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These are some excellent Marines my dude, nice work.

 boundless08 wrote:
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!

No sword and no cat (but I like the way you think!), all will be revealed below...

 Corrode wrote:
These are some excellent Marines my dude, nice work.

Thanks!


I brought order to chaos over the weekend, getting all remaining figures assembled, based and undercoated. It was quite an undertaking but now I have this:



That is one drop pod, one Predator Annihilator, two convertible rhinos/razorbacks (turrets still awaiting magnets), a tactical squad, a squad of grav cannon devastators, a squad of bikers with plasma guns and the command cadre shown earlier. After doing all this assembly line work, today I sat down and focused on doing one mini and doing it well. I am pretty pleased with how he turned out! He will be my budget captain and I name this pice "don't bleed on my cape you xenos filth."





This guy was a lot of fun to do, from finding the right figure to base him on, to converting the captain and then the hormagaunt on the base, to spending an pleasant afternoon painting the whole thing. Here's a WIP shot with PVA blood and green stuff guts:



Now if you'll excuse me, I have a well-earned Old Fashioned with my name on it to enjoy

ha love it! "Jeeves? JEEVES?! Look at this disgusting blighter beneath me. Do be a dear and clean him up, this cape is made from the finest Jokaero hide"

He's phenomenal. I also love the scheme on that 'gaunt. Feels proper old school, although I don't know if it is a studio scheme.

 boundless08 wrote:
ha love it! "Jeeves? JEEVES?! Look at this disgusting blighter beneath me. Do be a dear and clean him up, this cape is made from the finest Jokaero hide"

Haha exactly! I guess he just got it back from the laundromatorium.

 goblinpaladin wrote:
He's phenomenal. I also love the scheme on that 'gaunt. Feels proper old school, although I don't know if it is a studio scheme.

Thanks man! The gaunt is painted in the same style as a Battle for Macragge set I once painted up with my best friend. It was ebayed and should be out there somewhere... I don't remember if it was an official scheme back then. I believe the old Tyranid codices had pages full of different color schemes so probably yes


Also, I painted the magnetized double twin autocannons for the dread:

Ah, I love the rifleman set-up. I want to make one for my Mantis guys at some point. Nicely executed.

 goblinpaladin wrote:
Ah, I love the rifleman set-up. I want to make one for my Mantis guys at some point. Nicely executed.

Thanks Goblin, it was a fairly easy conversion and I think it looks quite effective. It is also murder on the battlefield!


Earlier this week I played my first game of 8th Edition, in a 1500 points match-up versus Laurens and his damnable Adeptus Mechanicus. We deployed "Hammer and Anvil" (opposing short sides of the table) with the Secure and Control mission (one 3VP objective in each player's deployment zone). My list was heavy on tactical squads and lascannons, his had Cawl, three robots and two dunecrawlers. It turned into a long-ranged shooting match with both sides too timid to cross no man's land. Some early setbacks on my end were redeemed when a drop pod full of grav cannon devastators wiped out Cawl's meatrobotshield, allowing the lascannon predator and the autocannon dreadnought to put the old heretic full of holes!






That's right, I killed Cawl. Cawl has been building up a fearsome reputation in our gaming group as being practically unkillable. The cry was often heard around our gaming tables:




That spell is now broken. 8th Edition is magical! I ended up losing the game by one VP, in fact by one die roll - at the end of round 6, we rolled up a seventh round which allowed him to march a single Dunecrawler into my deployment zone, netting him Linebreaker. All in all it was a great game and a very close run thing. The top performers were the Predator, the Venerable Dreadnought reliably chucking out eight shots a turn, and the good old tactical squads for holding the line when it mattered. Lessons learned:

- Lascannons only work in numbers. Anything less than four is likely to disappoint due to a bad dice roll here or there.
- When Lascannons work, they work.
- The Venerable Rifleman is a powerful unit, easy to position due to its small size and hard to get rid of.
- Being able to drop additional firepower where you want it, when you want it, is huge! Grav cannons may not be the firepower you need though.
- You don't win battles by camping out in your deployment zone.

So I'm working on new lists and I have a 10-man squad of Sternguard and a second Predator on the way. I'm very pleased with the core of my army and how it is performing so far though.



