Sunday 25 February 2024

Blood Angels Big and Small

With last weeks Zone Mortalis tournament, I was somewhat pressed for time, but still managed to finish up all the Blood Angels I wanted to play. After that I spent this week finishing up some projects that lay around started on my desk – among others some more small scale Blood Angels.

Blood Angels Tartaros Command and Veterans
Pict 1418: Blood Angels Tartaros Command and Veterans
Blood Angels Tartaros Preator and Command Squad
Pict 1419: Blood Angels Tartaros Preator and Command Squad
Blood Angels Tartaros Preator and Command Squad
Pict 1420: Blood Angels Tartaros Preator and Command Squad

First up are the Tartaros Praetor and his Command Squad. The Praetor is the limied release miniature from 2016 and is the second version I painted of him – my 6th / 7th edition Flesh Tearers army made use of one as well. Anyways, a very cool miniature! I really like the Tartaros armour and getting to use the Command Squad and the Praetor during the tournament was really great.

Blood Angels Veterans and Apothecary
Pict 1421: Blood Angels Veterans and Apothecary
Blood Angels Veterans and Apothecary
Pict 1422: Blood Angels Veterans and Apothecary

These Veterans were especially built for with Zone Mortalis in mind. They are kitted out for close quarters fighting and make use of a lot of flamers to root out any enemy clumping up in the tunnels. Especially when paired up with another squad, they really chewed through enemies. During painting I followed my usual recipe, but of course they are a lot more blinged out. For example I decided to give them all gold helmets following the examples from the Liber Astartes and of course the old Black Book Malevolence.

Legions Imperialis Blood Angels Contemptors and Plasma Support
Pict 1423: Legions Imperialis Blood Angels Contemptors and Plasma Support

Since I had the fitting shades of red on my wet palette, I also finished up some more Legions Imperialis Marines. I had started them before a game to make the Plasma Support Marines stand out against the tacticals. Now that the plasma guns have had some more highlights, they should read even better. The Contemptors were painted alongside them. Simply because I love my Dreadnoughts.
This is also reflected in the numbers of miniatures bought this year. I can't wait to add some Leviathans and Deredeos into my roster!

Blood Anges Preator (reworked)
Pict 1424: Blood Anges Preator (reworked)

One of the small projects I mopped up after the big push for the tournament was this Praetor. He was done quite a while ago but I had to chop off the head for my Raldoron. I had selected and primed a head pretty much right after decapitating. But I never got around to painting it until now. There also was a bit of touching up to be done around the collar. I'm really happy with how he looks now and glad he can now be able to be fielded again.

Horus Heresy and Legions Imperialis Size Comparison
Pict 1425: Horus Heresy and Legions Imperialis Size Comparison

This also a great opportunity to do the obligatory photo comparing the size difference between the two scales. Really sets the minute detail Workshop was able to put into the small miniatures into perspective!

Sunday 11 February 2024

Old Vampires Stir

I managed to finish a few miniatures for my Undead collection, did some more work on the elite Blood Angels from last post and then started a new MESBG army project in the form of Ents with Quickbeam and Treebeard.

Old Vampires stir up the local cemetary
Pict 1414: Old Vampires stir up the local cemetary
C18 Vampira, Necromancer and Neferata
Pict 1415: C18 Vampira, Necromancer and Neferata

First up are the first finished miniatures of the year – three pieces of my Undead collection that I started right after a game of Cursed City last Halloween. The faces of the C18 Vampire and Neferata were a bit challenging to paint up with the somewhat exaggerated features of yesteryear. But I'm pretty happy with the way they look now. In comparison, the modern Necromancer really was a joy to highlight, but he does lack some of the charm the older miniatures have.
The Necromancer is the first of nineteen miniatures I want to finish this year for the second Cursed City expansion. Very good to have the first one done early in the year, but I have to try and not loose sight of them and should propably start the next batch sooner rather than later.

Blood Angels Tartaros Command and Veterans (WIP)
Pict 1416: Blood Angels Tartaros Command and Veterans (WIP)

My Blood Angels got to see action in a game of Zone Mortalis. I was really happy with the Veterans and the Terminators but my Preator really needs a more powerful weapon compared to the simple power weapon he comes with. Thankfully what he's modeled with could reasonably represent a numer of different weapons. So I'll be able to try a few permutations.
Anyways, the oilwash is dry and locked in with a coat of varnish, the detail work is coming along nicely and I'm starting with the highlighting of the red armour. Not that much more to do after that, so I should have them ready for a Zone Mortalis tournament this coming saturday.

Quickbeam and Treebeard (WIP)
Pict 1417: Quickbeam and Treebeard (WIP)

I also got to play two games of Middle-earth SBG and fell in love with a somewhat stupid list containing just the three Ent heroes Treebeard, Quickbeam and Beechbone. The latter has no official model and I used my metal Ent to represent him – the first time he saw play since I painted him almost three years ago!
Quickbeam here was only partially assembled when I played him. Glueing on the all the missing branches did not take long at all and the basecolours and washes went down fast as well. Treebeard is missing some greenstuffing before the priming. The gaps should be done quickly, but Merry is missing his right hand. I'll have to see how adequatly I can manage that...