HH: Age of Darkness

A minor sidestep away from the Dark Eldar posts. When I picked up my 5 Wracks to start my DE army, I also picked up the latest book in the Horus Heresy series: Age of Darkness. This is the second compendium of short stories in the Horus Heresy series, the first being the underwhelming Tales of Heresy. There were a couple of good tales in ToH, but overall I don't think it added much, with more misses than hits. I feel Age of Darkness is largely the same.

What has made the HH series so good, is the depth of character given to the Space Marines. The run-of-the-mill action narrative is largely epiphenomenal (thanks, Will Self) to the character development of the main Astartes protagonists. Giving frailty, doubts, torments to warriors who are mostly described as all conquering stoic beings isn't easy, but we care when splits start appearing and we see loyalties changing, due to the superb work of the authors in making us do so - perhaps best illustrated in Fulgrim by Graham McNeil; watching the Emperor's Childen inevitable descent into chaos is both horrifying and fascinating.

And this is where short stories struggle - finding the balance between providing enough of a plot to make it valuable, and enough character development to make the reader care what happens in the plot, is not easy. And mostly I found myself not bothered, even where there is potential in the plotlines.

The standout story (I'm struggling for another word, sorry if repeat story relentlessly) for me is by Rob Sanders (The Iron Within). This is centered on the Iron Warriors, not necessarily the easiest legion to write about I would suggest, but Rob does a fine job of writing a good plot with solid characters. The main Warsmith is given physical weaknesses, which makes him a refreshing change from the usual adjective laden sentences depicting perfect warriors. His apparent vulnerability allows us to feel a little closer to him, and if I think about the whole book now, Warsmith Dantioch might be one of the few names I can recall. I'd echo someone on the Black Library site - let Rob have a go at a full HH novel.

The biggest disappointment, is Little Horus by Dan Abnett. Dan is the author of three of the best books in the HH series (Horus Rising, Legion and Prospero Burns), and writing about the Luna Wolves once more should have got me excited. He even mentions 'Garvial Loken' - the emotional mainstay of the first 3 books. But sadly, I just didn't get anything from it. Shame. There's also some stories about the Dark Angels and Ultramarines, and about Rogal Dorn, but none worthy of much note.

The Alpha Legion get a couple of interesting parts, and whilst not gripping do provide glimpses into the conflict outside of the 'brother v brother' focus of the last few books. I think it's important that there remains a focus on this in the coming books, trying to show a galactic war wider than the main legions would help provide more scale and truly show the 'Imperium' at war.

Skin Test

Been working on model number two (aka Gregory according to Rox, Wrack No.1 was Geoffrey), and trying a slight difference in skin colour.

This time I used a wash of Baal red, followed up by lightening Deneb Stone with Skull White, rather than the Fortress Grey on the last model.

Here's two shots of the new chap, and then two comparison shots.

I'm undecided if I think it's better. Am I thinking it's not out of self doubt, or am I thinking it's better since I've tried something new, and no one wants to go back on something they've changed.

Unsure.

First Model

I said in my last post, I've painted up one Wrack model now, and done an initial layer on a second.

With my first guy, I wanted to do an area at a time, and concentrate on making it look right before moving onto the next area. Not the right way to paint a miniature of course, as there'll be inevitable rogue brush strokes to correct, but I wanted to see how I was doing at each aspect of the miniature before moving on.

DE skin should probably be that pasty, grey, ailing look. So, I started with Deneb Stone, with the intention of moving up to Fortress Grey. After the initial base coat, I applied a wash of Ogryn Flesh.

In hindsight, I think it's a little too contrasting to the skin. A bit of watering down required to soften the tone (note the above picture is of the finished model). Also, I think when applying the next layer I kept too much of the washed-flesh on show, there's too much ink still viewable.

The next part was the metal. On the wracks there's hooks, chains, blades - all manor of torture devices. I want to make the blades et al look used, bloodied, rusted. To achieve this, I started with a base coat of Tin Bitz, then added a touch of chainmail to all of the subsequent layers.

To create the blood effect, I first applied a Baal flesh wash over a large area, then appled Scab red paint over a slightly decreased area. I like how it looks.

I'm not particularly happy with the black robe, I meant to just add a tiny dash of brown to it to perhaps soften it around the edges, but it ended up turning out a strange dark green. It looks ok as a start I would say.

Anyway, here's a few pictures of the finished first model.

From Small Beginnings

So, to work then.

I've settled on doing a Dark Eldar army. To be fair, I'd settled on this before I came out here. Even writing a list to work towards and refining it through Librarium Online.

I was toying with a 120 Days of Sodem themed army, but my girlfriend might start asking questions if I was creating miniatures covered with faeces and child prostitutes. By asking questions, I mean rightly dumping me. It'll be a straight forward DE army. It'll be nice and different from the horde-like, static gun-line Imperial Guard army of before, and a much more intricate and specialised force than the generic Space Marines too. Something different should the lads ever get around to bl'asting again.

To start off, I've opted for five of the new Citadel finecast Wrack models, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I'm definitely going to be including Wracks in my army, they are solid choices for any DE army. Secondly, five models is a good number to start with, rather than buying a battleforce and have a lot of models to go at. And lastly, they have a lot of skin, which is important to get right with a DE model.

The Wrack models are excellent models. Wish I'd taken a picture of them before I sprayed them, it's much easier to see the detail when they're in the grey resin. Some of the old DE models from Games Workshop were dreadful, but I think the new range hit's the right note. Not too kitsch, not to cartoonish, and not in the style of what an 8 year old would come up with as evil. There's enough to make them look twisted and evil, without going overboard.

The resin from GW is different from Forgeworld, but like FW it takes a while to prep the models. There's a lot of flash to remove, and mold lines to file down. There are some parts that need trimming to make the model fit together well (the arm sockets seem to have a build up of excess resin, but that's easily remedied. I prefer them infinitely to metal models though, they hold well, the details is much much sharper and the only actual negative is a bit of blow out, which causes small circular holes to appear. I'll probably invest in some green stuff in future to combat this.

Anyway, here's a prepped and undercoated Wrack.

I've now painted up one model, so in the next post I'll write more about how I feel I've got on, with a few pictures.

Hi there.

Some Warhammer Painting blogs are worth following. This one isn't. Some are by really fantastic painters, who want to both demonstrate their skills, and talk to others about advanced painting styles and techniques. This one isn't. Some are by people with amazing ideas, applying a subtle or intricate theme to a whole army. Again, I'm afraid this one isn't.

This is by a guy who's never really put much effort into painting, but who does want to get better. It'll be my project over the dark, dark months of a Swedish winter, and hopefully over two years I can look back at my first models to my last models and notice improvements; to my brushwork, my technique, and my overall ability to create a convincing looking miniature.

If you're not Kevin Walsh, or Mark Boardman, you're here by mistake. I won't be offended that you don't stay. I wouldn't.