June 2021 Modeling

June hobby work completed. 

• 10 Pulp minisOne Copplestone Castings archaeologist
• Four Dervishes from West Wind Miniatures
• Two Book Golems from Black Cat Bases
• One Professor Felicity Poppington from Statuesque Miniatures
• Two Reaper Bones monsters
• 30 Steel Legion
• Veteran squad with grenade launchers
• Veteran squad with plasma guns
• Squad #3 for 1st Platoon
• Necromunda modeling:Astropath/Navigator and psychic familiar
• 1 Jawa Skrunts/Scrunts
• 2 Adeptus Mechanicus agents
• Terrain
• 3 crate piles for Pulp Alley
• 2 40K objective markers
• 2 resin bunker entrances

March 2021 Modeling

March was a productive month for completing the paint jobs on a number of models.  Almost all had some degree of paint on them at the beginning of the month but they're done now and based so that's something.  No terrain this month.

42 models for 40K, Necromunda and Pulp Alley. 

Xenos Inquisitor Barrica Bloadh. Name generated from Realm of Plastic Inquisitor Name Generator

Underhive fauna, three hive scum and void born pilot on the left for Necromunda.

Two kids for Pulp Alley games, six Ministorum priests, an Ad Mech Van Saar gang lookout and Barrica hiding in the back.

A Week of Doing Little

A week of intensive painting effort, for me, has been followed up by a typical hobby week.  Minimal modeling, some basing work to see if doing it before painting makes the process go any better or easier and a smattering of base coating on long primed models.

Basing on the remainder of the Steel Legion platoon and company command squad was completed last weekend with mixed results.  Watered down glue doesn't seem to hold the modeling grit I've been using on their bases when initially applied.  Coming back with a second coat to seal the grit to the base was equally uninspiring with clumps coming off the base to stick to the brush.  Put my first tufts onto a few bases as well as painting all of the base rims black.  Now I need to clean up the feet of the models that have grit on them and paint them.

I did paint the trousers of the unpainted models and added a wash to the bases of the painted models.

Base coat colors were applied to several of the Mechanicus drone or hovering special weapon servitors I've converted weeks or months ago.  Second heavy bolter drone has been built from bits that have sat on my hobby desk for a long time.  I think they were intended to be the gun portion of heavy weapon teams for a tech guard IG army or some such thing.  They'd be accompanied by an ammo servitor on the 60mm base.

I was never brave enough to buy the previous version of the penitent engines due to all the horror stories I read or watched on Youtube about how difficult those models were to build and keep in one piece.  New versions are chock full of detail and allow you to build two units so I did a bit of reading and will build my initial models as Mortifiers and not normal penitent engines.  Don't really play 40K but might as well have some effective in game models if I do.

 I did come up with a plastic counts as penitent engine awhile back using Sentinel and Ork Killa Kan arms as part of a SOB counts as ally force for my Arbites.  Prisoners as arco flagellants and penitent engines along with other units to buff the main Arbites army using the Astra Militarum codex.

A Week of Painting

The excellent Youtube hobby channel Midwinter Minis just wrapped up a week long get some of your hobby pile painted challenge.  I probably managed to put in 15 hours or so over the course of seven days which is probably five times or more what I put toward painting in a given week. 

Started work from this starting picture dubbed the "Closet of Shame/Opportunity".

The challenge only allowed one starting photo and this seemed to capture my overall hobby approach/style.

I managed to get a decent bit of models moved a bit along the path from grey plastic to painted.  Others in the challenge painted multiple squads while my progress meant finishing the assembly of models that I had the bits for but were never finished along with priming said models.  I also used a brush to finish the priming on many models that had been hit with a grey or Zandri Dust primer, in the case of my Steel Legion models, so that they could actually be painted.

The only truly finished models in the picture are the three crates...another indicator of my hobby approach/style.

I did manage to finish painting the second squad for my Steel Legion platoon which brings me to 21 of 71 painted infantry models in the army picture below.

Next Steel Legion step is to finish the basing on the left hand side of the army and then the paint jobs on the 3rd infantry platoon, the platoon command squad and the company command squad.  After that will come the right hand side elite and heavy support units.  Looks like I'll need to find some of my Savlar Chem Dogs to get a second troop choice into the force.

