I have been busy ...

 A very belated happy new year 2022!

My laziness strikes again and it's getting on 3 months since I last posted. Perhaps the variety of plans I had for the year has led to me procrastinating, combined with mandatory inactivity over the festive season, leading to a drought in enthusiasm. I had wanted to get some of my old metal Mordor orcs painted by the end of the year to celebrate the release of The Fellowship of the Ring and the accompanying model line but that never came to fruition. My realisation that I didn't start collecting the SBG until 2002 put paid to that anniversary idea easily. As I type, they sit undercoated to my left and will be finished this year. I plan on playing the first, generic learning scenario presented in the rulebook so require some Men of Gondor as well.

I can happily report that I have finally experienced some productivity as I've shifted gear into finally assembling my dream Space Marine army of many years in the planning. I bought a Assault Intercessor squad with high hopes of some mild kitbashing, only to be disappointed by how limited they really are. Or at least to my sensibilities. I then started kitbashing a Tactical squad to try and perk me up and it worked like a dream! As refined and dynamic as the Primaris kits are, they seriously lack the modular, Lego like quality of the Firstborn kits. I used 5-6 boxes for the squad, supplemented by plenty of bits packs from Forgeworld and Other  sources. I won't continue with my lyrical waxing as I don't have any decent accompanying photos but will post a wip. 

Van Saar Multi-Melta on a marine

Whilst perusing for bits on eBay, I noticed the Necromunda Van Saar heavy weapons and the shoulder mounted nature of them reminded me of the old 2nd edition devastator weapons. Thus intrigued I ordered one! It turns out unsurprisingly that weapons made for standard humans are a tad too small for post-humans, regardless of GW scale problems. I had to trim away the pad and padding from the shoulder rest to get it to fit on top of the marine pauldron. the chainsword arm I chose for the weapon arm turned out to be too short for the stubby weapon. I will need to remedy this with green stuff and maybe some plasticard. Lore wise, I'm fine with the small size of the weapon as I prefer my Tactical squads to have more compact and easier to carry heavy weapons. Plus, Necromunda is a recruitment planet for the Imperial Fists, whom my Abominators are a successor of. My hazy explanation is that it is perhaps a gift from the parent chapter or an oddity picked up on a joint visit to the planet. Van Saar weapons are  high tech but notorious for their radiation leakage so I'll use that to explain away its small stature compared to it's stats. Marines should be immune to such levels of radiation anyway, right? Just to make sure, the techmarines will slap a few purity seals on it and maybe issue the 'lucky' marine with a specialised helmet.

Lastly, some time last year I bought a small quantity of acetone based nail polish remover to try and remedy this poor gummed up fellow:

Cursed Image

I got him in a trade with a friend nigh on 20 years ago; no idea what I gave in return but I suspect I was hoodwinked 😁 As you may be able to see, much of the detail, especially on the chest is covered in a thick layer of superglue that is hard to remove even with the traditional freezer method. I left him in there with 2 other models and kind of forget about them for a few months. Only yesterday did I take them out.

The Result

It worked! (Apart from the paint removal, which was dismal). The glue had acquired a slightly gummy texture and was easy to pick off, especially in nooks and crannies such as male/female joints for weapon hands par example. I've now thrown in my ancient Ahriman for the same treatment.

The next victim

That's all. Hopefully I'll be posting with the same regularity I exhibited last year.

Doormat to Good Enough in Less Than a Day

On a whim, I recently purchased a Rogue Trader inspired Techmarine fan sculpt from ye_alchemist on ebay, sculpted by James Sheriff. The model is 32mm and is somewhere in between more recent firstborn and primaris marines in size, whilst retaining 80's design cues.

A size comparison of Astartes

Many more motivated and productive hobbyists tally what they've completed against what they've bought, so with that in mind I decided to complete the model in under a day. This plan was almost scuppered by the fact that the model doesn't come with a backpack and the modern ones I have in abundance don't fit due to the increased size of the 'jet' vents meshing with the pauldrons. 

On the excellent Rogue Heresy blog (which inspired me to buy it and furthermore has a much nicer paint job), they appear to have used a metal RT era backpack, which is a tad prohibitive for me. Luckily, I had some Spellcrow Space Knights backpacks to hand, which fit nicely.

It's a nice sculpt all in all; I particularly like his dinky hammer which is no doubt used in all manner of percussive rituals. The only details that are a little off are the lack of detail on his boots and the design of the bolt pistol, both no doubt due to 'certain' reasons. It acted as a useful model to try out a scheme for a specialist; the bare metal legs and torso of a standard marine replaced with that callings sacred colour, in this case martian red for a techmarine.

