Ave dominus nox - A night lords project part 4, some real damn headway

The night is dark and full of horrors, but none so vile as those we unleashed with our coming 
- Lord marshall arius vilinus, missing in action after joint combat operations with the 8'th grand company of the VIII'th legion. 


so ever since Scandus there's been a tad of a lull with the reporting I've done on my night lords here, this is not to say that i haven't been working on them, rather the opposite, after looking through my first three posts i made the decision to not do any more write-ups until i had some "real" damn progress to report. So in the spirit of the thing, and after getting inspiration from the awesome armies on display at scandus I've been stealing moments from my adulting to outline, plan and calculate points and deciding on what color to give what armor plates. And whenever the family goes to bed early i plant my ass, pop on a podcast and get to work.

As stated in my earlier posts, the goal with this is put genuine effort into every model that i do, this is both to combat my painting fatigue (like most people i've put in my hours in batch painting marines) when it comes to doing power armor, and also to tie into the nature of my Nightlords terror assault based army, since most of the marines that were assigned to the Terror squads were chosen based on their inclinations to savagery and psychological terror, it seems obvious to me that they would be less cohesive in both aesthetics and conformity. Which means that i am freer in trying out different painting techniques, and also make sure that there is a running theme, while not being tied into doing every marine the same way.

I also want this to be an army wherein i can apply the techniques that i have picked up on since i started painting regularly again, like chipping, microsol application, zenith highlighting, airbrushing and bone work. While also trying new techniques and applications (doing gore and upping my basing). I also wanted to have an army that works "differently" from my Armored assault based alpha legions army, which i think is mitigated through using legion specific Rites of War.

So what have i done since last?


first up is my Xiphon interceptor, pictured below is before my last two layers of microsol, so the decal work is still a bit rough. But i have to say that i'm pretty happy with this one bar two things.

One is my unwillingness to try vehicle sized lightning, i chickened out and used the transfers from the FW sheet, as i didn't want to fsck up the beautifull modell.

the second part is on a more personal basis, the guy i got the traded model from (facebook trade) neglected to send a canopy, meaning that i can't "finish" the model, i checked around and a facebook friend (thanks Joakim!) told me that it is identical to the storm talon, so in a last ditch attempt i'll get one of those (he even sent me an ebay link, a real trooper) but i reached out to the seller and he said that he would try to get a new one from FW. so hopefully i can close on it soon.

i'm sort of attached to the reaper on the  wing, unfortunately the brightness of the picture does it NO justice 

the kit, just like the avenger strike fighter i built it was a real treat to build and paint. It fit together easily enough and this time i took the effort to just paint in parts. Which really paid off in letting me work unperturbed on the metallic parts. I'm going to use clear red paint on the canopy, so hopefully i have an updated picture soon enough

moving on, i've also finished two of the estimatedly three droppods i will need for inserting my terror marines. Nothing like the visual cue of luring an enemy into a n ambush and sudenly having my terror marines dropping from the heavens and wreaking havoc with their volkite chargers.

having never painted one of these before i have no idea on how much chipping is enough, but i figured i'll add some weather powder later. And have some soot stains go from the bottom of the hatches up to the first "curve" again, the brightness of the day means that these are pretty bad pictures. hopefully the next one's are a tad better


here's a group image of what i have finished so far of my 8'th grand company terror assault.

so far i have finished

one group of six terror marines, one executioner (sergeant) with melta bombs and nostraman chainglaive and all marines with Volkite chargers, and a droppod to boot

another group of six terror marines, one executioner (sergeant) with melta bombs and nostraman chainglaive and all marines with Volkite chargers, and a droppod to boot

- one group of six terror marines, one executioner (sergeant) with melta bombs and nostraman chainglaive and all marines with Volkite chargers, and a droppod to boot

- another group of six terror marines, one executioner (sergeant) with melta bombs and nostraman chainglaive and all marines with Volkite chargers, and a droppod to boot

- two Grav rapiers

- one xiphon interceptor

- five destroyers, with jump packs, and one missile launcher

- one legion champion/delegatus, with a mastercrafted nostramang chainglaive, jump-pack, melta bombs artificer wrought armor and volkite charger. also wearing trophies of judgement 

- One apothecarion (or possible primus medicae, we'll see) with nostraman chainglaive, volkite charger, and jump-pack

- three tank hunting veteran marines with combi meltas

so let's go through them one by one.

The grav rapiers (i still have one packed away and in need of finishing) will be stowed away in cover on my side of the board, since they lack infiltrating and scout, i will need to park them with good view in my deployment zone, representing the killzone that my nightlords set up before closing the trap. With their largeblast and haywire hits i'm not sure what they can do to Heavy armor like a spartan, and looking back maybe laser destroyers would have been better, but we will see, i'll start with running three of them and see what they can accomplish.

name yet pending 

 Up next is my only HQ choice so far, originally i figured i would have him serve as a company champion joining some raptors to deepstrike or jump in turn two and charge. His weapon is a heavy chainblade, i added some nostraman glyphs on the top and bottom to illustrate how it is artificer wrough (master crafted rule) but if i use him as a delegatus i will probably use it as a nostraman chainblde, he also has meltabombs, and a charger. Model-wise i was worried that it would look a bit "crowded" But it worked out in the end, this is also one my first attempts at doing gore, for which i borrowed my wifes hot-glue gun, my friends did it to great effect with his solar aux, and i thought it worked out pretty well, particularly as the extra glue only makes it look like gore stuck in the teeth of the weapon.

