Last Month's Painting: Lost Patrol

For this November I’ve being trying to paint the entirety of the Lost Patrol boxed set. As one of Games Workshop’s smaller releases, this wasn’t a huge task and I managed to successfully paint the entire set in slightly less than a month.

Not that many models, but for me, that's
pretty good going for a month.

Lost Patrol was a game released a few years ago as part of Games Workshop’s seemingly endless slew of board games based on its properties it was putting out at the time, and like the slightly-too-obsessed collector that I am, I had to have them all. Some were better quality than others, and from what I understand the actual game isn’t one of Games Workshop’s better efforts. Like Space Hulk before it, it was once again a small group of Space Marines vs a much larger swarm of Genestealers, trying to find the macguffin before they all die, though in this game they are Scouts rather than Terminators. Unlike Space Hulk, however, there were no new models designed for it – they were all currently-existing models. The game used a very simple rule set aimed at younger players, a noble idea, but it had the effect of stacking the game quite heavily in favour of the Genestealer player. And even though there are a huge number of ways the map can be arranged, there is only one scenario which limits its long-term appeal. The latter two are things I’ve heard, by the way. I haven’t actually played the game yet.

The Scouts were a lot of fun...

But we’re here to talk about the painting rather than the quality of the game, and here I faced some… not necessarily new challenges but re-visiting some old ones. I have, of course, been painting Space Marines for pretty much the entire time I’ve been invested in the hobby, even if most of them were Chaos. Tyranids have been less frequent though regular readers will recognise the aesthetic at least from the Space Hulk set. The only time I’ve ever done Space Marine Scouts before, though, was  nearly 10 years ago where I had the idea of building a scout army to represent the rebuilding of the Black Consuls chapter, and I’ve painted Human faces intermittently since then (I tend to prefer helmets.) I didn’t do a terrible job but my lack of experience with painting faces shows, I think – some of those eyes are very sloppy indeed! If painting is a skill I’m looking to develop, I might consider doing an army with exposed faces to give me a little more practice! Elsewhere, the Scouts were painted in Blood Angels colours, which was nothing new to me since I’d painted the Space Hulk set in the same way and my Word Bearer army is roughly the same colour with different trimmings.

And painting Genestealers this way is a
quick and effective paint scheme.

The Genestealers were interesting. As presented on the box art and the photographs on the back, they appear to be a splinter fleet of Hive Fleet Kraken; largely a bony white colour with red claws. With Hive Fleet Kraken, the carapace would usually be red, and the flesh would be more of a sepia-colour, but this way gave them a more skeletal appearance that would be terrifying in large numbers. After watching a video guide on Youtube and buying a red wash, I was struck by how little time it took to get an effective-looking set of models – to game standard, at least; I wouldn’t expect to win any painting competitions with this – and decided that if I ever chose to paint a Tyranid army in any significant numbers, this is how I’d do it. I’m pleased with the overall result, and I’m glad I now have an idea of what a large Tyranid army might look like for me, should it become an option to paint one.

I think what’s great about these boxed sets is that it gives you the opportunity to try painting models you wouldn’t normally paint. I wouldn’t normally choose to paint Tryanids but I’ve thoroughly enjoyed painting the Genestealers from Space Hulk and Lost Patrol – and expanding my horizons on where I can take my painting can only be a good thing. I’m not short of them but don’t know what the next one will be yet, we shall see…

New Space Marine Scouts

Hello! It’s been a while since I’ve posted on here for a number of different reasons, namely holidays, band and work, but I’m back now and I’ve got t-shirts or pictures, hopefully, if I can get it to work, for everybody.

Firstly, a quick note about the role-play: The regular readers, if any, will have noticed I’m not posting any more blogs that relate to things that went on at Role Play club. Just so we’re all clear on this, I’m still in the club, and the only session I’ve missed since I joined was the week I was on holiday. And I still play the games and I really enjoy them. But the obligation to blog them up every single time I did it was, I have to be honest, more work than fun, so I won’t necessarily be doing it again. Or at least, not any that relate to the club; if I do some home games I might think about it but I’m a long way away from that yet.

So, on to the main event: Space Marine Scouts!

