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Thanks cerealkiller195 for the kind words!

Hello friends!
Got some more stuff to show you!
Today, I want to share with you one of my personal favourites: my Terminator squad! Well, at least, the first of several squads. Man, do I love Terminators Anyways, here we go:



These guys came in a set called “Space Marines Heavy Assault”, which is part of the Build & Paint range sold on Amazon. You know, this one:



Oh man, how awesome is this cover art?? Just such a cool picture IMO. Anyways, the cool thing about this set is that it A) is relatively cheap for what you get B) contains a dreadnought as well as 5 of the OOP, classic Terminators C) also comes with some scatter terrain to spruce up your table. Therefore, I just had to get one.



When the package arrived, I got right to assembling the models. What I found out however, was that the Terminators came with smaller, 25mm bases. Ah well, there had to be a downside with such an amazing deal, but no biggie. I decided to order bases from GW and put the Terminators on them instead, so the base sizes would match among all the Terminators and so they would have the space they deserve!



Another issue I had with these older Terminators was that they somehow lacked an abdomen. Seriously, their Thorax seems to attach directly to their pelvis. Take a look:



Luckily, this issue was easy to fix: I added a spacer between their chest and pelvis and smoothed the gap over with some greenstuff. Et voilá, their abdomen was restored! To add some further character to the minis, I decided to ignore how they are supposed to go together (very static, boring and repetitive pose) and attached the arms at dynamic angles to the body. The bodies were also attached to the legs in different, dynamic angles, to add some variety to the squad.



The Terminator sergeant came equipped with a regular power sword. However, seeing as I try to make my Tigers distinct by giving them an eastern look, I decided to chop the blade off and replace it with a different one. I found exactly what I was looking for in a bag of used “Dark World” board game minis I got from a flea market: the set contained a beautiful, 28mm-scale golden scimitar! After some cleanup and conversion work, the scimitar was ready. I attached it with superglue, adding a pin to the hilt to make sure the thin piece wouldn’t snap off again immediately.



The spacer between the legs and body of the miniatures allows for way more dynamic poses than the regular kit would, and ensures that no two models need to be the same. When I was happy with all the poses, I started painting them in the tried and true Tigers paint scheme. To embellish the larger bases, I added a little bushel of a plastic plant to each one, breaking up the empty space and adding some visual interest, while also firmly placing these Terminators in their favoured jungle environment.



I had also received some newer Terminator sculpts in one of the many used lots I bought. These were integrated into the squad. This Terminator’s assault cannon was slightly damaged, so I decided to remove the bit below the rotating barrels and keep the weapon like that. This way, it also looks a lot like the older, OOP version of the assault cannon, which is a welcome side effect of the conversion. The chest piece was a leftover bit that a friend of mine had converted with some deep scratch marks. Who knows, maybe a giant vedic Tiger took out his anger on this marine’s chest plate?



This squad was also a great opportunity to use up some of my leftover Terminator bitz, such as the aforementioned assault cannon & chest piece. A great benefit of the classic Terminator sculpts, at least IMHO, are their way-cool Stormbolters with the double, side-by-side box magazines, as well as their open-handed power fists. Also, they have quite pretty chest eagles.



The newer Terminators are cool as well, and by far the superior/more realistic kit, but seeing the old and the new side by side here, I actually prefer the converted classic ones.



A little issue the older Terminators have is that they are a little shorter than the newer models. However, the size difference was easily rectified with the abdominal spacer I mentioned earlier.



I added a simple glowing effect to the lenses of all the Terminators as it was quick to do and added a lot to the look. I think it makes the squad as a whole appear way more intimidating.



Though the helmets of the older models are all fixed in a straight position, the dynamic poses make the whole model appear in motion and help hide the fact that the torso part is always the same. Finally, here’s the guy with the flamer. It’s also an older style weapon, but I must admit it still looks pretty decent when painted.



That’s all for now! I hope you enjoyed this update, and I look forward to your comments! Until next time!

The Terminators are fabulous, as is the assault squad from the previous page.

Those are really neat conversions! The spacer really does improve their proportions and seems to have allowed a great amount of dynamism to otherwise static poses. The blue glow really adds the finishing touch to a cool paintjob too

What a blast from the past, great tribute!

I'm loving the selection of older models and basing, really staying true to the originals. And the OOP Terminators with spacers are nearly indistinguishable from the newer ones, nice job.

Great work with the buff little guys and also with making them not quite as little and more buff! And nice freehand work with the tigers on his chest guy

Really well done on the Termis my friend. Great eyes.. and you're doing black well.

Thanks youwashock, gobert, Grenb, amazingturtles and 416_SpaceWolves for the nice comments! I’m overwhelmed by all your guys kindness! Also, I wanna say sorry for not checking back in here for so long! I shall try to make up for it with the following picture dump!

On the list for today are some Scouts and the third of my tactical Marine squads. Also, I wanna show you the progress on the magnetized Kshatriya (Captain) I posted here a while ago. So let’s get right into it and start off with the scouts!
In the lore, Fighting Tiger scouts are called Tigers of Puchan, taking their name from the vedic god of guides which they dedicate themselves to during their training. Contrary to many units in my army, this squad (let’s call them Squad Puchan 1?) was made from a fresh box of minis I bought myself (can you believe it? ). Initially I had planned to use them for my Arbites force, but then realized I already had a sniper squad, which meant they went straight onto my considerable pile of shame. No matter though, as I knew they might come in handy at some point, and they finally did when I decided to expand my Tigers army.



I decided to go with a rather dark, subtle paintjob on the fatigues and armor, staying true to my usual Tigers painting recipe, but reducing the amount of orange to prevent them from being too striking or flashy. Instead, I wanted these scouts to look more toned down and camouflaged. The lenses received a blue glow as usual.
The faces were painted in different colour schemes. Some use the brighter, caucasian-style recipe (Bleached Bone, followed by two layers of Ogryn Fleshshade) while others use the darker, indian-style recipe (Graveyard Earth, followed by one layer of Agrax Earthshade), to give the squad some variance and show that the recruits were taken from different gene pools on Veda itself as well as some Tigers recruiting worlds.



The main focus of this paintjob was not going to be the usual orange or white highlights as with the power-armored Tigers. Instead, I wanted to draw the eye to the camouflaged areas of the scouts wargear, namely their camo cloaks, their rifles and the sergeants combat blade. To achieve the jungle camouflage, I used only three colours: At first, the areas were basecoated with Catachan Green. After this layer had dried, I added patches of Goblin Green (yes, I still have half a pot of that ancient, blessed, opaque liquid). Finally, after some more drying time, the recesses were pin-washed with some Athonian Camoshade to add depth to the green areas. I quite like the resulting vibrant green camouflage pattern, as it is a great contrast to the orange and also places the scouts firmly in their favourite surroundings: the jungles of Veda! (or any other densely forested planet, really ).

Alright, moving on to the Tigers of Rudra! It’s been a while since I showed you the last tactical squad, but I figured I’d spread ‘em out a little so it doesn’t get boring!



These are just regular tactical guys in the usual paint scheme. Only difference here is the sergeant: To give the squad some Tiger flavour, I equipped him with a Lightning claw This squad once again came from a used lot of Space Marines, and as such, most models were unchanged except for certain characters like the sergeant and flamer-guy.



I stuck with the cheap loadout of flamer & ML as with the other tactical squads. The other Marines are just regular dudes, mostly multipart, some push-fit.

Finally, let’s move on to the magnetized Kshatriya: As I already explained, this mini was created by magnetizing the right arm of the AoBR Captain, leaving me with a customisable mini with a multitude of loadout options.



You may already have seen the guy, but I wanted to show him again since I went back and redid the face of the mini to add detail. He now has grey hair and a brighter glowing lens. I also touched up his power fist, adding some detail to its skull.







The image below shows the right arm removed, revealing the magnet underneath, located in the elbow joint. The two arm options I have so far are laid out at the minis feet. Let’s see what he looks like with the lightning claw, shall we?









Once again, I think this is quite a flavourful conversion that nicely gets the Tiger theme across IMHO. I really like the look of the LCs and intend to use them more throughout the rest of the army to reinforce this. I hope you like them as well!

Anyways, that’s all I have to show you for today! As always, I hope you liked the minis I showed you in this update and I’m looking forward to hearing what you think about them! Until next time, take care!

Those scouts are gorgeous, I love the jungle camo. The "stripes" on the camo still tie them strongly into the Tigers.

Thank you Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll! Glad you like the camo, it was the most time consuming part of the scouts!

Great new additions. The lightning claw fits perfectly, and looks cool, too. The camo on the scouts is fantastic. Absolutely love the knife.

Thanks youwashock! Happy to hear that you like the conversions & paintjob! I must admit, the scouts do blend in really well when placed in some of my jungle terrain. Hopefully I will be able to take some action shots soon when I get back to my house. I'm glad I managed to pull off a decent camo pattern even though this was my first time trying it.

As promised, I managed to snap a few action shots this weekend. Here's the scouts in some Terrain:

I remember the fighting tigers from way back. A decade ago? More?

Very cool stuff.


