Birthday Presents

For my Birthday I got a little cash in addition to the other wonderful presents.  With the price increases coming I decided to pick up another Storm Raven and Land Raider before they become prohibitively expensive. The Land Raider will be build as normal, but I would like to do something special with the Storm Raven.  I'm not sure exactly what yet, maybe try and convert it to a Storm Eagle or just a simple weapon swap.

Also ordered some conversion bits from Chapter House Studios though they have not arrived yet.  I am most excited about the jump packs which I am going to use with a Death Company kit to make some Vanguard Veterans.  At this point I'm winding down the purchases for the army.  I still would like to expand a few more options out, getting a couple Land Speeders, some shooty terminators,  and getting up to 40 assault marines.  Another Baal Predator and Vindicator wouldn't be bad, but I have enough to keep me busy for a while and for some crazy reason I'm thinking about stripping and repainting my Eldar force as I'm really not very happy with the paint job or color scheme.

Storm Raven Finished

So I have finished up the Storm Raven for now.  I'm really pleased how it came out.  I of course found a few areas I need to touch up after taking the pictures, but overall it's done and ready for action.  I tried some new stuff with this, using my new airbrush for the first time for a vehicle (absolutely wonderful compared to hand painting the large flat areas).  I also did the blacklining on the model with and oil paint wash after gloss varnishing the model, that let me wipe off the paint from where I didn't want it, which is huge when working with yellow.  I also magentized all the option on the kit so I could change out the various weapons and side sponsons.  

Storm Raven w/ assault cannon and hurricane bolters

Plasma cannons

  

Side view with lascannons

Magnetized Lascannon and armor plating.

Magnetized hurricane bolters.

Vindicator WIP

So tonight after the little man went to sleep, I had some time to do a little hobby work.  I had assembled and primed this Vindicator a week or two ago, and managed to get a base coat down with the airbrush a few days ago.  I spent some time blacking out all the area that would be metallic, getting the metals down (though not washed yet) and getting the checks laid out.  Really happy with how it's looking and it shouldn't take too much longer to finish up.  I'm going to use the black oil paint to black line it after I've finished with the details.

I did managed to play a game with it yesterday, and it performed admirably in that it never got to shoot with my opponent being nervous about it.  Probably need to take at least 2 of them if they are going to be effective, or maybe hold it in reserve and bring it out later since it can move and shoot being a fast vehicle.

Lamenters Paint Scheme Part 1 - Assault Marine

Just wanted to document the process I am currently using to paint my Lamenters.  First up, yellow is hard.  It's a major pain to get right.  I have gone for a browner/darker yellow rather than a bright yellow.  Second, I'm not the greatest painter as I haven't been doing this for very long, but you might find something useful. My goal is to get a nice looking army on the tabletop and nothing more.

A few things on assembly and preparation. I would definitely magnetize the jump packs, or at least paint them separately.  They make the shoulder pads really tricky to get right and doing seperate would make this a lot easier.  My first 20 or so models were all glued on before hand they take a lot longer to paint.  as a bonus for Blood Angels codex armies, you can run them on foot (though personally the reason I chose to run a BA codex army is the jump infantry.

Step 1:  Prime the models.  I do a two part prime, first with black to get into the shadows and then white from above.  I would definately recommend a white primer when painting yellow.  It takes just too many coats to get a decent coverage over black, though the new GW base colors might work if you want to go that way.

Step 2: Base Coat yellow.  I used my airbrush to put down the base coat using Vallejo GC Heavy Ochre.  You really need to water these down to put them through an airbrush as they are similar to the foundation line of paints from GW.

Step 3:  Paint the base with Charadon Granite.

Step 4: Base coat everything that will be metallic with black.  No need to be very neat here as we will be fixing all the messy brushing later in the process.

Step 5:  Base coat white.  I'm using the new GW base paint Ceramite White.  It only takes 2-3 coats rather than 4-5 that most whites took.  I had good luck in the past with using Vallejo off-white and then bringing it up to white, but this seems to work fairly well.

Step 6:  Eyes.  I do mine green starting with P3 Gnarls Green and then highlighting that with GW Scorpian Green.  A wash of Thraka green wash brings it together nicely (not pictured here).  Also note that I'm still being messy as this will get cleaned up later.

Step 7:  Paint purity seals, aquila, etc with P3 Menoth White Base.

Step 8:  Wash armor and aquila with Gryphonne Sepia wash.  I apply this liberally, but you want to make sure you get a good coat in the cracks and recesses.  Pictured here still wet.  I generally would do this step last in a painting session to let dry overnight.  You can do some of the later steps pictured here before this wash is done.

