Nick Kyme's Fireborn

Blasphemous though it may seem to some, I picked up Nick Kyme's Fireborn the other day to give it a listen while I paint. I enjoyed listening to Raven's Flight, so i figured I would give this one a try as well. I also enjoyed reading Salamanders so I had doubly good expectations for this one. Fireborn picks up after the events of Salamanders and follows Tsu'gan on his first mission as a Firedrake. An ecclissiarchal world is being invaded by chaos and Tsu'gan's squad, under Praetor's leadership, have to recover a relic before the world falls. The story is well crafted and entertaining to listen to, especially if it is background noise while you are painting or modelling (as I used it). It's action packed, and as this audio book is also an audio drama, it is more than just a voice reading words, their are character voices and sound effects as well (just like in Raven's Flight). fans of Salamanders should definitely check Fireborn out. If you haven't been willing to give an audio book a try, this is a worthwhile one to try with.

Gav Thorpe's Path of the Warrior

I picked up Gav Thorpe's Path of the Warrior on Friday morning. His writing has always been on the level of being good enough to entertain but nothing much beyond that. Some of his books do really well at this, Fire Team was my favorite last Chancers novel, mainly because it was one of the first to introduce the Tau. I found Malektih to be a good read, though the end seemed rushed and very Star Wars Revenge of the Sith in terms of the leap Malekith makes from good to evil. So I went into Path of the Warrior hoping for something more. It is one of the first attempts to write a novel from an alien perspective, and it delves into aspects of the Eldar that are only alluded to in the fluff and codecii. The way thorpe handles the nuance of Eldar language and interaction is artfully done, with allusion to their psychic aspects of their language, and the general advanced culture of the Eldar as a whole. All in all this is a pretty successful novel, and quite probably one of Thorpe's best yet. A definite recommendation for Eldar fans and fans of 40k in general.

Hawk Lords

Tonight I finished the first half of my Hawk Lords project, and probably the easiest as part 2 involves a bucket of land speeders and tracking down a Shrike model. The two squads were built using a tactical squad, combat squad and assault squad boxed set courtesy of a Space Marine Battle force boxed set I picked up a couple of weeks ago. In addition, two Ravenguard Sternguard upgrade kits from Forgeworld have been mixed into the models to add some customization.



The first squad uses the shoulder pads and torsos from the upgrade kits to make my life a bit easier. The tactical symbol is still free handed, but the shoulder pad chapter symbol is the forgeworld pad. The sergeant has a lightning claw and the unhelmeted head from the forgeworld upgrade kit. The rest of the squad has the beaky helmets, except for one marine who has a regular beaky helmet.



The second squad has the backpacks from the upgrade sprue, and the sergeant has the helmeted sergeant head. The tac symbol and chapter symbols have been free handed, and for both squads, the squad number was drawn with a micron pen. Both squads use the P3 purple and magenta for their base coat and highlights over black primer. I experimented with both straight P3 purple and using Hormoguant Purple as base coats with washes of GW purple ink.

Space Marine Test Models and Commissar Lord

Here are three one off models that i have been working on in the last two weeks. The first is a Commissar Lord from my Cadian 212th regiment. I've been wanting this figure since it came out and have finally gotten around to picking it up. The army is based on the Tactica Aeronautica campaign, which is why the base is from an ice world. The Cadian 212th was assigned to with a heavy commissariat presence to make sure they are still properly loyal to the Emperor and Imperium. Hence, every squad will have a commissar in the army. The commissar lord is there to join the HQ command squad. I kept the pallete simple, with silver armor, and black cloth to emphasize the commissar role, and reds to accent his status as an IC and a lord.



The second figure is a Marines Malevolent sergeant. I've been thinking about this army for awhile, though the way the color scheme looks on an actual model seems too bumblebeeish. I will have to ponder it some more before doing anything more with the army and paint scheme. One of the main concepts that intrigues me with these guys is their use of older marks of weapons and armor, conveying a sense of "poorness" or lack of supply, that other chapters don't have. Here I used some bitz from the Death Company sprues to build the model. Future ideas would utilize drum fed bolters and mix and matched armor, as well as some battle damage.



The last figure is a Hawk Lords tactical marine. right now they seem to be what interests me most. Especially having just gotten some of the forgeworld ravenguard sternguard upgrade kits. The idea behind this force would be fast moving, especially land speeder squadrons for that link to the Hawk Lords specialty of flying Thunderhawks. If a plastic one were ever made, I would probably build the land speeder tempest - formation for them. Definitely more to come on them soon. In fact, two tactical squads are sitting on my painting desk as I type, crying out to be finished.

Ultramarines Drop Pods

One of the things I have often been asked is how do i maintain my focus on the Ultramarines? Building a chapter of space marines often requires pretty manic obsession, but having a plan lets you set goals. Whether those are painting goals or modelling goals, or goals for life in general a plan always helps.



Large scale projects can often be overwhelming, and to be honest I kind of fell into building an Ultramarines chapter. It started out as me not liking my current army and wanting to repaint them. I had done that three times before I decided to just go ahead and build the whole chapter.



This blog post is a good example of the kind of goals I am talking about. I decided a while back that I wanted enough drop pods to deploy an entire company, minus the assault squads. back then I only had a deathstorm drop pod and a troop transport drop pod from Forgeworld.



Above are the pics of those first drop pods. They still need a bit of touch up where I decided to paint the Imperial eagles yellow, and some updated to the current highlighting style, but I'm satisfied with them for now. My one big regret is that I was never able to acquire one of the original resin death storm assault cannon drop pods, like the missile launcher one pictured above.



I did however treat myself to a deathstorm drop pod with assault cannons when I purchased my last drop pod needed. I painted the deathstorm and drop pod in tandem this past week, and while I originally intended to put hazard striping on the fins, in all honesty, I'm not big on hazard striping.



One other item of note here, is that the last drop pod was done with the missile launcher upgrade. I think it's a waste of points on the drop pod, but for completeness sake, I wanted to have one available with that option. I do intend to pick up one of the new hybrid missile launcher death storm kits at some point. Especially since games Day Baltimore is coming up in August. But we shall have to see what has been released by then. I suppose haunting ebay might be in order for the resin AC deathstorm as well, maybe one day I'll be able to post some pics of it.