Blue-Green Shardwrack Spines

I bought some new Shardwrack Spines to go with a very specific game board recently. I have painted them up in the colours that should never be seen together (according to some): blue and green.

The undercoat here is citadel spray paint Corax white. On top of this, I base coated the upper parts of the spines in a second layer of white to give them a stronger and cleaner colour to work with. The lower parts were base coated in an off-white colour - more creamy. 

Leaving the upper parts alone, I daubed a combination of ultramarine blue, brown, electric blue, and pure white on the lower portions in a very haphazard manner. When dry, the lower reaches were then soaked in a generous layer of Nighthaunt Gloom. This is I think the first time that I have used any of the Gloom paint and I do like it. However, I like the other new paint I bought a lot more: Hexwraith Flame green. This goes on top of the pure white exceptionally well to create a truly unique vibe. Although most commonly used for ghostly miniatures, I wanted the upper parts of the spines to pop a bit more thanks to this colour. 

The next step was to use Skink Blue dry paint. This was applied to the central parts to create a better looking blend between the green and blue colours of the upper and lower halves. This choice works very well with both of the technical paints that I've used here and is a great complement to them. The final steps were to pick out the spots in bright green and paint the upper part of them in yellow as an accent.

Overall the result is an alien flavour flora that looks deadly and ethereal. However, the colour scheme was not originally going to be so alien. I was more after coral. I think the effect has worked regardless and I am very pleased with it. I will show the game mat for this terrain item in the future. 

Reaver Cockpit

A bit more painting on the interior of the Reaver: this time the cockpit interior. It follows the general aesthetic that I established on the servitor walls for the main interior: dark, broody, with a slightly retro vibe. The pulses in particular on the screens could almost be a vax display at some level!

Now, many painters usually go for a digitized view out of the front window for these displays. However, my logic here is that the Princeps already has that view afforded to him thanks to jacking in to the retinal and spinal connection ports. Hence there's no real need to have that screen in front of him. Similar arguments can be made for the Moderatii (to a lesser extent). Hence I thought that a neat idea might be to have a machine print out similar to a medical diagnostic machine. Perhaps they're relaying information about the peak power consumption? Every time a primary weapon fires, there's a pulse! Or maybe its like a windows style CPU usage readout? Either way, I kind of like the concept a bit more than having a viewport, hence I went with it. This idea is replicated on the right hand side, as well as on the lower left rectangular display just below the dials.

For the keyboards, I originally wanted to try to suggest that the keys had some kind of back-lighting to them. However, this did not go quite as I had envisioned. Regardless, I'm happy with the outcome here. Time to glue the Princeps in place soon!

Laser Blaster

Alongside the Reaver titan that is progressing very nicely now, I am simultaneously constructing its armaments as well. One of them will be a battle titan laser blaster -- basically a triple-barrelled laser gun the size of a tank. 

There are only eleven parts for this particular weapon, and most of them come in pleasingly large chunks of resin that is straight forward to put together once removed from the resin gates and shaved down. 

The image shows the final assembly for the laser blaster. There are two parts left over which can be seen on the sprue in the lower right of the picture. These parts will attach once the arm is put in place. However, I also need to decide whether the laser blaster will be the left arm or right arm for the titan before I can do that. I think it will be the left arm at the moment. The only (and weak?) logic behind this choice is that I want the titan to look like it has 1-2-3 barrels from the front going from left to right. i.e. a volcano cannon on its right arm (which is on the left when viewed face on), the carapace double-barrelled laser destructor on top, and this laser blaster on its left arm (viewed on the right face-on). I will have to see about that though as the striding legs might make me change my mind still. 

Assembled Alpha Legion Praetor Conversion

Following on from the unboxing of the newly released Alpha Legion Praetor in Cataphractii terminator armour, I have finally got this one assembled. 

Putting it together was relatively easy. The only snag was attaching the cape before anything else went on, and making sure that the cape slotted in to the right grooves in the back of the terminator armour. 

As can be seen in the images below, I have opted for a little conversion on the resin.

The addition of a warhammer fantasy or Age of Sigmar chaos sword is a significant development for me. Up until now, I have assembled the Alpha Legion under a few themes.

(1) Crusade era. Featuring the baseline weapons and everything else expected of the Legion in full fighting force during the glory era (or later parts of it at any rate).

(2) Early Heresy era. This is where I went slightly more themed around having some marines with the infamous mark V armour, and with more patchwork armour.

