Imperial Guard - Thudd Gun painted

Pressing onwards with the guard - one more heavy weapon emplacement complete, this time around it's one of my favorites, the Thudd Gun!

  

All in all it painted up really quickly. Basically followed the standard vehicle paint scheme - drybrushed shadow grey, then picked out various areas in yellow and red, and boltgun metal for the wheels and barrels. Easy peasy!

  

The crewmen were painted separately along with the crew for the Macharius Omega (pics to follow), and I went with a mix of cadian and catachan bits to give them a bit more rough-and-tumble look. I figure loading the weapon is hot and sweaty work, so they're down to their undershirts.

I also updated the painting chart to see what all is left to do. Not much, it turns out! Still need to finish up a 5-man platoon command squad, the Rapier, a couple turrets to allow me to field some Salamanders (using the alternate hydra tank chassis), the Baneblade and the Leviathan. I also added in the Fortifications that are lurking in the Closet of Doom. So far only the Skyshield landing pad is painted, but I do have one each of the other buildings/fortifications in various stages of painting. It all adds up to over 7500 points! Holy moly!

Imperial Guard - Macharius Omega and Thudd Gun built and primed

Been a crazy busy week between playing catch up at work and prepping for a gig this coming Friday with the band. However, I did manage to get in a little build time and I hope to get some paint on 'em come Sunday if all goes according to plan!

 

The Omega went together like a dream, though there were some truly massive resin blocks that needed to be dremel-ed away. I actually managed to refrain from building the whole model in one go and kept some parts separate for painting. There's a ton of great detailing that would otherwise be virtually inaccessible.

While I was at it, the Thudd Gun that has been lurking in a bag in the Closet of Doom for nigh on three years got assembled and primered as well. Since the loader is going to be cranking the elevation wheel and would otherwise be difficult to paint, I kept the crewmen separate for painting on this model as well.

Looking forward to getting some brush time on 'em!

"The German Guns" by S. Baldrick

Baldrick: "Boom, boom, boom, boom,
Boom, boom, boom,
Boom, boom, boom, boom..."
Edmund Blackadder: "Boom, boom, boom?" 

Baldrick: "How did you guess?" -- S4.Ep6

I figured that particular poem would be appropriate for the last Thudd Gun post. I've been agonizing about repainting all the bases on my guard and it occurred to me that while the infantry wouldn't be too big of a deal, most of the larger bases have some sort of urban-themed terrain built on to them and as such would look sort of silly with buildings jutting up out of mud and grass. That being the case I've decided that I'd go with my original plan of adding snow to the various bases instead and took a crack at it on the Thudd Gun. I don't think I had the snow/glue mix quite right, but it's a passable effect overall. Practice makes perfect, after all!

Secondly I painted up a test model for the Hypaspists (Tech Guard) for my burgeoning Adeptus Mechanicus army. A fairly simple scheme - red cloaks, white piping, grey armor plates and various metal and gold detailing. It painted up rather quickly which should help when it comes to painting up the other 30+ models.

Rumors of my demise were greatly exaggerated...

Well it's been a seriously hectic past three weeks and I had very little hobby time unfortunately - Real Life(tm) had me very, very busy. Couple that with the fact that I managed to misplace my camera for the better part of a week and I was unable to take any pictures of the little bit of modeling and painting I did manage to complete. However, the camera was found, and I was finally able to snap a few pictures!

As I'd mentioned I was suffering from "Guard Guilt" as I haven't done much work on them recently. I took a bit of time and assembled the Thudd Gun I'd picked up a while back and got the initial base colors on the model. Can I just say that I am sick to death of the red/grey paint scheme? I suppose that's bound to happen after painting 5000+ points in that scheme, but I have to say it's getting harder and harder to get excited about painting it.

During the downtime I got the most recent package from Forge World so I took a little time to build and paint up the Mekboss Buzzgob that I'm using for my Bad Moon Bigmek. I really enjoyed his oiler grots, especially the faux-Opus Machina one of them is carrying!

While I was at it I cranked out the AoBR warboss in Bad Moon colors to accompany the unit of Nobs. 10 PK-and-Big Choppa-wielding Nobs and a Warboss makes for a darn scary unit!

Also in the box of FW goodies was the belly gun and head for the Stompa. I'd never assembled a Stompa before and it was way more involved than I expected although it was a hoot to build. The FW additions to the kit? Not so much. The parts were warped rather badly and even after hours of hot water dips and bending they still didn't seem to fit very well. I ended up having to utilize a fair bit of plasticard and rivets to cover up a few unsightly gaps, but once it was primered you can't really tell the difference. I left the arms separate to facilitate painting, we'll see how that goes. It's going to be a lot of black and yellow once it's done!

Last but not least, one other package arrived - the Iron Brotherhood models I'd ordered way back in April for use as Hypaspists for my Adeptus Mechanicus army. Due to the Yyjafjallajokull eruptions, the order was delayed for the better part of a month. Disappointing, but hey, what can ya do? The models were cleanly cast and although they looked a little static initially, a bit of mix-and-match with the arms and weapons sorted that out. They were nice enough to throw in a set of extra models as an apology for the delay so I'll be building a unit of Sagittarii (heavy weapons teams) as well, though I'm still pondering how I want to build the weapons platforms.

Here's hoping this month will be more conducive to hobby work!

One is good, two is better, so why not use four?

Work proceeds on the Guard, albeit slowly - I've managed to paint all the heads, hands and eyes for the Tournament army, next up is to get the base colors for the fatigues and armor. In the meantime however my recent Forge World order showed up in the mail, and I took a little time to build the Thudd Gun:

It's definitely larger than the original Thudd Gun model, though I have to say I think the new sculpt is far superior to the old one. I ended up using an old CD for the base, and added the standard CoD bits that I tend to use for scenic decoration for the army.

Unfortunately FW doesn't make dedicated artillery crewmen for the Cadian range, but I was pleased to discover that the mortar rounds included on the Heavy Weapons Teams sprues appear to be the same rounds included in the ammo crate that comes with the Thudd Gun model, so I was able to come up with a loader model that looked fairly appropriate. I look forward to fielding this artillery piece in my upcoming games!

Couple more goodies arrived along with the Thudd Gun, including the Vendetta upgrade kit and a Vulture kit with the new Punisher Cannons. I will say that the Valkyrie kit has taken the crown from the Chimera in the "Kits I don't enjoy putting together" category. I'm realizing now how badly I managed to build my first Valkyrie and I'm not looking forward to building two more at this point. On the up side, I know what I did wrong with the first one and won't be repeating those mistakes!