Blindhamsters Blood Angels

[Blindhamster]

So, for the scouts, Ive blocked in the black fully, including the black leather areas with my brown+green mix.

 

But I've been a bit distracted with building things as the death company box arrived...

 

Terminators!

 

Close ups:

 

 

 
 

 

 

I'm pretty happy with these, I sculpted the sergeants chest blood drop, then press molded it to do the assault canon.

 

I've also started on death company, got the blood drops on 5 torsos done so far (I'll put them in a spoiler block as they're unfinished models from a build perspective, just showing progress):

 

 

 

 

 

Much like the terminators, I sculpted one, then push molded the rest, then touched up with a sculpting tool once partiall cured.

 

I've also built my Lemartes, really nice model!

 

and finally, my astorath, this ended up being very painful to do, I messed up a number of things but had to just keep going. I wanted a pose more like the artwork of him, ended up sculpting the right arm in its entirety above the elbow, and a chunk of the left arm too. It's not perfect, but I think to make it perfect, I'd have needed to replace the arms entirely. The right shoulder (his right), isnt stuck on yet, I'm giving it more time to cure then I'll look at adjusting its position a little.

 

Some other angles:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 21 by Blindhamster

[DemonGSides]

I LOVE that Astorath repose!  There was someone on Reddit who did it similar, but didn't do any resculpting; they just cut the left hand at the wrist and green stuff+pinned the hand in, and then just kinda dealt with a more awkward elbow.  Yours and theirs are way closer to that artwork we were discussing in that other thread, as opposed to looking more like the old version (Which I hate).

 

Here's their pic;

I like yours with the axe being lower, but this might be an option for anyone else who's looking at him and thinking of reposing the arms (AKA me LOL).

Also great work on your chest blood drops; you've got that down to a science!

Edited September 21 by DemonGSides

[Blindhamster]

Cheers, yeah I’d seen that one on Facebook actually, and liked it but knew I wanted the axe lower than that. Definitely a viable and no doubt less stressful solution. Fair to say I had the sinking feeling of “what have I done” at a few points working on it.

 

for anyone interested the arm without the pad is attached here. 

 

 

 

Also great work on your chest blood drops; you've got that down to a science!

 Thanks, yeah I do like a bit of bling, and my favourite thing to change out is typically the imperialis skull for a blood drop.

 

if it’s useful, I usually take a fair bit of time sculpting one model, then I push mold that with miliput - miliput will hold the sharper details better than most things from my experience, and it’s a bit more durable. I can then just replicate that on other models, saving time.

[MadGreek]

That pose looks SOO much better!

[Blindhamster]

realised shoulder pads were on the wrong sides, have swapped them :D

[Sir Clausel]

That is some very nice sculpting! That arm could just as well have been gray :) 

[Mostwanted]

Great sculpting with that arm and I like that pose. I'm not going to be that brave though and just stick to his regular pose, lol.

 

The chest blood drops on the Terminators came out really well. I thought about doing the same but the gap between the wings looked pretty big if removing the skull and I wasn't sure I would be able to get the blood drop to fill the space without it looking silly. But yours came out perfectly, so I will give that a go.

 

It would have been great if the Terminator chest peice on the upgrade sprue was just plain with the blood drop, then a separate peice that has the rope and vials you can add. I'm going to have so many of those chest peices left not getting used, seems a waste.

[DemonGSides]

I'm hoping to get some miles out of the Assault Terminator kit of yore.  Combined with the chest piece I'll have at least one unit looking drippy b

[Blindhamster]

 

The chest blood drops on the Terminators came out really well. I thought about doing the same but the gap between the wings looked pretty big if removing the skull and I wasn't sure I would be able to get the blood drop to fill the space without it looking silly. But yours came out perfectly, so I will give that a go.

I did have to sculpt an extra set of feathers and extend the ridged bit of the wings a bit to make it work, I found doing it in a couple of sittings helped a lot. 
 

look forward to seeing your results!

 

I'm hoping to get some miles out of the Assault Terminator kit of yore.  Combined with the chest piece I'll have at least one unit looking drippy b

That sounds cool, look forward to seeing them. I think the shape/size is different but you could probably press mold the designs onto a smoother out terminator torso

[DarkMark]

There's a lot of skillful work in this blog. Very nice. 

