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So after a couple of years of working on my SoB force, the back story for them has evolved greatly. The initial idea was that the order was based on a hive world, and therefore all the bases and associated scenery would be urban-ised.

Now im in the process of writing the background fully (and ive got 6 weeks of working away from home where i wont have anything else to do in the evenings).

The basic jist of my idea is to create a series of armies that are based around one hive city/world. I am planning on having a SoB army, a Imperial Guard regiment and an army/force using either the GK codex or possibly the upcoming C:SM. Ive also got ideas for possibly having a couple of insurgent forces such as an Alpha Legion force, and possibly re-fitting my Deathguard force to fit into the same style.

All the different forces will be based similarly to keep the overall theme consistent, and have back stories showing their place in the larger theme.

Im also going to work on producing terrain and a battle table to go with the whole idea.

So the basic background:-

- Hive World Imbros is ruled by house Vyner, a extremely enterprising, ruthless and power-hungry family.

- The hive cities are ruled by the Vyner's as their own little empire. They pay their imperial tithes and give lip-service to the imperium but for all intents and purposes Imbros is another empire.

- The world sends it tithe troops away but keeps a core of trained troops as its own defence force. These are composed of the toughest ex-gangs that can be tamed. Lord Vyner has a thing for female soldiers, and his most favoured regiment is composed entirely of female ex-gangers.

- The Sisters Venatores (a minor order of the Adeptus Sororitas) where dispatched to Imbros to recover relics believed to be within the foundations of the hive cities. They have remained on Imbros ever since and draw new recruits from the populations of the cities, and continue to hunt for long lost relics.

- Saint Vyner emerged from a shrouded background shortly after the SoB force arrived on Imbros. Her miraculous interventions to help the Sisters Venatores quickly meant she was accepted as someone to follow.

- House Vyner formed an exploration force whose prime goal was to search through the ruins within the foundations of the hive cities, and amongst the desolate ash wastes beyond their walls. They look for technology, equipment and resources that can be used by the house to further its quest for power.

Im building on these basic background points and will post a bit more background with pictures of the models when i make them.

So hopefully ill be able to show a bit more of what im getting at with my modelling and painting. (i cant wait to get on with making the exploration force)

Below in the spoiler is the original text of the first post, i wanted to keep it to give an idea of where this all started.

those are awesome. though it seems the digger would be best put to use picking up unsuspecting folk off the street! really good colour scheme. If you do another big ass bull dozer blade, can you do a tutorial? I really like it.

Would love to see more pics.

Holy-! what is that giant arm thing do? You should make some kick ass rules for it, like it can pick up stuff and throw it, grab tanks and crush them, and even do some stuff in CC.

just a thought

@ Ecstasy - At the moment the arm does nothing in game, i just made it for the sake of making it and as a bit of an exercise, it was the first big plasti-card/sytrene project ive done before

@Orinoco - Ive completed making another one of those dozer blades, and ive done the majority of making another 4 on top of that. If i get time ill see if i can sort a tutorial out. It was actually pretty simple to sort out in the end. The main curve was the easiest bit to achieve and what makes all the difference in the end

@Pretre - ill stick up some more pics while i paint the Suppressor, ive just undercoated it, so ill start painting it later this week



Im also thinking of doing a few other tank conversions, I thinking maybe a mine-clearance tank with something like this attached to the front of a rhino chassis -



Or maybe a bridging vehicle, for getting over chasms and sludge pools/rivers, something like this -


A good idea?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
In the mean time here are a couple of photos of my WIP Saint Celestine stand-in:

Starting Model:


Next Step:


First layer of Green-stuff:


Im not completely convinced by the hair, it looks too big, but it didnt look right not having all of that area (top of head/shoulders/backpack) covered when i was sculpting it. Any suggestions?

hair looks great. maybe give it some more life/dynamic flow? a lot the dark eldar girls' hair goes in all sorts of directions.

@Orinoco - I see what you mean, ive had a go at sculpting a bit more "movement" into the hair, ive also added a bit more detail to the head of the model to break up the expanse of hair. Im much happier with it now. Ill put up some more photos once the GS has dried.

