I'm upgrading my original Eye of Terror Cadian unit by making it fully mechanized.

The lists that I'm tossing around can be found in more appropriate areas of Dakka Dakka. If you're curious, look at this thread on mech IG lists or my IG page

In this thread, I'm covering the models built, converted, and painted to put my dream list on the table top.

I'll start with a plasma gunner conversion that began with an idea from The Manufactorum

This conversion used a head, torso, and kneeling legs from the Cadian HW set. The arms are the pair for the flamer from the infantry box, The backpack is a trimmed down vox from the infantry box. The flamer is modified as described in The Manufactorum by cutting off the end of the weapon. Then the top front portion of a SM plasma pistol and a trimmed down hand guard from a SM bolter are neatly trimmed, dry fitted to ensure a clean fit, and then glued together. A tiny amount of GS is used to fill the surprisingly few gaps.

Edit: Yes, my camera reveals all mold lines...curses! I'll fix those.
I still need to extend the power cable from the plasma gun so that it connects to the backpack. I'll work on that tomorrow.

Ok, today I finish the kneeling Cadian plasma gunner conversion. I'm not going to recommend this technique to anyone since it takes meticulous precision and patience. I'm convinced that there is an easier way to do a power cable but found it reasonably easy for me. YMMV.

1. I trimmed all of the mold lines and then started work on extending the plasma gun power line back to the gunner's power pack. First I cut the existing power cable on the model short at the ammo pouch so that the loop of the cable was no longer bending upwards.

2. I used a Cadian ammo pouch that I cut free from the attached frag grenade. I used a simple Emery board to sand this down on all sides that needed it so that I had a nice grey brick. I glued this to the side of the power pack.

3. I took a new Cadian flamer and neatly cut the fuel line, with fitting, free from the flamer and the ammo pouch. I cut the fitting loose and glued it to the bottom of the grey 'brick' on the side of the power pack.

4. I measured, re-measured, and then trimmed a piece of the rest of the cable so that it would connect to the fitting and to the flush cut end of the model's original power cable. This required a 90 degree cut at the ammo pouch side and about a 30 degree cut on the other end.

5. GS was used in minute amounts to fill gaps at both ends.

6. I added a SM ribbon to the gunner's right shoulder pad since he's a veteran.

The pics below are the finished conversion. He's ready to prime.

Tonight I continue painting Chimeras in camouflage. Tomorrow, I've got to work on my tax returns but will start work on a standing plasma gunner. The challenge will be to make him look different from the kneeling guy. That will mean some major arm work.

That looks pretty cool. Can't wait to see it painted.

@Napalm

Thanks! I'm not going to paint him until I finish converting all three plasma gunners.

1. Kneeling
2. Standing
3. Either lying down or running

I'm looking forward to the challenge.

Nice conversion simple but effective. Once the three have been painted give us a heads up, they should really good.

A Humble Tech Priest

I like the idea behind your Plasma Gun...

But it looks like the front half of a plasma gun stuck on the end of a Flamer.

In particular, the area where the two bits join looks off. The heating coils on the plasma gun just "end". If possible, try to cut a little further down the plasma gun next time, to preserve the entirety of the coil structure.

Failing that, look into using plasma pistols - the coils are shorter, allowing you to keep the weapon's length down.

I like however the grip doesn't make any sense
Maybe file it off or gs it in

i like it. i've been thinking about how to convert special weapons myself with the plastics as i'm changing the load outs due to the new codex. i like the current metal models that have a backpack to power the weapons (except for the grenade laucher, the simplest weapon). it differentiates the guard from the marines that can just plug the weapon into their armor USB ports, lol!

Thanks for the comments!

@ Blue Orphen
I did use a plasma pistol. That's as far as the coils go. It's more cost effective to use the PP instead of a full plasma gun since I have lots of Cadian flamers and quite a few SM plasma pistols. Plastic plasma guns are few and far between. The other issue is that I want my conversions to have the full backpack, long cable, heavy looking weapon that the metal figures possess. I should use a little GS to elimate the seam in the area where the front PP part of the weapon joins the flamer part. The seam is OK at the top (coils) and bottom (handgrip) but doesn't make sense in between them. I may try to correct that tonight once I finish my taxes. I also should have placed the PP part a little bit lower so the coils were lower than the top edge of the gun. I'll try that on the second model to see if it looks better.

@ Septic
Are you referring to the bottom hand grip? I like it. I may have the standing model hold the weapon using the hand grip with his left hand. I originally was planning not to use a 'stick grip' on the side but the metal gunners have a stick grip (placed oddly enough on the top of the plasma gun). I think stick grips make more sense on the side or underneath the weapon and the side option was easier.

@warboss
Thanks. I was trying to come up with ways to make an easy conversion that would both provide variety (I use a lot of plasma guns in my list) and make use of readily available bits. As you know, metal gunners are expensive and you only have one pose. I will try some options on the next two models that make the power cable easier. My goal is to make the conversion so simple that a Youngblood could do it (with adult supervision). I'm not there yet.

Sorry for the long delay between updates (if anyone cared). I stopped working on plasma gunners in order to finish four more Chimeras (thank goodness for Bartertown). I'll throw up some pics of all of my company's mechanized vehicles. I'm currently building two Griffons thanks to a guy in Colorado that kindly traded a NOS one to me. He also sent me a NOS Chimera so I could use my old Griffon bits. I plan to use the old metal crew figures because I like them.

I also lost some interest in the plasma gun conversions because I have nine metal figs (5 painted) and two Forge World models on the way. Since my army list only requires five plasma gunners, I'm more interested in building and painting models that I need in order to play test the list at my FLGS. This means the Griffons, the Psyker Battle Squad, seven melta gunners, four veteran sergeants with shotguns, and the two advisors. Everything else is already finished except for detail work (washes, highlights, unit markings, and some decals that are on their way from Forge World). I'll resume conversions of plasma and melta gunners after I have a full playable army since I want to have unique gunners (no two alike).

My [edited] test list is shown below for the curious:

CCS, 3 meltas, Chimera HF 135
CCS, 3 meltas, Chimera HF 135
Astropath 30
Techpriest w/2 tech servitors 75

Vet Sqd, Sgt w/shotgun, 3 meltas, AC, Chimera HF 165
Vet Sqd, Sgt w/shotgun, 3 flamers, Chimera HF 140
Vet Sqd, Sgt w/shotgun, 3 GL, AC, Chimera HB 150
Vet Sqd, Sgt w/shotgun, 3 GL, AC, Chimera HB 150
Vet Sqd, Sgt w/shotgun, 3 GL, AC, Chimera HB 150

Hellhound HB 130

LRBT HB 150
LR Executioner HB 190
2 Griffons HF 150

TOTAL: 1750 points

My question for the day is: What's the best way to put unit numbers on Cadian shoulder pads? I don't like the decal numbers because they are not numbers I want to use. Has anyone tried something else? Paint pen?

[Edit to add veteran sergeants with shotguns to my To Do list. Another debt to Forge World.]
[2nd Edit to modify list to reflect my latest changes.]

Time for another weekly update...

My four new Chimeras are finished except for the big white Imperial Eagle decals on the way from Forge World. Is there anyone else that wishes GW would update the IG vehicle transfer sheet? How long have they used this version? Nine or ten years? Longer?



I'm currently priming two OOP GW Griffons and painting details on my two Company Command Squads. Each will have three melta gunners. Shown below are two WIP photos:



The photo above shows you my CCS figures after getting a nice wash of Devlan Mud on their uniforms and belts. Once they dry, I'll wetbrush a highlight of Bleached Bone mixed 1:1 with Desert Yellow (which is the base color of the uniforms).



The last picture shows a side by side comparison of my normal tabletop figures and the more detailed look that I'm using for my 50 veterans. The color scheme is slightly different from the current (soon to be old) IG Codex.

Here are the colors used by GW side by side with the colors that I prefer in parentheses:

Skin: basecoat Dwarf Flesh/highlight Elf Flesh (Vermin Brown/Dwarf Flesh)

Uniform: basecoat Desert Yellow/highlight 1:1 Desert Yellow and Bleached Bone (Scorched Brown/same highlight as GW)

Body Armor: basecoat Catachan Green/highlight Camo Green (Dark Angels Green/Snot Green)

Leather: basecoat Chaos Black/highlight Codex Grey (Scorched Brown/no highlight)

Pouches, canteens, sheaths, holsters: Chaos Black/highlight Codex Grey (Dark Angels Green/Snot Green)

I use the same colors as GW for metal and the imperial eagle badges.
For weapon indicator lights, I use Blood Red (over a basecoat of Vermin Brown to make the red look rich and bright) and Enchanted Blue.

My question for the day: Why do many older IG players (myself excluded) give new IG players grief if they paint Cadians to look like GW Cadians? It's not a bad looking scheme and I have seen very, very few IG armies (other than mine) that use a scheme similar to GW's standard. I was looking at CMON today and saw a guy give a paint score 1 point less than he said it deserved simply because it was the GW standard scheme. [Edit] Here's the link to see what I'm talking about.

As usual, if anyone has requests for specific details or images, just ask.

Another week has gone by and I'm still hard at work on upgrading my Cadian army into a veteran mechanized force.

I did not finish my two CCS or my two Griffons this week but got a lot of work done on them. About mid-week I got a third Griffon (thanks to Bartertown and a nice guy named Jason) so I added that to my WIP. I uploaded some pics to show you where I'm at now and so I can explain how I go about building and painting these models. Note that all of my Griffons are the OOP GW plastic and metal models (not Forge World's variant with the spiffy gun shield).

The first pic just shows all of the pieces except for two rear end panels that I left on my desk. I like to build the Griffons without the metal deck plate, gun carriage, gun, decorative side panel, rear end panels, and hull weapons. I paint these separate components on their own to avoid getting a lot of Dark Angels Green and Graveyard Earth on them. While these base colors are not really a problem for the rear end panels, I keep these unattached because I won't know what angle to glue them until after I drop the metal deck plates into their final resting place.



The side pic below is just to show you two areas that are a pain. The three vents are practically impervious to spray primer so I have to remember to get into them with a Citadel large brush or small drybrush loaded with Chaos Black. The piston to the right of the vents gets a coat of Chaos Black on the piston and the square area around it (to give an illusion of depth). Later, I paint the piston Boltgun Metal and eventually use Brown Ink on each end of the piston to make it look oily.



The deck plate, gun carriage, and gun are basically two colors: Chaos Black and Boltgun Metal with a highlight of Chainmail. The gun gets a lot of Chainmail. It's not an appropriate look for a military weapon in today's armies but it fits in the technology worshipping, look good for the Emperor, spit and polish armies of the 41st Century.



In addition to the third Griffon, I also received my Forge World Cadian Veterans with Shotguns bitz packs (http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/cadvets.htm). I'll use these to make my four veteran sergeants for my mechanized veteran squads.

I also received some resin female IG bitz packs from the guy that casts them. See pic below from Spack's site, Age of Strife, where even more great photos of female IG bits by DarkSoul are posted. I haven't decided what to use these for yet. The opportunity to trade for them came up out of the blue so the models are not yet part of my overall plan. I may use some of them for Griffon crews and for melta gunners or grenade launchers. I'm also retooling two autocannon crews so one or more of the female IG may end up there.



I haven't worked with resin before but I've read that it requres special treatment - cleaning, avoidance of resin dust when sanding/sawing, and best glued with super glue. I guess I'll try all of the above. I do have some FW stowage but have done little with it other than washing and trimming. I will get to it when I detail my LRBTs and Chimeras.

I forgot to mention my mental block with CCS melta gunners. I call it "Melta Monotony". I had five of these guys already (two painted) and acquired ten more. As it turns out, my test list will only require nine total but I'm going to paint ten just in case. Right now I'm touching up the two that were already painted while also adding four more for my two CCS with meltas. It's not fun doing the base layers. I'm almost ready to move to the good parts.



Topping off a great week for receiving shipments was a pack of the Forge World Cadian special weapons (http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/cadspecialweapons.htm). The pack includes all of the pieces (including 25mm round bases) to make complete models (unlike the vets with shotguns pack). The heads with respirators are separate so you can use plastic heads without respirators if you wish. I like these guys and ordered a second pack along with an IG decal sheet in a separate order that I'm still waiting on.

For the next update, I hope to show you the finished Griffons and two CCS. After they're done I want to move onto my fun conversion project: a Psyker Battle Squad with an overseer and eight psykers. I think I'll use the non-marine dude from the Battle for Macragge set as the overseer and Empire flagellants as the psykers. The fun will come in modifying these figures to make them more appropriate. Guess it's almost time to start diving into my bitz boxes.

On the subject of the color scheme:

I really don't get why they dislike it. Maybe it's because they associate it with the same contempt people do with Ultramarines?

But anyways: Your stuff's great

@Kanluwen

Thanks! You make a good point. People often dislike the common standard. Ultramarines are the vanilla SM and Cadians are the norm for IG. However, while I often see Ultramarines painted up as in the Codex, I've never seen a tabletop Cadian army that uses the GW basic painting instructions. Maybe the reason people like variant schemes with Cadians is because you can use them - unlike the warriors of Ultramar.

Another week gone by so it's time to add a bit more covering this week's progress.

I did not get any work done on my two CCS squads but melta monotony was not the problem. I spent my limited time putting FW Imperial Eagles on my recently finished Chimeras and two of my three new Griffons. Unfortunately each decal sheet only has 12 of the eagles that I like so I'll need another sheet for my third Griffon, Basilisk, and LR Executioner (once I convert it).

I'll post finished pics of the Griffons later this evening. For now, here's the "How to" on the side plates. I used the exact same method for my eight Chimeras and Hellhound.



The image shows the progression as I paint the Griffon side plates step by step. First, DA Green on the black primer with Scorched Brown on the scroll and the skull. Second, Bleached Bone over the Scorched Brown areas, leaving some brown showing in certain seams and crevices. Third, Shining Gold carefully brushed over the wings. Finally, Skull White highlights and script using a .30mm Micron 02 #1 Archival Ink pen. I will also highlight the rivet heads later with Snot Green when I highlight and weather the rest of the vehicle.

My experience is that the Bleached Bone and Skull White dry really fast so I take extra care to thin them with clean water. I use Citadel Standard Brushes for every single color, but I use separate brushes and cleanup jars for metallic colors to avoid getting the metal paint flakes into my other brushes and colors.

I'll get the other Griffon pics up later and talk a bit about how I apply the camouflage pattern to my vehicles. The only other news this week is that I still can't lay hands on a new IG codex. My FLGS was sold out of their 20 copies on Day 1. I would order it but I like to buy certain items from my FLGS to support it. Since I suscribe to White Dwarf and mostly trade for my IG minis (it's what you do when you have tons of unused minis), I buy new releases, codexes, paints, brushes, tools, and GS at the FLGS. Just my way... Thanks to BarterTown, A guy in Rhode Island traded me a nice Commissar Yarick mini (unassembled and unpainted) for a NOS Cadian IG HW team. I threw in some new GF9 Cygnar counters too because I don't play WarMachine. I also have a Lord Castellan Creed that needs paint. I'm looking forward to painting these Heroes of the Imperium after my mechanized company is completely upgraded.

you should make a platoon/company out of those female sets! (btw, who casts them???)

I don't plan on using the female IG for a full platoon or company but I do plan to mix them into squads and units within my mech company.

The caster is named Thomas.

There is a thread for them: Female IG Thread

It's late here in Kansas, but I finally did get pics of my newly painted Griffons. They still need highlighting, weathering, and work on their decals but they are table top ready. Don't ask where the crews are yet. We'll just say they're enjoying a few brewskis somewhere. I plan to use standard plastic Cadians for the crews with some of my recently acquired resin female IG figs mixed in.







In the week ahead, I hope to finish my two CCS, acquire a box of Empire Flagellants, and begin building my Psyker Battle Squad. I also need that IG Codex before I can play a few battles with my test mech list. There is also a small matter of painting three more melta gunners.

Kid Kyoto has already begun building his Psyker Battle Squad. Go look. It's cool.

I'm still hunting ways to paint/ink/decal the numbers on my Cadians' shoulder pads. I wish Micron made a pen with white ink. Elmer's makes Painters Pens but the Fine is not fine enough. I may try their Very Fine pen. I think that is as small as they go.

Consumed by the Warp...

I'm a week and a day late with an update but who's counting?

I still have not finished my CCS melta gunners, but they do have a bit more paint on them. Unfortunately for them, I'm still enamoured with building crewmen for my three Griffons. I also wish to add some extra details to them.

I discussed green stuff casting in an earlier post, but I decided to give that up in favor of resin casting. I blame BrotherArgos' thread for this tangent. His work is stunning and inspirational.

I looked at several products online and then went to my local craft store and picked up the Amazing Casting Resin and Amazing Mold Putty by Alumilite. The total cost was $35 USD and their product looked like the easiest way to experiment with resin casting. I may move up to rubber molds and better resins but not until after much experimentation.



I've used this product for simple one-piece molds and two-piece molds (Griffon Mortar Shell). The one-piece molds were perfect.

The one-piece molds are very simple. My only advice is to use a nice, flat, non-stick surface to press the originals into the mold putty so that you get a level surface. This matters later when you pour resin and it pools on top of your mold. I also recommend that you scrape a level object across the surface of the mold after you pour your resin to remove most of the excess on top of the mold. That will reduce the amount of flash that you have to trim later.

I had several failures with one- and two-piece molds for the mortar shell. After several trials (shown below), I finally succeeded.



From the failures I learned that a two-piece mold with proper pour and vent channels was the key to success. My first two-piece mold had its vent channel in the worst possible place (bottom of the mold). Learn from me. Put your vents at the highest point on the casting with the opening(s) somewhere high on the mold. Resin flows very, very well.



This photo (above) shows the mold making process right before the final step. This process is well described with photos by BrotherArgos on pages 3 and 4 of his Dakka P&M blog. Note that BrotherArgos is using poured rubber to make his molds rather than mold putty. If you prefer that method, Alumilite makes a USD $70 kit.

Like BrotherArgos, I used three steps. The first requires modelling clay as the base inside of a mold frame made of two layers of thin Lego bricks. It looks similar to the picture above but has the plastic pieces set in modelling clay instead of molding putty and the section of the original plastic pieces set in the clay are the reverse side of the one shown above. Step 2 is applying the first half of molding putty on top of the plastic pieces (no mold release required) . Then you remove the clay, clean the plastic pieces, and reinsert them into the dried half of casting putty. This looks like the picture above. Step 3 (final) is to coat the plastic and dried half of casting putty with either thin oil or mold release before putting the top half of casting putty into the mold frame. Note that I add a third level of Legos for this step. I tamp down each layer of mold putty with a square of Legos to make sure the putty gets down into all of the crevices on the plastic pieces.

The finished two-piece mold is shown below:



After pouring resin into the mold, I realized that I needed a wider mouth on the pour channel. I made a second mold that incorporated this feature (sorry, no picture). I found it was important to use plastic pieces (neatly trimmed bits of sprue) to clearly define all of the vent and pour channels because cutting them into the finished mold is damn near impossible. In my mold, the pour channel is in the middle and the vent channel is on the right hand side. When I pour resin into the pour channel, I occasional thump the mold on the table top between quick pours to shake out air bubbles. I also pay attention to the vent channel because when you have enough resin poured, you will see it rising up the vent channel. You don't need to pour resin until the vent channel is fully filled up. Just seeing it coming up the vent channel tells you that you should stop pouring resin.

The final picture shows a casting pulled straight from the mold. Unfortunately the white resin makes it almost impossible to make out any detail. I'll paint up some shells and snap a photo for my next post. I plan to have about four to six shells as well as six to eight shell storage canisters per Griffon. I just have to work out the details for building the storage containers as well as lasgun rifle racks. I also plan to finish my six Griffon crewman in appropriate artilleryman poses. That will entail some arm conversions.



Some castings will have air bubbles. I think most can be eliminated by proper vent channels and thumping your mold in between pours of resin. The trick is to add a vent channel after you have finished the mold and produced your first air-bubbly casting. One of my Griffon shell molds is perfect and the other puts a big air bubble at the rear of each shell. I can easily fill each bubble hole with GS, but I prefer to fix the problem. I plan to cut a thin air channel with a hobby knife or a pin vise into the mold. It need not be a large channel as it only allows air to flow. We'll see if my solution ends the problem.

Thanks for reading. I hope I gave you something useful to think about. I know that many other blogs on Dakka are helping me.

Thank you ever so much for posting this. It's interesting, and I like your work. Pity Meltagunners don't come in different poses..

If you're getting bored with the meltagunners, both the cadian and catachan command sets contain meltaguns, allowing you different posing. Also, the chimney from the COD manufactorum make for nice meltamuzzles, allowing for some conversion options.

Captain.Gordino,

Thanks. Forge World makes a Cadian melta gunner but I would still like more variety. Two poses is about five options too few for me.

Off-topic, how did you put full face shields on the models in your gallery?


CommissarKhaine, I am bored with the melta gunners. I will get them done, but I am going to make some converted gunners after I finish other projects (Griffon crews, veteran sergeants, battle psykers, grenade launchers, autocannons, and land mines). I'll take a look at that chimney.

Tonight's project will be a step-by-step process for mold making because I thought of some ways to improve my Griffon shell mold.

i like your color scheme. very neat. is that just DA green for the armor?

Lord Marcus,

Thanks, I tend to paint in a crisp, neat style instead of using a shaded, realist approach. Yes, I use DA green with Snot Green contrast edging for helmets, pouches, armor, scabbards, vehicles, and weapons. That color scheme is different than GW, which uses Catachan Green with Camo Green edges.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Here is a quick update to fully acknowledge the source of the superb picture of resin female IG. I had a link to the original source located on the picture site in the Dakka gallery but many of you may not have clicked the pic to go there.

The pic below comes from Spack's site, Age of Strife, where even more great photos of female IG bits - cast in resin by DarkSoul (AKA Thomas Sexton) - are posted. I do not know the name of the sculptor. There was a club in Arizona with a website dedicated to new sculpting projects and getting the good models cast but the site is no longer up.

Thanks for the credit on the pic I'm glad the pic helped you to track down the figs and get hold of some, they really are nice pieces.

I can't remember who the original sculptor was and it looks like the details were lost when Doc Thunder updated the initial forum post on the Phoenix site.

Darksoul did the officer/sarge head, torso, and sword arm, these were additional parts that he added when he took over the casting - the original casts (not by Darksoul but someone else but again I can't remember who it was) of the figures weren't great, although I seemed to have fewer bubbles in mine than some of the other recipients reported having.

Thanks for the credit on the image When the jungle fighters turn up I'll be posting of those too, and I still have the "cadians" unbuilt on my desk - it's taken me a while to trade enough to get all the lasgun arms needed to equip them all, and the next step will be to modify them all to turn the lasguns to bullpups; the rest of my built cadians all use Elysian weapons but that's an expensive path for a large force hence the converting for future models.

JB, I'll keep my eye on this blog as I'm interested in seeing what you do with the female figs.

And as to meltaguns, when you get around to working on them again, I ended up getting the FW models with respirators (melta and plasma), and then built the rest of mine using the Elysians meltaguns. The weapon pack gives you multiple meltas, plasmas, pistols, lasguns, and sniper rifles. This works out cheaper than the cadian or catachan command boxes as they only include 1 melta per box, although if you can make use of the rest of the box contents they may be a better option.

Great work, I love those tanks.

I have to say I agree with Blue Orphan.

Why not try something like this?



Take a bit off the front of the flamer casing, move the plasma part further down, shave off that little cylinder and place it over the top?

Might help to blend the parts in a bit more?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Great Resin castings as well by the way. I've never tried casting before myself. How do you find it?

Spack,

Thanks for the great pictures of DarkSoul's castings! I'm looking forward to seeing the new ones. Thanks also for the note about the Elysian weapons from FW. I'll take a look at them. If you are interested in seeing how another Dakkite handled Bullpups, check out Flinty's blog. I believe that he uses Hasslefree "Bullpup" style weapons with the normal Cadian arms. He also has some very nice vehicles and heavy weapon teams. All of his IG figures use heads from Iron Pig.


Gundam-Mecha,

Your photo edit makes sense to me. I will try that on my next plasma gunner. I don't know how long it will be before I get to him, but I will try out your suggestion.

As for resin casting, the idea came from seeing BrotherArgos' work. His Steel Legion are looking very, very nice. I intend to do a lot more to detail my Cadian veterans. That will mean using 20-30 infantry for experimentation but that's simple enough.

I finished building a new mold last night and took step-by-step photos for a tutorial, which I will post tonight. I like the Amazing Mold Putty far more than the Amazing Resin, but I will try pre-warming the mold (recommended in the instructions for small casts) to see if that helps the resin harden to a more desirable finish.

JB wrote:If you are interested in seeing how another Dakkite handled Bullpups, check out Flinty's blog. I believe that he uses Hasslefree "Bullpup" style weapons with the normal Cadian arms.

I bought a pack of the Hasslefree pulse rifles and they're still sat in a bag, I much prefer the Elysian weapons and converted Cadian weapons (my rough first conversion will form the basis of my mass conversion push in the next few weeks). Flinty's do look pretty good with the weapons he used, but I still think they look a little flimsy compared to the heroic scale weapons all the other units in my army have.

Old pics of my Cadians are here (there's a pic of some cadians with elysian meltaguns in the last pic in the album, and a couple of pics of the Hasslefree pulse rifle next to IG and Elysian lasguns) - I've since added a Lightning and 3 more Valkyries (2 GW, 1 FW) for a total of 8 aircraft, and of course the female figures (I've got 50 in total, which will likely form a platoon or two), so my AirCav is building up quite nicely.

My "standard" infantry/armour IG army is made up of FW Death Korp, so these guys/girls are all just for use in my airborne lists

Nice stuff thanks a lot the resin casting advice is certainly food for thought. Looking forward to the super detailed Griffons as well. I can't wait for your idiot proofed how to make a Plasma Gun demo as well.

Some phenomenal work you have going on.

JB wrote:
As for resin casting, the idea came from seeing BrotherArgos' work. His Steel Legion are looking very, very nice. I intend to do a lot more to detail my Cadian veterans. That will mean using 20-30 infantry for experimentation but that's simple enough.

I finished building a new mold last night and took step-by-step photos for a tutorial, which I will post tonight. I like the Amazing Mold Putty far more than the Amazing Resin, but I will try pre-warming the mold (recommended in the instructions for small casts) to see if that helps the resin harden to a more desirable finish.

Sounds great, a tutorial would be very interesting

Thanks for all of the kind comments!

I took the pictures for the tutorial on making a two-part mold on Tuesday and then completed photo editing and loading last night. Dakka takes a while to upload 49 hi-res photos. I wrote and posted the tutorial today and put it in Dakka's new P&M Tutorial section. It's rather long so I won't repeat it here in the blog. I will simply post the link and a few key photos.

Here is the link.

First the new mold. It gives me three working molds for Griffon Mortar shells so I can cast that many at once. This is the best mold I have made so far. The improvements were register marks, an optimized pour channel (golf tees are useful again), and better air vent channels (previous molds had only one). Now I hope to improve the curing of the resin to get harder, smoother castings. I will start by pre-warming the molds in the oven at 150 degrees Fahrenheit. This method is suggested in Alumilite's instruction hints for small castings.




Second, a cast shell washed with Badab Black so you can see it. One of my Cadians is shown for scale.




Now I can get on with detailing my Griffons and their crewmen. I'll post my progress as I go.

looking very cool, I'd love to learn to cast, I might check that company out.

I'm in the middle of my cadians at the moment too, I've gone for an arctic look but theres nothing wrong with the traditional scheme if doen right, and you have.

Thanks Sleazy!

I think Alumilite's starter kits are a simple way to learn the basics for casting. I'd like to try their basic rubber mold kit next. I also have yet to try to pre-heat my current molds to see if that improves the curing of the resin. One thing I've noticed about the three two-piece molds that I'm using now is that the castings get better the more I use the mold. I wonder if some of the olive oil - that I used when I made the mold - takes a while to clean out. Perhaps I should try Universal Mold Release instead of oil the next time I make a two-piece mold. My one-piece molds produce terrific castings from the very beginning so the only variable I can isolate is the oil.

For today, I'm working on Griffon crewman - mostly repositioning or kit bashing the right arms and hands. I'll post some pics later. I'm also making molds of shell storage containers - open and unopened. It's all fun and games.

Your tutorial was great. Its great to see griffons in the game again.

Karnaeya,

Thanks! A lot of folks like me are eager to embellish their armies in new and interesting ways. Casting is one way to do that.

I'm hoping the new GW Griffons are as nice as the ones from FW, but I will probably stick with my older models after I finish detailing them. My veteran force will fight for the Emperor with the same type of tanks, Chimeras, Hellhounds, and Griffons that their fathers (and likely their grandfathers) used.

I finally have time to throw up photos of one of my Griffon crewman. He has hand and forearm changes so that he can hold the Griffon shell properly.







The head, torso, legs, bayonet, ammo pouch, canteen, and left arm come from the Cadian infantry boxed set. I repositioned the left forearm and opened the thumb and fingers more to better grasp the width of the shell. The right arm also comes from the Cadian infantry boxed set. It is a heavily trimmed flamer arm. The right hand comes from the Warhammer Empire Militia boxed set. It is a hand from an arm on the bow and crossbow sprue (in the center of the sprue beside the heads). I can see a mold line on it that needs some trimming.

I spent some time with Blu-Tack getting the hands and arms where I needed them to hold the shell correctly. Once I was satisfied, I glued them on with Testor's Model Master Liquid Cement. I like that precision applicator.

The patterned plastic sheet used on the model's base is Plastruct HO Scale/1:100 Diamond Plate (stock number 91687). I find it has lots of uses in Ork and IG Mech armies. It can also be handy for Space Hulk and Necromunda/Inquisitormunda.

My strongest motivation lately is to work on more Griffon crewmen so I stopped pretending I was working on other projects.


I built five more crewmen to go with the loader that you saw earlier in the blog.
That loader is shown at the far left of this picture.

As you can see, I built another loader (unpacking a new Griffon mortar shell), a vox operator/scribe,
and an officer dictating from his data slate.

If you want to zoom in on any of these pictures, you can click here to go the Dakka gallery where they are stored. This new formatting style that I'm using does not allow you to simply click on the photos to jump straight to the gallery.











This photo shows the same figures from another angle.























And here is a photo of just the officer and his vox operator.
















This photo has the officer shown from a different angle along with my last two crewman.
These are my sergeant (nicknamed "Smoke") with his pipe and mug, and a crewman getting ready to defend his vehicle the hard way.

















This picture shows the same figures from a different vantage point.
















The last picture for this update is a closer view of Smoke and the crewman with a lasgun.


Those of you that are familiar with Cadian bits will recognize pieces from the standard IG frames, the new command sprues, and the IG vehicle accessory sprue. I added in some of my resin shell castings, the pointy end of a pin (for the vox operator/scribe's pen), a FW helmet with interior detail (the one lying upside down on the base), a pipe from the Dwarf Warriors set, and some plastic card to fill out the data slate. Smoke's mug is trimmed off of the backpack on the IG vehicle accessory sprue. It took some neat trimming and some GS to recreate a mug handle. The crewman holding the lasgun has the same right hand from the Empire Militia set that I used for the first loader (the one with the black shell).

I still have some mold lines to remove and some holsters to add on, but I'm fairly happy that my Griffon crewmen are not just heavy weapon teams or regular guys with lasguns. Now I can get back to casting more shells and making my lasgun holders for the back of my Griffons. I've done some measuring, and I decided that simpler is better for the rifle racks. My original concept was way too big.


Good luck with your own projects and thanks for looking!

It's time for a long overdue update.

I finished casting the resin shells for my Cadian Griffons. Here are pictures of them:


The quality is certainly not up to Forge World standards but I like the finished pieces. They make my OOP Griffons look more interesting. Thanks to everyone that voted for my tutorial about making the two-piece mold for my unpacked shells. The contest was exciting and many of the tutorials are going to come in handy for me as I experiment with sculpting some new accessories for my Cadian mechanized veteran company.





The shell shipping container original pieces were made out of Evergreen styrene tubing (#229, 9/32 of an inch or 7.1 mm). I filled the ends with green stuff before I made the molds. You could simply cut lots of tubing to make your containers but I found that I get a very consistent result by casting since I have a hard time cutting multiple sections of tube to a standard length with perfectly flush cuts. With casting, I only have to get one original the correct size.

I never did figure out a good way to add rifle racks for two lasrifles on each vehicle. I left room on the deck behind the gun for my crew figures to stand. I'm not sure I like the standard round bases for the crew since they look out of place and have no role since the crew figures cannot be targeted. I may put the crew on round bases made of just the diamond pattern styrene.

I also decided not to add candy-striped aiming stakes because they would not be stored on the vehicle while it is firing. I may add some track guards in the future so that I can put racks, stowage, and other items on them.

Logic dictates that I finish painting my six crew figures now. They are primed! However, I am interested in making melta gunners so that I'm not limited to the standard metal figure and the resin model from Forge World. I have a dozen of the former and two of the latter, but I would like to use no more than two of each in my army. That means I need five different melta gunner models. Since I don't want more than two of any pose, I need three new poses.

Solving this problem led me to make a melta gun backpack like the one on the back of the metal figure. I used a relief casting in resin as well as a very hacked up set of flamer promethium tanks. With a bit of green stuff to fill up air bubble holes, the backpack is pretty good. It's not easy to make out details in the pictures since white resin does not show relief well in photographs.



Now I'm in the market for four more melta guns from the Cadian command squad though I may use the Space Marine tactical squad melta gun since it doesn't have an annoying arm and hand attached. I'll connect the melta guns and the backpacks with two power lines (similar to the metal model) made of Procreate. I'll have to experiment with this a bit but I think it is possible using a clay extruder so that the lines are a standard diameter.

Have a great week! I know that I will.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Here's a quick update for those that are interested in the female IG figures and Army Builder.

Spack, the host for Age of Strife reported the following news items:

1. The Phoenix Wargamers Club (AKA TPC) site is back in operation. If you enjoy seeing new sculpting projects that sometimes actually get made as figures for the general public (including the female IG models shown earlier in this thread), then you should check TPC out. I find it inspirational for future sculpting and casting projects.

2. The Army Builder maintainers (the guys that produce the data files) have released the IG Codex files for AB 3.X. You can download it from their site.

Now, you probably want links but out of respect for Spack and the work that he does to pull this info together, you'll have to go to his site to get them. They're on the Age of Strife homepage.

I'm breaking out the paint brushes for more melta monotony. One day those cursed figures will be finished so I can play a game with my preferred list.

Here is another quick update:

I felt like building this week so I assembled my five veteran sergeants with shotguns. I have plenty of sergeants with laspistols and CCWs but dropped them out of my old army list in favor of sergeants with bolters and lasguns. Since the publication of the new codex, all long range weapons are verboten for sergeants so shotguns seem the best choice.


Since shotguns are one of the few weapons not available in plastic, I bought two of the Forge World Cadian veterans with shotguns upgrade packs. Each pack provides four torsos with shotguns, five heads, and a some spare parts such as ammo pouches, one shotgun, one plasma pistol, hand grenades, bayonets, helmets, etc. Most of the pieces are a bit smaller than their plastic counterparts and this is true of the torsos and heads as well. They look somewhat odd with some sets of legs.


I also used a set of legs and a head from the The Phoenix Wargames Club (TPC) set of female soldiers. Surprisingly, her legs work better with the FW torso than do the plastic GW legs. She is a little taller than the blokes.


I will play with green stuff casting later today to make the sergeant stripes for the left shoulder pads. It's easier than sculpting five sets of uniformly sized stripes. If my method works, I'll post some photos late, late tonight.

I finally had time to try out a green stuff mold and cast of sergeant stripes.

I used the standard Cadian sergeant arm with the chainsword as my original.

I pushed a small ball of greenstuff on top of the sergeant stripes and let it fully harden. This produced a simple greenstuff mold.

I brushed a thin layer of light virgin olive oil (you can use another type of mold release) over the mold. It's important to get mold release or oil on every part of the mold that you will touch with new greenstuff later when you are making a casting. Otherwise your new greenstuff will stick to your mold.

I made a thin disc of greenstuff and used a Size 0 Extra Firm clay shaper to push it into my mold. I let the new greenstuff fully harden.

Now I had a nice set of newly cast sergeant stripes but it was too thick. I had to use an X-Acto knife to cut about half the thickness off. This isn't something that I would enjoy repeating so next time I'll use a thinner disc of green stuff.

I neatly scored the veteran sergeant's shoulder pad where I intended to place the new stripes and used super glue to adhere the stripes to the shoulder pad.

See the photos below:



I still have four more sets of sergeant's stripes to cast. Any excess green stuff is getting made into purity seals while I'm waiting for the stripes to harden.

It's time for another WIP update for my Cadian mechanized veteran company.

I expected to get a lot of painting done this weekend but never managed to open a paint jar. Instead, I finished the green stuff casts of sergeants' stripes and built the last three grenadiers that I needed.

The first two pictures show the sergeants with their new stripes on their left shoulder pads and most of them have purity seals on their right shoulder pads. Thanks to Insaniak for his tutorial on making these seals. I'm considering making a small seal device with an IG eagle to stamp these in a standard size. I believe this is possible.




And now we move on from the conga line of sergeants to the grenadiers. Building these three models gave me another opportunity to use the female figures produced by DocThunder's club, TPC. Heinrik Petterson did the sculpts and DarkSoul did the casting. These figures add some variety but they are a real pain to build. The torsos do not quite match up with the legs and the heads do not quite match up with the torsos. I ended up doing quite a bit of clipping, carving, pinning, and puttying. In spite of all the work, I like them. The Cadians, with one standard torso and eight [ten?] types of legs, need some variety.




I have just about run out of stuff that I need to build for my preferred 1750 point list. I still need an Astropath and would like to try sculpting one, but I want to get my army on the table soon so I ordered an Alkemy figure to stand in for now.

On the materials front, I'm getting good use out of the clay shapers (Size 0, extra firm hardness from Royal Sovereign). I haven't tried the ProCreate yet. I just got my tiny magnets from K&J (I normally use MagCraft, but they don't have the tiniest magnets), which - along with a 5/32 drill bit - will allow me to magnetize IG arms. I also received a slew of Tamiya weathering kits so that I can finally make my vehicles look like they left the showroom and made it onto a battlefield.

So lots of work remains but it will be painting, weathering, and other detailing. GreyDeath's weathering tutorials are going to be required reading soon. I also plan to rebase my infantry in a more interesting style. I've seen several inspiring examples here in Dakka's P&M Blogs.

No more tonight though, it's time for bed.

Edited to add links and to update the name of a sculptor. I forgot to add that I still need to finish two technical servitors. I'm torn between the current models and some old
GW Tech Ganger figures.

I thought I'd survey folks about IG technical servitor figures. I have two of the current GW figures, shown in the beautiful GW photos below (not the two guys with the big guns):



I also have four of GW's 1990 Tech Gangers. The image below is a copy of GW's original catalogue page from the 1991 Blue Catalogue 1. It is viewable on The Stuff of Legends website along with a lot of other great images that will take long time collectors straight down memory lane.

The tech gangers that I own are Tech 1, Tech 7, and Tech 8. I also own a fourth figure that is not shown in the catalogue. It is clearly labeled "Tech Gang, GW 90", just like the other three figures so perhaps GW dropped it from the line before publication of the 1991 catalogues.



I'm stuck on which figures to use as my two technical servitors. The current models require little work other than pinning, glueing, and painting. The tech gangers came with ugly plastic human arms so if I use the figures I will have to make some new arms. After seeing Proiteus' conversions for his Renegade Mechanicus army, I'm more inclined to try the old figures and get creative. What would you do?



The images of Citadel Miniatures and the page from Games Workshop's 1991 Blue Catalogue 1 are used without permission. The sole purpose in using these images is to provide a visual guide to said miniatures.

No challenge whatsoever is intended to the status of any intellectual property rights of Games Workshop Limited, including, but not limited to trademarks and copyrights of Games Workshop Limited. This blog has no legal connection or relationship to Games Workshop Limited.

Wow, those old tech gangers have actually stood the test of time very well!

Can't wait to see what you do with 'em.

Love what you have done so far! Keep it up!

Savnock wrote:Wow, those old tech gangers have actually stood the test of time very well!

Can't wait to see what you do with 'em.

I'm still torn. The tech gangers are really neat but they are noticeably smaller than the current Cadian models. That's not an insurmountable problem but I'm also considering a third option using some AT-43 figures (rebased) with servo skulls to represent the servitor arm capability.

EzeKK wrote:Love what you have done so far! Keep it up!

Thanks! I'll doubt I'll ever completely stop working on my Cadians. There's always something new to do, plus I'm working on related BFG and Epic Armageddon models in the same color scheme.

I don't think the size difference will be much of a problem. Servitors are supposed to be withered flesh wrapped about lots of mechanical worky bits. You could easily bulk them out with Borg-esque wires and cabling.

Well, I decided to use a couple of the old GW Confrontation (pre-Necromunda) Tech Ganger figures to make my technical servitors. I had four models but chose the two largest. These, conveniently enough, also lacked laspistol holsters (which would have been out of place on a servitor).

I used Cadian IG arms. They fit pretty well after I used a flat file on the Tech Ganger arm nubs. The claws came from old Ork Epic bits. Other fittings and tools are antenna bits from the plastic Imperial Navy cruisers for BFG. The servo skulls are from the SM Devastator squad.

I still have to fill in some gaps with GS. I'll leave that for later this weekend.



I tried to make the servo skulls fulfill a purpose. One is adjusting the eyepiece on a servitor. The other is observing the work performed by a servitor.

Overall, I'm happy with these conversions - fragile though they may be (the BFG bits in particular). I did a lot of pinning but that won't help the thin plastic bits. Now, I'm looking forward to getting these models primed and painted.

I'm down to just one more model to build or acquire for my army before I get back into full painting mode. I received the Alkemy figure that I was going to use as my Astropath. Unfortunately the Alkemy model sucks so I'm back to square one. I think I'll find an appropriate GW model to convert so I can use it in the 'Ard Boyz tournament.

I finished up some needed tasks - GS on the servitors, putting arms on my daughter's Nightbringer, clipping bits, etc. - this weekend but none of them was particularly blog worthy. So this is a good time to mention that I'm also working on Cadians for Battle Fleet Gothic (BFG) and Epic Armageddon. Since my BFG force has been around since 2003 and my Epic force is pretty much just a stack of blister packs and some bags full of unassembled miniatures, I'll cover BFG today.

This first pic is a side shot of my Cadian cruiser group. I have a Mars battlecruiser as my flagship, two Dictator class cruisers, and one Gothic class. You can also see escort ships, fighter craft, and bombers swarming around the larger ships.



The next pic is an overhead shot. I adjusted the settings in Photoshop to make the lights and highlighting stand out more. I like a lot of both on my Imperial ships.



In the next two images, you can see one of my two Dictator class cruisers and my Gothic class. The Dictator class are not really good at anything but they carry a nice balance of ordnance and weapons. I like them for their ability to spit out fighters, bombers, and torpedoes. The Gothic is all about lance batteries though it has torpedoes.




The next two pics are shots of my two escort squadrons. I have one squadron of three Firestorms, armed with useful lance batteries, and one squadron of cheap Cobra destroyers. The destroyers are mostly useful in mass when they fire a lot of torpedoes at wounded cruisers, battlecruisers, and battleships. I'd like to have a lot more escort ships.




And the last image is another side shot of the massed cruiser group.



My future plans are to make a nice 4'x4' BFG gameboard for my wargaming table. I also plan to add some troop ships and other props for scenario play. My other fleet is Orks, and I intend to stage a few scenario fights this summer. That means I need to fill a few gaps in my fleets. I'm looking forward to it.

I hope you didn't mind a little BFG with your 40K. Have a good week!

Wow those servitors look awesome!

Nice job

Werdes wrote:Wow those servitors look awesome!

Thank you! Jes Goodwin's sculpts (as Savnock noted) have held up under the test of time. These minis are almost 20 years old.

Death Gear wrote:Nice job

Thanks! Now I need to start painting. The humidity and temperature have dropped enough for me to get outside and use spray primer today. The Griffon crews are already primed so I plan to get all six of them painted this weekend. I will try to paint them so they have more depth. I'm also considering how to make them stand out from the infantrymen. Perhaps a bit of the color red. It's a traditional artillery color (and also the engineer color) in the US, though the artillerymen will tell you that their color is scarlet and the engineers will claim scarlet with white piping.

love the work. attention to detail is great very realistic with the ammo still in the cardboard tubes on the arty piece love it keep it up

Thanks Lex!

Ok, bad news...I'm going on a two week vacation so there will be no updates until I get back.

The good news is that I'm taking my melta gunners and artillery crews with me so they should be fully painted by the time I get back. [Edit: No room in the suitcase for paints and minis so I'm going without them.] I'm also taking some putty, armature wire, and sculpting tools. Kid Kyoto's thread about what three sets we wish GW would make in plastic made me realize that I want some stuff that GW doesn't make. So I'm going to try to sculpt some of it and maybe cast it in resin.

I've got a 40K skirmish scenario running around in my head that requires at least three Cadians on stretchers, a Cadian squad, my Kasrkin squad as "the cavalry", a doc, two nurses, three Death Guard Chaos Space Marines, and a full squad of Cadian IG Plague Zombies. It also requires some walls, shipping containers (I have six of the AT-43 containers that just need repainting and some IG icons), and the medical station from AT-43 (a sweet model I picked up for a low, low price from Miniature Market. I may get another one of these beauties and paint it IG green to serve as a temporary command post or research station. I may use AT-43 low walls but they need some filling and repainting. I may also use the AT-43 doc and nurses but they are a bit tall and need rebasing and repainting.

Here's a pic of the AT-43 Medtech Unit so you can see what I'm talking about:



Is anyone else interested in sculpting Cadian accessories or 40K skirmish style games? Necromunda and Kill Team do not quite fill the bill. I see a lot of special scenario rules in my future or a home brew version of Necromunda rules.

[Edit: No painting on vacation, just drawing and sculpting.]

So it's been more than seven months since my last blog update, but who's counting? I finally had the time and motivation to begin more work on my Cadian 11th Assault (Mech) Regiment. I'm also getting some opportunities to play with my lists so they keep changing as I learn some new likes and dislikes with regard to the IG Codex.

I am currently running either two LRBTs or one LRBT/one Executioner. After failing miserably to kill AV12 reliably (and I see a lot of it), I decided to add a Vanquisher to my list of Leman Russ variants on hand. Unfortunately I didn't want to pay for a Forge World turret so I decided to convert an existing LRBT turret by modifying the gun tube.

It all seemed so simple. I measured the barrel diameter and then bought some 1/4" and 12/32" Plastruct tubing. Unfortunately, those diameters were just a tad too small. Instead of admitting defeat, I grabbed a dozen different writing implements from around the house and checked their diameters. Imagine my surprise when a recycled pencil proved to be the perfect fit. I could have saved myself $11.10. Oh well, I have some ideas for the future employment of two packs of Plastruct tubes.

Here are photos of the simple work done to convert my LRBT turret into a Vanquisher turret:

That looks fantastic, I was wanting a vanquisher but wasn't really sure about the FW stuff, but this is perfect!! Thanks, this idea has been taken!.

U say in ur Sig. that you need ideas for a cadian sly marbo...Why not have acadian disguised as a tyranid...disguised as a lictor would be quite ironic....


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Opps double post, soz

aaaaand Subscribed!

Imperial Monkey wrote:U say in ur Sig. that you need ideas for a cadian sly marbo...Why not have acadian disguised as a tyranid...disguised as a lictor would be quite ironic....

Hah! That would be cool but I have no tyranid parts and I don't fight any tyranid players right now.

I'm painting a figure up to use as Marbo right now. He's not super cool but he's better than the GW figure...and much cheaper. I just wish I had a good fig to run behind him as a weapon caddy, carrying all the crap that Marbo uses in combat: frag grenades, knives, demo charge, poison, pistol rounds, and melta bombs.

As I tweak my list for a 1500 point tournament army, I've decided to put commissars in it. I want two of them: one in my first infantry squad so he can "blob" up with another infantry squad and then a carbon copy commissar in the infantry squad in the second platoon. The squads will have voxes and the PCS and CCS will also have voxes. The CCS may also have a regimental standard though that seems like overkill. I can't reroll a reroll.

I use Cadian officer figures as commissars because I don't like the commissar figures (yeah, I'm a raving lunatic). The GW models just look too froofy to me.

Here are pics of the two commissars. Both will use PW and bolt pistols, which means a weapon swap for the plasma pistol model. He also needs a painting upgrade. The priest is staying on the bench so he won't get any prettier for a long, long, long time (next IG codex maybe?).


Has anyone else used commissars for "blob" units? How well is that working for you?

Can you actually take commisairs in normal infantry squads??


Automatically Appended Next Post:
aand get up a picture of ur sly marbo conversion

Imperial Monkey wrote:Can you actually take commisairs in normal infantry squads??


Automatically Appended Next Post:
aand get up a picture of ur sly marbo conversion

Yes, you can take commissars in normal infantry squads. In fact, that seems like the very best place to put them since you can "blob" two or three squads together and create a nice stubborn "tarpit". It also rerolls a failed morale check after the commissar executes a model. It just makes no sense to give the commissar a plasma pistol since he only has one wound and an overheat could eliminate him - making a tarpit tactic impossible.

My Cadian version of Sly is not painted yet.

I've probably got too much on my table today but I thought I would share my mess with you. As stated earlier, I'm making some modifications for a 1500 point tournament list. The tourney is on March 6th so I have a little bit of time to get things done.

Here's what remains to be finished:

Sly Marbo (counts as): 1 figure
grenade launchers: 4 figures
Autocannons: 2 stands
vet sergeant with shotgun: 1 figure
Commissar weapon swap: 1 figure
Melta gunners: 3 figures

How hard can it be to paint about a dozen Cadians? Especially since I'm only painting them to a neat tabletop standard...
Well, anyone that's read through this blog knows that I've been working on the melta gunners for about seven months.

Here's some pics to illustrate some of my recent hijinks.


Final Vanquisher turret conversion


Convincing my Commissar to give up his plasma pistol.


Marbo (Cadian counts as)

I hope your building/converting/painting days are more productive than mine.

I'll post some pics of what I get finished today. I'm starting with the commissar weapon swap. He may also get highlights because he looks too bland. My other commissar puts him to shame.






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After further review, I may have to add one more melta gun to my tourney project list.

I finished the Commissar weapon swap and he's tabletop ready (though he still needs a future paint upgrade).

Here are the pics:



I've moved on to my two autocannon crews. I only need to finish painting the two autocannons since the crews were taken from previously finished lascannon teams.




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The two autocannon teams are finished. Moving on to melta gunners.

This blog is very inspiring. I like the turret conversion and it has given me some good ideas to try out on my own tanks. Keep up the good work

Thanks Nemissary. I read so many awesome blogs this weekend that I almost didn't get any painting done. Dakka has a pretty active community and I'm happy to contribute when I have time.

I did manage to get some painting done. As stated earlier, the commissar and the autocannon crews are done. I also decided not to use a veteran sergeant with a shotgun for this tournament, opting instead for one with a laspistol and CCW since I already have such a figure ready to go.

I also finished my four grenadiers tonight. The pics are below. Yes, these aren't the three that I showed you earlier in my blog. I'm saving those for another squad. I used to hate the grenadier figs because they're so hard to put together, but after painting them, I've decided that I like them. They're easy to paint and they make a nice break from lasguns.








All I have left for the 1500 point tournament is my Cadian Marbo and the three hated melta gunners. Marbo is primed so he will take much work. The melta gunners are all done except for detailing but since I hate them, it will probably be the last night before the tournament when I finish them.

I also have some Old Crow stuff on the way so that I can make a Hydra. I don't need it for the tournament but I liked Flinty's idea so much that I borrowed it. It helps that I like Hydras and that I happen to have an old MKII Rhino sitting around doing nothing. Anyone know what version of the Rhino is GW's current model? Is it up to MK III yet?