[Secret_Minis]

Followed your various plogs forever and love the BA. Astoraph re pose is spot on, I definitely prefer that pose but not sure I have the balls or skills to pull it off!!

 

I have dipped back into 40k recently and I find the new primaries quite painful to repose or do anything with!

[Blindhamster]

 

Followed your various plogs forever and love the BA. Astoraph re pose is spot on, I definitely prefer that pose but not sure I have the balls or skills to pull it off!!

 

I have dipped back into 40k recently and I find the new primaries quite painful to repose or do anything with!

Hey thanks :)

 

Astorath was painful, but mostly because I didn't have a plan, I initially thought i'd just cut hands off and use the base arms, and that went... poorly. I didn't want an over the shoulder chopping angle as I was trying to align to the art of him.  Once I committed to just sculpting some bits of the arms, and used a bit of pinning, it was honestly not too bad though.

 

as far as reposing primaris goes, I dont think its harder than firstborn personally.

 

My reasoning, as someone that has done a lot of reposes of both:

• the torso and legs are attached, which means you get a more unique and convincing belt/abdomen section than firstborn ever had (except that one captain with the winged faceplate)
• if you want to repose the legs you can:
  • cut them at various places, just like with firstborn, and just like firstborn it "just" means remaking the soft armour
    • this will give you literally the same results as firstborn ones did, you just need to put a little consideration into the abdomen angle when doing it.
  • look to swap legs around, possibly also needing to resculpt soft armour, but often not.
    • this creates a more subtle pose variation generally, but you'd be surprised. I've done it with 5 of the 15 assault intercessors with jump packs (which I'll post soon).
• at this point there is an abundance of arms to use in your reposing.
  • The following are all nicely interchangeable, so long as you dont mind cutting guns from hands in some cases and actually gives a pretty great variety of leg/torso variations in addition to the arms.
    • intercessors
    • assault intercessors
    • hellblasters
    • infernus marines
    • crusader squad
    • sternguard
    • desolation squad
    • assault intercessors with jump packs

I think its fair to say on initial release it was harder, there was lower variety of bits, but at this point there is a lot, and all it takes is a little cutting - often just like firstborn kits.

[Secret_Minis]

Fair... it's been a looonnngggg time since I used any sort of GS or milliputt so I might be building back up to that.

 

PLus total lack of time means stock poses for the foreseeable! With various bits chucked on 

[Blindhamster]

 

Fair... it's been a looonnngggg time since I used any sort of GS or milliputt so I might be building back up to that.

 

PLus total lack of time means stock poses for the foreseeable! With various bits chucked on 

even if you just switch it up with arms you can get a reasonable amount of variety, try dry fitting "incorrect" legs to torsos too, you may find you can get some good poses that way too :)

[Blindhamster]

I'll post a proper update on models later, or tomorrow.

I've just about finished the builds for 15 jump death company.

 

also got the scouts to a better place now (still in the blocking in phase, but good progress for me).

 

Had a small game with my son today, first one in quite a while.

 

The curse of newly built/painted models is true

 

I used a captain, intercessors, scouts and mephiston

 

he used a winged prime, 9 von ryans leapers, 20 gaunts, lictor and neurolictor.

 

the scouts and mephiston got utterly murdered, captain and intercessors finished the game having lost a single intercessor lol. The former was their first time being used, the latter have been used many times!

 

Ultimately lost the game (used the combat patrol basic missing where you score VP for holding objectives from turn 2 onward) as I simply didnt have as many units on the table and he snuck in a VP lead on the last turn. Good fun though and I think he enjoyed actually getting a win :)

[Silas7]

Always entertained watching @Blindhamster's progress. I'm envious of your green-stuff skills.

[Blindhamster]

 

Always entertained watching @Blindhamster's progress. I'm envious of your green-stuff skills.

 

Thanks - i mostly cheat and use press molds these days for anything I can.

For example, my death company:

 

For the greenstuff buts, I did the same technique as on the terminators, of doing it once, make a press mold, repeat for some (but not all!) the rest for the chest eagles. For the shoulders, I made a push mold of the outline of an assault intercessor pad, then pushed a regular intercessor one into it, let it dry and then used slightly cured greenstuff on the shoulders, lots of cleanup, but still much much quicker than sculpting 7 chapter symbols on assault intercessor pads would have been. I reviewed where I'd done the same for my assault intercessors with jump packs and realised i did a terrible job on those though... so may have to replace the shoulders on them at some point.

