Quantcast
Channel: Mordian 7th Regiment
Viewing all 689 articles
Browse latest View live
↧

Agents of the Imperium - Expeditionary Navigator painted

June 10, 2014, 7:49 pm
$
0
0
I was getting a little weary of painting crimson, so over the last few mornings I've worked on Fortunato Locarno instead! He's going to be part of my Thousand Sons force so I needed to tie him in thematically, but I wanted him to have a contrasting color scheme - Good ol' Tzeentchian blue and yellow it is, then!

  

House Locarno assigned Fortunato to the XV Legion in the early days of the Great Crusade and he served with distinction, showing an almost preternatural ability to guide the Thousand Sons vessels to their destinations swiftly and unerringly. Afforded training by the Corvidae Cult, he gained unprecedented prognosticative powers, however in later years dark whispers that his abilities were enhanced via dark pacts with servants of the Architect of Fate proved to be all too true...

I'm not completely happy with his shoulder weasels (which thanks to Dave Taylor, I can't get out of my head). I wanted to go with the blue-white similar to that found on the Sons and the Spireguard, but I'm not fond of how the spots turned out. Not sure how to save it without overly gumming up the details with overpainting, though. Hrm...


↧
Search

Terrain - Warboards city blocks

June 16, 2014, 7:58 am
$
0
0
Spent a little time cleaning up the hobby loft (it was getting out of hand) which freed up the table enough that I could set out and snap a few pics of the new table covers! A while back I'd paid in to a Kickstarter that was doing some tabletop fold-out gaming mats that had caught my eye. As is usually the case with KS projects, significantly past the original release date they did finally arrive, and I was able to lay 'em out and see how they looked!


All told there are four different 2' x 3' fold out sections, which can fit together in a few different arrangements covering a 6' x 4' table. I grabbed a couple pieces of terrain to see how they'd look on the boards - rather pleased with 'em! I forgot to take pics, but the back sides of the boards also have further maps, two of them have a cave complex and two have a space-hulk-esque ship corridors sort of thing going on. Useful for RPG games, as well!


Due to the delay, the fellow who was running the KS effort gave some of us the option to get a spare board, and I picked up the space board for use in the Rogue Trader campaigns. All in all I'm quite happy with them and I'm looking forward to getting a game in on the new city streets!
↧
↧

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Primaris Lightning Fighter painted

June 18, 2014, 5:23 pm
$
0
0
Been cranking along on the bolter and chainsword painting challenge and recently finished the paint job on the Lightning fighter that will accompany the Prospero Spireguard contingent of the Thousand Sons army.

 
I have to say that while I really dug the old Lightning (and am bummed that FW has apparently discontinued it), I absolutely love this model even more! It definitely is more stylistically related to the Thunderbolt, and has a much more menacing look overall. I tried to mimic the blended red that I did on the Crimson Hunter from a while back - it ended up being a little more streaky than I hoped, but it sort of gives the model a sense of motion.


I went with a blue/grey underside, to help the plane blend into the sky from the ground, and absolutely not because I royally screwed up the blend on the bottom when I was originally painting it red. No sir!


The pilot, while cool, didn't really fit in with the rest of the infantry style so I tried my hand at the artificial horizon look. In the heresy rules, the lightning has the option of taking either a regular pilot or a battle servitor so the opaque canopy lets me choose whichever one strikes my fancy at the time.

Still have to work out the waterslide transfers and freehand work, but at this point it's painted, sealed and ready to receive!
↧

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Javelin Landspeeder Squadron Qaa painted

June 20, 2014, 1:56 pm
$
0
0
While I was working on the Lightning I quasi-batch painted the Javelins at the same time. They're essentially at the same spot - ready for transfers, freehand and (eventually) weathering):


Went with the standard color scheme, there were plenty of panels to paint in bone, but I didn't want to over-do it. I think it strikes the right balance overall, though!


