Tag: Deathwing

The Deathwing

Hey everybody!
After mentioning the idea in yesterday’s painting update blog, I’ve been thinking a lot about my ideas for a Deathwing army, and thought I’d come along here today to briefly talk about the whole thing. I’d last mentioned it on the blog here almost exactly a year ago, when the last thing that I’d done for the force was build up a Land Raider Crusader. I’ve not actually painted any of the models in the army since November 2016, however, when I was attempting to forge ahead with some Deathwing Knights:

So I do feel that I have a long way to go!

The Army Right Now
The current state of the republic so far as my Deathwing goes is as follows:

Deathwing list

That is an elite, expensive list!! I’ve been quite excited by this army for a while, now, and I think the idea of it being such an elite force is a really exciting prospect. None of my other armies forgoes troops like this, although I suppose the Terminator Squads basically act like troops for the purposes of this list.

Who are the Deathwing?
For those of you who don’t know, the Deathwing are the elite First Company of the Dark Angels Chapter of Space Marines. The Dark Angels are a Chapter shrouded in mystery, and secrets-within-secrets is kind of their schtick in the 40k universe. During the Horus Heresy, it is widely believed in the meta that Lion el’Jonson kept back from Terra during the siege, as he wanted to see which way the hammer fell before fully deciding to join with Horus or keep to the light of the Emperor. Added to this fact, back home on Caliban the Lion’s trusted lieutenant, Luther, fell to Chaos and took a sizable chunk of the Legion with him – these are known as the Fallen, but the Dark Angels are determined above all else to keep the existence of these renegades from the galaxy at large. Very few know the story of the Fallen, and all of those in the First Company are within the Inner Circle of trust in this regard.

Nowadays, the Dark Angels regularly devote a portion of their strength to searching out for these renegades, in an attempt to make them repent or die. If any part of the Chapter suspects the potential location of a Fallen, they usually bring in the Ravenwing to deal with the situation – the lightning-fast Second Company. Should the presence of Fallen be likely, the First Company promptly come in to deal with it.

Side note: Ravenwing
The Ravenwing are the all-biker Second Company of the Dark Angels, and a force that I have not usually paid much attention to. However, since reading through the Codex for the Dark Angels, I’ve been considering re-vamping my entire list to include at least some of these guys in there. As I said, the Ravenwing are supposed to hunt for the Fallen, and when they confirm a location, they call in the Deathwing to teleport down to a planet and strike. I think it could be really cinematic to recreate that on the tabletop, so I’ll be giving that some thought in the coming weeks to see how feasible such an addition could be! I already have the flying church altar that is the Darkshroud, as I had been briefly considering using it as a part of the Deathwing army anyway, so I might include some more and plug any tactical holes in the list.

The Army Build
First Companies of Space Marines Chapters are the veterans, and as such almost exclusively wear tactical dreadnought (or terminator) armour. As such, there are a lot of Terminators in the list – pretty much everybody is wearing that stuff for the 2+ save it grants! While I still have some models that I’d like to add to the army, such as a second Venerable Dreadnought and perhaps an Interrogator-Chaplain, I am also in the curious position of having everything currently built and partly painted, so this is like none of my other current army projects to date!

It’s definitely a fluffy army, and I have no idea how well it would do on the tabletop. But my curiosity in that regard makes me want to try it out soon and see just how well (or not!) it fares!

Tactical Thoughts
I’ve only briefly studied the new Codex, so there may well be a lot of things I’m missing with this, but some important linchpins for the force are Belial and the Ancient. Everybody in the force has the DEATHWING faction keyword, except the Venerable Dreadnought (and the Land Raider, though at 300 points, I’m currently leaving that thing off the list!) – Belial, as Grand Master of the Deathwing, allows for all friendly units within 6″ to re-roll failed hit rolls (as well as allowing for re-rolling hit rolls of 1 for all Dark Angels units within 6″ of him), while the Ancient gives all Deathwing units +1 Attack while they are within 6″ of him. While Belial is obviously a unique character unit, the Ancient will be useful to give those Terminators and Knights 3 attacks each, and the Venerable Dreadnought will gladly take that for 5 attacks, as well!

But the Venerable Dreadnought isn’t a DEATHWING unit, I hear you cry. Well, thanks to the ICP stratagem “Inner Circle”, he now can be!

I may well build up another Ancient, as it happens, though that would be too much for the game and not enough for the fluff.

All of the Deathwing units also have the Teleport Strike special rule, which is the way they get to deep strike in 8th edition. There is a Deathwing Assault stratagem that allows them to immediately shoot after arriving by deep strike, which doesn’t prevent them from then shooting in the regular shooting phase, also! Very nice. I think the changes to the deep strike rule that prevent this from happening on turn one may have turned off a lot of folks, but I do like the dramatic idea of maybe using it for the Knights – I had briefly considered the Knights and Belial, but if it is used for a unit of more than 5 models, it costs 3CP – a hefty investment for an army that is quite light on the command points due to the fact it’s pretty much all HQs and elites! But it definitely fits that cinematic style if I do indeed go for the Ravenwing build, also!

Deathwing Redemption Force

The stratagems are generally pretty decent, I think – there are a lot of fluffy ones that only really come into play if you’re fighting Chaos Space Marines, and there’s a nice one that affects the plasma weaponry of a Dark Angels unit. Fluffy, for sure, though the Deathwing guys don’t really have many options for maxing out on such things to really make it worthwhile – again, this is a very elite army, with a maximum of five command points available to it as it stands, so I can’t really afford to go spreading the love too much!

From what I can see, though, there isn’t a tremendous amount of tactical ability within the units themselves – there are a couple of stratagems that will help, and a few aura effects that are useful, but in the main we’re looking at an army that is very much deploy and get on with it. Everybody is a Terminator, so has a 2+ armour save and 5+ invulnerable save, with at least two wounds each (Belial and the Master are the toughest infantry units with 6 wounds, while the Venerable Dreadnought has 8), so it should be a fairly durable force – as well it should be, for the points cost!

Building the army
I have an inordinate amount of love for the Deathwing Terminators kit. Ever since I built up my first Terminator (above), I knew that they were going to have a special place for me. I think the kit is quite remarkable for having three options within it – the regular Terminators, the Command Squad, or the Knights.

The way the Deathwing Command Squad has been broken up in the new Codex does mean that I’m somewhat at sea with my current builds – I actually have an additional Terminator with an assault cannon that I currently can’t home anywhere. I think I’ve got another box somewhere in the pile of shame, so I could always build up a third squad and maybe with the left-over model make either another Master or that second Ancient. It just feels a bit wrong to me that there would be two Ancients floating about with the company banner, you know?

At any rate, them’s my plans for the Deathwing army! It’s a force that I really love the look of, and have had a lot of fun painting them in the past, so hopefully that will continue as I move slowly towards completion this year! December is definitely Deathwing month for me, as I’ve done a lot with these models each Christmastime for the last three years now, so it will be nice to continue that tradition.

Stay tuned for more updates, anyway!

Painting Progress! November 2018

Hey everybody!
Well it’s day five of my 800-blogs celebration week, and to close with a bang, I thought I’d update you all with some of my recent hobby progress! As always, I’ve been building a lot, but more excitingly, I’ve also been managing to not only paint a lot of things, but to get some of those things finished! Win-win!

