Inq28 - Death Cultist Tranquilla Morte

In the process of building the next batch of Ad-Mech, and in between gluing my fingers together and trying not to cut off any fingers with the ol' exacto blade I finished painting up the first of the as-yet-unnamed Inquisitor's warband - Tranquilla Morte, Death Cultist of the Imperator Ex Sanctus Sanguine sect.

She was already half painted when I pulled her off the shelf, so mostly it was just a matter of finishing up some detailing. Bit of gold, bit of parchment, some hazard stripes and she's ready to cut the enemies of the Imperium into little quivering chunks!

  

The model is a little cheesecake-y, but also has a sense of menace to it. I'd considered adding some blood spatter to the weapons, but found that my bottle of Blood for the Blood God wasn't sealed properly and had dried into a solid mass. Gotta find some time to get to the hobby shop to pick up a new one, I suppose!

Was quite fun to just paint a single model for a change!

40k Adeptus Mechanicus - Skitarii Rangers painted

As of last week the company I work for moved their headquarters and suddenly instead of a 5 minute commute I have a 45 minute commute. I'm finding that stolen hour and a half of each day is sadly eating into my hobby time - no more getting up an hour early in the morning and paint, it's get up an hour early just to get to work on time. Nevertheless, I did manage to get the Skitarii rangers up to the pre-transfers-and-weathering stage, marking the final unit that remained unpainted, and the goal line to indulge in some build time!

While they'll all get some ad-mech waterslide transfers, I decided to leave the base troopers coats fairly bare and keep the cog-tooth pattern for the leader to help him stand out a bit. They still feel a little monochrome, but the green static grass should really help 'em pop once we get to that stage.

Felt good to flip the colors over from yellow to green, now I get to reward myself with some build time - gonna finish up the two final units of infantry (the Vanguard and the Infiltrators), and do the Knight at the very end as a capstone to the army. Still on track for an end-of-August finish date!

While I was poking around up in the hobby loft I pulled a selection of models from the "this would be a good Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader RPG model" shelf, with an eye towards painting up an Inquisitor warband. No real plan as yet, but I think it'll be fun to come up with some backstory for 'em, and it's a nice varied set of minis to dabble with when I need a brief breather from the army painting process - more to come on this little project in the future!

Heresy Era Imperial Army - Geno Five-Two Chiliad planning and pondering

I've been feeling a little rudderless on the Heresy front recently. I really want to do more Thousand Sons, but I'm forcing myself to wait for the actual minis and rules, subseqently the Spireguard are also on ice (though I am picking up a Stormhammer for 'em at Gencon the end of the month). Recent events have meant I'm not really gaming anymore so it's pretty much all about the modeling and painting side of the hobby at the moment, and that means conversions and odd projects in my mind. Got the itch to do some kitbashing and with the release of Tempest there's a much more viable list to use to do the Geno Five-Two that has been bubbling away on the back burner. The intention is to do a 'historically accurate' selection of models taken from the book Legion - specifically Het Peto Soneka and the Dancers company just prior to their mauling at Tel Utan and elements of the Alpha Legion force that came to their aid (immediately following the Dancers being used as bait by said Astartes) - Because I'm a huge nerd I'm focusing on trying to make the force as 'historically accurate' (i.e. true to the book) as possible within the bounds of my admittedly meagre-to-middling modeling/sculpting talent.

While the art on the front cover of the novel seems to suggest the infantry are dressed similar to the Vostroyans, there's no real indication that those men are supposed to be the Five-Two - indeed their description in the book is rather at odds with the cover (cool pic though it may be). I've been going through the novel and listening to the audiobook and taking notes on their description but the overview on Lexicanium covers all the main points - "The Geno wore a bulky-seeming uniform that nevertheless allowed them to operate with some grace of movement. A thick leather and armourchain bodyglove formed the main item of clothing, with waist-length coats and waist-length capes of yellow Terran silk commonly worn over the top. Their armour segments were lined with fur, and coats and capes were embroidered with company symbols and other military devices. Helmets were of the spiked variety, often trimmed with beads or fur. Standard issue gear was carried in a lightweight pack, with a long sword-bayonet slung at the waist. Uxors wore black, lightweight variants of the uniform, often covered over with gray cloaks or coats."

