I have posted previously about my experiment with Space Marines, but after having watched the excellent tutorial videos on Youtube by Girl Painting I decided I ought to try and do something better. So I picked up another primed Marine and went to work.

Just for the record (and in case I forget!) here is what I did. All paints are Vallejo unless noted, and all are watered down 1:1 with flow-aid improver and a touch of washing up liquid:-

1. Assembled the mini, leaving the arms detached for ease of painting.
2. Army Painter Bone primer.
3. Two washes with watered down (1:1) Gryphonne Sepia (GW Wash).
4. Three highlights; Bone White, Bone White & Dead White mixed 1:1 and Dead White with a touch of Bone White in it.
5. Shoulder pads are base coated with two coats of Macharius Orange (GW Foundation), then a coat of Orange Fire. I then put on a watered down 1:1 wash of Flesh Ink, and highlighted with progressive mixes of Orange Fire and Gold Yellow.
6. The eyes are Necron Abyss (GW Foundation) with a highlight of Electric Blue.
7. The black parts were highlighted with a mix of Black and Bone White.
8. The gun is just Gunmetal Silver with Badab Black (GW Wash), highlighted with Silver.
9. The base is Charadon Granite (GW Foundation), drybrushed with Dheneb Stone (GW Foundation) and Ghost Grey.
10. The grass is Noch Tufts, drybrushed with Dead Flesh and Bone White.
11. The tactical squad marking is a decal, applied using Microsol and Microset. It is still setting, so looks a little rumpled. It will smooth out in about half an hour.

Only gloss and matt varnish left to go. Let me know what you think in the comments.

Just a quick look at my Bastion, made with the remains of the two Bastion kits and some Cities of Death pieces. I will be attaching a Landing Pad (scratchbuilt) to the back, and might make them separable for storage purposes.

Just to the right, you can see I finally finishing assembling my drop pod for my Spectral Tigers Marines (allies for my Witchhunters).

And the terrain piece behind that is another WIP you can see here.

As you might have guessed by now, I love making terrain, mainly because I love playing games with lots of terrain in it. See my batreps for details! Despite the fact I play Tau (who are supposed to love planet Bowling Ball), I enjoy (and remember) the games with loads of terrain far more than I do the games with a few pieces scattered here and there with little thought to what they are doing there and why.

I can feel a lengthy terrain post coming on, but I’ll stop there for now

My Witchhunters army is brutal if it can get into close combat but, of course, the only one who can get there without being shot to pieces is the Calidus. She gets shot to pieces the Turn after she gets there.

So I decided I needed some armoured assistance, and bought some Space Marines and a Drop Pod. I wanted a very simple colour scheme, and bought some Army Painter Bone-coloured primer. The basic idea is prime the marine, apply a wash of Devlan Mud and then do the details. Voila!

Since I have always been a huge fan of the Fighting Tigers of Veda I wanted my marines to have tiger stripes. After a few false starts, I decided on orange shoulder pads, with tiger stripes on the left one only. Black stripes with a black trim. What do you think?

I think I need to lose the white helmet stripe, but apart from that I am fairly happy with him. The other nine should be a doddle, and the drop pod is nearly finished.

(I know his arms look funny. They are not glued on at the shoulder yet. Keeping him in two parts like this makes him a lot easier to paint)

My friend Gary, who got me into 40k in the first place, has a Space Marine army, but I don’t hold that against him. Not so long as he keeps letting me beat him with my Tau

What he also has is some gorgeous terrain, much of it hand-made with other pieces bought in, mostly from Amera.

Here are some pics from a recent 1000 pt game:-

Playing the game on terrain like this takes it to a whole new level. Win or lose, you can’t help enjoying yourself.

There is a batrep to go with these pics, and you can find it here.