DreadTober Week Three: Armand Titus, Howling Griffons Chaplain Dreadnough

This week, I managed to finish the first DreadTober miniature: Armand Titus, the Howling Griffon Champlain Dreadnought, that will lead my small contingent of the chapter set during the Badab War. I also made some more headway on the Dreadnoughts for my Blood Angels.

Pict 1486: Armand Titus leading a squad of Howling Griffons

Pict 1487: Armand Titus, Howling Griffons Chaplain Dreadnought

Pict 1488: Armand Titus, Howling Griffons Chaplain Dreadnought

Pict 1489: Armand Titus, Howling Griffons Chaplain Dreadnought

Putting the finishing touches on Titus really only took one evening – completing my (initial) DreadTober pledge and readying him up to lead my growing Howling Griffons collection! After highlighting the important details I also put on some free-hand writing: the nubers on the skulls and most importantly his name on the left shoulder pad to mirror the one artwork he appears in. His right shoulder only has a decal of the number four since he is part of the chapter's fourth company. I also could not help myself and dated him on the exhaust to remind myself that he is this year's DreadTober miniature. I'm really quite pleased with the miniature – reviving my Chaplain Dreadnought of yore after quite some time collecting the correct OOP ForgeWorld pieces.

Pict 1490: DreadTober Blood Angels Dreadnoughts (WIP)

The two Blood Angels Dreadnoughts had the last remaining base colours done – especially cleaning up the red armour around the gold trim took some time. The decals as well as the oilwash are on them now and I can see myself finish at least the Boxnought until the end of the month. But I also recently saw a great Conversion of a 30k Castraferrum that sported the Havoc launcher from the vehicle sprue, so I might just go ahead and add that on this one as well...

The Dreadnought Drop Pod might have to be sidelined for now. Even so, I'm glad to have started painting it. If I can muster the motivation, I'd like to paint the thing next month alongside my Kharybids... We'll see how it goes!

Raven Guard Recons and DreadTober begins!

Sometimes you just really get into a project – this happened to me these past two weeks and I quickly finished the Raven Guard Recon Marines, I had converted and shown of in the last post and built a Centurion to lead them. I also got a start on my DreadTober Dreadnoughts!

Pict 1472: Ravan Guard Recons securinh a communications shrine

Pict 1473: Raven Guard Recon Squad

Pict 1474: Raven Guard Recon Squad

These really painted up quite fast! I managed to put on the base colours more neatly after a black prime and the grey zenithal. This left me with only a few touch ups and detailwork to do after an oil wash. As always, I documented the steps of painting in a recipe to remember them for later. They are a bit simpler than my Blood Angels but since I kept the bases the same, they should fit right in nonetheless.

Pict 1475: Chaplain Dreadnoughts (WIP)

I also put the base colours and transfers on my Howling Griffons Chaplain - these went on really quickly! The next step will be the oilwash. But I also might get moving with the Blood Angel Dreadnought I want to paint as a strech goal. With the good progess so far, the additional goal seems not that far off!

Pict 1476: Raven Guard Delegatus Centorion (WIP)

After painting the Recons, I had to also think about a HQ unit to lead them as an allied detachement. While a Vigilator sure would make sense to put with them, I also would like to be able to run them as an actual Recon Company with the Rite of War. This means either using a Praetor or the Centurion Delegatus as the budget version. I liked the idea of the latter and looked for inspiration to show the Centurion's station. As far as I can see the only miniature released as a Delegatus is the 2015 event-exclusive Alpha Legion Autilon Skorr. He is sporting a baton which I liked and repeated on my conversion. Other than that the base model is the venerable ForgeWorld production MkV with some added green stuff at the hips and neck for additional hight. I also kept the option to run him as a Vigilator open and gave him a Nemesis bolter converted in the same manner to ones on my Recon Marines. I'm pretty happy with the way he's looking and can't wait to paint him up and more importantly run him in a game!

Converting Recon Marines and Chaplain Dreadnoughts

Just a quick post to show some building / converting I have done over the past two weeks: A small squad of Recon Marines with Nemesis Bolters, ready to be painted as a part of a small Raven Guard allied detachment for my Horus Heresy Blood Angels. And two Castra Ferrum Dreadnought, both of them the venerable Chaplain Dreadnought sculpt from ForgeWorld.

Pict 1469: Raven Guard Recon Marines (Conversion)

Pict 1470: Raven Guard Recon Marines (Conversion)

I had quite a few ideas floating around in my head after last month's campaign day. But one that just had to be done was to convert some Recon Marines with Nemesis Bolters. They do seem quite useful in the game and just look great! I plan to paint them as a small Raven Guard allied detachment – a small part of the shattered legion that lend their skills in forward deployment to my Blood Angels.
The models were converted using the plastic Mk VI marines. I removed some detail on the chest armour and replaced it with detailing reminicent of the Raven Guard Dark Furies. The cloaks are made with Green Stuff – at fist only the rough shape before attaching the backpack. Once that had cured I added smaller whisps of Green Stuff to the edges to make them look less uniform and lastly texturing them with a layer of Vallejo Plastic Putty roughly stippled on to hide some of the seams that I could not iron out. The Nemesis Bolters use parts of the Grey Knight's Interceptor backpacks – using the longer teleporter rods to extend the barrels and the shorter ones to create a sight on top.

Pict 1471: Mk IV Chaplain Dreadnoughts (WIP)

Whilst converting I also worked on this pair of Chaplain Dreadnoughts. Both of them are eBay rescues and one of them was in a somewhat sorry state. The one with Lascannon will be part of my Howling Griffons to represent Chaplain Dreadnought Armand Titus that was part of force that participated in the Badab War. The other one had a bit more surgery done to make it fit in more with my Heresy Blood Angels, most notably I used a Dremel to make space for one of the Forge World Mk IV Blood Angels helmets. I really enjoyed posing these two. Whilst the boxy frame can feel a bit clumsy I'm very happy with what I came up with – one of them braced on a rock to surveil the battlefield, the other leaning forward to get ready for close combat. I plan to paint at least one of them for this year's Dreadtober. Will I manage to paint both of them?

Meltas for all the Blood Angels

In the past few weeks, I was quite productive and finished up another set of Horus Heresy Blood Angels. With these under my belt, I also got around to some more Howling Griffons, that lay around for about a year.

Pict 1454: Blood Angels Melta Support Squad

Pict 1455: Blood Angels Melta Support Squad

Pict 1456: Blood Angels Melta Support Squad

I did not quite finish these Blood Angels in time for last week's Campaign day, but they were far enough to see play. After three amazing games, my mind was fired up with new ideas for my Heresy marines. And I really wanted to finish the Melta Support Squad, the Rhino and the two characters. Doing the highlighting took some time, especially glazing the red armour, but I'm very happy to have done it now. I love the way the heat bloom looks on the squad's Melta guns.

Pict 1457: Blood Angels Rhino

Pict 1458: Blood Angels Rhino

Pict 1459: Blood Angels Rhino

Pict 1460: Blood Angels Rhino

The Support Squad also got their dedicated transport of a Rhino. Again using the Mars pattern but with the ForgeWorld Icon on one side and an additional icon on the back hatch. The big flat panels of the vehicle really lend themselves to weathering such as scratches. Really god fun to paint up!

Pict 1461: Blood Angels Moritat and Boarding Marine

Pict 1462: Blood Angels Moritat and Boarding Marine

The Moritat did get to do a bit in Zone Mortalis, winning me one game by running down the enemy Warlord. They even improved over the games, since there was a character experience system in place. I was originally not perfectly happy with the pose, especially the sword is quite hidden. But theay have grown on me and I can't wait to use them in some more games.
The Boarding Marine came out great as well. I painted them up to fit into my Breacher squad but I guess they will see litte time on the gaming table. It's really a shame that there is no regular way to kit out a Breacher squad with melee weapons.

Pict 1463: Howling Griffons Veterans purging a Zone Mortalis

Pict 1464: Howling Griffons Veterans

After finishing the Blood Angels, I got right onto another set of Space Marines and finished up six more Howling Griffons that I started last October. I said back then, that the highlights should not take long. And in fact I managed to do it during the course of a morning – only about a year later... Nevertheless, I'm very happy with the way they came out. They are a bit rougher than the Blood Angels – perfectly fitting for smaller games set during the Badab War!

