Shadow Force Dragomir - A Raven Guard Army

[SCC]

A few weeks ago I trekked out to my non-so-local-game-store Realm of Legends. I'd heard good things from the Victoria, Australia thread in the Community forum and I wasn't disappointed. The staff were great, interested and knowledgeable without being in-your-face pushy like GW staffers are forced to be. I had a nice chat to the lass behind the counter (I'm afraid I've forgotten her name) and walked away with a bunch of little tidbits - including some Secret Weapon etched brass.

I liked that so much that when I saw their name on the Heroes of Armageddon charity website I decided I had to support their support for HoA by buying some more etched brass!

As you can see I also picked up some empty shell casings and some human skeletal remains. The shell casings are a fraction large for bolters but work well for shotguns, heavy bolters, autocannons and ork weapons too. The human remains I picked up to scatter on bases - it's nice to see something other than skulls occasionally I think.

But it's the etched brass that's the real winner here. As the pic shows they're 2mm high which is spot on for Marines and can be used on vehicles as well if you want and the Roman Numerals in particular are fantastic for squad numbers on greaves and shoulder pads. The runes are spot on for Space Wolves of course, I particularly like the knot-work, and the letters have any number of purposes.

Quality is excellent, the brass is thin enough to be easy to snip from the frame and to mould to curved surfaces but not so thin as to deform when you're just trying to move it around or pick it up (like the FW brass eagles for example :) ).

Pricing is reasonable and the service was excellent - my order was processed and posted post-haste and arrived well packaged and undamaged. Communication was also top-notch, there was some hiccup and I managed to create a doppelganger of my order at some point but SW fixed it up almost before I noticed there was a problem at all.

All up, a great product and an excellent company I can wholeheartedly recommend, especially given their support for HoA B)

[worrywort]

Hello,

 

Have a question about the decals.

 

Where have you found the decals for the right shoulder pads ?

 

I have the FW decals and the raven are all looking in the same direction.

 

Thank you !

Edited June 2, 2011 by worrywort

[SCC]

I just turn 'em around and use plenty of MicroSol/Set :)

 

Somebody ( I forget who :cuss ) had the genius idea of just painting out the beak with black on one side and filling in a new beak with white on the other side if you're worried about reversing the decals.

[worrywort]

Ok thank you for the two options.

 

Maybe I will try the second in first.

[averykess]

Your paint jobs are killing me. I tried to follow the PDF, but I suck.

 

I think I will try to simplify it for myself so I don't go crazy.

[Bannus]

Somebody ( I forget who :P ) had the genius idea of just painting out the beak with black on one side and filling in a new beak with white on the other side if you're worried about reversing the decals.

<raises hand>

 

That would be me. ;)

 

So is it easier doing it the way I recommended - or haven't you tried it yet?

[Kayesh]

is that a GK backpack on the Librarian ?

[SCC]

I know, I know, no new Raven Guard for a whole month?

And Niall here isn't RG either:

He is instead a Marine Exemplar who is destined to join Nerdfest09's Exemplar army. I painted Niall after Nerdfest09 very generously sent me a copy of Imperial Armour 8 to help me with my Raven Guard army, he didn't ask for anything in return but I couldn't let his gesture go unrewarded, so painted Niall.

With Niall and Dienekes done I'll now return to my RG with finishing the first combat squad third and final Tactical squad for the army being the first cab off the rank. After that I'm thinking Captain and Command squad plus I'm keen to get working on something really dangerous - the Predator :D

@bannus: I haven't tried it yet, but I'm going to give it a go this week and see how it turns out.

@Kayesh: On Dienekes? Yes, it is a cut down GK backpack, I didn't like the 'vanes' much at all, the rest of it is pretty spiffy though.

[Vulkan454]

Stunning work on Niall, the text on the parchment is very realistic.

But he does look like he is leaning backwards a little bit.

Looking forward to seeing some more RG,

 

Vulkan

[sn0wstorm]

Your work on the Raven Guard is an inspiration for my Black Templar project.

 

Thank you for the effort you put into the documentation.

 

Awesome...

 

Btw, the Rocket Launcher guy is just genius...

 

Cheers,

 

Bernd

[SCC]

Finally! A finished Raven Guard Marine! :lol:

Pretty standard stuff here, FW Mk.VI armour with a FW pad and a regular plastic bolter.

I'm also making solid progress on the 'Captain' and 'Command Squad' for this army while I wait on a delivery of new FW heavy weapons and some more Mk.IV armour so I can finish off the last Tactical squad and get to work on the Sternguard. I should have some WIP pictures of the Command Squad soon...

