Gorram’s Blood Ravens

Buying first born marines at a reasonable price at this point comes with the caveat that you *will* be stripping them. Nasty job but necessary. It’s time to play with some chemicals.

There’s a mix of metals and plastics in here but everything is getting treated with Biostrip 20. Time in the goop varies by model but I’ve found that testing at 20-30 minutes usually does a good enough job. Usually any bits left in crevices is softened enough that (just) the tip of a hobby knife is enough to dislodge them. These buggers were so thick with paint that they stayed in for 90 minutes instead.

I then spent the rest of the evening tidying them up. Scraping mould lines, straightening up packs and shoulder pads and on two of them properly trimming the bolters so they look right on the hands. The flamer just fell off in the goop and I’m going to keep it off for painting. I debated prying off all the other weapons but they’ll do as they are.

Having spent more money on this project that I’m really comfortable with, I decided that I am going to cheap out on the primer and not buy a can specifically for this army. Instead I primed them black.

The first stage of painting was bundled all together on one afternoon: everyone got two coats of Citadel Khorne Red then a drybrush of Citadel Mephiston Red. Next up I base coated the undersuit and weapons with Vallejo 70.995 German Grey and Army Painter Gun Metal. I prefer this for “black” areas of the models rather than an actual black cos I think the wash afterwards looks more effective. Everyone got an all over wash of Citadel Nuln Oil at this point. Initially I was going to do this as a recess wash but honestly it was faster to do an all over wash and layer back up than recess wash. The red got layered back up with Citadel Mephiston Red and then an edge highlight with Citadel Evil Suns Scarlet. The grey/black got a highlight of Army Painter Ash Grey.

The second stage was two coats of 3 or 4 coats of Army Painter fanatics Skeleton Bone on the shoulder pads and Army Painter Fanatics Skeleton Bone on the purity seals. The wax on the seals is Army Painter Fanatics Mulled Berry. Eyes were painted white to give a better base coat for Citadel Hexwraith Flame. Gold details are done with Citadel Retributor Gold. These details all got a wash of Citadel Agrax Earthshade. 

The shoulder pads had 3 or 4 coats of Army Painter fanatics Skeleton Bone to make it a nice, smooth colour working up from the red/black that they were thanks to the first stage. The transfers come from this seller on Etsy. Once they were on and had been dull coated back down again, the trims were painted black and Citadel Agrax Earthshade was used just in the recess round the side rather than over the whole expanse of the shoulder pad. I have used a little of the base colour to weather the transfers but made the mistake of doing this with a brush cos I was too lazy to grab a bit of foam so it is a bit heavy handed – I’ll be better next time.

The bases were painted with Vallejo 70.873 US Field Drab because the basing mix (Geek Gaming Scenics Mediterranean Ground) I was using is bad for showing through base colour because it is so pale. Bases were rimmed with black and I called them done.

Several years ago I bought the anniversary edition of Dawn of War thinking it would be nice to go back to a game I loved. Like most Steam sale purchases, nothing ever happened with it. Then they announced the Definitive Edition was coming out and so I downloaded the old version… to check that I’d enjoy it enough in the modern age to justify buying the definitive edition. That 30% discount for already owning the game was a nice touch. It is one of those things that makes sense to gamers but would make very little sense to any of our loved ones we tried to explain it to. The game remains excellent and the changes they’ve made are nice. Next thing I knew, I’d thrown 20 hours at it in just a couple of days. Purchase validated. 

Of course, it lead to the inevitable hankering to paint a Blood Ravens army. I wasn’t in the hobby twenty years ago when the game came out… too busy spending my minimum wage earnings on booze. Being the obsessive kind of nerd that I am though, I decided that I’ll build one now as though I was walking into a GW back in 2004.

A couple of years ago, someone on a local club discord was giving away a bunch of old minis they’d found in their parents attic so that is my starting point.

Of course, I wanted to start adding models. I wanted to make sure they were ones that could have been bought back in 04 and being a librarian, I went looking for paperwork. Or at least scans of old paperwork. Thankfully the internet can be a great place and someone has digitised the entire US catalogue from 04/05.

http://www.solegends.com/citcat2004us/index.htm

Now the 2nd hand market for old space marines isn’t as mad as some oldhammer but there are still plenty of people taking the piss. There are a lot of options but you really have to watch for a while to figure out what the kind of “normal” price vs condition is and then make decisions from there. I have limited budget and so for me there was a lot of sitting on eBay for hours. This box contains over £150 worth of extra models (though not all picked up recently, this is not the first time I’ve considered repainting these minis) and as much as I would love to add in more stuff, I can’t justify it on a project like this. This then shall be my Blood Ravens, behold their glory!