Holier Than Thou

Progress on the Night Lords continues apace- by which I mean that I'm more-or-less on course to have the first Tactical squad finished by the end of the month.

There's been a minor change in the plan- originally I was going to do two ten-model Tactical squads as the core of the army, but with the background of the Night Lords being all about the hit-and-run, plus the Forgeworld Assault models looking so good, I've decided to have two token five-model Tactical squads and to tailor the rest of the army towards getting up-close and personal. More jump troops and assault terminators.

Though I'm thus sixty percent through the first squad (three models done), I have no photos of them. This is because they're all still missing a shoulder pad. I'm still trying to decide if I can afford the expense of trying to source sculpted shoulder pads with the legion sigil on, or whether to use 'standard' pads with either transfers or attempted freehand work.

I did, however, feel guilty about not having any images to put up, so in honour of James Swallow's excellent Hammer & Anvil I dug out one of the old Adepta Sororitas models and had a play with the Order Of Our Martyred Lady colour scheme.

This model's still a work-in-progress- some more detail work and tidying up needs to be done, and I'm tempted to put a coat of gloss varnish over the armour to finish it off. I worked out that my bitz-box contains the better part of a thousand points of Adepta Sororitas (in various stages of painting), which originally I was going to try and flog. However, reading H&A has inspired me to keep them, repaint them and use them as a small allied force alongside my existing Imperial Guard. So there'll likely be more where this one's come from, once I've broken out the Nitromors again...

In Midnight Clad

Well, it's taken a while, but work on the first Night Lord is, for the most part, complete. And here he is:

There's a few corrections I want to make- seeing the photo blown up I noticed a few slips I want to go over- but for the most part I'm pleased with how this went.

Painting lightning bolts is harder than I remember. It's something I used to do quite a lot, particularly on weapons, but worsening eyesight and an over-reliance on caffeine have served to erode my abilities. They didn't come out too bad though, bearing in mind there's three shades of blue there (not counting the armour behind).

The blue armour looks lighter in the photo than it actually is- the downside of flash photography and a slightly glossy finish. I used a deep, dark blue over a black undercoat, with a turquoise glaze over the top- it's the only glaze I still have and as luck would have it it's exactly the shade I was looking for.

I'm undecided on whether to use my normal anti-shine varnish over it, or the standard GW matte varnish (which still has a tiny bit of shine in it)- I quite like the way the light catches it.

Whatever I do I still need to find a fitting base to put him on. It's normal to use a 25mm base (as shown) for models this size, but I'm tempted to use a 40mm scenic base for him- he's going to be a centrepiece character, after all.

Anyway. Now that he's done, and now that we're into February, it's time to pick up some more miniatures and get to work on the next unit. I'm still waiting for some custom components to build some Crusade-era Terminators, so the choice has come down to a tactical or an assault squad. It's probably going to end up being tactical, given that A) I'm going to need to do quite a few of them to make them rules-compliant and B) the assault squad's more expensive. So, coming soon: Third Claw, VIII Legion (Night Lords) 10th Company.

Back In The Yellow

Reports of this project's demise are, I'm pleased to say, greatly exaggerated.

Winter's a rubbish time for painting. Sure, I've got a daylight bulb so can work into the evening without too many issues, but the kicker is undercoating and varnishing. Both of these have to be done outdoors and still therefore need enough daylight to be able to see what you're spraying. And with a job that sees me stuck in the office through all the daylight hours, I'm limited to doing stuff with spraycans at weekends only.

However, in my silence on this page I've been busy elsewhere. I finally got around to doing test models for an Ultramarine and an Imperial Fist. I discounted the Ultramarine pretty quickly- I don't know, there's just something with painting that particular shade of blue that doesn't sit with me. I didn't enjoy painting the model and wasn't pleased with the outcome, so they're removed from the running.

The Imperial Fist, however, turned out quite a lot better than I expected, particularly given how much I normally detest painting yellow. In this case, because GW don't do a yellow foundation paint, I started with a base layer of orange, then drybrushed a golden yellow over the top followed by a second drybrush of a lighter yellow. To bring the whole thing together, I gave it a thin coat of strong-tone quickshade, let that dry, then sprayed a coat of matte varnish over the top to remove the glossiness. I'm pretty chuffed with the result. A lot of the time Imperial Fists get painted in a bright, garish yellow that looks a bit cartoony. But I've seen a few examples where they've been painted darker, dirtier and grittier- that's what I was going for here and it seems to have turned out OK.

(Apologies, by the way, for the poor-quality camera-phone pic taken at 6am this morning...)

Having said that, my army will not be Imperial Fists. I'm going with the initial gut instinct and the feedback on previous posts- Night Lords it is. Last weekend I managed to get most of the first model done- most being the appropriate term, I wasn't fully awake when I went down to undercoat, and thus left one arm on the side. That arm still needs to be undercoated and painted, but the rest of the figure is done- hopefully I'll be able to get a pic up this weekend. Then it's a choice of which unit to do this month- a Tactical squad, or an Assault squad?

The Imperial Fist isn't going to waste though. This blog is now also going to be home to a secondary project. I was originally sucked into the 40K hobby by a GW/MB collaboration called Space Crusade, a board game which pitted up to three players controlling five-man Astartes squads against a gamesmaster controlling the evil denizens of a space hulk. The game itself wasn't brilliant, but it was my first experience of painting miniatures and my entry into 40K. Also, the set I had (which was in Dutch- I had to muddle through the rules based on how the computer port of the game worked) was bought for me by my aunt who's no longer with us, so this will be a bit of thanks to her for getting me hooked on something awesome.

