Mega hobby update and deathwatch pics

Hello folks.

It's been far too long since I posted on either of my blogs. Good news is this has mostly been down to moving house/renovating and starting a new job as opposed to losing my enthusiasm for the hobby. I've been mostly keeping up to date with releases and hobby targets and thus have a lot to share. I will therefore keep this as brief as possible rather than trying to relay several many months of hobby in one go. The pictures dotted throughout will be of the recently added deathwatch army.

Venerable dread (scythes of the emperor)

I guess the best way to introduce things is to talk about my overall hobby target for 2016. As both my blogs will attest to, my ridiculous hobby scheme is to collect one of each 40k army, which gets even more ludicrous when you factor in that this includes all the first founding chapters. Years of commitment and careful budgeting have helped me to pretty much achieve this, but I wanted 2016 to be the year I start drawing lines under projects, especially now that the new format for army building has been established with the most recent codexes.

As this is my space marine blog I will only talk about them here and all other things will be on my other blog. The Astartes have faced 4 main challenges this year. Firstly, I have needed to add little bits here and there to be able to run each army as both a strike force tailored to the individual chapter and a small accompanying CAD to allow the few and other random units to be fielded as well. This included a few standard amendments, such as devastator legs, an imperial space marine in each eligible army and salvaging loads of scouts as the compulsory element to each CAD.  Secondly, the dreaded update from 25mm to 32mm had to get going in full swing. Thirdly, the Luna wolves finally needed to be finished and finally, the deathwatch and legion of the damned were to be expanded into playable armies. This is no minor feat when it effectively involves assembling, converting, basing and basecoating each army up to spec. I'm under no illusions that it is achievable by the end of the year but let's give it a go. Here's he rundown.

Blackstar with base

the base is made from various styrene and scenery kits with a token nid spawning pool

Black templars - only a couple of issues for these lads. The first is rebasing onto 32mm using milliput to make for a muddy battlefield and of course to rebase the bikes on the new oval bases. Secondly I want to add one more member to their honor guard in the form of a standard bearer as well as rearm a brother to be an imperial space marine. That should round them off and won't take all that long tbh. Only question is whether to add rims and then more Milliput to the 25mm bases or whether to go all out and simply start again on 32mm.

Blood angels - aside from some bike rebasing I pretty much sorted these guys earlier this year so not much to add. I have added in the deathwatch character as a vanguard veteran replacing another chap who became a deathwatch member instead. (As well as donating a spare terminator to the deathwatch)

Custom rhino and a drop pod with heraldry from various chapters

Blood ravens - now these chaps are getting a fair bit of love before November as I'm planning on taking them to fluffageddon. This means 1500 points of them will be painted up hopefully to highest standard in the next 6 weeks, including an imperial space marine. I've already rebased them all and so that's on track. I do need to dig out some (now spare) blood angel rejects to make a 3rd tactical squad at some point, however, so that the strike force can be used. Last item is to convert a fw legion tribune into the new dow3 terminator angelos to complete my character conversions from Dow.

Crimson fists - ultimately this will be one of the few armies to not be able to use a strike force but I decided I liked the way it was already and didn't want to deviate. They're already rebased to 32mm and have an imperial space marine present. Job done.

Vanguard - Doom Eagles, Raven Guard, Fire hawks, Blood Angels and Black Dragons

Bikers - Whitescars, Dark Hunters, Minotaurs, Brazen claws, Angels of Redemption

Dark angels - these chaps are now also on 32mm and are ok for the most part but just require a few tweaks here and there. The deathwatch character is now amongst the veterans and they, like the blood angels, donated a spare terminator to the watch. Apart from some minor repairs the biggest issue for the dark angels is sorting out all the ravenwing onto the new oval bike bases, which will take a reasonable amount of time and effort.

Deathwatch - this  as a really fun project to work on and involved a mix of new models and old. There were many donations from chapters, plus some eBay salvages and recycling of my original deathwatch squad and the overkill models. My plan was to get a core of 30 veterans with a half dozen characters, couple of vehicles and 5 of each specialist veteran with no duplication from chapters where possible. I also went for the same industrial theme as the iron hands as it fit with the overkill theme and looked good, plus allowed me to make use of the new citadel bases. The result is I now have a 2k army of deathwatch ready to go aside from a few bike bases. Really looking forward to slapping some paint on them once the blood ravens are done.

Command - Ultramarines, Mortifactors, Blood Ravens, Sons of Orar, Angels Vermillion, Crimson Fists

Terminators - Space wolves (Deathwolf), Blood Drinkers, Black Templars, Salamanders, Guardians of the Covenant

Grey knights - haven't touched these chaps for a while and save for adding a Crowe model to them for completeness and putting them on 32mm I don't think I have much else to add.

Heroes of badab - while I originally thought I was done with them, I've now decided to make a few changes to the heroes. Instead of a small squad of scouts from the exorcists and raptors, I'm going to paint all as raptors and add in a spare telion to bolster them also. The exorcists will gain a brand new tactical squad, drop pod and terminator librarian. To complete the character set I'm going to add a jump pack librarian, most likely a carcharadon. Unlike most of the other projects I doubt I will get around to this in 2016 but I'm glad I've made firm plans to do it and to upgrade them to a strike force style detachment. Let's not forget about the imperial space marine being added in too.

