Gitsplitta wrote:
@CL: I would be happy to do that, but I'm so far backed up in my trades that I can't in good conscience accept any more at this point. I'm such a slow painter that it just takes me forever to get anything done.
ok no worries, if you get it cleared send a pm my way.
I don't know about you Gits but I have long ago given up trying to pop landraiders, and my guard army has 6 lascannons and 3 battle cannons! Its just not worth the wasted shots, they are far better used on smaller transports and termie units. I tend to slam a chimera full of multimeltas into an LR's face and try and stall it. Lets face it, people are always going to put some killer unit/character in a LR and holding it in the middle of the table turns it from a threat and obsession for you into a source of frustration for them ....when it works of course....
Problem is the landraider was the only model on the table, everything else was in reserve or in the land raider. It rolled right up and deposited the super character in terminator arm and variable attacks (but usually 10 or so) which wiped out a squad a turn (two combats), then charged the next squad, wiped that out and so on.
I never got a chance to shoot at anything save the LR.
Yeah, no problem... it's not like anyone is going to specialize vs. my little quarter of our team.
MoTF (stock)
Iron Clad (stock) - pod
5 Sternguard w/ combi-meltas & PF - pod
2 tac squads in LC+TLPlas razorbacks w/ power weapons
Rifleman dread (stock) - pod
MoTF, sternguard and Iron Clad pod in on turn 1, causing major problems in one small area of the board (potentially 6 melta shots at two targets, plus a TLplas pistol or flamer & 3 storm bolters). I could I suppose, give the srg a power sword & melta bombs and save 5 points but gain initiative, but the PF gives me and advantage if I'm facing a big critter of some sort or a vehicle. While in the rear, dread and razorbacks provide supporting fire until it's time to run for objectives. Last pod comes down empty.
Kind of a brutally simple 1-2 punch. I've been running my regular mantis warriors like this (without the razorbacks of course) and it works pretty darn well. Trick is to not sacrifice your podding troops foolishly... pick something that's isolated, or hit him on a flank where he's not well supported and you can bring all your strength (which is considerable) to bear on it. At the least it usually manages to derail their battle plan for several turns and in some cases you can execute a crippling blow on turn 1. Even if you can't get into a good "killing blow" position, it effectively allows you to delay your deployment until after his first move, which at least for me is a big advantage (deployment is my weakest stage of the game).
Neat thing for you guys of course is you get to see me struggle through 3 converted pods, two Mk-1 razorbacks and the iron clad, not to mention 10 green marines and all 5 sternguard.
Now if I had 150 more points I could cause some real chaos...
The other interesting thing about yesterday's game is that we played on what my opponent called an "Adepticon table", which is a standard table with 4 or 5 scraggly little terrain pieces on it, so there is very little cover and effectively nothing blocking LOS, which is quite different that what we usually play on at the FLGS or I play on at home.
One of the biggest complaints from the from last years tournament was the lack of terrain that blocked LOS. Unless you get on one of the themed boards which is then almost over crowded.
Gitsplitta wrote:
The other interesting thing about yesterday's game is that we played on what my opponent called an "Adepticon table", which is a standard table with 4 or 5 scraggly little terrain pieces on it, so there is very little cover and effectively nothing blocking LOS, which is quite different that what we usually play on at the FLGS or I play on at home.
Ugh! We play with more terrain as well, I can't decide if less terrain would help my guard to zapp stuff from range or a lack of cover would leave them too exposed. TBH I am the last person to be talking about tactics....I generally just thump my infantry platoon in the biggest piece of terrain I can find, flank them with my tanks and hope to get the first turn
I'm sure I have read about it before but why do you bring the last Pod down empty? I am eventually going to play with my Sabres of GK and I am interested in the reasoning.
Why not use deathwind drop pods to cause some fairly cheap area denial?
Or use a few rhino's as mobile terrain.
I usually max out my SW with melta goodies, i used to like plasmas, but after consistently having them all blow up in the first 2 turns put me off. Its gack when you cause more casualties to your own troops than the opposition do.
Having seen your list i am now curious as to what havoc a 10 man wolfguard squad could wreak if drop pod delivered with combi-meltas ...... hmmm.
Vitruvian XVII wrote:@BH: Im pretty sure the empty pod is just so the clad and sterns can both come in on turn 1...
That's it exactly. When you take pods, half of them (rounding up) come down in turn 1, so you always take pods in odd numbers so you control the arrival of your troops the best. I don't want those autocannons wasted in a pod until god knows when, so I just put him on the table and then drop the pod whenever. It's just an extra kill point to give away so the longer it stays aloft the better.
@dantay
Why not use deathwind drop pods to cause some fairly cheap area denial?
No points... this is a 100 pt list and already cut to the bone.
Or use a few rhino's as mobile terrain.
I need the long-range firepower that the razorbacks provide, these are just rhinos with big guns!
I've had similar experiences with plasmas... no plasma-armed Mantis Warrior ever survives a battle, and usually dies on turn 1 or 2. Besides, my sternguard are made to take out heavy armor as they'll be podding into the midst of the opposition. My earlier version of this list had combi-plasmas, but they were useless as they never got to fire at anything save the land raider (which the couldn't hurt).
@Vitruvian: Thanks... I'll have a lot of practice with it long before the big tourney in Chicago, so we'll see how it works. I'll finish the ven dread and sternguard first, then probably practice like crazy with my air brush (assuming it actually arrives this time) before tackling the pods.
I'm currently working up my first combi-meltas made with the umbra pattern bolters. Should have something to show by tonight or tomorrow.
I only have one pod so far so I guess it will come down when I want it...man its going to be weird to play with troops that do more than sit in a static gun line and hope not to melt under fire
Here is the first Sternguard with combi-melta. He is unique as he's a very old beakie melta gunner but in a great pose. So I took an umbra pattern bolter, cut it up and glued it above the melta, added my sniper barrel made out of copper rod & brass tubing. I moved the clip to the side & added a scope (also hand made on the other side).
Barrel and scope are very easy to make. Still some dressing up to and and cleaning up of rather lousy green stuffing... but I think it'll work as an easy first go.
I think this will look much better when painted, I just left it bare for the photos so you could see all the component parts. The only really tricky bit is that the old boters are just about the same width as the sniper barrel, so I invariably blow out a wall drilling the hole. Little green stuff fixes it up just fine. (It's really messy in the pic but I'll clean that up presently).
The rest will actually be individually constructed weapons. I'm mostly done with one, as soon as I finish it up I'll post the results.
Well... modern (post crusade) Mantis Warriors for one... using the chapterhouse pads and blackhands heads and jump packs.
Also...
2 LS Storms Swamp Scouts (just for fun) HtH scouts for storms Scout bikes using the old RT era SM jet bikes modern MoTF vanguard assault squad(s) Inquisitorial Rhino for GMS marines wider variety of sternguard, perhaps 2 units ultimately chapter master other miscellaneous characters command squad
And I'll have to re-paint 3 land speeders and 3 dreadnoughts.
OH, and two terminator squads.
That enough for you?
Alrighty then...
These next photos are of what I expect to be my standard combimelta for this list. It has 4 parts...
1. Umbra pattern bolter (original beakie, trimmed) 2. Chapterhouse combiweapon melta add-on. 3. Scope from a sniper rifle. 4. Home made barrel.
So here's the final shot for the evening. both guns with their new owners. Guy on the right will be my Sternguard sergeant. He's probably going to get a makeover before it's all over... new head, new legs, right arm needs to be repositioned, Imperial bling, etc.
Actually I thought about that wolfshadow... don't know why I put them facing backwards. I guess the clips would normally be curving forward wouldn't they?
I agree, was just about to mention spinning the magazine around, it will look a bit like the clip from a ww2 sten gun, it looks much better that way than for example top mounting the mag or it would look a bit otky.
Also will stop it looking like half a crossbow
Very nice conversionns though, i particularly like the side mounted scope, looks cool and unique, can imagine the shell casing shooting straight up into the air
That was my thought... just too lazy to try and make the shell ejection port.
I think I'll work on the basing tutorial today. When I'm done I'll post it in the appropriate section of the blog, but will make a not of it here so anyone interested can check it out.
The combi-melta's look pretty sweet. I think the first one looks better than the second though. Although I think you need to turn the clip around the other way on the bolter part of the Combi-Melta's IMHO.
I'm looking forwards to seeing all of the new items you will be painting (and the basing guide which will be very helpful for my planned 40k Slann army).
Hey GS, thanks for stoppin' in. The clips are already turned around, did that this morning. Unfortunately that first figure is a one-of-a-kind in my collection so I can't repeat it.
First time builds are always a little sketchy. Let me make the next combi-melta and see if my execution isn't a little better. Working with the umbra pattern bolters is very difficult as they are quite small when compared with the modern counterparts, really limits what you can do with them, however I may experiment with other variants. I look at combi-weapons as very off-the-cuff constructs... with rare exception, most are just two weapons slapped together with the marine equivalent of chewing gum and duct tape, probably custom ordered from the chapters tech marines... so each would have it's own unique look based on the skill and preferences if the tech who built it. So I am by no means confined to making each one look identical.
... especially since in the midst of rebellion, these Mantis Warriors would have been cut off from their normal lines of Imperial support & would have needed to "make due" with what they had on hand, scavenge or capture.
As to the tutorial: I have 10 photos uploaded already and I haven't really gotten past the first step. Crazy thing is it's a stupid simple process, but when you're trying to document everything well enough for a novice... the photos tend to multiply. Hope to have it done by day's end though.
I do like the second one as well, I just had a preference for the first. I'm sure that what ever variants you make, they will look cool.
Well the tutorial will be usefull for me no matter what, although I do understand what you mean about making/demonstrating tutorials. I volunteered to teach my younger brother's friends how to paint to a "table-top" standard and I was surprised at how many steps I take in painting a "simple" model.
I do like the profile of the CH Combimelta bit. Did You magnetize yours to swap it out with plasma? Does Chapterhouse let you order just the melta bits?
Edit: What diameter of Brass tubing are you using for the bolter barrel?
Would make more sense if the shell ejects down especially if they are sniper veterans....dont want a shell flyin through the air to give you away and it works if the shooter is a lefty just like the P-90 the shell ejects down at a forward angle so it doesnt get in the way of ambidextrous/left handed shooters (ends rant) the combi weapons look amazing though!!!
dantay_xv wrote:I am gutted thayt your army got hammered by the csm, its not ana rmy i have ever played against.... i bet the feel no pain was a b***h to deal with. As for me i beat my friends DE 9 kill points to 8 woohaaa!!
Sorry for not answering you earlier dantay... Meh, I really wasn't bothered by it at all, just a little frustrated that I'd mis-calculated my build so badly. It was a very useful game in that it really helped me re-design my list in what I think is a much more favorable direction. Won't know until I play-test that one of course, but there's a lot of painting to do before I can even think about that.
Congrats on your win, I got to watch an assaulty mixed chaos marine army fight a new DE army yesterday afternoon. Very interesting...
Gathering Storm wrote:
Well the tutorial will be usefull for me no matter what, although I do understand what you mean about making/demonstrating tutorials. I volunteered to teach my younger brother's friends how to paint to a "table-top" standard and I was surprised at how many steps I take in painting a "simple" model.
Yeah, when you've been at this a while you tend to forget how much of your technique you've "internalized". I used to fight with various medieval weapons with a re-creation society and it never ceased to amaze me that when was teaching a new person or giving a class how I actually had to think through my rather unusual approach to combat in order to present it in a logical fashion. It also amazed me that my fighting always got better there-after because I was conscious of my process and was less lazy when out on the field.
wolfshadow wrote:
I do like the profile of the CH Combimelta bit. Did You magnetize yours to swap it out with plasma? Does Chapterhouse let you order just the melta bits?
Not with these, but I may try it on the next model.
What diameter of Brass tubing are you using for the bolter barrel?
My wire gauge says 0.064" The suppressors are a little thin when compared with the GW ones because the walls of the brass tubes are not as thick. You might be able to find a tube from one of the plastic companies that will fit over the barrel but have a thicker wall & a closer look to the original.
@skotter: Thanks! They'll look better when I get some paint on 'em.
Basing Tutorial update: done with step 6, now on to static grass, shrubbery and tall grass!
Lol, yes Polari, pinging the shells down the way would make sense.... just as i posted the comment i ws giggling at the thought of the shell casing flying in the air like a little exclamation mmark at the tinkling sound as it bounced off the snipers helmet. Maybe the sniper puts a little bag over the eexit port to catch the shells hehehe.
