Deathwing Squad Haluiel WIP, new Space Marine models, and thoughts on blogging.

My next unit to complete is Squad Haluiel of the Deathwing. It's a standard unit, albeit with a Plasma Cannon. I do love a bit of plasma goodness, and finally Terminators can now take this weapon. It helps that the sculpt is really nice too. I'm knuckling down to get these guys finished as soon as possible.

I'm sure the vast majority of you have now seen the new Space Marine models floating around the internet. I won't comment on the rules, as I'd rather wait until the codex is out, but the models themselves are mostly a win. The Librarian and Captain snap fits are cracking, and I'll be picking up a pair for painting. The new Tactical marines aren't that dissimilar to the old sculpts, but sometimes a refresh is good, and the new poses will be good for players with large amounts of standard Marines in their armies. Also, AIMING MARINE! Plastic Sternguard and Vanguard are always good, and the combi weapons will ensure the Sternguard kits will be very popular with any Marine player.

The Centurions however...Hooo boy. I just don't get the idea of these at all. The models are just...strange at best, and they don't really even look like they fit into the marine design aesthetic. The fluff part will be interesting too, as now clearly Terminator armour isn't the best available, so why aren't the whole 1st Company of any chapter armed with these suits? I'm looking forward to being convinced, but I do hope they don't try and force them in.

The release has me excited though overall. I'm thinking that maybe a small strike force might be an option, but of course the main difficulty is...which chapter?! 

And finally...

I've been trying to keep a huge rate of posting up on On White Wings We Ride. Blogging is great as it allows you to share your thoughts and ideas with the community at large, but to me, this content should still have a high quality and also be fun for the blogger. I've started to feel that I'm not providing the quality that I would prefer, all in order to update at least three times a week. 

This may be due to the slowdown I'm personally feeling in 40K. I've played more games in the last year than I have in ten years, which I am incredibly lucky to have a great gaming group. However, so much in such a quick time has led to a little bit of burnout for me personally, and the Nerd Garage have also decided to run a Necromunda campaign in the meantime while we all recharge our 40K batteries. This also allows us time to prepare new armies. I know Danny's getting his Tau finished off, while Pootank is building and painting his new Eldar army and I'll finally be raising my Necron horde.

So, with both the blog quality, and the gaming slowdown, I'll be taking OWWWR from a high posting schedule down to maybe one or two posts a week. I hope this means I can look at having more in-depth posts that will hopefully help and enhance both my, and the community's, hobby. I will try and keep the short posts to a minimum, and will refrain from posting for the sake of posting.

However, I'd like your thoughts on the above. What do you feel is the best way to run a blog? Lots of small posts, or large posts at intervals? Somewhere in-between? Let me know!

Deathwing Assualt and Lord Coatez

We've had a recent airbrushing session in the Nerd Garage, which I took advantage off to get my current Deathwing models based. I'm not a massive fan of airbrushing a model to completion, as I feel it loses the hands-on touch of painting, but basing is a lifesaver. I took my Deathwing Knight squad and a standard Deathwing unit to get basecoated, so these will be my next items to paint after my Darkshroud is finished (not much left now!)

And, as it was a prime oppotunity and something I'd always meant to do, I took the liberty of getting my Land Raider Crusader basecoated as well. Is there anything cooler in the whole of 40K than a bone-white Land Raider?

Plenty of Deathwing to work my way through there then. I'm really looking forward to the Knights as they're one of my favourite new units and just look fantastic if done right.

Finally, I managed to convince Pootank to let me paint his Inquistor Coatez. I love this model, and yet for some reason have never bought or painted him. I did the cleaning up which took a while (joys of Finecast), and am going to go for the classic gold look. This will be done with a light silver basecoat which will then be washed with Seraphim Sepia until I get the rich gold colour I'm looking for. This will be a treat and a nice break from green, bone and black!

How to solve a problem like Tau?

Blue skinned aliens may have Riptides. They may have double Missile Pod Crisis Suits. They may even have three shot STR 5 rifles. But they don't have the righteous fury of the Lion, and that is why these guys are needed!

                                    

I really love Deathwing, and now that I've started getting them painted in a way I like, I'm desperate to finish the units I have. All of these are next after my Darkshroud, so going to be chopping through these soon.

