Painting - WIP 40k Imperial Knight - torso

Over the weekend I made more progress on my Ultramarine affiliated Imperial Knight(any suggestions for appropriate names?).

After finishing the main carapace I started in the torso.  Washes of Nuln Oil and Agrax Earthshade were applied to engine parts and the superstructure.  I painted some of the machine housing, cowling, faceplate and shield in the same thunderhawk blue and weathered to match the top.

The exhaust vents and heat sinks were painted in balthazar gold then retributor gold.  Washes for oil streaks were added and small touches of verdigris.

I will have to remedy the mold line on the back of main exhaust :/

For the house shield, after looking through a few relevant books then shuffling through many unused transfer sheets I went with a mechanicum cog and an Ultramarine symbol which perfectly fit.  I sent Jake and Ryan some pictures and Jake from boyopaints suggested toning down the bold white if the transfers.  I carefully painted over them in gold, pallid flesh then white and it does fit in better with the freehand.  I then finished it off with the marbling effect and weathering.

Painting - WIP ok it's an Imperial Knight

Following up on last nights shoulder guard I applied some weathering to the main carapace armour.  This has been a clean thunderhawk blue to a balthazar gold trim.  It had looked to factory new for my liking so I added layers of Retributor gold and washes to the armour trim.

I added a combination of weathering powders, washes and sponge chipping to the main blue sections.  After seeing how the shoulder had turned out I needed to do more.  I flipped through FW Horus Heresy V, looking at the Ultramarine Honour Guard and roughly replicated an eagle from there.

First a rough layout in brown, then a neater layer in gold.

After this I layered Pallid Wych Flesh, White and some fine black linework.  I then re-weathered some of the recesses.

Looking at the Honour Guard's Shields, they are depicted as marble so taking inspiration I painted a few fine lines with Incubi Darkness then edged them with Fenris Grey to give the impression of a little depth.

Carapace complete!

Painting - a little WIP

I have other things on my painting table at the moment.  A were bear and it's human warrior form, a Sorcerer of Tzeentch and a deviant beast Ryan acquired.  But tonight I thought I'd try something I had in mind hobby wise.

I painted a medium brown base coat then applied Agrellan Earth to the main surface of the shoulder guard.  Once dry and the cracks had formed I carefully drybrushed Pallid Wych Flesh then began some freehand work.

I painted the pattern along the bottom of the guard then in layers of brown and gold painted the laurel.  The gold blended in with the trim too much so I added a layer of white.  Using the same techniques I did half the Ultramarine symbol and numeral for their Legion.  Some fine black lines were added to better outline the freehand.

Then I painting the half Aquila.  I shaded the retributor gold on the trim with black and green washes and started the scratches on the edges.  There is no hurry to have this done in its entirety so it might be a case of working on sections between the miniatures for other people.  Anyway I hope you like what you see so far.

Maelstrom IX 2016

Some pics from the event - thanks again to Hagen for organising and running this. I took a Codex SM CAD army using White Scar chapter tactics focused around 2 grav command squads, chapter master & librarian, with 2 troop bike melta squds and rear field fire support from 4 typhoon land speeders and a thunderfire cannon.

First up I played Sean's Dark Eldar on the Mechanicus table. There were quite a few questions regarding the mat on this table - it is available here. After a brutal shoot up on both sides I ended up 17-3 at the end.

Game 2 versus Glen's Daemons. After my firepower provided incredibly ineffective and his drones wrecked havoc in the middle I fled around the board trying to bully horrors and score maelstrom cards with the remnants of my force. 12-8 win to Glen.

Game 3 versus Bredan's Eldar. Turn 1 chapter master tanked a massive 10" Ap3 eldritch storm, taking 1 wound. However the heavy wraithcannons came next - failed LoS & failed 3++ & 3 wounds from the D shot killed my big boss while scatter lasers ripped through the grav command squads. I tried to be aggressive to claim points back by tying up the guns but it got worse from there and Brendon tabled me for a 20 - 0 to him.

Game 4 versus Hugh's 20 terminators and a land raider. With all my speed, grav and melta it was a rough match up for Hugh. 19-1 to me.

Meanwhile Wil was stomping around with his 4 knight army...

