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Hey y'all I drank the cool aid and decided to start building a Raven Guard force after the new Kayoun release. I have acquired all the models I need, sans a chaplain with a jump pack, to have a full Pinion Demi-company. I am planning to blog about it here and track my progress. I have: 2 tactical squad boxes, 1 assault squad box, 1 devastator squad box and two assembled squads of scouts. the scouts have actually been primed black and have a layer of dark grey on their fatigues. I am at work, so I'm sorry I don't have any pictures for you just yet.

I do have a question though, for you RG experts, I see some RG forces with their company color trim on just their right shoulder pad and some with it on both. Which way is correct to their fluff? I am going to be doing the 4th Shadow Company, which is Aethon Shaan's Co. which has green trim, but I want my color trim to be on the correct sides.

1 more question actually: Is there any easy tutorial for free handing the RG chapter insignia? Appreciate the help!\

CA

I've been researching it too, there is a wealth of information on google. I haven't found anything on freehanding it, most I think use the FW decals. I've been wondering where the decals come from myself.

Buy yourself the FW decals. They're easily worth the cost as a single sheet should last you pretty much forever.

I second the FW decal sheet. I have one and I am surprised by how big and how many decals are on it.

As for your question about the shoulder trim. This is all assuming the fluff has not had a total make over. The right shoulder plate wears the type of squad the Astartes serves in, colour and symbol. The trim is painted to the color of the squad so Tactical Marines are green, yellow for Devastator and black for Veterans. Some Force Commanders, Veteran officers and sergeants have both plates, helmet and sometimes their whole arms painted white. The right should has a black trim and wears the Raven.

Raven Guard don't use company colours since they are so few in numbers so they use squad colours instead.

http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Raven_Guard

My process for freehand RG symbols is this:

Start in the centre, and paint the upper edge of the wing, reaching its highest point then going sharply down into the outer edge. Repeat for the other side. Then paint in the 'feathers' on each side parallel to the outer edges. This should leave you with an inverted V shape in the middle. In this space, paint the body (an elongated, thin oval), before taking the claws out of the bottom of that and the head out of the top.

I'm afraid I don't have any decent pics handy, but hopefully that's easy enough to follow if you're already familiar with the symbol. As with all freehand, test out the design on paper or sprue first to get a feel for the movements.

Appreciate the tip @paradigm! I might give it a shot! I'm tempted by the FW Raven Guard transfer sheet too, that thing is HUGE, not terribly expensive and will look great. I will probably need to freehand the symbols for my bolter scouts though, so thank you!


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Here are all the boxes of mini's I've collected for my Pinion company!






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Here are the assemblies of my squads! I have 3x 5 man tac units (2 with grav cannons and 1 with melta gun) and 1x 5 man assault unit (srg w/eviscerator)

So I played a game on Saturday with my new Raven Guard force (proxying some of my eldar for models I don't have yet) and while it was fun to play, MSU marines at 1250 don't really work. I ran:

Pinion Demi-Company
Captain - arty, 2x claws, jump pack
5 tacs - mb srg, melta gun
5 tacs - mb srg, grav cannon
5 tacs - mb srg, grav cannon
5 assault marines - eviscerator srg
5 devs - 4 lascannons
5 scouts - cloaks, snipers, vet srg w/nihilus

Shadow Strike Killteam:
2x5 scouts w/bolters, cloaks in a land speeder storm w/assault cannon
5 vanguard vets - all 2x claw and jump packs

So I was facing daemons:
tzeentch herald - disc lvl2
nurgle herald - lvl 2 (got an ap2 sword reward)
2x10 horros
19 plague bearers (nurgle herald here)
soul grinder - phlegm bombardment
3x flamers
10 khorn dogs
kharnak

So we rolled up maelstrom mission 1, I lost the roll to go first and my reroll didn't work either (no seize...). vanguard strike deployment. I just didn't pull many scoreable cards and my dice were abysmal. I managed to setup a turn 2 charge for my assault marines + captain and vanguard vets on the dog star. Woo! Then I manage to kill all the dogs and kharnak took a wound. Woo! Then he rolled snake eyes for his instability...you've got to be kidding me. So 8 dogs get back up...I had killed 2 in shooting. That really was the turning point in the battle. When I killed all the dogs, I could have killed kharnak the next turn and then taken my jump pack dudes to bring some pain to his army, but no dice. I ended up losing all the assault marines before the combat was over...Charged both speeder scout units into some horrors and plague bearers to get a d3 card, and rolled a . Dice just went completely his way. He wiped a squad of tac marines with warp flame from flicker fire on the horrors.

