The Blackmanes' Drop Pod & new posting schedule

Of all the vehicles in WH40k, Drop Pod is perhaps the least rewarding as a modelling and painting project, simply because of how static objects they are.
In the fluff, they are dropped from high orbit and accelerate the speed of their fall through the use of a huge thruster, until, through the use of a set of angled, smaller thrusters, they slow down abruptly. In an unusual show of realism from GW, only transhumans like the Astartes can use Drop Pods, because this rapid deceleration would kill normal humans.
Now, in game, you just place them on the field, where they stay until destroyed. Also, if I wanted, I could ally with the Imperial Guard and give them a Drop Pod, which they could use for a group of raw recruits who would be just fine until they'd be outside the pod and something looked at them funny.

 Because Ragnar Blackmane is my main warlord, I wanted to keep it fairly simple. I'm going to have to paint at least a few more of these, and getting too detailed would make that a pain. For once, GW's practice of using The Blackmane's badge as the standard actually works in my favour. I used plenty of black soot weathering powder to make the pod seem like it it has entered the atmosphere the hard way.

For the armament, I chose the Deathwind launcher. I wanted the drop pod to pose an actual risk to something on the battlefield, so that the opponent would have to either ignore it and take casualties, or divert some of their forces to dealing with it. Also, a dropped pack of ten men armed to the maximum can make a serious alpha strike, and the launcher can add to that.

In other news, this will be the last Thursday update for the time being. Starting next week, I will now post three times per week, to have more time to make bigger projects. I'll go more into it later. For now, Happy New Year!

Luna Wolves Centurion

I managed to order one of the limited availability Horus Heresy Centurion models back when Forgeworld redid their webstore. It took me a while to decide what to do with it. Originally, I considered just gutting the poor guy for its parts, but as it turned out, the model wasn't constructed like the standard multi-part Space Marines, but had its legs and torso as a single piece, and the head and arms didn't have the standard connections, either. This somewhat limited its use as spare parts, and the model's decorations didn't exactly fit Space Wolves of 41st millennium, probably not the heresy era Rout either.
I figured I'd just paint the model as a member of another 30k army, finally deciding on Luna Wolves, at some point near the end of the Great Crusade, before Horus' daddy issues got the better of him (I like to.imagine an egyptologist somewhere reading this blog entry with growing confusion and irritation).

 One of the first things I noticed when painting the model was that painting black & white power armour is surprisingly difficult. My method of choice was painting the white parts with Dawnstone before heavily drybrushing them white. I had to paint the black parts black again afterwards, then re-drybrushing them, only lighter, but it worked... ok. It's not the cleanest paintjob I've done, but I accept it. I do like the stark contrast between black and white parts, so all in all, it's ok.

 The one thing I did with Green Stuff was painting the Luna Wolves Legion Symbol. It's not my cleanest sculpt, either, but considering it's supposed to be an ancient armour, damaged and repaired several times over, it sort of works.

I doubt I'll end up making any sizable Luna Wolves army. Maybe a small task force of somewhere around 500-750 points, that can be explained as a force lost in the Warp until reappearing when the Heresy was in full swing, but not large enough to fit in the 41st millennium history books.

Space Hulk Brother Zael

Time for another Space Hulk miniature. Maybe I'll have finished the whole set by next Christmas, though I wouldn't bet on it, considering I have yet to start on the Genestealers.

 I have to admit that the models in the set are finely detailed and tend to have nice themes to them. Brother Zael has a whole bunch of various purity seals and oaths of the moment stuck to his armour, which gives the model character and adds to the narrative of the squad. It would have been easy to just give the model a heavy flamer and decide that's his thing, leaving the rest generic. Fortunately, that didn't happen.

 That said, the Crux Terminatus stones on the models in particular have pretty inconsistent texture quality to them. The standard plastic Space Marine Terminators and the Wolf Guard terminators have Crux Terminati that always end up getting fine definition from the normal shading and highlighting treatment, while this one ended up being blurry, no matter what I did. May well be that I should have done something differently, but my point is that with most Terminator models, I don't have to.

