Rob Sander's Atlas Infernal

Rob Sander's Atlas Infernal is the tale of Inquisitor Czevak. Fleshing out the famed Inquisitor's background, this novel does a great job of expanding on Czevak's role during the 13th Black Crusade, how the Harlequin's treat with him, and his time as a prisoner of Ahzek Ahriman. Czevak is one of the few humans privileged to ever enter the Black Library. His time there makes a coveted being by those seeking knowledge of chaos. But Czevak does not want to be anyone's pet. Read about his attempts to avoid Harlequins, Ahriman and Ordos Hereticus Inquisitors while combating one of the most infamous chaos lords. Fans of both the Eldar and Thousand Sons should definitely pick up this book, it is well written and well executed with the promise of more to come.

Castellan Crowe

I finished Crowe recently, this model is one of the metal castings. It is fairly easy to assemble, though it had a nice bit of spiky flash. I added ballast to the base, and primed black.



The white elements on the shoulder pad, helmet and flames are painted with P3 Menoth Highlight and Morrow White. The Red is P3 Sanguinary Base, Sanguinary Highlight, Khador Base and a final highlight of Khador Highlight.



The silver is a base coat of Gunmetal, a wash of Asurmen Blue and a coat of Chainmail. The gold is a base coat of Dwarf Bronze, Devland Mud, Shining gold and a highlight of Burnished Gold.

Astorath Completed

When I finally got around to painting Astorath, I stuck to my basic painting schemes. However, I did go out and get a new Windsor Newton Spectre Gold II 101 fine paint brush in order to get a nice, clean effect. When I paint, I pretty much stick to three brushes for my work, a large brush, for basing; a standard brush for doing the large armor areas and washes, and a fine detail brush for everything else. Consequently, I usually end up going through brushes on a monthly basis - and even then, the standard brush slowly becomes a fine brush as it loses bristles.



The new GW paint pots and I don't get along too well, so I have been slowly switching back to P3 as I can. For the red, I did layers of P3 Sanguine Base, Sanguine Highlight, Khador Base and a extreme highlight of Khador Highlight. I did base coats of Boltgun Metal, Dwarven Bronze and P3 Hammerfel Khaki. I then gave them a coat of Devlan Mud wash. Then I did layers of Chainmail, Menoth Basecoat and Shining Gold, with an extreme highlight of Burnished Gold.



To get the face on Astorath, I did a base coat of Tallarn Flesh, with an ink wash of Devlan Mud. Then I used P3 Khardic Flesh, I painted in dots of Morrow White for the eyes, and then added layers of Midland Flesh and Ryn Flesh to get a pale skin color with some depth. Last, I used my Micron Pen to dot the eyes and give them pupils.



Finally, I painted the wings with Chaos Black, P3 Coal Black and an extreme highlight of Codex Grey.

Grey Knight Dread Knight Part Two

I decided to use the painting of the Dread Knight as a reward for finishing the rest of my Grey Knights, so I have saved it for last. I followed the same painting schemes for this model as I had for the other Grey knights, with only a couple of differences.



The sword is painted with a base coat of Regal Blue, followed by coats of P3 Meridius Blue, Arcane Blue and an extreme highlight of Underbelly. The black was done with coats of Chaos Black, P3 Coal Black and a highlight of Codex Grey.



On the base, I added some chaos bits, and left them in a bit more raw state. The armour plate was painted with coats of P3 Cryx Base, Cryx Highlight and Underbelly. The staked skulls were base coated with Boltgun Metal, Devlan Mud, Chainmail, and P3 Hammerfeld Khaki and Menoth Base coat. The silver is Boltgun Metal, Asurmen Blue and Chainmail. The gold is Dwarven Bronze, Devlan Mud, Shining Gold and Burnished Gold.

Dark Eldar Razorwing Jetfighter

When I was at one of my local GW's on Father's Day (I said local, there are four within a half to an hour of me), one of the kids there showed off his Grey Knight's dreadnought to me and my friend. He said it was his first model, and asked us our opinion. To be honest, for a first time he did a great job. We both agreed and told him so. Now, you might be thinking, what does this have to do with anything the Dark Eldar Razorwing. Probably not much. But for an admitted Space Marine fan boy to buy one, it is curious. This is my first Dark Eldar model, and right now I have minimal intentions of building an army of them. However, relating back to my earlier anecdote, it is a jet fighter, and my first models were built when I was a kid. They were aircraft, the F-18 Hornet, F111-A Stealth Fighter, F-14 Tomcat and so on. To be honest I love aircraft, some may be tread heads, but I always dreamed of being a fighter pilot as a kid. So when GW puts out aircraft models, I've gone out of my way to pick up at least one of the kits. I have three Valkyries, and so far, 1 Storm Raven. With this weekends release of the Razorwing, I felt I had to add it to the collection. Maybe one day GW will finally release that flyer expansion. Enjoy the sprue pics, it looks like a sweet kit and I can't wait to build it.

