That's a LOVELY Hydra conversion, and I will have to steal it.

Washes are, really, the best thing to get an army to tabletop standard in a hurry. And for use boots-on-the-group IG'ers...we need all the help we can get!

--Brian

I've got the parts to do a second Hydra turret, so I'll do a walk through later in the week and show you where all the bits came from. The only warning is that it's not cheap as finding the megabolters is hard. I think mine cost £5 each (including P&P) from ebay; which is still cheaper than the FW hydra kit I suppose

Try replicating them or something like it in your "Learn 3D Modelling" thread

The washed-up guard look cool, that's a pretty impressive batch for 6 hours. I've found washes can be a really good way of painting quickly.

Using a paint chart would be horrible, I'd know exactly how much was still undone.

And I hadn't even thought of looking for those mega-vulcans by themselves, I was waiting till I could justify getting a stormlord. Not that I actually have a use for them, but I know once I have some they'll find a home

I happen to have a set lying around of the Mega Bolters.

Wow, a lot of progress indeed !

The painted guards look great, and they'll be greater when all painted ! I'm jealous...

As for the Vulcan Bolters, it does look great, but it's not what I would consider fit for a Hydra.
AAA usually has long barrels for high velocity, which is quite the opposite of those.
That's just my personal opinion though, and they look really nice. I also wouldn't mind if you fielded them as Hydras.

I just don't dig the concept for an anti-aircraft weapon.

Oooo.... ...I like the chart idea. What program did you use to craft it?

The wash method looks great too but I can't bring myself to use it on my IG. I have to see them through to completion with more solid coloring.

The Hydra conversion is pretty nifty. I have to agree with Yggs that it looks a bit odd to me, but I have to admit that it will do the job nicely.

Arakasi wrote:Try replicating them or something like it in your "Learn 3D Modelling" thread

That's the plan. I've already started piecing together some ideas for an alternative Manticore that looks like a mini Praetor


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monkeytroll wrote:Using a paint chart would be horrible, I'd know exactly how much was still undone.

Oh, I've still got lots of other unpainted stuff floating around that's not on there, don't worry! This is just so I can keep track of my Guard forces as I can never quite remember what I own.

Looking great. Are the Pig Iron heads going to be your vets or aircav?

I slogged through 70ish guard in a spree and it is rough. Push through though. I am rooting for you!

Yggdrasil wrote:As for the Vulcan Bolters, it does look great, but it's not what I would consider fit for a Hydra.
AAA usually has long barrels for high velocity, which is quite the opposite of those.

That's a fair comment.
I'm just not a huge fan of the current Hydra designs... I think it's really ugly. I also feel that in a universe where bullets are rocket propelled, the barrel length isn't all that important as they will continue to gain velocity anyway. Much like I think the massive rockets on the Manticore and Deathstrike are ridiculous given the actual damage they do. A rocket the size of the Deathstrike should take out the entire table with a payload that size

One thing I do need to try and do is work out how the ammo gets from the tank to the turret. I may need to buy some of those flexible resin ammo belts very soon to finish this off properly.


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Rabid Ferret wrote:Looking great. Are the Pig Iron heads going to be your vets or aircav?

I slogged through 70ish guard in a spree and it is rough. Push through though. I am rooting for you!

Thanks! At the moment the pig Iron heads are platoon command squads so I've got more basic troops to play around with

Hmmm... I thought barrel length was for accuracy, not velocity. Still - if you 3D up some not Vulcan Bolters with longer barrels (but not *too* long - if that is what you want) - maybe you can have the best of both worlds? (Cheap guns, no IP infringement, win!)

It's definitely velocity (Here's a long article about it, with maths), but I still go with the rocket propelled bullets mean I don't need massive barrels

Okay - I think we can safely say I know nothing (well, now, very little) about the intricacies of barrel length, velocity and accuracy and how they relate to each other

Neither did I. And I still don't after trying to read that article

Well they usually get linked... As a longer barrel (for man-sized weapons at least) means more space between both ends of the metal sights, in turn meaning higher accuracy...

Also, higher velocity helps with reducing the influence of wind & earth rotation, as the bullet takes less time to travel from gun to target - which helps in being accurate too.

So you weren't wrong either !

[edit : not counting the fact that the less time it travels to the target, the less the target moves between the shooting & the impact where you had aimed.

Also fixed typos]

Cool, thanks for the clarification. You can tell that neither of us comes from a country or career that involves firearms.

I guess you'd want to rephrase that sentence before a Brit soldier gets annoyed at you...

Also as I said, I think the looks is great... I'm just being picky - which you're entirely right to ignore

End T - I'm really liking the Vulcan Mega Bolter turret on the hydra. Looking forward to seeing it finished.

The servitors are really nicely done.

This is thoroughly inspiring me to try painting an army again.



Peter

That "Vulcanydra" is amazing! I love it! Although i would be inclined to put a spacer to lengthen the barrels by about 1/2" but i guess thats just personal preference. It looks great on your modified chassis though.

Love the wash use on the troops. The mega bolter looks awesome too

Oops, forgot to comment on the troops! They look great, i love how effective the washes are, and youve pulled off a masterclass there!

My take:

Many many many rocket propelled bullets will easily handle both range and accuracy in a Galaxy where worlds are made entirely out of Lava. And Pudding. Lava pudding.

Screw 'reality'.

--Brian, looking for his Wulcan Megabolters...

Wow. What a burst of activity we've had today, both in thread and out of it!

Thanks for all the comments, especially Yggs feedback on AAA, velocity and muzzle length. It's been a great lesson in military engineering and was, oddly, what I wanted to do when I left school! Well, designing fighter planes was, but it's related, right?

Anyway. On to the off-thread update. Here's tonight's chart that Arakasi will tell me to stop doing so I can paint more...



This large jump in greenery means I finished 27 of the 54 miniatures that were in this batch. The rest need skin, hair, bionics and scarves painting, but should be finished tomorrow evening if I get the time. All in all, I'm pleased with the way these guys look and can't wait to see them all based up and facing down someone's army!



Understandably the first two test models are easily the best as they had more time and thought put into them... but not noticeably so. It probably took about 2.5 hours to do the TauSept, Gryphonne wash, blue wash and green grenades that I'd missed. I think the full batch of 54 is going to have taken about 10-11 hours start to finish, which isn't so bad. One lesson for next time though is to reverse the painting order a bit. If I do the Charadon Granite washes first, I can cover the cloth and armour with the Devlan mud, giving even more contrast to the armour and having to be less picky about where the washes go. Hopefully this will speed it up a bit more should I decide to add more lasguns... which let's be honest is pretty much given.

Lookin great! only thing is do you plan on hitting that gold with some dirty weathering powders as i think the earth look would bring it together with the rest of the earthtone armor

I love the vulcan bolter hydra

Rogue Wolves wrote:Lookin great! only thing is do you plan on hitting that gold with some dirty weathering powders as i think the earth look would bring it together with the rest of the earthtone armor

Eventually I will go back and dirty it all up, but I want to get everything painted first and work out the unit markings to go on the shoulder pads.

Last night I finished another batch of guys. 10 more lasguns, 3 sergeants, 1 grenade launcher, 1 melta, 2 flamers... so the force chart is slowly turning from yellow to green.

I've also been looking at where I want to go from here, which includes filling out the platoons a bit more and realised quite how much these Cadian upgrades are costing

A plastic platoon box comes with:
20 pTroops, 3 heavy weapon squads, a sentinel and the PCS ( £47.20)
This would need 4 packs of the hazard upgrades @ £18.50 each to upgrade them all which would total (including plastics) £121.20. That's a lot of cash!

I really really need to get off my arse and work out my own heads and bodies properly so I can just buy more plastic boxes, rather than spending an extra £70+ purely to upgrade them.

I feel a bit sick now... I think I need to lie down.

(or look at Wayland
For the same cost I can get two Chimera (to finish the Hydras), a Valk, a Demolisher and a standard Russ!

Not to jump on the bandwagon, but I love what you've got going on here. The paint scheme is not only unique, but also realistic and believable. The Vulcan Hydra is a super win, and I love the cadian respirator heads! Phew ( take a breath now, Rawson ) The hazard packs are FW, right? I went with the Elysian respirator heads just for the savings.

Keep up the great work!

Cheers,
Rawson

After three days much needed holiday, I've got a rather large update for you all. It's a shame I had to go back to work today, otherwise it would be even further along than it is! First up is the current status chart. If you were paying attemtion to the last one, this has been reshuffled slightly to take into account a few recent deliveries from InMyGravenImage (Thanks!), some strategic thinking and realising that all those spare flamers could be used as special weapon squads to run around claiming objectives. Duh!



