Monday, April 13, 2015

Heresy Era Imperial Fists - Rhinos painting begins, and unintended veterans

While I've been trying to stick to the plan for the Imperial Fists army, there are times when an idea occurs and I just have to see where it leads. Started off laying the base colors in on the two rhinos intended to ferry the tactical squads around when they're not mobbed up, and thought I'd try something different with the third one and decided to see what it looked like if I kept it predominantly black with yellow accents instead:


I found that I liked the general look enough that I think the Land Raiders and Sicaran Venators will also be primarily black with yellow accent panels. This will add a bit of visual interest to the army (so it's not all one giant yellow blob), and also cut down a bit on the areas I need to worry about painting yellow - These rhinos were testers to see how the yellow recipe translates to vehicles, and the answer is 'not as well as I'd hoped". Works okay on small areas, less convincing over large flat planes - Definitely an area where I could see an airbrush really helping as far as base color application goes. That said, the black-with-yellow-accents is generally the scheme applied to legion veterans, which got me thinking I ought to build some to occupy that third rhino!


...So I did! As part of the recent orders from Forge World, there was a small hiccup where they sent me 10 Mk. IV marines rather than the Mk. III that I'd ordered, but told me to just keep 'em for the inconvenience while they sent me the correct models. A rummage through the heresy bits boxes and I turned up enough kit to outfit 'em as an aggressive unit of veterans. Went with a pair of shoulder-carried heavy bolters I turned up in the bits box (while I love the new two-handed legion heavy bolters, these really hearken back to the old days style-wise which I thought was appropriate), and then worked to model each one with all the gear they carry - bolters, bolt pistols and chainswords (slung/holstered where appropriate), meltabombs, and a Solarite Gauntlet and combi-melta for the artificer-armoured sergeant.


The +1BS when using bolt weapons was the main impetus for the pair of heavy bolters, though the fact that they come with suspensor webs means that they get an alternate fire mode at 18" Assault 3. Nifty! The meltabombs and combi-melta mean the unit is also a threat to any vehicles they may run across as well - we'll see how they fare, I suppose!

6 comments:

  1. I like the black. It makes a nice change and differentiates between standard and veteran nicely. The bet squad will look great painted black too.

    I always have trouble painting flat spaces on rhinos. Perhaps a drybrush of yellow over the top to hide the splotchiness a bit

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  2. You've really got to love those "mistakes" that can bring out a whole new aspect of the army build : )

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  3. Good idea on the alternate scheme. It certainly will make the army pop all the better.

    Those vets certainly are laden down with... stuff. It's amazing they are combat effective at all!

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  4. This is fantastic, now I know how the templars will work. Thanks for reading my mind and allowing me to control your painting schemes.

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  5. @NafNaf: I'm right there with ya - Gonna give it one more yellow highlight, then 'clean up' the more egregiously splodgy areas with weathering later on. Hah!

    @Davetaylor: Absolutely! After building three heresy-era armies I have a reasonably diverse bunch of bits laying around that allows for these sorts of divergences without having to crack the piggy bank open again. :)

    @Dai: Thanks - I'm hoping so! "Waddle forward into battle, men!"

    @Greg Hess: Cheers man! Really looking forward to seeing how your army comes together!

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  6. Very nice! You are painting your collection faster than I buy my minis!

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