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Looking great Zambro
Really liking the bright yellow and the scratched paints on the miniatures.
Keep it up!
Grtz
Mark

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that every suit of power armor is a relic, each one a storied aegis against the foes of humanity. They should all have quirks and varied paintjobs.

Unless you are Ultramarines, in which case just slap some blue paint around. But that’s not the case here.

Nice looking tacs, the HB is cool looking.

Hi guys,

Been a little lazy on the space marines side of my hobby...

But here are the 5 tactical marines from the last post:





I just have to varnish them, then put them with my assault marines ready for basing - which is something I need to think a little bit about...
Anyway, it took a long time to do these, and I screwed them up, imo.
Sure, I think they look good - better than the assault marines - but not perfect. The next 5 will be better.

And speaking of the next 5:


More soon, I hope
Z

Those look really great! The plasma especially is awesome!

They look stellar Zambro! I'm really liking the blue lenses (or are they green-ish?)

They look great to me. But if you think you can do better on the next batch, I’m not going to tell you to stop!

Love how you've done the yellow, very realistic weathering.

Hey guys,

Got the rest of the tactical marines to a reasonable place.


All the main colours are blocked in, decals are down and I'm putting some micro sol on the decals before I move on.
Got to hit the details, and do the weathering then they are done (aside from their base).

In my LGS, almost half of the 40k players have moved off onto something else - Conquest, X-wing, Fantasy etc. - but those who still play have decided to play smaller games. Things like 400-1000 points. I wrote a 500 point list for IFs that I'm really happy with, so I think I'm going to push for that list and get my first 40k game in since November. It has 10 tactical marines, 10 scouts and libby and a dreadnought.

And having mentioned Conquest, you should get it. I have it, and it's awesome. You get 7 army decks in the box, with 30 cards per deck. It's completely playable out of the box, and has massive re-playability. not to mention, it's easy to learn. I've played around 10 games, and know the rules well enough to play fluently. You should definately look into it!

More 40k soon,
Z

They look great!

40k can be very fun at smaller point levels, especially with Marines as every model matters! Some of my most fun and closest games have been in the 500-750 range, and if you have an odd number of players, the games fo fast enough that you can switch round easily enough, with the third player refereeing or building a list for the next game.. Play winning-list-stays-on, 'king of the hill' style, and see who can get the longest streak!

Hey everyone!

I have finished the tactical marines!




I'm really happy with them!
Except for the bases, which I will get around to - promise!

I'm going to get ahold of some scouts next, and maybe a Libby. I want to make the 500 point list I wrote, so I can get in on the small 40k.
I was thinking, with the scouts, to not paint yellow. I was thinking I might go with black armour and grey/white cloth.
Black/grey/white would make a lot more sence in an urban war. Bright yellow is kind of a 'shoot me, please!' sign.
And scouts can do with as little shooting coming their way as possible.

That's it for now. More around the weekend.
Z

Really nice! Personally I'd still do the Scouts in IF colours, but I can see why you wouldn't.

Out of interest, what 500-point list are you looking at?

Nice looking squad.

I do my scouts in camo, not chapter colors. So I approve of non-yellow on them. Just make sure you match the camo to the base. You wouldn’t want to have forest camo scouts on arctic bases.

Those are some of the best Marines I have ever seen, the weathering is exceptional and on a colour as difficult as yellow. keep it up.

@Para: The list I'm running is; Libby (65), tactical marines w/ combi-plas, plasma & heavy bolter (175), scouts w/ combi-plasma & heavy bolter (128) and a dreadnought w/ an undeided loadout, but most likely a lascannon (about 125).
Grand total comes to 493, so some wiggle room for minor upgrades and such.

@Nev: Yeah, I dont think I'll be needed jungle camo for urban warfare Still mulling over the exact way I'm going to paint them... We'll have to see.

@Thraxas: Thanks mate! I did a clean White Scars army before, so getting down and dirty with the IFs is a bit of a change of pace. Having said that, I think I'm managing fine

Good solid yellows there

Nice work!

@Angelofvengeance: Thanks a lot!!

