miniatures.

Crusade Force – Mission One

Today, I finally got around to playing my first game of 9th Edition. I’ve spent a bit of time getting a Crusade force together with the intention of using them while playing. I have named every miniature, and I am in the process of painting them too. I took the following out for the first battle:

Primaris Captain – Azakiel

Primaris Lieutenant – Vespa

Assault Intercessor squad – Squad Nic (Nicodemus, Ruman, Qaspiel, Araton, Hamon, Maalik, Renzo, Sablo, Jehoel, Netzack.)

Outriders – Aldus, Lukar, Marzio

So, how did the first battle go? There were some heroics, but there were some pretty awful events as well.

The best unit this game was the Outriders, they took a great number of Necron Warriors out with both their guns and their chainswords. Although they did not kill an entire unit, they managed to decimate two. Unfortunately, Necron Warriors come back so that proved to be problematic.

The Captain and the Intercessors come next. They were securing objective 2 when they were charged by a Skorpek Lord and the Skorpek warriors. It was all going so well until the dice deserted the Captain, resulting in the Skorpek wiping out the unit and the Captain in the next turn.

The Lieutenant did very little and so is at the bottom of the honour role for today. He got charged and died. He did do a little damage with his last hit – which I used a command point to do, but other than that, he sucked.

So. I didn’t win. I did get some experience points for the Force though, and it was fun to play. There is a lot to remember – a lot more than Adeptus Titanicus, and my head felt blown towards the end. I’ve not played 40K for a couple of years but some of it came back to me as I played. Scenery rules seem to make more sense to me as well. I will pick it up the more I play, of that I am sure.

miniatures.

Necrons!

I started painting the Indomitus Necrons the other day and wanted to share the progress I have made on them. There are a few new things I am trying out with them, which seem to have worked so far. Here are the pictures, I will talk about the new things afterwards so you know what I am talking about:

The bases. Usually, I would use either Agrax Earthshade or Nuln Oil to shade the texture paint. (I love texture paint), but this time around I wanted to use a different colour to see what effect it woul have. I used Druchii Violet as it is close to the red in the colour wheel, and then drybrushed Jokero Orange over the top. I like the shadow effect it has, though in some places it appears to have a white hue to it – might have to look into that and see where it has come from.

I am also really pleased with the Plasmancer’s blade. I have done blended weapons before but the green on this seems to have come out really well. Of course, the rest of the Plasmancer needs more work doing to him, but I really wanted to share what I had done so far.

I am looking forward to painting the rest of them and seeing them as a force on the battlefield, they should look striking on the red gaming mat that we use! Pictures to follow I am sure!

miniatures.

Warhammer 40K – 9th Edition – New Miniatures!

I am most excited to see the new miniatures announced today. There are so many cool additions to the range, I had to do a post to enthuse about them. I’ll start with Space Marines, because they are my favourite!

Where do I even start with these? I love the blocky bikes, they just scream Space Marine in my mind. The shields are wicked – the skeleton on a shield is just so ‘extra’ it had to be done. The Judicar looks so mean. I can see a conversion into a Thousand Son’s Chronomancer in his future too. The Chaplain’s face is awesome and the option for having Melee Primaris Marines is just too cool! Also, that banner… Just wicked!

I shall certainly by adding these to my collection of Space Marines, but painting them red for Blood Angels instead.

Now, I never eally thought much of Necrons, but I feel that this has changed. These miniatures are every bit as cool and I will really have to think about how I am going to paint them myself.

I love the little scarab swarms, and it would be really cool if there were some spares to customise the other necron bases. The long spikey parts of the other miniatures are awesome and they look very stabby.

I can see myself learning more about them when they are released and doing some bits with them. Either way, I look forward to getting them on my painting table!

40K · Painting Tutorial · Uncategorized · Wh40K

Tutorial: Galaxy Cloaks!

I have never written a tutorial before but when I was asked about the galaxy cloaks the other day and how I did them I volunteered to do one. I have tried to keep it as simple as I can!

Step 1: Coffee – an essential must have for all painting endeavors

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Step 2: Background – I use Abaddon Black as the base for the galaxies so I make sure the entire area is covered and even before I start. I also find that having an image as a reference is very useful, though I do not often refer to it!

Step 3: Base colours. As I was going for a blue based galaxy, I used Kantor Blue and Xereus Purple. At this point, I use one of my very old brushes and stipple the paint on carefully. I don’t put a great deal of paint on the brush and I create the outline of the galaxy.

