With this being Wave 1 of Month 5 it is quite possible for some of our contestants to be able to finish their challenges. While a few of our Wave 1 contestants have appeared to have finished their entries they almost all are saying to expect more miniatures next month. Lets see what they have so far!
This month, it’s the mighty Bloodthirster!
I have been looking forward to painting this classic Trish Morrison sculpt as part of the challenge for months now. I was under the impression that with the airbrush to do the blends on the fleshy bits, and without much time needing to be spent deciding on a colour scheme, it would be a pretty quick and smooth process. How wrong I was!
It’s been a long time since I painted a large metal model like this (besides the odd Dreadnought), and it came flooding back how difficult it is to maneuver the model around to paint it without dropping it, or chipping or rubbing off existing paint. The wings are incredibly sturdy and well attached, but the third time the axe arm came off I halted the painting process to pin the bloody thing with thick brass rod. Thankfully I was smart enough to leave gluing the whip until everything else was finished…
The only part of the model I was unsure about is the big flat axehead which doesn’t have much detail or texture to pick out. This was solved by deploying one of my favourite techniques, which is blasting the contemporary Blood for the Blood God paint off the end of a big paintbrush with my airbrush at 70 PSI. Unfortunately the glossiness of the blood makes it very hard to photograph so you’ll just have to take my word for it that it’s sufficiently textured with splattered blood. Overall I’m happy with how it came out. It looks great next to the Bloodletters I painted in January and makes an imposing piece for the army.
Next month, my final entry will be a favourite of mine – a Chaos Dreadnought, (replete with a banner, argh).
Thanks!
Bloodthirster – 300 points
Wachtmeister: This is my favorite iteration of the Bloodthirster. I know the new plastic ones are big and scary but this one has a sense of menace the new ones don’t capture. I can definitely see the blood texture on the axe from here Mark, you aren’t going to trick me into looking closer and getting within melee range of this beast!
The final monthly update
Half assault squad 150 points
Landspeeder 145 points
Corbulo (finally) 63 points.
Total for this month 258 points
Wachtmeister: Damien did an excellent job and wins honors at being the first person to finish his entry! He actually finished his total pledge last month, but as the rules state you need to complete an entry in five of the six months and he had talked about painting Apothecary Corbulo in one of our exchanges I encouraged him to paint him for a bonus entry. I should have known Damien would have gone all out, and he did by adding another five assault marines and a Landspeeder! Terrific job Damien, I’m glad you got your dream army painted and ready for battle!
“…that one most perilous and long voyage ended, only begins a second…such is the endless yea, intolerableness of all earthy effort.”
Month 5 finished and with that, my initial pledge is completed! I have had a great time working on these Blood Angels, and while the path hasn’t always been smooth I am very happy with the outcome, and finally being able to own a painted BA force of my very own that straddles the end of the RT era and the beginning of 2nd edition as its primary inspiration, but also having been able to take parts from more modern sets (not to mention 3D printing) to add extra flavour!
To get the pledge across the line, I needed to paint up a classic Librarian model (the same that was in the WD 141 battle report), plus a Tech Marine who is doing the very least to dent the point cost of the army, but allow all those cool support options to open up! Also there was the Captain of my force, the Games Day 2012 exclusive figure, who I was lucky enough to get my hands on when I attended back in 2012, having not been since 1996, when my friends and I made a weekend of it and completed our Necromunda campaign on the Saturday in Warhammer World, before heading to the GD on the Sunday….but thats a story for another day.
I didn’t want to mess around with this classic mini too much, but I did need to sort that Bolter out, and so rectified that with a 2nd edition appropriate weapon attached. Alongside these minis, I went all out for the finish line and added a classic Tarantula mini from Space Crusade, plus mini servitor from the old Confrontation (aka proto-necromunda) line of minis. Thus having allowed the Tech Marine to have something to boss around, I gave him something to fix as well, with a Baal Predator, equipped with heavy flamers and twin-linked assault cannons, for when you just cant roll enough sustained fire dice. While not strictly a 2nd ed option, the DM vehicle rules mean that the cost can be determine similar to that of adding twin linked lascannons which is costed at +30 points. To finish out the month, I also completed the classic Terminator Captain for the Olden Demon competition which finished at the end of the month, so felt it was only fitting that he also got added to this force as well!
