Post # 666 (which sounds ominous...but really isn't)

o/

Not much time for hobby stuff this week, though I did manage to cobble enough bitz together to make a techmarine for the Alpha Legion. Every marine army needs a techmarine, as they're my favorite (if generally useless) troop type.

This poor bastard has been in my mini case for years. No idea when he acquired the chain axe (actually I believe that was Kharne's chain axe...), or when he lost his servo-arm/pack (and those fuckers cost more on ebay than entire techmarines do! Seriously WTF?). Luckily the new mechanicum walker-strider-thing has a servo-arm for some reason and I was able to get one fairly reasonably.

I call him 'Frankenstein' (the Techmarine)

I do have one question though: Do 30k Techmarines paint their armor red like their 40k counterparts do?

Yuppie-flage? (WIP)

o/

I made my first attempt at using Fallout Hobbies' airbrush stencils. First off, I don't have an airbrush but figured that simply painting over them as normal would work fine. For the most part the stencil did except for when I peeled the it off, on several places it pulled the underlying paint off with it-all the way down to the bare resin!?!

Those gray spots are the bare resin...

They're mostly small spots that are easily covered, though on the other side of the car there was a big one that luckily is on a window which will be painted over in black anyways. Its still annoying though. Next time I'll clear coat the mini before applying the decal to see if that helps.

The stencil is something new for me and I'm not using it exactly as it was intended, so I'm sure there's a little bit of a learning curve to work thru...

New Toys!

o/

As I mentioned previously, I sent a bunch of minis off to Noble Knight Games for trade-in credit, and I received my credit just in time to buy some goodies on the last day of Noble Knight's spring sale! As you'll see, I got a bit of a hodgepodge of stuff for a variety of games:

Runts for the Runt God!

First up, some more (and much needed) Grymn for my 30k Outremar army. I can now field legal army with 1 HQ and 2 Troops choices in the primary detachment. These little guys and girls will flesh out my Grenadier squad to the 10-strong minimum. They're armed with bolters, and the Sgt.'s 2 pistols will count as a blast pistol which is twin-linked, STR: 5, and of such short range its liable to only ever be used in overwatch…but still looks cool which is the important part, right?

Right.

Next up: A TIE/FO Fighter for X-Wing. This gives us a trio of the new TIEs, only now we have all of the pilot options available. 

Vroom, vroooooom!

Next on the list is a pair of Antenocitis Workshop's Anomala car terrain pieces for Infinity. Aren't they adorable??? One of the Scotts (in name not heritage) at the FLGS who play Infinity (of which we have at least 3) has a bunch of these of various designs. Both my beloved Wolfy and I have always wanted some of our own even though she rarely plays the game and I don't. Infinity still intrigues me though and I'm liable to give it another go at some point.

Speaking of Infinity, I've always liked this Bombshell mini, and am thinking that I could use her for Infinity. Whilst she looks a bit top heavy (and not in the usual buxom manner), once painted she'll look better with her space suit's clear acrylic dome attached (and probably look even more off balanced too!). I was thinking she'd make for a good Mercenary Wardriver Hacker stand-in, as currently Corvus Belli doesn't make a mini for the Wardrivers. I guess she's hyper-allergic to the rest of my little Ariadna force, and is stuck wearing the bulky enviro-suit as a result…or something.

Last up is another Bombshell Miniatures mini: The HOpR Bot. I have no idea what I'll use this for, maybe Gruntz (not that I'll ever apparently play that game) or something. Who cares though, as again its kinda cute even if only as a shelf decoration.

….aaaand with that I had just enough of a credit left to cover the shipping cost.

Outremar Pattern Leman Russ: Work begins...

The pics I took of my latest finished Alpha Legionnaire, which...true to form for that particular model (whom I've dubbed 'the problem child') came out lousy. So, into the trash those pics went and to be honest I did't feel like retaking them, as such I'll just save that for later. Instead I'll just make this a short post showing that the painting has started on my Outremar Pattern Leman Russ.

An Outremar Servitor, dutifully guards it's assigned tank.

