Iron Warriors 49th Grand Company "The Iron Hounds"

[Warsmith Aznable]

The wingéd Maltese crosses? The torsos are from the Black Templars  upgrade set, and decided when I first bought them that to scrape the design off would be too hard to do without making it look like poo. Then I thought that I would paint the crosses orange and black. Then I forgot about painting the crosses orange and black until just now when I was reading your question. Then, while I was typing this, I decided that I might go back and do that later, but for now I was going to leave it as is because I need to finish the Heldrake first.

[Warsmith Aznable]

Forever ago I made some Lightning Claw armed Chosen. It was 5th edition, Grey Knights were giving me all kinds of problems, and I needed a way to tear up Terminators. The first guy I made I hated his pose, and on the other three I figured out a better way to do the arms. That post is here, for reference. You'll know the one I mean...

So after the frenzy of the LPC I've been looking around my studio thinking that some of my older builds could be tidied up a bit. I decided to start with my Lightning Claw Chosen, specifically the "I'll scratch your EYES out!" fella. And since I ended up detaching his backpack getting his poorly modeled arms off, I decided to put some magnets in these guys and make them multipurpose: Chosen with Lightning Claws <---> Warp Talons. Why not?

He's no longer posed like a small child desperately trying to reach the cookie jar. Now he's like the others, all "check this out. You want this? No you don't, but you're getting it anyway..."

I was very happy I didn't break the shoulder pads when I took his arms off. I only have to do a little bit of painting on him because of that.

Of course the backside behind the backpacks is all jacked up on all these guys. Didn't matter when the backpacks were there, but now they all need touch-ups.

Shot of a different guy that shows the backpack magnet, too.

So there's all four of my LC Chosen with their backpacks magnetized. All in a day's work. But now I'm staring at them together and thinking about my plans to get them jump packs so they can pull double duty as Warp Talons, and what's missing for these bad dudes is a bad dude of a Sergeant. So I started poking through my bits and sprues and getting some inspiration. I made a helmet for him, and I loved the helmet so much that I knew I had to finish the guy tonight. The helmet deserved a model to sit upon.

"ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED? IS THIS NOT WHY YOU ARE HERE?"

A profile shot of his "COME AT ME BRO!" pose.

And of course he's all magnetized, too. I love magnets.

The gang all together. They sort of look like they're in the middle of a choreographed dance. I'm thinking Michael Jackson's "Thriller", probably that part where they all start to shimmy and dance past the camera.

And another shot that shows all the guys better. One of the guys has a magnet on the top of his backpack for adding a banner if I want to give them some kind of icon.

They're the Iron Hounds 12th squad and are a part of 2nd Company. They are lead by Sergeant Tindalos, and I'm not entirely decided on their squad name yet, but I'm leaning toward Night Gaunts.

[Brother Ambroz]

I think you should rename them the "Ballerinas". They do look good though. You won't prefer the Talon claws though later on?

[Warsmith Aznable]

You won't prefer the Talon claws though later on?

 

I dislike the new Chaos Marine detailing. It's too organic and asymetrical in aesthetic, and the features aren't uniform enough for my tastes. Some of the claws replace fingers and some of the claws come out of the wrists Wolverine style, that sort of thing. These TDA claws are a bit bigger than what I'd prefer, but style-wise they fit my warband theme much better.

 

If they ever redesign and replace the regular CSM box I hope it's well after the Iron Hounds are complete as a collection, because I'm not into the new look for them. It would be fine if I did a whole new warband, one more traditionally chaotic, but just not the Iron Hounds.

[deathspectersgt7]

aweome Max .

[Warsmith Aznable]

aweome Max .

Thanks!

