Hey people of Dakka! It's been a while since I posted a real blog, in fact the slow death of my 40Skaven blog left me pretty burnt out.

Burnt out enough to want to try something different for me, something very different.......

..... A STRAIGHT OUT OF THE BOX SPACE MARINE ARMY!!!!

I know, I know, why Blackhand, why?

THE BEGINNINGS (DUM DUM DUM)

Well mainly because at the time I wanted to free up my time at home for preparing for my next kid who is weeks away from being born..

... yeah because I was really going to go cold turkey, what was I thinking?

So I thought hey lets start a new army, concentrate on upping my painting skills and less on conversions and maybe even try learning to play well and win a few games.

I considered a few armies, I have already built guard, orks, tau, nids and GK and wasn't too keen on picking up Dark Eldar or Eldar as they have never appealed aesthetically to me.
So I had a look through my bits boxs for random inspiration and realized something...during my Sabre Legion phase I had managed to pick up a sh%$load of Marine models. Enough that with only minimal purchasing (two tac squads) and a bit of stripping an repainting ( two rhinos and a Raider) and I had a workable army list.

THEME

Having built and painted a GK army I already had a baroque, "knight-ish" army, I thought this time I would go with a more high tech, spec ops look ( I mean this is the 41st millinium right?) This was great as a theme...but it resulted in ideas flying around, dangerous ideas about conversion....time consuming conversions
I also decided to use the same symbol I used on my guard army(the BLACKHAND obviously) so that I could run the two different armies as one during apoc games, which unfortunately restricted my color palette to red and black and kind of threw the whole getting better at painting thing out the window but hey, best laid plans and all.

CONSTRUCTION (or the rapid descent into Conversiosis...conversitis....conversion sickness)

So I had the models, I had the theme, I even had a paint scheme.....so I just needed to start building and painting right?

You don't really know me very well huh?

Unfortunately along with the choice of the Blackhands as a name went the smbol I started with GS'ing a couple of fists on my dreads..just for fun. Then I pulled out my dusty old shoulderpad mould and started pouring Blackhand shoulderpads, first just for my sergeants, then my HQ squad..then I dropped my HQ squad and ended up casting the damn things for every single marine.

Every...Single...Marine...one at a time....last week I just finished my fortieth marine, and thats not counting my termies and the custom pad I made for them.

But it wasn't enough they just weren't "techy" enough so I thought hey why not add those cool stormbolter ammo clips everyone uses on their sternguard. Of course at this point I only had fifteen marines...I don't think I ever want to see another damn ammo clip in my life

The bolters looked good, the ammo clip gives them more bulk and I started collecting as many scopes as I could so nearly half of them have copes now. Along with scopes I trawled through every bits box I could get my hands on and now every marine in the army has kick ass helmets with camera lenses on them..which actually gave rise to a big change in my fluff but that will come later...

Any way with my marines taken care of conversion wise I looked at my tanks. Now since my GK army has FW doors and symbols all over the place I just couldn't bear to see basic rhinos running around on the table so I started fooling around and came up with this




(edit : holy crap I had no idea how much of my fiance's graffitti made it inot these pics, so very sorry)

I have pics for an entire tutorial into making 3d chapter symbols but I figure its pretty much the same as my other casting tutorials so I will probably leave it for some other time.

So now I had a sweet chapter symbol, what to do with it?

I started plastering them n every thing I could...

First a drop pod (still unfinished as I subsequently dropped it from my list)



Then my Land Raider aka Endless Hatred



You will notice i also built a front plate for this fella, I then cast up a bunch for my rhinos....



Then I thought maybe I need a predator?



And maybe I need another so I will just cast up a quick pred turret...just for kicks



But no I didn't need the second predator...maybe I could use a vindicator?



Naaah, I have always liked the look of the whirlwind, and everyone likes a pie plate right?



Edit : BTW, I have since finished painting all my vehicles but ave yet to apply a wash, I am having trouble getting a nice coat on such a large flat surface and will have to practice some more, pics to follow

Anyhoo, constant distractions aside, I actually finished a bunch of models like these guys, one of my basic tac squads



despite all appearances these guys are drybrushed and higlighted in adeptus battlegrey, the pics I took rendered them totally black but they aren't that bad...honestly

Here are a couple of my heavy weapon toting fellas, I have them spread through my squads since its free that way




In the last few weeks I discovered the awesome nurgle aspiring champion helmet from the chaos marine sprue, cut the horn of that sucker and you get a great spec ops helmet. I honestly nearly tore every helmet off my guys and gave them all the same helmet but I worried they would be mistaken for chaos so I just went with the four heads I managed to scrounge





Now to begin with I had a no terminator in my list, I was pretty against them actually I wanted to run a scout and tac marine based army all riding in razorbacks...LOL

My entire army now comprises of four 10 man tac squads in four rhinos, 3 rifleman dreads ( tee hee) a MotF and termie librarian and EIGHT terminators..why because they smash thing to pieces.

So here are my termies with their flash new shoulder pads







Thats only five you say..yeah well its an old pic

And Here is their fearless sergeant (insert name here)



And the most dangerous bookworm on the planet, Chief Librarian Reza Malin ( some of you may remember him from my GK army...the army I have not once played with hence re-tasking him to the Blackhands)



Oh and how could I forget my rifelman dreads, I have since built and painted another one...but he looks pretty much the same



So here I am, nearly finished what was supposed to be a simple laid back army build and which became an almost all consuming hobby nightmare

I have actually built and painted almost 3k of models but only play with 1850 points worth but thats fine..its nice to have options! The good part of all the chopping and changing was the amount of game sI have played with them, about 10-11 at last count which is some kind of record for me and has been really educational.

All I really have left to do is paint and mildly convert the Master of the Forge I hope to receive in the mail in the next few days ( I had a scratchbuilt MortF half built but didn't like how it came out, never mix a dread and a termie they look rubbish)and then look at some form of flyer Probably some kind of scratchbuilt bloodraven, I just finished adding VTOL turbines to a valkyrie and I have some ideas percolating.



Well thanks for reading the wall o' text hope you like the models and have some C&C for me, I think that having 99% of the work done on an army means I have the luxury of going back and making adjustments and fixing things that you guys suggest while still having a playable force..very nice for a change.




Cheers


BLACKHAND


Ps. Oh and I will try and finish my fluff for the army and post that soon..it's reached 4 pages but I just can't stop

I likes them muchly!

Sorry for being very inactive the last few weeks I've had my Laptop die on me so haven't been able to get on..
Anyhoo back on topic damn nice matey the icons turned out great and the custom tanks are the bomb. Little things like that
can really turn a common army like SM's that tend to get a bit same-ish on the table top into a unique and exciting project as well as
a awesome force to battle against.

Great work keep it up matey!

Your guys look rather good

Perhaps one day your BLACKHAND marines will have to go up against The Chapter of the Black Hand in a good vs evil showdown

@Santobell - Thanks bro, I was a bit worried about posting up marines as people see generally see them as generic. But seeing the work on Gitsplitta's blog and the other guys from his adepticon team I figured if they can create marines with character I could give it a go.

@SilverMK2 - Thanks...and hell yes! My are up for it anytime

This is looking great mate, and it's nice to see it in its (kinda!) entirety. Can you ramp up the colour correction on the pics though? It's hard to see some of the definition/detail on the pretty man-dolls! Love the Nurgle helm, been looking for an excuse to do a bits order

Had you thought about making up some extra armour and sensors for your rhinos? Also some auspex scanners for your Marines? Or lots of servo skulls carrying sensors?

High tech marines have so many interesting possibilities.

@Inmygravenimage - Thanks! and yeah I have to sort out my pictures the light box I had made up for my guard and skaven worked fine for them but these guys are so dark that I may have to find a better solution..plus I don't think Dakka's colour correction likes em either.

@silvermk2 - I am not a fan of servo skulls but I like the idea of some form of custom auspex and maybe a sensor pod for the rhinos...cheers for the ideas!

The sound of foot beat's 'cross the glade
Good folk, lock up your son and daughter
Beware the deadly flashing blade
Unless you want to end up shorter
Blackhanders, Blackhanders, their armours pitch black plasteel
Blackhanders, Blackhanders, they are very bad indeed


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Bad as in good.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Bad as in good.

And now they have a song.

Good to know I can always count on you Manoknok.

You've seen blackadder right? Otherwise this might be another instance where i look quite strange....

Ah now I get the reference

And there I thought you had written up a song on the spot for my army!

Believe me, the incredibly huge collection of models you own is strange, the song was just the icing on the cake

They look great BLACKHAND... customized and modified the whole way through. Liked the vehicle bit... though I know you were just showing off! I've been wanting to create my own chapter symbol thingie for my mantis warriors as well. Yours gives me good inspiration for that. Now if I can only get up the nerve to try it.

The infantry looks awfully black to me... meaning I can't see the detail of the figs through all that black. Are they really that dark, or is it just the contrast extreme with the black figures on the white background that's messing me up?

Still love those dreads...

BLACKHAND wrote: First a drop pod (still unfinished as I subsequently dropped it from my list)

The irony!

Looks awesome as usual blackhand, can't wait to see whats next!

I like the chapter icon, though you went a bit nuts on the rhino imo, the back hatch got sealed shut but orders of blackhand . The cast pred turret made me lol, I havent tried something that big (or even 2 sided for that matter). Keep at it and you'll catch me in points before you know it!

@Gitsplitta - Cheers man, and of course I was showing off that the whole point of a blog! I admit the paint is rather dark, I think I may have to follow the adeptus grey drybrush with a fortress grey line highlight but Dakka didn't do the pics any favours either. I may try a few pics on a red or green background as well to see if that helps.

@corndoggy - Thanks bud!

@whalemusic - Thanks I am rather proud of the chapter icon..maybe too proud as I stuck them on every available space I had a vague plan to cast an icon that splits down the middle and would allow the back hatch to open, may have to revisit that idea....now I wonder how many icons I can fit on my Baneblade.....


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I know a P&M is probably not the right place to post an army list but what the hey here is what I am currently running,


HQ
Librarian W/terminator Armour , Stormbolter & Force Weapon
Psyker powers – Gate of Infinity & the Avenger
Master of the Forge W/ Servo Harness

TROOPS
Combat squad "Wrath"
Marine sergeant w/ Chainsword, Bolt Pistol
Tactical marine x 9 w/ Meltagun & Heavy Bolter
Rhino
Tactical squad "Fury"
Marine sergeant w/ Chainsword, Bolt Pistol
Tactical marine x 9 w/ Meltagun & Heavy Bolter
Rhino
Tactical squad "Malice"
Marine sergeant w/ Powerfist & Bolt Pistol
Tactical marine x 9 w/ Meltagun & Multi-Melta
Rhino
Tactical squad “Rage”
Marine sergeant w/ Powerfist & Bolt Pistol
Tactical marine x 9 w/ Meltagun & Multi Melta
Rhino

ELITE
Terminator Squad “Rancor”
Terminator Sergeant w/ stormbolter & Power Axe
Terminator Marines x 7 w/ Stormbolters , Assault Cannon & Chainfist

HEAVY
"Brother Jalal" Dreadnaught w/ T/L Autocannon x 2
"Brother Sewell" Dreadnaught w/ T/L Autocannon x 2
"Brother Halahan" Dreadnaught w/ T/L Autocannon x 2

BTW if anyone is wondering why I need 3 riflemen dreads

A) they look cool
B) I recently lost a weekend playing Mechwarrior 3 and Mechcommander 2..such good games
C) they look REALLY cool

Cheers

BLACKHAND

God I hope this doesn't Auto append!

So I had a a busy weekend, got a big game in and a bunch of painting.

I mention the game because it was 2 v 2 player match against demons...fairly nasty especially since the aim of my opponents was to start this bad boy up





Because of my teams poor generalship (not too fond of my partner, found it hard to play with the guy) the guys actually managed to start the Blood Chalice and hose my entire army to death, was still fun though due to one of my opponents modelling skills, here are his two soul grinders






Yes those are actual teeth and bones, mostly from snapper ( a type of fish ) though he does threaten that he has used cat jaws before.....thats dedication!

And now for something completely different..a friend of mine just received a big lot of models he bought second hand online specifically to get the three 2nd edition rhinos included in it. He opened the package to find that the idiot he bought it off must have run a blow torch or heat gun over the damn thing and they were pretty warped, bummer.
We were able to salvage enough parts for two rhinos but we have struck on a plan to refurbish and sell all the other gear in the auction to pay it off and hopefully raise funds to pay for some more bits for his army. To this end I scrounged through all the bits and found a weird metal coffin with a vampire in it and a skeleton horse. along with another skeleton horse and the base form the skaven screaming bell I have come up with this, a Vampire Counts Black Coach.



I read in the rules they can fly sometimes so I modelled it flying over a graveyard, where else right?



I figure all the magic siphoning powers it has is because of the sleepy vampire inside



The Coach also needs somekind of Wraith as a driver with a Great Weapon so I have been GSing this fella together, will get a pic of the whole lot before we put it up for auction.



My MotF also arrived on sat so I have made some headway on his construction as well



Here he is all shiny and new, what a b&*ch of a model to put together, I swear I needed to pin every join!



And I just had to add the Blackhand chapter badge



Here he is last night with several thin coats of mechrite red on him, I am taking my time with him to really do him justice (not sure why he came out so orange in the pics though)



And this is after tonight's work, a wash, a layer of blood red and a highlight of blazing orange has really given him some depth which I don't think comes through on my pics but its there honest! I have a few more bits and pieces to pick out like his purity seals and I think another wash may help his contrast but he is coming along nicely should have him finished by the end of the week.

Well thats enough for tonight, C&C is welcome as always

Cheers


BLACKHAND

Requesting tutorial on how to cast self made chapter vehicle plate / door please :'D

Nice update!

I am noticing GS on the Wraith...conversion work again?

Looks good Blachand! The vampire ting is cool! Looking forward to seeing your MoTF develop!

@Lunahound - Sure thing, I will post one up soon.

@Manoknok - Yeah he is about a third GS! Started with a wood elf torso, the skull from a chaos marine chain, the arms from an empire wizard and I also found the bottom part of some robes cast in metal that had been hacked off a model.

I am a bit iffy about the bit around the neck I will probably extend it into a hood to make him more "avatar of death"-like.

@Gitsplitta - Thanks bud, I havn't done any converting on the MotF as he is just such a cool model, I have a question though....

Librarians are blue no matter what chapter they belong to right? And am I right that Techmarines are red in the same way? Because of the Cult of Mars and all that?

I quite like how he has ended up with the exact opposite colour scheme to the rest of the army but I am thinking now that I should paint my librarian blue as well, maybe not a bright ultramarines blue but a dark midnight blue.

Thoughts?

Correct, though they may not be all blue or red or whatever color we are talking about (White apothicaries, black chaplains). The real trick is when you get something like a Libby in the Ultramarines or a Tech in Blood Angels.

Well my scheme is mainly black so I suppose I will only run into a problem if I decide to add a chaplain. I think I will go for the blue libby (in a dark, DARK blue) as it gives me the chance to work on my blending and highlighting without being an enitre armies worth of work.

I love that tech marine. I actually quite like the orangy/rusty colour he has.

He's not quite as orangy in real life, but I did use a fair amount of fiery orange to highlight as I like the "pop" it gives red.

I am also liking how his shoulderpad looks with the black edgeing so I may repeat it on his other shoulder pad, not sure yet since as he is now he is exactly opposite to my other marines ( they have a red shoulderpad and black armour) I will wait and see how he looks once I have painted his purity seals and parchment as he might be busy enough without adding extra detail.

I found that model quite difficult to paint as there are a lot of crevaces and nooks. There are flat bits too but...

I did the power cables at the front as power cables...brown, yellow and er blue?

Anyway...he is looking good. Will you be doing lightsourcing etc?


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What time is it in NZ btw? Wonder if it is same time as here...

I really like what you have done with the tech feel. I have been around 40k for over a decade but haven't really played seriously since 2001. I am getting back into the hobby and have to say your work is very inspiring! I have been collecting pieces for a while now and I'm just about ready to start building. I am a bit nervous though. Being basically a noob here, my modeling isn't bad but I'm afraid my painting isn't going to be up to par. I know to keep my paints thin and layer, use washes, etc. Any other advice?

Dude! You know I love a good marine army.. and this is! Love it.

What is that techmarine model? (More importantly, where'd you get it), it's complete awesomesauce! I agree completely on the reverse schema of the chapter on him, it will make him pop incredibly well when he's deployed.

Careful with your libby, I think the super darkness is what really makes him look better than most libby's around. Good idea on the dark blue.. can't wait to see how you go with re-painting him. If he shapes up like your techy then it should be goooood.

Nice dude!

Fallen: Bud, don't be afraid, just get into it. Do your best and listen to the advise of the people around.. you've happened over one of the best communities on the internets!

Everything looks fantastic good sir, always a pleasure to read one of your threads!
Like Santobel, I apologize for vanishing for a while, monetary issues and all tat jazz
They do look a little black... I can't tell if they have anything on their right shoulders... might that break up the black a little? Heh some litanies of hate to match your squad names? Also, are you hard lining or highlighting the edges of their armor at all?
Also, love the dreads, fully agree with you, they look fantastic!

@Manoknok - Yeah I made sure to paint him in as many pieces as possible and plan which layers to paint first...forgot to do his eyes first though :(

As for OSL I havn't tried it before so I might practice on a few other models before going to town on this guy

@Fallen Veteran - Wow thanks man! I'm glad you like my work but as for painting advice I think there are much better people to ask as these pics are pretty much my best work! The best tip I can think of is spending the time as it really shows, oh and washes are awesome. When you start painting post up some pics and start a blog I can tell you that the advice you get from your fellow dakkites will help you more than anything.

@Monkeh - Thanks bud good to have you here! The Techmarine is from the box with the four servitors, it is just like the blister techmarine with servo harness but with the sick helmet...kinda looks like iron man. Found it on trademe (nz online auction site) for $45 then sold the servitors for $20 so I am happy, especially since the box set usually costs around $80

Hope you like the Libby, pics to follow

@Joshoftheforest - Thanks Josh, nice to have you back (your avatar always cracks me up) I can sympathize with the monetary issues!
The marines are a little unrelentingly black and as of now there is nothing on the right shoulder, I have been thinking of what to paint on them for unit markings, I want to stay away from roman numerals if I can. As for the squad names they will make more sense once I finish my fluff and post it, at the moment I can imagine they seem a little emo
The black is getting a light drybrush of adeptus battlegrey but I may have to follow up with a hard highlight of fortress grey but I don't want the black to seem grey if you knwo what I mean?

I have had a ;little time to paint tonight, was able to finish a few more details on the MotF and give him another wash to up his contrast





Even with how the pics have washed out the shading I may need to have another go with the fiery orange to bring the highlights up further..never knew actual painting was this time consuming

As for the Librarian I had a fool around with him as well. Starting with a midnight blue to a 1:1 mix of midnight blue and enchanted blue with a edge highlight of enchanted blue. Got a fair amount of wet blending on him due to using a wet pallette, well a plastic lid with some wet kitchen towel on it with a piece of baking paper on top. For anyone who doesn't know why you would go through the hassle of all that it helps keep your paint from drying and means your mixed colours will last for an entire painting session..very helpful.







Again I think he will need a wash to tone down some of the too bright highlights but I am happy with where he is going....I forgot how much I like midnight blue, in some lights it fades to black with just a blue sheen , very cool.


C&C is welcome as always guys, thanks for reading!

Cheers

BLACKHAND

beautiful work my friend.

Still really liking the tech marine. The librarian looks pretty damn cool too - though he is not as dark a blue as I thought you were going to go for

Blackhand is at it again! All the best in this new project of yours, I think you may want to emphasise the high tech aspect of your warriors more. Scopes and maybe some of the FW guns would really help. The custom hands look really good on the tanks!

@gitsplitta - Cheers Bud!

@SilverMk2 - I know! the blue just kept getting brighter and I couldn't stop! But no I plan on washing him to tone down the brighter blues but I still would like to keep a decent colour gradient. Looking at him from a couple of feet away he still looks dark as all hell its just up close and under lights that he looks so bright.

@Commander Cain - Thanks bro, I managed to track down about 10 scopes but they are pretty difficult to get off other marine players. I also wish I could afford the FW guns but I think the strombolter ammo clips help, you think maybe a barrel extension would be worth a try?

A way to stop paint drying?!

And all this time I never knew...

I'm actually pretty angry at the moment.

Regardless, lovely work!

I heard about them a while back and was just using damp kitchen towel but that was covering my brush with fibres. I then saw a youtube clip that showed that you are supposed to use baking paper on top which feels damp so lets a tiny amount of water through but doesn't get wet and make the paint runny. I think I may need to experiment with baking paper though as I would like a little bit more moisture.

You can buy them premaid with sponges and everything...

....I realize now that this may not be helping your anger....

Thanks for posting

Hmm I'll have to scope trademe out and ask some of my regular suppliers if the have one floating around >

Scopes you say.. when I get back to NZ (still in Aus on business) I'll have a look through all my marine parts, I'm sure I can pull at least 5 or so and fire them up to you bud.

@monkeh - They are a sweet model, worth getting just for the chance to paint him, and thanks for the offer of the scopes, always welcome!

Looks great so far.

I also found two articles on Wet Palettes as well if they help anyone:
http://77thcef.blogspot.com/2010/03/wet-wet-wet-palette-not-band.html
http://theleadheadblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/wet-palette.html

Hey Blackhand, great work mate.


I'll have a hunt around for some scopes for ya too, should have a few sitting about.

A random bit that BH isnt going to make more of??!?!?!? I don't know whats going on in this world anymore.

@Capt Rx - Thanks bud, those tutorials are handy and have explained why the baking paper I am using is not so useful. I especially like the version in the gladware container, will have to try this myself.

@ Perplexiti - Thanks Perp! At this rate all 4 squads will be pimpin! I wonder if I am too old to say Pimpin?

You to not-Xibit to say pimpin.

Looking sweet bro. Have you considered doing the chaplain in bone shades maybe (possibly with a black helm?)

nice models well painted.

@inmygravenimage - I haven't looked at a chaplain yet, I do have one that I converted to a GK Chaplain so I could convert it back to SM.

Question : Would painting it in bone confuse it with an Apothacary?

I really like the idea of trying out a bone scheme (I don't really have a place for a chaplain in the amry as of yet) but the idea of painting the libby blue and MotF red was to conform to the astartes colours.

@shingouki - Thanks man, I have tried to put some effort in on the character models, now that 99% of the army is painted I plan on going back and retouching all the infantry plus I still have some work to do on the vehicles to fix their reds...damn it never ends!

Update : I only had a short time to get any painting done last night and only managed a wash on the Libby...looks much better! Really brought the blues down in tone and he is looking much darker and less dayglo.

Cheers

BLACKHAND

Bone isn't necessarily white... Burnt, aged, yellow-creams... Reminds me of a certain vermin lord actually...

Lol, yeah I still look over evey now and then at my shelf of half built skaven and sigh...then I pick up a random project and try to ignore the outraged squeaking in my head

As for bone I do realize it would be a different look to white , I am mostly just unsure of whether I need to built and paint a chaplain when I have no real intentionof using one....though that hasn't stopped me before I spose!

BLACKHAND wrote: going back and retouching all the infantry

Hehehhehehehe.. dirty.

I would say avoid the bone chappy if you get one. You've already conformed to the codex colours for the other two. You might as well leave him black.. chaplains really are immediately identifiable as chaplains, regardless of colouration. Just spend a lot more time on him and he'll stand apart on his own. (Bone helm, crozius etc).

Damn you guys! Now I am thinking about how hard it will be to tear the arms off my GK Termie Chaplain and rebuild as a normal one...but aren't they like a hundred or so points? I have no room in my list!

make room by taking out the practical, useful stuff! Are you new here or something?

Lol, Who needs troops right?

