Imperial Guard progress

This long weekend has actually been productive. I have three Commissars that has their uniforms and skin painted, and all that is left to paint on them is the details on two of them and the weapons on the third. Then they need a general clean-up to make sure that all areas have been covered in paint and that there are no places where paint have blotched on to where it shouldn't be.
I ended up doing one minor change from my original plan, and that was on the officer caps that they're wearing. I thought of painting them black with a red trim, but ended up painting them all black.

The heavy weapon squad is is ready to be sent to war if needed, but I'm working on adding the ammo pouches, canteens and other equipment. I had planned to add backpacks to the unit, but decided against it as they probably have to slog enough equipment around and don't need the extra weight of backpacks. 

I'll use the backpacks on another ten man squad at a later time instead.

The five man fireteam are now a seven man squad. The sergeant and the heavy weapon trooper can march in to battle if needed. The remaining three men needs to have their arms painted and attached.
I also need to paint all the extra equipment for these five troopers, but I will finish the extra equipment for the heavy weapon squad first so I don't mix it all up.

I love red!

That's one sentence I thought I would never write, but I do. More precise Mephiston Red...

I just painted the lining on my commissar with the bolt pistol and whip. He will be the first commissar to go in to action in the regiment. 

For the time being he will be given the responsibility of keeping everything in order both for the foot sloggers and the cavalry, but he will get two more commissars with him quite soon. There will also be a commissar in the tank regiments, and I think he will ride to battle in a super heavy tank.

Paining my first commissar in black and red also makes me want to paint up a lot of Sisters of Battle, as the scheme I am thinking of for them is black, red and white for their uniforms. They will not get the white hair as most sisters have, but that is just because I like to do a little twist on all my armies.

Commisar update

I haven't yet seen the result of my skin-painting test yesterday, so I am still not sure if painting can proceed with full speed or if I will have to prime this weekend.
But I have decided on the paint scheme I will use for my Commisars and Lord Commisar.
Their uniforms will be black with black overcoats. The overcoats will have blood red lining as is fitting for the Commisariat. The officer caps they wear will also be red and black. The front and probably sides will be red, while the top will be black. The brim will be painted black and then get a second coating with Tamia Semi-Gloss Black to give it the shiny look that officer caps usually have. I will also do this on the Imperial Guard officers I have painted so far, among them the commander for my Baneblade.
Some of the Commisars have what appears to be armor plating on their chests. This wil be painted chainmail, and the ornate eagles on the plating will be painted in one of the gold colours (not entirely sure which yet). If they have laurels on the plating the laurel will be green as usual.
Weapons will also be traditionally painted in black and chainmail, and the powerfirst on one of the Commisars will be black as well.
I am trying to decide on what colour to paint the book that one of the Commisars are reading from, and will probably end with green or red. Might be nice to paint it green as a contrast colour.
If they have orders or other kinds of cloth tied to their bodies (like the order on the Lord Commisar) I will try and find a good contrast colour to use depending on the other colours they have. Might be a light green, light blue, light gray or some other colour completely.

The three Commisars on the table at the moment is one standing with his right arm straight from his body, holding a bolt pistol, the other arm is on his back, and in that hand he is holding a whip.
The second one is reciting from a book that he holds in his left hand and his right arm ends in a powerfist.
The third one is positioned weirdly in some sort of running pose, with a plastma pistol (if I have understood Imperial weapons correctly) and a chainsword that is positioned a little strange in front of him. I think he might be attached to a penal company or something similar when the army grows.

Look out for the commisars!

I did a small test on the skin of my commisars, to see if I really need to prime or not. 

I have painted several metal miniatures without priming them before, and I would love to avoid it.
I will prime the buildings and large models, but hopefully the regular miniatures will make due without. It should work as long as I spray them with varnish to protect the paint after.
So now I'm looking at pictures of commisars to see how I should paint them. I know I will have black uniforms and black coats but the rest of the colors need to be planned.

Imperial Guard update

The heavy weapon squad is comming along. The base (except flocking) is done, and the wall of sandbags is painted and ready to work as something to lean rifles and the radioset towards...
The heavy bolter is finished, and the ammo box with a feed to the weapon are glued in place.
The crew is missing their heads and arms, but are painted apart from that...
All in all I think this set is ok to work with, and it comes along nicely.

