NidMarines!

Another Update - Another Army. 


So a while back I started work on an Ork-themed chaos space marine army, and while that continues along on the backburner along with my treemarines I, as usual, can't resist making another chaos army.

So this time, instead of the Powers of Chaos, instead of Gork'n'Mork, these marines worship the Hive Mind!

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My inspiration for this army came along with the Crimson Slaughter book and the opportunity it brought to take possessed as troops. I've always like possessed so the chance to make them a useful part of an army list is really something! To that end, I converted up a squad using the limited bits I have available to me at the moment - Nids.

The marine bodies are those of  raptors/warp talons, the dynamic poses they offer go much better with the genestealers.

The genestealers I've used are a mix of newer models and the old 2nd edition ones, which are still decent sculpts. 

Given that I've already deviated totally from what CSM are meant to look like, let alone the 'slaughter, I tried out a totally different colour scheme.

There are actually 4 different blues going on for the skin here, and the bone armour is painted over a catachan green (or whatever the replacement for camo green is called). Suffice to say, it looks horrible with the green next to the blue, so I'm please with how well the bone and blue has come out. The yellow was chosen as a bright contrast as only the fleshtone was very different.

I really really hate highlighting black, so I've tried to keep it to a minimum, the black blades of weapons is simply given a coat of 'ard coat.

The black parts of the armour and skin (like the backs of legs/inner elbow) use the kngkngihghhth oxide technical paint, which is an odd one.

This was the first one I tried. The base uses mourn mountain snow to hold some white sand in place - snow went much better than any grass or rock effect I could think of. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Leader

Leading my possessed I've got myself a sorceror of chaos - with the new 7th edition psychic powers, specifically daemonology, he's a real threat when using the 'Prophet of the Voices' gift from the crimson slaughter book - being a daemon sure is handy, and means that he won't run away at least! 

This guy is made from a Warriors of Chaos charioteer lord with a few 40k bits added. His 'spellcasting' arm has a hole drilled in the claw so that I can add some lightning or some such when I get round to it. 

The plan with the sorcerer is to run him with some possessed (given that he has prophet of the voices, I have no choice) and try and get as many summoning spells off as possible, hopefully swapping some possessed marines out for daemonic heralds, and if it all goes wrong, turning into a greater daemon. For daemons I'll be using genestealers, who are a handy stand in for either daemonettes or bloodletters, as they're not to far from either rule-wise. Of course there's always the cheese route of summoning more horrors who summon more horrors, but that won't really fit with the theme. plus it's pretty lame. 

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Transport

While the possessed from the Crimson Slaughter book have the virtue of being harder to kill and faster outside of a transport, they can only depend on the faster movement 1/3 of the time. With no apparent penalty to turning into beasts when inside a rhino, I figured I'd run one with a dirge caster - if it lives until I make a charge, preventing overwatch is a great little trick, especially when I have so little in the way of shooting with my infantry. 

 The cupola with the guns was more of necessity - the rhino was made from an immolator kit - it cost me the same (from GW no less!) and got me a whole load of heavy weapons, not to mention possible the only plastic sister of battle (who I'll no doubt use for something!

BOO!

Given that I used an immolator, I didn't have a proper rear door, so I had to get inventive. This isn't a great shot, but I've used a gaping maw spewing forth another genestealer. It was that or a vagina or asshole. I made the right choice.  

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Helbrutes!

Helfexes? Dreadfexes? I'm not really sure. Either way, they were fun to build, and I'm really looking forward to running them as some of the helbrute formations - specifically the trio of deepstriking nasties and cultist meatshield ones. 

TL Heavy Bolter and  Heavy Flamer - lots of STR5 AP4 might not be the most powerful but anti-infantry is what's needed here, he's a dreadnought remember, so pretty good at smashing up tanks, especially if he gets to deepstrike. 

This guy has the dubious honour of having the meatshield cultists. If he goes mad he's likely to destroy them all, but hey, being a cultist always sucks. 

You don't need to deepstrike right next to things to put the hurt on them, so a multi-melta and missile launcher should do nicely. I realise a lascannon would be a better and more complimentary range, but if I'm deepstriking then getting inside 24" isn't a problem. 

These guys are made of a lot of carnifex I had lying around, the heavy weapons from the immolator, their heads are the objective marker servo skulls trimmed down, and the tails and armour bits are leftovers from the maulerfiend/forgefiend kit that has become the thing below: 

I would have loved to have the exocrine or mutalith mouth, but this will have to do for now! 

