We're Back! Sort of ...

 After a long long long hiatus, we're finally ready to get back into wargaming action - I think. A lot has happened in the past year, including moving to different town, packing away models, moving models, storing, looking for stuff in storage, fixing models damaged in transit and storage, finding out some stuff are somewhere other than where they should be, etc, etc, etc ...

Anyways, not to bore you with the minutae, but an old wargames buddy also happened to move to the same city, and we started to talk about 40k and the topic of Ravenwing came up. And I realized that I actually never did read the Dark Angels codex I bought last year. So I managed to dig up the codex (by accident actually, I really forgot all about it) and finally started reading it.

And what a read that was. I guess I'm one of the last Ravenwing players on earth to get excited about the new teeth this army has been given. I've been playing Ravenwing since 2003, and they did well back then, even coming in a decent Top 5 finish at a tournament in 2009 (which was the year I finally painted the army).

But the Ravenwing has always suffered from a severe case of chronic crapcodexitis, and any successes had to be hard-fought. When I first started playing the Ravenwing, they had a different Master of the Ravenwing, and he only rode in his Land Speeder with a 4+ invul save. Every biker had skilled rider and an always-on 6+ jink save (I think that was the first time I heard the term "jink" in 40k). Then Sammael came along, the bikers lost skilled rider, and the army got even harder to play.

When the Black Knights were first introduced, it did help a bit, as they now finally had a decent close combat unit. But the army as a whole lost traits that would help it survive because of its speed and manouver, as befitting an all-bike army. Then last year's codex came out. And it's brilliant!

Well at least on paper. I'll be trying it out this weekend hopefully. Looking forward to that.

And since my friend also plays Ravenwing, I'll be bringing my old Thousand Sons buddies over to have a go against his Ravenwing army. I finally unearthed them from the crypts last night, and thankfully there was only minimal transit and storage damage (Land Raider's smoke launcher and Ahriman's staff had to be glued back, and there's a tiny paint chip on the staff where it joins his right hand, but nothing too serious). I'm looking forward to see these guys back on the table this weekend, and share the magic of their modest 10+d6 warp-charge dice.

Because of the minor repair work I did last night, I also unearthed my complete and fully-functional modeling and paint toolbox, and I'm excited to get back into hobbying. Here's what I have in mind for the rest of the year:

1. Updated Ravenwing. For this I need to paint 18 Black Knights (including the Command Squad), Chaplain on bike (with a suitable-looking mace), a Dark Shroud, and 2 more Land Speeder Typhoons. 11 of those Black Knights and the Land Speeders have already been assembled and undercoated (which means they are also base-coated, ahh .. the wonders of a black-liveried army).

2. Updated Eldar. I procured all the models for this update almost exactly a year ago. I think I'll need to paint 1 Hemlock, 3 more Dark Reapers, 1 new Dark Reaper Exarch (because the old one is ... old), 2 more Warp Spiders, 2 more Swooping Hawks, and 6 more jetbikes.

I will be getting back to my Denerair Highlanders, but that's a huge project which my temporary quarters is not capable to handle. So that's going to be a 2017 project.

I'm totally looking to some furious dice rolling this weekend, and I'm lucky that the town's brand new game store is like 7 minutes away. Love it!

Let's roll them dice!

Wyvern #1 done!

Finally finished the first Wyvern for my Highlanders. Again, it didn't take too long to paint, but I did spend a lot of time deciding and trying out the conversion, and then again more time on the paint scheme and the paints to use for weathering. But I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

For the base colors, I again used Battlefront's Great War painting guide, and using mainly Vallejo paints, was able to base paint the vehicle pretty fast. Then it was time to figure out the details. In the end, this is what I used:

1. Vallejo Brown Violet - hull, helmet
2. Vallejo Beige Brown - wooden crates
3. Citadel Abaddon Black - all the black stuff, black wash
4. Citadel Leadbelcher - metal stuff, gun barrels, tracks, chipped paint
5. Citadel White Scar - markings
6. Citadel Mechrite Red - markings (by mistake)
7. Citadel Blood Red - markings
8. Citadel Bestial Brown - rust
9. Citadel  XV88 - leather bindings
10. Citadel Nuln Oil - wash on helmet
11. Citadel Agrax Nightshade - wash on metal bits
12. Vallejo German Grey - chipped paint
13. Citadel Fang - mud
14. Citadel Fenris Grey - mud highlight
15. Vallejo Grey Green - hull highlight
16. Vallejo English Uniform - heavy bolter tarp

There were a few experiments and trial and error - stuff that I imagined in my head, and then tried out on the model. Thankfully, most of it worked out ok for me - the rebuilt turret with the clustered barrels (instead of the chopped-off Hydra turret), the hand-painted stripes (I first used Mechrite Red - it's too dark. The straight up red of Blood Red works better), omitting the railings in the fighting compartment, the grey mud instead of brown, etc.

