Hobby Progress Challenge 2013 Concluded

The challenge is done and the winners have been drawn, I'm not one of them but I'm glad nonetheless to have taken part in the challenge. I was part of the 57 that made it through the challenge from a pool of 250+ hobbyists.

Here's myself being mentioned in an admin post on his personal blog, he represented well the friendly community that dwell in the IC's forum.

Can't wait for the 2014 Challenge ... I still have a lot of stuff to paint.

Terrain - Battlescape and Moonscape

I've made some progress on painting terrain as a nice break from the Flesh Tearers, the Hobby Progress Challenge didn't gave me much chance to paint something else. 

Battlescape

Moonscape

I've used the same colour scheme as my bases mostly, here's the link. I did try cheaper acrylics from Mickael's to colour match the Scorched Brown with mixed success. Games Workshop Citadel paint are pretty expensive but I can't say that they're not higher quality than the acrylics I can locally buy (Vallejo and Privater Press aren't distributed around here). The coverage of the Citadel Base paint is way better and dried 10x times faster, I even had to use my heat gun on low setting in order to emulate the same drying times.

A Battle-Brother of the Death Company died here...

Battlescape with Moonscape

Hobby Progress - Finishing the Flesh Tearers

In an effort of finishing my Flesh Tearers, I've been going over the units I didn't gave much love. Surprisingly this included the very first unit I've ever had, my Sternguards, which is also my first conversion. They all have warriors of chaos cloak and green stuff on the shoulders to match the fur.

Flesh Tearers Sternguard with some conversion

Left overs of Devastator Squad and Command Squad

Flesh Tearers Librarian (Dark Vengeance)

Next steps ? Freehand on the banners, Decals, figuring out what to use to seal them and flocking. Stay tuned.

Hobby Progress Challenge - August Completed

Baal Predator + Predator + Land Raider Crusader

Land Raider Crusader (250)
Baal Predator (145)
- Heavy Bolters Sponsons.

Predator (100)
- Heavy Bolters Sponsons.

That completes my challenge but my Flesh Tearers aren't done yet. I still have decals and basing to do and some free hand banner work (I'm not looking forward to that).

I had issues with airbrushing my vehicles and getting the colour to match with the airbrush which as you can see isn't perfect on the land raider vs the predators. It's been a pain to get the flesh tearers colours scheme with the new paint range.

Hobby Progress Challenge - August Commitment

Since all that's left are vehicles, I'll airbrush the lot of them at the same time.

Land Raider Crusader

Baal Predator

"Dakka" Predator

Land Raider Crusader (250)
Baal Predator (145)
- Heavy Bolters Sponsons.

Predator (100)
- Heavy Bolters Sponsons.

Hobby Progress Challenge - July Completed

Honour Guard + Blood Champion + Sanguinary Priest

Honour Guard (145 pts)
- Blood Champion
- 3x Plasma gun

Sanguinary Priest (50 pts)

Hobby Progress Challenge - July Commitment

Honour Guard + Blood Champion + Sanguinary Priest

Honour Guard (145 pts)
- Blood Champion
- 3x Plasma gun

Sanguinary Priest (50 pts)

Hobby Progress Challenge - June Completed

I've struggled with the red on those two, I can't say I'm fully happy with the result. The khorne red was applyed with the airbrush but the color was too bright thus my need to wash. I might have needed to use more dish soap to break the surface tension a little more. I'll need to figure out a mix of khorne red and some brown to pull off a true dark red on the august commitments.

Furioso Dreadnought and Furiso Librarian Dreadnought

Side shoot on the librarian

Furioso Librarian Dreadnought (175 pts)
Furioso Dreadnought (140 pts)
- Magna-grapple

Hobby Progress Challenge - June Commitment

Furioso Dreadnought

Furioso Librarian Dreadnought

Furioso Dreadnought (140 pts)
- Magna-grapple

Furioso Librarian Dreadnought (175 pts)

Hobby Progress Challenge - May Completed

I managed to pick up quite a bit of steam, May is completed before the end of April. I've finally stopped being afraid of messing everything up with my airbrush and started using it, saving me hours and giving me a quality of finish that is hard to emulate with a brush.

Death Company Dreadnoughts

Death Company Dreadnought (125 pts)
Death Company Dreadnought (150 pts)
- Heavy flamer
- Magna-grapple

Hobby Progress Challenge - April Completed

For some reasons, my previous commitment post didn't automatically publish on the required date so please excuse the goal and completion being posted back to back.

Flesh Tearers Assault Squad

I'm still needing to base and apply decals, two aspect I don't think are required for the challenge, the only requirement I see is three colours minimum, which is quite easy to obtain. I'll probably base and add Flesh Tearers decals on all my models prior to the end of the challenge.

Hobby Progress Challenge - April Commitment

Flesh Tearers Assault Squad

10x Assault Marines (225pts)
- 1x Power Axe
- 2x Meltagun

Hobby Progress Challenge - March Completed

I've tested the black armour highlight with both Eshin grey and Dawnstone and I've sticked with mostly Dawnstone everywhere except where I wanted some contrast but very little as I didn't wanted to draw the eyes theres, the fingers for example.

Flesh Tearers Death Company with jump packs

They took me quite a while and I could have done a third layer of red on some part but I had to keep moving to the next squad. I still need to apply 2 Flesh Tearers decals on the bare shoulder pads but that will have to wait until the end, probably when I'll base everything.

