The first 5 marines of tactical squad Astelan report for duty this month.  To give my army a little variety in color I drew these battle brothers from the 1st Legion’s 6th company.  Adding a second tactical squad to my army will give me some additional foot troops to seize objectives or hold the line as needed.  As the deadline for this month’s submission occurs I am readying to play my first game of 2nd edition in almost 25 years.  My Dark Angels will do battle against the Wachtmeister’s Imperial guard at a suitable neutral venue. (ed. We are still eagerly awaiting the report!!! Come on!) No doubt those guardsmen have seen too much and have to be eradicated on the orders of the Inner Circle of the Rock.  One of the best things about this challenge has been meeting hobbyists from all over the world who share my love of 2nd edition 40K.  The fact that one actually lives near me and we will get to meet up and play one of my first in person games after the last 18 months of craziness is an excellent bonus that has me very excited. Who says your teenage hobby dreams can’t come true?  Sometimes it just takes thirty years and the assistance of the internet ;-). (ed. the results are worth the wait!)  For pictures of the game and the whole army so far, please check out my blog

Here we are again, end of the month. It was hot this month and had a lot so didn’t get started till late (even though this was supposed to be part of last month’s entry!). One Chimera, 140 points. It’s not the original 2 nd ed one but they didn’t change it that much when they did the new version. (ed. I can hardly spot the difference! It looks smashing!) I’ve gone a bit darker with the grey than I did on the Sentinel so may go back and change that as I prefer this I think. I was supposed to get the Hellhound done as well but didn’t get that far, still just about on track though… It’s a bit rushed and needs some touching up but will do as my entry so don’t look too closely and squint a bit please 🙂

Late, officially.  But hopefully will be accepted.  Finished 3 days ago but wanted daylight for a decent photo. Almost all bonus material this month. The wartrack scorcher nets me 50 points.  20 ork boys….  nothin’. These guys are so much fun to paint though, 17 originals, two demonblade and a single space crusade ork. I’ll be back next month and actually on target for what I promised to paint. (ed. Job’s a goodun!)

I missed the deadline by a couple of hours this month. One of the backpacks on a heavy bolter marine just wouldn’t fit into the cavity of the heavy bolter. Not wanting to reposition the heavy bolter itself, I knew the backpack would have to be trimmed, which I really didn’t have the heart for late at night, so I saved it until the following morning after some kind of gigantic frothy caffeinated beverage! Heavy bolters may not be the most potent selection for a Devastator squad, but there is something decidedly old school about tossing 8 sustained fire dice down-range! (ed. I beg to differ! Heavy bolters are ALL about potency and penis extension! Well done on completing the squad.) I had to do quite a few little conversions to make up for my lack of arms, but I made sure to include at least one bolt pistol (for the inevitable jams), and a combat knife wielding marine (guns are for show; knives are for pros). 

With a thundering roar, drowning out the now distant ‘music’, the shuttle passed the compound as it made it’s way around the side to one of the vacant platforms. As it settled down, Qadir immediately noticed the difference from the other shuttles. ‘that’s an Troyan pattern shuttle’ he said with slight gasp on his breath ‘I’m not expecting any armour….that would mean…’ ‘indeed it would, indeed it would’ Rhazoulinski said almost laughing, not even trying to hide the delight over his friend’s astonishment. Qadir took some steps closer to the shuttle, ignoring the gust of wind and dust blowing as the engines powered down. Standing next to one of the crew shuttles, the Troyan towered over it, it’s cargo hold easily doubling the other shuttles in size. From his view, Qadir could just barely make out the cockpit at the front of the shuttle, which seemed dwarfed by the sheer size of the hold. As the doors opened, all sounds in the compound were drowned out as several engines within the hold kicked to life. With the sound of heavy footsteps, making the shuttle rock ever so slightly, the Imperial Sentinels emerged from the hold, billowing black smoke and fumes from the exhaust pipes. The drivers looked about the compound, and as they saw and recognized the Colonel, saluted him, ‘Ranger Squadron reporting in, for Tallarn and the Screaming Camels’, Qadir could barely make out their voices over the engine sounds, as he saluted back. ‘This day keeps getting better and better’ he said as he looked at the three walkers, striding across the compound towards the armour district. ‘and the best has yet to come’ Kharasten said, placing a hand on his friend’s shoulder aand shielding his face from the blast of sand as a second Troyan Shuttle flew overhead, looking for an empty landing pad. 

