Imperial Triumverate - a massive distraction

So I've been meaning to get this thread going for a while now... but you know, laziness!

So as well as my dark eldar which are currently undergoing a rebuild and revamp with much needed new paintjob applied with better paint skills I have several imperial projects on the go.

The aim of these projects is to build, over the space of 18-24 months, three separate armies that will work together as a gigantic army of around 6000-8000 points.

This will be a Black Templar Army, a Blood Angels Army (squee for new codex), and a Militarum Tempestus Army. The MT I love. They have the thinnest codex past Knights (and if you include FW knights then its THE thinnest) but I love the idea of elite stormtroopers really hits the fluff spot.

In addition to these three armies I will also flesh out an Inquisitorial detachment to provide certain support (Read psyocculum and servo skulls and awesome models!!)

So I'll run down each army and what I hope to get from them and at the end I will add some pictures of what I have painted all ready.


Black Templars

This will be a deep striking force that utilises crusader squads, drop pods and land raider crusaders. I will also have a Cerastus Knight Castigator as a Lord of War.

The army so far is:

10 crusaders in a land raider crusader with emperors champion or grimaldus

2 - 8 man crusader squads in drop pods

Assault terminators in drop pod with terminator chaplain possibly

5 vanguard vets converted from old sword brethren models with jump packs and shields plus mostly hammers.

5 Sternguard vets with flamers or meltas in a drop pod also

I plan to buy the Castigator and that should be that I think!


Blood Angels

I'm not fully planning this till the codex drops for obvious reasons but I did hunt ebay for the blood angels half of Shield of Baal for £40 and so have

The new terminator captain Karlaen

5 times regular termies

5 Death company marines

And a death company dreadnought

I plan to add plenty of drop pod (3-4) as well as baal predators (1-3) and more death company as well as astorath, Dante and Lemartes.

These guys will have a Knight Acheron with that awesome flamer as their lord of war.



Militarum Tempestus

These guys I have been converting to all be gasmasked trencher style storm troopers (see pictures at end) and will take advantage of the airborne formation which has some really neat benefits I will expand upon sometime in the future.

The formation is a command squad, commisar, 3 squads of tempestus and 4 valkyries.

I have all that apart from the Valkyrie which I want to convert to be Vtol style crafts using some hammer head engines (you may have seen them before).

I will also have a CAD detachment beyond the formation so that I can grab another Lord of war in the shape of a stormlord baneblade.

Absolutely massive transport capacity (40 iirc), a mother flipping ASSAULT vehicle! (hello multiple squads and battle brothers in a 9HP monstrosity) that has a vulcan mega bolter on the front, twin linked heavy bolter, 2 stubbers and sponsons if I so choose


Inquisition

These guys will be an hereticus inquisitor which I have and is painted (See below) and another that I haven't decided but I will be converting from Isabella Von Carstein! Cool model.

I'm also going to convert crusaders from my spare tempestus parts I did not use.



So this is obviously a massive project and will be done around my dark eldar as they have priority for my skills. They will get the best paintjobs and time spent on them so I have already devised schemes for tempestus and templars that are easy to replicate and Im sure I can do the same with blood angels! Inquisitions I will probably drop more time into as I love them.

Anyway here have some, hopefully pretty, pictures and I will hope to update soon with my to do pile....

Fantastic. That is an UBER ambitious project. I wish you a lot of patience!

Dragontree wrote:

Blood Angels

I'm not fully planning this till the codex drops for obvious reasons but I did hunt ebay for the blood angels half of Shield of Baal for £40 and so have

The new terminator captain Karlaen

5 times regular termies

5 Death company marines

And a death company dreadnought

I plan to add plenty of drop pod (3-4) as well as baal predators (1-3) and more death company as well as astorath, Dante and Lemartes.

These guys will have a Knight Acheron with that awesome flamer as their lord of war.

Nice project!
You could start looking at the Q&A on the new BA codex, it could modify your wishlist a bit.
I've heard DC is no longer a troop choice, neither is troop the DC dread. They all become elite.
And I would think about Mephy, now with IC and the new powers seems to be a solid choice.

Dante is also a Lord of War so you'd need to double CAD them to get a knight in there. I think the deathstorm does have its death company stuff as troops choices though, so you might investigate that.

Wowzers, didn't expect much interest with so much writing

Thanks for the replies guys!

