Stupid Blood Angel Tricks

I got back from a couple weeks visiting friends and family. This means I got in a couple interesting games--one with Grey Knights and the other with the inaugural flight of the guppies. Fun Fact! Battle Missions is a good book. I'll have those Battle Reports up this weekend.

In the meantime, I've been thinking of what I can do to pare down my 1850 list to a solid 1500. The easy way out is naturally to drop the terminators or something silly like that. Or, if you know me at all, you'll have already guessed what I'd do. Of course, I'd rein in the Assault Marines. By cutting the 3 squads in half, I cut about 350 points. Boom. Done. The following list remains:

HQ 
1x Assault Librarian

Elite
2x 5-man Assault Terms
1x 2 Sang. Priest in Term Armour

Troops
1x 5-man Assault Marines (w/ Hand Flamer)
2x 5-man Assault Marines (w/ Meltagun)

Heavy Support
2x Guppies (Assault Cannon, Multimelta, Hurricane Bolters)

I'm a genius, I know. No one expects it! That's the Inquisition! It strikes me that the Shiny Silver Inquisition isn't necessarily the most efficient. . . .

Stormraven Tactics

Bell of Lost Souls has an Article on Stormraven Tactics up today. It's rather timely as we had a good discussion at work on how to improperly use a Stormraven. Namely, I'm planning to do it wrong. This is what I'm told. If you aren't familiar with what my overall army strategy is for my Blood Angels, here it is:

Squall Guppy Work-in-Progress, Day 5

It's official: I'm calling my first Stormraven the Squall Guppy. I went to work mostly on broader areas today, but I still did a couple details like the black trim on the icon under the name. Enjoy the pics.

Squall Guppy Work-in-Progress, Day 4

Today I spent some time just working on some of the details to get a break from the wide brush. Thoughts on the Aquila colors? I decided to just go with the opposite color from what they are sitting on instead of a single color for all of them.

The bits at the edge of the glass are really tough to paint

The "feathers" are base-coated Tin Bitz and then drybrushed Dwarven Bronze

I don't know if any of you noticed, but in the previous pictures the tail fin was on backwards. Oops! I've fixed it now.

Squall Guppy Work-in-Progress, Day 3

Well, I managed to prime most of the model today. I'm sure it would be much faster with an airbrush, but I like taking the time with a brush. Very relaxing.

Mr. Squall Guppy is coming along nice and slow

Bleached Bone and Mechrite Red

It's already starting to develop some character. I think it will turn out pretty nice. I've ordered some Forge World Blood Angel Rhino doors. I've got an idea of what to do with the front plate. . . .

Squall Guppy Work-in-Progress, Day 2

Yesterday I showed off the partially-constructed bird with some, uh, after-market parts. Today we add some paint! Some parts need to be painted prior to gluing (i.e. cockpit interior), so I'm doing a basic job on that. Due to the clear plastic the detail work will be slightly obscured, so I'm not putting a lot of effort into it, but the basic colors at least need to be done.

I bought a new wide brush today after watching a good, close Grey Scars v. Eldrad game (the Xenos scum lost, don't worry) and put it to work on the nice wide spaces on the Guppy. I've decided to try priming with Astronomican Grey and it looks like it will probably work out really well as a base for both the Bleached Bone and Scab Red. Chaos Black will naturally kill any color it is put on, so the parts I do with black won't be an issue.

I'm still undecided on the air scoop and turret

I'm just going with Boltgun Metal and Chaos Black predominately inside

It would be really cool to make the cockpit open up (probably by magnetizing). Using the below picture as a reference, I'm thinking the best place to cut it would be just above the aquila (which would make the cut right above the controls) and also above the head along the edge where it raises up to that back portion of the cover piece. Some plasticard is probably needed to cover holes. I'm not going to because it's more work than I'm willing to put in, but if anyone does it and it turns out awesome, let me know!

Base coat is mostly done but still missing arms

I won't be doing a full Battle Report on the game today, but I will likely put together an outsider's analysis of the game (with pictures--I took plenty!) some time tomorrow. It was a good game--albeit at a loser's 2000 points--and it was very back and forth the whole time.

