40K Lamenters Phobos Command

"Brother-Captain Dagnir, your mission was a complete success. Zero casualties. Your exfil transports are inbound."

"We found a lost toy! There may be a child in the city who needs us. We are not leaving until we save them."

Last transmission of Strike Force Dagnir 

I found a Phobos Captain and Lieutenant at a bring & buy in Brisbane last year. Demonstrating the slippery slope of gaming, I thought they would be fun to complement my Phobos Strike Team.

Captain in Phobos armour

I love this teddy bear on a skull from Imitation of Life. Captain Dagnir is clearly going to ignore all other considerations until one child is saved. I like to think of his long-suffering servo-skull rolling its eyes (if it had any).

Lieutenant Gorthol is also clad in Phobos light power armour.

Lieutenant in Phobos armour

I freehanded the chapter icon.

Skull-o-meter™: 20

Kill Team: Phobos Strike Team

Lamenters Phobos Strike Team

These are my Lamenters Phobos Strike Team. There are a mix of Infiltrators and Incursors and bespoke specialists for KT2021. Let's have a look at the jargon:

• Lamenters are the overall Chapter; the yellow with chequers and bleeding heart icon
• Phobos is a 'new' type of Space Marine armour. It is lighter, for sneaky behind-the-lines missions. It is a bit more tacticool with lots of antennae and scopes and pouches and grenades, only one full-sized pauldron, and absence of the flared greaves.
• Kill Team (KT2021) is a GW game of elite squad vs elite squad. I could choose a Kill Team of six Phobos Strike Team marines for a mission.
• Infiltrators are behind-the-lines specialists with omni-scramblers that disrupt enemy deployment. They have the tactical arrow on their right shoulder and antenna on their backpacks.
• Incursors are raiders with specialised sensory arrays and sights. They have assault arrows on their right shoulder, visor facemasks, and boxy sights on their bolters and backpacks. 
• 'Bespoke specialists' are individual models with unique parts to represent roles within a Kill Team- marksman, comms, demolition, medic, etc.

With that out of the way, here are my canary yellow 7' sneaky boys. The miniatures are precisely sculpted, with nice posing just veering into the too-busy side of things. I slowed down dramatically at the end of the painting process with all the details, lights, buttons, lenses etc. I haven't done any armour highlights or clean-up- it is yellow with the recesses in brown. I could do them neater, but the reality of my backlog is crushing. I still have to add some markings to their left knees, but can't find my decals after a well-intentioned frenzied tidying-up session. The chequered pauldrons are 3D prints from Mallistone Foundries- very nice to paint. I also used some 3D prints from Imitation of Life on the 32mm bases. I used low-vis markings on the right shoulders, because they're sneaky.

The Infiltrator Veteran has a grizzled beard and a big purity seal. He's waving a knife;  I'd have preferred a pistol but didn't have any to hand. His bolt carbine has taped mags.

Infiltrator Veteran

Infiltrator Veteran with taped mags.

The Minelayer is an Incursor with Haywire Mines. This is a single-use weapon, but I had spares to make tokens on 25mm Renedra bases, and to add one to his butt armour.

Incursor Minelayer with Haywire Mines.

Incursor Minelayer with Haywire Mines.
Does this make my butt look big?

The Saboteur is an Infiltrator with a similar ability to the Minelayer. He's got a Big Red Button in his left hand.

Infiltrator Saboteur

The Helix Adept is the Infiltrator medic. I added an ECG trace to his Helix Gauntlet, and freehanded a few helices on his kneepad and backpack; I will replace those with decals when I can.

Infiltrator Helix Adept.

Infiltrator Helix Adept reaching for his first aid kit.

The Voxbreaker is an Infiltrator with a scanner that reduces an enemy's ability to hide and reroll dice.

Infiltrator Voxbreaker.

Infiltrator Voxbreaker- auspex scanner detail.

The Commsman is an Infiltrator who can use his comms array to hand out extra actions to other Strike Team members.

Infiltrator Commsman.

Infiltrator Commsman detail.

The Marksman is an Incursor with stronger shooting abilities.

Incursor Marksman.

I don't like the Marksman's pose, so I made another Incursor with a shooting stance.

Incursor.

I don't always like modelled-on smoke/ flash/ spell effects, but I do like the smoke coming from this Infiltrator's grenade.

Infiltrator.

Infiltrator.

There are more Phobos marines in my pile of potential- some for Kill Team, some not. Some day I may even play a game of KT2021.

Skull-o-meter™: 24

Epic post

Space Marine was my first exposure to GW in the early '90s. Now Legions Imperialis tries to take up the mantle. I had some Dark Angels, but ultimately ended up seduced by Imperial Guard. Titan Legions was nice to me as well. And I had a copy of Space Marine Battles, the WD compendium- I spent hours poring over that. I sold all my stuff to someone in Perth, I think, about 20 years ago. I don't regret selling them, but I do wish I'd taken more and better pictures. These following tiny pictures are only a part of what I had- if only you could see my dozen nicely painted Titans- Warlords and Reavers and Warhounds, oh my. I wonder what battles they had after they left my command...

