40K: Painted Bloodthirster

This got finished a while ago, but I've only just got round to posting it.

It's a Bloodthirster, the conversion source is pretty obvious.  The Balrog looks more like a Bloodthirster than the actual Bloodthirster which, like most of the Greater Daemon models, really needs an update.

I'm pleased with how the wings came out.  Last time I painted a pair of Balrog wings, I used stippling to get a natural effect.  This time I messed around using weathering powders, and then a wash of Burnt Umber oil paint near the "fingers":

My first experience of building with plasticard.  Needs a bit of practice I think.

If I ever get any further with my Chaos Daemon's army this guy will be in it.  Until then, he acts as a Summoned Greater Daemon in my (increasingly less played) CSM army.

Finding an alternative to Warptime

The latest round of FAQs which GW released last month put a bit of nerfing on Chaos Space Marines. I've run Nurgle Daemon Princes with wings and warptime since the Codex was released, but with the FAQ of Warptime I'm not feeling the love for that power.

To re-cap the FAQ states:

Q: Does Warptime allow the psyker to pick and choose

which To Hit and To Wound dice he will re-roll? (p88)

A: No. He can decide after each To Hit or To Wound roll

but he must re-roll all dice or no dice

I'll be honest, I've never used it like this, nor have I seen it played like this, but the FAQ is pretty clear. All you're now mitigating against is a particularly bad set of rolls like 5 misses or similar. Given Warptime is reasonably pricey in points, IMO this is not worth it.

At a small tournament last month, I dropped Warptime in favour of Wind of Chaos which is more points than Warptime (30 points IIRC so 5 points more). I did find it useful in most games and I think it probably made it's points back in most cases.

Alternatives for a Nurgle Daemon Prince are not great. Doombolt is weak, Gift of Chaos is amusing if not all that useful and Nurgle's Rot is meh against most thing in power armour (OK against hordes I suppose).

So I think Wind of Chaos is where I'll be for now. Of course, if I drop WoC on both Princes that would be a 60 point saving which is almost the cost of an Obliterator...

Khorne Lord in Terminator Armour

This was my most generous gift from the UK Bootaz Secret Santa this year. I wanted to give him a paint job befitting his status as a marvellous gift and an eater of worlds. He's going to be my entry for a local painting contest which I've amazingly managed to finish two weeks early.





I think I've managed to nail down painting red now with this one after my earlier attempt on my Kabuki doll. The red was done farily simply:

-Base of two thinned coats of Mechrite Red
-Two washes with Devlan Mud
-Layer of Red Gore, working up through about 4-5 layers to Blood Red
-Blood Red and then adding Fiery Orange for the top end highlights.


I also used weathering powders for the first time to add the black dust to his feet and loin cloth. I used the Forge World ones, as they happen to be the ones I've got. I've used Black Soot on this model to represent dust from the ashen ground and just applied it with a dry brush

I didn't think I'd actually have time to get the model done, hence I went for a fairly basic (ie rubbish) base. In future I'll allow myself more time to do something better with the base. Long term, this will be a gaming piece anyway, so I wouldn't have been able to do anything that flash with it.

Freebootaz Open Tournament

I played in my first proper tournment last weekend at Maelstrom Games. There was a 1750 point singles on Saturday and a 1500 point doubles on Sunday, so I played at 1750 and helped out with the running on Sunday.

We had 34 players in the singles tournament, and there were some top flight players there including ETC team members.

Here's the list I took, using Codex: Chaos Space Marines:

Daemon Prince, Mark of Nurgle, Wings, Warptime
Daemon Prince, Mark of Nurgle, Wings, Warptime

7 Plague Marines, including a Champion with Power Fist, 2 melta guns, personal icon, rhino
7 Plague Marines, including a Champion with Power Fist, 2 melta guns, personal icon, rhino
7 Plague Marines, including a Champion with Power Fist, 2 flamers, personal icon, rhino
8 Summoned Lesser Daemons
7 Summoned Lesser Daemons

2 Obliterators
2 Obliterators
Vindicator

It's not too far from my usual list really. The problem was I was playing it....

With hindsight, I'd change the list around to drop the Vindicator and take a unit of Chosen instead. Normally I won't run without Chosen in a rhino, but I've only got 3 rhinos in my collection so I had to leave them out. The Vindicator pretty much did nothing in every game.