On the painting front, after finishing up the Dreadnought arms I found time on Friday to finish up the lascannon devs too. They took a lot more time than usual and I'm not entirely sure why. It was probably due to the lascannons themselves, with a lot of work going into their casings and targeter lenses. I'm happy with how they turned out, as well as their creepy cyber techno baby!




I also put some more work into my vehicles. First of all I built up the turrets for my convertible Rhinos/Razorbacks. The assault cannons were salvaged from my pair of Land Speeders:




Second I built and painted magnetized "twin storm bolters" to represent taking two storm bolters on a rhino. Honestly, at 2 points a pop they are a steal, making rhinos effective firing platforms at close range. But I had no room to fit a second storm bolter as I'd built the hatches without pintles. So I traded for some more storm bolters and just stuck them on top of each other. I like how they look like sort of a mini Hurricane. I'm not sure I like how they look like two storm bolters stuck on top of each other. Thoughts?




So that's it for this week, quite a productive one I must say! I hope to bash out a lot more next week, starting with either the convertible vehicles or the third tactical squad. Keep watching this space

So glad I followed the link from your showcase thread. Amazing stuff, and makes me want to keep the pace up on my Imperial Fists (working on the Primaris stuff now).

The double storm bolter looks cool. I think if you wanted to, you could remove the bottom most ammo mag, or at least join them up together with green stuff. Just something to make it look less like 2 storm bolters on top of each other.

Land Speeders are awesome. I play my 2 in almost every game. Typhoon Missiles and Heavy Bolters, though. They hose off infantry and can even threaten light tanks. Not a fan of MM on them, got to get too close with paper thin tanks...

Keep going, mate! Love your updates

 Zambro wrote:
So glad I followed the link from your showcase thread. Amazing stuff, and makes me want to keep the pace up on my Imperial Fists (working on the Primaris stuff now).

The double storm bolter looks cool. I think if you wanted to, you could remove the bottom most ammo mag, or at least join them up together with green stuff. Just something to make it look less like 2 storm bolters on top of each other.

Land Speeders are awesome. I play my 2 in almost every game. Typhoon Missiles and Heavy Bolters, though. They hose off infantry and can even threaten light tanks. Not a fan of MM on them, got to get too close with paper thin tanks...

Keep going, mate! Love your updates

Thanks buddy! I took a look at your thread, your IF look awesome. A lot more beat up than mine

I actually took the MMs off the land speeders the other day and replaced them with heavy bolters. I find MMs too expensive in this edition to just throw around. They need a dedicated platform with some re-rolls to make them reliable, like a captain-backed devastator squad or something. With heavy bolters and typhoon launchers I think the speeders look like great standoff anti-infantry units, able to switch to an anti-tank role in a pinch. I heard they're getting a little cheaper too in the upcoming codex.

For a second i thought i was seeing double with those quad bolters.

A while ago I explained my vehicle recipe when I presented the dreadnought. Of course that was all words, and nobody really learns anything from words. So I did it again, but with pictures! Just yesterday I completed two new vehicles for my army and I'll take you through them step by step.

After assembly and undercoating in Army Painter Skeleton Bone, the first thing I do is airbrush the whole thing with a thin coat of Yriel Yellow, taking care to get into all the nooks and crannies. In this picture the rhino hathces are on, I actually mounted them and the razorback top plate on bottle caps with blu-tac so I could handle them separately:




With the basecoat down it's time for pre-shading. I use Vallejo Flat Earth, again fed through the airbrush and sprayed into all the corners, joins and recesses. This gives a very dramatic effect as you can see below:




To tone it down, I hit the model up with another light coat of Yriel Yellow, this time avoiding the deepest recesses. The thinness of the coat leaves some of the brown shining through, and I leave the contrast more strongly where I want the most shade:




That marks the end of the airbrush stage. If the models are not being painted directly after this (I tend to airbrush in batches) I like to give them a coat of matte varnish now. The airbrush coats are very thin and easy to rub off at the edges and corners. Otherwise it is now on to washing! I use Seraphim Sepia and apply it to all the panel lines, joins, rivets and raised details to really make them stand out:




Finally I apply a drybrush of Vallejo Buff across all the raised edges. This picks out the edges and details nicely, while also contributing to a slightly dusty look:




That's the yellow done! It's also the end of the easy bit. Because of the way I've built up the yellow, it is very hard to re-create by brush, so any touch-ups are going to be very difficult to do. Over the next few stages, neatness is key. On the other hand I don't sweat it too much. Some smudging is 'weathering' If I do mess up, it will probably be on a recessed area so a little bit of Flat Earth brushed on usually hides it nicely. This next stage begins by applying Boltgun Metal to all the metal bits, followed by a wash of Nuln Oil. This includes the tracks. As this is a bit of a job and the wash needs to dry for a while, after this stage is the perfect time for a break!






