IFCommander's "Someday I will finish an army!" Project

[Imperial Fist Commander]

Hey Everyone.

You all probably don't know me since I haven't been on the forums since the Portent Days. As you might guess Imperial Fists are my main army, but I have a few others and also play fantasy. As well as not being on the forums, I also havent done any modeling or painting for about the last 4-5 months!

Well I finally got off my butt and assembled a unit of beastmen for my fantasy chaos army last weekend. Yay! I also went on the net and discovered that Portent had been reborn here as Warseer. After reading through some of the project logs here, especially Deadley's Project and Reapers Dwarf Project, I got inspired and broke out my last unfinished conversion project from four months back - a converted ratling squad. After working on them last night I brought the finished (converting) total up from 2 to 7 models, leaving only three to go for a full squad of ten. I will post some pictures after I finish converting the remaining three guys.

But first I want to give you all an idea of how much stuff I have sitting around needing to be assembled and/or painted. These are listed in the order I started the armies, beginning about 5 years ago when I got into the hobby. After I had been playing for about a year I went through a period of a buying frenzy where I bought stuff way faster than I could ever get it painted. I have not bought so much stuff in the last couple of years but I am still way behind the curve on getting stuff done. Any way here goes!

W40K Armies
1. Space Marines - Imperial Fists [aprox 6000pts]
Painted: 4 10-Man Tactical Squads, Captain and Command Squad, Chaplain, 5-Man Assault squad, 2 land speeders, whirlwind, 5-Man Bike squad, Attack Bike, Chaplain on Bike.
Assembled: 4 more 10-Man Tactical Squads, 4 10-Man (metal) Scout Squads, 2 more Land speeders, 25 more Assault Marines, 15 or so Terminators, Librarian, Terminator Librarian, Terminator Chaplain, Terminator Captain, Predator Annihilator (partially painted), 3 Rhinos (partially painted) , 2 Dreadnoughts, 10-Man Legion of the Damned squad (partially painted), 10-Man Deathwatch Kill Team (mostly painted).
Unassembled: 2 boxes of plastic Terminators, 1 Tactical squad box, Land Raider Crusader.

2. Orks [approx 2500pts]
Painted: Warboss, 4 boyz, 4 grots, converted Dreadnought
Assembled: Everything except vehicles
Waiting to be scratch built: all vehicles.

3. Tau [??? pts]
Painted: Nothing
Assembled: 4 crisis suits, 2 firewarrior squads minus the arms
Unassembled: The entire army box from the original Tau release including firewarriors. Plus some extra stealth suits.

4. IG - Catachans [approx 3000 pts]
Painted: 3 Leman Russes, 9 Sentinels, Chimera, Hellhound
Assembled: Command Platoon, Infantry Platoon, Hvy Weapon Platoon, Armored Fist Squad, Hardened Veteran Squad Special Weapon Squads, Commisars, Pyskers and Priests all in varying stages of primer/painting.
Unassembled: Nothing! Yay!

5. IG - Cadians [??? pts]
Painted: Nothing
Assembled: A heavy weapon platoon (10 teams), and a chimera.
Unassembled: Everything else from the Cadian army box plus 2 boxes of Cadian troops and another Hvy weapon (3 team) box. Parts for converting a rough rider squad, and those converted Ratlings.

6. Lost and the Damned [approx 2500pts]
Painted: Nothing
Assembled: Arch heretic, 3 asp champs, 45 traitors, 30 mutants, 20 plague zombies, nurglings.
Unassembled: A Defiler, and still working on converting Big Mutants.

7. Daemon Hunters [??? points]
Painted: Nothing
Assembled: 2 Inquistors, a bunch of flunkies, 20 storm troopers, 2 chimeras, a rhino.
Unassembled: 20 grey knights in power armor, death cult assassins.

8. Witch Hunters [??? pts]
Painted: Nothing
Assembled: Nothing, except the stormies, chimera and rhino that can do double duty from the daemonhunters.
Unassembled: St. Celestine, Cannoness, about 30 sisters, 5 seraphim, immolater, exorcist.

9. Space Marines - Sons of Medusa [??? pts]
Painted: about 5-10 marines
Assembled: Custom Commander, Custom Chaplain, 4 8-Man Tactical Squads, a 5-Man assault squad, a 5 man Devastator squad.
Waiting to be scratch built: Drop pods for everyone.
Need to buy: A dreadnought.

10. Tyranids
Painted: Nothing
Assembled: 16 old school (blue) genestealers, 2 warriors
Unassembled: The 4th editon nid armybox (minus 2 warriors) , some old school gaunts, carnifex, 2 tyrant guard.

