88 - Converted Gunnery Sergeant Harker

Well, I had a lot of fun with this guy! Here's my converted Gunnery Sergeant Harker who will replace my current Veteran Sergeant in the "50/50s." I love converting models, so whenever I have the opportunity to mess around with miniatures, I'll do it. Since I've never been very happy with my Veteran Sergeant (in terms of load-out, modeling, and paint job), replacing him with another sergeant has always been on my mind. After re-reading the Veterans Squad section of the Imperial Guard Codex, I realized that not only would replacing my Veteran Sergeant with Gunnery Sergeant Harker improve the offensive capabilities of the "50/50s," but it would also be an incredibly enjoyable conversion job.

My Harker conversion consists of parts from a few differen kits. His head, torso, left and right arms are from the Catachan kit. The heavy bolter and his right hand are from a Space Marine Devastator kit while his legs are from the Space Marine Scout kit. Overall, he was fairly easy to piece together. I was surprised at how well in terms of proportions the Catachan torso fit with the Scout legs considering how much taller the Scouts seem when compared to a standard Catachan trooper. I guess it helps that the Catachan models are so top-heavy and muscular.

When compared to the actual GW Harker miniature, my Harker obviously doesn't quite resemble him. For one, their Harker is much more statuesque and lean; I wouldn't be surprised if placed side by side that the GW Harker would be a bit taller than my conversion. Also, I couldn't quite get the string of bullets effect of the GW Harker. I tried by attempting all sorts of contortions with the Space Marine Devastator bolt feeder, but I couldn't get it to fit well enough. That's probably my biggest regret when it comes to this conversion.

Again, I forgot to do one tiny thing with a model. For this conversion, I kept telling myself I'd free-hand the name ("Payback") of Harker's heavy bolter onto the casing of the weapon after I had highlighted everything, but then...I forgot. I'll have to take care of that later.

Alright, so boy am I glad I didn't resort to painting up a Shock Trooper, Skeleton or Necron Warrior in order to somewhat keep pace with this project of mine. I have my day-off coming on Thursday, so tomorrow I might try another non-rank and file model. I've got a converted Guardsman Marbo waiting in the wings as well.

Leia Mais…

86 - Shock Trooper for Third Squad/ 1st Platoon of the Cadian 265th Regiment

Cadian Shock Troopers are almost as easy and quick to paint as skeletons! Whoohoo! Now I have 2 fall-back miniature types I can use when I find myself pressed for time.

Again, in my haste, I realized only after the fact that I forgot to paint in his eyes. A few of these miniatures I've painted up in the past 2 weeks have been missing painted bits here and there. I'm really going to have to establish a pace whereby I don't feel too under the clock where my miniatures end up looking like half-painted blobs of paint but also where I don't torture myself over minute details to the point where I refuse to put a miniature down and say it's done.

So, this Cadian Shock Trooper begins my 3rd Squad (the 1st Squad being my Veterans - "The 50/50s" - and the 2nd Squad being a standard rank and file squad with an attached mortar team) for my planned Imperial Guard platoon. He was pre-primed months ago so all I had to do was slap the Cadian color scheme on him and then give him a liberal ink wash with Badab Black, Devlan Mud and Ogryn Flesh followed by highlights of Hunter Green, Fawn, and Dolphin Gray. Well, actually, I replaced the Badab Black ink wash with a Liquitex Carbon Black ink because I was almost out of the GW wash. The Liquitex Carbon Black actually worked quite well...after I mixed it with about 10-15 drops of Liquitex Flow Aid. Without the Flow Aid, the Liquitex ink was not watery enough to slip into the cracks and crevices of the miniature. Instead, it kind of just acted like watered down acrylic paint and clung to the surface. After massively diluting it with Flow Aid, it then began to perform almost as well as GW's Badab Black. It seems like the key to GW's inks, then, is how ultra-watered down they are. I've also picked up 2 or 3 other bottles of Liquitex's inks as supplements to my GW inks mostly because they're much cheaper. I'll still primarily use GW's inks though because, honestly, they're awesome.

Okay, I'm still 2 miniatures behind. I probably won't have time to do another model tonight (the wife and I have to attend a friend's birthday soiree), but I'll try my darndest to get 2 done tomorrow. On the docket: a Necron Warrior (easy-peasy, I'm expecting) and maybe my Gunnery Sergeant Harker conversion if I'm feeling particularly ambitious. If not, then another Cadian Shock Trooper or possibly a Blood Ravens Multi-Melta Operator for Tactical Squad Fortis.

Leia Mais…

83 - Converted Lord Commissar

Well, I'm slowly falling behind my goal of 7 miniatures per week. At the moment, I'm now off my pace by 3 models. Boy, this is going to be harder than I thought. As I wrote in the post which launched this project almost 2 weeks ago, I do almost all of my painting either late at night during a workday (after the wife has gone to bed) or on my two off-days. The last two days, though, work has totally sapped my energy, so I got very little painting done Tuesday and Wednesday. However, I did cobble enough time together to paint up this converted Lord Commissar.

The Lord Commissar is essentially a Cadian Command sprue torso affixed to Cadian Shock Trooper legs. His power fist is also from the Command sprue while his bolt pistol from a Space Marine Tactical sprue. He is sporting a Pig Iron head and the tattered cape fluttering from his shoulders is actually a loincloth from the Warhammer Fantasy Giant kit. Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with him. He's not as grandiose looking as Games Workshop's Lord Commissar, but that's easily explained away. I'm just going to say that he's been out in the field for months, furiously barking at his men to dig in and hold the line against the xenos scum so reinforcements can drop down from the sky and save their worthless hides. In other words, he's had to abandon most of the shining accoutrements of his office in order to better do his job.

