Executioner Transports

I finished the first of 3 vehicles for the Executioners. 2 rhinos for the tactical squads and a razorback for the command squad. I wasn’t sure how the metallic colour scheme would hold up when it came to vehicles. I was especially concerned about the golden stripe as it takes a layer of yellow wash to pull it off. I’m fairly happy with the result and will be pressing on with the rest of the vehicles. I hope to have a few more finished by the middle of October.

Revised color scheme from Imperial Armour Badab 

Razorback

That’s it for now. I’m moving on to another rhino, venerable dreadnought and a drop pod. Hopefully I can get them done a little quicker.

Thanks for visiting!

Executioner Infantry Done!

 Judging by my low number of blog entries, it would seem that I’ve been rather idle this summer. Hobby time has definitely been in short supply this summer, but I have been working on stuff. Mostly I’ve been building models for a few small projects for the upcoming analogue hobbies painting challenge. What I intend to paint for the challenge and what I actually end up painting are often different, but I figure I at least need to have a few options. 

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve finally been able to sit down and paint which has finally allowed me to finish all the remaining infantry models for the Executioners chapter. This encompasses 3 tactical squads, 1 sternguard, 1 assault squad, 1 terminator squad and a command squad. I also completed a Chaplain, apothecary and (presented in this post) a librarian. The only thing I’m missing is a techmarine, but I’ve never really liked them. A lone marine running around repairing tracks and tightening bolts during a battle seems a bit silly. It would make more sense for them to be riding around in some sort of armored recovery vehicle. Hmmm…now I want one of those!

Tactical Squad

Sternguard 

Next up is a large assortment of vehicles for the chapter. I’m hoping to get the bulk of those finished before, or more likely, during the painting challenge.

Thanks for visiting.

New Space Marine Project

For those that remember my Minotaur Chapter project, you’ll know I’m a fan of the Badab War. It’s one of my favourite parts of the 40k lore and it’s extremely detailed thanks to Forge Worlds Imperial Armour books. Since finishing the Minotaurs I’ve wanted to create another chapter that took part in the war: The Executioners.

Unfortunately the project stalled because I couldn’t get the armour colour right. I experimented with contrast paints and washes and eventually found something that worked. Unfortunately it was too difficult to replicate and was totally impractical on vehicles. So there the project lingered until I saw someone online mix the Fang with Iron warriors to create the above colour. I painted up a test model and confirmed it worked. Since it didn’t involve any contrast paints for glazes, I could use it on vehicles too. Here’s the first tactical squad painted up:

The chapter decals are from Fallout Hobbies and I’m really happy with them. Fallout Hobbies has some bad online reviews dating from the pandemic. Like most industries , they were hit hard and customer service suffered. I can honestly say that whatever issues they did have were fully resolved. Orders are shipped within a week of purchase and shipped via DHL to Canada. This is a bit pricy, so make sure you order everything you need in one go! The decals are as good as anything GW can do and the pigments are strong enough that the underlying colour doesn't bleed through.

The squad painted up fairly quickly, so I hope to have a bunch of these guys done by the end of the year.

Thanks for visiting!

Grimdark Future Game with 15mm Space Marines!

A couple weeks back I was fortunate enough to be in Toronto for work, and got to drop in on Conscript Greg for a delicious dinner and a game. Greg had planned a very cool 15mm 40K game using the "Grimdark Future One-Page Rules" and I'd brought along the 15mm Blood Drinkers Space Marines I'd painted in the most recent Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. So for both his Sons of Horus and my Space Marines, this was their first tabletop outing. LET'S GOOOOO!!!

Greg had set up the three-objective scenario described in the OPR Grimdark Future ruleset. The objectives were pretty evenly spaced down the middle of the table, with the Blood Drinkers coming on from the left long edge and the Sons of Horus from the right. Greg had picked up some really cool new terrain when we were at Meeplemart earlier that day - some prepainted scale-agnostic desert stuff from GF9. It looked just as good with the 15mm Marines as it will with 28mm models! 

The forces were pretty evenly matched - I had three Rhinos (each with a 10-man tac squad in it) and a Land Raider with the command squad and a couple extra Marines. Greg had two Rhinos full of Marines and two Land Raiders ditto (one of them was actually a Spartan model standing in). My cunning plan was to leave the rightmost objective to Greg and try and take the left and centre ones. Above you can see the objective just behind my Rhino.

                                        

The Marines deployed from the Rhino just in front of the objective and awaited contact with the Sons of Horus.

This happened quite quickly as the Sons rocked up and with the help of the Land Raider, wiped out most of the squad. 

The battle in the centre turned into a general fracas with my Land Raider and many Sons of Horus assets becoming engaged. Greg had already grabbed the rightmost objective and the scenario rules dictated that once an objective is obtained, it stays under control until the enemy grabs it. This allowed troops to roll over objectives and not have to worry about leaving a unit behind to hold it, as long as the enemy couldn't reach it themselves.

Here's a good view of the centre. Lots of combat and death here! But keep in mind that the objective itself is behind the Blood Drinkers Rhino at top left...