I'd managed to get a Thudd Gun (with DKoK crew) and a Centaur from Graven. The Thudd gun should be a fun little toy to use up some of those Elite slots that I rarely use. The Centaur on the other hand, is being converted to fit another role. I've never been a huge fan of the Deathstrike concept as it's supposed to be an ICBM... why the heck would you take one of those that close to the battle front? What you would do though it send a forward scout up to call in the strike, so I've hacked apart one of the FW sensor arrays and created a MoO style character to stand in the back of the Centaur. I had to carefully disassemble the model to clean up some of the joints, but this allowed more access to create a driver and swap the flamer for a heavy bolter.



The Platoons are now finished. 4 full squads of infantry, two platoon command squads, two special weapon squads with flamers and 8 heavy weapon stands. The heavies and flamers didn't photograph properly, so once I've based everything properly I'll go through and make sure everything has nice pictures. In the mean time... here's the infantry and command squads



I've restarted Straken so that he fits with the new colour scheme. Lots to do on him still...


I also found a use for the heavy bolter guy I started a year or so back. I'm not sure why I never thought of making him Harker before... duh! I can't remember where the head came from right this second, but when I remember I'll come back and update the post as it's really nicely done. Again, this model is very much a WIP as I'm aiming to spend more time on the characters.


what else was there... Oh. I've also stuck together (finally!) my two Macharius', including magnetising the sponson weapons. I've also created a pinning system on my three sentinels with all the weapon options so I can pick and choose what they have. I tried magnets, but it needed at least two sets to stop the guns pointing at the floor. Two pins is much easier...

Not bad for three days work!

Nice update, chart certainly looks greener. Green is best

Impressive going with the infantry, and nice idea for the deathstrike.

Please do let us know when you recall where that head came from, it is very nice.

Also I'm sure you've told us before, but what was Straken's helmet from?

looking nice so far, and the head is a Puppets War Civil War Guardsmen head, nice set they have there i have some of em

The uniform looks great. Love the colours especially the yellow armour.

Briliant idea for the deathstrike

Rogue Wolves wrote:looking nice so far, and the head is a Puppets War Civil War Guardsmen head, nice set they have there i have some of em

Ah, thanks! That's the one. I got the Civil war and astronaut heads, both of which are excellent sculpts and really well cast. I was a bit bemused that the astronaut heads have Games Workshop cast onto the sprue though. If I were them, I'd remove that quick sharp!

Straken's helmet is one of Pig Iron's Kolony Inner Guard heads.

Serious progress there mate! Love what you did to the centaur; great concept! Very jealous also of your wash method generally, it makes me want to strip all my guard and start over!

endtransmission wrote:I also found a use for the heavy bolter guy I started a year or so back. I'm not sure why I never thought of making him Harker before... duh! I can't remember where the head came from right this second, but when I remember I'll come back and update the post as it's really nicely done. Again, this model is very much a WIP as I'm aiming to spend more time on the characters.

This model is awesome. I like his hat. This guy definitely needs a cigar

Thanks
It feels good to be seeing some serious progress on the army. It'll be interesting to see all my guard stuff painted and on the table

Subbed, and have a lot of reading to go back through. Excellent work from what I have seen so far.

enftransmission i have one question, on the astronaught heads is the cover on their heads very large, or could i easily sculpt either a hood or shave it down to sculpt the top of a head


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Oh and i forgot to ask, what was the rifle holding hand you used on your heavy bolter guy?

The hoods are too big to carve off and resculpt the top of their heads. I'll post a photo later of one on a sentinel driver so you can see for scale.

The right hand holding the heavy bolter is from one of the old old old plastic necromunda Orlocks. The arms from those are great for conversions, especially the pistol arms.

Last night I finished the officer for the second PCS and one of the heavy bolter servitors. I'm not sure why, but the servitors seem to be getting more love and attention than almost everything else in the army :/

I'll post photos of those later as well. The ones I took this morning are a bit blurry, so I need to redo them.

Quick question for guard players... or anyone that uses resin bases come to think of it.

I'm looking for textured/decorative 60mm round bases with a removable 25mm base set into it for my heavy weapon squads as I'd like to be able to use the second team member as part of an infantry squad if I'm not using the team. I've just been through all the resin base manufacturers that I can think of and that Google can find. Not one of them does this... which seems weird as I've seen plenty of people discuss using the second crew member like a wound marker...

I get the feeling that this may have to be another project for me... doh!

I haven't seen a combo base for sale. I've seen people magnetize the second crewmember, or drill a one inch hole into a large base.

--B.

unfortionatly i havent seen any bases like that either, i've only seen people cut out the hole and put another base inside

Thanks guys. I just ordered a circular cutter, so I can try making my own

If you are going for scenic bases then you don't necessarily need to cut a circle. For one of my mortars I GS'ed up a mound instead:



For the second mortar there I did trim part of the base away to make a dugout that I just rest a normal base on for the wound marker guy.

I've also used the magnet method for a couple of other HW teams:





I used 0.5mm thick magnets that surface mount really easily, so no hole cutting necessary. You could easily make normal 25mm bases with magnets as well if you want to field the guys in a normal squad.

I thought about using magnets, but I decided it would be simpler (for me anyway) to just grab any spare infantry model and use him without having to hunt for the right model, or a magnetised base. The flocked base is kind of what I'm aiming for though.

I also need to get back to the whole resin thing anyway, so if I can create a few different 60mm bases with matching 25mm bases I can just churn out a few more each time I add more weapon teams or platoons

endtransmission wrote:

Why has that tau got a "Google Chrome Grenade"?

That's not a Google Chrome grenade... it's the MB game, Simon Says

endtransmission wrote:That's not a Google Chrome grenade... it's the MB game, Simon Says

I thought so. That only makes it worse. You'll go to the chair for this one.

i got it when i saw that, i think its funny

The weird thing is that it's actually like that on the model... whoever actually sculpted it has a sense of humour and my undying gratitude for allowing me to have one in my army

"Simon says... your reserves are going to be late"

that is funny, sculpters should avoid doing stuff like that

Noooooo! Next we need a space marine playing Kerplunnk or Buckaroo

or maybie a tau controling a drone with a ps3 controler?

The IG heavy weapon team arms sort of look like they already use them.... you're a very bad man giving me ideas like that :p

well your welcome! and i see what you mean well isnt that funny i have a few of those arms...

endtransmission wrote:Noooooo! Next we need a space marine playing Kerplunnk or Buckaroo

No, surely four Ogryn around a table playing hungry hippo's, with maybe one of them crying because he has smashed his hippo with his fist. Nice work on your force its very unconventional, which means it's original.

omg that is hilarious i can imagion it already!

I hope that happens, with the ogryn and the hippos. That would be too good.

i think it would be best not with the newest ig ogryns but the stupied and puffy looking ogryn ahh id love the look of it

Here's some WIP shots of the demolisher and a chimera



I've also taken note of the barrel length comments for the hydra and started having a play with some extensions. I'm not sure...

Really liking the original version myself. The barrel looks good I just don't think its necessary. Good to see that the armies really coming along.

i really like the look of the last picture with the barrel upside down, i think you should go that route

Nah, i think you had the right of it first time endtrans, looks far meaner with short barrels.

I like big barrels

i like big barrels and i can not lie!

Damn... those weathered stripes are just... damn.

Proper lush mate

Also, no barrel extensions!

So no barrel extensions then. Makes my life easier

Late to the party apparently, but yeah, short barrel.

Ok, so I've been a bit quiet again recently... too much work, not enough time. But... work has been progressing.

The Chimera has had some more weathering powders applied and is nearly there. I still need to sort out soot on the exhausts. If there's anything else you can spot, just yell.


The Russ is, likewise, nearly done apart from soot.


The first Sentinels are ready for the pre-powder/washes coat of varnish, so I thought I'd show you some of the chipping and markings that are on there. I'm not ever so happy about the hand prints, but they will be covered with muck, so I doubt much will be seen.





These last two are pre-weathering shots, I figured as some of you asked for more detail on what gets done, I should show you step by step photos. These two have the base colours done, with the tracks and hellhound weapons done in Vallejo Air's Hull Red. After this they will get chipping done

Hydra - Pre weathering


Hellhound - pre weathering

I spot... too much awesome! I really need to spend some of my holiday at home... Looking forward to seeing these finished in person. Now if only I could make similar progress

Oh the updated Inferno Cannon on the Hellhound is actually very nice. I'm really looking forward to this step-by-step

oo another update, sweet! btw I love the hand as number markers, i might have to use that in the future

Looks great as usual endtrans, every time you put up a new model it feels like you progress a step further! I feel the multilaser muzzle on the chim could do with some metal peeking through, and perhaps some heat discolouration. With the awesome realistic detail applied to the rest of the tank it almost feels like you've forgotten the gun (same applies to the demolisher cannon). Thats just imo of course.

