Saturday night at NOVA Open is complete

We just wrapped up Saturday night of NOVA Open and it's been amazing. I got to take classes with Roman from Massive Voodoo, paint an unbelievable amount of minis for the 30k Team Tournament, where our team "Two fools who laugh at death" (if you don't know the reference it's time to watch the original Conan the Barbarian) won the best sportsman award, we've played tons of pickup games, attended GW seminars, scoured the vendor hall for bits, and made repeated visits to the Forgeworld booth.

More to come, but for the meantime here's a pic from the 30k doubles event which was one of the most exciting games I've ever played. While leading my Iron Hands, with their brothers in arms The Salamanders at their sides, Ferrus Manus and his cohorts fought valiantly against an impressive Emperor's Children army. It ended with a win but not before Fulgrim decapitated his brother Ferrus in a martial showdown for the ages.

Back from the Lazarus pit with some hobby work

First post of 2017, and only a few things going on. I've taken a break from the stormbird to do a couple easier small projects though I've been thinking about trying to get the landing gear completely built before I take a longer break from work in the big flier.

I built a few MK 3 Marines for 30k/40k including a plasma support squad.

I've also mostly wrapped up work on my first five custodes. I expect to have anywhere from five to fifteen more down the road. Still working on the blades of the weapons but I'm trying to mimic the effect the 'Eavy Metal has done, I may bud to mute the brightness a little but we'll see how they look once I add some crackling electricity.

Finally I've started making a few custom bases to match my existing DragonForce bases. These are for a couple Iron Hands Astartes and my 40k admech force. I'll have some pics of them soon.

Getting Ready for NOVA Open's Capital Palette

In a little over a week we'll be trekking from New England to the DC area for the 2015 Nova Open. I won't be playing in any events, except possibly some Age Of Sigmar games, but I'll trying to bring my A-game (or at least my B-game) to this years years Capital Palette.  Last year I completely dropped the ball with my prep work and ended up not submitting any entries, I really regret being so damn lazy after winning a Silver medal the previous year. I'm trying to make up for things this year so if you end up down there keep an eye for some of these models in the display cases.

I've been trying to refine the Iron Hands Legion Praetor I started a few months back. I added some more pronounced highlights as well as a few chapter and clan markings from the Forge World decal sheet. I also played with adding some shadows to the base for the first time, I like the effect but there's no way I'd be able to put that much work into a whole army.  Now he's looking a little meaner and more fitting of his stature in "The Iron Tenth". There are a couple small details left but I think I'm about ready to call this guy complete.

I've also done quite a bit of tedious work on some Tau Pathfinders that I've been working on for two plus years now. I probably over did the paint job considering their value on the battlefield but that's sort of my problem in general, I have a tough time taking short cuts of any kind when painting. I really went to town with some weathering pigments on their bases which I think are looking pretty sharp. Now I just need to finish the rest of this Tau army to the same standard.

Iron Hands Legion Praetor - work in progress

Ever since forgeworld released their Legion Praetor set a while back, I've had my eye on it. A few months ago I finally picked the kit up with the intention of making the power armored Praetor a foot Chapter Master, and the terminator armored Praetor a kitted out Librarian. Now, having nearly wrapped up work on my Devestator Centurions, I decided to pick these two models and try to get some work done on them.

As with the rest of my Iron Hands, I went with a muted dark grey/black base color and all silver metallic components. I wanted to make them look basic and utilitarian (by Astartes standards), like a machine that's well maintained as opposed to gilded with superfluous ornamentation. To make these guys stand out as HQs I decided to add some gold to their weapons, which isn't used anywhere else in the standard troops. I think it'll be a small detail that pops out on the tabletop.

First up the power armored Praetor. I'm not even close to being done with sword, its going to take a lot more precise blending but it's off to a good start.

 The terminator armored Praetor only really has paint on his face so far, which I left separate so I could access the details a little more easily.

While I'm not planning on playing 30k at the moment I just can't resist purchasing some of Forge World's amazing Horus Heresy models, and this kit did not disappoint. I'm hoping to keep cranking away on these guys and have them done in the next week or two.

Iron Hands Centurion Devastators

It's been a while since I had any progress towards my Iron Hands force, but I'm happy to say I've finally started picking up momentum again. Following the release of the new space marines codex, I decided to celebrate by completing my Centurion Devestators. 

I had done the majority of the work on them a few months back but hobby painters bottleneck reared it's head, I stalled for weeks on the final small details. With the exception of some Forge World Clan Raukaan transfers (and maybe some small highlights I've missed) I'm happy to count this squad amongst those rare models in my 40k collection I call complete. I've only really attempted to achieve a tabletop or slightly higher level, so I acknowledge some shoddy edge-work on these guys but I'm happy to have a few more completed models. 

Just a side note, I opted to trim the side toes off the feet on these models. I appreciated the tiny dreadnought look the model designers were going for, but the inside toes seemed like they'd make walking difficult. I also think these models are bulky enough so the streamlined feet help make them look a little more nimble for my taste. I also added a spacer, roughly 2mm - 3mm, in between the torso and the legs to make them look just a little leaner.

The bases I made from the GW bases included with the kit and some flagstone plasticard and sand.

Not sure what I'll be working on next, but it really ought to be a few Capital Palette entries for the Nova Open since time is already running out for that event.

Enjoy.

First up the Squad Leader...

Followed Centurion 1... 

And Finally Centurion 2 (I know I should have 6 of them, what am I thinking)...

Iron Hands - Painting update 4 - Tactical Marines completed

After a little bit of a painting break during the holiday season I hit the ground running this new year and I'm happy to say I've finally got my first set of tactical marines painted. I bought them when the new Space Marine codex was initially released about a year and a half ago now. I'm happy to ring in the new year having finally completed painting my first 15 Iron Hands, and while I'm quite a slow painter, I'm really trying to reign myself in and not go too crazy so I can actually see this army fully assembled and painted on the tabletop.

Here are the final six Marines, they're mostly un-helmeted since I was saving the more detailed face painting for the last step but I'm really happy with how they've turned out.

I'm going to switch gears and work on something other than Tactical Marines for a while, potentially bikes since they're an important part of my army. In the meantime I'm also adding final details to a Contemptor Dreadnought and starting to paint his base. If all goes well I'll have it completed and on the base by the end of the weekend so hopefully I'll another post ASAP.

Iron Hands progress update - 3, painting bases

This is just a quick update to prove I'm still making progress.

I've had some Dragonforge bases that I've been sitting on for a while so I decided to get them set up for the new Iron Hands. After blue-tacking them to an old box and some airbrushing followed by a little hand painting they're ready to go. I used GW Steel Legion Drab for the base color with a careful wash if GW Agrax Earthshade in the recesses. I finished with a light drybrush of GW Underhive Ash followed by GW Terminatus Stone. I'm pretty pleased with the results and, when I receive my next order of bases from Dragnforge the paint scheme will be easy to duplicate.

Just a note on the citadel dry paints, I scoffed at them after their initial release but now that I've used them a few times I think they're a solid addition to the Citadel range. My only gripe is that some of the lighter colors would be useful as layer paints as well, though it's just as easy to find some equivalents from other paint ranges.