So not that fun of a loss (called it turn 4 - as I had to go) to start the shadow company's battles, but it really was an opposite matchup for me. The grav cannons work against basically every other army, but wounding on 6s just sucks. He made more 5+ demon saves than I've every seen. He made 4/5 one time and it was tzeentch so his miss got rerolled to a ...just a frustrating day. I am SUPER excited to keep modeling up these marines and get to work painting on them. My next formation purchase will either by the shadowstrike kill team (1 box of scouts and 1 box of vanguards) or the raptor wing (1 land speeder, 2 storm talons) to expand my force.

What are y'all's thoughts? When I played marines before I never had an talons, so I'm leaning that way. Thanks guys

Personally, I always take Tactical Squads at 10 men. With Combat Squads you can always play the card of doubling your ObSec units, but if you run up against an opponent where just 5 Marines isn't going to hold up (like that Demon list with the 10+ model units) then you can stick together as one squad. I'd also suggest that if you're taking Devstatators anyway, use your Tactical Squads to pack the more mobile Special rather than Heavy weapons.

Sounds like the dice really weren't with you, but there's not a lot you can do about that!

I had the same thinking, until I remembered salvo weapons can shoot full BS when moved, albeit at half range & lower shots. So I figured 3 grav shots at 12" wasn't a bad deal. Against any other opponent I feel I would have held my own better as well. I hear you on the bigger units. Building out to 1850 my full units will be assault squads and devastator squads part of the skyhammer annihilation force - which will be combat squadded when they come down for sure. Just a way to save points. Playing lower points though the bigger units might be a better idea, which is something I'll keep in mind. Thanks paradigm

So I have written down some names/squad loadouts for my Raven Guard moving forward so I thought I'd share with y'all. Here are some pics to go along with the names/loadouts

Sergeant metrion and Claw 1


Sergeant Metrion has a power sword (used as either a ccw or power sword in game) and his squad loadout when full will be melta gun/multi melta

Sergeant Kreel and Claw 2


Sergeant Kreel has a chainsword/bolter and his squad will have a plasma gun/grav cannon when fully fleshed out

Sergeant Bovel and Claw 3


Sergeant Bovel has a power axe (used at either a ccw or p axe in game) and his squad will be loaded with flamer/heavy bolter when finished (I know the grav cannon is there now, but my grav cannons will go to skyhammer when I have those models ready)

Sergeant Kiln and Assault Claw 3


Sergeant Kiln has an Eviscerator and his squad will have 2 more eviscerators and 2x plasma pistols when done.

Veteran Scout Sergeant Raan - Scout Claw 1


Veteran Sergeant Raan is equipped with Nihilus the relic sniper rifle and his squad all have camo cloaks and sniper rifles

Scout Sergeant Korvan and Scout Claw 2


Sergeant Korvan has a bolt pistol/close combat weapon and melta bomb - his squad has bolters and camo cloaks (any suggestions on modeling cloaks on tactical scouts?)

Devastator Sergeant Bornius and Devastator Claw 2


Sergeant Bornius has a bolter and his squad will be all lascannons when I get another box of devastators

Thanks for reading y'all

All the tactical sergeants have melta bombs too! forgot that.

Cool, like the poses on the Assault Marines.

As far as the Camo Cloaks go, I think there are some decent tutorials out there for making ghillie suit style cloaks easily enough.

The new assault kits are fantastic. You can't really have a bad post with them. Having terrain for their bases rocks too! No need to base haha

Ok dakkanaughts, I need you thoughts. I am planning on having the Pinion demi-company, a raptor wing, shadowstrike killteam and the skyhammer annihilation force. Other than the skyhammer formation (too much $$ to think about right now) which formation do you y'all think I should build to next? I need an auxiliary choice to actually run my Talon Strike force, so I have to proxy right now, which sucks.

I like the idea of the Raptor wing, as I've not built/painted a storm talon before but love the models. I proxied a shadowstrike killteam and it was awesome. 5 dudes, double claws, charge after deep strike? EPIC. So out of the raptor wing and shadowstrike kill team I might lean towards the raptor wing to start. I like the modeling/painting challenge of those vehicles, and I need to start painting on the guys I have now before I even think about starting skyhammer...40 models in itself.

Let me know your thoughts, THANKS!

So I have some people here in the DFW area of Texas looking to move forward with 30k now that the Betrayal at Calth box is out. I'm down. I'm thinking of getting one of these boxes. With a few additional purchases I can have enough for a 1500 point force, seen here: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/670958.page - which is my idea. I'll have to get some bolt pistol and chainsword arms from ebay and some single engine jump packs from a company in the UK I found, but that will do double duty for me and give me 20 assault marines for 30k AND my 40k skyhammer annihilation force.

