Adeptus Mechanicus Skitarius Vanguard

Every once in a while, I remember that I have another army (well, a sapling of an army, anyway) and try to get on with that one, too. While AdMech will probably continue to be a secondary army at most, I would like to build it up to a level it can be used for a game of Kill Team, at least. Getting there, I now have two models in my Vanguard squad. 

 The model was painted along my established Mars Skitarii lines, with mostly dull steel plate and some bronze/brass for decoration, and deep red robes. The blue glow on the radium carbine was painted with Temple Guard Blue.

 Instead of the yellow-and-black striped pattern I often use, I chose deep red for most of the wires visible. I decided simplicity would be best in this case.

 The base was painted in a standard pattern, too, with Doombull Brown rim and drybrushed over Stirland Mud. In my opinion, it looks reddish enough to suggest Mars, without making the point too explicit.

I don't know when I'll end up finishing my next AdMech model. I still have a couple of Kataphron servitors to build and paint, not to mention a whole bunch of Skitarii. All in good time, or sometimes a little after the aforementioned good time has passed..

Hrolf Longspear with a Power Spear and a Storm Shield, painted

Once I started using the pack markings from the codex, I found that it also enables me to name many my models, in this case, a Wolf Guard Pack Leader. In the fluff (as I interpret it), the packs are led by either a vaerangi picked among them and elevated to a position equal to that of a Wolf Lord's bodyguard, or the Wolf Lord appoints his bodyguards to lead his less experienced troops. The Codex mentions Hrolf Longspear being among Ragnar Blackmane's Wolf Guard, and since the name fits the model's armament, I decided to go for it.
Since power spears are at their most powerful on charge, I decided this model should lead a pack of Blood Claws, also at their best on charge. Admittedly, the model's wargear is fairly expensive, and somewhat contradicts the expendable nature of the Blood Claws, but I make the models first and then decide how to make it work, if I can make it work.

Since the model was wearing his helmet for a change, I was tempted to go crazy with the individual decorations, but since Wolf Guard can only get more recognition by succeeding their lord as the head of the company and then by succeeding the head of the Chapter, I decided he wouldn't be that concerned with gaining more reputation. His choice of weaponry would support this, as a spear and a shield are more professional soldier's armament than they are a glory hound's means for flashy kills.
I painted some more recognisably Viking-style patterns on the crest part of the helmet. I may make a post on these at some point, too.

The very thin grooves in the shield made filling them with paint somewhat challenging, partially because the yellow background tinted the Temple Guard Blue paint green. I did finish the shield, but in hindsight, the quartered designs may not work great with packs with yellow in their markings, such as Blood Claws and Wolf Guard.

 I freehanded Ragnar Blackmanes' Wolf Guard marking on the right shoulder pad. I have to say, I was a little surprised the design wasn't included in the standard transfer sheet supplied with the kits (unless they changed that when they changed the bases -- I still haven't bought any Adeptus Astartes kits with the new 32 mm bases, even the Sternguard still had 25 mm bases).

With the inclusion of the Pack Leader, my Blood Claws are now somewhat ready for combat, either in a drop pod (likely) or in a Rhino (maybe, I'd prefer either an assault vehicle or something to deliver them right in my enemy's face for them, though).

Dreskor's Second Skybolt, painted

I've only recently learned to paint yellow properly. The yellows generally aren't as thick as most other paints. I have previously been overthinking it, thinking I need some particular brush technique or something similar. Turns out all I had to do was to use thin layers, but apply more of them. Really shouldn't have been much of a revelation, but we're all dumb sometimes.

 I'm pretty satisfied with the final pose. Appropriately to a particularly spirited, but unskilled and inexperienced assault trooper, he looks enthusiastic to fire his pistol, but his body language implies he's fighting against his own muscles. I doubt he's going to be very accurate with that pistol.
I also decided on the pack's markings. They're going to be Dreskor's Skybolts mentioned in the codex. This means I will also go back and redo the markings on the previous Skyclaw.