Running with the theme of "the LPC has made me want to model stuff instead of painting", I started work on a squad I've been needing for a while. I've been running plasma veterans lately, but I've been using older model builds in various states of incompleteness and re-assemble to represent them. Taking the LC Chosen out of the previous oversize squad got me thinking about more re-org, so I pulled my plasma vet stand-ins aside and turned them into their own squad, then made some other fellows to round them out some. The squad will be able to pull double-duty as either Chosen or Havocs, but either way they are now the special weapons squad. I call them the Gloom Walkers, and their paint scheme will be a muted grey and black version of the regular squads, no bright orange, yellow, or gold for them. They need to be sneaky to get behind enemy lines.

The leadership:

In the middle there is Sergeant Svafnir. His arms are fully magnetised so he can be as tooled up as I want to make him, or more likely just run him stripped down to save on points. To his right, our left, is an as yet to be named corporal. When I want to run two squads of five he gets to play an Aspiring Champion, so his arms are fully magnetised as well. On our right is an Ancient. He gets a magent in his backpack for an icon/banner, and his hands are magnetised so that he can play the fifth special weapon when the Havocs need to be Chosen.

The first five fusiliers:

Those plasma guns are not glued in. I'm going to magnetise the hands and an assortment of special weapons so that they can be whatever special weapon I need them to be. Probably they'll be plasma most of the time, though. I'm going to do another four guys to fill out the squad to an even ten so that I can break them into combat squads of five if I want special weapon saturation. Since they are shooty, I wanted to pose most of the guys as if they were aggressively taking aim. The guy on our far left is the odd man out, and he's got a magnet in his backpack in case I'm running a minimal squad and want an icon. I guess he's just stylin' instead of shootin', and as a veteran and sometimes banner bearer I suppose that's his prerogative.

They've got Grey Knight PA heads because I am trying to keep a running theme of having different helmet types for each squad. The first Havoc squad are all Heavy Weapons now, and they've got the horned helmets, and I wanted to make the new squad distinct from them so replaced horned helmets with GK helmets on the newer squad. Originally they were some of my earliest CSM. They were bolter marines, but a long time ago I pulled their weapons off, and in some cases their hands or arms if things didn't go so smoothly. They were sort of a sad looking bunch, so I'm glad they've finally been rehabilitated.

My current post-LPC painting project is the sergeants from 1st, 2nd, and 3rd squads. They've been through several modeling incarnations, but I'm certain that this is their finalised form so I started to actually paint them:

I was irritated when the 6th edition power weapons change made their previous choices of weapon nonsensical. RIGHT before the new edition came out I had given them weapons that matched their squad names. The guy in the middle, Geirvaldr, is from the Spear Shakers, but when I saw the rules for Power Spears I knew that there would be changes. His old power spear is now a fully magnetised arm for interchangeability, and the top powersource also has a magnet in it for making it different things. Currently it is a double-headed chain-axe, just because I had the axe-head languishing in a bits box, but I'm going to make different heads for it to represent a (counts-as) power fist, maul, axe, sword, and spear.

The guy on the left is Sergeant Byrlindi, 1st squad "Bone Eaters". He's my favorite sergeant, and in my fluff he's mostly bionic. I want to get an assortment of bionic arm bits to be his very own magnetised options to reflect his increasingly mechanised body. The idea is that he's the longest serving sergeant in the grand company, so he's had to cut off way more mutations than anybody else. He worries that even if he does die a glorious death in battle that there won't be enough of him left to take before the Old Gods and ancestors...

The guy on the right is Thrithi. He doesn't have much of a personality yet because I rarely ever use three squads. He used to have a big mace from the Dark Angels upgrade set (3rd squad, "Sword Breakers"), but now that's a free-roaming option. Normally these days I let him have a power axe just so he can be holding a weapon while he waits on the shelf.

These guys are well on their way, being completely base coated. I need to go in and add the black next, but before I get to that I'm going to catch the other two sergeants up to them. That way I can finish all five sergeants at the same time. That will make 12th squad completely finished, and from there I'll move on to painting the troopers of the above 13th squad. After that, who knows what I'll be working on?