I seriously do like the sniper conversion work though.... i am lazy and used vindicare assassin rifle or IG sniper rifles on my scouts, although i do want to convert the IG rifles.
Most combi weapons are valued relics, but I do like the look of the MW's weapons being held together with prayers and duct tape and it really fits the aesthetiic. Seeing these models makes me really wish that i could find all my old RT models.
@Ice: Thank you my friend, this is the *only* model that I've painted so far that I can take to Adepticon... pretty good start though, eh?
@polari: Thanks! Yeah, it's a weird thing about my painting process that often things look pretty crappy until right near the very end where a do a couple of tricks and "whammo", everything sorts out. It's more evident when I paint my orks, but to some degree it's the same for all my figures.
@wolfshadow: Thank you! A labor of love to be sure.
@monkeytroll: Thanks and yeah... I couldn't pass up the chance for a Tranquility vet shot. Makes me want to do a lot of sternguard...
@Ramos: I'm very flattered you think so. Considering how good your marines are I'll take that as high praise.
@A Black Ram: I'm just a paintin' stiff like you! You spend 3 months building and painting a figure and yours will be at least as good... if not better!
@Commander Cain: Thanks for both! Getting excited about really making some progress on my boys here. Now that I have a deadline and Thing 1 is pretty much on his own, I'm positioned to really bring these guys to life again. Will need your continued support and ideas to make it happen though, so keep those comments & suggestions coming!
Next up: converting that sternguard sergeant into something worthy to lead the rest of da boyz (oops, slipped into Gitsplitta mode there). OH, and pray that the airbrush actually arrives this time so I can begin work on all the vehicles that I have to paint. Kind of exciting to have a pic on the Gallery side-bar again... been quite a while since anything I did merited that much attention. Oh, and if you want to see something cool... there's a nurgle dread up on there right now that is just phenominal... and I'm not usually interested in nurgle stuff... but Wow! Go check it out, vote on it, make a comment. it'll be worth your effort.
Gits! Just to pile on some more kudos! That dread is excellent. The contrast works extremely well, I had thought to begin with that it would really just melt all the detail together like often happens with the IF dreads. Masterfully done, no doubt due to a very large amount of work and huge amount of hours put in. Well done sir!
The combi's are nice, however are you sure you want one with the scope on the side? It kind reduces the functionality of the scope somewhat (given they are atmospherical light dependant). Having said that it looks positively 'pimpin'!
IHEARTLARGEBLASTTEMPLATES wrote:Wow that is awesome an awesome base for your dred
Thanks HLT! I've just about got all the photos for the "Basing the Gitsplitta Way" tutorial edited and uploaded. Once they're done I'll get the tutorial written and you too will be able to make a base like this in your sleep (it's hard to describe, but very easy to do).
The hugging talk I'm going to ignore for now. You guys have to buy me a drink first...
1 week without Internet access and I have 4 pages to catch up on! Still... wings are looking great - making me feel inferior about the Stormboyz Nobz ones now... Dread and group shot are looking awesome - I can't wait to get to that point (though with Orks) myself. What airbrush are you getting? You will need to keep us informed of your experience with it - an airbrush is next on my list when I return to the UK - especially after finishing reading the FW Modelling Masterclass book... (and having no less than 5 Trukks to finish...)
After much deliberation and advice from the dakka community, I decided on a "Air Pro Tools PS900 Dual Action Airbrush", which had been recommended by several dakkaites as having the best qualities of to top-o-the-line airbrush at a middle-of -the-road price. However, I've had difficulty getting it. My first order never came. Luckily I ordered through Amazon so I got my money back. New order is due some time this week. We shall see....
Oh and.. welcome back Arakasi. I have missed your frequent updates on Da Dark Angelz blog...
Crazy idea Gitsplitta - but.... Have you ever thought of using the Mantis Warriors as a "counts as" Blood Angel army? My reason for thinking this, they make use of Librarians like the Blood Angels AND the warriors succumb to a heightened sense (simliar to the Black Rage). The heightened sense occurs when they become engrossed in close combat. It makes them hyper fast with tunnel vision and the transformation is irreversible. They act with a prescience (could justify it as FNP).
may i suggest that due too your wish for a lot of sternguard make a pedro kanto count as. his fluff suits the mantis warriors and it would be a tactical very wise. but love the dread and love too see you basing tute. for now my new dark eldar are on a black marmer laptop skin.
kaiservonhugal wrote:Crazy idea Gitsplitta - but.... Have you ever thought of using the Mantis Warriors as a "counts as" Blood Angel army? My reason for thinking this, they make use of Librarians like the Blood Angels AND the warriors succumb to a heightened sense (simliar to the Black Rage). The heightened sense occurs when they become engrossed in close combat. It makes them hyper fast with tunnel vision and the transformation is irreversible. They act with a prescience (could justify it as FNP).
Not crazy at all kaiservonhugal, and something that has been discussed and debated since the beginning of this blog. I guess that becoming a Blood Angels successor chapter opens up a lot of options and does jive with the innuendo in one of the BL stories. At the same time however it closes a *lot* of options that were consistent with my own ideas of the chapter after 20-some years of playing it & thinking about it & wondering what a 100 year crusade into the maelstrom (post Badab War) would do to it. Plus let's face it... Goto, is just simply not a good enough author to make me feel compelled to jump on his band-wagon. He's not disastrously bad... but even a literary simp like me could see that he did not handle the trial of the Mantis Warriors particularly well.
@TGG & Sageheart: Thanks! Wait 'till a get a full squad around him!
Sageheart wrote:
how did you do the grass?
Finishing the basing tutorial is my next project. Photos are all taken and about 2/3 are editied and uploaded. Hope to make some more progress today. Though it's all "behind the scenes" until the tutorial is complete of course.
it wont let me commenttttt
That's odd... there are a couple of comments up so perhaps if you tried again after a new log-on. In any case I already have your comments... and thanks!
fatty wrote:
may i suggest that due too your wish for a lot of sternguard make a pedro kanto count as. his fluff suits the mantis warriors and it would be a tactical very wise. but love the dread and love too see you basing tute. for now my new dark eldar are on a black marmer laptop skin.
LOL! Already have the figure painted in yellow with the base wash done... just haven't had the time to finish him up properly. New dark eldar models are pretty sweet to be sure.
@Santobell: Thank you sir! It's always nice to turn something out that people respond to. Makes the hours (days, weeks, months) of torturous effort worth while.
Something Pyriel- said to me (along with some of the earlier comments got me thinking of a fun list to work on once I get past this Adepticon list. Now I don't have a codex or anything in front of me so I'm winging it... but here goes.
HQ: Pedro Kantor (runs with close support sternguard) HQ: MoTF (either runs with close support sternguard in pod, or hangs back w/ shooty vets to give them some anti-assault capability & keep rifleman in good repair) Elite: Sternguard in pod with close support focus (combi-meltas, PF on srg), Kantor will join them (scoring unit) Elite: Sternguard with long range shooty focus (2 ML), has pod but will deploy on table as normal (scoring unit) Troop: Scouts w/ teleport homer (made with my RT era marine jet bikes) Troop: Scout w/ teleport homer (made with my RT era marine jet bikes) FA: Scout bikers w/ homing beacon FA: LS Storm FA: LS Storm Hvy: Ven Dread w/ twin auto cannons, runs with shooty sternguard & MoTF, had pod but deploys on table Hvy: Iron Clad in pod Hvy: Dread in pod (could be anything, some really fun model)
With 5 pods, the close support sternguard, Pedro and 2 dreads drop without scatter on turn 1 the scout bike squad (which infiltrated on & scout moved into position) while shooty T-vets and rifleman dread provide long-range fire support. Flesh out the list with a deep striking terminator squad, assault or Vanguard Squad (would have to drop a LS Storm for this) or sniper scouts. Insanely expensive elite army, but God-allmighty would it look cool, especially if all the marine elements were painted as Tranquility Vets (save the scouting elements of course) and the vanguard. If deep striking troops are not taken, you could drop the teleport homers from the scouts & save some points.
Wonder if I can do all that in a 2500 pt 'Aard-Boyz legal army. This kind of list just "feels" right for the Mantis Warriors.
Thoughts? Maybe not on it's viability as an army... but would you like to see it on the table?
I would love to see this army on the table, but a thing to note: Pedro is great not only cuz he lets sternguard become scoring, he is also great due to his +1 attack bubble. This makes him useful for being around assault units. I played a game against ultramarines, where he used a count as pedro in a Land raider with assault termies and termie chaplain. They dropped out of the raider assaulted my blob squad, keeping pedro out of the unit standing near combat with the land raider blocking any form of attack on him. This way I couldn't get to him, but he could make the assault termies (who get to reroll due to the chaplain) insanely good. They tore through that 50 man blob squad as if it was cutting grass.
On that note I would say maybe add a assaulty unit for pedro to go with instead of drop sternguard vets with meltas who usually tend to be suicide units for the most part. Maybe drop pod a vanguard squad with pedro and no JP, or drop a honor guard squad. A termie squad cant deep strike with pedro i think and you may not be keen on a land raider but it could work out well.
i also don't trust scout bikes with homing beacons, I've been trying them with my DoABA army, they aren't flying, they just get shot apart since I have little else on the field for the enemy to focus his/her gunpower upon. Your list is different so it may not be as much of an issue since that rifleman dred, MoTF, and ML stern are scarier then some scout bikes.
I hope that wasn't too much on my thoughts of how viable it is.
I would love to see all those models made, and if i played against your list I think it would be a fun battle!!!
Vitruvian XVII wrote:It looks good, but arent scout bikes FA??
Yes they are... my bad. So I'd have to go to two and one... Probably two LS Storms to 1 Scout Bike squad. If I really wanted the Vanguard I'd go down to 1 & 1.
Sageheart wrote:I would love to see this army on the table, but a thing to note: Pedro is great not only cuz he lets sternguard become scoring, he is also great due to his +1 attack bubble. This makes him useful for being around assault units. I played a game against ultramarines, where he used a count as pedro in a Land raider with assault termies and termie chaplain. They dropped out of the raider assaulted my blob squad, keeping pedro out of the unit standing near combat with the land raider blocking any form of attack on him. This way I couldn't get to him, but he could make the assault termies (who get to reroll due to the chaplain) insanely good. They tore through that 50 man blob squad as if it was cutting grass.
Hmmm food for thought there.
Sageheart wrote:On that note I would say maybe add a assaulty unit for pedro to go with instead of drop sternguard vets with meltas who usually tend to be suicide units for the most part. Maybe drop pod a vanguard squad with pedro and no JP, or drop a honor guard squad. A termie squad cant deep strike with pedro i think and you may not be keen on a land raider but it could work out well.
never dawned on me to do a vanguard squad in a pod without jump packs. Problem is that it's an insane amount of points to spend on a squad that can get shot up before it can assault (which is the whole point of the Van). But something to think about.
Sageheart wrote:I also don't trust scout bikes with homing beacons, I've been trying them with my DoABA army, they aren't flying, they just get shot apart since I have little else on the field for the enemy to focus his/her gunpower upon. Your list is different so it may not be as much of an issue since that rifleman dred, MoTF, and ML stern are scarier then some scout bikes.
This whole army is about synergy and disparate units combining their abilities to augment each others strengths and support the weaknesses (what's the modern military term... combined arms?). It's also about delivering an overwhelming force at a single point of attack on turn 1. You've got 3, highly mobile units of scouts (bike squad, two LS Storms), each of which can infiltrate and get their scout move to nearly any place on the board (up to a point) before the game even starts, and each carrying a tool for either pods, deep strikers or terminators to drop on without error. I can run all three in one group, delivering 13-15 scouts, 2 multi-meltas and 3-5 grenade launchers to a single point on the board, to be joined by 3 pods with a full squad of sternguard, one or two characters and two dreadnoughts... that's on turn one. The big weakness of podding things in is that they can't assault, so have to suck up fire for a turn. With this approach however, all those scouts in the Storms and the bikes *can* assault the turn the pods arrive, or at least get in the way... so not only will my main units get their initial shots.. but they'll be protected from assault by the scouts (at least for that first turn).
On turn two then, my elites are free to act as they will, and the beacons/homers on any surviving scout units can act as loci to bring my reserves (assault squads or termies) directly to the heart of the battle. (whenever they arrive of course) I think if this strategy was well executed.. it could be overwhelmingly devastating. Definitely more useful against another elite army and better if you have first move... but still... spectacular in victory or defeat. I have used a dumbed down version of this tactic against my eldest at home and when it works... the game is over by turn two as I've done so much damage that he never recovers. Granted, having it work against a 10-year-old is not the same as it working against a seasoned adult, but he's not dumb either, so it suggests to me that the tactic can work if executed properly. He has figured out how to defend himself against it... but it took several exposures to the tactic for him to sort it out.
