Black Dragons Lieutenant

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A unicorn among dragons?

I had a bit of insomnia Friday night and decided to paint rather than lie in bed tossing and turning in a hopeless quest for sleep. As such this guy went from primed black to ready for decals by the time I called it a night some time after midnight. Being stupid-hot outside (for Tennessee, we don't have anything on other parts of the south and west) I had all the incentive needed to not go outside and instead finish him up.

Originally, I was going to put the V on the tabard but was afraid it would get lost behind the crystals.

This guy was made from one of the new primaris sternguard models, with nothing more needed than an arm, head and base swap from the standard to make him into a Lieutenant with bolt pistol and master-crafted bolt rifle. As for his close combat weapon...I'm guessing that that's the horn which has sprouted from his head. As you can imagine, I'll be keeping all of my Inquisitors away from this guy!

As he's an officer, he has Dragon icons on both pauldrons

Due to said horn, he lacks a helmet on which to paint the Lt.'s requisite red and white stripes, so I opted to add that to his tabard instead which came out pretty good I think. It certainly brightens up what would be an otherwise very black mini. 

I'm not sure who will get the combi-melta that originally went here.

The Roman numeral 'V' on his chest shield show's his battle company's number. Black Dragons' company numbers are displayed on the right knee cap, black in the case of the 5th co. I'll bet you thought I'd forgotten about the company markings didn't you?

La la, la-lalala...

Next up on my painting table are a pair of Smurf assault intercessors which are about a third of the way painted already. Followed perhaps by some Black Dragon intercessors. 

Here be Dragons... (v.2)

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Scary aren't they? No really, they are. Seriously!

They even have rules that say they are...

I'm sorry Zzzzz I tried, I really did. It just didn't work out. For those who aren't aware, Zzzzz is the one who named my Incandescent Coyotes chapter after seeing their initial paint jobs. As such he was rather fond of them and was somewhat appalled to have found out that they went the way of eBay. 

These were more or less no frills speed paints.

Simple & easy which bodes well for their future.

The Coyotes were all Firstborn marines, which outside of 30k are unsurprisingly going the way of the Dodo. Their color scheme was difficult and laborious to paint. Indeed the Gryph-Hound Orange contrast paint was the real culprit. Unlike the other contrast paints in my inventory with which I've had considerable success, I just could never get the Coyotes' orange right. 

I need to get some of the alien tufts which are red, blue &

hot pink as opposed to these which are just dead.

So, on a whim...I thought I'd try and resurrect the Coyotes with a Primaris reboot, reversing their color scheme of orange with black trim to a more manageable black with orange trim. All was going well until...I started fighting with the damned orange contrast on the pauldrons. Multiple coats to smooth it's appearance out, difficulty with the Coyote emblem on said pauldron again as well, and then...

I said: Fuck it. 

All black it is. Sorry Zzzzz, the Coyotes are lost to history. Looking at my decal sheets I found a considerable number of still unused Silver Drake decals and I instead revisited a chapter that I toyed with years ago: the Black Dragons. Rather than retell their appeal, you can just reread it in this old post here. 

Unlike that first foray which resulted in just one painted mini and several subsequent blog mentions, I now stand at a five-strong squad of reivers and had just enough black primer for a lieutenant before running out. With Battlescribe up and running again for 10th ed, after making a 1k list for the Smurfs I then syphoned off the rest of my marines for the Dragons.

The primer didn't go on too smoothly, likely due to the ridiculously hot & humid weather. This is most evident on their combat blades.

Currently the Dragons clock in at somewhere between 600-700 points depending on whether on not they inherit my Chaplain or not. Meaning you ought not expect to see them on the table top anytime soon.

Especially as we just returned from a vacation to Boston Massachusetts which left my bank accounts almost empty (frighteningly so), while additionally adding far too much to my credit card bill for my liking. It was well worth it though! Thus no purchases for this new army will be made for a good while.

*****

One last thing of note, and on a different subject:

Red & white stripes removed.

After being used as often as not as a captain rather than a lieutenant, Lt. Siph Horridus has been officially promoted to captain of my Ultramarines 3rd Battle company army. He received his helmet repaint just yesterday. Huzzah! 

Da Groop's ARRRRRR Support!

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Da Stooka!

It's here! It's here! Perhaps this will shake off my 10th ed 40k malaise? We'll see. I've heard mostly good things, but not really interested in bothering with it at the moment. But that's not why you're here.

No, you're here to see a photo dump of my newly arrived and FANTASTICALLY painted Blitzbomma painted by the esteemed and talented Admiral Drax! Rather than re tell it, you can read about how this project came to be here. 

Drax's orkified 'Dazzle' camo.

Note the leading edge of the vertical stabilizer which the grot gunner has shot all to hell.

Gonna get me some tail!

The base, cockpit interior & krew are all that remain of my original, partial paint job. 

Da last thing da oomies see before da bombs drop!

I got the base of of eBay, from somebody in Greece I think.

Neverness is already stoked about our aerial dogfights in our future Ork vs Ork games. I am as as well, not to mention I still would like to try a war-on-the-floor game sometime in which everybody gets their aircraft together and we all just have a huge air-battle. 

Star Wars Legion Rebel Troopers

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Well I guess its time for another bi-weekly (or so) blog post. I've downloaded everything I need for 10th ed 40k, and...that's basically it. Haven't even really looked thru the PDFs other than to delete out the units I don't have. For example: I reduced the 250+ page Smurf index to 30ish pages. I've heard mostly positive reviews thus far, but haven't been too enthused to give it a try myself...yet.

Baby Yoda's looking a bit dark, may need to scrounge/blend up a lighter shade of green.

Instead I've been focusing my painting and gaming efforts on Battletech and useless shit Star Wars Legion. I guess its about time that I've had some actual, official foot troopers to go with my pizza cannon and all of the 3D printed minis. Nothing fancy, but cheap, functional and expendable. 

I really like this new type of tufts I bought. This ion trooper looks like's she's slogging thru weeds and bramble. 

I painted them to match the fleet trooper look of their army's commander. Again, just using whatever borrowed kit they could find to blend in with the local terrain. Also like their commander, they're quite dirty meaning they've been planet side for quite some time.

There's no telling if the different colored fly traps represent different species, or rather healthy vs. unhealthy plants. Either way, I wouldn't stick my hand in there if I were you...