More Legions Imperialis Blood Angels and a Big Terrain Feature

These past two weeks, I mainly painted some more Blood Angels for my Legions Imperialis collection, finishing up the Missile Support Marines from the last post and putting some good work into my flyers. In the bigger scale, I also worked on the base colours for a Zone Mortalis board.

Pict 1444: Legions Imperialis Blood Angels on the Defense

Pict 1445: Legions Imperialis Blood Angels Missile Launcher Support Marines

First up, I finished the Missile Launcher Support Marines for Legions Imperialis. The eye lenses were a bit tricky since they are not only incredibly small but also hidden behind the arms holding up the launchers. Nevertheless I'm quite happy with them! They even got to feature in another game, in which they did less than usual, but still were a menace. I do hope to get through the remainder of the infantry at a similar rate. In batches of four they don't take that long and, what's more, they don't drive me insane by the sheer number of them!

Pict 1446: Legions Imperialis Emplacement

Pict 1447: Legions Imperialis Emplacement

I also painted up this small scrach built emplacement in the small scale to add something more to my photos of LI miniautures. Its made from some plastic scrap, a LI Sicaran turret, a 28mm Razorback Lascannon and a few random bits. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out – it is simple, but that means it wont take away from the miniatures I want to photograph along side it.

Pict 1448: Aeronautica / Legions Imperialis Blood Angels Air Force (WIP)

I also got to do some work on a bunch of flyers for my Legions Imperialis / Aeronautica Collection. The decals really do some heavy lifting to add details without having to paint them. And once the oilwash is on there, the model starts to come together. I already painted in the canopies and adding some highlights to the details as well as the bigger black and red surfaces should not take that much longer!

Pict 1449: Zone Mortalis Reactor (WIP)

Lastly I also invested a few evenings to work on some more 28mm terrain, in this case a tile for my Zone Mortalis board. While I played a few games of Heresy ZM at a club and I would really like to do that with my own collection, for now, these will probably be used in smaller skirmish style games such as Inq28 or even Necromunda. I love Mortian's reactor as a center piece - it practically paints itself. The GW board, however, does take some patience to fill in all the grey panels. As with the flyers, I'm very much looking forward to putting oils on the terrain piece and weathering it up with some pigments!

Catching up: Legions Imperialis, an Ent and more Badab Enforcers

Summer has almost begun and travels, the good weather and the Real Life™ have taken their toll on my hobby time. While I did not paint that much since my last post (Six weeks ago! I do apologize!), I was not idle but managed to build quite a lot for my Legions Imperialis Blood Angels, play a few games and work on other, smaller projects.

Pict 1440: Legions Imperialis Drop Pods and Fast Attack (WIP)

First up, I built and primed a set of Dreadnought Drop Pods as well as two sets of the Legion Fast Attack box. I will have to get another box of the former and I'm once again very impressed with the detail on these small miniatures. I also got to use some of them in a game already and I was quite impressed with the Jetbikes – they have quite the output with their bolters!

Pict 1441: Legions Imperialis Missile Launcher Support Marines (WIP)

Speaking of games - these Missile Launcher Support Marines do put in the work every time. Their ability to ignore cover makes them great at clearing out infantry out of buildings. Because of that I decided to make them the next few miniatures to finish up.

Pict 1442: Ent (Reposed)

Whilst building the Legions minis, I also reposed this plastic Ent to fill out my Fangorn collection. I think this one will be painted up as a birch. There is a bit of variety in the kit – but I feel like it does show its age and the poses you can get out of it just stock are limited. Nevertheless with a bit of wire and Green Stuff you can get them to be a bit more dynamic.

Pict 1443: Badab Enforcers Subjugators and Tauros Venator (WIP)

Lastly I found some second hand Subjugators for my Badab Enforcers and also got one of the Tauros Venators for the group. A lovely kit and I'm very much looking forward to painting them all up!

Treebeard and Orcs

Long time no see! Man, the real-life did take over for a few weeks there... Still, I managed to finish Treebeard as well as two more Mordor Orcs to play at a tournament. I also did some more work on a load more Orcs and Warg Riders as well as building some more reinforcements for my Legions Imperialis Blood Angels.

Pict 1433: Treebeard

Pict 1434: Treebeard

Pict 1435: Treebeard

I love this older metal version of Treebeard! I like it better than the new one, because you can see how it was done by hand with putty. He does look a bit small in comparison with the Forge World Quickbeam, but he still towers over the normal infantry of MESBG. Once again, adding the foliage really brought the model to life! Playing the three Ent heroes with Merry and Pippin on Treebeard's back at the tournament was great fun even if some match ups were not optimal.

