Inq28 - Ordo Xenos Inquisitorial Warband nearly complete!

As part of the planned Armies on Parade force, I'd opted to include an Ordo Xenos Inquisitor and her warband. The Inquisitor is only primed so not interesting to look at but I did crack on with the 5-man Stormtrooper team over the last couple days!

I wanted to keep with a dark moody theme for the Stormtoopers armor and fatigues, and gave them some pretty strong spot colors to help them pop. I tried to steer clear from the strong red and blue spot colors of the Deathwatch, so went with some fiery yellow and jade greens instead. These blokes have been sitting in a quarter-painted state for YEARS, it really feels good to finally get them finished! Was a little damp outside this afternoon so they have yet to be sealed, but I'm quite pleased with how they turned out!

In addition to the Stormtroopers, I wanted to include some more flavorful characters. You can't have a warband without an Assassin, right? The Inquisitor's personal Astropath Brother Vicente provides communication and psychic oversight, while as befitting Inquisitor Phocris' Radical-leaning nature she is often accompanied by her personal Jokaero, affectionately known as Euclid. These three models were painted months and years ago, so were just given a little touchup here and there and had their bases repainted to match the current scheme. Job done!

Next up, the Inquisitor herself!

Inq28 - Death Cultist Tranquilla Morte

In the process of building the next batch of Ad-Mech, and in between gluing my fingers together and trying not to cut off any fingers with the ol' exacto blade I finished painting up the first of the as-yet-unnamed Inquisitor's warband - Tranquilla Morte, Death Cultist of the Imperator Ex Sanctus Sanguine sect.

She was already half painted when I pulled her off the shelf, so mostly it was just a matter of finishing up some detailing. Bit of gold, bit of parchment, some hazard stripes and she's ready to cut the enemies of the Imperium into little quivering chunks!

  

The model is a little cheesecake-y, but also has a sense of menace to it. I'd considered adding some blood spatter to the weapons, but found that my bottle of Blood for the Blood God wasn't sealed properly and had dried into a solid mass. Gotta find some time to get to the hobby shop to pick up a new one, I suppose!

Was quite fun to just paint a single model for a change!

Agents of the Emperor - Officio Assassinorum Painted

Had a bit of a restless evening so I spent some time working on the assassins last night and finished them off this morning while doing some laundry.

Thoroughly enjoyed working with these models, though in retrospect I should have left the Eversor and Vindicare separate from their terrain features for ease of painting and assembled them afterwards.

 

The Eversor is definitely the stand-out model of the set for me, the sense of motion is fantastic.

The Culexis has always been my favorite of the assassins, and the new model definitely doesn't disappoint. I've always loved the somewhat Giger-esque form of his helmet!

The assassin that's always been a reliable death-dealer for me in the past, the new Vindicare sculpt is probably the least interesting of of the four, but still a solid model.

The Callidus is a fantastic sculpt as well, albeit somewhat difficult to photograph - it looks a little ungainly in the pic, but it really has a lithe athleticism to it.

Overall, I really dig the new models and I really enjoyed the brief diversion from the sea of yellow I've been painting of late! Listening to Nemesis while painting these has me thinking about trying to model up a pair of Venenum and Vanus operatives to accompany these four...

Agents of the Imperium - Officio Assassinorum built

Quick departure from the tidal wave of Imperial Fists of late - I really loved the look of the new assassin models that came out as part of the Assassinorum Execution Force game, and knew when I saw it that I had to have 'em! My FLGS got a copy in for me last night and now that I have it in hand, I have to say that while the minis are gorgeous, the game itself looks like it may be quite a lot of fun as well, which was a pleasant surprise.

Took a little time and got the four assassins included in the set built, I am really impressed with the sculpts dynamic poses and level of detail. Definitely looking forward to getting some paint on 'em, just bought the audiobook version of the Horus Heresy novel Nemesis (all about an assassin team sent to kill Horus) so that ought to provide some suitable background listening while I do so!

Adeptus Mechanicus - Cydonian Sister painted

After the issues with the Proteus I wanted to switch gears and work on something else for a bit - I find that if I get bogged down, frustrated or bored with a particular project having something else to work on for a while really helps keep me in the hobby mood. In this case, it was time to work on a neat little model I picked up from Blight Wheel Miniatures as part of their halloween promotion.

I'll be using this as a stand-in for a Cydonian Sister (ad-mech assassin), based on the Tempus Fugitives Cult Mechanicus list. I'm really hoping that we'll see FW rules for them in some future publication as well...

 

It's definitely an interesting model, but it is fiddly as heck - had to pin the arms and head and let me tell ya that was a peril-fraught procedure! Of course, since I've taken this picture I've managed to fumble it and snap one of the arms off anyway. Luckily it was reasonably easy to repair!

A little change of pace like this really was a breath of fresh air - Now I feel ready to work on some more Iron Hands again!

Mordian 7th Regiment - Company Command Squad Painted. Also, RT-era Space Ninjas!

After painting a couple dozen Praetorians for the Ad-Mech army, I needed a break from the unrelenting red-and-white. That being the case I pulled down the partially-painted command squad for the Mordian 7th reboot and polished them off.

Not a lot remained to be done on the unit - just the final detailing, unit markings and the banner bearer's banner. Unfortunately my fine-point sharpies all appear to be dried up so I haven't been able to fill in the scrollwork on the banner as yet, but for all intents and purposes the unit is table ready!

While I was rooting around in the Closet of Doom I came across a box of old, ooooold models - one of which was this RT-era assassin. I think he'll be an admirable counts-as Sly Marbo for the 7th, as he has a ripper-pistol-looking gun, a poisoned sword on his back, and a meltabomb to represent his demo charge. A similar paint scheme in dark grey, red and gold and he ties in well with the rest of the army!

Hobby Retrospective - Imperial Assassins

The weekend hobby retrospective returns - this time around, it's the agents of the Officio Assassinorum. In larger games (3000+) I like to include an Inquisitor and an Assassin to my guard force. They all have their uses, but I figure I'd address them in my ascending order of use.

On paper the Eversor is a solid choice as a close combat monster, but when it comes time to actually make the army list I find I prefer the other three options for the special abilities they bring to the table. I don't believe I've ever actually fielded the Eversor, now that I think about it...

The Culexus Assassin is awesome against foes with multiple psykers such as the Eldar, or vs. Psyker Battle Squads in the Guard, but as nearly every opponent I have plays Marines, he rarely takes the field. Love the model though!

Coming in at number 2, the Callidus Assassin is assuredly the most disruptive - forcing enemy unit repositioning and appearing unerringly in the backfield with a Neural Shredder and C'tan Phase Sword, she definitely causes my opponents consternation!

...And my favorite, the Vindicare Assassin. He is my go-to model, the specialist ammo and his ability to pick out ICs have caused tremendous damage over the years. To be fair he rarely survives the encounters - the last time I ran him, my opponent dedicated a Baal Predator to hunting him! The Turbo-Penetrator round let me down that day...

I'm finding it interesting to go back and look at these models again to see which of my painting methods have changed. For example, you'll undoubtedly note they are all pretty shiny. For the longest time I resisted the use of a matte varnish. I'm thinking I'll touch them up a bit and re-seal them with the new varnish, if only it wasn't 20F out at the moment!