Painting a Black Templar Army: Not Exactly Black and White

This weekend, I did something that I haven’t done in months and months: I actually put paint to miniature. I started working on some test models for my Black Templar army, trying to figure out my paint process (step by step, including the list of paints used – what I generally call my “recipe”) and trying to figure out how I want them to look. I find it’s best to use some test models when you start this process.

An overexposed cell phone photo of the winner of the two paint schemes

For this paint scheme (my fledgling Black Templar army) I grabbed two generic Space Marine models from the 5th edition Assault on Black Reach starter set. These models are generally easy to find on eBay and are great for starter models as they go together very quickly and are pretty easy to paint. I primed them both black with my airbrush (using Vallejo Airbrush Surface Primer) and then dusted them from above at a 45-degree angle with a dark grey of my own mixing specifically for this project (known now as the ’special sauce’). This gives the models depth, as the lighter color of paint lands on all the raised areas and then naturally fades to black in all of the areas that the airbrush doesn’t reach. This makes the model look like the shadows have been painted on, which they have been to a degree.

When I got to the iconic white shoulder pads for this army, I wanted to try a few different options. I didn’t want the white to be a flat, bright white like I frequently see on Black Templar models online. I wanted the white to be either dull or dirty in some way, and this is where starting your painting experiments with several models instead of just one starts to pay off. If you have at least two models to practice on, you can split off your ’recipe’ at some point and see which look you like better. If you only had one model you were testing on, you wouldn’t be able to compare techniques.

At this point, I’m pretty happy with the model seen above. I still need to finish the eye lenses (traditionally red for the Black Templars) and the basing colors (mainly a mud color and some small grey rocks), but once I’m happy with all of it (and have it all written down for posterity) I’ll be able to start working on the actual real models in the army and use the pictured model as an example to paint from. I’m looking forward to it.

New Terminator Leaders

I’ve been doing a lot of building lately, which means I haven’t painted in a long, long time. Like, seriously long. I think it’s been since early last year. Let me reiterate: it’s not that I haven’t been hobbying, it’s just that I built an entire Black Templar army, then started building new Chaos Space Marines units when the new book debuted, and then I got angry at the new Chaos codex and decided to switch back to Templars. And now I’m even building some new stuff for Templars, but the painting will start soon.

Black Templar Marshall in Terminator armor (left) and Sergeant in Terminator armor (right)

So I decided to try out running a Terminator Command Squad. To start that, one must have an HQ unit in terminator armor, so I’ve gone down that road and built a Marshall. I did a bit of kit bashing with him by using a set of the terminator legs from the Dark Angels terminators that came in the new Dark Vengeance box set and then one of the Forge World Black Templar Storm Shields, which are huge and awesome. I magnetized both of his shoulders so I could swap out the Storm Shield and the Lightning Claw in the future.

I also built a Sergeant for the Terminator Command Squad (as he’s a requirement) and I gave him a Storm Shield as well (but not the same fancy Forge World) and a Thunder Hammer. I usually find a guy in power armor or terminator armor without a helmet to be a silly idea, but I’ve been doing it for some of my HQ units just to make sure they’re easy to pick out of the group, visually. I also magnetized his shoulders so he can swap arms and use different weapons in the future. I built him a lightning claw arm as well, so he and the Marshall could be lightning claw bros if they wanted.

Next, I’m going to build some regular terminators to add to the group (including an assault cannon or two), and then they’ll be ready to get their bases textured. I’m hoping to get a lot of my Black Templar bases textured in the next few weeks so I can start priming them. Priming is, as you know, the next step to painting, and then soon I’ll be painting again and trying to re-learn those muscles. We’ll see how it goes.

Switching Armies?

It’s been a long time since I posted here for real (the WordPress auto-generated “end of 2012” statistic post doesn’t count) and I want to mention exactly why that is, but it’ll have to wait for another post. Soon.

However, I did want to mention some stuff about my recent hobbying, so I figure here’s a good place to do it. Though I’ve been building pretty steadily since my last post, I haven’t actually played a game since mid-December. In that game, Kevin’s Eldar crushed my sad, stupid Chaos Space Marines, and made me take a long hard look at my new codex.

Then the new Dark Angels codex came out.

Google Image Search, you so crazy

At this time, I’m putting my Chaos army on the shelf. I may sell them, but I haven’t decided yet. I think Games Workshop did a real disservice to the Chaos codex, especially when comparing it to the codex that they published before it (Necrons) and the codex after (Dark Angels). I could get into a long discussion about it and mention stats and force org comparisons and whatnot, but I don’t feel like it at this time. There are plenty of threads at Dakka Dakka and Warseer and other message boards that go over these issues in exhaustive detail, but let me just say that those bits of information are only part of the issue, and the other part of it is highly intangible and emotion-based. I can’t really describe it more than that, and due to this I’ve decided to put them on the shelf (for now) and not just sell the army outright on eBay or Bartertown.

So as it stands, I’m going back to my Black Templars and the allies that I’ve chosen for them, being at this time the Grey Knights and the Ultramarines. I have a game tonight against Kevin’s same Eldar list and tomorrow night I have a game against Jason’s Dark Eldar list. And though I doubt I’ll win either (as they’re both better players than me) I will probably at least feel better about my army, and for whatever reason, that’s pretty important to me.

2012 in Automated Review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for me, so take a look at it if you want. I’ll have a more specific end of the year report up soon.

Here’s an excerpt:

4,329 films were submitted to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This blog had 18,000 views in 2012. If each view were a film, this blog would power 4 Film Festivals

Click here to see the complete report.

More Building Progress and the Apocalypse

Due to the holidays and work and a few other things, I’ve been a bit slow on my posts here. But I have been working on the hobby and trying new things, so I got that going for me, which is nice.

I’ve been building new stuff for my Chaos Space Marine army. Although there are many actual models released for the line (including some new units released in the new book) there are anyways still units in the book that there are no actual models for. Case in point: the Nurgle Chaos Lord on Bike with Lightning Claw and Power Axe. Try and find a model for it on the website; it’s not there. I’ve looked. So I’m making my own.

Greasy Rider

So he sits on a Chaos Bike (‘natch) and his torso/head combination is a Forge World Death Guard piece. His lightning claw is from the new Chaos Space Marine Raptor/Warp Talon kit (the first time there have ever been Chaos lightning claws for sale) and his power axe is actually from a Beastman kit in the Warhammer Fantasy line. I made sure to magnetize the two arms so they could be swapped in with other arms when needed. I added some Green Stuff and modeled it to look Nurgle-y, which was fun. He needs a little more work (with some Liquid Green Stuff and maybe a trophy or some spikes, and then some basing) and then he’ll be ready for priming and paint.

And even though there are plenty of models for new units in the codex, sometimes I just don’t like those models and end up building my own. In this case, it’s the new Dark Apostle. He’s like an evil chaplain, and the new model is cool, but he’s made in Games Workshop’s Finecast resin instead of their excellent injection-molded plastic. He had a lot of small pieces and fine parts, and models like that in Finecast always make me nervous. As I’ve said in the past, if he was a Nurgle unit, I’d be fine with using Finecast, as bubbles and imperfections are part of the look, but in other units I’m leery. So again, I made my own.

Dark Apostle Gonna Hate

The robed legs are from the Dark Angels upgrade sprue, the torso is from the Possessed troops, the head is from the Berzerkers kit, the staff is the icon holder’s pole from the regular CSM troop sprues with the standard Chaos icon on top, and the scrolls and books are mainly all from the Grey Knights. I’m going to paint the scrolls and books to look like they were holy Imperial texts and then I will blaspheme them with Chaos icons and such. I’m going to try to put extra effort into this figure when it comes time to paint, and may even attempt a bit of freehand. We’ll see how it goes, but I’m pretty happy with the modeling so far.

Lastly, I played in my first Apocalypse game at Fire For Effect Games a few weeks ago. I brought about 2200 points of Chaos Space Marines and we had me and five other players on the “bad guys” side. We were up against six players on the Imperial side, including a pretty cool Titan model made out of paper.

So many models, and you can kinda see the Titan off in the distance

It was cool to see, but it was a little too much for me. I seem to like smaller games and will probably stick to 1 vs. 1 or maybe 2 vs. 2 in the future. That being said, we did win, however. Suck it, Corpse God!

Issues With the New Chaos Space Marine Codex and a New F(r)iend

So I’ve been pretty busy lately with the release of a new codex for my beloved Chaos Space Marines. I’ve been going through it over and over again, and I’m still up in the air with it. I’m not selling my figures and rage-quitting the codex, but there are some definite things I would have liked to see working differently than they are in the new book.

The main things: I really preferred the old daemon weapons that Chaos Lords could have back in the old book. They were just more variable, more interesting and they had more options, both for gameplay and for modeling. I also think the new Daemon Princes are too expensive for what you get, especially when they don’t get Eternal Warrior. I’m also bummed by cult troops (Plague Marines, Khorne Berzerkers, Thousand Sons and Noise Marines) being Elite choices unless you unlock them as Troops with the proper HQ choice. It’s kind of forcing you into making a mono-list (all Nurgle or all Slaanesh, etc.) and not really giving you a bonus for doing so. All in all, I’ll have to figure out what the best situation for me is going to be.

