Creating your own Alpharius (sire of the alpha legion)

 Greetings

so one of the major watershed moments for any alpha legion player in the 31'st millenium is when you get to the point of wanting an Alpharius model. This is right up there with chosing your legion, and figuring out how you want to do your metallic scheme. Now for most Alpha legion players it tends to go like this (i assume)

I) Shit, what legion do i get into
II) f'ck how do i paint my alpha legion 
III) g'dammit, why hasn't forgeworld released my g'damn primarch, i'll go to their homepage and glare contemptuously at their other sculpts....Shit, i'll get model X and probably do a new legion project. 

 Now, Alpharius has had rules as far back as book III extermination, released around three years ago. And it is a running joke that A) Alpharius is EVERY model released and B) he is the last primarch and will be released last. As is proper, scum. (probably hail guilliman or sumthing). Now, as far as i know, Alpharius is the only "old" primarch (excluding book 6 &7 which are fairly new) that does not have a model. We know that Dorn is being worked on due to the sculpt preview done last open day. But for alpharius we have yet to see anything conclusive. There have been "discussions" and "rumours" that he will be released last, and there are open day confirmations that he will be done last. But that is about as much as we know.

Now, there are a couple of options for direct purhcases. The first one you will see whenever a thread pops up is the "hydra knight" from kabuki miniatures. Now with this model you'll have a properly sized and easily reconizable Primarch proxy from day one. Which is nab if you feel your proxy and building skills are a bit on the lax side. You have all the "snake" iconography and if you feel that it's a bit too much ,you can trim it down easily enough. you do however need to do something about the "sword" as Alpharius has a Spear, but that is easily enough done.

The next prime contender in my mind is from Scibor minitatures

This one is a good fit in my opinion, it's called a "spartan veteran"

He already has a freaky looking spear weapon, he has recognizable "sculpted" armor and a cool looking pose. The shield, while not belonging to alpharius, has a "alpha" mark on it, so it can easily be removed and salvaged for future needs. The helmet slipping off is, in my mind, a good way of showing alpharius dramatically unveiling himself

now, if you're good with a knife, and have the stomach for it. The idea will inevitably arise that you can do your own model.

So the question is, what base do we use for the body?

The first easy option is to use the stormcast eternal, they are slightly bigger than marines, they have readily modified "base" structures in regards to torso and legs, and can be easily altered to make it look like power armor

The second one that is "easy" is to use one of the recently released primaris models,

I've used an enlarged image, to get a good point of reference. You will, as opposed to the stormcast, need to remove stuff rather than add here. The Aquila, the excessive skulls, oath of moments and so forth. To fit into a 30k environment you just need to trim it a bit.

The last one is also fairly easy to modify, The praetor "limited" edition model released in 2016. You already have a spear analogue and if you use an alpha legion upgrade sprue head and add a tabard (either from spellcrow or Druchii raiders) you can get far with some easy transfer work in my opinion.

Other models of honorary mentions is, ironically, the model everyone thought WAS alpharius when the picture dropped. I am of course, talking about Armilius dynat. You get a good base model, you can adapt it readily, and it has a cloak, and nuncio vox needed. The arm has a hammer as opposed to a spear, but that arm is readily removed

Now, for me, i chose to use the old chapter master model for the minotaurs.

Asterion moloc 

the model has a gnarly looking spear, and a really dynamic pose, now, he has a shield that you can also use for other shit in the future as well.

All you need to do thereafter is to remove the sculpted minotaur marks on the left leg, the right arm, the spear and the left shoulder.

You are then left with a pretty utilitarian model

i then added a terminator GK hand, and took a plasma blaster from the BoP kit. And started painting. The one thing to keep in mind is of course to keep in theme with the rest of your army, but "upscale" it, this is the leader of your legion, and even Alpharius is said to have armor that "left no doubt as to whom had come to claim them" So i hit him with some black primer, and then some vallejo acryllics.


I then shot the cloak with some silver in a 45 degree angle in the raised areas( it billows so it's easy to see where it should be) and used mortarion green to get the impression of a scale cloak. Now, i kind of kick myself that i have NOT ordered the "scale" stencils from fallout hobby because then i could have just done silver on the stencil, and THEN clear green, which i think could have been a cool effect.


