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It's been a few months since my last DW entry and I've had these lads half painted sitting on my desk because of the dreaded freehand chapter symbols. I've pretty much run out of the easier ones to paint but I don't want to do too many repeats just yet.

It should be obvious that these were once actually Grey Knights Paladins. I think they look 100% cooler than bog standard terminators with their pointy helmets, and most of the GK bling works just fine on DW anyways.

A co-worker is building a Deathwing army but had no use for Plasma Cannons, and since DW Terminators can field 3 to a squad I said to myself "WHY THE HELL NOT?!?". So I traded him some extra DW shoulderpads so he could field DW veterans in his DA army, good deal. I don't know if I would actually field them as a squad rather than additions to a Proteus Kill Team, but hey, it's a legal unit as is. Because I didn't have other terminator bits and am somewhat cheap (especially after buying so many DW shoulderpads to get the bigger terminator pads for gravis dudes), I gave them power swords from the Paladin kit rather than power fists. At least it will help keep the points cost down a bit.

Note that the Plasma Cannon terminators are all from Dark Angels or their successors. Gotta throw the DA fans a bone once in a while.



Brazen Claws, Dark Angels, Carcharodons, Angels of Vigilance, Consecrators

I took a bit of liberties with the AoV and Consecrators symbols - I ran out of Burnished Gold and the art I had at first for the Consecrators neglected the white backdrop circle. Mea Culpa.

A squad to be proud of. The plasma cannons look phenomenally cool.

 youwashock wrote:
A squad to be proud of. The plasma cannons look phenomenally cool.

Thanks mate. It felt good to get these lads done, they've been on my painting desk, judging me, for far too long.

I have ton more Deathwatch assembled but at least they're in grey plastic, which is far less judgmental in my experience.

The grey knight terminators look great in Black and the Plasma Cannons came out top drawer

 gobert wrote:
The grey knight terminators look great in Black and the Plasma Cannons came out top drawer

Thanks. I'd love to make more but I've run out of Terminator shoulderpads for Deathwatch. Spending 30 CAD for a couple upgrade frames is a wee bit steep, though I'd love to make a squad with Nemesis Daemonhammers ("Thunderhammers") and DW storm shields, sourcing those 1H grip terminator NDHs won't be fun at all (one per box of Paladins?).

Though I could just buy another box of Paladins, then I could make 2 and make random Termies from the rest.

Since GW is 'sidelining' Watch Captain Artemis, I finally pulled the trigger on buying one. But I had no plans of using him as Watch Captain Artemis, oh no. Artemis is a bare-headed dummy of a marine.

He was destined for kitbashing. Artemis' pose is pretty much ideal for a jump captain, all I needed was some DW Veteran bits, DW upgrade bits and a jump pack from some Vanguard Veterans. All of which I already had.

Now probably this isn't the most ideal loadout for a jump captain, but I did want to field a Xenophase Blade, and there's only 3 potential platforms for them (Watch Sgts, Biker Sgts, and Captains). What with xenos getting invulnerable saves like it's Christmas lately having something to cut right through that nonsense might be needed. And dammit those things just look cool.

But since he's a jumpy boi he'd be an ideal relic shield carrier as well. And that DW Storm Shield is basically the coolest thing ever.



Let me tell you it was a tight fit getting the jump pack, head, shoulder pad and storm shield to line up properly. I did paint the backpack separately. I quibbled on giving the jump pack more color but I didn't want to draw attention from the sword/shield. At least from the back the cloak breaks it up.

Note that Artemis has a bionic right arm, that's why the fist holding the shield is shiny rather than black.



Cloak and Jump Pack! Madness! But seriously, Artemis has a cool cape. And a cool iron halo too, that was a bit nervous cutting that off his backpack and moving it to the jump pack.



I was tempted to do the front of the storm shield entirely with the power field effect I'm using for swords, but in the end I settled just on the border plate.

Note he's a Black Shield! The Storm Shield placement made painting an icon on that shoulder pad really difficult and an embossed icon wouldn't fit. Having a Black Shield reach Captain makes a certain amount of sense, given he'll never leave the Deathwatch and has centuries of xeno-killing experience behind him as a result. Nice of GW to give painters an easy out in situations like this.



I also considered doing the Xenophase Blade in different colors, but with black armor and red cloak it might have been too visually busy. Keeping all three power field effects the same keeps a nice balance. The Xenophase Blade has lots of detail to draw the eye already.

Anyways, this was a really fun conversion and I'm really happy with how it turned out.

Looks pretty awesome. Good call on the sword and shield. Just the border is a cool effect.

 youwashock wrote:
Looks pretty awesome. Good call on the sword and shield. Just the border is a cool effect.

Thanks. I think I have something like 8 more DW storm shields in the painting queue so I'm glad the border effect worked out. Edge highlighting all the lettering would have been really tedious!

He looks ready to smash! The force effect looks really awesome and works really well with the red and black. Is it the same as your Necron recipe?

Very nice work on the captain.

 gobert wrote:
He looks ready to smash! The force effect looks really awesome and works really well with the red and black. Is it the same as your Necron recipe?

