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Yesterday, I posted the below thread. Due to the responses, I've decided to change directions, call this a Worklog, and create a splinter legion\offshoot. Lore is below, (still on the first page).

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Hello Dakka,

So, I'm starting a Iron Warriors force (because that's apparently the best way to resolve the 600+ points of unassembled ork\marine\necron stuff I have). Anyway, I have some questions on the schemes. This is a mingled fluff\painting question, but mostly painting, so putting it here.

1.) I'm planning on using a Daemon Prince as a HQ unit. Fluffwise, is this a problem? I read a passing comment from somewhere that the IW don't use summoned daemons, but this seems unlikely.

2.) How should I paint the armor of the above Daemon Prince? Skin, I can do anything, but there really isn't any place to easily include warning stripes on the daemon prince. How do I integrate him visually into my force?

3.) On the same note, what about my Khorne Berserkers? Do I paint them red, with an IW shoulderplate? Or do I paint them in IW colors, with red & brass helmets? I know I can do whatever seems right to me, but wondering how other people have done it.

4.) Finally, same exact questions as #1 - my battleforce included some posessed space marines. Do they belong with an IW force? Paintwise, I assume I'd just go with a normal IW scheme and then pervert it.

Thanks!

Popsicle wrote:Whichever you think looks coolest. I'd go with Red and IW Shoulder Pads, I think. Do two test minis, one of each of the above suggestions, and post them on here; people can tell you which they prefer.

I think that's exactly what I'm going to do.

Samus_aran115 wrote:I'd say red bodies and a single IW shoulder pad (Usually the left for CSM)....Make them look sort-of rusty if you can....Hazard stripes are nice if you can fit them on there.

This is what I'm leaning towards, but not sure if I can do hazard stripes well enough at that size. We'll see, though!

battle Brother Lucifer wrote:Purple skin, silver armor for DP

Silver armor, yes, purple skin - I dunno. That's a little too pimp for me. I'm 95% sure I'm going to go with traditional red for the skin.

Brotheralexos wrote:In the book Storm of Iron, there was an Iron Warriors Warsmith that turned into a Daemon Prince, so feel free to add one to your force.

Yeah, I read that too so surprised to read that IW usually eschew daemons.

Ifalna wrote:If you go for the right armour/weapons on the new dp, there are plenty of pipes which can be painted as hazards while keeping the normal IW armour style going.
It was the only way I could get it to work onl

That looks doable - I'll keep it in mind. As a side note, it was your Iron Warrior Terminator commission that made me fascinated with Iron Warriors, then I read Storm of Iron, and so now, here I am.

Bonegrinder wrote:This looks good (not by me)

hope it gives you ideas for where you want to go with yours.

As awesome as he is, I'm pretty sure Daemon Princes only have a single close combat weapon, and this guy is clearly wielding some sort of ranged weapon. Obviously you can do count-as, but that's not how i roll, as the kids say.

I'm also considering fabricating a big servo arm for him, as that would really give him the IW feel, but that would take the place of wings, and I think this is a situation where I'm going to have to go with function over form. We'll see though.

Thank you everyone for your suggestions. You've given me lots to think about.

Kanluwen wrote:They don't use "Summoned" Daemons, persay. One of the cooler things about the Iron Warriors is that when they do Daemons(in the loosest sense) they're a blend of technology augmented by the occult forcibly bound into a machine shell. Think of the movie "Virus", but...well, weirder.

I'm going to try and incorporate some biomech into him. The movie reference is good (and I actually Liked Virus, but I enjoyed the original comic too so it figures). I think, as Ifalna said, I can keep the hazard stripes and restrict them to the hoses... and possibly, to the Biomech.

Kanluwen wrote:Well, that depends on how you really want to do it. Do you want your Berzerkers to be from another warband/the World Eaters proper...or do you want them to be Iron Warriors who've gone a bit off the deep end and started to adorn themselves with sigils of Khorne?

I've been thinking about while I was filing and trimming the models tonight. I'm going to start writing my lore, and it makes sense for them to simply be World Eaters that are on assignment with the Iron Warriors.

Kanluwen wrote:What do you mean by "pervert it"?

(in regards to the Possessed space marines)
They'd have the armor painted like standard Iron Warriors and then blend in the demonic elements.

MechaEmperor7000 wrote: As mentioned before Iron Warriors dislike mutations, but they do use possessed, by harnessing their power into their weapons. I'd imagine they'd have weapons grafted onto extra limbs or have rockets built into their hooves or something along those lines.

