Working on my Assault Marines

Hi readers of my blog. It's yellow time again, this time with two different Assault Marines that I've given some attention. Again poor pictures but at least there are pictures :)

I based one of the guys in Tausept Ochra, then added some Sepia in select places, followed by a mix of Iyanden Darksun and then "darker" of GW's two yellows. Turned out pretty good thus far, and faster than I thought it would be. I will follow it with just yellow and then start to highlight and all that jazz.

The other boy I just washed in Gryphonne Sepia. I plan on giving him a ID/Yellow paint followed by yellow and then highlights. We'll see which one turns out the best. That's the guy that I haven't painted the bolt pistol on btw :)

Sorry for the odd order of the pictures btw, blogger has one seriously awful interface for uploading pictures. And darn it, I gotta raid the wife's camera next time it is time for pictures. Also I need to go lighter on the skull whiter primer, damn it cakes. Maybe it is too darn cold here in Minnesota... I will put another 5 assaulties together and paint them as I think that I will go with a full Assault Marine squad and kick out my dread. I will also have power weapon sergeants and have a meltagun in both squads.

Enjoy the blurry pictures and let me know how I am doing :)

It's alive!

Hi all who reads my blog. Been pretty quiet in the last month and a half. My current gaming goal is finishing up my 1500 point Imperial Fists army, so that I can go forth and make the Minnesota (or rather Twin Cities) WH40k world shiver before my mighty army. Or more likely having my fair share of defeats and a few fun wins too:) Being busy first with an insane amount of coughing for weeks and also starting a new job the hobby time suffered greatly. I did a few little things, but nothing worth writing about, and I want to keep this blog about gaming.

So what have I been up to? Assault marines! I am for the first time trying a white primer, skull white from GW, and it was very hard getting a nice even clean cover. I wonder if it is already too cold here to spray outside. Black has treated my far better in the past, but then again I have never sprayed in this low a temperature before. We'll see how it goes in the future.

This is the first half of a 10 man squad. I have a sergeant with a power weapon and one guy with a flamer. I will fill it up with four more chainsword + bolt pistol and more one flamer. I also have modified the right shoulder guard on all five of them to have an assault four way arrow. On to pictures!

And from the side. Click on the image to get a slightly larger one. Sorry for the poor quality, the iPhone is wonderful in many-o-ways, but photographing minis is not one of them. Sometime next year I do have to look into a good camera. I just don't know what to look for yet.

Also got some of the chainswords painted. No proper highlight on one of them yet, but that is coming. The super-duper shoulder guards should be easier to see on this picture.

I created the shoulder guards by cutting out the shape in .25mm plasticard and gluing it to the shoulder guard. I liked the look of the tacticals from the Attack of Black Reach and tried to emulate that. That said, it was really really difficult. Not easy at all to make it perfectly symmetrical, which is how I envision the Space Marine's armor. We'll see how it looks painted. I am going back and forth on what kind of yellow I will try this time around. The future will tell!

I have also bought the Retribution of Scyrah force book. Damn Privateer Press makes awesome stuff! The quality is really good all the way through. And I have already put together a little 15p army. Couldn't help myself. I just have to finish my IF army before I start another project. Plus I want my Space Wolf army too. I might just paint an eldar council on jetbikes or some Ork Boys in between just to clear my palette.

I have also used the 25% rebate from battle foam. 251 fresh dollares later I had ordered a big ass (that's a technical term!) army bag that will fit many a marines, fists and wolves. I might just have to order a special one for my retribution forces in the future. Looks very slick. Maybe I will donate my old bag to my wife, on account of her starting to paint some Circle Orberos. We'll see how she feels about them after she has painted some. Pretty cool stuff, I will post pictures of the army bag and my wife's Argus when it arrives / are finished.

I hope to have the assault guys done soon, and after that comes Lysander + Assault terminators, followed by vehicles. War needs to be waged!

Being sick sucks

Being sick sucks, and thinking that you were getting better a week ago and then getting even more sick sucks even further. I've coughed up my lungs several times and I am certain that getting transferred into a Space Marine gotta be a great deal.

