Heresy Era Alpha Legion - Tactical squad nearly complete!

I've been enjoying the dual nature of the current project, allowing me to bounce back and forth between the two paint schemes which has kept my interest on the boil! After working on the Geno characters it was time to buckle down and work on another Troops choice, the Alpha Legion tactical squad this time around...

Still waiting on the transfer sheets to see what I might use on the blank shoulder pads. Still have some errant static grass on the models, usually I'll let 'em dry overnight and then give them a good brushing before they get the initial sealant pass. However that's going to have to wait a bit, as this is what I woke up to this morning:

We ended up getting another couple inches after that. Gonna be a little while before I'm able to spray seal anything it seems! Colorado being what it is however, we're supposed to be in the mid-50s by the weekend. Gotta love wintertime in the Rockies!

Heresy Era Alpha Legion - Lernaean Terminators painted

Just a quick hit this afternoon - Took advantage of the nice warm day to flock and seal the Lernaean terminators after finishing up the last highlighting stages. Also managed to flock and seal the Geno Five-Two as well, pics to follow.

I'm awaiting a small package of joy from Forge World that includes the recently-released Alpha Legion transfer sheets, after application the models will be getting some weathering as well - happy that I was able to get 'em sealed in preparation!

Heresy Era Alpha Legion - Lernaean Terminators painting continues

As mentioned previously, slogging through all 46 models to completion at once is just not feasible - I like to batch paint as much as the next guy, but let's be reasonable here! I figured I'd start off by cracking on with the terminators, then do the 20-man tac squad in a batch, and finally the Headhunters and scouts to finish it all up. All the power armoured marines were set back into the queue and away we go...

First things first, picking out all of the weapons, armour trim, cabling, joint ribbing and whatnot in boltgun metal, which helps clean up a ton of the slop from the earlier purple drybrushing paint-spatter-o-thon.

Then to help the various metallics stand out against each other, the trim got a blue wash to start a silvered-steel look, while the weapons and joint ribbing got a black wash, dulling them down and making them much more stark.

Next up I started blocking in the various contrast colors - initial earthtones and washes for the leather pturges, and the reddish-orange tones on the power cabling (on the back), the Volkite heat vanes, and the power fists, so they'll eventually match the earlier Contemptor dread. Still another whole session of further highlights to go - another pass of silver on the trim to brighten it up a step, the leather will get another khaki highlight, and the red/orange sections will get some minor yellow edge highlighting to help 'em pop. It's supposed to be gorgeous the next few days (hopefully allowing me to flock and seal the recent Geno Five-Two models), then another couple weeks of cold on the horizon. Gotta paint quickly if I want to take advantage in the break in the chilly weather we've had of late!

Heresy Era Alpha Legion - Batch painting gets out of hand!

Got the heads on the Geno Five-Two, but the weather is chilly enough that I can't warrant primering 'em yet. That means it's time to switch gears and get stuck in with the Alpha Legion, and it was time to fire up the batch painting machine! Started off with the 20-man tactical squad, and suddenly got the idea that I may as well knock out the base purple on all of the models at once. I've often wondered how many models is too many. It turns out 46 is too many. Hah!

I started off with a basecoat of Vallejo Night Blue, which is a very dark blue/violet. Almost indistinguishable from the black basecoat in the pics.

Next up was a drybrush pass of Vallejo Dark Blue, which to me is much more of a dark violet/purple than blue in my eye. Definitely on the cooler end of the spectrum.

The next step was a much lighter drybrush of Hexed Lichen just on the upper surfaces of the models, leaving the naturally shadowed areas far darker.

Lastly the models were all given a wash of GW's Druchii Violet to tone down the purple and blend them all together. Bit of a slog plowing through all the models at once, so will likely break the units out for the detailing stages - trying to do all of them to completion in this batch size? That way lies madness!

Heresy Era Alpha Legion - Headhunters and Efrit Stealth Squad built

The flurry of building continues apace, and I've managed to finish building all of the Alpha Legion allies to accompany the Geno Five-Two. First up, the Efrit Stealth Squad:

Pretty much your bog-standard recon marines, with an Alpha Legion upgrade head for the sergeant. Nothing to write home about and not necessarily the best choice on an effectiveness-to-points ratio, but rather fluffy to have, as the unit is explicitly mentioned in the book!