I wound up fairly happy with him, so i can definitely see that he is awarded a delegatus title in smaller engagements. The trophies of judement means that he gains fear, which might compound with the nightlords LA traits. BUt i won't be counting on it.

Now as noticed all of my Night lords are on cork bases, which means that they are a bit "taller" that usual, i don't really think it counts as modelling to my advantage, but i'll discuss it with my opponents.

my delegatus with veteran sergeants 

next up is my apothecary, as i mentioned in my previous posts i had an idea that i wanted to have one join each terror squad, but that leaves on extra, which means that i had one to boot. I popped a jump pack on him and figured he could join me raptors or my destroyers.

after looking at the entry in the forgeworld book, i noticed that he could get a Volkite charger AND a nostraman chainglaive, so it seemed like a good idea, so that he can contribute to the squad as a whole, this means that i forego artificer armor, but i think it's a fair trade-off.

Now in doing this guy i wanted to try free handing a skull that ended with his lenses, which are all done in "spiritstone" red  which is actually a pretty good color for doing lenses, gem stones and the like, unlike a bunch of the other products from the technical range it seems very indivisive for the gaming community, and i can recommend it whole hearted. I also chose to forego the scuplted apothecarion badge, and just used transfers, 

i also did some gore on both the narthecium and the chainglaive. showing the dualistic purpose that a nighlords apothecary would have in the execution of his duty.

i was pretty happy with the end result, and in lower points games i might use him as a primus medicae if he distinguishes himself, particulary as i can see my guys losing a lot of men.

next up is my first terror squad, this one is done entirely with MK III armor, as i have a lot of different armor marks (again giving a visual queue to the broken recruitment of marines) i found it hard to spread lightning out on the MK III unlike the MK IV. So i kept it to a minimum, a fact that was eased as i had some of the sculpted NL shoulder pads for MK III.

I've found, that ever since i got microsol and microsol as a part of my skillset, i've shied away from sculpted pads, i actually dislike doing these nowadays, i think they stick out a bit too much. But i will use them, and we'll see how it works out.

Executioner Zharos 

 This executioner ( i named him zharos) is one of the models i tried to imbue with some character, i wanted him to stand as if arrogantly challenging his opponents, i wanted the bearing and posture to exude arrogance, which i then enhanced with raising him up on some rocks, having him literally look down on those foolish enough to face him.

The skull masks from FW for the terror marines works pretty well with MK III  and i think it gives a good impression on him as a sergeant. But some of the heads just look better in my mind.

i tried giving everyone different poses 

 Giving everyone differnt poses turned out to be a challenge, since the MK III from the BoP is hard to alter, for me at least, but i think i succeded somewhat.

The entirety of the first squad 

There are six right now, i only need five for a squad, but i want to have at least ten, one with a flamer as well.

moving on to the second squad

executioner vaios 

The second squad is with my veteran sergeant Vaios, with him i wanted a sculpt wherein he is seen leading from the front, with a grasping hand as if beckoning the army  forward or enticing an opponent with a scalding challenge.

for my second squad, i did almost all of them in MK IV, which i think looks "leaner" when it comes to terror marines and the night lords, it also marries better to doing lightning, and i found it easier to freehand skulls on the helmet. Which gives it a clear visual marker.

The lightning looks better at a distance, i promise. 

 I kind of like this guy, he has a lightning strike on the helmet, which i will do more of, since it looks pretty neat, i also went a bit crazy on lightning and decal ling, as i think it looked apropos. When spreading terror you want the chattel to know who has come to claim them.

Three terror marines preparing to burn the target. 

pretty happy with it 

furthermore i did all the skulls with vallejos "old bone" paint, and then did agrax earthshade in the cracks (which are reaallyyy well sculpted) and highlighted with white scar. The guy on the left is one my old test models that i tried to touch up, but we'll see if i cant make him a bit better.


and below is a group shot of my terror marines exiting their droppods

i figure i will have them infiltrating until i have ten for each squad. Then i will have the terror marines in droppods, and my melta vets and a command squad in an anvilus.



So, what have i learnt so far?

well. Let's see

• Using the FW torsos for terror marines require forethought

Because if you just have them clasping chargers or bolters to their chest, almost one of the bones, scraps of skin and embossing will be unseen. Which is a bummer. Might be obvious to everyone else though. 

• Painting bone is easy. painting it well is.....hard? 

Just using the same approach as when i did skeletons a lot of years ago didn't really work, it just requires some patience, but still good to remember. 

•  use different brushes for doing lightning

This is just me sucking again, but when you do lightning, do yourself a favor if you are not a strong freehander. use a medium brush for your first lines, a detail brush for the lighter line, and a smal detail for the final white. You cna use a glaze to tie it all up.But i prefer not too. 

The idea above will save you a lot of hassle, if you are not a strong freehander, using the same brush for all lines is a really bad idea, as you will probably overflow. 

That puts me around 1250 points so far, my goal is having 2k playable before the end of december, as i am planning a game with my friends and his awesome solar auxilia. So next is probably a terminator squad and a durable HQ unit, but again, i need to sit down and kick out more terror marines, right now it takes me maybe five hours for five marines, but at least i am happy with the end result. 

still, gonna keep up the updates.