 

I'm pretty happy with them 15 death company marines with jump packs that are each distinct in various ways.

 

couple of close ups:

[Brother Raul]

Loving the progress mate. Your Astorath repose is inspiring.

[Blindhamster]

death company are all undercoated now, as are lemartes and astorath.

 

had a minor heart attack, sprayed astorath red, didn't shake enough, very thick paint on the jump pack... queue me manually brushing on detol, then scrubbing it for 2 hours before respraying... silly me.

[Brother Raul]

Did it to one of the last old sculp Lemartes on earth. Its a hazard of the can so don't be too hard on yourself.

 

I am a farmer and hate waste, it was the last 10th of the can and should have used it on intercessors! 

[Brother Raul]

Btw did not realise those chapter icons on the Paldrons are sculpted. Well done mate.

[Secret_Minis]

DC look great, all look unique so done well with bits and re posing. Mine are giving me the fear with how I built them!!

 

Tried to do one double pistol falling back like he had been shot be he just looks like a drunk

[Blindhamster]

Had a fun incursion game against a buddies imperial fists. We played one of the battle bunker missions from white dwarf.

 

involved 4 objectives, two being shield generators.

 

i used:

captain (gift of foresight, which i never used) master crafted sword and master crafted bolter 

company heroes

10 intercessors (power sword and two grenade launchers)

10 assault intercessors (power sword and plasma pistol) 

10 scouts (heavy bolter, sniper, chainsword sergeant, 3 with shotguns, 4 with combat knives)

10 death company with jump packs (3 fists, 2 eviscerators, 2 plasma pistols and 2 inferno pistols)

lemartes

 

he used 

captain with fist and master crafted bolter

company heroes 
10 hellblasters with an attached apothecary 

10 tacticals with rocket, plasma gun, fist and plasma pistol

lieutenant with power sword and plasma pistol

2 x 5 sternguard each with 1 combo weapon and a fist

box dread

 

at the end of turn 3 it was 40 vp for me vs his 20. He had 8 hellblasters, the apothecary and lieutenant left, I had my captain, company heroes, 9 scouts, 7 intercessors, 4 assault intercessors remaining.

 

we called it a victory to me there as he wasn’t able to catch up on the 20 point lead due to losing his warlord and me taking his home objective.

 

there was a really fun moment where the death company wiped the tacticals and the lieutenant challenged lemartes and almost killed him! Also a fun moment when the hellblasters killed half the death company and refused to charge them

 

fun game! Here are some pictures

 

 

 

Edited October 19 by Blindhamster

[Brother Raul]

Great you are getting some games in. What's your thoughts on 10th edition and did you like the new codex?

[Blindhamster]

New codex is fun, I love the red thirst mechanic for our stratagems, very thematic and there was a point where I actively used it to have an intercessor squad fall back, shoot and finish off some sternguard and then charge my opponents captain before he could finish off the assault intercessors that has wiped out his company heroes in the previous turn (not many were left and I wasn’t confident they would be able to pull it off without charge bonuses). It then meant said assault intercessors could consolidate onto my then uncontested shield generator and earn my a further 10 Vp, effectively winning me the game.

 

we did do a “fun” just brawl game later in the day, where my friend tested out my astraeus… we used too small a board and there wasn’t much scenery, I conceded end of turn 2 on that as we hadn’t setup properly, there was hardly any cover and he got first turn, wiping out most of my army before I did anything. (I’d not made a list to fight that, I’d made a fun 2k list for a normal game using normal objectives etc)

 

something I’d unsurprisingly say though, is even though that was a mess around game, it highlights the importance of proper anti tank for us, lemartes and death company simply didn’t have the strength to deal with toughness12, 2+ save and 24 wounds, especially when trying to charge it allows my opponent to overwatch and getting a single wound through meant the death company were also on -1 to hit… it was late and I also forgot Lemartes provided lethal hits to be honest.

 

another thing.. goodness me hellblasters with the anvil strat that gives them sustained hits on a 5+ as well as +1 to wound from detachment ability were disgusting in both games, scoring over 30 hits every time on a 10 man unit is insanity.