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Being in the process of starting up for warmahordes, and havinf the closest LFGS an hour away, I turned to the internet to find some painting/conversion inspiration.

It's VERY lackluster out there. Most of the stuff you see, tends to use the standard paintschemes from the faction books, and tends to be very... Monochromatic... Ie, retriburion is White. With some green/bluish lines, and steel knobs.
Khador is red. With some black knobs.
Cygnar is blue, with some white or yellow knobs.

Most of it, whilst cleanly painted, feels lackluster when it cones to depth, shading/highlights. I've seen little in the way of free-hand stuff, hardly even any lines. "oh, it has a giant shoulderplate, I think I'll paint it... *insert single colour*
why not paint a contrasting line on the huge as shoulderplate atleast? There is room ya know..

Gah. Maybe I'm just spoiled with having played 40k too long. Most SM whilst quite bland modelwise, tend to get a contrasting colour on the edge of their giant shoulderplates...

I read a long whine about retribution helmets and myrm heads, yet no one even seemed to consider a headswap...

C'mon!!

I must be missing something/weak ass google fu/temporary(I hope)blindness, or are all/99% warmahordes so keen to play with their toys that they just do the basic painting and modelling? Where can I see the stuff where someone have gone the extra proverbial inch to make their stuff more aesteticly pleasing?

/Rather frustrated Calle, 3.48 am...

Edit: found this for khador. I'll shut up now. http://www.coolminiornot.com/94131?browseid=2382915
But my point almost still stands for retriburion of scyrah...

Haters gonna hate, trolls gonna troll.

Personally, I love painting WarmaHordes compared to 40k, just because of the variety of stuff to paint. As for converting, it's not even really necessary in WMH9 because there is a model for EVERYTHING. How many codex entries in 40k/WFB don't have models?

When inspiration is nowhere to be found, maybe it's time to make your own.

Hey, don't get me wrong here, I'm just trying to wrap my head around it..

For instance, I've seen alit of retribution lists, with more than one arcanists. Both, usually looking nearly identical...

//Calle

The sculpts are identical, so they will look the same unless you're
the type of person who can and will take a hacksaw to a miniature.

(I'm not).

And some people, myself included, like army-wide paint schemes.

Speaking for myself, I've never been big on making my own fluff for a universe because usually the only person really interested in the back story of your chapter is you. That is not to say there are awesome paint schemes and all but for me I just generally don't.

I think many people like to paint their warmachine/hordes models in a semi realistic fashion. Iron kingdoms is not really the place where soldiers would go out of their way to pay someone to paint a flame on their shoulder plate. It is more gritty than that. They wouldnt care if their armor was bear metal and rusty, so long as it stops the blast from a khador mortar shell...

In addition to that, generally for competitive play, you do not want to bring heavily modified sculpts, as you may not be allowed to use them. Take the khador destroyer and the juggarnaught. If you modify their weapon systems, people may argue that they cannot tell them apart and that could get you thrown out of a tourney (or not allowed to use that model).

There's less players owning less stuff for less time, so consequently there is lower total amount of exceptional stuff for Warmachine than for Warhammer. There are still Plenty of non-standard paint schemes and conversions out there though.

Surtur wrote:Speaking for myself, I've never been big on making my own fluff for a universe because usually the only person really interested in the back story of your chapter is you. That is not to say there are awesome paint schemes and all but for me I just generally don't.

No s&%t? "Let me tell you about my character" in the nTh power. When I paint my Skorne purple, it is because I enjoy the paint scheme, not because I want to pretend they are the 4th Abyssal Cohort.

Locally, I'd say about 1/3 of our armies have variant paint schemes, although Cryx and Cygnar seem to attract original schemes more than the other factions (I believe that of the Protectorate players, only mine and one other player's armies are studio white). There is quite a lot of reposing and some conversion, most of it very good (one of the advantages of the old metal line is that with conversion being more difficult that in polystyrene plastic, people really plan and execute their conversions. We have a Circle army with jade green wolds and miniatures overall made up to look like AD&D demons...

The lack of conversions I hazard are due to PP's tournament rules which are a bit more stricter than say 40K's, though I'm not 100% sure on this.

That said, I've seen plenty of real cool and/or non-standard paint schemes and conversions on PP's own forums.

stormwell wrote:The lack of conversions I hazard are due to PP's tournament rules which are a bit more stricter than say 40K's, though I'm not 100% sure on this.

That said, I've seen plenty of real cool and/or non-standard paint schemes and conversions on PP's own forums.

