Plans for 2021 - Warhammer 40.000

The main army I will work on for Warhammer 40K is my Imperial Guard (or Astra Militarum as the range is called now). They have the highest priority in this range. I have lots of both tanks and infantry built and primed and still lots to build. This is one of my two main armies for 40K, and I have all my models at home so it is "just" a matter of finding the time to work on them. Most of my color schemes are quite clear for this army, but I am still considering how to do the airborne part of the army as I haven't built any of those yet. But I think I know how I want them to look, so it is just a matter of building and giving it a try. I have another army I can use both as a separate army and as allies to this, and that is my Imperial Knights.

I have Imperial Knights that will serve on both sides of the conflict. So far I have built and painted one for the good side and one for Chaos. My plan is to have two Chaos Knights. The rest of the knights will be Freeblades, and some will have Imperial symbols while others will have the symbols of the Adeptus Mechanicus. They will fight as backup for their factions, or together as one army of Freeblade Knights.
I plan to give the knights many different paint schemes and all knights will have their own back story. I might paint some in the same scheme to be remnants of a once mighty household, but I will see what I end up doing as I work with them. All of a sudden I find a paint scheme I really love...  This army will take some time though,  the models are big and require a lot of work.

My other main army is the Space Marines. Unfortunately Games Workshop has started to face out all the old units to replace them with Primaris, so I don't think I ever will be able to field my dream of an entire chapter of 1000 Gatekeepers. I have thought out a back story to allow Primaris Marines in to my chapter though, so I will try to field those units eventually. I still would like to finish all my Marines and make an entire chapter though, but that will not be finished by the end of 2021...

Another Space Marine army is The Deathwatch. I have all my Marines assembled and primed for this army, except one little group of Space Wolves that need their shoulderguards with a wolf symbol (they are primaris marines). But I only have my Watch Master done so far, but the five commanders of the Watch companies are on my table being painted, So far I have done the base color on their capes and the silver arm, and I have also done the base color of the silver arm on four Dreadnoughts. This is an army I have some hopes of maybe finishing in 2021. They might need a little support in the future, and I have two Corvus Blackstar flyers that I would like to build, and they should probably get some drop pods and Landriders a well sometime further down the road.

If we stick with Space Marines, we get the third individual army, my Chaos Space Marines. I have no idea if I can play them as one army (but I hope so), but no matter what they will all be the same chapter, the Knights of Oblivion. I am not sure this army will be done by the end of 2021, but I sure hope I will have gotten to paint up a sizeable army. I am still arguing with myself what colors to use exactly, but I think I am getting there. I'm painting up a few test models to see how the colors I want to use will work with the marines that are originally Deathguard, and also to see if I need to change my original plan.
I have some regular Chaos Marines to do the changes on as well. The army is one part regular Chaos Space Marines and one part Nurgle. Both have a Chaos Knight to fight along side them. This is mostly an infantry based army, at least in my mind, so I am little uncertain how they will function on a battlefield.

The fourth big army is the Orks. I love the Orks for so many reasons, one of the big ones are the possibilities of doing modifications and kitbashing and make new and crazy stuff for the army.
This is an army that actually have some finished units already. One of the finished units is my monster sized vehicle that was built by the staff at Games Workshop Oslo, and I also have the units I built for the Armies on Parade in 2018 including a Stompa called Da Punisha. I have several units primed, some are painted almost to completion and some are just primed. I have lots of units to build for this army, and like the Chaos Space Marines I hope they will have grown to a bigger force by the end of 2021. Actually I am quite sure they will...

Another slightly weird army is the Adeptus Mechancus. I have some finished units for this army as well, and several units still to assemble and paint. I know how I want the paint scheme to be for this army, but I have a long way to go before I can call it an army. I hope that I might have sort of a battleforce done by the end of 2021.

My Genestealer cult army is a lot like the Astra Militarum, so I don't think that will be a full army in 2021. I will need to buy more units to field it as a stand-alone army, and I am not entirely sure where I want the army to go. But I do know I want to paint this army and play it some day, so hopefully I will finish something this year

Then I have the armies that are separate entities, but maybe too small to be fielded as separate armies. For now they will sort under the Inquisition. They are the Sisters of Battle (they might be a separate army in the future though), the Sisters of Silence, the Adeptus Custodes (might be able to field them as a small army), some Grey Knights and some Inquisition models. Some of these models are partially painted. I have a fully painted Land Raider I plan to use for them, and lots are still on the sprues. 