Unfortunately the way I play I need 4 full troop squads at the start of each game as I quickly piss them up against the wall and end up with one half squad valiantly struggling to contest an objective while taking an entire armies worth of fire

I guess I don't exactly need 8 termies teleporting around the table with my termie Librarian...wait a sec, hell yes I do!

Hey bro,


Had a dig around in my bits box after work and found ya a few things.

Some scopes, auspexs, a couple of those nurgle heads, a few heads with scopes, and a few other bits n bobs.

PM me your address and I'll send em up.

Hey, if you're looking for heads like this one:

Bitzbox has hundreds of them for like 8 cents each...

@ Perpxiti - Wow, cheers bud expect a PM anytime.

@joshoftheforest - Thanks for the tip, so far I managed to find enough of those heads so that every marine has at least that style of helmet, I plan on retrofitting them with either the three lens nurgle helmet (suitably de-chaosed) or a version of the DA techmarine head I have been working on.

Speaking of helmets, I have never got to grips with the codex schemes for helmets, is it veterans and sergeants that get white helmets and devastators that get red ones?

Please excuse the noob questions this is my first "proper" marine army

Looking pretty cool man

I think codex are, though could be wrong:
Normal = Tactical
Sgt's = Red
Vets = white and/or laurels
Honorguard = gold

Blood Angels are:
Red=Tactical
Yellow = Assault
Blue = Devis
Gold = Vets
Black Shoulder pads = Sgt's

Great work Blackhand (as usual ).

I really envy your casting skills, it's such a shame these materials are hardly available in France...

whalemusic360 wrote:I think codex are, though could be wrong:
Normal = Tactical
Sgt's = Red
Vets = white and/or laurels
Honorguard = gold

Blood Angels are:
Red=Tactical
Yellow = Assault
Blue = Devis
Gold = Vets
Black Shoulder pads = Sgt's

Spot on whalemusic360, although Veteran sarges used to have either a red helmet with a white stripe down the middle or vice versa, can't quite remember and don't have my 2nd ed codex on me at the mo.

@Blackhand: No worries bro, is all good. The more stuff you get the more work you'll do on your army and the more awesome pics we'll get to see...

@hobofisherman - Thanks bud!

@Whalemusic - Cheers man, I think I may go back and repaint some of my sergeants and heavy weapon marines with red and white helmets to add some more colour to the army. I also got hold of a termie helmet with a targeter eye last night so I will be casting that and replacing all the heads in my termie squad so will probably repaint them a muted white

@Hyenejoe - Sorry to hear you can't track down any casting materials, if you have a look at the OP of my casting tutorial I am sure there is a company in the UK that sells some of it, you may be able to order some from them?

@Perplexiti - I may add a couple of Vet sarges then just for the talking point it will create, and thanks again for the bits!


Not much done last night as I was working on a few side projects but I hope to get some casting done tonight and will begin painting some fancy termie heads.

Cheers

BLACKHAND

I'll dig out my 2nd ed codex ultramines and have a look to sort out exactly how they were done, I could even scan the page and email it to you if you want.

Cool man I will PM you my address if you are able to find it

No worries, I know exactly where it is so that's no problem. It's remembering to do it that's the issue.

I don't remember stuff so good....


Loving that techmarine too by the way, I just built a servo harness for the same model for my daughter, I had used the original one on my Iron Priest, it's not up to the standard most people do on dakka, but it's ok.

Whalemusic is spot on with his colours. 2nd ed confirms it. Though the red helmet allegedly started because Sgt's use to have the company colour on their helmets to distinguish them as Sgts. The first one to show the scheme was an Ultra from the third company.

If you still need scopes, auxspecs, pouches, grenades or any other stuff let me know buddy I'll sort you out another bits parcel.

Thanks Lenny I will keep in touch.

Thanks to all you guys who have offered bits, it always blows me away how generous Dakkites can be

Downloaded the leaked GK codex today, may be a bit premature but since there isn't a whiff of a Chaplain, let alone a Termie Chaplain I have begun retro-converting my little guy into a Blackhand...you know, because I didn't have enough to do

BLACKHAND wrote:Thanks Lenny I will keep in touch.

Thanks to all you guys who have offered bits, it always blows me away how generous Dakkites can be

Don't thank me just yet you haven't heard the exchange rate yet, hmmm... three scopes, that'll be one rhino please!

Stop messing around with the troops BH, remember your rule on this army, limited conversions.... lol.

Just because its fun to give you ideas really but you haven't done much terrain for these guys. Not sure if you remember the old fire-base but I think some kind of forward operations post would be cool for this force.

Yeah I had heard a rumor that they have no chaps in the listing my best guess would be; as they are the inquisitorial arm of the adeptus the chaps are not required, no-one is needed to hand down the stories of the primarchs for the GK's basically the inquisitors are the chaplains from a fluffy pov I think/humble oppinion.

Yeah, I still don't have a place for him in my army but I have pretty much retofitted him now. Replaced the GK shoulder on the weapon arm and swapped out the wrist mounted stormbolter for a pistol grip one.

Not too hard at least and I was able to preserve about 90% of the original paintwork.

Next task: trying to keep from working on an apothecary converion for my GK, or a Dreadknight from what I have seen of it the stock model is kind a crappy.


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So I have buckled down and done some work on the helmet repaints

First up the new termie helmet casts with their white paintjob





Next are my heavy weapon squaddies, I figured they have to be Vets before they get their heavy weapons so I painted their helmets as well







and last are my Squad Sergeants with their red helmets





I have to work on their eyes since they have been lost in the rest of the red on the helmets but otherwise I am really happy with how they come up overall, I feel they have added a bit more colour to the army.

Now all I have to do is decide on the squad markings!

Cheers

BLACKHAND

What are those helmets on some of the devastators? They look awesome!!

They are DA Techmarine heads with a bit of GSing to fill in the DA symbol on the mouthguard...but yeah they do look pretty sick..even better in the denehb stone than the black.


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So here are my three HQ's; Librarian , Master of the Forge and Chaplain.



A close up to try and show how dark the libby went with the wash..really need a better camera!



And a closer pic of the retrofitted Chaplain



I got home from work today and had a care package from Perplexiti waiting for me (Cheers Bud!) and in it were a few tasty Chaos heads I had a bit of a play with some GS to bring it back to the imperial style..this may need some work yet around the eye though. Not that you can see it very well.....



Now I just couldn't help but I made a start on my GK as well, need an Apothecary for my Paladin squad so I built this arm.



Will try and get a clearer pic of the helmet tomorrow after I get some more done on it...for now I have to get some scopes on some boltguns!

C&C welcome as always guys

Cheers

BLACKHAND

BLACKHAND wrote:They are DA Techmarine heads with a bit of GSing to fill in the DA symbol on the mouthguard...but yeah they do look pretty sick..even better in the denehb stone than the black.

Very nicely done. I have to admit, when I saw the symbol you cast, I was initially super excited these would be Black Power Marines, but these are nearly as good, even if they aren't fighting The Man.

Ouze, you have no idea how close to the fluff I have written you are!...so close I really am not sure about leaving it as it is.

In short they are Salamanders descended chapter called the Storm Dragons drawn from the remnants of a terrorist group that live on a world with a dying sun. After ranging the universe and seeing the cruelty of the Empire they return to their homeworld and create a sub chapter called the Blackhands who travel around giving the imperial bureaucracy the middle finger by helping peasant rebellions and the like.

There are pages of better description just need to finish it off.

The truly sad part of it all is that I come from little ol' New Zealand and had no idea what the symbol was when I began using it for my Avatar and army symbol. Only found out a couple of months ago.....my Brazilian fiance laughed her head off when I told her, she said she can't remember knowing a whiter guy than me


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Ok so I made the effort and finished the fluff, fiction is not my strong suit!

Wasan't sure if it is Kosher to post pages of fluff in a P&M blog so I posted in the fiction section first

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/348294.page#2471632

Let me know what you guys think.

Really nice job on those commanders BH... like the darker tone of the libby. The apothecary arm looks great too, looking forward to his taking shape!

Your stuff looks really cool.

Gritty dark future...

Very nice BH!

Am i the only one that can see the same libby pic twice? Thought one was meant to be a chaplain pic

Yes, the Chaplain looks suspiciously like the libby.

No worries bro, happy to help out! I can't wait to see the pics when you've "finished" ;P the army.


Oh, where did that DA Techmarine head come from? It looks awesome. I've got a load of the newish DA bits, but no head that looks like that? Is it from the Ravenwing sprue?

Yes, its from the RW sprue. No idea why its there, but it is.

Cool, thanks whalemusic360. Now I gotta get me a couple of them, not sure what I'd use it for but it looks fantastic.

Lol, sorry people have changed the pic in the post to the chaplain, and here he is again for everyone who doesn't want to scroll up

I love your marines Blackhand, they've got a gritty, realism vibe going with muted colors, which I try to do with mine as well

Way cool Blackhand!

Simple, elegant and tastefull.

FTL

@Vent and FTL - Thanks guys! I try to keep it simple as I wanted a kind of spec ops feel to the troops. In real life most soldiers don't wear bright colours and so I thought I would mute the colours I used as well as keep it sparse on the models.

I don't know if it comes across in the pics but I tried to paint and higlight as if they are still on their Homewrold that recieves very little light and what they do get is a dull red. While I did'nt go as far as doing dong a red OSL on all the whites, I did try and add a lot of shadow and only highlighted the black on the very top ridges of the armour and even then I kept it to a dull grey.

Not only did it give the look I wanted, it saved me a crapload of time!

I was going to say maybe try highlighting the red...but then I read your post above.

He is looking very good.

With your apothecary you are living up to your title of your blog...

Could they be fighting in the dark...as they are fighting the Kunsia?

manoknok wrote:With your apothecary you are living up to your title of your blog...

Yeah, and he's not even for this army! But I have been waiting so long for a new GK codex I couldn't wait to start converting!

manoknok wrote:Could they be fighting in the dark...as they are fighting the Kunsia?

That was the thought behind all the lenses and cameras on the helmets, I was thinking of a world where the people had only ever seen by artificial light as the sun is a dying red dwarf and only emits low frequency Infra Red light. Plus these guys where derived from terrorist miners who spent months at a time in pitch darkness so would have IR goggles as standard equipment. This carried through to their marine equipment so that they depend on IR, sonar and other light frequencies just as much as the visible spectrum.

Cool! I will look back and see if you put up fluff!

And in those giant mining tunnels did they find...giant ratmen?

Fluff is here

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/348294.page#2471632

I've been through the thread again just to check but I can't see any of the DA Tech heads from the Ravenwing boxed set. They have some cool optics on and would lend a bit of variety to the force's helmets.

The guy on the right is a DA techmarine isn't it?



If not I am not sure where it is from but it does have a DA symbol on the jaw that I GS'd over.

If there is another DA tech helmet I would love to see it

Good shout BH. That'll teach me to post comments late in the night.

Oh... I like those!

Nice looking models. I really like that you've stuck to the same couple of heads, that DA Tech head is fantastic.

Looking forward to some more!

@Lennysmash, Gitsplitta & Mohaniker- Thanks, I have bought a couple more of the heads to refit the last heavy weapon marines and bring them into line with each other.

Sorry for the lack of pics lately, I have been bogged down in casting and carving the heads off my AOBR Termies so that I could refit them with the resin "tech"terminator helmet I cast.
They were a bit of work to get out of the torso but luckily black paint hides a multitude of sins (and scratches).

I think I will do some work on washing the red on my vehicles next before I start re-helmeting my basic troops with the tri-lens helmet but I will keep casting them to get a decent stock ready .... I am looking at about 30 or so of the suckers!

Cheers

BLACKHAND

These are looking really nice. I love the look you've got on the ammo feeds of the heavy bolters...

I've gotta say I've always loved the concept of elite units operating advanced optics, ever since I first saw Final Fantasy's The Spirits Within.

Very cool Blackhand. I love the techi look. I really like the metal minis you've picked for this project, and that apothecary arm is looking great.

Wow some really cool models here and nice work on the tanks.

How are all those heads coming along bro? Don't forget to put an army shot up when you get the chance...

