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.

Cool shield design there on your dwarf Nevelon, thanks for the link - of course I knicked it from a jewelery design or something.

Thanks for the kind words folks. And it’s not knicking ideas if you attribute your source. That’s drawing inspiration from.

The Crimson Hunter could have taken flight last night, but was preempted buy the Ultramarines. There was so much fresh paint in blue that had never seen the table, they insisted to take the field. So I crammed as much of it as I could into a 1,500 point list, and hit the FLGS.

1,500, dawn of war/crusade.
Ultramarines:
Calgar
Jump librarian
HG
VV
HB/F tac in rhino
CC scouts in LSS
TML/HB Speeder
TLLC/ML dread.
LR

His list (Emperor’s Children)
Warpsmith, loaded for bear
2 squads of CSM in rhinos, at least one marked nurgle
2 huge blobs of cultists
3 helbrutes
10 man squad of havoks, w/MLs.

(Pardon the blurry phone pics)

Contact! Off screen to the left is where my LSS is hiding, and the other chaos rhino. Most of the cultists and the other hellbrute are off in the ruins to the right. He goes first, I don’t seize. He pushes forward, I return fire, not a whole lot of damage done. Here is the bottom of turn two:



Not shown in these pictures are the 20 CSM who where there at the top of round two. They were all brutally murderized purged. The honor guard and the scouts blenderd one squad, after it’s rhino was cracked open. The other squad has disembarked to shoot up my tac squad. It was first worked over in the psychic phase by my librarian, shot up a bunch, and then finished off by the VVs, who also multi assualted and killed them andthe horse they rode in on their rhino as well. Enfeeble is bad people. But things are about to get ugly for the Honor guard and Calgar. They take some fire, loosing the champion, before the smith and the brute plow in. While he might look innocent and sweet, that warpsmith is some sort of demon axe weidling, knorne marked, be-tentacled rage monster. He swings about a dozen times with his AP2 clever, and drops the stalwart chapter master. His triumph is short lived, as the HG with the axe puts him down at I1. When the dust settles, the power axe HG and the standard bearer are locked into CC with the brute. Over on the other side of the table, the cultists run towards the action, and their doom.

The Vanguard leap over the wrecked rhino and charge the cultists. Two(!) of them go down to snap-fired autoguns, but then the retribution begins. Do you know why there is a rule in the CC section about what happens when consolidation will not get you close enough to attack? It’s for situations like this. The poor VV with the axe never got to swing, as the combat went straight to resolution at I3. Needless to say, the cultists were run down, and the VV consolidated back towards the main fight.

The rest of the battle went fairly quickly. My massed, ineffective fire eventually brought down the remaining helbrutes, I missed melta in this list, need to clean the optics on those Lascannons. The Vanguard butchered the other (enfeebled) cultist squad, once again killing so many that CC was ended when the survivors couldn’t make it into contact with the marines. One bright point of glory and honor was the CC fight with the remaining HG and the helbrute. Armed with nothing more effective then their courage and krack grenades, the valiantly fought back against the corrupt monster. The Axe marine copped a fist to the face, and was laid low, but the Ancient refused to fall. When the smoke from the scuffle finally cleared, he stood triumphant, Banner planted into the glanced-to-death hulk of the fallen war machine. He then ran over to help finish the havoks, who just finished putting down the last of the scouts in CC. The novice’s sacrifice buying time for the rest of my force to finish mopping up and head over to gun down the ML toting heretics.

Game ended via tabling at the bottom of turn 6, although I also had 3/4 of the objectives, as well as first blood and linebreaker. Both warlords were dead.

Fresh paint report:
Jump Librarian. Probably the MVP of the game. Enfeeble is crazy nasty. Smite is a solid attack, the life drain is no slouch. While not the CC machine that the other HQs are, he was still more then capable to cutting through chaos marines and cultists.
Honor Guard. Blender-rific. Of course, they are still T4 marines, and can roll ones just as well as terminators can. It was fun watching the last, desperate havoc with a ML spang a krack missile off the helmet of the Ancient. There are some perks to 2+ saves. It was worth putting in the axe. He avenged the Chapter Master. Relic blade was a bit of a push, as the squad already was turning anything they touched into a cloud of gore. The S6 would have been nice against the brute, or if there were MCs. But he died before the final brute fight, and there weren’t any monsters.
Vanguard Vets: The poor guy with the axe never got to swing. His comrades butchered everything vaguely within range so well, that combat was called before he got to swing. Every combat. Although the first fight with the CSM there was only one or two guys to mop up after the shooting. Cultist bits everywhere though. And the squad that had been enfeebled? Ouch. The vets probably would have been fine solo, without the librarian leading them. But I was up against mostly “soft” targets. Against something with a little more umph, the HQ would have been a valuable asset.
LSS While it’s been out a couple of times before, the storm still feels like a new unit. Although this will probably be the last time it gets a new paint shout out. It did it’s job well. Ferried the scouts to one CC, let them re-embark, and then took them to another. All while peppering shots around. And jinking like a boss Both of the speeders were forced into evasive maneuvers multiple times and made every save. Something like half a dozen missiles were causally rolled around, never landing on the fragile skimmers.
4th squad It’s hard to call a squad of RTB01 marines “fresh paint” but this was their first outing with their new sarge and HB marine. Sarge never fired his combi, as I thought it was overkill on the first CSM squad they tangled with. After the initial combat with the CSM, they tossed some shots into some cultists, but mostly fell back into their rhino to re-deploy towards objectives.