Here is the latest squad to be finished - My Canoness and Sororitas Command squad including converted Sister Dialogus and Hospitaler:



Having looked at the photos of the models i think i need to do some more highlighting of the flesh areas as well as the black weaponry.

I quite like the idea of having a tech-marine style sister for the command squad, even if she just ends up playing as a normal sister, but at present im drawing a blank with regards to how to make her. I dont want to just echo a tech-marine from any space marine chapter....any ideas?

Moving thread to P&M Blogs at user's request.

Its been a while since i last posted anything, but here are a few more pics of my WIP Sisters army:

The Supressor is now about 50% painted:


Im trying to have a go at OSD for large floodlights on the front, but its my first attempt at it, and im not happy with it so far.
Are there any decent tutorials knocking around for it that someone can suggest?

My fiancee bought me the Imperial Armour Model Masterclass for Christmas so im intending on using some of the techniques in there to get a decent level of weathering going on, so hopefully i can get it as grimey looking as I want it to be. I figured if it spends its time on a hive world most of the time then it'd be much abused.

Here is a picture of the entire force as it is at the moment:


As you can see there is a lot to get on with. Im intending on making the Mark IV dreadnought into something Sisters-y, and the drop troop buggy into something that looks like it belongs in the ash wastes of a Hive city.

Ive also got an idea to make the Stormlord into something pretty special for the Sister-hood too, ill hopefully have something to show for it soon.

scrunty wrote:Its been a while since i last posted anything, but here are a few more pics of my WIP Sisters army:

The Supressor is now about 50% painted:

this thing is amazing!

@fantasybob - Thanks!! I was pretty chuffed with it, and so far ive managed to keep all the parts posable - even with the paint


I was asked little further back for a tutorial on how to make the dozer blade/bucket scoop on the front of my immolator on my first post. So now that ive got around to doing one here it is:


So parts first: (all bought from 4D model shop)


Then construction:


Hope that explains it well enough

Wow!!! These look great! I've never seen gritty SoB's before, they're always red/black/white and some metallic color. Btw I love the hazard stripes on the flamer tubes.

@dangledorf - Thanks! Im glad im managing to get the gritty/grimy look right(ish), im really trying to push for it. The "hazard stripes" on the flamer tubes are pure fluke, they weren't meant to just be highlights, but now you've mentioned it i can see a re-paint is in order. I really like the idea of having hazard stripes on all the flamer tubes in the army, and there are a lot of flamers!


So for the next full post: Last night i was sat about wondering what to get on with regarding my models, carry on painting the Supressor, start Saint Ulanti, do some conversion on my Stormlord, when i realised if i did any of these i would be just putting off painting the normal bods in the army. So ive decided to paint the rest of my army's foot-troops in one epic production line. Im planning on painting at least 1 colour per day on the models, last night i did the gnarloc green, here are the results:



Tonight ill try and get the power-armour painted in Denab Stone, hopefully in a little over a week ill have the entire foot section of the army completed.....maybe

On another point ive got a few models i want to get opinions on what to next with;

Firstly the Elysian Drop troops Tauros Assault vehicle:

I absolutely love this sculpt, its a bit of pain to stick together. Im looking at converting it into a SoB auxillary vehicle, perhaps crewed by the equivalent of Space marine scouts in a sisters order. Also i want to convert it into something that would look like it belonged in the Ash wastes of a hive world.

Any particular ideas that spring to mind? Im thinking things like enclosed roof, but enclosed with perspex instead of opaque material, or big ventilation devices. Maybe some stuff that for digging it out when it gets stuck in drifts or soft ash?

Secondly is the mark IV dreadnought:

Again i think this model is brilliant, and equipped with a inferno cannon and drill arm it weaponry fits in nicely with the idea of the order being in and around a hive world. The need to smash down buildings and burn things up seems like it might crop up quite often.

Any ideas of how i could make this more "sisters-of-battle-y", but still in keeping with the grimy/gritty look im going for on the rest of the force? Any ideas how i can make it look more feminine, without sticking boobs on it!

Lastly is the Stormlord Super-Heavy:


I raelly want to go all out on this one, i think firstly it needs a massive bulldozer blade for the front, and possibly some other terrain moving equipment elsewhere, but apart from that im drawing a blank at the moment. Any suggestions?

