40k Deathwatch - Army 99.9% Parade Ready!

It's amazing what working under a deadline will do for my productivity! I had a blissfully event-free Friday evening and the whole day Saturday, and buckled in for a marathon painting session to finish off the army before next weekend's event. Barring any minor issues that may reveal themselves in the photography stage the force is ready to rock!

First of course is a quick look at the force on the board as I mess around with various unit layouts. I really need to invest in a monopod - this was as in focus as I could manage. Hope to get some better final pics from the actual event next weekend!

 

So let's go through what all got finished over the two-day marathon - First up is the Watch Master, which is a superb sculpt, and I rather like the peek into the upcoming Custodes rules with his Guardian Spear!

 

I was quite taken by the Blood Angel librarian in terminator plate that was shown in the book and knew I wanted to take a crack at it. Continued on with the ghostly green for the force weapon, definitely going to be using that recipe for future psykic gear and spell effects...

I'd taken a group photo of Kill Team Cassius a little while back, so it was only fair that Watch Force Artemis got the same treatment. The two 5-man veteran squads have been shown before, so it was really just two models that needed to be completed for this unit to make it to the finish line.

  

The man himself, Brother Artemis is my favorite sculpt of the DW range, having owned the Inquisitor 54mm scale version back in the day. I might just have to trawl eBay and see if I can find another one, as I'd sold it on yoinks ago.

  

Sliding into place for my Dreadtober vow is Brother Nihilus. His background is rather interesting in the Death Masque booklet, he's essentially an interred Blackshield, so it's anyone's guess as to what lurks in his murky past! That said, after doing nothing but Contemptors for so long, working on an old 'brick dread' was kind of fun.

  

Not a whole lot changed on the Corvus front other than a little more weathering and some edge highlighting of the red wing stripes (though they are blown out in the pictures somewhat). Really dig this model, but it would be 100% cooler if it was 20% larger. There's just a bit of dissonance to me between its stats and its appearance. Still, best flyer GW was released in plastic for quite some time!

Finally, the bodyguard unit for the Watch Master and terminator librarian, Squad Graul - While I appreciate the hyper-individualistic nature of Kill Team Cassius, I wanted these folks to have a very singular battlefield role - close combat and protection of the HQ units. At least that's the theory, we'll see how they perform once I get them on the tabletop!

Next up, back to the whole reason I picked up Overkill in the first place and ended up with this whole Deathwatch army - a swarming brood of Genestealer Cult gribblies!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Plasma Support Squad and Terminator Sorcerer

Not a lot of hobby time overall this weekend but I did manage to sneak in an hour's worth of build time and put together the plasma-armed support squad for the Thousand Sons. Pretty straightforward, was thinking about doing a full 10-man squad but the unit gets ridiculously expensive at that point. Figure 5 is just about right!

I've also been poring over the army lists to see what I can come up with for the Feast of Blades event coming up next month. Seeing as the actual special rules for the Thousand Sons aren't going to be available for quite some time, I'm thinking that there's one thing that really makes them stand out, and that's the use of Sorcerers. Considering running a trio of 'em for the tournament, two in power armour attached to the tac squads, and one in terminator armour to accompany squad Phosis into battle.

Enter Malagor Auramagma! I had a few leftover terminator bits from the earlier squad build, and kitted him out with a curved axe-head that hadn't been included in the unit build previously, as well as one of the bird-style helmets to help him stand out. Quite looking forward to painting him soon (assuming Real Life(tm) lets up a bit)!

Iron Hands - Batch painting complete!

Whew! Twenty five guys done, and based on the notes I took while churning through 'em, the overall time spent was just a little shy of ten hours. Not too bad!

First up is the tac squad I'd shown previously, with the multi-melta being replaced by a missile launcher and a bit more dust and mud on the legs.

The second tac squad carries a plasma cannon and plasma gun, I figure with all the Gets Hot rolls, it just means they're more likely to get some extra bionics!

Next is a devastator squad with a couple extra heavy weapons to swap in and out as needed. Always handy!

A few extra characters were mixed in the assembly line as well, including a pair of techmarines and a librarian.

For what I thought would be a relatively simple paint scheme, there are 21 colors that go into it. How did that happen?

