More random dudes

These are Anvil Industries Unity Council Internal Security Troops.  These were on a special offer (sigh - suckered in a again !) as these were six man squads with one torso missing. The spare legs went to the 4th Llar Heavy Infantry. 

Hopefully from the fots you can discern crisp, clean castings.

My idea had been to use the figures with fallen legionnaire heads; ie more blood pact.  But these are two piece castings with integral heads so that went out of the window.  But they'll be great for Inq28 as someone's Internal Security Forces - the lack of web kit, short range, high volume of fire weapons and intimidating outfits kinda mean these bozos won't be going to plumbing school; they've made their choice.

So I'm planning on dark brown with white (or yellow, or realllllly pale green) helmets with mirrored visors.

Oh look, someone's carrying more ammo.

Deathwatch Kill team

OK, so on the Brick of Scrutiny now are the Deathwatch Kill team figures.  They're here so we can talk about painting. 

Red.  Blarrgh !  I know a lot of people grumble about painting red.  Here are some red ones.

Ultrasmurfs.

Now the green team.

There he is, looking for Alpharius within the ranks of the deathwatch.

Lighter colours.  Yellow.

Metal.

More yellow, he actually looks slightly better from the back.

Hell's Spangle.  I was feeling quite pleased with my progress here and thought to myself "I'll look at Karitas' Whitescar biker as a point of reference."  I won't do that again.

And my fluffy ffaves, the grey team.

So what you're looking at here are ten unfinished Space Marine figures.  I get so far, and then run into the law of diminishing returns.  By the time I get them to this stage, I've burnt through my mojo.  One of the reasons they are in their Chapter colours with black arms is that the variety of colourschemes are what maintains interest.

But I get 'em to here and then the steps required to finish them seem just beyond reach.  Picking out those final levels of detail is something I tend not do.  Long time readers may remember me talking about not enjoying painting (hence contracting it out), having neither the time nor inclination to practice in order to get to a level I'm happy with.

Now let's avoid a load of bollox where we blow smoke up someone's arse about their minis deserving a better paintjob than the one I'm currently putting out.  Two girls of primary school age eat money.  I need to improve my painting because contracting out painting is expensive.  There are a certain bits out there which I'm still getting help with, but I need to improve my painting to a point where these guys can look finished.

One thing which will need to improve is paint discipline - applying it where I want it, currently it goes a little bit further which means touching up.  Sometimes the touching up goes too far and needs touching up.  Better paint discipline in the first place would be a good start - go back up the picts and look at where the lenses are.  see ?

But I have a plan.

4th Llar Heavy Infantry.

These men are from the 5/4 Llar Hvy Inf.  Assigned to 785 Div, 44 Corps, 3422 Army Group.  More about these poor unfortunates in the future.  Sometime. 

These guys on the Brick of Scrutiny are FW heads on Curious Construct Hussar bodies on Anvil Industries legs with FW (DKK) arms.

These guys are going to field grey (that's blue to you, Drax) with red sashes and shiney silver buttons and shoulder guards.  I might do a couple with shiney silvered Adiran type helmets as well, or maybe lifeguard ones from Curious Constructs.

The story will involve the first four battalions being committed to a night attack, wearing their very shiney kit.  But you'll have to wait.

Obviously what I'm aiming for here is 'different, but not too different; still fitting in with the overall vibe of the army'.  Hopefully they'll be fine.

And on a different tac, but still from a wargaming blog, weirdly funny bad taste.

Another broken rule

But to fair, one which was broken ages ago and then the stuff has been hanging around most of the year.  When I was looking for things of the Bay of Es, I would occasionally look at my old searches.  Which drew my attention to one of those 'collected Warhammer figures' lots.  This one had three or four RTB01 marines and a load of Imperial Army bodies;

They were a disparate bunch, but someone had loadsa fun putting camo on these guys.

I think that some of these are actually schemes from a WD from way back - the guys on the left look suspiciously like the Necromundian 8th ('The Spiders')

Work had been put in on all the helmets too.

And shoulder pads, too.   But meh, that's not what I wanted them for.

WIP reinforcements for the Devos IV PDF 2nd Regt (La Guadia Presedentiale).

A bare metal Creed from the joyous bounty that is Drax's bits box.

WIP guys.  Need boltgunmetal drybrush and then a black wash on the weapons.  They need a wash on the skin, rimming the googles and a purple ink wash over the helmets.  So these guys are nearly there.

3rd party goodies

So there are two of these in the boxes in the garage.  I've seen some conversions done by other bloggers, where the legs have been articulated to break up the "line dancing knights" phenomena.

\And I saw some nice little things advertised on the web:

A padded envelope from Russia, with a little capsule which looks suspiciously like a soap dish. 

And there on the brick of scrutiny is a pair of fully articulated legs.  I was going to buy a pair for each knight but then it occurred to me that I could buy one set and put one articulated leg on each knight.

So happy days there.  And a job for the new year, perhaps.

My Space Wolf Army...

Will be grey, not blue.

Will not have Fundawolf cavalry; cause they are silly.

Well, that was a mistake.

I joined a military modelling graveyard (trading page) on Facebook.  Whilst this does not sound like a disaster, it did prove to be a bit naughty in that I ended up breaking my rules of procurement.  I actually only brought a book through it.  A book about tanks for $5US.

But, seeing all of those models there ("Will only ship to continental US" cropped up a bit too often, but you can't have everything...) inspired me to fish around for the bits to do another project which has really inspired me.

But the 'bits', ie suitable (perhaps 1/48th ?) kits at the right price (a kit on offer for $10US sounds good, but if the postage is another $15US, then a kit from a UK supplier for £18 is a winner...) meant that I wound up sourcing the kits from UK suppliers.  Which in turn meant that I could get two, so that there would be two of these lovely fliers for when I wanted them.

So, instead of a bargain I wound up buying two lots of suitable donor kits.  Broken rules are still broken rules even when the kits are at a reasonable price.

Far worse was joining the 'Death Korps of Krieg' trading page.  Obviously this was almost immediately a disaster.  I've left that group as well, but only after squandering an insensible amount.

The brick of scrutiny wasn't beeeg enough.

Large random collection of DKK stuff.

There is stuff here in it's raw, virginal, untouched state.  And some stuff which needs an awful lot of TLC.  There's possibly half of the (needing a new uniform) riflemen needing over half of their rifles repaired.  I didn't need any of this, it was just there at the right price.  Appalling decision making on my part - tut tut, should know better at your age, Zzzzz.  So the new stuff was ok priced but came from Sweden, so postage, although not outragous, but was still a cost.  And the other stuff, prepaid, was collected and turns out to need repair (although that Vanquisher needs no work, I'm keeping it).

So I'm now keeping away from interest-cum-trading sites on social media.  Hopefully this me actually learning from experience.  It's bloody taken long enough.

Harumph.