All in all, a good day out.

Nice report, Nev! You showed those heretics!

I'm supprised Calgar died. That guy is a beast. Did he kill anything before he went down?

Two nice looking armies on a nicely decorated table. That's all-win in my book.

 Zambro wrote:
Nice report, Nev! You showed those heretics!

I'm supprised Calgar died. That guy is a beast. Did he kill anything before he went down?

Hmm, I think he punched out some of the CSM. I know I attacked with him once. And I’m not kidding about that tech guy being a killing machine. One of the other chaos guys at the shop was commenting on how over equipped he was. But he got the job done. I think he had the axe of blind fury, but I’m not up on the heretical bits and bobs. I do know that it was AP 2, and gave him d6 extra attacks, which was 5 in this case.

Base attacks:2
Charge w/rage: +2
Extra CC weapon: +1
Axe d6: +5
Mechatendrils: +2?

So 12 S6 AP2 swings. And there is a good chance he was a vet of the long war, and thus hated me. After a certain point I just glaze over and ask how many invuln saves I need to make. I also went into the combat a wound down, having flubbed an armor save to some shooting earlier. Calgar might be an awesome wound sponge and beatstick, but even he has limits.

And because I forget to take a pack shot, here is an unpacking shot, before they head back to the shelf:



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gitsplitta wrote:
Two nice looking armies on a nicely decorated table. That's all-win in my book.

Yup, it was a good day out. Fun was had by all. For part of the game we were watched by a new player who had just bought his first unit the day before. Always nice to get fresh blood into the hobby. Which, in this case is very appropriate, as he’s going Khorne. So we were able to pass on some advice and tricks to him as we were playing.

I like that Army Nev... nicely balanced with some good mobility built in.

It was fun to play, but very concentrated. For a 1,500 point list, I had 27 pairs of boots on the ground. Every armor save I failed was critical. The CSM squad the HG killed had a pair of plasma guns in it. If they had a chance to shoot, half the HG could have been vaporized. I guess Grey Knights play every game like this, but I like to have a little more depth in my ability to soak damage.

Here is a semi stream-of-thought view into my army building. I’m going to ramble out a wall of text, sorry.
When I built this list I had a ton of self imposed restrictions. The first, and most obvious, was the desire to get as much fresh paint on the table. As this was a fun league night list, I also wanted to use units that didn’t get a lot of use. As things started to come together, it became a mechanized list, and I realized that if I took certain units I could fit it all into one KRU worth of foam for easy transport.
The first thing added to the roster was the HG. No choice there, they were the fresh paint that demanded the Ultras take the Eldar’s normal Wednesday slot. Once I picked them, I needed a CM. I could have done a build-your-own for a more reasonable amount of points, but I figured on their first outing, they should be escorting the real deal. Plus Calgar sees a lot of dust, it would be good for him to see the field. How are these guys going to deploy? Drop pod? Rhino? Screw that! The LR is the vehicle of choice of hideous assault units. It does make for a massive chunk of points though. That big ol’ box of pain is taking up just shy of half my points.
OK, next unit. Who’s recently joined the painted shelf? Vanguard Vets. OK, I like the jump chaplain with assault units, but not today. Jump Librarian needs to see the field. Second squad of ultra-elite choppy death added to the list.
Troops would be good, and points are running low. LSS is still new-ish, and I can fill it with CC scouts to help with the theme. I always feel dirty when not fielding at least one tac squad, so I hit the shelf to grab one. The 1st and 5th get most of the time in the sun, but the 4th has recently been upgraded with the new sarge and HB. By now the mechanized column is taking form, so they get a rhino, rather then a pod. Plus I’ve been over using the pods. Or I could use the deathwatch as a half tac squad, but I’d like them to debut with their librarian, and my HQs are full. Not going to ally today. They get a pass.
At this point I’m about 1,250 points. How does the army look? Chock full of close combat death, very light on AT fire (just the LR) no real AA to speak of. And, coincidentally, will all fit into one KRU worth of foam. The sensible thing to do would be to ignore the transport restrictions and grab one of my flyers. Screw logic. What slots are left unfilled in the trays I’m using? 2 dread slots, another speeder slot, and a score of slots for infantry. Dev squad would work nicely, but is not mobile enough to fit the army theme (tempting though, I’ve got a Dev sarge that is new paint). Pred would fit nicely thematically, but it’s tray is in use for the rhino. Dreadnought time; fire support loadout. TML/HB speeder, one my workhorse units, eats up most of the remaining points.
With most of the points spent, I go back for a second pass with upgrades. The dread goes venerable, someone gets a melta bomb. I grab everyone from the shelf. VV get some gear swapped around (I decide I’d rather go axe/pistol + CCW/SS rather then axe/SS, BP/CCW). Then it’s time to pack everyone up into a box, and wait for The Wife to get home so I can flee up to the FLGS and hope to get a game in.

