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.

271: 2000pts BA&IK vs SM&Eldar

My friend, codename Luther, recently completed his first Imperial Knight model, and wanted to take it out for spin. Luther shows off his lovely models at the might brush.

He teamed up his new knight, Gerantius, with his Blood Angels.

I have mostly Iron Knights (Imperial Fist successors), and some Eldar, which I am expanding.

We played Big Guns Never Tire with diagonal deployment. I have Thunderhammer terminators up front and a rhino with a full tac squad behind. Castling up in the corner, I have a lascannon dev squad on the hill with a bunch of sneaky eldar hiding behind it. They are joined by a master of the forge on a bike with a conversion beamer. I have a bike squad with grav and multi melta attack bike next. My cloak and sniper scouts infiltrated and scout moved into the ruin. I have a Crimson Death (3 plane Eldar formation) in reserve.

Luther deployed the mighty Gerantius front and centre. Supporting fire would be supplied by a Deredeo stood high in the ruin.

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.