The final miniatures from the Leviathan Starter set have been finished. The new monopose Terminators are very pretty, scaled well to earlier Terminators, and are nice and dynamic. Pleasure to paint, as Space Marines often are. It’s always nice to finish a box set, I feel a sense of achievement, and pride knowing that if someone came over for a game (if I had any friends in this city :rolleyes:) we could play using a fully painted army. Next up: the new HeroQuest…
The two Space Marine characters from the Leviathan Starter Set. Both lovely miniatures, but I hated the scenic base on the Captain. I tried to paint it to look like one of my Tyranids and it looks crap.
I picked up the new Noise Marine when it came out. I loved the old Noise Marine, had one the first time round, remember Warhammer records and was a tweenage metaller and all that stuff. Even though glam or hair metal wasn’t really my bag, I prefered Metallica and Iron Maiden until I discovered Nirvana and that changed everything… but yeah I love that the old noise marine was painted as a glam-metal type, and that maximalist silliness was definitely a certain type of Slaaneshi worshipper. I tried to paint the new one according the box art. This is not something I normally do because I have ideas in my head that I prefer to the box art. But the box art was full of ideas and tricky techniques and I wanted mine to pop as much as possible and didn’t trust my own aesthetic sensibilities to come up with something as good as theirs. According to the 8th ed. dataslate in the box, Noise Marines come in a squad, of which between 1 and All must have sonic blasters and 1 can have a blastmaster. I decreed the Noise Marine to have the sonic blaster, the Space Crusade marine has the blastmaster, and the rest have the standard boltguns. I thought that the 6th ed. Chosen and the SC chaos sergeant made good Slaaneshi marines, and I think the other one comes from the baddies for Blackstone Fortress.
I don’t expect to post again this year, so have a good holiday season and I hope 2024 brings you joy! Thanks for reading and looking at pictures of my averagely-painted minis, I appreciate you all!
I’m still alive, as busy or busier than ever but still getting to slowly grind out some finished miniatures. Here we have a Sternguard Veteran Squad, intended as a part of Chapter Master Melmoth’s honour guard. I used Contrast paints mostly, and the grey is much lighter. I think next time I am going to use the normal Mechanicus Standard Grey and use the Contrast paints to shade it. This is the Armour Through The Ages resin reprint of old lead miniatures and has recently been on Made To Order. This surprised me because I hadn’t realised it had been taken off sale in the first place. Its a bit sad when things you’ve bought have been removed from sale and them brough back again as classic one offs! Nice to get it painted finally. I really wanted to paint the Thunder Warrior, a mini I had when I was a lad. Its a proper 80s mini that should really have been painted in neon colours! I hope you are all staying Covid safe still. Its not over, and it might cause your immune system to go crazy and disable you, even if you’ve been vaccinated.
I got this rhino years ago in a joblot of battered vehicles and unfinished conversions that caught my eye. It was covered in mud-effects and patchily painted. I scrubbed off the mud effects, stripped the paint off it, added a space marine sticking his head out and a generic cannon that could be a counts-as for a storm bolter or even a predator cannon if I wanted. I then used a thinner mud effect to give it a bit of verisimilitude. I am quite pleased with this, it looks battle damaged but functioning, very Steel Guard-esque (Imperial Fists descendents with a touch of the Death Guard infantry slogger mentality).
Just a quick one this time – a drop pod for my Steel Guard. I was going to experiment with my new airbrush but I got distracted and forgot and just painted it! If I ever do another one of these I will do the red and grey the other way round so that the aquilas show up better.
The final thing I’ve finished recently is another squad of obsolete marines for the Steel Guard. Apparently Assault Squads are completely pointless in 8th edition because there are flying primaris marines who are much better. I expect the same to be the case in 9th, but if oldhammer is about anything its about playing for the love of the game and not picking your team based upon a complex series of equations most guaruanteed to deliver victory. I hope to play more games of 9th edition than I did of 8th (i.e. five or more games), but I reserve the right to throw an assault squad onto the table if I feel like it.
The highlight in this squad is that Ive slipped in a christmas marine, as I felt that his wobbly stance would work as a landing pose. You will probably agree that is doesn’t particularly, but that’s life. Sergeant Plaid is a Space Crusade sergeant whose fat power glove should have been painted as a foam fist really. Next time!
Just a quick update before I get to some juicy stuff later… Brother Russkikh is a lovely old Rogue Trader Chaplain which has some fantastic details on it but a horrible helmet. I did the best I could with the face but it doesn’t look very skull-like. I have to say that it looks better in the metal, as it were. The picture here is not very flattering at all! Oh well, its hardly spoiling my chances of getting called up for an invitational 😀
Its been a long eight weeks or more since I moved house again. A very busy eight weeks in which I have hardly managed to do any painting at all. But fortunately the Steel Guard paint-scheme is very forgiving, so here’s a Razorback in the colours of the 7th Company. Really this was an excuse to paint the rider, Lieutenant Ryen, as he hops a ride. I don’t think that modern GW does miniatures like this one anymore – he’s never been a gaming model, always just a spot of character sitting on a rhino chassis somewhere. I love his expression, chewing on a cigar, never mind that his pauldron (is that the shoulder pads?) is missing. I’ve also tried to paint the gunner as a techmarine – once upon a time all drivers and gunners were techmarines I think – well, they are in the Steel Guard! Happy Eggmas to all my readers, think of us sad diabetics when you’re guzzling your chocolate eggs!
Another Steel Guard squad, plus another Captain for the Command Team. I’ve painted one of the Space Wolf Captain minis before, for the Captain of the 3rd Company. That time I experimented with non-metallic metals, attempting a gold armoured marine. It wasn’t especially a success, though I might try again sometime now I’ve had a few more years practice. I’ve been trying to clear my leadpile recently, having moved countries to glorious Cymru and having therefore to have to confront the sheer piles of stuff I own. I’ve sold off all the mid-period miniatures, leaving only the cool old stuff and some of the brand spanking new sweet miniatures the GW workshops are cranking out these days. Thus this squad is all classic minis from the days of Rogue Trader and 2nd Edition, and I think it looks before it, don’t you?