First Foray with Greenstuff

Today I tried a little experiment after getting some motivation from various sites, especially scibor miniatures.

Anyway, I tried making a variant of a primarch for my army.  I know that the fluff at present says that the primarch is dead - but bugger it, why not - either that or he could stand as my chapter master.  I also thought that due to the immense amount of stuff I still have to paint, maybe I should go back to the triumvirate idea instead of the 4 armies.  Hmmm.. that will still require some deliberation....

But, I digress, my first tap at greenstuffing was interesting at best.  I became very frustrated at times as I didn't have much in the way of sculpting tools other than the old finger forks and my scalpel.  As a result - some of the pieces I may have to redo, particularly his "collar" but you'll see that in the pictures.

So what of rules for the primarch?  Well after trolling around some forums and basing that with the knowledge I have garnered from the Horus Heresy novels and other stuff, the general consensus is that primarchs should be somewhere in between a Space Marine and a Daemon Prince.

Some argue that primarchs should be much more powerful, as Sanguinius managed to kick the seven shades of shinola out of a bloodthirster, others believe otherwise.

Still, what I reckon is that they should be tougher than a Chapter Master and below a Daemon Prince.  However, they should have skills / rules that can affect your army as a whole.

As GW have the DIY legions - I decided that the Knights could be the 11th Legion.

Their Primarch - Magnar Darrius


Points: 325 (i figured this was ok - as the Sanguinor is 275 and it also has eternal warrior a better WS and Initiative and a better invulnerable save)

WS: 7 BS: 3 S:5 T:5 W:4 I:6 A:4(5) LD:10 Sv: 2+

Unit Type: Infantry

Wargear:

• Artificer Armour
• Force Sword - "Emperor's Judgement"
• Lightning Claw - "Terra's Wrath"
• Frag and Krak Grenades
• Iron Halo
• Ceremonial Mask- Gives - Psychic Hood Rules

Psychic Powers: 
Magnar evaded the taint of chaos by being an Untouchable - a Psychic Null.  His presence is nigh intolerable for  psykers as he nullifies all warp energies within reach.  Due to these skills, he has the following abilities, which he may use all of once each turn.

• Negative Warp Blast - Negative warp energies blast into the minds of opponents.  Shooting attack with the following profile: Range-12", Strength-4, AP-2, Assault 4.
• Null Zone - at start of the KOR's shooting phase if Magnar passes psychic test - All enemy units within 24" of Magnar must re-roll successful invulnerable saves. 
• Pariah - Daemons and Psykers find it nigh intolerable to be near Magnar due to the negative warp energies dancing around him.  As a result, any Daemon or Psyker within 12" of Magnar takes a -2 penalty to their leadership.  This psychic power is a passive ability that is always active.

Special Rules:

• Independent Character
• Weapon Master:  Magnar spurns all forms of ranged weaponry and has solely focussed his skills on his hand to hand arsenal.  He has seen many years of service and favours his force blade and lightning claw and manages to wield them with such skill that he gains the bonus attack (included in profile) not normally possible without a pair of lightning claws.
• Final Word: Magnar can forgo his normal attacks for a single close combat attack with his force sword resolved at strength 10. This attack cannot be re-rolled due to his Preferred enemy rule if it fails to hit true.
• Courage My Brothers: Magnar and unit he is attached to are Fearless
• Awesome Presence - Magnar is an imposing figure on the battlefield who spurs on his charges to fight and instills fear into the enemies of the Emperor.  While Magnar is on the field - all friendly units can use his LD for morale and pinning tests - enemy units within 6" suffer -1 Ld. 
• Withering Gaze -  Units assaulting Magnar must make a leadership test or fall back.
• Follow My Lead: Friendly units within 6" of Magnar have +1 attack
• Mentor of Warriors: Magnar and the unit he is attached to have the Preferred Enemy special rule.
• Fallen Saviour / SNAFU: If Magnar is incapacitated, all friendly units gain rage and furious charge universal special rules. Additionally, when Magnar goes down, lie his body face down.  If, by the end of the game there are no friendly units within 6" of his body then the Knights of Revelation automatically forfeit the game as they fail to retrieve their fallen leader's body.

Here is a brief comparison between Magnar and a regular marine.  I had to do a far bit of chopping and cutting and greenstuffing, but he turned out ok I think.  C and C welcome.

Progress

Just to keep me motivated, here is some of my progress so far....

above - sargeant with plasma pistol / power weapon.

Castellan Vardis with combi-melta and power sword

Flamer bearing Initiate. 

Plasma gun toting initiate.  Added some blood red to the shoulder pad.

All are about 60% done.  Lots of highlighting and fine tuning to go, but coming along ok I think.

Blood Angel HQs, Sanguinary Guard and Death Comp

Here's my commander - my version that i'm going to use the Dante rules for.  I just love the new Sanguinary Guard and Death Comp kits - unreal detail and just all round awesome. 

The idea is that Dante has an honour guard of Sanguinary guard units, some of which I will post below.

