A moral victory

Last week my ear started to hurt a bit, it turns out I have an inner-ear infection and I'm now on penicillin to get rid of it. Due to the pains I haven't been able to paint much.

In spite of this I went down to Aarhus last Saturday and played a game of 40k with Laurents and his friend Nicolai. The game was a blast! Nicolai was a beginner in 40k like me and Laurents acted like a game master and controlled a few neutral squads of Imperial Guard troops. The objective was to seize and hold a spy who may have important information, it was not known which of the neutral squads he was in (and it turned out it didn't matter much either :).

I made some horrid mistakes setting up, and in turn 2 my razorback and one of my rhinos payed the ultimate price for my foolishness - both were rammed by the ork vechicles - the rhino was destroyed and the razorback went up in a gigantic explosion. A few turns later my last rhino got blown to pieces too.

All this put my army on the defensive, well away from any objectives. they bravely fought the orkish onslaught and by turn 4 only the remains of my two tactical squads were still standing - one had 3 killer kan's inches away while the other one were being chased up into a building by a mad ork boss (a space marine dreadnought converted into an ork boss armor by Laurents - truely a horrific sight for my loyal marines).

But as the title states it was a great moral victory - in the closing moments of the game the ork boss lashed out with 6 attacks against my last 3 marines, but Nicolai promptly rolled 5 1's and a 5 to hit, meaning only one lost his life. Nicolai then went on to roll a 2 to get a sixth turn and the game ended with my 2 marines still standing. And Nicolai's last attempt at seizing one of the objectives with his last 3 troops failed, inches short of the spy.

All in all the game was draw.

On the painting and assembly front not much have happened, I received my pack of 3 scouts today and decided to assemble the squad. It's not the prettiest squad, the new plastic scouts definitely looks better but since I had 7 it was still cheaper to buy 3 more from the collectors range rather than buying 5 plastic scouts.

I wanted to bring a terminator squad to the game, so I had to to assemble them in a bit of a hurry Friday evening, I had the weapon loadout sorted so it was just a matter of cutting and gluing. The sixth terminator in the back I'm not really sure where I got from, perhaps it was included with White Dwarf at a time. The terminator squad didn't do much good in the game - on Laurents recommendations Nicolai made a point of wiping them out and the orks were up to the task, the one with the assault cannon went running off the board after one round of combat - he won't be getting any purity seals anytime soon.

Finally I managed finishing the first tactical squad, only some detail work was left. They still need some varnish and touchup on the bases but I'll wait for better weather with that, it is quite humid in Denmark at this time of year.

Tactical Painting, Part 4

I finally decided on a base design, I will go with the Obsidian Lava Field mentioned in the previous post. The first test base seems cool and I will be using it for a future model. Using this technique I will position a leg on the large "rock" in an aggressive stance. I'm not sure which model it will be used for, but one possibility is the devastator sergeant with combi-plasma I'll be putting together shortly.

Basing the tactical squad is a bit of a hassle, since they're already painted - usually I'll use a black ink or a thinned down chaos black to basecoat the flock, but with painted model it has to be done carefully. For the next squad I will glue the flock and make any green stuff moulds before the priming. After the black paint was dry it was just a quick drybrush away from the finishing line. I decided the tactical squad would only get a few large rocks and no lava flows at all.

All that's left for this combat squad is a touch-up with chaos black on the base (the rock, anything missed in the basecoat of the base, and the base border), a spray of varnish, some water transfers, a final coat of varnish and as a last touch, some gloss varnish on the big rocks. However I will wait until the rest of the tactical squad is finished so I can do the varnish in one go.

 The rest of the tactical squad on stage 3 of 5, its mostly detail work now and it should be done soon. As you can see I decided to base these models along with the rest of the squad, might aswell get it done.

The robed marine I'm working on for the command squad is coming along slowly - the paint job got a little thick from the first failed attempts but I don't think it shows much.
Next up is the green power armour, with a steady hand so I don't ruin the robes. He was based in the same manner as the tactical squad, but with the robes covering most of the base there's no room for special details - I guess I'll save that for the terminators and dreadnoughts.

I went to Silkeborg today and stopped by Asgaard Games, which was a pleasant surprise, It's quite a large shop with competitive pricing and a huge range of wargaming products - even a few games I haven't heard of before. I picked up a few brushes, a couple of issues of White Dwarf and two half-price blisters.

The Brushes are Rotmarder-Kolinsky, a size 1 and 0/3, they have a comfortable grip and a good price. I look forward to trying them out. The blisters were a "Tomb Kings Standard Bearer" set, that will go right in the Tomb Kings box of unopened goodies, and Dark Angels Chief Librarian Ezekiel - did I mention it was half-price? :). Of course I already had a standard librarian, but I like Ezekiel's model a lot, I may go all-out when painting it - to see how good I can actually paint a model if I really try.

I ordered some Forge World bits the other day, I want to start assembling my Land Raider but I'd like to use the Forge World doors and bits to make it stand out from any other Land Raider, along with that I ordered a Rhino and a Razorback for transportation - in hindsight I could have gotten them just as cheap from Asgaard Games as Maelstrom Games but done is done.

