Deathguard?

   It was only as I was putting the Chaos Possessed and their Rhino away that I remembered I had another unit of chaos marines and a rhino painted that for some reason missed getting their own post. Checking my painting notes, I found it was back in August 2021 that I had bought and painted a unit of Plague Marines and converted a Rhino for no reason other than I think I found some conversion parts for the Rhino and got ideas, but for some reason, I had a blip that month and didn't really post anything.

   The rhino is painted a slightly darker red than my other red chaos marines and then the recesses were washed in Typhus corrosion, which is lovely stuff is you want horrible looking models, so it was perfect for this. The aim of this squad was not full blown plague marine Deathguard but new worshippers of the God Nurgle, so some panels are ok but the rot is setting in.

   I also kept the rest of the marines in a red colour while using proper plague marine models - a mix of a box set and a few individually bought models to add character. There are heavy and special weapons in this squad, but I don't really understand what they are!

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The Possessed

   Again, why am I painting these when I have other projects that are far more important? I'm still on a 40k buzz, so I'm listening to The Talon Of Horus which feature a unit of possessed chaos space marines* in it's cast and it got me thinking about the unit I had sitting on the shelf behind me waiting for their turn on the paint station.

*no spoilers further than that

   I've bought at least a couple of boxes of possessed marines over the years, mostly for parts to sprinkle into other units, and while I have used a unit of them in games in the past, I converted more subtle versions as to be entirely honest, painting the official ones made me nervous. This unit is made from some left over bits on my latest sprue and a raid of my bits box, so there are parts from a modern Deathguard marine, old Khorne berserker, chaos spawn sprue and who knows what else, I've just made sure not to add anything that isn't fully chaos.

   Painting wise, I decided to embrace the chaotic mutations and give different colours to them. I wanted to show that these guys haven't been given well thought out blessing - this isn't a pair of wings for a jump pack lord or better armour for a front line champion - but a out of pure mutations from a variety of sources. Some have more subtle mutations while others are on the verge of going full spawn.

  While I was painting red and brass, I decided to knock out another model for the same project that has been sitting behind me long enough to get a layer of dust. When the new plastic kits started being released for the Horus Heresy, instead of jumping to buy them for my 30k armies I decided I wanted some for my chaos instead. Money being what it is, I limited myself to a Deimos Rhino in an attempt to show the age of my warband and add a bit of interest.

   Painting these guys has really made me want a box of chaos spawn I can go nuts with, but I've got to be good.

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The Swarm Pt 7

   I won't lie, I am getting tired of painting gaunt sized aliens now and this unit has been a real slog to push through, but the point of painting so many of this type of model as fast as I could and as early in this process as I could was that I knew this would happen, so I've already broken the back of the project. Even if I give up for a bit now, I've got 48 Termagaunts, 12 Hormagaunts and 10 Gargoyles painted up, which is a decent horde.

   This unit came from Troll Trader pre built, and judging by the weird grey of the bare plastic, stripped from whatever colour scheme they had before. This is why they have the adrenal gland son their backs that I've not done with the ones I've built - feels like a waste of points on a bullet fodder unit to me! Otherwise, I've painted these to match the rest of the horde and will let the red on their backs add a bit of variety to the sea of green and bone.

   This is the first post in it's own time for a while as the past few have all been based on stuff I painted a month or more ago. I do now have Leviathan on order and will probably be painting bits of that whenever I have the time to spare but first things first, time to paint something I'll enjoy a bit more.

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The Custodian Guard

   This is another hard to explain purchase and post. I played a game of the Horus Heresy much earlier this year and really enjoyed myself, while I had planned to organise more games, the year is slipping away from me. Before I knew that, however, I ordered a couple of things to try and make my list a tad more competitive, this is one of those things.

   The issue I faced in my last game was the guy was a Word Bearer army and he just kept sending wave upon wave of big daemons at me which my lowly Ultramarines just could not deal with. In my head a quick Custodes attachment should be able to deal with this threat while my army does its own thing. I just need to organise that rematch now.

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Fratribusia Campaign Pt 2

 +++ Message incoming +++

Imperial forces on Fratribusia. Possible spawning point located in jungle on these coordinates; 528834,182077.

Recommendation: Burn with righteous fire.

Flight Leader Buzzard Squadron, Imperial Navy Fighter Wing 5517

Thought of the day; The Emperor sends his angels

 +++ Message ends +++

 +++ Message incoming +++

Resistance higher than expected. Recommend full scale operations into jungle.

Thought of the day: Hatred is a virtue

 +++ Message ends +++

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Desperate Times

   I'm starting to ramp up at work so my painting time is starting to vanish - just in time for Leviathan to drop, but I have a few projects that I've finished recently but not posted about, so I'm going to slowly post them while I'm quiet else were.

   While I have more important things to be focussing on, I have yet again been distracted, this time by my Eldar. 

   The first thing is a bit of 3d printed scenery I bought online a few years back - so I have no idea what shop to credit it to - but its a generic Eldar-y bit of scenery and can be whatever we need it to be. Is it a shrine or a small webway portal - lets see what the scenario wants it to be.

   I've wrapped it in some GW vines that I bought at the time for this project and added a few jungle plants, the aim being is that it's obviously used every now and again but its not maintained. Painting was with spray guns and I wanted a clean bone finish to it.

   The next thing is a squad of old metal Wraithguard, with friendly neighbourhood Spiritseer. This squad was stripped a fair while back but my lack of a colour scheme then realisation that I needed bigger bases meant they just sat in a box waiting for inspiration. While reading the novel The Last Hunt as a way of keeping me going with the Tyranid project, it was the Wraithguard in it* that made me think the hardest. This still left the basing issue, I can buy 40mm bases, but none with the slot needed for these old metal figures, so I decided to do a 2 part fix, 32mm slot bases from GW and base extenders from ebay to do the last 8mm. I've then put a tiny bit of filler on to just take some of the gap away.

