Tactical Squad 1 (of many)

A quick upload of one of the tactical squads I finished this week. A few other squads although technically fully painted just need one or two little touch ups here or there, unpainted bolters for some reason, or weirdly finished bases. This squad had the going over and I think I can now call it ready. 

This will be one of four five man tac squads with a grav cannon. After some debate I decided to still paint the grav guy's helmet blue, as I think that’s how it’s described in the books, although I can’t find reference to it being that way in the codex. Oh well, I like the idea that grav is sufficiently esoteric weaponry that it requires one of the ‘specialists’ to really put it to best use. This guy is on loan from a devastator squad that usually runs in a skyhammer annihilation force. - Or at least did once in a short lived appearance of that formation against a bunch of 'kill you on your own turn' Tau. 

I’m a particular fan of the helmet with the gouge on the sergeants base, I like the idea that he ripped it off mid battle after sustaining damage. I tried to paint the lens with a glossy finish, but not as bright as the helmets being worn, to show the power was off. 

Replacement Sergeants… (Part 2)

Annnnd here are the guys that the bolter marines in the previous post are replacing. 

Three, lets face it, much cooler looking dudes.

These guys make me laugh because the competitive filter that I now apply when looking at a model or unit, almost gets completely clogged by the sheer amount of points that some of these 1 wound space marines suck up. 

Even the most basically armed gent of the three above clocks in with 25 points of wargear on top of his 14 point base cost (the chap on the right). 

The guy in the middle, a grand total of 54 points. On a dude who will only ever have one or two marines to protect him by the time combat is joined and who will be almost guaranteed to lose any challenge. Oh and he doesn’t even get the benefit of spending a silly amount of points for his pistol as it doesn’t give him an extra attack. An imperial guard veteran sergeant with no upgrades could almost reliably take this guy on. - I could run the numbers on this, but would rather point to the anecdotal evidence of this having happened to me, a lot.

The final chap is kitted out with the trusty sword and shield combo. I’d heard that wraith knights worked really well with sword and shield, so thought i’d try it out here. If I’m honest, I haven’t seen the levels of success I was hoping for.

Although thanks to the initiative benefit, and the bonus attack from the pistol, this guy could probably take on an imperial guard sergeant, although most certainly not any members of an Astra Militarium Commad Squad. It always shocks me how many wounds some of those guys have. I mean seriously.  

And yes I know that you can’t actually give SM sergeants a combat shield as i have. He looks like a boss tho. 

 This represent some tracker progress, although given that the percentage painted fluctuates based on the many little tweaks I make to the list (in the latest iteration I replaced some of the grad cannons with heavy flamers to improve my horde management skills), any movement is likely to be within a margin if being essentially meaningless. Once the motor pool of vehicles and the command squad on my desk has all it's weapons glued in place I'll start to feel a little bit relaxed that I might actually make the deadline... 

Replacement Sergeants… (Part 1)

I know I said that some replacement leaders for each of my tactical squads would be last on my list, but as I had all my basing / various tools / already made the flat stink of glue and spray paint, I thought I might as well crack on with some.

Three replacement guys shown below. 

 Obviously much less ornamentation than my tac squad sergeants have had in the past... I will dig them out and snap some pics for another post. Just because they make me laugh for reasons that will become clear! 

Given how many of these guys you actually need to paint for a battle company, it may seem odd to show just three guys, but hey ho.. partly it's because I'm pleased with the combination of speed and detail on them, but also just because they are some of the first space marines I've actually painted since starting the blog! 

As mentioned, this will be part 1 of 2, with the second half showing the ludicrously over weaponed dudes that these guys will be replacing! 

Feeling Like a Forge World...

Quick weathering experiments… 

The forges of my spare bedroom have been churning and there are now 10 tanks lined up ready for weathering. Not bad for a weekends work! The arrows are just plasticard arrows that for whatever reason I had not put on when I snapped this pic! 

As for weathering, I’m aware that in the past I’ve gone a touch overboard and slightly amateurish with my weathering attempts (see the razorback below - excuse the old photo), but there have been instances when I think I’ve got it right, for example the casing on the las cannon and, to some extent, the chipping on the fuel can.This is more the gritty but realistic feel that I’m going for.

So, on with a series of experiments with two slightly different approaches. They both start out exactly the same way, so i’ll start with that and then move on to the bits that I’m still umming and ahhing over. 

To start with I mixed some Vallejo Model Colour Black with some GW Rhinox hide (a lot more black than brown, maybe 80/20) and applied it with a sponge to areas that would see the most wear. To get a slight it of variation, a couple of these areas used the mix above with a touch of Hull Red. I then used a brush to pick out some more precise edges, and then went back with the sponge/brush combo using GWs chainmail. This has been pretty much a time honoured approach to basic weathering since citadel first put out miniature painting guides. The next bit is where I need some advice. 

I then started weathering the bottom, two slightly different examples are shown. In the first i dry brushed the bottom rhinox hide and then again with a slight mess of cavalry brown, zhandri dust and parasite brown. I need to fix the obvious brush mark bits, but being an expert amateur painter, i am more than used to fixing such errors!