I hope your projects are going well too, and I want to give a special shout out to the three guys out there that are still following this blog. Thanks men, you're my inspiration!

Watching my list of Dakka threads got to be pretty boring tonight. Not many updates. I guess most folks are off watching reruns of Olympic ice dancing (Eldar and Dark Eldar players) or maybe catching the hockey games (Chaos players). But the Emperor never sleeps and neither do his tech priests. I actually started working on my veteran melta gunners again since they and Marbo are all that stand between me and my 1500 point tournament army. With the tournament less than two weeks away, I've run out of time for frivolity and betting on the local servitor races.

Just one quick pic because I'm still working. I have a lot of details to add and I really hate the shine on these figures (due to the Deneb Mud wash). Thank the Omnissiah for DullCote.



I have two Forge World melta gunners so I see these boring metal models getting shunted to the side one day soon. I just have to figure out what to do for a third replacement figure.

That's my quick update. At least one blog on Dakka got updated tonight.

+++++++++++++ transmission ended ++++++++++++++

JB wrote:@Kanluwen

Thanks! You make a good point. People often dislike the common standard. Ultramarines are the vanilla SM and Cadians are the norm for IG. However, while I often see Ultramarines painted up as in the Codex, I've never seen a tabletop Cadian army that uses the GW basic painting instructions. Maybe the reason people like variant schemes with Cadians is because you can use them - unlike the warriors of Ultramar.

Yeah, I agree. For some reason, I actually rather like the 39th Cadian "Xenobane" colors, it was in the 4th ed codex.

I know you spent alot on the cadian melta gunners, but something you could have done is buy the melta gun bits from gdub, removed the hands around the grips and then sling them over their backs.

Gavo wrote:

JB wrote:@Kanluwen

Thanks! You make a good point. People often dislike the common standard. Ultramarines are the vanilla SM and Cadians are the norm for IG. However, while I often see Ultramarines painted up as in the Codex, I've never seen a tabletop Cadian army that uses the GW basic painting instructions. Maybe the reason people like variant schemes with Cadians is because you can use them - unlike the warriors of Ultramar.

Yeah, I agree. For some reason, I actually rather like the 39th Cadian "Xenobane" colors, it was in the 4th ed codex.

I like green uniform schemes so the 39th colors look pretty good to me. The sand colored helmet is not so appealing. I guess they needed something to clash with all of that green.

Ennkay wrote:I know you spent alot on the cadian melta gunners, but something you could have done is buy the melta gun bits from gdub, removed the hands around the grips and then sling them over their backs.

Slinging them is not a bad idea but I actually like the heavy backpacks and hoses that the Cadian melta guns require. I want the whole ensemble so I guess I'll end up converting a few figures into melta gunners. That may be a future project after the Hydras and maybe some Leman Russes. I also need to weather all of my vehicles. My Tamiya weathering kits are gathering dust right now.

I'm still planning to finish my melta gunners and Marbo this week before the 1500 point tournament on Saturday. But I feel the need to head to my FLGS today to pick up a Chimera, some new putty, and maybe some more sheet styrene.

What's driving me to get yet another Chimera (I have eight already that are built and painted) are my new Old Crow bits (they arrived this week) that I will use to make my own Hydra Flak Tanks. I got the idea from Flinty who used a Rhino chassis for his conversion (see photo below). I'm more traditional (as you might have noticed from my Cadians) so I want Chimera chassis for my two Hydras. Flinty's blog here on Dakka is well worth a read for folks interested in a very unique and 21st century modern warfare looking IG army.

Here's a pic of Flinty's conversion. He didn't really explain the details of his process but I have a Rhino chassis and did some rough fitting yesterday. It looks a hell of a lot easier to use a Rhino than a Chimera.



I don't know if anyone is really interested in this conversion but you're going to get to see it anyway. I'll lay it out step by step in tutorial fashion. The Old Crow bits are extremely well cast (dare I say better than Forge World) but I don't know how well they'll take paint and glue. I'll also discuss the costs of doing it my way versus simply buying a Forge World conversion kit.

Comments and suggestions are welcome, as usual.

What my brother came up with(I will use it later...) is to use the hydra gun from the planetstrike defences (ageis defence line, i think its called) But yeh...i like it

also...don't really know why but the plasma pistol looks odly good with a white casing :S

Loving those Griffon crew members and Sergeant conversions!

@JB - Thanks for the reference and the comments

There isn't that much to the conversion to be honst, hence the lack of explanation. All the parts are pretty obvious in the picture. I used the Predator kit as a base and picked up a couple of extra Lascannon sponsons to make the extended Autocannon. Old Crow tactical turret and 50mm RFAC barrels complete the picture, then bodge them together

Good luck with the Chimera conversion. Looking forward to how it looks with a more traditional chassis.

Another idea perhaps would be to mod the chimera to use the artillery vehicle front and push the troop transport top bit to the rear like these ones by Endtransmission

Imperial Monkey wrote:What my brother came up with(I will use it later...) is to use the hydra gun from the planetstrike defences (ageis defence line, i think its called) But yeh...i like it

also...don't really know why but the plasma pistol looks odly good with a white casing :S

I suspect we'll start seeing a lot of scratchbuilt Hydras with the Aegis quad defence gun. It's a nice piece and greatly simplifies conversion requirements. I like the gun but I dislike a lot of other components in that kit. I may trade for one down the road but I don't plan to pay for a set. The bastion is OK but the little walls bother me.

CadianXV wrote:Loving those Griffon crew members and Sergeant conversions!

Thanks! I'll post some pics once I have them painted.

Flinty wrote:@JB - Thanks for the reference and the comments

There isn't that much to the conversion to be honst, hence the lack of explanation. All the parts are pretty obvious in the picture. I used the Predator kit as a base and picked up a couple of extra Lascannon sponsons to make the extended Autocannon. Old Crow tactical turret and 50mm RFAC barrels complete the picture, then bodge them together

Good luck with the Chimera conversion. Looking forward to how it looks with a more traditional chassis.

Another idea perhaps would be to mod the chimera to use the artillery vehicle front and push the troop transport top bit to the rear like these ones by Endtransmission

Thanks for pointing out endtransmission's blog. I don't know how I missed it but it was new to me. Now I'm inspired to start another round of resin casting.

My Hydra conversion hit a snag when both of my FLGSs had no Chimeras (the new ones won't come out until March 20th) and no green stuff. Since I have to wait for 20 days, I guess I'll finish up my tournament army and maybe work on my Kasrkin squad (the dudes in the white armor). They need some touchups, two new melta gunners, and some work on their bases.

I also need to replace all of my vehicle antennas. The replacements need to be cheap, easy to replace, and flexible so that they don't break. I've got some ideas to try out.

Thanks for the tutorials on putty molding techniques, I've been using silicone rubber to make molds and always wondered how the putty would work. Keep up the good work!

For antennas, have you tried guitar string? Cut to a short-ish length, and it'll stand up by itself, and looks great. Cut longer sections to make 'whip' antennas.

Just be careful when handling them- a friend of mine didn't realise my Predator had one on, and the wire pierced his palm when he went to pick it up!

I tend to use florist/gardening wire it's cheap and cheerful. I still have loads from the 100m roll I picked up about 5 years ago for a few quid. The Old Crow stuff looks awesome and the more I look at it the more I want lots.....

I like the conversions, and the way you've been able to bolster your amount of bits with the resin casting, I may do that sometime myself now . Do you plan on adding the shield or anything more to the artillery tank?

BLACKHAND wrote:Thanks for the tutorials on putty molding techniques, I've been using silicone rubber to make molds and always wondered how the putty would work. Keep up the good work!

Thanks! Have you posted any helpful info about the silicone rubber molds? I'm heading in that direction next.

CadianXV wrote:For antennas, have you tried guitar string? Cut to a short-ish length, and it'll stand up by itself, and looks great. Cut longer sections to make 'whip' antennas.

Just be careful when handling them- a friend of mine didn't realise my Predator had one on, and the wire pierced his palm when he went to pick it up!

I have guitar strings but I know that they're pretty sharp sometimes. I'm not planning to use them as antenna material.

Llamahead wrote:I tend to use florist/gardening wire it's cheap and cheerful. I still have loads from the 100m roll I picked up about 5 years ago for a few quid. The Old Crow stuff looks awesome and the more I look at it the more I want lots.....

I thought about the florist wire. I already have lots of it but I don't plan to use it for antennas. It does make good cabling though. Thank Flinty for turning folks on to Old Crow. A few other folks pointed out some pure Old Crow win too. I forget who was using the light wheeled trucks but they looked pretty good.

Karl Deathwolf wrote:I like the conversions, and the way you've been able to bolster your amount of bits with the resin casting, I may do that sometime myself now . Do you plan on adding the shield or anything more to the artillery tank?

Casting takes time but it is very rewarding when you get everything right. I plan to do some sculpting and then cast a few original items that I want en masse for my IG. I don't know if I will build gun shields for my Griffons. Only the Forge World version had such shields and they don't make much sense for a long range artillery piece. As far as I know, real world self-propelled artillery either goes fully armored or goes without any armor at all. I may build a shield just to prove that it can be done. Tech priests just love to push the envelope.

Well please don't force yourself to put a shield on the griffins if you don't want to, its just something I thought would look good on it.

I really like the gun on your marbo conversion, looks very similar to the Walther arms 2000 rifle.

Also your hydra is coming along nicely. Would love to see more pictures.

I havn't done a specific tutorial on silicone casting but have included some mini tuts in my blog here,

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/276630.page

Hope it helps, your welcome to PM me with any questions

Karl, no worries. I think the Forge World gun shields look cool but I'm not really leaning in that direction now.

Da Big Mek, thanks. You do realize, however, that the pic of the Hydra conversion is Flinty's project. I'm putting my hydras on Chimera chassis once GW releases more Chimeras (March 20th).

Blackhand, thanks! It may take a few months, but I am planning to make some silicone molds.






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Well, today is a tournament day. The 11th Cadian goes out to do battle with a lean, mean universe of enemies - every one of which is more gribbly than guardsmen.

I put together a 1500 point list of Cadians for a three game set. It's not perfect but it's what I'm using.

This list combines a veteran mech-melta squad with a big infantry platoon. I tossed in some of my favorite Leman Russes for support. The Enginseer is part of my fluff and he's my avatar so he stays even though he doesn't really earn points about half the time. Just consider him my handicap.


HQs
Company Command Squad with Vox, Grenade Launcher, Heavy Weapons Team (Autocannon), Chimera HB 125
Techpriest with two technical servitors 75

Elites
None

Troops
Vet Sqd, 3 melta guns, Chimera HF 155

Infantry Platoon (565 points total)
Command Squad with Vox, Grenade Launcher, Heavy Weapons Team (Autocannon), Chimera HB 105
Infantry Squad with Commissar (Bolt Pistol, Power Weapon), Vox, Grenade Launcher, Heavy Weapons Team (Autocannon), SGT 115
Infantry Squad with Grenade Launcher, Heavy Weapons Team (Autocannon), SGT 65
Infantry Squad with Commissar (Bolt Pistol, Power Weapon), Vox, Heavy Weapons Team (Heavy Bolter), SGT 110
Infantry Squad with Heavy Weapons Team (Heavy Bolter), SGT 60
Infantry Squad with Heavy Weapons Team (Heavy Bolter), SGT 60
Special Weapons Squad with three flamers 50

Fast Attack
None

Heavy Support
LR Vanquisher with Knight Commander Pask, HB, HB Sponsons 225
LR Demolisher HB 165
LR Executioner HB 190

TOTAL: 1500 points

Summary:
3 Tanks (1 Demolisher Siege Cannon + HB, 1 Executioner Plasma Cannon + HB, 1 Vanquisher Battle Cannon + 3 HB at BS 4)
3 Chimeras ( 3 Multi-Lasers, 2 HB, 1 HF)
4 Autocannons
3 Heavy Bolters
0 Lascannons
3 Meltas
4 Grenade Launchers
3 Flamers + 1 Vehicle mounted Heavy Flamer
0 Plasma guns
2 Power Weapons (Commissars)

81 models (75 of them are infantry including 7 HW teams)

The tournament requires fully painted models so many players bring lots of vehicles and not much infantry. There will be skimmers but I don't have anything to deal with them other than a high volume of fire. I'm also weak in anti-cover, anti-invuln (hard for IG to get), and indirect fire capabilities. I've got some AV14 killers as well as 2+ AS killers. The big questions in my mind are whether I can pop enough enemy transport at a distance, what to do about Lootas/Devastators/Havocs/Broadsides at ranges beyond 36", and whether I can deal with deep strike CC armies.

Maybe I'll get three opponents with nice fluffy infantry armies?

It's been a while since I updated. I've been too busy playing games or cobbling together armies for those games.

I made it through the three game tournament with a bye, a crushing defeat against the overall tourney winner, and a decisive victory in the last game. More importantly, I had a lot of fun and learned a lot more about which units I like and dislike in a tournament style take-all comers environment. I saw a lot of very similar SM armies. It made me wonder if there aren't many good builds for SM.

I also fought an Apocalypse battle yesterday. That was my first Apoc clash and it was a barrel of fun. Six thousand points per side with four of us playing made for a workable game with lots of drama and entertainment value. It ended in a draw which was perfect. Everyone had fun and lots of triumphs and tragedies to inspire more collecting, building, and painting. I've even decided that eight Chimeras aren't enough. Valks and Vendettas suddenly look very appealing too.

For the battle, I elevated my stormtrooper sergeant to the position of Lord Inquisitor for a day. Now that's a promotion!

So he gets a new ride as part of the perks of the job!



Then he gets some new friends to be his retinue.



And then he ends up in a corner of hell in the Apocalypse game. Everyone on the enemy side (including Abaddon) wants to kill the newest Lord of the Ordo Malleus!!


This picture was taken before the Space Wolf drop pods and CSM teleporters filled the table corner with terminators, dreadnoughts, and other gribblies. Abbadon showed up too but got distracted by three sentinels.


At the end of the game, the fledgling Lord Inquisitor was still alive with just one servo skull (B3RT) still floating behind him. Praise the Emperor for Artificer Armor and Icon of the Just!!

I'm still working on odds and ends (damn melta gunners), but will begin my Hydra/Manticore project sometime after GW releases the new Chimera models on March 20th. My goal is to have a model that can switch back and forth between the two types of vehicles. I'm assuming that I'll need pins and magnets (maybe magnetic pins?).

Happy gaming!

sweet. i've not played in months...it needs to change!! :L

Imperial Monkey wrote:sweet. i've not played in months...it needs to change!! :L

You definitely need to play every once in a while. It helps to motivate you for the building and painting. I've got a two-man tournament coming up on April 3rd and that has inspired me to work on my Plasma Executioner, a Banewolf, two lascannon teams, and Marbo.

That may delay my Hydra/Manticore work...

Hmmmmm...I'm impressed u've stuck with guard all this time, i've collected them for half the time and am distraced by my blood ravens already :L

Imperial Monkey wrote:Hmmmmm...I'm impressed u've stuck with guard all this time, i've collected them for half the time and am distraced by my blood ravens already :L

I started IG back when The Eye of Terror campaign kicked off. I've actually had Orks since Rogue Trader but have never finished painting a full army of them. For some reason, I don't mind painting IG. It may be the armored vehicles...lots and lots of armored vehicles, but I have quite a bit of painted infantry too and I keep adding more. Now that I've figured out a simpified step-by-step painting process, the ordinary infantry go pretty quick. It helps that I only paint most figures to a tabletop standard at first and then go back from time to time to add more details.

The blog helps to motivate me too. I'm working on my Plasma Executioner this evening. Here's the "Before" shot.



I figure I can finish it in three hours. Maybe I'll post in-progress shots each hour. I'm going to use GW's latest camo scheme to see if I like it. It's a bit more lively than the one I use now. Tau Sept Ochre jumps out at you more than Graveyard Earth. I need to drill some barrels as well so perhaps I should count on four hours till complete?




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++++++++++++ Begin Transmission ++++++++++++++



After the first hour, there's not much to report. I drilled out the plasma cannon and heavy bolter barrels and finished off the basecoat of Dark Angels Green.

Now I'm going to commit heresy and drybrush a heavy layer of Catachan Green on.



++++++++++++ End Transmission ++++++++++++++



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Not much progress in 2 1/2 hours but at least I'm moving forward. I was out of some colors that I needed so I stuck with my standard camo pattern.

The first coat of camo is on and the track shoes are painted. Now it's time for a quick touchup of a few areas with Chaos Black and then we move to Boltgun Metal.


Right now I feel like the second slowest painter in the world.




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The Plasma Executioner is tabletop ready now except for the three heavy weapons (two plasma cannons, one heavy bolter). I also need to brown ink a couple of spots to make it match the rest of my force. It also needs some Forge World white IG decals. I like their white imperial eagles.

I will post pics tomorrow. It's not a work of art but it will be ready to slay the enemies of the Emperor during the April 3rd team tournament. Next will be my Marbo since I don't have all the pieces for my Banewolf yet.

It's just about noon on Sunday and I'm ready to finish the Executioner at a state of table top readiness. Unfortunately Dakka isn't loading pics right now. All that remains are the heavy weapons, decals, some Asurmen Blue Wash on the hatch vision blocks, some Testor's Window Maker in the drivers window, and I need to add more color to the plasma coils. I'm thinking Ice Blue over Enchanted Blue. It could also use some Baal Red Wash but I don't have any on hand.

it's lookin' Great. but 1 question. is the Heavy Bolter upside down?

alarmingrick wrote:it's lookin' Great. but 1 question. is the Heavy Bolter upside down?

