Rider of the Desert Wind

I am on fire it would seam. A lot of models get painted and I am keeping up with the posting. Now I have finished my first Rider of the Desert Wind. I used the sergeant from the Dark Vengeance set, it is not an optimal model since it is a "one peace" model, and I have just gotten around to paint my models in smaller parts before assembly, but I think it turned out nice and I will surely add more bikes to the Desert Eagles. The colours are not as smooth as I could have gotten them if I could have painted the rider separately from the bike. I will have to get some of the new Dark Angels bikes so that I can get a champion, medic and a banner man for these guys. I also have some old bikes and attack bikes that where meant for my old Dark Angels army which might get relocated to the Desert Eagles. We will see, I currently have a lot of ideas for models for the Desert Eagles and I have not finished my Knights and Myrmidons yet. I might have to to into hard negotiations with my self over this...

No saving this one!

Some times there just is no saving  a model, no amount of painting will make it a great model. This one is a land speeder that I got in the starter set way back when the new plastic marines and land speeder got introduced. I did not like the new speeder compared to the "old new" one. The old new one was a clear improvement over the glorified jumpack suicide speeder of the rouge trader days but it was still like a jet bike rather then a small aircraft. Well any way, I did not like the shoe, and I am not sure that I do now either. But back in the day I did try to spice things up a bit by rearranging some parts and building a new front. Not my best conversion work, and so I also thought at the time, since it ended up in a bits box...    over the years it lost some pieces and got warped but I still keept it around as a potential. Now that I am contemplating including some "Desert Wind" riders in my Desert Eagles army I wanted to try it out and see what they might look like, but no amount of painting can save this model so I did a quick paint job on it and I think I will leave it at that. It will go into the back ranks at the bottom of the cabinet and I will by new speeders if I need some. Still might to some conversion work on them though.

Desert Eagles Command squad

Now I have painted up the Desert Eagles Command squad using my new colour scheme and the Death Wing terminators. I really like how the turned out. I think I might get more of the Da models in the future to add to this army. I am also looking at the sanguinary guards for some nice jump troops to go with the angelic theme. I will also have to make my self a commander in terminator armour to go with command squad.

Fluff wise the terminators belongs to the Eagles Claw, the elite strike team of the Desert Eagels, much alike to the Dark angels death wing (will be played as DW with the DA codex.

The models might not be exactly true to the codex entry with the equipment. I did mostly put them together to look good. Especially the banner man, I can accept the back banners for individuals but the army standard should be carried in your hands so that it can be taken over by some else if you fall.

I do have some more ideas of what to include in the army in the future but we will see when that happens, there are currently so many nice models out there that I would like to paint, but at the same time I already have quite a lot of models already to paint.

Well, the next thing will be to finish the last of my fallen DA termis so that that squad also will be done.

What have I been doing?

Once more it has been all to long since my last update, so what have I been up to? Well several things as it turns out. Before the launch of the Dark Angels codex I was happily painting away on my Dark Vengeance models, painting them up in a nice Fallen/pre Heresy black. But as I mentioned in my last post it was a bit depressing having to was my nice grey shading with black and lose most of the work. After trying out my Desert Eagles scheme on the DW terminator set I decided that I would include some DA models in my Dessert Eagles army as it already contains models from some different sources. So I have been painting some of them. But at the same time as I got these my Christmas present from my wife showed up in a bit late delivery from GW, so I had a Hell Drake to assemble and prepp. Now, I do like the model but it is to much of a fantasy dragon and the pose it not very dynamic, so I started to re-arrange the parts. I moved some of the smaller wings to make a tail, which I think makes it look more like a bird. I also exchanged the head for the one left over from my Forge Mauler Fiend. This gives it more of a fell best from lord of the rings look, and keeps it tied in with the wh40k theme better. I will also go with the curved body, extending one side of the wings upward and one side downward and also extending the rear claws downward so that I get the pose of a hunting bird of prey, coming around in a tight bend to strike its target. As this is a present from my wife I will take my time with it to make it as good as possible.

So as this was not enough I also had some DV models started, DW termis and some milita and a chaos model that I needed to finish of.
Then I could not help my self, I have long been planing what to do with my Bastions that I got along with my Knight project. Together with a GW imperial sector kit they will be forget into a space marine chapter hose. This is a fortified cathedral erected where a space marine chapter force is deployed for a longer stay. It consists of a pre fabricated plast steel bunker in four stories, three underground and one above. Atop the bunker are stratagemium chambers and a gathering hall. It will also eventually boost two soaring towers topped with mighty space marine statues. The whole building is currently broken down into manageable blocks for painting so it looks a bit ramshackle. Lastly I found an old Land speeder that I had started about the same time that I started the Desert Eagles marines which must be some 10 years ago o so. Since I think about including some RW models in the army I also started painting this model.
Then  I also have worked on the Knight project, where I turned the last Knight in to heavy support as I did not want to make another light version.

All in all I have had a bit to many projects and models running, I am now trying to finish of what I have started and go back to have one minor model to paint along side the larger projects and try to not start any more massive painting jobs.

I have added some pictures taken in the cabinets and from my work space. Some of them has bad lighting but it will have to do for now. Enjoy until next time.

Dark Angel or Desert Eagle

When the new Dark Angels models hit the stores I knew that I had to paint some of them. I love the terminators in robes, But what color to paint? I am currently painting my dark Vengeance models as pre heresy DA. I also have a quite substantial green DA army from way back. Adding these new models to the old ones together with my painting evolution would look strange. So a pre heresy army was sounding more and more interesting, but painting black is so depressing. one has to shade the model beautifully from black to a light grey, and then just wash it with black, leaving only the memory of the work you just did. And then it is also a question about al the support models, troops, tanks etc...  But then I started thinking that the models might fit in to my Desert Eagles  These are painted in a color that shades well, and the them with robes might fit in nice with the desert theme. So i bought some DA termis, assembled one and started painting. i think it turned out well. So I will add some more DAs to my DEs. If I would play the DEs I could use the DA codex, the DW would be the Eagles Claw and the RW would be the Desert Wind, and they would all join up with the rank and file I already have with accompanying armor. Since that army already is a jumbel of different models, both loyal and heretics, new and old, I dont think it will look strange with the new models and some updated painting.

So what do you think, does it work?

Myrmidon assault walker

The Myrmidon Assault Walker is an AA and anti infantry war walker employed by the mechanicum to give close support to skitarii troopers and Titans. In my case it has a battle cannon with co-mounted auto cannons and two quad gun emplacements. This model has taken some time to finish, first it was a long build where I could not decide on the amount of green stuff work to do. Then there has been the dark vengeance troops that has occupied me. I am pleased with how it turned out, especially around the head, which was a big question mark in the beginning. I had some thoughts of building a vulcan mega bolter to put there but in the end I decided to take the easy way and just use the parts in the kit. Now I just have to finish the second one and paint it up.

DW sergeant

A quick update. I have painted the DW sergeant from the Dark Vengeance box. I did some re-positioning of the wings on the back, but otherwise it is the standard model. I have say that I am impressed by the quality and detail of these models. As before I painted it in the pre-heresy colors. I really like the look. I am quite tempted to by some of the new DA models and paint them in pre-colors. We will se, still have loads of models to paint. I also tried some new way of painting the power sword, I am not quite happy with how it turned out. I like realism in the models but this is a bit cartoonish. Will see if it gets a re-paint later on.