Once the metal bits are done and all brushes have been cleaned and all water has been refreshed (metallic flakes get everywhere if you're not careful), I paint in the black panels and details like weapon casings. I then highlight them subtly with German Grey. Of course you can use your company color of choice! I also paint the lamps and lenses white and wash them with the color I want them to be. On my vehicles i use watered-down Lothern Blue for the headlights and Carroburg Crimson for the... Turn signals? Targeter lenses also get Carroburg Crimson over a basecoat of Flat Red. Again, neatness is key at this stage!






And that's that, done! For final detailing I paint gloss varnish on those panels where I want decals, apply the decals using Micro Set and Micro Sol (as described earlier), then finally blast the whole thing with matte varnish. These two vehicles below took me about six hours after assembly and primer. During the airbrush stage I also basecoated and preshaded another rhino and a drop pod, as well as about a dozen infantry. Quite efficient I think!

Nice step through, thanks for sharing.

If you did the brown in the recesses over the initial army painter spray, then yellow over it, wouldn't that create the same result? And skip a stage in an already lengthy process?

Also surprised you glue the tracks in before you start. I always leave the tank tracks aside to airbrush separately. I find them a paint to paint with a brush.

 Zambro wrote:
Nice step through, thanks for sharing.

If you did the brown in the recesses over the initial army painter spray, then yellow over it, wouldn't that create the same result? And skip a stage in an already lengthy process?

Also surprised you glue the tracks in before you start. I always leave the tank tracks aside to airbrush separately. I find them a paint to paint with a brush.

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it.

By building up the yellow in two coats (with the preshade in between) I achieve a deeper, richer tone which better matches the infantry. The difference is subtle but noticable when you put them side by side.

I do assemble my models fully before painting. Tracks are easy if you use a battered old Size Something Big brush And I've found that in general, if an area is hard to reach with a brush, it's not really worth putting a lot of effort into in the first place. I believe even dear Duncan said something to that effect recently. This army is being painted to a decidedly table-top standard. They need to look good at arm's length from a high angle. You don't want to flip these models upside-down, that's where the messy bits are!

Just a quick update this week, after churning out two tanks last week I decided to take it easy and work on a couple of characters. I present you my second captain and the techmarine:




Nothing terribly exciting. They look very red together, but they'll be operating far apart on the table so that should be OK The techmarine is to sit with the predators and lascannon devastators, giving repairs to the vehicles and maybe doing a little fighting if the need arises. He was kitbashed from Devastator parts (the legs, the robot arm and the servo-skull) along with techmarine bits from the vehicle accessory sprue and a Mk X helmet from a Primaris Lieutenant. I like how he's interacting with his auspex/remote control, trying to figure out why the razorback's machine spirit keeps blinking "12:00".

The captain is going to be dropping from the skies with a 9-strong squad of Sternguard to pepper the enemy with stratagem-infused boltery goodness! To that end I gave him a master-crafted boltgun which can be turned into the Primarch's Wrath. He is based on the Betrayal at Calth dark apostle, equipped with an old assault squad power axe and a boltgun upgraded with some aquilas, a scope and a purity seal.

That's a useful tutorial GH for the yellow, very effective!

Some really nice Fists there, and you really know how to make that yellow pop! Looks great, I'll be subbed for more.

The Sepia layer really makes the yellow much richer and vibrant, nice idea, might pinch that. Your technique isn't far off my own for yellow.

Great kit bashing on that techmnarine

Thanks guys! It's been so quiet here lately I was starting to think everyone had gone off somewhere

This week I'm looking at either some Tactical Marines or my last convertible Rhino-Razorback. I'm waiting for some stuff to come in to round out my army. Wayland Games is cheap and their service is top notch, but you sure do need patience...

