Genestealer Cult:Now with Hybrid Roughriders

[kiwichild]

Well I`m making this log as an excuse to get off my procrastanting bottom and make some progress. The background story goes, about a year or so ago (july 2006) I finished a teaching contract in Korea. Flush with disposable income and a wad of freetime, I had an idea. Genestealer Cult, so on a brief stop back in my native NZ I dropped by a model shop and bought a tyranid battleforce, a box of cadians and high elf archers. After my break I moved back to Japan to be with my wife. Then something terrible happened:cries:, I got a credit card and discovered ebay. Suffice to say the project has gotten abit out of hand and I need to start painting and assembling all the little goodies. Here`s a brief breakdown of the miniatures left to paint and build.

Genestealers....3 patriarchs (1 on throne), 5 magus, 28 genestealers (17metal-RT era, 3 plastic (2nd or 3rd ed), 8 new ed), 5 familiars, 25 hybrids on foot (5 ugly plastics) and 12 hybrids on horseback.

Cult forces....30 RT era guardsmen (plastic), 50 cawdor, 17 Van Saar, 11 redemptionists, 14 delaque, 25 tallarns, 50 assorted RT era figures and around 30+ plastic broodbrothers (bitzbox bash).

Now personally I love a plog that starts with some pics. Bear with me this is my third post and I have no idea how to post the pics, yet. If you are reading this an there are no pics, I have most likely fumbled it up will be posting them asap. If there are pics, but are too big ummmm sorry bear with me, I`m a n00b.

[kiwichild]

Hmmmm no pictures, 3mb photos are too big. Need to shrink them.

[Tyra_Nid]

Sounds great! Im a big fan of GS Cult.

Upload your photos to Photobucket, then just copy their provided 'IMG' tag into your posts. Its really quite easy!

[bdo]

sounds interesting... always curious about old school nids and waiting for pics

[kiwichild]

Okay hopefully this will work for the pics, cheers tyra-nid for the advise and bdo here`s those pics:






http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...i/P1000119.jpg
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...i/P1000118.jpg
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...i/P1000117.jpg
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...i/P1000116.jpg

[kiwichild]

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...i/P1000115.jpg
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...i/P1000114.jpg
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...i/P1000113.jpg
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...i/P1000112.jpg

[kiwichild]

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...i/P1000111.jpg
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...i/P1000110.jpg
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...i/P1000109.jpg
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...i/P1000108.jpg

[kiwichild]

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...i/P1000107.jpg
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...P1000106-1.jpg
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...i/P1000106.jpg

So overall the command squad is wip, still need to do some finer work on bionics and an overall tidy up. I don`t have access to GW paints in Nagano, but there are a heap of model shops stocked to the gills with tamiya paints.

[kiwichild]

Now looky here, guess who finished their acid bath today? The genestealer hybrids on horse back.


http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...i/P1000120.jpg

Here`s the component breakdown of a mounted hybrid:


http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...i/P1000121.jpg

These are the first hybrids I`ve ever seen, www.solegends.com mentions them here, but with no pic: http://www.solegends.com/cit91/cit90aliens.htm

Here`s a couple of closer shots of two types of magus


http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...i/P1000122.jpg

and the clawed or straight hybrids


http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...i/P1000123.jpg

Overall it seems there are two types of clawed hybrids, two types of unclawed (straight) hybrids and two types of magus. Does anybody know of any other mounted hybrids released by GW?

[Tyra_Nid]

Holy crap, I had never even heard of mounted hybrids! Great find, did you get them off eBay? And did they cost you a lot?

[kiwichild]

Yeap, got them off a guy in NSW on ebay. The auction started off pretty slow and cheap, but the last couple of minutes bumped the price right up. In all each one worked out to about AUS$10 a pop, not bad for oop hybrids, let alone mounted ones. My wife gave me a solid kick when she found out about them though.

[precinctomega]

Original plastic Guard with FW heads! I'm in nostalgia heaven!! It's a great army. I have to admit, though, that I'd like to see more uniformity in those first squads. In the Assault, it'll be really hard to tell one squad from another.

R.

[kiwichild]

Sorry precinctomega, I`m trying for a muddled\ragtag\mob vibe with the brood brothers. All of the PDF guys will be quite similar, old RT era plastics with some weapon, arm and head swaps, make them look less repetative. For the swaps I`m using a mixture of brettonian/cadian/space marine heads, no FW parts I`m afraid.

Glad you`re like the nostalgia theme, wait until I get onto the RT assorted squads, yah may need some diapers. Thanks for the comments.

[kiwichild]

Here we go precinctomega, feast your eyes and identify what you can:





http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...i/P1000127.jpg
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...i/P1000126.jpg
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...i/P1000125.jpg
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...i/P1000124.jpg

[kiwichild]

Wow 297 views and only 4 comments other than mine. That`s disheartening:cries:, oh well time for a progress update and more pics! Last night I finished and based the command group which means I have 25 Brood brothers done. I`m gonna matt varnish them and do a base coat spray on some new stuff. Nothing says progress like the smell of varnish in the morning. Opps yes now to the pics......