(3) Later Heresy era. Bereft of regular supply lines, I have converted a large number of marines to carry Eldar weapons that they have reversed engineered, as well as having scouts with Necron sniper weapons. They are making do in small cells basically. And possibly splintering from within thanks to the Alpha Legion civil war.

And now (4): Late Heresy and Scouring.

This is where some of their number start to turn to or generally explore chaos. Although they do not necessarily succumb in the slightest, the novel "Shroud of Night" serves as a bit of an inspiration here. The main character in that novel sports a chaos blade (daemon sword), although tries to master it rather than becoming the servant. 

The conversion clipped off the resin blade from the hand, and replaced it with a chaos weapon from the fantasy range. It was pinned in to place with a paperclip and glue and is sturdy enough. Whilst I still need to attend to the rest of the base, I'm hoping this marine will be a pleasure to paint up. Moreover, it serves as a bridge between 30k and 40k, and a miniature that I hope I can use in either game system. For the former, the blade will simply be a power weapon. For the latter, it can be used in a chaos space marines codex I think. Whilst I am tempted to convert up a few more not-quite-chaos-marines-yet Alpha Legion in the future, this will be the only one for a little while. 

More Reaver Interior Painting: Servitors

Continuing on a theme of painting things that will only rarely be seen, today a little progress post on the interior of the Reaver. 

These are the servitors that line the interior walls of the main (upper) part of the titan. Goodness knows what they are actually supposed to be controlling - the primary weapons perhaps? Not too sure to be honest. Their pose, sculpt, and aesthetic is positively grim and dark though. 

For the painting colour scheme, I've opted to go for something a bit noir as I felt it went well with the grim depictions. The whole pieces are a combination of faded gold and brass colours combined with a black background. This creates a very "sued" vibe which was what I was going for. The human servitors have been picked out in fleshy tones. In hindsight, I might have gone for something a little more subdued and less obviously fresh (not quite Nurgly tones, but perhaps anaemic looking). 

The computers in the background have also been picked out. I simply opted for a pulse-like monitor with some numbers on the screens. I intend to carry over this pulse theme to the cockpit of the titan, rather than making the computer screens in to some kind of pseudo-view port to the outer world. The reason for this is that I feel all the technology wired in to the Princeps means that such monitors are not required. 

Overall, I am happy with how the gold colour has come out - the shading in particular is very pleasing, along with the weathering. I'm less happy about the servitor though, and one of the computer screens ("91") the brush messed up on me a bit, so I ended up with larger lettering than was intended. Regardless, these are now ready to be installed in the main interior and the progress of the titan is coming along in leaps and bounds now. 

Starting on the Reaver Titan Interior

The building and painting of the interior of my Reaver Titan, Harmonia Tacita, has now commenced. In the first image, there is a computer panel from just below one of the void shield generators (which will be on the back, rear of the upper face of the titan). Naturally, it has the number 42 in the screen (what better?). The painted area here will hardly be visible once the main body of the titan is glued together and held in place. However, I will know its there! 

The second image shows the glued together interior walls for the main body of the titan. These will be painted up along with the rest of the interior prior to assembly. I want the interior to look dark, perhaps with gold accents. Whilst I was toying with an off-blue or grey colour, I'm going to stick to something that will look a bit Black Legion for the interior scheme. I also want the accent colours to be red for the display monitors. 

One interesting facet of putting this together is that one of the braces at the top has to be snapped off. I strongly recommend to readers who are fitting this piece to their own titans to take care with this. Dry fit it a couple of times just to be sure. On top of that, a hair dryer (or hot water) may well be necessary to slot in these side pieces and get them to sit correctly. Be prepared for a bit of work in this department before progressing to final gluing. 

Unboxing: Alpha Legion Praetor in Cataphractii Terminator Armour

One of the recent releases from Forge World are the new series of Legion themed Praetors for 30k and the Horus Heresy. Amongst these are two models for the Alpha Legion: one in power armour and one in terminator armour. I picked up the latter very recently and wanted to show what comes in the box.

First: the obligatory box shot.

As might be expected, this is a modest sized blister pack with the usual Forge World attention to detail in the artwork on the front.

The parts inside consist of five sprues of resin, and the circular base, as shown below.

The sprues here are very logical to put together: the main torso coupled with the cape attaches to the two shoulders and arms which have hands ready to extend them. As usual, the head can be positioned in any rotation. Perhaps unusually, the hand weapon comes with the power cables separate from the weapon itself. 

