WH40K 2nd Edition Army Challenge December

 Happy New Year From The 4th Company Of The First Legion!

Happy New Year and thank you to all those who have been reading along this year.  The latest summary of the 2nd Edition Army Challenge should be up soon so I wanted to post my progress this month as well as a group shot of everyone I've painted so far for the challenge.  This has been a lot of fun and now that the Devastator squad is completed I can also say it's been very helpful in motivating me to add to my ongoing dream project of painting an entire battle company of Dark Angels.  The marines pictured below are the five that it took all of the last two months to complete.  I'm aiming to finish strong by painting my Captain and Techmarine and hopefully a bonus model for January, the last month of the challenge.  Thanks for reading, Happy New Year! and stay safe in 2021  :-)

Be sure to follow all the great painting action over at the:

Warhammer 40k 2nd Edition Army Challenge

Twelve Days of Deathwing - Part Three

 Sometimes There's A Reason Things Are Priced To Move...

Oddly enough I think the two yellow Terminators came from different sources before the reseller threw them together in the bargain bag I picked up.

Twelve Days of Deathwing - Part Two

 Santa Claws Is Coming To Town...

I like to call the guy on the right "The Wolverine" where as the marine on the left has more of a "Ta-da! I have foot long knives on my giant fists" type of a pose.

Continuing the march of soon to be bone white Terminators, these two models are satisfying a desire I've had since I was twelve to field Lightning Claw equipped Terminators.  My first White Dwarf issue I ever bought had an excerpt from Deathwing covering the new to the RT era universe Terminator weapons Lightning Claws and Thunder Hammers. 

Twelve Days of Deathwing - Part One

 Knights of Caliban

Sure the twelve days of Deathwing should have started a few days ago, but this blog never strays from stretching a weak comedy premise for all it's worth.  The insidious forces of Real Life have kept me from generating much content this month.  Legion Chronicles HQ is still hard at work on the 2nd Edition Army Challenge and I should be able to submit this month's work before the deadline.  In an attempt to get something new up for blog browsers to see, I'm rolling out some pictures of my current construction project - the mighty Deathwing! First up are these Deathwing Knights I have been building this month.  While these may look like the hobby butterfly has taken flight again and gotten me way off the miniature painting outline I laid out back in October, they are actually the manifestation of my new hobby outlook for 2021, Always Be Hobbying.  

Imperator Titan!

 

I always wanted one of these giant Titans, I loved the idea that whole companies of tech guard infantry were ready to deploy from the legs of the Imperator Titan.

WH40K 2nd Edition Army Challenge Month 4 WIP Part 2

Progress Crawls Along At The Pace Of One Of Those Fallen Marine Models They Used To Make In The Rogue Trader Era...

It doesn't look much different than the picture from a few days ago, but the reds and yellows have been shaded and the green on the pauldrons has been blended.  I'm working to finish the blending for the greaves and kneepads next.  The page for month four is up over at Dr TV's Cowabunga so go check it out to see all the amazing models that people painted in November for the project.

Stormraven WIP

 Restoration Kitbash

Space Marines are known for their many Rites of War, although I think none of them involve flying ass first into combat while operating the controls with your chest and feet.

Since my 2nd edition army challenge didn't get done quite in time for this month's deadline, I though I would feature some of the modeling table distractions that threw off my progress this month.  Readers may remember that back in August I picked up an incredible deal on the secondary market to get some of the Indomitus goodies I wanted.  Included in the grab bag of other space marines that were thrown in with the things I wanted in the purchase was an "as is" Stormraven.  The model had a beautifully painted scenic base, but the model itself was only silver basecoated, and missing a VTOL thruster pair, turret guns, one of the pieces of interior detail, and a rear hatch door.  However the most egregious error was that the cockpit cover had been glued down with the pilot marine unpainted, missing arms, missing a head, and not attached to the pilot's chair so he just rattled around inside.  

To hopefully solve this dilemma I soaked the whole model in my preferred paint stripping solution and fortunately the original modeler had used super glue and not plastic cement.  After a few days soaking the cockpit cover and the cover for the turret gunner position both came off easily without damaging the model.  Now that I had access to the pilot I remedied his lack of head and arms with some bitz box dive kitbashing.  He got the head of a Ravenwing Black Knight, I love space marine helmets with a communications antenna, it sells the pilot role for me visually on Land speeder pilots, bikers, and anywhere else I think marines would need enhanced communication abilities.  He received and outstretched 2nd edition arm left arm with a hand swap to make it look like he was moving fingers over the controls.  A little cutting, green stuff, and repositioning took care of his right arm that at least in my imagination looks like it's wielding the control stick for the heavy flyer.

It took a little time but was very fun and surprisingly inspirational.  Getting the pilot right and knowing that I could paint the cockpit interior the way I wanted instead of just painting over the clear plastic made me excited enough to start digging into this project months ahead of schedule.  My Dark Angels have been defeated many times over the years by my most frequent opponent who alternately heads armies of Death Guard or Heretic Astartes, so I'm hoping this "flying Land Raider" can help break the deadlock and get the 1st Legion some wins.  Next up after painting the cockpit and pilot, is magnetizing some assault cannons for the turret gunner position.

Genestealer Attack!

Roots Of Madness

I spent so much time staring at this picture when I was twelve.  I had never seen such a detailed multi-level diorama that told a story with so much drama and action in stationary models.

To show how much my fascination with the lore of WH40K as illustrated in the many works of the GW studio and 'Eavy Metal permeated my mind almost constantly as a teen, I found this sketch the other day that I drew when I was 12.  This would have been around the winter spring of 91-92 as I was really immersing myself in any GW material I could get my hands on and definitely the result of hours spent staring at the above diorama which was featured on the back of a How To Paint Citadel Miniatures guide that sadly is no longer in my collection.   Is it the random luck of the dicing universe this sketch came back to the forefront of my attention in relative proximity to the time when I found a mediocre picture of that classic diorama on Facebook?  Like the Tootsie Roll pop, the world may never know...

WH40K 2nd Edition Army Challenge WIP

 Squad Scalprum 

This squad did not get finished in time for this month's army challenge deadline but I thought I'd post a WIP shot of my progress so far.  The heavy bolter and missile launcher in this squad will help round out the "one of each kind" style that many Devastator squads in the pages of White Dwarf had in the early 90's.  The sergeant for this unit is also the only true 2nd edition pewter veteran sergeant model I have, bought long ago in the days when I was building my 3rd edition army.  A fatal combination of the the level of detail on the miniatures and some distracting side projects this month led me to not wrapping them up in time but hopefully I'll be posting finished pictures of them by the end of the month.

Capitol Imperialis!

 

#DadGoals Dawn Of War

 In The Grim Darkness Of The Far Future...

My greatest nemesis... Unpainted terrain in the foreground of game photos.

As a measure of the long and winding road between reality and when I manage to complete a thought and post it, this latest #Dadgoals commemorates my 10 year old's first official game of WH40K that we played way back in late August.  We kept it very simple, just two troops units and an HQ on each side and we played the Patrol mission from the Dark Imperium box set with a slight alteration to the deployment since we only had three units per side.  Also in the interest of ease of first game play, we used the at this point well worn 8th edition rules.  I still need to learn 9th edition rules myself and it was nice to teach game rules that fit on one four fold card.  As usual with any of our match-ups my son won the game, but I may have mercifully forgotten to rapid fire a plasma gun a few turns in a row so as not to dishearten him by wiping out too many of his models in a turn.  He had a lot of fun and we will probably play some more games this winter after our current addiction to Blood Bowl wears off.  Follow along after the jump for some more pics of the action...

Warhound Titan!

 Insert Dog-related Pun Title Here...

Thursday Night Legion Lights

 Or Star Wars Under The Stars...

My gaming friend made his own Endor tree trunks with poster tubes, modeling clay, and a lot of brown paint.

The Stormtroopers advance slowly under the Endor trees, wary of being crushed by large rolling logs.

Thanks to mild fall weather here on the east coast of the US, I have been able to play some in person games outside on my neighbors back porch.  He only started painting miniatures a little over 18 months ago but he already has a massive Legion collection that is really nicely painted, especially for someone relatively new to the hobby.  He has his patio illuminated in a manner that makes these pictures look like they were taken during the day, even though it was actually 10pm.   Legion is so much fun to play, there is something magical about getting to play a game with a great looking army that would have blown your mind when playing with Star Wars action figures as a kid.  This situation is also ideal when you already have mounds of grey plastic for other gaming systems at home in need of paint.  My friend bought two armies and painted them all himself so I can just show up and enjoy an amazing looking game with out adding to the long list of things I need to paint.

More Space Ork Banners

 Notify The Commisar Immediately!

This weeks banner installment includes another suspicious proto-symbol under the guise of Space Ork Raider banners.  The "Victory Banner" on the far right looks very similar to one interpretation of the noble badge of the Tanith First and Only...

