Ave dominus nox- Nightlords project log part two

Greetings again

so here we are another nine days into the nightlords project, and i'm still going strong. As a matter of fact i had to rest for two days since i subsided on about three hours of sleep per night when the family was away :D i just had to get that airbrush time in.

So what's new so far?

Putting in another two week pledge towards the age of darkness pod. Foot of mork not included 

 I finally managed to put my base layers in on my Terror marines, since i want to have a maximum sized squad i will be going with 30, but the idea is to field groups of nine so that i can have a apothecary in each droppod, which goes with my chosen theme of a slowly growing desperate force assaulting their brother legions to harvest their materials, their vehicles, and their geneseed.

But i also want to have an anvilus full of veteran marines with combi meltas and melta bombs. So that's on the way as well.

Now, to do all my marines i had to perform one of the most tedious damn things  i have done in this hobby so far, all the arms i had for my marines were "calth" arms, meaning the hand was molded to the bolter, but my chargers are of the old sort, meaning they do not have hands. So i spent about an hour cutting hands from bolters, and super gluing hands to the marines arms. Now compared to that, my hit-herto most tedious duty seemed like a charm. I am talking about. Taping. Not the sort you need to keep pressure down (heresy-hardon, damn yoouuuuu!) but the sort that eases airbrushing.

Having put the base layers of my droppods and Anviluses (anvilii?) twice over, i decided to tape all the metal parts so that i could just go with my acryllic metal on the interiors.

As such i sat down with a crappy movie in the background and got to it

Before

and the interior

After that i just did all the metal parts with my smallest nozzle on the airbrush. 

and after 

now, as is easily visible to anyone without a visual impairment i need to clean up around the interior of the "flaps" as well as those sloppily done vents ( a lesson in patience as the airbrush was clogging up but i wanted to finish) now, this would probably be easier to do by brush. But i am madly in love with my acryllic vallejo and the metal can't be beat. There is also an argument to be done that the metal looks better than what (at least i can do) by hand. So that's why i do it.

while airbrushing i got the bright idea to do some Crimson stripes, to tie into the crimson gauntlets theme of condemnation for my terror marines and the "refuse" doing suicide duty as melta veterans, i'm having second thoughts about it though, not sure what direction to go.

i also taped up my Anvilii (that's what i'll go with) and did the spikes and the iris on the underside. Now i just need to wash it, grime it, and do a LOT of clean-up. still, i'd say i'm about 40% done with the pods, and now i'm moving away from my airbrushing phase, and the brush phase is always easier to find time for.

Now i'm using Vallejo air again, and i can really recommend the following two colors, the first one is for my midnight blue, i'm really enthused about the results, and it's SUPER easy to do. Open bottle, and go to town. Joking aside, you'll need three thin coats as the color is really transparent, and if you have a grey basecoat it won't look as good as on a black one. 

71.090 "blue angel" i'm not sure about the name, but i got it on a whim while doing force weapons for my old GK, and it's a treat to work with. 

For my crimson parts i'm using a darker red, that i've seen used on WB and that i did up a vindicator for a friend (who gave it back with ALL his other CSM when he moved XD don't know if that's a compliment or not) it's pretty dark but that is what i am after for my dried blood so i'm satisfied with it. 

71.084 "fire red" it's a really solid color and i think it can be best shown on my raptor squad 

one simple coat 

now i still need to shade that and do highlights. But it'sreally promising so far. 

Oh yeah, about that. I have also added some new stuff to my army. 

Five raptors with four chainglaives for my Centurion with a jumppack

too mad to serve as safeguards to his well being, but yet he knew that there was 'naught that would come between them and their prey, so all he must do was remain in the shadows of monsters, for what were his troops if not another weapon to be aimed at the heart of the enemy 

and three Scimitar jetbikes 

entire squad

The sergeant himself 

i'll run them as either deepstriking or just ouriders hunting down stragglers and encircling my prey. Right now i have them all with meltabombs, and one being magnetized with either a MM or a volkite culverin. Depending on what i want to do with them. 

The sergeant has a Terror marine head to distinguish him. i also filed down the aquilas in the front and put the etched brass there. 

They are a real damn treat to work on and i look forward to giving them some TLC 

that put's me more or less up to date.

But i also managed to close down on my last six Thallaxii. 

Two photon thrusters, one phased plasma phusil, meaning that i now have two squads of six

i guess "finished" is pretty strong, as i need to powder them and grime them down a bit, but for this part if their phase i'm real happy with them. I do however need to get some games in with them and take a group picture for my mechanicum. 

What are YOU doing for the warmaster? 

