Heresy Era Imperial Army - Prospero Spireguard Rotor Cannon support squad

While the Spireguard was initially intended to be a predominantly "Armoured Company" type force (to contrast against the heavily infantry-based Thousand Sons from the previous incarnation of the army), from a gameplay standpoint having only the bare minimum of two troops choices is less than ideal. I'm hesitant to go hog-wild and build a whole bunch of new models however, as I'll inevitably make the wrong assumptions and build a mess of models that won't be viable with the upcoming lists from Inferno (the next Heresy book from FW).

However, I did have a squad of Spireguard armed with Rotor Cannons built with the very basic starter paint job on 'em, and with the weather being so nice I figured I'd finish 'em off over the weekend!

Pretty straightforward to knock them out, and gives the army another Troops choice to hold objectives. While the Rotor Cannons aren't particularly high strength or low AP, nine of 'em certainly drop a lot of dice when fired - sometimes quantity has a quality all its own after all! Now it's just a matter of starting to fiddle with army lists. I have to come up with a 1000, 2000 and 2500 point list for the upcoming event - looks like there's just shy of 3000 points built and painted (granted, 615 points of that is the Stormhammer) so there may need to be some further models built and painted to make up the numbers. I have had a hankering to add a trio of Sentinels to the force...

Heresy Era Imperial Army - Prospero Spireguard state of the army

Got some interesting news recently, turns out there's a Horus Heresy narrative event coming up at the end of the month surprisingly nearby - The downside is that in the time between now and then it's highly doubtful that the bases I've been waiting on will arrive and still allow me time to finish the Thousand Sons. As I'd sold off the Geno Five-Two and the Alpha Legion is basically a shelved project, that means it's time to bring the Spireguard out of deep storage and see what there actually is.

The plan was that the Spireguard would be a heavy assault/armored company sort of list, I think we can say mission accomplished! The recent rumors suggest that the Spireguard list in the upcoming Forge World book will use the Solar Auxilia list, which honestly I'm happy about as the tank options in the SA list are better suited to my vision for the force. That does mean that I needed to whip up a couple extra infantry models to make the units list-legal, to the tune of a vox- and vexilla-bearer for each 20-man squad.

Luckily it's been very agreeable weather of late, so I broke out the ol' box of bits and knocked together the four requisite models. Did a read-through of the old painting posts I'd done to re-familiarize myself with the paint scheme and set to work!

Painting up four models turned out to be a snap, and with the exception of the Stormhammer, and the transfers and weathering on the KV-2's, the army is surprisingly complete! That gives me three weeks to paint approximately 7,000 rivets and finish off all the tanks to the same level. Should be rather doable, and it's been fun to get back into the swing of the Thousand Sons scheme!

Heresy Era Imperial Army - Prospero Spireguard Khalophis Victrix-2 Tanks Painting Continues

Got a little more brush time in this weekend than is usual, and managed to get the trio of tanks up to the "off the assembly line" stage, prior to the addition of waterslide transfers and weathering. Despite the fact that three days ago we got 19" of snow, this afternoon it was almost 60F and I was able to get the initial sealant pass on 'em. Gotta love springtime in the Rockies!

As has been pointed out, technically speaking the "Ragnarok" tank is a post-heresy designation, from the War World of Krieg during the 500-year war from 433-949.M40. That said, it's also a long standing trope that technology in the 41st Millennium is more often rediscovered from ancient archives rather than newly designed, so it's not a great stretch to assume that some STC Construct tank matching the silhouette of the modern Ragnarok existed during the Heresy. Since the Ragnarok is obviously just a 40k-ed up Soviet KV-2 from the 1940's, I figured I'd give them a nod and call these "Khalophis Vixtrix-2" tanks to give 'em a little Thousand Sons-y feel as well.

Heresy Era Imperial Army - Prospero Spireguard KV-2 Ragnarok Tanks painting begins

I'd alluded to the Gothic KV-2 tanks that I'd ordered from MaxMini back in November, and sadly I ended up having all sorts of issues with getting all the track sections needed to build them. Originally intended for use with the Geno Five-Two project, the final pieces arrived well after I'd already finished and sold the army. So, rather than just bin 'em, they'll find use as part of the Prospero Spireguard instead!

Haven't gotten any farther than just getting the basecoat for the red down but I think they'll make a nice addition to the force! I'll be using them as counts-as Leman Russ tanks, they're roughly the same overall footprint size.