As with all things, I have plans for more troops to add to this force, and have already far exceeded the pledged 1000 points! Not sure if I will get any more completed next month as the desire to start painting something other than red armour is becoming a little stronger, but I hope to get a few more bits done, but even if it has to wait a while – I am so pleased that I managed to get this project done and feel like I finally caught my own white whale!
5th Month
Space Marine captain with power first and boltgun 109 points
Space Marine captain in Terminator armour 115 points
Tech Marine 33 points
Tarantula with Servitor 66 points
Librarian Epistolary 152 points
Baal Predator 145 points
Month 5 total – 7 models and 620 points
Challenge cumulative total – 37 models and 2205 points
Wachtmeister: I hope I don’t upset Alex but my favorite part of this entry is the blue on the Librarian, not all the red! I think painting the model in a half blue and half red scheme is really striking and looks terrific. Of course, the rest of his entry is not be overlooked, I especially like the two captains!
Hello all,
This month entry is a model iv had in a bits box for nearly 20years !
The mad cow herself !! A RT Keeper of secrets …
Really enjoyed finally getting around to paint this great model . Iv misplace one of the arms and replaced it with the 3/4th Ed model.
This might Demon allies comes in at 288 pts
Hope you all like this and the rest of the army so far , bonus unit coming next month ….
Wachtmeister: It looks like this is the month for Greater Demons! Shepherd has done a terrific job with his dark and gritty servant of the Lord of Pleasure!
Salutations, fellow grognards!
Finally I bring here something different from the ubiquitous warriors: five scarabs and a leader.
The beetles are simple miniatures which I painted with only a minimal divergence from the warrior scheme, this being the use of gold bordering blue or white instead of purple. It is simply a way to diversify the overall colour scheme of the army without adding new colours to it’s palette. It also gives a somewhat distinctive scheme to the scarabs. It is worth mentioning that I put them on bases for aesthetic purposes, 32mm ones at that! And I think it is more fair to one’s opponent since the models are incredibly flat and thus easy to hide behind terrain. Anyhow, they are magnetized in order to detach them from the bases when latching onto enemy vehicles.
The Necron lord is the most sophisticated model of the range. Because of this, and it’s royal (pharaonic?) style, I went with a larger proportion of purple and gold. The keen eyed among you will notice the conversion of the right hand with a claw from 3rd edition’s Necron lord. Turns out I was not keen eyed when buying this model and it came with a green stuff sphere instead of the hand, which promptly fell off after stripping the leader’s old paintjob, revealing a stump in its place. At first I was terrified, but in the end that 20 year old claw, forgotten at the bottom of one of my bitsboxes saved the day!
Without further ado, here is this month’s slice:
Necron Scarabs (x5) = 150 points.
Necron Lord = 84 points.
Total: 234 points.
See you next month!
Wachtmeister: The amount of purple on the Necron Lord really adds to the royal, imperious feel of the Lord. You can tell he’s dressed for success, and he just knows he’s better than the lesser races! I also like Viden’s scarab bases, they really allow the viewer to see what’s going on with the cracked earth, something I’ve missed to date. I can’t imagine I’ve missed any details with the amount of entries I see every month….
The final slice of my army scuttles off the pages of White Dwarf. Coming in at 120 points, four Necron Scarabs complete the 1000 point force.
“Do they not have bases??” one of my gaming buddies said with a wince. Shaking my head I laughed as I explained that these bad boys can land ON TOP OF enemy vehicles and start chewing through their armour, weakening them so they’re more vulnerable to my firepower. They’re going to be fun to play with.
I’m excited to set up some glamour shots of the whole army for next month’s big reveal.
Wachtmeister: We’ve seen our fair share of sights here at the 40k 2nd Edition Challenge over the years but a full on hand model is a first for us! Brawlerguts is doing an excellent job with his best Vanna White impression with his excellent Necron Scarabs! I’d hate to have these guys start landing on my Leman Russ’, no matter how good they look!
“Lets hope the riders will get to the Exodites in time”
Wachtmeister: Once again the good CaptDunnwa comes through with a wonderful 2nd Edition paint scheme with some sweet camo stripes. They are practically invisible with the bright yellow underneath! It’s like the Eldar version of wearing camouflage clothes and a blaze orange hat while hunting!
