March of the Elites: Project update 2

I've made some progress, less than I'd like but more than I expected considering the amount of time I've put in.

While cleaning some of the black reach Terminators I... pulled the arms a bit too much. I thought I'd be able to get them off without breaking them, that only worked for one arm. Easily fixed with a bit of plastic glue but then I got to thinking, magnets! Magnets and lightning claws that is. It's a perfect opportunity to make some changes and expand the versatility of my Terminators without expending a considerable amount of cash on a new set of Terminators (or going to ebay to get bodies without arms, that route wouldn't save me that much)

The paint stripping worked well, some of the thickly painted models required a few soaks in power spray to get nearly everything off. They'll need one more soak to get the stuff stuck in the corners but otherwise they're just like bare plastic. I have some ebay landspeeders that I've been trying to strip as well, the hard to reach spots in between the marines are a pain in the ass.

I ran in to an unforeseen issue with the two ebay dreadnoughts, the leg guards. They where nice and cheap but I never realised that the legs where missing the leg guards that all other dreads have, a stupid mistake as I'll have to go hunt for parts now. I'm fairly sure the dread kit comes with spares with different designs, a search of the bitz box is in order and I'll have to get creative if I come up short.

Landraider (MultiMelta, pindle storm bolter) - More assembly required. (No change)

Terminator Assault Squad (Thunder hammers and Storm Shields) and Lysander (200) - Moved to next phase early, they are now coated with the main armour colour so they're in to the detail paint phase now.

Terminator Squad (Cyclone launcher) - Cyclone Launcher repaired. Paint stripping finished. A spare Terminator is being used to test magnetised arms to allow swapping out for lighting claws to increase their versatility. Once the magnets work they'll be need a basecoat applied.

Dreadnought (Default load-out) - Basecoat needs to be removed. (No change)

Dreadnought (Plasma Cannon) - Paint stripped. Legs repaired but missing leg guards. Icons/accessory's to be added and then moved to base-coating phase.

Dreadnought (Assault Cannon, Missile Launcher) - Paint stripped. Legs repaired but missing leg guards. Icons/accessory's to be added and then moved to base-coating phase.

Ironclad Dreadnought - Moved to next phase early, it's now coated with the main armour colour so it's in to the detail paint phase now.

Contemptor Dreadnought (Kheres Assault Cannon) - Assembled and weapons attached with magnets just below the elbow. The CCW is missing the internal weapon, something I didn't realise until I had the arm assembled for several days. I thought it would just slot in but you have to do it before attaching the fingers and the ring they're glued to. It doesn't matter as I'll just fill the hole with milliput and cut off excess resin from the weapon to get it in. The mould release was nearly impossible to get rid of on the leg joints, it seemed that no matter how many times I scrubbed it the super glue wouldn't take until eventually I got a good contact. (shown here with a heavy conversion beamer instead)

A new list: March of the Elites

A new year and a new list. I've massed up 25 Terminators and 6 Dreadnought's that need to undergo assembly, paint stripping, re-basing and painting again, plenty to do and I'm starting it off with the Bolter and Chainsword Librarium Painting Challenge (LPC) to keep me motivated. This addition to my Crimson Fist army comes out just over 1500 points and it's nearly all elites so I realise that it's not a legal army list without troops, I have plenty of them to field a valid army.

For basecoats I've used Armypainter ultramarine blue and I plan to use an airbrush with Kantor blue for the next layer, I've used Necron Abyss for my other Crimson Fists so I want to get a colour close to that again.

There's a few ebay purchases here and I've had to strip the paint off some of them so I've used Fairy Power Spray to get most of the paint off them. The only problem I've had is with two of the broken dreadnoughts, they had layers of paint on them and one of them was thick layer of bronze which was a bit trickier to shift, and the crevices are damn hard to clean out with a toothbrush. I had to dig out a box of toothpicks to get in there. 

Phase one: Have all models primed with blue spray along with any paint stripping, magnet attachment and model repairs to be done.

Army list:

Landraider (270)  (MultiMelta, pindle storm bolter) - More assembly required.

Terminator Assault Squad (200) (Thunder hammers and Storm Shields) and Lysander (200) - Based, waiting for next phase.

Terminator Squad (230) (Cyclone launcher) - Paint stripping in progress, Cyclone Launcher needs to be repaired.

Dreadnought (105) (Default load-out) - Basecoat needs to be removed. I used gesso on it originally, while it worked well on other, smaller, models but the flat areas on this dread appear uneven and you can see brush strokes. I have the same issue with a predator but I won't be stripping that one, too much work.

Dreadnought (115) (Plasma Cannon) - Paint stripping in progress, legs need to be repaired and then re-based.

Dreadnought (125) (Assault Cannon, Missile Launcher) - Paint stripping in progress, legs need to be repaired and then re-based.

Ironclad Dreadnought (135) - Based, waiting for magnets on DCCW mounted weapons.

Contemptor Dreadnought (190) (Kheres Assault Cannon) - Needs assembly and magnets.