I had 4 good games, and everyone I played was very nice and sporting. The tournament scenarios were a little unusual, and some favoured certain armies over others.

Game 1:
The was called "Head Hunter" and was kind of like kill points but you had to kill all the squad leaders in certain sections of the FOC. I was drawn against a Space Wolves player, running Logan, rune priest, scouts, 10 Wolf Guard, 3 small Grey Hunter units and 3 packs of Long Fangs. I got stuffed. I had some pretty rotten luck, losing both Daemon Princes to deep strike problems, gifting him 5 battle points, but I also played pretty badly as well. I lost.

Game 2:
The was objective based, but your deployment was at one end of the table and the objectives were at the other. I drew Eldar, probably the last army you want to play in this mission. You could only deploy HQ and Fast Attack at the start, and since I didn't have any FA I reserved everything. This meant my Lesser Daemon were destroyed as there weren't any icon deployed when they arrived. 200 points and 2 troop choices gone. I didn't play so badly in this one, and I contested all the objectives expect the big one at the other end of the table and it was relatively close on victory points. Still a defeat though.

Game 3:
This was a loot counter mission where you had to pick them up and get them back to your deployment zone. I played one of the guys from the Claws and Fists blog, who was running a Vulkan list. He easily took the game on battle points, getting 3 loot counters to my one (I was carrying the fifth one but didn't get it back in time), but we were in about 10 victory points of each other so we were drawn on that part.

Game 4:
The pairing had been random to this point, but in the final round they were seeded, where first played second etc. Unsurprisingly, I was on the bottom table. This was mission was "Retrieve the Spy", where you had a spy hidden in your opponents army which you had to reveal by destroying the unit and get him off your table edge. I was up against a fellow UK Freeboota so I knew were going to have a laugh, and he was playing Chaos. We both revealed the spy but neither of us got him off the table edge (he just died too easily). There were also two objectives as well. I did better in this one, taking an objective and killing a load of stuff.

Overall, 3 losses and 1 win put me 25th out of 34, but I had 4 good games of 40K so you can't get better than that. My stated aim was not to finish last and I did manage that. Next time, I'll be striving to finish in the top half.

Completed Obliterators

I had a marvellous time at Warhammer World last week, but the I still haven't got the pictures off my camera yet so I'll post them up when I can.

In the meantime, I finished my Obliterators the night before I went (I was up until a ridiculous time finishing them off):


I really didn't want to go to WHW without a fully painted army, so I blew threw these oblitz pretty quickly. I might redo the yellow pustule on the guy on the right, it depends on whether I have time or not.

I did also pick up some of the Forgeworld weathering powders (and some other FW stuff as well) which I've played about with on a rhino, but I'm still experimenting so I'll post something once I'm happier with the results.

Re-basing

I hit a bit of a problem with a two current Daemon Prince models. One of them is a scratch build and the other is a conversion of the Necron Nightbringer. When I put them together, I put them both on 40mm bases, as the old metal undivided Daemon Prince was on a 40mm base. Since then of course, GW have bought out the new plastic Daemon Prince, who is on a 60mm dreadnought size base (as was the old metal Nurgle DP in fact). For the tournament I'm playing in, I hadn't really thought too much about it, but I double checked with the TO and he ruled that any model must be on the same base size as the current GW model meaning a 60mm base for Daemon Princes. Probably if I'd just turned up with them on 40mm bases, I don't think anyone would have complained, but I don't want any accusations of cheese or cheating.

This gave me a problem. The two models were very solidly pinned, glued and green stuffed to the current bases and getting them off those bases would probably have damaged the models so I needed a solution. I was looking on ebay for new 60mm bases when I came across these:

These are 60mm plywood discs, and I got 24 of them for £3 or so (bearing in mind a GW base of the same size if £2.50 for one) courtesy of Fenris Games. The good part about these is that they are only 1.5mm thick.

Because the plywood bases a quite thin, I was able to mount the models on top of them without removing them from the current bases. Once they were stuck on there, I built up the rest of the base with milliput, sand, stones etc and painted them:


This saved me a whole load of hassle, money and potential damage to the models.

