Heresy Era Alpha Legion - Dreadtober Contemptor complete!

Squeaking in just under the deadline, the static grass arrived and there was a break in the chilly weather, so I was able to get the Contemptor flocked and sealed!

  

Pretty happy with the 'desert scrub' mix on the static grass - might add a bit more of the green to it, but I like the predominantly dried grass tone. With the recent pics starting to make the rounds of the upcoming Heresy plastics, I'm cautiously optimistic about being able to use the Mk.IV marines as a basis for the troops, and the plastic cataphractii as conversion fodder for the Lernaean terminators. Much as I love FW's modes, buying the basic troops in resin rapidly becomes ruinously expensive. If I can spring for some unit upgrade kits and mix and match with the plastics I'll be a happy camper! Next month should be interesting!

Inq28 - Qui Medicus?

Quick hit today, as I'm waiting for the next bits to arrive for the Geno-Five Two.

The Inq28 side project I've been fooling around with are mostly minis I'd intended for use in RPG sessions, and I'm pleased to say there's plans afoot for me to run another Rogue Trader campaign where those minis will come in handy! That's got me looking back over the notes and remembered I'd intended to include an antagonist/comedy relief character in the form of Ordo Chronos Inquisitor Iohannes Claudius Camillus Fransiscus Van Varenberg. The Ordo Chronos concerns itself with instances of Temporal Heresy, an issue with which the players will be finding themselves in a couple different ways throughout the course of the campaign, and Inquisitor Van Varenburg will be a recurring antagonist (not a villain per se, but he's not a good man to cross).

Among all of the fragmented and contradictory records of the Ordo Chronos, Inquisitor Van Varenberg is noted to generally arrive via his Teleporting Armoured Redaction Delivery and Investigation Shell... Hah!

Heresy Era Alpha Legion - Dreadtober Contemptor almost done!

Wonder upon wonders I had a half day on Wednesday and got a little hobby time in! Thought I'd crack on with the Contemptor and more or less finished it off to the 'factory floor' stage. Touched up the symbols and silver, and added a touch of orange and gold for spot colors. It's been a little too rainy to risk trying to seal it however, so any further weathering and waterslide transfers will have to wait until it dries out a bit!

 

Still experimenting with the bases - In Legion the desert sands of Nurth are described as being red-hued however I didn't want to go full Mars red with it (for fear of it being too cartoony against the purple of the models), so a more subdued reddish brown it is! Starting with Vallejo Dark Flesh as a base coat on the dirt, it was then drybrushed with Earth then washed with the ol' Devlan Mud analog (Strong Tone Ink from Army Painter). To give it some variety but still be desert-y, some of the more exposed chunks of rock get the sandstone treatment starting with a base coat of Earth, followed by successive drybrush passes with Khaki and Bone White. It too was then given the Devlan Mud wash. To be truthful the wash stage mostly consisted of using the "slop it on the whole darn base, you cheating hack" method. Hah! Since I ordinarily paint the rims of my bases in Dark Flesh, I thought it might be refreshing to switch it up on these models and go with a lighter rim painted in Earth to set off against the darker terrain. It's workable, but I'm not 100% sold on it quite yet.

  

All that remains is a little flock to give it some life and a sense of scale! I didn't like my usual green mix when I used it on the earlier test models, so this afternoon  I ordered up three different tins in varying tones, with the intent of creating a combo mix - The arid straw color will form the backbone of the mix, with just a couple tablespoons of the other two just to give it a few blades of color here and there and stop it from being quite so monochromatic.

While I was faffing about waiting for various washes to dry on the Contemptor, I started assembling the first of two squads of the Dancers company of the Geno Five-two. I'd ordered up a whole mess of separate 'universal rolled sleeve' arms and a mess of lasrifles, but to my horror when I was looking back over the catalog I noted that Victoria Lamb does sprues of rolled sleeve arms with integral lasrifles identical to what I'd ordered and would undoubtedly save me hours of hobby frustration. Argh! One sheepish follow-on order later... No worries though, the universal arms will come in handy to build a couple characterful models, vexillaries, vox operators and the like!

Heresy Era Alpha Legion - Dreadtober Contemptor painting begins!

Heresy upon heresy - I managed to squeeze in a little painting time this weekend, and started laying in the purples and metals on the Contemptor for the Alpha Legion. As alluded to previously, I'm going with the description of the Alpha Legion armour from the book Legion, where it's mentioned a few times as being purple/indigo. This is also shown on the cover art, where it's definitely a more blueish-purple than that found on the Emperor's Children.