WIP Deathwing

A short and sweet post today. I haven't done any painting this week due to being busy all week and having a wedding to attend yesterday (which was fantastic, although Jagerbombs always make it hard to remember what happened!), but I've decided to get my last Deathwing squad together. Just have two more to build and then eventually paint. 

Also, Apocalypse is looking impressive. I'm not going to be picking it up, but the models coming out are amazing. The Tesseract Vault is astonishing! Going to be trying to not spend any money on models for a little while as I have enough to keep me going for a long time, and could do with saving some cash. 

The Deathwing deploy for battle.

In what seems like no time at all, I've managed to whip through Squad Irael and get them painted. I chopped through these relatively quick as I suffered my age old issue of not thinking my painting looks any good until I get to the end. It doesn't help that I overbrushed the bone too much, leaving a small amount of details a little obscured. They don't suffer for it, but I'm not too pleased about it either. I'm also a bit meh about the Cyclone Terminator. I think it's because he doesn't have as much green on his chest emblem, meaning he doesn't seem to quite tie into the unit. I guess I sound quite negative about the whole painting of these, but I'm quite chuffed they're done. I'm especially happy about the sergeant, which has that nice leader aspect going on. They need basing, but I've painted for about 3 hours tonight in poor light, so that can wait until tomorrow!

And also, I got Belial finished! He was actually quite easy to paint, the only problem being that sometimes the paint wouldn't quite stick. I'm putting that down to the white undercoat he was based with. However, he was done over two nights, and now means my army can use Deathwing as Troops. He was also the second model in my army to get fully based with snow and scorched grass flock, and I've also done my Ravenwing Attack Squad. The rest will get done over time.

Speaking of the rest, I did a quick tally of what's been painted. So far, it comes to 1200 points give or take. That's quite a lot for me in 4 months, especially as the units have all been different colours. But I'm showing no signs of slowing down at all. I'm thinking for my next unit after the Deathwing are based, I'm going to paint  another three Ravenwing bikes to bump up the Attack Squad I already have, and at the same time paint my Darkshroud Speeder. Lots of black, but it'll give me a good unit and a painted vehicle. Then...who knows?

Deathwing WIP's and the Grand Master

I've got cracking into my Deathwing squad. At the moment they've had the bone completed, and I'm just in the process of blocking into colours prior to washing them all. I've raced ahead a little, and done the robe on my Sergeant, as I was looking forward to highlighting it, and it's come out looking really good.

You might also notice there appears to be a new Terminator on the right hand side. Well, that's my Belial, made from the Deathwing Command box. He was already painted a shade of bone, but I've redone it to match the rest of my army. I thought I'd get him done at the same time as he will be pretty much the same as the Deathwing squad to paint. Plus, then my army will have three painted Troop choices!

One thing I almost didn't put on my Terminators were the little daggers the Deathwing normally have. However, as I've used some Dark Vengeance models, I wanted the rest of the squad to tie in thematically. I'm going to paint the daggers separately and glue them on later. 

Librarian Xapham, and a list of WIPs

In my last post I said I would start to work on my Deathwing squad, and that's not quite happened. I have a good reason though, which is right below. I realised that I hadn't painted any HQ choices for my army, and now that I had two Troops choices it was high time to get one done to give me a legal army. I decided I wanted some practice painting Terminator armour, and so my Libby in TDA was the obvious choice. He took about 5 hours over three nights to paint and base. I'm especially pleased with his base, as just having it as a plain grey meant there would have been plenty of unused space. I had bought some snow flock recently, and thought 'why not?' I'm very happy with the result, and will be going back to do the same to all of my previouly painted models.

Speaking of which, I decided to take a group shot of what I've completed so far. It's not at the same pace as some painters, but slowly, I'm getting there, and it's starting to look impressive.

So, what next? I had a look through what I had to paint or wanted to start, and came up with the following units. I didn't look for any Tactical marines as I'm going to try and save those until I paint some more from both Wings. These won't be done in any particular order, but I do want to get these done as soon as possible.

Three Ravenwing bikers, to round out my Ravenwing Attack Squad. Using the Standard of Devastation has shown just how good super mobile firepower can be, especially at T5. A full unit of these guys will always find a way into my lists.

A Ravenwing Standard Bearer. I'm looking forward to this. I realise the banner is going to take the most time, but it's far, far preferable instead of trying to paint it on a flat surface. Plus it means I can go all out to make it stand out.

