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Okay, so a while ago I scooted past the hallowed 30,000th post, which means I've posted a lot of 40k art and funbags TITTIES in the DCM forums, along with the usual drivel people put me on ignore for. But given the number of posts I hit, I thought it was about time to get a theme going on with all of this and get a bit more optimistic about the good old pre-Heresy Imperial Truth days for a while and do something hobby related with that.

Also, if you don't like things being all wordy, just scroll down for the pics. I like 40k for its setting. I'm not much of a winner when it comes to playing (5 wins to 31 losses as of right now), but if a fun game can be had, I'm all for it, because that's how sad I am. I suppose I'm also big on the whole "Forge a Narrative" thing myself, as I like to not just build an army, but also a narrative around it. My most recent project that I've been working on setting up a campaign for my store and while it could've easily been a map, some flags and a roster of participants, I much more preferred to turn it into a big story involving all players to some degree, where they can record the rise (or fall) of their warlords as they attempt to carve out a new empire or recapture it for glory, honour and those pointless things.

Now then, until recently really the Horus Heresy held no real interest for me, the novels kept droning on and on and on with a (to me at least) noticeable dip in overall quality as let's be honest here, things kept dragging on and while Forge World has released some neat stuff for the era that certainly feels superior to the stuff Black Library does, it was mostly all Astartes on Astartes action anyway with some Ad-Mech sprinkled in for diversity, of which I'm not the biggest of fans in all honesty. Yes, yes, Horus Heresy was a big old marine on marine thing to begin with.

Until the fourth book came out: Conquest. A book not all about hot Astartes on Astartes action for a change? But instead focusing on those sexy Knightly orders and some badass variant of the Imperial Army before it was ruined by GW's autrocious writing? Sign me up! I primarily got the tome for the Questoris Knight army list, because I love Knights and so do my regular opponents thankfully, as to date they've scrapped more of my nobles than I managed to beat them into a pulp! Though one day I will beat the drop-pod-Sternguard-melta-spam-alpha-strike, mark my words!

Plus the list offers some sweet stuff to give the Imperial Knight list a bit more flavour and upgrades (toxic rounds for stubbers? Yes please!), something the Imperial Knight codex doesn't even think about getting into. It's sad really that Forge World is not just doing something right, but also better than GW.

But after I started reading about the exploits of the Solar Auxiliary, which can be best summed up as the Imperial Guard, but not an as poorly written attempt at being a hardcore joke of a cannon fodder do-or-die jarhead army as it is being portrayed right now, I've been suckered in by their "we shall lure them in and hold the line!" professionalism and other bits and pieces of fluff we're given, especially after reading that Rogue Traders of that day and age were also granted armies of their own by the Emperor to go forth and spread the Imperial Truth through diplomacy. Or failing that, mark them for a healthy helping of the Imperial Truth in form of an exploration fleet led by one of the Legions. Plus, their Tempestus Scion equivalents carry rayguns that set people on fire, which is pretty darned neat if you ask me!

So, this is a blog or showcase of sorts that mainly concerns itself with two of my projects: My Knights from House DuChess, also known as the wardens of Minerva, an off-shoot of House Terryn with some horrible fluff to back up how a Freeblade and family ended up becoming a house in their own right. Then there's the Rogue Trader Militant Beauchamp, plus assorted attached Auxiliaries, robots, other Imperial instances and maybe one or two squads of power armour and whatnot, based around the Solar Auxilia army list with maybe a few Astartes allies later down the line to represent attached Legion assets who keep an eye on things before screwing things up their selves. Perfect warriors my ass.


"Bring. It. On. Heretics." - Last words of sir Manfred DuChess.