Which means that any progress I've had in painting has been, well, slooow. I am almost finished with the Blood Angel, so I should be able to submit photos tomorrow. I don't hold any illusions but I hope that I won't make a fool out of myself at least. I have come to the conclusion that my current painting skills are weak compared to my imagination. I.e. I come up with cooler stuff than what I can make.

I have started to dabble with transfers and found out that it is REAL hard to get them on smoothly. I've put three transfers on three shoulder pads on my fists and not a single one looks real good. I am pretty pissed about that. I hope I can master it by the time I get to my assault marines since I am kind of going all out of those guys. I've finished a first test assault shoulder pad and I am painting up a full metal sergeant with my chosen colors before I do the rest of the team. That said I think the shoulder pad is totally filled with win. Too bad I am not a wizard with the green stuff and can whip up a nice steel glove for the left pads too.

I did on the other hand do far better with the transfers on the blood angel. Pictures will come tomorrow hopefully. And I have given him my new secret super basing. We'll see what happens tomorrow.

I have also gotten the new Wolf codex. It isn't nearly as powerful (I think) as lots of people say, but I do like the idea of being able to use Wolf Guards as "Sergeants" of my teams and their Devastator teams rules. I am going with two long fang units, both being bolstered by a mean wolf guard with a cyclone launcher (Heavy 2, yes 2!). Oh and a mean Wolf Guard team headed by Rangar, two Grey hunter packs headed by power fist wolf guards (2 points cheaper than their grey hunter brethren, isn't that nice?), and a blood claw pack with a wolf priest. No psykers or anything, just pure fluff and mean cool Vikings in Space!

Also my melta guys are going to get Mark of the Wulfen, because that makes extra sense to me, since the get one less attack anyways :)

Have I gone and died?

Nope. I am still going strong (?!). It just seems like that between the interviews, thinking too much about me acting like a boob, and spending time with the missus I just haven't gotten that much painting done. I have added some more extreme highlights on my dread but it's kind of slow going. I have, finally, ordered some Micro Set and Micro Sol so I should be putting on decals like crazy soon. Got a bunch of tact marines that need some nice IF markings and that dread do need a bunch of decals as well.

Oh, and I also have a little project. Check out this "preview". Some of you reading will know exactly what is going on, others won't have a clue, and yet others will work really hard at not caring. That last group should go watch American Idol or Dancing With The Stars or something :)

The pic is a bit dark and I think you might want to click to watch the big version of it to get at least a little of the detail. Jupp, I sorely need my own camera for taking photos of minis (which more than likely will be the only thing I would do with it ^_^).

I have put on a very liberal Baal Red wash on it after stealing a pic of it. Starting to suspect that mixing the red wash with maybe devlan mud or gry********* sepia and then badab black would be a good idea. I will see tomorrow how well the wash did in making dark shades. Think I might have to add in some extras here and there to select areas before I throw on another layer of blood red followed by blazing orange. I really, dearly, lotsa need to learn how to blend colors directly on minis. Maybe this will be my finest hour, we shall see:)

Still Around,

Flekkzo

More dreadnaught

Some more red gold on the model now. The camera makes it look more goldy than it is though :/ Looks niftier RL. Got the first layer of yellow on as well. Took better than usual. I think that it helps making sure that the foundation color really covers well. I'm thinking of applying the sepia wash already and then go for more yellow. Probably going to go for a heavier highlight than usual as well just to try it out.

Lots of black and yellow with a little red gold. Gotta get me some more color :)

A from behind shot :)

I'm going to add some Badab black to all the metal, but I might go with some green wash on the canisters for extra niftiness. Hmm. Or what color should melta canisters be?

When I look at the base I'm wondering what I should do with it. Need to make something nifty for sure!

Dreadnaught WIP

Here comes the big bad dreadnaught! Following him will be an Ironclad dread, but that poor fellow is still in bits, and I think that one needs a drop pod. Maybe I need to have two ironclads each with a drop pod. Might really want a special dread pod though from forge world, which means more expensive. Wish they had released it as a plastic kit too.

Anyways, back to my current dread. I took a little gamble and painted the sarcophagus first in tin bitz, then burnished gold with some shining gold at last and finished it all with a baal red wash over the feathers, sockets, and on the black background. Give the whole thing kind of a red gold feel to it. I like. In fact, I like so much that I will give the skulls on the model the same treatment. Good thing I came up with that before I had started with the non foundation yellow.