A Hundred Yards Over the Dreadtober

 Red Corsairs Helbrute Final Pictures 

Since the generous coordinator of Dreadtober has given us an extra week to add any finishing touches we need to round out our projects.  Even though I had this guy "battle-ready' last week, I felt like the model was a little flat overall.  I tried to counter that by painting all the trim Boltgun Metal which helped to make it a little more visually exciting, I think.  The white also had some highlights added, as well as details on the Dark Angels helmet on the base.  Painting that helmet in the colors of my chosen chapter seemed most appropriate since I'm sure this Helbrute will be most often used by my son in opposition to my 1st Legion forces.  Thanks to Marc at Old School Gaming who coordinated this years project and made a cool badge for everyone who participated.  Be sure to check out the final post on the Dreadtober site that will be coming sometime in the next few days, there were a lot of amazing entries this year.

I've been trying to do some photo alterations to make my pictures look more like the miniatures do in real life but obviously I'm not quite there yet ;-)

6th Squad, 4th Company

 Tactical Squad Zanthor 

Fascinated by the idea that the transfer sheet labels are ACTUALLY TRANSFERS THEMSELVES! I added the transfers to the apocalypse bases which involved quite a bit of decal bending trickery.

Marching into formation along side their battle brothers in the 4th Company of the Dark Angels, Squad Zanthor is ready to join the fray.  This squad was painted in my overexaggerated 2nd edition style and serve the twin goals of being my first two months submission in the WH40K 2nd edition army challenge, as well as the now third tactical squad to join my growing 4th company of the Dark Angels in all their fully painted glory.  Follow along after the jump for pictures of all the angles of my most recent project finish and some self serving reflections on my first year of blogging...

Mr Dreadtober On Doomsday

 Red Corsairs Helbrute - To-Done?

Typing the text before I even have the pictures to go with it since I will still be madly painting tonight.  I'm not sure when Macrodutch will compile the End of Dreadtober post for the site, so I wanted to have the most recent work pictured even though I don't think I will be 100% finished when the pictures go into this post.  The model is certainly "battle-ready" in GW's parlance, but I think I'll spend the weekend trying to finish the details on this monster.  Happy Halloween!

Tank Camo!

 

Perchance to Dreadtober

 Red Corsairs Helbrute WIP

So many details left to finish up, but highlighting the armor panels last night really shifted the appearance and gave me hope I can finish this guy by Friday.  Keep your power claw talons crossed...

#DadGoals - Take Your Daughter To Blogwork Day

 Daughter's unicorn

🦄☺️☺️☺️☺️☺️☺️☺️☺️☺️☺️😀😀😀😀😀😀☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺🍩🍩🍩🍩🍩🍩🐚🐚🐚🐚🐚🐚🐚😀😀😀😀

                            Edited by floyd's daughter

WH40K 2nd Edition Army Challenge October To-Done

 Mustering The 4th Company 

Squad Scalprum deploys their heavy weapons under the watchful eye of Tactical Squad Zanthor.

That Multi-Melta is so long it casts a shadow.

Just a quick photo post to celebrate the successful submission of another month's work in the WH40K 2nd Edition Army Challenge.  More updates coming this week and hopefully the completion of the Dreadtober project.

Squad Scalprum Minor Build To-Done

 Drilling and Slicing My Way Through October 

It still counts as a monthly goal even if the arc of kitbashing stretches from 1999 to present day, right?

Being a fan of low hanging fruit here at the 1st Legion headquarters, I am tagging my first hobby season goal of Dreadtober with the big build (minor) completion of my Devastator Squad for the WH40K 2nd Edition army challenge this month.  There is quite a bit of conversion and modeling work in these five marines so I’m going to take it as a goal completion for this month even if one of the models was converted 20 years ago. Follow along after the jump if you want to hear about the deceptive amount of drilling and kit bashing contained in this months army challenge goal…

OG Space Ork Banners

In Honor Of Orktober We Humbly Present...

Those who are not celebrating Dreadtober or it's radio cousin Rocktober, may have their sites set on feting all things green this month whilst painting models for Orktober.  These original RT Orks always have had a special place in my heart from staring at so many pictures of them in 'Eavy Metal back in my early White Dwarf reading days.  I'm also enjoying seeing how many of the concepts in these early banners were repurposed for other factions later on.  In this week's feature above, I'm pretty sure that Ork Raider Vampire banner was repurposed for the World Eaters insignia.  Thanks for stopping by, hopefully next year I'll really coordinate my actions and paint an old school Ork Dreadnought for Dreadtober.