For the second i just used light earth weathering powder.

I do think the second one looks better, but the problem is ‘fixing’ it. - These are designed for constant gaming use after all. Even using the airbrush (which I struggle to do in my poorly ventilated flat) the varnish I apply just takes it much darker than i want. BUT i do like the way the powder clumps up in corners.  

To be honest the first is a lot closer in colour to the second (which is my preferred dusty tone) than those images make it seem, so i think in the end I will probably go with that method, as I feel much more comfortable with the way the process works, but then apply the weathering powder to corners and fix with a dab of brush applied varnish. I’ll have a further experiment and report back. 

Ooo also, mud definitely needs to be applied. 

Counts as Khan...

I think, of all the White Scars battle companies I’ve played against, (with either my grey knights or Nurgle CSM) I have not once seen the actual Khan model. In fact I don’t think I’ve ever seen it in person, having gotten back into the hobby after they removed those models from the stores. 

This is probably due to several factors;

1. Finecast being an absolutely hateful material to work with / on. I have painted (I think) three finecast models. A Nurgle deamon prince, Draigo and Coteaz. The deamon prince was not so bad as, being Nurgle, excessive application of greenstuff was a more than acceptable way to cover up flaws.  But other than that wow… the Draigo model is just such a pants model to work on, so many little gaps and bubbles that needed filling and then painstakingly smoothing, that barely able to support its own weight sword? Oh and Coteaz’s hammer resisted all attempts to make straight. Even priming those models was a challenge, just ugh. (Although now I think about it, I was probably trying to prime them in very humid conditions, before I knew that such things mattered)
2. The scale of the older finecast stuff is slightly off. Abaddon for example, is shorter than most average space marines and whilst this could be down to the fact that the model hasn’t been updated in years ( a possible sign that Abby the Armless’ days are numbered)  Draigo’s head feels like it’s not quite the heroic scale of everything else and he looks pretty small next to the GK terminators. I built mine a huge base so he’d look a bit more imposing. 
3. Very few people are actually running a white scars battle company that is painted as white scars and are therefore wholly unbothered about having the exactly correct model. 

For my own counts as Khan I was planning on using the standard Captain figure, but this in itself problematic as he is technically armed with a combi grav, and is also on a terminator sized base, to make him a bit more imposing. This is inconsistent with true ‘counts as’. – WIP photos below. This is pre sword painting.

For some unknown reason I decided to paint his eagle as an actual eagle. But I'm not displeased with the effect. I'm also quite happy with the more natural highlighting on the cloak, although I could have maybe gone a bit darker in the recesses. 

The true 'counts as' rules are probably somewhat mitigated by the fact that if Khan is ever out of his rhino, exposed and giving up warlord, things have gone badly, but nonetheless, this is my first tournament and I don’t want anything hanging over me. Especially as the bigger base does give him a slight edge with that instant death sword of his. 

To overcome this I have done a little bit of bits box raiding, some chopping and some pinning of my Command Squad leader. The poor guy has been on a real career rollercoaster, having being bumped from the squad to make room for Corbulo as the apothecary (more on that unit in a later post) and now rapidly promoted to Captain.

This guy both satisfies counts as, and is suitably denoted as being in charge by virtue of his golden hat. 

Job done. 1% more completed. 

Distractions... Angels of Death Librarians

You remember the tracker… yes? You remember seeing librarians on it? no me neither, and yet here we are. 

Managed to nab this model off a friend completely unpainted. Filled the gaps with some liquid green stuff and then got down to painting him up to match my current librarian.  

Getting the blue right is the hardest bit, as it’s sort of blended up from Dark Prussian blue, using sometimes dead white and sometimes verdigris to get a tiny bit of variation. I’m not convinced I quite managed it here, but it’s good enough. 

Two of them together, trying to get the same colour: 

This has got me thinking, considering I have a terminator librarian in the ‘to do’ box… perhaps I should scrap the suppression force and add in a librarius conclave instead. Dropping those guys into the command squad and then dropping in will, providing I don’t get intercepted to death, be a relatively potent little gang. (including adding in the chaplain for zealot and the apothecary for FNP). 

My worry is really around whether this would add much..  So lets break out the old pros and cons list. 

Pros:

With unlimited psychic powers, strong mini Death Star potential. 

Two detachment limit means sisters/culexus less likely to be a blocker

I have the models

Diversity from MSU tactics

Land speeders /whirlwinds are in squadrons

Cons:

Reliant on rolling the right powers, could easily end up with only one. 

Castellans of the imperium utterly scuppers the two detachment limit in that respect

Lose the whirlwind/land speeders which are there for horde management. 

Model ownership shouldn't drive the competitive selection

Any actual death star will laugh at this before promptly annihilating them

Gets away from the army's MSU tactics.

So on balance that’s looking like a no. – I think that the whirlwinds in the back field are just a more reliable body, even the land speeders, though laughably easy to kill, will require a little bit of focus to bring down. I just have to man up and buy the things. 

Final shots of the two painted up: