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40k Harlequins - Tricolor shenanigans!

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Managed to get some more brush time in yesterday, and started blocking in the green and purple sections on the Troupe and Starweaver. Starting to come together nicely now!


Still need to brighten up the purple a bit, but I'm pretty happy with the contrast between the green and yellow. Once the base colors are laid in, the next step will be to go back in and add stripes, checks and polka dots for full clownishness!


Rather happy with how the Starweaver is coming along as well, it's a rather cool model with the riders hanging on. That all said, this paint scheme is surprisingly slow compared to my usual batch painting cadence. Probably taken as long to get this far on these models as it had to bring all the recent Orks to completion!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Reinforcements Arrive!

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A box o' joy arrived from Forge World yesterday evening containing a number of new goodies for the ever-changing Thousand Sons! I got everything into a soapy soak overnight and got it rinsed off and laid out to dry this afternoon. Everything was present and accounted for, and I once again have to note how much more professional the packing and quality checks have been in the last few orders. Excellent stuff.


The loot includes a 10-man assault squad with the Achean upgrade kit, a mk.IV character set for conversion fodder, and a pair of the rather excellent new Thousand Sons Contemptors because how could I not? Of course, I couldn't help but jump right in and build something!


The plan at the moment is only to take one of the Contemptors to NOVA so that one gets built first - my personal favorite, a Contemptor Mortis with a pair of Kheres Assault Cannons. This will provide a modicum of anti-air support and is always good at mowing down squads of marines. I always love how much dynamism one can get out of the FW Contemptor kit, and while I do have plans for the ol'"Charging into melee" pose for the second one I thought a more solidly-planted pose would be suitable for the gunslinger. Rather pleased with how the pose turned out and I'm really looking forward to painting him up!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Assault Squad Mekhata built!

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Got a little bit of build time in today and managed to get Assault Squad Mekhata put together and prepped for primer. At the moment assault squads are ruinously expensive points-wise but there are pretty solid indications that we're going to see a points drop in the upcoming release of the heresy legions 'red book'. That said, for the first 10 models of the squad I decided to keep 'em as cheap as possible - depending on how the points drop goes I may add a further 10 and include some power weapons in the mix.


Definitely dig the Achean upgrade kit, these heads are what I have been wanting for the army - the MaxMini Steam Knight heads I've used on the tac marines work well, but these are just better. The next challenge was how to denote that Sergeant Mekhata is wearing artificer armour and help him stand out from the rest of the unit (besides a fancy helmet). Hard to go wrong with wings, right?


FLASH! Aaaah Aaaah! Let's be honest, I'm going to sing that in my head every time I pick this model up. Found a box of Sanguinary Guard lurking in the Closet of Doom and pinched a set of wings from there, as they're perfectly suited to this style of jump pack. Not sure if I'm going to try to paint them up as mechanical additions to the pack, or as a psychic manifestation in ghostly blue/green. Thoughts?

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Plasma Contemptor built!

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The flurry of building continued this weekend - it's been hot as all getout which means the hobby loft is proving challenging to work in for long periods of time so it's been surgical strikes of construction rather than long painting sessions. Today I turned my attention to the second Contemptor Dreadnought - this is a 'rule of cool' build for me, I love plasma weaponry and thought I'd put together a plasma dread - Plasma cannon on one arm and a plasma blaster built into the power claw? How could I resist?


As it's not a full-bore close-combat dread, I didn't want to go with a super action running pose, but rather went for a 'steadily advancing' look, reaching out as though he's going to throttle someone with his power claw. It was nice enough this afternoon to primer all the recently-built models, so I have a good chunk of models to paint now!

40k Dark Eldar - Archon in progress

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In other gaming news, I'm in the midst of running a Rogue Trader campaign for a group of friends which currently has them caught in the Dark Eldar's evil clutches. I've been vacillating between Craftworld or Dark Eldar as the counterpoint force for the Harlequins and ended up coming down on the side of the denizens of Commoragh. This is, in part, because I have a significant amount of leftover Dark Eldar bits and kits from the last go around a few years back, and I felt it was better for the pocketbook to finally utilize those models rather than buy a whole new army from scratch. For fun I thought I'd lead off with the head honcho and picked up one of the new plastic Archon models.


I wasn't a big fan of the default "both weapons crossed over his chest" pose, so did some rooting around for alternate arms and with a little cutting was able to come up with something a little more open and at least a little more dynamic, with the sword and head following the flow of the cape and chains.


