Dark Angels - Deathwing Knights and Terminators - Bone highlights

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity and a happy new year to you all! I've been #PaintingWarhammer on my Deathwing. I last worked on these 'properly' in July, before that I'd started them in February last year! Of course, they're now all being updated with new bigger Terminators, but much smaller maces.

I still prefer these in design. Hopefully, when I do get round to making the new terminators if I just glue them to the base, no bits of slate, the scale difference might not be too noticeable.

So this is the first set of Skelton Bone highlights, the most laborious and tedious aspect of the painting and it's not even 25% of the tasks I have to do! But it feels great to have got them past this point. 

There are so many bits that still need doing, but nothing as demoralising as this set of highlights. It's all the detail bits and some might be fiddly [especially those banners] but they will make interesting challenges.

It's just getting the bone done then it's the greens, reds, greys and blessed verdigris and everything else is just detail work.

And that bit is really fun, because all the embellishments, like the eye lenses, blade effects, plasma glow and tribal markings just make the figures so much more interesting.

It's the personality that I'm adding and once these are all done I'll be satisfied with my Hobby Season, whatever else may come.

Dark Angels - Deathwing Knights and Terminators - Shades and metals

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #PaintingWarhammer on my Deathwing Knights and Terminators. Another peak behind the curtain - this was February!

Whether it was just finding time to blog or too busy doing other things but I threw on all the usual shades and metals here while I was working on my Haemotrope Reactor and Halfling Blood Bowl star players.

This usually becomes a 'save point' anyway - get the metallics done and then it's the bone highlights. 

I don't mind doing the blending for the highlights but it is laborious and takes a lot of time so I didn't want to start down that road when i had other projects I wanted to tick off.

I still think I have enough time to do them but I wanted the quicker wins before I tackle them in earnest. 

I think there was just the final brassy bronze highlight to do at this stage, which was just put off for ages but I did it eventually.

Last time I did Knights Army Painter Soft Tone was too dark and it put me off progressing with them for so long.

This time Army Painter Angel Green had a similar effect. I mean just look at that coverage! Maybe I didn't shake it enough, I need one of those vortex mixers. But this looks almost like Contrast and therein lies my issue with contrast.

When you've been told for years that multiple thin coats for good coverage is the way to go a paint that actively shows the undercoat, but tinted to create a highlight still feels like poor coverage to me.

The irony being - I never do multiple thin coats for good coverage. I either do one coat so I get an uneven coverage and see my undercoat [yes, the exact negative issue I have with Contrast, but somehow it's a positive when I do it] as texture, or I do a thick coat and damn the consequences.

Anyway, a second coat made it a bit better but it was the Dark Tone wash that actually made it look like it was Dark Angels green in the end. So, when I get some other little projects out of the way I am good to go for these. Definitely the Knights will be finished before the end of the season and hopefully the rest of them too. I've just checked back to my previous Knights and it takes 40-60 minutes to do that first bone highlight so I have some clue how long it'll take to do now... maybe not so definite now!

#BattleReport - 1,000pts Imperial Knights v Tyranids

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been playing TENTH! #New40k Despite having a backlog of #MESBG and #Turnip28 [not] battle reports to record I thought I'd do this while it was fresh in my mind. Leviathan is due today, with my rulebook, but Otty, Ben, Liam and I decided to give TENTH a crack. Naturally, nobody had printed the Core Rules, or Quickstart Guide and only one of us had their Index rules and datacards printed out. I'll leave you to draw your own conclusion as to who had prepared in some way...

Anyway, Ben had prepared a list of Otty to use his nids - Old One Eye, a Carnifex, 10 Hormagaunts, 10 Termagants, 2 broods of Warriors [1 ranged, 1 melee], Hive Guard, Zoanthropes, Trygon, 5 Genestealers. I had a knight Preceptor with Unyielding Paragon [reduces AP by 1] and Stormspear Rocket Pod, 2 Helverins and 2 Warglaives. If I'm honest I thought Otty was at a distinct disadvantage - lots of little bugs with weak weapons and talons - how could they possibly effect the towering Imperial Knights... Otty got first go, and straight out of the gate the Genestealers scouted forward 8".

Which meant they had an easy first turn charge into one of my Warglaives. Otty had chosen Hyper-Aggression as his Hyper-Adaptation which meant every creature had [LETHAL-HITS] on vehicles/monsters. That means even the littlest bug, a roll of a 6 and it auto-wounds! Oh dear...

I was very lucky though and did some amazing saves with limited wounds across my knights. My Warlgaive managed to kill  just two of the Genestealers, which was underwhelming.

Otty had pushed forward and the Ranged Warrior's were slightly exposed and the Hive Guard with Shock Cannons, although taking some cover were now within range of more guns.

