292: One Force all, and all Force One

Here is my generic marines force, purposefully designed to be as "generic" as possible, allowing maximum flexibility to field a force from any of the codices.  There's lots of magnets included in this force, with most of the weapons swappable in one way or another.  You can see the slow and steady growth under the One Force label.

Colour wise, I thought to try and draw from a "realistic" military look, so the air wing is in grey... :)

... and the mechanised components are in a desert yellow.

As another 7th Ed army, there's units included to make up the formations, and there's also my Centurion conversions based on the Kataphron Destroyers.

The fantastic Korvydae model as my commander, and Iron Hand veterans to double as an Honour Guard or Sternguard.

Hammer-nator Termies and a Chaplain for extra kill.  >:)

The troops, all magnetised to run either as Assault or Tactical troops, and interchangeable special and sergeant weapons.  (There's 30 marines in total, a mix of Mk II, IV, and V;  all the original resin models)

That's that then.  I'm sure you'll see them over on the Beard Bunker from time to time, and they'll be expanded over time as well as I feel like it.

291: Tomb Raiders

As I mothball my blog I'm taking stock of my hobby and armies as they stand.  

Here at the end of 2018, this is my whole Necron army.  What started off as a side project and a quick and easy army ended up being one of the most difficult as I had to customise every last model with electrical wire to replace the green rods in the original kit.

To my mind, a Necron army should always be about a horde of relentless, advancing warriors and I've tried to keep that in this army.  I've got over 40 warriors that I take as many of as reasonable every time I play.  In big units of ~20 they are amazingly resilient and it can be impressive to see almost half the unit return to life even if there's only one left on the battlefield.

288: Striking Scorpions of the Occulted Claw Shrine

I finished a group. Shrine of the occulted blade. 
There's a mix of 1990 lead models that I bought from Andrew and new (ahem) resin models. I plan to use them as 1 large or 2 small squads. I might try the claw exarch as a Karandras stand-in: I think the loadout is the same.

It's good to have more aspect warriors available to my Biel-Tan. The fluff grows stronger.

I have been planning for the new year. I have some Howling Banshees and Rangers underway. I also have an unassembled shame pile including a Wave Serpent and Dark Reapers. I think I might convert up some Shining Spears before assembling those: I need more fast attack to qualify for a battalion.

286: Baharroth conversion

I finished this chap recently. He is made from the Swooping Hawk Autarch with bits of Scourge. 

I have to thank MechaEmporer7000 on dakka for bits advice. I had no idea how sweet the scourge kit is.

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/692128.page

285: Centurion Devastators

Here are what I'm going to be taking to represent Centurion Devastators when I feel the need for a ridiculous amount of Grav weaponry.

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned previously that I didn't like the aesthetic of the real models, something about Space Marines in armour donning a second suit of armour just to tout big guns didn't really do it for me.  These are the Mechanicum Kataphron Destroyers with marine heads and backpacks.  It was a super simple conversion.
They're mounted onto 50mm bases (which I'm pretty sure is what marine destroyers come with) so you can see they aren't too dissimilar is size for gaming - a little shorter, but wider.
Eventually I need to figure out a way to model their secondary weapons (either missile launchers or hurricane bolters), but that'll be an addition for another time.

I'm sure they'll die horribly and do absolutely nothing in their first game, such is the life of any new shiny model ;)

280: One Force Mk III Sternguard painted

At last.  I don't even want to think about how long its taken me to get to this point but I've finally finished painting my initial batch of One Force marines.

Without further ado, here's my Mk III Iron Armoured squad.  They are built with combi-weapons that come from Anvil Industries, with the top level of the weapon interchangeable so I can swap in meltas, plasma, or even grav options with minimal extra painting.

The squad is a mix of the Iron Hands squad and the Legion Mk III squad from Forgeworld (no cheating plastic Mk III here ;), and they are beautiful models with lots of bionics which fits nicely into the One Force aesthetic.

