Sorry for the lag in updates. I finished up both 10 man tactical squads. Here are the pictures. I am currently working on a Rhino with a Dozer blade attachment. Hope to finish it by end of next week.

I squeezed in a bit more "equipment" to my list I posted below and took my young fledgling army of about 1200 points down to the Local GW battle bunker on Saturday August 19th for a special event they were having. I played my first ever game of 4th edition 40k. It was fun, though a tad confusing (rules are easy to read and harder to put into practice!!!) I had help from some really nice people including my opponent and proceeded to get my ass handed to me. Now it wasn't a traditional game but rather a mega battle. I am sure I was down point wise - but I am betting my biggest downfall was the lack of versitile troops. Also the large assortment of power fists weren't helping me! My opponent rolled his saves very well and I lost my terminator squad in the first turn due to a nasty Khorne demon prince attacking him!

I will be back to the LA battle bunker next Saturday to get my ass handed to me again! I had a blast and enjoy losing again! Hopefully more of the rules will have sunk in before next time. My only real complaint was that the game started 2 hours late and I arrived 1/2 hour earlier than it was supposed to.

Without further ado here are my tactical squads pics!

That is just a taste of them. Most of the individuals can be found on my website. Thanks for looking. Comments and suggestions are always welcome!

Cheers,

-Mike

Here is my current Army List given the models I currently have. I plan on adding a Rhino (need to assemble it) as well as 10 assault marines. Don't know if I should have 2 units of 5 assault marines or 1 unit of 10. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Don't really know what to add beyond this I guess it really depends on what I can afford to purchase! Ideally I would like to get a venerable dreadnought, land raider, and at least 1 more terminator squad. A heavy weapon squad would be nice as well. Don't know about scouts - maybe some of those as well...

HQ:

Commander Mycaelis - combi-melta, powerfist, terminator honors, counter-strike, true grit - 133 points
Veteran Sgt. Ordu - Boltgun, Powerfist, Frag/krak Grenades, Terminator Honors, Counter-attack, True Grit - 52 points
Brother Acrisius - Bolt Piston, Frag/Krak grenades, terminator honors, counter-attack, true grit - 56 points
Brother Caton - bolt pistol, combat shield, power sword, frag/krak grenades, terminator honors, counter-attack, true grit - 51 points
Brother Eusebius - boltgun, frag/krak grenades, counter-attack, true grit - 21 points
Brother Xpianus - plasma gun, terminator honors, counter-attack, true grit - 38 points

Troop 1:

Space marine sgt - bolt pistol, chainsword, frag/krak grenades, counter-attack, true grit - 21 points
space marine - Missile Launcher, frag/krak grenades, counter-attack, true grit - 31 points
space marine - flamer, frag/krak grenades, counter-attack, true grit - 27 points
space marine - boltgun, frag/krak grenades, counter-attack, true grit - 21 points
space marine - boltgun, frag/krak grenades, counter-attack, true grit - 21 points
space marine - boltgun, frag/krak grenades, counter-attack, true grit - 21 points
space marine - boltgun, frag/krak grenades, counter-attack, true grit - 21 points
space marine - boltgun, frag/krak grenades, counter-attack, true grit - 21 points
space marine - boltgun, frag/krak grenades, counter-attack, true grit - 21 points
space marine - boltgun, frag/krak grenades, counter-attack, true grit - 21 points

Troop 2:

Space marine sgt - bolt pistol, power sword, terminator honors, frag/krak grenades, counter-attack, true grit - 36 points
space marine - melta gun, frag/krak grenade, counter-attack, true grit - 31 points
space marine - melta gun, frag/krak grenade, counter-attack, true grit - 31 points
space marine - boltgun, frag/krak grenades, counter-attack, true grit - 21 points
space marine - boltgun, frag/krak grenades, counter-attack, true grit - 21 points
space marine - boltgun, frag/krak grenades, counter-attack, true grit - 21 points
space marine - boltgun, frag/krak grenades, counter-attack, true grit - 21 points
space marine - boltgun, frag/krak grenades, counter-attack, true grit - 21 points
space marine - boltgun, frag/krak grenades, counter-attack, true grit - 21 points
space marine - boltgun, frag/krak grenades, counter-attack, true grit - 21 points

Elite 1:

Terminator Sgt. - storm bolter, power sword, tank hunter, purity seals - 48 points
terminator - assault cannon, power fist, tank hunter - 63 points
terminator - storm bolter, cyclone missile launcher, power fist, tank hunter - 69 points
terminator - storm bolter, chain fist, tank hunter - 48 points
terminator - storm bolter, power fist, tank hunter - 43 points

Chapter Traits - Significant divergence:

Advantages: Cleanse and Purify, Trust your Battle Brothers
Major Drawback: Eye to Eye
Minor Drawback: Death Before Dishonor

Current Total Points: 1092

I was thinking of giving the standard bearer in my Command Squad a banner but haven't decided yet. Thoughts and opinions are very welcome!

I am right now wrapping up on 20 tactical marines. I have them glued together now and am finally working on the details. I am hoping to have them done by this weekend/early next week.

I thought I would share some of the steps I go through to get the dirty bone color for the armor. The first step is that I prime them white and then spray them with GW bone. This was done mainly to speed things up.

