Lucky

Sorry for the long silence, I moved again for work. Quite close to the new town I live in I found a comics shop which sold me two absolute goodies such these:

OOP imperial guard Stormtroopers, 1997 circa

The famous female catachan jungle fighter with grenade launcher!

I had them still sealed for 10+5€. Stormtroopers are very rare, the catachan girls is quite rare in europe this is why I feel very happy about the purchase! I hope to paint them soon!

Captain Cassius (counts as Vulkan), still WIP!

I decided to change miniature, just to add a bit more movement and this is what i got for now. The paintwork is not finished yet. Much more juicy details soon! Praise the multipart modular plastic Space Marines!

Warhammer 40,000 6th edition cover art!

I'm not into the rumours thing that much, i'm just too busy taking care of my not-40k-related stuff, anyway i just found the new 40k cover art in the internet and i thought it could be nice to share. The guys look like Dark Angels so the rumour they would be in the new boxed set could be true... I don't particularly like them but i think their time has come so i hope that GW will give them a good set of rules they surely deserve. Anyway, too bad the picture is out-of-focus... i guess they did this on purpose. Do you see the red bolter? Hail to the red bolter! I love it sooo much!

Old school Ultramarine meltagunner!

Did i ever tell you that i love early 90s Space Marines range?
I find these miniatures amazing even if they look kind of goofy and dolly somehow. Yes, i know: in a world where everyone is looking for true scale Space Marines this may sound silly. Anyway that's how it is, i consider them quite a rarity.

+++ If you own some and want to get rid of them, please contact me +++

This Ultramarine has been built combining all the old stuff (metal body, plastic arms and backpack) with the 1999 slim looking metal meltagun. I was afraid that the overdeformed hands could look awkward with it but on the opposite it seems they quite fit.
Above, the Ultramarine symbol has been painted by hand.

The Tactical designation has been painted by hand as well. the roman numeral is the only decal on this miniature.
The whole model has been painted the usual way, with Vallejo colours plus Citadel's Ultramarines Blue. They fit very well for my personal taste: i love the way 'Eavy Metal studio painted space marines in the 90s and i'm painting every miniature this way. I don't like that much the new Citadel's paint ranges.

Do you like it? Suggestions?

Tigurius WIP

Still WIP but i simply couldn't resist to post this awesome old school miniature! I hope to make this my very best masterpiece!

Counts as Vulkan (WIP)

I'm afraid many will turn up their noses, anyway...
In the fifth edition Space Marines codex there are some options to make quite competitive army lists: I found that Vulkan of the Salamanders is the most funny and suitable to my way of playing so, since there are no restrictions about the use of special characters in other chapters different from their own, I chose to make Vulkan join my Ultramarines army.
I don't like at all the GW miniature of this Salamanders' hero and even if I liked it I wouldn't buy it because I didn't want to use a Salamander with my Ultramarines, even if it is possible to do that.
So I chose to make a conversion. His name is captain Cassius, my historic Ultramarine commander.
I started from an old metal Space Marine body (precisely mark 7 armour 6, from 1990 range) and then i added stuff in order to reflect Vulkan wargear. After all I like to stick to WYSIWYG rule. I think that this body has lots of personality, seemslike he's looking for enemies to slain.
The Spear of Vulkan, which is a master crafted Relic Blade, became a two handed sword taken from Grey Knights bits. GK weapons are amazing stuff, before them there were no two handed weapons for Space Marines, except some previously released metal stuff.
Gauntlet of the Forge is sort of heavy flamer built in an armour gauntlet so I converted it starting from GK forearm storm bolter. Quite easy.
Kesare's Mantle has been represented with the old Space Marine commander metal cloak. This is going to be painted in some fancy way.
Artificier armour is yet to be represented (as well as Digital Weapons). I'm thinking about some milliput sculpts.

I added some detail in order to show his "veteran" status like a Crux Terminator and some Purity Seals. I also used Space Marine captain sculpted shoulder pads and a Ultramarines banner icon.

What do you think? If you have any suggestion please let me know!

UPDATE: I just saw GW miniature. In comparison mine looks silly! I've got to load my version with more detail so I hope to post it back soon!

Last Imperial Guard Tank Crew member!

This running guy is painted in the same way the previous were. The thing i like best is his green pants. Anyway there's not that much to say about him! do you like it?

Advancing Valhallan Ice Warrior

This is the last Valhallan of this batch. Painted as usual, please just note the particular attention for the details. Nothing more to say, he's just a basic veteran trooper.

Another Valhallan veteran

I love this Valhallan Ice Warrior, the pose is pretty much like "ok: what's going on there?". I find him quite funny and suitable for a static command squad that looks the battle from a second line trench, giving orders or transmitting coordintates to the artillery batteries.

The colour scheme is the usual 34th Valhallan urban camo. Above, the regimental insigna painted on the coat right sleeve.

On the left sleeve it has been painted the squad number. Please note the camo roll this model bears, useful in case of heavy snow.

OOP Commissar into veterans 2nd squad sergeant

More veterans! This guy is an old commissar miniature, 1996 circa i guess, which i used to represent sort of "improved" infantry sergeant so, because of his veteran status, i thought it could be a good idea to replace the usual Valhallan Ice Warriors sergeant with something more sofisticated. I find it very suitable to Valhallans because of his greatcoat and his peaked cap makes him look pretty well like a hardened commander.

His pistol is a now almost disappeared hand flamer which i think is only available to Battle Sisters and Blood Angels but i'm not sure. Anyway even if this isn't available anymore to Imperial Guard, i chose not to replace it because of the beauty of its aquila marking on the side and the rarity of this OOP miniature.

Another Imperial Guard Tank Crew guy!

