Azrael

I’ve had the Grand Master of the Dark Angels knocking around in my case for a while now, and I have the helmet bearer all painted up for years (for some strange reason) so it was good to get him finished so he could join the fun.

I started by spraying him with the skeleton bone Army Painter spray,which is rapidly becoming my undercoat colour of choice, then I used consecutive brown washes, followed by Bleached Bone highlights.

I started by painting his robes red, this was a mistake. I realised half way through that he didn’t look like a Dark Angel at all, the colours were wrong! I quickly scrapped that, and gave the robes a coat of Dark Angel Green , and then highlighted up with a mix of Dark Angel Green, Ork hide and Goblin Green, till finally I gave the robes a black wash to finish them off

The metal was simply Boltgun Metal, with a black wash, and the plasma chamber was light blue with dark blue wash.

The red was Scab Red highlighted with Blood Red, and then a red wash; I used Skull White to pick out the parchment of the purity seals.

I used a converted backpack I found rattling around in my bits box; it was already painted gold and I thought looked cool.

In the end I’m very happy with him, and with the new codex coming out soon (fingers crossed) I hope he will be a complete beast in 6th Ed. I’m looking forward allying him with my Imperial Guard, and putting him in a blob squad of 50 Guardsmen so they get a 4++ save; now that should be fun.

Pod-casts

While I’m painting my models (and going to work, walking around, drinking in the pub…) I like to put on different pod-casts and catch up on trends in the Meta, new ideas, reviews on models, painting tips etc…

This is a list in no particular order of those I listen to:

11^th company – These guys are like my Yoda when it comes to tactics and keeping up with the evolving Meta in 6^th Ed. Neil is OK, but for me it all about Pat ‘Hot Dice’ Higgs!

Jaded Gamercast – Want to get drunk?…and chew the fat on 40K?These guys make me genuinely laugh out loud more than anyone else I know. And given that Canada is now my adopted ‘backup country’ it’s good to keep up to date on what’s happening in the colonies. Be warned this show can be a little adult orientated.

The Overlords – I go and play at the Overlords club, when I can, so it’s a must to listen to these guys, and with the 40K UK pod-cast not doing much these days, this is the best way to keep up to date on what’s happening in the UK.

Mantic – A company that does its own pod-cast  it’s almost like Mantic Games care what you think! This is all about Mantic and their games, but it’s refreshing to have a games company actually keeping you informed on their own product.

The Screaming Heretic! – Great for painting tips, a bit biased to Chaos and Dark Eldar,  Apocalypse and bad songs, but a great show one of my favourites.

Ohio Hammer Second Founding – A relatively new pod cast  which has grown out of a Warhammer Fantasy pod-cast  they have a refreshing outlook on 40K.

Signals from the Frontline – They do shorter shows but with more frequent schedule, which I prefer as some of the other pod-cast can quite often run over 4 hours.

The Heroic 28’s – I love listening to these guys its like listening to my friends get together and talk 40K.

The Independent Characters – Good content and a good show.

Turn 8 – Quite simply, THE best battle reports out there simply listen and enjoy the unique narrative style.

Worlds End Radio – These guys broadcast all the way from Australia, giving a whole different point of view on the hobby.

Preferred Enemies – This is another favourite of mine.

If you download all these shows you will probably, like me, find you don’t have enough time to listen to them all, but they are really good fun.

Try them, and perhaps let me know any shows you like.

Cyclone Missile Launchers

 

I’ve been working hard, and more importantly resisting the urge to buy more stuff.

This time I painted a couple of alternate Cyclone Missile launchers from Anvil Industry:

http://www.anvilindustry.co.uk/index.php?route=product/product&path=60_87&product_id=109

These guys do loads of conversion parts, and I have lots of really good bits in my bits box from these guys.

I play Dark Angels and these are perfect for my Deathwing units, especially as picking up a spare Cyclone model off  eBay can be quite expensive.

I really like these models and they were easy to paint too.

First I washed them with soap; you should always wash your models before undercoating, as they can have mould release  on them and this is repellent to paint, so a quick scrub with soapy water is a must for any serious hobbyist.

Then I used The Army Painter Skeleton Bone spray to give a good undercoat.

http://shop.thearmypainter.com/products.php?ProductGroupId=2

They have a really good selection of colours and this is great for doing bone colour (surprise!).

Once undercoated I gave the whole model a brown wash, the highlighted this time with Bleached Bone from the old Citadel range.

I picked out the vents, the missiles and some scratches with Leadbelcher (the new Boltgun metal from Citadel) and gave the metal a black wash.

Nice and easy.

Just one last thing the targeting laser on the front was painted in a light blue then shaded with a blue wash.

I’m looking forward to the new Dark Angel Codex when it comes out, and hope I can resist the urge to buy more new toys.

Razorback Turrets

And we’re off!

So here are the first models painted for my challenge.

These are four Twinlinked Lascannon turrets for my Razorbacks. I probably won’t be using them much in 6th Ed 40K, now that Razorback spam is dead. Still it’s nice to get them done as I will still use them once in a while. I picked these up from a company in Poland whose name escapes me, but I will try to find out.

I play Dark Angels, so I use a mix of Ork hide and Dark Angels Green, highlighted with a mix of this and Goblin Green, (sorry I don’t know what that is with the new Citadel paints) the guns are painted Boltgun Metal, and then the whole model is given a black wash. Nice and easy, and looks pretty good too.

I may take my time and make some individual models look really good, but at the moment I want to get everything done to a ‘table top’ standard, which I know is different for every painter. I’m sure that famous Canadian painter Mathieu Fontaine probably has a different idea of what ‘tabel top ready’ is to me, but I think these will do for now.

And best of all that’s four things crossed of the list.

