Reinforcements Arrive: Tactical Marine Combat Squad, 2nd Tactical Fully Assembled.

From Stuff I Have Painted: Space Marines

The rest of the boys from 2nd Tactical finally got finished. I will be the first to tell you that I am really disappointed that it took me so long to finish these five miniatures. It is all on me, as there were nights where I didn't follow Picasso's advice, often obeying the voice inside telling me not paint.

It felt good to put this squad behind me. I have done a lot of green lately and am looking forward to taking on something else. That something else being Ravenwing, specifically an attack bike. Working in black has always been a challenge, so I am eager to under take it. Until it pisses me off...

But back to the tac marines. Here is a close up of the Sarge:

From Stuff I Have Painted: Space Marines

Already having one bald sarge, with this guy I attempted to create an effect of closely cropped hair to break it up a little. It met with moderate success, but unless you get up close it just kind of looks like light spot on top of his head.

From Stuff I Have Painted: Space Marines

And here is a quick shot of the whole 2nd Tactical together:

From Stuff I Have Painted: Space Marines

Lastly, for the first time in like 5 years I do, technically, have a painted 40k army. It is only like 840 points, and would get clobbered, but min force org is met. It is a small victory I am going to take. So my take on the 5th company up to this point:

From Stuff I Have Painted: Space Marines

Thanks for reading,
T

Reinforcements Arrive: Tactical Marine Combat Squad

Put the finishing touches on these five guys this morning and have already started work on the five remaining models in the squad. These guys are members of 5th Company, 2nd Tactical, better known (Only to me...) as Thrones of Fortitude.

I have enjoyed working on my Dark Angels as I learn this edition. It can be said that it is a continued labor of love and patience. Not only because I paint slow and must fight the urge to jump from project to project as usual. But also because I have been getting my head kicked in with them. I think in nine games of 6th Edition I am like 2-7. And maybe only two of those losses were close. Most of the games have just been me getting pummeled. I am sure that all of that speaks more to me as a player than the codex. Also I don't really talk tactics here anyway. I am super eager for a new codex for my beloved Dark Angels. Perhaps some new tricks will be exactly what I need to discover my inner tooth-chipper.

I did pretty much the same thing with these guys that I had for the Assault on Black Reach set. I had been advised that my bases were kind of plain and one dimensional. In order to fix that I added some tufts of grass, in addition to the normal static grass mix I use, to add something different visually. I think I will go a step further and add some large chunks of debris to the next batch.

A canny-eyed reader might notice that these are the tactical marines from the Battle for Mac Cragge set. I promise my army will consist of models other than those in the boxed sets. It probably just won't seem like it for awhile, as I am super eager to tackle the rumored models coming out in the 6th Edition starter box. That box has me incredibly excited, as it will contain new Dark Angels models if the rumors are true. Something not seen for like five years. At least I can use quite a bit of the marine stuff that has been coming out in that time as it looks great.

Thanks for reading,
T

My Assault on Assault on Black Reach Complete!

Nothing says anti-climax like crap photography. Try as I might, I just couldn't get a good group pic with the lighting rig I have. Anyway, now is not a time for negativity, nay it is a time of joy! You see, I actually finished something I said I would do. Granted, seventeen models isn't exactly worthy of a medal or anything, but it still feels pretty cool. And just in time for the next half of a starter box to boot.

I do the majority of my 40k blogging over at Still Practicing, however I felt it only appropriate that this end where it begun. So I finished up the dred. And since he has been painted I think he has lived about 3 turns (Hull points, wah wah waaahhh.) Even still, I had a good time painting him, as I have alway loved dreadnoughts.

Thanks for reading.
T

WIP: Clanrats

Still cracking away at the clan rats. Doing a couple ranks this time. My intent is use every brown and most of the grays I have on these rats. I am just kind of grabbing handfuls and laying down the fur tone I want to work with at the moment. I didn't get as far as I would like with these guys by today, but some of that is because I used some of my painting time for Dust Warfare.

In trying to lay down the base for these rats I have found that, because I am using snow flock, if I go too light on the dry brushing of the sand, it tends to not add enough contrast. Everything kind of blurs together is a mass of dull light-color and am white. That being said, I am not sure I am bringing the color up high enough, and struggling to find the happy medium. Until I get something I like better, I am basing the sand with VGC Charred Brown, followed by a dry-brush of VGC Earth, and finally another dry-brush of VGC Cobra Leather. This color progression is illustrated in the photo below, going from right to left.

While I was waiting for the initial coat of Charred Brown to dry before dry-brushing I went ahead and started blocking in the base color for this grip of rats fur. I also started laying down the flesh-colored parts on a few of the rats before I ran out of time.