Shots from the top Warglaive, Helverin and Preceptor managed to wipe out the Ranged Warriors and one Hive Guard went down. I think the other Warglaive managed to squish the Genestealers.

I'd made a better impact, but now I had Hormagaunts swamping the other Helverin and OOE+Carnifex needed a 11" charge to get the freed-up Warglaive - Otty rolled a 6 and 1, CP re-rolled the 1 and got a 6 and managed to wipe out the Warglaive. I got to attack back before dying with a stratagem and dished out soem wounds but not enough to make a difference. Meanwhile, my Helverin stomped on a few Hormagaunts. On the far side [out of shot] the other Warglaive took a wound from 5 shots in range of the Devgaunts. Then the Zoanthropes blasted it to pieces dealing the exact amount of damage it had left. That lucky Termagant had saved the day for Otty!

Naturally we were getting all sorts of rules wrong, we weren't both receiving CPs in the command phase, just the person who's turn it was. So I was running out of CPs every turn and we hadn't worked out that vehicles could shoot in and out of combat [for -1 to hit]. As it was I tried the best with my shooting and ended up needing a reroll on the Preceptor to do decent damage on the Carnifex. Then I charged and immediately remembered the plan was to Tank Shock them and roll 14 dice with the potential for six 6's. But I'd spent my CP

As it was the Reaper took out the Carnifex and did a few wounds on OOE, but he regenerated most of them. And then the Trygon burrowed up and charged the Knight from behind.

The Melee Warriors managed to link up with the Hormagaunts and inflict even more damage on the Helverin but I was very lucky with saves and Feel No Pain. Lastly I was swinging at Old One Eye and managed to get 3 hits on him, 3+ to wound...

Unbelievable! There wasn't much I could do after this. 

The Preceptor got smashed by the monsters. I think both Warriors got killed, by the remaining Helverin Autocannons but the Prime survived and the Armiger in combat could only stomp on 2 of the remaining Hormagaunts. We called it as I had little chance at this stage and it was late. 

So, what do I think? I liked the game, just enough rules and complexity, but I hated not having the physical book, or even the Quick Start. It was a nightmare trying to use the app for both Otty's army and the Core Rule .pdf, while also taking pictures. 1000pts feels like as good size while we find our feet. Hopefully, when we're all on board with the rules and familiar with them it'll feel easier but even with this streamlining there were still times where explaining the rules felt just really hard - in direct contrast to Turnip28 and Bolt Action. But we'll keep at it. We all had fun and both factions, that on paper looked great [my Knights and Ben's Astra Militarum] were beaten by the weaker Tyranids and the much smaller but elite heavy World Eaters. Surprising lessons learned for next time. Now to await Leviathan and build some bugs...

Yes, I was the one prepared[ish]

Dark Angels - Deathwing Knights and Terminators - base and prime TO DONE!

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #PaintingWarhammer on my Deathwing Terminators, here they are all primed with Halfords Red Oxide Primer.

Then Army Painter Skeleton Bone, with a slight zenithal highlight to keep some of that red oxide underpaint. The sepia wash will help eventually help blend it together.

Meanwhile, I had another Terminator body, legs but no Thunder Hammer and Stormshield, or at least not a Dark Angel one. I did have Space Wolf shield and hammer, so I took a Dark Angel upgrade symbols and bent it with pliers across the wings [you can see the white sterss points]. I then shaved the front of the shield.

I then glued it and held it in place with crocodile clips.

Which gave me this fella.

Based, with sand and slate.

A better shot of the Storm Shield, and while the Thunder Hammer still has a Space Wolf skull on it I'm hoping it won't be too apparent when it's painted.

 Great Big Big Build RUSTY Stamp of Approval for the build.

I then primed and based the terminator.

As well as all the other terminators, which I haven't taken pictures of but they look like this.

Which gets me a Great Big Big Build BASE RUSTY Stamp of Approval. 

Dark Angels - Ravenwing Black Knights and bikes - White pics

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #PaintingWarhammer on my remaining #Ravenwing Black Knights and bikes. Obligatory white backdrop pics.

Black Knights

I think if I was ever going to play my Dark Angels I probably would want to run a Ravenwing forces

I do like the bikes but even with all this effort I probably still don't have enough

Molten lava sword

I mean it's alright and it shares the colour of the Plasma Talons rather than adding fancy blue power weapon colours into the mix.

Moar close-ups of his blade.

2nd Black Knight

Radar screen.

3rd Black Knight

The shoulder pad was from the Dark Angel Veteran sprue, which certainly made it easier to add the company number underneath it.

I'm not sure if my highlights have improved. I just think I've become more tolerant of the brush strokes I make. 

Happy just to put enough on there to define what I want and then move on.

And the last 2 bikers

Together with their other brother. 

Sergeant

I wanted some Chainsword wielding bikers for this squad as I think they're a fair bit better than they used to be, but what do I know?