Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 General Helstrom wrote:

 amazingturtles wrote:
That was really really neat, and also very helpful!

That's great to hear, thanks! What did you find helpful? And is there anything else you'd like to know more about? With the big how-to done I need new subjects to write about

Sorry to reply late, but all sorts of things were helpful, but particularly you showing how to get decals right. i struggle with those so much that i basically never even try anymore, but i might be able to change that now!

Looking sweet dude! I quite like the yellow loyalists, somuchso that I consider assembling a small strike force myself to add to my small Black Templar collection as they are classic brethren in arms! Will be eyeing this thread for future additions for sure.
Peace!

 STG wrote:
A double lamp set up is something i've been looking at doing for a while. might jump in now!

You should! I'm amazed at how much better it is than a single lamp. And I'm amazed I didn't get a second lamp ages ago.

 evildrcheese wrote:
Cool looking stuff dude.

Thanks!

 amazingturtles wrote:
Sorry to reply late, but all sorts of things were helpful, but particularly you showing how to get decals right. i struggle with those so much that i basically never even try anymore, but i might be able to change that now!

Cheers man, good luck! It's the products that really makes it work, especially the gloss varnish - a smooth surface to apply the decals to is key.

 r3n3g8b0y wrote:
Looking sweet dude! I quite like the yellow loyalists, somuchso that I consider assembling a small strike force myself to add to my small Black Templar collection as they are classic brethren in arms! Will be eyeing this thread for future additions for sure.
Peace!

Thank you! Yeah they're all former VII Legion. I think they would look amazing together - the stark black and white of the Templars with the yellow of the Fists.

Right! That was two and a half weeks of getting nearly no painting done whatsoever. Harden up boys and girls because it won't be the last time

Life happened for a bit, and that was ok because then this showed up:




BAWKSES! Everything I've done so far has been from stripped second-hand fifth edition miniatures. It felt good to rip the shrinkwrap off some new boxes and see that awesome fresh dark plastic pop out. With a sharp knife, small pair of clippers and my trusty bottle of UHU-plast (which I'm starting to believe is fed from some alternate dimension as it never runs out) I got to work. I had also ordered up some bitz from various private sellers to make a Cataphractii Captain which I'm quite pleased with:




This strapping lad will take charge once I expand the army to 1500 points with the addition of some drop pods and a squad of Grav Devastators. Until then the Librarian is in command! With the new additions now assembled, based and undercoated, my paint queue looks like this:




Just this afternoon I hit them all up with the airbrush so they're sitting in their yellow base coat, with the vehicles pre-shaded. What I like about this queue is the variety. There's a Rhino for a quick evening's work, Land Speeders to either paint together or split up, a Dreadnought and the Cataphractii Captain for those "let's paint something different" moments and of course plenty of boots to bulk it out.

Glue is undoubtedly from a pocket dimension, since I've been on the same pot for about 3ish years now. The nozzle does clog up a lot though, bit of a pain if I'm honest.

That's a good collection to paint up. I look forward to seeing what you do with it!

Very nice small army of reinforcements

Nice one! I do like a neat yellow space marine force in the making!

Cataphractii Captain looks really cool. That shield is boss.

EDC

That shield really is ace. Is that a bit from a... place?

Really smooth yellow, nice work.

My kids knocked my bottle of Micro Set over so I have been soldiering on with just the step 2 of the two step process! You can just about get away with using some ardcoat varnish in place of the Micro Set but I have to say, your decal work is particularly good.

Thanks for the kind words folks! The shield on the Cataphractii Terminator Captain is from the Deathwing Terminators sprue. I picked one with iconography just generic enough to pass off as Imperial Fists once I scraped off some of the detail to be replaced by a decal:




The surface is a little rough right now, but with some gloss varnish and a neat decal it should be pretty much invisible In fact I've found alternate colors and decals to be an excellent way to hide deformaties on some of the more run-down mongrels in my big box of hand-me-downs. Plus the occasional black greave, white knee pad or checkered armor section really helps to add visual interest to the squads:




The boys did well on the gaming table too last week, taking on a Tau kill team composed mostly of battlesuits. It turned into a slugging match with the Marines' BS4 proving a critical advantage, especially once their steady 6" a turn shooting advance got them within half range of the wretched Xenos. One highlight of the game was my dear Librarian making it into combat and beating a Tau battlesuit to death with his mighty stick! That'll teach him to return his books on time.




