XBA: The Spear of Telesto

[Xenith]

So the Flesh Eaters are finally done to tabletop standard, they still need some highlights and weathering, but I'm happy with them as they are for now.

Overall I'm really pleased with these, despite being a fast job. The red came out nicely and the freehand of the chapter badge wasnt too bad - the main shape was done with corax white and then the lines done with BA red contrast, it turns out contrasts are really nice for freehanding, lovely consistencey and flow from the brush.

I added some rust to the bases:

Chapter Icons:

Serge

Thanks for looking!

[Xenith]

Forgot a white helmet stripe on the other helmetted guy. I'll go back and add that. Otherwise I'm looking at some Scarab Occult Terminators now, then back to highlighting my Flesh Tearers.

 

I was a little concerned that I wouldnt be making more Blood Angels for a while, when on Thursday I had a poke through my storage. Needless to say I think I underestimated my grey pile of shame, and will be working on the Archangels when the 4th Co. is done.

[Xenith]

I forgot to say that I managed to finished off the 6th Squad of the 4th Co, aside from highlights and basing.

I'm pretty pleased with how these guys came out, and they hark back to a simpler time in 3rd ed when Space marine Las/Plas squads rules the roost. I think they're still reasonably effective, and it's funny to see things come full circle. The thunder hammer is magged, and the squad leaders combi plasma is in case anyone gets funny. The squad leader is just that, and has a combi plas and chainsword in case I want to field these as two separate force org units, one with the serge and plasma gunner moving forwards, the other with a plas/las.

Squad Complete:

Second combat squad

Chapter Icon freehands:

Lascannon gunner close up

Backpack detail. Guns are dangerous.

Squad Leader Chainsword. Pretty pleased with how those lines came out.

Thanks for looking!

[Majkhel]

Great work! Those free-handed chapter icons are fantastic! Stripes are also awesomely made.

[SnorriSnorrison]

Great work on the freehands and the chainsword pattern! That one must've been tricky to achieve!

[Xenith]

Great work! Those free-handed chapter icons are fantastic! Stripes are also awesomely made.

Great work on the freehands and the chainsword pattern! That one must've been tricky to achieve!

Thanks both! The stripe-painting skills are hard won from my Iron Warriors army - they just happen to look great on any space marine.

The Lascannon chapter icon was also new for me. I normally went for the style on theleft in this:

But it can often come out as an indistinct mass of white. The single wing strokes takes more accuracy, but I think looks a little better. I'll try and do a few more of those!

[Xenith]

Running some numbers on possible devastator squad loadouts, I'm leaning towards plasma cannons:

 

4x heavy bolters = ~3/3 wounds/damage on MEQ = 13pts/damage

4x plasma cannon = ~4/8 wounds/damage on MEQ = 8pts/damage

4x Lascannon/multimelta = ~2/7 wounds/damage = 14pts/damage

4x Grav Cannon = ~6/12 wounds/damage = 9pts/damage

 

That's also medium damage values, burst damage is even higher, but drops off dramatically (halves) when shooting 1W models. 

 

Grav cannon would seem to be the best, but are expensive money and point wise.

Edited May 11, 2020 by Xenith

[Xenith]

So, having some trouble thinking of loadouts. I know I ask this every so often, but I keep foegetting the answer! I mde a mistake before and I still need 10 tacticals along with the 5 asm and 10 devs to finish the company. The 4th company as it stands is:

 

1st - Tactical Squad Venusian (10) - hand flamer, power maul, flamer, heavy flamer

2nd - Tactical Squad Terranostro (5/10) combi melta, power sword, melta  <- needs 5men and heavy

3rd- Tactical Squad Solon (10) combi plasma, power fist, plasma gun, plasma cannon

4th - Tactical Squad Mercurio (10) - power sword, bolt pistol, flamer, heavy bolter

5th - Tactical Squad Jovor (5/10) - storm bolter, power maul, grav cannon <- needs 5more and special weapon - plasma gun to match the 24" grav?