Well, the guns are going to get soot added on as well, so they aren't completely forgotten


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Here's Day 2 of the Weathering step by step guide. Yesterday I showed you the Hellhound with it's base colours.

So. After putting on the solid base colours, and as I don't have any transfers to apply, we can start with the chipping. With this tank I'm assuming that the tank was painted with a reddish/brown undercoat, then covered in dark grey all over, finally the light grey areas are painted over the top.

With this in mind, I can start the chipping. We're going to be using bits of foam for this to get that slightly First off we want some ligher grey chips on the pale grey. Sadly it's a little too light to be seen on the photos... so next time I'll go a bit lighter still, otherwise it'll never be visible over all the weathering. After that I need to do another round of chipping using the dark grey base colour to show some wear and tear on the light grey areas.



Once the dark grey has dried, we then need to go back and do some more chipping using the reddish/brown undercoat



Lastly I added some tiny spots of vomit brown where I'm going to want spots of rust.



Now we've got the chipping done, I need to apply a coat of gloss varnish so I can do the washes. As it currently stands, it's looking ok, but not really all that great. That's fine as the colours will change quite a bit with the next stages. Sadly today was damn, so I really didn't fancy trying to use spray cans outdoors... it may be a while until it's nice enough to move on to the next stage :/

Finally finished the Russ and the Chimera (minus the Russ weapons options...)

Excellent greenstuffing job, my friend.

Warhammer world should be using you to advertise its classes, bud. Cracking job in both.

Thanks
I'm very pleased with both. Now I just need to carry on with all my other tanks!

Looking forward to seeing them in person, though preferably not *on* the field of battle

It's not like a chimera is going to do that much damage to you in the grand scheme of things. The Russ on the other hand...

Some more updates for you. Sadly none of these are finished yet, but it's getting real close. Hopefully I can find some nice weather between now and Christmas to put a coat of varnish over the powders to stick it all down.

The Deathstrike is looking very dusty... possibly a bit too much compared to the others so far, but hey. Who knows where it's been


There are some details still to pick out on it. The Hellhound is in the same situation, but I think the only thing left to do is weather the tracks.



The sentinels need to have the rusty bits toned down a bit more as it's looking wrong...

Looking good, the dust is giving it character

Dude, are there no car washs on that planet?! Just kiddin, pretty dirty, dirty pretty...

Car wash? What is this car wash thing of which you speak?
I'm not sure my car has seen one in about a year, so I'm not sure why a tank mid-campaign would see one

Dirt is no protection from Orky looting - in fact, it may be an attractant. Just putting that out there...

Ohh, dirty, filthy tanks. You know you want it...ahem, excuse me.

I reckon you should incorporate one or two which are nearly clean, to symbolise replacements.
You need them every now and then!

I've been trying to work out the best way of incorporating something along those lines. I'd like to have some panels that are shiny and new, or parts that have been wiped clean so kill markings can be updated.

Individual panels can be masked off, but I'm not sure what the best way is to make it look like someone has tried to clean off the dust/mud

I havn't done a fluff update in ages, but the likelihood of them encountering entire replacement vehicles is... doubtful
At some point my Chimera parking lot will be joined by armoured trucks that are "counts as Chimera" to represent civilian vehicles being given the A-Team treatment.


I also want to add an Inquisitorial Stormtrooper squad with their very own Land Speeder Storm (because I think it's something they should have access to). Hopefully this can be in January if the faint rumours of a plastic kit in January comes into being. The eventual aim is to reintroduce lots of the old units that have fallen out of favour, such as Imperial Guard Land Speeders and Commissar training squads, plus those units that FW have resurrected like the Rapier and Tarantula.

What ever happened to IG Assault Squads and human bombs?!

Use pigments with plain water, let them dry on top of your kill markings and brush them of in the small spot you wanted to be clean, varnish afterwards. That's how I would do it at least.

I tend to brush my pigments on dry anyway, so most of the colouring on the tanks is actually the powders crushed into the matt paint. No amount of brushing gets that out, even using a really stiff brush.

I'll give it a go on the next tank though, thanks

Shouldn't you be working?

How about applying gloss varnish over the markings in the shape you want wiped clean, then apply pigments, then brush off? The powders shouldn't be able to adhere to the gloss varnish?

(Actually, any form of liquid or tape masking to the same effect would probably work - then you just remove the masking along with the powders)

Okay - I've already spent too much time thinking about this

Ha. I can type this out while thinking about other stuff, no problems.

[Where does that chunk of code go again?]

Pehaps you could get white spirit, dab your finger in it and literally wipe away the powders? White spirit tends to remove the powders whenever i use them, its also what i use to "fix" them.

I can't quite remember the fluff for this, and I don't want to trawl through 24 pages to find it!
(I know, I'm lazy)
But each unit would have to be pulled off of the front line every now and then for R&R.
So if vehicles were completely wrecked then some replacements would be driven up to join the unit or airlifted to the front.
But I wouldn't go overboard and have an entire fresh platoon! Haha

So thoroughly mucky! Love the centaur btw.

Me Gusta

<3's MBB

Great weathering excited about the ideea for Trucks. Old Crow & Ramshackle vehicles or 1/35 military kit based?

Llamahead wrote:Great weathering excited about the ideea for Trucks. Old Crow & Ramshackle vehicles or 1/35 military kit based?

None of the above. I'll be using Ork Trukks retrofitted back into neat Imperial STC format... and then given an A-Team refit
Kind of like the ones Dave Taylor did, but not quite so boxy.

This will (hopefully) be part of the 3d modelling work that myself and Arakasi are trying to do (in our spare time!)

That makes sense its a good design and usually produces great results.

Disjointed Entity wrote:I can't quite remember the fluff for this, and I don't want to trawl through 24 pages to find it!
(I know, I'm lazy)
But each unit would have to be pulled off of the front line every now and then for R&R.
So if vehicles were completely wrecked then some replacements would be driven up to join the unit or airlifted to the front.
But I wouldn't go overboard and have an entire fresh platoon! Haha

No chance of a fresh platoon

A brief recap (and expansion) of the fluff behind this lot in bullet points as I'm awful at writing fluff... much as I want to.

- The Malfian IVth were sent to investigate a distress call from one of the mining colonies in a near-by system.
- They enter the colony to try and discover what the problem is, only to discover that the colony is in the grips of the Fydae plague (chaos zombies!)
- While they are in the colony, their ship gets stolen by the chaos cult who started the plague, leaving them stranded with a slowly dwindling number of miners.
- The surviving members of the Malfian IVth, along with the last few surviving miners hole up in the outer areas of the colony
- An Inquisitor and his retinue (aboard a commandeered Rogue Trader ship) have been tracking this cult across the region and arrive at the colony a few days later.
- The survivors, plus any equipment that can be scavenged, are ferried off the colony and the mining colony subjected to Terminatus.
- The miners are drafted into the Malfian IVth and the entire regiment is seconded to the Inquisitor
- The army now travels the region trying to track down the cult, slowly using up the resources stockpiled on the Rogue Trader's ship... never stopping long enough to do more than patch up their vehicles.

So far the cult has eluded them... they keep running into this band of Orks that have gone bat-gak crazy thanks to an addiction to a Gene-seed based concoction brewed by their Painboss.

In the future they may stop for long enough to pick up re-enforcements as they are rather short on artillery...

In case you're wondering, the Inquisitor is a Radical. This is why the Inquisitor hasn't been shot yet for having Tau and Kroot mercenaries on his staff, and why the loyal beastmen from the mines were allowed to join the regiment. Currently the beastmen are still not fully supported by the command structure, but they are earning respect and one day hope to have a platoon of their very own.

Ah I see.
I don't know why but I thought that they were part of a full-blown Crusade force, I need to stop focusing on my own Guard's back story!

Nothing wrong with focusing on your own background. T'is far more important than someone else's

Haha, I aim to please!
Haven't painted anything in months, damn this lack of funds!

I wasn't in the mood for painting today, so I returned to an age old project of piecing together a viable backpack that I can cast myself, rather than having to buy the expensive FW upgrades. The photos look like it's rough, but in reality it's not... that's a layer of glue :/
I like it, but it's a bit small compared to the FW packs... does it need to be bulkier, or do people like it as it is? I'm currently thinking it'd be a great Stormtrooper energy pack, but it might need to be bigger for a hazardous weather kit

In addition to that, I thought I'd see what a Marine head would look like modded into a Guard helmet as it looked kinda like the old RT era Imperial Army helmet. I can't decide... it looks massive on the body, but kinda reasonable when you consider it's a high tech armoured helmet... undecided. He does, however, look like he should be a transformer with that head

I like it!

Thanks!
Which bit? The head or the pack?

all of it, the backpack looks small, but because of the high tech head it makes sense that it would not be huge

Definitely a robot in disguise there

The helmet's a little large, but not overly so, don't se an issue with it. From the back it's very recognisable as a marine helm, possibly a tiny bit of detailing required there?

