Kevin C.

Deathwatch Tacticals

Bit of a story… strap in…

The last time I went to Adepticon, all the way back in 2011, I was frantically painting up Space Wolf & Vostroyan armies for the Team Tournament. One of my teammates showed me his display case, which had a considerably sized Deathwatch army, all the marines from different chapters. That, in conjunction with the recent release of the Deathwatch RPG by Fantasy Flight (now sadly OOP), inspired me to get some Deathwatch upgrade kits, the old pewter ones, and make a Deathwatch army of my own.

I bought some basic tactical marine kits, and requested Friend of the Blog Chewie to build some squads up for me. Later, I would add some assault marines and terminators to this ensemble, as well as bikes, rhinos, and the new Corvus Blackstar kit. I had no intention to play this army competitively, but I wanted to represent many unique chapter bits throughout the army. This army, in its totality, was completely built in 2016, just after the new Primaris miniatures were released. I was rather annoyed with this, thus making my marines rather outdated, but I did eventually commit to painting my marines. I also made a commitment to have each marine come from a different chapter, and to represent many of the more obscure chapters.

In 2021, when the second edition of Kill Team came out, I painted my tactical marines to bring to various Kill Team events. I enjoyed how they played and the straightforward and flexible nature of their strategy. I know they can no longer be used in the current version of the game, but I wanted to make sure that the full army could finally see the light of day. Or at least, the light of my display case.

Two recent purchases made this project possible. First was my new display case, which I’ve shown earlier, which allows me to actually display the full army, rather than have them packed away in some random box for no one to see. The second was a gift I received for Christmas from my wonderful wife – a set of Artis Opus drybrushes. These did wonders for getting the right color on the black power armor and tanks, especially when using the Artis Opus tutorials, which I highly recommend.

Deathwatch Vehicles

I wanted to take a first crack at the vehicles, to get some drybrushing experience before starting on my infantry. Chewie assembled my Rhinos with a detachable top door that can be replaced with twin-linked lascannons to make each a Razorback. A few years back, I purchased some MSP Paints for painting a cool black, so that’s what I used for the rest of the army.

I was able to get a good base coat on the Rhinos fairly easily, but I started to get ambitious with freehanding some design stripes. I wanted to try freehanding an Inquisition symbol on the top hatch, as well as adding in the stripes along the front. While the striped in the front seemed to work well, I’m not entirely pleased with the Inquisitorial symbols. Even still, they give much needed color to the black vehicles.

I also included some script decals along the hulls that I purchased several years ago from Mighty Brush Decals (https://www.themightybrush.com/product/imperial-gothic-script-waterslide-transfers-decals/). I had intended to use these on some Imperial Knights, but I gave up on that project several years ago. I am glad I was able to use these decals on something else I worked on, and I think they worked well.

Secondly, I worked on the Corvus Blackstars. I admit, they were a lot larger than I was expecting, and they proved more difficult to basecost with drybrushing. I ended up getting some unpleasant streaks due to getting impatient and having too chalky of paint on my brush. Contrary to the name, “drybrushing” requires moisture in the paint, just like any other painting.

Next, there was a lot of gold and silver across the miniature, and much less red. I decided against a red stripe on each wing, as I feel like it would crowd out too much of the existing design. I do like these miniatures, but I’m not entirely sure I gave them the love they deserved. They are still quite flashy though, so I’m pleased with how they turned out.

Deathwatch Terminators

Before working on the Terminators, I put a new base coat on the infantry. I was pleased with my improvement in the drybrushing, but after reaching this point, I did feel like this was a bit too light for black armor. After reaching this point, I darkened the color with an overall black wash.

As I mentioned before, I wanted each of the marines to come from different chapters. I already had an Imperial Fists tactical marine, and one of these terminators would be a Salamander, but there were many Imperial Fist descendent chapters to choose from. They were a bit more obscure, but some old hands may recognize some of the chapters from their badges. None of them are DIY, promise.

Deathwatch Assault Marines

Unlike the terminators, the assault marines were designed and built with specific chapters in mind. There happen to be a lot of well-known melee-focused chapters, so it was not difficult to have five from well known chapters among the lore. It gave me some much-needed practice in freehanding chapter symbols.

I’m actually quite pleased with the technique I used for the power blades/axes/claws. Simply a base coat of Grey Seer, overall contrast of Aethermatic Blue, second contrast of Kroxigor Scales near the forte of the blade, and finally a highlight of Blue Horror. Probably something I will use in future projects.

Deathwatch Bikers

Unlike Assault Marines and Terminators, I have never painted biker marines before, so this was a new experience for me. Fortunately, unlike the other two squads, these did not have many extra bits, so I could work on these in batches easily enough. I obviously had to have one of these bikers a White Scars – which happened to be the one with the chain-talwar – but the others I needed to find good chapters they could come from.

Most of these are from White Scar chapter descendants, but I did include two Raven Guard Successors, a different kind of swift strike capability.

Deathwatch Heroes

Finally, I was able to tackle the Deathwatch Heroes – Chaplain, Librarian, and Captain. There was a lot of detail in each one of these miniatures, so they took longer than I was anticipating, but I am glad I was able to complete them before the end of the month.

And, with the heroes completed, the entire army has been completed. After nine years of staring down at me from their perch on my unfinished shelf – yes, I have an unfinished shelf – they have now taken their place of honor in my display case.

Until next month!

Austin B.

The Forces Grow

My work on Battletech projects continues! The NAIS Training Cadre I previewed last time have gotten a slight rework of their scheme, and some considerable additions! More than the 12 I had initially envisioned, and with more to come eventually as further Battletech releases creep out into the open markets.  

