Another Command Flunky for 30k - Loyalist Overseer Consul

Loyalist Overseer Consul - ready to provide all manner of "encouragement"...

Some more painting to share - here is a "Loyalist Overseer Consul", the latest in a lengthening line of assorted command-level flunkies to be found among the Space Marine Legions of GW's "Age of Darkness", a.k.a the Horus Heresy. This is a 28mm multi-part resin-plastic figure from GW, and he is painted in the colours of the VII Legion Astartes, the Imperial Fists.

View of the shoulder bling.

Not so fancy from the back...

The "Overseer Consul" is intended to be a senior figure commanding/inspiring the throngs of Auxilia and Militia called to arms in order to aid the defence of The Emperor's domains in the face of The Warmaster's betrayal. A great many of these soldiers volunteered to serve, but we expect that a much greater number of these were simply pressed into service. We can imagine the "direct touch" the Imperium would apply when it comes to matters of military conscription.

Fancy helmet and associated decorations? Why of course!

At any rate, these lesser soldiers might need a bit of help when attempting to face down an assault by traitor Space Marines. That "help" might come in many forms...inspiration? Encouragement? A pretty clear and concise explanation of what will happen if they fall back? Some combination of all three perhaps? This fellow appears well-equipped to apply any of these means of "persuasion" - the ornate armour, the comb on the helmet, the tabard and back banner, the Crozius-style baton, the plasma pistol, and, of course a couple of skulls to top the whole thing off...

Feel the oversight!

Whether this fellow serves as an "Overseer" or just as some other brand of officer or consul, I like the look. I am a sucker for the Mark VI "beakie" style armour, after all, so I really wanted to get one of these chaps into my collection. While I have not yet had the opportunity to try out version 3.0 of the Age of Darkness rules, it does seem like the newer force-selection rules call for a larger number of officer/character type figures, so this guy will help where that is concerned. 

Some New Plastic MkII Marines From The VII Legion Astartes

"Careful with those rifles now!" Imperial Fist veterans sporting "disintegrator" weapons. 

Earlier this summer GW dropped a new edition of its Horus Heresy rules - the "Saturnine" edition. When GW rolls out a new edition for any of its mainline games, new figures are, of course, a big part of the marketing appeal to players. Horus Heresy 3.0 was no exception in this regard, with many fans of the setting zooming in on the new Saturnine Terminator armour (and the associated hilarious retcon). For my part, I was much more intrigued by the new multipart "regular" Space Marines sporting Mk II power armour. You get 40 of these guys in the new boxed set, so I thought I would start off with a 10-man squad as part of this summer's painting. This is a veteran tactical squad in the colours of the VII Legion Astartes, the Imperial Fists. 

Helmet with comb? Check. Big sword? Check. Scrolls and grenades? Well OF COURSE. 

The Horus Heresy setting is, of course, far in the (terrible) future. But at the same time, it's also "old", in that it occurs some 10,000 years prior to the 40k setting. One of the "oldest" bits of that "old" setting is the Mk II power armour, worn by the Legiones Astartes as they set off on The Emperor's so-called "Great Crusade" to sort out the Galaxy. All of us who enjoy the setting have our favorites when it comes to the different Space Marine armour variants, but those who opted for Mk II models tended to be going for a particular "old school" look for their force, and for years and years they have had to use Forge World resin (or that of, er, "competing suppliers") to do it. 

Vexillary on the left, regular veteran on the right. 

No longer. The Mk II is now available in multipart plastic glory, and I have to say, they sculptors really nailed it. There are few features I might quibble over...for example, the "belt buckle" style joint on the front now has a stupid skull in the place of the previous Imperial Eagle...but overall, these figures are excellent. The proportions are lovely (much better than the original resin ones, which sported oddly thin waists). The assembly is relatively straightforward, and becomes very familiar once you spot the assembly patterns used in the previous plastic Mk VI and Mk III sets. I also love the look of the bolt gun variant that comes with these guys...it is nice and chonky, with a cool sickle-style magazine and nice scope. 

Vox operator with the usual skull-enhanced communications system. 

You will note, however, that none of said bolt guns are to be found here. These fellows are instead equipped with various "disintegrator" weapons. Now, the Horus Heresy is already crowded with a blizzard of weapon selections, but the designers opted to retcon yet another set of weapons into that packed lineup. These "disintegrator" weapons are meant to be near-lost relics from the Dark Ages, very powerful but also dangerous to use, and thus only pulled out of their secure lockers in times of serious emergency - such as a betrayal by The Warmaster and half of the Space Marine Legions...

A view of the heavily segmented Mk II armour. 

The new rules reflect the power of these weapons (because of course), but they are also subject to a variant of the tiresome "gets hot" rule which makes them even more dangerous to those firing these weapons. It is, IMO, yet another case of the rules getting out of whack with the lore. These rare, dangerous weapons are such that they are only trusted to veterans...yet firing these weapons more than a few times is one sure way to ensure you never become a "veteran" in the first place! Makes sense in a 30k-kind of way, I guess :) 

Disintegrator "Blaster" on the left, "Heavy Disintegrator" on the right. All very, very safe to use, no doubt...

