Yet Another Astartes Army..., ...it leaves a funny aftertaste though.

[Brother Weasel]

and forgivemy typing, my kids killed my keyboard;0

[Lord Balok]

I was hoping it was something like that. Either that or you were playing "drunk and type", a variation of "drunk and dial"!

[Brother Weasel]

would be acooler explanation the the 2 year old tore the keys off my laptop:)

[Lord Balok]

Mine did the same to both his mothers and mine! I managed to fix most of her keyes, but mine was trashed. It was time to buy a new one anyway.

lol

[Lord Balok]

So time for an update!

I've been purchasing marines, mostly the older marks, and putting them together in an interesting fashion; I have a bucket of heads, another of torsos, and another of legs. I just reach right in for each bit I need and don't pay much attention to what I get until I glue it on! That way I can get the hodge-podge sort of look I'm after.

I've been working on a squad of assault marines, and since they can always be broken down into battle squads I decided to start with one such 5-man unit.


I have marked out this combat squad by adding an extra spikey armor bit to the right pauldron. When I break the 10 man squad down into combat squads, both of the plas pistols will go with this unit while the sergeant and his wargear goes off with the other half.


I have added some of the bits from the kroot sprues to these guys to remind my foes of their orogins. Bits of bone and flayed skin, lots of hooks and knives and bags to carry this junk around in. This guy also got the auspex, not that it will have any game effect....it's for show.


Like I was saying, bones and flayed hides!


All manner of pieces will be used to build my marines. I'm gonna mix and match them as randomness dictates and roll with it! It's fun so far!



As always comments are more than welcome

[Lord Balok]

Well, I am still at it! I have scads of dudes all put together, but the problem is that I can't seem to pin myself down for a color scheme. I wanted to do a white and blue scheme so the Sons of Redemption would be recognized on the table as World Eaters, but I'm having issue with the white. (Mostly I wanted the majority of the armor to be white so that the blood splatter would be that much more visible!).

So to stave off making a decision, I went and did something else. I bought a Land Speeder Storm and a squad of scouts (god I love alliteration!). The scouts on the vehicle will be identical to the scouts on foot. I know that since I am using the BA codex there is an issue with the LSS (it ain't in the codex), but there are several entries in the codex that I simply cannot ever use since they don't work with a WE based army, those being things like Baal predators, librarians, furioso dreads, psyker dreads... And so my group here has no issue with letting me swap out the LSS for one of those.

Now, as I said earlier, I'm going to post painting pics here until such a time as they become the majority or work shown, then I will have to start a new thread in the PIP section.

If I keep to the white paint scheme (which I am still debating), white is a bad choice for scouts. So instead, for them I am going with black for their armor and a mid-tome green for the cloth parts. The LSS will be black as well, and I'm painting it very beat-up, very lived-in. This thing is the scouts home away from home while they are on campaign, and so it will have everything they need in and on it.

I've spent a couple of night working on it now, and just remembered I needed to take some pics. And so, here they are!

As you can see, most of the hull is already done. The heavy bolter gunner seems to be sitting in place, but that's only an illusion.


Even upsidedown he seems to be in his chair! But he's not. I glued a rare-earth magnet to the underside of the seat...


...and another magnet into his boot! I'm doing the same with all of the scouts so that once they deploy I simply remove the models from the vehicle and place the identically painted scouts on the table top!



I've also tried something new, painting most of the bits and pieces while still on the sprues. It seems to be working well so far.




That's it for now. I'll have more pics of the rest of the guys later today I hope.

[bLACKoPS0815]

Well it SEEMS its working well painting them while still on the Sprue but it doesnt really work that well...believe me ive tried. after you remove them from the sprue you will have blank spots where they were attached to the sprue and the tools you use will scratch the surface of the paintjob.
And also you will have many moldlines on them.

take my advice...dont paint stuff while still on the sprue.

black

[Brother Weasel]

I dont paint on the sprue, i actualy do a lot of mould line removal while its on sprue, so that doesnt need to be a problem... Depends on the army though, the new crons need a decent amount of after being put togeather to work on the sprue...

[Lord Balok]

Well, I seem to be in a mood to start projects rather than finishing them.

A while back, someone told me about a site called Paperhammer 40k. On this site they have for download templates of 40k vehicles for reproduction in paper. Now, the paper models are not meant for actual play, and the scale is more than twice what it needs to be.

