Corruption spreading

I've been painting my Slaanesh daemons lately and at last the basing is done as well! With 10 daemonettes and a daemon princess, I am still 10 daemonettes short of a playable army but I'm getting there. This first batch was a test run of the colour scheme and basing technique, both of which I think works pretty well. The "corruption spreading-basing" got potential for improvement, but as a fist try I'm satisfied. More to come, next on the list is Skitarii.

Daemon princess with daemonic flight and daemonic weapon

Daemonettes with instrument of chaos

Spreading corruption on stone

Spreading corruption on the ground

Hades

Hades is a ageing Malcador 'Infernus' of the 501st recently pulled out of retirement in a dusty storage bunker on the home planet. Though the paint is old and faded, the newly painted slogans are bright and encourages nearby guardsmen safe in the knowledge that wherever the mutant, the heretic or the alien is hiding, Hades' cleansing flames will find them, reducing them to pious ash in a matter of seconds.

Hades is, due to the old and faulty engine of the Malcador class tanks, known for showing up late wile in reserve, and for turning in early wile finally on the table. It is almost like the enemy don't like its presence. Emperor preserves!

UPDATE!
Hades was recently featured on Faeit 212, thanks Natfka!
http://natfka.blogspot.de/2016/01/whats-on-your-table-malcador-tank.html

A Prison for Gods - Part 4 - New Commander

As things are not going well for the Imperial faction, a new commander have been brought in to oversee and lead the 501st Foreign Legion. To make sure the force stay on the righteous path, true to the Emperor, the Commissariat found it necessary to oversee the campaign personally.

Introducing Lord Commissar Maxine Fabii

Following the Mothballed crisis mission (of which we lost badly), each warlord taking part (I was using a proxy for Maxine as she was not painted up yet) got to choose one fixed warlord trait that stick to the character. As the imperial seam to lack any strategic plan to date, it was fitting choosing the Grand Strategist trait from the AM codex. Let's turn this ship around!

Skulls! Friend or foe, she shoots both if the Emperor demand it.

Why yes, of corse she does cause fear! 

Chimera rush

Playing a armoured fist army list have been a long goal of mine, and with the recent completion of 3 more chimeras that day is dragging ever closer! :)

I've had these 3 standing on the shelve for an eternity and it was about time they got some proper colours. They are all second hand so not the best of assembly jobs all over but good enough for a cheap tank you aim at having lots of.

I focused quite a bit on weathered camouflage and got to say I like the result a lot better than factory crisp colour. Ought have to re-paint all my tanks now using this technique.

New and old, the old looks like it is screaming in comparison. 

Finding the balance of what is realistic and what is too much is hard when it comes to mud and dirt. I got a large picture book of WWI pictures I use as a reference, imagining my regiment fight on a distant planet with similar climate as the wet winter months of 1916/1917 France. I also tried to simulate sot forming around the exhaust vents but I guess I'm not right "there" yet with that effect.

Also, attempt at glass! Mud mud mud~

Chimeras summoning chaos... or waiting for the wash to dry.

A Prison for Gods - Part 3 - First blood

The air field control tower, main objective

The battle was relentless, the marines came hammering down, having brought with them more artillery than you usually see in a whole battle sector to this one battle. The engagement started with drop pods raining from the skies, releasing squadrons armed with flamer weaponry taking out about a third of the sentinels manpower before they could fire a single shot. The drop pods was also accompanied by land speeders on the flank engaging on the single chimera. The drop infantry was eventually driven off, but at terrible expense. Both the drop pods, still loaded with fuel and ammunition blew up with maximum effect taking out even more of the defenders. The sentries had held the line for the initial assault, but there were more to come.

Reserves finally made it on to the battle field, but to little avail. The marines' anti air weaponry picked the loyalist birds out of the skies one by one before they could do any real damage. The valkyrie managed to disembark the grenadiers before going down, reinforcing the breaking flank. The grenadiers were then in turn countered by yet another drop pod with 2 tactical squads, taking out the grenadiers and most of the remaining forces on the flank. With the artillery pounding again and again the air field strong point, ignoring the covers saves guardsmen cling on to stay alive, the garrisoning forces of once 90 strong, only remnants were left. Even the mighty knight fell victim to the pounding artillery and was finished off by a rouge gunship. The Adeptus Mechanicus will not take this lightly. Emilia Faust too were severely wounded to the continuous shelling and only barely made it off the field with the help of a platoon commander, the only living member left of the platoon. In the end the enemy forces did not manage to take out the control tower, but having sustained severe losses and failed to prevent the enemy in taking tactical important objectives, there was nothing left to do but to fall back and regroup in the adjacent sector.

The battle ended 17 - 8 in favour of the Blood Angles.

A Prison for Gods - Part 2 - Army show-off

As part of the preparations leading up to the campaign, all the players were asked to provide a "scenic" image presenting their main force. Lacking in game board and scenery (tiny apartment is tiny) I had to make the best of it with photoshop. Spent quite some time highlighting and shaddowing the Marauder as is dominates the image. Not sure if I went overboard with the engine trails, but this is how I imagine they would look like in action. Incredible powerful engines spewing out ashes and death as they roam the skies.

