Alpha legion Dactylic cell 895 -Tactical squads

Whoa so, catching up is almost finished, after that i guess i need to actually accomplish something new. Pressure mounting an' all that.

Still on to what i've finished.

Below are my first squad. Squad ENA. 

180 pts 

This is the long awaited despoiler squad, which is simply a tactical squad that has replaced it's bolter with a close combat weapon. Meaning that you get your three attacks per marine per charge, which is supposed to be a wholly better alternative than simply shooting your opponent in the face. Personally i like the idea of infiltrating Alpha legionairres, waiting, hours, days, weeks. Patiently awaiting the one moment to charge the opponent, shifting them, and giving their legion a seemingly intangible advantage.

But... to be honest? ten are probably far too few to footslog. So i need to finish up a rhino to put my ten guys in.

I have two sergeant choices done, one with a hammer and Power dagger (Since the hammer and sickle....dagger, are two specialist weapons and thusly give +1 Attack) Or a power fist and melta bomb, when you need to smash some tanks.

I realize now that you can hardly see ANY of the transfers i meticulously worked on.  

This was actually the first squad that i finished. And actually served as a sort of milestone. Meaning that i actually had a FINISHED troop choice. ;_;


Next up is a more recent piece of work, and probably my favorite work so far.

I sat down this previous saturday and had the goal of finishing Twenty marines, one vexilia, one more sergeant and some odd extras. ToA= seven hours approximately. 

After you get the scheme down with the metallic parts, what you need to brace for is doing the details. I did it as follows

Silver 
helmet hose
chest fasteners
shoulder pad edges

leadbelcher
service studs
fans
rivets
"soft parts" on joints
gun parts (clip, feed,muzzle end part)

Vallejo painter copper 
"release" button for chest hoses
veteran markings on should pads
Gun parts (aim, barrel)
backpack hoses
fan

black
Gun "frame"
backpack exhaust markers.

Now for twenty models. this took somewhere between seven to eleven hours, with basing and decals included.
But i was still REALLY happy with the end results. It looks better in person, but i think that the pictures give a decent showing of the "sheen" i was looking for.

Another 295 points finished. And now i have the two mandatory troop choices done.

Presenting Squad DIO

295 pts 

Featuring nuncio vox and sergeance with combi-melta. 

Bonus picture. I actually managed to save the guys i did by brush. I am talking about these guys

MAKEOVER TIME

 And managed to remake them into the following.

Company support squad Volkite calivers 

225 PTS

I was happy with the result, particularly considering that i really wanted to reclaim my disastrous first attempts at the scheme, which i consider done, and in so doing, i now have a full squad of 20 S6 AP5 shots at 30". I will probably pop them in cover and have them hunt for infantry from the get go.

Now i have always imagined calivers as the red to the plasma blue hue. So i wanted the look of a weapon charging up, and i was actually given the scheme i was looking for from a really cool dude at the 30k forum named Iamomegon, so cudos for that. I also gave my support squads a black left shoulder pad, which i will use a new transfer for so as to distinguish them as tactical experts in their field.

Phew!

And that is that.

Next i'm really looking forward to doing some Destroyers, or seekers. But i'll probably need to start buckling down with my tanks.


I do have these two rhinos that i had earmarked for my Alpha legion in 40k. But i might just be tempted to try and put them in 30k.

But then i need to find a way to do something about the almost bubblegum blue i have going.

peace.

Alpha legion Dactylic cell 895- Hq& elite choices for my Horus heresy army

So far i have finished up two HQ choices, And i intend to play with both of them as soon as i have a viable army. 

First up is my Legion praetor, The praetor opens up the utilization of my Rite of War (which allows you to use special battle plans that adapt your army by say, adding additional armor, or special squads and of course utilizing special Legion RoW's)

The Praetor was done by adding some extra alpha legion iconography to a standard Forge world centurion. I tend to use legion iconography to clearly show that the character has an artificer armor, as it gives a quickl visual cue, and lets my opponent easily identify what is a sergeant or not. 