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This is a little dark, sorry about that!

Step 4: Using the same brush, I then go over the outline with a lighter colour – in this case, I used Caledor sky and Xereus Purple mixed with Mephiston Red. I also make sure not to put as much on the brush as at this stage, you want to start seeing spots of colour.

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The spots are important later on!

Step 5: Here is where I swap to a smaller brush and begin to build up the layers that form the galaxy. Using watered down – this makes the paint much easier to manipulate – Sotek Green, Temple Guard Blue for the blue and Xereus Purple with a mix of Emperors Children, I then blend and build up the colour until it looks natural.

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This one has a swirling appearance to it – use the watered down paint to build the colour up!

Step 6: Stars. This is the step where I add the first layer of stars. I use a very fine brush to spot on the stars that are the same colour as the blended parts. You can add them at a varying sizes too.

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Use a variety of sizes for good effect

Step 7: More Stars. This time, I use white to add in stars. They add a final striking layer to the cloak. I also use a range of sizes and this time, I put in a small cross to show one as twinkling.

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Oooh, shiny

So, there you have it, a whirlwind explanation of how to create groovy galaxy cloaks. I am going to be giving them to all psyker type models for the time being as I think they fit the theme. Space Wizards need wizardy cloaks that look like space… Here are a couple of others I have done!

If you found this tutorial useful, please consider buying me a kofi: https://ko-fi.com/hereticdeb

40K · fine detail · miniatures. · space marines · Wh40K

The Cloak of Stars, a 50p Heretic and The Second Company.

I’ve been a bit busy getting married these past few weeks and as such have not had a great deal of hobby time to get either writing or painting. The wedding was wonderful and the honeymoon a big pile of fun too. However, after recovering for a day, we did manage to get some hobby in to make up for it. While away, I was browsing Pinterest and saw an awesome effect on a cloak of a miniature and decided that I wanted to try and recreate it myself. Here are the results:

The effect of painting a galaxy on a cloak was a tricky one that involved creating a base of the swirling colours and then painting an awful lot of little dots over the top finishing off with some white ones. The colour of dots depended on which part of the cloak I was painting but I think it worked out well over all. I think I will be trying this technique again on psyker/librarian characters too. It’s just a shame that this heretic – Ahriman – will likely never see much play time.

The other model I have been painting was found at the Warboot at Element Games a few weeks ago (with a huge hangover no less) and was picked up with a friend who is some sort of demented chaos apothecary with Fabius Bile’s pack back. The Thousand Son miniature was already undercoated and having just finished the novel, I decided to paint him up all nice. He is a fine-cast miniature but let’s not hold that against him, he looks alright and I am sure he and Ahriman will be running off with all the cookies in the cabinet in some sort of heretic shenanigans.

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Look at them both – planning on raiding the Ultramarine Cookie Jar already!

Another I wanted to mention was sorting out the marines I had into squads. It was a job I have put off for a while but I finally got the time to sit down and get it done. I knew I had a lot of models and that they needed to be sorted – more so I know who belongs where and who gets what markings. Turns out I have enough for seven squads of a battle company and some Terminators, Dreadnoughts and Bikes (not assembled yet) for support. I also have other models that are not yet put together which will form the majority of the command unit too. Here they are, the Black Hands Second Company in all their ‘organised’ glory.

And finally,  I have to mention one of the awesome gifts my husband and I received as a wedding present. We were given a lot of gifts and are exceptionally grateful for all of them. I feel this one needs a special blog mention though:

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The Emperor’s Palace on Holy Terra – Now on our living room wall in all its glory.

40K · miniatures. · Warhammer 40k · Wh40K

Sergeant Flowers

As some of you will know, I am getting married tomorrow. The past few days have been a bit of a whirlwind, trying to organise various things; decorations, relatives, cakes and other assorted bits and bobs. I’ve had a lot less time for painting and playing and even less for writing. Fear not, the story is still growing just at a much slower rate than before.

We are not having a huge formal wedding, we’re not those kind of people. We wanted to do something that reflected our quirks and would be enjoyable for everyone, not one of those huge formal affairs were everyone appears tense. I always knew I wanted something in my bouquet; I just wasn’t sure what…

That’s where this guy comes in.

This is Sergeant Flowers. The history I with painting miniatures began when I was around 14 years old and is a story too long for the telling on this post. My recent ‘obsession’ is with 40K and Space Marines so it seemed like a fitting idea to have a guy with a jump pack hidden in the flowers.

