DKoK Artillary WIP - the Models

Greetings and welcome back.  Today I wanted to share what I have actually been painting since DreadTober. Some may recognize this from the background of many of the DreadTober WIP posts.  This artillery piece has sat on my painting table for a few months, since I completed the Heavy Weapons Squad with stubbers. This was meant to be a follow on project, but I ended up taking a break. As much as I love the Krieg, and very much love the painted results of my force (few though they may be), I struggle to maintain inspiration and momentum to complete them in any numbers.

The artillery piece has been completed to a point that is it now glued to the base. I used a mix of Monument Hobbies Newsh with black and brown acrylic inks in the same manner as an oil wash to shade it. I definitely appreciated the results.  I have never used an oil wash for the same purpose so I cannot compare approach or results, but this acrylic approach certainly did the trick.

Here is a closer look at some of the detail in the kit. I am impressed with the screen tech that allows this monitor to be attached to the gun without shattering during a barrage with this artillery piece. 😂

Now it is time to finish the troops. I batch painted these models to a point while painting the heavy weapons squad so they are well on their way.

There is still a lot of details and cleanup required to bring these to a completed state.

However they should finish up reasonably quickly. Once done, the crew will also be glued down making this piece a mini diorama, as well as a gaming piece. And then there is also some transfer work required on the big gun. I'm not sure why I didn't apply these before using the acrylic wash. I'll have to do a little over shading to weather the transfers into the rest of the model. And the last part will be painting the remaining options for the gun.  I did not glue the main gun in with the intent to swap weapons to suit the need, but I like the long cannon as a set piece.

So that's where this project is currently.  I'm looking forward to finishing it before the end of the year - then January will bring a new project - maybe completing the 40K version of Lion'el Jonson?? We'll see!

Cheers and Happy Gaming! 

On the Workbench [November] - More Legions Imperialis Astartes Armor

 

Wow - where did November go?! That may be the first month since the blog started that I posted absolutely nothing.  Ugh.  Well life happens, I suppose.  I have not been idle in that time!  With the Legiones Astartes getting a mega dump of new armor, I spent a good part of the month resting my brushes from DreadTober and building tiny tanks. While a fun exercise for an experienced modeller, these little bastards are not for the feint at heart! 😆

First up were the Vindicators. I built them as two squadrons of four, given that I use the tank commander model in the copula to signify a squadron's lead tank. These are great replicas of their 28mm cousins and I believe exact in every detail.  I find that still pretty amazing at this scale.  Thank you digital models!

Next up are the tiny missile tanks.  I guess I haven't memorized the Horus Heresy options for the Legiones Astartes...but I thought Whirlwinds were a 40k thing? I'm really not certain why we didn't get 8 Scorpious tanks instead of four and four of these. Regardless, they look cool. :)

The tiny Scorpious tanks are also amazing reproductions of their 28mm cousins. Still kinda annoyed you have to pickup two boxes to get a decent amount of them. Given the zero games of LI that I've managed to play so far, I imagine I shouldn't let that bother me.😂

Then there are the super heavy tanks.  So fun!  The Typhon Super-heavy Siege tanks are above.  Excellent replicas and so much cheaper than owning the 28mm equivalents! I took what might be an odd approach with these; imagining them as two squadrons.  One focused on getting in close with the front line and punishing troops and the like to help break the line.  And the second in an odd anti-armor support roll with lascannon sponsons and pintle mounted multi-meltas. I guess I imagined the latter in a support role to repel charging/advancing armor? We'll see...

Then my personal favorites, the Cerberus Tank Destroyers.  These will look epic in First Legion colors! I went for full anti-armor at range with the pintle-mounted heavy bolters for (limited) point defense.  Mostly because I couldn't see the extra points for multi-meltas ever having a practical use given the range of the other weapons 

Finally making a surprise appearance, since they do not appear in the tray pictured in the title, are the Legion Mastadon Super-heavy Assault Transports.  This is not a model I want to deal with at 28mm scale.  But I'm going to enjoy putting First legion colors on these two tiny ones...and maybe two more at some point since I have the slots for them in one of my Battle Foam Trays.

Probably a good time to put in a plug for Battle Foam. I love their trays for Legions Imperialis and Adeptus Titanicus. Maybe not always the perfect tray for what you want, but so many options that you should be able to make something work.  I haven't used their custom tray creator for this game, but it's possible they have the cut-outs for LI, in which case you could design your own trays anyway. I've done that in the past with some 40K stuff and had a great experience.

