Heresy Era World Eaters - Tanks in progress and command squad built!

Cracking on with the World Eaters over the last few days, and got some decent progress on 'em! Part of the plan was to build a command squad to accompany Kharn in one of the two Dreadclaws, which was rather fun:

Tried to include a mix of weapons and poses, hard to go wrong with a couple dudes with power fists and plasma pistols though. Thought one of 'em ought to have a pair of lightning claws, and it was pretty much a given that I needed to include one guy with an eviscerator! Pretty happy with the contained aggression the standard bearer ended up with as well. They should be a hoot to paint!

On the other side of the coin I did run into a slight issue when painting the tanks. As I'd feared, the recipe that works pretty well on infantry doesn't translate perfectly to the large flat panels of the tanks, and the wash step got pretty streaky. For the most part I'm hoping to play it off as weathering, and once I got some of the detailing and spot colors on they're starting to look reasonable. There's still a fair bit of mud and grime that I'm going to be adding, which should help as well.

I always loved the old Proteus Land Raider, and even through it's not an assault vehicle it still finds its way into many of my armies. It just suits the heresy-era aesthetic so well! For the purposes of the force for adepticon it will likely not even carry any troops and just act as a battle tank, though depending on the mission the five-man missile launcher heavy support squad might catch a ride in it as needed.

Trying out a new Sicaran variant with this army and included an Arcus. Not sure how it'll perform on the tabletop but on paper it seems pretty fierce. It can carry numerous missile types making it capable of dealing with a number of different threats ranging from infantry to aircraft and pretty much everything in between. It's not cheap to buy all the various payloads but I'm thinking it'll likely be worth it!

...Or it'll be blown to scrap in turn one every game. One of the two. Heh.

Heresy Era Dark Angels - Army ready for NOVA!

As of the last post, the heresy era Dark Angels are essentially as done as they are going to get, and everything required for use at NOVA coming up at the end of August is ready to roll! I rather liked how the recent pics with the white background turned out, so figured I'd take the opportunity to reshoot the rest of the force similarly! Already droned on enough about them in previous posts, so we'll let the pictures flow:

HQ

TROOPS

ELITES

FAST ATTACK

HEAVY SUPPORT

A big ol' box of joy arrived from Battlefoam yesterday - took advantage of the 4th of July sale and re-upped my selection of pluckfoam trays. Now to fix the little niggling details that taking/reviewing/posting these pics have shown me (ain't that always the way?) and get 'em packed up for NOVA!

Heresy Era Dark Angels - Vigilator and tanks painted!

Pressing on towards the finish line on the army for NOVA 2018! The last of the infantry models completed with the Vigilator, and the three tanks intended for the force as well. There's still a few more vehicles on deck, but as they're not part of any the NOVA army lists they can wait for a rainy day!

The Vigilator was made from the new Cypher model, with some admittedly ham-fisted greenstuff to clean up the areas where the Lion's Sword was carved away. Went with a dusty dirty cloak in the same colors as on the bases for his Cameleoline. Haven't had a chance to put him on the table, he's very much there just to make up points in a couple lists.

On to the tanks! Tried something a little different on the treads and included some Agrellan Badlands texture paint to add a little extra oomph to the weathering, and really like how it turned out. Going to have to do the same to the Termites next!

One of two Land Raiders with the awesome Blood and Skulls wrap-around treads. Still gotta add a little more decoration to the green areas on the hulls, and then a second pass of weathering. They need a little something extra.

Can't do Dark Angels without doing some crazy plasma! The Sicaran Omega Tank Destroyer may look a litle ungainly but it has really performed well for me on the table so far. Possibly my favorite Sicaran variant thus far!

Also went with a white background for the tanks and quite like how it looks. I think the back background with the black miniatures may be a little too dark. Time to re-shoot the whole army!

Heresy Era Dark Angels - Land Raider off the factory floor

Quick hit this morning - Spent some time working on the first of the Land Raiders after work yesterday to try out the paint scheme on a vehicle. I've definitely found that sometimes a paint scheme that works well on an infantry model doesn't translate well to a large vehicle (and vice versa), but overall I'm glad to say that this scheme seems to work okay!

