Fall is over us...

The fall is here, and with that comes "Armies on Parade". After receiving 3rd place last year with my Ork Mek army with Grot mechanics, I've decided not to take part this year. But I hope to be back again with a new board next year.

I have five Super Heavy tanks in various stages of painting, as well as lots of regular tanks and vehicles. I had planned to finish some of them off, but got a little tired of all the gray and big panels, so I started working on some of my other armies.

I have taken up work on my Mechanicus army, and the plan with this is to make it into a Cohort fighting as part of a large Exploratory fleet. It will not have all the units the Mechanicus range offers, I don't like the Electro Priest models, so there will be none of those. I plan to field lots of Skitarii, both Rangers and Vanguards, but they will all have the hooded Ranger heads. Instead I will separate them and keep them apart by using different colors on the inside of their robes.And they will of-course have the designated weapons of their type so that will also keep them apart. The spare heads from the Vanguards I hope to use for some special forces troopers for my Astra Militarum army.
The army will have both Scorpius versions and Dunecrawlers. So far I have built one Dunecrawler with an Icarus array, and it is waiting to be primed and painted.
I will also have quite a lot of Kastelan robots and some Kataphron units. There will not be any Knights in the standard army, but I plan to have some Freeblade knights that can assist when needed. These Knights will also fight alongside my other Imperial armies when called upon.

I have re-planned my Knights army, from being a proud Knightly Household to being the remnants of a Knightly Household fighting alongside a lot of Freeblade knights. Four of these Freebldes are working together as a unit known as the Knights of The Apocalypse, and will be painted to fit the classic Biblical tale of the Riders of the Apocalypse with a modern twist from the Pratchett/Gaiman book "Good Omens" adapted to 40K. At the moment I am looking for parts to use for the specific modifications I need to do to them, but it is not too much that needs to be done.
I also plan to make one or two Knights to fight alongside my Chaos Space Marines chapter, The Knights of Oblivion. One of them will be a knight that used to fight as one of the four Knights of the Apocalypse before it was corrupted by Nurgle, and will be a specially hated enemy of these knights.

I am also working on building and painting my small force of Necrons that I started because there were Necrons in a box with Mechanicus forces that I bought to get the Knight Armigers when they were released for the first time. I am using a base of Leadbelcher with some green and yellow-brown paints to give a metallic look to them. The force is just a "Start Collecting" box with a few units added, but I believe I might add to this quite a lot over time a there are some very nice flyers in this army. But for now I will build and paint what I have and see how far that gets me.

But it is not only 40K that I dabble with, I've also taken out my Sylvaneth army from semi retirement and decided on how to paint them up. Games Workshop have released a new range of paints, and along with a light primer they say that this will make painting large armies go a lot faster without loosing anything to the quality of the old paints. So I have decided to use two colors, one dark brown and one more yellowish brown for the bark. Then I will use "fall" colors for the leaves mixed with a little bit of green for variation. I'm thinking rather dark colors for most of the trees an very light colors for the little creatures that live among the branches.

Some more Super Heavy progress

I've managed to get some more progress on the Super Heavy tanks. The first Baneblade is now almost finished. What remains now is some details on the people in the turret and then I need to figure out how I want to paint the shrine at the back of the tank. Since this shrine is the same on all the super heavy tanks, I've decided to move on to the Stormlord and come back to it once I figure out how I want it to look.

In my last blogpost I said I had an idea on how to add company colors for the tanks but that I was unsure on how to do it for the tanks not having a traditional turret. I tried out a solution on the Stormlord, and it worked just as I wanted it to, so I will do the same for my Shadowsword. At the moment they are the only two tanks with this turret construction.

When it comes to the Stormlord I have painted the thread guards and the sides of the tank, and all of the grey have been re-painted from a paint bottle. The tracks are also painted.
What is left now is a lot of details both big and small, and I will start working on that tomorrow. There are no people in the turret on this tank, so there are not that many intricate details as on the other tanks. I will also start to work on the Hellhammer. It is only primed with grey spray, so it will need the full treatment. It is the same with the Shadowsword.
The Baneblade that has been painted before, but that I need to give a touch up to make it in to the right colors was originally primed black and then painted grey so that "only" need the Caliban green and black treatment along with new details. It will take time to get everything done, but it is nice to see that there are progress even though it is rather slow.

Alongside the Super Heavy project, I also work on my smaller mechanized units, and I have finished a Hellhound and almost finished a Manticore. It was while working on the Hellhoud I found out just how good the Khorne Red looked with black and dark grey, and I think I will have to get two more to paint them the same way.

The next small unit I'll work on is a Chimera, as this is the only vehicle that I will have many of that I haven't painted up yet (well, the Taurox is also such a vehicle, but I don't plan to have that many of them).