I still haven't decided what the crew will look like. Most likely they'll be wearing kilts, with one guy holding binoculars and observing the fall of shot as the mortar ranges in, and the other guy checking coordinates. But we'll leave that for later for now.

Next up will be 2nd squad, 1st platoon. That's 10 guys - 8 riflemen, flamer and sergeant. Looking forward to getting that done and see the army build up.

Keep them dice rolling!

1st Denerair Highlanders - 1st Squad Done!

Finally got first squad done for my Denerair Highlanders. It was fun painting these guys up, and it really didn't take that long - just had to find the time to sit and paint.

I'm happy with these guys, and they were assembled rather straight up. The next squad's sergeant will have some arm swaps to get different poses. And the challenge is to find enough bayonets for everyone. The kind people of the 6th Brandenbergers have agreed to donate their bayonets (snip, snip, paint, paint), but I still need to shave off the bayonet hilts from their sheathes before I glue them onto the guys' belts.

But next up will be a Denerair-pattern Wyvern. Denarair-pattern Wyverns were not officially sanctioned war machines from any forgeworld. Rather, they were all battlefield modifications of the Griffon self-propelled heavy mortar. The Denerair Highlanders were never issued with Wyverns, but that didn't stop the hardy mountainmen from fashioning their own versions, which were rather effective on the battlefield.

The agri-world Denerair itself is of little consequence with only 5 million inhabitants, emerging in Imperial records only because of the ravages of the Gothic War, due to its location in the Bhein Morr Subsector of the Gothic Sector. The agri-world did not have a military tithe, but has for thousands of years maintained a militia made up of its onlhy warrior class - mountain tribesmen known as Highlandsmen, or more popularly, Highlanders. Over time, the militia gained formal organization, funding and equipment along the lines of the Imperial Guard.

Durng the Gothic War, the Denerair Highland Militia fought off the predations of Chaos with such ferocity and stoicism that Imperial Guard commanders in the sector found it fit to equip them with and train them in heavy war machines and artillery. In the aftermath of the war, the Militia was renamed the Denerair Imperial Guard, and today fields around 98,000 men organized in 8 infantry, 3 artillery, 3 armored, 3 support, 1 engineer, 1 signals and 1 air defence regiments, plus an additional 8 reserve regiments. While Denerair itself still has no military tithe requirement, about a third of its regiments voluntarily serve off-world in many Imperial Guard armies, and are often found in the thickest and bloodiest of battlefields. On the battlefield, the Highland Regiments march fearlessly into battle with bayonets fixed and the sounds of their holy bagpipes filling the air, driving fear into the enemies of the Imperium.

Highlander Test Model

 

Finally finished the first test model. It was actually pretty fast to paint, and that is one of the requirements for modeling the infantry for this army - it must be quick AND look good. This is why I settled with the simple conversion for the gun, by just snipping off the magazine, and making sure all guns have fixed bayonets. It was my first time using Nulm Oil, and I think I went overboard with that.

The pallete:

• English Uniform - shirt & kilt
• Brown Olive - helmet, armor, water bottle (this will also be used for flamers & vox)
• Green Ochre - webbing, gas mask, ammo pouches (nothing green about green ochre, I discovered)
• Chocolate Brown - boots, bayonet sheath
• Beige Brown - rifle
• Dark Flesh - wood grain on rifle
• Gunmetal Grey/Leadbelcher - metal parts on rifle, bayonet, metal parts on gas mask, buttons, bits of barbed wire on base (I used Gunmetal Grey on the rifle, but switched to Leadbelcher for the bayonet and other stuff, which I find works better for 28mm models. I'll be using Leadbelcher moving forward)
• Burnished Gold - aquila on chest, belt buckle, badge on kilt, winged skull on rifle
• XV-88 - highlight for leather parts
• Agrax Nightshade - shading for rifle
• Nuln Oil - shading for everything else
• The Fang - first layer drybrush on base
• Fenrisian Grey - second layer drybrush on base
• White Scar - final layer drybrush on base
• Bestial Brown - base rim

Anyways, I'm happy with it so far, and your thoughts on this would be great. I do have 90 infantry to paint, so keeping it simple and quick is a priority. In the meantime, I'll start batch painting by squad the base English Uniform and Brown Olive colors, as those are pretty much confirmed.

Keep them dice rolling ...