Here Comes the Cavalry.

Here's the completed Wind Rider squadron, including 4 Guardian Jetbikes with Twin-linked Catapults, 2 Guardian Jetbikes with Shuriken Cannon, and a Warlock with Singing Spear (and Embolden).

After whining that the Warlock on bike would be so hard to model, it was actually pretty straightforward.   I started with this model and then cut it off at the waist, cut off his right arm, and cut his left arm at the shoulder.  I replaced his legs and right arm with the Jetbike Guardian versions, and repositioned his left arm so that the spear pointed forward.

The lower robes were not a problem at all, as I cut all that off anyway. The most difficult part was the right arm. The Guardian arm was too flimsy - without a robed arm the model looks asymmetrical. So I had to make a sleeve out of greenstuff. I think I did a fair job, but nothing that would pass close inspection. He won't win any awards, but he's WYSIWYG, which is important when you tell your opponent that you're putting a Strength 9 shot up the exhaust pipes of his Leman Russ.

Tactically, I worry that this squadron is too large to hide in cover, and even Turbo-boost and Embolden (which allows the unit to re-roll failed morale tests) may not be enough to keep them around. But I can break them down into two smaller squadrons if I need to. They're a finesse unit, and I'm sure they'll end up getting wiped out a few times before I figure out how to use them.

Next up: more Fire Dragons.

Lining up a shot.

Already a veteran of two battles, my Fire Prism finally saw a paintbrush this week. Here's to hoping that a fully-painted tank has more luck in the field.
 

I originally considered a completely different color scheme, but after agonizing a bit, I stuck with the camo-like scheme used on the Wave Serpents and the War Walker. With three different Aspect Warriors in my force, the craftworld colors already felt a bit compromised. Painting the Prism a different color might have given me a confused-looking army. Instead I reversed the turret scheme to tan with green, and painted a few extra pieces (the vectored engines and the tabs around the intakes) tan, giving it a slightly lighter effect.

I was going to leave the barrel crystals transparent (as shown in the official shot here), but the glue frosted the interior of the large, two-part crystal in an ugly way, and I was forced to paint them. I'm happy with how it turned out, tho - the deep red makes a better contrast with the rest of the model, and the highlighting (ironically) makes them look more crystalline, in my opinion.

Zain60 disagrees with me, but I think the new Fire Prism model is an improvement over the old. The long, slender Prism Cannon is menacing but elegant, compared with the clunky, stubby crystal of the old model. And the vectored engines (the "floating" tan panels on the rear corners of the hull) give the tank more weight, as befits anything carrying such a massive gun.

Next up: Necronoob and Synack were each generous enough to give me a War Walker for my birthday, so two more Scatter Laser Walkers are next in the queue. With that done, I would actually be able to field the army I used against Zain60, without the egregious proxies!

Power of the Machine Spirit

I finally realize why, other than procrastination, it takes so long for me to get my army together. I can't let something go unpainted. And throwing a smidge of Boltgun Metal on it and gluing it in place just won't cut it. Nooo...You're covering all those details, and at the end of time C'thulhu will know you didn't paint the eagle on your tactical Marine breast plates.

The Power of the Machine Spirit needs a proper home, something the Emperor would even be proud of. Until we can get that, he'll have to settle for the best my meager painting skills can muster. I hope that a little extra attention to detail will lead to a little extra carnage on the battlefield.

Depending on how long it takes to get the rest ready for assembly, maybe I can work up some lighting on the inside.

Fire the man at GW that names colors.

They're brighter than I was aiming for - it never occurred to me that Striking Scorpion Green would not be the base coat for Striking Scorpions. Snot Green is somehow the proper color - SS Green is the highlight. 

 

At any rate, I rescued them through the liberal use of Thraka Green wash. They're still brighter than the typical Scorpions, but that works for me - my Craftworld color is olive green, so this helps them stand out from the plebian Guardians.

Base coating and highlighting in one step

As anyone with small children knows... there is no time for modeling. Faster is better. So I come up with ways to speed up the painting process yet still (hopefully) achieve a good result. Otherwise I'd never get any models done.

This trick works for more 'organic' models. I don't mean models grown without pesticides, rather Tyranids or models without a lot of hard armor lines. I've never tried it on Space Marines and I'm not sure it would work with power armor.

First, prime with a light color - white or a light grey work best for me. See Lictor ----->

Next, take a dark color paint you would use as a base coat prior to highlighting with a lighter shade of the same color and water it down greatly. You could use a watered down ink if you want.

I highly recommend you use an acrylic paint flow release as well. This will help the paint get down into all the tiny details in the model. You can purchase flow release in many craft stores OR I have heard of people using dish soap. Proceed with caution on that one though... I've never tried it.

Finally, slather the whole model in this ink. Don't take too long, just make sure you get the whole thing. If you spend more than 2 or 3 minutes on the operation you are probably missing the point of this process. Speed! When I attack gaunts with this method I probably don't spend more than 30 seconds per gaunt.

The paint will pool in the recesses and lightly coat the high points, creating a nicely highlighted model. If you'd like a darker overall look, wait for the model to dry and repeat the wash. You can mass-coat gaunts very quickly with this technique yet it looks good on bigger models as well.

In this second picture you can see an almost-finished lictor with 2 coats of a purple wash.