Astral Claws Project Part 2

Despite the longer than normal breaks between my postings I am still working on the Astral Claws. The latest addition to my army is a unit of assault terminators. I envisioned them striding alongside Lugft Huron wreaking face.

Eventually I would like to have all of them mounted in a Land Raider Crusader since that is the best means of taking assault terminators into combat. It would be a great fire magnet, albeit expensive one.

I had a lot of fun painting this unit up and it was a nice break from painting ordinary line marines. The blue and the gun metal layered easily over the black primer. The only challenging part is the gold bits. I still use an old pot of citadel Burnished Gold, which is reaching the end of it's life sadly. I have to start with Vallejo copper, the work my way up to Shining Gold, and finally to Burnished with some 50/50 Mithral Silver highlights. I use plenty of Nuln Oil wash over 90 percent of the model.

If I am able to keep my motivation towards this project going I hope to finish up my line marines and start building up some transports. If I capitulate it will be because I couldn't resist the lure of the Genestealer Cult!

Astral Claws project

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted any content, but rest assured I’ve been active with hobby projects. Having hit past 2500 points on my Horus Heresy Emperor’s Children I found that I really needed a break from painting purple marines. I decided to get back to work on one of my old projects that I wished I put more effort into, the Astral Claws. I’m sticking with marines, but a largely metallic paint scheme is easier to work with and a nice change of pace. I’ve always wanted to represent a marine chapter apart from the standard well-known first founding variety.

I’m very close to hitting 1000 points of completed marines. Here is a selection of my first batch, where I started with a tactical squad.

After the tac squad I hadn’t put any serious work into this army for about 3 years so you may be able to tell with subtle color differences as I’m moving away from using only Citadel paints. I really like Vallejo paints, expect the gun metal, which I plan to go back to Citadel Boltgun or whatever they call it these days.

I’m quite happy with my Captain. I used the limited edition metal marine from the 2005 Space Marine army box and Korhil’s Cloak from High Elves. I thought the lion theme worked well since that was the pre-Huron chapter icon.

I also am fond of contemptor dreds so why not include one.

Valthex is also another HQ addition. Eventually I would like to run a 2^nd techmarine and have more vehicles to create some synergy.

I am mostly finished with my command squad. I did a lot of freehand work on my banner since the Astral Claws waterslide transfer was too big to fit. I look for shortcuts when I can, but taking the time to do some freehand work always makes the army look extra snazzy.

There will be more to come for sure on this project. If you haven’t read the Forge World Badab War books I highly recommend you check them out. They are chock full with great info on this period of 40K. I would very much like to see more of this support when the Horus Heresy has run it’s course.

Epic Necrons In Progress

I have been slowly building up some Necrons for Epic Armageddon. I really liked the idea of running Necrons in Epic since it’s my most complete 40K army to date and wanted to do a 40K/Epic campaign down the road (time permitting). I have been fortunate to have acquired some hard to obtain forumware Obelisks, Monoliths, and Tomb Spyders. My Shapeways Pylon isn’t quite to the scale I would prefer, but it will do. The infantry are Edenites from Exodus Wars and make perfect Necrons. What I’m using as a warbarque is the Trollz Ghost Ark. So far I’ve added some paint in the coppery color scheme that matches my Necrons in 40K. The copper that I use is from an old Ral Partha copper metallic paint and it is ideal for that “shiny penny” look that I so much like. Sadly, this paint is all I have left and nothing else comes close to that coppery sheen.

 

Pylon, Monoliths, and Warbarque (Ghost Ark)

The great thing about building an epic army is how easy it is to paint it up. I have only spent a few hours working on this army and have made some good headway. In the mean time I would like to re-familiarize myself with the rules and get some games in.

Obelisks, Lord, and Warriors

 

 

My all time favorite copper paint

 

Warhammer 40K Old School Inquisitor

Get Ready for some Old School! Every now and then I will pick up an old mini or restart a half completed project out of my collection in order to wrap up some loose ends. Despite its age I still really like the old Ordo Malleus Inquisitor in Terminator armor. I remember back when this was one of the few inquisitors available out of the whole citadel collection. I’ve had it for years in a half painted state and decided to dust it off and finally finish it. Although I am not a big fan of painting white I thought it looked well on the inquisitor mini range so I had to apply the same treatment to this termie.

 

 

If you have any old models just sitting around waiting to be painted go and grab one to finish it up. It is surprisingly satisfying to clean up these loose ends.

Horus Heresy Project: Xiphon Interceptor Complete

Emperor's Children Xiphon Interceptor

The Xiphon Pattern Interceptor is one of the newest flyers available to the Legions Astartes. I had just recently finished one for my Emperor’s Children and I am itching to use it. Typically I struggle in my 40K games when someone takes a flyer and I don’t quick have a counter to it in my army. For 30K I thought that I would go ahead and include one since one of my friends is planning on taking a fire raptor eventually. The Xiphon is designed to take out other flyers and it’s 3+ jink ability will help it survive against incoming fire.

 

 

 

This is the first model that I’ve used the Chemos Purple airbrush spray from Forge World. I was hoping that the color would be closer to Liche Purple, but it is noticeably paler, which is unfortunate because the rest of my army is painted in Liche Purple and I will likely stop building up my 3^rd Legion once my last paint pot runs dry. I went to great pains to ensure the techmarine in the cockpit was detailed, sadly it is hard to fully appreciate once the canopy is in place. I also added some weathering to the Xiphon too. I considered not doing so based on the Emperor’s Children meticulous upkeep of the aircraft, but it didn’t look quite right so after doing to paint chipping and exhaust effects I was much more satisfied with the end result.

 

 

Horus Heresy Project: Phoenix Spear Conversion

I was looking for a helpful conversion article on making Phoenix Spears because I was building an Emperor's Children veteran unit out of the Horus Heresy: Battle for Calth boxed set. I definitely wanted to have an outflanking unit of vets with a Phoenix Spear wielding sergeant that would strike vulnerable units unexpectedly. Sadly I found nothing so I started pouring through my bitz bin to see if I can throw something together.

After plenty of searching I decided to use a Dark Eldar Venom banner pole for the haft, a talos blade bit for the cutting edge, and a crozius bit from the BoC chaplain. After some cutting and gluing I had my Phoenix Spear. It is not quite as ornate compared to the Phoenix Guard termie's, but it fits well in the hands of a powered armor marine.

 Tactically speaking, taking some Phoenix Spears for your various sergeants and champions is a good idea when paired with the sonic shrieker upgrade. You will usually strike first on the charge at AP2, which will typically take out a few marines or win you a challenge. It is one of the few advantages the Emperor's Children generals have compared to the other legions.

Hopefully you know someone who plays Dark Eldar and has some of these bitz laying around. It was give you a cheap and effective upgrade for you Emperor's Children Legion!

Horus Heresy Project: Second Contemptor

I'm back with some more heresy action! I have my second contemptor dreadnought ready to go. One of the best ways to field a contemptor is in a talon of 3 and a can check off #2 at this point and I will soon have #3 ready after having purchased a Betrayal at Calth set. I personally would not want to be on the receiving end of 3 contemptors!

My hope is that I will stop getting stomped on by Firedrakes when running a complete talon. Firedrakes are tough to deal with and I didn't really have a good counter in my army since most of my units can only deal with basic marines.With any luck I will get more Horus Heresy games in since the price of entry has just been lowered with the introduction of Betrayal at Calth. That set is perfect for those people who wanted to play, but didn't want to sell a kidney.

Ancient Rylanor and friend