Welcome back!
This guy is basically the same than the previous one, except he is standing instead of kneeling and he's armed with a lasgun instead of a laspistol. It is quite clear to see what i was telling you before about the black "armoured corps" vest, which makes him quite "panzerdivision" looking. Beside of that, his leather helmet and his black leather boots give him a Soviet taste.

I painted of course a squad patch on his left sleeve.

Valhallan veteran!

One more painted veteran! This time a Valhallan Ice Warrior, the one with the rebreather. I already painted this kind of Valhallan trooper so i tried to make him look a bit more different adopting a slightly different camouflage scheme, darker in comparison to the other miniatures i painted last year. also i introduced a fourth level of highlighting and i must say that i really like how it came out, do you?

Look at how the coat colours and the base colours are blended together but somehow the model manages to stand out and look bright!

OOP Imperial Guard Tank Crew, limited edition

I'm particularly proud of these miniatures: this is one of the three members of the Imperial Guard tank crew that i own. These models came out in 1999 when, with the first 3rd edition codex, you could give tanks a piece of equipment called Crew Escape Mechanism meant to save a D3 members of tank crew in order to avoid losing completely the Victory points of the tank. Very fancy wargear, i wish i could buy this right now for my Russes (i deploy three). These miniatures were available only from GW Mail Order so this made them pretty rare stuff.

I decided to use these three models because i wanted to give my army kinda "survivor" feel, like if it has been deployed for a really long time, so starting from the day this guy lost his tank, i got attached to a veteran infantry squad to allow him to go on fighting.
The colour scheme is a bit different from the other veterans: the trousers are the same but the jacket is, instead of grey-black urban camo, plain black to represent his status of elite tank crew, pretty much like the way WW2 Germans did. In fact in my army i painted tank crews from Leman Russes or artillery with a black vest while the Chimeras' crews just plain olive green (quite Soviet looking).
Anyway, i really love the way i painted the potentiometer on the laspistol! looks like it is glowing in the dark!

Cadian veteran!

I began to paint seriously all of my guardmen: this is the first of the first batch. the camo scheme is the usual urban camo made of medium grey as main colour and black stripes.

Right now i'm using Vallejo game and model colours and for the grey i combined:

• German grey
• Basalt grey 
• Cold grey

Black stripes are painted with:

• Black
• German grey
• Black wash or Lifecolor's Panzer Uniform instead of German grey

 Green fatigues are painted with:

• Yellow olive
• Cayman green
• Camouflage green

I'm particularly happy with the red patch of the squad's number on the left shoulder. This make my guardsmen really tidy, very clear to understand who is who on the battlefield!

Command squad part IV

Fourth and last meltagunner: this one is Animal from Schaeffer Last Chancers. quite rare miniature, out of production of course even if still available from GW mailorder i guess. its rarity is why i've decided to include it in my Valhallan command squad even if it doesn't make much sense to make an almost naked man to walk into a snowy environment. i imagine this guy like a prisoner of war used by the other members of the squad like human shield and/or expendable soldier when the firefight gets tough.

 

this was the last command squad member so that's all for now! see you in a couple of days!

Command squad part III

Third meltagunner of the company command squad, classic Cadian trooper! i love these models, i think they are much better them the actual Cadians which are kind of toy soldiers with those huge helmets and that vest quite looking like a skirt. i know, plastic models are much better to convert and i'm agree (in fact you can get great troopers with converted cadians, just swap their heads with something better!) but this classic metal stuff has a lot more of charme.

Orlando's Dire Avenger

Following the exarch shown some time ago here, now we've got a trooper from Orlando's Dire Avengers squad. I'm not sure but looks like the right arm has been converted somehow in order to keep the shuriken rifle upwards. The left hand bears an imperial combat knife (don't know if catachan or from space marine scouts) painted like a magical/powered/whatever blade. i really like the soft purple gradient.

The colour scheme is the same of the exarch, so blue for the armour and red/green for the crest, representing the craftworld colours.

Command squad part II

 

This is the second veteran from my company command squad, this time a Valhallan. The meltagun has the usual wooden finish and the coat is painted with the standard Valhallan 34th regiment urban camo scheme.

He is very similar to the rest of the army which is composed of veterans (i deploy no platoons) so there was no reason to paint him differently. i am not sure but maybe i'll paint a patch on the left sleeve to show his command designation.

Command squad part I

There are many ways to play an Imperial Guard Company Command squad. Personally, i like to exploit the most the ability of the officier to issue orders like "Bring It Down!" so i chose to equip the veterans that escort my officier with meltaguns.
Since i play Valhallan Ice Warriors, which are made of metal, i would have 4 identical melta gunners so i decided to build up a squad with troopers from many different regiments and paint all of them in the same way to give them some chromatic coherency, even if they are not look alike at all. The first of these is this Catachan melta gunner that has been modified with Space Marines Scouts shoulder pads and some milliput to sculpt a flak armour (previously shown here). i also added a backpack to make him look like a sapper.

I painted him in the usual way, so Command designation on the right pad and chevrons on the melta bombs and grenades. i didn't add any snow, yet.

Orlando's guardians

Sorry for the huge delay, i had a tremendously busy schedule! i hope to relax and be able to sit back for a while.
These are Orlando's guardians, painted with the usual Kaelis colour scheme. they are the usual plastic guardians that came out in 1999 with the 3rd edition codex.

 

As you can see every gem on this model has been painted in different colours from the others giving this guardian a really unique feel and a degree of attention usually dedicated only to independent characters.

Following, group shot of the rest of the squad. The colour scheme varies in order to give a heterogeneous feel to the squad

More to come! this time i swear this is the truth!