Heresy Era Thousand Sons Armoured Proteus Land Raiders (mostly) complete!

Took advantage of the surprisingly warm weather over the weekend to get the initial sealant pass on the Proteuseses in preparation for the addition of the water-slide transfers and weathering. A little work after work last night and the weather was nice enough to get the second round of sealant on as well!

 

As part of the Fallout Hobbies kickstarter I'd picked up a few custom sheets with Thousand Sons icons and hieroglyphic cartouches to help differentiate the look of the army somewhat from the last iteration. Used the sponge method to add a little weathering here and there, running on the 'less is more' method to start with to see how it goes - it's always easier to add a little more than it is to cover up too much!

 

The Thousand Sons symbol transfers were a godsend, as I'm just rubbish at painting 'em! Rather looking forward to adding them to the vehicles I'd held onto from the previous run. I'm musing adding some mud effect to the treads and undercarriage and perhaps a bit more aggressive scraped paint. So far so good though!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Armoured Proteus Land Raiders in progress

Just a quick hit this morning, still in a holding pattern on the majority of the Thousand Sons project due to lack of bases and am now considering alternate options - think it might be a "glue all the infantry to paint stir sticks and paint the bases separately when they finally arrive" sort of situation. Been ages since I did the stir stick batch paint method (used to do it for swathes of historical and epic minis), going to kick it old school!

In the interim the replacement tracks from Forge World arrived for the Land Raiders, and I managed to get them assembled. Sadly, there was an incident and a couple of the track sections were broken beyond my ability to repair, so I'll be treating it as battle damage I guess! At this point they're more or less up to the "just off the factory floor" stage prior to transfers and weathering. It's supposed to be beautiful outside later today so I'm hoping to take advantage and get the sealant step done in prep for adding the transfers. So far, so good!

Heresy Era Iron Hands - Army Pic Ahoy!

A very [insert your preferred festive greeting] to you all! Hope that as the year draws to a close, all of you lovely readers out there are warm, safe and happy!

I've had a few days off from work (or as near to a day off as I can actually get) and in between doing some last minute shopping and whatnot I pulled out all of the Iron Hands that have been painted so far, and took some time to update the painting chart.

I didn't realize quite how much infantry there was until I laid it all out! Big units seem to be the order of the day in 30k, with the weapons available, casualties come fast and furious. I avoided the lighter transport vehicles for that very reason, the two tactical squads are carried to battle in Land Raiders instead! The Sicarans are designed to take care of the massed enemy infantry, and should be able to knock out any skimmers and light vehicles. A pair of Contemptors (one Mortis with the Kheres cannons and one 'vanilla' with Lascannon and Powerfist) were thematically appropriate, as the Iron Hands are known to utilize them heavily. 

The Iron Father and the Terminators are slated to get a Caestus to transport them around, but for now will be relying on the 2-in-6 chance of the warlord trait providing them Deep Strike. Most terminators in the heresy-era ruleset do not get the Deep Strike special rule as standard, which came as a surprise. The army also includes a 20-man unit of quasi assault marines (one of the tac squad options is to replace their bolter with a close combat weapon for free), who are joined by an Apothecary to help keep 'em in the game with FnP. Ferrus will usually join that unit as well, as he's too bulky to ride in the Caestus with the terminators.

Surprisingly close to the finish line with the army! One ten-man squad of vets, the Caestus, and a pair of counts-as tarantula turrets that are still inbound and it'll be complete! ...Until I get a unit of Immortals.

...And maybe a Spartan. Hah!

Heresy Era Iron Hands - Proteus Land Raiders painted, sort of.

More tanks! Always need more tanks. The Iron Hands are known for having a lot of vehicles, and I tried to brink that into the army list as well. There's even more to come after this!

Next up is the slightly disappointing part of the army I'm afraid. The Proteuseses. One of them turned out pretty well, but unfortunately the other one really has problems, as we'll see below. Think I'm going to call it the Short Bus...

This one turned out okay - sort of like the rusty effect on the lower hull.

Might need to push the mud spatter up a little higher on the sides though.

I like big exhausts and I cannot lie...

And now the short bus. From the side it's okay, think the chipping around the access ramps turned out okay but the tracks are pretty wonky - this is the tank where I learned you should start and the top and work down to allow for gaps and possible track removal, rather than follow the directions provided by FW which suggests you start at the bottom and work up. By the time I got to the top, there wasn't quite enough room to fit the top track section and it ended up being a bit raised off the roller on the upper rear. Disappointing.

...And then to compound the disappointment, something happened with the sealant on the front and the finish totally crackled up. Must have had some moisture on it or something. I'm REALLY disappointed about this tank - from the ham-fisted assembly to the wonky sealant level, it just didn't turn out the way I'd hoped. Figure I have three ways to go - either I figure out a way to work that texture in as some sort of weathering (melta scarring, maybe? give it a metal drybrush pass?), use some fine sandpaper to try and remove the crinkly layer and hope I don't jack up the underlying paint too much, or dump the whole damn tank into Simple Green and start again... Argh.

Heresy Era Iron Hands - Proteus Land Raiders (mostly) painted, and more batch painting madness

Little more forward motion. Took a break from the infantry to get the Proteus Land Raiders up to the "just off the assembly line" stage - I'm planning on getting all the vehicles to this point then weather them all at once so they stay consistent. They haven't been matte sealed yet so they're still pretty shiny - lots of reflections from the lamps...

 

Have to say I really like the Proteus kit, whatever legion next strikes my fancy will definitely be getting a couple of these tanks as well! Looking forward to trying out a more interesting paint scheme on 'em than the black and white of the Iron Hands...

I also made a little more headway on the tac marines, with the whites finished and the initial earthtone laid down on the bases they're really starting to come into focus! ...Well, the picture itself is a little out of focus, but still!

Heresy Era Iron Hands - Proteus Land Raiders built

After a nice soak and scrub, I managed to get the pair of Proteuseses built! I was reasonably pleased with how the kits went together. I built one to completion first to see how it worked and beyond a reasonable amount of hot-water bending I found it to be relatively painless.

The only thing that I found it that you're better off starting attaching the tracks to the upper side and work down, which allows for any track trimming (of which there was some) is at least hidden on the bottom of the tank.

I did add magnets to the side sponsons for ease of painting and transport. While the attachment is far more robust than the original plastic kit's single thin post, I'd much rather they pop loose than break off when they are inevitably knocked about in gaming.

Definitely looking forward to painting 'em. ...Of course, one could argue that they're about half done already. Hah!