Have to get to sleep as I work tomorrow but as promised I took a few more shots in the lightbox. May take a few more later to get a few different angles and play with lighting some more but for tonight this is all I can muster. Hope you guys like these shots.

Just stunning Inevitable_Faith.

Cheers,

CB

She looks fantastic! I particularly like the runes carved into her belly.

Seriously beautiful. Fantastic job. Such a great model.

Thank you very much Captain Brown, aku-chan and Camkierhi, I'm glad she's leaving a good mark.

Hello everyone. It's been a long time (again) but I do have a small update here. I've been hard at work on the bases for my DoK force and I think I settled on a style I like. It's my first time attempting to mimic liquids on a base but overall I think it ended up alright. Also I have decided I really don't like the base on Morathi and will be re-doing a good chunk of it, here's an I-progress pic of the bases getting ripped apart. Hope everyone is having a fantastic November.

Nice to see you still at it. Bases look pretty good. You going to add any splatter or chunks/parts? Or is it just rivulets of blood?

Hey, IF! Good to see you back.

@Nev Yeah I will be adding some splatter as well as some of the faded smearing you can kind of see on Morathi's base. Haven't done that part yet as the colours won't exactly match since I use Blood for the blood god for splatter but I made my own fluid for the rivulets. Will be doing a test base first to make sure I can make the two bloods play nice together before I commit these 10 bases to it.

Good to be back, motivation has been a serious problem for me (not just in Warhammer but also life in general) so I can't promise I'll be active but here's hoping something clicks this time.

Good to see you posting again Inevitable, missed seeing your work.

Inevitable_Faith,

Welcome back.

One colour at a time.

Cheers,

CB

It took three nights, but I made it through all 31 pages.

"Wow" is massively inadequate.

Your Drukhari are getting pinker and pinker. Your Kabalites are pinker than your OG Wyches and your Archon is pinker than your Kabalites.

I approve wholeheartedly.

Also, your Scions look like Team Sweden. Please paint little blue triple crowns on them.

Thank you very much everyone for stopping by. Wasn't sure if I'd have a following anymore due to my frequent long period of radio silence.

@Excommunicatus Holy dude that's some dedication! Thank you so much, i really appreciate it and am quite humbled anyone would spend so much time checking out my stuff! Actually I have been working slowly on my scions. Don't have photos yet but since contrast paints came out I figured I'd take the opportunity to adjust the paint scheme and try out the hot new paints. I finished a ten hot shot lasgun guys so far and will showcase them soon.

In other news for the second time in 2 months my computer has cratered. First it was the hard drive that failed on me, I was able to salvage some things but ultimately I needed a new one and between the salvage operations, ordering the new one and getting the OS installed it took just under 2 weeks to get my computer back. then two nights ago I was having some weird graphical issues before my computer would simply force-restart itself or lose connection to my monitors. turns out my video card had decided to give up the ghost this time. My computer is now sent with the tech again and I think it's time I bite the bullet and finally replace the whole thing. 10 years was a good run for my old unit and even up to the end it played most of the modern release video games I liked. Anyways, unexpected expenses and setbacks aside I will try to find ways to post my WIP pics I've been taking. I hate using my phone to post on Dakka so maybe I'll start loading my pics on the work computers

Just a small side project I did for the holiday season. The GW that i stop in whenever I get outta town has an x-mas tree decorated with miniatures. They're all unpainted and they take them down and give them to customers to paint up and bring back to decorate the tree with. I did this one up with a "Jack Frost" colour scheme in mind. Hope you guys like him.

That‘s a fitting scheme and will look very good on the tree!

I was wondering why he had been stabbed in the neck!

Cool idea for a community project. Guy looks cool!

That's a pretty neat idea. Pretty sure that model is female. She looks good.

I love the trailing edges of that tunic. Simple, but effective use of washes.

How have I been missing your blog for so long?! I haven't seen any of it since page 3!

I've just been through the entire thing to catch up, and it is amazing. Must keep up properly this time.

Wow thank you guys so much for all your kind words! Glad to see she's so well received.

I'm working away at other projects at the moment. Putting the finishing touches on Morathis base and still picking away at my Scions. I'm probably about 2 weeks away from getting my new computer. I'm hoping that once I do photo updates can be more regular.

Welcome back to the PLog Fifty happy to have you back!

So I've put a bit of work into a new project. I'm doing a Tyranid swarm force. I'm absolutely in love with Starship troopers and so an endless swarm of gnashing claws and teeth overrunning the enemy is something I've wanted to do for a long time. The list will feature many Hormagaunts and almost everything is equipped with simple scything talons. Ranged will not be a major player until larger battles (2000 points) where I've added an Exocrine to mimic the plasma bugs from SST.

I've decided on an ice world theme for my nid force. The idea being that this force is unique in that they make extensive use of tunnel networks to move about the planet as they devour everything but favouring heat energy sources. In this way they actually steal the warmth of a planet by sapping the core of it's heat and feeding on any natural heat sources such as hot springs. By doing this they force the planet into a permanent winter making any battlefield they fight on an icy cold landscape. Is this at all scientifically plausible or reasonable? Nope not at all. Neither is most of 40K though so I figure it's fine.

I've done two test models so far, with mixed feelings on them. The plan is to mostly use contrast paints do be able to paint things quickly (my list has 90 gaunts to paint after all so speed will be key). I like the kin colour and scythings talons on these but I'm just not sold on the shell at all. One has orange "vents" on his body to represent the heat energy he's devoured and is holding in his body while the other does not and one is an "on the edges" blue shell while the other one has a black stripe with spots shell influenced from Catbarfs coconut crab nids. Would love some input on these as I'm wondering if there's anything else that may look good on the shells but still be quick and easy to paint while also being scalable to the larger bugs. My questions are as follows:

- Orange vents or all blue skin, which looks better?
- The colours on the shell are black, dark blue and drybrushed white. Any other ideas for the shells on these that would looks nice? Would love to stay within cool tones.
- The patterns, any ideas on patterns that I should look at?

Any advice is always appreciated and thanks for checking them out guys and gals.

I prefer them without the orange. But it seems like you need something to break up all the blue.

Looking good. A ‘nid force is on my someday list. But not anytime soon.

It is more work, but I think the orange adds enough to the look that it may be worth it. Overall the scheme looks good. With the orange in there, working some purple into the carapace could be interesting. As for patterms, with so many models to paint moving beyond a quick stipple could be trouble.

Nice looking bug, the edges on the carapace look really good! Would go with your first example and orange on the skin. The accent makes the model look better.

Thanks for your input guys I really appreciate it! I'm thinking I'll stick with the orange, Nev you're right I do need something to break up the blue and the orange is easy to apply and only adds a small amount of time to the process.

I think I like the shell on the first one better, The more I look at them the more the colours seems to be ok so I think I'll prime up another 5 and do a few more test shells just to get some more ideas outta my head before finalizing on the end product. I currently have 40 gaunts, I'll need 20 more for one of my 1000 point lists or perhaps even 50 more for my alternate list. Built the Tyrant guard last night and will be assembling the warriors and Tyranid prime tonight. I think I'll do a built group shot tonight after I'm done building to show off how much plastic is sitting on my table.

And here we have assembled "almost" 1000 points of nids! I'm still missing 20 gaunts and a carnifex for my first test list. I have a new appreciation for any Nids collector, holy gak these things can get expensive real fast, especially if you're a fan of gaunts and warriors. Warriors are an especially brutal unit to buy as they're now 18 points a model but cost 65$ CAD per box. That's well over the 1$ per point mark. Small point of interest too is that Warriors don't come with enough scything talons in the box to equip them all with dual talons so you'll have to source them elsewhere. Luckily I have a friend who has boatloads of genestealer sprues from his force and he didn't use any of the scything talons those guys come with. Why do genestealers even come with scything talons at all anyways? Either way it works out cause I think the smaller talons from genestealers look like a nice secondary set on the warriors.

No model update today but I just wanted to wish everyone here a very merry X-mas! May your stockings be filled with dice and datacards and your trees stand guard over all your new recruits for whichever forces you muster. Hope everyone has a fantastic day!

Oh and my Sisters of Battle box finally showed up, there's that too

Ah, an interesting project!

I'm also in love with Starship Troopers with all it's cheesy lines and effects! Every time we have an Imperial Guard versus Tyranid game, we have to play the movie soundtrack over and over again in the background. Especially Klendathu Drop, love that piece of music.

Good choice with the colors. Was about to say that the orange vents look better, but I noticed you already stuck with that

Keep it up!

Always fancied doing a Brainbug for the Tyranids. And those bombardier beetle type things.

Got a small single model project underway here. I was given a Callidus Assassin to go with my Tempestus Scions force for X-mas and I finally got around to building her. I really hate the design GW went with having her leaping down on a really tall rock with her ponytail trailing upwards. Thematically it's neat as a display piece but as a gaming piece it's entirely impractical and ridiculous for two reasons.

1) She's a single human sized infantry model who stands taller than the Daemon prince model, in sheer mass she's a long shot away but she's so tall she can't even fit under the first floor of my GW designed multi-level ruins. Not being able to move her into ruins on a battlefield because she's standing on a rock and her ponytail is too tall is too much poor design for me to put up with. The second issue with her height is that in a game based on TLoS she's nearly impossible to hide behind 1 level tall LoS blockers despite, once again, being a single human sized infantry model. That's an issue of the model designers not knowing how the game works and making something for "rule of cool" instead of any practical playstyle. If I have any players that argue with me that I modeled for advantage here I'll concede right away and let us imagine she's 20 feet tall and that they can see her since it's not a hill I'm willing to die on and arguments are not something I really want to deal with in a game I play for fun.

2) Transport to games would be a nightmare. The first foam I pack her in to is going to apply pressure to that ponytail and snap it right off. As a Drukhari player I have enough issues with figuring out how to transport my fiddly models, wasn't excited about adding this one to the list. I think the pose I put her in should be a bit more transport friendly.

Anyways with my limited Green stuff skills this is what I've come up with. Her ponytail is not simply mounted with the green stuff but it's also glued at two points of contact on her back for extra stability. I'm actually quite excited to get some paint on her as I feel she should be a relatively simple model to paint.

Very good conversion and yes, a well thought out critique of the model.

Much better look and flow of the model. I think GW’s sculptors sometimes get hung up on what they can do, and less thought about if they should. It’s a wargame, there are a lot of practical concerns.

I like the original version, but I don't have game-related or transport concerns. This addresses those nicely. I look forward to seeing her painted.

A practical conversion and a good looking too!
Looking forward to see her in color.

Thank you very much everyone, I'm quite happy with how she turned out, even more so after reading your comments. I completely agree with you Nev, often it does seem like GW gets too caught up on what they can do rather than what they probably should do. On that note: here's a thing I can do now that has eaten up my hobby time for the past couple weeks.

So I finally broke down and bought a 3D printer and I must say... I'm in love. It's an amazing piece of engineering and the possibilities are literally endless. So what do I do with my new found power? Wound trackers of course! I never did like GW idea of 10-sided die, too easy for them to roll around or otherwise get bumped all over the place. These 0-9 dial trackers seem much more practical to me. I initially made a test to see if I could do it and it turned out so well I decided to show my gaming group. Turns out having the LITERAL POWERS OF CREATION(!!!) at your fingertips makes you the popular kid on the block and before I knew it I was swarmed with friends who wanted dial wound trackers for their armies. I have a background in 3D modelling and animation from my college days so I quickly set to work personalizing the dials for each friend. First up is our Grey Knights player. I took a simple GK logo, built it into a 3D solid and "stamped" it into the blank wound tracker. Save this as a separate file, throw it onto an SD card and off to the printer it goes. It's nothing wildly extravagant but considering I haven't touched 3D modelling software in roughly 10 years I'm happy at how quickly much of it came back to me. Next up is chaos star and the nurgle logo. Let me know what you guys think of these.

