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So today I managed to fix Furian's leg and rebuilt Castivar in an upright stance. Also managed to build one more bolter marine, so only two more to go for Squad Lorenzo.

What do yall think about Castivar? Should I go for an upright or the more exotic crouched pose? What about the helmet, should I keep it plain or use the HH sergeant one like on this pict?

I like the way the chainbayonets connect to the bolters! I was concerned they'd be fiddly to assemble, luckily the are solid and easy to add. Will be adding more of them to the squad for sure.

Squad is taking shape nicely. I found the kit great is some aspects but a letdown in others. Seems it's hard to get more than 5 unique models out of the kit as the sprues are identical between each 5 man sprue. Add in the additional sergeant and that's all you get unless you kitbash some other weapons. I like how you've sprinkled in the special weapons in yours and I might have to end up trying to hunt down that upgrade kit - sneaky GW tricking us into spending more money!

 Eggroll wrote:
Squad is taking shape nicely. I found the kit great is some aspects but a letdown in others. Seems it's hard to get more than 5 unique models out of the kit as the sprues are identical between each 5 man sprue. Add in the additional sergeant and that's all you get unless you kitbash some other weapons. I like how you've sprinkled in the special weapons in yours and I might have to end up trying to hunt down that upgrade kit - sneaky GW tricking us into spending more money!

Yeah, I have to agree with you. The five poses feel quite limiting. I can only hope we will be getting an Assault Squad kit to go with the tactical at some point, which would give us five more poses to work with.

As for the MKVI upgrade kits, my plan was to buy them all from the beginning. I suppose it's a bummer having to buy the guns separately, but it does make sense considering the MKVI kit is for 30K, where bolters and bayonets are the bread & butter for tac squads. I still need Lascannons from the unreleased upgrade kit for my Devastator squad. I was thinking of going 50/50 Lascannon and Heavy Bolter for the Devastators.

In other news, I finally managed to score a Deimos Rhino! My long time plan has been to add that classic Land Speeder + Whirlwind combo to my army, as it's such an Iconic Space Marine thing to do. Even has a specific Stratagem for it IIRC. However, I never wanted the MkII Rhino based Whirlwind, but a Deimos chassis based one. Deimos Rhinos have been out of stock for ages, and when they got back in stock, the FW doors for them were out. Luckily, the stars finally aligned for me and I was able to order both at the same time. Don't mind the shaggy looking Missile turret, it's just a proxy piece from my old Whirlwind; I will be sourcing out a new fresh turret for sure, as my building technique has vastly sharpened up these days. TBH I had zero clue on how to properly clean up model bits back then hehehe!

The tolerances on the Deimos Rhino kit are tight! I have a feeling I wont be able to get a perfectly flush build no matter how much care I take in filing and dry fitting, so will need to resort to gap filling for sure. I've been meaning to learn the alchemical secrets of Milliput & Isopropyl Alcohol for a while now, this is as good time as any to start practicing..

PS: I also preordered a Sicaran, but unsure what exactly to do with it. It's a gorgeous tank but I'm not yet sure how many tanks I want in my army, original idea was to go flyer heavy instead, in order to really push the "Space" angle of Space Marines more than what is commonplace in most Marine armies.. Oh heck, I suppose one "Chapter Relic" can fit in.. I mean, it's our Techmarine's favourite after all

The build is now at ~80% complete. At this stage I'm thinking of keeping the remaining pieces unglued before proceeding with the painting stage, this will make painting the treads and inside spaces much easier.

Wrapping up things with the Rhino took a long time, as I realized the plastic treads of the kit would takes AGES to clean up. Unsightly mold lines running through the entire lenght of the tracks! In the end, I got a Dremel Stylo+ and a pack of 320 grit finishing buffers, and managed to get everything cleaned up with a lot less pain.

I'll leave the side doors unglued for now so that I can go with the Chapter Symbol doors whenever this Rhino is being fielded as a Whirlwind instead. IIRC it was Mr. Roll who commented that the FW Chapter Doors cannot physically open? Well, for a Whirlwind, that's OK Both types of side doors are tightly cut and stay in place well enough even without needing glue.

Next up, the Contemptors. I'll partially assemble a resin Contemptor so that I can compare it with the plastic kit, as I have been thinking of making a mixed plastic-resin build, taking the distinctly 40K-er looking resin torso and building a highly dynamic pose via the plastic bits. I bought a spare weapons upgrade sprue for the AoD box Contemptor, in order to have the same full kit as what's sold separately.