Towards that end, I’ve played three games with the new codex rules. I played a 1000-point game against John’s Crimson Fists using Space Wolves (aka Space Fists) a few weeks ago. That game I won, though it really seemed like I wouldn’t, early on. I got many lucky rolls with my Mark of Nurgle Terminators (they just wouldn’t die) and one of my Aspiring Champions turned into a Daemon Prince at one point (he never did anything cool, but he soaked an entire round of shooting from John before he finally shuffled off this mortal coil, thereby protecting the rest of my army from a full turn of gunfire) and I played the objectives well, so I pulled it out. Almost immediately after that game, I played an 1850-point game against Mike and his mostly all Space Marine bike list. I lost a lot of figures, but neither of us were able to score an objective properly, and neither of us was able to kill the other’s warlord, and we were both in each other’s deployment zone, so we were tied on primary and secondary points. Except: I had destroyed one of his units early on in the game, therefore I got the “First Blood” secondary objective, giving me a one point advantage, and allowing me to squeak out a victory. Barely.

Then, a week or two later, I played Kevin and his dreaded all-Terminator Deathwing army. My winning streak didn’t hold up.

This is nearly an eighth of the Terminators that Kevin brought to our battle

Long story short: my list could not properly deal with a million Terminators (mostly all with Storm Shields and Cyclone Missile Launchers) Deepstriking “all up in my business” and taking all of my objectives. I know I did make some tactical mistakes in this battle, and there’s also the variable of the dice to contend with, but the Deathwing are just real bonecrushers, no matter what, and this new codex has very little to contend with them. I’ll have to work harder and try to figure out what my best bet will be, as Deathwing is the only army that Kevin has currently. He is working on a new Eldar army, but I’ve had bad luck with them (sometimes) in the past, too. I’ll need to up my game.

Forgefiend with the Hades Autocannons and the “Mr. Licky” head option

In hobby news, I (mostly) finished building my new Forgefiend model. I say mostly because he still needs more work done to his base (maybe a dead guy half-buried in ash, or maybe even a skeleton) and he only has one set of weapons magnetized. I will probably magnetize the other set of guns (the two Ectoplasma Cannons) later, as I’d rather run the Hades Autocannons (seen in the photo) in most situations. Also, I’m out of magnets, but have a shipment coming in next week, so that won’t be a problem for long.

I have a few other built models to show you, and I’ll have more soon, but this is enough for today. Better to spread it out so you don’t get bored with all of my productivity all at once.

Painting Chaos Cultists: Quick and Easy, Part One

So, like many 40k nerds out there, I purchased a copy of the Dark Vengeance Warhammer 40,000 Starter Box, which includes a bunch of Dark Angels (neat looking, but not my thing) and a bunch of Chaos Space Marines (one of my armies) as did my friend Karl (who plays Dark Angels) and then we traded the half of the boxes that we weren’t going to use. Therefore, I ended up with doubles of everything Chaos-related in the Dark Vengeance box. As it relates to this post, that means I have 40 Chaos Cultists to paint.

Chaos Cultists are a new unit to the newest version of the Chaos Space Marine codex, and they are, for all intents and purposes, cannon fodder. However, they’re cheap cannon fodder (in game points) and they can hold and score objectives, so I figured it would be good to include them in my army. I built them all (they mainly just snap together one way, so they were a quick build) and cleaned off the minimal mold lines and then textured their bases. Once they were all prepared, it was time to prime and basecoat them. I usually prime and basecoat with my airbrush these days, but since there are so many of these guys, I wanted to use a technique that would work through these guys pretty quickly. So I grabbed my bag of spraycans and went outside.

All lined up according to the base color I’ll prime them

I used three main primer colors: Duplicolor Auto Red Oxide, Krylon Camo Brown, Krylon Camo Green, and Krylon Camo Black. All of these colors are great one-two punches for getting models both primed and basecoated all in one step. Rather than priming a model black, and then painting the basecoat brown or dark green or dark red, with these cans you can prime and basecoat in one step, which saves time.

A good starter coat of dark brown

As usual, don’t spray it on too thick, but make sure to get even coverage. I kind of split up my figures and tried to make sure that none of the specific poses would get the same base colors, therefore making the group look more like a chaotic group of rabble. I’ll work even more in the future steps to make two figures of the same sculpt look different from each other.