Finally I hade some making up to do on the painting front. I'm counting the assembly and prep time on my new minis as two weeks' worth of painting, because frankly yes, it took me that long. So in order to keep putting my money where my mouth is I had to do a double shift this week. I thus present you a whole dozen Marines painted over this past weekend:




This batch means I now have a painted second squad of Tactical Marines and a couple of spares, including one spare Sergeant because I don't know if combi weapons are really worth their points. Funny enough that whole discussion is about to become entirely academic now that 8th edition is around the corner. How about those grav cannon devastators I have ordered up? And the grav bikers? Is the dreadnought actually going to be worth its points? I'll just have to find out In the mean time, this is my finished 40K force so far. It actually looks like a full 2nd Edition army.




See you soon!

From what I've heard Dreadnoughts are going to become 8 wound beasts. That could be wrong tho.
Awesome little force you have there. I'd certainly like to give yellow a good but I'm not brave enough without an airbrush

That is one fine clean looking table over there And some nicely painted models as well.

 STG wrote:
From what I've heard Dreadnoughts are going to become 8 wound beasts. That could be wrong tho.
Awesome little force you have there. I'd certainly like to give yellow a good but I'm not brave enough without an airbrush

Thanks! I honestly would not have attempted this without an airbrush. I think it might be doable with a yellow undercoat spray, like the one sold by Army Painter.

 CragHack wrote:
That is one fine clean looking table over there And some nicely painted models as well.

The table was a true labor of love! The models came out ok too

Great progress, that's a whole lot of Marines done in one go! Do you do all 12 at the same time or batch them into certain numbers?

 WarbossDakka wrote:
Great progress, that's a whole lot of Marines done in one go! Do you do all 12 at the same time or batch them into certain numbers?

I split them into two batches of six. I'm getting quicker at painting these Marines, starting to discover shortcuts and 'danger areas' . Between the shoulder pad trim and the backpack exhausts for example. Taking a little extra care there saves me a lot of trouble touching up the paint later. I've also discovered that line highlighting the top panel lines looks just as good, if not better, than all the panel lines. More time saved!

No painting this week I'm afraid though. I have a busy weekend ahead which includes taking the yellow boys out for their first proper 40K battle! It'll be 1000 points against my old friend Dennis, whith whom I started playing wargames some twenty years ago. Good times! I did get some bits in and assembled the last unit I need for now: three bikers with grav weaponry. Here's hoping they'll still be awesome in 8th Edition

So yeah, no new paintjobs this week, but I did get a proper battle in! I fought Dennis' Craftworld Eldar and had a blast. I suffered some atrocious dice during the first turn, failing to destroy a Wave Serpent with my lascannon devastators, then losing them all to return fire in the Eldar turn while Dennis raked in victory points by the fistful. I came back strong from turn 2 on though, disgorging my tactical squads in rapid fire range and sending bolter rounds all over the place. Close Range Bolter Drill rules! In the end the Eldar pulled way too far ahead in terms of victory points and I missed a few ciritcal shots that might have allowed me to table them if the battle had gone on for another turn. We lost, all smashed and bashed up, but we made the Eldar bleed dearly.




Lessons learned:

Top:
- Full tactical squads are ace and the heavy and special weapons work really well when you combat squad them apart.
- Grav guns are great at dealing with monstrous creatures in the open!
- Having T4 and 3+ armor saves all around is really really nice.

Meh:
- I'm not entirely sold on the Typhoon/Multi-Melta land speeders. Need more practice.
- Devastator squads on foot are hard to deploy correctly.
- Chasing single victory points here and there sucks. I need to focus on winning.

