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***Update***
I'll be updating my army pictures as soon as I figure out how to take decent pictures. I polished the text in the spoilers in this first post to reflect what I did and what I'm planning on doing for the army, now that I've played around and settled on colors. I'm also going to be adding an army shot of all the models I at least have basecoated. I'm at the point where I'm almost ready to start basing and putting washes on my models now. I'm well into finishing the first part of painting my grunts, HQs, and all my transports and tanks. I just finished converting 4 out of my 6 defilers/soul grinders and they're basecoated and in line for paint. I finished my second set of 10 noise marines (I'm just trying to decide if I should paint their Rhinos Slaanesh themed like them, or just make another two rhinos in the army theme. I'm leaning towards the latter as that means I can use them for a wider variety of units. I'm waiting on trades for more parts to finish the artillery gunners and bikes. I'm also going to start my terminators and my Chapter Master ('counts as' Abbadon) as soon as I finish painting my last assembled sorcerer and 5 alternately armed unit champions. I want to build some more guys with various additional special weapon guys (as well as heavy weapons, but I need the heavy weapons first), but I'd like to finish this last round of vehicles and champions first. Oh, I also want to convert a 'counts as' Ahriman, Huron, Lucius, Kharn and Fabius and paint a squad of Thousand Sons, with a converted Aspiring Sorcerer. And make 4 or 5 more jump marines. And make 10 or 20 Plague Marines. But I'll probably wait on the plague marines. Or not. You know. If nothing else comes up, then that's all I have to do before I move on to washes and basing. No, wait... there's more. I'm planing on making a Lord of Skulls out on a Shadowsword and a Knight, as well as a Typhon and 2 Sicarans. Then we're on to 'if nothing else... I think the first thing after this round of painting will be to finally complete my artillery peices and then move right onto the first Sicaran.


It seems like a lot of stuff to get through again, but after taking a look at my army to this point on the table-top, I'm actually enjoying playing much more with almost all fully painted models. Plus the last two games I played were 6000-7000 points a side and you get a lot more people stoping by and watching for a bit or making comments on the armies or just how much fun the game looks to play when you have that high percentage of painted models, which just adds more incentive to finish painting and doing even more creative conversions, so it's well worth the effort. I've got 3 chaos lords, 5 sorcerers, 50+ marines, 20 noise marines, 2 predators, 2 Vindicators, 2 Maulerfiends, 5 Rhinos, a land raider and about 25 raptors completed to the point that I'm waiting at until I can figure out a basking them and get to it with the washes. If all goes well, I'll be able to trade for the parts I need to get 4-10 more raptors, 20-30 marines and actually get my 25 half finished bikes done.




Background



Model Themes



Colours



'To Do' *Updated*

1. Finish painting vehicles and fliers
2. Finish building weapons platforms from IA:13
3. Convert and paint new sorcerer and alternate champs with fists/claws
4. Paint gunners for the Rhinos

:

CSM squads


HQs

I'm brainstorming a few conversion ideas and if anyone has the measurements of the Chaos fighter jet model that's in IA13, the helltalon, I believe, that would be great.

I'm looking for feedback on my next set. I'm trying to decide how much red to keep on these guys. They'll be Raptors, with regular SM jump packs. I'm thinking adding the chapter's blue on the arms, shoulder pads and painting the lower legs blue. Or I can keep them all red and just have blue shoulder pads and maybe lower legs. I definitely want the "assault marines" to have some red, just like the "devastators" will have some green. The only question is how much.

Here's a sample pic of just the bodies


The cult marines will also have their own colours, here's a sample of the noise marines, basecoated

Sounds like an awesome army Idea.

