XBA: The Spear of Telesto

[Xenith]

Great work!

 

I hope at some point to finish all the tactical squads of my 2nd company...

For now I 'm committed in the building of the 3rd as fully Primaris.

 

Yea, the last tactical squads are hard work. I broke them down into 5 man combat squads (to help with motivation), which can each be fielded independantly - the 'squad leader' is magnetised in later squads so they can have a combi weapon to pair with either the special or heavy in the unit.

 

This looks great assembled together like that. Well done on the company!

Thanks!

 

Mate all them banners

 

Yea man, I love that second ed knightly, OTT vibe, and it just so happens they look great together!

 

Copypasting from elsewhere in the forum, I have some goals I'd like to achieve hobby-wise for 2021, not all of which are BA related. 

 

2021 Wishlist:

1. Build and paint a van Saar Gang
2. Build and paint an AT maniple, currently the aim is 1x Warlord, 1x Reaver, 2x Warhounds
3. Finish painting all models received as gifts: Knight desecrator; Mephiston; Hive Guard; Be'Lakor; a Grey Seer.
4. Paint the Indomitus Starter set before a new edition of the game is released. 
5. Finish painting my Infinity Ariadna force.
6. Paint all of my Forge World Purchases before I buy any more. 

I've stuck in red all the BA related things. I'll be continuing my Primaris Project as part of the Indomitus/Red Scar Reclamation Crusade, as opposed to adding more models to my Blood Angels systematically. I have enough Primaris to probably field a full company, but I've got one and want to play with other colour schemes.

 

Removing non-BA stuff from the above list, I can make a more BA centric plan:

1. Build and Paint all models received as gifts, so far: Mephiston
2. Paint the Indomitus Starter set before a new edition of the game is released. 
3. Paint all of my Forge World Purchases [before I buy any more] (Sicaran venator; BA leviathan; BA contemptor; Deredeo; Sanguinius; rotor gun armed unit; multi melta armed unit)
4. Build and paint my Space Hulk (2009!) Box.
5. Build and paint the SM Heroes Terminators (10)
6. Paint the Ultramarine half of Betrayal at Calth as Heresy Blood Angels.

As you can see, that involves a lot of Terminators, at least 27, pushing me to a near half company of them. 

 

As you can see, I'm not done with BA by a long shot, but want to focus more on boxed games, other systems, and Heresy Era marines. I think all the Terminators can double up nicely for both 40k and HH. 

Edited January 5, 2021 by Xenith

[Xenith]

Tactical Squad Venusian, 1st Squad of the 4th Company of the Blood Angels.

The first tactical squad, led by Veteran Sergeant Venusian, are veterans of the Second and Third Wars for Armageddon, and have adapted their tactics to fighting the Ork. With the honoured position of being first through the breach, Squad Venusian is equipped with multiple flame weapons to roast the Xeno from it's redoubts.

The Flamer Bearer is particularly pious and vocal in his detestation of the alien, the mutant and the heretic, has been earmarked for greatness by the Chapter Chaplains, and been initiated into the Reclusium, the honour reflected in his black painted left arm armour.

Edited January 6, 2021 by Xenith

[Xenith]

Tactical Squad Terranostro, 'The Destroyers'. 2nd Squad of the 4th Company of the Blood Angels.

The Destroyers have earned their moniker through decades of savage duty under the command of Veteran Seargeant Terranostro, who is committed to the single-minded annihilation of opposing armour with their melta weapons, to allow his brothers free reign over the battlefield. Terranostro often works closely with Squad Venusian to breach and clear enemy fortifications.

Edited January 6, 2021 by Xenith

[Xenith]

Tactical Squad Solon, 3rd Squad of the 4th Company of the Blood Angels.

Sporting ancient weapons and marks of power armour, Squad Solon are the most decorated unit in the 4th company, and exemplars to all. Paragons of both art and war, they lead the way as a shining beacon of hope to others in the chapter.

Edited January 6, 2021 by Xenith

[Xenith]

Tactical Squad Mercurio, 4th Squad of the 4th Company of the Blood Angels.

Mercurio is the among the longest serving sergeants in the 4th company, having assumed command after the last sergeant fell to the rage. Brash and eager for battle, Mercurio is on the edge of the precipice concerning the Black Rage. He cannot be relied upon to hold a position, and prefers to advance forwards to be in extreme close quarters with the enemy. The 4th squad has a much higher incidence of it's members falling to the rage than any other unit, and the brothers have marked their faceplates black in respect of the lost, and adorn their armour with saltires for brothers that have succumbed.

