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Hello one and all. I’ve decided its time to stop gawping at everyone else’s efforts and make a small offering myself. I’m gonna come right out and be brutally honest from the start, and probably lose the majority of you straight away. I suck. I’ve been around long enough to have bought a copy of Rogue Trader when it was shiny and new and whilst I have dipped in and out of the hobby, I’ve never really improved too much at my painting and modelling skills. My GS skills are even worse. A lot of this comes down to motivation and patience and so I am offering this project up to the dakkarites in the hope that it pushes me to finally concentrate on doing a top job and actually finishing a project for once.

Enough flagellation. The project I’m gonna work on in is a scout squad for my own chapter, The Scythes of Dorn. The chapter has a Slavic theme but aside from having given the characters Slavic names there’s not really much to set them apart from any other army of super-humans. At the same time I like the scout models but I feel they always look a bit off, maybe a bit cartoonish. So my plan is to link the two issues and create a scout squad that adds a little more character to the army and doesn’t look like a bunch of clones.
I’ve got a few early ideas about how to go about this but one of the main themes will be to give each scout an individual purpose. At the moment I am thinking squad leader, heavy, demolitions expert, comms/intel officer, and pointman.
I want to make them look like a covert bunch whilst also giving them a bit of Slavic theme. I’ve already been working on removing their chest aquilas and am definitely gonna be giving them headswaps.

Anyway I’ve rabbited on long enough for now. I’m looking forward to cracking on with these and receiving any criticism, tips, encouragement etc. Will be scouring the tutorials for any help at each stage of the process, but feel free to offer pointers. Not really any pics to show yet at this early stage but may well add something later tonight.

“Two minutes to target,” the rhino’s driver announced through the grille.
Seated directly across from him, Lebno leaned forward and turned his moustachioed head towards the grille. “Have you a visual, yet?” Lebno was combat squad leader when the squad was split into two, and had been acting sergeant whilst Rhyzkov underwent his rehabilitation and…reconstruction. Even now it was generally Lebno who issued orders and was the voice of the squad. Kaminsky’s gaze flicked momentarily to the sergeant who sat at the far end of the rhino, just to the right hand side of the grille. Rhyzkov was hunched over, seemingly oblivious to his surroundings, inactive power fist clenched. From this angle, with only the rebuilt bionic left side of his head on display, he could well have been a machine awaiting activation.
The driver gave a short bark of laughter. “It’s a city,” he shouted. “I should bloody hope I see it! I see it defends itself.” The rhino shook under another near miss. “I also see that it is willing to make sacrifice.”
“How so?” Lebno demanded.
The driver’s unhelmeted face appeared briefly behind the grille as he turned to face them. He was grinning, the rush of combat upon him.
“Many of the scum are trapped outside. The city, she closes her gates to them! Its going to be knife work out there.”
That suited Kaminsky just fine. He rested a hand reassuringly on the eagle head pommel of the combat blade strapped to his thigh, presented to him by Captain Kaleshencko. It had been a while since the squad had been involved in some decent close up work, not since their last entanglements with offshoots of Waagh Gorrcruf. He found the proposition of wetting the blade appealing.
“Head directly for the main body,” called Lebno. “At full speed.” Obviously the squad leader shared his anticipation.
“I must maintain current speed,” the driver replied, apologetically. “Squad Metelkin’s rhino is just ahead of us.”
Kaminsky scowled as he inhaled another lungful of lho. As the active squad bearing the most honours, Squad Metelkin were handed the company standard to carry into battle. They also had the honour of leading the company into combat. Squad Rhyzkov had carried the standard many times before and resented the loss of it to that braggart, Metelkin. The rhino filled with the muttering and curses of frustrated, battle hungry astartes. Some of his brothers were swearing at the driver, others were promising violence to the “cowards” in their rival squad.
A sudden heavy clang quietened all tongues and all eyes turned to stare at the large ceramite ball of death that was Rhyzkov’s power fist where it still pressed against the driver’s cab. “Brother,” he said, not bothering to raise his head. ”Accelerate directly into the enemy. Such caution shames our Company.” With that, the rhino filled with a sudden stink of ozone and a flicker of blue crackling energy as the sergeant activated the power fist.
The marines let out a cheer. “Aye, brother sergeant,” called the driver. “As you order.” The rhino’s engines revved in acknowledgement. “Impact in 60 seconds.”
Impact. Kaminsky approved of the choice of word. So very apt.
Lebno released his harness and stood up, one fist grabbing the ceiling rail to hold himself steady. “You heard it, Scythes,” he growled. “Prepare to secure a foothold amongst the enemy. Extraction from all three exits. Kaminsky, you and I will be first down the rear ramp. Pulin, you will remain and man the storm bolter. Concentrate ahead of the driver’s cab. I want a clear ring around this rhino within ten seconds. The sergeant will direct us with further orders from then. Understood?”
As his brothers cried their assent, Kaminsky reached down and lifted his helmet from where it had been mag-locked between his feet. He took one last long pull on the lho-stick, flipped the helmet over and expelled the smoke into it. Sliding it onto his head, the rhino’s interior took on a green tinged glow. Lebno’s outline was suddenly highlighted in blue, indicating a friendly target. Kaminsky made a few adjustments, first the green glow reverting to normal as he toggled the night-vision off, then the blue highlight disappeared. He certainly wasn’t going to need targeting assistance for the coming encounter.
“Thirty seconds.”
As he slammed a magazine into his bolter, he watched Pulin stow the meltagun under his seat. He suspected his battle brother would be disappointed about being left in the rhino, but the melta was going to be little use in such a melee, and no self-respecting member of the Chapter saw the chance to man a storm bolter as an insult.
“The primarch guide your aim, Brothers,” Lebno’s voice intoned over the comm-link.
“Urrah!” the squad’s reply echoed in Kaminsky’s helmet. The rhino’s engine roared to new heights and the marine’s adrenalin spiked as he braced for the inevitable moment of contact. Above the engine and the continuing explosions, his enhanced hearing could detect another deep dirge. The sound of fear, anger and hatred. The sound of an army.

