All Vendettas and Colonel Straken's Command Valk now ready for action!

And only Valkyrie 07 to go! Vendetta 06 was quite a breeze to paint, I guess it being the final Vendetta in the squadron and all. And the good news is, I actually found those AirCav shield logos that were missing when I painted Vendetta 05. So I painted 2 of those and retrofitted 1 onto Vendetta 05. All's well!

With less than 4 days to go before I fly off on vacation, and with all kinds of RL work stuff getting in the way in these precious few days, I don't think I'll be able to finish the AirCav before I go on vacation. But I'll definitely be able to finish the last transport (Valk 07)!

But it's not too bad. I can finish off the 2 and a half squads left to go quite fast, being a dip army and all. Then I'll just need to paint some extra models for a bigger 1850 version, but the 1750 is pretty much nearly done.

Come to think of it, I could have gotten it done if not for the accursed xenos distraction (1 Crimson Hunter, 6 jetbikes, 1 converted warlock on jetbike)! But such is the hobby ...

Vendetta 05 ready for action!

In the on-going saga of Straken's II Catachan Air Mobile Detachment (AirCav), finally finished this on Friday, pictured above with 3 other squadron-mates. This Vendetta and 2 others have been at 70% done for months. Today I'll tackle 06, and then hopefully also finish Valkyrie 07 before I go on vacation. I had to go back to hand-painting the AirCav shield on the nose because I really couldn't find the pre-cut shields that Jeff made for me. The hand-painted one turned slightly smaller than the others, but I'll leave it for now till I find those shields (and then glue it over the smaller one), or make the time to repaint it.

After the game on Friday night I also went back to add to my kit-bash Warlock on jetbike. I'm happy with it so far. Just thinking if I should sculpt the eyes, or leave it blank-faced, or just paint the eyes on. Anyways, hopefully I'll come back with the Vendetta 06 update real soon. Happy gaming!

Second Windrider squad ready for action!

It's been 13 years since I last painted an Eldar jetbike (not counting repainting the riders in 2007), and it was great to be able to finish this squad last night. In fact, I finished the whole squad from the box to finish in one seating. It's been awhile since I managed to find the time to do that.

I tried to keep to the original color scheme, but only managed a best match. The 6 original jetbikes in my collection, along with 4 Vypers, Falcon and 2 Wave Serpents, were all painted using the old OOP Citadel range (the ones with the cool flat white plastic caps, and used to last forever). Anyways, the colors match my Fire Prisms perfectly, so it's all good.

The finish on the bikes' carapace ended up to thick. I'm not used to the consistency of the new blue pot - definitely heavier pigmentation that the old Ultra Blue. So it kinda screwed it up for me. But after finishing the squad, I don't feel so bad.

In between allowing for coats and sprays to dry, I worked on kit-bashing a second Warlock on jetbike. The original plan was to emulate what I did with the first Warlock on jetbike that I already have (just realized that I did that conversion 12 years ago!), which was cutting up a metal Warlock, join the torso to a standard jetbike rider's legs, and GS the robes. But when I got the Warlock from Iqbal, it turned out that it was the only one that I've never had in my collection - I couldn't bring myself to cut the guy in two. So, he joins my now expanded Seer Council on foot.

I eventually kit-bashed the Warlock from the bits in my room. Legs and arms from the jetbike rider (right hand cut and repositioned for effect), torso and cloak from Wood Elf rider (arrows shaved out and patched w GS), head from Hemlock pilot. I'll be adding hair on his helm, and maybe more flowing cloak bits from the Wood Elf frame. Quite happy with how it's turning out so far.

Anyways, tonight it's back to AirCav!!!!

Finally got this baby painted for the table ...

... but I must say I could have done a much better job. Well, I suppose I needed to get it done after 4 weeks of sitting on the painting table.

It's a lovely model, and I should probably get another to do it real justice. My original plan was to adorn the aircraft with lots of green and amber gems. But I did get lazy. Especially after I lost the pilot's head - the thing rolled off my table and mysteriously disappeared (it's probably lying right next to my Forgeworld Imperial tank searchlight which disappeared under similar strange circumstances some 4 years ago). So now, a hapless random Guardian is walking around without his head, as some files, glue, bits and paint created a new exarch's helm for the pilot.

Anyways, it was painted up, some basic decals put on, spray varnished, dried, and went straight into battle vs some mon-keigh in blue armor. Happy to report that while I'm not entirely happy with the paint job, the aircraft did extremely well, with the exarch dancing in the skies and picking off mon-keigh at will.

Next up will be the final push to finish the AirCav.