@Javorra - I've been eagerly reading every scrap of leaks for the BA but I picked up the models because the saving on RRP were just way to good to pass up... In retrospect I wish I had bought the whole box and sold the tyranids but I'm still pleased with my cheap BA!

I'm avoiding Mephiston purely because the model is butt ugly whereas I really really dig Astorath and Dante is pretty cool too

@TBE - Good spot there I had totally blanked that fact... Dual CAD is probably the way I'll go, there are plenty of cool stuff models wise to tempt me anyway.


As an aside, the new BA tac squad looks sweet as, really digging it even if assault marines aren't troops (which I'm actually cool with tbh).

Anyhoo, tonight I will throw up a picture of all my Templars I already have, with a fair few needing stripping from their previous owners half hearted beginning and also my stormlord and tempestus.

If you have any further suggestions for alternate Lords of War from FW or anything like that btw, such as an alternate mephiston model... than shout out and drop links like theyre hot

Cheers guys!

You could always use the astorath model and change the arms for mephiston - paint the wings like they're a psychic manifestation. The Astorath model has to be my favourite BA model so far, I painted mine up over the summer, used it once then managed to drop it in my garage so it needs going back over to touch up all the chips (there's a lot!)

I too am planning a Blood Angels army once the codex hits (I've got a load of stuff I bought a couple of years ago already) so look out for me posting something in the distractions log soon(ish).

I'm planning the more traditional assault-based force though, heavy on the dreadnoughts!

I'm a death company kinda guy myself really hope there is an alternate detachment where death company are troops/scoring.

I think I've read about a detachment that give you 4 elite slots with one mandatory troops so that might work...

I look forward to seeing you get something going on here or your blog! Always helpful to have a bit of inspiration!

This was Astorath pre-accident


and this is the current state of my death company


I've got dibbs on at least three more dreadnoughts and I have bits to make Librarian ones too, so I'm sorely tempted to go that route and take lots, with death company and assault marines to back them up.

Looking really good there! Astorath is just a fantastic model.

I may play around with him and possibly the sanguinor to make a passable mephiston character. Though the new sanguinary model looks good (though £18!!!!!)

How do you do your black? I have a method for my black templars but I like how your death company look?

Is it relatively simple?

I know this is gonna sound really patronising but it's really not meant to be.

I undercoat them black, then paint over the top with black (used to be chaos black, now abaddon black) and then just do a really, really fine highlight of dawnstone on the most obvious raised edges - anything that's not a sharp edge I leave, and don't go too bright, dawnstone is as light as I'd go with a highlight. So yeah, pretty simple!

I think I like Astorath so much because the model doesn't just have wingspan, the angle of the wings gives it some real bulk that other winged models don't have, even if their wings are bigger - they often lack depth if the wings are spread out to the sides. Astorath really feels like he's going forwards instead of just hanging there.

Didn't sound patronising at all!

Similar to my Black Templars except I put an additional light highlight on top of the Dawnstone and I think I was a lot more heavy handed than you!

Yeah, Astorath has a real 'I'm gonna come down off this jump and split your skull open' vibe about him.

I'm a beg fan of Lemartes model as well, will most likely pick him up for that extra Death Company flavour

Winsor and Newton series 7 brushes - I've had them a year now and they've seen some heavy duty work and they're still pretty much perfect, meaning a fine highlight is much easier (I don't generally think of it as painting a line on the model with the tip, i try to angle the brush and get the paint on the edge of the model using paint from about 1/3 down from the tip, a bit like drybrushing I guess)

I was just worried that answering 'how do you paint black' with 'i paint it with black' seemed a bit harsh.

Back on topic - have you considered Helbrecht for your Templars? Gorgeous model and I think the best effect of all the Black Templars characters

Do you know of an online retailer for them? Hobby shops with good stock are sadly thin on the ground in Bristol at the moment, though a new one has recently opened up, a spin off of Plymouth Independent Gaming I think.

I think black is actually one of those things where you think it would be simple but so many people paint it so many different ways!

I actually really dislike the Helbrecht model, I think his face cross thing is a bit... gimpy and he just looks a bit old and slow.

I'd have really liked it if the model made a big deal of him losing his hand to the Necron Boss dude (stormlord or infinite one...) as thats a super cool bit of his fluff.

I may well convert one but as is not for me. The Emperors Champion model is still the bees knees for me

Amazon do seem to sell them at relatively reasonable prices, though I confess I went down the route of birthday/christmas present to get mine so other than knowing they came from Nottingham somewhere I can't be much help.

