If you wonder about all the red colour used in this month’s entries, it is because we had a little side-quest in the form of a “paint it red!” sub challenge.

I remember first seeing the metal Hormagaunts in a one page ‘Eavy Metal showcase in my first issue of White Dwarf (190) and thinking they looked amazing. Fast forward nearly three decades and I’ve finally got to paint them!

These are undoubtedly my favourite models from the Tyranid range (not just the 2nd ed stuff either). Yes, they are totally top-heavy and steps are required to ensure they don’t faceplant the table every two seconds but they just look so gloriously alien.

Weirdly, I always remembered rhe studio scheme being black but now I think about it that was probably just me wanting some just to paint black… for obvious reasons, I guess. Anyway, it was a bit of a surprise when I reopened that d issue of White Dwarf and saw that they were in fact very similar to the classic Genestealer colour scheme. The main differences being the red chitin running down the spine and the long talons being black. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again now; I love the eclectic colours of the old Tyranid army. They don’t look as homogeneous as the later armies but they’re vibrant and each unit feels different.

I painted the first five individually but started to run out of steam a little and ended up batch painting the final nine. The process was similar to how I painted my ‘Stealers and I just want to take this moment to reiterate how much I’ve grown to love glazing since I started painting this army!

Individually and up close these models may not be great but when grouped all together I think they looks really striking.

Two slices to go now, which is only five models. I think I really am going to have to prep some bonus models aren’t I? More Termagants? Some Tyranid Warriors? Perhaps a second Carnifex? Let’s see…

Welcome back dear penal legionnaires! How’s the explosive collar? Primed and ready to explode I trust? Excellent! Let’s dive into this month’s sentence 😀

As is tradition, I could not let this month’s pledge stand at only the two original models I had set out to paint  (a single commissar and a chimera transport) and so delved into what models I had left. Since February was agreed to be the “red month” of the challenge I was scratching my head a little to see how I could best incorporate the colour into my army since red is really only a very small part of it. 

In the end, I decided to approach this in a twofold way: One was to really accentuate the small little details in a lovely bright 2nd edition red wherever I could and so each model has something – hair, glasses, bandana, fuel canisters and in particular the freehand tank squadron red snake designs I freehanded onto the side of the tanks. The second way was to bring the idea of heat for that redness! I decided to bring in a command squad with four meltaguns and, more importantly, a Hellhound tank!!! I always find the best way to silence the enemies of the Imperium is to melt off any of their offending body parts that could be causing you distress and a couple of fast moving units like this can really make short work of some enemy armour and elite infantry!

Anyhoo, thanks again for joining us all and see you all next month 😀

Tain

Month 3 pledge:

Commissar: Power sword and bolt pistol. 48pts

Imperial Chimera: 140pts.

Month 3 bonus models:

Command Squad: Lieutenant w. boltgun, 4x meltaguns. 87pts

Imperial Hellhound: 165pts

Total points: 440pts.

Hello once again.

When I decided to do this army, it was as a small project only.  Unlike my orks and squats, I never have the intention of making this into a 2, 3 or 4000 point army outside the confines of this challenge.  I have a lot of mk 7 space marines that have, for a long time, been earmarked for a big project.  Some have been painted in sample schemes, others are part complete even though I still don’t know what blue paint I’m going to use.  That big project is still very much going to go ahead.  

Some of the figures I have used for these white panthers are therefore, inevitably, ‘excess to requirements’ for that project.

Enter the bikes.  I picked up these bikes as part of a bulk deal some two years ago.  (I couldn’t refuse two original land raiders).  Frankly, I haven’t ever liked the Mk7 bike aesthetic  – although I did find these more interesting than I expected to paint and I like the end result far more than I expected to.  Overall net positive!

However, after this project is finished, I am never painting a black army again!  I thought white was hard, I thought yellow was hard.  Black beats them out hands down!!

I went with the bikes this month as the ‘unexpectedly red’ month as they were the only non standard marines I had.  I can get away with painting a bit of the bike squad red, if I did it with a combat squad then it would for sure be unexpected – but not in a good way.  I also didn’t want to cop out and suddenly do a squad from the third company.

I’ve never used bikes in a 40k game, (aside from one squat heavy weapon trike).  I don’t think I’ve ever fought against one.  I have hopes that these guys can act as a tactical reserve while the tactical squads lay down fire.  Exploiting weak points and reinforcing potential breakthroughs – but frankly I have no idea how well that may work.  

This is by far the biggest month for me – back to 6 or 5 marines for next month – feels like I can relax a bit 🙂

Hello all, 

Hope everyone is well and enjoying all the great content the other guys are putting on . 

