A new knight rises- march to the scandus system

Greetings

 so another step of progress that i did this last week was get started on my first knight.

Now' i have never built nor owned a droppod, a knight nor D-strength weaponry before, and i never really inteded to do it, but 2017 is starting to look like the year of altered expectations.

*I've started a droppod terror assault list army
*I now own two Knights, one in bag ready ro be built, one half built and started on

The knights in question both have D-strength weaponry, so, there ya go. Now the thing is i've never really had the inclination to own a knigh because, well, they seem lightly boring to me? I mean, at least they did in the seventh incarnation of 40k . I never really caught up to the "bring a low" to low points games, my buddies brought riptides, wraithknights,gorkanauts and knights, but i never really got into it, i part maybe because i played Dark eldar mostly, or deamons, and my armys fluff was never centered on allying with craftworlders, nor getting corrupted knights nor greater deamons.

But as my Mechanicum army is growing in prowess and power, it makes sense that they would have indentured knights in their servitude. Now, mechanically 30k knights are fairly similar to their 40k versions, the difference is in the fleshing out of their purpose, reason for fighting and how to compile a knight list, and therein lies the lure for me. This is what makes me want to have a knight, or even a small knighthouse (two knights are a fully legal knight house list). The backstory for my mechanicum is that they are basically put on a leash by my alpha legion, after being conquered in a harrowing campaign that see them defeated and their technocratic leaders put to the sword, they get used as a commodity of war and are expended as bloodcoins for which my alpha legion will pay the butchers bill. And as such, all their holdings and satrapies would fall to the 108'th as well.

However, not even the Alpha legions 108'th expeditionary fleet would call on such forces ligthtly, but in the face of their extensive losses in the  wake of the Hagvarian campaign, which, while seeing ultimate victory fall to the warmaster, would see little material gains for the 108'th. And little possibility of rearming and recouping the extensive loss of armored vehicles, the 108'th saw ample opportunity to call on another of the indentured mechanicums holdings. The knight house sworn to the laputan technocracys demesne. The knight house of "Lagado" sworn to the service of their mechanicum overlords in "exchange" for the rejuvenat techniques needed to keep them in ruling place. And such it was, that when the 108'th marched to heed the warmaster clarion call to scandus, the knight house of Lagado followed. 


The Scandus narrative tournament is more or less the biggest tournament in Sweden each year, it is a 3500 pts list game with four games over two days, with a raffle where you can win a full knight house! All you need to do, is go to this page, donate money to fight a horrendous disease that gets little real life funding, and at the same time have a chance to win a knight house, or A WARHOUND TITAN

tickets 


The event is hosted by the magnificent Verangian heresy, and as an extra tidbit there is the "knight joust" every year, wherein everone can participate by bringing ANY LoW for up to 500 pts, you then get a card with your loyalty on, (only you can know it) and there is a magnificent free for all wherein you fight until one side can declare victory!


furthermore, the Scandus tournament is more or less wher people have a chance to cut loose, and bring "bad ass list" Ie, why not a mastodon? or Three knights? it's a chance to bring that killer list, with the knowledge that others will as well. The words casual warhound is thrown around.

The point is not to bring a dickkicker list just to win, as it is still a narrative event for the system, and you can play ZM to bring your side reinforcements, bombarments, or material gains, and the lists and players are really nice and the cheese is pretty limited. As far as i can see from the lists from last year, and everyone thus far in the talks up to the tournament.

Anyway so how far have i come?

Well I started last week with pre-assembly:

having never built a knight i figured it would be a really hard assembly, but i was surprised at the ease of building, and keeping Carapace parts on the sprue for easier painting.

about three hours of work 

So i wanted to have a clear paint scheme worked out before i started. Now, the choice to have them mechanicum indentured meant that i was free to do something i had not done for A LONG ASS TIME. Getting up back on the tamiya saddle.  Now, as someone who has read my earlier posts knows, i had some real fugging issues working with tamiya when i started my AL (look at the earlier posts, they're pretty funny actually) But after listening to the Verangian heresy  and following their facebook posts i took courage, and embarked on the painting scheme in the Forgeworld masterclass book, with the exception of exchanging their Angron red for tamiya red, evenly thinned. But i'mgetting ahead of myself.

First i hit the chassis, and arms, with a layer of Vallejo black primer properly thinned, followed by a layer of Vallejo acryllic metals "gun" followed by vallejo acryllic metall "aluminium" then i hit with a zentih (50 degreees from overhead) with vallejo color air silver.

Auluminium

After this started the three hour process, now, be warned, the tamiya stuff will eat the rubber sealant for some airbrushes, particularly if it is already a bit used. And that may cause it to dry in the airbrush, if so, empty it, use aceton (or a better clearner) and take a break. Actually, taking a break is the best advice i can give, as you need to spray clear red on all parts, take a break for 20-30 min as it dries,otherwise it will "congeal" and the halfdried layer will move, like jello being forced away. Or just pool. And that is an ASS to fix.

Before i did the red however, i traced some shadows with calth blue, to simulate shading ,a technique outlined in the book, which i highly reccommend, it gives acool effect but at first you will probably think "dahell have i done?"

Now be warned, the first two- three layers will look pale, and splotchy, but around four and upwards you will see it start to take shape.

layer five or six i forgot. 

Now as always with Tamiya VENTILATE. That paint will aerosol faster than any other colour i have worked with, and it will start to stick to the room.

Now, for me personally, i cut the parts of armor from the sprue except for one connector, that i let remain, so that i have a minimum of "naked grey" parts wher i cut it loose, and it makes it easier to paint for me personally.

last layers in place 

 This is where we landed after doing all the red, the copper and the steel and silver. I'm actually pretty happy thus far, and now i just need to get started on the metal banding and ALL the brush work, but i would call it 60% done by now.