Oops...yes it is. It is not actually glued in place though so that's is easily fixed. This new model has a lot of features that are a vast improvement over the old Demolisher kit.

1. All plastic
2. Variant bits to make a Demolisher, Executioner, or Punisher. You can rig the model to swap out the gun tubes as needed. My Plasma Cannon on the turret is removable.
3. No wheels
4. The track pieces fit into specific slots within the side pieces. It's almost idiot-proof though you can still glue the tracks facing the wrong direction.
5. The heavy weapons insert into their sponsons and pretty much stay in place without glue. You could add some bluetac just to be sure or use magnets. This allows easy swapping between weapons.

Now the downside.
1. No spare track pieces. Make sure you don't lose any of them.
2. The turret ring is not the same size as the old LRBT so swapping turrets between old and new kits requires some work.
3. No accessory sprue

I already have four LRBT variants (three of them built and painted) so this kit was a bit of a splurge. Of course, the rules for the Plasma Executioner made it an easy purchase.

Legoburner fixed the pic upload function so I will post pics as soon as I finish the heavy weapons.




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Well it took much longer than expected and I followed my usual form instead of the GW Catachan pattern. That's probably better anyway for my very uniform Cadian regiment.

Here are the pics. It's tabletop ready and will hopefully do good things at the team tournament on April 3rd.











No more comments for now. There are a few notes with each pic in the gallery. If you doubleclick on each photo, I think it takes you there. That also should allow folks to zoom in to see all of my mistakes.

Marbo is next but he'll have to wait until tomorrow. I need a break.

Nice work on the Executioner; I know you're only painting to tabletop standard, but I cant help feeling either a highlight colour on the camo, or a secondary colour would vastly improve it. Weathering it by drybrushing around the track areas would also help. Just my $0.02.

CadianXV wrote:Nice work on the Executioner; I know you're only painting to tabletop standard, but I cant help feeling either a highlight colour on the camo, or a secondary colour would vastly improve it. Weathering it by drybrushing around the track areas would also help. Just my $0.02.

Thanks! I agree that the model (and all of my other vehicle models) need significant highlighting and weathering. I just don't have time for it right now.

I do add a bit of detail to vehicles over time (I was improving my commander's Chimera while I was working on the Executioner), but I still have too many other vehicles to finish. Until I get them (them=a Basalisk, two Hydras/Manticores, a Banewolf, a Leman Russ, and two Sentinels) finished to a tabletop standard, I won't spend much time improving my painted models. I also have about three dozen more Cadian infantry that need painting including a score of melta and plasma gunners.

Out of curiousity though, what color would you recommend for a highlight and/or secondary color. How do you do your vehicle weathering?
I keep a paint tips logbook and will add your recommendations to my notes.

wow, thats some inspirational work there.
any way heres an idea for plasma gunners i found a long time ago, the instructions are in german but its easy enough to understand. THIS IS NOT MINE.
its just a sugestion, you dont need to use it.

Commissar Agro wrote:wow, thats some inspirational work there.
any way heres an idea for plasma gunners i found a long time ago, the instructions are in german but its easy enough to understand. THIS IS NOT MINE.
its just a sugestion, you dont need to use it.

Thanks Commissar! That's good intel. I like the German vocabulary too. It's my second language and I always need more practice. Zehr Toll!

I should be painting Marbo tonight but I'm feel compelled to tinker with my Banewolf. It's a sweet model (like the Executioner) that looks like it is best painted in separate pieces and then assembled. It makes me yearn for the two new Chimera kits that I need for my Hydra/Manticores. Curse the snow last weekend that prevented me from making it to my FLGS. Aaah, the machines...must have more machines!

I like the executioner, although the tracks look a little clean

Karl Deathwolf wrote:I like the executioner, although the tracks look a little clean

Thanks! CadianXV made a similar point about the vehicles needed weathering. I agree wholeheartedly. I had to work in armored vehicles for most of four years and they don't even look clean within seconds of driving off the washrack. They are always either dusty or muddy or both. Knowing that, I will get my weathering kits and some paint out eventually and grime up my vehicular horde. But I still have a load of vehicles to get to tabletop standard before I start my festival of muck.

Sorry, no real P&M updates. I'm playing in a two-man tournament on Saturday. Each team member brings 1000 points and the team shares a single FOC, so if I bring two HQs then my teammate gets none. I'm bringing IG, of course, and my partner is mostly a DSing Space Wolf. Surprisingly, I'm not using much mech.

My 1000 points is distributed as follows:

CCS with 3 meltas
Vendetta with 3 TL LC

DH Inquisitor with Hell Pistol and CCW, 2 mystics

Platoon
PCS with AC
Squad x 3 with flamer; one squad has a commissar with PW and a sergeant with a melta bomb
Squad x 2 with GL, AC

Banewolf with hull HF

LR Executioner with plasma cannon sponsons and hull HB

I believe my total came to 999 points.

It should be three fun games. It's really not a power gaming environment.

The good news for blog progress is that I'll finally pick-up the two Chimeras that I needed for my Hydra/Manticore conversions. I'll start that process next week.

Good luck.
cant wait to see your hydra/manticore conversions.

The Hydra/Manticore conversion may be put on hold since GW is coming out with its own Manticore/Deathstrike model.

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/blogPost.jsp?aId=10500090a

The new Leman Russ kit looks like it might be worth adding to my army too, even though I already have an unbuilt Leman and four that are in the army already. Curse my acquisitive and meglomaniacal nature...

Huzzah for Threadromancy!

I think it's legal for P&M blogs. Oh well...

Since I finally have a bit more time and because I'm getting to actually play games again, you now find me back to working on my 11th Cadian Assault (Mechanized) Regiment.

Time only allows Lazy Project Days where I concentrate on one simple task per day (after work and family time).

I've been finishing off melta gunners, plasma gunners, and grenadiers (boring, so no pics) and my Hellhound/Devil Dog/Banewolf/Sit on the Shelf Vehicle.

One Lazy Day Project was magnetizing the silly Hellhound.




Nothing spectacular but it does allow me to swap weapons out with ease. I vacillate between using it as a Devil Dog with hull multi-melta and as a Banewolf where it is usually inept and frequently immobilized in difficult terrain.

The Lazy Day Project for the last two days was just re-basing my Cadian Kasrkin. I find I make progress more readily when I just do simple things each day. If I have grandiose plans for doing something, I'll usually just procrastinate and spend all my P&M time posting and reading on Dakka Dakka.







So one more nagging detail finished as my Lazy Day Project. And finally posting to my P&M blog...I guess that's two nagging details completed.

Good luck with your Lazy Day Projects!

good stuff mate , like your blog

Awesome! More aces ideas to steal

The Kasrkin are looking great. They must be fresh back from R&R

How Ironic, I seem to be getting back into my Red Shields mech force as well. I'm finishing off the infantry so I can chow down on some of the good stuff, ie. tanks Not sure the white is a very "Guard camo" colour, but they're really nicely painted so good job there

neil101 wrote:good stuff mate , like your blog

Thanks Neil! I appreciate that.

Flinty wrote:Awesome! More aces ideas to steal

The Kasrkin are looking great. They must be fresh back from R&R

Yar! 'Tis Flinty the Creative One! Ok [/drama] Glad to see you Flinty. I still have to make use of your Hydra conversion idea. That will happen sooner than you think.

Imperial Monkey wrote:How Ironic, I seem to be getting back into my Red Shields mech force as well. I'm finishing off the infantry so I can chow down on some of the good stuff, ie. tanks Not sure the white is a very "Guard camo" colour, but they're really nicely painted so good job there

Hahah, I was wondering how your IG were doing. I'm actually not the one that came up with the color scheme. I bought ten Inquisitorial Stormtroopers on Ebay from a guy in St. Louis...years back. I liked the white camo but I wanted to use them as Cadian Kasrkin. Big problem...no Sergeant. So I bought a Sergeant online from GW and painted him to match the other ten figures. The squad is my little dark secret because they're the only models in my army that I didn't build or paint...other than rebasing and touch-ups. I am still adding details to them too. I like to putter and tinker.

love the work here, great stuff!

Out of interest what sort of list are you running at 100pts (more is a loooong way in the distance for now...), I'm intrigued to see what you do at that level, rule is that there are no foot-sloggers! I'll post mine up later. Although mine is being built to face Arakasi's Orks :L

Sageheart wrote:love the work here, great stuff!

Thanks Sageheart! If you have any questions feel free to ask.

Imperial Monkey wrote:Out of interest what sort of list are you running at 100pts (more is a loooong way in the distance for now...), I'm intrigued to see what you do at that level, rule is that there are no foot-sloggers! I'll post mine up later. Although mine is being built to face Arakasi's Orks :L

I hope you meant 1000 points. I'm not using a list at that point level right now. My current builds for about three games a week are either 1500, 1750, or 2500. I also play what I like instead of what are optimum builds. I also like to try some variety so some units get rotated in and out.

The only constant units for me are two CCS as HQ in Chimeras, five mechvet squads in Chimeras, and a three squad infantry platoon with a platoon HQ with flamers in a Chimera. So I use eight Chimeras in the list with two HQ and six troops choices. It's not about power build. I just like Chimeras. I even used them in 4th Edition when they lost all the time.

The CCS have plasma guns (3 or 4). Three of the mechvet squads use three meltaguns each. The other two use grenade launchers and autocannons. The blob squad platoon has one commissar and two autocannons. Sometimes I'll give the blob squad sergeants meltabombs.

I usually don't use Fast choices though I have a Hellhound, a Banewolf/Hellhound/Devil Dog, and two Mars Pattern Sentinels all painted up. I also have a Valk on the way that I probably will build, paint, and use regularly as a Vendetta. I also have one more Mars Pattern Sentinel to build but that project is way, way out there.

My heavy slots are usually one to three Griffons. They're cheap, accurate, and good anti-horde infantry killers. I use hull heavy flamers so they can deal damage to enemies within 12 inches. At higher point levels, I add a Plasma/plasma/plasma Executioner, a stripped down Demolisher, and maybe a stripped down Battle Tank or two. I am also painting up two Basilisks and building a Manticore. A Hydra is an upcoming project as well. The one heavy model that I don't use much is my Vanquisher. It only comes out for Apoc.

I also plan to add about fifty more infantry figures, three mortars, and two autocannons. There will be more melta, plasma, and grenade launchers in that mix.

Opps, yeh I meant 1000, hehe, yeh, that could lead my maths prelim in 2 weeks to a very bad place... But :O that's a lot of projects going on. Yeh see, I don't like the lots of infantry. Once I get the pieces I will run:
Primaris Psyker
Vets; lasguns/shotguns, powerfist, flamer (x3), bolt pistol & Chimera
Vets; Plasma guns (x3), bolt pistol & Chimera
Scout sentinel; Autocannon
Banewolf; Heavy flamer
Vanquisher; Lascannon, Pask
Punisher; Heavy Bolter sponsons+ hull.
Total: 989

Btw, what's the best way to run Chimeras in your obviously experienced position. This si the army I'm building to take on Arakasi in about 3/4 weeks, I still need to buy most of it Yeh, but I like all the interesting tank choices from around the list.

If your up against orks, skipp the vanquisher. Bring a exterminator instead.

can we have a group shot or what you have so far?

Sageheart wrote:can we have a group shot or what you have so far?

Here is a shot from one of the games I played in yesterday:

This was the setup for game one (spearhead, seize ground, 2500 points).

Not pictured are my Kasrkin squad, Marbo, and two scout sentinels. I also had eight squads inside the eight Chimeras. 2500 points includes the majority of my painted models except for a priest, a second commissar, a Hellhound, a LR Vanquisher, a LRBT, a lascannon team, four heavy bolter teams, a five man suicide melta stormtrooper squad, an enginseer with three servitors, and about a dozen assorted Cadian infantry models.

I hope to get a photo of all of it together sometime.

aa photo of them all together would be sick, but that is a nice pic!

Rose_Mountainz wrote:If your up against orks, skipp the vanquisher. Bring a exterminator instead.

Arakasi's orks are mechanised. Its 2boyz squads, in trukks, with KFF Mek, so I feel the vanquisher is necessary for making sure of elimination when points are stepped up then an exterminator will be added. Oh, sorry about this wee discussion JB

JB wrote:

I'm still planning to finish my melta gunners and Marbo this week before the 1500 point tournament on Saturday. But I feel the need to head to my FLGS today to pick up a Chimera, some new putty, and maybe some more sheet styrene.

What's driving me to get yet another Chimera (I have eight already that are built and painted) are my new Old Crow bits (they arrived this week) that I will use to make my own Hydra Flak Tanks. I got the idea from Flinty who used a Rhino chassis for his conversion (see photo below). I'm more traditional (as you might have noticed from my Cadians) so I want Chimera chassis for my two Hydras. Flinty's blog here on Dakka is well worth a read for folks interested in a very unique and 21st century modern warfare looking IG army.

Here's a pic of Flinty's conversion. He didn't really explain the details of his process but I have a Rhino chassis and did some rough fitting yesterday. It looks a hell of a lot easier to use a Rhino than a Chimera.



I don't know if anyone is really interested in this conversion but you're going to get to see it anyway. I'll lay it out step by step in tutorial fashion. The Old Crow bits are extremely well cast (dare I say better than Forge World) but I don't know how well they'll take paint and glue. I'll also discuss the costs of doing it my way versus simply buying a Forge World conversion kit.

Comments and suggestions are welcome, as usual.

Yeah, I said that I would build my Hydra back in February of last year. I got the idea from Flinty's model (pictured above) and he inspired me to go ahead and buy the parts. I just never got around to actually building the model. So after almost a year of waiting to ensure proper Feng Shui, let's begin...

First the parts needed:

1 Chimera chassis (I'm using one of my squad Chimeras for this WIP)
1 set of Old Crow gun barrels (50mm length, pack of four barrels for two British pounds)
1 Old Crow Tac Missle Turret (four and a half British pounds)
2 left side and 2 right side Space Marine lascannons from the SM Predator





========================================================

My concept was to mount the turret on the front of the Chimera in such a way that I can swap turrets and some other bits to allow me to use the model as either a Hydra or a regular Chimera. For this WIP, I'm just going to use a regular Chimera chassis but later I'll will modify a new chassis so that it won't have the lasguns and troop hatch showing when the model is used as a Hydra.



========================================================

I started by trimming the muzzles off of the lascannons up to where there is a ring on the barrel. Then I glued the two halves of each lascannon together and cleaned them up a bit. I also cleaned up the metal and resin parts from Old Crow. They didn't take much work.



========================================================

Now the painful parts: I had to drill out the lascannon barrels in order for the Old Crow gun barrels to fit. I tried a 7/64 bit first and that was pretty good but a bit too tight. I stepped up to a 1/8 bit and that was good.



========================================================

The next step was to join the two left side and then the two right lascannons together. I chose to do this with the top gun of each pair set slightly back of the bottom gun. I also chose to use the skull side for each each lascannon which meant that the top skull on each side was upside down. I fixed this by using an X-Acto (Craft) knife to carefully shave the top skull off of the gun. You could do it differently by reversing the top guns so that the blank side (no skull) is showing.



========================================================

I decided that I wanted the autocannons to move in tandem so I drilled a hole through the turret, the mounting brackets, and made a hole into the autocannons on the side where they will join the mounting brackets. All holes were the same diameter (which I can't bloody remember but it is big enough for a piece of trimmed sprue to serve as the pin).



========================================================

Then I used Green Stuff to join the Old Crow gun barrels into the SM lascannons. I made sure that the Old Crow barrels were positioned correctly (the muzzles are canted like IG lascannon muzzels with the top further forward than the bottom. The Old Crow barrels are molded so that you don't need to drill out the barrels.



========================================================

Before glueing the mounting brackets to the autocannons, I used my X-Acto (craft) knife to score the areas where I intended to use super glue. I used a light crosshatch pattern to score the plastic and metal so that the glue would get a better bond.



=========================================================

After the crosshatch was scored, I used super glue to join the mounting brackets to the autocannons. I put the sprue pin into each mounting bracket before the glue set so that I could ensure the bracket was positioned correctly. I did not put any glue on the sprue pin yet.



=========================================================

Thats looking good so far. It'll be interesting to see it with the longer barrels than I ended up with

I would recommend trimming away the metal mounting piece where it isn't hidden by the AC mount, if only for neatness.

thats looking great

My Hydra building adventure continues. The super glue failed to hold the metal mounting brackets to the plastic sides of the Hydra autocannons. Since they were coming off anyway, I took Flinty's advice and clipped the rails off.



=====================================================

I reattached the mounting brackets using green stuff. More green stuff went towards filling in the area underneath the mounting brackets and then successive layers to neaten the edges so they were flush with the sides of the metal bracket.



=====================================================

A pin vise with a drill bit was used to put a hole in the center of the Old Crow tac turret base. Then I cut a piece of a wooden skewer that was the same diameter as the hole. The length was enough to seat properly in the tac turret plus about 3/8 of an inch.



=====================================================

I used the same drill bit to put a similar hole in the top of my Chimera chassis. The hole is centered approximately in the front half of the Chimera so it's a bit off from the hole for the Chimera turret.



=====================================================

Using green stuff, I attached the Hydra autocannons to the plastic pin that connects them through the tac turret.