The 5 troopers are also comming along nicely. The torsos and heads are painted. -What remains now is to paint the arms and the equipment and glue it on. I think it will be pretty nice with the mix of 5 single troopers and the box with 5 "simple" troopers.

There was something that hit me last evening, the troops does not have a Commisar yet. I should do something with that fairly quick, to make sure no one breaks the code of the Imperial Guard. Three Commisars are brought forth from the shelves and given the task of overseeing the establishment of the Xerxes Fourth.
They will be prepped for action during the tree day weekend that is comming up... Since they are metal minis I might have to spray them with primer before I start to paint them up, if that is the case it sounds like a plan for friday afternoon or saturday morning.

Thoughts for cavaly

While reading the rules for Apocalypse games, I see lots of pretty wehicles that has been painted up. This makes me think more of how I want my vehicles to look as well.
I had originally planned to use gray, yellow and black as camo patterns, but now I am seriously rethinking this. I also planned to keep my super heavies dark grey, but this is also being reconsidered.
As I have already painted one Leman Russ in the old scheme, I will paint up at lest two more like it, and give them ranged guns. The idea is that they will be used in open areas where long range is important.
Then there will be tanks with the pattern of light gray, dark gray and black. These tanks will be for urban warfare, and I think this will be the general patterns for my tanks and vehicles. The specific pattern will vary a bit from tank to tank and unit to unit, as my fluff wil state that the tanks are delivered with the factory paint of dark gray as this will fit my painting routines nicely.

The Xerxes forces are so lucky that they have several super heavy tanks. This comes after they have been merged with other cavaly forces during several operations. I was thinking of keeping these tanks dark gray, but after reading the rulebook for Apocalypse I've seen a lot of very nicely painted super heavies with camouflage patterns, and I have started to think of painting mine in a three color scheme as well. If I end up doing this, it will be dark gray base, with light gray and black fields to add unity with the Leman Russ tanks.

The Sentinels will be gray for the ones used with cadian-type troops, and probably catachan green for the ones serving wih the catachan-type units.
I am a little uncertain on how I will paint up my flying units, but they will either be gray or catachan green base and probably with yellowish trim. I might add some camouflage patterns to them, but I'm not sure of that yet.

Weekly update

I haven't been that active on the miniature front lately, but I hope this will change once again. I have been a couple of trips to Games Worskop in Oslo, and have gotten my share of inspiration along with some new sets as described in earlier posts.
I have also started to read up on Apocalypse rules, and reading those certainly adds inspiration to fixing up my Imperial Guard and Space Marine forces. Also the handful of Sisters of Battle, as they will fit nicely alongside my other armies. Reading the Horus Heresy books shows me that the Sisters can be used in more ways than just for combat, and so I find that they can have great use with my other units.

Yesterday I glued my River Trolls to their bases, and I think that is the last I'll do with them until the Imperial Guards I'm working on now is done. Then the trolls will get my full attention. I have decided what poses to give them, and placed the heads and arms alongside their torsos in boxes. But I see that in order to get the best result, I will need to paint them while assembling. Their heads consists of 3 parts, and some of the heads needs the middle part painted before I assemble the two other parts.

