Deathwing Librarian TO-DONE!!!

 

Hi folks,

I am laid up in bed at the moment with something fluey. In between marking school work and other odd admin tasks I have been tidying up the DreadTober blog in preparation for the challenge this year (more about that later).  I have been so busy with it that I forgot to post the final shots of my Librarian, which I finished on Saturday. 

Overall, I think he turned out quite nicely. The blue is a lot lighter than I originally envisioned, but I also like the shading and contrast that affords. The pose is a bit odd from front-on, in that you can't see the axe that I worked in so hard from the front!

I kitbashed him to carry a combi-plasma in his offhand. I think it looks pretty cool and provides some variety. Gaming-wise I think I prefer the stormbolter option, simply for the volume of fire it can dish out. Hopefully, this combi pings some wounds off and earns its place in the list 

I think I have one more project in me before DreadTober hits. I'm hoping to get my Vindicator done to finish off the first 1000 points of my list, and possibly get some pre-challenge construction done on my DreadTober project.

See you across the table,

Marc

Deathwing Librarian Progress

 

Hi folks,

Just a quick post today to share some progress I have made on my Deathwing Librarian. I have kitbashed him a bit to pay homage to the old 2nd Ed. figure, with the edition of a combi-plasma because I am a sucker for plasma.

I have been working in sub-assemblies because I simply could not figure out how to get to all the details any other way.

The blue of the armour is quite a bit lighter than I imagined it would be; I think I just got carried away pushing the contrast. 

I just have one more shoulder pad to go and I can assemble and finish basing him. I'll post the final product as soon as it's done, then get started on a Vindicator.

See you across the table,

Marc

Deathwing Squad TO-DONE!!!

 

Hi folks,

Just a quick post today to record the completion of my Deathwing squad. I wanted to paint the new models in the OG Space Hulk scheme which I used on my 2nd Edition terminators, with even more weathering to help them fit the urban Dark Angels army I am constructing. I also really wanted a cyclone missile launcher to replace the assault cannon, which required a bit of arm swapping. All of the terminators have little Dark Angels daggers on their hips. Most of them also have rondel/shield painted in Belial's livery. One had a purity seal where a rondel/shield should fit, so I doubled down and added another seal. His armour is faith!

I used the sword from the Deathwing command sprue for the sergeant, but added a Tyranid Warrior head to make the pose purposeful. Less blood was more, in this case. I also added some other Dark Angels touches and a Native American head from Puppetswar.

Another project complete, which is a big win. Only a couple more to go and the 1000 points will be complete. Next on the table is some Supressors that I saved from Ebay.

See you across the table,

Marc

Deathwing Progress and eBay Rescue

 

Hi folks,

With the family away looking after a friend's horse ranch you would think I would get some more time to paint. The start of the new school term has pretty much nixed that, unfortunately. Last night I managed to work on my Deathwing Terminators for a while, getting all of the arms and weapons done.

I am going with the classic white OG Space Hulk scheme for them, with some grey shading to make it look a little bit more like they have just coated themselves in ashes. As you can see, I have fiddled the arms around to allow one of the terminators to carry a cyclone missile launcher, to help alleviate some of the vehicle/monster issues my 1000 point list has. I have also used the powersword from the Deathwing command squad sprue, which is a controversial choice in some circles. To make up for the fact that the sergeant is clearly not respecting the machine spirit of his blade by sticking it straight down in the ground, I have placed a Tyranid Warrior head on the base for it to fit into, with a whole in the skull for the sword tip and a lolling tongue for lols.

The head is another 3D printed native Aamerican sculpt from Puppetswar, to help fit the Last of the Plains People theme. I spent the last bit of my painting session painting the sword, hopefully adding some ghostly colours in there; I was inspired by the colour scheme of the Army of the Dead from LoTR: Return of the King. It is not as neat as I could do it, but my mind at the moment is awarding big points for "finished". You can see I have chopped the bottom of the blade off a bit as well, just to really sell the idea that it is deep in the warriors head. 

With the rules for the Vanguard combat patrol army being released in the last White Dwarf, I spen a bit of trolling on eBay to see if I could score a cheap squad of Suppressors. I didn't realise at first that there is no actually box for them yet, only the full Vanguard set, so prices were ridiculous! I managed to find two squads being sold by a person I have ordered from before and snaffled one with the flying stands intact. they sustained a bit of damage in transit; three grav chutes broke off the backpacks. I was kind of expecting that this may happen and fixing them wasn't too hard using polystyrene glue and some superglue later to strengthen the join. You can see some frosting on the backpacks from the superglue, which I will sort out during the painting step.

With the addition of these three models I will have everything I need to field the combat patrol in the White Dwarf, which gives me a handy option for smaller games with my mates. All I have to do is finish painting them...

See you across the table,

Marc

Dark Angels Intercessors Combat Squad 2 TO-DONE!!!

 

Hi folks,

Last week I headed up into mountains west of Sydney for a family holiday. I usually don't take any hobby thigs with with, as I find that they never end up getting done. This time, I managed to get another squad of Intercessors done in between bushwalks and cafe visits.

