As the title says, Squad 4-1-4 is still a WIP. The squad is however somewhat closer to completion than it was a month ago. Even my ridiculously slow painting hasn't stopped me!

What has stopped me, or at least slowed me even further, is my broken finger. I broke my proximal phalanx of my ring finger on my left hand saving a shot while playing football (stupid me). Luckily I'm right handed so I can still hold a brush, I just can't hold a model steady in my left hand.

So enough of the sympathy story about me being even slower at painting, time for some pictures.



The least finished model in the squad is the sergeant. He can be seen above, sporting one arm and a fetching blonde haircut. His other arm is clutching a bolt pistol in the background, waiting to be finished before being glued in place.



This unfortunate fellow that has the wounded arm will be the squads vox operator. As I rarely play outfitting him with a vox is more for aesthetics and to keep the squads kitted out the same.



Next up are the seven other lasgun armed guardsmen. They've all got arms and heads now, unlike in the previous post.

Next up will be putting the decals on the shoulder pads, which I've already gloss varnished in anticipation, and then the squad marking on the other shoulder pad. Once that's done, a heavy wash of Devlan Mud will be plastered over each guardsman, and then I'll finish up their bases.

Thanks for reading.

So it's taken me a while to get the pcitures and blog post sorted, but I finally got of my arse to do it. The new infantry squad is going to be squad 4-1-4, making it part of Platoon 4.



The pictures above show the troopers that are the furthest from completion, obvioulsy having no arms or head is a bit of a problem. I am currently painting up the lasguns for the two headless/armless troopers, and the weapons for the sergeant.

The trooper with his arm in a sling is waiting for his vox caster to be completed before I can add his head and other arm. And the final trooper just needs some highlighting and a head.



Here are two troopers that are actually close to completion. Highlighting has been done, now it's just a case of adding extra pouches etc.



The same can be said for these two troopers as well, although one does need highlighting on his lasgun and shoulder pads. All of the troopers need to have their bases completed and then a wash of Devlan Mud before being sealed with matt varnish.



Just to give you an idea of how many pouches I have to paint up. I like to make sure that each trooper has basically the same kit, just changing the position of the pouches on the body, or maybe adding another grenade set to one to keep them individual.



And finally this is the only trooper that is finished, the meltagunner. I can't remember if I've varnished him or not, so he'll probably get another coat when I do the rest. He is one of the metal models, so this extra varnish will help in the long run in case I drop him.

It took me a while but there are some pictures for you all to digest. Progress is slow but steady, but I have remembered to take more photos so I'll get them up soon (I hope). Thanks for reading.

Its ben a while since my last post, but in the mean time I've been working on some more infantry, because as a Guard player you can never have enough infantry (or tanks!).

I haven't got any pictures available at the moment, but I'll hopefully get some up when they are complete.

I already have a platoon of flamer wielding squads, and another platoon of grenade launcher guardsmen, so now I'm making a platoon of meltagun armed squads. The first squad is nearing completion so that will be the first one with pictures. Currently the other squads are just torsos and legs stuck to bases, so not much progress there.

Stay tuned for another update, and thanks for reading.

P.S. I've bought some new Winsor & Newton Series 7 brushes so will try to review them at some point.

Like a lot of people, I was very sceptical when I heard about the new Citadel Finecast range. Price rises each year I can kind of accept, I mean have you seen how much everything else in the world has increased in price. My worry was how this replacement would compare to metal and other resin, like Forgeworld. So I decided to buy a model that I've been holding off on, the Lord Commissar. His pose is cool and he looks mean, enough said.



Here is the packaging looking all nice and colourful. The full picture on the model gives a nice reference for when I can't decide how to paint the guy. My only disappointment was that there is no longer a piece of sponge in the packaging, and just when I was about to start trying sponge weathering techniques.







After opening up the packaging and looking over the model for a few minutes, I can honestly say that I found no major issues with the resin casting. To be honest, I couldn't see any issues at all. The details look crisp, there are minimal bubbles and all in the all the model looks great.

