7th legion army that I might do (yet another pre-heresy thing, yawn...)

[Mandragola]

Hi all

I've had a few mark 3 guys knocking around for a while. Bought the unit they were going to be got written out of the army list before they were built. Now forgeworld is coming along with some actual rules for a legion list, so these guys have come out and might be the beginnings of a new army, or just a side project I do for my own entertainment. I normally churn armies out for tournaments rather than as painting projects, so it's nice to do something for its own sake once in a while.

I'm going for a 7th legion army, of Imperial fists. The idea for these guys is that they are early in the great crusade just setting out from Terra. I am mostly going with them because I think their yellow colour scheme will look good, but also because I like their character. But at this stage I'm not that sure what I'll be building so all I really have is a test mini. Here he is.







So he looks pretty good I think. I've had a look at Shaw3029's guys and I like the weathering he's done so I might try that out.

And here's the obligatory picture of where I'm sort of painting some more of them. I've given one of them a melta gun, and it turns out that tactical squads in the legion lists can't have them, so that's a bit of a problem! I think I'll just do a few more bolter guys until I can get hold of the army list.



Update 25.03.14. I thought I'd post a group shot of the army so far. It can actually be called an army now, with several proper units in it. It's gathering quite a few battle honours and even a couple of painting prizes. Read on, if you dare/care!

[shaw3029]

Thats a good start!

Give the weathering a go. Its easy enough.

[the damned artificer]

Seconded, give the weathering a go And nice start as well

[Mandragola]

Cheers.

Really not sure about the weathering. A bit of dust on their lower legs maybe. I want them to look like they are on campaign, not like your ones who have been under siege for months.

I've actually got a Contemptor Mortis and a couple of characters that I might paint up for this army. The dread would be cool.

[Mandragola]

So, an update. I dug out the contemptor that I mentioned, which had prevoiusly been basecoated to be a part of my 41st millenium marines. Since I normally play as wolves, this guy wasn't getting out very often (wolves can't have contemptor Mortis dreads), so he has gone back in time and turned yellow. Not finished yet, but I think he's starting to look cool so here's a WIP:







I'm having fun experimenting with blending the yellow. Not 100% happy with it all over, as the end colour doesn't seem that consistent. I need to get some yellow or orange ink I think.

I'm doing very dark metal to contrast with the brightness of the yellow and make the models feel industrial. it probably needs a highlight on the edges for both of them as so far I've just gone with boltgun metal with black ink or tin bitz with green.

The contemptor has some scrolls and purity seals on it. I need to paint these differently, so that one looks like real paper and the other looks like it's been painted on by the marines. Unsure how I'll go about this one. Also the scrollwork all over the front of the thing is folded so there's nowhere much to put any words really. Maybe a name, or three short words.

And now a group pic of the army so far!

[Mandragola]

Bit of progress, though not very much as I've been getting some cultists ready for a game of dark heresy. Here they are, though they are nothing special and this isn't a great photo, so I'm basically wasting your time...



I'm a fan of spending ages working on minor conversions that nobody will ever notice. I'm not a fan of having only one arm position and two leg positions for my marines, as supplied by forgeworld (though I gather this may soon change). Accordingly, I spent some time with my razor saw and these four guys, the first of whom has been subjected to some paint, and some awful photography.









See what I mean? Nobody will ever notice that I did anything! But then I suppose that all of this is for my own benefit anyway, so never mind. For what it's worth I'm happy with the results, which weren't all that difficult to achieve anyway and basically involved chopping the left legs off a pair of running legs and some standing ones, and swapping them. The guy with the hero rock to stand on has running legs with the bent leg rotated round and stuck on a rock. The guy with the open left hand in the terrible photo took the most work, messing around with both arms and introducing an open hand from the GK power armour set.

I'm sort of moving towards having a tactical squad built. Unsure what to do with the guy with melta, though probably a good plan will be to remove him from the unit and send him off to join a melta squad. I could see myself fielding a special weapons team in a proteus, or possibly an achilles. The achilles was invented by the imperial fists, apparently, but the model looks very 40k, not 30k, and I'm not sure if it would fit that well. I suppose I could mess around with it a bit to make it seem more old skool, or even do a conversion based on a proteus. Grateful for any suggestions on this as even if I don't agree I find that the discussions help me make up my mind.