Sounds like a reasonable process to go through. Glad it worked out for you.

OK, Para’s monthly challance is almost over, and while my entry has been done for a while, I wasn’t quite happy with the pictures. So I not only broke out the camera again, but found some whistles and bells to go with it.

A second light, better backdrop then a folded sheet of printer paper, and a tripod. Next year when I’m going down my resolutions I get to say “I got some progress!” when I get to the “improve my photography skills” one. I also poked around my camera menus and took pictures on different settings. Some were massively overexposed, and I’m not sure I could tell the difference between the ones that weren’t. Need to learn more (shock). These are zoomed and cropped, rather then just holding the camera near the mini.




For comparison, here are some of the old shots:






The last new pic that’s the front view is just the same auto settings of the old ones, but I think came out much better. It also shows off the tabard the best. I’m not sure about the white balance overall. I kinda like the warmth of the raw photos, even if it is a little artificial. What I should do is get some daylight bulbs for the clip/swing lamps and see how that affects things. Now I need to pick the best 4 shots and cross post them into the challenge thread.

Next months category is going to be “veteran” so I think I’ll do the ven dread that’s on the bench. Love those guys.

Pretty sharp dude. I like the kit bash.

Looks pretty snappy

I think the third picture down looks the best. And it does display the tabard best. It looks great!

Excited to see the Venerable Dread

Sounds like you had a fun time out, thanks for sharing!

I swear, all the fun you have with your marines makes me thing I almost could too... if there were a 40k group near enough to me.

Oh well, I shall continue to live vicariously

Sounds like an awesome battle you were involved in. Sad to hear Calgar got smashed though, he's usually pretty solid. I'm glad to hear the Jump Librarian did well for you, I'm planning to use one myself to lead my small army of Ultras. You got any tips how best to use him?

Thanks guys.

@Grim I have to drive about half an hour to my FLGS. Seems like a haul, but at least it’s there. There have been times when there wasn’t a store even that close, and those were dark days. Hopefully something improves in your neck of the woods.

@Adamski I went with biomancy, as it struck me as the best for the assault role. While there is good stuff in the other disciplines (invisibility) I didn’t feel like gambling with powers that may have been situational if I didn’t get the ones I wanted. The only gear I gave him was the jump pack, and a force staff for his weapon. I don’t think he’s sturdy enough to strike last, and the +2S helps get wounds in. ML2 was worth the upgrade. I generally was throwing 3-4 dice to get powers off. Only periled once, and was able to use life leech to get the wound right back.

I’m no expert on psychers. I think this might be the first time I fielded my librarian since they took away my ability to choose my own powers. So take what I say with a grain of salt. One of my problems with rolling for powers is it makes it hard to plan how to use them. I was kinda expecting something to make the lib better in CC. Ended up with blasts and debuffs. Still worked well, but unexpected. I guess that’s another big reason to go ML2; the second power. Makes it more likely to get something good.

I think I've got something 45-60 minutes away in either direction but it's a bit much.

There's a recently opened store in town that runs a lot of friday night magic type stuff, maybe they'll expand and eventually... probably have moved by then

That's how they've handled their magic phase forever, in warhammer fantasy too. I never liked rolling for stupid powers. Hand picking them to make a thematic/purpose-built character would better suit me.

