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Looks great, Nev!

I think you should add some scribbles...

 Zambro wrote:
Looks great, Nev!

I think you should add some scribbles...

OK. I’m not going to drag out the tripod for another formal photoshoot, but here you go:


Also a group shot from before, when I still had the lights and everything set up:

Nice work with the squggles on the parchments. Really makes a difference I think.

 Gitsplitta wrote:
Nice work with the squggles on the parchments. Really makes a difference I think.

Agreed!

Nice group shot, too!

The scribbles are excellently done, also loving the religious seminar group shot

I might have to steal that chaplain for my own ultras. Nice job nev

Thanks guys. Chaplains are my favorite HQ, was fun to get this guy done.

Finished the first two of the LotD counts-as:

I should probably continue to work on the squad, so I can actually field them. But other things are drawing my eye. One is to paint up the grav gunner, or some c-melta sternguard. Both are things I found myself wanting to include in a list, but not having finished yet. The Vindi is also calling out for some love, but I’m not sure I’m up for a tank ATM. I do need to get some more Eldar done by year’s end, so should probably work to get a few of them across the paintbench.

In other news, I got some new drill bits. My folks were up this last weekend visiting, and I was chatting with my dad about how I had some 3mm magnets, but it was impossible to find metric bits in stores, and I wasn’t going to pay shipping that would end up doubling the price. He’s got Amazon Prime, so gets free shipping and a set just showed up in the mail yesterday. As an extra nice bonus, the 3mm bit fits in my pinvice, where the 1/8” (3.2mm) bit I was using for my old magnets did not. This is very convenient, as I was hand turning the old bit when I needed the larger magnets set in things.

I, like I’m sure most of you, have a mini problem. I’m following the rumors about the new 30k board game with barely restrained enthusiasm. I don’t know why. Mk IV is one of my least favorite armor marks, I dislike the overall aesthetic of the contemptor, I don’t need more of anything in the box, and I’ll most likely never play the game as-is. And yet, I covet it. Worse then that, I’ve got the cash to pick it up, and most likely will. Madness. There are some guys at the FLGS who are into heresy armies, so it’s not a total loss. I do need to look into acquiring the HH rules though.

Beautifully done Nev. He'll be a great addition to your army. How are you going to do the base.

While I’m tempted to do something like a deckplate/inside ship kinda thing, I suspect I’ll just arctic base them eventually when I get around to it. Probably when the squad is finished.

I had thoughts about fielding a totally based army, as I’m up to 3 tac squads based, plus a few HQs, the deathwatch, and the honor guard. But I realize that for whatever reasons, all the tac squads are ML/F, so it wouldn’t be a very balanced army.

Although I think I’m going to add that to my list of things to do before the year is out: Get a fully based army that’s not just slapped together on the table.

I should just sit down and do a few dozen, but it’s so boring

Nice work on that Chappy and on the LotD count-as, I like the colour scheme.

D

 Nevelon wrote:
Although I think I’m going to add that to my list of things to do before the year is out: Get a fully based army that’s not just slapped together on the table.

I should just sit down and do a few dozen, but it’s so boring

Best of luck.

It is boring. But it'll look stunning after.
I thought my bases were all done. I have a few minor finishing touches I want to do before I call it quits with my bases - Just cant bring myself to do it because it's boring

Not really looked into the new releases for 40k. I think I'll head over to the N&R subforum and find out whats going on.

Chaplain Severus looks badass, man, and the 'LotD' are coming along nicely too (what's their story?)

In case you weren't aware, the basic Crusade Force army list can be found in a £30 codex-style book that does away with the missions and fluff, so you only need that (for generic legions, there's another book with special rules for Legions at Istvaan and presumably one coming for the next lot of Legions) rather than one of the massive books.

