To Wolf or Not to Wolf?

Well, I finished the Space Wolves that I wanted for the Apocalypse game that was back in March, then I got a new spark to paint more Salamander marines. I've been doing that since. So, I am only a couple squads away from a full Space Marine battle company. I also got a Forgeworld Thunderhawk for my birthday. I decided that when the battle company is done that I'm moving on to the Thunderhawk. The Salamanders have also finally gotten a Captain for the 2nd company. I'm working on him for a painting contest at my local store. He's just about done. I'm going to post up some pics of my company and my captain later on when I get home.
Thanks for readin!

How to finish a squad of Blood Claws.

Yestersay when I sat down in front of my unit of Blood Claws, an idea came to me. I thought that maybe every time that I sit down to do work I should have a small goal to get accomplished. Yesterday it was ti just get the 1st coat on all the gold trimmy bits. I got that accomplished! I think that lots of smaller goals make it so that I'm not going 'I've got 2 Land Raiders and 30 Grey Hunters and blahblah'. Next goal for tonight is to get the black armor joints done. I think I can do that.

I also ordered some new primer to try. I was using the Krylon 5-ball flat black. The first batch was great and it was dead flat. After that though, it was like it was mislabelled because its really shiny now. So I ordered some Krylon black primer to try. I guess there are advantages to working at a paint store. :)

Slow Production

I'm finding that the method for painting the Space Wolves is a bit tedious.

Right now its about 6 steps before doing the detail. In retrospect I probably should have used more regular Tactical Space Marines and less of the Space Wolf Pack bits because they're so detailed.
The steps are this:
1. Spray prime black
2. 2 coats of my Space Wolf gray mix
3. Wash with blue
4. Drybrush special SW gray
5. Go back and Chaos Black all the details
6. Details
7. Highlight
8. Paint unhelmeted heads separately and glue to armored bodies.
9. Transfers
10. Pull my hair out cuz there are so many Space Wolves on my painting table.
11. Try to figure an easier way... Or just go play Imperial Guard :)

So, that's my dilemma right now. I've got a small project that's part of the full army plan. I've got an Apocalypse battle in march and I'm painting Ragnar, 15 Blood Claws and a Land Raider Crusader to ally with my Salamanders force. These Blood Claws are really bugging me tho. I've gotten thru steps 1-4 for all of them tho and steps 10 and 11 sometimes too. I wish that I could find out Games Workshop's magic Spacw Wolf color mix. When I did my color sample I tried everything they said and none were close.

I have a blister with the head of Cadia's XIII sitting on my desk (Creed) and his vox casting toadie (Kell) yelling at me to open and clean them and paint them! Ack! I've also got Ragnar Blackmane primed and sneering at me with his out-of-proportion bolt pistol. If I give up on the the Old Wolf will be pissed and I don't want the fury of Russ' Wolves. We all know what happened to Prospero, right?

Blabberblabber over. I apologize for misspellings cuz I'm on my blackberry and I don't wanna proofread :)

For Russ and the Allfather, right?

No wolf pics this time.

While I've been painting the Wolves, I've been thinking about my next army. I bought the Imperial Guard codex months ago, but then Space Wolves came out and I decided on them instead. Now that I've packed up the Salamanders for a while and I'm working the Wolves, I'm looking towards my next army. I have been thinking about Chaos Space Marines or Guard. I have a list for both and both will cost about the same amount of money, but the Guard list will have about 40 more models. I think I'm going to go with Guard. Here's the list I built. It's SUPER troop heavy, but I think it'll be fun.


HQ
Company Command Squad
-vox caster
-plasma gun
-Creed and Kell upgrades

Troop Choice 1
Platoon Command Squad
-Vox Caster
-Platoon Standard
Infantry Squad x10
-Commissar w/power weapon
-Sgt w/power weapon
Infantry Squad x10
-Sgt w/power weapon
Infantry Squad x10
Infantry Squad x10
-Commissar w/power weapon
-Sgt w/power weapon
Infantry Squad x10

Heavy weapons squad w/ 3x Lascannon
Heavy weapons squad w/ 3x Lascannon
Heavy weapons squad w/ 3x Lascannon
Heavy weapons squad w/ 3x Autocannon
Heavy weapons squad w/ 3x Autocannon

Special Weapons Squad w 3x Sniper Rifles

Troop Choice 2
Platoon Command Squad
-Vox Caster
-Platoon Standard
Infantry Squad x10
-Commissar w/power weapon
-Sgt w/power weapon
Infantry Squad x10

Heavy Support
Leman Russ Battletank w/Lascannon
Leman Russ Executioner w/Lascannon
Leman Russ Executioner w/Lascannon


Now, It's time to start assembling the forces! I already ordered Creed and Kell from the GW site. :)

Back and with models painted!

I've done some painting and playing recently. I got sidetracked from the Wolves by painting more Salamanders. I really like the red bolters like they had in the old Space Marines codex, so I used it on my new Assault Squad. Here's an example:

From Misc 40k

I also painted Ahriman for my friend. I've had his model for months and months and months and months...and months. I wanted to paint Ahriman cuz I really like the Thousand Sons. Here's how he came out. This was a pretty quick job. It only took me about 3 hours from black primer to what you see her. That included pinning his very delicate wrist. Check it!

From Misc 40k

Now that I've gotten everything else done that I wanted, I am on to Russ' Wolves! Here is my first model. I've got an Apocalypse game coming up in a couple of months, so I'm doing a squad of Wolves led by Ragnar to team up with the Salamanders. It's going to be Ragnar and 15 Blood Claws in a Land Raider Crusader. I even got some Forgeworld Space Wolves doors for the Land Raider. I'll get pics of that when I start it. Here's my 1st official Space Wolf model. I think he came out awesome! I'm really pleased.

From 40k Space Wolves

From 40k Space Wolves

From 40k Space Wolves

1st Airbrush Use!

I did 3 Assault Marines. I messed with the paint for a while to get a good consistency and then I sprayed. I didn't lose any detail. The paint looks nice and smooth. I think I've got a winner. Here's the Vet Sargent with Thunder Hammer:

Check it!

From Salamanders

A new airbrush!

So, I put the Wolves aside for a moment to do another unit for the Salamanders army that I have. I built an 8 man Assault Squad with Thunder Hammer Sargent and Flamer marine. The reason I did 8 was because I only had 8 jump packs. :)

So, I primed and basecoated them. Now I need to paint them up to my rigorous Salamander Standard (see a couple posts ago for an example). So, while I was thinking about painting yesterday I decided to look into airbrushes. I originally was going to buy the GW spray gun but I kept reading how crappy it was. I continued my airbrush search and before clicking 'buy it now' on Ebay, I checked Craigs List. Lo and behold I found a great deal. So, I drove to Worcester today and met Bruce in a parking lot. Now I've got 4 airbrushes and a compressor and it wasn't a big payout to get em.

Back to my point: The Assault Squad is going to be my test subject for the new airbrush. I've gotta figure out thinning ratios and how to spray and all that, but that's what saturdays are for, right? I'll post pics of my progress!