I think it will be a cool thing to have the ability to swap between 40k and 30k. It actually makes some sort of sense because the Raven Guard use older marks of armor to begin with, so more MKIV would be fine.

Thoughts?

That would be awesome, I realized that too but I may buy them from Forgeworld bundles to enter in the drawing for a Fire Raptor. I would look at the MKV Assault Marines from FW too. MKIV-MKVI would be fine. I would complete your 40k stuff before 30k or you'll have a little of both. Cheers man!

Heck ya dude - the cool part is this. I have the pinion done, minus an hq character (which I could use the chappy from BoC too if I wanted) so the BoC mini's would basically fill my skyhammer out for me (minus 5 bodies). So I have these minis:

Pinion Demi-company:
captain/chappy w/jp
3x5 tac units
1x5 assault marines
1x5 devastators
2x5 scouts

I can double use the 20 assault marines I'll build from BoC for both the skyhammer annihilation force formation AND the 2 legion assault squads I'll use in my 30k list. then all I need is one devastator box and I'll complete what I need to have 20 devastators and 20 assault marines for skyhammer (drop pods aside).

Sounds like a cool opportunity for me to participate in 2 game systems that I want to and not have to drop silly amounts of $$ to do it.

Hey y'all,

Thanksgiving break had me out for about ten days. No new modeling/painting updates, but I do have news. Getting the Betrayal at Calth box for Christmas! Super pumped to both expand my 40k force AND get into 30k. I will be converting 20 of the tactical marines from BaC into assault marines, so I am going to start stock piling bolt pistols, chainswords and power weapons to have my two squads equipped with 2xpower swords and a sergeant with double claws, artificer armor and melta bombs. Then I will have the Tactical unit, the five cataphractii terminators, the praetor & chaplain + the Contemptor dreadnaught. I am going to be trading a rhino for another contemptor as well to give me two of them, and the ability to run a double kheres assault cannon dread - DIG IT.

Then all I'll need is a jump chaplain/captain, 2 drop pods and a devastator squad to have the skyhammer portion of my 1850 list ready to go (which is the most expensive part lol)

I'll get some more hobby progress up late this week. I'd like to get most of my current collection painted before I get my BaC mini's. Once I get my hands on that I'll be building models for days lol

So unfortunately I've not been feeling the painting/hobby bug right now. I'm itching to get at my Betrayal at Calth box, but I have to wait for Christmas...'happy wife, happy life' and all that. I did play in a tournament this last saturday and wanted to play my marines, but didn't have models for a Talon Strike Force, but I improvised with a CAD of marines and a CAD of Eldar. It was a pretty good time. Here's what I ran:

RG CAD:
Captain - armor of shadows, ex tenebris [warlord]
tactical squad (10) - srg sword, melta bomb - plasma gun, grav cannon (captain here)
tactical squad (5) - srg axe, grav cannon
scouts (5) - cloaks, snipers, vet srg w/nihilus
scouts (5) - cloaks, bolters, srg w/mb,bp,ccw
devastators (5) - 4x lascannons

Eldar CAD:
farseer - bike, spear, stone
5 scat bikes
5 rangers
10 dire avengers w/shimmer shield, power weapon exarch
5 dark reapers - exarch all with both missiles
Wraithknight - 2x d-cannons, 2x scatter lasers

So this list is NOT optimized in the slightest, but I had a good time. They were kind of wonky Christmas themed missions of which I won my first, took the bye and got a win round 2 and got SMASHED round 3, which was good enough for 3rd out of 7 participants. My first game was against an elite ravenwing opponent who brought a knight crusader along with 2 units of black knights, a command squad, a libby on bike and sammael on corvex.

The mission was modified kill points and when you destroyed a unit you had to roll a d6. On a 4+ santa wasn't looking and missed that you were being bad. On a 1-3 Santa caught you and the unit you destroyed came back in, FULL STRENGTH at the start of the next game turn from ongoing reserves. Long story short I killed the knight twice with 6s from the WK's cannons, but it came back TWICE! Other than that though, everything died and stayed dead. He called it on the bottom of turn 3 after all he had left was his knight and a dark shroud coming back. Funny story - I killed a callidus assassin in CLOSE COMBAT with my dire avenger exarch, only to roll a 1 on my 'santa check' and see her reappear close by and ap2 flame my guys to pieces. then my dire avengers came back and bladestormed her to pieces...Mission went WAY my way and I took 21 vp out of a possible 23.

I had a bye game 2, because our TO was playing a league game and I was so far ahead he wanted me to act as TO while he was playing his game.