EDIT: This is kind of random, but I know your site had/has a lot of unique armies hosted on it, was one pictured army some sort of steel/bronze colored successor chapter who used storm bolters and thunder hammers all over the place? Very much a "stormy thunder" theme

Hey there ph34r! Thanks for your comment, but I don't think I'm the guy you're thinking of. I'm just a fan of Kenton's site and I borrowed some of his ideas and lore!
Also, I don't own any chapter painted bronze that's equipped with thunder hammers & storm bolters, although now I wish I did, as this sounds pretty awesome

Hello again! Got some more pictures!
First off, here’s another shot of the scouts in some terrain:



I will definitely take more pics in terrain as I think it makes the minis pop really nicely! Now on to some new stuff:



This squad of scout bikers was assembled from second hand miniatures. As such, some of the bikes had various issues (like crooked part attachment, broken or missing parts, too much primer, superglue mishaps etc.), but I tried my best to salvage them. Bear with me if you find any mistakes



The bikers were mounted on bases. I prefer that look as it ties them in with the rest of the footsloggers. Two arms were missing, but I replaced them with bitz from my box. To mix things up a little, I took parts from the Khorne Berzerker kit again, as they are visually interesting and their fur pendants/charms also work well with the Tiger aesthetic. All it takes is to paint on some Tiger stripes



This chap also got a Berzerker arm with a Bolt pistol.



This angle shows some of the detail a little better. The display between the handlebars was painted to have a slight blue glow. The tyres of a bike going at assault speed would definitely tear up the ground beneath them, so I painted the base brown in their tracks and left off the flocking there.





The sergeant of the squad. Nothing too exciting. His bike was missing the floor plate, so I had to slap one together using cardboard, but hopefully it’s not too noticeable.
With the bikers done, let’s move on to something bigger! Today I have another Dreadnought to show you. I still have three more Dreadnoughts in the making (one of them a VIP) which I will show you later when they are ready. But now, let’s start off with the Dreadnought Aruval Rajiv Rama:



Rama is equipped with a TL Autocannon and a CCW. This dreadnought also came from an AoBR starter set, just like the first one I showed you in this thread. Like his brother, this dread already had a converted right weapon arm, so I can’t take full credit for the autocannon conversion! All I did was fill some gaps, clean up some glue spills and drill out the barrels.



I actually thought the previous owner did a really nice job and decided to keep the autocannon pretty much as-is. However, I did want to swap the standard CCW arm for something more interesting.



Luckily, I had a Contemptor-pattern powerfist lying around from some other conversion, and I thought this would be the perfect occasion to use it. I chopped off the original powerfist, filed the joint flat and removed the underslung Storm bolter. Then I was able to attach the new weapon. The cool thing about the Contemptor’s powerfist is that it incorporates the Storm bolter on the inside of the CCW housing, where it is much more protected from the wear and tear of battle. I always thought it makes little sense to attach an underslung gun onto what basically equates to a wrecking ball, so I appreciate the Contemptor CCW for its reasonable design.



Here you can see some more detail of the left CCW arm. Luckily, the powerfist joints of the two dreadnought types have the same diameter, which made this conversion possible. I think this arm looks a lot “smashier”, if you will, with the Storm bolter tucked away inside.
Okay, so that’s all I got for now. I hope you guys enjoyed and as always, I am looking forward to your comments and criticism! Until next time, take care!

What an awesome update!

I think your stripes are getting even crisper & cleaner as the army grows, the dread is a fantastic example of a neat paintjob on a cool mini coming up aces. Fist conversion was smart and I agree it looks super punchy and a bit more dynamic!

The old school bikes are just beautiful. Love the work on the displays and the arm swaps.

Really looking forward to more pics in terrain - and by the way, your photography is excellent! Makes it really easy to see the details of the mini with good lighting. I still struggle to take decent photos so I am almost as impressed by that aspect of your blog as the painting and converting!

Great work mate, keep it up!

Thank you so much for the very nice comment, tzurk! Happy to hear that you like the new models!

Considering the photography: I'm by no means an expert, but there's two simple tricks that helped me improve my pictures a lot. First, use a lightbox. They go for very cheap on Amazon and they are really great to get proper lighting for your minis. Second, get the free smartphone App 'Pixlr'. This is great for postprocessing. I for example always have to turn up the brightness in all of my Tiger photos by a lot (despite using my lightbox). In combination, you can get decent pictures using just a Smartphone (like me). Hope that helps! And thanks again for your input!

Hello again!

Today, I want to share some new pics of my assault terminators with you! I had this squad finished for quite a while, but finally have quality pictures to show you. The Terminators in this squad are the newer ones from the regular terminator box set. I got the parts for them still on the sprues in a used lot, so I was able to assemble them more or less like I wanted to. Let’s jump into pictures:



The squad started out with just a single leftover Space Wolf Terminator that I attached some lightning claws to. At that time, I had just begun test painting some of the old Devastators I showed you in an earlier post, and as I’d had a lot of fun with them, I decided to paint the Terminator as a female Fighting Tiger just or the heck of it. Back then, I didn’t plan for this to go any further than a small display set or maybe something the size of a kill team, but as you can see, the army evolved from there and started growing way beyond my initial expectations. I have to admit that this project has really helped me to push the scope of what I can achieve in a given amount of time and has enabled me to find faster and more efficient ways of painting, and it all started with this small group of leftover, jumbled together minis given tiger stripes The initial Terminator is the one in the back left. I really like the SW bitz because the fur decorations go nicely with the Tigers as well. All you have to do is adjust the paintjob accordingly. This bitz similarity also fits thematically, as in Kenton’s lore, the Space Wolves are among the very few chapters the Tigers call friends and who they regularly do training exercises with.
I tried to give all the Tigers interesting poses. I messed around with arm positions, looking for the few that would not look static or silly. I tried to make them look like they just delivered a mighty slash with their claws. When I was happy, I attached a head to the body accordingly to reinforce the impression of a dynamic stance. Only when the complete torso was done did I add it to the legs, which helped me gauge how the stance should look in the end.