Completed Chaos Rhino

As I've been drawing up my 1750 point list for the tournament, it's clear I was short of one thing: transports. In fun games, I'm not all that bothered if a couple of units of Plague Marines have to walk but for the tournament they need to punch in a bit more and get to where I need them more quickly. Being skint the first thing I did was get on ebay to track down a rhino as cheaply as possible. I managed to pick up a mark one Rhino for £2.70 which was good, but it needed some work doing (it was missing side doors for example). No problem for me, I was going to Nurgle the thing anyway:



I actually think the top part (which was metal) in from an old vindicator or something as it doesn't have the two hatches the old rhino used to have. Taking the chassis, it was a case of just raiding the bitz box and repairing the thing. I've got so many bitz from Chaos vehicles it was fairly easy. The spikes on the front are from the Vampire Counts corpse cart, as it the body on a rope on the side.

Painting was my usual Catachan Green, washes (green, then brown and purple on the rotting parts), then drybrushing to add the highlighting.

One drawback of the mark one is that it is slightly smaller than the current rhino. This sort of cuts two ways. On the plus side it's slightly easier to hide it, but on the downside, it's harder to hide troops behind it.

Battle Report: Chaos Space Marines Vs Blood Angels

I got my first game against the new Blood Angels Codex (I know it's been out for a while, but I've mostly been playing Fantasy) on Wednesday night. The games was at 1350 points, annhiliation with the spearhead deployment.

The BA army was something similar to:
-Mephiston
-5 Sanguinary Guard, with +1 Attack banner
-5 Assault troops with jump packs, power fist, infernus pistol
-5 Death Company with jump packs, power fist
-10 Tactical Marines in a Rhino, melta gun, missile launcher
-5 Scouts
-5 Devastators with 4 heavy weapons

I was playing a couple of different options with my list. I took Wind of Chaos on my Daemon Prince instead of my usual Warptime, took 2 squads of 2 Obliterators, and a small unit of Lesser Daemons. I was trying some stuff out to crystalize what I'm planning for a forthcoming tournament.

I had some decent luck right at the start. I got to pick the table quarter, and chose one with some high buildings for my Oblitz to go in. I also opted to go second and then stole the initiative.

It was a good game and I emerged the winner with 6 kill points Vs 3 kill points. Mephiston was pretty scary, but his lack of an Inv save hurts him. He lost 1 wound to a perils of the warp, one to a power fist, one to a melta and the final one to a bolt pistol (!). He'd chewed up a whole squad of Plague Marines before this, and was just out of range to chew up my Daemon Prince, though the Sanguinary Guard managed to do that anyway.

With regard to my list tweaks, Wind of Chaos I only got to use once and I really could have got more use out of Warptime. With Warptime I'm pretty sure my Daemon Prince could have annhilated the Sanguinary Guard in combat and then taken on Mephiston, so I'm going to take that in future.

Oblitz are definitely in. They're excellently flexible, and took out a rhino, 3 devastators and 4 Death Company before they ran out of targets.

Summoned Lesser Daemons I've used before and like them alot. They're useful to bolster your lines where they're needed, in this game that was to support the Plague Marine squad who were taking out the tactical marines, and they're the cheapest thing I've got to hold objectives.

I just need to get a few games in with the list at 1750 points before November now.

Nurgle Obliterators WIP

I've got a 1750 point tournament coming up in November, so I've been putting some work in on my Chaos Space Marines. The heavy support choices that I currently have I didn't really fit in with what I wanted to do. One Defiler is pretty much toast, so I initially thought of going with 3 of them but financially I just didn't want to do it. In the end I decided to go with some Obliterators, four in fact.

I really don't like the official model that much. It's expensive, and not that nice, plus I hear they are a pain to build. What I decided to do was get some AoBR and convert them.


A terminator is slightly smaller than an obliterator, I've tried to bulk them up a bit so they're now more of less the same size. The rest of the conversion was bitz and green stuff. These ones will be next on the painting table.

Battle Report: Chaos Space Marines Vs Imperial Guard

I had been planning on playing 8th Edition Fantasy at club night last week, but I couldn't find anyone with a small army so I ended up playing 40K instead. I haven't played 40K for a while so it was a nice change.

I was playing an Imperial Guard player, who's army had more heavy weapons than I've ever seen in one army. He must have had about 20 or so heavy weapons teams, plus 3 Leman Russ (one ordinary, one exterminator and one punisher), plus some veterans. There were so many gun teams in fact, I'm not wholly sure how he?d managed to get them all in, but then again, I don?t know the IG codex that well. Anyway, it was Annhilation with Dawn of War deployment.

