Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Ok, so I just started adding to this thread and realized it was sorta changing into a P&M blog, so I had it moved there.


Looking forward to next year, I'd like to make a armies on parade piece for Gamesday. So I'd just like some help brainstorming ideas. I'll write what I have in my mind as of now.

Ahriman and a small warband of thousand sons have landed on a desert planet in search of an ancient library. In need of labor and defences while they raid the ancient tombs and library, Ahriman enacts a powerful spell that raises long dead warriors from the ground, who are now just skeletal remnants of their former selves.

So lots of converting in this project, as well as a lot of detail to go into the board. Here is my idea for the board:

Ahriman standing at the entrance of a ancient tomb with three 1k sons terminators as his honour guard.
(terminators either based off of chaos terminators with 1k sons bits, or forgeworld cataphracti armored terminators with 1k sons bits)???

two squads of 1k sons taking up defensive positions on the hill that the tomb is buried under.
two Forgefiends (converted from tombkings necrosphinx) to go along with the 1k sons.

skeleton/cultists (tomb king warriors) rising from the ground to do Ahriman's bidding.

I think that sounds amazing. It would also be a pretty cool counts as army with the undead being allied Necrons.

I've already got a big necrons army, but I was actually using the skeletons as cultists with a Dark Apostle to make them fearless. My 1k sons need a bubble wrap so they don't get caught up in assault.

Eventually this army will be even bigger than I described, and it will have tzeentch deamon allies. but for now, I just want to plan what will be going on the display board, No worries about how effective in-game they will be, they just need to look good.

This sounds like a fantastic AoP display.

I did something kind of similar ('cept not as cool) last year for the Australian Armies on Parade. Ahriman's in the process of raiding a lost temple, when he predicts an incoming hostile force. Some of his own forces prepare to repel the hostiles, while the rest finish looting the goodies from the temple.



The board's kind of scrappy, but I made it in a week 'cause I didn't even find out about AoP til three weeks before the store qualifiers, and used two of those weeks to paint the Vindicator and Defiler. Still made it down to Games Day, which was awesome.



Props I made from friends' bits boxes (and a few scrolls made from rolled up paper, tied with string, and with purity seals attached. )

As for the Terminators, here's some I made from Chaos Terminators, based on artwork from the Horus Heresy: Collected Visions artbook:



There's more pics of them in my gallery, and progress shots of them in my WIP Blog if you want to see how they were made. I do like the idea of using the Forgeworld cataphracti terminators, though that might be a little more expensive, hehehe.

Hopefully you can get some ideas and inspiration from this! Will you be doing a WIP Blog for your board? I'd love to see it.

That is a pretty damn awesome idea. I might steal the skeletons as cultist idea form my Thousand Sons and make them led by a sorcerer not in power armour, who will actually just be a cultist champion.

In fact I think I'll start on it this weekend

Nerm86, go ahead with the skeleton cultist idea. I'd love to see this idea spread around.

Skits, that is a cool board. It's close to what I was thinking, but mine will be more sandy, and I'm hopefully going to spend a lot of time on the board so I can sculpt the tomb entrance to it.

If we ignore the price issue, Terminators from Forgeworld Cataphracti armor, or chaos terminator box?

And yes, I'll start a WIP blog soon. But I know it will be slow. I'm currently working on my Lizardmen army and my Dark Angels army. I've got one squad of 1k sons built though, and they have their base blue color on so far.

Thanks! And sorry if this reply is a bit piecemeal, I'm also working on assignments atm, hehe.

With the terminators, I suppose it depends on what you like the look of better, what their background is, what sort of modifications you're thinking of doing to them, that kind of thing. Have they been around since the pre-Heresy times? Are they more recent additions to Ahriman's cabal? How chaos-ified has their armour become, if at all? How well will they match the rest of the army, style-wise? Also, Cataphracti armour is said to be tougher but heavier and slower - is that something that should be taken into account in the narrative?

