Warhammer 40k Blood Angels

First patch of the Blood Angels is now ready to ship for the battle zone. Total of 10 tactical marines and 9 jump pack assault marines.

Painting these was a combination of something I came up a while ago when painting the terms for the Space Hulk 2015 game and other part was experimenting and trying to come up with efficient method for painting large amounts of marines (I'm under the impression theres around 150 of these guys with tanks, planes and shit coming to the painting table).

I summarise what I did here:

1. Vallejo Panzer Grey Primer
2. White Zenithal highlighting
3. Gloss Varnish Coat
4. Nun Oil Gloss wash (trying to stay away from the lighted areas)
5. Matt Varnish Coat
6. Gentle white Zenithal to tidy up lighted areas of the wash
7. Very thin Vallejo Ferrari red Glaze painted with an airbrush
8. Black areas like armour rims, weapons and skulls painted with Panzer Grey
9. Metal areas painted with generic metal and gold (gold only to special weapon nozzles and bazooka ammo)
10. Army Painter Strong Tone (similar to devlan mud) to metal areas
11. Edge highlighting and highlighting the imperial eagle crest with a water color pen
12. Base with Astrogranite and Strong Tone wash with some tufts
13. Matt Varnish to seal the highlights (they don't stick at all so a varnish is mandatory)
14. Green spots like lights and eyes with green (sorry don't remember the color, but its bright!)
15. Oh and for the heavy weapon dudes I painted blue helmets, because apparently they look better in parades with occasional splash of color in a see of read

For the assault marines I:

1. Painted the helmets with white + Strong Tone + GW Yellow Glaze
2. Painted gentle OSL effects to the turbines on their backs and to lower legs

I am content with these, and I'm sure they'll look fine on the battlefield, but I hope to get better. I especially think that the yellow helmets could be better. It seems I'm gonna get a lot of practise so lets see.

Images:

Doom the Boardgames - Painted the Miniatures

My friend with the Descent miniatures, got himself into the new Doom Boardgame from Fantasy Flight Games and asked me to paint the miniatures for that as well. I'm guessing, being a good chap, he wanted to give me a chance to redeem myself after messing up the fantasy guys.

I must say I didn't much look forwards to this, because the Descent miniatures were mostly crap from a miniature painters viewpoint (The game is great though). I wouldn't call them miniatures, but game pieces which look like miniatures. Well maybe that's a bit of exaggeration... I guess I'm just used to better stuff and really actual miniatures do not fit boardgames very well. You have to show them some love before you get to play and also after they are ready, if you don't want them to break in use.

However... The figures, when they came, were a huge surprise towards the positive!

The material was not that rubbery stuff. I mean it was still a little rubbery, but tougher kind of rubbery :) The sculpts were mostly ok, here and there AMAZING good (looking at you Cyber Demon).

The miniatures are clearly more than inspired by the Doom 2016 PC game and that was a good choice, since the models in that game are awesome. It also helped the painting, because there's loads of very nice pictures from the game, which allowed me to basically copy the paint job from online pictures.

Here're the images:

Cyber Demon

Macubus

Cacodemon

Baron of Hell

Revenant

Pinky

Possessed Soldier

Imp

The PC's (I'd choose the Chainsaw every time)

Family portrait

Age of Sigmar - Finnish Stat Cards

Ok so I got a problem coming from a marginal language area, Finland. Since there's only about 5 million people speaking Finnish and because we tend to speak English and other languages quite well, no-one bothers translating stuff for us anymore.

Normally this would not be a problem, but wanting to play games with my son, who's learned to read,  I needed Finnish stat cards for our Age of Sigmar Games. I considered commissioning a graphic designer to make templates for the cards for me, but ended up using a great online tool.

The tool doesn't translate the names for the stats (like "move", "bravery", "wounds") because I assume it's meant for making up your own units, but it made it possible for me to make up Finnish names for the critters and translating the ability descriptions and so on.

I know Finnish Translations are not interesting to many people, but everyone interested in AoS should check out the web page with the app. It is great :D

Here're the results:

Even more Descent 2.0 miniatures painted - Nerekhall and Labyrinth of Ruin

My grand plan of creating a group of articles for Otherworld Skirmish is on a temporary hold. The characters are ready and I even ordered the minis from Otherworld, but I haven't had time to paint them, because there's a pressing need for even more painted Descent miniatures.

This Time I got to paint the miniatures from the Nerekhall and Labyrinth of Ruin expansions. The Nerekhall miniatures, in my opinion, where mostly of crap quality, but luckily the Labyrinth of Ruin models where great so in average it was quite fun.

Here're the pics:

Here's a group shot of the Nerekhall minis and the lieutenant fire wizard which, I think, is sold separately. The rats and big lava demons where quite fun to paint, the others, not so much.

Labyrinth of Ruin sever dragons.

Labyrinth of Ruin spider crab -things.

Labyrinth of Ruin upright walking crab dudes

Labyrinth of Ruin goblin shamans

Labyrinth of Ruin heroes

I must say that it kind of pisses me off that FFG has ordered mostly AMAZING sculpts for this line and then proceeded to cast miniatures in rubber from those. I mean some of these miniatures would give Reaper a run for their money.

