Miniature Monday 10/18/16

Armies on Parade ate my time and sanity, so I'm late writing this on two counts.  That's fine, I got to see lots and lots of really cool models this past Saturday.

A few comments on the Armies on Parade stuff:  It was really amazing to see that many painted armies in one place.  There were so many good displays that I really wish I could have voted for my top three instead of just one.  I ended up voting for the 30k Iron Hands display because it was way nicer than any of my photos could show.  The Space Marines on it were largely sculpted, since they were what are called true scale marines; that is to say that the models are made bigger so that they actually are about as big as they ought to be.

Tzeentch Army

Tau Empire

Orcs and Goblins

Watch Company Stark

Kult of K WAAAGH!!!

Astrolabe of Forgotten Empires

Angry Trees

Mad Morks

The Imperium Visits Endor

Emperor's Bastion

Ultramarines 10th Company

Iron Hands 30k: The Knight-Cerastus

Iron Hands 30k: True Scale Space Marines

Aside from that, I helped my roomie finish up his display board.  You can see the result on the Astrolabe of Forgotten Empires.  Most of that was helping figure out colors and techniques.  We sprayed a brown color around the arcane mechanism stuff and then a proper shiny gold on the mechanisms themselves to save an enormous amount of time.  The matte sealer really took down all of the shine so it looked like something that had been buried for untold millennia.

MkI Rhino

Great Escape had a swap meet this weekend and of course I went.  The roomie snagged an old Armorcast Warhound Titan for $100 (those go for way more than that on eBay).  I bought what turned out to be about an entire company's worth of Dark Angels for $105.  Estimated value is roughly $1200, and consisted of models from the late 90's to mid 00's.  There was about 123 infantry models of various kinds; I have yet to make an exact list but there are a lot of tactical marines.  The vehicles were what I actually wanted, and these were four Rhinos, two Predators, a Razorback, a Whirlwind, and a Vindicator.  They were all based on the old MkI Rhino chassis (called a MkIc Deimos-Pattern Rhino by Forge World), so they were a hybrid of plastic and metal if they weren't a stock Rhino.  Additionally there were two Land Speeders.  The Razorback and two of the Rhinos were not assembled (you can see the one I assembled today in the photo), with the instructions included in the box.  Interestingly enough, the fully assembled Rhino-based vehicles were assembled incorrectly; they are longer than they should be and this kind of screws up some of the mount options.  It is also intriguing that the old Rhinos had exterior hand rails that most examples I've seen in person are missing.

It's going to be awhile before I finish stripping, disassembling, and incorporating all the infantry models I ended up with.  There was even a Callidus Assassin hiding in the box!  There are a few Dark Angel specific things that I plan to give to a local Dark Angel player.  Not sure how he feels about working with metal, but they're nice old models with some heft to 'em.

Anyway, next stop is to start painting Space Marines.  And assemble Heavy Gear models.