Incoming! Squall Guppies

I have the reclusive creature in my possession, and I am in the process of taming not one, but two of the beasts! Once finished I will post the results!

Squall Guppy Modeling Thoughts

So as most are aware, the Storm Raven is up for preorder (I have 2 coming my way, thanks for asking) and they'll be out the first week of February. Someone on the Internet took a picture of the back of the box and it has the Guppy painted up nicely for the Grey Knights. I approve. So depending on how the turrets swap out (or not) between the Guppy and Razorback and how the GK codex fixes the transport issue for Grey Knights, I may grab a bunch of Razorback kits and make Rhinos for the GKs and apply the Lazorback turrets to my Guppies. Or the LR Assault Cannons might fit! Either way I think the air scoop is probably getting "forgotten."

New Squall Guppy Pics!

So Ancient God over on Warseer was kind enough to provide some pictures of an assembled Storm Raven. Enjoy!

(I played a game this weekend but I haven't mustered the energy to post the Bat Rep yet. I'll get to it.)

Bone Terminator

Again, courtesy of Bolter and Chainsword

Here's the bone scheme (hastily) applied to a Terminator.

 .

Bone Scheme Concept Model

I spent some time tonight painting up a concept model to go with the painter scheme of the last post. I had put together an Assault Marine Sgt with Combat Shield before I finally decided to go with all Death Company kits, so I grabbed it and painted it up. Here is the result. Note that I haven't highlighted anything besides the Power Sword nor have I applied any washes except a little Devlan Mud on the soft armor to mute the bronze a bit.

Bleached Bone all over except belts, weapons, shoulders, soft armor, skulls, and wings

I haven't decided whether to keep the wings on the shield black or change them to bone

Dwarven Bronze was used for the shield back too

The feet are where some washes are most obviously needed

The hands and arms could use the definition too

Another Blood Angels Color Scheme

Courtesy of the Bolter & Chainsword Space Marine Painter

Here's a color scheme I'm thinking of for my Blood Angels. It's sort of an inverse of the Blood Ravens scheme.

A different variant:

And another.

Blue Angels Terminator

Here's a more complete version of yesterday's Terminator with views from 4 angles!

Blue Angels

Maybe I'll call a Squall Guppy "Fat Albert"

Okay, someone needs to tell me I'm crazy because I'm really starting to think that "Blue Angels" is going to be my Blood Angels chapter. Color scheme predominately blue and yellow. There will be some white/grey/silver bits. Yes, I'm talking about those Blue Angels since I'm down here in Pensacola, FL. Yes, I've already been informed I'm a big nerd.

The above picture is a really quick concept paint on an AoBR Terminator. Regal Blue base coat, Enchanted Blue on top of that, and Golden Yellow for the Aquila and Power Fist. Mithril Silver on the Crux Terminatus and Bleached Bone on the bones. I haven't done the Storm Bolter arm. I was thinking of doing the helmet Golden Yellow as well.

Sanguinary Priest Conversion, Part 3

I procured a box of regular Terminators this evening and constructed one of my Sanguinary Priests in Terminator Armor. I used the same procedure to remove the Storm Bolter but this time I've added one of the back icons for a Sgt onto his hand. I nicked a bitty chalice off a Death Company Bolter and added it to the belt. The blood drop and wing I added to the knee is also from the Death Company kit. Finally I gave him one of the heads from the Sanguinary Guard kit. My other one is set up similarly, but I'm waiting on a Sgt Power Sword I've ordered. The shoulders are waiting on Forge World BA shoulder pads.

Blood Angels Successor Chapter

So I'm trying to decide what color scheme to go with for my Blood Angels. It will be primarily red, of course. And I don't do halves or quarters on colors with my armies. I've decided that it will be a Successor Chapter with some Inquisition ties (a shock, you say?). I also need a name for the Chapter.

