SEASON OF SCENERY 2024 - Adeptus Titanicus/Legions Imperialis Terrain - Part 2

 

Welcome back to Season of Scenery 2024.  I've poked away at a few more buildings...and I built a bunch more tiny Astartes stuff - but it's more of the same tiny stuff, so I'm not posting it here. I've been playing with various roof types and increasing some of the details, like dry brushing the doors with ProAcryl Dark Silver to make things a bit more interesting.

 

 

The flat roofs need a bit more black so they are less swirly, maybe. But that's not a big deal.

 

Here I thought it might be fun to make a building stand out a bit from the others with a fancier roof.

 Also I went with more layers of transparent black on the flat roof to get more even coverage.

Having finished the Administratum buildings, I started to work on what I consider the Ecclesiastic buildings.  There is such fun detail in the windows here that I decided to play a little with colored glass.  I used some ProAcryl florescent colors over ProAcryl transparent colors to try to get a hint of light coming through the glass from within.  Not a full on OSL thing, just some added brightness. I also tried some transparent yellow on the circles that look like they could be lights on some of the walls. Doesn't show up so well in the pics though. This building isn't yet complete.  I plan to add verdigris on the pointy gold bits.

So there's a look at the progress so far.  I took a couple nights off to build some extra drop pods and Astartes support stuff. Then there's some family summer fun going on so I won't get back to painting for a few days.  But I should have something to show later next week as I crank through the Ecclesiastic buildings. 

I hope your summer (or winter) is going well.

Cheers and happy gaming!

SEASON OF SCENERY 2024 - Adeptus Titanicus/Legions Imperialis Terrain

Greetings and welcome back.  Today I'm sharing a group of Adeptus Titanicus buildings that I am painting up as part of Season of Scenery 2024. This scenery is also suitable for Legions Imperialis, although it provides more line of site blocking than garrisoning terrain.  Of course, you could certainly garrison these buildings so long as you can agree with your opponent as to how that works.

Here is the full range of buildings I'm hoping to complete by the end of August. The more "churchy" buildings were sprayed with an off-white rattle can from the local hardware store (Rust-oleum brand, in the US).  The more "administrative" buildings got a similar rattle can spray coat of light grey. I then made two simple washes - brown for the off-white buildings and black for the grey buildings.  For terrain, I planned to use a lot of wash/shade so I needed an effective but cheap solution - NOT GW Agrax or Nuln Oil.  I chose to use the "Les Wash" recipe for this. I made up the medium mix a head of time, then just added the sepia and black ink to suit my taste.  I didn't follow the exact number of drops used in the video I linked. You can see how the brown/sepia wash affects the off-white buildings above.  The Black wash is shown below.

After shading everything, I started looking at the details I wanted to pick out.

Here I used Proacryl Transparent Black on the doors, and Proacryl Rich Gold on the dome.  Then I used Dirty Down Verdigris on the dome. I covered all the gold with the verdigris, then before it fully dried, I used a wet paintbrush to remove the Verdigris from the center of each panel.  This left a pleasing effect in the cracks around the panels where I thought verdigris would collect/build up.  I went back in with a matching Proacryl light grey here to clean up the areas around the gold.

Here I used more transparent Black on the doors and a bit of rich gold on the imperial eagle wings. Then I went to work with some Proacryl Jade. on the tower roof. This was shaded with the same black wash as the building to tight things in.  Agrax Earthshade was used carefully on the eagle wings. I ended with some more clean up with the light grey.

This is a piece of terrain from the Epic days that I built from sprues I found on eBay back along.  Here, I was going for a tower that was hit and burned out. So I used used layers of Proacryl Coal Black dry brushed heavily on the inside, and then lightly with upward brush strokes only following the windows from bottom to top. I wanted it to look as though smoke billowed out of those windows and rose up along the side of the building.  I finished up with the Proacryl Transparent Black on the inside of the wall bases and GW Agrax Earthshade on the outside of the wall bases. Simple but effective for easy tabletop terrain at this scale.