Let’s start with some Warhammer Underworlds: Nightvault.

I’ve not yet played this game, but seeing these minis really inspired me to look again into fantasy and the Nighthaunt range for Age of Sigmar, and we all know where that has led me! These were some quite challenging models to paint, the Briar Queen herself in particular, because I’m not really used to having such light colours, and having to mix shades with medium to lighten them has been quite a learning curve for me. The models have so much character though, I really enjoyed getting them finished and seeing the whole band come together.

I enjoyed them so much, in fact, that I’ve already built my second warband!

I’m hoping to get a game of Shadespire in soon, so will be featuring that on the blog here at some point in the near future – stay tuned for that!

Next up are my Electro-Priests! They’re a unit that I’ve had some trouble with in the past, as I’d wanted to paint them for a long time but initially sprayed some white and it didn’t end well for me. I’d previously had the idea of painting their skin a charred black, with the robes a light pink. Well, that no longer fits with the look of my Skitarii, so I went back to the drawing board and have painted them with the blue robes of the rest of my army (which currently numbers five models, but whatever) There are a few callbacks to the Skitarii such as the grey tabards in front, which echo the pressure suits, and of course the various dangling bits and pieces are a strong resemblance between both squads. You can definitely see on three of them there is a chalkier finish, where the stripping hasn’t quite worked out for me, but overall I think they look great, and they’re a really nice addition.

Really chuffed to have finally painted them, after nearly three years since they were originally built!

Of course, I was wanting to paint something weird while I was waiting for the Blackstone Fortress stuff to land, so now that I’ve done these, I feel at a bit of a loss as to where to go next! Fortunately, however, I have found some of the Chaos Cultists from Dark Vengeance, so have been busy building up those gentlemen!

Not only have I got the Cultists being built up, I’m also building some House Cawdor gangers for Necromunda. They both kinda fit the bill of weird 40k stuff, after all, so I think they’ll keep me going nicely for the next week, until we get to Blackstone Friday! The Cultists are nice models, for early push-fit stuff, and I have previously painted up some of them at least, so I’m excited to try my hand once more at these guys. While building them, I was thinking that I’d like to try, so far as possible, to make a really nice job of them – partly because they’re comparatively rare models nowadays, but also because they’ve got so much lovely detail on them, and I don’t always try my hardest to really make an effort with the regular line troops. So I’m thinking that I’ll just do a few at a time, and try to make them really special.

The Cawdor stuff is really kinda weird, isn’t it? Such fiddly models, as well. But while I initially wasn’t thinking much of them, I think I would like to try some of these in a game at some future date, so it would be good to have them painted up and whatnot. While I’m definitely going to do more than ten Van Saar gangers, and will probably do more Orlocks as well, I think I will probably just build up the ten as per the box, and leave them at that.

Speaking of the weirder elements of 40k, all that talk about the Kill Team Rogue Trader expansion the other day has gotten me into painting the minis, finally! I really, really like these guys, so while the going has been quite slow so far, it has also been a lot of fun. The models are so wonderfully detailed, they really show just how good GW is at sculpting their models right now – it’s stuff like this that really puts the argument that Citadel minis are the best in the business out there. I’m not really used to painting regular human skin and whatnot, so I have been finding it a little tough at times, but they are so enjoyable to paint that I can’t help but want to plough ahead with the project!

Something that I’m really pleased with is getting this squad of Necron Immortals finally painted up, having stalled with them a few weeks ago and not really having gotten the inspiration to finish them off. I’m a big fan of gauss Immortals, but I think the tesla carbines have really come through here, and the soft drybrushing from Kantor Blue, through Alaitoc Blue and up to Teclis Blue has really come through quite well, I think – rather than looking messy, it actually feels more like a glowing effect, to my eye, so I’m really chuffed!

While I’m still a long way off from my projected list from September, I think I’m feeling more in the mood to get moving with the Great Reanimation now, so hopefully my Necron army will be getting back to the tabletop soon!

So I’ve been painting and building a lot, but I think the Necrons bring me on to the next part of this blog, and my plans for the immediate future, and where I would like to be by the end of the year (just six weeks away!)

Obviously, I’d like to get more Necrons painted in my Thokt Dynasty scheme, so I think somewhere near the top of the list will be more space skeletons. I think I’d like to get more troops, with more fancy units, so I’m thinking I’ll probably aim to do five more Immortals (gauss most likely!) and either five Deathmarks, or an Annihilation Barge. I’ll stop short of saying both, but I’ll decide which I’d rather do soon. I’ve got both units built, at least!

I talked about Skitarii before, and I think I’d like to get at least five more Rangers or Vanguard painted – possibly Vanguard, as I’ve been thinking about some effects I could try on the radium carbines. Not sure if I’d do anything else, though the Tech Priest Dominus is a strong contender. I had one built up, but I think it broke; I do have a total of four further Tech Priest kits (between all the Start Collecting, Forgebanes and now the Kill Team Commander that I picked up the other day!) so I could build up another and see if I can get anywhere with him. I started painting the Tech Priest Enginseer, but he’s currently on my painting table broken, so I’ve been thinking about trying to finish him, as a part of which I’ll try to fix him.

The Chaos Cultists are a project, but while there are a load of them, I’m going to paint them in fives, so as to not overwhelm myself. Whether I get to them before the end of the year or not, I don’t know, so I’ll leave them off this list for the time being. I also don’t know if I’ll manage to get the Elucidian Starstriders finished before new year, but I’d like to see how far I can get. So far, anyway, I’ve almost been painting them while I had a certain paint on the palette for another unit, so I might just keep them there and see where I get to.

Three years ago, I started to build a Deathwing army, and I am really feeling in the mood to do some more with that this year. I have a lot of models that are basecoated and such, so I might see if I can get the details finished on them, as they are a wonderful-looking force, and I’m really proud of those models that I’ve so far managed to finish. So I think I might like to add in the Deathwing Knights to this list, as I think I’d like to get those done in particular.

So what’s on this list? Necrons, Skitarii and Deathwing, with perhaps some odds and ends mixed in to keep things moving and interesting. Necrons are possibly my priority because I want to try and get the army up to a level where I can start having games with it. I need to make sure I don’t get distracted by Lychguard or Praetorians, and instead focus on the troops that I need, and some of the good support stuff that will make a core of the army. Skitarii will be my Kill Team project – I’ll be writing a blog on that sometime soon – so they’re again something that I will be painting up to play, with a view to finally getting the army going, but I think that’s more of a long-term goal. And the Deathwing thing is almost something of a passion project at this point, but I would really like to do some more work to them: as December is traditionally my time to do stuff with the First Legion, hopefully we’ll see at least some movement on that front!

I have the feeling, though, that Blackstone Fortress may be taking up a lot of my time, once I get it in my hot little hands!!

So there we are, my painting and hobby progress to date! I think this focus on just finishing one unit is definitely the way forward for me, so you can expect to see more updates where I have complete units in the future. And what a week it’s been! 800 posts, huh? I certainly didn’t think I’d last longer than a year, but next April it’ll be my five-year anniversary! Amazing stuff!

