The Knights of the Order of Thanatos

Yet again I have to introduce a post after such a long hiatus from the blog.  It's been quite a while since I have updated this blog with the idea of re-shooting my model collection.  That has not happened, but I have not been idle.  As I mentioned back then I did repaint my Baneblade, Zeal, though I failed to take any pictures until today.  In the meantime the release of the Imperial Knight kit by Games Workshop really got me fired up and into painting mode.  My friend Kevin and I immediately decided to order some of them and I would paint them to match.  We've always wanted to start a Titan Legion, but have never spent the cash, so this was a pretty awesome second chance.  We each ordered a Knight and I also ordered a Dreamforge Leviathan, not knowing it would be far too large to join our Knightly Order and will instead he the founding member of a Titan Legion.  In exchange for painting his Knight, Kevin paid for some of my order and also got the expanded decal set.  Three months later and I have finally kept up my end of the bargain and finished the Knights.  Not for lack of effort though as April was the only month I really did not work on them.  But we are going to have an Apocalypse game soon and I really wanted to have them done for that, even if they will be on opposite sides of the conflict.

Without anymore senseless blather, here they are, face to face, ready to fight.

The Imperial Knight is a really fantastic kit and a dream to build and paint.  The only thing I would ask for is a bit more freedom in the legs.

More after the break.

Battlefleet Gothic: New Table & Game Report

First up are a few close ups of some celestial bodies which I airbrushed onto my groups new space board.  It's made out of an 8x4 hardboard sheet cut in half.  Spray painted it black, added a bunch of stars and stuff then sealed it with gloss clearcoat.  It does tend to make it reflect the flourescant lights a lot, but it makes the black look so much darker.

First up is a nebula I painted from some images on the internet and it was dubbed by Kevin as the Blue Rose Nebula.

MURDER: INITIATE!

I don't really care for Ogyrns, I mean sure they endearingly stupid and naive but they're abhumans.  So, here's my solution so that I can use Ogyrns in my army; Mechanicus constructed Murder Servitors.  They're big, they're mean, they have guns for hands.  I built these guys a while back (over a year ago I think) and I finally got around to painting them thanks to an ongoing challenge.  My friend Kevin and I have agreed to paint 1 unit a week for the foreseeable future, barring and sickness or vacations.  If one of us fails to complete something in a given week, then we owe the other $20.  The first week I painted my Recon Grenadiers and he finished his Cygnar Stormwall.  Last week he painted his Mordhiem Warband and I started these guys.  I did not get too much done and wound up owing him 20 bucks.  This week I spent 4 nights working on these guys and finished them!

Here they are ready to murder your troops!

All that skin and muscle detail is the reason they took so long, I will say that I would never want to paint an Ogre army...

That's it for now, next week I am going to try and paint my rebuilt Mordhiem warband.  Last time I used Empre State Troops. I wanted a grittier look so I have remade them using Empire Militia and Empire Greatswords.  I am very pleased with how they turned out.

Stay tuned!

Leman Russ: Judgement

Just finished painting the lead tank for my Armor Company and Armor Squadron 1.  The tank is called Judgement and it is commanded by Commissar Constantin Braun.  As this is a command tank it has some upgraded sensors and equipment, since it's the company leader I also gave it the GW command upgrade auspex/comms package.  Went about painting this tank in much the same way as my last Leman Russ Tough Bastard and every piece of armor since then.  A simple grey base followed by scratching, damage, and weathering.  It has the commander stripe with the roman numeral I for the squadron number.  Since it's commanded by a commissar it's also got the red and black stripe design on the side.

Here's a front view of the tank, there is a small medallion on the lower left and the name is below the turret on the flat of the hull.

The commander is the Forge World model and is a very nice sculpt.  He took some time to paint as there are a fair number of details to him.  In this picture you can see that I made the heavy stubber as a coaxial weapon as seen on many of the FW turrets.  I made that with a few small brass tubes.

I put about how much stowage as I usually do and of course my ridiculous whip antennas.  There are also purity seals and the like denoting the honors of the vehicle and strength of its machine spirit.  I did not add any mottos to this tank as it's got a commissar as a commander.  So, the only writing I have done is the name and the kill tally on the barrel.  It's a pretty high tally as this guy is supposed to be a company commander and should be pretty good at his job.  I will perhaps use him as Knight Commander Pask from time to time.

I generally apply much more pigment to the bottom of the hull than to to upper portion.  I will have it so that it rests on the edges of the track axel mounts and then lightly brush it up from there to slightly powder the top of the hull as well.  The top of the tank and turret get a little more in spots and streaks.  Where there are bullet marks and hit damage I add some black pigment.  I also add powder residue to the muzzle break because it looks cooler that way even though it's not all to realistic.  I use mig productions pigments, but you can use any brand you like.  I still have the same jars I bought in 2009 and will have them for several more years before they are gone.  They are ground extremely fine and cover and stay adhered very well, even with wargaming use.  I cannot speak for other brands as I have never used them, but Mig get my support.

Finally, a shot of 1st and 2nd squadron lead tanks together. Can't wait to have all 3 squadrons painted up.  3rd squadron will feature the Destroyer Tank Hunter as leader with 2 FW turret Vanquishers to form a tank hunting squadron.  1st and 2nd Squadrons are a mix of the new and old Battle Tank and Demolisher Kits a few of which have several main gun options modeled.  I can field at least 1 of any variant.

That's it for now, not sure what I am going to be working on next, I am currently waiting on some horses to use to make Rough Riders.  I may begin that project next week.  Comments and critique are appreciated, thanks for stopping by.

New table, new terrain! [Part 7]

Another week, another post.  This time, more terrain for our new gaming table.  First up we have the 2 ponds which I started a while ago and finished about a week and a half ago.  Really like how they came out and how they look.  The most time consuming part was the tufts of tall grass each needing to be drilled, then rolled and glued into place.  Each has 3 little plasticard fish hiding around the weeds or grass.  Finished it off with some printed, laser-cut lily pads.

Here's a shot of pond 1.

And here is pond 2.  The resin really works well for water effects.

This Sunday we made it over to Kevin's for a game night finally.  While my brother fought his necrons against  Chris' Tau/Eldar alliance I painted up some more terrain.  First we have a building from Pegasus.  Lots of grays dry brushed on here.  A nice checkerboard floor too.

Here's a view of the outside, which has a little Chaos graffiti.

Here's the next building I painted, one from the cities of death sets.  Lots of details to pick out on these and it took a while to finish.  There will be a tree in that small square once I get one for it.

Here's the inside.

Finally I dry brushed all of the foam terrain here was left to paint.  There were 2 small ruin pieces, the large ruin, and 3 urban wreak markers.

That's all for this now, working on a Leman Russ at the moment so you can expect that in the next few days. As always comments and critique are highly appreciated.

Commissar Sebastian Yarrick

So, I had my third battle report from last weekend's event all set and ready to publish when blogger had a derp and decided to kill it.  So instead of spending an hour rewriting that I'm going to do a quick post on a model I painted today, you may have guessed who it was from the title.  It's Commissar Yarrick!

This is the first Special Character I have painted for my Imperial Guard army.  It's also the first Finecast model I dealt with, though I have a few more waiting for paint.  I really like this model and really liked painting it.  I'd say I probably spent about 4-5 hours painting him today.  Really like the way he came out, but really not that glad with the way the photos came out.  I think it's about time to get a new camera.  I may try and take some better pictures tomorrow.