blood angels

Death Company have arrived!

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We might be insane, but damn do we look fabulous!

I’ve finally finished the first ten (of fifteen) Death Company miniatures!

All of ’em will be Jump-Pack marines, because when you gotta get someplace to hack something up, why not fly there? Sure, I guess they could take a Land Raider, but I feel that goes against the “totally batshit insane” fluff of the DC.

Man, these suckers were a bitch to paint, and that’s without doing all of the lining and shading that some people do. (which, in my opinion is kinda batshit insane. I’m not trying to win the Golden Demon award here.)

Still, not too shabby looking, I guess.

I still have five more to paint, but for the moment I’m going to start on something else, that being a Scout Squad!

And even better, those guys are PRIMED WHITE!

Tactical Squad one is ready!

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This flock looks like shag carpet! Whatever, for the Emperor!

Two units down, eleventy-billion to go!

I will admit that working with the black-primer miniatures was a lot easier than I thought it would be. Those Citadel base colors really do their job!

The basing flock was from the original owner’s collection, and that’s what the other painted miniatures were based with, so I’ve stuck with it.

It looks better in person than in pictures, actually.

So next up will be…

DEATH COMPANY!

Tactical squad nearly online, sir!

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Hoo Boy!

I’m working my way deeper into the mound of miniatures, and now I’m close to finishing Tactical squad number one (of three)

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Ready for action!

It seems that Citadel Paints Mephiston Red really does the trick for tackling black primer; at least it’s working for me. Now what do I do about yellow when I get to the assault marines? (for their helmets!)

I’m certainly no Golden Demon award winner, but like I said, i can at least do a decent tabletop standard. Here’s the rest of the lads:

halfway-there

We’ll fight so much better once we’re properly based!

I stumbled across some Nuln Oil gloss wash, and thought I’d give it a try. Results are…meh.

shiny

You say shiny, I say oiled and ready for action! Wait a second…

NEXT time will be the battle report of the Crimson Fist marines vs the Iron hands!

Maybe.

It’s a lot of writing, and I’m somewhat lazy…

Priming today for a better tomorrow!

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truth

With all of these things to recommend it, how do you say no?

I’ve met a handful of people Heretics who do not prime miniatures, and that always shocks the hell out of me!

My God man! How can you not prime? It’s one of the elementary principals of miniature painting!

Anyhow…

If you have been following this project, then you know that I purchased a large Blood Angels army from an estate sale.

Over half of the army was assembled and primed, but it was primed in black, which to me presents a challenge.

white-prime

Apart from the crappy priming job, look how crisp our detail is!

 

I prime my miniatures predominantly with white primer, because I think it makes it easier to see (and therefore pick out) detail.

I realize that there is a time and a place for black primer, and for me that is if I plan on doing a large amount of dry-brushing, like I eventually plan on doing with my five hundred or so Zulu warriors, whenever the hell I can find time for that project.

Every great once in a while, I’ll prime with grey, but that’s usually because I’m out of white primer and I’m too lazy to run to the store to buy some more.

I’m number one!
We’re…not.

This is one place you can go a little cheaper!

I really mean it!

I’ve used the insanely expensive GW primers (only once) and I have to tell you, the four-dollar stuff works just fine.

I’ve never had any problems with it, and I’ve been priming this crap for twenty-odd years!

Okay, I picked up the somewhat more expensive Pitt Bull paint at the Porter Paint store near my house, because it was closer than Home Depot, but that’s laziness kicking in, and not thriftiness.

Rust-oleum is about four bucks a can, and works quite well.

Anyhow, I’ve decided to forge ahead with this tactical squad using our Fallen Gamer’s original black primer, just to see what results I’ll get.

in-progressbolter-and-flamer

 

I’m not entirely displeased with the results, but I’m not entirely happy, either.

All of these are works-in-progress, so maybe I’ll be happier with the finished product?

I suspect I’ll be re-priming the rest of this stuff white…

First Squad, we’re going in!

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line-up

Have Lightning Claws, will travel. And then kill things when we get there.

Alright! The first unit is officially finished!

Well, except for the protective coat.

But you’d never know that if I didn’t just tell you, right?

Man, I really love painting Terminators! So much open space to work with! And guys armed with Lightning Claws?

Hell, that hardly takes any effort at all!

Altogether, I think we’re off to a fine start here.

I guess this means I have to start on the second unit, though. (This whole blog idea will be pretty short-lived if I don’t)

Next on the painting block will be…

 

Tactical Marines!

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Sure, we’re basic troops, but Goddamn we kick ass!

I was kind of torn here, to be honest, because normally I prime white, not black, and I was thinking about stripping and re-priming these suckers.

The main problem with that is my paint-stripper of choice, Goof-Off, will eat the plastic like it was nothing, and as those arms and bolt-guns are plastic…bad idea.