 The final old Blackmane shoulder pad turned out well. I painted a couple of layers of Averland Sunset, Yriel Yellow over that and finally thinned down Flash Gitz Yellow for highlight.

 I didn't want to leave the jump packs plain, so I painted a combat knife on it, a design often seen on Space Wolves transfer sheets. I also made a mental note to add some details on some of the other jump packs prior to painting.

This was the second Skyclaw model in the pack to have Mk.V armour. While this isn't surprising, considering I prepared for this project by buying a Mk.V Assault Squad from Forgeworld, I'll have to vary the pattern with the rest of the pack. I'm thinking about Mk.VI armours in addition to the standard Mk. VII armours.

Grey Hunter with a Power Fist

I'm currently painting and assembling some models, but haven't recently finished any, so this post concerns an older model I touched up a bit. He's from the same pack as the recent Eviscerator-armed Grey Hunter, though I'm thinking about changing the pack marking on the latter model.

 I tried custom-sculpting some decoration for the model, as can be seen on the chestpiece. I'm not terribly satisfied with the level of detail on the decoration, but it would be too much of a hassle to replace it at this point, so I'll just let it be. Besides, the sculpting job that really annoys me here is the wolf's head on the left shoulder pad, which is a lot cruder than I'd prefer.
I am, however, pretty satisfied with the pack marking on the left knee pad.

 The model shows its age in the rear view. Not only is the backpack painted differently from my current style, there's no helmet anywhere on the model. Admittedly, it's not something you're likely to notice unless you're looking for it, but it mildly annoys me now.

There are two reasons why I plan to change the Eviscerator-armed model's pack markings and not this one's. First of all, the Eviscerator, though usable in the counts as -sense, is not available as standard equipment for Space Wolves, and I have already painted this pack's markings on a drop pod. Second, this one has pack marking repeated on the knee pad, so if I changed them, I'd have to change them both.

Wolf Guard Pack Leader with a Power Spear and a Storm Shield

Spear is a very underrepresented weapon in fiction, particularly in newer fantasy worlds, despite being the most commonly used weapon in human history (and prehistory). In contrast, large two-handed swords that were historically only used for a few decades in the early Renaissance period are ubiquitous in fantasy games, novels etc.
Historically, swords were usually not a warrior's primary weapon, but a sidearm that could be easily worn as a backup, in case they lost their main weapon, which more often than not was some sort of spear, or at least a polearm that involved a stabbing projection.
While axes and swords are often associated with the historical vikings, the weapons they most often used were spears and boss-held, flat, round shields, with the more wealthy among them sometimes having a sword as a backup. While the rules of 40k don't allow me to field a unit of Spave Wolves with spears and shields (well, maybe Wolf Guard), I wanted to have at least a model or two with the closest equivalent to the historical viking armament. Plus, I had some leftover storm shields from my (first) Wulfen kit.

The model was mostly made of bits left over from other kits, instead of a lot of green stuff. I considered sculpting a custom head for the model, but I'm planning to use the model as a Blood Claw Pack Leader, and I thought having a helmeted Wolf Guard among them would make for some interesting contrast. Besides, I like the look of the wolf helmet on the Space Wolves accessory sprue, and I wanted to use it for something.
The Wulfen storm shields fit power armoured models reasonably easy. I did add a little green stuff on the hand holding the spear and sculpted a gauntlet on it, but knowing it won't usually be very visible, I left it reasonably simple.

 This was the first model I used one of the new Forgeworld's Space Wolf shoulder pads. I opted for the Mk.II model, partially because I already had a few empty Mk.II shoulderpads left to go with them, but mostly because they look more interesting than the somewhat plain Mk.IV plates and aren't as overtly bulky as the Mk.III model.
The legs are from a resin Mk.V kit. I heated them in hot water to get them to fit the base. The ease of reposing is one of the reasons I rather like resin models.

The wolf cloak from the new accessory pack happened to be flaring in an appropriate direction for the model, so I decided to use that as well as the helmet.
The spear the model is holding is simply made from a length of steel wire covered with a thin layer of green stuff, with a spearblade sculpted to one end.
The model does look pretty good, at least prior to painting, even if power spear isn't exactly a devastating weapon in game, and is inferior to frost blade in every way except for the points cost.