   Painting wise, I decided to match my guardians but I've gone for full white helmets to show the alien (even to the rest of the Eldar) nature of these. Also, I'm sure I read somewhere that white is the colour of grief for the Eldar and not black.

   I've got another 2 squads of the old metal figures to paint plus a plastic squad, so I'd better get moving.

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*limited spoilers there

Redemptor

   A post that is completely out of it's own time and place, I painted this Redemptor Dreadnought at the same time as I had a couple of batches of Tyranids on the go and it just didn't fit into how I was posting, so I thought I had better get it up before it falls too far behind.

   I picked the model up as part of the Imperium magazine along with one for my brother who is doing space marines for the campaign. I've always wanted one of these as I'm a big dreadnought fan but just couldn't justify the full price tag for something I wasn't going to use in the short term.

   I've painted it up for my 4th company Aurora Knights and it was one of those models that looked terrible at every stage of the painting process until all of a sudden it just looked right. I've got a decal sheet coming to replace the white "4" on the right facing but otherwise I'm quite pleased with it.

It can be built so that both main guns can be slotted in and out, so I took full advantage of that.

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The Swarm Pt 6

   In a break from painting gaunt sized swarm members I've instead done something, if anything, slightly more swarm-y, Rippers and a birthing site.

   Rippers are the quintessential Tyranid swarm, with multiple models on a single base, I've put 4 on a 40mm base to match what will be coming in the new edition starter box. The figures come from various Tyranid sprues, the termagaunt box has 6 rippers, Warriors have 1 or 2 if I remember right and Genstealers have another 2 as well. I do think it is a tad shame that other sets don't have a ripper on them as well - like the Deathguard range and their nurglings - having a Carnifex sprue ripper in a swarm would be cool.

   From the collection I have built up, I currently have 7 bases of Rippers with a pair of single ones left over to start future bases or to go on the bases of bigger monsters.

  The other thing I painted up at this point was a big base of Tyranid themed scenery. This is supposed to be an on world birthing chamber, where the swarm replenishes itself without needing to take biomass from the ships in orbit.

   I decided that it made more sense to do it as part of my jungle terrain - this might bite me in the future - but in the campaign I am aiming to run, the jungle has the most available biomass to hand, so this is where I think the Tyranids would set these things up. In game it will provide an objective for the Imperial forces to try and destroy rather than every game being a fight over a distinctive looking tree.

   The bits are 3d printed from someone on eBay, although the more I look at it the more I think it needs something else.

It does make me realise I really need to do a few more bases of jungle terrain now, especially as we have less than a week to the new edition . . .

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The Swarm Pt 5

   As ever, I have other things I really need to be painting, but I wanted to get on with another box worth of Tyranid swarm and this box of Hormagaunts was built, sprayed and closest to my hand of the two units I was going to paint*.

*I also thought they might be quicker to paint as they miss out the red stage

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Bigger Bugs Pt 3

   This post is a bit out of it's time and that's because for some reason I finished it, then put it in it's storage box and assumed I'd done the photos and post when I hadn't done either.

   It's also another hard to explain model, not in why I bought it, that should be obvious, but why I bought it this early in the collection. Ultimately, I've had my eyes on one since it came out and for GW it's price is weirdly reasonable so it jumped a couple of queues and here we are.

I had a choice between this beast (Tyrannofex) or a transport version which produces Termagaunts as it goes and chose this one as the first, but I think a Tervigon or wo would be fun in the future,

This model is an absolute beast.

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Pegasus Bridge

   The last post on D-Day battlefields is probably a tad late and should have come first - Pegasus bridge. This was one hell of a morning out it has to be said. Driving round the corner and seeing the replacement bridge is something I'll remember for the rest of my life and the stuff in the museum plus the real bridge are amazing.

The bridge itself in full glory - standing on it was really strange

A horsa glider

A photo of the new bridge from the point the middle glider landed - just shows how close they were

The first civilian house liberated on D-Day and a great stop for lunch. The owner spoiled my little boy rotten and just couldn't have been nicer

The replacement bridge and view from the direction we first saw it

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Juno Beach

   This post is about Juno beach, the Canadian landing beach. When we visited this one it was fairly late in the day and the wind was really getting up, so it was a flying visit to stop too much sand getting into our eyes. As we were leaving a bunch of surfers turned up, which like building sandcastles on Omaha made a surreal experience.

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Gold Beach

   Carrying on with some beaches, this is Gold beach - one of the two British landing beaches. This was a much less touristy beach but the upside down defences made brought what happened here home*.

*although I suspect the upside nature of them is more due to natural processes in 79 years.

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Omaha Beach

   With today marking 79 years since D-Day, I thought it would be a good time to put some posts up from my recent visit to Normandy. As with my other battlefield posts, I'm not going to go into depth on the battle or anything like that, as I just don't see the point when others have done such a better job than I would.

   This is Omaha beach - or bloody Omaha - the beach seen in Saving Private Ryan fame and was one of the two American beaches. We visited a beach from each major nation that took part and of all of them, this was the weirdest, being a mix of monument to what happened and really touristy sandy beach. Sitting on a beach building a sandcastle with my son, eating lollies, with WW2 tours going past and on a site where such a bloody battle happened is a surreal experience.

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The Swarm Pt 4

   Carrying on with the Tyranid swarm is the last batch of Termagaunts from my Combat Patrol box. At this point I'm still just trying to get numbers through* while I have some painting time but limited time to game.

*as you'll see in the future with my recent purchases

At some point this month I need to swing my painting focus onto some historical as I have a big club game coming up, but for the moment I seem to be on a 40k drive.

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