Thanks for the comments everyone! The head swap has taken a backseat due to extreme tiredness (partner is 4 weeks from her due date...no one tells you about the sleep lost BEFORE the birth!) and I have been helping a friend with an army build. He needs to have a painted army by the end of April for a tournament and so we have been refurbishing a bunch of 3rd ed marine terminators into chaos marines and obliterators....having a lot of fun with them, nice to have a change.

Delving into chaos has given me a few modelling ideas for the army as well. If you have read the fluff I wrote for the army you will know they definitely live on the edge of appropriate behaviour for orthodox space marines and I am thinking about having them undergo a crisis of belief. Possibly a horrific loss of their Librarian and MotF leaving them leaderless and lost...and thats when the Daemon Princes arrive....

My idea is to build two Daemon Princes based on the Inquisitor scale marine and have one as a huge version of the Librarian and the other as a huge version of the MotF, basically pretending that they are the Blackhand's lost leaders returned from the grave by the Emperor to lead the Blackhands to glory. A few weapon swaps and a couple of custome built reaper autocannons and the army will be playable as a freshly fallen chaos army...I hope!

Ideas? Thoughts? All welcome!

Cheers


BLACKHAND

I love the idea of a high tech space marine force... very cool looking. And all the heads are awesome... I think i am going to have to go look for those plague marine heads now to do a few special characters.

Yeah it just seemed to me that soldiers in the 41st millenium could do better than they are sometimes portrayed...I understand the whole"lost tech" idea that is integral to the warhammer verse but here and there I think pocvkets of hi-tech could develope.

I thoughts are that a "rogue" demi-chapter of marines like the Blackhands would be free-er to develope tech colutions than a normal chapter, and since they number only a few hundred they would need to find those solution.

Part of the idea behind creating the "imperial" Blackhands and the post-fall Blackhands was a what if scenario..

..What if a chapter was cut off from assistance, was decimated by it's enemies, had lost it's leaders and all heavy support?

When two demigods emerge from a burst of bright light and proclaim to be your lost leaders brought back from the dead what do you do?

What happens when a 20ft tall Master of the Forge offers to provide half your remaining terminators with hi-tech weapons that offer never seen before adaptability to the battlefield (oblitorators!)?

Do you say no when your Chief Librarian, reborn in a demi-gods body, gives your assault squads unparralelled mastery in combat (Khonre beserkers!)!?

I've decided that my Blackhands will embrace the lie they are told, take their new weapons to war and only gradually become aware of the darkness that is stealing over them.....

Careful dude.. your 'simplistic, non-converted' army is taking a dramatic turn towards letting you go conversion happy... be careful not to let it get out of hand (pun intended) and become just another shelf filler when you run out of time to work on your epic bloodthirster support tank (tM).

BLACKHAND wrote:Yeah it just seemed to me that soldiers in the 41st millenium could do better than they are sometimes portrayed...I understand the whole"lost tech" idea that is integral to the warhammer verse but here and there I think pocvkets of hi-tech could develope.

I thoughts are that a "rogue" demi-chapter of marines like the Blackhands would be free-er to develope tech colutions than a normal chapter, and since they number only a few hundred they would need to find those solution.

Part of the idea behind creating the "imperial" Blackhands and the post-fall Blackhands was a what if scenario..

..What if a chapter was cut off from assistance, was decimated by it's enemies, had lost it's leaders and all heavy support?

When two demigods emerge from a burst of bright light and proclaim to be your lost leaders brought back from the dead what do you do?

What happens when a 20ft tall Master of the Forge offers to provide half your remaining terminators with hi-tech weapons that offer never seen before adaptability to the battlefield (oblitorators!)?

Do you say no when your Chief Librarian, reborn in a demi-gods body, gives your assault squads unparralelled mastery in combat (Khonre beserkers!)!?

I've decided that my Blackhands will embrace the lie they are told, take their new weapons to war and only gradually become aware of the darkness that is stealing over them.....

I don't have anything constructive to add but I would like to say that the above post is great! Sums up where you're going very nicely. Are you going to have a "unit" to represent all of the different chaos groups and are they really going to be turning to chaos or just really techy? Or is that the real question! Is it chaos or is it simply advanced technology, or is it something else all together!

I demand more fluff! lol

I really, really love this fluff: it's good to see chaos being both subtle and effective!

@Monkeh - No fear bud, as it is I have a perfectly playable and moderately competitive Space Marine army! The process of converting them to chaos will be gradual and subtle....just like in the fluff!

@Ice Angel - Thanks Ice! The funny thing about space marines and chaos marines is that while they should be pretty similar they have some really weird loadout differences so I have to make the following changes...

Out -
My three beloved Rifleman Dreads! Since Chaos can't take them and I don't really like the Rage rule that chaos dreads get I am going to drop them altogether.

My Librarian and Master of the Forge. Mainly because the Chaos Sorcerer doesn't really fit with a fallen Libby and also because I want a decent modelling theme for my Daemon Princes!.

That leaves me with quite a few points to fill up so...

In -

Two Daemon Princes, I am planning on Mark of Teenzch, first because the extra initiative is great and second because Teenzch in my mind would be the chaos god who would use subtle methods to corrupt the Blackhands, they will also run warptime since re-rolls are pretty damn fun too

A unit or two of Oblitorators. I plan on modelling them as cleanly as possible with very similar Oblit weaponry so that it looks like they have been outfitted with a "super weapon" as opposed to a mechvirus that consumes weapons and regurgitates them when needed.

A unit of berserkers. I have always envied the combat prowess of these guys and will be using Space Marine Assault troops to represent them, will probably paint them in a reverse scheme to my other Blackhands, red body with a black shoulderpad.

And last but not least I will be converting up 4 heavy bolter troops so that they carry autocannons and bulding a reaper autocannon for my termie squad..with the loss of my riflemen I have to get my AC fix somehow!


The plan overall is that I can run the army as Space Marines or Chaos Marines as I want with a robust and meaningful story behind it as well. To be honest I have been getting quite jealous of Git's Mantis Warriors in that they have a real history and he is able to build totally different armies based on which time period he chooses to portray. Having that history adds a lot of fun to the army and opens up possibilities for modelling.

@Gravenimage - Thanks bud, Subtle is the key to this project, no spikes and pus!

This is shaping up into a world-class project BLACKHAND... going to be a really fun ride watching it unfold. :-)

That's some great fluff mate! I really like the way you've thought it out. Looking forward to this heaps!

Sounds like some good conversion coming our way soon

@Gitsplitta - Here's hoping bud....the marine conversions will be relatively simple, the Daemon Prince's not so much

@Perplexiti - Thanks man, The fluff has actually been a lot more work than the modelling so far.

@Whalemusic - You will have to patient my friend, new baby arriving soon and all, but I have been collecting bits and pieces all week in preparation of a weekend of casting.

Speaking of bits and pieces, I borrowed this fella of a good friend of mine on the condition I provide him with a resin cast of it (he has some crazy idea about building a primarch)

Her he is in pieces



And here he is next to my libby and a basic marine



Size comparison is a bit deceptive as he is leaning forward quite a bit but once I cast him and chop the resin cast to pieces I will be able to pose him in a more upright stance.
Of course then I will have to GS the living crap out of him to make him into a Terminator

Cheers


BLACKHAND

Hey, I had an idea for your whole ultra-tech fusion: have you thought about using Angelus boltguns? They look techy and also chime in with the whole tech fusing with the armour. I have, like, a dozen spare if you want 'em; I'd considered doing it with my Mentors, though I think I'm too far down the line to do it universally.

Hmmm...I am a bit past the point that I can use them as well for my normal troopers anyway.

Do you think they would be alight to use as bolt pistols on assault troops? I worry about WYSIWYG a lot with my conversions but the Angelus bolters are pretty small compared to a normal boltgun right?

If so they might be just the thing to set my Assault/Beserkers apart from the norm.

Well why not eh? I reckon they're more bp than bg anyway - that was a factor against them for my tactical, too.

Truly fantastic work... I have long wanted to start a more unique army that I can make my own. I love space wolves... but my creative outlets scream that i need to do something more creative still. I need to give this a lot of thought because the fluff and conversions going on in your Black hands is amazing, and i would love to have a chapter of my own done half as well.

The angelus would be good for counts as sternguard (Vanilla) or Thousand Sons (CSM) to still give them the tech feel for a reason.

Ok Graven, If the Angelus bolters are surplus to requirements I would really appreciate them.

No worries chief. You wanting techno heads too?

I'm all good for tech heads as I am casting them myself now (shhh don't tell GW!)

One thing I am looking out for and I have no real hope of finding is....

The Inquisitor scale Space Marine Helmet that was sold in an upgrade sprue for Inquisitor a while back. There are just none around on ebay that I can find but I would lve to get hold of one to save me having to sculpt it myself.

If anyone out there in Dakka-land has one in their bits box I would love to borrow it for a few weeks in order to get a cast of it. I will of course pay postage to NZ and back and will reciprocate with a favour or two

And I know I will probably get a bunch of responses along the lines of "c'mon Blackhand you can sculpt one yourself!" I realize that I can but I am already looking at a fairly involved project and would like to save the time if possible....even just converting the 54mm SM legs into termie legs is looking at taking about 3 weeks with the amount of modelling time I get at the moment, 3 weeks people! How sad is that!

It's all good Blackhand, as you well know there's not much spare time with babies around...

I'll have a look around this weekend bud, I'm back in town. I've put aside an old inq space marine (who's in parts from an old chaos based inq warband idea) for a planned tru scale primarch conversion. Pretty sure I've seen the helmet floating around, I'll have a poke around and let you know mate.

Monkeh your a legend! Would be stoked if you can find it, and if you ever get to building your primarch I am sure I will be able to help with some spare resin peices, its a lot easier to work in resin than the orginal metals thats for sure.

@Perplexiti - Yep pregnancy and babies are the best things to make you feel old and rundown! And I'm not even carrying the darn thing around in my belly!

Subscribed!! The fluff is great. and the two lists off the one force is awesome. With the DP MotF What are you going to use for the servo-harness? And what would it be in game? Keep up the great work.

Hey BBruser02

For the DP's I am planning on building a cross between a termieback vent and a jump pack to service as their "wings" for the servo harness I am not sure yet I have two ideas

1, two or three servo claws on both sides, in descending size, that are "folded" in against his back, reminiscent of wings (bad descritio I know!)

2, Dropping the servo harness altogther and building a servo arm that is bifurcated at the elbow and has like two or three different claw attachments on it, along with a tech marine axe this would be enough to explain the amount of attacks a DP has


What do you all think?

Yeah man, I wouldn't trade with a women for anything it's not comfortable at all.

At least my missus was pregnant through winter, so she didn't have the summer heat to worry about.

That DP techmarine sounds grouse mate! can't wait to see it evolving.

Interesting Blackhand... sort of like a deer antler...

@perplexiti - Yeah wouldn't trade with her to save my life..but don't tell her that!

@Gitsplitta - Sorry didn't describe it well, the Servo arm is actually an ARM, like a swiss army knife crossed with an apothacary arm


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Fingers crossed this doesn't auto append!

Edit : D'OH!!

So I had a rare day of peace due to palming my daughter of on her grandparents and my wife catching up on sleep!

I made a start on the Librarian Daemon Prince, thought I would begin at the feet..I know crazy huh?

Had to make a two part mould for the legs, havn't made one in a while and wasn't to sure I could still pull them off, happily they came out alight.

first off the I set the leg half way into a bed of modelling clay and added a couple of plastic tube to provide pouring points and air vents



Flipped the mould, removed the clay and poured the other side of the mould. Used a can of canola cooking spray as a release agent.Here are the two sides of the mould



And here is the first cast..happy with it so far, I need better rubber bands to hold the mould closed while it sets, I am using my daughter's hair bands at the moment and the snap when exposed to the resin for some reason. This has been leaving a lot of flash and some misaligning of the mould, was far worse in the right leg than the left so I didn't bother taking picks.



Anyway I got a lot further along than I ever thought I would and by tonight I had a torso half terminator'ed up. I am on the look out in my bits box for something to sculpt into a psychic hood and will get the weapons and head cast up tomorrow.

In the meantime Pics!



