Adeptus Mechanicus - Knight Errant painted, and BlightWheel order arrives!

It is (more or less) done! The Knight Errant "Ignis Rex" is now ready for the tabletop! The heavy lifting was all done last update, all that remained was the shading and highlighting, and the various decorative bits.

 

I went with a scheme reminiscent of the previous Knight Paladin, though in blue rather than green (allowing for the green to be used for the power cables/power fist). The main colors being red and gold will help tie it in with the rest of the Ad-Mech army nicely as well.

 

In retrospect, I wish I had thought to model a footprint where the left foot is coming off the ground. Never fails that some bit of inspiration will strike long after it being too late to incorporate. Curses!

 

I used some rather old water-slide transfers that I've had lurking around rather than try and paint a rearing griffon with my sausage fingers. Overall the white transfer over the blue worked well, but the carrier film had yellowed somewhat on the transfer I used on the white power fist. I tried to paint over the worst of it to help blend it in, but there's still a bit around the edges. It's not as noticeable in real life as the picture makes it seem though. I do want to go back in and clean up the name on the scroll, it's a little sloppy. Overall however, I'm well pleased with how the Knight Errant turned out!

 

On Friday the order I'd made from Blight Wheel miniatures arrived and I set to cleaning them up, so I snapped a couple pictures of the pieces before I started assembly. Overall I'm rather pleased - very crisp casts, and they definitely capture the Ad-Mech feel rather well. My plan is to do one loyalist and one traitor Magos - the one on the left will become my loyalist magos, and will be getting a Servo-Harness, and be toting a Conversion Beamer and Omnissian Axe. The model on the right is going to be used as Urtzi Malevolus, the Despoiler of Mars - the picture below is from the Visions of Heresy book, and it's a pretty darn close match!

Now if it would only stop being 100 degrees every darn day. Paints drying up and my wet palate needs to be topped off every couple hours while working up in the hobby loft. Oof!

Imperial Guard - Leman Russ Vanquisher painted

Continuing the work on the Mordian 7th Regiment this week with one of my favorite tanks available to the Imperial Guard, the Leman Russ Vanquisher. This was another model that I'd half-finished a while ago but ended up sitting on a shelf while I worked on other projects, so it was a simple matter to polish it off!

Continuing with the black with red accents scheme, I was pretty pleased with the look of the turret. The yellow and green on the lascannon and the black and yellow hazard stripes give the tank a bit of spot color, as it's otherwise rather dark.

I added some purity seals, some minor stowage and some scrolls to the tank to give it a little flair, and painted in the jagged knife emblem along with a blood drop. Now that it's sealed I'm thinking I'm going to add one of the "Mordian" transfers from the imperial vehicles sheet to the armor plate on one side of the turret, and paint a scroll onto the other for the tank name (not sure what the name will be as yet). Not much left to paint for the guard now!

In other news, a bunch of my current eBay auctions are ending this evening...

Adeptus Mechanicus - Knight Errant painting in progress

A bit more forward motion on the Knight Errant over the last few days - been blocking in the main colors. I decided on a similar paint scheme to the Knight Paladin I did several years back, swapping the green for blue instead but otherwise keeping much the same pattern of quartered panels.

 

At the moment all the colors still need to be shaded and highlighted, and there's a lot of detail work yet to add. I'm planning on using some white rampant griffon transfers on the upper left quadrant of the shoulder and shin plates, and a larger blue griffon and some scroll-work on the back of the power fist.

 

Overall I'm quite pleased with how it's coming along - I'm always surprised how quickly large models like this paint up. Definitely looking forward to finishing it off, it'll be a nice centerpiece for the upcoming Ad-Mech army I'm working on behind the scenes!

Imperial Guard - Heavy Weapon Teams and Sentinels painted

Still banging on with the Dark Future weekly painting challenge, which has been keeping me motivated to put brush to miniature! This past week I've been chipping away at the Guard once again, with two trios of heavy weapon teams (my entry for this weeks' contest) and a pair of Sentinels.

The first trio are armed with vehicle-busting Lascannons, and are usually tucked away inside some building overlooking the battlefield. Coupled with the various orders available to them such as "Bring it down!" and "Fire on my target!" they can be rather nasty!

The second trio are the Missile Launcher teams that will more often than not be attached to the three infantry squads of 1st platoon. I'm a big fan of their ability to fire Frag or Krak missiles depending on the situation, and I'm looking forward to finding out how the Flakk missiles will work into the army lists.

