The Wailing Doom corsairs log - 11/09/2015 - Siticus the Resplendent completed!

Well, with access to a camera, I figured I'd make one of these fancy threads for myself, to document the progress of my army.

I'll start with my entry in the Archon's challenge - my Dread Archon Talari Baliarstil. I tried some new ways in painting power weapons, as well as tried to toss in some object lighting there. I am still not quite satisfied with how the hair turned out, haven't had the chance to polish my greenstuff sculpting just yet.





Now, onto some older stuff. This Razorwing was painted as an entry in the Boot Camp painting competition (and I was successful in grabbing second place and a shiny silver lasgun trophy from them Guard players! Nice bunch of folks there). Named Void Phoenix, it is truly a death from above for any and all prized enemy infantry squads, except maybe ork Nobs.





This here is my first squad of Kabalite Warriors (missing one test kabalite that just doesn't fit the rest at all), belonging to the Sentinel's Blade warband, lead by Dracon Araj the Sentinel (not the currently no-name Sybarite in the image). The Blades are a rigidly disciplined bunch, always performing well on the battlefield and swift to avenge the Archon, should she fall in battle, securing her remains while delivering a hail of splinter fire.



Lastly, this is a squad of wyches from the Bloody Handed cult. Fanatic Khaine worshippers, they rigidly follow Talari's self-imposed image as a chosen of Khaine, striking down anything in their path with amazing fury.




More to come!

Good stuff! The warriors look great and the crinkled effect on the Razorwing is quite catchy. Looking forward to more from you!

Really cool, I love the Razorwing, along with all the fluff you have to go with the army. Look forward to seeing more!

Cool Razorwing!
Like the twinblade-pose your archon, specially standing on a pair of gastanks

Time for a little update! Two days ago, after finally being done with all my exams (hooray), I had probably the biggest jolt of inspiration I've had in a long time. I had thought about making one of my two Tau battlesuits into Talos Pain Engines, but only now I had the visual properly come together. So there it was - while visibly still a Tau battlesuit, it would have a monstrous close combat weapon, a menacing device that would serve as the liquifier. The entire thing charging across the battlefield, exhausts howling and the heavy feet stomping the ground, the entire engine covered in trophies gathered from enemies, its head turning around constantly, its red eyes scanning for enemies of the haemonculus to crush in its deadly talons.

And so I set to work. Two days (and a cut thumb, for all engines of pain demand to be anointed in blood, it seems) later...




There it is, in all its WIP glory. The close combat weapon is a hellish fusion of the regular Crisis suit's arm, a few chain bayonets from Chaos terminators, a hand from Posessed Marines and a spare keel blade from the Reaver jetbike sprue. On top, one of the missile pods is from IG Sentinel kit, while the other comes from the Land Speeder. Now, I could've used two of the Land Speeder pods, but where's the fun in that? The idea behind them was - I have these lovely weapons that usually are put on Talos' tail... so why not turn all of them into missile weapons instead and shower the enemy in hails of Splinter missiles, Stinger missiles, Haywire missiles and so forth?




The liquifier. I honestly went with the flow on this one, starting from a simple heavy flamer from the Land Speeder, then plastering on bits of plasma rifle and fusion blaster, adding more bits and nubbins just to make the thing look like something that will disintegrate you alive.


As I said, it is still work in progress. There are plenty of skulls, blades and spikes to add, as well as trophies on the basing. This little fellow helped me to finally gain a solid, one on one victory on my year-long IG playing nemesis. What this Broadside failed to complete in his former life, he completed in this one - gained vengeance on Guardsman Marbo, who had always killed him with the cursed melta bomb, crushed the Basilisk that had always eluded his railguns, as well as ragefully avenged the fall of his Dread Archon Talari, with a thunderous roar flipping over the immobilised Chimera that had delivered the killing blow.

So was the humble Tau shas'vre Ahnul'd granted a glorious ascension into the mighty Ahn-uld the Basilisk-slayer. Cheesy name, but I was humming "Crush your enemies, see them driven before you..." to myself when my Talos came through the portal.

I will update tomorrow with more pictures, as I will be taking a part in my local store's Apocalypse. Ahn-uld shall crush even more enemies!

Im not so sure about the battlesuits as Talos, they look to much like Tau right now. But as you said, they´re still WIP.
My suggestion would be remove the legs, and have tentacles instead, so they get a more "floating" style.

Maybe add some mandibles at the lower torso too.

