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Right then. This is going to be the log of the 4th Battlegroup of the Castellan Crusade, launched from the Anargo subsector to drive the foul ork menace from the Castellan subsector. Elements of the battlegroup include:

Inquisitor Elias Tenir of the Ordo Xenos and his warband.
The Invictonan 134th Light Infantry.
Adeptus Mechanicus Warfleet N-Sigma.
An unknown Astartes force, here at the request of Inquisitor Tenir, and responding to nobody but him.
The Spear of Greavedale, a Knight Paladin maniple led by Lord Frederick du Montagne.

The 'unknown Astartes' are members of the Alpha Legion. Inquisitor Tenir and certain members of the Invictonan 134th are in league with them, and the other objective of this Crusade is to allow the Alpha Legion to gain a foothold within the Castellan sub, which has been under strict security measures due to the current ork Waagh! assailing it. I will state this now: the Alpha Legion are unlikely to be truescale, and have no hope in hell of being as good as Migsula's.

With regards to what the modelling will include, the plans are:

3 scratchbuilt Knights.
Kitbashed/sculpted Mechanicus army using the rules over at the Tempus Fugitives site.
The Invictonan 134th to be sculpted by me, and *hopefully* cast by Troll Forged Miniatures.
1500 points minimum of Alpha Legion, starting with two lots of AoBR.

Thats about enough waffling about plans, heres some pics of a stompy robot, with thanks to CommissarKhaine, whos measurements I wholeheartedly borrowed from his log:

Wrathchild, the Knight suit of Frederick du Montagne, Lord of the Spear of Greavedale, is currently under construction. Well, I say that, all that really needs to be added is some exhausts in appropriate places and then further embellishments. Without further ado, onto the pics!







Before anyone says it, I know my plasticard work is a bit shoddy. It's the first time I've really used it, and I've discovered it's a bit of a sod to work with. Eagle eyed observers will also note that the shoulders slant in opposite directions, I'm not really sure *what* happened there, but by the time I noticed the glue was well and truly bonded.

So yeah, what do you think?

Dragonlover

Looking good! Keep it up.

Cheers! Anything in particular that definitley works/doesn't work? This is the first of three, so I've got plenty of canvas to try different approaches with.

Dragonlover

Nice work. I'm always impressed by the nutters who go and craft such stupidly large models

A couple of comments though. The groin area looks a bit unfinished and appears to have a big hole in it. Maybe some armour around there to protect the hip joints?

Also with the chainfist the spikes instantly appear at the very start and end of the blade. Where do they go when the thing is running? Or is it just a spiky club?

I would also be inclined to cut back the weapons a bit The chainfist length seems to be ok, but the rear looks a bit too boxy for me. The cannon is also a little long for my liking, but thats probably just me

Anyway, regardless of my nit picking, very impressive.

As mentioned somewhere in the first post, it's not finished yet. Armour plating is on the list of things that need sorting, especially around the groin.

The chainsword... whilst the back could possibly do with being a tad shorter, no way in hell am I remodelling it on this one. I'll do something different on the second one. As for the blades, I'll add some kind of slot type thing on the underside of the engine block for them to travel into. For the top I always figured they travel just under the armour and then spring out at the point.

Dragonlover

I like your fluff alot - sounds like a great combined modeling project. Sculpting an entire imperial guard army is pretty ambitious too - whole miniatures or part by part?
I have to say I think the knight is too blocky. I like the more rounded forms myself.

if you need any ideas on ad mech conversions let me know.

kestral wrote:I like your fluff alot - sounds like a great combined modeling project. Sculpting an entire imperial guard army is pretty ambitious too - whole miniatures or part by part?
I have to say I think the knight is too blocky. I like the more rounded forms myself.

It'll be whole miniatures, but I'll only do about 5 then get them cast up for the regular troops. I'm not mad enough to individually sculpt every guy. With regards to the fluff, the backdrop of the whole thing is courtesy of the Anargo Sector Project. The only bits I've invented are the Inquisitor and his retinue, and the actual composition of the Battlegroup.

As for the blockiness of the Knight, it's horses for courses really, I prefer the 'small titan' look to the 'giant Space Marine' look.

@lord marcus: Will do. It's gonna be a little while before I get round to the Ad Mech part I think though.

I'm gonna go to a mates later today and borrow his digital camera, so with a bit of luck the latest pics of Wrathchild will be up tomorrow.

Dragonlover

Pics are only 5 days late, but at least they're here. Best laid plans of mice and men and all that...

Front view:


Side view:


Back view:


Top view:


All that remains to be done is remodel the way the cannon connects to the arm it's on, gonna add an ammo hopper as well. Oh, and fill a few gaps in the plasticard.

So, thoughts, comments, criticisms?

Dragonlover

Yes! Another knight!

On a more serious note: cool concept, can't wait to see what you'll be doing for the rest of the army.

The exhausts on top of the knight look a bit strange right now, but that's probably because more detailing needs to be added (and that I used the bit differently on mine). I like the headguard design though, might steal that for my next knight! I'd definitely advise adding an ammo box, it adds a lot of realism to the model.