The Imperial Guard is eagerly awaiting their first heavy weapon squad. So far two of the three fireteams are ready to go in to battle. They are missing some extra equipment, but like Clint Eastwood says in Heartbreak Ridge: "You got your weapons and you got your boots, so you can march in to combat! Fall out!"
The lascannon teams both have got some cover of sandbags, and I am also working on adding sandbags to the heavy bolter team. My plan is to add a radio to this team, and I need to have some sandbags to prop that up against. The problem with making scenic bases is that the weapons themselves takes up much more space than I had anticipated before I started. But the idea is to have each squad a little different, so I think it will work out ok in the end.
Another unit might get some barbwire on their bases, and others may be crouching in a entrenchment, behind a earth wall or in a ruin. Time will show!
The heavy bolter tripod is glued to the base, and is painted. The heavy bolter itself is 90% painted, only missing the chainmail on the scull and the Imperial Eagles. The gunner and spotter have their torsos painted, but their heads and arms are not attached or painted yet, but I hope to get some of that done tonight. I also plan to finish the ammunition box and get that glued on to the base, as this gives me the chance to finish the sandbags. I also hope to paint up some of the extra equipment like lasrifles, and get those placed on all three bases.
Alongside my heavy weapon squad I'm painting up 5 infantrymen (one sergeant with chainsword and bolt pistol, one trooper with grenade launcher, and three troopers with lasrifles). These will join forces with my five man team made from the five man box.
I have found that the box of five troopers will save some money for me, as most Imperial Guard soldiers carry lasrifles, and with a little use of my bitzbox, I can make these rather static poses look varied enough to work. At least I think so now, but I will pick up two boxes next time I am at Games Workshop and try it out. The 5 man box costs 70 NOK, so a 10 man squad will cost 140 NOK, while the regular box of 10 troopers costs 220 NOK. All I need to add to the boxes of five is a seargeant, and perhaps a heavy weapon trooper for some units, and this can be done by taking troopers from the regular 10 man set, or using spares from these sets on the troopers in the 5 man set . I will see how this can be done as the army grows.

Update on the Armies

I see I did a "what to come in the future" for my armies some months back, and thought it would be nice to look in to the crystal ball again and look at my futrure plans:

Scenery:
As stated in my last post, there are things happening here. Temple of Skulls is the first thing I plan to work on, to try and get the good vibrations for my way of painting rocks before I get going on all my towers and buildings. I will also prime and paint the forrest that I have started to build, as I have a good idea on how I want that to look as a finished piece.

Bretonnians & Empire:
I don't think I ever will have my own armies for these miniatures, but I plan to paint up Brets and Empire to use as citizens for my town. I might get the Empire rulebook sometime in the future to use those rules if I end up playing with this army. But for now this will purely be a good exercise in Diorama making. I have several core units of Brets to paint, and with the new paint range from Games Workshop it should be cool to paint colorful knights. I also have an Empire witchhunter to paint up, and I think he will be done first as he is intended as an inhabitant of the Skullvane Manse.

Chaos (Warriors of Chaos):
This army is looking at an update containing more warriors (one unit of Khorne followers and some general units), more knights (currently only have two knights painted up, but these are not based yet), some chosen warriors, special characters, Lords and heroes and let's not forget the Marauders.

I will also finish the bases for my hounds.

Dwarfs:
This is an army that I do intend to play with. The next things to come for this army will be Thundrers and Quarrelers, a Gyrocopter, some special figures (White Dwarf subscription minis for 2011 and 2012) and then I will expand the army with the minis I have on the shelves. There is at least two units of regular warriors, I have the metal Thorek Ironbrow and his smitty, a metal Goblin heaver, one or two cannons, and some minis bought from Ebay and other places (among them a unit of miners and an almost finished Avatars of War dwarf to lead some thunderers).

Goblins:
Next thing to do here will be my River Trolls, a unit of three trolls are already partly assembled and will be painted up as soon as I have finished painting my ongoing 40.000-project.
Then there are several units of Goblins of all kinds to paint up, along with an Arachnarok spider or two and a giant who can work both in this army and my Chaos army.

Imperial Guard:
The first thing to come here is the Cadian heavy weapon squad I am working on at the moment. Then there will be a veteran unit (Bastion's Bastards), the remaining 5 troopers to make a whole unit of my five loose troopers, and there is a myriad of troops and special characters to paint up here. I also have lots of vehicles to paint (including two super heavy tanks and several Leman Russ tanks). I should also finish up the unit of Ogryns and a command unit that has been standing on my table for a long long time. This army will grow in to a solid army over time, and what I plan to paint next changes from day to day as my mood shifts or inspiration comes and goes. But a good bet would be that I will do my best to get the units already started off my painting desk.

Ogres:
There are two items to paint up here. I have a unit of Leadbelchers that is standing on the shelves, and also a special figure (Bragg the Gutsman). Of these two Bragg is the one being painted first, but I would like to try and paint another resin figure that is a little cheaper before I start on him as he costs as much as a whole unit from another army.

