The Shadow Knights

I realize it's been some time since I've updated, but I have a pretty serious painting update today.

First, two more Orks are complete:



And then, today I had the day off because of Good Friday, so... I kind of went nuts on the Space Marines. And finished them. Here's the Shadow Knights' Second Company Tactical Squad Delta (led by Sergeant Gaius Damian):




Second Company Captain Nemus Valcar:



First Company Veteran Squad Omicron (with Terminator honors), led by Veteran Sergeant Kharas Draco:





And the ancient warrior Eramus Valorous, confined to his Dreadnought so that he may continue to serve the glory of the Imperium:


So my Space Marines are complete! Glory to the Emperor!

Nobz

The painting of Nobz is an interesting pastime. I actually did these days ago, but it's kind of a difficulty to get the pictures taken, and then to get them off the bloody camera and then onto the computer and then find time to put them up on the blog.

Three more Nobz are finished.




The one thing I've noticed about this hobby so far is how incredibly time-consuming it is. Also, I'm not entirely happy with how these guys came out, but I'm definitely getting there, and it is my first time with this after all. I think they're at least battlefield-worthy, and once I'm done with them and gotten the practice I can move on to painting the Space Marines, which is where my interest really lies.

Keep on paintin'!

The Painting

So, I've begun the painting process as well.

I decided that I would start my painting with the Orks, because the Space Marines are the ones I actually plan to play, so I figure the Orks would make a good practice set.

Disclosure: I have done painting before. I am not a complete newb at designing color schemes or implementing them.

So, why start with the little ones, right? I went straight for the big-bad, the Warboss.

My technique is pretty simple. First I purchased some Krylon gray spray-primer at my local craft store. I wasn't sure what colors I would be using, so I wanted to start from a neutral tone. I sprayed all of them with primer to start with, just by placing them on a piece of cardboard in my garage and spraying outward through the open door. The spray primer works very well, and I would definitely recommend it. I used a technique that I found several places online: set up the minis, wave the can in front of them and blast them with short bursts of spray 4-5 times, rotate 90 degrees, and repeat until all are covered thoroughly. I didn't have to do anything beyond that and they were well-covered.

Then I did a basecoat of a dark green color. Like I said previously, because I get kind of single-minded with a task, I had pretty much already finished the Warboss by the time I remembered that I was supposed to be taking photos of the process. So unfortunately, I don't have any photos of the Warboss in his unfinished state. I do, however, have this:



For variety, I also went and painted a Nob and one of the rank-and-file Boyz. For comparison, I took pictures of them next to unfinished models of the same type:





And then finally, a picture of the three finished models so far together:



Say hello to the beginnings of my Ork clan. I think I may be calling them the Headsplittaz, but I'm not entirely sure yet. I've never been a big fan of following someone else's designs... I like to strike out on my own. So far I think it's going okay.

The Armies

Since it's been about a week since I actually got my hands on the Black Reach set, I've already made some progress.

The first thing I did was to cut out everything in the set and put them together. The directions claim that you can snap them together, but frankly, I found that having some glue on hand was incredibly useful. Some of the pieces just wouldn't snap into place correctly, and others would snap together fine but immediately fall apart thereafter.

Since my family is kind of craft-y, I decided that I would try to make this work with only the materials I had on hand. I've done some painting in the past, and after determining that the Games Workshop Citadel paints are just water-based acrylics (like the ones I have a ton of in my paints drawer) I decided to just go with materials on hand. So far, the only thing I've bought from GW is the Black Reach set.

Since I get kind of single-minded when I set to a task, I didn't think to take any photos of the assembly process. It was sort of tedious anyway, and adding photography in to that mess would have only made it more so.

Of course, the Assault on Black Reach set comes with two armies: Orks and Space Marines. This is good, because right now I'm interested in getting started with the Space Marines. I wish there was more fluff out there about the Eldar, because they're the next most intriguing to me, but for now we'll start with the Emperor's finest.

So, fully assembled, here they are:



I have some additional shots as well, closer-up

The Intro

So, to put this simply, I've never done this kind of thing before.

Sure, in a moment of weakness I bought a HeroScape introductory set, because I thought it would be interesting to try out. The sheer overwhelming-ness of assembling those gods-damned hex tiles, though... it made it so I never actually played a single game.

I'd considered playing Warhammer for a long time, ever since I visited a Games Workshop store in Cambridge, MA. It had always been a thing my brain toyed with off and on. Was it something I would actually do? Would I ever sit down and play it, or would it just be another one of those things that I dump money into and never actually do? (There are a lot of those, by the way...)

The other part of Warhammer (and 40k) that interested me was the painting aspect. I'm something of an artist, really a dabbler, and I'd made attempts to paint metal miniatures many years ago (Ral Partha and Dark Heaven style minis) with mixed results. I like the idea of the customize-your-own figures, to get the exact blend of colors that you want, instead of being forced to conform to someone else's idea of what they should look like.

It wasn't really until recently that I became heavily interested, though. In fact, I blame most of it on THQ's Dawn of War II. I played the original Dawn of War, but it only interested me as a strategy title. I couldn't find myself interested in anything beyond the basic strategies. I played it for a while, and then it dropped off my radar as a solid RTS, but nothing more.

Dawn of War II though... I'm not sure what the difference is. (It also combined with the fact that I was playing Warhammer: Age of Reckoning by Mythic too, which already had Warhammer on the brain). Maybe it's just that it gets more focused in on the individuals on the battlefield instead of being a regular swarm RTS. Whatever it was, I was instantly hooked. Worse than that, I started to become actually interested in the fluff of Warhammer. Discussions on the community boards piqued my interest, about the fundamental backstory of these armies. I had no idea there was a whole world out there, or if I did, it was all very peripheral to my own perception.

I began reading. I started with the Dawn of War Omnibus, reading about the Blood Ravens and their trials. Fascinated, I next turned to the Space Wolves and the Ultramarines, drinking in every bit of lore that I could possibly find. Next I read the Blood Angels Omnibus, which I've only recently finished. Now I'm deep into the first book of the Horus Heresy, and still hooked on every word. (By the way, Mr. Dan Abnett is a fantastic writer, and I also very much enjoyed the first volume of the Malus Darkblade fantasy trilogy).

Somewhere along the way, the idea of the tabletop game came back to me, and I decided finally to make the plunge. I bought the Assault on Black Reach starter set, which promised to give me everything I needed to get started with the Warhammer 4ok universe.

We'll see...