Also the cables between the sarcophagus and the rest of the dread needs to go metal colored. The tip of the multi-melta looks horrible in this picture but it really is metal colored. I haven't done anything to any of the metal areas yet, but I will give it some tin bitz and devlan mud + badab black on the multi-melta and badab black on the rest, plus some highlight metal.

Hope you all like it :)

I've been thinking of adding a few more purity seals to the model. Only one? On a dread? Hmm...

I keep some of the back parts black with a little gentle metal brush just so I don't paint the whole freakin' thing yellow. Takes time and all that jazz. Plus it kind of looks better this way:) Apparently black was my favorite color as a kid, a story my mother loves telling me (and I promptly hate hearing, especially since I apparently couldn't pronounce it right even!). Needs a bit of soot on the, ehm, chimneys?

This skull will also go red gold and the plate it is on will be black. And that close combat weapon, it needs to kill kill kill to earn its points back.

Stay tuned for more dready goodness in "da future".

Perils of the Warp

Greetings from the US of A. The jetlag is starting to slowly die down and it's time to start posting again. This is the carnage that was the result of traveling. Perils of the warp for sure! Luckily everything broke at places it was glued together so it was just a case of bringing out the glue and go to town. Also note that the plastic colored Captain has a little problem, yes, I put the darn flagpole on the wrong way. That had to be fixed too.

And this is the result, now they look dressed for success again :)

And in my excitement I started to paint the dreadnaught as well. Gonna take quite some time to finnish that bugger I'm suspecting. I think that the Ironclad will be painted in parts and then assembled. It's just a better way of doing things for me. Cleaner if nothing else.

Oh, and if you think the quality of the pictures are different it's because I just *had* to try out my new iPhone 3GS :) I will steal my wife's camera in the future as it surely will take better pictures being a camera only type of device, and I did brought my gorilla pod:)

Bye bye Sweden

Time for a real life post. There won't be many, this is a miniature wargaming blog after all. I've decided to keep myself to one broad subject per blog. I am sure nobody wants to read about all the aspects of my life after all :)

This is a big one though, because this is the last evening I will spend in Sweden for some time to come, as I am moving to the US of A tomorrow. One way ticket. First Class. Immigrating. Ad astra, ad infinitum.

I'll be back blogging in a few days. Hopefully with pictures :)

Hej då Sverige!

Playing IG

Got my first chance at playing IG. Felt odd fighting a foe I knew very little about. Guess I'm the type of person who will end up owning all the codexes, just so I can know:) Fought with my normal force, with lascannons on both of the Razorbacks. It felt weird facing so many tanks and models as my army felt a lot smaller.

Ended up with one objective on the far right in my deployment zone, and one directly over the other side in my opponents. My plan was to try the tricksy play style (in the event you read this, you know who you are who inspired that) so I reserved my entire chanterelle fighting force. I was going to let one combat squad hold my objective and use one of the razorbacks to contest the other. Boy did half of that plan go south quickly.

Everything but my dread ended up on the table in the first reserve roll. Go figure! Both my razorbacks got popped real quickly, without dealing any sort of punch first! Yes, epic fail on those two. Two hunter killers fired, both misses, and like 3-4 twin-linked lascannons that utterly failed doing enough real damage. Think I did pop a transport though. That put my two "super" squads on the board instead of their taxis.

One of the lascannon squads ended up killing a vehicle. Good times. My now foot slogging soldiers ended up tying up a squad of walkers and utterly destroying a bunch of IG veteran troops. I love weak IG saves. I especially liked tearing into them with power fists and power weapons. I want terminators :)

For once my dread did his work. It came in on turn four I think, and while on the board it managed to get a weapon destroyed (multi-melta) but not before popping one vehicle with it, and then I was able to assault another vehicle, ending up destroying that as well. Good times, good times.

There was no chance I'd get over to the other side of the board with anything, so we ended up holding our own objectives and it ended in a draw. Razorbacks are too expensive to not fire with, so I move them slowly and they don't end up getting that far before turing into smoldering wrecks (two hits, two sixes, two exploded Razorbacks, bad karma anyone?). I need to be able to get further with them, and I should just dump the lascannons for assault guns. Drive 12" the first turn and pop smoke, and then let that Heavy 4 tear into my enemies with a land raider in there for fun (i.e. my idea of a 1500p IF army).