On another note, I was spraying sealer on my Heldrake conversion the other day when I noticed that some of the paint on the topside of the wings was crinkling. After putting dull-coat on it most of the crinkling subsided, but I don't know exactly what went wrong. Everything I've used has been acrylic products, even though I did use a gloss spray as the final base for the white. And it was only on the topside of the wings and not really anywhere else? And dull-coat lacquer sort of fixed it? I have no idea what's going on with that, but detailed pictures of the finished Heldrake are still in the works, probably be putting them up on Sunday. I'm hella happy with how the cockpit and pilot turned out.

Until next time...

[[TA]Typher]

The Hug squad.

When i doubt.. hug it out.

hahahahah great painting btw!

[Warsmith Aznable]

I've been delinquent in posting up the finished conversion. I wanted to wait until I replaced the white cardboard backdrop so I could get decent photos.

Gentlemen, the "Hell Storm attack fighter" in all its painted glory:

I am no good at painting the Skull & Crossbones device...

I've got everything I need for his wingman, and soon the squadron will be flying without proxies! Definitely making a third, but not sure when I'll have the Mechanicus resources for it.

I've got those sergeants in my painting queue right now, but tonight I'm working on my counts-as Huron, an old Iron Warrior who leads the 2nd Company of the Iron Hounds, Captain Ginnar. I've cut up some older metal figures to achieve his parts, and I hope to have him assembled before the night is over to show.

[[TA]Typher]

I've been delinquent in posting up the finished conversion. I wanted to wait until I replaced the white cardboard backdrop so I could get decent photos.

Gentlemen, the "Hell Storm attack fighter" in all its painted glory:

I am no good at painting the Skull & Crossbones device...

I've got everything I need for his wingman, and soon the squadron will be flying without proxies! Definitely making a third, but not sure when I'll have the Mechanicus resources for it.

I've got those sergeants in my painting queue right now, but tonight I'm working on my counts-as Huron, an old Iron Warrior who leads the 2nd Company of the Iron Hounds, Captain Ginnar. I've cut up some older metal figures to achieve his parts, and I hope to have him assembled before the night is over to show.

Haha nice!! A veritech! Rick Hunter would be proud.

[Warsmith Aznable]

Haha nice!! A veritech! Rick Hunter would be proud.

Indeed, he will be proud when I've done the second one with his red accents.

So I spent all night in the old Dark Mechanicus Forge (my studio) working on the captain of the Iron Hounds 2nd Company. He counts-as Huron Blackheart, but I shall call him Captain Ginnar:

Working with metal models is a pain in the ass... Warsmith base with a Techmarine power axe, and a resin MkIII helmet. I spent a lot of time trying to get the pins right for his arms, then gave up on pinning his backpack. The head is just sitting there right now, and the left arm is hanging by the pin.

I chopped the prometheum tank off a combi-flamer bit from the Chaos Rhino sprue. The pilot light on the chin of the gargoyle is an idea I picked up recently from someone else's Iron Warriors WIP thread, so I shamelessly ganked it for my dude. I didn't want to use the Huron Lightning Claw with built-in Heavy Flamer, I wanted something different. I figure his bionic arm is a fine Tyrant's Claw, so the servo-arm gets to be the Heavy Flamer.

Some WIP shots of the paint:

The servo-arm/flamer-thing isn't painted, it's just hanging there, but everything else has a base coat on. I painted the bionic arm, backpack, and body separately, and here I've just glued everything but the servo-arm together. I'm going to go to sleep and wait for the glue to dry to start working on details. The head is sitting on a paint-rig off camera.

I'm not entirely sure how I want the head posed yet. I'll put that on last and try different things. I knew I didn't want the original head because it's 1. too plain, 2. looking off at too extreme an angle for my taste. I'm not thrilled with the straight-arm axe pose, but it's not terrible either. I imagine him waving his axe around to direct his squads to go off and Infiltrate or Outflank something. Or maybe he's rallying the troops, or demanding the head of an enemy. Or demanding a bottle of talcum powder, whatever.

