PAINTING: The Crusade is over

I have finished painting my Land Raider Crusader and therefore finished painting 2000 points of Blood Angels Space Marines in one year.

YES!

Ahem.

This model was a monster to paint and represents an insane amount of time and effort. I hope it's worth it on the tabletop.

The shiny patches around the transfers are the spots where I've painted varnish so that the transfer is sitting on a flat surface. I'll be re-varnishing the whole vehicle and that will disguise the glossy bits.

There are still some additions I'd like to make to this model eventually - weathering for instance. My Crusader is in a similar position to my regular Land Raider in that it has no battle damage or churned up mud and dust on it's tracks. This means they stand out from my other vehicles like my Rhino, Predator and Razorback. I'll probably return to both vehicles at some point and weather them together.

I had some modelling issues with my Crusader.

The assault cannons are glued in place as one of the holes in the weapon wasn't formed properly so it wouldn't take the pin. Also the front ramp mechanism has ceased to work (this has also happened on my other Land Raider). That means I can't open the ramp very far, nor can I shut it fully. I guess God doesn't want anyone to see the fully painted interior.

The whole model feels fragile. As I've mentioned before it is oddly weighted and the Hurricane bolters feel like they could come apart very easily. Coupled with the plastic/metal combo of the multi-melta I'm not confident that this model would travel in one piece.

Anyway, despite some reservations, I have achieved my goal of painting a full 2000 point Blood Angel army in a year. I'll be posting some army shots on my blog and on Warseer over the weekend and then I'll be planning my next project.

Destroy the Gargant
With one project finished another is drawing to a close too. I have been blogging my old battle reports since September 2007 and I'm down to my last campaign. Once all these games have been ported over I'll only have my future games to add to my battle reports.

The campaign is an epic series of battles between my Daemonhunters and Gary's Orks. It's based on the premise that an Ork Waaagh has overtaken a Chaos held planet and an Ork Gargant is in danger of being possessed by a daemon. Can Inquisitor Lord Severus destroy the Gargant or will Warboss Brazhak Snitchtongue foil him?

Find out here.