The Blackmanes' First Skyclaw, painted

Miniwargaming recently made a video on painting a darker (olive) skintone. Since I happened to have nearly all of the paints used in the video, I decided to give it a shot. Most of my Space Wolves have a fairly pale skin, and since I don't like to make clone troopers, I found this welcome.

I like the way the slightly darker skintone worked out. Because Skyclaws are to other Blood Claws what Blood Claws are to Grey Hunters as far as impulse control goes, I decided the model should be  a little more feral-looking and painted some runic tattoos on his skin.

 I was originally going to paint The Blackmanes' company badge on the left kneepad, but it slipped my mind, and I ended up repeating the pack marking there instead. I don't consider this to be a huge loss, as he still has Ragnar Blackmane's army badge on his right kneepad, showing that he knows whose orders he's expected to follow (as far as Skyclaws are expected to follow orders anyway), and Ragnar is probably okay with not being quite as associated to a Skyclaw. Likewise, the Skyclaw himself might somewhat resent all authority, even a role model such as the Young King.

I intended to take the pack marking straight from the Codex, but made a slight mistake. The model is supposed to be a member of Dreskor's Skybolts, but the marking is supposed to look like a thunderbolt, not an "S". I'm not sure if I'll end up correcting that, though. After all, the markings in the Codex only apply to the specific troops present at one particular battle, and armies go through Skyclaw packs fairly quickly, so it's entirely plausible that Dreskor and his packmates were taken out in a following battle soon after and another pack taking their place. That said, it's also entirely possible this ends up bothering me so much that I change it before moving on to the next model in the pack.

The Blackmanes' Grey Hunter with a Broken Power Sword, painted

Sometimes, I end up making some changes to the models between making a post on them and painting them. Usually it's something minor, such as adding a piece of cork to the base or slightly improving the sculpt's hair texture, but this time, I forgot adding something relatively important to the idea I had of the model.

 The piece of the power sword I originally cut off is hanging from his necklace. My headcanon is that the Grey Hunter was fighting an Eldar exarch, and frankly, not doing so well. The enemy had managed to block, turn aside or evade every one of his attacks, until he made one last, desparate attempt. That one would have been blocked, too, but in his arrogance, the enemy placed his sword before the very tip of the sword, which, after taking numerous dents and chips on the course of the long campaign, broke off at that very moment, letting the rest of the sword strike the opponent's otherwise unprotected body.
The grey hunter later had his sword's nicks and chips repaired, refusing to replace the blade or to even let the Iron Priests reattach the tip back to the weapon, carrying it as a talisman with him instead.

 The model in itself was fairly typical Grey Hunter. I used my preferred method of painting steel, ie. starting with a Warplock Bronze basecoat, drybrushed with Leadbelcher, shaded with Nuln Oil and finally highlighted with Ironbreaker. I prefer the darker shades in general and with steel in particular.
The runes were painted with thinned-down Temple Guard Blue. The runes on the piece around his neck were not painted, as the piece would not be powered when it's being carried on a leather string.

 The helmet's crest, poorly seen here, had a vaguely Borre-style red chain pattern painted on it. Incidentally, I may or may not have been reading up on Viking art lately. 

I chose the pack marking from the latest Codex, among the Grey Hunter packs listed as being under Ragnar Blackmane's command at the battle for Alaric prime. I thought it would be weird if none of those troops were among my Ragnar Blackmane army. I elected not to use transfers, preferring to get some freehand painting practice instead.

Second of the Blackmanes' Skyclaws

The first model of the pack is already being painted (well, I've undercoated it), so I decided to forge ahead and assemble another one. Since I already gave myself the permission to do so, I decided to just glue a helmet on the guy instead of sculpting a head from scratch.

 With the Skyclaws being basically Blood Claws on espresso, I wanted the pose to reflect activity to the point of recklessness. I did this mostly by rotating the torso far from the neutral position and partially by attaching the left arm in a very tense-looking position.