I'm not entirely sure what other detailing to add to the exhausts... perhaps pipes coming round the back of the shoulders from the weapons/power plant section, and feeding into the 'wall'?

Since it was your Knight design that I stole to make this, feel free to crib anything from it that makes your next one look better. Oh, and thankyou so much for putting all the measurements up on your blog, this would have been even more of a royal pain in the backside otherwise.

Oh yeah, a general question: I have no plasticard rod, and every mechanical pencil I find is the wrong sort to make rivets from. Would cocktail sticks work?

Dragonlover

Dragonlover wrote:I'm not entirely sure what other detailing to add to the exhausts... perhaps pipes coming round the back of the shoulders from the weapons/power plant section, and feeding into the 'wall'?

Since it was your Knight design that I stole to make this, feel free to crib anything from it that makes your next one look better. Oh, and thankyou so much for putting all the measurements up on your blog, this would have been even more of a royal pain in the backside otherwise.

Oh yeah, a general question: I have no plasticard rod, and every mechanical pencil I find is the wrong sort to make rivets from. Would cocktail sticks work?

Dragonlover

Most welcome for the measurements, glad I could be of assistance!

What I meant with more detailing was also integrating all the detailing into one big machine. Right now, it still looks like a bunch of bits stuck on plasticard. If you add stuff like cabling or plating to tie it together, you'll get a massively improved model. I'd advise getting hold of some guitar wire: it cuts easily and looks great.

As for rivets: I've experimented with sewing pins in the past which is quite OK but time consuming, (you drill a small hole, cut off the pinhead and toss it in) and with rolling out green stuff and then cutting this (OK but hard to be consistent). In general, if you can get hold of plasticard, rod should be available as well, and it's pretty cheap over here. Cocktail sticks might be a bit thick, but by all means give it a go and let us know how it worked out. In the beginning, I used antennae from the vehicle accessory sprue and the voxpacks, which works well. You just run out of antennae really quickly if you do this.

The plasticard was bought some point last year from eBay, looks like I'll have to trawl it again for some rod, then ask the long suffering missus to order it for me. What diameter would be best do you reckon, 3 mm?

Another thought: how well does green stuff go through clay extruders? If I could find one with small enough holes that could work...

Dragonlover

Any good modelling shop will stock plasticard. Generally those focussing on trains and kit building rather than a GW or wargaming/comics store will have it. Great stuff although I have to second Commissar Khaines suggestion of an ammo box currently it doesn't seem to be able to operate as a weapon. This as I can't convince myself that its thin arm can carry ammunition for a gun that size!

The only modelling shop in the area is exorbitantly expensive, I kind of object to shopping there on principle as much as the cost. Four quid for one sheet of plasticard is a bit silly, I think you'll agree.

Dragonlover

That does sound quite exorbitant .

As for diameter: I used 1mmm and 1.5 mm for some; I wouldn't suggest anythign bigger then that. I haven(t experiment with a clay extruder, so I can't help you with that. If all else fails, ask the WHFB players in your area if they have some spear/lance arms lying around; that should provide you with instant plastic rods.

Right, I've added some cabling, but the Dakka gallery is saying that I haven't uploaded anything and Photobucket is refusing to accept the pictures, so I can't actually show you. I've added two cables on each side of the chainsword running from the front of the box to the exhausts, and I've put a small horizontal cable in each of the sockets on the sides of the feet. I tried to put some coming up from the vents on the back to the mechanism on top, but the superglue was having none of it, so I discarded that idea. Anyone got any suggestions for where cables might work?

I've also started designing the hanging crotch armour, I'm going for an overlapping half-octagon approach, similar to the leg armour on the Techmarines. As for plastic rods, I'm waiting for my mother to put an Amazon order in so I can piggyback on it.

Dragonlover

i like the construct so far, your plasticard work lacks subtlty as you said, but not bad for beginner (i assume), never used it before myself,

one thing tho, so far, most of the bitz you've stuck on just look glued on, not like they are integral parts of the structure, maybe making them more a part of knight, other than that tho, looks good

I think the main reason they look like bits stuck to plasticard is because thats what they are, and that the paintjob will help integrate things somewhat. That said, I've just been planning out where to put some more cabling, and contemplating the void shield emitters.

I'm going to be putting them on the back of the shoulders, as currently that area looks a tad plain... I'm just trying to work out what to make them look like, I don't recall ever seeing a description anywhere. I'm gonna take a look at the FW titans, see if I can gain any inspiration from them.

Dragonlover


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Huzzah, the pics have uploaded! Clearly there's a short vetting period that isn't mentioned during the upload.




I figured two pics was better than eight that essentially showed the same thing

I've kinda solved the void shield emitter problem... yes, there is a standardised version. Only problem is, they're only available on Forge World titans. http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/reaver2.htm has a pretty good view of them on the third pic down. Looks like I'll be breaking out the interesting shaped buttons and green stuff for those, unless anyone knows a good place for FW bits?

Dragonlover

Quick bump, purely because I fell foul of the 'Automatic Appending' when I posted the pics, but figured I'd leave it a while to see if anyone else posted.

Dragonlover