Painting-wise, he's okay, if a bit rough in some areas (my highlights are still too harsh). Turns out this Lord Commissar was easier to paint up than I thought, seeing as how his uniform is black, thus allowing me to basically use the Black Gesso primer as the undercoat and basecoat. I'll probably need to clean up the highlighting around his peaked cap as well as the blotchy paint around and about his bolt pistol, but he's for all intents and purposes finished. I'd like to possibly add a few more fiddly bits to him at a later date - maybe a sword scabbard, free-hand designs on his shoulder pads, and a pistol holster for starters - but that can wait for now.

Well, today is my day off, so if I plan on sticking with this project, I better get cracking on the painting. I've got a Vampire Counts Ghast primed and ready to go at my painting station. I figure he's going to be quite easy. As far as I can tell, VC Ghouls are basically a single primary color (for the skin) plus some contrasting colors here and there for the detail bits. Hopefully, I can get him painted up quickly and possibly move on to another miniature before the day is done. Best case scenario: I'm back to where I started to begin the week - one miniature behind.

Leia Mais…

77 - Updated Sniper For My Cadian Veteran Squad

Day 3, miniature 3. Wow...362 days and miniatures to go. I'm doomed.

Well, this fella wasn't too hard to paint up. I purposefully chose him because of his cloak. I figured with most of his body covered up by that big surface, it would take less time to fully paint him, and I was right. Thank goodness for cloaks! I also chose him because he was a Cadian model, which I've become very good at painting fast and clean. Overall, I'm pretty pleased with him. He could use a few more highlights, but he's table top quality, which is really the only thing I'm going for with this project. Hopefully, just the mere act of forcing myself to paint so often and so consistently will naturally improve my abilities so that at some point, I'll be able to exceed table top quality while still maintaining this blistering pace.

As the title to the post suggests, this miniature will be replacing the first sniper I painted up for my Veteran Squad. While I was fairly happy with the conversions I performed on the first sniper to make him fit the Cadian mold, once I got my hands on the two-piece sniper body from the Cadian Command Squad kit, I knew I had to use it in my Veteran Squad. Essentially, this new sniper is 100% from the Command Squad kit, but with one minor change - a head swap from the Empire Great Swords kit, I believe.

By the way, this miniature took me past midnight to finish up, which means I'll be adding a 6th caveat to my project - since I'm a night owl, a day for this project will be any time before I go to bed. So even if the clock passes midnight, thus signalling in a new day, as long as I'm still awake, I'll count the miniature I finish as being for the day previous. Yeesh! By the time I get through with this project, my addendums and amendments and codicils will be hundreds of page long, all leading up to the inevitable result - less miniatures for me to paint. Let's hope that doesn't happen!

Leia Mais…

76 - Bonus Post! Officer of the Fleet and Nob with Waaagh! Banner

Well, a quick post showing 2 miniatures I worked on prior to embarking on this insane 365 miniatures in 365 days project I've got going here. To the left, you'll see my converted Officer of the Fleet for my Cadian Command Squad. He was put together using the torso, head, arms and shoulder pads of a Tank Commander (I believe the Baneblade one), a holstered pistol from the Tactical Space Marines kit, a sword from a Bretonnian kit, and the legs of a standard Cadian Guardsman. Getting the legs to fit with the torso was the toughest part of this conversion. I had to carefully estimate how much of the legs would be showing from underneath the great coat as well as cut the legs off in a such a way as to fit the underside of the torso without the miniature looking weird and wobbly. I personally think the end result was pretty good. The paintjob was decent, if a bit messy and rushed in some parts, but overall, I think the model is a pretty close stand-in for the actual Officer of the Fleet miniature which Games Workshop sells.

To the right, we've got the Nob with a Waaagh! Banner. The banner was obviously a total conversion seeing as how none of the available plastic Ork sprues sold by GW has anything resembling a Waaagh! Banner as described in the Ork Codex. For the banner, I basically just piled on bit after bit until I felt the banner was sufficiently grand and that the model would support its weight without toppling over. I had originally wanted the Nob to actually hold the banner in one of his hands, but it was impossible to keep the model upright even after gluing a metal washer to the bottom of the base. So, what's in the banner? I believe the base banner is from the Warhammer Fantasy Orc Warboss kit. I then added the bull skull from the Boyz kit (or was it the Nobz kit?) along the top of the banner; glued the metal mask from a Black Orc kit over the bull skull; decorated the rest of the banner with odds and ends from the Vampire Counts Zombie kit (the dangling severed heads), skulls (both Orkish and human) from various other kits, and a Lizardmen snake icon to represent the Snakebite Clan. I'm very happy with the results. Personally, I think any Ork Warboss would be proud to have one of his Nobz carry something like this into battle. This is only the first of two Waaagh! Banners I've converted for my Ork army. Believe it or not, but the 2nd banner is even more elaborate.

Leia Mais…

69 - TOEMP Challenge #6 Update III

Standard Bearer and Medic completed! That brings the Company Command Squad to 6 completed members. I've begun basecoating the Officer of the Fleet, but I'm not sure I'll be able to get him done before the 20th of October. I spent most of today finishing up the Standard Bearer and the Medic, so I'm pretty burnt out on painting - don't think I'll be doing any more on the Officer of the Fleet tonight. And due to my work days being extremely busy and taxing, I'm not sure I'll have the time or energy to get to him before next weekend.

I'm fairly satisfied with the Standard Bearer, although painting the flag was much more difficult than I anticipated. In all honesty, it's probably the most difficult thing I've painted since I started this hobby! Is that strange or what? I think the reason I found it so difficult, despite it's relative size compared to a 28mm miniature, is just the sheer amount of detail on the flag. Couple that with the folds in the flag, and trying to keep the paint from going out of bounds was like herding cats. Of course, painting a molded flag is still leaps and bounds easier than free-handing one, so I can't complain. Still, I marvel at some of the clean paintjobs I've seen of banners and flags.

The Medic was very straightforward. Pretty much a standard Cadian Shock Trooper but with the Medic backpack and arms. I couldn't find the special Imperial Guard Medic Head (you know, the one with the stylized caduceus on the front of the helmet instead of the Imperial Eagle), so I had to resort to a normal Cadian head. Kind of disappointing, that.

