Spacemarine progress

As stated in the previous post, a Finecast Librarian in terminator armor found his way home from the GW store yesterday.

My visit to the same store on Thursday brought home the remaining two boxes of Dark Angel Veterans that I need for my veteran marines to give them all a coherent look, and also the last terminators that I need. Two boxes of Close combat Terminators will complete the terminators of The Gatekeepers.

I have assembled all my plastic terminators, but I am waiting on 40mm round bases to base the ones from Space Hulk.

I bought a few metal ones, that will go with my metal captain for some apocalypse games, but they will be assembled at a later time.

The close combat termies have been equipped half with lightning claws and half with power hammers and storm shields, making it a total of 5 of each.

I am currently painting the 5 with power hammers and storm shields. Because of the placement of the shields they are currently not attached to the termies, but I will do that when I have finished the details on the backside of the shields (the power "cables") and the details on the torso that will be hard to reach with the shield attached.

So far all 5 have gotten the dark legs, and two of them have gotten the Ultramarine blue torsos.

For the remainder of my Terminators, 5 regular termies have gotten their dark legs painted, and the one I have been working on for a little while with the heavy flamer is 99% complete. He is only missing the gold on the terminator honors on his left shoulder.

The chaplain is now only missing the white on his seals, and I will do that later today. He also needs to have his scull fixed with some white as I decided quite spontaneously yesterday to give him red eyes after all. He looked ok with the black eyes in the white scull, but I have painted all other eye lenses red, so it would look more in style with the others if his lenses were red too.

The finished 3 termies and the chaplain will also receive a final looking over, to make sure that they are ready for the gameboard when the time comes, and then they will be placed in my hobby room in the tray where the other minis waiting for basework resides.

R.I.P. Metal - welcome Resin

Yesterday Games Workshop retired all metal miniatures, and they can now only be found second hand.
As of yesterday the minis that are not cast in plastic will be cast in resin.

I was quite sceptic to this originally, as I have had more problems with the few Forgeworld resin models I have then with my metal minis, but I am now a bit more optimistic.

The new Citadel Finecast series is more flexible resin than the Forgeworld stuff, and is said to glue great with GW Superglue. I saw a lot of kids doing this in the store yesterday, and if they can do it so can I! The question will be how long they stay glued together, but I am quite sure that they will stay together for a long time if treated right.

The great advantage with resin is weight, as large metal minis tend to be rather heavy and gets some wear and tear just from that.

I came home with a Dwarf Gyrocopter that will be assembled when I return to my dwarfs later this year. I look forward to working with this, as it has been said that the metal edition of this set required quite a lot of work to get presentable. It is also said that it is not so with the resin kit.

An Imperial Guard Lord Commissar was also one of the models that made his way to the house. The details on him is amazing, and here one can truly see how resin can have an advantage over plastic and metal. Hope I can do him justice when I paint him up later in the year.

The last Finecast mini I brought home yesterday was a Space Marine Apothecary in Terminator Armour. This will probably be the first of the Finecast minis that I work on, as I am currently working hard on lots of Space Marines. The Apothercary had the coolest weapon option I have seen on any mini so far, a combi stormbolter/melta that was combined beside each other. This will definitely be the chosen weapon alongside his librarian staff.

slow and steady...

I am not feeling to well today. Throat is very soar and my head feels like it's filled with cotton. Also feels like I am starting to get a fever. My hands are shaking more than usual, and that's why I am happy to report a slow progress on my Marines.

The 3 veterans I have been working on has gotten their arms and shoulder guards attached, and fully painted. All that is missing now is the metal on their breath masks, a little gold detail, the red on the wax seals and a wash.

The 3 terminators are only missing their gold details and washes.

The chaplain and the remaining 6 terminators on the workbench are at different stages of completion. The chaplain and the heavy flamer have their bodies finished but are missing details. The flamer has not gotten the weapon arm attached to his torso yet, but that will be done next time I work on him.

I have also started to paint Sergeant Lorenzo from the Space Hulk set, and it seems like the paints gets a lot more glossy on the plastic that the space Hulk terminators are made of. It will be exiting to see how it will work out.

Things happen...

I have gotten all 10 Space Hulk Terminators and the 1 Terminator Sergeant. They all came in the mail today, and the first thing I did with them was to cut them from their spruces and cut away the worst of the mold-lines.

I found out I don't have 40mm round bases, so I don't have anything to base them on yet, but the good thing about Space Hulk models is that they are designed to be used without, so they have a thin base that they stand on. My plan is to simply glue that onto 40mm bases. I'm quite sure I can find a way to make it look rather natural.

Apart from that there aren't anyhthing to report as of now...

progress

Have been working for a little while with the Marines these last few days.
3 terminators are only missing the gold paint and the washes. They are starting to look like good Marines, and it is not possible to see that they had been painted red before I got them. The painting was done with thin coats, so even after my paintjob they have all their details intact.

The 3 veterans I had to pick apart are now redy to be reassembled. I glued the arms on the first one last night, and will work some more on them tonight to get the white trim on their shoulder guards and finish them.

