Astronomi-mini-con: preparation

Just a quick post up for now, today my buddy Mike (shiftedmatrix.com) ran a small tournament in preparation for this years Astronomi-con.  Astro last year was a blast and I was looking forward to it this year, but unfortunately it has fallen on the same date as Zlurpeebowl this year to which I have already committed.

Regardless Mike's mini-tournament (full details here) would be a fun day of 40K on some tables of amazing terrain with good people, so I was still planning to go.  The compromise I made was to just run a very similar list to last year, since my Space Sharks would need a lot of painting to get 1,500 points painted - whereas I wrote up a list for my Novamarines that swapped out the FW special character I used at last years Astronomi-con and swapped in a dreadnought (already painted) and 2 more drop pods (which I needed to paint)

regular and dreadnought drop pods

So over the past few days I got these drop pods painted up so I could run a fully painted army.  Definitely one of the best things about astro is the amazing armies and I didn't want to be running any grey plastic.  This was another nice chunk of this army painted, just leaving some assault terminators, some extra special/heavy weapons choices, some scouts and a second land speeder storm to reach what I expect the limit of this army to be.  It's nearly 75% completely painted now and I have made some major updates to the army page (including painting chart) so check it out!

I will put up a little series of short battle reports from Astronomi-mini-con in the next couple days - I am completely bagged right now but I just wanted to claim the 20 painting points for completing these two vehicles!

Dread Drop Pods

Just wanted to get a quick post up about the two custom drop pods I picked up from Ashton (redfinger). They are converted with plasticard from the standard pod kit. One will go to Ric (ricalopia) for my Flesh Tearers (obviously the red one) and the other will be the final drop pod for my Novamarines.

Heard there's some new rules in the updated apocalypse book, looking forward to testing them out!

Novamarines bonus post - Entry to TFP "Squad" theme competition

Well aren't you folks lucky!  I decided that while I have everything out I would snap some pics for an entry to Silar's second competition over at The Fallen Princes. The theme is squad and you can include a transport if you wish.  This works out perfectly for me as I had a ton of painting to do for the upcoming Astronomi-con tournament!

combat squad (sgt: combi-melta/power fist, special: meltagun)

The tactical squad is pretty simple.  It's a second AoBR squad I picked up cheap, but I have built a couple replacements mainly to get some more high strength (melta/power fist) into the squad so the sergeant and special weapons marine are not monopose pieces.

combat squad (heavy: missile launcher)

Here's the transport portion of the entry.  This drop pod was dead easy to finish, all I did was spray it black with the doors open and drybrush the hell out of it.  I picked out the storm bolter inside with black to match all the rest of the weapons.  Then I quartered each door using painters tape to keep it neat and put a Novamarines chapter decal where I had to cut off the previous chapter symbol.  Total maybe about 2 hours (possibly less)

drop pod - doors closed

It's not very imposing when the doors are blown - could end up being a benefit.

drop pod - doors open

Due to the amount of stuff I had to paint for astro - I will likely have two more entries to the competition from my Novamarines alone.  Next up will be a small squad of scouts and then a squad of terminators (I will need to magnetize & paint up a sergeant power sword arm and it might not happen before the tournament - but the competition doesn't end until July 24th so you have PLENTY of time to get your own entry submitted!

Scratchbuilt Drop Pod mk1

Well I figured I'd get in on the action and post up a pic of my first try (mk1) for a scratchbuilt drop pod. Of the three door dreadnought variety, I really want at least one door to fold down. Also found the cardstock just too thin to give it any depth - may continue to use it for doors, but I'm going to switch to plastic card for details.

I still need to add little half rolls of card under the door to represent the hinges, and a design cut to lay on the doors. Truly not happy with this though - so I think I'm going to donate it to Two Headed Dragon as a terrain piece. The doors look all beat up anyways. I'll still probably paint it in Novamarines colours though. Maybe just leave it at the store so I have something to do in between games.