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!

The Butterfly's Tally 2023

Happy New Year! As is tradition, the start of a year calls for reflection on the past and for plans on what to do in the upcoming cycle around the sun. I'm really quite happy with what I have achieved in 2023 and am looking forward to the projects in 2024!

Pict 1404: Sanguinius leading the Blood Angels

The Hobby Tally 2023

So to have a look back, this is what I set out to do at the start of the year and how I did:

• 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)
• I managed to paint all of these, but decided against playing just the one expansion. Ideally I'd like to start a fresh campaign with both expansions painted.
  I did, however, play one session over Halloween, which was great!

Pict 1405: Cursed City Villains of 2023

• Paint 5 Infinity miniatures and play a game with them
• In the end I painted 11 Infinity miniatures and even had a few games scheduled in, but they all did not work out in the end. I will have to be better with getting together with people to play these games!

Pict 1406: Haqqislam, Dahshat and Kaplans of 2023

• Paint 10 MESBG miniatures
• I painted 16 MESBG miniatures - not as many as in prior years, but I'm still happy with them! Again, having a game scheduled makes for great motivation to paint at least some of the miniatures you need.

Pict 1407: Mordor Orcs and Rohan Heroes of 2023

• 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)
• This is probably the biggest achievement of this year! I'm super glad to have finished a 4x4 gaming board and the Garden of Morr pieces. I still have quite a few more pieces of terrain fitting in with the collection, but I can play games at home, which is amazing.

Pict 1408: Garden of Morr Scenery 2023

• Paint at least 100 miniatures in total
• 100 is always a good and round number to aim for and of course I managed to smash this goal as well with 176 miniatures painted in total!

Looking at these resolutions and my way of achieving them makes me really happy. I did not go for to many specific projects because I know, I will get distracted over the course of the year. What could have gone better is gaming – while certainly also a question of free time, I could have been more agressive in getting together with friends. But in the final days of the year I managed to get to hobby club about an hour away and get in my first Heresy game. I do hope to contiune this trend!

If you want so look back at my painting 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, The Tally 2022

Other Big Projects of this Year

Pict 1409: Horus Heresy Blood Angels of 2023

I added quite a bit to my Blood Angels army this year: Aster Crohne, 1 Consul, 10 Mortalis Destroyers, 5 Assault Destroyers as Zephon's retinue, 1 Castra Ferrum Dreadnought, 15 Inductii Despoilers, 10 Scouts, 15 Assault Marines, 1 Rhino, 6 Seekers, 1 Avenger Strike Fighter and of course Sanguinius!
All in all 67 miniatures – quite the collection seeing it tallied up like this!

Pict 1410: Tyranids of 2023

With the new models coming for the tenth edition of 40k, I also did some work on my Tyranids. While I'm still not that enamoured with 40k, these were quite fun to get back to.

Pict 1411: Badab Enforcers of 2023

I have gotten quite a good start to a Necromunda collection without even intending to do so. I plan to use these as the bad guys in a Inquisitor game but they could also see use as a Badab War Kill Team. I should really get onto painting the Inquisitor, the retinue and some more terrain I have sloted for that project...

Hobby Plans for 2024

Which brings me nicely to the plans for the coming year. I will once again try to not be too specific and be ok with getting distracted. I also want to try and not get to swept up an the hype of new miniatures and get to the projects I already have at home. And I do want to play more games

• Paint 2 pieces of terrain each for the SciFi and the Fantasy collection
  
• Finish up the Cursed City collection. This is 10 Grave Guard, 5 Direwolves, 3 Vargheists and a Necromancer – 19 miniatures in total, the should be doable!
  
• Once again paint more than 100 miniatures
  
• Lastly, make a concerted effort to buy less new stuff, paint the stuff I have and play with it
   

Catching Up: 40k Terrain, Bats, Enforcers and Tyranids?!

So, my last post was a full four weeks ago! The Real Life™ really had its talons in me... Nevertheless, I managed to finish up a few things and and finally photograph them too: There are some Fronteris terrain pieces, reinforcements for my Badab Enforcers and Fell Bats for the Cursed City. And of course, the 40k hype train did not pass me by and I started to work on some old Tyranids.

Pict 1317: Badab Enforcers on Patrol

Pict 1318: Fronteris Landing Pad, STC Hab Bunker and Bastion Vox Array

Pict 1319: Fronteris Landing Pad, STC Hab Bunker and Bastion Vox Array

In my last post, I showd a WIP of some more 40k terrain. Shortly after this picture, I threw on an oilwash and once this had dried, put on some highlights with a sponge. And of course the finishing touch are the weathering powders. I'm really happy with these and look forward to playing a game of 30k or even 40k on them!

Pict 1320: Fell Bats

Pict 1321: Fell Bats

To get back into finishing up miniatures and highlighting (instead of just building and putting down base colours) I finished these three Fell Bats. Once again, these will be part of my Cursed City collection and do count towards my resolution of painting and playing at least of the expansions.

1322: Arachnos Rogue Dox and Orderlies, Badab Enforcers

Pict 1323: Arachnos Rogue Dox and Orderlies, Badab Enforcers

I also finished up these reinforcements for my Badab Enforcers. Once again painted to be usable as part of the Tyrant's Legion. Doctor Arachnos and especially his two cultist orderlies were a bit more of an experiment on what skin tone I could achieve with sponging and an oil wash. In the end they are a bit pale for my liking but I will call them done and be content for now.