The Praetor clocks in at 190 (!) points. But he is something of a swiss army character. Being able to shoot at S6 AP3, has seven S6 attacks on the charge and a 2+/4++ 

My intention is to plop him in a command squad in a land raider. 

I kept with the HH color plates and gave him gold details and the copper coloured shoulder pad. Which denotes command to me. The arcaeotech pistol was bit of a challenge, but i went with weathering it a bit, and then highlighting with copper and gold.

Adding a dark eldar sheathed knife makes for a pretty tangible power dagger

Regarding the standard bearer. My armless alpha legionairre from december finally got his arm. And i have to say. The transfers are friggin' amazing. Easy to work with, and visually stunning. I am really happy with this guy. 

Next up is my Master of signal, nothing really special here modellwise. I went with a subdued paint scheme, and simply highlighted with some copper details and vallejo classic silver. 

Next up are two of the apothecaries of my Apothecarion detachment. Being able to plop three Apothecaries into ONE elite slot always struck me as really good, particularly for a big squad. And i haven't seen a lot of people running them, i guess playtesting will show me if it is a good idea or not. But if not ,i guess i'll just run one of them a Primus medicae, which seems like a third viable support HQ. 

I still have some cleaning up to do on details, icons and vials. But i've got the general gist down. I also have a third one on the way made from spare parts from my old DA kits. 

Paintwise there seems to be three ways of doing HH apothecaries 

I)bonewhite pauldron

II)bonewhite arm and head

III) bonewhite arms and head 

i couldn't settle on one, so i went with what felt natural, and did I) for my MK 3 apothecary, and II) for my MK 4 apothecary. So far i'm happy with the result, but i am going to polish them a bit more. 

My MK III Apothecary, who has a power sword and will go in a despoiler squad. 

And this apothecary will be getting a combi-plasma and go in a 20 man bolter squad,  

All in all this means that now have a choice of three separate HQ choices. Two of which are "support" classed meaning that they won't qualify for warlord nor filling the mandatory slot for Headquarter units. 

EDIT

At the last minute i painted up our good ol' "totally not champion" 

I am actually REALLY satisfied with this guy. He was intended to be a veteran sergeant, but in lower point games he will probably be a centurion.

He has a power sword, artificer Armour, and a Melta bomb. Making him suitable for fighting marines and taking on armor in a pinch. 

he still needs proper basing, and decals needs to added. But i think the linework and rivets are actually pretty well executed. 

Huzzah. 

My 2016 commitment Alpha legion 30k Horus heresy

It all started with an innocous discusssion with my missus when we were planning the move we have in front of us.

"phew, you really have A LOT of that detailed resin model stuff ,her delineation of my FW stuff as opposed to my "mostly" finished spiky shit (dark eldar)"
" yeah, i was thinking this is the year i actually finish ALL OF it"
*long fit of hysterical laughter from my wife. MY star, the wind in my face*
"oh that's funny i thought 2015 was the year you finished ALL of it"
"oh, ok, but this is the year i finish all of THIS! (points to mechanicum, which she actually likes the look of since it is badass robots, and who doesn't like that)
*dubious glaring* 
"at least finish it in order, make a real commitment, with a realistic goal
"ok, fine this is the year i finish an actual army of my stuff from resin" 


And with those words i doomed me, and my family to an unbreakable geass to actually finish a playable 30k army for 2016.

Or not really, i mean, i'm not off to slay grendel or tame Enkidu. But still, i made a deal. And the deal is as follows. If i do NOT finish my army for 2016 (a minimum of 1850 pts) i will not be buying ANY hobby stuff for 2017. Except brushes.

No paint
no models
no codex.

So i'm going into this for realsiez. Tighten your pants. We are in for a ride.

