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So after selling my Ravenguard army due to losing the will to paint black armour I decided to add a small force of Raptors as an allied detachment to my Imperial Guard army. This will grow slowly rather than buying all hte army at once and then not painting it.

My current methodology is that I buy a box of infantry that I don't really want to paint and a vehicle or character. Then once I've painted the infantry I can paint the fun thing. I'm not allowed to buy any new models until I've painted what I have.

To kick off the force I bought a box of Scouts and a Landspeeder Storm as well as a box of the finecast Sternguard before they disappear forever. I'm going to use one of the Sternguard as a Captain in an allied detachment until I build a better one later and with Storms becoming Dedicated Transports for Scouts with the new book they'll be worth taking.

The first marine:



The Scout Squad:

Ive seen a few people paint Marines in a more "realistic" color here and there, and personally, Ive always liked the look. I mean, yellow is fun as hell and challenging to paint, but I really dont see that as being a color youd see

Nice work man, those look great

Awesome love it !

Looking good, i do like the more drab 'realistic' marine look also, i will be checking up on this!

Rob451 wrote:
To kick off the force I bought a box of Scouts and a Landspeeder Storm as well as a box of the finecast Sternguard before they disappear forever. I'm going to use one of the Sternguard as a Captain in an allied detachment until I build a better one later and with Storms becoming Dedicated Transports for Scouts with the new book they'll be worth taking.

The first marine:

Spoiler:

Agreed that the LS Storm becoming a Dedicated Transport will be a great boost !

Your first model looks awesome, I like the added gear & chest webbing ! Keep it up ! And count on us to scowl at you if you you keep with your painting plan

I like what you've done, both from a modeling and painting standpoint. The Vet is awesome.

I paint my scouts in camo. It makes a nice break from the monotony of ultramarine blue power armor. Looking forward to seeing how the rest of your force turns out.

So with a 750 point doubles league going on at my local GW I decided that I would get a 750 point force painted up.

In what is possibly the fastest turnaround on an army I've ever had I managed it. Kinda. Not all the models are "finished" but they all hit tabletop standard and got me my bonus point for a fully painted and based force

So leading the force was a Librarian...



Built from a Grey Knight Torso back and parts from the Sternguard and Tactical boxes just released. My Librarian doesn't want to draw attention to himself on the battlefield with bright blue armour and flowing robes so I only painted the shoulder pads and his helmet blue and tried to give him a very Spartan look. I'm really chuffed with how his head turned out in the end.

Next up we have a Tactical Combat Squad.



Again built from the Sternguard and Tactical boxes. On release day I was able to trade away all the stern guard legs for tactical legs on a 2-for-1 basis so had enough legs to build 10 marines. With the plethora of bits in the sternguard box plus some torsos from my bits box I got 11 marines in total out of a 5 man kit.

They got to ride around in this...



This is the most finished of my Raptors vehicles. The interior is painted and it's fully weathered. The top hatch can be removed and a Razorback hatch put in it's place if needed as I have a half dozen different razorback turrets I can choose from.

Next up was another combat squad...



These guys are tactical marines but I used them as Sternguard so I didn't have to paint so many models for the league game. They actually did very well in all 3 games that I played just using their special ammo and no other upgrades. Note that all of the marines in this force have their helmets with them even if they aren't wearing them.

They were riding around in a Razorback...



This was a really old model that I had stripped and repainted about 4 times now. It was originally supposed to be a transport for an inquisition warband in an old GK army but I could never settle on a good colour scheme. It unfortunately will always be a Razorback and the doors are glued shut so the interior will never be painted.

Now I was originally planning on fielding a Stalker but it didn't arrive in time. Around here flying monstrous creatures are very popular so having something that can reliably cause grounding tests on them is a must. As I couldn't take a Stalker I quickly painted up an old Storm Talon I had lying around just primed.



Total painting time was about 2-3 hours. It was a real rush job so there are a few cut corners. I didn't have time for nice things like masking so there is a lot of overspray going on near the engines and vents. I think it ended up working in it';s favour. I decided to weather it differently as being a flyer it's probably made of aluminium rather than Steel so I painted it as if it had a Zinc Chromate primer (which is light green) over Aluminium while the tanks use a red/brown primer over Steel.

The last picture is of my DakkaPred.



