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Yeah, the Tallarn missile launcher was one of the nicest weapon teams available and is what i'll be doing for those.

Good call on looking up modern desert warfare. Current British infantry have AT guns on tripods, but they are significantly smaller than lascannons/heavy bolters/autocannons, which makes me wonder how the heck Guard move them around. The old Tallarn lascannons were made to look like light artillery pieces on wheeled carriages, which looked pretty cool. The autocannons were on seated carriages which weren't so great. I had a dig through my bitz box and found 3 official options and the resin printed version (minus shield). You can also see the gunner I made by combining various STLs and making a little control box, like a game controller with a screen.



For lascannons and autocannons I'm quite liking the aesethetic of a wheeled carriage with shield as it is true light artillery. Heavy bolters I'm more tempted to treat like the space marine scouts or Orlocks as a carried/tripod weapon instead.

I have 8 lascannons and 4 autocannons left over from the Cadian sets, so I just need to print some carriages and shields to make use of those. I also have 9 spare mortars... so I just need to have a go at cutting up the arms to make loaders for lots of Blast shots. That will give plenty of options before even looking at the heavy bolter or missile launcher; both of which need some CAD work doing to get them to work

Yeah, I think it makes sense that autocannons and lascannons are analogous to light artillery, where bolters are more analogous to heavy machine guns (hand carried with tripods and bipods to set up).

If you want them to look more serious you can have them behind a small emplacement.

I started work on blocking out the 4th infantry squad.


I've been getting a head start on making bases for everything as well. In the past bases have been a last minute thing and mostly were resin casts, so there was masses of duplication. This lot should provide enough bases for all of the infantry now as I already have enough done for the Conscripts. I do need to find leftover necron bits from somewhere for basing materials though, so if anyone has any spare bits floating around, I might be interested. I quite like the idea of basing these guys up to be fighting the necrons from new box, so the necrons will have some guard bits on the base for consistency. The rocks are bots of bark from the nearby playground. It gives me an incentive to go out for a walk every now and then when I run out of basing material



I've also made an initial heavy weapons team base to print that has a recessed area for the removable infantryman. The indented area is a bit too big on this batch. I purposefully made it slightly larger than a 25mm base to ensure it wasn't a tight fit. Sadly I made it a little bit too big. The large base is 4mm thick to match up with standard bases, but the hole is only 3mm deep so that it has a bottom. To try and make the infantryman fit nicely, I put a lip around the edge to bring it up. You can see once the basing material is on there, it creates a little hill around the cutout. Once the hole has been adjusted, I'll upload these for anyone that wants them



I've also started blocking out some colours for the Blackstone Fortress Zoat as part of an inquisitorial ally for more story driven games. Skin tones are going to be similar to the sandy environments. I'm still trying to work out what colour to do its armour though. Colour wheels suggest a purplish armour, which I'm not entirely convinced about. Light blue or brown would look good, but that makes it far too similar to the Tallarns and blends in a bit too much to the bases. Teal might be good...

Looks great so far. Armored arms and legs wise, if you don't mind non printed, possibly try anvil?

Great start on those bases and good to see another Zoat getting painted! Teal might work well and has the advantage that you could also combine it with some purple accents to tie everything together, for example use purple on the mask and fist and teal for the rest.

Great looking bases, smart on the heavy weapons slots

Thrilled to see another Zoat! But past time I posted to say how much I'm enjoying the printed Tallarn. I love the regiment and have long wanted to do an army of them, but GW has left them to eBay to manage and, well, I'm good on the ancient expensive metal front. I really dig what Reptilian Overlords is doing, and your remixes of their sculpts have been great.

EDIT: I've been really tempted to get my Mars a few months earlier than planned and have a crack at the RO sisters, but am so far holding firm and working on my sizable mini backlog still

Hold out for a Saturn later in the year as it's slightly faster and more than double the print capacity. I may have already persuaded one friend to buy my Mars when I eventually get hold of one

I've gone with Stegadon scale green, going up through Thunderhawk Blue to a french grey/blue. Over the top I put a glaze of the Aethermatic Blue contrast. I need to tidy up the white edges a little as they are looking a little wobbly in that photo!

 endtransmission wrote:
Hold out for a Saturn later in the year as it's slightly faster and more than double the print capacity.

I do think I'm convinced to get a Saturn, sadly preorders are all over and schmucks like me have to wait until the holiday season and whatever Amazon will be charging for them. I can stomach $400 for such a big boost in print space - I'm getting really interested in alt Imperial vehicles (like RO's Caiman) and terrain, so it makes sense to invest - but if it's 2x what a Mars runs I'll likely just default back to the Mars Pro

I have to wait as well. They preorders were over before I could get hold of one, sadly. Plus I didn't want to deal with the import duties for a $400 printer :/

I believe the Caiman fits on a Mars, as do a lot of other tanks that you can get. I currently have my eye on the super heavies from Makers Cult as I got $20 worth of vouchers just for registering on the site. Turns out the vouchers aren't valid on the Makers Cult stuff :/

 endtransmission wrote:
I believe the Caiman fits on a Mars, as do a lot of other tanks that you can get.