I Sing The Dreadtober Electric

 Red Corsairs Helbrute Second Week

It may not look like much has changed since last week, but things are starting to come together with this Helbrute's paint scheme.  I think I have covered all the horns and spikes with Xandri Dust, thinking that a bone similar to my Deathwing units will work for those details.  The mutated muscles had Screamer Pink and Pink Horror painted over the shaded Mephiston Red that was the basecoat.  I'm hoping to be able to evoke a sort of exposed muscle look with the layering of pink on the red.  I shaded the texture paint on the base to tie the disparate (grass, rock, mud) areas of the turf together.  I'm glad this month is extra long because I feel like I'm going to need all the time I can get to cover all the tiny details on this model.  Check out all the other great projects at the Dreadtober site.

Blood Bowl WIP

 Wolfenburg Steelers Test Model

My son and I have been playing a lot of Blood Bowl lately so my goal of painting my human team to match my favorite American football team is coming closer to realization.  I painted the base coats, shades, and simple highlights on this one model as a test for using the Steeler's colors on a Blood Bowl team shortly after I bought the box set a few years ago.  The black parts of the uniform were painted Abbadon Black and then highlighted with Dawnstone.  The yellow armor is Averland Sunset washed with Cassandora Yellow and edge highlighted with Flash Gitz Yellow.  

However as I paint the rest of the models on the team I think I'm going to go for a slightly brighter yellow for their armor.  So I have been adding to this Blitzer's yellow armor with layers of the old Citadel Yellow Ink and the now OOP Lamenters Yellow glaze.  I did shift the color away from the reddish hue the yellow pads had from being washed with Cassandora Yellow shade but the glaze layers have shifted things to more of an ochre than a more vibrant yellow.  Fortunately this player is the one fellow on my team who has accumulated some additional skills so his slightly different uniform than the rest of the team will be explained away by this burgeoning star player's individual streak.  The edge highlights will need to be touched up again and I thought of a great inspiration for the team logo while going through decals this evening but I will save that for the finished model post.  Thanks for following along and I will see you on the pitch!

2020/2021 Hobby Season Kick Off And To-Do List

 The Big Leagues

As I began to read more and more hobby blogs in the last few years I spotted these badges on a few of my favorite blogs.  They were an enticingly cool way to keep track of hobby progress through the year, but I didn't want to go the typical internet route to steal the badges and start using them with out understanding more about ''hobby season".  Fortunately I had my ear to the proverbial hobby blog street at the right time this year, and the excellent Confessions Of A 40k Addict blog revealed the secrets of inclusion in hobby season I had been seeking.  Read the preceding link for more information on hobby season and follow along after the jump for my personal hobby goals of the 2020-2021 hobby season...

This is a perfect summary of my gaming potential...

 

Dreadtober WIP

 Red Corsair's Helbrute First Week's Progress

There is so much detail on this model, it can be a little intimidating when you first start to paint the Helbrute.  I'm trying to work with the base color of shaded Mephiston Red, painting layers right over it and using the combination of colors to try and achieve the colors I want for the many details.  Screamer Pink was painted on the fleshy mutated parts and Squib Orange was painted on the cable housings.  The base is finished from a construction standpoint, I added some small slate rocks from GW around the large rock piece he is standing on.  There was sand added and then painted green in a throwback style to tie it into the bases of my Red Corsairs marines who have classic Goblin Green bases.  Dreadtober rocks to be engaged in again and I can't wait to see what the other participants are working on.

#DadGoals Any Given Sunday

 Blood Bowl Kick Off!

Our family went on an end of summer camping trip the first weekend of September.  My son was excited about painting miniatures and my wife was encouraging me to take along some hobby projects to tackle while we were relaxing but the idea of bringing all the different paints I would need to work on my Dark Angels or all the colors my son would want for his swelling chaos warband seemed like too much effort for a long weekend.  A few days before the trip I had a sudden lucky bout of inspiration...

Imperium of Man Banners Part II

 

I think the Ordo Xenos needs to investigate the Kressalian mercenaries, that banner looks a lot like they worship the four armed emperor.

Dreadtobers Of Future Past...

 Red Corsairs Helbrute Week 1

Our five year mission to paint all the models in the Dark Vengeance set while trying to not drown under the tide of models that I've bought in the interim...

Dreadtober has arrived and this year my entry is the Helbrute model that came in the Dark Vengeance box set I bought when first getting back into the hobby.  My son has recently played his first game of actual WH40K and he loved playing as the Chaos Space Marines.  So for Dreadtober this year I decided I would finally paint this model that has been lurking at the edges of my painting area for the last six years and add some firepower and close combat punch to the CSM army my son will want to use in our WH40K games going forward.  Last year's Dreadtober entry awaits after the jump...

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 ...