Death Company Rhino

I painted this Rhino right after the first regular Blood Angels one.  I like it and all, but I get the feeling that something as scary as the Death Company should come charging out of a Land Raider, or Storm Raven...perhaps just pop out of something terrifying like a real live rhino.  A Rhino tank just seems a bit small to deliver such a mean bunch of dudes. 

Then again, I guess the A-Team van wasn't that intimidating compared to the meanness it delivered to bad guys...

I wanted the guy on top to look like he's busting out of the top hatch of the Rhino, eager to get to the enemy and hit them with some swords.  Seems like a DC kind of thing.

Blood Angels First Rhino (with a bit of Freehand)

I finished this Rhino a couple weeks back.  I want to make my Blood Angels Rhinos a bit more "arty", with more than just red paint and the Chapter symbol.  What I came up with was the half blood drop with one wing covering the top.  I've never done any larger freehand before, so it was a bit scary going over the reds that I had just been shading and highlighting.  Nevertheless, it came out pretty well.  I plan on working on another Rhino to finish the other half of the blood drop and wing. 

Space Hulk's Sergeant Lorenzo

I've started the project of painting the Terminators from the board game Space Hulk.  Eventually, I will add these models into my Blood Angels army, but have not yet determined a method by which I will make the bases detachable so that I can use them for 40K and Space Hulk. 

So far, I'm using a unique system to determine what order to paint these models in.  I have decided that whichever model performs particularly well in each game played will get painted first.  This is Sergeant Lorenzo, who in our first (recent) game of Space Hulk held off waves of bad guys with only his sword and some very lucky dice rolls.  He earned his paint.

I am particularly pleased with the face of the model, where I managed highlighting, a decent eye, and some sharp teeth.  I also remembered to drill out the gun, which I always forget, and I think the greens came out really nicely.  The red armor is a bit flatter than usual, because I forgot to highlight in my usual way before working on details, and thus had to fix it in small batches as I went. 

More Space Hulk models will be incoming, so stay tuned!

An Ode to Lysander

Okay, not that Lysander.  More like the gentleman in the yellow Terminator armor.

There we go.

I'd like to toast again the model that I consider the most fun to play with in 40K-land:  Darnath Lysander.

For background, I'm not a great 40K general.  While I always play my hardest in Fantasy, there seems to be something about 40K that inspires me to really go for cool fights and explosions.  I enjoy those cinematic moments more than anything, and I seem to believe that my models can do anything.  I have a scout sergeant who has killed Abaddon, Hive Tyrants, and the like.  I put him in those situations intentionally.   My mind just tends to gloss over all the times he's died.

Lysander does amazing, heroic things on the battlefield, and that's why I like playing him in my lists so very much.

Case in point was my second game at this previous weekend's 40K tournament.  Lysander, seven Assault Terminators, a Crusader, and a Vindicator were lined up across from a good half of a Dark Eldar army.  There were Raiders, Ravagers, Incubi, Wyches, Warriors, and Duke Sliscus.  I knew that Lysander must take on the challenge.

In I charged, and was promptly counter-charged by the Incubi and Wyches, after sustaining casualties from an unholy amount of fire.  The Terminators fell nearly to a man, leaving only one TH/SS Terminator and Lysander with two wounds, as well a the Crusader and Vindicator both immobilized.

It was time for a big Lysander-type move, so I fired the Vindicator just past his combat into Duke Sliscus and his warriors.  The blast scattered back into the combat, killing all the incubi, several wyches, and still knocking the Duke's squad around.  Lysander stayed standing, and went on to fight off every Dark Eldar on his side of the board, finally finishing off the Duke with one wound left.  He was, in short, a beast.

I should note that not only was my opponent a perfect sportsman, who did not even flinch when the blast scattered in and changed the face of the combat, but he was also a better general, edging me on objectives at the end of the day and taking a minor victory in the game.  Despite the loss, the game itself was a high point of the day for me, in that I had a good opponent, and Lysander got to do some crazy, cinematic things, which is what makes 40K great for me.

40K Toys for Tots Tournament

This past weekend had not one, but two 40K Toys for Tots Tournaments here in the RDU, North Carolina area.  I participated in one over at Sci Fi Genre in Durham, along with nine other people.  I took Lysander and his friend Pedro Kantor at 1750, and had a great time, with Lysander as always bringing his "Hulk Smash!" skills to the table.  I tabled my opponent (Dark Eldar) in round one on kill points, took a minor loss in a five objective scenario in round two (also vs. Dark Eldar), and got tabled in round three against Space Wolves.  I did, however, get the best painted army prize for the tournament. 

The real win came in seeing all the loot that was collected.

What a great event, and I'll look forward to it next year!

Back to the Second Grade!

My wife teaches second grade, and is talking to her kids today about blogging.  Luckily, this blog is one never-ending family friendly experience, so it's good to go.  I'm going to take some models down to the class to show the kids, and talk about blogging.  Once I get bored, I'll just start to ramble and make things up, so odds are that what most kids will take away from school today is that I once wrestled a bear.