WHFB Armies
1. Bretonnians [??? pts]
Painted: A handful of Knights
Assembled: 30-40 knights, some spearmen, some bowmen
Unassembled: A trebuchet, 1 box of new knights, a box of new men-at-arms.

2. Chaos [approx 3000pts]
Painted: Mounted Sorcerer, Undivided Champion, 16 Chosen Warriors, 16 chaos warriors, 16 chaos warriors of slaanesh (unfinished), 1 spawn, 5 screamers.
Assembled: Mounted Chaos Lord, warhounds, a converted spawn, 20 marauders, 20 beastmen, beastlord, 3 minotaurs, 17 old school beastmen.
Unassembled: box of Chaos knights, box of daemonettes

3. Tomb Kings [??? pts]
Painted: Nothing
Assembled: 1 chariot.
Unassembled: Tomb Kings army box, battalion box, casket of souls.

4. Dwarves [??? pts]
Just bought a Dwarf Lord and Runesmith on clearance and ordered the new dwarf battlion box, should get it in about a week. What have i done?


Holy crap, that makes 14 armies, none of which are "finished". If you are still with me after all of that, thanks. Now you see the daunting task ahead of me! Now to set a few tasks to get started. Let me know what you think I should work on if you care!

Tasks:
1. Finish Converting Ratlings and post pictures. Done.
2. Build Converted Rough Riders from parts. Underway

Thanks!

~IFC

[FearFrost]

You and Deadley should open a store.

[FearFrost]

Just kidding, good luck!

[Imperial Fist Commander]

Okay, I am back with pictures.

I guess I will do as others have done an start with some shots of my work area.


This is my cabinet full of unassembled minis, the upper half anyway.


The lower half of the mini cabinet.


A couple of boxes of minis that need to be painted. One of Bretonnians, one of Traitor Guard.

[Imperial Fist Commander]

More pictures.

My "Terrain Table", its been invaded by Cadians and Tyranids.


My modeling desk.


A bunch of models in the "staging area" aka the keyboard shelf of the desk. We have mostly Cadian Heavy weapons, plague zombies and L&td Mutants.


Some Big Mutants that are still converting WIPs.

[Imperial Fist Commander]

Finally, here are some shots of the converted ratlings. They are made from the legs and torso of fantasy goblins, plus the arms and heads of Cadians. The lasguns are converted to sniper rifles by trimming off the barrel and some of the top details and adding space marine scopes and barrels from plastic rod.

Heres the entire squad of ten.


The first two guys I did have barrels made from brass rod. I have since gotten plastic rod to do the rest, it was much easier to work with.


A close up of a couple of the ratlings.


Since this spotter is not holding his rifle across his chest, he is going to need some GS detail added to cover up where I chopped off the goblin's neck nob.


Okay, that is all for now. Next I will be doing the GS on the spotter and starting on the rough rider conversions.

What do you guys think?

~IFC

[violenceha]

i love them, best ratling conversions i've seen, though to be honest, i've got a bit of a midget fetish.

[firestorm40k]

Suddenly my own back-log doesn't seem so big! :eek!:

I like some of your conversions, the Big Muties are cool, and the Ratlings are fantastic - what a great idea (great comedy value, too! )

Good luck with your project. I recommend focussing upon painting up one army, while constructing the next you intend to paint. That's how I'm working (albeit painting two armies - 40k marines and Epic Guard - consequtively, rather than painting one/making the other).

[Darkseer]

I think you should do what my friend did.

He had 2 armies, neither of them anywhere near completion. He took his least favourite and put it on ebay.
The cash from his least favourite allowed him to complete the better of the two armies.

[Imperial Fist Commander]

Hmm. Well cash is not really the problem (obviously from the amount of stuff I have bought). Selling stuff from Army A is not going to help me finish Army B (or C or D or E ...) any faster since I don't need to buy anything else for Army B. And I can play games no problem since I have almost 3000 pts of Imperial Fists painted. They are just not "finished", because I have 3000 more still to paint!

Thanks for the comments guys. Now I must sleep, but I have the day off from work tomarrow so I should get some stuff done. I post pictures of whatever that might be.

~IFC

[Imperial Fist Commander]

Hey there, I am back with more pictures. I used some green stuff to add details to a couple of the ratlings. It is supposed to look like a double breasted tunic or coat.

Tunic front on the spotter.


Tunic neckline on this guy.