That said, for my Scions of Redemption (Loyalist Pre-Heresy World Eaters in the present time frame due to warp-induced temporal displacement) I really wanted some of the old style land raiders. Thing is, I couldn't find any for sale at a price I was willing to pay, and the new Forge World ones are too expensive.

So, combining the ideas, I have begun a home made Proteus Pattern Land Raider. I am using sections of the Paperhammer vehicle as a template. I did a good bit of work on this yesterday, and thought I'd share!


Once I figured a reasonable reduction in scale, I printed up some of the templates and spray-glued them down to sheet styrene.


I cut out the sides for the track units and the hull...


...and then I discovered a real problem. Even though I used the same reduction in the original images, it would seem that none of the various pages are in the same scale! So, for my own placement purposes I traced the outline of my hull section side where it is supposed to go. You can see the difference in size. I'm gonna run with it for now.


I repositioned several of the indicated wheel hubs, as well as marking out two larger holes in the center.


Those larger holes served a very special purpose. Holding the four pieces together with a variety of clamps, I drilled out the larger holes and, whilst leaving the clamps in place, ran two 3/8" bolts with 1 1/4" fender washers top and bottom through the pieces. Once I tightened them down, I removed the clamps.


Next, I made a sanding board. A little spray glue and some sand paper and a good piece of wood, and I have a perfectly flat surface to sand against.


Which is what I did! I did this to ensure that all four of my side pieces are exactly the same shape and size.


Then I drilled through the stack to make the holes for the wheel hubs. Not all of them, mind you, just a select few.


Then I started on the interior hull. Each of the sides is stabilized by small triangles of styrene. Obviously I could only do this to one end, but the supports make sure that the sides are plumb and therefore I can safely and happily glue on the other end.


And here is as far as I have gotten. The basic shape of the hull is blocked in, and it has been attached to the inner sides of the track sections.


I'm gonna have a scale issue. I shrunk the original paperhammer diagrams down so that the track sections are 8 inches (20 cm) long, which is comparable to a "modern" Land Raider or even an Ork Battlewagon. My problem is going to be that the height doesn't work out. It's 4.5 inches (11.43 cm) tall and it'll be 5.75 inches (14.6 cm) wide!

I don't care. Like I said, I'm gonna run with it for now and see where this one goes.

Comments, critiques, pitchforks, torches? Any and all are welcome.

[Brother Weasel]

the original is only like 5 and a half long....

when i was working on a scratch build with multiplesides, i litteraly superglued em in a few spots, then cut and sanded, then just slid a metal ruler between em;0

and who needs to finish prodjects...

[Lord Balok]

Okay, seems I've been a busy little adept.

Been bitten real hard by the painting bug. I think this has more to do with the fact that I am actually playing more games and feeling really stoopid about fielding unpainted plastic and metal.

Anywho, been working on the marines, my Scions of Absolution.

Background: Pre-Heresy Loyalist World Eaters listed for destruction at Istvaan who were lost in the warp for about 9000 years only to pop out, learn what happened, and chastise themselves continuously in an effort to redeem themselves in the eyes of the Emperor.

I was originally going to go with a white and blue paint scheme, just like the original WE colors. Changed my mind. I'm going with black, with white and blue accents. Almost all weapons will be red, for the blood of their fallen brothers.

Got the idea once I started on the Scouts. They are painted black and green so as to be more or less camouflaged, or at least less visible!

And so onto the pics.

This is the PIP of my commander. Since I'm using the BA codex (it fits the WE combat doctrine really well) he uses the Dante rules.


And here's the finished LS Storm...well except for the crew. They ain't done yet. I know the LSS isn't in the BA codex, but since I won't use psykers (my guys were at Nikea when the Emperor said "No"), and I won't use Baal Predators or Furioso Dreads, my club has said they're cool with my addition to the list.





The original test model is the only other one I have completed in it's entirety. I kept the white for his armor. He is now my version of a Sanguinary Priest. In my army they are called Redemptor Priests. All my priests will have white and blue armor in remembrance. The shoulder pads are red, for spilt blood of friends and brothers. Unfortunately, it also makes them look sort of like Capt. America...


And to help me keep track of my projects, I have gone and made this! My work tray system. Each army is held in its own tray, and the trays are all the same size, and they all stack up nice and neat.



And now, I need to leave the computer and try to get some more work done on my trukk model (look in my Imperial Guard thread) for gaming this evening!

