Ultramarines Lieutenant with Combi-Weapon

 I'm thinking that this might be my first ever leap year post. 

What d'ya mean you can't see him?

This past Saturday evening I elected to not go out and game and instead I painted this guy up. I did a minor arm and head swap as I didn't like the chitinous, replacement, hillbilly armored pauldron and, well I just prefer for my marines to be helmeted. 

Zzzzz commented in our group chat that he couldn't wait to see the matching terrain that was to go with his armor's color scheme. 

As such, I put this guy in front of the Tennessee equivalent of Zzzzz's famous Brick of Scrutiny. Personally, I think this Lt. blends pretty well in a concrete environment.

In hindsight I ought to had added a few kill markings on the side of the combi-flamer.

At first I didn't quite know what to think of this model or its utility. However at some point it just clicked that he's basically a Space Wolves' Lone Wolf, albeit one for any chapter. Sure he lacks the customizability of kit, but most primaris marines suffer from that trait. 

Unlike the rest of my Camo-Smurfs, this guy's camo covers the pauldrons and helm as well. 

Come here bug, I'm gonna cut ya!

Given my Marines' repeated pummeling of Hivefleet Neverness, I was tempted to paint the 'nid gribbly under his foot in Neverness' nids' color scheme. Rather than add yet more bluish tones to this model, I opted for something with more of a visual contrast. Thus, I picked the colors on a whim, I have no idea if there's a known Hivefleet in these colors or not. 

Aside from simply 'a dead one', does anybody know what sort of 'nid gribbly it is that he's crushing underfoot?

Edit: Neverness brought to my attention a new (to me) painting challenge along the lines of Dreadtober, only for Smurf players called 'March for Macragge'. As such I guess this guy can kick that off for me as the Emprah knows that I have hordes of primed Smurfs awaiting paint. 

Singin' da bloos

 o/

Rememba yoo weedy gitz: Bloo iz a lucky color!

Well its been a minute since my last post, indeed February is almost over at this point! All forward progress ground to a halt due to an impromptu trip to Ft. Lauderdale to lay a dear friend to rest. As such, I've struggled a bit to get the creative juices flowing once again. 

Slugga & big choppa, da propa' weapons of a boss nob!

That said, just prior to getting the bad news, I got together with Neverness for a game of 40k in which Da Long Wayz Dezert Groop itself came out of seclusion and made it's 10th ed 40k debut. Neverness already has a battle report here. The TL;DR version is dat bugs iz not az gud at killin' az Da Orks iz! 

His holstered slugga is almost the size of a shoota!

In that battle report, this nob that you see pictured both above and below earned his paintjob following a glorious last stand in that game. After killing off my kommandos (who reduced the brood by about half) a Brood lord and its' remaining genestealers charged and obliterated the Nob's mob, leaving him alone and wounded. Furthermore, the broodlord subjected this Nob to its hypnotic gaze. 

I'm particularly pleased with how the gore came out on his big choppa.

Outraged and swinging his big choppa with all of his fury and might he rolled three 6's to hit which doubled to six hits due to the Get stuck in detachment rule! As such, he killed all of the lord's brood of remaining 'stealers, and when a second mob charged in to his rescue a turn later, the Broodlord (which always strikes first) was so incensed by this nob that it made sure to kill him before the charging nob tore it to pieces. 

Yes, that was worthy of a paint job I think.

He must've gone digging deep in the scrap pile to find a bit with the word 'Mordian' on it! Those guys haven't been seen on the tabletop in what, 4-5 editions of the game now?

My favorite Tankbustas missed the game as you have to have a tank hammer boy in your mob. Typical of GW's post-Chapterhouse lawsuit 'you can only field what mono-pose models we put in the box' bullshit. For a company that so once embraced variety and konvershuns, GW more or less treats such concepts as anathema nowadays. 

Da tankbustas iz back baby!

Well, fuck 'em! Needing a tank hammer which is more likely to kill it's user than a tank (okay, so that part is Orky), I managed to splice together a spare runtherd body with some Kommando breacher bitz and a standard boys' head for my own version of a tank hammer grunt. Since the big shootas largely suck (I may have killed a single termagaunt with them all game), the rest of da bustas will spread out to the uvver mobs to serve as mere rokkit boyz.

2 PHIG missile teams and a Psyker are complete!

 o/

Sorcery-in-progress!

This week I have an update on the slow progress of my Pointy Helmeted Imperial Guardsmen (PHIGs). I painted up a pysker, and finally finished two of the three missile teams for the heavy weapons squad (I can only do two at a time as I'm limited to just four of the tiny bases I temporarily glue them too). 

First up, the Psyker.

Feel the Force flow thr-oh wait, wrong genre. 

Note the runes on his/her kit. 

The witchery does not extend to the back of the hand...

Rune inscribed Force Hatchet.

As always there a pistol for shooting in close combat. 

This mini will serve as a Primaris Psyker. As I'm really limited on sculpts with this bunch, I just did a hand swap on a superfluous standard bearer. To help him stand out from the rest of the oh so similar infantry, I added a witchfire-esque glow to both his/her (like you can tell under all of that gear) hand and emanating from the grill of the helm. 

I rather like the effect. His/her kit is also inscribed with several runes of...warding? He/she is also equipped with a rune inscribed force hatchet.

The team's gunner is prepped to fire with the loaders each carrying a spare launcher.

This will be the red squad which seems like an appropriate color for fire support. 

The Ammo Crates hold spare rounds, presumably enough to carry them thru a standard 5-turn game.

I got a little ahead of myself on these guys and forgot to add any unit decals. I'll likely carry this omission on to the last team as well. 

Next up are two of the heavy weapons squad's missile teams. These missile teams are the only option that these minis come with in regards of heavy weaponry. That said these look good and luckily missile launchers are good against both armor and light infantry hordes. I also like the 50mm weapon team bases over the prior 60mm bases which seemed like a bit much for an Iggy weapon team.

Target acquired, fire on my mark!

Next up for this army will be to finish the last weapon team and maybe the final four grunts in my first infantry squad. After that, perhaps a 2nd tank will be in order.

Star Wars Legion Mudtroopers

 o/

My apologies for the crummy lighting & backdrop,

it is usually just about dark when I get home (or raining outside). 

This week I've been trying to finish off the menagerie of half painted minis that have been loitering on my desk for the past few weeks. I'm almost finished with a couple more PHIGs, but as that's an almost, I'll save those for my next post. Today I instead present to you another four Mudtroopers. 

Seriously Atomic Mass Games, why are there no official models for these guys yet? 

This bunch includes the blue squad leader, another grunt from the same squad, as well as a pair of specialists armed with a DLT-19 and a E-22. The latter isn't much of a support weapon (hell, Shoretroopers are armed with them as standard). But...those guys are kind of elite whereas Mudtroopers, are more like rookies. As such, its a support weapon. That said, its cost is only a single point more than a regular grunt.

This is the part where they run away!

The DLT-19 is your standard, issue Imperial long ranged anti-armor weapon for infantry. There's one mounted on my Occupier tank's pintle mount as well. I only have four Mudtroopers left to go, another E-22 gunner, a scatter gunner (same stats & cost as the Rebel Fleet Troopers upgrade), and a pair of Mortar emplacement troopers. 

This is the stat card that I made for the mud troopers. As you can see they're similar to that of the Stormtroopers, just crummier (the same can be said for their mortar emplacement Mudtrooper). There's no automatic point calculator for custom units, so I tend to aim high on my point costs. As such, I used the same point cost as standard stormtroopers. The mortar emplacement is the same cost to that of the Shoretooper variety as well. Such are the costs of proxies.