Unfortunately, I am not a fan of tentacles, so it's a no-go. The vision currently is one of a stompy mechanized monster, than a floating one. It does still look very Tau, which is a bit of a problem, I suppose. I think that trophies, hooks, chains, blades and spikes should make it look like what I want it to be - a twisted shadow of a Tau battlesuit, whose pilot was granted the wish that was deeply within his mind (and painfully extracted, of course) - to be stronger, to be able to crush the enemy. His wish was granted, but at a great price.

I must say, though. The bottom backside of the suit is absolutely killing me - I just don't know what to do with it. It is placed in such an uncomfortable angle that it's difficult to put anything in there, and even then - spikes and blades just look completely out of place there. Damned boxy angles!

Will you have wracks or Grots in the army?
If you´ll have Grots, and base them on ratorges(like everyone else), you might use the ratorge lower-part for the Talos.

Then it would seem like the Grots are just the step before being turned into a Talos.

The theme of my Haemonculus coven is the perfect balance between metal and flesh. Therefore, my conversion material usually will be more armored-looking or mechanical models. I am unsure if I will have Grots in my army just yet, while Wracks are a certain.

I'm liking the archon especially. The wyches, warriors and razorwing I also like.
Like someone else, I'm just not too sure aboput the battlesuit idea, I just think it looks a lot more like a battle suit than a talos.

Nice work!

While I agree that perhaps the battle suit looks very Tau still, I like the idea that the Haemonculus has experimented on not just the pilot, but the suit itself. I think the feet and head are so very unique to the Tau, maybe replacing them would solve the problem. The missile pods look very un-Eldar as well. Maybe replace them with some of the extra missiles from the Razorwing.

Update time! Barely made it in time for the Archon's challenge, but here they are - kabalites along with the man himself, Araj the Sentinel, the ruthless leader of the Sentinel's Blade warband, with his elite bodyguards at each side.






I was not completely sure what to do with his banner, so I left it blank for now. I want it to be distinctive and different from the sybarite's banner that bears the sigils of the Wailing Doom. Unification between the symbols of Sentinel's Blade and Wailing Doom corsairs, perhaps. Some of the kabalites were acquired already painted and posed, so there were some issues here and there due to the laziness of the previous owner (sprue attachments and mold lines that I noticed only after priming, grr). All in all, I did these quite quickly, now that I got the colour scheme done and ready.

Wow everything looks really awesome! i love the broadside in there! Im planning on turning a crisis suit into a grotesque, and i have kroot as wracks already

The painting seems really good, and i cant wait to see the coven!! keep it up!!

Finished the banner of Araj the Sentinel. It didn't turn out as well as I would have liked, I kept screwing up the freehanding and in general learned that I should never ever glue a banner to a model before painting it.



Meanwhile, I finally decided to take some pictures of my namesake Haemonculus, Siticus the Ancient, as well as one of his many "side projects" - the Crimson Kroothawk mercenaries that game wise fulfill the roles of Sslyth Mercenaries or Grotesques (funny enough, their statlines are nearly identical, thus came the idea). The lighting in my room is abysmal.






Now, the fire warrior amongst them comes along with stories of his own. This guy has survived a powerfist to the face, it took a Necron Monolith's main gun to kill him the first time, and he's shot Guardsman Marbo to pieces as a revenge for him melta-blasting his entire squad. On top of it all, he has defeated White Dwarf itself in close combat in a 40k/WHFB crossover match our game store held. Hence the power axe at his side, a gift from the defeated dwarf player. When I played Tau, I promoted him straight up to a shas'vre, a rank that usually comes with a battlesuit. However, this guy doesn't need one, as a rifle in his hands is all he needs. It is only fitting that one such Tau would eventually be suspected of succumbing to the curse Mon'Tau and put on the execution line. A timely raid later, the corsair fleet of Wailing Doom has a tough mercenary in their ranks, one more than capable of standing on his own in Commoragh.

It was also one of my first models painted. I recently touched him up a little, put on a new base and gave him new life in my current army. I just couldn't let this guy gather dust on a shelf.

Wow! Those look beautiful! The kroot crisis mix is beautiful done! and I love how one unit makes a difference.

The kroot im using as my haemonculus went toe to toe with a daemon prince (prince had 1 wound left.) It was a warp time prince, and managed to not wound me at all. The Kroot one hit, one wound, daemon prince died. It was a beautiful day. None of my warriors ever stood out, they just got stomped by pistol fire.

Can we get more pics of the floating haemy please?

Keen to see what/how you did!

