Monday, June 29, 2020

Eradicator Squad Thoughts

I wanted to talk very briefly today about the new Eradicator unit in 40k. Now, I will freely confess that at this stage in my gaming life that 30k is my primary game. 40k has, very oddly, become second place to 30k. This doesn't mean that it has fallen from favour, its just I like 30k better right now and feel much more at home there. I could probably write more about this, but will save it for another time perhaps.

On to Eradictaors. On the recent Twitch stream, the data slate for this new unit was revealed.


I wanted to simply point out a few things about this squad in relation to an old 40k favourite: the devastator squad. With devastators, one can get 5 men in the squad armed with 4 multi meltas. This seems to be a reasonable comparison given the power cost. At a basic level, that is 5 wounds with 4 heavy shots containing the Melta special rule.

Now check out the new eradicator squad. This is 9 wounds that pumps out 6 shots (assault shots at that as well) with the self-same special rule. Let's not even talk about the total obliteration rule (and just shrug to say even devastators might get their old doctrine and the sergeant might still have his tricks in 9th edition).

Focus for the moment on the power of this unit. And the creep of it. To me, the power creep present is incredible. No really. There is (arguably) now zero point in taking traditional devastator squads with the new eradicators available. Only old timers like me would play such dedicated Melta squads any longer. New entrants to the game may feel they have no need to purchase the devastator squad any more. [Even if they play Salamanders.]

Primaris marines are replacing "core" marines in the game. Period. I foresee the day that all 40k marine players might be using Primaris marines in their chapters and the regular marines that I use in 30k will be no more. This is a bit concerning given the history of the parts, and the future availability of (e.g.) plastic mark 4 armour boxed sets. I'm not sure if I'm alone in thinking this, but your thoughts are welcome.

Friday, June 26, 2020

Shattered Legion Tactical Squad (Raven Guard)

The Shattered Legion tactical squad from the Raven Guard legion is complete and ready for some tabletop action (post lockdown or in the household). My personal favourite part is how the bases really offset and complement the otherwise mostly black armour. Further, the variation in painting between squad members also suggests a plurality of origins for each member: they are individually survivors of Isstvan 5, have been re-forged in to a new squad, and are being hunting by the traitors. Will they make it off the planet alive and intact?



Hope you've liked this series of Raven Guard painting - there will be more from the Shattered Legions in the coming months. 

Monday, June 22, 2020

Vigilator

This HQ character is going to be one of several things, depending on how I construct my final army lists.

Firstly, he could be a Vigilator. This seems highly fitting for the Raven Guard and will play to their strengths very nicely indeed. Secondly, he could be a centurion to add to any given squad and take some needed Melta bombs to the required locations. Thirdly, I may opt to have him simply be a squad sergeant that has been upgraded to have the pictures items at his disposal.

The cape is something that I am particular please with the outcome of. I decided to adopt an urban camouflage pattern for it consisting of a black undercoat followed by three different tones of randomly applied angular patterns (dark grey, lighter grey, and off-white). This is reminiscent of what modern military might be seen deployed with in certain nations. The splatter of mud on the lower edge of the cape (cameleoline!) is what makes this fundamentally click in place for me.


From the front, his armaments are modest: a bolt pistol and a chain sword with his Melta grenade at the waist for the required moment, and several pouches of who-knows-what also attached at the waist. He is positioned standing on top of a wheel that he may have been responsible for detonating the engine from. The mud from the base covers his feet and parts of the lower legs. This ties in nicely with the rest of the Shattered Legions Raven Guard that I have painted this far and really offsets the black and white approach of the painting very well indeed.

Friday, June 19, 2020

Painted Raven Guard Legion Squad: 10/10

The squad leader is this fellow. Candidly, I've never been too fond of the ancient civilisation style headwear on almost any legion. But, I can totally see why it is common and included in the head options for space marines. Hence I'll go with it.

The painting is similar to previous iterations of the Raven Guard I've been undertaking. Here, the arms and hands are picked out in white, plus the central helmet, and the rest in standard colours. The tip of the head is red with an orange fleck in there for the hell of it. I've applied decals to not only the shoulder, but also the lower torso. The finishing brings the usual smattering of scratch marks on the marine with the airbrush of two tones of mud and dirt to offset the otherwise very black marine.

For the power sword, this is picked out in a multi-tone blue colour without any lightning strikes or similar applied. I still need to tidy up some of the paint work here and there (e.g., lower side of the back pack vents where its possible to see a slip up very readily). Otherwise, this squad is complete and ready for the battlefield. I'll post a full squad picture soon enough, but want to show off the HQ choice (or alternate squad leader perhaps) first.

