Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Major Sterling lookin' ard as fur!

Sorry, I don't think I have any Scout ML's lying around.. I think I only ever bought two Scout boxes (one regular & one sniper scout box), so unless both of them come with a ML bit, I've used mine up as I have 1 ML scout built & painted..

Did you check bitsandkits.co.uk ? They had a site makeover last week, now they have a "email when restocked" feature which is a godsend.. Already got me a spare Deimos Predator front plate for my Rhino thanks to the new feature, those are quite hard to come by..

Thanks guys,

Its true that sterling is just dying for some heretic to make his day...

yeah the scouts in my collection are all metals too... did find a missile launcher on forbidden gaming uk which looks like it, bitsandkits (thanks tauist!) and bitsmonster may end up being my bitz shops of choice from now on.

as for the lasguns? https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/798025.page#11166530


regarding bitzbox Im utterly disgusted with craig to be honest.. not even so much for the repeated mistakes, as we all do that, nor for the price in truth, as its pennies mostly, but its the principle of the thing. Im paying for it I should get it...
No. I'm most irked for his attitude about it when questioned on it.

Anyway, that unpleasantness aside!
Although I got a fair bit of painting done on a couple of the selby guys today, the light has gone a bit gak now, meaning that I've had to stop untill next week at least till I get those done.

however I thought I'd share with you this concept for a selby 151st specific heavy-infantry/stormtrooper.

based on palanite enforcer (has the right shoulders ) with gsc arms, a nucadian backpack grafted on and primaris infiltrator pockets for the chest and waist pockets.
Smoke grenade from the spacenam sprue and the other nades from the sternguard kit. the head is, of course, anvil.
the boot knife is nucadian and the blotcroppers from the DKOK kit.
the radio is from the comlik guy in the nucadians too, just without all the extra tubes and nonsense on it...

yes its bigger than a nucadian but then so is a nukasrkin and yes needs a 28.5mm base

but, yeah, worth pursuing?

This is a great example of why the Guard are my favourite faction, such an opportunity for converting and a great way to add narrative. Nice work!

Cheers!

SO I got two of those new Selby 151st guard done today:



Apone and Clint.
As you can see, where I've not used the beige on the sleeves on clint, I've endeavoured to continue the colourscheme, elsewhere on the mini, namely his grenades... I think thats a fair compromise and something I'll likely do on t'others in the squad.
I've found moving the colourscheme around can create a sense of induviduality but as long as enough of the full scheme is used, the minis will still look cohesive as a unit. hopefully!
Clint's mask is done in DeathKorpsdrab, which is essentially a dark olive green. Alongside the black watch-cap I feel it gives him a darker, sneakier vibe that I was after...
Apone features a head from the Spacenam sprue and was chosen as its a nice field cap thats in the right scale fort he other heads I've been using.
I've been on an SG1 re-watch of late and it's clearly inspiring the minis I'm making. bullpup rifles, watch caps, field caps etc...
its not an exact rip-off by any means but a good reference point nonetheless...
Apone features some spot colour in the form of his blue-nylon rope bundle and his white cup. which now I lok at it could pass for a kahzi-roll... sigh... damn my eyes...

In other news, Ive regigged the heavy infantryman:

Sgt Everard reporting for duty...

Yup, I went for the madrobot colonial marine lid in the end as someone that much up-armoured would just have to have a helmet.
his york pattern lasgun is held on an anvil KSG arm and the other arm is fromthe fatigue command sprue.
the resultant pose is clearly stollen from the primaris sgt that came with the darkimperium set but it works so I shant complain.
why the changes tothe weapons? well the autogun just wasnt doing it for me. He looked too seperate from the troopers somehow.
the bullpup lasgun ties him in. the resultant space on the belt was filled with a radio from the spacenam sprue and the belt itself has had a skull motif added to match the nucadians... much better I feel...

