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Did I not comment on the undead army? I thought that I had-- maybe because I've left comments on so many individual unit of the army in the past. It looks great deployed all together like that. The 40mm rounds for all the cavalry are particularly inspiring, and I think I'll be doing that when I get around to the Melnibonean cavalry I have waiting in the queue.

Duuuuuude! the Minnies are looking FANTASTIC! love the mix of old and new models and the fact you took the time to add the yellow markings on the bolters is great! I'd love to test your skills and see if you could paint a marine up in the 'Original' Minotaur paint scheme? perhaps a special character or some-such? :-)

 Januine wrote:
Those brazen minotaurs are looking sweet. Really nice job Az. You keeping them parade ground or filthy img them up?

These are Minotaurs chapter, Jan. Brazen Minotaurs are a different chapter. Similar paint job, but they have a black bull's head on a white field.

Minotaurs are looking awesome. I really like the sergeant model.

EDC

Had not even noticed your Undead Showcase, brilliant looking army there. I think it is representative of the relative quietness of the P and M blogs the past few weeks, that and one day this week DakkaDakka was down for around 12 hours (at least it was for me).

As for the Minotaurs I love that the squad includes a miniature that has been hanging around your collection for 20+ years. I think the squad looks cohesive in spite of the mix of metal/plastic and some 15 years between some of the miniatures, and of course they are all painted to your usual excellent standard.

Super squad of Minos there, the colours are just dead on! And speaking of dead, those are shots are just inspirational!

Thanks guys,

I'll likely keep the Minotaurs clean. I used to dirty up the feet of my RT-era Ultras, and I'll likely do it again with another chapter at some stage, but I'm liking these guys relatively clean - and I'm roughly 100% sure that Marouda will prefer them clean.

The plans for them are basically army building by feel with no idea about "proper" list building. I'll have at least 3 Tactical Squads, 1 Sternguard, 1 Vanguard, 1 Assault and 1 Devastator (thanks Damo - will be working your guys). One "normal" termie squad and one probably Tartaros. 1 Spartan LR, 1 or more Washing Machine Dreads, plus Hekate and up to 2 additional Contemptors, plus the names and various "normal" characters. Probably a command squad as well. Not sure on Scouts at this stage. I'll worry about Rhinos and Predators, Razorbacks and Drop Pods later. And yes, I'm happy with the bases. They're slowly going onto the Iron Warriors as I rebase and polish them up.

I'll keep to the 40mm rounds for Cavalry for the time being, as they work well with the skeleton cavalry and obviously the LotR models. though some of the cav might be too big for those. I'll have to work out either those AoS bases or the "bike" bases for those. Probably. 40mm round should work well for the older metal cavalry like the Melinboneans.

There will be at least one Minotaur in the old livery. I'm just not sure how I'll do it yet. I remember Para did one awhile back but used the brass/bronze as a replacement for the yellow.

Actually Thraxas, all of the 2nd ed models have been hanging around for that length of time. I'll probably mix some other old 2e models in as well elsewhere.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
I haven't shown much in the way of WIP lately, just finished stuff - so here's some stuff on the go.




Some grave markers that I've been slowly working on instead of the Undead that I probably should be.



And with the next 4 Minotaurs finished (flock drying on them now, so photos in a day or two) I've started the next next four. Like the ones who are in the flock tub, these are recycled marines from Nerdfest's BAs/Flesh Eaters spares that I bought off him awhile back. The first silver is drying on them now,I'll do the other side tomorrow morning, and then the zenithal from the top after that. Then it's just rebasing, washes, detailing and then finding some arms, shoulders, bolters and a head! Any suggestions for special and heavy weapons for this second tactical squad? The previous one has the classic Flamer/Missile - and just a bolter for the Sergeant. (and yes, I pried that BA shoulderpad off!)

Screw "proper" list building. Has never gotten in the way of my gaming enjoyment with the themes I have taken. Some are obviously weaker than others but I rarely play against the alleged super armies.

