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Hey Guys.

I'm going to be assembling a Heresy-Era Raven Guard army, with a slight twist to the colour scheme, they are going to have white helmets and shoulder pads and a black raven logo. Dont expect many feathers or claws or things, the majority of this army is meant to be marines from terra, with only the veteran assualt squads being from Deliverance. They were going to be Luna Wolves, they were heavily inspired my the cover of the third Horus Heresy book, Galaxy in Flames, but then i decided i wanted a legion that was still active today and i really love the idea of the Raven Guard, hammered at Istvaan, dabbling in cloning and utilising hit and run warfare.

The cloning stuff is going to be used more in current/post heresy era, but given that the heresy actually lasted a considerable period of time and that the Raven Guard were pretty much out of it from the beginning, i can easily see Corax starting the process quite quickly.

With the Vets, in this company the majority of the marines are still from Terra, while the recruits from Deliverance are integrated into the legion as a whole. Because of their upbringing on Deliverance and their skills and experience with fierce, surgical strikes, they are generally used to fill the roles of Vanguard Veterans, swooping upon their foes and tearing them apart before they can strike back

They will be based off the Blood Angel rules as I feel they suit the Raven Guards tactics better, plus it allows me to do cool stuff like using Death Company to represent Corax's failed cloning attempt, along with a few nods to Rogue Trader era 40k with idependent Apothecarys.

Heres the piccies so far.







Made a bit of progress on the white since i took these a few hours ago... i'm glad i changed from Luna Wolves, cant believe i considered painting full white armour...

Funnily enough, thats just what i've used. Washed them in Badab Black and will re-highlight the white as soon as its dried.

Glad you like it so far.

Hey guys,

popped into GW Cambridge to do some painting tonight, was actually nice to paint in company rather than on my own, provides a bit more motivation painting in a gaming environment, like watching some guys Fantasy Daemons getting pwned by a High Elf player.

Quite pleased with how they are coming on, but i'm a bit worried about the brass etched symbols, they seem really tricky to paint, might have to paint them grey and then put a few washes of badab black on. Any ideas anyone?













The white is more shaded than it appears in some of the pics. Need to highlight the edges of the black armour, sort of the emblems, decide on shoulder pad trim and do the bases. Oh and sort out the captains shield, think i've decided to paint it white but might change my mind.

Finished my first Raven Guard! Woohoo!

Took a while to do tonight, but i'm pretty pleased. Highlighted the black with adeptus grey, and added company and personal markings. The Green knee pad with the 4 on is to represent that he's from the 4th Grand Company, and its repeated on the back of his powerpack. His left knee pad is his own personal heraldry, I see each marine from that era as a hero in his own right, having fought across the galaxy following the emperor, each one a veteran of countless battles compared to normal men. So each marine will get his own heraldry, though im tempted to have all the members of each squad share a similar colour scheme for them.











After fiddling with the camera settings it feels like its showing the white as it actually appears in real-life.

1 down, lots to go!

Finished the other 4 guys from the tactical squad. Decided to have all the heraldry for this squad red and cream, some guys are having complex heraldry and some are having quite simple ones.

Monkeh - they were undercoated grey to start with, the white/black contrast isnt as harsh in real-life, as i hope these photos show.









Decided that rather than ading another colour to the scheme, i would try doing a green power sword. Also tried a new technique with it, reasonably happy, luckily i dont have many power weapons in my army!







Did a little bit of work on the captain too, he's getting a funky green cloak, may do somemore on him tonight and post an update later.

Ok, to start with, i wasnt happy with the power sword so did a bit more work on it.





And then heres the captain. Havent glued the shield on yet, but he's done. Freehand on the cloak was a pain, an absolute pain, but i think it looks pretty good and its repeated on the shield. Little lightning effects on the power fist fingers, but the pics dont show it great. Heraldry on the kneepad is the green "assault squad" symbol thats on his shield and banner, again freehand and not too bad.















Probably do some assembly next, my librarian and assault terminators probably.

Hope you guys like em.

Hey guys.

Yeah, Khorne Bezerker helmets with the ears removed. The crest is an iron halo built up with green stuff.

Only downer is that the bezerker heads only come 1 per 4 models.

Moonshine - I'm thinking of adding scouts eventually, but im not sure i like the plastics and the metal ones with bolters only come in 2 poses.

Been working on these guys all day, not sure if it was a good idea to paint all 8 marines in one batch, but they're getting then. Then i just have to pain the chaplain.

Wip tactical marines. All but one have had adeptus grey highlights, but they all need the black re-doing to correct all my mistakes, then a wash of badab black over the grey and metal. Then its just company markings, personal heraldry and basing. Three of the helmets have greenstuffed mouth grills, 2 of which are based off khorne beserker helmets. There's also a pair of crusader helmets and bare head from a death company marine. Missile launcher was a real bugger to stick together, by the time it was finally glued i had to chop off one of the nossles on the backpack because i forgot to glue that on first. I know better now for the next one!