Most of my WHFB magic use was with 5th edition necromancy, where you got to pick your powers. Or the chaos spells were were variations on a theme of “Zot! Die.” so which ones I got were mostly a mater of flavor. One of the underlying themes of my army selections has been to minimize randomness. If I give my troops an order, I expect it to be carried out. None of this “psychology” stuff, or do your own thing if you roll a “6”. Hold the line. Full stop.

While I had the camera set up, I grabbed a few more pictures.


The old spiritseer picture wasn’t a bad one, the difference might just be that I waved the white balance tool over the new one.




Some final shots of the CH. I think it photographs better at a rakish angle, but that would have required moving the tripod.

A sneak peek at this week’s Flashback Friday:





One problem of holding the camera close to the mini for pics is depth of focus. Sitting back and doing a zoom/crop gives you a better shot of guys with bits sticking off in every direction. So I decided to grab a new shot of the jump captain, as I recalled he didn’t want to sit still for his last shot.

And the start pic of the next project: Dreadnought Ghost!

(Just kidding, he’ll be blue shortly.)

Edit:
Just using this space as a notepad for some links.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/641092.page#7690123
http://fromthewarp.blogspot.com/2011/09/how-to-paint-heat-stained-gun-barrels.html?m=1
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/562723.page#6243840
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/548976.page#6015493

No reason...

OK, so I wanted to try something a little different for the dread. Just a touch of weathering, in a way that would fit in with the rest of my army. So I’m going to try some heat distress on the HF and PC. When I get around to painting them, maybe some of the other arms, but one thing at a time.

Basic start off all my guns. Black base, heavy silver drybrush.


Need some paints, specifically a purple. Sitting on the back of my bench is a collection of old glazes, which is actually what I need here. Never used them, and judging from the tag, I bought these back in the early/mid 90s. Anyone who’s lived in Louisville should get a chuckle about the fact that I bought them at Something to Do on sale. Back in the day they were notorious for never marking even the dustiest product down. I think there are more FLGS’s there now, but at the time they were our only option.

And here is an “after" picture, with the paints used:


Not particularly happy with it. Once it dries I can see if it looks any better. Might hit it with a wash and/or another silver drybrush and see how that does.

On a different note: if you haven’t voted for Para’s March painting contest, you really should. Lots of cool minis over there. And not to beg, but someone please vote for me. Or not, I reconize I’m in the bottom half of the field, but I suspect foul play.

Anyway, happy painting all! And have a nice holiday weekend if I don’t update before then.

I think a brown wash would go a long way to tying that together! Good for a first attempt, you've got the principle down!

The voting setup was definitely a mistake on my part, I'll fix it to allow multi-votes next month! In the mean time, I hope you're not put off by the lack of votes, and for what it's worth, I think your entry was great, and better then some that got votes. I think some people may have been voting for themselves, which I sadly can't stop.

 Paradigm wrote:
I think a brown wash would go a long way to tying that together! Good for a first attempt, you've got the principle down!

The voting setup was definitely a mistake on my part, I'll fix it to allow multi-votes next month! In the mean time, I hope you're not put off by the lack of votes, and for what it's worth, I think your entry was great, and better then some that got votes. I think some people may have been voting for themselves, which I sadly can't stop.

Heh, no problem, I’m not put off, just a little disappointed. When you open the field to everyone, including people who paint professionally, the odds of winning for a normal guy are near zero. Although I think that some of the work done by amateurs was better then some of the professionals in this case. I don’t know if OneMansNoodles or TazN (who were my top two pics) paint for a living, but I know Zambro is a student, and his dread was my third choice. And I know there was at least one full time painter in the competition, possibly more. There is some bias in model selection, theme, etc, which can affect votes.

I’m mature enough not to let it bother me. But still, nobody like to see that “0”. As for voting for yourself, it happens. I know I didn’t. And frankly there are enough people voting that all it works out to is a little vanity boost. The top pieces are still floating to the top.

And I’ll try hitting it with a brown wash once it dries. Thanks for the tip!

Fair enough! I am keen to keep improving the challenge forward, while keeping it primarily just something to motivate/inspire, rather than an out and out competition. Basically, I think if you get to the end of the month and have painted, modelled or learned something new, then you've won and should fell proud! The actual voting is merely a bit of fun at the end, at least in eyes.

Still, if you have any ideas to improve it while still keeping it open and fun, then feel free to PM me the suggestions!