Deny the Wytch…and the 50% off sale!

I had my first temptation to buy some models, and I’m glad to say I resisted.

Maelstrom Games are moving their warehouse, so they had a big sale to shift their stock; most stuff was 50%, and some was even at 75%.

Normally I would have gone crazy getting lots of stuff, but now I’m doing my ‘Clean Slate Challenge’ I had to hold back.

So I looked around their site, and luckily most of the stuff I would have wanted was out of stock anyway, and it felt good to resist.

I know what ever I would have bought would just have been sitting in my ‘Man Cupboard’ for a few years.

I have made another decision too.

Looking at my list of stuff to paint I think I will concentrate on my ‘round base ‘stuff, rather than my ‘square base’ stuff from Mantic.

So I will work on all my 40K stuff first, and then move onto my Undead stuff, simply because I have so much to do (2013 may be the year of square basing)

I will still do the 15mm stuff I have, but will use them to ‘mix it up’ a bit on the schedule when I’m getting bored of all my 40K stuff.

The List

Now that I have come up with my rules I need to see exactly what I have to get painted. So I had a busy weekend going through my ‘man cupboard’ and getting together a list of all those models I have sitting around waiting to be painted.

Now I’m sure compared to most of you ‘serious gamers’ out there this is quite a small list, but for me it looks like a lot to get through.

The List

The main stash:

1 Dreadnought

2 Cyclone Missile Launchers

1 Imperial Missionary

1 Cthulhu

1 Mephiston

1 Leman Russ conqueror turret

1 Asmodai

1 Prism cannon

2 Chaplains

1 Azrael

1 Chaplain on a bike

3 Fantasy orcs (kings of war)

2 Scif Orxs (Warpath)

1 Dark Angel Captain

1 Space Marine Captain

2 Catachan missile launchers

4 Catcahan loaders

1 Marine standard-bearer

1 Valhalln Captain

1 Cherub

1 Drakkarim team (warpath)

1 Stormboyz squad

1 Greyknight squad

4 Psycannon Greyknights

1 Justicar

1 Brother Captain Stern

1 Grima Wormtongue

4 Resin fantasy houses

17 Imperial Guardsmen

12 Forgefathers Heat Cannons

12 Forgefathers HailStorm Cannons

5 Forgefather squad leaders

1 Scribor ‘Napoleon’ Space Dwarf

1 Scribor Space Dwarf

16 Assault marines

11 Assault marines with jump pack

5 Scouts from Advanced Space Crusade

7 Scout snipers

3 Space Marine Sergeants

8 Hasslefree minis

3 Scouts with Heavy Bolters

1 Scout with Missile Launcher

1 Ork bike

1 Librarian

15 Terminators

1 Scout sergeant

4 Twinlinked lascannons for Razorbacks

 

It’s a big list but I’m sure I can do, I’m aiming for a year but it could take longer; let’s see how long it takes.

Da Rulz!

Ok, so here we go and we are getting things under way now with my ‘clean slate challenge’, I found out who my inspiration was and here is a link to his blog:

http://thatguyjames.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/2012-clean-slate-challenge.html

So you can take a look at his after reading mine.

The first thing I have to decide to do was draw up a set of rules that I have to follow.

Da Rulz

1. Paint at least one thing a week, this will keep me focused on ‘getting the job done’.
2. I must post up photos of my models as I go, so you can see what I have been up to.
3. No buying any new models till I have completed my list of unpainted stuff. Now this is the tricky one, but that’s why I started this.
4. Gifts are an exception, this doesn’t mean I can spend gifted money on more models, but if I am given models then I can say thanks and take them.
5. Salute is an exception too. Salute is too amazing to miss out on. Every year they run an event called Salute here in London, I think it’s the biggest wargames event in Europe. They have loads of games to join in on the day, painting competitions and best of all lots of model companies. There will be stuff at Salute that I can’t get anywhere else, so I will not punish myself by missing out on Salute 2013 check it our at: http://www.salute.co.uk/salute/salute-2013/
6. I can sell unpainted models to buy new models, so if I sell something on eBay, for example, I can use the money to get more mini’s, but I can’t spend more than I earned from the original sale.
7. I can swap models to get new models, so if my friends want a model that I’ve got and I want one they have I can exchange them, just not for money.
8. Scenery count’s; I can build new scenery, but I can’t buy it.
9. Paints, glue, brushes, rule books, measuring devices, supplements, tokens, markers etc…  do not count, however if I can make something that will do the job for free (I’m thinking tokens, and markers here rather than rule books) then that is even better.
10. No cheating by finding a loop-hole later on down the line.
11. I too will have a party when I finish.
12. I will try to do it in under a year.

These look like some pretty solid rules, so all I need to do now is work out what I have to paint in my cupboard of models!

And so it begins….

Inspiration can come from lots of places.

Most wargamers have a few models lying around, well for me its more like a cupboard full !

Since I was 11 years old I have collected models for various tabletop wargames, Warhammer 40k in particular, and It seems to be a hazard of playing these games that you end up with lots of unpainted models sitting around, just waiting for inspiration to come along and get you painting. It would seem, for me at least that, it is much easier to buy models than paint them.

I was listening to a podcast recently, and they were discussing this guy they had heard about who had decided to have a ‘clean sweep’ of his collection, and get every single model he owned painted, before he could buy any new  ones.

Well I really had to respect that, and I decided that I should do the same.

I’m trying to save up some money at the moment (who isn’t) and maybe if I keep my model buying habit under control it will help me save some cash.

So, I will be having a look at all the half finished projects, old forgotten units, gifts, and other random models just sitting around my house. I will compile a full list of what I have, come up with some rules for me to stick to till I have completed this project.

I hope I can get this done in a year (!), so fingers crossed

Andy