Well that week was a bit of a dud as far as painting was concerned I did get some games in though and was introduced to the Deceiver + Zahndrek and Obyron shenanigans. Ouch! That experience also laid bare some deficiencies in my list which I am now in the process of fixing. Most of my hobby time last week was spent tweaking my lists. I decided I needed some Scouts to have more control over the deployment phase and limit the space for enemy deepstrikers. I also needed some Terminators to provide a counter to anything stompy making into my battle lines. And lastly I needed a proper army case so I don't have to wrap everything in paper kitchen towels every time I go out for a game! Of course I then also ran out of primer and found my dear old hexagonal pot of Boltgun Metal drying out.

In the end I am now quite a few hobby dollars lighter and most of the stuff is still en route. I did get the Terminators in though and painted them up yesterday! Here they are:




I'm happy with how they came out, especially the white helmets. I used Ulthuan Grey for the first time and I love it. There are some details I quite like too, like the Sergeant's power sword and some of the decal work:




Blowing them up that big does painfully highlight the fact that I paint to an arm's length standard... Let's pretend we didn't see that

Woo more Crimson fists!

To me the painting is ace man. The highlights are great especially on both of the crux terminatus. And that decal on the power fist is boss. the bases are always great, I actually picked up a tub of AK neutral texture terrain after seeing it earlier on the blog, it's great stuff. What colours are you using for the base?

Also I'm feeling the same about my chaos list, need some termies. My army is just too slow and can't react well to things that pop up

Nice imperial fists . I never like looking at my pictures blown up either. Then you have to remember that the people who blow theirs up are aliens that must be purged

 boundless08 wrote:
Woo more Crimson fists!

To me the painting is ace man. The highlights are great especially on both of the crux terminatus. And that decal on the power fist is boss. the bases are always great, I actually picked up a tub of AK neutral texture terrain after seeing it earlier on the blog, it's great stuff. What colours are you using for the base?

Also I'm feeling the same about my chaos list, need some termies. My army is just too slow and can't react well to things that pop up

Thanks man! I agree, the AK stuff is great. Gone are the days of messing around with wallpaper paste and digging sand out of the garden. I paint mine Vallejo Light Grey, give them a generous wash of Agrax, then drybrush with Vallejo Buff and finally a light drybrush of Flat White. GW equivalents would be Administratum Grey, Zandri Dust and Screaming Skull I think. The rims are German Grey, an almost-black grey.

 Theophony wrote:
Nice imperial fists . I never like looking at my pictures blown up either. Then you have to remember that the people who blow theirs up are aliens that must be purged

Haha, agreed!


Well it's been another couple of weeks and I've got some stuff done. I am very happy with my lascannon-armed Predator. It packs a lot of firepower on a survivable platform that's easy to move around if needed. So I asked myself, what's better than a lascannon-armed Predator? Two lascannon-armed Predators! So I got another one and painted it, here it is by itself and beside its brother:







Another unit I've been quite impressed with is my drop pod full of Sternguard. I got a box of Mk 3 marines built to represent them, and while they are now in the paint queue I decided to paint up their ride first. It's not completely finished really - the interior needs some more work and I'd like to do some re-entry burn weathering on the outside. Also it has some unsightly gaps in the paintjob where the petals meet the fins... Not sure on how to fix that yet. But for now it's OK. I honestly didn't enjoy painting this one very much, due to the overly complicated interior and the fact that everything is either times five or times ten!







Yesterday evening the gaming club opened again after the summer break. There's a doubles tournament next month (which I won't be able to attend, sadly) and I volunteered my 2000 points army as practice for 2x1000 points of Eldar, Craftworld and Harlequins. This battle gave me one of the worst first turns I've ever experienced in wargaming. I got the initiative seized away from me, I could not land a shot to save my life and the few hits I did get in were quickly negated by my opponent's red-hot invulnerable saves. There are few things as depressing as having four lascannon shots negated by four 4+ invulnerables... Twice. I put almost my entire army's firepower into one Starweaver only to have it survive on one wound with its cargo intact :(



This is near the start of my first turn. The Eldar had blown up a Rhino on the far left, spilling out the tactical squad, they had wiped out my scouts in the ruins and had generally just got up in my face! I have just moved a tactical squad up the center to dakka down a Harlequin troupe in the ruins and I'm looking forward to murdering the Starweaver with concentrated lascannon fire so my deep striking Sternguard and Terminators can get at the squishies whithin. Unfortunately, by the end of turn one the table still looked much the same...