My Deathwing Squad. These guys are getting done next, however they have one more member than they normally would. I got a bit carried away, and forgot I had a TH/SS in the unit! He just needs basecoating and washing and then I'll do them all in one go.

Librarian on a bike. A very useful unit, and means I can then take a mixture of Librarians.

A Rhino for my Tactical Squad. I need to get the hang of painting vehicles, and figure I should start with this tank. It probably won't get used too much as I'm taking a lot of footslogging marines, but having a Rhino to use won't hurt

And finally, the big man himself, Azrael. I just like the model. I think you really have to tailor a list around his abilities, and he's very expensive. But, he can bring a lot of powerful abilities to the table, and in the rare cases I don't take some form of Librarian he's usually my go-to choice.

So, this means I'll have a lot on my plate for the time being. That's not a bad thing though, meaning I have some ideas about how the army will progress. It also gives me a break from Caliban Green, and hopefully means I won't get bored with the Greenwing side of things. That's the dream anyways...

Squad Sahrael complete. Nerd League results.

Well, this has taken about a month longer than I hoped or cared for, but finally, Squad Sahrael of the Sixth Company is finished after I tidy the bases!  Nothing else to add, except I won't be painting any Tactical marines for a while (I wish, I have at least two more squads I need to do), In the background you can see that my Deathwing squad have had their Seraphim Sepia wash and are just drying.

The Nerd League results for this week were...interesting. I played Danny's Tau/Space Wolves list, and let's just say it didn't go to plan. I was very conservative with my deployment, and suffered at the hands of Danny's Crisis Suits. Having two separate missile pods each is hideous to fight against, and he was hammering my army from turn one. By turn four I had very little left, and as such conceded. I don't think I could have done too much to change the game, maybe going second instead and being more aggressive with my Deathwing and Drop Pod deployment. But it was a fun game, and that's all that matters.

In Gandy and Pootank's game, there was a shocking win for the forces of Chaos! Gandy played much better than recently, and I think some of our advice is starting to sink in. It also probably helped that one of his champions managed to roll up Dark Apotheosis and turned into a Daemon Prince! Gandy's was obviously delighted with this game, and as I'm facing him next week it should be a good game all round.

Squad Sahrael WIP (again), Squad Irael, and Nerd League round three

Well, in a shocking state of affairs, I still (!) haven't finished Squad Sahrael. I'm really not very far off though, and in the background is the Rhino these guys will be using. I sprayed it using Army Painter Angel Green spray, so I was a bit concerned with how well the colour would match Caliban Green. Fortunately, it's spot on perfect, meaning my vehicles will be quick and easy to knock out.

However, this squad has made me realise that painting ten guys at a time is just a chore. Sure, it's nice to get them all done at once, but sometimes it's a bit too much, and can leave you demoralised. So in future I'll be tackling any squads over five models in batches. Hopefully this means I won't get too bored with painting the same thing over and over again.

Speaking of which, below is the next thing to be painted, Squad Irael of the Deathwing. I'm looking forward to getting stuck into these as this will mean I'll have a painted unit from each Wing done and dusted. Having split with the girlfriend recently, I've been getting more time to paint, and although it's not really a good thing, at least I can use painting to distract myself. 

Also, I've never painted a full Deathwing Squad, and I know these guys are going to stand out on the board.

Lastly, the Nerd League is starting again this week. We're using the same armies as before, but with new lists. I'm expecting three very different, very hard games, and can't wait to report back with how they all go.

Deathwing!

So, I finally worked out what I'm painting after Squad Sahrael...

Librarian Conversions, a new list and Nerd League game one results

I've been building a variety of Librarians recently. I had to build one for my Nerd League list as I don't like the standard Terminator Libby, and wanted to give him a Deathwing twist. With a bit of converting, and the use of a Nemesis Force Staff, I ended up with the below...

I've got lucky with the pose, as I feel it makes him look like a guardian of secrets. Which is kind of convenient really! 

I also decided it was high time to build a Libby on a bike, as I have a few ideas for Ravenwing based lists, and a biker Librarian is always useful. He also allows access to Ravenwing Command Squads, and that in turn leads to the Standard of Devastation...

You see where this is going right?

