Raptor Legion corsairs

A while back I'd had the idea to paint up a few "corsair" type chaos marines in my loyalist colours - some fun figures and could use them for alternate weapons or such.

You might remember seeing a few of my flesh tearer khorne icon bearers or khorne death company - well I have finally gotten around to painting a couple I did for my Raptor Legion - couple extra PP.

I can see doing some blending/CSM lists using my loyalist troops - Badab War factor goes a long way - been thinking of some warp talons to double as a dark fury squad in more night lord colours, I used a bit of blue wash in place of green on both these guys.

One just had some chaos-y bits and a special weapon (magnetized) - always thought it was dumb codex marines could only get flamers, but for now I could use him to add another "blood angels assault squad" using my Raptor Legion assault marines but get an extra melta in there.

One is the dual lightning claw chosen from the dark vengeance box with a jump pack added. A useful swap for my current assault marine sergeant when points allow.

Sorry for the photos, pulled out the lightbox but need to get back into practice.

Raptor Legion scouts

Got the Raptor Legion scouts finished up. I used Iyanden Darksun foundation on the holsters and pouches - I think it works well as a "coloured" fabric. The yellow helps to keep the number of colours down and it worked with a single wash of Devlan Mud.

Added the usual decals - I found some old one's from the imperial guard chimera sheet - they will suit for the right hand shoulder pad to identify the squad (even though I doubt I will ever do any more scouts for this chapter).

Technically they need a quick swirl of coloured wash on the bases and sealing but that will get done when the humidity drops a bit - lots of rain here the past few days! 5 more painting points - definitely on a roll this year!

WIP Raptor Legion CC scouts

One of several projects I have ongoing at this time is getting these Raptor Legion scouts painted up. Our house is quite dry and I am starting to find paints dried out - I didn't want this to happen with the last of my gryphonne sepia so I decided to get these guys painted sooner rather than later.

One difference from the rest of my Raptor Legion marines is these guys have some cloth - to keep a limited palette I decided to use dheneb stone for the cloth similarly to the weapons.  They are also covered in holsters and pouches - this is where I need your help.  Should I do those dheneb stone as well or add another colour to the mix - a leather type is my thought.  Opinions?

Some painting finished earlier...

I mentioned in the previous post I had managed to get some painting done in the build up to the family addition.  This raptor legion tactical squad had been assembled and partially primed for a while, so I tidied up the old primer grittiness by scraping with an exacto and gave them another coat.  Then I followed the same pattern as my older models using mostly washes with a bronze metallic and some dheneb stone for details with a touch of metallic-y yellow.  They still look great IMO and are super quick to output.

test photo from within display cabinet

With the latest codex release, the Raven Guard have their own Chapter Tactics that have altered slightly from the stuff previously implemented with Shrike.  Forge World have also released some chapter tactics for the badab war chapters and it gives rending to boltguns/bolt pistols if they don't move (classified temporarily as heavy to ensure no crazy combos with the dark angels salvo banner - damn!)

I am pretty torn on these guys - I have 5 assault terminators that I think I can get assembled and painted before the year is out (I still have aspirations of beating my target of 100 painting points) and along with the models already done that would be right close to 1000 points of marines.  A squad of scouts or something would put it near that level.  At that point I am wondering if it's really worth hanging onto or if I should look into trading/selling it.  I need to cut back on the marine armies as it's obviously a bit overkill and I would rather keep armies that play differently (like the Ravenwing army) instead of tons of tactical/assault squad based armies.  Any thoughts?  Or suggestions on the one thing to add to this to bring it around 1000 points and maybe make it more appealing?

one little objective

Literally... Just a quick one today to rack up my first completed painting point for 2013.  I have a number of projects all ongoing at the moment, which is a little different to the usual - but that's ok. I originally built this up thinking of an old necromunda scenario where you infiltrated into a spyrer lair and it was all booby trapped!  This has a bunch of little lasers from an old epic model and then I just hacked together some electronics/power cells and hid the whole bunch behind a little piece of ruins. I used the shaft of an old power axe to act as scanner.

