Let’s check out what the team have been painting this month following the launch of 10th edition!
Rockfish
I ended up doing rather a lot of mechs for battletech this month, but before I get into those I may as well start with the 40k I did!
There’s something quite satisfying about my current guard scheme, its quick for one thing but it also has a nice verisimilitude. For some reason I ended up with a bit of a fire support bent this month, and you might notice I changed up the Basilisk a bit as I think this ‘lighted’ version looks a bit more cool to me!
One of this months little projects was to fill in some gaps in my necrons and clear out a bit of the backlog, another five lychguard fills out my existing squad and a couple of kitbashed cryptothralls gives me some useful (and annoying) filler models. The command barge wasn’t quite as up to snuff as I might ordinarily aim for but it was really annoying me when I was painting it for some reason.
I had a random urge to paint a GSC model this month, so I went looking around the attic and came up with this Ridgerunner! It’s a new scheme rather then my existing one, mostly because I just had a thought of what might be cool to try out and I think it turned out pretty well!
Onto Battletech! While most of the models I did were in my usual messy and quick scheme, I did do a couple in some other (maybe canon accurate?) get ups!
Woah, it’s a bit wild to see them all laid out there in one spot! I set myself a vague goal to try and get as much my backlog done before the kickstarter mechs and vehicles make their way into the wild as possible, I’m making pretty good progress too! I just have thirteen unique IS models left, and probably half again that in clanners, so I might be done in the next few months if I don’t get distracted by another project…
Michael O “Mugginns”
I spent July finishing up all my American troops for my Mexican – American War game of Sharp Practice at HistoriCon. I had finished almost all of my Mexican troops in time for AdeptiCon hoping to run a game there, but it didn’t happen. I managed to finish all the American troops despite having a huge blunder – I finished them, based them, then sprayed white primer on them instead of matte clear. I still had time to re-paint and finish them, it just took a lot of late nights.
All of my Mexican – American War minis are from 1st Corps. They’re more on the heroic side of the 28mm scale but they’re very characterful and I love ’em.
I’m really happy with how they turned out. They look great in line and on the board. I also finished these buildings and scatter terrain pretty quickly using drybrushing etc.
Caelyn
I thought this month I’d be painting anything but 40k minis. I attended a 40k meetup with some pals (including Lupe and Cronch of this parish) right at the start of the month and had to race to get a bunch of stuff done in time, including deciding the day before the event to paint a unit of Daemonettes to ally into my little Chaos Knights force. Anyway, I had such a good time and was so enthused about 10th edition (having hated 9th) that I ended up painting an entire 1k Leagues of Votann force in a month. Technically the Hekaton Land Fortress isn’t quite finished, there’s still some details and weathering I want to do, but I still reckon it’s looking good and wouldn’t be embarassed to plop it down on the table.
LoV are close to my heart, because I’m old enough that I had some of the original Squats in the brief period between 2nd edition being released and them being, well, Squatted. (Side note: unless something has disappeared for over two decades with nary a word from GW, it hasn’t been Squatted. That’s just sparkling discontinuation.) In fact, other than the free Space Marine they gave away with White Dwarf when 2nd edition was released, a Squat trike was my first ever 40k mini. I was torn when the LoV range was announced, because I adored the models, but had no interest in playing 9th edition. I was so happy when I tried 10th and got on much better with it. Anyway, enough rambling from me, here is a 1k Leagues of Votann army, painted in a scheme inspired by the asexual pride flag.
Soggy
This month I had my first 10th edition 40K event, so I ended up spending most of my time painting vehicles 😂
I also painted up some aggressors, which accompanied by a character with Bolter Discipline, can really lay down some hurt.
Lastly, with the advent of Legions Imperialis/ the return of Epic I painted up a plastic Thunderhawk I had lying around. I had always meant to do World Eaters for my Heresy army but changed to scars at last minute. This time around I’ll stay true (for now)
SRM
It’s me, sliding in at the 11th hour to let y’all know I didn’t paint enough this month.
I knocked out a 5 man squad of Infernus Marines early this month, too late to review for our Leviathan coverage but still looking flashy and ready to burn. I had this urge to make their Sword Brother loaded with Templar drip, and my buddy Nik had given me some extra Templar bits of his, so I used a body from the Primaris Sword Brethren kit, left the cape off, and gave him a Templar pyreblaster from the Crusader squad. I’ve only used these guys in a game or two since and haven’t been super impressed with them, but I’m happy I painted them up.
My major project was this display board for the Tacoma Open. That event kicked ass, if you want to read about it. I documented the process and might make an article out of it, but it involved air drying clay, ample use of my bits box, Warhammer Fantasy movement trays, no small amount of sanding, and just a smidge of gumption. As someone who really doesn’t like painting terrain and has some insecurity about scratchbuilds, I was extremely happy with it, and done in time for Tacoma. There’s just one problem:
When a 2000 point army is on it, you can’t see the fucking thing. I’ll keep using it since it was no small amount of effort, but man do I feel like a dingus for planning everything out except how big it had to be. Now, despite doing well in my trash panda bracket at this event, I realized I needed some anti armor. Cue my retail therapy purchase:
As they were fresh out of Gladiators, I grabbed the next best thing – a Storm Speeder. I immediately replaced the doodlebopper stand with a ruined building to give it the illusion of floating, and magnetized that on with a big honkin disc magnet, secured with no small amount of green stuff. I then sunk in some other debris and painted that whole area black to look like burned rubble, and it hides the magnet pretty well. The turret is removable, and the main gun is magnetized for all 3 options. I doubt anyone will care about the missiles or sponsons.
