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The title says it all. My CSM army is supposed to be an undivided Black Legion list, but I went too far with the 'keeping it tidy' vow, and virtually nothing is converted. CSM are stock-standard, as are my Berzerkers, Bikers, Termies and the Sorcerer. Any tips to make them interesting? Yes, they are ALL assembled, and I don't want to pull them apart.

Bases done? How are you at freehand?

Well there is alot of stuff you can do but more then likely you will at least have to strip off the paint if you want to do any modding cause any kind of adhesive will distort the paint and just make a horrible mess of your minitures. Also green stuff does not adhear well or at all to prepainted surfaces =/.

Any bits you have from other armies to add as trophies to your chaos, you can usually get your friends to give you random bits they don't need since most of us have too freaking many as it is.

Also all your Chaos sprues come with all sort of embelishments for your troops such as spikes or trophy racks if you have not added them already.

As listed above and in tons of posts here in the modeling and Painting section green stuff is a great way to add some really dynamic looks to your minitures. There are some really great articles on Dakka about working with green stuff but again you are really gonna want to strip the paint off your figures before you do embelishments like that.

I hope this helps man and good luck.

Well, what do you *want* them to look like?

Worst case, you can just add a bunch of spikes on them...

Or just do a pikelhaube on the helmet.

IS this a question about basing or painting?

Currently it's very vauge. : /

Look to your avatar my friend, look to your avatar.

Splatter them with gloss red blood (Tamiya makes some good stuff). Nothing says 'chaos' like blood splatters.

Cheese Elemental wrote:The title says it all. My CSM army is supposed to be an undivided Black Legion list, but I went too far with the 'keeping it tidy' vow, and virtually nothing is converted. CSM are stock-standard, as are my Berzerkers, Bikers, Termies and the Sorcerer. Any tips to make them interesting? Yes, they are ALL assembled, and I don't want to pull them apart.

So, give us an idea of what we're looking at.

Are you willing to add pieces to the models, then paint the pieces, or would you prefer not to?
Are you talking about adding paint (only) to them?
Are you willing to spend some cash to do this?

One of the easiest things to do to spruce up a mini is to rebase it. If you have the funds, you can buy bases -prepainted, even- that have some spectacular decorations on them.
For your berzerkers, many companies (MicroArt Studios and, I think Epicast both) have skull covered bases. It's pretty standard fare. I'd bet most companies that make bases make skull bases.

You can make your own, too.
Buy a CoD kit and a pair of clippers. Tear up a few pieces of building, floor & decorations and slap them on some bases, then fill in the gaps with sand. These will paint up fairly easily.

If switching bases, I strongly suggest clipping the tab off of the feet of your metal minis and pinning ALL models (even plastic ones) to the base.

Then again, as has been mentioned, you always have paint. Go back & work on the highlights.
Did you "go all out" on your Black Legion before? If not, do it now. A well highlighted BL mini looks spectacular, IMO.

Well painted "battle damage" is another wqy to make a "regular" paint job pop.


Give us some more info, and we'll throw more ideas at you.

Post some pics, too, if you can. We can be even more specific, then.

Eric

Gears of War style bolters with chainsaws attached, screaming green stuff faces sticking out of everyone's armour and model gory space marine heads onto everyone's bases.

I agree that the easiest way for you to do make your army more interesting is with the bases - here's a few ideas:

- Snow theme - snow, rocks, and skulls
- Jungle theme - use GW's jungle sprues + plastic aquarium plants and give them all some heavy cover
- Ruined Urban theme - not just the standard streets with rubble, but razorwire/barbwire, abandoned enemy weapons, shot-up street signs

Start over. Yeah, you heard me. Start over. I would do it one unit at a time. You already have a full army to play games with, so there is no rush. Come up with an idea, or even do it like me and make it up as you go along . I am planning on doing the same method as I repaint my Orks. As you complete each unit, replace the old one and put the old unit up for trade here or on Ebay.

BTW do you play at Greenfield Games?

No, I play at my local FLG, Area 52.
I like the sound of chainblade bayonets, and I'll get some pics up at home.

Cheese Elemental wrote:No, I play at my local FLG, Area 52.
I like the sound of chainblade bayonets, and I'll get some pics up at home.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/218209.page

this is why you think about ideas and whatnot before or during the build process. BUT since your already done, im sorry man if you want the bland to go away your going to have to tear some things apart. an easy way to spruce them up is make the champions for each squad bad ass looking. if you make them look awesome the rest of the squad will look awesome irregardless of how bland they are. try remaking your champions and go from there.

Leave them assembled but give them battle damage and weathering to make each one unique.

Buy one package of Spawn, cut & clean the bits, and go crazy. Glue eyes and tentacles to everything.

ChaosDave wrote:Leave them assembled but give them battle damage and weathering to make each one unique.

This.
You can make a very bland model much more dynamic with an exacto knife blade, polystyrene glue, and a bit of patience.
I've got a Carnifex I've had for awhile that looked very...meh.
So I did that, cut some lascannon holes into it, a few spots where it looks like some brave Guardsman tried to stab the thing with a Power Sword along its upper carapace...and a hole with a bayonet lodged in it.

One of my favorite tricks is taking an exacto knife and cutting wrists and twisting the angle that they are holding their weapons. You can also shave their shoulder areas so you can mount the arms at different angles so they are like holding their bolters out to the side or something. The plastic is so easy to work with that you can do all types of odd things to make them look more dynamic. Since most CSM count has having both a Bolter and a CCW, I mix up bolters in pistol hands (firing a bolter one handed always looks badass), and then a chainsword in the other, etc.

You don't need to convert every model. Convert all the unit leaders, and 1-2 other models in the unit, and the unit will stand out. If you convert all the models in a unit, the conversions get lost amongst themselves.

If they're not painted, it's easy enough to glue on some gubbinz, tenactles, extra arms, etc.

If they are painted, I'd consider just making 1-2 new models per unit and either adding them to the unit size or replacing a couple models, and using the leftover models and a couple converted models to form new units.

If they are painted, you could weather the armor - add some paint chips, some brown or black washes, maybe even a brown glaze to their greaves.

If you haven't added decals, add some. Paint on unique unit markings - symbols, geometric shapes, whatever - on shoulder pads, helmets, or backpacks. Kill markings would look good. Maybe even do it like college football - put them on the helmet instead of the weapon or shoulderpad. If someone has a lascannon, instead of skulls, use tanks for the kill markings.

With Space Marines, I've found that the top of the backpack is an easy way to help make them stand-out. Put something, like a stack of skulls, on the unit leader, and maybe something smaller, like 1-2 skulls, spikes, etc. on most of the other models. Leave a few backpacks without anything - they're the guys that haven't proven themselves yet.