March to War 2018 – 5th Update
The fifth week of March to war, and the first week of February. With maybe around eight weeks to go the time is ticking away fast. So far, everything is looking reasonably rosy, and everyone’s motivation still appears to be high, even if we’re being distracted by other projects…
Rob
After Mike and Dave’s post last week, it’s great to see everyone’s progress on the March to War challenge going so well. Despite my decision to paint a force of Fallen, with some Relictors allies to make up the numbers, I’ve ignored the Fallen for the past week, and instead have concentrated on the Relictors, mainly working on the HQ – with the exception of the Apothecary, who I need to modify – and the bikes.
The Captain was the painted up for the video last week – How to: Paint a Relictors Captain, and I’m happy with the way he turned out. I may return to the writing on the banner in the future, as it’s letting the miniature down a little, but I’ll do that once the full points are painted up. His sword is also plain red at the moment, and like the Fallen, I’m still working on the best method for painting them the way I want them. I’ll be using his combi-weapon as a combi-melta – the Chaos Space Marine codex doesn’t have grav-guns, so I chose my preferred special weapon (barrel yet to be changed).
Totals: 97 points. 2224 points built, 164 points painted.
Pleased with how the Captain turned out, I started on the Librarian and Champion, though oddly, stopped and painted up the Chaplain instead. As a kit bash Chaplain, I’m happy with his look and the Chaos Marine helmet really looks the part. Armed with a Crozius (Power Maul) and bolt pistol, he’s pretty cheap. With the Chaos Codex, he’s playing the part of a Dark Apostle.
Totals: 76 points. 2224 points built, 240 points painted.
The Librarian was another kit bash, using parts from the Space Marine Command Squad box, the spare head from the Primaris Librarian and the back piece from the Grey Knights. His chest and loin cloth are from the Champion who’s a little further down. Oddly, when I showed Mike this mini, he sent me back a near identical mini that he’s built previous, great minds think alike, or zwei deppen, ein gedanke. With them being a suspicious bunch from the Chaos Space Marine Codex, he’s playing the part of a Sorcerer. He’s not evil of course, he just likes reading chaos tomes.
Totals: 102 points. 2224 points built, 342 points painted.
Next we have the Champion I originally built him holding the sword from the Command box, before deciding that he just looked like a normal marine champion. Not good enough, said I, and I cut the sword from the Chaos Lord from the Dark Vengeance boxed game. I had to trim a fair bit of the Chaos chap’s detail from it, as there was a plume of hair, his hand, and various bits that obscured the actual detail of the sword. I tried to cover this area with a skull from the Games Workshop box of skulls. As he’s an Exalted Champion, the sword is pretty limited, so will just be a power sword, but it looks pretty.
Totals: 74 points. 2224 points built, 416 points painted.
The Space Marine Bikers are great miniatures, but I hated painting them. I’m not sure why, but I just didn’t enjoy them at all, but, they were worth the effort, and I’m really happy with how they turned out. After painting two of them last week, I stayed up until stupid o’clock last night to finish them off, as they were ‘so’ close to being finished. They weren’t that close, which is why I appear haggard today.
Totals: 183 points. 2224 points built, 599 points painted.
As Dave mentioned last week, we’re playing some Age of Sigmar this weekend, starting a small campaign to help us learn how to play it, and to use the miniatures we’ve had for some time. Despite the force of Stormcast I have being ready to go, I’ve been building more Nurgle this week, and giving them a base/undercoat ready for a brief lick of paint the night before the battle.
All in all, I’m very happy with where I’m up to, but I’m very aware that, other than Cypher and the Fallen Champion, the rest of my March to War efforts are all infantry, which tend to be high in number and low in points. I have a deep-rooted fear that from this point on, it’s going to be a hard slog. By the end of it, I expect I’ll jib the Black Legion force that’s waiting on the shelf in favour of something a little brighter.
Adam:
Lets start out by saying I haven’t done what I set out to do. Those Night Lords haven’t been touched during the last two weeks, even though I said they’d be ‘easy points’. Ahem.
But I have been curiously focussed this week, which has led to some quite surprising results!
Having had enough of edge highlighting Space Marines (which Mike’s done a good video about here) and especially painting blue, I switched to the other major project for March to War, my Blood Axe Orks.
This generated some enthusiasm on my part, culminating in 22 models painted and a further five assembled. Yes, 22 painted models in two weeks!
The main beneficiaries of this were the Stormboys. They were a birthday present last year (January 16th, for those who want to send me gifts!) and I managed to finish all 15 just over a year from when they were assembled. Unfortunately, in December I had a go at basecoating some of them too, so I have robbed myself of all the assembly points as well as seven Stormboys’ painting points for the March. On the plus side, they are now done and I think they look pretty scary. Even more so once I get Zagstruk painted to lead them!
I kept on with the Orky theme, completing five regular Boyz and two Lootas that I had assembled earlier in the month. I managed to get a further four boys and a Loota assembled. Once these are done, the Loota unit will be complete at eight models and there will just be the Nob and two regular Boyz to complete the infantry unit and I can start my bikes and buggies.
The unpainted Boyz highlight the issue with me painting this army with any kind of speed: the amount of conversion and green-stuff work on one model is quite high.
Dave and I took a World War Two themed Ork and Guard alliance to a doubles tournament years ago, so my Boyz all have converted weaponry. Each MP-F-Orkty (yes… I’m that sad) is made if at least two pieces of different Shootas, as well as plasticard barrels and magazine. The bigger MG-42 inspired pieces for the Lootas are even more plasticard and imperial Autocannon bits.
The arms also need green-stuff sleeves adding, and collars. The remainder then need either forage caps sculpting or the sides of the helmet removing to give a more German look. This gives them a more uniformed Blood Axe feel.
With only a few models left to make, I might write this up in a few weeks as a tutorial, in case anyone else fancies this mad challenge!
To see what they look like completed, here, as they say, is one I prepared earlier:
Besides a very Ork-filled two weeks, I have also painted some buildings and some tanks for Bolt Action. Posts on these will be coming out over the next few weeks and show How to Paint Imperial Sector Buildings and how to Whitewash vehicles. These don’t count towards our challenge either, as the buildings have no points cost and the tanks are Warlord Games models. A shame, as I have painted three tanks at 234 points a model, albeit for Bolt Action!
So, one month in, my totals still remain low at present.
Totals:
Painting: 187 points
Assembly: 366 points
I am sure there are plenty of points left to be gained from the Orks, particularly as I am on a roll with their colour scheme again. I have some characters and bikes to do, which will ramp up the scores further.
If only it wasn’t Age of Sigmar gaming weekend next week, and I found all these lovely old metal models, which I have started painting instead…
At least there is 400+ points above if I can finish these! Every cloud…
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