Echo Troop Rough Riders (Part 2)

I really do hate to change projects half way through, but I seemed to have forgotten a Pledge to finish my Rough Riders by the end of the February...   oops.   So I dug them out and as you see above there's still a bit to do.  It's not a lot, but it's a lot of small detailing.  So until the end of the month (unless a miracle happens and I get these done faster) my poor Avenger will have to wait patiently as Echo Troop, 19th Mynvody Lancers gets painted up.

OH, and just a bit of a Rant over a rumor I heard. I love my Rough Riders, and the way they look and play with my army in general.  No, they are not the "über" unit that everyone wants, but they do their job, and look good.  ("looking good" isn't that what the cavalry is for anyways?) 

Now, I recently read this:
"For the same reasons Rough Riders will be dropped from the army list (much like most entries without models got cut from the tyranid codex). Source: FAEIT 212 "  And that got me thinking WTF!!!  I surely hope that GW doesn't do this.  Over the years they've changed a few units but completely wiping one out of the IG Codex hasn't happened in a while.  Now, as for myself, I think it's to early to tell as to if this is true or not, but I surely hope not.  I have big plans for my Cavalry, and hope to have 3 squads of them done in the not to distant future.

Reinforcements have arrived

And I finally have something worthwhile to post!!!  I finally was able to pick up my order from Victoria Mini's.  It's been at the local "zollamt" or customs office for the last couple of days and as I had the day off I swung by to pick it up. 

Here's all the parts:

 Here's the counts as Heavy bolter for the HQ squad.  (Thanks Col. Gravis!!!)

and here is the cavalry detachment from the "16th Mynvody Lancers"

Horses from GW, body from "Curious Constructs", legs and arms from Victoria Miniatures. 
I'll have to do a little GS work on the horse and the arms but all in all it's pretty good match.  I've heard such wonderful things about GW Liquid GS over the last few months I guess I have a reason to try it out now. 

7th Scansin Regiment of Foot

So I've decided to break down and do something a little bit different for my 4th Platoon.  I'm going to combine bits from GW's Cadian, Victoria Miniatures, Max Mini, and Curious Constructs to create the "7th Sconscin Regiment of Foot".  Expect to see more ideas and such soon. Including my ideas or heavy weapons and photo montage for how I expect my army to look.

Th pic above is just a quick idea of how expect them to look.  The idea was better in my head, but I will definitely have to get a deeper blue, and change he red leg strip to something else.

Princeps on Foot

I picked this model up at Games Day Germany a few years back (2 I think) and have had him sitting around since then.  I tried painting him once before but just couldn't get him the way I wanted.  Recently though, I started scratch building a Warhound titan seen here. Canis Vulpis She's still a work in progress, and one I hope to get back to real soon, but while painting her I decided to give this guy another go.

I tried doing him up in the colors of the Legio Astraman.  In game I have no idea what I'll use him as... maybe an adviser of some sort, we'll see what comes to mind.  Once the Titan itself is done, he'll prolly go on the base.

Vet. Sgt. Kris Knebel (Pask)

So I waited how many months until GW released it's Knight Commander Pask model only to be sorely disappointed.  That said, I decided to do my own with the results posted above, I'll leave the copula of my next Russ unglued so that I can swap out Pask as warranted.

A 12 year veteran of the 73rd Armoured Regiment Vet. Sgt. Knebel has 168 confirmed kills, more than any other tanker assigned to the 73rd or those in the battle for Arcturus. Although a lowly trooper Sgt. Knebel is highly regarded by his superiors for his skill and dedication in destroying the enemy. He has worked his way up from the ranks filling ever position from driver, to loader and gunner; if not for his renegade streak, Knebel would have received a field promotion to the officer ranks many times over. Instead he is content to command the Leman Russ "Tigers Eye"

Astropath Finished

Well I didn't think I would have the chance to get this guy finished, what with all my time going to the Imperial Fist that I'm working on, but at some point you have to wait for paint to dry.  He's by far not my best work, but I really wanted to try out some shading on his robes, and I don't think they came out to bad.

You know, that I'm looking at this pic, I realize the rim of the base needs a bit more lovin...  I guess he's not done after all....