Warhammer 40,000 news!

Hey everybody!
It’s the Warhammer 40,000 open day today in Nottingham, but I’m at home moving furniture about so couldn’t make it. However, catching up with the news over on the GW Community site, it looks like a tremendous time ahead for the game! Let’s take a look, and then I’ll catch you all up with what I’ve been doing of late, as well! (Spoiler: it isn’t what you might think…)

First of all, following its release yesterday, Necromunda has already got the next gang expansion lined up: House Orlock!

House Orlock is made up of miners and engineers who use ingenuity and grit to solve the various problems of the underhive, whether they’re making sure mining quotas are met or are just working out the best way to neutralise a charging Goliath ganger.

Exciting stuff, I have to say! I think this is actually the best-looking gang so far, and I can definitely see myself going for them – I was planning to go for Escher because I thought the Goliaths look slightly too over-the-top, but these chaps look like they could be exactly what I want in a gang! If nothing else, they are sporting some truly amazing facial hair…

In addition to a new gang, there’s a new book coming out with their rules, and new terrain tiles to further help expand the game! Looks like GW are truly making this a wonderful gaming experience! However, the new Hive Scum are being released in resin, which is not something that I’m looking forward to experiencing. Might have to pass on them.

I’ve not actually had the time to pick up my preorder copy of the game, so need to try harder and get my stuff soon…

While we’re on the subject of Necromunda, have you guys seen this video from Warhammer TV? 3D combat is, of course, what Necromunda was famous for, and while the new boxed game doesn’t have any multi-level terrain, the Gang War book apparently does. Anyway, I got on a real scenery kick earlier this year, building loads of stuff for an Armies on Parade board that never really got off the ground, given that I ended up moving house and all the rest of it, but I do still have a few kits lying around, and have recently managed to consolidate all of the stuff I had built up, following the move. Now that GW are releasing new terrain, and this has cropped up, I’m hoping that we’ll continue to see stuff like this into the future – and, indeed, more videos to inspire all manner of build options!

Back to main-line 40k, now, and the mythical Myphitic Blight Hauler is finally coming out in time for Christmas – and it’s just £15! Having decided to build a Chaos force that is predominantly these lovely chaps, I’m definitely going to pick up this demon engine for the army, and it just looks so cute!

It’s an easy-build kit, and we’re getting more for both Primaris Space Marines and the Death Guard – I actually think it’s a really great way of continuing the Dark Imperium box by having these things available as well. I’ve often thought it’s a bit weird how there are starter boxes with the push-fit models, then if you want anything more added to your force you need to level up your modelling game. Plenty of people are put off by the assembly of these things, and instead have picked up the likes of X-Wing, so having almost a complete range of easy-to-build kits can allow someone to assemble quite a decent army even when they’re an absolute beginner. Sure, it might not look as great to experienced gamers, but I think this is a problem that a lot of commentators seem to forget – experienced gamers are not GW’s intended audience for these kits. Of course, such folks will no doubt buy them anyway, but I don’t think these kits are intended for anybody other than those people who want to spend as little time at the hobby table as possible, and more time at the gaming table. A lot of people are complaining about the Redemptor Dreadnought coming out, due to its mono-pose look – well, luckily for you, you can actually buy a fully-customisable version already! So leave the easy-to-build one alone and move along!

Urgh. Rant over, anyway.

Speaking of Primaris Marines, however, we’re getting two new Lieutenants, one each for the Blood Angels and the Dark Angels, that have all the usual regalia of each chapter, to accompany their respective codex releases in December. Wonderful! I don’t actually have a Blood Angels force, but I have been trying to build a Deathwing army since GW made their first and only foray into the whole Black Friday thing a couple of years ago, and this is the first thing I wanted to talk about when catching you all up with my hobby progress of late!

My Deathwing force has been in a state of partial completion for about two years now, although to date I’ve only got about seven terminators and the venerable dreadnought actually finished. I had some time off work not too long ago, and spent a day building a land raider crusader for them. I love the Deathwing photo spread from the old Dark Angels codex, and have been vaguely modelling my force on that, so definitely wanted to get the big tank for my force.

When I spent some time trying to work out all of the points costs for this force, I think it came in somewhere around 1500 without the land raider, which initially surprised me for such a small force. However, I’m guessing that these chaps will do a lot more damage than otherwise expected… I have got two Vanguard Detachments, due to 3/5 of the old Command Squad now being deemed as characters in their own right, but I am wondering if I really need Belial in the force anymore. He used to negate scattering after you deep strike in, but scattering isn’t in 8th edition, so he’s mainly there for fluff. I suppose we’ll just see how the army evolves!

I’ve already mentioned my Chaos force that I’ve been assembling, of course and wanted to point out the other half of the army – Thousand Sons! I was very taken by these chaps when they were released about a year ago, and had thought about getting some for a Kill Team, but only recently pulled the trigger and picked up a box. Well, I enjoyed putting the Aspiring Sorcerer together so much last weekend that I’ve since bought a second box, as I think I’m going to have at least one Patrol Detachment in my Chaos army of Thousand Sons!

I just hope we get some plastic Noise Marines at some point…!

Finally, we have this handsome fella. I’ve been flirting with Tyranids for so long now, they were almost my first army (but lost out to Necrons), and a couple of times over the years I’ve found myself buying bugs without any real thought to making a force, but just having something utterly alien to paint. Very much like Lizardmen from Warhammer Fantasy, I think I’ve been drawn to Tyranids because they were part of my first exposure to 40k (Space Hulk, of course), and the fact that you can paint them with some really outlandish, almost venomous colour schemes.

More so than that, however, I feel that there is just something so utterly 40k-ish about Tyranids: while Chaos is probably the most over-arching enemy across the majority of 40k literature, I always find myself enjoying far more the books that throw space marines against the big bugs. Shield of Baal is definitely one of the best settings I’ve come across, and books like Warriors of Ultramar and Space Marines Legends: Cassius have proven just how much I enjoy these things.

Since the codex has been released, I’ve been scrabbling about, sorting out my Genestealer Cult models, as well as looking for the other Tyranid models that I’ve bought – I have a Maleceptor kit somewhere, and need to find those Zoanthropes that I built up a while back, too.

In the meantime, I’ve been working on building up the Tyranid Warriors from the Shield of Baal: Deathstorm box, as well as purchasing more reinforcements in the shape of the old Start Collecting box (I do want a Trygon as well, but that Hive Tyrant model looks so damn good!)

I suppose it’s somewhat inevitable, given the fact that I’ve been recently thinking about my Cult models as well, that I would have moved towards building a force – however small – of the bugs those cultists worship. I’ve not properly worked out a list just yet, but I think it’s going to involve a Hive Tyrant surrounded by Warriors, a Broodlord surrounded by Genestealers, and a psychic contingent of Zoanthropes and at least one Maleceptor. I can start thinking about Carnifexes and Trygons further down the line, I think…

I’m really happy to have started in earnest with building some Tyranids to go alongside my Cult. While it has previously always felt a little like a distraction from my main force of Necrons, I think I have enough on the go nowadays that adding one more faction isn’t really going to harm anything!

