Thinking Ahead... UPDATED!

I had planned to play Mechanized Guard in the 40K Championships at Adepticon 08. I didn't get the army to a point that I felt was complete enough to field so I used my Angels of Absolution instead. So here we are, Chicago Games Day is coming up in July, and I really should start figuring out now what army I'm going to bring.

The Angels of Absolution have been fielded in every tournament I've ever been to in all my years of gaming, with the exception of the Team Tournament at Adepticon which has always seen 1000 points of my Imperial Guard.

My Orks really would be my first choice, but I paint insanely slow and there is no way I would be able to complete them in time - maybe they could make it to the Chicago Grand Tournament in the Fall, but definitely not GD in July.

So that leaves the Imperial Guard I was trying to have ready for the Championships. I'd have some set backs from what I've accomplished. I was painting all Autocannon and Twin Linked Heavy Bolter turrets, and I'd want to replace the Autocannon turrets with Multi-laser Turrets, and I would have to radically alter my Heavy Support choices as I was taking all Forge World vehicles, and though my Manticore can quite reasonably "count as" a Basilisk, the 2 Thunderers would really only be able to "count as" Demolishers - and those frankly eat up way too many points.

I'd be down but not out. I should have plenty of time to finish what I have left to assemble and paint.

Another bit of thinking ahead...

All signs seem to indicate that in July when 5th Edition comes out that S5 weapons will shift from defensive to primary. This means all 6 of my Chimeras will no longer be able to shoot both weapons on the move. The often ignored Pintle Mounted Heavy Stubber at its rather burly 12 points was never that attractive to me before but seem to gain a whole lot of usefulness in 5th Edition. I think I'll be modeling some removable hatches with Pintle Mounts and trying them out. July is just around the corner!

Update: I realize that anyone reading the blog who isn't part of my gaming group probably had no insight into what my models look like or how I work. I paint very slowly, but I've speed up considerably in the last year. I cut corners I never would have before. Here's a collection of tank sections that were being prepared for Adepticon. This is effectively a portion of 2 months worth of work. Each of these stage by stage shots is actually a separate vehicle in a different stage of production.

I find that when I work on a large model I often lose interest before I complete it. Instead I like to work in manageable bites. For these Chimeras I clipped and cleaned the parts that I needed and painted them all individually. My work area currently looks like this:

Each of the above bits was cleaned, primed white, hit with a coat of Blood Red Spray, and then given a 2-3 watered down coats of Blood Red to "de-orange-ify" the tone of the spray and make it so that the model takes inks more easily. (Note: I am not an "airbrush guy" but for what I use Blood Red and Bleached Bone sprays for, I simply cannot wait for the Hand Flamer Sprayer. It will speed up the above process and that's something to be stoked about!)

The above photo I titled "The Five Stages of Redemption." Side armour #1 is basecoated Blood Red as described above. #2 You can faintly see has a Blazing Orange highlight on all off the edges and rivets. #3 depicts the Fiery Orange highlight which only goes on side and upper edges, as well as on the rivets. On #4 I have gone back and carefully hit each rivet and plate separation with watered down brown ink. Finally, #4 I've gone back with Fiery Orange and cleaned up any highlights that got muddied up by the inking and hit each of the rivets another 1-2 times with Fiery Orange (the ink usually really darkens these).

Once I have enough sections fully highlighted to assemble the center of the vehicle, I assemble it. I "glass" the viewport at the front at this point, when its easy to hold the model and not get fingerprints on the paint because I can hold the bare plastic sides.

The outer side is placed on now. As you can see, I don't bother priming the spacing wheels. I only note it because my Adepticon Team Mate, Mike Nogle, said to me, "Oh, you don't prime those?" I think he figured I was so anal that I would.

Here I've added the top section, tracks, and the Heavy Bolter. I was on another blog and they were going over their technique for tracks and they pushed them all down really flush with the spacing wheels and meticulously cut one of the "1" Tracks down to half the size. I actually did this on one or two of the vehicles I worked on, but I recently tried just going with a "loose fit". I didn't shove anything down tight, I just rested them on the wheels and found that it was possible to get the tracks to fit without any trimming of bits by merely letting the tracks "float" more. The tanks will sometimes rock a little because the tracks balloon out a little but they look more natural. Next time I do tracks I'll try and step by step it.

Lasguns are painted separately and then added. As you can see all of the viewports are glassed with the standard "gem" effect. I could go back and wash or 'Ard Coat them for additional effect, but the truth is, this army is never going to win any awards anyway, its just to a high gaming standard and I have to keep that in mind.

Next side armour with tactical markings is added, as well as the side hatch. At this moment this vehicle belongs to the 5th Armoured Fist Company and is the 1st vehicle of the 1st platoon, though part of me is considering it being the 7th vehicle and putting the company number elsewhere. We'll see how I feel when I detail those other side armour pieces above.