I need to tighten up the fluff on the LotD, probably do that when they are closer to done. Their basic schtick is that they are teleporting boarding/breaching veterans who can move and react faster then traditional TDA ones. Basically port in, set up a perimeter, and secure the LZ for further troops. While I don’t mind the basic minis for the LotD, I’m not a fan of finecast, and didn’t want to hunt down old metal ones. Plus I wanted something that fit cohesively with my army. Stormshields give the same 3++ that the LotD have, so that and bolters make for a decent counts-as. Interceptor backpacks from the GKs are there for their precision deep strike abilities.

You know a few posts ago when I said I wasn’t sure I wanted to do a tank next? Lies.


I’m still not sure I want to do it, but I’m going to try. Eldar vehicles go so much faster then imperial ones, even with the zillion coats of red I need to put down for a smooth finish. I’m hoping this guy goes as quick as the Crimson Hunter. But getting the WS done will add about 130 points to my Eldar tally for the year. My last “average how I’d play it" points painted for the year was 710, so this guy and one more squad should put me at my 1k painted goal. Even if I fail to paint any more pointy ears after this, my generous, all the upgrades point total was 910, so this alone would push me over the edge. But that requires some sleazy bookkeeping. Which I’m not above doing, but prefer not to.

Have I mentioned how much I love painting Eldar vehicles? I guess the flip side is how much I hate cleaning mold lines off of their infantry. And in general painting all the fiddly infantry bits. But the tanks? Smooth sailing. The accessories might need another coat, and the pilot still needs to be done. But zoom.

In other news, the monk I’m working on is getting close to having all his base colors blocked in. With his slightly textured surface I’m a little worried about how a wash will look on him, but will deal with that when it comes up.



Enjoy your weekends all. Keep an eye out for the ghouls and goblins tomorrow. Hope all of you going out trick or treating get all the candy you want, and those staying home handing it out get rid of it all.

Looks great, love the monk. Where'd he come from?

Have you considered the coloured spray paint for Eldar vehicles? It'd definately speed up the process. And by extension, it'd speed up the process for UM vehicles, too. But you would need to buy 2 cans.

 Zambro wrote:
Looks great, love the monk. Where'd he come from?

Have you considered the coloured spray paint for Eldar vehicles? It'd definately speed up the process. And by extension, it'd speed up the process for UM vehicles, too. But you would need to buy 2 cans.

The monk if from Heroforge They have a character-creator like system that you find in MMOs, but rather then playing a game, they 3D print it and mail it to you. The monk is a friends who wanted to see how well they came out. They cost around what a GW plastic HQ mini would cost, and the quality is not as good. But if you want something you can’t find over at reaper, or one of the other mini companies, they will make it for you. Provided what you want can be made from the mix-and-match menus. It’s got some of the same drawbacks of multipose plastics, where all the parts have to be more or less universal, so it’s not as fluid and coherent and a monopose sculpt. If you want to go all-out, they will make bronze minis. I think just by printing plastic and using the lost wax method. A few fun options.

I’m old and set in my ways. Spray cans and me don’t get along very well. So I stick with the old fuzzy stick to slather the paints on. I recognize there are better ways out there, but I’m stubborn like that.

That's pretty cool!

The sculpt quality doesn't look fantastic, but the fact you can pick and choose weapons/gear/pose etc. is cool. Lots of interesting options!

You'r making me feel guilty Nev. I have a WS sitting in the cabinet waiting for paint since Feb :(

Zambro wrote:That's pretty cool!

The sculpt quality doesn't look fantastic, but the fact you can pick and choose weapons/gear/pose etc. is cool. Lots of interesting options!

It’s a neat idea. If you know you are going to be in a long running campaign, and want to play something a little off the beaten path, it can be worth it. I know I keep telling myself “Next time I need to make a character, I’m going to find a cool mini first then work out the stats."

Januine wrote:You'r making me feel guilty Nev. I have a WS sitting in the cabinet waiting for paint since Feb :(

Only Feb? You have time. IIRC my WS was part of the initial supply drop at the start of this blog ~2 years ago. And I have stuff in my primed pile that have been waiting literal decades for attention. Sometimes I’ll sift through my blog and try to find the stuff that’s been waiting the longest and try to slap paint on it. I should start a log of shame and check thing in when purchased, assembled, and finished. Could make for some interesting data. I think most things have a year-ish of turnaround.