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...i/P1000128.jpg
The whole family so far

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...i/P1000129.jpg
Left detail

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...i/P1000130.jpg
Right detail

I have class today, but after that I have a three day weekend. Prepare yourself for some madness.

[Ithmaril]

I like them a lot, though I actually miss some shade of violet or even pink in the colour scheme. It is just so well-established for genestealers, and even more for cults... and because of the rugged, thrown-together look of your units (like cults should be!), I'm missing another one or two additional colors besides the shades of blue and grey. Maybe you could at least incorporate some violet details like cult icons or other subtile details that declare their membership or even rank, and add purple veins to their skin, which I like a lot, but just doesn't seem... alien enough, yet. Additionally, I'd suggest that you somehow include the genestealer cult loge, you know, this curled, stylized genestealer breed which kinda looks like an alien chestburster.

Apart from that, I'm really looking forward to see your further progress. Keep up the good work, and don't be discouraged by any lack of answers. Genestealer cults have always had a special place in my heart (so you've just got a suscriber), since I read about them in Space Hulk/ the 2nd edition Tyranid codex. I even converted some models back in these days, but, oh well- I was 13 years old or something, so these were some bretty ugly oil-painted bastards.

Great project. I'd love to smash my ph WEs into them, one day. Good luck!

[Apologist]

Shame about the lack of comments; but I think you can put that down to the fact that it's really hard to comment constructively on a non-standard army – particularly one that's being pursued with such imagination and vigour!

The brood brothers look absolutely awesome. I was a little sceptical earlier when I saw such a mix of miniatures, but you've done a great job matching them together in a believable 'mob' way.

Are those 'Confrontation' figures? I'm absolutely amazed you've managed to get such a variety of classic ancient models – must have hit the ol' bank account hard.

How are you mounting the hybrid roughriders? I'd be tempted to go for something other than horses (I quite like the idea of horses shying away from wrong 'uns like hybrids); so how about the Gorkamorka mutie mounts?

I agree with Ithamril regarding the colour scheme. The blue, grey and white is good – made me think of a Mordian army as my initial reaction – but I think making them a bit dingier-looking with some muck and dirt would be a little more fitting. Adding a purple tint to the blue, and violet or cream to the white would go quite a way to warming these figures up, which will make them look a lot closer to the established background.

I'd also have a serious re-think of the basing at this stage. Green doesn't chime with the theme, to my mind.

However, they do look wicked cool as is – the mix of troops works well, and they're recognisable as Genestealer cultists, rather than a militia or chaos cult etc. I especially like the freehand. If the rest of the army is remotely as good as these, you'll have an amazingly characterful and fun army.

[DaGreatQueeg]

Wow, some great ideas and I love some of the older OOP stuff. Looking forward to seeing how those Hybrid roughriders work out as I think theyll look awesome.

My only (very minor) suggestion (apart from - Finish those Roughriders) would be to agree that maybe some Dark Red trim would give a counterpoint to the main scheme, not too much to overpower it, just a hint here and there.

Still seriously great stuff ....!!!!!

cheers
Brent

[El Presedente]

Great idea with the RT era head swaps.

[kiwichild]

Ithmaril: Seeing the mob all grouped together gave me a big sense of achievement and then like you I thought hmmmmm need something else. Intially I thought of doing some cult sybmbols on them, but I`m still trying to figure out what. Maybe something like those vampire glyphs in the Blade trilogy. You know something that if you know it you know who they are and if you don`t it just looks interesting, but dismissable. Let me have a look through some of my kanji textbooks. Thanks for the input I think you have sparked a possible cult symbol idea.

Apologist: Yeap those are some ole confrontation figures and yeap the bank balance took abit of a hammering. Then again I could have gonna Chaos Miltia crazy with FW and done the same financial damage. Good point on the roughriders, my sister`s horses had an aversion to me and I`m normal. The roughriders came with RT era plastic horses, they aren`t very dynamic poses. The mutie mounts would be sweet, but tracking down 12 would be difficult. Any other suggestions? With the lack of a codex I first thought of running this cult as IG doctrines or a renegade witchhunter force, hence the IG type scheme. I have got access to some neat tamiya weathering kits and pens over here so mucking them up would be easy. I have got some purple GW ink, which I could try on a test model, I am trying to avoid the purple cult syndrome. Nothing wrong with it, it just makes me think it`s abit garish and cartoon-like. I`ll try a test model and then decide from there. Cheers for the comments.

DaGreatQueeg: Well to be honest I`m trying for a Russian theme for the roughriders rather than a Finish one (spl was for the gag ). I like the trim idea but where do you think it would go best, armour or robes? Thanks for the comment.

El Presedente: Wait to you see what I got done tonight. It was pouring with rain after I got back from work so no basecoating. I did get some more conversions done though, can you say uber-armoured-RT era-PDF troopers? I`ll chuck a pic on tomorrow.:chrome: