Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I'm making a smallish (2000 pts) Pre-Heresy Night Lord Army and will be posting updates here.

So far I've got a Terminator armoured Praetor with a skull on chain and trophy head (trophies of judgment) and a basic Legionnaire in mk 3 armour



I started on the Praetor as a test model and was very happy with how dark the model turned out, the only problems being the red on the volkite being over saturated and not being able to decide on a colour for his Paragon Blade, though I am pleased with the cool purple that is in the pictures.







Next is the Legionnaire; depsite looking rather ordinary he's going to be part of a Terror squad all equipped with Volkite chargers (have yet to arrive hence the missing gun), as such I'm going to try and have skulls and heads hanging off of them and will try and do something with each helmet to inspire fear (his is bone coloured to resemble a skull with painted on blood coming from the eyes); might try and do a skull on some lighting on others. etc... The legion symbol is pretty basic freehand and could be better, but I didn't want to kill myself doing it another 29 times so I'm not going back to make it super detailed or tidy it up. Finally I didn't do any white highlights on where the lightning joins up, just keeping it simple for my basic troopers.







I have been thinking on the rivets though; I've been leaving them blue to save time, but should I go back on paint them silver?

They look very nice. You could go either way on the rivets. Was the armour painted before or after it was assembled?

 Azazelx wrote:
They look very nice. You could go either way on the rivets. Was the armour painted before or after it was assembled?

It was painted after; for curze and sevetar I'm going to do it in pieces, especially since they have cloaks. The normal guys are fine enough as long as I leave the guns off, since either its more gold/bronze work or space for lightning/other freehand

Those are some darn fancy lightning bolts.

 Matthew wrote:
Those are some darn fancy lightning bolts.

Thanks

The praetor's lightning is definitely more elaborate and closer together so it looks like sheets of lightning, while the legionnaire's is more spread out. The technique is really easy though, you just have to paint an irregular line on an angle, really just make sure it's not too straight and there's no blobs. I found it way easier to the legionnaire keeping that in mind

They are looking really nice, your lightning is excellent.

 GiraffeX wrote:
They are looking really nice, your lightning is excellent.

Thank you kind sir

I finished my second Legionnaire, unfortunately it was getting darker and my lighting is bad so the pictures are a bit darker than I'd like, so I may retake them tomorrow. In the meantime here he is; I'm still trying to get good bitz for trophies so at the moment I'm just using skulls on chain again. For his helmet I was too lazy to go with a couple of ideas I had, so I painted "teeth" on to look like some sort of monster, honestly I'm probably going to steal as many ideas from ADBs series and the HH books as I can for easy helmet designs






Fun fact: before I wash the armour down with black they look almost ultramarine-esq lol

Update:Re did the pictures of the second Legionnaire and am almost done the third one, more pictures tomorrow

Finally was able to update with the third marine; unlike the previous two, he has the symbol on his chest piece while having the legion number replacing the usual one on his left shoulder pad. Like a lot of the freehanded legion symbols, this one is fairly quick and dirty; not going for anything too intricate or time consuming






I also took a group shot of the three power armoured marines and I have to say, I'm really liking how they've turned out so far and am really excited to paint more.



Something I've been thinking about is making thin bits of "flayed skin" out of greenstuff to put on some of their shoulder pads to change things up from hanging skulls, maybe cut the tips off of spikes to use as "anchors" for it, what do you guys think?

 Skimask Mohawk wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:
They look very nice. You could go either way on the rivets. Was the armour painted before or after it was assembled?

It was painted after; for curze and sevetar I'm going to do it in pieces, especially since they have cloaks. The normal guys are fine enough as long as I leave the guns off, since either its more gold/bronze work or space for lightning/other freehand

No, I mean "in character" for that marine in your fiction. If the armour was painted after assembly, then blue works. If the armour plates were painted before assembly, then go for shiny rivets (added to hold together the already-painted armour plates).

And your growing squad is looking sweet!

The flayed skin would look great and if your army is set after isstvan v then some loyist helmets dangeling would look cool.