The more I read from you guys and think about how I want more lore to work, the more I think the Possessed have no real place in my army. I'm thinking about swapping them in the swap shop for something more appropriate. But, I'll think more about them later - I want to get the rest done.

As my guys will be worshiping Chaos Undivided, I think allowing Daemons to possess and mutate them would be erring in showing too much worship to Tzeentch. That, and I'd have an impossible time smoothly blending in the mutations - I have a Nightbringer that I've been stuck on for like 2 months because I can't blend the cloth into the living metal.

OK, I've asked for a mod to move this to P&M blogs, and I'll develop this from there. I've got a good idea and this has gone quite a ways from being a general P&M question into now more specifically developing an army.

So, I've decided to change my force from Iron Warriors to a homebrew legion called the IronKnights Marauders

I've got a logo, and the below lore. So far as models, I have a chaos battleforce, a set of terminators, a power armor lord, and a daemon prince - I'd imagine I should be able to tart them to at least 1000 points no sweat.

Type: Chaos Space Marines
Parent\Sponsor Legion: Iron Warriors
Symbol: Attached
Motto: Iron Will, Iron Fist

Here's my concept for my Iron Warriors spinoff . I haven't yet laid down any paint but they are, in nearly all fashions, the same as the Iron Warriors who make up the bulk of their numbers.

My guys are sort of like the Reasonable Marines. They want to save humanity. You're probably thinking they are the 40k equivalent of Drizzt, right? They're misunderstood good guys, yearning to throw off the shackles of their dark kin., right? ... not so much.

To the Iron Knights Marauders, there is no sin, no heresy, worse then inefficiency. The universe is a dangerous place. The astronomicon is fading. The xenos threaten from every corner. The rise of the Necrons and the Tyranids threaten the very continued existence of man. Who will ensure our survival? The Imperium? Please. Their countless worlds, stovepipe commands, and poor record-keeping are nearly as much of a threat as the Tau. They fiddle while Rome burns.

The fool, Abbadon? Hardly - he tosses away equipment and lives in pursuit of nothing worth having. He has brought only death and failure. To save humanity, it's necessary to rule with efficiency and ruthlessness. And who better then they to guide humanity towards utter and total domination of the universe?

My guys prize efficiency above all else. They worship Chaos as a pantheon, showing no special favor to any one god, for they all have their bonuses and weaknesses - how best other to harness them then by playing off which is the strongest? Some of you may have read a short story about Kharn, in which he has an ancient display in his helmet that tracks his kills. My guys would have something similar in nature, but not in function - they would track efficiency like the scene in Terminator 2, where he uses the minigun on the massed police. Of course, they're not trying to avoid fatalities, but rather waste - not a single bolter round pumped into body needlessly.

The Iron Knights Marauders have a code (a man's gotta have a code). Never for them the slaughter for slaughters sake, to taste the blood. Control is all. All those needless slaughters their colleagues are so enamored of just lead to angry populations starting insurgencies, and then they lead to costly and time-consuming population liquidations... No.

In the tradition of the Iron Warriors, before preparing a siege, they parley and offer the opponent a single chance to surrender whatever it is the Knights Marauders need. If they do so, not a shot is fired or a drop of blood spilled - not because they are weak or merciful, but because it's just good business. Sometimes it's just easier to negotiate. Their word is as iron and unbreakable as is their will and their armor . Of course, if their enemy does not surrender, they are slaughtered to the last man, woman, and child, because at that point, you have to send a message. Slaughter, but directed, efficient, purposeful slaughter.

Personnel: The Iron Knights Marauders have established a home world, name TBD, on the fringe of space, far out in the black. There, they have established a Sparta-like society (not in visual theme, though). Everyone fights. No weakness is permitted. The Iron Knights are equal opportunity employers, and their numbers include equal percentages of men and women, both as marines and cultists (no greenstuffed boobs, though). They also tend to attract zealots from loyalist marines and members of the cult of the machine god, who prize efficiency over faith.

The Iron Knights Marauders maintain close ties with their sponsor legion, the Iron Warriors, and most of their champions were previously Iron Warriors. They share a generally similar philosophy and visually are nearly identical. They also have a pact with the World Eaters legion - they provide Berserkers, and in return the Knights provide siege expertise.

For lesser engagements against xeno populations, they have been known to employ Death Skulls Ork mercenaries.

