting power armour. I don't know if I just got a good one here but this is another product that makes a noticable difference.

I have a selection of the GW brushes which are somewhat hit and miss, I like the detail brushes but the basecoat and standard ones I have seem very poor indeed. This new brush, however, is great! It's a number 2 so it's pretty big but the point is great and allows me to paint a reasonable level of detail despite the brush size. In fact, the large brush size allows it to hold more paint and the great tip alloes me to keep working the detail while I'm on a roll.

I know it's been said before by many other people but you will notice the difference if you buy a good brush and in my opinion, team it up with some flow release and you'll be amazed!

I'll post some pictures of the progress I made on my captain last night when I get home.

I forgot to take a pic of my captain so you'll have to wait until after the weekend now but i thought I'd post some WIPs of my Sternguard, Still looking a bit patch, they need another coat to smooth it out but I'm pleased so far.

A trip to see my parents yielded a treasure trove of GW goodies.

I'll put some piccies up later but I found the first and second editions of Blood Bowl along with two hardcover companion rule books, my 1st Edition 40k rule book (transferred to a ringbinder with relevant White Dwarf articles inserted!), a shiny, hardcover copy of 'Ere we Go and a couple of 2nd edition Space Wolf boxes (Long Fangs and Blood Claws).

I was a bit disapointed not to find the first and second editions of Space Hulk, maybe my brother has them...

No updates for quite a while but the tournament was last weekend and I'm pleased to say that I had the army fully painted, based and ready for action.

The final 1750pt List was as follows:

HQ
Pedro Kantor
Librarian (Epistolary) Terminator Armour w. Storm Bolter and GoI and Null Zone

Elite
Dread 1 - MM & DCCW w. HF (Drop Pod)
Dread 2 - Assault Cannon & DCCW w. HF (Drop Pod)
Sternguard - 8 inc. 3 Combi Melta and 2 Combi Flamers (Drop Pod)

Troop
Tac Squad 1 - ML, F, PF (Rhino)
Tac Squad 2 - LC, F (Razorback)

Fast Attack
2x Landspeeders - Heavy Flamer & Multi Melta
Scout Bikes - 3 w. Cluster Mines & Locator Beacon

Heavy Support
Predator - Autocannon & Heavy Bolters

Game 1 - Capture and Control/Spearhead

vs and all bike list, inc a Captain and Command Squad on Bikes, with 4 Landspeeders and 2 Whirlwinds

Probably the best game I played all day because I can pretty much say that I was let down by poor dice and my opponent threw some amazing dice. I don't think I made half of the saving throws I threw and he fired about 10 Whirlwind blasts at me and not a single one scattered. Those finished off my Sternguard before they could do anything significant (story of the day for that lot).

Anyway, it ended with 2-0 victory to my opponent but I learned a lot from that game, mostly about how tough bike lists are and the dangers of Whirlwinds!

Game 2 - Annihilation/Dawn of War

vs. Chaos Marines - 4 oblits, noise, plague and regular marines in Rhinos, Terminators, Defiler and a Winged Daemon Prince

This defeat was a combination of poor play and abysmal dice again. I threw my Sternguard away in a risky move to try and slow the Terminators, they ended up getting charged and killed by the daemon prince.

I spent mos of the game sniping at his obliterators with my Predator and Lascannon combat squad which resulted in 1 dead Oblit ... out of 4! ... for the entire game. I got so frustrated by it that I threw my Razorback with Pedro and a combat squad at the Oblits to absolutely no effect other than the Plague and Noise Marines turning up and wiping the lot of them out.

I managed to whittle down the termies a little with my Dreads and take a wound off the Daemon Prince with my Landspeeders but in the end I didn't manage a singe kill point so another crushing defeat was all mine to savour.

Game 3 - Sieze Ground/Pitched Battle

vs. Necrons - loads of warriors and scarabs, 6 Wraiths including a Lord, 3 Destroyers and a Deceiver.

It should be noted at this point that despite the fact I was on the bottom table for the last game, I'd had a great day and I was buzzing. My opponent, however, was not and the fear of the "wooden spoon" was clearly at the front of his mind ... he needn't have worried.

This time I could blame the dice because they were bad but I played an absolute stinker. I litterally threw my sternguard away, I'm not going to go into details because it's totally embarrasing. To add to my misfortune Pedro's Orbital bombardment scattered into my Dreadnought and it's Drop Pod destroying them both! Suffice to say it was my low moment of the tournament and threatened to knock the wind out of my sails.