My main army of sorts right now is a trio of Imperial Knights, well actually, two GW Knights and a 28mm Crusader from Dreamforge Games if we're going to be anal about what's what. I like both kits for different reasons really: GW's Knight is a great kit that fits right into the setting and while it sadly lacks a lot of out of the box customisation (do I leave those decorative eagle heads and purity seals on or off?), it's to me a joy to build and paint. The Crusader on the other hand, it's nice and big, certainly has more options when it comes to posing the fether, and while the modular arms are a great idea, the weapon designs are very toylike and grotesque (in my opinion). Putting them next to one another shows that it's quite a clash of style as well, though I will say this, I prefer the Crusader over the Forge World Cerastus pattern suits of armour. I'm still holding out for the really heavy Knight suits of armour that marry the firepower of the regular suits with the mobility of the Cerastus suits, plus some more armour on top for good measure.

One thing I should point out is that while these suits are flying the iconography and colours of House Terryn, they do not belong to it. At first I wanted to have a custom heradlry and whatnot, but seeing as I'm not that great at freehand and a sucker for blue armour, I decided to just go with a variant of the House Terryn colours, with a lighter blue for the suits of armour. I suppose it can be seen as lazy, but whatever, je suis happy with the results. So, without further ado, let's meet one of the members of House DuChess.



Here's my first Knight, the Paladin known as "Eternal Warrior", which is a bit misleading as to date the poor thing has always been melta'd to slag or hacked to pieces by that donkey-cave fish Farsight! However, I love it, it does an admirable job of blowing things up and when the so-called gak hits the fan, that Reaper is a Knight's best friend, truly an amazing thing to have.



In terms of rules and whatnot it is a standard Knight Paladin with bio-corrosive stubber rounds (poison!), occular augmentics (night vision!) and piloted by a Scion Martial, which is your standard troops ranks when it comes to Knights. I could've gone with the Scion Aspirant rank, which would be more fluffy, but getting a 35 point discount on a suit of armour in exchange for -1 on WS, BS and a 5++ save isn't worth it to me. The poor thing has suffered enough as is already! That said, so far it has proven its worth a few times now, in one game in particular carving up a Riptide, Skyray, Longstrike in his annoying Hammerhead and a pile of other assorted fish before succumbing to several fusion blasts from all sides. As always, the fish need to resort to trickery to win, because they know that nine times out of ten in a straight up fight they'll never stand a chance.



A running theme with my Knights is that I stick a mini to each base, representing the pilot. It doesn't have any ingame effect, but I like it, plus it adds a little more to the base itself. The Eternal Warrior is piloted by the youngest member of the family, who had only recently been inducted into the ranks of House DuChess after picking her throne and merging with it: Meet Salena DuChess. As I said, she pilots the "Eternal Warrior", though it is also informally known as the "Ancestor Suit" because it had at one point belonged to her grandfather Manfred, the freeblade who is responsible for laying the foundations of their house. The mini is Raven Skye from the Bombshell Miniatures range, an excellent supplier of alternate miniatures. Unlike the rest of her family I imagine her still new to the whole thing and as such, hasn't taken up wearing overly military attire yet, instead going for something she herself favours, while still showing off the family colours. She's a fun little steampunk pilot that I really like the look of.

The other Knights will be uploaded and showcased when both the suits and their pilots are done.

In the other corner we have my other 30K project of sorts that I've been toying with, a Rogue Trader and her personal army. Like mentioned before, it all started with the purchase of the fourth book, which was mainly for the Imperial Knight army list, though I was completely suckered in when I read the Solar Auxiliary army list and saw some of the options there, not to mention making a reference or two of Rogue Traders having armies of their own. I've also been a big, big fan of the now sadly dead Rogue Trader line of roleplay books written by Fantasy Flight Games, so continuing that fun stuff is always well, fun. Yay?



This is Rogue Trader Militant Beauchamp, based around the plastic commissar, but with a headswap from Statuesque Miniatures and a new blade for her sword, from the plastic Tempestus Scions boxed set. The base is from Basicks I think, but don't hold me on that. I wanted to go for a uniform that stood out from the rest and in my limited creativity I went with an Imperial Navy uniform, a design I am quite fond of actually. Well, except for the white sleeves on the originals, ugh. So, a navy uniform complete with the bling, the bloodstripes, a fancy leather coat and other flashy bits, because I love me some costume porn. Well, at this point the Imperial Navy more or less doesn't exist yet, so maybe she's wearing a proto-version of what will become the dress uniform for one of the segmentum fleets. But whatever, I like fancy uniforms!

