WIP Death Company

It turns out my advance order is not going to arrive until next week, since I put some items on it that were not released yet. That leaves me plenty of time to learn how to paint black. When I did my ravenwing I used dry brushing as my technique of choice. I am trying to paint these guys up without relying on it. So I started these old swap meet death company marines the same way as my inquisitional and death company rhinos. Then I tried hard lining them. I used too light a gray for this, and had to go back with badab black wash to soften the color. There are a lot of different tonal areas on the mini now, and I am thinking about painting on battle damage. The squad is going to get the same snakebite leather/bleached bone dusting around their legs as the rhino so they will match. I think that will make them stand out more. I plan to mount the minis on an old paint pot and spray at the base rather than their legs proper.

However before I get back to painting today, I have a big game. Tyranids versus Imperial Guard played on the actual amphelion base! My 1750 pt list is tank heavy, with just enough guard to enter the base and get wiped out before a mechanized fighting retreat. I have no doubts my tanks can take the nids, especially since the table is so large, but once inside the base everything changes. I hope we get a few Aliens moments out of this game.

BA Assault Squad

Just to get back into the groove of things, I built a sergeant using some sanguinary guard parts to add to a horribly glued pack of 4 salvage minis from a swap meet. I made the horrible mistake using Armory grey primer again, and managing to dull what detail was present on the minis after the original builder's glue had melted half of the detail!

So, with some rather chunky primer in place I tried out shading the unit using an air brush. My wife took one look at the orangish-red guys and said she preferred my painting style from two years ago! Despite the detail obfuscation I decided to press on and see what I could do. Overall I am actually kind of happy with these guys. They let me experiment with some new techniques and fail, and then try again without much worry. In the worst case these guys took a little over three hours from start to finish, so the painting time is not bad. A few heavy washes of baal red, and these guys are not quite so jarring as they were next to my old troops.

Death Company Rhino PT3: Let there be dust

I think this think is good enough to see some action now. I am not sure I like the dust as much as the pre-dusted version, but it does serve to tie the painted areas together. I guess it works like a wash in that sense. I was nervous about starting some of these models because they have FW parts and it was easier to justify waiting to paint them until I was a little better. I'll never get better unless I paint right.

So will this ever see battle? Are death company worth fielding? I can't think of any other way to field them than drop pods or rhinos. I think they look cool, so that's good enough for me.

Death Company Rhino PT2

I decided last minute to add a gunner to the rhino. I guess I really haven't committed to changing the painting style of my blood angels yet. The gunner was paint in my now 2 year old method, which looks ok, but is a far cry from my cleaner style. The new codex pushes the BA as super detail oriented makes my old minimalist stuff look a little out of place. The rhino itself is in my new style, and since it is my only death company rhino so far the fact that it does not match my old tanks is not so bad. The kicker is going to be when I paint the new Baals and my Land Raider. I really want to go for a clean bright look and then sponge damage them.

I think the reason this is so hard is that that my original BA were the first new army I painted after my first go around with heart surgery. They were painted for fun, and with an eye towards getting some actual gaming in. The rules were easy for me to digest, the list building was easy, and I could play the game without having to remember too many special rules. It was a much simpler epoch. Of course, now I have a reason to build a vindicator, death company dread army!

So, back on target, the forge world powers, the dirt dusting, and the storm bolter have not been completed yet. I need to finish painting the headlights as well. I just forgot about them until I looked at the photo!

Death Company Rhino With FW Doors

My advance order from GW did not come today, so lacking anything new to paint I started on some original death company miniatures and the Rhino pictured here. I am really not pleased with the top hatch, so it gets replaced tomorrow. I think the right procedureis to lay down the X in red first and then paint the black over it. That way it is much easier to mask off the X rather than try to tape around it.

Other steps for the rhino

1. paint a new top hatch
2. paint exhausts and storm bolter
3. paint chipping using sponge method with bolt gun metal followed by an orange rust wash
4. add loads of purity seals
5. put on tracks and layer on rust using rust colored pigments
6. Dust undercarriage with snakebite to simulate dust.

Since my codex has not arrived, I was not entirely sure how to equip the original death company models. In the end I decided on bolt pistols and chainswords for 6 of them and 1 guy with a BP and a powersword. I treated the minis to the same black/grey air brushing, which gives them a very smooth appearance.

Blood Talons?

Like a lot of BA players, I am busy looking at my old models and trying to figure out what I have to do to get them to work with the new rules. After watching the Beasts of War demonstrate a furioso dreadnought tearing through some terminators, I've decided that I would like to field that option.

So what kind of weapons is my dread equipped with here? These are the forge world power fists, but could they count as blood talons? My BA order has not come in yet so I have no idea what blood talons look like.

In addition to re-equiping units, I am tempted to just paint a new army. My existing force looks pretty good, and it was certainly a lot of fun to play on the table top, but my painting skills are very different now. I am not even sure I could reproduce the orange-red color of my original BA. Maybe the right thing to do is just paint some new units/vehicles, and then end of life my old stuff as it become redundant. That would allow me to field new units faster. It is kind of weird viewing armies as paintings in time, rather than slowly accumulated work.

Why Speed Painting? More Termagants and Warriors of Course!

Since I am huge Blood Angles fan, here are some WIP Tyranids! I have never played these guys, so I have no idea why I am madly painting the army. As I think about it, I don't think I ever played the first edition tyranids that started this for me. So why all the speed painting? I have no idea. My rationalization is that I am really practicing my speed painting skills by working on the gazillion tyranids necessary for a list. The problem is that now I feel compelled to have a list. A side effect of this is that all of these tyranids are filling up my shelf space.

Back to the most important thing, gun color. I tried foundation yellow and foundation brown on these guys, and think I will standardize on the three colors I have painted so far. Brown for the weird christmas tree guns, yellow for the warrior guns, and orange on whatever gun the regular gants have.

Hormagaunt and 1st Edition Termagant

I finally glued together a whole host of termagants and finally based my hormagaunts today. While gluing the brain pack things onto the hormaguants I decided to experiment with two old first edition termagants. I spent about 2 minutes on each miniature, not including time spent using a hair dryer, or time spent basing. (yeah... the basing is pretty bad on these guys!) I don't exactly hate these old minis, but I can't put my finger on what I don't like about them. I do have about 50 of them, so if I were serious about playing the game it would be worth simple greening them and starting over. I think the old sculpts might detract from my aesthetic appreciation for the game.

On a side note, anyone have a good color idea for the guns? I tried pink and was not thrilled, and am not digging orange that much. These are beginning to look like halloweennids to me.