I had been saving the old Warsmith model to be the sergeant of my special "colour guard", the one squad in the Iron Hounds to retain the old Legion scheme. But I like him this way instead. I'll probably end up doing 5 Forge World MkIII bodies and 5 Iron Warriors conversion kits for the squad of 10 when it comes time to do that squad, but that's a ways off because that costs money. Right now I'm working with things I have on hand for a while. I need a job, yo. Got to get my fix of new models...

[Warsmith Aznable]

I've very nearly got my counts-as Huron done, just need to put the head on and do some black on the end of the flamer, but I've got a new job so haven't been painting. But I'm introducing a friend to the game tomorrow, so I put together a small army of Death Guard to take. After that, I went ahead and did a conversion I've had planned for a few weeks, my Chief Apothecary.

 

His name is Thegn Hrami, and he is the Chief Apothecary of the Iron Hounds. He's part of the Comitatus, so he wears TDA. What he really is is a regular Chaos Terminator who is carrying an Icon of Excess. Because I've been running MoS TDA as a retinue lately for the FNP option. Anyway, I wanted a leader for the medics I built earlier, so there it is.

 

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j91/montismo/thegn-hrami-chief-apothecary-wip-001_zps1a7fd775.jpg

 

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j91/montismo/thegn-hrami-chief-apothecary-wip-004_zpsa0256436.jpg

 

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j91/montismo/thegn-hrami-chief-apothecary-wip-002_zpsa494d001.jpg

 

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j91/montismo/thegn-hrami-chief-apothecary-wip-003_zps9f19b8ce.jpg

 

I was originally going to buy the GK TDA medic parts, but then I thought I could save money and do it this way. I'm glad I did, because I like the conversion look better, and it matches the other medics. The Black Templar shoulder pad is going to be painted white with the cross red and skull in bone. You know, a Red Cross for the apothecarion... At any rate, I didn't want to buy a shoulder pad, either. I don't have a lot of money these days. He's built from a Chaos Lord in TDA kit, of course, with a load of parts from the bits box. The only thing I bought specifically for the conversion was the GK head. The Lord kit was the last full kit I bought, and to tell you the truth I can't remember exactly why I bought it. But I did, so I used it for this. I'm going to try to scrounge up some legs and make a Chaos Sorcerer in TDA with the rest of the kit. I already have a Chaos Terminator torso for whatever reason, so I'm good to go.

 

But that's later, because I need to put that head on Huron and then get going on my painting oath...

 

But there he is. I like him.

[Warsmith Aznable]

I'm painting three different armies right now...

I've done a vow for Call of Chaos VI. It is a Chaos Rhino, a Chaos Dreadnought, a Warpsmith, and a squad of Chosen.

Here is update #1 for the Chaos Rhino:

Boring, nothing to look at, just an assembled and primed Rhino, but necessary for the painting challenge.

[Warsmith Aznable]

Update #1 for my squad of Chosen:

No paint yet, but I am still in the assembly stages with these guys. I had all of them but three put together, so tonight I pulled out some sprues and clipped three more guys off. I bet you can't guess which three they are!

The idea behind these guys is that I can field them as one big squad of ten, or as two squads of five. To that end magnets are everywhere in this squad. I put some 1/16th magnets in the hands of all but the three new guys tonight. Once the glue on the new guys is firmly cured, they get magnets too. Everyone gets magnets of one kind or another!

So the sergeant is the skull face guy, which is pretty much how I do all my sergeants. The guy in the hood is the official standard bearer. He gets a backpack with a magnet in the top for one of those loyalist style backpack banners. It will have the main squad colours, and like the other standard bearers he will be wearing Iron Warriors paint scheme instead of the orange and black of the warband. The one "regular guy" who doesn't have his head turned to be sighting down his weapon is the back-up standard bearer for when this unit is representing two squads in the army list.