 As the title implies, I painted him to a 'good enough' standard; one of the things I like about space marines is that they can look good with even a simple paint job. Eventually I will add more details, such as finishing the dial on his watch and adding markings. On the battlefield, I may field him as a Rapier Carrier crew, if I can acquire one cheaply that is.

He was such fun to work on that he's inspired me to carry on work with the rest of my marines and I shall hopefully have a whopping 20 more done by months end. 🤞

Skitarii Advent

 At long last I have completed a squad of dubious legality for my Forgeworld Velchans Prime. They've been sitting around at a nigh finished state for months and I've finally completed them, barring unit markings/transfers and highlighting.

Skitarii Rangers

For the scheme I was inspired somewhat by the German M1910 uniform as depicted in Youjo Senki. It doesn't quite translate onto skitarii uniforms but I hope to replicate the dark green with red trim elsewhere across the force. I'm using Lupercal Green as I had a pot to spare, which is a happy coincidence 😏.

I say the squad is of dubious legality as the weapon loadout is no longer doable in 9th edition as well as the fact that there are a few third party heads in there. They're cultist gas mask heads from Anvil Industry. In the lore, or at least my interpretation of it, skitarii are furnished with a hodge-podge of whatever bionics and equipment the techpriests have to hand. I therefore wanted to try and add a bit of variety and alas, these heads were the only ones that I could find that looked similar. Not sure I entirely like them with hindsight but they add interest nonetheless. 

On a side tangent, my plans for the skitarii vanguard were even more grandiose; different heads, bodies and legs entirely! I'm not really a fan of the two squads from one kit design ethos GW have developed, especially when it came to my latent idea of what skitarii should look like. Ultimately, I couldn't find anything to my liking and it was yet another form of procrastination so I eventually settled for the bog standard look, which I do like in fairness. In an ideal world, I'd 3D sculpt compatible parts to give variety but that's a bit of a pipe dream.

Back on topic, this is my first time using Valhallan Blizzard and I must say I'm quite impressed. It's consistency somewhat reminds me of marshmallow Fluff spread and it can be applied quite realistically. I also used some old school flock rather than faff around with tufts and such. Hopefully it will go some way towards tying my army together visually with those of my Imperial allies.

With regards to the photo, I've seen something similar where people use book spreads as backdrops, in this case the creepy inside cover of a 9th edition codex. I have skimped out by using painting newspaper though rather than a faux ground surface. The photo is unfocussed and requires a bit more jiggery-pokery.

SPHESS MAHREENS!

Unsurprisingly, I have some space marines in my collection. My homebrew chapter is an Imperial Fists successor called the Abominators. I shall have to do a lore dump at some point, once I've condensed all my various ideas into something cogent. 

Space marines comprise a sizeable part of my plastic pile of shame; mostly firstborn as I want to go wild kitbashing them out of the various armour marks. I probably have enough to field a nearly full strength company but won't paint them as such. In reality, companies are rarely fielded en masse but are usually deployed across different warzones, aided by contingents from the support companies. The primaris that I do have will mostly be from said support companies, placed their when Cawl's reinforcements made contact, their firstborn colleagues rotated to the battleline companies.

Intercessors with a Lieutenant

Most of my primaris marines are from Dark Imperium and Shadowspear sets, with the above from the former. There is some kitbashing on the lieutenant and the sergeants but I wished I'd waited and combined the push fit intercessors with the multi-part kit, just for a tad more variety.

Lieutenant in the centre, Sergeants on the left & right

The two on the left were painted with a white undercoat, which led to a washed out finish. I tried out two washes, Athonian Camoshade and Biel-Tan Green respectively.  I think the Camoshade came out best so I might look into washing the other models armour the same.

Intercessors

They're enjoyable to paint and thus made a good test bed for my scheme. It came into being due to two factors: I like green and I like painting metallics. I was partly inspired by Darren Latham's Silver Skulls as well, from which I took the Leadbelcher and Nuln oil for the armour, as well as some ideas for markings. The green is Skarsnik Green and I think the paleness contrasts well with the metalics. Weapon casings are naturally the classic red from older editions.

Intercessor

I've painted them to my Good Enough™ standard but will eventually paint on the company markings, which will be on one of the knee pads and for primaris, the circular detail on their backpack. I should also really drill the barrels, although this feels me with dread as lining the drill up perfectly is finicky. I have also just realised, as I write, that I forgot to add snow. My friends have standardised their basing schemes to tie our disparate armies together and that includes snow. Curses! A task for another day.

I will be away for the next three weeks without access to minis and computer both so I won't be posting anything hobby related. I might post a ramble or some photos of my time in Wales but I won't make any promises 😄