Grey Knights lists: the first batch

Google's version of "Grey Knight"

Having banged around the GK codex for a day now, I've come up with a basic frame and many permutations.  The basic idea is two PA squads in Rhinos, three Terminator squads, two "Psyfleman" dreads (2 twin-linked autocannons and psybolt ammo), and a Librarian.  All the squads have psycannons with psybolt ammo.  The breakdown is such:

165 - Librarian w/ 3 powers (probably Sanctuary, Might of Titan, and Quicksilver)
245 - 5 Terminators w/ Psycannon and Psybolts

245 - 5 Terminators w/ Psycannon and Psybolts
245 - 5 Terminators w/ Psycannon and Psybolts
290 - 10 Strike Squaders w/ 2 Psycannons, Daemonhammer, Psybolts
290 - 10 Strike Squaders w/ 2 Psycannons, Daemonhammer, Psybolts
135 - Dreadnaught w/ 2 twin-linked Autocannons and Psybolts
135 - Dreadnaught w/ 2 twin-linked Autocannons and Psybolts
1750

Orks, Grey Knights, and growing slowly

Ponder powers engage!

EV is beating the slow-growth drum, a tune which I am all but helpless to answer.  While I'd love to do every army available, reality says there are four main options: Orks, Grey Knights, vanilla marines, and Blood Angels.

Vanilla marines would involve implementing the crackpot scheme I have to slowly swap out my existing BA troops with the new, detailed models.  While I love this idea, putting it into practice for this application would require me to paint twice as much stuff since I'd be doing the vanilla marines for the grower, plus I'd need to replace (and paint) the models taken out of my BA army to keep it usable.  This is the most appealing option in that it'd scratch an itch I've had for a while to do a non-standard marine army, one that could be used as a counts-as army but wouldn't necessarily be designed in that way.  I could even convert the models into recently turned Chaos marines, another itch I've had.  Unfortunately this plan would involve a significant investment of both time and money.  As such, vanilla marines are off the table.

T-minus who cares?

Ah victory, your taste is sweet.  While I didn't do the non-banner details last night, I knocked them out in short order this morning.  With those taken care of, I was able to spend most of the day on the banner.  I took a combined arms approach to the banner, using very thin paints and washes to build my layers.  The most annoying part was actually doing the back of the banner, which took far too many layers to come to a smooth off-white.  I have a few quibbles with the banner, such as the less-than-desired contrast between the brown background and yellow border, plus the Baal Red wash on the central blood drop not tying the gem together like I'd hoped.  Overall I'm pleased like a thing that's happy.  It doesn't look quite like the studio version, but that's fine because it's my version of the studio scheme.  The Guard turned out better than expected in general, a strong finish to a grueling marathon.  The slog was grueling enough that I don't really have much else to say about it, so a photo dump here before I formally proclaim my success at the B&C.

It's all over.  Except the varnishing...

Lookin good.

T-minus 24(ish) hours

While I have not quite finished today, I should have little problem getting everything done tomorrow.  Decals and two more coats of varnish notwithstanding, the assault squad is finished.  I blutaced on the jump packs for the three marines needing decals and took a final pic of the squad to put up on the B&C.  Again not considering varnish, four Sanguinary Guards are done.  I have a head scroll and base skull to do, which I plan to finish tonight.  I also have two wings left to glue.  And then there's the banner.  I'm not so sure about the washes after further inspection of the box.  I think it will work in places, but I'm not sure it would look right doing the whole thing in that manner.  If things work right tonight, I'll only have the banner to do tomorrow, plus gluing a final wing and varnish.  The finish line, it is in sight.

Late afternoon update

Nearly ready for takeoff.

Work is progressing well.  There are a handful of details left on the Guard, plus gold on the wings, and of course the banner.  Other than that, things are done and ready for varnishing.  This is where I have a problem.  It's been raining since a few minutes after I primed the wings earlier today, and there are no signs of the rain stopping.  What's more, I think the forecast for tonight involves the words "wintry" and "mix," which is not a recipe for good spraying conditions.  This isn't so bad for the Guard, but presents a problem for the assault squad. 

