Iron Skull Best in Show

Happy bank holiday everyone!

Apologies for another interruption before more on the Praetorian v Bad Moon 5k battle report, we will get back to that soon, we have some more urgent news to get to today. This weekend I attended the inaugural 40k London GT and Iron Skull painting competition run by Siege Studios.

Tournament-wise I did pretty well and finished as the best Guard general with 4 victories and a loss. I played some fantastic games against some great opponents.

The real success for me was in the painting competition. I managed to come away with 1st place in Sci-Fi single miniature, Sci Fi Squad and Fantasy miniature, 2nd place in Sci-Fi vehicle/monster and even walked away with the Best in Show!

And to cap it all off the great guys at Siege Studios even took some proper photos of my models so you get a break from the rubbish I usually post. Lets take a look.

Above we have my winning 40k Squad which also walked away with best in show (and a cash prize!). Sadly Colonel Winterborne and the real command squad were busy on deployment in the best army nominations so this cobbled together rag tag bunch of officers were thrust into the competition!

The whole army even managed to win Best Army. Never have I been more proud of these fine men of Praetoria!

Next up the Macharius Vanquisher. It finished second behind a Tau mega-super-massive-suit (no idea what its really called) which was beautifully painted. The judge said it was a damn close run thing and picked me up on me not weathering my freehand panels very much. Solid feedback and one which will be taken into consideration when I come to add some extra weathering and tank stowage to this behemoth.

Next up the might Nork. While his brother ogryns were smashing face on the gaming table he was engaged in some part time modelling work and walked away with 1st place in the Sci-Fi single miniature category.  The judge was particularly complimentary of the flesh on this guy, noting the seamless blending and smooth transition. I think this is really one of my best painted models. I'm definitely going to pick up some more bullgryns/ogryns soon as I love the models and really enjoy painting them.

Finally a rare treat for those of you who also like Warhammer Fantasy! A Bretonnian Knight painted by me all of 15/16 years ago! Covered in countless hand painted flur de lys and a direct copy of the original 'eavy metal paint job. Years back in entered him into Golden Demon in the young bloods category and was a finalist. I didn't place in the top 3 (I was robbed!), the reason given by some of the GW staff that I knew was that the judges had concerns that I hadn't actually painted it...

It was a brilliant weekend, a big thank you to all the organisers of the London 40K GT, Siege Studios, my great opponents and those who voted for my army in the main competition.

I was definitely getting a nudge to enter more painting competitions and Golden Demon next time round... Thoughts?

Sworn to protect...

A few more photos of Nork and the colonels command squad which he will join.

After viewing him with the unit and taking into consideration the feedback on previous posts I made a few changes. I altered the colour on the helmet band to match the command HQ and also added some extra freehand which you will see in the following photos.

As all the human members of the command HQ wear red sashes I thought Nork needed an Ogryn equivalent. But lets be honest, I don't think a sash would last long. As a result I decided to paint a red stripe on the armour as an ogryn compromise which also allows him to keep up to speed with Praetorian uniform regulations.

The green, blue and purple are all details colours that you will see throughout the army. 

Perhaps its not apparant from the photos but I applied more red shading to the scar but I think it's been lost a bit in the photo light.

All in all I'm rather pleased how he turned out! When I next play a game of 40k I will most definitely be taking him, which may well mean putting the Colonel in harms way... theres no point taking him if he can't bash something! 

Right, on to the next thing to paint... perhaps it's time to paint the Wyvern...

Heroes of the Praetorian IV Mechanised Infantry - Gallery photos part 1

Keeping up this new found regularity of posts here are some of the promised updated gallery photos of the army!

Starting with some of the heroes of the glorious Praetorian IV Mechanised Infantry.



First up we have some very old and some very new favourites within the army. Starting from the left we have the Praetorian Hunting Ridgeback of Colonel Winterborne. It's the cyberdog that accompanies the enforcer and was a forge world event only model from a few years back.

In the middle we have the senior liaison officer with the Mechanicus, Vitus Theron. This is the old metal Cadian Colonel who featured on a golden demon entry over 10 years ago. Over the years he has proxied for many a different officer or advisor.