Edited January 6, 2021 by Xenith

[Xenith]

Tactical Squad Jovor, 5th Squad of the 4th Company of the Blood Angels.

A living legend, Sergeant Jovor is renowned in the ranks of the Adeptus Astartes for both his tactical acument and his unsubtlety. Clad in ancient, baroque power armour several millenia old, he prefers to crush the opposing forces immediately, often literally if possible, with the squads preferred loadout of grav weapons.

Machine-adept Kretchori, the grenadier of Jovors squad, is mistrusted by some for his devotion to the machine cult and is possibly being groomed for techmarine training. This mistrust is misplaced however, as his strategic analysis and skill at lobbing grenades has proves it's worth time and time again to Jovor.

Edited January 6, 2021 by Xenith

[Xenith]

Tactical Squad Santurini, 6th Squad of the 4th Company of the Blood Angels.

Brother Asher is the luckiest marine alive, having survived countless explosions of his plasma gun. He is convinced the tech priests of Mars are out to get him.

Edited January 6, 2021 by Xenith

[Xenith]

Assault Squad Neptus, 7th Squad of the 4th Company of the Blood Angels.

"No risk-no fun". Brother Sergeant Neptus's extensive bionics are a testament to his love of plasma weapons. Squad Neptus features some of the oldest serving marines in the 4th company, and prefer insertion via Thunderhawk or Stormraven to dispense their plasma-filled wrath up close.

Edited January 6, 2021 by Xenith

[Xenith]

Assault Squad Marsellus, 8th Squad of the 4th Company of the Blood Angels.

Warlike and constantly enraged, Marsellus is committed to the destruction of the opposing machines and fortifications, and has armed his unit as such. The Squads Bethesda-pattern eviscerators have felled countless foes over the decades.

[Xenith]

Devastator Squad Plutaxo, 9th Squad of the 4th Company of the Blood Angels.

In a deviation from the Codex, the two halves of Squad Plutaxo operate essentially independantly from one another, often not being in the same warzone. Plutaxo gives his squad leader freedom to grow...and be as far from Plutaxo's plasma cannon battery as possible. Plutaxo himself, bears the scars of these weapons so often leathal to their operators. His permanently mauled face now hidden beneath a gleaming silver mask, he leads his unit in the systematic annihilation of enemy materiels and elite soldiers.

Edited January 6, 2021 by Xenith

[Xenith]

Devastator Squad Urannon, 'The Thunderbolts' 10th Squad of the 4th Company of the Blood Angels.

Named for their propensity to strike hard and from a distance, the devastators of Squad Urannon dispense highly focussed destruction from afar.

Edited January 6, 2021 by Xenith

[Xenith]

And to cap off, in addition to finishing the company, I painted a hell of a lot of BA thus year:

25 tacticals, 6 assault, 6 devastator, 6 vanguard, 5 incursors, 5 infiltrators, 5 reivers, 1 intercessor, 5 scouts, then an outrider, librarian and lieutenant, as well as the Stalker, Excelsior, Crusader and Primaris.

Edited January 6, 2021 by Xenith

[Xenith]

Work has continued on the Indomitus Outriders. These ones got painted as Flesh Eaters, who I think all the fast assault Primaris elements will be painted up as.

The bright red is also a place I can stretch my wings and play with some chipping effects.

One of the best faces I've done, I think. Guilliman flesh over wraithbone; thinned Guilliman flesh recess shade; Magus purple glaze beneath the eyes; thinned basilicanum greay glaze on the [receding] hairline and on the jaw to simulate stubble.

The above guy was the test piece, then I got the last 2 to battle ready over the weekend.

I tried a new method of painting the ikes after listening to the Paul Norton Vox Cast, where he shares his experience on learning to paint faster as part of the GW army painting team. This has been super helpful. Part of this is drybrushing tanks instead of line highlighting them as I was doing. I line highligted the first bike, then drybrushed the last 2. You can't see the difference in the above photos, but the drybrush was much faster, even with clean up, I'll try and get a comparison shot soon.

[Majkhel]

Drybrush came out much tidier, good work.
The sergeant's face is indeed very nice. I also really like the broadened white stripe on helmets covering most of the face-plate 

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Good job on the Outriders!

[Spyros]

The sergeant's head is veeery nice!

[Xenith]

Thanks guys!