Anyway... that's my theory, unfortunately I don't have most of the key models yet built or painted (pods, bikes or LS Storms) so I can't really test it properly. Pods are high on my list to build and paint though, so getting those done will get me well on my way.
Sageheart wrote: hope that wasn't too much on my thoughts of how viable it is. I would love to see all those models made, and if i played against your list I think it would be a fun battle!!!
Not at all Sage. What kind of doofus would I be to ask for opinions & then not take them?
Oh, I fixed the original list and some of the narrative to align with FOC reality...
if your list is gonna be anything the dp list i went up against with my tau you wont have any problems....2 dreads and njall with grey hunters on turn 1 turn 2 ragnar blackmane with grey hunter a 3rd grey hunter squad and a 3rd dread -_- it was not pretty to my tau
Well, it's definitely going to be a sink or swim list. Either I'll match up well or I won't... but either way the games will be short and brutally fun!
I love the idea, don't get me wrong. I think, as you said, it could be devestating if it pans out, I just see it also as relaying on a few homing beacons that can be targetted and knockedout. maybe have a ton of scout units, getting some in LS storms and a few just on the ground hiding out in cover with a ML or HB and if the other groups die they too can hand out some homing beacons. I may have to try out your idea myself. If you have enough units on the field the enemy does have to divide its fire which could allow a good number of homing beacons to survive allowing your tactic to work well!
vanguard are expensive, I would maybe try a few layouts, a small troop with wound allocation, so a storm shield, one or two powers, and a pf, so it doesn't suck up too many points but it can still do great in close combat. or i would treat it as a Assault squad and make a full ten man squad, with maybe 2 pf, and 2 pw or stormshields then combat squad it when it exits the drop pod so it forces enemy to divide their fire. At the same time it is an expensive unit, and I don't know how good they are drop poding I just think pedro should have some sort of assaulty squad since you really dont want your sternguard in combat (where their special ammo is void) and you want to work off of pedro's add attack bubble since you are paying for it in points and it can be argued to be his best trait. maybe just a normal assault squad without JP, they can be assualty and cheap in points, or two tactical squads around him, and thou they arent really combat focused they can utalize the bubble a ton more then the sternguard. You really don't want sternguard in combat, they aren't bad in combat, just i see them as having much more focused options that can really harass the enemy.
another idea may be dev squads with flamers, I forget if they could do that or not, I was pretty sure they used to, but maybe not anymore. I haven't played generic marines in a while. But that could be a nasty anti-hoard unit, 4 flamers, a PF, some extra heads and pedro could be a good unit. and it would be a fun one too I think.
I hope my comments help, I'm not the best tactic player but I'm learning. I still needa figure out how to make a viable DoA army that just can be nasty instead of now where its kinda nasty. i may try out your homing beacon idea with my BA.
Dont' worry about it Sage, I appreciate the ability to bounce ideas off you. I'm not a great tactician either... just trying to find a way to win with my Mantis Warriors while staying true to my "vision" of them.
On a side note. A little baggie full of Mantis Warrior heads just arrived from New Zealand... now I wonder what I should do with those??
I like bouncing ideas about, its a fun sport. so if you have any, feel free to toss!! just not too hard, we can't be breaking any windows... I don't know about you but my college funds can't pay for much
Gitsplitta wrote:Dont' worry about it Sage, I appreciate the ability to bounce ideas off you. I'm not a great tactician either... just trying to find a way to win with my Mantis Warriors while staying true to my "vision" of them.
On a side note. A little baggie full of Mantis Warrior heads just arrived from New Zealand... now I wonder what I should do with those??
If your wonderin what to do with them Gits, I'd be intrested in marine swapping one of my Dark Mechanicus conversions for a MW with the cool new heads (and maybe cool wings ). I really want to have one of those BLACKHAND sculpts.
*chuckle* Yes, well... at least a couple of them. Ice will get the prototype.
IHEARTLARGEBLASTTEMPLATES wrote:Sweet a tutorial? looking forward to it! thanks for the help!
My pleasure. Rest should be up tonight or tomorrow night.
wolfshadow wrote: Heads+MOAR Combi-Meltas= win.
Unfortunately the sternguard are based exclusively on Mk VI armor. The heads and pads are strictly for Mark VII & VIII armored troops... i.e. those that have been reequipped after their crusade into the maelstrom. Mostly assalut, devs, characters, etc. & at least 1 tac squad eventually.
Gathering Storm wrote:If your wonderin what to do with them Gits, I'd be intrested in marine swapping one of my Dark Mechanicus conversions for a MW with the cool new heads (and maybe cool wings ). I really want to have one of those BLACKHAND sculpts.
Sure GS, going to be a wait as I have a lot of promised trades already & I don't really want to take on more until I clear my slate a bit... but yes, absolutely. I should have added some winks to that post... I really DO know what I'm going to do with them... :-)
First post in thread after lurking about in it for ages.
Great army man, so happy you found the mantis bitz to fit with your minis.
I´m honoured to have them up on your little plastic marines
Thanks my friend. It will be a delight to showcase your skills in the Mantis Warriors Penitent army that develops from this point onwards.
I suspect that a lot of my GMS trading partners have been waiting for me to get the bits in (your pads, Blackhand's heads) before pushing for the trade... so I expect I'll be plenty busy and that you'll get to see your handiwork quite frequently from this point on. All I'm really missing is the Japanese weaponry I was hoping to use. I did get a shipment in from one company. Nice stuff but much too small to properly accompany a GW figure where all the weapons (especially the HtH weapons) are anime-scale. I have one more order wandering it's way across the pond... we'll see what they look like before I give up and start trying to make my own. Luckily, neither was very expensive so if they don't work out I haven't lost much.
Oh and thanks for coming out into the light... really, it doesn't burn.
@ Git. If you cant find the weapons, have you thought about talking to Chapterhouse or one of the other bitz crews about making some? I dont think you would be the only person interested in some 'vibro-Katanas'. *Cough* me*Cough*
I'm already indebted enough to the good folks at Chapterhouse for sticking with me this long. God only knows if they'll actually sell any of those pads to anyone else. Much as I would love to see some design & size appropriate katanas & naginatas... I think my good will with them is probably used up. (Actually a clever sculptor would just make naginatas that literally looked like a katana on the end of a pole (which is not far from the truth) that way you'd only have to make one mold and the buyer could just cut them down to make the katana if that's what they wanted.) wait... did I just say that out loud??
Gitsplitta wrote:Subltle as a heart-attack wolfshadow....
I'm already indebted enough to the good folks at Chapterhouse for sticking with me this long. God only knows if they'll actually sell any of those pads to anyone else. Much as I would love to see some design & size appropriate katanas & naginatas... I think my good will with them is probably used up. (Actually a clever sculptor would just make naginatas that literally looked like a katana on the end of a pole (which is not far from the truth) that way you'd only have to make one mold and the buyer could just cut them down to make the katana if that's what they wanted.) wait... did I just say that out loud??
Who is as subtle as a heart attack?
I've been bugging a couple of the bitz companies to extend their range of weapons.
The 2 that I think would be really good sellers: Japanese stuff (Naginata, Katana, Dai-Katana, Wakizashi... Samurai pattern PA Helmets and shoulderpads...., and some appropreatly sized Kopeshs for the 1K Sons players out there.
Samurai pattern 40k helmets would be astounding... support them with just weapons and I bet a whole new market would open up. Easy for me to say though... it's not my family's rent on the line.
Whilst Samurai themed marine stuff would be most excellent, I don't wish to see any soon as that would mean I would probably drop everything else and start work on the long-dreamt of Jade Lotus chapter that I've been planning since, well probably since around the time you started your first Mantis Warriors
Gathering Storm wrote:If your wonderin what to do with them Gits, I'd be intrested in marine swapping one of my Dark Mechanicus conversions for a MW with the cool new heads (and maybe cool wings ). I really want to have one of those BLACKHAND sculpts.
Sure GS, going to be a wait as I have a lot of promised trades already & I don't really want to take on more until I clear my slate a bit... but yes, absolutely. I should have added some winks to that post... I really DO know what I'm going to do with them... :-)
you know how many times I have read almost these exact words from you git! what do you get yourself into!
Yes, yes... but I promised to do some trades after the Dread was done, so I'll be doing Ice's marine and an ork I owe somebody... can't remember who at the moment... *sigh*... it all just runs together in a continuous blur.
Gitsplitta wrote:Samurai pattern 40k helmets would be astounding...
Was working on this before I started the 40Skaven, not simple as I first thought, the idea would be to get hold of some of those grotesque masks people use for bloodpact armies and combine them with a layered SM helmet, I also found that SM armour is VERY different to samurai armour so a lot of work goes into changing the shape of the shoulderpads etc...
...this is not me stating in any way shape or form that I will start producing samurai marines! was just experimenting is all
I have every confidence in you Blackhand... if anyone can do it, you can. Though I don't expect you'd need to produce the entire armor to fill the need... helmets, power weapons, back banners and shoulder pads (at most... you could probably get away with must the helmets and weapons) would do the trick for most folks. Then you could produce them in little samurai upgrade kits, enough in each to upgrade 1 marine. Then make another really spiffy helm or two for commanders and you'd be all set!
Man of your skills should be able to do all that by Easter maybe... after you finish the Mantis Warriors of course... *grin*
Ok, probably shouldn't post this but I need to share....poured the mould for the Mantis wings.....total whitewash :(
The strips I used for the "vanes" on the masters were literally a tenth of a millimeter proud of the wing but it was enough for the silicone to get in, when I pulled them out of the mould they tore off and basically wrecked the masters.
Despite a whole lot of very thin silicon where I didn't want it I thought that a few casts would clean up the mould (ripping out any bits of silicone I needed gone)
So I tried a cast.
Not great, I popped as many bubbles as I could then lay a piece of plasticard over the mould to flatten out the resin and make the flash as thin as possible. This actually worked, the resin came of it fine and the flash was minimal...but the wings are so damn thin that the few bubbles I didn't find went right through the wings,
So I will give it a few more casts and see if I can get the hang of the mould, if not I may have to go back to the drawingboard and build a version 3 wing with thicker plasticard.
Don't sweat it Blackhand, I appreciate everything you're doing... I just hope it works out so all your effort isn't wasted. Could you post a pic of one of the failed castings? I know it's not something you're excited about but I think it would be quite useful for those of us who are experimenting or considering casting to see. You can often learn more from your failures than the successes.
I have a question for those of you who are young and hip and blog savvy and all that.
What the heck does "moar" mean?? I see it all the time & I don't get it. (I understand what "more" means of course but I don't get the misspelling.) It's usually issued in a one or two word exclamatory statement so I'm thinking it actually refers to other words that would make an ineligible sentence?
A meme (pronounced /ˈmiːm/, rhyming with "cream"[1]) is a postulated unit of cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena. (The word is a blend of "gene" and the Greek word μιμητισμός ([mɪmetɪsmos]) for "something imitated".)[2] Supporters of the concept regard memes as cultural analogues to genes, in that they self-replicate and respond to selective pressures.[3]
Thanks WM (and GS)... that's an awfully formal sounding definition for what is essentially a squidgy idea who's definition changes based on the whims of it's users.
I've never heard moar till dakka dakka, and even then I don't believe I have ever used it. I don't really get the point of it, if i wanted to say more louder I would put it in caps or place an explanation point next to it....
well git about the katana i know a way. it takes a bit of sprue a piece of sanding paper and a lot of patience. ik know a chap who did this for a samurai goblin army.
I hear it alot in the chats of the online game i play n my usual reaction is to start typing in spanish.....until someone starts typing back in spanish and the limit of my spanish is quickly exhausted lol
Yggdrasil wrote:So awesome, I can't help but share this piece of awesomness with you (just be sure to replace every "Barney Stinson" with "Gitsplitta"!)
@fatty: That's a good idea. I'd been pondering how to scratch-build my own katanas, but I didn't think about using a sprue as a blank. I could also hammer one out of brass wire, that might be a bit more durable than plastic.
@Polari: Meh, it's just me being clueless... people can spell however they'd like!
@Fifty: I LOLed again... and then I think if that whole production with "Gitsplitta" inserted and I LOL even more... too funny!
I will get a pic up tonight (hopefully) of the first cast, I will also have a go at a cast using talc powder, something I have never needed to use before but may be necessary in a mould this thin.