Got him more or less finished off over the last few days, just a few more little details to pick out/clean up, then he'll be ready for static grass and sealant. Going with purple armor plates this go-around, with a jade green as the spot color - that will be a bit more predominant on larger armor plates and so forth on upcoming models. Had fun with the flayed cloak, tried to get a couple different skin tones in there to give it a patchwork feel. He's rather creepy!

Next up for the Dark Eldar are the Court of the Archon and his Raider, though they're sitting unassembled in a box at the moment. Next up on the painting desk however are more of my beloved Thousand Sons - set the batch painting machine for "A whole mess (likely literally) of red!"

40k Dark Eldar - Archon and Ur-Ghuls complete!

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It has been stupendously hot of late so after work the hobby loft just isn't comfortable to work in for more than brief stretches - sadly that means my usual frenetic pace has slowed dramatically over the last couple weeks. However, I have done a wee bit of painting and finished off the Archon and the first models from the Court, a trio of Ur-Ghuls!


First up, Archon Zaergarn Kul of the Kabal of the Splintered Talon. Not a lot of changes from the earlier pics, finished up the face and cleaned up a few bits, flocked and sealed. Easy peasy!


Next are the trio of Ur-Ghuls that will be part of the Court of the Archon. Fairly straightforward scheme, went with a light grey followed by a violet wash (to keep the purple theme going), and a couple successive drybrush passes to bring it back up to a greyish skintone. Honestly not a huge fan of the models (as there's only one pose and it's less than dynamic) and in retrospect I probably should have gone with some plastic vampire counts Ghouls and a little greenstuff instead.


Finally, a squad of Kabalite Warriors - I always try to get the troops done early in the project so I can move on to the "fun stuff". Not much to say about 'em, basic Blaster and Dark Lance loadout. Hoping to get some paint on 'em this coming weekend when I can do some work in the cool of the morning!

40k Dark Eldar - Kabalite Warriors painting begins

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There's an escalation league starting at the newly-opened GW store in Boulder and despite my general reservations about whether my schedule will allow me to participate in the long run, I figured it would be a fun way to motivate to work on the Dark Eldar. The league isn't "painted only" which is a discouraging factor for me, but I understand the shop's desire not to exclude anyone while they establish a player base. That said, I'm going to try and do a personal challenge of not fielding anything that isn't painted - the first round is 250 points, which when following a CAD doesn't mean many models. In my case, it'll be the Archon (already painted) and two 5-man Warrior squads. The downside is the 10-man squad I've built doesn't quite break down into two legal 5-man squads (no Dark Lance unless there's 10 warriors in the squad), but I figure most folks shouldn't have a problem with me saying "Okay, so this Dark Lance is just a splinter rifle for this first set of games, cool?"


Of course, since I'm a bit of a masochist I figured I'd paint up the unit's planned Raider transport at the same time, this one is rather boring and unadorned (as I feel befits the low-caste Warriors) but I have several others in increasing levels of bling planned!


We had a brief respite from the punishing heat yesterday and I managed to lay in the purples and the very initial color for the yellow cloth on the warriors in the relative cool of the evening. I realized when editing the photo however that I apparently neglected to add the hairpiece on one of the helmets. Argh! Nevertheless, so far so good - supposed to be another relatively cool day tomorrow so hopefully I can knock out a few more colors after work...

In other news, my good friend Adeptus Michael (aka Captain Maxissimo Erasmus Domocletian Heronomius Carscallen in our ongoing Rogue Trader campaign) has started up a new blog called The Glory Days of the Underhive in order to share and document his Necromunda and other 40k goodness. As an old tabletop adversary of his before he moved to Italy, I can say I am really looking forward to seeing his fever-maddened creations come together again (albeit from the other side of the planet)! Definitely worth checking out!

40k Dark Eldar - Kabalite Warriors (and Sslyth) painting continues

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Caught another break in the weather yesterday evening and this afternoon and managed to get a little closer to the finish line with the Dark Eldar. Finished up the yellow cloth, and got the silver done and the first couple passes for the gold before being driven from the loft by the heat.


Next up will be the rest of the gold highlights, as well as the leather and gems. Should be able to get them done in time for the event (though I will likely be frantically painting Saturday morning)!


I'd started the trio of Sslyth for the Court of the Archon a little while ago, and figured I'd go ahead and bring them up to speed with the Warriors while I was doing the colors. Really dig these guys, and really feel that GW ought to do more one-off Xenos species models like these - bring back Ambulls!

40k Dark Eldar - Kabalite Warriors done (and a bit of red paint spatter)!

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Just a quick hit this evening - Braved the heat of the hobby loft for a few hours this evening and got the Kabalite Warriors up to a good tabletop standard in preparation for the first series of games for the escalation league. As is always the case, it is in the photography stage that all the little things stand out to be fixed, so there will likely be a little more cleanup done here and there on bits I've missed. Doh!