Then we can wrap it all up with an army I want to work on during 2021, and that is the Necrons. This is an army I want to see grow slowly but steady during 2021. I know how I want my them to look, and some minis are almost complete (just missing some basework). I hope to be able to put a lot of work in to this force, as I think there are so many great models in this range. They should not be too hard to paint up either as it is quite  simple but effective color scheme with just a few colors and washes needed. After all, they are metal skeletons. The big problem with this range is actually having enough hands to hold everything together as you attach the arms and weapons, but I guess that gets better as you build a few batches of troops. I do not have all the units I would like for this army yet, but I do have quite a good start. As soon as I get the new rule book (sold out from Games Workshop at the moment) I can start making these models in to the beginning of an army. 

As for Necromunda I have put that on the shelf for now. I do love many of the models for this range, and I have enough Escher models to make a nice gang to start with, but I just got a big turn-off when I broke several models trying to get them off the cardboard after I had primed them. I have put the starter set in my pile of models to sell, but I am not entirely sure I will stay away, so it is just in the pile for now. Maybe when I sum up 2021 it will show that I have a small band of Clan Escher models... I will paint up the Enforcers though, as they might be used in regular 40K in some way. And even if I decide to sell my Necromunda figures I will keep the Enforcers.

The Guard is comming

My local Games Workshop store in Oslo have an event going this summer to make a pledge of what or how much to paint and then finish that pledge by September 4th. The general idea is to get your unpainted models or models still on sprue turned in to a painted army. I have pledged to make 3000 points of Astra Militarum.
To do this I need to paint up a lot of tanks, as they give many points, and also some abhuman units. But i would also like to get some regular troops done as that is what I find hardest to motivate myself to paint.

So far I am finishing my Deathstrike Missile launcher, three Leman Russ tanks and my first Taurox Prime. And as I do this I want to base and finish what is remaining on two of my veteran squads.
Right now the weather is very unstable, with lots of rain. But as son as I can, I plan to prime my heavy weapon Veterans that will fight from my Stormlord. 

The Stormlord can take 40 models, so I have 15 heavy weapon teams (30 troops) and one squad of regular Veterans making it a total of 40.
The heavy weapon teams are three teams (one squad) with lascannons and the rest (four squads) with rockets. I wanted to make the bases a little more than just flat bases, so I have added some barrels on some bases and some parts of buildings on the rest of them. I'm currently debating with myself what color to paint the walls, as this can have an influence on what primer to use (black or off-white). I want my buildings to have more color than before, and I have lots of terrain and buildings to build and paint in the future. And it would be cool if these ruined buildings have the same colors.
I will look at some images and maybe also talk with some staff members at Games Workshop to get some advice from them.

Since the last update on this blog I have built and painted two Imperial Knights (one was primed in the last update I believe). I will try to take some pictures of these and post here soon. I will do that as I take some pictures of some finished Imperial tanks. I am not too far away from finishing the first batch.

Knight Progress

Progress is visible on the Knight and that is very nice. This first picture is taken right after the pictures of it in pieces in the previous post as I just wanted to put it together to see how it all looked as I though about what colors to use. It is not glued yet, pieces are just placed where they will go in the end.

Quite early on I knew I wanted to have red as the main color, so I decided to use Mephiston Red for the main color. Then I went several rounds with myself trying to figure out what to do and what the second color should be, but I eventually ended up with black. There are several Knightly houses using these colors so I checked a lot of pictures to make sure I didn't go for an exact match with them. That is why I have the lower leg armor with black on the outside and red on the inside, as all the other houses I found had it the other way. I also decided to make the panel with the entry/exit hatch black.
All the trims will be gold, and that is the last color I will add for all the panels before they get glued on to the model. At this stage I have two panels glued on. That is the one between the legs and the one on the "chest" with the field to write a name.

I have not decided on all the stickers I want to put on the Knight, but I went through all my sheets yesterday and found lot of Imperial Tank sheets and I think I will use quite lot of those stickers on my Knights as many of the ones on the Knight sheets are associated with established Knightly Houses.
As my army of Knights are Freeblades, I am thinking that I can get away with less stickers as some of them have left heir Houses or their Houses are extinct. I will see what I end up with doing when I decide what stickers to use. Being Freeblades I might have different stickers for each one, or I can use some of the same and say that since they fight together they have also bonded when it comes to heraldry.

I think I will do heraldry/stickers for my Knights after I have built a few more, but I need to think of what I want to do because I need to have colors that can bring the stickers to the front.

Imperial Knight progress

I have finally managed to assemble my first Imperial Knight. This is going to be a Freeblade, and one in a quite solid army of Freeblades.
This knight is still in many parts as this makes painting so much easier. The plan is to wash all the visible metal parts of the body, and then start putting on the other parts piece by piece. I have tried to separate the parts in left and right but it seems like most of them are interchangeable.
I am still figuring out what colors to use on the armor-plates. At the moment I am leaning towards red and black with gold trim.

