With the new edition just around the corner I'm trying to distract myself from the shiny shiny Necrons by bulking out my old Imperial Guard force (it is that long since I last played!). Last time I made stuff for them, it was hand sculpted bodies cast in resin... or expensive FW body kits (I'm looking at you Cadian hazardous kit). This time I have the benefit of using my 3d printer to actually make units *really* cheaply, especially as there are a number of great companies making digital files for sale. My favourite are Reptilian Overlords, who currently do Tallarn and Valhallan-like infantry kits. I love the original Tallarn models, but could never afford them at the time, so I'm going to take this opportunity to do a Tallarn raiding force using the RO kit pieces, with some customisation and kitbashing as I go for the various units.



They have various leg and arm sets that will work nicely, but no rifles that I would consider interesting enough for a desert force, so I went and had a poke around Thingiverse and found two potential options

The first one I found is similar to the DKoK lasgun, which gives a nice intricate rifle that fits with their background. I found a Tallarn lasgun mod on Thingiverse too, which is where the wrapped barrel comes from. Oh how I love 3d printing!


I think the rifle is looking a bit big, so I may try scaling it down a little and see if that makes any difference. The alternative, which I'm currently favouring is the SMG look, which gives them a WW2 SAS feel that sort of fits with the overall raider theme that I have in my head

Again, I think the rifle needs scaling down a little tiny bit as it is quite chunky. The length is ok, but it feels a little too tall/wide.

I have no idea how the new edition is going to play as it's been about 8 years since I last read a rulebook or played a game... so I'll likely start with the standard lasgun infantry for now and they can be bulked out with specials/heavies later. I've tried printing all the separate bits and pieces and it was a pain in the backside... It also took up a lot of space on the printer's build plate, meaning it took two to three print runs to get one squad. This time I'm going to try pre-assembing the models before printing, so I can at least get the main poses sorted and so the occasional kitbash in Blender by adding extra kit or tweaking poses slightly to make them look different. With 6 bodies, 5 legs and 4 sets of arms, that's a fair number of options without duplication.

We'll see how the tweaking goes tonight for the lasguns and maybe I'll print one off to see it in reality

Those are some great looking concepts, it will be interesting to see them in the flesh. I've got to admit I prefer the more traditional lasgun option, perhaps with the sten's as shotguns or on a stormtrooper unit? But at the end of the day it's your army and they both look good.

I settled on the sten look for now. I have some shotgun files to play with to make vets and will be going with a more sci-fi looking weapon for stormtroopers

The first print came out really nicely, so now I can start fiddling with Blender to make all the other poses to print while these get an undercoat between meetings.



These, including one failure, average out to about 12p a model after the $10 investment for the digital files, rather than £2.25 per plastic Cadian (or £4.50 for the hazard Cadians I did last time!). Much more viable for a horde of infantry, especially whiteshields

They look very cool, and I think the sten gun look is awesome for those guys. I don't think it would work for many models, but for these guys it totally does.

Thanks. I was tempted by the Autogun variant that the creator also made, but lasgun is more list-suitable. I forgot to mention that the sten came from Mkhand_Industries on Thingiverse. I want to try and keep a record of where everything comes from .

I fiddled a bit more with the models during this morning's meetings and put some small shoulder plates on them to bring it more in line with the original Tallarn, though not quite so massive. Another print has just started with 5 more lasgun infantry and one plasma gun.



The plasma gun came from the same place as the sten, but was resized a bit (x/y/z : 90% / 65% / 75%) to look more portable. I've never been a massive fan of the huge blocky plasma guns, so this feels a little bit more manageable.

[edit] I forgot to say at the start, but the intention for this is (for now at least) to be 100% 3d printed where possible. Where I can't find something I want for the army, I'll try and create something myself. I've been playing around with Blender recently and managed to come up with some brick walls (that are free to download) for my gaming table, so I hope to expand this to a little bit into non-brick objects a little. We shall see...

Nice work! I hope they print out as cleanly as the renders look!

Valete,

JohnS

They printed really nicely, Reptilian Overlords' sculpts are fantastic.

Last night I did a quick block colour test to see what looks good. It's rough, but gives the overall impression

The main jacket is VMC Green Ochre.

The trousers, scarf and belt are all base coated VMC Sky grey, but will end up white. Trousers will probably vary between various bleached greens, browns and greys for a little bit of variation.

Boots and gloves are Rhinox Hide with gaiters VMC British Army camo

Webbing and the gun are Rakarth flesh. I tried a black sten, but it looked weird against the brighter colours. While looking up colours of stens for LRDG I discoverd that they never actually used them (doh!), they used heavier machineguns, rifles or Thompson SMG. Still... rule of cool, I like the look so we're sticking with it.

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It seems the July painting competition is perfectly timed. With the theme of Objective Secured, some infantry are perfectly suited to submit to this and it helps give me a kick to get going.

A fresh batch came off the printer today, including a melta from the Reptilian Overlords renegade guard set. (not sure if they are still a good thing for Guard or not... but hey, at this price... I'm tempted to see how big an army I can make, with all the options, before I get bored of painting infantry



Now to see if they are cured enough for an undercoat tonight so I can start blocking colours tomorrow during meetings.

Tonight I think I'll carry on stitching together the models digitally and create some more interesting combinations. I need a few sergeants and an officer to make up a semi-legit start to things., so maybe that's the aim for tonight

That test model is looking very promising! What else are you planning to include beyond the infantry squads?

The plan is to try and work my way through everything eventually. Given the cost of printing 3rd party stuff compared to on-brand I want to see how long it takes to get bored of painting these guys and what bits I design to fill in gaps.