Endgame in the centre. Unfortunately for the Sons of Horus they just couldn't wipe out the Blood Drinkers and get to the objective. The centre holds for the sons of Sanguinius.

Meanwhile over on the Blood Drinkers' left, a Rhino got blown up by Greg's Land Raider. The passengers bailed out and started movement towards the objective on the hill, just visible at top middle.

The other Blood Drinkers Rhino and missile launcher/meltagun wielding Marines managed to take out the Sons' Land Raider and caused a bailout. The Marines from the destroyed Rhino at bottom started to move towards the objective.

The command squad moved up to intercept the Marines moving toward the objective, but were defeated by the Blood Drinkers.

So that was basically the game, a Blood Drinkers victory, two objectives to one. I quite liked the ruleset and the game fairly rocketed along, lots of stuff died quickly, including the vehicles. Opinions may differ on how those are treated, in the rules as written even bolter fire can chip away at Rhinos and Land Raiders. I don't mind that, because bolters are supposed to fire mass-reactive explosive shells and there's no reason why vehicles would be totally immune to those. But it's something to keep in mind if you have a strong feeling the other way.

My thanks to Greg for setting up the game and for a great visit. It was fun to try out the Grimdark one-page rules and to get our 15mm Space Marines out for their first games!

More 15mm Blood Drinkers Space Marines!

                                         

So at the same time I've been working on Germanic Tribesmen and Romans, I've been interspersing some other painting work - namely these 3D-printed 15mm Blood Drinkers Space Marines. I burned through the first 20 of these quickly and enjoyed them so much that I had Conscript Byron print me up some more of 'em, plus some vehicles. I particularly needed some heavy weapons and special weapons, and Sergeants to fill out the platoon.

I also had him print some Rhino transports. As with the Space Marines, I painted the vehicles Mephiston Red and highlighted them Evil Sunz Scarlet, then washed them with Nuln Oil, The tracks were painted Leadbelcher and washed with Nuln and Agrax Earthshade. Most of the insignia are decals from the Blood Angels 40K sheet, but the aerial recognition insignia on the rear decks are hand painted. Weathering was done with some sponge chipping using Vallejo German Camo Black-Brown and drybrushing dirt colours.

Here's the whole bunch that I've painted so far. There's three squads of 10, each led by a sergeant, including one missile launcher, one meltagun, and seven Marines with bolters. At the front of the photo I've put the extra dudes I've painted - more Marines with bolters, another missile launcher, and some random command-types.

I still have the Company command section, their Rhino, and a Land Raider to paint. After that this mini-project will be finished and it'll be back to Legionaries and hairy Germans.      

There will be more!

15mm Blood Drinkers Space Marines!

                                         

Well I suppose I have Conscript GregB to thank for this one... I had Conscript ByronM do some 3D printing for me, and when I went to pick up the prints Byron told me that Greg had asked him to print me some 15mm Space Marines! Cool!

So somewhat on a whim and as a palate cleanser, I knocked out the 20 models Byron had printed for me. Originally I was considering painting them as Iron Warriors, but these beakies were just begging to be painted in the blood-red power armour of the Blood Drinkers. It's just a bonus that the chapter insignia is super-easy to put on the shoulder pads with a black technical pen :-)

These guys all carry boltguns of course. But once these guys were painted I had to get in touch with Byron to print me some more dudes with heavy weapons, as well as some vehicles. Escalation!!

 

For the record, the paint job was pretty straightforward. Basecoated Mephiston Red, heavily highlighted with Evil Sunz Scarlet, then washed with Nuln Oil, Backpacks and boltguns are Leadbelcher washed with Nuln Oil.

  

These two are the start of a command squad I reckon. We'll see what else Mr. B can come up with for me.

Here's a comparo shot of my 40K scale Blood Drinker with his tiny colleagues.

Hope you like 'em!

Minotaurs Vehicles

 I'm almost done the Minotaurs! I only have 2 special characters left and then that's it! I finished the summer off by painting the last vehicles for the chapter. This includes the Land Raider Crusader! You'll notice the side sponson weapons are quite a bit different from the standard Land Raider (or any land raider). As I mentioned before, this army is a repaint, including the Land Raider. The original crusader side sponsons were originally multi-part metal hurricane bolters. Each included about 8 pieces that no longer seemed to fit together. As I struggled with it, I had flash backs to 15+ years ago trying to assemble them. I had forgotten what a pain in the ass they were. I had no interest in trying, so looked online to see if I could buy the new plastic sponsons. That was too expensive to justify, so I turned to my bits collection. I managed to find two rotary cannons from Kromlech that would work as an equivalent to the hurricane bolters. I figured they looked like they were low strength, but had lots of shots, so work well as a proxy. To mount them, I flipped the metal bracket for the bolters around and clipped off one end. With the help of some green stuff I then managed to set the guns on the brackets convincingly enough. It really pays to keep old crap around for years until the right project presents itself.

This was really boring to paint. Combining the worst aspects of miniature and terrain painting!

Rhino rehab #2

Quite the beast!

Kromlech cannon

Thanks for visiting!