40k Deathwatch - Land Raider painting continues

Just a quick one today - Got a few more colors laid in on the Land Raider yesterday and I am starting to feel better about it. Giving the eye something else to look at besides the line highlighting seems to help 'settle' the model a bit and help it look less like a big black brick.

 

More work to do of course, further highlights on the gold and red, then on to the usual blue power cells/cables and the scrollwork. Once this tank is done it'll be time to switch gears for Dreadtober and get cracking on with Brother Nihilus!

40k Deathwatch - Display boards and Land Raider progress, plus a broken vow

A bit more forward motion on the Armies on Parade force! A fellow 40k enthusiast and I decided we'd do a paired set of army boards, with his Craftworld Eldar facing off against my Deathwatch and he spent some time in his shop over the previous weekend putting together something for us.

He cut the 2x2 board and laid in some hills and craters on my side, and the floor level for some Eldar ruins on his side. As my bases are almost all dirt, and his are mostly Eldar Architecture, he left the ground color up to me. Took the paints I use for my bases to the local art supply store and found a couple bottles of craft paint that were pretty darn close (no way I'm painting the boards with Vallejo dropper bottles), and set to work. Much paint spatter later I had the dirt in, and some admittedly ham-fisted flocking - I haven't ever tried any terrain at this size so it was all rather experimental.

I handed off the Eldar side so he can tart up the Eldar portion, and went with some grey stone coloration for the craters, which will get some blast effect painted or airbrushed in at some point in the near future. So far, so good!

On the less enthusiastic side however are the vehicles. As I had remembered from the Imperial Fists and Iron Hands, fine edge highlighting just isn't my forte and the issue is exacerbated on larger pieces, such as the Land Raider. I did take the precaution of painting the whole model in Chaos Black before getting started, which has allowed me to clean up the lines where it was particularly egregious (and looking at the pic there's plenty more to clean up). Still, I'm hopeful that once the detail starts going on it'll start to pop.

I was reasonably happy with the slate/marble effect I tried out on the doors and detail plates on the front (and repeated on the dreadnought coming soon). It's not perfect, but with a little practice it might be a fun technique to add to the toolbox - practice makes perfect!

In other news I've perhaps slightly broken my vow to hold off on adding anything else to my Thousand Sons until the Forge World book and the new GW box set are released. Just a little bit. Ahem. The deal was too good to pass up, and thanks to one of the excellent folks on the Heresy30k Forum for ensuring the sons of Magnus have a sweet new ride! Much like the first one I built for the World Eaters, this kit was an absolute bastard to assemble, and even with prodigious use of clamps and rubber bands it still isn't quiiiiite seamless. Some of that can be attributed to warpage and shrinkage but honestly I've never heard anyone say "Wow, that Storm Eagle was so much fun to build!" ...I will say it's a cool looking model once it's put together though!

Inq28 - Ordo Xenos Inquisitor Silenia Phocris

Leading the Ordo Xenos contingent is Inquisitor Silenia Phocris. She's pulling double duty actually, as I've also introduced her as a potential ally/adversary in the Rogue Trader campaign I've been running as well! Quite often I take inspiration from the miniatures I have on hand to come up with interesting foils for the players, and Inquisitor Phocris is no exception. When she was originally introduced to the group it was a cliffhanger moment and they haven't had much of a chance to interact with her as yet. Originally I'd intended her to be a foil to the group, but as I've been working on the warband her demeanor has changed in my head - plans are afoot to have her actually be an ally to the group, as her Radical leaning means many of her aims are in alignment with the group's particular breed of Xenos collaboration. Granted, this currently involves the Rogue Trader dynasty helping a disgraced Ork Freebooter Kaptin build something he calls "Da 'Pockalypse Kannon", with the aim of firing on and destroying entire planets in a nearby system. Let's just say we're nearing the end of the campaign and the mayhem is getting dialed up to 11!

Picked this model up ages ago from Wargames Exclusive, and is based on some artwork from one of the earlier Inquisition codexes with the paired Conversion Beamers. On the tabletop it's just a single one, as carrying two while allowed by the list doesn't actually allow for two shots with them. In the rpg world however, oh yes she can!

Went with a relatively muted palette with her, just a few spots of color - had to work in the Imperial Purple on her trousers, and the greenish hue of the Conversion Beamer's power sources. The green should help tie her in with the stormtroopers, and I'm considering going back in and doing their fatigues in purple to match. Thoughts?

Inq28 - Ordo Xenos Inquisitorial Warband nearly complete!

As part of the planned Armies on Parade force, I'd opted to include an Ordo Xenos Inquisitor and her warband. The Inquisitor is only primed so not interesting to look at but I did crack on with the 5-man Stormtrooper team over the last couple days!