Finally, a close up of my chaplain. He's entirely plastic, made from a marine commander, chaos warrior helmet, chaos marine backpack and random skulls.



Hope to get the armour/weapons and company markings done tomorrow, and the heraldry and bases finished by friday or so.

Finished the next 8 tac marines and here they are.









The completed first tactical squad - all with cream and red heraldry.



The start of the second tactical squad - with cream and blue heraldry.



And a work in progress on my Chaplain, who i'm trying to do while watching the spurs - milan game... i'm thinking 0 - 0, with a few nervous moments for spurs fans...





Right, back to the Chaplain!

Hey guys,

shoulderpads are just normal pads with very short pieces of plasticard tube glued on.

I'm aware that the colour scheme isnt "codex" for Raven Guard, but I like it and as far as i see, during the age of the heresy and before, the chapters would have had looser rules regarding their uniforms, especially between the different grand companies of a legion.

Picture of the back of the flamer will come, i promise! :-)

Finished my Chaplian on Wednesday, but only just got to round to taking pictures of him.

I've used the bleached bone cross on a black background as his personal heraldry, which is repeated on his inferno pistol hand and the freehand on his cloak. My idea with this is that if i ever make a Corax model, he'll have the same (but more detailed) heraldry. I have this idea that when the Chaplains were introduced after the council of Nikea, they were to enforce the emperors (and by default the primarchs) will. When my chaplains take their oath, they sacrifice their own background and heraldry and adopt the primarchs, as a symbol of the enforcing of his will.

The skulls on his backpack have been washed with red, brown and black in places because i wanted to get the look that they had been scorched/burned by the chaplains pistol, prior to being affixed to his backpack. The cloak is trimmed in green to further tie him into the 4th grand company, although he still also retains the green kneepad as well.













Wow... in the photos it looks like i've painted a jamaican flag on his cloak! In real life you cant see the black bands either side of the bone cross, thats just the overspill from the wash that the camera randomly decided to pick up.

Thanks mate, i'm really pleased with him, especially the skull helm and the white shoulderpad.

I did try adding a black celtic-band style design ontop of the bone cross on his cloak, but i gave up as it was too hard.... next time gadget!!!

Hey Guys, got the next batch of models made up.

7 Tactical Marines, Sergeant, Missile Launcher
1 Honour Guard, Meltagun
Apothecary
Drop Pod, Locator Beacon

So, that should be Tac squad 2 finished, my apoth (sanguinary priest) is going to be deployed with the the missile launcher combat squads so that will be most of my backline sorted, the drop pod is for the honour guard, which is going to have 2 meltas and probably be accompanied by my librarian (who will come in a later month).

Heres some pics of the guys.













The honour guard has a ravenwing helmet, death company torso and the FW raven guard backpack and studded shoulderpad. The drop pod is going to be done last as i want to magnetise the ramps so they all shut. Havent used magnets before (or bought them yet), so i'm hoping it wont be too hard.

Well, after many hours work (helped by easter holidays) and much cursing my own stupidity of trying to paint 9 models at once, i've managed to finish the infantry. Still need to do the drop pod, but need to stop procrastinating and order some magnets so the doors will stay shut when i want them too before i can paint it.

Ok, first up, the remaining 7 members of tac squad 2.









The start of my honour guard squad.






Apothecary





Group shot of this batch



Group shot of completed tac squad 2.



And now i think i need a rest!

Well, a storming start to the month has ended up with a frantic finish, but at last the drop pod is done!

After faffing about for the better part of the month i never actually got round to ordering the magnets to magnetise the doors, so i ended up just glueing the doors shut and painting it like that. Saves me having to do the inside and will make it easier to use in games as well as it has a smaller footprint.

Hate how my camera makes the washes show on the black. Was a bit of a pain doing the white and trying to get it looking even, but not as annoying as doing fine highlights on the black... not looking forward to painting the next 2 pods!







Group shot of this months stuff.



Group shot of army so far.



Now i need to decide what to do next, could do my terminator squad, try and finish my honour guard (although im lacking the apothecary bits to do it), maybe a dread, a devastator squad... i love indecision...

5 heresy-era termys, sgt has plumed bit to tie him into other sgts/officers.















These pics were taken before i finished basing them!

Hopefully start them over the weekend

Thanks guys.

Perkustin - i tried to keep everything looking simple, no fuss for these guys! well, apart from the roman-esque helmets. As for the albino thing, this is meant to be early in the crusade, in the 4th grand company most of the marines are from terra, with only the vanguard vets having been integrated so far from deliverance.