I like the pack a lot, would it be feasible to change it to a piece which you could easily add a section too if you wanted a larger version? Possibly a two-part kit, where you have the base unit similar to that pack, and then a piece that clips (or more realistically magnetises) to the top with potential extensions down the side?

Not sure I've explained that well, but it is half-eleven and I've only just got home from work

Love the retro helm - all he needs now is a twiglet lasgun - but the back is, as monkeytroll says, probably too recognisably sm. I like the pack as extreme weather/ energy pack , less so as kitbag - cool regardless mind you.

i like the look of the pack, although i think it should be a bit bigger, and the helmet isnt too bad, it gives me the feeling of a hightec miners helm, maybie putting something on the forehead part of the helm to fill up that space...

the backpack looks really nice... I don't think it's too big

And the helmet looks really cool... for some reason is reminds me off Judge Dredd...

I do agree that the back looks recognisably Marine, I was thinking if I removed the horizontal raised area and smoothed down the top ridge so it gets thinner as it goes back down the helmet. This might make it look a lot less bulky as well as making it less marine like.

(Did any of that make sense? It did in my head, but looking back at it... I'm not so sure :/ )

As for the pack, it was designed to be a power pack or gas tanks of some kind, so I think in this incarnation it'll be good as a hotshot power pack and I'll make a bigger one for hazardous environments with more tanks on.

Backpack looks great, especially as a power pack. I even like the Marine helmet!

I think your idea of "fading" the center ridge of the SM helm is a great idea, and is even more true to the old RT IG. The backpack is excellent. It's not an L-frame rucksack, it's a powerpack, and I'll bet it's already heavy enough as it is for that trooper, it doesn't need to be larger.

Today's been a great day for doing mindless modelling while watching Christmas films (My Neighbour Totoro, Spiderwick and now Star Trek) . First up, I smoothed off the back of the head a bit so it looks much less Space Marine-y. I've also slimmed down the bumps over the ears to make it a bit less bulky across too. Both of these adjustments have certainly improved it, though I've no idea what the experiment is for as I wanted to make a new head that I could safely cast up with the packs and sell. Doh!

It was an interesting experiment anyway.



I swapped some rhinos for a pack of Krieg Grenadiers earlier in the week (Thanks Bash!), so I also pieced them together, ready for undercoating. Adding the power cables was a royal pain in the proverbial as there's very little to actually attach them to and my "super glue" isn't so super. I also replaced the grenade launcher and flamer that came with the kit with some more useful meltas. I know a lot of people don't like Storm troopers, but I'm interested to see how they work in a game. I'm going to paint them up in colours to go with my inquisitor so he's got some form of military force with him.


I'd also been piecing together some of the Avatars of War Dwarf Berserkers to practice skin and nmm on, which gave me an idea... If the regiment is supposed to have been part of a mining colony, what's the likelyhood that some Squat engineers would have been on the colony when the core worlds were wiped out? I already have the Space Dwarf from last year's WD subscription that I'd been thinking about making into a "tech priest", so I think some of these berserkers are going to become squat servitors to accompany him. It also seemed to make some form of sense that some survivors would have gone a bit... mental from losing everything. This one is going to be a warrior acolyte after a lot more tech/bionics are added



I hope you all get what you deserve/want for Christmas

Hey, you've given us squats for Christmas. What more could we ask for

Myself and Arakasi have spent the afternoon learning Vassal so we can carry on playing against each other when he moves on to hotter pastures.

As a system it works quite nicely, though there are a few oddities to the interface that take a while to get used to. I think we're all set now though.

The game was going so well for the first 5 turns, with me clearly winning, 2 objectives to none. Then it went on to turn 6 and it all went wrong thanks to his marksman boy killing just enough guardsmen to send them fleeing from their 2 objectives and his sole surviving squad sitting millimetres within the range of a third. If the game had gone on for another turn I'd have won thanks to the 4 meltas and 2 chimera bearing down on them... sadly the dice gods said otherwise :/

A full report should follow at some point, given that we've got screenshots of every phase of the game (plus vassal logs).

Next up is an attempt at 1750 points by email. Should be interesting!

If anyone else fancies a pbem game, just yell

The Squat Engineer turned Berzerker is brilliant! I really like the look of it and the axe is so perfect.

Great. Now I have to get some Dwarves and convert them into my Cultists.

endtransmission wrote:A full report should follow at some point, given that we've got screenshots of every phase of the game (plus vassal logs).

Does that mean you will be writing it up? I have an Orks vs Sisters game to write up first...

Maybe. I just uploaded the start of our 1750pt game to dropbox. Don't forget to follow my notes in the file
Note to self. Don't take a capture of the battlefield when zoomed in. Vassal will show you the placement of units outside of the window's view, but not the battlefield itself. doh!

Ok, here we go. 500pts of Guard Vs Orks, played using Vassal.

Turns out if the game had ended at turn 5 it would have been a draw, not a guard win.

Those diagrams are amazing! How did you make them?

We played the game online using Vassal, so those are just screen captures of the game in progress.

I just realised quite how long it has been since I did anything with this blog. I am still here, I promise! Life managed to get in the way for a while as I was helping out with a local theatre production of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere doing photography and some painting of props, such as Mr Vandemar's rings. The skulls were made by my wife and painted by yours truly.



That is now all done and dusted, so it's back to the Guard.
Talking to Arakasi today I realised that I don't actually know what I've got, or what state it is in. So tomorrow I'm going to go through and work it all out, including the total points value. To get this rolling, I finally got around to starting an army profile with a unit by unit breakdown of what I've got. I'll take better pictures of everything in it's current state to use as a guideline.

In addition to this I do have a few progress reports to make.

1) I started making some scenic bases to cast up. I figure it will be easier to make a load, cast them, paint them all and *then* stick the troops to them. Much easier than trying to decorate bases that are already attached to a painted model.

2) I picked up some Krieg stormtroopers in a trade recently... these have been started and are just waiting for the masks to be painted and bases to attach them to.

3) Thanks to Godsized I should be receiving a rather bulky package next week. I appear to have grown by a few more thousand points of unmade plastic crack! (1x Baneblade, 60 cadians, 2x valkyries, 3x Cadian command squads, 2x sentinels, 3x hellhounds and 4 packs of FW cadian upgrade packs)

Expect lots of piccies tomorrow

oh i'll be 'specting!

Wow, it was a while! Glad to see you're working on this again. Looking forward to seeing what you have coming!

The 'spectin be over. The army profile has been updated with lots of fresh new photos. Seeing it all like that makes me realise quite how little is actually in a "Finished" state. Most things seem to be in an almost-but-not-quite-there-yet stage. I think this year I need to get everything into a proper finished state.

We're off to Warhammer world again in June, so I'd like to get most of it done by then so I can get a decent army shot and some more recent terrain backed shots for the profile. For now, this will have to do as it's the largest surface I have available in the house, other than the floor. Sorry for the poor lighting :/

This little lot totals to about 4000 points without adding any extras on to the vehicles, or veteran squads. If I count all the unbuilt stuff I have here as well as the nice package winging it's way to me, that total goes up to about 6000! *faint*



I also realised there are a few things that never made it onto here over the last month or so, so here's what you've missed

1) The Deathstrike is nearing completion. It needs a coat of varnish to seal in the powders before I can do the last few little bits of detailing and the spotter in the back. I tried some OSL, but I'm not sure it's worked... not that you can really see it in these photos



[update]Oh jeez, how did I miss not drilling out the heavy bolter?!![/update]

2) A Heavy Bolter servitor has been completed, to up the Techpriest's retinue to three



3) I picked up a set of Storm troopers in a trade. They have now been equipped with two meltas and the first 5 are nearly finished. There's still bits like the masks left to do... it's always the fiddly bits you forget about until you take a photo :/



I've also started building some bases to cast for my use. I have special heavy weapon bases that I'll show when they are nearer completion. In the mean time, these are all getting there, but have a bit more texturing to do

Looking good, nice paintjobs!

Thanks!

The more I look at these photos, the more I notice should be done on the supposedly finished models. Gah!

Painting resolutions for 2012 include:

1) Do 1 squad at a time; finish it and move on. Do NOT have 15 squads on the go at once as you *will* miss stuff :/

2) Buy the lightbox setup I've been looking at for over a year... a desk lamp is NOT good enough, even with long exposures.

3) Do NOT start to build anything else until the built stuff is finished! (unless it's a second Demolisher

hmm, those bases look awsome! and so does this latest vehicle. although my only thing is it seems like your OSL looks more like a blue pole glowing white, instead of a (insert your colour here) glowing blue.. although in person im sure its better

endtransmission wrote:Thanks!

The more I look at these photos, the more I notice should be done on the supposedly finished models. Gah!

