100 figure challange

It's been a while since I wrote anything here, so it's high time to do something about that.

Two months ago I was at a gaming convention, and as usual I got a few more miniatures, and when I got home I thought about what I could do to lessen the mountain a bit. So I set myself this goal, paint a 100 28mm figures (or it's equivalent) before I can buy another new mini.

So said and done, on the 9th of May I announced the challenge in a local gaming group facebook page and of I went.

And now after almost 2 months I'm done, and here is the miniatures that got painted during the time (basing was not included in the challenge)

I started strong and got this gun and crew completed after just a few days

Completed the last few things on these US marines and got them based to, just as I was doing other things

Then I got into some more napoleonics, and over the next few weeks got two battalions of french, one of british line and a highlander battalion done.

Then I have to say I got a little burned out on doing napoleonics, so I got a few marines that I have laying around and just tried some different colours, just too see how they are to paint, so I did a Imperial Fist marine in yellow, and a Ultramarine in blue.

The just to continue I did some of the miniatures I had over from my last 40k army that I never got around to painting, so I completed a recon squad here first

Followed just the next night with some tactical marines

And then I painted some old, old, OLD marines, the first one in plastic that GW released, known as RTB01 or the original beekie marines. I've had this box with a few of them in storage for some thing like 20 years and not dared put paint to them, Well thats over now ...

And lastly I did a battalion of 15mm french. I counted two of them as one 28... Perhaps a bit cheating, but I needed to get done some time... =)

So thats my last few months, I hope someone else can do a challenge like this, it's a good feeling when you are done!

Dark Angels - Part XIX - Ravenwing Bikes IV

So bikes then, this is my second squadron of bikes that I can field, but the first one that is the full size of 6 bikes and 1 attack bike. All these bikes have been given the no 7 on their shoulders so togeter they form a whole unit. I'm meaning to set a 7 on my completed metal speeder as well to really give them the whole 10-man unit feel.

As this unit is to be full size I added a real sergeant to them and I gave him a Power Fist, this has already paid for itself as he has been included in 4 games so far, and in two he has crashed into a Leman russ tank och blown it up (ofc he died in one of those occations…) and in the others he has smacked some orks on the head, and died inches from crashing into necron warriors… He can't win them all you know.

The unit then, the painting is nothing new, it's the same as all the other Ravenwing units, the bases has been given a slight theme, and if the unit is placed right you can make up the street they are raceing down. It turned out quite good, but the bikes kind of covers up the most of it.

Well here you have some more pictures, taken during the last weekends turnament, with a insanly good looking Forge World City Fight table as background.

Dark Angels - Part XVIII - Ravenwing Attack bike I

 I've just finished my attack bikes for the month, or I did finished them about tree weeks ago, but I've been far to busy and lazy so I haven't had time to take any pictures of them. But yesterday we had a small tournament at our club, and while we all got sorted and marveled at a ForgeWorld cityfight table that one in our group had bought and painted I snapped a few quick pictures of them with this amazing board as a backdrop 

 It's possible to see on the rightmost bike here that I've added numbers to the shoulder pads as well, and my plan is to do this to all my bike squads, and I've now started with these bikes. The bikes that's already completed will get their number added as I go along with other minis. As you can only see the 6 on the right bike, I can tell you that the left one is no 7.

As have been done with all previous bike these did get a base color done with my airbrush, a few washes and then all the details done. Rather simple, but it makes a fairly good model in the end. I've also magnetized the weapons, so both of them can carry either a heavy bolter, or a multi melta.

I have also completed a squadron of bikes to go with one of these attack bikes, but they will make an appearance in the next post

Dark Angels - Part XVII - Ravenwing Land Speeder III

After a long absence here I think it's time to get something done here. Since last I haven't painted as much as I would have liked, far to many other things to do right now. But I have done something at least!

I entered a little hobby progress challenge over at The Independent Characters forum the idea is to complete at least one unit each month, and be done with a full 1850 point army by the end of November.
I took this as an opportunity to get my ravenwing stuff painted and on the boards. So I have entered with this in mind.

The exact army I'm going to end up with is not something I have decided yet, I have only had the new army book for a few weeks and I'm still a bit uncertain what to do. But my first thing to paint was another Land speeder, and so I did and here it is;

If you notice the base, it's the same one as I used on my old school speeder that I did before the new year, the reason for this is that I used my brand new speeder just after the holidays, and well... a metal model is a bit heavy, so much in fact that the magnet I used was not up to the task of holding it, so while we moved some stuff on the other side of the table, the speeder took a nose dive right of the table into the floor, smashing it quite a bit. The result was this;

The whole body was twisted as well, that can't be seen here, but it was quite a lot of work to get it together again and I was a bit sick of it at the time. I uttered a lot of bad words as I put it together again and tried to figure out what to do with it now.
So in frustration I threw together a new base for it, this time with two flight stands to hold it up, the old one with a magnet is still there, but I also added a new hole and a new stand for added stability, and now it won't go anywhere.

The base is not as nice as the other ones, but it's functional, and thats what counts at the moment.

Dark Angels - Part XVI - Ravenwing Land Speeder II

As the year is coming to a close I present the latest miniature that has gotten of my painting table, another Land Speeder. This time it's one of the original Ravenwing speeders made way back in -94, I've had two of these since they came out, only ever painted one and forgot about the other in a box. Thats until about two months ago when I found them again.

The one I've painted now is the one that never got any paint in the first place, the other one is still on my desk and I need to clean off all the old globby paint I've put on it.

The main problem with this mini is that it's made of metal, and it heavy... really heavy... So I had quite some problems with paint chipping during the painting process, and not only that, but the fit of the different parts aren't what you would call good, it was quite horrible sometimes, especily the piece that the flying rod comes out of, this holds the main body and the chairs, and I had to be a bit creative to get the parts to stick together. But a few pinns and some grey stuff and it got together as good as I can make it.

Other than that I added a few new things on it, some extra items just to make it look like they are ready for a extended scout mission. I also added a few small areas of chipping on the body and wings, I'm not overly excited how it turned out, but I have to start somewhere when it comes to experimenting with this.

Other than that, here are some pictures, enjoy and have a great new gaming year!

And the two speeders I have now, there is quite a size difference between the two =)

Dark Angels - Part XV - Ravenwing Land Speeder I

The last few days I grabbed hold of the Land speeders that comes in the Rawenwing battleforce and started building. I wanted to magnetize it to be both a tornado with a assault cannon and a typhoon with the missiles. So I had to do a bit of work on it, so far I haven't done the best of work with my magnetization, but this time I took it a bit slower, checked and double checked all the magnets before I stuck them in there, and I did succeed far better than before, even if I would have liked it to be a bit better at times.

Then I started with the painting, and here I did one major mistake. I used my airbrush for all the blacks, just to make it much smoother and get it done fast, so stupid as I was I thought; "Well, then I don't need a prime it first"... Not the smartest thing I have ever done. The result was that lots of paint got rubbed of as I worked with it, and so I had to repaint, and repaint, and get varnish on, and then repaint it a bit more. It was horrible and something you should never do, always prime your miniature!

But despite this, the painting did go quite fast, I wanted most of the speeder so stay black so I did not pick out to many details, but more left them as they are. And I think it looks really nice in the end.

So, after painting and putting it all together, I took the photos, and then I realized one more mistake... I forgot to put the ammunition hopper on the bolter... Another facepalm moment.
As it stands now I still haven't gotten the ammo on, right now I think I'll leave it that way, I might paint it up when I do the next one and then stick it on, that is if I remember it then...

Ah, well. I have some pictures on the speeder, based an all;

And all the parts

Dark Angels - Part XIV - Ravenwing Bikes III

This weekend I sat down and finished two more of my Ravenwing bikes that I started over a month ago. I built them and then tacticals and veterans was more interesting for a while.

Now however they are complete. Sadly I cant really use them right now as they are... The Dark Angels codex only gives permission to field three or six bikes, and nothing in between, so until  the codex hits in another month or so, I'll just have to like it they way it is and play them as vanilla marines if I want to use them all.

I've not really done anything to this set of bikes, my plan is to not have two bikes that looks the same, and even though I already have a plasma gun biker, this time he got a fire effect from Armorcast added to the gun. I really do like these effects, but I have to remind myself not to use to many of them. I'm trying to not use more than one or two in each squad, and have some of them without any at all.

What I have also done this time is getting the bases done, not only for these two new bikes, but for the three I already had as well. So now my whole army has bases and are ready for some action.

I've had some requests of pictures of the whole army as well, and I'm going to take some in the coming week or so, I just have to put a lot of other miniatures away so that I can clear a place large enough to get them all in one shot.

The two new bikes

The whole squad

Dark Angels - part XIII - Tacticals IV

I've gotten into a bit of a painting streak, and actually gone from start to finish with a few miniatures in under a week. What I've painted now is a five man tactical unit, so now I really have a legal army standing on my shelf.

This time I now only made some Dark Angel symbols to put on their shoulder pads, I also made a tactical symbol and stuck it on there. I really like to have the symbols as this, gives the miniature a bit more character I think. Then only thing I'm not that pleased with, is that they are a bit thick... I don't have any solution for this at the moment, so I'll have to live with it.

Apart from the symbols I made the squad so that they have a com-link and used parts from the Dark Angels veteran set to give each miniature at least something unique. Be it a Dark Angel bolter, backpack or a holster for a bolt pistol. I also gave my sergeant a robe, something I think most, if not all of my sergeants will get. And if it's not a whole robe, then perhaps a tabard as the sergeant from the Dark Vengeance set.

As per usual I have a few pictures of the completed miniatures here for you to see;