Next up are the Headhunters, the second of the Alpha Legion's special units (alongside the Lernaeans). With banestrike rounds and Preferred Enemy (Infantry), they're really designed to gun down their fellow marines, and they can take a heavy bolter with a suspenson web for a little extra dakka. Wanted to bling them up a bit more than the basic marines, so they all got the Alpha Legion upgrade heads, and I added a scope to each of the bolters to help 'em stand out as having some specialist equipment.

Last but not least, I banged together the two characters from the box set. The terminator will be used to represent Sheed Ranko, the ostensible leader of the force. No real plans to field the chaplain at the moment, and I'm thinking I may clip the crozius off of him and replace it with some alternate weapon - perhaps another pistol and make him into a Moritat, or a paragon blade for use as a power-armoured Praetor.

It was nice enough out yesterday to get some models primered, so with the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday weekend I'm hoping to get some paint on some of 'em!

Heresy Era Alpha Legion - Lernaean Terminator squad built

Really enjoying building the models from the Betrayal at Calth box set. While the power armoured marines were a treat, the real star of the set for me has got to be the plastic Cataphractii. I'd planned on using them to whip up a unit of Lernaean terminators, so with a quick order to FW for the Volkite chargers and a bit of work with an x-acto knife we're good to go!

The set comes with tons of weapon options, but following the lacklustre performance of my last Thousand Sons terminators armed with power weapons, I knew from the outset that this unit would have plenty of power fists and chainfists (hands down my favorite melee weapon in the 40k universe). After this are some Headhunters and a scout squad left to build, but I realized I didn't order enough bases - gotta wait for the next package from Secret Weapon to arrive. Curses!

Heresy Era Alpha Legion - Tactical Squad built

All work and no play makes Mord a dull boy, and it's been plenty dull of late. On the up side, there was a box o' joy which arrived Friday evening and I finally got my hands on the new Betrayal at Calth box set. Others have and will do more in-depth critiques and content listings, but suffice it to say that I'm overjoyed with the miniatures, and immediately got stuck in with the cornerstone of any self-respecting Heresy army and put together a 20-man Tactical Squad.

The Alpha Legion upgrade kits I'd picked up from FW worked a treat, and in order to keep the majority of the models fairly 'vanilla' (which I think suits the Alpha's modus operandi) only the sergeants really got blinged out. Thus, the Sergeant is easily shown to be wearing artificer armour with the fancy torso and helmet to accompany the Alpha Legion shoulder pads the rest of the battle brothers wear. So far so good, and I have to say that for basic rank-and-file troopers these plastics are absolutely perfect for the job! Definitely planning to pick up another couple boxes after the holidays and get the Thousand Sons going again...

Happy Thanksgiving to all the Stateside readers! For the rest, I hope you will have a pleasant Thursday this week regardless. Cheers, everyone!

Heresy Era Alpha Legion - Dreadtober Contemptor complete!

Squeaking in just under the deadline, the static grass arrived and there was a break in the chilly weather, so I was able to get the Contemptor flocked and sealed!

  

Pretty happy with the 'desert scrub' mix on the static grass - might add a bit more of the green to it, but I like the predominantly dried grass tone. With the recent pics starting to make the rounds of the upcoming Heresy plastics, I'm cautiously optimistic about being able to use the Mk.IV marines as a basis for the troops, and the plastic cataphractii as conversion fodder for the Lernaean terminators. Much as I love FW's modes, buying the basic troops in resin rapidly becomes ruinously expensive. If I can spring for some unit upgrade kits and mix and match with the plastics I'll be a happy camper! Next month should be interesting!

Heresy Era Alpha Legion - Dreadtober Contemptor almost done!

Wonder upon wonders I had a half day on Wednesday and got a little hobby time in! Thought I'd crack on with the Contemptor and more or less finished it off to the 'factory floor' stage. Touched up the symbols and silver, and added a touch of orange and gold for spot colors. It's been a little too rainy to risk trying to seal it however, so any further weathering and waterslide transfers will have to wait until it dries out a bit!

 

Still experimenting with the bases - In Legion the desert sands of Nurth are described as being red-hued however I didn't want to go full Mars red with it (for fear of it being too cartoony against the purple of the models), so a more subdued reddish brown it is! Starting with Vallejo Dark Flesh as a base coat on the dirt, it was then drybrushed with Earth then washed with the ol' Devlan Mud analog (Strong Tone Ink from Army Painter). To give it some variety but still be desert-y, some of the more exposed chunks of rock get the sandstone treatment starting with a base coat of Earth, followed by successive drybrush passes with Khaki and Bone White. It too was then given the Devlan Mud wash. To be truthful the wash stage mostly consisted of using the "slop it on the whole darn base, you cheating hack" method. Hah! Since I ordinarily paint the rims of my bases in Dark Flesh, I thought it might be refreshing to switch it up on these models and go with a lighter rim painted in Earth to set off against the darker terrain. It's workable, but I'm not 100% sold on it quite yet.