We played the first round of the new Nerd League this week, and with the roll offs, I ended up facing Danny's Tau/Space Wolf list. I took a shoeing last week with my Grey Knight list, and with Danny taking the same list, I was concerned that I would struggle. The game was fast and furious, with high volumes of fire coming from both sides. My Deathwing Standard Bearer alone took over 40 shots in turn two on his own! However, in the end the combined might of the 1st, 2nd and 6th companies were too much for the Tau, leaving me with a 12-7 win! It was nice to take vengeance against the blue skinned xeno, and both myself and Danny agreed it had been a cracking game. In Pootank and Gandy's game, the Space Wolves of Pootank* were too ferocious for Gandy's Chaos to overcome, and Gandy suffered a 11-3 loss. It was a rough game for Gandy, and his luck just wasn't there. For the next game Danny will be taking on Pootank whilst I'll be playing Gandy. I'm sure that I will have a hard challenge ahead!

And finally...I've been making lists with Ravenwing Command Squads to take advantage of both the new FAQ ruling, and the usefulness of the Standard of Devastation. With a quiet day at work, and a lot of hard decisions, I've come up with the below. Thoughts and comments are always welcome!

1500 Pts - Dark Angels Roster

HQ: Librarian (1#, 120 pts)

Auspex, Power Field Generator, Bike

Ravenwing Command Squad (5# 245 pts)

Standard of Devastation, Ravenwing Grenade Launcher

Elite: Deathwing Terminator Squad (5#, 250 pts)

Thunder Hammer & Storm Shield x1, Cyclone Missile Launcher

Troops: Tactical Squad (11#, 205 pts)

Plasma gun, Plasma Cannon, Drop Pod

Troops: Tactical Squad (10#, 170 pts)

Plasma gun, Plasma Cannon

Troops: Tactical Squad (10#, 170 pts)

Plasma gun, Plasma Cannon

Fast Attack: Ravenwing Attack Squadron (6#, 181 pts)

Meltagun x2

Heavy Support: Devastator Squad (5#, 135 pts)

Missile Launcher x3,Lascannon x1 

Total - 1496

*I may have said before that Pootank would be taking a Tyranid list. However, he felt that it was time his fledgling Space Wolf army got an outing. An outing with five Thunderwolves (!). Pretty sure this is gonna be the winning list, but hopefully I can ride my luck...

The Inner Circle appears. Black Knight progress/excuses

So, painting on the Black Knights has slowed down, mostly due to real life and spending all weekend with the Girly (that's not a complaint!). However, I didn't want to post anything without putting some photos up of things I had been working on before my new plan. With that in mind, I've decided to put up some pictures of the one type of unit I wish I could have in my 1500 pt Dark Angels list. Here come the Deathwing!

I've always loved the Deathwing. The bone colour, their secret mission, the flexibility of their units. But my favourite thing about the Deathwing is the ability to field a whole army of Terminators. Who doesn't love that? I'm hoping that I can start getting some more of these guys painted, and quietly building up a 1500 pt list, looking at 4 units of Deathwing, Belial and a Land Raider (and maybe some Deathwing Knights if I can get them in there, as they are gorgeous models).

These guys were my test models. I had seen some beautiful Deathwing in Games Workshop Coventry, and popped in one day to get some advice to how to recreate the colour from the manager, Dave. He's a great guy, and was more than happy to help me get a nice shade of bone. It's very simple to paint and has a fantastic result! Also, don't worry about the Cyclone Terminator, he's 'armless! (I'm sorry)

This is my Belial. When the models were previewed, I wasn't the biggest fan of the Finecast version. However, the Deathwing Command box gives ample opportunity to create your own. I think he looks much better here :P

These all still have to be built and painted. That's a pleasure though as I adore this kit. There's so many parts and variety that you could spend days getting your models right. The only complaint I have is that there could be extra lightning claws and/or Thunder Hammers. But it's a small gripe, and not one I should have to worry about.

The nice thing with painting all three Wings is that I can create lots of different types of armies from the one codex, all of which with their individual flavour, but not at the expenses of learning how the codex works as a whole. Also when Gandy starts running his Drakes, I can laugh as the baleflamer whiffs at my 2+ save!

The Black Knights are getting there slowly, and should be finished by next week with any luck. I've found that keeping momentum through a project can be tricky, especially when a longer than expected gap is taken. However seeing them on my painting desk is making me want to get them all done and on here.