Just a small update tonight. In preparation for the upcoming kill team game, I've painted up a pair of Pegasus gothic ruins.




Overall, I give their terrain a "Go" (on the go/no-go scale). It wasn't expensive, it's sturdy and well detailed, and it blends in nicely with GW's stuff.

Dan

Quick terrain update today - I finished the supply connexes for the FOB.

There are 2 connexes full of class VI, and the other 2 are for everything else. That's a bit of a joke for anyone familiar with the US army supply system.




I got a good deal on another 60 Catachans or so, so expect more updates soon enough... damn you trading forums, damn you!

Dan

Well seeing as there are in a jungle i would stock tha up with a crap load of bug spray and deodorant. Hope you have a Class VIII Conex for the bumps and bruises.

Don't forget a container full of Empra-Cola

Awesome army, really full of character

but can I ask where the containers came from

The containers are from the AT-43 kits - I found someone willing to part with them on bartertown. And yes, there is a class VIII connex for all the emporer's DEET laden bug repellent. I might have to model a drop pallet's worth of smokes and cokes...

Dan

Class VI? CLASS VI?! You should know full and well that there's never any class VI....

Well, Devil Co. is an SF company, and I've never known them to be hurting for Class VI.

*Walks back to HMMWV and climbs back up into the turret, all the while mumbling something hateful under his breath about those fething spec ops guys takin all the honey buns*

Hey man, somebody's got to eat those honey buns - the tape test is always right around the corner. Have a strawberry poptart instead!

Anyway, so I picked up 79 guys for 80 bucks in a couple of ebay deals recently, and I painted up the first 12 here. Now mind you, these were a salvage job, and so they aren't converted as heavily as I'd usually do. They're going to represent an attachment company that the regiment sliced to Devil Co. for support on their missions (cordons and such):





But then I decided to do the rest a little differently - I'm going to batch paint the other 67 guys. Yeah, I know, it's a ridiculous idea, and I'm sure I'll regret it soon enough, but there it is in writing, so I can't back out now. I'll post pics as they come. My goal is to wrap them up in 3 weeks - before I have to head to the field for a few months. Any bets on whether they'll be done?

Here's the group shot of all of them assembled, cleaned up, and converted. The 10ish in the back with paint on them are the rest of the salvage models from the above pics - they'll be painted over.




Oh, and then after that I'm going to make a Catachan Commissar Yarrick. There, that's on paper too now - I'm committed.

Dan

You have some amazing work. Looking back through your posts, you did an 8 man squad starting with no conversions to fully painted in 3 days, so I have faith that you can fully paint these in 3 weeks time.

If you haven't done assembly line painting, some tips I've found that work for me are:

Group models by the feature type. If you're painting a detail on the body, for example, group them by all models that have that detail.

Use one color at a time (duh). In addition to this, I like to do all details that will require the same brush size at one time. I've found that not switching brushes has significantly decreased my painting time.

The last thing that I've found has helped me alot is to set a goal each day. My goal right now is to do some painting each day. Even if it's only for 15 minutes, it means I'm always making progress.

Yeah, I'm tracking pretty well how to make it happen - it's mostly a question of whether or not I can stay focused. I finished basing them last night, and got the skin base coat painted on.

More to come!

I finished the 66 guys (the 67th is being converted into a Catachan CPT Al'Rahem) ahead of schedule and got a wild hair up my ass to build FOB Devil and take a team picture. Here are the results - be prepared for a ton of pics.

First, the 66 guys:















And now the FOB Pics. This is D Co at full strength (180+ guys now). One platoon is manning the walls with the heavy weapons, and the COL is leading the rest of the boys (with the ogryn squad spearheading) in an assault out the gate. The aviation is coming in from the rear.











Oof. That was quite an ordeal. D Co is going on the back burner for a bit, at least until I get to try them in a game. Next up for them, I'm going to finish the other 2 walker style sentinels and add more weapon squads. The army has gotten to the point that it's quite a pain in the ass to move around on the table. I guess I need to add some movement trays. Still, the inner dork in me can't resist the sight of massed infantry on the table, so I'll probably add more sooner or later!

Hope you enjoy,

C&C welcome.

Dan

Fantastic pics man! D company is legendary. They look in charge all set up like that.I can't wait for a battle report.

Wow. Seeing the whole D-company together looks really great. Inspirational work, and they're looking very good, I wouldn't know they were batch-painted just by looking at them!

That looks great.

Wow, amazing conversions and the continuous quality is astounding as well.

Good job, hope to see more

Epic army. Nice job.

Awesome army, great stuff!

How did you make the sand bags?

I gave these guys about 25 dollars: http://www.exodus-road.com/xcart/product.php?productid=121921&cat=529&bestseller=Y

It was worth every penny.

^ Thanks man

Can't stop....wanting...to go...buy....many Catachan models and use their old pdf codex.

Those IG are very well painted wonkobaggins. And I really like your terrain.

P.S. Are you the very same wonkobaggins who has an account on the OR. You may know me as The_Dragon_of_Moria.

Yep - I'm the same wonkobaggins.

I finished up CPT Al Ramey (an Al'rahem conversion). He's an old wolf scout model with a bit of green stuffing:


Thanks for all the comments - I'm glad the army pics were a hit.

Dan

Looks good

wonkobaggins wrote:Yep - I'm the same wonkobaggins.

I finished up CPT Al Ramey (an Al'rahem conversion). He's an old wolf scout model with a bit of green stuffing:


Thanks for all the comments - I'm glad the army pics were a hit.

Dan

Glad to know you're one and the same.

Your painting skills are impressive and I your elves on the OR are just as well painted.
Keep up your great work and regular updates

Nice conversion amd the army wow thats what you call an army, and the irony in reality of that was a real gaurd army it would be a small battle company

Great work! I especially like the full army pics. I think the personalization you have given this army sets it apart.
Keep up the killer work and hope to see more!

Fantastic blog and great to see another Ft Bragg person. Do you game over at the Hobbit on Saturdays? I'm coming home soon and would love to see some of your work on the tabletop. Thanks for posting such a great blog.

I should be there in the fall - I'll be in the field for the next couple of months though. I'm sure we'll get a game in.

Wicked Company. So fluffy you could take it to bed. I was thinking 'awesome', for like 10 pages. Then i saw Meat. I think that's one of the coolest models I've ever seen... just alot of character in it!

Take it to bed and make sweet monkey love to it. Until it bled.

Too far methinks.

I like your Cpt Al'rahem, but im gonna take offence to the loincloth thing, it just doesn't look like it fits in.

i'm not a fan of the captain al conversion but the rest of the army looks fantastic, especially when combined for the group shot. great work!

Yeah, about the loin cloth...

I wasn't sure how to remove the pelt from the guy's crotch, so I figured a loin cloth was better than a wolf pelt.

What can I say, in the end I'll generally sacrifice a wee bit of quality for expediency. I guess I'm just that kind of sculptor.

Alright, so you get a stupid update today. I was trying to find bits of sweet terrain online, and I stumbled across the templates for this:


So I built it.

Gyah! The Catachan's cursed machine ate my quarter! Spacewolves ATTACK!

The guys love it - cold, refreshing Nuka-cola. And it's got just one calorie.

Anyone know where more nifty cut-outs like this are? I wouldn't mind adding more funny stuff like this to the FOB during games.

Dan

Ha....Nuka-Cola...gotta love tributes to Fallout!

CrashUSAR wrote:Ha....Nuka-Cola...gotta love tributes to Fallout!

QFT

I don't know about any more cut out terrian but I do know you can get some proaganda posters, here on dakka or by searching google

Where did you find the template for the Nuka-Cola machine? A Fallout RPG Games Master needs to know this stuff.

Not usually a fan of Catachans, but this is great stuff...

But I think you have missed the father of them all.

John Rambo.

