Cadians: 1st Platoon Complete

This Labor Day weekend sees the 1st Platoon of my Imperial Guard army officially completed. The officer, standard, and melta trooper have are all painted and affixed to their new bases.

Obligatory Purity Seal shot

The Platoon Standard turned out better than I had hoped it might

1st Platoon in all its painted glory

That's all of them.

 Next to paint is a squad of Steel Legion Troopers for my 2nd Platoon. I've also been playing through the original Dawn of War again. I loved the models THQ used for terrain in the first installment of that game, and might replicate some of it for my own table.

Cheers,

CJ

Quick 1st Platoon Update

I finally put some paint to my Aegis Defense Line, and with that done I finally turned my attentions to the last three models of 1st Platoon.

The guy with a pin in his neck is getting a shiny new Tempestus Scions head appropriate for his station as platoon commander.

The platoon standard is mostly done, after work tonight I hope to knock out the officer and the melta trooper. The they need bases, and first platoon will be done.

Terrain: Fuel Bunker

No updates this week, my apologies there. I did get some work done, though. My girlfriend brought home a small can of Pepsi, which I immediately saw as a fuel tank. I loved the Forgeworld model, which I think is not available any longer. This small bit of terrain will make for some nice scatter terrain most of the time, and occasionally as an objective to be held.

I got a bit more mileage out of my compass in getting me a nice circle of card to seal up the open end of the can here. I cannot tell you how useful simple geometry tools are in terrain construction. There is a packet of Sculpey equivalent shown in the picture there, but in the end I used two full packets and another 2/3 packet (roughly) on top of that.

On what?  On sandbags, of course. I had a running tally until my cat stepped on my number pad while chasing a fly. Ah, well. I know the rough number came out to just shy of 700 sandbags total... all made from hand. Have I mentioned I'm a bit mad when it comes to this stuff?

I also jammed a bit of floral wire into an old hairband. With a bit more wire, some styrene tube, and a bit of brass tube I have a serviceable fuel line. Using some extra sprue and plastic canvas I fashioned a sort of catchment grate thing.

The base was coated with sand and bits of cork tile. I traced around the sandbags and then was careful not to let the sand overlap when it was glued in place.

Once the sandbags were baked in the oven and solid, I carefully drilled holes into them and the base both. A length of bamboo skewer was then used to help secure the sandbags in place.

All done. The piece has been painted in the same fashion as the rest of my terrain: Blue Grey Slate and Seal Grey drybrush over black, black wash, Seal Grey drybrush followed by Fortress Grey on the cork and Kommando Khaki on the sand. The sandbags were painted black, then Ceramcoat Burnt Umber, followed by overbrushing layers of Graveyard Earth and Kommando Khaki. A black wash was applied and followed up by drybrushing on Kommando Khaki and finally Bleached Bone. The fuel hose was painted Tausept Ochre and given a black wash.

I also put together a length of barbed wire, using new and improved finger torture wire. Seriously, this stuff looks awesome but is hard on your fingers to produce... and my cat tries to chew on it, constantly. Pets add a new level of interesting to making terrain and wargaming in general.

Anyway, thanks for watching through these lazy days of the summer months. I am thinking I am terrained out at the moment, and might finally finish first platoon.

Cheers,

CJ

Terrain: Imperial Streets 003

The other six sections of road complete, I turned my attentions to the bombed out section. Starting with a compass, I marked out the locations of the craters. With these sizes in mind I started cutting triangles of styrofoam to build the skeletons of the craters.

I used hot glue to secure the styrofoam wedges to the hardboard of the base. I cut a few wedges, glue them in place, and repeat until the craters are complete. I've found through trial and error that this method works best: you don't tend to mix up the pieces.

Styrofoam all in place. At this point I start adding DAP wall filler, and waiting. Once the first coat dried, I repeat the process with a thicker layer of DAP, and then off to work. It was dry by the time I got home, and so I applied the third layer, forming the details of the craters and building up the lip.

After these layers of DAP were done, I painted the whole section in Delta black and PVA. Once it dried, I started layering on pieces of cork. Broken bits were used around the edges of the craters. I used PVA to secure them and constantly checked the placement of everything with the cork sheets I had sized for the each end of the section. The PVA securing these initial pieces of cork would be further reinforced with more DAP.

Layer by layer I added cork to the cratered section. The last two pieces to be added were the ends of the street. Before I added them I traced crosswalk marking on them with a permanent marker. After all the glue and DAP was solid, I took to digging out all the cracks on the board. Once again I also peppered the section liberally with cork debris. Finally, I picked out the crosswalk with PVA.

I painted the whole works in two coats of watered down Delta black and PVA, then picked out the pitiful remains of the crosswalks with PVA once again. Blue Grey Slate and Seal Grey came out again for heavy drybrushing. The crosswalks were painted in the now familiar fashion of Space Wolves Grey and Skull White. Graveyard Earth was used in drybrushing the crater interiors, as well as some of the rubble deposits. Black wash followed by another drybrush with Seal Grey. Finally, I used a wash of thinned down Rhinox Hide on the craters and rubble that received Graveyard Earth.

With this section complete, my Imperial streets are done for now. I look forward to expanding the 'set' in the future. Just like when I was a kid playing with Matchbox cars... there was never enough road.