Here is the body of the knight, and most of this is going to be metal, so it is primed black and then sprayed Leadbelcher. The idea is to wash everything twice with Nuln Oil and then some details will need to get other metal colors like the smoke pipes that need to look a little grimy.
I used masking tape to cover up the shield and also managed to cover up almost all of the banner between its legs.

I am very happy with this Knight as it stands now, and I hope I will be just as happy when I am done painting and assembling.

I already have started to plan for the two Knights that came in the Renegade boxed set where one Imperial and one Renegade knight face off in a battle. 

I have a back story for my Knights telling about the Four Knights of the Apocalypse where one of the original four Knights got turned to Chaos, so I plan to build that knight with a regular Knight chassis but maybe add one or two things from the Chaos Knight sprues and other Chaos things I might find. He will then be known as Pestilence. I'll give him the Chaos claw arm and one of the guns, maybe the Gatling gun.

The other knight has not gotten a name yet, but I would like to make the one knight I have in my army that is close combat only with a chainsword and a fist. I need the thermal lance for my new Ork Stompa and it helps make some difference to the knight army. 

While visiting the Games Workshop store in Oslo I picked up one of the Chaos Knighs, and I plan to build that and paint it like my Chaos Space Marines with dark green and silver. I will also try to do some chipping on this Knight as it has some very visible marks where it has been damage in battle.

I think I will try and assemble these three Knights together so that I can get the parts I need and swap between them. We'll see how it works...

General update on Warhammer 40K

In the last post I talked about my Age of Sigmar armies and the status of those. So as a natural follow-up, here is the same sort of status update for my 40K armies.

Adepta Sororitas (Sisters of Battle) has now been released as plastic models, and I have always said that I would have a small Sisters army when that happened. So far I have a few special characters, and two boxes of basic units, and I look forward to painting these up to look like they com for m my own invented order. They will all have blonde hair instead of the white they usually have. Why, you ask? Just because I can, and also because I really suck at painting white. I will work out a backstory that explains why they don't have the white hair.
I don't know how big the army will be yet, but I aim to get an army that can be used by themselves on the tabletop. I have some old metal minis and I will buy more of the plastic models when the ones I have now are built and painted. I will look into the new rule book and then I'll decide what units to get. There are a few I really want...

Adeptus Custodes are the Emperors own guardians, and I have some of these golden warriors. I think one or two are almost done, but I have several units that are primed black and then sprayed gold, and more of them still in the boxes waiting for assembly. I do not have a big Custodes army, but I plan to field them alongside other armies like the Sisters of Battle, Sisters of Silence or Space Marines so I don't need the biggest army. They might also show up backing an Inquisitor, that would probably raise some eyebrows. I have made up my color scheme, and I'm currently working on their back story.

Adeptus Mechanicus is an army that will have quite a nice size. I love all the weird vehicles they have, and plan to use this as one of my main armies but also as a support army for other armies. I don't like all the units from this army, so I am making a back story to explain why my units deviate from the standard and why the units I don't like is not part of the army. 

The main reason for this is that my army is part of the vast Mechanicus Exploration Fleet. The army is designated Cohort 9-1 Alpha and is under the command of Magos Explorator de Orellana, and the Cohort is serving aboard the ship The Gloria Inveneris that is under the command of Arch Magos de Sousa.
I love the Kastelan robots, so my army have a lot of those. They are part of the Legio Cybernetica, and the leader of the Legio is Magos Dominus de Vaca.
I also plan to have some of my Imperial Knights army made up with marks showing allegiance to the Adeptus Mechanicus.

Astra Militarum (who used to be the Imperial Guard and are tagged as such in this blog) is one of my three main armies for Warhammer 40K.  I have made up my own planet called Walpurgia (named after St. Walpurga who is a real Catholic saint) and my army is the Walpurgian 3rd and they have everything from the tiniest Ratling snipers to Super Heavy tanks. They are built up mostly by Cadians and Catachans, with some special forces made from Militarum Tempestus and some modified models from the Genestealer Cult range.
I have some of the units done, and lots of units both soldiers and tanks that I am working on at all times and they are in all stages of the building process from in the box to almost done painting. Most of the stuff is quite standard out of the box, but I also do some conversions and among the things I have made is a recovery vehicle for recovering damaged tanks from the battlefield as I feel this is a must have. Also I wanted the Earthshaker cannon to use as a bellygun for an Ork Stompa.
I hope I can post several units on the blog in the near future as many vehicles are only missing small details before I can call them done.

