40K2ndAC III Flashback - 1st Month (January 2022)

Codicer Astrovel & Lexicanum Daskhorael

The firestorm background is soooooo METAL!

Catching up on past challenge entries that did not get posted due to interference from the warp, here are two Librarians from my Dark Angels army.  Codicer Astrovel is a model I've owned since '99 and it was a great pleasure to get him painted and added to my army.  I printed out banners from the Angels of Death codex but due to the use of extra long RT era banner poles I added extra tabbards with the Dark Angels chapter symbol below the heraldry of the librarian's rank.  This post is a great reminder that I need to add that scan of the banners from the 2nd edition codex to my banners page to add to the resources available.

      You can read them here along with several other fantastic entries from month 1 of season III:  

                        https://cowabungajournal.com/40k2ndaciii-month-1-wave-2/

Season V of the challenge is underway and has a new home at: https://wachtmeisterspatrol.com/

"It is I, Prince Vlad of Wallachia!  Please do me the honor of visiting my mountaintop castle"

Codicer Astrovel – Level 2 Librarian – 130 points
Force Axe, Plasma Pistol, Aegis Suit 

Lexicanum Daskhorael – Level 1 Librarian – 63 point
Force Sword, Bolt Pistol

Dreadtober 2022 - First Blood

 'Ere We Go Again...

Hello abandoned readers. As the pumpkin spice flavored weather sets in, I will attempt to use Dreadtober as an excuse to rejuvinate this blog.  For this year's Dreadtober I have been fully immersed in the 2nd edition spirit in anticpation of the impending kick off for 40K2ndAC Season 4!  This season's entry for me will be an abrupt departure from this blog's namesake in order to paint an army I spent many hours day dreaming about in high school - Orks!  

Larger base means mores skulls, carefully following the 41st millenia's strict skulls per square feet of ground ratios.

Since I won't be painting any space marines for that challenge, I am going to cram in at least one more space marine model before getting stuck in with my Orks in December.  This year's Dreadtober model will be the boxy Mark IV Blood Angels dreadnought which was shown in the ad pages of many a White Dwarf issue in the 90's as well as appearing in several Battle Reports.  As you can see from the pictures it will be the period proper 5 lbs of pewter that could be used as a door stop or murder weapon depending on one's mood.

It's only fitting to leverage Dreadtober for blog renewal since I started this blog back in 2019 to particpate in Dreadtober for the first time.   During that fateful autumn I had a lot of hobby energy after attending Nova Open for the first time that year and I needed an outlet for all the excitement I had about the hobby.  Back then I only played once a month at best and other than that one gaming group I was relatively unconnected to the greater hobby community, even though I live in an area where tabletop gaming is very popular.  

It took forever to scrub all the red from its previous paint job out of all the tiny recesses.

The blog began as a way to connect with the larger hobby community and in that respect it was a massive success.  I now spend so much time gaming with friends new and old that I have connected to through the blog, that the blog itself has experienced long periods of inactivity.  Hopefully the upcoming community projects will keep the blog rolling along, and if not I'll just retreat to a social media site where much less work is required to post my hobby progress ;-)

Thank you to readers who have stayed or have just joined, and see you next week with a dreadnought that will hopefully be at least red.  Be sure to head to the main Dreadtober site for all the community's awesome work.  Also the 40K2ndAC Season 4 is taking applicants if you want to become involved follow the link.

WH40K 2nd Edition Army Challenge Season III - Complete!

Another One In The Bag 

It's hard to believe but the third season of the 2nEdAC has finished!  Since I have been remiss in posting monthly updates, I will roll out the big picture here first and then add some blog updates with the indivdual units completed.  A little reverse order roll-out due to being so busy with gaming and hobbying that typeing about those activities has fallen behind schedule.  My low model count, high points value army has successfully been finished.   I was also able to add a bonus model this time which was a first for me.  Thanks to the good Dr The Viking and his fabulous challenge I now have 3,000 plus points of fully painted Dark Angels, all in a gorgeous technicolor 2nd edition style. This is the largest fully painted army I have owned in 30 years of gaming and is exactly the kind of army I wanted when immersing myself in the 40k universe via reading White Dwarf in the early 90's.

In addition to making my army buidling dreams come true, the challenge has opened up a new community of gamers for me to enjoy games with as well.  As I write this post I'm preparing for a game against my usual challenge opponent, the Wachtmeister.  My panoply of characters from season III will take on his most recent contribution, a few Valhallan squads and a BANEBLADE!  New challenge participant Valhallan Winter also lives in our area and will stop by to see how our tanks versus heroes challenge will turn out.  Stay tuned to this space to see if you can use 7 second edition characters to kill a super-heavy tank.  Thanks for reading after such a long hiatus, and be sure to follow all the links in the texts to check out fun contributiuons to the great hobby!