Basically i figured that i could get approximately 200 points every month, i would have a buffer for of two months that wouldn't require painting. Which is good what with being there for my family. And also holiday excursions and, you know. WORK. TO feed my resin heroin habit.

January was off to a decent start. Until the airbrush broke down. Now, in harder and steenbecks defense, their support team answered really quickly, and with german efficiency gave me a guide to what to do. The problem was a difficult one to peg. But i finally fixed the issue. In March.

So For January and february i mostly did brush work. Which there is a lot of for MK II and MK III (rivets a plenty)

So right now i have closed Q1 of 2016. And i have approximately 700 pts ( i think) which is a good start. Hopefully i can keep it up for the rest of the year.

March was actually really productive. The reason was that i set off a week wherein i decided to be hobby centric. I put a reminder in the phone at five o clock each day, "Hobby time it chimed judgementally" and as soon as the kid was in his lil' bed, i sat down. Whether it was basecoating, basing or finding new ideas. It was hobby time.

As soon as i had a fifteen minute break somewhere. Hobby time.

Each time i was looking at my gaming rig and thinking of playing something. HObby time.

And i actually got a lot of work done that week.

I think that the mindset that you usually employ in single participant sports ( as opposed to team sports) aided me here. As the single minded determination really let me narrow down all my time on one thing.

So there we are. now on to what i have actually done so far.

Starting up my horus heresy Alpha legion 30K (Part III Production schedule)

Whew, been in kind of a blugging funk lately, so here we go, comin' up comin' up

AS noticed in my last post i had been completely seduced by the ease and result that one garnered when using an airbrush to do metallics. Moreover, i realized that it was a pretty unfeasible proposition to use my mates airbrushes whenever i needed to do some 30k stuff. Particularly as the alcohol based paint can wear on both the sealant and the needle unles you clean it properly, and it definetly requires meticulously cleaning in between each layer. 

So, in November last year i caved in and bought myself one for my birthday. 

I got the same one as my friend actually. We both have the harder and steenbeck pro evolution one. 

i'll probably review  it at a later junction. 

So armed with a compressor and a airbrush i started my journey into actually finishing some stuff (by this point i had Horus heresy modells lying unassembled for about half a year) 

As written in the last post. I had come as far as doing two coats of the tamiya mix (75 blue 25 green) and now moved on towards doing the highlighting and follow up (blue towards the top, green to the bottom simply put) The point of these steps are simply to make sure that you get a maximum exposure of metallic blue towards where the light would go. 

And lo' and behold. towards the end of my first airbrush session i wound up with a couple of models that were ready for highlighting. 

A sergeant with melta bombs and a hammer

A centurion model with an alpha legion specific head. 

A MKII command squad champion, with some different arm stances and an alpha legion head 

So i tried to remedy the situation by redoing a lot of steps. 

These are the models that got mucked up 

As i posted above, the ones i did by hand were staring at me with dissapointment from a corner of my hobby case, so i decided to try and save them, maybe make them fit for some "front of the squad action" and just fill out a unit. So i coated it with ye ole 75-25 mixture. And tried to go ahead. 

Unfortunately, i've had a lot of problems with my airbrush. So it took me ANOTHER two months to start doing details, but by December last year i had my first models ready. What i can say about these are that The guilliman glaze is a real treat for popping out the details.

So these were my first models. 

A tactical legionairre with a nuncio-vox, a sergeant with combimelta and a banner-less banner bearer in the background. 

One of my two laser destroyers. I was kind of happy with the rough metallic texture of the front shield.  

And the designated spotter for one of them.

 So that was the LONG winded start of my legiones astartes. 

A quick mentioning of the basing. I think that a good basing for the metallic blue is the white snowwy base, there are two reasons, the first one is that the white layering neatly offputs the metallic blue and brings out the light of the scheme without detracting focus from the model itself. 

The second one is that it is an easily replicated basing model. Which really counts when you are going to do 50+ tactical legionnaires.  

phew, so there we have it. My start.