40k Friday: Dark Angels, Grey Knights, and the Focus Thing Again

 

Despite the sidetrack into Oldhammer this week which did take up some time and some budget I did manage to progress on the Dark Angels for 11th. One of the problems though is when you are part of the way into a project and find a piece that brings things to a screeching halt and forces you to reconsider how you want to proceed - and by "you" I mean "me". In this case I was working on a unit of Bladeguard Vets to give the army some melee punch and also to give the captain a unit to lead. My BGV were originally allocated to the Templars but all I had done was build them and spray them black so it was not a big deal to reassign them to the new (old) chapter. Then I ran across a picture online where someone had put winged helmets on their BGVs and it looked really good ...

Winged helmets are a thing with Dark Angels especially on their leaders but I figured the veterans might have them too. Poking around a bit I found these:

That's just too good of a look to not do it so a batch of these is making its way here. My Armageddon captain and standard bearer's heads both popped back off so I can make the change there easy enough but the BGVs I have now ... there's no way. I tried. So the first set will likely be reallocated back to the Templars and a new squad  - with nifty helmets - joins the Unforgiven. I don't really need a second unit and I'd want them to match the others so it's better to put them back in the non-winged-helmet-army. If I need more elite melee Dark Angels there are always the hooded and robed inner circle vets.

With that many wing-heads available that also means my jump pack vanguard vets will likely have them too, and maybe some sternguard vets if I pull together a unit of them as well. For this army it could just be a standard for the leaders and veterans to have them - we will have to see if I can sustain that over time. Now should I take it down to the veteran sergeant level? Have to ponder that - might be too much of a good thing.

I did manage to finish building and basecoating the hellblasters - all heads and backpacks accounted for, sprayed, and attached. So there's a unit ready for the rest of the paint. I picked up an apothecary for the unit as that's an important add-on for a unit that can blow themselves up regularly. They will also have some version of Azrael the chapter master as he is way too useful to not put him in there. I might give in and buy the new one but I'm still leaning towards using one of the versions I have already. 

There is still plenty of work to do but I  feel like I'm figuring it out. 

Also: Obligatory Grey Knights Update:

Special reflection appearance by Nelson Doggo

That's two Dreadknights added since the last update so the finishing continues. It's at least a useable force now with 5 strike squads (probably more than I need honestly). an interceptor squad (need more), 3 terminator/paladin squads, a dreadnought, the 2 dreadknights, and some characters over on the right. Still more to do but I'm happy with the amount of progress I am making.