The heat weathering looks pretty good for a first try! I dont remember where I saw it, but recently on here I saw someone post a picture about the different colour steel turns at different temperatures. You dont need to stay true to reality, but it gives you some inspiration and visual cues to do it.
I think your transitions need to be a little softer. Your purple / brown is fine, but the bone to silver is quite harsh. A few things that I would try to fix it is to give it a whole wash, like para said. That might tie it all together. Alternatively, you could try thinning it a little more. It would show the base colour more under it. Although, having said that, looking at the picture, it looks thin enough. In the centre of the bone colour, I can clearly see through it to the black / silver base. I think the bone might have just pooled a little too much on the outside edge which is why the colour is so much stronger at the transition.
When I did the my Dreadnought's flamer / PC, I loaded up my brush with purple wash (one from this century ) I wiped my brush on tissue, to get all the excess off. It left just enough wash on the brush to easily manipulate without flooding the area with paint.

With regards to the voting, I think multiple votes is a good move. Now, with one vote each, it means that most people will vote for the 'best' 5-10 enteries. And because they only have one vote, they want to make it count. With multiple votes, I can not only vote for my favourite entry, I can give votes to those entries who make me think 'wow, thats so cool!' - be it conversions, dioramas or generally good entries that aren't the 'best'.

OK, first pass on the PC, and touch ups on the HF. I feathered in a little silver from the back of the flamer, and then gave a thinned brown wash over the whole thing. The PC got the 3 washes that I started the flamer with, but I thinned the bone a bit more first. I think I might to some blue/white edge highlights around the bore, to show that it’s recently been fired. I’m also thinking of putting some black wash into the recesses, both on the flamer and the plasma, to highlight the weathering.

This is a bit fiddly, but fun!

And Zambro, don’t be jealous that I’ve got paints older then you are

Edit:
I did see the pictures about the color shifts. If you scroll up a bit you’ll see a few links I edited into a post just to keep track of them.

 Nevelon wrote:
And Zambro, don’t be jealous that I’ve got paints older then you are

Haha

The washes look much better
I agree on the black wash

Some progress. But not a lot. Spent the weekend mostly sick, and bailing out my flooded basement. Not a good combo. Plus dealing with my in-laws. But I’ve had lots of experience with all these things, so no long term damage was done. Just left me severely drained. Also, school is out this week, so I have to entertain The Boy. Although today one of The Wife’s cousins took him with her girls to a pool to get some swimming in, so I had a few hours free to paint.



Black wash in the recesses helped. I think I’m calling it done for the barrels, not just for the rest of the details and layers for the dread. The arms are almost done, I just need the second blue layer and then the wash. Plus touch ups, etc. Same with the legs. Next step will be the body proper, which has a lot of detail, so should take longer.

I’m starting to get crazy 4 dread lists floating though my head. It’s not good for my sanity.

Haha, 4 dreads would be fun to play! The weapons are looking good, do you have any plans for his body work? I mean, you've done some burn/heat damage on the weapons, anything special planned for the body?

You count vehicles as 4 models, in terms of your 1 model/week, right? How many have you done so far this year?

 Zambro wrote:
Haha, 4 dreads would be fun to play! The weapons are looking good, do you have any plans for his body work? I mean, you've done some burn/heat damage on the weapons, anything special planned for the body?

You count vehicles as 4 models, in terms of your 1 model/week, right? How many have you done so far this year?

The body I’m just going to do basic. We’ll see if the mood takes me though. One thing about dreads is all the arms are interchangeable. So if I chip/weather an arm, it would look out of place on the non banged up body; and vice versus. There is enough detail on the body I don’t feel compelled to do more to it.

I did a year to date post not to long ago, but it got auto-apended into another one, so you might have missed it. I’m a little ahead of schedule.

4 Deathwatch
Farseer on bike
Spiritseer w/staff
Dwarf
HG w/relic blade
Banner of Macragge
Crimson Hunter

So assuming I finish the dread on time, I’m still ahead of the game. More so if I paint something else this month. Also in the news is most of the snow is off my lawn. And while the weather report is not good for this week, once we get a clear, dry, day, I can break out the rattle can and prime some stuff.

Heat damage is looking good, I did some on my Marines a few pages back in my blog and more much further back in the IG, feel free to have an ideas plunder.

Plasma arm is done. It might get some transfers, but those come at the end. At the moment the arm is being modeled by my older dread, the ven dread is still getting paint.

Clean n sharp Nev, gotta like it!

Thanks. I like the way this guy is coming together. But I do enjoy my dreads.

And here is the dread, in his full semi-painted, partially assembled glory!


The powerfist arm just needs me to go over it for touch-up work. And the actual killy part, but that’s getting worked on. For whatever reason I didn’t glue it on. Maybe so I could swap it out for the actual fist in the kit. Not that I like that fist, but it’s there. The backs of the leg armor are done, so on to the front of them. Not sure what I’m going to do in the frames. Might try my hand at more heraldry. Or just stick a transfer in there.

Have a nice weekend all!