Bonus picture of my WIP dread that will be a ferrum infernus (destroyer of cities) for 40k and a normal dread in 30k (kitted out the same).

 

Honsou + Chosen

Over the past few days/weeks Ive been painting the true scale dudes i made above. I could have probably made the green stuff work a bit better, but I basically gave up with 'average' quality of modelling and try to distract from the imperfections with the paint job!

These guys will be my main command unit, with Honsou leading, Grendel at his side, and The Newborn in front to go bash skulls! They're accompanied by 4 dudes with bolter/power swords for which I tried to do some different colours on their swords. I've only really done blue before, so it was a nice challenge. There's also a bunch of bolter chainsword dudes with them. The unit will be deployed in a heavily converted land raider (which I mentioned above), which will be part of a formation. Theres still bases to finish off and I'm going to give weathering powders a go on some infantry after my typhon foray, plus I have noticed that the existing backpacks have a mold line or 2, and the other guys backpacks arent finished yet... but all in all, I'm pretty chuffed with how theyre turning out so far!

 

Contemptor progress

As well as the marines, I've also been progressing my two contemptor dreads.

Ive finished the bases and arms, and have the prime colours mapped out on the body more or less. I still have some more brass to map out on the plastic one but its basically done. I'm hoping to be able to finish the bodies this week, and then glue it all together. I'm also going to try and do more with my bases. When I was doing my templars, I basically painted them brown and put some small cork bits on with pva. It worked, but it didnt really do the models justice. I think that these guys will be the ones to start trying more with weathering powders on for humanoid type units, but big scale.

Had fun doing the krieg dude bleeding out on one base, and tried to do some rusty metal for the base of another. I also did a imperial fist helmet and arm, which will end up under the dreads foot eventually. "Blood for the Blood God" is an interesting medium to work with, I kind of just splodged it on and hoped for the best, it was harder on this model than on the edge of swords. I want to get better with it because I can see it being a really useful paint to bring a model to life and be more grimdark.

I'll update with better pictures when theyre done.

 

I have no idea why the site keeps rotating the pictures all weird.

 

Im Not Surprised its doing this its taken me nearly a year to reset my login so i can actually post.

these are some sweet looking models you got some full army shots?

 

A few buddies are coming over for warhammer fest at the end of the month (I live round the corner from the venue), so we decided that a bit of Shadow Wars was on the cards...

Leader (300pts)
Bolt pistol, power sword, combat blade, power armour

Trooper (180pts)
Bolter, chainsword, combat blade, power armour

Specialist (280pts)
Bolt pistol, power sword, combat blade, power armour

Specialist (240pts)
Meltagun, assault blade, combat blade, power armour


They're running Tau/Dark Angels/Harlequins so my Iron Warriors need to deal with different types of opponent. But who the hell wants tactics when you can have a facemelta and bodyexploder?

I used three from the squad I painted above and then bashed this guy together to be the Autocannon. I'm still toying with the idea of putting a belt feed on it, or changing to a drum mag, but am a bit undecided at the mo. The only reason is the belt feed is obviously heavy bolter, rather than the larger autocannon calibre round. Once I've got the autocannon finished there's just a little bit of green stuff and gap filling to do and then paint!

Hope you guys like it!

 

Nice auto cannon conversion, the only thing I can say is it could do with bigger diameter barrel.
But good stuff.
On another note I don't think the specialist can take a pow sword.

 

I have actually upgraded the barrel dia to match the hvt bolter dia.

There is a power sword, sword and knife in Armageddon, so specialists only have swords, not power sowrd.

 

Autocannon bloke for SW:A

Finished this guy. I'm happy with the result, but not sold on the ammo feed still.

 

Been a while..... Started a new job, so have been pretty busy - I'm now a train commuter! I FUCKING HATE COMMUTING ON THE GODDAM TRAIN.

I have tried to like the primaris marines, but i just don't get it. the aesthetics are OK, but I think i need to read the 'dark imperium' book to really start to like them - I just don't really know why some of the legions would be accepting of girlyman.... Particularly the Templars, who now seem to be worshiping him rather than Big E.

Anyway - for now I've decided to forget 40k and focus on my 30k Iron Warriors. I bought a load of forge world conversion parts; heavy weapons and upgrade sets and the like, and have started gathering bits from various fleabay auctions etc.

Ive started to build a sort of list, but focusing on making squads rather than full armies. So far I have:
2x20 man tac squads will full bolter porn
1x5 man recon squad in power armour, more of a trench clearance squad with axes and shotguns
1x5 man tartaros command squad
1x10 man siege tyrants
the dreads i posted before (which are nearing completion, but missing something that I cant put my finger on)
my HQs

I started painting up my various HQ choices that I've kitbashed and so I have a fair few models nearing completion:
Warsmith
Siege Breaker
Forge Lord
Master of Signal
Vigilator
Narik Dreygur

Just got their arms and backpacks to finish
Will be trying to finish of my half finished projects by the end of summer and start fresh on some new models in the autumn when the weather closes in.

 

Nice work on the praetor's little shield. That skull looks like it was fiddly to do.

 

Its actually etched brass so was easy to paint really - an absolute fucker to get positioned though!

