Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Armoured Proteus Land Raiders in progress

Just a quick hit this morning, still in a holding pattern on the majority of the Thousand Sons project due to lack of bases and am now considering alternate options - think it might be a "glue all the infantry to paint stir sticks and paint the bases separately when they finally arrive" sort of situation. Been ages since I did the stir stick batch paint method (used to do it for swathes of historical and epic minis), going to kick it old school!

In the interim the replacement tracks from Forge World arrived for the Land Raiders, and I managed to get them assembled. Sadly, there was an incident and a couple of the track sections were broken beyond my ability to repair, so I'll be treating it as battle damage I guess! At this point they're more or less up to the "just off the factory floor" stage prior to transfers and weathering. It's supposed to be beautiful outside later today so I'm hoping to take advantage and get the sealant step done in prep for adding the transfers. So far, so good!

Inq28 - Hereticus Inquisitor On Combat Bike

A little Inq28 interlude today, I recently got a package from Wargame Exclusive miniatures which included a recently-released Inquisitor on a combat bike. I knew as soon as I saw it that I wanted to paint one up!

Rather cool sculpt, the bike is just brutal looking, and while the Inquisitor is improbably buxom as most of their models are, she's at least not totally risque as some of their more recent models have been. So much so that I'm not going to be buying them in fact - just not to my tastes when it comes to miniatures design.

 

If you're gonna have a tricked out ride, you may as well mount a plasma gun to it, right? Still coming to terms with the black-rimmed bases after a decade of painting them in reddish brown, but it's growing on me!

Along with the biker I also ordered up a selection of their 'combat cars' to use as scatter terrain, but mostly because I thought they too would be fun to paint!. It's good to have some little one-off models like this to paint in order to shake things up - I plan on using these as little palate (palette?) cleansers in between swaths of Thousand Sons over the next few months. I have to build and paint 2150 points between now and the end of August which should prove doable provided all the bits arrive in a timely manner. What could possibly go wrong?

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Cataphractii Centurion (almost) painted!

Pretty busy week, but I did manage to squeeze in a little painting time and whipped up a test model using the Cataphractii Praetor.

 

I'm really digging the metallic red scheme that Forge World has been showing off for their upcoming Thousand Sons line, but as there's still a fair number of models left over from the previous project  this army will continue to utilize the recipe I've used in the past. Just means that when I'm done with this army, I'll just have to sell it and immediately start a brand new one with the airbrushed metallic scheme, right?

Speaking of metallics, in retrospect I do feel I sort of phoned in the gold on the last army of Thousand Sons, so I'm going to be spending a bit more time on it in the new iteration. Pretty happy with the added depth it gives the gold on the terminator here. ...And I didn't totally botch a face for a change!

Going to try out the black-rimmed bases on this army instead of my usual reddish-brown, as it had been commented that it blended in with the reds of the models too much. It definitely does seem to make the model 'pop' a bit more than the previous efforts, which is nice. Still have some further detailing to do, as well as flocking and possibly adding some water effects as an experiment (never have tried it before), but overall I'm reasonably pleased with it so far!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - More terminator and character builds!

With the exciting news coming out of the Heresy Weekender, I was all fired up to do some more building of the Thousand Sons! Ran out of bases unfortunately, but I was undeterred!

First up the rest of the first squad of terminators, using up the last of the bases and finding out whether the resin Reaper Autocannon would work with the plastic shoulder pads - with a little trimming I was happy to find that it does!

The second squad is armed identically, though I attempted to ensure they weren't mirror images pose-wise. At this point I also ran out of the MaxMini heads so the second sergeant goes helm-less. Overall, quite pleased with how the builds turned out.

I then took a whack at building a character out of the chaplain model from the Betrayal at Calth set, and whipped up the first of what will undoubtedly be quite a few sorcerers. Will be adding some books and scarabs to KSons it up a bit further, I think.

Really getting excited about the army, especially hearing that the Spireguard will be making an appearance in the upcoming Prospero book as well as an aligned Forge World providing robots to the force (which is something I quite liked in the book A Thousand Sons). Might have to put together a couple Knights to ally with the force now too!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Test terminators built

Still in the bits-gathering phase for the upcoming Thousand Sons, but following some rummaging around in the Closet of Doom I came up with a few bits from the previous incarnation of them and hacked together a test terminator using the new Betrayal at Calth Cataphractii bits.