Llamahead - i love the raven guard, their hit and run tactics, the massacre at istvaan, Corax's dabbling with cloning. The beakies are going to be the vanguard vets, who are also going to the only ones with jump-packs due to them being difficult to come by, same as in real-life as im waiting for forgeworld to release some mark III ones.

Yeah i'm tempted by chapterhouse, but if FW do some i'd rather use them in case i take these guys to a GT one day.

Perkustin - As the emperor led his wars of conquest he lead the marine chapters from terra. As he came across each of his sons he made them primarch of a chapter and drafted the best of the native warriors to join the terran marines. Although they were trained and received their implants relatively quickly, the fluff for my 4th company is that relatively few were assigned to them to start with, and they used their natural skills in lightning warfare to form the vanguard vet squad in my army.

Reaper Man - ask and you shall receive.

Mini update. Finished the termy segt, painted the helmets and shoulder pads of the others. Tried a bit of a lighting effect on the thunderhammer, looks ok i think for a first attempt.







A sneak peak of things to come, 3 more honour guard and a landspeeder tornado.





Got to finish the termies and get the drop pod done in the next 2 weeks... should be do-able.

dantay - thanks for the offer but i sucked it up and bought some bits off ebay.

Brother Julian - My understanding is that Mk6 was distributed in very limited quantities during the heresy, mainly to rebel legions. I'm only planning on having 5 in the whole force and i do intend to introduce some post heresy elements at a later date, Corax's clones for example.

Flamers are forgeworld and a bit of a sod to work with, the top grip is quite tight to get the right hand in, the kneeling one snapped his fingers off doing it.

I actually put the missile launcher underneath because i didnt want the backwash from the missiles melting the gunner. Plus its from a drop pod and had the perfect gap to glue it to where the assault cannon was. Might move the igniter nozzle underneath. Still got a bit of work to do to it before it gets painted.

I think i will do it, will make it look a lot better.

The other reason i put the missile launcher on the bottom is that it was too tall for the gunner to see over otherwise. Oh, and the winger skulls would be upside down... there's method in the madness!

Finished two more of them today, the two guys with lightning claws. Tried to do the light sourcing again, it looks ok but it's never gonna be white dwarf standard.





Group shot.



Hopefully do some more work on the other two tomorrow night. I'm really getting fed up of doing the edge highlighting on these guys, and i havent even started the second drop pod yet which requires even more!

Terminators are now finished... woot woot...





Group shot.



Feels really nice to have another unit finished, only my 3rd so far!

Gonna do the drop pod next and then finish making the honour guard squad and a librarian i think.

I do like the new FW assault marines, and i'm thinking of getting a set of MKII's, but im still trying to figure out how to incorporate them with the Ravenguard bits i was planning on using for the vanguard vets.

Still got a few bits to be getting on with before i make a decision.

I've seen some fw jump-packs on ebay already, but £4.50 each means i may as well just buy the set.

Sons of Medusa stuff would be cool to see.

Henners - I never thought that the skull was to represnt the emperor on his throne, I just thought it was how they roll.

Managed to finish my second drop pod, went for green sides this time, mainly because the white on the first one was such a pain to do.



Comparison with the first one.



And heres a shot of them with the terminator squad i finished earlier.



Next up, Librarian, rest of the honour guard and the start of a devastator squad.

Well... better late than never.

Made a random decision to paint a squad of Ork Nobz before I started these, and they took forever. Still, 9 guys in 7 days is do-able.

Devastator Squad



Honour Guard Squad



Will be nice to complete 2 more squads.

Wife was out partying with work, i've spent all night getting the devastator squad done, just the bases need doing. Good night had by all!







Hopefully finish these guys tomorrow, then do some more work on the Honour Guard.

Thanks for the kind words guys.

The devastator squad got finished on friday, but i forgot to photograph them, and then I worked on the Honour Guard sat/sun.

First up, the 4 Honour Guard. Some of the photos are reflecting the white too much, apologies.









Group shot of the Honour Guard with the earlier member.



Group shot of everything done this week.



Probably gonna do the Librarian next, plus maybe the Land Speeder and something else.

Decided to do my Librarian & Land Speedermnext, along with something else... which turned out to be a Raven Guard version of Borther Corbolo. Armed with a 2 handed rending chainsword, he should be able to dish out some pain, as well as providing furious charge and feel no pain to the rest of the boys.







Landspeeder, with the heavy flamer ignition nozzle now underslung.



Librarian with new force weapon.



Hopefully get these all done over the next few days.

Finished 2/3rds of the new stuff.

First up, Brother Corbulo (New name pending)







Think he looks ok, one of these days i'm gonna really have to learn to do eyes! Next up, Librarian.













Really pleased with how he turned out, dont think i've ever spent so much time on a single model. He's gonna be the regular leader of my Raven Guard forces.

Just the Land Speeder to go.