However, I know they were originally developed for watercolour type painting, so if there's an art shop you might try them?

I think all my purchases in the coming month will rely on good will of friends and family

My girlfriend however refuses to buy me modelling related goods... Sad times!

Thanks for the recommendation anyway, I do need some new brushes ASAP.

That's a shame, I got a KR double-case bag with three cases of custom foam from my wife for birthday/Christmas this year. I was even allowed to start using it 6 weeks before my birthday!

Mind you, that was in exchange for a pair of GHD Hair Straighteners, which are apparently 'worth' the same amount.

I've just been through birthday money, hoping for something similar at Christmas, though past experience tells me I won't get as much. Still, so long as it's enough to get me the dreads I've requested off mates I'll be satisfied (though a stormraven is high on my wishlist too). Guess I need to get stripping that Eldar stuff I've got hanging around and get it on eBay.

Right so this is pictures of what I currently have built (mostly) and needing to be painted apart from a few units.

Black Templars





Bottom right is my sword brethern models converted to vanguard veterans (they do have jump packs but they haven't been put on for painting purposes. I'm actually really pleased how this conversion turned out given their relatively static poses.

When they are all based up I will get a decent picture of them!

Militarum Tempestus














C&C please

So.. Progress of sorts...

I've gone Blood Angel crazy recently I now have the following force assembled



I used the basic terminators that came with the deathstorm set and combined all the lightening claws and spare bits from the blood angel specific kit to make them more blood angelly which has worked out great.

The dreadnought from the set became a standard furioso with a frag cannon and I built the death company to be Raphens death company so I can use them as troops if I so wish.

However I have a squad of sternguard being built as you can see in the picture and another squad on the way as well as enough models to make up 10 vanguard.

These guys will make use of the exterminatus force org which allows up to 16 elites with 2 HQs.... It won't be competitive but by god it will be fun!

Also I have re-appropriated the drop pods from the Templars to be blood angels and have redesigned the Templars to be more foot heavy.


In other news I also ordered a Castigator knight and another librarian in case I want to run dual librarians instead of librarian and Karlaen.

Finally here is my tester model for my blood angels. I'm painting them as the first company of the Carmine Angels the new faction that used to claim as being from Ultrasmurf geneseed. hence the blue gems








Not great pictures but comments always appreciated

EDIT: I should point out I like it dark and that seems to fit the few pictures available but I can't decide whether it just looks scrappy? With emphasis on crappy...

Looking good buddy, I too am going a little blood angels crazy with 2 dreads on the way to become librarians!

Terminators done barring bases - still experimenting with different snow types.










AND my new big toy





This guy got his undercoat last night and painting should commence soon

Looking pretty sweet the mate!

@The_Burning_Eye - thanks!

The Angels aren't my best work but I think once based and in amongst a horde of similar models they will look fine from the 3 feet away standard

The Knight had its first coat of leadbelcher last night on an arm and a leg. Take a long time to get every nook and cranny! I underestimated how huge it is...

Dragontree wrote:

@The_Burning_Eye - thanks!

The Angels aren't my best work but I think once based and in amongst a horde of similar models they will look fine from the 3 feet away standard

The Knight had its first coat of leadbelcher last night on an arm and a leg. Take a long time to get every nook and cranny! I underestimated how huge it is...

I know that feeling - I spent an hour a couple of weeks ago just putting the basecoat on my stormraven - with the big GW brush! I've also got the wraithknight sitting there laughing at me cos it knows i've got to do two coats of the base colour to get an even coverage.

Progress on the Knight.

I absolutely love this model, will definitely pick up an acheron when fund allow, also planning on picking up a dream forge mortis engine to proxy a regular Knight, not entirely sure on scale, not enough scale shots online!

I will however be painting that one more piecemeal before putting together and utilising a silver primer spray most definitely. This thing has pushed my already mediocre skills quite far.

First proper taste of FW stuff and wish I had the time and funds to buy more of their stuff. Think I will pick up the sevatar model for my Night Lords eventually.

Anyway here's the picture. Comments always welcomed. Hoping to be updating this Plog a little more frequently in the coming months as I am considering taking these guys to a local tournament instead of my Night Lords if I can get a groove on enough.

looking tasty there mate! thats got to be my favourite knight model too.