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Greetings,

Due to the untimely death of my IF force, I have been sitting looking at my empty desk.... sure I have unpainted and unassembled models hidden in some.... somewhere.
However I wanted, call it a task if you will, painting diversion.

As a result I have been looking at the life and times of the Astral Claws and the Celestial lions.
Not really getting pulled by the colour scheme of either, the rich history of the Red Corsairs stemming from the Claws had me thinking back to the XI Legion and the history of the DA and Good old Lion el himself.

Now not a diehard fluff stickler myself (although I do enjoy the 40k history) I was thinking of blends of chapters and the like, Knowing that the Corsairs are still running about and the last of the lions are vowing death before dishonour , it would not be unreasonable to follow that they would be chasing the old reddies.. So why should they still be in badab war colours of gold and blue... perhaps.. They too have changed, and in more ways than one.

So to start this pblog and all that follows, Stay tuned.





Automatically Appended Next Post:
Stupid dakka, pressing buttons while I am drunk ... How dare you.

Anyway reference some of the source material as I go along.

In regard to the Lions ;





Bits ?







Granted leaning towards Lions in the above stuff , but I also want to move away from that paint scheme , perhaps having the gold in NMM ?

Taking the lion theme further

and these helmets rather than the lion face ones


I wanted to have something different.
So I dug around those boxes at the back and I found these lovely fellows just right for the job -




There are loads of bits I have also found with lion logos etc etc




Yet still not quite what I am intending to work on I like the Claws as well, as it looks like some nice stuff is coming soon (esp for Part II Badab wars etc)

Astral claws however do have a better long term fit as I think they will have more support in the future from forge world,




These two following models I have referenced for later consideration -


But its early days yet.

A full force of NMM Celestial Lions would look stunning, but obviously be a complete pain to paint if you ever intend to play with them.

If you like the Astral Claw parts, but don't want to do that specific colour scheme, you could always do a transitional scheme that uses elements of the Astral Claws with elements of the Red Corsair colours and defaced imperial sigils. I can't imagine they switched from silver/blue to red/black over night.

If you went for Celestial Lions they might have toned down the gold to show they are on some sort of vengeance kick? Alternatively they might be using some form of Codex Astartes approved camo scheme might be good. IA9/10 talk about these and have a couple of examples in amongst the colour plates, mostly for night world fights were the colours are very muted to allow for stealth. There's also the old RT era article about the Badab War that includes plenty of camo examples

Endtransmission, I think we are on the same wavelength here!

Every point you have raised I have noted down and was already trying to work out how best to aproach it, even with an eye for vehicles in the long run.

I have a copy of IA9 that I have borrowed for reference, not scanning honest...

I was musing with a grey primer, a dark orange/black 50.50 thin base followed up by highlights of d/red - red - orange to white tip edges keeping gold/brass trims (tbc) , It would fit with a midway point for the claws and still a decent halfway house to be used for both ends of the spectrum of the fluff

Mk2 armour lends its self to absence of imperial seals & stamps, I am still fiddling with the paint wheel to get a better selection

Mk2 is certainly nice armour that will lend itself well to intricate or interesting colour designs. Looking forward to seeing this start

Minor update.

While thinking about the army list (A lot of scouts) I started to prep the MK2's and start cleaning up and getting them ready for primer, I then remembered that these babys are resin.
So a quick rescue from the warm soapy bath and a dry I have left them to cool down and get ready for cleaning up mould lines etc.

Grrr FW.

I have my work cut out here, and these are just the legs.

I have also placed my orders for scribor goodies,forgeworld,army painter goodies and a few other bits and bobs ™. Got to love the interwebs!

Interesting ideas, looking forward to seeing which way you go with it all. I really like the silver blue of the ACs, and the Huron model is great. Thoughts at another C-Ram?

Late home today from work.. go figure however there were packages from the postie!

After breaking out the Scibor stuff I can confirm the shoulder pads are useless for standard marines , they are far to big and at even that possibly are not even suited for terminators
In essence they are junk, the bases however are lovely and will have a home in the new army !

I also got FW stuff and the astral claws pads amongst other goodies.. they are perfect, and I think its swung the vote to do an Astral Claws army.



Messing about with the Mk2 armour ...



At the moment now I am working out the paint scheme and army list. This is fun again !

Messing about with paint schemes I was looking at inspiration for other forms of gold/brass and "dirty" versions there of .
A bit of research -



But rather than the blue/ a darker royal blue in reflection to the astral claws dominant scheme but having that degraded in the same format as above for rust , and having a rusty gold/brass feel to the army.

Thoughts ?
Ideas ?
Comments ?

Subscribed

Being a Red Corsair player myself I am really interested in your progress.

we want more!

Interesting ideas so far, looking forward to seeing how they progress!

Is that base from Scribor too?

Just had a look in your old blog to see what yo meant, hard luck dude. Look forward to seeing more and i admire your resolve.

Thats a lot of rusty German cars... I think depending on the time you want the army set in would change the levels of weathering they should be rocking.

I looked in to this thread only because Only in Death is the best motherducking BL book (... Must ... Resist ... CAPS). There seams to be alot potential here, looking forward to see this in paint

I smell potential...

Iranna.

Interesting project! Looking forward to seeing more!

Far to hot to paint, so lets have a montage !

Paint wheel...

Looks interesting! Without wanting to sound rude (or stupid) whats it for?

@ Emperors_Champion , no not at all, unlike you , I am very very crap at recalling which colours are lighter and darker and I tend to work out all the mixed before I start, ( cause I forget , I might write it down but lose the notes, hence a paint wheel... i figure its to big for me to lose ! ha ) ~

Once I finish pinning the first squad up , I will get out Brother Testie and try out a few to see if it goes the way I want.

Brother Testie, what an unfortunate name

Tauzor wrote:@ Emperors_Champion , no not at all, unlike you , I am very very crap at recalling which colours are lighter and darker and I tend to work out all the mixed before I start, ( cause I forget , I might write it down but lose the notes, hence a paint wheel... i figure its to big for me to lose ! ha ) ~

Once I finish pinning the first squad up , I will get out Brother Testie and try out a few to see if it goes the way I want.

Cool! Looking forward to seeing your Testie!

Squad One - Pinned and prepped.

Squad Two-

Coated , some tidy work to do.

Short update of this afternoons basecoats

Gonna keep a close eye on this.