I scored a Blackstone Fortress box as a Christmas gift. My hope for it was to play on my own, with the kids coming and going as they pleased. And of course, get a fresh taste of 40k painting, to go with the Underworlds and Blitz Bowl I’ve been enjoying.
Chaos Space Marine (helmet)
Chaos Space Marine (mask)
I’ve been playing a session every weekend, and having a ton of fun. The kids are mostly with me. It does work well for them to drop in and out. Many a dinner conversation is about our exploits to date.
Obsidius Mallex
I wanted to do something interesting for the bases, but not shell out for resin ones. I settled on hexes (masked with cut out tape, airbrushed, then edge highlighted by hand), pipes (made with my trusty Tentacle Maker), and good old fashioned sand (painted grey). The hexes mesh well with the general aesthetic of the game, and the sand hides slots and reduces the number of tiny hexagons I need to cut and place.
Base detail
Obsidius Mallex and his Chaos Space Marine bodyguards
This character pack for the Institute adds three new named characters, including named versions of the Courser and a Gen 2 Synth.
A-2018
A-2018 presents almost the worst of all possible colors; black and white. I used my standard Reaper Blue Liner for the black, mixing in some white and pale blue for the highlights.
Kellogg
Kellogg has a rad cyber arm, though the limits of casting (and my paint) render it somewhat less rad.
Z2-47
I wish Z2-47 was more distinct from the other courser sculpts. If you put him next to the courser in the faction core box you’d be hard pressed to tell which one was the named character.
The Institute are the boogeyman of the wasteland in Fallout 4. Now they can do the same on the tabletop.
Gen 1 Synths
The Institute has an army of synths, humanoid robots with varying amounts of human appearance and personality. Gen 1 are the weakest, essentially acting like zombies.
Gen 2 Synths
Gen 2 are still unlikely to pass as human, but are closer. Both of these specimens have seen better days.
Courser
The Courser is a gen 3, a terminator sent out to take care of rogue elements. They have stealth and teleportation. What fun!
Institute Scientist
The Scientist is an actual human. At least probably. Protect them as they go about doing sciency things.
These turrets skirt the line between terrain and regular models.
Laser turret (brown)
The pack comes with a pair of laser and a pair of machine gun turrets. The laser turrets don’t do much for me, but the machine gun ones are just so cute.
Laser turret (green)
Unfortunately the pairs are identical, including the scenic base. The machine gun ones have a ton of shell casings. Although that’s appropriate, it makes it harder to swap them. Fortunately, the tripods are equilateral triangles, so you can easily rotate to add a bit of variety.
Machine gun turret (brown)
The tripods and bodies are separate pieces, with a peg. I drilled them out and put in magnets, so they can be rotated.