Last game in Sweden ended up a draw. I'm curious of what my first US game will look like:)

The future of the fists

List building. It's my latest pastime. I've come to that point where list building is a fun idea. I'm thinking of how to bring my IFs up to let's say 1500 points for instance. Like Chernobyl commented I've been thinking of retiring my captains and replacing them with Lysander for some more punch. Not quite sure what his bolter drill would do for me though. I need to fight something else than other marines, they don't particularly die much when shot by bolters for some reason:)

I was thinking of replacing my underperforming dread with a very close combat styled ironclad dread (think two close combat weapons and two heavy flamers) as well, as that would go well with the captain switching. And to bring it up to 1500, well, terminators *do* sound real nice. But what is best, two squads of five or one squad of ten? With Lysander joining terminators. They are dead 'ard, but they can't be everywhere on the other hand.

I have also started to play around with building lists just for the heck of it. As kind of an exercise to understanding the codex better. Through this I've found that it is very fun to try to think up ways of making themed lists with a certain goal. Like the Raven Guard style list I came up with. I am totally sure that somewhere out there there are someone else already having done this, but the idea of a list totally void of mechanized mayhem appeals to me. I don't want to copy somebody else's winning list, I want to make my own, by being creative. Yes, I've been inspired, and you all have to guess by whom yourself :P

Oh, and that play list? This is it:

Shadow Captain Kayvaan Shrike 195

Assualt Squad, 5 extra marines, double lightning claws, Melta bomb 225

Assualt Squad, 5 extra marines, double lightning claws, Melta bomb 225

Assualt Squad, 5 extra marines, double lightning claws, Melta bomb 225

Scout Squad, Sniper, camo, 4 extra scouts 154

Scout Squad, Sniper, camo, 4 extra scouts 154

Scout Squad, Combat blade, combi-melta, melta bombs 155

Scout Squad, Combat blade, combi-melta, melta bombs 155

1,488

And with 12p to spare :) Hmm, that is like 14 boxes and one blister. And lots and lots of more painting. I do wonder if such an army is even viable. No reserves, just infiltrate like crazy, go heavy on the sniping and use fleet of foot to get into assault fast.

Bah. I need to play more :)

First game

Two games of Warhammer 40k played today. Basically the list I posted before (hellfire rounds did jump over to the other captain though, since I didn't have the right gun on the other one, and one razorback got the twin linked assault cannon). The first game was more of a warm up play thing. Played 2 vs 2 players in teams with a fifth player deep striking randomly in the center of one of 1/3rd of the game board. Sounds confusing? It was, but it was mostly a test thing to get going. Funny enough my team won and I lost two marines in a razorback if I recall correctly. But oh well, it was just not that proper yet.

On to the second game. 1000pts, Imperial Fists vs Chaos Space Marines. I was facing two rhinos, one squad of Berserkers, one squad of Plague Marines and a Predator. I felt that reserves was a bit too advanced for me quite yet so I deployed pretty evenly over the field with the lascannons in the corners and the razorbacks and dread in the middle.

The lascannons definitly were the starts of the show. They popped a rhino and the predator. I concentrated my guys on first the bikes and then the plague marines, whittling them down on by one. Now the start of the show was definitely the captain with the power fist who took a few turns to turn them into mince meat. By removing or suppressing his long range firepower I stayed away long enough to fire a lot of shots by be fairly unaffected by his shooting. The dread and one razorback got immobilized but continued to punish the traitors.

I won by 4 killpoints to none and I lost in total one flamer marine and one standard marine. Pretty good for a first game but I felt that this is far from my trial by fire. Never the less I got a feel for the rules in action and we'll see how it goes tomorrow.

