Iron Warriors Breacher Squad Pt 1

This will be a quick update because I only have one picture and not too much to say about it.  I originally thought I might use these breacher marines as the special unit for the Imperial Fists.  However, I really want to get a real army together and decided to stick with the Iron Warriors and Alpha Legion since they are about as opposite as you can get in game terms and will be really fun to paint and play.  So, I introduce you to the beginning of my first Iron Warriors.  I'm very much looking forward to painting them.

Alpha Legion Tactical Marines Pt 1

Another squad I got assembled recently was a set of 5 MK IV Maximus Armor Tactical Marines.  You may be wondering why I only bought five and the answer is that when I bought these I thought they were just going to be for fun and not for play.  Back then there was no one in the area who played Horus Heresy and I didn't know the rules.  Hence, most of my squads are only half of what they actual should be, they will still be fun to paint though!

Here you can see the MK IV Maximus Armor assembled and ready for undercoating along with the previously mentioned assault squad and some palatine blades that I bought simply because I thought they would be cool.

Hopefully I can get these painted up soon and ready for another blog post!

Alpha Legion Assault Squad Pt 1

So, I've been once again working on the hobby side and getting some models together for my extremely small Alpha Legion Detachment.  I came up with a new way to store my models that aren't quite assembled or ready for airbrushing.  You can see in the picture below that I am using a large piece of styrofoam to hold the assembled models until they are moved up in the paint cue.  I like this because it allows me to assemble a bunch of models but make sure they are held in one place until I start painting with them.

Another benefit you can see from using this styrofoam block is that models can be placed on the side or ends and make a lot more room for all.

In the next two photos you can see that I had to white tack a couple of the arms and hands in place because my glue wasn't holding and honestly sucked.  It made my life difficult and made me wonder if I was just really bad at putting resin together or if my glue was super old.

Here, you can see that I went out and bought some new glue and guess what, I immediately got hobby hand and glued my fingers to a model!  Well, I honestly have to say that I'd rather have glue that's too strong than not strong enough so this is a welcome change from the crap I was using before.

I'm actually a little behind on the updates for these guys since I have started the undercoating but it isn't quite working as well as I would have hoped.  I'll have a post up soon about the issue I'm running into and what I hope can fix it (hint hint it is a bath in chemicals).  Until next time!

My First 30k and 7th Ed Battle-Rep

So my first game and 30k was honestly pretty bad.  Basically I just wanted to get back into the flow of playing a game and also see what 30k was like in comparison to the typical 40k.  Since I don't actually have any models for 30k put together and based the store graciously allowed me to use some of theirs and build a small 1000 pt game.  

We only played on a 2 by 4 with pretty much no cover so there wasn't a lot of choice tactically  so as you can see I just basically set up in a straight line. and waited to see what would happen.  Another issue was that I honestly didn't really know what my units were, what they could do, or how to arm them.  For instance, I took the Iron Warriors specialty "Tyrant Terminators" and didn't realize that they could fire their cyclone missile launchers and storm bolters, or that every weapon they had was wrecker which would have been really handy in dealing with his armor.

The single thing that made the most important difference, however, was the fact that he had one of those crazy Whirlwind Scorpius's that fired D3+1 barrage that were AP3!!!  Can you believe that? In the picture below you can see that they totally destroyed me and even wiped out my armor.  Basically in the first salvo the game was over but it was still pretty fun learning the rules and seeing how the models worked and such.

So what do I think now?  Well I would love to actually play a game with some cover and tactics in addition to using my own models.  This game also really cemented my desire to play with Iron Warriors as there rules are just super cool.  I can't wait until Forgeworld releases Perturabo and Alpharius as those two guys are going to be beasts.  Overall, I'm excited to start really playing 30k in the coming months!  Let's see what I can build and paint in the meantime eh?

Alpha Legion Recon Squad Pt 3

So, as you can probably tell already I am a glacially slow at painting but I'm thinking that is getting better!   One of the hardest things to figure out right now is just how to paint using an airbrush.  It may seem weird but I've only ever painted with a brush and not really in sub assemblies.  Learning how to paint with an airbrush (and on Forgeworld models) tends to change things a bit so maybe I'll highlight my process here so any newbs to airbrushing can see what I do and I can learn from them.  That's the beauty of the wargaming community right?  We all learn from each other?

In these two pictures you can see that I decided to paint the backpacks and arms seperately, a move I have since decided to scrap unless absolutely necessary.  I found it was really difficult to actually control where the pieces were and trying to paint all of them at the same time was difficult.  

The backpacks were especially hard because I didn't use strong enough glue to hold them in place which meant the pressurized air pushed them in a circle as I painted them.  On the models I'm putting together now I have decided to put the backpacks on the model after the initial black undercoat.  This way if I can get to an area with the silver or blue it is already shaded and doesn't take a ton of extra time.

