Project DeathGuard: Finally Some Rhino Pics

Finally had a chance to get some pics of the 4 rhinos I built over the weekend. The pics below only show one of the four because all four have the same conversions just with slight variations to the wires going into barrels and the torso used for the gunner. The gunner was made by sawing a Plague Marine in half and attaching him to the gunner legs. The gunner arms are pinned so they will move up and down with the gun. For ease of painting the gunner, pintle combi-melta and the twin-linked bolter are not glued. I feel like my greenstuff skills are still severely lacking(at least it's nurgle, so maybe I can get away with it) but hopefully painting can make up for some of the inconsistencies. Also at the bottom is a pic of my daemon prince after filling the unsightly gap in his upper torso.

Now that I have my 1500 pt list built I hope to have these models based and primed by this weekend and maybe get painting on a test model. I am still torn on the color scheme I plan on using. This indecision is also keeping me away from painting.

Project DeathGuard: Quick Update

Over the weekend I finished all four of my rhinos for my units and touched up some gaps on the daemon prince with greenstuff. Yesterday, I gave the whole army a quick scrub with warm soapy water to prepare for priming. Before priming I plan on getting all my bases to the point of my test base. I will try to get pics of the rhinos taken and posted in the next couple days, then it's just a wait for good weather to prime(it has been raining for 4 days now).

In other news, I received a shipment from The Warstore that included a Chaos Space Marine Renegade Strike Force, a Space Marine Razorback, and a box of Chaos Terminators. Out of the Strike Force box I am using some of the CSM to flesh out a couple units of my Night Lords I have from 3rd edition to bring them into the new ruleset. Also, I'm gonna build the terminator lord with pair of lightning claws for Night Lords. The Land Raider will house Huron Blackheart and 9 Chosen converted with Space Wolf bitz to begin my small Red Corsair Army. The remaining CSM will be combined with a SM box to build a large unit of CSM Red Corsairs led by Fabius Bile all with individual chapter livery vying for Huron's support. The Rhinos and the Razorback were built for Project Deathguard along with another I already had. The Vindicator will be added to my Crimson Fists to make a Linebreaker Squadron. The terminator boxes are awaiting a couple sets of DeathGuard termie torsos from Forgeworld to be built in a unit of seven for Project Deathguard. The 3 remaining termies are being used to flesh out a 10 man termie retinue I have for Abaddon. The Defiler, 3 remaining Forgeworld torsos, 3 extra Typhus models and some old LotR stuff will be sacrificed to the Ebay gods to expand the Red Corsair Army and Crimson Fists. Also, waiting for shipment from Forgeworld are a couple Nurgle Sorcerers and DeathGuard Dreadnought with twin-linked lascannons and ccw.

I know that is a lot to do but I'm gonna start painting Project DeathGuard by end of next week now that I have my 1500 pt list completely built and just work in some of these build projects in between to keep me sane.

Project DeathGuard: More Plague Marine Pics

Below are the pics of my next two squads of 7 Plague Marines with 2 plasma guns and a champion with powerfist and personal icon. If you notice the banner on the first champion is not centered in the second pic it's because i just have a pin there so I can remove the banners for transport purposes or to save some points if I don't want the icon. The backpacks are the same random mix of steel drums and wooden barrels with guitar string randomly inserted into the barrels and bodies. To see some close-ups of models with these check out my other Plague Marine Pic post, I forgot to snap some close-ups of these units. Also, at the bottom I have added a pic of a test base I have in progress. This will be painted with a couple drybrushes to the sand, then add some marsh colors to the empty area. After static grass and matte varnish, I plan on adding gloss varnish to the marsh area. This basing style will be used throughout the army.

In other news, last night I built four rhinos for these units. Just gotta add my greenstuff and steel drums to these. If anyone has any ideas on how to add a combi-melta to these I would appreciate it. It looks like if I add these the rhino will be armed with a combi-bolter and combi-melta and I need to figure out how to get all these bits. Has anyone done this? This weekend I hope to finish the rhinos and base all models built to this point and maybe start some priming if I have time.

Project DeathGuard: Daemon Prince Pics

Finally got to work on my models a little this weekend. I finished up two more squads of Plague Marines, probably post some pics of these tomorrow. After that I decided to get going on my Nurgle Daemon Prince with wings. I added the steel drum to his back so he would fit better with the rest of my infantry and added the wings from the Bela'kor model from the fantasy range. I added a little green stuff to blend the gaps for the wings and cut off all the chains and such from the sword because I think it was a little silly looking. This a pretty simple take on a Nurgle Daemon Prince but I don't want it to be over the top with the pus, guts, blood, etc. like so many people do.

I have started on the four rhinos for this army and will post when ready for prime. As for that, I haven't wanted to get involved in the painting side yet due to moving in a few weeks. I have started a test base for this army which will be swampy marshland. I hope to post that with my next round of Plague Marine pics.