I also have some closeup images of the squad’s sergeant. She was made from bitz from the assault terminator box. I tried to make her look as if she was pointing out the next target to her squad using her armored fist.



One thing to note about the terminator squad is that, when buying the sprues, I didn’t notice that all the left pauldrons were already missing. As a result, I had to cast four left pauldrons with the crux terminatus myself. The casts aren’t the best, but I just wanted to have some simple and quick replacements, so I just hoped the paintjob would hide most of the imperfections. With the Tigers being covered in stripes which distract the eyes from other mistakes, my job was a bit easier. I hope the imperfections aren’t too noticeable.



I think the female clawed assault terminators are a very iconic part of the Fighting Tigers chapter, and I’m glad to already have a small squad of them in my army now. I also have a transport planned for them, plus another one for the tactical terminators. However, I’m still a bit intimidated by the prospect of painting huge war machines in Tiger stripes Anyways, there’s lots more other stuff to do and I will probably wait with the vehicles a little longer.







Moving on to the next set of pictures. Up next is another special character. With the Fighting Tigers being a very fleshed out chapter with lots of history and lore behind them as well as a very distinct appearance influenced by indian culture, it’s important to me to capture that character by finding suitable bitz and miniatures to reflect that. When browsing ebay for useful stuff to incorporate into the army, I came across the 30k Legion Praetor Tribune in Tartaros armor. Back then I didn’t consider actually buying it. While I liked the model quite a lot, I wasn’t going to shill out 50-60€ for a single miniature plus shipping, so I quickly forgot about it.
A while later I was searching Wikipedia for different types of historical indian weapons (research for the Tigers), and lo and behold, I found this:



It’s a historical indian Bhuj, also known as an axe-knife or elephant knife for the elaborate engravings on the mount and knob of the weapon. I instantly recognized the weapon: it was the one the Praetor tribune carries! When this realization hit me, I knew I needed to have the model in my army. I decided to just go for it and buy him on ebay despite the price tag.
Few weeks later, the box arrived at my house, and as usual, I couldn’t help but start converting and hacking the mini apart as soon as I got my dirty paws on it The iconic indian-inspired power weapon would of course remain unchanged, but I had to get rid of some of the decorations on the pauldrons to make them smooth and more suited for the application of the obligatory tiger stripes Also, I decided to change things up a little and give the mini a helmet instead of its bare head, so as to tie it in with the rest of my tactical terminators it would invariably be leading into battle at some point. Here’s the painted result of the conversion. Let me introduce you to ”Kshatriya Veer Mudaliyar”:



I really like the way this guy turned out and I think the weapon is such a unique piece and it really makes this guy stand out, while also reinforcing that indian flavour I was trying to evoke. Apart from adding the helmet and smoothing out the pauldrons, I also converted the miniatures left besagew (the small shield bit on the front of the pauldron, protecting the armpit) to be round, like on the other side, to make the armor more symmetrical. The two small, round besagews also gave me the perfect excuse to add a tiny chapter symbol, a Tiger’s claw, to both sides as additional decoration



Only thing I regret about this miniature is that the greaves have these vertical details on the inner sides, which ruins the tiger stripe patterns a little bit. However, I wasn’t going to fill in these inaccessible areas because I thought it would only make the mini look worse, so I decided to just leave it as it is. In this side shot, you can see how the terminator helmet nicely slots into the armored collar of the suit, and I think it looks pretty slick



The back of the miniature. This mini has an incredible amount of detail. In keeping with the Tiger’s colour scheme, I decided to keep most of it black anyways, and it really helps to tie him in with the other terminators in the squad. Some of the greebly bitz like pipes, cabling and vents were picked out in metallic however, to break up the black a little. Considering the pauldrons, I have to admit I had a bit of trouble deciding which way to make the stripes go. I decided on placing them vertically around the edges, because then they would be perpendicular to the arms, just like the stripes on Tiger’s legs.



Another shot, now from the left side. This angle really lets you appreciate the cool dynamic pose of the model. As usual with my larger bases, I added some tufts of plastic foliage to break up the grassy surface.
Now, as I know you guys like action shots … here is one of Kshatriya Veer Mudaliyar in some terrain:



Alright, so that’s it for now! I hope you guys liked this update and you enjoyed the minis I showed you. I’d very much appreciate your feedback and I’m looking forward to reading your comments Until next time!