That said, following a little touch up they'll be good enough for government work and get a quick hit of sealant in the morning before getting bundled up for the game(s) at the shop. Also looking forward to getting my mitts on the FW Tartaros Terminator model, he'll make an excellent basis for another Thousand Sons sorcerer!


Speaking of the Thousand Sons, I did manage to lay in the base reds on the pair of Contemptors this evening as well. Nothing glamorous, but it felt good to get a little forward motion on 'em!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Tartaros Terminator Praetor/Centurion Built

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Yesterday the various GW stores across the nation were selling a promotional Forge World model and naturally I had to get my resin addiction fix! Was rather pleased to see that it appears to be the usual Forge World resin recipe and not the Finecast dreck, and was in multiple parts allowing for come conversion potential. I ended up nabbing two of them, so naturally one of them is going to get the Thousand Sons treatment!


Now the blister itself comes with rules to run the model as-is, introducing the Praetor Tribune. Slightly less expensive than his standard Praetor counterpart, he has no ranged weapon, and comes standard with a master-crafted Paragon blade, an Iron Halo, Digital Lasers and Tartaros armour. He may not take any further equipment upgrades however. Since I was going my own way and doing some weapon and head swaps, I figured I'd also give him a combi-bolter and just use him as a normal Praetor or Centurion.


Swapped out the Paragon Blade's, er, blade for one of the big Stygian axeheads from Kromlech, fitted a trimmed-down Achean helmet (leftover from the earlier assault squad), and with a little bit of swearing managed a somewhat convincing combi-bolter hanging from a strap. Fairly pleased with how it all came together - rather looking forward to getting some paint on him!

40k Dark Eldar - Wych Cult painting begins

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The escalation league at the local GW shop kicked off last week and I was able to get in a game with a rather nice guy and his beautiful Blood Angels. Like a knob I didn't take a singe pic of the game though. Doh! Suffice it to say that the two 5-man Kabalite Warrior squads didn't really put up much of a showing against a pair of 5-man Marine squads, both armed with flamers. On the other hand, the Archon was absolutely the star of the game, withstanding 4 rounds of close combat (two of which were him vs. the entirety of the opposing force's models). Next time the group meets will be a 500 point match, which means I have some work to do over the next week and a half - finishing off the Warrior's Raider, and the addition of a 10-man (well, mostly woman) squad of Wyches.


I neglected to take a pic of them in their built state, so we'll just dive in with the purples, shall we? The Wyches wear far less armor than their Warrior cousins, so I started off by just picking out the actual armour plates in purple and roughed in the skintones. The initial intent in my mind was "purple armour, yellow cloth" but I hesitated to do all the skinsuits in yellow as well as the various little loincloths and whatnot, fearing they'd end up a bit TOO yellow. A friend suggested going with black skinsuits to amp up the menace a bit, which sounded like a good plan!


Little bit of a sark grey highlight on the black here and there, and laid in the yellow cloth and the initial blued steel. Starting to come together now! Definitely a case where painting the bases will really help 'em pop - I generally wait until towards the end to do so, but may at least get the basic earthtones down just to see how the black skinsuits work out and make the call whether they need to be a different color...

40k Dark Eldar - Wych Cult painting continues, and a NOCF Charity Update!

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Quick hit this evening - It was reasonably temperate today and after knocking out the weekly chores around the house I managed to sneak in some brush time and continued work on the Wych cult.


The first step was laying in the gold - definitely adds some definition to the models and helped me find a couple areas of purple and yellow that I'd missed initially, so those got cleaned up as well.


Next up was the dirty white hair and the start of the eyes which really helps frame the faces, then the various gems and agonizer got the green treatment. Once that was on the initial earthtones were added to the various leather bits and the bases, which really help 'em start to pop. Lots of little things to do yet, but at this point I'm liking how they're coming along!

In other news, the NOCF charity raffle that includes the Orks I'd worked on has gone live, and here's the scoop on how you can get your hands on some sweet models for a great cause! Info courtesy of the ever-amazing Dave Taylor:

Raffle tickets are now on sale, and can be purchased HERE. And 95% of all money raised from the raffles goes directly to the various charities we support - Doctors Without Borders, The Breast Cancer Research Foundation, and The Fisher House Foundation.

Important things to note are:

• You can buy tickets from anywhere in the world!
• We will ship to ANYWHERE in the world with a valid mailing address!
• You DO NOT have to be present at the NOVA Open to win!
• A minimum spend of $10 is required.