If this goes well, all good, but if not I will pick up some thicker plasticard and try a V3 wing, possibly with the "power vanes" glued down with plastic glue instead of superglue so that the bond is harder and closer and will not allow the silicon to get under it (I really thought I had them glued down well!)
Hey Blackhand, can you get ahold of soap stone down there? We used to make (pewter) molds out of soap stone, but we'd keep the powder that came off of them while we were sanding the slabs flat... it makes an outstanding mold-release agent.
Nope, it's rediculously easy. I've got a dozen molds that I made years ago just lying around in the basement. The trick is to get a nice, uniform, clean piece of stone that doesn't have any occlusions or dense streaks running through it as they can make carving detail much more difficult or result in little chunks of the mold getting blown out, ruining the cast.
I made a hat band for my dad's birthday once. Made a mold of an arrowhead from scratch while he waited, we cast the pieces together right there in the garage & I took the cooled mounts, cleaned them up and mounted them for him on a leather band... Best present I ever got him (he says) as I did the whole thing from scratch, custom made, right before his eyes. He still wears that hat.
That's why I'd thought about soapstone casting in pewter for the wings earlier on... it's not that difficult and with a nice hot mold you can cast some pretty finely detailed (and thin) stuff. Trick is (as with all metal casting) to be smart about how the piece/mold is designed so the shape works with you toward a successful casting & not against you. Unfortunately I've never done (cold) resin casting before so I don't know the dynamics enough to provide Blackhand with any useful ideas. He's the pro on that subject.
@BBL: sure it would... take a look in my gallery... look at the picture of my original (dark green) dread, then of the newly painted green dread, then the yellow dread. No comparison, even from the newer green to the yellow. Read, practice, learn, practice, ask questions, practice. I've watched nearly everyone in the GMS get significantly better over the last few months, including both you and I. So don't worry how your old dread compares with my new one... just make sure that your next dread is better than the last. Do that every time and you'll be using Golden Demons for door-stops in no time at all!
@weety: Yeah, did that too. Awfully hard to find a big enough piece of cuttlefish bone to do anything interesting & they're really fragile. Doesn't take much rough handling to have them crumble in your hands. Think I'll stick with the soapstone.
What I neglected to mention about the soapstone is that doing a 2-sided mold in soapstone is more complex a process than a simple 1 sided mold. So a proper wing would require registration points (pins) in the stone so that you could get everything aligned properly.
I have used talc powder and it works fine, it just has never been necassary before, I hope it helps a nit with this mould, as for using soapstone and metal it would mean having to work outside as I don't have a garage, the fun of the resin is I can do all my casting in front of the computer watching downloaded movies and stuff
Automatically Appended Next Post: Found this list of Badab war blogs , thought it might be useful as for you to mine some ideas from for your adepticon army
And... my attempt to re-pose the right leg into a more upright position (all the beakie legs are crouching). Now you know why guys like Blackhand and Pyriel- at Chapterhouse do all my greens.... my sculpting skills suck!
wolfshadow wrote:I would have justused a plastic Marine leg set.
Yeah, but the point of this army is to be as close to RT as possible. I only used the more modern beakie head because I needed the "neck" to give some elevation to the head and the original heads were made to be set into the armor. This figure was hunched and skrunched as it was... so I'm trying to work out of that with the build.
Ah the old "One second I'm squatting to go to the loo" Pose RT plastic SM mini's
gotta love the thought put into them ha ha I did love the old Missile launcher though a nice bit of gear that was!
I have 5 of those. Lucky for me the modern crouching devastator legs are made in the RT style (same legs that are on my kneeling sternguard figures), so I'll be replacing the original legs with those (which gives the model a bit of extra height and mass, important with the old RTs when you want them on the table with modern minis). The project above kind of got away from me. Originally I just intended to switch out the bolt pistol for the combi-melta... but the more I looked at him the less I liked everything else. I probably just should have built him up from a beakie body... but once I decide to use a figure I get kind of stubborn about giving up.
Don't know if you guys noticed but I changed the design on the combi-melta slightly. I moved the clip (after it fell off when I dropped the fig) from the side to underneath. It looses that sten-like look, but this is closer to how GW handles the modern combi-weapons and I must admit... I like it better. My big issue with this design is where to have a figure holding the gun in two hands (as opposed to one) put their second hand. Particularly if I make a switchable model where their might be a plasma gun on the bottom.
But... might not bother at this point. I only need a few of these guys for the army so it might not be worth the extra hassle. We'll see how the next build goes.
TBH, I prefer the side... That way it doest look like you have a bolder feed running through the mechanicals of a meltagun. But ti still looks better than average.
I have 53 more pages to go through before I post anything pertinent, but I will say after reading the 1st page and this page I'm really excited to see someone working with a really obscure chapter (Legion, really) with really old Space Marine miniatures.
Hey Skalk, welcome! It's kind of a chatty blog... more of a conversation that a "lookie what I did" kind of place. Once you get caught up, please join us!
@monkeytroll: That's right... I'm just experimenting. The clip on this one is pinned in, but I'll do the side clip on the next one so we can see the side-by-side.
(Actually a clever sculptor would just make naginatas that literally looked like a katana on the end of a pole (which is not far from the truth) that way you'd only have to make one mold and the buyer could just cut them down to make the katana if that's what they wanted.) wait... did I just say that out loud??
Subtle like a freight train I hear ya dude, will think about it for sure.
*thinking done* Drop me a PM about this when you get the chance and we might think up something.
Now keep up kicking a** with those nice mantis marines!
monkeytroll wrote:Oh, you're supposed to put them back together after cutting them up? That's where I've been going wrong.
That made me chuckle monkeytroll.
I like what your doing with the beakie Gits. I've also ended up hacking marines to peices in order to re-assemble them (in particular my BT marshall who I've made 4 head swaps, 2 arm swaps, 2 weapon swaps and a Torso and Leg swap on since construction, good times ). The new look on the combi-melta is quite cool, but... I prefered the original design.
The sheer level of community, helpfulness, and sense of dedication toward reaching the goal in this thread is a credit to the hobby. Every time I check there is such a load of new information and updates that I take ages reading through and it never ceases to put a smile on my face.
Really hope the wings work out, Blackhand, you deserve a great outcome after all this effort.
Gathering Storm wrote:I guess your right Gits, this thread really is a "chatty" blog.
You bring up a good point GS... perhaps it would be useful to have a "best of" post to catch the new folks up on where the chapter stands so far. Coudn't hurt and all those pages for a few photos is a lot of work.
So without more adieu, here is... Celebrating 2092 posts with "the best of the Mantis Warriors"... in order of completion...
First, the original artwork...
My Mantis Warriors of 20 years ago...
The first new marine... still the only "green" painted. This was before I'd decided that the Mk-6 armor would be limited to the Tranquility vets (also before I'd decided to comimission new shoulder pads & Blackhand decided to help out with new helmets and packs). Still, I suspect he'll find a permanent home in my command squad or the like.
The first Tranquility Sniper (sternguard).
The first re-painted dreadnought:
Experimental vanguard figure... melted before it could be completed but still a working prototype:
(Actually a clever sculptor would just make naginatas that literally looked like a katana on the end of a pole (which is not far from the truth) that way you'd only have to make one mold and the buyer could just cut them down to make the katana if that's what they wanted.) wait... did I just say that out loud??
a naginata is infact a katana on a pole. they used it in the war too cut the legs from horses and when your pole arm broke you had still a sword. but only a little sword (because you where a warrior) the knight had a really big sword called a nodachi (who where over 2 meters). this is aall way before the samurai.
maybe a cool idea for bikers a nodachi (which is one of the few japanese stabbing swords)
liking the green mw, the silencer on the bolt pistol is cool aswell. nice to see the marine coming together, keep practicing those gs skills, im sure youll come good in the end
Thanks guys. Whalemusic is actually the creator of the bolt pistol guy you all like. I liked him too. That's why WM is going to help me build all the tacticals for my tourney army. They're very plain figures, but I'm confident he can give them flair and style. ... you know... 'cause that's what he does!
I thought it was a useful idea to get all my progress in one post, just so folks could see the whole thing in one go and putting things in context. I put a link at the very beginning of page one, so that newcomers don't have to wade though 56 pages of blog to get caught up. Hopefully, people will find it useful. Will probably do this occasionally whenever the body of work justifies it.
And I'm going to move my current WIP from the summary thread to here... where it's not quite so out-of-place..
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Just a bit of progress tonight on the legs. Things are pinned but not glued.
I very much like your tainted mantis warrior, a very dynamiic pose, and it looks like he is not too upset at killing his former brothers in arms judging by the helmet on the base.
I also like the spiky bitz on his legs, they may not look too out of place on you assault marines. I also like the terminator legs on your experimental assault marine.
If yo went with fatty's idea of the naginata/ nodachi.... the old white scars biker models had a spear wielding loon who may suit your needs, I think I ended up giving it to one of my bloodclaws.
Overall, nice job... its great to see the army and your modelling/ painting skills develop as the project progresses.
Legs and now glued in place (after some additional hip socket grinding).
Body of power fist side has been built up a bit with GS.
Power fist arm is attached.
GS'd top of cabling that had been damaged by head removal.
Dropped gun, scope is now MIA. However, I found my stash of scopes which are actually the model I wanted on this gun all along, so now I don't have to remove the old one!
A riddle for you...
Q: It is plain to see that Sergeant Peltius is destined for greater things. Why is this true?
Hint: It has nothing to do with his missing head. Hint: There is a (slight) clue in the way the question is asked.
Better Hint:
Spoiler:
It related to a certain series of hard-liquor TV adds that have aired in the US (at least) over the last couple of years.
give up??
The answer is...
Spoiler:
Because he's got a little "Captain" in him! (i.e. the pose looks like the figure in the Captain Morgan's Rum adds)
O.K., I never said it was a good riddle...
More to the point.
I need a really good bare head. The space between the shoulders is too small for a helmeted head, so even tough it pains me as I believe a marine not wearing his helmet is a sign of abject stupidity... I have no choice.
I see figures on dakka all the time with these awesome, very expressive heads... I want one of those for my sergeant. Please look through your memories and see if you can think of something. Does not have to be GW... as long as I can order it separately, can use what it comes with readily, or get it from a bits merchant... I'm good with it. I will not buy a $45 box of figures for a head though... that's out.
Thanks all!
Gits
OH, dantay... no, he's not upset at all. Faithless b-stards betrayed him and their allies the Tiger Claws. He's a Red Corsair now, though he wears his original colors as he believes he is still a "true" Mantis Warrior. And they all have spikey bits on their legs and arms... part of the insect look.
Haha, the Riddler you are not sir, however you do have an excellent ability to entertain and inspire so I guess it's not all bad.
Checking back in quickly, the guys are looking great. The group shot of the 5 marines and dread was beautiful, they really have come on leaps and bounds.
How far will you be extending the tranquillity scheme through the army? Just a squad or two or are you aiming for a whole sub-division within the army?
Blackhand, bad luck with the casting chap, hope you are able to fix it as the wings were looking very fine indeed. Best of luck.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I believe we may have a difference of opinion on the riddle Sage .
The dread looks lovely, absolutely great! I think you've made the right choice to leave it banner-less. I personally think banners ruin the dreadnaughts look...
These are really nice, i prefer the tranquility marines to your normal one.
I really need to get a parallel thread going with my CF, arrrgh, so little time so many things going on!
Yes i had noticed, the forearms of the tranquility vets, I have actually had to go over the pics several times as each time i notice something i missed before. Did you use the old knife blades as mandibles?
Oh those are excellent MW, I even went to MaxMini's site but missed those.
Believe it or not I raided my one box of tactical marines and found (with some modification) a head that works quite well. He's all assembled and drying now. Still a little bit of green stuffing to do, but even most of that is done.
Hope to have a pic of the essentially completed figure tomorrow. Once he's built... it's off to marine swap land for a couple of quick figs before getting back to the sternguard!
looks cool, my only nitpic is the leg that is posed on the rock, where you have sculpted it makes the thigh look bowed, needs straightening out. otherwise awesome
I don't think so... straighten the top of the thigh plate and flare the bottom cuff a bit so it's straight in profile too. I just have to cleanly define the edge of the armor plate which might be a bit tricky. I think I can figure it out though.
This show is really funny, easy to get even for non-English-native-speakers, if only for the character of Barney Stinson, who's "supposedly" the hero's best friend. This guy's awesome.
One of the most famous quotes :
Fifty wrote:
Yggdrasil wrote:So awesome, I can't help but share this piece of awesomness with you (just be sure to replace every "Barney Stinson" with "Gitsplitta"!)
Like button.
