40k 2nd Edition Army Challenge

Painting overload... 

When you engage in three painting challenges in a month, you have to take some shortcuts like finally finishing some long half painted miniatures...

Dr The Viking is organizing another painting challenge concurrent to the Epic Proportions challenge that is already ongoing and like a fool I am jumping in with both ceramite clad feet.  So for those of you counting along at home, in the month of August I'm engaging in three separate painting challenges. This will be just a quick post to kick off the challenge and let everyone know what I'm painting for the project.  Follow along after the jump for the full army list and more pictures...

In the days of second edition, 1000 points got you only a handful of marines...

Army List - Dark Angels 4th Company - 1003 points

Company Master Zakeal Korlael - 123 points

Bolt Pistol, Power Sword, Member of the Deathwing

Techmarine Hephaestus - 43 points

Servo Arm, Bolt Pistol

Tactical Squad Zanthor - 357 points

Sergeant with chain sword and bolt pistol

Meltagun, Missile Launcher with Frag and Krak

Devastator Squad Scalprum - 480 points

Sergeant with Power Axe and Boltgun

Multi-Melta, Lascannon, Missile Launcher, Heavy Bolter

For the 2nd edition army challenge I will be painting Dark Angels from the 4th Company.  I have been working on a full company of Dark Angels painted in the style of the Dark Angels painting guide published in WD 129 right before the start of 2nd edition.  There is a Tactical squad, a Devastator squad, a Company master, and a Techmarine.  I will also paint the apothecary and librarian for some variety even though they didn’t fit in under the 1000 points.

Most of the marines in the squad are the plastic monopose space marines from the 2nd edition box set but I hope to add some metal 2nd edition marines that have been on a slow voyage to the states after a trade with someone in the U.K. Ideally I will to be able to swap in some of those models to the squads as the challenge goes on.  Currently there are a few cheats in the the picture, two of the marines in the Devastator squad are 3rd edition box set marines but they will be wielding 2nd edition heavy weapons.  Also I made the multi-melta way back in the late 90's when space marines multi-meltas were non-existent.  It's actually a RT era multi-melta cut and glued onto a 3rd edition missile launcher parts so I think that thanks to the law of averages it works out to a 2nd edition part, right?

There are a lot of great partcipants and armies involved in the challenge, be sure to check out the WH40K 2nd edition army challenge page at Dr The Vikings Cowabunga

For the month of August I'm picking the squad already closest to completion in order to be able to focus on the other models I have on deck to paint this month.