Ave dominus Nox -starting my Nightlords army for horus heresy

So as my Alpha legion project is kind of winding down, but still being open enough so that i can add stuff at a later date. But right now i only have a Spartan, two ordinary landspeeders to finish up. Now hopefully i'll get five more terminators to go with alpharius in a spartan party bus. But beyond that i am pretty closed up right now.

With that in mind i was looking to start a second legion. Now the initial idea was to move away from a massive armored company, the initial idea i had with all the hype around book seven (inferno) i was really set to do an elite thousand son's army, with a lot of veterans and terminators. If i chose doing "crimson guard" rite of war i could deepstrike the terminators and have a minimum of rhinos. I got as far as buying transfer sheets, armor pads, weapons and some extra stuff to model it all up.

And then.....nothing. i Heard all the hype around the internet and the backlash regarding sekhmeta pscyhic elite troopers,this combined with my steam running out meant that i kind of lost all drive to go further.

I was kind of torn if i was going to sell everything or put into storage. But then...then.....i remembered a list i did a long ass time ago. A terror assault list, mostly as a gedankensperiment to see what it would be like. This ties into the fact that i impulse bought a sevatar model on a whim. As i thought it was a badass modell and i really wanted to see if i could do a good job out of it.


So what i'm doing right now is going into an insane murderers list.

I'm still going pretty elite, i'm molding my list so as to have a terror assault Rite of war. The Terror assault is a list that focuses on lightning swift terror tactics and punitive assaults that are excellent at wiping out infantry. The troop choice you get "terror troops" are two attacks units that cause fear and can all take volkite charger, and have Preferred enemy. They are pricey, yes, but it is SO thematic. The Rite of war furthermore gives them the possibility of taking droppods or dreadclaws. Which means i can ignore rhinos.

The drawback is that you only get ONE heavy support, which compounds to the fact that you will be lacking Anti vehicular firepower. Obviously you can mitigate it slightly with adding a lot of fast attacks (with lightnings or xiphons) but you will try to keep at a theme, so a droppodding leviathan or a storm eagle is a good choice for heavy support.

For me, i am going with something like this

2k list 

Sevatar (or a praetor to get master of the legion)

3* terror troops with volkite chargers and a sergeant (headsman) with a nostraman chainglaive and meltabombs. all with droppods or dreadclaws

2* tartaros terminators with teleport homers and chainfists

1* jetbikes one with a magnetized multimelta or volkite culverin

2* contemptor cortus

1 * leviathan

1* tankhunting veterans

1* raptors.



Now the raptors and terror troops are in there becase i think the models are shithot. There is also a lot of inspiration you can garner with looking through book two

this is one of my favorite pictures for reference.

Terror marines

The black shoulderpads, the nostraman runes and of course the signature lightning strikes. It's all in there and makes for really unique force you can make. To cover for this i've already bough about...*cough* five upgrade packs for both heads as well as bodies  which, alongside with a lot of chainglaives cleared my budget.

Oh yeah shit, about that. I actually put together a budget, both monthly and total. And the purpose of this was to make sure that my money isn't running away (again) but it was also done since i am selling of some old projects for 40k that are not going to get done, but it's also a good way to keep to the inital list you do. I reccommend it. It means that i got a lot more restrictive with purchases.

Now as i mentioned above, one of the first things i did was do me up some tartaros terminators. The NL is one of two legions that can deepstrike your terminators (15 Pts per squad) and their rules (talent for murder: if you outnumber your enemy you get +1 to hit and +1 to wound) means that tartaros pattern is the way to go.

The sergeant is getting a chainglaive as well as a grenade launcher (run though cover like a badass)

The good news was that the terror assault heads fit perfectly in the Burning of prospero terminator. Meaning that it was really easy to distinguish who was the sergeant.

no alterations needed 

As for the rest of the squad you have two chainfists, one "reaper" autocannon and a combi-melta

The first squad will be niched to go after tanks, but i want a chainglaive as it means i can go after power armored foes.


As is easy to see above, i will have A LOT OF VOLKITE. I had some chargers lying around. So i did them like i usually do, with vallejos acryllics. Now, the downside to doing this with my "old" mold is that the new BoP and BaC comes without hands, the hands are on the bolters, and on the new volkites. It used to be that the hands were on the arms, and the weapons had handles. As featured below.

This meant that i had to cut hands from about thirty BaC bolters and attach to my terror marines. An excercise in futility that took me about two hours. Boy, was i glad when that was over.

starting out at least. 

And below is my first batch of MK IV marines. I will be getting on with having my veterans in MK III as they are going into the thick of it and don't need to be as mobile as they will have a droppod to go in.

