Dreamforge Leviathan painting - part 2

Its been a few weeks and I haven't made all that much progress, but this thing is a real big model. Now my goal is to stay focused and see this through before I get distracted by new Astra Militarum kits (I will have a Miltarum Tempestus army asap).

I've painted some of the details using what i guess is a non-metallic technique, wanted some parts to appear shiny and maintained by not have to simply paint them a metallic color. Its coming along pretty well but it's not until the weathering that this model is gonna really come together.

I'm hoping to have the joint details done this week so I can start highlighting edges on the armor plates before the weekend. I've also got the base for this guy in the works so that may make its way into the next round of updates.

More to come...

Dreamforge Leviathan painting - part 1

I got in on the kickstarter a while back and have had this sucker sitting around unpainted for ages. With the release of GW's Escalation I've been lucky enough to put my Leviathan on the table as a Warhound Titan, and now I've got the Apocalypse bug to boot so I figured its time to get some paint on him.

I know Forge World purists will argue the reasons why this model isn't acceptable as a Warhound. My gaming group, however is open minded and would rather have me use the model than not, so he's been drafted into the ranks of the Grey Knights. Their access to superior technology is reason for his slightly smaller stature...same punch, smaller size.

Here are a few shots of the base colors I've got him. The base Grey is Vallejo Blue-Grey, that's been shaded with a concoction GW Abandon black P3 Sanguine Base an GW incubi darkness. The highlight color is GW Rakarth Flesh mixed with a little Vallejo Blue-Grey. The green shoulder pad is going to match up with the way I've painted my Strike Squads, and I'll add some personal heraldry on both shoulders and a knee at the very minimum. The green basecoat was done with Vallejo Gunship Green, shaded with GW Incubi Darkness, and highlighted with a Vallejo green, whose name I can't recall, that's a pretty close match for the old GW Scorpion Green. I'll be working on this model a lot over the next few weeks trying to get him done before I inevitably lose steam.

Grey Knight Strike Squads WIP (almost done!)

I've been using these two squads of Strike marines in nearly every game of 40k I've played since the 5th edition GK codex was released and they became my primary army. That was almost 4 years ago and I've made such a pitiful amount of progress on this army in that time. Part of the delay is that I made a decision early on to try to paint every model to the highest standard I was capable of, but that's not the reason I still have incomplete paint jobs on loads of my core units. The real reason is gamer ADD and flat out laziness.

Over the last six or so months I've really been trying to wrap projects up an I'm happy to say the end of the journey is near for these guys. I noticed a few incomplete details while taking these quick and dirty pics but I think I'll have these guys done with one more painting night. Once the last few details are tied up I'll take some better pics.

Escalation vs. Stronghold Assault Mega Battle!

Checkout a great writeup of our recent Escalation vs. Stronghold Assault mega battle! The most fun I've had playing 40k in a while. To all the haters: don't knock it 'till you try it.

Here are a few more pics from my phone:

 4,000 points per side and the game ran about as quick as most of the attic beer-hammer games we usually play. I ran 2,000 points of Dark Angels (Codex: Space Marines), Mark piloted a Warhound Titan, and his Grey Knights, and we pitted ourselves against Vin and his massive collection of fortifications and Blood Angels.

It. Was. Awesome.

We also forged a little narrative in the process: The sneaky Blood Angels found some evidence of ancient Dark Angels treachery, which they stashed away in a nigh-impenetrable fortress monastery. The only way the boys in green could every hope to keep the information from being disseminated to the High Lords of Terra was by convincing a contingent of Grey Knights that it was the Blood Angels who were corrupted, and in need of a Nemesis Force spanking.

Check out Attic Wars to find out who won!

A little more Grey Knights Stormraven progress

I played a game over the weekend during which my Stormraven performed admirably so I decided it deserved to get its paint job finished up. I probably have few more evenings of work by its getting real close.