Tactical Painting, Part 3

The second combat squad of my first tactical squad is starting to take shape, I'm painting all five models in one go, applying the individual stages to all five models before proceeding. My paint guide is up to 5 stages with 4-5 steps in each, the guide is based on the Dark Angels painting guide, tips from Painting Tips for the Dark Angels and some of my own ideas.

I've also been working on some bases, my own tries didn't turn out too well and they were quite comprehensive, instead I turned to this article, in particular the Obsidian Lava Field. My plan is to use it plain for the troopers, and do something special with lava and such on the special models. Before trying it on a painted model I'm making a test base to try out the guide - if all goes well the test base can be use for a character later on.

I had to do some work on the bone-coloured robes of the veterans marines, I find it difficult to paint the lighter tones without loosing all the shadow and highlights, especially when the colour I'm aiming for is so close to white. I tried out a few guides, but they didn't really pan out, the one based on Bleached Bone and a Devlan Mud wash was especially bad - perhaps I'll never really get a hang of using washes :).

I went back to the Painting Tips for the Dark Angels and tried it out, so far it looks ok - perhaps a bit too much on the bone/skin tone but hopefully that will be fixed with the final highlights.

Tactical Painting, Part 2

The combat squad "Skull" of the 4th company's 6th tactical squad is almost complete, some basing is needed but that's about it.

I'm testing some different techniques for making ash/lava bases, most involve cork and a rather elaborate painting scheme. I may go for something simpler, perhaps an ash base for the troops and more elaborate bases for command and dreads - the trick will be getting them to match up as a whole.

Crashed Shuttle

I decided to try out a guide for making a lava base on my crashed shuttle scenery piece. The shuttle was painted in an Ultramarines scheme with battle and crash damage. after priming and basecoating the lava bits white it only took a few hours to drybrush the model up to a decent standard.

Clearly this mission should have been left to a more capable chapter...

Tactical Painting, Part 1

The tactical squad is coming along nicely, the first five models are almost done, while the rest have been primed and basecoated. The paint scheme is fairly standard Dark Angels, I'm planning to do something special about the bases to make the army stand out as a whole - I'm thinking a lava / ash theme but I'll have to experiment a bit before committing to it.

The first of the Command Squad marines is going to be a test for the cloak (and Deathwing Terminator) paint scheme, I haven't been able to find a guide that gives the look I'm going for so I'm improvising, basicly working from a bestial brown up to bleached bone mixed with some skull white. I am using G.W. paints exclusively, not because I think they are the best (I wouldn't know, never tried anything else), but rather because I got an almost complete set for no money at all in the E.B. Games sale.

As shown in the picture I will paint the inner-cloak in a red hue, making it stand distinctly out from the dark green marine and the very light cloak. I find that keeping a simple colour scheme makes the models look better and the army will seem more coherent when lined up. For my Dark Angels only the following colours are allowed: Dark Green (armour), Red (weapon casing, inner cloak, some details), Bone-white (Cloaks, Deathwing terminators and vechicles). I hope the lava / ash bases will compliment this scheme but only time will tell.

I also found a use for the Army Painter Spray that gave me troubles when I primed the tactical squad, I will use it for priming terrain pieces, if I get the rough coat there it will be useful for drybrushing effects. The first terrain I will paint is the crashed shuttle from the Battle for MacRagge box, I just primed the first piece today.

Completely unrelated to anything Warhammer I went to the dentist today with a chipped tooth, unfortunately it cannot be fixed easily so I have to get it crowned, setting me back 7000 DKK. This is a hard blow to my dreams of rhinos, razorbacks and dreads - but perhaps I can still afford some vehicles for the army (if we eat pasta for a few months anyway..).

Done with assembling, painting again.

I got a small bag of bits from my from my friend Laurents today, the bits enabled me to finish most of my squads - I'm still missing a multi-melta for one of my tactical squads but I'll get that when I buy a devastator box.
Laurents also recommend some changes for my army, most of these have been incorporated now.

Captain Eckhart (Relic blade, Storm Shield)

Command Squad (Eckhart's Retinue, standard bearer, champion with power sword & combat shield, apothecary, marine with meltagun, veteran with power fist & bolt pistol)

Librarian Ramirez

Tactical Squad (Sergeant, Flamer, Missile Launcher, 7 marines with bolter)

Tactical Squad (Sergeant with power weapon, marine with multi-melta (missing weapon), marine with meltagun, 7 marines with bolter.

Sternguard veteran squad (sergeant with plasma pistol, 1 lascannon, 1 multi-melta, 7 bolter)

Vanguard veteran squad (sergeant with power fist, 1 power fist, 3 power weapons, 1 lightning claws, 4 chainsword & bolt pistol).

I started painting the first tactical squad, I have done some work on five of the marines earlier, now it was time to get the rest up too speed. I lost one marine in the Army Painter incident but I got a spare from Laurents that fits the squad perfectly. I also primed one of the marines from the command squad, I will paint those separately and to a higher standard than the rank-and-file marines.
I'm working on a small painting guide for my Dark Angels, I will post it on the blog when its done. When I'm painting armies I usually make a note of which colours and techniques I've use, in case I need to revisit the army later on.