From before I have finished two Basilisk tanks and a Hydra, but the Hydra needs to have the guns on its left side glued back on as it broke off just in the thinnest rotating part when it fell to the floor in a tragic accident.

All my smaller vehicles and Leman Russ tanks are either primed black or grey depending on when they were primed (some were primed a long time ago), but the newest ones are primed grey with black turrets as I plan to paint them now.
I think what I need to do now is to establish the look of the Leman Russ sides. I have not painted them like I do with my super heavies, so I need to paint the side sponsons on one of them in Caliban Green to see how it will look. Hopefully it will work as good as with the super heavies because I would love to have a strict uniformed look for all my vehicles.
I am also trying to think up what parts to paint black and green on my Tautox vehicles to give them the same look. Maybe I should try to paint up the one I have primed to see how I can do it.

Super heavy progress, and a discovery...

My wife's working nights this weekend, so I decided to take a trip to Games Workshop in Oslo and sit there for the day an work on painting.
The good thing about being there is that if I get distracted from my painting it is to build a new set and that is also helping my armies grow. If I get distracted at home I might sit and read a book or watch something on TV or on my computer and that does not finish armies.

Today I brought with me the hull of my second Baneblade Super heavy, Steel Fury, and managed to get a lot done. I would say the tank i about 75% painted now. There are just a few details left on the hull, but there are a lot of small details on the tower and this will take some time to do.

While working on the hull I discovered there was some places where the grey spray hadn't covered the black primer well enough. So I took out a pot of the same grey color and started to paint, only to discover that the grey spray called Mechanicus Standard Grey is a lot lighter and a little more blue than the pot with the same name. So I ended up painting the entire hull again with a brush trying to make it a thin coat.

I have also done some work on the turret, painting the top and the top hatches. Tomorrow I will start to work on more details on the turret, I have some plans to paint some of the armor panels on my tank turrets in different colors marking their designation in the squad, and I will look for a way to do that with my super heavies. I know how to do it for the Baneblades and the Hellhammer as they have normal looking turrets. But the Shadowsword and Stormlord have turrets that just extend up from the hull. 

I think I have an idea how to do it for them as well, and I will try it on the Stormlord tomorrow.

Progress on th Super Heavies

I started to paint up my Super Heavy tanks this weekend, and decided on the color scheme for all my vehicles. The sides will be black as they have been for a little while. The hinges at the bottom will be Caliban Green, this has been decided for a while but not implemented before now. Also this weekend I decide that the side sponsons also should be painted the same color. This will be done for both the Super Heavies and the Leman Russ tanks (all my Leman Russ tanks have side sponsons). For the vehicles based on the Chimera chassis, there is a square plate where they have the Imperial Eagle or the winged scull and a banner where you can add a vehicle name, and this plate will be green on these vehicles.
Also all the turrets will have a black background color, but then some parts will be painted in other colors. For my Super Heavy tanks I think the top of the turrets will have the same color as the main body of the tank, and that is Mechanicus Standard Grey.
For the Chimera style chassis I have used XV-88 to paint the soft cover around the front gun. I will also use that for the seats in the cockpits on the Valkyries and the driving compartments of the Manticores (if I choose to make them open topped).

For the Baneblades and the Hellhammer the armorplates between the hull and the turret will also be painted black. I have not yet decided if the curved cover over the viewports will be painted black like they are on the picture below or if they will be Caliban Green. The part of the viewport that is supposed to be the armored glass will be painted in a very light blue, but I don't remember the name of the color right now.

This is the front of my only Stormlord. This has a different tower that is raised directly on the hull, and here the armorplates around it are all painted black, and this will also be done on my Shadowsword.
I've added a green shield on the front of the main gun, as I just thought it would look good. Here you can see how the turrets on the side sponsons are also painted black like all other turrets.

The light is not the best, but here you see the side of a tank with the side and sponon painted.
The Imperial Eagle will probably be painted silver, and the ladder at the back will be Leadbelcher.
I will also use  Leadbelcher for the tracks, and I might use it for the "wheels" as well but I might also fin another metal color for those.

At the same time as I am painting these, I am working on my first Manticore that is not done anything with from before, so it is being painted from the primer as the Super Heavies. And I am also putting my final touches on the first Hellhound I built.  

Pics will follow (hopefully in better light) when the vehicles are done.

New Super Heavy tank in the making...

This is the hull for my second Baneblade Super Heavy tank. I had sort of forgotten that I started writing this post, so now it is waiting to be painted up after I primed it this afternoon.
This Baneblde has been given the name "Steel Fury" and will be commanded by Captain James Johnston Pettigrew. This picture gives an impression of how big these tanks really are as there are Imperial Guard officers standing on each side of it.

On the left of the tank is Captain William Joseph Hardee, he is nicknamed "Old Reliable" and is the commanding officer of the 1st Ratling Auxillia who is part of the 1st Abhuman Regiment.