I'm quite pleased with him, though having used all his actual lasher tendrils for tails, I had to get inventive with the claws. 

Next time, the final dread, the unlucky (meatshield) cultists, the hiveheldrakecrone and hopefully a few other bits of silly CSM nid stuff. Unless orks come out and distract me.  

  

Soooo, I haven't updated this in nearly a year! Oops.

Granted I have been fairly busy and haven't perhaps done as much 40k as I'd like to, but I've certainly remedied that over the last couple of months, I've created a brand new 2000pt army! Of Space Marines and Tau.

With a Dark Mechanicus theme.

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Dark Mechanicus - The Imperial Fist/Farsight Enclave way

Yeah, so this list uses the Imperial Fist chapter tactics in the Space Marine codex, rather than the 'Sentinels of Terra' Imperial Fist supplement, mainly because I wanted to get the shield eternal on my HQ, as he is essentially a wound-soak (though I might have to put an inquisitor in to take over warlord duties if I keep doing that!). This is along with a tiny allied contingent of Tau using the Farsight list, and the Vengeance Weapons Batteries.

I wanted to use the rules for Centurions, and with them, make a footslogging list; I chose IF for the chapter tactic as it not only buffs my Centurions and Devastators, but helps to mitigate the poor BS of the rank-and-file troops I've chosen (scouts). Sentinels of Terra would be better for that at close range, but I don't really want them to be in close range!

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First up, the commander.

Not a whole lot of GW parts going on here...

 This guy is one I may revisit to tidy up a bit, he doesn't look quite 'finished' enough to me, but I got fed up trying to fix him so he's just going to fight as is for now! He's made out of a Warmachine (traitors!) Battle Mechanik Officer from the Khador range, with a mantic forgefather head with horns attached, a beastmen minotaur shield and a bloodletter's sword from the juggernaut box!

Behind him we can see these guys

Assault Centurions

The drillbits are made from a plasterboard wrawl plug thing trimmed slightly, I feel they capture the oversize nature of 40k weaponry nicely!

The glowing cables are a piece of a children's craft set, I don't know what it's meant to be for but it sure brings the early-90s-action-figure feel to the table!

I'm pretty pleased with these guys, especially as they are made from none other than the much-maligned Minotaur kit, which is actually a decent scuplt. Except for the feet; whoever made the feet needs to be slapped with a cloven hoof, because they look so much better when they match the rest of the model's aesthetic. I gave it a shot, but I'm no sculptor! If someone put out a set of feet for the minotaur kit, they'd be a great set of models.

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So those were the Assault Centurions, logically we now go to...

Centurion Devestators

Yeah, it's a cow made out of a juggernaut. 

Gun cows! With grav cannons and hurricane bolters obviously. Their guns are made from necron bits, and the sergeant of each squad has the ML/twin-linked lascannon option instead. 

2 squads of three is what I've got. Huge points sink, but should be a laugh.

These were the models that kicked off the whole thing, I wanted to make a gunbeast type thing, and a backwards juggernaut is what I used! The rest of the army followed suit (largely) with the bovine feel.

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Devastators

These are the only guys in power armour in the whole list, and they aren't wearing any. Instead they're bestigors with forgefather heads and guns!

Not the smoothest conversion on the rocket launchers, but close enough. Lots of flakk anyhow!

Carried on the purple flesh so they look like the same force, but kept their heads helmeted to keep the daemon faces on the more 'monstrous' elements of the army. 

In game these guys will generally split into two combat squads and sit there firing out flakk missiles to keep the heldrakes and vendettas away.

If they decide to stay as a 10 man unit they'll almost certainly be joined by the Ethereal from the allied Tau detachment, who will hand out night vision goggles (blacksun filter!)

Ethereal > Charioteer? Who's to say what the better career is. 

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The Troops - scouts

To keep it cheap, and because the models I wanted to use didn't quite qualify for power armour in my book, I've taken 3 squads of 8 scouts as troops (8 for Khorne... purple... ranged combat Khorne). 

This is the close combat squad, 8 scouts with a sergeant with power lance (he'll be dead in round 2 of combat anyway, he might as well be good for the first one!).

And two squads of bolter scouts with a heavy bolter, all hoping that the Imperial Fist reroll will make them slightly less awful than they are. 