An update on the production line painting:



Its going well so far, i havent managed to get one colour per night, but ive done two colours in three nights! But the two main colours are done now, and so far ive only missed a few bits of a few models, mainly fleur-de-lys on knees and gauntlets, nothing major.

On to the smaller parts on each model now. Still vaguely on track!

Finally ive managed to finish painting all my original foot-troops. The army no has the following troops finished (to a half decent table-top standard):

- Saint Ulanti
- Canoness and retinue with 3 heavy flamers
- Mistress
- 2 x 6 man Seraphim squad each with 2 x twin inferno pistols
- 1 x Dominion squad (not quite legal, i need a few more standard bolter sisters to finish it)
- 2 x 10 man Battle Sister Squads with heavy bolter and flamer
- 4 x 5 man Retributor Squads ( 2 x 4 heavy flamers, 1 x 4 multi-meltas, 1 x 4 heavy bolters)


I havent managed to take good enough photos of a few of them (including Saint Ulanti, but when my camera has charged ill get some more up):
Heavy Flamer Retributor Squad 1

Heavy Flamer Retributor Squad 2

Heavy Flamer Detail

Multi-Melta Retributor Squad

Battle Sister Squad

Heavy Bolter Retributor Squad

Dominion Squad

Order Standard Bearer

Mistress



Im also now working on a Repentia Squad, to go with the Mistress:



Also im working on a Uriah Jacobus Counts as (i havent worked out a name for her yet):


But the next big painting task is painting 5 Immolators, 2 Rhinos and finishing the Suppressor(Engineering Tank)

After a very long absence of posting due to over commitment to getting married, work and various other activities, ive decided to get back into the flow of things and start a new but related project to the sisters venatores. With an eye to entering an armies on parade at some point im going to make an army board for the sisters. As with their background the theme will be based around a hive-world, with lots of decrepit buildings and plague zombies knocking around waiting to get burnt.

So here is where it starts - The design sketch for the board. Its a 2'x2' board but will end up being almost 2' tall as well. This is good as id like to get as much detail and as many bits of my army onto the board at possible


Next i got a chunk of 6mm MDF board, cut it into 2 2ft square pieces and a couple of lengths of 1"x1/2" timber and but that into 25 5" pillars. these will be the supports between the base of te board and the ground floor of the display: -



I screwed the pillars to the board from the underside:-


The ground floor layer sits on top like this:-


I then set about covering the basement level with rubble and plastic sheet to give an impression of metal flooring and general decay (in the process using a large proportion of my supplies!):-


The idea is to have a large hole in the ground floor level that has left a pile of rubble and debris in the basement level. Combined with this mess will be some barricades and other features that ill add to the lowest level shortly:-



So ill leave it to dry for now and come back to it tomorrow. Ill see how much extra stuff should be added to the bottom layer, then i can start working out where the models will fit in, and where the zombies they are purging will be appearing. Hopefully ill have some more to show soon.

Congratulations on getting married

I really like the look of your SoB and your army board looks interesting. I look forward to seeing it progress.

Cool concept on the board. And wicked sweet excavator. I really like the color schem as well. Will be watching this for updates.

Thanks SilverMK and Theophony

Ill try and get photos of all the other units ive got painted so far, there are a lot more than i originally posted and the army has grown substantially.

I managed to get some photos of the whole of my collection today. Here are a few snippets of the Sisters Venatores so far. Most things are still work in progress, with only 1 small unit really complete and the majority of the rest still being just painted to a basic standard. My next step is to finish the bases on all the models to match in with the display board (worn/rusty painted steel or masonry). After this ill be moving back onto finishing the Scintilla Auxillaries, my Imperial guard allied contingent, which has rapidly grown into an army of its own now. Its not going to be the most competitive of armies as ill be including no flyers (its pretty hard to fly in the underhive), and it'll be including the abhuman elements, Ogryns and Ratlings, as well as roughriders (started but not getting very far so far - Escher gangers on motorbikes).