When I put the jump packs on paperclips, I did so by drilling into the recess where the pack attaches to the torso.  I did this because it was an area that wouldn't show on the finished model, and by drilling in a crevice the bit wouldn't skip around on me.  Turns out this was a mistake.  When I took the clip off the test pack, I had to give it a decent bit of elbow grease.  The point where the clip meets the pack is possibly the worst possible place for so an operation as it is nigh-impossible to cut the clip flush enough for the pack to sit tight against the torso.  I rubbed off a decent amount of paint, despite being careful to minimize this as much as possible, while prepping the pack to fit the marine.  I ended up cutting off the nub on the torso and using the plane above said nub to glue to the opposite plane on the pack.  In retrospect I should have drilled into that plane and not the hollow below, but at least I'll know that for next time.  The point of this is that I want to get a coat of varnish on the packs before I take the clips out so I don't rub any paint off.  I forgot about tonight's humid forecast and now am in a bit of a pickle.  Hopefully the weather clears up tomorrow so I can varnish then, otherwise it'll be a tough choice on how to proceed.  If not for this hiccup I think I could finish tonight, but we'll see how it goes anyway.

T-minus two days

Grindstone, meet nose.

Productive morning thus far, so much so that I feel comfortable taking a couple minutes to blog.  I had a disappointing session yesterday.  I had hoped to finish the jump packs and get some work in on another area as well, but instead I didn't even finish the packs.  They weren't as far along as I had thought they were, having just red, black, and white basecoats.  I got the red, black, white, and silver areas done on them yesterday, but still had work left to do, plus finishing the Sanguinary Guard.  As usual, I was beginning to worry about finishing on time.


Jump ahead to today and things are looking much better.  I got a nice, early start on painting as planned.  The first order of business was to finish the jump packs off.  They are done now, writing and all, and just need gluing and varnishing.  I may wait on the decals regardless of how much time I end up so that I have a chance to read up on how to use the Vallejo decal fluids so I get it right the first time.  Three marines need decals, so I can get six others finished today if I discount the decals.  The squad just needs base touch-ups on the painting front, which is trivial, so I'm content to call that squad finished.

Still four days

Return of the group shot intro.

One of the benefits of posting in the early morning hours is that if you come back and do another post, like this one, you still have as many days left as you did in the earlier post, which is good for morale.  While I got less done yesterday than I wanted to, I made up for it by getting in some more painting this afternoon.  I did the greens and glaives on the Guard, bringing them closer still to completion.  The greens went easy as I've got them pretty well figured out by now, while the glaives were a little trickier but a nice change of pace.  From the obvious news department,
getting prominent areas of models finished makes them look closer to completion.  The Guard felt very much in progress yesterday this morning, and the simple addition of three glaives makes them suddenly feel all-but finished. 

T-minus four days

Quick post because it's late.  I didn't get as much done today as I would have liked, but progress made is good in any amount.  I got the silvers, reds, and (most of) the blacks done on the Guard, as well as a basecoat on the glaives. 

T-minus six days

Get it?  Six days left.

Didn't get quite as much done yesterday as I wanted to, but progress is good in any quantity with less than a week to finish.  I got the whites done on the Sanguinary Guard, though I may have missed the odd skull or scroll end.  I'm considering how to do the purity seals, whether I should stick with the green like the assault squad or go with the more traditional red.  Green would keep everything tied together, but I originally started the green because red seals on red armor didn't work out so well.  Red on gold will be just fine though, and if the Guard's seals are a different color it will be another little detail to distinguish them from the rank and file marines.  I'm also pondering pauldrons, specifically what color they'll be.  White and red are under consideration, though I'm leaning towards red.  It will help tie the Guard in with the other troops, plus it will make the little sculpted white circles on the pads stand out more.  Much of the remaining hand-wringing is about these little details, and since the Guard have plenty of little details there's more than enough wringing to be done. 

Raining Blood (Angels)

Today's post is about angry red marines falling from the sky.  I made some lists this morning to take advantage of Descent of Angels, the Blood Angel's special rule that makes them scatter d6" instead of 2d6 when deep striking.  This gives me a great excuse to link a Slayer video as reading music.