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It even debuted on the table yesterday. Blew the hell out of some a couple of groups of gaunts & a ripper swarm before finally getting taken out by a Trygon Prime. So, not a bad first time out. Looking at it, there's some touch up that needs to be done, but probably not enough to post another pic. Just me being finicky.

One more to do. Nice to be back in the saddle with my Mantis Warriors again!

Thanks for the comments guys! I always appreciate it VERY much. Keeps me going when things get tedious or repetitive.

Nice cannon you have there, Gits.

Interesting issue with the new paint. If the pigment is really that strong then you can probably get away with watering it down quite a bit (and maybe add something to break the surface tension of the water).

Good save and looks great with the mech' chap.

Nice work Gits

Seem to have rescued the verdigris nicely, and as others have said the contrast 'tween the metals and the green is lovely.

Agreed, that pops beautifully.

Somehow that mantis green is really jaring with the rest of the model.

Agreed.. If your worried it's too Vergis, I say no with the green cover. Thats where your eye is drawn too!

It works.

The green cover only seems jarring to me in the top image - where it seems to have a "shine" to it - like the photo was taken after a gloss varnish, but before the final matt varnish. The rest of the cannon and tech priest are very dull/realistic in comparison - hence it stands out/potentially jars.

However, the second and third images are fine - matching the overall intensity.

I suspect it is a photographic non issue

What type of micron pens do you use Gits?

Re-visited the cannon. Added some chipping as I'm wanting to do this on all my vehicles/machinery & hoping it might make the cowls look a bit more in tune with the tarnished bronze. Also changed the lighting set-up for the photo a bit in hopes that things will look better. Comments, votes, flames are all welcome of course. This is an equal opportunity P&M thread.



@wyfox: Micron 005, .20 mm

Time to drop in again and comment instead of lurking! Love the Thunder Fire Cannons Gits, your conversion is well done, as usual. Not sure if I missed it earlier but why don't you have all the bits for the second cannon? I used the new verdigris paint myself the other day and found similar to you that it doesn't really wash and a bit of wiping and additional dry brushing. I feel your pain with the GKs, I bought some Crimson Fists myself to touch up & sell on and I'm already thinking of keeping them as I have always had a soft spot for them. Keep up the good work, as always I love your thread.

Thanks Reaper, I very much appreciate your thoughtful comments. Much better than the mindless drivel I usually put forth.

I bought the cannon at a gaming "garage sale" that's held at my FLGS every year. I didn't at the time, realize how many parts it was missing... still, I got a decent deal on it and fixing it up was satisfying.

I should get to the verdigris on the second TFC one of these next evenings. It'll be interesting to see if I can tweak the application a bit so it works better. I'm assuming it's not designed to be a wash... more of a lining agent... but I should do my best to make both guns look relatively uniform so we'll see what I can do.

Love it xx.

I thought the first attempt looked pretty good but now you've had another go I have to say the latest version is much better.

Thanks Dee & monkeyh. I do get the "jarring" comment because even weathered... the deep green of the cowel is quite incongruous against the tarnished metal of the rest of the gun. There's not a hell of a lot I can do about that without a complete re-paint... which I'm not doing.

In hind sight... I could probably add a couple of green touches here and there on the gun which would help tie things together... but at this stage of the game the necessary airbrushing is out of the question.

I like all of it except the verdigris- especially on the first pic in your post a few above this one, it seems to have pooled only on the lower half of the tip of the cannon. And seems to pool in the lower parts of all the cogs/wheels as well.

Not sure if that's just a side effect of the paint, or maybe it's totally intentional... I just think your weathering is better without it.

Although the more I look at it, the more it's growing on me. Absolutely love the green panels and the weathering on them, of course!

Part of that... actually a large part of that... is that I had to dry-brush over the cannon, which was mostly blue after I got done with the verdigris application in order to bring back some of the metal color. I may go back and line-in some of the verdegris again on the upper creases in order to balance things back out.

Chipping looks good. The top of the barrel with the lighter vertigris fits better with the cowling IMO.

excellent work gits, I just think the black barrel part needs some attention too. It looks too clean compared to the rest.

Yeah, I've been contemplating that as well Theo. I'll have to ponder that a bit more, see if I can come up with a creative solution.

Looks awesome Gits! Only thing I could suggest is a bit of weathering dust on the white parts of the mechanicum symbol? With everything else so chipped and weathered that part looks fresh from mars. A tiny suggestion though....

Well San, this is one of those "rolling projects" that I know at the time that I'm finished with it that it's not really done... I'm just sick of looking at it. With prompting then, over the next couple of weeks I usually go back and fix this and that until it's either better or been done to death and just needs to be set aside.

I'll fiddle with this a few more times & try and address the good points everyone's made, then it'll be time to set it down. Besides... I have a squiggoth that needs finishing and a second one of these TFCs that I don't want to have to spend a month to finish off!

Great work Gits, as for the new verdigris from GW I had the same effect - also watering it down also tends to make it crack which is really not helpful - If you can get your hands on Modelmates Verdigris you will definitely be satisfied - they have a blueish shade and a greenish shade. Both products kick ass

I'll keep my eyes out for it Armorum, thanks for the tip.

