"I should rather fall in honour and glory than live in dishonour and treachery" - Aeronautica Imperialis: Blackshields (part 2)

Having painted up Xiphons and Storm Eagles last month, I decided to ride the wave of Aeronautica inspiration a little further and paint up my Thunderhawk Gunship as well. Not only would this reduce my pile of opportunity a little more, it would also mean I'll have plenty of choices for squadron building as I'm hoping to arrange some games of Aeronautica in the near future. 

For the most part, '2D' is painted up exactly the same way as the rest of the Dark Brotherhood have been, but due to her heavier weapons payload, there are a couple of new details as well. 

The casings of the hellstrike missiles on the under wing pylons were basecoated with Celstra Grey and then shaded with Soulblight Grey and then highlighted with Ulthuan Grey while the exhaust nozzles were picked out with Corvus Black before being washed with Nuln Oil and then highlighted with Skavenblight Dinge. Finally the nose cones were painted Mephiston Red and then layered Evil Sunz Scarlet and the tips were given a wee touch of Wild Rider Red as a highlight.

The engines of the Thunderhawk are much more exposed than those of the Xiphon or Storm Eagle so I spent a little bit of time picking out the various cables/pipes with Corvus Black and then highlighting them with Dark Reaper and Thunderhawk Blue. I did this before washing in the grime with Doombull Brown though so that they hopefully wouldn't look too clean compared to the rest of the aircraft.

With the Thunderhawk painted, I think my little squadron of Blackshields is completed for now - although I am contemplating picking up some Legions Imperialis tarantula and araknae platforms to use as ground assets, if I can find aquire the ones I'm after in the right quantities. As luck would have it, both the Legiones Astartes and Solar Auxilia support sets both include hyperios equipped tarantulas so I might mix them up a bit, beggars and Blackshields can't be choosers after all! 

Until next time then, as always, thanks for reading and happy hobbying.