Game 5 versus Caleb's Iron Hands bike army. A very close game throughout - we met in the middle and had swings of luck both ways. I was lucky for this to end turn 5 with an 11-9 victory to me.

Awesome weekend!

40k Maelstrom lists released

Next weekend we have the (now) annual Maelstrom tournament in Wellington.

Hagen the TO has put together a great players pack with some tidy comp.

Here is the link to the lists

There is a large amount of MEQ lists so I'm quite happy with my Daemonic army selection.  The Exalted Flamers putting out S6 AP3 torrents due to their formation will be gold.

The 2 Knight lists will be rough for my Daemons but after a practice game against Wil's list I have some ideas on countering them.

New Gaming Mat

Fellow 40ker Gareth ordered and received a fantastic new Mars themed gaming mat recently. It is one of the those mousepad style ones and came with a fancy carry case and is really nice.

So last Tuesday we gave it a run. We rolled it out then got some terrain on it in the appropriate places. Noted that it might be time to paint a few more buildings (probably red!).

I played Tau and he played Ad mech - 1500pt. I have been running bikes for some time so wanted to show Gareth what a true firepower army was.

My three Riptides (that's fluffy right?) were doing very well early on - the Nova re rolls from the wing formation saving me a wound almost every round.

Meanwhile some sneaky crises suits deep struck in the enemy lines to secure objectives.

The Crises team's intial drop went well but then they all forgot they had decent armour and disintergated quickly to basic fire.

While at my end of the table, fire warriors were doing what they do best now - sitting back on objectives and dying as slow as possible.

At the end Gareth grabbed a small win thanks to some good late game moves. The ad mech pulled out all the stops to hold the red planet! Looking forward to many more games on the mat. Need to do some terrain work as this will be very nice once covered in all painted items.

40K Daemons of Chaos - Dark Mechanicus Exalted Flamer #2

The second Dark Mechanicus Exalted Flamer is complete.

This fine fellow was built mainly from the Chaos Spawn kit with a Crypt Horror head and a massive Ork Mek Flamer.

I painted it using the same techniques as the previous one.  It involves a lot of Pallid wych Flesh, washes, glazes and Blood for the Blood God technical paint.  With the large areas of skin to paint I really got the hang on the scheme.  Painting spots and moles onto the skin breaks up the larger patches nicely.

Yesterday he joined the rest of my proposed Daemon list on the table.  I hosted a practice day for some local gamers including John from stumpy heaven.  Everyone was able to get two games in and I think it proved valuable for all.

I played John's Khorne Daemonkin list.  My Herald of Nurgle with Plague Drones were fantastic even taking out his D-Thirster in one round of combat.  The Exalted Flamers dealt with the Gorepack bikers as well so that gives me some counter to popular bike lists.  The result was a big win for me.

After lunch I played Wil's four Knight list.  I knew I would struggle against them but made moves to cause some damage.  Wil was familiar with what I could do and did not take the bait.  He did a lot of damage at range and even though a buffed Plague Drone unit took 1 Knight down in melee and seriously damaged another, stomps cleared the Daemons off quickly.  Wil got a clear win, I have had a good think about how to deal with super heavies and smart use of Daemonology  seems to be the answer.  We will see how it goes in practice.

One last Dark Mechanicus Flamer to go.

40k Daemons of Chaos - Dark Mech Exalted Flamer

For Maelstrom in four weeks time I am leaving the Eldar on the shelf - gasp!!! I am taking Daemons of Chaos instead.  I really like the formations in Curse of Fenris and the advantages of the Daemonic Incursion.

One of these formations requires Tzeentch Horrors and Exalted Flamers.  As I don't want multiple Burning Chariots (only source of Exalted Flamers) I thought I would build my own.  As I have been playing fun narrative games with a Heretek list it made sense to build some Dark Mechanicus monsters.

Going through my many bits I put this chap together.  The skull head is from Arcane Fulcrum terrain, body and barrel from an Ogre, vial and tentacle from a Dark Eldar Talos and the Flamer is from a Kataphron Destroyer.

I have two others on the painting table and three suitably large Lovecraft creatures already painted, so they should all look the part amongst hordes of Tzeentch Horrors on the tabletop.