So far with the Forgeworld weapons I've decided that the best option is to keep them on the sprue and just make sure I have cleaned up all the flash and mold lines.  Since they only connect with a small part in the back I figure there will be very little touch up after the undercoat and most of the work on these will be done with a brush anyway.

The next two weeks might be a little heavy on non-airbrush and non-forgeworld stuff as I am starting a great new job in California, two states away, and my wife is 38 weeks pregnant and staying here in Utah to give birth.  This means some craziness in many directions but since I'll be living with the in-laws in California I'll have a little more time in the evenings to do blogging on some other topics and meet my new gaming group/club that I've already scoped out in the Bay Area.  I'm looking forward to the move and getting around a good Warhammer Community and hopefully some soon to be good friends.

Alpha Legion Recon Squad Pt 2

Apparently, I am not very good at preshading.  I spent about three hours going over these cloaks with a wash, dark brown in the recesses, and white on the raised areas.  I then went back over the cloak with the original color but unfortunately this destroyed most of the previous work.  There is a little bit of additional definition to the cloaks but not as much as I would like after the amount of time I put into them.  You live you learn right?  If I add an additional five members to the squad later I'll see if I can come up with a better system for the pre-shading.

As you can see from these two photos there is a little bit more definition, which I think is nice, but I think there also might need to be some additional covers on the cloaks since they are supposed to be camouflage.  What do you think?  Should I make them actually look like camouflage?

Below you can see that I repainted the helmets and they look a lot better.  One thing I have learned from the many test models I have done is that you should always try to redo exactly how you painted it before.  I like the color on the helmets below a lot and think they'll look good on many models and also with the white painted on them.  That will have to wait until the next post!

Forge World Models Prep

So the wife and I made an impromptu Independence Day vacation to Vegas to see my sister and her family.  That meant that I didn't want to stay up quite so late using the airbrush and instead wanted to prepare some of the resin crack I have for future airbrushing.  I haven't yet figured out how to paint the Iron Warriors and Imperial Fists so most of these models will be painted up as Alpha Legion.

Here you see that one of the units cleaned up was an assault squad.  I honestly have no idea if they are any good in 30k, especially since they are not very good in 40k, but they look awesome!  So, lets paint them up and see what happens.

The nice thing about cleaning models is I can do it in front of the television while sitting with my wife instead of squirreled away in the man cave.  I know my wife appreciates that and I can multi-task and have fun!

If you haven't ever painted up Forge World models you have to wash them thoroughly with de-greasing hand soap to make sure that there aren't residues left on the models from the molding process.   You can see in the picture below that I like to let the models sit with lots of soap and then rinse them multiple times.  I'm new to the Forge World bandwagon so I don't know if I'm doing it right but I think it's working so far.

Hopefully I'll get these models assembled soon and start throwing some beautiful paint at them!  I hope they look as good in real life as they do in my head.

Alpha Legion Recon Squad Pt. 1

This is the scheme I have settled on for my Alpha Legion models.  I am still wondering if orange might be a nice spot color but I really enjoy painting green and have it as a consistent color throughout many of my armies which means that this would tie them together in a subtle way.  Do you like the green or do you think orange would be better?

I decided to move along with the Alpha Legion Recon Squad and lay down some basic colors on the model bodies, cloaks, and heads.  The bodies followed the typical recipe I have developed using the airbrush and two glazes of Gulliman Blue over silver washed with Badab Black.  I sprayed one layer of on the cloaks and painted the rest on with a brush.  On the helmets I tried to do a metallic blue instead of the recipe above but it didn't come out looking very good with the white so I'm probably going to repaint it to make it consistent.  

As you can also see from the photos I am experimenting with battle damage using a mixture of drybrushing and spot application of the old Chainmail GW paint.  I must say that I like the look but don't know if I'll continue it on the other models in the army.  We'll see.  I like that the drybrush sort of eliminates the need for line highlights (making this painting much quicker) but it's hard for me to make them look all beat up.  We'll see I suppose.

As you can see, I think I've made some good progress and the squad is looking good.  Next I'm going to see if I can add some definition to the cloaks using the airbrush.  I have a sneaking suspicion that it isn't going to work very well but we'll see.

Thoughts on Heresy Armies

So, I know one of the big things that drives people to a blog is content which means that to start this sucker off I am going to see if I can blog every day for at least the first week.  This will include a lot of different subjects but hopefully things that will catch everyone's interest and show some of my skills (if the blessed internet actually thinks I have any).

This post will be about my thoughts on Horus Heresy Armies.  I bought quite a few bits of gorgeous Forgeworld Horus Heresy models and now need to figure out how to paint them.  So, lets go through the armies I really like and what they have going for them including any specialist units and paint schemes.