When it comes to tanks, I don't want to be *that guy* that just prints copies of existing kits, I want things to fit thematically to 40k, but be unique. Reptilian Overlords do a really nice MBT, but I'm not sure if it is quite right. We shall see... it will be a while before I get to those though as I'll need Chimera proxies first.

I suspect the one thing I will need to buy from GW will be Ogryns as I've yet to come across some nice ones that wold work as tallarn auxiliaries. The other option is to revert to an idea that never got completed for the old Malfian project and have O.G.R.Y.N mech suits or tracked servitors instead. We'll see when we get past the initial infantry and command push. Plenty of other things to sort first

I’m a big fan of the Mortian tanks. Their kickstarter, running right now, really has me tempted to go in for some half-tracks.

They also have some very nifty looking Ogryn, although they don’t really fit the Tallarn aesthetic.

Valete,

JohnS

The Tallarn are coming out nicely .

How long does it take for one of those resin figures to cure?

I do quite like the Mortian tanks. I need to have a think about what sort of tanks go with an LRDG-style force.

@Theophony, usually I'd leave a print out in the sun for a few hours to cure, but last night's batch seemed to be cured in about 10 minutes!

I made a start on the infantry for the painting challenge today. Now there is white on them, I'm happier with the colour scheme... i just don't think the white is looking the best it could be, despite a few thin coats. I may try something else with them tomorrow...

Elysian Drop Troops Tauros style vehicles make most sense to me.

 Llamahead wrote:
Elysian Drop Troops Tauros style vehicles make most sense to me.

I agree! Alternatively you could lean into the wider desert theme and go for a 40k take on a Lee/Grant. So mount the battlecannon in the hull and the hull gun in a turret.

For Ogryns Tallarn is a cavern world so you could go for repurposed digger machines like Ambots maybe?

In the meantime I look forward to seeing more of your infantry!

Tauros style vehicles were certainly one idea I was floating around, either that or repurposing some of the GSCult buggies. Small buggies are most likely instead of sentinels as I can't help but feel that walkers would get bogged down in the sand more than a wheeled scout vehicle

For Chimera I'm looking at something similar to the PARS APC.

Ambot-type things are certainly an option for Tallarn Ogryn replacements

Nice start on the new army, can't go wrong with desert troops. Excited to see what will come out of your vehicle ideas.

They still have some highlights and weathering left to do on them, but the first 8 are coming along nicely



I've also got another 8 lasguns, 2 sergeants, 1 melta, 1 plasma and 2 officers blocked out and a further 20 assorted infantry printed and undercoated. Think that is enough basic infantry for now. Time to work on some shotgun vets

Would you believe it that the one thing I need to buy are bases! I could print them, but the time it takes to do that isn't worth the cost, especially as I don't want to end up with lots of repeats.

I had a play with some shotgun models this afternoon for some vets. I can't currently decide between pump action style, or a sci-fi type. The boxy version is easier to position with different arms, but it's harder to tell it is a shotgun. The pump action doesn't have a pistol grip, but isn't too difficult to position as if it does. i need some other way of differentiating vets too. Possibly some larger shoulder pads. I can't really stick backpacks on like I did with my old Bolt Action force

These guys look fantastic man. Very impressed with the quality of the prints.

Ogryns might also be a way to get Mukaali/Dewback riders into the force. Are you planning Tallarn rough riders by the way?

This is so cool! I have been interested in doing something similar though I don't have very much experience with 3D printers. I have so many questions. When I get the time I will share my thoughts.

Excited to see this progress!

 kavika0311 wrote:
These guys look fantastic man. Very impressed with the quality of the prints.

Thanks! The models are really nice, so any resin printer should get a good print. I'm really impressed with them.

 Llamahead wrote:
Ogryns might also be a way to get Mukaali/Dewback riders into the force. Are you planning Tallarn rough riders by the way?

If/when I get around to rough riders I'm more likely to go with scrambler bikes like the GSCult than Mukaali, much as I like the models. Like everything else in the codex, they are on the list somwehere

 Sageheart wrote:
This is so cool! I have been interested in doing something similar though I don't have very much experience with 3D printers. I have so many questions. When I get the time I will share my thoughts.

Excited to see this progress!

Thanks! I've sort of fiddled my way through this far without anyone to ask, so just shout if you have questions


The next thing to decide is which colour to do the shoulder armour and the officer sashes. At present I'm thinking a french/grey blue as it should go well with the sand and white

These are coming out fantastic! Such high quality prints and you’ve come up with a great colour scheme too. If you’re after ideas for the shoulder pad colours, maybe the same as the guns? Perhaps the vets could get black shoulder pads, maybe a black head scarf too? I vote for the sci-fi shotgun, but maybe the classic pump action would closer match the sten guns?

Another thought for vehicles would be Dune. Ornithoptors especially never played the strategy game but it might be a source for none 40k sculpt your own inspiration.

 gobert wrote:
These are coming out fantastic! Such high quality prints and you’ve come up with a great colour scheme too. If you’re after ideas for the shoulder pad colours, maybe the same as the guns? Perhaps the vets could get black shoulder pads, maybe a black head scarf too? I vote for the sci-fi shotgun, but maybe the classic pump action would closer match the sten guns?

After a bit of umming and aaahing I went with the blue pads so there was a spot colour in there. Turns out that it is really easy to batch paint when you're in conference calls. It seems to make it easier to concentrate on what is being said. Thanks to endless conferences at the moment I seem to have completed two squads and two commanding officers worth a whopping 149 points. I think I need a few more before it's viable!