40mm objective

It sat in that state (primed black) for a long time, I was thinking it count also count as an objective for my space sharks, but I recently thought it might suit my raptor legion and so started painting it up and based it similar to those figures. It was fun to paint and gets me off the mark.  Although I've just noted that I haven't painted the laser barrels - better fix that now!

Crusade Week: Raptor Legion!

image used without permission - copyright "Forge World"

Day 4 of Crusade week brings up to the Raptor Legion. I think the "camo" scheme is what tempts most folks to plump for the Raptors, it definitely did for me! Although I plan to use their standard scheme (the blue & yellow) for my 1st company veterans!

Check out the following;

• Crosser Modeling
• Defending Humanity
• diceRolla
• Eagles View

If you have a Raptors army, link your label in the comments below and I will both add you to this post and start following!

Raptors: Deathwatch Marine... complete (kinda)

Here's some updated pics of my Raptor Legion deathwatch marine.  I had to get him done quickly last week in order to submit him to The Fallen Princes Badab War character competition.  I figured out how I'm going to do the yellow on my first company Raptors (shoulderpad is much more muted and pastel than the bright yellow of second company - first company will have no camo) and as well I think I will update the rest of the Raptors bases with a little more green wash over the swamp scrub as on this mini.  A little water effects or something and I think they will really start to come together.

love how dynamic his pose came out

I say he's "kinda" finished, since in order to enter him to the competition (ps. voting has commenced - vote here! but not for me, the other entries are so much better!) he was supposed to have a combi-flamer w chain blade attachment.  In the end the chain blade was too much, but I did end up magnetizing a hand flamer from the death company sprue to attach to the bottom of his bolter.  I will probably end up magnetizing an infernus pistol and possibly plasma pistol to give him all three options.

good view of all the raven guard bits

You can see I used a bunch of FW raven guard parts.  I'm ok with it as there's lots of similar iconography on my counts as Shrike.  Even for the chapter shoulderpad - I'll just say he's allowed to use personal icons as a mark of honour for being accepted to the deathwatch - although he still has a small shoulder shield to match the camo colours of the rest of my Raptor Legion second company.  The bird skull and backpack really give him some personality.  I'd like to thank Chris @ Crosser Modeling for giving me a vote - his Laufrey is a better choice based on the criteria at minimum (better paint job and weather too!)

Badab War characters competition WIP pt1

Here is a couple quick pics of one of the models I plan to enter in this competition. I originally built this guy just so I could tie my Raptors in with my other chapters. Once I saw the competition details I started to think about modifying him so he could be submitted.  Here he is as originally built, way back in January - but with some partial paint in the same style as the Raptor Legion Chaplain I finished as my first painting point in 2011.

Raptor Legion deathwatch marine

Here you can see I've magnetized a hand flamer from the new death company box to attach to the underside of his bolter so he can count as "Sternguard Sergeant Laufrey". I need to figure out if I really need to add the "chain attachment" or not.  Also got me thinking maybe I should do a melta attachment from an infernus pistol, might as well right?!? ;)

Counts as "Sternguard Sergeant Laufrey"

Shrike Fail... or how I had fun in a mini 40k tournament.

This past weekend I participated in a "mini-tournament" at GW Yonge & Lawrence which turned out 18 players - not so mini after all!  There was a GK type theme with each game having some special daemon/warp related rules.  There were three games in which there was one of each basic mission/deployment type involved.  I brought a Shrike based list just for fun since I had just painted up my Raptors jump pack equiped Chaplain.  Also thought a massive first turn charge would be awesome!  Unfortunately for me, the armies I faced and the deployment/mission rules meant I never got a chance. :(

Shrike
Chaplain w jump pack
6 TH/SS terminators in Land Raider: Redeemer
10 Assault marines w 2 flamers, Sgt: bp & combat shield, lightning claw
10 Scouts w 4 shotguns, 5 bolt pistol/ccw, Sgt: shotgun/power fist
10 Tactical marines w flamer, multi-melta Sgt: bolter/power fist in Rhino
2 Land Speeder Typhoons
1 Predator w Autocannon