I then hit the spear with some silver from half up, and then did a mix of mortarion green, medium and some highlight of tamiya green.

And of course i did the "standard" way of doing alpharius himself . reasulting in this

After that it was mostly about raising up the details on this beautifull sculpt (beautifull lines of filigree on legs and arms) and using silver to pic out details, and shading my red to give the "slits" in the helmet a dark slightly subdued menacing glow.

Now, as there are bascially nothing to identify him as alpharius i decided to do a lot of decal work.

resulting in this

i used a larger transfer on the cloak. 

 Now for the cloak i used a big transfer, and microsol and microset made it SUPER easy to set. As for which decal to use, i was initially tempted to use the "chained A" which is awesome, but i wanted to avoid the whole "A FOR ALPHARIUS BY YOUR TREACHER COMBINED CAPTAIN SNAKEEEEE" since it would be a bit too.....cartoonish. So i went with an easily recognizable hydra

three decals on the front

 We have a smaller alpha with an omega on the cloak pin, a hydra in the greave, and an unbroken chain on the back greave. thank god for the variation of the decal sheet.

DRAMATIC REVEAL

And there we are. Im fairly happy with this, even though it took some time to get finished.

The one thing i sort of miss is an inbuilt "vox" system as the armor is said to have an advanced com. ssytem integrated, but i sort of assume that the artificer wrought technical miracle can integrate that INTO the suit itself.

So that is my alpharius, anyone else want to show theirs?

Commitment of 2016- Finished lessons and knowledge garnered

So here we are


i had originally hoped to conclude everything connected to 2016  before the actual end of the year, but still, one day late doesn't seem to bad.

Going into this the bet was that i would finish an "army" of approximately 1850 points before the end of 2016, the caveat being that if i did indeed NOT finish it, i had promised my significant other that i would purchase NO hobby supplies, minis or even paints for the remainder of 2017. for osme reason i had a knee jerk reaction of buying a metric crap ton of Gene stealer cults that i got a REALLY good deal on during the last days of December '16, so expect to see that pop up here rather soonish.

Anyway, getting back on track, The goalpost moved a bit since i realized that 1850 points isn't really an applicable points level for a "regular" 30k game so about August i decided to bump it up to a round two thousand. Now, by my humble calculations i hit 2000 points around Mid november. But with the predators i just finished up i have an actual playable army, that i have no doubt i will alter, reorganize or otherwise tweak. But now, at least, i have the models to do such alterations. It comes with getting multiple weapon options from Forge world, and the SEVERAL Calth boxes i have bought into. Without further ado. Here is my complete alpha legion thus far

getting everything into one single picture was nigh impossible with my crappy phone camera

and as such i split it into two separate sections, the left handed one has my two separate veteran sections, the one  with two heavy bolters in a rhino, and one with two meltaguns infiltrating. There is also a five man plasma squad in a Rhino with a Multi melta, just for some versatility, or in in case i want to give a group of veterans Machine killers and give it to the HB team.

There is also the sicarian, two preds and my landraider phobos.

The right hand side, containing most of my older models, has my ten man strong despoiler squad, and the ten man volite caliver squad and twenty boltermarines with a vox and and combi melta sergeant with melta bombs.  

And of course the rapiers and my ten man squad of recon marines. 

Now, by conservative estimates this puts me at around 2700 Pts taking into account that i cannot field all troops choices simultaneously, nor will i want to really field everything at the same time. But it does mean that i have tactical options available and can be used as i deem fit, it also gives me a couple of heavy support and elite options to play around with. Particularly as i can't decide on a couple of things at the moment

* are the Apothecaries viable in an outflanking Veteran squad, probably not
* do i want large groups of infiltrating AL legionarries?
* are the volkites really worth it?
* should i switch the Praetor for a Terminator clad one? and pop them all in the Land raider phobos?