Looking through those there's a bit of touchup needed on some of them. I still need to work out which 5 to enter into the July challenge... but there's another few weeks to paint more before I have to decide! Speaking of choices... I'm going to have a play with some of the other arm sets before deciding on which shotgun to use for the vets.



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 Llamahead wrote:
Another thought for vehicles would be Dune. Ornithoptors especially never played the strategy game but it might be a source for none 40k sculpt your own inspiration.

Oh Dune is a theme that is going to be in here. I played Dune, Dune 2 and Dune 2000 to death

Van Saar are destined to be fremen-like Scions with the AdMech ornithopter-thing instead of a Valkyrie. That's likely to be some of the exceptions to the printed rule (I suspect there will be many more exceptions over time). I found a 3d model of the Dune TV series ornithopter that might be interesting alternative, though this concept art looks rather like a hybrid of a Valkyrie and an Ornithopter... not ever so 40k though

Dang... those really look very nice, and that’s some impressive production!

Valete,

JohnS

A bit more poking around Thingiverse turned up a version of the SM Scout shotgun. A bit of resizing and fiddling later I think this one will work nicely



Unfortunately it turns out that, since I last played/built a Guard force... vets have moved from troops into Elite and aren't all that useful any more. The two tactics that I've seen mentioned are Tallarn infiltrating vets with a lasgun/plasma combo or the shotgun/melta combo that I used to run in a chimera. I'll probably do one squad of each and leave it at that for now. Building mode models later is easy enough.

I had a play around with adding some armour plates to the vets, but it looked a bit dumb, so I suspect I'll just do different colour shoulder pads and sash for the vets.

I'm beginning to think that the white sash was a bad idea for infantry and should be whiteshieldsinstead, with it going up in colour depending upon veterancy. Something like

Whiteshields > White
Infantry > Mossy green
Veterans > Rust
NCO > Blue
Senior officers > Red

Unfortunately that means my points total just took a nose dive as my two infantry squads convert to 2/3rds (or 2/5ths of a maxed) of one Whiteshield unit. Ah well. Not like I was aiming for a game any time soon and I always wanted a squad


Now if only they would bring back the commissar training squad from RT days...




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A bit of contemplation over night and looking down at the models on a table made me realise that colour coding the sash is a rubbish option as you can't see it most of the time unless you pick up a model! So shoulder pads it is for the colours

Whiteshields > White
Infantry > Blue
Veterans > Rust
Officers > none

That is much simpler and should be easy to spot on the table!

Neat idea to differentiate the troop types. Surely the officers need golden tassels on shoulder boards like the navy used to be particular about?

I wish I could spare the focus to paint whilst on conference calls. I’ve found I can remove mould lines if I’m not leading the meeting. Maybe I should give painting a try, it might help with the stress levels!

 gobert wrote:
Neat idea to differentiate the troop types. Surely the officers need golden tassels on shoulder boards like the navy used to be particular about?

I wish I could spare the focus to paint whilst on conference calls. I’ve found I can remove mould lines if I’m not leading the meeting. Maybe I should give painting a try, it might help with the stress levels!

The theory behind the colours is so that officers don't stand out massively from the rank and file unless you know what the colours mean and don't pay too much attention to their weapons. The only people that will get anything more flashy are the commissars and the Scions because they aren't fully a part of the desert raider traditions.

i had a play around with a few alternative options for Scions today as a distraction. The original intention was to use van saar with the tallarn heads and some bulkier lasguns to give them a fremen look. Unfortunately after building a test one using a failed print for the head (who says all failures are a waste?) I remembered how fiddly they were to put together and how much it would cost to build multiple units and loadouts required. so tomorrows task is to start learning meshmixer to hack the heads and pack off the Tallarn model and put them onto a carapace armour that Reptilian Overlords released as part of their Pretorian set (that was a close second instead of Tallarn!). I do still need to either create or find some armoured arms and legs to make them proper Scions though... so I suspect this is an ongoing project along with working out heavy weapons. In the mean time... infantry keeps on printing.

For the conference calls it tends to just be basic stuff like drybrushing bases, blocking out colours or applying washes. Anything more complicated than that any my attention wavers in the calls.

Squad 3 is now done. It's taken a while as I kept being distracted with trying to piece together a few more alternate bodies to print and fixing some print failures



Not quite as good as the first batch, but they still look ok at tabletop distance... so yeah. That.

The pile of printed bits waiting printing now includes a 30 man whiteshield squad, another infantry squad with a melta and enough plasma guns for either a special weapons squad, or to convert the two melta into plasma and upgrade one of the three infantry squads to a vet squad with max plasma.

I'm only 30 infantry in and already getting a little bit bored... so I need to start mixing it up a bit with other things soon, though at least the colours are fairly easy to do and not all that fiddly. Non- lasgun toting infantry will probably wait until the new points costs come out in 2 weeks time so I can see how building squads shapes out. I *think* I managed to get the new box and books on saturday... I've not heard I havn't from the guys at Board in Brum, so we shall assume yes

One of the key decisions that I need to make is to decide *how* tallarn heavy weapon squads would operate. While the cadian pattern tripods/weapons are easy to source, they don't look all that raiderish. Wheeled carriages like the 2nd edition weapon teams is slightly more versatile for desert warfare... but still doesn't feel all that suitable for dragging up sand dunes. I'm currently looking at the Necromunda heavy weapons and wondering if it makes sense to go to portable versions instead? Downside of that though is I have no suitable digital arms for carrying them. Awkward!