6th - Tactical Squad Santurini (10) - combi plasma, thunder hammer, plasma gun, lascannon

7th - Assault Squad Neptus (10) - 2x plasma pistols, 2x plasma pistols.

8th - Assault Squad Marsellus (5/10) - 2x infernus pistols, 2x melta guns <- serge needs new combat weapon, +5men, 2 eviscerators

9th - Devastator Squad Plutaxo (4/10)  - sergeant, 3x missile launchers <-will probably redo this entire unit due to changing my paint scheme - 4x plasma cannons, serge with SB and chainsword?

10th - Devastator Squad Urannon (10) - combi grav, 4x lascannons

 

Finishing the company has joint priority with painting models I have received as gifts over the years, but never painted for whatever reason. This includes:

 

Hunter/Stalker; Primaris Mephiston; Megatrakk Scrapjet; Noise Marine; Red Gobbo; Be'Lakor; some AoS stuff; 

 

I'll at least make the company models up then paint the stalker and Meph. 

Edited May 13, 2020 by Xenith

[Xenith]

The Start of the next devastator squad:

Lots of legs

WIP serge. This one was a bit of a labour of love. Originally a black reach serge, I think I used the head in an obliterator conversion years ago, that involved cutting off the moulded collar. No idea what model received that pointy finger of doom the original model had, I cannot for the life of me remember if it was a Blood Angel or not. I cut a collar of a spare SM backpack, and added it to this guy, a sanguinary guard mask as it looks cool, and I imagine this guy to have a really burned face, being the serge of a quad plasma devastator squad. The hand will either be a pointy finger from the dev box, or a chainsword. He'll have a (maybe magnetised) storm bolter for funsies also.

[Xenith]

So, jumping back to painting as I idnt have any time for modelling last week, here's what's on my bench:

5 Vanguard of the third squad:

I think I might prefer the straight Khorne red of the initial flesh tearer after attemtping to highlight the flesh tearer red contrast paint and it not working so well, so painting the next lot of incursors in the traditional method. Black basecoat also saves a ton of time panting the black gubbins, head and shoulders.

[Xenith]

Jumping on the 9th ed hype train, I'm loving the look of these models. Image taken from the N&R Section.

 

What I'm seeing is:

1x Shield Captain

1x Shield Lieutenant

1x Chaplain

1x Judicar

1x Reclusium Ancient

3x Bladeguard Veterans

3x Outriders

3x Hellfuries (?)

10x Assault Intercessors

 

 

Observations:

What we see with pretty much all of these models are the rimmed shoulder pads with vertical neck protction and lower elbow joing protection on the sergeants, along with wrist joint covering vambraces with the stylysed crux, which I'm thinking is the icon of the 'chamber' of these marines. The other theme is the skeletal remains on both the captains storm shield and the ancients banner. These are obviously highly reminiscent of the AoS Lord Relictor model, but also veneration of brothers bodies is not typically something we have seen in space marine models beyond dreadnoughts. On these models, they look more sculptural, representations of the dead, however the CGI 9th ed trailer has the skeleton on the captains shield looking pretty 3D and looking like an actual skeleton strapped on there, so I have no idea if it's actually the bones of a martyr, or a heretic, or other.

 

The other theme we see are haloes, present on bladeguard vets, captain, chaplain, lieutenant, and on the ancients banner, which, in addition to the cruxes, reliquaries, tabards and monastic robes on the Ancient give a quasi-religious feel to these units, which is a nice contrast to the plain-jane tacticus models from Dark Imperium and the Tacti-cool spec-ops vibe of the Vanguard in Shadowspear. 

