Ravenwing Week - day 3

For today I am going to post a few black knight conversions.  With the new dark vengeance box having a sweet set of ravenwing bikers, there was no way I was going to pay $60 for 3 black knights.  I knew this before I even knew the price!!  Through trading and some purchasing off bartertown ($11 a set of 3!) I have 6 sets of DV ravenwing.  Some will be actual standard bike squads but most of the sergeants will be converted into black knights - simply by chopping the barrel off their bolters and cutting out a rectangular piece from the bottom of a bunch of plasma pistols and gluing them on top.  These are the first three I've converted.

banner guy, will leave hole open for a banner or a corvus hammer

First one I was debating between making him a command squad standard bearer or using my cheapo corvus hammer conversion from the ravenwing feathered banners.  I've been reliably told that using that as a corvus hammer looked like crap so I am going to revert to him being the banner.  I haven't glue the weapon so I will just make a few banner poles.  I am debating how to do the banner, currently I'm thinking of printing something out on sticker paper (and also debating having a plain white space to write what banner it is) - thoughts?

using the dark vengeance captain helmet

Second one I started to convert a basic "captain on bike" for which I used the captains helmet from the DV figure.  Unfortunately dark angels can't take a standard captain on a bike, so I proceeded to convert his bikes weapons to plasma talons as well so he can at least be a ravenwing captain/huntsmaster.  Using the helmet worked really well, and I just used a robed body from the ravenwing sprue mounted on a DV sergeant bike with robed legs.  Will need some green stuff to fill in gaps, but he looks really good IMO.

dark vengeance sergeant converted to black knight

Third one will just be a standard black knight, whatever I end up finding to use as corvus hammers will probably just get glued onto the bikes siding somewhere with some simple straps made of plasticard or
something.  I don't want every black knight to be wielding the corvus hammer, might make it awkward to get into tight spaces.

Does anyone have any suggestions for suitable "pick" like weapons to use as the corvus hammers?  Only requirement is that they be plastic.

Ravenwing Week - day 2

Here's a character model I decided to build just because I wanted one.  I especially don't see any issue since a techmarine doesn't take up an HQ slot, you are allowed to purchase for for every HQ you purchase (barring command squads) so he's easy to include as long as points are available. He also has access to special issue wargear which is very interesting. There's also no option for artificer armour in special issue wargear so barring 3 special characters he is the only other 2+ save and is the only one who can be customized.  He does only have 1 wound, but considering he's on a bike (in my army at least) that's T5/2+, he could be better equiped to withstand being rapid fired to death.

To build him, I took a torso from the standard rhino vehicle sprue, and used standard biker legs, along with the techmarine helmet from the ravenwing sprue and a couple shoulder pads with mechanicum icons.  This was all pretty standard and still has me contemplating adding some more "techno-bling" to his armour - maybe with some thin plastic card.  Opinions?  His armour does look pretty basic.

view from left, some decent mechanicum icons, but armour is very flat

The cool/fun part of modeling this guy was converting a servo-arm backpack out of plastic bits.  Thankfully I had remembered to bookmark an excellent tutorial posted by Mike (devised by a second Mike) over at Constantly Risking Obscurity. It involved using a backpack, 2 flamers and 2 combat knives which would result in one servo-arm backpack and a couple hand flamers. As I started to work my way through the tutorial, I found a melta bomb and thought it would make a good replacement for the fuel canister from a flamer.  So then I figured I could avoid chopping up a second flamer if I could find something else to replace the second "arm" portion. So I plucked the landspeeder antenna bit from a ravenwing sprue and voila - servo arm complete and only one flamer chopped up.  It's also nice that the two arm pieces look different.

plastic servo-arm goodness

Finally, as I was assembling all the pieces into the final model, I was debating what to put in his hand, I didn't want to arm him with anything that cost points so if need be he can be as basic as possible.  A bolt pistol wasn't filling me with excitement though.  While reading through the new FAQ, I spotted that he technically was also armed with a boltgun, so upon review of the wargear list I saw I could replace that for free with a chainsword.  Chainsword it is!!

view from right side

If anyone is planning to run a techmarine on bike in their Dark Angels list, please share what your thoughts are.  Do you plan to use him as a roving repairman? Just a 2+ save ablative wound for a ravenwing command squad?

Ravenwing Week - day 1

Just for fun I've decided to put up a bunch of posts about my modeling of my ravenwing army this week. Since posting helps keep me motivated and there are a number of items I would love some comments/feedback on, I thought why the hell not.

So first up is my Librarian on Bike.  Dark Angel librarians have already been earmarked as a great HQ choice in the new codex; they have the standard 2A/2W (+ force weapon/psychic hood obviously), but are only 65 points base compared to 100 points for vanilla marines and an additional mastery level is only 35 points compared to 50.  This is quite a lot for very little points.

right side, I really like the book mounted on the front

Basically I chopped up the Dv librarian figure to just use the torso & sword arm.  I cut off his "casting" arm and replaced it with a bike/handlebar arm.  I glued him onto a bike with a set of robed legs, and then I mounted the big book from the ravenwing sprue on the front of the bike, and used some rope bits I cut off some decorative pieces from the same sprue to complete the "securing" of the book to the bike.  I really like how this looks.  I also glued on an auspex since of anyone who I want to give up their shooting attack to use the auspex, it's him.

The best "value" that was immediately touted around the internet is taking the divination disciplines primaris power: prescience.  Most people are looking at this as a way to add twin linked to giant IG squads through allies, and I can definitely see that benefit, but for my ravenwing army, pretty much every weapon - except for a few special weapons in standard bike squads and the multi-meltas on attack bikes - already has twin linked so I don't see that as being very strong in this list.  I have absolutely zero experience with the new psychic system though, so am looking for a bit of help.

left side, shows the force sword arm from the DV fig

I have been considering adding the mastery level (with bike a total of 120 points) giving me 2 chances to score the telepathy power "invisibility".  Combined with the Jink skill on a large block of ravenwing black knights, they would get a 2+ cover save without even requiring a turbo-boost! The telepathy primaris power "psychic shriek" is pretty decent and I would definitely take it over "mental fortitude" or "terrify".

Does anyone have any suggestions for better powers to combine with a large squad of black knights?  Especially something to add some protection?  Or, say I do manage to score "invisibility" with my first
power roll, is there a different discipline you would suggest I am to get the second power from?