Darkness Rises, And Light to Meet It - Halandaar's ETL Log

[Halandaar]

ETL V was my first experience taking part in a proper event on the forum, and it really pushed me to clear through a massive backlog of unpainted Marines. I've been looking forward to this since that one ended, almost two years ago!

 

Now various projects have come and gone in that time, and I must admit I was sorely tempted to pledge for the Xenos faction, given I have a fledgling Dark Eldar army in progress and I''m intending to add to it with Ynnari, Craftworlders and Harlequins. However, the majority of my hobby stuff involves Astartes of various flavours, and so I am once again going to be vowing on behalf of the Space Marines faction!

 

In addition to the obvious goal of getting my myriad half-finished projects painted up, I have two personal goals I'm aiming for in order to better my own performance from ETL V:

• Paint more points than I did last time (4135)
• Complete 5 separate vows (last time I managed 4)

I'll be using this thread to catalogue my progress through the event on the various different armies I have lined up for painting! I have conjured up 5 projects out of the various things I have sitting around unfinished at home.

 

 

Project One - The Exorcists

I built these guys as part of the recent Blood & Zeal event, as I'm intending to run them using the Black Templars rules. I originally envisioned them as a standalone army of around about 1000 points; there are a couple of extra kits I dredged up included along which boost that total up slightly, but they make up a relatively modest part of my overall plan and I don't expect to add to them over the course of the event. I'll be tackling these guys as part of my first vow!

 

Project Two - The Argent Praetorians

Imperial Fists successors with a Knightly Order vibe to them. There's a lot of sword iconography, robes, tabards and MKIII helms sprinkled around to emphasize that, and the odd kit borrowed from the Dark Vengeance box (namely Bikers and Librarian, because again, robes!). A lot of these guys will feature in my first vow too, although I'm considering adding some Primaris reinforcements later on in the event.

 

Project Three - "The Victrix Guard"

This probably is not what they will be called long term, but it's the term that gave birth to the idea. A band of warriors hand-picked by Guilliman to serve as his personal errand-boys (and/or Honour Guard) while he's out on crusade. My version will be a Primaris-focussed Ultramarines successor, led by various heroes of Ultramarine heritage and decked out in an inverse Ultramarines colour scheme (gold with regal blue), better to represent the Lord Commander of the Imperium (not to mention, look snazzy next to some Custodes)

 

The core of this will be a repaint of the stuff from Dark Imperium, plus a handful of characters I kitbashed for the last ETL but never got around to vowing. I'm waiting on Guilliman himself and a few paints to arrive in support of this project, so they'll be reserved for Vow 2. It's not at all unlikely I'll pick up even more for these guys over the next couple of months.

 

Project Four - The Astral Vipers

So this one is going to involve a bunch of models that started life as an Alpha Legion Heresy force. Due to the fact that Heresy has been left behind by 8th Edition, the likelihood of them ever actually seeing play in a Heresy game has reduced to zero, so I'm re-purposing them for 40k.

 

Now, while Alpha Legion themselves are cool, I'm actually going to be turning them into a loyalist Raven Guard successor. I'll need to remove some iconography on a few models (although I intentionally chose the name Vipers so I could keep using the cool scale-covered components here and there), and this gives me a bit of room to play around with the colour scheme too. I have these guys down for Vow 2, although I'll need to decide how I'm going to paint them first! Inspired by the discovery of an old Amethyst Purple pot in the loft, I'm leaning towards a metallic purple.

 

Project Five - House Dawnstar

I ended up with a couple of Armiger Warglaives going spare after trading some Forgebane sets about, and decided to keep them for myself. These will form the vanguard of an Imperial Knights projects, but I'm not sure whether or not i'll manage to add any of their bigger friends before the end of ETL. Not completely sold on a scheme yet, but I'm leaning towards a purple and bone scheme similar to the one that was in White Dwarf this past month.

 

 

Thanks for reading all that waffle, and good luck to everybody taking part!

[Ishagu]

Outrageous. Good luck!

[Captain Semper]

You'd better get started... ;)

[Halandaar]

Here we go then, first steps! I posted my first vow, as follows;

I, Halandaar, rise to the challenge of E Tenebrae Lux for the glory of the chapters of the Adeptus Astartes. I do vow to complete the following vow before August 1st, 2018.