The other option was to just spray white primer over the black, but that covers up detail, so I’m gonna bite the bullet and paint over black.

We’ll see how that goes.

Next time will be a primer on primer!

But they’re so…tiny…

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When I started this Blood Angels project, I totally forgot that I already had another complete Blood Angels army.

In Epic.

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Remember Epic? Specifically SPACE MARINE?

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DAKKA DAKKA, BABY!

No, not this version, venerable though it might be.

I mean 2nd Edition SPACE MARINE!

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Now with Eldar!

Arguably, this is the best version of the 40k universe that they ever put out. In my mind, nothing before or since has equalled it (although NetEpic ain’t too bad) and nothing has bettered it.

But yeah, I have a mighty large Epic Blood Angels army that somehow slipped my mind that I had it (not surprising, since I have so damn many miniatures) Here’s a portion of it:

Ah, the glory days of GW, back when they made awesome games like Space Hulk and Blood Bowl! (wait, they’ve brought those back)

I mean the glory days of 2nd Edition Warhammer 40k, when the war-torn, Grimdark future was much more…colorful.

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Look at all that glorious cardboard!

Our Fallen Gamer had some older material in his collection, some things going back even to the Rogue Trader era.

Speaking of Rogue Trader, I have yet another connection to the Blood Angels, in the form of my 1st edition Space Hulk metal miniatures:

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In any case, I will soldier on with this project, safe in the knowledge that my connection with the Blood Angels is a strong one!

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I’m a poor man’s Titan, ma!

Next time we should see the finished Terminator squad!

For my three readers out there, don’t expect daily updates, but I’ll try to be as regular as possible!

By the Emperor! What heresy is this?

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Pink Space Marines??

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By the teeth of the living God-Emperor, it matters not what colour the power armour be; It is the might of the bolter and chain-sword that will prevail! Or, er, the Lightning-claw as well!

Okay, okay, okay. Not really.

Although, I imagine it would be great fun to curb-stomp some beardy power-gamer with Purty Pink Power-armoured Space marines, this is merely the second stage of painting the Blood Angels Terminators.

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See? A nice manly red!

(not that any color is more womanly or manly than any other color. C’mon people, it’s 2017 here)

Actually, that red is still a few shades from being done. Our heroic marine here will look a lot darker when he’s finished.

Now, you may be wondering why these guys have been assembled as Assault Terminators, rather than the Tactical Terminators that were clearly on the box.

The answer is simple:

Our departed gamer already had a squad of tactical terminators painted and assembled:

terminators

We’re Flesh Tearers, by gum! Not some crummy unknown founding pink marine chapter!

So I instead went with the Lightning Claws that I had left over from my own Crimson Fist Marine army.

Yeah, I know according to the meta, Thunder Hammer and Storm shield are the way to go for Assault (because of that sweet 3++ save) but I like lightning claws.

More importantly, I had them just laying around, and even more importantly, there was a five man Tactical Terminator squad already painted.

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LIGHTNING JAZZ-HANDS OF DEATH

Next time, I’ll post the finished squad, and figure out what to paint next!

Sons of Sanguinius, take heed!

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Or something along those lines.

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So the dream finally happened, the dream of every black-hearted gamer everywhere:

An unknown gamer died, and they were selling off all of his stuff.

…and this guy had a lot of stuff. Mostly Warhammer 40k stuff, but altogether a lot of different gaming ephemera as well.

I went to the estate sale with cash in hand, and greed in my soul, thinking “Man I bet I can score some really good crap here!”

But when I got to the basement of the house, and started looking through all of the piles of this persons former treasured possessions, a wave of great sadness broke over me. After a while of searching through the jumbled mess, I asked the seller (who was not a member of the family, but rather a professional estate-handler) if I could sort everything out into the proper places where it belonged.

He willingly agreed, and so I spent an hour putting Space Wolf miniatures with Space Wolves, Dark Angel miniatures with Dark Angels, and various other army factions with one another.

I ended up getting a rather large Blood Angels army out of the deal, at a significantly reduced price for helping the guy sort things out.

Honestly, that wasn’t my reason for putting the stuff in order, though. I just looked at it all, and felt so sad.

I thought “What if this was all of my stuff thrown willy-nilly into a sale pile?” I wouldn’t want that, and I suspect that this person wouldn’t either.

In any event, I’ve decided to chronicle the painting of this fellow gamer’s Blood Angel army, the only army that appeared to be mostly unfinished, and I suspect was his last project.

A journey of a thousand miles…

Well, you get the idea. It’s a metric shit-ton of plastic and lead to paint.

Now, I’m a pretty fair painter, and I can do a decent tabletop standard, but I’m not going to try and match the Flesh Tearers motif that the original guy was doing. Instead, I’m gonna paint them as straight-up Blood Angels.

I’ll post his painted work a little further down the line, so you can compare and contrast. First up for me will be a squad of Terminator marines.

Wish me luck!