The Cataphracti armour may be more accurate in appearance (at least according to the pics in the Horus Heresy: Collected Visions art book) if they've been with Ahriman since before the Heresy and you want them to look relatively unchanged since that time. However, if you're wanting them to look a bit more chaos-aligned, then the chaos terminator armour would probably fit a bit better.

The weapons you're wanting to give them might also be a factor to consider. The Cataphracti weapons come separate from the bodies, so you might have to get two or three of the different weapon sets to get the specific weapons you want. Or, you could maybe use regular chaos termi bodies, and just get the cataphracti arm/weapon sets, for the older-style of shoulder pads combined with chaosy armour.

I'm thinking the Cataphracti power axes would be pretty easy to convert to something like the glaives the Sons tend to use...



... Damnit, the more I look at the Cataphracti armour, the more I want a set for my pre-Heresy Sons. :| Hnngh, my wallet. Maybe for Christmas...

 Skits wrote:


... Damnit, the more I look at the Cataphracti armour, the more I want a set for my pre-Heresy Sons. :| Hnngh, my wallet. Maybe for Christmas...

I feel your pain. As far as background, I want these terminators to look like they have been with Ahriman as long as they could remember, so I am really leaning towards the pre-heresy armour idea. I also don't want them to look really chaosy. The Rubric of Ahriman stopped the powers of chaos from warping their armour and halted the fleshchanges.

I think I will go with the Cataphracti armour. I was going to run 3 terminators with combi-meltas, powerfist, chainfist, and maybe convert a glaive like you said to count as a powersword. I'll probably have the arms magnetized for them though. I'll add a few extra bits from the 1k sons upgrade kit to make them blend into the army. And I'm also planning to freehand the flaming dragon eating it's tail design on every shoulder pad in the army to make the whole force more coherent.

Depending on the size, I might order Contemptor dreadnought weapon arms to use in my Necrosphinx/Forgefiend conversion. Next weekend I'll be getting a better view of the necrosphinx and a friend of mine has a couple of Contemptors, So I'll be able to do a side by side comparison to see if that could work.

1st squad on thousand sons built and painting in progress.
Skeleton cultists ready to be assembled

Ok, I've got one Necrosphinx/warsphinx to work with now, and I did some side-by-side comparisons with a forgefiend and a contemptor dreadnought. I've got a couple of notes:

Weapon sizes: forgefiend guns are bigger than the contemptor guns. But the contemptor guns will fit much nicer on the Necrosphinx. So I think I'm going to use the contemptor guns. I'll use the Kheres pattern Assault cannon for the hades autocannon and the Plasma Cannon as the ectoplasma cannons.
I'd also like to note that the size of the hades autocannon varies greatly between different models. (forgefiend and helldrake).

I've got some ideas on mounting. I'd like to have options magnetized between the hades autocannon and the ectoplasma cannon. I'd also like the option for the extra ectoplasma cannon magnetized.

idea #1: have the two primary guns mounted on the warsphinx arms, similar to the actual forgefiend. extra ectoplasma cannon mounted on shoulder (predator style)

idea #2: two primary guns on arms, but the extra ectoplasma cannon represented by a gaping mouth/gun thing.

idea #3: two primary guns both shoulder mounted. extra ectoplasma cannon held by two arms. But what if I don't use the extra cannon, then what do the arms do?

idea #?: any other suggestions?

Right now, I'm leaning towards idea #1, depending on how the cannon looks on the shoulder.

So Holiday craziness is at a lull right now, and the rest of my army has been delivered, including Forgeworld goodies.
Good news: the contemptor dreadnought weapons fit great on the NecroSphinx! I put one together last night and it looks awesome. (I need to get pics tonight)

So far I have 20 thousand sons put together, and 15 skeleton cultists together, as well as my kitbashed Dark Apostle

what is left for assembly:
20 more skeleton cultists
1 more Forgefiend (converted from Necrosphinx)
2 helldrakes (converted from warsphinx)
5 Cataphracti terminators
Ahriman

Some more construction work done on this army, almost all complete. I want to get to painting, but I want to wait until after christmas because I really want/think I am gettting an airbrush and compressor. I want to do the basecoating with that.