MOD ALERT : I demand that this post by Flinty be remembered when the Like Button feature is released !!! (for that's probably the only one I'll ever get )
Back on topic:
See, you claim to be sluggish hobby-wise, but your preview of all the awesome work you've done denies it! Also, thanks for the basing tutorial, it's really nice...
here is the Mantis idea I was throwing around at you before Git I went ahead and built/painted him today (no base yet) he's some kind of Sgt with the Mantis talons I guess they would be power weapons or just to look cool.
He turned out pretty good seeing as he was the first model I have ever painted that much green on before
hope he's useful I'll send him along with the heavy once I get the bits from you oh and this guy needs a Mantis pad badly feel free to include one for the poor guy... cheers!
Someone please explain to my how Santobell can scratch-build and paint a Mantis Warrior *with* an "arm of the Mantis" in ONE FREAKIN' DAY when it takes me weeks of fiddling to get one done!!
Go Ahead.... I'm waiting...... explain it!!
*sheesh*
...
Great job on the Mantis Santobell! Great job on the hinged chainsword. They're pretty straight-forward but you got to align them just right or they look crappy. Funny that you picked the exact same head that I just picked for my sternguard sergeant.
I'll send you a couple of pads along with the dev. I'm not sure about the arms on top... but I don't hate them either... will have to stare at them a while and see if they grow on me.
Well, if nothing else this thread and encouraged two other people to make really nifty Mantis Warriors! (Santobell & Blackhand). To be honest, I've never seen a Mantis Warrior that I didn't make before... it's pretty cool! :-)
Is the green ok? and um what did you think of said mantis arms??
Oh and I have won a few speed paint and speed conversion contests back in the day, but it's mostly an over active imagination and some freakish Frankenstein gene I think!
Automatically Appended Next Post: I'm a big fan of my chain knife I do that on lots of Assault guys instead of a crappy bayonet
Green is fine, but very different from the way I approach mine. I start (I think) with snot green (whatever the really vibrant GW green is) washed with dilute thrakka green wash. Then blend up from snot green through the lighter shades, with the most extreme highlights in scorpion green.
Well, what I call the "Arm of the Mantis" are the hinged chain swords... as those is my vanguard's primary weapon & are mounted in a preying mantis-like configuration. As I mentioned in my last post, I'm not quite sure about the mantis arms above his head. They aren't bad... but I look at them as more ornamental than a type of functional weapon. Have to think about it for a bit & see if they grow on me.
It's just weird seeing something coming out of a SM pack and it not be chaos, originally they were more compressed but I opened them out with a hair dryer (yes I'm too cheap to buy a heat gun)
the other way I mounted them was out form the vents similar to the original wing position but it looked to much like failed wings.
He's a bit brighter in real life too I don't have a flash on my phone cam so I'm using a desk lamp to fill light the photo area and it's a yellowy bulb.
I started with Narloc then Thrakka Narloc/Scorpion re washed with a watered down thrakka and highlighted with sunburst yella.
I have been asked by various and sundry, exactly how much of my army I intend to do in the Tranquility pattern, if not all. I admit I have wondered as I appear to have a knack for it & it is rather singular. While I've seen pictures of a very few other MW armies/figures out there, but never another tranquility figure. I'm not saying none exist... but I've never seen them.
Here are my thoughts on the Tranquility camo: There are no official descriptions of the Tranquility Campaign, only the one reference under the picture in the RT rule book. The way I've come to look at it is that whatever happened at Tranquility, whatever the Mantis Warriors who were there did... it was a defining moment in chapter history. Tranquility veterans are known and respected throughout the chapter and indeed the Astartes as a whole for the service they gave on that campaign. So while at the time (hundreds of years ago) that pattern was indeed camouflage, it is now a badge of honor... a service medal of sorts associating that marine with the greatest moment in chapter history. This also brings them into alignment with the current view that a marine has no need to hide.
So, my current thought is to limit the tranquility pattern to veteran or special units, i.e. actual surviving veterans of the Tranquility Campaign, leaving the rest of the army in the original Mantis heraldry. Considering my current project, the 1000 pt army for Adepticon... I'd say that aside from the venerable dread (which in this list is not venerable as I can't afford the upgrade) and the sternguard... other candidates for tranquility status are the MoTF and the Iron Clad. The tacticals, razorbacks and scouts will be in normal Mantis colors. While I have always envisioned a "tranquility detachment"... I think that an entire army made up of tranquility vets... while stunning in some ways... would lose their visual impact and uniqueness without standard pattern Mantis Warriors with which to be held in comparison. So both from an aesthetic *and* a fluff perspective... I'd like to have both aspects represented in my army.
Those are my thoughts at present, but I welcome and will consider opinions to the contrary. - Gits
I think its a good idea, for one people will always stop and ask about them giving you a reason to talk about the background and also as you are thinking will mark them out as veterans as opposed to normal MW marines. I myself keep looking back at that WD and have to keep stopping myself going to do Raptors in blizzard suits. need to finish my Deathwing first lol. Its all your fault i lack motivation!
Awsome git but i while i was looking trough the new dark eldar book instead of watching the movie me and my girl where watching. i read the fluff of Drazhar andd how matis like he was. then i looked at the model and i thoughed he maybe git could use the pose for an honour guard.
this is the pose
I agree with your idea to seperate the vets and the reg green marines. I would, over time, maybe create two detachments, both playable armies on their own which you can use to cobble up various army lists by mixing the two groups. That way you have your "detachment" of vets, and a vast amount of green marines, and you can also create an army with a mixture!
I love the fluffiness, and the thought that you've put into this.
I really do like the idea of squad seargents in Tranquility colors. Really shows the veteran status of the members wearing the colors. If you get around to doing Termies, maybe they should be in Tranquuility camo as well.
It wouldn't just be Vets that were involved though surely, and you must also remember that not all who attain veterancy will have participated in said campaign.
That is unless the scheme has become a symbolic way of showing veterancy, displaying courage in the highest ideals of the service and such.
Lots of very interesting ideas to consider... thanks everyone.
I must admit to still being a bit unsure about all of this, and I have time to make a decision on it so I don't have to decide right now... but fairly soon I'll have to figure something out. I have considered the terminator issue, but they're so far down the line that I can safely put them off for quite a while.
After thinking about this now for a couple of weeks and reading your thoughts on the matter... I think this is where I stand at the moment... partially for fluff reasons, and in part, for modeling reasons (the two are interconnected for me, so decisions about one alter the status of the other). Considering the history that I have developed for the chapter after their involvement in the Badab Rebellion, my premise is that the 100-year crusade against the Red Corsairs into the Maelstrom with no recruits and no re-supply, depleted the chapter to near extinction. Indeed the only reason they were called back from their crusade was not that they had successfully wiped out the Corsairs, but that they were on the brink of obliteration and the only way to save the chapter was to "forgive" them and call them back.
During 100 years of constant warfare in hostile territory with no support, the fundamental combat strategy employed by the Mantis Warriors changed, relying most heavily on stealth and assault elements and dropping encumbering clumsy equipment like wheeled or tracked vehicles. During this process, the elements most used (particularly the assault elements) would have taken horrendous casualties and would have had to be replaced from within, primarily the tactical squads. As time when on, the high-attrition elements of the force continued to drain personnel from the tactical squads until the chapter essentially hollowed out, with nearly no tactical squads left as everything was funneled to the assault elements.
As every battle took place in the heart of hostile territory and the chapter (to survive) had to adopt hit-and-run tactics to survive, they not only lost men but would lose equipment as there would be many cases when they would not be able to recover armor or machinery after a battles end.
So, what I'm getting at here is that due to the unique circumstances of the sternguard as long-range snipers and marines well versed in stealth (not in the rules, but in my fluff), they would have been in a good position to survive these battles relatively unscathed and in-tact. Dreadnoughts, because of their invaluable position as the only functioning heavy armor left to the chapter would also have survived or been a high enough priority to necessitate retrieval at all costs. The tranquility vets scattered throughout the rest of the chapter would have eventually matriculated forward into the assault elements and been largely lost. There may be one or two left here or there, or in a position of command, but I expect most of the surviving Tranquility Vets would have re-assigned into the sternguard to fulfill their service in this elite unit amongst their brothers.
This is also where the differences in armor come in. The tranquility vets all still wear their Mk-VI armor. The newer armor is what has been provided to the chapter since it's return from the crusade... so other elements will be wearing Mk-VII or VIII armor with the new shoulder pads, Blackhands helmets and the custom jump packs.
So, this is a long way of saying...
1. Tranquility Vets are actually only those men who served during that campaign.
2. There aren't many of them left.
3. They would be concentrated in the sternguard, dreadnought and command elements of the army.
4. They are limited to Mk-Vi armor.
Speaking of which... I think my build for the sergeant is done. I must say that I'm inordinately proud of him... even though he hasn't gotten a lot of comments. I've never completely dissected a figure so completely, added a bunch of extra bits (limbs), reconstructed him and had it turn out this well. There is also a lot (for me) of green stuffing used in ways I've never done before... so there's that too. Plus I just love the pose! Took this hunched over marine that looked like he'd been kicked in the nuts by an ogryn and have him standing proud and tall & looking like a commander of veterans.
Now that his build is done, I'm going to do a couple of marine swap projects... but luckily, one of them is a sternguard as well (though a different configuration that I usually run mine in... wonderful old figure though). So I'm going to cheat and paint all 3 sternguard at the same time! Yippie! Progress on my army AND a trade all at once!
Yes I agree with Yggs, it is a very nice model and pose, you pulled it together nicely.
I am assuming the spiky parts on the lgs are from chainswords?
Without being a numpty and opening a can of worms or being bludgeoned with some arms of the mantis. You put a lot of emphasis on stealth and assault..... have you considered using Shrike, as it sounds like his kind of thing?
Also scout master Stone, wouldnt he be in tranquility colours too?
@dante: Thanks to you too! Good points, let me address them:
- yes, spikey bits are from chainswords, and I'm going to need a million of them. So if any of you have a pile of chain weapons lying around of any sort, I'll buy them off of you. My vanguard alone will require 6 each, and that's if I do everything perfectly. Normal marines take 2 or one chaos sword to pull off.
- I have not... is he in the vanilla dex?
- Not necessarily. The entire chapter might not have participated in the action on tranquility, so he may have been assigned elsewhere. It would be a simple matter to assign him there fluff wise, but I don't think I want to put all my eggs in one basket (i.e. have every notable person in the chapter be a Tranquility vet)
Yes Captain Shrike is in Codex Space Marines, beside Lysander and Kor'sarro Khan. He is Raven Guard.
There was a guy in our flgs who would regularly use him and Calgar combined in a 1500 point game.... ouch.
It would be pricy (maybe too expensive) but Kantor for your sternguard and Shrike in your vanguard. I think Shrike gives you extra movement before the game starts or something.
I have a ton of chainswords as I never use them for my SW's. I much prefer axes.... will be happy to send them to you. Not sure how long it takes to send stuff from the UK though.
I understand what you are saying about Stone, just curious as in your fluff he was so passionate about atoning for stuff, however veterans will have operated all over not just tranquility, so thats fine
I'd already purchased on gotten the base coat on Kantor as he was a pretty obvious selection, hadn't thought about the others though... I must admit to questioning the validity of two chapter masters in the same army. I wouldn't mind fielding one or the other... but two is pretty beardy. The Kantor/Shrike combination sounds pretty potent. Perhaps I should look at the other Ultra special characters and see if there isn't something (besides a second chapter master) that I can nick for my uses.
UK to here isn't bad... 7-10 days. It's a long term project for me so there's no big hurry. I have a small surplus I'm working through at the moment thanks to other dakkaites. I'll PM you. ... and thanks!
Shrike is in Mk6 armour (or atleast the helmet) but I am sure you could use an assault marine leader as a 'counts-as'
As for 2 chapter masters, Shrike is actually a company Captain (Raven Guard 3rd Company) but yes it is very beardy and very cheeky, but nothing in the rules to prevent it. However it is a lot of points for 2 men.
Cool, look forward to the pm. Might be end of next week before I can post as I will not be home for a few days.
I really like the sarge. He looks really cool and commanding.
On the note of chainswords...
I could provide you with 20+ chaos space marine chainswords. I would be willing to give them to you without charge if I can swap a Dark Mechanicus CSM for one of your cool Mantis Warriors.
the fluff is great git and the pose on the seargeant is amazing...with shrike he gives the fleet rule to the whole force while his unit can infiltrate as well...add on to his master crafted rending lightnings claws
I'll try and think of a few chainswords along the Reaver of Tears Swap... But I won't promise for I may simply have forgotten about your need by the time I finish it & be home to ship it!