[Brother Weasel]

being orginized when you do several things at once is definaly key, trys is a good idea (if you have the space) i keep all my stuff in seperate drawers in my tool chest... (also how i keep from buying to much, as i don't have space to put half of it.. i really should look at trading some of my old stuff that i'm not doing anything with)

[Meph]

Aye! By lack of dedicated workspace I keep all my minis in boxes and drawers, and all the paint equipment in one of those foldable plastic crates. Which sucks... Too much time is wasted unpacking and packing everything.

But good job on the marines, mate. The mix-match of all parts always creates an interesting look.

[Skoolstah!]

Awesome stuff! Keep up the good work.

[Lord Balok]

!!!UPDATES!!!UPDATES!!!UPDATES!!!


Well, it's been quite some time since I did any work on my own stuff. I sorta went nuts over the past week. Right now, seeing as it's now midnight local time and I need to get up real early for work, I'm going to fall back on an old habit of mine and post a butt-load of pics now and then come back tomorrow to provide the needed text between them. I have so many photos that this will be spread out over three separate posts.

And on to the show!

This is the completed Dante stand-in. I don't have a name for him as of yet, but that is for later. It's gotta be a good one too! The commander of my old Chaos Marines shared my screen name, and several members of my gaming club still spit on the floor and make the sign of the evil eye when mentioning him by name!





The white and the blue are to remember their former colors. I'm really happy with how the checks on the sword came out, as much of a pain in the butt as they were.

I had such a hard time with these photos, too. My lighting was bad no matter what I did and I had trouble with the flash, so I had to tweak the light levels in photoshop to even make these worthwhile. It did harsh things to the colors on the minis though.....


Anyway, due to the background it seemed to me that there should be a preponderance of older models and marks of everything in this army. So, digging through EVERYTHING I managed to come up with enough parts to piece together an old land speeder. I was short one rider, so I cobbled one together. He looks very mismatched scale-wise (the 1st ed stuff was so tiny!), but I managed to fit him in I think!



I also managed to finish off the scout squad, at least the one on the ground. I still haven't managed to finish off the riders for the Storm patter land speeder, but that's neither here nor there right now. I'm still trying to decide if I'm gonna go back and change hair color on one or two of them, since right now they all have black hair.


Here's the tac squad I started with so long ago, finally all done.


And what I thought would be a cool bit of head gear really came out as a silly hat. Still, I finished it off just like I wanted, as a huge chunk of patinad brass.


This is the full assault squad all done. Makes me happy!


I purchase them as a full squad and then break them up into battle squads. To differentiate between the two squads, the first has the extra shoulder pads. The sergeant (indicated with the scanner) and the two allowable plasma pistols go together.


There will be many much trophy taking in the assault squads, this being just a single example.


The second half of the squad all have these different chainswords...actually ork chainswords....I think they look pretty cool and brutal, so I went with it.


I was very happy with the way the corporal's face came out.


After a while I got tired of chopping the hands out of the chainswords, so I allowed a few problems with the gene-seed to kick in and give a couple guys over-developed muscles.


My honor-guard, mostly done. The things dangling from one backpack is the chapter banner. That is it, nothing special. They really don't have anything to be proud of. They are going to spend the rest of their lives trying to say "We're sorry".


My version of my sanguinary guard. All white armor, and red weapons.


I need to get a better gloss-coat for the helmets. I want them to be featureless and very shiny.


Here's my devastator squad. I bought the FW pre-Heresy heavy weapon set, which came with arms, weapons, and special backpacks. After assembling the guys, I ran a pin down through their shoulders for the heavy weapons.


The sergeant is pretty cool, and I like the way he came out.


And these are the heavy weapons that FW sent me! Just base-coated for now, like the bozo's who are gonna carry them. But wait! There's more!

[Lord Balok]

(Ran out of room for this last image here in the post above)

I also have all of these heavy weapons, real old ones, not FW remakes!



And then on to other coolness!

So I was leaving my weekly 40k club meeting, and as I started the car, the radio was still on and "Iron Man" came on. It was at that point the light bulb came on, and I said "Oh, yeah!"

And so, meet Brother Techmarine Stark!




I went for a more underslung sort of look with all the extra arms of his servo harness, as well as a few extras that were left over from the servitors.

Speaking of which, here they are!


I wanted a very unhealthy palor to their skin, and I especially wanted to show irritation everywhere machine met up with flesh. I gave all the flesh areas a very thin wash with green, and then added the angry red to the flesh with straight Windsor Newton ink.