A little bit about Flowers then – his first name is Iris (which is painted on the banner in the centre of the black hand). He is the sergeant of the fourth squad in second company and is known for being mean. With a name like Iris Flowers, one worthy of The Emperor’s Children, he has to be. He has served for over 200 years so far and is a dab hand with the lightning claw.

After the day,  intend to take him out of the bouquet, fix him to a base and field him alongside the rest of his assault squad. I will leave you with the shot of him all ready for the big day tomorrow.

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There will be no problems with heretics or xenos on the big day!

painting · Warhammer 40k

Improvements

Someone close to me suggested that ‘art is a journey’. I’m not one to wax lyrical about the intricacies of art and what it means. I paint miniatures because I enjoy it, I find it calming and it is a great way to unwind after a day at work. I have been painting figures on and off since I was about 13 years old. The first model that I owned and painted was  an undead banshee – she is still in the house somewhere I think. I have come a long way since then.

What I want to focus on today is how far I have come over the past few months since finding my way back into the hobby. I managed to pick out one of my first Space Marines and took a picture – here he is in all his Black Hand glory.

When I look at him now, I see the thickness of the edge highlighting and how wonky the lines are. He was a good start however and since then, I have painted a ‘few’ more marines and practiced my brush techniques. Then the Primaris made an appearance and I was faced with new challenges. Here’s the first Intercessor I put my brush to a few short weeks ago:

Since painting this fella, I have improved on my line work and feel the coat of paint looked a lot more even too. I’m more confident in the style of painting – highlighting rather than blending and think the flat colour is really striking when the edges are picked out in a brighter shade. There is always room for improving however and we are always more inclined to see the flaws! The last model I painted was this one:

I am very proud of the ancient and feel it is the best work I have done so far, better even than the Deredeo dreadnought I was pleased with! People have been kind and commented on him on Twitter and Facebook, some going so far as to say it puts theirs to shame. I don’t like such comments! We are all working to improve ourselves and the only people we are comparable to is our self! I’ve compared and shown my progress against my own models, not anyone else’s. So long as we are constantly getting better at what we do, and that there is visible progress to a better looking model, then that is a win!

fine detail · miniatures. · Wh40K

Guest Post – Dynasty or Dallas

This is the first Guest Post I have featured on the blog and I have to admit this is rather exciting! The post had been written by Chris Frosin, whom I have mentioned before as being one of the most enthusiastic people I have met in recent times. Anyway, without any more waffle from me, here are his thoughts on returning to the hobby after an extended break!

 

It unfortunately doesn’t take much. Or maybe that’s fortunate, you can let me know by the end of this little post.

However, three weeks ago I met up with a friend of mine who I’d been meaning to catch up with for a while. It just so happened that the ‘catch up’ took place at Warhammer World where he was playing a small game of what I’d later realise was a new edition of Warhammer 40,000. Walking back in to an environment that I spent a lot of time in during my 20’s set my creative juices flowing again rather quickly and that certainly wasn’t ‘helped’ by the two guys I met nudging me to having a wander around the store there to see everything that had changed in the 12 years I’d been away.
Well, the models have certainly got even more gorgeous and the intricacies and details that I always loved to pick out have gotten even more precise and sharp. Unfortunately my beloved Tomb Kings seem to have been ‘killed’ off in a large explosion of some sort but seeing as they were playing 40k my mind was brought back to my small Necron force I pulled together all those years ago and a handful of Harlequins I’d converted. Now I love painting and converting so one of my first armies was what turned out to be a huge Ork force that I just kept adding and adding to; converted ork boyz everywhere, with a Land Raider based battlewagon, nobz with lightning claws and grots with guns they could hardly carry resting on their backs! If I was going to get sucked back in to the hobby I didn’t want to repeat that; but the sort of ‘been there done that’ feeling was satisfying enough that gradually throughout the evening watching Eldar PUMMEL (sorry hehe) the Space Marines into submission a plan of action was starting to form. Small numbers. I’d scanned the rulebook enough to see that I could form an elite force, maybe even a narrative army list based around fast attack detachments. Ultimately this would mean small numbers. But would I dig out the Death Jester and Shadow Seer models that I never face getting rid of, and do Harlequins again; the elite of elite, or my Necrons, an army that was more a couple of squads to test a colour scheme idea I had?
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Then a further suggestion was thrown at me.
‘We’re having a game of Shadow War in a couple of weeks. Why don’t you get a Kill Team together for that and join in’
‘Errr… hell yeah!’
There was already a Harlequin player so maybe that wouldn’t be the best choice… and then I was shown these!
The Necron Tomb Blades and Annihilation Barge!