The way I incorporated the old school Minos livery on my modern one was to go mostly with the bronze armour, but go with one shin and the opposite shoulder in the old red and yellow stripe pattern, I figured that was enough to be a nice nod to the past while keeping him looking like he fit with newer stuff.

The other way would be, as you say, to just replace the bronze with yellow, and do red stripes over that, which could look really quite cool indeed!

 Archer wrote:
Screw "proper" list building. Has never gotten in the way of my gaming enjoyment with the themes I have taken. Some are obviously weaker than others but I rarely play against the alleged super armies.

This. I generally go with whatever I think is cool, not whatever folks on the internet froth about. I've often found that units some of the online community would snub, actually perform quite well in games. I don't follow the whole power gaming thing.

Loving the Minotaurs so far Az. Looking badass. Also noticed I didn't comment on the undead showcase- that is one fething huge horde of corpses!

I love seeing the LoTR models being given such love! I don't see much of them anymore. Sure wish I did considering my Rohan army never sees the light of day anymore.

Excited to see the rest of the Minotaurs and what the plog will bring, well done on that paint scheme on them too.

Miunotaurs look extremely sexy, and impressive Undead host you have there!

Thanks guys. I've been under the weather quite a bit lately, so I've been plodding along a bit on the painting, I've done bugger-all blogging or photography.



My rather pathetic entry for the Undead army part of the painting challenge in July was a single "swarm" unit that I've only photographed this morning - made up of a trio of Reaper Bones' Bat Swarms (77046: Bat Swarm). (I can't believe they want US$2.99 for them!) Since I have four of the models from their various Bones KS campaigns, I decided to paint the fourth at the same time in the same manner. The base coat was a mix of Reaper's Master HD Colours of Rusty Red and Ruddy Brown. I then washed it with GW's new Nuln Oil Gloss, to hit the recesses hard while staining the upper as little as possible. Then drybrushed with Khorne Red, Mephiston Red and finally Evil Sunz Scarlet. I'm well aware that these are tabletop quality paintjobs at best and that no-one will care how I did them, but the fact is they're pretty crap models that don't really deserve any better, and I'm simply recording how I painted them in case I get another pair of them to make a second swarm one day - purely for gaming purposes. I added the tombstones on the unit base from the Renedra Sprue since the bats were mounted on gravestones anyway in order to tie them in a little with their surroundings, even though I usually dislike "diorama bases" on my own models, as they place the models in too specific a location for figures that will be running around various tabletops.



Anyone actually excited by these? I thought not.
The Rats follow almost the exact same ethos and purpose - though the models manage to be much less impressive. This time the models are provided by Reaper's Rat Swarms (77129: Vermin: Rat Swarm (2)). You get a pair of them this time for your $2.49, though again I'd possibly be willing to argue their value, even for that price. Anyway, once again I had four of the sculpt, and again I mounted them on 30mm round bases from Impact Miniatures, which I'd originally bought to rebase Space Marines but have been using to base various swarm-sized vermin from Reaper Bones so far. Paint was... various browns outside of my usual basing colours, including Model Air Khaki Brown at some point, again with the Nuln Oil Gloss, and then AP Tanned Flesh for their widdle teeny-tiny tails and feets. One day the rats will no doubt be shifted over to my Skaven Army, but I'll need to actually have a few units of Skaven painted before that becomes a worry. I figure vermin like Rats fit in well enough with Bats and Bugs (Sol B shoutout!) to go with the Undead in the meantime. As I finished the the Rat Swarm base in early August, it will also be my weaksauce minimum mandatory Undead submission for this month's paint challenge if I don't manage to get something more impressive done.

And yes, I'm aware that these Bones models started as metal sculpts in greater detail (and multipart for the bats) and the Bones stuff is cheap & cheerful stuff for gamers of various stripes. That's why I painted them, though it doesn't preclude me from pointing out that they're both a bit rubbish, even if they end up looking passable on the tabletop.



I decided to take an all-together shot of all my completed little Reaper Swarms. With the unit bases, they'll do the job on the tabletop. I noticed after taking the photos that I forgot to add tufts to these new ones, so I might have to go back and do that so I can consider them finished. I know I've gone on and on about how crappy they are, but I'm just a bit OCD about certain things...