Painting resolutions for 2012 include:

1) Do 1 squad at a time; finish it and move on. Do NOT have 15 squads on the go at once as you *will* miss stuff :/

2) Buy the lightbox setup I've been looking at for over a year... a desk lamp is NOT good enough, even with long exposures.

3) Do NOT start to build anything else until the built stuff is finished! (unless it's a second Demolisher

I know that feeling!

1) I could use this rule - just substitute "squad" for "model"

2) Let us know how this goes - I'm going to need to do some better photos in the future myself...

3) I *definitely* could use this rule (substitute Demolisher for Warkopta)

I *might* have 1000pts done by June...

Bases are looking neat too - looking forward to see how the casting goes (maybe I can steal a few )

(Happy Birthday BTW! )

ahh happy birthday sir!

Rogue Wolves wrote:hmm, those bases look awsome! and so does this latest vehicle. although my only thing is it seems like your OSL looks more like a blue pole glowing white, instead of a (insert your colour here) glowing blue.. although in person im sure its better

I do agree. The scanner's glow looks very wrong in those photos, which means it looks wrong in real life too, I just couldn't see it properly until now. It's a case of painter's blindness. You never see something wrong with your own stuff until it's photographed and in the public view... then it's blindingly obvious



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Arakasi wrote:I know that feeling!

... I *might* have 1000pts done by June...

Bases are looking neat too - looking forward to see how the casting goes (maybe I can steal a few )

Ok, new challenge for you Mr Arakasi. We both need to get our 1000 points all fully finished and based by June so we can take proper photos at WW.

If the base casting goes well, you're more than welcome to have a load. The resin arrives next week, so we shall see

I've just spent an hour trying to squeeze everything into a P.A.C.K Air... sadly it will not fit. No way, no how. The problem with playing Guard is the massive platoons! I'd need 5 infantry trays to fit what I currently have the models for and would need at least 2 more to fit in what I want to build in the future! I'm wondering how many infantry figures would fit in a custom PACK Air sized tray. My only other option is to go for one of their larger, modular bags :/

endtransmission wrote:The more I look at these photos, the more I notice should be done on the supposedly finished models. Gah!

You just described the entirety of my lifetime modeling experience in a single sentence. Well done.

Thanks for sharing all the photos! Glad you mentioned the barrel on the Heavy Bolter, I saw it and was ready to furiously type away about it until I saw your comment. Ha.

Really great to see you back on this project, I went back through a few pages and remembered how very much I like this thread, Great work all the way through (even if it isn't really "finished"... )

Thanks for the reprieve. I will drill it out tomorrow, just for you

Tomorrow I'm also going go through the profile and work out the exact state of each unit to see what is finished, or what I want to improve/finalise.

If you're lucky, I may even start a vote up to see which unit to tackle after I've finished making/casting the bases

I don't know about an open vote, I did that once and it backfired on me. Be absolutely certain you're up to painting anything you have.

Well, at the moment I'm not really finishing anything, so I need you guys to push me onwards and upwards. If that means you get to choose which unit I target next... all's good

So, it appears that I've broken the three rules already :/

The last two evenings I've been painting bits of three separate units (well, one unit and two HQ choices). Please excuse the photos, they were quick snaps this morning so I could actually do an update!

As the Servitors are all nicely painted, they were looking a bit left out with the Techpriest only half finished, so he was first up. There's still some detail work to do, including highlighting the metals and painting over the robe pattern by his waist. This didn't come out as I planned.


Then I decided to redo the cloak and robes for the Primaris. I've still got lots of tidying up to do with this one, not least is cleaning up the lines on his cloak design. The micron pen wasn't flowing very well, so it's all jagged and in some places it actually started to lift the paint ;(




While I tried to avoid the work needed to tidy up those two, I started on the other 5 Stormtroopers too.


I got my new batch of resin and rubber this morning, so tonight I can make a cast for some of the bases

Would a coat of varnish (gloss or matt) help the micro pen flow better? It would at least stop it lifting the paint, and possibly give you the ability to erase and try again too.

Nothing wrong with finishing character models (or anything really)

It's not the finishing characters that broke the three rules. It was working on more than one thing at a time

Using the micron pen on gloss tends to be just as tricky as the pen doesn't seem to want to leave the ink on the gloss. I think it might have just dried out as it won't even write on my hand or paper. St00pid pen.

Man i love that primaris pose, so badass.

The pose and overall model was based upon one someone did for a Star Wars 40k army. I thought it was an interesting idea, so stole it

Speaking of <s>stealing ideas</s> getting inspiration from people... BrotherArgos' thread has some great stuff in it now he's resurfaced, especially modifying the Forgeworld Ryza pattern Russ turrets for the plasma cannon. It looks so much better than the standard version.

There has been progress on my side as well (though not as much as I would have liked thanks to work). Today I poured the first mould for bases, so I get to see how successful that was later on. I also discovered that our local model shop sells the Squadron Green putty in a tube... I've heard good things about it so I'm giving it a try on the bases that needed a bit more smoothing out. Possibly piccies later once the Squadron Green has dried and been sanded smooth.

I forgot to take pictures of the finished bases before pouring rubber all over them, so no real pictorial update today. I assume you're not all that interested in 2 large blue rubber rectangles

One thing I'd forgotten from my last attempt at making moulds is that half a kilo of RTV silicone doesn't seem to go all that far (especially when you make a mistake and follow the 10:1 instructions on the tin, rather than the 20:1 instructions on the web!). The kilo of resin should keep me busy producing infantry bases, so I shouldn't need to order more rubber until I finish sculpting the weapon team bases. Hopefully I can start on those later in the week when I have some of the "special" bases cast up.

Tonight I've spent my evening raising a paypal dispute over this trader. Teach me to use the public swapshop for a too-good-to-be-true deal... I think I'll be sticking to the DCM traders section from now on where there are nice, reliable people like InMyGravenImage!

Still. It solves some of my case dilemmas as I can fit everything I currently own into a Pack Air and if I get the paypal refund (*fingers crossed*) that will go a long way to paying for it!

[update]
Seems I spoke too soon. The rubber has cured, so here is a sneak preview ;p

Two large blue rubber rectangles with some white spots....cooool!!

Nice idea to cast the 60mm base with removable 25mm.

Really looking forward to see how those turn out. I'm really too much of a coward to try my own casting. And thanks for the nod

I thought you might like the blue rubber

The 60mm base with the hole is going to be used to sculpt some barricades and bunkers onto for all my weapon teams. The full 60mm bases you can see in the right edge of the photo will be for things like sentinels.

I tried taking a photo of the cast bases, but they just came out as shiny white blobs. Next time I get some good weather I'm going to spray them all a sandy colour and start painting a large batch of them... so hopefully you'll get a good view of then. The plan is to have a box full of painted bases ready for whenever I finish a model. Makes it much easier as basing afterwards is something I hate.

Casting one piece moulds like this is dead simple. As the bases have a flat surface you can follow these simple steps:

1) get a piece of flat plastic or metal sheet
2) Glue your bases to the sheet so there's no leakage under the bases
3) Build a barrier around the bases. In my case I was using a pencil tin as it was deeper than the bases. In the past I've used lego or plasticine. If you use lego, glue this to the plastic/metal board as well so you don't get leakage
4) Mix the rubber in the recommended quantities. In my case that was 20 parts rubber to 1 part thickener
5) gently stir the mixture until it's a nice even blue
6) slowly pour the rubber into an empty corner and allow it to flow over the bases as this traps a lot less air than if you dump it onto whatever you want to cast.
7) leave for 24 hours to cure nicely

That's your mould all done once you've removed all the bits from the rubber.

Casting is much easier with a 1 part mould as you don't need to worry about clamping or air channels. Simply mix up your resin and gently pour it into the hollow parts of your mould.

Be careful when mixing the resin that it's evenly stirred. I did a batch of bases in a hurry last night and failed to mix it properly. This led to parts of the bases being solid and others... not so much. It's like a sweety with a gooey centre. Not something you want near your precious models!

I'm getting the urge to pick up some lego bits more and more lately....

I'm getting very tempted by the Batman and Superman stuff, but that's not for casting purposes

I started painting the bases tonight. It's looking good


And here's the stormtrooper sergeant posing with his new-found baseness

I like the contrasts in the DKoK uniform colours.

Bases looking sweet

On the ones with pipework, did you cast them as 'clean pipes' and add the texture, or cast with the texture on the pipes? Was just thinking you could get a little more variety if they were 'clean' by adding different texture details.

They were cast with the textures on. I don't think variety is going to be too much of a problem as there will be static grass stuck on shortly as well.

I've also got about 12 different base designs so far, so it's going to be a while before it starts to look *really* odd. If it does, I can add a bit more sand onto the cast ones, or create another batch to start producing

Yeah, certainly no biggie, especially with the numerous facings a mini could have on a base, was just wondering

Loving those bases, and the contrast on the uniforms is just... Aargh, words fail me.

