The Warmasters’ Crusade – Imperium Checkpoint 1

Let’s see in detail what the Warmasters of the Imperium have achieved in this first month of the campaign. And what they want to share with us!

Imperium Checkpoint 1

Let’s review in order of completed points so far:

Armando – Black Templars / Custodes / Ministorum

Armando tells us that he has almost completed half of the first 500 points. It might be true because we have seen some pictures of his work, however, he must be very busy because he has not officially send them through the appropriate astropathic channels.

Even so, we thought that you should not miss what he is preparing so we have hired an Adeptus Paparazzi to take a picture and show us what he is up to:

But, shhh! Keep it secret! (Keep it safe)

Phobos – Space Wolves

Phobos was that Warlord who… well, he had a tremendous indigestion with Tzeentch but it seems that the Wolves can be processed much better. He brings us succulent news:

After my absolute failure in the previous campaing, I set myself the goal of being more organized to meet deadlines trying to give the best paintjob that I can with the little time I have lately. For this reason, and with the experience acquired, that if you leave details for the end you do not finish anything, I decided to assemble all the points of Checkpoint 3 at the same time, with their bases and details so that during this time I only have to worry about painting.

To finish my army I have to go through the millennial torture of FineCast since both my General Harald and his champion Canis are the result of this delicate process of pain for the modeler. I had relative luck with bubbles and mold displacements but the casting of the miniatures is what it is and I hope you will excuse me if the painting is not up to the best standard. I admit that I have wet dreams now about going back to the good old GW plastic with the Dreadnought. I’m suffering a bit with these miniatures, but I’ll try to hide some imperfections with some wear and tear.

As for colours I’m being quite traditional. I’m trying to follow the painting process of Sergio Calvo (whose Patreon I signed up as he opened it) and I use a first base of Russ Grey and from there go up in layers. To paint the wolves, that this army is going to have in good numbers, I have applied some first layers with airbrush colours of the fur and then try to define tufts instead of hair to hair. With the terrible casting this is quite complicated since in the sculpture hairs are marked separately, instead of tufts.

At the moment I have not completely finished Harald but there is little left on him and I hope to finish him and Canis for the next Checkpoint and finally be able to move to GW plastic for good.

Phobos is going to need all our encouragement with that Finecrap, I mean Failcast, I mean… you know… Go Phobos!

Javi – Blood Angels

There was once a universe full of horses with horseshoes to be fixed, where the Chaos Dwarfs were painted in a month, and where Javi was the undisputed leader Checkpoint after Checkpoint.

That Age (of Sigmar) is now left behind, and in the dark future of the year 40k, Javi has had his blood sucked by the Blood Angels. So much, that although he reports progress, he has not wanted to show us anything for the time being.

What an “Herrerus Interruptus”!

Volomir – Kriegs / Astartes

Volomir returns to his old ways. Progresses, but not adequately. His work consisted of cleaning, assembling, basing and priming the first 500 points (well, a bit more than that since the initial points were poorly calculated and the list had to be adjusted).

But hey, that’s quite a large number of miniatures… it doesn’t seem that little effort from the looks of it!

In the meantime, the story of the abandoned Death Korps defence in Vraks continues:

“

Supreme Lords of Terra, wielders of the Hammer of the Emperor:

I really hope this transmission is received timely by your excellencies. It is my duty to again to ask for your help. The enemy is closing in day by day and its constant barrages are killing us by the thousands. At this rate, the Vraks system will be left without a post to defend it in a few Terran months.

– I have lost count already, but I believe this is message 34 already and still no response… –

I beg you, please. Send reinforcements.

Letter to the High Council of the Astra Militarum in Terra – from the Supreme High Marshal of the D.K. of Krieg, stationed in the Vraks System

“

Will the reinforcements arrive on time?

Winterland – Space Wolves

From the winter lands of Fenris (or Asturias, if you prefer) we get the first progress preports of one of the new guys. Winter also brings us a small tutorial on how he is making the bases of his ‘Ultra Wolves’.

I tried to make some bases, easy and interesting, adequate to the soil of the planet Fenris, the home planet of the Space Wolves. A planet changed by the volcanic activity in the Fenrisian summer and covered with snow during its extreme winter.

That’s why I’ve looked for something simple that allows me to make a volcanic soil with snow.

