Chaos Chap! (and metallic armour)

Catching up on some posts and recent work.

A Chaos lad from another Spearhead purchase.  I don't think that I have painted a chaos warrior since my original Kaleb Daark back in the 1980s (he must surely be due a repaint).

Base Coat was Colour Forge Dead Animal bits, with a white drybrush.

All of the armour had a layer of Retributor Armour Gold, which then got a wash of Nuln Oil.  The base armour then had a liberal coverage of Blood Angels Red contrast.  I was hoping to get a nice metallic effect, and I think I got it.  The exposed gold was left as is.

The face initially had several washes of Dreadful Visage, but the coverage on that contrast paint is terrible.  In the end a light coverage of Gulliman Flesh got the effect I wanted.  I think the horns may need a little more shading and colour though.

I wasn't 100% sure on the purple cloak at first (Sigvald Burgundy) but the more I look at it the more convinced I am that it was the right choice to go with something that clashed a bit with the red armour.

Just a quick comment on the miniature itself.  Assembly was pretty easy, although I'm not sure how I'd feel about a whole unit, and there wasn't actually too much detail.  I was a bit nervous that painting would be a chore but, on the whole, it wasn't.  But that does bring me to a sort of criticism.

The multi-part nature of the modern models allows for some interesting posing and lots of detail but, on this one, it also resulted in some parts of the model that were hard or just impossible to paint post assembly - like the backs of the legs, or the inside of the cloak.  Mostly they're not visible, but just sometimes you can glance at them.  The answer would be painting in sub assemblies but that comes with its own issues: (1) I don't want the faff, (2) you can end with miss-matched paintwork or a need to touch up, (3) you can't always tell which bits will be hard to paint.  Oh, and (4) I don't want the faff.

Right, he's off now to collect some skulls for the Blood God, gotta keep meeting those KPIs!

 

Space Hulk Mission 3: Rescue

Alternatively, ‘that darn Cat’.

Although Tuesday Space Hulk has now become a thing at work, I'm still occasionally working through the missions solo.

Up next, mission three - 'Rescue'.  Two terminator squads entering at either end of the board - one must carry the Cybernetically Altered Task Unit to the other end and exit the board.

As the marines were successful in the last game, they started out with the reward that they could use a CP once in the game to prevent the genestealers being reinforced (I'll assume they are able to counterattack somewhere or block off a bulkhead).

nice choke point right in the middle...

"Move out!" (the C.A.T. is centre of the left hand column)

CAT in their possession. Squad Adorn moved off as rapidly as possible, well aware that they had limited time, pushing up two parallel corridors.

Meanwhile, squad Giovan headed in to link up, peeling off their heavy flamer and a storm bolter armed terminator to hold the exit point.

Squad Adorn's Sergeant was the first to engage the 'stealers, taking out a group on the squad's left flank in a brutal close melee, before backing off and letting his own squad's flamer take up the role of defending their rear.  the two marines on the right risked a rush ahead to take the centre ground - a risk that paid off when the nearest contact proved to be nothing but an error on the Auspex.

"Contact!"

"Nothing there, just a false alarm..."

The heavy flamers did the heavy lifting, keeping the exit route clear by roasting any alien that dared enter at that spawn point, while squad Adorn's flamer gradually retreated behind a solid wall of flame that protected the squad's rear. 

"Burn, xenos scum!"

Can you smell burning?

While aliens burned at either end of the board, the rest of squad Giovan fought through the encroaching genestealers in that awkward chokepoint to link up the two squads and provide safe passage for the C.A.T.

"Push through brothers!"

This was the hairiest moment for the marines, and this was the moment they decided to call in to command to intervene. The techmarines succeeded in closing off some nearby bulkheads to slow the flow of genestealers, buying a moment for the two squads to regroup and for the CAT carrying terminator to finally link up with squad Giovan.

With the two squads finally linked up, but the flamers starting to run low on prometheum, (and a fortunate high CP roll), the marine carrying the cat was able to pass through Squad Giovan's perimeter and off the board without a single terminator lost.

I just had to be curious didn’t I...  With the CAT safe, but the genestealers pushing in hard on the flanks, I decided to play on to see how many marines would make it safely off the board (adding no more genestealer reinforcements from this point.  Typically, squad Adorno’s Sergeant was lost in a heroic rearguard action where he gunned down four of the genestealers facing him before his gun jammed and he fell under a mass of teeth and claws.  A terminator from squad Giovan then fell in similar circumstances near the exit point, but was swiftly avenged as the squad’s heavy flamer roasted the offending creatures to cinders.  And with that, there were no more aliens and it was all over.

"Avenge me, brothers!" 

Sergeant Adorn holds off the encroaching genestealers as long as he can

A further marine victory.  The flamers were an absolute star this mission (a trick I have learnt from playing against Tony on Tuesday lunchtimes).

In terms of the benefit for the next turn, I'm going to say that the knowledge from the CAT about the Hulk's layout will allow the marines to arrive early to the next mission and have a turn before the genestealer reinforcements turn up.

Imperial Army Command

 Some more Rogue Trader era Imperial Army minis.  A Captain, lieutenant, medic and sanctioned Psyker join the ranks.

The original lasguns have been shortened.  The lieutenant has the original plastic arms - the rest have combinations from Wargames Atlantic, Warhammer Empire Militia, and the Frostgrave soldiers sprue.

Trying something

 

Gosh he’s a big chap!

 I blame Matt of the Mottblog (it’s usually his fault somehow).  He was the one who pointed out that my Tyranid/genestealer painting frenzy had given me about enough for a 1000pt force under 40k second edition.  All I needed was a Hive Tyrant…. Is that eBay I hear calling?

Offer accepted Sunday, arrived Thursday, base coat and wash Friday (yes, I should have stripped the previous paint but couldn’t be ar***d), details Saturday and Sunday.

“He’s right behind me, isn’t he?”

Having settled on a technique that is quick, easy and effective, I’ve gone from being intimidated by Tyranid models to really rather enjoying them.

What next? Lictor? Carnifex? Zoanthrope?

It’s a big Rat… on a Bigerrer Rat

Yep, that’s what it is.

Foot Knights

 Half a dozen Wargames Atlantic foot knights assembled and painted to try out Great helm.

Great Helm is an intriguing looking set of skirmish rules for small scale combat amongst knights, available from Indie Tabletop.  A nice touch is you can download a free version of the basic rules (which I’ve done), but it sound like there’s still plenty more to justify splashing out on the full rules at some point.

Love the WA foot knights.  Absolutely loads of options of heads, weapons etc, but they remain simple enough to paint up really quickly.  Only downside is some of the weapons are a little fragile, as you can see on the axeman here who appears to have already lost his axe.