Tanith First and Only: Like Ghost from the Night (Part II)

close up of the five new members

 Another squad painted and just in time for Halloween! Last time I posted, I had the first half of this squad done up and painted. Now I'm here today to show off the second half of the squad. These Tanith took me the course of a week+1 to finish as I was lazy for some days during the course of the week. This squad is going to be part of 1st Platoon, under Colonel Corbecs guys and gals. Hopefully once Victoria gets the female border world rangers bodies done up, i'll be able to put in a order for some more female Verghast.

Another shot and angle

With the completion of these guys, this brings my top tray in my carrying case to fully painted. It'll look good to open my case and see the squads fully painted, even if it is only the top tray. The Tanith are growing and I hope to be able to finish them all and have them painted someday. In the meantime I have also bought a forge world Event only Enforcer with cyber mastiff and a forge world Titan tech priest. These two models are next on my list and will be shown off once completed.

The entire squad

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Two Commissars walk into a bar and......

Col. Commissar Ibram Gaunt

Finished painted model

This has been a post a long time (we're talking early February?) coming.

Here we have three of the most famous Tanith First and Only Characters. First off we start with the man himself, Ibram Gaunt!

This model was ordered from Brother Vinni's Sci fi line. The model arrived from the Russian Federation and I immediately wanted to paint it and put it together. After cleaning it in a wash of water and soap, I put it together and started working on the famous Colonel-Commissar himself. Like all of my Tanith models, I tried to keep Gaunt as close to the book description and art as I could.

This model seemed to gather a lot of discussion about it due to its color choices. That stuff has already been mentioned in a previous article, hence why i wont go into it here. Needless to say, it turned out perfectly fine for how I wanted it to be. I still intend to add some Longbeard Grey dry paint to the base but otherwise the model is done.

In one of my recent games, Gaunt was able to kill a necron tomb lord on his last wound with the bolt pistol. It was roll worthy of the heroic commissar

Commissar Hark? or Ludd?  Not sure yet

The next model is another commissar model again by Brother Vinni! This model was suppose to be Commissar Cain from the Commissar Cain series but I instead used him as a stand in for either Hark or Ludd. Im not sure yet. The model was washed and put together. The paint scheme was similar to how Gaunt turned out.

This model has not seen much play but was a fun model to put together. With another Commissar ordered from Madrobotminiatures, I hope to finally decided on if this is Ludd or Hark. What do you think my fellow readers?

Finally we have our last model from Brother Vinni. Known as the "Heavy Gunner" on his website, this model was a perfect stand in for "try again" Bragg. This model was a bit of a pain to put together but in the end, was probably my most successful model. The knee pads and the details added a large flavor to the model allowing him to feel like the gentle giant that Bragg is described as in the books. Even though he will always have his BS 2 shooting (at least in the tanith codex i use), Bragg remains one of my favorite characters from the series.  Everyone who's read the series know what fate befalls this hero. Hopefully this model does the character pride.

"Try Again" Bragg

With this article, I can finally finish up my backlog of articles I had planned to do over the months. I think from now on I will instead take them one at a time. As the year draws closer to a end, I intend to start working on updating the site for 2016. What would you like to see on here? What new details should we add. In the future, we hope to add a few guest articles from Pwnzilla, Bandogora and others.

Keep checking back!

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Tanith Scouts & Snipers....

Where oh where has the time gone?

It seems only yesterday I was starting on this blog post working towards my first platoon of my new Tanith Army. Now its November! What have I been up to you ask?

 Well, first off time has gotten away from me as I have been working on my masters degree. School has formed a large part of my life and kept me up many a night. Secondly, I got a job working at a nearby place. Even though the extra money has been very nice, it has killed my hobby time. Such are the sacrifices of life.

So what do I have for you today? Well we have a couple of shots of my Tanith Snipers. These models were ordered off of Ebay as rescue jobs and stripped in LA's totally awesome. They were then primed and given a new paint job. This brings my total sniper count up to 8. Not too shabby if I do say so myself.

I had meant to post these way back during the summer but time got in the way. I've had these sitting in my queue since June.

 The models were painted in the traditional colors of the Tanith First and Only with tattoos added in after the models were finished. Just like the Tanith Trooper and scout seen here, the models have been kept as true to the lore as possible. One addition I have recently added was using the Citadel Dry paint "Longbeard Grey" to go gently over the astrogranite texture paint. This addition to the models bases really helps to highlight the face that they are fighting on the battlefields.

So whats next you ask? Well Ive been working on the Tanith and Verghast models to help flesh out the army. I also have started to repaint my tau forces with the release of the new 7th Edition Codex. This new codex seems to have offered exciting new options to Tau players. Also in the works is BIG news that I am hoping to share with you all soon. At the beginning of the year, I had writtern that this news was to be placed throughout the year. Although ive been mentioning it, I havent been able to talk about it just yet.

Rest assured that everything has been progressing as we had hoped and the lack of writing has seen a greater number of feedback and work being done in regards to this project.