He is armed with a sniper rifle and is an expert marksman. One needs to be in order to have the respect of the Ratling snipers. 

On the right is a fellow captain, but I am not yet sure who he is or what regiment he serves with. 

Astra Militarum recovery vehicle

I finally got around to build my recovery vehicle for my Walpurgian 3rd Army. I am not sure if I can use it in a game, but if so it must be with Forgeworld rules for the Trojan that they produce. 

After all I've made my own because I can't afford buying from Forgeworld and because I am not too happy working with resin.

I originally wanted to use the big crane from the Galvanic Servohauler set, but it looked too big no matter how I tried to fit it. I thought of cutting it down, but I would have to cut it so much it wouldn't be functional so I gave it up and decided to use that crane on another build in the future instead. There was an article in last month White Dwarf on how to use it as part of the industrial scenery so I might do that instead.

At the front, the vehicle has a big dozerblade that will help it to get to the stranded vehicles that needs service or recovery. It doesn't have lots of weapons as it needs to be light and carry a lot of equipment. But they do carry a heavy bolter mounted in the front and a heavy stubber by the hatch that can be operated by the driver when the vehicle is standing still.

This is what it looks like from the sides. It is mostly identical on both sides except one side has a pick and a tarpaulin that is folded up, while the other side has a shovel and a missile.
On both sides there are heavy chains so that vehicles can be rescued.

Here is the view from behind. I wish I could have found a better back gate for the vehicle, but I think I found an ok solution to it. Because of the grappling arm you can't see that there also is a towing hitch on the back. 

Here is a view from the top of the vehicle, details are sort of hard to see at the moment, but when it's painted up then hopefully everything will be visible. In the back there is a big toolbox on the floor and on the wall hangs a hook for when they need to tow a vehicle and a lasrifle for personal protection.

On the other side there are an oil barrel and fuel cans for refueling vehicles to get them back to base or just refill missing hydraulic or motor oil after damage. There is also a smaller lasweapon (the one that comes with the Basilisk sets) for personal protection for the other man in the back.

On the back wall I added an industrial sawblade that I believe is part of an ork set originally, and a fire extinguisher that came in the Galvanic Servohauler set. The middle section that the crane is connected to is the middle section for the Manticore missile rack that you don't use if you build the Deathstrike missile.

Here are the two men working in the back of the recovery vehicle. The man on the left is still missing rank and name, but he will get it before everything is painted up. I suspect he is a sergeant.

The fellow on the right is Captain Thomas Egenton Hogg, and he is a Squadron leader in the army all though he doesn't have much of a squadron to lead yet. But I might add some other vehicles at a later time, maybe a tanker of some sort, and he is probably also in charge of the crewmen working on repairs at the base.

New Grot tank

I needed to buy a set of Galvanic Servohaulers as I need a solid crane to put on a recovery vehicle I am working on for my Astra Militarum army Since I just needed the crane itself for this, I had two servohaulers in spare. Last time I was working on Grot tanks one of the employees at Games Workshop Oslo suggested I could use these, and now I had the chance to do so.
A While ago Games Workshop had an event where we could come nd raid their huge bitbox ss they wanted to clear it out and start again with sets that are in the current range so I do not know where everything comes from, as last time the box was emptied was in 2001. 

We could bring things we wanted to work on and use the bits we wanted, so one of the tings I brought was this. 

I know banner on the front was a lance from the Bretonians or Empire knights. The back turret is raided from a chaos vehicle sprue, and I believe the front turret is from something T'au.  The front turret is armed with a heavy bolter taken from a Leman Russ tank. I also found a pair of heavy bolter tips that I glued to the front of the vehicle, and I believe they originally came from an old chimera turret.

I plan to glue some Ork glyphs on the big drivewheel to cover up the mechanicus symbol on there. 

The twin storm bolters in the back are mounted in a turret that can be manned by a Grot gunner when needed. I do not know where the bottom of the turret came from, but I decided it would work well as a place to sit as it adds some height for the gunner.

It looks rather menacing from the front with the three heavy bolters and the two smoke launchers.

On the back there is a weird Ork energy thing that I have seen on some of the vehicles and cannons, but I am not 100% sure what effect it has, but being from the Ork range I felt it fitted nicely. On the other side there is a mine attached, that the grots can place on an enemy vehicle or fortification they meet on their way.

I plan to paint this vehicle yellow and use a sponge to add some dirt and rust to it. To make it go a little faster the Grots might add some red stripes to it if they find a place where it can be done.

I plan to convert the other Servohauler too, but I am not sure how I will do it yet. But here at home I have lots of parts from Leman Russ tanks, so I might add a cannon from one if I find a way to make a turret. Or maybe I could use some spare side turrets from my Super heavy tanks. That is some of the fun with converting, seeing what part you have available and how you can use it.