Steel Legion Reinforcements

Some reinforcements for my Steel Legion force arrived this week from Victoria Miniatures.  One of their Kangaroo APC miniatures purchased as part of the excellent fund raiser they organized in January in response to the massive brush fires in Australia.  They also have an ever growing collection of wonderfully characterful miniatures that can be added, for free, to orders for each $50 US in the order.  I was able to pick up two of my favorites in the set along with a mortar battery on wheeled chassis that make more sense to me if I am going to model my Steel Legion force as mostly mobile infantry.

Dribs and drabs of painting done in the last week or so but not much progress on squad 2 of the Steel Legion blocking in the main colors.  I primed some models last weekend to give me options to paint when I tire of guardsmen but only a bit of paint put on two small models from those models.  I did look through another box of conversions and bits for warband models for Cardinal Vindrix and there are some potential entourage members I will try to organize into a unit under the old Agents of the Imperium codex.  I hope the Inquisition get a more robust set of rules building off the White Dwarf article at the end of 2019.

Cawdor gangers made from GSC, zombie and Frostgrave Cultist bodies.

Painting Progress, Inquisitor Axne and Cardinal Vindix

Getting close to finishing painting on my first squad of Steel Legion troops while starting the painting of squad #2.  11 out of 71 models with paint on them for the force.

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Minimal progress on painting has me looking at all of the in progress/built models that are visible in my hobby area and thinking about what to paint next.  One possibility is Inquisitor Axne built after seeing many interesting conversions from the easy to build Sequitor Stormcast models.  I'm working on some background for her and her Inquisitorial warband.  I see her as a positive, pragmatic force committed to both preserving and improving the Imperium.  It is a position that would, sadly, generate more enemies rather than fewer I suspect.

"An Escher ganger taken at age 10 in a Goliath raid, Axne was used as a test subject in Goliath growth stimulant experiments.  She escaped five years later having endured a litany of substances that left her standing well in excess of six feet tall with a strength to mass ratio the envy of many front line battle servitors. Alone in enemy territory, Axne then spent the next several years haunting the nearby territories as she collected resources and tried to determine how best to enact her revenge on the Goliaths. During that time she observed and eavesdropped on all manner of settings, people and transactions slowly developing an affinity for finding ideas and areas of worth."

Inquisitor Axne and acolytes recruited from her former Escher gang.

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If Inquisitor Axne is envisioned as a positive Inquisitorial force then Cardinal Vindix is quite the opposite.  He is a Ministorum Cardinal that will use Inquisitor rules if he ever takes the field.  Cruel and vindictive, his quest for Ministerial justice is always focused on maximizing fear and imposing his version of the Imperial Truth.  I assume his hood is made from the flayed skin of his opponents real and imagined.

Painting Progress and Conversion Chaos

Painting on the first squad of Steel Legion continues.  Weapon bodies painted black and helmets giving a coat of Castellan Green.  Both need a Nuln Oil wash and I've got at least one portion of a kneeling models coat to paint and wash since I somehow managed to miss it despite multiply passes over each model in the past week.  Lots of other details and clean up left, I'm sure, once I look closely at a given model.  Still it's progress.

The Steel Legion squad were occupying the corner of the mat holding the conversion pile I've been fiddling with the past week or so.  Ministorum agents, MicroArts mechanicus bodies, the one squad of new Scions I can't decide how to build...the list goes on and on.

Painting Steel Legion and Conversions

I have 70+ Steel Legion models plus a couple of Chimeras in my collection.  Mostly metal models but with some more recent additions from Mad Robot Miniatures for the heads and Anvil Industries for the rest of the models to round out units, model differently armed sergeants and even make a counts as set of Ratlings for the force.

Counts as Ratling snipers or a models for a Special Weapons or Veterans squad

I've never completed a 40K army in decades of buying and building.  This year I'm hoping to change that so I've started painting my Steel Legion and I'll take breaks to paint other models as I go.  After that there are many other 40K forces to work on.

Platoon 1 in progress paint job.

I also love to convert models and the counts as arco-flagellants and/or close combat servitors were made from Kromlech ork bits including their Mechanical Saw Arms.  I like that they are a bit beefier than other servitors I've bought or converted from ghouls or other models.