Deathwatch was not supposed to be a big army but then something happened and I now have a lot of them. I have all the troops that serve from the Watch Fortress Alamo Bexar. They are all primed except for two Corvus Blackstar ships that are still in their boxes. This army has a lot of different chapters as the Deathwatch are supposed to, but some chapters are represented more often than others. 

They all have the etched shoulderguards that came in the Deathwatch boxes, and I plan to try and paint several different successor chapters to put as much variety in the army as possible. I have only one figure that is truly done and that is Watch Master Barret Travis. I had one regular marine as well, but he was sent off to Games Workshop to be a part of the Deathwatch army of the Northern Europe Store Managers and was supposed to come back to me when they were done with it but he is still out there.
I have an extensive back story for this army and some of the characters, but still working on more as every one of these Marines is some sort of character or hero. I have these Marines standing in boxes on my shelves with one unit in each box, so hopefully I will be able to get some progress on them in the near future. I recently watched a video that gave me tips for their eyes, so I am quite interested in seeing how that will look, and if it works then I might use the same color for other eye lenses.

Grey Knights is something I bought because I loved how the figures looked. I don't intend to ever play a Grey Knight army, but I would like to use them as support for my Space Marines or Inquisition forces. I painted my first unit dark blue as I wanted them to mix with my Space Marines, but I might go back and strip them and paint them again unless I can think of a real good reason why they are blue. It seemed smart at the time, but now I am not so sure...

Imperial Knights was an interesting supplement as support for Imperial armies, but all of a sudden they got their completely own codex and rules to field them as a separate army if you would like and I was lost. I wanted to make my own Knightly House and have quite an extensive army, but then I got cold feet along with an idea to build four of them as the Knights of the Apocalypse (inspired by the Riders of the Apocalypse from the Holy Bible and perhaps even more in Good Omens) and that idea led to me scrapping the plans of my own House and instead planing to make a vast army of Freeblade knights fighting together. Some will have markings that say they are Imperial, and some will have the markings to say they swear allegiance to the Mechanicum. I plan to use some Knights as reinforcements for other armies when called upon, but I will also like to field them as a Knight army.
I have one Knight that is done, but it is not built or painted by me. However I will keep it just as it is, as it is a masterpiece made by one of the kind former staff members of Games Workshop in Oslo who has given me lots of support and good advice over the years. I will not be able to replicate his work, but his Knight (I will always think of it as his even though I own it officially) will be a guide and inspiration for me when I make my own Knights and hopefully I can make it look that they fight on the same battlefield. I will have to make some sacrifices though as I also would like them to fit with my other armies.

Inquisition was never intended to be a big army, but more of an addition to other forces. Imagine a Space Marine Army with an Inquisitor and a band of Grey Knights fighting alongside them. I have several Inquisitor models, and I like making small warbands to work as their aids. Also they are able to call on the help from any army when needed, so they can fight alongside any of my Imperial forces.
If the Inquisitors join forces they will be lead by Lord Inquisitor Van Dorn.
So far the only thing finished is a Landraider that was painted up as a masterclass in learning how to add battle damage and how to paint white vehicles. I don't know how many more specific vehicles they will get, maybe the rest will be requisitioned from other armies as needed.

Sisters of Silence is also just a small thing. I got some when I bought a collection box of Custodes and sisters way back when they were first released, and have not started to assemble the sisters yet. My plan is to have them fight alongside other armies, and I am working on a back story for them. I just build and paint the units I like as they will never be a stand alone army.

My Space Marines chapter, The Gatekeepers, was originally supposed to be my main 40K army.
At the moment they are second, behind Astra Militarum, but I still have a dream of building an entire chapter over a long time.Now that the regular Marines are slowly disappearing from the stores to be replaced by Primaris Marines, I might revisit this idea. I've already designated two of my companies to Primaris due to heavy losses in a well known campaign where The Gatekeepers fought hard.
The Gatekeepers is an Ultramarine successor chapter, but they do have some other elements within their ranks because I have a lot of different Marine models, but that is all explained in the lore. 

The chapter has their home in the distant stars on a planet named Luminus Prime, and the Chaptermaster is a former Ultramarines Champion by the name of Otho Vitellius.