I have been waiting eagerly to paint this month’s entry since I bought them, several months ago. I obviously had some of these old school sentinels back in the day, but sold them off for unknown reasons. Anyway they are back and what a pleasure it was to finally paint them. Instead of doing the single colors that I normally do for armour (Camo Green and Bubonic Brown for the old school painters out there), I decided to do those as a drybrush/highlight on Castellan green and Tallarn sand, somewhat resembling the codex scheme of the sentinel while still looking like something that belongs in the 42nd regiment. Overall I’m very pleased, not only with the paintjob but also with the prospect of fielding some sentinels in the future. (ed. YES YES YES!!!) Having a Tallarn army of course means putting a Tallarn driver in the cockpit. As I had several leftovers from the old metal heavy weapons, i found that with a little cutting and such the heavy weapon gunner would fit quite nicely onto the sentinel. As it appears more or less obvious to me today, I really don’t know why I never thought about doing that before.

This month is the turn of the elite boyz in the army a bad moon klan nobz squad that will support the advance of the army with their fire cappacity and a boarboyz squad that give the army much more mobility. Hope you like them. (ed. I sure do!!!)

Another month has quickly passed. With my planning up front I had only a Termite, Living Ancestor and Mole Mortar + Crew for this month and I felt it would be quite manageable. Well I did manage to get it done, but once again only in the very last minute. (ed. I seem to recall you were very confident at the start of the month! Good thing you pulled through still! Hallgar is super cool) I was having some trouble of different kind, but in the end I guess the important thing really is that I am still on track and actually quite close to my final goal. I had already painted one Termite before the challenge (which I included in the pic) and with a bit touch up on that I now have two ready to go. The only thing left I am missing now is five bikes. Read more on my blog.

And another bipedal machine of destruction tackled down ! An interesting chap for sure ! Not as hard to build as many tend to say. Some even consider the Eldar War Walker as a nightmare to build ! I’d just it is a bloody main in the neck to assemble ! XD The leg-to-body step was indeed pretty boring ! Which ended up in a paint wise, it was rather routine. The fact that I painting a Dreadnought 2 months ago sure helped ! The main challenge was the gradient on the Lascannon. My previous attempt on the Dreadnought was disappointing to say the least ! ^^ This time, I’d say it is less worse ! Which is already an improvement ! It looks like a big tutti frutti lollipop instead of… just a mess ! XD (ed. haha it looks good – eldar style!) Gems count +40 which brings us to a total of 329 ! =D And more to come next month ! Stay tuned! (ed. that is it! No more gems for your! Your quota is used!)

Oh… my… God! This did not go the way I planned it. In any way. First of all, these were meant to be a conversion featuring Slaaneshy Steeds. But after having sawed apart metal marines, plastic riders and other bits, I just couldn’t make it work. I put off the build every month from the first. But I didn’t make it. I decided to be a good sport about it and let myself break my own rules, by including a normal set of bikes instead. These were the bikes I originally intended for the Blood Skulls back a year ago. I had even primed and base painted them. The priming had gone wrong though, and the plastic is partially melted on some of them. So, their track record was already bad. To top it of I tried a new red for the base, as my P3 khador red base is nearly empty. Wazzdakka red it was instead. But this one seems almost purple/pink compared to the old one, so I had to ditch it again. Yuck. Well, in essence my plans for this month were kind of scewered. But I got through. I have very little love for these models, but I got them done. I added white wall tyres, just because. The only thing lacking in my challenge now is 4 marines. 3 heavies and a leader. Phew. It is almost done. When these figures (and my bonus entries) are painted I will take a hiatus from The Blood Skulls. I feel I must dedicate some time to another area of 2nd edition 40,000 for the next challenge.

Thanks for following our struggles. As usual we finish this round of entries by honouring the battle brothers that did not make it this round: