Painted Figure Showcase for December/January

As I draw dangerously near to my departure date for Australia, I have been hastily trying to get a bunch of near finished stuff on my desk completed. Below is, for your delectation, gentle readers, some eye candy of what I have been up to.

First up, we have Dark Pact 30k Ultramarines. There are two more on my desk to make the first squad up to ten. The lighting outside made these guys look slightly lighter than they really are, still I think you get a sense of the figures. These Mk V power armoured marines actually look pretty good all painted up.

Left to right: Aurelian, Mox Viridis and Cain the Younger.

I also finished my Imperial Officer of the Fleet. Lord Admiral Marcus Erasmus, Hammer of the Eastern Fringe, declared "Soter" (Saviour) by the High Oligarch of Venda, approved by the Cardinals Major and the Volksraad of the same system. I will write more about him in a separate post. My previously published Armsmen are his bodyguard for planetside occasions.

I have also finished a few Orks. The colour scheme is all intimately linked to my Imperial Guard who hail from Venda Prime. I tried doing hazard stripes, and I think with practice I will get the technique down. They aren't a high priority asset for painting, but Imperials always need an opponent. 

 Finally, I have been busy working on the Dark Angels from the Dark Vengeance boxed. These figures painted up a treat and I was very happy with my Deathwing armour. The lighting in these shots doesn't really show the figures as they really look, as I said the colours seem a bit washed out in the photographs. I have done the Tactical Marines with 5th Company Markings.

So, my goal for the end of the weekend is to finish a battalion of French Legere in 28mm and to base my painted Fire & Fury Confederates (15mm). And on Sunday, I shall have to decide what gets to come with me to Australia.

+ The Emperor Protects +

Imperial Navy Armsmen

Here are some more pictures, with less shadow, of my Imperial Navy "Armsmen", which I called Marines previously. Thanks to the chaps over at the Lead Adventure Forum for pointing this out and all the positive feedback, especially Plynkes. Without further ado:

I also got some really positive feedback regarding a ruleset to use for small narrative skirmish games. Thus far In the Emperor's Name looks the best, being free, though I am keen to try out Two Hour Wargames' 5150: Star Army which is available in PDF form and looks like it might tick the boxes. However, the budget is tight this month, so I will defer purchases until I am sure I have money available to waste on wargaming. 

On a technical note, these pictures were taken using my "light box" which is hardly perfect yet. I have been playing with my camera settings to try and increase the light intake and the focus depth. Interestingly,  May 2013's issue of Miniature Wargames features an article by Henry Hyde of Battlegames and View from the Veranda fame on the topic of miniature photography, which I found very useful. As an aside, Miniature Wargames is looking really good under Mr. Hyde's direction and I am excited to receive my next issue. Digitally of course. 

Back to the Armsmen. I have my first scenario in mind for my narrative series, though I'll need the crashed Aquila Lander terrain piece for that as I don't have a crashed flyer to act as a suitable objective marker. I've sketched out the details for the scenario already, but I'll publish them on here once I've had a chance to actually do a play through. 

Of course we'll need some enemy for said scenario, and to that end I have been painting up some Orks. At the moment I am not happy with the colour scheme I have used so far. I won't repaint the once's I have done, the primary colours are fine, the issue is the more drab elements of the Orks which I am having a hard time feeling inspired by. Once I have more to show, I'll pop some pictures of the green menace up for your viewing pleasure.

Until then.

PS. Here are some Vikings I fixed up... I can't find their shields though.

Completed Imperial Navy Marine Landing Party Outdoor Pictures

All fifteen Imperial Navy Marines.

I keep calling these guys 40k Imperial Navy Marines, which has led to some confusion, because in 40k Marine means power armoured superhuman. The basic idea here is that they are a sort of "shore party" that escorts the Fleet head-shed when they go planet side. I decided to go for a uniform inspired by Imperial Russian Naval uniforms and I will use these figures as VSF Russians too. I am a big fan of reusing figures if I can, and these chaps have a nice late Victorian style to them. Onto the Red Planet perhaps?

The weather has been glorious today, so I had a chance to take some pictures outdoors. The lighting is good, but there are still some shadow. I think the ultra-controller environment of a lightbox is better, but I haven't had a chance to get my hands on some lamps for it, so here you go:

The quality of the paint job is okay, I am not one hundred percent satisfied with them, but at least they are done. In the flash they look much nicer, although there seems to be a little frosting because of the varnish. So there, fifteen chaps done. I plan to run them as a section of two fire teams, minus the heavy weapons team. So a team of seven and one of six. I might pick up a junior officer to lead them. Once I have the light box up and running I'll take some more pictures so that we can see the difference.

Carry on.