(opps.....missed a mold-line.........)

[Lord Balok]

.Anyway, here are a few of the vehicles I'm working on for this bunch...

Like I said above, old-school is the way I'm trying to go, and nothing says old-school like a plastic and metal predator! When I got this thing, it was dedicated to chaos, but with the removal of the extraneous chaosy bits (and a heck of a lot of gap-filling/covering (those were some really bad casts, I gotta say)), and a new cannon barrel, she's all primed up and ready for some paint! Soon.


I razorback in preliminary works, this one with twin-mounted assault cannon (no, not a mega-bolter, no matter what it looks like)


Some might remember my earlier attempt at recreating an old style land raider that was ridiculously out of scale. Well, I shelved that one. I friend of mine in my club was given (!) an original land raider model that was, quite literally, broken into pieces. Using it as a template (and making templates from it for future use) I managed to get the info I needed and in the proper scale! Viola! WIP!



I started with wood as a core, and then covered it with thin styrene sheets. I have sitting on my shelf a Merkava Mk IV kit that I actually bought for parts, and so I am using many of them on this build to make what I think is perhaps a more realistic version of an older (let's say 10,000 years older) Land Raider model.

Techmarine Stark is going to get his own ride! This is another rhino hull that started out on the wrong side. It was put together sloppily, there was glue everywhere, and half the joins weren't even glued together. This is taking a lot of clean-up work, and I'm really going all out to make this thing very special.


Got a little hyper-active with the razor saw cutting things out of my way. I wasn't planning on detailing the interior, but the wall section I'm using as a roof has an opening that is far larger than I had originally anticipated. So I covered up the slice into the control panel with a Tamiya field radio kit.



This thing is going to kitted out to the max. It will be his personal vehicle, and so there will be all sorts of equipment and stowage on it. I realize that a Techmarine does not get an option for a dedicated transport in the BA codex (which is what I'm using), but with the new 6th ed rules, I can purchase a 5 man tac squad, attach the techmarine and his servitors to it and fit them all into the rhino. I'm going to make the tac squad to look like skitarii, since the Scions of Redemption and the Magos of Forgeworld Mercia-Alpha 2 have a very close relationship.

[Lord Balok]

So that's all of it so far. There is still a bunch of small stuff to do. Most of the models still need to have their feet and lower legs dusted with the brown weathering powder. I still have a bunch of gun barrels to either paint the muzzle openings or drill them. I'm sure that I have missed small details here and there, but I'll attend to those little buggers later.

Also, I just today picked up a Stormraven from my FLGS! Haven't even opened the box yet!

So I hope y'all liked the pics, and any and all comments, critiques, pitchforks and torches are more than welcome!

[Hellwolve]

To be honest, though overall it's very cool, there are some things I raise an eyebrow at, such as the overly long chainsword of your Dante stand-in and the Orc arms of one of the marines. But as said, overall, very cool. And better painting than mine

[Lord Balok]

Well, my Luciferian canid friend, the sword on my Dante stand-in (as well as all of the swords in the sanguinary guard) are made by maxmini. The commander's sword looks a bit funky, I know, but that's only really because half of the hilt broke off in a gravity-induced incident (I dropped him) and was lost. I really like the sword though.

As for the arms, I kinda like those to. Every chapter has some thing or other off with the gene-seed, especially after 10,000 years, although that doesn't necessarily apply to my guys; they were lost in the warp for 9,000, which can have its own altering effects! I'm thinking of doing an entire squad or two like that at one point or another in the future.




In general, I'm still building this army up. I'm going to finish painting the stuff that I have, and in the future I'm just going to purchase a unit at a time to add to it (....yeah, right....) I'm still not sure how I'm going to do the skitarii (that will simply be treated as a tac squad) that will join with Techie Stark, I'm not sure if I want more tac squads or more assault squads, or both. we'll see where it goes.......

[Lord Balok]

Okay, I guess I am a nutter.

I bought the Storm Raven Last week, and this week I purchased the Sky Talon and a squad of Necrons.

The flyers really can wait for now, but the Necrons are going to be the basis for the Skitarii that will be treated as a 5-man Tac Squad that will accompany Brother Techmarine Stark and his servitors, thus making the purchase (and modelling of) an Adeptus Mechanicus Rhino legal!