Then I spent more time on this "Generatorum" building.  You can see Proacryl Transparent black used on the doors and all the roof details.  The black "Les" wash was applied in a few layers on the roof. I then carefully dry brushed Proacryl Dark Silver on the roof pieces, followed by Rich Gold on the Imperial eagle wings and the generator thingies.  I used verdigris on these gold parts again, though with the large generator bit, I used it sparingly in between and around the base of the "tubes". That doesn't show in the pictures much, it's subtle.

I used some thinned Proacry Transparent Black in some of the wall details that looked metal. I then dry brushed those a bit with Proacry Dark Silver, or left them black totally on whim, and the likelihood of not getting dark silver all over the walls. I used Dirty Down Rust around the large pipe coming out of the wall and dragged it along corners and down the walls where I though crud/oil/rust/etc. might drip down the wall. Again, not going to win a Golden Demon, but a quick and effective way to add a little interest to the building.

Here is another look at the grime work on a similar panel on the other side of this building. I spent a lot more time on this building, hoping it stands out a bit as a focal point among the general look at the rest of the Civitas buildings. I should add that I used roughly matching off-white and light gray paint to touch up and spots on the buildings where I thought the wash pooled or simply dried in unpleasing ways.  This was mostly along the top railings and occasionally dry brushed here and there to lighten the surfaces some.

So that's where I'm at so far.  I have these four buildings done from the collection of 14 I'm planing to complete by the end of August.  Swing by Wargames Terrain Workshop to see what else Dave Stone is up to, and maybe catch an update on the Season of Scenery 2024.

 

 

Cheers and Happy Gaming!

On the Workbench [July] - Legions Imperialis Ruins

 Greetings!  Leading into Season of Scenery 2024, I finally sat down to build the Legions Imperialis ruins. They look great, and honestly aren't that hard to assemble.  But boy did it still take me some time to work through them. There's a lot of little parts and cleaning (esp. if you are a perfectionist, like me 😂).  But after a couple sessions, I had everything assembled.

Lots of fun terrain for the infantry to take cover in, and garrison. Some line of sight blocking for the rest. As shown above, one box roughly covers a little more than a quarter of a 4'x4' gaming mat.  Hopefully mixed with the rest of my Titanicus terrain, there will be enough terrain variety for a decent game. The plastic bag in the upper right holds all the bits of scatter terrain (piles or debris, etc.) that help fill in some of the empty space with cover.

While digging out terrain for painting, I also came across this resin landing pad that I had forgot I picked up.  Seems to host this Thunderhawk quite nicely. :) This piece got a primer coat along with all of my Adeptus Titanicus buildings.  For mey next post, I'll share WIP pics from that project as I move through the Season of Scenery, 2024. Perhaps ironically, these ruins are not on tap for the challenge, unless I have time after all the buildings are done. And there is a lot of buildings...

Cheers and Happy Gaming!

Dark Angels Sicaran Battle Tank Squadron for Legions Imperialis - TO DONE

 

Welcome back!  Today I'm shared the completed pics of the Sicaran Battle Tank squadron. Two squadrons, really, but they can roll as one; they are just chill like that! 😂. With the completion of these tanks, I have filled my first battle foam tray with completed models.

Very cool.  I'll take a big ol' stamp of Done for the project, and the full tray!

If you would like to see more tiny tank photos, then please keep scrolling past the break and enjoy.  If not, no worries, there will be lots of tiny terrain coming in July to mix things up a bit!!

Cheers and Happy Gaming!

Dark Angels Sicaran Squadron for Legions Imperialis - WIP

 Greetings and welcome back.  I thought I'd make an opportunity today to walk through my process for painting these tiny tanks. They have lots of sharp detail and can be really fun to paint. The scale can change how we approach the models in a way that makes them in some ways easier to paint than the 28mm models.  But one thing is for certain; it all starts with a good primer coat...

I like to use Vallejo Surface Primer Black, sprayed through an air brush. However be warned, this approach isn't for the faint of heart.  Primer paints contain compounds that make them 'gloppy' in a way that easily clogs the airbrush.  I use a mix of Vallejo acrylic thinner and flow improver to make this work.  And even then, I have to pause often to clean out the air brush. But I think it is worth it - especially at this scale. Rattle cans are cheaper and easier, but you'll almost certainly clog and obscure some of the sharp details with them. With the airbrush, I have more control of how much paint I'm laying down.

