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Maelstrom's Edge arrived, and Panic already has a head start on me over here - http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/675624.page - so I'd better get a move on!

I'm playing Karists, and Panic handily ordered a ton of extra sprues from the Kickstarter, so I'm going to combine then with other bits and bobs and see if i can make a particularly crazy looking bunch of religious nut jobs. Obviously, they're going to be painted BRIGHT PINK because that's the colour of the Maelstrom, and these guys love the Maelstrom.

So, to start, I assembled the two Kaddar Novas. These are really nice models - the legs and robe sections fit together really well. I didn't like their bare heads, though, so I've swapped them for two warhammer flagellant heads - they look much more ravaged now...



Then came the regular troopers. Two regular squads, composed of three Troopers, one Quintarch with a pistol and a special with a raygun:



And two support squads, composed of two Troopers, one Quintarch with a pistol and two specials with grenade launchers:



I had five sprues of these, each of which includes three guys and a few spare bits. However, the Kaddar Nova sprues come with three sets of legs, so I used the spare legs to make my Quintarchs look a bit more 'special'. Added to some Cadian bodies (which look pretty similar to the Karist Trooper torso), this gave me another four guys, and a stolen set of Shadow Walker legs gives me enough for 20 Troopers. Because each sprue only includes two regular guns, I've assembled all the Quintarchs with pistols and two of the squads as 'support' variants with extra special weapons.

I had to use the shadow walker heads to get enough heads for this, and I'm short on shoulder pads so I think the support squads might be getting some 'special' shoulder pads to mark them out. Tomorrow, the plan is to assemble the Shadow Walkers (maybe with hooded heads) and the Tempest Elites, and then I can start painting!

Love the headswaps on the Kaddar Nova!

Looking forward to seeing this army progress!

Good stuff, looking forward to more

Agreed on the Kaddar Nova headswap and using the Kaddar Nova spare legs for your Quintarchs is genius!

Looking forward to seeing the pink Karists!

Thanks guys. I'll get the rest done tonight, as soon as I locate a couple of torsos.

The Kaddar Nova kit is awesome, but those Karist Troopers are a bloody nightmare to put together!! Separate legs and groins? Attempting to glue their guns to their tiny, tiny wrists? I'm glad they're all done!

The Tempests and Shadow Walkers look like they're gonna go together much faster!!

Yeah a third arm would be really useful for glueing arms and guns, for the Contractors as well! Not so bad once you've done a few though.

Yeah,
Looking great.
Man count I'm already outnumbered and you haven't even started on the tempests!

The Nova with the blind fold is inspired,
The blind leading the blind!?!

Panic...

More progress. This is the build almost completed.

So, first I did the Shadow Walkers. These went together beautifully. I built six, giving them some more crazy flagellant heads to make them seem like religious fanatics. They've all got their eyes covered.



Then the Tempest Elites. Unfortunately, these weren't any fun at all - I can honestly say I have NEVER assembled a kit that made me so angry! Worse than the regular troopers, they have separate upper arms, forearms and then the wrists are on the weapon. So you're trying to glue these tiny tiny forearms on in the right position, and then the wrist/forearm join has no locating device, so you have to hold each one in position. Plus certain legs only go with certain bodies, but this isn't made clear on the sprue.

Eventually, I got assembled four with one gun and six with the other, and gave the two squad leaders some mean looking weapons to make them scary-looking.




And then the Angel Minnows and Angels, which went together really easily! I've shown one Angel here in the normal state, but I'm converting two more up to be in the flying and slasher states - still some GS work to do before they're done, though!




I'd be really interested to know if the angels and characters were done by one manufacturer and the troopers and elites by another. The angels and character models are a joy to put together, and have tons of options, but the line troops are a total pain in the ass. I don't think my Karist force is gonna be getting any line troop reinforcement after this!!

 ArbitorIan wrote:
I'd be really interested to know if the angels and characters were done by one manufacturer and the troopers and elites by another. The angels and character models are a joy to put together, and have tons of options, but the line troops are a total pain in the ass.

They were the first two models we did in plastic so everything that was learned from them went in to the rest of the range. The reason for the arm/hand and crotch/leg multi-piece assembly is the armour plates on the forearm and upper leg - those could not be done in plastic because of the limitations of 2-part injection moulding tooling, so we had to make the decision to either blend the armour plating back in to the body (as GW do on models when they run into this limitation), or split the model at the wrist and hips. We went with the latter because blending the plastic back in to the body would look bad on all models, whereas the wrist split just makes assembly a bit more tedious. The full Epirian range is free from such decisions as we were much better at considering plastic limitations at the design stage by then.

Glad I'm not the only one that has hit some rough spots in assembly don't tell anyone else this, but I couldn't dryfit the models well enough to determine how they would be holding their weapons when assembly was finished, so I just started chopping arms to make my grenade launcher guy look like he had just popped off a round and now he looks like PFC StubbyArms. I was a lot less gung ho with my other Karist troopers and basically just went with the stock poses instead of trying to mod them to look cooler

The blindfold does look very fitting on the Nova. Keep up the good work

That's a lot of shadow walkers! Literal shadow walkers I guess, with the blindfolds and all

 ArbitorIan wrote:
Plus certain legs only go with certain bodies, but this isn't made clear on the sprue.

Did you read the assembly instructions? Good tips there!

I've shown one Angel here in the normal state, but I'm converting two more up to be in the flying and slasher states - still some GS work to do before they're done, though!

Can't wait to see them!

