Finished - Deathwatch Scouts

Ok so they are not completely finished. In the picture, I forgot to do the grey hard-edge highlighting on the hands but other than that they are finished. 

I had some difficulty fitting the heads on the bodies. I really wanted the vox mask for the Salamander Scout but it would not fit in the very small space facing the way the gun was pointed. I had a similar problem with the sexy goggles on the Blood Angel. In the end, I ended up liking it as it adds variety to which direction the model is facing. 

I did a little conversion to the Ultramarine "leader" by giving him two scopes. The big scope is an Ork scope with the Orky bits filed off and the smaller scope is a SM scope. I accidentally mounted it backwards with the angled part mounted forward but I don't think it maters. 

Ok The Table Now - Headless Scouts

I am making good progress on the Deathwatch Scouts/Snipers. All the bases are finished and the finished bodies are mounted. I just have to finish guns, pick out heads and they are finished. 

As it stands, I have picked out the following Chapters for the Scouts reading from left to right and skipping Rufus. Blood Angels, Space Wolves, Ultramarines, Space Wolves and Salamanders. The repeat of the Wolves has to do with fluff and bits. In the fluff, Space Wolves do not use the Scouts as in-field training but rather as exile-in-combat for their problem kids. As a result, they have WS 4 and BS 4 Scouts when most updated (all at the time of writing this) have WS 3 and BS 3 Scouts. Ignoring the behavioral problems of having a Space Wolf (let alone a problem child Space Wolf) on a Kill Team, this would make them prime recruiting for Deathwatch. I included a plethora of Wolves in the sniper section of Deathwatch, because I have many left of heads for SW Scouts. 

So, counting Rufus, I'll have 3 Space Wolf Scout/Snipers and (so far) 6 in the army. Over-represented? Maybe, but Wolves have always been awesome and over-represented given that there are 12,000 of them max in the 40k Universe. 

On The Table - Deathwatch Scouts

The project for my one day off this week was DW Scouts. I made the choice to use them rather than normal Marines with Stalker pattern Bolters for a few reasons. 

One, they add variety to the "all Power Armor" army. There are rules for Deathwatch Scouts in two of the RPG books. I am still unsure why GW did not give Stalker pattern Bolters to Scouts only in the Codex. It would have sold more of those old Scout kits.

Two, there is only one Stalker pattern Bolter in the Deathwatch box. That is insane when it could have been a bit that clips onto the Bolter rather than a whole gun. It is even more insane when there are already Sniper Rifles in the Scout box. I wanted 5 of these and I am not going to buy 5 kits. 

Finished - Chapter of Deathwatch

From left to right: Silver Skulls (Ultramarines successor), Black Shield, Blood Angel, OG Dark Angel, Raven Guard (Tactical), Iron Hands, Space Wolves.

I love the variety of colors in the pauldrons but they take forever to paint due to the constant color switching. I like how the BA and SW pauldrons stand out and think that from now on, I will paint only colorful pauldrons rather black or dark ones. Hello Imperial Fists!

Finished - Deathwatch Specialists

From left to right, Shotgun and Storm Shield, Infernus Heavy Bolter and Power Fist/Lightning Claw Marines. 

Swapping the Bolter for a Shotgun is free and the Storm Shield only costs 10 points. I really like the look of the Breacher Marines from Forge World and want to make my own with these sexy tower shields. I like the idea of a Marine that wants to get up close to use the Shotgun but also is smart enough to not want to die first. 

I want as many of the Infernus Heavy Bolters as I can get. They are move-and-shoot Heavy Bolters and Heavy Flamers. Best of all, the Heavy Bolters shoot at full range rather than the 18" of previous editions and the Heavy Flamers are not one-shot like I thought they would be. You can also add in Hellfire shells for 5 points if you want to be able to take down those high Toughness creatures like the Carnifex and the Wraithlord. This is my new favorite weapon perhaps of all time. 