Although the power cables for the weapon will slot in readily, I will offer readers one word of advice: you will need to heat up the cape, shape it a little where it attaches to the back of the model, and then quickly glue it in to place before getting the shoulders and arms in position. Don't do what I did and glue the shoulders first … that way leads to misery. 

That said, my plan here is actually to do a little bit of a conversion on this terminator. I intend to replace the power sword (pictured lower right) with a different weapon. More on this project later!

Digest from afar on the Horus Heresy Weekender

Another weekend gone, and this one was a Horus Heresy Weekender curtesy of Forge World. I did not have chance to attend this one sadly, but I have been watching the proceedings and reveals from a distance and thought that I would share a few random thoughts and digests about it here.

Most obviously, the main news was concerning the long-awaited and long-anticipated release of the miniature for Sanguinius. There is no doubt about it from me that this is a crazy brilliant Primarch miniature. The sculpt is dynamic and superbly executed. I love the pose (and yes: the pose is correct since that is the grip one would use for the action that is being performed, despite some argument on various other parts of the internet). I very much look forward to reviewing his statistics and abilities here on Warpstone Flux once I am able to obtain a copy of the new book. 

One issue with the miniature is the short-term and exclusive nature of his base. This is a bit of a concern since every Primarch to date has had his base released alongside him and has always been available ever since. I really don't like the idea of a bespoke base only being available for a short time. I can see that Forge World will receive a lot of grief from collectors and gamers alike about this choice (and I would emphasise the word choice here). It would have been better to offer two prices for the miniature -- one with and one without the scenic base if that was the way they wished to play it. Making is exclusive is poor form for me, bearing in mind that I never did manage to get my hands on Skorr for my Alpha Legion army and I regularly run Skorr armies at low points values! I share your pain, battle brothers. 

Keeping the focus on the miniatures, I am thrilled to see models from multiple legions getting attention. Sticking with the Blood Angels for a moment, the new legion terminators look splendid ... so splendid that I might just Coils of the Hydra some of them potentially. I will await their rules. Fabulous that Raldoran is also getting a model as well. Love the pose on that, even if it is reminiscent of a certain Imperial Fists high ranking member ;) The jump pack contemptor is just something else though. It's a game changer for the Blood Angels. Not quite auto-win, but merits thoughts about how to counter it. 

The White Scars are looking significantly supplied as well with the range expanded by legion terminators (once again looking glorious), leviathan and contemptor dedicated dreadnoughts, alongside praetors that continue the theme of these legions gaining specific praetor models. The eagle on the terminator White Scars praetor looks amazing. I think the White Scars have the potential to be one of the most powerful legions if built and played right -- it will be like the way of Saim-Hann all over again once we start facing them regularly. [For newer readers, the Way of Saim-Hann was an elder army all mounted on very fast moving jet bikes and similar. The play style was to largely not engage until the final turn of the game at which point to sweep on all objectives simultaneously and hope the game ended. It won a lot in the right hands and started a play style that still exists to this day under different guises.] 

Good to see previous armies also being supported with the Space Wolves finally getting some miniatures for the Deathsworn. Also good to see the new dreadnought drop pod arrive. I clearly need to get a couple of them later on I think (unless I start a new army ... but that's a thought for a different day). 

News of the Dark Mechanicum gaining an army in the future is also very welcome. Even if it will be in book 9 along with the Dark Angels. Still very much looking forward to reviewing their rules. 

Speaking of news: the main one for me is the release of Book Eight: Malevolence. Blood Angels, White Scars, and the brewing Alpha Legion civil war means that this release is going to be an instant-buy for me. For some of the previous releases, I have held off until Christmas or my birthday. Not with this one. Its too jam packed with glory to ignore. That, and being a daemons player in 40k since before they became anywhere near competitive means I'm double stoked that the daemons are coming to 30k for the legions to fight with. I genuinely hope it is not just Khorne either. Please let it be the full pantheon along with named other daemons that have come out from Forge World over the years. I have my fingers crossed for this. 

I cannot claim that Necromunda excites me much at the present time -- although I totally get it. So I will press on to say that the Black Library release of the Buried Dagger is looking like it will do what has been promised in the wind for a long time: corrupt the Death Guard and set the stage for the final Siege of Terra. Also great to see the new range of buildings and add-on weapons for Adeptus Titanicus as well. They look good and modular. 

Finally, I am left wondering what the ninth book will be called. A pity that Alan Bligh had passed on, as I think it would have been brilliant to have met him and talked with him about what he thought it might have been named. We remember you Alan. 

[Image copyright belongs to Forge World and no claim is indicated by its use here.]