Just a quick pic today:


Everything I need for 500 points.
I'll start putting them together over the weekend. I'm looking forward to getting my teeth into the Venerable Dread. I've never built one before. And dont expect me to built the Libby's shoulder-baby. That thing is plain stupid.

Z

While I understand that cherubs are part of the gothic imagery of 40k, I’m not a fan of them personally. That little guy was one of the reasons I didn’t pick up that librarian, who I quite like otherwise. The other big reason was the $30 price tag for a single mini, which is insane.

I think the ven dread is my favorite kit. Soooo many options, all of them cool. Enjoy yours.

How do you plan on building the scouts? CC, bolter, or shotgun? Or a mix?

Ah man that squad looks awesome! Such a great and gritty scheme, I feel as though the IF colours are great for that. Keep it up!

Hey all,

@Nev: Yeah, £18 was a bit hard to swallow for a single mini. Shame there is only one other alternative librarian, which isn't all that great in comparison. I've gone with bolters on the scouts. My thought process was that they get scout / infiltrate, so they're pretty close anyway. And, I get re-rolls of 1 with chapter tactics making them slightly better. And I've always had the idea that they scout forward to sit on an objective from turn 1. Maybe even take a teleport homer and help some termies arrive in future...
@Lips: Thanks matey! It was a shame to see you're blog go quiet. I always loved seeing your excellently highlighted minis! Maybe when you get used to being in uni, you can put a layer of paint down every now and then.

It's been a busy weekend. I've built everything:










The scouts were a bit of a dissapointment, imo. Having gone from the crisp, awesome new tactical marines. The older scout sculpts seemed 'softer' in comparison.
I was non-committal with the dread. I have all weapon options fully swappable Lots of choice with the kit, too. The dread is also the model I'm putting up for Para's monthly competition.
When I get a chance this week, I'll lay down the primer and base coats.

Z

Scout gear is an easier choice for ‘Fist players due to bolter drill. The CC options can be fun though, and shotguns just look cool.

Nice dread. Always fun to see how others build theirs. So many options in the kit, no two dreads should look alike. I should get some paint on mine. Stupid Xenos distracting me though.

When I needed to add another librarian to my force, I went with a GK strike box. Mixed with VV bits, as I needed him with a jump pack. But you basically get 5 librarians for around the price of the one (albeit nice) monopose. It helps that I had projects that needed other bits from the kit, so there wasn’t a lot of loss from unused parts. I could deal with ~$20 for a special HQ mini, but when your price goes up to the range a a whole box of marines, I’ll just take that and kitbash.

Hey guys,

I took these pictures this morning:






Lots done!

I pushed through the first 5 scouts. They have their test scheme done, and I have to be honest, I like it.
I wasn't sure what to go with on the right shoulderpad, so I went with a hollow tactical arrow. It fills the gap nicely.
Just have to weather them accordingly and then they are done. The other 5 are still at primer stage.

Librarian just has base colours blocked in.

And as you can see, the Dread's weapons are getting some attention.

More soon!
Z

You going to do any camo on the scouts, or just the solid colored uniforms? And the arrow fits well, although I’m not sure what the “official” scout shoulder markings are.

I like how easy it is to swap weapons around on the dread. Who needs magnets?

Yeah, just a solid grey for the scouts.
My logic behind the hollow arrow was they're trying to be tactical marines, but they aren't quite there yet.

From a lore POV, they have a long way to go to get to a tactical squad. Their first stop as full marines is a dev squad. Shooting bolters, passing ammo, eating bullets. Eventually they get to shoot the big guns themselves. Next stop is an assault squad, once they have proved themselves capable on the battlefield. Only after they have mastered every aspect of combat are they worthy of being a tactical marine.

Anyway, they look cool like that, and frankly, that’s what’s important!

Afternoon guys!

Here is a finished* picture of the scouts:



I'm pretty happy with them!