Even though these models are speed painted, I still really love how they turned out. They aren't remotely perfect, but nice from a tabletop perspective and their finished.

I keep re-jigging my 1000 point Crusade list, but the one I have settled on recently only requires three more units to be painted, all of which are in various stages of completion already. I won't get them all finished before I had back to the new school term, but I feel very close to having an army ready to play with. I also have plenty of options for expanding on force, up to at least 2000 points.

Here are a couple of closer ups of the finished models:

I had all kinds of lightning effects on the powersword, but finally settled for plain leadbelchers. With the rest of the squad, simpler was certainly better.

Considering these figures all came from Imperium magazine, I feel like I have managed to make each one unique; there is a lot of pointing goin on though! For an outlay of $9 AUD + bitz I had floating around, a full squad of 10 Primaris Intercessors isn't a bad yield.

That's it for now, I need to get back to my Deathwing squad and... other units...

Dark Angels Intercessors Combat Squad TO-DONE!!!

 

Hi folks,

The year rolls on towards its conclusion and I find myself barely keeping things ticking over. The school year here in Australia has just finished and I have stumbled over the finish line. The past couple of nights I have been trying to do a bit of painting to help reset my mojo. All I can say is that it has been a slog, but I have to start somewhere.

These Intercessors have been floating around for a while now, I think they were originally part of a Birthday care package one of my mates dropped over during the COVID-19 lockdowns. Intercessors form a big chunk of my 1000 point crusade list, so they are a logical place to start. With only five of them, it doesn't feel too much like batch-painting either, which I don't think I could stomach at the moment!

The theme of my army focuses heavily on the original background story Deathwing, which identified some Dark Angels as having been recruited from amongst the native tribes of the Plains World. To represent this I have used some Native American style heads from Puppetswar, to represent marines that still feel ties to their ancestral origins. In the story Deathwing, there is a great tension between fulfilling the duties to the Dark Angels Chapter and honouring the people they left behind. The beauty of the story is that these goals end up being mutually achievable. I really want to tap into that vibe and avoid the modern Dark Angels tropes. 

With the philosophy of "less is more", I am only going to use ~ 8 custom heads across the whole army. Enough for 1 or 2 per squad and perhaps a character. 

I have some Hellblasters lined up to do next, as a bit of a reward for completing these dudes. I am still a sucker for plasma.

See you across the table,

Marc

Dark Angels Ballistus Dreadnought: TO-DONE!!!

 

Hi folks,

If you have been following the DreadTober blog for the past month, you will know that the challenge is finished for 2023 and I managed to finish my project off just in time. This project was a labour of love from start to finish, as I tried to pay homage to the old school 2nd Ed. Dark Angels Dreadnought box art. This was a little tricky to do due to the additional design elements the new Ballistus dreadnought has when compared to the old castraferrum. The model is a lot busier, so I had to make some careful colour choices to make the old scheme still work, i.e. figuring out what to do with the missile launcher so that the red casing still contrasted nicely against the nearby shades.

I added a couple of freehand Devastator symbols to reflect the fire support role this Dreadnought will assume on the battlefield. You can't fit many anti-armour units in a 1000 pt list, so it will have some heavy lifting to do in regard to removing high toughness targets.

Overall, I am very happy with how the finished product. Having the pressure of the challenge deadline and the support of so many hobbyists really helped to get this one over the line. I really want to get my army ready for the Christmas break, when I will have some time to play games. Hopefully, I can set myself some deadlines along the way and maintain the little bit of momentum that I have.

See you across the table,

Marc

DreadTober and Reflections on Grief

Hi folks,

October, like seemingly every month this year, has been a wild roller-coaster ride. The challenge itself is done and dusted for another year, apart from the participants gallery, and it seems to have gone well. Everyone seemed to have had a good time painting stompy bots and checking out each other's blogs; it was cool seeing everyone comment on each other's work, in the little corners of the internet they have carved out for themselves. 

I'm still a sucker for plasma weapons...

I am left reflecting on another month where I have only just scraped through a challenge that I managed to wedge between massive daily workloads and family stresses. To be clear, I have no issues with failing a fun challenge, they are not meant to be that serious and nobody really minds/cares if you fall short. But I can't help but wonder why having fun itself has become such a challenge. I don't know if this is a function of getting older or just a rough season of my life, but everything seems to be more difficult at the moment. 

I have started some badly needed grief counselling and it is helping me to process issues I have been struggling with for over 20 years, including the fairly recent loss of my closest friend, Joel. Because we shared so much of these hobbies together, they are very much tied to my grief, which makes them both painful and important for healing. Losing such a close friend has also hit me pretty hard in my own sense of identity; Joel knew me better than anyone else and that repository of "me" knowledge is now gone too. I used to be able to say to him "This is what is happening, I feel crap and I don't know why" and he would be able to help me make sense of it all. We used to do that for each other and I really miss it.