Still a lot of work to be done on the tank of course, all of the heraldry and weathering has yet to be applied, but in general I really dig the subtle greenish cast the edge highlighting gives and I think it's subtle enough that it doesn't become too distracting. I will say that pushing the edge highlights to be a little thicker and maybe using a more neon green and it would veer into Necron territory. Of course, that does half tempt me to do some Necrons now (no, stop it, no more new projects!)...

The addition of some red slashes, some black-and-white checkerboard patterns and a fair bit of battle damage, dirt and dust should give the tank much more personality, but as a proof of concept for the underlying paint scheme I really couldn't be happier! Looking forward to working up the other Land Raider and the Spartan in the same scheme soon!

Heresy Era Dark Angels - A tidal wave of resin and plastic!

Earlier in the week the first wave of bits and kits for the Dark Angels arrived, and after a flurry of soaking, scrubbing, rinsing and drying I've been merrily building stuff for the force!

All sorts of goodies await - Several tanks and a whole mess of infantry upgrade kits! Everything went into the wash and was laid out to dry, then it was all whisked up to the hobby loft where I couldn't wait to get cracking!

While it's tempting to jump in and build all the "cool stuff", I try to get the basic Troops choices out of the way up front, and save the more interesting models for later on once I've gotten my eye in on the builds. So, first things first - cranking out thirty Tac marines. Oof.

Once I got rolling they went together very easily. I had spent a bunch of time clipping and organizing several sets worth of plastic bits from the Betrayal at Calth and Burning of Prospero boxes a while back and it's made it a snap to build infantry. The sergeants were pretty fun to build, going combi-plasma and Calibanite warblades as a change-up from the usual Powerfist-and-boltpistol loadout. May not be as effective, but feels more aesthetically pleasing!

Dun dun DUNNNN! I've been dreading this moment. The last Spartan I'd built back in 2014 was a copper-plated bastard of a build and was, until I had the 'joy' of building a Storm Eagle, the least fun I'd had building a Forge World kit to date. I'd heard they'd re-sculpted the kit and approached the box with trepidation...

The re-cut model looked promising, I'll admit - Though there was some wonky bending to some of the pieces, my trusty heat gun sorted them out right quick. I'll tell ya, when it comes to working with resin, this heat gun was the best $30 I've spent on hobby tools. Highly recommended!

Turns out my fears were unfounded, and the kit went together incredibly quickly! The addition of some Dark Angels doors and magnetized sponsons were the only real tweaks of the model - I'm not a huge fan of the "put masonry and candles on everything" aesthetic of the modern-day Dark Angel vehicles, and plan to keep the builds a bit more restrained on the Heresy side.

Still undecided what I'm going to fill it with, I'm hesitant to build terminators for the force, knowing that once the book drops they'll likely get a bespoke terminator unit. In the interim it'll likely sit on the sidelines, or perhaps ferry a full 20-man tac squad around.

I had picked up a trio of the new wrap-around track upgrade kits form Blood and Skulls Industry, originally planning to use all three on the Sons of Horus. While the spiky "Oppressor" pattern treads worked well for the traitors, I thought I'd save the "Liberator" pattern sets for a future project. I had forgotten that I'd already gotten the track housings about 3/4ths done when I made the call, so they were a snap to finish off!

Having built one for the Sons of Horus already, I had a good idea of the challenges and pitfalls of the kit so the following two flew together! I really like the look of the Mk.IIb Land Raider, and wrap-around treads really give it that Heresy vibe.

Managed to get all of this stuff primered after work and am looking forward to getting some paint on 'em!

Updated the painting chart - It's getting colorful now! Started the test painting on the squad of Plasma Repeaters but it's too early to tell how they're going to turn out. Also got the next batch of bits and kits on order from FW - Some more shoulder pads and heads (mis-counted what I'd needed in the first order), the Volkite Calivers for the second support squad, and a pair of special weapons variant Sicarans, which I think fits in with the Dark Angels using rare and esoteric weaponry in the Heresy. The plan has already gotten out of hand on paper (5500 points is a little excessive), so some of this may get dialed back, likely starting with the Glaive. While I'd love to build and paint one for the force, I don't really ever play games where a Superheavy is required...

Heresy Era Sons of Horus - Armies on Parade family photo!

I recently finished off the last of the models I had assembled and figured a family photo of what's been painted up so far was in order. Packed everything up and popped over to the local GW to put them in the Armies on Parade lineup and snapped a few pics!