Much like their Iron Warrior brothers, they eschew the mutating powers of the warp. You don't save humanity by trading away your own, and to allow possession and mutation is to give undue worship unto Tzeentch. The Iron Knights need only their unbreakable will and unbending fortitude, not the fickle gifts of inattentive gods.

Kanluwen wrote:Well, he's not trying to have them be "good guys" which Imperial Fist successors would be.

He wants, what amounts to, "we'll save humanity so we have someone left to rule over".

At least if I'm reading that right.

Yes - they're concerned for the well being of their fellow man in the same way a farmer takes care of his chickens - it's property they need eggs from, and if anyone's going to fry them, it's him.

I'll update this to be more accurate, I'm not that familiar with the Horus Heresy.

wolfshadow wrote:I would go with Splinter warband, rather than 'sucessor legion'

Yeah, you guys are right. I've updated the lore. I also have some pics of the Daemon Prince WIP I'll be adding to this thread (after I finish an SPSS install, at work)


Automatically Appended Next Post:
OK, I'm starting with the Daemon Prince. I've washed the marines and they're drying out before being rpimed - I'm going to try and do the marines in batches of 5.

I really did not like any of the present close combat weapons in the box for the Daemon Prince, so I scratchbuilt him one. This only took about half an hour, not counting procreate drying time. I'm not a talented sculpter, but I think i can pull off a simple skull easily enough.



Here is the prince himself:



I didn't particularly like the pose, either - I don't mind the left hand in the "bring it!" pose, but what's with the right arm? It's just kinda hanging there. I sanded down the joint and drilled a hole for a brass peg. My butchery was pretty bad, but his giant shoulderpads should cover it pretty good.

Here's a view of the peg:



And here is is, with the shoulder join patched in with procreate.



and the top view:



And here is a test pose:



That's how I'd like the axe to be positioned when finished. I'm still working on sculpting the replacement hand, which is harder then the little skull on the axe. I think I should be able to pull it off, and worse case scenario, will give up and just cut up one of the alternate hands included on the sprue.

You'll see I also cut his horns off and positioned them up; I'm not sure why more people don't do that. I hate how they look pointing down\sideways. It's unseemly.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

BlutEisenRegel wrote:Sounds like they will become furies then!

I didn't know what Furies were until you posted this. These are going to have to come into play, now. Perhaps winged bloodletters which count-as possessed SM.

No major updates yet. This is going to be a slow moving work.

Here is some minor stuff, though. I magnetized my Icon bearer's staff, but decided that might have general interest, so I posted it to P&M if you'd like to check it out.

I also finished filing down all the mold lines on my marines, and got them washed and dried, I primed them black today. My GWS Iron Warriors upgrade kit arrived today, along with the shoulderpads. Not sure if I'm going to use the shoulderpads or not yet; I ordered them before I decided to make it a custom chapter. On the other hand, the hassle of trying to ebay out the shoulderpads is not worth it, I think I'll use them anyway. As most of these guys were previously Iron Warriors anyway, and my lore shows them as still being very close in all ways, no reason they can't be vanilla Iron Warriors with my guys.

I primed the shoulderpads today in yellow. That was a mistake.



The only yellow spray can I could find at Lowe's was gloss. Turns out the gloss goes on much thicker then does the flat paint, it looks terribly dribbly on some of them despite how careful I was. Not sure this is insurmountable - the only ones are really bad are the ones with chaos stars on them. The ones that are mostly plain (on the left) are the only ones that really need to be primed yellow anyway, and those came out OK. The other ones, the detailed ones, went right into some simple green and remain there still. Better to use flat white and then handpaint yellow, apparently.

OK, I've got the shoulderpads stripped.

I based them in white this time. Then gave them a really thin cover of golden yellow, then another layer. As it turns out, I'm not that good at freehanding hazard stripes.

This might be a problem for an Iron Warriors theme.

I had originally (and rather cleverly, I thought) got some 1/16" masking tape from Tamiya, having had good success with the 1/4" tape. Unfortunately, it's not quite the same. On the smaller scale, the tape is just too stiff (snicker) to bend to the curves I need it to. It also doesn't stick particularly well - it comes off really easy. Pretty disappointing.

Since the tape was out, I tried drawing stripes on and painting them in. This went so well they were all in simple green within an hour.