Well, if I don't get to finish the Officer of the Fleet by October 20th, then I'll just consider this my submission for TOEMP Challenge #6.

Click here for more pics.

Leia Mais…

68 - TOEMP Challenge #6 Update II

Again, to keep myself motivated, I thought I'd post what I've managed to complete for Challenge #6 up to this point. From left to right, we have: the Bodyguard, the Vox-Caster, the Company Commander, and the Plasma Gunner.

The Bodyguard is essentially a Catachan model with a Cadian torso and painted Cadian colors. Fluff-wise, I figured it would make sense that the bodyguard for a commander would come from a more "elite" fighting force. And it just so happened that the bits of Catachan troopers I had in my bits box allowed me to configure the model with equipment that the Bodyguard read-out allowed - close combat weapon and frag grenade.

The Vox-Caster is pretty much standard Command Squad kit parts.

The Company Commander, as I mentioned in the previous post, sports arms and shoulder pads taken from the Hellhound Tank Commander. I like how he turned out, although the Badab Black wash I added to his greatcoat to give it some dimension was probably slathered on too thickly. I very likely will have to go back over it with another highlight.

The Melta Gunner has arms from a Catachan trooper (again, as mentioned in the previous post). He was actually the toughest model to put together because I was having a hell of a time trying to find the proper left-right arm combinations for him. I was trying desperately to avoid giving him a pointing right arm since not only is my Company Commander pointing at something, but so is my Officer of the Fleet (not yet painted). I don't think seeing 3 different members of your Command Squad pointing in 3 different directions while screaming their heads off would give your rank and file troops all that much confidence that your HQ knows just what the feck it's doing.

Okay, back to the painting station to muster the motivation to finish the last 3 (4, if I decide to paint up the converted Lord Commissar) members of the Company Command Squad by October 20th.

Click here for more pics.

Leia Mais…

67 - TOEMP Challenge #6 Update

Here's an update as to how my sixth TOEMP challenge is coming along. My GRE Subject Test was this Saturday, and now with it out of the way, I've allowed myself to relax a bit over the weekend by working on the hobby. For Challenge #6, I've chosen to do a full Company Command Squad for my Imperial Guard army. One of the extra requirements for Challenge #6 is to perform as many conversions as possible to your models, but as you can see from these pictures, I don't think I've fully embraced that particular requirement. You see, I'm still a wimp when it comes to green stuff. All I've yet used it for is to fill gaps in models and vehicles and while I hope to one day be able to fully sculpt detailed conversions with the stuff, that day is most certainly not now. But despite that, I tried to convert this Company Command Squad as much as possible by just swapping pieces here and there.

The picture to the upper left shows the 3 members of the Command Squad that are the farthest along. From left to right: the Plasma Gun Veteran, the Company Commander, and the Vox-Caster. I know it's hard to see, but the Plasma Gun Veteran has Catachan arms and a Space Marine Plasma Gun. I went with the Catachan arms to simulate how laborious it would be to actually operate one of these cumbersome special weapons; sleeves would either just get in the way or not offer enough ventilation from the heat. I had originally intended to make him a Meltagunner, but since meltaguns are at a premium these days (i.e., I had 1 meltagun to spare and I plan on using it with my Space Marines), I settled on a plasma gun. It works out, really, since with the Medic in the Command Squad, that gives me an additional layer of protection against overheating. The Vox-Caster is pretty much standard; I think the only change I made on him was to use a Heavy Weapons kneeling legs bit on him, but aside from that, everything else is straight out of the Command Squad kit.

The Commander pictured to the right is coming along rather swimmingly, I think. His head, torso and legs are from the Command Squad kit, but his arms (and molded shoulder pads) are from a Hellhound officer and the sword attached around his waist is from a WFB Bretonnian kit. I was actually a bit stumped as to what color to paint his greatcoat. I didn't want to go with Hunter Green because it seemed a bit "blah." I didn't want to keep it Black either or to paint it a brigher primary color like Blue. So I tried out Dolphin Gray and was pleasantly surprised with how well it turned out. He still needs another layer of basecoat, a wash, and some highlighting, but overall, I'm pretty pleased with him. (And he didn't take all that long to do either! The giant surface of the greatcoat really helped speed him along.)

The final picture (to the bottom left) is of the 3 other Command Squad members I plan on painting up. From left to right: the Bodyguard, the Regimental Standard Bearer, and the Officer of the Fleet. The Bodyguard is essentially a Catachan guardsman while the Regimental Standard Bearer uses parts straight from the Command Squad kit. The Officer of the Fleet, however, is a full conversion. I'm pretty proud of him. His torso is from a Baneblade Tank Commander. I carefully cut the tank hatch surrounding the bottom of his greatcoat away, then attached Cadian legs I cut off at the knees. This part worked out more seamlessly than I expected. The rest of him is a mixture of Shock Troop, Command Squad, and Baneblade Tank Commander bits with another Bretonnian sword strapped to his waist. At first, I was about to make him the Master of Ordnance, but I actually have a Hellhound Tank Commander laying around that I plan to convert into the Master of Ordnance using the same technique I applied to turn the Baneblade Tank Commander into an Officer of the Fleet.

Not shown in the pics is the Medic (primarily because he's unchanged from the standard medic that comes in the Command Squad kit). I also desperately want to put together an Astropath but I'm having a hard time finding the proper bits to convert one. I have a Reaper Miniature that I think could work as an Astropath, but he's a tad too big, scale-wise, to fit with the rest of the Command Squad models.

Leia Mais…

64 - Much Belated TOEMP Challenge #4 Completed!