I want to see the non-boring ones! So many painted rocks...

Waddya mean "non boring" ones?
I take it this means you don't want any on wednesday then ;P

I mean - of all the bases you showed us previously - you painted seven of the ones with rocks and only two of the "interesting" ones There were at least ten interesting ones...

Ahhh I see. 10 interesting ones? I've only cast up the flatter, small ones so far as I ran out of rubber, so that might be limiting things a bit.

Which reminds me... must order some more this week!

Just for you, I'll take a better picture of all the completed ones so far this evening

Me wantee! Me wantee bases! Wantee!

Ahem.

I like your stuff

Thanks!
Here's a photo of the first batch to be finished. Now to decide which units to re-base first.



Now to move on to making those HWT bases so I can order more rubber.

Now *that's* what I'm talking about

Pretty sweet!

Arakasi wrote:Now *that's* what I'm talking about

Bases are so much more fun/easy to paint when there's no model in the damn way

Do I get Dakka bonus points for having persuaded every employee in our UK office to join Dakka?

Dalekdec joins myself and Arakasi, making it the full team.
Please go say hello and offer welcoming advice when he gets around to starting his blog. He's nervous that his painting isn't very good... the man's insane.

Painting has ceased temporarily as I need to buy a new car thanks to a massive repair bill that I don't think is worth it... so evenings are currently being spent trawling through lots of awfully designed/built car manufacturer sites :/

I've been politely reminded that it's been far too long since I last posted anything in here about the state of my Guard.

After my last post not a lot happened, other than finishing the bases on my 40 infantry. I went to Warhammer World with Arakasi for one last weekend of gaming before he vanishes form these here shores and I was surprised to have a 99% complete force on the table! The only things that weren't finished were the bases on three officers that I'd forgotten all about! Obviously there's still plenty to finish painting, but I do now have 1500pts of finished Guard!

After two very entertaining games, I finally had the necessary inspiration to get everything out and look at what to do next. The answer is to finish off the full platoon of course.

It seems I've got enough parts to make all 5 infantry squads with the FW upgrades, which meant I had 19 of the 20 models necessary to move my original infantry over to be Whiteshields, which fits nicely with the theme of them all being miners recruited, but not being all that effective yet.

Over the weekend I put together 24 infantry, 2 sergeants and one whiteshield. Painting has started and it's looking rather good so far. Hopefully I might even get some of them finished tonight, which would be a miracle!



So what's next after all this lot?

There are a few bits that still need finishing off (not including all those tanks); I think all of my commissars are yet to be completely finished... so that's probably next on the list. After that it's back to trying to create my own bodies for a second platoon.

This time I'm going for Victorian style infantry this time around as I think it'll be fun having something very different. I've always liked the Praetorians, but until Victoria Lamb released her bits, they were either difficult to get, or a bit hit and miss in the quality department.

While I love her stuff, to buy the bits for a full platoon, minus the Whiteshields, plus two veteran squads, 10 rough riders (minus horses) and a company command squad will set me back in the region of £340+ customs charges. Time to put that sculpting masterclass to use I think...

end,
glad to see some progress done on your ig. it has been a while for you and i am glad you found some inspiration to keep trucking along.

The main inspiration was actually seeing a completely painted force on the table. Can't get much better than that!
I think I need to find somewhere to have a nice glass display cabinet with them permanently set out in as they get stored in my carry case and forgotten

yea i know about "forgetting" models in the carrying case. well it all looks lovely like i said before.
so when are you going to be doing some tanks?

I think the next batch of tanks will be a while yet as I want to build up plenty of infantry. I'd like to try a foot list with two massive platoons. It's bound to lose, but it'd be fun to play

throw in a couple of hidden power weapons and i think you should be all right my friend

nice update, definatly excited to see you do your commissars and tanks!

Thanks.
No photos for tonight, but the metal has been done, everything washed with devlan miracle and the lenses done. Tomorrow I get to highlight it all and paint the officer's skin... then they should be done, or at least as done as I can do without any bases.

Ah, Devlan Miracle! The Wonders of wash painting. The Victorialamb stuff's amazing, I really want techno scots now! Great link.

No visible updates as I didn't think you'd be interested in a pile of plaster floor tiles.

I do really like Victoria's Praetorians and if it gets to next summer and I've not started on the Praetorian platoon, I suspect I will just go ahead and order a massive pile of bits from her. It'd be nice not to have to though... I have the tools, now I just need to find the time to clear everything else off my plate.

Speaking of which.. why hasn't one of you lot invented a time machine yet? Or PM'd me the winning lottery number for next week?

Alternatively... if there are any of you there youngsters that read this and want a job, we're looking for a junior web developer at work that we can train up...

Haha i am actually looking for a job atm, but have no experience in web developing and am a long way from reading!

Shame. Would have been good to get another gamer to join the team

Anyway, on a shocking note... I actually have some updates to this thread *and* my learning to paint one! I know, I know. It's hard to believe.

The Infantry squads for Platoon 1 are now... done! I have added 2 sergeants and 27 more lasguns, meaning all 5 infantry squads are now made up of the FW Cadian upgrade kits. This also means that all those guys I made back near the beginning of the thread can be the minimum strength conscript squad for the platoon as there were, handily, 20 of them including a sergeant.



So, the infantry squads are finished just in time for 6th edition to make me have to buy some additional bodies from FW :/
Why? So I can add in 5 flamers for those Overwatch moments of course D3 auto hits from each flamer when you are charged? Yes please. I'd hate to be Arakasi, facing off against this blob... FRF, SRF will pump out a maximum of (in it's current configuration) 135 shots, or 50 Overwatch shots. If I add in 5 flamers that would be 120 FRF, SRF or 45 Overwatch las shots and 5D3 auto hits from flamers. With those numbers it doesn't matter that they aren't all that great at hitting things.

Rather than put lots of photos of the individual squads in here, I've updated the Army page with some separate shots of the separate squads.

I'm interested to get my grubby mitts on the new rulebook next week too as I'm intrigued to see all those new psychic powers as well as the ally and fortification rules. I think some Aegis lines will be a valuable addition to an infantry based force, as would tank traps. I'm also looking forward to seeing the Abhuman descriptions as it sounds like Imperial Beastmen are back in the fluff; which means my old plans for a full, loyalist beastman platoon is back on the books... at some point. I think that would look insanely cool on the battlefield.

im excited about beastmen too! and it'll be cool to see you throw some in to this army.. and man are you lucky to have some gamers at you work, i never had a friend who played, only friends who i made from playing

I've already got one squad of loyal beastmen (currently used as a penal squad), but I get the feeling that an entire platoon would look awesome.

Arakasi got me restarted a few years ago and now I'm bringing DalekDec and his son into the hobby too... so we're all one big happy gaming company

endtransmission wrote:I'd hate to be Arakasi, facing off against this blob... FRF, SRF will pump out a maximum of (in it's current configuration) 135 shots, or 50 Overwatch shots. If I add in 5 flamers that would be 120 FRF, SRF or 45 Overwatch las shots and 5D3 auto hits from flamers. With those numbers it doesn't matter that they aren't all that great at hitting things.

Time to do up some Burna Boyz methinks

endtransmission wrote:Arakasi got me restarted a few years ago and now I'm bringing DalekDec and his son into the hobby too... so we're all one big happy gaming company

Except for the part where Da Boss drags me back to Oz...

Well, next week I'm going to start teaching DalekDec how to play 6th Ed via Vassal, so we can carry on playing as a company

A few updates to the Guard:





I'm glad everything is coming together, but I remember now why painting armies wasn't something I ever finished in the past... I'm never happy with tabletop standard :/

The obvious solution is for you to paint every model to character standard. Do you really need all those hours of eating, sleeping, and working? PAINT, PAINT, PAINT!!!

The Emperor needs every man in the fight!

Why I oadda...

Once it is all on the table it looks great. I'm just not happy with photos of anything I do

endtransmission wrote:Why I oadda...

Once it is all on the table it looks great. I'm just not happy with photos of anything I do

That is because cameras capture unpleasant truths like the green stuff on my model that I forgot to paint. I had to slap my forehead last night when I saw my mistake,

...or maybe you are just pickier than I?

bit of both I guess

Sometimes I have to take photos of models that I think I've finished in order to be able to see the flaws or missing bits. I just have a problem of stopping going back and doing just that little bit more

Great stuff ! great work love the IG they rock.

nice updates, and that heavy bolter has always been one of my favorites by you!

I apologise for the 'Thread Necromancy', but I just couldn't leave this thread alone!
Your GS skills are absolutely stunning, and as for your conversions .....
The Chimeras are amazing. They are finished to that high a spec, they look like something sold by Forgeworld!
Thanks for sharing! I'm definitely looking forward to more.