Imperial fists - this one is quite the challenge. I've never been that happy with the imperial fists army as it never stood out as being that unique or special to me. I've mulled it over for some time now and decided on a few changes that need to happen. Firstly, I'm adding 6 centurions to the mix to allow more flexibility with the formations and also for the fluff. Secondly, I'm donating the salamanders ironclad dread to the fists giving them 2 ironclads. Thirdly, I'm adding more veteran, taking the single squad of terminators and adding some hammernators and stern guard. Lastly, I'm adding a second squad of devastator marines with the deathwatch marine Grytt leading them, a second squad of scouts for the CAD and a second vindicator. These are quite extensive and expensive changes but I feel they will allow the army to play and feel more like it should. Most of these are already purchased and awaiting attention. With regard to rebasing, I've already textured and white sprayed all the bases they just need painting up. And don't forget the obligatory imperial space marine.

Veterans - Storm Lords, Silver Skulls, Flesh Tearers, Sons of Dorn, Soul Drinkers

Veterans - Hawk Lords, Space Wolves (redmaw), Ultramarines, White minotaurs, Knights of the Raven

Iron hands - one of my favorite and most complete armies, there are still a couple of boxes to tick. The addition of a flyer and a complete 32mm rebase have already been achieved, aside from the bike element. I also finally found a home for the B@C catephractii terminators. Additions still to come include a couple of rhino chassis allowing me to field both the mechanized vehicle and Demi company formations, some stern guard to allow the veteran formation, a bike command squad because they're awesome and finally the last few members of the honor guard squad. Of course I wish to incorporate the overkill sergeant too and an imperial space marine.

Legion of the damned - this is a bit random as aside from my legion of the lost HH tie in squad and a random centurius model I have no lotd. I can't resist such gorgeous models however and although I doubt they'll make the cut for 2016 I hope to add them to the array of marine in my collection. 30 of the chaps to be run as a formation with centurius as one of the sergeants sounds about right.

Luna wolves - ever the thorn in my side, the Luna wolves remain in a state of perpetual limbo. A decent chunk of the infantry are done, but I have never managed to make that final push to get them sorted. One step in the right direction was to get all the bases done but, as with the imperial costs, the wolves aren't on them yet. Part of the challenge lies in sorting out a couple of refurbished old rhinos and the other part in sorting out some greenstuff helms and shoulder studs. I would also like to add a trio of rapiers and some volkite weapons to complete the arsenal.

Veterans - Hammers of Dorn, Space wolves (Ragnar), Howling Griffons, Sons of medusa, Iron Hands

Veterans - Angels of Vengeance, Salamanders, Mentors, Taurans, Astral claws

Raven guard - just when you thought an army was finished. These chaps are already on 32mm and require a last few boxes to be ticked. Some oval bases for their artillery is a good start, followed by two new gorgeous squads from fw, to be run as outflanking command squad and vanguard elite respectively. Let's not forget the poor old imperial space marine, overkill chap to be subbed in as a sergeant and, as an absolute icing on the cake for one of my favorite armies, none other than corax himself. Job done.

Salamanders - another fairly sizable overhaul. The salamanders will lose their ironclad dread to the imperial fists but will more than compensate by gaining a leviathan dread in its stead. As with the imperial fists, they will gain a couple of veteran squads in the form of stern guard and more hammernators. The overkill terminator has also been nicely repurposed as squad sergeant. Token imperial space marine and scouts will be added in and also the biggest challenge I face is repurposing the resin 25mm bases into 32mm with ring expanders and green stuff. It'll be challenging as I need to do about 50 bases.

Space wolves - pups are almost there, having been fully rebased and supplemented with a couple of squads of wulfen. Only a couple of loose ends to sort, namely incorporating stem redblade into the army and adding the new ulrik and iron priest.

Veterans - Knights of Gryphonne, Imperial Fists, Novamarine, Blackshield, Black Templar

Veterans - White consuls, Dark Angels, Disciples of Caliban, Iron Snakes, Blackshield

Ultramarines - smurf buddies are already on 32mm and even have a half converted imperial space marine who is just awaiting his gun. I have a set of vanguard vets set aside to be built and give the magic 3 squads to run as a 1st company strike force plus 5 scouts for the CAD. Last thing for the smurfs is to finish off the honor guard with 5 invictarus suzereins who I intend to convert up. The spare shields will be handy for the vanguard too. Relatively small project to draw a line under these guys.

Whitescars - another army which has its infantry rebased but is awaiting having its bikes done. I donated a land speeder from another army to the whitescars so that they would have the ability to field one of the formations and swapped my company champion for the new model from overkill so he can step up to be a relic armed captain. I also got rid of an old sergeant as I had a spare whitescar resin torso that looked better. The mandatory imperial space marine conversion will of course make its way into the army.


So folks, after that mammoth post where to go next? I will be updating my other blog in a similar manner and hope to proceed by both continuing to paint the blood ravens and updating the armies one at a time as materials and time are available. Using this post as a task list I aim to upload an army shot of each one as they get ticked off the list as well as blood ravens progress so watch out for those in the future. I will endeavor not to get as slack with the blogging as I have been and rather than let it all accrue into one gigantic post will aim to post as I go along. Cheers for reading.