Click on it to make it even bigger! :)

Ref 2-5-XIV.

Picture taken during the parade celebrating the arrival of the Astra Militarum at Nolan XVII.Amidst the thick morning mist, about half the 7th company is present marching through the street accompanied by close formation flybys of the 1305th tactical wing. About 200 soldier are taking part in the parade.

Behind the scenes: Temporary makeshift photo studio.

A Prison for Gods - Part 1 - Background

Luck has never been a friend of mine. Anything left to chance will fail. You do not win or lose a gamble, you lose the moment you take the gamble. Plan, calculate and plan again. No one but the Emperor got your back.

The unofficial recognized nickname of the 7th company is somewhat a inside joke of the 501st. While the rest of the army is usually deployed in cohesion, be it at home training or when being called upon to take part in the never ending grind, the 7th company are the unlucky ones being sent away on separate minor, often less glorious assignments requiring only minor manpower. Hence the name “Foreign Legion”. The assignments in question tend to either end up being incredibly long, boring and uneventful, or a complete loss of the company. Often with no details of what happened. This is why the company operate with a timeout protocol. If they miss their scheduled check dates for a set number of times, the company will be assumed lost and a new 7th drafted from the other companies of the 501st.

With assignments rating from bad to terrible, manny a officer pass on the chance of leading the 7th if they have the chance to say no. This is why the responsibility often falls upon younger officers with little choice but accepting. As is the case of Emilia Faust, commander of the 7th company at the current time. Losing both her parents only months after birth to unexplainable events, Emilia grew up being told her family carries a curse. Haunted by bad luck her entire career (accounting for her entire life, being a army orphant), Emilia have been bypassed by younger, less experienced officers times and times again. The time finally came where the brass would look bad for holding her back, so with great reluctance, the officer of bad luck finally got promoted to her first company command… and sent as far away from the main force as possible within the strict assignment regulations of the Militarum.

Sitting amid a nebula of various gasses, the planet Nolan XVII suffer decay quickly to anything not routinely maintained. The once great infrastructure network of highways, train lines and conveyor belts now lie in rusty ruins, bits and pieces, next to non-existing. The remaining population live in communities somewhat isolated from one another, relying on airborne and off-planet means for communication. But as it is with isolated communities, lack of contact and control easily end up out of hand. The population on the planet generally suffers a higher unrest ratio than most imperial worlds, and uprisings are common. With the PDF lacking the means of keeping things under control, the system sent a plea to the Militarum for help. So was it the “Foreign Legion” ended up being deployed to the decommissioned forgeworld of Nolan XVII.

My cousin's out fighting tyranids, and what do I get? Guard duty. Artwork by EmotionCat

In a joint effort with the mixed-aircraft 1305th tactical wing, the responsibility of the task force is twofold: To launch airborne assaults on revolting settlements and garrison strategic sites across the planet. With the absence of ground infrastructure, the wilderness have reclaimed the lands in between the scattered settlements. The task force therefore rely heavily on airborne troops and air superiority to fulfil its duty rather than lumbering tanks and vehicles.

Recently, for no apparent reason given, the task force was transferred under inquisitorial control. Strangely, no order was given to move off planet nor change of objectives. Could it be that something triggering the inquisitions interest is happening or about to happen in this very system? Tomorrow is going to be a routine day. The force is to engage a group of unidentified targets crossing a restricted area north-east of the generatorum. Probably just another group of looters.

Ssssssssssnipers

Filthy sub-humans with incredible aim and stealth abilities, the Ratlings are welcomed with open arms and aiming guns in to my Cadian 501st battle group. The commissars are not too happy and the ammo depot have new improved locks... Hey, how did you get that? That's an officer only item!

Now the models I got is second hand and by initial inspection it was clear the first layer of paint were just covered up with another layer of spray. I lack the chemicals to strip them down entirely so there is some loss of detail due to the thick layers, especially some of the faces. The first owner obviously did not know about the secret of watering down the paint.

The 2 models with most facial details, got to love them expressions!

I've never really graded skin tones before to any degree beyond washing so this was a first attempt at the 3-step method of the Citadel painting system for skin tones. Looks a lot better than just a basing layer and wash.

I also tried experimenting with a glass illusion for the sniper scopes.

Ready for battle... just keep the commissars close by. Petty crime rate is already way up in the 501st since they joined.

Painting the knight

Been a lazy summer so far with not much 40K so here comes a post about my knight!

Scroll down for pics of the result :) 

I've been working on it for 5 days now and put at least a good 20 hours in to it. The project started out somewhat problematic as I was out of priming and with strike in France GW was not re-stocking any time soon. The solution, though somewhat experimental turned out good. I had about half a box of GW purity seal at hand as I don't like the result it provide. The stuff matte down the colour and remove all shine from metallic/gold/bronze paints so I have not used much of it.