 

While I was rooting around in the box of Cadian bits looking for arms for use on the Hypaspists for the upcoming Ad-Mech army, I ran across a pair of Sentinel sprues and knocked them together. The original Mordian 7th army included a pair of Sentinels armed with Assault Cannons, and I'm rather bummed that's no longer an option. Instead I went with Plasma Cannons, as for the most part the Guard don't get many opportunities to take them. Of course, I'm sure they'll melt down into steaming pools of metal on turn one every game!

In keeping with the black with red trim theme, the sentinels really ended up looking rather ominous. I couldn't come up with a knife design that I was happy with for their army badge, so I went with a jagged tooth pattern instead - reminiscent of an upper and lower jaw to tie the two models together thematically. I'm quite happy with the sense of motion the new kits allow, the legs are very posable!

Next up on deck for the guard is the Leman Russ Vanquisher and the command squad's Chimera, and I'm in the middle of painting the Knight Errant as well. Pics to follow soon!

Adeptus Mechanicus - Knight Errant built

My plans for the hobby have been altered fairly dramatically of late, with the World Eaters army project coming to a premature halt. Nevertheless, my enthusiasm for the hobby continues unabated! After doing a mess of Thousand Sons and more recently a mess of World Eaters, I have to admit I'm a bit ambivalent about painting any more marines in the near term. The fact that I'm forced to pillage my hobby fund account to help offset the IRS bill means that I'm not buying much in the near future either. So, into the depths of the Closet of Doom for project fodder I went and my eye fell on a couple boxes marked "Ad-Mech Bits"...

The continually amazing Ulfhedin and company over at the Tempus Fugitives forums have been hard at work updating the various codexes they've done for the Age of the Emperor events. Most recent of which has been a massive update to the Cult Mechanicus codex, which I've rather enjoyed reading and has gotten me fired up to work on the cogboys for a while!

At the moment I'm still pawing through the bits boxes sorting out what's going to be used on what models/vehicles, but one bag in particular stood out. Several years back I'd worked on a pair of Knight Paladins from two different sculptors. The one done by BigDaddy (now of Blight Wheel Miniatures) was by far my favorite, and at the time I'd also purchased a Knight Errant from him. However it has just sat in a box in the Closet of Doom for the past two and a half years. But no longer!

 

The Knight Errant is designed as a close-range mauler with its power fist and Thermic Cannon. In the context of the Tempus Fugitives rule set, it's treated as a Walker with 4 hull points and armor of 14/13/12 (with a few various special rules) and runs about 265 points as shown here. In previous incarnations it was treated as a Superheavy, but at this point it's more of a large vehicle. It's far less resilient than it was in the previous TF codex, but far more reasonable for normal play.

 

The kit was a joy to assemble, with multiple hinges and joints which allow for some dynamic posing. I tried to give it a real sense of motion as it strides across the battlefield, and I'm really looking forward to painting it! I'm bummed that I didn't pick up a few more of these when they were available, but unfortunately due to rampant re-casting and people trying to profit off his hard work, BigDaddy discontinued production of these years ago. Nevertheless, his sculpting talents are being put to excellent use over at Blight Wheel Miniatures, and while the range is limited, it's definitely worth looking through their store!

Imperial Guard - Manticore painted

Ah artillery, one of my favorite things about the Imperial Guard. One of the most potent is the Manticore - once relegated to the Epic line, it (and the Deathstrike) got a plastic kit a little while back. I'd picked one up and half painted it before haring off to work on something shiny and it's sat forlorn on a shelf since then.

 

But no longer! Finally took the time to finish it off - after dusting it off, of course! The background fluff for the Mordian 7th suggests their colors are predominantly black with red trim (echoing their company motto "In the dark, blood will flow"), so I've gone that route on their vehicles as well. Unlike many Mordian regiments, the 7th was drawn exclusively from the Night Rippers hive gang and many gang emblems worked their way into the company heraldry. Most common of which is the jagged knife as shown here, and sometimes takes the form of a simple geometric black-over-red shark tooth pattern as well.

 

The Manticore is certainly fearsome on paper, though I'll admit it's been somewhat less than amazing on the tabletop for me thus far. Granted I've only fielded it a handful of times, so more experience with it is needed. Now that it's painted it'll be far more likely to be added to an army list, as well!

Blatant Advertising - eBay auctions

Well it's been an... interesting week, and a significant unexpected expense has got me scrambling to come up with some extra funds. Unfortunately, what this mean is a number of miniatures and whatnot are having to go up on the auction block much earlier than planned. Not what I'd hoped to be doing with them, but needs must when the IRS devil drives I suppose...

Link to current auctions

Mostly World Eaters at the moment, plus the Iron Hands bikers, the Warhound Titan and a replica Bolt Pistol. There will likely be more going up over the next couple weeks while I dredge through the Closet of Doom for other odds and bobs that I can bear to part with...

...Argh.