Overall I would say that I'm not overwhelmed by the new Finecast range, just pleased to have a good quality model, especially after some of the horror stories that have been going round the web.

I'll try to take some pics when I get around to painting him up, just to see how this compares to metal. Thanks for reading.

I popped into my local Games Workshop (Stoke-on-Trent) today for the final part of my intro to 5th edition, which was a 1000pts game. It ended up being a pitched battle annihilation, my Guard force against Ravenwing Space Marines.

I took:
1x CCS with autocannon and 2 flamers
1x PCS with autocannon and 3 flamers
2x infantry squad with grenade launchers
1x veteran squad with 3 flamers
1x heavy weapons squad with 3 heavy bolters
1x heavy weapons squad with 3 mortars
1x valkyrie with multilaser, multiple rocket pods and heavy bolters - held in reserve
1x hellhound with hull heavy flamer
1x leman russ demolisher with hull lascannon, plasma cannon sponsons and pintle storm bolter

The GW employee had:
1x Ravenwing special character in landspeeder (can't remember his name)
1x bike squad with 5 bikes and 1 attack bike armed with a multi-melta
1x 5 marine combat squad with flamer
1x 5 marine combat squad with missile launcher
1x dreadnought with 2 close combat weapons
1x 5 man terminator squad - held in reserve

I managed to seize the iniative and proceeded to fire everything on the Demolisher at the bike squad to try and kill off the multi-melta attack bike. Everything else fired at the Marine combat squads or the bike squad. At this point I didn't know about the special character landspeeder so didn't use the Demolisher to try and kill him instead.

The bike squad was reduced to the sergeant and attack bike. They then killed the Demolisher with melta bombs after missing with the multi-melta. To sum up the rest of the game as I'm kind of going away from the main reason for this post, the dreadnought and flamer combat squad killed off the veterans. The dreadnought then killed off the remainder of an infantry squad before being immobilized by the valkyrie.

The PCS managed to kill the landspeeder character with an autocannon shot to the rear armour. The landspeeder had killed most of the CCS already though. The terminators killed off the PCS and the mortars before being blasted by the heavy bolter squad.

I fired all of the valkyrie weapons at the remaining 3 marines in the flamer combat squad, but 1 marine lived, so I lost the game by one kill point, never mind.


Anyway, on to the main point of this post. Whilst in the store I noticed the Armies on Parade info board. So I thought I'd maybe try my hand at making a display board to enter. However the GW employee told me that it had to be a Citadel gameboard piece which is obviously a bit expensive just to enter a competition with no real prize.

Basically I want to ask if anyone has a spare unpainted flat gameboard that they would be willing to sell. Or if there is anyone that would like to buy an unpainted flat gameboard from the expansion set, as I only need one. If anyone would like to sell/buy please e-mail me at courtneyhollyoake@hotmail.com

Thanks in advance for those that have taken the time to read through this.

After several weeks of waiting - Command Squad 7-0-1 is finally complete. Rather than boring people to death with text, like I did in the last post, there will be more pictures. Enjoy!


Command Squad 7-0-1 parade photo


7-0-1 - front angle


7-0-1 - front view

7-0-1 - right side view


7-0-1 - back view


7-0-1 - left side view

Thanks for reading!

Long time, no blog. These past weeks I just really haven't been motivated into picking up a brush. But then a couple of days ago, whilst tidying the study, I decided it was time to brush the dust off the command squad that I foolishly proclaimed would only take a few days to finish.

So now that I've got around to doing some more painting, I thought I'd give a little update. I really honestly hope to have these guys finished in the next few days, it's just up to me to get working on them.



Here is the command squad's Junior Officer. Armed with a bolt pistol and power sword, this guy is going to get stuck in whether he wants to or not. With that in mind I went with a very grizzled looking face, something he may have picked up when he got his augmetic arm. The arm itself was painted Boltgun Metal and then got two heavy washes of Badab Black to tone the silver down. The sword was painted Mechrite Red, followed by a Baal Red wash. An edge highlight of Blood Red was added. The lightning pattern is Blood Red with a Skull White edge. The whole of the sword got another wash of Baal Red, and then the groove got a wash of Badab Black.