Please spread the word, and this link (http://novaopenfoundation.org/?tcp_product_category=raffle) and help us raise more money than in any previous year!

40k Dark Eldar - Quite a bit of progress!

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Hope all our stateside readers had a safe and happy 4th of July, and for everyone else, I hope that your Monday was tolerable! Had a three day weekend which meant I had some extra hobby time, and ended up being rather productive - finished off the Wyches, got darn near the finish line with the Warrior's Raider, and got some build time in as well. Woo!


The Wyches got a little further touch up, the bases were finished and flocked, and they're more or less good to go! A couple of the eyes are still a little wonky when blown up to 400% size but they don't look quite so odd in person. Can always justify it as "the combat drugs are kicking in, maaaaaan..." Hah!


Got stuck in on the Warrior's Raider as well, rather near the finish line. Took it up to the first sealant pass so I could lay in a couple waterslide transfers on the sail and banner, but think that it needs some tribal linework on the hull to break it up a little. The Warrior's Raider was always going to be rather unadorned compared to the Wyches' and Archon's Raiders, but this is a little TOO spartan I think. More to come on that one!


While I was about it I rewarded myself with a little build time and got the unit of Scourges built. These hadn't been released yet by the time I'd sold my previous Dark Eldar army, but I knew that they were a must-buy for this project - they're my favorite sculpts of the line and I am really looking forward to painting them up!

40k Dark Eldar - Scourges painting begins, and it's not bad living in Colorado

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Some decent forward progress on the Scourges over the last few days, but first I thought I'd point out that sometimes it's pretty awesome living in Colorado. Over this past weekend some friends and I went down to Red Rocks Amphitheater for a concert, which is hands down the best place to see a show in Colorado, and is often suggested to be in the top 10 best venues in the US, if not the world. In addition to the awesome venue itself, it's surrounded by a beautiful park as well and we generally head down there 3-4 hours before the show and set up for some tailgating and revelry amongst the lovely terrain!


Not a bad way to spend a Saturday afternoon/evening! Marinated shrimp skewers, corn on the cob and beef tenderloin over the portable grill, delicious local microbrews, and blueberry pie for afters. What's not to like?


Enough of that Real Life(tm) nonsense though, let's talk little space dudes! Got the purples and whitish-greys done and started in on the silver and gold bits before being driven from the hobby loft by the heat. So far so good though, rather liking the dichotomy between the angelic and daemonic wings, decided all the special weapons troopers would use the batwing style to help pick them out on the tabletop as well. Been rather fun painting up the unit so far, hoping to have 'em done in plenty of time for the next escalation league step!



40k Dark Eldar - Corsair Lord and Haemonculus built

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Not as much in the way of hobby progress this past weekend, though it was filled with 40k gaming goodness! Continued on with the Rogue Trader campaign I'm running for some friends on Sunday, and Saturday I participated in the 500pt stage of the escalation league at the Warhammer shop. Unfortunately my opponent's army was unpainted and he had a... liberal interpretation of movement distance and a few of the rules so it was a little disappointing - didn't get any pics worth sharing. That said, a mediocre game is still better than no game, I suppose! I did manage to put together a couple models for the force Sunday night, so it wasn't totally a bust.


Nothing too special here, just an out-of-the-box Haemonculus for the force - he'll accompany the Wyches to provide them with a boost to their Power from Pain turn count, as they desperately need some sort of save for the first turn or two. I have to say I'm very impressed with the way the model was designed, it is really a testament to what GW has been able to do with plastics these days.


I've been intending to do a second squad of counts-as Warriors for the force, the intent of which is to do a unit of Corsair pirates utilizing a mix of bits from the standard DE sprues and the fantasy Black Ark Corsairs. To lead the unit I picked up one of the Dark Elf characters to use as a basis for the Sybarite and put together this model. I'm thinking all of the corsairs will use the full-face helms as they seem appropriate for the space pirate theme!

I'll admit to feeling a bit of army fatigue with these pointy-eared gits (and I've already got the 750pt force painted up for next league day), so I think it may be time to return to the Scions of Magnus for a while...

40k Dark Eldar - Scourges painted, and I'm slightly deaf!

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Yesterday evening I was able to go and see the Peter Gabriel/Sting collaboration concert and it was absolutely epic! Both of 'em (and both their bands) on stage at the same time, taking it in turns to do one another's music. Hands down the best show I've seen this year!