My third attempt (pictured) is somewhat better. I used a smaller brush and a lot more patience. Practice is helping some too. I hoped to, for the third attempt, to just draw them on completely, but my micron pens kept getting stuck after a pad or two. I tried clearing it by scribbling, but no joy. So, detail brush and I did better.


the ones where the stripes are going nearly straight up and down are my favorites

I've done lot of googling and still don't see a dead simple way of painting hazard stripes on curved objects simply.

Fifty wrote:On the subject of shoulder pads, you should try a Lamenters army! Painting chequers on every single shoulder pad is a nightmare!

From experience, I would recommend the following (note: this is not how I do my chequers, but something I tried that I think would work for stripes) -

Do the whole pad in a light grey colour. On EVERY pad, paint a dot diagonally opposite the bottom front corner of the pad. Carefully, in dark grey (I just use a brush, but lots of people recommend micron pens), draw a straight line to connect them.

Draw another line, halving each half of the remainder of the pad. That will give you four areas to colour in. That should look about right, but you could halve again, and go for eight lines if you feel ambitious. I think that would be too many. Alternatively, you could go for six lines, but that might be hard to judge.

Colour in alternating areas with Bleached Bone, but leave the edges grey. Go over the whole thing in a couple of thin yellow coats.

Colour in the other areas with a dark grey up to the line, then with black over the top. Don't go to the very edges of the grey with the black.

Hmm. I'm going to try this. Thanks.

Ok, here's a brief update.



The tape that I couldn't get to work for the shoulderpads DOES work great for the legs, turns out. I had much better luck with these. I used 1/16" tamiya tape, and a tool I use for random stuff - it has a scraper pick on one end and a thick needle on the other. The needle end was used to press the tape into creases. It helped to lick the needle before pressing, it seemed to soften the tape a little. If you're less disgusting then me, I suppose you can just dip it in water too.

I did a few styles of hazard stripes on the legs - a complete wraparound on the right of left leg. After doing 12 of those, I did 2 "sexy garters" up the upper legplate. The I was going to punk out on the rest as my fingers were already hurting pretty bad*, but decided to further risk carpal tunnel by doing the rest of the legs in a half-plate. Just like the whole leg wrap, only it went halfway across - from the center front stopping at the little centered arrow in the back. I have 19 bodies total due to the vagaries of my bitz box and various trades.

I wound up priming black, basecoating boltgun metal, and after doing the stripes, did a test wash in Gryphonne Sepia, Devlan Miracle, and Badab Black. Devlan Miracle looked the best (surprise!) so I went with that. Some of them look a tad "muddier" in this picture then they actually do, and some of them really are a little muddy and I'll be touching them up soon.

Now I have a pile of guns and arm and backpacks. I haven't decided what to do with the heads. I had enough torsos, but I only have like 8 or so heads. I'm also undecided on what to do with the left side shoulderpads. I have Iron Warriors pads from GWS, but I'm concerned they kinda look like crap now, and I rather suspect painting them won't improve them much. I regret buying them truth be told.

*my finger and wrist have been hurting a lot lately because in addition to working 50 hours a week for the last 3 weeks, I've been super busy with a research paper for school... hah, I'm so full of it. I did have to do the former, and certainly should be doing the latter, but in reality, a friend got me Mass Effect for Christmas and now I've got what could best be described as "FPS finger". How did I miss this game in 2007? Good times.

O Snap. Those are nearly perfect. As a matter of fact, all but 1 really are perfect.

Ok, here's a small update. Between work, school and the copies of Mass Effect 1 & 2 I got for Christmas, updates have been lagging. I finally gave these guys some love this weekend.

I have all the left arms done, all the right arms and bolters done, and the heads are primed. They've been washed, but I haven't yet done touchups.



I've tentatively got them in 2 squads of 10 each. Here's squad A. I see them as being my assaulting squad, if I don't have a more appropriate assaulter available. The special weapons are a plasma gun and a meltagun. The meltagun guy is magnetized so he can swap to a bolter, if I wind up making a larger squad of 20. I don't know where the Aspiring Champions helmet came from, as it came in a bits grab bag, but I freaking love it. I don't have any twin-linked bolters (do they even make them?) so I gave him a loyalist storm bolter off a rhino, as I have quite a few spares of those, also from the grab bag. It looks a little oversized, but so what.



And, squad B. A little less mobile, I gave these guys a heavy bolter and a lascannon. I know the lascannong gets a lot of flak, but it came with my Iron Warriors conversion pack, and I've gotta use it somewhere. Besides, I played a game last night where I did quite well with lascannons (albeit on a dreadnought). The heavy bolter, I'm kinda ehh on. I did a good job with the gargoyle head but I bungled the stripes on this one pretty bad. Not quite so bad I'm willing to strip it, but I'm considering it.

OK, I got a little more work done.

I did wind up ordering the Maxmini Steam Knight heads, but they haven't arrived yet. As they are coming from Poland, I'm neither surprised nor irked, I presumed it would take about a month. I've put aftermarket Iron Warrior heads on as placeholders and will take 10 of them off when the Steam Knight ones arrive... assuming they are in the right scale, and I don't change my mind at the last second. I am fickle like that.

I've got 20 semi-done. They still lack finished shoulderpads, as some of them are taking the third bath in simple green. It's like I hired Michael J Fox to paint my hazard stripes. I can't get straight lines to save my life. I wish I could tape the shoulders like I taped the legs, but the shoulderpads really don't seem to allow taping - it never fits the curve very well and peels at the ends. If I could find a more supple tape I think it would solve my problem.


Here are the troops I have so far. I originally had 19, but I scrouged around and found the parts to make 1 more. I decided to make the extra one into an Aspiring Champion - that way I can have 2 seperate squads of 10 marines each, or one big squad and use him as a counts as. I'm not sure how you guys usually play chaos lists, and although I own marines, I've only played as them once or twice- but it seems like 20 is usually adequate for that slot. My loyalists are for my friends to use when we play together.



Here are the two Aspiring Champions. I gave one a power fist and another a power sword, so I can pick which to use if they go as one big squad. I really love that helmet on the left. I bet it totally sucks to actually wear, though.

Go, my legions! Kill the loyalist scum directly in front of us! Charge!
My lord, there is a furioso dreadnought on either side of them. Is that wise? Do you not see them, again?
My Legions! It has come to my attention that you perhaps should not charge! Shoot them from here! Damn this narrow field of vision!

Awkward.


I magnetized this guys meltagun, so he also has a bolter if I do one giant squad. I have yet to, but will, repeat that process with the plasma gun guy.


For the other heavies, I went with a lascannon and a heavy bolter. I know the lascannon gets a lot of flak but I've had really good luck with them.

I'm considering shaving of entire side of the heavy bolter and replacing it with a custom styrene strip, which I can tape and hence get good straight lines on.


pew! pew! pew!


Here are the rest of the troops. I haven't actually painted any of the icons yet. For now, the banner counts as a perisope.

yet to do:

Finish the shoulderpads
Touch up all the marines - the wash really killed some of the fine details, an I plan to fix them before dullcoting.
finish all the "horn" helmets, as they have no detailing done yet.
Drill out the gunbarrels
finish the backpacks
Paint the base rims black
dust them off - you might notice a lot of them look sort of dusty. I've been doing a lot of dremel grinding in my work room so they really are quite dusty.
Dullcote

Then I'll move on to either the terminators, or the rhinos. I already have one rhino, and a second on the way. The Daemon Prince I still haven't decided on a theme for, yet.

chaos0xomega wrote:You have some really nice work here. The only negative thing I have is the name: Iron Knights are a Loyalist Imperial Fist successors. I'm not sure an IW splinter faction would want to have that kind of association in their name.

...dammit.

I sure hope this is the last thematic change, but they can't be running around with the same name as loyalists - it's unseemly.

OK, I finally peeled myself away from my other projects to get some work done on this.



I got all 20 of the backpacks and alternate pads done. I have the maxmini steam knight heads, and have primed and basecoated them. Still need brass highlights and touchups.

Still to do: the hazard striped pads that need redone.

Models left: Defiler, 2x Rhinos, 5x Terminators, 1x Terminator Lord, 1x PA Lord, 1x Daemon Price... and maybe a land raider. I'm just hoping to get these guys done before my chibihawk arrives, which will immediately steal away all of my attention for at least a month, I suspect.

Ok, got some more work done.

Backpacks are done and on, heads are done and on, Chaos pads are done and on. The only things remaining are the hazard stripe pads, some touchups, and the icons for the icon bearer. Then I'll move on to either the DP or the Rhinos.

Here are some more WIP shots:



Here's squad A. My thought is that this will be the faster moving squad - for heavy weapons choices I'll go with the plasma gun and the melta, and the aspiring champion with the power fist. I accidentally switched the champion from the other squad in these pictures though.