I have to say though that the Mantic Forgefather models are far better than I expected them to be. I still think privateer press are lame, but Mantic have gone up in my estimation. 

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Allies & Extras - 

Crisis Suits 

Yup, crisis suits.

These guys are made from Vargheists/crypt horrors with minotaur arms with a bit of tubing on the end to resemble their flamers. That's right, these three crisis suits are equipped only with 2 flamers each and the hit and run thingy. They drop in, burn something and run away, that is their job! 

Vengeance Weapons

I didn't think 4 rocket launchers would be enough AA at 2000pts, so I make these out of a laser-quest target and a head-lamp (that you wear on your head, not for the car, duh). 

The guns are magnetised if I feel like switching them out for something, but I think I'll probably be keeping the lascannons!

Last but not least, the reason I brought the Tau along in the first place was to get a Riptide in the list! 

Beast Riptide

Basically he's fucking huge. 

Definitely got that action figure feel again! His breastplate and thigh greaves (are they greaves? I don't know...) are actually from an action figure, as is the big cannon. 

Lots of Juggernaut, Ghorgon (obviously) and chaos chariot parts in here.

I'm really pleased with this guy, he's a great centerpiece. I expect everyone to try and kill him immediately though!

The riptide took forever, purely on trying to find bits that fitted (his 'jetpack' is part of a model plane). Its been a long time since I painted anything that large, he does feel a bit toy like. I look forward to getting my hands on an Imperial Knight soon enough (hell, he could stand in for one in the meantime). 

I've still got to finish the bases off, putting some finer sand in the gaps left by the chunky gravel I've used, and begin the thankless task of finding a way of transporting them that isn't a shoebox they'll break to pieces inside. 

Still experimenting with the photography, there may be a return to previous styles next time, need to see what works best with new gear. 

So that's it, that's what I've done so far in 2014! 

Next time, Genestealer Cult Space Marines - Crimson Slaughter Edition! 

Long time no update.

So, I've joined the ranks of those irritating bloggers who update only when they feel like it and don't bother to commit to a schedule. THE BASTARDS. 

Anyway - as it's been such a crazily long time, here are a few of the things I've been up to, not all of them, but by no means as many as I should have liked to have done.

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Supermarine Techmarine with Thunderfire Cannon

 So yeah... I needed a thunderfire and techmarine to go with it, but only had the ancient 3rd ed. space marine command squad techmarine sans backpack (it went to a better, more chaosy place years ago and will stay there, albeit on a different model very shortly). So I fumbled together this monstrosity using bits of the drop pod kit, ork lootaz and various other bitz.

I'm particularly pleased with the targeting computer thingy he's about to use the touch screen on. He's totally playing Angry Servo Skulls.


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WiP Bloodthirster twins

So the new Daemon codex arrived, some people love it, some people hate it, mostly people are all 'meh' about the whole thing. I really like it, to the extent that its finally made me put together the two old, metal bloodthirsters I had kicking around in a box. Seriously, one of them is super-scary, 2 of them (though this will cost between 500 and 600pts haha), two should prove a nightmare for anyone.

Obviously, given that the original pose wasn't very interesting and the old head looked like the balrog's disabled cousin, I had to change something.

Entirely supported by that one arm. This is a precarious miniature.

Entirely supported by one leg. Because I'm a masochist or something.

Ok so I changed a few things, most obviously putting dire wolf heads on, dire wolves being:
a) dog like and hence suited to khorne,
b) big enough and
c) conveniently in my bitz box.

I've tried to make the poses a lot more exciting, which meant pinning EVERYTHING, which wasn't much fun. So I'm feeling slightly more tempted by finecast these days, as I might be able to make interesting conversions without reinforced steel beams.

Planned paintjob will be either very bright reds or browns. Because, y'know, I don't paint enough models brown.

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Not Huron Blackheart

Speaking of brown... Huron Blackheart has, of late, lent his aide to the tree-chaos thingys, for all that guaranteed infiltrating goodness and marine-smacking CC prowess. However, I'm not one to buy the actual model if I can help it, so here's a WiP of this guy.

His 'tyrant's claw' is a dark eldar jetbike exhaust with kroot blades on it. BECAUSE THOSE ARE THINGS THAT MAKE HANDS. 

