Wagner's Pimp My Ride

Reckon I can just about squeeze out a final army before New Year, if I don't hang about.



My poor old Inquisitors are a bit outdated these days. Old (if splendid) models, no troops choices for their army and the faint heretical whiff that they aren't going to get a new Codex. A while back, I had a squad of the old lead Stormtroopers, but they went along with my entire Guard troop (a Basilisk, a Chimera, three heavy weapons teams, some snipers and twenty guardsmen) after I moved house.

Time to replenish the ranks! While the rest of the team is still on the painting table, their heavy transport option has made it out of the gate in advance.

Not quite sure why I fell so heavily in favour of the Valkyrie. It's a good-looking airbus, sure enough. It has two souped-up gunny versions, the Vulture and the Vendetta, both of which could outshoot it with minimal effort, but it's not the guns you're taking it for, it's the carrying!

Fast - tick. Tough - tick. Able to provide a reasonable amount of fire support - tick, albeit cautiously because it's not terribly accurate. The big bonus is being able to stick a decent size squad (or squad and commanders) in it and whisk them to where they're needed with a pretty high chance of making it there.

Anyway, this one is white, because it's carrying Stormtroopers. Not Tempestus Scions, that's not perhaps the finest bit of IP Protection Naming I've ever seen deployed. No, that honour clearly goes to the non-orc Orruks. But my guys are going to be Stormtroopers, and unimaginative Sci-fi Nerd that I am, Stormtroopers should really only be one colour. Even if that magically cancels out their supposedly deadly shooting abilities and turns them into idiotic cannon fodder.

You can't really see them because I'm hopeless at photography, but they are previewing the colour scheme for the other troopers.

When I mentioned I'd got one to Stylus, he suggested doing WWII-style art on the side. So I did.

Imperial Ingrid! 

This is copied from a Deviant Art piece by Rotaken, shown here. My rendition is rather butch, somehow, but then I guess most Commissars aren't really the pin up sort exactly. 

Sadly, I didn't quite check where the weapon fittings would lie before committing this to paint.

D'oh.

Not to worry - seeing as I'd left them loose, all the better to swap as needed, a bit of twiddling about with a file and pincers let me sink the guns much further back in the socket, and the problem is mostly fixed.

Still a bit of overlap. The angle helps, or course, but it's a big improvement. This lascannon is the longer of the two, and it's only just clipping her bun now.

Under the wings, I can stick rocket launchers or massive missiles. And the fuselage doors slide open to deploy heavy bolter gunners at will (points allowing). I'm also very glad I spent the extra day painting the interior, because you can really see it well in these shots.

It's not glued to the base, which may well mean crashes at some point in the future, but it makes it much easier to store and carry. Although that front pylon is not long for this world, I suspect.

Painting Guide:

• White - Corax White basecoat all over, then heavy Nuln Oil wash. Celestra Grey drybrushed heavily over that, then a bit of Agrax wash on the bottom third or so, for a dirty look, before two to three thin layers of White Scar. Eshin Grey on a sponge stippled on for weathering
• Black - Black, a bit of Eshin Grey and Ulthuan Grey layering
• Silver - Leadbelcher, Agrax, Stormcast Silver
• Wing Stripe - Goblin Green, applied with the help of masking tape
• Red - Khorne Red, Carroberg Crimson splash, a bit of Evil Sunz Scarlet on the top
• Cockpit - All sorts. And I didn't screw up the canopy this time! Although it's nerve-wracking to paint, the struts are part of the same transparent piece as the windows
• Imperial Ingrid - took just under an hour of intense concentration, starting with a plain black silhouette and working with layers up on the various bits with the picture to hand as a guide. Easier than I hoped, but also not as perfect a copy. Never mind! It's an inch high, what do you expect?

Right! Better crack on, there's another twenty five models to get through before the weekend.