Speed Demons and Anarchist Skeletons

Well, today not only did I get my Kickstarted copy of Lo! Thy Dread Empire: The Skeleton War Against The Death Cult Of Capitalism by Tanya Floaker with art by Julia Nevalainen but I finished the Outriders and ATV for the Raptors army. Hurray!

Yes, those are anarchist skeletons

Lo! Thy Dread Empire is a narrative wargame that doesn't require miniatures, and is written by an anarchist trans woman. The system is really interesting - I need to have a thorough read through but if you'd like to have a look yourself it's all available for free here: Lo! Thy Dread Empire.

And now here's the Raptors:

Demi-squad size element of Squad 8, 5th Battle Company, Raptors Chapter

Rear left view showing front of the multi-melta

Rear right view showing rear of the multi-melta

The weapons are swappable, which is nice.

Squad Leader with heavy bolt pistol and mohawk

Detail of the screen and chainsword

Outrider pointing with chainsword

Screen detail and purity seal

Outrider making a slashing attack with chainsword

Screen detail again

Obviously they're missing their chapter emblems because I'm still trying to source Raptor transfers - but to all intents and purposes, they're done! Hurrah! 

Painting Points:
Today: 11 (ATV - 5, Outriders - 2 each)
This Week: 28
2024: 143 (285)

Stumbling Over The Finish Line

Well, I did it - I finshed the Dreadnought, the Firestrike Platform, and the Incursors. Well, almost - I still have to locate two decals for the Sergeant and Squad Leader, but shush. They're done enough.

Ballistus Dreadnought Xena, 5th (Battle) Company, Raptors

Raptor Chapter badge in white on olive green plate

The Cult Mechanicus is present everywhere, even here

Tactical purity seals

The Dreadnought in particular looks pretty nice.

Firestrike platform from the Chapter Armoury with Techmarine gunner

Note the black disc behind the chapter emblem, denoting a senior command rank

Low-vis Cult Mechanicus emblem on the power pack

I like how the dull red stands out against the greys, black, and metal

And, of course, the Incursors:

First demi-squad, 3rd Squad, 5th Company Raptors - central figure is the Sergeant, to the right is a medicae specialist

The orange grenades are smoke/blind grenades

Second demi-squad, 3rd Squad, 5th Company Raptors. Central figure is the Squad Leader

The blue smoke is coloured because it contains a mix of chaff and chemicals designed to defeat thermal imaging as well as augmented and unaugmented vision

But, of course, I still have a few more Raptors to do, so I got straight on with the ATV and Outriders, which currently look like this:

I made the decision to paint the bikes and ATV in a darker grey and leave them uncamouflaged, as their main defence is speed - unlike the Dreadnoughts which are slow and benefit from the zig-zag dazzle camouflage! It also means the riders stand out a bit more (and will hopefully do so more when I get their camouflage pattern done too. I messed around with the painting guide steps a bit too, as the metals are strictly speaking supposed to be done after the camo pattern, but the nature of the models means the base work needed doing first.

Painting Points:
Today: 17  (Dreadnought - 5, Firestrike - 2)
This Week: 17
2024: 132 (274)

The Finish Line Approaches

I'm so close to getting these Marines done. The Dreadnought just needs the base doing and matt varnish over the decal, that sort of thing. Frustratingly I have run out of Raptors decals! I need one small white Raptor head, and two medium black Raptor heads for this lot, plus - thinking ahead - four medium white and one more medium black for the Outriders and ATV. Grrr. I'll ask in the club discord; I'm sure there's enough 40K players who'll have some kicking around somewhere.

Anyway today I smashed through the following steps:

Step 5 - base coat on all purity seals

Step 6 - all the metallics - mostly guns and backpack vents

Step 7 - all the lenses and highlight on the purity seals

It should be noted that it was at this point I also painted all the grenades. Krak grenades were done in Khorne Red, smoke in Trollslayer Orange, and frag in Warboss Green.

Step 8 - liberal coat of Nuln Oil over everything

Step 9 - parchment on all purity seals painted in what I still think of as Snakebite Leather, but is now known as XV-88

Step 10 - gloss varnish over all lenses, and anywhere a decal needs to go

Step 11 - highlight all purity seals with Ushabti Bone (again, I still think of this as Bleached Bone)

Step 12 - using a black (I actually used Contrast Black Legion this time), paint on any markings you like, such as Squad, Company, and Chapter badges, not forgetting to put text squiggles on the purity seals

After that last step, because I'm using decals, I applied some. At this point, it all looks a bit like this:

Things not covered by the step-by-step guide include the smoke from the smoke grenade (white, followed by a coat of Contrast Asurmen Blue), the wrist panel screens (Caliban Green with Yriel Yellow details finished with a coat of Gloss Varnish) and base clutter, which has been done on the fly. There's also a couple of bits of bone, which were painted with a coat of white, a wash of Flesh Wash, and some detailing with Ushabti Bone. Oh, and the skin is Rhinox Hide with highlights in Mournfang Brown.

A quick aside! Almost all my Space Marines (of all types) who have bare heads have dark skintones, because of the Melanchromic Organ, which controls the amount of melanin in their skin and protects against some radiation. This means that the brighter the sunlight they're exposed to, the darker their skin... and honestly some of them are just dark skinned in the first place. 

Anyway, the finish line is in sight for this lot so I hope to have them done tomorrow and, if I'm lucky, to have the remaining decals for them as well.