IG Astropath

After reading about the success's and usefulness of the Astropath in various IG armies, I've decided to try on out.  The initial painting results can be seen above.  I've also decided to try out a few of the highlighting tips I've read about, combining various washes and layers.  So far I can say that although time consuming, especially when working on only one model at a time, I like the results.   So far I've used Regal blue, and wash of Devlan Mud, followed up by another highlight of Regal blue, and Ultramarine blue.  I'm wavering on the thought of using Ice blue as well.  (these are the only blues I have at the moment)

Next up I plan on working on the wooden staff, and I recently saw a nice tutorial in one of the WD's that I thought I could modify to use the colors I have at hand.  We'll see how those go, and show the results in my next post.

Marshal Argos and Body Guards

 

Here's my IG General "Marshal Argos" and his bodyguard.  In game terms he counts as Creed and the two bodyguards are... well bodyguards.  He's been shown here before so the focus isn't really on him, but the guy on the right.  He's finally finished, after 2 years and umpteen different weapon arms he is finally staying exactly as you see him below.

  

He's depicted the carrying the combat banner for Battle Group 82, newly formed under the command of Marshal Argos.  Eventually I want to do up a spiffier one looking more like a display banner but that will probably be done after another year or two of kicking around ideas in my head.

Hvy Wpn Squad completed

Just to show that I'm actually making progress... and to give myself a kick in the arse to get back to painting.  Here is my finished heavy weapon squad.  We had company the past week so my hobby time was non existent.

The bases are pretty crappy, but I needed these guys done by tomorrow so I just threw them onto whatever I had lying around.  I've also almost completed the Stormtrooper Sgt. from last post.  He took a little longer than I had planned because I removed the power weapon and replaced it with a power fist.

Marshal Argos (Part 3)

Here he is finished... There's not much I can say about him other than the fact that I really like the way he came out. The more I look at him the more he reminds me of a Napoleonic era General. I'll try to get some close ups done here soon if anyone is interested. Now I just have to get on and finish his bodyguards...

Oh, and seeing that yesterday was the birthday, my wife got me this....

I think she got tired of me leaving models all over our office and house.

Psyker/Astropath

Well here's the finished Psyker or Astropath. For the time being he is tasked out to the Imperial Guard as I search for the missing parts of my Inquisitor and his warband. I don't think think he is exactly great but he meets the table top standard and that is the most important part of painting for me.

Ok, so maybe TT standards isn't exactly the most important, but I believe that if a mini hits the table it needs to be painted. Hence the reason it's taken my 4 years to build up my current IG army, and the 1k or so points of unfinished models waiting to be painted. Heck, I've had my Black Templars army since the '98 and still have models that haven't been used because I don't feel the paint job on them meets "MY" table top standard.

Next up: I finished Marshal Argos*

* that means sometime in the next 7 days I'll post the pics...

Marshal Argos (Part 2)

Well I had a couple of hours today to do some painting, and below are the results. The pics didn't turn out as well as I wanted them though and to be honest I don't have the time now to go back and retake them. Here's hoping to good weather tomorrow so I can get new photos.

So seeing that I was unable to decide where to go with the colors I started digging around old photographs and painting of Russian generals in the 1800's. The paint job so far is where it has lead me.

The white pants need to redone... My white was a little thicker than I wanted so it's been thinned out now and I'll finish that part later. The face and hands only have base colors, and I still need to go in and shade a few of the ribbon/jewels on his uniform. The base is only temporary until I decide how I want to base him for good.

Hope you guys like 'em...

Marshal Argos (Part 1)

Well with GW releasing the new Advisors a while ago, I just new that I wanted to turn the Navel Attache into my new Marshal. Now I'll finally have a Mini to represent Marshal Argos on the table top. Eventually I plan on creating an entire HQ to go along with him but for now I'm happy with how he's progressing...

The first step was to remove the Aquila and misc item from the tunic, I really liked this model as it was and didn't want to change to much. About the only thing that I wish I could have done was shorten the tunic just a little bit, but that would take way to long, and besides, my skills are not that great.

So from top to bottom, I added a little bit of a side burn just to give his face a different look. Next up was adding the sash and was probably the easiest as It's just a long flat strip of green stuff . After the sash was added on I went in and did the Epualettes using this Tutorial by Col. Gravis. I have to admit following that Tut was one of the easiest things I've done in a long time and it was absolutely easy to do. In the end I think they look great and give him just look he needed to show that he was going to be my Marshal.

After that it was just a matter of adding a few awards and decorations and he was done. I think the hardest part is going to be deciding on what colors to paint him up in. I've been thinking about dark blues almost like the old Napoleonic uniforms. The thing is though is that I need to have a colors that look good on him and yet still fit in with the rest of his command squad later whenever I get around to doing them.

*** Oh, and there won't be any update to the Inquistor from the last post because I seem to have mis-placed him while cleaning up my desk last week....