The first pass of spraycan never catches all the underside bits of the sculpts

After they’ve dried a bit (maybe 5-10 minutes, depending on humidity) then it’s best to lay them on their fronts and then prime again, to make sure to get paint on the undersides of the figures. Then, after another 5-10 minutes, flip them over and get the other side’s underside areas. Now you’ll have a completely primed model.

Now, it’s time to add that special something, and even differentiate the paint jobs a bit more. Get out your other paintcans and dust the models from above.

After dusting with different spraycans, this group looks a good deal different

If you dust the models with a lighter version of the base color from above, then they look as if you added in a built-in blended shadow to your paintjob, and they’ll look nicer and they’ll seem to look like you spent more time on them. If you dust the models with a lighter version of a different color from above, then it looks as if the model is being hit from above with a colored light, or it can add some discord to the look of the model, which is totally acceptable when painting nearly anything from Chaos, in my opinion. Therefore, I dusted some of the dark brown models with a tan (Krylon Camo Khaki), whereas others I dusted with grey or even red. The dark green models were either dusted with a light green for a natural look or tan for a touch of visual discord. And lastly, priming in black and then dusting with nearly any other color usually looks pretty good, I think.

The whole group of 40 Chaos Cultists, ready for further detailing

So with all 40 figures primed, basecoated and even shadow-blended, I’m now pretty far ahead for having a big force of tabletop-quality cultists with not much work. Next time I touch on this topic, I’ll show you where you can go from here.

Some Games and Some Dullcote

I’ve been pretty busy, hobby-wise, since my last update. I’ve done the trifecta: I’ve built models, I’ve painted (the last step of painting is sealing with Dullcote, so it counts), and I’ve played some games. Let’s get chronological:

Uncle Tickles, the Chaos Rhino, and Ol’ Drippy make the worst boy band ever

There was a very pleasant day recently with almost no wind and low humidity, so it struck me that I should probably be sealing some models. I generally use Testor’s Dullcote, which is frequently hard to find here in town. The two places that carry it (Hobby Town and Hobby Lobby) are usually out of stock. I would think they would order more so they can actually make some damn sales, but what do I know? Therefore, when I can actually find it, I tend to buy it so I have it when I need it. Luckily, I had some when this lovely day came along, so I was able to seal and finish Uncle Tickles, my Chaos Rhino, and Ol’ Drippy. Drippy actually isn’t completely finished, as he needs a little bit of gloss varnish on his drippy parts, to make them look wet, but he’ll be done soon. I’ll have to take some real nice GlamourShots of them when I get my photo rig set back up again.

This was the only photo I took during this game because it was the only good thing to happen for me during this game

I recently played a big 2000-point game against Kevin down in the Nerd Bunker. I used nearly every Black Templar model I had, and Kevin brought a combination of Deathwing Terminators, Ravenwing Bikers, and an ally force of Imperial Guard consisting of some I.G. guys and two Vendetta flying gunships of death. All in all, my bad dice and his superior list contributed to me getting thoroughly destroyed, although at least I wasn’t tabled. There isn’t much more to say about that, but I do have some better ideas for strategy next time. Hopefully this trouncing will cause me to remember these new lessons when the time comes.

These guys are planning to go and squash those bugs… the bugs have other ideas

Then, this past Saturday, Ben and Josh (and later Tom) came over and we played some games. It was Josh’s first games of 6th edition, so we started with a game of Josh and I (running 500 points each of Imperial Fists and Black Templar, respectively) against Ben and 1000 points of his mean, hurtful Necrons. As you might be able to tell from my subtle and masterful foreshadowing, we didn’t win that game. Honestly, we didn’t win the hell out of that game. Then we ate some lovely chili and chatted about nerd topics for quite awhile. Afterwards, we decided to switch it up a bit, and then Ben and Josh brought 500 points each of Necrons and Tau (respectively) against my 1000 points of Black Templar. Again, the Necrons won that game as well (I harmed way more of Josh’s Tau than I did Ben’s Necrons) and then we all (including my wife) went to eat burgers and prime rib. Other than the Necrons, it was a pretty good day.

Lastly, as of the last few days, I’ve been working on the Chaos forces in the new 6th edition Warhammer 40,000 “starter box”, Dark Vengeance. At this point, I’ve built six Chosen and seven Cultists, and I still have a Chaos Lord, a Hell Brute and 13 more Cultists to build. Then, I have an entire second set of Dark Vengeance to build, as my friend Karl and I each bought one and I’m trading him my Dark Angels from the box and he’s trading me his Chaos Space Marines from his box. It’s a pretty good deal, if you ask me. I’ll post about them when I get the first set built.

