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Another long overdo project gets under way: my Chaos Space Marines army!

After much thought, I've realized that C: CSM 4ed demands that you have as many different colored army men in your force as possible. To honor the Ruinous Powers who wrote that book, I've decided to go along with their malevolent plan. So for my first troops choice, I'm going to paint up a batch of Nilla CSM as Night Lords. Here's the test model:









The next step is to post some pics of the second (and as of yet unassembled/unpainted) test model for Troops Choice The Second. And what fearsome villains could better complement the bitter, atheistic Night Lords than their zealous cousins the Word Bearers? Stay tuned!

If I ever have a ton of money to blow, I'm making a Word Bearers army with Marduk, Burias and everyone from the books. So much win.

How would you model them?

So far I'm likin' you Night Lords. I like the lightning effect but maybe you should add some to the back of the CSM cause the back looks alittle plain compared to the front.

Night Lord! Not representade enough IMO! I agree with schank, some lightning on the back would be nice

I'm not sure about painting lightning effects on their backs. Maybe some will get this treatment. I want to avoid painting the effect on every smooth surface they have.

More pressing issue: any suggestions on basing?

I know some people love them, but I'd lose the bat-wing helmets too.

They never manage to look as good as they should:



Instead, go with 'terror markings' (i.e., a painted skull face):



Much cooler, Pre-Heresy looking, and probably truer to what the NL's stand for now as well!

Either way, a good start, and I'm looking forward to more!

I definitely liked Aaron Dembski-Bowden's Soul Hunter and enjoyed listening to Throne of Lies. But my Night Lords are hardcore villains as per Index Astartes and not merely disaffected legionaires like Talos. The decision to exclude the batwings on the cover of Soul Hunter was a poor one and, IMO, a symptom of GW taking itself too seriously. Therefore: some of the squad will have skull-faces, yes, but ALL will have batwings.


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Alpharius wrote:Either way, a good start, and I'm looking forward to more!

And thanks for this. You never know how important little compliments are until you start one of these threads.

I think a snowy base would look great against the dark blue of the Night Lords. Also, I can't belive that so many people hate the wings on Nightlords, even if they can look abit silly sometimes. How about giveing aspiring champions a skull helm? Would be fitting if the head of a champion would look like the legions symbol.

I will definitely take your suggestion about the AC having a skull face, Limbo. The snowy bases are something I really want to do but I'm not sure if this is the best project for them. This army will eventually contain Word Bearers and maybe also Death Guard. Not sure how the snow would work with them.

Although . . .

For the Word Bearers, a gore-on-the-snow look might be good a la this ghoul by Dakka's own Aquila:



*You can find his thread of these guys and other VC stuff here.

I'd be more worried with the dirty snow required for Plague Marines . . . Like a lot of Nurgle stuff, that might just end up looking a right mess rather than turning out cool.

Wouldn't the snow melt from nurgle ichor? Other suggestions for bases, something green perhaps, could work with both the Word bearers and Night Lords.
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?pageMode=multi&categoryId=900004&pIndex=1&aId=6700006&start=2
I thought this page had some nice suggestions

He looks good, though I've never liked the official Night Lord heads. I like bat wings on Night Lords but the wings on the official helmets look oversized, in my opinion.

I really dislike the bat wings. I loved the Night Lords books and good god the best thing about them was the lack of those hideous wings. The skulls on chains thing Xarl had was rockin', I think that works better. Terror markings and trophys > bat wings... come on.

i <3 a good night lords army, good luck and i will be following this thread

maybe an idea for chosen to have the skull helmets? and are you running them as C:CSM or loyalist codex?

Running as Chaos. I'm not really comfortable with the idea of using the SM book when Chaos is so spoilt for choice.

I think the snowy base would look good. Would make a nice contrast with the Night Lords and the Word Bearers. Or even lava if your comfortable with doing the lighting effects. But dont get rid of the bat wing helms. If your looking at something differant try modeling them more after the wing and the dark angles.

A few words about batwing helms:

(1) Close up pics of minis have a way of tricking the eye into looking for familiar proportions. Look at the horns on other CSM helmets and you will eventually realize how absurdly oversized they are. The horns are, for whatever reason, easier to accept than the batwings. But keep in mind that these minis are not modeled for close-up pics. If I had the skill to make diorama pieces, no doubt I would greenstuff smaller batwings for the model's helmet. I would also convert it to true scale, however, for the same reasons.

(2) Of the four head variants, this is the largest set of wings. You can see them here. Given the different poses, I would theorize that the wings are not just fixed in one position but are actually capable of unfurling--adding further terror to the Night Lords' already frightful visages. I can't offer anything from WD or BL to prove this theory but I think that'd be awesome.

(3) Here's what A D-B had to say about this (from WarSeer):

Dead.Blue.Clown wrote:

mistercactus wrote:Dead.Blue.Clown: Visual/modeling question. Do Dembski=Bowden Night Lords Have big red wings sticking out of their helmets?

Sweet Jesus, no.

I mean, maybe... some do.

But not as a general rule.

Now with all due respect, EPIC FAIL--even worse than the group cry at the end of Throne of Lies, IMO. This is a partly a Night Lords thread, so let me use a Batman anology. The Burton Batman movies dealt with the silliness of a grown man dressing up as a bat by taking into account that the world in which Batman exists is itself somewhat silly and stylized. The Nolan movies sidestep the issue by giving Batman more "realistic" gear and throwing him into more "realitic" situations. Instead of the Batmobile, we get a souped-up Hummer. Instead of being a super villain, the Joker is a terrorist. While The Dark Knight is clearly a better film than 1989's Batman in so many ways, it doesn't manage to capture the authentic feeling of Batman as well. I think Soul Hunter and Throne of Lies are like The Dark Knight in this regard.

As I mentioned in this thread, my Night Lords are inspired by Index Astartes II. They are nihilistic, sado-masochistic cowards. Pure bad guy. Unlike Talos, they aren't just disillusioned ex-Space Marines. They are malicious, depraved, maniacal CHAOS Space Marines the likes of which Word Bearers would be proud to fight with (despite their theological differences).

And they have batwings coming out of their helmets. Because. That. Is. Scary.

Whew. Next thing I know, you guys will be complaining that Emperor's Children wear pink!

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Ordo Dakka wrote:The skulls on chains thing Xarl had was rockin', I think that works better. Terror markings and trophys &gt

Check out the power-sword wielding arm that comes with the Night Lords bits. Ah, we see where Aaron's ideas come from!

physcosamatic wrote:i <3 a good night lords army, good luck and i will be following this thread

Thanks, I really appreciate that!

I can tell these would look a ton better if you had some slightly nicer photographs. They seem to be over sharpened, and they are rather tinged with red. What is your current photo set up? I always got to a window with some nice northern light streaming in, and put the model on a white paper backdrop.

I second the vote for lava bases, they would look very dramatic.

_Tim?

Hey, Tim. The main problem with these photos (aside from the would-be photographer) is that they were shot at night and only lit by a halogen about five feet off. I use a piece of white copy paper inside of a shoe box otherwise. I believe the red tinge is an effect from Dakka's photo enhancement. I'll try to take furture pics with daylight.

I'm not averse to having batwings on the helms at all, but I'd definitely chuck the stock NL heads and make something up of my own with plasticard ears. They would be smaller and thinner and wouldn't look like they should weigh the guys head down. Graft them onto ordinary CSM heads or even heads from Chaos Knights or Maxmini heads. Maybe some of the new FW heads.
Great paint job though, I helped out my brother painting this theme for his army. He used Black Legion for his troops, but his Dreadnought and all his elites are Night Lords (mercenaries)

Thinking on that now I may try to make some custom NL heads and cast them...

I really look forward to seeing that, Bro. Julian. Please post a link here when you get a thread going. Cross-referencing P&M threads is super helpful, I find.

Reading the Horus Heresy novels and the Night Lord series has made me itching to do some Night Lords of my own, your blog kinda tiped me over the edge. I tried making one without the ears, and it's painfully obvious that something is missing -.- So keep with the ears Manchu (even if you where planning to do that all along)! Anyway, here's the Night Lord without ears, maybe you can take some inspiration from it

Wow, Limbo, I really like your lightning! I've actually been thinking of converting that helmet with some bat ears for my sarge as per your earlier suggestion. Glad the thread got you turning out some Night Lords, too. Be sure and read A D-B's book for more inspiration. He's also got a new NL short story in Fear the Alien, although I haven't read it yet.

IF you get a thread of them going, be sure and post a link here. My motto regarding the P&M blogs is "the more cross-referencing, the better."

A D-B's books are awesome, still debating if I should buy the Throne of lies CD thought. Didn't know there were Night lords in fear the alien o.O Have to read faster.

As for a future Night Lords army.....first I have more then 500 points of Iron Warriors to paint and after that 1000 points White Scars, maybe after that, would be awesome.

I to like how the lightning turned out, thanks for the praise =). I used this guide for em: http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.php?autocom=ineo&showarticle=138

Looks great so far, nice to see a NL player who actually buys a conversion set

Subbed.

Thanks, Samus. I'm gratified to hear that someone appreciates the conversion set, haha. Damn thing was expensive enough.

The Word Bearer test model is on his way. Last weekend, I was preoccupied with BB stuff but did manage to get some painting in. And YES he will have his legion-specific sculpted pauldrons, too.

Alpharius wrote:I know some people love them, but I'd lose the bat-wing helmets too.

I rather like the winged heads - if the Berzerers, Rubric guys have their big hats, then same with the NLs.

So it's an army theme thing.

I like the look of your NL so far Manchu, I have an idea, why not a mix of the disenfranchised Astartes and the ones that are just plain evil?

Remember before they fell the Legion had an influx of personnel that weren't exactly good guys, yet they'd still have those that were from the "good" old days, gives the army a bit more character. Also I'd suggest using some loyalist marine bits on them, to represent how they don't always get new kit. Unless you go with them being in an Alliance or something with other traitors and getting new stuff, even then looting would still be common.

For example I'm pretty big into trying to fluff out my armies, so I was going with a Night Lords Company where the leadership is Primarily Old Guard, the Lord still uses his title of Captain and his Lieutenant goes by Commander, they are from the Mid-Late period of the Legion being loyal and now they dont care whether or not some of the Marines worship the dark gods, the years have taken their toll after all and what ever helps is good.

They even sometimes ask the Dark Gods for assistance but dont go so far as to worship them. Unlike the Company in Soul Hunter, the Astartes of this company have been recruiting regularly, taking both children, Traitor Astartes and using Dark Arts or Medical Experiments acquired from Bile to make Adults into Astartes.

Sorry I seemed to have droned on, if you'd like to hear more let me know, other wise I like how your Night Lords are turning out and I'm going to keep an eye on them.


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Also I'd like to get some Batwing but I havent the money and Im not overly fond of the GW ones but I do still like them. If only I was good with Green Stuff. Or eventually FW should make some.

The poor Word Bearer test model I started weeks ago is going to have to take a back seat once again.

Here's a Plague Marine I've been working on . . .



There's some conversion on his backpack but it doesn't show up well in the pics.



You can find another cool take on Plague Marines here.

You will also notice that I put a lot into his basing. Here are some other custom bases that I made up for his squadmates.



C&C welcome as always. Pray to the Ruinous Powers that the Word Bearer eventually gets finished . . .

Looks good! But you need a brighter light, methinks. Love the bases.