Sisters of Battle:
There are some semi-painted minis on my work table, and I plan to finish painting these up. At the moment they will only be used for adding some detail in a Space Marine or Imperial Guard diorama, but in the long term I hope to be able to have a small force of Sisters to field in games of Appocalypse alongside my Space Marines.

Space Marines:
There are so many things to paint up for this army. I have started to paint lots of Marines, and I will need to finish them. Then there are all the Marines I have bougth that are assembled but not painted, and lets not forget all the units still in their boxes and on their sprues.
I have an entire first company in Terminator armor to paint up, and several other first company veterans. There are also lots of different troops and vehicles that needs to be painted.

Productive trip to Games Workshop this week

Had two very nice trips to Games Workshop in Oslo this week.
First a trip on Monday, where I picked up Skullvane Manse, some paint that I needed to restock, and the remaining books from the Horus Heresy series. I managed to get one book that I had already, so on Tuesday I was back to swap it with another book and also to pick up some glue and liquid green stuff they didn't have on Monday. I got the rules for Apocalypse, so now I have the datasheet for my Baneblade so I can use it in games. I also picked up Deathknell Watch.

My plan is to build Skullvane Manse as the home of one of the greatest witchhunters the Empire has ever seen. He will not need an observatory, so I will take the observatory dome and place it on top of the Deathknell Watch tower to make that into an observatory. If I can get it to work, I might place this tower on a hill of some sort to make it higher (it is an observatory after all). Then I will take the skeleton that is placed on top of Deathknell Watch and use that on Witchfate Tor or another regular watchtower placed on a ridge. Not sure if I have a spare watchtower at home, but that is not a major cost from Games Workshop anyway.
On Monday I also picked up a can of black primer, so I will use that to prime my buildings before assembly. I don't really bother doing that when painting miniatures as the style I paint would mean I had to prime lots of small parts. If the miniature is fully assembled and then painted, then priming would be a must, but when I paint as I assemble I get to cover all the areas where one would usually need primer to get to with a good coat of paint.

The plan is to paint the Temple of Skulls first. Hopefully I can prime this big set this weekend. Then I can start painting it little by little in between projects. I got some good hints from the guys at the Games Workshop about what might look very good, so I will try their suggestions (that is usually a good idea) and see how it turns out. If it ends up like I hope, then I will use the same technique for the basic colorscheme for my towers and houses, and just add a few other gray-scales on some of the bricks.
I will like to have all the towers and buildings look like they have been built with rocks from the same region, as I plan to use the terrain together as some sort of town or township.
There will be a few watchtowers, a chapel, a graveyard (probably based around the Garden of Morr with some specially made statues that I bought on Ebay from a Polish dentist), the Fortified Manor, Skullvane Manse, Witchfate Tor and Deathknell Watch. Then I hope to add a few more buildings that I either scratch build (yeah, right!) or modify from other buildings.

Then on the outskirts of town, Dreadstone Blight and the Temple of Skulls will be located, and there will also be some trees as I have two forrest sets from Citadel.

What to come...

Thought I'd blog a little bit of what to come as I sit here and wait for the time to get my painting equipment set up again.
Next kit to be painted up is a Fantasy kit, and the choice have fallen on a unit of 3 River Trolls. I have 6 Trolls in total, but I haven't decided if I will make them as two units of 3 or one unit of 6. No matter what I end up doing, I will paint them up in the same paintscheme.
I'm looking forward to painting these Trolls as I've had them on the shelf almost since the plastic River Trolls were released.
I think they will be fun to assemble and paint up, as they have so many possible ways of assembly of extras.

I also tamper with the idea of making up some troops to go with my scenery. It will be a mix of Bretonnians and Empire, and will be painted up to look like an army assembled from the town the scenery represents.
I will also have knights recruited from the nearest castle. They will probably be two different groups, one made up of Bret knights and one Empire knights.
This will be done in between other projects and a bit over time, as my main task will be to get some playable armies for both 40K and Fantasy.