Almost there...

o/

If it's taken this long to mostly paint just 10 friggin' guys, how in
the hell am I going to get thru the other 50+ marines?

I had a marathon painting session Saturday (well, by my meager standards at least) and got the last four members of my Astral Claws' red tactical squad painted up to the 'ready for decals' stage. Decals will be applied later on this evening, and once dry these will then be slathered in ink. Wednesday evening I'll hopefully have time to do their bases, as well as applying the mud/grime to their legs and in doing so my first tac. squad will (hopefully) be complete! 

That's the plan anyways. As you all well know, I rarely am running on the rails...

Rearming the Troops (Literally)

o/

Yes I know havoc champions can't use signums, but they look cool and besides, did the Astral Claws' signums really cease functioning just because they started shooting at their brethren?

In and amongst the slow crawl of progress that is my painting queue, I've been repositioning several of the characters that I got from Kushial. Mostly this is just a straight replacement/swap of the arms and weapons, but occasionally the head as well. Whereas in the case of the captain there in the center, he is an amalgamation of several minis along with some bits poached from my meagre collection of spares. 

A little battlefield debris has been added also (mostly skulls). Indeed, the last four bolter grunts needed to complete my first Astral Claws tac. squad received basing skulls/bitz as well, however as they're now primed black they don't photograph worth a shit. 

Clearly  enough for two armies...

One thing of note: the two Forgeworld Apothecaries are REALLY cool minis that I've always wanted! That being said, I'm using the Chaos codex for the Astral Claws meaning they have no place in the army. As such those two as well as that captain with be siphoned off with some other extras that didn't fit in with the claws for a second small Black Templars army. 

Come on...you didn't really think I'd paint all of these in the same colors did you? 

Tres Hombres

The ML gunner was originally standing on a slab of cork,
before I swapped it out for the wrecked Rhino door.

It took awhile (due mainly to distraction) but I have three more painted tactical marines for the Astral claws. It all went much the same as the first three with the exception of the missile gunner's base which features a door that has been blown off of an Executioners chapter Rhino. For those wondering, The Executioners initially fought on the secessionist side during the early-to-mid stages of the Badab war, though only to honor a long-standing blood debt to the Astral Claws.

Kindova shitty photo as my camera focused on the background, rather than the marines in front of it, but at least you can see that these are also part of the 'red' tactical squad.

Savage and unpredictable when on the attack, the Executioners fought both honorably and on their own terms much to the irritation of Lugft Huron and the Astral Claws. Eventually they turned on their allies in the so-called 'Red Hour' after the Astral Claws violated their honor/terms during the surrender and capture of a Salamanders' vessel. Following that, for a brief time the Executioners fought both loyalist and secessionist alike in their own private war before leaving the conflict altogether.

In the end, I think that door took as much time
to paint as it did the marine standing on it!

The Executioners use different color pauldrons to denote unit types (ironically, FW seems to have dropped this for their Badab war books), with green representing tactical marines. Originally this was to be a Raptor's door, as I (quite mistakenly) thought that I had Raptors decals. I did have quite a few double headed axe icons though and so to the Executioners this door went. 

To the trees!

o/

Watch out for the poison ivy...

I gotta bunch of 'train trees' for Christmas to use in making some traversable forests for both my 15mm 40k and Classic Battletech. As such I added hex lines for use with the latter which was something of a nightmare. Normally I only discuss Battletech on my other blog, but figured duplicate posts would be kinda pointless for a mere stand of trees. 

Luckily this Locust won't devour everything in sight...

I didn't clear coat this prior to adding the hex lines and trees due to inclement weather resulting in considerable frustration as the flocking was coming off at the slightest touch. As such this was partially reflocked multiple times up until I just said fuck it! and left the little bare spots as they were. Future forests will be clear coated prior to the addition of hex lines and the trees themselves. 

Astral Claws test minis

o/

I had hoped to have this post out both earlier and with at least a combat squad of marines done...but Real Life (TM) happened. That said, I am rather pleased with these three and true to the memory of the handful I painted some years ago, they were fairly quick, easy and painless to paint, a good thing considering I still have this to do: 

((((gulp!)))

GW's Leadbelcher, Macragge Blue, Agrax Earthshade along with Vallejo's Glorious Gold and Flat Earth for the base and...umm yeah. That's it. Easy peasy.

I opted to go with different colored tactical arrows to tell the squads apart. I made some in red, yellow and black years ago for some long, forgotten project that never went anywhere...apparently, as I never used any of them. Without a white backing, the red is kinda dark rendering the yellow tactical arrows a lost cause. Additionally I also have the standard GW white ones too. 

