+ inload: Blood Angels Support +

+ And then it was done + 

+ The Land Speeder is complete – and with that, the army as a whole is finished. Back in June 2017 [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+] I wrote:

+ I'm not going to be obsessive about the army composition. There'll doubtless be a few nods to old models (I'm particularly keen to have a go at updating the proto-Tycho Blood Angels Captain) and the paint scheme, but the force will be a more general homage to the Blood Angels of the time – so tying in bits from the tail end of Rogue Trader through 2nd edition; particularly the artwork. +

+ Well, it turned out to be rather more obsessive than I'd intended; becoming a straight-up duplicate of the army! It's been three years, but I've now got a complete, re-imagined version of the Blood Angels army that inspired me. +

+ In a future inload I'll post up the finished army. I had hoped to get some good pict-captures over the weekend, but alas it was not to be. Anyway, for the moment it's the Land Speeder's time for a bit of attention. +

+++

+ Land Speeder +

+ The crew and speeder itself are painted with slightly different techniques, so while the palette is common between them, the resulting hue is subtly different. The idea behind this is that the Astartes' own armour is treated differently from the vehicle pool. I've tried to emphasise the nature of the vehicle as a piece of equipment by adding little warning symbols below hatches and above the intakes, as you can see above. +

+ As with the Rhino [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+], I used a stippling technique to build texture on the Speeder. This gives an appearance evocative of WWII-era cast-iron tanks; which strikes me as pleasingly anachronous. The Marines, meanwhile, have a smoother, finer finish. +

+ Close study of the inspiration shows that the left-hand figure had a yellow hand symbol painted on his pad, and a striped leg. I didn't realise it at the time, but this is presuamably marking him out as a techmarine. As with Brother Mirandola [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+], I changed the Rogue Trader-era hand symbol for the modern Opus Machina skull-in-cog. +

+ This was particularly interesting (well, in a very trainspottery way) to me because I'd wondered where all the techmarines were. The old army lists required multiple techmarines – one for each vehicle – but the painted army didn't seem to include them. Having one present on the Land Speeder makes things a lot more clear; they were mostly hidden within the vehicles, piloting them. +

+ That might also answer another question – why does the pilot have yellow shoulder pads? I had assumed that this was a simple aesthetic flourish, or perhaps a precursor to the later idea that most Land Speeders were attached from the 8th (Assault) Company, the colour of which is yellow. +

+ Looking back over the army list, it may be that this figure represents the Lieutenant – another figure that's present in the army list (a Lieutenant was compulsory during the later Rogue Trader period) but missing from the army as a physical model. +

+ That's confirmed by Andy Chambers' notes in the later battle report, where he writes that 'the Lieutenant acted as gunner on board the Land Speeder, accompanied by a single techmarine.' It's funny; I must have read that report dozens of times, but it had never clicked with me that the Speeder crew was always planned and painted up to be a Lieutenant and techmarine – it wasn't just a quick way to justify not having those models painted. I should have had more faith! +

+ I included the yellow tip on the multimelta. Not only is that a pretty iconic look for the period, but it added an important point of interest to an otherwise fairly simple model. +

+ The army badge (blue circle) is present on both crew and speeder, though it's much reduced – it was massive on the original. +

+ On the other side we can see further markings – a little bit of freehand helps to add interest to big black areas. The model is Forge World's own retrohammer reimagining of the original; and I'm pleased to see that they kept some of the large blank areas of the original. It's nice to have space and opportunity to play around with texture and freehand. +

+ A word here to say thank-you to Ilmarinen, who picked this up for me when it had a limited advanced release – sorry that it took me over two years to get it built and painted! +

+ The front. The techmarine's hazard-stripe greave has been reduced to a stripe in my interpretation, and he's got a Mark IV helm – just to help the model to blend in with the army. The Lieutenant is Mark VI accurate, just like the original. I enjoyed painting the yellow; even round the studs. +

+ As a little fun flourish, I painted the large scanner/screen in front of the techmarine with a detail of the battle report in WD141; simplifying things to red spots for the enemy Eldar and white for friendly forces. I should probably have added more contrast to the hills, as they're kinda lost – but then as it's just a bit of fun, it doesn't matter too much. +

+ Techmarine and quad-launcher +

+ Talking about the techmarine above reminded me that I hadn't posted a picture of the techmarine and his charge – so here you go:

+ When texturing the large 80mm base, I left a subtle space for the techmarine to slot on, which helps the two to be clearly associated. +