Squaduary 2021

Not Quite Mission Accomplished 

Well Squaduary 2021 wasn't quite as productive as I hoped it would be.  However I did get a lot done on these amazing models, and it was fun trying to figure out how to paint these scouts in my exaggerated 2nd edition style.  Since I bought these (and other metal scouts) in the days of third edition, I didn't realize they were 2nd edition models until the subject came up in the chat for the 40K2ndAC.  These sculpts are so detailed it's like painting 5 character models, I caught myself dumbstruck the other night at the idea I was painting the grenade pins on the models.  When you add in the different colors for the different grenades, hazard stripes on the chainsword, and two color shotgun shells, I'm breaking all the rules about three colors on a model.  On the other hand, making it even more cartoony than it was even in the pages of White Dwarf of the mid 90's is the way I like to paint my miniatures and as my favorite podcast is always emphasizing you have to "find your joy".  I will keep on working on these models for my first month of the 40K2ndACII and I hope you will keep following along with the fun here as well as at the main site for the challenge:

https://c0wabunga.com/2021/02/26/40k-2nd-armychallenge-season-2-launched/

Drill Baby, Drill!

 Imperial Moles

One of my compatriots in the second season of the 2nd Edition Army challenge is painting a Mole to carry around his Squats in Exo-Armor so I thought I would dig up this gem from Codex Titanicus to post.   A fantastic drawing plus some fun fiction to go with it, from the first Games Workshop ruleset to bring us the terrific fun of the troop carrying termite drill.  

Check out Jonas's great blog which features more about his 40K2ndAC II entry and lots more:

http://deathworldadventures.blogspot.com/2021/02/warhammer-40k-2nd-edition-challenge.html

Check out all the participants of the challenge (there are 24 of us this time out) over at Dr TV's excellent C0wabunga blog:

https://c0wabunga.com/2021/02/26/40k-2nd-armychallenge-season-2-launched/

Twelve Days Of Deathwing - Day Ten

 Chainfists of Fury...

Space hulk bulkheads everywhere tremble in fear, the Chainfists are on the loose

Another entry in my closest I'll ever come to "playing the meta" series, I've done a little adjusting in squad composition to one of the three "shooty" Terminator squads so that I have one five man squad who are all armed with Chainfists.  These models are a mix of modern Terminators, one from Dark Vengeance, three Nova Open 2019 rescues, and the magnetized heavy weapon Terminator featured in an earlier entry.  I'm still awaiting my copy of the new Dark Angels codex so I'm not sure what advantage Chainfists bring in 9th edition, but I thought the aesthetic link of having a squad armed with similar power fist additions was worth the reshuffling and arm slicing.  Three "shooty" squads and two close assault squads along with ten Deathwing Knights will be quite a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield especially with all the buffs Terminators have received in the new rules.  Follow along after the jump for more pictures and a tally of the forces assembled so far...

Squaduary 2021 Starting Point

 Personal Challenges 

From my shallow and cursory research, Squaduary 2021 doesn't seem to have a central coordinator this year so I'm taking a page from a fellow blogger and pursuing the goal of painting a squad in the month on February as a personal challenge.  Never one to miss an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, this scout squad is also my first month's entry for the 2nd Edition Army Challenge Part II.  Since my first 6 month's in the original challenge led to many last minute submissions of my painted models that month, I am aiming for a less stressful approach this time around and trying to get some work done before the challenge even begins.  These scouts are another unit I have owned for many years but have never painted so I'm excited to complete painting on such wonderfully detailed sculpts from GW's past.  Thanks for following along and stay safe out there.

Squat Banners!

 

Following on the heels of the early Eldar paint schemes from a few days ago, here's another page from the very first Chapter Approved featuring some beautiful old Squat models, Imperial Army Banners for Squat Units, and early Eldar Banners that look like they would fit right in with the pirate raiders from the Eldar Legion box set.  

Before The Craftworlds...

Tween Dreams...

As I first started exploring the world of Warhammer 40,000, before I even received my first box of plastic Imperial Space Marines, I used my saved allowance money to buy the Epic Eldar Legion box set.  The art on the box fascinated my twelve year old imagination and my tween self confidence thought I could easily master painting these models I had seen in my first issues of White Dwarf.  The realities of twelve year old impatience and limited skills meant that other than a few shaky tries at mimicking the above patterns on some grav tanks and the models were quickly put aside in favor of the RTB01 box set that I got for Christmas that year.  A few years later I would trade the contents of this box to a friend in high school who played Eldar in Epic in return for the Space Marine units that came in the Space Marine 2nd edition box set.  However just catching some of the box art online the other day reminded my how much my first encounters with the WH40K universe can still fire my imagination.  Thanks for reading, I'm off to look for plastic guardians on Ebay now ;-)

WH40K 2nd Edition Army Challenge January - Final Month

 4th Company Master and Techmarine

Continuing to milk my completion of the 2nd edition army challenge for content, these two awesome characters were my contribution for the last month of the 2nd Ed Challenge.  Besides being the character portion of the 1,000 points I painted for the challenge, these also rank as only the second and third character models I have painted for my Dark Angels army.  I have written about my intimidation towards painting character models in the past, so the completion of these two increases my fully painted HQ choices by 200%.  It was extremely satisfying to finish these models after owning them since 1999, but they did take me 30 days to get every detail the way I wanted it, so my prior anxiety about painting character models was not completely unfounded.  However looking at the finished products gives me no end of joy, and that's the whole purpose of this hobby for me, so mission accomplished.  I will post more detailed pictures and words about how I painted them in the future but for now I will just bask in the glow of project finished for one more day.  Thanks for reading and stay safe out there!

Devastators!

 Alternate Histories...

I wish I understood the vagaries of photoshop so I could slap some 2nd edition box art on this picture to help us all imagine a world where the Dark Angels were GW's default chapter on all their space marine boxes for the last 25 years.