Alpha Legion Tactical Squad Mead

Good afternoon,

Been a long time since my last post, slow time for painting.  As you probably know by now, my favourite Chaos Space Marine Legion is the Alpha Legion.  I love the fluff, I love that there is much that is contradictory, and lots of space to fit my version of them into the 40K universe.  They’re also a bugger to paint!  I’ve tried lots of different ways, so my Alpha Legion warband is a bit hit-and-miss in terms of colour schemes.

I decided that I wanted to paint a squad of Alpha Legion that hadn’t yet been touched by chaos.  The Alpha Legion never went to the Eye Of Chaos, they have maintained at least one warband in realspace for ten thousand years, recruiting secretly across the years.

As usual all the figures are second hand, reclaimed marines from ebay.  I’ve stripped and rebuilt where I can but a couple remain in odd poses!  It’s all part of the fun for me to try and salvage them.  Most of these are 00s plastic marines but there is a single RTB01 marine and an early 90s metal Devastator there for Oldhammer goodness.

Devastator! Run! RTB01 Marine Trooper Alpha Legion tactical Squad Mead

We Can Rebuild Him!

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This little guy is a Chaos Thug that I was sent to rebuild by a nice chap on the Oldhammer forum.  When I received him, he was an arm and a leg down, and his sword was long-gone too.  Someone had started the process of chopping off his other leg as well.  So I filled the saw-marks in his thighs with green stuff, then raided my bits boxes for replacement parts.  For each limb I laid out a selection of suitable parts, then put the decision into the hands of the chaos gods and rolled a dice to see what he ended up with.  So his leg is from a plastic chaos space marine, his arm is a plastic zombie arm, and the sword blade i think is from a plastic skaven.  I gave him the best paint job I could – it’s hardly golden demon standard but I’m quite pleased with it.  I think the skin tone blending is a bit too subtle though.

Chaos Thug Rebuild Chaos Thug Rebuild

Legion Of The Damned

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In search of a new project having gotten tired of painting grey Space Marines, I opened a copy of White Dwarf for inspiration.  White Dwarf number 98, I think.  Featuring the first iteration of the Legion Of The Damned.  In modern WH40K LOTD are flame-wreathed ghosts, using melta and flamer weapons.  In their first version they were much simpler – normal marines, albeit pale sickly ones, who had painted their armour black with scary flame and bone logos.  They had an awesome death frenzy special rule that meant that as long as there was another enemy within 4″ they would keep on killing.  So I decided to paint up a squad according to the list given.  This meant ten marines, armed only with bolters except for one special weapons marine.  All black armour decorated with flames and bones.  Any skin should be sickly and warp-tainted.

How did I do?  Painting black and getting subtle highlights was tricky – I drybrushed it in really dark greys.  Painting flames was tricky too – they look alright from a distance but are pretty laughable up close.  But painting bones and skulls were really hard.  Still, i figured that the bones and skills weren’t meant to be photo-realistic!  I enjoyed this challenge and will be doing similar again in the future.

Currently on my painting table are a rebuild project – i was sent a tatty damaged Chaos Thug by a kind poster on the oldhammer forum and am rebuilding it and painting it.  I have also decided to stay in the past, and am painting up Pedro Cantor and his squad as laid out in Rogue Trader: The Battle At The Farm.

 

I've tried to use a good mix of miniatures from different eras.

I’ve tried to use a good mix of miniatures from different eras.

Lovely old Doom Eagle marine.

Lovely old Doom Eagle marine.

Standard Bearer

Loads of things all at once.

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It’s not that I haven’t been doing anything recently, it’s just that I haven’t been completing anything.  But over the weekend I said to myself that I need to do some basing and get the last month’s fabulous minis photographed.  As ever, my paintjob isn’t really the draw, but the wonderful variety of miniatures.

Dev squad with casualty

This is the X Squad of the 2nd Company.  I’ve used a miniatures from a lot of different periods – the Sgt is a Rogue Trader Marine, there’s some 2nd Ed Long Fangs, and lots of different plastic ones including a Dark Vengeance marine.  In the middle of this shot you can see one I’ve modelled as a casualty, knocked of his feet by a shot to the head.

Dev Squad

A group shot.  That RT sculpt really is very odd.  I count it as artificer armour. Does anyone know what the wrist-mounted weapon is?

Squat and Servitor

Here we have a couple of old favourites.  The Painboy I am using as a Servitor – hence the multi melta arm.  The model is possibly one of my favourite ever sculpts and I wanted to use it in my armies despite not collecting Orks.  Except now I’ve decided that I collect Orks too.   The lure of RT Orks became too much to bear!

I love the Exo Armour Squat too.  I haven’t yet found anywhere to shoehorn him into my collection.  I think I’ll make a Rogue Trader warband, or just use him as a chaos champion.  Either way it was a joy to paint.