I'm also trying to work out if there is anything I want to save from my old guard army and repaint, or if I try to sell the whole thing to fund more bottles of resin for this army and do things the way I want? My main issue with the Chimera and Russ bodies is the lack of clearance on the tracks. One small rock and they would get stuck... I suspect this will be one of those things I need to learn to make myself as all the digital models I can find all follow the same dumb pattern. At least the Rhino chassis has some clearance on the tracks!

Always liked the missile launcher teams for Tallarn. Your best bet for it however is to google heavy weapons in the Gulf,the African campaign and fghanistan and see how it's done before making a decision.

Yeah, the Tallarn missile launcher was one of the nicest weapon teams available and is what i'll be doing for those.

Good call on looking up modern desert warfare. Current British infantry have AT guns on tripods, but they are significantly smaller than lascannons/heavy bolters/autocannons, which makes me wonder how the heck Guard move them around. The old Tallarn lascannons were made to look like light artillery pieces on wheeled carriages, which looked pretty cool. The autocannons were on seated carriages which weren't so great. I had a dig through my bitz box and found 3 official options and the resin printed version (minus shield). You can also see the gunner I made by combining various STLs and making a little control box, like a game controller with a screen.



For lascannons and autocannons I'm quite liking the aesethetic of a wheeled carriage with shield as it is true light artillery. Heavy bolters I'm more tempted to treat like the space marine scouts or Orlocks as a carried/tripod weapon instead.

I have 8 lascannons and 4 autocannons left over from the Cadian sets, so I just need to print some carriages and shields to make use of those. I also have 9 spare mortars... so I just need to have a go at cutting up the arms to make loaders for lots of Blast shots. That will give plenty of options before even looking at the heavy bolter or missile launcher; both of which need some CAD work doing to get them to work

Yeah, I think it makes sense that autocannons and lascannons are analogous to light artillery, where bolters are more analogous to heavy machine guns (hand carried with tripods and bipods to set up).

If you want them to look more serious you can have them behind a small emplacement.

I started work on blocking out the 4th infantry squad.


I've been getting a head start on making bases for everything as well. In the past bases have been a last minute thing and mostly were resin casts, so there was masses of duplication. This lot should provide enough bases for all of the infantry now as I already have enough done for the Conscripts. I do need to find leftover necron bits from somewhere for basing materials though, so if anyone has any spare bits floating around, I might be interested. I quite like the idea of basing these guys up to be fighting the necrons from new box, so the necrons will have some guard bits on the base for consistency. The rocks are bots of bark from the nearby playground. It gives me an incentive to go out for a walk every now and then when I run out of basing material



I've also made an initial heavy weapons team base to print that has a recessed area for the removable infantryman. The indented area is a bit too big on this batch. I purposefully made it slightly larger than a 25mm base to ensure it wasn't a tight fit. Sadly I made it a little bit too big. The large base is 4mm thick to match up with standard bases, but the hole is only 3mm deep so that it has a bottom. To try and make the infantryman fit nicely, I put a lip around the edge to bring it up. You can see once the basing material is on there, it creates a little hill around the cutout. Once the hole has been adjusted, I'll upload these for anyone that wants them



I've also started blocking out some colours for the Blackstone Fortress Zoat as part of an inquisitorial ally for more story driven games. Skin tones are going to be similar to the sandy environments. I'm still trying to work out what colour to do its armour though. Colour wheels suggest a purplish armour, which I'm not entirely convinced about. Light blue or brown would look good, but that makes it far too similar to the Tallarns and blends in a bit too much to the bases. Teal might be good...

Looks great so far. Armored arms and legs wise, if you don't mind non printed, possibly try anvil?

Great start on those bases and good to see another Zoat getting painted! Teal might work well and has the advantage that you could also combine it with some purple accents to tie everything together, for example use purple on the mask and fist and teal for the rest.

Great looking bases, smart on the heavy weapons slots

Thrilled to see another Zoat! But past time I posted to say how much I'm enjoying the printed Tallarn. I love the regiment and have long wanted to do an army of them, but GW has left them to eBay to manage and, well, I'm good on the ancient expensive metal front. I really dig what Reptilian Overlords is doing, and your remixes of their sculpts have been great.

EDIT: I've been really tempted to get my Mars a few months earlier than planned and have a crack at the RO sisters, but am so far holding firm and working on my sizable mini backlog still

Hold out for a Saturn later in the year as it's slightly faster and more than double the print capacity. I may have already persuaded one friend to buy my Mars when I eventually get hold of one

I've gone with Stegadon scale green, going up through Thunderhawk Blue to a french grey/blue. Over the top I put a glaze of the Aethermatic Blue contrast. I need to tidy up the white edges a little as they are looking a little wobbly in that photo!

 endtransmission wrote:
Hold out for a Saturn later in the year as it's slightly faster and more than double the print capacity.

I do think I'm convinced to get a Saturn, sadly preorders are all over and schmucks like me have to wait until the holiday season and whatever Amazon will be charging for them. I can stomach $400 for such a big boost in print space - I'm getting really interested in alt Imperial vehicles (like RO's Caiman) and terrain, so it makes sense to invest - but if it's 2x what a Mars runs I'll likely just default back to the Mars Pro

I have to wait as well. They preorders were over before I could get hold of one, sadly. Plus I didn't want to deal with the import duties for a $400 printer :/

I believe the Caiman fits on a Mars, as do a lot of other tanks that you can get. I currently have my eye on the super heavies from Makers Cult as I got $20 worth of vouchers just for registering on the site. Turns out the vouchers aren't valid on the Makers Cult stuff :/

 endtransmission wrote:
I believe the Caiman fits on a Mars, as do a lot of other tanks that you can get.