Finally on the right we have one of the Colonel's bodyguards, Chuxo, from one of the native nomadic tribes of Praetoria Secondus.



Here we have Colonel Winterborne and the Regimental Command. On the left we have the medic, standard bearer with the regimental banner depicting the slaying of the Ork Warboss Raguk during the second war for Armageddon. To the right we have comms adjunct and a veteran guardsman. Finally in the middle we have Colonel Animus Winterborne.

The squad were converted from the DKOK command squad using Victoria Lamb and Curious Construct heads and with plenty of green stuff on collars, aquila on helmets and the epaulettes. Additionally the banner is an old blood angel assault marine banner with the original Praetorian top and a copper rod for the pole.



Another very old miniature, veteran sergeant Castor Varren who is a plastic Cadian and greenstuff conversion I made over 10 years ago. He had proxied for the old sergeant Bastonne, master of ordinance and even a commissar!



Another of my historical relics! If I remember correctly the preacher was painted up (once again over 10 years ago) to form part of an inquisitorial war band. The inquisitor and most of the group were sold on eBay, however the preacher became attached to Praetorian IV.



While not individual characters the Praetorian Chosen men are certainly heroes of the regiment. Wearing the green piping and white tipped feather awarded to marksmen and the Chosen men are some of the best shots within the Praetorian regiments.

They are converted from a mix of Victoria Lamb miniatures and the plastic Cadians. There is green stuff work on the hats and cuffs. There are still two of these guys to finish painting to bring the squad up to 5. They've stood in as ratlings before in the absence of viable human snipers. Although I've yet to play a game of 7th or with the new codex, I imagine they will be ratings once more.

This concludes part 1 of the Heroes of the regiment, I hope I've managed to finally produce some better quality photos that show my painting in a better light!

Any comments always welcome, stay tuned for the next post with the tech priest, captain caine and much more...

100 posts - A Praetorian Review

Welcome everyone to the 100th post on the blog!

To celebrate my first ever blogging milestone I'm going to have a slightly different take on my usual posts. This post will attempt to review the last 10 months of blogging, showcasing some of the highlights, and having a look a look at where this army has come from and where it might be going in the future. As usual expect plenty of photos and plenty of pithy commentary and analysis!

There will be links to aforementioned posts throughout this post, be sure to check out the early ones if you are new to the blog, or if you want to see a load of work in progress, the army has come on leaps and bounds!

In the beginning...
The first post on this blog was 11/11/11 and was the aptly titled New Dawn which marked my return to the hobby after a 7 year absence! It was my stumbling upon Col. Gravis' blog and the subsequent posting of my old army on his blog that really got me started again.



Here we have the tanks that I painted before my sabbatical, devoid of weathering, proper unit marking, freehand and much more, A sorry sight...



Some miniatures do however remain the same, in particular this command section is still largely the same, though some notable models are missing.



One of the first projects on my list when I restarted the army was some new cavalry. It just so happened that it happened to be Cavember! A project started by Col. Ackland and Col Gravis and coinciding with Gravis' original cavalry sculpts I got to work making some new Rough Riders of my own in my second post entitled The whole world has gone cavalry mad

I also got started on a new Command HQ and got to work, with the help of Victoria Lamb, on finally making some Praetorian Highland Veterans! A long held hobbying dream.





It was a busy November and even Col. Winterborne himself made an early appearance. The total for November which was only my first (not even a I started 11th!) month blogging had a grand total of 11 posts! Decemember would then proceed to beat that with a mighty 15!



My Rough Riders were finished, I started planning the banner for my Command HQ and I got to work on updating some of tired looking tanks with lots of shiny freehand! Not a lot got finished in December but a lot of converting and modelling was done to bring the HQ and Highlanders up to speed and ready for painting. This month also say my first ever battle report and victory for the army!



The new year saw another great surge of hobby activity and recorded a blogging high of 18 posts in January! How on Earth did I find the time... There were battle reports against Eldar and Chaos, and the Command HQ was finished along with a fair few tanks weathered and updated.