Pict 1436: Mordor Orcs

Pict 1437: Mordor Orcs

These two Mordor Orcs with shield and spear were the missing pieces to get my Black Gate army up to 500 points for the tournament. In the end I did not play the list at all, but I'm pretty happy with the paint jobs. The conversions are a bit older, but alright. If I was to do them now, I'd probably try and use the superior metal Orcs as the base. Still, I really like the looted Númenor shield with the eye of Sauron painted over it!

Pict 1438: Mordor Orcs, Warg Riders and Sharkû (WIP)

While I painted the two Orcs I needed, I also pulled out a smattering of similar miniatures – some more Orcs and the Warg Riders, I keep putting of. I added in Sharkû and Wild Warg Chieftain into the latter ones. They all are now basecoated and washed and hopefully wont take to long to highlight.

Pict 1439: Legions Imperialis Drop Pods and Land Raider Proteus Explorers

Now, since there were a few more miniatures released for Legions Imperialis, I had to get a load of the Drop Pods to add to my Blood Angels. These are really lovely models! I am in love with the fact that they work exactly like the 28mm versions. From a gameplay perspective it would have been nice, to get more of them in a box and sacrifice the movable parts. Nevertheless, while I will play with them, I love them this way from a modelling perspective.

Great Fangorn Forest to high Orthanc hill, shall come against him

Six more miniatures finished to show this time around: I painted up Quickbeam the Ent for a tournament coming up in April and then put the finishing touches on a squad of Infinity minatures I had laying around from last year.

Pict 1426: Quickbeam the Ent

Pict 1427: Quickbeam

Pict 1428: Quickbeam

First up is Quickbeam, one of the newer models available for the Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game. I am really happy with the different tones I managed to put on him to change up the somewhat monotonous brown you often see on Ents. The 3d sculpted texture was a bit bland for my taste, but once the green flock was on he really came together.

Pict 1429: Ghulam Infantry, Kaplans, Al'Hawwa

These Infinity miniatures were another project that got left behind last year. After watching the new Dune movie I got the itch to finish them. They were only missing the faces and some highlights and the finishing touches were done over a few weekday evenings. I'm pretty happy with them and there are a few more miniatures in my collection that would fit this Kaplan / Qapu Khalqi theme. But I fear, they will be postponed until I manage to get a game in.

Pict 1430: Treebeard (WIP)

For now, there are some more Middle-earth figures to do for an upcoming tournament in April. One of them is this treebeard here. Since Quickbeam went pretty quickly, I hope to finish Treebeard soon as well. Of course he's carrying Merry and Pippin who will need some more attention, but I'm looking forward to it!

Pict 1431: Neferata on foot (Conversion)

Pict 1432: Neferata on foot (Conversion)

Lastly, whilst I had some green stuff mixed up to fill the gaps on Treebeard, I also finished this conversion of Neferata on foot. Since last I showed her, I filled the gaps between the two kits I used and resculpted parts of the skirt that were damaged during the construction. Hardest was to figure out how to connect the long and flowing sleeves to the back of her dress (the mounted version hides this with her throne). I'm pretty happy with the result and look forward to painting her!

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.

Pict 1418: Blood Angels Tartaros Command and Veterans

Pict 1419: 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.

Pict 1421: 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.

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!

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.

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!

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.

Pict 1414: Old Vampires stir up the local cemetary

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.

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.

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...

Blood Angels Elites

I started painting two more units and attached characters for my Heresy Blood Angels on the occasion of an upcoming Zone Mortalis tournament: a Tartaros Praetor and a Tartaros Command Squad as well as a unit of Veterans with their Apothecary.

Pict 1412: Blood Angels Tartaros Command Squad (WIP)

First up, here is my leader for the Zone Mortlis list: A Praetor in Tartaros Terminator armour (using the beautiful limited edition Legion Praetor from 2016) and a Command Squad all in Tartaros armour as well. I used the more ornate pieces from the plastic kit to set them appart from other Terminators. The Legion Banner comes from the Grey Knights Terminators removing the embossed detailing and smoothing everything out with a layer of Green Stuff. The topper is made from a Vexillum. The banner should help out during the game by enabling the unit to score objectives – they should do great as a strike team!

I put on a selection of decals on them to make them stand out even more. Sadly the banner was to small for the amazing big decal from the ForgeWorld sheet. Combining some of the smaller ones should look good as well, though.

Pict 1413: Blood Angels Veterans (WIP)

It was really difficult to decide on a load out for these Veterans – there is so much choice! In the end I went with a smattering of Perdition weapons and Lightning Claws for the close combat. Two Heavy Flamers and Combi-Flamers should help with thinning out enemies in the confines of the Zone Mortalis.

For now, they and the attached Apothecary had some work on the base colours done. I think I will continue with them to catch them up with the Terminators and then do the oil wash on all of them at the same time.