From JamieM - 30k Salamanders (130 Points)

You may (or may not given the sheer amount of miniatures involved) recall that I started my 30k Salamanders legion army in last year's challenge. True to form I haven't managed to "complete" them in the intervening period (is "complete" ever a word we can use for an army once started?) but the incentive of the challenge has me working on them once again!

For your delectation, shown below is a melta gun unit.

These are from the excellent "Betrayal at Calth" boxed set recently released by GW and the armour is Mk4. The melta gun fires super heated..... errrrr.... "stuff" and is excellent at busting armour. The salamanders history is that they love heat and flames, so I just had to add a unit of these to the mix.

Next up are ten tactical marines, also in Mk4 armour. No sarge with a natty plume in this lot as they are intended to bulk up a squad of ten painted last year to turn them into a squad of twenty.

And an alternative view.

These plastics really are excellent and the range of weapon options in the box is superb.

Moving away from that boxed set, three contemptor class dreadnoughts, all in resin this time around.

I really like the Contemptor design (the name harks back to Rogue Trader days when it was the name of a load out for the first ever dreadnoughts) and the resin ones come in plenty of pieces so you can make them quite dynamic and different, as I have tried to do above.

Two are armed with multi meltas (bigger versions of the melta gun above) and the other has a converted "conversion beamer" a fearsome weapon that gets stronger the further away it is fired from. I also added parts from GW lizardmen kits to further tie the models into their background and differentiate them from other legion.

I mixed up the other arms, taking some from the plastic "ironclad" dreadnought that I had lying around. This is partly to look a little different and partly because sometimes I'm a cheapskate and I didn't want to buy all the spare arms from Forgeworld!

Glad to get these off my desk as I am finding I'm starting lots of things and struggling to put the finishing touches to any of them. This also gets me off the mark in the 30k challenge against GregB, but his excellent start means I'm still behind...

Wow Jamie - just wow! This submission is excellent, but I have to say the "holy sh*t factor" is off the charts on those dreadnoughts in particular! They look frigging awesome - especially the conversion beamer - and that is in the context of overall excellent work, weathering effects, the posing on those dreadnoughts, the extra conversion bits, and great green tint to all the models. It's great to see this project taking off once again in this year's Challenge.

I also assume the flame effects on the shoulder plates are painted free-hand? And the heat effects on the barrels of the melta weapons? If so, more impressive work!

The posing on the Contemptors is really well done. I struggle with those models - my Contemptors look like they are standing in line at the DMV - yours look like they are fired up to get some revenge for events on Istvaan V...

The "Betrayal at Calth" box set has indeed been a gold mine - I have quite a few new plastic fellows waiting in my "pending" pile. And no force is ever completed - that notion is, well, heresy!

As a certified 30k mega-dork(TM), I am totally impressed by this entry, and it's great to have you join in the 30k side duel. For the 15 foot-sloggers, three vehicles, and extra points for the great conversion, posing, modeling and hand-painted effects, you get 130 points - the 30k duel is well and truly joined!