As you can see the legs will need a ton more GS to bring them up to terminator size as well as hub on the outside of the knee, then of course they will need details like the skull on the right knee and the book on the left shin.



I used a piece off a Land Raider for the back vents, don't especially like how much of his back they take up, will probably use GS to fill in the edges and dial back the size of the vents to something more like the back of a termie.



A slightly closer shot of the chest complete with the horned skull of a libby, I am wondering about subtle little things that show his daemon heritage like adding fangs to the skull but at the moment I know one thing for sure..

...no purity seals!!!


C&C is welcome guys!

Cheers

BLACKHAND

Awesome start! (look up - auto-appenditus)

I really like the fluff, and it's always great to see your modelling skills in action!

Looks pretty good. I know that you say you need to bulk out the legs and so on, but the back pack does look pretty massive from behind.

I am looking forward to seeing what you manage to do with it though.

class

Gorgeous stuff mate. A suggestion: add fangs to the chest skull. It'll give a hint of the chaos aesthetic without making it too overt.
Incidentally, on that subject, how about using chaos termie power axes for your power weapons generally? Just cut off the spikes on the haft - job done.
Ooh, and another thought: you could add, as base details, some dead/crushed/mauled nurgle bits (eg aapiring champion head off cuts). If your army is essentially pawns of Tzeentch then it fits both as pseudo-loyalist and as traitors.
Just my several cents!

Great start! I'd beef up the collar some and add the sensor/light thingies on his butt (seen on regular termis, but covered on the GW libby termi)

@Araksi - Thanks!Yeah Auto append gets on my goat sometimes.

@Hyenajoe - Thanks bud!

@SilverMk2 - Yeah my plan is to but some strips off plasticard over the sides and middle of the back vent to make them smaller.

@Shingouki - Thanks!

@Graven - Funnily enough my termie sarge already has a converted chaos power axe (couldn't find a normal power weapon). I have added the fangs to the skull and will carry that through to all the skulls on the libby, as for basing at the moment I am keeping it all in the basic ash waste I have used for all my armies but I may find a few nurgly bits and pieces to strew around, might be the last thing on the list to do though

@Whalemusic - I actually cut the collar down to match the smaller libby armour and to leave room for the psycic hood. As for the sensor thing on their butts, I don't know what they are either but after I fix up the vents I will leave space for them.


Cheers for all the comments guys, glad you all like the start I have made so far.

Cheers

BLACKHAND

Coming along nicely blackhand, I can see it shaping up to be a great looking termie (though you do seem to be straying from your 'simple' army )

Keep up the good work!

Cain

Re: psychic hood : I'm sure I saw an excellent one a libby dread blog here that was made from a shoulder pad; sim


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ple (?WTF?!) yet effective. Glad you found other suggstions chimed in with your thoughts.

Looks so fantastic!

@Commander Cain - Thanks, and yeah I know its not exactly "simple" anymore but the main thing is that I already have a playable army so I can take my time with the fun stuff.

@Graven - Unfortunately a SM shoulderpad is too small to fit around the inq scale head but I will find something, the hard part will be fitting half a dozen 5 mm pieces of guitar string into the hood to look like a proper psyk hood...fiddly.

@Joshoftheforest - Thanks bud!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Had another decent day of casting, may not look like much progress but I managed to get the rest of the Artemis parts cast..which was great until I stuffed up the bolter mould, not irretrievably but I will have to use a bunch of GS every time I cast it. Anyhoo I have most of the right arm don ebut the proportions aren't really sitting right with me, after the shoulderpad dires i think I will end up either bulking up the armour plates to fix the elbow and shoulder position or shorten the ribbing..have to spend a bit of time looking at it really.

Of course none of this makes sense without pics so...



here he is with his former self, I am mimicking the GW libby stance, I want the resemblance to be obvious.



Happily I had a DA book hanging around and it fits the shoulder perfectly



The resin for the head didn't mix properly, hence the slight translucence but I will give it a wash of Devlan to show the detail in the next few days to give you an idea of what it will look like.


May not get as much done during the week but am happy with where he is so far, hope you guys like it too!


Cheers

BLACKHAND

That book really is perfect! What was that from origianally?

Also, the horns and fangs on the skulls are a really nice touch very subtle...

Also also, for the psycic hood, how about half of a dollhouse-sized bathtub?

Is your scratchbuilt marine your primarch?

joshoftheforest wrote:That book really is perfect! What was that from origianally?

Also, the horns and fangs on the skulls are a really nice touch very subtle...

Also also, for the psycic hood, how about half of a dollhouse-sized bathtub?

I think the book is off a ravenwing landspeeder.

IceAngel wrote:

joshoftheforest wrote:That book really is perfect! What was that from origianally?

Also, the horns and fangs on the skulls are a really nice touch very subtle...

Also also, for the psycic hood, how about half of a dollhouse-sized bathtub?

I think the book is off a ravenwing landspeeder.

You are correct. The ravenwing upgrade sprue specifically.

@Manoknok - The 54mm Marine is a Daemon Prince masquerading as the Chapter's Chief Librarian brought back from the dead by the will of the Emperor...

.... I'm not sure what I was thinking of either

And yeah I'm not even sure where the book came from but I'm sooooo glad i didn't use it on my GK dread!

If you ever want a few more lemme know, I've got a dozen or so.

He looks really good BLACKHAND.... wow! Love the cabling on the chest.

I have one thing for you to consider.

Look at the straight on shot.
Now, given his body, think about where his shoulders would be,
Then look at where his arms are...

Just sayin...

:-)


(Now, he may be the same proportion as every other terminator or there... but it does jump out at me for some reason.)

@Whalemusic - Thanks bud, I will let you know...TBH I think this will be the only Inq scale Libby I make....having ideas about a GK Dreadlord using the same parts though.....

@GIts - Yeah I am not happy with where the arm is situated or with how much stretching the arm straight has added length, it may be that I need a complete rebuild. aving said that, while the Inquisitor models pay more attention to actual anatomy than the normal SM kit things like joints were still not really considered when the model was originally sculpted!

I figure I will solve the shoulder problem by adding bulk to the underside of the upper arm armour and ribbing rather then drop the entire arm down is what I am trying to say!

Looking great Blackhand!

BLACKHAND wrote:@Manoknok - The 54mm Marine is a Daemon Prince masquerading as the Chapter's Chief Librarian brought back from the dead by the will of the Emperor...

.... I'm not sure what I was thinking of either

And yeah I'm not even sure where the book came from but I'm sooooo glad i didn't use it on my GK dread!

And I think I've got a few books off the DA sprues lying about if you want/need smaller ones. I'll have a look tonight.

Sorry bud, packed up peice of hobby kit I own in the weekend and couldnt find the helmet for you :(

I'll let you know if I manage to track one down over here in Aus!

@Perplexiti - Thanks bud, reminds me I have a bunch of imperial fist pads to send you!

@Monkeh - No worries mate, I was pretty resigned to sculpting one, thanks for looking.

Hehe, I'd forgotten about those. Awesome! That'll make my daughter happy when she sees me doing some more on here guys.

Things I have learnt this week....

1, I may have overestimated how much time I will have before my new baby arrives and will probably not get the Daemon Prince done before then, no biggie but it does push the completion date further back.

2, Space Marine rhinos come with a free stormbolter. How I have been reading this wrong for the better part of a year I don't know but it means retrofitting my rhinos ah well they weren't really finished yet anyway.

3, I have an addiction to autocannons. There I said it! Since I can't have my beloved Riflemen Dreads I have dug out 3 SM Heavy Bolters I had in my bitz box and am playing with a conversion I saw here,

http://galaxyinflames.blogspot.com/2010/06/havoc-mock-up-and-two-1850-lists.html

While I didn't want to use the Chaos autocannon I did have a few of the IG sentinel ACs lying around so here he is!





Don't worry I will make sure to finish the DP before I get bogged down in Chaos Heavy Weapon troopers.....or the 10 second hand marines I got tonight which are ready and waiting to be converted into Assault Marines/Beserkers


C&C welcome!


Cheers

BLACKHAND

So what are you going to do with your autocannon dreads?

I plan on keeping them, I like the idea of having one army with two play styles. It should be interesting to see if I am a better Space Marine player or Chaos Marine player....

....I predict I will be fairly poor at both!

I was hoping that would be your answer... would hate to see them shelved.

Kolath did a really cool rifleman conversion, he ran out of time so the fitting of the arms to the body is a little rough, but the arm conversion itself is really good and relatively simple. I'd eventually like to have two more (standard, green) riflemen dreads... looks like I could use his system to generate some good conversions.

Here's the link...
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/352102.page

Are you going to modify the ammo feed at all, at present it looks far too much like a heavy bolter feed...

@Gitsplitta - I will send you a couple of dread shoulder blanks in my next care package (which is just waiting on me finishing hte GMS model I have done for you)

@Imperial Monkey - I like the bolter feed! I know it is a pretty cheesy conversion (more abarrel swap really) but the ejector port is in the right place, the ammo feed is the right size and best of all it is simple and fast so I will probably stick with it. Having seen both the Choas heavy bolter and autocannon I have to say I think its a vast improvment, those Shaos Marine sprues need updating badly.

Thanks Blackhand... I really wasn't fishin' but I'll be overjoyed to take them!

I'm fishing for dread pads! Angelus bolters bagged and going in the post tomorrow. Lovin' the ac work.

Hehe, sorry bud I have been casting some stuff for you but I won't have the time to do dread pads...you should only need a few of those though yeah? those GS moulded owl heads and a couple of wreaths should do the trick.

No worries mate I was just being cheeky

BLACKHAND wrote:
Next are my heavy weapon squaddies, I figured they have to be Vets before they get their heavy weapons so I painted their helmets as well

Dude, like the idea for the Dev squad helmets. I'm going to have to borrow that idea.

Love the AC marine - good use of parts

And the Librarian is coming along nicely.

@Graven - You cheeky? Noo I don't believe it

@Bitz Addict - Thanks bud, the white paintjob really made them though..funny thing is no one has noticed that one of the multi meltas is made from a Dev squad plasma cannon and a multi melta from a leman russ, quite proud of it if I do say so myself

@SilverMK2 - Cheers, I have to admit I am falling in love with the AC havocs, If I could use them in my SM army build I would probably save myself the hassle of the full Chaos build and just run that!

I really have missed a lot of interesting projects lately! I cant wait to see more sir!

Nice to have you here Tony!

BLACKHAND wrote:@SilverMK2 - Cheers, I have to admit I am falling in love with the AC havocs, If I could use them in my SM army build I would probably save myself the hassle of the full Chaos build and just run that!

I always have at least 1 set of 4AC havocs in my CSM list - they are great

Subscribed! great work.

I now want to do more casting!

Those dev's are outstanding BH... wow, those helmets really look alienesque... just a smidge away from the MW helmets you sculpted for me... Love them!

Wait, you're using the chaos list for this army?!

@SilverMK2 - At the moment my AC marines will just be in squads but I may end up running them in a havoc squad.

@Styrofoam4 - Thanks!

@Gitsplitta - Thanks bud, Those helmets got a lot of attention at the club today as well, seems their eyes are just different enough from the normal marine shape to seem slightly off and therefore interesting.

@Ghosty - Not yet... I have a timeline for the army in that my guard army represents the Blackhands as they fought the Imperial Nobles that ruled their planet, the current Space Marine army is their spreading rebellion around the galaxy phase and the army I am building units for is the Chaos Marine Army that they eventually become after being deceived by a Daemon Prince of Tzeench.

So yeah , its complicated

Been thinking about chaos icons in the Blackhands, and had an idea for you: the 8-pointed cog/star on the brass from the 40k basing kit. It's sufficiently non-chaos to pass as no we're loyalists honest guv yet is still chaotic. What do you think?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Been thinking about chaos icons in the Blackhands, and had an idea for you: the 8-pointed cog/star on the brass from the 40k basing kit. It's sufficiently non-chaos to pass as no we're loyalists honest guv yet is still chaotic. What do you think?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh fudge.

Never seen the star TBH, might be something I could use.. I'm pretty sure that when I GS the Blackhand fist on the shoulderpad of the DP Libby I will add claws, just a subtle change that won't immediately noticed like the fangs on the skulls.