State of the Fists 4

Tomorrow is the big day, tomorrow the Fists go to war for the very first time. I have a firm grasp of the general rules, but there are several minor rules that I surely won't remember. I just hope that my opponents are forgiving (they might see me as an easy win, but I will fight back:)) and I will try to focus on using what I know and see how it goes. My goal is mainly to get to play the game and get some playtime in before I move. Which is soon now! I have actually gotten my US visa approved:)

Here we have my two lascannon guys. The missions will be Annihilation so I'll probably pop vehicles with them and then concentrate my fire to try to break morale. I don't expect their 4 fellow marines will do much unless my enemy either kills them or gets within 24" of them :)

I painted the "thingie" at the back green and give it a *very* liberal wash of Thrakka Green. Then I decided to put a violet was over Fenris Grey on the other one. Not too happy with the result of that one though. The other Fenris + purple combo (leviathan purple I think) turned out great. I.e. the hose and the, ehm, thingy on the barrel. Also went for a very black backpack. Anything having opinions?:)

My second Razorback. Looks like it was pretty much seriously rushed out of the manefactorium, big time. But it *will* be finished in the future and hopefully looking ok. I plan on numbering it II while the first one gets I. No big surprises there:) Like the interior? It's the same as #I with one minor difference. Unfortunately it's impossible to see on this picture unless you know what you are looking for. Maybe maybe I'll change #I to look like #2 :)

The Dozer blades are fully magnetized on both of them now. Looks neat and works neat. Here you can see the fairly large magnets hidden inside the Razorback. The stick on quite well. I have to magnetize weapons, doors (on #2), and well, that's it I guess. But it has to be done never the less:)

And now for a blurry with flashlight group photo! Don't they look chanterelle-tastic? I should hook them up with a better photo op when I have painted more of them. I am considering switching out the AoBR Dreadnaught for a new one so I get some more weapon options. Or switch the bugger out completely and get some Land Speeder Storm love and people seem to love those Predators and Land Raiders. Hmm, what is a Chapter Master to do :)

I'll return with a brief report on how things turn out tomorrow.

State of the Fists 3

Woot! My Fists now have one more Razorback that has the interior painted fully (I have realized that I have no Purity Seal sprayed in there on either. So I will have to remember that!). Other than that it is black and have no magnets or weapons. Have to work on the weapons when I get back from Stockholm.

I will put magnets in for the Dozer blade just like the other one, but this time I will remember to take a photo before I seal it all up. I've got two pretty strong magnets glued in the drivers compartment that easily should hold a blade. I just have to incorporate magnets on the blade in a cool fashion. Thinking of going all Boltgun metal crazy on the blades, so it should fit right in unpainted though. Magnets are so nice.

I will just throw the weapons together so I can play. Thinking of having them put together with "häftmassa" (blue-tac?) so I can play as I don't want to glue all of it as I want the ability to switch weapons. Might even get hold of an Assault cannon! Which would be awesome sauce for sure! A Heavy 4 should give me more crowd killing after all.

I have also assembled (and painted!) one of the Lascannon Marines and a second one is well under way. Pictures will come! I need to base the last lot and I still need to put on the transfers. Guess I've been reluctant because I fear failure. But what the heck, I'll throw them on soon:) I am also thinking of somehow getting the black up arrows on the right shoulders as well. But that wouldn't work well with my Devastators though. Then again I don't think that I will ever play them as such, but rather have options for lascannon, heavy bolters, and rocket launchers for my marines. I do wonder if heavy weapon guys in Tactical Squads have the Tactical Squad or Devastator markings. Hmm.

I will put up a group photo of the whole force as soon as everything is assembled. I will push on and paint everything after gaming is done. The dread might be replaced soon as the AoBR model somehow ended up getting the arms glued, so I can't even switch weapons around. *wops* Might pick up one of those nifty Ironclad Dreadnaught boxes soon, maybe even get two and replace one of the Captains just for fun, or just use it to expand towards 1500. I do dearly want those storms though, but I am starting to think that a scout squad with sniper rifles isn't a good idea in one of those. It's going to be contest / objective grabber after all.

Next post will have pictures, promise :)

State of the Fists 2

Got all the plastic for the 1k army now. Got everything off the sprue for the new Razorback (a.k.a. II) and into little plastic bags. Cleaned out the big main parts and I am going to prime and assemble them tomorrow. And paint the interior. I have a simple interior paint scheme that is very fast to paint, and well, I don't want the inside to be just black. I know, I am craaazy :)

I also need to get the weapons done both Razorbacks and magnetize the weapons and dozer blades (got some big magnets inside to hold them, pretty neat ^_^). *phew* It takes longer to build an army than I ever thought!

