Hobby Recap - May

 Horus Heresy!

This will be the last hobby recap before I launch into new stuff. During May I decided what I needed in my life was yet another wargame to paint stuff for. So I started Horus Heresy.

In theory this would be different than 9th edition 40k with more granularity such as vehicle armour and reactions. In reality I just liked the fancy tanks. To start with I bought a box of mk 6 space marines. I would have preferred mk 3 but with new sculpts coming soon I didn’t want to risk it. I considered getting the box set (which people online just seem to love) but I considered it irresponsible with the amount of unpainted stuff I had. 

On a different note, I find it difficult to believe how games workshop considers this a good starting point for beginners. $365 is not an amount most people are willing to spend when starting the hobby. I understand it’s a good deal by their standards but it’s a huge initial investment that could get you started in three other game systems.

Anyways, I had bought some mk 4 marines earlier that year and needed a way to make them a similar height to the new sculpts. GW has seemed to scale up their mk 6 (I can’t blame them, they look great) but that does make cross-compatibility hard. After a quick internet search I ended up placing a ball of green stuff at the neck and hip joint as well as giving them a taller base. This has closed most of the gap and I’m quite happy with the result.

Left to right: mk 6, unconverted mk 7, converted mk 4

I also magnetized a contemptor dreadnought!

Here is the finished squad of mk 6 marines. I’m quite chuffed with these and I had a lot of fun painting them. I got to try some new techniques since they didn’t have to match the rest of my army.

 I did the armour almost entirely with the airbrush. I primed them black and hit them with a coat of maggrage blue air paint (I had to justify buying this), then mixed white with Vallejo Prussian blue and started building up the colour steadily, adding more and more white as I went and being careful to leave the recesses in shadow. At the end they were a bit too bright for my taste so I airbrushed drakonhoff nightshade into the recesses. I will do a more detailed tutorial in the future. 

This was also the first time I used green stuff world decal medium. In the past the ultramarine symbol always curled and lifted off of the shoulder. It never felt at one with the model. With a very light brush of decal medium and the rolling of a Cotton bud they were completely flush with the model. Just be careful not to add too much as it weakens the transfer. I highly recommend you try this stuff out.

The only other thing I painted in May was the long overdue Captain Sicarius. And old model but a good one.

Overall I didn’t get as much done in May but I learned some new techniques and furthered my painting skills.

Thanks for reading!

Hobby Recap - April

Space Marines!

 In April I put the 3d printing fiasco behind me and got a fair bit of painting done. After struggling to find motivation I took up an offer to paint at a friends place while hanging out. This proved to be a good strategy and I cleared out a fair bit of the 40k backlog.

The first thing I got painted was a unit of 5 sternguard (just in time for them to be moved into legends). I’m quite happy with how they turned out. I decided to go with the traditional white helmets and shoulder trim. The vanguard veterans I painted a few years back had gold helmets and silver trim. I’ll probably repaint them at some point to match if I have the time. I might post a painting tutorial for ultramarines at some point. I’ve switched to airbrush for the armour but I’ll cover my past methods as well.

Continuing with the first company theme I also painted 5 terminators and the captain from the old start collecting set. Like with the sternguard my other terminators were long ago painted silver in an effort to “change it up” but my tastes have changed. The sword on the captain was done by layering progressively lighter shades of red but I honestly can’t recall the exact method.

Terminators converted from dark vengeance set

Half-based captain

The next weekend I had the idea to paint three vehicles at once. I thought I should use my painting motivation while I still had it. The drop pod and land raider had been sitting unpainted since I bought them in 2019. I dreaded painting the vast swaths of blue for months until I realized I could use an airbrush. I also finished a predator I had bought from Craigslist the week before. I’m fairly happy with them but I skipped a few details like searchlights and the guy poking out of the land raider.

Predator destructor 

The hazard stripes are worth the effort

Land raider with unpainted searchlights

Some loose ends were tied up with 6 intercessors and a gravis captain. These are painted as red scorpions (my friends tell me they look neither red nor like scorpions). I got these from the dark imperium set I bought a while back. I didn’t want to mix firstborn and primaris in my army so I’m painting the them as a different chapter. Before you ask, there is no way I’m free handing the damn scorpion on their shoulders. 

Gravis captain leads the charge

Anyway, I only have one more recap to do before I move on to current stuff.

Thanks for reading - Parker

Group shot

Hobby Recap - March

Orcs, DND and LOTR SBG

This is the first real post on this blog, a hobby recap of sorts. The plan is to keep track of the progress I made in previous months so I will feel more motivated during the rest of June.

Anyways I’ll get right to it then. In March I had the brilliant idea to start a dnd campaign. My friend had run a few of previously and I felt I had the creative force to start one on my own. In reality it was mostly an excuse to print out minis from Bestiarum miniatures (who have beautiful sculpts btw).

Unfortunately I don’t have a 3d printer, however I have a friend with one. So after some patreon trickery I got files from their welcome pack and two of their sets. The issue was I hadn’t realized how much work it would be for my friend to print out all these, so after great hassle I only had the welcome pack printed. The larger models were printed hollow (foreshadowing) and I had absolutely no way to cure the inside. After resin started leaking from the bottom I moved them to my deck outside do they wouldn’t poison me. Where they remain to this day.

A skeleton glistening with toxic uncured resin

In preparation for that very campaign I painted up some townsfolk and guards from wizkids. Nothing fancy, just enough to get the job done. I picked these guard models because they reminded me of Godrick soldiers from Elden ring. I painted them red and green to match the game. If anyone sees anything resembling knights from that game let me know.

Old guy with torch. I’m quite fond of this one

Aforementioned soldiers 

Around the same time I had the thought that I could use Bestiarum’s Calden Keep models (which never got printed) in LOTR sbg. So of course I bought the Mordor battle force to go with them. I already had a witch king model but thought I would like the new sculpt more. I now have two unpainted witch kings (four counting mounted). Nice.

On the plus side I got some orcs painted. A net loss in the battle against the gray though.

One of the nice beakie orcs

March was a good painting month, even with the 3d-printing issues and I look forward to the eventual DND game. I will post the April recap soon and will try to get some thorakitai painted for June.

Anyways, thanks for reading (if you got this far) and have a nice week!

March group shot

Welcome To the Gray Legion!

I've always lurked about on the internet but never actually contributed anything before. I watched my friend set up his own wargaming YouTube channel recently (ScrapTrap Synchron - shameless endorsement) and thought I'd start something of my own. Youtube isn't quite my style; I've always found I get the most useful information from blogs and I figured I'd try one myself. I might do collabs with his channel in the future depending on how things pan out.

This will be a Wargaming blog featuring battle reports, painting tutorials, model reviews, showcases and whatever else I can think of. Warhammer 40k, Horus Heresy, Battletech, Saga, DND, LOTR sbg and historical wargames will be covered. My plan is if I can document my hobby progress then I might feel more motivated to actually finish projects (Hobby ButterFly).

Anyways, I look forward to making my first real post and wish you all the best on your own battle against the legions of gray! 

- Parker