Well, how long has it been since my last post involving miniatures? Over 3 weeks, you say? Sorry about that, friends. Real life has utterly and completely ambushed me since the start of September. Not only has work begun in earnest after the end of summer break but I'm also knee-deep in the application process for Doctoral English Literature programs. If accepted to any of the 4 programs I am applying to, then I will begin my doctoral studies in the Fall of 2010. But in the meantime, I've got academic recommendations to lock down, Statements of Purpose to write, and (the biggie) a GRE Subject Test in English Literature to prepare for in early October. In other words...swamped.

I'd really like to apologize to the rest of my fellow bloggers who are involved in the TOEMP challenges. Sorry for being incognito these past 2 challenges and for not being very responsive during the email chats. I can't promise that real life is going to let up anytime soon, but I'll definitely try to regain a routine in regards to my miniature hobby. We'll see.

So, with that out of the way, here are the 3 Imperial Guard Cadian Heavy Weapons Teams I promised to complete for Challenge #3. Interestingly enough, the first 2 teams (a lascannon and a heavy bolter) were both done 2 or so days before the Challenge #3 deadline and the final team (the 2nd lascannon) was about half-way done. I was actually pretty certain I'd make the deadline. And then...real life. Well, I can't quite remember the deadline for Challenge #3, but I think I'm about 2 weeks past due. The picture to the upper left of the post is of the 1st lascannon team. If any of you have seen a very early post I put up of the lascannon team for my Veterans Squad, then you'll recognize that I've repeated the mixing and matching of Cadian and Catachan parts for the crewmen. There are 2 reasons why I do this: 1) I just don't have enough dedicated Cadian Heavy Weapons kits to make the quantity of Heavy Weapons I need for my planned army, and 2) I kind of imagine Heavy Weapons Teams being a bit more loosey-goosey with dress regulations due to the labor-intensive nature of operating the weapons.

The second picture to the right is of the heavy bolter team. The gun shield wouldn't fit properly, so I just left it off. Personally, I think it looks better that way, more like a Vietnam era M60 general purpose machine gun. The final picture to the bottom left is of the 2nd lascannon team.

Total Points earned for this challenge:

3 Heavy Weapons Teams + 6 points (I'm trying to push for including these models in the cavalry/ bikes category rather than the foot sloggers seeing as how each model consists of 2 crewmen plus a heavy weapon)
Eyes/ Lenses + 6 points
Missing Deadline - 3 points
Total: 9 points

For the 5th Challenge, I'm going to try to get 10 Vampire Counts Skeleton Spearmen painted up. Again, I very likely won't make the deadline, but I'm going to keep keepin' on.

Leia Mais…

62 - TOEMP Challenge #4

The TOEMP Bloggers have received their latest assignment! For Challenge #4, we are given free reign to paint up 60+ Codex/ Army Book points worth of any models we choose. Afterwards, we are then required to write up a short piece explaining why we chose said models (e.g., to work towards finishing an army, because said models have been sitting on our workshelves giving us a guilt trip for oh so many months, because we were particularly intrigued by the look and character of said models, etc.). Perfect challenge to not only keep us all painting but also to give us something to write about on our blogs!

I've decided to continue chipping away at my Imperial Guard army by painting up a Heavy Weapons Squad (2 lascannons and a heavy bolter). Working on the Sentinel kind of got me in the mood for working on characterful and evocative bases that told little stories, so that's what I'm going to try to do with these 3 Heavy Weapons Teams. I'll probably continue with the tale I began with the Sentinel by sprinkling Chaos Space Marines (or at least their body parts, all hail the Emperor! mwahahaha!) throughout the 60mm bases.

The deadline for Challenge #4 is September 16. Plenty of time!

Leia Mais…

61 - TOEMP Challenge #3 Completed!

Thank goodness for holiday weekends! Starting the night before, I basically embarked on a marathon session to finish up the Khorne Bezerker and the base elements. Finally, I managed to put it all together around 4 PM Saturday.

The Bezerker is extremely rough, but since the Sentinel is supposed to be the focus for this piece, I'm okay with it. My strategy for painting the Bezerker was to basically make sure the Opaque Red basecoat was applied as smoothly as possible, and then to use the Antique Gold to quickly pick out some details here and there. I relied very heavily on Citadel washes to cover mistakes and provide some depth and shading on the Bezerker.

For the base, I decided against using the dozer blade from the Chaos Rhino as a fence due to its size. Instead, I replaced it with two smaller spikey bits from the Chaos Rhino sprue. The smaller one of the two I kept upright, but the larger one I placed laying down on the ground to simulate the violent onslaught of the Sentinel. Also scattered about the base are two hound head statues also from the Chaos Rhino kit, some moss, talus, and broken off cork bits.

So, scoring-wise, here are the points breakdown for completing this 3rd TOEMP challenge:

Foot Slogger - 1 pt.
Walker - 5 pts.
Walker Details (Hunter-Killer Missile, Plasma Cannon) - 5 pts.; not sure if this is what is meant by "accessories"
Meeting Deadline - 2 pts.
Beating Deadline by More Than 24 Hours - 2 pts.
Adding Extra Detail to Base - 5 pts.

For a total of 20 pts.

Overall, this particular challenge was a lot of fun. Obviously, real life interruptions forced me to rush a bit near the end, but I still feel the end result was acceptable. I eagerly await the next challenge in the Tale of Even More Painters!

Please click here for more pics.

Leia Mais…

60 - TOEMP Challenge #3 Update

Unfortunately, real life over the past couple of days interfered with my painting schedule. I had originally intended to finish the Sentinel a day or two ago, but it's taken me until today to finally get it done. It's still not 100% complete though. I still need to thoroughly highlight it and get more coverage on the Hunter-Killer Missile before I'd officially call it done.

Overall, though, I like it. It was much harder to paint than I expected, but I think I slowed myself down by making some first-time mistakes that I hopefully will not duplicate. Some things I learned:

1) Prime a vehicle in the predominant color of the basecoat. In this instance, I should've primed the sentinel in Hunter Green instead of Black. I could've then gone over the parts I planned on painting in another color in Black, if I wished. Priming it in Black, on the other hand, forced me to spend way too much time applying the Hunter Green basecoat.