In my list, it was more or less my usual 1500 point list, except that I dropped the Defiler and Vindicator in favour of 2 squads of 2 Obliterators. This was one of the driving forces for me for the game, as I've got a tournament coming up in November so I thought I give them a try and see what the fuss was about.

My plan was fairly simple: get close and kill IG in assault. This is exactly what I did. My units suffered a bit on the way over there, but once I got there I was able to tear units apart. IG have nothing really against a unit of Plague Marines up close, even two of the Leman Russ were of limit use. The Punisher cannon was pretty useless against T5, FnP Plague Marines. Even my Rhino got in on the act and tank shocked 3 heavy bolter teams off the table. So the end result was a win for me by tabling him in turn 6.

The obliterators worked fairly well, while they didn't kill much they felt pretty threatening throughout the whole game. I had lost three of them by the end, but not one had died to enemy fire. No, my dreadnought had gone into a fire frenzy twice and killed three of them. The game helped me with some thoughts around what will we be in my tournament list (Obliterators) and what won't be (Dreadnoughts, of which I had thought about taking three).

Morbus Legion

I got a new case last week (A Father's Day present), so I had to unpack my whole army from the crappy boxes I used to keep them in and re-pack them in the new case. I don't think I've ever had them all out in one place before, so I took some pictures before they all went back in the box.



Troops, including 35 Plague Marines and 44 Lesser Daemons and a couple of rides:







HQ choices, 2 Daemon Princes, a Sorcerer, and the only non-Nurgle model in the army:






My Elites, terminators, dread, and Chosen:





Heavy Support, Defiler, Vindicator and Doomsday Device:


Anyway, they're back in the box now until the next Apocalypse game!

Shoot 'em in the head

When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth - Dawn of the Dead (1978)

Here's what I spent the last couple of weeks doing the second half of: a Plague of Zombies.


I did the first 20 of these a few months back, over the last couple of weeks I've done the other 24 of them and the Plague Lord to lead them.


These are some close up example of them (I might do a banner for the guy in the middle eventually). For each group of 10-12, I probably spent around 2-3 hours on them, so they're not great but they look good as whole. The skin was basically done by drybrushing three shades of green from the foundation range over black.

Game-wise, these zombies have a triple usage:
-Summoned Lesser Daemons in a standard game using the Chaos Space Marines
-Plaguebearers in my (still WIP) Chaos Daemons army
-A Plague of Zombies in an Apocalypse game

The Plague of Zombies needs a Plague Master to lead it:




The picture didn't come out that well, but you get the idea. This model was converted from the Necromancer from the Corpse Cart model, with a head and weapon swap. I got a bit stuck for ideas on the scythe handle so it looks a bit flat. I might try some wood grain on it if I get chance.

Finally up to date with Plague Marines

I got my fifth and final (for the time being) squad of Plague Marines finished last night, bringing my grand total to 35 Marines, for a total points value of just over 1000 points.

I made a bit of an error with these ones, as for 5 of them I used to cheap single pose Chaos Space Marines, which meant they were much harder to convert and ultimately didn't save me that much over a proper box (plus I'd have got bitz from that).

The Champion and icon bearer standard marine kits, with the other 5 being the single pose ones. This squad is likely going to end up as a second string squad who will more than likely only see any action in an Apocalypse game.

Speaking of Apocalypse, probably the next thing I'm going to do is expand my zombie collection so I can have a full Plague of Zombies. I've got 20 done already with another 25 on sprues, which I just need to order some round bases for. The formation requires a Chaos Lord to go with it, so I think I'll paint up the Necromancer which goes with the VC Corpse Cart to act as the Plague Lord. Once they're done, I'm hoping for another superheavy, either a Nurgle Plague Tower or Plaguereaper depending on how much time I have.

Plague Marine Squad

I built this squad for an Apocalypse game last year, and I've only just got around to painting the thing. I use them as Plague Marines, taking my inspiration from the Blind Dead movies.

In that Apocalyse game, they walked onto the table, and then a scattering asteriod thrown by Orks in space killed all of them instantly....



The paint job was more functional than fancy, but they look OK on the table.

The heads on the these are from Pig Iron Industries, and I'd definitely use them again. I don't think I'd use them again for Chaos Marines though, as the size of the heads are a little too small for marines. If I ever get round to that Traitor Guard army, these will be on those models.

