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Thousand Swords 3rd Company


Barret

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The contents of AoBR have spurred me to restart work on my oft-neglected Thousand Swords DIY, in the shape of members of the 3rd "Red Devils" Company. However, I couldn't just use the stock models, that'd be too easy. So, after a labourious night of cutting and gluing (sometimes even to the models and not my fingers), I present to my version of the AoBR models (except the Terminators. Don't know what I'm doing with them yet).

 

 

3rd Company, 3rd Squad was devastated during the final assault on Fort Ilghur and the few survivors were promoted to the First Company for their bravery and valour in the taking of the East Bastion. Captain Bomilkar asked Sergeant Vyrnuss to come out of semi-retirement as a Training Sergeant to rebuild the squad with Marines recently raised from the Scout and Reserve Companies. Vyrnuss is a hard man, and a consummate swordsman, and he keeps his squad at a prime fighting edge with a combination of heavy-handed training and uplifting oratory. Somewhat unfairly to the squad, they have been nicknamed "Meat Squad" by the rest of the Company due to their largely untested status.

 

I've only posted the converted squad members. For all of them but the Sergeant, I just hacked off their heads and replaced them. It's amazing what a difference to these static models a change of head direction makes.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/ElcidBarret/TSwords3Co/3Co3Sqd-WIP1.jpg

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/ElcidBarret/TSwords3Co/3Co3Sqd-WIP2.jpg

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/ElcidBarret/TSwords3Co/3Co3Sqd-WIP3.jpg

 

 

Bomilkar, Captain of the 3rd Company, is the oldest Marine in the Thousand Swords at nearly 500 years. Despite his skills in strategy and personal combat, and his long centuries of service, Bomilkar is a simple line officer, though a dedicated one, and is unlikely to be hailed as a great hero in the histories of the Thousand Swords. This has weighed heavily upon him, especially seeing younger men like Zeuxis and Barca, both of whom served under him at one time, elevated to the loftiest of heights. His men are fiercely loyal to and protective of their aging Captain, and have earned their nickname by fighting like daemons to turn his every command into victory.

 

 

This conversion was actually a lot simpler than I expected it to be. The bolter came off relatively easily, I just carved it away one piece at a time, taking care not to damage the tabard. The storm shield arm was made my taking a straight chainsword left arm and cutting off the hand at the wrist, and cutting off all but a thin layer of the shoulder. The shield itself fits perfectly onto the arm. The servo-arm-looking thing is an Auxiliary Grenade Launcher, the sight for which is hard-wired into his bionic eye.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/ElcidBarret/TSwords3Co/3CoCaptain-WIP1.jpg

 

 

 

Ancient Sanatgar has rested within the sarcophagus Doom Bringer for nearly four hundred years. He was Bomilkar's first Command Sergeant, and fell saving the then-young Captain from a vile Eldar witch. Since then, the two old comrades have led their Company to battle and victory side-by-side. Before the taking of Fort Ilghur and the Company's return to Carthago Nuevo, the 3rd Company was combating Genestealer and Chaos cults, and Sanatgar had his weapon hardpoint refitted with a pair of massive heavy flamers to better fight alongside his comrades in the hellish urban and underground environments where these xenos and heretics were found.

 

Pretty simple conversion here; I just chopped off the multi-melta barrel and replaced it with the twin-linked heavy flamer from the Land Speeder kit. The "Doom" on the sarcophagus was my prototype attempt at embossed text, and I think it turned out pretty well. There was a lot of swearing involved, though. :huh:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/ElcidBarret/TSwords3Co/3CoDread1-WIP1.jpg

 

 

 

The Sixth Squad of the Third Company, nicknamed the "Quiet Knives", are as experienced street fighters as the rest of the company, hardened to the rigours of close-quarters combat and given to trophy-taking. In many ways, they are the stereotypical Third Company men: loyal, steady, and absolutely ferocious when given the command.

 

 

Although not from AoBR, I built this guy to be the exemplar or "concept model" for the rest of the Third Company. Each squad will be themed to be in the middle of doing something, and Sixth Squad will be carefully moving through some ruins, alert to enemy ambush or boobytraps.

 

The Thousand Swords are big on purity seals, litanies or devotional scripture. Instead, I see them as preferring Rogue Trader and Starcraft-style grafitti, trophies and various threats and statements of intent.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/ElcidBarret/TSwords3Co/3Co6Sqd-WIP1.jpg

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/ElcidBarret/TSwords3Co/3Co6Sqd-WIP2.jpg

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Mixed feelings on these. Definitely good to see more Thousand Swords, though. I like the 'Kill', but when I scrolled down, it did look it said 'BOOM' on the dreadnought, so I had to look again. :)

 

The head-swaps on the BR models are good (I like the flamer a lot), but I can't say I like the Captain's Grenade Launcher.