What I'll be doing is recreating Space Crusade on a more deluxe level, using the much better quality miniatures available today and rebuilding the board in both three dimensions and at a larger scale- using 50mm squares rather than the one-inch squares the original was based on. The net result should be a board around four feet square that will also be usable as a regular gaming table as well as for reliving my childhood with Space Crusade.

That, of course, means there'll be some variety on here- it won't just be midnight-clad Astartes, all deep blue and lightning bolts, I'll also be painting up a few Astartes from the Blood Angels, Imperial Fists and Ultramarines, as well as Greenskins and Necrons to round it out. The Night Lords will be able to do double-duty as the forces of Chaos in the board game- meaning, of course, I'm going to need a Night Lords dreadnought at some point...

Preview: First model

Well, I know this is meant to be a painting blog, but I figured to keep the momentum going (and to prove that I've not been doing nothing for the last week) I'd post this unpainted figure up.

This is the Forgeworld Games Day 2011 limited-edition model, which is likely going to be one of the centrepieces of the army. The plan I currently have is that the army will depict the late-crusade period, where earlier MkII and MkIII marks of armour were still in widespread use but the MkIV and MkV types were starting to see deployment. The model here is depicted in MkIII Armorum Ferrum plate, designed for close assault and boarding actions. Likewise, with the shield and hammer the miniature depicts a warrior who eschews ranged combat in favour of a more up-close and personal approach to war.

As I mentioned, because of its limited-edition nature this will be a centrepoint of the final army- either a company leader or champion. Also, following my tradition of starting at the top of the army and working down- painting the more-detailed characters first and then moving on to the line infantry- this will probably be the first model done. After this I'll move on to either a Tactical, Assault or Terminator squad.

As it stands the colour choice is likely going to be the VIII Legion (Night Lords). Thanks to all those on this blog, on Facebook and in person who sent in ideas and let me bounce off them (and also to Aaron Dembski-Bowden whose Night Lords novels have also served as inspiration). Hopefully I'll be able to do justice to these cracking miniatures I've got lined up to work on...

First Trials

Well, I decided to take the bit between my teeth today and get the first couple of test models done. So here we have the Night Lord:

...And the Iron Warrior:

I've discovered a few things from this:

1. Yellow's a git to paint
2. Getting a bridge digital camera to focus on such a small object so close to the lens is a pain in the posterior
3. Close-up miniature photography shows off a ton of imperfections I didn't notice when painting, which when one is one's own worst critic isn't great
4. Lightning's a sight easier to paint than I thought
5. Come back 2nd Edition Citadel paints, we love you!

Of the two I personally prefer the Night Lord, but I still have to try doing an Ultramarine- watch this space. Despite my comments on yellow I'm also thinking of trying an Imperial Fist, because I've got a cunning idea...

Placeholding

Well, I figured I'd better see how posting images here works out. I figured I'd better also have a play around with my camera to make sure I'm going to be able to get some decent images on here. So, as a trial...

This is Brother Goriel from the Space Hulk box, painted here as a Salamander- one of a squad of five I did for my most recent attempt at an Astartes force.

Also:

Here we have Apothecary Rafen, of the Blood Angels (seconded to the Deathwatch). This is a more recent model I did to represent one of the squad at the centre of a Deathwatch RPG game I'm running.

On the main topic for this blog, the choice of Legion has now been narrowed down to three: Iron Warriors, Night Lords or Ultramarines. I'm going to paint up a test model from each and post them here; whichever turns out best is the Legion I'll do.

Embarking On A Crusade

Hi, I'm Jackal.

I've been involved with wargaming and miniature painting, on and off, for half my life. Chief amongst my loves in this regard has always been Warhammer 40,000. I've been involved with this game since its second edition back in the early to mid nineties, and over the years have built forces from pretty much every range it has to offer. But I've always ended up coming back to its most iconic image: the Imperial Space Marine.

A few years ago, with my interest in the hobby at a low ebb, I picked up a novel- the first in a new series. It was called Horus Rising, and it promised to tell the story that had always been hinted at but never fully explained- the war that shaped the rich backdrop of 40K. About fifteen books later, I'm still lapping the novels up.

However, we're talking wargaming here. The Horus Heresy novel series has kicked off a number of communities who have started running games set in this bygone era. Throw a search term into Google and it'll hit something. And recently, GW's offshoot branch Forge World have started producing models that match this period.

As I said, I've painted and gamed with many armies- my figure cases are currently filled with Imperial Guard, Tau and Space Marines. But these days I game less. So on one rainy January morning I decided to commit to a new project: I was going to build a force to Crusade-era specifications, including the units, heroes and weapons associated with this period of hallowed antiquity.

The only question is which Legion to do, which will determine both how the army is painted and what models are appropriate. There are eighteen Legions to choose from, nine of them destined to turn traitor. There are a few already discounted- I've tried doing 'modern' armies of Dark Angels and Salamanders before, so I decided not to re-tread that ground. Also, the primary selling points of Blood Angels only really appear after the period in question, meaning they'd lack a lot of what makes them interesting. Conversely there's too little difference between a 'modern' Space Wolves army and a Crusade-era one- it'd just cost more to do, and they're already hugely popular. A friend of mine has already made attempts at handling the Luna Wolves and Raven Guard, so I decided to stay away from them. World Eaters, White Scars and Imperial Fists are coloured in shades with traditionally iffy pigments, so I decided to avoid them to make my task easier. And background-wise the Emperor's Children, Word Bearers and Iron Hands haven't really captivated me. The choices are thus:

• IV Legion: Iron Warriors


• VIII Legion: Night Lords


• XIII Legion: Ultramarines


• XIV Legion: Death Guard


• XV Legion: Thousand Sons


• XX Legion: Alpha Legion

So I find myself at the first hurdle of this project: which Legion do I pick? Answers on a postcard...