Outflanking Space Marines 1500 pt List

Lately I've been thinking about how an outflanking Space Marine army would do. For my Crimson Fists army I want to have the options to do an all scout for(pretty much) that could do this but will have to wait for Land Speeder Storm and get some more SM Scout Bikers to accomplish this. However, in the meantime I am going to try the following list using Khan as my HQ to get the all outflanking dedicated transports. I will be able to mostly use models I already have built and the army will still be Crimson Fists just with Khan rules as stand-in for my character. Here goes the list:

HQ
Khan - 160 pts

Elites
Assault Terminators - 200 pts
5 with Lightning Claws

Sternguard Squad 1 & 2(both same loadout) - 235 pts ea
6 Sternguard
2 Combi-Meltas
Razorback
Twin-linked Lascannons

Troops
Tactical Squad 1 & 2(both same loadout) - 210 pts ea
10 Space Marines
Meltagun
Missile Launcher
Rhino

Heavy Support
Land Raider Redeemer - 250 pts
Multi-melta

2 Scoring Units
7 KillPoints
1500 pts

The plan for this army is to pair up Khan and the Assault Termies and put in the Redeemer. I know TH/SS termies are better but I don't want to waste the Furious Charge on goes last weapons. With the lightning claws I get Str 5 and Init. 5 on the charge out of the LR with re-rolls to wound and if the opponents survive 2 rounds I can use Hit Run and get all the bonuses again to finish them off. Also, with outflanking I may actually get to fire the flamestorm cannons before the LR is shot down. The tactical squads are objective holders/light infantry killers and the Sternguard will use the necessary ammunition to eliminate iminate threats while their razorback taxis take out tanks from the side or rear if lucky. I think this army could be strong with some lucky reserve rolls or it could get destroyed if it comes on piecemeal. In larger games would like to add Tigurius to make it more reliable coming on when and where I want. Either way I like the feel of this army, with it playing completely different from my usual tactics of more guns=more kills.

Hobby Article: Organization

For the first in a series of hobby articles I have planned to post is the topic of organization. When starting a new army, unit, model, etc. it is important to have your "bits in a row" so to speak. If you have the hobby A.D.D. that I have and jump back and forth between projects this could be very useful. Below I have a picture of my bitz box for my Space Marines. As you can see in the picture I have things separated by heads, left arms, right arms, close combat weapons, ranged weapons, backpacks, legs, torsos, etc. This box is very full and that is after I have just built a 10,000 pt Crimson Fists Army, but all these bits are still useful for my other projects. I also have one of these tackle boxes for every army I own models for. Every box is labeled on the end with the army name inside and sorted similar to above. I feel that when building models that this method of organizing my bits helps tremendously when converting or just building troops as it helps me find parts quickly. Finding parts quickly is very important when you have little time for the hobby like myself. In the small amount of time I have to devote to the hobby I want to be making progress, not digging through a box of 1000's of bits looking for that one meltagun I know I have. I also keep my tools, paints and work area organized as much as possible as this helps me to just sit down and get right to the models when I only have a few minutes to spare.

So, I guess the moral of this post is that the more organized your bits are the more time you get to spend doing the important parts of the hobby, instead of searching. I know most people already have a method of organization, but for those who don't this is a suggestion of how I keep my bits organized and it makes my hobby time more enjoyable for me.

Project DeathGuard: Plague Marine Pics

I finished building and converting these two squads over the weekend and finally had time to take some pictures last night. Each squad consists of seven Plague Marines, two with meltaguns and a champion with powerfist and personal icon(banner). All models are the GW metal Plague Marines with no conversions to the models themselves. The only conversions made are the backpacks that are to resemble barrels of pus that they generate their power from. Some of these barrels are plastic barrels leftover from my Ogre Kingdoms army while the others are built from plasti-tube and some half round plasti-rod. It probably took me longer just to make these barrels than to build the models. After finishing the models I drilled a hole in the model in a random area and added a guitar while going into the barrel as you can see in some of the close-ups.

Now I only have to build two more squads each with two plasmaguns and champion with powerfist and personal icon. Then four rhinos and a daemon prince and then time for some paint to get this 1500 pt list onto the table.

Soul Drinkers: Post-Transformation Sarpedon Conversion

I didn't really have anything current to post today, so I thought I would show some pics of a conversion I did many years ago when I first read the Soul Drinkers series of 40k novels. I really liked reading these books about a chapter that had "accidentally" went renegade. After reading I started toying around with some bits I had lying around and come out with this Sarpedon conversion. While I did start painting this model, I was unhappy with how it was coming out so I just stopped and never went back. If I ever re-visit this chapter he will definitely get a reprime and paint, oh and a new plastic tabbard from SM kits(they didn't really have those when I made this model). I tried to capture as much detail of Sarpedon from the novel as I could with my poor sculpting skills. I added his nalwood force staff, white bolter, chalice on shoulder pads, and a not so great looking psychic hood.

Well thats all for this post, hopefully next I can put some more current progress I am making with Project DeathGuard and some IG lists with the new book as soon as I pick it up and read thoroughly.