Finishing the Primaris Outrider Bikes

Alright, I've got the riders painted, so it's time to finish these guys!

Painting and Assembling the Primaris Outrider Bikes

I made some significant progress on the Outriders, but hit a bit of a snag...

Primaris Inceptors

The Inceptors join the fray!

Basing Flying Models

Here's a look at my process for basing flying models.

Flying Vampires and Flying Marines

My vampire queen's assembly is finished, and I made more progress on the Primaris Inceptors:

 

The Completed Marines and a Basing Tutorial

My first two squads of Imperial Fists are finally finished. Here's a look at them and how I finished their bases:

Painting Tutorial: Imperial Fists

I've found a (mostly) quick method of painting yellow Space Marine armor. Here's a step-by-step look at the process I used to paint my Imperial Fists.

Primus Invidicus, Redemptor Dreadnought

Magnus isn't the only model to cross the Rubicon Primaris. The dreadnought Primus Invidicus has also been upgraded to a Redemptor.

Detailing the Dreadnought's Arms

This week, I finished up the dreadnought conversion:

 

Big, Boxy Dreadnought Arms

I like my dreadnoughts to be big, hulking blocks of metal. To that end, I've been converting the Primaris dreadnought into Mark V-style armor. In the previous post, I had rebuilt the shoulder armor. Now it was time to frame out the arms.

Building the Dreadnought's Armor

I made a little more progress on my Primaris-scale Mark V Dreadnought, building up the sarcophagus and the shoulder armor.

Plans on a Primaris Scale

Today I'm taking stock of my Space Marine projects and where I'm going with the Primaris models:

 

What's in the Project Queue? January 2018

As we roll into 2018 I'm taking stock of my army projects, the backlog of painting and what I can look forward to going forward.

Sisters of Battle

My Shadow War: Armageddon kill team is finally finished. I could technically bring the team to ten models, so maybe I'll track down three more Sisters on ebay to round them out. But the slow rate at which I've been able to add models to the team and arm them, there's no rush on that.

 

 

I've been working on some extras for the game, namely the Necromunda Barricades and Objectives set I received for Christmas. The ammo boxes are painted, and make perfect loot counters. I also painted the exterminatus device from the 40K objectives kit. I used that as the promethium tank in the Raid scenario. I'll chip away at the rest of those objectives and barricades as time allows.

 

 

 

 

I also have the Servohaulers set, which I was excited to get my hands on, but have yet to begin assembling. Maybe I'll use that to experiment with painting yellow and weathering before I begin my Imperial Fists. Speaking of which...

Space Marines

I haven't played much of the new Warhammer 40,000 and I'm not sure if that will change with the Malign Portents Campaign coming out for Age of Sigmar. I still want to make a point to paint my Imperial Fist Primaris marines from the starter set sometime this year. I'd also like to add a Redemptor Dreadnought because that looks like a great kit, and I have an idea for converting its arms to resemble the more "boxy" look of the classic dreadnoughts. I'm also sculpting a set of industrial bases for my Skull Forge Scenics range that I'll be using for the basing.

 

 

Legions of Nagash

The Malign Portents campaign is coming soon, as is the Legions of Nagash battletome. I think we're still about six months out from any new undead models, and I don't know if what they release will slot into the existing undead range or be a completely new stand-alone army in the same way the Kharadron Overlords were their own separate force apart from the traditional Duardin.

The press release on the Legions of Nagash book said that it will contain warscrolls for every undead model released (so far). Clearly new Death models are coming, but I don't know if they will be in the Legions of Nagash book, or if it will literally only have the models "so far" and the new army will receive its own, separate Battletome. I hope not.

There has also been speculation that none of the Flesh Eater Courts will be in this book. That wouldn't surprise me, as they have their own battletome and allegiance abilities in the General's Handbook. I wonder if the Legions of Nagash is going to incorporate the Soulblight and Nighthaunt allegiances, or it they will remain allegiances that can be used in addition to the new allegiances in the book.

The Maggotkin of Nurgle battletome and its new rules also make me wonder if we will see a new mechanic for summoning. The Nurgle allegiances use a system where the army accumulates points to spend on summoning new units rather than casting spells to summon the units. The summoned models still need to be paid for with the army's reserve points, however. Feculent Gnarlmaw trees add to this pool of summoning points, and more can be brought into play as the game progresses.

Maybe we'll see a similar system for bringing death models into play. Perhaps the Mausoleums or some kind of mass grave can be unearthed on the battlefield, allowing undead troops to be summoned? Something else I've noticed is all the corpse-parts on some of the new Nurgle models, namely the Pusgoyle Blightlords. Perhaps the corpses mean that a new zombie kit is on the way, and the digital corpses are getting double duty across a few kits in the same manner that the spirit hosts appeared on Nagash and the Mortarchs.

 

I still have my Nighthaunt models waiting to be finished. I haven't had much desire to work on these since the Nighthaunt list is so limiting. It makes me laugh when I see people comparing Nighthaunt lists online, when the only real difference is whether they have more more Spirit Hosts or more Hexwraiths. There just isn't a lot of diversity in the Nighthaunt sub-faction and the limits of what they can ally with only exacerbates the sameness of everyone's armies. Hopefully that will change in the new Battletome. I'd like to finish these models before any new Death models release so I can jump into the new stuff without too much of a backlog. I've decided that the Knight of Shrouds will be my "buy and paint within 48 hours" model for this year's Hobby Bingo.