 

Imperial Entanglements Part I

40K 2nd Edition Battle Report!!!!

Next on the list of projects: a bed sheet sized matte painiting to hangup behind the table on game days for better looking game photos.

The Wachtmeister and I had a chance recently to play a game with all the forces we had painted for the first two rounds of the 40K2ndAC.  We both wrote up a report on the battle, with the Wachtmeisters report being slightly more chronological and mine is a little more after game analysis.  I will switch back and forth with our relevant paragraphs and intersperse with a few photos taken mid game.  The Wachtmeister is a much better photographer than me so be sure to click on his name and check out the report on his blog for a lot of great pictures.  

Follow along after the jump for the first half of the action, then tune in later this week for the thrilling conclusion...

Cover Gallery - White Dwarf #128 Back Cover

 Strange Beasts Of Nurgle...

WH40K 2nd Edition Army Challenge II - May WIP

 My Least Favorite Stage

Trying to get all the base coats on these very detailed and very old minis is always daunting.  As I have written before I feel like the base coast stage always make the miniatures look clownish.  On my particular models, my choice to add many different colors to all the details and blow the three color rule out of the water probably only magnifies this comical appearance.  That will change once all the colors are on and the shades start defining the different areas by darkening the recesses.  I have to rely on my prior witness of these transformations to keep me going through what seems like an endless process just to cover up the primer with my chosen colors for all the different parts of the model.  Make sure to follow the links to see all the great work completed by the participants in the challenge for the month of April.

Cover Gallery - White Dwarf #126 Back Cover

 

Many earlier posts have spoken of my love of the old Space Hulk range of WH40K miniatures.  This week's back cover is a fantastic example of how the 'Eavy Metal team beautifully rendered these classic minis that still look amazing thirty years later.

Hammerfist Company Banners!

How Much Beard Conditioner Do The Squat Homeworlds Consume Each Year?

 

This week's entry has the kind of banners I always imagined my squat forces carrying many years ago before I traded them away for Battletech games and sourcebooks.  I even still own two of the above pictured "Command Squad Squats" that are waiting to be traded away on a Oldhammer FB group one of these days.  As feel free to copy and print above picture for all your stunty banner needs.

WH40K 2nd Edition Army Challenge II - April WIP

 So Much Bone White To Paint, So Little Time...

Work is cruising along on this month's entry.  It feels like it takes forever to get the base colors on and to get everything shaded, but after that the detail work does proceed more at the pace of a snowball rolling downhill.  Although the models are very old, I think my approach to these is going to be more modern than 2nd Ed.  The author of the amazing Old School Gaming blog turned in the picture perfect 2nd Edition Deathwing Terminators early in the first season of the 40K2ndAC that mimic the Deathwing look of the time that was more pure white than the bone white of today.  As with the scouts last month I will once again try to work with the same general colors but come to a visually distinctive result.  The readers of the 40K2ndAC II have to put up with three participants painting Dark Angels armies so the least I can do is put a little thought into how to distinguish among the entrants via the models paint jobs.  Thanks for checking in with my progress and stay safe out there.

Cover Gallery - White Dwarf #122 Back Cover

Waaaagggghhhh, Da Orks!!!!

There is certainly some bias involved since this was my first issue, but this is my favorite of the back cover dioramas in WD.  I spent so many hours in the pre-internet days of my teens staring at this picture and dreaming of how I would paint the models or use them in a game.  I loved reading 'Ere We Go and built so many aspirational ork armies on paper that never saw a game.  The original plastic boyz, battlewagon, and warbike are still sitting in their boxes twenty-five years later just waiting to recreate this classic scene.  2023 hobby goals perhaps????

Cover Gallery - White Dwarf #122

The Cover That Started It All, For Me Anyway...

Even though I included this cover in my very first post on this blog, this issue was so instrumental in the genesis of my love of the Warhammer universe it definitely needed to get the cover gallery treatment.  There are certainly better scans of this cover out there, it is more than obvious from the picture that I have owned this since I was 12 and it has been read countless times.  This cover still makes me happy every time I view it.  Even though there was very little WH40K content inside, the beautiful miniatures and stunning ads left me with a hunger to learn more about this fictional world that still continues unabated 30 years later.  Thanks for stopping by and stay safe out there...

Cover Gallery - White Dwarf #118 Back Cover

The 41st Millennium And The Old World 

Another month in 1990 and another excellent back cover diorama from the 'Eavy Metal crew.  On the top we have an awesome image mixing 40K and Epic size miniatures to create a picture of a recon force observing the movement of a massive body of Chaos forces.  The lower picture depicts Skaven breaching the walls of a High Elf fortress, it's cool to see the old High Elf Miniatures make an appearance here before the WFB 4th edition box set would make the appearance of High Elves far more uniform.  Stay safe and tune in again next Friday for another classic cover.

