"Anyone Can Be Killed" - Inquisitorial Assassins

So Jeff's Inquisitorial warband is now complete - today I'm showing off a variety of Imperial Assassins, as well as the last Daemonhost and two rather special-looking Crusaders. Click the photos for larger versions!

Front and back shots of the last Daemonhost - I greenstuffed his left arm and added chains and other gubbins today. 

These two charming individuals are Death Cult Assassins - made from plastic Wood Elf bodies, torsos, and masked/hooded heads, shivs from the Forge World Renegade Upgrade set, and assorted plastic swords.

Two Crusaders, done Empire-style - Pretty much stock Empire Free Company, with Dwarf shields (hammer = Malleus) and some 40k purity seals and trophies.

Last but not least, two Assassins from the Clades proper, with some minor repairs done in plastic. The Vindicare on the left was missing the end of his Exitus rifle, so I made a suitably impressive-looking replacement from one of the antennae off a Grey Knight Interceptor backpack. The Eversor was missing his right arm, so I substituted a sword arm from the Empire Free Company sprue. It makes him look quite a bit more dangerous, I'd say.

Next on my list of things to do is to get all these chaps painted, then start on their Rhino transport.

Inquisitorial Warband WIP

My gaming buddy Jeff is building up a Grey Knight army. Actually, he bought a small Daemonhunter warband, and it turned into a Grey Knight army when the new codex came out. To save him some time, and also to give myself a chance for some wacky conversions, I offered to spruce up his Inquisitor and retinue. Here are my WIP's so far. Lighting is a bit off - I'm still figuring some things out with my new hobby setup.

Front and back of Lord Inquisitor Nelson Princeps - force sword taken from the Grey Knight Terminator box.

Front and back of two kitbashed Arco-Flagellants - Catachan legs and bodies, Space Marine arms, Flagellant heads and flails, Grey Knight Interceptor backpacks and steel wire.

Two Mystics - the one on the left is the vox-man torso from the Forge World Renegade Upgrade with a Cadian laspistol and legs. The one on the right is a converted Techpriest Enginseer.

Front and back of three heavily converted Daemonhosts (the one on the right isn't finished yet). A vague amalgam of Chaos Posessed, Flagellants, Empire Free Company, and other assorted bitz.

A bit on the tamer side - four Warrior Acolytes, of the Guardsman variety. From left to right: Kasrkin with repurposed Space Marine backpack and Grey Knight head; Catachan legs, Cadian arms and torso, Free Company head; Catachan legs, Cadian torso and meltagun, Free Company head; Cadian legs, torso, and vox-head, Space Marine arms and bolter.

I still have to kitbash two Death Cult Assassins and two Crusaders to round out the retinue, as well as building a Rhino for them to ride in. Then all that's left to do before I give them back to Jeff is paint them!

Rethinking Captain Telemachus

Jarhael Telemachus, Captain of the Revilers 3rd Company is the erstwhile commander of my Space Marine Army. Currently represented by a somewhat sloppily converted Emperor's Champion, I decided to make my first summer project an attempt at converting a model that does him justice. To that end, I picked up a Space Marine Commander box and a Finecast Emperor's Champion - hopefully the Finecast lends itself to conversions better than the original white metal. The old Telemachus model will probably be repurposed as a Vanguard Veteran sergeant, or a member of the Honour Guard.

Guardsmen and Veterans

Got around to some kitbashing today. Here are the results:

First up are the plasmagunner and Sergeant for the first squad of my outflanking infantry platoon. The plasmagunner uses legs and a head from the Catachan command sprue, a Cadian torso, and the plasma gun from the Forge World Renegade weapon sprue. The Sergeant uses Catachan legs, torso and head from the Empire Militia sprue, and arms from the Cadian and Catachan command sprues.