 

Definitely looking forward to more, though!

cool work going on here, how much trouble did you have changing the heads on the tac marines? IIRC the helmets and neck guards of the AOBR marines are conected?

 

They are. To remove the heads, I just used my cutters to snip off the head level with the collar, and then used an exacto knife to carve out the remainder of the head, leaving the collar. Once that was done, I started carving back the collar, test-fitting the appropriate head every so often until it fit as I wanted it. Time-consuming, but fairly simple and it gets quicker as you get the hang of it. Well worth the effort, in my opinion.

 

 

 

Molotov~ "Boom" would also be fitting and in-character. :lol: I'll save that for a rocket launcher, or something. As for the auxiliary grenade launcher... I'm not totally sold on it, but it was the best option I could find. There isn't a lot of room on the model for more stuff, and my first attempt at adding the launcher to the inside of the storm shield didn't look very good. If I was to keep the backpack-mounted launcher, is there anything you can think of that might improve it?

 

 

 

 

exactly the way how i planned the conversions as soon as my black reach set arrives

 

get 'em painted =)

 

I'd say "great minds..." but it's probably a freak coincidence. :D

 

 

 

I spent some time tonight cleaning the Tactical Squad up prior to basecoating (be warned, the sprue connects to their shoulderpads, which can leave some nasty damage if you're not careful, as I discovered the hard way), but they still have to suffer through being my guinea pigs for mass-producing the Chapter icon. Stay tuned for that! I also built them a Rhino, but, well....it's a Rhino. Do we really need more pics of Rhinos around?

Yay for progress.

 

Well, not a huge amount thereof, but still...

 

I based the Captain, Dread and AoBR squad, along with some chunky rubble on the Dread's base.

 

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/ElcidBarret/TSwords3Co/3CoCaptain-WIP2.jpg

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/ElcidBarret/TSwords3Co/3CoDread1-WIP2.jpg

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/ElcidBarret/TSwords3Co/3Co3Sqd-WIP5.jpg

 

 

I also gave the AoBR Sarge and Flamer Marine the latest in Thousand Swords fashion, a mohawk.

 

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/ElcidBarret/TSwords3Co/3Co3Sqd-WIP4.jpg

 

 

 

And I also built a second Marine for 6th Squad, this one gesturing his comrades on.

 

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/ElcidBarret/TSwords3Co/3Co6Sqd-WIP3.jpg

Ok, very nice looking conversions... however IMHO I think the 'embossed' text ruins the overall effect.

 

There is a cheating method for doing embossed text but it requires you to make a mould, on the plus side you can get an insane amount of detail for reletively little work.

With the exception of the Kill/Doom GS work, kudos on the conversions. I really like the mohawks. I was never keen on the RT marines with lettering like this painted on and for me GS doesn't improve the concept. It all seems very 1960's Batman TV show to me.
With the exception of the Kill/Doom GS work, kudos on the conversions. I really like the mohawks. I was never keen on the RT marines with lettering like this painted on and for me GS doesn't improve the concept. It all seems very 1960's Batman TV show to me.

 

I'm glad you like the mohawks, at least. :) I'm still a little iffy on them, and may have to try shorter ones in the future. As for the lettering, the RT and Starcraft-style graffiti is where I got the idea, so I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on that one. ;)

 

 

@Mal~What is it about the lettering you don't like? The "look" of them, like st.germaine? Or is it something else?

 

 

@Muskie~ Slacker!

 

 

 

I would really have liked to have more progress to post, but my attempts at casting my custom-GS Chapter icon have ended in horrible failure and disaster. So now I have to do some re-sculpting. Sigh.

 

Anyways, here's AoBR Dread #2. This is my first time trying to repose Dread legs, and I'm relatively pleased with the effect overall. Still some minor work to be done, like filling the gap in the DCCW and drilling the storm bolter barrels.

 

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/ElcidBarret/TSwords3Co/3CoDread2-WIP1.jpg

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/ElcidBarret/TSwords3Co/3CoDread2-WIP2.jpg

  • 3 weeks later...

Progress!

 

First up, I've finished building 6th Squad, the "Quiet Knives". I'm relatively pleased with how they came out.

 

The whole squad:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/ElcidBarret/TSwords3Co/3Co6Sqd-WIP4.jpg

 

 

A blurry closeup of the Sergeant:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/ElcidBarret/TSwords3Co/3Co6Sqd-WIP5.jpg

 

 

One of the Marines, from the feral "swamp dwellers" of the T-Swords' homeworld:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/ElcidBarret/TSwords3Co/3Co6Sqd-WIP6.jpg

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/ElcidBarret/TSwords3Co/3Co6Sqd-WIP7.jpg

 

 

Plasma gunner:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/ElcidBarret/TSwords3Co/3Co6Sqd-WIP8.jpg

 

 

Loader/spotter for the Rocket Launcher:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/ElcidBarret/TSwords3Co/3Co6Sqd-WIP9.jpg

 

 

Combat squad leader. This guy hails from the most militaristic of the seven city-states on Karthagot Nova.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/ElcidBarret/TSwords3Co/3Co6Sqd-WIP10.jpg

 

 

 

I also built an Assault Squad. There's only eight of them because that's how many I need for 1250 points, which is my current goal. The Sergeant isn't done yet, I need to do some work on his Storm Shield. Possibly starting with pulling off the Combat Shield and replacing it with an actual SS.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/ElcidBarret/TSwords3Co/3Co9Sqd-WIP1.jpg

 

 

"Come get some!"