As elites within One Force, they are painted up in a slightly alternate, predominately black colour scheme highlighted with greens and then with spot colours of the One Force trifecta of camo-green, grey, and desert yellow.

I'm also deviating somewhat from my original One Force paint job (which will of course require a repaint of everything thats come before) to include some metallics into the scheme.  Ho hum.

Hope you like them, and Happy New Year to you all.

279: Storm Talons finished (almost)

I built these guys a heck of a while ago (a full 18 months ago it turns out!) and they've since been sitting in my painting queue as I lost all motivation.  After finally finishing off the Mk III marines (post to come when I get some decent photos), I pulled these out and couldn't quite believe how quickly they painted up.

276: Bahzhakhain!

I recently finished the requirements for the Guardian Battlehost version of the Craftworld Warhost. I took a pic to celebrate.

 Bahzhakhain is the term used on Biel-Tan for a battle host ("Tempest of blades").

Click on the image to embiggen slightly.

Or download even higher res.

275: War walkers

Wotcher. I have yet more eldar completed. These leggy fellows should get their first outing in a couple of days.

They are built straight out of the box without much tweaking. They come with scenic bases. I did feel the need to hack bits off and add patches of cracked earth in different places so they were not all the same.

The guns are magnetised. Indeed, they are identical to the guardian squad's heavy weapon platform guns. I painted up so many of those that I have not bothered to paint the guns that came with the walkers.

274: Bikes

Progress!  Hopefully not the last either.  I'm back and with One Force marines no less.  Here's my latest addition, a trio of bikers to add into my force to help me on the way to running one of the new Codex Space Marine formations.

The two slightly drunk bikers are taken from the Dark Vengence set, bodies replaced with more generic marine torso's (One Force are a spartan chapter after all), and Volkite Calivers for weapons.  As these don't appear in 40K, I can reasonably claim them to be grav-weapons for the purposes of running them as filthy grav-bikers.  The Sergeant gets the standard yellow helm, and a combi-grav which is a DIY combination of a Volkite Caliver and a bolter from Anvil Industries.

These also mark a slight change in my painting technique for One Force.  Previously I've completely avoided the use of metallics in their colour scheme, but on reflection (its only taken my 40+ models), I've decided to change their weapons and a few other details to metallic and give them black weapons housings.  This'll be applied to all of the models going forward, and potentially retro-applied to the older models.

I've not weathered the models yet because that is another aspect I'll be changing going forward, but I haven't had a chance to experiment yet.

273: Eldar artillery and a Vyper

I finished some stuff for my Bahzhakain. First, a Vyper

Secondly, a Vaul's wrath defence battery.

The crew on their own.

I painted all 3 gun options for the artillery. It's a nicely designed kit in that no magnets are needed. The guns sit on a block, and can be slid on. It's just snug enough.

272: Guardian horde

I chose Eldar because they are an elite army. I was not keen to paint huge numbers of models. So... I just finished almost 50 models.

40 guardians, 4 heavy weapons platforms and 3 warlocks. I will probably use them as 2 squads of 10 guardians and 1 squad of 20.

270: Airbrush medium makes a lovely thin glaze

Andrew mentioned to me that airbrush medium (AKA thinner) is handy stuff. I was looking for a lazy way to shade an orangey yellow on my guardians sashes. I mixed some airbrush medium with some orange, and used it like a wash over some yellow.

This was quick and I think it worked well.

The glaze is thin in the sense that it has low viscosity and in the sense that it is see through. Note the difference between a glaze and a wash. This is on the border.

For my first go, I tried adding some retardant too: don't! For the first time, I managed to make some paint that never dries. The airbrush medium is quite slow drying anyway.

I wonder if airbrush medium plus grey might be a solution for the tricky problem of shading white.

269: Eldar flyer commission

Hey everyone, actual painting progress has occurred!

Now that you are all over the shock, to the pictures.  These are two of the Eldar flyers, Wraithfighters I think they are called, that I've been painting for Zzzzzzzz who blogs over at Devos IV. 

