Models Finished an Edition too Late

As I've said many times before, I'm a very slow modeler. Although events in real life have slowed my rate of painting even more, I've still been able to get a few models done recently. Unfortunately, I started all of the most recent batch during 7th Edition and finished them after the previous edition was obsolete.

Two of the recently completed models are the timeless bolter-armed Tactical Marines. Although I don't really need many more Tactical Marines with bolters, especially now that we can take Primaris Intercessors, I wanted to diversify the Marks of armor in my Tactical Squads. One Tactical Marine is wearing a full suit of Mk VI power armor while the other has a Mk IV helmet. (I'm rather fond of the Mk IV helmet and was very happy to see that the Primaris Marines' Mk X armor has a very similar helmet.) The Marine with the Mk IV helmet also has an archaic outline-only Chapter logo from ForgeWorld's Ultramarine Legion transfer sheet.

Three additional Tactical Marines are armed with grav weaponry: one with a grav-cannon, one with a grav-gun, and a Sergeant with a combi-grav. Although grav weapons are still a decent upgrade option (and are a lot less situational since the new rules make them effective against lightly armored units like Ork Boyz), they're not quite the must-take weapons that they were in 7th Edition.

The grav-cannon Marine is also equipped with Mk VI armor. I made the small Tactical logo on both Corvus-armored Marines' shoulder pads by cutting down a full-sized transfer with a razor.

The final model is Chief Librarian Tigurius, whose pewter model I bought back when I started the hobby in 2011. I don't much care for the old pewter models, but the introduction of the Librarius Conclave in the last Space Marine codex convinced me to build a trio of Librarians led by Tigurius. Sadly, by the time I finished painting the model, the Librarius Conclave was obsolete. The other two Librarians (one with a jump pack and one in Terminator armor) are primed and sitting in my storage case. At this point, the only reason I'll ever finish them is because I'm a fan of GW's plastic Librarian models.

Now for Something Completely Different: X-Wing Nashtah Pup Repaint

I mentioned late last year that I had started playing Fantasy Flight's X-Wing Miniatures game. Jake, our fellow Cabal member, local HobbyTown owner, and favorite pusher of Plastic Crack^®, introduced the rest of the Cabal to X-Wing in the first half of 2016. Within a couple months I was spending way too much money on little plastic spaceships as well as little plastic soldiers.

One of the appeals of X-Wing is that the ships are pre-painted. When it comes to 40K I'm a hobbyist first and foremost, but it takes me so long to paint a squad that one or two editions might pass before I finally get that new unit finished (Centurions were introduced in 6th Edition; 8th Edition will have been released before I have a squad of them painted). X-Wing ships, on the other hand, can be played straight out of the box. Now I can play X-Wing when I don't have any new Ultramarines painted up and don't feel like playing yet another variation of the same Space Marine list. Recently, though, I had the irresistible urge to paint one of my pre-painted ships.

(From here on I'll be referring freely to aspects of X-Wing with little background information. Newcomers to the game can find any information they need from the excellent X-Wing Wiki.)

A YV-666 (the kind of ship the bounty hunter Bossk used) can take the Hound's Tooth Title for just six points. With the Title, the Hound's Tooth can deploy a Z-95 Headhunter, the Nashtah Pup, upon destruction of the parent ship. Unfortunately, Fantasy Flight doesn't make a miniature of the Nashtah Pup, requiring players to buy a Z-95 separately. For most people that isn't a problem; you can simply buy a Rebel Z-95 or you can get two Scum & Villainy Z-95s with Black Sun syndicate markings in the Most Wanted pack. However, the Nashtah Pup's pilot card clearly shows that Bossk's Z-95 is painted brown and maroon and has teeth-like markings similar to those on the Hound's Tooth itself. Since buying the YV-666, I haven't been able to bring myself to field a Rebellion or Black Sun Z-95 as the Nashtah Pup.

Pictured: not the Nashtah Pup

On Friday, I bought another Rebel Z-95 with the express purpose of painting it as Bossk's escape vessel. I painted the bulk of the model with GW's Steel Legion Drab, Mephiston Red, Agrax Earthshade, and Leadbelcher. I used a tiny bit of Nuln Oil and White Scar for details. The miniature took the paint pretty well without needing to be primed.

 

I'm reasonably happy with the final result given that it only took me an afternoon and I was able to use paints that I already have. Although I wish that Steel Legion Drab better matched the YV-666's reddish-brown color, the Nashtah Pup is only deployed when the Hound's Tooth is destroyed; it's harder to notice their differences when they don't spend too much time side-by-side.

Jump Pack Sergeant and Chaplain

Unfortunately, I've finished very few models since I completed the Assault Squad back in November. Because I'm a huge fan of how the Eviscerator looks (if not its points cost), I decided to build a second Veteran Sergeant for the Assault Squad wielding a heavy chainsword. Immediately thereafter, I moved on to a jump pack Chaplain conversion to fulfill the HQ requirement for a Space Marine Demi-Company.

The Veteran Sergeant is built with a Vanguard Veteran torso and jump pack, the Eviscerator from the Assault Squad kit, Tactical Marine legs (since his weapon is huge and unwieldy, I wanted to model him with a firm stance as if he were getting ready to swing it), a head from the Sternguard box, and Mk IV shoulder pads.

In addition to being a relatively inexpensive HQ, I wanted to paint a Chaplain so I could work out a technique for painting black armor. That's something I'm going to have to figure out if I'm ever going to start working on the Deathwatch in earnest.

In the end I went with a very simple style, using light strokes of Eshin Grey on the edges of Abaddon Black armor. GW generally recommends Eshin Grey followed by Dawnstone for highlighting black armor, but I was unable to get the lighter gray quite as fine as I would like and instead went with a more subtle look. This is the first time I've ever used line highlighting on a model's armor rather than dry brushing.

The model was built using arms, legs, and a torso from the Vanguard Veterans box; various decorative bits from several sources; a shoulder pad from the Sternguard kit and a shoulder pad from the Ultramarines upgrade sprue; a Crozius Arcanum built from a Vanguard Squad axe and a banner decoration from the Command Squad kit; and a Chaos Space Marine helmet from which I removed a large Chaos arrow on the forehead.