Grey Knights Land Raider

After being on the receiving end of the banner of Devastation, I've decided to try fielding an Inquisition Land Raider Crusader with psybolt ammunition to enhance its shooting. I was only able to fine the standard pattern at my FLGS but I decided to pick it up anyway and make a modeling project out of it. Here's a WIP shot of my scratchbuilt hurricane bolters. They're magnetized so I can swap them out for other weapons.

WIP: Grey Knight Librarian

To follow on the heels of the Dr. Ew's Archon, I've got some shots of my favorite HQ unit from the Grey Knights codex. I love the flexibility of the Librarians (in all marine codex's) and I especially love the synergy he provides to a Grey Knights force.

So without further ado...

I loved the pose of the classic Terminator Librarian from GW but I preferred the style of the Grey Knight Terminators so I tried to mimic the pose that was so interesting to me.

(image property of Games Workshop)

Since he's just a composite of Grey Knight parts I wanted to add a little classic Librarian iconography to make look the part a bit more. I followed a tutorial Ron posted on From The Warp a while back and after a few trial runs on the side of an old Leman Russ I had a pretty successful result.

I also tried to add some gold touches to the Stormbolter to make it look like his wargear is a little more embellished than the rest of his battle brothers.

You can see his book of Secrets he keeps on fanny pack, and the skull of a daemon that he's attached to his shoulder since he's a show-off.

Finally, here are a few shots of the current progress on his force weapons. So far I've only begun work on the halberd since that's how I normally run him on the table, but I have a warding stave that's in progress too. I put a small magnet in his wrist on the arm as well as in each of these to weapon hands. The piece of brass rod prevents the hands from falling off if he gets bumped in the course of moving him around the table top.

(Sorry some of these are so blurry, I used my phone)

I've got some more details to finish up on him but I'm really happy with how he's coming along. Now just the small task of painting 20 more terminators and 40 more marines and I'll be close to done.

Adepticon Preparation

Over the last few weeks we've been inching our way down the wait-list for the Adepticon team tournament. Now that there's a real possibility we may get a chance to play I need to prepare my 1000 point Grey Knights force.

I think I'll be taking 2 ten man Strike Squads and an inquisitor with a retinue, probably Death Cult assassins. This should leave some remaining points for a Dreadnought or some interceptors or something fun. The only problem is that I haven't painted much in the last few months, so I've got to step it up and get some work done on these guys.

Here's the first portion of my strike squad in progress.





I also have 10 Mandrakes that will become my assassin retinue. They're the bound demon-kin accompanying an Ordo Malleous inquisitor who I think will end up in power armor with a demon weapon. Once I've finished cleaning the Mandrakes and figure who to use for the inquisitor there will be another post.

Battleground Doubles, and Players Choice

Mark and I played three great games this weekend in a doubles tournament at the Battleground Games in Plainville. We went in with a plan, played well, and ended up winning the Players Choice award, which I believe is a combination of overall sexiness, coolness, and wicked awesomeness.

The tournament used the Adepticon missions, and army construction rules, with each team (or Coalition) comprising a pair of 1250 armies. I used a Deathwing list made up of Belial, an upgraded terminator squad with an apothecary, three standard terminator squads, and a pair of melta/typhoon landspeeders. Belial and the terminators all had the standard thunderhammer/storm shield load out, and there was a cyclone missile in each squad. Mark ran Grey Knights; a librarian, a 10-man terminator squad, a five man terminator squad, a five man strike squad, and a pair of psy-bolt rifleman dreads (I don't know all the details of his list of the top of my head, maybe he can fill them in later).

The plan was simple: line up the Deathwing, give the Grey Knights cover, march forward, and kill everything in sight. Speeders and dreads provide cover.  In general it worked.

Game one vs. Necrons and Space Wolves was going our way, the primary objective was having as many victory points within six inches of the table center. Near the end game however, things took a dramatic turn when Mark's libby and 10-man squad, still at nearly full strength, lost an assault against a C'tan shard, and due to a bad leadership check, and fell back. They could not regroup the next turn because of a single Thunderwolf Cav locked in combat with a strike squad near the table edge, and as a result we lost.