I don't think it would look too good if the pack had a mix of various jump packs, so I intend to give at least these Skyclaws all older models of jump packs. I did some research on their fluff, and apparently, it's questionable if these older models were still in use anywhere in the 41st millennium, but considering Space Wolves' reluctance to use them, I think at least one pack might be equipped with them, if only because the newer, more efficient models were not available (after all, Skyclaws die like flies, and it takes time to repair the equipment they leave behind).

Part of the reason I made a post of a figure with no Green Stuff anywhere on it was this: I have now officially used my last older model The Blackmanes' shoulder pad, and wanted it documented.

I expect I'll get back to this pack fairly soon, though I'll definitely want to finish the Blood Claws pack at some point, too, and by finish, I mean taking it up to 15 models. That's six more scratch-built heads. Better get to it.

The Blackmanes' First Sky Claw

As I earlier mentioned, I bought a Mk. V Assault Squad from Forgeworld a while back. I obviously could have just used the standard Assault Squad parts, but I like the more archaic look on the older patterns of jump packs. Since Space Wolves generally don't hold jump packs in too high a regard, I thought it would also make sense they wouldn't have bothered to update them too often.
I haven't completely decided on the pack's composition yet, but probably will avoid at least the more expensive updates to make the pack a less tempting target.

The main body of the model is from a Space Marine Assault Squad kit, one of the first kits I bought when I started collecting Space Wolves. I started to build the models in the kit for the fifth edition codex, and this model was supposed to have Mark of the Wulfen. While most people would just differentiate models with the Mark by adding a face tattoo in the painting phase, but I went about it a little differently, by trying to sculpt a different, more bestial face and claws for the model. At the time, I couldn't quite pull it off, though, so the model was left halfway done, with a head I wasn't even slightly satisfied with, until recently.

 I still have one of the old Blackmanes' shoulder pads (with new ones from Forgeworld ordered), but on noticing that the model also has knee pads to paint the Great Company marking on, I decided to use a set of the Mk.V shoulder pads instead.

I like the way the unrimmed shoulder pads look with pack markings, and will have to try them out on the left side with the Great Company markings, too, at some point.
Will have to see how he looks painted, but generally speaking, I like the way the model turned out so far.
By the way, I'm not sure I'll be giving all of my Skyclaws bare heads, and am, in fact, leaning towards no. I'll know more once I've finished the first five models of the pack.

The Blackmanes' Grey Hunter in Mk.IV Armour, painted

I decided to varnish another one of my older miniatures again. This one raises some questions, especially regarding his armament. I originally planned to count the Eviscerator simply as a chainsword, considering that Grey Hunters can't take them according to the codex, but that could be somewhat confusing, considering the weapon's profile. I eventually settled on treating the model as being armed with a power fist. Of course, his pack already has a model with a power fist, but that can be pretty easily fixed by changing the pack markings on one of the models.

I wanted one of my Grey Hunters to have a full set of Mk. IV 'Maximus' Power Armour. He'd have to be a fairly respected member of his pack to be allowed to use such an ancient and respected battle plate, which would also be reflected in his armament.
To make the model look like a Space Wolf, I simply gave him a wolftail talisman on his belt and a piece of pelt on his left shoulder pad.

 I like to think that the yellow markings on his blade represent saga-worthy kills, for which he hopes to be promoted to the Wolf Guard at some point.
The metal-coloured bottom part of the models backpack shows that the model is relatively old.

The right shoulder pad's pack marking turned out fairly neat and tidy, and I may end up changing the other Power Fist -wielding model's pack marking. Note that he also has a bolt pistol on his hip and a bolter locked to his backpack, completing the Grey Hunter's wargear.

Blood Claw # 9 of the Blackmanes, painted

My first Blood Claws pack is starting to be large enough to be actually useful for something. While their weak ballistic and weapon skills make a single miniature less than devastating, and their default ranged weaponry has a short range and just one shot, they are relatively cheap points-wise and can be fielded in large packs, so to some extent, they should be able to compensate their failings through sheer numbers. For that to work, though, I have to make those numbers first.