And who knows? Maybe if plastic Sisters of Battle ever happen, I’ll be adding yet another faction to the never-ending roster!

Hobby Progress, week 48

The end of the year draws closer! Initially, I hadn’t thought I’d made as much progress with my painting this week – I’ve been suffering with man-flu, and have an essay due on 8 December so have been trying to catch up with my degree work, and just hadn’t thought the time had been there. But in checking out last week’s progress update blog, it turns out I actually have made some forward motion! Let’s dive right in…

hobby progress 48

Always afflicted with a bit of hobby-ADD, and while it can often lead to having a morass of unfinished projects on the go, it also seems to have served me well this week, as I’ve made a lot of progress on some of these things! I’ve been painting up the Necron Wraiths following my last game of 40k, as they do pretty well and I want them finished, rather than two part-done and two merely undercoated. So I’ve been powering through with those, and they’re inching closer to done, I feel! Having the gold on the palette just to do the heads meant that I could get on with painting up the four Liberators that I’d originally built for my Armies on Parade entry, but didn’t get round to painting in time – so they’ve been basecoated and shaded, and are a sort of mini-project that I expect will be done when they’re done…

After a lot of wrangling, I think the Deathwatch Librarian is now done, as well. I’m not particularly pleased with how a lot of him has turned out, but I think he’s as good as I’m going to get him now…

hobby progress 48

The Deathwing Knights are slowly progressing, much like the Stormcast! I’ve been trying to find a way of highlighting the green robes without making them too bright, and have discovered the joy of Kabalite Green! It doesn’t really look right in the pot, but over three or four coats (whatever it was in the end) of Caliban Green, it’s really done the job for me. In fact, it looks good enough that I think Warpstone Glow as a final highlight might be enough, rather than going straight from Caliban to Warpstone. So I’m really pleased there!

hobby progress 48

Remember these girls? I made a joke on instagram how they’d aged so badly in the time waiting for paint, which really makes me chuckle I have to say! But anyway, since they last made it to the pages of my blog, I’ve gone over the skin with Warpfiend Grey, and I think I might actually leave it there, but I’m also thinking I might do a final highlight of Slaanesh Grey before calling it done. In the meantime, I’ve painted the hair Celestra Grey in preparation for shading it blue. Remember my Ogres? The idea is the same, purple skin and blue hair:

I mean, it makes sense to me! I also think it looks cool, and could make the Daemonettes really look great. I’m still vacillating over the corset things they’re wearing, but I think I will end up doing them black rather than metallic, and highlight them with Dark Reaper like the Deathwatch armour I’ve been doing, as I think it will keep them looking quite harmonious, keeping them on the blue end of the spectrum. We’ll see!

What else has been going on?

My local GW Horus Heresy thing now has a name: Strokes of Heresy. I believe it’s meant to sound kinda wrong, but basically it’s a painting competition campaign, where each month a challenge is set – paint a troops choice, paint an HQ choice – and you get points at the end of the month based on whether you’ve built, painted and based the unit. There are additional points on offer if you fully paint any additional units, and if you build and paint the maximum unit size for the month, for instance, and all of this then goes onto a campaign map. You roll dice to gain territory, which then gives you additional challenges for that month, ranging from using an unspecified texture paint to converting and painting a Remembrancer. So for November, it was a troops choice, which I’d finished off mid-month along with a rhino, so I’ve got 4 points right off the bat! Unfortunately, the man-flu has kept me away from being able to roll off for this additional challenge yet, but anyway. This month, it’s an HQ choice, so I’ve gone for a Legion Centurion, keeping things simple, but I’ve also been thinking about doing a tactical support squad for a while, so have also built them up! Exciting times inbound!

My Alpha Legion is growing quite well now, I have to say, and I’m really pleased with how much progress has been made with the Betrayal at Calth box this year. I suppose it’s inevitable at this time of year to be looking back at this stuff, but considering I’d built up the Chaplain, terminators and dreadnought in January, then did nothing with it for months, once this tactical support squad is finished I will have painted up all thirty of the marines, as well! (I’ve actually bought three more sets of marines off ebay, as I don’t want to buy another Calth box just for them, so there are still plenty more marines to make before I venture wholly into Forgeworld territory!)

Next up, I definitely want to do a second troops choice of another tactical unit, which will finally get me the required minimum for a combined arms detachment that I can then start to play some games with. As usual, I have too many fancy units and not enough basic guys! I think I’ll also want to do another rhino to move them around in, but if I’m being honest, this will probably be something for next year, now…

hobby progress 48

Finally, I wanted to show off my Novamarines to date! These guys excite me quite a great deal, I have to say! I’d painted the quartering onto both veteran sergeants earlier in the week, using Alaitoc Blue, and I think it looks pretty great. Unfortunately, I cleared my dining table (where I do all of my painting) on Saturday and forgot which blue I’d been using for them so, when I came to paint up the remaining four assault marines later on in the day, I used Hoeth Blue, which is the next shade lighter, and am kinda gutted about the whole situation! Novamarines are cobalt blue, which is nearer Alaitoc than Hoeth (to my eye, at least), so I’m going to have to go over the four rather than the two! The good thing, hopefully, is that it probably won’t need three coats to block it in on the lighter marines…

Novamarines

I’ve also gone through and lined the armour recesses on the cream parts with Seraphim Sepia, overbrushing with Flayed One Flesh to bring the flat panels back up, and I think it looks pretty great overall! So they’re definitely coming along now!

I’ve still got the four tactical marines to basecoat and stuff, but I am feeling really pleased with the progress on these chaps – I’m already further along than I got last time I’d attempted this chapter! I’m now thinking about what I want to do next, and I think I want to kitbash a fancy HQ choice. Flicking through the codex, you can upgrade a captain to a Chapter Master, which just sounds wonderful, so I’m thinking I might do that! I’ve got one or two bits in mind already, so I just need to figure out the weapon options, and then get building! For this next stage, I want to do a second troops choice so that I can have some measure of legal force with which to hopefully play some games, rather than always going for the fancy options and never having a proper CAD done! So stay tuned for that!

Hobby Progress, week 46

Hey everybody!
It’s week 46 of my hobby progress update, and this week has been a bit… disparate, I suppose you could say. Having finished up the current batch of Alpha Legion folks, I was a bit torn as to where to go next with my hobbying, and I think that shows in what I’ve been up to! So sit back with a cuppa, and let me ramble on for a bit about what I’ve been doing this week!

First of all, I started to do more Deathwatch people. The two on the left there were kinda started back in the summer when I was all-in on these guys, but I moved my focus to just finishing a small core than all of the models I’d had built at that time. I’ve resumed, anyway, trying to focus on marines with bare faces, as I still want to try and improve, and essentially conquer that fear of painting skin!

But thinking about painting marines with skin got me to move over to another, even more long-standing project that I had lying around:

Yes, the Deathwing Knights I built up on Christmas Eve last year!

These guys are really quite wonderful – much like the regular Deathwing Terminators, they are incredibly detailed, but I’m really looking forward to moving along with these chaps and getting them finished. Painting them this week has actually made me feel incredibly festive, too!

As you can see in the back there, I’ve also built one Deathwatch Terminator out of Deathwing Knight bits – this was inspired by flicking through the Codex last weekend, and the Purgatus Kill Team formation.