This month/Slice of the cowabunga challenge see the Commander of my LOTD make an appearance. 

I’ve misplaced the Chaplin model I was going to use as my commander and the same one from the white dwarf article on the LOTD but luckily I had a few options and the most fitting was the Blood Angels chaplain Lemartes. 

I was really pressed for time this month and couldn’t get a lot of hobby action in but was pleased how he came out. 

As you can see I like the grim dark style and background of 40K and the idea of this once mighty chaplain taking command of these fiery legionnaires and leading them in battle. 

Hope you guys like him and can’t wait to see everyone’s entry’s . 

This Commander comes in at just over 200 points. 

Armed with bolt pistol and chain sword. 

From his vantage point at the upper floors of the Sijan warehouse, Peregrin Rico and his Rats scanned the blasted remnants of the once prosperous metropolis in search of worthy targets. And there were plenty among the umpteenth Ork assault. Here and there Xenos squad leaders and other remarkable beasts fell to the precise attentions of the Ratling snipers, some with their heads blown off by laser fire, others shaking in terminal seizures induced by the neurotoxin that followed behind. Their suitable deaths were disrupting the green tide coming for them, but the scale of the attack diluted their efforts. He aimed at the windshield of an Ork war wagon, breaking it and the skull behind it in a nasty explosion of nasty green gore. The transport then ran out of control crashing against another war wagon in a fiery explosion which wiped out all greenskins in the vicinity. “That counts as one!” Yelled Gloinsen. Peregrin paid no heed to him and celebrated his rising body count with a sip of chicken soup from his hip flask. Because war was serious and stuff, but no responsible soldier fights with an empty stomach!

Some floors below the snipers several heavy weapons teams manned the lascannons taking care of the few armoured assets the aliens were throwing at them. Most of them were the usual Ork contraptions, weak, ugly and prone to malfunction, but some were of superior Imperial design, if debased by the orks in their usual ways. In any case, most of the vehicles were targeting those very same heavy weapons in a protracted firefight which had already claimed the lives of most of the Paradeshan crewmen.

Down below the crack troops of Sergeant Apone and Lieutenant Gorman contributed with most of the firepower and were fending off any greenskin who managed to cross the curtain of fire raining upon the aliens. So far they have been successful and most of the 88th’s elements inside the city had been evacuated, but the exhausted and dwindling defenders of the warehouse can only keep the extraction route open for so long…

So, the third month of the challenge has seen a very different slice; Ratlings and shock troops this time. And because this is the red month, you can see an exaggerated amount of this colour all around the models. Also, I finished the bonus I started last month: a trio of lascannons with their crews, to add much needed AT firepower to the army. 

I am trying to give these forces a mix of sober totalitarianism and religious devotion styles to fit the grimdark setting of the lore (while maintaining some vibrant colours fitting for 2nd edition), hence the proliferation of purity seals. I also added some crosses to the heavy weapons in this regard (this started also as a cheap attempt to add variety to the baseline Armageddon infantry models).

I also created a vox caster for the stormtroopers by adding a WW2 German gas mask canister and a pin to his backpack (again, cheap conversion!). With the ratlings I faced a problem: when I was unboxing them I accidentally cut off one of the rifles! This is the reason why one of them wears some cloth wrapping it up. I also added a WW2 American backpack to another ratling, it turns out they have the perfect size for those small backs!

I also planned a Vindicare assassin as a bonus, but I just realized that the both models I own lack the tip of the gun… So he is on hold until I decide to go back to working on him.

Lastly, I toyed with an app a fellow challenger shared in our Facebook chat and I think it quite improves the final result. Cheers to him!

Slice 3

Stormtrooper Squad (Grizzled + Heavy Bolter) = 155 points; Ratlings = 80 points. Total: 235 points.

Bonus

Heavy weapons squad with lascannons (x3) = 150 points.

Global points = 385 points.

The road winding through the valley below was littered with the burning wreckage of Khardasian PDF vehicles. (Ed. Oooh!) From their vantage point on a boulder-strewn slope high above, the Night Lords of Squad Koth had a good view of the main route towards the newly captured space port. The squad’s heavy weapons had so far repulsed every attempt to break through, but the enemy showed no sign of attempting a different approach. That would cost them dearly.

Shar Koth used the lull in the fighting to change the nearly depleted power cells in his trusty Lascannon. The weapon and its raging machine spirit had been his companion since the days of the Horus Heresy, and for a moment his mind drifted to past battles and victories. They had fought together for so long now that the weapon almost felt like an extension of his own body. Sometimes Koth could almost hear the machine spirit whisper directly into his mind.