100% accurate. There is a rule in the steam roller packet that indicates how much you can convert. Local TO's have some say so you can get away with some stand in's. However, as many weapons have a variety of abilities, you have to be careful in how you convert. The reference to Khador as above is a good one. As an example: Beast 09 and the Juggarnaut are "similar" models. Both have axes, both have open fists. However, Beast has reach, the Juggarnaut does not. Where in GW you could use a character model as a stand in and no one would care. You cannot do this in WM/HD as character models have lots of additional rules that change how they are played.

Our local meta does not have a lot of people painting the "standard" color's minus Khador red. My Khador are painted like the SM Salamander chapter with flaming base. Often people stare and scoff. I laugh it off because I paid for the models i'm painting them how I want! If i want them hot flaming pink and purple so be it. In WM/HD when you head to steam rollers is where you will see a lot of people with creative painting, and some minor modeling. However given painting is not required to play in tournments, usually about 60% of armies have paint on them.

If it makes you feel better, I took a spare pKreoss model, a cinerator squad sergeant, green stuff, and a rock from outside and made myself eKreoss with it (didnt feel like ordering it from the webs and the flgs supplier was out of stock) I will post pics later if yall want

I cut off p kreoss's head, pulled out the sergeants head piece, and then re positioned p kreoss's head, cutting off the chin guard plate of the cinerator armour to make room, I butchered p kreoss weapon and cut off the blade and hilt of the cinerators sword, and pieced together a spear/ mace. To cover up the shield arm, I pulled off the shield and used a repenters arm guard spiky piece thing, modified it, and glued it over everything but the hand. green stuffed the base, a nice cape (imho ) and then glued eKreoss to the rock

njpc wrote:

stormwell wrote:The lack of conversions I hazard are due to PP's tournament rules which are a bit more stricter than say 40K's, though I'm not 100% sure on this.

That said, I've seen plenty of real cool and/or non-standard paint schemes and conversions on PP's own forums.

100% accurate. There is a rule in the steam roller packet that indicates how much you can convert. Local TO's have some say so you can get away with some stand in's. However, as many weapons have a variety of abilities, you have to be careful in how you convert. The reference to Khador as above is a good one. As an example: Beast 09 and the Juggarnaut are "similar" models. Both have axes, both have open fists. However, Beast has reach, the Juggarnaut does not. Where in GW you could use a character model as a stand in and no one would care. You cannot do this in WM/HD as character models have lots of additional rules that change how they are played.

Thanks for that.

As for paint scheme, I'm painting my Mercs in a Cygnar version of the Khadoran '5th Border Legion' colours....basically mostly green body with shoulders, 'kneepads', etc painted blue.

My friends do some great stuff on their minis. I like the studio schemes myself, so I tend to stick to them- the studio legion scheme is great, and I prefer the "blue" troll look to anything else out there. When I get my Circle, I'll be painting them in earthy colours because that's what fits. When I start Warmachine, I'm likely going to go for the studio schemes for Khador and Protectorate, because I like them.

But I've got a friend who does construct heavy circle with a coastal theme- lots of sculpted octopi, barnacles and sea weed on the constructs, with them modelled as wading out of the surf etc. His Khador are done as muddy trenchers in the snow with a grey and red scheme which looks fantastic. Another friend does dark grey trolls, and voodoo cryx, and another does pink and black skorne with glossy armour and gold trim (looks much better than it sounds) and bright orange and blue cygnar (also looks great). I'm the only one in the group (well, I moved away, but I WAS the only one) who used the studio schemes. We've got Black Menoth in the shop, too.

As for conversions, the Khador player has done several ambitious conversions, and both other players are fond of dramatic posing and scultping. I'm again a bit boring here, the best I've done is filing the dumbass stockblade off grim's rifle and a simple headswap for some Nyss. But it's certainly not like people just won't do it in Warmahordes.

Just voicing the other posts in the thread. You aren't going to see much in the way of conversions because of the steamroller rules. If/when you play tournaments the rule does make sense as you'll have to make judgements under timed conditions and having models that accurately represent the thing being played helps a lot.

So when people want to make an army their own they generally spend the effort on the painting side of things. Non-standard colours is the norm in the UK from what I've seen. Other effort goes into the bases to tie an army together and most of the conversion goes into reposes rather than conversions. Especially as the heads of the warjacks do relate to the type of warjack being used.

stormwell wrote:The lack of conversions I hazard are due to PP's tournament rules which are a bit more stricter than say 40K's, though I'm not 100% sure on this.

That said, I've seen plenty of real cool and/or non-standard paint schemes and conversions on PP's own forums.