Voici:
http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/uploads/1199552057/gallery_385_1768_28273.jpg
(Sorry for offsite pic link, I think it's appropriate though)

That's kinda neat, what is the 40k basing kit? Never seen that before.

@Gitsplitta: http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat470007a&prodId=prod1140127

Words alone cannot describe how utterly stolen this idea has just become. *runs to bits box giggling like a fricking schoolgirl*

@Graven - Thanks for the tip I have never looked past the fact that GW was trying to sell me gravel to see the Brass and resin bits in the kit, I may have to pick one up.

@Breotan - Steal away my man! I truly had no idea before posting that these heads were relatively unused or unknown. They really fit Devs perfectly being heavier and shielded against blowback from the heavy weapons...oh and the look fricken mean!

It's looking awesome Blackhand. I too love the look of the DA techmarine head, I got the box set of Ravenwing so I have 3 heads to use, 1 is going on my Terminator techmarine which leaves me with 2 more to use where ever I like.

Really digging the colour scheme as well, can hardly wait to see a completed army!

Hey Blackhand, I've had a hunt around and can only find one of the DA books, a small one. Do you still want it?

Anything else you need you can think of?

@Knightley - Thanks! I will maybe dig the entire army out in the next couple of weeks and take an entire army shot, its up to about 60+ infantry and 6 or 7 vehicles so its probably about time!

@Perplexity- Sure I can always use a small book for the shinguard of the DP, which is having a bit of a rebuild at the moment to straighten its pose to a more upright one.


Something I am looking for is a few right handed chainswords for my assault squad. The angelus bolters that Graven has sent me awill be all left handed so I am looking for right handed CC weapons and a single righthanded Powerfist. I have put out my begging bowl to my local club but if you had some lying around I would be grateful for em.


Soory all for the lack of pics and updates but my brother's wedding and impending childbirth are draingin most of my free time but hopefully in a few weeks I will be able to get some decent modelling time in.

I have those mate, will send them with your dread.

No worries bro, I'll have another hunt when I get home.

I'm also keen to help out with the chainswords (my army is noted for having a lack of the chainsword variety) let me know if you want me to have a check?

@Giitsplitta - Thanks bud, will be a big help.

@Perplexiti - Awesome bro, you should get those pads soon I posted them yesterday.

@Knightley - Sure Knightley, Would really appreciate you having a look and much cheaper for us Kiwiis to be trading bits then to the guys in the states or UK. BTW where are you situated in NZ?

Auckland, so yeah much much cheaper (no international postage so bi-winning there)
Will check when I get home tonight, how many are you after?

I have scrounged 4 so far and need 10, even if you find 1 or 2 I am sure that between the other Dakkites and my club guys I will find enough. Iis there any bits you are after?

I like the whole idea for the Chapter, a special opsy-ish-mabob group that will actually be played. Honestly though it appalls(Spell-Check please) me that a Grey Knights army would sit and gather dust, but maybe the new codex will change your mind. Personally I have had terrible luck with having my army choice second guessed by myself. I picked up the Space Wolves, the blood angels get a new 'dex. I grab some IG and the Grey Knights are announced, and I realise how much money the Guard will eat up. I have set a rough goal for 1,750 pts for each before I move on to something else though, I am adamant in that.
Crap, srry about going off topic there, but part of me was wondering if you wanted to do the whole Great Marine Swap thing, I know you're a vet. I know I am playing Wolves but I have a scheme in mind for a codex chapter. That, and The Blackhands look BEAST. The only problem would be convincing my parents, especially since this profile is, ah, UNKNOWN... My parents(especially Dad) get a bit protective.

Hey Blackhand, turns out my bitz box has some lovin' for you.

I have 8 Right handed Chainswords, 3 are ones from the Black Templar's sprue so have chains on them around the fist area the other 5 are normal an unadorned.

any bits I'm after? At this point only looking for deathwatch shoulder pads, deathwatch bolters and crusader style helms (just look at my current blog with the normal tac squad and you can see the ones I mean)

@Platypuscorps - Hey mate, thanks for the comments. I'm glad that my Spec Ops theme comes through in the models, I have just started work on my assault troops which are covered in chest pouches, knives and pistols to try and convey an intrusion squad idea, just have to work on a new helmet design for them. And yeah after collecting nearly 2k of Guard I know how much it can cost, best tip I can give you is make sure to take as many tanks as possible, the Guard need them and it cuts down on the model count.
As for the Great Marine Swap, I am just too squeezed for time at the moment with my new baby just a couple of weeks away but I promise that in a few months I am going to post up an all comers request for swaps on the GMS page and would be happy to trade a marine then.

@Knightley - Cheers Knightley, I would be very interested in the chainswords, especially the BT ones. I will have a look through my bits box I am pretty sure I have a couple of Deathwatch pads I can make a mould of and cast you up a few, sound ok?

Sound mint man, want to PM the details to me and I'll get it sent away as soon as I can.

Looking good BH, keep it up!!

Knightley wrote:bi-winning

I see what you did there! lol

Blackhand, I've seen this thread before, and am sure I subscibe to it, but it seems I wasn't. Anyway now I am, and waiting for updates The DP is very intresting, the autocannon is great and you are a great painter.

Hey Blackhand, I've found you two of the small DA books. I'll send them up today.

Awesome news, thanks bro! Looking forward to getting those pads now

@Vitruvian - Thanks!

@Tipios - Thanks a lot Tip! I have been watching your thread as well, love those winged Raptors! Have you seen Nicorex's blog? he has some nice winged Chaos as well

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/353085.page

And I am afraid updates on the DP will be a week away at least since I can't get a decent amount of time to model, I have been stealing a few minutes at a time to work on my assualt marines though but due to being headless I won't bother taking pics yet.

@Perplexiti - Thanks man, should make the Libby build a bit quicker

Sent the books up mate, should be at yours tomorrow or Friday.


Also, when I arrived home from work yesterday there was a wee envelope waiting for me! The pads are awesome mate, thanks so much!

Well I think your Havok AC guys conversion is great. I love simple and effective. Your DP is comming along nicely. I have one note though. Is it possible to tilt his upper torso forward a bit? At the moment to me he look to be squating a bit. (Though it could just be the angle of the pics)
I think if you tilt his upper body forward a bit (mabye 10-15 degrees) it would give him the feel as if he is setting himself to charge at you. Making him look even more menacing.

BTW thank you for the shout out to my Raptors. They were a pretty simple conversion, except for the LotD guy, he was a pain in the hynnie!.

I am in the prossess/development stage of creating a fully kitbashed/converted army. I will make a blog when I get started on it. The Raptors for that army are WAY better(I think hahaha).

I also came up with a new Vehical rule. Check it out and tell me what you think.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/353422.page


Wow sorry to derail your thread.. Was not meaning to toot my own horn so much..

Thanks for the tips on guard, I'll keep it in mind.
And on the subject of GMS, I can wait, but I do have a "Shopping List" (I know, horrifying) of stuff I'll be getting off bitz box, that site is BAS. The Guy will have a lot of MK IV ans III parts, which I will probably do for all my sergeants, at least, when I hit that point. I'm thinking about making the chapter a BA successor, so I can use storm ravens, which fits in with the idea of my guys being like Ghost Operatives. Yes, I'm blagging the Specops idea, quite shamelessly.
So, up to bat are Space Wolves & Guard, coming are GK and BA, and maybe Tyranids.
Yes, I'm a glutton for punishment.

@Perplexiti - Thanks Perp!

@Nicorex - Thanks Nicorex, I like the AC guys a lot as well rapidly taking over as my favourite heavy weapon trooper.

As for the DP, one of the reasons you guys havn't seen him lately is that he is currently chopped in pieces as I decide how to repose him. I was pretty bummed when I realized that he was so crouched over, didn't really pick up on it till he had his arms on him. I think I will take the opportunity to give him a more dynamic pose and plan how his weapons will be held...bit of work to do but at least the bulk of the casting is out of the way. Oh and no worries on the shout out its what Dakka is for!

Umm I just read your Run and Gun rule...TBH I have enough trouble remembering the rules in the book but it looks like it would add another dimension to the game for people who knew how to use the rules properly!

@Platypuscorps - You definitely seem to like having a lot of armies on the go...but I can't really speak I have 3 major armies and a couple of half built projects myself Obviously I like the Ghost Operative idea and I can't wait to see what you come up with. Oh and as for what Marks of armour I would suggest some form of MK8 to show your operatives are kitted out with the best gear they can get.

Thanks, and I'll try, though from what I have read in the fluff, MK IV armour actually is technologicaly on par with MKVII. But the idea to add MK VIII and artificer bits works to.
Honestly though, I think that I may have trouble converting the MK VIII stuff. Ah well, maybe some method will hit me . And the reason I'm thinkin bout Nids is that I don't want Imperial burnout. I think I'll try for GK and Nids, and after those I'll work on BA. I actually am borderline-ADHD, which means that if I want to, I can pay attention, but life is still painful.
Anyways, I just looked through the thread, I can't believe I missed the Havok w/ Autogun. BEASTMO!

I've been converting some Mk8; 1mmx5mmx.0.3mm strip of plasticard cut / \ at each end does the trick. Then, blob of gs over pipes and a quick prod with a lubed up pair of tweezers for the indentations. Tedious though; did it to 20 Assault Marines and an AOBR squad. Sufficiently fed up that I'm scrounding sergeant torsos for my next squad!

You wouldn't happen to have a before and after pic of your conversion operation do you? I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around what you're doing exactly.

Would be interested in a mini tutorial on that as well Graven

Oh, Lordy. Okay, I'll make a couple and take some pics. I'll put the tutorial in my blog and pop a note in here when it's done ok? Don't want to shanghai your blog bud.

Sorry all for the long silence, the last couple of weeks have been a nightmare. Weddings, work, study, impending babies and helping my friend get his army together for an upcoming tournament have left me with little time to model. I have done a fair amount of work on the Assault Marines/Beserkers but have a small problem trying to find a good helmet design for them. Something brutal and sleek without bing overtly Chaos Marine..its not as easy as I first thought it would be. I have also decided that building a second DP is a hell of a lot more work than I want to take on at the moment so I will be scratchbuilding a count-as Kharn to run with my 'Serkers, I have seen him carving things up in my friends army and I would like to give him a try.

As for Daemon Princes I have mangaed to get a small amount done.

- Fixed his stance, brought him upright and gave him a slight "captain Morgan" on the right leg.

- Added a smaller book to the left shinguard, Thanks Perplexiti!

- Built the bulk of the Psychic Hood and rebuilt the terminator cowl to fit.

- Sculpted a blackhand fist on the left shoulder pad, gave it claws in a subtle nod to the fact he is a lord of chaos.

Am currently trying to decide how I will represent wings, as sch I have not done too much work on the back vents as they may end up being covered up.

Anyway on to the pics!









Well that will be the last work for a while guys as I will be even busier in the next few weeks.

My partner and I head into the hospital tomorrow, our new baby is ready to arrive, wish us luck!!!!


Cheers,

BLACKHAND

Looking fethin' AWESOME!

This guy will rock the socks off of anything else put next to it, nice work man.

All the best for your wife and yourself, you'll be +1 shortly

Yowser. Beautiful stuff mate. Good luck with the induction (boss says it takes longer than you'd think, alas!) and hope transition from 3 to 4 is smooth as.

Fantastic work my friend. Very imposing figure!

Best of luck to you and yours on successfully liberating the parasite.

Very Kick Butt! and gratz on the new baby.

sweet man, new baby on the way, best wishes for you and yours.

Also yay for the close up of my former book!

He is turning out great. Good luck with the baby and the hospital and everything else Blackhand!

Good job on both the big fella and the little one

The figure looks great sir! After seeing everything you've done on here I'm half expecting the little one to come out with a BLACKHAND on his shoulder

Hey Guys & Girls, I know its not exactly model related but I thought I would share a pic of new baby girl.....



...she is already running the show and hasn't even got home form the hospital! I already see my modeling time disappearing under a mountain of nappies and couldn't be happier


Cheers

PAPA BLACKHAND

Congratulations!

