Sunday 30 July 2017

Back to my Roots

Well, last months foray into 6mm Sci-Fi whetted my apetite for all things futuristic and I probably would have even more stuff to show you had I not happened to walk past my local GW store on the day that Warhammer 40K 8th edition was released. Now I have to say that personally I love 40k, it is the game I have played more over the years than any other. I started playing when it was just a handwritten sheet of annotations to Warhammer Fantasy Battle 2nd Ed. and I only stopped when 3rd Ed started to become a bit of a chore ruleswise. I have bought boxed sets and odd bits and bobs since then but the rules were always so dense, not my cup of tea at all.

The 8th edition is a completely different kettle of fish though. The rules have been pruned with the delicate touch of a chainsaw and now fit onto about eight smallish pages or a small booklet if you include some of the other bits and bobs on how to set up a game. I will say more on the actual game in future posts because the main thing is that I have been painting stuff from the old starter set, Dark Vengeance and looking at the new Primaris Marines from the new starter set Dark Imperium.

First up are a Dark Angels tactical squad, or two squads of five depending on how you split them up. I have painted them as the first squad of the third company.

(Apologies for the poor photographs, I think my camera is on its last legs.)



Sergeant, three marines with boltguns and one with a plasma gun.



Four marines with boltguns and one with a plasma cannon.

These have taken up most of my time, not least because after putting about half of them together I realised that marines are now on 32mm bases, not the 25mm ones they used to have. I know I could have kept them on the old bases and they would have remained perfectly acceptable but I like everything to be just right so I re-based them all. Thank goodness I had only undercoated them at that stage!

Next is a Deathwing Terminator, also from Dark Vengeance.



I love the look of terminators but painting all that bone white to look halfway decent is a real pain in the fundament. I think my army might concentrate on Primaris marines and Ravenwing.

I also found an old box of Cadians under my miniatures pile and this is the test paint.



I'm not sure where Cadia rests fluff-wise but I might make Astra Militarum my back-burner army. Something to pick at when I tire of Dark Angels and Death Guard.

Finally something from the new box, a Primaris Inceptor.



I took one look at the flying stands in the box and thought "not a chance" so I made my usual flying stand with a stainless steel rod. I drilled into the foot of the marine and used a tatty old drill bit to slowly grind through a soft limestone chipping. This was firmly seated to a plastic base using a big lump of Miliput which was then sanded and painted as usual. Much sturdier than the plastic ones and I feel it to be less visually intrusive. The rock and Miliput help to weight the base and make it less prone to toppling as well. Although he is painted as a Dark Angel I have left off the company and squad markings as I have no idea how he fits into the Chapter structure until we get a new codex or some inkling from GW. Fortunately kneepads are easy to paint up with the necessary markings as and when I decide what to do.

Anyway that is enough for this month, I have started on Plague Marines and Pox Walkers so next month's post will have a distinctly Nurgley feel to it.