After the primer has dried (I wait ~24 hours to be sure the primer set firmly - but this is generally because I spray late at night before bed), I hit the models with a heavy dry brushing of Proacryl Dark Warm Grey.  This always ends up looking MUCH lighter than I want - but I trust in the process and stay the course. At the end of the evening, after drybrushing, I then lay on a heavy all-over coat of GW Nuln Oil, straight from the pot. You can see the wash drying in the pic above. If the first coat doesn't darken things enough, I'll add a second.

Then I come back the next day and get to work on the metals.  This is generally Proacryl Dark Silver on tracks, weapons, shoulder trim and maybe a few other details with the tanks.  For the plasma cannons on the Sicarans, I went further to show their technological age and 'special-ness'.  Yeah, I think that's a thing.  Anyway, they got some Proacryl Bronze along with the Dark Silver details. I also shaded the tracks and exhaust with GW Reikland Fleshshade.

Unique to the plasma weapons, I had more weapon work to do than normal.  I followed my usual paint recipe for plasma effects (see my 30K Dark Angels recipe in the tabs above), perhaps with a bit of a lighter hand than I would on 28mm weapons.  I'm typically going for a 'charged up and ready to fire' look vs. a 'peak power - firing!' look anyway.

With metals painted, it's usually time to select the parts that will carry the legion red - in this case Proacryl Bold Pyrrole Red. With the tanks, I choose locations in a way that marks out one squadron from another of the same tanks.  With my collection here, I'm aiming to be able to run all the vehicles in a single squad (rules permitting, of course) if I want.  But I also want to be able to run smaller squads, and have it be clear on the table which tanks go with which squads. So here I have three tanks with front quarters red, and three with side armor red. It helps here that the Dark Angels have a complex and hard to discern heraldry at the best of times. So we can't really say that anything is 'wrong' with our schemes, so long as there is black and silver and red.
 

I actually tried to get cute with some red and black checkers on the front panels.  But it was just painful to paint and looked pretty mediocre with my skills...well, really bad actually, if I'm being honest. So...straight red it is!  With larger tanks and larger panels, like the Spartans, I could play with transfers to get the effect.  Here things are small and the shapes fiddly, so I didn't attempt it.
 

Oh, and I chose to paint in the targeting lenses and lasers while I had the red out. I'll need to go back to the earlier painted tanks and do that at some point. I had thought these areas too small, but it is really no worse than painting in eyes!

Speaking of transfers, that comes next! I like to think of the Sicarans as older tanks in the armory.  So I gave them icons of the hexagramaton to show their pre-Caliban Terran origins.  Plus its just sorta mysterious and all Dark Angelly - yes, that's a thing too! Of course, they get the 1st Legion icons as well.

On the right flanks, I put the usual vehicle numbers to make picking out specific models during games easier and the 1st legion icons. And that was it for these tanks.  There aren't many flat spaces large enough for the transfers I have, but it's fine if some vehicles carry less bling than others. :)

I think I started this with the Predators, but I figured out that the small laurels from the Legions Imperialis vehicle transfer sheet fit on the marine shoulder pads.  Win!  So I'm dropping them on all my command models - squadron leaders in this case. Fun!! The small Dark Angels icon (seen on the side of these tanks) seems *just* too big, so I haven't tried that.  I wish they'd print an infantry sheet with tiny legion transfers for the shoulder pads...

The last step is applying weathering powders to the tracks and bottom of the tanks. I typically spoon out a bit of powder with the GW plastic texture tool (or whatever they call that plastic tool used for applying texture paints...) into a small cup, then add pigment fixer liquid, enough to make a thin soup...?  It's a "feel/experience" thing that I don't know how to accurately describe.  Reminds me of my grandmother who'd describe recipes like, "Put some flour and sugar in a bowl, then a bit of butter and mix it together..."