 

 

Drybrush came out much tidier, good work.
The sergeant's face is indeed very nice. I also really like the broadened white stripe on helmets covering most of the face-plate 

 

Yea, most of the images I found of the Flesh Eaters had the stripe go all the way across the 'face' of the helm also, so wanted to keep it like that. I think it's pretty unique and sets them apart from other helmet stripe factions. Unsure if I'll have variations on that yet though, for veterans etc. 

[Majkhel]

I meant that you made the stripe broader than the one shown on the original guy wearing MkVI armour

It just looks really good on the MkX in my eyes.

[Xenith]

I meant that you made the stripe broader than the one shown on the original guy wearing MkVI armour

It just looks really good on the MkX in my eyes.

I agree there - I'll get a close up of the face plate, just the way the white line divides it somewhat. I was going by these more recent images:

I think these most recent stripes are still a little wider than the above. I did mine hte full width of the helm crest, while these are narrower. The paint scheme is still in the mutable phase, so I'll be painting models with different versions until I settle on a preferred one!

Indomitus Progress:

Captain - Unmade

Lieutenant - Unmade

Chaplain - Unmade

Ancient - Unmade

Bladeguard x3 - Unmade

Outriders x3 - Painted, Unbased

Eradicators x3 - Unmade

Assault Intercessors x10 - Unmade

Edited January 12, 2021 by Xenith

[Xenith]

So a bit more on the outriders highlights:

Whatever lighting I seem to use, highlights dont show up on red. I even bought a new daylight (5000k) bulb.

But if we slam in a filter, they stand out.

And in B&W, the difference between the line and drybrush highlight is night and day.

Such a subtle, subtle effect. Looking at some close up images of GW tanks, I'm 95% sure this is how they do them. very fine edge drybrush. They even have the little flecks going forward onto the armour plate, hich just look like battle damage. I'll definitely be tring this on an actual tank, best thing is it takes a fraction of the time that line highlights do on large models.

And onto the faceplates for @Majkhel

Serge

Brother

Chapter badge and weathering.

Thanks for looking!

[Rhavien]

They look ace! I like the color scheme and thanks for the dry brush / line highlighting comparison. Have to say I often skip the highlighting for anything less than a HQ or tank model because it's such a hassle. But I'll definetaly they the dry brush method. Did you also find the outriders to be more of an effort that you expected? I can't find the motivation after I painted up my sarge to get some paint on the other two.

[Xenith]

They look ace! I like the color scheme and thanks for the dry brush / line highlighting comparison. Have to say I often skip the highlighting for anything less than a HQ or tank model because it's such a hassle. But I'll definetaly they the dry brush method. Did you also find the outriders to be more of an effort that you expected? I can't find the motivation after I painted up my sarge to get some paint on the other two.

 

Thanks! Bear in mind that the rider was line highlighted normally, just the bike was drybrushed - this was from a studio painters reccomendation. I've asked for a full totorial on it. I reckon you could probably get a good effect from drybrushing models, then hitting them with a glaze to bring everything together. I might test this on a 30k marine and report back. 

 

The bikes were indeed effort, but there was only 3 of them, which was a relief. In another post, I shared how you can make a single cut to separate rider from bike, which makes them way easier to paint. The first bike was a pain, but the last 2 were easy due to the drybrushing. Annoyingly, there's lots of nooks and crannies that are hard to hit with spray in these, so from some angles you can still see grey...

[Majkhel]

I find it that with more recent GW products, it gets really hard not to paint in sub-assemblies sometimes. Which is a pain for me as I take great pleasure in the building phase and I'm often forced to partly dismantle my work to be able to paint it properly or suffer such grey areas showing up from time to time. 

The idea of separating biker from the bike you mentioned is one of the things that really helps :)

[Bjorn Firewalker]

The Outriders are well-painted.

[Xenith]

1,000th post!

Quite a few milestones for my Blood Angels in the last weeks. I finally finished the project of half a lifetime and got my company done, kept posting here for motivation, and now this painting log has hit a thousand posts. Thanks to all of you for continued support, enthusiasm and feedback, long may it continue.

+++

Bit more work into basing and weathering the outriders. They're getting the same urban/ruined city basing that my nids have. I tend to try and pair off my armies, so they look like they're in the same warzone at least.

Then some basic chipping and sponge weathering to make the bikes look a bit beat up. Nowhere near the level @Midnightmare goes to. My vision of the Flesh Eaters is that they abuse their armour and wargear, being the tools they are, but not as corrupted as they might be.

Edited January 18, 2021 by Xenith