I have gotten 7 "standard" marines done and the melta gun one. Only got three left after that, two lascannon marines and one captain. I think I'll remodel him to have a powerfist after all. Can't go wrong with a powerfist :) Or maybe I can? Let me know!

The craziness continues!

State of the fists

The cat's out of the bag on Fritz's second blog so my 750 point Imperial Fist army isn't much of a secret now really:) As things have happened its progress has been slower than anticipated. I guess after getting all space marines in the black reach box put together so quickly I didn't anticipate the tempo to drop so steeply so fast. Life, the color yellow, and other things slowed me down. On top of that there is a 1000p tournament next week, and maybe, just maybe, it could be that I can get an army put together by then. It will be built straight up on the list suggestion so kindly provided to me and can be seen as a bit options heavy. But I am working on a budget here (a time budget). I do hope I get to play some 40k in Sweden though.

So with that in mind, let's start with the WIP shots. Here we have four bog standard marines finished and their three friends feeling a bit out of hands. No basing and transfers yet. It will come, but it's low prio at the moment. I'm thinking of doing something to get me black arrows on the right shoulder pads to make them more similar to the black reach marines. Fist transfers will go the left shoulder pads.

And here we have the *very* unfinished heavy weapons guys. Two lascannons! Why should heavy heavy weapons you ask? Because I can! I will make up two heavy bolter guys as well, and an extra rocket launcher with the cool back pack. The launcher in the tactical squad box set just doesn't cut it, it looks bad. Good thing I have a devastator box:) Question is, should I kit the 5th and last guy out as a sergeant or another heavy weapons choice, hmm.

Got a bad ass sergeant with a power fist. Totally bad ass. Totally black primer, totally bad picture. And the base that I am going to transplant my Eiryss to looks great in the picture. Stay tuned for that project:)

Here's a lone melta carrying marine, and the arms and pads for him and his three buddies from earlier on. The pop? It's Dr. Pepper ofcourse! :) The cardbord box pieces are from German Wine :)

So now it is time for... the list! I might tweak the options a little bit, we'll see. One thing I have been thinking of is going for a powerfist on the Captain instead of a lightning claw. Haven't glued that guy yet, so I can change my mind :) But, the list!

1 Space Marine Captain	Storm Bolter, Lightning Claw, Melta bombs, Hellfire	133
1 Space Marine Captain	Melta bomb, Auxiliary Grenade Launcher	120
10 Space Marines	Las Cannon, Flamer	180
10 Space Marines-	Las Cannon, Melta Gun, Power fist	215
1 Razorback	Las Cannon, Storm bolter, Hunter killer missile, Extra Armor, Dozer Blade	115
1 Razorback	Las Cannon, Storm bolter, Hunter killer missile, Extra Armor, Dozer Blade	115
1 Dreadnought	Multi-melta, Extra armor	120
		998

998 points of Imperial Fists. The former "lone" marine combat squad now has a Razorback and a Captain. The tactics will be the same as for the 750 list. It's not meant to be a highly competitive list, but rather a fully working list that I can learn 40k with. Been toying with the idea of assault cannons for the razorbacks and heavy bolters for the tactical squads.

Now I also see that the second Space Marine squad should be 210 points, so I have 7 and not 2 points unused. Wops :) And dropping some extras I think that I could squeeze in a whirlwind. No way I can do that until next week, but the idea *is* interesting :)

And since I am in dream land, I want to add two Land Speeder Storms, a 10 man scout team (half bolters with a sergeant, half snipers) that combat up and jumps into the storms. Then an extra dreadnaught with some interesting options (probably should replace the one I have too with a kit instead). And replace a captain with Lysander for some proper Imperial Fist love. Should have some points left for maybe a pair of whirlwinds or so. Lots of models :) No phat land raiders or termies though. Or vindicators or predators for that matter. But maybe it could be a fun list. A squad of three land raiders to go with the storms could be good too. Some real fast moving end game love for sure :) Could keep them in reserve even :)

That's all folks!

