Broken Paintbrush

So with the long, holiday weekend I spent a bit of time finishing up the two Traitor Russes.

Here is the finished Traitor Leman Russ #2.

At first I was going to paint the lenses green to match my Iron Warriors but through it clashed a bit too much and decided on the blue instead.

I also thought the cargo boxes looked a bit funny being empty so I painted up some bitz to add some details. This one has an extra gas can (for those torch wielding fanatics), an extra lasgun and a rusty shovel.

And Russ #3.

This one got a camo cloth and broken down  stubber.

Hope you all like how they turned out. I have the two Leman Russ Demolishers still to do but first I have a surprise. The next unit has been sitting on my desk for a few years now begging to be painted and all you old school Chaos players might remember this character

So the second Russ went a lot faster even though I did a bigger Chaos star. I also was more careful with not rubbing the masking medium and it paid off.

In trying to keep the stars more free-form and chaotic I choose different centers and angles for each but kept the same size to give some coherency.

Next up is some more detailing and the final weathering (dust/mud splatter)

So I’m hoping that I’m starting to pick up the pace a bit now that I’m getting back into the painting but it still feels like I’m slogging along. Anyway, on to the new work:

I spent this last week to add a chaos star to the tank to add some color and break up the large side. As I said in the last post the idea came from the amazing Dave Taylor’s work and tutorial. The base coat is Tausept Ocher, then adding Dheneb Stone and finally Skull White for the highlights. I wanted to set off the yellow from the red as the two colors somewhat blue together at the edges so I added a fine line of Necron Abyss.

I wanted to add some wear to the markings but without having to go back and repainting it on so I tried using a masking medium that “paints” on and once dry allows you to paint over it, and when done just rub it off. It didn’t seem to work to well on this tank as I tended to rub it off while working on it so the other Russ I plan on handling a bit more careful.

The close up of the back o the turret you can see some of the masking fluid’s work.

The last Russ is almost complete with it’s chaos stars and both will be moving on to the last weathering stage before completion.

So I’ve been able to change my schedule up to get some free time in the morning to start (finally) painting again. After getting over the hand cramps and the loss of muscle memory in the hands, I have managed to get some work done on two more Leman Russ tanks for my traitor guard.

Both of these tanks are fairly simple in the conversion sense as they are support tanks for the lead Russ. To add some character (and color) to the tanks I plan on adding some Chaos stars ala Dave Taylor thanks to his great tutorial.

Its kinda weird seeing the interblogs all up in flames about the price raises, the finecast (or not so finecast), and European stores in chains. Maybe its been too long since I’ve actually played a game to be too concerned about it all but I have no plans on dropping GW or their products. Personally I’m going to wait a few months or a year before buying any finecast so they can work out their production issues but I’m excited for the possibilities.

Just like my Iron Warriors status page, I have put together a page for my traitor guard: http://bp.dnyarak.com/armies/traitor-guard/. Since I have been working on this army since starting my blog, most the of the units that are done, or nearly done, have pictures. Hopefully with these status pages I will be more motivated to take WIP shots and updates through the process.

Below is a segment of the full list:

Heavy Support	Picture	Status
Leman Russ Battle Tank
Leman Russ Battle Tank	None yet	Only the base colors are done
Leman Russ Battle Tank	None Yet	Only the base colors are done
Leman Russ Demolisher
Leman Russ Demolisher	None Yet	Only the base colors are done
Leman Russ Demolisher	None Yet	Only the base colors are done
Basilisk Squad – The Moirae

For multiple reasons it has been many months since I’ve picked up a paint brush or thrown some dice. In some ways it is some what refreshing to take a step back and think about where the army is and what I really want to be working on next. I spent yesterday pulling out all my models to take a look at the current state of things. I was taken away with how big my Iron Warriors and Traitor Guard army has grown!

I put it all into Army Builder it came out at 8,500 points! And nearly all of that is fully, or at least mostly painted! The question that every hobbyist gets to at some point: what’s next? There is always more to add of course, but what first? To help me with this question I am currently putting together one of those great army progress charts that Drax made so popular. While pulling out each model I made notes about what needs to be finished, rebased, or just matte varnished. This way  I can continue to put the finishing touches on the army while planning the next expansion.