There's not much we could have done to prevent such an outcome, other than roll better. Deploying the big squad as two five-man combat squads may have helped, but it also makes each one more subject to falling back from shooting losses.

Game two was thematically one of the best I've played: Deathwing and Grey Knights Vs. Fallen Dark Angels and Chaos Marines. It really couldn't have been more perfect. The game itself did not go well for our opponents though; the Dark Angels were Samael (in a speeder) led Ravenwing, and the Chaos Marines were mostly Khorne Berzerkers in rhinos with a lash wielding Demon Prince, and a few obliterators. With all of the missiles and strength 8 shooting we had, the bikes fell quickly, followed shortly by the demon prince. We shot up all the vehicles we could see, and the Berzerkers didn't last long out of assault range. Our opponents had some bad dice, and our lists were an unfortunate foil for theirs, but they were good sports and it was still a fun game (more so for us than them).

The final game was against Necrons and Eldar in a mission focused on eliminating one army in the enemy's Coalition--they chose Deathwing, we chose Eldar. It used spearhead deployment, and there was an objective in the center of each unused table quarter. Their Coalition was essentially a "difficult and dangerous terrain" build, with Nightspinners, Imhotek, and some Necron terrain modifying shenanigans. Things looked grim in the beginning, but once we were able to batter our way through, and around, the Necron horde, we were able to start killing the cowardly eldar, hiding near the shadowed fringe of the table. By then end of turn five, the last turn of the game, the Eldar were mostly in retreat, a number of Necron warriors were left since they had been largely ignored, but they were unable to claim the objective near our deployment area due to a last turn speeder steal. We ended up tying on primary, secondary, and tertiary objectives, and loosing (I think) on a tie breaker. It was about as close as they come.

Overall we probably finished in the upper part of the middle of the crowd, which is acceptable considering the fact that we did not read the missions ahead of time, or play a single practice game. Winning the Players Choice was a welcome surprise at the end of the day, earning us a total of $160 in store credit, of which my portion quickly disappeared on some finecast fire dragons, and Incubi. Mark wisely bought some new dice (for use on leadership/morale tests), and I'm going to advise him to throw out his old ones before their garbage luck can rub off on the new.

All in all, a great time. I look forward to the next event.

Grey Knights Dreadnoughts

So I've had some Dreadnought kits floating around for a while and I've begun getting them ready for a Doubles tournament I'll be playing in with Dr. Lazarus at our FLGS. I took an old standard marine dread and used the death company bits from the Blood Angels dread kit and made the first of the two. The second dread is the remainder of the Furioso kit using the librarian chest plate. I swapped the standard head with a GK termie head to make him look a little meaner.



I experimented with making him a little bit taller using some plasticard rod in the leg pistons (I've always thought that the current version of the Dreadnought looked too stubby so a little more leg helps him out some).



I wanted to be able to swap out bolters and flamers for when I'll be using close combat weapons so I placed them similarly to the Forge World Dreads' torso mounted weapons and use a pin and magnet to ensure they dont fall of in transit.



I also liked the Forge World Dread feet so I replicated them with some cutting and plasticard,




Also in the works are some homebrew twin linked autocannon arms. I've been been planning on doing these for a while and have only recently started moving on it. Basically I want to make a pair of nice looking arms that are pretty detailed then cast them in resin for myself. I know everyone is saying "just use the Aegis Defense Line AC's", but I really like the old style "reaper" AC's so I wanted to get close to them without having to buy anything. I also wanted to avoid any GW bits on them in case anyone ever wants to buy them from me. Hopefully I'll have a casting kit in the next 2 weeks so I can get these done prior to the tournament.



Here's a shot of the arm blue tacked on.



Other than that, I've finally started to collect some of the terrain for my GK themed "Shrine World" table. I'll be posting about that once of got some real progress to show off.