Iron Warriors (Pre-Heresy)

Found Here: http://goo.gl/88jeUU

     I have loved Iron Warriors almost since I first got into the game.  I have loved their gritty style, the fact that the chaos version doesn't deal with mutations or a particular Chaos God, and the fact they are siege specialists.  I have always thought Iron Warriors are really cool and the Angelus Exterminatus only helped flesh out their awesomeness in addition to the Ultramarines series.  I can't wait until Forgeworld comes out with Perturabo I think it is going to be a really amazing model.  Also, the special rules for the Iron Warriors terminators and havocs are awesome and I think the models will look really good. Another great thing is that the tactics of the Iron Warriors are straight forward.  Bring lots of big guns, blow the crap out of you, and then charge right at you.  A very different set of tactics then the Eldar I'm used to playing.

Doesn't this guy look awesome?  Bad A!

So what are the downsides of the Iron Warriors?  There are really only two reasons.  First, the color scheme is really simple which means I could paint it fast but it is also really simple.  The airbrush would help with the chevrons, and overall it would be dark which isn't exactly what I wanted with the airbrush and Forgeworld stuff.  Second, while I love most of their background the fact that they don't care about the lives of their Battle-Brothers bugs me.  It's weird but fluff is very important to me so I'm a little reticent to embrace the background here.  I like the brotherhood of the Space Marines, and superior tactics, not just throwing bodies at a wall until it falls.





Alpha Legion (Pre/Post Heresy)


Alpha Legion are really cool.  They are rumored to be one of the largest chapters (along with the Iron Warriors and Ultramarines) and focus on subtlety and misdirection.  Their color scheme is pretty much anything you want varying between metallics, blues, greens, etc.  The guy to the left is awesome, he looks brutal and the silver Hydra is really cool.  Some of my favorite conversions online are of true-scale alpha legion and I could use the Legion of the Damned rules along with the Militarium Tempestus to create a really cool and "flufftastic" army.   Not only that, but unlike the Iron Warriors their colors can be bright and make good use of the airbrush.  Their marks of armor are mostly the newer, more sleek versions, and their fluff shows that they made the ultimate sacrifice to save humanity (although I think the Heresy novels will show that they were really duped by a bunch of aliens).  Also, twin primarchs!?  I know there aren't rules in the new Heresy Book from Forgeworld but the models would be sweet.

So what's wrong with the Alpha Legion?  Well, their fluff is cool but until really recently when awesome pictures like this one from Dave Taylor's Blog showed up and I thought about how I could do that with an airbrush.  They are pretty sweet because they are bright, beautiful, and a good mix of colors.  Another great example (although a little too bright for me) is Marc Raley's Alpha Legion.  I like these bright schemes but am still out on the weathering and pigments.  I'm just starting to figure out the use of the airbrush and adding battle damage seems like a technique to learn another day.  Finally, I don't really want to pick a legion just because I think they're pretty you know?  But that hydra, such a sweet legion symbol!



Imperial Fists

http://studiocolrouphobia.net/

A lot of reasons for me liking the Iron Warriors apply to my like of the Imperial Fists as well.  They are freakin' hard core and built the Imperial Palace to hold of the forces of Horus and protect the Emperor.  They are forward, hard, and Sigismund was the best fighter of any Space Marine in any legion.  Whereas the Iron Warriors threw their men at fortresses willy-nilly, the Imperial Fists were more tactical and cared about the Battle Brothers.  After the rest of the post, I'm sure you can understand that the bright yellow color scheme is well to my liking because of it's brightness and difficulty.  Also, there is a ton of fists stuff scattered throughout the 40k and 30k universes.  I also really like the rules for their special units especially the special Breacher Squads which are some of my favorite models in the whole HH line.

What are the cons?  Honestly their aren't a ton.  I don't like Rogal Dorn as much as either Alpharius/Omegon or Perturabo but being the second best is pretty awesome.  Everything else is pretty awesome, except I am having a lot of trouble with painting yellow through the airbrush.  I know this was a plus, but it's also a con because it really is difficult.  However, if I can pull it off I know it would be awesome.

http://thepaintingbunker.com/

Other Sweet Chapters I've Thought About

Sons of Horus - Cons, I hate Horus.  Pros- Loken is awesome and so are their tactics, fluff, and color scheme.
Thousand Sons - The most tragic story of the whole Horus Heresy and Magnus is a pretty sweet.  I love their aesthetics, fluff, tactics, pretty much everything except the Dark red and bone.  Also, their special units and models haven't been released.
Salamanders - Along with the Imperial Fists these have been a favorite for a while (my original DIY chapter was a successor chapter using both sets of geneseed).  I love their primarch, he's immortal and a freakin beast!  Their models coming out of Forgeworld are awesome, their tactics and fluff are fun, and their color scheme would be cool and easy to paint.

What Have I Decided?
Well, this may seem like a loser move but I think my answer is all of them!  No one around here plays 30k so it's not like I need a uniform army.  I don't really want to be another marine player in the area so I want to play them as 30k where you don't have a choice.  Plus, there are such sweet models coming out of Forgeworld that painting them multiple different paint schemes just seems like the right thing to do.  So, now I just have to figure out ways to paint them all and we'll be on our way right?  Hopefully I'll have some updates soon!