2) Don't bother painting the interior of a vehicle that will not ever see the light of day. With this Sentinel, since I glued the top of the cabin down, the few hours I spent painting the interior and the pilot kind of went to waste. I mean, yes, you can sort of see the pilot through the viewing hatches in front, but the rest of the interior of the cabin is basically invisible. At most, I'd paint the pilot and leave it at that. However, for vehicles where the interior can be seen by opening a hatch or a door, then I'll still go ahead and paint it up.

3) Make sure to use the right pieces when putting the vehicle together! This was just me being distracted and unobservant. For the cabin of the Sentinel, before I knew it, I had glued the open-topped side panels onto the cabin frame instead of the armored side panels. As a result, the top hatch wouldn't fit neatly onto the cabin. I had to resort to doing some cutting with my hobby knife and then filling in the gaps along the sides with greenstuff. I'm actually pretty happy with the greenstuffing (on top of this being my first attempt at putting together a vehicle, it was also my first attempt at using greenstuff to fill gaps and make corrections). Up close, it looks obvious I greenstuffed, but from a reasonable distance, the greenstuff appears pretty seamless.

All of these 3 mistakes cost me a lot of time and motivation. While I enjoyed working around these issues, they also tested my patience with the model, and that's not a good way to maintain interest in something.

Well, I've got roughly 2 more days to finish the rest of the base (the Khorne Bezerker and some sort of barrier to simulate a defensive position) if I want to complete this challenge 24 hours before the Sunday deadline. It's Labor Day weekend in America, and my wife and I don't have anything planned (except possibly watching "Inglourious Basterds" on Saturday or Sunday), so I should have plenty of time.

Leia Mais…

59 - TOEMP Challenge #3 WIP

So, the third challenge in A Tale of Even More Painters is to either paint up a Special Character (plus retinue, if applicable) while writing up a data sheet for him/ her, or alternatively, to paint up a Fast Attack/ Special Unit with extra points being awarded for creative basing.

I decided to go with an Imperial Guard Cadian Armored Sentinel. I could've chosen to paint up a Space Marine Captain with Command Squad, but at this point, I'm so sick of basecoating red that I thought, for sanity's sake, it was best to move on to another color scheme for the time being. The Sentinel is going to be exciting to do for a couple of reasons:

1) It's the first vehicle I'll ever be assembling and painting.

2) I love decorative bases, so this challenge is right up my alley.

3) It's been almost 2 months since I've added anything to my Imperial Guard army.

I've included some work in progress pics of what I have in mind for the Sentinel. Basically, it's a mini-diorama depicting the Sentinel about to crash through the front lines of a Chaos Space Marine defensive position. At the moment, only the Sentinel has been glued to the base. I'll be painting it up first before I add the fence and the Khorne Bezerker. The fence comes from a Chaos Rhino, I believe. I think it's part of the Rhino's dozer blade. I'll very likely also be adding rocks and rubble and shrubbery and such stuff as finishing touches.

I honestly can't wait to start painting this sucker up. Hopefully, under the deadline (Sept. 6th) as well.

Leia Mais…

46 - Imperial Guard Cadian 265th Regiment 2,500 Points Army List

Even though I don't see myself playing a game in the near future (due to work and family life conspiring to strip me of any free time other than the late-night painting/ hobby sessions I can scavenge up), I've found that drawing up army lists can be a productive thing for hobbyists for a couple of reasons:

1) An army list can serve as a very focused shopping list for hobbyists who find themselves buying kits and models without any kind of rhyme or reason (guilty as charged). Not only can that sort of buying habit be expensive but it can also result in miniatures languishing on sprues many months later because you honestly have no idea why you even bought them in the first place. But if those miniatures are part of an army you're constructing...well, that's your motivation right there.

2) An army list can help you build up momentum and maintain motivation for painting. Sometimes painting one miniature here, one miniature there can result in the desire to paint kind of petering out and dissipating. But if you're able to see a mob of 30 Ork Boyz slowly appearing before your eyes, or a full regiment of 20 Empire State Troops all resplendent in their colorful uniforms and heraldry lined up in neat blocks on your hobby shelf, the grandeur of it all might possibly make you want to add to it. In other words, using large, organized units of miniatures to get you motivated is like that social psychology experiment they ran many years back: when the researchers had just 1 or 2 people stop and start staring up at nothing in particular on a busy city street, none of the passing pedestrians bothered to see what they were staring at. But when the researchers had 5 or 10 people stop and stare up at the sky, suddenly almost every passing pedestrian would also stop and see what was going on. It's the power of numbers reaching a critical mass.

3) Army lists are just fun to put together and as a result, the very act of doing something fun that's hobby related helps to maintain your interest in the hobby as a whole.

Now with the preamble out of the way, here is the Imperial Guard Army List I've been messing around with for the past couple of months. Rather than keeping it posted up on the sidebar, taking up space and cluttering the page, I'm going to publish it as a post, and then create a nice, tidy link on the sidebar instead. In the future, all of my army lists will be done this way, and the sidebar will thus contain a collection of links to army lists rather than the entire lists. Of course, publishing them as posts isn't purely for housekeeping purposes. As a novice to the wargaming aspects of the hobby, I welcome comments and criticisms. In the event I do eventually play games with my armies, having them be fun to use (as opposed to poorly put together) would be great.

Imperial Guard Army List - 2,502 Points

Legend:

Completed

Work In Progress

Assembled

On Sprue

Not Owned

HQ - 372 pts.

Company Command Squad

- Colonel w/ bolt pistol, medi-pack, Regimental Standard, vox-caster, plasma gun, Bodyguard, Officer of the Fleet, Astropath

- Chimera w/ camo netting and hunter-killer missile

Lord Commissar attached to Veteran Squad

- power fist and carapace armor

Elites - 305 pts.