I'll be heading out to the FLGS tonight. I've got my 500 point 40k list ready to go. Hopefully, I can bring home a victory for the Fists.
Also going to be taking Conquest with me. I got a text reminder from my Dad saying its Mother's Day on Sunday, so I went on Amazon to find something. 30 mins and a lot of money later and I have a second Conquest core set and I'm up to date on all the expansions - And I still dont have a Mother's Day gift I built a good(?) Imperial Guard deck, which I'm excited to test run.

I've updated the first post to show my complete armies at the end of Jan and Feb. I was suppose to do it as I went, but I went back to it today.
I think it would be nice to see my army progress month to month.

Thanks for reading,
Z

*And by finished, I mean almost finished. Basing is at the top of my to-do list!

They look pretty ace to me! The urban scheme works out well, they look practical like they should!

Good luck with the game!

How are you doing the highlighting on the black? It looks great.

Nice looking squad there.

Thanks guys!

As it happens, I didn't get a 40k game in.. :( Managed two games of conquest (both losses), then was roped into an X-wing mini-tournament as they had odd numbers and needed another player. I went 2-1 (W-L). I'm hoping for some 40k next week, as it really has been too long. I haven't played 40k this year, yet!

@Mymearan: The black isn't quite black. It's a 50-50 mix of black and Cold Grey from VGC. I use that as the 'black' and highlight it with pure Cold Grey. Here is the paint conversion chart if you're thinking of using the same method with different paint brands.

Evening, gents. Bare with me, this is a bit of a weird one...

My hobbying hasn't been up to the usual level of productivity recently. Which is a damn shame, really. I want to paint, but it's just not flowing. I look at my Warriors of Chaos army, which is occupying the majority of my 2 display shelves, and seeing all 4000 points of models unfinished is quite disheartening. And what isn't occupied by them, my Imperial Fists taking less than a quarter of a shelf, aren't truely finished either (bases!).

But anyway, I was browsing through the pictures on my phone and went right back to the beginning. Low and behold, I found a bunch of old pictures of previous armies. And wow, I've had a lot over the years. I'm not really sure how the pictures made their way onto my current phone, but I'm glad they did. It made me think of all my previous armies and my meanders through the hobby.

Way back, in 2006, I was first introduced to Warhammer Fantasy with the Battle for Skull Pass (Dwarfs vs. Goblins). I went over a friend's house with 2 other friends, and we played a 2v2 game using the content of the boxset. It was fun. Lots of fun. I eventually bought the Dwarfs from him, and that was my very first army. I dont recall much of the army, I think it was the BfSP set, plus 3 or 4 additional boxes. I took it out of the attic a year and a half, maybe two years ago to Ebay it. It fetched me about £200, and £200 of dusty old models terribly painted must have meant that there was a lot of them! I looked for pictures of them I took for the Ebay auction, but came up empty.

Anyway, I eventually moved on from Dwarfs to Lizardmen. Started from scratch, and worked on them for a solid year or 2, judging by the size of the army. That is when my painting started to progress. I remember being more conscious with painting them. I used washes and inks for the first time. I explicitly remember being at my Grandmother's with all my models and painting, I was working hard to do as much as possible with the scales on the backs of the Saurus Warriors, using inks and washes. I got these guys down from the attic the same time as the Dwarfs, and they hit Ebay together. I think they went for £180 (or £200, and the Dwarfs went for £180).


That's when my hobbying stopped. My friends and I moved on. Apparently it wasn't 'cool'. I dont remember the exact time I stopped, but it was early high school.

I came back a year or two later, this time with 40k. Eldar. It was 4th edition of 40k - I remember the big blue book, with it's really cool modelling guides in the back, and kill team rules. I didn't play many games, and eventually moved onto Space Marines. Dark Angels were my first Space Marine army. My progress wasn't great with the DA. But I did get some work done on the Eldar. Quite a bit, IIRC. Thinking about it, I remember a White Dwarf issue with 'new' Harlequin models (metal ones). Painting stripes was painful! Anyway, this cycle of hobby came to an eventual end. Everything went into the attic, and I moved on.