 

Skaven

This will be the last hurrah for my Conclave of Corruption. With the new focus on Chaos Nurgle armies, they will be fairly useless when facing them. I've already had a couple games against a Nurgle force, which rendered my Plagueclaws useless (they only wound Nurgle units on a 6). There are a lot of other abilities and tricks that Clan Pestilens uses which either affect Nurgle units on a 6 or not at all. That, paired with the first real attention paid to the Death Grand Alliance in Age of Sigmar's three years, means I'll be turning my focus away from the Skaven and back to my first love.

I still want to finish off the Skaven projects that I've already begun. If you follow me on Twitter, you've seen that the painting of my Pestilens-themed Clanrats has begun. Here's the first 20, waiting for their green robes and a few other details to be finished. 60 more after this...

 

 

I've finished converting my Plague Priest equipped with the Bilious Bell. This will check the "convert a model into a totally different unit or character" box on the Hobby Bingo card. I took lots of step-by-step pictures of this guy, so I'll talk about him in a separate post.

 

I also buckled down and finished converting my first Plague Censor Bearers. They're converted out of Plague Monks, rearranged to hold their staves two-handed. The censor flails were giving me the most trouble because I was afraid that the existing plastic chain on the censors would be too thin and brittle for a conversion.

 

I wanted to use spare censors from other kits like the Screaming Bell so they would have the smoke trailing off of them. The solution to the chain was to replace it with "rope" made from two lengths of thin floral wire, twisted by putting one end in a power drill, and the other held with a pair of pliers. The ends were clipped to use as a pin which could be inserted into holes in the censor and the post. Thinner wire was then hand-wrapped around the ends to create the connecting ties. The ropes were then bent into shape atop the flail staves.

 

 

When these models are finished, the Pestilens conclave of Warlord Skabsis will begin to rival the size of Skryre Lord Skreekits' Lightning Engineer Cult. Quite the power struggle...

 

'Til next time!

Lexicanium Calistarius, Space Hulk Librarian

The Space Hulk Librarian is complete!

 

Since the Black Templars don't employ the use of psychics, it would not have been appropriate to model a Black Templars Librarian. I still wanted the model to relate to my marines, so I settled on their father chapter, the Imperial Fists. (Both the Black Templars and the Crimson Fists are second foundings, descended from the Imperial Fists.) I figured the Templars might work in tandem with an Imperial Fist Librarian at the behest of the Emperor.

The model itself didn't require much in the way of conversion sculpting. There was a surprising lack of Blood Angels embellishments, and the right shoulder pad was completely blank. Perfect for sculpting an Imperial Fists icon! The rest of the sculpting went into touch-up work where the detail on the plastic kit had been smoothed out to avoid undercuts in the mold. There was no need to put him on a round 40mm base as he wouldn't see action in my 40K Templars army; I simply used some styrene card to patch up the gap in the back of the base and cover the Blood Angels icon.

 

 

The Imperial Fists chapter colors gave me the chance to paint something outside of my regular pallet range of blue-grey, black, brown, bone, and red. I dig painting yellow armor (at least, I always think I do until I actually start painting it). Black lining is an exercise in tedium, but the end result is so striking that I can't help myself. Thanks to everyone who offered tips on my Facebook page; I'll experiment with some of those techniques and see if I can save some time (and eye strain) on the next one.

 

This is not my first Imperial Fist model, though. Waaay back in the day, I painted this guy for Games Workshop. I used mostly the same techniques– A light undercoat, yellow, and a bit of orange for the wash; then meticulous black lining and a white highlight line, with light yellow over that for the brightest highlights possible.

 

It was based on Games Workshop's image of this Pre-Heresy Imperial Fist. I recreated it down to the last rivet, using styrene card for the extra armor plates and crenelations on the shoulder pads. The elbow and knee pads were cut to match the shape, and the head and feet were taken from older, metal models to match the helmet style and the crenelation pattern on the feet.

 

The model appeared in White Dwarf #300 as part of this spread of Pre-Heresy marine chapters. Looking through the magazine brings back fond memories of the good old days at the Glen Burnie headquarters.

 

 

On a funny note– While looking for that image of the Pre-Heresy marine, I stumbled across my model from the White Dwarf photo on someone's Deviant Art site. The person was claiming to have modeled and painted it himself. I say that it's funny because he was using the same clipped model asset from the magazine (you know, the photo that used to have my name right next to it?) and the quality of his other models by comparison was, shall we say... lacking. It was an older post from about 5 years ago, and (other than my comments calling him out on his thievery) there didn't seem to be any recent activity on his page. Still, there's no expiration date on being an ass-hat.

Here are some more shots of the Librarian. One image with detail insets for the gallery, and the full shot from which each detail pic was pulled. Even though Librarians typically wear blue armor as the symbol of their office, I really wanted to paint this model with yellow armor to make him stand out. The blue is represented on his shoulder pad.

 

 

 

And with that, the Space Hulk Terminator challenge is complete! 12 marines in 12 months, converted from Blood Angels into my army's chapter. I made an effort to replace every detail removed with an equal embellishment across the entire line. All the bases are magnetized so I can use them in my 40K army and swap them onto squares for use in the Space Hulk game.

I keep toying with the idea of making a 30K Pre-Heresy army. It would obviously be the Imperial Fists– the Pre-Heresy version of the Black Templars. The Betrayal at Calth board game has a nice selection of Pre-Heresy marines, but I already have two sets of Dark Vengeance marines (with all those Terminators!) so I can't really justify buying more, especially considering how rarely I get to play these days. We'll see what the future (or rather the past?) holds.

'Til next time!