=====================================================



=====================================================

And finally I get to check whether the spring pin functions so that I can reposition the Hydra autocannons. The guns move in tandem and stay in position.



=====================================================

The Hydra isn't perfect and I think I can build the next one better. I would use a better pin to link the two Hydra cannons and I would drill the hole through the Tac Turret more neatly on the first go.

But I won't complain too much because the Hydra turret looks pretty neat and is going to be a nice addition to my army. Now I just have to paint it up.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Flinty wrote:Thats looking good so far. It'll be interesting to see it with the longer barrels than I ended up with

I would recommend trimming away the metal mounting piece where it isn't hidden by the AC mount, if only for neatness.

Thanks Flinty! I did end up trimming the rails off of the mounting brackets.

Sageheart wrote:thats looking great

Thanks Sageheart! I think I can do the second one better but it will be a long time before I build another one. Predator lascannons don't grow on trees.

Looking Good man!

Good grief, that looks brutal... I like it

The whole thing seems to slant forward rather agressively. Also the swivelling cannon are inspired. Looking forward to seeing it get painted up!

dont you wish heavy weapons grew on trees, sigh, only in a perfect world...


The hydra tank looks very cool. Im digging the way the weapons look. When will you stop doing tanks and do more modelss!

Lewismio wrote:Looking Good man!

Thanks Lewismio! I'm hoping to get some paint on it this weekend.

Flinty wrote:Good grief, that looks brutal... I like it

The whole thing seems to slant forward rather agressively. Also the swivelling cannon are inspired. Looking forward to seeing it get painted up!

Thanks Flinty! I'm happy to see that the Old Crow tac turrets you discovered look just as good on Chimeras as they do on your Rhinos.

Sageheart wrote:dont you wish heavy weapons grew on trees, sigh, only in a perfect world...


The hydra tank looks very cool. Im digging the way the weapons look. When will you stop doing tanks and do more modelss!

Thanks Sageheart! What other models are you interested in? I'd like to sculpt some infantry legs that are running or lying down. Hmm...may have to do that soon.

I can't wait to see the results if you chose to do another one; it may sway me to start using Hydras!

Looking absolutely ace. Real Valk swatters.

Disjointed Entity wrote:I can't wait to see the results if you chose to do another one; it may sway me to start using Hydras!

Looking absolutely ace. Real Valk swatters.

Thanks! I used the Hydra in a three game tournament this past Saturday and it worked really well. In fact, i wonder how I ever got along without it. It can sit in a corner, see over my Chimeras and shoot practically the length of the table with four twin-linked autocannons. The enemy spent all their return fire on my Chimeras, infantry, and the Plasma Executioner so the Hydra just kept shooting in every game. I will have to add four vehicle kill symbols to it when I paint it up. None of them were Valks though...at least not yet.

I will definitely build another one since I already have the Old Crow Tac Turret and four barrels. I just need to get the four Predator Lascannons. Those aren't easy to obtain.

SWEEEEET! That's really cool, I'm working on a hydra conversion using autocannons from the heavy weapon sprue and imperial strongpoint set. I can't wait to see more.

James23105 wrote:SWEEEEET! That's really cool, I'm working on a hydra conversion using autocannons from the heavy weapon sprue and imperial strongpoint set. I can't wait to see more.

That sounds like an interesting conversion. Don't wait as long as I did though before getting it done. The rumor mill says that GW is producing a Hydra kit this summer. Take it with a grain of salt but also get cracking on your Hydra.

Yeouch. 4 Armour kills with one tank? That qualifies him as an ace for sure.
And it's 4 twin-linked? I thought it was only 2?

Disjointed Entity wrote:Yeouch. 4 Armour kills with one tank? That qualifies him as an ace for sure.
And it's 4 twin-linked? I thought it was only 2?

The Hydra autocannon is Heavy 2 (page 104 of the codex). Now look at the entry for the Hydra on page 102 of the codex. The Wargear for the Hydra is two Hydra autocannons that are twin-linked.

This has the advantage of giving you three weapons on the vehicle (two Hydra autocannons and one heavy bolter) so a Weapon Destroyed result doesn't stop your Hydra completely. The disadvantage is that when you move at combat speed you can only fire two twin-linked autocannon shots instead of four of them.

As for kills, yes, the Hydra is murder on light (AV10 and AV11) transports.

I'm loving it completely. I think a re-arrangement of my force is called for. A squadron of Hydras definitely needs to be incorporated somehow.

Just as a side note, have you ever seen anyone use a Deathstrike? I've always contemplated it but haven't ever gone with it.

I have used a Deathstrike. They are exceptionally random, but if you can put it downrange into a cluster, you're sure to cause lot of havoc.

Also, just the threat of it tends to make your opponent try and kill it, tying up some firepower.

Not something you'd want in every game, but a fun little boomstick. Also, do not use against an army with a majority of invulnerable saves. Just doesn't do squat.

--B.

Well, this week was insane - gamer insane! My FLGS planned an Apocalypse game for Saturday. Each player was authorized 4000 points from a single codex (no allies). My Cadian IG army was not quite 4000 points so I went nuts.



I used Christmas money for the Baneblade, traded for an unassembled Valkyrie model (thanks joshuafalcon!) and finally put together a Manticore using bitz and a Chimera model that I've had for several months.

By game time on Saturday, I was still throwing together the Baneblade (a real Techpriest would have had me tried for heresy for my lack of respect for the Machinespirit). I ended up missing start time, but it didn't matter. The store postponed the game because 60 card players were enjoying a pre-release MTG tournament. It was great for the store and I was late anyway so C'est la Vie! On the plus side, I have three cool models mostly built. On the down side, I probably should have spent four more hours to build the Baneblade correctly (ouch!).

Here are some other pics of the three models with comments:


This is the WIP Baneblade. I love the kit except for the front and rear wheels and the track links that go over them. These are quite fiddly and I suspect they will come apart before I play many games with this awesome super-heavy. I also think the pins for the lascannon turrets need to be deeper. I will modify those later.



I really like this new GW Manticore kit. While it looks very different than I expected (because GW also uses the same kit for the Deathstrike Missle Launcher). It is a nice design, the model fits together well, and the rockets can be elevated (compare this pic with the Rush Projects 1 pic). My only complaint is that they should have made the slots for the Stormeagle rockets different so that you could remove each missle as it is fired during a game. The slot is too shallow so you end up having to glue the rockets to the launcher to keep them from falling off. I'll figure out a way to magnetize them.



A side view of my Vendetta. The conversion is a very simple one that I borrowed from MEanBOb's tutorial. It only requires six IG lascannons from the Heavy Weapon kits and two track guard plates from the IG Vehicle Accessory Sprue (sadly, no longer included with IG vehicles but still available separately). I had all of these parts lying in my bitz boxes so voila!





Today is just a catch up day to make a new 1850 point list, repair some broken miniatures, add to this Plog, and order a few things that I need. I am planning to add more riflemen to my collection. You never know when you'll need more of them and I currently find that they are the limiting factor in the types of lists that I can use. So I bought three boxes of the easy-to-build Cadian infantry. It has a single sprue with five "plug-and-play" riflemen. No fiddly arms, no fiddly equipment bits, and no stupid bayonets. These are also cheap!! I may add more later.



The sprue has three poses so there are two pairs of one pose and then the fifth model is unique.




I am also converting some of my painted figures into riflemen since I don't need voxcasters, models with CCW and laspistol (other than sergeants and three commanders), and guys with bolters. I'll also finish up the last seven female IG figures that I have left on the PhoenixWargamers special sprue and maybe convert some heavy weapon teams to riflemen. I don't use mortars anyway, and I rarely use HWTs at all. Vehicles have more than enough heavy bolters and other firepower anyway.

And yes, I am painting the Hydra this week!

Looking very good!

Wow i love the BFG stuff im thinking about getting started and getting an imperial fleet.. if you dont mind me asking what do you like/dislike about BFG? and is the Imperial fleet a good way to go?

Rose_Mountainz wrote:Looking very good!

Thanks! Now I just need to motivate myself to catch up on some painting. The Hydra needs to get done before Saturday, and I also have two plasma gunners and two riflemen to paint. The Vendetta needs paint too but it is way too cold to prime it right now.

IHEARTLARGEBLASTTEMPLATES wrote:Wow i love the BFG stuff im thinking about getting started and getting an imperial fleet.. if you dont mind me asking what do you like/dislike about BFG? and is the Imperial fleet a good way to go?

I really like maneuvering the cruisers and having to plan ahead where each ship needs to go in order to make my battle plan successful. I also love lots of escorts as well as fighters and bombers.

I dislike how hard it is to find opponents.

The Imperial fleet is a good one. It offers several good fleet builds and the plastic cruiser sets are great. I think it can be a lot of fun though to get a fleet that matches your favorite 40K army so that you can play campaigns that use BFG and 40K.

Thanks for the tutorial credit. I thought no one would ever read that again

But anyways your guard are coming along nicely. I just started painting mine again (including that vendetta). I love the plasma effect you have on that executioner. The pulse effect is so much better than the standard glow effect.

MEanBOb wrote:Thanks for the tutorial credit. I thought no one would ever read that again

But anyways your guard are coming along nicely. I just started painting mine again (including that vendetta). I love the plasma effect you have on that executioner. The pulse effect is so much better than the standard glow effect.

Thanks again MEanBOb! I wish I had more experience at painting the pulse effect. I think my idea is better than my execution.


======================================================
This week I'm painting up some rather mundane stuff: Hydra turret, plasma gunners (more of them), and riflemen. So rather than drag you through that,
I thought I'd show you how I fixed my Baneblade lascannon sponson turrets, which were driving me crazy because they keep falling off the Baneblade.

This is one of the turrets that offends me:


This is why the turrets keep falling off. You can see the hole where the plastic pin comes down from the top of the lascannon turret.
You can also see the top of the sponson where the pin fits. It's a ridiculously shallow well.


Here you can see the plastic pin that goes from the top of the turret down until it culminates in the shallow plastic well on top of the sponson.


And this is my solution: use four of these MAGCRAFT rare earth magnets. I had them sitting around already.


I shortened the plastic pins so that that would stop just above the magnets I planned to insert in the bottom of each lascannon turret.
Using my sprue clippers, I trimmed a length equal to the height of two of the magnets (since the magnets would replace the part of the pin
that was in both the sponson well and the lascannon turret).


One magnet went into the bottom of each turret. The diameter is so perfect that I did not need glue.
Note that the plastic pin that comes down from above is long enough to rest on top of the magnet.


With a magnet in the lascannon turret, we now add a magnet into the shallow well on top of the sponson.
This magnet should be on the correct side to stick to the turret magnet (remember polarity).
If you fail to use the magnet right side up, you will find that your magnets repel each other.
THAT EQUATES to TOTAL FAIL so get it right before you secure the sponson well magnet using green stuff.

Let the green stuff almost fully dry (at least 30-45 minutes) and then seat the turret and press the extra green stuff
down out of the way. Then take the turret back off so it doesn't get stuck to the green stuff when this finally hardens completely.


Once the greenstuff has fully hardened you should be able to seat both turrets and rotate them around to your facing of choice.
Now you can hold the Baneblade sideways and those silly turrets stay on!!


I hope you're staying warm, dry, and well fed. This is one mean winter!

JB wrote:
I really like maneuvering the cruisers and having to plan ahead where each ship needs to go in order to make my battle plan successful. I also love lots of escorts as well as fighters and bombers.

May I suggest, that if you particualy enjoy these things to check out Full Thrust? That's a great starship game.

Back on topic now, I love your work JB, inspiring me to get back to work on my Cadians!

Disjointed Entity wrote:

JB wrote:
I really like maneuvering the cruisers and having to plan ahead where each ship needs to go in order to make my battle plan successful. I also love lots of escorts as well as fighters and bombers.

May I suggest, that if you particualy enjoy these things to check out Full Thrust? That's a great starship game.

Back on topic now, I love your work JB, inspiring me to get back to work on my Cadians!

Thanks for pointing out Full Thrust. It looks like the rules are free to download online so I may read them next week. The short description of the rules made them sound very adaptable to different space genres so that looks promising.

Yeah, get to work on your Cadians! The Emperor still has many enemies to smite and every man must do his duty!!

I'm working on redoing nine voxcasters as ordinary riflemen. It's a pain but necessary since I need another 31 riflemen but have no use at all for voxcasters in 5th Edition.

Yeah I know what you mean about Voxs. They used to be such a boon; but now ... 5 points too much.

And no trouble about Full Thrust. I play and I think it's a great game; just make sure you have enough anti-fighter guns, cause boy, those things are dangerous.

Wow! I can't believe that I have posted to this P&M blog since the first week of February. Work was crazy but I was getting time to work on my 40K projects. I simply didn't take more time to take pictures and post on Dakka.

I doubt anyone still remembers what projects were unfinished but here's the recap to bring you up to date:

1. Melta gunner madness. I now have 15 table ready melta gunners but they need some detailing.
2. Plasma gunners. I have seven table ready and two more primed for painting.
3. Griffon crewmen. Primed but not painted.
4. Vet Sergeants with shotguns. No progress on getting them painted.
5. Vendetta. Painted and tabletop ready. Still needs some detailing and decals.
6. Hydra. Painted and tabletop ready. Still needs some detailing and decals.
7. 2nd Hydra. Still just a dream though I have all of the components on hand now.
8. Manticore. Painted and tabletop ready. Still needs some detailing and decals.
9. Baneblade. Unpainted but I have the paint on hand.
10. Converting 9 voxcasters back into ordinary riflemen. Complete.
11. Marbo. Still primed but not painted.
12. Two old-school servitors. Unpainted.

I also started and finished a few mini projects:

1. Converted my four heavy bolters into autocannons. That gives me eight of them on the table.
2. Exterminator turret for my old Leman Russ models. Still needs camouflage, minor detailing, and decals.
3. Knight Commander Pask

My new projects for May 2011 are all painting projects. No planned sculpts or conversions since I'm in the middle of packing my family up and moving them in June.
1. Commissar Yarrick
2. Vehicle crewmen. I would like all of my tanks and several of my Chimeras to have crewmen added. I'll keep at it one by one.
3. Lasriflemen. I still want a lot more of these so I'll try to add five or so a week.
4. Plasma gunners. I need to finish painting two and then add three more.
5. Demolisher turret for my old Leman Russ models.
6. Finishing the details for the projects listed above.

Quick pics are below. I'll add more as soon as I make some progress.

Looking good, Making the Cadian High Command proud! Rather like that Hydra Conversion, never been good at scratch building, have to rely on Forgeworld for the hard to make bitz.

Fattimus_maximus wrote:Looking good, Making the Cadian High Command proud! Rather like that Hydra Conversion, never been good at scratch building, have to rely on Forgeworld for the hard to make bitz.

Thanks Fm! I get a few things from Forge World but decided not to buy their Hydras because I really liked Flinty's conversions for his army and I had heard several bad things about warped barrels on FW Hydras.

Not a lot to update tonight except that I had a great game on Saturday versus Dark Elves using Commissar Yarrick as a HQ choice. Yes, he's a point sink but in a 2000 point list, I like him. He or the Lord Commissar are a must if you want to use Heavy Weapon Teams for more than two turns. I only had an hour to get him table ready. This is how he turned out. I'll make him look better over the next couple of weeks while I'm working on my vehicles.



I also did a hasty paint on five riflemen, but I have no specific pictures of them. You might glimpse them among my squads on my army page article.

Today, I finally snapped army photos, which gives you an idea of what I have painted right now. It's all a work in progress but I'm enjoying it. I have not had any strong urges to start any new 40K or Fantasy armies since the Eye of Terror campaign so I have been able to keep plugging away at my Cadians.



Now that I have a fairly solid core of units that I always use in every list, I'll start detailing those models - starting with my tanks (of course).

Lots of new pics in my gallery but I'll warn you in advance that my whole army still lacks highlighting, washes, and weathering. Always more to do!

For the curious, here's the scoop on my infantry "stands/trays":


I use metal handy box/outlet covers from a hardware store. I only use the ones that are solid - no knockouts or holes except for the two mandatory screw holes.



I put Magcraft rare earth magnets on the underside of each of my infantry bases using superglue (Loctite Precision Max, if you must know). You could also use magnetic bases from Gale Force Nine. I have some but I haven't used them yet since I have so many Magcraft magnets. I prefer the 2.5mm thickness disc magnets that have a diameter of 6.4mm, but I have also used the square magnets with the same 2.5mm thickness.

It's best to tape over the two screw holes and then prime, paint, and flock the stand/tray. All the extra layers help to weaken the magnetic bond between the metal stand/tray and the magnet on the base of the model. The bond is a bit too strong and I sometimes have trouble with my troops sticking together unexpectedly or the magnetic bond being stronger than the model's bond with its base (ouch, breakage!). You might find that smaller magnets or the Gale Force Nine bases work better. I haven't tried other options yet.


I really like the stands/trays because it makes it much easier to store, transport, and deploy my models. However, during my games I frequently move the models off of the stand/trays in order to maximize dispersion to avoid template weapon damage. I may make some new trays that allow maximum 2" distance between models. Hmmm....I smell a new project.

Hello JB

your idea of storage trays is very cool, later when i have more units done i think i will try out my own version of this helpful item!


vik

Wow, big army...I'd love to get to that size but I would just end up being distracted

Lots of sheets and boxes in the background of that picture...you moving or something?