The fellow with the gargoyle backpack and face-strap-what-the-hell-are-those-things? instead of a helmet is the corporal. He and the sergeant have shoulder magnets in case I want to get crazy with their respective wargear. Which probably won't happen, but I like to have options.

One of the ways I differentiate between squads is through consistency in helmets. These guys wear the knight-style Grey Knights helmets. Normally the helmets would be white with black eyes to do the "skull-face thing" my warband favors, but I'm thinking since they're Chosen they might get bright silver with red eyes. It's how I coloured the helmets of my Chaos Terminators (except the two body guards) so I don't know if I want that to be the "veteran" style, or reserve it for "Terminator honours".

The general purpose of these guys is to spam plasmaguns. Because I face TDA often and power weapons got wonky in this edition. I do have another Chosen squad that's power weapon heavy, and I might add them to my vow if everything moves along at a good pace, but probably not.

I suppose I should grab some arms from my pile of magnetised arms to give the sergeant and corporal for the painting vow.

So that's that. Next post is probably going to be back to the Rhino to get the base colours on, likely Friday night.

[Warsmith Aznable]

Update #2 for the Chaos Rhino

This is the 3rd Squad's Rhino, so I decided to put the three stripes on the firing port doors to more or less match the squad banner they carry.

This Rhino is named "Obstinatus". During a game against Grey Knights back in 5th edition it withstood being hammered on by a Paladin squad for more than one Assault Phase, vexing my friend. I felt that shrugging off multiple Thunder Hammer hits with AV10 was worth an honour name, as anything that resists GK dickery makes me happy.

I may have gone a little overboard with the hazard stripes...

[Warsmith Aznable]

I've been prepping a house to sell, so I haven't had a lot of time to do hobby stuff. But today I do, so here's some progress on my Call of Chaos minis.

Finally got all of the Chosen magnetized:

It's not an exciting update, so I won't count it toward my update obligation for the Call.

Update #1 for my Warpsmith:

I don't like the flimsy mechatendrils, I'm positive they'd break and I don't like the look of them anyway. So I kitbashed the warpsmith with a techmarine. I'll use the techmarine as a sergeant or summat, and the axe would be good for a chaos lord at some point.

He is also magnetized, because why not:

I thought it would be a lot easier to transport him if I did this. And since he's "finecast" I thought the servo-arms might break anyway, so this way the magnets will separate before the resin snaps (hopefully). Also he is pose-able this way. And if he angers me I can easily demote him:

This way he can be a stripped-down Chaos Lord or a fancy-pants Aspiring Champion.

Surprise, surprise, I'm behind on a painting vow... I'll be doing some painting tonight, though. Probably I will work on the Rhino and the Dreadnought.

[Ammonius]

Now that's a spicy Warpsmith/ Lord/ Aspiring Champion!

 

I like good use of magnets, and this qualifies. Now, hurry up and get some paint going! :)

[Warsmith Aznable]

Now that's a spicy Warpsmith/ Lord/ Aspiring Champion!

I like good use of magnets, and this qualifies. Now, hurry up and get some paint going!

Thanks!

Here's some paint I did tonight on the Dreadnought.

Update #1 for my Chaos Dreadnought:

I put him together forever ago, back before I knew anything about painting in sub-assemblies. Or how much I dislike the pointy fence-things that come with the CSM Vehicle Sprue. Some chains and skulls also broke off him in the past couple of years. I added the Defiler head a while ago. Most recently I stripped off the halfway done paint from years ago and primed him white. I'm already liking this new scheme better.

Anyway, here is what my warband's bizarre paint scheme looks like applied to a Dreadnought. I don't know if I'm going to do the Khorne skull in white and the Defiler mask in silver, or do the Defiler mask in white like my regular troopers do, and the Khorne skull in gold.

And those hazard stripes are fatter than they probably should be for the armoured plating on the torso, but on the "shin guards" I like it.

I normally run two Dreadnoughts with plasma cannons and missile launchers, because I am looney like that...