Pict 1465: Blood Angels Kharybdis Assault Claw (WIP)

One last thing, the campaign day inspired me to do, was to stick together this Kharybdis Assault Claw. Its a massive beast, weighing in at pretty much exactly one kilogram of ForgeWorld resin! I purchased the Kharybdis used and took it apart at the start of the year. And having now put it together and even started basecoating it, I'm super happy with it and can't wait to get it to th tabletop once more. (Of course it saw about five minutes of game time before getting shot out of the sky...)

Starting DreadTober 2023: A Castra Ferrum for the Blood Angels

It's the start of October and that does mean, among other things, it's the start of DreadTober, one of the fun community challanges of the hobby year. This time around I will paint up a boxy Castra Ferrum Dreadnought for my Blood Angels. A stretch goal will be a Dreadnought Drop Pod as a delivery system. But I do also want to finish some squads for my Blood Angels Legion to play them in an upcoming tournament.

Pict 1359: Blood Angels MK IV Castra Ferrum Dreadnought (WIP)

So, onto the juicy bits: After showing the Castra Ferrum conversion last post, I primed him up and started to put some paint on him. I really love the boxnought's silhouette and I'm very happy with the conversion. The painting process really just flows along. The basecolours are almost done. After that I will put on decals and an oilwash. This sould all go rather fast. It's super enjoyable!

Pict 1360: Deadnought Drop Pod (WIP)

To keep things interesting, I want to add this Dreadnought Drop Pod as a stretch goal to this years Dreadtober. Once again, I got this miniature for rather cheap on the second hand market. It was, however, in a really sorry state. One of the hinges was broken so the previous owner glued the doors shut and covered all of the hinges in a layer of milliput.
I have by now managed to disasseble the whole thing and have gotten rid of the paintjob as well as the putty. There will probably be some residual super glue on the doors but I can live with that. The next steps will be to finish repairing the broken hinge, installing some magnets and metal pieces to keep the doors shut and then reassembling the miniature.

Pict 1361: Blood Angels Inductii Despoilers and Consul (WIP)

The Inductii Despoilers and the Consul sat somewhat idely during the last two weeks. They have had their oilwash done and had a first layer of varnish to seal the oils in. After that, however, they collected dust. I find myself in the mode to basecoat, being less careful and not using the wet palette I'd use for highlighting.

Pict 1362: Blood Angels Mortalis Destryers and Aster Crohne (WIP)

Pict 1363: Blood Angels Rhino with Reinforced Armour (WIP)

As I mentioned in my last post, I have signed up for a Heresy tournament. I easily have the required 2000 points painted, but why not use that opportunity to finish some more of the backlog. After the Inductii Despoilers, I also want to finish these ten Destryoers and their Rhino. And of course I also added in the appropriate character in the form of Aster Crohne, even if he will probably not be part of my tournament list. So while putting the base colours on the Dreadnought, I did the same to them. The tournament is at the start of November – we'll see how far I can get until then!

Pict 1364: Howling Griffons Veterans and Captain (WIP)

Lastly, since I'm clearly not working on enough Space Marines, I also put the base colours and an oil wash on some more Howling Griffons. I had started the black armour quite a while ago and they should be done rather quickly now as well.

Radukar the Beast for #MonsterMarch

I just about managed to finish Radukar the Beast, my #MonsterMarch project during the last few hours of march. Before that I was distracted by the five Badab Enforcers but I also got those done.

Pict 1289: Radukar the Beast and Vyrkos Bloodborn Attendants

Pict 1290: Radukar the Beast and Vyrkos Bloodborn Attendants

Pict 1291: Radukar the Beast and Vyrkos Bloodborn Attendants

I'm really quite happy with how Radukar came out in the end. I dreaded painting the pale skin because I remeber this being the hardest part to get right when I painted the laset few vampires from the Cursed City box. But with the help of the wet palette this was significantly easier. I also like the eyes I painted on Radukar – the faces on the two Vyrkos Bloodborn were a bit more difficult and don't look quite as good...

Pict 1292: Badab Enforcers

Pict 1293: Badab Enforcers

Pict 1294: Badab Enforcers

The Badab Enforcers really came together with the highlights sponged on and a brown oil wash. I did go back in with a few smaller brushed on highlights, but not that much. I like how fast these were to paint and the dirty, grimy effect of relying on the sponge to do highlighting and texturing at the same time.

