As the Emperor Wills

So, midway through last month (January 2024) I bought a copy of White Dwarf 496. I'm very haphazard regarding such purchases but, on this occasion, there was something inside which really intrigued me: the rules for the S olarien Task Force. While I haven't done so yet, I am eager to get into the playing side of the hobby. However, when (or more likely 'if') I get to playing for the first time, I want to start small and what smaller than a Combat Patrol. At this point, I already have a full combat patrol for Adepta Sororitas but, with their rules on miracle dice seeming a little complex, I wanted to maybe start simple with some of the Space Marine miniatures I already have. This is what made the Solarien Task Force both intriguing and tempting; because so far I already have a painted Phobos Lieutenant, a squad of Infiltrators and a Librarian (although Legends instead of Phobos. But I can proxy, right?) All that's left is the Suppressors, and I have a trio of those w...

When I took up this hobby nearly two years ago, the first full set I bought was the Space Marine Tactical Squad. Since then, my building and painting of the miniatures has been somewhat piecemeal. While I immediately built and painted all ten at the time, the paint scheme I used was a little more original as I had planned to create my own custom chapter. However, plans changed and now all of my painted models are Ultramarines, it became a thing that the previously painted needed to be amended, a job that took time as I focused on newer models. Well, eventually, the paint scheme was amended on my Tactical Marines but one thing I had never done to them was either shade or highlight. Again, this became something of a piecemeal effort, leading to only three of the ten being completed by the end of 2023. But now 2024 was here, I decided to make a concerted effort to get this long gestating miniatures finished completely, planning to get the entire unit finished. First up was the power armou...

With 2024 having now arrived, I had made myself a big plan for how to use the year. This started with finishing units which were still in progress by the end of 2023. My Infiltrators and my Tactical Squad (although, I'll talk about that later). My Primaris Infiltrators were seven tenths complete as the New Year arrived and while I wanted to work hard at ensuring some uniformity in their look, I also wanted to work through my remaining miniatures improving my painting skills as I went. Therefore, I started in much the same way as I had with all previous Infiltrators. Having primed them all in Chaos Black spray back in the summer, I made a start by applying two thin coats of Macragge Blue all over. This was followed with an all over wash of Drakenhof Nightshade before drybrushing Macragge Blue in order to return the armour back to that original colour. I followed this up with the drybrushing of Calgar Blue and then (to a lesser extent) Fenrisian Grey in order to apply the hig...