Downsizing 'da Groop

 lol, I'm sure that just by that title alone Neverness has a knot in the pit of his stomach, and perhaps rightly so.

It isn't news to anybody that I don't play near as often as I once did, which has only been exacerbated by the ongoing pandemic. Thus my pile o' shame is both considerable and taking up a lot of space. Granted I still have some extra of that following the passing of My Beloved Wolfy, but that said I could probably do something better with it were some of it not filled with a literal pile of plastic that I have little want to paint. As such, force reductions are well under way:

First up, the Spess Mahreenz. As y'all may recall, having just sold off all of my non-primaris Spess Mahreenz, Kushial blindsided me with the gift of a veritable horde of them! From that collection both the Astral Claws were reborn, and my Incandescent Coyotes came into being. However with the Coyotes clocking in at about 500 points, and the Astral Claws at about the same, I was still left with a Landraider and 30-odd marines. Not wanting to sell what was gifted to me, I passed those minis on to Neverness. 

My Silver Drakes clock in at about 1000 points, with maybe 1/10 of that painted. No plans to add to or reduce their numbers at this point in time. They're not too high on the list to get painted either...

Next up: Chaos. I mentioned just a few posts back that I sold the majority of  my chaos marines off, reducing them to a mere kill team. 

Then there's My Beloved Wolfy's Fem Fa'Tau. By far my largest army (at the start of this paragraph anyways...), clocking in at a little over 1500 points of almost entirely unpainted minis (the original, paltry collection of painted Fem Fa'Tau minis Wolfy herself fielded are all in my display case). I didn't see meself doing much with these, and burned out after just a few painted up in a new scheme. Still, being hers, I didn't want to sell em, so what to do? Well, my buddy Hoss has flirted with Tau and 40k for years, but the astronomical cost of entry into the game has always kept him from making the jump. He was also one of My Wolfy's favorite folks. As such I have approx. 1K of Tau set aside to suck him into the financial hell that is 40k. The remainder are staying with me to all wear the Fem F'aTau's new colors...someday. 

The Exodites...barely clock in at 500 points, They're good as is. 

And lastly there's Da Long Wayz Dezert Groop itself. Recently they achieved something like 90+% painted status when 30 or so unpainted minis were sold to another local gamer. Riddled with sentimental favorites, they're all but impossible to sell off in their entirety. They are still fieldable as an army (albeit a small one) as their troops compliment has been reduced to a mere 10-strong slugga boy mob. 

Storage and transport of these little guys will be much easier as well!

That said, just days prior to the above mentioned sale, I purchased 48 new orks (pictured above)...in 15mm scale. Sure they may not be as detailed, nor have as much variety of models, but at the same time a *NEW* 500pt army cost me $50, of which a goodly portion of that was shipping from the UK. 

So...that's the current state of things around here. More minis are likely to go, just not sure what at this point. 

This week in Space Marines...

 ...another white 'bawks.'

Apparently I can't make a caption today without it being a link to....something. Yet another 'improvement' brought to you by the new Blogger interface. I could leave them feedback, but that has as much  positive effect as going out into my backyard and screaming into the wind...

I didn't torture myself enough with the first one so I thought I'd give it another go. Well, that and I figured that I'd do a second before I rightly changed my mind. Also, why have one woolly bear when you can have two, right?

Not too fond of the Centurion's golden face plate, I may go back and repaint that in silver. 

I've also been working on a pair of Astral Claws, a Havoc aspiring champion and a Legion Centurion (Lieutenant/Exalted Champion). Both are still very much a WIP. One of the beauties of the Astral Claws as they fought on both sides (loyalist and traitor) whilst having the same appearance. So they can be used as either/or. I have another as yet unpainted (at all) devastator sergeant to take the spot of the above aspiring champion when using them as loyalists. 

Not sure as to which squad this guy will be leading given that neither of the two I which already have are in need of a sergeant. 

Also, whilst digging for parts to 'cleanse' the above Rhino of it's former Black Templars iconography (have at it Zzzzz), I collected enough bitz to piece together another Incandescent Coyotes character of some sort. That chest plate is far too decorated to be a mere bolter grunt. Perhaps I'll make him an Lt., and promote my acting Lt. from last weekend's game to Captain. I'll likely swap that chainsword for something better if I opt for that. Edit: Yeah I think I'll swap that chainsword arm for a powerfist and some sort of backpack ornamentation to serve as a Lt.

My first Astral Claws Tactical Squad is complete!

o/

Curiously (or is it sadly?), these are the most marines of a single color scheme that I've had since my 30k Alpha Legionnaires (who in the end only clocked in at a whopping 13 minis total) and the most of any single squad going all the way back to my......Storm Wardens (circa 2013-14). 

The closest thing I could find to a whole Storm Wardens army shot on this blog...

Yeah, wow. Consistency, it's not my thing apparently. 

Anyways, back to the present.

The chapter icons went on well enough, though a few of the tactical arrows required considerable profanity to achieve proper adhesion... 

In the end, this squad was kinda fun to paint despite how much I normally dislike batch painting (even small batches of 3-4). At least at this point I'm not loathing the prospect of painting more of 'em. 

The squad's 'big guns'.

The squad's leg greaves are rather muddy meaning the squad at some point had to wade across a flooded trench, gully or the like which lead to the curiously dirty state of one battle brother in particular: 

Genetically enhanced or not
everybody falls in the mud!

We're not quite sure what exactly it was that caused brother Lucius to fall bodily into the muddy water.

Was it a hole unseen beneath the murk? Perhaps the shock wave of a nearby explosion? Or was it just an opportune shove delivered at just the right moment by one of his malicious brethren?

Its hard to say, but squad comms have been unusually quiet ever since the trench crossing...'incident'.

The battlefield debris on their bases is a bit inconsistent, but in the end won't really be noticeable. The first few had Eldar bits added to their bases as those were readily available without any effort required to sift through my pile o' spare bitz. That said, the Astral Claws were previously tasked with containing the Maelstrom's renegade and Xenos scourges meaning Eldar debris isn't too far off of the mark. Perhaps the Eldar were simply raiders or traders who mistakenly wandered into yet another Space Marine conflict

The Executioners' chapter Rhino door, partial hatch and helm are in line with the Badab war background. Whether or not they were friend or foe at this point is unknown. Executioners aside, the squad sergeant has a half buried helm of one of his fellow sergeants on his base and in true 40k form, human skulls are  sprinkled throughout.

Overall I'm quite happy with these guys (shitty photos aside), so keep an eye out for more Astral Claws in the future. 

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. 

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!