So here we go, purity seal as primer!

 

 

Notice how the plastic drastic change character when it is matted down.

For the basing I use coarse putty with sand in it called Sandplast. Along with it I "bake" in pieces from the Citadel basing kit to get a smooth seam from the putty to the resin pieces. The gravel is also from the kit.

To get a smooth base to work on I air brushed the entire model with abaddon black. With the purity seal in place the matte surface picks up the paint pretty quick.

For the metal parts I loosly used the Citadel Painting System as illustrated in White Dwarf issue 5 2014.


All the metal parts were based with leadbleacher, then layered with Ironbreaker. This was followed up by washing with Reikland Flesh to get a more worn look. I then tried to get the highlights right by dry brushing Ironbreaker but the result ended up too bright. The solution: A thin layer of abaddon black air brushed on the metal parts.

First layer of metallic paint

After the darkening layer.

With the metal in place I moved on to the carapace. Wazdakka red was first air brushed 2 layers and then brushed one additional time to get a smooth red colour.

The white parts were tricky and I got to say I have not quite mastered working with pure white surfaces yet. I know most don't paint up to pure white instead leaving it on off-white or egg shell but with the paint at hand this was not an option. What feels like 40 layers later (ok, just 9) the colour was in place. The black on the other hand was in place with 2 layers.

The next step was getting the carapace edges in order. As they are more ornamental than the super structure I wanted them to have a brighter shine to them. To achieve this, the edges were based with leadblecher, layered with ironbreaker and finnished up with a thin layer of badab black wash.

With the carapace in place and all the mess touched up, the detail painting resumed. After the detailing, the base was painted and at last the transfers were added.

The knight in all its glory. The Mars aligned house of Taranis will fit great with the Mars themed battle group. My warhound titan of house Legio Ignatum is based on Mars as well and so will my Skitarii when I get to paint them.

Personal honour banner.

Reaper chain sword, destroyer CC attacks and a lot of stomping here we come!

Love how the purity seals turned out.

The black/white cog skulls caused a lot of pain wile painting but I think they turned out pretty good.

Gritty battle field basing just the way I like it!

Gears and bits from the Citadel basing kit.

New super heavy walker in the house! :D

Step by Step Painting: Necromudia Gang

This will be my first step by step painting post so we'll see how it goes. I do not claim to be a pro-painter in any way, so this is more for documentation purpose than a "how to".

A friend of mine got me on the hype train for Necromudia a little wile ago. I have assembled a starting gang with 7 members from random models and parts lying about, but have not gotten to paint them until now. Some of the models are old 40K collectors models I have not gotten to use any place else. The only original Necromudia model in my gang is "Amy", model by same name, that I got from my friend Rick on the agreement that I'd paint her and put her to use. I do so now! :D

Step 1 through 5 is all airbrush. My airbrush is entry level at best  and siphon fed so not the best choice for detailed work. However it speeds up the process somewhat when applying bases. It is also worth noticing this is all done in one painting session lasting for 8 hours. Yes, you can get exhausted hands from painting, I can confirm that!


My gang, "Birds of Prey" is of the House Escher and thereby all female. Here goes!

Step 1

With the basecoat in place, I applied mechanicum standard grey to the areas of fabric and flesh, aka most of the models.

Step 1

Step 2

Working my way up the tones, I applied a mix of slaanesh gray and dawnstone to the areas where the brighter colours would be located.

Step 2

Step 3

House Escher gangs often got a lot of yellow on them. The only paint in that part of the spectrum I got at hand was yriel yellow which is a tad too bright to start working with without a yellow base. I tried a few different mixed and landed on the pupkin-ish colour for the first main colour. Works great on grey and kinda makes them look like the rebel pilots in Star Wars. <.<

Step 3

Step 4

Skin is applied. I use a toned down version of Kislev Flesh which I'll add a second unmodified layer of later on.

Step 4

Step 5

Paint it pink! The second main colour is quite a mix that it took serveral attempts to find.

Step 5

Step 6

Black, like a moonless night. Weapons and details are based black again after the airbrush rampage is over.

Step 6

Step 7

First round of detailing. How I love using purple colours so strictly forbidden to the forces of the Imperium.

Step 7

Step 8

Second layer to the skin, more details and general clean-up.

Step 8

Step 9

To add 10 points of grimdark to the models, remember to apply a lot of washes and shades. Also got their names on the bases! :)

Step 9

Step 10

Based and fixated, done and done! Even gave the eyes a try this time. Still struggling getting them right, but at least this is a step in the right direction.

Step 10

Edit - About the models and where they are from: I got one of the last chancers (Liara), one is from the Gaunts Ghosts pack (Hannette), one is a official Necromudia model (Amy), 2 are made from Victorian Miniature parts (Sessilie and Liri), one is a Raging Heroes limited edition figure (Ash) and lastly Flavia is a Bob Ridolfi sculpt at Reaper Miniatures.

Aaaaand some scenic pictures of the gang.

Onwards to infamy!