An Apothecary, a Chaplain, and a Land Raider Walk Into a Bar…

So my crazy month of August is finally over, and after travelling to Indianapolis and Chicago and running a 40k tourney all in about three weeks time, I’ve had some time off and played a game or two and now have some stuff to show off.

I’ve mainly been focusing on my Black Templar army as of late, as the Chaos Space Marine codex will probably be released sometime between October and the end of 2013 (hopefully) and I don’t want to build anything or paint anything, just to then find that the rules have changed and made this figure obsolete or requiring a big change to its weaponry or whatever. However, I suspect the Black Templars will be lucky to even get a new codex even in 2013, so I figure I’m safe to build, and soon start painting.

Land Raiders Gonna Land Raid

This is the first Land Raider I’ve ever built, and it’s a little bit of a handful, but not too bad. It’s actually a Land Raider Crusader (notice the Hurricane Bolter sponsons) and with proper clamping and big rubberbands, the construction isn’t too bad. Plus, I got to put all kinds of fun custom Black Templar bitz all over it, which I enjoy. I suspect I shan’t be building another one for this army (in the new edition of Warhammer 40,000, rules have changed to make vehicles a touch more  fragile, unlike the last edition, when vehicles were king) but I do have one for my Chaos Space Marine army. However, I’ll be waiting to build it, as I had mentioned.

From left to right: Doktor Pokesalot and Padre Plasma Pistol (the Triple-P)

These guys are mainly for a command squad I’m working on for my Marshall. The Apothecary is the standard build from the Command Squad box (although he does have a Black Templar shoulderpad, ‘natch) but the Chaplain is kind of a custom build for me. I used a Dark Angels robed body, a custom built crozius that I made from the Black Templar power axe, and a skull helmet and skull shoulderpad from MaxMini. Also, his left arm is magnetized, so he can swap between a plasma pistol (shown) and a bolt pistol, if points are an issue. I mostly like how he turned out, but now I’m trying to figure out how to paint him. However, I need to figure out how to paint the whole army, first. I should probably get moving on that, but I still have 15 terminators (five tactical and ten assault) and ten assault marines with jump packs to build, not to mention a few random hangers-on. Oh, and a Predator. And two and a half Landspeeder Typhoons. And two drop pods. And I should finish building the Storm Talon for my Space Marine ally detachment. And then I should build the 10 scout snipers and the Techmarine for that detachment. And then there’s the Grey Knight detachment.

I need more glue, is what I’m saying.

Gen Con Booty 2012

I’m back from Indianapolis and just want to touch base and mention what stuff I brought back with me, booty-wise. I remember thinking to myself on Thursday night, as I was drifting off to sleep in my hotel room, that it didn’t really seem like I’d be buying much this year. As usual, I was wrong.

This year’s haul

Starting in the upper left, there’s an Iron Kingdoms messenger bag from Battle Foam, then three starters from MERCS (ISS, USCR, and Texico) across the top. Below them, you’ll see some cool terrain / flying bases from Micro Arts Studio, some random terrain bits I found around the convention, and three embroidered patches (I’m always a sucker for embroidered patches) from Off World Designs. Next comes the new Dark Age Devastation book, and finally at the top in the upper right is a sweet MERCS bag, also made by Battle Foam, with more cool embroidered patches from the lads at MERCS Games.

Starting again on the left but in the middle this time, you’ll see some bags of Games Workshop bitz from the fine people at The War Store, and then a blister with some cool gas mask helmeted heads from Kromlech. Dead center of the booty pile is taken up with three different colors of “tuft grass” from Army Painter and five bottles of washes from Prism Paints, along with a cool gaming ruler, too. Still moving to the right, we enter the Games Workshop zone, including the new Psyker cards, the hard to find Aegis Defense Line, a squad of five Space Marine Assault Marines, and the big daddy: The Space Marine Storm Raven. All of these pieces were significantly discounted, between 20-25%, so I had to pick them up.

Along the bottom, we have the long-awaited Leviathans from Catalyst Game Labs. I’ve been waiting for that for nearly three years. The yellow t-shirt was free with my purchase of Artemis: The Spaceship Bridge Simulator game for the PC (it came on that cool flash drive sitting on the shirt and the game is awesome) and the other two were Cthulhu-related, so I had a hard time resisting them.

Overall, I had a good time again this year and got to touch base with people that I generally only see at Gen Con. I also did a ton of interviews for Beasts of War, and they should be hitting the website soon. As a matter of fact, the first one is already up and you could check it out, if you were so inclined.