+ Shadow Spear Arrives + XX +

“Vanguard Space Marines are elite reconnaissance troops, trained to operate without support across the deadliest frontiers of the galaxy. Ranging far ahead of the main battle line, they prosecute full-spectrum campaigns of domination against the enemy by sabotaging communications, demolishing supply caches, and draining morale with terror strikes.”

+ Sounds like Alpha Legion +

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Alpha Legion Shadow Spear – Task Force Thorne has more than doubled in the past month!

 

Good day Hobbyist, it’s a spectacular time for Warhammer 40000!

This time it’s time to say a few things, but worry not, high res pictures below in two styles for all of you to look at.

Warhammer 8th edition is the game I always dreamt of. Great, clean, simple mechanics, near endless army building mechanics and gorgeous terrain sets readily available. Combined with incredible quality and quantity of new releases, this truly is a golden age for the hobby that feels almost unreal.

Personally, there is even more of a positive force in the hobby for me. My 9year old son has in three army steps completely fallen in love with the game and hobby. And graduated to appreciate its unique imagery and design. Like many of his generation, the initial appeal was the modern war machines of Tau, then the sleek designs of Eldar (and their hugely powerful rules) and now he marvels the coolness of the bad guys and the gothic detailing of the gorgeous new Chaos Marines. It’s been magical to witness that development and thoughtfully help him learn in steps optimizing He is currently on to his third army, the Black Legion. Starting from the Shadow Spear box, like the reinforcements here for my Alpha Legion, his Black Legion is soon ready to deploy and will be featured here. I painted him the new Abaddon as a gift and “painting template for the army” to his brief of black, gold and red glow. (The sleepers have painted a few different versions of this gorgeous model hopefully shared soon in a single post)

So then, my Alpha Legion project was completely re-energized with the Shadow Spear boxed set, “perfect for my alpha legion” even in the comments of a few Games Workshop designers. 😉

Below you will see the first half. A full squad of Infiltrators, my Effrit Stealth Squad, and Three Eliminators, elite snipers to tutor the Scouts in the art of long distance assassination. Next up I’m building the Supressors and then rounding up with a converted Librarian to be my count as Tigurius.

There is a time line to this push. I’m hoping to enter my first tournament in a decade, the Bay Area Open in May. For this purpose the army will be rounded off by a pair of Whirlwind tanks. I like the look of that kit, and they fit the elite strike force team really well, where my special operations forces can order devastating fire support at will.

So here we go, lots of pictures below, and a promise of plenty of activity on Sleet – with the unstoppable Mordheim 2019 train soon bringing the whole gang together to produce for this epic undertaking master minded by the Echoes of Imperium blog.

Looking forward to your comments, as we try wrestle some of the traffic back from Instagram to this medium that is so much deeper and personal.

I am Alpharius!

 

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Migs

16 thoughts on “+ Shadow Spear Arrives + XX +

  1. Hi Migs,
    First I want to say that it’s impressiv that your 9 year old son is going to start his third army, in my opinion. My kids are very interested in painting minis, but they are far away from their own army. They are 6 and 3, but we even managed to play some games with very simplified rules and they love it.

    Your Alpha Legion is stunning in so many aspects. I love the colour-scheme and you did an awesome paintjob. For me the new Primaris models are the best Space Marine sculpts ever and you did such an amazing job turning them into the XX Legion.

    I started my first blog (https://larsonicminiatures.blogspot.com/) in January and try to get people over there – somehow.
    I think it’s a hard job in times of instagram. I prefer this more personal format and I love to hear that you’re going to keep this outstanding blog alive. It’s an endless source of inspiration for so many people. Thank you!

    Best regards!

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Thanks so much. It’s crazy isn’t it / this instagram age. Subset of six images from this blog post got 10000 Instagram likes in two days and dozens of comments each. That’s many times the likes this blog gets in a year. Yet I believe this is deeper and important and I’m determined to keep investing in the blog. This year is an experiment. Not all the Sleeters are currently interested in keeping the blog going – so there may be changes at the end of the year. All of your support and this deeper dialogue hence is more important than ever. Thank you for taking the time to comment 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

  2. Stunning work! Having just finished the HH novel Legion. I have a new appreciation of the Alpha Legion and those new models certainly fit the bill.

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  3. It has really been a pleasure to watch your Alpha Legion force grow over the years. These primaris models really fit in well (my brothers and I are soon going to get a few and see what we can do with them!). It is great to hear that you are starting to play the game again, with an army that shows the world what the Alpha Legion should look like, not filled with fleshy chaos mutations.

    I am glad you are still committed to the blog; Instagram is far easier, but much less personal and lacking in depth. I think it serves as a nice way to supplement a blog rather than replace it. A blog is certainly more time consuming though, and I can see why they are falling out of favor for that reason. My brothers and I are still trying to keep the blog spirit alive with Between the Bolter and Me; it has somehow already been 6 years! Figuring out how best to move forward with a blog in this age of social media is difficult though. We have been experimenting with twitch streaming a little to try to engage with the community on a more meaningful level, but word is still out on that whether it is successful, he he.

    Regardless, I look forward to seeing the future of Iron Sleet!

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  4. Fantastic work with the new models, I’m always a fan of reimagining classic colour schemes.
    That story about the progression from Tau to Eldar to Chaos sound a lot like how I got started – only in my case the Tau were inherited from a sibling, and there was a step in the middle where I got caught up in Space Marines before settling into something akin to what you guys do on here. In fact, watching your Alpha Legion army growing has made me start up a kill team of my own, albeit on a much smaller scale. Just hope I get enough free time to finish painting them!

    Liked by 1 person

  5. Excellent–these models really fit perfectly with your Ghost Legion and I’m really looking forward to seeing what you do with the rest of them and where your army goes now.

    Great also to see your son getting into the game/hobby.

    I also agree the blog is the best way for deeper engagement and a more personal record of achievement. Necessarily deeper engagement will involve less people though.

    Good luck in the tournament too. Not sure why but I always thought you were in Denmark or Scandinavia for some reason…. 😉

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Thank you Warburton 😊 Yeah. I’m Finnish. But Also American and live in California. The rest of the gang is Finnish and Danish and lives in Scandinavia and London.

      Liked by 1 person

  6. I’d be really curious to see a rough tutorial on your style, it looks AMAZING. Do you have plans to do one in the future?

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  7. Quite simply one of the best projects I’ve seen in this hobby. The ambience and tone all comes together in so many considered ways; a true embodiment of Abnett’s prose.

    I also love that it seems to be a truly efficient process that eschews traditional GW methods and somehow packs more of a visual punch. I’ll always love classic EM painting, but find myself getting more inspiration from this project.

    Thanks for sharing.

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