I went hog wild with the screens here, and while I found it nerve wracking to freehand over my carefully blended monitors, it adds a lot to the model. This thing was kind of a pain to work with – those hover plates are always a bear – but I broke it down into enough subassemblies that I really got to enjoy the little dopamine hits along the way. I basically painted each small piece on its own, then had the satisfaction of smashing it all together at the end.
As for August, we’ll see! This Speeder is gonna be with me at NOVA, and it’s gonna be a busy month with that event, friends, family, and a new cat in my household. Maybe it’ll be Guard!
Bair
So it finally happened. About halfway into the month I hit a hobby brick-wall. Real burnout. I was expecting it for a while before this honestly but there we are: only 20 minis painted this month.
Painted up even more Burrows and Badgers minis, making up 19 of my painted minis this month. Adding to my Witch Hunter warband with some grubs and a grub handler, as well as a zealot weasel. Then more knights in the form of a hare, beaver, and 2 more mice. My favourite of the bunch though is this badger which I wanted to give a real Gandalf the Grey look.
Then I painted up a now OOP forge world daemon prince that I’ve had around for years and never got to. Really cool mini with a lot of detail I didn’t actually realise initially; a nurgling hanging out in the cess pot like it’s a hot tub and the flies on the back of the arm.
I’m not even in-country for the first two weeks of August so I expect a pretty low model count added as well, though I do need to church through 40 poxwalkers and a 10mm dwarf army soon…
NotThatHenryC
I have been preparing for a 30k event for a couple of months and managed to get my stuff mostly ready in time. I wanted to try using a Rite for my Raven Guard that required a Solar Auxilia detachment, so I made one. They’re based on Arbites from Kill Team combined with some Legion weapons and Necromunda bits. The transports are an Arvus that I’ve had unpainted for many years and some Goliath trucks that I’ve converted into counts-as Auroxes and which I call “Grox” – which I love as a name but wasn’t my idea at all.
None of this stuff is really 100% done, but it was battle ready for the event and is getting there. It’s a lot of conversion work that seems to have worked more or less ok. Basing next.
Here’s my Legate and a volkite squad, with their Arvus.
And this is a different Tercio of a volkite squad and another with rotor cannons, with their Grox.
I also got a Fire Raptor built and sort of painted. I’m very pleased with this because it’s something I’ve vaguely planned to do for several years and finally actually got round to doing. Still easier than assembling my “official” Storm Eagle model to be honest, and I think the end result is quite fun. I vaguely plan to paint it with digicam as I did on my Vindicator, but this is battle ready at least.
Musterkrux
I’ve been slow getting my 10th ed army started but I’m leaning hard into the ‘Whose Chapter is it, anyway?’ advice that everything is made up and the colours don’t matter. So, every squad in this Deathwatch army will be drawn from a different chapter…
The Lieuntenant with Combi-Weapon struck me as an awesome ‘Lone Wolf’ concept for Space Wolves.
Team: Poor Life Choices ready for action, sir!
Why wouldn’t you freehand the Lamenter’s chapter icon for an entire squad? That seems like a perfectly sane and normal thing to do (Tutorial coming soon).
It might be low-hanging fruit but of course my Infernus marines are going to be Salamanders.
Are these Sternguard, Tyrannic War Veterans or Deathwatch Veterans? Yes.
The Ultramarines lent Team: Poor Life Choices an Impulsor to do their Drive-Bys in.
Next steps will be a Blood Angels Watch Master, a squad of Space Wolf Long Fangs and Greyhunters moonlighting as Deathwatch Veterans and polishing off the Ballistus Dreadnought from Leviathan (slowly).
Fowler
After a bit of Leviathan Box Burn Out ™, I decided to take on a more leisurely project. The new Snarling Badger Studio game Majestic 13 caught my eye, and I decided to paint up some player teams and monsters for it.
When I think about shadowy government entities showing up to deal with aliens, I think “dudes in hazmat suits”. It’s an iconic look, and I am very happy with the results here, especially as this was a very speedy speed paint. The crew above is made from the two Wargames Atlantic Cannon Fodder kits, though I did slightly convert the neck joints to be a bit less… cartoony?
I will freely admit that I swiped this idea wholesale from Uncle Atom’s promo materials for the game. These are another Wargames Atlantic kit – Ooh Rah. Ok, good guys are sorted. We need some aliens for the good guys to shoot at!
The rulebook mentioned some scenarios in which you fight off a number of human-sized alien threats. This seemed like as good excuse to paint up the Reaper Kuliathi figures I hoarded a while back. Expect an article or two on the game in the future!
MasterSlowPoke
I got myself off to a slow start this month, getting the wild idea to paint a haywire mine token:
No idea why, really. I don’t even have any Incursors painted yet! I did test the unit out last weekend, and this mine rolled a 1 to activate both times I tried using it. That’s a reason to paint the actual squad to appease the RNG gods.
Most of the rest of the month was spent on fixing up the Rainbow Warriors’s motorpool. In 2019 I bought 2 Repulsors Executioner for Nova, but I was only able to finish about one and a half of them. The half done one has sat sad and uncompleted for years in my display cabinet. 10th is the vehicle edition, so I figured I had better knock that out of my backlog:
Will I ever run 2 RepExs? Probably not. I may pair it with its smaller cousin, though! I picked up this Gladiator Lancer at a game store’s booth at an anime con in Savannah, GA last year. It was basecoated with Calgar blue, which is my army’s first highlight color, so I thought it was a blessing. I should have looked a lot closer, though, as the person who built it didn’t clean up any sprue scars, and used copious amounts of glue to compensate for that. It took about 2 nights just scraping and sanding it to get it in working order. I’m proud to salvage it, though, and I’m pleased with the final model:
I also contributed to our HTPE: Malibu Barbie Edition article, and I finished up the No Respite Plague Marines:
As well as completing a test model for my Arbites Kill Team:
August will be Nova prep, so I see many sleepless nights in my future.
