Eversor Assassin, painted

I wasn't going to make another Officio Assassinorum post so soon, but I have to get up ridiculously early in the morning, and I had the miniature basically painted already, so what the hay.

 The pose of GW's official Eversor Assassin is certainly dynamic. In a way, wallrun is an obvious answer for the dilemma of having a dynamic position while still maintaining a solid connection to the base, without the need to attach extra-powerful magnets or other methods of levitating the miniature. Of course, the pose would certainly get old if used too often, but it works for the crazed, drug-fuelled killing machine that is Eversor Assassin.
Generally speaking, I followed the same colour scheme as GW's 'Eavy Metal team, with the main exception being the metallic red of the armour plates and gun casing. I just painted thinned Khorne Red over Leadbelcher base and highlighted with Ironbreaker. I didn't want the miniature to look too clean and toy-like, as easily happens without any weathering effects. Speaking of...

I wanted the piece of terrain on the base to look appropriately aged, so I used tome Nihilakh Oxide for the copper-y parts and some Forgeworld's Orange Rust powder over Typhus Corruption for the iron/steel parts. I then drybrushed it all with Ironbreaker.
I'm reasonably happy with the end result. The final miniature doesn't look too clean to be credible.

We'll see if I'll continue to blow through the Officio Assassinorum next week, or if we'll get back to the Astartes, for example. No-one, including me, knows yet.

Vindicare Assassin, painted

I managed to buy an Execution Force box before they ran out (well before, I'm not sure if they're still making it), and got it at half price from my retailer when they had a sale. I wasn't sure if I was interested in it originally, but the cooperative game mechanic and some nice models made the decision for me. Besides, I have liked the Officio Assassinorum since reading about if in one of the second edition 40k books, and the box set included all four of the battlefield models (though I would sort of like to see at least a Venenum model at some point).

 I decided to start with the Vindicare, the most classic type of an Assassin: just a guy with a powerful rifle laying in wait. I would have started with the Eversor, but I have already made a post of my scratch-built Eversor Assassin previously, and didn't want to be too redundant.
I painted the model in a fairly unimaginative, canonical scheme of bone colour mask and black bodysuit and rifle. I painted all the straps on the model brown, as well as his gloves and pistol holster.

I do like the base that came with the model. Taking cover behind some ruins is very much in character for a Vindicare, and it makes for an impressive base. I decided to paint the relief in a lighter colour, to represent white marble.

I may post about another assassin next week, or possibly something else entirely. We'll know in a week.

Wolf Priest, painted

Between the Deathwatch and a couple of Wolf Priests (Ulrik included), I have been getting plenty of practice in painting black armour, which I remember finding difficult when I first originally started 40k back in the primitive days of the late 1990's. I probably would have originally started collecting Black Templars, if I could have sorted out how to highlight black armour properly. Of course, I had much less experience in painting and even just with my general manual dexterity.

Most of the model being coloured either black or bone, I wanted to give it a little colour where I could. The rope around his thigh was painted bright red, to contrast with the cold blue jewels.
I have to say I like the way the fur hood turned out. It looks somewhat like a mail coif, giving the model a very Medieval flavour.

The purity scrolls fluttering to a completely different direction from the wolf cloak is something of a flaw. The backpack the scrolls are attached to cannot move in a different direction than the torso that the cloak is attached to. The only explanation I can think of is that the much lighter purity seals are flying in the wind, while the heavier cloak is being thrown back by its own momentum.

Wolf Priest

I have quite a few Blood Claws already, but at WS and BS of 3, they're not very effective on their own, even if they get a lot of attacks on a charge. I decided they could use a boost, and the various Priests of the Space Wolves are a natural choice. I already have a couple of Rune Priests, and Iron Priests aren't really meant for this, so here's a Wolf Priest.

 I wanted to clearly differentiate the 'generic' Wolf Priest from Ulrik the Slayer, so in addition to the different ranged weapon (bolt pistol vs. Ulrik's plasma pistol) I decided to give him a fur hood. The legs are from the Space Marine Vanguard Veteran kit, with some of the less chapter appropriate details filled in and a Space Wolves style gemstone added. The torso is a very vanilla Mk.VII power armour front combined with the cloak from the Space Wolves upgrade kit. I also sculpted some extra details on it. The pointing bionic arm is from the Devastator Squad kit.

I wanted to make a very norse-looking power maul, so I ended up taking a relatively typical Scandinavian interpretation of the mjölnir (Thor's hammer) and scaling it down enough to look more like a power maul than a thunder hammer. Incidentally, it almost looks small enough to be actually useful as a blunt weapon, at least when used two-handed.

As a model wearing black armour, the model should be done by next week.

Two Deathwatch Battle Brothers, painted

One of the nice things about Deathwatch as an army is that it's a fairly elite force, keeping the model count low. Also, I never really intended my Deathwatch troops to be a stand-alone force, except perhaps for the purposes of a Kill Team game, so there's no pressure to build a large army.

From the painting and modelling perspective, the Deathwatch are a great complimentary force for Space Wolves, as I can use the more vanilla Space Marine bits on them, and the black armour is quick and easy to paint.

 The Iron Hands brother with the frag cannon was fairly simple to paint in the end. I used thinned down Khorne Red over Leadbelcher for the frag cannon's casing, highlighting it with Ironbreaker. I also added some simple green stuff patterns over the model's right hand, to suggest a bionic replacement as fits the Chapter.

In the build stage, I glued a backpack from an Electro-Priest on top of a Space Marine backpack to suggest the Chapter's close ties with the Mechanicus. Together with the Devastator legs, I think the model's background comes across clearly enough.

The Crimson Fist's shotgun was painted in a similar fashion to the frag cannon.
I decided to use the same Watch Company as for the two other squads I have started so far. I already had started on squads 2 and 3, so I decided I might as well start on number one.

I didn't want to use all gold for the accents, so I painted the skull on the backpack with Khorne Red highlighted with Mephiston Red and finally Evil Sunz Scarlet.

Despite the Kill Team kit having only two shotguns, I have some extras that came with the Mk.IV Legion Recon team.
I hope Forgeworld or the main company produce some more Deathwatch weapons in the future, as the plastic kit was seriously limited. Especially the Stalker pattern boltguns were limited to one currently being reloaded in the default configuration, which is way too specific for my liking.