A bigger, better lightbox

Another busy month, so unfortunately there has been nothing new in terms of painting. However, I have some new photos of things already painted that I have not shown so far. With how behind I am with the pace I set for myself, my goal is now to get the entire army at least to the wash stage before OFCC in July. I will also need to come up with a new display stand for them and get some custom decals made. Stay tuned!

First are the two Deathwatch Vanguard Veterans. These are the Antor Delassio and Edyric Setorax models from the Cassius Kill-Team box. They will be used as Vanguard Veterans instead of their named versions and made into a Dominatus Kill-Team with the Veterans shown earlier. Along with a Corvus Blackstar that will be part of the army, this kill-team along with the inquisitor are meant to be a hard-hitting counter-assault unit. The inquisitor will bring along rad grenades, which suits both the army theme and makes the Deathwatch hit that much harder. With the Assault Vehicle special rule on the Blackstar and the Vanguard Veterans letting the unit re-roll change distances, I expect them to hit pretty hard. The models themselves aren't completed yet, and don't even have their wash on yet.

Antor Delassio, Vanguard Veteran

Antor Delassio, Vanguard Veteran

Edyric Setorax, Vanguard Veteran

Edyric Setorax, Vanguard Veteran

The other model that I have to show is Cybernetica Datasmith Lambda-Meitner. Each of the units in the army will have a name consisting of a Greek letter and the surname of a famous nuclear physicist. Lise Meitner was instrumental in the discovery of nuclear fission, and has an element named after her: Meitnerium, atomic number 109. The datasmith has been fully painted and washed, though looking at the pictures, I made need to do some touching up!

Cybernatica Datasmith Lambda-Meitner

Cybernatica Datasmith Lambda-Meitner

Cybernatica Datasmith Lambda-Meitner

Cybernatica Datasmith Lambda-Meitner

If there's one thing I did get done this month, it's the construction of a new and improved lightbox. It's all foamcore boards, tissue paper, white duct tape, and white poster paper. Plus three lamps. Video on how to make one here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyxzC5kqbyw. I've been using my phone camera for now, but in the future that will also change.

Lightbox 2.0

Next month, I will have more things assembled, at least, and try to finish up the two robots. I also have a Heldrake to finish up for a friend.

Kastelan Robot and Light Box

It's been a busy month, and the trend may continue for the next couple months, though I am going to try my hardest to stay on schedule. I almost made it this month by getting some more Deathwatch near-complete and getting one of the Kastelan Robot maniples near-complete. Unfortunately, they are not entirely complete. The most complete model of the group mentioned is one of the robots, which has the basic scheme and washes done, almost has its highlighting done. The other robot and the datasmith have both passed the wash stage, but do not have highlights.

Kastelan Robot Alpha from maniple Lambda-Meitner

Kastelan Robot Alpha from maniple Lambda-Meitner

Kastelan Robot Alpha from maniple Lambda-Meitner

These pictures were taken inside the light box I made. However, you can see in the photos above that the printer paper I used has a couple problems with it. The first is that it's not a continuous sheet so shadows from paper overlap are still visible. The other problem is that it's too opaque to use for the light diffusion panels on the sides of the box, so not quite enough light is getting through. I will be attempting a second version by the next post. I also only had two lamps, which will be remedied in the next version, too.

Light Box V.1

Test picture of Vael Donatus; the camera detail is good, but the light looks off.

Again, goals for next month are to have another unit finished, or at least have my current units completely finished, and build Light Box V.2. No promises.

Kill Team and Kastelan Magnets

Although the primary theme behind the new army I'm building for next year is "radiation", I couldn't resist adding a Dominatus Kill Team from the new Adeptus Astartes: Deathwatch book, as well as a Corvus Blackstar flyer for them to get around in. The Deathwatch rules themselves are fantastic, centered around small units with lots of firepower and an abundance of re-rolls. The justification for including them in this army comes from the Ordo Xenos Inquisitor with the rad grenades; the Deathwatch marines serve as his bodyguard.