Reaver Titan!

 

Following on the heels of last week's Titan Banners, I can't wait to try my hand at mimicking the banner placement and paint schemes of these classic Titans.  Now if only I could find some Reavers and Warhounds for sale that cost less than a used car...

Cover Gallery - White Dwarf #118

Was Advanced Heroquest More Or Less Advanced Than Advanced Dungeons And Dragons? Discuss...

Twelve Days Of The Deathwing - Day Twelve

The Waiting Is The Hardest Part...

The last model to be featured for the proposed Deathwing project is one of my favorites and also, in a another bit of synchronicity, the character model for my 40K2ndAC II 1,000 point army.  This beautifully sculpted Terminator Librarian dates to the era of Rogue Trader but was present in many 2nd Edition and even 3rd edition studio armies.  These highly detailed Terminator character models always held my fascination when they were featured in White Dwarf and I am very excited to finally get to paint one of my own after a 30 year wait.  It is also fitting to have the last entry in this series be a classic and gorgeous model that is both long time wish fulfillment and is detailed enough to field beside modern Terminators (after some sleight heightening is added in the pre-production process).  There will be posts in the future as these models get painted and join my ever growing 1st Legion, so for the current state of the project of updates in the future just click the tab for the Deathwing page above.  Also in case anyone was keeping track, this series I started to coincide with the twelve days after Christmas actually wrapped up in mid March which is about par for this blog ;-)  Thanks for reading and stay safe out there!

This picture's imprint on my teenage brain is the thing driving my excitement to finally paint a Terminator character model from this bygone era.

Titan Banners

 War Griffons, Stormlords, Morning Stars, And Flaming Skulls

I love these vintage banners from Codex Titanicus so much I might paint one of my two Epic scale Warlord Titans as a Morning Star or War Griffon just so I can use these banners.  That original Jes Goodwin art of the Titans with their kill banners hanging from their weapon arms has always been a big part of my love of Epic so I'm excited at the chance to finally try and model my own interpretation.  Please feel free to avail yourself of the above image if you would like to print out and paint some Titan banners of your own and enjoy the vintage Adeptus Titanicus fiction that is printed alongside.

Twelve Days Of The Deathwing - Day Eleven

 Galactic Synergy

The next project on deck is a level of synchronicity that occurs for painters only during periods of rare interplanetary alignment.  The unpainted member of the Deathwing shown above will be my April entry for the 40K2ndAC II while also being the first terminators I will be painting as part of my project to get some units that are currently good in the "meta" into my army that will hopefully see some use on the tabletop as things seem to be improving here in the states.  Follow along after the jump for more words and a Deathwing project update.

Cover Gallery - White Dwarf #117 Back Cover

White Dwarf #117 Back Cover 

This amazing diorama was definitely one of the hooks that drew me into a love of the WH40K universe.  The use of 28mm figures on the top and 6mm figures one the bottom gave the impression you were seeing a blow-up of the same scene (even though no Space Wolves are in the lower photo).  Throw in that one of the figures in the upper illustration is the first primarch to be made as a mini, Leman Russ, and this diorama scores 5 out of 5 on the coolness scale.  Feel free to stare into the wonder for as long as you need to, my 13 year old self is still gazing and imaging all the things I could do if I owned all these models ;-)
 

Cover Gallery - White Dwarf #117

 The Beginning...

So while it seems crazy to post the cover of a White Dwarf that is a truncated version of the banner picture you can see every time you load this page, there is a method to my madness.  I recently picked up a few more classic issues of White Dwarf to add to my collection and combined with the recent publication of Herohammer fanzine, I was inspired for a new feature on the blog.  I have mentioned many times how pivotal these old issues of White Dwarf were in kindling my lifelong love of the hobby, so I have decided to utilize my scanning abilities and feature the covers of these amazing magazines from my youth.  As cool as many of the front covers are, the back covers in those early days were really amazing.  I spent so may hours staring at the dioramas the 'Eavy Metal team would create thinking about the narrative established by the image and how I'd love to be able to own/paint the miniatures pictured.  I used the first of these cover diorama scans to promote Herohammer's premiere this week and I will be featuring a scan every week to highlight the front and back of these fantastic periodicals.

White Dwarf #117 was the second issue I ever purchased but given the subject nature of my blog and army collecting you can see what an influence this one issue had on me.  My scanner is perceptive enough to catch the wear and tear of thirty years on this illustration when compared to the banner pic above so you can see what a well loved gem this was in my collection.  Someday I would like to do in depth reviews of the contents of each issue but I think I'll need my kids to go to college before I have that much free time on my hands to do the reviews justice, so for now I'll just settle for highlighting the covers.  Thanks for reading along and stay safe out there!

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/