Painted Blightlord Terminators

This is a squad of Blightlord Terminators for my Death Guard army in Warhammer 40,000. Like all of the Death Guard their forte is being hard to kill, and even ‘normal’ Terminators are hard to kill too so you can imagine that shifting a block of Blightlords is quite a trick. Thanks to a very recent rules change they also now have the Objective Secured ability which really helps them as they want to just sit on an objective and not die while scoring lots of points. This squad is equipped with a Blight Launcher on one of them which slightly improves their ranged output but I’ve found it fairly anaemic anyway against anything with even a modicum of armour. For melee I’ve equipped one with a Flail of Corruption, partly because it increases their melee damage but mainly because it just looks really cool. The rest are mostly armed with Bubotic Axes except one who has a Balesword; it’s not completely cut-and-dried whether one is a better option than the other but most importantly there are only three axes in the box.

The Blightlords got the same general colour scheme as the rest of my Death Guard, a rather Khornate dark red and brass scheme on their armour. Painting them was an absolute joy as each one is a unique champion of their unholy masters. I could have spent from now until forever picking out more and more details but at some point I had to call them finished and I’m really happy with the final results.

I figured that each is worthy of a photo alone and even now I couldn’t say which is my favourite.

Next on the painting table: Sabretooth.

Painted Space Marines

Here is a completed family photo of my Space Marines (or Adeptus Astartes as they’re now called) for Warhammer 40,000. It’s not a particularly tightly designed force, nor is it really very effective on the tabletop, but rather a mish-mash of stuff that I liked and wanted to paint. In the end I didn’t particularly find Space Marines much fun on the tabletop so I suppose that this project is shelved for now; however I might easily be tempted back by the fun of painting.

Painted Myphitic Blight Hauler

Here is the second my Myphitic Blight Haulers for Death Guard in Warhammer 40,000. I’ve generally tended to run them as a pair so it’s nice to have some colours on this one, though I don’t have a lot more to say about using them on the tabletop than I did last time.

I’ve kept the painting of this Blight Hauler largely the same as the other one in that the armour is red and bronze, and the horrible fleshy bits are green. I’ve tried to switch up where I used certain colours in order to avoid having both Blight Haulers come out looking identical so for example the badge of Nurgle embossed on the front of the carapace is different. But fundamentally the painting experience was the same and I did find it quite enjoyable. I only have six more Death Guard minis in the Pile of Shame right now so hopefully I can ‘complete’ this project fairly soon.

When I first bought the Blight Haulers, for some reason I was expecting them to be much bigger than they actually are. I find these little Daemon Engines rather cute as the zoom around the table zapping fools with their various guns before trying to eat them in melee.

Next on the painting table: Doctor Voodoo.

Painted Ork Speed Freeks

Here, after much delay, is the completed army photo of my Ork Speed Freeks for Warhammer 40,000. I really enjoyed playing with this army and it was a very enjoyable project to work on and eventually finish. Of course, no project is ever truly finished and I may go back to the Orks at some point if the mood takes me. This lot is actually not even 1000 points (so less than half of a ‘normal’ army), though at the time we were playing at 1000 points so this worked for me with a few ringers to proxy for various other miniatures.

Needless to say, I couldn’t fit all of the buggies into my lightbox so I tried an outdoor photo with less-than-perfect results.

Painted Primaris Chaplain on Bike

This lady is a Primaris Chaplain on Bike, the final piece in my Adeptus Astartes (i.e. Space Marines) collection for Warhammer 40,000. She’s thematically linked with the Outriders I’ve painted up lately, at least in the sense that they’re all riding the same kind of motorbikes. Being an HQ unit, the Chaplain can be kitted out with various Relics and Warlord traits and I’ve had most success just tooling her up for pure offense and figuring that if she can get into melee and bring down something big I’ll be able to live with inevitably losing her on the counter-punch. That said, I’m not a very good player of the game so probably an different approach would be far better!

I absolutely loved painting the Chaplain. For one, she’s a blinged-up murderous space vicar on a motorbike and it’s hard not to enjoy such a concept. I have always had a soft spot in my heart for biker themed armies, right down to loving the original Speed Freeks formation in Epic, now some 30 years in my past. I kept the basics of the painting similar to my other Space Marines, especially the Outriders, in that she has green and white armour and a black and green motorbike. But even compared to other Space Marines, the Chaplain is covered in extra badges, purity seals, swimming certificates etc which really broke up the painting of the ‘basic’ colours and lifted the whole process for me. It’s also quite iconically 40K that one of her key bits of kit is a massive book to be carted around on the front of her bike. Now that I’m finished, I think that the main thing I would change is to spend a bit more time on her hair – particularly in the brightness of the lightbox it is too close in tone to her skin and it would really have benefitted from another round of highlights.

So with the completion of this Chaplain, I’ve now painted all of my Space Marines. Of course, all hobbyists know that such a project is never truly complete so I imagine that I’ll be picking up some more in due course. In the meantime, I’m going to try to find a way to get them all in a nice picture together for one final family photo.

Next on the painting table: Daredevil.

Painted Plague Marines

This is a squad of Plague Marines for my Death Guard army in Warhammer 40,000. The Plague Marines can be equipped in a truly bewildering number of different ways with various squad members able to swap out their bolters for all sorts of other toys. I tend to be more of a believer in having more bodies on the table in 40K so I generally just field the squad at minimum size (which is five strong) and with no special equipment; they’re generally used to sit on an objective and die slow enough to score me some VPs while the rest of my army does the flashy stuff. It would be more fitting to field them in squads of seven since that is Nurgle’s sacred number in the lore, but in fact it’s just a coincidence that I own seven of them.