  

In other news, a Box o' Joy arrived from Forge World earlier in the week and I got a chance to see their new packaging firsthand. Previously the kits were just ziplock-bagged and thrown in a shipping box which sometimes led to bending, breakage, and occasionally the wrong items being shipped entirely - though FW was always super helpful getting the correct pieces out when there was a problem, it was still a problem. They're starting to individually box up the kits, and the trio of Deimos Rhinos that I'd ordered each came individually packed, with the resin pieces inside further bubblewrap padding, and an 'inspected by' note. Everything in the box was in perfect condition and I have to say I'm thoroughly impressed by the updated care they're taking in shipping the product. It's definitely long past due...

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 Thousand Sons - Spireguard Stormhammer painting begins!

With the sweet new transfers from Fallout Hobbies arriving, it galvanized me to work on a model to put 'em on! The centerpiece for the Spireguard army is going to be the Stormhammer I'd picked up at Gencon, and I managed to get the reds laid in over the last few days.

So far, so good! Next up will be all the silver metallics, after which I can start in on the detail panels in bone-white, and gold rivets.

...So many gold rivets. Hoo boy.

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Prospero Spireguard Stormhammer Built

It's no secret that at my core, I am a dyed-in-the-wool treadhead. It's the main thing that draws me to the Guard (or Imperial Army in this case), and in addition to all the lovely Leman Russ and Chimera variants available, the Guard also has access to some of the most ferocious superheavy tanks in the 40k universe. Back when I played Epic waaaay back in the day, I absolutely loved all the Baneblade and Shadowsword variants that were included. Over the years more and more have become available in 40k scale, and the one I've been most looking forward to is the Stormhammer, one of the few to arguably out-gun the Baneblade. When FW came out with their interpretation of the beast I knew it would be mine!

I'd picked up the model at GenCon and had initially thought I'd just pop in the Closet of Doom for some future date, but I couldn't resist the siren call of building a kit I hadn't tried before. Overall the build was a snap, essentially the only plastic parts are the track sections and the bottom hull, everything else is resin and fit surprisingly well!

They provide the option for all sorts of sponson weapons, but when it comes right down to it it's hard to go wrong with six lascannons! It turns out that the Shadowsword I'd originally built for the Spireguard is no longer supported by their army list, so the Stormhammer will take its place as the centerpiece of the army. Was quite looking forward to painting it, right up to the point where I realized how many rivets I'm on the hook for! Yikes!

Back from GenCon!

Been a little quiet on the hobby front of late, as I've been out of town for the lion's share of the last two weeks. Had to burn off a chunk of PTO at work, so I made a run out to Las Vegas to visit some friends and see the Rush tour - good times! After that it was home for a day to do laundry and repack before heading out to Indianapolis for the yearly trip to GenCon. 

Got together with some old friends and played a bunch of Shadowrun, where we all got together and did a themed runner team - an all-Troll Russian heavy metal band called "Trolling Thunder". On a lark, we had "tour shirts" printed up to all wear as a group on one of the days, which got a lot of laughs! Also managed to meet up with Dave Taylor and Tim Toolen for an excellent lunch, and a fascinating conversation about making a living in the hobby, and cursing Dave for making me want to chop up old matchbox cars! No miniature game playing to speak of while I was out there, though I did make a couple passes through the dealer room which of course meant swinging by the Forge World booth:

Got away with spending a lot less than last year, but it did sting a bit. Picked up a Stormhammer for the Prosperine Spireguard, which will be boxed up and stored in the Closet of Doom for a rainy day, as well as a few of the event-only minis. They sold out of Narik Dreygur and Autilon Skorr super quickly so I was only able to get one each, but they had a whole mess of the princeps so I was able to pick up a couple - one to build as-is, and a couple to experiment with conversion-wise. I also couldn't resist picking up an Alpha Legion dreadnought for the upcoming project. There isn't one explicitly listed in Legion, but it's such a cool model I can't resist adding one to the force by virtue of assuming there was at least one on the Beta, which was in-theater. That's reasonable justification, right? Also picked up another Master of Signal and Champion set to use as a basis for some other Alpha Legion characters... Should be fun!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Shadowsword painting continues

Barely hanging on to the slender thread of sanity at this point - over 600 rivets later, and the Shadowsword is almost ready for weathering!

Added in the usual occult symbols and XV numeration - The 15th Prosperine Assault Infantry number ties in nicely with the XV legion markings on the Thousand Sons (thereby making it suitable for use in either detachment as needed). Little cleanup required yet, but most of the truly sloppy bits might just get covered up with some weathering!

