Armies on Parade - Part 12

As promised, here are the blogpost with pictures of my board.

I did not win (as expected) but I reached my goal. I got a few votes, and it was not from me as I did not vote for myself. So now I'm looking forward to next years event, and I will plan a new board with a new army. Next year I will have the board ready earlier, and use more time on creating it. Then I will try even harder for a top 3 placement. Now for the pictures:

This is a shot of the entire board with the army lined up. 

Here is the first unit of devastators lined up behind the tank barriers. In time this unit will be extended with five regular marines to make a ten man squad.

Here is the second squad of Devastators. They will also be buffed up to ten men using five regular marines. In the background is the bunker complex. The tank barrier in the front got a little too much rust.

Here is the top of the bunker with a ten man scout squad and the Scoutmaster in the middle. The Scoutmaster is Sergeant Telion, but I have removed the Ultramarines insignias on him.

Here is a better picture of the Scoutmaster. His base is painted up just like the floor of the bunker, but now that the event is over, I will redo the base with Martian Earth like the other scouts.

The bikers are speeding down to take the fight to the enemy. On each side of them the ten man assault squad is moving forward as well.

Here is a detail of the tunnel between the bunker and the tower. This is as described earlier built with plasticard walls and the roof is made of walkways from the Manufactorum set. The ladder and lamp is also from that set. I just had to add a lamp, and I might add more of them to this base in the future...

Here is a detail of the big bush and a trio of snakes. The bush is climbing up the wall to hide that there is a hole behind there as there was so many angles on the tower that I couldn't get the wall to fit 100%.

As promised this morning, here is a pic of the full pipe section.

On the top of the tower the Captain of the 3rd company is standing with the Chaplain to get an overwatch over the battlefield, and with their jump packs they can get in to the fighting where it is needed in a very short time.

And finally a pic of the Hunter standing at the tower base. The Hunter sends out rockets to kill off as many enemies as possible before they come to close.

Armies on Parade - Part 11

After one and a half hour of detailing, everything is now ready for the big event.
I am just waiting for some of the last wash to dry before I start to box the units for transportation.

As a teaser for the next post with all the pictures, I am adding pics of two details from the board, taken this morning.

The first pic is of the pool of pollution. The barrels are one barrel cut in half, painted black and then weathered with rust. The end of the pipe is a pipe from the Promethium pipes scenery set (the smallest pipe in the box). Will take a picture of the whole pipe section later today. Notice also the rat standing on the barrel far away from the camera, it might be planning to jump over in to the pipe.

The second pic is of the bush where the rats have made their den. Some of the rats are eating at the remains of a poor soul that once died here. The sculls in the back are the bottom of the tower.

Armies on Parade - Part 10

With just hours left until the event, I still have a few small details left to fix.
I need to wash my chaplian and captain, and I need to paint Tuskgor Fur along the side of the building I scratchbuilt to cover up the brown where I used texture paint to hide that the bulding didn't go exactly flat with the surface of the base. I had hoped I could do that tonight, and just wash it tomorrow morning, but the texture paint was still too wet, so I will have to do the paint early tomorrow, and add the wash just before I leave.

I met a few snags while adding the buildings to the base but I think I have worked them all out now, to a satisfactory level.

I will add pictures tomorrow, both of the board with just the buldings, and the board with a full setup of troops looking the way it will be when people can start to vote.
Like I think I said in an earlier post, I don't expect to win at all, but I hope that I at lesst will get a few votes as a sign that some people like what I have been doing.
I have gotten nice feedbacks when I have been sitting at the painting table at Games Workshop working on my troops, so I am hopeful...

Armies on Parade - Part 9

It is only two days left before the big event now, and even though I'm not completely done yet I am quite certain that everything will be ok before Saturday.
Everything except from one bit is assembled, and most of the painting is done. I am doing weathering for everything it is worth at the moment. needed a little time off now because my workspace is full of things tht need to dry before I can make the next step.