Having used a lot of the terminator bits from the Dark Angels Company Veterans kit that I bought last year (the most expensive bits box I have bought to date!), I essentially had one Terminator left over. So why not?! The only thing that caused an issue is the back of the torso, which was plundered from the regular Terminators kit. Having looked briefly online, it seems the regular Terminator back bits are more readily available than the Deathwing backs, with their gothic arches. But anyway! I do like the look of this chap, anyway, so I think I’ll continue to work on him alongside both the Deathwing Knights and the Deathwatch chaps that were started this week, too!

I’ve also built up two more Deathwing Terminators, so that I now have three full squads of five, one of which can be fielded as the Command Squad, so I’m pleased with that! Unfortunately, I thought I’d save some time by using the spray of Zandri Dust that I had left over from doing the Armies on Parade board, and it went on far too thickly, obscuring much of the detail. So I used Biostrip 20 to clean them up, and I’m happy to report that it worked a treat! I painted the stuff on with an old wash brush, rather than soaking them, but it worked fine like that! I also stripped the primer from the three Necropolis Knights that I’d also built up earlier in the year, but had left languishing after the primer went on powdery, and it worked fine for them, also! So they have been primed white – smoothly, this time – and the Terminators have been re-primed and base coated by brush, so all is well with the world once again!

Last week, I mentioned the 160mm ‘Armies on a Plate’ thing my local GW is doing in December (still don’t know if that’s the official name they’re going with yet). Well I picked up said plate on Friday, and it was both larger and smaller than I’d been expecting, so I’ve been reconsidering my options for this thing – cue instagram montage!

So I’m not entirely sure yet, but I’m thinking about using the Deathwing Knights among the Daemonettes, as the Knights have become a bit of a project for me once more, and I do like how that could look! On a side note, I’m kinda surprised at how many things I still have hanging about unfinished, like the Bloodletters, so I think I’d like to try to get a few more of these models done and dusted by the end of the year. Though top of the list is the Deathwing Knights…

But I’ve also made a return to painting the Slaaneshi hosts! First off, I’d actually put basecoats and washes on four of them – which seems a bit weird considering I had twelve built up over the summer – so got the rest of them painted. I also put some basecoats onto the Seekers from the chariot, as well! And finally, I’ve built up and now based/washed the finecast Herald of Slaanesh, despite having made up the Herald from the chariot kit as well – I suppose they’re just desperate to bring the Dark Prince back!

I’m really enjoying these girls – not in a pervy way, I hasten to add! I mentioned it back in the day, of course, but I’ve always been a fan of the Slaaneshi aesthetic of purples with all the opulence and stuff, so it’s really good to finally be getting these guys looking more like the army I want! With the recent made to order thing going up for the older Daemonettes, I was momentarily concerned they might pull these or something, but while I’ve managed to calm my fears there (family friendly GW surely won’t want to replace the plastics with the boobs-out version, surely!) I do still think I might well invest in a second box of Daemonettes sometime soon. And also, a second chariot. And an exalted chariot. Basically, I see my Slaanesh army as being built around the three chariots, with the Daemonettes, Seekers and Hellstriders converging all around!

Maybe with Daemon Primarch Fulgrim somewhere in the midst, too…?

Finally, I’ve managed to get this bad boy built up!

It’s taken me nearly two months – though ironically, it only took three building sessions. This is going to be one complex kit, though, due to having to make sure I paint the ribs and cannon separately, and the “cockpit” part is so detailed that it’ll also need to be done separately… Yikes! But I did a kind of dry-fit last night when all the parts had finally been cleaned up and whatnot, and it does look pretty great, so I’m hoping I can do a good job of it!

I had my third game of 40k last Thursday, at my local GW this time, and it was a whole lot of fun, I have to say! I only played 1000 points, but it was good to get to grips with the rules, and all the rest of it, but it’s also shown me that I need to get that Night Scythe painted! And I probably need another! I’ve been thinking much more critically about what I want to do with the army, however, so I want to get moving now and see if I can put together something that actually works well, with some kind of game plan. As such, I suspect I’ll be doing a lot more Necron things in the coming weeks and months, alongside whatever else I’m painting!

Hobby Progress, week 44

It’s incredible to think that we’re on week 44 of the year already! I’m also really pleased with myself for having done a blog each week of the year for my hobby progress, so let’s dive into what I’ve been up to this week!

Hobby Progress 44

First of all, the next Alpha Legion project that I mentioned last weekend has gotten off to a fine start! Not only have I done the armour on the ten tactical marines, but I’ve also built and painted the armour on the rhino! It’s the same technique that I’ve been using since May-time, which I wasn’t sure would translate well to the rhino and, while in all honesty it could look a lot nicer, I’m still happy with how it’s turned out. The Sotek Green base needed, I think, 5 coats to go on smoothly, and I’ve ruined the large base brush I’ve been using for these things, but overall it went on smoothly. The Drakenhof Nightshade shade didn’t work quite as well, it looks a bit streaky unfortunately, and the Teclis Blue drybrush hasn’t been as good as I’d hoped to clear that up. But I think it’ll look better when it’s finished, with the tracks and the silver bits, etc.

I’m also plotting to do some weathering on this thing, partially because I want to draw it in with the rest of the army and have red mud in the tracks, but also I think it’ll help to make the large panels look more interesting. We’ll see how that all goes, anyway!

I’ve not had much time to do anything else last week, because of both work commitments and working on an essay for my degree. I have managed to build up five more Deathwatch marines, built as Kill Team Excis as an expansion to the Overkill box (the rules for these marines were featured in the first issue of the new White Dwarf back in September). I’ve now gone over all of the Deathwatch marines that I’ve got on the table, and painted them with Abaddon Black. I was clearly in that kind of mood, I suppose!! At least they’re one step closer now, anyway.

We’ve had some half-decent weather this weekend actually, so I managed to prime up a bunch of models for the Genestealer Cults, as well as the other guys from my Militarum Tempestus command squad, so that’s been really useful as I’m now set with a lot of primed models for the rest of the winter.

Finally…

Last year I started to paint a Deathwing army, which is still currently in need of a few touch ups here and there, but consisted of ten Terminators and a Venerable Dreadnought. Despite having since built up five Deathwing Knights and Belial, and bought a Land Raider Crusader and a Drop Pod for them all (Knights and Belial in the Drop Pod, Terminators in the Land Raider), I’ve felt like my whole impetus to get these guys painted has just stalled. I tried building up some more Terminators to revive my interest, but it didn’t really work. So, this afternoon I’ve treated myself to something that I’ve had my eye on for quite a while now, in the hope that it will spur me on!

I know it’s a Ravenwing thing, and all that, but I think it could look super cool in Deathwing colours. I’m thinking of changing the iconography so that the three marines riding in it have normal Dark Angel shoulder pads, but I’ll be painting them all cream and the winged sword will be red rather than white, to tie in with the Deathwing scheme. I’ve also got enough icons and stuff from the Ravenwing upgrade frame that I think I could make it look pretty cool. So that’s going to be my project once the Alpha Legion rhino and tactical squad are finished. I think…

I am feeling a bit adrift right now, so I’m not quite sure where to go next. I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see!