In other news, I have splurged out on some HH stuff recently, and have ended up with FIVE quad mortars, and a load of infantry conversion stuff.
I also finally bought my first actual red book of rules!

 

Post birthday update

Bit of an update.... Still not managed to get my butterfly style attention span under control, so have made progress to about a dozen different projects - I even manged to remember to take some pictures. [Disclaimer; I got a lightbox thingy for my birthday so bear with me while I figure out how to actually take decent pictures!]
So, I've got another quad mortar, taking me to six (2x3). Yup, I'll be "that guy". They'll go with my new Tyrants (which I'm scrubbing with swarfega on the advice of FW, after also using cola and 1000-grade sandpaper to try and get rid of the goddam release agent) and my siege breaker (pictured above). All of this is still to assemble, but that’s a quick job once I get going.

I've built some of my havocs – 5 lascannon and 10 autocannons have been made and ready to prime (havent done the cables/ammo feeds yet though, will do those last once painted so they don’t get in the way). The 5 heavy bolter havocs and 5 missile launcher havocs are just waiting for a couple of the BaC launchers and some Mk4 legs.
I ended up buying another copy of the death masque box and the overkill box (so have also been making deathwatch guys, because reasons), and have made the dreads into Iron warriors chaps. I have also finished up the contemptors I started ages ago.
The boxnaughts are armed with a flamestorm cannon, siege drill and heavy flamer for one, and lascannon, ccw and graviton gun for the other. I really want to add another to complete the talon and have him armed with 2x missile pods and hunter killers. (I saw a conversion online which looked simply amazeballs!)
The contemptors are armed with multimelta, chainfist and melta and autocannon, ccw and plasmablaster. After Ive assembled them, I think I might change the autocannon. It looks ok, but not great; need something to make it not obviously two plasticard tubes with holes drilled in it.

I've also completed two squads of veterans – one to be anti-infantry with bolters all over the place, and one as a tank hunter squad with melta guns and power weapons. I see the first squad sitting on an objective and sniping characters, and laying down shrapnel bolts at advancing units and the other squad in a rhino or land raider popping enemy transports and mopping up the survivors.

From the death masque box, I made a ten man recon squad, but in power armour that are armed with shotguns and ccws. They'll be run as a "forlorn hope" unit, first into the breech to hold until heavier units arrive. I also want to make a sniper squad in carapace armour, but still looking for ideas of how they will look to fit into the theme. I have been thinking that some of the Anvil Industries units might fit.

The land raiders are really coming on, and are nearly ready to prime. I have three now, and have abandoned the idea of trying to make extra armour for all of them; I did but a FW proper set though to make a terminator command squad transporter.
The normal ones are complete and ready to spray, aside from sinking the magnets into the sponsons which I'll do tonight. And the armoured one just needs a temporary assembly so I can bend the extra armour into position properly. I also need a couple of the display panel things for inside so I can make the innards look decent as well. I do like a nicely painted tank interior!

I've got enough guys to make a 10-man mk3 volkite squad and 10-man breacher squad, so that’s my next project (but with FW boarding shields instead of the breachers, as I don’t like the breacher shield aestetic)

For my 40k force, I've made some decent progress on my raptors, who will be led by Adaric Vaanes (previously a 4th Company Raven Guard chappy, now in the service of Honsou in his invasion of Ultramar). Theres a unit of 5, with Vaanes, 2 flamer dudes and two pistol chainsword dudes. Painting raptors is laborious. The trim is everywhere and I'm having to put down like 3 coats of the gold to make it look good, that’s 3 dark gold and 2 shiny gold and then a wash over the top. It’s an ass.
Vaanes looks good though!


In other unrelated news; I also started painting up the HH Ahriman, a bunch of deathwatch, and made a start on some harlequins which will form part of the 40k corsairs force.
I really like the Ahriman model, and will be trying out some painting techniques on him as I've never painted this colour palette before.
Deathwatch are great IMO, its like painting black templars, but with an unlimited amount of weapon options.
A buddy of mine has always collected saim hann and has recently been converting some models to incorporate harlequins, exodites and dark eldar (probably with some guardians thrown in somewhere or other such xenos craziness). He's an incredible converter and always puts us all to shame with his imagination and skill. He's also amazing at painting, so he's basically a git when he turns up to our tourneys – with his shiny toys and fully painted armies (bastard). We split a load of the first death masque box I got (he took the flyers) and he has been encouraging me to try out painting up the harlequins and providing inspiration for corsairs when he posts up his models. I really want to make the pirate corsairs that allied with honsou and reckon the harlequins would be a good start, with addition of various eldar/elf looking bits and some dark eldar weapons thrown in for good measure ( Kaarja Salombar - Warhammer 40k | Lexicanum ).

 

Dude, the card hazard stripes on the dreds look really good!
You’re not wrong about the raptors, they are trim sized pain in the ass. I think the GW way is probably the easiest way to paint them, and that is to paint the whole model the trim colour and then go back and paint the panels after the trim is finished. Although this seems ‘wrong’ to me I’m going to try it for my next batch.
Keep it up dude!

 

Thanks man. I've spent years doing relatively simple kitbashes for Templars, but the iron warriors and experience have given me the prod to try some more advanced stuff.


I might try the panel technique. I've only painted 2 of them, so still 2 more to go!