My initial list is 1850 points and is as follows:

HQ
Captain with Power Fist, Infernus Pistol, and Jump Pack OR Librarian Epistolary with Jump Pack (Captain results in 10 free points, Libby fills up the points exactly at 1850)

Elite
2x 5-man Lightning Claw Terminators
1x 2 Sanginary Priests in Terminator Armor

Troops
1x 10-man Assault Squad with 2 Hand Flamers and Sgt with Power Sword
2x 10-man Assault Squad with 2 Meltaguns

Heavy Support
2x Stormraven with TL Multimelta, TL Lascannon, Hurricane Bolter sponsons

Progress on construction of said models is looking pretty good (since it'll be a few months until Squall Guppies are released). Nothing much is painted or primed; I'm still putting them together. Completed models are Captain, Librarian, all 10 Terminators, the 3 Assault Marine Sgts, the 4 Meltagun AMs (as previously showcased), and I'm working on the last 12 AMs (one of which is the other Hand Flamer model). I still haven't completely decided on how to handle the Sanguinary Priests.

I have mentioned before that I'm using Death Company boxes for all of my AMs. I also had gotten a Sanguinary Guard kit to style up my Captain (which barely uses the SM Captain kit). As you can see, I kept the Capt torso and banner, but replaced most of the rest with Sanguinary Guard bits. I removed the generic bit on top of the banner with the nifty BA wings and chalice piece from the top of their banner.

Since I had all the extra bits, I decided to also use legs, heads, and shoulder pads to spruce up my Sgts so they will definitely stand out. In case I want to run several 5-man squads, there is a "secondary" Sgt in the back half of the large squads that simply use Death Company kits with no Sanguinary Guard bits. Only the Sgt depicted below has a Power Sword. Those other Sgts all use the same Jump Pack, torsos, Chain Swords, and Bolt Pistols as the second two.

Finally, the Librarian is a Sanguinary Guard. I won't be using any in my army, so it'll look unique. The current plan is to paint it up with typical Librarian colors but with a white death mask (both on the head and knee) with the crest/crown/whatever silver. The wings will be black while the top bit on top of them silver as well. I may make the very upper edge gold.

I'm almost afraid to paint my Blood Angels since some of the models' details are really nice and I don't want to botch them with a bad paint job!

Assault Marine Meltagun Conversion, Part 2

I've finished the 4 Meltaguns I plan on making for my Blood Angels.

And here are the complete models (sans shoulder pads).

 

Update: (11DEC) The models with shoulder pads and closeups of each.

Assault Marine Meltagun Conversion

More conversions! This time I was working on a way to make Meltaguns from my existing kits. I have 6 boxes of Death Company to make my Blood Angel Assault Marines, and I decided to equip some with Meltaguns. Problem: the boxes come with Bolters and Infernus Pistols, but it does not come with Meltaguns. Solution: Hack the tip off of the Bolter and the Clip, replacing them with the barrel of the Infernus Pistol and what looks like a cartridge off the side of the IP. Result:

The top two in the picture are simply examples of an unmodified IP and Bolter, while the bottom is the result. The bonus is that I now have Blood Angels styles on my Meltaguns!

And I also put together my second squad of Lightning Claw Terminators while waiting in queue for World of Warcraft:

Sanguinary Priest Conversion, Part 2

So I decided to surgically destroy modify one of my AoBR Terminator Stormbolters. No more Stormbolter.

Here's the prototype with empty hand and Sgt's Power Sword.

And here's one squad of my Lightning Claw Terminators. The second squad is that pile of bits you can see behind the prototype in the above pictures. I've decided only the Sgt will have the heraldry shield. You'll also notice the right shoulderpad is missing. I'm going to wait for my Forge World Blood Angels Shoulder Pads to come in for that (but I need to order them first!).

Sanguinary Priest Conversion

So I'm thinking of running a Blood Angels list with Assault Terminators and attached Sanguinary Priest in Terminator Armor. This means there must be a model converted to be in Terminator Armor but only wielding a Power Sword (with Chalice). No Stormbolter. Here's my first prototype:

That's an Assault on Black Reach Terminator with his Stormbolter traded out for a Grey Knight Terminator Nemesis Force Sword. I'm not too fond of the AoBR model quality, so I may end up getting a box of regular Terminators to do the final model. The Power Fist in this case would be explained away as decorative. Another option I was considering is to use a Terminator Sgt Power Sword and cutting the Stormbolter off of a hand.