I have also painted the body, head and shoulder guards of my first Terminator chaplain, but there are so many details to paint that it will probably take a little while to get him ready for action. The pose on him is really cool, with a skeleton mask, stombolter with amunition belts hanging from the gun and a generally mean look to him (click here to see pic at GW website).
Mine was bought used and did not come with the halo, but I will see if I have a spare halo somewhere to use if I feel it will improve his look. He is basically chaos black, but will get chainmail and gold details along with the usual Blood Red and Scull White seals and Skull White washed oath papers. I have high hopes he will be a valued addition to the terminator squads. Not sure if he will be assigned to a special squad or if he will join the squad that needs his assistance most at the time.

I have four (perhaps five if I win my last auction) metal terminators on their way in the mail. The idea is that the regular terminators will join the metal captain I have to form up a squad. One of these five is a chaplain and another is a librarian. There is also one heavy flamer, one assault cannon and one "regular" terminatior among the five. The last three terminators, along with my spare from the Space Hulk batch will go in to this unit.

I see that I get a lot of terminators, probaly too many if I want to field other veterans as well, but I will make them up and then decide from game to game what units to bring with me.

Where's the enemy?

I have received 16 of my 26 terminators, and I've been informed that the remaining 10 is in the mail from Russia. The remaining 10 are the ones that is most special, and they will be my 1st squad. The terminators I have finished earlier will, along with 4 others, form the second squad.

The last man of the squad will get his first paint today.

The remaining 15 terminators are primed black, I also have a box of 5 terminators that was laying on the shelves, and they are also assembled. Only terminator being partially assembled is the one with the augmettic eye and the heavy flamer, as the head needs some extra attention and the heavy flamer covers up parts of the armor that I won't reach if it is glued on.

I took a picture of the Marines I have in my mobile workstation. It's an element from the 1st company, all ready for action...

Marines comming along...

I have some more Marines on their way through the mail.

I just couldn't resist and placed bids on 3 5-man terminator squads. So far I've won 1 of the 3 auctions (the other 2 expire today and I am currently in the lead). I have found that terminators are quite easy to paint to a good standard even if you get them pre-assembled, as they have their arms out from their body, so you can access all areas. These come primed black, so that might work out quite well.

I've also managed to get one squad of Spacehulk terminators. I didn't get a sergeant at a reasonable price (have one bid that looks promising so far, but I expect it to reach the obnoxiously high price as the other sergeants before the auction is over), but I found that one of the regular terminators look quite "sergeantly" (first time sergeant is used as an adjective?) so if I don't get the sergeant he will get the job.

The 10th man for my first terminator squad is in the mail, so my metal captain is definitively out of the equation. I still hope to find a nice squad for him to lead as well, but there are a few challenges. First of them is the fact that he is assembled on a 25mm base. For some reason this is done with Dark Angels terminators. I will need him on a 40mm base, so if I get to use him I must use a knife and some greenstuff to give him a slotted 40mm base to stand on. This shouldn't be the biggest problem to solve, but all the other terminators I seem to find (plastic or metal) all look so much more beefy than he does, but I haven't given up on him yet...

Recently I got 3 terminators to go with my already assembled 6. These 3 were pre-painted red (quite well done too) and they now have the standard blue and dark blue of the Gatekeepers. What remains is to give them white heads, fix the gold and silver detailing and paint their weapons the right colors.

The 3 Dark Angels I received at the same time are now only missing the white paint on the helmets, the gold details and painting f their weapons. These arrived unpainted. I thought they looked really cool on Ebay, but when they arrived I found several faults with them. There were things that should have been trimmed better, and the shoulder guards and arms were assembled in a strange way sticking too much out from the bodies. Also the weapons were just resting in the left arm, and not being glued tight.

The result was that I started to squeeze them gently for a little while and all of a sudden parts started to come off...

I now have them with heads and backpacks attached to the torsos, while arms and shoulder guards are separate. This means I can do a much better job painting their tunics, and details and also get a better look on them upon completion.

Marines party...

I have all the marines being worked on lined up, and I must admit they look quite good. Standing on a small plastic lid is two Dreadnoughts (one venerable and one chaplain) surrounded by 6 terminators and 12 veteran battle brothers from the 1st company.

Counting the veterans I have found I need the two extra boxes. I have 9 Vanguard veterans and 11 Sternguard veterans. But with two boxes of Dark Angels Veterans that issue can be solved. That means I will have 30 robed veterans, 20 will be Sternguard and 10 will be Vanguard.

The robed Vanguard veterans will have a drop-pod as dedicated transport, and for the drop they will be joined by two more marines. One of these will be a chaplain, but I have not yet decided who the last marine will be. I will also add some other Vanguard veterans (probably buy one or two boxes from my local GW-store, to get some with jump-packs as well. These will not have robes, as the robes would cause trouble with the jump-packs.

The Terminators will need a 10th man from my plastics or from Ebay. The metal one doesn't really fit in. Still what I have found is that the metal one really looks more like a captain, so he will probably be the captain of the 1st company, and the plastic commanding model will be a sergeant.

The captain will go in to battle with (hopefully) 9 other metal terminators. I'm sure I can find some on Ebay or by reading details on the Games Worhsop website. Most characters are metal, so there might be a few out there to collect. A quick search on Ebay just now showed 5 metal Termies only on the first page of the search, so I'm quite sure that will work out fine one way or the other.

And with that I bid you all a good night, and hopefully if nothing very special comes up tomorrow will be an afternoon of painting delight.