Oh! I assumed I'd have to do some janky slicing to make them work. Either way, starting to scheme up a big ol' heretic armored company printing project, as one does when one doesn't have a printer or any experience 3D printing

Makers Cult has some intense sculpts, extremely gothic / grimdark stuff. Love how low and flat those superheavies are.

EDIT: Sounds like it comes split in two to fit on a Mars (https://www.reddit.com/r/PrintedWarhammer/comments/hd73ff/i_finished_printing_the_caiman_mbt_from_reptilian/)

Very cool, the Tallarn are such a distinctive Imperial Guard regiment.

I love the Zoat, very characterful!

Much as I like the Caiman, I'm still undecided what I'm doing with tanks. I want the chimera and russ chassis to look like they come from the same universe, but the Caiman is a bit too rounded to work with any chimera alternatives that I've seen.

GW like their corners too much and most chimera alternatives just replace the central piece somehow and retain the sharp angles. The closest I've come to liking one is the Makers Cult hulls, but they all have the GW ground clearance issues with the track units. I suspect I'll have to use this as an excuse to learn Blender or Zbrush properly and do my own versions.

I'm having second thoughts about printing one of those super heavies though. Apparently the hull pieces alone eat up nearly a litre of resin! Though that is still cheaper than buying one from FW or GW...

Talking of tanks, there are some excellent alternatives to the standard guard tanks on Thingiverse, especially RedZabo's manticore that have given me some ideas to play with.

Last night I decided to start making my own Chimera design and learn Blender a bit more in the process. What I have in mind is a mix and match set that creates all the variants, probably remixing some of the existing parts from other creators initially... just to see if I can.

So the first parts created are the base plate, plus the left and right sides of the front cab area. The reason for these to be separate pieces is to allow for greater flexibility when creating variants. To make sure they align properly, they lock onto a raised rail on the baseplate. The pegs on the side of the base plates will lock into the track units too when it gets that far

Not a huge amount that's visible to report at the moment. In preparation for the Indomitus box arriving, I started tidying up my Red Scorpions as an ally force. This mostly involves ripping them all off their bases and making desert bases that match the Tallarns and doing a very thin edge highlight on them as they were all looking a but dull.

I'm also working out how to get chapter and squad markings onto the shoulder pads. I've found the Tactical/Assault/Elite/Heavy icons as 3d items that fit nicely, so today was spent printing enough for what I have already and everything in the new box.

A while back I bought transfers for the chapter logo, but they are thick, so don't curve around the pads properly, so I've also made a Red Scorpion shoulder pad, but as everything I have is monopose stuff, I now need to work out how to chop the logo off the pad so that it fits onto the existing models.

In a better note, I've found some good, portable mortars to use for the weapon teams, so I've printed 6 out. That should make a reasonable start to the bombardments, right?

I wanted some missile launchers that looked like the Space Marine scout ones for the Tallarn as they feel more compact for desert raiders. A bit of hacking around in Blender and I now have a missile launcher that I'm happy with and three different poses that involved some hacking apart of the Reptilian Overlords arms to get the left arms working.



The file for the missile launcher is up on my Thingiverse

Those missile poses are really nice

Nice missiles and mortar

In related news, my Mars arrives tomorrow ... While I was originally going to go hard on the RO Catachans / Caimans, I might print fantasy stuff for a bit and focus on painting all the NuChaos plastic I've got, tho ironically 3D printable accessories has me looking at finally doing some knights. Still looking for Chaos Knight masks - any leads there? - but found some awesome Slaanesh noise weapons on Thingiverse.

Oh I sort of envy you getting a new toy, even though I already have one

I've got two unbuilt knights kicking around, so I've been looking at what there is too. There a couple of nurgle aligned knight kits that looks fun

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3045815
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3737334

I've not come across any specific Chaos heads yet though. I think my RO credit renews tomorrow, so the Caiman will likely start printing as soon as it does.

I've finished painting the missile launcher and mortar teams today. I just need to get some photos taken and submitted for the July painting challenge before I post the rest here. I've also got the third lascannon team printing, but I ran out of the undercoat I've been using... so I have to now wait for some more to turn up. It's not like I don't have a butt load of infantry left to paint in the mean time.

I've been going through my old Guard army and deciding what elements to keep and what to sell to make space for the Tallarn strike force. At present the two superheavies, the Imperial Beastman squad and the inquisitors are about all that are making the cut. I don't think the kroot snipers (replacements for ratlings) fit with the new theme. The commissars are all in heavy coats, so they feel like they will just roast and die in a desert situation. I'll probably end up using the RO Praetorian bits to make a few. I suspect they may also have to have a cream or white uniform for desert warfare.

As far as tallarn tanks go, one unusual possibility that sort of works for a deserty sort of WW2 theme would be to take a taurox (or even a few taurox primes) and make them into halftrack versions with wheels up front but treads behind. This sounds like / seems it would work well in tallarn hands cause they are a faster transport, lighter, sure, but they also move a base 14 inches. Also slightly cheaper, and while its not a HUGE amount of kitbashing, it would create a very different vibe from "look, 4 chimeras, how gaurd."