Next I paint on little areas of chestnut ink where I want the dirty "rust" effects to be:

Next I apply a flesh ink overlapping the chestnut ink. This helps tone down the color when I start layering on the highlights. I have found that what happens on the next step is that when you brush on the paint over the ink it bleeds through a bit allowing you to "streak" it.

After the ink I start going over the entire area (maybe leaving a bit of the ink showing) with a watered down vallejo bone. As I said above the ink bleeds through to an extend allowing for some interesting rust streaks.

At this stage the armor is still too dark and the streaks much too prominant. So another layer of 50/50 mix of Vallejo bone and Ivory are applied. Care is taken to leave some of the more prominant rust streaks showing (after all you don't want to cover them all up)!

As you can see the color is much more similar to the final outcome. The details just need to be added. I use a watered down smoke to fill in the details in the armor, black for the webbing between the joints, and I black/darkline around the feet, purity symbols, and other emblems...

I spent around 2 hours or so painting up the 20 bases and can finally say I am finished with them. Still need to paint the sides a solid black but the rest of it is finished. They are pretty straight forward as far as painting goes:

Primed black, drybrushed with vallejo model color dark grey, drybrushed with vallejo model color london grey, washed a touch with vallejo model color smoke, and finally drybrushed with vallejo game color wolf grey.

The bronze bitz were given a wash of vallejo verdegris. The iron poles for the razor wire were based with vallejo air brush color hull red and then lightened with both vallejo game color terracotta and vallejo model color red leather.

Here are some pics:

Closeups:

A few weeks ago I primed and painted up my game table. Since my terrain will mostly be urban rubble and city fight I decided to paint the table a mottled grey. I figured that if I decide to play on a different surface I could get a mat or other overlay to cover the table. The hazzard lines mark the border of the 4'x6' playing surface. Not shown are small markings for a 4'x4' table. Since the table is 4'x8' this gives a little extra room for books and removed figures without distracting from the game!

The table was primed with and then I used sponge roller (with large holes) to roll on a few coats of standard grey housepaint that I picked up for $1 at Lowes. After the table was grey I took 2 cans of krylon black spray paint and misted the table. I then re-rolled the grey leaving most of the black showing, repeating the process over and over again until the color shifts were more blended. I then took a poly spray and sealed the table. Overall total cost was about $17 maybe a bit more if I didn't already have the rollers.

For some reason the light reflection on the full table picture is throwing odd shadows over the table. The texture on the table looks like the detail picture.

Game table:

Close up:

The last few days I spent putting together the Urban Rubble bases for my 20 tactical marines I am painting. Here is a picture of the first 10 completed. Monday I finished putting together the last 10 and primed them black. Yesterday I started painting them. Hopefully I will finish them up tonight. I am a bit behind and I will be out of town until Sunday so it looks like I will miss the first few weeks of the Fall of Medusa Campaign as I struggle to quickly finish these guys!

First 10 bases:

Cheers,

-Mike

For starters I thought I would talk a bit about how the Sons of Dorn came about. I believe it was back in December 2005 that I entered an online painting contest on Librarium Online to paint up a retinue. It had to consist of a commander and 5 other figures to represent the rest of the "command" group.

I had been toying around with doing a Space marine chapter and didn't really want to paint up the figures in a standard  color scheme. Initially I was planning on a split color pattern but wasn't really excited about the extra work to pull it off well. I had been struggling for months beforehand trying to decide on a color pattern. Ultimately I really enjoyed the look of the Knights of Dorn in the back of the "How to Paint Space Marines" and not really wanting to do a split color scheme decided to create a "successor" chapter to them called the Sons of Dorn.

I decided to keep the majority of the body bone, use the tin for shoulderpads, helmet, and backpack, and add decorative trim in reds and checkered pattern. I kept the same chapter symbol of the skull in a black circle. I also decided long ago that i wanted to have them based on an Urban Rubble theme.

My biggest problem to date is that I am not very familiar with the rules and so far having painted up the HQ and also an Elite squad of Terminators I have found that I may not have them modeled 100% accurate to the rules!

Since I am starting this Blog after I have already started forming them I will recap briefly the 2 squads I have finished and fill you in on what I am currently working on.

First completed was the Command Squad which consists of: Captain Mycaelis, a standard bearer, veteran sergeant, champion, plasma gun wielding marine, and a standard boltgun wielding marine.

Next I worked on my newly aquired Terminator Squad - a gift for winning the Retinue painting contest. I was eager to get these guys painted up as a Games Day entry. It was started rather late but I think the details are very crisp and they look great. They were finished in the beginning of April. The big problem with them I found out is that I have some "illegal" weapon choices in that the terminator with the cyclone missile launcher can not also have the heavy flamer. Oh well - I guess he will be either or depending on how I decide to field them then...

Currently I am scrambling to assemble 2 tactical squads so that I can have the basics of a playable army. Here is a sneak peak test fitting to give you an idea of their style.

I will add more updates as I can. I have already basecoated all the tactical squad (which consists of marines from the battle for macragge boxed set as well as a standard tactical unit) and should have some more pictures ready in the next few days. They are temporarily glued to pieces of board until I assemble their bases (I was waiting until the Urban Basing Kits came out which I just recently got).

Cheers,

-Mike