They will join his growing Void Dragons force.

I can't claim any credit for the paint-scheme, that comes from Zzzzzzz, although every one of those hexagons is free-hand painted with two stages of highlighting.  The colour is a beautiful metallic red that is a mix of Mephiston Red and Hashut Copper as devised by Pirate Viking Painting, and the technique I used to create the hexagons is explained brilliantly in this blogpost.

 

Otherwise its just standard metallics, greys, and although they aren't visible in these pictures, the weapons and wraithbone was all done in a pretty standard bone colour pushed all they way close to white.  The weapons were magnetised at Zzzzzz's request, you can see them attached in his blogpost.

Cheers

Andrew

268: Filtering airbrush paint

If you find that a certain paint just keeps making your airbrush spit, it may have curdled. If there is air in the bottle can start to cure in there. Perhaps there is air in from the factory. I have had this when I half used a bottle and then left it a few years. Lumps come through and block the brush.

First, give the lid a thorough clean with some pipe cleaners.

Prepare your bottle like it's going to rob a bank with some tights (I believe pantyhose is the US term).

Screw the lid over the top.

Trim the hosiery.

The newly installed filter will prevent lumps escaping the bottle.

I intend to do this pre-emptively on all bottles I have opened. Just as soon as the Mrs gets some more ladders. (I don't look fabulous in hosiery).

Reference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0xMTPdBonI

I thought I would write this one up, as I don't like to watch videos where I could have got the info by skim reading much faster.

263: Firewarriors

(No, I'm not posting on Julafton, this just happens to be scheduled for today,

Merry Christmas, God Jul, and assorted Winter Solstice greetings to you all.)

In the time its taken me to change the paintscheme on these guys, the Tau have had 2 new codexes, its a testament (if you want) to the speed of the current GW release cycle, or more likely, how slow my painting is these days.

A simple white paintscheme with blue accents.  The guy below is meant to be a Cadre Fireblade stand in or similar, hence using a lot more blue in his scheme.

262: Tomb Blades - the obligatory Decurion choice ;)

Not the most groundbreaking post, but here's the tomb blades I started about 6 months ago when the new Necron codex came out.  They are a pain to build, extremely intricate with lots of fiddly little bits that have to be put together in a very precise order.  They do paint up nice and quickly and easily, and I've found them to be surprisingly useful on the tabletop as well, a nuisance unit and good for grabbing objectives either late in the game, or as you pull the cards when playing Maelstrom.

Standard paintscheme as with all my Necrons, and as ever, I've magnetised the weapons so if I want to mix up the options.

261: Recovering from varnish frosting

I found a way to fix frosted models!

1. put the pieces in an electric fan oven at set to 50 degrees C (120F) to pre-warm them. 
2. oven started cold, and I only left them in for 10 minutes throughout the process I am describing. I would not do this with resin or thin plastic bits (swords etc).
3. I took each piece out, sprayed it, and put it back in again.

(Gas oven would be a bad idea: water is a combustion product, so they are intrinsically more humid)

The longer version.

 I had sprayed the guns for my Crimson Death (which are magnetised) with dullcote a while back. It was cold and humid, and I got the dreaded frosting. This was a bit of a downer, and it has taken a while for me to get the drive back to tackle the job.

The guns are mostly black with green gems. I repainted over the black, as it was quick (I had just painted black and edge highlighted), and the frosting stood out over the black worse than the green. My gems have a 5 step highlighting process that I could not be bothered to do again. The black came out looking shiny in places and matte in others, so really needed matte varnish again.

Warming and spraying again worked well. It made the black matte, and on the gems that I had not repainted, it actually removed the frosting. I can only assume the solvent in the dullcote re-dissolved the frosted layer and this time dried properly because is was warm and the humidity was low. I imagine that if the original frosted layer had been too thick, this would have been less successful. These gems were frosted, and this is them after the fix.  

The formation.