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When I first saw the Mark III powered armor on the Forgeworld website, by first thought was Sternguard Veterans. So, I bought enough to make 15. I'm going to take my time with this unit, and I figured I post here to get feedback as I go. We'll start with the individual pieces.

When I got the pieces, I was pleased with how little flashing there was. I didn't take a picture, but the flashing did not take too long to remove. However, there was a bad mold line on 3 of the legs. I was able to correct it with my hobby knife. You can hardly tell now.

Here are all of the pieces. Also in this picture are some of my old school bolters and some bits that I used to make combi-weapons. More on those, later.



Here are some of the legs and chest pieces. I really like these chest pieces.



The backpacks:



The heads:



The arms:


The shoulder pads. I really like these, as well.



One thing I didn't like was how the head piece fit on the body. The chin rests on the armor, which looks silly. If you turn the head to the left or the right, it just doesn't work. See below:



So, I put a little green-stuff in the neck and it works just fine:

I was going to say, well I wasn't, but those old school bolters look very old school.

That is some quality resin. Cool Sternguard, especially for some kind of home-grown chapter.

Or any chapter- relic wargear is revered by most chapters.

Very cool- looking forward to seeing them painted up!

Sternguard Sergeant:

Wargear: Combi-Melta and Powerfist. I'm not sure how smart putting a power-fist on a sternguard Sergeant is, but I had a very old power fist in my bits bin and couldn't resist.

I had this old sprue, and I wanted the old style power fist to be part of this sergeant.



However, because the arm pieces on the Mark III armor are unique, I didn't want the arm on this power fist to clash. So I cut the arm off the power fist and cut the hand of the Mark III armored left arm. Add a little super glue, and it's nearly done. I filled in the gaps with green stuff, and now it's complete.





For the combi-melta, I used a Black Templar meltagun and an old bolter. I think these are from 2nd or 3rd edition Space Marines. For good measure, I added a crusader seal (purity seal for you non-Templars).



For the bases, I used pieces of cork board that my wife had left over from her home office project and some GW sand that my friend gave me.





I want the sergeant to look dynamic, so I chose the running legs and then selected a base that would allow his left foot to hand in mid-air, so that he appears to be running.





I attached the chest piece next, and added the power fist arm. I adjusted the arm so that the hand is pointing forward. You can see some of the green stuff for the neck and on the power fist in these pictures.





Finally, I added the combi-melta, the head, the backpack, and the two shoulder pads.





And primed

Did something happen to the powerfist before priming? It looks like some bitz or flash have been added.

No. The primer makes the mold line on the melta show up more. Darn.

wow i really like the look of that powerfist was thinking about getting some Mk 3 armour for sternguard vets and you have convinced me.

Sure thing. Just remember that the power fist itself came from a 1992 sprue.

Yeah shame about that i would like it, but you win some you lose some.

And here is the painted sergeant with combi-melta and powerfist.

I heard somewhere that Mark III armor had the head fixed forward, thats why you couldn't move the head.

Looks good, nice work so far
The head issue I believe is a deliberate choice by Forge World, as fluff wise (or at least it used to be like this) the helmets on the Mk II and III weren't articulated, they were fixed in place with bolts. however I think your solution looks nice

I think that was more of a problem with MKII armor:



than MKIII armor:



Though to be honest, MKIII armor doesn't seem to offer much flexibility there either.

Perhaps the Mk III had a 15 degree movement radius?

Anyway, great paintjob.

I'm calling it a night, but here's how far I got on the next 4 sternguard. Each is sporting a combi-melta. I tried a few variations, plus I used an actual combi-melta.

Here's all I had time to complete tonight. Nearly done.

i dont like the combmelta on top of the bolter, it looks too much like a meltagun on top of a bolter haha.

the PF, model parts and the bolters look awesome!! the painting style is great! makes me want to get those models, i would just think a better melta-combo would look better. maybe one that looks more like the melta-combo of the SM commander would be better, or the bolter on top?

Are these models hard to pose? They look alittle akward. The sergent for example, I think he would look much better if his head was pointed in the same direction as his gun. The running meltagunners would probably look alittle better if their upperbody was slightly bent forward, right now it looks like they've run into a wall of air or something. Other than that, great painjob and I really love the heads, want some for my Iron Warriors

Yeah, agreed. I love the power fist conversion, but that pose looks very very awkward.

Limbo wrote:Are these models hard to pose? They look alittle akward. The sergent for example, I think he would look much better if his head was pointed in the same direction as his gun. The running meltagunners would probably look alittle better if their upperbody was slightly bent forward, right now it looks like they've run into a wall of air or something. Other than that, great painjob and I really love the heads, want some for my Iron Warriors

No, they were pretty easy to put together. The leaning back a little was probably me over-compensating. I've posed models leaning forward before, but when it was done, you were just looking at the top of his head and shoulders when you were playing the game. i.e., standing next to the table that's waiste high.

Well, I have 5 more left to make. That will give me another shot at getting the poses correct. These have all been glued, so I'm stuck with what I have.

I want to thank everyone for the feedback so far, both for the positive and opportunities for improvement!

kronk wrote:I'm calling it a night, but here's how far I got on the next 4 sternguard. Each is sporting a combi-melta. I tried a few variations, plus I used an actual combi-melta.

As mentioned above by Sageheart, I don't quite like the combi-meltas on right & left : the meltas don't look well integrated with the bolter.

On the contrary, the central-right one looks far better, maybe even better than the GW one (central left)!!!

As for the helmets, I'm quite sure it's mentioned they cannot turn, but I agree it would look un-dynamic (some would say silly) to have all heads pointing forward while everything else suggests they're lookink elsewhere!

Also, nice paintjob!!!

i would like to see a better version of the combi-melta on the right, and maybe try some holding out arms if you have any, holding the combi-melta as if it was a pistol? i dont like when whole squads all look the same! if you know what i mean.

First 5 are done. Here are the 4 sternguard that will support the sergeant I did earlier.

I really like how the cork looks on the bases.

Can't see any of your pictures. Upload them somewhere that isn't photobucket please!

I saw them before they look pretty cool
Seeing as they're related to wargaming just upload them here.

n0t_u wrote:I saw them before they look pretty cool
Seeing as they're related to wargaming just upload them here.

Seconded, I'd really like to see what everyone is commenting on but I keep on getting a "bandwidth exceeded" message from photobucket

I too wish you weren't using crapbucket.

Well my computer has decided that your pictures exceed bandwidth, which is a complete load, cos I saw them earlier. Sounds a grand project, though could I ask for those who have to deal with crap Uni connections you host a few on dakka so I can enjoy too....:(

^^^^ Agreeed I can not see the pictures would love to see them