It was sure a busy month as my work station testified but rather alarmingly there are some models I was working on that I still haven't found time to paint!







These guys really need to get done, even to this day I haven't finished the modelling side of them and need to get the green stuff out!



February saw me paint my first new tank from scratch and you got to say how I do it from start to finish with the Salamander Command Vehicle (I love this tank, I really must get a few more for the army...)



February also saw the 4th lose against a beautiful Dark Eldar army, me manage to get a whole heap of tanks finished and also the very first storm trooper using the DKOK grenadier models.









Somehow March seemed to fly right past and it wasn't unitl April that my next posts registered. Nonetheless I focused on two units... A new Lord Commissar started to raise his head and the Highland Vets finally neared completion...








May. Oh May, what a month, a mammoth of a hobbying month. I played in a South coast tournament and was off to the BadabWar Part 2 Campaign weekend at Warhammer World at the end of the month and it spurred me on to tremendous hobbying feats! I finished no less than a deathstrike, a bane wolf, a chimera, storm troopers, leman russ executioner, 20 man blob, commissar lord and the highland vets!


















The army as it stood before the painting and modelling frenzy...



I even invested in making some explosion markers for when my vehicles got hit.



A bloody encounter with the ork menace at Triple Helix in Westbury.













The boys did me proud at Warhammer world and I managed to scoop not only the best badab hero for my commissar but also best army and a I finished on the winning side of the campaign! Three cheers for Praetoria!











Hobbying sadly seems to come in peaks and troughs and after May the frequency of my blogging has declined somewhat, not through disinterest or lack of passion but unfortunately due to the pressures of the dreaded real life! That hasn't stopped me (hopefully) producing some quality posts but it has meant they have been fewer and farther between.

Being up at Warhammer World for the Badab War made me get my wallet out and a few goodies from forge world were swiftly mine, a bombard, hydra and most significantly a Macharius Vanquisher! While to this day the two smaller tanks remain in a state of undercoat the month of June saw the Vanquisher finished (minus the crew who came later) and there were plenty of posts about what I consider to be the best looking tank GW or FW have ever produced.







I absolutely love this tank, I really must get a squadron of them...



I spent almost the entirety of July away and consequently got no modelling or painting done whatsoever, I did however take part in a rather epic apocalypse game of 40k - The Siege of Magnus Hive (the battle report for which has been in my to do list for some time, hopefully soon it will be ready!)

But here are a few sneak peak photos...

More of those to come in the future along with a full report...

August, September and October have only yielded a handful of posts but I have still managed to make a few new additions to the army. Notably the tank commander for the Macharius and a Psyker to make the most of their new rules in 6th.

And that walk down memory lane brings us just about to the present day and the present state of the army (more or less with the addition of Macharius tank crew and Aegis defence line).

It has been a thoroughly enjoyable 100 posts of blogging and I hope you have all enjoyed it too. Here are a few statistics about the blog. 

Here we have the top 5 posts of all time, by individual page views - 

1 Black Dragon Space Marine Army (not even a Praetorian post!!!)

2 Praetorian storm troopers and highland guard update

3 Photos of Praetorian Lancers

4 Praetorian Storm Troopers Gallery Post 

5 Finished Rough Riders Photos

So quite a surprise there, but the most popular post doesn't even feature any Praetorians! I'll have to see what I can do to rectify that in the next 100 posts...

So what next for the army. There is plenty that needs to be converted and painted on the to do list - Hydra, Bombard, AT heavy weapons teams, a dog, tech priest and servitors, 2nd platoon. On top of that I really want to get a thunderbolt and a Baneblade and chimeras for everyone that is stuck walking at the moment. I've already filled a massive KR multicase with this army and I think I might need to get another... Not a good army for space economy! 

Right that is quite enough of what has been an utterly mammoth post. I hope you have all enjoyed it. To finish I would like to say a massive thank you to everyone that follows my blog, comments on my posts and posts equally brilliant stuff on their own blogs. In particular I'd like to thank the Praetorian community who are always inspirational!

Here is to the next 100 posts!