The Outremar are too short to 'reach the pedals' or see out of the gun sights, etc., in the human scaled interior of a standard Leman Russ. Similarly, due to the imperium's mediocre understanding of technology and the resulting lack of an auto-loader in the turret, man-handling the massive battle cannon shells was also out of the question. So a complete redesign was needed (not that you can really tell from the above pic).

Downsizing Bolt Action

o/

Welp, after seemingly forever complaining that there was no one to play Bolt Action with, now that their are a variety of opponents I've found that I'm really not too fond of the game. Oh it plays alright I suppose, nothing seems 'broken' but at the same time nothing really holds my attention either. Rob and I have had several discussions on the subject and the same thing keeps coming up, time and time again: The game just feels too generic.

Trying to vary it up a bit with my Weird War II armies has only left me with a lone high point for the game, that being it gives me a use for my Quar. Which, isn't much of a sales pitch…especially for Beyond the Gates of Antares which everyone gleefully says is 'Bolt Action in space!' Yay.

So, I pared my forces down for trade-in credit from my favorite online FGS at Noble Knight Games. Aside from some other random minis, here's what has left my Bolt Action collection and is now enroute to Wisconsin.

First up: the Eleventy First Devonshire. Sigh, such a great concept but…the rifle toting grunts have been outta stock ever since I bought my first squad (which makes me wonder if that was the last squad available). Inquiries to Hasslefree minis as to restocking them resulted in this response:

"Mold issues, its on the list but no ETA, sorry."

…and that's that I guess. As such, they're memory has been rebranded the Eleventy First Air Wing, which will make occasional forays across the channel in their lone Lemming Mk I fighter to provide air support to my beleaguered Quar Partisans.

As for the Quar, yes the Partisans along with my multi-colored uniformed Royalists are all that are left for the most part. They're also the vast majority of the Quar that I've painted. Not all mind you, no army is ever fully painted as we all know, but I'd say about 75% of them are.

The quar pictured above amounts to roughly half of the infantry that I had, along with 2/3 of my vehicles (yes, I kept the painted one). I'll use them with the Partisans army list in the France and Allies army book, whereas the Armies of England and the Soviet Union books also got shipped out.

In terms of my remaining army's field-able size, I'd say that I can easily put the 500 point minimum (which is my preference anyways) on the table and on up to maybe (or, maybe not…) the 750 point mark. 

I'm not sure what I'll get with my trade-in credit just yet, so stay tuned as I'm sure to have a 'new toys' post here in the near future.

My Alpha Legion's color scheme: step-by-step

o/

Knight of Infinite Resignation asked a little ways back for a step-by-step/how to on how I paint my Alpha Legionnaires. That struck as a novel idea as I've never done such a thing for a blog post before (nor have I been asked). So without further ado, here are the steps I use for painting my 30k marines:

Step One: Base coat the mini with Model Master's Medium Green. Its a matte paint that works just as well as any primer. All of my minis are 'primed' in one shade or another of Model Master's matte paints.

Next up, base coat with GW's Sotek Green. After taking this photo, I realized how badly I covered this mini, and gave it a 2nd coat.

Then a fairly heavy dry-brushing of GW's long out-of-production Glistening Green (which is still available via Coat d'arms as Enchanted Green). My apologies for the unfocused pic of the mini.

That's followed by an equally heavy dry-brushing with Coat D'arms' Enchanted Blue. Following this, I paint in all of the details, and just use the Enchanted blue for any touch ups on the armor rather than go back thru the various layers again.

Then I slather the whole mini with Army Painter's Strong Tone, and leave it alone for a few hours to dry. I don't worry too much about it going on too heavy in some places. The resulting appearance of Scorched armor (due to the heavy application of the ink) is all too common as one moves through the burning cities of their victims...

After its dry, I just go over the whole mini with a very light dry-brushed coat of GW's Bleached Bone to 'dirty' the mini up a bit.

Finally, after flocking the mini and letting it dry, I clear coat it with Model Master's Lusterless Flat, and once that's dried I then go over the eye lenses, lights, etc., with GW's Gloss Varnish.

Aaaaaand, that's it! Another marine ready for the tabletop.

TROLL POST!!!!