1. With a spatula we apply the volcanic lava product by Vallejo, directly from the pot to the base. With the spatula we model the surface a little bit, irregularly and with edges.
2. One day in a decoration shop I saw black decorative glass with a suitable grain size, (keep an eye on those stores because they can have material very suitable for modeling). To make the bases with more marked edges I choose elongated pebbles and placed them on the pedestal directly before it dried.
3. Once dry, we mix white glue with hard snow from Action Press in a container. Once well mixed it will be a lumpy paste that we can apply generously with a spatula in the base and also in the lower parts of the miniatures like feet, edges of capes, etc.

Once everything is dry , everything will be white snow with the appearance of frozen snow alternated with glass stones that will give the feeling of volcanic terrain covered by the eternal snow of Fenris.

Greetings and I hope you found it interesting.

Nor – Imperial Knights

Incredible progress by Nor, who basically reports a very clear zero for his amazing army of Imperial Knights.

Wait, you call that list an army?

Truth be told, he has actually done something, not much, but it does look like he has preferred the pen to the brushes. He brings us a beautiful story with which he will try to camouflage his lack of progress:

After a few weeks assembling my Imperial Knights spear, I finally have them ready to start painting. I did not know how to present the history of these Knights, so I decided to create a little backstory to justify how they will be painted and the possible incongruities that there are regarding heraldry, brands and shields … So there you go:

Here’s the story of ‘Kelly’s heroes’:

Kelly Bolsano, the “Captain” Bolsano, was a veteran of the wars initiated after the awakening of Roboute Guilliman.

Before that, he was determined to retire. He had more than fulfilled his service to the orders of the Raven house, had many painful scars, and a conflicting history behind him. The highest nobles of his house had already decided that there would be no more medals in the history of Captain Bolsano. So, what to do next? He thought.

But when the lord of the Ultramarines, a true son of the Emperor, appeared again in this universe, something stirred in his gut. It was not the time to leave. If Guilliman had come back he would need every son of humanity who could fight at his side. And indeed it would he would. Straight to the point (as Kelly liked it), Guilliman called the crusade Indomitus, a ray of hope that had to cross the galaxy, cleaving with its purity the heart of chaos that flooded everything.

Kelly volunteered for the vanguard of this new feat of Imperium. But his request was “dismissed.” The heavy machinery of bureaucracy, which had begun with his request to “get out”, deprived him of being in his place.
He would spend his days submerging in decrepitude, listening to the echoes of the distant battles rumble among the untouchable rooms of the Tower, until there was nothing left to hear, nothing to do but lie down and… die.

But that would not be his destiny. A strange guy named Gersul contacted him, told him he needed people for this new crusade, people who had to do tasks where the Imperium signature could not appear.
The best thing to put this masquerade together would be a mercenary company, he thought: ‘Kelly’s heroes’. And he laughed, he laughed thinking about the people who would accompany him in this bloody journey. Captain Bolsano knew their names perfectly; He had lived with these four bastards most of his life.
Fuck! ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Praise the Imperium for showing a path to the man who wants to walk!
Praise Guilliman!
Glory to the Raven house!

Porta – Dark Angels

Porta is another of the new ones in who we vested many of our hopes. And unfortunately the official news that comes to us from their Dark Angels are not very promising.

But we already know that the Dark Angels love their to hide information, so reliable sources of Astra Telepathica have brought us images taken from Porta‘s best kept secrets:

Will Porta care to report his true progress? Or on the contrary, will he continue to hide his true nature?

Santi – Custodes

Santi, another of the new ones, has taken The Warmasters’ Crusade very seriously. So much, that infected by the rest of his colleagues, he reports a very clear zero in his progress bar.

But… what is this folly! the guy has obviously been painting!

This first month I have been busy with the assembly and base layering. I have decided to paint the Custodes with the scheme of the Shadowkeepers because it is one of the factions that I liked the most about the background. I have given a first layer to all the details to see how the scheme works as a whole for the armor, I have to see how to illuminate the black pieces of the armor, I will be doing tests and we will see the result in Checkpoint 2.

At the moment I have begun to paint a head without a helmet, I lack  the one from Trajan Valoris and then I will see how many Custodes I paint with a helmet and how many with the head uncovered. Soon I will also start working with the capes that on the outside will be red and on the inside I am deciding whether dark brown or white.

This is all from the ranks of the Imperium. The Enemies will soon report in!