FAO Finished, Inquisitor started...

Well I finally got around to basing my FAO this weekend. With that process done "Maj. Niven" of the 73rd Armored Regiment is finished. Now I just have to wait until the glue on the base dries and he'll be spirited off into the black case of stagnant death, otherwise known as my carrying case. So named because I haven't had a game in almost a month (more on that in a later post), but enough of that lets move on to the pictures.

All things considered I didn't really spent a lot of time on this guy. He's not my General, nor a major leader in my army. In fact I'm not really sure if I'll use him outside of Apoc games.

I like this model, but don't like the rules for him, last edition I had a model painted up in the 73rd's colors in my HQ as well, but only for fluff reasons as an Armored Liaison officer. Maybe I'll continue to do the same thing now. Ah yes, the famous 73rd Unit markings on his shoulder.

And his fancy dancy radio.

Ooooohhh... Aaaaahhhhhh.... That's right, here's my Inquisitor and he's blue. I always liked the artwork of Inquisitor Hand, so I used it as inspiration for this guy. He doesn't have a name yet, nor is he finished, the bolter and missing hand/book both need to be finished.

and his trusty sidekick the Astropath/Psyker/Mystic dude. This guy will change roles about as often as we change the TP, depending on which army he's in. My goal is to build a DH and WH warband, where he will be one of the Inquisitorial Henchmen, and in my IG army he'll either be my Astropath or Primaris Psyker. For some reason "Bob" sounds a like a good name, doesn't he look like a Bob to you?

FAO Update

Well it's been a busy week, between school and looking for a new job there just hasn't been enough time to get all the painting done that I wanted. But I added the radio set to him and did a little bit of touch up painting this morning. I hope to get another couple of hours in tonight to finish him up along with my as yet un-photographed psyker. The psyker by the way will be a part of my upcoming Inquisitorial allies.

I'll get more photo's up either later today or tomorrow. Comments are (as always) welcome but by no means required.

The (late) start of a new week

Well after sitting on my arse the last few weeks thinking about what I should do next I finally decided to start up on my "Artillery Spotter" or Master of Ordnance. There's still a long way to go but for only an hours work I'm happy with em. There's nothing special about the paint job really the skin is a thinned Elf Flesh, with a thinned out "Brown Ink" , followed up by highlighting again with Elf Flesh. I haven't decided yet if how I'll highlight the uniform... we'll see what kind of crazy idea I get when the time comes.

Next up is the Command Squad for 4th Platoon, Fox Company, 327 Fantoma Infantry Rgt. My IG force is almost a full Company as it is right now, but I've always wanted separate troopers to go with the Chimera's. This Platoon will be next next and will be my Armored Fist platoon. Once they're done, I'll have to go back and repaint the chimeras so that they match...

As you can see they are also a WIP both in putting them together and in painting. The two on the left still have to have their heads removed and replaced so I'm sure i'll have to touch up some of the paint job as well. That's the first thing on the to-do list tomorrow, before I do anymore work. Here's hoping to an update in the next day or so.

5th Ed. IG and my thoughts.

So I sat down for a night of reading and studying...  The IG codex that is.   In this post I am only going to tell you about my first impressions, my "gut reactions" so to speak.  Let me preface this post with saying I have done my best to stay out of all the rumor threads flying around as I didn't want to be jaded prior to actually getting my hands on a codex.  So there may be things here that you have known about for months but I just learned last night.

Yes, I have a knot in my stomach.  It's bad, and good.  I'm not sure yet which is better.  Most of the things that get me are minor, and things I've expected for a long time.   Two small things are that my Sgts all loose the option for bolters or lasguns, the must have Pistols and CCW's and the Hvy Wpn team is a armed with a single weapon.  Meaning that the loader is truly a loader now and may not fire a 2nd wpn.  Not really life changing but these two bother me.    In the first I like to model my Sgts with Bolters or Lasguns, it's just one more long range shot in the squad.  In the 2nd if you put a Hvy Wep team in an Inf squad you loose that Lasgun shot from the loader as well...

The 2nd biggest thing that got was how the Vox Network is going to work and the overall loss in Leadership.  Officers no longer have the "Leadership" special rule, instead they can issue orders either 12" for the Company HQ Officer or 6" for the Plt.  SIX inches?  Common that really gets under my skin, and the fact that you can't extend the range with a Vox network...   Vox only allows re-roll of orders that's it, nothing more so you still have be within in 6 or 12 inches.   Even if a squad is within the above distances they are still stuck with the Sgt's leadership of 8.  Ok, that's still better than the 7 before but is still lower than the 9    IMHO this really turn's IG into a gun line.   The PLT HQ is gonna have to be Johnny on the spot trying to stay in range to issue orders.   Planning ahead is going to be BIG to insure that the HQ is in command aura distance.