The personal shield device also got a heavy wash of Badab Black, again to tone down the silver. The whole model, except for the sword/sword arm, will get a wash of Devlan Mud before completion. For the skin, the head was undercoated with Tallarn Flesh, I then added an Ogryn Flesh wash. Once this had dried, Elf Flesh was drybrushed over the head. The eyes were painted black and then some white was painted over the top.



Next up is the standard bearer. I have spent a huge amount of time trying to get the flag to look right and so far I'm pleased with the outcome. The main body of the flag was painted Enchanted Blue. I then had a go at mixing up a lighter blue by adding some Ice Blue to the Enchanted. Once I was happy this mid blue was drybrushed onto the flag. Pure Ice Blue was then also drybrushed on.

The metallic areas are painted Boltgun Metal and will receive a highlight of Mithril Silver, before a thinnned wash of Badab Black. For the scrolls, I used Astronomican Grey as a base followed by several thin coats of Bleached Bone. I tried to leave a little bit of grey on the edges for definition.

I've got to admit that the circle star pattern thing was the most difficult part to paint. I started by putting down a base of Chaos Black. I then went over this with Astronomican Grey, trying to leave some black showing. Then I used Fortress Grey to finish it off, again allowing some of the previous layer to show through.

The edge of the flag is being painted Iyunden Darksun, and will get a highlight of Sunburst Yellow followed by a Gryphonne Sepia wash. I've tried to add some wood effect to the pole by painting thin lines of Vallejo Game Colour Scrofulous Brown oevr a base of Calthan Brown. I think that I need to learn how to steady my hand a bit better.



Finally here are the three flamer troopers that will make up the rest of the squad. All of them have been painted in the same way. The flamer nozzles were painted Chaos Black, and then Boltgun Metal. I then washed this with Badab Black. Once this was dry a thin wash of Leviathan Purple was applied to the nozzle, this was followed with a wash of Asurmen Blue. I was trying to get a heat discolouration pattern, but this needs a bit of refining.

The fuel hoses were painted with Brazen Brash over a Chaos Black undercoat, followed by a wash of Badab Black, which I seem to be using whenever possible. The shoulder emblems were painted in the same way as the flag design, except Codex Grey was added before the Fortress Grey highlight. A very light highlight of Skull White was also applied.

And there we have it for the moment. So after a month with nothing, I'll leave you all with that lot to digest. Thanks for reading.

Armoured Sentinel - Red Angel 4

Once again my modelling plans get altered immensely. I foolishly decided that I should be able to finish a 5 man command squad on a couple of weeks at most. I was happy painting, and thought this should be a piece of cake. However, its been three weeks since I picked up a brush. One week was lost with a family holiday to Florida, so I'll let my self off for that week. But the past two weeks have been lost to housework, tidying up and Dragon Age 2. I'm finding it difficult to divide my time evenly between computer games and painting. With today being a day off work though, I'm going to try picking up a brush again.

In the mean time I shall post some pictures of my remaining finished sentinel. Unlike the previous two sentinels, this one is armoured and armed with a lascannon. The model is the Armageddon Steel Legion Sentinel, with the metal extra armour. So here are the pics of Red Angel 4:











This model was a bit quicker to paint than the scout sentinels, as the interior cannot be seen and therefore did not need painting. Comparing the three sentinels side by side, I can see where my painting has improved over the years, so by the time the fourth sentinel is done there will be some other improvements (hopefully!).

Thanks for reading, and now to find that paint brush!

Scout Sentinel - Red Angel 2

To break up the work on the command squad, here is the second of my scout sentinels. Designated Red Angel 2, this is the partner sentinel for Red Angel 1, and is another scout (Cadian pattern) sentinel. There will be a Red Angel 3 at some point.





There's not much to say about this model. It was painted in the same way as Red Angel 1, Dark Angels Green basecoat with Goblin Green for the camo. The whole model received a drybrush of Bleached Bone and a coat of matt varnish. The lenses and light were pciked out with two coats of gloss varnish.

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for a command squad update.