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/ElcidBarret/TSwords3Co/3Co9Sqd-WIP2.jpg

 

 

This guy is a very simple conversion, but he's got a sense of motion to him that I like.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/ElcidBarret/TSwords3Co/3Co9Sqd-WIP3.jpg

 

 

What's better than a flame thrower? A flame thrower with a really big bayonet!

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/ElcidBarret/TSwords3Co/3Co9Sqd-WIP4.jpg

 

 

Another simple conversion.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/ElcidBarret/TSwords3Co/3Co9Sqd-WIP5.jpg

 

 

Chop-chop!

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/ElcidBarret/TSwords3Co/3Co9Sqd-WIP6.jpg

Hey, look! I painted something! This is one Combat Squad from my AoBR squad. The red is almost done, but I took the pictures late at night in terrible light, so they're a little washed out.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/ElcidBarret/TSwords3Co/3Co-3Sqd-PIP1.jpg

 

 

 

Captain Bomilkar with his lads.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/ElcidBarret/TSwords3Co/3CoCmd-WIP1.jpg

 

 

Detail of the magnetizing I did on the Razorback turret.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/ElcidBarret/TSwords3Co/3CoCmd-WIP2.jpg

 

 

Co. Champ:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/ElcidBarret/TSwords3Co/3CoCmd-WIP3.jpg

 

 

"Sergeant". I couldn't help myself.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/ElcidBarret/TSwords3Co/3CoCmd-WIP4.jpg

 

 

A Veteran:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/ElcidBarret/TSwords3Co/3CoCmd-WIP5.jpg

 

 

Apothecary Giscon:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/ElcidBarret/TSwords3Co/3CoCmd-WIP6.jpg

 

 

 

And a full army shot, thus far. Everything seen here, minus the HF dread, is my 1250 point army.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/ElcidBarret/TSwords3Co/3Co-WIP1.jpg

You have some really cool conversions in the tactical squad (the post before last) - I like the old Ravenwing torso (always have) and the old style rocket launcher, too!

fire.

The assault squad sergeant needs his wrist/shield rotating, I think, so that it's deflecting fire. Perhaps. Give it some thought.

 

I like the bionic leg conversion (Tyranid veteran parts?) but I feel it needs a knee of some sort. (It's inspired me to chop up the one I have!) Looking forward to see where you go with these guys.

Thanks! I'm probably going to take the Assault Sarge's shield right off and replace it with a proper Storm Shield. But yeah, I think I'll rotate it up.

 

The bionic leg is indeed from a 'nid Hunter vet. I ended up with two of them, and only wanted one. So... And yeah, it needs some GS work to make a "knee".

  • 2 weeks later...

I finally got some time to work on the lads, and thus do I come to you with pics!

 

 

Finished painting the first combat squad. As usual, the colour in these pictures isn't great. I'll try and get some tomorrow in the sun.

 

The only thing about them I'm not pleased with is the pouches, etc. What I wanted to look like leather looks too orange.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/ElcidBarret/3Co-3Sqd-PIP2.jpg

 

 

Freehand Chapter symbols.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/ElcidBarret/3Co-3Sqd-PIP3.jpg

 

 

Squad markings:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/ElcidBarret/3Co-3Sqd-PIP4.jpg

 

 

The only thing left to do is base them, but I'm not sure what that's going to look like. Right now, the options I'm considering are a desert look, like this guy, and an urban/snow look like these guys. Opinions?

 

 

 

Sculpted Chapter symbols onto the dreads.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/ElcidBarret/3Co-Dreads-WIP1.jpg

 

 

 

Finished the Assault Sargeant. I swapped his power weapon for a lightning claw after I realized they were the same price, and upgraded his shield to something more... Thousand Swords-ish.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/ElcidBarret/3Co9Sqd-WIP7.jpg

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/ElcidBarret/3Co9Sqd-WIP8.jpg

 

 

The Company Chaplain, who I dug out of retirement from the last attempt at a T-Swords army.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/ElcidBarret/3CoChaplain-WIP1.jpg

 

 

And I based the second Dread.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/ElcidBarret/3CoDread2-WIP3.jpg

Some very promising poses... realy love the conversion concepts for AOBR minis.

 

I also am now influenced to attack my AOBR band in the same way... thank you for the inspiration, someone had to do it first to compel the rest of us to hack away.

 

Good luck

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