Here's squad B. My thought is that this will be squad that squats on objectives - for heavy weapons choices I'll go with the heavy bolter and a lastcannon, and the aspiring champion with either a power sword or may no CC special weapon. (As before, I accidentally switched the champion from the other squad in these pictures though.)




Here are the models with the Maxmini Steam Knight heads. I was pleased with how they came out, scale-wise: they seemed a little tall when I was painting them but the fit, as you can see, is perfect.

OK, here's an update. I got these guys done 2 days ago, dullcote and all. Need only to drill the gun barrels.

I still didn't do that great a job with the hazard stripes, but truly, Devlan Mud covers a multitude of sins.





I need to work on a term paper for the next few days, but I already have a pair of rhinos for these guys. The rhinos will be done differently then my other, more ornate rhinos. I'm not going to bother with the insides, and will be gluing the hatches closed. I'll do a simple paintjob of just boltgun metal with hazard stripes on the doors, I think, and some icons over it. Nothing fancy; I'll save the good stuff for the better vehicles, like the defiler and land raider.

I also picked up a venerable dreadnought on Ebay today to convert to a chaos dread. The metal chaos dread seems intolerable to me, and I hate the horrendous looking spaghetti power flail it has. I'll probably go with either a chainfist, or sharpen the existing power fist into claws... something like that, unless you guys have a better idea.

OK, I have gotten some more stuff done on this, and I think this post is probably going to stand as a great example of why I can't ever get anything done in a timely fashion. project drift.

Rhino

I started a Rhino. Turns out that if you glue all the hatches closed, and don't fill it with LED's or tiny print or a billion purity seals, you can grind out a nearly finished rhino in like, 3 hours. Here's what I got so far before my ADD compelled me to look, that dog has a fluffy tail!



I'm planning on having that demon head thing be an automated gunner, as it's simply inefficient to have a marine drive AND gunning. I can't imagine my Iron Marauders, champion of efficiency, wouldn't improve on that paradigm.

Also, it's .75 less of a marine to paint.

After trying my hand at sculpting a cog for the logo, and failing abysmally, I just ordered some cogs of Amazon. They were like 2 for 75 cents, without shipping. I'm going to use these as a base and then add more sculpting to flesh it out, and then cast it to make door logos. Here are some pics of size references. Also, I've painted some dip onto the rhino to dirty it up some.



Cog logo

Maybe something like this?



Defiler

I primed the defiler, and fiddled with it some. I hated how the autocannon and power spaghetti noodles flail must be glued in place, so I made it so the mounts rotate\magnetized, respectively.



Needed a spindle for the autocannons.





The other side was much simpler. The magnet might require an upgrade (which I spell thusly, u-p-g-r-a-y-y-e-d) to a large one, depending on how the DCCW winds up. We'll see.

Dreadnought

Obviously, my guys need a dreadnought. The metal chunk of fail that is the current dread is out, obviously. I looked into getting an Iron Warriors dreadnought from Forgeworld, but a quick look at a calculator indicated I can't afford to spend that much on such an underwhelming model. Well, let me clarify; it's not a bad model, it's just not worth as much as they want. I instead ordered a venerable dread and will convert it. Was like $30 delivered, to boot!



Here's the close combat weapon:



The blades are made from Ork choppas, and shaved down some. The rest is obviously styrene. I'm considering just scratchbuilding the whole arm, as it looks kinda too big maybe. It's true that the current Chaos Dread already has a high-five hand that's about as large, but is the current model really what I'm going to go with as a target? I can do substantially better, I think\hope.

Limbo wrote:Army's coming along nicely, a thing that's been bothering me thought, it your heavy bolter. You should consider removing the muzzle on it and have just the daemon head, it looks kinda weird as it is.
I'm liking the mark idea for the warband, cogs always look awesome in warhammer 40k

Lastly, abit about tactics, it's a bad idea to take meltas and plasmas in the same squad, mainly cause you can't use em both and then assualt. Most chaos players usually take 2x assualt or 2x rapid fire weapons in a squad. I would advice against heavy weapons in a normal CSM squad too, seeing how they'll stop a unit of 10+ models just to fire. Only time I'd have heavy wepons in a regular marines squad is if I had a plasma in the same squad, and I knew they would sit on a objective. Still, you should consider making a havoc squad with your heavy weapons, 1: cause they're awesome 2; cause they're fluffy for IW

I might try that bit with the bolter. The stripes came out rather poor on it so I've been thinking about redoing it anyway.

Thanks for the tactical advice: I've never played once with CSM so have no idea about tactics for them. I haven't even read anything yet really. I have Devastators for loyalists, but they are super overpriced; is that not the case for CSM? Can't check codex now, at work.

I wouldn't paint my havocs differently, so I can always just rotate in more melta\bolter marines and then those heavy weapons guys can be the havocs.

OK, here is an update. Statistically speaking, looks it I'm about a month in between units and hence updates. Told you guys it would be slow!

I've gotten done 5x terminators and a Terminators Lord. I'm pretty pleased with them all around, generally speaking. Here is a picture dump:

Group shot


Group shot, with magnetized weapons:



I kept the weapons magnetized so I can swap around between them, and the Terminator Lord. The Lord can swap between a pair of lightning claws, or a bolter + powerfist, or a combi-melta, or whatever such combinations. Same for some of the terminators, though I don't have enough bits to have spares for all of them.

Here are the individual terminators.

One:



Two:



Three:



Four:



Five:



And, my WIP Chaos Lord in Terminator Armor:



I still haven't finished the touchups and some of the bling for the chaos lord (like his cloak, which is drying as we speak) but he's good enough to put on the tabletop, so here we are.

My next project will be finishing up the pair of rhinos. I haven't made much headway on that as they really need an icon to go forward, but I think the one I have now is almost ready. Still pending: Defiler, Daemon Prince, Dreadnought, PA Chaos lord, and possibly\likely a Land Raider.

It is, in fact, vallejo brass mixed with shining gold, highlighted with more shining gold. I washed it with brown ink but ehhh I'm still not so hot with gold yet.

Malganess wrote:Love the use of the thumbtacks as head holders. Great idea. Also, the shoulder pads look amazing. What colors did you use for them?

Actually, in addition to the regular thumbtacks, some of them have rare earth magnets glue to the ends. There is a big metal strip near my desk at work, so for weird shaped pieces I can stick in a thumbtack and then stick them on the strip to dry without them falling over\getting knocked over.

Killmaimburnkillmaimburn wrote:Very nice start. I like how you have done dusty hazard stripes, as I don't like bright clean ones that too many people seem to do. Are you going to stick lots of Obliterators in since they are all machine like?

I did originally leave them in very bright yellow, but they looked too off too me. I decided to wash them with devlan mud to make them look more faded and muted, and was happier with the result.

So far as Obliterators go, not sure where I'm going with that. I certainly like the idea of Obliterators, and they unquestionably fit into my own theme, but I also find them to be some of the ugliest models GWS has in production now. If I do them, I'm going to have to convert something. Before that, though, I'm thinking Bloodletters converted with wings to be Furies: my guys are all about Chaos Undivided, so they'd worship Furies as holy, I think.

Ok, I got updates... and one of them is, imo, what the kids call epic win.

First, here is the terminator lord with his bling. That cape makes a big difference. Side note, that's the best job I've ever done on a cloak, ever - usually my flowing cloth is, well, terrible. This one is rather "acceptable" I think.





For the wolf fur part, I think I was supposed to dry brush it? I probably should have done that first. Anyway, by the time I got up to that I had already done the cloak, and it was already looking pretty good, so I would up picking out each tuft with a reaper eye brush... twice. First a overall job of scorched leather, then the aforementioned tuft-picking with codex grey, then again tuft picking with fortress grey. Not sure if I have the names of those last 2 right, as I get them confused, but the dark grey and then the tips were done in the lighter one.

Ok, so back to that winnage I had mentioned earlier. I really wanted to scratchbuild legs for my dreadnought that were like the ones in War of the Worlds.... I like the idea of tripod legs. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out how to go about that in a way that I liked, so I decided to do the below instead. I actually really like how it worked out. The treads are from Curtis' Ramshackle games, and the rest is just the original venerable dreanought legs, chopped up a little. The rod is 1/8th.






I still need to clean up the treads a little, but my dremel tool battery died mid-job, so here's what I got so far. They're just blu-tacked on but I think you get the idea. Johny Five alive!

btemple0 wrote:I really do like the idea of having a walker on tracks.

But, IMHO I think the frond end of the tracks need a little something, but I cannot put my finger on it, since the area in the front end of the tracks is mostly empty space.

Yeah, it's not finished, but I have to go work. I'm going to put an armor plate or something there.

OK, some more progress. Between school¹ and work², I've been pretty busy, but I did find some time today to whip this up.

The treads work, but they're not, you know, boss. I had really wanted a tripod walker like in War of the Worlds. So, I got some sculpey, some sandpaper, some procreate, and some styrene, and here's what I got.




and in a mold box:



Hoping the mold works out. I'm using Smooth-On Oomoo of dubious quality. It's very, very thick to begin with (you know the site says it's "low viscosity? hah!) and it's kinda old, so one of the parts has a thick pink skin on it. I tried adding some silicon rubber thinner made by a better company, and hope that works. I normally use Tap's platinum cure super low viscosity, which is, imo, the best silicon mold making stuff on the market, but I'm kinda low on both that and money, and I got lots of those Oomoo, and the parts aren't very fine anyway, so it should be ok, I hope. We'll know tommorow.


¹ Dragon Age 2
² Dragon Age 2

Came a little further with the legs. As it turns out, 3 segments is just too large for a dreadnought. If I were building a scratch defiler or some such it would work, but I wound up trimming them down to just 2 legs segments. I'm a little closer to my original concept, now, although I originally intended for them to be a little spindly with armor plates over them. Still, not too shabby. Still need to fill some pits and file them down but this is a decent approximation of what I had intended.



I need to shorten the wasit joint. I have a 1/8" rod running from the torso to the leg assembly, and that 1/4" tube is covering it. I have sort of a nut made of glue on the underside, and then carefully lifted it so it can torso-twist (something I never quite mastered in Mechwarrior!) I also did some work chao-sifying it up some more. I'm pretty happy with it now and think it's nearly ready to prime. I do want to add some spikes to it, but I want them to look like they belong, and not just randomly glued on as many chaos conversions do. Maybe I don't need the spikes at all, it hardly screams loyalist as is.

I really do like the treads, though. Since I'm sure I'll have another dreadnought (I like dreadnoughts) will save those for the next one.

Switching gears for a sec, here is the WIP so far on my defiler. I've got the bottom half done.



This is what I've been working on, in a really halfass way, while thinking about what I want to do with the dreadnought. I haven't primed the dreadnought because I'm not 100% sure where I'm going with it, though I'm leaning pretty strongly towards the legs.

The defiler is coming along not too badly. I refuse to work on it at home, and so it's a slow one, done only in my downtime at work. I'm probably going to abandon that principle this weekend, as I think I'm going to LED up the innards of this guy. I like the idea of a red glowing face behind the helmet, though I think thats the only LED I'm going to employ on this model.

Limbo wrote:Defilers looking great, and I think glowing red eyes would be a great idea! Is that the final look on the bottom? Wondering since it maybe alittle to much gold, althought I can't really say until the top half is on

I haven't painted the hoses and minor stuff like that, but it's a more or less final look, less. I agree it has a lot of brass on it, but my theme for my guys is dirty metal (boltgun) trimmed in brass (Vallejo brass for everything, 50/50 vallejo brass and gold for elites, gold for HQ). I'm disinclined to change my theme for this one model, as the trim is pretty distinctly demarcated on every piece of the armor. I think it's less that this model has a lot of brass, and more that defilers in general have a lot of trim, period.

On the defiler subject, I got some more done on that. I decided to go with an orange LED because I didn't have a bright enough red one or the patience to wait for one to be delivered it looked better. I went with one larger LED rather then specific eyes since I don't want to get into soldering SMD's.


Here is the mask off, and the light off. I put a "cover" over the sides of the LED made from a 1/8th styrene tube, and used a dremel to flatten the front of the LED, which had the side effect of making it look like a Geth.


Light on. Still a lot of bleed, hope to fix it with paint.


Here is the on-off switch (the bit with the notch in it). It fit very nicely there, imo.


Here is the wiring. The 2 shiny spots are magnets, which keep the back cover in place. I used a normal batter mount with the sides cut off so it would fit better. Normally I just put the battery loose in whatever cavity I can, but in this case, it fit in that spot so nearly when mounted upside down (that's what she said) I glued it in. I'll probably wrap the battery in painter tape to get some short insurance, though it really does fit like it was meant to go there.


And, with the light on, unpainted mask on. Brightness is just about right - not too dull, not overpowering.

No painting done tonight. Most distastefully, work is actually busy - the nerve.