Completed Doomsday Device of Nurgle

Towards the end of last year I built a Doomsday Device (WIP pictures and some info on what I was trying to do with the model) for a club apocalypse game. You can read about that game in the battle report, but generally the Doomsday Device was pretty awesome thanks for my lucky rolling to activate it on turn 1 and then not roll for it to blow up....

Anyway, for that game, I wanted a super heavy done quickly and cheaply and that's where this came in. I hadn't really been planning on painting it this week, it just kind of happened. I started on it so I was actually do something whilst waiting for a wash to dry on some Plague Marines I'm just working on.

In the event the painting didn't take that long, mainly because I pretty much drybrushed the thing.


(Spawn shown for scale)

The whole thing was drybrushed with the three shades of green in the foundation range, with the darkest first. I then stippled some browns to break it up and bit, then gave the whole thing a light Bleached Bone drybrush.

The boils where done with Warlock Purple, then Tentacle Pink.

Metal was done using my standard rust method which I've used before (details in my post on my Nurgle Dread).

I'm hoping to play in an Apocalypse game with the UK Freebootaz over summer, so inevitably the Doomsday Device will be coming out then.

Bought a new Codex

You know when you really shouldn't be thinking about starting a new army, because you're strapped for time, resources, and cash, but then you go and buy a new Codex?

Well, I picked up the Chaos Daemons Codex yesterday.

My current Witch Hunters force is on hold slightly anyway at around 1200 points, since GW have witdrawn the basic Battle Sister box set, so I've got to have something else to do to go along with my CSMs....

Since I've already got two Nurgle Daemon Princes all done, plus 40 Plague Zombies (20 painted, 20 boxed) to use as counts-as Plague Bearers, I've got the start of a force already. A great daemon I could also double up for use in my CSM army aswell.

Now to read the Codex and start thinking about some lists. I really wish GW would hurry up and release some plastic Plaguebearers.

Nurgle Daemon Prince: Completed

It's generally pretty rare that I get to paint much at the weekend, but yesterday was an exception. I got about 3 hours to my self, a perfect opportunity to finish my second Nurgle Daemon Prince:







I've blogged before on the stippling method I used for the wings, and I'm quite pleased with them. In addition to the method I used in the post, I also added a wash of Devlan Mud close to the finger part.

I'm also quite pleased with the layering on the cloth at the bottom of the body (it looks a bit better in reality, a bit more defined):



I got some Liquitex Flow-Aid and Slow-Dri before Christmas and they were really useful for the cloth, and I used the slow-dri to keep the paint wet on the palette for longers whilst I applied it to the model (you could use a wet palette to better affect as well).

What I'm not happy with yet are the eyes. I don't much like for the conversion of them, the intentionally uneven nature of them doesn't look that great, plus the colour choice is wrong. I tried yellow on them first and that didn't look right either. I possible might break out the green stuff again and change it around.

Battle Report: 500 point tournament

Following on from my post yesterday about the list I used, here's some details on how I went in my three games. The tournament was held at Maelstrom Games in Mansfield, and it's a really great gaming venue which will be even better when the whole area is open:



Game 1: Vs Space Marines

I was facing off here against two 10 man tactical squads, with heavy bolters and melta guns and one Rhino, led by a librarian with Might of the Ancients and Gate of Infinity.
This one was a table quarter's scenario, and the Space Marine ability to combat squad meant he was able to hold two quarters and contest a third. I only held one quarter by the end of the game but I scored an extra point for getting more victory points (a minor victory). This was mainly due to a good round of shooting from my Rhino and it's occupant destroying a whole combat squad and a librarian. Overall, a draw but a reasonable start.

Game 2: Vs Imperial Guard

In this game, I faced off against a Company Command Squad with an Autocannon and grenade launcher, and couple of veteran squads, one with Harken and two armoured sentinels.
The was the King of the Hill mission from 4th edition, so we had to capture the centre of the table. I got my marines onto the objective quite quickly and then had to whether the fire from the IG army. My Lord started well, breaking a veteran squad and then killing the command squad in assault. From this good start for me, the IG pulled it back round. My ability to destroy either of his armoured sentinels was gone thanks to a Get's Hot! roll on my plasma gun so I was relying on krak grenades. This meant the IG could get in close to the objective with his Sentinel and a scoring unit to contest. The other sentinel charged my Lord in assault as I'd taken the bait and got near it and slowly wore him down. The IG won this one on victory points, so a very narrow loss.