She's quite a beefy lady on the tabletop, or a point sink, depending on who you ask. The model is Legate Commander that I've upgraded to a Lord Marshal (for that +1 to Initiative, silly I know, but also for access to a personal bodyguard and atomic weaponry) and given the following bits and bobs of wargear: Iron Halo, Cyber Familiar, master-crafted plasma pistol, paragon blade and digital lasers. She used to run with artificer armour as well, but I'd rather risk it with a cheaper 3++ instead of a more expensive 2+/4++ armour combo. She also has the option of picking her preferred warlord trait instead of rolling for it and as luck would have it.. Eternal Warrior is one of them, which is a must seeing as certain weapons get spammed an awful lot in the store these days. On the bright side, she can no longer be donkey punched by that Tau commander.



Every dashing woman of action needs a personal guard of some sort and so, here's one of her personal guard, which is made up of a squad of Veletaris, armed with their stock rayguns I mean, Volkite chargers. I went for a simple and functional paint job, with a minimal amount of pop in form of a red visor and a single blue shoulder guard. The blue armour piece is going to be the running theme throughout the army, tying it all together. I wanted these guys (and their flamer toting brethren later down the line) to look utilitarian, bare basics, but still mean and nasty. Plus I'm a sucker for the steampunk aesthetic that's going on with these guys. They really, really remind me a lot of the old Jes Goodwin sketches he did of Imperial Navy crew clad in heavy space suits.



Having a flash uniform and a mean-looking personal guard is one thing, but you need to get there in style, enter Ironclad, a Dracosan armoured conveyer. Again, I wanted a minimal approach with all of this, going for a factory primer look with a minimal amount of decals involved. While not a fan of the Malcador, I am a fan of this design for some strange reason. It really hammers home that classical lozenge shape of the WWI beasts. So much so that to pay homage (though I'm sure grognards and button-counters will disagree) that I added the eyes from the now OOP Elysian aircraft transfer sheet, to the front, along with some personal heraldry and a generic marking on the engine covers. At a later date I will add a line or block of blue somewhere, to tie it in with the rest of the force.



Here's the WIP Thallax cohort and attending Enginseer I've been working on, like the rest of the troops, boring but functional, but with a splash of blue to tie it in with the rest of the force. I went for a cohort with a phased plasma fusil, because why not eh? Everybody else is spamming plasma like no tomorrow, I may as well join in on all of that.

The lass in front is going to be my count-as Enginseer, whom I'm required to field (along with a certain piece of wargear) to "unlock" these units for my army. This is Maelee the Mechanic from the Bombshell Babes range done by Bombshell Miniatures, the pose of this mini is a Kickstarter exclusive. I've had her lying about for quite some time now and I wasn't sure what to do with her. She almost ended up as a crew member of my Wyvern, but seeing as my Rogue Trader force was becoming such a fun oddball mix of minis, I figured why not? Blah blah blah heresy and all that. I just like the look of her with her belt of gizmos and a massive wrench, which of course, has to be bright red, them's the rules.



Finally, a Cyclops remote demolition vehicle. I LOVE YOU, you tiny, suicidal, little remote tank of explosive death. I love you even more because you can carry within you an atomic bomb and dole out Destroyer hits. Kawaii! Sadly, also horrendously expensive with the right upgrades, plus it is really ineffective (For it to explode it must assault the enemy) but so much fun to use in the Zone Mortalis setting. The paint job looks amazingly out of place with the rest of the army, but I really don't want to repaint it again and I'm quite fond of the colour scheme it's got going on. It's a leftover from when I was thinking about doing a Krieg themed army and well.. let's just say that explains the camo pattern.