The board itself is painted and washed, but I went in the classic trap and used too much wash. I tried to fix some of it with a drybrush, but not sure exactly how it turned out. That will be for the voters to decide. I've done everything as good as I possibly can, so I am happy either way.

Unit status:
Bikers: Attackbike is 100% done. The other bikes needs to have the rim around the base paintes, but I won't do this before the paint is done cracking on the top. The bike bases need to be washed after that.

Devastators: All painted except for the engine on the chainsword of one sergeant. Then they and their bases needs to be washed.

Assault marines: All painted except for the engines on the chainswords. Need washing of Marines and bases.

Scouts: all painted. Needs to wash them and their bases.

Scout Sergeant Telion: a little cleanup needed, then needs wash on him and the base.

Captain and Chaplain: almost done, just a few details left. One of these details is to get the axe glued on to the captain, and this will be done later today. Then they need wash, and I need to paint and wash their bases.

Hunter: The Hunter is painted and cleaned, and I added some technical paint to the support anchors for keeping it steady when the rockets fly. I will add just a little bit of rust to them, as the only part of the wehcle that will have rust on it. I think it is fitting as these anchors goes down in the eath, so they will get a lot of wear.

Scenery: Buildings are almost done, the tower just need a wash, and the low building needs a few digits and screens painted, but apart from that just a wash.
Then I will take them down to the table and glue them on along with the middle section.

The pipe is alredy glued to the board, and the puddle with the sinking barrels are in place and looking good.

The tank busters are assembled and washed, and I have added the first layer of technical paint to them. Will add the rust a little later doday, and then they are all done.

The bushes are painted and washed, but I need to place them on the board before I can glue them together. I will have a trio of snakes partially cowered in one bush and rats running from the other and down towards the pit.

The lamp is painted and washed, and just waiting to get the base of it washed along with the marines and bikes.

The good thing about wash is that I can apply that even with a little dim lighting, at least on bases and buildings, so I think I will come quite a long way further before I call it a night.

Armies on Parade - Part 8

We're one week away from the main event, and things are slowly (painfully slow as a matter of fact) comming together.
The scouts have been glued togehter, except for the one with the rocket launcher, since I discovered I had forgotten to paint the inside of his arms. I will do that, and glue his arms to his torso tomorrow.
Thursday and today I have been sitting for several hours at the Games Workshop store in Oslo to get as much painting done as possible. Sitting at home, it is so easy to get sidetracked to do other stuff like watching tv series or sit by the computer.
Thursday I found the perfect way for making headlights on my bikes, and I will use the same technique for the lights on the Hunter and on the buildings as well as a lamp post I hope to attach to the base.
The mid building is based and painted, both walls and roof, and only missing a final wash before assembly.

I based everything but the characters today, and I managed to make a big mistake with the scouts. My idea was to have them in the low building, and because of that I planned to make the bases similar to the building floor. But instead I managed to base them all with the same paint as the Assault Marines and Devestators. So I have thought up a scheme to make it plausible that they are standing on sand even when they are standing on the building floor. When adding the floor to the structure I had to use a lot of greenstuff, and some of that is visible on the top of the floor. So I will paint that in sand colour instead of trying to hide it, and the story is that there is a lot of sand flying on the planet surface, so there are a lot of sand on the floors. Since it is only on the ground level the wind are as crazy, there are no sand in the high tower.

The bikers will soon be ready, I will paint red stripes on their shoulderguards, so that it is possible to see that they belong to the 3rd company, and then glue them on to the bikes, wash both bikers and bikes with Nuln Oil, make the bike bases and glue them on there and they will be all done.

All the Marines carrying a chainsword will have the black stripes on their swords after the next session with them. Mats at GW Oslo showed me a very nice trick to get straight stipes on the words, so I will find a ruler and a sharp pencil and make stripes to paint along. This will fix my problem of straight stripes of equal size. Then it's just the Nuln Oil wash and they are also done.