One more thing that I'm going to have to wrap my head around is the vehicle squadron rules...  Squadrons have to fire at the same unit.  So if I have 3 LR's I can use them in seperate FO's and fire on 3 units using all their wpns (I Love the new Lumbering Behemoth rule) or I can 6 in squadrons of two and still only fire on 3 units or 9 in squadrons of 3 and STILL only fire on 3.  Now in the last case I'm pretty sure that 3 LR's fully decked out will pound an enemy unit.  But the fact that they all have to fire together just rubs me the wrong way.

Oh, and I had been hoping that with the addition of all the Special Characters they would act somewhat like the SM ones.  Where for example by choosing a special character you can "unlock" certain units, now I had read a that was only a pipe dream, but it was still a dream, and shall remain a "dream".

And lastly and these are purely personal issue's.  I'm going to have to remodel my Chimera's to add the Hvy Bolters because they are now standard kit.  There's no way I can afford enough Valkyrie's to keep my army an Drop Troop army.

So I'm sorry for only putting negative waves in this post, my 2nd post on this subject is going to be what I LOVE in the new 'dex:   Arty Batteries, Mortors as standard for Hvy Wep teams, 6x Veteran squads as troops, Special Characters and my thoughts on the future.

Finished Banner

Well I finished the banner yesterday and after posting it up on a few boards I got the question on how I made it so I'll just give a quick run down of the process. Maybe it will help others who are looking at doing the same sort of thing. Ron over at FtW has done a something along these lines as well using cardstock (his post is HERE). That's something I did for all my BT Banners years ago and can't agree with more. The difference this time is that I had a banner from Warhammer Fantasy that I wanted to use so I had to draw it on the banner before painting.

The first thing I did is drew up so rough drafts to get an idea of what I wanted to do. After deciding on the layout, I carefully copied the drawing with a pencil onto the banner. The trick is patience, and a steady hand. Don't be afraid to go back and paint over mistakes to get it right. Once the outline is drawn on just paint in between the lines to get the final banner. For the lettering, I drew two lines, much like the paper you use when your learning to write, one above and one below. Then carefully painted the letters between the lines, when done I just went back and painted over the lines with the background color. The finished product can be seen below...

Things to come

Well with the coming of a new codex I thought I would make a few addition to my guard. The first is going to be a new Regimental Banner, as seen below. I'm not done with the back but I plan on putting the names of the cities I've played in sort of like battle honors. So far I can add Waukesha WI, Fayetteville NC, Baltimore MD, Baghdad, Frankfurt DE, and Bielefeld DE. I started doing this a few years ago, but the old banner is just to small to write it out. Hence the new banner. OH, and an internet cookie to who ever knows what the motto means....

And here's the first three mini's from my Mech Infantry Platoon. 6th Plt, 3rd Rifles, 73rd Armored Rgt. What you see in the pic is the Plt Ldr, a Sgt, and a normal trooper. They are still WIP as you can see from the pic but wanted to give everyone an idea as to what I'll be working on next.

Oh, and before anyone says or even thinks "95th Rifles" or "Sharpe" I have something to say. My inspiration for these came from 3rd ACR "Brave Rifles" and "2nd Light Bn. Kings German Legion", and was something I had working on the back burner for about a year now. I didn't even know about the Sharpe series until a few days ago when I saw this blog "Mordian 95th Rifles" and had to go find out what it is. That said, I've seen the parts of the first episode and it's not that bad. If I had known about the 95th and the Sharpe movies prior to coming up with my ideas for fluff for these guys or the paint scheme are anything else I prolly would have gone in an entire different direction.

Anyways, comments and criticism are always welcome.

313th Officers

Pictured below is my Regt Co. Col. Pallidar flanked by Delta Co. Commander followed by his Plt. Ldr's I have not yet found names for the Company Commander or his Plt Leaders but eventually I will.

Close up

The heads like the heads on the rest of my army are from West Wind Productions. I used a dremel to remove the original heads and glued these in, pretty much a simple head swap. I wanted to do something to really set the officers out as different from the joe's so I gave the dark blue beret's with the feather. I think they came out looking good, but we'll see what everyone else thinks when the next time I bring them out to play.