Next up, I'm going to paint the miniatures from the newish Doom the Boardgames and after that Blood Angels. This moment it looks like there're lots of miniatures in need of paint and I'm a little worried, since I was planning to shelve all my painting gear for the Golf Season which begins in a few weeks here in Finland.

I already got some of the Blood Angels for a test run. I was planning on this kind of scheme, which should be close to the canon colouring.

Panzer Grey - White Zenithal Highlights - Ferrari Red Glaze - Panzer grey for guns, eagles, skulls and eagles - Gun metal for bits and pieces - Strong tone wash for metals - Bright Green for eyes and lights - White edge highlights. Maybe I should put transfers on shoulder pads, I don't know...

Until next time.

"Jane Fondue" - Otherworld Fantasy Skirmish Character

Janes first recollections is the warm fur of the mother. She was left into the wild to die as an infant. Miraculously instead dying, Jane was adopted by a female brown bear who raised and nurtured her. When a little older, maybe 8 or so, she got totally bored waiting 5 months every winter for mama bear to wake.

Jane left the cave and after a while, a band of knights from Silvery Moon ran into her. They "saved" the girl taking her to the city. She couldn't speak and no one knew where the girl came. People assumed she was either blessed or cursed by the gods of the wild and handed her to druids, with whom she lived until adulthood.

The druids taught Jane to speak and behave, sort of. She didn't have an aptitude for magic and thus became a ranger instead.

With such epic and portentous background it surprised no-one, that Jane turned up an adventurer. Being a bit antisocial she never kept jobs for long before she ran into Bors and his band of heroes. Bors' straightforward way of doing the business of "adventure heroism" appeals to Jane. Their method is:
a) Identify the bad guys/girls/humanoids/monsters
b) Kill them
c) Take their treasure
d) Receive gold from civilian authorities
e) rinse and repeat

Statistics:
"Jane Fondue" - Good Companion - Wild Ranger
Spd 6, Def 4, Hits 2, Str 3, Agi 3, Int 3, Mor 3
Special Power: "Call of the Wild
Abilities: Concealing Cloak, Dodge, Eagle Eyes, Loner, Luck (1), Move Silently, Treasure Hunter (1)
Weapons: Short Sword (4+), Bow (4+)
Cost: 38 Gp

Other members of the Party of Adventurers:
"Bors the Axe"

"Bors the Axe" - Otherworld Fantasy Skirmish Character

"Bors the axe", "The Bald Blade of the North", "The Loinclothed Avenger", the man has many names and he came up with them all. Other folks just call him Bors or Mr. Bors, and try to stay away from him mostly, especially when he's drinking (which is most of the time).

Bors likes to boast and to fight and he does the latter well. His boasts are mostly clumsy attempts since his grasp of the common tongue is a bit weak, but no one ever tells him that to his face.

Bors is an Uthgar barbarian. He wields a a great two handed axe which he calls "The Axe" and wears a loincloth to all occasions and all year round. He's come to the north for he has heard there is trouble in Deadsnows, and also gold. Bors is planning to protect the innocent, slay the evil and take all of their gold (which was probably not stolen). He figures the innocent are sure to pay him for his services as well. They're supposed be digging gold from the mountain, so the pay should be good.

Statistics:
"Bors the Axe" - Good Legend - Valiant Warrior
Spd 6, Def 4, Hits 3, Str 4, Agi 4, Int 2, Mor 4
Special Power: "Reign of Steel"
Abilities: Martial Training, Onslaught, Rage, Blocker, Dodge, Roar
Weapons: Two Handed Axe (3+ to hit, 2-handed, Brutal, Unwieldly)
Cost: 61 Gp

Other members of the Party of Adventurers:
"Jane Fondue"

Descent 2.0 done and Dreadfleet Doneish

Even though I haven't been posting a lot, I haven't been totally idle. This is old news already, but I got the rest of the descent miniatures done and it's better to document that here, than let it look like there's some unfinished business.

Also I've now got most of the Dreadfleet ships painted and I got those done in time as well so that we got to play the game in the Winterwarcon (fancy name for an annual get-together) in January. Sadly I didn't get there in time because of a family issue, but the guys told me that it was a fun game. I guess I have to find time to play it too sometime in the future.

Here're the pics, so you know it did happen:

Rest of the Descent stuff

Swordfish

Weird egyptian ship

Groupshot

I'm pretty sure I painted the arabian style ship and the dead fish -ship as well, but there didn't seem to be any pics of those, so I guess we just have to assume that this (painting the ships) didn't happen.

Ogre Mage for Otherworld Skirmish

It's been so long that I almost forgot how to write. Been quite busy, so my limited hobby time has been spent on painting and playing games and sadly this means no time for blogging. I've reached a point where I must post something else this blog will totally die so here goes.

I'm actually in the middle of basing and finishing armies for my 15mm Hail Caesar in addition to painting a Freeborn force for Gates of Antares. After several nights of monotonous basing or painting for the same forces, I went looking for inspiration elsewhere (I don't know if this is a universal condition, but I tend to get bored fast if trying to paint only for one game at a time).

Rummaging through the bookshelf Otherworld skirmish got my eye which lead to rummaging through my unpainted stash of reaper miniatures. This is what happened:

 So it's only partly done, but I promise to glue some flock and tufts on it tonight.