Since these weapons were dangerous and stupid to use, I thought they fit in perfectly with Rogal Dorn's lot! There are four types of "disintegrator" weapon in the group - the Sergeant has the "pistol", and most of the lads have the "rifles". There is also a "blaster" variant - I think that is the one with the twin barrels, while one chap is hulking along with a "heavy disintegrator". As one does. 

Don't roll a "1" lads...

"If anyone survives, I shall smack them with my sword!"

I was very slow to paint these fellows because...well, it was a slow summer for actually get stuff painted, and I wasn't in a huge hurry, as I sort of already have quite a few Space Marines, and while these Mk I kits are lovely, in general, the Mk II is not my favorite flavor of power armour. These were lovely to paint up - the only really challenging part was getting the decals to sit properly on the shoulder pauldrons. This a minor thing, but it vexes me constantly that GW always makes the Legion symbol decals a touch too large, such that you need a fair bit of decal softener to get these things to sit down on the curved surface of the shoulder. 

Battlefront Afrika Korps 88mm AT Guns

Well if you're creating an Afrika Korps force for battles in the Western Desert, there's kind of one thing that you HAVE to have, and that's Flak 36 88mm anti-aircraft/anti-tank guns, full stop. The 88 is so synonymous with the DAK it would be odd to have a game without them. So as a quick couple-day project I decided to paint a couple for the game this week.

 

These are excellent plastic models from Battlefront. The crew models are that kind of soft-ish resin models you get on sprues from BF, not injection molded hard plastic.

A couple of the crew figures were standing at a crazy angle on their bases but a hot water/cold water dip and plunge straightened them out. The crew are really characterful and detailed.

 

The sprue also contained some extra bits like ammo cases and shell casings which look cool on the bases.

I painted the guns with a base of XV-88 and painted them over with a mix of Tallarn Sand blended with Deck Tan just to lighten it up a bit. I then washed with Agrax and chipped with German Camo Black Brown.

The crews were painted in my standard German way - base Khaki, wash Agrax, then tune up some random jackets and pants with lighter tones.

These should do some damage in the game on Thursday, so anyway...

Heia Safari!
 

Forged in Battle Afrika Korps Rifle Company for Flames of War

It's all very well and good painting tanks, but in my opinion, if you want a proper WW2 game, you need infantry. Such it is with Flames of War. A couple weeks ago I finished the 8th Army infantry company for my upcoming birthday game, so now it's the turn of the Afrika Korps models to go under the brushes.

The models are mostly from Forged in Battle with a few from Peter Pig in the command stands. Above are the two company command stands. The models on the right-hand stand are Piggies, I might've swapped a head on the pointing Major.

The rest of the FiB models are quite good - albeit after a complaint about the ones I initially received being terribly miscast and horrible. But to their credit FiB sent me a new pack from "new moulds" and they were pretty nice models.

Unlike the 8th Army dudes there's quite a bit of contrasting detail to paint on these models. The uniforms are Vallejo Khaki washed Agrax, the helmets are AK Light Earth likewise, webbing and straps are Light Earth, wool covers on the canteens are AK Dark Brown or New Wood, rifles are Leadbelcher, Dark Brown and New Wood, slings are Doombull Brown, shovel handles and boots are New Wood. On the officers and some of the men I randomly lightened the DAK caps, tunics or trousers just for a bit of variety.

 

In the FoW list each infantry platoon can have an MG34 machinegun base, so I painted one for each platoon (partly to compensate for the lack of the 2.8cm sPzB41 squeeze-bore antitank rifle that FiB doesn't make). As for the sPzB41... honestly I don't really understand why BF made one an organic part of each DAK infantry platoon. I didn't think they were that widely used (fewer than 2,800 were manufactured during the entire war) and one rarely comes across a mention of it in histories of the desert war... but I stand to be corrected in the comments.

ANYWAY... part of the DAK infantry company list is a platoon of 5cm PAK38 antitank guns. These are from FiB and come two in a pack with crews. The model itself is only two pieces (the barrel is separate) and the trails have the same "wide stance" as the 8th Army 6-pounders, which requires custom-made bases. But they are pretty good models nevertheless, although I think I had to replace the head on one of the crewmen as the original model came wearing a pith helmet (!). The Peter Pig pack of German heads has come in very handy in this project.

 

All in all a very nice set of DAK infantry from FiB. Anyway with the DAK infantry from Battlefront being AWOL these are recommended. The other great thing about this project is using up the spare Flames of War medium bases I've had in a box for well over 10 years!

Here's the entire German contingent I've painted so far. There's still some to paint - more Pzkpfw IVs and some 88mm Flak 36 AT/AA guns - but the impetus for those is reduced somewhat now that I've gotten the infantry painted. Looking forward to the game next week, on which I will duly report!

Heia Safari!