[SacredBoltgun]

It`s the first time i`m seeing this and i realy realy realy like your yellow. Great looking Fists. Is it just GW Base Yellow+ GW Base Wash and then layer or is another unknown paint between?

[Mandragola]

Glad you like the yellow. It's pretty simple. Averland sunset base, wash with agrax earth shade then build up with a couple of layers of the standard layer yellow paint. I'm doing edges and some spot highlights with screaming skull. I'm happy with the result, most. Of the time. There are a few places where I've messed up the layers and erased the shading. Also a couple of bits around grilles where it can look a little scruffy.

I've been thinking a bit about things like chapter badges and unit markings. I need to decide whether to sculpt or paint the symbol, or maybe just stick with the VII. Not really sure so it's something I'll experiment with.

[Sqallum]

I like it. I am starting a pre heresy Death Guard soon, so I found this handy . The colour scheme is nice.

[SacredBoltgun]

I`d say go for paint the symbols. Your skills are (based on your paintet marines) by far good enough for that and i would love to see more of this awesome yellow stuff

[Mandragola]

Bit of a lull in painting the last few days, though I have been working a little bit on some more guys with bolters.

Progress of a sort has been made though. I now have a copy of the book with the legion army list in it. Huzzah! I've been having a good read of the various options (which irritatingly don't include a cyclone for my contemptor, grr!) and come up with a first draft of a 2000 point army list. I'm using the "Pride of the Legion" rite, making the veterans and terminators troops. Here you go:

Legion Praetor
Paragon Blade
Digital Lasers
Refractor Field

Legion Apothecary
Augury Scanner
Power Sword

Legion Contemptor Dreadnought
2x Kheres Pattern assault cannon
Havoc Launcher

Legion Veteran Squad
5 additional marines
2 Heavy Flamers (or melta guns, which would be a lot easier!)
Thunder Hammer for Sergeant
Rhino

Legion Terminator Squad (note, armament is pretty much just designed to use the stuff from a power fist set and a special weapons set, with two sets of bodies)
5 additional terminators
Cataphractii armour
Reaper autocannon
Plasma blaster
4 Power Fists
2 Pairs of Lightning Claws
2 Chainfists
2 Thunder Hammers
2 Combi-weapons

Legion Tactical Squad
8 additional marines
Additional combat blades
Power Fist
Legion Vexilla

Legion Storm Eagle Assault Gunship
Twin-linked multi-melta
Two twin-linked lascannon
Extra armour

Legion Predator Tank
Executioner plasma destroyer
Combi-bolter

Legion Vindicator
Dozer Blade

So that doesn't actually seem like all that much stuff at 2000 points. I don't have a lord of war in there, which is a bit of a shame in a way but Dorn isn't going to be out any time soon and I don't really want any super heavies, as that would not be useable in normal games.

I've kept the tactical squad at 18 so that they can fit inside the storm eagle, along with the Praetor and apothecary, if desired. I think I mostly won't do this, just running them on foot, but that option will be useful if I come up against heavy shooting armies.

I don't know if Forgeworld is going to do a deimos pattern vindicator. Hope they do, but in the mean time I have a couple of vindicators that can stand in, and possibly be given a coat of yellow paint.

From what I have now this won't be insanely expensive. Something like £300, not including the vindicator.

[Mandragola]

Ok, a small update in which I've actually done some painting and converting, resulting in an almost finished miniature to show you.

This guy is going to be my Legion Praetor. He's made from the jump pack chaplain. I cut off his left leg and rotated it round to make him run forwards, and gave him some new arms. The head is from the spacewolf power armour set and shoulder pads from chaos marines. Sword was from a grey knight. The position is inspired by a model I saw at Salute years ago, and I'm quite happy with how he looks.