I made the mistake of asking the internet what I should call this weapon. I think I will just stick with the less risque "graviton mace" option!

Grief doesn't have a time limit. It doesn't have neat stages that you work through, by ticking all of the boxes. Multiple aspects of it can hit you all at once, or not at all until much later. It hurts, but avoiding it leaves you empty, until you take the time to feel it. I am coming to the realisation that I have spent a lot of time feeling either deeply hurt or numb, and that this realisation itself may be a sign that I am pulling out of the nosedive (at last).

"Even in death I still serve."

So... small plans. I miss my friends a lot; they are amazing. I want to make a proper effort to actually be with them. Hopefully this includes some painting and gaming, amongst other things. I have started a casual gaming group for us, which isn't quite off the ground yet, but has potential.

I am also going to try and put myself out there a bit, which I haven't really done since the end of highschool, and play some games with local FLGS members. I've joined a Kill Team circuit here in Sydney and plan to participate in some introductory games to learn the new edition. Who knows where that will take me. 

The 2nd Edition Army Challenge is about to kick off again as well, which I absolutely love. I am hoping get some games in with the Australian participants this round as well, so perhaps there will be some old school battle reports coming in the future!

At this stage, it is all about getting out of the deep rut that I have found myself in. Digging in and turning it into a trench can't be the plan anymore.  

See you across the table,

Marc

Iron Snakes: Captain Orestes, Master of Relics TO-DONE!!!

 

Hi folks,

Happy New Year!! I don't really know what to make of 2021; it seemed to go on forever, but at the same tie I feel like very little got done. A good example is this model, which The Trooper and Sgt Waz printed for me for my Birthday back in July. After a minor bit of kitbashing, it has taken me 6 months (on-and-off) to finish the job. I think it is a very imposing figure, looming over the Centurions in my collect. I will have to put together some home-brew rules for him, as the closest I can find to legitimate ruleset is Tor Garadon of the Imperials fists, and he only has one Fist of Defiance. With the lack of a ranged weapon, I will look at giving this guy a small buff. He is a special character, after all!

See you across the table,

Marc

Dark Angels Master Astoran "The Unmerciful" TO-DONE!!!

 

Hi folks,

Last night I added the finishing touches to Astoran's Heavenfall blade, after watching some YouTube tutorials on how to paint energy effects. I have never been particularly successful at this skill, but I am happy with how this version turned out!

It took me an hour or so of really fine detail painting, which (as is often the case) you only really see properly if you get your head down to tabletop level and he whacks you with it! Ah well, that's the hobby for you. 

I had a craic at painting Astoran's name on the shoulderpad as well, but found just couldn't get the whole name in there. I was having getting the turn-back of the "s" shape done in the space provided with enough resolution between lines that you can actually read it. I'll keep trying with this script work, but I think I need a better brush and a magnifying glass setup to do any better. As it is, I have given him a shorter version of his name "Astor". 

I'm very pleased with how the mousy brown and grey of the Mantle of the Seneschal goes with the plum colour of the robes and tassels that I mixed. I was tossing up between plum/purple robes and red robes, but I really thought that red would not go as well with the mantle. Tying all of the pieces together on such a busy model is really important, or it really does look too busy, so I am glad I took the risk with those two choices. Of course, he can't actually be equipped with the Mantle until he earns it in a crusade, but a boy can dream, right?!

The Mantle of the Seneschal was made from Lukas the Trickster's cloak, with some Dark Angels-themed modifications and the addition of an Iron Halo. Goodness knows which beast of Caliban the Lion killed and skinned, that matches the colour scheme I used. It looks very ROUS to me (if you don't get the reference, watch The Princess Bride!).

The base matches my other 9th Edition Dark Angel urban bases, which are great fun to paint on their own, with all the weathering and hazard stripes involved. The yellow of the stripes is a nice contrast to the blue lightning of the sword (I hope).

In between working on the sub-assemblies of this beast of a project, I have also been working on some of the other parts of my 50 PL crusade army. More on that soon! Until then:

See you across the table,

Marc

 

Hobby Diary Part 8: Dark Angels Master WIP

 

Hi folks,

Me: Paint a 50 PL Dark Angels army in two weeks using speed painting techniques!

Also Me: Spend a whole week painting one model!

Ahhh, well 😂

During the first week of my challenge I spent a lot of time planning conversions and paint schemes. I wanted to use the Lazarus figure as a basis for a custom Company Master, but really wanted him to have a similar visual impact as Lazarus (he is ridiculously cool looking). Because my plan involved a bolt carbine hanging from a strap and an extra cloak, I had to plan the construction and paint job in layers. That included some sub-assemblies of sub-assemblies; I had to paint the bolter before attaching it to the arm, then paint the arm before attaching it to the body. All of this has taken a lot of time, but has been highly enjoyable.

Next on the agenda is to paint the head, which I am going to keep helmeted, the right shoulder with 3rd company markings and the Heavenfall blade, which I am hoping to giving some lightning effects. I have never done this effect successfully, sooo...

See you across the table,

Marc