I like the new Enforced-based bashes. The latest one is an improvement IMO, keep it up

Very cool enforcer kitbash and neat nucadians

thanks guys.
got some serious tendonitis going on on my right elbow of late so I'm giving my arm a little rest for a while so nothing painted this week.
however, I thought I'd show you the first specialist of the 151st;


Sgt Riley
Master of all things explosive, Riley has never found a problem he can't solve by blowing it up...

yup. made from the standardbearer/specialist from the new command squad sprue, Riley is about as standard issue looking as any of these conversions have been as of yet.
All I've done really is a headswap and shaved of the pad from the left arm. then added the vansaar ones to the shoulders.
other additions include the smoke grenade from the spacenam sprue and two of the gsc grenade triplets to make a belt of 'nades for his back...

I got this-un done:

The heavy infantryman based onthe palanite enforcer.
yeah, as far as a stand alone mini goes its fine, I supose, but I'm not 100% sold on this one entirely... not sure why either, but I do know that I shant be making more of them I feel...

Coming soon...

Very interesting spoiler. Cool updates as well, really love the character your models have.

There's proven to be a lot of pathos in the plucky Tau grunt, could be fertile ground for you ... or this could just be a very well painted trophy for the Guard

Jeeeezzzz dude, your infantrymen look amazing. Such good detailing.

 osjclatchford wrote:
I got this-un done:

The heavy infantryman based onthe palanite enforcer.
yeah, as far as a stand alone mini goes its fine, I supose, but I'm not 100% sold on this one entirely... not sure why either, but I do know that I shant be making more of them I feel...

You've totally nailed that "Colonial Space Marines" vibe with this one! Game over man, game over..

You going on a xenos tip? Maybe a lil Gue Vesa thing? tell us more..

Interested to see where you go with the target practice for your guardmens...

Many thanks guys,

today its Reveal time!
NO, not gue-vesa, that would be a Kais of mistaken identity!
No, this particular guard-target-practice tends to target back...

Shas'la T'au Kais, hero of Dolumnar IV, Mont'au...

Yup, its La'Kais, of THQ and Kuju's 40k Fire Warrior PS2/PC game of 2003!


Modelled with his Tau railgun/imperial Plasmagun loadout fondly remembered as the dream combo from the game! I imagine this model to show Kais around the time of the mission he undertakes for Captain Ardias to destroy the captured titan. Anyone who's played it knows what I mean, the railgun/plasmagun combo is a must to get though that mission and at that point you start feeling like an unstoppable Mont'au murdermachine as you plow your way though untold chaos marines and arcane abominations... pure class...

In actual truth the game was not good. especially when played again with todays eyes. it was clearly designed for the PS2 in mind and the PC port (which I had) was just that, a cheap port over that felt sluggish, overly easy with very, very poor accuracy and feedback from the weapons and poor modelling and texturework that left it feeling more like a fan-mod for quake2 than an independant game from a multimillion pound company.
still it was the only 40k fps available to me and I still played the guts out of it, and have a fuzzy nostalgia for it thats probably a lot more rose tinted than it has any real right to be, but so be it...

As such, I've had this model on the back burner in one state or another for twenty years now.
The pose was always intended thus. in fact the torso, legs, head and backpack are all 1st generation tau plastics.
I had originally intended to use the metal railgun arms of a pathfinder back-in-the-day, but never got around to buying a blister of them to do the conversion. for those not in the know, the railgun hand-rifle version was first created for the fps game as an advance prototype that La'Kais discovers and makes good use of, before it was then placed into the rulebooks and mini range for pathfinders...
Anyway, long years passed and eventually the plastic pathfinders were relaesed. I snapped up the railgun from bitzbox as soon as it came available and then hit a new hiatus.
I knew I wanted the imperial plasmagun on his backpack to show the reference to the game;

fire warrior, check
iconic railgun, check
imperal secondary weapon.... hmm

yes I suppose anything would have done, autogun, lasgun, melta or boltgun, hell, even a chaos bolter, but I wanted that plasamgun/railgun combo. it was plasma or bust for me.
but the problem was the size of it. the metal ones were huge and looked so absurdly cumbersome and chunky. likewise the (then new) commandsquad plastic marine plasma was too chunky too...
so back in the box with him till later...