Thursday, June 18, 2020

Painted Raven Guard Legion Squad: 9/10

Possibly my favourite out of the entire squad simply on the basis on the painting scheme, rather than anything associated with the assembly, this particular marine is an exemplar of the Raven Guard.


The knee pads, inner shoulder pads, elbow pads, forearms, and hands are all picked out in white which presents a strong contrast with the dulled black of the rest of the model. Splattered with mud, inked with Nuln Oil and grime, and generally looking like he's seen the worst of battles recently, this marine is still standing tall, and is seeking righteous revenge. Perhaps it is the hints of a bit of lower chin stubble that accentuates the appearance, but I get the feeling from this marine that he is on a collision course with vengeance and won't be denied for too long thanks to the burning rage he is feeling. 


Wednesday, June 17, 2020

Painted Raven Guard Legion Squad: 8/10

A few left to go now. Rounding out the final parts of the squad is this battle brother. He is more of a standing build and construction compared to some that I've been toying around with. The only exception is the silvered lower right leg. Narratively, this is probably from an unfortunate Iron Warriors traitor.


I think the mud didn't do too well set against the silvered leg though. It doesn't contrast as much as it does with the black of the standard Raven Guard colours. That said, it does help tie the squad together, and that's a good thing. A few more marines to go now for this Shattered Legion tactical squad. 

Monday, June 15, 2020

Painted Raven Guard Legion Squad: 7/10

The mud and dirt continue in this series of Isstvan 5 massacre survivors. This battle brother is a standard plastic space marine with forge world shoulder pad, as illustrated here.


The painting here is straight forward and follows the standard recipe that I have been using for the Raven Guard black. Specifically this is to use a slightly off-black blue mixture as the base coat and accent with a truer black where needed. One of the knee plates is picked out in gold - perhaps a recent addition thanks to a traitorous Emperor's Children? The helm is in a muddied white colour to contribute to the variety of paint schemes across the squad. Airbrushing of two tones of mud colour has been made to the base and to the lower legs and feet of the marine to provide the necessary contrast to bring the model together.

Sunday, June 14, 2020

Painted Raven Guard Legion Squad: 6/10

One of my personal favourites out of the squad of Raven Guard shattered legion members is this one.

Kneeling down and pointing to the next target, this marine features Corvus style armour coupled with a bolt gun and combat blade tucked behind him on the back of his belt, replete with grenades and a purity seal (or oath of the moment as it will be in 30k). The original build for this can be found here.

The left shoulder pad is picked out in gold, perhaps narratively indicating the taking down of an Emperor's Children traitor. The white helmet meets with the variant style found scattered throughout the rest of the squad. Like the rest of his brothers, there is plenty of dirt on the ground and covering his lower legs to suggest combat action, along with silvered edging on the top of the shin to hint at crawling in the gravel.

Saturday, June 13, 2020

Painted Raven Guard Legion Squad: 5/10

Number 5 in the Shattered Legions squad features a shin plate salvaged from some traitorous Night Lords erst-while brother. The build for this one can be found here and is fairly standard featuring a few extra pouches, but otherwise is non-special. The base has been decked out with cork and fine sand.



Painting follows the standard approach, with the exception of the Night Lords shin plate which was based in a dark blue and highlighted progressively lighter on the welded studs. Plenty of Nuln Oil later, and this is another complete marine ready to join his brothers in the tactical squad.

Thursday, June 11, 2020

Painted Raven Guard Legion Squad: 4/10

Continuing the painting of the Raven Guard Shattered Legions squad, this brother features the Corvus armour with a (dirtied) white helm and knee pads stood atop of a piece of imperial iron beneath his feet. The narrative here is similar to the previous marines in that this is a brother who has survived the betrayal at Isstvan 5 and is now part of a mis-matched group of survivors aiming to flee the planet's surface and make good their revenge on the traitors. It was also one of the first Raven Guard miniatures that I assembled to get a better feel for how this force might look. 


The marine features a standard Corvus armour build with no real variation from the plastic boxed set. The painting has been done to render points of differentiation from the rest of the squad that can be seen in the previous posts within this series, and to tie in directly with some of the depictions in the Horus Hersey black books. The mud and dirt follows the same recipes as previous with two tones of brown to create the look on the lower parts of the marine and the base. On the shoulder pad, an icon for an assault squad member can be seen as well. This is a survivor who has ditched his jump pack and swapped to something new in the quest for escape from the planet, and further accentuates the mixed composition of the squad. 