So what’s brought this on? Well, judging by the fact that a great many – if not all – hobbyists paint or play Space Marines at some point, I found the temptation too hard to ignore. It will be a nice change to play with a ‘good guy’ army, and having Space Marines as the heroes of the universe lends a nice protagonist nature. What I didn’t want to do was get a Space Marine army by getting a Battleforce, or Assault on Black Reach; no standardised forces for me thank you. I much prefer the idea of a bitter struggle, a desperate fight for survival and really developing the characters in my army. Enter the Black Consuls…

All the Space Marine Codex has to say about the Black Consuls is this: “Recorded as annihilated at the Siege of Goddeth Hive, 455.M41. Current status unknown.” Deliberately vauge, but I think that’s the whole point: To a certain kind of hobbyist, it’s nice to fill in the gaps for yourself, and I’m one of them. The codex doesn’t say where Goddeth Hive was, who wiped the Consuls out, or why, and I’m not going to assume responsibility for this. What I am going to do is create the chapter again, after a desperate attempt to rebuild its former glory. What I will say is this: Though the chapter is now active, its master knows not to make a show of it just yet. They are nowhere near the strength they need to operate in anything other than the utmost secrecy…

Inspired by an article in a recent edition of White Dwarf, I decided to gear the army around Cities of Death, which so far has lended itself to how I’m doing the paint job but there you are. It fits in with the idea of remaining in the hive to rebuild the chapter. All Space Marines start out as Scouts, everybody knows that, so Scouts was the best option for me to go with. I gave them a Heavy Bolter because I’m picturing having to deal with more infantry than vehicles, and besides with the reduced ballistic skill of the Scouts I feel they would appreciate the ability to fire 3 shots per turn rather than 1. With Scouts, Hellfire rounds is an option that I fully intend to employ, but I need to be careful when and where; just because they can do something doesn’t mean that they should.

Sergeant Collatinus leads his brothers into yet another conflict...

For the painting, this is the colour scheme described in the codex, black and gold. I don’t know how I’m going to reconcile the shoulder trims should I decide to include regular Space Marines in the army – the colour scheme changes with each company – but I’m a long way from that at this point, and Scouts don’t have shoulder trims, so problem solved. I’ve done some battle damage on them as well; I wouldn’t usually be inclined to do this with Space Marines because they do make an effort to look after their armour and equipment so battle damage on Space Marines is not as common as you might think. However, the idea I wanted to get across here was of seasoned campaigners; they may be out on missions for weeks or months before they get a chance to come back and maintain their equipment, and would doubtless get in to a few fights along the way, so most of these models are going to be damaged to a certain extent. One thing that worked out very well I think was the appalling damage to Sergeant Collatinus' right eye, done by being a bit clever with a modelling knife, red paint and a purple wash, giving him the look of a man who's just lost an eye in a fight and still wants to come back for more. I am pleased with the way the skin tone and fatigues work with the armour; colour selection was actually quite important for this. One thing I wasn’t too happy about was the freehand; you can’t see it on the photos but I was trying to paint their squad number on their shoulder pads. The insignia on the left shoulder didn’t work out too badly, but the Roman numerals on the right shoulder looks like they were done by a 6 year old with a white chalk. I might have to re-do those at a later time; it’s not something I make a habit of because I don’t like going over old ground but I do want this army to look quite good so it will probably become necessary.

Now I know what you’re thinking: Where did I come up with the name? Actually I didn’t come up with it at all. As they are the Black Consuls, I thought I’d name them after, well… consuls. So I dragged up a list of consuls off Wikipedia and named Brother Sergeant Tarquinius Collatinus after one of the names I found. With my usual approach to things I will probably name them all in order. Now, if you know anything about the Roman approach to names, you’ll know that there was usually a ‘praenomina,’ which would be the equivalent of your first name. The consuls were no exception but the choice of first names was very limited and in a formal setting you’d usually be called by your family name anyway. So I decided to leave them out of my army, reasoning that 2 names were quite enough for a Space Marine to be getting on with!

So what’s next for the army? I’ve brought a captain for them, and I’m quite excited about this one because it’s not a model you would typically see leading a Space Marine army. However I’m tied up in some other projects at the moment, not least of which the Goblin Spider Riders I’ve been painting on and off for a couple of months now. Who knows what will come next? See you then…