Viktor von Domm wrote:Hello JB

your idea of storage trays is very cool, later when i have more units done i think i will try out my own version of this helpful item!


vik

Thanks Vik! I may experiment with some new ones once I move. How's the WH40K scene in Germany? That's where I'm heading.

Imperial Monkey wrote:Wow, big army...I'd love to get to that size but I would just end up being distracted

Lots of sheets and boxes in the background of that picture...you moving or something?

Thanks Imperial Monkey! The secret is just to keep adding small things each month. Before you know it, you have a large force (but still not as large as HBMC's).

I'm moving to Germany. Should be there by July. I plan to keep adding to my force while I'm there.

How's the WH40K scene in Germany? That's where I'm heading.

well first to answer that one...from what i have seen on a very small scale...warmachine is all the hype now...but there are some clubs all around the country which even do games in apoc size...but to tell you the truth... this is rather all i digested from the postings from other forums and some bits of info i got from a gw store...i have yet to plunge into the gaming scene...i plan to do so when i have a useable force to game with... no grey minis... my honor codex implies only play with painted models!

may i ask in return why and where you will be moving?

The secret is just to keep adding small things each month. Before you know it, you have a large force

too true and yet sometimes not able to follow this route^^

I'm finally ready to begin work on my Cadians now that I'm settled in Germany. My AgeofEgos inspired Man-Cave is all set up and I have nearly all the supplies that I need on hand (with a few things still in the mail from Maelstrom Games in merry Olde England).

I have a few Cadian Imperial Guard to get built and painted (see pics and list below). This isn't all of them but will get my mechanized IG collection almost fully fleshed out so that I can play a foot slogging variant too. If Games Workshop will just release some plastic Collossi Siege Mortars, I'll be on Cloud 9.






The list of items is as follows:
46 riflemen (male)
7 riflemen (female)
5 vet sgts with shotguns
6 weapon teams (3 mortar, 1 AC, 2 lascannon)
9 psykers
3 advisors
6 command squad figures
7 special weapons (flamer, 4 plasma, 2 melta)
Commissar Yarrick
Creed
Sly Marbo
Commander (metal)

For vehicles I have:
Pask-inator (needs detailing)
Hydra
Demolisher
1 or 2 Basilisks (I may scrap the one that I got on Ebay); Not pictured so don't go all "Where's Waldo?" on me


I tend to be a relentess -though slow- tabletop standard painter. Let's see how much of this I can get done before the New Year.

Here's the progress so far on my Paskinator (Knight Commander Pask in a Leman Russ Exterminator). I have a long way to go but I'm having fun weathering and adding battle damage. I want to try some lead pencil weathering tomorrow using grey_death's Friday Quick Tips. He has probably forgotten this tip but I've been waiting to try it out ever since he posted it. I may not have the right pencil though.




The Leman Russ is the older version with the fiddly wheels. It was a cheap Ebay Rescue that I repainted for my army. The Exterminator barrels come from the new Leman Russ kit and they fit rather well into the old turret.

More to come but at least I showed you what I'm doing, even if it is a bit ugly.

OUCH! I made a few bad decisions while painting my Paskinator that have slowed the project down considerably. I thought the camouflage would look better with a lighter third color added to the pattern. That didn't work so I'm repainting the tank so that it will have the original camouflage.

Meanwhile, I decided to finally try to fix my vehicle antenna problem by using a black brush bristle from a cheap cleaning brush. Here are some WIP shots of the first Chimera. It already had a broken antenna so I had nothing to lose.







The first shot shows the brush, the bristle, and the Chimera along with my poor Paskinator and my IG commander (with his faithful hound Max). The second shot shows a closer view of the old antenna base with a new hole in it to seat the new bristle antenna. The third shot shows a WIP comparison of an old GW antenna (on the rear Chimera) side-by-side with the new bristle brush antenna (foreground Chimera).

EDIT: My vehicle antennas are the older GW version. You won't find them in the current Chimera kit. I'm always looking for more of these old antennas and the old grenade launchers. If you want to sell or trade some of them, send me a PM.

I still have to mix some green stuff to seat the bristle. I'll probably do all five vehicles in the first batch at one time to conserve time and putty.

EDIT: These photos remind me that I need some MicroScale products: Micro Set and Micro Sol. I gave away my bottles when I left the United States in June. Does anyone know where to get these products (mail order preferred) in Europe?

Finally more progress...

My Commander with an Officer of the Fleet and a little (giant) wiener dog (a Bob Olley Mini). They still need Dullcote but it's not easy to find here. I may have to settle for GW's satin varnish or Army Painter Mattlack.





And Pask, the Magnificent Bastard, in his beat up Leman Russ Exterminator. The tank still needs decals and tactical markings. Fortunately, I finally received some Micro Set and Micro Sol by mail from the manufacturer. I couldn't find anyone in Germany that would sell it.






Now I'm thinking about what to take to Washington DC to work on while I'm stuck there for five days. I'll probably take no more than five paints, seven Cadians, and two brushes. That shouldn't take up much space.

Truly great work man! I'm inspired! I want to paint all of my half-done guardsmen right now!

I might have to steal one or two ideas, if you don't mind that is

danesk wrote:Truly great work man! I'm inspired! I want to paint all of my half-done guardsmen right now!

I might have to steal one or two ideas, if you don't mind that is

Danesk, use any idea you like. That's why I keep a plog and belong to the Dakka Community. Some of the ideas started with other Dakkanauts anyway.

Damn, another year has flown by and I didn't get much finished this year. The move to Germany in the middle of the year didn't help but I should place the real blame squarely on myself for spending too much time on the Internet and too little time at my painting table.

I decided to make finishing my Cadians part of my gaming resolutions for 2012, and not to buy any new Cadian models unless GW surprises me with plastic stormtrooper models or a Colossus kit.

=============================================================================================================

Today I finally put together my Forge World Cadian Special Weapons. Pics below with descriptions. The kits are nice but have a few bugs.

Another resolution for 2012 is to collect the components I need for an Urban Terrain table (4'x8'). I included a few pics of my current 4'x4' table that is expandable to 4'x8'. I'll update progress here as I acquire, build, sculpt, and paint more components. Once you get a huge army, you really have no choice but to either start more armies (not desirable for me), start a new game system (similarly undesirable), or get some cool terrain for your army to hunker down in.

=============================================================================================================

Here at the pics of the WIP Cadian Special Weapon kits:

The first pic is the stock kit from Forge World. The pieces are well cast with little flash. One of the legs did have an air bubble on the tip of the right foot which I will have to fix with putty. The plasma gunner has his left arm as a separate piece. The legs are exact replicas of two of the legs from the plastic Cadian Infantry kit, which is a shame. The Cadians can use more variety in leg poses (4 in the Infantry kit, 2 in the Heavy Weapons kit, and 3 different poses in the Command Squad kit).



The pics below show you how I built my two FW kits. I substituted plastic kneeling legs for two models and plastic heads for all four. The FW respirator heads are fantastic but do not fit in with my IG squads. I'll save the heads for another project.



I made sure to pin the models. I used GF9 brass rod. Thin pins for the heads to the torsos. Thick pins for the torsos to the legs, legs to the bases, and the plasma gunner's left arms to their torsos. The latter is a must because the left arms don't fit very well and required much sanding and trimming. You will end up with a less than perfect fit that will require some putty work where the arm joins the hand under the plasma gun barrel.



The detail on these models is very crisp and the cost (10.50 UK Pounds) is reasonable compared to the GW blister pack for Cadian Special Weapons (8.70 UK Pounds). Forge World also recently added sets of three hostile environment plasma guns or melta guns with heads and torsos for an additional three riflemen figures in each set. This is great so you don't have to buy melta guns if you only want plasma guns or vice versa.



=============================================================================================================

And here are pics of my starting point for my 4'x8' Urban Terrain table.



There is a long way to go but I'm thinking that I'll add mats, sidewalks, streetlights, rubble piles, some chainlink fence, pipes, and maybe a monorail track. What would you add?



I'm looking forward to 2012. I hope you had a great 2011 and best wishes for the future.

:flamed

Looking good so far.
If I was building the table I'd put in a central 2 or 3 story building that's large and mostly intact.
Great for blocking LOS and it can spawn some really harsh CQB fighting inside it.

Disjointed Entity wrote:Looking good so far.
If I was building the table I'd put in a central 2 or 3 story building that's large and mostly intact.
Great for blocking LOS and it can spawn some really harsh CQB fighting inside it.

Were you thinking of something like a GW Administratum building, a Pegasus Hobbies' Gothic building, or something more unique? Foamcore doesn't seem to exist in Germany.

Anything that takes your fancy.
I'd personally build it myself, can't stand those GW kits.

Loving the work here! I thought of using a dog in my army as well. I looked at stealing the scottie dog from my monopoly set, yet have held off.

For buildings have you looked at industrial sets for plants/refineries that are used in train terrain sets?

I've also seen some great terrain pieces at pet stores, look in the reptile/aquarium section. Cheap plastic plants, buildings, skulls all for aquariums which can be used for 40K 28-30mm wargames. Tear up the plastic plants for forests/terrain even use it on basing ( check out Bebops P&M blog for examples ).

You can also use aquarium sand as basing and it comes in multiple colors.

Hope this helps!

Hmelrose,

I decided to try a few of the Pegasus Hobbies terrain sets which include a power plant, chemical plant, and gothic city ruins.

I have shopped for aquarium and train supplies before. You're right. There are lots of useful goodies there. It's a bit more difficult to find the same supplies here in Germany so I tend to mail order. I haven't started looking at vegetation for the table yet but plastic aquarium plants will be one of the sources when I begin that search.

Thanks!

JB

JB wrote:

Hmelrose,

I decided to try a few of the Pegasus Hobbies terrain sets which include a power plant, chemical plant, and gothic city ruins.

I have shopped for aquarium and train supplies before. You're right. There are lots of useful goodies there. It's a bit more difficult to find the same supplies here in Germany so I tend to mail order. I haven't started looking at vegetation for the table yet but plastic aquarium plants will be one of the sources when I begin that search.

Thanks!

JB

I'm glad I was able to help with some ideas.

Pegasus looks to have some nice sets, I think I've seen the Hexagon set at Aero Hobbies in Santa Monica, Ca. The plastic it was made from didn't seem to be the same durable plastic that the 40K stuff is made out of, hopefully this is my memory being foggy. Looking at the pic it may be the same as the RoboGear kits that are only available in Russia or through importers.
http://pegasushobbies.net/catalog/Peg.-Gaming-Accessories/c2/index.html

That chemical plant could be used for a variety of conversions, or just get a soup can, turn it upside down on some cardboard add the pipes and spray paint.

foamcore is to be found in germany too...after much hunting around...that is...it is mostly used for picture framing... one needs to find out the major use of a material most of the times...

and yeah, terrain pieces in the pet shops...a great place to look for...and then the fishtank plants...plastic ones of course^^ some evil schemers even sell those on ebay for that exact purpose...

Somehow I can't seem to get away from painting Imperial Guard. Oh well, I am bowing to the unavoidable since the only thing I feel like painting or building is more IG.

Since I am as slow as molasses, I will just try to work on one squad every two weeks. First up in this process is one of my company command squads since I want to work down the FOC for my 2000 point list (and stay away from all of my crazy variant lists for now).




As you can see the squad includes three advisors, a lascannon, the commander, and two riflemen as well as their obligatory Chimera transport. Click on the photos if you want to zoom in.

Ifalna painted the Astropath for me and I want the rest of the squad to use that ruined city-esque basing scheme. I also need to paint the Master of Ordnance, finish the ordinary guardsmen, weather the Chimera, and add a few small other details. If you see other things that need a bit of work, feel free to comment.

Future work will include the second company command squad (a smaller one) and the Elite choices of Marbo and two stormtrooper squads. Yes, I know that they are not optimal but I'm a curmudgeon and I don't care. I play what I like and I get used to using certain units over and over again.

Just looked at those pics in the first post on this page, and in the 2nd of the Exterminator and the Command Squad memebers, the MoF actually has the expression (looking at the tank) of "I say old bean, you need to give that brute a good hose down, don't you!"

Imperial Monkey wrote:Just looked at those pics in the first post on this page, and in the 2nd of the Exterminator and the Command Squad memebers, the MoF actually has the expression (looking at the tank) of "I say old bean, you need to give that brute a good hose down, don't you!"

Heh. That mini does have a great facial expression.

He might also be thinking that the smallest vessel in the Imperial Navy has ten times the firepower of that tank.

I'm still slaving away to update the command squad with advisors but I wanted to share my latest Swap Shop acquisition. Thanks to Iboshi2, I am now the proud owner of a painted Lord Castellan Creed and Colour Sergeant Kell. According to Iboshi2, they were painted by Andy Smith as commission work.



I'm really happy with them since I wanted these minis in metal but I didn't have time to paint them. I like the basing and paint but Andy uses a much darker palette than I use and his faces are much darker with black lined crevices. It looks great in photos and sort of weird in normal light. Iboshi's price was $60 USD shipped and that seemed very reasonable given the base cost of these minis is around $39 USD (before GW raises their prices again this month).

I already have an unpainted metal Creed from a trade so I suppose that one is now available for trade unless I decide to turn him into Creed's evil twin.

Since I already have Yarrick, I just need to get a Lord Commissar and a Primaris Psyker to round out my headquarters choices. I'm just not sure if I want to paint them or if I will commission the work out.

Now that Sixth Edition 40K will be out in less than two weeks (June 30, 2012), I am really getting motivated to do some more painting. I finally redid my primary Cadian Company Command Squad (CCS). I still have to finish the final advisor, the Master of Ordnance. I am working on him tonight.

Here is my revised CCS. You've already seen the Commander, Astropath (painted by Ifalna), and the Officer of the Fleet before. I just redid the bases to match the Astropath. Pelikan Fountain Pen ink works wonders followed by a light drybrush of Codex Grey and then Fortress Grey.



Most of my time went into repainting the lascannon heavy weapon team and then painting the two riflemen. My new scheme uses Khemri Brown for the fatigues, Catachan Green for the pouches/bayonet strap/canteen cover, and a much plainer lasgun. There are a few other minor changes. The regimental numbers on the left shoulder pads are another major addition.




I hope you like the new look as much as I do. It just gives the troops a grittier appearance. See the old look below for comparison.




Now I'll finish the MoO and then weather the CCS's Chimera. After that I'm not sure whether I will start repainting the secondary CCS or maybe finish my Marbo for the fun of it.

Salut!

I love this thread. I especially like your resin mold, it's awesome, I really want to try it!

DemetriDominov wrote:I love this thread. I especially like your resin mold, it's awesome, I really want to try it!

Thanks! It's a simple project but you will need to be meticulous.

Here is the tutorial that I did as a Dakka article: http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Simple_Two-Piece_Mold_for_Casting_with_Resin

At the bottom of the article are links to other threads on Dakka that offer a lot more education on resin casting. Many use far more complicated methods and materials to get even better results.

I think you've given yourself a major upgrade on the appearance of your army. Congrats!

Briancj wrote:I think you've given yourself a major upgrade on the appearance of your army. Congrats!

Thanks Brian! It's still very workmanlike compared to the stuff that you've done with your IG, but I'm happy to take this new turn after working on the army for seven years. I'm slow.

...and the Euro Cup isn't helping. Off to watch some football while trying to paint my MoO.

I have decided to root for Germany in the Euro cup.

Briancj wrote:I have decided to root for Germany in the Euro cup.

Germany has a strong team. I'm pulling for them as well but that's because all of my neighbors are crazy for the team. There are a lot of firecrackers that go off around here every time the team scores a goal.

The French, Spanish, English, and Italians also have teams that are a lot of fun to watch.


I didn't get far on my MoO. He is pictured below in his WIP state. Don't fret about the colors. Only his boots and pants are anywhere close to their real colors.



Hopefully I'll be able to pick my paint brushes back up and get to work again tomorrow evening.

Another day of work on my Master of Ordnance. He's starting to look right. I have mostly finished his boots, pants, and jacket. The armor has its base coat and a rough highlight. His vox caster is almost finished except for detailing. The MoO and his friends in the IG Advisors set are fantastic sculpts; so much detail that it makes you almost scared to paint it up.




Lots of work still remains though, especially flesh tones, the aquilas and shinies on his armor, and the buttons all over the vox.

The servo skulls and servitors are older creations that still need final paint. They have been waiting patiently.

REINFORCEMENTS!

Time to put in a plug for Lycaeus Wrex and the the awesome fully finished Cadian army that he is selling.

His Dakka Swap Shop thread is here. He is basically selling all of his units individually for GW MSRP (in UK pounds). That is a heck of a deal.

I bought his Vendetta, Valkyrie, and Manticore. They arrived quickly with superb packaging. No damage whatsoever. Royal Mail International postage is worth the price. I got them on a Friday after he mailed them that Monday.

Pics of the models that he is selling are in his Dakka Gallery.

The models I bought are shown below (using his pics). They make a nice addition to my Cadian 11th.





Now I want to finish converting that Valyrie into another Vendetta (he had started but not finished this process) and do some modelling and painting of my Vendetta and Manticore to make the group of models more similiar but not exactly alike. A bit of individuality is desirable.

I finally had some time to do a bit more work on my Master of Ordnance. Now he is almost finished.

He is the last of my three advisors so my Company Command Squad is almost complete. Now I just have to be patient and wait for the putty and washes to dry. It's hard to wait so I snapped some photos and folded laundry to kill time.

Here's what he looks like so far:




His name is Kurakowa because he reminds me of a former RATELO. That also explains why he has red hair. I had a lot of fun experimenting with reds on this mini. It was also cool to make his vox caster look well used.

