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. 

New Guard Army (WiP)

 o/

A few of the new recruits! 

Back in October, Zzzzz posted his belated entry for Nevereness' Inquisitorial conclave, and I immediately fell in love with the 3D printed minis in his post! A link shared later, three squads quickly ordered and I was off to the races! 

These guys will be accompanying my Whippet tanks (I now have three, though two will remain boxed up until after the holidays). Lacking a proper name for the army, I (currently) refer to them as the 'PHIGs' (Pointy Helmeted Imperial Guardsmen). 

No, they aren't pretty folks. Indeed I call this the 'ugly stage' of my painting process.  Next up is a million little touch ups and whatever I missed will hopefully be hidden under inking and later added grime. 

There are only a dozen individual poses for these guys which is a bit limiting, but I'm pretty sure I have 'em all worked out to where they'll work fine. After the holidays, when I'm not spending a shit-ton of $$$ on a daily basis, I'll order two more squads which will round out my force to a thousand points. 

Above and below are the first batch of ten that I'm working on:

Some basic grunts with autoguns. The bodies are 1-piece prints with only the heads being separate, plus whatever base you want to add.

As you can see, these guys are pretty heavily laden with gear. 

Squad sergeant and SAW gunner (more on the latter below). The sergeant is actually one of the superfluous standard bearers like the one seen in the first pic, just with a hand-swap.

The missile teams are currently on little bitty 20mm bases for ease of painting. Once they're ready to go, they'll be transferred to the new Iggy weapon teams' 50mm bases.

The Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW) gunner. 

In Zzzzz's linked post above, he was treating this model as a heavy stubber trooper, but to me that weapon didn't quite fit the bill. With only a small stock/barrel extension and a drum magazine a SAW seemed to be more appropriate. 

However while my opponents don't have any issues with my proxies (well, Hogzillaries aside), inventing new weapons will likely give them pause. However, if I just use the stats of the IG Grenade launcher while omitting the Krak round, it works out quite nicely actually. Also, no one ever complains when I make weapons worse to justify a proxy. 

Autogun:  R:24" A:1 BS:4+ S:3 AP:0 D:1 SP: Rapid Fire 1

SAW:        R:24" A:D3 BS:4+ S:4 AP:0 D:1 SP: Blast  

Slightly better, but not too far removed from the stock autogun. I'll retain the Blast ability not because it actually is a blast weapon, but rather the extra hit per 5 models in the target unit is akin to the gunner holding the trigger down for a longer burst of fire. 

Anyways, its on to the touch ups!

Reinventing the wheel (again...)

 o/

Some armies will not go quietly into the night...

It seems that whenever I get rid of all of my Firstborn marines, somebody gives me their Firstborn marines. Indeed, I've gotten rid of virtually all of my Firstborn (barring a few buried stragglers) TWICE now. Yet, once again here we are. Rejoice Zzzzz, your boys are back!

Currently I have 4 of the 10 needed.

The weekend before last, Neverenss and I were getting in our 2nd game of 10th ed and Rob swung by the shop and handed me another box of Orks and grots (3-4 sealed boxes of the latter), these being the last remnants of the horde he gave me last year. In the bottom of said box were some AoBR marines. In addition, I had a 2nd ed 40k missile marine that Kushial gave to me to pass on to Neverness. Instead Neverness suggested I keep it. 

1 of 10...sounds like a Borg name.

Neverness likes to give me hell about repeating armies and I certainly expect to hear such shenanigans again here. Curiously, I missed the Coyotes as soon as I got rid of them, though not their difficult paint scheme. Indeed, the Black Dragons were borne out of an attempt to reverse their colors, but to no avail.

The pauldron rim and tactical arrow are now in black, and the IV indicates the squad number.

Having a handful of firstborn again thanks to Rob, I thought I'd give my Coyotes another try, the marine above is the result. I ditched the infernal Gryph-Hound Orange contrast paint that caused me so much grief, and used Jokaero Orange instead.  Black, leadbelcher, a Vallejo brown for the leather and a sepia wash layer and there ya go, easy-peasy. 

Its not really visible here, but the chapter icon is the same.

The basing was also simplified with just sand glued to a bone colored base with some tufts. In addition to the slight color changes, and squad numbering, there is a "II" above the chapter icon on the pauldron, marking this marine out as a member of the 2nd company. 

Rob said he thought he had a few more of these, worst case I'm sure I can scrounge a few from Kushial (NO MORE ARMIES Kushial, just a few if Rob can't find 'em) to flesh out a single tac squad to add to one of my Primaris armies for variety's sake. 

Here be Dragons... (v.2)

 o/

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! 

Hogs & Ends

 o/

Here of late, aside from painting Battletech minis (which is no longer in the purview of this blog) I haven't been doing much hobbying outside of just buying stuff. Several recent purchases were showcased in Neverness' recent battle report in the form of a few newly added Aeldari Eldar Corsairs with spar-glaives (a CCW that confers +1 attack), a Warlock conversion, and a beautifully painted (or perhaps wrapped?) Falcon. 

Pic taken straight from the eBay auction.

Still, the space elves needed a bit more anti-tank weaponry as was sorely evidenced in that game and as such the above minis are traveling in my direction via the webway as we speak...

Zzzzzz's 'Xi' standing proud atop the 'Brick of Scrutiny'. This is the mini that lead me on a somewhat on again, off again (but ultimately successful) search.

I've recently found, and summarily ordered the old, wasteland scavenger mini (pictured above) that I first spotted on Devos IV. No idea what I'll do with it, but I do love the mini. Having a bit of an AdMech-esque (or possibly a Heretek?) appearance, I've dubbed him Dev0504 in recognition of Zzzzzz bringing this mini to my attention.

Lastly, I scrounged up enough 25mm non-slotta bases to invert and glue in my Tarrelian Hog Soldiers (and their non-removable integrated bases). I then added the Tau Breacher shoulder pads as of all of the fire warrior shoulder guard types, those fit best regardless of which side they're on. The originally painted hog, and one other (wearing 2 shoulder guards designating it the Shas'ui equivalent) had their base gaps filled in with my mortal enemy: green stuff. 

The Greater Good is not above using some hired swine as cannon fodder.

Recently though, Neverness mentioned the use of filing in gaps with Elmer's glue. That's a method I used long ago and pretty much had forgotten about at some point. Thus I duly chose to do that here, though having watched one to many an episode of the Great British Bakeoff, it felt as though I was piping royal icing onto the bases rather than it did glue, lol.  

It was a toss up between this and a couple Forgeworld titans. I mean let's face it: the cost was roughly the same. I'm just hoping I made the right decision... 

Amongst my recent purchases is my new (to me) 2020 Subaru Forester. As such, in light of this last purchase, my little spending spree is now officially at an end.