Don't apologize. Endtransmission needs the "poke" to stay motivated. His production is well below most cogitative units in this sector. I'm thinking of having a few tech-priests check out his motivator cortex.



In fairness, he is running multiple blogs...burning candles at both ends and in the middle.

Aye, I really do need a poke every now and then as my inspiration comes in fits and starts. Sadly at the moment work is sucking up my life with horrible deadlines, which means when I do get a spare 30 seconds I've got real-life things that need doing instead of painting :(

Speaking of multiple blogs, I'm going to close down the Warhammer Quest one; it was one project too far I think.

Back to Guard... I did receive some of Victoria Lamb's praetorian bits the other day though and had the time to stick one of them together as an experiment. The detail is nice and crisp, but everything I got had large mold lines around it and didn't fit together all that nicely... the arms in particular were a pain and needed lots of green stuff to plug the gaps and smooth off the very visible join between arm and body. Once it's together it looks quite nice, but it's not the easy assemble I was hoping for.

On the plus side, this is giving me the kick to look at making my own bits that fit the look I'm after. Research is under way and I have a deadline to aim for, even if it is 2015

I'm also trying to resist (and will probably fail when the starter and book come out) the temptation to start a chaos marine army that uses my platoons as cultists for a straight forward second force. It depends on how nice the new models are at present

endtransmission wrote:Aye, I really do need a poke every now and then as my inspiration comes in fits and starts. Sadly at the moment work is sucking up my life with horrible deadlines, which means when I do get a spare 30 seconds I've got real-life things that need doing instead of painting :(

Speaking of multiple blogs, I'm going to close down the Warhammer Quest one; it was one project too far I think.

Back to Guard... I did receive some of Victoria Lamb's praetorian bits the other day though and had the time to stick one of them together as an experiment. The detail is nice and crisp, but everything I got had large mold lines around it and didn't fit together all that nicely... the arms in particular were a pain and needed lots of green stuff to plug the gaps and smooth off the very visible join between arm and body. Once it's together it looks quite nice, but it's not the easy assemble I was hoping for.

On the plus side, this is giving me the kick to look at making my own bits that fit the look I'm after. Research is under way and I have a deadline to aim for, even if it is 2015

I'm also trying to resist (and will probably fail when the starter and book come out) the temptation to start a chaos marine army that uses my platoons as cultists for a straight forward second force. It depends on how nice the new models are at present

I understand what you mean when it comes to motivation. I really do. I appreciate your efforts in ploughing on and thanks for the heads up on the Victoria Lamb products. I was considering buying the Rough Riders conversion pack. Despite hearing of your assembly problems with them, I don't think that will deter me, as Rough Riders looks to cool to dismiss. As for Chaos, DON'T. I forbid you to turn to the deceitful ways of heresy. I'm sorry, but if this is to occur, I'll have to inform the Adeptus Ministorum.

... But, yeah, your current troops would work well, if they do pose as Renegade Guardsmen.
I hope the maintenance of motivation persists and I wish you luck with any future projects. Even if they happen to be Chaos related!

Oh they will continue to be used as loyalists; I just thought it might be fun to double up and make them very naughty boys indeed in their spare time.

In an ideal world I'd like to expand the loyalist side to include a full platoon of praetorians, a full platoon of mordians and an airborne platoon of elysians... in an ideal world where someone else works and I get paid of course

The VL models are nice, just be warned that cleanup will probably be needed on the torsos, legs and arms; and greenstuff will be needed to fill in gaps between the arms, torso and legs. Personally I also feel that the torso is a little small compared to other guard, but the cadians are wearing body armour and the catachans are 80s action heroes... so to be honest they are probably about right; it just looks wimpy.

endtransmission wrote:Oh they will continue to be used as loyalists; I just thought it might be fun to double up and make them very naughty boys indeed in their spare time.

In an ideal world I'd like to expand the loyalist side to include a full platoon of praetorians, a full platoon of mordians and an airborne platoon of elysians... in an ideal world where someone else works and I get paid of course

The VL models are nice, just be warned that cleanup will probably be needed on the torsos, legs and arms; and greenstuff will be needed to fill in gaps between the arms, torso and legs. Personally I also feel that the torso is a little small compared to other guard, but the cadians are wearing body armour and the catachans are 80s action heroes... so to be honest they are probably about right; it just looks wimpy.

Yeah, sounds good. I think that the mixture of platoons will make a nice diversity within your army. You don't often see that. As for the VL models, thanks for the info. I think I'll do alright with it though. A Guardsman is never scared of GS work and cleaning up!

Joshua Von Wolkestadt wrote:A Guardsman is never scared of GS work and cleaning up!

They are when you're looking at buying enough pieces to build a *full* platoon with all the options... that's about 140+ figures to clean up, build and greenstuff

endtransmission wrote:

Joshua Von Wolkestadt wrote:A Guardsman is never scared of GS work and cleaning up!

They are when you're looking at buying enough pieces to build a *full* platoon with all the options... that's about 140+ figures to clean up, build and greenstuff

Hmm, indeed. In such circumstances, he may fear the GS.

Oops. I didn't realise it had been quite so long since the last update. Real life had managed to get in the way of painting in a really big way over the last few months; but with the project nearing completion and rumours of the chaos codex on the horizon I can start planning the other half of the Malfian story.

For those of you that have been paying attention, the Moles are the survivors of a plague outbreak on a mining colony and they are hot on the trail of those that caused it. Rumours have been circulating about a chaos cult called The Contagion (not to be confused with The Disciples of Contagion).

The Contagion is an unaligned cult led by a Dark Mechanicus warlord, known as Dr. Artze and is comprised of a large number of his experiments. Dr Artze specialises in virology, taking every opportunity to experiment with different strains of virus, ranging from the Fydae zombie plague through to various strains of the Obliterator virus. He doesn't technically worship any deity; he follows his own agenda of experimentation. If others choose to see him as chaotic, that is ok... He doesn't really care either way. Renegades flock to his banner from all across the Malfian region as it gains them some form of protection from his experiments and gives them a cause to follow. Amongst these are a number of sub-cults that do follow the different gods

Well now, that's a nice little bit of fluff with ample opportunity for interesting ideas

I have plans for most of the current codex units and a number of the rumoured additions. The one I'm having trouble fitting into the theme are the noise marines... Though I guess they can just be drugged up on psychedelic drugs, rather than frenzon and other combat drugs.. we shall see. Plenty of other things to build first.

The main issue I have at the moment is coming up with a paint scheme that I like the idea of. Currently I'm thinking white with either rusty oranges or turquoise as the accent. The icon will be comprised of part of the biohazard symbol. Will post a sketch tomorrow when I'm not typing this up on a bus home from the pub

Chaos are something I've wanted to do since I started up again, but the current models are awful. The new starter models give me hope...

Impressed that I can only spot one typo in that case

I like the colour scheme ideas, sounds like something different.

Noise marines could have had their senses dulled by some experiments, and they need things to be over the top in order to perceive them? Or something...

Typo? I see no typo

I want the colours to be different from your typical chaos force, so it will be interesting to see how some experiments with the B&C painter come out.

Part of me says that a Chaos worshipper who's an expert in plagues almost certainly worships Nurgle......But meh I guess its certainly anarchic not to. In fact my comment is probably far too ordered.

I'm not convinced an AdMech renegade would necessarily understand the concept of worshiping a god; their work would be their driving force. That doesn't necessarily mean that the gods aren't involved still... they may see it as a benefit to them regardless of his worship. Virology and genetic research could be seen as Nurgle's realm; but you could also see it as a force for constant change (Tzeentch) if it does more than just maim and kill.

I figured that a proportion of the AdMech that supported Horus did so in order to be able to do unrestricted research rather than any real belief in the cause, or the chaos gods. Likewise you're going to get AdMech in the 41st Millenium that go a bit too far in their research.

The research doesn't necessarily need to go into warp tech either; I think having Artze studying virology and genetic manipulation would easily lead to the Inquisition and the AdMech declaring him traitor if his experimentation got too close to deconstructing Gene-Seed or an accident unleashed a plague on a planet.

Guess I must have been reading it on a phone in a bus then

I agree with your logic, research into forbidden areas has always struck me as the most likely reason for tech-priests and their brethren to turn renegade. Fluff-wise there might be some mileage in the idea of an Inquisitor who believes Artze has been corrupted by Nurgle just because of his specialisation.

Its widely believed that is the reason most turned aye, none of them would be anywhere near human anymore though, the eye of terror prevents that.