The pictures show that I didn't get it as smooth as I thought. This is my first time using greenstuff to sculpt anything, so any comments and tips are appreciated.

~IFC

[Deadleyheadley]

Nice collection of models ,good look with the grind its been getting to me over the last week but i think ive got through my painting block ,The ratlings look cool ,Keep up the good work

[Imperial Fist Commander]

Thanks for the encouragement Deadley!

Okay I have more pics, this time of Rough Riders. I built one rough rider first to work out the details.

These are the parts I used to build him, medieval horse sprue, cadian head and torso, rr legs and the rr sergeants lance. Umm, plus some arms.


I clipped and filed the fur trim off of the legs and made some puffy pant legs with green stuff. Still a novice at sculpting.


Here is the fully assembled rider and horse. Not bad eh?


Here is the same guy with the chainsword arm swapped out for a hunting lance. Gee, magnets are fun!


Okay since the hunting lance is kinda point heavy, the magnetic arm keeps dipping down in the front. Anybody have suggestions on how to weight the back end to counter balance it?

Thanks for you attention.
~IFC

[no-use4a-name]

You can do 1 of 3 things.

1. "Double" pin the arm
2. Double up on the magnets used
3. Use thicker magnets.

BTW, I like the look of the chainsword better. Just a suggestion, maybe you can strap the lance to the riggings of the horse and keep the chainsword on the fig. Good luck on your project.

[Rich 123]

Thats an impressive backlog, truely shocking !

What are using to sculpt the green stuff (GS)?
The two best basic sculpting tools are highly available:
A small knife blade (like an Xacto/scalpel blade)
Coctail sticks (the round edge is good for shaping curves and the point has a miriad of uses)

The trouble with GS is that it is very sticky and so you will need to use water or oil to wet the tools/fingers that you intend to touch the GS with. I prefer water.

Mix up a blob of GS and put it onto the mini. Smooth it roughly into place with something like the blade of an Xacto knife. GS is most sticky when just mixed so this blob will stick well to the mini. Once its roughly in place then leave the mini for 10-15 minutes, go make a cup of tea or something

When youre back the GS will have cured a bit more. It will be less sticky and will be bonding to the minis surface. This is the time to start shaping it. With the areas of cloth on your rough riders for instance you would want enough GS on the area to add teh shape of sloth roughly. Use the edge of a coctail stick and pressing the edge of the point in around the bend of knees and where the trousers are tucked into the boots. This simply gives the image of cloth.

Larger areas of cloth will need more work and layers of GS however for small areas this should be perfect for simply making nice trousers and are really the basic principles behind using GS in general.

A small pic of a robed Marine I recently finished using basically the same concepts as I detailed here:

Other things in my (sigged) photobucket account.

Hope this helps, good luck with all this!
Rich

[Imperial Fist Commander]

Thanks for the support and tips guys.

@no-use4a-name: Thanks to your suggestions, I was able to fix the problem by adding a pin to the shoulder. See the picture below for more details. The reason that I made the chainsword and lance arm swappable is that if you take a hunting lance you have to drop either the ccw or the laspistol and keeping the laspistol makes more sense. But I wanted the option of not taking the lances so I could field special weapons if I wanted - these guys are too expensive to make separate squads for each option.

Here is the RR holding the lance at a proper angle. The inset shows the pin I added to to keep the arm from rotating. Those little magnets really work great - this the first time I have used. them.


@Rich123: Thanks for all the tips on using green stuff. I will give the 15 minute waiting period a try next time. I knew about keeping the tools wet but it was still to sticky without the curing time I guess.

Here are the tools I have being using.


Okay time for an update on the Rough Riders. I have got all the problems worked out on the test model and I have also assembled all ten of the horses. That leaves me the other 9 riders to finish. Wish me luck!

~IFC

[Imperial Fist Commander]

Hey there,

I haven't posted an update in about a week, but I have been working on stuff. I have all the rough riders assembled and ready for green stuff. I will post pictures when that is done.

I also sorted through all of my IG models, both assembled and still on the sprue to determine exactly what I had and how to fit it into an army list. I have two different regiments, one made with catachan models and one made with cadian models. Any way here are the lists I came up with, units marked with an (a) are already assembled, those marked with (p) are painted.

