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...)

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
   

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.

Finishing up a few projects and starting new ones

These past two weeks I managed to finish up a few more small projects for a variety of game systems: painting a squad of Blood Angels Seekers, refurbishing some Hormagaunts and finally highlighting my remaining Sepulchral Guard models and a Wight King for my collection of undead models.

Pict 1348: Blood Angels Seekers

Pict 1349: Blood Angels Seekers

The first few miniatures I finished this week were these Seekers for my Heresy Blood Angels. Usually I like my units to be in a consistend armour mark, but I can imagine the Seekers using the cobbled together MK V whilst scouting ahead of the main army. I might build some more of them to fill out the squad with more of the special ammunition Bolter or Combi-weapons. But for now, they are done and there a q lot more Marines built and ready for a lick of paint.

Pict 1350: Tyranid Hormagaunts

Pict 1351: Tyranid Hormagaunts

Last weekend I played my first game of tenth edition 40k. It was great fun, to take the Tyranids out of their box again. I think my last game of 40k was right at the start of 8th edition, so it must have been sometime six years ago. My opponent hadn't played even longer. So it took us some time to figure out what we were doing, but in the end it was quite fun and did feel appropriately 40k.

Anyways, my bugs sustained some dings and scratches during their slumber. So I set out to refurbish them somewhat and started with these Hormagaunts. Whilst I was ironing out the dings and scratches I also updated the markings on the carapace to bring them up to speed a bit. If I find myself playing more 40k I will have to get eight more models to fill out the squad. And of course, they still suffer from the falling disease of all Hormagaunts so I might have to get myself some fitting washers to put under the base.

Pict 1352: Wight King and Sepulchral Guard

Pict 1353: Wight King and Sepulchral Guard

I also finished up this selection of skeletons. These poor miniatures sat in my box of current projects for over a year. And of course they were only missing the highlights! In the mean time the Wight King recieved some rules to use him in games of Cursed City, so after finishing the Vampires a few weeks back got him and the remaining four skeletons from the Sepulchral Guard higher up the queue. Still, nineteen more miniatures to paint to finish that second Cursed City expansion!

Pict 1354: Aeronautica Imperialis Xiphons

Lastly I started to prepare for Legiones Imperialis in the hopes that this new edition will be released soon. I managed to buy these Aeronautica Xiphons second-hand for a good price. They were already built quite nicely – only a few mold lines that had to be removed. The basecolours went on rather quickly after priming them. The 8mm scale is new to me, but I could get used to it! Next up will be an oil wash and some highlights to finish them up.

Tyranid Trygon and a Whole Bunch of Blood Angels

Not that much painting got finished these past three weeks, but one big boy at least: my ForgeWorld Trygon. I also slapped some paint on Seekers and Scouts for my Heresy Blood Angels and built a whole bunch power armoured marines.

Pict 1339: He's right behind me, isn't he?

Pict 1340: ForgeWorld Trygon

Pict 1341: ForgeWorld Trygon

Pict 1342: ForgeWorld Trygon

Pict 1343: ForgeWorld Trygon

The only miniature I finished is this Trygon. Really a beautiful miniature! However, the paint somehow really does not want to stick to the primer. I hope the varnish will keep it together! But I have also already prepared a foam storage solution.

Pict 1344: Blood Angels Seekers and Scouts (WIP)

Other than the Trygon, the only painting I did these past two weeks are the base colours and the oilwash on these Blood Angels. I converted the Seekers over a year ago, right as I got back into the Horus Heresy and Space Marines in general. By now, I have added in the limited edition Imperial Space Marine from 2016 as a sergeant since they are one of the few models that can actually take a Combi-Disintegrator that the model is equipped with.
The Scouts were done at the same time and I'm quite happy with the way they look already. They will be quite a neat unit once they are done! I particularly like the decal on the sergeant's power fist - really stupid to put a warning sign there, but very warhammer in my mind.