Ratlings (5)

Storm Trooper Squad (10)

- Sergeant w/ power weapon, flamer, meltagun

Guardsman Marbo

Troops - 740 pts.

Platoon Command Squad

- Lieutenant w/ power weapon, Platoon Standard, vox-caster, autocannon team

Infantry Squad (10)

- flamer, vox-caster, missile launcher team

Infantry Squad (10)

- grenade launcher, vox-caster, heavy bolter team

Infantry Squad (10)

- meltagun, vox-caster, mortar team

Infantry Squad (10)

- grenade launcher, vox-caster, autocannon team

Heavy Weapons Squad (3)

- 2 lascannon teams, heavy bolter team

Veteran Squad (10)

- Gunnery Sergeant Harker, vox-caster w/ shotgun, demolitions charge w/ shotgun, meltagun, heavy flamer, sniper rifle, lascannon team

- Chimera w/ heavy stubber, dozer blade

Fast Attack - 438pts.

Armoured Sentinels (2)

- heavy flamer w/ hunter-killer missile, searchlight, smoke launchers and camo netting

- plasma cannon w/ hunter-killer missile, searchlight, and smoke launchers

Devil Dog
- searchlight, smoke launchers and storm bolter

Valkyrie
- lascannon

- heavy bolters on sponsons

Heavy Support - 645 pts.

Leman Russ Battle Tank

- multi-meltas on sponsons and pintle-mounted heavy stubber

Leman Russ Demolisher

- heavy flamers on sponsons, pintle-mounted storm bolter and dozer blade

Basilisks (2)

Again, any comments, criticisms, tips, advice, etc. are heartily welcomed, although it should be obvious from my list that I'm not out to create the hardest army possible. After all, only 3 of my infantry units are mounted in Chimeras, so I'm clearly not pursuing the all-mechanization strategy that seems to be very popular out on the interwebs. Also, if there's a more streamlined way for posting army lists, please tell me. I know that it's verboten to post unit/ upgrade costs on a point by point basis, but I'm unclear as to whether or not there are other protocols for posting army lists.

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33 - "The 50/ 50s" Heavy Weapons Lascannon Team

"The 50s/ 50s" are finally at full strength! My Veteran Squad now consists of: Veteran Sergeant Greyloch, plasma pistol and a chainsword; Corporal Marsham, lasgun; Specialist Samori, vox-caster and shotgun; Specialist Condan, meltagun; Specialist Chule, heavy flamer; Specialist Ruddard, sniper rifle; Specialist Slagan, shotgun and demolition charge; Specialist Blacker, lasgun; and Specialists Kajall (spotter) and Glutter (lascannon operator). Since their capabilities seem to be more geared towards anti-armor, I'll be mounting them in a Chimera to give them added mobility. I realize they're not optimized to the fullest (Ruddard, the sniper, for instance, doesn't really add much to the anti-tank specialization of this squad, Sergeant Greyloch probably should be wielding a power weapon instead of his chainsword, and Chule very likely would be more effective armed with another meltagun rather than his heavy flamer), but their composition was selected based less on min-maxing and more on 2 criteria: 1) what would be fun to model and paint, and 2) what bits I had available laying around.

The Lascannon Team took much longer than I expected. Overall, it took me about 3 days of painting at about 3 hours a day (so a total of 9 hours). It's not perfect, not by a longshot, but I'm fairly satisfied with it. I like how the skin turned out on the two troopers. I basically painted a skintone over a black undercoat, then drenched it with an Ogryn Flesh wash. I finished up by bringing the skintone back up with a layer or two while being careful not to paint over the wash darkened recesses. Specialist Kajall (the spotter) endured a painting mishap when a blob of red paint dropped onto his face. After much vile cursing and exasperated sighs, I managed to salvage his mug by removing as much of the wet paint as I could with a moist brush and then applying very thin layers of skintone to cover the red while trying very hard not to a) thicken the paint on his face too much (especially since the painting surfaces on the faces of these miniatures are at such a premium) or b) marr the 1st layer of skintone basecoat I had already painted on.

You'll notice that these two "Cadian" troopers have been put together using a lot of Catachan bits. Well this is primarily because the Catachan Heavy Weapon Squad kit was the only one I was able to buy off of eBay at a reasonable price. So what I did was improvise/ convert a little bit - I partnered a Cadian Shock Trooper torso with a Catachan Heavy Weapon legs for Kajall, and for Glutter, I attempted to give the appearance of a Cadian trooper by using the Cadian head on a Catachan torso and legs. Finally, I painted them in Cadian colors to further add to the illusion. Also since this team is part of a Veteran Squad, a fair amount of irregularity in uniform and equipment can be expected and tolerated.

Not much highlighting was done (again) on this team (aside from the standard bringing the base colors up after shading them with washes), although I did make an amateur's attempt at painting Kajall's big muthafrakkin' machete in the non-metallic metal technique.

Okay, well thanks for voting in the poll, all! There are still 4 days left, so please keep voting (over at Post 31) if you'd like. Between now and the end of the poll, I might paint up another miniature. Or I might just start getting everything ready for my first attempt at putting together a tutorial.

Click here for more pics.

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27 - Imperial Guard Cadian Shock Troops (Second Infantry Squad Complete!)

Well, except for the Heavy Weapons Team (very likely either a mortar or a heavy bolter) that will be attached to them. These final 3 grunts are all armed with the humble lasgun. The trooper in the middle is in the process of hurling a fragmentation grenade at some mutant monstrosity bearing down on his squad's position. The man on the right is pointing at said mutant monstrosity and urging his fellow troopers to pour on the lasgun fire. All in all, I give these 3 and their fellow squadmates about 15 seconds before they're all ripped into bloody gribbly bits and consumed. Which is par for the course for the Imperial Guard. I think their junior officers, upon graduating from War College, get a field manual entitled, "They Can't Kill Us All, Can They?!?"