Raptors On The Go

 I don't know what it is about these minis but doing them is going so slowly. Anyway I have completed the next step - application of black over all the relevant parts, such as undersuit, screens, insignia, weapons:

Step 4 - pouches, pipes, anything that's going to be metal, insignia, etc

Which has meant that they're actually looking quite a bit closer to done, at least when looked at from a distance!

The next few steps should be a lot faster - things like purity seals, metallics, etc. I'm off to a punk gig tomorrow night so I'm hoping to get quite a bit done on them tomorrow. Let's see how that one goes, eh?

Camouflaging Continues

This feels very much like a looooong process, but it's mostly just because I've not managed to sit down for a full day to really "lock in" as the youth of today would say. However, despite not getting any painting done at all yesterday I have now finished the base of the camouflage pattern on the Marines I've got in front of me.

Step 3 - add darker tones to the pale stripes. I use Skavenblight Dinge now my Charadon Granite is gone.

The current situation is this:

Camouflage scheme base complete

So the next step is to paint all the webbing, chest insgnia, under-armour, cabling, and anything that needs to be metal black. That's probably the next most tedious element of this scheme honestly - after that it's mostly little details like grenades, lenses, and so on.

I'd like to say I can get these done before the end of the weekend but honestly I'm sceptical...

Camouflaging A Space Marine...

...step one (and two)! 

A few years ago when I first started painting my Primaris Marines, I quite deliberately decided to paint them in camouflage as I felt that the quite stripped-back, plain, high-speed look of the then-new models lent themselves well to the idea of the Space Marine as elite special forces type. And, in a fit of incredible foresight, I actually took photos of the process:

1: After undercoating in black, liberal coat of Codex Grey (now Dawnstone) all over

2: Apply jagged interlocking stripes across the surface of the mini to taste - currently I'm using Celestra Grey but have also considered using Administratum Grey

That's about as far as I've got with the Incursors that I'm doing at the moment - or at least, on half of them. The initial step 2 is quite time-consuming and a bit tedious, so I broke it up by jumping ahead a little on the Dreadnought and Firestrike platform by doing their camouflage pattern using Skavenblight Dinge edged in Celestra Grey:

Note that the closest five Incursors are yet to get the first element of the camo applied, and all have Loren Forest left shoulder pauldrons, while the Techmarine has a Khorne Red right pauldron and helm

The whole process is about 14 steps, and it isn't complex, just a little dull in places when you're batch-painting. I'm quite tempted to do the Outriders' motorbikes and ATV in Loren Forest rather than the zig-zag camo applied to the Dreadnoughts and the armour plate on the Firestrike. I'd probably have been able to get the second step done on all the Incursors today if I hadn't become bored by the process, so hopefully I'll be able to crank that out and at least step three as well tomorrow.

Oops, A New Focus

Well, sort of new. I didn't get quite as much done as I wanted to today, but I did at least complete step 1 of my 14(?) step process for painting Palmyrene Spears Raptors on most of the remaining miniatures I have for the Raptor force:

 That's 10 Incursors, the Firestrike platform, and the Ballistus Dreadnought. I still have the Outriders and ATV to do, but I'm not touching them until these are done. And then it'll be back to the Kataphraktoi. The next step on these is to do the camouflage, which will be slightly different on the platform and dread than on the infantry and the Techmarine gunner. Hopefully there'll be more progress tomorrow!

Here Ends The First Part

I have now rebadged all my existing painted Palmyrene Spears. I have yet to paint 10 Incursors, 3 Outriders, 1 ATV, 1 Ballistus Dreadnought and 1 Firestorm platform. I've made a start on the Dreadnought and the Firestorm, because I just can't help myself apparently. Anyway, here's some more Raptors:

Lieutenants - power swords and bolt pistols. I really like the one drawing her sword - I converted it slightly; it's a special edition from a Hachette Partworks series (Imperium, I think) and originally came with an Ultramarine sword which I swapped out.

Captains - Gravis armour from the original Dark Imperium set (again via a Hachette partwork) and standard Mk X armour on the right. I removed a lot of the bling from the Gravis model to make it less Knightly and more Tacticool.

Apothecary! I swapped the hand that was looking at a progenoid gland for a chainsword, because I thought that looked better. I also painted up the dead Marine as a Word Bearer...

...which I'm still very proud of; that insignia is freehand. A nice contrast between the rubble and the camouflage on the one hand and the deep red and silver of the Word Bearer on the other.

Incursors - these troops drop into battle from low orbit, so I gave them space helmet visors, because of course they'd have something like that. They're made from carefully cut-up and carved to shape spare Space Marine pauldrons! I left the sergeant's one "up" to reveal the head, because doing it was a pain and I wanted to differentiate the sergeant from the others a bit more.

So that's the whole currently painted force of Primaris redone, next up is either Kataphraktoi or more Raptors; I'll see what I have the most keen for I guess!

Rebadging Continues Apace

Well, the LARP was great fun - it's always a hoot being my Sister of Battle. But now I'm back from SPAAAACE and so it's time to paint some Raptors! Or put the transfers on, and then do some varnishing...

Chaplain

Librarian

Techmarine

Advisors - these Marines are all attached to the 5th Company rather than integrally part of it

Aggressors - I actually like these bulky close assault troopers

Hellblaster squad - note the Mk VII helm on the squad leader

Hellblaster squad

I definitely need a better photography setup at some point reasonably soon.

Also, here's me as Sister Superior Humility, Order of His Sanguine Tears, seconded to Inquisitor Haslinger's retinue (Ordo Malleus), part of the Prosperitas Conclave:

I forgot the pins for my wimple, so it's not completely the full kit but it's most of it! Tomorrow, more Raptors. And who knows, I might even have a Mordheim battle report too!