After the Contemptor, my Sicaran should have arrived.

Well, that went together fast! The resin Contemptor kit is a breeze to build, with only minimal cleanup required. Next, I will start building the plastic version, looking forward to this kitbash!

The resin Contemptor is hella cool in every aspect but the posability of the legs. Fortunately the legs on the plastic kt are super posable! I have a feeling the combined kit might come out real nice..

GW still hasn't released a new Assault Squad plastic kit, I have been feeling a bit stuck with the army. Got the Space Marine Heroes Series 1 bundle, now that they were re-released in red plastic, and checking the pieces for kitbashing with the MKVI tactical kit reveals yet more differences between the new and old sculpts.

While the SMH1 marines seem to be about the same height as the MKVI kit, they are clearly more oddly proportioned. Legs look skinnier, heads and hands look bigger. It is becoming evident the MKVI kit resculpt pretty much tweaked and refined all the proportions of a beakie, and IMHO, for the better. SMH marines look tall, but they have clearly "skipped leg day" for a lack of a better term, also the smaller hands on the MKVI improve the overall look considerably. So the initial assesment I had that MKVI kit only gave us a tad longer thigs was naive and simplistic in hindsight. Aesthetically this all is great, but in terms of kitbashing, it's very frustrating!

There's 3 MKVI compatible torsos in the SMH1 set, one crouching, one auspex-scanning and one standing Heavy Weapon one. I used the crouching one for yet another Castivar test, I think I like this one the best so far! Thinking of magnetizing the weapon arm & backpack so as to be able to change his Heavy Weapon between a Lascannon, Plasmacannon & ML. The other two torsos I'm still figuring out, the Auspex one will probably become a Devastator Sgt down the line (I can reuse the strapped boltgun elsewhere), while the Heavy Weapon torso might also end up becoming another Sgt. Some cutting and fitting to do..

I was using Squad Lorenzo in a Kill Team "last stand" mission (He was awesome in-game!), where I decided to swap Lorenzo's combi-bolter to a more standard plasmapistol/fist configuration. I'm really digging the pose he ended up with, and am seriously considering making this loadout his permanent one, just because of the pose. I know that's pretty much the Sgt pose GW gives us out of the box "as intended", so not original looking, but can't deny its not a great pose.

Lastly, got those new resin HH shoulderpads and man do they look sharp! Tempted to swap out all the tac shoulderpads to these new crisp ones, but at the same time I kind of like the more lived in feeling the squad inherits from having several different chapter symbol styles, mixing the resin pads with the old plastic designs.. Fluff-wise, I can imagine a brother sticking with the chapter symbol he is first given on his first armour donning ceremony, and having several different designs emphasises every brother having their own "duty roster", with some of the brothers more fresh-faced than others (Furian is the longest-serving vet of the squad, his MKIV parts make this clear). Sprinkling various Chapter symbols and switching up the accesories of the marines should hopefully give me a bit more variety yet again, add some physical battle damage marks to give further distinction..

I intend to work on my Into The Dark terrain during the holidays, so pretty much just shuffling bits around for the time being. After the new year we should see new Horus Heresy reveals. Jetbikes have been rumoured, so who knows, maybe the Assault Marines will follow after those.. Please, god Emperor, let them be MKVI also!

Small progress update before christmas: Scorpius kit arrived and I finally got my Razorback kitbash pieces!

Am thinking of using the Scorpius Launcher on my Sicaran Chassis instead. Some folks say it looks off, but I feel like mixing parts across vehicle kits yields a more agreeable looking "motorpool" overall. Don't mind if I use a Deimos front armour plate on a Mars pattern rhino, the rule of cool always wins.

I have to say I much prefer the look of a Rhino with the cyclops front armour plate! This sort of vision slit reachess across the whole SM kit range, from Castaferrum dreads, to Caestus Asault Rams et al. On a Rhino, it just looks right, it gives a larger sense of mass to the front "tusk" area, if that makes sense.

Happy holidays everyone!

Those resin pads look great. I like the idea of mixing in the various options too, as you say, it gives them a sense of individuality. Shame the SMH marines don’t quite match the new mkvi, but en masse they should blend in well enough.