Really nice looking Fists. I wish I were as dedicated to painting as you are. I only have a terminator squad, tac squad and one bike painted.

How do you do the checkered patterns on the greaves? I'd like to steal that idea.

Nice updates. Sounds like you had a blast. I wouldn't worry too much about 8th, your force will certainly be playable. From what we've seen Devs and dreads are gonna be better. Not sure what Gravesend will look like though.

EDC

 Valhalla130 wrote:
Really nice looking Fists. I wish I were as dedicated to painting as you are. I only have a terminator squad, tac squad and one bike painted.

How do you do the checkered patterns on the greaves? I'd like to steal that idea.

Thanks man I've found that a permanent paint station helps a lot in actually getting stuff done. No setup or break-down time really lowers the barrier for me. It also makes shorter paint sessions practical, like sneaking in an hour before going to sleep. A personal target is nice too, as long as it's attainable, and frankly this P&M blog really helps because it turns out I thrive on praise

To do checkers, I basically cheat. I first paint the area white over a light grey. Then I use a sharp pencil to mark out the pattern. I then fill in the black squares with black paint, let it dry and clean up with more white paint. There is often some back-and-forth in this as I may over-correct with white and have to apply more black again. The more precisely you can fill in the squares, the better of course.

The best tip I can give you for precision (aside from thinning your paints) is to find your perfect stroke. What I mean is, find the way to move your brush that gives you the most precision. For me (and for many people) it's when I pull the brush directly towards me. Some people find a sideways stroke easier. Be mindful of this the next time you paint something and see what comes most natural to you. Once you have found your perfect stroke, any time you need to do any precision work (like checkers or eyes or whatever), turn the model so you can apply your perfect stroke. Don't turn your hand or paint in any other direction like diagonal or upwards, but always turn the model. That helps me a lot.

Finally, I try to keep the checkers limited to a few models to avoid them looking too much like New York cabs Lamenters

 evildrcheese wrote:
Nice updates. Sounds like you had a blast. I wouldn't worry too much about 8th, your force will certainly be playable. From what we've seen Devs and dreads are gonna be better. Not sure what Gravesend will look like though.

EDC

Yeah I'm really liking what I've seen so far of 8th. I just got my teeth kicked in by Adeptus Mechanicus (who brings Belisarius Cawl in a 1000 point game?) and it struck me how rigid the saves system has become. I either blew straight through units, negating everything, or completely failed to make a dent in those wrapped in layers of armor, invulnerable and re-rollable Feel No Pain. I'd love to have ten minutes alone with whoever came up with Feel No Pain...

Seriously though I had a great game and learned a lot again. For my second game of 40K since 3rd edition I think I did pretty well too, keeping my force together and on objective and unleashing the might of the noble close-range bolter drill as my primary weapon.

So I bet you're quite done watching me get curb-stomped, let's get back to painting! This week's project was the Dreadnought. I find it interesting to figure out where the line is between a large infantry model and a small vehicle. In the end I decided I'd let the model dictate it. If it has a lot of flat, angular surfaces (like a dread), I use my vehicle formula. If it has a lot of complex curves (like a Centurion), it gets the infantry treatment.

My vehicle formula is so easy it's not even funny. I use the airbrush to apply a base color of Yriel Yellow, then spray Vallejo Flat Earth into the recesses. I then airbrush Yriel Yellow again, preserving the Flat Earth in the deepest recesses. Seraphim Sepia wash goes in all the panel lines and around all the rivets, followed by a drybrush of Vallejo Dark Sand across all the sharp angles. That's the yellow done. After that I paint all the metal Boltgun Metal and wash it with Nuln Oil, do the detail work, finish the base and decals and hey presto! On this dreadnought I didn't even bother to clean up some of the boo-boos, writing them off as weathering instead.