Classic World Eaters Dreadnought at 220 points: Painting Rage in Metal Form
This old-school 2nd edition metal Dreadnought is pure Khorne—heavy, spiky, and radiating rage. I went full classic with blood red armour, gold trim, and he has enough skulls to make a skull throne jealous.
Painting him was a battle in itself—those chunky details demanded patience, and the model’s weight meant he tried to tip over every five minutes. But layer by layer, he transformed from a lump of nostalgia into a walking monument to violence.
Blood for the Blood God. Nostalgia for the hobbyist. Joy for the painter!
Wachtmeister: It’s a month for hand modeling, or so it seems. If this goes any further I’m going to have to set up a paywall and a label for 40k 2nd Edition Challenge: After Dark! I really like how the red on the plasma gun is different from the red on the body of the dreadnought, it helps show them as being different materials. The pitting on the metal actually helps show this beast has been in some combat and has come out victorious!
So May was a long awaited month for me… no more batch painting, huzzah. Now, last month I happily declared that I was going for single digit number of minis this month. Which I’m proud to say… failed. Mind you I did slow the speed down, a lot. I kinda had to as other hobbies demanded time, and new projects suddenly appeared out of nowhere (someone said Trench Crusade, and before I knew it, me and a couple of guys were knee deep in trenches).
But even so, I finally discovered the upside to batch painting. Sure it can feel like a drag when you’re doing it and on the good days you just want it to stop so we can all get along. But at the end it’s all worth it. When I started this month’s slice, I had 8 minis on the table. Knowing I had precious little time, I decided that whatever I got done this month would have to do. What I had totally forgotten however (during the past three months), is how fast I can actually paint, when painting 5 minis instead of 50. And before I knew the 8 were done, and two more had found their way to the station.
First I finished a squad of Ratlings that had been lying in the box, for quite some time. Quite fitting actually that these will go with the 3rd. Company of my army, as I’ve already painted up a squad for my Tallarn Company and five proxies (Catachan and Cadian snipers) for the Catachan Company. Keeping with the colors of the Mordians, there’s not much to say about the Ratlings. I love the minis and will keep fielding them in my armies whenever I get a chance, even though they rarely do much good (more often than not, because of my dice rolls).
Next I had three of the old Commisars ready. Originally these would substitute some missing Sergeants in the army, but luckily I managed to fill those holes and as such these will join the ranks in their rightful place. I decided to give them colors that would match the rest of the company, and I’m very happy with the outcome, even though I had several discussions with myself, on whether or not to do it and how.
Running out of minis for the slice, I started digging around to see what else could be hidden in the pile. And I discovered two assasins that I had started painting during the last challenge I was in (think it was the fourth), but never got finished. So obviously now was the time.
I picked the Vindicare up a long time ago very cheap, as someone (for unknown reasons) had cut off the pistol on his hip. But that’s what bit boxes are for, and I was lucky to find one stashed away in a corner. Can’t for the life of me remember where it came from, but it fits the bill perfectly. This being the second Vindicare I’ve painted for the army, I went a rather different way that usually. I’ve already done the textbook black Vindicare, so naturally I had to do a desert one. Only thing I regret about doing the colors I’ve chosen for my Mordians, is that I didn’t choose to paint them like I did my Catachans. I’m far from good at doing it, I just love doing it. And I simply couldn’t help myself, when I suddenly had a chance with the Vindicare. If I ever get more assasins on my hands, I’m definitely painting them in different camos instead of the black versions.
The Eversor, as all assasins honestly, is another must-have in a collection. This one puzzled me for a long time, which is also the reason I never got it finished in the last challenge. In the end I decided to paint him black, with some red and a few other colors in there. I might have chosen an “easy” path on this one, and it’s not unlikely that I will go back to it some time, and try to add a few details. But nevertheless I’m satisfied with the result as it is.
I have very few projects left for my Mordian Company, at this time. And I’m looking very much forward to hopefully finishing another next month… and this time I promise I’m only doing single digit minis.
For the Emperor and the Screaming Camels
Bonus Models – Slice 5
5 x Ratling Snipers – 80 pts.