Chaos Space Marines is not supposed to be a main army for me. I do love the name I came up with for them, The Knights of Oblivion, and I would love to get them built up to an army I can bring to the battlefields. The chapter master is Arch-Commodore Falstaff.
My original idea when I started this army many many years ago was that they would be all infantry because they were stranded on a planet far from their home in the Eye of Terror. One idea was that they were a small warband left behind when the rest of their chapter left the planet for some reason, and another was that their ship was shot down in a big battle above the planet, and that they crash landed here. But after the Death Guard miniature was re-released some years ago I ended up with them too, and they do not look anything like my original Chaos Marines. This can be explained with the fact that the Death Guard Marines have been on an expedition farther in to the Eye of Terror and have been exposed and warped or mutated much more than their comrades. Being away from the others for so long has also opened their eyes to the Chaos God Nurgle, maybe they have fought alongside other Chaos Marines who worship him on their mission. I guess the lore will give a hint if not an exact answer to this question. They might get some vehicles in the future, but for now they are infantry. Sometimes they fight alongside a Chaos Knight that has fallen from grace. His name is Plague and he used to be one of the Four Knights of the Apocalypse, but he got seduced by the powers of Nurgle.

Genestealer Cults is an army very much still in the making and planning. The main reason I started with them was that I wanted to make some Planetary Defense Forces (known as PDF-forces) for the planet where I think most of my armies clash, and that led to using some Genestealer and small Tyranid models I got in a boxed game, and so the Genestealer Cult was born. I do like a lot of the models that Games Workshop has released for this range, and especially the ones looking like miners or Imperial Guard soldiers, and as of now I just have a few ideas of where I will take the army. I have a color scheme that I will follow, and I have started to paint several types of units both characters and vehicles.

Necrons is my newest army. They got to be an army because I bought a boxed set with Mechanicus and Necrons in it. For a long time the Necrons were just left as pieces, but I got a good idea with the new Contranst paints from Citadel and decided to give it a try. I use the Contrast colors over metal, so I get colored metallic look, and I liked the result so much I decided to make a small Necron army. I have no idea how big or small this army will be in the end though as it seems to grow from time to time. The regular Necron warriors are a pain in the butt to assemble as the two-handed weapons and the wobbly shoulder joints are hard to keep together when gluing, but I do like the models, so I guess time will tell... No matter how big the army will be, it will have its own lore and I am quite sure the Necrons will come form some unknown dynasty.

Orks is the final army, and one of the big armies I have for 40K. One of the main reasons for having this army is that it is a crazy army. I can do lots of funny or cool conversions and generally just have fun with it.
The leader of this army is Hazza Hoff (sometimes known just as The Hoff) and he has his Big Mek Mek Gyvver who creates lots of crazy stuff for the army. He has a lot of tech Grots that work for him, and they are dressed in red robes, just like the Mechanicus and Techpriests of The Astra Militarum (and also Space Marines even though they don't wear robes as such but have red armor instead). They build everything from weird weapons to Stompas. This army contain the figures I won 3rd place for in the Armies on Parade in 2018, and the main "vehicle" there was the Stompa Da Punisha! There is another Stompa in the making now, with a big (or at least long) bellygun and a plan to replace the big chainsword with some sort of flamer, and the big guns on its shoulder will among other things be replaced with a big Deathstrike Missile. But I will rant more about that in a later post...

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.

A grand Knight (Freeblade)

I think I have mentioned this one before, but  it seems like I haven't shown pictures on the blog.
The knight is painted by a  former staff member at my local Games Workshop store in Oslo, Mats Stangjordet.
Mats is not only a great painter, but he is a great guy too and he has helped me a lot with my painting and unit building over the years. I could always ask him for advice, and he would say what he would have done and if you chose to do it another way he would support you anyway and help you as best he could when you asked for it.
Mats has a big interest in Japan (and actually live there now) and you will see Japanese writing on several places on the Knight, and it also has a Manga inspired female on its left shoulder.

On the pictures the banner that is supposed to be hanging under the torso is laying on the ground. This is just because I want to attach the same piece to some of my own knights before I try to do it on this one as I do not want to damage anything.

Here is a close-up of the shoulder with the anime figure. You can also see a delicate checkerboard pattern on the middle section of the knight, painted in quite neutral colors. This is one of the details that help this Knight stand out, and it is repeated on other armor panels other places on the body.

I keep this Knight on top of my work table as an inspiration for myself to try and always paint each miniature a little bit better than the last, and also it is very pretty to rest my eyes on when I need to look up from the figure I am building or painting. 

I would love to try and make the same kind of bases as Mats did on this for my knight army as such a big figure deserves a base that is more than just some paint slapped on a flat base. I don't think I will get the exact same colors, but I will try to do something similar.

The knight will be brought to games if I can, and I'll be proud to field it among any of my Imperial armies.

The Knights will walk...

