Tuesday, November 26, 2019

Perennia Logo

It turns out that there is more than just me worldwide that wanted to have a titan in the Perennia colours. I was stoked that others reached out to me in the past year to discuss Legio Perennia (you know who you are) and I was only too happy to chat about that titan legion and what its iconography might be.

Now, when one invents a legion, there is complete freedom to choose whatever you like for iconography or colour. But the situation is slightly different here. Legio Perennia is a canon legion, but there is very little to go on for the Legio, except for the mention in the Horus Heresy short story that involves the Alpha Legion (which was also me reason for selecting Perennia).

Candidly, there really is only the name of the Legio.

As mentioned a long time ago when I was choosing the painting scheme, I felt that Perennia comes from the same root as "perennial", as per the plant type. This fact in itself is why I chose green for the major part of the colour scheme that I adopted for the war hound. To me, it also has overtures of something eternal, and even slightly Celtic perhaps.

Hence when I sat down to think about the logo, I wanted to try for something that brought these themes together.

The best result I had was looking at the ancient Celtic Tree of Life logo (also: Yggdrasil). If you google for "celtic tree of life", you will see the kind of thing I am talking about. The added benefit of this kind of symbology is that it is old enough to be out of copyright. Despite this benefit, the knots and swirls are very tough to paint due to the sheer level of complexity (I attempted several). So I started to look for a lower complexity version. There were not many. This Amazon seller for instance -- https://www.amazon.com/Celtic-Yggdrasil-Sticker-Mythology-Knotwork/dp/B01BO14HEI -- has bumper stickers that look great, and almost what I was after. In start white, it would stand out excellently against the green paint job of the body of the titan. Yet, it still lacks a certain something to my mind. Plus: needed to be simpler - much simpler. A design of this complexity is exceptionally tough to reproduce without very specific templating. 

I therefore retained the idea of knots, but simplified it a lot. I ended up with this design that I painted on the side of my war hound. 


I am broadly happy with this as it is simple enough to duplicated, yet specific enough to be easily sighted and recognised. Let the annals show that this knotwork is now the logo and symbol of Legio Perennia!

Friday, November 15, 2019

Painting Salamanders with Contrast Paint

Following on from the previous post, I had a number of comments and direct messages about what I was going to do with this Mark III Iron Armour marine. To put readers (mostly) out of their misery guessing what I'm up to, this particular marine has been painted up in Salamanders Legion colours.

For the bulk of the paint job, I decided on using contrast paint. Now, there are several formulations out there for the "best" green for Salamanders colours. For me, I have opted with the usual (white) basecoat followed by the Warp Lightning contrast paint.  If you've never used contrast paints before, I can thoroughly recommend them -- I have been a convert since finding how well they performed on Alpha Legion marines, and this Salamanders marine is no different. 


The contrast paint goes on really well and gets in to all the recessed areas of the model to provide shaded parts with little effort what so ever. I highlighted the edges in a lighter, more wood green colour, but for the deepest recesses, added a little nuln oil to taste since I wanted this marine to possess a worn look. 

The shoulder pads are done with a gold base, nuln oil layer, and then griffon gold dry brush to bring out the highlights. The inner shoulder pads and back pack are black, but highlighted in a few grey tones to pick out the wires. The face and head follows a relatively similar approach with a black base and grey highlighting for the features. As for the eyes, they're picked out in red, with a fleck of pink in them to give the customary devilish look to the Salamanders. The bolt gun meanwhile is done with lead belcher and nuln oil, with a lighter silver for highlights. 

Since I was wanting a worn look, I have also applied weathering extensively on the miniatures. This is in two forms: the brown dust and mud colours near the feet, and the chip painting at various locations (most obviously the forward knee on this model). This is achieved with a splotching of black and silver to insinuate wear and tear. Finally, some decals have been applied from the 40k range (as I don't wish to splash out for the Forge World ones at this stage). 

Overall, I'm very pleased with how the contrast paints performed yet again! Thoroughly recommended!

Tuesday, November 12, 2019

Mk. III Iron Armour Marine

A new project? Yes.
A large project? Haven't decided yet. Hobby mojo is very active at the moment though!

But this is just a little tease as to what I'm up to at the moment. The space marine in the image is a Mark III Iron Armour space marine. The bulk of the parts are resin, as sold by Forge World. The bolter comes from the older chaos space marine range and features the ammo feed coming in at the bottom. The naked head is from the regular space marine range.  Meanwhile on the base, I have sawed a left over bit from the older mechanicum range to provide a small platform for this marine to stand upon. 


Obviously at the moment, there are few clues here as to my new (mini- or otherwise) project, but guesses are welcome. I will post up the painted marine later this week, time permitting!

Saturday, November 9, 2019

Zone Mortalis update

When the news broke about the new Necromunda underhive scenery being available, I was fairly excited. The new scenery pieces are amazing, and much less expensive (at least in principle) compared to the older resin pieces produced by Forge World that have been discontinued of late.

What I did not quite expect was a full-on update to the Zone Mortalis rules set to be released for the Horus Heresy at the same time! The new rules can be found via the Warhammer community website

Fundamentally, the new rules are not that much different to what has gone before. There's an attacker, a defender, a couple of missions, and some special rules. 

As per usual, the tight confines of the Zone mean that a player cannot select a monstrous creature, or dedicated transports. Base size limits are in effect too: no bigger than 60mm, and certainly nothing bigger than walkers. 

Terrain plays a big part still in the Zone. The rules for bulk heads are still there, along with platforms and stairs. Given the new stair wells in the plastic Necromunda kits, these rules will be cited a lot in play I believe.

I like the retention of the special firing rules, as well as the "catastrophic damage" table which is nice to see. The rules for poisoned air, or void fighting remain pretty much the same, and void enhanced armour is recommended to avoid the effects of extra rending rolls being imposed. 

Overall, I like the update. What I feel is missing is some of the more in-depth rules for various types of scenery. It might have been good to see some rules supplied for the Horus Heresy for the sector mechanicus servo-haulers for instance (the entire boxed set could readily be adapted for the Horus Heresy, I contend), along with specific conversion rules for the rest of the sector mechanicus boxed set (some of which is pictured here). Other than that - its all good!


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