Exorcists Chapter - 1269 Points

• Captain with Thunder Hammer
• Captain with Jump Pack & Relic Blade
• The Emperor's Champion
• Chapter Ancient with Power Sword
• Apothecary
• 2 Company Veterans with Thunder Hammers & Storm Shields
• Crusader Squad (Sword Brother, 5 Initiates, 1 Neophyte) with Power Fist, Plasma Pistol & Meltagun
• Crusader Squad (Sword Brother, 5 Initiates, 4 Neophytes) with Power Fist, Power Axe, 4 Shotguns & Meltagun
• 5 Vanguard Veterans with Jump Packs (5 Power Swords, 1 Plasma Pistol)
• 5 Tartaros Terminators (4 Chmbi-Bolters, Reaper Autocannon, Grenade Harness, 3 Power Fists, 1 Chainfist, 1 Power Sword)
• Contemptor Mortis Dreadnought (2 Kheres Assault Cannons)
• 
• 

Argent Praetorians Chapter - 1056 Points

• Chaplain in Terminator Armour
• 5 Terminators (Power Sword, 4 Power Fists, 5 Storm Bolters, Cyclone Missile Launcher)
• Venerable Dreadnought (Heavy Plasma Cannon, Dreadnaught Fist, Heavy Flamer)
• 3 Bikers (Plasma Pistol, Plasma Gun)
• Land Speeder (Heavy Bolter, Assault Cannon)
• Land Raider Crusader (Twin Assault Cannon, 2 Hurricane Bolters, Multi-Melta)
• 

House Dawnstar - 480 Points

• Knight Armiger Warglaive (Thermal Spear, Reaper Chain-Glaive, Meltagun)
• Knight Armiger Warglaive (Thermal Spear, Reaper Chain-Glaive, Meltagun)
• 

For a grand total of 2805 points. Success will bring me eternal glory and failure will doom me to wear the “Badge of the Oathbreaker” until the end of the year.

I started work with the Exorcists first off, blasting the base colours down on all the models in one session; it's slap on Khorne Red > drybrush Evil Sunz Scarlet > lighter drybrush Wazdakka Red.

Lighting is pretty terrible so apologies for that!

I've included a couple of shots of individual models, notably my "Emperor's Champion"...

And Chapter Ancient

[Pearson73]

Good start on the Exorcists, the Champion is a really nice model, a really evocative pose. The Ancient's helm was a good choice too, the sneer underneath suits his pose rather well.

[Ishagu]

Wow, lovely models there :-D

[Dosjetka]

Love the Champion's pose. :tu: Not too keen on how light the red is though, since the Exorcists have a gorgeous darker red. Any plans to darken it with a wash?

[Halandaar]

Not too keen on how light the red is though, since the Exorcists have a gorgeous darker red. Any plans to darken it with a wash?

 

Funny you should say that; when I was looking around for reference material, I found that the majority of painted Exorcists were a much brighter red than I'd envisioned, almost Blood-Angels like in some cases. I was intending/expecting something more like the Word Bearers in terms of tone.

 

While I've over-done the top colour in a few cases, I think the photos definitely exaggerate the lightness of my red quite substantially. The photo of the Champion above is a better representation of what it looks like in person. I will definitely take it under advisement though, because brightness was not what I was shooting for!

[Dracos]

It’s just the lighting (and camera?) you’re using. I can tell your much closer to WB red than BA.

[Dosjetka]

Painted Exorcists tend to be lighter, indeed, but the holy books that are Forge World's Badab War diptych have Exorcists in a lovely darker red and that's what I prefer. That said, I'm sure lighting had a lot of influence on the tone of red displayed in your pictures so I look forward to seeing the later stages. :tu:

[Halandaar]

Also snazzy new phone camera which I haven't the faintest idea how to get the best out of!

Edit: Snapped a photo of a couple of Initiates with my old phone, it's a much better representation of the colours.

[Halandaar]

Been chipping away at this vow for a number of weeks now. I have to say, it's taken me longer than I anticipated to get to this point but it's also why I front-loaded with such a big vow. Once it's out of the way, the remaining stuff should *in theory* start to come through a bit quicker, in smaller chunks!

The full Exorcists force:

And some selected closer shots;

And also the two Knight Armigers

Next on the bench (still part of the same vow) are these badboys;

These are the Argent Praetorians! I used a lot of Deathwing/DA bits for that "Sword and Board" Knightly vibe, although they'll function as Imperial Fists successors in game. I initially had a bit more planned for these guys, but I'd put the basecoat of reds down on a lot of the robes and tabards before ETL so they weren't eligible.. doh!

Made some progress on the Chaplain following the above photo, been dying to paint this model for ages!

I'm off to Norway this weekend so no further progress until next week, but I'm hoping to get them wrapped up by the end of next weekend to get some points on the board, and so I can start the next vow!

[Bjorn Firewalker]

You're making good progress on the Exorcists. The Chaplain and the Armigers look great!

[Race Bannon]

Rar that Chalpain is so boss!

[Halandaar]

Rar that Chaplain is so boss!

 

It's such a great model, it really sucks that it's so hard to get hold of, I'd happily add one to each of my Astartes Chapters!

[Halandaar]

So with the completion of these guys, i'm calling this vow finished!

A handful of shots of individual units below!

Terminators

Land Raider

Venerable Dreadnought

Land Speeder

Bikers

Chaplain