Anyway, after applying the weathering powder soup to the tracks, fronts, bottoms, etc. of the tanks, I let them dry over night.  When applying the weathering mixture, I try to consider how mud, dirt and dust might accumulate on the tanks...then I back off a little because I want to enjoy the paint job some.  I imagine the paint on a real tank is barely recognizable after a short time operating in a dirty, muddy environment. Anyway, I got carried away on the front of a few of the Sicarans, but I like it. Seems like the slopped fronts, and their increased speed over other armor might make them scoop up a bit more grime on the go.

Somewhere in all that I also applied more GW Nuln Oil to the remaining metals bits.  I used GW Agrax Earthshade on the plasma weapons, prior to painting on the plasma effects. At any rate that's pretty much it; painted tiny tanks! I always finish with a good coat of matte lacquer. That sort of dampens down the weathering powder effect. When it dampens the effect too much, I re-apply the powders.

I'll post up some completed pics from the light box next and take my big ol' stamp of done then too. So check back in a few days to see how these came out, in more detail.

Cheers and Happy Gaming!

 

Dark Angels Predator Squadron for Legions Imperialis - TO DONE

 

Yikes!  I missed a post. I had convinced myself that I had posted my Predators, but I had only put the finished pics up on Instagram.  In the mean time I'm happily on to the next project with nothing but dead air here.  Well...time to fix that.

The Predators were painted in two demi-squadrons with the assumption I'll field them in threes rather than then six in a single squadron. But who know how I'll end up playing the games I'm likely to never play?

Anyway, we have three intended to run with all lascannons and three with Predator autocannon (two of those with heavy bolter sponsons).  Plenty of variety I figure.  I imagine playing games where I'll primarily want the anti-armor over anti-infantry as a role for these tiny tanks.

These models continue to please; so much so that I've already painted up 30 or so vehicles in total so far. I used vehicle numbers again here to make it easy to identify the tanks on the game board. Tanks 1 and 4 are the lead tanks for deploying in two squadrons. They have iconography on their left front armor to call that out.  I could have mentioned that above.

These tanks come with two turrets each so you can have both the autocannons and lascannons with no fuss.  The way the turrets sit on the tanks, no magnets are really needed either. Here, the lascannon tanks sit with their autocannon options.

And here, the autocannon tanks sit with their lascannon options.  Fun! ;)

And that puts paid to another project with the big ol' stamp of DONE.  I enjoyed painting the predators enough that I raced on to the Sicarans and in my haste lost track of this post.  It's THAT FUN!  No...really...it is! Oh come on, I mean it!

Anyway...I'll make up for lost time with a post of the Sicaran squadron in a couple days.  It's mostly done too!  Then it's time to break for some Legions Imperialis scenery, thanks to Season of Scenery 2024 over at Wargames Terrain Workshop.  Last year I cheated a bit and submitted the two Adeptus Titanicus Reaver Battle Titans that I had been working on at the time. This year I'll go in with actual terrain. I'm going to need plenty for those Legions Imperialis games that I'm going to play one day!!

Cheers and Happy Gaming!

On the Workbench [June] - More tiny stuff!

 

Today, we're looking at the workbench where I've been assembling the latest batch of Legions Imperialis releases. Above are the latest Astartes releases, dreadnought drop pods and some Vanguard units. I also built Stormhammers and  Dracosan armored transports, which I'll share below.

The dreadnought drops pods are much like the Astartes drop pods. The doors will open if you assemble the models carefully. I chose to assemble mine purely for dreadnought transport, ignoring the Palisade option.  With only four pods in the box, it just didn't make sense to me - similar with the Astartes drop pods where I chose not to build the missile version.

The outriders are Mk VI marines on bikes, pretty straight forward, with only three torso options across the 12 bikes.  As you can see, I just accepted that and made four identical bases.  I'm using poster tac to hold the models down for now, so I can pull them off and paint them separately. Probably not necessary, but easy to do here.

The tiny jet bikes are so fun!  these come on with their own stands.  I chose to keep them, but there is latitude here for modelling alternative stands, perhaps using wire to vary the pose? These models have the same issue with only three poses across the 12 models.  Here the posing makes them awkward to switch around, so you are sorta fixed on how many ways you can pose them. I'm using poster tac again here to hold the bikes down, so they can be removed and painted separately.