In talking with a few other folks around here, I think the way it's supposed to be used is as a heavy pseudo-wash... then you dry brush the base colors over the top of it to bring the metal colors back. That's what I ended up doing on mine just on instinct.

Totally fair enough Gits.. I got a few things on the go like that too

TFC == That Cannon

Thought for the day... Eight flyers are significantly better than six!

And a teaser from today's tournament.




So, you'd think this has nothing to do with marines. HOWEVER... I took second & with the discount offered to tournament participants and my prize money... I picked up a box of centurions at a very significant discount!

Oooh, now I am VERY interested in what you could do with Centurions.

I experimented a while back with building a cross between a Techmarine and a Dreadnaught to use as my Master of the Forge, didn't pan out but the possibilities.....

Also thought you could easily fix the whole "Where are the centurion's arms" question by scratchbuilding mini Dreadnaught style arms and end up a real "missing link" style suit hallway between a Termie and a Dread.


Sorry, just my two cents

So, I thought I've chat a bit about the tournament yesterday... even though it really had nothing to do with my Mantis Warriors. Please forgive the OT nature of this post, but this blog is my main way of communicating with my dakka friends.

Had a wonderful time at a local tournament yesterday. 3 rounds, 1500 points. The missions were interesting as they weren't quite standard & seemed to progress in point value... so the first mission had the fewest possible points, the second and the third the most (potentially). I liked it because if you didn't kill it on the first game, you still weren't out of the running battle points-wise as no one got all that many points in game 1. Placement was decided by win/loss record with battle points being the tiebreaker. Each side also had a skyfire nexus in each game, so there was plenty of AA fire available, even if your army/codex didn't normally have it.

I picked an army that I thought would be fun to try. At first glance it looked very DB-like... but as things washed out it wasn't as overpowered as you might think.

My list: "Gitsplitta's Flying Circus"
Orks
HQ: warboss on bike
TP: 4 nob bikers + painboy
TP: 10 grots
FA: 3 dakkajets w/ extra super shoota & flyer ace
Necron Allies
HQ: vanilla overlord
TP: 5 warriors in night scythe
TP: 5 warriors in night scythe
HV: doom scythe



So... at first glance it looks very nasty with 6 flyers, but keep in mind all those flyers are AV10 or 11. The dakka jets can be brought down by anything stronger than a las gun. So, I'd hoped it would be fun and off-putting for my opponents... but not completely overwhelming.

Game 1 was against a deathwing terminator army. I flew around... killed off his few normal marines and generally shot uselessly at his terminators. On turn 3 he held both of the primary objectives, by turn 5 I held them both & by turn 7 we each held one... yielding a tie. I didn't lose any planes but they obviously weren't overwhelming. Fun game the way it swung back-and-fourth.

Game 2 was against a foot Taudar list (actually, there were MANY Taudar lists in the tournament... 1/3 at least) w/ battle suits, war walkers, bikes & a wave serpent. It was nip-and-tuck but I was generally losing in the face of huge infantry squads, battle suits and the skyfire nexus... however I managed to route his eldar HQ and some dire avengers off the skyfire nexus (and off the board) and thinned out the infantry enough that I could push forward with my biker nobs to claim the center objective and walk or drop my Necron troops on two others, securing a 1-point win. Hardly an overwhelming victory... but a fun game & I'll take what I can get. I think I lost 3 of 6 planes.

Game 3 was against another (mostly) foot Taudar list w/ riptide, suits, bikes & a wave serpent. I couldn't believe it but we were actually on the second table, battling it out for 3rd. Justin had his own AA and combined with the skyfire nexus was really handing my my *ss. 3 planes came on, fired once, then were shot down on the following turn. The quirk in the mission was called "meat grinder". When you lost a unit, you rolled... on a 5 or 6 they come back in continuing reserve. The turn I lost all three planes (turn 2 or 3) I got two of them back, then on turn three I rolled in all 5 planes (or it might have been turn 4 when they all come in automatically... can't remember). My bikes had pushed into his rear and taken out the wave serpent... and 5 flyers and the nobs all hitting his line at once was just too much. I did try and play it smart by not killing his units that turn, I spread my fire out so I could weaken them (i.e. they couldn't resurrect if they weren't dead) & took a chance on killing them the subsequent turns where the resurrected units would have less chance to have an impact. Justin also got unlucky in that he didn't manage to resurrect the units that would have helped him the most. When all was said and done, I won the (kill point) mission something like 15-9. The irony here is that the only army to get completely overwhelmed by air-power was the army that was really well set up to deal with it...



So, I won 2 out of 3 games and managed to get enough points in the third game to sneak into second place.


It was very fun. All my opponents were great. We all know how good the Necron flyers are. The dakkajets are *really good* vs. light infantry & armor, decent vs. MEQ & nearly useless vs. terminators... especially when your opponent is rolling well above average on his saves. They are however... a lot like Japanese Zeros... shooty as heck but basically rice paper over a balsa wood frame.

All in all, a really fun day topped off with being able to snag a great prize for myself. Hard to argue with that!

Congrats

Congratuations - sounds like a fun day and a cool prize to play with