I: http://www.imdb.com/media/rm2439944448/tt0083944
2: http://www.imdb.com/media/rm3493960960/tt0089880
3:http://www.quarterbore.com/images/rambo3.jpg
4: er maybe not....

Yeah, so it's been a while since I touched on these guys, but they haven't been forgotten! I pulled out a pile of ork vehicles to work on a few nights ago, and while chopping up warbuggies and wartrakks, I had an epiphany.

I've been wondering for some time how to include hydras or manticores into the list, while not deviating from the "air assault" theme. The platform would have to be light and small enough to fit in a Valk, while still being sturdy enough to mount the quad mounted weapons and (ideally) be tracked to meet the WYSIWYG requirements.

Behold, the Catachan's own MK-67 anti-air platform. A variant of the Tarantula weapon platform, it's towable behind the standard issue scout car, light enough to fit in the back of a Valk, and (bonus) it's self powered. Once towed to the general area, it can self-maneuver to an advantageous firing position. Thanks to the tracks it can even traverse rubble and thick vegetation.




I had 3 extra trakks, so 3's the magic number. It lines up nicely with a squad of hydras anyway. They'll be painted soon enough, let me know what you think!

Dan

Air-mobile anti-air. I like it.

Do they attach to the scout vehicles? Are there magnets under that platicard strip?

Not bieng mean but.... thats mad. How about a guy with a remote control to go with them?

Yep, they need operators.

Now, I'm not a player so might have this wrong, but won't some peeps say they're too small for hydras (if you're using them away from the scout car), and if so the operator could be used to extend the 'footprint' ? Or am I just spouting gibberish now?

You're definitely right about the operator - they're in the works.

I figured I'd deploy them with the car attached to mitigate the footprint issue - I think that'd be about the same size as the hydra. That means I'll need to add a heavy bolter pintle mount, but that's no big problem.

And yeah, they're magnetized!

Dan

I finished up the operator for my MK-67 hydra platforms, and I also figured out a few more uses for them.

First, the operator himself; as you can see, he's a bit pastier than his brethren. No doubt thanks to his extended computer time:



Second, a photo of the 3 MK-67s with their hydra attachments:


But wait, there's more.

The MK-67 can also be converted to serve as a cyclops remote piloted demolitions unit (from the Elysian list in IA8) You'll notice the Johnny 5 style camera heads:


And, the MK-67, with an enhanced communications system, can serve as the Fire Control Center for an off site Manticore or Deathstrike launcher, although I think I might get some guff on WYSIWYG on this one. Honestly though, I can't imagine something big enough to have a MIRV being within small arms range of the target though. I mean, the launcher itself should be a good 50 or 60 klicks away. Here it is - I need to beef up the comms array a bit I think:


Finally, in preparation for this weekend's planetstrike game, I painted up a landing pad for FOB Devil. I left the legs off on purpose, as I can't think of a single reason to elevate the pad - why expose my aircraft to more small arms fire?

Anyway, here it is. As you can see, the motto "whatever, whenever, wherever" is already embossed:



Let me know what you think, or what issues you'd have with my manticore/deathstrike stand ins - what would need to be done to the model to make you comfortable with it?

Dan

Full marks from me, purely for the swappable options

Very nicely done, only point is that two of the cyclops look slightly wonky, but maybe you haven't mag'd them yet.

I'm sure I've seen a few other fire-control type vehicles used as manticores. Personally if I did play I'd have no issue with it, as to beefing it up maybe add a radar dish, giving a more 'traditional' fire-control feel to it?

Amazing army. Just read the whole blog. Great work.

As for the Manticore/Hydra, I could see you getting some flak about it, but they fit the theme VERY well. Maybe getting 3 more scout cars and have towed that way (and have the bolter in the back like your autocannons), but not the cheapest route.

Great use of the trakks. The options swap outs are great too. I really like the remote pilot's control panel.

I think the fire control center could use a bit more fortification. Maybe a large base with some guards on it. I think the biggest complaint will be the foot print. The trakks are kinda small compared to some tanks... aren't they? It seems plenty tall from the pics.

