Crimson Fists Rhino

Half way into my week off and i've finally got round to picking up my paintbrush. I've just about finish this Rhino, one of two for my fists. Just the lights and lenses to paint then some varnish and it's done. I decided to weather these pretty heavily for the 'on campaign' look. I used paint chipping, oil paint shading and brushed on pastels to make it look a bit dusty.
One tip when using transfers is to distress them a bit with a scalpel to avoid the factory fresh look... unless that's what you're actually after of course.

Crimson Fists Land Speeder

I decided to finish this item that has been sat around for a while.  It started life in my younger bro's Black Templars army and it had a pretty thick layer of black spray primer on it which I removed by putting the model in a bath of brake fluid for a few days.  Consequently the surface is puckered where the solvents ate into the plastic, but for a free fast attack choice I can't complain.  I think I'll pair this up with a tempest to make a nice anti-tank reserve choice.

I gently sponged on grey paint on edges and vulnerable areas to simulate paint chips, and chainmail to a lesser degree on extreme edges where paint would be totally removed.

The transfers were applied over a brush painted gloss varnish- you only need to do the part that will be covered by the transfer.  They all had Micro-Sol applied to help the transfer to the surface, on the shoulder pads this took something like 15 applications over a few days so it takes patience, but the end results are worth it as the markings really add to the overall effect.

Painting the Manticore

I've manged to get some paint on the Manticore this weekend. I decided to go for a camouflage scheme in colours that tie in with my infantry, so after applying a matt black base coat i airbrushed on desert yellow then after it dried i masked off a camo pattern with normal masking tape. I then sprayed on caliban green for the camo pattern.
Removing the masking tape did remove some of the paint underneath so in future i'll use a coat of matt varnish between layers if i'm using a mask.  After some touching up it looks fine but it's worth taking the time to varnish if you're going to use a mask.
The next stage is to detail and use transfers before sealing it and applying weathering.  More pictures soon.

Magnetising the Manticore

I've been looking for a heavy support choice to complete my 875 point Imperial Guard list for the upcoming tournament, and today an assembled, unpainted Manticore landed on my workbench. The prospect of landing D3 strength 10 pie plates per turn makes this vehicle an attractive prospect.  To avoid burdening my memory during games i decided to magnetise the missiles so i could remove them during play.
You'll need 8 small neodymium magnets (i used 3mm but 2mm might be better), an appropiate sized drill, a scalpel and superglue.
For the missiles, pare away the reinforcing strip halfway between the slots and drill a hole partially into the missile body. Don't go all the way in you just want a countersunk hole for the magnet to sit in.
For the launcher rails you just need to trim away enough plastic halfway  between the tabs to house the opposite magnet.
Before gluing in the magnets make sure you have the poles matched up so they actually attract each other.  Let the glue set and enjoy your magnetised tank... check no one is looking then make 'vwoooosh' sound effects as you fly your missiles across the room and explode them amongst an imaginary xenos horde.  Everyone does this right?
I'm planning an airbrushed camo pattern for this tank, i'll post that up soon.

Crimson Fists Sternguard test mini

Good evening, another productive week on the painting front and hopefully I'll have a squad of my new Sternguard to field at gaming club tomorrow.  I intend to airbrush the basecoat on the Sternguard because it's a lot quicker and I'm starting to feel more confident using the airbrush.  However I painted up one 'test' piece this evening using brushes to check it all hangs together.  I've gone for a white helmet on my veteran, which seems different to the consensus when it comes to Crimson Fists- just do a Google image search of CF Veterans and you'll see for yourself.  I've made the call to give my vet's white helmets, because it looks cool and will help set them apart from their comrades in the battle companies, and of course the Crimson Fists are adherents of the Codex Astartes too (more or less)...

A little added bling in the form of gold edging on the pauldrons and a splash of gold on the weapons will help bridge the gap between my standard troops and the much, much blinging Master Pedro and Captain Jorge.

The whole helmet off thing strikes me as a little crazy fluff wise since it makes a 8 foot tall walking tank into a soft target.  If I was a chapter master then any marine taking his helmet off during battle would be busted back to the scout company.  That said, artistic licence and all, I get to paint a cool beard and the odd bare headed marine looks good on the table, maybe his autosenses have gone wrong and the adeptus mechanicus are too busy figuring out how to wire a plug.

I'm waiting on my Forgeworld transfer sheet, my first tactical squad and my terminators have freehand insignia that look ok, but they were done at serious cost to my sanity.  My previous endeavours with transfers are mixed, so I've ordered some stuff called Micro-Sol which apparently will make life a lot easier and the transfers will look good... we will see.