I thoroughly enjoyed painting all of these Guardsmen. They make an excellent canvas for practicing basic painting techniques, and due to their uniformity, you can very clearly mark your progress from one trooper to the next. It's quite a good thing I liked painting them so much (and the fluff which accompanies them) because according to my army list, I think I have 30-40 more of these Guardsmen to paint up (and that's not even counting the 2 Command Squads).

Up next - I might just jump right in an finish off the Imperial Guard assets I have left (that would be around 6 Heavy Weapons Teams and 3 members of a Platoon Command Squad), or I might shift gears and work on some random miniature I have laying around. I really should resume painting my Blood Ravens as that army is practically complete (I'm mostly missing vehicles which I've yet to find at the appropriate rock bottom price on eBay). We'll see...

Click here for more pics.

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26 - Imperial Guard Veterans Squad w/ Heavy Flamer Operator

Well, it's been almost 2 weeks since my last post. Sorry for that, but recently my wife and I went on a "Lost" marathon, watching 4 seasons in about 10 days. Pretty crazy, but kind of worth it, I guess. Seasons 2 and 3 were fantastic, but the show started to slip a bit in season 4, and season 5 was just very disappointing. Hopefully the 6th and final season will wrap things up satisfactorily (unlike BSG's last season - yeesh, what a travesty considering how great the overall series was).

Okay, so what I've got here is the 8th member of my Veterans Squad - Specialist Chule, heavy flamer operator. I had a lot of trouble with his figure. First, the arms that came with the heavy flamer didn't fit properly on a standard Cadian shock trooper torso. I'm guessing it must be designed specifically for a Command sprue torso. So, I had to substitute a left arm from the shock trooper sprue (the one with the hand holding the handle for the flamer), cut off the hand, and then use putty epoxy to fill gaps in the left shoulder and the left wrist. Then, I discovered that the fuel tube was not long enough to connect to the fuel tank. In order to remedy this problem, first I tried to use more putty epoxy, but the angle was so awkward and the putty so difficult to work with that I gave up. For a couple of days, I figured I'd just leave the gap and not worry to much about it, but the perfectionist in me could not abide the flaw. Thus, I improvised and glued a bit (the coiled rope thingie painted Antique Gold) from somewhere (I can't remember right now) to cover up the gap in the tube. As for the rest of the miniature - it has a Pig Iron Productions gas-mask head, a skull on a chain bit from a Flagellant sprue, and a purity seal from some Space Marine sprue. Very minor conversions compared to what I've done on my other vets, but I'm just glad they're almost done.

Paintjob wise, Specialist Chule ain't all that great. There's some very noticeable sloppy painting here and there, but overall, he's acceptable, I think. My plan is to finish up 3 more Standard Guardsmen for my Third Infantry Squad, and then move on to painting the Heavy Weapons Teams for both the vet and the infantry squads. To the right is the partially assembled Lascannon Team for my vet squad. My infantry squad will be joined by a Heavy Bolter Team. I'm very pleased with the heavy weapons kit - it's almost like a mini-diorama! Hopefully, this change of pace will rekindle my interest in completing some more of my Imperial Guard army.

As usual, click here for more pics.

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21 - Imperial Guard Shock Troops - Flamer Trooper

Next up - the flamer trooper for my standard Guardsmen squad. He's missing the decals on his shoulder pads and a varnish, but for all intents and purposes, he's finished. I'm pretty satisfied with his paintjob - nothing special, not too much highlighting (in fact, almost none other than bringing the base color back after shading the model with Citadel Washes). As I've mentioned in my earlier posts, I've continued to use craft paints up to this point - all of my Guardsmen (Veteran and Standard) have been painted using Delta Ceramcoat Hunter Green and Bridge Grey, Americana Fawn, and Folk Art Skin Tone. While the craft paints have been, on the whole, acceptable, their covering properties are definitely a bit on the transparent end (especially after being thinned, which they must be in order to avoid being slathered on too thickly). I've recently been looking into investing in some dedicated miniature model paints - Vallejo, Reaper, or Games Workshop - but the cost of these paints still seems prohibitive to me.

I've tried to paint the Standard Guardsmen (Third Squad/ 1st Platoon) in a cleaner, less grittier style than my Veterans. The reason, obviously, is to imply that the Standard Guardsmen squads are constantly getting influxes of fresh-faced replacements to replenish the heavy casualties that Imperial Guard units are infamous for enduring. Thus, at any given time, Standard Guard squads are full of troopers in newly pressed, crisp uniforms, flak armor that still have that new factory smell, and the deer in the headlights look. This squad has the 265 decal on their left shoulder pads (and the Cadian structure symbol on their right shoulder pad), so I'm working under the assumption that they belong to the 265th Cadian Shock Troops Regiment. A cursory Google search doesn't reveal any canonical references to the 265th Cadian Regiment, so I guess I'll have to sit down and create some fluff for them on my own (Yay!).

So, this flamer trooper makes 5 Standard Guardsmen from Third Squad. 3 more lasgun troopers to go and then a Heavy Weapons Team (either autocannon or heavy bolter) to round them out. At this point, I'll have used 16 of the 20 available models from the Cadian Shock Troops box I purchased five or so months back (before they went OOP). That leaves 4 models left. I've already begun converting those 4 remaining models for my 1st Platoon Command Squad (I've got enough bits collected and set aside for a Junior Officer, a Standard Bearer, a vox-caster operator, and a veteran with a special weapon). After that, I might move on to trying my hand at converting (with green stuff) some Ogryn from an Ogre Kingdoms Leadbelcher set I have. More likely though, I'll head back to my Blood Ravens as I have plans to convert some regular Tactical Space Marines into Sternguard. Unless, of course, I'm able to find some Heavy Weapons Squad boxes cheap on eBay, but ever since the recent release of the 5th Ed. Imperial Guard Codex, it's been impossible to get IG stuff cheaply. Interestingly enough, it's also really hard to get Space Marine Scout boxes cheaply on eBay. Considering everything I've read on the Interwebs about SM Scouts are that they're not all that good, I'm a bit confuzzled as to why people seem to want them so badly.