Nice work. What are you thinking of doing for basing?

Looking great and lightning is perfect

Azazelx wrote:

 Skimask Mohawk wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:
They look very nice. You could go either way on the rivets. Was the armour painted before or after it was assembled?

It was painted after; for curze and sevetar I'm going to do it in pieces, especially since they have cloaks. The normal guys are fine enough as long as I leave the guns off, since either its more gold/bronze work or space for lightning/other freehand

No, I mean "in character" for that marine in your fiction. If the armour was painted after assembly, then blue works. If the armour plates were painted before assembly, then go for shiny rivets (added to hold together the already-painted armour plates).

And your growing squad is looking sweet!

Ohhhhhh, that makes a lot of sense hahah. From what I remember of power armour delivery, its usually shipped flat grey from mars/ the mechanicum and then its painted by the legion (deliverance lost), so there wouldn't be rivets painted silver. I might try it out on the last model I paint just to see how it looks though. Also thank you

e.earnshaw wrote:The flayed skin would look great and if your army is set after isstvan v then some loyist helmets dangeling would look cool.

Yea I wanted them to be traitors (going to have curze and sev) to balance my raven guard, but I've considered leaving off the helmets for a couple pf reasons. First one is that I'd like option to play alongside friends who are doing loyalist armies. Second one being that the only pre-heresy helmets i have are mkIII (that I need for my guys) and mkVI (that I need for my raven guard lol). It would be weird to have a lot of the same two types of helmet, especially since the Night Lords only really fought the Dark Angels after Isstvan

Zuul wrote:Nice work. What are you thinking of doing for basing?

Probably just stirland mud so it will match my chaos and raven guard's basing scheme

dubovac wrote:Looking great and lightning is perfect

Thanks very much I wish I had enough bitz to pull off what you've done for your night lords

Unfortunately I'm going to be busy with a paper and some personal stuff so I might not get the chance to paint up my next legionnaire until after the weekend

So the Xyphon rules dropped and having recently played against my buddy's Scorpius and Thudd gun I'm really thinking of getting one for the Night Lords; they'll need something for ranged AT and it would compliment my force fairly well. However instead of dropping 80 GBP on it i'll probably use the thing everyone says GW ripped it off from; the BSG Viper



It's sleeker and longer, but so similar it shouldn't really be a problem; i'd just have to add lascannons and rockets and then paint it up all grim and dark, thoughts?

I like the idea but I would switch out the wings...then again, Night lords being all sleek and sneaky, it just might work

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
I like the idea but I would switch out the wings...then again, Night lords being all sleek and sneaky, it just might work

Yea the wings definitely are more streamlined and would be usually an issue if the fuselage(?) wasn't such a clear echo and if there were any weapons mounted on them. As it stands they're all hull mounted and with the longer body it should make up for the lack of width.

Got my fourth legionnaire all painted up

I was worried about tricky it would be to do a skull faced helmet, but it was really easy so I'll be using this on a few more





This last one is unfortunately out of focus, but at least you can get a good frontal view of the helmet



For my next guys I'm trying to find my greenstuff for the aforementioned flayed skin, as well as source Dark Eldar barbed chains and hooks for accessories. I also might paint one or two hands red to symboloise them being "condemned", but in the fluff that was pretty rare so, it would be one or two. Alternatively thinking of doing blood on their gauntlets to spice things up a bit.

I've also decided to go with my xiphon idea, so I'll be picking one up today from a hobby/toy shop in town (super happy I didn't have to order one). Total cost will be 45 CAD instead of 150 CAD (after conversion) and that doesnt even inculde shipping costs

Fantastic work! Love a good HH plog and this is shaping up to be a great one! Subbed!

 Paradigm wrote:
Fantastic work! Love a good HH plog and this is shaping up to be a great one! Subbed!

Thank you very much, it really means a lot Sometimes I wish there was a dedicated 30k subforum on dakka

I want to see the list for that project

 Skimask Mohawk wrote:

 Paradigm wrote:
Fantastic work! Love a good HH plog and this is shaping up to be a great one! Subbed!

