A Predatory State of Mind

Greetings once again! I continued work on a couple of Crusade-era Blood Angel vehicles both of which happen to be Predators. I was given an original Baal Predator by a good friend of mine and while it was slightly damaged and missing some parts I managed to revive it! Here she is ready to roll once again:

Here are a couple of views from the side:

I really enjoy the original models, seeing them brings me back to the days when I first started playing 40k. To continue the Predatory State of Mind theme I finished up the Predator AAV which was used extensively during the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy.

The Predator Armoured Assault Vehicle was a natural pairing for the Astartes Legions as their crusaded to conquer the stars. In the golden age of the Imperium it became a common sight alongside the ranks of the Imperial Army and the garrison forces who remained behind on compliant worlds. Over the centuries as the crusade was engulfed in heresy and the heresy gave way to the Scouring and renewal that followed, the Predator evolved into a more varied and heavier beast and the AAV (or Mark I as it would later be designated) found itself superseded and relegated to private armies and surplus depots. But in the 31

The Predator AAV is used in the Tempus Fugitives Age of the Emperor expansion. The build of the Predator AAV can be found here. I would like to say thanks to Blood and Skulls for an awesome kit that was a pleasure to work with! Enough about the AAV here are some pictures in its transportation configuration:

 

As a option, the Predator AAV can give up its transport capacity and mount side sponsons (similar to the modern Predators). Here is a view of the AAV with its weapons (which are magnetized) deployed:

Here is a close up view of the side sponsons:

While I was waiting for various things to dry on the workbench I managed to knock out 3 objective markers. Since I will be traveling with these to England I wanted to have a little fun with them. If you look closely the bunker entrance has 'WMD' posting on it and the fuel depot has a barrel of oil and lots of gas. I had to poke a little fun at our country and its tendencies.

That is all for now. There will be a Sanguinius WIP update later in the week! Just waiting for a break in the weather that will allow him to get primered and a bunch of stuff to get their second sealant coat. Take care and thanks for looking! Comments always welcome!

st Millennium on the battlefields of a thousand worlds, the Predator AAV was an unrivalled combination of armour, firepower and speed.

Painted Blood Angel Rhino

Greetings once again to the Intertubes! I managed to snap some shots of my recently completed Blood Angels Rhino. This Rhino is the dedicated transport for the 4th Tactical Squad (Squad Pellario) of the 4th Company (Knights of Baal) of the Blood Angels. Here are a couple of views of the Rhino:

All in all I am happy with how it turned out. I tried to show that the Rhino is the dedicated transport for Squad Pellario by painting the green blood drop (4th Company colors) on several of the surfaces; I also painted the large number four in Black and Red (4th Tactical Squad colors) although I am not so happy with the way they turned out. I still have to come up with a name for the Rhino (and use a micro pen to write on the scroll on the front) and I am leaning towards 'Grace of Baal'. Suggestions would be more than welcome!

While I had the camera out and the lightbox set up I thought I would try and shot a couple of better pictures of some of Squad Pellario's OOP Death Company minis that were changed over to Tactical Marines. I was not happy with the way the previous pictures turned out so hopefully these will be a little better:

I do believe I am getting the hang of taking pictures of miniatures. I still have a long way to go both with the painting and the picture taking but I am learning and having fun and that is all that really matters!

That is all for tonight, as always, thanks for looking!

Sabre Tank Hunter 'Scion of Baal'

Hello once again! I managed to get some work done on a couple of vehicles over the weekend and I now present to you the 'Scion of Baal' a Heresy-era Sabre Tank Hunter. The Sabre Tank Hunter was a complex vehicle used by the Imperium to combat the phalanxes of warmachines and armor employed by their enemies. A variant of the Vindicator siege tank, it replaces the demolisher cannon with a Neutron Laser Projector. This marvel of technology was hard to maintain outside of the Martian Mechanicum and in prolonged campaigns most Sabres were converted to the more easily maintainable Vindicators.

You can follow the build stages here. I must say thank you once again to Bare Bones Models for the awesome kit!

I think I am starting to get the hang of the new camera, the position of lamps, the position of the models, etc. I am still very new to all of this but I am having fun trying to figure all of this stuff out. Thanks for looking and comments are always welcome!

Repurposing OOP Death Company Minis

Greetings once again! I had the chance to do some more work on my Blood Angels recently and this time I focused on a Tactical Squad. I love my Blood Angels to have some extra bling on them especially the sergeants. So I dug around in the BA Bits Box and found a bag containing a whole mess of OOP Metal Death Company minis. I took a closer look at the minis and found that some of them were not overly 'Death Companied' with moulded icons and what not, so I grabbed several and went to town turning them into Tactical Marines. It didn't take much to do and was easily done with an xacto knife and a small metal file.

Here are some views of Tactical Squad Pellario:

I grabbed a couple of extra OOP Death Company minis I have still and took some pictures of the before and after models to help illustrate what I did for this squad (I plan on using several different minis for the next Tactical Squad). The areas circled in red are the areas that I removed to make them look more like normal Blood Angels.

As you can probably tell the OOP Metal Death Company minis were not really super detailed with Death Company Icons (there are a couple that are but the majority are not) so it was fairly easy to reuse these minis as Tactical Marines and it does give them a little more Bling.

Thanks for looking!

Sanguinary Jump Priests and Jump Veterans

Hello again! The painting continues for the trip to England and the Tempus Fugitives Hammer of the Gods Campaign Weekend at Maelstrom Games. I hope to get in a quick game at Warhammer World, how cool would that be! Joining me on this 40K pilgrimage across the pond is my good buddy Mordian 7th and his Thousand Sons army which is looking quite nice.

This time around I would like to present to you for your viewing pleasure: 2 Sanguinary Jump Priests and a bunch of Jump Veterans. After taking such a long break from the hobby (3 years without painting) it is very nice to get back into the groove again; I can feel my muscles remembering how to hold the paint brush again! Enough about that, on to why you are here!

I have a bunch of the Blood Angel Sanguinary Priest models (4-5 of the exact same model) so I knew I wanted to try something a little different with the first 2. I went with opposite hands holding the power sword which meant I needed to have opposite hands with the 'Medical Equipment' stuff. I managed to track down the bits I needed from my Bits Boxes and came up with these:

An overview of the 2:

Here are a couple of close-up views of them individually:

I also managed to finish up several Jump Veterans (Vanguard Veterans). I really enjoy the way the black shoulder pads and gold helmets look on the Blood Angel Sergeants. Here are several looks at the Veterans:

Then there are these 2 fellows which I plan on using as the biological twins Perada and Lorator:

Well that is all for now although I will have another post later week detailing my use of the old metal Death Company minis as tactical marines. Take care and thank you for looking! Comments are always welcomed!

Painted Blood Angel Assault Marines

Well hello again! This time I would like to present my latest efforts. I have not picked up a paint brush seriously in several years and I am very pleased with how these Blood Angel Assault Marines turned out. My goal in painting these first minis was to establish a 'recipe' for the various colors used throughout the entire army. I managed to paint (and document the process) everything without having to mix a single color. Hopefully the pictures will do them justice.....

A couple of over view shots of the group of 38:

Here are a bunch of close-up shots of the 4 squads (from the 4th Company and 8th Company):

Hope you like them! I think they turned out rather well. Next up on the painting desk will see work being done on 5 Vanguard Vets, a 10 man tactical squad, 2 priests, 2 vet serg, and my take on 8th Assault Captain Furioso (from the Great Crusade).

Take care and thank you for looking! Comments are always welcome!