Again, click here for more pics.

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20 - Imperial Guard Veterans Squad "The 50/ 50s" (7 out of 10 Completed)

As a new member of the From the Warp Bloggers Group, I'd like to make my first contribution to the group by adding to the Collaborative Post on the Imperial Guard. This post is more of a summary of all of my past posts on the construction and painting of my Veterans Squad, "The 50/ 50s" (so named because this jaded, cynical group of hardened veterans understand that life and death is merely a 50/ 50 flip of the coin, oftentimes, and skill ain't got nothing to do with it). To the left, you will see the finished 7 members of "The 50/ 50s." In the top row, from left to right, we have: Specialist Samori, the vox-caster operator and newest member of the squad; Sergeant Greyloch; Specialist Ruddard, the sniper; and Specialist Blacker. In the bottom row, from left to right, we have: Specialist Slagan, demolitions expert; Corporal Marsham; and Specialist Condan, meltagun operator. The squad is still missing its heavy flamer operator (next up as soon as I get my heavy flamer bit in the mail) and its Heavy Weapon Team (a lascannon, I think).

Now, I'm not really all that interested in min-maxing this squad. I mostly chose its composition based on what I wanted to paint or how I envisioned it in my mind. While I'm not counting out ever playing a table-top game of Warhammer 40k, at the moment, I really have no time to pursue that.

A close-up of Specialist Samori is to the right. His head comes from a Space Marine Scout, his vox-caster is Catachan, the banner streaming from the antenna of his vox-caster is a Dark Elf Warrior bit, the shotgun has been cut and converted from a Space Marine Scout, and his right arm is from the Command Squad sprue. His paintjob neither improves nor slips from my current level of painting. I did continue my attempts at grasping highlighting by adding some to the banner (to decent effect), but I think proper highlighting is still a few months away.

Some comments on how I put this squad together - Corporal Marsham (bottom row, middle) was the first Veteran I "converted" and painted. As you can see, he's pretty much a standard Guardsman but with a few bits glued on him here and there. Specialist Blacker (top row, far right) was the second, and his conversion was taken one step further than Marsham's - I cut off his left hand and glued on a hook from a Chaos Space Marine Rhino decorative bit. Also, his head comes from a Space Marine Scout. As I became more confident and more engrossed in the conversion aspects of this hobby, each subsequent Veteran underwent more and more elaborate conversions - Specialist Ruddard, the sniper, is wielding a converted sniper rifle; Specialist Condan operates a meltagun from the Space Marine Tactical Squad box and required a lot of cutting and filing in order to make it fit on his model; etc. What I came to realize is that converting models is incredibly good fun! It's heretical to say, but it's even more fun than painting them! I've gotten to the point where every remaining unit in my Imperial Guard list is going to be scrutinized for conversion possibilities. I'll be asking myself: "Hmm, do I really have to buy a Cadian Command Squad box? Or should I see if I can convert one from bits laying around?"

After completing my Veterans Squad, I will be building a diorama for them. I would like to incorporate magnets into the diorama, or at least design it in such a way that the miniatures can be removed from the diorama easily. I've seen tutorial on the web, but many of them seem to require a drill bit of some kind which I do not own (nor plan on getting in the near future). At this point, I think I'm looking at using plasticard or even sculpting putting to create depressions in the diorama to accomodate the base of a miniature.

Well, click here for more pics of my Veterans Squad, and feel free to visit my blog for more in-depth posts on each of the individual members of "The 50/ 50s."

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19 - Imperial Guard Veterans Squad Demolitions Specialist

As predicted, I couldn't help but resume painting my Imperial Guard Veterans Squad. Converting models is almost as fun as painting them, honestly, and my Veterans Squad has been my most highly customized unit of models to date. To the right, we have Specialist Slagan, the squad's demolitions expert. In his left hand, he is holding a "counts-as" demolition charge (which was originally a meltabomb from a Space Marine Devastator's sprue, I believe). His head, as mentioned in the WIP post, is from Pig Iron Productions. Pig Iron sells them 10 to a pack and they're really great for adding individuality to models. Scale-wise, they're perfect fits for Games Workshop's models, and even though the helmets aren't exact matches for the standard Cadian pattern helmets, they're close enough especially when you paint them the same color. Slagan is also wielding a shotgun appropriated from a Space Marine Scout and on his back, he is humping a backpack from a Catachan Heavy Weapon sprue. Also, if you look carefully, I finally applied decals to my Imperial Guard models. On Slagan's right shoulder pad is a white skull - the symbol I'll be using to identify my Veterans from the more rank-and-file troopers.

I wouldn't consider Slagan's paintjob good or bad. It's a bit messier than the level I've been achieving as of late, but overall, it's of the same quality. The confidence I gained highlighting the Vampire Counts Zombie from the previous post completely disappeared with this model. As I wrote in that post, when I'm forced to pick out highlighting points on my own (rather than simply following the obvious peaks and valleys presented by a model like the Zombie), I often still make poor choices. I do like how Slagan's backpack turned out though. I personally think the worst part of the model has to be the demolition charge. If I had to do it over again, I'd probably re-paint it green, black, and grey with maybe some red thrown in, but the yellow just didn't work at all.

Well, the Veterans Squad is now 6 strong. I have the vox-caster operator (whom I haven't given a name yet) ready to go at my workstation, and then the heavy flamer operator still awaiting my attempt at buying cheaply either a Cadian Command Squad box or a heavy flamer bits off of eBay. I've also been scavenging on eBay for a cheap (and when I say cheap, I'm talking 50% or more off the MSRP before I'll actually buy something) Cadian Heavy Weapons Squad box to round out my Veterans Squad.

Click here for more pics.

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