Of course only one out of these three is actually sporting said red decal so its not the best plan, but the reinforcement stud pauldrons aren't too common as I recall so it should work...I think. I also made assault, devastator and veteran squad markings in black as well. 

I ordered these chapter icons from grimfritter.com's ebay page. Check em out, they've got good stuff. 

Astral Claws aside, I have been working on some 15mm terrain for that project which this one sorta derailed, but you know me...I can't stay on any given project for too long before-SQUIRREL!!

So there ya have it, not much to say other than here I go...and go, and go, and g...

So, what to do with a non-Primaris space marine army?

The above is just a small portion of the Lions of Harlech Chapter. I do believe that there is somewhere in the realm of 4-5 fully painted companies of them.

It is a valid question as out of the blue, Kushial surprised me (stunned would be more accurate) with the gift of a large space marine army this past weekend! Approximately 2k worth in points via the old marine codex as I've yet to get the current one. 

The unpainted lions...

He hasn't played 40k in close to 2 years, and has no want to paint anymore of his beloved Lions of Harlech space marines, so he was selling off the unpainted portions of his army (dreadnoughts excluded as he has a love of dreads that borders on some kind of psychosis...). However, like myself when I sold off the handful of Rainbow Warriors and the other remnants of my non-primaris marine forces, he found that they were selling for a pittance. 

The whole lot of 'em!

So, if he was to give them away, he'd give them to someone he knew that would enjoy them, rather than a total stranger. So...where to go from here, as GW (apparently) no longer has any love for the 'regular' marines. 

Perusing the archives of this blog I thought that maybe I'd revisit one of the many, many chapters that I've fielded in the past and in doing so the Tyrant's Legion caught my eye. Based on Forgeworld's (now defunct) 6th ed list, the Tyrant's Legion was Lugft Huron's attempt to build the Astral Claws up into a space marine legion of old prior to the badab war. 

At that war's conclusion, the Astral Claw/Tyrant's Legion survivors fled into the maelstrom and became the Red Corsairs, which was another army given to me  out of the blue from the Gentleman's Ones (oh how I miss that blog, and then later given away to yet another blogger who did them proud.

An image of an Astral Claw from the of FW Badab war book. Ironically, it bears a strong resemblance in color to the otherwise totally unrelated Lions of Harlech!

Anyways, originally, the Astral Claws were a loyalist chapter, and rather than have an army in open rebellion again (built of a mix of loyalist and chaos bitz as i had previously), I'm thinking of doing an earlier version, just on the cusp of heresy. The lion's share (pun intended) of the minis in my new army are 30k Mk IV marines. Conveniently, the Astral Claws had raided stockpiles of obsolete, but still serviceable kit as they sought to bolster their forces in secret. 

So how to build this with longevity in mind you ask? Simple: I use the chaos space marine codex. However like the fallen, I'll just ignore all of the chaos gods' affiliated stuff, daemons, etc., and build 'em much as a generic loyalist army, but one diverging from the codex astartes, i.e.: over sized tac squads, with 2 heavy, or special weapons, etc. 

It'll carry some of the flavor of the old FW list, whilst being entirely legal, and devoid of primaris marines and any fear of obsolescence for the foreseeable future.  Some units won't be cross-compatible of course (hey Neverness, I gotta bunch of scout snipers for ya!), and I'll need to order some bitz to convert the Landraider redeemer back into a 'regular' one. But i think it'll work and hey-best of all, that color scheme is easy to paint!

15mm Datasheet WIP

o/

As another nightmare of a month grinds its way forward, I've had little time for painting or playing. Prettymuch the only thing I've been able to work on (mainly on lunch breaks and the rare down time at work) has been adapting more datasheets for 15mm units as a continuation of my last post. Anyways, here they are, and let me know what ya think. 

The first (and only) datasheet so far to have a mini that I painted on it (and I sold it...years ago, sigh...). Not sure If I'll buy another of these, but it was an expertly cast model and if this does take off it will be tempting to get another...

Rather than an addition to a player's army, this is more of a random 'environmental' effect.

I do have one of these minis, the infamous 'Taco' of Rogue Stars fame, however its not painted/photogenic. I got this pic from CMoN (giving it my vote of a '10'), and just removed the jetpack from the image. 

IG Veterans, the minis pictured are from Khurasan Miniatures and on my to get eventually list. 

These minis come from Clear Horizon Miniatures, a company I'd totally forgotten about until Waaargh Pug mentioned them in a comment on my last pos. Thanks buddy!

A Viper Mech, this sheet was made at the request of Hoss using a mini from another company I'd forgotten about: Rebel Minis (located right here in good ol' Tennessee).

****

Welp, that's it for this year. So I hope all of you folks have a merry Christmas and happy New Year!