So, here's a quick update. My project has been... well derailed isn't the right word... adjusted. A buddy of mine and I were supposed to have a game on Saturday and the challenge was to have a fully painted army. Unfortunately, our plans fell through, but the proper pained army idea stuck. SO, since I have a game tomorrow with another friend, I decided last night to scrap my current painting and modeling schedule and just make up a 1500 point list. Then paint it! For my painting challenge, my list was going to be the 4 squads I had almost finished, plus a few tanks. Since tomorrow's game's paint challenge is a personal one, instead of and actual competition I made the following list:

1 lvl 3 Sorcerer
1 lvl 2 Sorcerer
2 CSM Squads x7 w/ a Plasma Gun, Power Sword in Rhinos w/ dozer blades
1 Havok Squad x8 w/ 4 Plasma Guns, combi-plasma in Rhino w/dozer blade
1 Raptor Squad x5 w/2 Flamers, power sword
2 Bike squads x 5 w/ Mok, Icon and Power Maul
2x Maulerfiends

So, I worked on it last night (being a Jew, Erev Christmas (as we call it) and Christmas or (Goyish Channukah) is just a day off for painting. Although Merry Christmas to anyone who does celebrate it.

So here's my progress. You'll likely note that the bike squads in the pics have 4 bikes. Rather than convert DV champs for them, I'm going to convert their bikes, using the chaos bike as a base model. I'm not even going to attempt it yet, until I have the time to do it properly. Also, this is a quickie update, so I'll redo the main post later with pics properly. For now, here they all are.

1500 points


Updated Squads
Squad 1

Squad 2

Squad 3

Raptors


Okay, now that that is done... back to painting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, what I learned from the painting challenge I set for myself was that when you field a painted army, it just does better. I've been letting the painted squads trickle in, but these last two games vs the Tau were the first with more than 50% painted and oh boy, what a difference it makes. We did a "home at home" series, ie: back to back with me rolling first turn and (surprise) he rolled first turn the second game. He switched out one crisis squad's weapons and I rolled for new powers for my sorcerers (not because I wanted to, but because it only seemed fair to him). It was fought over the same terrain and we varied the objective placement and deployment but other than that, it was a repeat of the first game. Both were crushing victories to the painted force!!!!!! I can't remember the last time I actually seized the initiative in a game. Well, apparently painted armies do that better too!!!! The worst part from both games was that I hadn't yet finished the special weapons yet so I used the green basecoated models as plasma gunners. I almost felt sick every time I put a painted model in harms way to protect the armless plasma gunner stand in.

But no longer! I pushed through and finished up 4 full squads of Chaos Marines with champions, Icon bearers and special weapons for all, including Rhinos (minus the combi-bolter gunners). I even got to pounding out 2 sorcerers (although one still doesn't have a head, cause I can't decide which one I like best for him), as well as a Chaos Lord and a full 5 man squad of Raptors. I took a few pictures and then the camera's battery died. So what I managed to get is posted below. Of course, this is a minor departure from the 1500 points I fielded, but now I've actually started on the Maulerfiends and then I'm going to hit up the bike squads. I'm still going to hold off on converting the biker champions as I've started converting up 2 Hellblades. They're in the "blue tacked the peices together stage" right now. While I'm painting the Maulerfiends, I'm also going to basecoat another 8 bikes so I can run 4 squads of 5 should the fancy strike me. I'm also dreaming up defiler conversions. I have 3 still on the sprue and I've got some interesting ideas. What I'm kicking around is doing one "scorpion style" (using a Maulerfiend body as a base), one "possessed tank style" (using a chimera as a base) and the final one will likely be the regular crab variety (although clearly not stock). All of them will be armed with only close combat weapons and battle cannons, so it should be fun. That will also free up 3 sets of their reaper autocannons to use on the Hellblades. I'm also going to be making some weapons platforms from Imperial Armour 13. I have three landraiders and while I love them, if we're honest then we have to admit that Chaos Land Raiders are stupid. Clearly they're just poorly designed, with a twin linked bolter and two sets of lascannons. Until now. Now, with the Forgeword varient, you basically trade in the twin linked heavy bolter for armoured ceramite! Epic! What this means is I now have three sets of twin linked heavy bolters to use in my heavy weapon platform conversions. But what will I use as the base? Well, I also have 3 Tauroxes. When I see a Taurox, I see two weapons platforms, and a future Ork vehicle conversion. As soon as I make decent progress on my Maulrerfiends, I'll get to work on the platforms and fliers and take some pictures. We'll see if they work in plastic like they do in my head!

