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After years of collecting and playing 40k I wanted to try something else. An army is never finished, they say, but I consider an army ready when you can play some good games with it and hits the 1500 pt mark. After that you can just add more stuff but it's ready to play in my opinion. I know you can play smaller games, but to me that's the point when you are ready to move on to other armies.

I wanted to have something small to go along with my 40k projects so I could take a break from painting tons of marines. So the prospect of having just 15 pts to get a real game on sounds good. I started asking around and got some really good advice here on dakka. I couldn't recommend more to reading the thread for anyone looking to start Warmachine. IMHO I got some of the best advice found on these forums.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/540157.page

After some careful cosideration and contemplation, I settled on Khador mostly for the look of the models. It turns out that the FLGS doesn't have that much Warmachine stuff so I ordered the the plastic battlebox and widowmakers online. After a long and agonizing wait, the mailman brought me the first defenders of the motherland. Sadly the widowmakers didn't come on the first package, so my Khadoran journey starts with just the battlebox. I opened the box and "HOLY SALTY BALLS OF THE GOD-EMPEROR OF MANKIND WHAT IS THIS BLASPHEMY?!". I've had completely zero experience with Privateer Press and was not ready for the contents of the box. After years of working with only GW plastics (a little with finecast also with relatively good success) My fingers have been used to how the little plastic toy soldiers are "supposed" to feel. The cast is pretty rough, some parts were warped and the details aren't as crisp as in GW plastics. However after a little cleaning of the mold lines, I got used to the feel of the parts and I have to admit that I quite like the weight and strength of the models. The plastic takes glue very well and the warped parts are super-easyto fix with hot water. I already dropped the other of the built jacks from the table and after my heart started beating again I found out that there were more damage on the floor than on the PLASTIC model. They said that Khador has the toughest warjacks.

There is still some cleaning to do with the models, but I think I could show what has already been done.



The focal point for Sorscha will be the magic she's throwing about. I'm not yet sure if I'm going to add a wave of magic like in this pic, or the circle-text-things around the hands and the weapon like all the warcasters have in the artwork (subtle highlights with white and glazed blue). All advice appreciated.




The warjack kits were a bit too static in my opinion. As they have ball-joints in everything waist-up, the stationary legs are just bad design IMO. Easily fixed though. For the Juggernaut I re-positioned the toes in the left leg just a tiny bit and glued the leg a bit backwards. Simple and effective and makes a huge change to the flow of the model!




With the Destroyer I tried a bit different tactic. First I re-positioned both legs from the hip. Because all the warped parts were so easy to fix with hot water, I decided to just bend the left ankle rather than cut and glue it differently. If I messed it up, I could just repeat the process and the foot would be like it ever was. Hot water - Bend - Cold water - Success! It doesn't look awkward at all. Only the piston at the back of the foot got a little warped, but as it would probably have a ball-joint IRL anyway, it's fine by me. This is something I will definately do again with other jacks.

Next up is some more cleaning and more waiting for the widowmakers!

The widowmakers came in the mail today! I haven't worked with any kind of non-plastic miniatures for a while so this will be interesting.

A little mold-line cleaning and they look great. I really like the models. The only tthing that bothers me is that I hate duplicates. I was thinking of using some green stuff to model him kneeling but I didn't have the guts to hack half of the model away straight away. The idea would be to cut the model along the red lines, removing the legs and the monopod and re-positioning his hand to make him hold the gun properly. The thing is that this way I would have to create him completely form scratch form the hip down. Any advice from the modelling veterans here would be very much appreciated.



I'm also open for any other ideas on the subject. If you have converted any widowmakers in the past I would very much like to see them.

Looking forward to see more.

My only suggestion is to grab those mold lines on the model before you paint. Leaving them would diminish the final produce.

@Eternalhero1983
Like I said, there is still a lot of cleanup to do. And I'm in no hurry to get these on the painting table. I could actually use some advice on how to remove the mold lines in smooth surfaces like in the middle of the jacks thigh-plates? Just filing them off with a modelling knife seems really hard and slow process.

Back to the operation widowmaker. I decided to take the leap and do a kneeling widowmaker even with the risk of ruining it. I think that you would never become better with GS if you don't have the balls to try. The hand and the monopod came off really nicely and the model could have been fine with only that. I went all out nevertheless. I felt so horrible chopping his legs off! After he was in pieces I jsut repositioned the original arm a little and with paper clips as legs I started my first big GS conversion. I still have to do the rest of the legs and the greatcoat.

Widowmaker almost done.

His legs are pretty much ready. I'll just need to do one more layer on the greatcoat to bulk it out and add some folds on the cloth and other details. The biggest problem now is that I think the sword is pretty much unfixable as it is. I didn't have any kind of saw at hand when cutting the legs so I just used clippers to get them off bit by bit. It ended up bending the whole lower part of the torso a little bit but it's not really an issue with anything else than the sword. I'm thinking I might just let it be and say he has a curved sabre...

Aaaaand... Done!

Welcome to the North.


I must say I am always envious of people who are good with green stuff. I am an artist myself but green stuff no matter how much I worked with it always had the upper hand. I really enjoy the alternate pose you've crafted for him, as I am not a fan of having the same two models in the unit.


Are you planning on staying with the classic red color scheme? Or are you going to spice it up a bit?

Really looking forward to your work.

@MilesBergs
Glad you like it. Something must have been done right.

I have only done some pustules for plague marines before this so I also just learning. I think this widowmaker taught me something about patience. I find that you have to be able to think in layers and be very patient with it. You just have to let yourself build it up in small steps and let the GS cure in between. I think I could have taken more time with this but I'm fairly pleased with it being my first try.

I'm not yet decided with the colour scheme. I do like the red and I will definately have it somewhere on the models (maybe little on commanders and warjacks), but I'm much more in to something more realistic. Bases are going to be covered in snow (like my gameboard) so the troopers will get something to blend in. The widowmakers are camouflaged by rules so they are not going to be prancing around arctic tundra in red armour! Commanders and warjacks are going to spew out black smoke anyway so the red doesn't really matter on them. There are some very nice white, brown and grey colour schemes around that I might try to replicate.

And not to let any post go without pictures, here's a quick mock up of the other idea on Sorscha. The "magical circles" are not attached to anything yet, they're there just to see how it looks. I think I like this one a little bit better than the other one, but I'm not totally convinced.

I also chose to use the red as a much more subtle color in the scheme. I gave my army a fall color scheme.

It's a mix of all the Khador colors really, just varied throughout the army. Yellow is the main color with an emphasis on grays, drab greens, browns, and red.

The winter color scheme could go over very well. I'm excited to see it.

Update! Hurrah!

Finally got my painting gear on. Basing will be the last thing I do when every model is otherwise ready. Here goes:



The Juggernaut is mostly ready. I still need to finish the axe, get some soot on the exhausts and make the engine and eyes glow with heat. This is the first time I have done white and I'm pretty satisfied. This is also the first time I have tried weathering with a sponge like this. I may have gone a bit over the top with it but that's how you learn. The Destroyer will be better. I also created some miniature oil! I mixed brown wash and gloss varnish and applied this to joints and some bolts to make it look really gritty.



The Widowmakers are also coming togethet quite nicely. They still need some washes and some tidying but you get the idea with the color scheme I've been planning.

C&C very welcome! I would really appreciate some tips in painting white. This is the first time I have ever painted anything white so I'm still learning and any mistakes would be nice to correct before I learn to do it wrong.