I started the freehand work on 'em, the usual "XV" went on one side, and I'm planning on doing some runic script on the other side. Possibly do the nova on either side of the engine housing in the back, as well. Started pulling everything back out of the foam trays to do a family shot - there's a surprising amount done at this point!
↧

Adeptus Mechanicus - Electro Avatar painting begins

June 21, 2014, 12:58 pm
$
0
0
Just a quick hit today - While I had the blue paints out, I took a quick break from all the Thousand Sons red and laid down the base colors on the Electro-Avatar for my Adeptus Mechanicus army. I'd picked this up long ago in the Tempus Fugitive days, so unfortunately I have no idea what it'll be used for in the current FW ruleset. Nevertheless, I'm putting together a little group of adversary models for my upcoming Rogue Trader campaign (pics to follow), and this guy will be one of the "final bosses" due to a radical tech priest causing mischief on a Necron tomb world. "Calm yourselves. There is only a 0.000000000002% chance of the shard-form overcoming the restraint device." [KLAXON ALARM MAYHEM]


I'm a big fan of the idea that there is a quietly sinister undercurrent of Necron technology underpinning the techno-sorcery of the Adeptus Mechanicus, and with a quick symbol swap on the torc it was ready to go. Next up is some gold/bronze, but I want to keep the OSL look so I'm planning on trying to just paint gold into the 'shadowed' areas of the torc and faceplate as a sort of reverse-OSL to begin with, and if that looks terrible, then it's paint it all gold and re-apply the blue. We'll see how it goes!
↧
↧

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Javelin Landspeeder Squadron Qaa painting continues

June 25, 2014, 6:29 pm
$
0
0
Not a lot of hobby time recently but I did spend a little time working on the 'magic script' for the Thousand Sons:


Pretty happy with it - essentially it's Daedric, upside down. No real sneaky messages in there however, it's essentially gibberish. Might have to come up with some snarky ciphered sentences on the rear ramps on the Predators or wings of the Lightning, "If you can read this, you have too much time on your hands". Hah!
↧

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Family Picture

June 28, 2014, 12:53 pm
$
0
0
Spent the day doing chores and cleaning the house. While I was at it I took some time and laid out the painted Thousand Sons:


Quite pleased with how the army is coming along! Still a few units awaiting assembly and painting, but this is definitely a good core force to build from...
↧

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - First game in 7th edition

July 5, 2014, 6:19 am
$
0
0
Hope all us yanks had a safe and fun holiday! ...and for everyone else at least it was Friday, right?

My buddy Dave and I got together for our yearly 4th of July game yesterday and we decided to give 7th edition a try with his Heresy-era Salamanders against my Thousand Sons. Since we were learning the rules (again, argh) I didn't really do a full blown battle report, but wanted to share a few pics and a few thoughts on the new edition:

 

Army Selection - Playing in the Heresy we both chose from the FOCs from the FW books, which I took to incorporate the detachment rules from 7th (everyone is scoring, troops get objective secured), but that may have been incorrect in retrospect. Nevertheless, it played well and that's what's important, right? I went with a fairly maneuverable force of Predators and Javelins backed up by an assault squad and the requisite big blob o' tac marines. Dave arrived with an equally mobile force of ten man tac squads in rhinos and a melta support squad, and assault terminators in a Land Raider, which was a worry as I realized I didn't have much in the way of melta to deal with it - I would be relying on the 'death of a thousand cuts' with the lascannons on the preds and speeders hopefully hull pointing it to death!

 

Tactical Objectives - We played the "Spoils of War" mission to give the new tactical objectives cards a go, and we both remarked that they really seemed to keep the ebb and flow of the battlefield going, as each turn we each claimed VPs and new objectives were revealed. I really felt that it gave the game a needed shot of activity, rather than the interminable last turn objective rush. It meant that we both made some mad rushes across the table to accomplish the various tasks revealed each turn, the Thousand Sons assault marines agility served them well in this regard, and the Salamander Rhinos' move through over meant they were high-tailing it worry free across the rubble and crater-strewn warzone.