"but the fact is they're pretty crap models that don't really deserve any better"

lol. Maybe so - but I think you did a pretty belting job on them. They really stand out and look nasty as feth.
Hope you're beginning to feel better. I've been a bit off colour recently and it sucks arse. Totally drains the energy and impetus out. Feel better soon Az and keep up the great paints

+1 on the rats! for so simple a design and paint they really look like a nest of vermin! you've nailed the colours on them Az, great effort!

To be fair, 2.99 is a heck of a lot cheaper than GW's asking price for their bat swarms lol. And the fell bats are even more expensive!

I like the paint job you've done here. Looks pretty menacing!

Nice work on the bats and rats. Very tidy.

EDC

I really like those bat swarms especially the basing!

Thanks guys - you're all literally too kind.

I have always been a big fan of swarms, they are a very tangible and visceral fear especially those based in reality like rats, bugs and bats. And they look grand, nobody expects an A+++ stellar paint job on such miniatures but as it is these are great.

Hope you feel better soon Az.

Those swarms look pretty darn good, especially given that they are mostly-shapeless hunks of Bonesium. I don't think anyone expect Golden Daemon-level work on any swarm, in any material, so good on you for your work there.

Point taken, Josh. (and everyone else)

With the completion of the Aspiring Champion and Bearer of the Missile Launcher, I'm calling the first squad of my resurrected Iron Warriors - started over a decade ago - finally completed. The squad originally only numbered 6 in total, as it was built as part of a force for Combat Patrol games back during a time when CSM could take a Special and a Heavy weapon in sub-10 squads. Unless we were house-ruling that? I can't remember. They keep changing things like that, so I'm not going to get bent out of shape about the minutia of how many special and heavy weapons they can have. I'll dump the three Execution Force Iron Warriors in here for now to bring them to nine, and split the Exes off into separate squads when I have all of the current stuff that needs to be finished after a decade done and start on into totally new squads. At that point, I'll bump these guys to 10 or more as well.



At the suggestion of Dagger & Brush, I've began adding some cabling made from clips of guitar wire to some of their bases in an attempt to give them a bit more "pop" and 3-d interest. I haven't been able to find my copper wire yet, though I may go back and add a few of those when I find them - and add some more guitar wire to additional models at the same time.



My first completed (more or less) Iron Warriors Chaos Marine squad, finished and rebased onto Sector Imperialis 32mm bases. I'm now onto working on the second, close combat oriented squad. After I finish those, I can start on some brand new builds.



My Aspiring Champion, showing off a section of guitar wire added to represent power armour cabling as well as a few hazard stripes. When I started these models years ago, I'd intended to heavily chip and weather their armour and weapons as well as add rust and oil stains to their armour, but I quite like how they look now. Not quite clean, but not too grimy, either.

Lovely job on those iron Warriors Az. Looking cracking. Real smart classic look to them

Iron Warriors look badass. Nice work on the bases, those new GW ones are so cool, but I can see why you added stuff to them.

I just got some and without a few extras they can look a bit flat.

EDC

Those are some fine-looking Iron Warriors. I especially like the added cables. I've read about using guitar strings before, but have yet to try it. Did you find them difficult to work with? Also, you have done a fine job differentiating the bases from the armor. What was your final technique?

Duuuuuude, those hazard stripes are sharp!

Cracking unit there, I really love the head on the aspiring champion, where is it from? It is good to see that the monopose plastics from Execution Force fit in well with the rest of the unit. Painting wise I think you have just the right mix of grime and shine on them.

As for your new builds what units and miniatures will you be gleaning the parts from?

So pretty! the hazard faceplate is just the best touch! looks as good as usual, it's funny how I really like everything you paint and post since it's insightful and unique but these Iron Warriors make me (nay, coerce me) into commenting each time! :-)

The iron warriors are spectacular. Very, very nice paint job. Wouldn't want to paint 2,000 points and donate them to a worthy cause by any chance?