Almost. It's straight Terradon Turquoise contrast rather than the TT/Basilicanum Grey/Medium mix.

It’s certainly effective! I might have to steal it like your Necrons!

A few more Deathwatch characters finished. Both were made from Deathwatch Veterans with Space Marine Command Squad bits.



First a Deathwatch Apothecary, because somebody's got to harvest that precious geneseed. Still not 100% sure about the white pouches but I figured he'd be carrying medical supplies in all the tacticool pouches.



For reference, he's a Novamarine. The raised icons are certainly easier to paint but I don't think they look as good as freehanded icons. That said, I don't think I'd try freehanding a Novamarine icon...



Next a Deathwatch Company Champion. The Black Shield cloak is great fodder for Deathwatch character conversion. The chapter is the Jade Paladins, a homebrew by Ben Bailey over at The Hobby Room (a fairly popular miniature twitch stream). I may stray more into homebrew chapters looking for easier chapter icons in the future, at least the ones I need to freehand.

Nice work on the three characters, John, especially the Jump Captain - even if my inner Edna is wanting to say, quite firmly, "No capes."

 Dysartes wrote:
Nice work on the three characters, John, especially the Jump Captain - even if my inner Edna is wanting to say, quite firmly, "No capes."

I knew it would trigger a few people!

Novamarines are hard if you can't paint skulls, I'm not happy with mine. https://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-105865-53552_Old%20Deathwatch.html

If you're not happy with your skull, Rolsheen, I'd suggest consulting with your doctor...

Just finished some Deathwatch Heavy Intercessors.



Note I didn't equip these lads with one of the heavier gun options, mostly because I want to save the points for the rest of the squad, which of course will be a mix of Eradicators, Aggressors and Inceptors in an Indomitor Kill Team.

I love how uncluttered the armor is with iconography and purity seals, but damn do these guys have excessively articulated plating.



Blood Swords, Sons of Orar, Lamenters*, Mentors, Hospitallers

*Not a perfect Lamenters shoulderpad, but I'm happy with how it turned out. Mad props to the crazy people who actually do a Lamenters army.

Great and rapid work as ever John. The Heavy Intercessors came out great, I think you’ve done a great job of all the different chapter symbols so far.

What do the Deathwatch Apothecaries do with the geneseeds? Send them back to their originator chapter? Writing up the vials must be quite time consuming on the battlefield

 gobert wrote:
Great and rapid work as ever John. The Heavy Intercessors came out great, I think you’ve done a great job of all the different chapter symbols so far.

What do the Deathwatch Apothecaries do with the geneseeds? Send them back to their originator chapter? Writing up the vials must be quite time consuming on the battlefield

I guess they'd return them to their chapters. I don't think Deathwatch recruits/creates new marines of their own (no Scouts). Its probably not hard to tell which progenitoid gland is which with basic blood/genetic tests.

Black Shields' geneseed is probably sent back to Terra like any other geneseed tithe to make new chapters.

Great looking squad. Gravis armor rocks.

Superb work, all around! All the different chapter icons are very well executed.

 youwashock wrote:
Great looking squad. Gravis armor rocks.

Indeed it does! But getting the DW shoulderpads for terminators/gravis sucks! Only 2 per upgrade pack!


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 mcmattila wrote:
Superb work, all around! All the different chapter icons are very well executed.

Thanks! My eyes really are too old for this though

Well, the changes in 10th has made independent Company Champions and Apothecaries impossible. Might as well finish off the Command Squad!



These lads were already built but the paint job unfinished. I gave them 'regular' storm shields so I could easily distinguish them from Deathwatch Veterans with Storm Shields.



This lad was built from an unpainted spare I had built with a jet pack and DW thunderhammer. Arms from the command squad sprue, banner topper from the Grey Knights Paladin box.

Banners are IMO probably the worst thing to paint, they're so easy to look terrible. I kept it simple though I think the '4' should have been shorter, but it wasn't worth going back and fixing - the whole miniature was painted in a single evening.

Great blog! Just went back through from the start, so many great shoulder pads but the lamenter ones got to be my favourite.
Great stuff, subscribed

I've never managed to paint a good banner, but yours looks excellent!

 amazingturtles wrote:
I've never managed to paint a good banner, but yours looks excellent!

Well practicing so many freehand shoulderpads probably helped.

Edit: The full Command Squad.

They look great John! That banner is so simple it adds to the coolness I think. Perfect for the Deathwatch

Xenos beware! Nice to see some more of your boys in black, JP!

gobert wrote:They look great John! That banner is so simple it adds to the coolness I think. Perfect for the Deathwatch

youwashock wrote:Xenos beware! Nice to see some more of your boys in black, JP!

Thanks. I haven't given up on Deathwatch just yet! I finished off the Command Squad and finally got around to varnishing and basing the Terminators and Heavy Intercessors, plus finishing off some other models that needed doing. I've got 20 more Deathwatch Veterans built plus a bunch of other models to go yet. The indexes and points values kind of made a mess of my unit composition and DW Veterans are the only OC2 units that have the Kill Team keyword. It's funny what started as a way to build up some Primaris marines has gone in the direction of firstborns.