A general to-do list:
Rogue Trader - Cyber familiar, paragon blade, iron halo, digital lasers, plasma pistol
Veletaris Storm Section - Blast pistol, power fist
Auxilia Tactical Command Squad - Plasma pistol, power weapon, volkite charger, grenade launcher
Auxilia Tank Commander w. Baneblade - Heavy bolter sponsons, armoured ceramite, command tank, hunter-killer missile
Auxilia Medicae detachment (4)
Enginseer Auxilia - Cortex Controller, 4x servitor with servo arm
Thallax Cohort (3) - Phased plasma fusil, 3x heavy chainblade
Auxilia Lasrifle section - Blast-chargers
Aegis Defence Line - Ammo dump
Auxilia Flamer Section - Power axe
Auxilia Lasrifle section - Blast-chargers
Veletaris Storm Section
Dracosan - Armoured Ceramite
Dracosan - Armoured Ceramite, demolisher cannon
Leman Russ Strike Squadron - 3x Exterminator
Leman Russ Assault Squadron - Executioner with armoured ceramite, lascannon
Cyclops - Atomic imploder

Nice one Brook. I look forward to seeing your Knightly house evolve. I like the idea of putting the pilots on the bases. It's a nice touch.

I like the colours you've went with. And although it's not my favourite colour, I too am a sucker for a nice shade of blue.


Solid background for both your Knightly house and the Rogue Trader and her accompanying forces.

Thanks Burns Snrub! I guess this means more blue.

Quick WIP shot of the volkite veteran:



Need to tidy her up, do the base, wash her, do some quick drybrushed highlights and finally paint a pad blue.

After that, twenty more lasgunners and a medic to go and the Tercio section will be done!

edit.

Did some painting late, late last night and earlier this morning, in between working on a special scenario.

Here's the veteran in all her microwaving glory, opted to go with a red beret, which is a sign of veteran or elite status within some military:



Here's a rare OOP sculpt simply known as "Relic 3" that I got from the Bombshell Babes kickstarter. I'm using it as a Navigator (just imagine her mutation is having her third eye waaaaay up her head) or an evil priestess of sorts, she's got a bloody hand and everything. She's also taller than the other models I own, so she shall be a void born.



And here are the two together..



Eyup, she's a void born alright, tall, spindly and well, there's also that weird formal attire that will no doubt fetch odd looks from people wandering into the shop. Then again, Navigators always were one of those weirder aspects of the Imperium and they always get away with a lot of weird gak.

Next up.. an Auxilia medic using an old OOP GW sculpt. Maybe I'll have it done by tonight.

Ooh, going to follow this. Subbed.

I like where this thread is going, especially the pilots you'll have for your Knights.

Thanks chaps!

I'm still working on the pilots, though spoilers, they're both from RAGING Heroes: the family matriarch represented by Lady Hilda VON Stroheim and her other daughter, the older sister of Salena, will be represented by Commander Elektra Eisenstein. Mum is going to be piloting the not-Castigator (the Dreamforge suit) and Valentina, her other daughter, is going to be strutting around in a Knight Errant.

In the meantime, I worked on that medic, who is nowhere near as OOP as I originally thought he was:



He's going to be part of the Lasrifle Section, hiding behind an Aegis Defence line while keeping them alive. I decided to go with a plastic green apron and a latex glove because he's a medic and well, to make him stand out a bit from the rest of the mob. Though I fear I may have marked him for precision strikes now.

I've also more or less wrapped up my Thallax cohort, just in time for Sunday, when I'm having a game or two of Kill Team. I just need to seal in the decals with Lahmian Medium whenever the shop gets them again.



I've given each cyborg a fancy Ad-mech icon I had left over from the Imperial Knight decal sprue, along with an official campaign badge from the Elysian decal sprue. I'm going to add the symbol to all large units and vehicles, nicely tying the whole mess together.



Pardon the crap photo's, this iPad is nowhere near as good as the "genius" claimed it to be..

Anyway, next up is my Auxilia Enginseer, who I need to wrap up for Sunday's games and if I get around to it, a start on my Colonial lasrifle section made up of Victoria Lamb's awesome FemCadians range.