[Warsmith Aznable]

Update #2 for my Chaos Dreadnought:

The majority of the colouring and shading is done. Next is highlights and touch-ups and some little details here and there. Then, of course, I have to figure out what weapons he's going to be arme with, and paint those up. I'm also going to try a water slide for the first time. Going to put the Iron Warriors decal on his left shinguard. I reckon if I screw it up it'll be easy to fix, so whatever. I have to learn how to use those things some time, right?

[Warsmith Aznable]

Update #2 for my Warpsmith

I still don't know if I like Nuln Oil as much as I liked Badab Black, but such is life. It's wet right now, so I am not putting the Burnished Gold on the trim tonight. The head and servo arms will be in the next update.

Also, I have been sitting on the updates for Captain Ginnar, my counts-as Huron Blackheart, and one of my favorie figures. So here is the 99.9% finished that dude:

He falls over a lot, so I need to figure out some way to stabilise him.

I also don't know if he needs blood on that claw or not.

[Ammonius]

I like the bold colors! Something about the way that Captain Ginnar's bionics are proportioned, along with the mark 3 helmet, reminds me of the Epic Imperial Knights - quite the callback! :)

[Warsmith Aznable]

My car died. As in permanently. As an added bonus, the replacement car I was driving crapped out and is in the shop, and I've been stuck at home for days now. You would think I would have lots of motivation to use this enforced alone time to get some more painting done, but I've been drained of enthusiasm lately. Let's call it "holiday blues."

But I wanted to do something today, and I most enjoy assembly, so I worked on my new dedicated "Termicide" squad:

I'm going through some squad re-organising, which is why some parts are painted or primed already. I decided that since I never used my other Terminators for suicidal deepstrike attacks, I needed to make a squad just for that. And, since at some point in the past I had apparently bought a second box of Chaos Terminators, it was easy to start on. So three basic guys with power mauls and combi-meltas, just in time for the Escalation rules in case I need extra help taking out armour.

And here's this picture, to show off that everything that I do from here until forever will have magnets in it for options. The combi-melta in the middle that the sergeant has comes from the loyalist Force Commander kit. The other two come from the regular Chaos Terminator kit and the Terminator Lord kit, just with superfluous parts shaved off. I kind of feel that only one person should be wacky enough to have a pointless chain-bayonet stuck on his firearm.

Close-up of the sergeant. The head is from the Chaos Terminator Lord kit. He had an Eye of Horus on his rebreather, but I think it makes the head look like a duck, so I shaved it smooth. I like it a lot better.

I don't remember if I mentioned how I do these before, but I drill a hole in the fist and insert a 1/16th aluminum rod into it, and then file the top of the fist flat and stick on a 1/8th magnet on the top. For the weapon I drill a hole that the rod fits into, and then put a smaller 1/16th magnet in a shaved portion where the grip normally is. The aluminum rod does most of the work, but the magnets keep the weapon from spinning around or falling off if jostled.

So there is that. I should be getting back to my painting vow soon.

[Warsmith Aznable]

OK. Got some good work done today. My Chaos Rhino is done except for the top hatches and some touch-ups, and the Chaos Dreadnought is finished enough to turn in to the Call of Chaos. So here it is:

Third and Final update for my Chaos Dreadnought:

The decal is still drying, and I might need to do some fiddling here and there, but as far as I'm concerned this thing is complete. Everything after tonight will be post-paint adjustments.

I went with a twin-linked lascannon and powerfist combination for the weapons because they were easiest things to paint out of the weapons I already had assembled. I originally thought about the bog-standard multi-melta and fist combo, but I don't have a multi-melta and I didn't feel like converting one. Then I thought about the plasma cannon and missile launcher combo, but decided that the above would be easier and look better for a paint challenge. So that's how that happened.