Pict 1345: Blood Angels Assault Destroyers (WIP)

Pict 1346: Blood Angels Mortalis Destroyers (WIP)

Pict 1347: Blood Angels Despoilers (WIP)

And here is the explanation for why I did not do that much painting: I went really hard into build mode. There are 20 Destroyers, 10 with Jumppacks and 10 without. To go with them, I also built the beautiful Forge World Moritat with the double Volkite Serpenta and converted up my version of Aster Crohne. Lastly there are 15 Despoilers to bolster my Troop choices and to make use of the new Inductii rules.

Mordor Orcs, Cursed City Vampires and a third Venomthrope

During the past two weeks, I painted quite a few Mordor Orcs including a Captain and two Warg Riders. I also finished the two Vampires from the first Cursed City expasion: Lady Annika and Carmilla DuSang. And while I did not paint any more Tyranids, I also converted a third metal Venomthrope to make them a legal unit in 10th edition.

Pict 1332: Mordor Orc Reinforcements

Pict 1333: Mordor Orc Captain, Orc Warriors, Warg Riders

Pict 1334: Mordor Orc Captain, Orc Warriors, Warg Riders

With some Middle-earth games going on, I got back to painting Mordor Orcs. The foot troops are all beautiful metal models that were originally released in 2001 and were availiable recently as a Made-to-order. Having painted them now, I have grown to love them even more. They are so characterfull. Especially the faces and helmets.
Same with the Warg Riders - the metal versions are vastly superior to the plastics and with a bit of converting, you so get some more poses that the three that were released. Here the one with the bow is the unaltered one, the shield bearer my conversion. I had converted these models and started to paint them in November 2021... really a good feeling to get them done now!

Pict 1335: Lady Annika and Carmilla DuSang

Pict 1336: Carmilla DuSang and Lady Annika

Pict 1337: Carmilla DuSang and Lady Annika

As a quick little project inbetween I painted the two Vampires I was still missing for the first Cursed City expansion. Two really great miniatures with completly different characters. I'm happy with the way they turned out. But I have to say, painting the faces was tricky behind the mask and the armour spikes respectively.
While I'd like to get these two on the table before long, I think I will paint up the models for the other expansion first. I'd like to start a new playthrough once I have all the minis together.

Pict 1338: Venomthrope (WIP)

I also got myself a second hand metal Venomthrope to make a legal unit. After dissasembling and removing the old paint, I went about converting a more dynamic pose. Cutting off the head and reattaching it on a slant unlocked the turning body and the tentacles simply fell into place. Now I want to get more even of them and make more cool poses... But first, I'll have to paint the bunch – we'll see, where the butterfly takes me next!

Screamer-Killer Carnifex

Only a small update today after the having cought up in the last one. I finished a Screamer-Killer to get back into painting Tyranids and made some good headway on the Trygon as well. I also converted five more Blood Angels Scouts and primed them up, ready to be painted.

Pict 1327: Screamer-killer Carnifex

Pict 1328: Screamer-killer Carnifex

Pict 1329: Screamer-killer Carnifex

Before taking my painting to the expensive ForgeWorld Trygon, I wanted to refamiliarise myself with the process. And of course I could not say no to the big boy of the new box and painted up a Screamer-Killer Carnifex. It's a neat miniature but in places you notice that it's easy-to-build / monopose. Nevertheless I'm quite happy with the way he came out using my Kraken scheme. While certainly not my best model of all time, it painted up quickly which is important when going for a big swarm of Tyranids!

Pict 1330: ForgeWorld Trygon (WIP)

The Trygon is also quite far along, with only the red stages of the carapace and some cleaning up left to do. Having painted the plasic version in the past, I have to say that the ForgeWorld mini really is miles above it in terms of details. There a virtually no flat surfaces so that everything looks suitably organic and like a living organism.

Pict 1331: Horus Heresy Blood Angels Scouts (WIP)

I also converted five more Scouts for the Blood Angels Legion – including some more funky hair styles and a Sergeant with a power fist and a hand flamer, just because it's cool. I also primed them all with the usual formula of black primer with a red zenithal. They should not take to long to paint but I might be distracted by the Tyranids for now...