The eagle-eyed (and slightly old) among you may have noticed some old WFB Undead transfers popping up here and there. I found a small stack of them when I pulled my wargaming stuff out of storage. I have no idea how I got them, as I have never collected Undead. That was back when they were all called Undead by the way, the Vampire Counts/Tomb Kings split came much later (and the Grand Alliance: Death came much later still, of course). Anyway, I'm liking the classic flaming skulls, bat wings and scythes iconography. I like to think my detachment of the 5th Company just came back from fighting some creepy necromancer and his shambling hordes, having adopted their enemy's heraldry as kill markings and badges of honor. Maybe this necromancer was holed up in an asteroid fortress which they had to board. Why an asteroid fortress? Come on. It's a space necromancer with space zombies in a friggin' asteroid fotress. There's more pulpy goodness in there than a paper mill run by strippers.

I'm running into a little 'update paralysis' in spite of the good doctor's encouraging words. I don't know if I want to invest my time right now into painting Grav Devastators or Typhoon Land Speeders that may need to be re-evaluated come 8th edition. I think I'm going to stick to some models which are always going to be useful, like more Rhinos and Tactical Marines, and worry about the specialists after 8th hits. I'll be on vacation for almost a month come June and if the rumors are anywhere near correct, 8th will be out by the time I come back.

Dread looks great. base provides a really nice contrast.

If i were you i would paint the landspeeder though. because whatever happens a multimelta and some anti tank missiles on a fast moving platform is always going to be useful when used in the right situation.
maybe not for a maxxed out grav squad.

I agree. Land speeders are always cool.

Glad to see I'm not the only one who remembers Warhammer Armies: Undead. I'm even fond of that Nagash model.

That us a nice looking dread. Makes me almost want to get started on mine.

That's a lovely looking dread.

EDC

 STG wrote:
Dread looks great. base provides a really nice contrast.

If i were you i would paint the landspeeder though. because whatever happens a multimelta and some anti tank missiles on a fast moving platform is always going to be useful when used in the right situation.
maybe not for a maxxed out grav squad.

 goblinpaladin wrote:
I agree. Land speeders are always cool.

Glad to see I'm not the only one who remembers Warhammer Armies: Undead. I'm even fond of that Nagash model.

Fair points on the land speeders guys! With the apparent points hike on multi meltas though, I'm not so sure on the loadout. Yet. Fortunately I'm going to be out of the country for a few weeks and by the time I get back, 8th should be out along with all the material I need to make a more informed decision

 Valhalla130 wrote:
That us a nice looking dread. Makes me almost want to get started on mine.

 evildrcheese wrote:
That's a lovely looking dread.

EDC

Thanks guys!


So with some interesting days this past week, all I got around to painting was this brand spanking new Rhino:




I love how clean-looking these are turning out! Yellow is fairly easy to over-weather and I'm not too fond on the banged-up CAT Bulldozer style look. On these vehicles I pretty much do no weathering whatsoever. I can always come back in later with some mild chipping and dusting. This Rhino does go to show that even with an airbrush, I am not immune to yellow's particular flavor of hell. Here is the new Rhine (right-hand side) next to the previous one:




It may be a little hard to tell due to the lighting, but it is noticably richer in tone than the older one. This is because I boo-booed on my recipe. The first one was spray undercoated bone, pre-shaded with brown and then coated with yellow. On the new one I forgot to pre-shade, so I had to apply the brown over the yellow and then go back in with a second coat of yellow to blend it in nicely. Because airbrush layers are so absurdly thin, and yellow has all the pigmentation of a binge drinker's morning urine, the final result is quite different. Now, I can live with the difference and as long as they're not parked directly next to each other it's not even all that obvious. And I frankly like the result of the second Rhino better than the first - it even matches the infantry's tone more closely. Looks like I accidentally improved ny vehicle recipe!

As I said above, as of tomorrow I'll be out of the country for about four weeks vay-caytioning it up in Asia. When I get back the world as we know it will have ended and eighth age of grimdark will have begun. See you on the other side!

I really like the sort of "dustiness" of your yellow paint scheme. Nice work.

Rhino looking smart.

