Go Guard!

Using some extra Imperial Guard miniatures lying around, I decided to convert some of them to give a representation of some of the varied Imperial Guard regiments of the Arcadia Sector.

	Anacostian Light Infantry The Anacostian Light Infantry is renowned throughout the sector for their stealth and their ability to show up quickly, anywhere, anytime.
	1st Arcadian Infantry The 1st Arcadian Infantry Regiment was heavily engaged during the Cyclades Campaign, repelling an invasion of Yriel-Dyann Eldar. The Regiment lost nearly half of its number during the campaign, but largely due to the regiment’s efforts, the Eldar invasion was successfully repulsed. Since Cyclades the regiment has fought against other xeno forces, including Tyranids and Orks.
	4th Arcadian Infantry The 4th Arcadian Infantry suffered horrific casualties in their first battles against the Necrons, but since those initial defeats, their experience fighting them has begun to show through.
	5th Arcadian Infantry (Mechanized) The 5th Arcadian is renowned for innovative tactics, and is among the first regiments to make use of combined arms, integrated down to the battalion level.
	11th Arcadian Rangers The 11th Arcadian Rangers were involved during the Assault on Morkandy Beach, where they supported the beach assault by dropping behind enemy lines, disrupting the defenders’ supporting artillery and ambushing reinforcements.
	16th Arcadian Infantry The 16th Arcadian has seen action against Tau forces, but its most famous action was undoubtedly the Assault on Morkandy Beach, where the entire regiment participated in the first assaults on the beach. During the action, the first battalion alone suffered 85% casualties.
	2nd Cydonian Infantry (The Nightstalkers) Cydonia is known for mass producing high technology devices and arms. As such, like most Cydonian regiments, the Nightstalkers are extremely well equipped.
	1st Deukalion Infantry The 1st Deukalion Regiment specializes in close quarters actions, either within cities or at night. As such they tend to be well equipped with powerful, short-ranged weaponry, and specialize in military operations in urban terrain.
	Fafnir Infantry (The Ice Wolves) The Fafnir Ice Wolves specialize in combat in cold weather environments. They are renowned for their skill in setting up ambushes and then disappearing into the wilderness.
	Tantalus Desert Fighters Tantalus is a cold, dry, desolate world with a tenous atmosphere. The Tantalus Desert Fighters are skilled in conquering the environment as much as the enemy. As such they are used to dealing with hostile environments, destroying enemies who are less prepared.

A Blast from the Past

A few days ago I was talking with 73rd on his blog The Unforgiven Angels, and I mentioned the oldest White Dwarf magazine I owned, back when I first got into the hobby in 1987. Well, here's some scans of the first issue I bought, #98, from February 1988.

The next image is an ad for "Chapter Approved", containing all sorts of neat stuff:

And next, of course, is the first incarnation of someone everything is familiar with these days, Marneus Calgar, although back then he was just a cool Imperial Commander...

The issue had an article about the Mentor Legion chapter of Space Marines (now they are known as just the "Mentors"). GW hadn't settled on calling the post-Heresy Space Marines the Adeptus Astartes yet--they were still all the Legiones Astartes.

And finally there is an ad for some generic "Space Pirates", and below, some of the earliest incarnations of the Imperial Guard, then known as "Imperial Army". Back then recruitment was so small they could give each trooper individual names!



Ah, the good ol' days, when miniatures were only made out of lead, and were ridiculously cheap (compared to today's standards). Still, the quality of the miniatures has gone up tremendously. I still have my RTB-01 marines from those days, still fighting in the ranks of my Raven Guard. Hopefully they will be taking to the field in another 20 years, still fighting for the Emperor...

Vacation...what vacation?

So I took the week of Thanksgiving off, but there was no relaxation for me. Last Monday was spent building shelves in my basement, allowing me to store tons of junk that had accumulated there, while the contractors installed a safer, less slippery carpet on my stairs. Tuesday I began the sad task of emptying my erstwhile game room, moving my miniatures from their cases down two floors to the basement, where they will have to languish for the foreseeable future.

Wednesday I began my painting project! Unfortunately, I wasn't painting miniatures:


Yes, my game room has begun its transformation into a future nursery, while my "game room" will for the foreseeable future be the garage (when my car isn't in it). My future daughter has begun the process of irrevocably changing my life. But there are positives: I will be indoctrinating her into wargaming and miniature painting at an early age. :)

So I apologize for the lack of updates for the past two weeks--despite the home repairs/renovations that have been going on, I have managed to work on a few things, so hopefully next week will be a "real" update of what I've been working on.

Project: Airbrushed Devilfish

For a while now I've been itching to use my airbrush, and since my Tau were in need of some additional transport, the Devilfish naturally presented itself. I wanted to try a technique that would result in an optical illusion. The intent was for the vehicle to have camouflage stripes across the hull--these stripes would be of a single color, but the color would appear to change from one shade to a different shade depending on what part of the model you were looking at. The way to achieve this is by shading the hull itself--the backdrop to the camouflage stripes--in shades of color that are darker or lighter than the shade of the stripes themselves. Just what this means will hopefully become clear as I explain it.