We’re now up to 16 mechs, not including the now-stripped Valkyrie I had done up as the test model. I have plenty more to do for this force, and I quite enjoy the scheme. It is a bit time-consuming though, which is why I haven’t gotten more than these 16 done. Well, that, and I pivoted to another, much easier to paint force: the St. Ives Compact!

Much easier to paint indeed, as it took me very little time to fly through painting 27 mechs! Just over two Companies worth! It’s a fun, simple, and effective scheme, and I have many more sitting on the painting desk waiting to be finished. These are shaping up to be my largest force yet. And with them being intended for some of the more popular eras for Battletech gaming, they’re already shaping up to be my most played force as well. So I have considerable incentive to keep up on this force most of all. That all said, with recent releases, and some recent purchases, I do have some additional things to paint now for my Outworlds Alliance and Clan Snow Raven, so I may be pivoting back to them in this coming month. That, and with new Shatterpoint releases out now, I have some more Rebels to paint. So expect a bit more than just several dozen more mechs for the Compact next month!

Joe R

Those of you with a keen eye (or just eyes really…) may have noticed a distinct lack of updates from me last month. March and April were chock full of travel, both work and pleasure. Additionally, y’all, Red Dead Redemption 2 is really good. REALLY good. It’s like I’m 7 years late to the party or something! Needless to say, hobbying has ended up in the backseat despite the start of the year showing so much promise. That said, I do have a few goodies to share.

The Venison Beach Grindylow – Blood Bowl Goblin Team

The Grindylow are still coming along, but have slowed significantly. I was hoping to have the 9 players from my 7s team painted, varnished, and based. So far, I’ve managed to finish the Looney (aka chainsaw) and put a preliminary basecoat on another Gobbo.

I had some bigger plans to turn this model into a Harley Quinn style character, but ended up deciding to just keep her blonde. I tried to make her mask look a bit like a Tiki mask with the bright and dark browns. Eh, it’s fine. I was pleased with the hazard striping, which I freehanded. Overall, there are a few areas of this model that could use some additional attention but I was happy to move on. Looking at this picture, I think I might take another crack at her eyes.

3D Printing – Necromunda, Trench Crusade

You may think “Joe, 3D printing stuff isn’t really hobby progress!” Fundamentally, I don’t disagree with you. That said, my workshop has been abuzz during April. Even though I don’t make my own models (or even modify them in Blender), I often forget how much time is required to set up and clean the prints. This is extra true for resin prints which require washing, removal of supports, and final curing. Let’s take a look at what’s been cooking…

Kevin (of AToMW fame) and Greg both requested my services to print Trench Crusade models they had acquired. Greg picked up the Trench Pilgrims, whereas Kevin acquired the Red Brigade. Thankfully my resin printer is dialed in, so I rarely get failed prints. However, sometimes the parts for modular models are spindly. In this particular case, I ended up printing the same flail 4 TIMES. It’s now up to Greg to make the final version of this particular piece escape its support prison. Kevin’s models were cake. Westfalia Publishing made some great models with great supports. I even ended up temporarily joining their Tribe on MMF. Here is a mixture of parts for the Trench Pilgrims I printed for Greg.

I’ve also got a Necromunda Ash Wastes campaign waiting in the wings. Terrain has long been a weakness of my ability to prepare a Necromunda table. I have lots of sprues ready to be assembled, but my selections for Ash Wastes are limited. I’ve been collecting files for use in the campaign for about 6 months now, but hadn’t printed a single thing. Well, that has changed! 

I’ve had my eyes on David Sheff’s Ash Pocalypse for a while now. He just completed a new campaign where I was able to pick it up for near original price. The crashed bike, jeep, barricades, and tower are all from there. I haven’t even begun to print the series of flexible walkways that “sub” for the official GW terrain (which I’m also preparing to assemble in the near future). The resin pieces are from Print Mini’s Fuel Station. Obviously, I love the Fallout vibe. I’ve been a patron of Print Minis for a long time and have almost all of their Necromunda collection. This includes a WEALTH of interesting terrain pieces and vehicles, especially for Ash Wastes. The Fuel Station is my first effort to actually print any of them. Almost all of the kits are designed for resin (though some of the newer stuff also includes FDM printing), so this is an experience for me. Even with my (relatively) large print bed it takes multiple prints to complete sets. I’ve got an Ash Waste train in my queue as well. Hopefully something we can use for the midpoint of the campaign.

Speaking of, I’ll probably post the ruleset for my Necromunda campaign for folks to peruse. I try to keep everything contained to a single (somewhat overwhelming) rules packet.

Cuckoo Clock Figurines

Now for something completely different! My stepdad recently found a cuckoo clock that belonged to his grandparents. He’s going through the process of restoring it and asked me to repaint the figures that dance at the top of the hour. It’s been a very different task for me!

These figures appear to be made out of plastic and have definitely seen better days. Very quickly, the two on the right have had a few new layers of acrylic paint applied. The fellow with the tuba is about complete (minus brightening the tuba a bit). The other two haven’t been touched, so you can see where things are starting from. The plastic doesn’t take acrylic paint particularly well, so I find myself applying a few coats just to get halfway decent coverage. I’m not planning to do a lot here. I’m basically going to repaint them, maybe provide a tiny bit of depth, and call them good. It’s been fun to reinvigorate the models and see them come back to life though! The addition of eyebrows really made the tuba model come to life. I’m hoping to have these 4 done by the end of May. When the cuckoo clock is finished, I’ll include a video of these fellows in action.

Well, that’s all for now folks. There are a lot of projects in my near future. My Escher need some TLC and those terrain pieces aren’t going to paint themselves. I’ve also got a quick Blood Bowl project that I’m hoping to finish by the 3rd Saturday in May. We’ll see how it goes! Wish me luck!