Some other armies as requested

Before I jump into the new pics of a few OLD armies I felt I had to post a pic of the finished commission work. All nine models were a treat to work on, with their incredibly fine detail and typically muted tones. I found myself mixing Chaos Black into the base color of the greens and browns to really push some depth into the small models. I hope you, and my client, like them as much as I do. Oh, and the Rohan flag was not as difficult as I first thought it would be.

On to the other work I've been doing. Here's the second squad of Blood Pact, rocking a Meltagun and Autocannon. I've decided I'm just going to paint a bunch of different special and heavy weapons so that I have the flexibility to swap the squads around and get the best build for the occasion. Next time I'll have some of the new "grotesques" painted.

A while back (over a decade in fact) I painted a Tanith First & Only army using a variety of models available at the time (lots of metal for the IG) including the Catachan plastics. When the Tanith models were released I added dozens of them to the army, but I've never really settled on a good structure for the army. At one time it was set up using Codex: Catachans but it has never really progressed since then.

Above are some of the great characters from the series. From left to right: "Doc" Dorden, Scout Sergeant Mkoll, Colonel Colm Corbec, Colonel-Commissar Gaunt, and "Try Again" Bragg.

Here's a Special Weapons Team I built based on the fireteam structure from the battles on Fortis Binary (from First and Only). Led by Major Rawne I've got his adjutant Feygor, Troopers Vench, Lonegin, Neff, and Varl (before he was promoted to Sergeant).

Therein lies the biggest problem with an army like this, full of so many great characters. The question is "What novel do you choose to set the army in?" Characters die all the time in the novels, and sometimes it's a major character that bites the dust. At the moment my army is an interesting hode-podge of a variety of times in the story arcs of the regiment, and it'll probably stay that way for a while. For the record I have over 150 Tanith painted, including Verghastites too.

It will become incredibly obvious over the coming years that I'm heavily influenced by great paragraphs or pages of background material. The group above are characters from Gav Thorpe's Last Chancers series. While the particular novel escapes me right now, I put together this Kill Team just prior to building a 13th Penal Legion army (another 100+ models).

The final pics for this update come from my Legio Custodes army, inspired by Adrian Smith's great artwork from the Horus Heresy CCG and subsequent artbooks. Above is a squad I use as Grey Knights (not the two psycannons in the front rank. Below is the Terminator Squad that I use as regular Space Marines. I have to replace one of the Heavy flamers with a storm bolter now that the Space Marine Codex has cut back the heavy weapons for these guys. Either that or build another five Terminators ; )

Have fun, and more Blood Pact to come!