Zohar is looking fantastic .

Really like the base concept for the heavy weapons.

Subbed, as somehow I’ve missed it . I’m back to work now so I rarely get to browse anymore and just quickly jump through my subbed threads. Maybe the weekend will give me more leeway.

I had a long chat to a friend earlier about tanks for desert warfare as he's an ex-tank driver so is quite vocal about these things being right

He's suggested wheeled vehicles would be best for a raiding force as they are easier to fix while on the move. In desert conditions the tracks aren't so necessary; tracks are better for marshy/wet ground that requires you to *really* spread the vehicle's weight. In sandy conditions that doesn't apply and giant tyres will (mostly) get you through.

Having said that, the Reptilian Overlord Caiman is currently on the printer... though it is going to take 3 runs and a couple of days to complete as it's a beast and I don't run the printer overnight.

 endtransmission wrote:
Having said that, the Reptilian Overlord Caiman is currently on the printer...

YESSSSSS

Excited to see your results, for entirely selfish reasons

Also re: 3D knights, I'm thinking about just printing a Slaanesh knight army straight up. Cleaning mold lines isn't why I'm getting into this side hobby Evanogainen has designed a pretty solid subjugator and questor, which I'll scale down a bunch once I figure out how scaling works and how tall knights / armigers are ...

 Boss Salvage wrote:

 endtransmission wrote:
Having said that, the Reptilian Overlord Caiman is currently on the printer...

Also re: 3D knights, I'm thinking about just printing a Slaanesh knight army straight up. Cleaning mold lines isn't why I'm getting into this side hobby Evanogainen has designed a pretty solid subjugator and questor, which I'll scale down a bunch once I figure out how scaling works and how tall knights / armigers are ...

Andi has some good stuff, I'll be interested to see how your attempt at the Subjigator and questor go.

i managed to get some photos of the mortar and missile teams. Not the best, but you get the gist








Oh. Indomitus arrived today as well, so I'm looking forward to having a flip through the new rulebook and sprues later

Nicely themed teams endtransmission.

Cheers,

CB

I really like that revolver style mortar for some crazy reason .

I started printing one of the Caiman tanks. these things are chunky compared to the Russ, but much better proportions




Something went wrong with one of the tracks during the print so it is missing a few bits. I've made a model of some track covers that hopefully hide the problem. Looking at the printer afterwards, I think the Z axis needs cleaning as there are some lumps of grease in there. Worst case, I can print a new side unit.

The tank is printed in translucent resin as it was slightly cheaper on amazon. Never again; this stuff stinks to high heaven. On the plus side, it highlighted an issue that I've probably been having with other models and not realised because they weren't transparent prior to curing. The model had a solid block at the back, but Chitubox decided to hollow it in order to save resin.



Unfortunately, because I wasn't aware of this at the time, and through sheer fluke, the engine block at the back was a liquid filled box. I've had one model weep resin for ages, so I suspect it had the same problem. So lesson learned. If something looks big and chunky, hollow it first and make some hidden drainage holes. Also double check after Chitubox has sliced the file to check there aren't any cavities... there was enough resin in there to print another guardsman!

I've also made two more officers with bolters. One also carries a banner for something different

So, I tried printing another Caiman hull over the weekend and have a weird print failure on one of the pieces that was fine last time...



There's a large chunk of the model missing. It's not on the FEP, so it didn't drop off... it's just... missing.

I've had similar before and it was due to the z axis not being smooth enough, so I had to dismantle it all and clean/regrease those parts of the Mars. We will see if this is any better when I get enough time between conference calls to stick the printer back on.

On a side note, I'm not liking this transluscent resin at all, it's a pain to see what needs cleaning up as it is clear before it cures. the first Caiman is missing the cage around the headlights as I thought they were struts that needed removing *face/palm*. I'll be switching back to the grey for most things even though it's a bit more expensive. It also smells less!

Bummer about the lack of success with the Caiman. Guessing you haven't gotten one complete yet? I have taken your 'put a drain hole in big hollow things' to heart, when I get around to trying to print an entire rhino or knight hull.

While I feel like it'd be fun to print in translucent or cool colors, I don't really have a reason to switch from the Siraya Fast Grey I started with, since I chose it for being really good for minis, and so far it's been really good for minis!

Sorry for the slow updates here, I got sidetracked with lots of other things. On the plus side, I managed to finish off another 15 infantry, which means I now have enough lasguns for 4 infantry squads and second figures for all of the weapon teams



There have been some printing issues recently, which have prevented the completion of the two tanks. I've hit a bit of a wall in terms of having the oomph to try and fix it at the moment. It's not like I've a shortage of things to paint.

A set of the necromunda ogryns arrived yesterday, so I started to see how the pieces went together with the AM Ogryn kit. It seems that unlike the human figures, the ogryns are actually slightly smaller than their 40k counterparts weirdly... but not enough to be too easily spotted. The intention is to create three Bulgruns with the bionic fists instead of mauls and three normal ones will get hardwired cannons.

Nice conversion, love the "Minion" head on the right one, nearly made me buy the set Can't wait to see them painted!