++Kill…Destroy…Annihilate++

A faint rumble of engines in the distance snapped him out of his thoughts. His enhanced hearing told him that yet another assault was on the way. Koth made the final checks on his weapon and sent a warning to his squad over the comm-link. This was going to be a long day…

***

My third slice consists of a squad of three Night Lords Chaos Space Marines with heavy weapons. I wanted to include as many of the heavy weapon-wielding Chaos Marines in the warband as I could, as I really like the look of them! The squad could of course do with a few extra bodies to soak up casualties, but that will have to wait until the army gets expanded in the future.

***

Squad Koth

3x Chaos Space Marines (75)

1x Autocannon (20)

1x Missile Launcher (35)

1x Lascannon (35)

Total: 165 points

The heavy weapon specialists of Squad Koth provide the warband with long range fire support. They take great joy in obliterating armoured vehicles and bringing down monstrous creatures from afar.

***

My Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/oddgits.hut

Cheers!

Month three of the challenge has come and gone and I’m glad I chose the simplest slice to work on during the shortest window of the challenge (a measly twenty-eight days). I managed to refurbish my hex pot of Bleached Bone in order to paint these as authentically as I could. In fact, speaking of old school I used these figures as an opportunity to take up the use of inks again. I never really used them in the past, instead relying on simple three-tiered layering (shade, mid-tone, and highlight). Once Citadel came out with the washes, then shades, and other manufacturers followed suit, I waved goodbye to inks and put them into storage. The mighty Mike McVey, however, swears by them in his paint guides, and so I decided to dust off my bottles* and try a red glaze on all the red you see in these figures. I painted the red with Blood Red, then added Blood Angels Red, followed by Sunburst Yellow, then finally added Skull White to the mix. I then thinned out some Red Ink until it was mostly transparent and did one coat of that. Looking back I think I could’ve highlighted a little more extremely, as the Red Ink glaze blends the highlights all together, but that’s something to consider as I continue my inksperimentation.

Month 3 Army List Breakdown:

4 Howling Banshees – 108 pts.

– Power swords, laspistols, banshee masks, Howling Banshee aspect armor

1 Howling Banshee Exarch – 80 pts.

– Laspistol, power ax, Exarch armor, banshee mask, bounding leap

Total: 188 pts.

Until next time, check out my blog at www.onarollgames.com!

*My hex pot washes and glazes had pigment sitting on the bottom that I couldn’t mix very well, and my third generation Citadel inks were thick and sludgy (the 12mL gem pots with the black flip caps), so I went with my collection of P3 inks from Privateer Press. Before you jump up and say “hey Carmin! Those paints aren’t old school!” Remember that they were created by Mike McVey himself, so if they’re good enough for him, they’re good enough for me. Right now, they’re my inks of choice.

Hello again,

This month I had 5 scouts and razorback on the table. I also was able to squeeze in a bonus of an Eversor assassin!

The scouts were a nice break from the usual power armour as they are full of gadgets and gear. It was hard to find some good 2nd edition examples to paint from since the codex has none, and I believe these models came out in 3rd edition. While I did have some older scouts I could have used, they were just a bit too ugly (the old plastics). I feel like I was able to give them a paint job that blends in nicely with the style.

Next up was the razorback tank, and my first 2nd edition tank I have painted since the 90’s! What a trip. Quite straight forward, and finally nice FLAT surfaces for decals :). There was a lot of red on this which really makes it pop too. I copied this as close as possible to the pictures from the codex and think I managed to get pretty close (though the one in the codex was a las/plas and this one is a dual lascannon).

Finally I snuck in a cheeky assassin, the mighty Eversor! I haven’t painted the original models before so this was a fun treat. Absolutely love this model and the sculpt still holds up so well! Painting all black was a nice change from all the blues and reds for sure :).

Bring on the next slice!

Eric

They came in the early morning. The fog was still hanging heavy over the landscape, the night
just making way for a new day. The sisters of Seraphim squad “Anna” landed without a
sound behind the remains of the apartment building. Rubble was everywhere. Using tactical
hand signals, squad commander Sister Superior Rosamunde silently ordered her fellow sisters
into position. In no time they surrounded the artillery pieces that were stationed on the only
free space between the ruins. They would begin the bombardment as soon as the fog lifted,
leaving their observers with a clear line of sight. But not today. As one, they stormed out of
cover and with precise shots made short work of the few sleepy guards. Within a few minutes,
they planted the charges and were on their way back. Like ghostly angels, they turned on their
jump packs and flew back to their own front line. The black of their armour was in stark
contrast to the orange fireballs of the explosions erupting behind them. Today there would be
no bombardment, today they would attack!