Pict 1324: Horus Heresy Blood Angels Scouts (WIP)

Keeping with the Sci-Fi theme, I converted some Scouts for my Heresy Blood Angels. I removed the wings on their chestarmour and added some era appropriate bits such as the Thunder Edge pattern Chain Swords from the MK III kit as well as a Vexillum and a Nuncio Vox. I really like how the bare heads from the new MK VI kit look on the scout bodies. To avoid to may repeats, one of them got the obligatory Blood Angel boy band haircut.

Pict 1325: Wight King BSB (WIP)

Whilst building, I put together this Wight King BSB that was made by ForgeWorld. I recently got him in a bits lot fro really cheap sind he was missing one of the skeletons holding his banner. Thankfully a dive into the bits box rectifyed that vacancy quickly. I'm looking forward to putting paint on him; probably at the same time, I get to the Grave Guard needed for Cursed City.

Pict 1326: Trygon and Vernomthropes (WIP)

Lastly, the terrain was not the only thing that got me back into 40k. A new edition is always a chance to get back to some favourites. And of course, for me that's the Tyranids, the miniatures that started me on my hobby journey.

For now, there is not that much to show - just a base coated ForgeWorld Trygon and a pair of Venomthropes. The Trygon has sat in this state for years now and I really should do them the honor and get some paint on them. The Venomthopes probably were my first attempt at a conversion using metal miniatures. I'm surprised the hacked of and switched out tail of a Zoanthrope did not fall of as often as it did – back in the day I did not use pins between the bits! Anyways, I had taken them apart and stripped them a few years back. Redoing the conversion at my current skill level was really satisfying and I'm looking forward to painting them!

Ready for Gardenhammer

Once again, I do not find as much time for the hobby as I would like, but I finally managed to finish my 4x4 Realm of Battle gaming board and if the weather holds, I'm now ready to play some Gardenhammer! I also started to paint some reinforcements for my Badab Enforcers as well as more terrain for my 40k/Heresy collection.

Pict 1311: Realm of Battle Board ready for Gardenhammer

Pict 1312: Realm of Battle Board

These boards took up so much space, I had to put them away once the normal work week started. And of course, once out of sight, they were out of my mind. But with the bank holidays in May, I got them out once more and worked on them whilst watching the Star Wars prequels. I'm super happy with them and am very much looking forward to getting to play on them!

Pict 1313: Crebain

These birdies were a really unexpected little project. I decided on saturday morning that I wanted to play them on the sunday in a simply Isengard army and started by putting them together. The painting as done within about an hour in the evening. Really what took the longest was carving the backs of the wings free from additional material between the feathers. They are clearly not my best painted units, but they should fit in nicely with the rest of my Isengard collection!

Pict 1314: Badab Enforcers (WIP)

Pict 1315: Arachnos Rogue Doc and Orderlies (WIP)

Reinforcements for the Space Police, including a dog! Of course, there is also a Rogue Doctor to patch up any wound they might sustain. I also kitbashed two cultist lads with chainswords. I like how their masks mirror the one worn by the Doctor. Clearly the Enforcers of Badab have already been infiltrated at this point!
At this stage, they had the base colours and sponged on highlights applied and are ready for an oil wash before getting onto the finishing touches.

Pict 1316: 40k Terrain (WIP)

Now that I have a nice gaming board for games in fantasy settings, I also wanted to do some more work to prepare for the upcoming edition of 40k and get some more Sci-Fi scenery on the go. Same as the Enforcers, these pieces are mostly ready for an oilwash.

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!

A Scottish Werewolf in the Desert

One week late, because the Real life is rearing its ugly head once again leaving me less time to paint than I would like... Nevertheless I managed to paint up five miniatures for Infinity to make a start on one of my new year's resolutions and put some paint on Radukar the Beast.

Pict 1285: McMurrough and Friends

Pict 1286: Yara Hadadd, Yasbir, McMurrough, Daylami and Ghulam Infantry

Seems like I cought the Infinity bug again. I blame Ash Barker's Tactical Awareness podcast! I've been listening for a while and have been thinking about painting something from the Infinity universe. These five will form part of my Hassassin sectorial.

The stand out has to be McMurrough the mercenary Dog-Warrior. What's not to love about a scottish Werewolf with a giant sword!

The Yara Hadaddad miniature is a conversion from an old Tuareg scuplt. I converted her right at the end of  my last stint with Infinity and painting her now seemed like the right thing to do!

The Ghulam with HMG is one of the oldest sculpts in my collection, right out of the first edition of the game. He'll probably play the part of a Ghulam with Grenade Launcher, at least as long as that load out is not available.

This was also the first time for me to make my own grass tufts. Really not that hard and they look great on the bases! Only problem is, that I will now have to go back through my collection and add tufts to the bases...

Having painted these five, I completed the first part of one of my new year's resolutions. Now, I only have to go ahead and play a game with them as well!

Pict 1287: Radukar the Beast and Vyrkos Bloodborn (WIP)

This is the first update on Radukar the Beast I'm painting for #MonsterMarch on my blog. You can see a first picture with the base colours established on Radukar the Beast and his two Vyrkos Bloodborn minions over on Swordmaster's blog. By now the three have had their washes and are waiting for the highlighting and detail work.

Pict 1288: Badab Enforcers (WIP)

Lastly I also started on these five Palanite Enforcers. I bought them second hand at the start of the year, so I don't know if they are built with legal loadouts. But since I want to use them in even smaller, narrative circumstances, I don't care that much. They will be part of my Badab War collection, forming the human compartment of the Tyrant's Legion.
For now, the basecoats are almost done. I plan to use mainly sponge highlighting and a heavy oil wash to give them a grimy look to tie them in to my Howling Griffons.