I tried a couple variations and came up with a reasonable approximation, I believe. I went with a more dark and oily metallic on the joints and undercarriage, and a blue-tinged silver for the trim.

 

The ol' color wheel suggests the complimentary colors are green (suitable for the legion symbology) and yellow/orange, which will be used on the eye lenses, power cables, etc. So far, so good!

Heresy Era Alpha Legion - Dreadtober Contemptor built

While it's not currently part of the army plan for the LVO, I picked up an Alpha Legion dread at GenCon earlier this year and with all the excellent Dreadtober posts going around, figured I'd use it as an impetus to do some work on it!

  

I have to say the Contemptor is one of my favorite kits to build - all of the articulation points mean you can really get some dynamic poses out of it, and so I went with a charging/running pose, as though it's blasting a unit with the plasma gun prior to tearing into 'em with the power claw. It was nice enough outside when I got home to primer it as well, and am hoping to get some paint on it this weekend. In a bit of a departure from the 'normal' Alpha Legion paint scheme, I'm going to be following the description from Legion and giving it the purple/silver scheme rather than the more commonly-accepted metallic blue/green. The trick is going to be finding an appropriate shade of purple so it doesn't just look like an Emperor's Children dread... Some testing will be required!

Heresy Era Imperial Army - Geno Five-Two test models built!

I got home yesterday and found the long-awaited package from Victoria Lamb waiting for me! Unfortunately there was a bit of a mix-up and the lasrifles I'd ordered were missing from the box (though a quick email to VL sorted the issue), but there were enough bits to knock together a couple test figs to see how everything goes together.

So without further ado - Hetman Peto Soneka and Bashaw Lon! Everything went together like a dream, with the minor matter of the heads. The ones I'd ordered from Meridian Minis don't come with necks but a bit of greenstuff sorted that right out!

Rather pleased with 'em overall - looking forward to building more of 'em once the lasrifles show up! In other plans for the army I'm seeing a lot of "Dreadtober" posts, so I've dug out the Alpha Legion dread I'd picked up at GenCon and have it soaking in preparation for assembly!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Prospero Spireguard Stormhammer painting continues

Just a quick hit today - Starting to get concerned about the package from Victoria Lamb with the lion's share of the bits for the Geno Five-Two as it's been almost three weeks from the shipping notification and still no package. Hrm. Pressed onward with the Stormhammer in the meantime!

 

Nothing spectacular, just got the base metals on the weapons and tracks, and started blocking in the various panels that will be getting the bone-white treatment. So far, so good!

Heresy Era Imperial Army - Geno Five Two, the LVO plan unveiled!

So Real Life(tm) has been kicking my butt over the last couple weeks and I've gotten almost nothing of note done on the hobby front. On the plus side, now that I'm back from vacation I could finally order up some bits for the Geno Five-Two and they're starting to arrive! Unfortunately, so far it's heads and bases, with none of the middle bits to connect 'em. Argh!

That said, with two potential 40k travel destination events rapidly approaching I figured it was time to sit down and really figure out an army list. That'll also help me sort out what I need to buy and really stick to just the models needed for the events - gotta be a bit more frugal this time as the ol' hobby fund is relatively low at the moment. The LVO is coming up a the beginning of February, at 2500 points so I did some fiddling around and came up with the following - Auxilia with the "Gene Crafted" Provenance, backed up by a small allied force of Alpha Legion. The idea behind the force is that of Peto Soneka's "Dancers" company prior to their getting mauled at Tel Utan, and the Alpha Legion units that were also in-theatre at the time.

Ends up being 75ish Army troopers and support weapons, 31 Marines and a trio of battle tanks. Competitive? Probably not, but it's fluffy as heck and should be fun to play! It'll be amusing to see 'em get mauled in every game just like they do in the books, while the Alpha Legion doesn't show up until the very end when it's far to late to save them (due to my terrible reserve rolls). Hah!

I did fiddle around with the models I'd intended to use for Uxor Rukhsana Saiid and her attendants to get a feel for some basic color schemes. Rukhsana is mentioned wearing a black uniform and a grey stormcoat at one point in the novel so she works out pretty well. The other models are the female arcadians from Victoria Lamb, not going to be used in the army list but were done up mostly to test out the scheme. I'm going with some desert bases from Secret Weapon for the final project, I like the color achieved on these but will likely be going with a different static grass color (something more blonde/straw colored), as the green just doesn't do it for me.

Getting excited to actually come to grips with the project!