Commisar – 48 pts.
– Bolt pistol & Powersword
Commisar – 52
– Bolt pistol & Powerfist
Commisar – 43 pts.
– Hand flamer & axe
Vindicare Assasin – 215 pts.
Eversor Assasin – 240 pts.
Wachtmeister: Even when Mørk fails he succeeds! Sure he failed to paint single digit figures this month but they are all terrific and will do a wonderful job adding to his army. On top of this his ten models came pretty close in points total to some of his 50-70 model months! I’m glad he was able to get enough Sergeants so the Comissars could take their rightful place in the chain of command. I love his assassins as well, even if they took totally different paths, one in camo and one with bright red details!
The final month. This has been a great and tough challenge.
So again I only painted 2 models this month but 2 I have been looking forward too.
Brother Bethor will stand proud with my warriors allowing them to lay down a curtain of fire as they march forward under the banner of Devastation.
For far too long my Dark Angels have lacked psychic protection and power so final Brother Ezekiel has arrived to lend his powers to the fight.
Really quite chuffed with how these have turned out.
Model count 2
Pts total 335.
Total model count 15
Wachtmeister: I know I’ve said this a few times during this challenge but every times I have said it I meant it: These characters look like they stepped out of the page of the Angels of Death Codex. While they are “only” two painted models they are replete with extra details and Richard really took the time to make them pop, even going so far as to put litanies on the purity seals!
May is over! And what a month! Outside of the regular hassle of life, I managed to paint a bit more than I had previously planned.
I started an allied detachment of Sisters of Battle (i blame Tom Reynolds for thatl, and it ended up with a Canoness, a standard bearer and a squad of flamer/heavy flamer. That small group was a good brush cleanser and got me back on track for the Blood Angels. Feels weird but now, I have been painting red exclusively since November and I needed a break.
Mid-month and seeing my workload going to stupid level again, I decided to just tie some ends in 2 units: the bikes and the Death Company.
I added a lone biker to max out the squad to 5 and painted the 4 remaining Death Company models from the box. Funnily enough, those actually completed my pledge made at the beginning of the challenge!
I got 2 characters that were almost ready: Corbulo and Mephiston. I wanted Corbulo because the army was lacking a proper apothecary and Mephiston for the beast he is. I would say that Corbulo was more pleasant to paint. Mephiston was an uninspiring mini and It feels like it watching it done.
I did assemble a Razorback last month, so it got painted as well. Those tanks are a breeze to paint, and I can generally clear them in 3 evenings.
Then I got ambitious! I assembled 10 assault marines. As the day passed by, I realized it was over ambitious and put my effort to finish 5 this month and do the 5 others next month.
But at the last minute, I added Dante. Never really like gold armour but this one was a good opportunity to change they I used to approach it. I’m very happy with the result. It was so last minute that it doesn’t show up on the this month recap picture….
And it is all done!
So what we got for this month is:
Dante 154 pts
Mephiston 295 pts
Corbulo 173 pts
Assault Combat Squad, power fist, plasma pistol, hand flamer, jump pack, melta bombs 225 pts
1 Biker 47 pts
4 Death Company: plasma pistol power sword, power axe, melta bomb 182 pts
1 Razorback: auto launcher, supercharged engine 160 pts
And the Sisters of Battle allies:
1 Canoness, Litanies of Faith, Praesidium Protectiva, Putity seals. 1 Standard Bearer, 189 pts
1 Sisters of Battle Squad: Flamer, Heavy Flamer, Vet. Sister Superior, power sword, metla bomb, plasma grenade: 242 pts
Total for the month: 22 models and 1 tank, 1667 pts
Wachtmeister: I don’t know what to say and I am rarely speechless. Julien managed to complete a challenge plus bonus models worth of entries done in one month. Looks like he has the core of a Sisters of Battle army painted now so I guess he has a path forward for the next challenge! This is a terrific job and an army to be proud of. He isn’t a member of Team Virginia but he doesn’t live that far away so I may have to see if I can get in a day trip to see his army in person!
There must be something about the Blood Angels with three contestants finishing their Blood Angels army in Month VI, Wave 1! I look forward to sharing the next wave of entries with you all!
-Wachtmeister
The Wachtmeister's Patrol 