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 Second Edition Army Challenge Complete!

 The Lion’s Blade...

There were so few bodies for 1,000 points in the space marine armies of old...

Wow, It is hard to believe the six months of the 2nd edition army challenge are over.  Participating in the challenge has been the best experience I've had so far since I started this blog to be part of the wider hobby community.  There was a great feeling of camaraderie among the participants, probably partially thanks to the niche interest that is loving 2nd edition minis and the infamous "red period" of the GW studio's painting and marketing departments.  Much encouragement and joking went on via a group chat thread that continued from before the challenge started right up to the end.  It was a great way to refine ideas for the challenge through discussion and find inspiration to stick with one project over six months.  Thanks to this challenge I attempted many new techniques I hadn't tried before and really enjoyed being able to experiment with things like wet blending and freehand designs.  Plus I was able to paint miniatures I've owned for many years while also using the painting of those models to add two more squads along with two characters to my ongoing project to paint all of the 4th company of the Dark Angels.  I will milk the end of the challenge for a few more days, the warm fuzzies of accomplishment deserve a few more posts after half a year of work.  Be sure to check out the final post for the challenge, all the participants did an amazing job:

https://c0wabunga.com/2nd-ed-armychallenge-1-final-month/

Here is the 2nd edition army list for the force pictured above:

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 357points
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

Thanks for following along, and watch out for the WH40K Army Challenge Season 2 coming in March!

Where it all started six months ago...

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!

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

4th Squad, 4th Company

Tactical Squad Azreath

Squad Azreath advances through the purple blossomed forests of Prismata IV

Just to confuse things further, this week's feature post isn't for any of the three painting challenges I'm involved in for the month of August.  I had the chance to play my first in person 40K in months as a Father's Day present so I put my work on the Epic miniatures back in June on pause in order to finish a unit for my army that has been close to completion for awhile.  Follow along after the jump for many, many more pictures and the story behind this squad...

Epic Proportions Fifth Unit Completed

Ultramarines 4th Land Raider Company "The Iron Gauntlet"

The beauty of massed formations of vehicles I think is one of the strongest hooks for my love of Epic.

To be fair, this unit is 95% completed but since we were leaving on vacation and the month is coming to a close, I'm rushing this post to publishing.  I don't want to miss Dr The Viking's end of month round up for the Epic Proportions challenge since I spent so much time the last three weeks painting all these tiny tanks.  The nine Land Raiders of the the three squadrons that make up the company are fully completed but unfortunately the command Land Raider still needs some highlights and detail work.  There are many more pictures and painting details after the jump...

Look the crafty command tank is intentionally blurring itself to hide the lack of highlights, stealth mode activated :-)

Epic Proportions Fourth Unit Completed

3rd Land Raider Squadron, 3rd Company Support "The Flame's Heat"

This Unit was finished before the end of June but blog posts have been coming slowly as of late now that summer is here and occupying my children all day long is back to being a full time job.  These Land Raiders were painted similar to the first squad I completed with a few minor alterations for head canon narrative reasons.  

Epic Proportions Third Unit Completed

2nd Land Raider Squadron, 1st Company Support "The Drake's Teeth"

The first unit I finished in June was some tank support for the veteran infantry company.

Scenic Distractions V

Imperial Army Checkpoint TK 421

Not a mighty fortress just yet, but certainly enough for a security perimeter around a supply depot...

This Imperial Guard checkpoint is a perfect example of the way your hobby can spiral out of control in a constructive way sometimes if you follow your imagination.  All these items came in a sampler pack of terrain from Ender Toys Terrain which I have mentioned on this blog before.  When I first looked at buying some Ender Toys Terrain on Amazon, I was a little cautious because of how low their prices were so I bought a variety pack that contained a wide range of their terrain items so I could gauge the quality of their offerings. These pieces were primed white for a year after buying the set, but as I started taking in game pictures for this blog the bright whiteness of the bunker in particular was driving me crazy.  On a mostly basecoated board with a lot of the other terrain in various stages of painting, the primer white bunker stood out like a sore thumb.  Follow along after the jump if you want to know more about the rabbit hole I fell down thanks to these scenery items...

Epic Proportions Army Pitch

Assembling The Legions...

Not bad for having ridden unused in some boxes through twenty-five years and several moves through a few states...

I am dropping some quick WIP pictures of my Epic sorting and repair work in anticipation of Dr The Viking posting an update on the Epic Army Challenge for month's end.  For the last two weeks I have been sorting tiny miniatures and studying NetEpicGold army cards in order to figure out the best disposition of my forces.  In an ideal world I would be pooling all my space marine epic miniatures into one giant Legion.  However since I'm jumping headfirst into a long discontinued game and planning to play with fan generated rules I have to be pragmatic about how many opponents I am initially going to be able to find.  Especially since we haven't left our house in six weeks and who knows when I'll be back to playing games in person.  For now, I am very fortunate to have a gaming apprentice in my son so I am shaping up this prospective army to be two separate army groups from two different chapters.

3rd Squad, 4th Company

Or Why Do I Paint All The Chest Eagles And Pauldron Edges Yellow? Part I

Veteran Sergeant Peliel, Squad Standard Bearer Areli, Squad Support Gunner Thaddeus

Plasma Cannon Gunner Nahum

Hello phantasmal readers, the blog has been filled with some non-GW content lately that's frankly far faster and easier to produce, but today we return to our first order of business - painted Dark Angels miniatures!  Also today we will answer the question on the minds of everyone (all four of you) reading this blog: why do my Dark Angels look so colorful?  The answers will involve a deep dive into the history of space marine paint schemes and some pictures of my most recently completed unit Squad Peliel of the fourth company.

Scenic Distractions I

Another Brick In The Wall?

I expended an absurd amount of time trying to get the brickiest shade of red on these rubble walls...

Spaceships Are Not Supposed To Be This Close Together

Part III - High Atmosphere Drifter

My head canon likes to imagine that they were fighting in the upper atmosphere of a gas giant rather than it just being before I painted one side of the gaming table flat black ...

 

Heretics!

Part Two

The 2nd and 3rd gentlemen from the left are the only metal models in this unit.

Previously on 1st Legion Chronicles ...Staring down my first ever entry into the Nova Open and knowing I would be playing next to the corrupted forces of my friend's Death Guard Army I was unable to bring myself to field my Dark Angels army in concert with the decrepit heretics...

There was a solution to my problem that would involve a race against the clock hobby project for what remained of the spring and the summer before Nova 19 in August.  When 3rd edition 40K came out in the late 90's my brother, his dad, and I played 40K on an almost weekly basis for a few years.  At the time my brother played a Chaos Space Marine army as they were known in the days before the addition of extraneous latin for the purposes of copyright differentiation.  His army served him well for a few years and traveled with us along with mine when we moved to Colorado in 2002.

Heretics!

Part One

What?! The foul forces of chaos on this blog!  How has this happened?  Is this blog now under the unspeakable influence of the fallen?  Even now the Ravenwing are zeroing in on this location to cleanse the cursed stain of the heretics.  I will save the inevitable long story for after the jump, fortunately there are lots of pictures of models to space out my overly wordy explanation of my descent into the renegades of chaos...

Most of these models are from the 3rd edition plastic Chaos Space Marines box.