New armies

From reading the rumor mill on the blogs I've found out that the new Space Wolves codex is planned for October this year, and we already know that Retribution of Scyrah is scheduled for a September release. Let's say that this just adds to my determination of having my life fixed and set up by that time so I can get my claws on these fantastic new armies.

I dearly want a mage hunter army, and I am considering giving the Myrmidons a more green paint job to look like they belong to the rest of the hunters. And maybe make a dawnguard themed army as well. Kinda like having two factions in one :)

And the wolves, they are just so very very cool. Some might find their viking inspiration as too much, but I just find it charming. Maybe I should deck out one Blood Claw as being myself :) Lots of fun ahead!

Pictures

Here are the promised pictures. I didn't get any painting done today due to outside interference. It's going to be interested to see how the marines look actually assembled. So here's the pictures!

The marines have kind of a "dirty" look. It's not so much a conscious decision as it was what I ended up with. I hope the shoulderpads + arms/weapon is going to balance the marines out a bit.

And here the two little side projects. I thought that painting Orks would be hard as heck, but not really. It so happens that models with a lot of stuff on them sometimes are easier to paint. The Marines are far more "clean", but that just makes it harder for me. I hope you like these guys, they have 3 more Nob friends primed so I might just finish those three as well, to have myself a little Nob squad to look at me when I paint :)

Damn it takes time to paint

Between lots of things needing to be done and generally being tired (I miss AC! I want to be able to sleep when it is warm out!) and that little pesky issue of yellow paint, I haven't actually painted as much as I had hoped to. I might just be able to finish my 7 Boltgun Tactical Squad Marines tomorrow though. Painted 8 shoulder pads today and have worked on the arms/bolters as well. Slow going, but it would be so nice to have 7 fully painted models. Then I just have to paint 2 special weapons and a sergeant.

I did cheat a bit and have painted two Ork Nobs, for fun, and it was a lot of fun! I don't have any Goff checkmarks on them though. Should incorporate them in the future. Gotta make Mr. Thrakka feel welcome in the future :)

I really should take some pictures of my progress tomorrow. For fun :)

1000 points of Imperial Fists

I am hard at work (or, well, at least now and then) on my 750 point list still. But I am thinking about what I could do next, how I could up it to 1k points if I want to compete in the upcoming tourney. I fear I must take the simplest route, i.e. the one involving the least amount of miniatures as my painting is slow moving. Pictures will be up when I can get my hands on a camera again. I'm working on 7 boltgun marines. I'm leaving off all the "extras" such as grenades etc. Cutting corners:) I might add them later on though, I just have to be super careful with the glue. I have found that putting some glue on a piece of cardboard and holding the plastic I want to glue and gently dipping it in the little pool of glue works far far better than trying to apply directly from the bottle. Don't want glue all over the place anymore after all!

So what would I want to add? I want to add two land speeder storms. Which means 12 (!) scouts and two (!!!) vehicles. Released on the 18th of July none the less. On top of that I want one squad of Space Marines scouts, half of them with sniper rifles, that I split into two combat groups each boarding a storm. Fast, open topped, skimmer. It opens up for some interesting tactics for sure. I should probably drop my dreadnought if I do that and replace him with a devastator squad or something (since I plan on painting them anyways). But I would have 22 scouts and 2 skimmers to paint then. Over a weekend. Doesn't sound like a realistic plan to me :(

That said, it would be a great way to move my army up to 1500 points. Add one more Razorback to that mix, and an extra HQ (thinking something rock hard, to go in the other 2nd Razorback) and some mobile elites. Maybe on or two drop pod terminator squads. I do hope you *can* drop pod them. A squad of three land speeders would be a cool addition as well. Would make my army quite fast I hope :)

What I will not add is bikes. Not a fan of them at all. Nope, no bikes.

Hmm

Hmm, maybe one should get one of these in the future:

The Spear of Sicarius

But then again, what's the odds that the thing will be around for long enough for that to happen :) I do quite fancy those spiffy drop pods though. No idea if they will play well, but they look really neat :)

More Razorback

The Razorback is now glued together into one and is starting to resemble an actual dedicated transport. I do notice that trying to paint individual pieces at different times was a huge mistake. I have put foundation on the body of the tank, but the bottom have one color and the hatches another etc. I don't think the body will match either. Oh well, it's my first try with yellow, and I have found it to be better to move on than to get stuck. I've got another tac squad to paint after all (and a few other pieces).