My last game was against a REALLY douschey list. It was this:
Marine CAD:
tiggy
chappy w/fist
2x5 sniper scouts
3x grav cents in pod (tiggy here)
legion of the damned - mm, melta, combi-metla srg
culexus assassin


Inquisition:
coteaz
xenos inq - ML 1, rad, psychotroke and crap
3x acolytes w/autopistol & sword
acolytes squad - 4x crusaders, 4x death cult assassins
land raider crusader w/dozer blade and melta (big murder blob, coteaz, chappy and other inq in the raider)

So he got first turn and it went downhill fast from there. Another weird mission, which didn't matter really because I called it on the bottom of 3 when I had 5 sniper scouts and 3 devastators left. It was really just not fun to play against. The only saving grace was that everything was exquisitely painted and converted to all be inquisition themed.

I am enjoying the way the RG play. I wish I had the models to run and Talon Strike Force though, it would have made the game WAY more enjoyable and actually play like I want them to. Plus I think I would have done decently well! I love the interaction between the scouts/tacs/support formations in the TSF.

Been a long time since I posted, and I've gotten quite a bit done. I've borrowed some models to get my 1850 list practice in (storm talons, land speeder, drop pods and assault marines) and the list is SO MUCH FUN TO PLAY! I have come a long way with my modeling and got a TON of stuff for christmas! I got:
-Jump chappy (finecast...ugh)
-Storm Talon
-Commander box
-Devastator Box
-Betrayal at Calth

So I have my Pinion done now, all assembled and all but 5 models primed! I need to complete 5 more tac marines from my BaC box I'm using this weekend for a tourney and I'll have everything I need to run my 1850 list minus the raptor wing, skyhammer pods and assault marines. I don't know when I'm going to get the assault marines, but I will in the future.

I'll get some pics up of my modeling success here soon and a write-up of my tournament on saturday as well!

Loving the little battle reports but got a question - Did I miss the pic of your Captain Aethon Shaan?

Nope you didn't, I haven't built him yet...focussed most of my construction on my 30k RG at the moment. I actually did build/paint a callidus assassin for my 40k RG though:


Here is my 30k XIX legion progress:
Praetor


Praetor, 2 contemptors, 10 veteran tacticals, 5 cataphractii terminators, strike captain alvarex maun (still working on a strato-vox backpack for him)


20 man tactical squad progress, srg w/lightning claw, melta bomb, artificer armor



Thanks for looking guys!

Got some painting done on my 40k RG last night! Pretty much finished a contemptor and one 5-man tactical squad. Did some freehand chapter symbols too! Let me know what y'all think of them!

Contemptor:


First freehand Legion marking I think turned out ok. Here is my RG chapter symbol freehand. I am really shooting for you being able to tell what it is from 3 foot away, not being perfect lol



The whole group shot from my painting last night.


Three of the tacticals on the right need drybrushing on their bases, armor highlighting and details to go before they're done. Thanks for looking!

They are coming along nicely brother. I see you've been busy. The freehanded symbols turned out good! I cannot free hand at all. My one gripe is the greens on the shoulder pads seems a little light and the eyes on the contemptor. Maybe ink the eyes then rehighlight with yellow.

Dig that criticism. I can tone it down with a wash for sure. Thanks boss.

a good looking bunch of minis there, loving the free hand icons,
I always struggle to paint black well but these look ace

Can I be honest? Rustoleum flat black primer with grey edge highlights. I am all about simple is more. I am going to take wolverine's advice and tone down the other colors though. RG are definitely a more muted tone army as far as their armor goes.

Might give that a go, whenever I paint black it's just flat and lifeless really spoils a good model

Super easy, I see you're in england. I'm not sure if Rustoleum spray is over there, but just get yourself a FLAT spray can that is black and you should be fine. I got semi-glass one time...BAD IDEA! So just remember flat black spray paint and you're going to be solid.

Going to be assembling my storm talon tonight after taking the wife to the airport. Then proxying it as a lighting fighter to see if I want to invest in the FW model LOL. Never built a talon before, so that should be fun. I asked the tournament organizer of the GT I'm going to in May about bringing a Nephilim jetfighter as the lightning, because the dimensions are the same, but he's not the final person with that call. I'd need a lightning and a deredeo to really make my 30k even feasible, but then in the end I think it'd be a bad call, personally. Probably just run my Eldar and have a good call and not get smashed every game.

I'm digging the idea of the lightning though. Kraken penetrator missiles are NUTS! s8ap1 armorbane? And I can take 6!! of them???? Yes please. Or my thought was 4 krakens and 2 phosphex bombs for shear dirtyness

Got some paint on my Grav cannons. I apologize for the unfinished look, but I need to go back and clean up the orange glow I went for. Didn't think I'd seen orange before so I went for it lol



The sexy beer behind is a Samuel Smith's chocolate stout, for those interested. Incredibly tasty and helps make painting go smoother!