Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Remembrancers painting begins

As I'd mentioned earlier, I had it in my head to add the four main remembrancers mentioned in A Thousand Sons to the army (which is intended to be set during the Defense of Tizca). So that meant a rummage through the Closet of Doom to pull out the "oh, that's an interesting miniature, I'm sure I'll use it for an NPC someday" boxes and came up with a couple minis that I think will work for Camille Shivani, Kallista Eris and Mahavastu Kallimakus to accompany the Lemuel Gaumon fig I'd mentioned earlier, and got a little paint on 'em after work over the last couple days:

Still a ways to go of course, and I'm not completely pleased with how the faces have turned out so far, partially they look bad being blown up to 700% normal size I suppose. Still, not as smooth as I'd hoped. For Lemuel, a portly guy in a fez seemed to be just the thing, looking appropriately shell-shocked as he is in numerous occasions throughout the book. Camille is a Chronoscope model, a little cheesecake-y with the bare midriff but I like the sci-fi archaeologist look overall. I'm working on giving her a spireguard's coat just to help her fit in with the army aesthetic. For Kallista I chose a more ephemeral-looking model (though I don't recall who makes it, likely another chronoscope model). Lastly, on Frothing Muppet's advice I managed to unearth an old Witch Hunter henchman in a scrivener harness to use as Mahavastu Kallimakus.

Quite enjoying the minor diversion and chance to use some colors that haven't been in rotation for quite some time! Overall I'm pretty pleased with how they're coming along - still no idea what I'll use them for (likely as wound or status effect markers), but sometimes when a hobby idea enters one's mind it's hard to set aside until its done!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - King Russ tanks nearly complete!

In between doing chores over the weekend I went back and made the side doors on the two vanilla tanks bone, which I think works pretty well. Also got all the gold on, including (with no hint of exaggeration) over 1500 rivets. Counted when I was doing the last one, 518 rivets per tank! Oof.

Now to decide what I want to do for unit markings. Providentially, the Prosperine Spireguard regiment present at the defense of Tizca were the 15th Prosperine Assault Infantry, so the "XV" also works for them (mirroring the 15th Legion markings I've done so far on the Thousand Sons). Once that's in place I can then go in and start the weathering process - I plan to do all of the Ksons and Spireguard tanks at the same time (which appeals to my batch-painterly predisposition), so that it has some consistency across the army. In the home stretch now!

In the background you can just make out the primed model I'm going to use to represent Lemuel Gaumon, one of the remembrancers mentioned in A Thousand Sons. I'm also planning on working up models for Kallista Eris, Camille Shivani and Mahavastu Kallimakus, to be used as wound markers or status markers for the army. Still sourcing interesting-looking models to use for the latter however...

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - King Russ tanks painting continues...

Got a little brush time in today - got the bone color laid in. Decided to give the command tank a reversed side panel scheme - Thinking I might do the two 'regular' tanks side doors in bone, now that I'm looking at 'em.

Got the tank commander more or less complete, pretty happy with how he turned out.

Moving right along now! Have a free day tomorrow, hoping to get them finished up this weekend!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - King Russ scale shots

Pressed on with the tanks a bit more yesterday - got up early in the morning and got the reds all finished, which involved a thorough wash that I'd left to dry while I was at work. When I got home it was cool enough in the hobby loft to get the boltgun metal sections painted and washed as well:

I also dragged out some of the Mordian 7th's tanks to take some scale shots. It's quite a bit bigger than a Leman Russ:

  

 

...But significantly smaller than a Macharius:

  

 

While it's not as long as a Malcador, it's a bit wider and taller. That one actually surprised me when I laid them out next to each other. In my mind the Malcador was quite a bit bigger than the King Russ.

  

 

So far, so good! The heavy lifting phase is out of the way, now it's time to start the detailing. ...And the rivets.

Oh god, the rivets...

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - King Russ painting begins!

Got the tanks all kitted out last night, and since It was a beautiful day out while I was home over lunch yesterday I got the Vanquishers primed. After work I got the very first red basecoat on as well! ...There is also now red basecoat all over my hands, the desk and what has suddenly become exclusively a painting shirt (covered in liiiiiitle red spots). Whoops!

Easy peasy, Vallejo Dark Flesh scrumbled on with a gnarly old tank brush. Next up will be the red gore/blood red highlighting and wash stages, which I'm sure are also going to prove to be very, very messy procedures!

I wanted to go with a somewhat whimsical tank commander for such a squadron of solid, destructive machinery, so I used some arms and head from the Victoria Miniatures heavy weapons team set. Going to be interesting to paint, that zippo is TINY!

The squadron weighs in at 552 points using the current Astra Militarum ruleset (or 622 if I'm feeling dirty and field them as Pask and an HQ squadron). To justify this heavy variant of the vehicle I'm calling it 'mandatory' that they take Extra Armour (of course) and pay the points for the Dozer Blade upgrade (re-roll difficult terrain) to represent their sheer weight smashing through the battlefield rubble. Even leaving off the side sponsons, once I add on the hull Lascannon and the hunter killer missile (because I love 'em), the 'base' King Russ is 200 points (a bit more for the commander's Augur array and some searchlights). Seems about right, I think. I need to snap a scale shot, let's just say I won't be accused of modeling for advantage when it comes to declaring cover saves!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Prospero Spireguard King Russ Vanquishers Assembly begins!

After a good couple hours with a Dremel sanding down all the casting gates and resin blocks, creating drifting piles of resin dust and undoubtedly reducing my life expectancy by a good few months (a respirator is a must for this sort of work), it was finally time to set to work building them! These tanks have always been a bit of a bear to assemble, as is generally the case with garage-quality kits, but with the purchase of an electric kettle a while back this time around it was (reasonably) simple to get everything straightened and bent into shape!

The front track guards ended up a little wonky on two of them, but all in all I'm reasonably happy with 'em. Now it's just a matter of rooting through the Closet of Doom for all the appropriate detail bits, hatches and whatnot to finish them off! In game they will be treated as Leman Russ Vanquishers, with extra armour (natch) and the Massive custom rule - due to their size they re-roll failed difficult terrain checks (essentially paying the points for a dozer blade, though they don't have one modeled). I'm planning on building a tank commander to match the rest of the Spireguard aesthetic for one of them - I'm really looking forward to getting some paint on 'em soon!

Adeptus Mechanicus - House Krast Knight Paladins Painted

Pressed on over the weekend and got the waterslide transfers and some weathering onto the two Knight Paladins!

 

 

I envisioned the two paladins as being a pair of trusted retainers for the Baron (for which I intend to use one of FW's upcoming Knight Castigator). I rooted around through the big box o' transfers and found a few old Epic Titan Legion and Brettonian sheets that had some useful icons, and paired those with some of the transfers from the Knight kit itself. Once those were on I started sponging in the battle damage here and there, though I tried to keep it relatively light overall.

 

No battle damage on the rear of the Knights though - they always face their foes! Overall I'm quite pleased with the kit, though I wish it had a bit more native posability out of the box like the Eldar Wraithknight did. Nevertheless, I think the two of them have a sufficient difference in their posing to make them seem individualized.

In other news I busted out the Dremel and the respirator and set to sanding off all the huge casting gates from the King Russ tanks, as I feel I've painted enough stuff of late to warrant rewarding myself with some build time! Once all the parts are sanded, they go back for another soak and rinse and after they dry it'l be time to start the assembly process - woo hoo!