3. slice: Squad Anna 232 points
   ◦ Sister Superior Rosamunde
   ◦ Squad with flamethrower and heavy bolter
   Painting these uniformed girls was kind of boring. Not much variation and I am not looking
   forward to painting more normal sisters. But what else can you do if you want an army? There
   is no way back, the heretics have to be purged!

Hello again,

Time seems to be flying by!  I always planned for February to be an easy month, just to catch my breath incase the challenge was becoming a burden, however I am still thoroughly enjoying painting these tiny little models. As an ‘easy’ month only 3 models to add, but im very happy with how they turned out. A techmarine, an apothecary, and a Lexicanum Librarian.

The techmarine model was chosen and painted to match the model of the codex. Ive got as close as I can but taking the photos i realise ive missed out the screen details on his scanner, so i will get those painted in when i can.

The apothecary also chosen and painted to match the model of the codex, almost. White is a tough colour to paint and models of this era were typically painted all in pure white. This wasnt something i could do with an outcome i would have been happy with so ive taken a modern approach and used a light white grey base with pure white edge highlights. Still not simple and it looked terrible mid-paint, but its come out great IMO. One thing I have tried with these two models was a switch to a carroburg crimson wash on the skin rather than the common reikland flesh wash. It I really brings a bit of warmth and depth to the skin and a bit of basic highlighting gives a much nicer/brighter looking skin tone.

The final model is a Lexicanum Librarian, also chosen to match the codex (Note; the super nerds might notice this model is labelled as a Codicier in the painted section, I see this as a mistake in the labelling at the time as the catalogue always label this model as the Lexicanum). One twist has been applied tho, to integrate the special challenge for the month ‘The Red Circus’. I had a long hard think about this and the answer was found way back in classic White Dwarf 141/143 of the librarian with codex blue upper half, but blood angels red leg armour. I kept the model close to the codex scheme with only the legs changed, rather than try to ‘modernise’ the older rogue trader era model. Really happy with how he turned out, despite the running theme of my army and its missing banners.

Tally for this month, 141pts

• Apothecary 40pts
• Lexicanum Librarian with force axe 53+5=58pts
• Techmarine with servo harness 33+10=43pts

Big month planned for March with 2 vehicles, ive got everything cleaned and prepared for paint but this is going to take some effort!

Thanks, Rich

“Where have you taken me?”Raphael stared out of the observation port at the roiling flames beyond. He could see enough of the vessel to judge that he was aboard a warship. The gaping, skull-shaped maws of macrocannons protruded from its hull like morbid trophies, in stark contrast to the proud raptor forming the ship’s prow.

++WE ARE IN THE SPACE BETWEEN SPACES.++

He turned to face the guardian of the shrine. The ancient dreadnought shared the livery of its brothers; fire and death. It was fully armed for war, despite the solemnity of the place, and its weapons were clearly relics from another age. “We are in the warp, then?”

++NO. WE ARE SOMEWHERE ELSE. THE EMPEROR’S LIGHT DOES NOT SHINE HERE.++

Raphael took some time to process what he had just learned. He sensed that it was the truth and his mind roiled with the implications. As he listened to himself denying the reality of this fate, he became aware of other voices, murmuring at the edge of his consciousness. Some were calm, some were desperate, some were mere whispers, some were screams. All begged for salvation. “I hear voices. Who are they?”

++THE FORSAKEN. IT IS OUR DUTY TO BEAR WITNESS TO THEIR FINAL PRAYERS.++

One voice in particular seemed to rise above the others. Soon, Raphael was able to make out distinct words. When he could hear nothing else but the girl’s beseeching voice, the commander stood up from his place before the altar. He passed Raphael an ornate bolt pistol from his own holster. Unbidden, the green haze of teleportation energy surrounded them all.

“Prepare for battle.”

This month I have completed work on my Legion of the Damned Dreadnought, which I have had in my collection for a very long time. It was originally a Furioso Dreadnought with a multimelta, which I converted to make a heavy plasma gun for my Dark Angels. To replace it, I have used a Chaos Dreadnought twin-linked autocannon with its spikey chaos bits removed. I have also converted the old storm bolter into a heavy flamer, as that seemed like a characterful thing for a Dreadnought of the Legion to carry into battle. The fun theme for this month was to include something red, so I have created a little objective marker for use in games. I am hoping to make five of these during the challenge, if I can find the time!