The 117th Nocturne "Black Reapers" (Catchan Models) - approx 3,000 pts
No Doctrines

(a)Command Platoon
- (p)Command Squad, HSO w/Power fist, master-vox, veteran, meltagun x2
-- (a)Commissar
- (p)Anti-Tank Squad Lascannon x3
- (a)Fire Support Squad Autocannon x3
- (p)Sentinel Squadron Multilaser x3
- (p)Special Weapon Squad Sniper Rifles x3
- (p)Special Weapon Squad Flamer x2, Demo Charge x1

(a)Hardened Veteran Squad w/GL x2, Flamer x1, vox caster, shotguns, Vet Sarge w/Power Weapon

(a)Armored Fist Squad w/GL, ML , vox caster
- (a)Commissar
- (p)Chimera w/multilaser, heavy bolter

(a)Infantry Platoon
- (a)Command Squad, JO w/power weapon, vox caster, veteran, GL x2
-- (a)Commisar
- (a)Infantry Squad w/plasma, ML, vox
- (a)Infantry Squad w/plasma, heavy bolter, vox

( )Infantry Platoon
- ( )Command Squad JO w/power fist, vox, flamer x1, meltagun x2
-- (a)Commissar
- (a)Infantry Squad w/plasma, ML, vox
- (a)Infantry Squad w/plasma, heavy bolter, vox

(p)Hellhound Flame Tank

(p)Sentinel Squadron w/lascannon x1, improved comms, multilaser x2

(p)Sentinel Squadron w/multilaser x3, HK missle x3

(a)Heavy Weapon Platoon
- (a)Command Squad, JO w/Power Weapon, GL x2, Autocannon x1
-- (a)Commissar
- (a)Fire Support Squad w/Heavy Bolters x3
- (a)Mortar Squad

(p)Leman Russ Tank w/Lascannon & Heavy Bolter Sponsons

(p)Leman Russ Tank w/Lascannon & Heavy Bolter Sponsons


The ???th Cadian Regiment - approximately 2500 pts
No Doctrines

( )Command Platoon
- (a)Command Squad, HSO w/Power Sword, Medic, Standard Bearer, Master Vox, Flamer x1
-- (a)Commissar, Priest, Sanctioned Psyker
-- (a)Chimera w/multilaser, heavy bolter
- (a)Anti-Tank Squad w/ lascannon x3
- (a)Anti-Tank Squad w/ ML x3

( )Techpriest Enginseer
- ( )Gun servitors, heavy bolter x3, plasma cannon x1

( )Techpriest Enginseer
- ( )Combat Servitors x2

(a)Ratling Sniper Squad, sniper rifles x10

( )Infantry Platoon
- (a)Command Squad, JO w/power fist, vox, meltagun x3
-- (a)Priest
- ( )Infantry Squad w/GL x1, heavy bolter x1, vox
- ( )Infantry Squad w/GL x1, autocannon x1, vox

( )Infantry Platoon
- (a)Command Squad, JO w/power weapon & plasma pistol, medic, vox, plasmagun x2
-- (a)Sanctioned Psyker
- ( )Infantry Squad w/GL x1, heavy bolter x1, vox
- ( )Infantry Squad w/GL x1, autocannon x1, vox

( )Armored Fist Squad w/GL x1, autocannon x1, vox
- ( )Chimera w/multilaser, heavy bolter

( )Sentinel Squadron w/autocannons x3

( )Rough Rider Squad, sgt w/power weapon, hunting lances & laspistols

( )Heavy Weapon Platoon
- (a)Command Squad, JO, GL x2, autocannon
-- (a)Sanctioned Psyker
- (a)Fire Support Squad w/heavy bolters x3
- ( )Mortar Squad

(a)Leman Russ Tank w/lascannon, heavy bolter sponsons

So there is the lists for my two IG armies. After working that out I assembled the four command squads for the Cadian List and put together a terrain piece out of a "platformer" box I had sitting around.

Okay I am off to green stuff the rough riders, paint the platformer terrain and then do a test model for painting the cadians.

~IFC

[Metal Fingered Villain]

Wet your tools and smooth out the greenstuff, it will look terrible when painted with that texture and will be hell to highlight....I have learned the hard way. I'm looking forward to seeing your progress....progress more!

[Imperial Fist Commander]

Okay, I have more pictures now.

These three sets of legs are my second try at sculpting some pant legs.






Still rough but, I think these are an improvement over the first one I did. Thanks for the tips Rich123 and Metal Fingered Villian. I can't believe what a huge difference it made to let the gs sit for about 10 minutes after first putting it on the model. I could at least work without pulling the gs off the model every 2 seconds.

C&C welcome.

[Imperial Fist Commander]

Here are some pics of the two flamers I am working on for the squad.





The flamer torsos are magnet-itized at the waist so I can swap them out for hunting lances.

So, what do you guys think so far?

~IFC