The Imperator was the crown jewel of my collection. Hand painted banners and an extra large purity seal.(I've shown her off before but wanted to again.) 

Imperator

Back then, I didn't have the painting stamina I later developed, so not everything is completed. You can see I was influenced by the 'red phase' of 'Eavy Metal. Everything had to be visibly colour coded for organisation. Love me some Goblin Green bases. Man, I have the nostalgia for those Rhinos (and the Land Raiders, sadly no photos...)

Somewhere, I lost the turret to the magnificent Capitol Imperialis. Another hand-painted flag based on classic Rogue Trader art.

Capitol Imperialis

Chimeras

Hydras

Imperial Guard Company

Imperial Guard with Inquisitor and Commissar

Ravenwing

Dark Angel Razorbacks

Imperial Guard Vindicators

Imperial Guard Predators

OG Thunderhawk- the flying refrigerator! Dressed up as a Hind.

I have never had any passion for knights.

Knights Errant

Knights Lancer

Knights Paladin

HP Lovecraft

In the eldritch confines of my study, I unearthed a diminutive relic of unspeakable provenance—an accursed miniature that defied the feeble constraints of mortal comprehension. The blasphemous sculpt depicted an otherworldly figure, a ghastly visage that whispered of realms beyond the ken of human perception. In the sickly luminescence of my dimly lit chamber, the colors upon my palette seemed to shift and writhe, revealing cyclopean landscapes and nameless horrors. The twisted sculptor, a shadowy adept in the forbidden arts, had rendered the accursed author with a fiendish precision that echoed the cosmic malevolence of the Great Old Ones. As I gazed upon the diabolical creation, a palpable chill gripped my very soul, and I could discern the spectral murmurs of eldritch entities weaving their inscrutable tales within this infernal masterpiece. The mere act of contemplating the arcane artefact threatened to plunge my psyche into the abyssal depths of cosmic horror, leaving me teetering on the brink of sanity.

I tried out ChatGPT for the above paragraph- horrifyingly good.

Here's a fun figure from Impact! Miniatures. I originally got him as a Blood Bowl coach. They've captured his eldritch chin.

HPL and his friend LP Hovercraft

"I am Providence."

Howard Philips Lovecraft age 43 (1934)

Galadriel and her mirror

A 3D Sculpt from The Printing Goes Ever On. A quick paintjob- I tried adding an eye of Sauron, and it really sticks out. I may darken the edges of the bowl. I don't know if the 'water' needs some gloss varnish.

How to make swamps

I made some generic swamps for any scale or period. In this tutorial I'll show you how I went about it. This is one of those fun projects where each step looks good and just gets better as it goes along, unlike some projects which seem to get worse before they get better.

I started with some pre-cut MDF forest sabot bases from Knights of Dice (sadly, a company on hiatus). I used my trusty Dremel to hack out the insides and bevel the edges.

Pre-cut MDF forest sabot bases, unglued.

I glued the two halves together with some random offcuts and added Miliput to disguise any regularities in the curves.

After cutting and bevelling, glued together and made more irregular

I used PVA to stick on builder's sand. I then gave a light mist of PVA and IPA to further cement it down. (I could have gone heavier with the spray).

Waiting for the sand/ PVA to dry

I painted them craft paint brown, then drybrushed browns and creams. I could have skipped either of the drybrush stages. I then painted the water dark green- Contrast Dark Angel in this instance. Any dark green or brown would be fine.

Steps of colour

I then used a selection of flocks, static grass and tufts I've been accumulating over the years. I used brighter greens around the water edges, and drier colours to blend with my game boards.

Vegetation added

The final step is Deluxe Materials Aqua Magic. This is like acrylic gloss varnish, a single pour product without any mixing or heating required. I generously poured this in and let it soak up the sides into the flock. I used up the last of my bottle. I put them on a level surface and protected them from dust. Done!

Water poured and left to dry

The finished result! With hobbits for scale. I resisted the urge to add skullz, corpses, rusty bits etc to keep them generic for scale and period.

I did a test swamp before I jumped in and made more. I tried some fancy blending in the water to give a depth illusion, but it just didn't work and is unnecessary. You can see the different water colour in the picture above. More troubling was the cracking of the water. I've slightly salvaged it with a second coat of water effect, but I think more will be required and I expect to have to do it to my new swamps as well. I do need a new bottle of that stuff, anyway. I know I should probably do multiple thin coats, but I'm impatient and in a hurry.

Cracking of the water. Bug or feature?

If you've got any comments on experiences with water effect products I'd like to hear!

Oh, and also I'd like suggestions on storing them so the tufts don't get squished. I'm thinking of putting each in a greaseproof paper bag. Some sort of plate rack or CD holder?