When I did the bases, I also went back to the Howling Griffons to add some pigment to them as well. I also gave them a small little decal of the chapter icon on the shoulders were appropriate, since I had acquired some late last year but had not used them yet.

Pict 1295: Fell Bats (WIP)

Continuing on from these two projects, I started on the Fell Bats needed for the first Cursed City expansion. The base colours went down quickly. After the washes I hope to finish the highlighting equally as fast. But having started them, I appreciate these amazing new sculpts even more!

Pict 1296: Howling Griffons Captain and Sternguard Veterans

I also started to paint up some more of the beautiful metal Space Marine Veterans for my Badab War Howling Griffons. The one with the Thunder Hammer is the 2008 Games Day Captain, the others are assorted Sternguard Veterans. The process of sponging ran even smoother this time with some new reverse-action tweezers instead of normal ones. Oh, the joys of new tools!

The Butterfly's Tally 2022

Happy New Year! 2022 has drawn to a close and as is customary this calls for a tally of what I painted, comparing it to my resolutions from the start of the year and make some new resolutions.

Final Miniatures of 2022

Pict 1257: Blitz Bowl Face Off

Pict 1258: Blitz Bowl Dwarves

Pict 1259: Blitz Bowl Dwarves

But first, here are the last few minatures I managed to paint in 2022 – the Dwarf Blitz Bowl team. As with the humans, I did not go for my normal painting standard but a bit below that. I'm not perfectly happy with them, but they look good enough to play with. The major hurdle was the orange... I really hate the bottle of Lava Orange by The Army Painter, I have here. The paint simply does not cover well. But then again, I don't paint that shade of orange that often, so I did not want to buy a similar colour by a different manufacturer and powered through.

With that I've finished a grand total of 131 minatures this year. Just a little bit more than 2021 – a double success! And with this number in mind, we are already into...

The Hobby Tally 2022

So, these were my resolutions for this year:

• 20 Warhammer Fantasy / Age of Sigmar miniatures
•  19 models painted plus 10 Blood Bowl balls and markers – I'd call that one done
  
• 10 Infinity miniatures
• not a single one painted...
  
• 10 MESBG miniatures
• easily done by Erebor Dwarves alone
  
• 10 miniatures by independent creators
• only the five Mjowls from the very start of the year...
  
• 10 pieces of terrain
• about half way there with a set of dwarven doors, the 5 pieces of the crashed Aquila Lander and a few bits of 40k scatter
  
  

Looking at it now, that is still quite a lot of stuff and while I managed to fulfill about half of these promts, I fear the hobby butterfly effect really prevented me from getting to the rest. For example, at the start of the year, I did not imagine painting the Blood Angels (more on those later). And the models also reflect the games I played or did not play – since I mostly dropped out of Infinity, I did not paint a single miniature for this system... Still I'm pretty happy with what I achieved and looking back at these goals will inform the resolutions I want to make for this upcoming year!

And if you want so look back at my progress of previous years, here are the links to the tallies of the past: The Tally 2017, The Tally 2018, The Tally 2019, The Tally 2020, The Tally 2021

 

Other big projects of 2022

There are some other projects I want to highlight, looking at my Middle-earth miniatures first:

Pict 1136: Mordor Troll Chieftain

Pict 1139: Mordor Troll Chieftain vs. Aragorn Elessar

Right at the start of the year, I converted and painted two Mordor Troll Chieftains – the second one stepping on an unfortunate Aragorn. I'm still really happy with the two of them and they take a place of pride in my cabinet.

Pict 1196: Númenorean Banner Bearer

In June I painted this Númenorean banner bearer to enter into the Middle-earth painting competition over on Instagram. While I did not make it that far in the competition, I really enjoyed the opportunity to challenge myself, especially with the freehand on the banner itself.

Pict 1210: The Nazgûl of Dol Guldur

The Nazgûl of Dol Guldur were a great project to do over the summer. For one I did not have that much time to paint during august and september and the Ringwraiths seemed like a nice and enclosed project to get back into the swing of things. And of course I got to experiment with texturing the cloth which came out great. If I were to redo the banner bearer from earlier, I'd do that to the black and white textiles for sure!