I have spent some time with my knights on paper these last few days.
I am currently building my first Knight, not sure yet who it will be as I haven't built the weapons yet, but I will start on the arms this afternoon if everything works out as I have planned.

I have not found a name for my Knightly Household yet, but I have decided that they are sworn to Adeptus Terra, so they are Imperium and not Mechanicus. I have decided on what symbol I want them to carry on their front, and are working on a few spare plates from my Hellhounds to try and find the right color combination to use on the Knights. I am trying to see if Caliban Green and Death Guard Green will work well together, as I think green would be a good color to paint the knights.
I use Caliban Green for my Chaos Space Marines as well, but there will not be any confusion there. If so, then nobody could paint any color because red wold be Khorne, blue would be Ultramarines and so on. But I am doing one thing different and that is the trim. On my Chaos Space Marines they have silver trimmings, while my Knights will have Retributor Gold. Mainly because it is a basic color that covers well, and I like the result it gives.

When it comes to names, I have named all my Knights after the legends of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table

I have not given the different Knights their pilots yet, but I have the following Knights:
Lancelot (Knight Valiant)
Galahad (Knight Castellan)
Gawain (Knight Paladin)
Bedivere (Knight Errant)
Percival (Knight Crusader)
Lamorak (Knight Warden)
Geraint (Knight Warden)
Gaheris (not decided yet, but will be a Warden or Crusader)
Guinevere (not sure if it will be a Crusader or Warden)

Guinivere was the wife of King Arthur, and it is being piloted by the head of my household. Her name is Queen Brünnhilde. Brünnhilde has roots back in Scandinavian history to Snorre Sturlasson and his work Edda, but is probably more known today from Wagner. In Wagner operas Brünnhilde is a shield maiden and a Valkyrie (and in one of them she is the big lady that sings at the end of the Opera that has given us the saying "it's not over until the fat lady sings"). There has been a Queen in Austria I think that had this name, and in litterature he has been portrayed as an Icelandic Queen. So I think the name is suitably royal to fit my Queen.

I would love for Brünnhilde to have a special weapons setup on her knight to make her stand out from the others. I am nor sure if that is game legal though, so I will check with the Staff at Games Workshop what they believe before I built it. 

My other Knights will have the standard setup for the kind of knight they are, but I will try to do some variations on the weapons where alternatives are possible. Usually there are more Paladins and Errants in an army, but I happen to have several of the new knights and they build Wardens or Cruaders. 

I might make one of the Knights from the Renegade box in to a Knight Errant, and if so it will probably be Gaheris that is changed in to this.

My Knightly pilots have been given the titles of Baron, Lord or Lady as they should have a noble title to show they are of the noble birth needed to pilot such a "vehicle". The two leaders are given the title of Barons, while the rest are Lords or Ladies. Just because so many Knightly houses have a male overlord I decided that mine should have a female. Also I like the saying "it's not over until the fat lady sings" and in this case one might argue that a battle is not over until the Queen has stopped fighting.

Queen Brünnhilde: Described above

Baron Wilhelm Klink: Colonel Klink is the Camp Commandant in the comedy series Hogan's Heroes (from the late 60's and early 70's). He looks very much like an aristocrat especially when he wears his monocle to look closely at things or look intimidating so I just had to make him a Baron

Baron Kurt Von Strohm: von Strohm is the Colonel in the brilliant comedy series 'Allo 'Allo and the German commander of the area where the sitcom takes place. He is one of the main charachters in the series, and I think with a strong name like he has he deserves to be a Baron.

Lord Admiral Manfred von Schneider: Admiral von Schneider is a character in an old black and white comedy skit about an old woman that has a party for her birthday, but all the people she used to invite are probably dead of old age, so her Butler goes around the table and pretends to be them and toast her in their place. In Norway it is very popular and always shown on the evening before Christmas Eve). We do not know his first name, so I just added one that I found fitting. Admiral Von Schneider is portrayed as a very military man and always smack his heels together when toasting the birthday-girl. Since he is called Admiral in the skit, I made him a Lord Adminral.

Lord General Erich von Klinkerhoffen: He is the commanding officer of Colonel von Strohm in 'Allo 'Allo. von Strohm is in charge of a town, while von Klinkerhoffen has an entire area under his command. I had to take him as von Klinkerhoffen sound so commanding (especially when pronounced in a little over the top German accent) and every time I see the name I think of von Strohm's secretary shouting out his name as he enters the offices of the Colonel and seeing the Colonel and his adjudant desperately trying to hide what they are looking at as he enters (often a stolen French artifact that they want to sell after the war to secure their pension, but that the General want to find and send as a gift to Hitler).