Game 1 vs. Mike F (Salamanders - Vanilla Marines)
Mission: Seize Ground (4 objectives)
Deployment: Spearhead
Result: Win (2-1 objectives)

** Special rules for this battle meant that if a unit was controlling or contesting an objective at the end of their turn, they needed to pass a Ld test on max Ld 8, each point you failed by would remove one model.  If you were outside of 6" of an objective you gained +2 to Ld. **

Mike is my buddy who lives nearby and has gotten me to start coming to this GW for gaming.  Since his army had three drop pods and he was most likely taking first turn, I chose to reserve everything which meant no first turn charge.  It meant he lost two turns of shooting but also that my reserves came on too piecemeal to really cause him any problems.  Unfortunately for him he forgot to move his troops close enough to secure objectives on his turn 5 (he was hovering nearby to avoid taking warp casualties) and the game ended, giving me the win on a silver platter (lol! sorry Mike!)

Game 2 vs. Aaron P (Orks)
Mission: Capture & Control
Deployment: Dawn of War
Result: Tie (1-1 objective)

** Special rules for this battle was a storm cloud that would randomly move each player turn and caused d6 S6 hits on any unit it touched, but also gave a 5+ invulnerable save to any units within 6" of the cloud. **

Played against Aaron and his awesomely painted Orks.  His army seemed both extremes; Snikrot w burnas is crazy, but his nobz in battlewagons weren't wound allocation builds and then he also took multiple units of grots which were almost a waste of points.  I made a crucial error not running my assault squad as they came on which left them vulnerable to Snikrot - if they hadn't taken a mauling there, there might have been some marines left to contest his objective.  As it was, he managed to kill Shrike in the last assault phase of the game, with my tactical marines in the bottom of the bunker his objective was on top of - unable to contest.  A great battle that really swung back and forth - though I have to say he never looked able to contest my objective.  Very close game with a great sportsman.

Game 3 vs. Mike K (Lamenters - Blood Angels)
Mission: Annihilation
Deployment: Pitched Battle
Result: Loss (0-7 KP)

** Special rules for this battle turned a sergeant or squad leader type model into a "vessel" trying to contain a daemon.  Could not shoot or attack in CC, but gained 2+ invulnerable save and auto-pass any Ld based test. **

This game did not go in my favour at all.  The vessel rules really kind of screwed me, I was definitely lacking enough power to take out vehicles (especially AV14) and losing a power fist to becoming the vessel didn't help.  I also made a huge deployment mistake, infiltrating my scouts and assault marines - but not deploying enough elsewhere to force Mike to deploy anything so he just reserved everything.  I needed to deploy more units at the beginning since what ended up happening was he just stood off from my fleeting army and shot me to bits with his preds and land raider.  My deployment from reserves left something to be desired as well, since I pretty much blocked off my own reserves from coming on where they could impact the game.  Oh yea, blood talons are scary good, his DC dread tore through my entire assault squad in one turn.  Brutal.  Didn't get tabled since we were mostly in a stand off, but at 7KP to 0 I think that's mostly semantics.

So all in all a very enjoyable day getting to play some more 40K and seeing some old buddies/meeting some folks who I only knew online as well.  Looking forward to the next one if I can make it - I gotta get more stuff painted up though as I was one of 4-5 armies that weren't fully painted.  Those that were looked really good too.

Raptors: Chaplain with Jump Pack

First painting point of 2011! At least I managed it in January, I started on my terminator librarian conversion for my Novamarines, but kinda stalled out.  To go along with the Raptors paint method, I used only washes on his armour.  Unfortunately I think I did one layer too many, I started on a grey undercoat and did 5 coats (black/green/black/black/black) - I think he looked better at 4 coats.  As with my counts as Shrike, I didn't do any special highlights.  I seriously think when I have a decent army of this chapter they will look great for the amount of time put in.

