In which MetalJim shows off his “leet” painting skillzzz…

So, as I have been sort of promising for a while, here are some pictures of my big summer project.

My army of Chaos Space Marines cost something close to $200 to purchase (including some internet discounts), and I now have enough dudes to fill out a 1200 point army list.  Not every dude that I purchased or painted is visible in the picture above (but trust me, all 1200 points of the Chaos force is painted).

Visible here is the Chaos Rhino, with some berzerkers in the near foreground.  I’m not happy about how the missile launcher wound up so close to the gunner, but at least I can pop both pieces out depending on whether I get “weapon destroyed” damage results in play.

In this picture we see some angry “possessed” chaos marines, leading some regular troopers in the background.  These guys are sort of random in play, as you don’t actually find out what their special ability is until just before the battle starts, after they are already deployed.

Above we see some serious “heavy metal minis”. All are solid pewter.  The guy in back is the demon prince who leads the army.  The other two mutants are called Obliterators.  Gluing on every little gun barrel and spiky bit was a real challenge for my gluing skills, but I prevailed.

Here is what it looks like when my Chaos Marines square off against the Tyranids that I painted last spring.  I think that the rules favor the Chaos force ever so slightly, but the ‘Nids can certainly prevail with a mixture of good tactics and good luck.

I’m not actually very good at painting faces, and it shows.  I also don’t do a whole lot with inks and subtle layering of paint for different effects.  However, I am pretty good when it comes to using patience to do a decent job of coloring in a lot of little details the hard way.

I also need to do something with the bases on the chaos minis (see the battle shot above for a comparison of a finished base and an unfinished base.  The preferred effect is something like broken pavement or asphalt, but I’ll see what I come up (the stuff on the base of the nid minis is painted sand, more or less).

Thoughts?  Comments?  Hot or not?