 

Synthesis:

The combination of Judicar headsman, chaplain and religious tones suggests a crusade to me, which dovetails into the 9th Ed crusade mechanic. My interpretation of this set is that some Necron overlord has slighted the Ultramarines in some way, and Guilliman has decreed that they must die. The Judicar is some kind of master of Executions, akin to the White Scar Master of the Hunt (3rd captain KoShorro Khan), who leads small crusades to bring to justice those who have insulted the Chapter. 

 

Opinion:

I'm super looking forward to this box as we'll finally see some effective, dedicated assault Primaris (reivers dont count as they have base ccw's and their schtick is 'terror'), and it also contains some anti tank 'close support'(?) in the melta armed gravis armoured guys, possibly hellfuries, and some fast elements in the bikers, which are pretty ace this edition, and rumoured to be even better than simply a 'Primaris on a bike'. Furthermore, the combination of Chaplains, religious imagery, cruxes, haloes, whatever, plays into the sanguine, divine, righteous, nature of our chapter.

 

This does nothing to help making a decision between successor chapters, so I'll likely paint up these models depending on what I feel they would look good as. Those bladeguard vets will look ace as Flesh tearers with those haloes. Or maybe Flesh Eaters. GAH!

Edited May 26, 2020 by Xenith

[Xenith]

Getting back to the Flesh Tearers:

I'm making rapid progress on these and the vanguard. I think I'll go back to painting the FT's in the standard method, any time saved by using conrast is lost in having to get the grey seer base down to black again, then painting all the doodads, etc. 2 thin coats of Khorne Red and we're red-y to go. While I love Contrast leather, XV-88 is pretty close, and I think I'll still be able to bung contrast snakebite eather over the top to get the shading, then rehighlight with XV-88 to getthe cracking and weathering.

Edited May 28, 2020 by Xenith

[Majkhel]

I agree the Crusade theme is strong with this release. Personally I do not like all those corpses attached and displayed. In my mind they have a place on Chaplains, but other than that it's too AoS. The skulls I can obviously live with (painted the dead Terminator throne recently ), but whole skeletons are too much AoS for my tastes. 
But the additional detail on the minis I like as they are very in line with the heroic ethos of the superhuman Astartes. As long as they are not just more plates that need to be highlighted...
Still I like the minis and am definitely gonna get them, when they become available.

EDIT: FTs are progressing well 

Edited June 1, 2020 by Majkhel

[Xenith]

Update:

I managed to get some time in over the weekend to try and get these guys done, and I'm pretty happy with progress made, they're pretty much there, bar the basing.

Comparison between the two primaris units I've done in the contrast (left) and classic (right) shemes. The contrast really needs another shade to give it some depth...which removes the whole point of contrast paints. In the meantime, I shaded the incursor serge with basilicanum grey after skeleton horde and flesh tearers red were having no effect as shade. This is closer to GW's official way of shading FT's, and it looks pretty good. I'm really loving basilicanum as a paint/tool to work with. It's great for shading metals, and apparently armour also. Lether on these guys was XV-88 with a shade of snakebite leather contrast.

Note the green lenses on the incursor serge helmet array - these were super fast, and I'll describe how to do that below. This is the best pic of the results.

I stumbled upon a cheaty way tp get great looking lenses:

Base the lens, can be flat opr rounded, in a light version of whatever colour you want to be the final highlight colour. In this case, I wanted a green lens, so used scorpion/warpstone green.

Take a blob of the appropriate contrast paint, in this case ork flesh, and blob into the top left corner, or whatever side your light source is coming from. In this, my brush came in from the bottom right so the point was to the top left. This avoids the point painting the bit you need to be round. This was a really rough blob. Surface tension of the paint will keep it in a nice round shape. Leave it to dry. You can see in other photos, the satin finish to the conrast adds an extra layer of reflection. Apologies for this awful photo. You can se it much more clearly in the photos of the sergeant above, where he has a flat scorpion green lens at first, then the nice shiny one.

And a final before/after photo:

That was an awfully appropriate beer, picked up my my gf. Had to get a photo of it with some primaris.