The Snipers and Sergeant Telion will have Nuln Oil wash on their blue pats, and Agrax Earthshade (brown colour) wash on their "white" parts.

The Hunter and the buildings will also get the same wash of Nuln Oil, and the low builing will have the few details left fixed.

Found a lovely suprise looking for something else...

I was looking for some Ork pieces and stumbled across two plastic bags of Space Marine parts.
Been looking on Forge World now and found out what I have.
One bag is a Space Marine Apothecary set, with two apothecaries with a lot of details. One of them is a MkII Crusade-pattern power-armour, and the other is a MkIV Maximus pattern. So both are older than the standard Space Marine power-armour.
I would really like to build them so that they look great, as they will stand out from the rest of the marines. I'm thinking of grey-white armour, but with blue backpack, boots and helmets. Then I will repaint the one apothecary I have started on, to give him the same look.

The other bag contained another Forge word set, a Legion MkIV Recon Squad with five Marines. They can be armed with shotguns or sniper rifles, and I plan to make three or four with sniper rifles and at least one with a shotgun. Might end up with three sniper rifles and two shotguns, I'll see when I start to assemble them how it will look. I know one of them must have a shotgun as he has one hand down his side so the sniper rifle will look weird.
If I had found them a month ago, I migh have replacesd the scouts with them as they are something that is rearly seen on the tables. But I will not have them painted up to a standard in the time I have left. 

But they will no doubt be a squad in my force for the future. Not sure of what company to put them in though, the logical part would be to call them 1st Company with their MkIV armour, but I'm not sure they will look good with white helmets. So I'll see where I end up when I start to paint.

In the early night the light on my table isn't good enough for painting since I'm sitting on the living room table to work now. So I have taken with me some of the old Ork trukks that I wanted to convert, and I plan to make them in to weapon platforms. Three of them will have launch platforms for the rockets I have bought earlier. The Grot Bombs will fly from the back of the trukks into the enemies they are fighting at the time.
I also plan to use spare guns from Leman Russ tanks to build some guntowers on the backs of some of the trukks but I am struggling with finding a solution for making the walls to make it look "solid".
I need to hide the fact that the guns will not be "attached" to something inside, so I will try and find a solution.

Armies on Parade - Part 7

I am really starting to feel the clock ticking now. One and a half week to everything must be ready, and nothing is really done yet...

I have done most of the tower, just need to clean up the outside and paint som small details on the inside of the top. The other building misses a lot of details, but are based and details are starting to come along.

I have assembled the small piece of pipe that I can fit to the board, and will prime it and start to paint it tomorrow, along with the parts that will make the connecting bulding between the existing two.
I will prime that in parts and assemble as soon as I can. I might need to do some greenstuffing to get everything to fit snugly, but I must try to get most of the board painted first, as the buildings take up a lot of room.
I started with the stone on the board today, and plan to do the hill tomorrow, and maybe also start on the cracked surfaces. I also started on my pit of slush with a layer of 'ardcoat.

I am still stumbling over how I can paint the black stripes on the powerswords, but I will bring them with me to the Game Workshop store in Oslo on Thursday so maybe they have a few tips to make it look great. I will also try to get some help with the backpack for my Chaplain, as I don't get it to fit right, and they think we can fix it with greenstuff so I will bring it in to get some assistance. Might learn a thing or two along the way too...

The Devastators are 95% finished, there are a few details that I need to finish, and then they will need a cleanup and a wash. It was a smart move to glue the arms to the weapons first, as they fit quite nice. 

A little trouble with the melta, but not a big thing.
I am painting up the shouderguards for the final five, along with all the shoulderguards for my bikers.
The bikers themselves are getting there. The bikes are complete, but the bikers have some details remaining. I will need to do a little cleanup on the bikes and bikers as well, but nothing much. 

I also need to do the bases, but that isn't very hard.
My scout sergeant is almost done, and his ten scouts will get their assembly tomorrow. I will need to do a little bit of greenstuff on a some of them, so I might as well do that on thursday as well.