  

All that remains is a little flock to give it some life and a sense of scale! I didn't like my usual green mix when I used it on the earlier test models, so this afternoon  I ordered up three different tins in varying tones, with the intent of creating a combo mix - The arid straw color will form the backbone of the mix, with just a couple tablespoons of the other two just to give it a few blades of color here and there and stop it from being quite so monochromatic.

While I was faffing about waiting for various washes to dry on the Contemptor, I started assembling the first of two squads of the Dancers company of the Geno Five-two. I'd ordered up a whole mess of separate 'universal rolled sleeve' arms and a mess of lasrifles, but to my horror when I was looking back over the catalog I noted that Victoria Lamb does sprues of rolled sleeve arms with integral lasrifles identical to what I'd ordered and would undoubtedly save me hours of hobby frustration. Argh! One sheepish follow-on order later... No worries though, the universal arms will come in handy to build a couple characterful models, vexillaries, vox operators and the like!

Heresy Era Alpha Legion - Dreadtober Contemptor painting begins!

Heresy upon heresy - I managed to squeeze in a little painting time this weekend, and started laying in the purples and metals on the Contemptor for the Alpha Legion. As alluded to previously, I'm going with the description of the Alpha Legion armour from the book Legion, where it's mentioned a few times as being purple/indigo. This is also shown on the cover art, where it's definitely a more blueish-purple than that found on the Emperor's Children.

I tried a couple variations and came up with a reasonable approximation, I believe. I went with a more dark and oily metallic on the joints and undercarriage, and a blue-tinged silver for the trim.

 

The ol' color wheel suggests the complimentary colors are green (suitable for the legion symbology) and yellow/orange, which will be used on the eye lenses, power cables, etc. So far, so good!

Heresy Era Alpha Legion - Dreadtober Contemptor built

While it's not currently part of the army plan for the LVO, I picked up an Alpha Legion dread at GenCon earlier this year and with all the excellent Dreadtober posts going around, figured I'd use it as an impetus to do some work on it!

  

I have to say the Contemptor is one of my favorite kits to build - all of the articulation points mean you can really get some dynamic poses out of it, and so I went with a charging/running pose, as though it's blasting a unit with the plasma gun prior to tearing into 'em with the power claw. It was nice enough outside when I got home to primer it as well, and am hoping to get some paint on it this weekend. In a bit of a departure from the 'normal' Alpha Legion paint scheme, I'm going to be following the description from Legion and giving it the purple/silver scheme rather than the more commonly-accepted metallic blue/green. The trick is going to be finding an appropriate shade of purple so it doesn't just look like an Emperor's Children dread... Some testing will be required!

Back from GenCon!

Been a little quiet on the hobby front of late, as I've been out of town for the lion's share of the last two weeks. Had to burn off a chunk of PTO at work, so I made a run out to Las Vegas to visit some friends and see the Rush tour - good times! After that it was home for a day to do laundry and repack before heading out to Indianapolis for the yearly trip to GenCon. 

Got together with some old friends and played a bunch of Shadowrun, where we all got together and did a themed runner team - an all-Troll Russian heavy metal band called "Trolling Thunder". On a lark, we had "tour shirts" printed up to all wear as a group on one of the days, which got a lot of laughs! Also managed to meet up with Dave Taylor and Tim Toolen for an excellent lunch, and a fascinating conversation about making a living in the hobby, and cursing Dave for making me want to chop up old matchbox cars! No miniature game playing to speak of while I was out there, though I did make a couple passes through the dealer room which of course meant swinging by the Forge World booth:

Got away with spending a lot less than last year, but it did sting a bit. Picked up a Stormhammer for the Prosperine Spireguard, which will be boxed up and stored in the Closet of Doom for a rainy day, as well as a few of the event-only minis. They sold out of Narik Dreygur and Autilon Skorr super quickly so I was only able to get one each, but they had a whole mess of the princeps so I was able to pick up a couple - one to build as-is, and a couple to experiment with conversion-wise. I also couldn't resist picking up an Alpha Legion dreadnought for the upcoming project. There isn't one explicitly listed in Legion, but it's such a cool model I can't resist adding one to the force by virtue of assuming there was at least one on the Beta, which was in-theater. That's reasonable justification, right? Also picked up another Master of Signal and Champion set to use as a basis for some other Alpha Legion characters... Should be fun!