Step 9:  Paint metallic areas with Boltgun Metal followed with a wash of Badab Black.  Again not being too careful here, we can clean up still.

Step 10:  Checks!  This is where things get difficult.  I use a 0.3mm drafting pencil to draw my lines in and then go in with black first.  This will be tricky and I am still not super neat and tidy about it.  Follow up with the Ceramite White to cleanup as best you can.

I will continue this later with part 2 where I go and finish up with highlights and cleanup the mess made so far.

The problems with second hand miniatures

I love to get a good deal on some cheap miniatures.  I always keep my eyes open at thrift shops and about once or twice a year I will find something GW releated.  I recently got a nice haul of miniatures, though a number of the models were quite poorly put together.  My favorite is the top picture where his torso got put on upside down.  The second photo shows the lovely overflowing of glue used to attach them.  Luckily a lot of the minis were unassembled.  Just getting the Land Raider made it worth the cost, so everything else is just bonus.  Here was the haul all for about $45 dollars:


New or not assembled:
1 Land Raider Crusader/Redeemer
1 boxes of Chaos Space Marines still in box1 Space Ork Dreadnought (old metal one) still in box
1 Ork Warboss with attack squig (metal)
1 Metal Space Marine Chaplain in Terminator Armor
1 Metal Eldar Warlock

1 Metal space marine veteran
1 box Chaos Space Marines10 ork boys

Assembled:
5 Chaos Terminators
3 Tau stealthsuits plastic (one missing arm)
1 Tau stealsuit (old metal)
10 Tactical space marines
1 plastic space marine captain
5 Assault marines
1 Plastic Dreadnought w/ Assault Cannon

Blood Bowl Minis:
7 Orcs from Orcland Raiders
1 Human

Other:

1 Dice Cube
1 Dice Tin
3 files

Dangers of painting with children around

I was watching the little man tonight, and decided to do a little painting while he played with his toys on the floor. I used an old brush to mix some black oil paint up to black-line my Storm Raven.  A minute later I look down and there is black paint all over his face.  He had quietly grabbed the brush and taken it to the couch.  So there was paint all over him and the couch.  Luckily none got on the floor

The perils of being a geek dad.  I can't wait until he us old enough to paint my armies.

New brushes

We celebrated an early birthday at my parents today, and Z got me two new brushes. They are Raphael 8404 kolinsky sable brushes. They are by far the nicest brushes I've worked with. I have been hesitant to get nicer brushes considering how hard I am on the cheap ones I usually get, but I'm tired of curling tips that make detail painting difficult. Hopefully they last longer so that they end up costing less over time. They can actually be ordered fairly affordibly at Secret Weapon Miniatures as well. 

Power weapons and the geeky wife.

So when Z was looking at my models earlier she commented on how cool the blue glow on the power weapons looked.  I explained to her why they were like that and she answered, "oh like Glamdring". How can I not love a woman who knows the names of LoTR's swords.  Bonus points because Gandalf's sword only glowed in the books, not in the movie.

Lamenters vs Tyranids

So I managed to get a game in today after a month and half or so of not playing.  I played Mark from The Overlords Podcast and we played all three mission types in Bay Area Open style.  We did do a few things wrong, in that we did all five objectives for Seize Ground rather than just three, and we did an even distribution Nova style instead.  I would be interested to play the "correct" way in the future.

HQ: Librarian in Terminator Armour - Epistolary, Unleash Rage, Sanguine Sword

Elite:
Furioso Dreadnought - Heavy Flamer, Talons
2x Sanguinary Priest - Jump Pack, Power Sword
Terminator Assault Squad - 5x Lightening Claw, 5x Thunder Hammer
      1 Land Raider Crusader - Multi-Melta

Troops:
Assault Squad - 2x Melta, 1 Power Fist, 1 Infernus Pistol
Assault Squad - 2x Melta, 1 Power Fist, 1 Infernus Pistol

Fast Attack:
Baal Predator - Flamestorm Cannon

Heavy Support: 
Stormraven Gunship - Lascannon, Multi-Melta

Tyranids List (from what I remember):

HQ:

Swarmlord with Tyrant Guard Attached

Elite:

3x Hive Guard

3x Hive Guard

Troop:

30x Termagants with Devourer

10x Termagants plain

1xTervigon

8x Genestealers w/ Broodlord

Fast:

3x Shrikes w/ Lashwhip and Bonesword

3x Shrikes w/ Lashwhip and Bonesword

Heavy:

Trygon

Trygon

We had spearhead deployment and I won the roll, but elected for Mark to go first.  He deployed everything except his Trygons.  I deployed everything, but the Storm Raven full of Terminators plus Dreadnought and outflanked the Baal.