 

Psychic Phase - Both of us had psykers so we were able to give the new psychic phase a go. To be honest, I quite liked it! I'll be interested to see what sorts of boosts the Thousand Sons will get when their book is eventually released, at the moment the Heresy librarians are (with a couple exceptions) restricted to being level 2 so we had a fairly even playing field. The Salamanders went Pyromancy (naturally) and the Thousand Sons went Divination - Choosing all the powers from the same discipline giving you the primaris power for free was a nice little bonus. Oddly the psychic hood apparently hasn't been invented in the Heresy books yet (heh), so while Dave wasn't able to deny any of the Thousand Sons blessings (and I had no offensive spells), I had passable success avoiding the Salamanders psychic attacks on my units (When it hits, Molten Beam is very nasty).

 

Shooting Phase - Not a lot of changes that stood out in the shooting phase, though I do like the change to the shooting order of operations. Resolving all the weapons of one type before moving on to the next definitely made things smooth and clear, avoided the whole "okay, these two blue dice are S7 AP2, these ten reds are S4 and the white one is the sergeant's precision shot, wait what's this green one again?" thing. I had planned a two pronged assault on the unit of marines holed up in one of the buildings, but the predator had two Gets Hot malfunctions and the assault marines failed their charge distance (the reroll was actually worse than the original failed distance).

 

The Salamanders took advantage of the mis-step and swung the Land Raider around to allow the Terminators to charge and destroy one of the Javelins, while their tac marines used their Fury of the Legion rule to obliterate the Thousand Sons assault squad who were caught out in the open. Nevertheless, the two remaining marines pressed their attack in the assault phase, with the sergeant challenging (and subsequently being squashed by) the Salamanders Praetor who I didn't realize was even in the building. Why? Well, I had a tactical objective that granted me VPs for initiating a challenge. ...Didn't say I had to win the challenge! :)


In retaliation, the 20-strong Thousand sons tac squad unleashed their Fury of the Legion on the melta support squad and the Salamander Librarian that was with them. After the unit was washed away, the Librarian had to make 18 saves on his artificer armour. He didn't make it.


However, the Salamanders were about to retaliate for the retaliation! I remembered the Land Raider had heavy flamers in the hull mount (eep!) and all I had to counter it was a single power fist. The flamers wiped out a quarter of the unit and the sergeant managed to take a single hull point. Luckily for the Thousand Sons, that was the bottom of turn 5 and it was getting too hot in the hobby loft to play further. We totted up the VPs and the Salamanders pulled off a win 11-9!

All in all I really enjoyed my first game of 7th edition! Really felt as though the system had a bit of fresh air pumped into it, and I'm quite looking forward to getting some more games in!
↧
Search

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Terminator Squad Phosis painting begins

July 10, 2014, 7:15 am
$
0
0
It has just been murderously hot in the hobby loft over the last week but I've been sneaking some hobby time up there in the early mornings and managed to get a start on the terminators - base reds, steel and golds are on!


I'll be the first to admit they're not going to be the most fearsome unit of terminators ever, as they're all armed with power weapons and combi-bolters, but comparatively speaking they are a cheap unit. They'll be used solely to fight infantry and take and hold objectives. I'm thinking that the way the weapons are modeled I can convincingly run them as power axes (or maybe even power lances). Will have to experiment with that I suppose!


I'd gotten a couple emails about the "evil runic script" I'm using, so thought I'd post up the guide I'm working off of. Essentially it's Daedric from the Elder Scrolls games, upside down. Figured some of you may find it handy!

↧
↧

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Terminator Squad Phosis painted

July 13, 2014, 1:24 pm
$
0
0
Pressed on with the Terminators this weekend and managed to get them finished off!


Looks like it makes the most sense to run the weapons as power axes, it'll make them unwieldy but the 18 (27 on the charge) S5 AP2 attacks is nice. Not bad at 305 points for the 9 of 'em, too! I am thinking that I'll add a few grass tufts to the bases, they need just a liiiiitle extra something I think...