In this pic you can see the chapter icon decal I used on his left shoulderpad.  For his helmet I just painted on a thin layer of dheneb stone foundation paint before using various splotches of washes.  Again I think I went a little far - it looked a little better before the last couple strokes.  Still I'm not overly disappointed, he still looks pretty bad-ass and I'm sure will be a welcome addition to an assault heavy chapter.

A little bit of scenery hedge and I'm pretty much done.  I've just noticed now though that Shrike has the tubes on the back of his jump pack in bronze, and wondering if I should do the same for this character, it might break up the large black area - what do you think?

Been a busy boy...

Here's what I've been up to over the past couple weeks.  Early in the year I called about booking the hobby room at our condo so I could get some stuff primed.  I like to have lots of stuff in this state as it means if painting motivation/inspiration comes to me, I can act on it more easily.

In this batch there's my Mordaci Blaylock conversion and an AoBR tactical squad for my Novamarines, Pedro Kantor, a sternguard squad, a devastator squad, a land raider and a rhino for my Crimson Fists, finally a jump pack chaplain and my deathwatch marine for my Raptors.  I also tried to undercoat a tactical squad of Raptors white, but the can was pretty empty and it eventually started getting gritty so I stopped.

What's the best thing I should do for the poorly undercoated white guys; should i just give them a brush to see if it removes the grit? strip them and start again? any other magic tips?

Raptors: Deathwatch Marine

I built this guy somewhere in Nov/Dec last year.  I had ordered a pack of the fw raven guard upgrade pack even though it was not built for Raptors as I knew I could use the beakies w laurels for my Space Sharks and the old style backpacks for my (planned  ;-) ) Iron Knights.  Since my Shrike has the RG symbol on him too I figure they won't be too out of place and I can just say it's his own personal heraldry.  He does have a little mini shield on the RG shoulderpad with the same symbol as the decal I used on Shrike, which I think I will do in the camo colours and should help tie them together (to top it all the fw bolter has the same symbol.. =O )

As with all my Deathwatch marines he has a banner that attaches with a simple pin.  This guy will actually be very helpful replacing tactical squad sergeants, or beefing up sternguard squads.  To follow suit with the Raptors stuff I already have, I will be painting him using mostly washes.  Since he will be mostly black I will probably start out priming him grey.  My jump pack equipped chaplain I picked up recently will be painted in the same manner.  His chapter shoulderpad is actually going to be yellow with black detail, as all my first company units will get the non-camo Raptors scheme.

Shrike... but not Shrike

I just finished up my Raptors version of Shrike. Just the plain Shrike model painted in my Raptors scheme. I didn't really lavish attention on him as the whole raptors 'washes' paint scheme is more speed over quality. This model also wasn't the best cast - There were some big gaps around the power connector of his right lightning claw, and I think that a whole little piece of detail is missing under his right arm. I won him as part of winning the Tale of 2HD Gamers at Two Headed Dragon.
The only thing I really did other than the paint job was the decals. Standard army badge on the left leg, and I found a yellow winged claw with a tiny S rune in the wing on a sheet of chaos decals. You can just see it in the leftmost pic.

It's nice getting to play with the SM named characters and using the various chapter tactics. Shrike is the third special character I've used. My Novamarines includes a 'counts as' Telion & Tigurius. Using Shrike has whet my appetite for some assault terminators. Also making me think about painting another special character. I have a Cassius conversion for my Space Sharks and a Pedro Kantor model (with 15 Crimson Fists painted already) available. NO. Must focus on wargs. Arrrggh. Oh and I just realized I haven't written on his purity seals at all, better do that now!

Badab War playaid is available!!!

Play Aid: Badab War @ Bell of Lost Souls

This looks just as incredible as I was picturing, just having a quick browse while I'm at work - but definitely will be reading the whole thing tonight. The quality of it is literally beyond words.

FYI.. My space sharks rhinozerback I entered in the Badab APC challenge is pictured on page 20! W00T for me!

