PAINTING AND MODELLING: Black Reach and Battle for MaCragge

Some time off work and feeling energised following the completion of my Praying Mantis Superheavy have combined to produce a spurt of modelling and painting creativity in me. Here's what's on my workbench.

The pledge
The main thing I need to get cracking on is painting my Blood Angels. I'm a little behind in my painting pledge over on Warseer (although I have eventually managed to get my Chaplain and Death Company on there).

My target for the end of January is to complete this 10 man Assault Squad. It has two plasma pistols and the Veteran Sergeant has a power weapon and melta bombs. It would count as a hefty 300 points towards my 2000 point army and would also be great on the tabletop as they count as Troops in a Blood Angels army.

They were already painted up to a very basic standard, essentially with just the base colours, so the first thing I did was to wash the yellow helmets with Gryphonne Sepia and wash the armour with Baal Red. I took the photo while the ink was still wet, so while it was drying I busied myself with some base building.

Captain Lazarus
The Black Reach boxed set has been cluttering up my games room for a while now, stuffed with new models for my Blood Angels and Orks. I decided to take the models from the box and put together the Marines both to save some space and to give me something to paint later in the year. The fist model I put together was the Commander.

This model is a stunning sculpt for a snap fit. It only consists of four components; the legs and back, the torso and head, the sword arm and the backpack and standard. I put it together as it was, without conversion. I didn't mind the lack of a jump pack or bike because it will fit into my mechanised Blood Angels just fine - he'll be deployed in a Rhino, Razorback or Land Raider.

More problematic is his weapon loadout. The power weapon is fine but the boltgun is a problem. Can you believe that the Blood Angel codex doesn't allow a Captain to have a boltgun? I'll have to ponder my options; I could count it as a storm bolter or bolt pistol or I could take a knife to the model. The problem with that is the way the model is carrying the gun. I can't just cut it off his hand because he's holding it underneath and it's all molded together into his hand, arm and hip. Aaaarggghhh! Anyone got any ideas?

Terminator Squad Sanctarin
The next model I took off the sprue was the Terminator Sergeant. You might be able to make him out at the front of the group shot. As I was cleaning him up I remembered that the Terminators now come on the larger bases and I had lots of resin basing bits that would fit on there perfectly. So I stopped putting the model together and created the five Terminator bases.

Dreadnought Osiander
Since I already had all my basing gear out I cast about for other stuff to base. I had an even bigger piece of resin which fit onto the Dreadnought base perfectly.

What are we fighting for?
Next I dug out some objective markers which originate from the previous 40k boxed set. They aren't the best objective markers, and they aren't themed specifically for my Blood Angels but they are better than using a die. They should paint up very quickly too.


Okay, the ink on my Assault Squad should have dried by now so I'm off to start detailing them.

Back through the mists of time
My latest Imperial Guard battle report was a game against my gaming nemesis Gary. He was trying out his Eldar ahead of the Gauntlet Tournament 2004.

Yep, 2004.

Please remember that these battle reports have all been republished from my old, defunct website so are from 40k third and fourth edition. That's why the army lists may seem a bit odd, the tactics are strange and rules may be off. It's not my bad gameplay, honest!