Dreadtober 2022 - Week 2

Better Red Than Dread

Dropping this rough workbench photo to update my Dreadtober progress so far.  Most of the base coat work has been completed so I can move on to detail work over the next week.  Lurking in the blurry photo background is my unfinished dread from last year.  Hopefully I can finish him off this month and make this year's Dreadtober a twofer.  Be sure to check out all the goodness over at the main Dreadtober site.  If you enjoy painting classic goodness like the crimson sarcophagus above, Season 4 of the 40K2ndAC is taking applicants. 

 

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 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.

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...

40K 2nd Edition Army Challenge Final Month WIP

 Characterful Sculpts Require A Lot Of Painting...

In the strange vagaries of the -blog publishing/photo taking/progress on a project- warp of the space time continuum, here are pictures from a few days ago that are for a challenge with a due date a few days from now.  Now that we've accelerated to the verbal equivalent of ludicrous speed, a few words about the models in question.  Both of these models have been in my collection since the late 90's, but due to my earlier expressed worries about painting character models, these two have been unpainted for 20 years.  However as my recent musings on the army challenge have pondered, in the end I think this will only benefit me since my painting skills have finally caught up to what I wanted them to be at the time I actually purchased these models.  Plus since they were second edition models that were still on the pegs at the start of third edition, they were perfect character models for my entry in 40K 2nd Edition Army Challenge.  All that being said, there are a lot of tiny details on these models to finish up in the last few days before the deadline and then I need to take a dramatic full army picture for the close of the challenge.  After that, in March it will be onto Season 2 of the 2nd edition army challenge!

Twelve Days Of Deathwing - Day Nine

 Dark Vengeance Is A Dish Best Served Cold, Like At Least Six Years Cold 

Today's slightly blurry picture features the closest I've come to fulfilling my dream of even fielding Deathwing miniatures in the recent past.  I got back into the hobby in earnest in 2014 coincidentally at the same time the Dark Vengeance box set came out to kick off seventh edition.  At the time these gorgeously sculpted, Deathwing specific Terminators blew my mind; having not been in contact with the game ,other than Black Library novels, since the end of 3rd edition around 2000.  I was really impressed by the strides GW had made with push to fit models in the 14 years I hadn't played the game.  As you can see from the pictures above I started painting these models straight away, but the combination of patience needed to achieve a layered bone white look along with my rusty painting skills from years away from the hobby table led to me stalling out and painting all the other Dark Angels models in the box instead.  

Coming back to them with a mass Deathwing project on the table these will probably be the first models I finish off since they are 60 percent of the way there already.  I need to rethink some wacky ideas I had a few years ago, primary among them my odd colored purity seal scrolls.  At the time I was baffled how I was going to paint two different whites next to each other and not have them be indistinguishable.   There will also be some shuffling around of a miniature or two because I think I can field a five man squad with chainfists if I transfer the chap carrying one in this unit to another unit that already has two marines with chainfists.  Thanks for following along and click on the Deathwing tab above if you want to see the current scope of the project.

Twelve Days Of Deathwing - Day Eight

 Thunderstruck!

The sergeant's pose reminds me of a cleric using a light spell on his warhammer to illuminate the party's dungeon crawling.

Stretching this metaphor for as long as history said it's more traditional equivalent would run, today features some slightly sub-standard photos of the second part of the Close Assault squad.  Four Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield armed marines backed up by the classic Terminator heavy weapon choice, the Heavy Flamer.  More slightly fuzzy pictures after the jump...

Twelve Days Of Deathwing - Day Seven

They're The Best There Is At What They Do, But What They Do Best Isn't Very Nice...

Until now I've never given mch thought to how much my love of Wolverine as a pre-teen may have influenced my obsession with Lightning Claws... 

Twelve Days Of Deathwing - Day Six

Call The Banners...

Why does his pose make me think he's the Babe Ruth of the grimdark, arrogantly calling out which skulls he's going to crush when he's up to "bat"?

Twelve Days Of Deathwing - Day Five

Though I Know That The Magnetized Never Lie...

Twelve Days of Deathwing - Part Four

Just Because You Are A Character Does Not Mean You Have Character...

So this picture teaches us the important lesson that painting only the space marine's eyes and doing that poorly can leave an honorable battle brother looking rather clownish...

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.  

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.

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.

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...

Inquisitional Conclave Week 2

WIP - Inquisitor Jorus Rhyloth, Ordo Xenos

Moving right along with this figure, I added shades to all the colored and metallic portions of the model this week.  The robes and black armor panels were also edge highlighted.  I used Incubi Darkness and Sotek Green for the black highlights for the first time and I really like how they turned out.  I highlighted the red all the way up to Fulgrim Pink, but I may go over the robes with Bloodletter glaze to mute the brightness a little.

Inquisitional Conclave Week 1

WIP Jorus Ryloth, Inquisitor of the Imperium, Ordo Xenos

I got the basecoats on and started to shade the model this week.  Also added a genestealer skull to emphasize the Ordo Xenos narrative to the model.