Anywho, here's the pics. The best part is, even without spending points on useless crap, I can now field a full 1500 point CSM army.

Army pic 1 (Raptors and HQ's)


Army pic 2 (Squads 1 and 2)


Army pic 3 (Squads 3 and 4)


Here's all the close up shots of individual units I managed before the battery died.

Squad 2

Squad 3

Squad 4

Raptors

So, here's the next set of update pics. I'm working on another squad of Chaos Marines with flamers and their Rhino right now as well as 19 Raptors, 2 Maulerfiends and some Heavy Weapon Platforms. Now that I have actually painted marines, I bought a battlefoam case and so the order of stuff I finished was changed to reflect when could be fully completed right away so I could get some of the sheets of foam planned out and get more of these models off my table.

So I finished off all the HQ's I currently have planned (except for the 'Chapter Master', but I haven't started on Terminators yet), and made a big push on all the raptors. I'm working on their arms, weapons and legs now and when I pick up their jump packs they should all be ready for glue and the foam by the end of the week (or next week more likely). I've also been slowly working on my Maulerfiends as I like to bring them out to play and I'm finding it harder and harder to add unpainted models to my army now. I'm sure I'll be able to finally use things that are unpainted again in the future, but after after 2 more crushing victories against the Dark Eldar using 90%+ painted models, I'm not going to jinx it. My Marines are on a 7 and 0 run and while I don't think my generalship has drastically improved in the last few months given how many, many years I've been playing the game, really the only thing that's different is the paint. So, to quote (or paraphrase, at least), the great detective: "When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains however improbable, must be the truth." Therefore more paint = better performance on the tabletop.

I'm very excited at the prospect of finishing all those off. My battlefoam case will be fuller, my table emptier and I'll be ready to finally start on my Noise Marines. I'm going to order the bits I need to start to work on the bikers soon, so ideally I'll be almost done the Noise Marines when the bits arrive and I'll be motivated to finish them off to start plugging away at the bikes!



Here are some progress pics.

Maulerfiends


Weapon Platforms


Heltalons


Raptors


HQ's


And here are the completed models. They are now proud residents of the battlefoam case.

Squad 1


Chaos Lord w/Axe of Blind Fury and 'Jump Pack'


Chaos Sorcerer 1


Chaos Sorcerer 2


Chaos Sorcerer 3


Chaos Sorcerer 4


Chaos Lord

So, progress is again moving along nicely. All the raptors are done now, except for the additional champions which still need to be converted from the DV Chosen. I've done up 4 sets of two special weapons (2x2 melta and 2x2 flamers), as well as three Icon bearers and I'm going to have 4 champions total when I'm done making the new ones. That'll let me field Raptors in, 2 squads of 10, or 1 squad of 10 and 2 squads of 5, or up to 4 squads of 5. Also with the ability to to field 2 full squads, I decided I needed another Sorcerer with a Jump pack.

I also finished up the artillery crews, or as much of them as possible. I have 4 sets of 2, one with a bolter and one with a pistol and (when I finish a trade for the parts), and Auspex as a cotrol pad. I had 2 left over "heavy weapon/support" green bodies guys and 2 plastic lascannon sets, so I did the only sane thing and made some lascannons.

I also did up another squad of marines, only this one is the "newest recruits". There might be one of them with CSM legs and a few CSM arms in the whole squad. These are, for the most part SM legs and pistol/chainsword arms with CSM torsos and backpacks and a few CSM shoulder pads thrown in. I like the way they look and will likely make another squad or two like this in the future. If I make 10-20 more marines like this, I might keep them in their own squads or mix them in with the other squads.