Woohoo, more Tigers!

Great job on the Assault terms. Interesting way to pose them, by assembling the torso first - it just makes total sense! I would not have noticed the pads if you hadn't pointed them out (in fact, I can't pick which ones are casts from the photo at all), and I think going with grey stripes rather than black is a very clever artistic choice.

I love the beefiness of the Praetor, too. I think as a model he really conveys a lot of the power and confidence of the tiger as an apex predator. Again, i wouldn't have noticed the vertical details running through the tiger stripes on my own. And great OSL on the eyes ++ bonus points for the action shot in the jungle!

Always love seeing this blog updated - it's really fun to see the pics and read your thoughts/processes - looking forward to more!

Great job, and what a serendipitous discovery of the ancient Indian weapon.

Incidentally, should you need more bits, there are a number of shops on Shapeways that make 3d printed bits. The shop I've linked to below is one I've saved as it has a good variety of minor or obscure chapter shoulder pads, and I want some for my Deathwatch. However, I have not ordered from any shop on Shapeways, so I have no idea how reliable the shops are or what is the component quality.
https://www.shapeways.com/shops/popbits?section=--+Crosses&s=0

Big, big props to those Terminators. Both the Assault squad and the character. Just awesome. The bikes and Dread deserve a round of applause, as well.

The regular head on the Praetor works really well. From the right hand view it even looks tiger like! The lady Assault Termies look great, especially with them all having power claws. The white and grey works really well together with the dynamic poses you’ve managed to achieve.

Wow! Thanks everybody for your very nice comments! Glad you enjoy this kind of stuff! There's still loads more to come!

Can I just say that I love the style of this project? The paint scheme is strong - the units using white rather than orange add a great slice of variety.

The vibrant green bases bring a reminiscent year to me eye so they do! The latest Scouts look excellent- I really like the camp cloaks and camp on the weapons. I’m taking note of your skin recipes for future use - I only recently added a swathe of black faces to my painfully pale faced Flexberg so more variety is very welcome!

And finally the use of old kits and using up what you already have - kudos to you sir! I sold my old Brazen Guard force but I would like to reinvent them at some point - perhaps using second hand old timers like yourself

Hello there!

Thanks Ragsta for the kind words! Hope the paint scheme for the faces works out for you as well! Alright, time for another update! Today, let’s take a look at one final tactical squad and a chaplain. Also, I wanna show you some WIP pics of stuff I am currently working on. Alright, let’s start off with combat squad 1 of Rudra Squad 4:



Another squad of Marines from a large used lot. The guys in this squad are mostly multipart plastic miniatures. I made some changes to the models when I got them to give them some extra flavour and different loadouts. Most notably, the sergeant was completely redone. He got a bolt pistol and a lightning claw, and was repositioned to have a more dynamic pose, as if he were in the middle of a strike. Furthermore, the beaky marine in the squad was given a bayonet for his boltgun. The knife was donated by an old plastic Plague marine. Moving on to combat squad 2:



This is the second half of the squad, focused on ranged combat capabilities. The squad contains a Marine with ML. There’s also two marines in there that were given scopes for their boltguns, which gave me the opportunity to paint gem effects on the lenses Finally, an action shot of the squad taking position in a jungle:







Next up, let’s take a look at a chaplain. If you are familiar with the lore of the Fighting Tigers you may have heard of “Tiger of Varuna Daksha Ram”. He is one of the senior officers of the chapter and appears in some short stories written by Mr. Kilgore. As I was lucky enough to receive the exact same miniature he used for his army (an old metal BA chaplain) in my used lot, I just had to do my version of Daksha Ram to add to my command squad. Here he is:



To replicate Kenton’s version, I had to remove the crest/halo thing on the helmet that BA chaplains sometimes have. That was surprisingly easy to achieve with the GW sprue clipper, but then the skull helmet had to be filed smooth. With a combination of x-acto knife, sandpaper and file I achieved an acceptable result. Another thing I had to do was alter the BA iconography. I chopped off parts of the BA tear/drop symbols on the chaplain’s chest and boltgun and rounded them off, so they would pass for regular round gems. Other than that, the mini remained unchanged, and so it was on to painting.



For this miniature, I applied my usual Tigers recipe, but deviated from it in two points: Firstly, the helmet had to be painted in bone white of course. Secondly, I decided to use a bronze colour for the crozius arcanum instead of the regular metallic I use on my weapons. This was done to reinforce the idea that this crozius is an ancient relic weapon and was crafted from a special material by master artisans. I really like the look of the bronze metallic, and you will see this theme repeated a few times in other squads of the army that have access to special wargear or relic weapons.



I decided against swapping out the boltgun for a plasma pistol, as Kenton has on his Daksha Ram, because I was reluctant to cut up the whole right arm trying to remove the gun. I think the old bolter looks pretty cool, anyways Sorry for the blurry image btw, the camera seems to have focused on the crozius.



Despite this being an older model, which stands a little short of regular Marines, I really like it because of the cool pose. The bronze crozius held aloft really makes the chaplain pop I think Finally, the obligatory action shot:







Alright, moving on to some WIP stuff! I don’t have any more painted images to show you for today, but let me share some of my recent conversions with you. First off, another Terminator sergeant. Like I said, I love Terminators waaayyy too much to stop at just one squad, so you can look forward to at least five more coming up



This sergeant got a chainaxe this time, just to add some flavour and get rid of the very standard, boring sword he used to have. I also tried to give him a cool pose, raising his weapon arm up and adding the usual spacer for his missing abdomen. I am currently working on getting some paint on him and his squad

Next up, a special character. I will post a quick summary of his lore when I post pictures of the painted mini. Until then, let me show you the basic build in its unpainted state (well, slapped together from several painted minis, that is):



This miniature was actually meant to go in the command squad as a veteran, but then I made an interesting discovery and decided to promote him to special character status instead: My army will contain two command squads. These are supposed to represent the two halves of the chapter, based on the two continents of Veda: Mahaduyana and Ghuyarashtra. One will be male, featuring orange marines and focusing on ranged combat. The other will be female, featuring white Marines and focusing on close combat. This Marine was supposed to become a CC veteran for the latter. I had the idea of giving [her] a great axe, and decided to google for some indian great axe inspirations. In doing so, I stumbled upon an indian deity called “Parashurama” who is known for wielding just this weapon. This character was so cool, I decided to repurpose this miniature and give it a new identity.



During the research I also found out that indian great axes can basically have the same head as smaller ones, so I decided to reuse the axe head of my Jirbu Ghosh miniature by making a recast. This axe head also had the advantage of looking exactly like the axe wielded by Parashurama. The second casting attempt was usable, and I attached the axe head to the haft of a Grey Knight force hammer with a pin and some super glue. I had to get creative with the Marine arms to find two that matched the pose of the hands on the haft. I’m pretty happy with the overall pose now



To complete the miniature, I added a CSM pouch with a holstered bolt pistol to the Marines belt, to give him some ranged capabilities as well. Soon, I will post some finished pics of this guy painted up, so stay tuned for that



I have one last miniature to show you before I end this post. If you have been around on Kenton’s website a few times like me, you may have checked out his gallery of terrain. There, he shows off a custom built Imperial Bunker of the Fighting Tigers, featuring a statue of Chapter master and Founder of the Fighting Tigers, “Maharaja Shiva Nagordarika”. Here’s the building I’m talking about:



While I wasn’t planning on making my version of the chapter master Shiva Nagordarika at first, I started experimenting with some bitz at one point, and because I had fun with the conversion, I decided to go all in and do him justice. First off, I had to gather some source material. For this purpose, I needed to get the closeup image of the statue:



Furthermore, I also found clues leading to Kenton’s chapter master in his army gallery. In the fast attack section, Kenton shows off his vanguard veteran units. One contains a miniature with a striking resemblance to the statue seen on the Imperial bunker above:



The figure in the center, possibly from the rogue trader days, could potentially have been the one supposed to represent the chapter master on the tabletop. And while Kenton uses him as a sergeant now, I think it is highly likely that this used to be the Founder of the Fighting Tigers, especially because of his blue skin tone, alluding to ancient paintings of the indian god also named Shiva. With that final clue, my job became very clear. This was going to be the guideline for my version of “Maharaja Shiva Nagordarika”:



While this model (anybody know its real origin/purpose?) is rather old and outdated both size-wise and because of the kind of awkward pose, it still has some cool features. I liked the idea of a gauntlet-mounted weapon, as well as the blue face and the raised power fist. So I started my conversion. To add a little twist and give the Chapter Master some additional beefiness, I decided to use a Primaris Marine body as the base for this conversion. This way, Shiva will stand proud of all the other Marines he leads into battle (if he gets used for some fluffy battle, that is). Here’s what I came up with:



I tried to stay as true to the original as possible, but had to build all bitz myself. The most simple job was the right arm with the claw. While the original miniature had just a powerfist, I decided to double down and go “full on tiger”, so to speak, by giving him a lightning claw. The pose is pretty much the same though. Then, I had to adapt the shoulders to receive a standard SM pauldron, as well. Next up, the left arm with the gun. This went through another iteration before, which I wasn’t happy with at all, however, and which got scrapped. Before, he used to have a lightning claw left arm, with the claws removed and the barrels of a multimelta attached instead. This looked silly and unbalanced, however, so I chopped it off again. My second attempt was built from a GK terminator arm, two plasma pistols, The muzzle of a plasmagun and a fusion cell from a plasma cannon. I was much happier with this version, as it was closer to the original and looked far less unbalanced.



This was all well and good, but now I had a different problem: I needed a head that would fit the look of Shiva on old paintings. While the bare heads of SM leaders are cool, the don’t convey the youthfulness of this god all that well. Also, I wanted to add a special touch to the chapter masters backpack by adding four additional arms, once more alluding to indian gods. Luckily, I found exactly what I needed in Reaper Miniature’s Snake Demon Avukavali. She had the youthful face and the additional arms I needed for the conversion, and gave me an excuse to order some other stuff I needed from the site (while at it, I also grabbed two different tiger models, a tiger demon/rakshasa, as well as Samantha, the lady warrior that will lend her face to my own Raja Khandar Madu one day). So the snake demon lost her head to my chapter master, but remains otherwise intact. I will rebuild her with other bitz so I can use her for our DnD campaign one day.



Finally, the last step to complete this mini was to add the four extra arms to the backpack. I chopped off the round vents off the Primaris backpack and attached the arms in their stead. They will be painted up to look like metal ornaments of his armour. Maybe they should be bronze as well, what do you guys think?



I know that Shiva is supposed to have a jump pack according to my own chosen guide picture, but I’ve thought of a solution to that. That’s why this backpack is magnetized and can be removed. One day, I will order some extra jump packs and magnetize one for Shiva as well. Anyways, I’m very much looking forward to painting him up now, giving his face a nice light shade of blue, adding some OSL to the plasma gauntlet etc…. I will keep you posted on the progress on the Marines I showed you today. In the meantime, I am looking forward to reading your comments and feedback Until next time, take care!

Loving this blog, I remember the Jungle and the Fighting Tigers too! Great to see Indian culture used for inspiration.

As for the RT guy, he's an old Rogue Trader marine, you can probably find him on Stuff of Legends or the Collecting Citadel Minis wiki. A buddy of mine used him a Pedro Cantor back in the day.

Shiva is going to be absolutely amazing! I'm super excited to see paint on her!

Thanks Kid_Kyoto for your nice comment! Also, thank you very much for showing me those awesome sites. I actually found the mini there:



An old RT catalogue depicted this mini as "Brother Sawyer", equipped with a powerfist and a hand flamer. Aha, so that's what that gun is supposed to be! Here's a better image of the mini (not mine):



Very cool stuff, and I'm very glad you showed me that site Kid_Kyoto, so I can identify older minis more easily now! Thanks again!



Thanks Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll! Glad you like Shiva! Stay tuned for painted images!

Hello again!

It’s been a while since my last post, and I’m sorry for the long wait! I wish I had a good excuse like “real life getting in the way of the hobby” or something like that, but no. What I actually did in the mean time was get distracted by video games
Anyway, since I don’t want you guys to think I died, and to avoid keeping you waiting for more tigers for too long, I’m back tonight with some pictures to show you and some updates on my hobby stuff in general. I may have been slacking a bit, but It’s not like I got nothing done at all, either! Rest assured that there’s still loads of tigers in the pipeline. I have some finished stuff ready for uploading, some converted stuff that’s awaiting a paintjob, and even some more stuff coming in the mail. So there’s no need to worry yet, I won’t run out of minis to post for a looong time Another part of the reason for me not posting stuff recently (apart from gaming too much) was that I started a new job in january. While I like it much more than the previous one, it is also a little more time-consuming. This might mean I won’t get around to posting as frequently, but we’ll have to see. I hope you guys are still around and interested in seeing the stuff I’m making

While I didn’t get much painting or converting done in the weeks since january, I still made some hobby progress: Last year, I started work on my very own, first gaming table. I recently ordered some stuff to complete this project. For a long time after making the basic board, I contemplated how to do the surface. I didn’t like the idea of painted sand, because it can be very destructive to finished miniatures. I went back and forth trying to decide, eventually settling for a grassy surface. Then, I had trouble coming up with a suitable technique of flocking a whole table surface without spending a fortune on flocking material. A youtube video (by Bard’s craft, he’s cool, check him out!) suggested using the herb dill, but even that was not cheap and could possibly lead to a funny smell during games… Unable to come up with a good plan, I even considered buying battlemats from an online seller, seeing as these could at least be switched around if needed. The price tag was just too hefty for my tastes, though. Finally, I came up with another idea after watching some more youtube videos on the subject. I decided to order some large textile sheets for the table surface in different colours. These would receive extra detail, painted on by hand. This idea proved to be viable, and I purchased 6 different colours of textile off amazon, for the price of what a single game mat would have cost me. A nice compromise if you ask me. These textile sheets already arrived at my house, and I’m confident I can turn them into great battlefield surfaces with some wall paint and a big brush. The colours I ordered are:
- Dark green (for jungle/grassland etc)
- Tan (sandy desert)
- Dark tan (for earthy ground)
- Dark gray (for cityscape/urban terrain)
- White (for snow/ice worlds)
- Crimson (for red planets like Mars)
The big advantage of the textiles is that they are very soft and smooth. This will mean playing on them will both feel god, but also the textile will protect minis that fall over from getting scratched. Right now, they are still very bland and monotone, but I think with some painted on terrain detail like rocks, pebbles or grass tufts, they will look pretty cool.
Apart from working on the table surface, I also finally decided on how to hold the board up at gaming level. Instead of simply placing it on another table, as I had planned on doing before, I recently ordered some simple table legs off amazon to complete the table. These are removable, so this means the table will be easy to store when it’s not in use. With all these new additions I’m very excited to finish this project, and I will definitely show you what it looks like when it’s done.

Furthermore, I’ve been messing around with some ideas in my head while I was gone. I thought about what I want from my collection of fighting tigers, how the army should be set up, and what units I still want to add. I began thinking about this as I was building a few converted models for a command squad. While converting these leader characters, I reflected upon the command structure of the tigers. I decided that, seeing as the tigers are split into two castes, there would also have to be two command squads in my army. Regarding paintjobs, I have already deviated a little from Mr. Kilgore’s original theme: while he had four (or even more) colour schemes in his army, I decided to limit my army to two different colours to keep at least some form of army cohesion while still adding variety. One half of the chapter became orange, comprising only male marines, and situated on the continent Ghuyarashtra. The other half became white, comprising only female marines, and situated on the continent of Mahaduyana. The male, orange marines should be focused on ranged combat, while the female, white marines would focus close combat. So too, would the command squads have to reflect that difference in combat style. Since I will have two equally viable and equally large command squads representing the two castes of the chapter, it is only fair that both halves of my tigers chapter should be roughly equal in strength. I already have a lot of male, orange marines, so now my main task will be bolstering the ranks of the female marines a lot to compensate this! On the male side we have:

- Command squad (ranged)
- 40 tactical marines
- 2/4 rhinos completed
- 5 sniper scouts
- ~10 tactical terminators
- Dreadnoughts, landspeeders, bikes etc

To even this out, I came up with the following to-do list to increase the female half:

- Command squad (CC)
- 14/40 female assault marines (Some will have jump packs, some will have transports)
- 0/10 or more female assault scouts
- 5/10 assault terminators
- Dreadnoughts, assault bikes etc….

As you can see, this means I will have to get a lot of female marines to fill out the ranks of the Tigresses! I have already started though. Some of the female assault marines are done, but there are still 2 and a half squads I have to make. One is already at my house, and it will be marines on foot without jump packs. The rest, I will have to order online. In fact, another squad with jump packs is already on its way to me. Other than that, I would also like to add some special units for flavour, like some bikes with added CC goodness, maybe some assault bikes, a female dreadnought etc.
Alright, now you know what I’ve been up to in the past few weeks (apart from playing to many video games ). I hope I didn’t bore you with this text-heavy update, and I hope you are all still excited for more stripey goodness! To make up for my lengthy rambling, let me close with some pictures of actual painted minis!









Tonight, it’s character time again! This guy, you already know, in his younger iteration: that’s right, I’m talking about Raja Shamshir Talatra! I really liked that Kenton has two versions of this guy, one earlier version on bike, and one later version in terminator armour. This inspired me to also create two different versions of this character in different time periods.



To recreate this character, I used a standard terminator body, a head from a landspeeder pilot, a standard marine combi-plasma and a pelt from the space wolf terminator sprue. The sword is from an orc from the board game Dark World, and the minis from that box (which I got from a flea market for a steal!) are a very nice resource for scimitars to use in my Tigers army.



The combi-plasma in the right hand is just from a regular SM set. I wanted Raja Shamshir to stand out equipment-wise. Also, I wanted to reference my earlier version of this character with this mini.
The cape, once again, is where the tigers paint scheme really shines. I had a huge surface to go wild with tiger stripes on. The great thing about this cape is that, since it came from a SW set, it features a large pelt. Of course, this was meant to be a wolf pelt originally, but by removing the wolf head and giving the pelt a different paint job, I turned into a tiger pelt instead. I really like the way this two-part cloak turned out, and I’m especially fond of the tiger claws on it. This cape could also be a very suitable representation of the “pelt of the great maneater”, an artifact discovered by Samshir Talatra in the story written by Mr. Kilgore.



The Iron halo on top is again made from a decorative part which used to have a skull in the middle, but I drilled it out and cleaned it up with my x-acto blade. It’s the same as on the previous version of this character. The head came from a landspeeder pilot, and I used it because Kenton had it fro one of his versions of raja Shamsir, as well. I think it works well together with the other miniature, because it’s still visible that it’s the same guy, but a bit older and more grizzled.





Alright, that’s all I have for now! As I said previously, I hope I didn’t bore you with my rambling, and I hope you will check back here every now and then if there’s an update! Until next time, take care!