(and I mean that both literally and figuratively)

With family in again for the past few days, hobby time was nonexistent. Thus digging in the unblogged about archives, I ran a across this Trollkin Pyg Bushwhacker that I painted a little ways back. He was painted in between a few Alpha Legionnaires, and another Pyg has been started under similar circumstances.

On the 30k front, I finally received notice that the garbage scow containing my recently acquired leman russ has finally entered the warp as are bitz needed for its refurbishment. I'm also working on a step-by-step post on my Alpha Legion paint scheme as requested by Knight of infinite Resignation which I hope to have ready for next week.

My 1st Leman Russ in....years.

o/

As I've mentioned several times now, my fledgling Alpha Legion/Outremar army for 30k is very lightly armed. Previously, the most powerful weapon in their inventory was the autocannon on my Predator tank, however soon I'll have a leman Russ and its mighty battle cannon to add to their arsenal.

Dust. Why are these things always coated in dust?

I haven't had a Leman Russ in my last 2-3 Imperial Guard armies, mainly because its primary armament looks just plain dumb! The ridiculously over-sized gun mounted on an equally under-sized turret is laughable. A gun that large belongs on a WWII battleship, not a tank. Its been something of a long standing joke in the 40k community as to how the interior of a Leman Russ' turret actually functions. Officially I think GW's explanation is: 'Its shrouded in mystery...'. Unofficially i think its: pure fucking magic.

HERESY! *BLAM*!!!

Don't get me wrong, I've had my share of Leman Russes over the years. Hell, at one time (4th edition I think) I had a full armored company of them! That said, the one with the old Forgeworld Conqueror turret was always my favorite. With much more realistic proportions, I'd say about 90% of the time I simply used the Conqueror as a standard Leman Russ.

Coming back to the present however, another complaint I have with the Leman Russ is: when did the damn thing rise up to a price of fifty-freaking-dollars? Yes, yes, I know EVERYTHING made by GW is overpriced but seriously, what the hell?

Looks like it was put together well at least (I hope!).

Trying to keep costs down, I turned to my trusted friend ebay, where I proceeded to lose at least a half dozen or more auctions over the past few weeks to obtain a cheap Russ. NIB auctions save at best $5-$10 off of retail, assembled (often poorly) models go often for close to regular MSRP (or so many of their very proud seller's price them), 'pro-painted' (those that actually are and not those that laughably claim to be) go for about triple that number.

Eventually, I got the old jalopy pictured above for twenty bucks which is more than I wanted to spend, but all things considered I guess I ought to count myself lucky. I wanted one without sponsons and skipped many an auction with shitty/blurry/unfocused pictures (which oddly, is a fairly frequent occurrence), because I didn't want glue scarred sides resulting from where the side-sponsons had been ripped off either.

Hopefully this old wreck will get here sometime this week, and won't have any unpleasant hidden surprises in its construction which is always a concern with used ebay acquisitions. If all goes well, I'll have it converted (in a decidedly non-standard manner) and ready to paint here sometime in the next 2 weeks or so.

...aaaaand two Bolter Marines later...

o/

Sorry for the lack of a Monday post, but my Mom gave us the 'Surprize! I'm coming up (from FL) to visit...' call rather unexpectedly, and the long weekend turned into a whirlwind visit in lieu of the usual gaming and geekery. My Dad is coming down (from NJ) for a visit this weekend, so next Monday's post is a bit iffy as well.

Welp, I'm out of Eldar ruins. So it'll just be rocks decorating bases from here on out.

As such, there's little to report other than I managed to paint two more Alpha Legion tactical marines. Unlike all of my previous marine armies, where everything is assembled and (theoretically) painted later, This go round, I'm 'painting as I go'. Meaning I build and paint a marine from start-to-finish before working the next one.

There's no rush to get an army on the table, as even with my Outremar allies, I can't muster but a few hundred points, who are equipped with anti-infantry weapons only. Or, in other words: cannon fodder for any likely opposing 30k/40k army. Thus, I'm just happily painting at my usual snail's pace with neither worry nor concern about getting in a game at any time in the foreseeable future.

I guess I now fall into that so-called 80% of 'collectors' that GW thinks makes up its customer base...