USR: Relentless

What's burnout?  Rather than taking a break after finishing my Skaven/DE, I found myself cleaning and organizing my studio in an effort to begin my next project.

Glancing through my backlog of models "to-be-painted", I had a few options.  Malifaux crews are calling for attention, as are the reinforcements I picked-up for my Tyranids back when the codex was new and optimistic...  I have two loyalist (gasp!) collections in the form of a Draigo-wing army, and a Blood Angels collection.  After much deliberation, I have chosen to work on both the BA list and the Malifaux crews at the same time.  Let me explain.

The BA list, really isn't a BA list at all.  After a few ebay lots, I found myself with 6 land raiders of varying pattern.  I can run all 6 land raiders in a 2k point list with the Blood Angels codex, but I can't imagine building anything "straight from the box" as it were.  Instead, I have chosen to build and paint this ridiculous AV 14 mech list as a loyalist, heresy-era Emperor's Children force.  Aside from the 6 tanks hitting the sacred number of their soon-to-be deity, I also think that running 6 land raiders is an exceptionally cocky thing to do, which is perfect for the Emperor's Children!  I also chose this direction for the project, as I can use the infantry and vehicles to support my long since "shelved" Chaos Space Marine Emperor's Children army.  What can I say, I like purple.  I have even considered converting an HQ to look like Prince...

Anyway, here is a shot of a test model I built for the army. 

Only needing 30 marines, I have chosen to go with chapterhouse studios spartan helmets, thinking they would fit with the aquila imagery (think Mediterranean imagery).  I have also decided to replace every chainsword with an evil looking saber from the Dark Elf corsairs box, in an effort to draw on the possessed sword Fulgrim took from the Laer in the novel "Fulgrim".  I think wicked looking blades would be a fitting replacement for the standard imperial equipment, considering the chapter's desire to display martial perfection.  The right shoulder pads are pewter and show standard assault iconography, while the left shoulder pads are all pewter Emperor's Children logos, with the excess rivets filed off.  I have used the Dark Angel robe torso on this model, but I am only using these for the squad leaders.  I have some etched brass aquilas to apply to the land raiders, and some grecian art to adorn the sides of the tanks.  I am also playing around with the idea of sprinkling the tanks with flowers, to really push the "arrogance factor" into overdrive. 

I am excited about this project, and glad that it is almost fully built.  With next month's release of "alien purple" primer from Army Painter, I think this will be a nice "palette-cleanser" project for me.  I think the Malifaux crews are also going to be a nice change, and I look forward to complaining about bad cards instead of bad dice.

Lastly, I just wanted to say thank you to all of the people who have supported my work over the last year.  This blog is almost a year old, and I have gathered 200 followers to date.  While my updates have fluctuated in their frequency, I hope that I have provided interesting material, and look forward to posting my continued adventures in modeling.  Thank you all for the encouragement.