He was initially painted in my old colours as a "counts as" Ragnar Blackmane. I don't see myself using Ragnar much in 6th, so he wasn't going to see any action. The addition of a mark 3 backpack and some yellow paint has sent him back in time 10,000 years.

Not finished yet. I want to add some sort of command insignia and personal heraldry. Not sure what this will be like and I think I'll address that sort of thing when I have a few more guys to use it on. Also not sure about the base as I'm thinking of using a different method for this army. He might get an entirely new one. The eldar helmet probably makes sense for a crusading 7th legion commander, though not if he fights in the heresy.

Too much talking, where are the pics?









So what do you think?

[shaw3029]

He looks cool! I like him alot.

Will you be trying out some weathering?

The list looks good with a lot of variety.

[Mandragola]

Glad you like.

Still not sure about the weathering, but mostly thinking I won't do it. I think there's a strong case for doing an army with a "gritty realism" aesthetic, such as your own, but instead I think I want this army to look like the shiny box-fresh marines of the crusade era. So this is an idealised vision of how they probably never actually looked, because I'm enjoying painting the yellow and don't want to lose it under armour chips and the dust of a thousand worlds.

So "knights in shining armour" is the way I'm taking this. Of course I might change my mind later and go to work on them with some mud, and I probably ought to at least try it out on a test mini at some point, but not at this stage.

[Mandragola]

This evening I've had a dig around in the bitz box for ways to make a heavy flamer. I came out with some GK bitz. Most of my GKs have psycannons (obviously), meaning that I have a bunch of psylencers and incinerators around - potentially enough to do this conversion several times over.

There's quite a bit of work still to be done. He will have a couple of fuel tanks on his back where the crude blobs of GS are currently holding the hose in place. I'm also going to work on the nozzles, to try and make them more like the RTB01 flamer nozzles. I'll give it a second handle where his left hand probably ought to be holding onto the heavy flamer rather more securely than he actually is.

I think this guy is going to look badass. Looking forward to finishing him.







I've been thinking about the storm eagle. I want one, but I want it to look more 30k than 40k. To achieve this, I'm thinking of giving it a nose like an imerial battleship, which should probably split in the middle to open and let the troops out. Please excuse the hasty paint image to give you an idea what I'm talking about (which is based on a pic from forgeworld's site, copywrite etc is theirs).



Sounds crazy but it might work I suppose. Apparently the storm eagle is a pain to fit together, so building an entirely new nose might almost be easier than making it as designed.

[Brother Heinrich]

Love the paint job, though I have to say the Praetor comes off a little like he's skipping through a field of Daisies, just my 2 cents though.

[Maidel]

Love the paint job, though I have to say the Praetor comes off a little like he's skipping through a field of Daisies, just my 2 cents though.

Now you mention it, it does look a bit like he's lining up to boot the rock on the base into row Z...

I'm watching this thread because I'm really torn. Every time I look at the painting style part of me hates it (too much white) and party of me is really intrigued about it (especially seeing the shot from directly above).

Btw, the dreadnought it awesome I'm DEFINATELY not torn about that model.

[Mandragola]

Thanks guys. Always good to get some constructive feedback.

I think the Praetor might look better with his left arm in a different position. The idea is that he's let go of his sword with that hand to swing it in a big arc, but it sort of just looks like he's a kid pretending to be a plane.

Quite a fun option would be to replace his refractor field with a boarding shield. In game that would combo well with his paragon blade (it's a specialised weapon and the shield prevents a second weapon being used), giving him the same protection in cc but also defensive grenades. On the model it would be a good place to draw or sculpt stuff like his own heraldry and/or chapter details.

I'm still learning the paint scheme, trying out different levels of highlight, washes etc. only the Praetor has any actual white on him, with screaming skull as the normal top highlight. Might need a glaze on the Praetor.

[Maidel]

He's done in almost nmm?

Don't change the scheme on my behalf, as I said, I can't decide either way.

[Mandragola]

I hadn't thought about NMM but that's a really interesting point. I think sky/earth shading could look really good, if I can do it well enough.