Heresy Era Imperial Army - Geno Five-Two Chiliad planning and pondering

I've been feeling a little rudderless on the Heresy front recently. I really want to do more Thousand Sons, but I'm forcing myself to wait for the actual minis and rules, subseqently the Spireguard are also on ice (though I am picking up a Stormhammer for 'em at Gencon the end of the month). Recent events have meant I'm not really gaming anymore so it's pretty much all about the modeling and painting side of the hobby at the moment, and that means conversions and odd projects in my mind. Got the itch to do some kitbashing and with the release of Tempest there's a much more viable list to use to do the Geno Five-Two that has been bubbling away on the back burner. The intention is to do a 'historically accurate' selection of models taken from the book Legion - specifically Het Peto Soneka and the Dancers company just prior to their mauling at Tel Utan and elements of the Alpha Legion force that came to their aid (immediately following the Dancers being used as bait by said Astartes) - Because I'm a huge nerd I'm focusing on trying to make the force as 'historically accurate' (i.e. true to the book) as possible within the bounds of my admittedly meagre-to-middling modeling/sculpting talent.

While the art on the front cover of the novel seems to suggest the infantry are dressed similar to the Vostroyans, there's no real indication that those men are supposed to be the Five-Two - indeed their description in the book is rather at odds with the cover (cool pic though it may be). I've been going through the novel and listening to the audiobook and taking notes on their description but the overview on Lexicanium covers all the main points - "The Geno wore a bulky-seeming uniform that nevertheless allowed them to operate with some grace of movement. A thick leather and armourchain bodyglove formed the main item of clothing, with waist-length coats and waist-length capes of yellow Terran silk commonly worn over the top. Their armour segments were lined with fur, and coats and capes were embroidered with company symbols and other military devices. Helmets were of the spiked variety, often trimmed with beads or fur. Standard issue gear was carried in a lightweight pack, with a long sword-bayonet slung at the waist. Uxors wore black, lightweight variants of the uniform, often covered over with gray cloaks or coats."

Now there really isn't a set of models/bits out there that exactly matches that description, but with a bit of greenstuff I'm thinking I should be able to come up with a good approximation. Been scouring the interwebs for good bits and will be leaning heavily on the Victoria Lamb line as the basis for the troops, as I've had nothing but great experiences with their work. There have been several new sets they've come out with since I last thought about the project, so working on the assumption that I can GS my way into passable armorchain and fur (about the extent of my skill), I'm planning on utilizing the following bits:

Legs - Looking at the Arcadian legs from Victoria Lamb, checks the box on the waist-length coats, and the boots and fatigues are suitable enough overall. Granted the book makes mention of bodygloves, but I've not been able to find any leg set that includes both the waist-length coat and more form-fitting leggings. Fatigues it is on that front.

Torsos - My first instinct was to go for the full-blown camo cloak torsos VL does (and they are awesome), but the book mentions several times their capes were also generally waist-length, and they generally carried packs full of gear and LiqNite cannisters so I think the Highland torsos with the chem tanks will be just the thing!

 

Arms - The universal rolled sleeve arms should hopefully give the models a bit more of a burly feel (or at least that's the plan).

Weapons - The basic trooper in the Five-Two carries a pretty standard lascarbine, and I think the Mk3 laser rifles have a nice RT-era feel to 'em. There's occasional mention of twin-barreled lascarbines in the novel, but I've not found a company that makes 'em as yet.

Heads - The heads have been the hardest thing to sort out. Spiked helms that weren't just full-bore pickelhaube were proving tough to find, but I stumbled across the Meridian Miniatures line, and their steampunk prussian heads were just the thing - glareshields and all!

Add in a little GS'ed fur and chain here and there and I think we might be in business for the base troopers! Feverishly working on finishing up a 40k Ad-Mech force to get up on the ol' auction block to fund the purchase of the bits - having a 'get to start a new project' goal has been a good motivator to finish up the existing batch of minis! Going to be fun nosing around the dealer room at GenCon for other interesting bits and kits, too!