I hope to finish him up completely tomorrow.

Woo hoo! Let's put your air force and my air force together, and crank up "Ride of the Valkyries"!

Briancj wrote:

Spoiler:

I thought you had Grand Admiral Thrawn there for a second.

Briancj wrote:Woo hoo! Let's put your air force and my air force together, and crank up "Ride of the Valkyries"!

Heh. Out there somewhere is a guy with 18+ Vendettas/Valkyries that will laugh at us, but I'll do just about anything nuts if "Ride of the Valkyries' is the theme music.

Fosner1703 wrote:

Briancj wrote:

Spoiler:

I thought you had Grand Admiral Thrawn there for a second.

You know...maybe if I had another MoO figure...

I'm still finishing up this MoO. The base still needs to dry and be drybrushed, his "gems" need small white dots, and then a rim of Chaos Black around the edges of his base.

That will be enough for him. He wasn't supposed to take this long since I only finished him to round out my set of advisors. I went off plan when I realized that he looked like someone I knew...and the rest is history.



Now maybe I can weather and detail that command squad Chimera?? Or should I finish up my One-Hour Yarrick?

Now that my Master of Ordnance is finished, I should be working on my Chimera...with emphasis on the word "should".

In reality, I've dived into another project to craft models that I'll probably never use in a game of WH40K. After finishing all three advisors, the commander, and his veterans, there are not many CCS options left except for Straken, Nork Deddog, and a pair of bodyguards.

Nothing gets me more motivated, apparently, than useless figures so here is my first WIP bodyguard.

The figure uses the Valkyrie door gunner body as well as bits from the Cadian Command Squad and grenades from the Cadian Infantry Squad. The pants side pocket on the model's right side was clipped to allow the pistol holster to be mounted flush in a position typical of current combat hip holsters (and vaguely Han Solo-ish).





His left arm is not attached yet so that I can paint him more easily.

I picture this guy pointing at a new flyer zooming onto the battlefield. He's just finished shouting either "WTF" or "FLYER!" or "BOSS, DA PLANE, DA PLANE!". You make the call.

I should get the other bodyguard put together tomorrow. He'll be similar but different.

I like the Valkyrie door gunner uniforms quite a bit. I may have to get some more of them to modify into plastic IG storm troopers. Oops, that would be another project full of (almost) useless minis.

Convert a Primaris Psyker. There are a lot of figures out there that would make brilliant Psykers:
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat720001a&prodId=prod1250029a&rootCatGameStyle=
I used this one for my conversion:

Model that I have had the most fun making....ever!

Bodyguards are now AMAZINGLY USEFUL, and I suspect any command squad will take them as a required set of figures.

Sorry.

Imperial Monkey wrote:Convert a Primaris Psyker. There are a lot of figures out there that would make brilliant Psykers:
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat720001a&prodId=prod1250029a&rootCatGameStyle=
I used this one for my conversion:

Model that I have had the most fun making....ever!

I love those new single sprue plastic kits for WHFB. I wish they would do a few for 40K. That Primaris looks wicked! Don't tempt me into another project for a figure that's not in my army list...yet.

Briancj wrote:Bodyguards are now AMAZINGLY USEFUL, and I suspect any command squad will take them as a required set of figures.

Sorry.

SSSHHHHHH!!!!! You are giving away State secrets! The Departmento Munitorium will be most displeased.

The Inquisition! (Let's begin!) The Inquisiiiiiiition! (Look out sin!)

JB wrote:"BOSS, DA PLANE, DA PLANE!".

He might be a little tall to yell that. Awesome work by the way, this thread is definitely subscribed.

Thejokerguy wrote:

JB wrote:"BOSS, DA PLANE, DA PLANE!".

He might be a little tall to yell that. Awesome work by the way, this thread is definitely subscribed.

He's got a bionic arm with a nasty sword so he can yell whatever he wants...when the commissar isn't around.

Thanks for looking and I hope you enjoy the revamp of my Cadian army.



I finished my second bodyguard. Shots below. Click to see them larger in my Dakka Work in Progress Gallery.






These figures were fun to work on. I'm glad there are only two of them though because that Valkyrie door gunner pose would not work for a third guy. The two of them look dissimilar enough to fool most casual viewers and that is good enough for me.

Other than the door gunner body, the bits are all from the Cadian sets: Command Squad and Infantry Squad. There is one bit from the Space Marine Commander set. See if you can find it.

I did a bit of greenstuff work on them but nothing complicated. Both of their heads needed a GS collar because their heads are not designed for those bodies. I also wanted to keep the right arm of the wounded guy a bit further from his body so I pinned the arm where I wanted and filled in the gap with green stuff. The heads are pinned on to make sure they stay put in the desired positions.

Now they need to dry and I will hopefully get to prime them tonight so that I can paint them tomorrow!

EDIT: Priming complete...in spite of me forgetting to wash the plastic with a bit of dishsoap to get the mold release off. My first coat of primer didn't completely coat. The paint keep "moving off" of parts of the models. The second coat worked and the "job is a good one" now.

They are not finished but my IG bodyguards have gained a bit more personality as they now have their initial coats of paint.






These are a lot of fun to paint. I still have to do some second coats, the washes, highlights, and metallics. Oh yeah, the poor "Look Out Sir" dude needs his bandages painted too.

I hope to finish them little by little each evening this week so they should be complete around mid-week.

I still have to decide whether to add a medic figure (just to have in my collection) and update my regimental standard figure. I would really like to get to that command chimera and the weathering that it needs. Oh well, it's nice to have models to work on and some time to do it so I cannot complain.

Love the look of the bodyguards and they're painted really well too! Though they look like they have taken way too many Look Out Sir hits for their own good!

Vladsimpaler wrote:Love the look of the bodyguards and they're painted really well too! Though they look like they have taken way too many Look Out Sir hits for their own good!

Thanks! I almost finished them tonight but will need a few more hours for the last washes and basing work. I had a blast working on them. The Cadian Command Squad set isn't cheap but it has a lot of characterful bits that are a "must have" for any fan of the current Cadian plastics.

I'll post the pics of the finished models tomorrow.

Then I'll have to decide whether to work on my command Chimera or a medic or a regimental standard bearer.

JB wrote:

Vladsimpaler wrote:Love the look of the bodyguards and they're painted really well too! Though they look like they have taken way too many Look Out Sir hits for their own good!

Thanks! I almost finished them tonight but will need a few more hours for the last washes and basing work. I had a blast working on them. The Cadian Command Squad set isn't cheap but it has a lot of characterful bits that are a "must have" for any fan of the current Cadian plastics.

I'll post the pics of the finished models tomorrow.

Then I'll have to decide whether to work on my command Chimera or a medic or a regimental standard bearer.

That's good to hear! I am debating getting one of the Cadian Command Squads after you recommended the bionic arm with the power sword from it. It does have lots of cool bits, I especially love the swagger stick that the Officer can hold. I'm not a huge fan of the new Cadians, but the command box set is almost too cool to pass up. Of course, it comes down to buying it or saving up for a Valkyrie!

Looking forward to the finished models, and I say that you should do the standard bearer. : )

Well, I am a day late but here are the finished bodyguards. I didn't have much time yesterday for painting so I was only able to get washes and ink on them before leaving them to dry. This evening I had enough time to complete the paint work.



As noted earlier, I built these guys using the Valkyrie door gunner body as the primary component. The heads, arms, and most of the kit comes from the Cadian Command Squad set. The purity seal is from the Space Marine Commander set. There was minor green stuff work to fit the heads to the torsos. I made "drive-on rag" neckerchiefs. The right arm of the wounded man was pinned and puttied to hang just a bit further from the body for a more appealing pose. The pants pockets on the right sides of both figures was clipped in order to allow the pistol holsters to hang low like modern combat holsters. Heads and most of the arms were pinned. All paints used were GW's previous range of paints though Flesh Wash was even older and the primer was Vallejo Game Color White Primer.

I'm going to have a tough time with the rest of my Cadian army revamp because I feel compelled to make each individual mini more gritty and realisitic. That's a bad idea when you have roughly 100 infantry models.

I never did post the finished pics of my Master of Ordnance. Here they are; unfortunately a bit darker looking than they should be. The stark light contrasts in the photo rob him of most of his nice color variation. Ah well...



I was thinking about building and painting a regimental standard next. I may do that or finish my One Hour Yarrick mini. The Hero of Armageddon probably deserves the honor, don't you think?

This is what he looks like right now:



I rush painted him in an hour for a game with some friends of AgeofEgos. It gave him some color but now makes for a horrible base to work with. I really want to finish the job right but I don't feel like stripping him first. We'll see if I can make him presentable.

Cheers to all!! May your paint brush tips never split and your dice roll well (except when you play against me).

Well, my final decision was to work on Commissar Yarrick. He's still a work in progress but he needs to dry overnight before I can do the rest of his washes, inks, and highlights. I may also do some chipping on his Power Klaw but I'm guessing he has people to keep his gear in tip top shape.



The first picture is what he looked like when I started. The rest of the pictures are the current work in progress shots.






He is another one of the IG metal minis that I really enjoyed painting. He has a lot of little details that I did not notice until I was painting him...and repainting...and repainting...and damn, another detail that I overlooked...and repainting.

The paints are all GW's discontinued paint line except for Vallejo Game Color White Primer and Scorpion Green.

The reds are primarily Mechrite Red and Blood Red. The gold trim is either Iyanden Darksun or Desert Yellow. That grey on his coat is Codex Grey and is positioned as a highlight. Once I wash it a few times it darkens a lot but still looks lighter than the Chaos Black.



Hopefully, I'll finish him tomorrow.

Quick update to say that Commissar Yarrick is done. All of the washes, inks, and highlights went off without a hitch.







This was a fun model. The changes since the last update were the old GW Flesh Wash over his skin then neatened back up with Dwarf Flesh. I used Ogryn Flesh wash over the hat braid, parts of the epaulettes, and the sash. Badab Black wash over the power klaw, skull pin on his sash, over most of his boots and coat to tone down the Codex Grey highlights, and over the metallic portions of the storm bolter,

He also got a Fiery Orange dot on his laser eye and Gryphonne Sepia wash over his sword hilt, the skull on his blue max medal, and the wreath on his storm bolter.

He looks a little darker and grittier than the GW Heavy Metal version but my version fits in better with my Cadians. After all of the red on him, I just couldn't do a red storm bolter too and I wanted his armor to be Dark Angels Green like my Cadian force. ...and the dream became real.

Hooray! ...of course, now I am looking at these photos and thinking about doing a bit more painting...hmmm.....

GOOD Yarrick.

Briancj wrote:GOOD Yarrick.

Thanks, but now that he is done, I am wondering what to work on next. I'm working full time, taking two online classes, and fitting in plenty of summertime fun so I need a simple project. Maybe I'll work on some terrain for a while?

Feth! It's been nearly a year since I've added anything new. Work combined with online college courses has been kicking my hindquarters!

Those who have seen my army before know that I built the model in the foreground. I purchased the other two from Lycaeus Wrex along with a platoon of Cadian IG and a Manticore (so now I have two!). You can never have enough Imperial Guard.



The steps to success:

1. Finish converting the lascannons: One of his models lacked three lascannons. My model's lascannons were converted differently than his so I felt obligated to make mine match. Lots of small magnets are required which are a pain in the ass. This step is almost complete. I just need to reattach one weapon mount to my Vendetta because I glued it on incorrectly the first time.

2. Repaint my model: It is painted differently and needs a repaint. This step also includes painting all of the added lascannons for all three models.

3. Paint details including squadron markings on all models.

4. Add decals, which also involves some gloss coating.

5. Weather all three models.

6. Decorate the bases for all three models in an urban rubble theme.

7. Dullcoat all three models (while remembering to protect the clear plastic canopies)

I still have a long way to go on them.

You can never have enough Imperial Guard.

this!...

and remeber 8.
have fun painting up these cool models!!! i sure know i would!

one of these days i need to concentrate to make a flyer from scratch...

Thanks Vik! Fun is the most important thing!

I finished Step 1 last night and started painting all of the lascannons.

Today, I hope to finish them and begin detailing the three Vendettas.

I also need to place an order with Mad Robot Miniatures. He makes wonderful heads that I can use for my IG veterans.

i am secretly getting very addicted to heads...

just today i got a mega steal of bitz from an ebay auktion i bought... had plenty of elven heads, choas and even flagelants inside...

and vic minatures also is highly recoendable for such uses
the lists of cool looking heads for the battle hardened vet are almost endless!

That sounds like a nice set of bits to win, Vik! The flagellant bits sound especially enticing.

I agree that Victoria's stuff is amazing. Steve at Mad Robot Miniatures is also a great sculptor though not as prolific. Most important for me is that Steve's stuff fits the style of my Cadian army better than Victoria's work. If I was doing Praetorians, Tanith, Mordians, Salvar Chem Dogs, Chaos Renegades, Scots, or some other scruffy PDF or IG, I would use a lot of her bits.

I made a lot of progress on my Vendettas today. All of the final fiddly bits are attached and most of the lascannons and my Vendetta are painted to match the other two. So I have pretty much completed my steps 1 and 2. Tomorrow I can get further into detailing the three Vendettas while also finishing the basic paint on the lascannons.

To recap the steps to success:

1. [Complete] Finish converting the lascannons: One of his models lacked three lascannons. My model's lascannons were converted differently than his so I felt obligated to make mine match. Lots of small magnets are required which are a pain in the ass. This step is almost complete. I just need to reattach one weapon mount to my Vendetta because I glued it on incorrectly the first time.

2. [Almost Complete] Repaint my model: It is painted differently and needs a repaint. This step also includes painting all of the added lascannons for all three models.

3. Paint details including squadron markings on all models.

4. Add decals, which also involves some gloss coating.

5. Weather all three models.

6. Decorate the bases for all three models in an urban rubble theme.

7. Dullcoat all three models (while remembering to protect the clear plastic canopies)

The squadron markings will need to include some Cadian iconography, my trademark yellow color, and something to symbolize assault since my regiment is an assault regiment. I may go with a clenched fist since it is easy to find GW symbols for that. For the yellow color, I may copy my WWII Stuka dive bomber markings in some fashion. The yellow I use for my Cadians is not quite so bright and I will use less of it than you see covering the Stukas.

well... that amount of yellow indeed stings a bit so tuning it down a bit is a good decision^^

of course... as your army is way more modern than mine... mad robots stuff is more fitting... do you have your eyes on their new torsos too? i bet you could do some squads with them and it would look quite cool... maybe mix in the anvil ind. guns...those i really like too!

Vik,

I will keep the yellow color toned down so that it does not blind you.

Progress is ongoing but slow. I am posting this update to keep myself motivated and so that I can remember these changes later.

The original photo is shown first followed by an updated photo:




I had to use the new GW color Castellan Green instead of Catachan Green but they match very well. Good job, Games Workshop for not screwing that up.

I am black lining my Vendetta now and will move to the others in turn. I am using a mix of Badab Black, Brown Ink, Vallejo Glaze medium, and just a little bit of Vallejo Game Color Black (051). This is a slow process but necessary before I move on to the other details and weathering.

As usual, click on the photos to zoom in (in the Dakka Gallery). My camera takes pretty good shots. Any problems are usually due to my hands and my Ott Lite.

Here, I throw some motivation at you - make use of it!

 Captain Roderick wrote:
Here, I throw some motivation at you - make use of it!

Hah! Thanks, I think. I bulled through all day to finish the black lining on all three Vendettas and even managed to get the first coat of Iyanden Darksun on. Now I can move on to the detailing and weathering. I also need to finish the lascannons but I'll do those along the way.



The pics don't look too much different between WIP 1 (top) and WIP 3 (bottom) but believe me when I say that a lot of hours of work went in between. My hand is cramped now.




The yellow is simple enough that it shouldn't burn VIk's eyes.

Yeah that yellow's appropriate with the other colours in the scheme, nicely done. Huzzah!

Continuing my theme of spending hours, painting the Vendettas, that do not provide dramatically visible results, I added a second coat of yellow to them and sponged them.

I decided to go with a 1: 2 mix of Chaos Black and Dark Flesh.

Unfortunately, you can't even tell they were sponged unless you zoom in (click on the photos). The effect is much more visible to me since I can see the whole aircraft looking rather beat up.

Pre-Sponge




Oh well, I am moving on to painting on worn paint and metal. Perhaps that will show up better.




Automatically Appended Next Post:


After sponging on the mix of Chaos Black and Dark Flesh, I decided to also sponge on a bit of GW Charadon Granite. Then I finished up the yellow identification bands and painted the missing Boltgun Metal parts on my original Vendetta so that it would better match the two I obtained from Lycaeus Wrex. Now it looks shiny new compared to the other Vendettas. Ugh!

As usual, click to zoom in on any photo in my Dakka gallery.




Now I am well into tidying up with Chaos Black, Castellan Green, and Boltgun Metal. There are lots of little areas to clean up. Then I will weather a few areas with a brush where I was unable to reach with the sponges. That should allow me to begin the prep work for the decals, which will be a mix of Forge World, Cadian, Bretonnian, and old Imperial vehicle transfers.

I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel but it will probably take me several more days to get through all of it and begin the washes. I'm thinking that I will use several washes of Badab Black over the bare Gunmetal before using a Sepia wash over most of the model areas as a filter. Then I will just have a few touchups to bring out anything that was too muted by the washes.

I just have to keep plugging away to get this done.