Speaking of buying more then I paint, I think I’ve convinced myself I’m going to buy the HH board game for the bits. Even told The Wife, and she’s fine with it. This is going to toss a bog ol’ wrench into my “paint more then I buy” resolution, but I still might be OK. I’ll need to check the other purchases for this year and see how I’m doing.

Happy Halloween all!

Interesting stuff about that company that'll print figures for you. I'll need to check that out.

Looking forward to seeing how the Eldar progresses.

EDC

Productive morning. Didn’t have much work to do, but I did it. Wave Serpent is done:


And here is the Eldar year-to-date shot:


Seems appropriate to get some Eldar done today. While not Halloween themed, they are Saim-Hann

(pardon the pun)

Nice, clean paint job Nev. Like it.

Over in the October voting thread Butter Commissar said:

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
Well done guys! A lot of great ideas and painting.
I do like seeing the repeat entrants and how Their skills are progressing.
In many cases, too much.

and I was going to fire off a quip to the tune of “at lest I’m still churning out the same mediocre paintjobs” But rather then my normal self depreciating humor, I thought I’d actually take a look at what I’ve been up to for the last eight months. And check if I have improved in any real fashion.









(I was tempted to get out all the minis for one group shot, but think I’ll wait for the one year mark for that.)

The HG wasn’t anything groundbreaking. He was well executed, and included some new-ish things like the tabard.
Ven Dread was an experiment in heat stressing. Actual skill-up progress there.
Autarch felt phoned in. Still does.
Nurgle champ is basically just washes and drybrushing. Nothing really new.
I like the way the ranger turned out. The camo was a little off my normal schemes, but nothing earth shattering.
WL is just there. I blame the old mini, and it’s lack of feeling, but my paint is not doing it any favors
The foot captain can be compared to the HG earlier. Both are similar models in the same scheme. And the captain is much better IMHO. Not just from a build POV, but I think I did a better job executing his paintjob. OK, I’m improving. I like parts of the Oni, but think I should have left her out of my entry, as she drags the overall quality down.
The chaplain had me doing stuff I don’t normally do. Tyranid carapaces, necron and tau bits and bobs. I think he came out well, and did give me a little bump out of my normal comfort zone.

So I have made some progress. A few new techniques, and better execution of old ones. I just put the first layer of blue down on Cato, for this months competition. We’ll see how he compares to the other marines. I also started the grav gunner and 3 spare backpacks, just to keep things moving.

There's a definite improvement over the months there! As the organiser it is always encouraging to see that sort of thing, so cheers for getting them all in one place! Keep pushing yourself, and keep the good stuff coming! Looking forward to seeing Cato!

That's a cool group shot of the Eldar, planning anymore before the end of year to add to those?

Paradigm wrote:There's a definite improvement over the months there! As the organiser it is always encouraging to see that sort of thing, so cheers for getting them all in one place! Keep pushing yourself, and keep the good stuff coming! Looking forward to seeing Cato!

Thanks again for running those, I’m having fun painting for them.

Adamski Alders wrote:That's a cool group shot of the Eldar, planning anymore before the end of year to add to those?

Yes, but I’m not sure what.

Here is an pic of primed stuff on the list: (I don’t think I’ve added anything to that pile, but did finish the WS)


Now the goal is to get about 130 more points done. That’s going to be a aspect warrior squad, or a chunk (3-4) of bikes (probably with the warlock). I’ve got solid paint schemes in mind for everything but the Dire Avengers, and I have a few vague thoughts on them. I haven’t made up my mind yet.

You guys have any preferences of what you want to see painted? It will be next after I finish the current projects
Swooping Hawks
Fire Dragons
Dire Avengers
Bikes (w/warlock)

Personally I think the Swooping Hawks would be a good shout after the recent Wave Serpent(?). Though I do like the look and sound of Warlocks, if I ever collected Eldar I'd make sure I had a few of those.