General - Saint Ulanti (counts as saint celestine) - The model on the left is my current version and the WIP one on her right is who will replace her eventually. The cross is her marker for when she karks it in a fight:-


Gang Leaders - Eris Belisama (counts as Uriah Jacobus - Front row on left) and Cadance Sabine (counts as Arch confessor Kyrinov -Front row right (still WIP)) With a group of heavily armed Scintilla Irregulars (6 x DCA and 3x Crusaders):-


Angelus Squads (Seraphim): - 3 x 6 woman squads all squads with custom made hand-flamers/inferno pistols and sister superiors with twin chainsaws (counts as eviscerator) or power mauls:-


Agression Squads (Dominions): - 2 x 11 woman squads (i know they are max 10 but ive got extra special weapons options available):-


Retributors; All have different fluffy squad names dependent on weapon type - Heavy bolters - Retaliation Squad, Heavy Flamer - Purgation Squad, Multi-melta - Immolation Squad. I think there are 4x HF, 2x HB and 1x MM squads here with extra bodies:-


Correction Squads (Sisters Repentia) - 2 x 5 woman squads:-


Suppression Squads (Battle Sister Squads) - 4 x 15 woman squads (i think). all with 1 flamer and 1 multimelta:-


Rhinos and Exorcists (There are 9 rhino chassis', 3 can be exorcists, 5 can be immolators. Im playing aorund with different types of extra armour, such as solid space plate, and bar-armour:-


Heavy Demolition Servitor (Counts as penitent engine). I want to have a full complement of 9 of this at some point but money and time are holding me back here:-


Scintilla Auxillaries (Imperial guardsmen) - Effectively my Blob-squad. 4x 10 woman squads with heavy weapons teams, plus a 6 woman special weapon team and a platoon command squad with female commissar:-


Scintilla Pattern Hellhounds - Wheeled hellhounds:-


Scintilla Pattern Punisher Leman Russ (Left) and Demolisher (right)- Double width tracks with and extensions to rear chassis:-


Sister Venatores Colour Dreadnought - My wife bought me this model a while back as she knows ive got a bit of a thing for dreadnoughts in general, so i painted it up in Venatores colours and added flamers, i might use it as a stand in penitent engine if i need too:-


My colour concept model i did way back, it was sort of an attempt at a Pre-heresy Deathguard scheme but i never took it further along that line and just nicked the scheme to stick on my sisters:-


Hope you like! There are a load more photos in my gallery showing a bit more detail of the models and bases they are on too.

Ill get some more WIP shots of the display board in the next few days



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh i forgot to post this one too, a hive-worlded aegis defence line (or part of anyway):-

So ive managed to get a bit more progress on my display board:-

Ive added some more substantial rubble to the pile in the middle of the board, to make it more convincing that the upper level has collapsed:-


I then added the steel washers to the board where my models will sit on top. All the models have magnets in the bases, so fit nice and securely to the washers. I added debris/sand/rubble around the edge of the washers to blend them in a little:-


I want to add some lights to the project to add that other dimension to it, so i went and bought supplies and sorted out some lighting rigs, having never done this before it was interesting to play around with them:-


Added the lights to the board (in the bottom left corner) and here you can see where the models are positioned on the board. On this level is 1 squad of battle sisters, 3 retributor squads with heavy flamers, 1 full dominion squad and 1 repentia squad:-


Then the last step ive got to so far, is a basic undercoat of the board with grey black and a red-oxide primer:-


So its all ready to add the detailed paint, this'll probably take some time. I want to add graffiti and heavy weathering throughout. After that ill get on with sorting out the zombies that are going to be getting burnt. Ive got a couple of areas that are empty of models at the moment and are generally surrounded by flamer toting sisters, so should be fun. I im going to have a go at making a zombie that has an eviscerator half way through it, splitting it head to groin.

Does anyone have any tips on creating decent smoke/flame effects? I want to add a few small fires on this level too. Im going to add more lighting to the underside of the next level too, to add a bit more ambience too.

Over the weekend ive managed to put some paint on one corner of the board, Ive completed a 6x6" square, so only another 23 of these to go! Im happy with how the weathering has gone, adn the grimy effect ive achieved. When i add the floor above it the light levels will drop dramatically on this level so it will look even more dingy, which i think will add to the overall effect.