Sounds promising, except for the "I suck" part. One of the great things about Dakka is the cc you get from people, so let's see some pics!

Just a little bit of progress at the mo. Been cleaning up the flashlines on the legs and have been playing around with some stances and equipment for the lads. Have also been considering my heavy and, whilst i really like the heavy bolter, i wanted to try and come up with something myself as an alternative. I've come up with something fairly basic but which i'm quite happy with. Needs some tidying up near the grip but still need to mess about with how it will be positioned on the model. I'm planning for it to be held underslung, supported by a strap over the heavy's shoulder.

(Shock that i managed to get the pic to attach - easier than i thought it would be!) Anyway c&c welcome on it. Also in the pic is another little chopjob i did for a bolter. The idea at the moment is for a couple of the scouts to be an intel chap and a demo specialist. In my head i've got an image of these two not directly brandishing these weapons but having them slung. Does anyone think there's a problem with having a mix of weapons in the squad - a couple of these and a couple of normal bolters? I reckon the pointman should have the meatier standard bolter tho this is subject to change. I might well add scopes on these babies which i think would make them look fairly cool.

Anyway thats a quick little update. Will get back to cleaning up the model parts and hope to have pics of bluetacked together models in the next couple of days. Enjoy your fridays, people!

Can't quite make out your heavy weapon there, is it currently lacking the grip that needs tidying?

Your bolt pistol/SMG looking thing is really cool! Will that be a counts-as bolter for your scouts?

Hi Rawson, i went back and edited the post - this is my first blog and wasnt sure how the pics would show up so posted before i was completely finished to check. Am glad you could kinda work out how the weapon worked tho. Think i answered questions in the second half of the post . Yeah i'm quite happy with the bolter. Simple but effective, i reckon

I look forward to see how you mount that 'Squad-cannon' i also like the bolt pistol.

I too am currently working out ways to make my scouts more specialist. Am doing count as grey hunter, wolfscout and wolfguard army though but still going for a 'tooled up' look.

Yeah Squad Cannon!! Like the sound of that. Once i put up a pic of the heavy guy toting the thing i'm hoping for folks advice on getting the right look. I'm not sure where to attach the strap just yet to make it look natural. Will have to get googling light machine guns, i guess

Am finding it a bit tricky at the moment to get a balance between the squad looking tooled up whilst giving them a bit of a 40k gothic look. Theres a good chance they will look more suited to an IG army but not overly sure thats such a bad thing. Few ideas for some of the individuals but will present my thoughts when i have pics to back em up.

Good luck with your own scouts, Perkustin. Will keep an eye out for them on the boards here. I need the motivation to push on thru and finish a project to the very end.

For the models, you could use Wood Elf (or Dark Elf?) cloke's, with a bit of modification, the cloaks would look really cool. That might give them a specialist feel, whilst keeping in theme?