On another note, I was toting up what I'd painted so far this year:

10 tacticals

5 infiltrators

5 incursors

5 Scarab Occult

10 cultists

35 models in 5 months isnt too bad for me, considering I've been kind of vagrant with no real fixed painting space. Things are calming down and I'll hopefully have more scope to paint from now on.

In other news, I've been putting together the final devastator squad, and I have ideas for the assault squad. They're going to be pretty fun. I'll also put together a 9th company captain to go with the devastators using some of the cool crenellated shins - he'll likely have storm bolter and power sword/axe, old reliable combo!

Edited June 12, 2020 by Xenith

[Jolemai]

Decent brew, that.

 

(The update is cool too)

[Xenith]

Decent brew, that.

 

(The update is cool too)

 

 

Pretty tasty, first time I've had that one. I seem tohave developed a thing for fruity IPA's...

[Xenith]

I managed to get some better pics of the FT lenses, and the work on my VanGuard.

And potato cam pics of the Vanguard

Contrasts make a really easy way to hget good loking power weapons. This is a thick coat of err, aethermantic blue(?) over grey seer:

I'll go back and add another glaze of the blue in the blade middle to accentuate the shading.

Edited June 12, 2020 by Xenith

[Dont-Be-Haten]

Looking good Xenith. Edited June 12, 2020 by Dont-Be-Haten

[Jolemai]

Very nice "blue", that.

[Xenith]

So there's a few photos of the 10th squad I forgot to post, so here's a montage of them being made!

I'm pretty happy with the sergeant. No space for the signum with the back banner, so he gets a servo skull instead, like my 9th squad captain,

The cyber-cherub got the meltabomb removed and some heavy bolter ammo attached. Yes, the squad is plasma cannons. He's doing his best.

I also started work on a Hunter/Stalker I got for christmas in like...2015?

The kit is really good and can easily be used as either, without the need for magnets. I think the only shared component between the weapon systems is a small aerial. This kit will then also skip between the weapons, or being a heavy rhino. Main chassis is built, just needs BA-ing up.

[Xenith]

I managed to get a little more work done on the VanVets last night, and these guys are aaalmost fully blocked in and ready for shading. Weirdly the Hunter doesnt come with pegs to attach the guns to the turret/top part, but I reamed the holes out with a 4mm drill bit - they were pretty much there already, and fit two 4mm x 3mm magnets into each gun mount to keep them in place. Super easy and a quality of life thing. I really wonder how they forgot to add the pegs to the sprue. 

[dread05]

I recently built a plasma canon dude and I got to say I either did something really stupid or the left hand doesnt go well on the left part of the torso. Half of the circle still shows if you know what I mean.

[Xenith]

I recently built a plasma canon dude and I got to say I either did something really stupid or the left hand doesnt go well on the left part of the torso. Half of the circle still shows if you know what I mean.

 

Yea, they're a bit funky, if you get the angle of the wrist slightly wrong the fitting at the shoulder is really bad. I blu-tacked the right arm to the model then glued the left to the gun in the position I wanted first, so all these guns can slide off in a way. 

[dread05]

 

 

I recently built a plasma canon dude and I got to say I either did something really stupid or the left hand doesnt go well on the left part of the torso. Half of the circle still shows if you know what I mean.

Yea, they're a bit funky, if you get the angle of the wrist slightly wrong the fitting at the shoulder is really bad. I blu-tacked the right arm to the model then glued the left to the gun in the position I wanted first, so all these guns can slide off in a way.

 

 

I actually built a second, im convinced it just has a bad fitting. Multimeltas were fine on the same dudes

[Xenith]

 

 

 

I actually built a second, im convinced it just has a bad fitting. Multimeltas were fine on the same dudes

 

 

Maybe - I'll take a look when I get to painting them. Two of my plascannons are stolen from Dark Vengeance tactical marines so have a really snug fit from the push-fit kit.