Pretty happy with how the resin head, torso and tabard work with the plastic bits, think the unit will look pretty slick! Last go around I'd done the terminators up with power weapons and combi-bolters to keep the points down and utilize the khopesh-style blades, but they just were completely ineffective on the tabletop. This time I'm going to be using power- and chain-fists, with lightning claws for the unit sergeants.

 

While I was about it I pulled out one of the several terminator captain models to make a Centurion - nothing too fancy, swapped out the chainfist for a lightning claw (mostly just to see if I could), and broke out the greenstuff to take a whack at some scarabs on the belt and shoulders, and fill in the palm where the chainfist had been cut away. Pretty crude work but okay for a first try I suppose. Going to let them dry overnight, then attempt to add some legs and the little dot for a head, hopefully that'll help them look a little better.

...Or possibly worse, in which case I still have two more of the terminator captain on sprues to try again!

In other news, I've pulled the trigger on tickets to the NOVA Open at the beginning of September, and will be taking part in the "Asymmetrical Warfare" and "Escalation Campaign" events, and have been penciling together the forces to see what I'll need to purchase and paint between now and then. It's still about seven months out, but with the challenges I've had getting the bits together, I might need that much time!

Heresy Era Imperial Army - Geno Five-Two Chilliad complete!

We had 14" of snow dumped on us overnight, so I'm working from home today. That allowed me a little time over lunch to get the flock on the remaining members of the Geno Five-Two, and get 'em all laid out for a family photo before they get boxed up and in the mail!

The models here represent the remnants of the Dancers company following their mauling at Tel Utan in the novel Legion. I'd designed it as a basic allied force, with a few extra HQ choices for variety and narrative reasons.

Uxor Rukhsana Saiid is joined by her support staff, and the unit's marksmen who form a sniper team. They served with distinction in the games that I've played with 'em!

Hetman Peto Soneka is similarly joined by his command squad, as well as Genewhip Boone and his prods.

 

Bashaws Lon and Shah lead a 20-man squad each, providing the backbone of the force. The Gene-Bred regimental upgrade means they prove to be tough to shift of any objectives they take!

Lastly, the army is backed by a heavy weapons squad, bringing some light anti-tank punch to the party. Overall a rather enjoyable project to work on - it was really fun to kitbash up the models like I envisioned them in my head while reading the novel!

Sort of in between projects at this point, still in the bits-and-kits gathering phase for the KSons and there's a couple projects on the horizon but nothing concrete. May be time to do a few more Inq28 models to keep the mojo workin'!

And now for something completely different - Arcadia Quest monsters

Not dead, though missing in action may be a fair assessment. The recent issues with models and painting really took the wind out of my sails hobby-wise and I needed something to rekindle my enthusiasm. A friend at work asked if I'd be willing to take on a small commission job and paint up some of the villains and monsters from a board game he's been playing called Arcadia Quest. Something completely outside the norm sounded like an amusing painting exercise and he handed over a small tray of critters which I bashed out over the past weekend.

11 models in total so they went pretty quickly. Each of the models has an associated card with some matching art, and I tried to stick close to the color schemes shown on the cards, for a sense of continuity. Some liberties were taken here and there to help jazz 'em up a bit (lots of black robes and tabards which would have made them a bit too dark against the requested black bases). Chibi vampires and hulking fantasy monsters, definitely a 180 from the recent projects!

I rather enjoyed painting up the beastmen, minotaurs and ogre, the varying skin tones were fun to do - not a lot of monster-y tones (or exposed skin and hair at all, for that matter) in the recent marine-centric Heresy projects!

All in all a fun little diversion and enough to restart the ol' hobby mojo. Finished off the painting stage of the remaining Geno Five-Two this evening (only had four color passes left when I hit the wall on 'em earlier), and following an overnight "let the darn wash dry thoroughly" step they'll get flocked and photographed over the next day or two. Pics to follow!