A 30k Break - A Few More Space Wolves...

Some VI Legion reinforcements as seen by the dim light of my cabin...

Since last December I have been surprisingly focused in terms of painting projects over the past year. I mean, like, relatively - I still have all sorts of different projects and half-started projects piled all over the place, but since I started on a 28mm Franco-Prussian War project back in the fall of 2017, and have been pretty much focused on painting figures for that period - some pretty good progress. During Curt's annual Painting Challenge there were short diversions into 15mm Cold War Gone Hot).  With a small exception this past May, my painting queue has lacked a favourite area of interest - 30k stuff!

Officer sporting a silly "Thunder Hammer" for smashing recalcitrant citizens of Prospero - and anything else that gets in the way...

My painting pace has been pretty slow this summer - finishing a unit of Prussian Dragoons in July, and not much else - but I have been really missing painting 30k stuff, none of which I had the foresight to bring to my cabin for painting.  Turns out there is an excellent little hobby store here in Sault Ste Marie, and they had some figures and...well, you know, have to support the local store, right? So I picked up some more plastic Legion Space Marines!

A lot of detail on the back packs and chain swords was lost thanks to the f**king matte varnish, but I managed to get most of the important detail back by reapplying the recess wash of good ol' Agrax Earthshade

What Legion to paint them? I had no decals with me, and no reasonable sources to get them, so the only real options (if I wanted to complete the figures) were the ones in the box. As the box was plastic Mark III Legion Marines, that meant either Space Wolves or Thousand Sons. Given that I only have 10 Space Wolves (from the Burning of Prospero Box), I thought I would go with some reinforcements the rowdy, nutty gang from the VI Legion. 

After more than a year, it was fun to paint up some Mark III Legion Space Marines again! I find painting great figures is like connecting with old friends, and after the first couple models I was quickly back in the groove, cranking out another 10-man veteran squad for the VI Legion. I applied the decals, and as a final step, applied a matte varnish...

This photo shows some of the "frosting" damage from the f**king matte varnish - the decal has almost disappeared...and this figure wasn't even one of the worst ones...

...and F**K! They frosted up terribly, the worst I had encountered in a while.  I had done everything - made sure it was not humid, tested on something, then on just one figure, and both tests worked fine. So I sprayed the bunch and....F**K! Just F**K! This seems to happen to me once every summer. F**K. 

I considered chucking the lot of them in the bin, it was so bad, but I thought of my good friend Dallas and how he brings almost any damaged or wounded plastic figure back from the brink.  With this as inspiration, I set about doing repair/re-painting.

Is there a drawback to the plastic Mark III marine kits? Maybe that it only comes with one heavy weapon option - the heavy bolter.  Having said that, I do love the look of the thing...

It look a lot of re-work to make the figures manageable.  I had to free-hand the "wolf" logo on the shoulder pauldrons (which was possible only because the frosted decal underneath was a useful guide); nearly all of the shoulder plates were re-painted, and many back packs, bolters and chainswords were re-done. The recess wash was re-applied in many cases.  Pretty much the entire top half of the Sergeant was re-painted. While there is still a lot of lost detail and colour (particularly the chain sword grips and the silver/gunmetal on the bolters), the figures were back to a serviceable condition for the table, and decided to call them finished and move on.

Bring on the 30k mayhem!

The photos are, of course, not top-shelf, as the lighting in my cabin isn't really ideal (or even "good") for photography of miniatures, but thankfully the relatively dark photos help to cover up the damage done from the "frosting". 

No doubt the previous squad of Space Wolves in my collection will be glad to see their available forces increase by nearly 100%! Hopefully this group will see some Prospero-themed hijinks on the Fawcett Avenue gaming tables this fall. Will I suddenly expand this force further? Who knows? The Space Wolves have never been favourites of mine, but Dan Abnett has brought be around, and grey does look sharp on that Horus Heresy armour and kit...and further 30k distractions loom - particularly with the release of the new "Adeptus Titanicus" game...my copy of the game is waiting back in Winnipeg - I hope to have some Titans on this site before Thanksgiving, if not sooner!