Lady Helga Geerhart: Helga is the above mentioned secretary of Colonel Von Strohm in 'Allo 'Allo. She is quite a resourceful and strong female character in the series with a mind of her own. She is a corporal in the series, but shouts better than many drill sergeants in other movies. She also date the local head of the Gestapo to rat out his secrets to her boss, and is both pretty, smart, brave and tough all at the same time.

Lord Hubert Gruber: Gruber is a gay lieutenant in 'Allo 'Allo, and he is  under von Strohms command. He has a very good eye to René the Tavern keeper who is the main person in the series. Gruber is perhaps my favorite character in the entire show, where he talks about driving in his little tank and tries hopelessly to win the heart of a man who is making out with his waitresses every chance he gets. 

I knew I just had to use Lieutenant Gruber as a character somewhere in my 40K armies. 

Lord Hans Geering: He is also a German officer from 'Allo 'Allo (a captain this time) and he is the adjutant of  Colonel von Stohm. When playing a German officer you are sometimes needed to say "Heil Hitler" as this is the way German officers saluted each other during the war. The actor refused to say it, so Geering always says something like "Tlapp" and this adds a comic effect to the character.

Lord General Leopold von Flockenstuffen: This is yet another character from 'Allo 'Allo, although I do not remember his character. He appeared in 6 of the 85 episodes over the 9 seasons the show lasted. But the name alone earns him a place as one of my pilots.

My Armigers are piloted by sons of noblemen or noblemen that are of a little lower rank than my Ladies, Lords and Barons, I haven't given them any titles yet but instead just opted for calling them Sir.

Sir Otto Flick: Herr Flick is the local head of the Gestapo in 'Allo 'Allo, and he is said to be the Godson of the Leader of the Gestapo (Himmler, or Uncle Heinie as he says it) and  he is a real comedic character in the show with all his cunning plans to expose the resistance and all the other stuff he deals with.

Sir Engelbert von Smallhousen: He is the assistant of Herr Flick. He too is very funny in the series, but he is not a part pf the show for as many episodes as Herr Flick. Von Smallhousen sounds rather royal, so I might have to demote Lord Gruber or Lord Geering and give him their place. I'll think about it...

Sir Schultz (no first name yet): Sergeant Schultz is the guard at the POW camp in Hogan's Heroes. He is a big but quite kind and a little slow in the head sometimes. He is really funny in the show and Schultz is so German that I had to have someone with that name piloting something.

Then I had ran out of proper sounding German names from comedy shows that I could think of, but I still have at least one Armiger knight to name. So I turned to more dramatic TV, and to a crime show that has been going for ages, called Derrick. I grew up watching this on Norwegian television on Friday nights (that was the night they showed crime when we only had one TV channel in Norway). 

I am sure I will find more names from here if more Knights are added to my army. So I give you:

Sir Stephan Derrick: Derrick was the star of an old German TV crime that was recorded from 1974 and all through 1998. I was originally thinking of adding his assistant Harry Klein, but I din't find that German sounding enough. Derrick was a classy elderly gentleman using his mind more than fists or guns, and back when we only had one TV channel in Norway everybody watched this crime show on Friday nights.

Mostly Knights

This post is going to be mainly about the Imperial Knights, but we'll start with one more update on the Deathwatch.
I have now just the Interrogator-Chaplain to add to my 247 man strong army to make it complete. Then I need to build the Redemptor Dreadnought and the vehicles, but I will do that at a later time. Before I do I will need to get to work on my Armies on Parade entry.

I was going to work with painting Da Punisha yesterday night as my wife went to work for a night shift, but instead I started to work on an Imperial Knight. I built both the legs, and this afternoon I have built the hips and put the entire leg assembly together. I have not put on any armorplates, as I've been told the best way to paint a knight is to to the armor plates separate from the torso.
I've also built most of the main body on the torso. What is left now is the head, the arms and attaching the top armor and doing all the details on that.
I've started to think on what color scheme I would like to have on my Knightly household, but haven't landed on something yet. At the moment I am thinking of a brown and green combination to indicate that they come from a forest world, or maybe just two shades of green. I like Caliban Green a lot, so if I use two shades of green that will be one of them. Death Guard Green might be the other shade but I will have to do some tests to see how all the colors will work together.
If I go for green and brown, then a light brown might look good with Death Guard Green, but time will tell what I end up with.
The only palette I know so far, is that the window on the hatch to the cockpit will be in the same pale Lothern blue as I use on the globes for the ships of the Overlords.
Then the legs and arms will have to be metal, and to keep it a little muted it will have to be basically done with the Leadbecher and after washing everything with Nuln oil I can use some of the lighter metallics on certain areas. Also I think I will use either Stormhost Silver or Retributor armor on the edges of the metallic plates.
Another idea I have is to have hazard stripes on the middle of the top plate for some of the knights, and one the side of the top plate for some others, and for the Reaper chainswords and the Reaper chaincleavers for the Armiger Warglaives