Brother Zael's right shoulder pad is among my favourites in the squads, with the white flame on the black background, behind a gem in the shape of a gemstone. It captures well both his own as well as his Chapter's iconography.
I used a mix of purple and blue shades and black soot weathering powder on the nozzle of the flamer to get the discolouration effect. It's surprisingly easy and a very effective trick to make the weapon seem like it's seen some use.

Unidentified Wolf Lord, painted (Christmas Special, pt. 2)

I admit that "no-one knows" is something of a cop out for writing backgrounds for characters, but seeing how the Wolf Lords of the late 41st millennium are already canon, and I didn't want to start a fourth Great Company, a Wolf Lord outside the established Chapter was a necessity, and having one being general knowledge wouldn't really work, either.

I imagine the unknown, blood-soaked Astartes warlord in Space Wolves paraphernalia and with huge horns on his back being first spotted during Abaddon's 13th Black Crusade, appearing in several desperate battles to fight against the traitors. He's rumoured to be one of the 13th Great Company, though his Indomitus-pattern Terminator armour and markings from long after the Heresy speak against this theory. He's also rumoured to be one of the Jarls of the ill-fated Wolf Brothers, though his colour scheme is clearly that of the parent Chapter. He is said to somewhat resemble at least three different Wolf Lords who have vanished at various points in the Chapter's history.

Space Wolves haven't acknowledged the rumours of the unknown Jarl in any way, but according to accounts of those few non-Space Wolf Imperial troops who have fought by his side, his eyes appear to have no visible irises or pupils, suggesting blindness, yet he doesn't seem to suffer from this, and some claim to have heard him speak of his mission for the Allfather. Any tangible information is rare, as any witnesses have soon disappeared, rumoured to have been captured either by the Inquisition for questioning, or Space Wolves themselves, to prevent the Inquisition from learning too much.

I wanted to keep the theme of an amalgamation of Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas, Krampus and Yule Goat, so I painted the gauntlet parts of his weapons as well as the shoulder pads red. The extra redness was also the reason I wanted to use Blood for the Blood God on the model relatively liberally. The horns were drybrushed with Zandri Dust, then again with Ushabti Bone and finally with White Scar.

 I wanted the scarf (cassock? I don't know the terminology) to remind of Saint Nicholas, so I painted the Nauthiz rune on it, as it both vaguely resembles a cross and supposedly stands for approximately same sound as the letter N. The model's flesh was painted with Kislev Flesh, as I wanted his skin to be relatively pale.

This concludes this year's Christmas Special. Just as a heads up, I don't plan to make a special for every possible holiday -- I don't really have one planned for New Year, for example. Anyway, in case you missed it yesterday, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah (though I think that was already? Anyway, hope it was happy), Joyous Kwanzaa (is that what you wish?) or just have a nice weekend!

Unidentified Wolf Lord (Christmas Special, pt. 1)

So far, most of my HQ choices are special characters, and while it's nice to be able to field characters that already have a history, personality and general background, sometimes I want to have my own Wolf Lord that is not being written from Nottingham. I plan to write some actual background for the character tomorrow, but for now, let's just say Logan Grimnar's little sleigh of murder opened a door for this guy.

 The inspiration for the model came from the various myths and versions of Father Christmas AKA Santa Claus, mostly focusing on the Northern European Yuletide traditions, though there is a little Saint Nicholas in there, too (specifically the scarf, which can be seen in many depictions of the saint). I also added a subtle reference to Yule on his belt in the form of the small circle, symbolizing the sun, as is fitting for a celebration of the winter solstice.

 The most visible part of the model is clearly the horns, referencing more than a few Northern European traditions of Yule, such as Yule Goat in the Nordic Countries and Krampus in Germany. It took me a while to figure out how to add horns on a Space Wolf model without making him outright a Chaos worshipping renegade, until I simply decided they're a trophy taken from a Xenos creature he killed, presumably in hand-to-hand combat, as can be deduced from him having a Wolf Claw on his right hand...