As for the base,i measured wher the knight will stand, and glued cork to the base, then i spread out martian ironeart over about 70% and left "naked" patches for martianironcrust. It will get better, but right now it looks like this.

the tamiya effect is really cool so far, but it tends to gloss a bit on potatocam. I will keep posting WIP and the follow up when i get closer to scandus.


10110

Avde dominus nox- nightlords project part 3

gretings

so i have actually made some meandering project progress with my nightlords.

As a part of the age of darkness i finished my first squad for the nightlords, and what i finished was a five man destroyer squad with jump packs, it just feels thematically appropos to have  group of marines descend on pinions of fire and callously firing nuclear radiated bolter rounds and missiles at their former brethren, the sergeant is equipped with a phosphex bomb, which i imagine will be my last ditch experiment to make them earn some points, as it is a pretty riscy proposition, seeing as i can only throw i 6" and it will scatter 2d6- 4. Still, feels completely in tune with my NL army so far.

sergeant in the center, ,marced with a "veteran honour" and a phosphex bomb

The entire troop is unfortunately a rather poor example in what direction it will go purely aestethically ,as they all have uniformly black armor, except their left shoulderpad wher i have decaled on the night lords mark, beyond that i gave their left greave an inscription of the VIII'th legion, the crimson of the trasnfer really matches of their black armor. Beyond that i wanted the rad grenades (which i assumed the rounded ones to be, as i can't seem to find them on other sculpts) with some oxidation, as i imagine that the contaminated materials would quickly eat through the metal, and did the same with the phospex. It's rather explicitly stated in the black book that being a destroyer is a rather ignominous duty that ends fairly quickly, so they all have a pretty large amount of weathering on them, but i refrained from doing rust streaks on the boltpistols and the armor itself. But rather focusing of chipping and painting streaks, from both descending into a battlefield and making a hell of it.

the entire squad so far. 

Beyond that i mostly focused on basics here, highlighting with a dark grey, shading a lot, and doing the lenses with the "soulstone red" technical paint fro GW, now the question that arose to my thus far is the following.


* should i do that for ALL my NL?
* and is the basing a bit lacking.

The idea of basing them all on ruins is still something that i feel fairly strongly about, but looking at it as opposed to some standard marines it looks a bit....flat? I've asked some mates that are stronger painters and we'll se what i get down to.

The lenses, is just because i did red lenses for all of my,,sixty? seventy? odd alpha legion marines, and i want to do something else, but i don't want to be garish for my NL army.

Now, as i painted these at two AM yesterday i got a hankering to start on my standard marines as well, and seeing as how i was already going i pushed my fatigued body through some additional painting.

Now, the inspiration for these actually goes out to a reddit user called Anthrax, who gave me a lot of good advice regarding lightning and skull painting, seriously give his stuff a look at, i more or less looked at his MK II and MK III terror marines and went "yeah, that's what i wanna do"

i did two guys so far, one MK IV and one MK III and one of the first things i notices was that just as Anthrax said that painting a skull on the MK IV is really easy and you can do it several different ways, you can do a rounded shape up to (lightbulb like) or just keep to doing the lower "face mask" of the helmet as a skull meaning that you get a half skull which still looks good.

For the MK IV i did a light highlight over my vallejo dark angel with lothern temple guard, and then the metallics, there after i did the lightning with four colors

I) lother temple guard
II) vallejo electric blue
III) fenris grey
IV)white scar.

i think that for future work, step 3 can be removed, i also need to do the lightning WAY smaller, as it currently looks good at a distance (table top) but kind of lumpy close up. I also did some lightning just under the charger between the joints, and i think i'll do that on future models as well. The Mask....i donät know, i kept to ushabti bone, but i think i need to highlight with white or something at a later date. i'll look at it later and make up my mind.

What i did learn was that studs are the bane of your fucking lightning, as it limits where you can have legion markins and lightning, and i don't want to crowd the poor murderer. A definite consideration for future models, also, the Terror torsos are not worth the money if you have a charger over the chest ;_;, well, now i know.

i also did a MK III based on the artwork in FW book three, which is why i have tears of blood, they're done with unthinned tamiya red clear, and look better in real life, but here it just looks cheesy. I also followd the apatethic fish  for his Night lords guide, and did all the "metal banding" in retributor gold, and then washed it with agrax twice over, for that classic NL color scheme, which i actually like.

Same with the lightning here, i need to get a smaller detail brush. i just bought an army painter brush, but it did a cthulu goes eating imitation and fucked up after two dips in water. So...a new one is needed.

better look at the lighthing at the joint

also, the same goes with my bases and lenses. I'll probably do the metallic red thing for these as well, but we'll see.

Next up? probably a drop pod. Or some scimitars ;)

While airbrushing this week i also started on some of the necessary reinforcements for my alpha legion army


I did this up with some new vallejo metallic acryllics (our saver) and i was really happy with the metallic look. I was even tempted keeping it looking like this, but instead i taped it and went to town with some gradients.

the end result with my AB being this.  Now, i'll take better pictures later, but the black stripes is to tie into my new Siege detachment that my AL have taken to heart after their vicious siege battles in the cadox system. So i'll need to trim and fix that. Also not pictured is that the entire "lower chassi" IE not raised parts, are done in more muted metallic blue. to give some clear gradients, and let me play around with some EXTENSIVE chipping.

After stepping away from my Al (creatively) for a while, it's a really stark difference in doing the metallic blue scheme, and i' at turns revolted and enamoured with it.

Still, i'll sort this out soonish.

What are YOU doing for the warmaster?