Nonsense. Their tournament conversion rules are slightly stricter than GW's, but it's widely known that they are almost never enforced by anyone. Most of my conversions are illegal and the only time I've ever had anything DQed was a unit that simply uses GW figs with virtually no work done on them at a big event that had PP staffers present. Otherwise that same unit's been allowed in a couple other different events in different places.

stormwell wrote:The lack of conversions I hazard are due to PP's tournament rules which are a bit more stricter than say 40K's, though I'm not 100% sure on this.

That said, I've seen plenty of real cool and/or non-standard paint schemes and conversions on PP's own forums.

As a general rule, you can get away with a lot of stuff so long as it's not possible to mistake the model for anything else in the battle (after all, with timed turns, having to stop and ask "What's that meant to be?" would give an advantage). For example:



I used the Renegade arms and heads on plastic Protectorate & Cygnar light jacks. But it's not like anyone's going to confuse them with the other mercenary light warjack with a rocket & chainsaw.

Surtur wrote:Speaking for myself, I've never been big on making my own fluff for a universe because usually the only person really interested in the back story of your chapter is you.

This is very, very true.

It's always good to see people really digging their hobby, but I'm really not that interested in whatever half backed background you have for your force.

Please check out this and the rest of the Privateer Community.
http://privateerpressforums.com/showthread.php?114313-A-Box-of-Discarded-Roses-Cygnar-Spades-WIP

Cheers and happy finding your way into this great side of miniature gaming!

Well here's a question for you gents in regards to converting.

I recently got to work assembling my wolves of orboros unit, and I must say it's the biggest pain in the arse I've ever had to deal with in my life of modelling.

The problem is that all of them are holding their spears in two hands, and the hands and spear are one piece and the body and arms is another. I've done some figs like that before, no problem, but these are a different story. For starters, two of them were broke right out of the box (the spears), some are twisted oddly, and none of them fit (as if they were too short. Also yes, I've tried every set of hands with every body). So after giving up in frustration, I thought of a different approach. The warcaster grayle uses two swords, so why can't the wolves? If I cut off the spear parts I can model each figure to be holding a sword in each hand.

However, a sword is not a spear. While in GW this issue would be nonexistent, I'm unsure how PP would handle it.

Technically illegal yes, as if they have spears they must keep spears.

Most people wouldn't mind until they released a unit of Graals or something

Well then, does anyone know any sources for spear bits?

Brass rod is the typical solution there.

Necroshea wrote:Well here's a question for you gents in regards to converting.

I recently got to work assembling my wolves of orboros unit, and I must say it's the biggest pain in the arse I've ever had to deal with in my life of modelling.

The problem is that all of them are holding their spears in two hands, and the hands and spear are one piece and the body and arms is another. I've done some figs like that before, no problem, but these are a different story. For starters, two of them were broke right out of the box (the spears), some are twisted oddly, and none of them fit (as if they were too short. Also yes, I've tried every set of hands with every body). So after giving up in frustration, I thought of a different approach. The warcaster grayle uses two swords, so why can't the wolves? If I cut off the spear parts I can model each figure to be holding a sword in each hand.

However, a sword is not a spear. While in GW this issue would be nonexistent, I'm unsure how PP would handle it.

If things broke because of poor casting, you should ask for a replacement. Hell, you could even bits order what you wanted for them if you wanted to.

That said, I believe some of their older metal kits are showing a definite age. For instance: Cataphract Arcturii are horrendous to put together. Do not buy them. Wait for plastic.

Necroshea wrote:Well here's a question for you gents in regards to converting.

I recently got to work assembling my wolves of orboros unit, and I must say it's the biggest pain in the arse I've ever had to deal with in my life of modelling.

The problem is that all of them are holding their spears in two hands, and the hands and spear are one piece and the body and arms is another. I've done some figs like that before, no problem, but these are a different story. For starters, two of them were broke right out of the box (the spears), some are twisted oddly, and none of them fit (as if they were too short. Also yes, I've tried every set of hands with every body). So after giving up in frustration, I thought of a different approach. The warcaster grayle uses two swords, so why can't the wolves? If I cut off the spear parts I can model each figure to be holding a sword in each hand.

However, a sword is not a spear. While in GW this issue would be nonexistent, I'm unsure how PP would handle it.

This seems like it would be a much larger issue in a warhammer fantasy game. I mean, in warhammer fantasy, you can actually change what equipment have. So, lets say for example, you have the option of equipping a squad of infantry with spears or swords, you equip them with spears, but chop their spears into swords...then tell the other guy that those swords...are actually spears.

you cannot change a model's equipment in warmachine. Everyone knows that wolves of orboros have spears. The only time I have seen this become an issue is when a guy used a destroyer warjack's axe on a juggernaught in place of the jugg's axe. He thought it looked cooler, which I would agree with. In the last round of the tourny, this guy's opponent made a huge stink about it.