Hobby Progress, week 33

Here we are again, folks! Week 33 of my hobby progress blog, well and truly on the slide down to Christmas! I’m actually really surprised I’ve managed to keep this up all year – not that I really expected to abandon it, of course, but more because I hadn’t thought I would actually be doing something hobby-related for all 33 weeks of the year so far! But anyway.

I managed to get two days off work this week, and the weather was correspondingly awful, so I have quite a lot to talk about!

First up, Deathwatch. It’s on everybody’s mind, no doubt, due to the ongoing releases coming out of GW. I’ve got ten of these guys on the go right now, five from Overkill and the five Veterans from Death Masque. Having primed them Chaos Black, I’ve been intending to follow Duncan’s tutorial and so painted the armour Abaddon Black, then highlighted with Eshin Grey and Fenrisian Grey. First of all, painting black on top of black has always made me scoff – I’ve never had to do it, but I’ve never really seen the point. Having now done this, I am a total convert to this idea! In many of the videos from Warhammer TV, they say how Abaddon Black has a different finish to Chaos Black, but they don’t tell you that Abbadon Black has a much nicer finish, which is what I find. It felt a bit foolish at first, but I could definitely see an improvement after doing just one marine, so eagerly did the others!

Eshin Grey has proven to be an extremely subtle highlight, while Fenrisian Grey has gone over it far too brightly, so I’m really not happy with the look of these. I think I might need to start over, but I might try a much darker grey, maybe Dawnstone, rather than the Fenrisian they tell you to use.

That said, I’ve tried edge highlighting in these as an attempt to begin to level up my painting, and my first attempts have not been a success! A lot of these marines have therefore been carefully, lightly drybrushed to highlight them, trying to only hit the edges and not the whole armour. At any rate, I don’t think they look all that great, so it might be back to the drawing board. We’ll see.

Hobby Progress 33

Next up, the Vanguard Veterans I mentioned last week! Having rescued them with dettol, I’ve re-primed and sprayed them Macragge Blue, then drybrushed with Chronus Blue and washed them with Drakenhof Nightshade, as is my standard Ultramarine scheme. It could be my imagination, but the second paint job here doesn’t seem to have taken quite as I’d expected – the marines appeared to be shiny even after the primer, and I’m not entirely sure why.

That said, I’ve had the worst luck with sprays recently. The weather, as I mentioned, has not been great – it wasn’t too bad when I was doing all my spraying on Thursday, however, but the primer and the spray base colour both came out really powdery and rough on every marine I painted this way. So I’ve taken a toothbrush to them and tried to brush it all off. For the most part, this has worked, but it left a lot of guys – particularly the blue ones – quite shiny, too. Maybe I’ve made a mistake here? I don’t know. I certainly made sure the can was warmed up, and shook it for at least two to three minutes each time. I do wonder, though, if priming them indoors might not be the best of ideas. There was a lot of particulate matter in the air after doing that, and they were in that environment to dry, so maybe I should move them away to dry…

Anyway, onwards!

Hobby Progress 33

The four Alpha Legion guys have been base coated, washed and drybrushed with my usual scheme as well, so they’re coming along nicely. I’ve been thinking quite a bit how I’ve found these chaps really quite painless to paint, but for my Ultramarines, I seem to take a lot longer and agonise over the details – but they’re essentially very similar! Hopefully I can speed up with my Ultras, therefore, as I have rather a lot of them on the go in various stages, and would really like to have them finished soon!

I’ve been building a lot of models this week, as well – Necrons, Terminators, Librarians, and more marines in general. As I said last week, it’s the time of year where I start to plan for the winter and, if I can get stuff primed when the weather is consistently good (well…), I will do! So let’s take a look at some new stuff!

Hobby Progress 33

First of all, more marines – this time, Terminators! I love the Terminator kit, and even though it’s a fairly old sculpt now, I still think it holds up. There’s something of a classic look here that I really enjoy, anyway. They’ve had the same treatment as the Vanguard Veterans, so they’re ready for details to start being added in.

Hobby Progress 33

Last week’s nostalgia prompted me to build up five Lychguard, who also turned out powdery and awful, but I think I’ve managed to save them with copious amounts of Nuln Oil! I think I’ve talked about this before, but as the Lychguard were the first Necrons I’d put together, all of my subsequent builds have seen me try to match that first paint job, and so I’ve never really had the chance to progress. These chaps, however, I’m hoping to see myself do something not necessarily wildly different, but I’m going to really try to make a good accounting of them. I still have five more with warscythes hanging about from earlier in the year that are also unfinished, and five with sword/shield from last year that need some work, so I’m going to be working on those side by side and see how they all turn out. I think I could do with going through a lot of my Necrons and trying to improve them – the Triarch Praetorians, in particular, never ended up exactly as I’d have liked.

Time for stuff that I’ve built and not yet primed/painted! Let’s start with the Librarian from Dark Vengeance. I’d bought this box back before last Christmas, built the five Deathwing Terminators, and sold the rest. I had thought about keeping the librarian, but didn’t bother in the end, and have periodically regretted it since. So I did a search on ebay for him recently, just out of curiosity, and found I could get one for £3! (I also saw the five Deathwing guys for £8, which bummed me out). Turmiel arrived on Thursday while I was priming guys, so I built him up and primed him, as well. Seeing as how his backpack was completely separate, I decided to make him more Dark Angels-y than he is, and gave him an ornate one from the DA Veterans kit that I’d bought specifically for the censer bits. While I now have a backpack with a librarius skull on it, I feel I may have a use for it further down the line…

Going through the DA Veterans bits had inspired me, however, to start building more Deathwing Terminators! The chap on the left has a storm bolter that has the Deathwing sword strapped underneath it as well as a shoulder pad from the Veterans box, while the sergeant on the right has the power sword, as well as a censer hanging from his belt. The Standard Bearer has a little shield thing with feathers also from the Veterans kit, but is otherwise pretty standard-fare.

My original five Deathwing Terminators I built and painted earlier in the year are a mix of regular guys and Command Squad guys, and reading the DA codex, I think I need to make all five from the Command Squad in order to field it, so I’m trying to build marines that will allow me to bulk those five out into two separate squads. So the plan, ultimately, will be to have three squads of the terminators, one squad of the Knights, Belial, the Venerable Dreadnought, and a Drop Pod and Land Raider. Though I’m seriously thinking about making at least one more dreadnought. I’m not going for the whole Dark Angels force, as I only want the Deathwing because the colour scheme is one of those 40k schemes that genuinely excites me. But anyway!

What else have I been building? Oh yeah!

Having built up three Devastator marines back in the spring, I’ve finally built the remaining two – and the armorium cherub! I don’t know why I seem to build things in threes, though painting the Maximus marines has shown smaller numbers tend to focus me somewhat. Anyway, I’ve finally got the five done, and I have to say, the Devastator kit is absolutely incredible for the number of spare bits you have in there! I put a photo on instagram (if you don’t follow me there, why not?!) that shows the sprues as they are once all five marines are built, and it’s incredible! So many weapons options for the sergeant alone! But so many spare heads, hands, it’s all just amazing! I reckon all you’d need is some legs and backs from a bits seller and you could make at least three more marines out of this kit! Totally awesome!