Good 'ol Dorden. Best medic going around.

I like the Navigator. Best reasoning i've heard for including a near naked Amazonian priestess in an army she doesn't belong in. (Naked in space? Chilly! )

Never had a use for the chap, until now I suppose. He didn't fit in with my other armies.

Navigators are always a weird bunch to be around:

Raan Jaani of the Navis Nobilte house Mahdavi.

Mahdavi navigators are from a unique strain that is only manifests in females and always with the same mutations:

Blue to grey skin, a pair of extra arms and materium blindedness (they can only see the world as it is reflected by warp energy similar to a bat's sonar. thus they typically are acompanied at all times by a retinue of sanctioned psyker slaves who are blinded out of respect to the navigator's station.)

Among other eccentricities Madhavi navigators wear only head-coverings out of consideration to their ship-mates, in an attempt to emphasize the danger of their third eye.

One other item of note, it is a sacrilege for House Mahdavi navigator's to touch the ground. While this bit of legalism is widely interpreted it at the very least means from birth Mahdavi girls never touch the bare flesh of their heels against solid ground. While in some cases this means the Navigator is never without a human palanquin less dogmatic interpretation by some navigators means they merely put on full attire when planet side including especially thick soled boots.

That and there's a sourcebook on them from the Rogue Trader range that delves into these fancily clad psychopaths.

Okay, I lied, not working on the Lasgun Tercio just yet, instead I'm working on..



Inspired by Tallarn Executioner and whatnot. It's going to be for the army of course, but the deadline on getting it done will be the 11th of April, when I'm running a tank arena event at the FLGS. If I get around to it I'm going to try and give it some weathering as well.

It's also nameless as of yet, so suggestions for a good pre-Heresy name are most welcome.

Stuff is looking good here, Brook!

Cheers mate!

It's odd, being on standby but not getting that call. So instead I keep chipping away at Mortis, as I've decided to call it after chancing upon the nameplates on the Sisters of Battle decal sheets:



Still need to tidy up the coloured bands on the left side, add the decals there as well and move on to the annoying part.. the tracks. Next time I'm keeping them on the sprue and just prime and paint them there.

Once that's out of the way I'm going to look into weathering it a bit with Typhus Corrosion and whatnot.

Oh nice one. I really like the red cupola. Gives the tank some zing.

Very nice titan! And I post this only because you're apparently swamped with hobby work and haven't been able to do it yourself.

 warboss wrote:
Very nice titan! And I post this only because you're apparently swamped with hobby work and haven't been able to do it yourself.

Many thanks, though I fear I may have worn out my welcome over there.

 warboss wrote:
Very nice titan!

Titan? Where's a titan? I only see a Knight.

 Snrub wrote:

 warboss wrote:
Very nice titan!

Titan? Where's a titan? I only see a Knight.

Much like brookM's collection of pics, I have an image for just this situation thanks to a persistantly *WRONG* dakka cadre who faux corrected their fellow posters on the terminology for years.



A knight is a titan.

And yet... Not a single mention of the word "titan".

Let's try and keep that discussion to a minimum before certain fascist parties get involved and people end up disappearing because their opinion differs from yours.

Yesterday I powered through doing the last bits and bobs on "Mortis", so aside from weathering, which is something I'm going to look into before committing, she's done in time for the next store event, which is the 11th of April.



Next up.. probably a proper stab at trying to finish my squad of Veletaris bodyguards, who just need to be washed, cleaned up and based.

That tank is a real Titan! Looks great, and the transfers work very well. Both on the tank itself, and also as hill scenery, apparently...

Holy gak. How many transfer sheets do you have? That's a feth heap.

 Azazelx wrote:
That tank is a real Titan! Looks great, and the transfers work very well. Both on the tank itself, and also as hill scenery, apparently...

Many thanks, getting words of praise from someone who can actually paint and paint damn well (I lurk your thread from time to time), it just makes me


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Snrub wrote:
Holy gak. How many transfer sheets do you have? That's a feth heap.

