The War on Badab!

Enjoy!

Badab War - Teaser

Here's a quick teaser for the upcoming Badab War video.

Action on Badab

Here's a handful of images that were retouched from the large batch I shot during the battle on Badab.  The video is coming soon...as soon as I find a bucket of time! Enjoy!

The War on Badab - Teaser

The battle on Badab is over, Lugft Huron escaped the grasp of the Loyalist forces.  This is just a quick teaser video I put together to show some of the images I took.  There will be a longer video and an image gallery coming in the future going over the battle that took place on Badab.

Badab game is this Saturday!

So the day is at last approaching.  I've painted more miniatures for my Astral Claws army than I have for any army ever!  Hopefully this will set a new precedent for me going forward with my miniatures.  Playing with fully painted armies is, as any wargamer can tell you, extremely satisfying.  I've got a few pictures here from my work station over the weekend.  I'll try to get some better pictures of the other stuff I've finished later this week.  Plus we'll be sure to take plenty of pictures during the game this weekend.  I hope you'll all enjoy!

8th Company, Fire Hawks Chapter

An update to my work on the Fire Hawks:

Everything so far.  Completed:  Elam Courbray, Chaplain, Vanguard Squad, Tactical Squad.  In progress:  Command Squad, Assault Squad, 2 Drop Pods.  Primed:  Vanguard Squad, Tactical Squad, Terminator Squad, Terminator Assault Squad.  Unprimed:  Sternguard Squad.  Not pictured:  Unassembled Drop Pod.

Elam Courbray. Better Picture than the other evening.

Chaplain.  Finished him today.  Didn't dip him, but used a wash on him.  Still needs to be matte sprayed.

Vanguard Squad.  Had some blistering when I matte sprayed them, despite having waited FOUR DAYS after I dipped them to spray them.  None of the blistering flaked away, and I did some touch-up painting over the bad spots.

Tactical Squad.  Were dipped yesterday.  Will make some paint touch-ups, then will wait a long time to matte spray them.

Group of Astral Claws WIP

Here's a group of Astral Claws that I'm working on. The tactical marines are ready for transfers, dipping and basing. The captains/champions are probably half way done being painted.  Next up will be another 20ish tactical marines and some missile launcher marines to go along with this.

Piper joins the fray

Ok, so after trying several times to post here, i finally READ THROUGH everything again so i could figure out how....shut up.

I will make this into several posts instead of one long one.

So I'm working on a Red Scorpions Seige Assault Vanguard Army for the upcoming apocalypse.

Here Are some pics from the first Assault squad, jump packs not attached yet to ease painting, base colors only

Assembly Weekend

Got together with Jake, Greg and Matt this weekend.  They painted, I assembled.  Greg finished an awesome Rhino / Razorback, and Jake and Matt worked on Marines, all of which look great.  Anyways, here is a pic showing my assembly progess:

What I have left to assemble: 10 Tactical Marines, 10 Sternguard Marines, 2 Drop Pods, 9 Assault Marines, 3 Vanguard Marines, 1 Terminator, 1 Assault Terminator.  Then, painting, painting, and painting.

Brief Update

Here's a picture of what has been assembled so far.  Big work weekend coming up!  Some paint might actually be applied to models.

Elam Courbray Part II

Took some time today to assemble Courbray.  Here is the progress:

As I was working on the model, I decided that I had to do something different with the left arm than I originally planned.  The left arm that came with the Chaplain model is very nice, but the shoulder pad is a bit bigger than the right shoulder pad, which was taken from the Emperor's Champion model.  Dry-fitting the parts to the body, I decided that it made the model look lop-sided.  So, I ended up digging out a box of Tactical Marines, and took a Sergeant's left bolt pistol arm, and a studded shoulder pad.  I am happy with the results.  I think I will be shaving a bit off the green stuff once it sets a bit more.  Until next time.....

Elam Courbray

Here is a breakdown of the bits I've decided to use to make my Elam Courbray model.  I consider this a pretty straightforward conversion, any 40k player who's been around for more than 5 minutes will recognize the bits I'm using.

 I like to convert models, to give my armies their own feel, but I never go too crazy.  My hand isn't steady enough to sculpt greenstuff, well sculpt it effectively at least.  When this model is done, I think it will be unique, yet a fairly simple design.

The basis for the Sword Excellus is going to be the power sword from the Emperor's Champion model.  I've loved this sword design for years.  It gives the idea it is meant to be used two-handed, which I think properly reflects Excellus' ability to be used for multiple power weapon attacks or one attack at double strength, rending.

 The bolt pistol and shoulder pad is from the chaplain with jump pack, you'll see more of him in a moment.

 The jetpack is a Mk 2 pack from Forgeworld.  The body of the marine this was stolen from will be used in one of my Assault squads or Vanguard squads.

                                      A decapitated Grey Knight Terminator head....

And here is the body.  I love the pose, but will have to remove the head and the Crozius. 

And here are all the parts together.  In a few days I hopefully will be able to post a picture of the assembled model.  Painting, well with me, that will take awhile, but it will be done.

Fire Hawks

Andy here. My goal on this journey is to complete a Fire Hawks Army. Why Fire Hawks, you ask? It is well known by those who game with me, I pick army themes I like, and then figure out the rules later. Sometimes this produces results that are less than optimal for the gaming table (my all-scout Crimson Fist army is a tale for another day). So, after I got my hands on Imperial Armour 9 earlier this year, I read the section for the Fire Hawks, and knew I had my Badab Army picked. Not so much because of what happened to them during the Badab War, but what will happen to the Chapter in their future. Since then, I've been acquiring models bit by bit; now it's time to assemble and then paint.

The models will consist of a few things, Tactical Squads will be the out of production Legion of the Damned models, but painted as Fire Hawks at the time of the Badab War. I will do some modifications there to reduce the skull motif and emphasize the flame motif, but will leave some to not just make those classic models into any old vanilla marines.

My Assault and Vanguard Squads are going to be a mix of regular Assault Marines, Forge World Mark 2 Assault Marines, and Forge World Mark 5 Assault Marines.

My elites at this point will probably be an Assault Terminator Squad and a Sternguard Squad. Turns out from a conversation this last weekend with Galin, that he and I shared a similar idea for using the current generation Legion of the Damned models for a Sternguard squad in an army (besides it would be unfluffy to use LotD at the time of Badab and there isn't another way for me to take a heavy flamer with a marine in power armor).

I'm undecided on my Heavy Support, but should make a decision soon. I am going back and forth between Devastators and Vindicators. More on that later.

This will all be lead by Elam Courbray, the Fire Hawks character from IA9. FW doesn't provide a model, so he will be made from parts from the Chaplin with jetpack, the Emperor's Champion, FW jetpack, and a Grey Knight head. Really hope to share pictures of his progression.

Courbray's rules allow his command squad to have jetpacks. I still have a few decisions to make about them.

Where does this all start? Basically I have all the models I discussed above, with the exception of the Heavy Support choices. Now the work needs to begin. I hope to keep a steady pace between now and April, too often I jump into something, get bored, then only come back to it right before the deadline. Already have a weekend set in early November to work with Kayle and the Gammonseses. That should help keep me on track.