The only one i have a clearcut answer to is the last one, where i feel like i really want to put my honoured Praetor, clad in all his honours, in a suit of cataphractii armor, swinging the paragon blade consilium this is of course the other part of the  Praetor pack you can buy from forgeworld, which is very evocative of the style of the heresy.



So, beyond these quandries, what lies ahead?

Let's count

• Leviathan siege dreadnought
• ten destroyers 
• a last predator to round out the squadron properly
• a twin kheres contemptor mortis with a havoc launcher (base coated) 
• five terminators with a praetor (basecoated) 
• a Shadowsword 
• and a final rhino, wherein i will need to get around to using an actual deimos kit 
• An assault squad (for versatility) 
• and a ten man squad of autocannons to use as iron havocs 

As noted above i am building up to using the coils of the hydra. Meaning that i need to have three solid troop choices that are either infiltrating, or all suited up in transports (which assault troops circumvent as they have no dedicated transport option). Alternatively, the Veterans used in a pride of the legion could outflank, but their punching power is far too dependent on their ability to come in from reserves, with which i would like to get a damocles command rhino to get that comfy +1 to reserves. 

Beyond the painting that is going on i actually got in my first two games of heresy this year, and i have to say it was really fun. But i'd like to find a group i can throw down with regularly, so i am on the cruise for dudes to play. 

my fifteen man tactical squad about to get REKKED by eidolon and his buddies

and my alpha legionairres advancing to charge a group of iron warriors. 

The games so far have taught me a couple of things 

• actually managing to infiltrate ten or more models is a real logistics issue if there are a lot of bodies on the board, as you need to take care of both distance, line of sight, and Equipment that just keeps you away
• Close combat without a clear advantage (like +1 ws or similar) is a drawn out and not particularly effective way. In the game above i had twelve marines, a praetor with a Pragon blade, digi lasers, power dagger and accompanied by a Apothecarie, and they stayed in combat for three turns and were locked towards the end of the game 
• There is no such thing as too much anti tank. as a rule of thumb. 
• Contemptors are good, but needs to tactically adapted to what you want them to do, or they will play second fiddle to both tanks and infantry. 
• Spartans are just.....hard to handle. I managed to wreck it with a lucky roll of 6, but the contents RUINED my day there after. There is a reason the spartan deathstar still lives. 
• Master of Signal bombardment is really good, like....REALLY good. I managed to get of two shots of ordnance S8 AP3. And took out three grav rapiers on turn one. Now,you can't expect consistent results on that, but still. 

I look forward to getting in more games, particularly now that i have an actual army to swing with. And hopefully '17 is the year i find a good gamegroup for Heresy. Or pull my real group into it. 

Also, for painting. it feel kind of good going from this 

on to this

and winding up with this

it kind of gives me a good clear progress picture of what i've accomplished, and i wonder what my army will look like in another year and change


Finally, a look at what is to come

Starting up my horus heresy Alpha legion 30K (Part III Production schedule)

Whew, been in kind of a blugging funk lately, so here we go, comin' up comin' up

AS noticed in my last post i had been completely seduced by the ease and result that one garnered when using an airbrush to do metallics. Moreover, i realized that it was a pretty unfeasible proposition to use my mates airbrushes whenever i needed to do some 30k stuff. Particularly as the alcohol based paint can wear on both the sealant and the needle unles you clean it properly, and it definetly requires meticulously cleaning in between each layer. 

So, in November last year i caved in and bought myself one for my birthday. 

I got the same one as my friend actually. We both have the harder and steenbeck pro evolution one. 

i'll probably review  it at a later junction. 

So armed with a compressor and a airbrush i started my journey into actually finishing some stuff (by this point i had Horus heresy modells lying unassembled for about half a year) 

As written in the last post. I had come as far as doing two coats of the tamiya mix (75 blue 25 green) and now moved on towards doing the highlighting and follow up (blue towards the top, green to the bottom simply put) The point of these steps are simply to make sure that you get a maximum exposure of metallic blue towards where the light would go. 

And lo' and behold. towards the end of my first airbrush session i wound up with a couple of models that were ready for highlighting. 

A sergeant with melta bombs and a hammer

A centurion model with an alpha legion specific head. 