Next up I have the first two members of my premier Veteran squad. On the left in the first picture is Corporal "Moose" Picard, who is based off the classic Cadian Lieutenant, with a head from the Empire General and a plastic Necromunda shotgun. He'll receive a greenstuff toque later; I didn't feel like breaking out the sculpting tools today. On the right is Private "Probie" Ternay, created by sawing Hero from the Last Chancers in half, sticking on a pair of Cadian legs and a Space Marine Scout shotgun in place of a lasgun.

Finally, a parting shot of the tray that I am slowly assembling and shuffling the completed Guardsmen around on. If you can make out the scribbling on the paper, it's a record of which models I still need to build. I've got a ways to go.

Quick Update - Brother Behemiel PIP

The annual Artificer Cup painting comp at the Toronto Bunker is tomorrow, and I'm currently tidying up my entries. First up is Brother Behemiel, my all-plastic Chaplain with jump pack... he's pretty much done, I just have to highlight the pack and do a few more highlights on his ribbons & purity seals. Pics aren't great... I'll take some better ones (as well as some pics of the Deffkopta I'm entering) tomorrow after the competition.

Plastic Reinforcements

In preparation for the (hopefully) imminent arrival of my many, many Imperial Guard bitz, I dug through the current pile of Space Marine sprues occupying my workspace to see what could be done with them. After a solid three days of clipping, gluing, and converting, I've managed to bolster the ranks of the Revilers 3rd Company with the following:


First up, three sergeants... the guy on the left (who's yet to be named) will lead Squad IX, a rocket-launcher armed Devastator squad. The one in the middle, Segomaros, is the leader of Squad II, a flamer/heavy bolter armed Tactical squad. The third sergeant is Osmium, recently retasked as leader of an auxiliary contingent of 9th Company Devastators armed with plasma cannons.


Some extra weapons for various squads in the army. From right to left, the flamer marine from the AoBR box, with some arm repositioning; the heavy bolter for Squad II, the multimelta for squad III, the multimelta for squad I, and a spare heavy bolter for when I face armies like Orks.

These two chaps will fill out my Sternguard Veteran squad, making it an even ten. The guy on the left has pulled out a silenced bolt pistol while he reloads his bolter (I trimmed the clip off), and the guy on the right has some extra shiny bits on his shoulderpad, made from a High Elf shield icon. He's headless because I am waiting for some of the Mk3-esque Crusader heads from the Black Templar Sprue to come in the mail.



Front and back of the first combat squad of Squad IV, a tactical squad armed with a meltagun and multimelta. The Sergeant is armed with a power weapon and meltabombs. He also uses a filed-down Chaos Space Marine helmet, for a bit of variety. Also of note is the marine in Mk6 armour next to him, blasting away with two bolt pistols.


The second half of Squad IV, all armed with bolters, and some awaiting heads.

Squad V, unofficially designated "Death Squad" for the moment; a 5-man combat squad led by a Sergeant with powerfist and storm bolter.

And, last but certainly not least...

Front, back, and side of Brother-Reclusiarch Gavin Behemiel, the Chaplain for my army. Kitbashed entirely from plastic, making use of Tactical legs and torso, a Chaos Space Marine head that looks suitably skull-like, Assault Marine pistol and power axe arms (the axe was converted into a crozius with a bit off of some scenery and an old Chaos Warrior skull), a cloth with some bones stuck in it from the Kroot Carnivore sprue, and various purity seals and bling. Once finished and painted, he'll get a jump pack.

A close-up of the crozius.

Well, that's all for now... as of this writing, I've got all the aforementioned models primed, and now get to sit down for some quality time with my brushes! My hope is to get all my Revilers fully or at least mostly painted before I start serious assembly and conversion work on my Imperial Guard.

New Flamers for the Vigilanti

So I was recently reviewing the ranks of the 219th Vigilanti Honour Guard (the fully painted mongrel Imperial Guard army I picked up secondhand from a family friend) and organizing them into a codex-legal army in their own right. End result, I need to build 4 sergeants for the infantry squads, a full command squad to lead the 2nd platoon, and a standard bearer and medic for Capt. Tellap's company command squad.