I thought that painting the Plague Marines would be quite a long and tedious process as each miniature is quite busy with little details such as tentacles escaping their armour, badges hanging off their weapons and sigils on their pauldrons. But actually the opposite was the case – I really enjoyed picking out all the different characterful parts of each miniature and making them individuals in a team. I kept the colour matching the rest of my Death Guard, with mainly dark red, black and bronze for each and then brightened each one up with some light green where it worked well. These sculpts are all single pose (I assume that they’re from some old box set as I got them second hand) and I didn’t convert any of them. However, I think that at least for some of these it wouldn’t be too hard to do a few weapons swaps or similar if I got another set at some point.

Next on the painting table: Bullseye.

Painted Primaris Reivers

Here is the second combat squad of Primaris Reivers for my Adeptus Astartes (Space Marines) army in Warhammer 40,000. I haven’t really been playing much with my Space Marines lately as I’ve used mainly Death Guard with some outing for both Orks and Chaos Knights. The latter two have been shelved again as they’re both pretty much skew lists and therefore not actually as much fun to face. As for the Reivers, I haven’t had any more success finding a use for these ladies on the table so they’re just stuck waiting for me to stop being rubbish at 40K or for an update to the rules to shake things up.

The Reivers are painted the same as the rest of my Space Marines. Getting the white to look even slightly smooth still takes quite a few coats and I find that stage interminable. Then once the white is ready for the magic of Nuln Oil, the painting becomes a joy and I can bash through the rest of the process without delay. These heads are from the first batch I bought from Statuesque minis; when I was assembling the Reivers I felt that they were noticeably too big but now that I’ve become used to it I don’t think it makes much of a difference. I will note that the simple act of using alternative heads on the Space Marines has really made a difference to my motivation to paint them – they just feel like they’re specifically my Space Marines rather than just another army of what I suspect is the single most common miniature range in the hobby.

Next on the painting table: Jean Grey.

Painted Myphitic Blight Hauler

This is a Myphitic Blight Hauler for my Death Guard army in Warhammer 40,000. Like the Foetid Blight Drone, it’s meant to be a sort of tank that has been taken over by a monster which gives the whole thing a very creepy look – from the front a tank with teeth, from the rear more like a snail trying to get into a shell that is too small for it. I really enjoy Blight Haulers in the game; they bring useful anti-armour guns in the form of a multi-melta on one side and a missile launcher on the other. If anyone gets too close they can be more trouble than they’re worth in close combat as the teeth give them some bite (pun intended) against all but dedicated melee specialists.

I tried to keep the same kind of overall colours here as I did for the Bloat Drone. The armour is a deep red and I like the way it contrasts with the bright green of the squishy daemon inside. The Blight Hauler has the same issue for painting that I had on the Bloat Drone in that I wasn’t sure how best to do all the pipes and tubs hanging off it. I eventually went for a bright pink as it stands out adequately from the red armour without going too far away from the main red colouring; I consciously want to avoid using much blue on this project as I worry that they’ll start to look more like a circus and anyway I find that I get better results if I keep the amount of one primary colour to a minimum. The Blight Hauler was overall rather fun to paint, not least because it let me play with both organic and metallic surfaces.

Next on the painting table: Omega Red.

Painted Primaris Outriders

Here are another trio of Primaris Outrider for my Adeptus Astartes (or Space Marines, if you’re old like me) army in Warhammer 40,000. In terms of performance in the game, I don’t have much to add from the first unit I painted. I find their output a bit uninspiring and I suspect that this is because they’re well suited to shredding swarms of lightly armoured enemies which I basically never see on the table in my gaming group. Nonetheless, there is something very fun about a bunch of armour-clad transhumans zipping about the battlefield on motorbikes and hitting fools with space-chainsaws so they’ll continue to make appearances for me whenever I play Space Marines.

In order to keep them consistent with the rest of the Space Marines, I’ve obviously chosen the same colour scheme of white, black and green for these Outriders. I’ve found it to be a bit of a drag for the first part of the painting process as it just feels like endlessly layering on thin white coats (and endless correcting my errors!) until I hit them with Nuln Oil. Then the magic begins and I really enjoy it after that. Anyway, I’m quite pleased with these ladies, and perhaps more importantly I’m down to just 6 Space Marines in my Pile of Shame.

Next on the painting table: Baron Mordo.

Painted Shokkjump Dragsta

This is the last Shokkjump Dragsta for my Warhammer 40,000 Ork force. It’s been sitting painted for a while but I had no base available as I got the kit second hand and the base size is apparently not available for any normal ordering. Luckily a friend with a 3D printer was able to help out to get one with the appropriate size and shape. By sheer luck, the Ork buggies appear to be overpowered in their current rules and I got a few free wins against Gareth before we realised that I hadn’t suddenly stopped being rubbish at 40K. There has been a recent change in their rules limiting any force to just three of each type; luckily I don’t exceed that so if I need my ego to be stroked I can get out my army with almost no changes and play it again.

I made a few very minor changes to the construction of this Dragsta; the main noticeable one is switching the positions of the Rokkits and the main gun but I did also remove a couple of extraneous bits and pieces from the chassis to give a slightly more stripped-down look. The Dragsta retains the blue main colour that I used for the Speed Freeks but I’ve used yellow this time as a secondary colour which I think works pretty well. As with all the other buggies I painted this one in sub-assemblies; it’s effective in terms of the final result but I have to admit that it means that the painting process feels like a long succession of ‘not finishing anything meaningful’ until you get to the final step and glue it all together. Nonetheless, I’m really pleased with the final result here.

Now I just need to think of a good way to get photos of the whole force of Speed Freeks as their huge bases mean that there is no way I’ll get the entire force in my lightbox.

Next on the painting table: Amazing Spider-Man.