I am really excited for 8th edition of fantasy, as that is the game that brought me into the hobby. Both of my fantasy armies have seen nothing but dust the last two years so it will be good to get them back out and work on them as well. I’ll most likely be creating a separate blog for the fantasy since it doesn’t really fit in here so keep an eye out for pictures of my fantasy armies too!

Perhaps the title is a bit misleading, are any of our little plastic armies ever really finished? Perhaps not, but I completed the 2,000 point army I brought to the Seattle GT  including a display board for it.

Two models that were last to be finished also completed (though very late) ToEMP #10: officer of the fleet and the company command’s chimera.

The officer of the fleet is a real help against reserved based armies such as drop pod marines. During the tournament he wasn’t a game changer as none of my opponents relied on reserves, but then again maybe they just changed their tactics in response to him?

The Chimera was used to protect my command squad with the invaluable Commander Creed. This tank was destroyed in nearly every game in the tournament but Creed was lost in only 2 of them, so I think all in all it was well worth its cost.

As for my results? I achieved my goal for my first ever GT: win 2 games. In fact I even tied a third while grabbing the secondary objective. The two I lost were both hard losses. The first was against Nidzilla and only a sole sentinel remained at turn 6. The second was the last game against a fully mechanized guard army which would have been a great deal closer if luck had been better with me.  In the end I placed 47th out of 80 some great 40k players (and cheating one who won but was later disqualified!). After spending the last few weeks getting over the hard losses and the less than I hoped painting score, I’ve started to reorganize my army composition and think hard about how I want to play this army. I may move to a more mechanized army with squads of veterans rather than the platoons, but I still want to stick to the theme I’ve started so may look at replacing the tanks altogether and build a completely foot based army. We shall see what the future holds…

After reading through December’s White Dwarf article about GW’s year in review I was inspired to look back on what I had accomplished this year.

I have just finished another tank to my growing horde of traitor guard. This one is the dreaded Leman Russ Demolisher with sponsoon plasma cannons. Indeed it is a pricy tank, but when it lets loose, it is sure worth it. Thanks to the Lumbering Behemoth rule it can move 6″ and still fire off the demolisher and a plasma cannon, ensuring the destruction of any squad unlucky enough to get in its way.

The demolisher cannon is a kit bash using the Banehammer cannon that I didn’t use for my Baneblade. I had 4 Leman Russ kits, a built Leman Russ and an old built Leman Russ demolisher so I decided to build my own demolisher cannons to create two full squads of tanks, one of the traditional LR and another of demolishers (the other 4 tanks are built and painting has started so watch for them!)

Every weapon on the tank is AP2, ensuring that anything that the tank hits will not get a armor save.

I tried something different with the back by adding two extra barrels and placing a smoke stack on either side.

I also wanted to pull in a theme I’ve used on my troops by adding gas cans and ready-to-light torches to the storage bin.

This also complete the 8th challenge of The Tale of Even More Painters:

• Vehicle: 10 points
• Symbol: 1 point
• Meeting deadline: 2 points
• Total for Challenge 8: 13 points

And here is a sneak peak of whats coming next:

Just got back from the Tanksgiving event at the local GW store, and wow there were a lot of tanks there. One gent alone brought 200+ IG, Eldar and Tau tanks, walkers and a few Avatars. Although our store didn’t have the most in the region (two others had 1,000+!) we tallied up 800 tanks, walkers, large targets, monsters and supper heavies.

Now for some picts!

First up the growing tank arsenal of the 14th Grand Company:

Tanks of the 14th Grand Company

And Group Shot #1

And shot #2

And more tanks!

Sorry a few are a bit blurry, the camera was having some issues, but I think it gets the point across: a table full of tanks is crazy, but 4 tables full of tanks is crazier!

Also if you take a look at my tanks you get a peak of what is on my painting bench and been keeping me busy: 5 more Russes and a Chimera to bulk up my traitors!