Went spelunking in the Closet of Doom for something from the mists of history. The plan for the Prosperine Spireguard side of the army is to include a number of heavy tanks, such as a trio of King Russ pattern Vanquishers. Time to break out the Dremel!
↧

Adeptus Mechanicus - Knight Paladins livery painting

July 23, 2014, 7:43 pm
$
0
0
I've been feeling a little burned out on painting Thousand Sons recently and have been frittering around on various models trying to find something to 'cleanse the palate' as it were - I picked up and put down a number of units over the last week but nothing was holding my interest. Eventually my eyes fell upon a couple monsters lurking at the back of the painting shelves and I thought they might be just the thing!


I'd put the knights on hold a few months back as the boxes of resin crack from Forge World had arrived, but now that I've more or less cranked through all of that, I wanted to get some of the livery started on the Paladins. The old color scheme for House Krast included some red and white striped panels along with some cruciform icons. Pretty pleased with how they pop against the blue and yellow!


Still a long way to go before they're done! I need to sort out some further waterslide transfers as well as some weathering. The more I look at them the less happy I am with the edging as well - Trying to decide whether I need to go in and thin the light blue lines out by blocking in more dark blue, or add another even lighter blue as an extreme edge highlight at the corners of the plates. In any case, it's a welcome change from the swathes of crimson and gold I've been working on of late!
↧

Adeptus Mechanicus - House Krast Knight Paladins Painted

July 27, 2014, 9:16 am
$
0
0
Pressed on over the weekend and got the waterslide transfers and some weathering onto the two Knight Paladins!

 

 

I envisioned the two paladins as being a pair of trusted retainers for the Baron (for which I intend to use one of FW's upcoming Knight Castigator). I rooted around through the big box o' transfers and found a few old Epic Titan Legion and Brettonian sheets that had some useful icons, and paired those with some of the transfers from the Knight kit itself. Once those were on I started sponging in the battle damage here and there, though I tried to keep it relatively light overall.


 

No battle damage on the rear of the Knights though - they always face their foes! Overall I'm quite pleased with the kit, though I wish it had a bit more native posability out of the box like the Eldar Wraithknight did. Nevertheless, I think the two of them have a sufficient difference in their posing to make them seem individualized.


In other news I busted out the Dremel and the respirator and set to sanding off all the huge casting gates from the King Russ tanks, as I feel I've painted enough stuff of late to warrant rewarding myself with some build time! Once all the parts are sanded, they go back for another soak and rinse and after they dry it'l be time to start the assembly process - woo hoo!
↧

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Prospero Spireguard King Russ Vanquishers Assembly begins!

July 28, 2014, 8:07 am
$
0
0
After a good couple hours with a Dremel sanding down all the casting gates and resin blocks, creating drifting piles of resin dust and undoubtedly reducing my life expectancy by a good few months (a respirator is a must for this sort of work), it was finally time to set to work building them! These tanks have always been a bit of a bear to assemble, as is generally the case with garage-quality kits, but with the purchase of an electric kettle a while back this time around it was (reasonably) simple to get everything straightened and bent into shape!


The front track guards ended up a little wonky on two of them, but all in all I'm reasonably happy with 'em. Now it's just a matter of rooting through the Closet of Doom for all the appropriate detail bits, hatches and whatnot to finish them off! In game they will be treated as Leman Russ Vanquishers, with extra armour (natch) and the Massive custom rule - due to their size they re-roll failed difficult terrain checks (essentially paying the points for a dozer blade, though they don't have one modeled). I'm planning on building a tank commander to match the rest of the Spireguard aesthetic for one of them - I'm really looking forward to getting some paint on 'em soon!
↧
↧

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - King Russ painting begins!

July 29, 2014, 4:00 am
$
0
0
Got the tanks all kitted out last night, and since It was a beautiful day out while I was home over lunch yesterday I got the Vanquishers primed. After work I got the very first red basecoat on as well! ...There is also now red basecoat all over my hands, the desk and what has suddenly become exclusively a painting shirt (covered in liiiiiitle red spots). Whoops!



Easy peasy, Vallejo Dark Flesh scrumbled on with a gnarly old tank brush. Next up will be the red gore/blood red highlighting and wash stages, which I'm sure are also going to prove to be very, very messy procedures!