I also support you in your "not every character should be a Tranquility Vet" path, it'd lower their overall awesomeness... Better be sparse & deadly, than numerous & un-original!
i would like the Tranquility Vets being rare, but I don't really like how an army looks with just a scarce splattering of other colored units. I've always hated the chaplains being black, libbies being blue, and techpriests being red since it gave this one model a different color and idk just felt out of place in the army. I likked my heros to stand out due to capes, helmets, cool armor, interesting pose, etc.
So that was a bit of a tangent, I think the Tranquility vets should be like a detachment in the way a sisters of battle army can have an IG attachment. i would have the mass army be green, and then have another army in a sense of tranquility vets. This could be sternguard vets, two squads and some sort of HQ model, and maybe another unit or two. They would look rare, but also i feel like it would make the army look less like their was just a scattering of yellow models for some reason. In order for this to work you would need an army with a pretty well sized amount of marines to proportion the vets to green marines. I would say 1.5 more squads of green marines as they are of vets.
I think that would be a good way to split up the two groups and make it aware that they are scarce but also have a good little group of them so it didnt make the amry look so much as a bunch of green with yellow sprinkled in, and rather an army of green and yellow marines, the yellow are rarer..
does that make any sense, or too abstract an idea?
@dantay: Thanks for the info on Shrike... I'll probably experiment with a number of commanders when I get enough army built. Gotta love those force multiplier effects.
@GS: I'd love to, but I just cant. Now right now anyway. I have way too many trades "hanging" out there to take any more. Hang onto those swords and later on when I clear my que we can talk. Thanks though.
@CLion: I finally got some real color shapers... they made it much easier. And a read a little off-handed blurb in another thread that helped a lot, so yes, my GS skills are better now they they were even a couple of days ago. Still have a long way to go though.
@Fifty: The only problem with the IA books is that they are effectively nothing more than fandexes (sp?). If I have to ask permission to use it, I won't put it in the army. I will probably try the characters out in friendly games with my kids or friends, but if I can't use it in any tournament or game I want to, I'm not interested.
@Yggs: Thanks bud. When the time approaches I can remind you.
@Iamwalrus: Thanks! I feel the same way.
I've decided to do a tutorial on how to do the Tranquility Snipers (at least the painting), so I'll be taking pictures at each step. Thus I probably won't post every step here, but I will give you a WIP shot from time to time. At the moment, all three sternguard are primed, base-coated with yellow and washed with sepia. That's where the easy stuff ends. I'll post a shot when I'm done layering on the first of the yellows.
will you be adding those characters into your army fluff-wise. I know you arent writing a fiction blog like Ice-Angel and I, but fluff seems very important to your work with this army, it is one of the reasons why i love this blog, the closeness of fluff and modeling is artistically done! Will you be using those characters and the IA fluff to effect your army layout or what you build, I know you wont really use IA units that have rules cant use much, but you know what I mean?
Would love to see walk-thru on the tranquility snipers, I would mostly love to see the whole process, def the guns! Maybe rename your awesome basing topic into a tranquility sniper topic, since those bases really add a lot to the model, then post up various steps to the model as you go along, they are really great models!
also must say on a side not, i gotta be jealous about how bada**, awesome!, and chatty this blog is! i hope someday I can start one up, not many people can say they have a 57 page P$M blog of epic awesomeness that prob has around 20 pictures of your actual models haha
Ok, so I go on holiday for like 4 days...and you add 2 pages to your blog!!
And your sergeant ends up looking fricken cool!!!
And Santobell starts building Mantis Warriors!!!!
What the hell guys?
Well I'm over my shock, and disappointment that you can carry on without me, and I have to say again the sergeant's pose has really come out tops Gits, nice GS work!
And on the Tranquility Camo discussion, I know that there may not be too much info on the war itself but I can totally imagine a solar system with a white hot sun that bombards it's only life sustaining world with massive amounts solar radiation, resulting in vegetation that has evolved black chlorophyll rather than green. The Mantis warriors make landfall on a planet of yellow sand and black jungle and quickly realize that their usual chapter colours will stand out like a sore thumb and be detrimental to their war effort, and voila, the tranquility campaign scheme! I like to think of the sniper squads sitting in absolute stillness for hours, even days, till their prey moves within range then BAM! they strike! just like the Mantis they take their name from
Just a thought tho...
Oh and thanks for all the support with the Great Wing Debacle, I hope to have pics up in the next couple of days of the first cast and subsequent casts and we will see how they pan out...I will not give up dammit!!!
BLACKHAND wrote:Ok, so I go on holiday for like 4 days...and you add 2 pages to your blog!!
And your sergeant ends up looking fricken cool!!!
And Santobell starts building Mantis Warriors!!!!
What the hell guys?
Well I'm over my shock, and disappointment that you can carry on without me, and I have to say again the sergeant's pose has really come out tops Gits, nice GS work!
And on the Tranquility Camo discussion, I know that there may not be too much info on the war itself but I can totally imagine a solar system with a white hot sun that bombards it's only life sustaining world with massive amounts solar radiation, resulting in vegetation that has evolved black chlorophyll rather than green. The Mantis warriors make landfall on a planet of yellow sand and black jungle and quickly realize that their usual chapter colours will stand out like a sore thumb and be detrimental to their war effort, and voila, the tranquility campaign scheme! I like to think of the sniper squads sitting in absolute stillness for hours, even days, till their prey moves within range then BAM! they strike! just like the Mantis they take their name from
Just a thought tho...
Oh and thanks for all the support with the Great Wing Debacle, I hope to have pics up in the next couple of days of the first cast and subsequent casts and we will see how they pan out...I will not give up dammit!!!
Yes I built a Mantis warrior you got somthin to say bout that hmmm.... I think your right about the camo but you also have to remember that in RT every marine unit had night world camo, jungle camo etc. it seems they were more flexible in their colour choices back then, either way it's an excellent way of giving a style and background to an army with little written history to build from.
(gives me an idea for a conversion squad actually).
BLACKHAND wrote:
And on the Tranquility Camo discussion, I know that there may not be too much info on the war itself but I can totally imagine a solar system with a white hot sun that bombards it's only life sustaining world with massive amounts solar radiation, resulting in vegetation that has evolved black chlorophyll rather than green. The Mantis warriors make landfall on a planet of yellow sand and black jungle and quickly realize that their usual chapter colours will stand out like a sore thumb and be detrimental to their war effort, and voila, the tranquility campaign scheme! I like to think of the sniper squads sitting in absolute stillness for hours, even days, till their prey moves within range then BAM! they strike! just like the Mantis they take their name from
Just a thought tho...
I love this! this has forever taken over my view of the Tranquility Vets haha. Great description!
Gitsplitta wrote:@GS: I'd love to, but I just cant. Now right now anyway. I have way too many trades "hanging" out there to take any more. Hang onto those swords and later on when I clear my que we can talk. Thanks though.
Thats fine, I'll have even more chaos chainswords in a few weeks time.
Sageheart wrote:i would like the Tranquility Vets being rare, but I don't really like how an army looks with just a scarce splattering of other colored units. I've always hated the chaplains being black, libbies being blue, and techpriests being red since it gave this one model a different color and idk just felt out of place in the army. I likked my heros to stand out due to capes, helmets, cool armor, interesting pose, etc.
So that was a bit of a tangent, I think the Tranquility vets should be like a detachment in the way a sisters of battle army can have an IG attachment. i would have the mass army be green, and then have another army in a sense of tranquility vets. This could be sternguard vets, two squads and some sort of HQ model, and maybe another unit or two. They would look rare, but also i feel like it would make the army look less like their was just a scattering of yellow models for some reason. In order for this to work you would need an army with a pretty well sized amount of marines to proportion the vets to green marines. I would say 1.5 more squads of green marines as they are of vets.
I think that would be a good way to split up the two groups and make it aware that they are scarce but also have a good little group of them so it didnt make the amry look so much as a bunch of green with yellow sprinkled in, and rather an army of green and yellow marines, the yellow are rarer..
does that make any sense, or too abstract an idea?
dude i like this idea. but that would mean there are still a lot of vets and that would go against Gits Fluff.
and Git may i say that your army has inspired me too make a Yellow Dark Eldar coven army. because everybody know that yellow is totally stealthy
@Sage: I'll be giving both IA-9 & 10 a good read to be sure. Anything that is good and consistent with my vision of the Mantis Warriors will be gleefully adopted. If I can figure out how to carry off any special characters they present within the context of normal 40k rules, I'll do that.
@Blackhand: Good to have you back buddy. Hope you enjoyed the vacay & got some mental down-time from all the "demands" of your 40k public. Thanks on the sergeant comments, getting the right tools helps, and it's funny how hearing something described in just the right way can make things "click". I like your scenario for Tranquility... kind of the way I envisioned that as well, which is why their aren't marine snipers throughout the astartes... there must have been something special about Tranquility that not only resulted in the camo but in the need to develop a full marine sniper. Perhaps it was an expeditionary force that got stranded on a hostile world and ended fighting a prolonged gorilla action for years (decades?) before the tides of war allowed the chapter to recover them. Something like that.
Stick to your guns on the wings... we're all waiting with great antici........ pation! (Rocky Horror reference there for you young pups)
@Santobell: Yep, that was back in the days when the game designers still had a slight grasp on reality.
@Gathering Storm: OK GS, sounds good!
@fatty: LOL! Love it! It's stealthy.... in the right environment... at night.... underground.
I'd just like to thank you for all the awsome inspiration you've given me for my Deathwatch Mantis Warrior and marines in general, and for the basing tute that I will be stealing for my Deathwatch too.
Thank you Mr Awsome. The song posted man pages back was so right.
Thanks Grimm, more than happy to be of service. And hope to continue to inspire... but that's easy with so many people contributing their ideas and talents.
The only oother reason or reasons for full marine snipers, is that the radiation would mess with the initiates/ scouts implants (zygotes?) and was rendering them pretty much useless. Only full marines with the full suite of implants and power armour could withstand it. The sniper marines then adopted camo to operate in advance of the mantis main force, as eyes and ears, plus to break the morale of the enemy with surgical strikes and assassinations.
Otherwise the enemy had superior firepower and the only great leveller was to use the sniper rifle for the extended range and killing power.
Sorry if this goes over all the stuff from before or is what gits outlined in the past.
Btwwd 246 poster of the land raider (atleast i think its that 1 or around there) the Imperial Fists repainted their landraiders black with yellow unit marking, in effect reversing their colours, due to fighting on a night world. So SM's in camo are still around (although around 9-10 years ago)
lots of very impressive and immaginative stuff with bags of character as usual . Really like your badab campaign colour scheme. would really like to see a bigger diorama of the planet as well . congrats on you ven dred
I saw those graven... I'm not sure. They almost look too "fairy-like" for a space marine. I think it's the pointed ends. Guess I'd have to see them on an actual marine pack to make a final judgement.
@neil101: Thanks! Unfortunately I am no good at building dioramas. Have tried on several occasions for model railroading and I'm just a disaster. I can build tiny diorama's well enough (60mm base or less) but scaling up just doesn't work for me. I was going to make a display base for the squad but that would be the high-plains/tall grass type of base & not really based on the tranquility pattern camo.
Hey Graven, I was just packin' up a pile of stuff to send to you... let me get you that Sanguinary pack & let's see what it's like on a proper framework.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Well, both kids are out of dutch at the moment so we celebrated our day off with a 40k game. It was fun, I put myself at the "suicide" spot in between the opposing armies expecting to get crushed but managed to eek out a win... which isn't actually what I wanted but the boys tied so at least there was no fighting.
After the game, I was putting away my scouts and for the several dozenth time noted how they were kind of a mish-mosh of halfway done figures. So in disgust... I set aside my sternguard and trade figures and took the evening to finish them up. They aren't fancy... crude tabletop at best... but at least I can field them now without feeling too awful about their appearance.
So here's the Mantis Warrior Scout Corps, complete with Darious Stone and a variety of heavy weapons. I love that old autocannon fig, so I use it like a heavy bolter. The scout with the ML is God-awful but it's the only one I've got at the moment so it'll have to do.
nice looking models. after i build my dark eldar coven i will dive into one of these RT era chapters. do you know a old almost forgotten chapter with lots of bikes? not white scars everybody knows them.
I don't recall any bike-centric chapters from back in the day... of course back then then there were actually very few chapters that were fleshed out in any real sense... Ultras, Wolves... couple of others but that's about it. I'd say the world is your oyster! Pick an old chapter and run with it!