I cannot praise the AK Interactive enamel colours enough. They are very easy to use and give brilliant streaked grime/rust effects as well as excellent washes/puddles too. Ive been using the Rust streaks, Streaking grime, Slimy grime streaks, Engine grime and Dust effects. Combine these with some weathering powders (which i havent used on this board yet) and they are fantastic. Also i love the effect you get when you use watered down acetone to remove a top layer of paint over another colour. It gives a great effect of worn painted sheet metal.

Just another update of painting progress on the basement of my display board. Its coming along nicely, and about 50% painted now. Im happy with the level of detail im getting onto the board, but it might become a bit of a chore to get the same level of detail on the upper floors. I think im going to have to work out an easier way to sort some sings, posters and graffiti Any help with this would be appreciated, links to decent websites where i can print off scale copies of things would be cool.

Heres a corner of the board prior to doing weathering:


Some more of the board finished:

Im slowly trying to increase the narrative of the board. A large "No Smoking" sign with a fire/explosive symbol below it, just adjacent to the area of the board that is devastated. There might have been something that shouldnt have been tampered with in the centre of the board.

Birds Eye view of a finished section:

That board is excellent, and you collection of SoB is great.

Love the converted vehicles, Syd Bishop in space

So after a good week of "working from home" ive managed to get the painting finished on the basement of my display board. Im really happy with it, and i cant wait to add the extra bits to the underside of the first floor to add even more flavour (ive got plans for hanging wires, dripping pipes, lights etc.). Here are a couple of pictures of the finished basement:

The whole basement without the Sisters on it:


The whole basement with Sisters on it:


And here are a couple of shots of detailed bits with and without sisters:





Here is the next part, the ground floor is just placed on top of the pillars:


and here is the view through the hole:


There are a load more pictures of the whole project so far in my gallery.

I cant wait to get this all put together and painted up. Then all ill have to do is find somewhere in the my house to store/show-off the thing!

Ive had a slight pause in making the display board, and decided to make a few bits of random terrain from stuff lying around. I started by using a load of forgeworld resin sprue pieces (sourced from a friend with a bit of a forgeworld habit!) to make barricades. I think they look like a scale version of the concrete barricades you see between lanes on roads. The larger the sprue pieces the better, but that means buying larger forgeworld pieces, and my source hasnt got bottomless pockets!

Sprue:


By adding a few bits of wire, some scale corrugated iron, some plaster columns and a few other bits and pieces i constructed the barricades:


While listening to a podcast (i think 11th Company) while i was making the above, i heard a discussion about making forests for different world environments, and that making a hi-tech/industrial "forest" would be hard to do. I decided to have a try and see what i could come up with. Firstly i thought about columns with dangling wires and came up with this:

Im not entirely happy with this, but i think it will be a bit better once painted.

Then i had a brain wave, how about the conductors you see in electricity sub-stations, they would have stems (ironwork) and branches (insulators and wires), so with a load of plasti-card i put this together:


If i make another one (which im thinking of doing because i quite like the result) then id add more "trees", but id have to find a better way of making the small insulator discs as they were a pain and a faff to make. Suggestions on making 1/4 inch plastic discs with a 1/8 inch hole in the centre?

So as a further departure from getting on with my display board i started work on another Heavy Demolition Servitor (i was in Nottingham and it seemed rude not to buy a contemptor dread while i was there!).

This one is equipped with two wrecking balls instead of the cutting discs of the last one. So far im happy with the pose of the beast, plus how it interacts with its base. Once ive got a fews more splats of paint on it, ill stick up another couple of pictures:




and its base:

That display board will definitely be a sight to behold when everything is finished. The bits you've shown so far look incredible.

I really like the paint scheme on your Sisters. I thought they looked a bit Death Guard-ish when I started reading the thread, I was happy to find out I was right.

The wrecking ball machine looks interesting

Ill get a couple of extra photos up of the wrecking ball servitor, ive finished the base and started the first couple of bits of painting on the model itself.

In the mean time here is a load of scatter-scenery finished now, all in the urban/underhive style:


My Underhive "Forest" or Substation: