Monday, April 5, 2010

They're heeeere. . .

Picked up part of my Blood Angels shipment on Saturday. I probably would have worked up this post yesterday, but it was Easter and all, so I went to my brothers for a delicious ham dinner. And we ate outside. On Easter Sunday. Global warming what?

Anyway, the Bangels. I placed a hefty order -- four boxes of Death Company, a box of Sanguinary Guard, an Ironclad Dreadnought, a Baal Predator, a Land Raider Crusader/Redeemer, and, of course, the codex. It was all nicely waiting for me in a brown, paper grocery bag. Unfortunately, due to budget constraints, I only picked up two boxes of Death Company, the Sanguinary Guard, the Pred and the book this weekend, but I'm sure that will be enough to distract me from painting Dwarfs so I don't have an army fully painted for the tournament. In fact, what little time I've spent in my nerdery has been focused entirely on Bangels. Last week, I assembled a Furioso Librarian Dreadnought out of a plastic Ven Dread kit with an Ironclad Dread right arm and a Forge World Grey Knight Dreadnought Nemesis Force Weapon arm (damn that's a long name!). Sadly, the FW dread parts are "reduced scale", so the shoulder on a plastic GW dread looked small and weird. Fortunately, I had a spare AoBR dread arm, so I cut the CCW off and carve out a little spot for the force weapon arm to go in, all while watching The Musketeer. (By the way, the action scenes are great, but the Disney version with Charlie Sheen is much better.) And here's the end result.




If the front looks kind of weird, it's because I left the sarcophagus cover off of the dread. I chose the one with arched windows in it, which allows you to see part of the marine torso while simultaneously making it impossible to paint. Anyway, I'm not 100% sure how Librarian Dreads are going to work, but they're simply too cool and too much of a psychological factor to not field them in a game. Oh, and if you can't read it, the word "Mortis" is engraved on the force weapon. And if you want to build your own librarian dread, here they are on Forge World's website, for about $10.50 USD. Shipping wasn't too bad, but if you can wait, you can always order it from FW and have them bring it to Games Day for you to pick up. I'm also planning on futher customizing the dread by adding this as a banner. . .


It's one of the banners from the Empire Hero plastic kit. I'll have to scrape off the twin-tailed comet from the shield, and probably replace the hammer with something more Blood Angels-esque, but I think it'll be a unique touch.

My dwarfen distractions did not end there. I also decided to assemble my first Assault Sargeant, made entirely out of Death Company bits.




You may notice he doesn't have a backpack. My plan is to magnetize all of their backs, so I can choose whether to field them as footsloggers in Drop Pods and Rhinos, or slap jump packs on and have them take to the skies. I have to say, though, that the new plastic kits are gorgeous. And the Death Company kit comes with about ten sets of shoulder pads for five models, so you have plenty of spares. I'm planning on each sarge having two DC or Sanguinary Guard pads, and each assault marine having one fancy shoulder and one boring shoulder.

The bits on his base are an empty Cadian helmet with the symbol on the front scratched off, and a skeletal hand holding a laspistol. I've decided to base my entire army with bits from other armies. The regular squaddies will all have ork bits, as orks are the common enemy of the army. However, each sarge and veteran will have bits to match the force they were fighting when they earned their veteran status. In this case, this sarge earned his laurels when fighting againts traitor guard.

Anyway, this was (hopefully) just a brief distraction from painting my Dwarfs. After all, the newest toy is always the coolest. Here's hoping I can get back on track and painting stunties. . .at least until I have 2,250 painted and ready for the tourney. Then I can get myself distracted, as the next Fantasy tourney won't be until November.

8 comments:

  1. WOW those are some sexy looking models...but get some paint on them!! hehe

    ReplyDelete
  2. I can't just yet! I must finish my Dwarfs. I've never been quite so close to fielding a 100% finished army before.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The Dread Banner is a cool addition... but not as unique as you may think ;) LOL

    http://i741.photobucket.com/albums/xx54/SebJones_photos/Blood%20Angels/DCDread2Furian.jpg

    Angelus Mortifer of the Arvard Ardboyz
    :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Heh, well that just makes me sad. . .for two reasons. One, as you said, it's been done before. And two. . .my paintin' skills aint that good! I'd like to see that bad boy in person, though. Is it the FW Chappie Dread, or converted?

    ReplyDelete
  5. That shouldn't make you feel sad mate - your models are your models, and I certainly haven't got "Copyright" on sticking that banner on, LOL. If anything, I use the hobby for inspiration to try and get something unique, or someone comes up with a very cool idea that I just have to use - win/win either way in my books ;)

    Also, consider this. Now that we can get Blood Talons, I have no excuse not to make a 2nd DC Dread but I now have the problem of building something comparable in terms of design and painting - that is most definitely the headache!!

    It's the FW Chappie Dread with standard plastic Dread legs and left arm, and the metal Furioso pattern right arm with the Meltagun.

    If I get a challenge in this Thur he will certainly be down at the Ardboyz, so feel free to take a look. Otherwise, I'll be painting up some Tac Marines and a JP Sang Priest... so much to do now that there's a new Codex -urgh- :)

    AM

    ReplyDelete
  6. Heh, well, it looks great, and I look forward to seeing a second dread to match it. Unfortunately, Pandemonium is a bit of a haul for me (I'm in Ludlow. . .exit 7 on the Pike), but I've been buds with Tyler for over fifteen years now, so he may convince me to come out some Thursday, probably during the summer. Hopefully by then I will have some painted Bangels of my own.

    ReplyDelete
  7. With the new 'dex... it would be rude not to :)

    Look forward to seeing you as and when mate, along with update pics of your boys in red.

    AM

    ReplyDelete
  8. Heh, thanks. Lookin' forward to the new dread!

    Cheers!

    ReplyDelete