Pict 1163: Howling Griffons Sternguard Veterans

Other than my adventures in Middle-earth, I mainly spent the year painting Space Marines. I had not thought it possible (man, I still love the little space mans!), but first Arbitor Ian got me back into them with his series on the Badab War; the result of which are these Howling Griffons.

Pict 1260: 2022 Blood Angels Legion

Pict 1232: Blood Angels Contemptor

But of course the big thing was the release of the new edition of the Horus Heresy. First up, here is a photo showing my painted collection as it stands right now. I'm pretty impressed with myself that I was able to stick to it so well. It's Arbitor Ian again with his Tale of Four Gamers series that's kept me on track here. And of course participating in Dreadtober was a highlight for the project! Posting progress every week and seeing what everyone else was up to was great fun and amazing to get to know other bloggers!

Hobby resolutions for 2023

Seeing how I did and did not achive my goals last year, I want to set my new targets with an eye to playing the games. I find that to be one of the best motivations to actually paint my models. But of course I will always get swept of track, so my first three goals are somewhat small asks. I also want to try and finish some more terrain and especially get some progress on with the modular gaming board. Lastly, I again want to paint over 100 miniatures in total. While I have not painted less in the last few years I still want the ecouragement of a goal to keep me in line. And of course I want to try again and paint / sell more than buy...

So, that's it; here is what I want to accomplish this year:

• Paint and play at least the first of the two Cursed City expansions (it's only 6 miniatures: 3 giant bats, Radukar the Beast, Lady Annika and Carmilla DuSang)
  
• Paint 5 Infinity miniatures and play a game with them
• Paint 10 MESBG miniatures
• Paint 3 more tiles of the modular gaming board as well as the rest of the Garden of Morr (that's 6 pieces of wall)
  
• Paint at least 100 miniatures in total
  

Howling Griffons Sternguard and Dwarven Heroes

These past two weeks, I finished four of the dwarven heroes from my last post: Dáin Ironfoot, King under the Mountain, Thorin III 'Stonehelm', Múrin and Drár. While highlighting, I also wanted to do some work with broader strokes and got on with the Howling Griffons in the form of a Sternguard Veteran Squad.

Pict 1163: Howling Griffons Sternguard Veterans

Pict 1164: Howling Griffons Sternguard Veterans

Pict 1165: Howling Griffons Sternguard Veterans

After last post's successful experiment in painting Space Marines, I dug out this Sternguard Veteran Squad and continued the streak. Instead of the combi-weapon the squad usually comes with, I pulled in another normal Bolter Marine so that they can double as a Tactical Squad in smaller skirmish games such as Combat Patrol or Kill Team.

Pict 1166: Dáin, King under the Mountain and Thorin III 'Stonehelm'

Pict 1167: Dáin, King under the Mountain and Thorin III 'Stonehelm'

The first two dwarves to get finished, were Thorin III 'Stonehelm' and his ageing father Dáin Ironfoot, King under the Mountain. The two of them will allow me to field my Iron Hills in the War of the Ring era – we will see, what the War in the North supplement will bring. Thorin III had his arm slightly reposed to prevent him from unsafely flailing his pick about and painted up very fast in my usual Iron Hills scheme. Dáin on the other hand took a bit more work. I only took out my Battle of the Five Armies Dáin to compare them after I had already painted quite a bit of the new Dáin. I subsequently repainted some areas and I am way more happy with him now.

Pict 1168: Dáin Ironfoot, Lord of the Iron Hills

And while I was at it, I also updated the face of Dáin on foot and riding his pig since the original paintjob from five years ago didn't quite cut it upon closer inspection.

Pict 1169: Múrin and Drár

Pict 1170: Múrin and Drár

These two Dwarves were ported over from the original Khazad-dûm line into the Iron Hills and they do look it. Still nice sculpts of adventuring dwarves always on the move, but a bit generic. Nevertheless, I look forward to trying them out in a game!

Pict 1171: Thrór and Thráin II (WIP)

Thrór and Thráin II are not quite finished yet, but should not take much longer – and after that, onwards to some more Dwarf Warriors for all these heroes to lead!