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Black Bases and Grey Plastic Forever

So this is my first hobby blog. I’ve got quite the backlog of bits and kits to go through and paint. Right now I’ve got 3ish armies(Tyranids, Dark Eldar, and Genecults with IG allies), and only a small portion of that is painted . Add on to that all the terrain I’ve built over the years, and have yet to apply paint, I’ve got Black Bases and Grey Plastic for Forever.

I’ll keep this first post updated with my To-Do and Completed lists(which I’ll try to fill out over the next few days/weeks). I’m hoping this blog will keep me motivated to apply paint to models. For now my goal is one update per week, schedule permitting. Multiple updates in one week don’t let me off the hook for the next week(s).

To-Do:


Completed

Which here are the photos for my first submission to the blog, the aforementioned “Capillary Towers and Digestion Pool”. Comments and criticism welcome. There’s a handy guide in the articles section here(by Clem Robertson) that I adapted for my Towers.



More pics of this project in my gallery.



Here’s some terrain I started painting up last night. Idea is a ruin that was returned to, and re-fortified a bit.

Did a little more work on the Ruin last night. Not going to get bogged down in too many details; I just want it on the table.

So I suppose I should explain why I listed a bunch of models I need to get painted, and then proceeded to work and post up terrain... Mainly because I’ve got our club’s Monthly Hobby Day coming up, and with new people coming I’ve got to get some more terrain ready for the tables, especially good LoS blocking terrain. Unfortunately before I could finish my previous project, I’ve run out of paints which won’t be in until later this week. So another project on hold.

But luckily my Maelstrom’s Edge Terrain sprues came in, so I get to start work on some bunkers. It would be remiss for me to not mention I shamelessly stole the idea from the amazing insaniak’s work here. Lots of great ideas here, which got me to buy the sprues in the first place.

So the storage trays I stumbled upon were a tad larger than insaniak’s, which suits me just fine. Being able to easily hide 6+ Hive Guard behind them was obviously, most definitely not a coincidence in any way. In fact we you can see in the picture below they can block sight to anything short of a Trygon, so quite tall and large which suits me just fine.

Looking good!

Moving on and trying to get a few different things done for Hobby Day. Still stealing a bit of inspiration from insaniak here. I’ll have to back to really paint all these to a decent standard, but just a coat of primer will work for what we do at the moment. Hopefully this weekend I’ll make time to paint up some Tyranid troops.

 insaniak wrote:
Looking good!

Thanks insaniak, I appreciate it.

Unfortunately my work schedule prevented me from finishing as much as I wanted for our club's monthly Hobby Day(and had me showing up a few hours late too!). On the other hand, while waiting for a game I did get to prime some models up using the citadel Imperial Primer.

So they finished up their 3v3, we ordered Domino's, sat around and talked for an hour or three, and it was time to get back to gaming. We had two sit out this round to paint, leaving 6 of us. We decided on a 2v2 and a 1v1, with me claiming the 1v1 versus a newcomer to our group. He was fairly familiar with the game, and had a fun looking list. 90 Conscripts, a baneblade variant, Celestine, Repentia. and some various HQs. For myself, I brought 2 dakkafexes, a Stranglethorn Tyrant, 3 Tyrant Guard, a Malanthrope, Hive Guard, and a near max unit of Genestealers who deep struck in with a Trygon Prime. We played Open War where he claimed the center and I got the 4 corners, every unit got +1 attack, and we each got an objective to camp on(and attempt to take from the opposing player). A quick pic of our game(top of round 1 I believe)

It was a pretty fun and close game with a lot of back and forth. Repentia chopped up my Malanthrope and Tyrant Guard, 'Stealers struck in and wiped a 27ish man Conscript blob and proceeded to consolidate into his commanders and Baneblade. Unfortunately we had to call it midgame due to his crew having to drive back home. All in all everyone had a good time, and we've all started preparing for Hobby Day again in 4 weeks.

----

For present tense, this morning I had to sit through about 4 hours of online safety training videos so I decided I might as well do some painting too. Thanks to a timely delivery of paints I managed to finish up the Ruin I started previously(or as done as I want it anyway), and put a little paint on Star Bunker 6 too.

Cutting it close for an update per week, but work, the holiday, and fencing in a new chicken coop has been eating into my time. Luckily I sat aside an hour tonight to play with my color scheme a bit. I’ve gotten tired of the plain brown carapace, so thought I’d try some edge highlights. Obviously I need more practice with lines as thick as these.


On the left is my current scheme(itself an update with yellow talons), and the right was me playing around with edge paints and too bright colors.

Here is a more muted color, but my highlight was a little thick. If I get time I’ll try again with a much thinner brush.

I think both of those work. May be too thick for edge highlights but they both work as just a variation on the chitin carapace itself.

Got in a little early today so got to put some paint on models. Got the first layer down on about 57 Termagants. Took about a hour and a half, but I imagine the more intensive layers will take quite a bit longer.

 monkeytroll wrote:
I think both of those work. May be too thick for edge highlights but they both work as just a variation on the chitin carapace itself.

Thanks, I appreciate it. Still not sure if I’ll keep it for the whole Swarm, but it gave me some ideas. I don’t look forward to trying it on my basic Infantry.

Slow going with work, blueberry picking, and playing Darkest Dungeon until 1 in the morning, but I managed to slap some paint on more Termagants. Right now we’re at one coat of Ushabti Bone on all, with two coats on 4.

So I kinda missed an update last week, but hopefully this week makes up for it. I managed to finish my Termagants I was working on, and get a few games in at our monthly hobby day. I won’t bore you with the details, but we did a team game(me and CSM vs Knights and Deathwatch). We got smashed. I’d like to get a solo game in vs Knights. It seems like it’d be fun. So, on with the termies-

I also finished up my Kill Team Leader-beast, and wrote up a tidbit of fluff for him. Quotes are preserved in the local Kumongan dialect for posterity.


Ol’ Red
“They say Ol’ Red’s been here since the Great Invasion, ‘fore we drove the ‘Nids back and burned the Firebreak around ‘em. Somehow he slipped through all the promethium bombs and chemblasts, and now lurks around the outer rim of the ‘Break. Those who seen him say he’s got markings like the first batch of ‘Nids, with a reddish hue to his plates. ‘Course he’d have to be over a hundred years old by now, so I kinda doubt that. One thing I do know, when you see that red crest you better turn around right quick. Odds are you got a horde of Choppers or Snatcher himself at your back, cause Ol’ Red don’t never travel alone.”
-Sgt. Elmer Paulsy of the Kumungan Planetary Defense Force, 454th Battalion(retired)

Busy busy. Finally got around to getting all my ruins(old and new) based, plus putting together the 40k KillTeam Terrain.

I’m about sick of barrels.

This is one of the first models I painted. It was on a plain black base, and wanting to use it in KillTeam I went ahead and threw something together for it. Got a small snippet written for it as well.

Been preoccupied a bit lately, but on the Hobby front I’ve managed to get some Acid Maw and Implant Attack Genestealers thrown together.

Game wise I’ve gotten several Kill Team games in and had a blast. DeathGuard hit hard, and Necrons never go down. Harlequins are a lot of fun to go against. I’ve found Tyranids to have some good options, but I find it hard to not include at least one Warrior. Dark Eldar are quite mean but glass cannons(as they should be!). Haven’t had a go with my Genecult yet, but at our next club day I may bring them out. Probably going to stick with Deldar though since I don’t put them on the table much. Anyway, here’s some pics of our games-