Shadow walkers with blindfolds look brilliant . Can't wait to see the converted angels!

legoburner wrote:They were the first two models we did in plastic so everything that was learned from them went in to the rest of the range. The reason for the arm/hand and crotch/leg multi-piece assembly is the armour plates on the forearm and upper leg - those could not be done in plastic because of the limitations of 2-part injection moulding tooling, so we had to make the decision to either blend the armour plating back in to the body (as GW do on models when they run into this limitation), or split the model at the wrist and hips. We went with the latter because blending the plastic back in to the body would look bad on all models, whereas the wrist split just makes assembly a bit more tedious. The full Epirian range is free from such decisions as we were much better at considering plastic limitations at the design stage by then.

Ah, that makes total sense. Thanks! Yeah, the later models are considerably better, but it's quite demoralising to assemble them - a re-tool might be a good idea in the future sometime!!

----------

So, painting commenced. I'm eager to get these done quickly, so started with a VGA Gunmetal base coat followed by VMA Steel and finally a light touch of Vallejo Metallic 'White Aluminium' to get them as shiny as possible:



THEN, after masking off all the weapons, I applied a a couple of coats of Badger Ghost Tint Magenta - this is a clear/candy paint that allows the metal beneath to shine through. Now they are the colour of the Maelstrom!!





So, now to do the basic colours - I must say, this is also proving to be a fething nightmare. The sealed Ghosts Tint doesn't take paint very well, and the details on a lot of the models are REALLY shallow. I've already tried doing some glowing eyes, given up and decided that my Karats don't have glowing bits!

Yeah,
Pink looks great.
Hope it stays bright after inking and the stuff like fatigues are painted and the guns inks.

Panic...

 Panic wrote:
Yeah,
Pink looks great.
Hope it stays bright after inking and the stuff like fatigues are painted and the guns inks.

Yeah, they've been gloss varnished now and the ink wash means that I can remove it from all the big plates - it shouldn't stain or darken anywhere I don't want it to. The thing I think will affect it the most is matt varnishing at the end!

I've also decided that the Angels are gonna be metallic purple and black because, feth it, it's faster.

SO PINK

Have you decided how you'll be basing them? I remember Panic saying your two armies may match!

(Panic's excellent thread for Epirians is over here)

I didn't have much trouble with the elites - the online instructions helped a lot there - it was actually the Firefly drones that caused me the most grief.

The connections on the fans to the main body are fiddly as all get out, and it was hard to get the right angle on them while the glue dried... I could just be the worst at building, but they were definitely the hardest to assemble for me.

Shiny.

Looking forward to seeing how they come up finished.

First lot done! Got the infantry models all washed and based (I went with my standard gravel basing to save time). Only the Angels left!

Shadow Walkers


Troopers and Support Troopers



Tempest Elites



Kaddar Novas


To be honest, I bashed through them quickly just to get them game ready. The details were very soft, so once the primer, spray silver layers, candy later and then base colours were on, a lot of the details became impossible to even take a wash!

Anyway, all done now and ready for a game. The Angels are gonna be metallic purple, and in progress...

Awesome. The armour looks great.

I think the Tempests could use a little more colour to break up some of that pink, though...

I agree with insaniak. These models need some complimentary colors to help the purple stand out better. Maybe some gold or yellow trim?

Some really fun stuff in there Did you cleverly paint the base's rear arc red?

insaniak wrote:Awesome. The armour looks great.I think the Tempests could use a little more colour to break up some of that pink, though...

Warboss_Waaazag wrote:I agree with insaniak. These models need some complimentary colors to help the purple stand out better. Maybe some gold or yellow trim?

Yeah, you're both right. Unfortunately, after the build process and then the realisation that the detail was so shallow the base coats pretty much obscured it all, I've kinda lost all enthusiasm for these models. I just did the quickest thing to get them on the table. I only really got this far as both Panic and I had bought in and are planning to try the game, have made a board, etc etc. I think if I had just bought this dry off Kickstarter, I would have thrown it by now!

Sgt. Oddball wrote:Some really fun stuff in there Did you cleverly paint the base's rear arc red?

YES I DID! Seemed a better way to see arcs than the notches, and because I made extra guys, I didn't have enough notched bases anyway!

---------

Angels are done! Everything is now painted! These were all pretty quick to do - gunmetal base, slightly paler highlight, Ghost Tint Purple clear coat and then a simple pink mouth and eyes.

Here's the Angel Minnows - I have twelve in total.



And the Mature Angels. There are three here. I originally had four and was going to make one fly, but I couldn't really get the wings to look good, and no other wings in my bits box really fit, so it ended up a mass or green stuff and, then, in the bin. The conversions on these ones worked out really well, though!

Ooh, I really like that second Angel!


Good job all around. The minnows look great.

Love all of those angels, very nice. Shame the process made you lose some enthusiasm for the models. The detail is finer than I was used to as well, but I actually really like that slightly more finescale look. Does perhaps require a slightly different way of basecoating, which I get can be frustrating.

yeah,
Love the effect you've got with the angels.

This guys is amazing.

Oi you get back on your base!

NOOO! don't Wanna! going over there!

 ArbitorIan wrote:

You need a Angel handler Ian!

Panic...

Awesome Work!

So would a Druchii Violet wash (citadel) give a similar effect to the Ghost Tint purple? (I've not got access to an airbrush at the moment).

Also, did you have any issues with the Angel's contact with it's base? I've recently glued mine down, and it seems like a rather flimsy contact point.

Keep up the good work!

Brilliant work on the Angels and Mature Angels, some nifty conversion work as well to really get some variety from the kits.
Are the details less shallow on the Angels rather than the troopers?

Wow. Great work. Love the Angels

EDC