Raptor Legion assault squad finally done... Crusade chapters +1

Finally have my raptors assault marines finished. Getting the jump packs prepped just took too long. Pretty happy with the way they've turned out, swamp bases are looking nice too - they'll need another coat of Tamiya Clear after I've sealed them. Still need a flamer to finish them up. Decals worked out pretty well on these guys, next up for the raptors is Shrike and then a tactical squad. This makes four chapters I have painted models for, so the plan is to try to start another round with these chapters before starting painting on any more - I'm thinking of doing the Space Sharks dreadnoughts next.

Painting points wise, this has put me up to 166 in 215 days, which puts me around 7% ahead of schedule. Hopefully I can keep that up so when holidays and such roll around I don't get too far behind.

Raptors Assault squad - progress to date

Well I needed some pics for a "Tale of X Gamers" (for which I'll only be getting half points since they don't even have painted jump packs yet) so I figured I'd post them up for you to see. I'd hoped to have these guys done by now, but I still need to fix up the jump packs and prime them. Once that's done, it should only take one night to finish up.

I've also added a poll at the top of the page, please vote for the green colour you think I should use for the bases - I'm currently leaning towards Catachan Green;
Far left = Catachan Green
Left = Dark Angels Green
Right = Woodland Green
Far right = Goblin Green

Raptors test mini

It was a gorgeous day today so I got my Raptors assault squad completely primed up. Realized I'd promised some pics of the test mini - which was done using just washes for all of the armour.

Would appreciate some feedback, you'll notice the armour is quartered, I gave 2 quarters an extra green wash. Everyone I've asked has been 50/50 on whether they like that or the lighter one. Also, which metallic should I use? The bronze really pops but not sure if I like it. Finally do you like either of the colours on the eagle?

Front

Back

Left

Right

Weak on the updates

So I realize I've been lax on the updates, lack of camera = lack of photos.. So I figured I'd fill you in on what I've been up to in the meantime..

• I completed painting the ranged Novamarines scouts (6 with bolters, sniper rifles and missile launcher), this was for the Tale of 2HD Gamers competition so the motivation was there. Going in on Friday.
• I also built a 3rd objective for this army. It's a wounded veteran marine with a broken leg and blown off arm - throwing that last ditch grenade. I actually really liked how this came out and am pumped to paint it once I get a chance to do some priming.
• I've been investigating card & scratch built models. I did up a very simple rhino I printed on card stock with the Space Sharks logo. I actually printed 8 so I could use them as rhinos for a battle company in Apocalypse and thereby use my magnetized rhinos as tanks. I also did a couple terrain pieces, a very simple & cheap gun battery (battery is card, glued onto an upside down small paper plate, which was painted and flocked) that probably only took 20 minutes of working time, and a nicer strongpoint which was from a template and built into a hill with some camouflage netting. More card related stuff to come.
• Speaking of which, I took the imperial command 40K markers from rocketshipgames.com and created a reverse side with the Novamarines logo. I plan to make a set of counters for each army.
• I did some more details on the Novamarines captain, terminator sergeant and deathwatch marine. Mostly playing with painting the power swords, and I have an idea for how I want to paint the librarians force rod.
• Then I got bored without stuff I really wanted to paint primed, so I built the 5 assault marines that came in the battle force box I picked up. I've built them as Raptors, which I plan to build up led by Shrike. The sergeant has a lightning claw, bolt pistol & combat shield, he also got an older metal jump pack so I could save a plastic one for magnetizing the Salamanders deathwatch flamer. One has a flamer (or will once I have a flamer to give him) and I also ended up deciding that the power fist veteran I have will lead a tactical squad of Raptors due to all the icons modeled on.
• Finally since I'm still waiting to prime I've been painting up my blood bowl troll. He's mostly done as his stone skin was done with much drybrushing and washes.

My better half's sister is supposed to be sending us her old digital camera, so I hope to be able to get more pics soon, and have a higher frequency of pics.

Raptor Legion

army value: 1,750 points
background: n/a
condition: 31/53 models complete tabletop standard (58%)
record: 1/1/1 w/d/l
awards; none
related links;

• Raptor Legion blog posts.

army composition;


to-do;
* assemble & paint terminators
painting chart;