The running out of time part is tied into me taking my usual painting time to get my second game of Dust Warfare in. I wasn't in a huge hurry so we played a big 300 point game, wherein I am sure rules were butchered, misread, or ignored out right. I really like the Dust rules set, and the models remind me of playing with the plastic army men I got in a bag when I was younger. I am extremely enamored of the SSU, as I have always been a huge fan of heliocopters, probably based on the countless hours of Airwolf my older brother subjected me to.

Which leads me to my only point of contention with Dust. I need more stuff from them, specifically the rule book to play the faction I want to play. It is almost like the reverse of GW, where they have given models for the game but not rules. I can't decide which is more consternating. I fear that for Dust to really get legs with my local play group there needs to be more options than "either or", and really the only games I have seen do well with the folks I play with had at least four factions.

In the meantime, David Morris has been nice enough to let me use his models, and has been an excellent teacher. My SSU guys sit ideally by until they have rules and I can start zooming over the table with my choppers, Airwolf theme blaring in my head. Oh, and after grabbing this bad boy I will at least know the basics for when it is that glorious time:

Thanks for reading,
T

Skaven Clanrats

Over the Memorial Day Weekend my younger brother and I decided to pick up the Island of Blood set and learn how to play Warhammer Fantasy Battle. My vitriol toward that product has diminished over time, although I will say, despite any information given by Games Workshop or unscrupulous game store owners, you cannot in fact a play a game of fantasy from that box. Despite that major let down, my younger brother rolled a die, unable to choose between rats and elves, and ended up with the High Elves.

Admittedly this had me concerned. I paint so slowly that the notion of doing a horde army almost killed any chance of me getting into Fantasy before it began. But, despite a couple of set backs, we still were (are) waiting for the new 40k rules, and didn't see a whole lot of point in playing another battle under 5th.

We did muddle through a game after getting some army books, and had a great time. In the few games we have played he continues to hand me my butt (Stupid griffon!) but there is also a fairly large points disparity between the two forces. We are enjoying ourselves immensely, and have decided to attempt to put paint to our forces, at least for the time being.

This actually works out well. In just one short week it will be all 40k all the time in my local play group, and I am sure I will catch a learning game or two, however I am content to sit back. An entire edition of 40k has come and gone, where the army I love most, Dark Angels, sat with sup-par rules and didn't even get a new model. To say that I am ecstatic that Dark Angels are rumored to be featured in the starter box, as well as one of the early armies to be released is an understatement. But even still, I think I will save my enthusiasm for when it actually happens. I am OK being a little late to the 6th Edition party, and love the idea of starting off with a new book and new models.

In the interim, rats, and plenty of them. My brother and I have decided not to get any more models until we have finished what we have, which is the stuff in Island of Blood. He has a let less models than I do, so I needed to get cracking. Also I will tire of getting griffoned to death every time we play, so I will want to start padding out my ranks and getting some more pointy-teeth and claws on the board. I needed to start slow, so I just did one rank, well kind of, I will probably have no idea who all goes where when it is all said and done.


The models themselves actually paint up fairly quickly. And I struggled with not over complicating them. They still took a fair amount of time, because I wanted to add some extra touches like the glowing eyes and all the rust. I want my have my rats feel like you could get lock-jaw just looking at them, but didn't want to over do it so they looked like blogs of red-orange. I went with the snowy bases because I have had the flock lying around forever. Also, having been through three long winters where I live, I am beginning to equate winter and snow with a certain degree of misery, apropos for Skaven.



There are some techniques on the snow flock that I need to improve on and refine. I also need to find the setting on this new camera that makes the pics a lot less yellow. But this is the start of one of my rat squads, packs, nests? I have no idea...

If there is interest I would be glad to do a tutorial of how I did them, although the next group I do will have lighter fur.

Thanks for reading,
T

New Digs

The MPB is going down. Well not for a month or so, however there will be no new content. I don't post frequently enough to justify my own blog so I have joined forces with my friend at his blog, still practicing_. If you follow me here, please follow me there as well. It should be better for all, and really my work there is going to be exactly the same as it is here so there shouldn't be too much of change.

Thanks to all who hung out with me here! Now shoot over to SP and check seven more Bad Moon slugga boyz!

Thanks for reading,
T

Aww Shucks

Just a quick note. If you follow me here, and don't follow Ron at From the Warp, what the heck is wrong with you!? I kid...or do I, but check out the awesome article Ron wrote about saturation vs. desaturation, featuring the ork boyz from right here at the MPB!

Thanks for reading,
T