A MKII command squad champion, with some different arm stances and an alpha legion head 

So i tried to remedy the situation by redoing a lot of steps. 

These are the models that got mucked up 

As i posted above, the ones i did by hand were staring at me with dissapointment from a corner of my hobby case, so i decided to try and save them, maybe make them fit for some "front of the squad action" and just fill out a unit. So i coated it with ye ole 75-25 mixture. And tried to go ahead. 

Unfortunately, i've had a lot of problems with my airbrush. So it took me ANOTHER two months to start doing details, but by December last year i had my first models ready. What i can say about these are that The guilliman glaze is a real treat for popping out the details.

So these were my first models. 

A tactical legionairre with a nuncio-vox, a sergeant with combimelta and a banner-less banner bearer in the background. 

One of my two laser destroyers. I was kind of happy with the rough metallic texture of the front shield.  

And the designated spotter for one of them.

 So that was the LONG winded start of my legiones astartes. 

A quick mentioning of the basing. I think that a good basing for the metallic blue is the white snowwy base, there are two reasons, the first one is that the white layering neatly offputs the metallic blue and brings out the light of the scheme without detracting focus from the model itself. 

The second one is that it is an easily replicated basing model. Which really counts when you are going to do 50+ tactical legionnaires.  

phew, so there we have it. My start. 

Starting up my Horus Heresy alpha legion (Part II deliverance)

So as i mentioned in the previous post. I had tried a BUNCH of  different ways of doing the Forgeworld recipe but i only got half hatched solutions that were,simply put, not up to scratch at all. Even to my standards.

Alas a wise Raven came to me rescue....No. Not hugin or munin, but my actual mate that goes by the moniker.

He runs a sweet Tau army with a cool camouflage patterned set of crisis suits, now the mere idea of CAMOUFLAGE is so ridiculously usefull and utilitarian, that it had to be invented by the renegade farsight enclaves. Which is what he rolls, what does that entail? Him blasting me with melta and plasma from all angles generally.

But still, enough bellyaching about the state of 40K. More bellyaching about my painting.

So basically my mate went, "hey, wanna borrow my airbrush for a session and see what we get?" Little did i know that the first free taste is what gets you addicted......

Now he has a Harder steenbeck infinity airbrush, with a matching compressor. Now, at the time i had no idea, but this is a really.really. REALLY good airbrush, only as good as the use. of course. But good for beginners and excellent for experienced users in regards to the details you can get.

Now to AGAIN reiterate. This is the formula i went after


1. AIRBRUSH WITH THINNED LEAD BELCHER/ IRON BREAKER (50/50 MIX) 
2. AIRBRUSH FROM TOP OF MODEL WITH THINNED RUNFANG STEEL 
3. MIX A LITTLE TAMIYA CLEAR GREEN WITH TAMIYA CLEAR BLUE (25/75 MIX) AND AIRBRUSH OVER THE MODEL IN 2 COATS 
4. AIRBRUSH ARMOUR PANELS WITH TAMIYA CLEAR BLUE. BLENDING FROM MIDDLE OF FIGURE DOWN, SO THE STRONGEST BLUE COLOUR IS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PANNELS 
5. AIRBRUSH FROM THE MIDDLE UPWARDS WITH TAMIYA CLEAR GREEN 
6. USING AN AIRBRUSH BLEND A HIGHLIGHT ON THE HIGHEST PANNELS (HEAD, SHOULDER PADS, TOP OF BACKPACK) WITH RUNEFANG STEEL WITH A TINY AMOUNT OF LOTHERN BLUE, EXTREMELY THINNED DOWN. 
7. APPLY THINNED COAT OF TAMIYA CLEAR BLUE OVER THE HIGHLIGHT AND BLEND INTO THE SURROUNDING AREA. 
8. USING A BLUE GLAZE, DRAG DOWN THE WHOLE MODEL ALLOWING IT TO SETTLE IN THE DEEPEST AREAS. 
9. SILVER – BASECOAT WITH LEADBELCHER 
10. WASH WITH NULN OIL 
11. HIGHLIGHT WITH LEADBELCHER IN STRIKING MOTIONS TO CREATED CHIPPED AND WEATHER APPEARANCE 
12. HIGHLIGHT WITH IRONBREAKER

I actually printed it out and had it laminated next to me. 

basing (step 0) 

So started by basing all the ones i was going do black, using Vallejo standard black primer. 

After this i ran into a snag, i had failed to notice that my one bottle of leadbelcher had dried out. Oh shit son! My friend, full of calm and wisdom suggested i move away a bit from being GW centric, and broaden my horizons...live a little.....

Falling for his husky tone and slender frame i quickly agreed. Where was the harm, really? 

Nowhere actually, i went with testing the Vallejo metallic range. And it was good. So good. 

sin in a bottle. Albeit a new sort of bottle for me. 

Step 1 

Having replaced the leadbelcher iron breaker step for a different selection colours ( thinned chainmail and metallic black) i moved on with priming approximately 30 Alpha legionairres, HQ's and two rapiers platsforms. 

Now, had i been more experienced i would have realized that this step alone would take more than an hour (my estimation) but still. lessons learned 'n all dat' zog 

Step 2 

moving on from the first step, i gave all models a slight shine of silver from overhead. To get a nice shine of depth. 

I was kidding with my friend that if i had done iron warriors i'd be half done now. Then i cried a bit in pitying myself. 

After being slapped into a semblance of normality,i moved on. 

Step 3 

So this is actually what the mix should look like in Step 3. 25% tamiya clear green 75% tamiya clear blue

After using my friends mixer bottles and thinner, i concocted the base mix of colours, and started doing models.

As is readily visible, after the first coat, you will have some transparency to the metall underbase. Which is why it is so important to be neither to silvery,nor to leadlike  

just plugging some despoilers here. 

Afte doing the first overpass you are going to want to let it dry off. Here is a good tip again. 

CLEAN YOUR AIRBRUSH INBETWEEN COATS. 

The alcohol based paint CAN and WILL deteriorate the metal, and rubber parts of the brush proper. So you will want to do a quick clean between each "drying phase" or not. It is up to anyone of greater experience to chose themselves. 

So the following pictures are after the second coat in step 3 

The second layer gives a nice depth, and really brings out all the details in the Alpha legion parts used on this model.

 This is actually one of the first models that i tried to do by brush. I simply sprayed it with a light step 1 and onwards.

bringing out the model on the left, as we will follow him on the rest of this little trip i am sketching out. 

And this is as far as i got for my 30+ modells in the seven or so hours that i i borrowed my friends airbrush, overall i was really glad to give it a swing. And the result finally lived up to my expectations.

But i was not nearly finished, was i? 

Starting up my Horus Heresy alpha legion army Part I (What not to do)

G'evening

so as the sun gently nestles 'neath the horizon i pour a large whiskey and start chronicling my humbling experience in painting the Alpha legion

So as i outlined in the previous post i had some....problems...with doing my horus heresy 30k Army. The gist of it is that i was totally enamored with Forge worlds own formula for doing the Alpha legion, yet a crucial part of the formula is to work with several thinned layers of Tamiya's own clear series.

Now for those of you that don't know, Tamiya basically does a high end of painting supplies and models, whose intended use is mainly for model cars, aircraft and high quality army miniature models. Their items can be summarized as High-end, in the sense that quality, materials, and items are all of the highest standards. But might run you on the pricier end of the cost spectrum.

Their Clear series is a line of alcohol based paints that,when properly thinned and used are great over metallic surfaces for a clear irridescent shine. I can also recommend using them over clear plastic (like cockpits) for your 40k models, as it gives a great tinting, as one would expect of say..Eldar aircrafts.