I considered cloaks originally when buying the models and declined the opportunity of buying the sniper scouts, partially cos they would be tricky to convert different weapons, but also cos i felt that look was not quite what i was looking for. Although it would have been darned nice to have a set of kneeling legs. Bitz sites never seem to have them available.
I may well give my squad leader a cloak to set him apart. Am leaving him til the end as i can invisage how my other guys will look but am unsure between making him a counts as telion or not

So i've not exactly started out as i mean to go on. I'd like to say that work/illness/family had delayed working on this project but the fact is it was partying and that chaos god known as xbox. However, i have re-focused now and am able to present to you a very WIP first member of the squad. At the moment i have not named him so i introduce him to you simply as "The Cracksman"

Obviously he is bluetacked at this stage and i will need to gs or use plastic strip to complete the grenade belt. Also need to add a strap for the bolter and to add the wire into the "reel". I quite like him though. I'm also hope i've given him a different feel to the usual young arnie clones that scouts usually resemble. Am a bit wary of him looking too old for a scout but i think the head is just too cool. Will have to think carefully about the colour of his beard when it comes to painting cos I can't help but wanna paint it grey.

Anyway C&C is appreciated. Would love to hear suggestions of other stuff to add to the model, tho even the missus commented whilst walking past that it looked too cluttered at the moment. Personally i reckon a manof his trade would be fairly heavily burdened tho. Let me know what you think.

(If someone could clue me up as to how i can reposition photos amongst the text, that would be very helpful)

Since i'm thinking of writing a bit of fluff for each of the characters to help motivate myself, plus i've got a couple of projects in mind for after these scouts, I've decided to provide a link to some background on my Chapter.

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.php?showtopic=191358&hl=axlbush


Planning on mocking up another of the scouts later tonight so will hopefully have more pics to show

That guy looks cool. How old he looks can depend a lot on the paint job. Look into some different face painting tuts. I think his knife could be moved up to sit on top of his shoulder.

I really like the idea for the reel. I'll have to use that.

Well so far you don't suck! that's a good positive right there! he looks great, a bit of imagination can make or break a model and you have a good grasp on what you want to see and actually doing it! well done! a whole scout squad with level of execution will be fantastic! painting will be the tricky part if that's your weak point? but if you do your research on the techniques you intend to use you'll be fine! i'll sub this thread as i want to see what else you can do! looking real good dude!


Nerdfest09

Wow, I love that model with his added gear, it really makes him involved in long range reconnaissance, with little to no support!

The tiny details (bolt pistol buttstock + silencer, for instance) add a lot of character too !

That's a pretty good start for someone who claims he's "not that good"!

Off-Topic : there's a underground war running in Dakka for "Dakkaites" vs. "Dakkanauts", but if you try to raise a new faction with "Dakkarites", you should expect some flak from both sides

Cheers for the positive comments guys. I was really optomistic when I had the vision for him in my head, so its great that he's got some compliments. As you guys say, its all about the painting to really carry the model through, and thats certainly the bit I am most worried about.

@ the good green - glad you like the reel. I was a bit worried it was a little too large but it just about works.

@ yggdrasil - dakkaites? dakkanauts? i'm intrigued......?

Am aware this blog is movign along more slowly than i hoped. I have been working on the next scout this week but the hold up comes from my poor skills with GS. I keep having to start again on what is really a very basic task. Very frustrating cos i'm more or less happy with the model apart from this one detail. Am tempted to add pic of him so far but I may well hold off til i'm happy.
In the meantime I've also made progress on a third scout. With a fair wind and a lack of distractions, I think I will finish his mock-up and post a pic tonight.

Hey, Dakka is all about showing your stuff, asking for advice, and getting some help from others, so you should post your scout as it is, say what's wrong in your eyes with it, and probably a bunch of guys might have a simple solution to your problem!!!

Looks good like the smg thing. Keep it up.

Man i am getting truly narked with GS. Of course you are right, Yggdrasil, i should just post a pic but i'm caught in a bit of a bind as i believe the "feel" of the model will differ whether it has the head on it or not. Probably being a bit obsessed with a minor feature, and am really eager to share pics, but just feel i can't until i'm semi happy with what i'm presenting

On the upside, i actully produced a sculpt i was reasonably happy with last night, tho its not attached to the head piece of the model. If it still fits nicely then i will use it. At the very least I am learning more about gs curing times so its all progress i suppose

Pics soon. Honest

So tonight I took a break from the the GS and decided to crack on with the next member of the squad. Say hello to the pointman. I was a little reticent to post this dude up next as, although i haven't built the other guys yet, i envisage this to be the most "vanilla" member of the squad. This isnt to say i'm unhappy with him; when the whole squad is formed i believe he will be fit in perfectly. I should also point out that he was inspired by the awesome pic shown next to the Scout profile in the codex. I did attempt to model bare arms for him but couldnt quite get it to work so reluctantly feel back on the standard arms.