However, renegade Adepts, those that choose to leave the Cult Mechanicus for freedom of research and other such ideals, would not necessarily worship chaos. at least not in the beginning


edit: Hell, the Cult Mechanicus is about as divided as the Inquisition, there are most definitely those that would be ousted as heretics immediately should their work ever be known.

 monkeytroll wrote:
Guess I must have been reading it on a phone in a bus then

More like I found the edit button

 monkeytroll wrote:
I agree with your logic, research into forbidden areas has always struck me as the most likely reason for tech-priests and their brethren to turn renegade. Fluff-wise there might be some mileage in the idea of an Inquisitor who believes Artze has been corrupted by Nurgle just because of his specialisation.

You're right, the Malfians probably assume he's Nurgle based because of the Fydae plague outbreaks they are following.

Last night I started to cut out all of the new starter models and hack them apart. While the duplicate Chosen now looks different enough, I'm 1 cultist down thanks to the Hellbrute idea.

As I mentioned earlier, Artze experiments with various plagues and viruses; physical and digital. One of his current fascinations is the Obliterator virus and how it merges man and machine in what he sees as a more pure blend than then current limits of human technology.

Part of his experiments are to see quite how far the virus can be pushed...



The aim is to try and blend the two abdomens together so they look like one thing and make it look like Artze has taken an old Dreadnought body and attached an infected subject to the torso. The tentacles, cool though they were, didn't really fit with this idea. Nor did the horned front.

Pics at last! Good luck with that. Might have to increase the size of those pecs

 endtransmission wrote:
Last night I started to cut out all of the new starter models and hack them apart. While the duplicate Chosen now looks different enough, I'm 1 cultist down thanks to the Hellbrute idea.

As I mentioned earlier, Artze experiments with various plagues and viruses; physical and digital. One of his current fascinations is the Obliterator virus and how it merges man and machine in what he sees as a more pure blend than then current limits of human technology.

Part of his experiments are to see quite how far the virus can be pushed...



The aim is to try and blend the two abdomens together so they look like one thing and make it look like Artze has taken an old Dreadnought body and attached an infected subject to the torso. The tentacles, cool though they were, didn't really fit with this idea. Nor did the horned front.

the cultist needs to be trimmed down a smidge more. (just under the pectoral muscles looks about right.)

 Galorn wrote:
the cultist needs to be trimmed down a smidge more. (just under the pectoral muscles looks about right.)

If I trim the torso down to that point, he's going to be far too low down. The plan is to bulk him up under the pectoral muscles so that it blends in more neatly. Currently he's just temporarily held in place while I sort that bit out.

On a different note, here's the first draft of how I want the marines to look (colour/logo wise). The trim will be a rusty orange; sadly the painter seems to think that the trims should be metallic, so it doesn't look quite like the colour I picked, but you get the idea

Some more modelling updates from last night

In order to make the heavy stubber look a little different from the flamer I've added some shoulder pads using bits from the Kroot frames to bulk him up and some guard accessories. The last thing I need to do is make the masks look different. I'm currently thinking that the flamer needs a welding mask, so filling in the chaos star and building it up a bit. We'll see when I get that far



The next one was the duplicate Chosen. Please excuse the really dodgy photo, it was late and the lights were really bad. I've replaced the head, removed the chain and shoulder horn and added the chain-bayonet. I've also cut his foot off the connecting piece so that I can put a rock underneath. That should all make for enough of a difference.


The close combat cultist leader now has a back banner


And the Hellbrute has started bulking out a bit. The bottom set of abs needs trimming down a little bit, but I think he's taking shape nicely

endtransmission wrote:
And the Hellbrute has started bulking out a bit. The bottom set of abs needs trimming down a little bit, but I think he's taking shape nicely

I love the idea of the cultist body in the helbrute, but I'm not really liking how it's turning out so far. IMHO, the connection should be less organic and more cables and stringy tissue. I was sad to see the chaos brand get covered also It was one of my favorite parts...

Anyway, I hope that's not too much of a downer. I love your work, keep it up!
Rawson

If you think of the Obliterators, they are an organic part of the machinery, so the connection between the cultist and machine should also be organic and look like he's grown into the shell. The legs are supposed to be his original ones, in a twisted way, if that makes it any clearer?

The chaos brand may return; depends on how good my GS-fu turns out. I had to bulk out his shoulders and pectoral muscles as he was looking very very weedy in there and it didn't look right.

There will be cables in his back though

You have been busy - all looking good! Perhaps you can find a suitably sized chaos star to attach to his now extended adominables - or perhaps wear in a thick chain necklace?

I for one really like your Hel(l)brute. Almost makes me wish I could justify playing chaos...

Like the colour scheme - how's that going to translate to the cultists?

The little changes are all cool so far, and I love the concept for the brutenaught.

Are you planning on having his organic arms wired into the armour, with dread type weapon-limbs?

I've no idea how the cultists are going to look at the moment. I'm not sure trying to get them to look crisp white will look right. They may be done up in cream colours with a blue/dark turqouise contrast colour (a bit like medical scrubs)... I think some photoshop is needed to work that one out. Alternatively they could be a complete rag-tag bunch of misfits that have no common colour... they certainly aren't wearing any uniforms.

As for the Obliternaut... His organic arms are being pulled behind him, which does beg the question how the hell the arms on the dread work. I may get around this by introducing more appendages coming out of him, or other places on the chassis to show that he's trying to grow over the rest of the mechanical parts. I'm also thinking of not using the armoured plate on the back of his left arm and making that more fleshy

Love that torso! Very smooth GS work.

I'm a sad panada today. I know I've not seen them in person yet and the images are bad photos of photos, but I'm not liking the direction of the new models so far. I think the sole exception to this is the Raptors kit, which seems to have lots of nicely detailed armour.

Hopefully there will be a new set of power armour later as the current leaked photos look just like we've just got the old ones still.

Oh the plus side, last night I finished a quick test of the colours on one of the DA models and will post a photo when I get home. I've also modified most of the duplicate cultists now so that they are all unique in some way; mostly repositioning of arms slightly, or swapping the close combat weapons around a bit. They are all looking pretty good; so photos of those will be up later too.

I just saw those models last night and I agree, the raptors look cool but the rest look more chaos daemon instead of chaos spacemarine imho

I forsee the Hellblade being used instead of the Dragon thing and the Decimator being used instead of the new daemon engines.

I also think the Dark Apostle needs to be called Bernard.

I want a tower of soup!

I was going to post today about some modelling updates... but I've just been distracted by a rather awesome delivery. I now have a copy of the first Horus Heresy book from FW; I thought the Warhammer Forge book was a beautiful thing to behold, but it pales next to this one. It's expensive, but I'm happy with the cost given the quality and content. I'm also pleased to see the start of Mechanicum forces, even if they are currently only available as Allies and consist mostly of titans and one infantry troop type.

I've been away on business recently, so I've had plenty of time to sit and ponder on the state of my various projects and catch up on some reading. The general outcome of this is that starting a new army (Chaos) is plain st00pid given time, space, money and lack of actually playing. But, inspired by the various Blanchistu articles and Inquisimunda threads on Dakka recently,... warbands are much more fun to create and can fit the fluff just as well. I've been meaning to create a team to run with my Inquisitor and Rogue Trader models for ages, so when I got home, I started hacking things apart... and promptly got stuck and need some opinions. Oh go on. Here's the photos anyway...

First up we've got an Arch Militant to go with the Rogue Trader, armed with a sniper rifle and an auspex. While I like the pose, the rifle is too long unless he stands on a rock. Changing it for something shorter range is simple enough and might be better given that he's supposed to be a body guard type. The bionic leg is from the FW [urlhttp://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/Space_Marines/Space_Marine-Infantry-and-Accessories/SPACE_MARINE_CHARACTER_CONVERSION_SET.html]Space Marine Character kit[/url]



And then we have our Seneschal; the trades master on board the Trader's ship. In his right hand I want a staff of office (probably a power spear of some kind), but I'm undecided about his left hand. You can see the three WIP options below; there's also the option to swap the plasma pistol for an old shuriken pistol that I've had laying around for many many years. I quite like the bolter, but the arm is very bulky, which means I'd need to find or make a bulky right arm as well. The other two area much easier to find/make matching arms for.

The HH book sound very nice, trying to avoid grabbing it at the moment due to the ridiculous amounts I've been dropping on all these bloody kickstarters

I think the arch-militant would look cool standing on top of a rubble heap or rock, but as you say, a shorter eapon makes more sense for a bodyguard.

Personally I like the idea of a shuriken pistol for the seneschal. I've always felt rogue trader retinues would have a variety of xenos gear in their possession. May look better with the pointing hand though, depending on the staff.

I really like these two guys, although personaly I have never been a fan of that catachan head, but I do see how it works with this body

Love the catachan head like that, as for the other guy I would swap bolter for shuriken p but leave the strap as that's more aesthetically imperial to my mind, which would help it gel (mebbe). Also, good to have you back!

The one with the catachan head is cool.
The SW scout head looks off though, it's just too big.