Hopefully as the year draws to a close I can keep you all up to date with not only my Tanith project, but also my tau and my warmachine Menoth army.

Until next time!

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March on Tanith, March on.... (Part 1)

New Fresh Recruits in the resin

So where have I been these past few months? Well after the end of the semester came I found out I passed my classes and will be starting my thesis. This great news meant that I will be able to start on the final road to earning my Master's Degree in History.

In the mean time I've been putting together this giant pile of resin and priming it to get started. These photos and this post have been waiting for months to get posted. However, the timing was never right till now.

Whats in the Box?

These photo's were day 1 photos of my big project for 2015. A brand new 100% Victoria Lamb and 3rd party Imperial Guard army. Having gotten this project assembled. I decided to take it slowly making this army my baby. Even the Phantine troopers have gotten redone in order to make sure everything is up to standard as I want it. Sometimes I wonder if its just me who wants to make a perfect, true to lore army or if others want to do it with their forces too.

Test Scheme

My next step is to start working slowly on rebuilding this army to its former glory. One of the biggest opportunities is that Victoria Lamb's female guard allow for me to get some Verghast female snipers as well as a distinguished look for my Verghast over my Tanith. Whether or not this will happen remains to be seen. In the coming months I hope to have more to show you with these forces.

Seen here is the first test scheme model that i completed today. Please note that the tattoos have not been done yet as I am unsure what trooper I wish for this model to be. I have been trying to find a list of each trooper's tattoos. If anyone knows please message me!!! This trooper was done in a new paint scheme that ive been trying out. Most of the model is done up in Vallejo paints. The texture paint on the base was provided to me by my good friend Bandogora who trade them to me for some commissions seen earlier in this blog. Besides this trooper I have also gotten "Try Again" Bragg done too. His model will be showing up in another post that I had planned to write months ago. Any and all comments are welcome.

Test Scheme side shot

Another note is about the All Guardsmen party as done by Shoggy. The banners now seen as the top of my blog are done by the wonderful Kurt Metz. I traded away my first verison of the All Guardsmen Party (AGP) to him in order to get a few custom art pieces done. However, the final detailed models were never shown outside of TG and 1d4chan. So I plan to release images of them here with the V2 editions once they are finished.

The V2 editions actually include a full 10 man squad. This time new faces such as Heavy, Fumbles the Pysker, and Spots the Wonder drone join the party in a attempt to make a INQ legal squad for Kill Team games. I actually got a chance to take them out and play a few games with them two weekends ago. They preformed well in the hands of a novice learning the game of 40k. Hopefully once they get painted they will be joining my INQ forces as full members of Inquisitor Greg Sargent retinue.  A lot of time and effort has gone into making the army the best that it can be.

I know at the beginning of the year i promised to talk about a secret project. That project is still being worked on and news will be coming soon. Until next time. Keep rolling those dice. The Emperor Protects..........

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Product Review: Victoria Miniatures Border World Rangers

                Well here we are our first new project for 2015!  My long term goal for the New Year is to build myself a fighting force of Victoria Miniatures "Border World Rangers" to gradually phase out my Games Workshop conversions in my Tanith First and Only force. This was a decision by me in order to focus on a better look to my Tanith, I have always wanted to push my painting skills and I believe that the lessons I learned from my first army will help me to improve upon this army to be even better.

This new army is going to be made up of entirely 3rd party miniatures as far as I can go. Future plans include both male and female Rangers as well as custom Commissar Gaunt and Viktor Hark models. I hope to be able to make this my pride and joy army. So since this is a product review lets get to it.

The Ranger body and cloaks

This will not be the first time I have worked with Victoria Lamb models. That experience came when I ordered the camo cloaks from her back in 2013. However, I put off this review for a long time due to wanting to make sure I could give a fair and balanced review. Having decided to start this project, I felt now was the time to do it.

Let me start off by saying that the models are even more gorgeous in the resin then the pictures can tell. After having seen some of the Tannenburg models that a friend of mine ordered, I knew I would get excellent results for this army.

bases,scopes and bodies

legs,arms,heads and bits

The models came excellently wrapped and bubble wrapped to protect them against the shipping and handling. I ordered about 100$ worth to avoid the shipping fees that disappears at 50$ USD (highly recommended). They arrived after about two weeks from Australia to the United States.

The models were examined and found to have been in good shape. They had survived their journey well. After opening the packages, I placed the model spurs into warm soapy water. This was for two reasons. One was to clean off the resin release agent that all resin models have. Without this step the paint will not attach itself to the model. Second, it was to re-bend the models back into proper form on those that had bent in transit.

Overall the models arrived in very good time and order, Right now they are undergoing a wash to make sure they are thoroughly cleaned. I would highly recommend Victoria Miniatures not only for their price, but for their quality. Vic's minis are some of the best I've seen on the miniature market. Anyone looking for an alternative model in 28mm heroic would be advised to check out this wonderful company.

As this is the start of the first project of the New Year, I hope to be able to finish this army in the long term. Its something we'll have to see about though.

Till next time, keep rolling those dice...

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