Now there really isn't a set of models/bits out there that exactly matches that description, but with a bit of greenstuff I'm thinking I should be able to come up with a good approximation. Been scouring the interwebs for good bits and will be leaning heavily on the Victoria Lamb line as the basis for the troops, as I've had nothing but great experiences with their work. There have been several new sets they've come out with since I last thought about the project, so working on the assumption that I can GS my way into passable armorchain and fur (about the extent of my skill), I'm planning on utilizing the following bits:

Legs - Looking at the Arcadian legs from Victoria Lamb, checks the box on the waist-length coats, and the boots and fatigues are suitable enough overall. Granted the book makes mention of bodygloves, but I've not been able to find any leg set that includes both the waist-length coat and more form-fitting leggings. Fatigues it is on that front.

Torsos - My first instinct was to go for the full-blown camo cloak torsos VL does (and they are awesome), but the book mentions several times their capes were also generally waist-length, and they generally carried packs full of gear and LiqNite cannisters so I think the Highland torsos with the chem tanks will be just the thing!

 

Arms - The universal rolled sleeve arms should hopefully give the models a bit more of a burly feel (or at least that's the plan).

Weapons - The basic trooper in the Five-Two carries a pretty standard lascarbine, and I think the Mk3 laser rifles have a nice RT-era feel to 'em. There's occasional mention of twin-barreled lascarbines in the novel, but I've not found a company that makes 'em as yet.

Heads - The heads have been the hardest thing to sort out. Spiked helms that weren't just full-bore pickelhaube were proving tough to find, but I stumbled across the Meridian Miniatures line, and their steampunk prussian heads were just the thing - glareshields and all!

Add in a little GS'ed fur and chain here and there and I think we might be in business for the base troopers! Feverishly working on finishing up a 40k Ad-Mech force to get up on the ol' auction block to fund the purchase of the bits - having a 'get to start a new project' goal has been a good motivator to finish up the existing batch of minis! Going to be fun nosing around the dealer room at GenCon for other interesting bits and kits, too!

Next up, pondering the other possibilities for the project (alliteration!) - I know I want to work up Uxor Rukhsana Saiid and her entourage as a command cadre squad (though as they don't seem to take the field in the novel in any meaningful way, some liberties may need to be taken), Genewhip Boone and his cronies as Discipline Masters, maybe a unit of Grenadiers as Lucifer Blacks? Of course there's also the Alpha Legion contingent to consider as well (restricted to a tiny allied force), and perhaps I can find a decent way to include good ol' John Grammaticus...

Laid in the basic metal, bone and red on the Skitarii Rangers yesterday evening, quick in progress shot to keep the ball rolling on that project too!

40k Adeptus Mechanicus - Dunecrawler painted

Got a relatively free weekend and jumped on the Dunecrawler this morning, and it came together surprisingly quickly!

Kept on with the red, gold and bone - got me feeling like I was painting Thousand Sons again! The model has all sorts of cool little detailing, the little manipulator arm is pretty cool.

I tried a little lightning crackle on the barrel of the neutron laser but the overhead light sort of washes it out. Will try to get some better pics once it's finalized with the weathering and whatnot.

Once the transfers and weathering are in place, the bases will all get some static grass as well - giving the models a little green on the base should set off nicely against the reds of the models!

Next up, the last of the built models - a unit of Skitarii Rangers. Once they're done, I need to build a unit of Skitarii Vanguard and a unit of Infiltrators, then lastly the knight. Looking forward to that for sure!

40k Adeptus Mechanicus - Kataphron Breachers painted

Quick hit this evening - Little bit of morning painting time over the past week, and got the Kataphron Breachers up to the pre-transfers-and-weathering stage.

I really enjoyed building and painting these models - definitely dig the 'heavy battle servitor' vibe, and the kit is chock full of cool leftover bits for future conversions. Next up on the block is the Dunecrawler, should be fun!