I wanted to keep with a dark moody theme for the Stormtoopers armor and fatigues, and gave them some pretty strong spot colors to help them pop. I tried to steer clear from the strong red and blue spot colors of the Deathwatch, so went with some fiery yellow and jade greens instead. These blokes have been sitting in a quarter-painted state for YEARS, it really feels good to finally get them finished! Was a little damp outside this afternoon so they have yet to be sealed, but I'm quite pleased with how they turned out!

In addition to the Stormtroopers, I wanted to include some more flavorful characters. You can't have a warband without an Assassin, right? The Inquisitor's personal Astropath Brother Vicente provides communication and psychic oversight, while as befitting Inquisitor Phocris' Radical-leaning nature she is often accompanied by her personal Jokaero, affectionately known as Euclid. These three models were painted months and years ago, so were just given a little touchup here and there and had their bases repainted to match the current scheme. Job done!

Next up, the Inquisitor herself!

40k Deathwatch - Kill Team Cassius complete!

Managed a fair bit of painting time in over the weekend, and polished up the last of the infantry models from the first batch - all the 'fun' models that I left for the end as a reward for pushing through the basic models (if there is such a thing in the Deathwatch line)!

Really happy with how the kill team turned out as a whole, while I was initially down on the mono-build nature of the models, I have to say they really are quite cool sculpts. Each one really has their own character to a degree that you really can't capture with the build-yer-own Veteran kit!

 

Couple closeups of the two characters, Chaplain Cassius and Librarian Natorian. After trying out the effect on the wings of the assault squad sergeant, I thought I'd try it again to represent the psychic witchery on the Librarian. I think it works a little better than the more dark jade/neon green method I'd been using previously - gives the weapon a bit more of an ethereal look.

 

The terminator was a fun model, lots of fire and scales, reds and oranges. Rather enjoyed how the brazier turned out!

 

The biker is one of my favorite models of the set, Suberei really has a great sense of motion and a ton of cool little details. I was listening to the audiobook of Scars while painting these and I started to get a little twinge to do some White Scars on the Heresy side. Must... Resist...

Next up is finishing up the last few models in Watch Force Artemis, with a couple more characters - Artemis himself and, just in time for Dreadtober, Brother Nihilus! I'm also hearing rumours of further Genestealer Cult codexes and models on the horizon - there's still a whole set of cultists on sprues in the Closet of Doom, could be there's another army on the horizon while I await the upcoming Prospero book and box set!

40k Deathwatch - Armies On Parade challenge begins

I threw my hat in the ring at the local shop to work up an entry for the Armies On Parade thing going on in mid-October. Since I am already hip-deep in Deathwatch it seemed the obvious choice! I'm still kicking around ideas for the board, but first things first of course and that means figuring out an army to parade!

Fired up the cogitator and penciled together a 2500 point force that includes the two 'named' kill teams from Overkill and Death Masque, a small assault force of veterans and a Librarian in the Corvus, and an Ordo Xenos Inquisitor and her henchmen rolling in the Inquisitorial/Deathwatch Land Raider (as they share a lot of iconography). Best part is, a good chunk of it is already in various stages of being painted!

Once I got a list together I pulled out the relevant models to see how much room they'll take up on the board and start thinking about layouts. Pleased to see it's just about half-painted already as well!

Rather than start any models from the beginning I figured I'd better keep the momentum going on the infantry already in progress, and over the last couple evenings have been laying in more colors on the remaining character models. So far so good, rather happy with how Chaplain Cassius's face is coming along. All in all still enjoying the project, and having a deadline to work towards really helps me focus on getting a little more done each day!

40k Deathwatch - Squad Crull and Squad Donatus complete!

While I had the painting servitor subroutines running, I finished up the two Veteran squads that came in Overkill and Death Masque. They were a fair way towards the finish line already, but even so it was a good three or four hour session to pick out all the little details and go back to catch the little stuff I'd missed on them in the abortive batch painting process.

First up is Squad Crull, using the new Deathwatch kill team sprues. I think these are some of the best sprues GW has come out with, definitely the kitbasher's dream with all the bits! I was forced to arm them as shown in order to use them as part of the 'official' kill team, and while they certainly look neat it strikes me as a bit of an awkward array of armaments for tabletop play. Definitely looking forward to building a few more kill teams armed a bit more sensibly.

I was pretty pleased with how Sergeant Crull's Xenophase Blade turned out, it's a fun bit of kit and shows some good ol' Imperial hypocrisy. I'm planning on carrying that idea through and do a Radical Ordo Xenos Inquisitor with some further Xenotech and perhaps a Jokaero to accompany the Deathwatch force. Should be fun!

Next up is Squad Donatus, the Veteran squad that is part of Kill Team Cassius. These models also suffer somewhat from the scattershot armaments coupled with the mono-pose nature of the Overkill models. That said, for what they are they definitely were a blast to build and paint - they exude a bespoke sense of character that is a little hard to capture with the multi-pose models.

Next up are the characters and specialist models from the two Kill Teams, then on to the vehicles!