New Year New Army: My return to the Hobby

So, it has been a long time since I have posted anything to this blog and an even longer time since I did anything serious with the hobby.  This lack of time was largely due to my PhD program and in the last year getting back in the swing of "working" for a living.
For the past year I have also had an open debate about what I wanted to build. I knew I wanted to get into 30k (naturally their will also be side projects in other games), but choosing a legion took me forever.  Particularly when you see where I wound up...

As the pictures clearly indicate after much debate I opted to build a Space Wolves Legion, or as I prefer to call them the Rout.  The Rout was my first 40k army and eventually I became disenchanted with them for a variety of reasons.  I sold my army about half way through my PhD program and shelved all of my custom ideas for the army.

I have now pulled down that file and begun work on a 30k era Rout great company. Beginning with a chaplain/wolf priest:

 Although it does not show well in the photo's the model actually has six different shades/textures of gray.  I also still intend to add snow to the base, but I want a few more models finished before I mix up the snow.  Also my thanks to Brother Captain S. for the suggested conversion to the weapon.

Next I am going to take the only survivor of my original army shown below and convert him to match my new army. Then I will wrap up work on my first unit; a veteran tactical squad.

The last of my old wolves

Paragons of Honour and Duty

This past weekend I complete the first five (of ten) Invictarus Suzerains for my Horus Heresy era Ultramarines.  These five are all equipped with bolt pistols, boarding shields, and Legatine power axes.  The next five will include one equipped that way, two with plasma pistols, and two with Thunderhammers.  Thanks to Jason, my brother, for kitbashing from his bits left-handed Thunderhammers.

Leading from the Front

The models are very detailed, giving plenty of opportunity to break-up the blue of the armor and depart from heavy amounts of gold.  Other Invictarus Suzerains I have looked at make the shields blue and keep most of the details gold.  I departed from that.

Washes & Layers on the Suzerains

Slow, but steady progress on the first five Suzerains.As I began to apply the washes, the models really came to life and details started to pop.  The layers assured some details were differentiated.

Suzeriains in Progress