Next up, pondering the other possibilities for the project (alliteration!) - I know I want to work up Uxor Rukhsana Saiid and her entourage as a command cadre squad (though as they don't seem to take the field in the novel in any meaningful way, some liberties may need to be taken), Genewhip Boone and his cronies as Discipline Masters, maybe a unit of Grenadiers as Lucifer Blacks? Of course there's also the Alpha Legion contingent to consider as well (restricted to a tiny allied force), and perhaps I can find a decent way to include good ol' John Grammaticus...

Laid in the basic metal, bone and red on the Skitarii Rangers yesterday evening, quick in progress shot to keep the ball rolling on that project too!

Post #500 Giveaway and a look to the future!

This marks the 500th post to the blog, which calls for a bit of a celebration! As many of you know, I've been playing 40k since its inception back in the late 80s and most of my hobby mojo is based on the old fluff (the core of the Mordian 7th is drawn from the old red-cover 40k Compendium) and game systems such as Adeptus Titanicus and the original Epic Space Marine (where my love for heresy-era gaming took root). In an effort to share my love of old school 40k gaming, I'm giving away one of my soft-cover 1st Ed Rogue Trader Rulebooks to mark the occasion:

Pretty simple, if you're a follower of my blog and leave a comment below, your name will be entered into the drawing which will take place on September 15th. Couldn't be easier!

Figured it was a good time to look at what's on the horizon hobby-wise as well. I have to admit that my interest in 40k has been on the wane for quite some time, and I've been giving serious consideration to selling off the current iteration of the Mordian 7th either as one big apocalypse army set, or in smaller lots (possibly keeping a few units for sentimental reasons). It's been sitting unused in the Closet of Doom for well over a year, and I have no real plan to play them any time soon. I've long said that 'the building and the painting is more fun than the having', and besides if I get rid of 'em, that gives me an excuse to re-create them once again in the future, right?

Now that's not to say that I'm looking to get out of the hobby entirely, by any means! My interest in Heresy-era gaming has never been stronger, and I have been up to my ears in the Thousand Sons for months. Sadly, I'm reaching the finish line with them, and they're going to be shelved for a bit while we await the release of the Prospero book. I've more or less built all of the 'generic' units I can for the army, and I want to hold off on the rest until there's actual rules and models (cannot WAIT to see what FW does for Magnus the Red)!

So that means I have a few other projects in line to keep me occupied. As I mentioned in the previous post, I'm planning on a Geno Five-Two Chiliad army with some Alpha Legion allies, and since I have to wait for Conquest to arrive later this year to do the guard portion, I got started on a test unit of Alpha Legion over the past long weekend!

Didn't really take many in progress pics on these, but they started off with a Jade Green basecoat, followed by 3-4 passes with a Guilliman Blue glaze. This is the first time I'd tried a controlled multi-application of a glaze/wash to tint a color overall rather than just using them for a one-shot shade, and while it was very time consuming (had to wait an hour between coats to let the glaze dry) I quite like the end result!

 

But that's not all! I always have a force of Ad-Mech lurking in one form or another on the shelves, and with the most recent book Extermination, there is finally a rather flexible set of army rules and a bunch of cool models, such as the Thanatar that I picked up at Gencon and assembled over the holiday weekend as well.

 

Taking a cue from Eye of Error, I went with the 'unfolded petals' on the plasma mortar, and spent an inordinate amount of time hot-water bending the ammo feeds to get the mauler bolt cannons into a bit more of a dynamic pose. Quite looking forward to getting some paint on this beast!

 

...And speaking of painting a beast, over the past weekend I managed to get the Castigator painted up to the point where I could get a coat of sealant on it in preparation for waterslide transfers and weathering! Tried out a green on the power sword initially but found it looked a little off-balance so I went with an alternate blue such that it both ties together with, and stands apart from, the main blue of the armour plates. So, between the work to finish off the Castigator, a couple remaining Thousand Sons units, some planned Alpha Legion units, and a mess of Ad Mech there's plenty to keep me occupied for the foreseeable future, no doubt about that!

When all is said and done however, I want to say a HUGE THANK YOU to all of you readers out there. Your comments, suggestions and encouragement over the years has been instrumental in getting me to this point, and I am always humbled by all your kind words. Cheers everyone, and here's to another 500 posts in the future!

Be sure to leave a comment (and be a follower of the blog) to be entered for a chance to win the Rogue Trader rulebook!