They’re really cool, nice touch to put each armies logo in them. did you print them complete or do they require assembly? Too many people tempting me to but a 3D Printer on here. I should probably buy a PC and 2D Printer first!

What programs do you use? I should really get back to playing with mine. I had a fun (over engineered) a project for wound trackers. I got to the point I learned what I needed to, so had to re-boot to start from scratch and build up a new 2.0 model. But never got there.

@gobert The numbered dial and top logo piece are separate but there is a slot in each to fit a 10x1mm magnet. They hold together really nicely with that and the dial needs some human force to spin so you wont accidentally change the wounds on a vehicle in play.

@Nevelon I'm using FreeCAD as my design software. Still learning the ropes with it but there is lots of tutorials out there for it and best of all it's free so if I don't like it down the road there was no sunk cost. Overall I'm fairly happy with it. I learned 3D modelling on Autodesk Maya which had more features and was overall a nicer program but it's mostly geared to animation which doesn't help with 3D printing. Also I don't want to pay for the license on it oh boy was it expensive the first time around. For slicing and exporting my GCode I use the Creality slicer. It's the one that came on the flash drive with the printer and is made specific for my Brand of printer so it's got some options and settings built in that make the process simple. It's a good little program that's just enough to get the job done without drowning you in advanced stuff.

That's cool!

The possibilities woth a 3D-printer are endless!
One of my friends bought one and I was excited to start 3D modelling again, but I have not got around to it yet.
Used to play around with 3DS Max and Blender during my studies. Those are pretty good, especially blender as it's free.


Is that a plastic or a resin printer?

Those wound tracker look very nice and cool, that you are doing them for your gaming group!

@Ezki Blender was another program I was looking at possibly using. We will see if freecad stops being useful I may try it. My printer is a simple PLA model. From what I understand the resin printers are more expensive but certainly knock PLA out of the park in terms of small detail quality. I may be wrong though, I'm not terribly familiar with Resin printers.

I finished up a second design tonight and made my first test print. This 0-99 dial will be for our resident chaos player for use with his Chaos Knights. Will be making two of these and I'll also be making a Nurgle specific one for him soon.

Looks nice!

Yeah so I've hard that the resin printers are capable of small details and that they cost a ton. No further experience here either.

Seems that yours can produce a really good result though!

Alright I'm back from vacation and finished up the last of my Chaos wound dial project for a buddy. His last one needed to be Nurgle themed for his Death Guard force. Here's what I came up with, kept one side as Chaos star and stamped a Nurgle logo on the other side, offside and asymmetrical to help push that Chaos theme of course. Net couple updates after this will be painting related... finally

So I did a fun little side project for a friend of mine, a Cryptek with... I don't know the new cloak wargear thing it gets? Was a fun little distraction that allowed me to try some things I haven't been able to apply to my own forces. Hope you guys like him.

Finished the re-basing work on Morathi as well as making a few small changes, notably a colour swap on her inner robe and a bit more highlighting on her outer robe. Changed the flame brazier too not that you can see it in this shot. Entered her in a painting competition over the weekend and somehow managed to steal third place in my category. There was some amazing work on display there over the weekend and I'm stunned and humbled to be counted amongst some of the top runners. This has definitely given me a shot of motivation to get back to work and hopefully pump out some good pieces worth showing off.

Will pull out the photo booth and be taking better shots of the updated Morathi soon.

Please - photobooth it!!!!!!

Congratulations Inevitable_Faith.

Cheers,

CB

Nice work and deserving of a podium place.

Thank you very much guys. Just cleared off my painting table to make room for new projects so will be setting up the photo booth before I get cracking on the next project.

Congrats! She's a beaut!

Congrats!

Congrats! She really deserved the price!
The other entries must have been mind blowing to pull ahead of that beauty.

Looking forward for what you have in mind next!

I finally got around to taking some photos of Morathi! I'm notoriously terrible at taking good photos so hopefully these turn out ok. Usually have them too bright and blown out. Sadly the base didn't show great at all, the marble is too washed out and the blood looks very flat, in person it's more translucent. Lemme know what you guys think, all comments and critiques are very welcome.

Edit: Really didn't like the photos so I retook them with different light. Posted new shots in new post.

Just wow!

The skin and gold look so good!
And her face is almost perfect.

Definitely a masterpiece! Well done.

Thank you very much Ezki! Glad you like her

Here's new pics I took because the lighting on the old ones really bugged me.

She looks stunning, the other competition entries must’ve been amazing!

Thanks Gobert, means a lot to me. There were some amazing entries this year as usual, I'm genuinely surprised I placed amongst them.

There was a keeper of secrets with some of the smoothest and most professional blending I've ever seen and a bloodthirster done entirely in blues and whites to make this amazing winter theme, it was so different from the normal red bloodthirsters you see it was so eye-catching.

She looks great!

Hey everyone it's been a looooooong time since I've posted any updates as to what I've been up to. Life has certainly been... interesting... lately as I'm sure it must have been for all of you as well. I haven't been idle it my silence here on the log and I actually do have a decent amount of stuff to showcase. For today however I'll be showcasing my first test mini from the SoB box I got long ago. Would love to hear any input you guys have on how she turned out. I'm setting up the photo box to take proper pics of my other project and will hopefully be posting it here soon.

Hope everyone is having a great week!

Hey! Welcome back.

New Sister looks great. There's a lovely painterly quality to the cloth.

Welcome back Inevitable_Faith.

Cheers,

CB

Good to hear from you! Life has certainly been weird lately.

Cool scheme on the sister!
I really like the contrast between the cloak and the red armour.

I would maybe highlight the edges of the armour a bit more to give it a little more definition (if bright highlights is something you like).
You could also try to change the tone of the red just a bit on the different panels, or even try adding some black here and there.

Just a couple of ideas.

All in all the sister looks good. And even better when she has some friends beside her!

Thanks for the comments guys, I really appreciate it.

youwashock: Thank you, I'm actually quite happy with how the tabard came out and I'm looking forward to seeing how a whole unit comes together with the scheme.

Ezki: I think you're right, some final brighter highlights should help to make the armour pop more which I think it could benefit from. I'll start there and see how it helps. Thank you so much for your advice!

Overall looks pretty good. Maybe a little more highlights.

Not really sure how I feel about the mud base.

Thanks Nev for the critique. Others have noted the highlighting as well and I completely agree, another highlight or two would really help this model pop.

The mud base was done real quick just so I could call it "done". It' matches my other Imperial army basing but ultimately I don't feel it does these models any service. I'm going back to the drawing board on this one to find a way to match the mud bases of my other army but still stand out and help my SoB force look their best.

On that note I will be starting to showcase my latest project here starting today. I never updated Dakka during the process much at all but now that it's done I finally got it all together and have started photos. First post incoming shortly.

A while back I had posted some build progress shots as well as a test mini for a Tempestus Scions force I was working on. Then I went radio silent because I'm very good at disappearing for long stretches of time without warning. (Should I become an international criminal with that skill set?)

Anyways I'm here to say that not only have I continued working on that force; I have completed it! I'm very excited about this as 1) It means I have a fully painted army which is always exciting. 2) I can move on to other projects and 3) This is the first time in my entire hobby life (like 15 years) that I have painted every single model from an army I collect and have none left on the shelf or boxes. If I want to add to this force I literally have to go buy more models and that is a completely alien experience to me.

Some notes about the force:

-One of my primary goals with this army was to practice a more "tabletop ready" standard of painting. It's not my best work but it isn't meant to be. There are LOTS of mistakes (which I tried to mitigate but I didn't bust my ass to correct either) and cut corners.
-This is also a gaming force. My goal was to have an army that gave me several build options whilst allowing me to play almost 100% WYSIWYG as much as possible.
-After years of Aeldari and especially Drukhari play I really got sick of transporting my fiddly and easily broken models. This force is built to be easy to transport and convenient to just throw in a foam case and not worry too much about possibly breaks. Scion models are fairly durable after all and I got creative with the vehicles on this front.
-I wanted a force that was also fairly "beginner friendly" should I loan it to a player who may be thinking of joining 40K and wants to try it out or someone new to the game that wants to learn against an army that doesn't have a million "gotcha" strats or unit rules. Scions are reasonably strong to put up a fight without feeling overwhelming against newer players with just enough tools in the belt to help me go toe to toe with our more veteran players.

Ok with that out of the way on to the first models! Here I have my two Tempestor Primes. I stuck to my initial yellow scheme with a few minor changes. I opted for a more "Scion" aesthetic instead of using the big overcoat. At the core Primes are still a Scion and I wanted leaders that still looked like the men and women they command. The overcoats would later get used but on a completely different model. To make these two stand out I did put on the chained gorget(spelling?) to bulk them out a bit and I came up with my ranking system within the force. Tempestors have a white arm(left) and my Primes, being higher rank, have two white arms. To further simplify distinguishing models I painted one Prime to have a white helmet, for the purposes of any game mode where knowing who your opponents warlord is the one with the white helmet and arms outranks the one with just two white arms. These are my two models however that are not WYSIWYG. I run them with command rods which take up their pistol but truthfully I thought they looked stupid with a sword and a stick. I want soldiers not parade dancers. So I ditched the stick and gave them a bolt pistol (of which there are none in the rest of the force). I like to think they get to issue an extra order now because their pistol is bigger and scarier than the others. Ork logik I know. I still struggle to get white to show up properly in photos (though I feel this is my best result to date) so please just trust me when I say the white arms actually have more depth than what is showing, they have a pale blueish tinge in the recesses when you see the models in person. Same with the guns and swords.

Anyways thanks for looking guys and I hope you like them. As always comments and critiques are much appreciated.

These two look great. Looking forward to seeing the rest.

Thank you so much youwashock, I'm very much looking forward to sharing more. I just got them in the glass display case next to my Craftworld and Drukhari cases and I must say that room looks so much better now that all three display cases are filled.

Continuing today with a single model from the command group is my Tempestus Medic. He doesn't see much table time as Scion medic rules are... underwhelming to say the least. He was still a fun little side model to paint and hopefully he finds a proper place in my army lists in 9th once the new codex comes out.

He is a cool model, with all his sweet medical gear like the gunsaw. The mud on his first aid kit is a nice touch.

The yellow and white are a great combination, and an interesting choice for an experiment in quick painting! Still they came out great, though the Sgts barrels could do with drilling . What are you using for the mud? It looks good

A belated welcome back, and my total agreement that times lately have been interesting!

Liked the Sister you posted, but am very much taken with the color scheme for the Scions- highly effective and visually very engaging. I don't reckon I've seen anyone else try anything quite the same- high marks!

Rock on!

@gobert Thank you very much! I agree that drilling the barrels would make them look much better, for the purposes of doing a speed paint on this force however I opted to skip that for simplicities sake. The mud is GW Stirland mud applied liberally straight from the pot. It's a great technical and were I more ambitious I would add some highlights to it to make it stand out more but as is it's passable particularly for tabletop. The only thing I'm second guessing myself on is if I should have left the edges of the base black to add contrast on the base. Having them brown top to bottom maybe makes them too... brown?

@Meer_Cat Aha thank you very much Meercat! Glad you liked the sister. I'll be updating her to version 1.1 shortly after getting some of the helpful critiques here. As for the scions I'm thrilled you like them. I wanted to make sure it was something that stands out and doesn't lose itself on a table too easily. I did see someone that did an orange with white gun Scion squad (not sure if it was ever a full army of them) that looked fantastic. For the most part however I do see a lot of GW studio colour schemes as well as black or green schemes. All of the look great in my opinion but I am glad to have attempted something that hopefully stands out from the crowd.

Alright now we're getting in to the meat of the army. The scion squads themselves. I've divided my models by role so today is the leaders of each squad, Tempestors! To denote rank they have only their left arm painted white, one down from the Primes. I have 4 with chainsword and hot shot las pistol and 2 with chainsword and plasma pistol. The plasma pistol Tempestors lead my two melta gun squads so they can help damage the big guys. The others lead my other squads to grab objectives and harass enemy infantry. It's a shame that Tempestors can't take a hot shot lasgun as well or in place of the chainsword. Especially on a 5-man squad I really feel the loss of the extra hot-shot lasgun in terms of firepower. At least they were kind enough to allow the vox caster guy to carry a lasgun instead of just the pistol, that's one step in the right direction.

Cool looking bunch. I like the guy in the back charging in.

Another great looking bunch! As for the bases, I’m a fan of clean black rims, but the brown looks fine too

Thanks guys, I appreciate it! I think I may try testing a black rim on one. It'll be easy to do and easy to revert back if I don't like it.

As for todays update we have the absolute core of any scion army: Tempestus Scion with Hot-shot Lasgun. Simple, effective, deadly on to wound rolls of 5+

Since these guys have no real rank (other than being a Scion which in itself makes them outrank most Imperials) they don't have any white other than their gun. I apologize for the light flaring in the second photo, I struggle with balancing that on the best of days. Hope you guys like them and as always let me know what you think.

The larger blue areas on these guys make for a bit of extra visual interest. Looks good. I think switching up the rim color is a good idea. Black is nice, but you could also try a darker brown for something less stark that still contrasts with the mud.

Love these. The armour especially is well done.

Thank you very much for the comments guys. Yeah I'm quite happy with how the blue piping helped to make a pop of colour on these guys. Worked better than I had anticipated in my opinion.

I’ve always held to the theory that at the end of the day we are painting markers for a game. You want visual pop, you want them to stand out. If you paint them “realistic” you end up with more subdued minis that blend into the table and are hard to distinguish at a glance.

I think you did a great job making a coherent force that looks real, but still has some pop to it.

Well done.

Your paint job on them really reminds me of dusty Star Wars Imperial Stormtroopers. Specifically the sandtroopers with sandblasted armour when they were shot with yellow filters.

Thank you Nevelon and Gwyn chan'r Gwyll. I never considered the Imperial sandtroopers before but now that you mention it I do see the similarities. Having one Imperial war machine compared to another Imperial war machine sounds pretty apt to me

On to todays update: Vox Casters. It's always seemed odd to me that in 40k troops were never equipped with meaningful comms equipment as standard (barring SM I suppose?) and that for a unit to receive orders they need this massive bulky radio pack. That is part of the charm of 40k I suppose, but then it makes me wonder what the wrist computers and antennae on every Scion shoulder is for... At the very least I do find it strange that a Vox Caster only lets you send orders 3 times farther than you can yell. You'd think those things could at least reach to the borders of the engagement area. Oh well they're still worth a chuckle to "fire on my position" when the opportunity arises!

Another nice group Inevitable_Faith.

Cheers,

CB

These guys look great, we’ll be needing a group shot soon!
The large radios are an odd choice. In many ways 40k is quite backwards in its tech, but as you say that’s part of the fun. After all if everyone had high tech self targeting rounds what would be the point!

I agree that the seemingly backwards tech is part of the charm of 40k, it just sometimes hurts my head from a gameplay perspective. I do have some group shots planned, will do them after the vehicles get showcased.

Today we have Volleyguns. Man it's amazing how much firepower just 2 of these things in a 5-man squad can pump out. If you're not playing to capitalize on FRFSRF within 9" range then these things are the way to go for volume. Sad they're a heavy weapon and suffer on the move.

Since I'll be leaving today to head outta town for the weekend and won't be back until tuesday I'm going to post up the other special weapons as well. First up we have Grenade Launchers, I really want to love these things but I do feel they are the weak link in my army. They don't have volume or damage potential to threaten vehicles reliably, nor the AP and volume to threaten elite infantry (probably their ideal target) and S3 on the frag portion is underwhelming (especially if you roll a low number of shots). Having said that I still put them in because they just feel like a very guardsmen weapon to use given they are fairly unique to them. They've done some work for me and I'll continue using them but I often catch myself thinking 6 extra volleyguns could do the same job better especially after our PA boost with point-blank efficacy.

The meltaguns are next. Between the Valkyrie drop strat from PA and and the weapon boost to being D6+2 in half range I've put these things to excellent use. Four shots can feel like it's not enough oftentimes thanks to how many high-priority targets have invuln saves but overall they still tend to at least cripple what they need to then die valiantly as a terrifying little distraction unit that can't be ignored by your opponent.

That’s a nice amount of firepower, all looking spiffy in their yellow and white! Safe travels!

Specialists all look cool, IF. Looking forward to the big army shot.

Thanks guys, appreciate the comments

So now we're on to vehicles. I have three Taurox Primes and I must say these things are what makes the force work. They're fairly fragile but they bring much needed mobility and speed to the force. So many of my matches have hinged entirely on if these things can get the kill or snag that objective. I've magnetized every weapon option on these three and even came up with a handy transport system for taking them to games. Every piece of gear tucks nicely inside its respective Taurox and the roof just slips right on top. Hopefully you guys like them. Sorry for a bit off a photo explosion on this one.

They look great, if I ignore the double tracked wierdness . The paintjob is superb and the weapons storage, ingenious! Where’s Number 2?

Paddy wagons look good! Nice weathering and detail. Each one serving as its own storage is neat, too.

Thank you very much Gobert and youwashock.

I know I'm in the minority here but I actually love the stupid double track, it's part of 40k's ridiculous charm. If these had more reasonable wheels or at least a front set of tires I know they just wouldn't make me giggle inside the way they do now.

Good catch on noting the missing second Taurox, it was intentional. I do have a small amount of headcannon for this army (of which is getting fleshed out and added to since I'm using them in a crusade campaign). They are the 313th Deltic Crows. The short of it is that each squad has their own Taurox (or Murderbox as they call them) and during a mission the entire 2nd Talon (their name for a squad) along with their Murderbox, went missing, presumed KIA but no trace of them were ever found.

I figured it would be fun to have little things like this scattered in the army for fun even if they are pointless.

 Inevitable_Faith wrote:
Sorry for a bit off a photo explosion on this one.

Eagerly awaits photo explosion... disappointed by more of a photo "pop"...

Good job on the magnetisation, and the weapon storage system is a great idea - I'll have to remember that for my Battlewagon whenever I get around to it...

The only other disappointment - the lack of drilled barrels .

Ignoring my pendantism though, a lovely - and importantly - finished, trio.

My apologies Arakasi, I'm usually so slow to have updates ready that one or two photos is all I can ever muster. Nine photos in one post is more or less unheard of on my part.

It was mentioned before about the drilled barrels, I agree it would have been a nice touch to make the force look better. As stated earlier though since this was an army to try and work on my speed-painting abilities (I'm a glacial painter at the best of times) drilling the barrels was a step I skipped to save time.

I have one more post ready to go for tomorrow then the much anticipated army shot will be next.

Here's the last transport for the force, a Valkyrie. I flip-flopped on whether this was going to be added to the army at any point since GW made them such an iconic model for a Scion force yet did nothing rules-wise to incentivize them. With PA that all changed and we then got some strats that help the Valkyrie actually feel like part of the scion faction. As with my Taurox Primes I magnetized all the weapon options. I didn't like the idea of figuring out the door gunners along with my transportation ideas so I opted to scratch that, glue the side doors shut and instead modify and mount the heavy bolters under the wings. I ended up really liking the silhouette this had and I'm fairly proud of the results. All the weapons store inside the Valkyrie when not in use as the back ramp can open giving me tons of space. I hope you guys like it.

Nice work on the canopy!

That is a good idea for the Heavy Bolters. I also glued my plastic Valkyrie does shut after making magnetically held side door gunners on my resin ones.

Cheers,

CB

Luftwaffe yellow and grey never looked so good as it does on that bird! Great job!

Thank you very much youwashock, Captain Brown and theCrowe!

The canopy was quite the experiment using metallics and contrast paint. It didn't quite turn out as I envisioned but now I know what to to better if I decide to do another canopy in this style.

Inevitable_Faith wrote:My apologies Arakasi

Apologies unnecessary

Inevitable_Faith wrote:It was mentioned before about the drilled barrels, I agree it would have been a nice touch to make the force look better. As stated earlier though since this was an army to try and work on my speed-painting abilities (I'm a glacial painter at the best of times) drilling the barrels was a step I skipped to save time.

I know glacial painting all too well. If you don't mind me asking - how long does it take you to drill barrels? It's a step I always make sure to do, and not one I equate with taking an onerous amount of time - although that may just be an indication of how slow I am at everything else...

Valkyrie looks great too .

Arguably not a long time Arakasi, especially after considering the time I spent drilling for magnets on the vehicles. Part of it is that I am very much a painter over builder/converter so for me the fun is with a brush in my hand over anything else. Once I had theory-crafted a paint scheme I wanted to try these got built ASAP then primed for painting shortly after. By the time I would even consider the barrels I was already long in to the painting. You are right thoug, it is a negligible time investment in the grand scheme of things.

Ha! It didn't even occur to me you probably spent more time drilling the holes for the magnets . You could still dot them with some black...

Anyway... this wasn't meant to be an inquisition. Enough of me derailing your thread - I won't prod on this topic anymore.

Nice job on your Scions, particularly the vehicles!

I need to finish my Taurox one day...

No worries Arakasi it's a valid critique and that's one of the main reasons I have the PLog is so I can get comments and critiques that help me to become a better hobbyist in general. Comments and critiques are always much appreciated. Thank you so much Aku-chan! I would very much love to see your Taurox when you finish it so get cracking!

Ok on to the main event; the army shots! I don't have a nice photo box big enough for the whole force so you guys and gals are getting my kitchen table of which long-time friends of this thread will be quite familiar. In 9th this force as I run it comes to around 1250 points with spare models for substitutions or additions. This was the perfect number I feel for a starter/training army to play at points levels to help understand the different scales of 40k battles without intimidating them with a full 2000 point army. It also offers enough models to build and have options in a crusade army. Sorry for the harsh light flare from one of the photos, I kept it in there and didn't retake it cause I felt it was kind of cool like the Emperor shone his light upon my beleaguered Scions. I'm also quite happy that with this force done I was finally able to fill the third display case I have, looks much better now without that sad empty case next to the others in my opinion. You'll also note some models in here that I haven't showcased individually yet, they're auxiliary units that I'll do some close shots of in the coming days. I won't be doing it right away but long-term plans will be to eventually add an Imperial Knight to my collection that will often be assisting these guys, it'll be a great way to help them reach closer to 2000 points without having to paint a million more scions.

So without further ado I present to you: The 55th Deltic Crows!

Ooooooh...nice set-up. Army looks very good all together. Congrats!

Great looking force, been a pleasure seeing it come together Building up for my own small mechanized T3 force (GSC) so inspirational as well

Awesome all together .

Thank you very much guys for the comments Glad it's all come together.

@Boss Salvage: Oh man I keep ogling GSC every time I see them because they look like such a fun force to play with such a wide variety of models to have fun painting. Due to the varied nature of their model types and mutation levels you can really go wild with colour schemes and styling. Sadly I just can't justify getting in to another army right now. T3 armies is really all I know too, Aeldari, Drukhari, Scions, SoB. All T3. I'd really love to one day build a much more Elite army to play with but right now GW just doesn't have much on offer I'm really excited about on that front just yet. Would very much love to see your GSC work coming together when you start that up btw.

Great work finishing these boys up! Nice fluff on the absence of the 2nd murderbox too, it’s fun to have little bits like that in an army. I love how you’ve thought about stowage for all of your weapon options on the Valkyrie too, ready for deployment on any battlefield!

Very nice army shot. Lovely bunch of gents, ready to enforce the Emperor’s will.

Your cases seem so empty. Everything with enough space to be properly displayed and seen, not just crammed on a shelf with everyone else base-to-base just to fit. Unnatural. You need more minis!

Thank you gobert and Nevelon! After playing Drukhari for so long the concept of facilitating transport has become a bit of an obsession of mine. That was certainly one of the prime goals with this force; to have them be efficient and easy to transport with very little chance of breakages.

You are completely right Nevelon, the cases are a bit empty. Slowly they are getting filled up and hopefully sometime by 2145 I should have all three satisfactorily full. Maybe by 2074 if we manage to get a few more lockdowns where I can focus on painting

Ok on to some of the auxiliary additions to the force. Today we have some Ogryns bodyguards. For my gaming purposes I seldom dished out the points to get the unit of three, I would just buy the single bodyguard elite and he can sit in the backfield camping an objective while my more mobile Scion force pushed up. A fine investment in points I enjoyed but now playing crusade it seems the bodyguards PL is wayyyyyyy out of whack with reality. The specific guarding rules he has also don't work well in 9th sadly since LoS has changed drastically (for the better in my opinion but that has left the bodyguard rule feeling awkward and antiquated). I've built all three weapons so I could have a WYSIWYG bodyguard in my lists and it was also just good fun to have the variety to paint. Hope you guys like them.

Great looking army!

Just wow!

The color scheme is really cool.
I like how neat the color is on the Tauroxies (Tauroxes? Taur... Taurox times many) and on the Valkyerie. The weathering ties everything up so nicely.
The army shots are looking good. It's a force to be proud of.

Kudos on magnetizing the weapon options. It's something I really dislike doing (mostly because of the mess I always manage to do with super glue).
Clever trick on storing the spare weapons and parts inside the vehicles.

Also, I'm really jealous of your display cabinets!

Thank you very much Kid_Kyoto and Ezki! I believe the plural of Taurox is Taurox? I honestly don't know, I've always just cheated and when I needed to mention them in plural I use the full name Taurox Primes.

I'm glad I took the time to magnetize everything and the storage is certainly a major bonus. I really dislike magnetizing as part of the hobby, I find it tedious, I'm just a painter at heart but the added value it gives to your army as a gaming tool is undeniable.

Cabinets are from Ikea Ezki, I think they were like 70$ canadian a piece? About 50$ USD.

This is my officer of the fleet made from a basic guardsman body, a bit of green stuff and the Scion greatcoat. I wasn't originally going to have one in this force but after PA came out and I saw the strat that, in my opinion, makes them useable I decided I needed one. I was experimenting with a more "painted" style with his coat, not sure if that description really makes sense though to be honest. The results don't hold up well on close inspection but from tabletop distance the coat actually stands out nicely, I definitely learned a lot about how I would later attempt this style with other models.

Some of you may remember a while back I had posted the conversion work I did on my Callidus assassin. Well she did finally get painted for this force.

The last model to showcase for this army is the Callidus assassin. She's been instrumental in my matches, bleeding CP from my opponent whilst successfully taking down Grey Knight Librarians, Necron Overlords, Wolf Lords, Harlequin Death Jesters, and most recently a Lord of Contagion. I hope you guys like her, as always comments and critiques are welcome.

I also want to thank everyone who stopped by and especially those who commented on this force as it was showcased, it means a lot to me that people took the time to check my stuff out. I don't have any plans to add to this force in the near future, likely an Imperial Knight down the road. Once again, thank you all so much.

I currently have SoB on the painting table and will be working on them for a little bit, will post updates soon on progress there. Was going to work hard on SoB to get a crusade force going but with the announcement of the new Drukhari codex coming out I will split the workload a bit and get some Drukhari painted up as well in anticipation for that.

Inevitable_Faith wrote:Would very much love to see your GSC work coming together when you start that up btw.

Thanks! The debate right now is when the best time to buy the first four goliaths is and what Black Friday sales I'm passing on to afford them

Inevitable_Faith wrote:The last model to showcase for this army is the Callidus assassin.

And she's looking dead gorgeous in that white

Fleet Officer is quite cool. Love the white Callidus. Beef boys look good, too. These last minis add a lot of personality to the force.

Thank you Boss Salvage and youwashock.

Switching gears here on to SoB. Been working on the Arco-Flagellants first and here's a small WiP pic of the first one. I originally didn't care for Flagellants at first as I think the Repentia are much nicer in both lore and model but once I started painting the three Flagellants that come in the box I really started to love them. The models are so well sculpted and have a ton of little details and features on them. Coupled with the variety of materials and textures it makes for a very much model to paint. All three are nearing completion and I'll post them up soon. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving yesterday and is cashing in hard on those Black Friday sales, safely of course.

Another small wip update, got the other two Flagellants to roughly the same stage as the first one. Still a ways to go but I'm seeing the finish line.

These guys really hit home that there are no “good” guys in WH40K! Great start and good to see a range of skin tones

Those sculpts are very nice. They work well with either a quick and dirty or attention to detail level job. I had a lot of fun painting them.

Liked the effect on the cloak of the Officer of the Fleet! I can imagine it looks aces on the tabletop like you said, as it looks really good in the pics as well.

Nice work on the Callidus assassin! That white suits surprisingly well and it's a color you don't usually see on her.
Glad you got to finally paint her.

Joining the choir with the others: the flagellant sculpts are really cool. And your paint job does justice to them.

Also: What? Drukhari codex as the first xeno army?! Had to google it, and I realized that I must have been living in a box or something for not hearing about it sooner.
I have been postponing my Drukhari army month after month, year after year. They have last seen the tabletop back in 6th or 7th I guess.
I think it's finally time to dig up the spicy boys and gals and properly restart the project once again!

Your assassin looks very snazzy in white.

Thank you so much for all the comments everyone! I posted these quick before ditching town for a few days and it was amazing to come back to read this tonight!

@gobert Oh yes the "no good guys" aspect of 40k is one of the biggest things I feel really sets it apart from other sci-fi or storytelling in general. I'm very excited to try out so many different skin-tones on this army. It'll be fun to get to reach out as a painter and try to make each one look right.

@Nevelon I totally agree dude. I really feel GW knocked the SoB line outta the park where they made almost every model in the range able to look great with even a tabletop standard paintjob but they have so many extra details that should you choose to you can really crank it up to 11 with your paintjob.

@Ezki Thank you so much! The Officer was very much experimental but I'm actually quite excited to try the style out again on different models as I feel I got some new tricks that should help it look smoother while still maintaining that painted look. It's funny after I showed off the Callidus to a local buddy of mine he pointed out my missed opportunity: I should have painted her hair purple instead and called her Motoko Kusanagi! I do like how her blonde hair turned out though and I will be using that formula in the future for other models. You get on the Drukhari bandwagon with me Ezki! Let's get out the spikey lads and ladies to have them prepped for a proper 9th edition debut!

@aku-chan Thank you so much, Snazzy is always top priority in getting models ready for the battlefield!

The "army" look amazing, and getting an itch seeing those Ogryn. SOB are a strange one, I think you are doing a fantastic job as always, I am just at odds with the whole SOB thing. I mean I get it, but don't get the interpretation. You have done solid work on them though.

Thanks for the comment Camkierhi. I've been a huge SoB fan for over a decade now, they are so strange but honestly that's why I love them. They have been back-burnered for me now since Drukhari is the next Codex of interest for me so I went back to that project for the time being. Will hopefully have some updates soon but life has been exceptionally hectic for the past little while.

If anyone here follows me on Instagram you will have seen the WIP pics of this guy getting done with the final update on my first test Incubi today. I decided that since Incubi shrines are often a separate entity from the Raiding Force that employs them it would give me an opportunity to paint a scheme that is quite different from the rest of my force without it seeming too out of place. I've also secretly been jealous of Deathwing armies and, in my opinion, that beautiful cream paint scheme they get to do. I also wanted to try something very different for the blades that strays from my typical metallic scheme for weapons. It's a variation of a stylized highlighting method that was inspired by SpiralingCadaver here on Dakka and an attempt to mimic Elminiasutras OSL technique from instagram (without an airbrush). On both fronts I need more practice, the basis is there I think but my technique and execution could use some tidying up. Still generally happy with it as a first attempt however.

Overall though what do you guys think of my armies first Incubi?

Looking good! The Deathwing Incubi armour looks great, and I like the feathered highlights on the weapon!

I think it's rad. Good to see your work again.

Very cool and clean bone color scheme. Excited to see more of this army!

I really like this theme!
Bone color can be daunting to paint, but you managed very well.

Very Nice!

Thank you very much everyone for your kind words! I'm looking forward to continuing work on these guys. Next up will probably be my first Venom since my new beatsticks will likely need a ride to get them around the battlefield.

Work continued this morning on three more Incubi. Also my first time using a wet palette and I must say I think I'm now a convert. It took only a little bit of setup but smoothed out my process so much by always making sure my paint was at a nice consistency. Didn't have to add water or medium to my paint once all morning and was able to just brush away at the armour non stop. Big fan.

Inevitable_Faith,

Your Incubi will definitely stand out against the rest of your Dark Eldar.

I have never gotten into wet pallets as my painting windows are usually only a few minutes stolen here or there when the opportunity presents itself.

CB

 Captain Brown wrote:
Inevitable_Faith,

Your Incubi will definitely stand out against the rest of your Dark Eldar.

I have never gotten into wet pallets as my painting windows are usually only a few minutes stolen here or there when the opportunity presents itself.

CB

That's actually one of the main reasons I love the wet palette CB. The one I have seals up and I just leave it as is overnight. Most of my painting is done in a burst before I go to work so I just sit down, pop the lid off my palette and the same paint I was using yesterday is sitting there ready to go. It's actually cut down on my prep time and wasted paint (as I would have leftover paint on my old palette because I misjudged how much I'd need before going to work). I'd say if you only get a couple minutes here and there the wet palette may actually help you specifically.

Incubi looking really good there Inevitable_Faith!
Gotta get mine started as well.

It's actually quite fun and inspiring to follow another hobbyist working on a same army

And +1 for the wet palette! If I would name one thing that has improved my painting over the last couple of years, it's that godly invention.
No need to worry about thinning the paints all the time and worrying about them drying out. Thin them once, paint all night

Thanks Ezki! I'm amazed it took me this long to get myself a wet palette, they seemed like a great idea for so long but I never pulled the trigger on one. Then one day out of the blue a buddy of mine asks me to drop by his place and grab something, gifted me a brand new Army Painter palette because... it was a saturday? Either way I'm very grateful to him. Next on my hit list is to invest in some higher quality brushes. I keep seeing the brushes in painting tutorial vids with these flawless tips and I look at mine with splayed out bristles everywhere. No amount of maintenance or care seems to keep them nice and tight for me.

Nice job on the bone armour!

Bit more progress on the Incubi today. Two of them have the armour nearly complete, just need highlights. The third is just under half done. Once the highlights are done for all three the major work for these will be done then its just down to details which went pretty quick on my test model.

Hope everyone has a fantastic weekend!