I struggled on though and despite those damn scarabs killing my dreadnought (in about 3 turns) and then moving on to kill the combat squad I'd placed on an objective I only lost the game by 1 objective so I did manage to salvage some points at the end of the day. It was not enough, however, to avoid the wooden spoon which I accepted with pride in the knowledge that I can't do any worse next time!

All in all I had a great day and look forward to the next one and giving myself a better chance by not making so many mistakes and buying new dice to replace the onse I'm ritualistically burning tonight.

I'll put some pics up of the finished army as soon as possible!

Army Pic as promised, this is about a week before the tournament so there are a few models missing some colours, but you get the idea.

Good job. Your army puts my army to shame as your army is painted well. while mine is not that good DAMN YOU PAINT BRUSHES!
Yet it will take time to learn how to play correctly. A good idea is to develop good stragties ahead of time. Read books about War Plans and they will come in handy. Also your army is awesome my army is basically all infantry so you attucally have more vechiles than i do in my entire army.
Anyway are the bikes and landspeeders and drop pods worth the money?

Thanks for your comments, they look better from a distance than up close but I still consider them a work in progress as I just wanted to get them to a tabletop standard for the tournament. I'm still pleased with how they came out though!

To answer your question, for me the Scout bikes were a bit of a gimick. I don't think I used them well though as they are rather fragile. Next time I play I'm going to keep them close to my Librarian and Sternguard so I can turbo boost and gate for a quick re-deployment of my key shooty unit.

The drop pods certainly got my dreads where they needed to be but I was pretty unlucky with them, I'd say it's better than walking your dreads across the table but you really need to think carefully about where to deploy them or they'll be sitting ducks. I'm going to try them with Ironclads in the future.

Landspeeders were OK but I feel I have the wrong load-out on them. They are too fragile to be more than a one-shot, throw-away unit with heavy flamers and Multi-Meltas. I played against Typhoon variants and I'll be re-modeling mine with the launcers and Heavy Bolters soon as possible. They seem very effective as a fast moving long range fire-base.

Thank you for that.

Nice, I really like the sternguard, especially WIP 3. You have got more vehicles than me, I only really use rhino's, and even then only in Cities of death or apocalypse.

Rhinos make cheap road blockades aswell

Some long awaited proper updates.

Here are pics of my Captain, Librarian in Terminator Armour, another Sternguard and a WIP Lysander.

Lysander is just sprayed white and then washed with some soft body black wash. Big props to L Bursley who you canfind at awsomepaintjob.com, for the wash recipie, it really does do a nice job.

how do you use your sternguard???

looking good.

DC

So far I've not found a really effective way to use the sternies, they tend to get around of shooting off and then get turned to mince-meat as my opponent realises how dangerous they are.

Currently I put them with my Librarian and either hold them in reserve in my 3rd drop pod or I deploy the drop pod empty, deploy them normally and use the locator beacon equiped scout bikes to gate them where they need to be without scattering.

On a side note I really think that null zone is over-rated, I much prefer Avenger or Vortex of Doom, tbh the invulnerable save one is good when you're in a big unit of Sternines just to give them more of a chance when the pain rains down

That's some good painting

I really like Ferrus Fists Librarian, Keep up the good work

I have to say that I love yellow armies, and yours is looking great.

Best of luck in improving your play and I look forward to seeing your army finished

As you may have figured out by now, I am a somewhat intermittent poster, this does not, however mean that I'm slackingon the painting front!

Lysander is finished, I have done a Librarian in power armour (my favourite model to date) 5 scouts and 5 terminators to a tabletop quality. I've also based a Whirlwind and am preparing to magnetise tome typhoon launchers for my 3 landspeeders. More pics on that to follow but for now, here's Lysander, the Librarian and my Termies

Just to give you an idea I did my Terminators (5 of them) and a 5 man squad of scouts in about 3 or 4 hours, 10 figures in total. I spent about 4 hours on Lysander over a couple of nights and about the same on the Librarian but I got him done all in 1 afternoon. I don't know if that's fast or slow but that's the pace I'm comfortable with.

Next up I'm going to try and model a 'counts as' Ragnar Blackmane, I'm considering putting together a list of my marines using the Space Wolf Codex to give me some variety. I've also though about a list including 3 termie squads, 2 Landraiders as dedicated transports and 3 dreadnoughts (MoTF HQ), mwahahahahah!

Lol double post.

Outstanding progress, seen from start to finish, great work.

Damn double post!

Thanks for the comments, I'm feeling a lot better about my painting now, thanks to the advice above.

These photos really show me where I need more work though, I think my brush control is rather shakey and I still don't think I've got the paint consistency right. Practice makes perfect though, right?

Still, I'm very much enjoying the hobby and getting games in weekly, I've even won one or two