Furioso Dreadnought

It’s been awhile, but I did manage to put together some more models and even more, managed to paint one of them!  Behold, my first vehicle, err, walker?  The arms are solid enough I didn’t need to magnetize them, but the torso and the legs are magnetized together.  Fairly strong, enough to hold them together.  First of many Dreadnoughts, or even vehicles for that matter..  I’ve still got 4 Vindicators, 2 Land Raiders, 2 Baal Predators, 3 Dreadnoughts, 2 Drop Pods and 2 Storm Ravens sitting in boxes…

Oh well, Summer is almost here, that’s when I do most of my building (Winter is colder obviously, and that’s when I do all of my painting)  However, I do have a tournament I intend of attending in Vancouver, Washington at the end of August to which I needed to add this Dreadnought and a Drop Pod to the list.  The Drop Pod is a work in progress (currently in the assembly stage) but I am glad to call this officially finished, so that I may start playing L.A. Noire as my reward.

Sanguinary Guard

One one my favourite models, hands down.  Games Workshop out-did themselves with these babies!  They were simple and easy to put together, but painting them was another thing..   Just to get the gold to look the way I liked it took forever and many, many layers.  I started with a white primer, then a layer of thin Bubonic Brown, then another thin layer of Bubonic Brown.  The reason was that the brown was already a thin paint to begin with and you could see the white primer and any paint brush strokes if it was applied too thin.  After I’m satisfied with the brown I moved on to gold, applying a thin layer of Shining Gold over the brown and then (you guessed it) another layer of Shining Gold.  Like the brown, the gold too was thin enough to see the brown beneath and any brush strokes from the brown and/or gold.  After the whole model was to my satisfaction I used Devlan Mud to wash it.  The wash took out the shine and gave the armour life.  However, I wanted it to be shiny still so I added another thin layer of Shining Gold, but this time only one layer; I actually wanted to see the layer beneath.

 

 

Vanguard

I had a 5 man squad of Vanguard in my Ultramarines at one point, but I noticed that although their special rule of being allowed to assault after deep striking is great, it often got them killed.  They’d deep strike in, assault a weak point in the enemy lines and win combat…   but then have the whole army turn around and blow them away because the rest of my army was across the table, unable to support them.

With an all deep striking army, that is no longer the case (for the most part).  Most of my army seems to come in all at the same time, so this unit really shines.  Most vehicles are taken care of with a good Infernus Pistol shot, however, every once and awhile there’s that Devastator squad with 4 Plasma Cannons that my shooting just won’t deal with, so I send in the Vanguard and assault them.  Either I wipe them out or I tie them up, either way they’re not shooting at me next turn while I’m all in my nice blast template vulnerable deployment.

The original models in my Ultramarines I sold, but bought new ones for this army.  Which is alright because I had already assembled and primed the old ones black.  These ones I assembled with some chopping up and replacing of Blood Angels pieces plus the Sanguinary Guard wings.

Assault Marine Squads

Since my Ultramarines are based on 10 man Tactical Squads that combat squad into two 5 man squads, one deploying with the heavy weapon for long range support and the other deploying in a Razorback to rush to the front, this army had to be different.  I love that Blood Angels vehicles are Fast, however, I didn’t want the same army but with a different colour scheme.  So, I based this army off of a deep striking from the sky theme, something I don’t like doing in my Ultramarines and in fact, don’t like Assault Marines very much at all.

Again, I magnetized the jump packs, in case I want to transport them in vehicles (why, I don’t know) and I went with two Infernus Pistols for armoured vehicles and one Flamer for any hordes I might have to deal with.  The yellow was fun to paint and makes me wish I had built that Imperial Fists army rather than Ultramarines.

The Honour Guard

There used to be a Blood Angels Honour Guard boxed set, way back in the day.  It doesn’t seem to be available anymore so I made my own out of bits and pieces of my Space Marine collection and the new Blood Angel models.  I also magnetized their jump packs to their backs so in the future I can make regular backpacks magnetized as well and put them in vehicles if needed.  The result of the work I put into the conversions I am happy with and the painting I’m even happier with.  Gold is hard to work with, because it usually shows the layer beneath and any brush strokes it took to apply it.  I used many layers, starting with a white primer I first applied a coat of Bubonic Brown, touching up any areas where it wasn’t even or smooth.  I then applied Shining Gold, again touching up any area that was uneven or where I could see the brown or brush strokes.  I applied a Devlan Mud wash over all of the gold surfaces, making sure to stain it.  Lastly I went over the with Shining Gold again, a light coat, making sure to see the stain underneath, but not any brush strokes.  I highlighted the raised areas with Mithral Silver.

Commander Dante, Master of the Blood Angels

I haven’t posted since August, but that’s because I’ve been painting my army and didn’t want to reveal it too soon before this weekends Throne of Skulls qualifying tournament in Victoria, called GottaCon.  I’m all packed and ready to go with a full 1750 points of Blood Angels painted.

The first model I will reveal is Commander Dante, fitting in theme with making my own version because the old 1994 model is old.  Todd McNeal (my greenstuff guy) did the wings (and a custom jump pack) for me for this model but all the rest of the pieces are again just from the Blood Angels boxsets.

I wanted to try and present the illusion of him landing, however, none of the pieces had any legs as such so it took some work but in the end I feel like he just landed.  I also went with black wings, as I felt Sanguinor and any Sanguinary Guard should have the only white wings in my army.

More to follow after this weekend!

Brother-Captain Erasmus Tycho

The original model was (in my opinion) awful in 1994-ish when it first came out, it’s still awful now since they didn’t re-do it!  😦  Now there are TWO versions of Tycho, the original stoic Commander and the new rules for a blood frenzied Death Company Tycho.  I thought for sure there would be a new model now!  No.  Just the same old crappy model with a brand new paint job; granted the model doesn’t look half bad with black as the main colour.  Anyways, with the help of Todd (my green stuff guy!) he sculpted a mask on one of the new heads I chose and like the rest of the pieces, I kit bashed it all from new stuff (except the combi-melta which is from the Commander box-set).  I’m pretty happy with the end result, I’ve even got a Death Company version made as well.  Todd is just working on some green stuff for me, the face mask has been replaced with half a skull.   I can’t wait to paint it!

Astorath the Grim

This is another of the new models for the 2010 release, however as beautiful as it is, was a great pain in the ass to put together!  I had a little bit of trouble with the wings and a lot of trouble with the hands!  😦  All told, I’m not disappointed with the work I did on the model but I could have done better.  Enjoy!

Welcome to Baal

Another army you say?  Something about hands burning from trying to catch the exhaust pipe of the band wagon?  Maybe so, don’t really care.  I started this hobby 18+ years ago now and my first army WAS the Angels of Death, albeit predominantly Dark Angels, I did have Blood Angels as well.  So here we are again, new models and new codex; it just happens that I like the way the army plays and looks.  I’ve already painted a couple models, so lets have a look.

Brother Corbulo

This was my first conversion for the army.  I do NOT like the 1990’s version of the model and was sad to see it not remade for the new Century, let alone the new Codex.  So I took matters into my own hands, piecing together a dozen or so basic pieces from different kits I came up with this rendition; one which I have had many encouraging remarks about.