 Adamski Alders wrote:
Personally I think the Swooping Hawks would be a good shout after the recent Wave Serpent(?). Though I do like the look and sound of Warlocks, if I ever collected Eldar I'd make sure I had a few of those.

I do like the swooping hawks. While the details are lost in time, I think they might have been one of the earliest acquisitions of my Eldar army. Whlie I have a number of warlocks on foot, getting the guy on the bike done is needed if I ever want to use the formation. Or just add a little psychic punch to a bike squad.

So I went up to the FLGS yesterday, and got a game in. This scene of carnage is the bottom of turn one. (about halfway through) You hear of games that were lost before the first die was cast, this was one of them. They lost it in the scout movement phase.


My teammate was playing ravenguard, and we were both doing 1st and 10th style lists. Vets and scouts. Opponents were orks and ravenwing. Where are the ravenwing in that picture? Well, most of them are dead. There are necron warriors who are proxying as DA scouts at the bottom of the pic, a darkshroud running for the hills, and a interrogator-chaplain about to die under a pile of VVs. Safety tip people: When there are 20 Vanguard Vets lined on on the ready line, aggressively scouting forward might not be the safest thing to do. Particularly when you are going second. Also note: When you move 2 bike squads and a speeder out of your deployment zone, you leave a nice hole to land a drop pod. The space between the pods used to contain a dozen or so ork bikes. Two (including the boss) survived. The sternguard didn’t last long, as this pic was snapped between the shooting and assault phase. But they had completed their mission.

Our turn two sees the vanguard sweep around my pod and start mulching orcs. We shoot up the southern flank pretty good, but don’t get into CC there. On their turn the fire raptor fails to show up, and I think we call it at that point. It’s getting late, and they were getting brutalized.

Fresh paint was the full 10 man vanguard squad. They did very well for themselves. One thing I’m going to have to do is homogenize their weapons. While I like the concept of individual vets with their semi-unique weapons of choice, actually keeping track and rolling everyone separately was not worth the time from a practical POV. I the power maul still alive? OK, now I’m rolling for the spear. How many basic guys still there? Bogged down game play, just for some fluff and flavor. I think I’ll put together some more weapon arms, just to keep things simple.


JP captain with TH/SE
10 VV, asst. toys
10 SG, pod, 2 c-melta, 2HF
5 CC scouts in a LSS
5 sniper scouts

I think you've answered your question there dude, Warlock on bike to give you the formation availability and then the Swooping Hawks.

That game sounds vicious but fun for the winners, not so much for the opponents but at least they'll learn more about their army and better tactics when it comes to deployment.

I do feel a little bad. But one of the reasons the guys play teams on Wed is to try out lists and practice for adeptecon. And while my list was a little more aggressive then I normally bring, it’s by no means tournament caliber. And the more games you play, the more you learn. Theoretically. This is not the first time I’ve done unseemly things to hyper-aggressive RW players, but I think it was a different guy last time. He rolled up right in front of a LR full of assault terminators.

If he hadn’t moved into assault range of the VVs, I probably would have dropped the SG on him, instead of the massive ork bike squad. A pair of HFs plus ignore cover bolters would help put a stop to the 2+ re-rollable cover save. But with them on the CC menu, and the nice spot to put the pod where I could drop the flamers right down the line of bikes was an opportunity not to be missed.

Without the scouting error, the game probably would have been a lot closer. Once the Fireraptor showed up, things were going to get bad for us. It would be a question of if we could stay locked in CC during their turns. If not, our expensive vets were going to start evaporating. Unfortunately, we were blendering through their army faster then we should have been able to, in part to the turn one charge.

I do think the Orc guy wanted to strangle the RW player. But I think after he saw how things were playing out, he just gave up hope and started to enjoy the ride. There is that moment you realize you can’t win the big picture, so you enjoy your little victories. Like dismembering sternguard after the drop.