Thats a really nice use of a modular chassis, but I agree with the call that they are a bit on the small side. It would be much better if they had some kind of command vehicle/prime-mover attached to bulk them up a bit, otherwise there is just too much benefit. Maybe something like the old UK Bv 206?

The intent is to go with exactly what Sparky suggested - scout cars towing w/ a heavy bolter guy in the back. I think that should fix the footprint issue. I'll post pictures when they're done!

I'm glad they seem acceptable otherwise - they do fit the theme much better than a full on missile launcher.

Dan

I agree fully. Foot print and armour value are the only really issue I can see and the command car solves that in a snap.

I like the Bv 206 as a candidate, here it is with some netting: http://www.eliteukforces.info/gallery/vehicles/bv-206d-camo.php

Very boxy, so it fits with a back field vehicle, and it looks like you could make them out of more of the trakks... just stick a box with some windows on it.

I don't like most of the stuff here (mainly due to a dislike of the Rambo-esque way GW did catachans, they look silly the way they are all on steroids.....)
But, having said that your vehicles are all really nice. The creme de la creme is the Nork Deddog stand in however. That is just fantastic, absolutely love it!

Imp. Monkey

This thread really is inspirational. Infact, it's so good that we should chop it into a thousand little pieces and shared out between every member of Dakka's signatures. That is how awesome it is.

I can't wait to see more!

I'm glad the army's well liked - Catachans need a bit of love now and then, what with the Cadian plastics upstaging them so badly and all.

So in the theme of making the army fully playable as an Elysian list, I've been working on my naval support. First, of course, I checked the forgeworld site, but since I don't have 130 bucks extra right now, a thunderbolt seemed out of reach.

Hmm, I thought. Well, I do have a large quantity of foam board in the closet...




This one's the prototype, if she finishes well, I'll knock out another one just like it, and if the plane project goes well, there might be more scratch building in the their future... like a marauder bomber.

You'll note the engines made out of a tampon applicator and the exhausts made out of bendy straws - nothing but the finest for ole' Devil company!
One of these is en route for the weapons - http://www.themodeller.com/products/Aircraft-Weapons-%28C%29-US-Missiles-and-Gun-Pods---1-48-Plastic-Model-Kit__HAS-36003.aspx

Let me know what you think,

Dan

Looking pretty good so far. I did my Thunderbolts primarily out of card/cardboard with plasticard for the armor plates. Check out my blog on it here: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/207849.page. I've made five so far (waiting on some jet intake fans from Evil Mushroom games to finish the fifth one) with plans to make a bunch more. Such a good model!

Yep - I'm certain we used the same template as the base. I used foamboard instead of cardboard though - we'll see how it works out soon enough. I like the wheels you used as intakes - they look good! Why 5 though? Are they for friends, or are you running a massive imperial air show?

I can't remember how many I originally wanted to make, but I made three, got bored with the project and got into some other project so sold off all three. The second time, I only built one before I got sidetracked and eventually sold off the model. I'm now on my third run. I'd like to make at least three and plan on running them as Vendettas (pretending that the transport capacity is the Vendetta dropping a beacon for drop troops to home in on).

Unfortunately, I can't find any more of the "wheels" I used as intakes - they're actually parts from a drip irrigation system. I recently found these fan intakes from Evil Mushroom Games (http://www.evilmushroomgames.com/):



I ordered 3 sets of 2 back in mid-December, but I haven't received them yet, so I'm pretty bummed. They're the last pieces I need to finish my 5th T-Bolt.

Ultimately, I'd really like to make a full set of 9 T-Bolts. That way I could run them as 3 full squadrons of Vendettas/Valks (I'd magnetize some rocket pods underwing for the Valks). But my record for getting very far without selling them isn't very good.

I love this army you have put together wonkobaggins! When I saw the first pics on the front page I immediate thought of the Predator movies. I am glad to see you worked them into your army. Any chance of getting Danny Glover from Predator 2 worked into there? He would stick out like a sore thumb, but it would be pretty hilarious

The scenery and army fit so well together, I envy your opponents since they get to square off against such an impressively painted army.