3rd time lucky. Somewhere in my teens, I was at a youth club I used to go to, when one of the adults there turned up out of the blue with Warhammer for us to paint / play. I never know he played Warhammer, and it kicked me back into it (and I haven't stopped since!). I spoke to a friend of mine, sadly not the ones I got into Warhammer with, but one I knew had previous Warhammer experiance, and we started up together. I gifted him a lot of my Eldar, and I went back to Space Marines, with a repaint into Salamanders. The pictures on my phone were of this army. And it was big. 2.5k. Which doesn't seem big, but it was (almost) fully painted. And I was somewhat proud of it.


Not sure why I sold them off, but they went. Summer of 2012, I started a new Marine army: White Scars. I'm sure I've made reference to my first time doing the Scars in this blog, but I dont think these pictures have been seen by you guys. I got 2 Ravenwing boxsets, Khan and a Stormtalon into the army, before I cut my losses and moved on. This was pre-airbrush days, and painting white was hard. I also tried a little bit of GSing on them - mainly some tribal dags and such. Turns out that was hard, too! All in all, I got about 1k points of them.


Like a phoenix, another Space Marines army was born from the ashes. This time, Blood Ravens. I wrote a list, and was building towards it. I got the boring stuff done, before I once again cut my losses. It barely made 500 points. I got my first airbrush halfway though this project. I used it on the Rhino I had, and did a terrible job. You can see the good side of the Rhino in the picture, although the front left of the Rhino is a hint at the painting atrocities on the other side... All in all, a brief project. I learnt some fundamental things about airbrush usage during it, but that's about it.


After selling the BRs, WoC were released. I think it was February, 2012(?). I dabbled with Fantasy again, just sort of painting to pass the time with no real goal in mind. Unfortunately, I dont have pictures. But it was nowhere near the size of my current WoC army.

At the end of May, 2012, I went to America for the summer. I worked at a Summer Camp in Colorado, and it was awesome. So I was pretty much out of the hobby for 3 months. When I returned, however, it was the run up to the release of the current SM book (Back to marines... sensing a theme?). I spent a month following all the rumors, and deliberating which chapter to do, and what to get. I went with White Scars (again), and cue the start of this blog. You can go back and read / re-read the first 16 or so pages which covers my 3.5k army. It was also the first time I went to my LGS. Which is awesome. I go most Tuesdays, and the occassional weekend.


When the Scars got dry, and they did, I moved on. I didn't sell the army this time. I kept it (and still have it). Imperial Guard were my next call. Also in this blog. Pages 16/17 cover them. I got a lot of comments on my Digital Camo. They are the only images on Dakka that have been voted on, and they are around the 7-8 out of 10 mark . I also dabbled in Eldar. Again, lots of comments on their scheme, but ultimately the Eldar and IG met the same fate - Ebay.


What has recently got my attention are Warriros of Chaos and Imperial Fists. Not going to bother linking pictures of either, you can literally scroll up and see the vast majority of my Imperial Fists. And you can follow the link in my Sig to a seperate blog that gets infrequent updates on my WoC. I've still got my White Scars packed up in the background. They only see the light of day when I'm taking them out of their trays so I can use them for transporting some stuff.

That's it. A full history. I didn't intend for it to happen, I initially just wanted to share some older, unseen pictures. Awell. I dont think I've shared a full hobby history before. It's on record, now.

But what now? Well, my new years resolution was to only contribute to the Imperial Fists. Which I went against to buy some WoC stuff... I still want the Fists, though. There is so much I haven't done with 40k yet. I've not had a 40k game this year, for start. I want to have a large collection. Have a whole battle company. Play apocalypse. Own super heavies. Win a tournament... When the painting mojo comes back, I'm getting on it. I'll do the Dread and libby, then base everything. That'll get my collection to complete. Then I can get more. Maybe something I've never done before. A Vindicator? Or Centurions...

That still leaves the White Scars, and Warriors of Chaos. Historically, Ebay has been the solution for my stagnant collections. But I have a lot of sentimental attachment to my Scars, and the only games I'm playing are with the Warriors. They both dodge the bay of E, for now. The Scars are finished. And I'm seriously considering not buying anymore Fantasy models, which would open up the hobby budget for the IFs...

Appologies for the length, and self-indulgence. I'll have a real update, soon.
Z