Don't think I got the best angle photo for this Honour Guard.  He is positioned as if about to turn and fire off his plasma pistol.

Another Honour Guard.  Behind him is a Sargeant of an assault squad.  I must admit that I don't really like the musculature on the legs of the Sanguinary Guard - and some of them are in the "touch down" pose.  For my liking, they aren't aggressive enough, so I decided to use a few Death Company legs on my Sanguinary Guard.

These two are Death Company.  I think I'll remove the guy on the left off his base and add a rod and elevate him so that he's looking like he's flying.- I tried to get the position that he is lifting off into the air.  The other guy is getting ready his powerfist, hidden behind his bolter.

Sanguinary Guard this time.  I decided not to use any Death Masks, even though I really like them - as I wanted my Dante model to look unique.  On reflection, I should have tried to make the Dante model a "true-scale" marine to make him larger and more imposing than the rest.  Still may do this in the future.

This is another sergeant of an assault squad.  He uses wolf guard claws, which normally look pretty gay - as if they're a dj, scratching some decks - see the SW codex if you don't know what I mean.  I repositioned the body and head of this guy to make it look like he was jetting off into the air.  I think it makes a better use of the arms, rather than a ridiculous "wolverine-esque" pose.

Blood Angels

Only really just started putting these guys together.  Have decided that the entire company will just have jump-packs.  Although it's exceptionally tempting to make some Sternguard Vets, I may just have to let them go.

Exception will be terminators.  I'm going to use the Space Hulk ones - give me a good excuse to paint them.

Have been playing around with variations on colour schemes and have decided that the following would look ok.  Just not sure as to what one should be death company or normal troop.

Proposed Death Company Colours.

Proposed Normal Troop Colours.

Proposed Term Colours.

I painted a couple of assault marines roughly to see what the colours may look like.  See what you reckon - Any suggestions more than welcome!!

hard to see from this angle, but you get the basic idea.

I like this one a lot better.  The colours are pretty striking i think. 

Wolf Guard, Grey Hunters, Blood Claws and Long Fangs

For these units, I wanted to accomplish a certain number of things.

First, the Wolf Guard and Grey Hunters were to be crotchety, battle hardened bastards that had seen some serious service.

Second, the Blood Claws were to be young, ballsy and look like they have a few screws loose.

 

Wolf Guards (Left) - looking haggard as hell - I used a flagellant head for this guy (right) - punk looking - attached to blood claws.

Blood claw (left) with modified chainsword.  Grey Hunter (right) -  again, used a flagellant head - makes him look a little older and battle hardened.

Thirdly, the Long Fangs were to look very "casual" whilst spotting out new targets to blow the proverbial out of.

 

Had fun converting these guys.  The heavy bolter took ages.  The ammo clip does all fit together and hook up with the backpack.  I had to decimate the other heavy bolter that came in the devastator kit to complete it, however.  The plasma cannon guy is on a running set of legs.

The Long Fang Sarge is the guy with the powerfist.  I felt that the head was appropriate as it has a number of "service studs" in the forehead.  Had to muck around to get the other guy to actually hold the plasma cannon where he is.  Probably a little ridiculous, but fun all the same to think that this old bastard can lug a plasma cannon around like a pistol.

The spotter with the lascannon was more difficult to pose than I first thought.  I had to massacre a few arms to find one that would be on the correct angle to allow the arm rest of the lascannon to rest against his shoulderpad.  As it turned out, I had to slice up 3 arms to create the arm with the gun.  Each of which provided a different angle so the weapon could be placed in position.

These two are fairly vanilla.  I wanted the guy with the rocket launcher to look as it he had just destroyed a vehicle or something and was admiring his handiwork.

Should be good to paint - probably take me a month! haha!

Space Wolves - HQs

This is my Wolf Lord.  He uses a combination of Forgeworld parts as well as the WG term kit.  I did have him originally on another set of legs and didn't like the look or the loadout.  So with a bit of hacking, I swapped him onto the legs seen here.  Below are some concept colours I worked on using the SM painter from http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/smpbeta.php.  Obviously, the Blue is going to be a bit darker to match that on the Templars.

This guy I use to represent Arjac Rockfist.  I put some dreadnought leg plates for his shoulderguards, making him look more imposing.  He also has a chaos lord's cloak.  I'll have to get another pic of him - he's still a work in progress, but it's coming along ok.

I was originally going to use this guy as my Wolf Lord with artificier armour and two power fists for flavour.  But he ended up looking too small against his Terminator retinue, cost far more than his terminator counterpart and did not have as much saving power - with only a 4+ save.  As a result, he's been relegated to the back of the pack now - but he still looks ok I guess.

 This is my Wolf Priest.  Converted him using inspiration from a GW article on their website.  After much cursing, hacking and cutting and slicing my thumb open at one point - I managed to fit the skull onto a suitable head.  I really wanted the beard to be evident underneath the helm, like he's a scraggly old bastard that has been around for a while and has an animalistic ferocity to him.