Next week I will finish my first Knight, but I will also do a lot of painting on my Stompa and get the hatches glued on. Then it is a matter of painting the big areas like metal armor plates, the big gun, the chainsword and when that is done I can go in to the details.
I will also need to paint up my Grot tanks, vehicles and some Ork boyz. I know how to paint the boyz as I have some that I am very happy with. I plan to use some of them, but I need to have the right weapons and poses.

I will also need to build my Morkanaut, but I am quite sure that will go rather quick even though it is a big model.

In between all this I also hope to paint my Deathwatch, and prime all the models not yet primed.

Imperial Knights, Orks and more Deathwatch

Lets start with an update on the Deathwatch. I am just missing one killteam of 10 Marines, and a few characters now, and then the entire army is assembled. It's far from finished, but it is assembled and that is a good start and also a first for me.

The last killteam is still on sprues, and I will start to work on them after work on Monday. Depending on how much else there is to do around the house, they will either be done Monday or Tuesday.
Then I have a Primaris Apothecary left to assemble.
I am missing one Chaplain, and he is ordered from Games Workshop so he will be built some time next week.
I would like one more Apothecary, but I'm not sure who that should be. I have the Primaris one and a Terminator, but would have liked one in regular armor as well. I am sure I can find a command squad box to take him from somewhere in my storage, but I also have two resin ones from Forgeworld that stands partially assembled in a box by my workspace. So maybe I will take one of those. I'll figure it out in the near future I guess.
The Terminator Apothechary was quite fiddly to build, as he had a shoulder guard already molded on his shoulder where the Deathwatch one should be. I spent a lot of time with my knife cutting away, but I had to mind some bits that needed to be there and because of this the new shoulder guard going on needed some modification too. Hopefully the flaws I see on him now will look less obvious after he's primed and painted. I might have to use a little Greenstuff on the new shoulderguard to make it look good.

About half my Deathwatch army (probably a little more) is primed and ready for painting, and the rest are waiting to be primed. So I have a lot of painting to do in the coming weeks and months.
In between the painting I will also build some of the flyers and vehicles for the army, but they are expensive, so I plan to add to these nice and slow in the future.

When everything is primed, I will go over the killteams and make sure that they all are legal according to the rules, and that they fit the fluff for Deathwatch. I know I will have to move some Marines around, as I've been told that the Space Wolves usually operate in pairs in killteams. Also I will try to spread the special weapons equally around in the army unless I have a killteam that I would like to give a special mission.

While working on painting my Deathwatch army, I will also work on painting my Orks. I am thinking of making an Ork layout for Armies on Parade (AoP) for 2018, so I will need to paint up a bunch of them.
I will describe the idea closer in a later blogpost, but I'd like to use some of the units I have modified myself like the Grot tanks I have built and primed and the walkers I'm planning on making in the near future. Also I plan to have Da Punisha, my Punisher inspired Stompa, as a centerpiece for the board. Maybe I should also add another Stompa, with modifications on the weapons and with a belly-gun. I think time will tell if that will happen or not. I know I will have such a Stompa for my Ork army in the future, but I am not sure if it will be on my AoP board or not.

Also there is a new Imperial codex out. This is for the Knights, and there are also some very nice new models that have been released for this codex. I have bought a few of the new Knights, and plan to have an army built in due time. The knights are really big models and will almost certainly be seen as centerpiece models when put on the table, so I will take my time and practice on some of the smaller and older knights and built the army a little over time. My idea is to find a colorscheme that will look great for several knights, so that I can have my own knightly house. I know there are so many people building the knights that are described in the codex or in official 40K canon, and a lot of these people will do this better than me. So if I come up with my own house then nobody will be able to compare mine to others directly. And most of the existing houses are white, red or blue, so those colors are not my ideal choices. White is really hard to paint, I have a lot of blue in my Marines and Grey Knights (don't ask) and red needs to be very layered and "shiny" in order to look good on the big areas on the knight armor.
The one thing I know about the knights so far is that I will have yellow and black hazard stripes on the canopy on all of them, so I will work that in to my color scheme.
The only knight that might not get this is the Freeblade built on the Canis Rex model. This I plan to paint black and call him the Black Knight.