MkII Term

A mark II terminator suit (with mark 3 arms).  I was intrigued to discover that this was sculpted before the space marine mk VII armour and so that this is the first appearance of this style of helmet.

Term Squad

The rest of the squad.  Note the two Space Hulk terminators hiding at the back here.  Surprisingly tricky to paint, they were.

Werewolf

This werewolf isn’t from Citadel, I don’t think.  I enjoyed painting it just the same.  It doesn’t look that good, more practise on fur needed i reckon.

Cultists

A close up of a Cultist Squad.  You may well recognise a few of these old miniatures.  The leader is a beastman but that photo didn’t come out too well.

Bikers

Some DV bikers.

Veteran

“Scenic base”

Veteran on Tau

No once cares about the Tau, do they?  But a converted 2nd Ed Sergeant might be a bit more interesting.  It looks better in the photo than it does in real life, unfortunately.  But it’s a start.

That’s all from me for now.  On my desk at the moment is a ruin, and another squad of cultists.  See you soon!

Chaplain failure!

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So I’ve just finished basing this lad.  On paper it looked good.  A Terminator Chaplain, home-made crozius, a lamp instead of a banner.  But look how it’s come out.  Black really is an awful colour to work with for the beginner.  the edge highlights look like it’s chipped.  the face on this is a terrible mould in my opinion, painting it bone-coloured looked awful, then instead of stripping it and starting again I painted over the face with gold and tried to use washes and drybrushes but it doesn’t look like it at all!  I’m still quite pleased with the little conversion but the paintjob, not so much.  Still, it’s all practicChaplain J 2 Chaplain J close-up Chaplain Jedliczee innit?

Chaos Cultists Squad

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Right, finished basing this squad this evening.  I’m not sure how successful this has been.  I’ve included WHFB and LOTR figures in this Cultists Squad, and tried to draw the styles together through a uniform colour scheme and spot colours.  I think it’s OK, though the drummer with the plumed hat might be a step too far.  Still, I think that a group of cultists during a Chaos Uprising could be mixed up, from all backgrounds and social classes and areas of the planet and with differing dress styles.  Things I like about this.  I love the two old models particularly.  The old plastic guards are favourites of mine, and the female guard model is great.  I like her mullet!  I liked painting a crude Alpha Legion hydra on the drum.  I like to think that these cultists are utterly deluded.  They think they’re part of the gang, but they’re nothing but fodder, useful idiots.  I like the harem pants wearing LOTR guy who looks like Lenin – I gave him a plastic Necromunda arm which I think workds.   I’m getting better at green fatigues and caucasian skin painting.    Still no good at eyes or hair!

The full squad.

The full squad.

Old plastic guard and late 80s "female guard" models.

Old plastic guard and late 80s “female guard” models.

Terminator Assault Squad Rakosi

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Been a quiet couple of weeks on the posting front.  It’s not that I’ve not been doing anything, it’s just that I haven’t gotten anything finished, so nothing to show off really.  But I’ve just finished basing this Terminator Assault Squad for my Steel Guard Space Marine army.  I’ve used a variety of models, an old lead Grey Knight body for Segeant Rakosi (though I’ve used modern plastic arms so that I can give him a thunder hammer and storm shield), an old lead lightning claws termie, a couple of plastic terminators from mid-late period wh40k, and finally a Dark Vengeance termie that I have given a truly huge thunder hammer for uber-smiting.  I’m generally quite pleased with these.  I’ve tried a few new-to-me techniques here and whilst none of the actually worked, i can see better how to do it next time.  Here’s Squad Rakosi in all their (slightly shabby) glory!

Brother Tucker

Brother Tucker

Squad Rakosi

Captain Rakosi

Captain Rakosi

Gargoyle Attack!

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I’ve finally gotten around to basing this lad.  I have no doubt that you’ll recognise the HeroQuest gargoyle.  I loved HeroQuest.  It was my first experience of miniatures and table-top games.  What I liked about it initially was that it brought Fighting Fantasy books to life.  I didn’t know at the time about Games Workshop and the connections between FF and GW.  I bought more models from a local games shop, long closed, so that I could have different monsters in my games.  In short order I discovered White Dwarf, Space Crusade, Rogue Trader, and Warhammer.

So the gargoyle was the centre of the dungeon, the big monster.  As a model he’s basically a Khorne Bloodthirster.  I think the design team couldn’t be bothered to come up with an entirely new design tbh.  I’ve painted mine as a Champion Of Khorne suitable for any Chaos Army.  I’m generally pleased with all of it except the damn wings.  Not too sure about the snow base either. Or the sword… or…

HeroQuest time again!

HeroQuest time again!

Why we don’t eat lead…

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29568505

When I was a little kid I was well into Transformers.  The success of Transformers meant that foreign transformers with lead paint were being imported illegally into the UK.  One of our local shops had loads.  So many out of print transformers!  So cheap!  Such WANT!  Fortunately my mum was alright, she bought some for me, as long as I promised not to put them in my mouth.