Up last if my favorite combination of weapons if it is possible to take them. Because of the way the Speacilist Weapon rule is phrased, other weapons with that rule add an addition Attack even if they are not the same weapon. Using Power Fist and Lightning Claw give you versatility depending on what you are facing. I knew that I wanted to do this on my Black Shield as his special rule only work in Close Combat to double the number of attacks in special circumstances. It would have been more useful if it also worked at range too. Since it does not, I am absolutely kitting them out for close combat. I forget how splitting Attacks works in this edition, but at least I have the option of attacking at Initiative or last with S 8. My plan for the other Black Shield is for Thunder Hammer and Lightning Claw for the same purposes, but I'll likely proxy it with a Power Weapon for aesthetic reasons.

I just need to finish Chapter pauldrons for these Marines.

Finished - Genestealer Cult Aberrants

I feel like these Genestealer Cult Aberrants have been on the table forever. In reality, it has only been about a tich over 3 months. I stalled out on them because I did not like how they were turning out. I thought that I had made a good plan with my first mini, but as it turns out, I lacked direction. I did not like how the skin was turning out. I did not look closely at inspirational pictures of similar minis. Had I waited until the Genestealer Cult Codex, I could have gotten some better inspiration and direction. 

Specificaly, I messed up where to paint the mini blue and where to paint them purple. I should have stuck to painting all the hands, feet and faces purple and only the bodies blue. I confused this on my test mini. I also chose to not paint all the obviously Genestealer-looking parts in Xeno colors. I wanted to highlight that these are humans corrupted by Xenos and not wholly alien creatures. I feel like this backfired as the minis look uneven and inconsistent. I think that I am going to change all these mistakes going forward. After all, these are aberrant. 

I like some of the experiments that I took with painting skin. To get my basecoats down, I painted the minis brown, flesh base and then a flesh tone by drybrushing in quick succession. The flesh areas got a wash of flesh. I washes selected areas purple then touched up with flesh again. After that, I washed certain areas again with purple and then touched up with flesh. the idea here was to give the look on unhealthy tissue, the war between human and Xeno played out in purple bruises. I think that it was of limited success. I wish I had just painted the Xeno areas in Xeno colors but the experience of using purples in flesh was interesting. 

The bases are just plain bases painted silver and washed black. I am not going to do custom bases for a horde army like this. 

I am going to continue to use the "Tyranid" tag for the Genestealet Cult minis as I plan on never starting a large Tryanid force. 

Damn I Am Good

Sometimes I impress even myself. 

Not to sound conceited or arrogant, but I did a really good job on this tower-style Storm Shield. I love this bit so much. It is a shame that there are only two in each Deathwatch box. I have one already on this Terminator and I think the next one will be used on a breacher Marine with a Shotgun and a Storm Shield. I am really looking forward to this conversion. 

I took some inspiration for the colors from the Deathwatch Codex. If I had not seen those then I might have just painted it all silver looking. I really like the black and red that the Codex colors added. 

On The Table - More Deathwatch

I know that the Aberrants are not done but I started a new project. I can't contain myself! 

The Xenophase blade is too cool not to use so I had to make one of those. I dislike the packs of amp and pouches on the front of the Deathwatch armor so I green stuffed over that with limited success. I was tempted to give this Wargear to the Black Shield of the group but, as you can only give the Xenophase blade to the "Sargent" of the group and a different Marine can be upgraded to the Black Shield, that makes it impossible. If I knew more about militarily structure and promotions I would make some crack about BS glass ceilings and officers. Vanguard Vets, Terminators, Bikes, etc also do not have access to the Xenophase blade. It is kind of insane. 

I also saw the Terminators with the "tower shield" style Storm Shields and immediately thought, "It comes in pints? I'm getting one!" Right after I got my boxes of the new Deathwatch toys, I cut a Storm Shield out and put it aside for this conversion. My gut says that that this guy should be an Ultramarine but I lack any sexy shoulder guards for them. I can't find any on eBay and Bartertown is always a disappointment. I may try and get some Chinese knockoffs. 

The other two Marines were from a trade and put together with plastic glue, the bane of my existence! I was able to rip off the bases, arms and Jump Packs but the torsos will not come off. I have lots of Vanguard Marines so they will not likely see action that way. I have decided to make them shotgun Marines.