Tuesday, June 9, 2020

Painted Raven Guard Legion Squad: 3/10

This brother sports a red highlight around his left shoulder pad, marking him out as a little unusual from his fellows. The narrative here is similar for the other pieces in the Shattered Legions force that I'm building in the sense that this was a member of a different unit once upon a time, and has been re-forged in to a new unit by necessity. The red markings are therefore representative of the old unit he belonged to -- possibly a nod to some of the markings depicted in the black books for Horus Heresy, and possibly from other traitor units even, as a make-shift field repair.


I think the photo shows better than others the slightly off-black nature of the paint that I am using. It is slightly blue toned with almost a matt finish. Battle damage has been picked out in a bright silver colour, but I might go back over it (particular the thigh) with some more black to make it feel a bit more realistic than it currently is. The mud and grime remains the same as for the other marines in this squad and accents against the black of the Raven Guard colours very nicely indeed. For reference, the build can be found here.

Monday, June 8, 2020

Painted Raven Guard Legion Squad: 2/10

The second marine from the Raven Guard for the Shattered Legions features a very muddied appearance, which is in stark contrast to the very new Corvus mark armour. The narrative here is that a large explosion went off to his side, and he got splattered with the mud, and arguably blood.


The paint scheme is slightly atypical for Raven Guard -- featuring both white shoulder pads and arms (plus hands) which the rest of the marine being a muted black colour. The inspiration for this painting scheme comes directly from the images contained in the Horus Heresy black books which feature this variant a few times, sometimes with white helmets. Here, I've adopted it fully and used an off-white colour as the base coat and applied a layer of Nuln oil over the top. Highlights are then picked out in a more pure white colour, as can be seen on the marine's shoulder pads where I've picked out the edges. Battle damage on the top of the knees suggest a lot of crawling around the dirt for this marine, which is a theme that I wanted to carry over to the rest of this re-forged squad. The splatter was achieved through an airbrush using two tones of brown to create the splat along his flank, plus boots area. I like the way the browns offset the otherwise very black colour of the legion myself.

For reference, the build for this marine can be found here.

Sunday, June 7, 2020

Painted Raven Guard Legion Squad: 1/10

Painting the colour black is not an easy task. There are a variety of approaches that one can take ranging from a matte effect, through to using greys to build up the colour to pure black, and then there's the shiny black effects. 

For my Raven Guard squad for my Shattered Legions forces, I wanted to do something a bit different. I started with a matt approach and used a very dark blue for azimuthal spray painting from above - in fact it is very almost black in most regards, but just enough blue to take away the absolute nature of the black paint. There's also hints of silvers contained in it too. This approach gives a strong black colour synonymous with the Raven Guard, without it looking too much like that I've just slapped on pure black and not attended to any highlights.

Lowlights were handled with plentiful Nuln oil across all of the miniature. This gives the recesses a reflective look, which I find pleasing. 


The real offset colour here though has to be the dirt. Using two tones of brown, I sprayed the base and legs to give a very dirty feeling to the miniature. This is to accentuate background of the marine having seen plentiful action on the plains of Isstvan 5. Final highlighting was done using silver to pick out some battle damage - e.g., on the top of the knee pads due to crawling through the dirt too much whilst taking cover. Decals on the shoulder pad and white highlights, coupled with red to orange eye lenses finish off the piece. Overall, the miniature avoids the pure black look associated with under painted Raven Guard, whilst creating a work that reflects the survival of the few legionaries on the surface of the planet, and complements that of their cousins in the Salamanders legion

Tuesday, June 2, 2020

Thermic Plasma Conduits

Something a little different today: new terrain. It has been a long while since I turned my attention to one of my major loves of the hobby. I picked up the thermic plasma conduits as an accessory to my under hive / manufacturing forge world planet before the pandemic lock down kicked in. And I finally opened it some 12 weeks or so later. Not quite sure how I resisted, but it was one of those items that I thought to myself I would do once summer had arrived in the Northern Hemisphere. Hence the unboxing began!


What I like about this set is the same as what my indecision is about: the modularity!

I really want to generate two to three pieces out of this set and glue them together, rather than leaving it completely modular -- in other words: reduce the number of configurations that I want to worry about. But this is where I'm getting a bit stuck. I think I might assemble a few of these bits as a two-layer horizontal pipework, as per the picture on the boxed set. Then with the remaining pieces, I'm tempted to make a snake at ground level, plus maybe an upright for a bit of variation. I'm not quite sold on that yet, so drop me a line if you have the same set and let me know what you did with yours? I'm basically looking for cover terrain and large areas being covered more than these pipes laying flat on top of walkways. Choices, choices...
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