Oh! I assumed I'd have to do some janky slicing to make them work. Either way, starting to scheme up a big ol' heretic armored company printing project, as one does when one doesn't have a printer or any experience 3D printing

Makers Cult has some intense sculpts, extremely gothic / grimdark stuff. Love how low and flat those superheavies are.

EDIT: Sounds like it comes split in two to fit on a Mars (https://www.reddit.com/r/PrintedWarhammer/comments/hd73ff/i_finished_printing_the_caiman_mbt_from_reptilian/)

Very cool, the Tallarn are such a distinctive Imperial Guard regiment.

I love the Zoat, very characterful!

Much as I like the Caiman, I'm still undecided what I'm doing with tanks. I want the chimera and russ chassis to look like they come from the same universe, but the Caiman is a bit too rounded to work with any chimera alternatives that I've seen.

GW like their corners too much and most chimera alternatives just replace the central piece somehow and retain the sharp angles. The closest I've come to liking one is the Makers Cult hulls, but they all have the GW ground clearance issues with the track units. I suspect I'll have to use this as an excuse to learn Blender or Zbrush properly and do my own versions.

I'm having second thoughts about printing one of those super heavies though. Apparently the hull pieces alone eat up nearly a litre of resin! Though that is still cheaper than buying one from FW or GW...

Talking of tanks, there are some excellent alternatives to the standard guard tanks on Thingiverse, especially RedZabo's manticore that have given me some ideas to play with.

Last night I decided to start making my own Chimera design and learn Blender a bit more in the process. What I have in mind is a mix and match set that creates all the variants, probably remixing some of the existing parts from other creators initially... just to see if I can.

So the first parts created are the base plate, plus the left and right sides of the front cab area. The reason for these to be separate pieces is to allow for greater flexibility when creating variants. To make sure they align properly, they lock onto a raised rail on the baseplate. The pegs on the side of the base plates will lock into the track units too when it gets that far

Not a huge amount that's visible to report at the moment. In preparation for the Indomitus box arriving, I started tidying up my Red Scorpions as an ally force. This mostly involves ripping them all off their bases and making desert bases that match the Tallarns and doing a very thin edge highlight on them as they were all looking a but dull.

I'm also working out how to get chapter and squad markings onto the shoulder pads. I've found the Tactical/Assault/Elite/Heavy icons as 3d items that fit nicely, so today was spent printing enough for what I have already and everything in the new box.

A while back I bought transfers for the chapter logo, but they are thick, so don't curve around the pads properly, so I've also made a Red Scorpion shoulder pad, but as everything I have is monopose stuff, I now need to work out how to chop the logo off the pad so that it fits onto the existing models.

In a better note, I've found some good, portable mortars to use for the weapon teams, so I've printed 6 out. That should make a reasonable start to the bombardments, right?

I wanted some missile launchers that looked like the Space Marine scout ones for the Tallarn as they feel more compact for desert raiders. A bit of hacking around in Blender and I now have a missile launcher that I'm happy with and three different poses that involved some hacking apart of the Reptilian Overlords arms to get the left arms working.



The file for the missile launcher is up on my Thingiverse

Those missile poses are really nice

Nice missiles and mortar

In related news, my Mars arrives tomorrow ... While I was originally going to go hard on the RO Catachans / Caimans, I might print fantasy stuff for a bit and focus on painting all the NuChaos plastic I've got, tho ironically 3D printable accessories has me looking at finally doing some knights. Still looking for Chaos Knight masks - any leads there? - but found some awesome Slaanesh noise weapons on Thingiverse.

Oh I sort of envy you getting a new toy, even though I already have one

I've got two unbuilt knights kicking around, so I've been looking at what there is too. There a couple of nurgle aligned knight kits that looks fun

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3045815
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3737334

I've not come across any specific Chaos heads yet though. I think my RO credit renews tomorrow, so the Caiman will likely start printing as soon as it does.

I've finished painting the missile launcher and mortar teams today. I just need to get some photos taken and submitted for the July painting challenge before I post the rest here. I've also got the third lascannon team printing, but I ran out of the undercoat I've been using... so I have to now wait for some more to turn up. It's not like I don't have a butt load of infantry left to paint in the mean time.

I've been going through my old Guard army and deciding what elements to keep and what to sell to make space for the Tallarn strike force. At present the two superheavies, the Imperial Beastman squad and the inquisitors are about all that are making the cut. I don't think the kroot snipers (replacements for ratlings) fit with the new theme. The commissars are all in heavy coats, so they feel like they will just roast and die in a desert situation. I'll probably end up using the RO Praetorian bits to make a few. I suspect they may also have to have a cream or white uniform for desert warfare.

As far as tallarn tanks go, one unusual possibility that sort of works for a deserty sort of WW2 theme would be to take a taurox (or even a few taurox primes) and make them into halftrack versions with wheels up front but treads behind. This sounds like / seems it would work well in tallarn hands cause they are a faster transport, lighter, sure, but they also move a base 14 inches. Also slightly cheaper, and while its not a HUGE amount of kitbashing, it would create a very different vibe from "look, 4 chimeras, how gaurd."

Zohar is looking fantastic .

Really like the base concept for the heavy weapons.

Subbed, as somehow I’ve missed it . I’m back to work now so I rarely get to browse anymore and just quickly jump through my subbed threads. Maybe the weekend will give me more leeway.

I had a long chat to a friend earlier about tanks for desert warfare as he's an ex-tank driver so is quite vocal about these things being right

He's suggested wheeled vehicles would be best for a raiding force as they are easier to fix while on the move. In desert conditions the tracks aren't so necessary; tracks are better for marshy/wet ground that requires you to *really* spread the vehicle's weight. In sandy conditions that doesn't apply and giant tyres will (mostly) get you through.