 The pose actually looks pretty good, even if mixing a parrying dagger with a slashing weapon is a little questionable. I decided to compensate for the lack of a crazy hairstyle by making the chainsword very noticeable.

 The Norman hairstyle looks relatively unremarkable, compared to the crazy mohawks often seen on Space Wolves. I decided to explain it with a bit of headcanon where the tribe he was recruited from has traditionally used this type of hairstyle (and, presumably, chain coifs).

The helmet was rather undramatic again. I decided to incorporate the red eye lenses to the pack colours by painting the face yellow.

The next Blood Claw of this pack will probably be holding a Special Weapon, and considering their BS of 3, it will most likely be a flamer.

Cathedral Wall Backdrop, basic frame

So my Imperial Chapel build is currently on hiatus, probably until I figure out a good way to either make the corner pillars a lot sturdier or something suitable to replace them with. I still have a big pile of foamcore around, so I decided to start on another, more limited project.
What I'm building is pretty much just one wall with a window and possibly some small doors, and intended to be used as a backdrop for my miniature photos. I'm planning to add a faint lightsource behind the window, so in addition to adding to the background, it should also improve the lighting a bit, too.

Here's the basic frame of the wall, approximately where it'll be once it's finished. I had to take the picture from further away to get the whole wall in frame, and a little from the side to show the flying buttresses.
I'm keeping it simple for now, with just a couple of small buttresses and one large window frame. I intend to add a small section of wall under the window, to make it look less like a glass door.
Once the basic architecture is done, I'm going to start adding decorative elements. I won't spoil what sort of decoration I'll add, in part because I'm not completely sure myself yet, but it will take a lot of pomp to make the building fit with the general theme of 40k Imperial architecture.

The Blackmanes' Blood Claw #9

Moving on to the next model in the pack. I intend to use up at least some of the smaller bases before buying a new kit with the 32 mm ones. The larger bases do make models look more impressive, which is why I prefer to use them for something other than Blood Claws. After all, they're not supposed to look too impressive, and the disparity in skill between a Grey Hunter and a Blood Claw is usually pretty significant.

 The idea for the pose came from the historical use of parrying daggers. Of course, canonically chainswords are pretty far from the specialized thrusting swords that were historically usually paired with a dagger, but a buckler on the model would have been easy to confuse for a storm or a combat shield, neither of which is a valid weapon option for a Blood Claw.

Whenever I make a new Blood Claw head, one of the most distinct decisions is the haircut. This time around, I went with the Norman haircut again. Since the type of his sword most resembles a cut-heavy sword, I decided to mix yet another century in the mix, inspiration-wise, and used a 11th century haircut.

The pistol is from Forgeworld's Mk. V Assault Squad kit. Yep, Skyclaws are on their way. Consider yourself officially teased.

Blackmanes Blood Claw #8, painted

It's starting to look like I might actually get this pack finished at some point. I am running out of space on my display shelf, though, so I don't know where I'll put it when it is finished. I have a number of different options, some of which are more feasible than others. That's a problem for another time, though.

 I decided I wanted the model's hair to be very light blonde. To that end, I added small drops of dark brown and yellow to mostly black base, then kept adding white to the mix until I highlighted the hair by lightly drybrushing it with white. The model's face wasn't entirely a success, though. The eyes were somewhat poorly defined, making it tricky to paint them. It's not disastrous, but noticeable when examining the model more closely.

 I decided to paint a red zigzag-pattern on the helmet as an identifying marking. Truthfully, I didn't check if I had already used it in the same pack, and still haven't, because if it turned out I had, I'd be so annoyed, I'd have to repaint the helmet.

The model's original chainsword dropped to the floor and immediately disappeared as if it had been eaten by a house elf. I ended up replacing it with a Mk. II chainsword, quickly undercoating it and painting it in a simple colour scheme of metals and black.
The base was left fairly plain, with just a couple of small streaks of modelling snow.