Tomorrow, The Mechanicon!

Well, I have just finished painting my Iron Warriors Army to 1500 points, and thought I would snap a few photos before I pack them up for their big debut at the Mechanicon.

I certainly don't think that they are my best work for a couple of reasons, I painted the entire 1500 points in less than 3 months, that's very fast for me, so some of the army feels rushed.
Also due to time constraints, I didn't do as much conversion work as I would have liked.
That being said, I am still very happy with the army, it has been a wonderful break from painting Space Wolves, and has given me a chance to experiment some more with free-hand work, and learning how to paint red.  Which I think may be very important for my next project.

Here are a couple of more pictures

 Above you can see my Terminator Squad, with some minor conversions making a mockery of the Grey Knights.

 I wanted to convert all of my cultists using Flagellants but just didn't have the time if I wanted to use the army for Mechanicon, so I painted up 20 of the models from the new boxed set.

Above you can see an example of a couple of the standard Chaos Marines in the force, there are only 15 of them forming 2 squads, but they set the standard for the army.

So, my son Chucky (who still isn't done painting), our friend Chris Hartman playing Dark Angels, and I will be heading out around noon tomorrow and meeting up with Jawaballs where I will try and get some revenge for the pounding he gave me on Friday night last year at the Mechanicon!

So Mechanicon is going to be great, and will be my first major tournament of 6th edition.  Truthfully, my list is quite weak in my opinion, but what the hell, I'm hoping for 2 wins through the weekend, and I'll call it a success.  I am guess my army is going to garner some mixed reactions in regards to its paint score as I went a bit non-traditional on a traditional legion.  One that has a strong following, I'm thinking some people will love it, and some will hate it.  But that is the chance you take when you try something new.

I am committed to this army for the year though, and this is going to be my main Tournament army into 2013.  I am going to be expanding it quickly to 1850 for their next big outing, but have not yet decided what to add, but that is for another post.

Till next time, wish me luck.
and Jawaballs, you had best look out, I have lots of Pie-plate lovin' comin' yer way...

It's finally here!

Last evening I finally got my hands on the brand new tome of ultimate evil that is Codex, Chaos Space Marines. Oh, and a Forge Fiend a Warp Smith, the New plastic Champion, the Psychic power cards, and a Dark Apostle...(I hate finecast)

Okay, so right off the bat I'm gonna say I love it.  Yeah, I know I'm a GW fan-boy, and my opinion on such matters means little, but the book is beautiful with lots of cool options.  But you can get discussions on the new book everywhere and that is not the true purpose of this post.

What I really want to take a few moments to do is discuss the progress I've made on my Iron Warriors project.  This project has unfortunately been woefully short on W.I.P. updates, but I have made a lot of progress.  In fact I had reached a stand still and couldn't progress any further without the new Codex in hand.

Here is a short list of what I have painted so far:
5 Terminators
Land Raider
Vindicator
15 Space Marines
10 Cultists
Defiler.

Prior to last night with a WIP rhino and my Aegis Defense line with Quad-gun, I was fielding roughly a 1250 list (using estimated points costs for the cultists based off what I knew from the White Dwarf)

Now with the new book in hand I could finalize my 1500 Point list for the Mechanicon.  When making this new list I set myself with a couple of rules.  Firstly, I promised myself I would take all of the models that I had painted thus far to the Tournament, it's only about 3 weeks away, and I have no time to start from scratch.  Secondly, the Warpsmith is a must take as is one of the new Daemon Engines.

Taking that into consideration, this is the list I quickly drew up and am currently working towards.

HQ: Warp Smith
Elite: 5x Chosen Terminators.  2x Power Lance, 2x Combi-MG, Chain-Fist, Combi-PG
Land Raider Transport
Troops: 10x Marines with 2x MG, Champion has Power Fist and Combi-MG
Rhino Transport with Havoc Launcher
Troops: 5x Marines
Troops: 10x Cultists with Auto-guns and a Heavy Stubber
Troops: 10x Cultists with Auto-guns and a Heavy Stubber
Heavy: Defiler
Heavy: Vindicator with Siege Shield
Heavy: Forge Fiend with Ectoplasma everywhere

So, in an edition where people are saying armor is dead, I'm going to saturate the board with it.  Well if it doesn't work well it's going to be cool to play, and I think it fits strongly with the Iron Warriors, Warp Smith theme.

The Jump to 1850 will either be a pair of Hellbrutes and a beefing up of the small marine squad, or a Hellbrute and Hell Drake with a couple extra marines for that small squad.

Check back soon, I'm hoping to snap some pictures this afternoon...

The Iron Warriors project...

Well, I have finally got some real work done on the Iron Warriors project.  I have always liked the Iron Warriors, and in fact this is the 3rd Iron Warriors army that I have painted.

The trick this time around was that I really wanted to try and do them justice, but how do you make dry-brushed bolt-gun metal, with yellow and black stripes, stand out and "pop" on the table top?  

Don't get me wrong, I have seen some very good Iron Warriors armies over the years.  Unfortunately I have also seen a lot of crap...

I did a lot of research, and talked to a few of my friends to try and come up with a solution to my problem, How do I paint an Iron Warriors army to my Tournament Standard?  To be honest, I didn't like what I was hearing, the most immediate answer was usually to do the entire army in a NMM scheme.  Ouch, that wasn't going to happen.  For a couple of reasons.  1. I like the look of metal paints.  2. I have never attempted NMM before and to attempt it on a whole army seemed a fools errand for me.  3. If it is not done well, it will just look like a "Grey colored Chaos Marine army"

Then it dawned on me as I was trying to figure it out and was looking at a test model I had done for the Grey Knights I was so intent on painting.  I just need to add a little more color.  I have done this in 2 ways throughout this first squad.

1st. I used a blue wash on some of the creases of the armor, this was to give the armor a highly polished look and a bit of a color tint.

2nd. I decided on using Red for my banding instead of gold.  The gold while a nice color blends to much with the yellow and black banding that is so common in most Iron Warriors armies.  Red I feel adds a nice contrast, and is the Color of the Mechanicus, and of US army Combat Engineers.  All of which fit in with the theme of the Iron Warriors.

Below we have the first five of these Warriors...

First up a standard Bolter Marine, no real conversion work here, just what I hope is going to be the "standard" for paint across this army

Next we have a Melta-gun armed Marine, one of two for this squad.  Note the old metal Legion of the Damned back pack with skulls, it was sitting in my bits box and I thought it too cool not to use.

Next we have the Squads Aspiring Champion, armed with a Combi-Melta and a Power Fist.  He wears Red Robes (as will all of my squad leaders) has the Warsmiths right arm, a Terminator Fist arm, a helmet from the possessed.  I really think that this model well represents the look and feel that I am going for through the entire army.

Next we have another Bolter Marine, this model was just assembled on a whim when I was bored one night, and he was elected to be the test bed for the paint scheme.

Yet another Bolter armed Marine

 
And above we have the whole squad formed up and ready for battle, well I guess I shouldn't say the whole squad, as I have the other 5 men assembled and in various stages of finish.  I expect they will be done by the end of the week.

Then its on to the first of the Rhino Transports.
I know that this paint scheme may not be to everyone's taste, but I really think that it accomplishes what I am setting out to do.
Of course all comments are welcome, and thanks everyone for reading.