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Hi everyone,

I have been a long time lurker on Dakka Dakka, but not really got around to posting anything on here. I do regularly post on other 40K sites so some people may have seen these before, but I thought I would put them up in any case.

Just to give a little background my gaming group (there are four of us and we meet up fairly regularly when work and girlfriends allow ) set a challenge every January much the same as "A tale of four gamers" and we each try to get a 1500pt army painted in 12 months.

I am the only member of our group who has failed to finish two year's running (although technically I still have a couple of months left this year) so I am starting this blog in the vain attempt to get me motivated to paint and kick myself up the backside.

I am a very slow painter, who gets distracted very easily and who also starts planning his next army half way through his current one which means that he gets demotivated quite quickly (I am already planing a Dark Eldar army!).

So the year before last as part of our challenge I chose Ultramarines, as I thought they would be quite a small army and quite quick to paint. I planned out a small but hard hitting list and set off painting, only to then find that I was enjoying painting them too much and went off my list completely and so never finished on time!

Here are some photos of how far I got last year. A lot of these pics will be work in progress shots, as a fair amount of the army still isn't finished and unfortunately this project is on hold for a bit whilst I try to finish this year's army, but the two are connected so that's why I'm showing these.

Ultramarines HQ - Space Marine captain 2nd Company







Ultramarines Troops - Tactical Squad





Their Rhino







Ultramarines Troops - Scout Squad 1







Ultramarines Troops - Scout Squad 2



Ultramarines Fast Attack - Assault Squad







Well I think that's about it for now as I must be near my pic limit and don't want to double post.

I do have some more Ultramarines to show which will show where I finished up last year.

Then I will show this year's army, my Macragge PDF which fit in with this army. I thought I would show the Ultras frst as it explains a little of why I wanted to paint blue guardsmen!

Cheers, C and C always appreciated, and I will try to get some of these marines finished soon as I can work on them whilst I paint the Guard.

Its beautifully painted stuff but...

where on earth are the tactical squads boltguns?

I can see why your a slow painter, those models are awesome!

Wow! Impressive stuff, very well painted, love the highlights on the armour.
You could have come out of lurking status with some basic painted models and then worked your way up..... but no... instead you decide to show off your great painting skills straight away... Damn you!!

Wow fantastic mini's! Wish I could get blues as crisp as that! Can't wait for the next update and more pics

Wow I was thinking of starting an Ultra- army by you're great models make me think twice!

Great work, cant wait to see more

Cheers everyone, I am very happy with the way they have turned out but I do wish I could stay motivated enough to get them finished.

And Wizard12 the Tactical Squad have special invisible bolt guns!

No only kidding, I normally glue the bolt guns on last so that I can get at the chest eagles etc which makes them much easier to paint. I thought I had some more up to date photos showing them with the bolt guns attched but I couldn't find them this morning, but I'll have another look through.

I have some more of last year's Ultras to show before I post up my ongoing project (Ultramar related).

Ultramar Fast Attack - Land Speeder.





Ultramarines Elite - Terminators







I also have some pics of my Dreadnought too, but I will put those up later.

Cheers.

StraightSilver wrote:

Ultramarines Troops - Tactical Squad

Air bolters FTW! WYLD STALLYNS!!!!
Great job!

These are some truly beautiful Ultras, I must say the only thing to lets them down in my opinion is their basic bases. I think for such a superb force a more adventurous base should be used, you clearly have the skill to achieve it.

You have some nice marines there all the painting is neat and crisp, i am in the same boat as you that i get distracted easily and will start planning something half way through a project. good luck, i hope you finish it, get off the tinternet and get painting

very nice paint job,i like the highlighting alot.

Your work is beautiful! Very clean. The most impressive part is the interior of your tank. Great work!

I'm loving your work, very clean. How did you do the Gold on the captain's back pack?

Hi everyone,

First of all apologies for the lack of updates, I have been very slack both with my painting and life in general!

To answer some questions, the bases are not yet finished. I usually do the bases last as it is easier to add static grass etc once the models are varnished, and as much of the army isn't yet finished I have yet to do them.

And the gold is pretty straightforward. I start off by painting the area with Mithril Silver as this makes the gold easier to apply. I then paint the area in Shining Gold. This then gets a fairly liberal Ogryn Flesh wash, followed by a wash of Devlan Mud in the deepest recesses. This is then neatened up with Shining Gold and highlighted with Burnished Gold and then a mix of Burnished Gold and Mithril Silver.

I have some more pics to show.

The Ultramarines are still yet to be finished, I plan to get them done later this year. In the meantime I have been working on a new project for the last 11 months or so.

These are my Macragge PDF which accompany the Ultras.

First off are my Troops. These are an infantry platoon. These are still work in progress buut getting there.










I still have to paint up the autocannon teams and command squad but should have pics to show of these soon.

And with some of my Ultramarines to compare colour scheme





And a very work in progress shot of their what their Chimeras will look like:




And then my "counts as" Penal Legionairres. I didn't like the idea of Penal Troops in a Macragge army as it doesn't really fit the fluff. I therefore decided that some Special Forces Forward Scouts were more appropriate and still fit the stats:






I have some more pics to show but will put those up tomorrow.

Cheers for looking.

Wow! These are fantastic! As a fellow ultramarine player, I am extremely impressed. Funny, I was also thinking about making either an Iaxian regiment or a Prandium Survivors regiment. Though I was thinking forest camo with black or grey ultramarine "U" symbols.

Great work!

Normally not a fan of the Blue Boys, but man, these are AWESOME! Seriously! wow!

Your Ultramarines are AWESOME! The Macragge PDF are great too and will probably be my next army.