Predator 2 was an embarressment to the whole series of films.

And from what I hear about Predators, it only gets worse..

Perhaps sadly, I really enjoyed predator 2. I liked the 90's drug war feel to it. What can I say?

I haven't seen predators yet - It's to be better than AVP.

At any rate, I don't think Danny Glover's going to make an appearance - button down shirts aren't really a Catachan thing.

Dan

Awesome!

I really like the GS chest rigs that many of your models have. VERY COOL.

I gotta say I am VERY impressed!

Keep up the great work

Nice start to the thunderbolt!

What did you use for plans? I am sure there is something I just haven't looked for it.

And I just realized, we are both Catachan players... named Dan. Yours look way better. Mine prefer tanks over flying also.

Predator 2 was a good film and I enjoyed it for what it was, but the whole cop Vs Predator fight scenes were absolutely sucky. That Predator killed dozens and dozens of men on THAT VISIT ALONE, yet one little cop just whacks it to death with its own Smartdisc.

That aint one cop.

God Dark, it was Danny Glover! Shazzamm!

Im to old for this S^&%!!

And for that, I love you!

Darkvoidof40k wrote:Predator 2 was an embarressment to the whole series of films.

And from what I hear about Predators, it only gets worse..

i thought adrian brody was going to be a horrible choice for the lead but he actually turn out better than i thought as an action lead. too bad fishbourne was so bad (and surprisingly puffy faced for some reason)... also, the movie broke the tradition of cool new weapons for the predators as they didn't really have any; the new addition was that the previously known weapons had a blue electricity based effect instead of the red/orange plasma of the previous movies. its not a bad $1 redbox dvd rental but i wouldn't spend more than that (and it was a *tad* better than avp2).

The template I used was found via google - they guy put his initials at the bottom, but nothing more substantial. It's the same one that several other people have used though, or so it seems to me.

The Hell's Belle, as the newly christened thunderbolt is named, is all finished but the base and the missle/bomb racks (which are in the mail).
Piloted by "Wild" Bill O'Malley, the most widely feared Catachan fighter ace of them all (just ask him!), the "Hell's Belle" has been responsible for at least 12 confirmed kills while attached to D Co. The boys love seeing him so much they insisted he adopt an official D Co paint job - he's even got a headband.

Here she is:




She's not too bad on the eyes for about 4 bucks worth of foam board and a tampon.

Let me know what you think,

Dan

That thunderbolt looks epic!!!! I like the weathering on it. Keep up the good work!

very cool concept and models! I am just starting my own guard army and I especially like your FOB idea, well done bud

Alright, so first up, here's the "Hell's Belle" on its flying stand. I may redrill the hole so she's angled down instead of up.


And here's the upcoming addition to D Co - a trio of soon-to-be Taurus assault vehicles. Now, back in my video gaming days, I was a bit of a HALO fan, and the Warthog is definitely an old favorite. On a whim one day, I googled a warthog kit, and while there isn't a model available, McFarlane toys makes these:


They're 9 dollars apiece, they have rolling wheels, and they fit the scale perfectly. I'll be converting up crewmen for these, adding bits of kit (shovels, packs and such), and adding weapons conversions (probably automatic grenade launchers). Then a simple repaint will make them tableworthy! I'm generally opposed to prepainted stuff, but if the sculpt is good enough I'm willing to just paint over it.

Let me know what you think -

Dan

The missiles arrived while I was out of town, so I finished up the arming of the "Hell's Belle" as soon as I got home. She's got a quartet of magnetized hellstrike (1:48 scale sidewinders I believe) missiles now and is officially ready for battle!



Next up (although it'll be a bit) for this army is another thunderbolt, and maybe a pair of vultures. We shall see.

Dan

very nice!

Nice! And yep, those are sidewinders.

warthog for the win! you should get some mogooses in there as well. possibly as rough riders?

Wow - it's been a little while since these guys got any love.