Started working on a Land Raider Proteus Explorator. It's a sweet kit, although some of the sprue gates are a little tightly located. While assembling this one, I finally got the hang of using Tamiya Extra Thin Cement like its supposed to be used, by applying droplets to the inside seams and relying on the capillary reaction to drive the glue home. Results in super neat joins as long as you dont apply too much glue! I think I prefer building this kit to the Deimos Rhino, getting stuff to line up flush doesn't require any sanding

I decided that I will make my Spartan into an oversized Land Raider Proteus Carrier instead. Mounting double Lascannons instead of the quad Lascannons should make the distinction clear enough for casual play.

Proteus Explorator 90% complete! Just needs a final round of sanding and cleanup and it's ready for priming.

I noticed a slightly annoying detail regarding the kit - The supposed firing arcs of 180 degree per side with the Lascannons is physically impossible due to the design of the swivel mounts While there are some ways to overcome this flaw somewhat, by trimming the ends of the cannons or using the larger Spartan swivel mounts, I decided neither method looks as good as building the kit as designed, even if that means that a firing arc of 180 degrees for the Lascannons will remain a distant pipedream. My OCD is bothered a little, but rule of cool always wins, even at the cost of practicality/make-believe-realism.

Interestingly, I learned that the original plastic Land Raider kit had different type of swivel mounts which had a true 180 degree firing arc. As much as I love this iteration of the plastic kit (IMHO the ever so slightly tweaked proportions of this model are superior looking!), I must admit GW/FW dropped the ball with regards to the swivel mount in actual 40K lore..

I went with a pintle-mounted HB and double smoke launchers on the sides, since that particular combo for me personally is the definitive Land Raider build. A shame the searchlights cannot be built as they were originally on the Rogue Trader book (on the front, on both sides), but at least I can model the top hatch to be 90 degrees sideways like in the original rulebook schematics

I'm waiting for one more SMH2 series two-barreled storm bolter model to arrive via mail, once it ships, I will continue bashing work with the Terminator Squad.

While waiting for the SMH2 Storm Bolter arm bits to arrive, thought I'd make the next test model. Thanks to a tip from @AndrewGPaul , I got the idea to check out Tuskgor Fur, a current Citadel colour which is supposedly a good match for the Terracotta colour found in the 1989 Space Marine Paint Set. Well, turned out that Tuskgor Fur is a great highlight shade for the AK Red Primer I have been using

Here is a pict of this testmodel WIP, just before getting oil washes, cleanup and extra weathering. I'll do the oil washes during next week, and let each colour settle for at least 24 hours, with the oils continuing to evolve even past that point in time and all..

Figured I got quite a bunch of the old proportioned Beakies that are useless now, so might as well make more test models out of them

First Oil washes (wet)

 gobert wrote:
Those resin pads look great. I like the idea of mixing in the various options too, as you say, it gives them a sense of individuality. Shame the SMH marines don’t quite match the new mkvi, but en masse they should blend in well enough.

Oh hey Gobert, had missed your post earlier. Hope the new year is shaping up to be a productive hobby year for you sir!

Yeahh, the SMH Marine's are in a weird place in the marine miniatures range. Their overall proportions are the same as the plastic marines of old, yet they are about as tall as the new Beakies. I don't know what the designers were thinking tbh. But I will just use a couple of them so it should be fine? maybe using the new smaller heads and arms will help them blend into the others better..

Ooh, good to see some paint going down. Good to know that tusk gor fur over red is a decent approximation for the old terracotta, it was a lovely paint and is in use on some of my old Orks. The Land Raider does look cool, even if the lascannons can’t swivel to face rearwards. Iirc though the OG land raider could only fire rearwards if you turned the cannons upside down (rotate about Y axis instead of Z, if that makes sense). I moved mine a while ago, I’ll have to have a look when I get home

Testmodel #5 has now served its purpose. Notes for next test:

• Ensure masking on weapons when applying red primer (too many paint layers build up a crust)
• Keep on tightening up the basecoat edge accuracy & paint consistency control
• When applying weathering, less is more (went a bit overboard again...)
• Transfers are a PITA to align, more align practice needed (Thank the Emperor for 3D symbols!)

All in all, I found an even better colour/value distribution this time compared to the Primaris colourtest. Adding a touch of Red oil into the Rust wash tints the armour even closer to the muted Orange/Red spectrum I'm going for. Few more of these tests and I'll have basic infantry recipe nailed! (And yes, testing the RT trader helmet stripe with the next one!)