Right! So, where were we? Ah yes - I've been on vacation for nearly a month, came back to find 8th edition out and about, split the box with a friend, sold off the Primaris and got the index. We organized a "goodbye 7th edition" mega battle between the seven of us and had a blast, as well as a powerful reminder of why 7th edition really, really had to go. Have you ever tried to kill Belisarius Cawl? 'nuff said. To join in that battle I had to buy and build some more reinforcements, and then some more on top of that because I could get them second hand, and then a few more because of shifts apparent with the release of the index. Of course the fun doesn't stop there because now the codex is around the corner! The end result is a bit of a mess on my painting table at the moment, which I'm in the process of sorting out. Let's start from the top.

The 'goodbye 7th' mega battle was a blast. The forces of the Imperium deployed to bring the Emperor's Good News to the Eldar. As it happens the Imperium breached the dome of the Al'mere craftworld's medieval theme park, so the Eldar rushed to defend the classic Citadel Fortress!



Steve's Sons of Medusa on the left flank, Lau's Mechanicum in the center and my Imperial Fists advancing on the right.




EXCUSE ME SIR DO YOU HAVE A MOMENT TO TALK ABOUT OUR LORD AND SAVIOR THE GOD-EMPEROR OF MANDKIND?

We killed a bunch of theirs, they killed a bunch of ours. It was great. Then we had a BBQ and we put away our massive pile of 7th edition books forever!



On the painting front, I worked on a squad of lascannon-armed Devastators but didn't quite get them finished yet.




I did some more modeling too, starting with applying MAGNETS to my dreadnought and a quad autocannon from a second-hand Aegis defense line. They need some cleanup and a lick of paint but they're looking the business. When I field this as a venerable dreadnought with two twin autocannons, that's a lot of dakka going downrange.






I then dug into my growing bitz box, along with a Space Marine Commander set, to build up my command cadre. From left to right we have a Primaris Lieutenant, two Captains, an Apothecary at a full run and a Techmarine whose darn auspex keeps blinking "12:00".




I wasn't quite happy with the first captain (on the left). As I was building him he turned out quite bland, and the more bits I stuck on the worse it got. He became just another overdressed fop pointing a gun at the enemy. Frustrated, I tried to find some upright Space Marine legs to give him a more dignified, supercilious pose. And I found none. Seriously, all Space Marines are in full-blown power stances straight out of School of Rock. Then I tried to convert my own and ended up ruining a perfectly good pair of legs. I had to go deeper, and eventually I came across the old Masters of the Chapter set. This has some amazing figures in it, oozing character and calm command. My eye fell upon the Master of the Rites:




Now, he's not much to look at in his original form, with his weird speakers and warty head, but a bit of cutting and bits swapping does wonders:




The remaining question is, why is he holding his cloak up like that? That question will be answered soon, when I get the last required bits in...

To round off on a somewhat random note, I recently visited my mother and she had found my old copy of Starquest (otherwise known as Space Crusade, an old GW/MB collaboration based on Space Hulk) in the attic! That was the game which started me and my best friend Dennis on the amazing path of the wargamer in the mid 90s. Inside the battered old box, I found the very first Imperial Fists I ever painted - with gloss Humbrol enamel directly over bright yellow plastic. I like to think my skills have improved at least somewhat since those days:




Kinda cute though

Now, as I said, my painting table is a mess. I have an unassembled Razorback with another one and a drop pod on the way. I have an assembled Predator and characters that need their bases done up. Assembled, based and ready for undercoat are a third tactical squad, a squad of grav cannon devastators and a squad of bikers with plasma weapons. Finally I have two land speeders and a squad of lascannon devastators sitting in various stages of color. What I've done is enter all these units into a table, with colums marked from left to right "Built - Based - Undercoated - Basecoated." My Job for the coming week or so is to work through this table from left to right, making everythin is built, based, etc. in order so I end up with a queue of yellow figures that I can then paint. And just to make sure I have enough time I quit my job. That's dedication folks!

Welcome back broseph! Love the captain, he looks very imposing. You gonna do a big ass sword in the other hand? Or what about have him holding a cat? Imagine someone striding through the battlefield just petting his cat, absolutely oblivious to the death and destruction around him. I would not want to fight that mentalist!