Painting Harlequins for Shadow War Armageddon

Having had the new Harlequin plastics for a while I finally decided to complete a few for Shadow War Armageddon. I wanted my theme to match my other Eldar armies with darker, cooler colors. Duncan has an excellent video guide for painting Harlequins. The diamond pattern is a challenge, but I thought it was necessary to learn it because Harlequins just aren’t the same without it.

Having played one game already with this warband I am impressed with what they can do. Opponents who aren’t aware of how good their close combat ability is will have a rude awakening. One tip I have is to pick off stragglers on the periphery and still use cover as you close in because a -2 to hit can really hinder any shooting.

I’m working on filling out this warband with a Solitaire, Deathjester, and Shadowseer down the road and I hope to share them in the near future.

Growing the Army

I have been working on this Horus Heresy project for just over two years now and was at one point getting to where I would be adding in the last few units, namely a 10 marine strong Veteran unit which is about 90% done, a second chaplain, and the new FW Eidolon. Out of all my projects within the last 4 years I have had the most motivation going into this and I think it largely had to do with wanting to build a pre-heresy/heresy army for about a decade and also the quality of the models released by FW. They are some of my favorites.

Right now I’m sitting at roughly 2700 points and after I add in my final minis I should be able to field 3000 points with some options. The idea that I had going in to this project is being able to use a loyalist force of Emperor’s Children for Istvaan III scenarios or using a traitor army for later heresy gaming. I haven’t used this army in it’s entirely yet, only having played a handful of games so far. I tend to lose more than win right now so I've begun to rethink some ideas that I first had when building this army.

I'm going to try just running one chaplain with my assault marines and Eidolon to give them some much needed hitting power. I will likely drop the 2nd chaplain in favor of a Company Champion that will open up the Maru Skara. The assault marines might need to be larger than 10 since they are often the target in early game.

My footsloggers will need to be in larger squads or in a transport. The pic on the lower right is my last win and having the larger legion tac squad did help with their ability to soak up damage and hold objectives.

Phoenix Spears are almost a must have for and squad expecting close combat. Having to challenge in combat can be a liability if you don't maximized your chances of winning. Artificer armor is frequently used by my opponents and the phoenix spear can hit first on the charge and cut through at AP2.

Going into 2017 I will have more units to choose from. A land raider Spartan will be helpful for delivering Eidolon and his Phoenix Guard right to where they are needed. Some scimitar jetbikes might help on my flanks or working in concert with my assault marines. I will provide more updates as I am making progress. Stay tuned!

Horus Heresy Project: Abhuman Helots, Imperial Squats

Time for a much needed posting. After having hit my last project goal of painting 2000 points of Necrons I decided I wanted to switch gears back into Horus Heresy mode. I already have 2000 points of traitors (EC) painted up, but I felt like I also needed a force to represent the loyalists. I couldn’t quite get into the mood of painting yet more power armor so I considered my options, which there are a few non-legion armies available for Heresy Era gaming. I narrowed down my choices to an Imperial Cults and Militia list. By far I think this is one of the most flexible armies available and it appears in volume 5. I used to play a small Squats army in 2^nd edition 40K and saw that this army could be replicated somewhat by taking the options of Survivors of the Dark Age and Abhuman Helots. Some of the other forums out there like Dakka Dakka and BoLS have shown the Technomartyr Studio conversion before. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen any comprehensive project log for someone making a Squat themed ICaM army. That is what I would like to do over the following months.

This army would represent one of the Homeworlds that allied with the Imperium against Horus, but also has a history of fighting xenos threats during the great crusade. I will have more vehicles in this army than in my EC traitors.

I already had a small amount of minis already painted that I will integrate into this list.

Classic Squats in all their glory

I think one of the hardest parts of a project like this is building up a collection of models from a discontinued range. Luckily I can find most of what I need off of Ebay, but I also wanted to do some converting based off of WHFB (AoS) Ironbreakers and Space Marine Scouts for my Grenadiers. Having to have a minimum of 20 in my army I thought this conversion would be more sensible than using Exo-armor or Hearthguard minis. This conversion is fairly easy, I only needed to do some trimming for the shoulders and filing down the feet. Some green putty is needed to close some gaps in the arms. I also used a Death Korps of Krieg backpack to give it more of a future battlefield element.

I will also be using some classic Squat plasics to represent my lighter armoured militia.

 

I’m gathering up more minis to fill out this army and hopefully I can make enough progress to display on this forum. Stay tuned for more!

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.