I'm back from a long hiatus overseas (and moved to Florida), and it's time to clean up some loose ends in the hobby area. First up, these:


As you can see, they're HALO Warthogs. McFarlane toys that just so happened to be 28mm scale.




As you can see, one guy is getting ready to beer the gunner, one has a killer 8-ball gear shift, and the third is getting ready to pop something tasty for dinner with his pistol.

I'm looking at expanding this army a bit more - this time with dinosaurs. There's a great Catachan thread over at Warseer that's inspired me in that direction.
http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=206184

There's more to come on these guys in the next few days - it's nice be back in the painting chair!

Dan

well done man! Somehow missed this blog, being a newer catachan p/mer but i do love your work from one catachaner to another, nothing beats the jungle!!!

What a badass project! The theme is awesome and masterfully executed, definitely following this from now on.

Hello

I love all the work you've put into this army - thanks for coming back to it after so long!

I have a real soft spot for that reworked Sentinel - it's what made me do a double take and read through the whooooole damn log!

The Thunderbolt is a nice piece of work but I would agree that is needs to angle downward - that will draw more attention to its lines and tail art.

The addition of some 'Predators' to this log was cool too by the way!

Oh, and you asked about more random cut out terrain for your boys... So here you go Thanks for the cool stuff!

http://tommygun.sector-17.com/tommygun/main.php

Those vending machine cut outs are amazing dude - my command center is getting a Quantum poster, and I'm building a few of those machines for the base.

Finished up the Taurus/sentinels - I do love building Catachans. Here they are:
In the tradition of D Co missile gunners - this guy's lazy too. I don't know what I have to do to get these guys to pull security.


Reload that lascannon!



I'm tired of standing up sarge - I need an MRE.


I figure scout sentinels would have the gypsy wagon thing going most of the time.


Beer be bud!

Now it's time to paint them up - it shouldn't take too long since the cars came with a base coat (of sorts) already.

Oh, and I know the armament is all wrong for Tauruses, but I went with what looked cool. It's not like Elysians are allowed in any tournament I've been to anyway.

Hope you like em -

Dan

...and it looks like we had the same idea with the aquarium plants lol ill wait to update pics of my vendetta so as not to have them confused lol just stay away from pet co in santa monica ok??
more great stuff. Id like to see some clearer pics of the actual paintjobs, its a little blurry, the plants are getting most of the attention in your digi-focus...

...never mind i looked further down, i was on page 1 of your blog >_<....

I really like those Warthog Taurus/sentinels.

Here's the first painted warthog. I'm substantially happier with the warthog sculpt than any similar model I've found. Even the old crow scout cars that are already in the army look pretty shabby in comparison. The only ding I'll give these is that the plastic used on the weapon mount was cheap and very delicate - not that I used the weapons anyway. The plastic used on the car body itself is much more robust, and it's already survived a few drops with NSTR.

I don't know if the "mom" tatoo shows up in the picture very well, but it's there!




As you can see, they have the whole team's beans and bullets in the trunk, along with a few extra rounds for the ole' 96mm rocket launcher.

Hope you like it,

Dan

That mom tattoo is an awesome idea!

Dood, this is fantastic! subbed fer sure, we are three!, three Catachan guys on Dakka! Noice!

Here are the finished shots of the taurus squad. They came off pretty well, although the rolling wheels have led to more droppage than I might have liked. Who'd have thought a cool feature like that would have problems?






Hope you like them - next up will be something including dinosaurs, but it'll be a bit before I finish cleaning out my project back-log.

Stay tuned!

Dan

Those are epic warthogs, mind=blown

wonkobaggins wrote:

Beer be bud!

LOL

Awesome buggies! It's so nice to find some ready to use toys in the right scale. They look great.

I really like how you converted these ogryns. Think I will loan the idea. ;-)

And those warthogs are pretty bad ass

God damn do I love ur army. If only guardsmen had choppers, you could've made a helicopter core army lead by this motherfuq'er
http://farm1.staticflickr.com/38/76674770_7465d93db4.jpg