I also noticed the classic flamers that two of the special weapon troopers in the infantry squads were armed with. While I do bear a hefty amount of respect for classic models (especially the metal Cadians), I'm not a fan of the old-style flamers and they had to go. Don't worry though, I kept one un-converted for archival purposes.



This shot shows the archival trooper on the left, and on the right, the flame-trooper prepped for conversion; I've trimmed and filed away the conical flamer nozzle, and cut the nozzle and pipes off of a plasic Catachan flamer.



As this pic shows, it's pretty much a perfect fit!



All that was left to do was drill holes in the larger pipe and the main bit of the flamer, and pin them together. The pic above is the finished flame-trooper. Job's a good'un! I have one more of these guys to do, and many Revilers still to paint, so pics of those are upcoming. In other news, I'm still waiting on a bitz shipment from Nebraska, so work on the supplementary Vigilanti and the entirety of the 524th Aeshaettar is on hold until then.

Heavy Weapon Team Bases - Step by Step

With the advent of the new Imperial Guard codex, Heavy Weapon teams are now a single two-wound model mounted on a 60mm round base. Since the standard giant tripod-mounted heavy weapons don't really fit in with the "light infantry" theme of my 157th Aeshaettar, I plan to convert man-portable versions from Space Marine Devastator heavy weapons. This means that my gunners and loaders can both be mounted on 25mm bases for ease of storage and transport. But how, then, would I mount them on a 60mm base to make them codex-legal?
Using this:




It's an Infantry movement tray for War of the Ring... with conveniently shaped depressions for infantry based on 25mm bases. Since I only need 2 models to fit on each base, I cut the movement tray into conveniently sized sections. Like so:






I then trimmed it to fit within the perimeter of a 60mm round base, and cut a corresponding hole in the base.






The section of movement tray was then glued into the middle. I'll fill any unsightly gaps with greenstuff later.



A view from the side... it's perfectly flat, so my support troopers will stand at the same height as my other Guardsmen.



And finally, for illustrative purposes, two of my Revilers pretending to be a Heavy Weapons team. This shows how the models fit into the tray, allowing me to remove them for transport or remove the loader to track wounds.



Now I just have to make 14 more.

The Founding Is Nigh

Heed the founding of the 157th (yes, they're the 157th now) Aeshaettar Light Infantry! Work is finally getting started on these guys... owing to the fact that I just picked up about 20 Mordians, 50 metal Cadians and 50 Catachans relatively cheap. The Bitkingdom order has been delayed a wee bit, but should still be going through. I also plan to hit up The WarStore for some Wood Elf bitz with which to make Aeshaettari Guardsladies.

Over the next little while I will be paintstripping, hacking up, headswapping, and repainting all the "mongrel guardsmen" that have joined up; and kitbashing together the first 30 or so truly unique Doom Guard.

Reminds me, I'm gonna have to pick up more Green Stuff to sculpt all those kamas on!

Happy Accidents & Sternguard Veterans

Picked up a box of the new Sternguard Vets yesterday to add to my Space Marine Army. However, I got a little surprise when I opened up the box...

As you can see in the pic, the guy in the centre is most definitely not a Sternguard Veteran. Through some odd packaging error, I ended up with 4 Sternguard and 1 Vanguard Veteran.

No matter, though, as I happened to have enough bitz lying around to convert a bolter for him, complete with scope and box mag so he'll match up with his buddies.

Below is a shot of the bitz I used: a bolter and scope off the SM Tactical sprue, a pistol hand, and a box mag from one of the Assault On Black Reach Terminators.



Below is a shot of the finished bolter. Now all I have to do is get it pinned to the Vet's wrist, and prime and paint all five of them (and my Drop Pod) for the Winter WAAAGH! next Sunday. Cheers!