Imperial Reference Cogitator

Wednesday, September 30, 2020

Epic Proportions Seventh Unit Completed

Ultramarines 4th Company Support, 2nd Land Speeder Squadron,  "The Iron Fingertips"

One of my happiest achievements with these tiny speeders was the Roman numeral transfers from one to five to denote each speeder's place in the squadron.

Progress on the Epic Proportions project seems to have slowed down for all participants, and there are rumblings from Dr TV that he may restart/reboot the challenge.  However since I have a massive amount of Epic miniatures left to paint, I have been slowly churning out at least one unit a month as a breather in between other painting projects.  These Land Speeders were a ton of fun to paint and I found myself getting sucked into the tiny details on the models wanting to bring the most out of the classic characterful sculpts.  Plus they are my only Land Speeder squadron in two huge Epic Space Marine armies so I wanted to take my time to make sure I really liked the finished models.  Follow along after the jump to see them from all angles in their tiny resplendent glory ...

Tuesday, September 29, 2020

Dreadtober Is Coming!

 


Dreadtober is almost here, and I am doubly excited for this year's challenge.  It's lots of fun to participate in this great challenge and get to work alongside (virtually) all the other great painters in the project.  For this blog specifically it will also mark the one year anniversary of this blog since I started this endeavor last year in October to chronicle my progress in the challenge.  Head over to the main site and check out the rumblings of the multi ton war machines readying for battle!

Monday, September 28, 2020

40k 2nd Edition Army Challenge Second Month Completed

 Tactical Squad Zanthor 


Since ten marines used to cost more than 350 points in second edition, the banner per combat squad at least made them look a little larger than life on the battlefield.

September saw the completion of my first full squad for the 2nd Edition Army painting challenge.  Squad Zanthor will also fit into my ongoing Dark Angels Battle Company project so this unit will get a full bells and whistles write up in a few days.  I'm just throwing this quick post up since other participants have been posting this months progress on Facebook and the army challenge was also featured in the Crown of Command podcast.



Thursday, September 24, 2020

Inquisitional Conclave 2020 Completed!

 Inquisitor Jorus Rhyloth, Ordo Xenos



"He almost took my head off the first time he unsheathed that damned-fool giant sword of his in the narrow corridor of Stack Nineteen. The orbital station chief had warned me that old Jorus could act with the impulses of a man a quarter of his age, but I always assumed an Inquisitor would have been more... restrained in his choice of actions.  As soon as we arrived at the meet, I had a suspicion something wasn’t quite, ah, completely human about Karde and his men.  Fast as that realization had dawned on me the old man was moving even faster and if my ears hadn’t caught the hum of that power sword igniting I’d be several inches shorter and just as deceased as Karde and his men were a few seconds later.  Although Jorus had told the planetary governor he was on the trail of dangerous xenos technology being sold on the black market, he was actually masking his true purpose, unsure of how far the influence of the conspiracy reached.  What Inquisitor Ryloth had actually been seeking was sprayed all over the nearest bulkheads when he cut through Karde’s gang, blood that even in the dim light of the hallway we could see had too much purple in it to be the right color for a man. 

His superiors at the Ordo Xenos needed visible confirmation of what his investigation of the last few months had led him to: Refinery Stack Nineteen and its surrounding hab blocks had been the sight of a growing xenos infestation for some time. Before the sanitation techs had arrived to scrub the hallway, our squad had already been given orders to accompany Jorus and a regiment from the PDF to lock down all the access in and out of the western rim of the station.  The surprises kept on coming that day, it turned out Ryloth had more than a score of Astartes hidden away on the naval cruiser that had brought him to the station.  Once the combined forces of the Arbites and PDF had sealed off Stacks Fifteen to Twenty-One, he strode in with those armoured giants in a suit of his own jet black power armor to cleanse all those infected by the genestealer cult.  Don’t even get me started on that ridiculously huge banner he wore while leading the sons of the emperor into battle…”

Arbites Legate Bor Tarkin, Orbital Station Delta, Hexos System


Sunday, September 20, 2020

#DadGoals Painting Fanatic

Chaos Warband!


Some of the first miniatures my son has painted.  He likes to make liberal use of Blood For The Blood God.

My son has recently fallen in love with painting miniatures which is awesome and what I've always hoped for.  However I now have to adjust to finding him in my painting space at 8 on a Saturday morning or having days where he talks about fantasy miniatures and gaming for hours on end.  Some days I have to try and remind myself that when I was this interested in games and miniatures, I didn't know anyone else my age who had a similar interest, let alone an adult who would humor endless conversation about the subject.  All in all it has been a fun to have him jumping into the hobby with both feet and will provide plenty of content for the #DadGoals category in the future.  As long as I can survive the energy of a ten year old who lives in my house now being invested in my favorite hobby.

Friday, September 18, 2020

Spaceships Are Not Supposed To Be This Close Together Part XIII

 Digital Edition Part 3 - Fenn Rau and the Serissu Kid


Somehow all of these ships got into position without bumping and were all able to fire at each other...

Friday, September 11, 2020

1st Legion Banners!

 Warhammer 40,000 3rd Edition Dark Angels Codex


This week's entry is a vintage Dark Angels gem from their first official supplement codex that I scanned recently for a fellow participant in the 2nd Ed Army Challenge.  If you haven't checked out the first month's post, follow the link and check out some amazing looking classic GW miniatures.  Based on my success with printing the banner for my Inquisitor, in the near future I may try and use those the character banners above for my Deathwing Chaplain and Librarian.  There seems to be no end to Dark Angels players out there so hopefully this is useful for someone who may want to have a go at old school back banners.

Wednesday, September 9, 2020

Epic Proportions Sixth Unit Completed

Imperial Robot Cohort 


Sadly these four robots were my only completed miniatures for the Epic Proportions challenge in August.  Between the Inquisitional Conclave and the 2nd Edition Army challenge kicking off I did not get much time to work on my Epic forces.  However enough excuses let's talk about tiny war robots...

Thursday, September 3, 2020

Imperium of Man Banners!

 Banner Pages Debut Entry 

I've got to find a way to include that crazy ass early Ravenwing banner in my Dark Angels army somewhere...

 

My recent foray into the Inquisitional Conclave led to me discovering I had an untapped resource on my bookshelf that may be helpful for the hobby community at large.  For many years I have owned an incomplete copy of the Rogue Trader Chapter Approved which was fun for the lore contained in the pages that were complete, but I had always seen it as a disappointment overall because all of the nascent Imperial army lists that should have been in there were missing due to GW's infamous problems with bindings falling apart on their early sourcebooks.  While scanning in some pages as part of my ongoing Codex Titanicus entries I decided to take another flip through that book to see if there was anything worth scanning since thanks to the aforementioned binding issues there were many loose pages ripe for scanning within.  Much to my delight I found that not only was the full color catalogue at the back complete, the bottom of every page contained at least five or six banners for the factions that existed in the early Rogue Trader era.  I was especially excited to find an Inquisitors banner that was perfect for my conclave entry but the wealth of banners went on for pages and I know from my own internet searches that sometimes finding reliable quality scans of these old resources can be difficult.