Friday, March 15, 2024

We March-er...or-uh, mosey(?) for Macragge

 o/

Its been a busy month for me so far and as you can tell by the title, odds are that I'm not going to get all 20 of my remaining Smurf intercessors and hellblasters painted like I had originally had hoped to. Indeed, two weeks in and I've managed just five so far. 

Judging by the color, I'd say the guy in the middle pushing his plasma incinerator a little too hard...

That said, they look pretty good, and I'm rather pleased with the glowy effect on the plasma guns. The three Hellblasters bring me up to a combat squad of those guys, whereas the two Intercessors round those out to a dozen painted. Ignoring these two intercessors, I can now field 635 points of fully painted Ultramarines! So yeah, still a long ways to go. 

Beneath the grime, you can just make out some campaign badges on their thigh armor plates.

I had only intended to work on basic troops as they are both the most numerous and least exciting to paint. However after my last game with Neverness, the Librarian has wormed his way into the next batch of Smurfs to paint thanks to his glorious psychic deeds in combat! 

The next five on deck. 

Likewise the 2nd squad's sergeant is in there as well due to consistently rolling 6s to hit & wound with his bolt pistol. He's even successfully wounded a Carnifex with said bolt pistol! Curiously, he also brings 5 chainsword attacks to the table (Suck it assault intercessors!). Backing that up is another 27 CCW attacks, which ought to make even basic intercessors a worrisome target to charge into.

With luck, hopefully I'll get these five (and maybe a few more) done before the month is out. 

Monday, March 4, 2024

Henry Rollins, Black Dragons Ancient

 

Yes, because he's carrying a Black Flag

This guy's been knocking about on my desk for a few months, so I decided to finally paint him up. Like all of my Dragons he painted up fairly quickly being predominantly of just one color: black (you'd think I'd have more of them painted...). Unfortunately said color makes these guys a bit difficult to photograph as they try to turn into silhouettes. 

There are 7 decals on the standard alone, including the first use of the chapter icons from my new decal sheet.

I'm not sure as to just what type of or how many accolades Mr. Rollins has racked up in his long and varied career, but with this model he gains one more: The most decals that I've ever added to a single infantry model; 11 in total, yeesh.

The left pauldron icon, and a white wing on the thigh armor plate which signifies...something.


The right side thigh plate no doubt tells of his epic deeds. That, or perhaps its just a collection of links to his personal website & webstore, Wikipedia page, Facebook and Instagram...

Armed with the Standard bolt rifle, he's not the most potent of characters, though he does make for a nice centerpiece model who will easily stand out amongst the still mostly primed black horde.  

Insert Khorney joke here. 


Thursday, February 29, 2024

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. 

Monday, February 26, 2024

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.

Monday, February 5, 2024

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.


Thursday, February 1, 2024

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.  


Friday, January 26, 2024

Never tell me the odds!

 o/

No, this isn't another Star Wars Legion post. Rather for the second time now I've won an NOCF charity raffle! Ya know, I had been donating to these raffle for years to no avail. Only about $15-$20 at a time and win or not, its always for a good cause. 

After this, yes I will go into that asteroid field!

About a year and a half ago I won a pair of Iyanden Warlocks which now reside in my display case. This time around, I won a Salamanders Infernus marine. It's a great paint job, though I find it a bit curious that a Salamanders' Icon decal was not applied. Or painted on, given just how good the flames are freehand painted onto the other pauldron. 

The Mrs. rather liked the discolored metal of the pyreblaster.

The strangely blank pauldron.

This one however is just perfect!

Nice base too!

And he is off to scour Screech's display shelf of dust bunnies with extreme prejudice!

Nice as this is, I have no use for it other than to decorate my display case. As such I gifted it to Screech who is now the proud owner of his first painted Salamander! I told him that he ought to be a sergeant or something despite the green helmet, to which he replied: 'Like he's ever going to leave the shelf'. 

Can't be risking that pretty paint job with a potential fall from the table I guess.