Since the models are from the Kill Team Cassius box, I outfitted the unit with the weapons present in that kill team, which is more or less outfitted for close-in shootouts before a close-combat assault. This works out well for running with the Inquisitor since the rad grenades decrease the toughness of the unit they assault. For the kill team, I included the five models in the Donatus Kill Team, which act as a Veteran Squad, and Edryc Sedorax and Antor Delassio, who act as Vanguard Veterans

In terms of painting, I tried to paint them as close to the schemes from the box as possible, with the exception of the Dark Angel. The Zameon Gydrael model has his most obvious Dark Angel iconography chopped, filed, and smoothed away to make him into a Black Shield. I'm only showing the Veteran Squad for now since that's all I got to. Apologies for the bad quality pictures; making a good light box is on my list of things to do for next month.

Vael Donatus

Rodricus Grytt

Zameon Gydrael model, now the Black Shield Iton Atasas

Ennox Sorrlock

Drenn Redblade

Squad Donatus

I also figured out a way to make the weapons of the Kastelan Battle Robots modular using magnets. I drilled a magnet hole into the upper arms and should piece and super-glued a 1/8" x 1/16" neodymium magnet there. The insides of the phosphor blasters are hollow, and unfortunately don't easily lend to mounting a magnet. Instead, I snipped part of the sprue frame to the right length, super-glued a magnet to it and glued it to the inside of the phosphor blaster. Below is a shot of the mounting before the other half of the weapon was glued on, showing the two magnets connecting.

Kastelan robot phosphor blaster hand with sprue piece and magnet inside.

Kastelan robot phosphor blaster hand and arm held together by magnets.

Thought for the day: Only in death after highlighting does duty painting end.

OFCC 2016 and Building an Atomic Army

It's been a while, again.

Now that's out of the way, first thing is to plug for the Ordo Fanaticus Club Challenge. The Ordo itself is actually a club that meets in Portland, OR, but their members and forum (www.ordofanaticus.com) and Facebook page gather gamers from all over the Pacific Northwest. Every year, they put on the Ordo Fanaticus Club Challenge (OFCC). Most years I've been, it's in Vancouver, WA, just across the Columbia from Portland. The event actually has several different tournaments within it, including individual Warhammer Fantasy and 40k tournaments, and now an X-Wing tournament, I think. The main event for me is the Warhammer 40k team tournament. It is a tournament where painting and sportsmanship truly are valued just as much (if not more) than actually winning games. It's an event where one could bring a Chaos Space Marine army based on all daemon-possessed models and still have fun, not-one-sided games. It's an event where having no flyers and no way to deal with them won't be a critical failing of your list. It's all about bringing a fun army (super-tough, competitive armies are actually not admitted) and having a beer with your opponent while you find out what crazy situations your armies get into. Competitive tournaments and armies of course have their time and place, but it is not at OFCC. My record this past year was 2 wins, 3 losses, and a couple of those losses were some of the most fun games I had, despite being wiped off the board! If you get the chance to go, even if it's a long ways because you're not in the PNW, I highly recommend it.

This past OFCC, I ran a hodgepodge of Unbound units collectively called "Inquisitor and Friends", including an inquisitor, some Skitarii, some Militarum Tempestus, some Blood Angels, and a couple Astra Militarum Vendettas. The Skitarii I used included a squad of rangers with three transuranic arquebuses. Our team captain asked me why I didn't use Skitarii Vanguard, both because our team name is "Glows in the Dark" referencing the radiological cleanup site near Richland, WA from whence the team hails and because I have multiple degrees in radiological-related studies. I did not have a good answer, and it has inspired me to build a radiation-themed army for OFCC 2017. Units that will be included specifically for the radiation theme are:

Skitarii Vanguard - rad carbines and Rad-Saturation rule

Skitarii Rangers - transuranic arquebuses

Onager Dunecrawlers - neutron laser

Kastelan Robots - Cybernetica Datasmiths armed with gamma pistols

Ordo Xenos Inquisitor - rad grenades

My plan for this blog is to post once a month at least until OFCC next year showing my progress as the army comes together, as well as making other preparatory materials like objective markers, display board, etc. I'll finish up the year by making sure to record my army's battles at the next OFCC.