Won't be long before she's bringing home boys for you to disgruntlingly glower at.

Congratulations dude! great to hear you and the family are doing well.

Technically not modelling though there would have been some kit bashing in the creation proccess, Gratz matey!

Now comes the no sleep, and the green stuff factory collector bag changing every hour or so (nappy).

Worth everybit my three are the best things in the world gratz again matey!

Congrats!

She's beautiful BLACKHAND, congratulations to you and your better half! Enjoy it mate, whole new part of your life is starting... but it's worth every bit of effort.

Gits

Many congrats to you and your ladies!

Congratulations on the kid.

I think she needs some chaos runes

Nah, just slightly pointed teeth and horns - subtle, this army

congrats, May she gain your skills and surpass you in every way.

She's beautiful Blackhand!

Congratulations to you and to this beautiful baby's mom!
What's her name?

Congrats BLACKHAND!!

Grats bro, best of luck to you and your (growing) family...

Congrats! She's beautiful!

Congratulations.

A big congratulations are in order!

Beautiful! I used the inquisitor chaos sorcerer model for my DP, and a defiler head for the helmet.

Oh yeah, cute baby too...

As long as you don't start converting her, that's great!!!

Congratulations BH, she looks so cute!!

And I'm back!

First off thanks so much everyone for your congratulations, I really appreciate the kind words and they went a long way to warming my fiance's heart towards Dakka

After 10 days baby and mum are settled enough that I have been able to sneak downstairs to get some modeling and painting time, of course there has been a major speedbump in the road to chaos for my Blackhands....

...the new GK codex.

A little background may be needed here to explain the delay. You see I was only dragged into the 40k warp around 7 years ago when my flatmate asked me to paint some of his many, many models so that he could sell them. So far, so good. Unfortunately we struck a deal that entailed him paying me in models since after the first few pieces I painted I was hooked. I began with Tau due to a long love affair with anime but after painting around 3k of my flatmate's Admech and Witchhunters I couldn't hold back from a good ol' imperial force and so I started collecting Grey Knights.

I then discovered that they were one of the most unforgiving armies in 40k and over the years my Grey Knights became Daemonhunters with a Guard platoon and eventually morphed into a full Guard army with a large tank division.

Enough blathering, the main point is that for the last 4 years my all metal GK have been gathering dust on my shelf, half painted and unbased, in the hope that a more varied and hopefully powerful codex would be released.

Im not sure if everyone else likes the new 'dex but it sure has given me a lot more options and though I don't like the Dreadknight model I sure as hell like the rules for it. The main issue I had was the vision in my mind of thousands of newbie/bandwagon armies thumping down on tables worldwide in the same mithril silver / blue wash paintjob, yeuk!

The end result is that I tore all the bases of my knights and gave them a bath in acetone and have had a go at a slightly different scheme, nothing visionary but at least not the same boring silver.

So after the wall of excuses, here are a few tests of my new red/gold scheme let me know what you think.









Oh and for everyone who thinks GK are a waste of time....try to imagine 10 purifiers and a Librarian assaulting out of a Crusader with 4 (free!) Incinirators and strength 6 initiative 10 force weapons..it can be done!

Ignoring the GK madness I actually have worked on the Blackhands..just not a huge amount

Here are a couple of pics of the DP, only new things are...
- Crux on left kneepad.
- Found a skull just the right size for above the hood.
- anchor points on the right shoulderpad under the book.
- made a start on the jump pack.





So far I plan on building the jump pack to be removable, so I can run him without it if I need the points, again would like any opinions or advice with the pack. I like the size of the land speeder vent but am not yet sure bout the SM jets.

And finally I have a decent amount done on the assault marine/beserkers and feel they are worth a pic.



So far I have 9 assembled and have a couple more pads and heads to cast up and can begin painting them and perhaps starting work on my counts as Kharn. Big thanks again to everyone who sent me bits for the assault marines, hope I make something worth your kind donations

Will soon have my hands on a BA dread kit that will let me finish off the DP's halberd and with the rest of the dread kit I will be attempting a Dreadknight conversion which I think I will just post up to this blog as well rather than beginning a new blog.

Any C&C is welcome as always, thanks again for reading!


Cheers

BLACKHAND

Very impressive BLACKHAND.

At Adepticon I got to see every paint job imaginable masquerading as Blood Angles and Space Wolves for their Dex's. NOW we have what look like Blood Angels masquerading as Grey Knights! It's all very cosmically satisfying somehow...

Your models look great, love those helmets. The new Grey Knights have a fantastic look!

Thanks Gits, I did wonder if I should go with red and risk the BA comparison but I enjoy painting it so much that I rolled with it, in fact since posting the test models I have stripped and repainted my crusader and another five PAGK and a termie,

10 PAGK, 4 Termies and a dreadnaught to go, I have to say painting an elite army is damn fast!

Oh and if you like counts as armies just wait for my space wolves masquerading as fuedal knights and samurai

wow nice work BLACKHAND!
like the different take on the GK's, the red and gold still goes well with their elite status, and they will really stand out from the GK crowd
and now im looking forward to the SW counts as too!

Cheers Reiko, if you look in the back of the old daemonhunters codex they have a few examples of golden demon winners and in nearly every case they went with a red/gold scheme too, its always seemed like a classier scheme then the (IMHO) boring silver scheme.

Oh and the SW counts as are a long way off, so far I only have a FW pre-badab Huron model that has been stripped and is waiting for some High Elf White Lion bits for a conversion I am thinking of.

Cheers Reiko, if you look in the back of the old daemonhunters codex they have a few examples of golden demon winners and in nearly every case they went with a red/gold scheme too, its always seemed like a classier scheme then the (IMHO) boring silver scheme.

really? hmm, thats surprising, agree with the reason behind it though, it looks so much better than the silver. (although as a Bret player i do have a thing for mirror-like shiny armour, that would be cool). thinking about it, i do remember seeing a few 'Eavy Metal models that had an Inquisitor and his retinue in red and gold, dont think ive seen a GK in the colour scheme till now, still looks ace.

aww you mean i have to wait for the SW's?no fair
( )

It would seem us Kiwi's can't get enough of the GK's eh?

Liking the deviation from the silver, if I could offer my input, the red is quite bright and I believe that a darker burgundy with the gold would make for a more grimdark feel (I say this because one of the 3 paint schemes I was going to rock with was a dark red, another was a very dark purple with black trims. The last being grey heh)

The libby looks mint as well, very impressed with your conversion-fu!

Knightley wrote:It would seem us Kiwi's can't get enough of the GK's eh?

thats not true..........

*hides gk box under desk*

BLACKHAND i love that dp

@Knightley - Cheers Bro, I really wouldn't put my GK at the same level as yours tho bud, they are really something else.

TBH the red is almost all a result of my cheap camera. Though I did go from mechrite to blood red to a line highlight with blazing orange I also gave it a red wash and then a final devlan mud wash. In real life they are quite a dusky dark red not the fire engine red they look like in the pics.

@Prototype_x - Its amazing isn't it? That even with the ridiculous prices for the GK I anticipate seeing a buttload of them out there soon. I am wondering if there will be any played in the tournament I am playing in in may, there is definitely time for them to be ready.

Oh and thanks, I am hoping to finish the DP in the next few weeks so I can get some playtesting in, then I will decide if I will run the Imperial or Chaos Blackhands in the tournament .

Very impressive, and good to see you back in the saddle! One question: why Incinerators and not Psilencers, out of interest?

Thanks Graven, as for the weapon choice

A, Psilencers seem to me to be a psyker killing weapon and I wanted to have slightly more utility to my GK. Plus they have no Armour Penetration which seems strange.

B, I only have the old metal GK and have no intention as of yet to buy any of the plastics,

C, I like the idea of a unit that is being led by a guy called a Knight of the Flame charging out of a Land Raider in a storm of flamer shots

Really wish I had some Redeemer sponsons to mount on my crusader!

Holy crap BH! Not quite sure how your thread dropped off my subscription list, but first off congratulations on your baby girl! Second, despite having a lack of time to paint and model what you've got is awesome! I love the color of your Knights, although I am partial to Gold and Red... ^_^

Ha, yeah your dread has given me a few thoughts on weathering my GK, just not sure yet as of all the marines out there they would be the most likely to keep their armour pristine..a decision for when I have finished the entire army I think.

hmmmm gold and red?

BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GO..... EER EMPEROR

a little late, but congrats on the baby!

and the models are looking great!

Haha, yeah my mate who is currently painting a khornate army just rolled his eyes when he saw my Knights

@Sageheart - Thanks mate, never to late to congratulate

Ok so I while my Blackhands have made no progress other than an undercoat for my assault marines, I pushed through and batch painted my GK so that if I am able to finish the Dreadknight in time I will enter them in the upcoming tournament I am entered in. I feel kind of bad to ignore my Blackhands after all the wins they have gotten me but just the idea of the GK scares the bejeesus out of some of the better ranked players in my club so I really want to try them out...just got to remember to use all those Psyker powers!

So here is a pic of my (nearly) finished GK, only have the force weapon blades, the redeemer cannons and detail work on the rhino to go.



Yes I am reusing my Blackhand Libby! I mean come on, a 150 point Epistolary in termie armour with enough Grenades and psyker powers to screw up any enemy assaults I would have to be insane not to take one.

I was having no luck tracking down a fourth incinirator marine for my purifier squad so I bit the bullet and made one, luckily I had the Incinirator nozzle in my bits box the rest is a bolter grip and GS.



Hopefully when he is painted up it will be hard to tell the difference. So far the Purifier squad is my favourite, now it is running in a redeemer they will have 5 incinirator templates and 2 flamestorm templates before an assault as well as their cleansing flame attack...I am thinking of painting soot and carbon over the first third of the redeemer to represent how much flame attacks pour out of the thing

I also received a pile of white lion bitz the other day so I was able to fool around with the FW Huron model I have.





The extra Lion pelts have added a lot of movement to the model and his grey hunter followers will all get the same pelts and livery to tie them all together..more pics as that project slowly progresses.

C&C welcome as always

Cheers

BLACKHAND

Nice work
how the rubber duck have you managed to get all this done with the new little BLACKHAND in the house
looking good though, and the Huron conversion is ace!
and until i read the text, i didnt even realise you had made the incinerator!

Thanks Reiko, I have no idea how I got so much painted either but TBH Little Blackhand is a really good sleeper..the hardest part has been keeping mum and 3 yr old occupied

Your welcome
and you are a lucky, lucky man having a deep sleeping newborn!

Way to go man, those guys are looking great! That Huron conversion is excellent!

Looking awesome man (had I known you needed a flamer I could have sent one up)

@Reiko - I know I am VERY lucky, sleep has never been such a precious commodity.

@Gitsplitta - Thanks as always

@Knightley - Cheers bro, thanks for the offer next time I am stuck I will give you a yell first

Speaking of begging for parts, I am currently looking for a sarcophagus from a venerable dread kit to "GK" my rifleman dread up a bit, would be willing to trade for it and will pay the postage.

In other news I played my first game with my GK yesterday..ouch!
It was a capture and control mission with a 12" deployment and though I won the initiative I was playing against a much better player who suggested I go second to get the advantage in the last round..which would have gone fine except that by going second I could not take advantage of my warp quake psyker power and ended up with a drop pod full of libby dread in my face which then nuked my strike squad. In the first round I lost my rifleman, a rhino and over half my strike squad leaving only a redeemer full of purifiers on the table. I think my biggest mistake was deepstriking my termies and dreadknight, with such a small model count I just hcould not afford to be without the firepower. I also learnt Dreadknights are just as fragile as any Independent Character when they have no backup, dont' DS them on the flank by themselves!!!

So while I was soundly beaten I am a lot wiser and have a much better idea of how to deploy and maneuver them.

Oh and purifiers are great, despite losing their redeemer before it could fire they still accounted for decent amount of points.

I can do you a ven dread sarco no probs; still haven't sent you the mk4 helm or tele-pack, sorry. How is newbie? Settle on a name yet? Also , Huron is stunning, and now I must redesign mine!

