On the Table: Alpha Legion Veteran Tactical Squad 1

Finished up my next batch of Alpha Legion marines. This time I finished up some Legion Tactical Veterans. I opted to do the special weapon bearers and the sergeants for all three squads first. As we are planning to start a Victory is Vengeance campaign I need options more than entire units. Completing this group gives me the modes I need to be able to start the campaign. Now that I have had some experience in building and playing 40k, I brought all the lessons learned to building out these units. I built the squads to accommodate all options. In this case two magnetized Veterans to hold special weapons. Given the nature of the missile launchers for 30k, I even magnetized the waist of 3 of the 6 to accommodate an entire torso holding the missile launcher. For this round of painting I opted to only paint bolters/meltas/plasmas & flamers. Leaving the Heavy bolters and missile launchers aside to be completed at a later date. Similarly the sergeants are only equipped with what they will have initially in the campaign but are magnetized to take all weapon options. This includes a wrist magnet on the gun arm to swap from bolters to various pistols and combi-weapons. The left arm is doubly magnetized both coming off at the wrist for power weapons/chain swords and thunder hammers. The left arm also comes off at the shoulder to allow power fists and lightning claws to be used.

So as we move onto painting steps we must first talk about the staged assembly of the models. I opted to heavily stage assemble the models. Shoulder pads where blue tacked to sprues, arms where glued to torsos and to legs. heads are also not attached but left on the sprue. the rest being magnetized where left off as they would always be removable. To paint up these models I started with a base coat of Ultramarine Blue using an airbrush. After that I applied a zenithal highlight of 50/50 Ultramarine and Minitaire Troll Hide. I finished by applying a stencil of dragon scales to the legs and shoulder guards using Troll Hide. After this we move onto the brush work. I applied a Null Oil wash directly to the seems and joints in the armor. Base coated the weapons with black on the plating edge highlighting them with Storm Grey. I also base coated the metallic areas with Gunmetal, also washing them in Null Oil. I then bring up the metal areas with Chainmail and edge highlight with Plate Silver. Hitting the exposed studs with the Plate Silver. I then edge highlight all the armor areas in Troll Hide then again with a fine Scorpion Green. I then airbrushed some OSL lava lighting onto the legs as I painted up the bases. I do this then so I know the position of the model on the base. Last I finish assembling the model and attach it to the base. Almost the opposite of the normal assemble paint method.