Hobby Progress Challenge - March goal progression

Here the progress I've managed to accomplish since the beginning of the month, I'm still very busy from the move to the new house but things are starting to settle down. I forgot how long Death Company is to paint as every model is almost as detailled as an HQ model.

Jump pack Death Company got some base colors

Just to give some perspective on how much paint steps are is still needed, here's a side by side shoot.

Finished Death Company vs Current progress

Hobby Progress Challenge - March commitment

Expensive Jump Pack Death Company of primed awesomeness

10x Death Company (420 pts)
- 10x Jump packs
- 1x Power sword
- 2x Infernus pistols
- 1x Power fist

I'm gonna try working with more subtile highlights than the ones I've previously painted, I like the look on the tabletop but on camera the lack of blending does show.

Independent Characters 2013 Hobby Progress Challenge

I've submitted the list I'll be painting in the coming months starting in march.

Honour Guard (145)
Sanguinary Priest (75)
Furioso Librarian Dreadnought (175)
Furioso Dreadnought (140)
10x Death Company (420)
10x Assault Marines (225)
Death Company Dreadnought (125)
Death Company Dreadnought (150)
Land Raider Crusader (250)
Baal Predator (145)
Predator (100)

Here's the thread (Everything will be posted here of course)

I haven't been eaten by the Tyranids just yet!

While I know that most of my traffic is generated from the google juice pulling my work-in-progress pictures thus very few actually cares about the written content of the blog, I still felt somehow like I had to explain why I haven't updated in almost 3 months.

The current state for my hobby desk

Well the answer is simple, I've bought a house and the moving process destroyed my hobby progression as I have no room left for it for the time being. Everything should be resuming in March.

Here what you can expect to see in 2013

• Independent Characters Hobby Progress Challenge
• 1850pts of Flesh Tearers
• March - November
• Hobby space setup
• Gaming table construction
• Terrain building and painting
• Dark Eldar
• Girlfriend's ongoing 40k corruption 
• Space Wolves
• Logan Grimnar Great Company 2000pts+
• Tau
• Black Templars
• Brother Vinni's Sandlot Figures
• Infinity 
• Haqqislam 300pts
• Dreamforge Eisenkern

Hobby Progress - Terminators and Sternguard

I've done quite a bit of progress on my terminators, getting the entire squad to the same point, leaving only basing and decals to be applied.

 

Assault Terminators with lightning claws

Assault Terminators with thunder hammers

My sternguards weren't high priority as I don't field them often but since I had previously finished the armour, only the detailing paint steps need to be done which once I get painting should be done quickly.

Sternguard "Sergeant"

They are all converted with warrior of chaos cloaks and they all have Black Templars helmets, Forge World bolters and some have Black Templars tabards. They were converted to stand out from the rest of my army and get a bit of my own fluff into the army. Flesh Tearers Sternguards should be veterans from many campaigns in order to make sense fluff wise in an aggressive assault army, so I made mine as veterans of the Armageddon campaigns were they would have earned honours from Black Termplars as for me they should be their closest battle-brothers outside of the Blood Angels.

Death Company, Is it worth it ?

If you ever played with them in 5th edition, you know how the Black Rage made them susceptible to be kited around the board. It made them hard to justify for a lot of players, you had to plan around that by making sure that once they were out of a transport, they were in a position to cause havoc.  

6th Edition came around, they lost Initiative 5 but gained another attack on the charge, the torrent of bolter fire is harder to resist has Feel No Pain will save you 33% of the time (5+ against anything except instant death) instead of 50% (4+ against anything but AP1 and AP2, instant death, power weapons). It's harder for infantry in general to get into assault range, no more assault out of a vehicule that didn't move. It's a bit more tactically challenging to get the charge which I believe is where the fun starts.

Blood Angels Death Company works really well as a counter assault unit with 4-5x WS5 S5 attacks per models. They will flood the enemy troops with wounds especially if they have a Reclusiarch to get them rerolls on hit and wounds. You can deck them out with AP2 weapons but the sheer amount of wounds should take care of 2+ armour, equipping power fists simply is an insurance against the volatility of dices or the presence of vehicles.

I've yet to use them with jump packs and Lemartes, they seem rather expensive for what they can hope to accomplish but in support to a deepstriking assault squad I guess they could be decent. I'm not convince that 5x DC with a power fist, jump packs and Lemartes is an efficient 350 points.

The cost is the downfall of the unit and that's why I try to keep mine as bare bone as possible for the task they are meant to accomplish, keeping that in mind will ensure you don't overkit them or try to make them do things that they aren't meant to.

Flesh Tearers Color Scheme

Here's the color scheme I've used on my Flesh Tearers and the one I'm working on as I'm running out of the old paints.



Painted using the old paints

Painted using the new paints

Armour
Base Mechrite Red
Layer Red Gore
Khorne Red

Light highlight Bleached Bone on the edges
Screaming Skull

Badab Black wash in the recess
Nuln Oil

Layer Red Gore to clean up the armour plate from the wash
Khorne Red

Baal Red wash
Carroburg Crimson

Gold
Base Balthasar Gold
Light Nuln Oil Wash
Dirtier looking than Agrax Earthshade, fit more with Flesh Tearers

Overbrush Gehenna's Gold
Light Highlight Auric Armour Gold

Seals
Base Dhened Stone
Gryphonne Sepia wash

Wings
Astronamician Grey
Light Badab Black wash
Depends if I want a dirtier look or not

Highlight White Scar