I don't have pics or even a real plan yet. 12 necrons are available to me, and I only need 5, so I think I'm gonna be doing a bit of prototyping! If it works out, I might have an Ad Mech contingent to add to the army! (...still gonna use the BA rules for them, although it might behoove me to use the Vanilla Marine's list should there be a sufficient number of Admech dudes in the future...)

[Firebird71]

Necrons representing skitarii which are representing marines. If you do it right I bet that'll look awesome! Just my 2 cents but necrons are very much about uniformity while ad mech is more random in their bionics. Maybe fill in random skeletal parts with greenstuff to make it look like they have human flesh in some spots still? Looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

[Hellwolve]

Dear Lord Balok, no need to defend yourself You asked for opinions, and you got 'em You're obviously entitled to yours

[Lord Balok]

@ Hellwolfe - Sorry if that came out sounding harsh. It wasn't meant that way, and it didn't sound that way in my head...

...ofttimes it's hard to project self-deprecating sarcasm through the interwebs. I wasn't trying to be defensive, just silly.

Bad, Balok! No donuts!









@Firebird - I've nearly completed my first prototype, so, if I can find the memory card for my camera, I'll have a pic up in about an hour!

The only reason I want to use the marine rules is that there are no official rules for AdMech forces as of yet (though I'm hearing rumors lately), and for now I won't have to include them as some sort of allied force...I'll avoid the confusion by using the same rules as the rest of my forces.

If I really like the way they come out, I might build a bunch more, and then either treat them as an allied contingent using either the Vanilla Marines list or an IG list.

[Lord Balok]

Okie-dokie then! Without further ado, here is the Skitarii squad that will be accompanying Brother Stark the Techmarine about.

And on with the pics!

First, the obligatory group shot...


This is going to be the sergeant. He is the most cybernetically modified, right here being little more than a mechanical body carrying about a human brain.


I used a plethora of bits for this guy. A necron rear torso and a scarab make up the body. The staff (the Sgt's melee weapon) is made from the shaft of an Ogre banner pole, topped off with a gear bit from a plastic Ork Mekboy. The cabling is all simple solder.


An obvious marine backpack, cut down a bit to simply function as a power plant. I used Mark V marine lower legs as well as marine shoulder pads mounted sideways. I also used the Necron gun, but I put a bolter barrel at the end, so I'm going to treat them as bolters for now.


The Sgt's head is a Mark II helmet spun around. After filing some flat spots, I cut lenses from a missile launcher to make his eyes.


This is the veteran of the group. Heavy physical augmentation. Tac marines get a bolter, bolt pistol and CCW, so he has his "bolter" holstered for now, and is ready for some bloody action.


He's an old conversion that I converted some more. Originally he had Mordheim legs and an Orc body, with the marine head. I swapped his arms out for better Ork arms, used a scarab for a chest plate, and slightly modified his shoota to make it a bolt pistol. Modified the necron gun as before, but because it's holstered, I needed to replace the grip. I ended up using one of the spare rappelling handles from the Land Speeder Storm kit


There was no way to mount a modified backpack, so I had to cobble together something appropriate using styrene tube, necron gun barrels, and a shaved down bit of sprue.



This one is the Dude. Marine torso, IG legs, necron arms.


I used a part of a necron skull as a mask grafted onto the face of the skitarii. A couple of strips for bolting it in place and it gives the head an odd elongated look.


Accessorized with various bits from the scout sprues.


This guy started off as a plastic Goliath ganger from Necromunda. I pulled off the gun arm and cut off half his head. I glued binoculars down in its place.

His name is Wally.


Used a necron arm and modified gun, just like the rest.


This is the heavy weapon of the squad. It counts as a heavy bolter. The mini started life as an Ogre, but then he had a terrible accident involving a razor saw and an x-acto knife


The gun is scratch built, as is the ammo hopper. His hip is made from the base of a fence generator post from AoBR, and the little fiddly bits from the same are now attached all over his back and shoulders


Two legs just weren't going to hold his big butt up, and so I added a second pair. I know they're backwards, but I don't think he does.....


The leg span was a bit wider than a 40mm base, so I needed to extend it, otherwise he was going to go through life felling like a tripod.



I know that there is some putty work needs doing, especially on Gunny (hvy weapon guy). I will also need a hood or two, and some light robes on a couple guys. I wanted to finish this lot up and then think hard about how to dress my dangerous little people.

Comments, critiques, pitchforks and torches are, as always, welcome!