Updating Older Paint Jobs BA

When I started my Armies on Parade BA army I had a host of miniatures that did not quite fit the new style, but were also newer than my original dry brushed BA army. Since my Flesh Tearer miniatures took so well to a painting update I decided to give a little polish to my BA scouts and a 5 man sm assault unit. The updates included re-washing them for darker recesses, re-highlighting them, and then rebasing them so they were on the cooler colored bases rather than my warmer desert bases. All in all I think it was a pretty good experiment. I love the way the scouts came out, especially given that I have no desire to paint this particular kit again due to the weird arm proportions and heads. The Assault marines won't win awards, but I think they look pretty good. I can happily field these along with my new BA army. If I hadn't updated these, then I would not have the units to make a rational army list out of my AoP army. Since I had just painted units I liked rather than units necessary for a successful build, my force was highly skewed points wise.

Remember all the trouble I had with those Vanguard jump packs? If not then the short story is that one of my first Finecast(tm) purchases was the vanguard veterans squad, which had a lot of issues with the casting. The jump packs were terribly cast. At the urging of the store manager, and each of the store employees, I finally got around to taking the bad jump packs in so they could see them. The store happily replaced them. The horrible thing was that Bill had to open around 4 boxes of miniatures before we could get a set that was usable. He gladly did it, but I felt pretty bad for the store, and GW in particular. It was clear from what Bill and I saw, that one style of jump pack was simply the Destroyer of Molds(tm). We found bits of silicone embedded in multiple copies of the ornate jump pack. If you think about this, that means that GW must be racing around the clock replacing these molds as the jump packs destroy them.

The short version... Kudos to all the staff of the GW Springfield store. If I end up moving overseas I will genuinely miss the place.

HoA Devil Dogs And Scotch

May I present the Devil Dog carrying case. Now I know the Heroes of Armageddon Steel Legion winner is going to get a nice custom army bag, but until then, these dogs have found the perfect kennel. Balvanie Scotch port wood aged boxes are the perfect size to snuggly fit two hellhounds!

After all those BA, a throwback mini!

I've painted so many BA,GK, tanks for Heros of Armageddon despite loads of travel that I wanted to relax and paint something different. What better to paint than a 1990's Imperial Psyker. I was given this mini at one of the barter days at the local GW, and am really thrilled to have it. I've wanted to paint one of them for a long time, and am really looking forward to making this guy part of my Inquisitors retinue. I mean, so long as I have two monkeys,several deamonhosts, and a couple of servitors why not have a vaguely genestealer-magas-cult-like mini?

Heroes of Armageddon Steel Legion Devil Dogs

If you haven't seen Dave Taylor's blog then you need to head over there to see the majority of the Steel Legion Armor. These two Devil dogs are the missing pieces. Now that they are done, they are ready to be boxed up and shipped to him for inclusion in the final army. You may have noticed that these guys are not as beat up as the rest of the steel legion forces. My logic on that was that Devil dogs were not like chimeras, which get the blood washed out and reused. Devil Dogs explode. Post explosion there is likely very little left to refit.

These dogs have swappable gun barrels, as well as swappable hull mounted weapons. One of the hull mounted flamers came damaged, and the other was lost during painting, so no hull flamers included unfortunately.

I found the perfect box to ship these in to Dave. Wooden Balvanie single malt Scotch boxes are the perfect shape and size for two dogs back to back. These dogs are going to travel in style!

Death Company Furioso

This guy was supposed to be a flesh tearer, and be part of my Armies on Parade display. However the washes did not dry in time, and there was no way I was going to get the transfers done the morning before the competition. It might be a good thing, since I am not sure I like how he turned out. I really like elements, but over all the last wash went on so think it obscured my shading. I enjoyed adding battle damage to him, which I did with zeal. His base is temporary, and I still need to shade the gold and touch up the blood drops.

I may add him to the display as part of the Chicago competition, unless I am not allowed to change the force up.

Armies on Parade Win!

I won the Armies on Parade competition for the Springfield GW store! For quite a while I wasn't even sure I was going to be able to work the contest in between all of my business travel. Now I get to represent the Springfield store in Chicago. I have no illusions of grandeur for the overall Games Day competition, but it will be fun having my work on display.

There were six AoP contestants at the GW store. There was a nicely painted Ork Army with a great battle wagon, A vibrantly painted Empire army with a chalice wielding Lady riding side saddle, an Imperial Guard Army, a very small but well painted Ogre pirate army, and a space wolf army sporting the best freehand I have seen in a long time. The space wolf army had intricate freehand on every surface. He is one painter to watch. For a first army it was outstanding. It was really just a matter of not knowing all of the techniques.

In terms of preparation for Chicago GD, I have a bevy of good critiques to address. I am going to finish putting on transfers on the troops, as well as spray dull coat on all of the existing ones.

I may dremel out the blood chalice on Corbulo, but lacking dremel skills, I am a little wary of that idea. It would look look much nicer as an actual chalice rather than a weird solid mace like thing. As expected I have a lot of wear and tear to deal with. I've got a lot of little paint chips to deal with from transport. Unexpectedly, one finecast miniature's power sword deformed deformed in the heat while I was getting dinner.

Overall my wife and I are really looking forward to going to Chicago. We were married in Oak Park, which is right outside Chicago, and are really looking forward to going back.

Flesh Tearers and Devil Dogs

My original plan was to have my BA escorting the Devil Dogs for Armies on Parade. However I just don't have enough space on my board to make it happen for the competition. With the little space I had left over I decided to revamp an old partially completed squad of flesh tearers. I had to re-wash, highlight, and damage these guys, as well as rework the power weapon so it would fit into my new blue PW scheme. Overall I am really happy with them. I am a little surprised that some touched up older miniatures are in some ways more interesting than my new ones. If only I had time to finish chapter master Seth....

Warhammer 40k Cosplay

Maybe everyone has already seen this, but while taking a break from painting for Armies on Parade, I found this video online. If only Games Day were something like this!