Skeletons, one singular noise marine and a real life Khemrian Warsphinx

 

Greetings dear readers! I should get this out of the way and apologise profusely for the lack of much blog activity over the last month. There have been a number of reasons for this, foremost among them that I went home for one of my closest friend’s stag party (or at least, part one of the stag) at the start of the month and that I spent the Easter weekend doing corrections to me thesis and other academic tasks. I also have to admit that I haven’t felt particularly up to writing during the month, with events across the pond knocking a considerable amount off my invested savings and a sense of detached apathy towards my job. Anyway, that’s not why any of you are reading this, so let’s talk about something fun!

One thing that I have managed to summon the energy for is painting. This month, I based and primed the second skeleton infantry cohort, and painted the first eight of them, alongside a liche priest. My Trello board looks like this:

Things are... moving?

I am not including any Emperor’s Children stuff on the board, due to the fact that I want to take my time with them and explore new and interesting effects. To that end, I have also painted a Disharmonist (the noise marine sergeant) and about 70% of a third one. Still haven’t decided on the basing scheme, although I am thinking of trying a swamp base, with lots of dark browns and greens, and possibly also experimenting with some water effect. I think this will contrast nicely with the garish colours on the Emperor’s Children and give them the vibe of venomous swamp dwellers.

Without further ado, here are the skeletons:

BONE?!

I managed to get through the full batch of 8 of them much faster with pretty much one simple trick. I was finding that the Frostheart I was using for the blue was coming out very streaky and not taking multiple thin coats that well. What I did to fix this was just basecoat the blue areas with a very light (Baharoth) blue first and then apply one to two thin coats as required. This has worked an absolute charm, and as far as I can tell, is near enough indistinguishable from the result I was getting before, faster and much less messy. Admittedly, my eyesight for these things isn’t great (a terrible quality for a miniature painter really), so I am prepared to be corrected about it in the middle of a game. The unit champion was fun, although I think their bases may need some static grass, or just a little more visual interest of some kind.

Here is the liche priest:

I had more trouble with this. When I started this project, I was planning on painting mummified skin as per a GW recommended method, using Briar Queen Chill as the base. I don’t know if any of you have ever used that contrast paint, but it is 100% not a skin tone, and even with Ionrach Skin and Pallid Wych Flesh layered on top, reads more like an alien than even mummified skin. I went back over this, again swapping the contrast with the nominal first highlight (so Ionrach – BQC – Ionrach – PWF), and this worked a little better. I am still not totally happy, but it certainly looks more like cold, decayed skin. I also dislike painting metal minis. I think it has something to do with the surface feel of the miniature – they just always feel slightly cold, and the paint layer slightly tacky, which makes my hands feel somehow wrong. Let me know, either below or over social media if you feel the same, I am genuinely not sure if this is just me.

Finally, here’s the Noise Marine Disharmonist:

Swamp bases - what do we think?

This was really fun. Between the gems, the snow leopard print tabard and his little cloak of flayed skin, the textures on these models is wonderful, and they’re the perfect mix of detailed and plain that you can really try out loads of different stuff with them. I cannot recommend this kit enough. I’ve assembled the Lord Exultant and the first 5 Infractors too, but I am really enjoying sinking into the rabbit hole of painting the detail on the Noise Marines. I am hoping by next week that I should have at least one more done, and if I make it to Darksphere, I’ll try to experiment with some basing to see if I can get an effect I like.

I’ve managed to get some gaming in, although admittedly not as much as I might want. Looking at Administratum, I’ve only played one game since the last blogpost (although admittedly I’ve only had one free weekend). I played against my friend’s Grey Knights, with him on Warpbane and me playing Imperialis Fleet. It turns out that Purifiers are pretty great with full rerolls to hit against my army of garbage infantry, especially as we were only playing 750 points. I ran my opponent pretty close, with him needing to deep strike his last 2 purifiers and actually charge into melee, killing 5 models with his 6 attacks. Of course, Grey Knights never fail clutch 9-inch charges, and I was promptly wiped out. I only realised after the game that if I’d remembered the detachment rule and set the objective I was on to give me a 5+ invulnerable save, I would have won. Lessons learned, and all joking aside, I’ve been really impressed by Imperialis Fleet. While it doesn’t have the banter factor of Veiled Blade, it does create much more interesting games.

I leave you with the news that my partner and I have bought a kitten. Friends, say hello to Toffee!

He is very shy at the minute, as he just moved in today. That said, I am sure he will be gracing plenty of future blogposts with his presence. I am hoping to get back to writing these posts more regularly, so hopefully will be back with more progress sometime next week. Until then, have a lovely week of your own hobby!

Ben