O.K. I kid... well, sort of. It was a hastily conceived conversion many years ago. Doesn't look that bad in person, kind of a "woo-hoo we won" sort of a pose. I will at some point... build myself a new set of sergeants, but he'll do for now.
reviewed the pages from 56 on...becuase I severly lack the perseverance to read through every note. The covert ork in the mantis gear looks great! i love the idea and the bits went togehter well. I also wanted to pay some recognition to your scouts, as I think they are highly unused by most marine players and its admirable that you have so many in your force. The group photo of them really inspire me to collect them myself! I look foward to someday composing an army list with an all scout troop choice and a few spdr storms. Great work splitta!
Heys Gitz, wow loads to catch up on, first off off great idea with the tranquillity vets how only the servivors where the camo, and how they are not just sternguard but all ranks, that works well i think..
Second with the vanilla codex characters, shrike and kantor are obvious excellent characters but people tend to forget about Cato Sicarius.. now sicarius i use every game and personally think hes the best character in the game he offers the Army as a whole his leadership and can equip a tac squad with 1 of 4 bonus's.. look into him he rocks..
And lastly really great work on the sergeant, its really hard to chop up a marine and put him back together differently but to put one together from different kits well... its hard and you have pulled it off, and GS can really get tricky at times...
Ive got a couple more of my chapter finished will be posting pics tomoz bud, when i say finished i mean actually painted and finished..
Second from the left back row, nice plastic Scout he's from 2nd Ed right?
They look very nice altogether, my only comment would be that hero Sgt seems to have more shading/highlighting on his armor and stands out a bit
more than the rank and file was this deliberate?
@Element: Don't blame you for not wanting to plod though the whole blog. It's kind of a chatty thing which is why I put the note at the beginning of page 1 directing people to the summary on 56. The bug boy concept just kind of worked considering the person it's intended for (Arakasi and his Dark Angel emulating orks). I was none too sure how it was going to go together... originally I was looking at normal marine parts, but there was no way they were going to look decent on an ork frame, but when I bumped it up to terminator bits it all came together rather nicely. I like my scouts. They're very old figures... only two poses, all metal... but something about the group shot reminds me of the unit photos you sometimes see from WWII. They aren't very well painted... but I at least brought them up to a decent tabletop standard, did the lenses and basing so they should be more-or-less acceptable to field with the newer version of my army.
@jimmy: Thanks! And thanks for the tip on Cato... I'll definitely give him a close look. One of the advantages of doing the MW's out of the vanilla dex is that I've got a lot of options as far as named characters go... so I can experiment using the "counts as" rule to my heart's content. I hope the painting on the sergeant lives up to the build. I'll be looking forward to seeing what you've been working on. Feel free to mention it here when you've got them posted.
@Santobell: All of the scouts (with the exception of the Telion figure) are from a long way back. I'll be honest in saying I don't remember exactly when... but the last edition I played before my break was third, so they are at least that old. That is my "counts as" Telion figure, my scoutmaster Darius Stone. He is a newly painted figure and painted to my character standard using my "new" scheme for MW green, as opposed to the scouts which were painted a long time ago to a much lower standard (though I did a lot of "finishing" work on them lately). Eventually, I may update the green on their shoulder pads to match Stone's... but that's a project that can wait a while.
Is the scout you're talking about the guy with the missile launcher? I think he's the only plastic I have shown... I have about 4 or 5 others like him, one with a heavy bolter. They don't really fit in my scout force, so if you like him/them I'd trade them all to you for a marine for my Deathwatch squad painted in your colors. Just a thought.
Painting progress continues on the sternguard. I've got the first color up done on all 4 figs (my two w/ combi-meltas, Sages plasma & my Kantor fig (which is actually THE Kantor fig). Hope to get through the second round of color ups tonight.
OH.... Big News!! My airbrush arrived yesterday! Wooo-hooo! That opens the door to beginning work on my vehicles. I am breaking with tradition and actually *reading* the instruction manual. I know this puts at risk my status as an American male... but it's too much of an investment and too alien a piece of equipment to just plug in and run with. It even came with a little booklet with some simple things to practice before beginning on anything serious, which I am also reading through. I might fire it up this weekend and start working on the practice exercises... we shall see.
They are quite easy to set up actually. I used to use one to paint (real) guns and knives. Its all about air flow and keeping the correct distance from the thing you are painting. Id practice on some random storage bin lids before moving on to a real project.
fatty wrote:nice looking models. after i build my dark eldar coven i will dive into one of these RT era chapters. do you know a old almost forgotten chapter with lots of bikes? not white scars everybody knows them.
None of the Badab War chapters are particularly noted for being full of bikers, but most of them could work. The Raptors seem to be an obvious choice. The Fire Hawks are noted as being headstrong and preferring shock tactics, which fit bikers perfectly. If you're particularly brave, Minotaur Bikers would be another great choice. I'm going to be doing Lamenters bikers myself, although not set during the Badab War.
If you have a friend with IA9, borrow it and read about the chapters. The rules in it might be terrible but the fluff is good.
camo.... but then again why would you need a real gun with camo if you're not in the military.. wait... forgot this is America, everyone needs a painted gun git! its the American dream!
Actually, a lot of shotguns for Turkey hunting are done with camo... just assumed most of this was factory applied as I think it would be a tough bit to get something after market that would actually survive the riggers of the hunt. But I suppose they can make paint to survive just about anything.
Sorry, kind of a traditionalist myself when it comes to fire-arms... I think natural wood and blued steel.
fatty wrote:nice looking models. after i build my dark eldar coven i will dive into one of these RT era chapters. do you know a old almost forgotten chapter with lots of bikes? not white scars everybody knows them.
None of the Badab War chapters are particularly noted for being full of bikers, but most of them could work. The Raptors seem to be an obvious choice. The Fire Hawks are noted as being headstrong and preferring shock tactics, which fit bikers perfectly. If you're particularly brave, Minotaur Bikers would be another great choice. I'm going to be doing Lamenters bikers myself, although not set during the Badab War.
If you have a friend with IA9, borrow it and read about the chapters. The rules in it might be terrible but the fluff is good.
I have decided on a fluff build raven guard army with old skool models. i have posted a topic in the swap shop about it
on the topic of the american hunters and there camo they make me laugh. not bad intened but you get dressed up in all your cammo and then put on a bright orange vest so that other hunters dont shoot you i find it funny
The operating theory is that deer don't see blaze orange, however there is recent evidence to dispute that. My blaze orange actually has a camo pattern on it so it breaks up the outline of the "clear" vest in the middle of the "not clear" woods. Hasn't helped me much in the last couple of years though... I blame the vest!
well i dont go hunting that often. me living in the Netherlands we have too have a permit too go hunt and then you have too see a shrink too see if your a nutter and blablabla. luckly for me i got one of those things because of an intership at a rangers office. once there where too many boars whe got out too shoot them.
thanks gitsplitta for your summary on page 56...
i just scrolled in the recent threads page over your blog and read that line from you. i always wanted to read oyur blog but so many pages i wasn´t able to catch up on anymore. maybe one day i will look to the later pages...but for now i will stick to your blog on the following pages.
i love your very unique army concept. stealthy marines. that is something that just had to be done.
great it was done by your skill.
It seemed to me that the blog might be more attractive to new readers if they could cut to the chase and get all caught up in one post. Since this blog could go on ad-infinitum (or until lego needs to buy a new server just for my pics), I'll continue to make summary posts with links on the OP as we go. Even people who've been with me for a while might not have seen everything... so the summaries might even help them put everything in context.
To bad I missed the topics of camouflaged weapons. I dont know much about guns....but I find it strange that weapons intended for hunting animals are camouflaged. I must be the only one that doesnt realize wild animals train in Spetsnaz special operations....so having a camo gun is completely neccessary when tracking down a turkey Im not exactly sure why people hunt anyway...I thought we have progressed beyond that....cant we buy prepared turkeys in stores in this modern age? Im sure we have plenty of hunters and subscribers to the 2nd amendment in here just waiting to blast me for this post....but it just doesnt make sense to me is all
It's kind of the cultural thing to do out here. Aside from that though, it's a chance to spend several hours in the woods, by yourself, 15' up in a tree being as quiet and motionless as you possibly can. Forget the whole shooting things aspect... it's a wonderful experience & you'll see things you'd never see otherwise. The only deer I've ever shot had been hit by a car and was slowly dying... I just put her out of her misery. But I have also seen some wonderful things too. I've had young bucks prance around right below my stand, or fawns actually stick their noses into my blind wondering what was going on in there. Of course I didn't shoot any of those, but the experience was worth it's weight in gold.
huh, interesting, maybe someday I'll have to try it. I usually try to stay away from nature, when I when to college it was really an experience to deal with black skies, bug noises, and woods as far as the eye could see. Couldn't sleep for nights, I wanted to hear a police siren or something! But what you explained sounds beautiful, should look into it
Gitsplitta wrote:@Santobell: All of the scouts (with the exception of the Telion figure) are from a long way back. I'll be honest in saying I don't remember exactly when... but the last edition I played before my break was third, so they are at least that old. That is my "counts as" Telion figure, my scoutmaster Darius Stone. He is a newly painted figure and painted to my character standard using my "new" scheme for MW green, as opposed to the scouts which were painted a long time ago to a much lower standard (though I did a lot of "finishing" work on them lately). Eventually, I may update the green on their shoulder pads to match Stone's... but that's a project that can wait a while.
Is the scout you're talking about the guy with the missile launcher? I think he's the only plastic I have shown... I have about 4 or 5 others like him, one with a heavy bolter. They don't really fit in my scout force, so if you like him/them I'd trade them all to you for a marine for my Deathwatch squad painted in your colors. Just a thought.
Nah no need to send them I can't use scouts in the legion and yep they are form 2nd ed boxed set you got Orks and Bloodangels including those scouts.
I went ahead and did a Deathwatch guy anyway (caught me on a bored day).
here's some pics
Camera flash has kinda messed with the shading a bit but he's pretty nice in person.
A Deathwatch from the Lamenters Chaptor.
I'll send him along with the Mantis Marine once I get the shoulder pad etc.
as summarys go i will use that for my own blog, its the right thing to do to keep them fans coming back more easyly^^.
as for camo huntingweapons, well those nasty turkeys, deers and whatnot hvae learned their lessons and if they see any oblong black or shiny metallobject the run for their lives...
its a shame nature doen´t act the part its supposed to do...as for camping in the nature to admire it, yep do that, the more we learn from it the more we regain the respect we have lost so much for it in the run of civilization.
at santobel:
whats that mirror material? is it the kind of pics you usualy make? looks interesting.
I live in merrie englande, so only rich nobbs really hunt with guns as its expensive and you need land a hunting licence and a gun cabinet and an 'understanding' with the police. But when he was really poor a friend of mine hunted rabbits successfully with a high tension hand catapult (probably illegal I'm sure). Low tech weapon provideth rabbit stew... Now I think poverty and the price of meat are good reasons to hunt.
This show is really funny, easy to get even for non-English-native-speakers, if only for the character of Barney Stinson, who's "supposedly" the hero's best friend. This guy's awesome.
One of the most famous quotes :
Fifty wrote:
Yggdrasil wrote:So awesome, I can't help but share this piece of awesomness with you (just be sure to replace every "Barney Stinson" with "Gitsplitta"!)
Like button.
Like
MOD ALERT : I demand that this post by Flinty be remembered when the Like Button feature is released !!! (for that's probably the only one I'll ever get )
Back on topic:
See, you claim to be sluggish hobby-wise, but your preview of all the awesome work you've done denies it! Also, thanks for the basing tutorial, it's really nice...
in Holland its the same however in my intership I had the pleausure of hunting with some of those snobs of yours Crown Prins Willem Alexander of Holland and prins Henry i believe forgot his name. but yeah out in the nature its great you can see the landscapes.
he Git i Love Winscosine because they have a town where its against the law too curse while heaving intercourse its hillarious
Viktor von Domm wrote:@ santobel:whats that mirror material? is it the kind of pics you usualy make? looks interesting.
cheers mates, vik
The Reflective backdrop is a Photo light enhancer (that's what the guy at the store told me anyway) it's a flexible panel of mirror plastic with tiny domes all over it the idea behind it is you shoot light at it and instead of a reflection the light gets refracted and if you curve the surface you can take a single light source and have it shine light from many angles, it works better in theory but it's better than the normal light I can provide. I'm also using a desk lamp as the light source and it seems to remove the yellowing effect I normally get.
Yeah at the moment until I can do something more repeatable that's basically how the shots turn out I need to setup somewhere just for photo's but space is a premium in my household at the moment.
sound like a good find...how much had you pay for it? i´ve built me myself a lightbox... to date it is also used for stuffing odd ends of my curent project in, but generally it was a box for diapers and some white paper...wirks for me but when i start painting minis agaiun i will build sometjing better...