As with the cracksman he is held together with bluetack for now, partially so i can make any changes, but also cos i find it easier to paint my models semi-built. Will also need to drill out the gun barrel. For the pointman i chose to arm him with a full-on bolter, unlike the more compact firearm prefered by his colleague. Often being the first man into combat I like the idea of him being a bit of a psycho and eshewing finesse for a bigger gun - this also ties back to my Chapter's love of "shootiness". When the enemy is close he's more than happy to plant his axe in their face. I thought about the position of his knife for a while. Tried it on either shoulder first but ended up placing it on his lower leg as i felt it disrupted the lines of the model, though i may end up changing this as i like the idea of him quickly drawing it from his arm. Any thoughts on that or any other suggestions are very welcome.

Phew! Its nice to finally have some pics to show

Just put in an order from a bits site. Was only on there to order a couple of bits for a librarian i planning to build at some point but i got a little carried away and ordered a rhino. Am thinking i could build this as a razorback transport for the scouts. Does this make any sense to those of you who play 40k a lot more than I?

I don't know if it makes more sense, but I say go for it. The pointman looks cool. I like his little tuft of hair, and that axe is awesome. I like the knife on the boot, but try it on the other boot too.

Do you have any catachen arms? I've seen those used on marines to varying degrees of success... or ungor arms. Those work on all sorts of characters I've seen, but they don't come in the best poses for the scouts... I think. Might still be worth looking into.

Yeah, i've got a few catachan arms at my parents house i might be able to grab. Had been using marauder arms but i really wanted to keep the shoulder armour and just couldnt make it work - maybe my skills aren't good enough.
Will try the knife on the other leg, i was thinking tho that it might make that side of the model too "tooled up"???

Evening all

I was gonna post pics of the third member of the squad tonight but on taking pictures I noticed i was unhappy with the end result of my green stuff work. Certainly the next thing I've learnt since starting this blog is that a camera really exposes your deficiencies!

Anyway, whilst working on the current model I've been considering the final member of the squad, the leader. I can't decide whether to go for a Telion counts as, or a dude with a left hook to give Hellboy a run for his money. I'm only a very occasional player and when i do battle its against a mate's marines. What kinda load-out do people think i should go with?

I'm sorry mate, the pose is great & dynamic (and as I said, I love the "overgeared' characters), but this head screams Chaos too much for me...

But that's personal experience, probably...

Fair play, yggdrasil, it is a chaos marauder head afterall. :-) I did consider lobbing off the ear ring but in the end decided that it added a bit of character to him. Fits in with my goal of getting away from the "clone" scout look.

Having struggled with GS for so long i finally had an attempt that, whilst i'm not completely happy with, is at least passable (i hope) and gives an idea of how i want the third member of the squad to look. As with the cracksman and pointman, this is a blue tacked mock up so will be able to keep working on the head. Got some milliput which should hopefully arrive in the next few days and am wondering if i'll find that easier to work with.

Anywhere, here he is. Step forward, logistics man. Terrible moniker, will have to come up with a name for this guy asap. He is the info collector. He is holding a cut down scanner - not admiring his hat in a hand mirror! Its the hat that i guess people may have objections with. Fur hats are hardly synonomous with space marines but once again i wanted to do something original whilst also trying to hint of the chapter's slavic background. When all five scouts are ready i imagine it will not seem too jarring. For the logistics man i've reverted to the "mini bolter" - handy for a guy whose not usually the first into the fray.

Well, hope you like him. I'm liking how the squad is progressing, even if its a slower process than i anticipated

I've cleaned up the excess GS on his face and at the back of the next since taken photos

I like what you've done with the bolt pistols. And it's nice to see that your not using the standard scout heads.

The fur hat doesn't do it for me. I think its way too big. If you make it smaller and more square it should look good.
Or if you don't want to sculpt it yourself you could use heads from the WHFB empire archers. like this: http://www.bitsandkits.co.uk/empire-archer-head-f-p-4841.html

I still haven't had the time to read the fluff. I'll post a comment when I've read it.
Keep up the good work.

Yeah, i was delaying putting pics up cos i wasn't sure if it was too big, some of my previous efforts were a lot bigger! Annoyingly its a lot harder to work with a smaller piece of GS but i'm gonna continue work on it in the hope of getting something more satisfactory......hey......hang on a mo......You mean like THIS???

Yeah, that's much better!!!

Oh, and, Igandris : please don't mention that horrible mockery of a bits site, they're really bad at customer service...

Ahh, dont say that yggdrasil, i'm still waiting for my aforementioned bits to arrive from there, and am thinking i need to contact them..........
Used em before and the stuff has always arrived very promptly so am pretty miffed cos i was planning on a major modelling session this weekend

Still no sign of bitz - emailed them today so will see what comes of it.

I'm not 100 per cent convinced about that empire head at the mo. Think i will still attempt to make something of my own, but at least he has a head!

Am moving onto the heavy member of the squad at the mo, tho having problems with arms that can hold the "stubber" i made. Will take a fiddly, annoying amount of work.