It's a lot I suppose, says a lot about my spending as well.

Kind of you to say that, but having said that - please do feel free to comment in my thread as well.

I think you need to find a TGG figure that's licking her teeth as in our GIF and paint it to match. Seems like someone who could be part of the noble families...

Funny enough, I have one for just the occasion:




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Okay, I lied about the Veletaris. After seeing what a friend did to a Baneblade I gave her (good stuff all round!) I decided to pull out my own chassis and completely renovate it, tossing in a tank commander for good measure.

Here's the gakky before picture:



As of right now I've cleaned it thoroughly, removing all those layers of dust from a year of sitting at the store in a display cabinet. I've also removed all the old decals and fixed some bits here and there, drilling out the aerials while I was at it for future antenna replacements. I've also given the turret and commander cupola their first layer of Adeptus grey, because I am a grey mouse.

ooooh.... exciting!

And the first layer of grey has been slapped on. If I get around to it I'm going to do a second layer tonight, maybe followed by a drybrush* of Terminatus Stone if I'm up to it. After that I can spend the Friday on the optics, lights, weapons and other gubbinz.



The tank commander is made up of an OOP Cadian tank commander torso by FW, plastic tank commander arms and a beret head from Statuesque Miniatures.

I've also had my friend DarkElf27 whip up a progress tracker, so I can check off things at every stage of the way. Right now the project, with a total of 3182 pts, is already 53% there. Mind, this isn't completely done units, but rather what I've already got assembled and primed.

The only items truly done so far are the Rogue Trader, a single medic, a Dracosan, a Leman Russ squadron, the Executioner, a Cyclops and a cohort of Thallax, which is about 33% of the army at this stage. Still got a long way to go, with all those lasgun tercios.




* I drybrush a lot not because I suck or anything, my hands just suck. I tend to shake a lot and no matter how hard I try to stabilize my hands it still happens. So stuff like highlighting panels and other straight stuff isn't really my forté, instead large vehicles receive a drybrush to pick out the raised details. Any spots that have received too much of this can always be picked out later with the base colour again.

Cool thread.. this is very similar to a Heresy era blog I will be starting soon.. keep up the great work!

Tank_Dweller wrote:
Cool thread.. this is very similar to a Heresy era blog I will be starting soon.. keep up the great work!

Cheers! And please let us know when you're kicking it off! The more the merrier!

Okay, time to show off that I've been busy and prove to those that this thread won't sink to the bottom of P&M like all those others before it. Then again, I have been hella busy with work, there was the Better Call Saul season finale and well, the excitement of the second Toughest Girls in the Galaxy kickstarter!

So yeah, here's the turret of "Four Queens", a Baneblade command tank with my third HQ choice for the army: a tank commander. I like to think that while personal graffiti and the like are a big no-no with these cohorts, the Rogue Trader in charge of this bunch allows for some leeway, resulting in the Executioner sporting a red turret and the Baneblade sporting the odd bit of personalized art.



Right now I still need to do the stowage, lights, heavy stubber and the oaths of moment before I can call this part of the beast done.



The decal is from an old (even older than me I think!) 1:48 Tamiya kit of a F-84 Thundersomething. It was a pain to remove from the backing paper, requiring quite a long soak before I could carefully nudge it off. An edge here and there got damaged in transit, but other than that it made the transition in one piece. I quickly sealed it in with Vallejo gloss varnish* lest it falls off again!



And the decoration on the barrel, which has been applied to both sides. Ribbons represent small fry that has been blasted away, while the skulls represent HQ's I've blown away. The one with the scroll underneath is to celebrate the succesful killing of Commander Farsight and his retinue (including a donkey puncher), who were thunderblitzed into paste. Yes! When I get around to it I'm going to bust out the Tamiya weathering kit and apply some soot to the end of the barrel.



* Question with regards to the gloss varnish. I shake mine quite vigerously before application and it looks like it always takes on a blue sheen for some reason. Help! Am I doing something wrong?

Vallejo gloss by any chance? Mines the same but it looks fine when its dried.