So here are my cataphractii Terminators. All magnetized weapons.

I'm thinking I might need to add more to these models to chaos them up a bit, any ideas?

Here is the rest of what I have put togther, Sorry these are little bit blurry, I need to retake them.

I'm currently working on my first out of two Helldrakes. Converted from the warsphinx again. I extended the wings, and reposed all the legs. I got the whole body together and then realized that I don't know where to put the gun (either baleflamer or hades autocannon, not sure what I'm going to use). After I finish the second wing, I'll have to do some more greenstuff work to get the wings to blend onto the model in the angle I want.

Some feedback/critiism would be great.

Helldrake conversion progress

Construction of this army is finished. Everything is primed. I'm just waiting for Christmas where I'll hopefully get an aribrush. Once I get that I'll basecoat everybody and hopefully painting will go smoothly from there.

Here is the whole army, primed and ready for basecoating.

Finished painting my first Rubric Marine yesterday as a test. I like how he ended up, though the blue might be a little bit dark.
What do you think?


I also painted up one of the skeletons, though because I have 40+ of these, I'll be dipping them. I painted him up simply. Prime white, basecoat Ushbati Bone, dark brown for the waeapon handle, leadblecher for the metal parts. That took me maybe 2 minutes. Then I dipped him in Army Painter Quickshade: strong tone. Tonight he will be ready for me to spray with a matte varnish, then I'll take his picture. but from the looks of it, he is going to look great.

Love this force. Awesome use of other GW materials!

 Skits wrote:
... Damnit, the more I look at the Cataphracti armour, the more I want a set for my pre-Heresy Sons. :| Hnngh, my wallet. Maybe for Christmas...

Just ordered and received a set for my current Khorne chaos marine army to finally replace the old school terminators I've had in the force for years (still on the standard slotta bases and not the 40mm bases). The minis are so awesome and I have enough extra arms left that I am planning to order another set for my Slaaneshi force which currently has no terminators at all. Yeah tough on the wallet, but they do look impressive when built.

Overall I really like the OP's ideas. I far prefer theme army creation like this than the min-maxing and number crunching so many others do that leads to too many players playing nearly the exact same army from any given codex. For some time I've had the thoughts of making a necron army using Tomb Kings minis as the core forces and converting the vehicles out of necron vehicle parts and the tomb kings monstrous creatures. After reading this thread I am now serious considering the merits of instead creating Tzeetch CSM supporting units out of tomb kings pieces since I really don't need a completely new necron army. Hmmm....thanks for planting the brain worm...

Kind of bummed that none of the finished building/painting pic links seem to be working anymore. :(

Skriker

Thanks Skriker. I agree with you on hating that min-maxing, number-crunching, unoriginal competitive lists. But I still like to be competitive. I just tend to think differently from everyone else.
I've actually played 5 games with these guys, from 1000 to 1500 pts (never the whole force yet) but they have done surprisingly well. My record so far is 4-1. The game I lost was really just the Dark Gods laughing at my confidence. My Lord leading the cultists got turned into a spawn, so no more fearless for them. After that the whole game fell apart, even though I should have had it in the bag.

P.S. Invisible cultists with a firewall is hilarious. 2+ cover in the open, you get hit with flames if you charge me and you are at WS1 hahahahaha!

Yeah it has been quite a few months. This past semester at college took a lot of effort. But this summer I have continued work on this project. It looks like I'll be finishing it up for my local GW Armies on Parade next weekend, which will get me a ticket to Games Day in July!

I've been putting my progress on my tumblr, but I'll put some pictures here for you guys.

Individual squads:


the whole board (still missing lots of cultists and one squad of 1k sons, both in progress)

Looking great I love the helldrake conversions, they are the best part of the army imo

Young Logan