On Wolves and Vampires

121141APR10
No, I'm not talking about yet another incredibly bad vampire movie.
For anyone concerned that I may have been neglecting my Space Wolves in favor of everything else, including my still list-less Imperial Guard army, fear not. The Space Puppies too well fit my play style and too well appease my love of the 40k lore to be ignored and are still my primary army. They've now gone through a much-needed expansion that now allows me to start mixing up my lists somewhat.
Anyone who has played against me or has at least seen my lists knows I'm not a big fan of named characters. Not because I don't like their rules or their stats or their model (generally), but rather because I vastly prefer to create my own characters with their own backgrounds, then make their own histories and legends on the "battlefield." Unfortunately, that deprives me of some of the edge of any army I play. With my Wolves I have finally decided to change that outlook, and so I picked up Logan Grimnar and a box of Terminators. Logan will be my next masterclass, so don't expect him to be painted anytime soon (I have to practice painting Terminators in general, then Space Wolves Terminators in particular, before I even consider that).

The fellow next to him is my take on Arjac Rockfist, the upgrade character for the Wolf Guard. There's not much different from a straight-up Wolf Guard Terminator, other than his base. The head is different; I wanted to get it as close to the picture of him in the codex as I could without spending hours with green stuff and a hobby knife, so I took the closest looking head I could find and removed the hair (he's bald with a beard in the codex). The hammer on his back comes from a Space Marines Assault Terminator sergeant's thunder hammer with the skulls removed (vaguely resembling the anvil on his back). I also removed the cabling connecting his hammer to his arm, as it would be awfully difficult to throw it at anything if it's attached to his armor with a short cable.
In terms of Logan's usefulness, it's more for his personal power and some of his special rules rather than some desire to make a "Loganwing" army. First of all, that would supplant my desires to make a Deathwing army at some point in the future. Second, I don't have a huge desire to see that man Wolf Guard Terminators on the field at once. What I do see myself doing is using Logan and his Wolf Guard Terminators in conjunction with Morkai and his jump pack-equipped Wolf Guard. In fact, to my mind having access to Wolf Guard as Troops doesn't scream "make lots of Terminators!" Wolf Guard are by far the most flexible units in the Space Wolves codex; why would I sacrifice that just so I can have that many Terminators? They're also expensive in points, which tells me that they're a supplement to the primary Troops of the Wolves, Grey Hunters and Blood Claws.
That's just my opinion, of course, feel free to agree or disagree as you see fit.
In the painting department, I've (finally) finished a Grey Hunters Pack. It's not the whole pack--I normally run 10 Grey Hunters rather than 5--but it is now codex-legal. They're shown here coming out of my second Drop Pod (which, typically, they do).

The fellow with the power fist was something of an experiment in alternative paint schemes. The nozzles on his backpack are actually Boltgun Metal rather than the gold that everyone else has (a surprisingly great look, very complementary to the Space Wolves color palette), and there are a few gold areas on his armor I used a different technique to achieve. Normally I basecoat with Khemri Brown, then put Shining Gold on top of them. This time I used a method described on GW's site last week I believe: Mithril Silver base with 3 Gryphone Sepia washes. The result was spectacular (belatedly I realize the picture above doesn't show the results, as I only did that to the gold on his power fist), and will likely see that becoming a more common method of painting large areas of gold for me.
Changing tracks here, it is becoming increasingly tempting to at least pick up some Blood Angels models and paint them up. I'm particularly in love with the Sanguinor and the Sanguinary Guard. I see that was a slippery slope, though; if I pick those up I'm going to have to make a Blood Angels army. If I do it will likely be another 1,000 point "experimental" list, and I believe it would feature lots of jump packs. To me that's one of the key parts of the Blood Angels' imagery, Angels of Death descending from the heavens on wings of fire, destroying the enemies of the Imperium in the fury of hand-to-hand combat (too florid, you think?).
If I get a hold of a Blood Angels codex (which is increasingly likely), I'll write up a list and post to show you what I mean and what I see as a "proper" Blood Angels list. Don't worry, I don't see them ever supplanting the Space Wolves as my favored army (giving their codex a read-through the other day didn't inspire that "I have to make this army!" feeling I got from reading Codex: Space Wolves the first time).