Having lost an entire turn due to horrible dice, then suffering the ferocious assault of the Harlequins on turn two with wave serpents full of Craftworld Eldar still on their way, I was almost ready to throw in the towel. But that would make baby Dorn cry. Imperial Fists are famously stubborn, even when the odds are greatly stacked against them, and we were going to hold damn it. And it paid off. When the dice gods were done messing around and physics returned to normal, the Fists proved their tenacity and gradually started taking the Eldar apart in volley after volley of disciplined bolter fire. In spite of having the initiative seized from me and comepletely fluffing my first turn, I won 13 to 8 on kill points. Yay!

With my astonishing Drop Pod and Predator leaving you all speechless I decided to give it a rest for a couple of weeks before returning with the next jaw-dropper: Sternguard!




I've loved the Mk III armor since seeing the early sketches in 2nd or 3rd edition and was delighted to see them released in plastic. Before rejoining the fray of 40K I actually considered picking up 30K just because of these awesome kits. Turns out I could have my Mk III cake and eat it too by using them as Sternguard! Where "eat it" means play games with it, as no-one around here plays 30K. And I don't know what a Mk III cake would look like. I guess the expression is a little strained here. Moving on.

I painted the whole squad over one entire day and I really think I should stop doing that. I get burned out if my batch is too big and by the time I'm painting model #8, I'm more focussed on getting it done than doing it right. This leads to a lot of touching up later. That said, the Mk III paint up surprisingly easy due to a lack of elaborate detail. Of course that's also how I modeled them. I figured these guys in their ancient armor would stick closer to the ideals of the Great Crusade and its lack of frill. And it strikes me as a decidedly Imperial Fists thing to get rid of all your little battle honors and purity seals once you make it to the First Company. You've earned the white helmet and that is enough of a badge, now go field-strip your bolter again and then take five in the pain glove. Good lad.

What actually happened is I spent more time gaming and less time painting the past couple of weeks. My army is shaping up nicely and it is, in fact, almost finished. Insofar as an army is ever finished. I've got ten Scouts to paint up and then my regular line-up is all done. I'd like to acquire a Land Raider Crusader, a squad of Thunder Hammer Terminators and a Terminator Chaplain to give me a hard-hitting assault option, but that's future talk. I've also been eyeballing those sexy Rubric Marines and the infraggable Ahzek Ahriman as a possible second army. Then again, those new Leman Russ tank rules look very tempting too...

Slick work. but how were do the bullets come out of

i really need to get me mk3 kits

they do look awesome in yellow.

 Desubot wrote:
Slick work. but how were do the bullets come out of

i really need to get me mk3 kits

they do look awesome in yellow.

I forgot to black for the barrels again didn't I

Thanks, I too like the way the Fists look in their older armor patterns, especially the Mk III.

I serioiusly love MK3 marines aswell. wish they were bigger though. predators look really good.

Not sure if I'm a fan of white helmets against yelllow. Personally, red would look better, but it's solid painting either way. Great work!

 STG wrote:
I serioiusly love MK3 marines aswell. wish they were bigger though. predators look really good.

I like them this size since I missed the whole Primaris boat Hell, most of my angry little men are on 25mm bases still.

 WarbossDakka wrote:
Not sure if I'm a fan of white helmets against yelllow. Personally, red would look better, but it's solid painting either way. Great work!

Thanks man! As for the helmets... Well, Roboute was already apoplectic with rage when he found out what we did to his beloved Imperium, I figured I wouldn't rub any salt in the wound by messing up his color swatches as well.

Seriously though, I hear what you're saying - white doesn't exactly pop off yellow, almost any other bright color would do that better. I went for codex over looks on this one. I'd already sinned on their shoulder trim (which should have been white as well). Incidentally, my girlfriend thinks the sergeant looks like a Mexican wrestler

I Like the white helmets, I used them with my old fists army.

Nice work on the drop pod, I'm slowly putting one together atm, as I've not made one before I'm finding it an interesting experience.

Really nice yellow on the predators!

Nice Sternguard, I'm using MKIII as them as well. The white helmets are a nice contrast with the slightly dirty yellow armour. I'm enjoying the blog so far and I can't wait to see more!