This week I've been a little all over the place.
I started last week with a Field Ordnance Barttery, and finished building and priming it this week. I had hoped I could build them with 5 troops and 1 sergeant, but there were not enough arm-options for regular troops to do this so I had to make one sergeant for each gun. That means a big unit will have 6 sergeants unless I can find some arms that I can use in the regular infantryboxes with the new guard models or with the upgrade sprue that I will have go get anyway as I would love the arms holding wrenches to field as crew for my revcovery vehicle. But even if I can make some changes in future sets so I only have one sergeant for every second gun I have come to the conclusion that I will need to make some Ensigns (2nd Lieutennants) to take command of a battery of six guns as that is how I would love to field my guns. I would love to add some kind of unit markings on these guns, especially on the Bombast gun and the heavy las-cannon as they have quite big shields in front that would look rather monotone if I just paint them in black. I am thinking of painting the front shield black and the reas of the gun Mechanicus standard gray as that will match with my tanks. Then I plan to add a vertical stripe of a brighter color as a unit marking on the guns on one side of the shield just like Games Workshop has done in many of the pictures in the rulebook. I will also bring my tanks home from storage just to add the same vertical stipes in the front on each side of the tanks.
I primed up my Lord Castellan Ursula Creed that I talked about in an earlier post. I look forward to getting her on the battlefield in the future. I managed to get her primed separately from the base, so that I can paint both to a good standard (at least for me) before I glue them together. I think I know what colors to use on most of her details, so it is just a matter of getting started.
For Age of Sigmar I primed up the unit of Ironguts and I have also started to paint them and has gotten the first layer of skin color on. Interestingly, I see that Games Workshop now has that unit marked as "Sold out - no longer available online" on their web page and this is a little weird. I am quite sure they are in the new rulebook and will continue to be a unit, so it will be interesting to see what they will do. Usually when they mark them like that it means the unit is going out of production, but it could be that they will release them again in a new packaging. I hope so, as I would love to have more of them as I love their armored heads.
The final model I have primed this week is the Squigboss with Gnasha squig (ot the seeing-eye squig as I think it looks like with the harness) and I already know how I will paint this model as I have a planned scheme for all my Gloomspite Gitz.
When I had painted the first layer of skin on my Ironguts I wanted to sit and work more with minis that day, but didn't really feel like painting more so I decided to start on a unit I haven't built before.
I started to build a Leviathan Dreadnought with ranged weapons. Interestingly Games Workshop lists this as both a Leviathan Dreadnought and a Leviathan Siege Dreadnought, but it looks like it is the exact same model with the exact same weapon options. I have two of this unit and one Close combat one, so I look forward to adding them to the Gatekeepers in due time. My idea is to try and weather them a bit by stipling some metal color on the blue paint so that they look their age while still looks like they are being well taken care of. Since they are relics from the Horus Heresy and I plan to have them in my 40K army I think this is only fitting. And if I should play a game of 30K then it just looks like they have been in combat and seen some action and I think these Dreads probaly would be where the fighting is most intense so it would work well there too.
I haven't yet decided on what weapon options to give them, apart from the very cool four barreled Storm Cannon. There is a Cyclonic melta lance and a Grav-flux bombard to choose from, so I will read a little bit in the rule books to see what the different weapons do and how they seem to work on a field of battle, and either I find that one is so much better than the other that I need to take it for both, or I will make one of each. But I love the look of the Storm cannon, so both of them will field that but I think one would have it on the right arm and the other on the left just for the diversity. I might consider getting a third in the future and give it two Storm cannons just because I think it would look really scary, but I will read the rules and see if that is a legal option first. Also I nned to get the model and an extra weapons sprue first.
The Leviathan is rather massive and big compared to a regular dreadnought, but still I though they would be even bigger looking at pictures of them. But I haven't placed them beside a Contemptor or a regualr old-style box yet so I might change my mind on them whan I do that nce they are fully assembled. I will post a picture in here for comparison when I do that.
So far the Leviathan has the legs and most of the torso assembled, so I need to finish the top and back of the torso and add the arms and weapons an then glue it all together. I amsure it will look awesome, and I hope my painting will do it justice.