The Genestealer cult is comming

A few weeks ago Games Workshop released the 8th edition codex for the Genesteler Cults. I have always liked this army, so I have started building and painting up my army. I have not done much yet, but it's a start. I have assembled several of the new units but I'm waiting for the best conditions to prime my built minis. In the meantime I am painting some older units that I have primed earlier.

I have gone for a colorscheme that will fit both miners and soldiers from the Planetary Defence Force on a mining world. I am using mainly basepaints with some washes and layer paints where needed.

The jackets, coats and cloaks will be painted Jokaero Orange, the pants will be Mechanicus Standard Gray and boots and the main weapon color will be Abaddon Black.
The gray pants and the black boots and weapons are identical to my Astra Militarum army, and this helps bind the forces together.
The padding and mining backpacks are painted Zandri Dust, and the parts that look like metal are painted Leadbelcher.

For the skin I plan to paint it Bugmans glow, wash with Druchii Violet and then layer it with Cadian Fleshtone so that most of the face is light skin but with the violet shining through in some places. The idea is that the less human they look, the more purple their skin will be.

At the moment, I'm also thinking about painting their vehicles in Jokaero Orange and Zandri Dust with some details in other colors.

The Genestealer Cult release also gave me a unit for my Astra Militarum army. I don't know how I will use them yet, but I got some bikers that I plan to field as scouts. These scouts will serve with the Special Forces unit of the Walpurgian 3rd as the heads that fit best were from the Militarum Tempestus boxes. There are four bikes in a box (along with a four wheeler that I can't use) and there is also a box with a sniper on bike, so I plan to have a few units of five, and say that two units is one squad.
I will also use the bikers in my Genestealer Cult army, but there I will use them with all that is in the boxes, and they will also use the spare four wheelers.

Imperial Guard (Astra Militarum) Heavy Weapons team WIP

I thought I would do something a little different for once and show you the way from an idea to a finished model. I'm not that good at updating the blog, so 'I have created a new tag called WIP, and from time to time I will show you what I am working on. I probably won't be doing it for all the rank and file models but I will do it if it is something big, different or something I feel I would like to share for other reasons.

I feel that it can be a bit boring to have every model on a flat "black" base with nothing going on (the base will not stay black as it will be painted up some way, but you know what I mean), so I thought I would go for a little mini dioarama when building this Cadian heavy weapon team.
I wanted to add some extra side sponsons and turrets to one of my super heavy tanks, so I bough the Baneblade Sponsons and Accessories sprues from Games Workshop. On these sprues there were two extra sets of the barrels that goes on the back of the tanks. I want to use two barrels for my Stompa flamer conversion that I will make in the future, but the other two I had no plans for so I glued them on to a base from the Sector Mechanicus Industrial bases set as I wanted to use this heavy weapon team along with my city fighters. I can also field them and have them blend in seamlessly on the gangways of my big refinery that I am working on, but most of the time they will be fighting in rulal areas.

They are armed with a missile launcher that they steady on the barrels to aim it straight. I have also given them an extra missile as that was all I had spare, but I might add a crate to another base and that could potentially be full og spare missiles. The soldier sitting on his knee holds a laspistol for close combat and binoculars to get range and target information. The soldier with the missile launcher have a laspistol holstered on his hip, and they also have a spare lasgun for keeping the enemy away when they are out of missiles. I can also add a container og some sorts to another base in the future and place that close by and say it is an ammo dump, so they don't need to run out of missiles in a while.

Here they are primed and ready for paint. The guardsmen are not glued to the base yet, but everything else is glued together. I will glue the guardsmen to the base with superglue when the painting is mostly done to avoid remnants of glue being visible on the finished work.

I've had one paint session with them so far, and this is where I am now. The barrels are painted Zandri Dust, and will have one more coat with that before they are washed with Agrax Eathshade. Then I will go over them with a sponge to weather them up. First with a brown color to create patches of rust, and then with a metal color (also with the sponge) to make them look worn.
There is a lot of metal here, so I haven't decided exactly how to paint the missile launcher, but I'm thinking either black or dark green. Dark green could be my best option as the armor and helmet that is right beside it are black. 
The uniform pants are Mechanicus Standard Grey and the jackets are Administratum Grey. This is the standard paint scheme for all my Cadians.

My Astra Militatum/Imperial Guard army is made up of several different units, but I try to have some things painted the same for all of them to add unity to the army.

I have Cadians, Catachans and Tempestus Scions as troops. Cadians and Catachans are both regular Infantry Regiments, while the Scions form up an elite Stormtrooper Regiment. 

They get different colored jackets dependning on what they are wearing. The Catchans often have combat vests or t-shirts, the Cadians have uniform jackets and the Scions have another kind of armor. But all pants are Mechanicus Standars Grey, and all boots are Black. This is also true for my abhumans (both Orgyns/Bulgryns and Ratlings).