As it was a late night and I have a fair bit of vacation time racked up I went ahead and took today off, which afforded me some mid-week hobby time in the morning while it's still cool up in the loft. Took advantage and finished up the Scourges:


They ended up being somewhat challenging to photographs, there's all sorts of focal issues on so many large-ish models at once. Doh! All in all I'm pretty happy with how they turned out, though as usual in taking the pics I noted some various things that need to be cleaned up. Never fails!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Contemptor painting continues

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As mentioned a few posts ago I'm starting to get army fatigue painting the pointy-eared gits, and with NOVA approaching I figured I'd better shift gears and get back to the Thousand Sons. Last week Forge World put the newest updated "red book" up for pre-order, which contains all the collated and updated rules for the generic legion army lists gathered from the first five Horus Heresy books and associated FAQs (the previous red book only covered the first three books). While I absolutely adore the big leatherbound tomes and all the gorgeous art and fun fluff found within, for gaming purposes it's really hard to go wrong with the slim and trim red books. That book as well as several others are now winging their way to my doorstep, at which point I'll be able to tweak the NOVA army lists a bit based on the various point changes (of which there are many and varied, so the NOVA list is going to be heavily revamped). All that said, I do plan on taking both of the Contemptors, so best get cracking!


The next step after the reds are the metallics, with the underpinning body structures and weapons given the boltgun metal/badab black/boltgun metal treatment (they'll benefit from a further silver highlight, judging by these pics) and the gold/reikland fleshshade/gold on the various trim pieces (again, looking to need a further highlight pass).


Next up is a blue laid in on everything intended to be white, as well as weapons and eyes which will of course continue to be blue. The white parts got a hit of Ghost Grey, while the blue gets a guilliman blue wash. Both the white and the blue will get further highlights, but as it was 85F in the loft at this point I had to flee for cooler climes and attach the next steps this coming weekend, when I can get some dedicated brush time in during the cool of the morning!

Still quite a lot of work yet to do but it definitely feels good to be getting back the the Sons!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Contemptor Dreadnoughts complete!

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Got in a fair bit of hobby time this morning and managed to finish off the Contemptor dreads - huzzah!


First up is the ever-popular twin Kheres Assault Cannon toting Contemptor Mortis. Equally adept at mowing down infantry and light vehicles, it also doubles as a mobile anti-air platform.

  

The second dread packs a plasma cannon and a plasma blastgun in its powerclaw. I tried to do a coruscating power look on the plasma coils on the cannon, relatively pleased with how it turned out.

Next up are the assault squad and a couple more characters!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Assault Squad Mekhata painting begins, and some characters!

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A reasonably quiet weekend for a change, which meant some extra hobby time in the mornings before it got too hot in the hobby loft. After finishing off the Contemptors, I took a look and the proposed army list for NOVA and pulled out the next batch of minis intended to make the trip out to the east coast, namely Assault Squad Mekhata, and a couple characters.


Nothing too fancy so far, just laying in all the base reds. Naturally as part of this process I managed to knock over the pot of Carroburg Crimson wash and make a huge mess. Stopped by the GW shop and picked up one of the new bigger wash bottles, which of course only means that the next time I tip it over, it's going to be an even bigger mess!


While I was about it I laid in the reds on a couple character models for the force as well, another Sorcerer (you can't have too many Sorcerers in a Thousand Sons army after all), the special edition Tartaros Praetor and an Apothecary to accompany one of the tactical squads. In general the Apothecaries in the Heresy eschew the 'all-white' aesthetic of their modern 40k brethren, but he'll be getting some white detailing here and there to help him stand out a bit.


Lastly, on a lark I broke out the bits boxes and tried knocking together the first of the basic Corsairs. Pretty straightforward - legs, arms and front torso from the Kabalite Warriors kit, the cape/rear torso from the Black Ark Corsairs kit (which requires a fair bit of cutting and carving to fit, and the creepy helmet from the Wych kit. The initial intent was to use the similar blank-faced helmets from the Reaver kits but it turns out the rear scalloped armor on those heads interferes with the spiky collars on the corsair cloaks. Off to the bits sellers to come up with more Wych heads, it seems!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Assault squad and characters painting continues

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It's been brutally hot here of late, so it's only been brief forays into the hobby loft after work this week. That said, a bit more forward motion on the Thousand Sons is always a good thing!


After undercoating all the relevant areas in light blue, the whites were applied, the blues were washed down, and the gold and silver areas were picked out. Next up will be the various leather and bone colored areas such as holsters and weapon housings. So far so good!


The three characters got the same treatment, though their work was considerably slower due to all the extra details on the models compared to the basic troopers. Haven't quite decided on the color of the sorcerer's cloak. Going with blue on the interior, but undecided between white with red trim or perhaps black with white/yellow arcane symbols for the outside... Open to suggestions!
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