Step one was to assemble and prime the model.

Next I used the airbrush to basecoat the model Jade Green. Unfortunately Games Workshop doesn't make this color anymore (all the more frustrating because it's a primary color of my Tau army), but fortunately Vallejo Paints does, and it's a perfect match.

The Jade Green would become the color of the camouflage stripes. I took some blue painters tape, laid out some strips of it on a cutting board, and using an exacto knife and a ruler, cut out strips several inches long and 1.5-2mm wide. I then carefully put the tape on the model where I wanted the stripes to be. The narrow width of the tape allowed me to curve the tape over the model's edges and also to make wavy lines without the tape wrinkling. I know that the blue tape doesn't show up well against the jade green of the hull, but if you look closely, it's there.

The next step is where the optical illusion begins. I used my airbrush to paint Scaly Green (another color Games Workshop is unfortunately phasing out) over the rear half of the model. I did full coverage of the rearmost parts of the model, and moving forward along the hull, I used progressively less paint, fading it out until across the center of the model (roughly where the side doors are), I gave it the barest dusting of paint. The next step was to paint the front half of the model Vile Green (again, Games Workshop doesn't make this color anymore, but Vallejo Paints makes an identical shade: Foul Green). This time, I painted the Vile/Foul Green over the front parts of the model, completely on the foremost parts, and fading it out as I moved backwards along the hull. When I reached the midsection, I faded it out completely. The result here was to make the model look Vile/Foul Green on the front, blending gradually into the underlying Jade Green in the middle, and then blending gradually into Scaly Green in the rear.

The next step is to remove the masking tape. In some places the tape wasn't easy to remove, so I had a use an exacto knife to get it started, being careful not to scratch any of the paint off. If there was some bleed through of the airbrushed paint onto the camouflage stripes, I touched it up with some more Jade Green.

Finally I put on some black trim and other details, put on the drones, and applied a couple decals. I also attempted to use the airbrush to paint on some soot lines by the engines using black, but the result didn't come out as "sharp" as I was hoping--next time I need to use a finer airbrush nozzle. So here's the final result. Hopefully you can see the optical illusion: the camouflage stripes look dark against the front of the hull, but lighter colored on the rear of the hull--but regardless of where they are on the model, it's all Jade Green. On the midsection of the model, the color actually fades away into the background for a little bit before reappearing on each side as contrasting again with the background.

This last picture is a comparison shot: on the left is my first Devilfish, painted a couple of years ago using my old camouflage scheme, and my new Devilfish on the right.

Terrain Project: Necron Tombworld Beacon

This is a terrain piece I made for the Axis Columen Campaign--it will be the centerpiece of the fourth, and last, battle of the Campaign. Basically it represents the above-ground portion of a huge Necron tomb on the planet of Axis Columen: the tip of the iceberg, as it were. The Beacon has been transmitting a signal to a Necron fleet, which is on its way. If and when the fleet arrives in orbit, they will activate the tombworld generators, and all the Necrons will awake... The Brazen Claws Space Marines have to destroy this Beacon before this happens, or all is lost.

I started the project with a simple pyramid made of foam board, surrounded by four obelisks made of posterboard, mounted on a 12" x 12" square of 1" pink insulation foam.

Next I trimmed up the pink foam, and added plasticard to the pyramid to make it look more Necron-like.

In this stage I used some plaster filler to fill in gaps wherever I found them, mainly on the wall-joins of the pyramids, and along its base.

The next step was to coat the base with sand. Ultimately the plan was to make it look a little like the Beacon raised itself out of the ground, so I painted it to look like freshly overturned earth.

The next step was to paint it and apply decals. The paint was going to match the color of my fellow gamer Badelaire's Necron army, that is, dark blue metallic with gold trim. Badelaire's Necrons are painted with boltgun metal then given a coat of blue ink. Ink wouldn't work on this model, so I did a mix of various blues (mainly Midnight Blue, Regal Blue, and a dab of Enchanted Blue, with some Boltgun Metal. The result didn't look quite metallic enough, so I put a coat of gloss varnish ('Ardcoat) on the model to make it shiny.

I painted some golden plates on the front face as placement for Necron Decals. I didn't have decals of my own, so Badelaire graciously donated some to the cause. But little did I know that the decals were gold themselves!

All was not lost, however, as the gold decals looked pretty good distributed elsewhere on the model. I put some anyway on the gold plates on the main face of the pyramid--they're hard to see unless you get close or the lighting is right, but they're there. So here's the final result:





The rules we'll be using for the Beacon is that it will essentially "count as" a Necron Pylon, but will be a fixed feature on the battlefield from the start, and have twice as many structure points. Now we just have to fight the battle!