Quarter 1 Week 11 Update: Death has Arrived!

It’s Thursday, so that means it’s Hammer the Backlog time. Join me, why don’t you, as I wrap up the quarter 1 project a full two weeks early and spend the rest of the time trying to find something useful to do that won’t take me down an entirely new rabbithole.

SCORECARD

It’s green! Green I tell you! With the finishing touches put on the last model of the Blood Ravens starter army, all of the averages averaged out and everything is in the clear.

That means that the quarterly target of 2008 Space Marine Force painted, photographed and online is now 100% done and ticked off.

Progress on the other rock Instant Agency Tools Replaced is also very well underway. Although, technically, since I have been using excel to track things for the last few weeks, one could argue that it is actually done? Obviously the rock was specific enough. Very bad SMART planning from me on that one!

THIS WEEK’S MODEL

There is not a huge amount to show this week for this week’s model, since all it was was the last 10% of getting the Predator tank done.

That meant doing the metallics in my normal way, including gold skulls and small details and steel for the bigger areas.

I also painted all of the lenses and the headlights. The lenses used the same green as the eye lenses of the marines, for consistency.

I also did the decals, adding the chapter symbol and a black roundel to indicate the fifth company. I don’t know if the predator would actually be attached to the fifth company in the same way as a dreadnought would, but I think it looks neat.

Finally I had to re-attach the incredibly breakable side sponsons, and then remind myself never to breath on them too hard.

Since I’m going full on Dawn of War 1 vibes, the pred has ended up being very, very red. Not a single cream panel on the whole thing to break it up or make it unmistakably a Blood Ravens vehicle.

I bloody love this thing, and had a great time painting it. It has restored my confidence in my ability to do tanks and other large vehicles, so don’t be surprised if we see more of them in the future.

WE ARE THE EMPORER’S FINEST

So, here’s a quick look at the whole force together on a suitable early 2000s battlefield.

I think these barrels and crates actually come from 40k 3rd edition, which makes them a good 10 years older even than the rest of these old models.

BUILD ROUTINE SEVEN TWO ONE INITIATED

As much as I love a completed force, what use is one without a few pieces of appropriate scenery to fight over? Luckily enough, my grass mats, old style forests and jungle terrain still make sense for this period of 40k and I have plenty of bits of scatter terrain painted up from the Warhammer 40k Conquest Magazine a few years ago.

But, since I had a bit of extra painting time I decided to paint up some of the awesome Gale Force Nine gothic sector scenery, which just so happens to look exactly like the buildings from Dawn of War 1. What a coincidence! Entirely unplanned, I’m sure.

This was my first time buying any of Gale Force Nine’s prepainted scenery. In a modern, post 3-d printing world, it’s pretty funny to see that these kits were very clearly prototyped with a 3d printer (the mold lines are pretty visible), then molded and cast in some sort of plaster like epoxy. The detail is decent, but these are very much not GW models in terms of quality of detailing and crispness. They are scenery, not centrepieces.

Obviously, the almost Dark Angels dark green doesn’t work for the Blood Ravens, but I think this was actually a pretty clever move on the designer’s behalf. The dark green is a fabulous undercoat for a mephiston red rattlecan spray, and where you miss spots or use a zenithal spray, the dark green is a perfect shadow. Almost like they planned it.

In fact, I regret that I sprayed the orbital uplink with a grey undercoat before the red, I should have gone straight for the red over the green like I did with the chapel barracks, for better depth. The orbital relay looks a little flat and toyish by comparison now.

When I was painting these, I pretty much tried to paint them to the exact same standard as they were pre-painted. So black and yellow chevrons, a couple of details in a spot colour, and a single, fairly stark edge highlight on the most prominent panels.

Great stuff, would recommend.

BITS AND BOBS?

So two weeks left, what am I going to do? I strongly considered doing another squad of Blood Ravens, but then it turned out that I have a whole other tray’s worth of them, so I will save that for next year.

I also have my poor, neglected 2nd edition Chaos Space Marines to finish, who have been waiting for 3 months.

My late 1990s Demon Prince is also giving me bodacious side eye from the pile of shame. He did appear as the last boss in Dawn of War one after all?

Regardless of all that, it will be off to the studio this weekend to record the next quarterly review video.

Thanks for reading all of this. See you next Thursday.

You are the best of eggs.