Warhammer 40,000 Project Log

July 25th, 2010

Season: Warhammer 40,000

Army: Alpha Legion (1000 pts) - The Umbral Stalkers Cabal

Unit: Commander Maargoz's Legionnaires!

Whazao!

It's Bone again, this time with a heapin' helpin' of good news. Turns out, the Alpha Legion of the Umbral Stalkers Cabal is doing really well in the Battle for Ordavis, and we'll get to that soon enough with a blog entry of it's own. The prize today is the last of my units plotted for my 1000 points of Chaos Space Marines - a unit of regulars I call Legionnaires!

These fellows had a few extra metal bits, and by bits I mean pieces ranging from metal shoulder pads to metal bodies. The astute among you may note the presence of old metal veterans in my army, and one of them is present in this unit (he's the heavy metal one second from the left)...

The Aspiring Champion of this unit I originally started to paint back in 2003...I don't know why, I began on him one night, then stopped...not returning to the project until the beginning of this project log nearly six (?) years later. I think it turned out well, for my part...I don't want to take this long on any more projects!

I really enjoyed my time spent on these warriors, and went to town on the brass bits. There's a little more on the last five members of this squad than almost anywhere else in the army, but they still look slick and evil. Also, everyone knows that a painted model actually fights better on the battlefield. It's scientific fact. I'll get a pic of the entire army together with it's terrain set piece, of which I intend to construct for every force I collect.

There will be more frequent updating this week as several projects come together at once. I tend to work on tons of things at the same time, so occasionally there is some overlap and certain posts will have a longer time at the top...but it's entirely random, trust me!

One more thing...if there's anything anyone would like the Wargate to talk about I'd love to hear your ideas. There are a ton of round-table discussions that we can use this site for, so if something has caught your attention and you'd like to discuss it, either send me a suggestion for the topic or write the article yourself and I'll publish it here for everyone to read and digest.

The power of the internet compels you!

Warhammer 40,000 Project (Back) Log

February 6th, 2009 – October 1^st, 2009

Season: Warhammer 40,000

Army: Alpha Legion (1000)

Unit: Commander Jhevex’s Legionnaires

On this unit I again had half the squad done already, from back in ’03. The way I split my existing units meant that on most of them half the marines were already painted. I had to split them by special weapons, for you can no longer have a heavy weapon in a squad under 10 men. My original three squads were seven men, and now are ten.

These are the five men of Squad Jhevex that were already painted. Notice the Impurity Seal on Commander Jhevex’s shoulder. Most impious!!

The marine to the right of the missile launcher was a prototype I had done using a buddy’s spare marine and another buddy’s spare chaos bits, from ’02. It sat on my computer desk with a few other ‘prototype’ style models for about six months before I decide I wanted a proper army of Alpha Legion – right about the time they updated the Codex in ’03.

Another interesting story – the marine to the left of the plasma gunner I got extremely angry with while I was working on it…I don’t really remember why. Anyways, my temper could get the better of me back then…and I crushed it with my fist. My girlfriend, who saved a lot of my models I had deemed unworthy, came in to find the foolish marine in its constituent atoms. After a short dialogue concerning how not to give up on things immediately, I put that marine back together again. The only evidence that it was ever broken are the cracks across its horn, which I inked in and decided it looked pretty cool!

On the remaining five men, I wanted to emphasize the green a little more so I put a little more on the more raised areas of the models, and toned it back down with a Nauseating Blue inking.

I would not return to this project for nearly 8 months, during which time I built a new game board for us to play our games on and get a little more interest generated in the community. This has set me back almost a year on this project blog, so I will be generating more and finishing what I have begun. If I work hard enough, I will be caught up with where I want to be in the project. Yes, I’m clocking myself – and I intend to get what I had planned to get done this year completely finished.

 

Stay tuned! More to follow soon!

Warhammer 40,000 Project (Back) Log

(This is an old post, but I brought it here while experimenting with formatting this blog. It's included here along with a few others for continuity. I apologize if you've seen these before, if not then take a look.)

January 9^th, 2009

Season: Warhammer 40,000

Army: Alpha Legion (1000)

Unit: Commander Shadax’s Legionnaires

Welcome to my blog!! This record exists to impel my army construction and completion through threat of embarrassment by several means, including through failure to meet deadlines, crappy paintjobs, terrible innuendos and general overall malaise. We begin the year in the Warhammer 40,000 season in my game club, and that means I need a 40k army!!

I’ve been collecting and gaming for several years, but I never seem to get around to painting everything I collect. This has led to several boxed up armies that are half completed or damaged from years of storage. No more!! Starting with this project, the armies will all be completed in much less time than if I just allowed myself to stare at them for another year.

So, a 1000 point army for Warhammer 40,000 is what I need, and with last years release of Codex: Chaos Space Marines it seems a no-brainer to choose them as the first of my languishing armies to receive the treatment! Alas, after reading the codex it became clear that my army would have to change – drastically.

I started this army when the previous codex was released in 2003, around the time of Eye of Terror. I loved the pic of the Alpha Legionnaire in that book, so I collected a themed army that was my version of the Legion. In the earlier draft of the list (2003-2007) I ran these guys as a completely infiltrating team of power armor commandos. No vehicles, nobody who couldn’t infiltrate. I want to point out that the original list was created before the massive boost Infiltrate got in 4^th edition. It became much more powerful then, much to my benefit. Well, enough with that, GW says!! No more infiltrating with basic troops! Or Characters!!

So the army needed a new slate. I dreamed up a new concept, wrote a new list, got rid of several miniatures, and bought a few new ones. Instead of the infiltrating army list I had for four years, now I will possess something a few people might claim is “unfluffy” – an Alpha Legion siege brigade. Yes that’s right. No cultists. Just Vindicator tanks, baby.

These are the five members of Squad Shadax I painted back in 2003, and I will have to apologize for crappy paint jobs and blurry photography…I’m a novice with the camera and it’s an old 3.2 mega pixel. I’m going to learn how to do this right, so any suggestions you could give would be nice – I know I need a new digicam.

I had several models from different squads painted, but I’ve had to add troops and move around special weapons within units to the point I’m just building new units from scratch. These are the painted fellows that made it into this squad. I include this because for the rest of the unit I had to do some color matching – Storm Blue isn’t made anymore. I chose Nauseating Blue as the stand in color, and went to work.

Painting the units breaks down into about five phases: Nauseating Blue basecoat, Goblin Green drybrush, Mithril Silver trim, leather accessories; and tassels, horns, and eyes. After that, I paint the base and apply a lacquer coat (for that finished look, also protects my models for years of abuse and neglect). Some people don’t like the gloss lacquer; I find it to be necessary for peace of mind.

So I’m going to be using a few different materials than back in 2003 – I no longer have the material I made the basing with, so I’m going to approximate on all the new models and hope that it doesn’t look out of place with the rest of the army. No Storm Blue, no basing materials…

This pic is stage 2 and 3, respectively, on two very similar miniatures from this squad. I have to say that I think the Nauseating Blue and increased amount of Goblin Green turned out well, even if you can’t really see the green highlighting too well in my pic. I almost don’t want to proceed to stage 3 on the rest…hmm, maybe should keep that idea around for the Chosen, later on.

Adding the trim changes the look of the model a whole lot. Stage 3 is of course the most time consuming and tedious…and easy to mess up. You guys will probably catch a lot of my mistakes, but time is kind of an issue for me. Still, he looks pretty close to the old ones I painted, and that’s the goal!!

This is the finished unit, after basing and transfers have been applied. It looks great together with the old ones and without really looking at it, it’s hard to pick out which is which. Objective completed.