Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Assault squad complete and characters 95% done!

Got a fair bit of brush time in over the last two evenings (thanks to a much needed break in the punishing heat) and I managed to finish off quite a few models!

Assault squad Mekhata is done and ready to take to the field - not much to do on them from the last post other than finishing up the bases and doing a little clean up here and there. I attempted a little bit of OSL on the sergeant's wings, erring on the side of "less is more". ...Also known as "I only sort-of know what I'm doing". Hah!

  

The characters got some more work as well, though as a group they're not quiiiiite done. First up, the special edition Praetor - quite enjoyed painting up this model, and although he's not going to NOVA, I do plan on using him frequently in the future! Had to sneak in a cheeky little symbol of Tzeentch on his right-hand shield...

  

Apothecary Thothmes is coming along nicely - a little more work here and there is needed, however. It's only in the pics that I realized I missed out on his backpack's lamp, and all the various vials and beakers will need to get a gloss sealant pass to shine 'em up a bit.

 

The Sorcerer turned out reasonably well, I ended up using a selection of Fallout Hobbies fantastic "magic sigils" to spiff up his cloak which turned out fairly well. He's currently the third-string sorcerer in the force however. Definitely interested to see how FW handles the thoroughly psychic nature of the Thousand Sons - at the moment the default rules only allow for up to two psykers per army and they max out at L2. Not particularly inspiring, but I hold out hope!

At this point, all the models that I'm intending to take to NOVA are painted - next up is pulling them all out and figuring out the best configuration to pack them for the trip!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Assault squad and characters nearly complete!

Spent some time laying in the innumerable little details on the various models - the jade green on the various scarabs, various cables and grenades, and the glowy effect on the jump pack exhausts (which I obviously ought to photograph, doh). I think the wings work pretty well once the sergeant is in the squad - the extra color isn't quite so overpowering.

I always like the "laying in the first color on the bases" step in the painting process, it's at that point the models really start to come in to focus for me. Starting to look pretty decent now!

At this point I set the three characters aside, they'll all be finished individually from here on out after the assault squad is finished. Fiddling around with new lists for the NOVA Open now that the new books from Forge World have arrived. Almost every unit I had planned to take experienced a point adjustment in one way or another, but it's kind of fun starting from scratch and taking a fresh look at what will be fun to paint, useful on the table and most importantly, easy to transport!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Sergeant Mekhata's ghostly wings

Just a quick hit today, while I was plugging away at all the little details on the assault squad this morning I took a crack at doing some ghostly-looking wings on Sergeant Mekhata.

Fairly straightforward process, started off by basecoating the wings in stonewall grey, then built up the highlights with ghost grey and finally skull white. Then they got a going-over with Waywatcher Green glaze. Once that dried, I went back over them with a light drybrush pass of ghost grey again. I'm reasonably pleased with the effect, and think I'll be using that technique again on some planned familiars/tutelaries!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Assault squad and characters painting continues

It's been brutally hot here of late, so it's only been brief forays into the hobby loft after work this week. That said, a bit more forward motion on the Thousand Sons is always a good thing!

After undercoating all the relevant areas in light blue, the whites were applied, the blues were washed down, and the gold and silver areas were picked out. Next up will be the various leather and bone colored areas such as holsters and weapon housings. So far so good!

The three characters got the same treatment, though their work was considerably slower due to all the extra details on the models compared to the basic troopers. Haven't quite decided on the color of the sorcerer's cloak. Going with blue on the interior, but undecided between white with red trim or perhaps black with white/yellow arcane symbols for the outside... Open to suggestions!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Assault Squad Mekhata painting begins, and some characters!

A reasonably quiet weekend for a change, which meant some extra hobby time in the mornings before it got too hot in the hobby loft. After finishing off the Contemptors, I took a look and the proposed army list for NOVA and pulled out the next batch of minis intended to make the trip out to the east coast, namely Assault Squad Mekhata, and a couple characters.

Nothing too fancy so far, just laying in all the base reds. Naturally as part of this process I managed to knock over the pot of Carroburg Crimson wash and make a huge mess. Stopped by the GW shop and picked up one of the new bigger wash bottles, which of course only means that the next time I tip it over, it's going to be an even bigger mess!

While I was about it I laid in the reds on a couple character models for the force as well, another Sorcerer (you can't have too many Sorcerers in a Thousand Sons army after all), the special edition Tartaros Praetor and an Apothecary to accompany one of the tactical squads. In general the Apothecaries in the Heresy eschew the 'all-white' aesthetic of their modern 40k brethren, but he'll be getting some white detailing here and there to help him stand out a bit.