Magnetised sponsons so I can switch it's loadout around. I have a spare lascannon turret as well so if needed it can switch. However I tend to use Predators as bullet magnets and infantry support rather than anti-tank so stuffing it full of dakka appealed to me. It still needs weathering powders applied to it as well as detailing. It can also be pushed into service as a Rhino or Razorback if required.

The remainder of the force was made up of a Scout squad in a Landspeeder Storm. The scouts are in the first post so I won't repost them and I don't have a good picture of the storm just yet but I'll post that later.

My next task is to paint up another ten Tactical marines and get those squads to full size. I also have my Stalker/Hunter kit now so I'll paint that as a reward for finishing the infantry.

Really nice, the vehicles especially for me. What you did with the Libby is cool too.

Great job, really like the more realistic look.

Nice seeing lots of reasonable marines instead of the shining knights we usually get! Specially liked your Librarian (grammar edition)

Awesome job on them ! The weathering (especially on the first Rhino) is astonishing !! How did the games go ?

 Yggdrasil wrote:
Awesome job on them ! The weathering (especially on the first Rhino) is astonishing !! How did the games go ?

The games went well. Predictably there were lots of marine armies but I won two of three games and currently sitting second in the league.

Everything did pretty much what I expected. Ravenguard chapter tactics are odd to use as it all happens in the deployment phase and in every game I ended up going second so the scout moves weren't that useful. I feel like I should have been outflanking the transports more when going second.

My Librarian did really well with a combination of biomancy and telepathy and at one point I was able to kill the opposing warlord using the grav cannon on his own Centurions with puppet master

I really admire the Raptors and your models here truly do them justice - well done and thanks for sharing!

Great work. I love the realistic military look of the Raptors, and you've done a great job.

The uniforms of the Imperial Guard are camouflaged in order to protect their wearers by hiding them from sight.
The principle is that what the enemy cannot see he cannot kill. This is not the way of the Adeptus Astartes. A Space Marine’s armour is bright with heraldry that proclaims his devotion to his Chapter and the beloved Emperor of Mankind. Our principle is that what the enemy can see, he will soon learn to fear…

Chaplain Aston of the Fire Hawks 10th Company

You go against the Fire Hawks! You shall face their burning wrath!

I do the same thing with my nids. Painting gaunts is painful but its nice having a good looking army on the table.

The Predator is finished...



I'm still painting the crew for the Storm but here it is so far.



I also took a picture of the Rhino's interior from earlier in the thread.



Finally I did say that some of my marines would end up being Sternguard if they did well...



They have been doing better than well. They are the single best performing unit in the army to date always killing around twice their points in stuff.

Awesome looking raptors. Those sternguard look great as do all of your warmachines!

I like what you're doing so far with the Marines.


Your pictures are too small. Impossible to see any of the detail, lol.

I've been having trouble with my new camera finding the right settings to get good pictures of infantry.

Think I've nailed it now though so here is a better pic of the Sternguard squad...

I've started putting the finishing touches to everything in this army and now have around 2k points painted up. The first squad to get the fully finished treatment is my Tactical Terminators.

Those colors look great. And nice OSL on the terminator sword!

I really like the amount of pouches and extra stuff that they're rocking. That one Sternguard looks extra beefy with his chestplate wrapped in extra-everything. I love it.

Thats a very nice looking army, the terminator squad are perfect they really have the right feel to them, its hard to tell they were Dark Angel models.

Awesome work mate, really liking the gritty realistic feel to them.

A better pic of the Sternguard squad now they're finished.




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A better picture of the Scout Squad.




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This is my converted Lias Issodon the Raptors Chapter Master.

He's based off a FW Recon Marine with a Sterguard head and Bolter with a Scout Sniper barrel. As he shuns the Iron Halo in favour of stealth I tried to get this across by giving him a Ghilie cloak.




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Looking cleaner than most because they prefer to stay out of the swamps and stick to high ground are my Devastators.

Yes!

That is the perfect Chapter Master.

Practice what you preach!

And thank you for the perfect shot of my favorite Sternguard marine. I love the model alone, and with all your additions he just looks extra badass.

Nice looking models mate !!

Your take on the chapter master is really nice, far from the usual bling associated with such characters - so you're right on spot IMHO, as you managed to get the right amout of stealth & awesomeness in him !

Great looking raptors. But the best is the third picture down in this collage.

"Bad hair day" marine

Last picture for today. Might get some more done tomorrow if I can.

Great looking army so far. Ill be keeping my eyes on this!