Jokaero

I knew, from the moment I saw the Jokaero model I would have to add it to my collection. Even though my current Inquisitorial forces comprise of only the Forge World models, I thought it would be fitting to add. It's an interesting model for its simplicity as well as its aesthetic. It is definitely not a monkey with guns.



After building the model, and adding a mix of fine and coarse ballast to the base, I primed it black with Duplicolor spray primer. I then gave successive coats to the fur of P3 Sanguine Base, Sanguine Highlight, Khador Base and Khador Highlight. You could easily get the same effect with GW Scab Red, Red Gore, Blood Red and Blazing Orange. I just happen to be not so much a fan of the new paint pots, and have been replacing like colors with P3 as they dry out.



I painted the gem like areas with successive colors of Regal Blue, P3 Meridius Blue, Arcane Blue and GW Ice Blue and then added a dot of P3 Morrow White. The metallic parts are Boltgun Metal, Devlan Mud and Chainmail. The base is Scorched Brown, Bestial Brown and Snakebite Leather. This is a great model, quickly assembled and quickly painted. I can't wait to put it on the table top. Which means I need to finish up some Grey knights.

Ultramarines Honour Guard

It's taken a long time for me to build this Ultramarines formation. The last parts of it have played out on this blog, however I started building the formation way back when I got my first peak at Apocalypse: Reloaded at Gamesday. At first, I took the easy, though expensive route and just added more of the metal honour guard. With the Forge World and Sanguinary Guard releases, I was able to add in my own conversions as well. My only regret is that I finished the formation before the Finescale models were released.

Grey Knight Interceptor Squad II

Here is the second squad of Interceptors I have built. In keeping with the theme I want for the army, the Justicar once again has the sword through the plague bearer's head.



I also kept the deamon hammer for the extra assault punch. This time though, instead of the twin falchions, I opted to add in the halberds for the initiative bonus.



Other than that, there isn't much to show off here, the models were painted the same as the previous squad, and based the same as well. Next up, some more Ultramarine love.

Sandy Mitchell's Dead in the Water

Dead In The Water is the latest offering by Sandy Mitchell in the Ciaphas Cain series. The beloved cowardly commissar is brought to us in audio book format this outing, a format I know many have issues with. In this story, Cain is on a river world, where a squad of Vostroyans have gone missing. At the same time someone is attacking both rebel and Imperial locations, causing general havoc. Is it the missing Vostroyans, or something more sinister. On the whole, it was another enjoyable audio book for me. Hearing voices for the characters adds a new dimension to old favorite books, though I have to say that Toby Longworth can only do about three voices, and then he varies the pitch to change characters. Fans of Cain should pick this up, its definitely worth it.

Chris Wraight's Battle of the Fang

One of the oldest 40k stories, the Battle of the Fang is now a novel by Chris Wraight. This novel is both an embellishment and retelling of the Battle of the Fang. Building upon both A Thousand Sons and Prospero Burns, Battle of the Fang picks up those threads and moves forward a thousand years after the Heresy. Fooled into invading the planet Gangava in a vein attempt to slay Magnus the Red, Great Wolf Ironhelm is pulled way out of position as the largest Thousand Sons battle force since the Great Crusade invades Fenris bent on destroying the Fang the way Tizca was laid waste. Wraight does a great job of weaving in the new material Abnett and McNiell have created for these two legions (one become chapter) and does a great job depicting both the characters and the action.

I think I've said before, that the measure of a 40k novel is how well it excites the imagination. For me, this usually revolves around the inspiration to build armies. This novel has actually inspired me to build three. Well, maybe not since one is an in progress force that has been slowly been developing over the course of this blog. I've already got a work in progress Thousand Sons army that I mean to go keep working on slowly. I've also been wanting to do a Blood Ravens army, small like the other space marine crusade forces I've been doing that are between 1k and 2k. Finally, I have been on the fence about a Space Wolf army for a long time. But I think I might finally add it into the cue. The only question is when (and where will I put it).

In conclusion, go buy this book. Read it, love it, maybe even hate it, but definitely pick it up.