Space Marine, Crimson Fists: Army Showcase - Addendum 2

The grand "get everything painted" project continues at pace, and I'm almost done with all my proper space marine models for my Crimson Fists. I had a couple of old drop pods in their boxes so I broke these out, slapped them together and threw some paint at them.

The drop pod models actually have moving parts, with the "doors" being able to swing open to reveal the interior.  I however, made the decision to simply glue them shut, saving me the time and effort of assembling and painting the interior components.  I generally don't favour moving parts on wargames miniatures, as anything that moves is more easy to break.  Also these drop pods are quite big in their closed configuration and even bigger when opened up, so I went for "permanently closed".

Anyway, they were super quick and easy to build and paint, taking about an hour (not counting drying time) from sprue to finish.

That paint scheme was very simple. A black undercoat, Macragge Blue spray top coat, sprayed with zenithal effect to retain the black in recesses and undersides, and then a simple detail highlight on the black "wings", metal parts and badge details. A black pin wash in the recesesses, and a heavy balck overbrush from below (to suggest burning from entering an atmosphere) and the pods are done.

I think its just the Primaris marines I have left to finish now, and I can call my Crimson Fist marines done (for now I guess...). I'm left the primaris until last as they are just so bland and uninspiring. Ho hum. They'll get a basic paintjob to get through them quickly I think. 

Space Marine, Crimson Fists: Army Showcase - Addendum

I think the major project I'll undertake in 2023 is likely to be a 28mm Medieval army.  My club is planning a Warhammer Ancient Battles tournament which I may well become involved in. The tournament details are yet to be decided, so while I await that I've decided not to take on a new project, but rather tidyup and finish off some other armies. Notably, I want to finally get all my Space Marines finished.  I still have a bunch of second hand stuff in boxes, and also I have much of my more modern Primaris figures to do.  I just don't like these new figures as much as the old ones, but I still want them finished.

So, I dug around in the bitz boxes and discovered a whole bunch of additional bikers. These, together with some unpainted assault marines got done fairly quickly.

I then found a bunch more bikers! I guess at some point I was keen on making a fast moving combat bike force.

Anyway, here's the finished figures.

More unit leaders/commanders. One flag is freehand. the others have transfers from Skumb4g Kustoms. I need to get some Microsol/Microset solution to get these transfers looking a bit better.

Two small units of assault marines, one without jetpacks and one with all lightning claws.

The bikee wing. I had a few already done but I've completed the rest and rebased them. That attack bike (sidecar) heavy bolter's barrel needs drilling out I think.

I used some old 10mm scale Franco-Prussian War banners for the pennants.

And here are the figures currently a "work in progress".

Some more bikers.  I hve one more but my bitz box ran dry and I didn't have any more seated legs.  I've ordered som from Bitzbox. Its a bit costly but fair enough. When completed I'll have 19 bikers and 1 attack bike.

I have a fair few space marine scouts, but they're all armed with boltpistol & close combat weapon, or sniper rifle.  I had 5 pairs of scout legs, so kitbashed some upper bodies and armes etc., to get a unit of five with bolt guns.

This is an old sculpt of the Ravenguard space marines leader "Kayvaan Shrike". I think at one point I was planning a Ravenguard army but never got around to it.  He'll do for an assault leader.

In addition to this, I'm also rebasing those miniatures that have different basing. At one point I was doing the bases as "grey rock", but I never liked it as its colour shade blended in to the dark blue of the marines.  I also have a fair few models with banner poles but no banners, so they'll all get a nice flag I think.

See the rest of the army here.

Space Marine, Crimson Fists: Army Showcase

With a new house and a new hobby space, and a rare bit of time off work today, I thought I’d get on with sorting out the collection. I’m slowly taking stock of what I have, what I still have to paint, and I’m steadily getting paint on the bare lead/metal.

As yet, the pandemic is still keeping me away from the table, but I’m hoping that’ll change soon and these little toy soldiers can get pushed about amid the clattering dice again.

Today I dug out my Warhammer 40,000 (40k) Crimson Fist space marines and thought I’d do a bit of a showcase. Looking through them I see that the basing is in dire need of standardising and updating, but otherwise there’s a fair bit done.

I’ve been collecting these for many years, but aside from 8th Edition of the 40k game I’ve not played it much since 1st Edition. I sold most of my old models when I moved to Australia for a while, so these are mostly later models.  I’d also bought a few of the newer “Primaris” models.

Anyway, here’s the army on parade.

Mostly Firstborn, with a cadre of the new larger Primaris marines.

The Relic Terminators lead the way.

The rest of the Terminators follow on.

I've always liked the flyer, which i posed as if swinging round to turn back in on a target. The Thunderfire cannon (and Techmarine) is a "Finecast" model and was utterly horrific to put together. The barrel was so badly warped that I had to cut out a large part of it - hunce its stubby appearance. 

Firstborn heavy weapons Devastator marines. I always favoured the missile launcher (clearly!) for its versatility. they are flanked by the old metal Scout models. I mainly used them in sniper configuration.

The big man himself, Pedro Kantor. If i recall, this was also a "Finecast" model that I had to do a lot of work on to repair.

The grunts. Firstborn Tactical marines. I'm surprised I only have 23. I was sure I had more. Clearly they've been lost in the Warp.

A couple of the Dreadnaughts. I like these both in the lore and as models, but they've alwasy seemed to underperform for me. The arms aren't glued on so I can swap them out.

The Dreadnaught skulking off-camera there is an old metal model and weighs a fair bit! For some reason back in the mists of time, I stuck it on a square base. I guess I'll have to get round to putting it on a disc at some point.

Assault marines. I always found they overperformed for me, and I usually brought as many of these to the fight as I could.

Some more leaders.

The Primaris leader

Primaris Eliminators. I found these models tricky to assemble for some reason. I've tey to use them in anger.

The Primaris grunts - bigger and better than the Firstborn marines apparently...

Centurions - when you put a marine in a marine so you can marine while you marine. They're super-silly as a concept, but the few times I've used them they did well. I favoured them with heavy bolters, but gave one lascannons for a bit of punch against vehicles.

Redepmtor Dreadnaught. A real pain to build and I put a couple of bits on upside down. It's nice enough but lacks the charm of proper dreadnaughts in my view.

The three little tanks. Two are usable as Rhinos transports or Razorbacks.

I still have these to finish painting.

Then there’s these.

And I also have a bunch in boxes somewhere. Pretty sure there are a couple of drop pods and another Redemptor Dreadnaught knocking about. I’m sure I had a lot more bikers too.

See more here. (Infantry and bikes)

And here. (Drop pods)