This was the final battle around the central objective:



Game 3: Vs Imperial Guard

I had a strong game in this one. The mission was capture and control, so I parked a Marine squad on my objective. The second squad in a rhino and the Lord advanced down my left. Harken then appeared on that flank right next to them with a veteran squad and destroyed the Rhino with a demo charge, and then charged the occupants and the Lord in combat. The IG were rapidly destroyed by the Lord's Daemon Weapon. That squad then advanced on his objective, destroying another veteran squad in assault. His Chimera advanced on my objective, but I got a lucky roll and blew it up with my plasma gun. The game ended with me holding both objectives (for full battle points), and a massacre result in victory points.


Overall, I managed to finish in first place, which was a real surprise to me. I had a blast in this, and I'll definitely want to play in some more tournaments in future.

With three games under it's belt, the short comings of my final list were clear (I should really have playtested it, but I didn't get time).

It's main problem was I only had one way of destroying armour of any kind: one plasma gun. That meant that in game 2, I was really struggling to take on the armoured sentinels after the loss of the PG. The second problem with it was it only has two scoring units, meaning that at most I was going to hold two objectives. This cost me in game 1. On the plus side, the rhinos with havoc launchers worked well causing quite a lot of casualties, and making my army quite mobile.

500 point Chaos Space Marine tournament list

Yesterday I played in the first UK Freebootaz Open Tournament. I played in the one day 500 point tournament, which had list restrictions similar to the Adepticon combat patrol rules:

Only ONE HQ allowed
2-3 Troops
0-1 Elites
0-1 Fast Attack
0-1 Heavy Support
Maximum of 3+ armour save
Maximum Armour Value of 33 on any individual vehicle (front + side +rear)
Maximum of 2 Psychic Powers
Monstrous Creatures are NOT allowed


I spent an age throwing lists together before I finally settled on this one:


Chaos Lord, Mark of Slaanesh, Wings, Daemon Weapon, Melta Bombs

7 Chaos Space Marines, one flamer, Icon of Chaos Glory, Rhino with Havoc Launcher
7 Chaos Space Marines, one plasma gun, Rhino with Havoc Launcher

Total: 500 points

My thinking for this was that the Lord would be there to hit things hard in CC, plus use his instant death causing Daemon Weapon to deal with multi-wound models like Nobz or Tyranid Warriors. He'd be supported in this by the flamer squad who I gave an icon to as I thought they'd be getting into combat more often and might need the re-roll. The other squad was an objective holder. The two rhino would use their havoc launchers as long range support to thin out units.

The tournament was a mixture of different scenarios, including the table quarters and king of the hill missions from 4th edition.

I'm just writing up some details for the battle reports, so stay tuned.

WIP: Wings in Progress

This is a WIP shot of one of the wings from my Nurgle Daemon Prince (here's some earlier WIP shots of him during the conversion phase). The wings are fairly heavily cut down ones from the LoTR balrog.

The "fingers" are just basecoated currently, I'll be highlighting them a little lighter when I get chance. I really happy with the way the wing membrane has come out, as this was a little experiment using stippling, something I've never tried before.

I wanted the wings to have a mottled, organic feel to them so I thought stippling would look a little more natural than trying to blend the two colour together.

The wing was basecoated with Kommando Khaki in several thin coats as on such a large, visible area I wanted the paint to be as smooth as possible. Next, a wash with Devlan Mud to try and pick out the ridges in the wing folds. At this point I was unsure of where to go with it, and it was then I hit upon the stippling idea.

I used an old small drybrush to do this, but GW do make a nylon stippling brush. Really, it just needs to be a relatively stiff brush. Beware than doing this will ruin brushes as you'll end up splaying the bristles out

I started by stippling the area close the wing fingers with Bestial Brown, so this was the lighter of the two browns. Once this was done, I then repeated the process with Scorched Earth, this time going even closer to the finger. When stippling, take off most of the paint before you put it on the model, otherwise it'll just blob on to it, not stipple.

The final step was a quick drybrush of the whole wing with Kommando Khaki to pick up the ridges of the skin.

The final result looks pretty pleasing for me, I'll definitely try this again. This could be a good way of adding textures to any organic surface, for example a Tyranid carapace.