I'll be the first to admit this is not my best work, I was more focused on speed than technique - I will definitely be taking more time working through the heresy-era Iron Hands. That said, I figure even if the painting time doubles, I will still be able to finish up the upcoming army before January!

Heresy Era World Eaters - Tactical Squad painted, colorado wildfires raging

It's been an interesting week here in Colorado, with sustained triple-digit temperatures and some serious wildfires burning to the north, west and south of us. Over 87,000 acres burned in the High Park fire about twenty minutes north of here (though thankfully that fire is now ~75% contained), and 30,000 residents have been evacuated down in Colorado Springs due to the Waldo Canyon fire. Of more immediate threat is the Flagstaff fire burning on the outskirts of Boulder, quite nearby where I live, and directly threatening a friend's house - he's been on pre-evacuation notice for several days, which has been very stressful. The fires have been fought tooth and nail but were cresting the foothills just a mile outside town overnight:

In the interim, it's been swelteringly hot up in the hobby loft, so it's been a challenge to get much done. I did manage to finish off the ten-man Tactical squad for the World Eaters in time for the weekly challenge being hosted by Dark Future Games however:

On other gaming fronts, we recently finished the Rogue Trader RPG campaign that I've been running, and my friend Dave has offered to run a Dark Heresy campaign for a while, so I also painted up an Anima Tactics model for use as my Sanctioned Psyker. It was a nice change of pace to work on!

At this point I'm struggling to stay motivated on the World Eaters, so I rooted around in the Closet of Doom for some other small project to work on for a bit. Next up on the painting desk is a unit of Iron Hands bikers. I figured painting a mostly-black unit would be a good counterpoint to the mostly-white of the World Eaters!

TOEMP #10 - Scoundrels and Wyrds... Complete!

A lazy Sunday afternoon doing laundry afforded me some time to finish off the last of the models for the 10th Tale Of Even More Painters challenge - the final two Psyker Battle Squad models, Sanctioned Psyker Morrin Dannel  and Commissar Lord Fidel Arden.

With these done, the Psyker Battle Squad is complete. In most games the PBS will be accompanied by the Sanctioned Psyker. As I read it, the fact that he is part of the squad will mean the unit will count as having 8 psykers for purposes of determining their psychic strength.

I wanted to keep the Overseer stylistically connected to the unit but as he isn't a psyker himself I decided that he shouldn't wear the standard green of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica. Instead I gave him a leather coat based on the tips that Ron posted over at From The Warp. I did attempt to paint the symbol of the Astra Telepathica on his back banner, though I'm not sure that it 'pops' enough against the green background.

With these, and the King Russ tanks from the last challenge, I really feel like I made some good headway on the army. I'd updated the painting chart and was pleased to see that at this point all the Elites are complete! Once I finish off the Techpriests and servitors, the HQ will be finalized as well, so I think I'll be attacking them next...

Getting closer and closer to finishing off the army. ...Of course right about here is where I start thinking "Hmm, what if I replaced this with that, and maybe add a couple of these?" I'm doing my best to resist such urges however!

TOEMP #10 - Scoundrels and Wyrds... Part 1

So I've spent enough time messing about with the Ad-Mech and I figure it's past time for me to work on the Guard again. The next TOEMP challenge gives me an opportunity to fill in some holes in the HQ and Elites squads - as I won't have much time to paint before the deadline this time, I settled on keeping it small and simple:

First up will be Dunno's Dead-eyes, the Ratling sniper squad attached to the Mordian 7th. Their efficacy in battle is suspect, but I like the models - when in doubt I rely on the Rule of Cool every time! I'm going to take a whack at camo fatigues on these little gits based on some of the fantastic camo examples out there.

 

Following that will be the last three models for the Psyker detachment of the army. The far right model will represent Morrin Dannel, the Sanctioned Psyker that appears on the original list. The far left model and the Overseer in the middle will finish off the PBS and will include an example or two from each era of the GW Psyker ranges. Working in concert with Dunno's Dead-eyes, one would imagine that the natural combo would be the LD-reducing Weaken Resolve power followed by shots from the snipers. Of course, it never quite works out that way on the tabletop...

