Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Assault Squad Mekhata built!

Got a little bit of build time in today and managed to get Assault Squad Mekhata put together and prepped for primer. At the moment assault squads are ruinously expensive points-wise but there are pretty solid indications that we're going to see a points drop in the upcoming release of the heresy legions 'red book'. That said, for the first 10 models of the squad I decided to keep 'em as cheap as possible - depending on how the points drop goes I may add a further 10 and include some power weapons in the mix.

Definitely dig the Achean upgrade kit, these heads are what I have been wanting for the army - the MaxMini Steam Knight heads I've used on the tac marines work well, but these are just better. The next challenge was how to denote that Sergeant Mekhata is wearing artificer armour and help him stand out from the rest of the unit (besides a fancy helmet). Hard to go wrong with wings, right?

  

FLASH! Aaaah Aaaah! Let's be honest, I'm going to sing that in my head every time I pick this model up. Found a box of Sanguinary Guard lurking in the Closet of Doom and pinched a set of wings from there, as they're perfectly suited to this style of jump pack. Not sure if I'm going to try to paint them up as mechanical additions to the pack, or as a psychic manifestation in ghostly blue/green. Thoughts?

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Reinforcements Arrive!

A box o' joy arrived from Forge World yesterday evening containing a number of new goodies for the ever-changing Thousand Sons! I got everything into a soapy soak overnight and got it rinsed off and laid out to dry this afternoon. Everything was present and accounted for, and I once again have to note how much more professional the packing and quality checks have been in the last few orders. Excellent stuff.

The loot includes a 10-man assault squad with the Achean upgrade kit, a mk.IV character set for conversion fodder, and a pair of the rather excellent new Thousand Sons Contemptors because how could I not? Of course, I couldn't help but jump right in and build something!

  

The plan at the moment is only to take one of the Contemptors to NOVA so that one gets built first - my personal favorite, a Contemptor Mortis with a pair of Kheres Assault Cannons. This will provide a modicum of anti-air support and is always good at mowing down squads of marines. I always love how much dynamism one can get out of the FW Contemptor kit, and while I do have plans for the ol' "Charging into melee" pose for the second one I thought a more solidly-planted pose would be suitable for the gunslinger. Rather pleased with how the pose turned out and I'm really looking forward to painting him up!

40k Harlequins - Tricolor shenanigans!

Managed to get some more brush time in yesterday, and started blocking in the green and purple sections on the Troupe and Starweaver. Starting to come together nicely now!

Still need to brighten up the purple a bit, but I'm pretty happy with the contrast between the green and yellow. Once the base colors are laid in, the next step will be to go back in and add stripes, checks and polka dots for full clownishness!

Rather happy with how the Starweaver is coming along as well, it's a rather cool model with the riders hanging on. That all said, this paint scheme is surprisingly slow compared to my usual batch painting cadence. Probably taken as long to get this far on these models as it had to bring all the recent Orks to completion!

40k Harlequins - Choosing a color scheme

Got some decent hobby time in last night after it had cooled off a bit and started off by putting together the Starweaver transport for the troupe - First time assembling this kit and it was a bit of a fraught affair! I think I got the measure of it though, so the upcoming Voidweaver should go together a bit easier. Hoping to keep the painting simple I left the two passengers separate, but getting them posed properly was certainly a struggle!

On the last go around with the killer clowns I'd gone for the full chromatic assault on the senses, which was fun but exhausting both to paint and to look at afterwards - it was almost TOO busy. This time I thought I'd be a little more restrained and pick 3-4 colors - Garish though they may be! Decided to go with Mardi Gras-esque colors for the initial Troupe and Starweaver, and started laying in the yellow on various areas, and trying to envision where the subsequent purples and greens will go.

Falling back on the recipe that I'd used on the Imperial Fists which is a bit more of a mustard yellow than the canary brightness of the recent Orks. Depending on how it ends up contrasting with the upcoming purple and green, that gives me some room to brighten up the yellow if needed.

 

For the Starweaver, I'm intending to to half yellow, and half green-and-purple diamonds. Should look neat I hope, but to start it was just a matter of laying down some painter's tape to get a nice crisp line. The passengers are just sitting in place for the photo, really happy with how it's coming along!

40k Harlequins - Cegorach's Jest

What with all this Ork business of late, it's got me thinking that it might be fun to do an army of Xenos filth again. I wanted to do something very colorful, and when it gets right down to it there's no force more colorful than the Harlequins! Poked around in the codex and picked out a Formation to do as a little side project - Cegorach's Jest.

It's a compact little force that includes a bit of each unit type in the Harlequin book aside from the 3 characters, so should be just a little bite-sized project. I do plan to add a couple more Skyweavers to the force, as 2 jetbikes do not a viable unit make in my estimation (but the local shop only had one box in stock)...

Started off by building up the Troupe. The models are actually somewhat awkward to photograph - they have a beautiful dynamism in-hand, but somehow always seem to look silly in the pictures. I had built this kit once before so I knew what I was in for, however I have never built the Skyweavers or Starweaver kits previously, so that should be an adventure! Definitely have to be cognizant of building the models in separate pieces to facilitate subsequent painting...

NOCF Charity Ork Army - The penultimate session!

Real Life(tm) continues to be heinous to my schedule of late, so while the following pics were taken back on Saturday I'm only just now able to get them posted up on the ol' blog. That said, Da Boyz are 99% complete!

I say 99% as it's inevitable that during the sealant step that I identify some step of the process that I've completely overlooked until then. In this case, I missed out on painting the tongues on all of the Orks with open mouths. Doh!

That final cleanup notwithstanding the units are complete and I am really happy with 'em. It was an absolute blast to paint some Orks again after so long and was really refreshing to use the strong greens and yellows - colors rather underutilized in my other recent projects! I'm planning on getting them touched up and boxed up to send over to the rally point for the army later this week, and then it's time to dive back into the Heresy - got a Box o' Resin Joy heading my way from Forge World with some new Thousand Sons goodies to add to the force, can't wait!

NOCF Charity Ork Army - Allmost... Alllllllmost...

Oh so very close to the finish line now! Over the last few days I've been doing battle with the house refinance so that's eaten up some time, but I did manage to finish off the detailing on Da Boyz!

Got all the black flames done, added in the copper jewelry and bullet casings, and got the spot colors laid in on the Rokkit Boyz. Also went back and picked out all the little teef and leather I'd missed here and there one the way through the lot. Phew!

Next up is a little further work on the Rokkits, then on to the bases - hurtling towards the end!

In other NOCF news:
-Zab has started laying in the base shading on some Ad Mech goodness!
-Greg has started working on the Grots and pressed on with the Deff Dredd (which is shaping up to be a corker)!
-Celso has done a frankly astonishing job on a battlewagon for the force as well!

More to come!