His name is Forn Valtyr, and he is a bull goose looney. Back in 5th edition he was a team-killing superstar, but he's much more calm these days. Probably his best moment was my first game against the new Dark Angels codex. I got a large group of Deathwing right in my backyard on the first turn, but they all flubbed their shooting. I was running two Dreads and two Forgefiends, and good old Forn Valtyr lead the way in burning down all those many points of TDA and HQ. Between that and the Forgefiends hosing his Ravenwing bikers first thing, it was pretty much over halfway through the second turn. I haven't had such a glorious game since, but I love my crazy Chaos robots.

[deathspectersgt7]

Forn Valtyr looks good.

[Warsmith Aznable]

Thanks, Deathspectersgt7! I do enjoy knowing that my WIP thread does at least get looked at.

I'm adding another unit to my Call of Chaos VI vow: Cypher! Or a counts-as Cypher, anyway. I'm not into Dark Angels, and I don't really care about Cypher's fluff, but I like the idea of creating an Alpha Legion cell. In the long run I think I'm going to get a Sternguard box and paint them in AL colors to counts-as Chosen to have yet another Outflanking special weapons team, but for now I'm just going to make my Cypher conversion. Here's the assembly and putty work I've done tonight:

Regular CSM torso and legs and arms, defiled Ultramarine shoulder pad and regular CSM shoulder pad, plasma pistol from the SM Force Commander kit, bolt pistol from CSM kit with a scope from a SM Scout bolt pistol glued to it, spell book from Chaos Terminator Lord kit (I figure the spell book can take the place of the sword in representing Eternal Warrior), regular CSM backpack with the vent things repostiioned to look more like a loyalist backpack, and a DA head from a bits order I did a long time ago and had an extra.

And putty. Lots of putty.

I really had no idea what I was doing when I did the putty. I just winged that mother, and I guess I'm satisfied with it. I did the rope to cover up the area where the four pieces of cloak I made didn't quite mesh together in the back. I added the loose ends to the front because the "buckle" thing on the torso wasn't doing it by itself. I tried to make it look like one end of the rope went through the ring, but I'm not sure if that worked.

At any rate, I'm satisfied with him as an assembly. I've got some ideas for how to do the paint, but that's for later. I really need to get that Warpsmith done, and I only have a little bit to knock out on the Rhino. The big thing is going to be the ten Chosen, and if I didn't believe that this AL operative would be a relatively easy paint job I wouldn't be adding to my vow. I reckon I can get him done in one night, but we'll see.

[Warsmith Aznable]

Stayed up wicked late last night to get a good start on the paint for the Chosen. We're down to the last two weeks, and I don't want to get right to the end and have a whole unit of ten without at least a base coat on them. Because that would be bad.

Second update for my Squad of Chosen:

The whole squad. The one guy in black is the standard bearer, and those get painted in regular Iron Warriors colors. It's kind of a legacy thing.

The sergeant and his fire team.

The corporal and the second fire team. The one squaddie looking a different direction from the others is the alternate banner bearer, for when I run these guys as two separate units. The corporal then becomes an "aspiring champion", of course, which is why he's magnetised like the sergeant. As to which direction the alternate banner bearer is looking, I admit that was a mistake that I capitalised on. I put his helmet on, thought, "they should all be aiming down their weapons since they're specialists", and by then the damned thing was dried on. So, he gets promoted to secondary magic stick holder. I've already forgotten who that originally was, but since I prised the backpacks off most of them to accommodate painting, it doesn't matter.

I did something different with these guys when I was doing base coloring. I started with a black primer and built up to the orange (snakebite leather, bleached bone, skull white, blazing orange.) Normally I prime white, use orange as a foundation, and then put black down on top. That gets fiddly, what with all the gold trim I put on my guys. I thought I would come from the other direction and see how that worked.

It was a ton of work, but it was easy work. It just took a long time, is all. I won't be sure if this is a better way until I'm completely done with them, but man, does it take a long time.

There's no wash or details or anything on them yet. I'll probably start with boltgun metal when I get to that, but that's not going to be tonight or tomorrow. I need a break from these dudes, so the next thing I'm going to work on is my counts-as Cypher.

Thanks for reading!