I am seriously thinking of investing in an airbrush in the future. The cover well and I could easily put down many coats of paint evenly. See how the hatches stand out here (even if I haven't actually started the yellow coat over the foundation coats yet).

You can even see how the yellow is uneven as hell here :(

The back hatch is magnetized, that is a part I am pleased with :) Also the tracks looks real nice.

Funny enough the inside of the Razorback looks, to me, real nice. Fenris Grey all the way baby! Also brushed metal + Badab Black is a fantastic little invention. Or rather metal + any dark wash. Maybe I should try it with green, purple, or blue, just for the heck of it :)

But you can see that I now have Fenris Grey insides on all that hatches. I plan on having anything that isn't outer hull in FG and add transfers and some black details on the outside to make it a bit more interesting. I will number it 'I' as it is the first armored vehicle I do have for the Fists. I do feel a bit miffed at how much that isn't included with the Razorback though, the second bolter that goes in the front isn't available so I can't build a Rhino with two bolter-thingies for instance. And only two main weapons out of five or six for the Razorback. Bad Games Workshop, bad, bad, bad.

I am getting really curious of what a 750p army can do. We'll see if I am a tactical genius or a heretic :)

Working on my Razorback

I need to get my Razorback in at least a state where I can play with it, even if it won't look finished or pretty. But being the little weirdo I am I do want to paint the inside of the tank, and to do so I will have to do some assembly - paint - assembly - paint iterations. I have assembled the sides with the tracks and glued them together, but I haven't glued them together with each other yet, so they are not glued to the bottom nor the panel+weapon "thing".

Here's a pic of the inside:

It's a bit hard to see (I need more sources of light to get better pictures) but I hope you can see that I have painted the inside in my new favorite color: Fenris grey. It is one awesome color and I couldn't wait to get to paint Space Wolfs with it, so I chose it for the inside of the tank. It's just the foundation paint and sometimes I used a little blue wash (GW line) and a lighter blue foundation paint to highlight buttons etc. Painted the triangular buttons red and green as well, as I wanted them to pop a bit. They look like door open/close buttons so I thought, what the heck :) Here's another shot at the inside. Not that I painted the floor gunbolt metal with a badab black wash and touched it up with some more metal. I need new drybrushes though, they are already worn out from Cygnar painting:) Wish GW's new huge drybrush was released. Guess I will just buy GW's two drybrushes plus a large one (tanks need large brushes!).

I am pleased with the tracks. Tin bitz + some gunbolt metal + devlan mud wash and voila. Stole that one from GW's site :) It was real simple, fast, and looks good.

Less easy is this darn yellow. I do like the foundation WAAY better than the failure that was the Army Painter spray, but it is really hard to get an even coat on there. I have been playing around with how much I should water the paint and such, but it is still really really hard. Oh well, maybe in the end I'll learn something :) Plus I've got Orks and Eldars to learn how to paint as well. And Retribution, and Space Wolfs, and more Cygnar!

This part I do like. It looks pretty good (even better RL). Just enjoy the picture:

I wanted to have working side doors, and here you have one of them. I did change my mind about the color though, and now the inside is Fenris Grey instead. To match with the rest of the insides. The backdoor (*tihi*) will have the same setup with Fenris Gray inside and yellow on the outside so it will match.

The neat thing is that I have magnetized the door so I can pull it off, put it back on, and have it open for the Marines to run out. Like this!

You can also have it shut. I hope I won't end up having it get too thick because of paint and be hard to fit. I've got the other door painted and magnetized as well.

I have painted some more after these pictures were taken and I am going to finish magnetizing the back door tomorrow. I had some mishaps and will have to redo the fitting of the magnets. The magnets are 1 x 1.5 x 5 mm btw. Quite a handy size and fairly strong. Thus far recommended :) Bought of a German site.

Stay tuned for the next update. I am determined to get this Razorback in playable fashion this week, maybe even fully painted! I do need to start using the transfers though. On the squads as well.

//Brother Captain Flekkzo