Imperial Knight Freeblade Work In Progress

Hi All

A quick update on my progress with my Imperial Knight Freeblade. I've made quite good progress this week and the legs and base are almost complete.
Here's a few pics....

As you can see the base is now done, the rocks were painted in a dark grey base and washed black then dry brushed with a series of lighter greys up to a final very light brush of white. I've tried to create a few rivulets of frozen ice and water trickling between the rocks; these were initially painted in a pale blue and then highlighted right through to white, they were then gloss varnished.
The snowy areas were first painted white, quite roughly, just to give a good base of colour, I've found that putting snow flock on top of a non white base gives it a dirty grey look. The snow itself is bicarbonate of soda. This is the first time I've used it instead of white flock and I have to say I prefer it, I think it gives a more powdery look, it was simply sprinkled generously over a thinned coat of pva glue and left to dry. The excess was harder to get rid of than snow flock.
I wasn't happy at this point though with the icy trickles, they weren't shiny enough so I decided to use a little water effects on them......this was almost a terrible mistake as I hadn't taken into account the bicarb! It reacts with water (and other liquids) the base went a bit frothy as bubbles appeared all around the edges of the "water"! Thankfully they did dissipate with a little help, next time I'll use the water effects before the bicarb!

Here's a close up of the heraldry I've gone for....

As you can see it's a mix of transfers and freehand vines, I'm pleased though it's a shame about the quality of printing on some of the fist transfers. Each example of thee heraldry will be slightly different depending on the area of the model it appears on. The plates were given a gloss varnish before applying the transfers so as to give a better fix and reduce the noticeable shine common with transfers.

I'm leaving the weathering to the very end once it's all done and put together so I can weather the model as a whole. That will be a first for me too as I don't usually go in for weathering. I'll be experimenting with weathering powders so any hints or tips will be most welcome.

Hope you like it so far, feedback is as ever welcome. I'm currently working on the 2 shin guards and a tattered crotch banner I've made from green stuff (you can see them in the background of the first shot). More pics to come soon......

Bluddtoof

Imperial Knight Freeblade W.I.P.

Hi All

Bluddtoof here with more w.i.p. shots of my Imperial Knight Freeblade.
I've got the armoured plates done on the legs now so all I've got left to do on this section is the iconography some weathering and the base.
I'd hoped to be a little further along by now but the weathers been so hot here this week that I've struggled to paint as the paint has been drying much quicker, sometimes before I've even got it on to the model!
Here's a few pics, including close ups of the green cables as requested.....

Hope you like it so far, I'm thinking I might take the highlight a little further on the red, it shows more in the flesh than on these pics but it's still quite subtle, I'll give it some thought and let you know over the next few days.
As ever feedback is very welcome.

Bluddtoof

Scenery, Battles and yes more Marines

Another long absence from the hobby. Life is taking over my geeking pleasures. But now England have been dumped out of the World Cup i hopefully have a bit more time to spend "completing" the models I have.

First a battle. my first big game of 7th. I was playing against my brother and my dad. between them they could muster 3k of marines (minatours) and eldar. we ignored the allies matrix and a few of the min squad sizes and played with what they had. I took my marines with a detachment of grey knights and an inquisitor.

I took:

kantor with 9 sternguard (4 combi grav guns) in a pod
librarian with 9 sternguard (4 combi meltas) in a pod
tactical squad in a pod
10 scouts
10 assault marines
10 devators in a rhino
Stormtalon
Thunderfire

librarian with 10 grey knight terminators
eversor assassin
Inqisitor
retinue (2 servitors, 3 psykers, 2 deamon host, 2 arco)

Morloc with 5 TH/SS terms
10 assault marines with minotaur special chaplain
10 tact in rhino
10 tact
5 scouts
Special contempor
Stormtalon
Lib level 2 9 stern in pod
Farseer
10 guardian
Warlock 8 guardian (we know they are a minimum of 10)
6 scorpions
6 banshees
9 rangers
Ranger special character
5/6 dire avengers

Both were battle forged

We played the new missions where we had 3 per tern and they weren't secret.

Main points.
Psychic phase is harder to get power off. Yes they did go off and it is also harder to deny but nowhere near as “game breaking” as the doom sayers predicted.
I cast less than normal even with more psykers on the board!

Missions level the game a lot. You get the mission and then can complete them in your turn, before your opponent can react.
You need mobility. Scoring units are useful to trump things sat on an objective. E.g. if I have a thunderfire on an back objective and a necron warrior squad comes within 3” of it. The necron warrior squad can trump the thunderfire and claim the objective. But all units can get an objective which is a very interesting dynamic.

They game changed throughout and you need a bit of everything. At no point was there ever a hopeless situation for either player. Yes you may need a bit of luck with the objective cards, but there are 36 of them so luck is diluted a bit.

Final score was 8-8. Close throughout. I may have been able to nick it but needed a cast gate of infinity, which failed! and the assassin only consolidated 1 when needing 3+ to get to another objective!

some pictures:

No matter how good your tactics are....... 

Kantor kicking ass, shortly before Morloc said hello!

I have nearly finished the scenery in my last post, but got side traced in completing the Sternguard squad for the battle.

i have sprayed up some craters and will quickly wash them and they will be ready for the baord.

model wise i am painting a witch hunter inquisitor and 2 more assassins.

I hope to get some more 7th ed games in over the summer.

.

Imperial Knight Freeblade, work in progress...starting the paintjob.

Hi All

Time to show the WIP on my Imperial Knight, I started on the legs and have now just got the guard plates on waist, thighs, knees and feet to do before I paint the base.
The plates will be red and bone and will feature the knights personal heraldry.
Here's pics of the wip...

I'm really pleased so far, particularly with the gold, it's layers of balthazar gold, old shining gold and auric armour gold on a base of old vermin brown, highlighted with silver and then washed with yellow glaze to give it a really bright finish.
Also a new one for me is the green cables, I normally just use a wash over the base, this time I used hexus pale sun dry paint to put a really light dry brush over the moot green base and then washed with green glaze, not sure if it shows in the photos but it works well in the flesh.

As ever feedback is always welcome.

That's it so far, more to come soon......

Bluddtoof

Imperial Knight Showcase

Evening All,

Doc here with the promised showcase of my Imperial Knight Freeblade.  I don't have WIP shots for this model as it was completed in secret so I could surprise Red Mist in a recent battle.  So many of my recent posts have talked about sponge weathering and this model gave me the chance to really put that to good use.

I have painted him in the Gerantius 'The Forgotten Knight' colour scheme.  Two reasons for this firstly I only intend to use 1 and second I really liked the look of the sea green.  Its a colour I haven't painted much before.  This model also allowed me to get over I hate transfers thing....  Well sort of still hate transfers!

Anyway on to the picture dump....