I also added jump packs to the chaos lord and sorcerer who were missing them, was very proad that I actually finished all my HQ's and then proptly decided I needed more. So, next on the list are the newest Sorcerer, the Aspiring Champion for the latest squad, 2 more aspiring champions for the Raptors, some alternate champions for the previous marine squads (probably 3 or 4, 2 armed with power fists and 2 with a lightning claw), and then finaly the Noise Marines! When I first started CSM, I used these guys all the time, but I haven't been using then nearly enough recently. As soon as they're painted up though... I'm getting my hands on the bits to get working on my bikes, and I'm slowly adding a bit of paint here and there, but I won't really push until I get the rest of the parts. I do think, before I really get to work on the Noise Marines, I'd like to finish my weapons platforms. With so much focused on finishing up painting, my converting has begun to get backed up.

Here are the latest pics:
(Aside from the artillery crew that are waiting for "remote controls" for their guns, the models missing arms are missing icon pole arms. I think I'm still short somthing like 5 or 10 )
Chaos lord and Sorcerer get their jump packs and a new friend


Raptors


New Recruits


The "Heavy Support"

This is, overall, a pretty cool project.

I've been looking through the whole load of posted pics and you certainly have very nice conversion ideas. Those aspiring champions, the chaos lord, the sorcerer and the raptors, excellent stuff.

But then the paintjob is a bit of a letdown. I don't know if it's due to your camera not quite getting all the details nicely, but most of the minis look a bit plain. I understand you may be more interested in just getting a fully painted army to deploy on a table - something I have nothing against - but really, a bit more effort may allow you to improve these results by a significant margin. That general blue color, in example, looks like it's been just primed and nothing else. You can vastly top that by simply applying two consecutive drybrushes in slightly lighter shades of blue over the base color. It's an easy way to deal with the "plain" visual look without much effort.

Thanks for your compliments and constructive criticism. That (and the motivation of completing the project), is the reason I started the blog.

You are correct in your assessments. I have intentionally left the models "plain", as after too long playing with either unpainted or partially painted armies, I wanted to finally get my chaos models done to the level that I would at least be happy about how they look. So priority #1 is to get the whole army, or at least the vast, vast majority of it, up to basic paint levels. To that end I have almost fully accomplished that goal as I have 20 noise marines, 6 terminators and 20ish bikes and a handfull of vehicles left to get up the the level of the others. That way for the majority of my games I'll be fielding a painted force and if I want to go up to 8000-10000 points, I'll be happy to bring out the unpainted models for that.

My photo taking is also to blame for the quality of the pictured models as every model pictured looks better in hand. That's something I'm also going to have to look into.

The next step after the the lot listed above is done will be to go over all the models with a wash and base them. I'll be doing that when I take a proper break from painting to focus on all my remaining conversions. When all the models I have painted are based, then I'm going to look into different techniques to up the level of quality of the minis. I've never done any "advanced" painting techniques and I want to make sure I get my army up to table top standard before I start playing around.

Thanks for your interest and as always any comments or suggestions are welcome!

(One thing to note is that, except for some back to back games on the same day, I never field the same army two games in a row, so to be able to field my usual 1500-2000 points, I need about 5000 points available. )

So, here's a quick pic update on the conversions I'm finishing up. I have some thoughts for 2 more, but it depends what I can scrounge and cut up from my bits box. As an aside, these were consecrated in blood as the Chaos Gods demand of all their conversions, I was so proud that all I did was give myself a few minor nicks and cuts, but then, as I finished adjusting some fingers on the last model I buried the knife in my swearing finger. I take this to be a good sign as there was MUCH blood and clearly Khorne wants my next 6000 point game to involve his Daemonkin.

While the Torsos (and tail) are magnetized for ease of storage and transport, I just blue tacked the arms onto 2 of them for ease of painting. I won't be changing any weapons as defilers can't swap out their chest gun and there is no reason to not give them as many power firsts/claws as inhumanly possible. I did magnetize the guns on the Hell talons, but I think I did that because I've been magnetizing all the guns on all my vehicles lately.

Scorpion Grinder


Soul Defilerbrute


Not Quite a 'Lord' of Skulls


Defilerfiend Grinder (This is the one that got me good. Since I used 3 Maulerfiend arms, I didn't want to have two look exactly the same, so in addition to the work done on the upper arm, I adjusted the lower arm's fingers... as well as one of my own)


Hell Talons