I love a good helmet stripe! The recipe looks to be giving good results, looking forward to the nailed down secret sauce

The last missing SMH2 bitz arrived, I should now have all the pieces required for completing all the basic builds of my Honour Guard. Bashed the double-barreled Storm Bolter in place for my most dynamic pose. I'm trying to go for a pose where the Marine is midway in leap, powerfist about to suckerpunch a target, it's not far off now!

In terms of cutting the arms, I realized one of the most stress-free ways to cut into a termie hand seems to be from the back of the arm-to-wrist piece, there's an almost straight line running across the elbow joint and the thicker part of the wrist. The reattachment only requires a bit of filler or sprue goo, assuming you get a clean cut. Doing this takes only a single clean cut with a JLC, whereas the alternative requires two cuts, around the weapon itself no less, and is therefore a more risky option compared to this method.

That's two Storm Bolters down, two to go..

New FW stuff arrived in the mail today, so a lil update:

The Ultramarines MKVI helmet upgrade gives us the classic "Sergeant stripe" beakie helmet with updated proportions. When I saw the reveal of these helmets, the side grille vents looked uneven (hand sculpted?) and oddly positioned; luckily the final resin heads have cleanly cut helmet grille details and the positioning is a lil better. Here's one of the new Sgt helms swapped on to brother Lorenzo, the differences are subtle but the slightly smaller helmet does look quite nice! Still on the fence about the difference in details tho, I would maybe have preferred just a size difference, will have to see how I feel about the helmet lens side slits after looking at them for a bit longer..

As anyone following this log knows, I'm a stickler for details. FW has announced new Raven Guard MKVI helmet upgrades, and I am really into the retro details of those helmets! I'll be buying a few boxes of those heads for sure once they get released. They will probably come out soonish, way before the new Assault Marines anyway, so no rush (yes, I will not lock down any builds for Squad Lorenzo until I see the new Assault kit - 5/6 distinct torsos are aight but not ideal)

Also got the only upscaled MKVI HQ sculpt I like, the new EC Praetor kit. This model is the only one released so far which IMHO respects the original MKVI armour design language, and just embellishes it, instead of the weaksauce attempts of the two Plastic Praetors which came in the AoD box. Those two Praetors look like they are wearing a more generic, "HH-appropriate" mishmash of armour marks, Artificed up to 11, but not really like beakies at all..

There are a few "III" symbols on the EC Praetor kit, but luckily only one small one on the torso, should be easy to hide/remove.. Here's the new Captain draft, i swapped out the Raven guard jump pack for the Zephon kit jump pack (same connector bit as the resin Praetor, yay!). What do you think? The inferno pistol arm will still probably change, but I love that Sang Guard Powerfist too damn much to let it go. It is very oversized, maybe not perfect after all? The pose of the model itself is bit static for a jump pack model, but I feel its aight, my man is observing the battle in progress, figuring out where to jump off to next.

You might be wondering what I'm going to do with a Zephon model without a Jump Pack? I already have plans for him, he shall become my DC "leader" (DC units dont have a sarge but whatever, he's their leader). I always wanted my DC to have plenty of prosthetic limbs, so the Zephon model will be a perfect foundation for a replacement model to my TH DC guy (featured earlier in the thread). The armour has extra skulls and bling, so should fit into my personal headcanon for my DC as well (the most blinged out unit in the army).

Bought a new primer (Mr Color Oxide Red) and thought I'd try a helmet stripe stencil I've been thinking of using.

Got these nifty brass strips in a few thicknesses, and was thinking of bending them to shape. Stripe colour basecoat, followed by primer in the armour main colour applied with the stencil in place, should (hopefully) give me a sharp, straight line across a helmet. I need to determine the exact line thickness, I still want the distinction of a Sergeant stripe and a regular Battle Brother stripe to be clear enough. Starting at 0,5mm strip..

I'll get the airbrush out tomorrow and test out at least one line

Life got in the way, no time for hobby rn..

Reposed the Cap'n - What do you think?

Slight detour. I've been into KillTeam21 since it's launch, and with the arrival of Void War bases, felt like it was ample time to get started assembling my KillTeams from the various boxes I've decided to keep. Starting with Eldar Corsairs.

I am still studying Corsair and Eldari lore, but drafted half of the upcoming team. These will be kitbashes, hopefully I can get every model to look at least slightly individualistic from each other.

And back to my IXth, new Raven Guard MKVI heads just hit preorder. I should have some by April. No rush, the plastic Assault squad kit is still months away from seeing release..

EDIT: Created a separate thread for my KT21 builds, they will be here from now on:
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/809279.page

Holidays are here! Will finally have some more time to do modelling, and got me some monopose Indomitus Terminator models from the Leviathan box.

I love this new kit! It's quite easy to assemble and clean properly, thanks to the clever cutting of parts on the sprue. Mold lines are practically nonexistent. Time to make some scale comparisons with my previous builds..

Unfortunately, it seems the new models are better proportioned than the older sculpts. Next to a SMH2 series Sergeant, the difference isn't a dealbreaker yet, but next to the Ltd Ed Captain, ouch. The Ltd Edition Captain looks too small and his legs are really awkward looking. Damn.. looks like my Indomi builds will have to be redone using the new torsos at the very least..

We are starting a 40K Crusade Campaign soon, and I'm going to need a Devastator Squad and an Assault Squad (without jump packs) for the games. Probably will need to build those next.. Terminators are getting on hold until the new multipart plastics are released.

I

Built four out of five now. Swapped some arms around, as I wasnt terribly fond of the preset poses. I have to say these new Indomi termies are as much of a home run as the 2022 MKVI was at the time. Subtle refinements, resulting in superb renditions of the classic armour marks / patterns While the poses are less dynamic as with the SMH2 models, the overall quality of the new sculpts more than makes up for it.

I already ordered a Leviathan Captain, so my Ltd Edition Captain is getting a new torso at the very least.. But I want to keep the original throwbacks to the og metal Captain model, such as the respirator head/haircut and the skull adorned sword hilt

And then there were 5 (further fiddling with arms)

Cracking terminators tauist. The FW embelishments you’ve been adding are cool

I got the Captain torso, but since I also found that spanking new FW resin head (From the Space Marine Chaacter Heads Set #2) with a crewcut and a respirator, all the bitz are still not arrived.

In the meantime, I've been trying to come up with my custom Chapter Insignia, here are two of my test renders so far. I am aiming for that Rogue Trader Era flair, but with a "tightened up" appearance so that the old symbol wouldn't look as hand drawn as it originally did.. #1 is a version I've worked on for quite a bit, its a sort of extrapolated version from scans of the old logo (Scanned from my own transfers), while #2 is a new idea I thought of, a modification of the Palantine Aquila (the blood drop needs to be redesigned at the very least)

Decided I didn't want to wait for the new head, and went ahead with the new Cap sketches

(Tesing reduced image size, perhaps inline img quality will improve - Dakkas antialiasing algo is THE WORST lol)

...and here is the alt build which is more similar to our reference

Which one you prefer?

option 2 with out a doubt.

also both symbols above have merit but I prefer the top one of the two. just my twopennith...

this whole project is really brimming with oldskool yummyness and the terminators are a lovely addition...

Dunno if it's just me, but the lower res picts look just as awful in Dakka's previews as higher res ones..? Anyways, here's one more "mood board" pict from me before I wrap things up tonight. I know my progress is stupid slow, but I promised my dying father I'd spend years on this army, just to get it right, which seemed to delight him (he was an artist, loved oil paints)

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 gobert wrote:
Cracking terminators tauist. The FW embelishments you’ve been adding are cool

Ta Gobert! Rest assured, I will be adding the FW shoulderpads to all of the termies. The monopose Leviathan models have non-detachable shoulderpads, so I'm waiting for the multipart plastic kit for the arm bits.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 osjclatchford wrote:
option 2 with out a doubt.

also both symbols above have merit but I prefer the top one of the two. just my twopennith...

this whole project is really brimming with oldskool yummyness and the terminators are a lovely addition...

My thoughts are similar. That grenade harness is just too classic, it has to be included.. The hilted skull adorned sword is a problem, getting it to fit snug will be a challenge, I'll file it down from the backside some.

And the topmost BA symbol has been my idea from the start, so I suppose I'll keep on trying to improve it further. I was thinking of creating custom transfers of the logo for pads & banners, but don't have access to a printer, so will take sussing out..