Cheers guys, glad you like 'em.

I must admit that I was also never really a fan of the Ultramarines but I decided to do them to challenge myself.

Now that I have started them I have changed my opinion entirely, they are nice and simple to paint but having the Codex to work from is also really fun in terms of unit markings and colours etc.

I can understand why a lot of people aren't too keen on them with GW ramming them down everybody's throats but weirdly I don't know anybody else in my gaming area (South East London) that actually plays them. They are quite a rarity in these parts.

@ Kolath: I think an Iaxian regiment would be really cool, and I think Forest Camo would work really well.

And it would be great to see some more Marine attached PDF armies, I have an idea for an artillery/siege regiment attached to Imperial Fists. Or banana guard as I like to call them!

So I have some more pics to show.

Unfortunately these pics aren't great quality as I lost my camera, but they give a good impression of where I'm at.

These are my 2 HQ units.

First up is my Straken stand in. I have had to remove his shotgun whilst painting him as it's a bit fragile. After a fair bit of feedback I am also going to build a better one as many people believe that a regular human isn't hard enough for Straken's stats, and as my army has Marine affiliations I will be going down a different route....

Hector Sicarius (of the proud Sicarius family), Commander of 2nd Company Macragge PDF, attached to Cato Sicarius' 2nd Company Ultramarines. "Counts as" Straken.




Next up is my Officer of the Fleet. Because Marines don't have access to the Imperial Navy I didn't want to use the regular model so I am using the Lt. Varras model from Battle For Macragge.

Ultramarines Fleet Liaison.


And then I have a "Counts as" Ministorum Priest. From a fluff perspective Priests were a bit of a problem. The rulers of Ultramar are the Ultramarines themselves who do not venerate the Emperor as a God in the same way as the Ecclesiarchy and so I felt they would be reluctant to have priests in the conventional sense. I also didn't want to include Commissars as they don't fit the fluff either. The Citizens of Ultramar are far too disciplined to need Commissars, and besides that would probably find the concept too barbaric.

Therefore I have merged the two concepts together and have PDF Chaplains, who not only look after the wellbeing of my trrops, but also enforce discipline where necessary.

2nd Company Macragge PDF Chaplain Caustus Glokta.





And then no Command Squad would be complete without some Melta Vets!



Squad so far:



And because I won't always want to use Straken I have started on another Command Squad, this time with plasmas, although after playtesting I am not so sure how good an idea that is....






Anyway, thanks for looking, I have a few more pics to put up which I will do later as I suppose I should do some work, .

Your pdf are looking cool, some really nice kitbashing going on and the Hector miniature is really nicley done. I was considering getting some of the fw brass etch but had not really seen it used very well and had been put of until now. In the right hands its very effective! cookies for you

Cheers Calibanite Lion, I have just been admiring your Dark Angels, they are very nice but are making me want to paint some Terminators now....

I suppose I could always go back and finish off my Black Templars I suppose....

The Forge World Brass Etch really can make a difference to an army and looks great when painted up but I don't know if I would say I enjoyed using it!

It needs to be carefully bent to fit on non-flat surfaces which can be tricky as it breaks or scratches very easily.

And it also seems to be the only thing I have ever worked with that sticks to a model instantaneously! This isn't normally a problem, but because it needs to be put on with tweesers it doesn't always go on exactly the way you want it to, and because the glue dries so quiclky it then means you can't go back and straighten it up as the Brass Etch just comes off!

I can assure you that you will quickly run out of expletives when putting it on and have to make up your own! I came up with some choice ones I can tell you!

Having said that they do really make an army stand out and are well worth the effort, and considering how much you can do with them aren't that unreasonably priced.

Hiya,

I have some more pics.

This is my "Guilliman Pattern" Hellhound.

The idea is that Macragge PDF use the standard Imperial Guard pattern Chimera, but because they are technologically superior and have access to Marine equipment they augment this chassis with Astartes variants, in this case the Razorback.

Guilliman Pattern Hellhound









As ever still very much work in progress. I also have a Devil Dog variant and a Manticore variant using the same principal, hopefully have some pics of thise soon.

Thorough, consistent, clean, prolific... All to a 'Eavy Metal standard... Very impressive sir.

Nice job! I always wanted to see more people play the Macragge PDFs. As they are heroes by themselves!

Stunning! MajorTom11 said it all, I shall watch this thread with great interest!

mate you've painted and created some of the best models ive seen.

Cheers everybody, thanks for all the positive comments.

I managed to get some more pics over te weekend.

This is the army as it stands so far:





Currently 1500pts if I stack up on wargear. Nothing is finished as of yet, but at least I can now game with the army.

some more of my vehicles.

Guilliman Pattern Manticore (still work in progress)





Guilliman Pattern Devil Dog(still work in progress)





And a very early shot of Sicarius' Chimera




Hopefully have some more pics soon. Cheers for looking.

The ultamite Ultramar Apoclypse!
Great Marines and guardsmen!

M.K

inspiring work!

Cheers guys.

Got some more pics to show.

These are the bodyguards for my command squad. Made using the Valkyrie door gunners as a base then some spare bits I had lying around.








These guys have been invaluable in all my games, even if all they do is jump in front of bullets!

Oh, man, totally awesome as always! Do you have an WIP shots of the chimera conversions? I'm curious to see more detail on how you made them.

I had been thinking about mounting chimera turrets on rhinos, but this looks really great (reminds me a bit of a Bradley IFV)

Nice progress, i really like the hellhound and devil dog, they both look great, id never thought of using the marine turrets on ig but they fit right in. The body guards are good although the guy with the grey hair looks really fed up with life lol, he needs to go see the guidance councillor!!!!