As I have painted my 40k and Epic armies, my skill with a paintbrush has improved a lot. So, in order to try and get more painting points with my Space Marines during a tournament, I have decided to replace all of my tactical squads with new ones.
I also decided to put custom shoulder pads on my Marines so that they look cooler. I replaced one shoulder pad with the Ultramarines Sigil, and the other with a Tactical Squad symbol. I then painted the Tactical symbol with the squad color, so I can tell squads apart when several squads are all together in one big close combat. I used to paint the base edge, but that looks a little cheesy.
I have almost completed Silver Squad, the only thing left for me to do is flocking the base with sand and painting it. But the base will still be black with gray highlights.
When painting my initial squads, I also made a rather egregious error. I spray painted the marines. Then I found out the spray paint color is not the same color as the paint pot color, leading to two-tone Marines. All of these Marines are painted by hand, then inked to bring out details, which is why they are darker than the original marines. I also outfitted the Sergeant with a power fist instead of a power sword.
Anyway, here’s some pictures. With all pictures, click on them for a bigger picture. First of all, the Sergeants:


This guy is the special weapon man in the squad. Instead of having a heavy weapon, he has a Plasma Gun. I don’t put heavy weapons in my squads because I want them to move every turn without losing the use of their heavy weapon.

Last but not least, just the standard Marine.

So, what do you guys think? Comments, please.

Here is an interesting item. State Ruling Upends Burden of Proof.

Last month, the [Washington] state Supreme Court ruled that before you can accuse your lawyer of malpractice, you have to prove you didn’t commit the crime.

So they have invalidated our “innocent until proven guilty” by asking the client to prove a negative, i.e. prove that you didn’t commit a crime. How do you prove that you didn’t do something?
There are places in this world where you have to prove your innocence, rather than the government prove your guilt. I just didn’t think that the United States was one of them.

I lost the link, but I found a post by a fellow blogger about the Kyoto Protocol.
It seems that New Zealand has signed the protocol, thinking that it had nothing to fear. Well, it now seems that they are going to be fined for their violations, to the tune of about $900 per person, and their major industry is sheep farming.
Feh.