Quite happy with the Blood and Skulls Industries add-ons, really gives the model some personality. I cannot recommend Tom McBride's add-on kits enough! Supposed to have a couple warm days coming up early next week, hoping to get it finished and sealed soon!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Breacher Squad painted, and Shadowsword in progress

Rather productive of late, as my main entertainment center/general distraction has been in the shop. That means quite a bit of brush time! Trying to update the blog from my phone is proving to be thoroughly aggravating, so the next few posts are likely to be a little brief. First up, the Breacher Siege Squad got a lick of paint:

Pretty straightforward, but I'm not entirely happy with the gradient on the green gems now that I'm reviewing the pics. Definitely need to add a few more intermediate tones to them!

I've been slogging along on the Shadowsword for the Spireguard as well, got all the basic colors laid in, now it's time to start the interminable rivet painting step... Oof!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Spireguard Shadowsword build complete!

Couple little packages in the mail when I got home from work today, the missing leg piece for the Reaver (pics of that to come), and the targeters for the Shadowsword. As I didn't have much hobby time this evening, I settled on clipping out and gluing on those rather than dive into the major construction project that the Reaver will undoubtedly be!

Building out the targeters took all of ten minutes, not super exciting but good to get a little bit of hobby time in. They could stand to be just a little bigger perhaps, but overall I'm quite happy with how they turned out!

They're predicting another 50F day tomorrow which is on the bottom end of what I consider viable primering temperature, fingers crossed as they're saying it's going to be a winter wonderland for the week following Christmas - hope to get the builds from the last few posts primered so I'll have some stuff to paint over the holiday break while it's chilly!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Spartan build complete, and a Veletaris Storm Section to boot!

Ended up getting called in to work at an ungodly hour this morning, so while awaiting some server restarts I polished off the build on the Spartan!

I'd left off last night with the application of THE CLAMPS. Another inherited piece of kit from Dave, I'd always intended to pick up a set of my own but never got around to it. They made holding the inner hull and the track assemblies together for gluing a snap! As mentioned earlier the upper deck of the hull needed a quick bath in hot water but was wrestled into shape with minimal cursing.

Turns out at that point I was closer to the finish line than I'd anticipated! All that remained was to attach the engine/exhaust stacks and build out the quad lascannon sponsons (magnetized for easy transport and storage).

Overall I'm quite pleased with how the build turned out. I'd heard tons of horror stories about the construction, and to be fair many of the parts were quite warped due to somewhat improper storage techniques. However, with the application of some boiling water courtesy of the ol' electric kettle (and a bowl of ice water to quickly re-set the resin), everything fit together surprisingly well!

After futzing around with the Spartan, I wanted to build something a little quick and easy - I'd gotten a package from Victoria Lamb earlier in the week, so I put together the Veletaris storm squad with rotor cannons I'd been gathering bits for! Pretty happy with how they turned out. Since I had a couple leftover sergeants from earlier lasrifle sections (finished before we found out they come in 20-man squads), all I had to worry abut were the 9 basic models. To differentiate them from the vanilla lasrifle sections a bit they all got backpacks to help bulk them out a bit (besides, they need somewhere to carry extra ammo)!

Now it's supposed to be almost 60F today (after yesterday's threatened snowfall) so I'm hoping to be able to get these primered - quite looking forward to painting them!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Spireguard Shadowsword build continues

The last week and a half has been pretty rough, so not a whole lot of hobby time or mojo unfortunately. I did get a package in the mail yesterday which included the alternate sponsons from Blood and Skulls Industry, and after a soak and scrub overnight I snuck in a half hour after work to get them assembled and fitted:

 

Still need to figure out what to do for the targeters to sit on the sponson tops though - eying some various bits on ebay, but nothing has jumped out at me yet. Suggestions welcome!

With the passing of my usual 40k opponent and sorting through all of his hobby stuff, I've been reassessing how much hobby stuff of my own I don't REALLY need. With my general focus on Heresy-era gaming, I've decided to part ways with the most recent rendition of the Mordian 7th regiment, along with a number of other historical treasures dredged up from the depths of the Closet of Doom. Expect to see a bunch of hopefully interesting stuff going up on eBay over the next few months as I try to thin out the shelves somewhat. It was a bit of a struggle to put the 7th up on the block, but they haven't fired a shot in anger in over 3 years, and I can't justify building a new version until the old one's gone, right? Haha!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Spireguard Shadowsword

My copy of Conquest arrived a little while ago and I've finally had a chance to sit down and give it a proper read. The Solar Auxilia list is very interesting - while not the 'generic Imperial Army' list I'd hoped it would be, it's nonetheless a very solid and thematic army. With some squinting the Spireguard will function well under its auspices for now! That said, I've been itching to jump back into the army and thought I'd treat myself to some build time since I'd finished the Ursarax recently. Something... Big.