fast forward to now and the nucadian's plasmagun is scaled down just enough to look the right size on the backpack without looking absurd and still classic enough in its design to look right!
yes its not got the rear-stock but in truth thats only ever really visable on the game's world model, not the view model so I can except it. Also, once painted in steel with red muzzle with blue pipes colorscheme of the game's gun it was perfect.
in fact the observant will note that there are a few liberties I've taken on the mini. Kais' railgun is not the colourscheme as on the experimental one he picks up in the game but in fact the studio army's black/yellow combo, because I felt the model would get lost in a sea of yellow otherwise and it just looks good to me.
Many might say thats a bit of a copout and I should have done the railgun 100% as in the game but at this point I'm just glad its got paint on it now!
his kit on his legs is a single pod of photon nades and a pocket from the palanite enforcers. perhaps this is an imperial ammo pack of plasma-cells for his plasmagun..?
Also other errors of Tau standard design/accurate to the game include, the tau icon's colours are inversed, the backpack is two-tone not full yellow, his fingerless gloves and 'sandle' style feet were not in the game, the boots and gloves covering more of the hands/hooves, and the undersuit is more brown than red tone of the game.
but I'll say now, this is hindsight as I painted this from memory alone and decided that I should insist on doing so, so as not to dictate to myself that "it MUST be this way" and thus get in the way of what's turned out to be some cool design cues that make it unique and show my skills off much better, resulting in a well balaced colourscheme that complements the model more. making it more than a sea of clean yellow and black.
the 32mm base was a recent build, bigger-base to show off his importance (I suppose he could be a cadre-fireblade to lead your fire-warriors in the game? or something for kill-team?)
and used slate, crackle and cork, painted desert with the addition of a few static weeds to represent Dolumnar IV's somewhat barren enviroment... its a nice bone colour that makes the yellow look more saturated against it. which is always nice...

Oh, and Because someone will ask (they always do when anyone paints yellow, LOL),
the yellow was achieved by first undercoating two coats of xv88, then two coats of averland sunset foundation paint, which I bought all those years ago just to paint this mini! LOL, then shade the recesses with agrax earthshade then highlight up with ushabti bone, then wraithbone then pure white to dot and scratch.
All in all a great walk down memory lane that got me brave enough to paint not only a xeno race but also a yellerun! quite a leap for me but well worth it in the end. It even got me online to buy myself a copy of Simon Spurrier's novelisation of the game which I vaguely remember reading back when the game was relased.

for those interested, events after the game show that La'Kais ends up suffreing from extreme PTS in a tau hospital after the ordeal of Dolumnar IV.

poor cowson went from Hard-Kais, to Damage-Kais to Nut-Kais...

so...Kais-Closed for our favourite goatboy?
we can only hope not...

La'Kais looks great! I loved Firewarrior, it was such a great game. Much better than Space Marine, even if the graphics were dated at the time of release. Never finished it though, that level where you descended into the chaos hole and every chaos space marine had a rocket launcher beat me every time.

Love the work you've done across all of your projects. Been quietly watching for a long time.

Loving the Kais model. Firewarrior was one of my favorite games as a kid. One of the reasons I like Tau so much. Thanks for sharing the paint recipe too!

Nice weathering!

La'Kai turned out great!

Kais looks cool!
I had aways wanted to play the Firewarrior game but never got round to it for whatever reason...

Many thanks folks...



...and, guess what kids?


Cap's back!


Yup, I used the spare shield from the Anvil D-day Captain and the Cap-style head from the Anvil M1 helmet sprue.
the body is the standard nucadian with vansaar pads my other 151st use and the gun is from the Atalan Jackals.
To play up the 'First one over the line' look I used some old 1:35th sandbags I had knocking about, a bit big but will do.
As a final detail I also added a small section of hand tied barbed wire help to sell the image even more.

 osjclatchford wrote:
Many thanks folks...



...and, guess what kids?


Cap's back!


Yup, I used the spare shield from the Anvil D-day Captain and the Cap-style head from the Anvil M1 helmet sprue.
the body is the standard nucadian with vansaar pads my other 151st use and the gun is from the Atalan Jackals.
To play up the 'First one over the line' look I used some old 1:35th sandbags I had knocking about, a bit big but will do.
As a final detail I also added a small section of hand tied barbed wire help to sell the image even more.

What a gorgeous piece! You've outdone yourself this time, the conversion looks flawless. Kudos!

Not sad at all to see another Captain Rogers from you Cool to see him made from Nucadians - I wouldn't have guessed that shotgun is from GW, looks shockingly functional and only a little out of scale (but perfect on this mini).

Thanks guys. very happy with him to be honest.
Half way through my holiday and have I got some of those filey 42nd troopers done as planned? not a chance...

no, typically I'm just making up more Selby 151st guys... sigh...

anyway, here's the latest WIP to share:

Colonel Sumner.
As hard and unyeilding as the 'York' pattern bolter he carries, Sumner believes that true officers lead from the front and should always be where they are needed most; leading their men where the action is thickest.


yup. a hard as nails leader for the force.
the whole model came about from me just playing about at making a bull-pup bolter that matched the york lasguns nicely and I settled on a SOB boltgun (for its detail, smaller scale and second edition yummyness) and then grafted a lasgun pistolgrip and buttstock as well as the mag assembly from a third edition bolt pistol.
The pose is suggested at by the Chest-mount-rig available for a P90. yeah, I know. A bolter is heavy as can be and all that jazz but its 40k and anything goes if looks cool right?
The core body is a nucadian sgt with vansaar pads.
I used anvil arms as usual, the left being the bangalore arm from the D-day special, but rejigged to remove said explosive tubes and replace with the HH bolt ammo double pouch, in turn held on the back with a strap with shells on from the deathwatch sprue. a single bullet from one of these is also on the front to hide the fudgey join and damage to the chest-webbing near the right arm. the right hand is from the nucadian artillerymen and I've replicated the glove detail on the left hand with a bit of GS as best I can. simple, but nessacary, I feel.
The knife is a kabar from an anvil set and the head also, obviously an anvil one.
Although quite unfinished, so far, the base uses a sandbag from the nucadians and a little bit of hand tied barbed wire.
Although there's much else to paint on the back burner I'm not sure I can resist painting this one next...

Very nice osjclatchford.

Cheers,

CB

You appear to be churning out these guardsmen at an incredibly fast rate considering the quality of the painting/conversions/bases/everything. Are you sure you don't have a team of slaves in your basement?

I especially like the weathering on the blue for your Not-Captain-USA.

Ha, if I had a basement it'd be under a foot or two of water right now... it'd ruin the paintjobs...

And Thanks.

that blue is dead easy.

Basecoat Macragge blue.
recess shade nuln oil.
Highlight/weather, russ grey then Fenrisen grey.

comes out rather desaturated which gives a nice tired weathered look...

Good job, especially in the kit choices

New guy looks good, kinda reminds me of the brief fad of our army boys having their L85s hanging off their Osprey vests.

Got colonel Sumner done as promised!


As you say, Guardling, the 'york' pattern bolter is very reminiscent of the SA80. So much so that I did a synthetic green pistolgrip and stock to reference it even moreso. However it makes sense too, synthetic stock in place of wood helps keep the weight down, a bolter being heavy enough as it is...

This was a blast to paint, the anvil beret heads have lovely character, even with goggles.
I did the beret red because, well it just works on a command figure and is a nother nice reference to us brits, like 40k's answer to the RMC's.

the other guys are on the way. perhaps I might even get some of the long suffering filey drop troops done in the meantime...

They cry at night awaiting paint, you know...