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Tomb Blades

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Annihilation Barge

How. Cool. Are. They!
I was sold. I had to have Necrons again and fine tune my colour scheme to work with a vehicular based fast attack force for a new Dynasty! Mine! And it was going to be epic!
That week I headed in to my local store, had a browse around, checked out the new paints (which have tooootally different names to what I remember. Where’s Deadly Nightshade for instance?!?!) and picked up a box of Necron Immortals and the Shadow War rule book. I’d managed to find one rogue Necron warrior that somehow escaped the clear out all those years ago and that, with a little converting obviously, would be good enough to form the basis of a Kill Team.
And luckily one of the positives of my paint scheme is it’s rather quick to do.
What happened next sent me down an even more excited rabbit hole but I’ll save the story of bouncing around an amazing community on Twitter for the next post. Until then, here’s the first sneak peek of the Necron warrior that I dug out of the loft (attic if you’re from across the pond)
Warhammer 40k · Wh40K

Battle Report: Dark Eldar

We decided to kick off the weekend with a game on Friday night. I wasn’t playing against the Death Guard for a change; oh no, this was someone totally new. A friend of mine brought his Dark Eldar over and I was informed that it would be me doing the fighting! My long suffering partner helped me create the army list with some advice here and there about what to do! I took my new shiny Deredeo Dreadnought, freshly painted and gleaming to see what he could do, and a load of the Primaris lads that I have been painting too.

This was my first introduction to objectives. I had to clarify what they were for and I was reliably informed that in order to win I had to do said objectives or kill everything on the board. I looked at my friend and calmly informed him that I was going to kill all his models…

The Dark Eldar went first. They managed to kill a few of the intercessors in the first round. For a while, it was looking  pretty even; then the Dreadnought got to fire…

IMG_1127 This was the result. I must say that the Dreadnought had a hell of a lot of fire power in it and I almost felt bad for my friend… Almost. He dropped some reinforcements in from space (I cannot recall the name of the unit) and I destroyed them with another squad of intercessors. My Hellblasters peppered his troops with shots and my captain stood about and yelled at people to shoot harder! Those 1 re-rolls from both him and the Lieutenants is devastating. The dreadnought hits on a 2+ and I get to re-roll 1s…

As I had promised my friend, I killed every model on the board and scored my first ever victory in 40K. There was much rejoicing.

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With the Captain shouting at him, the Deredeo hardly ever misses… BOOM!

40K · miniatures. · Warhammer 40k · Wh40K

Painting Dreadnoughts!

Thought I would do a bit of an update. I’ve not played any games this week owing to time constraints and needing to get other things sorted out (wedding) but I have managed to squeeze in some painting here and there.

I’ve finished the Primaris Intercessor squad and tried to take a half decent picture of them – tricky with an ipad and some sheets of A4 paper but I think you get the idea. I’ve improved with every model I have painted and I am so pleased with the contrasting edge highlighting on the blue armour.

Today’s project was to make a start on the deredeo dreadnought I’ve had sitting about for a while. I wanted to try some blending on the flat areas of his plates and it has taken an age to get right. I’ve also tried to paint a light source on it as well, something I have never done before. He is far from finished but I feel I have done a pretty neat job so far. I’ve also stuck in a picture of Guilliman because he’s now assembled and awaiting some paint. An awesome model who is going to be a further challenge!

As a side note, I’ve reached over 22 000 words of my Chapter’s story and am about to start part 3. Another thing I am proud of this week!

I want to do a couple of shoutouts to awesome people I have met lately too. Dave, a Space Wolf player, has been instrumental in encouraging my to share my stuff with the wider world adn encouraging me to do so. This is a link to his blog, go check it out, there is some great stuff over there!

https://theerrantwolf.blogspot.co.uk/?m=1

I have also met some photographer dude named Chris Frosin! He has just returned to the hobby, is the most enthusiastic person on the planet and also has encouraged me to be better than I am. The updates and questions about what I am painting/writing has kept me focused. This is his website, check him out!

https://www.chrisfrosin.co.uk/

Also… this if you like stupid and 40K stuff, give this blog a bit of a look through… It’s pretty dumb…

https://abaddonandteal.wordpress.com/