Finally, to keep all these shady characters in check - the repaired and partially re-painted Commissar Lord to represent Fidel Arden. Still a bit more to do on this model, but it should go fairly quickly - the nice thing is all of the sculpts are very characterful, and they should be a lot of fun to paint!

New builds for the Mordian 7th Regiment

A rainy saturday today - got a chance to fiddle around with some of the new sprues while I waited for the rain to stop.


I wanted to re-work the command squads to take advantage of the new box set's bits. I found one of the 1st edition commander torsos, so Evin Eldro ended up being a pastiche of old and new - appropriate for the army I thought. I love the new banner bearers that come with the command box as well - had to add one of those to the squad.


In addition to the upcoming advisors, the command squad is also allowed a pair of bodyguards who act as ablative wounds for the commander. I really enjoyed the fact that they brought back the "look out sir, aaargh!" rule.


As the bodyguards are there to take a hit for the commander, I figured it would be appropriate to model one of the bodyguards as he's being shot. Had some fun with this model, there's a grenade falling from his fingers, with the pin pulled and ready to explode. Though you can't really see it in this picture, his helmet is flying off as well.


Redid the 1st platoon HQ squad as well, adding a new officer, another of the new banner bearers, and adding a melta gunner in place of the old grenade launchers.


The new 4th platoon HQ squad will accompany the beastman attack sqads. I'm considering adding a sniper to the unit, but may swap it out for a melta-gunner instead.


Did up a couple test figs for the beastmen attack squads, just experimenting on a paint scheme before I build two full squads. They will use the Penal Battalion rules, proxying for units with the 'knife fighters' special rule, and foregoing their lasrifles - the original beastmen squads were armed with two close combat weapons, so that seems to be the best option.


Lastly, I used some bits from the command box as well as a few bits from the flagellant box to make up an Overseer fig for the Psyker Battle Squad. I plan on painting up his back banner with the symbol from the Adeptus Astra Telepathica, to allow the commanders to easily pick out the unit on the battlefield:


All in all, a fun day of gluing my fingers together! Tons more to build yet, I'm trying to decide if I should just paint what I've built so far, or just go to town and build out the rest of the units I have planned...

Reinforcements arriving, sir!

Woo-hoo!

Got a call from my FLGS this afternoon to let me know my order arrived:

Well, most of it anyway. I'd ordered three each of the Valkyrie, Sentinel and Cadian Command box sets, but only got two of the command and Valkyries. Probably for the best, there was a sharp stabbing sensation in my wallet as it was.

Haven't really had a chance to tear into the boxes just yet, but I'll post my thoughts on the new sprues in short order - it's a very exciting time to be a guard player!

Check out the big brain on Brett!

I managed to finish up a few more models last night - I actually had a good time painting this unit of Psykers - the green/yellow/white paint scheme was a nice change of pace following the grey/red of the rest of the guard army.

I'll be picking up one of the new Primaris Psyker models and after I find the 3rd ed model that will give me an 8-strong psyker battle squad. Should be a pretty fun unit - I was underwhelmed with the psykers in 4th ed., but it sounds as though they may be more useful in the new codex.

5 more miniatures down, 11 to go!

Fear me, but follow!

A title like that can only mean one thing - Commissars.

Rooting around in my shelves I realized that in addition to the five commissars I had in regular play with the army, a further 5 were just waiting to see a paintbrush. Three of them were virtually complete, and just required a color or two and a shot of sealant:


Lurking further back in the shelves I found two more. They're everywhere! As I was losing the light, I just snapped a quick picture in process:


Just to keep the balance, I also dug out all my old psyker figs to give the commissars something to shoot at. I rarely took more than a single psyker in the 4th ed. rules (if that) though I always liked the figures - With the advent of the new Psyker battle squad, I figured it was time to give old Morrin Dannel a little backup. Just a quich shot of the group in progress:


I'm missing the 3rd edition Primaris Psyker model (though it's on a shelf around here somewhere), but other than that there's a representative model from every wave of psyker figs since 1st edition. I'm going to paint all of them in a matching color scheme to the one on the far left - Green cloaks (the color of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica), white trousers and shirts and yellow accents. That should tie all the disparate model styles into one cohesive-looking unit.

After these models are complete I'll turn my attentions to the 5-man Medusa siege gun crew and the 4 meltagunners. In the home stretch now!