I have no idea if the Ultramarines use cherubs in the fluff – they always seem to be a Blood Angels thing in the artwork we see – but built one simply because I could. I also want to challenge myself to paint more flesh, so it’ll be a good thing for that.

But speaking of Blood Angels…

I’ve finally started to build stuff from the Shield of Baal box! (Well, I suppose the Genesis Chapter terminators I’d done over the winter were the sprues from here too, but anyway). There’s a lot of convoluted reasoning going on here, so allow me to begin…

Blood Angels have rarely interested me, as a colour scheme. I don’t think I’m very good at painting red, and I find that the colour is far too strong sometimes for its own good. The lore of Blood Angels is somewhat interesting, but I don’t find myself drawn to it in the same way I am to the Ultramarines, which might sound odd to anyone familiar with the lore, but anyway! Reading the Shield of Baal novellas almost two years ago was a lot of fun, though, and given that box came out very soon into my hobby career, so to speak, I do find myself quite nostalgic for Blood Angels because of that.

I’ve also recently found myself thinking about trying a different marine force, just to keep my motivation going. In that respect, the Deathwatch have come along at a good time, as I had been looking at the Start Collecting box for the Blood Angels. Much like the Space Wolves, I like the idea that the kits they have are full of chapter-specific sculpts, rather than the more generic stuff that you can buy upgrades for. It’s really only those two chapters who have this as well, as the Dark Angels, for all the fact they have their own Codex and the like, the marine kits are generally the standard line. Anyway, I’m kinda rambling here. The main thing is, I liked the idea of having a really customised-looking force.

This is kinda what got me looking at the Shield of Baal box, and the Death Company sprue inside. Those marines are basically a Space Marine Assault Squad kit, but totally made for not just the Blood Angels, but very specifically for the Death Company of the Blood Angels. I thought that was incredible at first, and looking over the sculpts, I was blown away at the level of detail on those guys. So I decided to build some up, especially seeing as how I’m already painting black marines for the Deathwatch, and see how they turn out! I think it could be a fun little side project, and might even field them alongside my Ultramarines when the time comes for me to finally get some games in! I’ve got two built so far, so hope to get the rest done soon, and then I’ll probably work on them over the winter…

So that’s been my week! Pretty huge, I have to say, but enjoyable, as well. The primer issues I’ve had have caused me to lose some faith in my painting in general, but I’m powering through those currently. I really want to just keep painting, and try to get to the continuous improvement stage where I can try new things and, as I mentioned, really level up my painting skills.

Next weekend is the Bank Holiday weekend, and I’m hoping for more fun and frolics with painting miniatures there, as well. Then for September, I have a sort of mini-project planned, which I hope will be very exciting indeed! So stay tuned for that!

Hobby Progress, week 27

Hey everybody,
There is actual progress to report this week! I can’t believe it! Let me walk you all through what I’ve been up to…

First of all, after three extremely busy days in work, I have almost two weeks off. Trying to plot some kind of plan for that time, I’ve decided to take on a bit of a project – not only to make the most of having time off work, but also because I want to try to get back on track with painting stuff. Following the uploads of five tutorial videos to the Warhammer TV youtube channel, I decided to make a start on some basic tactical marines, albeit Maximus marines, and assembled three chaps on Saturday morning.

Hobby Progress 27

I’m actually really pleased with these guys so far. I think I’ve been thinking about space marines again lately, though I didn’t think I actually had any built up ready, so after watching the Sons of Horus and World Eaters, I set to work! I’d decided to do Alpha Legion back in the day, and had seen the suggestion of Sotek Green and Drakenhof Nightshade, which I tried on both the Chaos Marines box I bought, and the Chaplain figure I’d made some progress with earlier in the year. To this mix, I’ve now added a very light drybrush with Teclis Blue, and I think it helps to bring the colour closer to turquoise rather than green. So I’m going to get the silver bits done this week, and hopefully that’ll get them looking closer to finished, which should help me finish them quickly!

We’ll see!

Hobby Progress 27

Finally, I’ve gotten round to putting the Zandri Dust basecoats on all of the Deathwing Knights, as well as getting the little Watcher in the Dark painted, unfortunately he seems to have to have turned out looking a little too much like a Jawa… So they look like they’re a little strange with the black central bits, but hopefully that’ll change soon enough. At least they’re now all at the same stage, I guess!

So there we have it. Perhaps not as busy a week as I have had in previous blogs, but definitely better than I’ve done of late, as well!

Hobby Progress, week 22

Well folks, week 22 has crept up on me, and due to a number of factors, I haven’t actually managed to do a lot this week! We’ve had some pretty great weather here in the UK, which is always cause to drop whatever you’re doing and enjoy it, because it won’t last! But some things have been done, so let’s take a look!

Hobby Progress 22

First of all, I’ve base coated two Deathwing Knights in Zandri dust. Not exactly cause for celebration, and I’m not exactly positive for these right now, given how long it took me to paint the regular Terminators, but I saw a post on instagram that inspired me to start work on these guys. I built up a five-man squad, along with Belial to lead them, back on Christmas Eve, and after the excitement of priming them, I’ve done nothing with them! Long time readers won’t be surprised by this, however. At any rate, I’m going to just plod along with these for the next few weeks, and see where I get with them. I enjoyed the Terminators, so hopefully I can say the same about these soon!

Hobby Progress 22

The main event, however, has been work on my Orruk brutes. I have got to say right now, I love these models, they are absolutely wonderful to work with! Of course, the arms lead to some fairly standard poses, and I don’t think I’d like to go with more than ten of them, at most, but they do look great. Like the Ogres of days gone past, but with much better detailing and stuff.

I’ve been reading a Pathfinder novel for what feels like an interminable amount of time now (don’t be fooled, it’s actually really good – I’ll be doing a blog when I’m done, so stay tuned for that!) that mentioned a blood-red demon, and it really inspired me to paint something that way. After a conversation at my local store about how I dislike painting red, though disliked white more, I decided to kinda challenge myself to painting these guys with red skin.

I have to say, I’m really quite pleased with the result. It’s a basecoat of Mephiston Red, shaded with Carroburg Crimson, and then lightly drybrushed with Astorath Red. I think my drybrushing technique has been akin to my general painting technique up to now, of just wanting to get the colour on the damn miniature as quickly as possible! So I really went for a lighter application, almost dusting it across the skin area, then a further dusting on the particularly raised parts, then a third dusting on the parts that the light would naturally hit. Finally, I made sure the faces were sufficiently highlighted, and voila!

It’s difficult to see on the guy with the gore-choppa as the weapon covers most of his body, but the skin has a bit of a smoky-red appearance, perhaps enhanced by the black of the surrounding bits at the moment. This will likely subdue once the armour is done, as I’m painting mine as Stoneskulls so have that cream look, though with the odd Khorne red plate to mix things up. How that will work with the skin being red will remain to be seen, though the Khorne red is more of a burgundy kinda shade, so should hopefully stand out enough!

At any rate, that’s pretty much it for this week. I did actually start painting last week’s Necropolis Knights, though made the mistake of trying the Corax White primer first. They’re chalky/grainy and, while it was only a light primer before I switched to Chaos Black, I feel that they might be ruined, which is annoying as hell due to their scarcity now!