The Shadowsword has always been my favorite superheavy, so it was a no-brainer that the army would get one eventually. The model itself is one of the numerous un-finished projects that Dave left behind and bequeathed to me - he'd planned on doing an Iron Warriors army, and this was to be the basis for Tormentor, Perturabo's personal transport/superweapon. Sadly he never got a chance to build it, but I wanted to ensure it was put to good use in some fashion!

The power turbines, treads, and engine exhausts are all from the inestimable talents of Tom McBride of Blood and Skulls Industries, and also make for a nice nod to the previous Thousand Sons Shadowsword/proto-Falchion that Tom had built for me several years back.

Was poking around on his ebay page and ran across these alternate side sponsons that he'd made when I wasn't looking. Instantly ordered and am awaiting their arrival, seems like they'll be perfect for Heresy-ing up the model a little further! I just need to come up with some good targeters to go on the top in lieu of the Lascannons and we'll be ready to go!

Space Hulk - Genestealers painting in progress

Another long week of work and whatnot so it's been a little quiet on the hobby front. In the interim I've been asked to help out a buddy of mine by painting up a set of Space Hulk minis for him while he deals with some health problems. He's done the majority of the work on the Terminators which will just need some detail work, but the Genestealers were just at the assembly stage. Time to crank up the batch painting machine (again)!

Following the Tale of Painters tutorial to crank through 'em - got the blue and purple in place, just the little details to go now!

After doing some painting I got the urge to build something - With the recent release of the FW Solar Auxilia lasrifle sections, it appears that I needed to build a Vox and Vexilla model for each of the units of Spireguard. ...So I did! Still waiting for news on how the command squads will work, so for now I'm holding off on building any more Spireguard. Rumors suggest the next book should hit in the next month or two and then we'll find out!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Spireguard batch painting complete!

Managed to finish off the Spireguard on Saturday, but didn't get a chance to snap any pics until this afternoon.

 

Time to work on the metallics! Started off by blocking in all of the boltgun metal on the weapons thereby covering up all the slop from the gloves.

 

Next up are a dark tone wash to give them a bit of depth (though the pics washed out the shading a bit).

 

Finally, a little gold on the shakos to give them a little detail and draw the eye to the head of the model.

 

The gold was hit with a little Reikland Fleshshade to provide shading. The above four steps took another half an hour for application since they were all little tiny areas. Infantry models done!

 

The bases were all given a basecoat of Khaki, which is where I left off for the day on Saturday. Another hour's worth of work, and some very messy fingers!

On Sunday following the fun times at Feast of Blades (pics to come soon), I knocked out the last of the base painting, with a quick drybrush of Bonewhite and Ghost Grey on the stonework, and a Strong Tone wash on the ground. Once that dried, the rims were given a hit of Dark Flesh.

After a shot of matte sealant, I pulled out all the previously-painted riflemen and got a final pic. Total time from beginning to end was just shy of 9 hours spread out in chunks over the better part of 10 days - I'll be the first to admit that it wasn't necessarily the most exciting of 9 hours (indeed, batch painting can definitely get tedious), but it really feels good at the end when there's a whole pile of finished miniatures ready to take to the field!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - You guessed it, more batch painting...

I'm on call pretty much 24/7 and unfortunately I got a call from work at 1am this morning that the systems went down and I needed up having to do some remote support. While waiting for some servers to cycle and reboot I figured I may as well do some painting and got the Strong Tone wash on the webbing and coats. Annoying to be woken up in the middle of the night, but figured I may as well make the best of it!

It adds a much needed shading and gives the models quite a bit more depth. The nice thing is you don't have to be super careful about the application. A little overspill at the edges just tends to help line the color separations.

 

All told, it only took about 20 minutes to do the lot, now it's just the metallics (and the pupils, gotta remember to do the pupils) and the bases! Hoping to get them finished today in between the usual Saturday chores. Attending the Feast of Blades Heresy Tournament tomorrow, really looking forward to that!