The tiny Javelin speeders appear perfect replicas of their 28mm cousins. I chose all lascannons, but there is a missile option as well. I hope to use mine to hunt hard targets while also swooping in to incinerate infantry as needed (awkward pairing of the heavy flamer w/lascannons). The missile launchers probably pair better w/heavy flamers for a dedicated infantry hunting unit.

Lastly (for the Astartes) we have my least favorite model of the Horus Heresy range. After seeing all of the other Astartes equipment, it's hard for me to disbelieve the foolishness here of hanging your (admittedly armored) body out to dry on the front of a block of thrusters.  I don't recall the lore, but in my mind I assume there is a mini void or refractor field making a bubble around the crew. But please, no insult or judgement intended on how you enjoy your toy army men. 😂 These opinions are simply my own.

Here we move on to the Solar Auxilia.  I'm not sure why we needed Stormhammers at this point - I'd have preferred the other variants that were recently previewed - but they are pretty cool for what they are. I dropped in magnets to make the turrets less fussy (they will otherwise tumble off without regret during handling).  Plus the design team continues to give us sockets for the purpose, so why not?? You get everything a hobby tanker wants with these tiny behemoths - all the guns and all the details. Did I mention the guns?

Last up are the Dracosan armored transports.  These are fun and I'm assuming the design team relied on the Malcador for much of the design.  Many of the parts feel very similar during assembly. I put gunners on all the roof decks because transports are going in hot and you need to keep the chaff off your ride! Pew pew pew!

That was my palate cleanser between painting projects.  Lots of fun models.  I also added new Battle Foam trays to hold things.  This has expanded the collect beyond a single box so now I have separate Solar Auxilia and Astartes boxes.  Fun!  I hope to constrain the collection there though...we'll see.  Between Titans, airplanes, and these models, its already a lot of boxes - but no where near the space 28mm would require - so that;s how I sleep at night. 😁

Now it's time to slap some paint around. I'm still not sure what I'm going to paint next. I feel momentum to continue with tiny Astartes...but maybe it's time to balance things out with some Solar Auxilia?  Or do I tackle the Tempestus Warmaster?  Or the Lion and his boyz??  So many choices...

Best of luck for your own projects.

Cheers and Happy Gaming!

Dark Angels Kratos Heavy Tank Squadron for Legions Imperialis - TO DONE

 

Greetings and welcome back.  I have a handful of Kratos tanks to share today to add to my growing Dark Angels force for Legions Imperialis. These tiny models are just too fun to paint.  I fear I may not get back to my 28mm collection for some time yet.

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I built these tanks with two melta bast guns and autocannon and two with battle cannons and lascannons. They divide up into squadrons of two, or could be fielded as a single large squadron (I think? I honestly forget how large a Kratos squadron can be...).  The vehicles are numbered 1-4 and I put unique squadron iconography on the right front fenders to divide the tanks into two squadrons (skulls for the melta, and keys for the battle cannon).

Otherwise, they painted up pretty much exactly like the Spartans and Land Raiders.  I splashed the red around to make each tank unique, while keeping the same red panels on all the turrets (to show the belong to the same battle group). I didn't go heavy with Legion iconography form the 28mm transfer sheet this time.  There's aren't many large panels and the tanks don't need the extra anyway I think. I like that the transports call out who may be traveling inside.

So that's another four tanks done for the force, bringing me to a total of 24 painted models; I think? Not too shabby by my standards. I guess these little guys are something like 75% of what I'd consider a full and proper paint job.  But I love them all the same. At this scale, the extra 25% would hardly be noticed anyway and with the large number of models to paint, I need something quick and effective.

There's the big ol' stamp of DONE for this project.  I have some building to do on the latest release of Legions Imperialis models.  So I guess we'll have a workbench post next.  Then I'm likely going back to tiny tanks...or maybe it's time for a titan? I dunno yet, we'll see. If you like the tiny tanks, I have a few closeups to share after the break.

 

Cheers and Happy Gaming!