Land Raider Redeemer

   Over Christmas, when I was thinking a lot of Grey Knight vs Daemon thoughts I was toying with small lists and the one thing I kept adding to lists was a Land Raider. It was only when I finally caved and ordered myself one that I decided on the Redeemer variant with the extra flame throwing goodness, mostly as I've painted a few of the basic one in one form or another.

   Like the two units I've just posted about, this model was built, sprayed and had the base metals done fairly early but then sat on the side of my desk for months while I worked on other things.

   I suspect this model was the real reason the last batches of Grey Knights didn't move past the basic metals, I just wasn't sure what to do with it. I've used a few blocks of white and red in the normal Grey Knight heraldry patterns to break the shiny metal up but I still think this tank is missing something - possibly it's just too clean?

It was only when I came to photograph the model that I also noticed I hadn't stuck any purity seals on, which might have broken up the solid block of colour a bit more?

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Grey Knight Characters

   This post is about the two terminator HQ choices I have for my Grey Knights. The librarian came in the combat patrol and was painted up at the same time as the rest of the project, I just didn't post about him for some reason, while the brother captain/grand master (depending on what I need them to be) was Christmas present that sat half finished for too long on the side of my desk.

   The commander is a Kaldor Draigo figure that I had been toying with picking up to use as the base for a brother captain/grand master as there isn't really much of a choice in that department for the Grey Knights but I was beaten to the punch and gifted one instead. This figure had enough details and bits on them that I thought I could make them stand out, however, as it's finecast, most of those details are fairly soft and I spent a lot of time going back over bits where a little edge of a new detail appeared after a wash or drybrush in the area and I realised there was a bit I had missed*.

   I swapped the back banner and took the shield off to change the overall feel of the model and it was only while painting him that I noticed he now has two guns. . .

*I found a lot of little purity seals this way

   The librarian is a much more simple job as I think all I did was a shoulder pad swap and a shield. Its only in hindsight that I wish I'd done slightly more on him to make him really fit into the army, but as its a generic space marine model that's trying to fit into the Grey Knight look.

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Squad Matteo

   When I was last painting up my August Lion space marines I had this bright idea of swapping the Terminator Librarian's force sword using the grey knight kit but I just could not find my spare sprues, a quick look on eBay later and I had a cheeky low bid on a new sprue of terminators, expecting to lose but not worried if I won.

   Obviously, the quickest way to find something old is to replace it, so once the bid was placed I remembered where the sprues were but it was too late to do anything about the bid and I promptly won these ones as well. I dutifully built, sprayed and started painting them fairly quickly* and then moved onto other projects.

*no maturing for these sprues

   Fast forward a bit and I'm sitting in my shed trying to decide what to paint and I spot the Grey Knights that I have been moving out the way constantly around my desk for weeks and its pretty clear they need to be finished and put away. I've painted them identically to the other two squads of terminators with the only difference that this squad has an apothecary who has a bit more white in their colour scheme.

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Blood Jakhals

   Jakhals are the World Eater version of regular Chaos Marines' Cultists, but jacked up on a weird blood based performance enhancing chemical as such I ignored the way GW painted their box art with black clothing and red details to make them look like the World Eater wannabies that they are. Ideally, I'd like to have a whole bunch of cultists between these guys and the regular ones that all look similar but also show where they come from.

   The real pity of this unit is they are a nightmare to build with lots of small wrist joints that don't make sense until you get them right and they are surprisingly busy and difficult to paint for a unit that is so cheap on the battlefield. I'd like to put 2 or 3 of these units on the board and be able to throw them away without caring but the motivation to paint that many would not be easy to find.

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The Deluge - C17th Test Units

   I think I mentioned after Salute this year, that I came away not having spent much money at all. The one thing that did really tempt me was a game by a Polish games designer called By Fire and Sword, which had just released it's 2rnd edition. The set of rules focussed on the wars the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth found itself in during the 1600's, with various invasions by the Ottoman's and a couple by either the Swedish or the Holy Roman Empire. I managed to not buy the starter set but spent the next couple of weeks trying to decide if I regretted that choice or not.

   At the same time, someone on Bluesky was trying to encourage me to start a 10mm project as they have been saying its like 15mm, which I think look great on the table, but better and cheaper. I didn't want to double (or triple) up on any era, so I wasn't going to jump into any project. Then it dawned on me that I was interested in a new era and I had a scale I wanted to try, why didn't I dip my toes to test the theory?

   I plan to use Pikeman's Lament to play these - although, I'm keeping the basing vague enough that other rules can take over in the future - with two bases of any model being a unit*. I had looked at copying the By Fire and Sword starter set with The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth on one side and the Ottomans on the other, but realised if I looked at the eastern side of their realm about 20 years earlier I could do a cheaper intro game against the Swedish instead and, if I enjoyed the scale, I could work up to the Ottomans. The back of the book has units for such an engagement, so I'm copying that for my initial game - which is only 11 units between the two sides, still a lot of figures but more manageable than the Ottoman units.

*making half strength units easier to track and set up easier

   I bought a few test packs just to see if I enjoyed the painting side before I bought whole armies and this post is the first of those units - the Polish Winged Hussars and some Swedish Musketeers. 

The first unit of Polish Winged Lancers has come up a treat if I say so myself. They need to have some grass of some sort to break their bases up but otherwise, I'm really pleased with them

I then decided to test out infantry. The exact lists I want to try need 2 units of Commanded Shot - which are half sized musket units - but I wanted to see how the full sized units would look too, so I used a single pack to do a unit of each.

The Commanded Shot unit below

The regular unit of Musketeers

I'm working my way through some more Polish Winged Hussars as I type, but I am now fairly confident this project is doable. The pennants on the Hussar's lances might break me though.

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Bound By Eight?

   I'm trying to focus on the figures from the World Eater combat patrol when I am painting this project but I had an unexpected bit of weekend painting time and wanted a project I could get the bulk of the way through before that time went away and I picked a 3 man unit, the Khorne Eightbound. These are effectively the World Eater version of regular Possessed Marines but with a bit more Khorne-y flavour.

   I have another box of these to build that were going to be their own unit, but I think I might use them to bulk this squad up instead.

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The Blood Calls

   As always I have a few projects I'm working on and they vary day to day in which I think is the priority, but my World Eater project is one of the ones that keeps annoying me that it isn't further along. I really enjoy looking at these figures but the trim is trying to break my tired mind, so I'm having to take breaks between batches.

   This is the second squad of regular berserkers and the last of them that I own*. I painted them the same as the first unit but I gave them slightly more black on their armour just for a bit of variety and to break the vast amount of red.

*although I think I'd like at least one more squad at some point

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