Flesh Tearers, Blood Angels, Vindicators, and holy cow I played a game!

Lots of photos for you today. I've spend most of this long weekend working at the office, but I managed to get some painting done in between contractors showing up and construction. The good news is that the vindicator is ready to go. I dusted it using an air brush, which I like less than just using weathering powders. After I finished the vindi, I did more work on my BA and flesh tearers. I really love the how the FT are coming out, even thou field gh they take infinitely less time than the BA.

So you'd think that with all of this BA painting I would BA at the local GW. Nope, I pulled out my fabulous death wing and got solidly stomped by tyranids. The came was not even close. Drop podding tyranids and 3 of those giant burrowing things surrounded my tri-colored force and proceeded to destroy them. Two inner circle masters died that day. My opponent gave me a lot of good advice, like having a librarian to deal with the three zoanthropes and 'doom of whatever' that were eating me alive. The MVPS of the game were the mycetic spores, that kept dropping pie plates of doom on my troops. In true epic fashion, my troops huddled in a crater surrounded by the growing tide of death. (The birthing critter kept popping out loads of spawn as well) In the end on lone cyclone thunder hammer armed terminator held the tide long enough for two bikes to escape the carnage. My strategy next time I hear the tyranids are coming..... exterminatus!

BA Vindicator

I got the itch to play a game tomorrow and decided to get my vindicator game ready. It does not have the dust like my other tanks yet and it is pre-battle damaged, but I really like the way it is turning out. I know it is basically a big red tank without a lot of other colors, but the red has a lot of subtlety when seen up close. My orange hard lining is far far less subtle, but who knows, maybe that will improve over time. I still need to finish up the other tanks. Maybe next up will be a LR Crusader. I kind of like the idea of deep striking land raiders.

Now I need to figure out a list that will let me field all of these tanks.

BA & Flesh Tearers WIP 2

More progress on the two units. Anyone know why I decided to paint two different units at the same time? I don't know either! In an case, I am having a lot of fun with the details on these guys, even though I am painting very quickly. There is a lot of touch up to do, and the models do have some weird casting mushiness around the details. I doubt I will paint all of the details on the flesh tearers, since that might be a bit too much ornamentation, though they will get some pale yellow details to match Seths PA better. I need to figure out a good formula for a flesh tears rhino now!

Any games/events going on in DC this memorial day weekend?

BA & Flesh Tearers Air Brushed

I decided that I should paint up some new troops choices with the new models, and gave air brushing a try. I used the airbrush to lay down the base coat unevenly as I have done with my pre-shaded vehicles, and then washed the models with baal red. I am not sure about the wash at this point, since pre-wash the models looked really cool with the shading. The red wash really tones it down. The goal is to heavily weather the FT, so they will have battle damage all over them. The BA will be kept relatively clean.

These are just base colors, with pre-shading and washes, however it is the most important step to me, since this determines how clean a model will look, and lays the foundation for any fun detail work the follows.

I used tiny magnets in the backpacks so I could decide to change these guys out for jump troops at a late point in time. Sadly, I completely forgot to magnetize the BA, or even add magnets, so I will have to do those after the fact. Hopefully I can match the red!

What Not To Do When Pre Shading A Tank

Rather than show you what to do today, I am going to show you what not to do. If you look back a few blog posts you'll see my first experiment with pre-shading my Blood Angles tanks. I painted a LR and two Baals this way and had a great time doing it. If you look at those posts, and then look at the pre-shading in this post, it is clear that I pre-shaded too much. Basically by not leaving enough black I removed much of the interesting shading. I think I will soldier on with this tank as it is, but I was hoping to go two steps forward rather than two steps back.

Oh, those are my finger prints on the tank as well. I mixed my paint too thin this time as well! I should have listened to the spluttering of the air brush and known to back off and re-asses.

oh, one more thing totally not 40k related. I am running in a 10k tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Why That's a WWI Tank!

I showed my 72 year old father my red blood angles land raider, and the first thing he said was that it was a neat WW1 tank. I identify guard with WW1, but haven't really thought of space marines as futuristic antiques as well.

BA Tanks: Weathering WIP Step 1 Dust

The first stage of weather is now done for these tanks. I think I was able to match the dust on the death company rhino, but I am not quite sure. I used snakebite a very runny leather/bleached bone air brush concoction along the tracks and skirt. I think my next step may be to sponge on a little bit of battle damage. I was thinking of using a single pass of boltgun metal, but maybe chardon granite would be better, since there would be more contrast with the rich red color. After that I am going to put on some some decals and ash colored weathering powder on the tracks. It think the weathering powder is important because it provides another texture, even though it is very close in color to the dust I air brushed on. I am really proud of these tanks so far, and can't wait to plunk them down on the tabletop. They are wildly different in style than my old tanks though.

Flamestorm Baal

So I painted up one God Hammer and two Baals, but have yet to weather any of them. I know it needs to be done, but the idea of factory fresh tanks is kind of nice right now. I magnetized the ammo carrier portion of the turret so this Baal could switch from being a flamestorm to a regular assault cannon version, or even to a rhino or razor back. I have no idea what to expect from the flamestorm variant, but I wrote a poem expressing what I expect will happen.

One baal picked up some buck shot

One baal picked up some flame

One ball tank shocked a unit and never did it again

So how bad is this tank? If I zoom this thing 12 inches forward I only get to fire the flamstorm, so the sposons get wasted. I suppose the tank could survive close combat, but that has not been my experience so far with these things. Perhaps they would work well as objective holders?