Having said that, the Reptilian Overlord Caiman is currently on the printer... though it is going to take 3 runs and a couple of days to complete as it's a beast and I don't run the printer overnight.

 endtransmission wrote:
Having said that, the Reptilian Overlord Caiman is currently on the printer...

YESSSSSS

Excited to see your results, for entirely selfish reasons

Also re: 3D knights, I'm thinking about just printing a Slaanesh knight army straight up. Cleaning mold lines isn't why I'm getting into this side hobby Evanogainen has designed a pretty solid subjugator and questor, which I'll scale down a bunch once I figure out how scaling works and how tall knights / armigers are ...

 Boss Salvage wrote:

 endtransmission wrote:
Having said that, the Reptilian Overlord Caiman is currently on the printer...

Also re: 3D knights, I'm thinking about just printing a Slaanesh knight army straight up. Cleaning mold lines isn't why I'm getting into this side hobby Evanogainen has designed a pretty solid subjugator and questor, which I'll scale down a bunch once I figure out how scaling works and how tall knights / armigers are ...

Andi has some good stuff, I'll be interested to see how your attempt at the Subjigator and questor go.

i managed to get some photos of the mortar and missile teams. Not the best, but you get the gist








Oh. Indomitus arrived today as well, so I'm looking forward to having a flip through the new rulebook and sprues later

Nicely themed teams endtransmission.

Cheers,

CB

I really like that revolver style mortar for some crazy reason .

I started printing one of the Caiman tanks. these things are chunky compared to the Russ, but much better proportions




Something went wrong with one of the tracks during the print so it is missing a few bits. I've made a model of some track covers that hopefully hide the problem. Looking at the printer afterwards, I think the Z axis needs cleaning as there are some lumps of grease in there. Worst case, I can print a new side unit.

The tank is printed in translucent resin as it was slightly cheaper on amazon. Never again; this stuff stinks to high heaven. On the plus side, it highlighted an issue that I've probably been having with other models and not realised because they weren't transparent prior to curing. The model had a solid block at the back, but Chitubox decided to hollow it in order to save resin.



Unfortunately, because I wasn't aware of this at the time, and through sheer fluke, the engine block at the back was a liquid filled box. I've had one model weep resin for ages, so I suspect it had the same problem. So lesson learned. If something looks big and chunky, hollow it first and make some hidden drainage holes. Also double check after Chitubox has sliced the file to check there aren't any cavities... there was enough resin in there to print another guardsman!

I've also made two more officers with bolters. One also carries a banner for something different

So, I tried printing another Caiman hull over the weekend and have a weird print failure on one of the pieces that was fine last time...



There's a large chunk of the model missing. It's not on the FEP, so it didn't drop off... it's just... missing.

I've had similar before and it was due to the z axis not being smooth enough, so I had to dismantle it all and clean/regrease those parts of the Mars. We will see if this is any better when I get enough time between conference calls to stick the printer back on.

On a side note, I'm not liking this transluscent resin at all, it's a pain to see what needs cleaning up as it is clear before it cures. the first Caiman is missing the cage around the headlights as I thought they were struts that needed removing *face/palm*. I'll be switching back to the grey for most things even though it's a bit more expensive. It also smells less!

Bummer about the lack of success with the Caiman. Guessing you haven't gotten one complete yet? I have taken your 'put a drain hole in big hollow things' to heart, when I get around to trying to print an entire rhino or knight hull.

While I feel like it'd be fun to print in translucent or cool colors, I don't really have a reason to switch from the Siraya Fast Grey I started with, since I chose it for being really good for minis, and so far it's been really good for minis!

Sorry for the slow updates here, I got sidetracked with lots of other things. On the plus side, I managed to finish off another 15 infantry, which means I now have enough lasguns for 4 infantry squads and second figures for all of the weapon teams



There have been some printing issues recently, which have prevented the completion of the two tanks. I've hit a bit of a wall in terms of having the oomph to try and fix it at the moment. It's not like I've a shortage of things to paint.

A set of the necromunda ogryns arrived yesterday, so I started to see how the pieces went together with the AM Ogryn kit. It seems that unlike the human figures, the ogryns are actually slightly smaller than their 40k counterparts weirdly... but not enough to be too easily spotted. The intention is to create three Bulgruns with the bionic fists instead of mauls and three normal ones will get hardwired cannons.

Nice conversion, love the "Minion" head on the right one, nearly made me buy the set Can't wait to see them painted!

They are looking good .

But why would we want them to protect their junk, they are abhumans and we don’t need them to breed.

 Theophony wrote:
They are looking good .

But why would we want them to protect their junk, they are abhumans and we don’t need them to breed.

Being able to breed is why they are tolerated as abhumans and not mutants

 endtransmission wrote:

Solid work on the grunts, way to keep plugging on them. Really fine looking Guardsmen

Ogryn are fun, good use of the smart new kit. Still looking forward to you dropping those Caiman on us

Caiman are still on the backburner as I can't consistently get a small print to come out properly, so risking a really long print for the turrets is not happening yet. I suspect that the new screen might not be *quite* the same as the old one and I may need to up the exposure time a bit for the bottom layers as things are just peeling off the build plate into the vat. More experimentation tomorrow...

meanwhile, I started to build three standard Ogryn servitors as well



This leaves me enough bits to do 3 more Ogryn specifically for Necromunda.

Speaking of which, I caved and bought the Necromunda computer game. The terrain is absolutely glorious and is giving me loads of ideas of things to build. When it works, the game is good fun... if a little slow with all the waiting between moves and having to watch every enemy bumble about with terrible AI, or the threat of inducing an epileptic fit as the AI's camera gets stuck on some furniture and strobes like mad. But... this afternoon I've had the game crash out on me twice, just as it was ending some very successful raids on the AI gang bases. If you're tempted... hold off until they fix some of the crashing issues. If they can sort that and the camera glitches it'll be a really fun game. Right now it is just plain frustrating to spend an hour playing a mission, only to have it crash out or freeze and registering that as you forfeiting the match, losing all XP and goodies :/

Tallarn came out great - and those Ogryn look great before (GW) and after (you) modification.

I do like the new Necromunda Ogryn kit. It's just a shame that it is fairly sparse on options, not really covering all the options available to them in-game. This seems to be an effect of the kit being designed as the ogryn servitor where it covers the options perfectly, and then someone coming along and making up a new gang to fill some book space.

There has been some progress on the Caiman too, just for Boss Savage

A few days back I tried printing two turrets and this happened. Both were on the same build plate, so for one to fail like that seems... odd as it was the same model duplicated



After talking to the guy who made it, he thinks it may be that my new screen isn't as bright as the original, so I've had to up the exposure to try and compensate. I'm not sure if that's working or not yet as the cannons printed without issue, but a new Caiman front has also had tearing issues. I suspect a new FEP is needed as well.

Turret 1 has been upgraded with some bags and iconography and can be undercoated later



The failed turret seems to still be the same shape as the correct one, just missing some parts.. so I've cleaned it up a bit around the damage and am attempting to fix it with some greenstuff. It'll be missing some elements, but this can be covered with sandbags or made to look like the turret has had a field repair after taking a direct, but non-destructuve, hit from a carnifex



And one constructed body has gone off for an undercoat... so I may actually be able to paint up a Caiman for the Long War theme instead of the King in Yellow.

I was wondering how your Long War entry was going

Well.. it's a Long War to finish something at the moment, especially when I got sidetracked with the Arkham Horror lcg, which is fantastic.

Gah! 8 hours of printing another Caiman hull front and this one is warped as well. Not as bad as previous attempts, but there are still huge numbers of struts weirdly cut off, so the top has warped into an unusable position. Think I'll try supporting my own and up the exposure even more to try tonight. Very frustrating! I kinda wish I had an Ender for these as constructing the whole tank in Blender and printing as one object at a stupidly high resolution would probably be significantly quicker than using my printer given all the failures :/

Bless you, Endt That one turret looks great, and the rent in the other is rather mysterious Waiting for the prime with baited breath ... and ignoring my own printing problems for the moment (virtually everything I print has a Z-axis failure in it or drops off the plate thanks to my bad support settings, which I've recently revised. As for the Z, I need to finally disassemble and lube the thing ).

Anyway, thanks for the update, commiserations on the printer issues.

If everything is dropping off the build plate, then you need to up the curing time for the bottom layers. If it is being torn off the struts, leaving those on the build plate and the rest in the vat... then that's more struts needed. Apparently tears in the model like that are too low an exposure in the rest of the model, but I'm not convinced by that as it seems to only impact things on one side of the build plate (which is properly levelled and secure). The FEP is undamaged, but I'm going to try and replace it again over the weekend to see if that makes any difference

When I do my own supports, I often have the print tear off the supports - but I recently went back to light supports, so that checks out. I've since reupped all my settings and gone back to majority medium, with heavy for anchoring. It's vaguely working.

I honestly wonder if I'm having leveling issues as well, as I'll often have a joint shift over in a print, like the toes on an upscaled ogre recently that shifted sideways but are otherwise complete, or the elbow on a spawn thing this week. In addition to supports failing (including presupports!) and causing that weird flat printing thing. I've been hesitant to address the Z-axis, but given how many presupports I have that fail I'm back to considering it.

Ogres are looking great

Don’t know what to say on the prints (I’m sticking with FDM), you could always toss a cameo tarp/netting over the top of it, or have laser battle damage. I’ve been watching car shows on Netflix while printing/painting, so I just think “grab some Bondo and send it to XXXX to paint it” .

The shifting certainly sounds like it could be a z axis shift; either that or the FEP is a little bit too sticky? I did find that putting a little bit of the axis grease on the fep (and buffing it off afterwards) helped reduce the sticking problem, which in turn fixed some of the shift issues I was seeing earlier in the year.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Theophony wrote:
Don’t know what to say on the prints (I’m sticking with FDM), you could always toss a cameo tarp/netting over the top of it, or have laser battle damage. I’ve been watching car shows on Netflix while printing/painting, so I just think “grab some Bondo and send it to XXXX to paint it” .

I've been making some sandbags to stack up over the turret to cover the worst of the damage, but some will purposefully be made to look like battle damage. I managed to greenstuff the hole closed. The top section is where I need to do some more coverup work. I may just stack loads of sandbags up there to cover it up... The side is intentionally a bit uneven as I'll try and paint that to look like a patch job somehow... maybe raw metal in places, especially around the side crater

So, after months of faffing, fighting print failures and can't-be-botheredness I finally put paint to the first Caiman in the squadron!

This is just the base camo. Highlights, weathering and markings will come once this has had a chance to dry properly. For my reference, the colours are undercoat black, basecoat of Desert Tan primer and camo stripes of AK Spanish Green

That is a brilliant start on the tank. Very desert rat like.

That tank is coming together nicely. Great looking infantry as well.

That tank is really come out great. I like the paint scheme.

Nice start on the tank.

The second Caiman is now ready for an undercoat as well. This one is made up of tracks and turret misprints. The turret has been fixed to look like it is battle damaged, but to cover up the track misprints I had to make some track guards. They need a little bit more fiddling before I put them up on Thingiverse, but they do the job




The hull sandbags come as one of the print options in the kit. The red ones are made from some clay and the small press molds that you can also print as part of the kit. It's very well thought out

This one has so much character, I love it!

Looks great , nice repair work on it.

Canny job on that patch job, way to make the most of some bad prints. The base coat on the first one look superb!

I also just realized that you used the shorter of the battle cannons, which I had flagged for vanquisher use. I think you're correct, the longer barrel (and maybe flash suppression too?) make sense for the longer 'more accurate' shot.

Between calls I decided to respray the tanks I kept when I sold off the last Guard army so they fitted more with the one. Very quick (and blurry) photo



The airbrush decided to start playing up and either not spraying, or spitting like mad... and just when you put a little it down to have a look, it starts flowing smoothly again. I really need to take it apart again and have another look as I can't find any blockages that would cause that.

Last night I started having a play with a Taurox stl that I found and "improving" the design a bit as I need some transportation and I don't like the Chimera design, especially for desert warfare

Nice start on the tanks (now and before) and good save with the misprint.

Yeah, the misprint looks pretty good with some paint on it. Once I add some weathering and make the welding repairs clearer, it should look like it is (sort of) meant to be like that... hopefully!

Oh, I may have also accidentally started to print a Punisher Russ as well now that I seem to have sorted the print failures with the longer exposure. Unfortunately the tracks went from a 7 hour print to an 11 hour print with the extended exposure necessary! This means that I can only do printing at night as I seem to be in endless calls at the moment and can't have the printer fan blaring away next to the jabra


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, I forgot to post the Taurox WIP too. It's amazing what you can find on Thingiverse... I don't want a bulk standard Taurox prime, otherwise I'd just be buying the kit.

As mentioned, I want some non-chimera transportation for key units, so a few Primes are falled for. Unfortunately I can't stand the track units... or the fact that the hotshot volley guns are waaaaay back on the sides so some hacking and finding random bits on Thingiverse or in my downloads folder from various Patreons are progressing nicely. Combining the hotshots into the front sponson came after trying to mount them either side of the engine and realising that was just as dumb as putting them on the rear sides. The original intention was to do this with a heavy bolter or heavy flamer to make a Chimera alternative, but I think I'll stick with them being Primes with rotary cannon as the fast moving, lightly armoured approach to them fits with my vision of Tallarn raiders, especially whatever they use as Scions



The sloped back will eventually be full of stowage. I just need to work out if I'm going standard turret, or doing something to that too. In theory without the turret, this should fit on my printbed as one piece. If I can also sneak the turret into the print as a separate item, that'd be really cool to be able to churn out a pre assembled Taurox Prime each night

Caimain number 3 finished printing this morning, with some different mods.



On the left we have a command turret with gunner and commander made from mixing together a few different stls from Reptilian Overlords. On the right we have a demolisher turret with giant spotlight. I have no idea *why* it has a giant spotlight... it just does.

Currently the demolisher turret is a spare, but it allows me some choice in what gets fielded. I'll probably do the same for the other turret types for now rather than filling the house with tanks I'm most likely never going to play with

*fwoomp*

I really do love the RO demolisher turret most of all, Metal Slug vibes are particularly strong with that one. Hope the tanks are going well - in related news, finally bought the Caiman STLs this morning, will see if I can't crack the code on printing my own armored company. Please ignore the piles of Raygun Raptors I've been printing in the meantime

For the demolisher turret I found preassembling it in blender made for a much easier print. Tanks are sort of on hold at the moment as my airbrush is playing up. I think I have reassembled it badly after cleaning as it just sprays constantly.... There is no control at all

It has been a while since an update as I got sidetracked with other projects and work... still. Two of the tanks have now been finished!

This one used to belong to my old Guard army, but I loved the design too much to lose it when I sold off the old force, so it just got painted over and made into a desert scheme



The damaged Caiman has also been worked on, though after I posted it to the painting challenge I'm partaking in I noticed that I forgot to paint the baggage on it properly, so I need to go back and sort that at some point



I'm sort of dreading some of the upcoming painting queue as there's a 30 man conscript squad, 3 ogryn, 3 bulgryn and 6 heavy weapon teams (3 mortar, 3 lascannon). That's a lot of infantry that looks exactly the same to paint.

I really need to find some nice looking Scions to print for some better hitting power

Very cool battle damage you did there.

Digging the progress on the tanks! I forget why I stopped printing my own caiman fleet, think I had some fails on the accessories and got cold feet

Good luck on all that infantry!

That rollover:Automatically Appended Next Post:

 endtransmission wrote:

I found that upping the exposure time fixed my problems with the Caiman. The smaller presupported pieces still occasionally fail, so I've taken to combining bits prior to publishing and adding my own supports

Tanks look great. I know you said the baggage needed finishing on the Caiman, but are the guns done too?

um... looks like not, no. I've missed painting the barrels! *face/palm*

I don't suppose you'd be willing to share the ML arms you did would you? I'm also using the reptilian overlords sets and I haven't really ventured into blender yet.

I think I just used the no-stock arms from the arm set, or the pistol arm mirrored and cut off the pistol. I didn't create any new arms to use

I have to admit I haven't even printed a ML yet; but I may use the Fuedal Guard ML set; the other FG arms are a pretty exact fit for the RO sets so far.