Anyway, not a bad way to keep the little guys safe and sound.  Not cheap, but if you wait and shop the fairly regular sales, it ain't all bad - esp. compared to what we're already paying for the plastic...

So that was what I had on the work bench in November.  I didn't paint much, but rolling into December I have been putting effort finally into an old project...check back in a couple days to have a look at that one, if you wish.

Cheers and Happy Gaming!
 

 

DreadTober 2025 - To DONE!

 

DreadTober has come to an end (*sniff*) and it's time to reveal the my completed project. I painted a Dark Angels 1st Company Dreadnought, a member of the Deathwing, I'm pleased with the outcome after taking some time off from painting to build lost of stuff over the summer.

I went with a fairly straight forward sarcophagus. I want to put something on the scroll, but I didn't make a decision before the time was up. I'll wait for some future inspiration to give me a name for this entombed hero. 

I used my usual red armor for the weapons and added some soot and heat damage where applicable (in my naive imagination, at least).

I did manage to remember to paint the Mechanicum icon on the engine, and added a purity seal to the rear of the armor to bring the Emperor's blessing to the power plant.

This warrior bears veteran honors and bears the 1st legion numeral. I got through weapon and armor highlights. I tried a medium mix I use for making shades/washes to seal weathering powder on the base and it seems to have clumped up as white "snow" patches for lack of a better word?  I'll probably for back and try to reactivate that somehow.  But as it stands, maybe it is ash and not snow?? It's odd...not terrible, but odd. 

I'm still adding some water effects to the pool, but here is how it stands at the end of the challenge.  The crater was deep enough, I guess, that I should have added the water effects more slowly in thinner layers, but I only left two days to complete that part and with drying time I needed more.  It's fine, but the "water" kept sinking in after drying so I've been adding layers to fill the crater. It will be fine in the end - and my be fine since I added a bit more just after taking these photos. But to be fair to the challenge this is where things left off at just before midnight on the 31st of October.  I was down to the wire on this one! SO much so that the picture were actually not taken until 11/2, when I finally made time for them and this post.

Another DreadTober in the books. Special thanks to Marc van Holst for hosting again this year.  Definitely head over to the DreadTober blog to see all the great work there. I'll end with a big seal o' DONE fo rthis project.

Cheers and Happy Gaming!!

DreadTober 2025 - Week 3

 

Greetings and welcome back!

DreadTober is drawing to a close and I have been way of my blogging game. But not so with the painting progress. This dreadnought is very close to done.  The legs are glued to the base and the arms are glued to the body.  The torso is left free for now to assist with the remaining painting.

I'm working on the highlights and cleanup now, to push this project over the finish line.

Oops, still need to paint the Opus Machina on the power plant.

As always, I had great fun with the transfers.  I would like to add more, but decided to cool it for now.

 

I wanted to strike a balance with veteran honors and typical Deathwing iconography. Honestly though, I think this veteran needs more honors to warrant the blessing of this armor.

I'm pretty close to the finish line here.  There are lots of highlights to go, and a few details to complete.  but taken in all the progress has shaped up nicely against my vision for the project.

I'm about ready to glue the torso on and lock in the final arm positioning.  Once the paintwork is completed, I'll matte varnish the whole thing, the try my hand at filling the small crater with water effects such the the skull appears to sit in a pool of water. It's just something different for my dreadnought bases.

Anyway, check back next week to see the final results. I'm confident that I'll complete this project by the end of All Hallow's Eve... 

Cheers and Happy Gaming!

 

DreadTober 2025 - Week 2

 This week I worked on highlighting the armor using dry brushing.  I then needed to clean up adjacent red and metals colors that were affected by my otherwise fastidious dry brushing technique. 😂 The I worked on the Adeptus Astartes symbol on the front armor a bit.  Not a lot of change over all, but the model definitely is settling into it's Deathwing role. Week three will have a log of cleanup. highlights to the red and metals, and transfers.

Maybe during week three I'll glue down the torso and arms - however that will wait for week four if I don't feel I have enough access on the bits that become more obscured once things are glued down. 

 Best wishes for the other DreadTober projects out there. 

Cheers and Happy Gaming!