I love it when the blog kind of assumes it's own life without my input... really suggests the development of a community rather than just a "lookie what I did" blog (which would be boring).
@Santobell: Thank you, he's beautiful! He'll have a place of honor within my squad.
I sort of took the night off last night... had a nice spaghetti dinner with my family, bottle of wine, chatted with my wife, etc. After the wine... and then cognac... I didn't feel that I should be painting. However... I was not totally idle. My studio where all the modeling, gaming and painting happens has devolved into a complete disaster area. With the arrival of the air brush and the need to set up a spray booth... I decided to attack the problem directly and re-organize my space. I made good progress all things considered, but there is still much to do. I brought in a long folding table from the basement & set up next to my work bench. It will house a new site for my light box (which was long overdue) and a space to do the airbrushing. I have a lot of stuff to clean up, throw out and put away yet... but I'm hoping the newly organized work area will facilitate a more robust level of production on my part. I'll be tied up tonight with a cub scout meeting and more cleaning... but I hope to be back at the painting desk by Friday.
Is the scout you're talking about the guy with the missile launcher? I think he's the only plastic I have shown... I have about 4 or 5 others like him, one with a heavy bolter. They don't really fit in my scout force, so if you like him/them I'd trade them all to you for a marine for my Deathwatch squad painted in your colors. Just a thought.
I really like those missile launcher scouts, if you don't want them I would love to grab them from you, or one of them.
Sure Sage... I have the one in the photo with a ML & one of the same type with a unique heavy bolter (think it came with the scout unit). You're welcome to both if you'd like.
@ Vik - Cost me about 9 dollars Australian I bought two so 18 bucks no idea about the conversion rates.
@ Git - I still have a little highlighting to do on him but yeah he's turned out pretty good, I'll try and get some good pics of him and of my other stuff (Skave and Legion etc) this weekend after the game Vs Da Dark Angelz (which I just finished the board for oh and btw if you ever need a good cheap base for a board Paper War-games or P-Works boards are awesome the board looks amazing)! I have my camera and tripod now so it's just a matter of time before I get the shots right I'll re-post a better shot once I'm done with it all.
Oh and don't leave your blog for too long mate it takes on a life of it's own!
will have a look in a local phot - shop to see if this is buyable in germany at all.
at gitsplitta, i reorganize every once in a while. my workspace is very limited so everytime i start a new process i have to tidy up. and damn its always worth it, or rather deeply needed^^...i tend to spread my stuff around me and after my "shift" i have to step really carefull over everything...^^
Gitsplitta wrote:Sure Sage... I have the one in the photo with a ML & one of the same type with a unique heavy bolter (think it came with the scout unit). You're welcome to both if you'd like.
awesome! i would love them! want me to sned you another marine for them?
@Sage: You don't have to, but if there's a chapter other than your own that you'd like to try and paint just for fun, I'd welcome him into my Doomwatch squad. Anyway, I've got the scouts set aside for you, when I finish your Tranquilty marine I'll send them all along.
With all the talk of how I do my bases and tall grass & my completion of the basing tutorial... I thought I'd re-post an older pic. This is one of the objective markers I did for one of the boys as my son's birthday party last year. It is the tall grass thing taken to a ludicrous extreme and is meant to be kind of funny. At least I laugh at it every time I look at the photo. It does however... reinforce how good tall grass can be at hiding things...
No real updates from me... last couple nights have been busy, tonight I'm taking Thing 1 to the FLGS for kids gaming night and tomorrow opens our gun deer season so I'll be freezing my you-know-what off in the woods... at least near dawn and dusk, and on Sunday my father-in-law comes to dinner so I'll be smoking ribs all day. So... lacking any real progress I offer you a bit of contextual humor.
I will get back to work eventually... but life goes on & sometimes even 40k has to wait it's turn.
I'm gonna try my best. Actually the weather is still a bit warmer than normal, which normally would be bad for hunting but since I haven't seen a deer in 2 years it just means I'll be more comfortable while I sit in my tree stand! Last year I got sleeted on for 5 hours... not fun. Up side is I get to fire up my smoker and spend 6 hours lovingly babying 3 racks of ribs, to be rewarded by the grin on the face of my father-in-law who is one tough cookie when it comes to food. Any chance I have to make my wife's dad happy is one I'll take... just makes life easier.
Thought you guys would get a laugh out of this... my first attempt at using my airbrush.
The object is a home-made drop pod that is very dear to me as it was made by a friend who wanted to do me a favor for introducing him to 40k. He was virtually pennyless (I wasn't much better) so he found some plastic cups at a $1 store and some balsa wood... and shazam! Instant drop pod. Door is even hinged at bottom and works perfectly. Best of a a dreadnought fits perfectly on the inside *with* the doors closed. So NO JOKES!
However you can laugh all you want at my painting attempt. I practiced my spraying on a sheet of paper for a bit but got bored after a few minutes and decided to attack the model. It went OK... it was certainly very easy to handle. The door was supposed to be shaded black to white but I'd grabbed "black metallic" instead of black, so you see the results. The actual blending is harder than I thought. It's very easy to get thinner patches in the blend and a thicker pass farther along, totally screwing up the blending effect.... and the brush sputters/cuts out a bit from time to time which doesn't help matters. I don't know if it's a brush issue, a pressure issue (though I was running it within specs) or the fact that I didn't want to waste paint so there wasn't much in the reservoir. Alternately I just might not be giving the brush enough "gas" (i.e. opening the paint valve far enough) but then with subtle shading I don't want to be dumping paint on the model whole-sale. Still have to sort this out.
In any case... for a first attempt I'd have to say it went fine. I need a lot of practice, need to watch some vids and do the excercises that came with the brush... but I'm confident I'll at least get the basics down eventually. The pod isn't really supposed to be blue... I just needed a contrasting color to show off the gradient on the door. Now that I have the brush up-and-working I'll have to go get a lot more paint!
Brush was a snap to handle and clean up with Windex and water, which is good! I'd purchased a little Iwata cleaning station which basically looks like a small tea pot, but it has a brush rest, a hole to do your cleaning sprays into and a filter over the exhaust port to remove most of the odor. It worked like a charm, well worth the $25 or so that I spent on it.
One caveat is that I suspect you really fly through the paint using this technique.
gendoikari87 wrote:yes, yes you do. About half a pot for a single color for vehicles.
Big thing with Airbrushing is THINNING the paint. You get good coverage, with less volume. GWs foundation paints especially should be amenable to very significant thinning, with their over-pigmentation. Prob at least 1:1 with water-paint mix. If airbrishing, you might even want to use rubbing alcohol. Tamiya paints are very amenable to RA thinning. They also dry uber quick. Make sure you thin in a seperate container if using GW paints and rubbing alcohol as it can cause an odd reaction, or it did with the old GW paints from about 6-7 year ago.
Yeah, you should be using a LOT less paint with an airbrush to do the same thing. I think that Les guy said he can basecoat a marine with 3 drops of paint.
Well i can say im always enjoying the progress here, and reading the blos has been keeping me entertained during my tour overseas. To be completely honest, every time i see some of the new pictures i cant wait to get my hands on some Marines to work with while I am here.
I think LBursley has a tutorial for all his airbrush paints on his site, but I am not so sure as i have not been on his site since I left the states, since it is usually blocked.
I'm currently using Vallejo Air paints, which are supposed to be good right out of the bottle, though I have been adding a few drops of Liquitex airbrush medium to each to thin them out just a bit. The amount of paint I've been adding to the cup at any one time has been very small... probably no more than 8-10 drops. I think it's more my unfamiliarly with the technology and technique that's making me inefficient rather than a problem with the system itself.
I'll keep working on it, though right now I need to get back too those sternguard figures so I can get them into the "done" column. Couldn't help myself though... had to try out the new toy!
Glad you like the blog btempleO, drop by any time!
It was probably sputtring cause there was not enough paint in the jar..
Tricky things airbrush's, took me a good though times to get right flow...
I got so fed up with stripping the paint of the test model i almost gave up, best thing is look around for tutorials like youtube..
I am not going to lie though that is an excellent dreadnought drop pod. Some at my FLGS have told me that the idea was ridiculous, but continued to gripe and moan that the FW version costs so much.
Well, that was kind of primary motivator. Lee knew that I'd always wanted drop pods for my army and had all kinds of ideas on using them, but could never afford to buy them. So he looked at a pic of one and did his best to make me something similar. I've fielded them many times in games with friends since then and if anything people think they're pretty neat (which they are).
Unfortunately, a "major" like Adepticon has a higher standard of GWness so I've had to purchase some official pods, but these will still see duty as pods #4 & 5 in my larger, informal lists. Once I get my airbrushing sorted out I'll give them a good going over and see how nice I can make them look.
One of my buddies makes his killa kans out toilet paper tubes and pipe cleaners, or in another case he made a trukk that actually fell apart when it got a wreked result, and both of those were made out of cardboard, pipe cleaners and extra sprues. At the FLGS all the players like to see the "orky tech", and are even more amused when it actually "works".
well last year at the Fanetic (really the only big tournament around us except for the GT) there was this guy who made a push button on the top of his drop pod. when you pussed it the dors open very cool. the tournament this year is this sunday so i will be going too church (its located in an old church)
I'm going to modifying the doors on my pods to make the pod generally more playable, as well as making at look nicer. Guess I won't know how my proposed mods will work until I try them, but I have hopes that it will greatly improve one of the biggest issues I see with the model's playability on the tabletop.
Git, have you looked at any of the templates that are available for drop pods? Some of them, made with plasticard, or even strong cardboard look pretty damned GWish...
I hadn't wolf, but at the moment I already own 3 GW pods... that's enough for my immediate needs. Though I might look at the templates if I decide I want more.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Progress on the sternguard and Kantor. About a shade-and-a-half to go and the yellow will be finished.
hello giitsplitta,
one thing i forgott but got reminded by your latest pics...
i just love your silenced bolters. the look is so cool!!
have i slipped the part where you revealed how you made them?
always great entertainment when reading your blog,
Viktor von Domm wrote:hello giitsplitta, one thing i forgott but got reminded by your latest pics... i just love your silenced bolters. the look is so cool!! have i slipped the part where you revealed how you made them?
Thanks vik... you know after what... 60 pages??? ... there's just so much there it's easy to miss.
You have two options, I've used both.
1) Get some marine sniper rifles from a bits merchant, cut off the gun barrels and scopes and move them to the bolt gun. (I think it looks best if you remove the barrel of the bolter first, though I haven't always done this.)
2) Get some... can't remember... 0.065" (?) brass or copper wire (just take a sniper rifle to the hobby store with you and compare them until you find the right size) and some brass or plastic tubing that just fits over it. A $4.00 investment will net you all the rifle barrels and scopes you can stand. The scope mount is tricky. I've tried making it out of green stuff (the side-mount scope is done this way) but I think it would be easier to do it out of a little chunk of sprue with a hole drilled through it for the wire, then put the tubing "sleeves" front and back over that. If I get the system down-pat I'll do a little tutorial for them.
that would be cool, incidently after my post i surfed ebay and i got an saved seller who sells this item^^ and i saved that item weeks before... i would sometimes loos my head if it wasn´t atteched firmly^^...
thanks, and a tut is always nice, specially something from you...)greses the wheel shamlessly^^)
LOL Vik... I was where you are now 6 months ago. Next June you'll be the "old man" with all the neat ideas & people will be asking you for advice!
Right now I'm using brass tubing as the sleeve, it works fine but is thinner in the wall than the suppressors on the GW sniper rifle models. With the next batch of sternguard I'll be looking for a plastic sleeve that is closer to the original model in wall thickness. Once I get that sorted and get a better system for making the mount, I get a tutorial written up.
Why not buy some single strand cable a few mm thick that has a plastic outer sheath and then drill out the hole in the bolter like you would for pinning.
strip back a small amount of sheath then cut the length you want and fit it to the gun.
For more fun you could even try to pull the outer sheath forward so you have hole in the suppressor.
Just a thought.... the hard part would be keeping the cable straight.
....when it works of course....
just like the P-90 the shell ejects down at a forward angle so it doesnt get in the way of ambidextrous/left handed shooters (ends rant) the combi weapons look amazing though!!!
)
I dont know much about guns....but I find it strange that weapons intended for hunting animals are camouflaged. I must be the only one that doesnt realize wild animals train in Spetsnaz special operations....so having a camo gun is completely neccessary when tracking down a turkey 