Lastly, on a lark I broke out the bits boxes and tried knocking together the first of the basic Corsairs. Pretty straightforward - legs, arms and front torso from the Kabalite Warriors kit, the cape/rear torso from the Black Ark Corsairs kit (which requires a fair bit of cutting and carving to fit, and the creepy helmet from the Wych kit. The initial intent was to use the similar blank-faced helmets from the Reaver kits but it turns out the rear scalloped armor on those heads interferes with the spiky collars on the corsair cloaks. Off to the bits sellers to come up with more Wych heads, it seems!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Contemptor Dreadnoughts complete!

Got in a fair bit of hobby time this morning and managed to finish off the Contemptor dreads - huzzah!

  

First up is the ever-popular twin Kheres Assault Cannon toting Contemptor Mortis. Equally adept at mowing down infantry and light vehicles, it also doubles as a mobile anti-air platform.

  

The second dread packs a plasma cannon and a plasma blastgun in its powerclaw. I tried to do a coruscating power look on the plasma coils on the cannon, relatively pleased with how it turned out.

Next up are the assault squad and a couple more characters!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Contemptor painting continues

As mentioned a few posts ago I'm starting to get army fatigue painting the pointy-eared gits, and with NOVA approaching I figured I'd better shift gears and get back to the Thousand Sons. Last week Forge World put the newest updated "red book" up for pre-order, which contains all the collated and updated rules for the generic legion army lists gathered from the first five Horus Heresy books and associated FAQs (the previous red book only covered the first three books). While I absolutely adore the big leatherbound tomes and all the gorgeous art and fun fluff found within, for gaming purposes it's really hard to go wrong with the slim and trim red books. That book as well as several others are now winging their way to my doorstep, at which point I'll be able to tweak the NOVA army lists a bit based on the various point changes (of which there are many and varied, so the NOVA list is going to be heavily revamped). All that said, I do plan on taking both of the Contemptors, so best get cracking!

The next step after the reds are the metallics, with the underpinning body structures and weapons given the boltgun metal/badab black/boltgun metal treatment (they'll benefit from a further silver highlight, judging by these pics) and the gold/reikland fleshshade/gold on the various trim pieces (again, looking to need a further highlight pass).

Next up is a blue laid in on everything intended to be white, as well as weapons and eyes which will of course continue to be blue. The white parts got a hit of Ghost Grey, while the blue gets a guilliman blue wash. Both the white and the blue will get further highlights, but as it was 85F in the loft at this point I had to flee for cooler climes and attach the next steps this coming weekend, when I can get some dedicated brush time in during the cool of the morning!

Still quite a lot of work yet to do but it definitely feels good to be getting back the the Sons!

40k Dark Eldar - Scourges painted, and I'm slightly deaf!

Yesterday evening I was able to go and see the Peter Gabriel/Sting collaboration concert and it was absolutely epic! Both of 'em (and both their bands) on stage at the same time, taking it in turns to do one another's music. Hands down the best show I've seen this year!

As it was a late night and I have a fair bit of vacation time racked up I went ahead and took today off, which afforded me some mid-week hobby time in the morning while it's still cool up in the loft. Took advantage and finished up the Scourges:

They ended up being somewhat challenging to photographs, there's all sorts of focal issues on so many large-ish models at once. Doh! All in all I'm pretty happy with how they turned out, though as usual in taking the pics I noted some various things that need to be cleaned up. Never fails!

40k Dark Eldar - Corsair Lord and Haemonculus built

Not as much in the way of hobby progress this past weekend, though it was filled with 40k gaming goodness! Continued on with the Rogue Trader campaign I'm running for some friends on Sunday, and Saturday I participated in the 500pt stage of the escalation league at the Warhammer shop. Unfortunately my opponent's army was unpainted and he had a... liberal interpretation of movement distance and a few of the rules so it was a little disappointing - didn't get any pics worth sharing. That said, a mediocre game is still better than no game, I suppose! I did manage to put together a couple models for the force Sunday night, so it wasn't totally a bust.

Nothing too special here, just an out-of-the-box Haemonculus for the force - he'll accompany the Wyches to provide them with a boost to their Power from Pain turn count, as they desperately need some sort of save for the first turn or two. I have to say I'm very impressed with the way the model was designed, it is really a testament to what GW has been able to do with plastics these days.

I've been intending to do a second squad of counts-as Warriors for the force, the intent of which is to do a unit of Corsair pirates utilizing a mix of bits from the standard DE sprues and the fantasy Black Ark Corsairs. To lead the unit I picked up one of the Dark Elf characters to use as a basis for the Sybarite and put together this model. I'm thinking all of the corsairs will use the full-face helms as they seem appropriate for the space pirate theme!

I'll admit to feeling a bit of army fatigue with these pointy-eared gits (and I've already got the 750pt force painted up for next league day), so I think it may be time to return to the Scions of Magnus for a while...

40k Dark Eldar - Scourges painting begins, and it's not bad living in Colorado

Some decent forward progress on the Scourges over the last few days, but first I thought I'd point out that sometimes it's pretty awesome living in Colorado. Over this past weekend some friends and I went down to Red Rocks Amphitheater for a concert, which is hands down the best place to see a show in Colorado, and is often suggested to be in the top 10 best venues in the US, if not the world. In addition to the awesome venue itself, it's surrounded by a beautiful park as well and we generally head down there 3-4 hours before the show and set up for some tailgating and revelry amongst the lovely terrain!

Not a bad way to spend a Saturday afternoon/evening! Marinated shrimp skewers, corn on the cob and beef tenderloin over the portable grill, delicious local microbrews, and blueberry pie for afters. What's not to like?

Enough of that Real Life(tm) nonsense though, let's talk little space dudes! Got the purples and whitish-greys done and started in on the silver and gold bits before being driven from the hobby loft by the heat. So far so good though, rather liking the dichotomy between the angelic and daemonic wings, decided all the special weapons troopers would use the batwing style to help pick them out on the tabletop as well. Been rather fun painting up the unit so far, hoping to have 'em done in plenty of time for the next escalation league step!

40k Dark Eldar - Quite a bit of progress!

Hope all our stateside readers had a safe and happy 4th of July, and for everyone else, I hope that your Monday was tolerable! Had a three day weekend which meant I had some extra hobby time, and ended up being rather productive - finished off the Wyches, got darn near the finish line with the Warrior's Raider, and got some build time in as well. Woo!

The Wyches got a little further touch up, the bases were finished and flocked, and they're more or less good to go! A couple of the eyes are still a little wonky when blown up to 400% size but they don't look quite so odd in person. Can always justify it as "the combat drugs are kicking in, maaaaaan..." Hah!

 

Got stuck in on the Warrior's Raider as well, rather near the finish line. Took it up to the first sealant pass so I could lay in a couple waterslide transfers on the sail and banner, but think that it needs some tribal linework on the hull to break it up a little. The Warrior's Raider was always going to be rather unadorned compared to the Wyches' and Archon's Raiders, but this is a little TOO spartan I think. More to come on that one!

While I was about it I rewarded myself with a little build time and got the unit of Scourges built. These hadn't been released yet by the time I'd sold my previous Dark Eldar army, but I knew that they were a must-buy for this project - they're my favorite sculpts of the line and I am really looking forward to painting them up!

40k Dark Eldar - Wych Cult painting continues, and a NOCF Charity Update!

Quick hit this evening - It was reasonably temperate today and after knocking out the weekly chores around the house I managed to sneak in some brush time and continued work on the Wych cult.

The first step was laying in the gold - definitely adds some definition to the models and helped me find a couple areas of purple and yellow that I'd missed initially, so those got cleaned up as well.

Next up was the dirty white hair and the start of the eyes which really helps frame the faces, then the various gems and agonizer got the green treatment. Once that was on the initial earthtones were added to the various leather bits and the bases, which really help 'em start to pop. Lots of little things to do yet, but at this point I'm liking how they're coming along!

In other news, the NOCF charity raffle that includes the Orks I'd worked on has gone live, and here's the scoop on how you can get your hands on some sweet models for a great cause! Info courtesy of the ever-amazing Dave Taylor:

Raffle tickets are now on sale, and can be purchased HERE. And 95% of all money raised from the raffles goes directly to the various charities we support - Doctors Without Borders, The Breast Cancer Research Foundation, and The Fisher House Foundation.

Important things to note are:

• You can buy tickets from anywhere in the world!
• We will ship to ANYWHERE in the world with a valid mailing address!
• You DO NOT have to be present at the NOVA Open to win!
• A minimum spend of $10 is required.

Please spread the word, and this link (http://novaopenfoundation.org/?tcp_product_category=raffle) and help us raise more money than in any previous year!