Finished! Grey Knight Paladin/Henchmen Army

[Myelinated Axon]

Hello, all.

I finished painting my 1850 GK Paladin/Henchmen army a couple of months ago, so I thought I'd post the pictures here for posterity. I did a lot of the painting with an airbrush, as can be seen with the Nemesis Force Weapons (NFWs), and I used weathering powders for the first time by making the bases all dusty-like. I made extensive use of magnets, so I could swap out my weapon load-outs on the Paladins to determine the most competitive build. Each of the Paladins sports a magnet in their right wrist, and, along with a corresponding magnet in the one-handed NFWs, I can swap in whichever NFW I want. Four of the Paladins also have a magnetized heavy weapon arm, so I can choose between Psycannons, Psilencers, Incinerators, or even Storm Bolters. I also magnetized the twin-linked Autocannon arms on the Dreads, so I could keep track of any weapon destroyed results.

I built this army with the intent of trolling the local tournament scene, and it has done extremely well for itself. The anchor of the army is an essentially indestructible death star unit in the Paladins with Draigo and Coteaz attached. In addition to this, the list has two supporting elements: mobile scoring in the form of min Henchmen squads in Razorbacks, and long-range firepower from Psyfleman Dreads. In my experience, the list has only two weaknesses: no active psychic defense (reinforced aegis--while good--will only get you so far) and it can hemorrhage kill points if the opponent focuses fire on the Henchmen squads.

It's a fun list that inevitably leads to some memorably epic combat moments, but I want to start fresh with a clean slate for 6th edition, so I've put it for sale on eBay. Check it out, and feel free to make an offer.

On to the pics! First, an overall army shot:


And now on to the HQs! Lord Kaldor Draigo (Obviously Hector Rex from FW.):


Inquisitor Torquemada Coteaz (This guy was converted from a BA Sanguinary Guard with the legs repositioned. The cape is from the CSM Terminator Lord kit (with some green stuff), as is the sneering head. The hammer head is from a WHFB Empire Preist w/ Great Weapon with some additional FW brass etch. I think the vulture is from the WHFB giant kit.):


Paladin #1 (aka Ares):


Paladin #2 (aka Helios):


And a close-up of his banner:


Additional images forthcoming!

[Myelinated Axon]

Paladin #3 (aka Hyperion):


Paladin #4 (aka Pallas) (This hammer was a conversion using a GKT Warding Stave, with the top part swapped out for a BA Death Company Thunder Hammer spiffed up with some FW brass etching):


Paladin #5 (aka Crius):


Paladin #6 (aka Styx):


Paladin #7 (aka Coeus):


Paladin #8 (aka Eos):

[Myelinated Axon]

Paladin #9 (aka Aura):


Paladin #10 (aka Hades):


And the rest of their NFWs:

[Myelinated Axon]

Henchman Squad 1:


Henchman Squad 2:


Henchman Squad 3:


Henchman Squad 4 (Clearly the dude with the "Mom" tattoo is the baddest mother trucker in the army, and therefore my favorite mini in the whole army. He killed a Purifier in cc once. I was going to promote him for that, but then a Nemesis Daemon Hammer turned him into a kind of goo later in that same combat phase.):


Henchman Squad 5:

[Myelinated Axon]

And their rides:
Razorback 1:


Razorback 2 (this Rhino chassis was my first GW vehicle ever :3):


Razorback 3:


Razorback 4:


Razorback 5:

[Myelinated Axon]

Dreadnought 1 (straight GW Venerable Dread kit w/ GK bling):


Dreadnought 2 (AoBR Dread conversion):


Dreadnought 3 (another AoBR Dread conversion):


Objective Marker 1:


Objective Marker 2:


Objective Marker 3:

[ZAChos]

An interesting army. I've not seen one like it. And I like it.

[yarrickson]

Nice looking army. Looks competitive and nicely painted which is good. :-P I presume you mean Coteaz rather than Crowe in your first post though.....

[Hadriel Caine]

What a great army! I love all the little conversions. Really good attention to detail.

[Myelinated Axon]

Thanks for all the kind words. If anyone would like to see some close-ups or any additional pictures, let me know.

I presume you mean Coteaz rather than Crowe in your first post though.....

Fixed! Thanks for catching that.

[razormasticator]

Gorgeous work in this log. The Dreads and Objective markers are sweet. The light effects on the blades excellent as well.

[Myelinated Axon]

3 out of 5 stars? Haters gonna hate :P

@razormasticator: Thanks for the kind words. The force weapon blades were one of the most fun parts of the army to paint.

I was thinking of adding some pics showing close-ups of the Dread conversions and examples of the magnetization of the Paladins. Is anyone interested in seeing that?

[Woolierwand]

I'd be really interested in seeing that

[Shush]

I think this is quite a pretty army. I especially like your swords they're very impressive! So 5 star from me

[Myelinated Axon]

@Shush: Thanks for the kind words. The swords are my favorite part of the army!

Here are some photos detailing the dread conversions:
First, is the Dread made from GW's Venerable Dread kit. This has very light conversions, and is mostly stock, straight from the kit. There are a couple of GK bits, though. Most notably, the helmet in the sarcophagus is a GK Terminator helmet. I added some GK gubbinz to the shin armor, and I've added some tilt shields, too.


Next is one of my two AoBR Dread conversions. This first one uses the second sarcophagus from the Venerable Dread kit. I had to do some green stuffing to smooth out the transition, but I didn't like how it turned out, so I threw some purity seals to disguise the join. Another GK Terminator helmet was used to tie the Dread into the rest of the army. And, of course, another tilt shield.


The third and final Dread was actually the first GW walker I ever built (dating from a few years ago). I spiffed it up by replacing the stock AoBR sarcophagus with a vanilla SM Terminator torso and a GK Terminator helmet. I added the bottom half of a SM backpack to finish it up.


Next is a shot of the magnet placement in the TL Autocannon arms. The TL ACs are from the Aegis Defence Line kit, and I just trimmed down the male portions of the axle and drilled in some spots for 1/8" diameter magnets. There are corresponding magnets in the Dreads themselves, which can be seen in the above images.


Finally, here is a shot of the TL AC arm on a dread to demonstrate the magnetization.


Upcoming will be some pics demonstrating the magnetization of the Paladins themselves.

[Myelinated Axon]

When I started this project, I knew I wanted to magnetize the Paladins in order to vary their load-out from game-to-game. I decided it would be best (i.e. easiest) to only magnetize NFWs that are held in one hand (the right hand). This consists of all the swords, 3/5 halberds, the hammer, banner, and warding stave. I was able to use one of the two handed halberds by trimming off the left hand that was molded onto the shaft. The result was

10 swords (5 from each GKT kit)
8 halberds (3 one-handed halberds and 1 two-handed halberd that had the left hand filed down from each kit)
3 hammers (1 from each kit, and a third converted from a spare warding stave)
1 warding stave
1 brotherhood banner

In order to magnetize the NFWs, I carefully drilled into the hands from the wrists with a 1/8" drill bit and a pin vice. A drilled shallowly enough to get the magnets to fit flush with the wrist, as seen in the following picture:


Next, I needed to magnetize the heavy weapons. I ordered two sets of GKT heavy weapons and two extra heavy weapon arms from bits providers, resulting in me having 4 sets of each. (Except I lost an incinerator somewhere! How annoying!!) Instead of adding a magnet to each heavy weapon, I filed the inner side down flush and glued a bit of metal plate. This would make the magnetization process easier because I wouldn't have to worry about getting the magnets in the weapons to line up perfectly with the magnets in the arms. (NB: This was a non-issue when magnetizing the right arms because there was such a limited cross-sectional area in the wrist, that each magnet placed in the wrist/forearm was more or less centered.) Here's a pic of some heavy weapons and their metal plates:


Finally, here's a pic of a Paladin with magnets in both arms:


Again, the magnet in the right wrist/forearm was more-or-less centered, and the compatibility between the NFWs and the right arms was just fine without any fuss. Since I used metal plates on the heavy weapons, the magnet's precise location on the left arm wasn't that critical.

Next up will be some pics of one Paladin kitted out in various ways.

[Myelinated Axon]

Here are some pictures of that same Paladin with various weapon load outs, demonstrating the versatility of a magnetized model.







I hope you all like it! If you have any questions or requests, just let me know, and I'll do my best to oblige.

[New Cult King]

Awww man. This is just really, really, really awesome I love the Coteaz conversion, and I love the "grey" scheme. Just excellent

[Myelinated Axon]

@New Cult King: Thanks for the kind words! I think the Coteaz conversion embodies the plasticity of the SM multi-part kits. All it took was a simple repositioning of the legs and feet, and now you have a whole new model. Those types of conversions are pretty easy to do, just cut the legs off at the hips and the feet at the ankles beneath the greaves. They also require minimal green stuff, too.

I dig the grey scheme, as well. I really didn't want to go with the traditional silver scheme, so I decided to actually make my Grey Knights grey! I primed the with GW's Chaos Black, and then basecoated them with Vallejo Model Color German Grey (a really dark charcoal grey). I used an airbrush to paint a layer of GW Adeptus Battlegrey because I wanted to use the zenithial highlighting method to produce some natural shading. I followed this up with some edge highlighting with GW Codex Grey.

The vehicles are just VMC German Grey with Codex Grey edge highlights. I wanted them to be darker because, usually, if vehicles are painted the same color as the infantry, then the infantry are visually dominated and overwhelmed (because the vehicles are so much larger than the infantry). That's not so great when you have a small number of infantry models. Painting them darker alleviates this a bit.

[Captain Brown]

Very nice,

5/5 from me (that will move it up from a 3 score...which is just unfair), as completed armies are the whole reason we do these logs. Make certain you start one for your next project.

Like the use of the rare earth magnets and enjoy every time someone shows were they place them to help others to do the same.

Good luck on your next project,

CB