I also need to find a new lacquer after having a minor disaster with Testors Dullcote, which started dissolving the paint on my newly completed drop pod, luckily i noticed quickly and was able to fix the damage but I'm trying to get to the bottom of the Dullcote issue which prior to the Drop Pod debacle has been excellent for protecting my minis.... I've got two pots of Vallejo acrylic varnish on order, varnish is not as durable as lacquer but i think also less likely to dissolve my paintwork.

Sternguard on a budget

Evening all, this week I have been working towards constructing my first wave of Sternguard.  As a Crimson Fists player, the elites choice of Sternguard is a no brainer, the combination of nice fluff and a very flexible codex listing and Pedro Kantor's Sternguard buffing abilities means any 'Fists player should have at least a squad of them.

I've got it into my head that it would be nice to at least have the option of fielding three full squads of sternies if the situation allows, and that situation would have to be at least a 1200 point battle if it's going to be legal with a HQ and two troops choices.

Lovely as the GW releases are, buying six boxes of the latest Sternguard plastics at £30 each would cost me £180, which frankly is too much for my hobby, I probably spend that on minis in a year so i need another way.

For £40 i've amassed enough bits, bodies and guns to equip 30ish Sternguard, many of the parts came from my bits box but if a bits box isn't there to furnish an epic project such as this then what is it actually for? Trawling ebay got me 20x old Death Company metals for £17 (look out for late night auctions when most people are not online), and the rest was spent on various bits websites purchasing weapons and terminator honours shoulder pads.  Add a paint stripped tactical squad from my brother's foray into 40k and that makes 30 bodies.

The marine on the left is a standard tactical marine with a swapped in Crux Terminatus pad, and one of my home made combi weapons.  For the combi-flamer you need a bolter, imperial guard grenade launcher and imperial guard flamer.  The heavy flamer is carved from an old terminator and I added a wire grab handle to the top, he also has a metal crux terminatus.... all of my sternguard will have terminator shoulder pads to mark them out from the rank and file marines.

The next four marines are a plasma gun and three combi plasmas each made from a bolt gun, storm bolter magazine and a plasma pistol nozzle.  The addition of termi honours and extra general bling should add to the final effect, I want my veterans to look well equipped and individual, so I'm getting a little excited with the purity seals.  The old metal death company marines are a little weedy next to the modern plastics so I drill out the head starting with a 1mm bit and gradually working up to a 6mm then trim off any excess metal with a knife and needle files.  This is a tricky operation and not to be rushed!  I can then add a newer head and make him a bit taller in the process.

Two more minor conversions, the old veteran on the left has the addition of a box magazine to beef up his bolter, and to the back i have attached a helmet (my pet space marine peeve is bare headed dudes not at least carrying a helmet).  The guy on the right is a salvaged tactical with drilled out head and added 2013 sternguard bare- head as well as the usual termi honours and sternie bolter.

Here are the next three combi- flamers, two with grenade launcher mags and one with a box mag.

The overall plan is to have 15 special weapon/ combi weapon dudes with 5 each of melta, plasma and flamer, then the rest with sternguard special issue bolters. You can see the results of my plasma efforts above.  I've made about 14 men so far, some may have heavy weapons although I'm not sure about this, but with so many I'll be able to pick and choose for my games of 40k.

30 Sternguard at about £1.30 each, that's one reason to be cheerful :)

Pedro Kantor

Hello 40k people, I've posted up my recently painted Pedro Kantor model to celebrate my first couple of games of 40k 6th edition.  It's taken quite a while to get this far due to other commitments but in the last month I've painted lots of Crimson Fists and revamped my old Imperial Guard while acquainting myself with the new space marine codex and reprising the joys of footslogging Imperial Guard.

My first game was a 1000 pointer versus mechanized Orks, in which Pedro led a Imperial Guard platoon onto the objective while his battle brothers gave supporting fire.  It was a very close game and surprisingly I came out on top, partially due to Pedro bopping a squad of Killa Kans in close assault but also largely due to my opponent being enormously sporting by offering advice on my moves.... cheers Si!

My second game saw me facing an inquisitorial retinue, now talk about two totally different forces, I had tweaked my 1000 point guard/SM army to have a cheaper SM captain over Pedro, and two extra mortar squads in the platoon.  Despite facing two inquisitors, a callidus assassin and loads of lascannon wielding Jokaero I managed to mortar and las spam the inquisition to a standstill, meaning i just took the central objective with heavy casualties and won my second game.

I'm really enjoying 6th edition and I like the 'fluffy' synergy of my Crimson Fists and Imperial Guard who hold the line while the Astartes act as mobile fire teams and fill in emergency roles.  Over the comng weeks I'm building a Sternguard force for a coming tournament, unfortunately no allies but I think a Pedro-Sternguard build could be competitive.