One of my favorite things is defintely doing characters. With the terror heads and torsos you get a lot of character easily. The heads are great, sculpted skulls, cracks in face masks. Wonderfull.

The torsos have a lot of cool detail as well, small bones, scraps of flesh. It makes them very distinct and in my opinion they're one of the best FW kit.

The Chainglaive upgrade is really nice too, you get about half two handed, and half one handed, and you get some grasping hands like the sergeant below.

We have come for you.

what's next 

Above is a choice cut of what i have next, a lot of characters, and some droppods. 

Right now the next step is definetly doing the following

* ten man terror squad every second week

* two droppods and a anvilus as soon as i can 

* terminators to finish up in a month and then build another five

* close up one of my praetors 

* do my five raptors. 

Now, i am super stoked about this, and with the expanded Airbrush time i had this week, i have gotten this far. 

i still need to do metallics on all of them, and i traded for two javelins still in their FW bags that i need to do. But i feel really good about all this. Really looking forwards to moving on.

ave dominus nox. 

Assault squad 54- Alpha legion assault marines

Phew, so incoming posts.

This was a very productive week for me, between working almost 17 hours a day, and having the family visiting my inlaws it meant that as soon as i got home i cranked up ye ol' airbrush to get some good work in. First and foremost i've started on my new SECRET project (it's just nightlords) and i'd forgotten how fun it is to actually make real headway. I'm almost getting a real sense of progress when i can sit down and crank out a five hour Airbrush session. It means i need to cut down on my sleep to about three hours a night, which is sustainable for about a week, but then i need to hunker down and enter my odinsleep for about half a day. Mebbe twice over if time allows.

But enough about that. Thanks to the Age of darkness "two week challenge"   i actually managed to close down on some of my non airbrush related projects. This time it was for closing down on my Assault marines. Part of the new 54'th company, my recently formed veterans from the battles in the Cadoxd system. After realizing that their armored assault techniques where ineffective en-masse against the unified siege mastery of the Iron warriors, and coming up short against the lightning fast Maru skara of the emperors children, my Praetor council decided to form up two new formations of troops.

the 54'th a specialized assault formation that will descend on wings of fire and strike without mercy.

and the 69'th the Stoneburners. Compiled of the most merciless of my Armored elements, utilizing recently captured Phosphex and ammunition stores, they are rearming to bring even the indomitable IV'th to their knees.

What this means in real-world shit? I'm getting some assault marines, destroyers and heavy armor. TO scale up to apocalypse level events. It ties into the battles my guys are fighting. and it means that i know where to go next with my armies.

But right now, what i recently finished was my first assault squad for the 54'th leviathal.

I was pretty happy with my end.result and without descending into an endless circle of back-patting,  i think that these, alongside my avenger and terminators is the best work that I've done. And it's thankful to see that when placed close to the first models i did, a real sense of progress can be tracked

The entire squad, Pwoer weapons and sergeant at the fore

 I did a ten man squad to begin with. And in it i have a sergeant with Artificer armor, powerfist and a power dagger (+1 attack)as well as a handflamer for some overwatch and first turn clearing. The squad proper has two powerswords to clear out  3+ saves and then i figure i will get them all Melta bombs for some versatility.

The downside is that the points start scaling really quickly

These poses are probably my favorite

 I also tried my dab hand at doing a lot of spongechipping, but with a set of tweezers and a really small piece of packing foam. meaning that i got a lot of inconsistent random patches, i also went a bit heavier on the nuln oil than i usually do. Which i think gave a bit better contrast to the metallic blue.

Lägg till bildtext

I also took a lot more caution, and care in doing these guys. While they are "just" troops i wanted to give then a lot of attention and wanted them to catch some attention on the battlefield. and with that in mind i actually painted them in their separate parts. Which not only gave me better control over the details that i needed to do, but also lets me do irregular chipping as well as shading better.

Seeing as the fluff is that they are all veterans of their craft i took my time in giving them a lot of decals, and might even have gone a bit overboard, each guy has at least three of them, i chose to put a "large" insignia on the chest for the same reason as Batman has a large bat on his chest according to frank miller (draws fire there) but beyond that the whole model is basically just an excercise in using basic techniques properly.

Metalls are all leadcbelcher, nuln oil gloss and highlight mitril, the helmets are simply black with some eshin fine highlights. The decals are Microsol and microsot (HAIL MICROSOL!) with some light chipping on them. I think it all comes together pretty well.

And for contrast here is a latest done marine, with one of my earliest


some difference i believe