...and a Chainfist on his left. I originally considered just giving the model a pair of Power Fists, but that would have been very inefficient use of points. I wasn't entirely happy with the thought of him having a pair of Wolf Claws either, so I went for an anti-infantry weapon on his right and an anti-armour for his left hand. They are both Special Weapons, so he gets +1 A, and is able to counter a variety of threats.
I'll cover the model's narrative side in Part 2 of the Christmas Special. For now, merry Christmas if you celebrate it, happy holidays if you have time off and have a nice day if you're working!

Wolf Guard with Wolf Claws

If you look at the title, you can see one of the problems people tend to have with Space Wolves, and I can't really say I disagree. GW has done great work to bring the Viking mythology to the millenniums 30, 41 and those in between, yet when they name things or try to come up with motifs for the Rout, they always go wolf this or wolf that.
As for the model this post is about, I have actually already shown it once, though the paintwork has been somewhat touched up since.

 I'm still relatively satisfied with the red hair and beard I painted on the model the first time around, and didn't do anything to those. Instead, I painted the wolf claws to be consistent with those on my (later) Terminator models, Void Claws to be specific. I also made the shades deeper and the highlights brighter, as the original paintjob was really rather messy and mild.

 The yellow on the left shoulderpad is really fragile, and when I added the shade between the rim and the pad, the result wasn't as neat as I hoped. Not a disaster, just could be better. The original model is actually old enough to feature what I used to think of as my Wolf Guard shoulder pad, with the knotwork-decorated wolf's head.

The last thing I added was the gem on the right gauntlet. I used a mix of greens and blues, instead of just using the same colours as I tend to use on the Wolf Claws and Frost Blades.
The pack marking on this model is not used anywhere else in my army, at least not yet. I originally made him to be the leader of a 15-man Blood Claw pack, though I'm not sure I'd want to invest that many points in one model, especially since a unit that size would need a Land Raider Crusader or a Stormwolf, and a Wolf Priest to make the pack Fearless and a little bit harder to kill. Seeing that the Wolf Priest would have an AP4 weapon standard, a Power Fist might make more sense for the pack leader. Will have to think on that, or maybe make several alternative models of this same guy. Would help me decide what to do with all those duplicate heads, at least.

Skitarius Vanguard Alpha, painted

The Kataphron models inspired me to continue my AdMech army further. The high points cost of pretty much all of the Cult Mechanicus models means I won't have to have as many Skitarii models, amking the clone trooper syndrome less of a problem. They'll still remain a secondary army, though.

 The first major decision to make with the Alpha was the armament. After some thought, I chose the Arc Pistol / Arc Mace combination, for vehicle hunting. I wanted to have most of my Vanguard to be either firing their weapons or running forward. The arc pistol arm was posed rather awkwardly so that he'd necessarily have it either in the movie poster style by his head (pointless, since you can see the weapon and the model's head simultaneously anyway) or just hanging around, so having him firing wasn't an option. The mace arm was also posed less than optimally so that it points nearly straight to the side. Works fine, if you have your Alpha standing around and pointing, but since I wanted him to be running, the finished pose would necessarily look a little awkward. At least I managed to fit him with a pair of legs that is currently lifting the right knee, so that having the left arm straight looked at least a little bit more natural.

I paint the electric blue glow on the arc weaponry with thinned-down Temple Guard Blue. I try to paint the crevaces in the weaponry, but am not overtly worried about accuracy, as some slight smudges just reinforce the glow effect.

 I generally try to use the colour of steel or iron for anything that looks like it needs to be durable, and the copper or bronze for the more decorative parts or stuff that look like they need to conduct electricity. The coat's Mars colours are just Evil Sunz Scarlet drybrush over Mephiston Red shaded with Nuln Oil and Carrowburg Crimson.