Necroshea wrote:Well then, does anyone know any sources for spear bits?

Do what Khador players do for Iron Fangs: clip off the ends and use brass rod as a replacement for the bendy hafts.

I have a good feel of the Fluff, the armies, the tactics, and painting.


I hope that, in the end, PP will release more... adjustable plastics, the "glue and plug in" stuff feels so dull.
Like my eVayl
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v99/Moonsinger/Morestuff/BestVayl.jpg halfdecent photo, looks more detailed and smoother irl, and of course, not finished.. Looks bit more like Circle then "proper everblight"
Why would I want to make my stuff look like the books? Some people like vanilla, I don't.

But inspiration to convert is lacking. I might not be the best painter but I always try to make my colourscheme.

Since this seems to be talking about the general hobby, I wanted to bring attention to a fantastic gallery of pictures posted on the official PP forums.

A user named "menace" posted an incredible Khador alternative paint scheme (all his stuff, not mine, go give him good feedback!);



Seriously, go take a look (the post there links to his larger pictures).

This also brings up something that I like about WM/Hordes: they don't mess around with the silly "true" line of sight that GW has been fiddling with (imaginary cylinder instead), so you're free to not worry about how your modeling or scenic base or whatnot will have an in-game effect.

KingKodo wrote:

Necroshea wrote:Well here's a question for you gents in regards to converting.

I recently got to work assembling my wolves of orboros unit, and I must say it's the biggest pain in the arse I've ever had to deal with in my life of modelling.

The problem is that all of them are holding their spears in two hands, and the hands and spear are one piece and the body and arms is another. I've done some figs like that before, no problem, but these are a different story. For starters, two of them were broke right out of the box (the spears), some are twisted oddly, and none of them fit (as if they were too short. Also yes, I've tried every set of hands with every body). So after giving up in frustration, I thought of a different approach. The warcaster grayle uses two swords, so why can't the wolves? If I cut off the spear parts I can model each figure to be holding a sword in each hand.

However, a sword is not a spear. While in GW this issue would be nonexistent, I'm unsure how PP would handle it.

This seems like it would be a much larger issue in a warhammer fantasy game. I mean, in warhammer fantasy, you can actually change what equipment have. So, lets say for example, you have the option of equipping a squad of infantry with spears or swords, you equip them with spears, but chop their spears into swords...then tell the other guy that those swords...are actually spears.

you cannot change a model's equipment in warmachine. Everyone knows that wolves of orboros have spears. The only time I have seen this become an issue is when a guy used a destroyer warjack's axe on a juggernaught in place of the jugg's axe. He thought it looked cooler, which I would agree with. In the last round of the tourny, this guy's opponent made a huge stink about it.

For Wolves just make certain you paint them BEFORE attaching the spears, as I find there is so much detail on wolves (its why the damned unit still sits in primer white on my table after some 4 years) that its nigh impossible to paint them after assembly.

Everything MUST be WYSIWYG in WM/H. This is both a source of relief and annoyance. On the one hand, I never have to worry about missing what a particular model is ("Well, I don't like the Manhunter model, so I use Sorcha for that, and this IS a sorcha list, but i use the Old Witch for her instead to represent this crazy old blah bla blaaaaah...") On the other hand, it prevents me from doing most conversions (axes look cooler for the theme of my army than swords, spears look cooler than these halbards, I'd like to add Eldar bits to my Scyrah models, I'd like to use Eldrad for Rahn, etc etc etc) Of course, I say all of that and my CoO army is studio colors... Still. Once I find a suitable sword, my spare metal Warpwolf might end up being a Stalker...

In the end, this is the price we pay for this game. The other side of the demented gaming coin from GW products. THIS is what happens when you build a game for rules balance and competitive play, AND make certain all factions are updated often and evenly. Limited conversions for "at a glance" identification, WYSIWYG required, strained pocketbook and constant need to stay on top of all rules to remain competitive.

As far as that tourney goer is concerned, that just reeks of poor sportsmanship. It's still an axe. It doesn't matter. Some people will do that to get whatever edge they possibly can. With the introduction of the "volume" rules in MkII you have more freedom to convert and make decorative bases. It no longer matters that you modelled your snipers on little roof tops or in the prone unsupported. Their LOS is the same no matter what. Positioning conversions are easy, but PP's kits just aren't conversion friendly. Personally I'm just happy facing a painted army.