There's actually quite a few of 'em once I got 'em all laid out! Fairly infantry heavy so far, but I find it's good to crank out a mess of infantry and leave the big toys for later. Still plan on adding more to the force, and there's quite a bit still awaiting assembly, but we're looking at about 3500 points complete already!

Couple off-angle shots as well - Pretty happy with how the greens turned out across the force, and I'm rather enjoying the various spot colors here and there, the hot oranges pop nicely against the cooler tones of the armor.

Updated the painting chart and really pleased with how it's coming along! Still a few things on the ol' wish list to order up from Forge World once the new rulebook drops, and a couple models still awaiting assembly in the Closet of Doom. However, I'm thinking I might switch gears for a bit and work on a different project for a little while to recharge the batteries after all this green!

Heresy Era Sons of Horus - Reaver attack squad complete!

After a longer-than-expected stretch of home repair that put the hobby loft out of commission for quite a few days, I was finally able to get the painting servitor plugged back into its socket and fired it up!

First up was to finish off the Reaver Attack Squad for the Sons of Horus. I really enjoyed building and painting this unit, and look forward to seeing how they perform on the tabletop - They certainly aren't cheap points-wise though, with everyone toting a power sword or power fist, they weigh in at 375 points!

As much as I like the resin chainaxes they come with by default, they're rather thin and bendy and I feared much breakage. Instead I rooted through the leftover bits from all the Betrayal at Calth boxes I've picked up and had enough plastic Mk.IV power swords to kit out the unit. Should be far more robust when it comes to transporting 'em!

Really pleased with the MaxMini jump packs, I think they suit the aesthetic really well and give the models a rather brutal look. Doesn't hurt that it gives them the Bulky rule, and therefore means they each count as two models when it comes time to figure their Merciless Fighters attacks. At initiative step 1 any surviving model with a power sword gets additional attacks - hard to go wrong there!

Once they were done I couldn't help but press on with the first of the trio of Land Raiders. Laid in the initial black and green and have started the edge-highlighting process. Still a ways to go of course but liking how it's coming along so far!

Heresy Era Sons of Horus - First of three Land Raiders built!

For this Sons of Horus force I wanted to go with the "Armoured Spearhead" Rite of War, which allows any unit that can take a Rhino to instead take a Land Raider, and this was prompted by the recent release of the Sagittarius track upgrade kit from Blood and Skulls Industry. The wrap-around tracks really add to the heresy vibe, and I figured I'd couple them with the Forge World Mk.IIb kit for extra heresy goodness.

The kit comes with a set of insert rollers that the treads fit onto, and they key into the interior of the land raider sides beautifully. As the plastic upper hull won't fit anymore the kit also includes a replacement rear hull that also slots in nicely. The instructions suggest leaving the side hull sections unglued until the insert rollers are added, as they need just a little bit of wiggle room to slot in and gluing up the side hulls beforehand may cause a spot of trouble. The act of gluing the roller sections to the side hulls means the end result is very solid, even though I didn't add glue to the interior posts.

Once the rollers were added to the side hulls and the center hull was glued up, it was time to wrap the tracks around. Started off by doing the top front corner track sections as per the instructions, which I was pleased to see keyed in place nicely.

Next up, two single piece sections and the next straight section around the front of the tank. Tried my best to ensure both sides matched up in their angle, and it was a piece of cake.

At this point I was feeling confident that the tracks were going to be bang on target (as all of the Blood and Skulls kits are), I proceeded to continue the wrap along the bottom, then wrapped around the back. No tread trimming required, fit around the rollers beautifully.

...And the back.

The Mk.IIb add-ons work pretty darn well - The kit is designed for use with the standard plastic Land Raider main hull pieces, but fit the FW kit very closely.

The only egregious gap from the Mk.IIb kit is on the rear heavy bolter housing - a little strip of plasticard covers it up easily and will likely be unnoticeable once primered.

The perfect ride for a Justaerin or Veteran squad! Got some SoH brass etch inbound with the next box o' joy to give it a bit more flavor.

I have two more of the non-spikey "liberator' pattern kits on deck, but figured I ought to solo-build one kit first to iron out the kinks - would hate to find I'd screwed up the build and have done so on all three kits at once!