Space Wolves and Blood Angels - and inevitable consequences....

When I saw the models in White Dwarf, I couldn't not collect them.  Also some very tasty rules in the new codex.

I then re-wrote the fluff for the Knights, which was ok, until I then saw the new Blood Angel models!  So, as a result - what I've done is to decide that I'm going to collect 4 different space marine armies.  Templars, Wolves, Bangels, and one other - not sure whether to go for Dangels or Vanilla - but they will be modified 1K sons - just because they are so cool.

What follows are a few of the models that I'm working on for each of the Wolves and Blood Angels.

Forgeworld Dreadnoughts

I really love these guys.  I painted this model very early on and I think I'll repaint him soon.  Just awesome detail with resin! The sculptors are incredibly talented.

Adding to the Templars

Apologies for the poor lighting on the shots.

This model is a sargeant in the Marshall's retinue.

I used a number of parts from the space marine command sprue to create this guy with the flamer.  Experimented with a stippling brush to get the kind of corroded / burned effect on the tip of the flamer, but may have to go back to the drawing board as it turned out pretty rubbish.

I named this Marine, Castellan Vardis.  He is still work in progress.  Going to try a new power weapon effect on the sword. Will look into White Dwarf for inspiration.

My original terminators that I made for the Templars were rubbish.  Had a whole ton of assault guys and some looked ridiculous.  One model looked like he was doing a jig with his lightning claws - so he felt the wrath of the Emperor and was reborn as this menacing looking gentleman.  Used a few space wolf parts for him.  Again, crappy lighting sorry.

I really love the BT upgrade sprue - just excellent torsos and helmets.

More Templar Models

This marine was the first I used experimenting with a blue cloak.  Originally, I had thought of using a bone coloured cloak - similar to the Dark Angels; However, I decided that it did not provide a very stark contrast.

I was initially worried that the blue would not look good against the red, but it turned out ok, so I'm pretty happy with the result.

Black Templars

Here's a few images of my Black Templar "Wing" of the army.  It's going to be led by the Hector Rex model - I've only base coated him so far, removed a bit of the "I" logos that are all over him.  I just thought it is a fantastic model and would be a good Marshall for my Templars.

Here are a few pics of the army as it stands at the moment, and some up close pics.  All aren't finished as yet, need to still finish highlighting and shading in some places.  I think the colour scheme has come up ok.

 This is a pic of the overall army - 5 tac squads, 4 5 man term squads - 2 assault, 2 normal. Can't really see a lot, so I'll upload a few pics of some nearly finished models.

I started out collecting these guys first - based on the assault on black reach kit as well as a space marine battleforce and a few boxes of dark angel vets.  Then expanded that to include some modified black templar upgrade kits.

 I'm still working on a lot of these models, and it is a very time consuming process at present as i'm really not that great at painting.  I think using white for my first army was a bit ambitious.

I've used a 5 stage process to get the colour white of the army.  Begins with undercoat of skull white, I then basecoat with spacewolf grey, then wash the recesses with azuremen blue.

Following that, I gradually build up the colour by using various mixes of spacewolf grey and skull white, finishing with an extreme highlight of skull white.

Inspiration

I must admit, I have a weakness for Chaplains.

Lamenter over at http://masteroftheforge.com/tag/grey-knight-chaplain/ has made possibly the best Chaplain conversion that I have seen.

While i'm on the soapbox, Games Workshop - Will you ever make a plastic chaplain kit? That would be exceptionally cool..... maybe a kit that you could make an HQ unit like a mix of Captain/Librarian/Chaplain in plastic. I reckon it'd sell pretty well!

The Knights of Revelation

The Brief:

So, why am i starting this blog? Well, in short, to maintain the motivation to finish this chapter.

The Problem:

GW keeps on releasing new stuff that I like, and so the fluff regarding the history of the chapter, and it's organisation keeps on growing.

That, and the fact that I am a pretty rubbish painter! Still, it's been a fun ride so far.

The Situation:

At present, I've written a brief article on the history behind the chapter - giving it a bit of substance and narrative. Thanks to a mate of mine, we've managed to work out some basic premise that explains why the army is such a mish-mash of the different models that I've collected thus far.

The Knights of Revelation are comprised of Black Templar, Space Wolf and Blood Angels units - I'm also adding a converted contingent of Thousand Sons that I'm going to convert.

The basic idea is that the chapter master died in a battle recently and there was a power struggle amongst the four potential heirs to overall command. The four Captains could not relinquish command to another and so the chapter is now governed by a "tetragon of light". The four captains command a "great company" each - and each is themed by one of the cardinal virtues in order to best serve the Emperor. We came up with this idea, after doing a bit of research into religion - where the number 4 comes up quite often - Buddhism has the belief of four heavenly kings, Christianity - the four cardinal virtues etc etc.

Anyway, in the following blog i hope to update the progress on what is going on with the chapter - how the painting / converting jobs are going etc.