On his first turn he moved most everything up, and shot a few marines dead with the Hive Guard.  On mine I moved up, skirting to the side away from his infiltrated Genestealers on my right with the Assualt marines and moved the Land Raider up to let the Terminators get an Assault on the Hive Guard and giant Devourer termagant group.  I managed to kill on the Hive Guard with shooting and then multi-assaulted the HG and termagants with the terminators plus Librarian.  They managed to wipe out the Hive Guard and put a bunch of wounds on the gants as well.  The fearless wounds killed off the last wound on the Hive Guard and took a few more of the little bugs out as well.

On turn two both of his Trygons came in, one on each side of my Assault Marines and had some ineffectual shooting.  He brought a unit of Shrikes into the Terminators, but was just short of getting the Swarmlord into the Terminators.  He did kill the Librarian rather easily and another of the Terminators.  On my turn the termagants were finished off, as well as the Shrikes, but he was able to position his Swarmlord to charge them on the next turn.  I unloaded both assault squads into one of the Trygons and then assaulted it.  One of the squads was at BS/WS: 1 because of a psychic power but actually managed to hit more than the unaffected squad.  They did just enough wounds to kill it and consolidated in opposite directions towards different objectives.

On turn three he wiped out both of my troop squads, one with a Trygon, the other with the remaining Shrikes.  His Swarmlord charged into my Terminators and killed two, leaving one lone Terminator to fend for himself.  It was looking nasty for the Lamenters but both the Storm Raven and the Baal managed to come-in from reserves.  The predator outflanked into his deployment zone and roasted the 5 termagants the Tervigon has pooped out on the first turn.  The Storm Raven moved on and split the Terminators off to one side and the Dreadnought off to the other.  The Furioso toasted the Genestealers with a heavy flamer and then assaulted, and I got to see the magic of the Blood Talons which chewed through the entire squad.  The Terminators charged the Trygon and brought it down, while the Land Raider zoomed up to shoot at some Termagants that were running away to grab an objective.

At this point my only hope for even a tie, would be to kill off his troops remaining: 3 termagants on the other side of the board, and the Tervigon on the other side that was down a couple wounds from pot shots.  He charged in and immobilized the Land Raider, while I made a desperate gamble and jumped out the Sanguinary Priest inside to shoot and charge the Tervigon.  Brought him down to one wound, which he then destroyed the Land Raider and priest in retaliation.  The Baal zoomed up and flamed the Tervigon as well bringing him down to a single wound.  He immobilized the Storm Raven and killed off all but one Terminator as well.  On turn five I was down to one Sanguinary Priest, One TH/SS terminator, and an immobilized Storm Raven.  I shot and killed the Tervigon from across the board with the Storm Raven's Lascannon and then made  a beline across the board with the Sanguinary Priest in the hopes of catching the two termagants still alive to kill of his last troop.  It went to turn 6 and I managed to shoot and kill one gaunt who fled off the board bringing the game down to kill points.  After counting up KP's I had killed 10, while Mark had killed 9.  Victory was mine.  Though at a horrible cost.  Only a lone Sanguinary Priest was alive!  He will definitely be getting his paint job improved as a reward!

I had a ton of fun playing, and Mark really helped me play better.  He had a bunch of suggestions as we played and helped me understand the army much better.  He's a real stand up guy and a ton of fun to play against.

Calix Lucian

A member of the Calix, the Lamenters Sanguinary Priesthood, Lucian served with moral distinction when the assault squad he led refused to abandon a ship full of prisoners taken by the vile green skins.   His squad held out for four days without reinforcement, running out of ammo and holding off waves of Orks with only their chain swords. In recognition to his bravery he was inducted into the Calix to serve as a Priest specializing in jumppack assaults. He was gifted the power axe, "Deliverer", a chapter relic to assist in his sacred duties.

WIP: Baal Predator

I've started repair on my Baal predator after a disastrous episode with a wash.  Just a few details to go before "Sinner's Lament" is ready for an attempt at oil wash weathering. I've magnetized the turret and sides to take either assault cannon or flamestorm, and the sponsons will take heavy bolster or doors.  Still need to figure how to mount the heavy flamers though.