+ A batch of basing +
+ The Salamanders continue to emerge from grey plastic, taking on their adult coloration. The zenithal priming approach is a really quick way to get some basic colour down; and I keep having to stop myself from fiddling too much with it. +
+ These were sprayed with Halford's brown camouflage paint all over. Once dry, they were then hit with Halford's camouflage green with the can held at 45 degrees and from a foot or so away. Having allowed that to dry, I repeated the process with Colour Forge's Salamander green spray [+noosphericexloadlink embedded+]. This is explicitly matched to GW's Warpstone Glow, so it's a very handy colour to have for Salamanders. +
+ From there, I've simply done the basing with Winsor and Newton's Galeria Sand Texture Gel [+noosphericexloadlink embedded+], which was successively drybrushed with Skrag Brown (or Calth Brown) and Balor Brown, before the base rims were painted with a dark brown (Rhinox Hide, I think). +
+ Once that was completed, I used Abaddon Black diluted with a little flow improver and water to paint the weapons, pauldrons and metallic areas. I find adding both helps for basecoating, as the altered surface tension helps it flow. +
+ As to the rest of the force, there's been little substantial progress on the marines beyond painting their gauntlets. This little detail, however, substantially improves the look, as does the basing. Little steps build up to big adavances – but you've got to keep making them! +
+++
+ Legions Imperialis +
+ ...and so to the return of Epic. Warhammer Community must be doing something right in their communications, as the more I'm reading about it, the more enthused I'm finding myself. +
+ The most striking thing here for me is how much better everything looks when it's designed as a coherent range – rather than bit by bit over the years, as with the old Epic range. There's a clear internal consistency of size, scale and aesthetic for the new models, even if – as with the Traitors – GW seem to have chosen a scheme that makes it all but impossible to make out. +
+ Death Guard versus Iron Hands in urban combat – or light grey versus dark grey on grey – strikes me as an... uh... interesting way to catch people's eyes with a new scale. Just compare how the detail – soft as it is – of the older sculpts on the left with the new ones on the right. +
+ This new size is quite hard to compare from the image published on WarCom, so I've done a crude Photoshop job to put one of the old Mark VII plastics next to the new Mark VI. Assuming that the composite image is made up of models taken at the same angle and distance, the size difference between the old models and the new looks quite marked – I'd guess the new Tactical Marines are going to stand around 9mm tall, though this is a bit of a guess. +
+ While the old Epic scale was nominally 6mm, this was notoriously variable, and the Space Marines were notably small when compared with some of the later releases. I'd guess that the Mark VII model here, for example, was barely 6mm when including the round base insert. When removed, the model's probably only 5mm tall. Older Epic models are thus going to look quite puny when pictured in comparisons like that above, but given the sweeping scale of the game, I don't think this is going to be very noticeable at all during a game. +
+ I think rescaling or establishing a 'new normal' for an ongoing Epic line was fairly inevitable, and given the difference in quality, I'm not going to gripe too much. Since I doubt a 'true line of sight' approach will be used, there's nothing stopping people using their old models beyond personal preference, so it's down to the new models to grab people and pull them in. Personally, I'm looking forward to both using old model to try the game out, and to painting and playing the new ones. I've enjoyed painting 15mm models a lot [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+], and think these 8–10mm models are going to hit a lot of the same buttons. +
+++
+ One final picture for a bit of fun... +
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