Cool Graven, Thanks again (though it feels redundant at this point with all the things you have sent me ) No need to send me the MK4 helmet though as I have scrounged one here.

Let me know and I can send you one of the White Lion cloaks as well if you want to use it on your Huron.

A White Lion cloak would be tremendous. I must confess that I'm fairly smitten with your Red Knights and will be doing likewise, though perhaps with more purple.

Which front from a ven? there is the covered one (IE the normal dread looking front) and the face showing one (like on my ven dread and DK)

I am looking for one that has the exposed helmet, plan on cutting a termie helmet down to match a GK helm and use that with the sarcophagus front.

Poor man's FW Grey Knight dread

One of these?
http://www.bitsandkits.co.uk/venerable-dreadnought-torso-cover-a-p-6024.html
Like I say, no probs, I'll post that your way.

Sadly I used both of those bits on my guys, bugger. Would have been a hell of a lot cheaper to get it done locally

GK's look great Blackhand, I think that painted not many people would be able to tell the incinerators apart, looks good man.

@Gravenimage - Yep thats the sucka, really appreciate it.

@Knightley - No worries man I figure they would get used first when people buy the Ven kit, I know I would convert all my AOBR dreads to carry them if I bought it.

@Perplexiti - Cheers bud, and yeah the inicinirator blends into the squad fine.

Well after a bit of points re-jiggering I have found the space to fit another 5 man quad with 4 halberds which I will run with the dreadknight to intercept assaults and cast warpquake....really hated the Blood Angels habit of Deepstriking wherever the hell they wanted to go. Damn 1d6 scatter....

Love the color scheme I personally am not a fan of the entirely silver army (my first army, 'Crons, were dark matte green and gold ) So it's lovely to see alternate colors!

@Joshoftheforest - Thanks Bud, from the mutterings on Dakka I think a lot of people will be trying a different scheme for their knights too.

Sorry the sporadic updates of late people, first week back at work after the baby was born and we are all still getting used to the new routine...not that I haven't put aside some time for modeling

And what modeling it is! I have been holding out for a BA dread to arrive so that I can begin work on my Dreadknight and nab the force weapon for my Daemon Prince and I have a few pics to show you.

So I began with the Dread Kit (no pics , use your imagination) and the legs from a sentinel kit



And using a few bits, some lasguns from a Chimera for the hip joints, a lascannon mount from a Land raider and an obliterator cannon I whipped up a hip setup that could possibly work, unlike the normal dread kit

Front



Back



The sarcophagus I cut out and lifted up, then recessed into the main body of the dread, I wanted to give the impression that the drivers body is encased in the DK with the helmet coming out of the top.



Here is the first test fitting, he has the proportions I was looking for but I am not sure about the look of the chest and midriff.



And this is my version of a Heavy Psycannon, I really feel the one that comes with a Dreadknight is kinda measly, so i mounted the barrel of the DK Psycannon on the Frag cannon form the furioso kit.



And here is where I am at the moment, am having to pause due to babysitting duty so figured I would post up what I have so far







So yeah, thats the beginnings of my version of a Dreadknight, let me know what you think!


Cheers,

BLACKHAND

I think your going to have to do some MAJOR renovation on the torso to make it more then just a tall Dreadnought in peoples minds. Arms need to be elongated to match the legs. Obviously lots of work ahead, but I have little doubt you can pull it off though, we know you like to jump in head first.

Very interesting BLACKHAND, I like the gun a lot. I think the midriff needs more beefing up, which I suspect is already in the pipes...

Im not so worried that it resembles a dread, one of the main problems with the Dreadknight kit IMHO is that it doesn't look anything like imperial or spacemarine tech. TBH I was looking to create something very similar to MajorTom's upscaled dread just with more of a lower torso to give space for a driver.

Having said all that I do want to build a chest/belly plate to get rid of the ramshackle look it has now.

I also plan on adding a ball and socket joint to the shoulder to give the arms some extra movement and have a couple of extra sentinel legs that can be pressed into service for arms....haven't decided yet where to go with them.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
@Gitsplitta - Thanks, the gun is my favourite bit so far as well, the rules just suggest a much bigger gun then the one that comes with the kit. I am looking at putting a cowling over the hip joint and adding another set of hydraulics connecting them to the torso.

One worry is that the legs are too weedy....anyone else think so?

BLACKHAND wrote:Im not so worried that it resembles a dread, one of the main problems with the Dreadknight kit IMHO is that it doesn't look anything like imperial or spacemarine tech. TBH I was looking to create something very similar to MajorTom's upscaled dread just with more of a lower torso to give space for a driver.

Hits_the_Spots?

Hmmmm... I like it a lot... my biggest thing is the groin area... I feel like it needs to be bulked up a bit

Argh, yes sorry Hits_the_spots Dread, thanks WM

And yeah Josh I reckon an armour plate may be needed

Something about the Powerfist and the gun together looks wrong to me. I think it might be the size of the gun - but I'd never suggest making it smaller! Perhaps the arms need to be elongated as suggested earlier?

It looks goodbut yeah the gun under the fist just makes the fist look tiny or stunted.

BH.. Yeah I don't like the "WewatchedAvatarwaaaaytomuchknight" either.

I am currently building a longer arm for the sword arm, if it works then I will replicate it on the gun arm....I kinda like the asymmetric look though...will see how it goes

That is what a dreadknight should look like! so much better than the GW model
looking forwards to some more updates

Thanks DJB, I hope to end up with something boxier and more imperial looking while still looking agile enough to take on a daemon prince or hive tyrant in close combat

So here is the arm I have come up with, I bashed up a hand capable of gripping a sword, really couldn't stand how small the "Doomfist" that comes with the kit is.







At the moment I am thinking of leaving of the dread fore arm and attaching the claw directly to the arm, it is a bit too long at the moment and I find the fore arm too clumsy looking.

My other question is this, if I am running the DK with a Nemesis Greatsword, and there is no way for the DK to lose the Greatsword, then is there any reason to model the doomfist on the other arm at all?

My thought is to basically drop the claw completely and have the gun fused in to the lower arm, what do you all think?

Fuse the gun kill the fist

Great concept!

Regarding the lower portion of your DK, what about spreading the hips a bit further out beefing the lower torso our and adding some small bulk to the upper legs and plate up the lower legs?

Cheers Santo , I will give it another look tomorrow in the cold light of day but I think it is the way to go..hell he can always smash things in the face with a smoking hot gun barrel

@Knightley Thanks man, I kind of want the shape of the body to be as close to human proportions as possible so that a driver could be jacked in and feel like it is his own, as opposed to the weird hip and knee config of a dread. I agree with the armour on the lower legs though, have just run out of dread shin pads and the little demi armour pieces that come in the Furioso kit...will have to look for more

Re: shin guards. I'm still doing your care package, posting Tuesday - will see if I have any spare.

I like your dreadknight very much, I just worry that the head's now going to look disproportionately small. Awesome use of sentinel bits btw.

Its lookin' good . Fuse the gun- as they said.

2 shin guards duly added. +1 to fusing!

You have a good sense of the proportions
Fuse the fist to the arm, it does look odd, like its been stretched
Could you bulk up the shoulders, arms and legs as the limbs seem a bit sticky and all the space marines have bigg shoulders
this will also make it more boxier and imperial/space mariney
the head looks fine, it is a termie in a huge metal box, the dreadnought uses a standard SM head so using a terminator head on a bigger model is fine

@Gravenimage - Thanks again Bitsmaster, your a legend.

@Bossasaurus &DaemonJellybaby - I think its official, the gun arm will be fused! As for bulking up the Knight I plan on adding armour plates to the arms and legs but will probably leave the shoulders at the dread size that they are...I am trying to strike a balance between imperial boxiness and agility.

As for the size of the head I am going to keep it at Termie size to represent the pilot encased in the mech suit with just his head poking out the top...I am still looking at a better "Chest" plate to better cover the front.

I mean this is another problem I have with the GW Dreadknight, armour is there to protect the wearer right? So why the hell would you attach the wearer to the OUTSIDE of the armour? it just makes no sense. If I was wearing a suit of mech armour that meant I was the one who had to go toe to toe with 20 foot tall fiery daemons I would sure as hell want to be encased in as much ceramal and adamantium as I could possibly find


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ok todays work so far,

Fused the gun to the arm...not sure about it as it hangs too low, will probably rebuild it so the gun totally replaces the lower arm from the elbow joint instead of hanging from the mid elbow at an angle as it does now.

I also made a start on the greatsword, I used the same proportions as the sword s the termies use and came up with this









Any thoughts?

With the sword, what about hollowing out the black centre part? it's only plasti card so maybe make up a replacement to see what the effect is.

The lower body part still may need to be fleshed out because the torso just stops half way down. What about some card angled down from the outside of the sarcophagus to the hip joint area? then fill in the front with "stuff"

I really like the length of the arms/legs and I fully believe that with some extra plating it will add more mass/rigidity to the frame.

Doing anything with the Shins?

That is one massive sword!

His feet look too little to suspend his frame, and he looks like he has tiny chicken feet.

The sword has two strips of plasticard down each side and is going to get GS words running between them to add the same kind of detail that the GK have on their amour, I kinda like the hollow sword that comes with the DK kit but dislike the fact that they made the void an inquisition symbol...you know because the GK aren't actually in the inquisition!

As for the size it is a little out there but a greatsword in anyone's definition is big

I will be adding more armour plates to the torso and limbs but I have real trouble creating boltheads the right size so when I build my own armour plates they look too bare. Hence having to wait till I get my hands on some extra GW armour plates.. I may have to get on Ebay and bid on some plates from the actual Dreadknight.....

Amazing work BH! I was a little worried about the head proportions at first but it really looks quite amazing. It all looks great as usual.

It looks pretty good! I feel the legs could definitely do with lots more armour-plating though.

Also, is it not supposed to be on an oval Valk base?

Looking good, but maybe use sentinel feet for size?

@Vitruvian - Yeah soon as I get my hands on more armour plates the legs will be bulked up. The base is a different issue altogether...I will see what problems if any come up in the tournament I am going in at the end of the month, if something does come up I will use a cardboard cut out under the base to show the size of a valk base, As far as I can tell the only reason it has a valk base is to nerf some of the coolness of space marine monstrous creature...or maybe to help with balance but mine is pretty steady so I will leave it on a dread base for now.

@Graven - The sentinel feet aren't much bigger but I may turn the dread feet so that one toe is pointing forward then bulk that toe up so it is longer and heavier, kind of like a foot with extra toes on the other sides to help with balance. Will have a play with the idea and take some pics tonight hopefully.

Thats a lot of work gone on here!
loving the DK BLACKHAND, im pretty much with the consensus here, bulk up the legs a bit more (armour plates are a must), bigger feet (not sire what you meant in your message to graven, i cant picture it in my head), put the Heavy Psycannon as the entire lower part of the arm...etc.
but it does look excellent, especially the truly grimdark Greatsword
btw, i love how you say 'quickly knock something up' and come out with a kick- model/weapon/idea etc, its just not fair

Cheers Reiko, I have tried to think of a way to describe what I am thinking of doing but it will probably just be easier to do it and show you guys later.

This may actually take a bit longer than the work I have done so far as most of my modeling gets done on the weekend instead of chores/housework/socialization during the week I am just too tired from work and baby to get anything done.

So if it seems like I get a lot done in a short period it is because I am trying to fit an entire weeks worth of work into 2 days

No problem... life happens. Enjoy it!

Nice job on the dreadnought/knight, can't figure out which of the two!

No worries dude, as Gits said, life happens. and tbh its good to know that it is possible to do modelling around 'RL', i havent managed it yet but im getting there.
btw, Knights of Dark Renown, David Gemmel right?

Thanks people, I have been trying to have a bit more balance between RL and models this week, good to send time with the new baby while she is relatively simple to take care of!

Oh and Jelleb123, its definitely a Dreadknight

And yes, Its a David Gemmel reference Reiko, havn't read it in a while and want to pick it up to get some more modeling ideas, I do remember a wizard with three brass warhounds so will be doing a rune priest with three robotic cyber wolves at some point.

Off to do barbie puzzles with my daughter!