So the basic forgeworld recipee is, as i wrote earlier. As follows

1. AIRBRUSH WITH THINNED LEAD BELCHER/ IRON BREAKER (50/50 MIX) 
2. AIRBRUSH FROM TOP OF MODEL WITH THINNED RUNFANG STEEL 
3. MIX A LITTLE TAMIYA CLEAR GREEN WITH TAMIYA CLEAR BLUE (25/75 MIX) AND AIRBRUSH OVER THE MODEL IN 2 COATS 
4. AIRBRUSH ARMOUR PANELS WITH TAMIYA CLEAR BLUE. BLENDING FROM MIDDLE OF FIGURE DOWN, SO THE STRONGEST BLUE COLOUR IS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PANNELS 
5. AIRBRUSH FROM THE MIDDLE UPWARDS WITH TAMIYA CLEAR GREEN 
6. USING AN AIRBRUSH BLEND A HIGHLIGHT ON THE HIGHEST PANNELS (HEAD, SHOULDER PADS, TOP OF BACKPACK) WITH RUNEFANG STEEL WITH A TINY AMOUNT OF LOTHERN BLUE, EXTREMELY THINNED DOWN. 
7. APPLY THINNED COAT OF TAMIYA CLEAR BLUE OVER THE HIGHLIGHT AND BLEND INTO THE SURROUNDING AREA. 
8. USING A BLUE GLAZE, DRAG DOWN THE WHOLE MODEL ALLOWING IT TO SETTLE IN THE DEEPEST AREAS. 
9. SILVER – BASECOAT WITH LEADBELCHER 
10. WASH WITH NULN OIL 
11. HIGHLIGHT WITH LEADBELCHER IN STRIKING MOTIONS TO CREATED CHIPPED AND WEATHER APPEARANCE 
12. HIGHLIGHT WITH IRONBREAKER

however as i lacked ready access to a airbrush i figured i would follow step 1-2 and then do the mix as outlined in step 3, and apply a thinner, and then cover the model in two light layers.

This garnered the following result 

Technical failings on other parts aside. The Problems is that you get a very "patchy" application. However, not to be deterred i attempted to use varying amounts of thinner. And experimented with adding more Tamiya green

The guy in front is the one with the "darkest" cover of Tamiya clear blue and green

Now, having just trial painted five different models. And finding that there was just no success to be had without an airbrush, i decided to try a different approach. However, there are two good points to learn from this sojourn.

I) Tamiya Clear green is a definite "Sub" paint. For those who haven't painted houses or the like this basically means that, when mixed with a paint of equal viscosity, it melds with the other component and adds a tint, but not a clear mix. 

this is important how? : Because it taught me the need of several separate layers of tamiya green when Airbrushing 

II) When doing a metallic layer, you simply cannot have a bright undercolor . you need a dark basecoat, and then added silver hightener to bring out the details.

Still not wholly deterred i attempted to redo the formula with a darker basecoat (more  leadbelcher less steel) . Which turned out like this. 

Huge honking fingerprint aside, it was getting better, but simply not what i imagined, nor what the FW scheme looked like. 

I scoured the interwebz and looked at different forums as how people had done Alpha legion, and i found one post on bolter and chainsword that advocated a sotek drybrush, followed by a darkblue wash. 

Now i had previously been bequeathed a bottle of the following from a mate 

 

Which i thought would fit the role qutie well. So i took a model i had done from spare parts and tried the following formula

I)basecoat abaddon black
II) prime with Vallejos green-blue
III) wash drakenhof nightshade
IV) edge highlight details with runefang silver

The result looked like this

Now this is a pretty rough draft of what it looked like, since i was pretty fed up by this point. So it looks a bit more polished today. I kinda digged the end result. It was nifty, and i made a point of remembering it. But it wasn't what i was into.

So i gave it one last shot.

Back to the Webz i went.

I found a third way, which involved alternating washes.

Basically


I)Abaddon black
II) base leadbelcher
III) highlight with runefang silver
IV) do a drakenhof nightshade
V) do a biel-tan shade
VI) alternate the two as desired. With an inclination of Drakenhof as the primary component
VII)Highlight with silver on "raised surfaces" and add more drakenhof

This resulted in this model

Which,again, while looking decent. Just didn't scratch the itch i had.

So by this point i had more or less given up, and longed for the sweet release of death. Or well, a bit less dramatically. For the sweet smell of airbrush.

Little did i know that salvation laid less than a hands reach away.........