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They strike from the shadows, they embrace the darkness. Fear them for they are your doom. Where you are weak they will strike. When you are tired they are waiting, poised to strike. Where you had courage it will melt. Then you shall know fear for the sons of corax are watching....and waiting....and bringing your doom.

This is my new Painting and Modelling Blog for my newest project, a Raven Guard Company! I've had the Marine Codex since its release but have never been drawn to Raven Guard until now! I blame my newest army on the sources of inspiration below...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB6IqLGpj6g - cool video and music of Raven Stuff

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Raven_Guard - really cool fluff and characterful army builds

http://fromthewarp.blogspot.com/2009/12/painting-raven-guard-muted-pale-skin.html - nice tutorials on how to paint Raven Guard skin!

Have you perhaps considered using the Blood Angels codex for your Raven Guard? That way you can field Assault Marines as troops and give them a bigger variety of weapons.

Lovely so far! Can't wait for more

@ eNvY - Thanks for the input. I have been thinking about using the Blood Angels Codex, descent of Angels would be great to use, not to mention rules and points cost for Vanguard that finally reflect what those Veterans are meant to be capable of! But I still love the Codex Space Marines, plus the bonus of using Shrike or a bike mounted army would be nice!

@ Limbo - Thanks for subscribing, I hope you enjoy the pics of my own models once I get them posted!

But in the meantime, happy news, all my fears about having to paint the Raven Guard Chapter Symbol have vanished! For the fine price of 8 squid I can get an a4 sheet of transfers with 100 transfers from Forge World! Its a beast of a sheet and I'm very happy that its being finally released!

The face on the Captain is the best I have seen.

You've just made painting that little bit more daunting for me.

Subscribed!

Did you paint the face with a pin?

It is the best face i have ever seen on a model.

I believe them to be the forgeworld painted models if im not mistaken I think he is using them as examples?

Oh well...still..it is an amazing face...

Unfortunately I didn't paint those models above, but give me a few more years and you'd never know!! I'll need lots of practice before I get that good.

After a long wait I finally have some photos of my models. Find below my scouts with zombie faces, and my first tactical marines.

The tactical marines all have different eyes. Red eyes big, green eyes big, red eyes dots, green eyes dots. Which do you prefer?

I think I'll give some more ogryn flesh wash to add colour to the zombie skin scouts. I just went over the top with the final touch up of grey....

Good luck mate, this army could look epic

I like the dotted red eyes. Unique, and they look very appropriately menacing.

Thanks Young_Logan, great to get encouragement! I hope it does look epic...after a few years work!!!

And thank you hungryp. I'm so glad you said that, cos I've just repainted the other 3 sets of eyes into red dots! I would have been gutted if you had said the green dots looked cooler. Although they're my models and I'm the only one who'll be looking at them, I do value other peoples input, thats why I'm writing this blog! I want them to look epic.

So on to my next area for input, black bolters or red bolters?

Sweet Army Mate,

I'm also doing a Raven Guard army. Can't wait to see how this turns out.

Arran

Awesome dude!

s.j.mccartney wrote:

So on to my next area for input, black bolters or red bolters?

I vote black. The red stands out a little too much against the black of the Marine.

I would suggest black bolters with red insignias and clips.

Also what rules are you using for your army?

I would suggest blood angels as raven guard are famed for their jump packs, right?

Shrike's special rules work OK too, but the regular plain old Marine Codex does a fine job as well.

Seriously, what's with the BA Bandwagon lately? Everyone wants to play everything as BA.

Personally, I've played them for years, but the idea of Shrike giving everyone Fleet has made me kinda want to start a Raven Guard army when I get around to making a list from the Vanilla codex.

As they walked through the shadows the only sound that could be heard was the revving of the orks trukks. They sounded like a heap of scrap being dragged along a metal floor but somehow the Ork machines worked, and they worked well. The greenskins had taken huge chunks of territory from the defenders of this imperial world, but they weren't expecting what was about to happen to them...
After days of tracking and planning the ambush the Ravens lay in wait. Their patience had paid off. The ork trukks came along the ravine with a noise like a gravel waterfall. Three...Two....One....scout mendoza pressed the detonator switch and the ravine walls came crashing down on the ork convoy. The screams of the greenskins were quickly silenced by scout blakes sniper rifle. mendoza picked up his heavy bolter and joined in the fray, scything down the enemy where they presented themselves.
Within a minute it was over. All that was left of the orks was blood and dust and the Raven Guard scouts returned to the shadows and prepared their next strilke...


Hello Asherian, Hungryp, ChoclateGork and Alpharius, welcome to my Raven Guard Blog. I have considered the BA codex options as I have discussed with eNvY in the earlier posts, but I'm quite happy running this army from the Space Marines Codex, and maybe even using them as a bike army. The best advantage the BA codex would give me would be the 'descent of angels' special rule and the option of taking Vanguard Veterans as they are meant to be. But I'm happy as is..

So I'm getting better at the photographs. You can't beat natural light for photographing tiny fighting men. Here are my scouts as is. I blacked out their eyes, I'd be happy to call them finished, just need to base them...

And for the tacticals I've done a tiny bit of highlighting and made all their eyes the red dots. I think I will paint the bolters black too, it would give them a darker, more dangerous feel. Don't want too much colour on these boys!!
Also see my pityful attempt at a raven guard badge, I'm so glad the transfers are coming out!! But see the final picutre for a neat trick I found! The author of that blog says he uses a drop of olive oil to prevent the GS sticking to itself...great trick! If only I could sculpt like that!!

Why not do your own mini codex and that way you can have control of what goes in there. and dont forget to ask for proof reading from people.

http://brigannion4.blogspot.com/

I asked 3 people that I know.

1 is a fellow blogger, 1 is a pro writer who wrote for Mongoose Publishing and the last is from a shop.

The greenstuff shoulderpad mold is a great idea if it works. I've made a mold of a pad design, but haven't tried to get it transferred onto a blank pad yet. Of course, if you're no good with greenstuff, still not very helpful, but at least you only have to get it right once!

I done some with my Iron Hands you need to get it thin so it will fit better.

The scouts are looking amazing my man and i can't wait to take them on in battle or fight along side them!!!!

Scouts look awesome!

For your enjoyment my friend http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/307516.page#1813816

Hi Niall, thanks for that link. She paints a sweet Shrike!

And hello Miss Dee, welcome to the Ravens Blog. Its mostly shadows and dust, but occassionally there are updates with pictures!!!

I've been away camping for a week, but I'm back now, and looking forward to my next models. I wanna get those tacticals and scouts finished and based and move onto something nice....

I have a metal dread that I need to strip the paint off, any suggestions? I'm in the UK so I can't use the 'simply green' stuff all you americans talk about, any good alternatives that I can get easily?

For metal, any acetone containing product will do it. Nail polish remover is one of the easiest to use. It'll also take off (or at least soften enough to pull off) the superglue. Just don't use it on plastic or the plastic ends up resembling rubber.

paint stripper from any car mart will do fine, just dont want you getting blamed for missing nail varnish remover.

And check out my Iron Warriors blog via my iron hands blog.

Superb, thank you Morgrim and Miss Dee for your responses. But what works for taking GW paint off plastic models? I've heard of folks in the UK ordering the magical 'simply green' product from websites and getting it shipped over. But hopefully theres an alternative that I can get easily from the shops here....

Dettol works wonders, make sure you get the original brown coloured stuff, leave it to soak for 24 hours and then use an old paintbrush to remove the paint from the recesses.