I wanted to go with a somewhat whimsical tank commander for such a squadron of solid, destructive machinery, so I used some arms and head from the Victoria Miniatures heavy weapons team set. Going to be interesting to paint, that zippo is TINY!


The squadron weighs in at 552 points using the current Astra Militarum ruleset (or 622 if I'm feeling dirty and field them as Pask and an HQ squadron). To justify this heavy variant of the vehicle I'm calling it 'mandatory' that they take Extra Armour (of course) and pay the points for the Dozer Blade upgrade (re-roll difficult terrain) to represent their sheer weight smashing through the battlefield rubble. Even leaving off the side sponsons, once I add on the hull Lascannon and the hunter killer missile (because I love 'em), the 'base' King Russ is 200 points (a bit more for the commander's Augur array and some searchlights). Seems about right, I think. I need to snap a scale shot, let's just say I won't be accused of modeling for advantage when it comes to declaring cover saves!
↧

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - King Russ scale shots

July 31, 2014, 5:01 am
$
0
0
Pressed on with the tanks a bit more yesterday - got up early in the morning and got the reds all finished, which involved a thorough wash that I'd left to dry while I was at work. When I got home it was cool enough in the hobby loft to get the boltgun metal sections painted and washed as well:


I also dragged out some of the Mordian 7th's tanks to take some scale shots. It's quite a bit bigger than a Leman Russ:

  
 

...But significantly smaller than a Macharius:

  
 

While it's not as long as a Malcador, it's a bit wider and taller. That one actually surprised me when I laid them out next to each other. In my mind the Malcador was quite a bit bigger than the King Russ.

  
 

So far, so good! The heavy lifting phase is out of the way, now it's time to start the detailing. ...And the rivets.

Oh god, the rivets...
↧
Search

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - King Russ tanks painting continues...

August 2, 2014, 7:06 pm
$
0
0
Got a little brush time in today - got the bone color laid in. Decided to give the command tank a reversed side panel scheme - Thinking I might do the two 'regular' tanks side doors in bone, now that I'm looking at 'em.


Got the tank commander more or less complete, pretty happy with how he turned out.


Moving right along now! Have a free day tomorrow, hoping to get them finished up this weekend!
↧

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - King Russ tanks nearly complete!

August 4, 2014, 4:00 am
$
0
0
In between doing chores over the weekend I went back and made the side doors on the two vanilla tanks bone, which I think works pretty well. Also got all the gold on, including (with no hint of exaggeration) over 1500 rivets. Counted when I was doing the last one, 518 rivets per tank! Oof.


Now to decide what I want to do for unit markings. Providentially, the Prosperine Spireguard regiment present at the defense of Tizca were the 15th Prosperine Assault Infantry, so the "XV" also works for them (mirroring the 15th Legion markings I've done so far on the Thousand Sons). Once that's in place I can then go in and start the weathering process - I plan to do all of the Ksons and Spireguard tanks at the same time (which appeals to my batch-painterly predisposition), so that it has some consistency across the army. In the home stretch now!

In the background you can just make out the primed model I'm going to use to represent Lemuel Gaumon, one of the remembrancers mentioned in A Thousand Sons. I'm also planning on working up models for Kallista Eris, Camille Shivani and Mahavastu Kallimakus, to be used as wound markers or status markers for the army. Still sourcing interesting-looking models to use for the latter however...
↧
↧

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Remembrancers painting begins

August 5, 2014, 7:55 pm
$
0
0
As I'd mentioned earlier, I had it in my head to add the four main remembrancers mentioned in A Thousand Sons to the army (which is intended to be set during the Defense of Tizca). So that meant a rummage through the Closet of Doom to pull out the "oh, that's an interesting miniature, I'm sure I'll use it for an NPC someday" boxes and came up with a couple minis that I think will work for Camille Shivani, Kallista Eris and Mahavastu Kallimakus to accompany the Lemuel Gaumon fig I'd mentioned earlier, and got a little paint on 'em after work over the last couple days:


Still a ways to go of course, and I'm not completely pleased with how the faces have turned out so far, partially they look bad being blown up to 700% normal size I suppose. Still, not as smooth as I'd hoped. For Lemuel, a portly guy in a fez seemed to be just the thing, looking appropriately shell-shocked as he is in numerous occasions throughout the book. Camille is a Chronoscope model, a little cheesecake-y with the bare midriff but I like the sci-fi archaeologist look overall. I'm working on giving her a spireguard's coat just to help her fit in with the army aesthetic. For Kallista I chose a more ephemeral-looking model (though I don't recall who makes it, likely another chronoscope model). Lastly, on Frothing Muppet's advice I managed to unearth an old Witch Hunter henchman in a scrivener harness to use as Mahavastu Kallimakus.


Quite enjoying the minor diversion and chance to use some colors that haven't been in rotation for quite some time! Overall I'm pretty pleased with how they're coming along - still no idea what I'll use them for (likely as wound or status effect markers), but sometimes when a hobby idea enters one's mind it's hard to set aside until its done!
↧

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Remembrancers Complete

August 7, 2014, 6:44 pm
$
0
0
Definitely a fun little diversionary project, the four remembrancers for the Thousand Sons are now complete!


First up is probably the most drab of the four miniatures, Lemuel Gaumon. I wanted to keep his robes very muted, as though they were the lowest level of aspirant robes provided to him when he began his tutelage under Ahriman. The fez? ...Fezzes are cool.

 

Next up is Kallista Eris (fnord) who ended up looking fairly tomb-raider-esque which I suppose is befitting her role in the book. The greatcoat in Spireguard colors worked out pretty well as well!

 

Camille Shivani's mini ended up being one of my favorites, if only because I got a chance to use some colors far removed from the recent palette!

 

Finally an old sage model to represent Mahavastu Kallimakus. I wanted to keep him looking fairly monochrome and washed out (with the exception of the power cables for the scrivener harness) as he's described as being more or less hollowed-out by his service to Magnus.

 

All in all I'm well pleased with how they turned out, and really feel like my painting mojo has been recharged by the quick diversion. One interesting thing that stands out to me is how much a well-sculpted face helps a model. The difference in detail to work with between the Reaper, Privateer Press and GW miniatures is significant - say what you will about GW's minis, their sculptors do amazingly detailed work!

...In other news, this is post #490! Only ten more to go to the big 500, going to have to come up with some fun giveaways to celebrate that milestone!
↧

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - King Russ Vanquishers complete!

August 10, 2014, 2:51 pm
$
0
0
Snuck in a little brush time over the weekend and got some unit markings and the weathering onto the trio of King Russ Vanquishers for the Spireguard!


I realized once I laid 'em all out that I don't really have a photo area large enough for them all at once! Sneaky servitor in the back checking out the unsanctioned variant for possible techno-heresy, perhaps?

 

The addition of the bone-colored side doors really helped break up the expanse of red on the tanks, and provided a nice place to add in the regimental numbers and unit identifier. I stuck with the quasi-runic lettering, as it helps tie them out to the rest of the army - Once again, they don't really mean anything specific, I just went with some pleasing looking shapes.

 

The weathering still is a bit of a challenge for me - Constantly trying to refine the technique, understanding the appropriate colors to use and amount to apply. For the Thousand Sons vehicles I'm going with a scorched brown sponged on in various areas, followed by a further sponging of boltgun metal. These areas were given a little black wash and finally the extreme edges were hit with silver. I find that it's best to start out pretty reserved, it's always easier to add more later than it is to clean things up due to overzealous application!

 

The command tank has the reversed colors on the side panels which seemed to work out pretty well. Overall I'm quite pleased with how the squadron turned out!


"Unit's done, smoke if you got 'em!" ...Somewhat ironic as I quit smoking right around the time I started building this unit. So far so good!


Next up on the painting deck is a mess of Ad-mech who have been blurting angry binary at me for quite some time. On the upside it'll be a nice change from painting all the red and white and oh wait... Heh.
↧
Viewing all 689 articles
Browse latest View live
Search
<script src="https://jsc.adskeeper.com/r/s/rssing.com.1596347.js" async> </script>