Orks, Marines and Cows!

Got some decent painting in this weekend – not everything I had hoped for (I never get to do that), but a healthy amount nonetheless. I am also trying to instigate a new policy of doing no painting during the week so I can concentrate on writing, and then no writing during the weekend, so I  can recharge the batteries with a good haul of painting.

We’ll see how that works out…

Anyway, this weekend’s painting sessions… A new Ork Truk arrived last week (via eBay), all constructed – just needed to undercoat and get started.

I have a nice system for Ork vehicles now – thoroughly undercoat black, drybrush the whole thing with Gun Metal, and paint Ork skin (Goblin Green). I can then paint the panels in any colour suited to any Ork clan (Bad Moonz here), polish off with any ‘details’ (glyphs and the like), and then drown the whole lot in the Magic Goop. From small buggies to massive battlefortresses, this makes paintng Ork vehicles very, very fast.

This one was well-suited to my growing Bad Moonz as it has lots of gubbinz – the boarding blanks will see my boyz launching themselves into battle, while the wreckin’ ball should put paid to any Dark Eldar raiders that get too close.

Next up, I managed to get some Dark Angels done.

Now, I should perhaps explain here my Dark Angels problem…

A few years ago, I decided I wanted to do a new Dark Angels army – they have always been my favourite chapter and while I had done a fairly extensive force about 15 years ago, those Angels were subsequently sold. Anyway, I thought it would be a nice idea to do the entire 3rd Company. All troops, all vehicles, leaders and support units.

I painted all those models up and they looked good. The trouble began when I started eyeing up my Scouts, Deathwing and Ravenwing companies. I already had abut 30% of the Deathwing (under the old reckoning, the Deathwing is much larger now in the new Codex), a quarter of the Ravenwing, and my Scouts just needed a few more squads and I had a complete 10th Company. Then there were the Land Raiders…

Skip to 2013, and I had pretty much finished the 10th Company (just needs 2 Scout Bikers and, say, 3 Land Speeder Storms and I can call it finished). My Land Raider company (after steadfastedly refusing to pay more than £10 for any Land Raider on eBay) is complete. And I now have well over 60 Deathwing Terminators, along with leaders and Dreadnoughts (haven’t got any Land Raiders for them yet – I figure I could do a company of ten Land Raiders for them…).

Now, all of that is right on the edge of sanity (and comes to about 18,000 points worth, all painted). But then GW released the Dark Vengeance set, which included Dark Angels from the 5th Company. So, I thought to myself. I’m doing the 5th Company now…

I managed to acquire a lot of bolter-armed Marines, but I lacked sergeants, special weapons and heavy weapons. However, a few recent eBay purchases and now I have the sergeants you see above.

And these special weapon marines…

These, added to what I had already scraped together for the 5th Company (two Tactical Squads, the Master, Command Squad, a Rhino, Assault Squad and two Dreadnoughts) means I now have enough models to do 5 or the 6 Tactical Squads. Which would leave just one Assault Squad, one Tactical Squad and two Devastator Squads to complete this company (as well as all the Rhinos).

I ask you, how could I sit there with these models and not do it?

The problem is further compounded by my moving one Tactical Squad out of the 3rd Company, to replace them with robed Company Veterans (haven’t got any at the moment). The trouble here is that I did not want to re-do the squad number transfers, and I had already done the 5th company first Tactical Squad. So, I changed their company markings to make them 4th Company – to join (ahem) the Siege Dreadnought and Master (finished this weekend, pictured above).

As much as I wanted to avoid considering this, it appears I am actively contemplating painting up the 4th and 5th Companies in their entirety. Which, with the 3rd, the 10th and a strong showing from the Deathwing, is half the Dark Angels entire chapter…

The question is, am I nutty enough to do them all? Still haven’t decided that.

What I also have not decided is whether to make the 4th and 5th Companies different from the 3rd. One possibility is to make one a complete Drop Pod company – that is quite tempting. Another is to use the army list in the Imperial Armour books and make one a dedicated siege company (already got the Dreadnought!).

Bears some thought.

Of course, the Dark Angels are not made up of Companies alone, and they have other parts such as the Inner Circle and Librarium. And yes, these are getting done too. Here are two Librarians that were completed at the weekend, both from the classic Rogue Trader era. Always found that mixing up character models with those from the old days gives a marine chapter a good feel.

Finally, I polished off some cows and other livestock.

These are intended for our Ancients games, so the Athenians can cross the border and do some cattle raids on the Thebans!

On top of all that, I also managed to get through quite a few High Elf Archers – hopefully I’ll be able to sort them out this coming weekend so I  can show you all next week!