Tankageddon Painting Complete!

A couple weeks overdue, but here are a few photos of what I managed to get done for the LGT. All of the below was painted in the space of two weeks!

A few WIP (apologies for the somewhat jumbled order, it was a mad dash to paint them and the photos show that!) photos along the way along with the finished models. The new tanks all need to be weathered and the Land Raider needs some free hand love, but otherwise they are all done.

Enjoy!

Tankageddon - Painting update

A quick post for today with an update on my tank painting.

Rather ambitiously I have 5 tanks to paint before the LGT Horus Heresy on 19th and 20th May 2018. As it stands I have 10 days...

Not only do I have to paint those tanks, but also a load of infantry. Anyway one musn’t grumble, Praetorian stiff upper lip and all that, lets get it all done! Huzzah!

Here are the tanks as they currently stand. The main colour is done bar one final wash which makes them a little less yellow and gives them a nice finish. Next step will be the tracks and anything black/metal. I may have to take a view on tank markings and save that for a later date, priority will be get enough finished and then get stuck into the infantry.

Wish me luck!

First game of 30k and grenadier update

My Praetorians had their first foray into the world of 30K yesterday. A 3000pts battle against an absolutely gorgeous Ultramarine army. 

It was absolutely brilliant, the game was neck and neck from start to finish and it looked to be heading into a draw in turn 5 until the final throw of the dice, my Medusa (counts as medusa field gun as 30K militia have some differences) one shotted an otherwise untouched land raider! 

The game gave you extra points for units in the opponents deployment zone, as the dust settled there were none for either of us, both warlords were dead, and it came down to attrition with me winning on units killed! 

Here are some photos for you to enjoy. 

That’s not all for today though here is a little update on the WIP Praetorian Grenadier. Hopefully I’ll have some more hobby to show you soon as I’m currently building my new Land Raider Proteus! 

Thanks for following and having a look! Comments as always are welcome.

A blast from the past...

Where does the time go?

It still seems like only yesterday that I was updating this blog pretty regularly. Now, I realise that it’s been in excess of a year since I uploaded anything and even longer since I did anything Praetorian!

Life, as so often happens, gets in the way of being an upstanding Colonel in the Praetorian Guard.

Anyway, I’m pleased to report that as of 11:00 PST (Praetorian Standard Time) on 22 day of April in the year 2018 of out lord and saviour the Emperor, work has once again commenced on the glorious 4th Praetorian Mechanised Infantry.

I will post more and in greater detail (believe it when you see it) in the coming weeks. But for now I’ll post a few photos and let you know what is to come.

I’ve started work on the Highland Grenadiers and a few lascannon teams to bulk out a heavy weapon squad. Most interestingly of all though... these are so I can play 30K! Ive been persuaded to join the Horus Heresy Narrative campaign at the London Grand Torunament next month. It means that almost all my armour is useless, but it does give me some fun modelling options, one in particular being a... LAND RAIDER!!! What Praetorian planetary governor would want to travel in a Land Raider Proteus and pretend he is playing original rogue trader?

To get done in the next month are another 14 vanilla guardsmen (to make three units of 20 lasgun guardsmen), the 10 Highland Grenadiers, 3 lascannon teams, a Leman Russ Demolisher and then Land Raider. Should be fun!

I’ll do my best to blog as I go. Thanks for still following my blog and I hope you like what I manage to put together for you all!

Blood Bowl Dark Elves!

A belated happy new year to everyone! Been absolutely ages since my last post. Real life has spectacularly gotten in the way recently, but more than that I rediscovered a long lost love... Blood Bowl! Now I know this blog is all about my beloved Praetorians but please allow me this indulgence to share with you what I've been working on these past few months, my Dark Elf Blood Bowl team and the simply phenomenal Dragon Bowl League (DBL) that I have been participating in in London. This all came about last August when I was invited to bring my Praetorian army down to the London Warhammer Gaming Guild (google it and come along to one of the meet ups if you've never heard of it! It's an absolutely fantastic group of people and very well run) for photos to feature in the post London 40K Grand Tournament newsletters. While at the club, a few members were engaging a warm up game of Blood Bowl for the upcoming Dragon Bowl 2016 season. I couldn't help but look down that rabbit hole... I was immediately hooked and desperate to take part. First question was, what team to use. Historically when it comes to Warhammer I have always been a massive Dark Elf fan and had an army in one form or another in Warhammer, Man O War, Warmaster and of course Blood Bowl. I had the full second edition Blood Bowl team that came out (Naggaorth Nightmares) and Horton Heartripper but dont think I ever got more than a couple of games in with them way back when. Given that Druchii blood runs deep within my veins I had no choice but to resurrect a Dark Elf team to play in the DBL!

Here is a photo of the Clar Karond Cleavers, champions of the Western Wanderers conference and champions of the prestigious Magenta Fist!  This photo was taken just before they travelled to the DBL Grand Final day where they had a semi final showdown against the mighty Dwarven team MC Warhammerers.

If you want to see more of these guys please let me know! I have plenty more photos to share, and really enjoyed converting and painting these models.

Thanks for looking!      

Praetorian Blood Axe Kommandos?

Greetings everyone!

I've been hinting for sometime that I'v been working on something a little different for my army, something a little greener... well without further ado... a Blood Axe Kommando! 

Now before you call the Inquisition on me hear me out. Back when the Praetorians came out, part of the story of Big Toof river was that the badly led Imperial Guard had ignored the intelligence of their highly paid mercenary blood axe kommandos. In doing so they walked right into a trap fully believing the settlement to be lightly garrisoned. As you all know it did not end well for the Imperial Guard and led to Glazers Creek where the remnants of the 24th where holed up maintaining supply lines. 

Anyway, I've always loved the idea that the Blood Axes could be bribed to turn against their fellow greenskins. How far you trust their intelligence is another matter entirely. This inspired me to build a unit of kommandos to fight with my guard, either as proxies for something or simply as orks in bigger apocalypse style games where their sneaky skullduggery can be woven into the story.

Anyway enough guff about the fluff, let's talk models. This guy is one of Kromlech's fantastic Afrika Korp models. They have tonnes of character and with the uniforms I thought they would fit in a treat with my Praetorians.

This model was a lot of fun to paint and was also very straightforward. I actually painted him in parts, with the torso and legs glues together and then the arms and head separate. It was a pain when it came time to assemble him as I had to greenstuff the gaps on the arms, but it was worth it for ease of paint job.

The green for the skin is the GW method they demonstrate in their instructional video with an extra light highlight from me to make it that little better. The eyes are worked up to pure yellow in the centre too to give them a little extra interest.

The white webbing is the same as my regular guardsmen as is the uniform colour. I've changed the shorts to grey to add an extra colour or else I though it would end up far to mono colour. The gun itself is just plain silver as I was at a loss what to do with it!

Here we see the ork next to some of the Life Guards for a comparison of size and to see how the colours go together

This ork is pretty massive in comparison to the guardsman, just as it should be. I know orks are meant to be on the same size bases but I fancied they would look better on the new Space Marine bases and I think I prefer them on the bigger size.

Here we see the ork staring down the barrel of a Life Guard's flamethrower. You will see the vein on the ork arm which is painted with a slight blue hue

So there you have it, the first of a unit of 10 sneaky Blood Axes to add to the Praetorian IV.

I'd really love some feedback on this guy before I paint the best. In particular the following - the weapon, can I leave it just metal? I it needs another colour, what? What do you think of the skin, does it need to be darkeror different in another way? Does the model need more colour? 

Any feedback whatsoever would be greatly appreciated! 

Cheers!