Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Damocles Command Rhino off the showroom floor, and dabbling with Deathwatch.

Not a huge amount of hobby time over the last week, though I did manage to get the Damocles painted up to the initial sealant stage prior to the application of waterslides and weathering. Almost to the finish line!

 

Tried to downplay the aquilas a little as broadly speaking they were vary rarely worn during the heresy, but I figured on the command tank it's not totally out of place. Tons of little rivets of course - I shudder to think how many rivets I've painted for this army already and weep to think how many more remain to be done!

In what is an entirely different kind of heresy, I picked up the new Death Masque box set and the Deathwatch codex. Before tearing into the new models I wanted to do a few test models, so I built up a trio of Space Wolf terminators (as I intend 3 5-man terminator squads) - if I muff the paint scheme it'll be okay, it's just some Space Wolves. Haha!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Damocles Command Rhino and Techmarine, and some GenCon goodies!

Apologies for the radio silence of late, but I've been on vacation for the last week out in Indiana attending GenCon! A fantastic time was had, and there's a few pics below. First up however are some pics of a few models I'd been working on here and there over the days leading up to the trip and a little bit today.

 

AS is usually the case I keep fiddling with army lists for NOVA and had a thought to include a Damocles Command Rhino to the force, which would allow for more deep strike accuracy for the assault squads, and the occasions where I can pull off the roll on the Warlord Traits table where I can designate the terminators with deep strike. I knew I wanted to use the Warhammer World exclusive command rhino, and spent a little time cutting up a Deimos rhino kit from Forge World to give it that Heresy vibe.

As a unit to pop in the Damocles, I put together a Techmarine and a unit of Servo-Automata, pretty straightforward headswap for this guy, though I'm scheming on a more ornate Forge Lord for the near future!

While I was out at GenCon we mostly spent our time playing Shadowrun and enjoying delicious meals and probably a few too many cocktails. I was able to swing by the Forge World booth though, and to the great relief of my wallet there wasn't really much that I needed to buy to supplement the Thousand Sons - With the book's release imminent I'm sort of holding off on buying new kits until I can see the army list and new models. That said, I did pick up a couple of the Event Only models - The Traitor Terminator Librarian, and the Cataphractii Terminator Praetor with a Thunder Hammer and Combi-Volkite. The Librarian is a bit too World-Eater-y to use for the Thousand Sons, but he'll be squirreled away for a rainy day!

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!