Kickstarter Watch - Fallout Hobbies Custom Decals, Funded!

Great news! The illustrious Ron over at Eye of Error's Kickstarter has funded, with another 15 days to go - Fallout Hobbies is on the way!

Over the last week he's shown off some of the various pre-designed sheets, and they are absolutely fantastic! Below are just a few of 'em that he's debuted so far!

  

In addition to these (and more), there's also the opportunity to provide your own custom graphics to be turned into waterslide transfers, which I'm quite looking forward to - got a few custom sheet ideas I can't wait to get printed up!

LINK TO THE KICKSTARTER!

Definitely worth checking out the project - still a couple weeks to go, and it's already funded so it's going forward!

40k Adeptus Mechanicus - Kataphron Breachers painting begins

Was in the zone this weekend and after finishing the base paint jobs on the Electro-Priests I continued on and got cracking on the Kataphron Breachers as well!

The whole model got a heavy drybrushing of Boltgun Metal followed by a dirty brown wash to give 'em a hard-worn oily look. Once that dried I laid in the reds and got all the gold/brass trim sorted out, and gave the skin an unhealthy greenish pallor befitting their servitor status. Next up are all the innumerable power cables, lenses and whatnot. So far, so good!

40k Adeptus Mechanicus - Electro-Priests Painted

It's come to light that the new computer draws a lot more power than the old one, and coupled with the fact that both it and my in-window air conditioning unit are on the same circuit it's become apparent that they can't both be on at the same time without popping the breaker. So with the heat being opressive and the AC being requisite it's meant that my main distraction machine has been powered down and I've gotten a fair bit of painting done over the last couple days!

The Electro-Priests were the first unit up on the painting desk, and they came together surprisingly quickly. As I'd mentioned previously, I'm getting the models up to the "pre-waterslide-and-weathering" step so I can do all of the models in the army at once to ensure they all match up thematically. Got a couple sets of the new Ad-Mech sheets on the way, looking forward to seeing what all is on 'em!

I'm digging the rear of the models, the big power generators and Opus Machina mean they're also interesting to look at as a player when they're facing the enemy! Next up on deck are the Kataphron Breachers, already got the base metallics in place...

40k Adeptus Mechanicus - A deadline and a plan

Gearing up for the convention/vacation season (as evidenced by the recent flurry of ebay sales), but that doesn't mean the hobby train is slowing down! Over the last few months I've been squirreling away the new Adeptus Mechanicus releases GW has come out with, and now that the Imperial fists are done it's time to fire up the forges.

I've once again said to myself "I'll just do a little boutique army", but this time I'm sticking to it (no, really) - in one of the recent White Dwarf there was a formation called the Adeptus Mechanicus War Convocation that is comprised of a little bit of everything released recently so I totted it all up and picked up the models to fulfill the formation!

I'd painted some stuff up already (well, up to the point where they're ready for transfers and weathering), built and primered a few other units, and have just a handful of units that still need to be built. The plan is to get the primered stuff painted up to the same level as the currently painted stuff before doing any more building, and saving the Knight for last as a reward (really looking forward to building the new weapon options).

I've always loved the idea of the Electro-Priests and decided to go with a big unit of Fulgurites, of the two options in the kit they're the ones I like the look of the most. I was really pleased with how well they went together, but they suffer somewhat in my opinion with the downside to CAD-created models - they go together brilliantly but really they only go together one way, so you end up with 'repeat' models.

A couple units of Kataphron Breachers join the force, again these were built primarily because I like the look - the Torsion Cannons seem pretty nasty on paper as well! I do like the vague commonalities with these models and the Necron Destroyers, as though the Void Dragon is subtly influencing their design...

Really dig the Dunecrawler model as well - I can totally see how this design is utilized by the Dark Mechanicus to create Defilers. Hard to go wrong with a big ol' Neutron Laser, giving the army some much needed anti-tank firepower.

So here's where things stand at the top of July. The plan of attack is to get the army done by the end of August, which should be a reasonable deadline - ideally I can get 'em done in time to get 'em out the door before taking the trip out to Italy. Looking forward to getting some brush time in on 'em!