Ave dominus nox - A night lords project part 5, -approaching the end

"your grace", we have received your communication of surrender following the flensing of your fifth host, we have heard your eloquent speech and florent diplomacy, and in response we say only this. 

We did not come for your surrender, for in arriving we knew it inevitable.

We did not come for compliance, for it was ensured when the wind howls through the bones of your world. 

We came as punishment for your straying. And we will have all that we came for, and none if it will be given, only taken.

- Executioner zaros of the 8'th legion

recovered message from the dead world of hermostatii primus 

So, here we are, i am finally closing in on the final goal of having 2000 pts at the end of december. Now this is a wholly arbitrary goal of me wanting to close on the ever growing pile of resin heroin that was starting to add up in my closet. While also making use of some of the spare kits that had proven unsuitable for my alpha legion. The issue with that army being that i already have an excess of 5000 points, and adding further vehicles, walkers or flyers would be building and painting models that i knew would rarely, if ever, see the field. On the other other hand, if the idea was playing the models then maybe starting a new legion might not have been the ideal decision either. But still, i'm making headway. 

Right now I've gotten into a good swing of doing more casual painting, IE taking out five colours and doing some base metals, weapons or just four-to-five men when the family's busy, i think this is a good way of keeping my feet wet and still get shit done. Previously i'd usually make most of my progress in large drawn painting marathons after whisking my family off, and converting our humble home into a painting dungeon. Breaking out my airbrush, papering down most available surfaces and keeping everything in close proximity and then painting for about 10+ hours, it would usually end up with me refusing to sleep until everything was done with a model, which tended biting me in the ass, as i made a lot of poor choices in the end with my army, since it made perfect sense at around five in the morning, and the day after i would need fix that. But, it did work, i will give it that. 

So, what's been done since last time, let's start with the Elite choices (just like battlescribes) 

 I've expanded my apothecarion detachment, with two MK III apothecaries, armed similarly to my Primus medicae/jump pack apothecary. So they all have Volkite chargers and nostraman chainglaive. Stylistically i kept it very similarly as well ,with keeping his "apron" to look like flayed skin, and doing the lenses with the same spiritstone red gemstone color. All the vials are simply done with  red=>highlight red=> gloss from vallejo.

The one on the left is modelled to be looking at the battlefield searching targets of opportunity, and the one on the right is placed as if rushing forward with his charger.

The idea is to fit them into a terror squad each, so inevitably i need to model up and paint my last third apothecary. But for right now, it will make due. 

Three's for a company 

I'v also closed on my third damn grav-cannon. With my terror assault list the Elites spot and the fast attack slot is pretty heavily crowded, and with that in mind i'm looking at filling out each option. Of course, after looking at the army entry i've now come to the conclusion that the graviton cannon is better at mauling infantry, but i imagine that three large blast with hay-wire can do some work on a vehicle a turn, but we'll see when i roll it onto the field

Finally i added a machine killer veteran squad. 

nostraman runes on the chain blade of the veteran sergeant

I decided to try some more freehand lightning, this time with only white fine-lining, i think the result (seen on the sergeant above) actually worked out pretty well. I added Nostraman runes to the chain blade, but left out gore, as i did not want them detracted from. 

six man squad so far, with one meltagun and four combi meltas. I will probably expand them given time, but right now it feels sufficient. Using terror assault i can give my veterans a Anvillus dreadclaw dedicated transport, so i will. I've ordered some extra flyer stands from secret weapon, so i look forward to mounting them given time. 

Moving on to fast attack we have a restoration performed 

Anti-tank support coming in hot 

So i managed to finally receive a the storm talon canopy i ordered through ebay,. it only took about four weeks, still at least it arrived. And four weeks all the way from canada isn't that bad, considering people from my country would sail there only a hundred years ago, and that would take, what, four times that? 

I realized that the red plastic canopy gives it a Cobra-ish look, but i'm actually pretty fond of it. We will see what it accomplishes in the field, but again, i'm happy with it. And it ties into the color with the rest of my army. 

AV10 never looked so good

next up is some more anti-tank in the form of my javelin land speeder, since i only have the version with missile launchers i decided to give him a multi-melta, alongside the chance of deepstriking i hope he'll fare well, but if nothing else he can fly around and shoot shoot missiles at infantry or light armor. the increased mobility will serve him well as he'll fold quicker than a cardboard umbrella. Bolters can kill him. I jjust have to say, this model is beautifull, definetly forgeworld at it's best. I decided to off-set the midnight blue color with some crimson at the end, and the the black on the fornt plates, while also adding some veteran markings in the middle, and nostraman runes on the left hand side. I also gave the gunner a skullfaced helm, the goal was to make it immediately discernable as of the 8'th legion, which i think is clear. 

last up is my troops section, and dedicated transports therein 

I now (fukken finally) have three terror assault squads, each having seven members, with one sergeant with chainglaive and meltabombs, and one flamer per squad. 

first squad

 Each squad has a distinctly different sergeant, and a good mix of individuality of each member. To highlight the fact that terror marines are, for all intents and purposes, a free company of hand picked individuals.

second squad

as can be seen with the flamer to the right, and the Boltpistol chainsword lad behind him, some of them have a more "midning" like color scheme, which i did on purpose....after mistaking a bottle of vallejo air. Still, it ties into the individuality i wanted to project. I also modelled and painted some guys without chargers, so as to be able to add some guys with "only" boltpistol and CC weapons, in case i'm strapped for points or want to add one to even out a squad. I also think it gives the impression of  moving forward, which works with their sergeant (executioner) heeding them onwards

third squad

And with that we come to the last squad. As mentioned i have a mix of different armor marks, and i have also started doing gore on the chainglaives, which i think works for the sergeants at least. 

I also managed to close on finishing two dread claws, The models are wonderful detailed and they are struly distinct in their desing, but i found it a challenge to make them legion affiliated, i could have drawn lightning bolts, but i couldn't muster the courage to do it on the fins, and that is really the only place where there is a place for it, so i instead opted to take a leaf from Forgeworlds homepage, and went with attaching small winged skulls to the fasteners to the claw proper.

As these are meant to do ship-to-ship boardings, as well as atmospheric drops, i opted to pretty heavy with the sponging towards the bottom, and easier on it towards the top, but to not have an entire blue surface i took the time to paint all rivets and seams, to break up the monotony. 

army wide shot as of now 

And with that i am now fast apporaching a viable 2000 pts list before the end of December. 

I have a games-day  for the 16'th of December coming up at SLG gaming (and if you are in the stockholm area i welcome all participants) so i have a gun to my head about finishing up until then, all i really want done before then is my heavy support choice, IE the Leviathan siege dreadnought, but i would like to have a terminator tribune with a group of deepstriking terminators so as to have an option to my jump pack delegatus. Or doing a squad of night raptors and have someone that he can assault with. 

I also need to place a FW order for more volkite chargers as i am fast running out, and try to use all my remaining upgrade kits, as i may have gone crazy in ordering them. 

I figure i will probably jot something down for the game after the 16'th so by then we'll see what i chose to spend time on. 

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. 

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?