Executioner Transports

I finished the first of 3 vehicles for the Executioners. 2 rhinos for the tactical squads and a razorback for the command squad. I wasn’t sure how the metallic colour scheme would hold up when it came to vehicles. I was especially concerned about the golden stripe as it takes a layer of yellow wash to pull it off. I’m fairly happy with the result and will be pressing on with the rest of the vehicles. I hope to have a few more finished by the middle of October.

Revised color scheme from Imperial Armour Badab 

Razorback

That’s it for now. I’m moving on to another rhino, venerable dreadnought and a drop pod. Hopefully I can get them done a little quicker.

Thanks for visiting!

More Afrika Korps Pzkpfw. IIIs and a Matte Varnish Comparo Test!

I painted a bunch more Batttlefront Pzkpfw. IIIs in a variety of configurations for my upcoming Birthday Game, and thought I would spice things up a bit with a comparison test of matte varnish spray.

This is obviously an important issue for those of us who game with our models, as the paintwork needs to be protected from damage while in use. I know that the best way to do this is to varnish first with tougher gloss finish, then hit with matte, but I am lazy and hate wasting time so the models usually get only a matte varnish. HOWEVER when applying decals I usually hit the spots with brush-on gloss before applying the decal to improve adhesion and avoid silvering.

Since I have five pretty much identical models in this post I varnished each one with a different product. You can read about the results below. Test conditions were 20C, moderate humidity, two coats sprayed in my basement.

Testors Dullcote

What can you say about Testors Dullcote. After a brief and inexplicable market absence the champ is back and he's got no worries. The smell is the smell of victory (it IS pretty pungent) but Dullcote is the best, albeit getting on the expensive side...

 

You can see here how it did on the decal, it looks great (that was high gloss finish there before the spray). It took two coats to really eliminate that gloss but the model is uniformly flat.

Krylon UV-Resistant Matt 

Krylon Matte (or as we used to call it, "Fini-Matt") has a new UV-resistant formula which seemed unnecessary but whatever. What I can tell you is that it isn't as flat as the old one, which was great. But maybe I will have egg on my face when all my models have crumbled into dust from UV exposure. Oh wait, most of them are in cupboards or cases in a windowless room in the basement. So never mind.

Pretty good but not dead-flat. You can see the slight gloss on the storage bin behind the turret.

Mr Hobby Matt Water-Based Topcoat

This was kind of the impetus for the post - I saw a guy on Facebook Marketplace selling a can of this stuff for $10 and thought I'd give it a try. Apparently it's popular in the "gunpla" community (that refers to GUNdam PLAstic models, not something sexual) and the seller's models looked good in photos.

"I've used Testors Dullcote and you, sir, are no Testors Dullcote." Having said that it's not bad, a bit more on the satin side than dead flat but worth a try in a pinch.

Winsor & Newton

I tried the W&N product in a fit of desperation when neither Dullcote nor Krylon Clear Matte was available. It's all right but not great, still leaves a pretty satin finish. It's also pretty pungent.

Citadel Colours Purity Seal

OK I guess I have to cut this can a bit of a break because it's likely 20 years old... but I tried it anyway. And it's terrible. Pretty glossy finish and I wouldn't recommend it, even if you could find 20-year-old Purity Seal.

You'll notice one glaring omission in the test, and that's Army Painter Matt "Anti-Shine". Well I have a can of that at home and I recall it being not-great, but I wanted to retry it. When I popped the top the trigger button wasn't there. I guess it must have gotten clogged or something but that put Army Painter out of the test, sorry.

The contenders on test

I really like spray varnish. It's a time saver and if it's Testors Dullcote, it works great. I have a couple bottles of brush on matte varnish I've used, but only occasionally, as I find it a pain. I just ordered two more cans of Dullcote from a vendor here in Canada so hopefully the Dullcote pipeline will stay open in future. 

And since it was new Afrika Korps tanks in the test... Heia Safari!

Executioner Infantry Done!

 Judging by my low number of blog entries, it would seem that I’ve been rather idle this summer. Hobby time has definitely been in short supply this summer, but I have been working on stuff. Mostly I’ve been building models for a few small projects for the upcoming analogue hobbies painting challenge. What I intend to paint for the challenge and what I actually end up painting are often different, but I figure I at least need to have a few options. 

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve finally been able to sit down and paint which has finally allowed me to finish all the remaining infantry models for the Executioners chapter. This encompasses 3 tactical squads, 1 sternguard, 1 assault squad, 1 terminator squad and a command squad. I also completed a Chaplain, apothecary and (presented in this post) a librarian. The only thing I’m missing is a techmarine, but I’ve never really liked them. A lone marine running around repairing tracks and tightening bolts during a battle seems a bit silly. It would make more sense for them to be riding around in some sort of armored recovery vehicle. Hmmm…now I want one of those!

Tactical Squad

Sternguard 

Next up is a large assortment of vehicles for the chapter. I’m hoping to get the bulk of those finished before, or more likely, during the painting challenge.

Thanks for visiting.