He's not as beefy as the actual huron, but it's fairly obvious who he's meant to be, especially with his very own hamaydra-esque tree thingywhatsit crawling on his back.
After he's finished I may utilise the hole in his hand as a peg slot to give him a gout of glowy flame or something. Because I can.

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The Kreldarids

Ok, so that isn't actually what they're called, but it's a pretty good amalgamation of what they are.

Left to right: Incubi, Wych, Archon, Warrior, Warrior.

These are a few models (I can't be bothered to get them all out the box right now) from a 1000pt army (fieldable at 900pts without vehicle upgrades) using the dark eldar codex that I put together in a week, (probably a few hours a day for 7 days), all the way from concept to finished paintjob.

The Archon close up. Note his club of beating (a huskblade, what else!?)

I Might put something on the incubi's shield, but then again I might not.

As you can see, these chaps are constructed using a kroot warrior as a base, with a tyranid ripper cut in half to represent the head and tail. The skin was mostly done with washes, with some drybrushing here and there.

I decided to avoid metallic colours in the palette as I thought it'd keep them more 'tribal', plus obsidian bladed weapons look really cool.






I made this army because I needed a 900pt army for the following week and I had 7 old-style raider chassis sitting around that I've been looking for an excuse to use. A short rummage around the bitz box (es) revealed that while 3rd ed. dark eldar models were awful, kroot are great and ripper heads fit very nicely indeed.

There are 4 Raiders and 3 Ravagers in this army. Which is quite mean at 900pts. 

The plan is to add an allied eldar detachment to take it up to 1500pts, solely jetbike models represented by miniature dragons. Watch this space!

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Summfink Green iz stirring in da warp...



So, Space Marines only ever get disenfranchised with the Imperium because they wanna worship Chaos?

NOT IF GORK (or possibly Mork) HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH IT!!!!

This is a fantastic hat. I had to use it.

So, here are a few fellas from my unit of Chosen, kitted out with all manner of orky nonsense.


Why can't they worship Gork'n'Mork? They are obviously real in the 40k universe, and exposure to their power doesn't necessarily mean the inquisition mind wipe you, your family and everyone who you ever made eye contact with so it's feasible that someone because fairly impressed with their power and thought 'hey, that seems like a bandwagon I could jump on'.

Also, it's easier to learn Orkish than the Daemon-tongue. Kghahhhwwkjkkr'hlk doesn't quite have the same ring to it as "OI, MATE!"



Ok, it's a fairly stupid idea but I think it's going to turn out amusingly enough.

I trimmed down their heads with a knife to look like skulls. 

Also, here are some of their daemonic allies (Bloodletters, can't you tell?).


I quite like the ethereal effect that's come out on these ghost-orks (Ghorks?), loosely based on this
this guide I found. Well done that man, whoever he is (though I had to do a few more coats etc. to get it to my liking, probably as these models aren't meant to be ethereal!).

Look how much blood they're letting. So much blood.

So yeah, an Orky army with no Orks. S'gonna be fun! Next stop, avatar of Gork (or possibly Mork)!

Supermarines Stormtalon

Now, don't get me wrong, some of the Space Marine vehicles have a great aesthetic. But GW's "flying brick that resembles a fish" didn't really do it for me.

 Had the Dark Angels codex yielded a decent flyer I might well have counted the Supermarines as DA, but as it stands, only the Stormtalon(guppy) is air-worthy - and I knew I wanted to field one - so vanilla 'dex it is! However, there is no way I'd fork out for the official model, so here's my interpretation:

Zooooooom

As you can see, I've gone for a more plane-like look, though I still think it's retained the SM look and feel, as it uses only the drop pod kit, a bike faring from the Dark Vengeance set, a tank commander body, an IG turret ring and some assault cannons. Pretty cheap!

Not a fish, brick or fishbrick

I have yet to acquire a suitable canopy, that's still to come - don't worry, the space marine won't have his bald head out in the high-altitude forever.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's a bastardised drop pod.

I've also got some orange plastic to melt into flame effects for the engines - that's coming soon. When that's done and a couple of final touches applied I'll take some better pictures.

The typhoon missile launcher on top and the TL assault cannon are both magnetised so I can switch loadouts (and even use it as the Nephelim/Darkthingy if I so wish).

All in all, it didn't take very long and I'm fairly pleased with it. Best of all, I can make three from two drop pod kits (+ other parts and weapons), so I'll be doing a couple more in the future!

N.B. apologies for the crappy pictures, I didn't use my usual lighting set up.