Flesh Tearers Sanguinary Guard

I admit I am Mr. Bandwagon, at least for Space Marine armies. This is the first offering in my "planned" Flesh Tearer's army. I say planned, as I have been coerced into taking part in a 1000 point army painting contest. The models had to be in a primed, but not painted state at best. Unfortunately I was half way through painting the Sanguinary Guard.



The Sanguinary Guard are some of the coolest models GW has made for marines in a long time. The Single engine jump packs are especially sweet and may have to appear in some of my other marine armies at some point. I chose to model these guys with death masks and one model has an inferno pistol and another has a plasma pistol.



The gold is done with layers of Brazen Brass, Devlan Mud, Shining Gold and Bright Gold. A final highlight of P3 Radiant Platinum was used as an extreme highlight. The white was done with Astronomicon Grey, Asurman Blue,Astronomicon Gray, and two coats of skull white.



For the most part I tried to step up my game, using a finer bristled brush to paint the detail and each individual feather on the wings. The writing and faux writing were all done with micron pens.



The bases had ballast glued on before priming, and then were given a coat of Adeptus Battlegrey, then a wash of Devlan Mud, then a coat of Shadow Grey and a highlight of Codex Grey. After the models were sealed, a flock mixture of dirt, burnt grass and medium green were glued onto the stones to create a turfy mossy look.



The only addition I may make to the bases will be some static grass of a dark green nature. Not sure if it is needed though.

Legends of the Space Marines

Just finished Legends of the Space Marines. I have to say my favorite short story of the bunch was "The Returned" by James Swallow and is about Tarikus, the Doom Eagle from BloodTide. This story is interesting in the way it depicts the viewpoint of the chapter as the marine returns, rather than the point of view of the returning marines like in Courage and Honour. Interestingly enough, this collection contains an edited version of "Consequences" the trial of Uriel Ventris and his subsequent exile. For those who have read it before, it has been slightly edited to replace Captain Pythea (goodbye, you are not in the fluff anymore) with Captain Sicarius. It makes Sicarius' dislike of Uriel in Courage and Honour a little more understandable. Another interesting short story was "The Trial of the Mantis Warriors". For one, someone was able to make CS Goto readable. Maybe if he sticks to just the Mantis Warriors he could achieve something worthwhile, but his flights of fancy regarding the Deathwatch and Eldar are just too abysmal. The other stories are entertaining, and worth reading too, they just didn't make as big an impression on me; although "Orphans of the Kraken" is nice for some Scythes of the Emperor love.

Aaron Dembski-Bowden's Helsreach

One good thing about being sick, probably the only good thing, is it gives you a lot of time to lay around, watch TV or read. Being a bit particular in my TV watching habits, I've spent most of my time sleeping or reading, and hopefully getting better. Today I finished Helsreach by Aaron Dembski-Bowden. Sometimes I feel like a huge Black Library fanboy, but I think they have finally found a core cadre of writers who know how to get it right. Dembski-Bowden is definately one of them. He is able to capture the subtle differences between the Salamanders and the Black Templars whilst they fight alongside Legio Invigilata, Steel Legion and Hive Helsreach Militia. Even the late addition of the sisters of the Ardent Shroud are well characterized. One such characterization is a subtle, but poignant addition of the term knight instead of brother to describe the Black Templars. It enhances the crusading spirit of the chapter to the level that Sigismund intended when he declared the Great Crusade would never end for his chapter. This makes for a great contrast with the Salamanders who are seen only defending Imperial lives in Helsreach, and not seeking to aid in the winning of the war therein. All in all a good read, on par with Rynn's World and, just like that novel it has the same known story but expounded in an artful way. I hope the Hunt for Voldorius is as good.

Ultramarines 4th Company

Today I would like to show off my 4th Company of Ultramarines. I know I was going to try to do this once a month, but I seem to be getting sidetracked with shiny new things like the BA codex and new plastic kits. Still, I will try to continue on.



My 4th company is the oldest army I currently own, though it has been given a face lift. It has the highlights and shading that i currently give my models, and the bases have all been given a face lift (originally they were green turf) inspired by Warriors of Ultramar. Most of the marines have the metal Ultramarine shoulder pads (to show how old the army is, it was back when GW sold bitz at Gamesday by the gram, and I got an Outrider discount, SCORE!).

There are two conversions I am rather proud of, both are mainly kit bashes. The first is Captain Uriel Ventris.



Uriel is mainly a space marine commander kit, but his head is a deathwatch marine head with the bionic eye cut out and smoothed away to make a normal eye. The back banner is paper, copied form the 2nd edition Ultramarine codex and painted over. I would like to replace it with a freehand version, but don't know when that will happen. The free hand on Uriel's shoulder pad and the shield are inspired by the Ultramarines Inferno issue, which had depictions of his heraldry; as well as the most recent Space Marines codex. The only thing I haven't tried to reproduce is the Rose of Pavonis.



The second model is Sergeant Learchus inspired from the Courage & Honour comic. The comic had a lot of views of Learchus, some of them varying widely in his wargear and look. However, I think this conversion is a good composite of them all. Again the model is mainly a space marine commander kit. I added forgeworld brass etch in three places, the center of his belt, the eagle on his shoulder pad and the Ultramarine symbol on his other shoulder pad.

Below is the Flicker slideshow of the whole company.

Imperial Apocalypse 2

I got a nice surprise when I came home from work the other day, my copy of Imperial Apocalypse 2 had arrived. Now I know this book has been out for awhile, but I think it is worth taking an online look at it. For one thing, it doesn't add anything new for the Tyranids. It does have the rules for the new Tau Hazard suits and a formation for them. Mainly this is a book for Imperial Guard players, but it has some nice goodies for Chaos and Space Marines as well. The IG stuff is mainly a rehash of the entries from Vraks 3, and is mainly Krieg entries and super heavies. The Chaos items are similar, Vraks renegades, the new Lord of Change and the Reaver titan. The Space Marines get an assault ramp dreadnought drop pod, revised drop pod rules that follow the Codex Space Marines rules and updates for the Deathstorm drop pod. The other element of the book that's good, are the snippets of back story for the formations and unit entries. There is some good info about the Baddab War among them, as well as a neat back story for the new Lord of Change special character.

Chaos Rising part 2

I just finished playing through the campaign for Chaos Rising. It is definitely an interesting plot. The cinematics continue to impress. If you bought the game just for the online play, but like 40k's storyline give the campaign a try, it is well worth it. I managed to run through the game without accruing any corruption, and that seemed to add to the outcome for the campaign. I'm interested to try without being so scrupulous and see if it changes the game outcome.

Thousand Sons

I thought I would put my money where my mouth is, and show off the first squad for my thousand sons army. I still haven't decided on a list, but I know I want to have at least three squads of the thousand sons troop choice.



I decided to do the standard scheme for them, starting with a basecoat of regal blue, brazen brass and boltgun. Then a wash of devlan mud; followed by layers of shining gold and burnished gold. The boltgun got hit with a layer of chainmail, and the blue got a layer of 50:50 regal blue enchanted blue, and then a highlight of enchanted blue. Finally, the eyes were done with layers of orkhide green, snot green, goblin green, and scorpion green.