Thank you very much, it really means a lot Sometimes I wish there was a dedicated 30k subforum on dakka

If you want to read through some great Night Lords wip blogs, head over to Bolter and Chainsword. There are at least four really good ones there. They might give you some good ideas. I am just getting my NL army put together and have gotten great inspiration over there.

hellpato wrote:I want to see the list for that project

For 2000 pts I'm going to have Sevetar, 3 units of 10 Terror Marines; all with volkites and sarge having chain glaive, 10 cataphractii with axes, 5 cataphractii with axes, 5 cataphractii with 4 fists and 1 chainfist on sarge, and a xiphon. That being said, 2000 is pretty much the minimum and I realllly want outriders. I can also use warp talons as night raptors if I really wanted too

Gordon Shumway wrote:

 Skimask Mohawk wrote:

 Paradigm wrote:
Fantastic work! Love a good HH plog and this is shaping up to be a great one! Subbed!

Thank you very much, it really means a lot Sometimes I wish there was a dedicated 30k subforum on dakka

If you want to read through some great Night Lords wip blogs, head over to Bolter and Chainsword. There are at least four really good ones there. They might give you some good ideas. I am just getting my NL army put together and have gotten great inspiration over there.

Thanks a lot, I'll totally check them out

Are you going to be doing ol' Conrad as well? Seems like a waste not to really.

 whalemusic360 wrote:
Are you going to be doing ol' Conrad as well? Seems like a waste not to really.

Sure am However he's not in my list that I plan to use most of the time since its only 2000 and Im not sure if I can get my points up to 3k and have it be actually good things and not points filler

Can't you take some allied Knights? That'd be pretty cool.

 whalemusic360 wrote:
Can't you take some allied Knights? That'd be pretty cool.

I uh, don't own any

My group is fairly 5th ed in mindset still (one detachment, no LoW, no superheavies, no formations), so even though my friend suggested me getting one on the cheap, there's really no incentive since it just becomes a giant race to the bottom; I already see enough centurions and broadsides lol.

Besides our meta discouraging them, I really don't like how knights got shoehorned into 30k so suddenly (vengeful spirit was annoying for that) and I can't really see them fitting in with the whole "terror in the populace" thing the Night Lords inspire; they'd need slow moving landers to deploy as opposed to thunderhawks/drop pods/teleportation.

If I was going to beef up the points I'd get outriders with plasma and use my warp talons as night raptors

So my forgeworld stuff came in the mail today....sadly I missed the delivery guy and they havent sorted it at the post office yet so I have to wait until Saturday to pick it up

Hopefully I'll have some more progress for you guys before then though

So here's what I've been working on; my cheap attempt to have a xiphon without spending 150$!!!






Unlike the other updates, this is still a WIP so there are more things to be down on it. Most importantly I still need to scrounge bits to actually make its missile launchers as well as dremmel out the space for a flight stand. I also need to decide on a good colour for the canopy, seeing as the method I usually do involves a lot of dark blue and I don't want it to blend right in to the hull. I also am going to highlight the connecting parts of the lighting with white as it is a larger model so there's less chance of screwing up. After that I need to do the engine glow and then do some heavy weathering/battle damage to break up the model a bit more. Hopefully that doesn't take too much time so I can get back to my infantry and away from painting vehicles lol

As for the model itself, it's a lot longer than the real model (about a stormraven in length) so it'll be much harder to hide and maneuver in game. I also made the twinlinked lascannons out of a bunch of spare dev centurion ones I had lying around since like any true forger of narrative I went for grav on all six of mine

Also things to note; I know there are mold lines and gaps and no, i don't really care

lol I do love that you're trolling the totally original fw design Not sure how to paint the canopy. I find the lascannons kinda stick out like sore thumb, I feel like you should waited a bit to paint it, add some more plating over them if possible. The lightning is looking good. You gonna do one for white scars?