Enough of that, however – I’m going to concentrate on these Orruks, sprinkling in the Deathwing Knights, so hopefully there will be more exciting progress next week!

Hobby Progress, week 13

Here we are, folks, week 13 of my hobby progress! In the spirit of end of the month and end of the quarter, there’ll be a bit of evaluation coming up here for you all to enjoy. Let’s dive in to the progress!

Hobby Progress 13

I’d started some Novamarines last week, and felt a little dejected by them after the first blue base coat. Well, I’ve since done a little more work to them, and I do think they’re slowly coming together! Firstly, I’ve worked the blue up through Alaitoc blue to Hoeth blue, which was the plan last week of course, and that looks pretty good, I think. I sometimes think it might be a little too bright – the Novamarines art I’ve seen has more of a blue-grey, Space Wolf-ish look to it, which makes these guys look more like Sons of Guilliman. But in the absence of any official scheme, this is my Novamarines, so yeah! I’ve also painted the purity seals (having done that to all of the Space Marines I have on the go right now, as you’ll see) and base coated the aquilas and belts Abaddon black, shading with Nuln oil. While I had the wash paint out, I also shaded some other areas to help when I come to apply some darker paints, which I’ve noticed have a tendency to go on too brightly when painted over a white primer, hence why some of those bits might look a little weird. I’ve also done a second shade of the white armour, as the earlier shade had dried a bit too grey-ish for me. I’m going to drybrush or overbrush some white over this, so it looks a little messy right now, but won’t be a problem. Oh yeah, and I’ve painted the bases, as I feel it makes them look that much more complete!

Hobby Progress 13

Speaking of Novamarines, though, I bought a Dreadnought yesterday to support this three-man squad! This is the first time in a long time where I’ve bought something, built it up and primed it in the same day. It would be even better if I’d have started painting as well, but we can’t have it all. The Novamarines Dreadnought colour scheme is a lot simpler than the Marine scheme, anyway, so I think that’ll be fairly straightforward to get done. Of course, I say this now… I’m looking forward to it though, which is the main thing! I have to say, though, I was surprised at this kit. I’ve only built Venerable Dreadnoughts previously, and those kits are great to work with, but while this is broadly the same thing, it nevertheless feels a lot older and stuff. Not particularly impressed with the quality, unfortunately, so while I do have another one from the Demi Company box, I’m not all that enthused about building it.

Hobby Progress 13

My Ultramarines were going absolutely splendidly, until I decided to apply some transfers this morning. I’ve never done transfers on models before, but had the GW video on, so knew what I wanted to do, and went for it – and could have cried! It was awful. Some of them are passable – the ones in the above picture – but the other two are awful. Aside from the fact that each one is at a slightly different point of the shoulder pad, they’ve gone on too bumpy, even with slitting the middle to aid the curve. I’m really unhappy with these, and feel like I’ve ruined an otherwise nice tactical squad! Very sad. I asked for any tips on facebook, and so far all I’ve had suggested is using the sculpted pads from the Ultramarines upgrade kit – which would mean a lot of upgrade kits, given how many tacticals I have to do! Not sure what to do yet – though I’m fairly sure I’ll be attempting to freehand the arrow on the right pad… Stay tuned!

Hobby Progress 13

Speaking of Dreadnoughts, I’ve also resurrected this bad boy! I’m not quite sure when it was I built him up now, though this post on instagram would suggest around Christmas/Boxing Day. I’ve merely sprayed the armour Macragge blue, but already it’s looking a lot easier to work with, so looking forward to getting that one done!

Hobby Progress 13

And speaking of resurrecting models, I’ve once again returned to these guys! Again looking at instagram, I’m guessing it was about October when I last did anything to them, but have now got them on bases and done the purity seals. The bases are a bit of a nightmare – on reflection, I wish I hadn’t done scenic bases like this, but I’ve kinda shoe-horned them on, and while they look good, the agrellan earth has been really spooned on to help build up around the resin, which in turn makes the cracks too big and it literally cracks off. Might be re-thinking some of these soon, then. But in the meantime, I’ve got them now where I can start to work at getting them finished, so that’s exciting! The most exciting/worrying thing about this is that the sergeant of this little band, who you can see at the back in the above picture, is actually bare-headed – his head is currently stuck to a cork, having had some Reikland fleshshade over some Bugman’s glow. I’m really concerned about my ability to do a good job here, but I guess we’ll just have to see how it goes – practice makes perfect, and so forth! I’m hoping to really get into this faces-painting thing, though, as the other five tactical marines are awaiting paint, one of whom I modeled after Captain Ventris, so he’ll need to look pretty decent!

Hobby Progress 13

Finally, I’m about calling the Deathwing finished. There are still some bits and pieces left, such as the decapitated Chaos Marine on the base of that chap on the right, but otherwise, I feel that I’ve done all I can for these now, and I’ve reached the high-point of my skills for the time being. They’re most definitely playable right now, I’d say, so I can look at getting them into a game at some point (once I learn how to play, of course!) and when I come to do some more soon – both normal Deathwing terminators and the Deathwing Knights I build up over Christmas Eve! – I can always return to any bits that need finishing then.

I’m really happy with them, anyway, and have really enjoyed painting them, but this is getting on for three months of slowly chipping away at things now, and there comes a point where you just need to say, I’m done! So, I’m done!

 

So like I said, we’re at the three month mark here, Q1 of 2016 has now elapsed, and it’s time to take some stock, I think!

I’ve really enjoyed writing these posts for the past three months, because it has really helped to give me a focus in what I’m painting. I know it may not seem that way, because I’ve largely taken something of a scattergun approach and have been working away at a broad range of models, but I think that way is the best way for me, as it keeps me focused on the overall task of painting, rather than risking getting bored with one miniature/squad and just packing up the brushes. So I definitely think I’ll continue in this vein for the time being.

While I’ve not really finished a lot of miniatures in this time, I have managed to get the White Scars done, I’m calling the Deathwing done, and the first five Ultramarines are done except for the transfer mishap. Earlier, I’ve also managed to get a couple of Stormcast miniatures finished. I’ve also recently done a whole lot of basing, applying the finishing touches to several Necrons that had been languishing for an age.

Since looking at the waiting area at the end of February, I feel that it has also helped to focus me on only working on what I have. I only bought one kit in March – the Dracothian Guard; I’m not counting the Deathwatch game as ‘a kit’, really – and haven’t built anything new, but have been working away at the stuff that I’ve had built for weeks or months. Over the last couple of weeks, in fact, I’ve come around to thinking that I really ought to get some of the stuff finished that has been hanging around, such as the aforementioned Necrons.

I’d say this has been an extremely positive few months, where I’ve been doing a little, often. I’ve forever been an up-and-down painter, sometimes going weeks without doing anything, then having a splurge on a dozen models or more, I think this regular thing is much better. I’m really pleased with the progress that has been made, anyway, and I’m especially pleased that I’m feeling confident enough as a painter to try something like the Novamarines scheme! That it currently seems to be working, as well, is even more exciting!

Let’s see how much I can do in the next quarter!