As requested, here are a few more shots of my haemonculus:






The way I did the guy was rather simple. The body comes from one of the hangers-by of the Raider. The out-stretched arms have the same source. The left hand just has some spikes cut off from various wych punch daggers and glued on, same goes for the spur - it probably comes from the kabalite kit. The head is quite obviously from scourges, the hair bit trimmed off. The entire figure then has been given a greenstuff over robe. All the vials and pouches come from the Scourge kit as well. As for the pole to make the guy float... I believe it's from the Command accessory sprue eldary thingy, whatever it might be.

He wields no weapons, as I imagined him as a master of his craft - his own body is perfection by his design, so all weaponry can simply be folded within it. Rifles are for lowly upstart haemonculi, true masters of flesh and steel are weapon themselves! The pose was perfect for technosorcery weaponry that is built in the arms, as well as it very strongly implies dominance over the battlefield and pulling the invisible strings of the force he steers from the shadows. That, plus floating slightly higher than everyone else above the ground.

The guy has been quite durable in my games. So far he has died only in Apocalypse, when I somewhat foolishly (but very fitting to the character) charged into a squad consisting of five Shas'O battlesuits. This is the figure that some of the more veteran 40k players in my store can be pointed at, when they demand an HQ that is supposed to resemble their owner. As much as I dislike such self-inserting, I found that the behind-the-scenes nature of the haemonculi and their invaluability for any archon and kabal of note is something very aptly fitting. That, and the given god-complex, and there's no better candidate for such a hobbyist's metaphor.

And so the haemonculus Siticus usually sits behind the scenes, taking intervention upon the course of all battles his protégée Talari fights in, be it indirectly with augmented creations of his, or by direct action (one-shotting an Avatar of Khaine in the last battle was incredibly amusing/fitting to the character).

Oh, and yes, I couldn't resist putting him on Path of the Renegade. I can't bloody -wait- to finally start reading it!

Out of curiosity, is he tourney legal? With him up in the air like that it seems to me that he wouldn't be...

But honestly, it looks great. Amazing talent.
I'm not too keen on the Tau/Talos conversion... Any chance of seeing a Tyrant/Talos hybrid?

I don't see why he wouldn't, really. He's hardly taller than the regular Haemonculus model and only slightly higher than the head of a Scourge. Being that high has its disadvantages as it has advantages. The line would probably be crossed by making, say, a Psyfleman Dreadnought on Sentinel or Dreadknight legs.

Of course, it can largely vary between local tournaments and their holders. It is also worth to note that I am not very competitive and don't like taking part in tournaments, so it will rarely be an issue, if it ever is, since I am mostly doing friendly games only.

The haemonculus is very cool, love the floating pose, and the cloak & hood look awesome.

Small update. The days are finally warm and dry enough to prime the models I haven't yet had done.

I went back and touched up my crisis-Talos a bit. Got rid of the eyesore missile pods, opting for a Fusion blaster instead, as well as some armor plates and two exhaust tubes. Scrap the stompy missile bringer, enter the fuming hulking demoralization machine instead!





Plus skulls. I might add even more skulls.

Also, I finally got around painting one of my Scourges.




As the images of the back for some reason kept coming out blurry and out of focus, I'll simply mention that the fabric parts are white. I have sub-consciously made Dark Eldar Sanguinary Guard, it seems, but it's all part of the greater plan. Confusion amongst the ranks of the enemy as well as pure and simple boasting - not many can claim to have angels as their messengers, after all. What better to fit a haemonculus with a god complex?

Really liking the Dark Eldar Sanguinary Guard. As you said, rather fitting for a Heamy with a god complex, quick raid Baal! Beyond the delicious irony, it scheme is painted really well. The gold/bronzy is amazzing (wish I could get the gold on my Astral Claws that good). And the white with the black linning on the feathers looks great to.

Small update. Started on the rest of the Scourges, planning on getting them done by the end of the weekend.



Base colour stage is a pain. Also took a bit better shots of the painted Scourge.





Back to painting. Still unsure whether my half-done Ravager is eligible for entry in the Archon's challenge, so I'll leave it sitting in the box for now.

Good work, I love the finished scourge - I really hate painting metallics!

Finished the rest of the Scourges. "Done by the end end of the weekend", ha. More like end of the month!







By the end I was getting the good old "I have stared at it for so long that it looks meh at most" stage. Few places where I need to do some fixing, though. Not the best time to lend half of my paints to a friend, thinking "well, I'm done with those stages, won't need them". Still, looking at them in daylight, I'm very happy with how they turned out.