Wednesday 24 October 2018

"Like All Of Khorne's Creatures They Are Formidable And Ferocious Warriors..."

"...Among the deadliest in the galaxy with savage ferocity and... strength far out of proportion to their body mass."
These five plastic 6mm scale Bloodletters were made by "Games Workshop" for their now long Out Of Production (OOP) tabletop wargame "Epic", and are part of a small tub of second-hand lesser daemons of Khorne I managed to stumble upon whilst picking my way through the numerous stalls at this year's "Colours" at Newbury. Originally I had hoped to paint enough of these tiny figures to use with "NetEpic Gold", but having scoured the various other 'downloadable' rule-sets available, and seen that they all require some outrageously expensive old miniatures for my Khorne Army to be 'legal', I'll probably now end up using them with a homemade rule-set; especially as I've since discovered my purchase contains a healthy mix of "Space Marine - Second Edition" and "Epic" Bloodletter figures, and ideally I'd like to field both together.

The diminutive models were all originally super-glued to a thin strip of wood, and primed using two coats of "Vallejo" Heavy Red. They were then washed using "The Army Painter" Strong Tone Quickshade and dry-brushed with (more) "Vallejo" Heavy Red. I subsequently 'picked out' their loincloths and horns with some Black and applied a layer of Heavy Sienna to their Hellblades. Lastly, I pigmented their hand-weapons using a combination of "Vallejo" Brass and "The Army Painter" Strong Tone Quickshade, finished the blades off with a delicate dry-brush of more "Vallejo" Brass, and assembled them upon a small "Flames Of War" rectangular stand by "Battlefront Miniatures".
"The Ion Age" WIP - The Adder Combat Car has been completely base-layered
Setting aside this enjoyable, if not a little eye-straining distraction, I have been busy progressing some additional miniatures from my slowly dwindling "The Ion Age" collection, most notably a second of the company's 15mm scale Adder Combat Cars. Unlike the first of these four wheeled light vehicles I've previously painted, I actually left the resin model off of its base until I'd finished painting its underbelly, and resultantly it's proved far less frustrating an experience.

In addition, I thought I might try and 'pick out' a few more of the sculpt's details than its predecessor, such as its hatch, and somewhat break-up its all-light grey monotony. However, although I've gone with another recognisable 'military colour', I'm not convinced (Russian) green is really the right colour to complement the grey, and may change it for something colder, like blue. That way, I might then later paint some more of my Muster First Patrol miniatures and their accompanying vehicles with a green and tan palette in order to replicate that of the Cadian Imperial Guard Shock Troops in "Warhammer 40,000".
"The Ion Age" WIPs - The Noble of Prydia has been primed and is starting to have his detail 'picked out'
Finally, I have started painting one of "The Ion Age" 28mm Nobles of Prydia to use as a proxy for Horus Lupercal; "the most favoured son of the Emperor of Mankind, and ultimately, the greatest Traitor in the history of Mankind." I've long fancied using this particular miniature to represent the fearsome Primarch, even though his great size when compared to the Prydian Army's 15mm knights bears little resemblance to the real ratio between the Warmaster and his early 31st Millennium space marines.

However, on the tabletop that should mean Horus will really dominate his force, and the sheer amount of wonderful detail on these larger models means I'm very willing to suspend my disbelief for the duration of a battle or two. Indeed, I plan to buy a few of these Marcher Barons in order to help populate my "Horus Heresy" themed tabletop with the various favoured sons of the Emperor of Mankind...

18 comments:

  1. Epic bloodletters are a blast from the past and look great all based up and grouped together. Very nice. I wonder if GW has plans for them in the newly revamped Adeptus Titanicus game? As a massive fan of the 40k knights I have found myself looking at the new Titans recently I must admit. The Combat Car is coming along nicely and boy you are not kidding about that "Horus" dominating! He will be huge. Interested to see how he turns out and I am sure he will look suitably evil and imposing.

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    1. Thanks very much, Undercoat. I may well use the "Space Marine - Second Edition" Bloodletters as Heralds of Khorne or somesuch, as they tower above these plastic ones. The Combat Car should be finished and posted soon, giving my Imperial Guard some additional firepower, and then I'll just have a multi-missile vehicle left from this currently uncovered batch of resin vehicles - I know I have a lot more somewhere though!! Horus will indeed be a beast, but also the central point of the Sons of Horus force I have planned :-)

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  2. As already mentioned I missed "Epic" when it came out and now regret it. SO it is especially good to see the figures again. If you have more I shall be equally pleased to see more.

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    1. Cheers Clint. They’ll certainly be plenty more “Epic” to come, as I still plan to stick to the eight stands for a horde of Bloodletters (as per “NetEpic Gold”), and have also got going on some Khorne Flesh Hounds too.

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  3. Nice job on the Bloodletters nice and dark red. The 28mm Ion Age chappy looks like a nice sculpt.

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    1. Thanks Simon. The 28mm “Ion Age” stuff is awesome, so I hope to use quite a few as Primarch or somesuch proxies :-)

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  4. They may be "Amongst the deadliest etc." but in 6mm I think they lose a bit of their reputation.
    Looking forward to another Ion vehicle,still surprised at how much detail there is on these an ofcourse that Alien is very intriguing and very detailed!

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    1. The Bloodletters are kinda cute at 6mm aren’t they, Joe :-) Lots more 15mm to come, as I try to finish up the current collection of “Ion Age” before me, and then may well turn to some “Ground Zero Games” stuff in the future...

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  5. Love the blood for the blood god boys!

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  6. Great work on the little chaps, and rather than just going green with the tanks, why not co camo?

    Love the 28mm Ion figure, but I cant work out what that is supposed to be as the crest on his helmet?

    Cheers Roger.

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    1. +1 for a camo scheme on the tank. :-)
      Whilst I have most of the range of 28mm scale Ion age figures I didn't buy this particular one because I couldn't work out why he wanted to have a model of an Imperial Destroyer from "Star Wars" on his head!

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    2. Cheers Roger, I’ve already applied some grey to the hatchway rather than green. Indeed, now that has had time to dry, I’m thinking of applying the colour as simple dark grey cameo over certain areas of the combat car which my varnish appears to have obliterated!?! Not sure what’s happened tbh, but for reason the varnish has eaten away all the “Citadel” Nuln Oil Shade on one side of the car... so its going to require some reworking any way.

      “The Ion Age” stuff is packed full of heraldry etc, and ‘Horus’ resultantly has a rather ornate crest. Hopefully, when its all shaded and dry-brushed, more of its detail will become apparent :-)

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    3. I think the crest looks rather good, Bryan, and once painted gold should certainly make the mini stand out above the rest even more so than before. The pose is excellent too, imho, so I wouldn’t let disliking the crest stop me from buying it, especially as you could always cut the crest off and either file the helmet down to something akin to the rest of the ‘beaky’ marines, or add a different one.

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  7. I think blue or even yellow might help act as a spot colour on the Car even.

    Great choice for Horus! Love the detail in that sculpt.

    So with 3 different scales you are painting for... THat's a lot of varied terrain you'll need to have together? ;)

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    1. Thanks Dai. As above I’m going to have to rework the vehicle as the varnish has completely disintegrated the shading - and subsequently that pot of “Coat d’Arms” Gloss has been binned. I think the Prydian Knight is an awesome model, very characterful and a great proxy for Horus myself. Plus I already have all the terrain I need for these games :-)

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  8. Interesting mix of scales on your workbench! Helps not getting bored, I guess.

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    1. Indeed Skully. I always like to mix up what I'm painting; albeit its only recently I've returned to both 15mm and 6mm scale models.

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