[Pulse]

Stunning as always mate, my favourite army on these boards! :P

[Machinepriest]

Looking good!

Your highlights are amazing as always! :)

[Chapter Master Ignis Domus]

I was going into withdrawal for a while there. Excellent job! :)

[Olis]

So much to look forward to... Keep up the good work, brother! :)

[Blindhamster]

your raven guard make me sad, they're so beautiful, which is impressive for models that are for the most part, technically rather plain, being black and all... kudos to you mate!

[SCC]

@Pulse: :rolleyes: Shucks. Thanks Pulse, that gives one's cockles a real warming given some of the other armies on the board...

@Machinepries,CMID, Olisredan: Thanks guys, hopefully back on track to make some real progress on the army once more...

@Blindhamster: Black is beautiful my friend, black is beautiful ;)

As promised Command Squad WIPs:

No matter how hard I try to batch paint, I just can't, so here's the first Command Squad Marine in a much more advanced stage thatn his brethren:

Each squad member will have the forepart of their helm done in white, the rest of the armour will remain black however. As I've said before, my RG are deliberately very muted and the Veterans will be no exception to that rule. They'll have much more detail, but they'll still be a dark, menacing black...

This is probably my favourite pose in the unit:

+++EDIT+++

These two gentlemen have since been sacked:

I have another of these plastic LC arms and I'm debating whether to try converting the index finger of the glove/fist to be pointing or whether to just leave this one as is:

I'm probably least sure of this pose:

Almost everything else I tried ended up duplicating the pose of one of his brothers so I settled on this one. He's tacked together so the angle of the sword etc. can still be altered to a degree, perhaps more of a pointing motion might work? Still, that'd be three in one squad pointing then.

The other option is to use the Korvydade arms and a Sevrin Loth Honour Guard axe to have him hold the axe at a guard position...hmmm...

And the replacements:

Here's the Korvydae arm/Honour Guard axe idea at work:

Detail needs cleaning up etc. but I quite like it, gotta get the angles of the arms right and pin it all properly, but he looks pretty good. Might bring the axe blade a little towards the camera too :lol:

And tonight's efforts so far:

The last member is the Apothecary shown previously:

The medicae symbol on the chest kept breaking sadly, so it's been replaced by RG etched brass...

And of course, there's no 'Command Squad' without a 'Captain':

Again, the arms are just tacked on but when the angles are right the pose is less awkward. The issue is of course the Korvydae legs are posed around the two handed hammer the original model has which means the running pose is a little weird for two separate arms...

Edited July 7, 2011 by SCC
Replacements incoming!

[Ravendove]

Love the command squad, especially the painted dude. Although, try as hard as I might, I just cannot get on board with single Lightning Claws. I just think it looks dumb. Lovely use of Korvydae parts too.

[dynamicspartan]

Lovely Raven Guard. The command squad guy with the lightning claw I feel would look better if you made his head looking to the right like he is about to slash someone in half.

[Chapter Master Ignis Domus]

The two axemen look incredible. I'm not sure about the single lightning claw one, as he looks too static in that pose, making the lightning claw look out of place.

[Blindhamster]

axe-men = awesome

painted dude = awesome

apothacary = super awesome

captain = cool but some other angles might give a better idea of it

power sword dude = not quite right, i'd go for a different head, probably one of the knightly ones, and use different arms, try and get a sort of menacing pose if possible

lightning claw dud = Im also not a fan of single claws, they just look off... i'd either swap for a second claw and some running legs, or switch to power sword.... what about having it look like he's about to draw his sword and use the sheathed swords from loths honourguard?

[Olis]

I'm feeling positively covetous. Such. An. Awesome. Army. Gah! :P

[Dam13n]

These do look cool (and love everything else to date as well).

 

I do have a couple of suggestions for the command squad (if you don't mind):

 

1 - the right arm on the 2-handed axe looks a little off, the arm probably should be slightly more externally rotated to bring the elbow in.

 

2 - the pose of the marine with the raised power sword just doesn't look as good as the rest, I would probably raise the bolt pistol so it points slightly upward and rotate that arm outwards, then have the sword pointing down and out and finally have him look to his right giving him a "searching for his next target" look.

 

Laterz...

[MagicMan]

This guy is the odd one out. If you didn't want another pointing sword pose, why not have him aiming a pistol with his sword pointing towards the ground?

The rest of the poses look great though.

[SCC]

Thanks for the feedback guys, it's been taken on board and the two troublesome fellows (single LC and PW up in the air) have been sacked. In all likelihood they'll end up with conventional bolter arms and fancy bolters as part of my planed Sternguard squad, the bodies and legs are still good.

Here's the Korvydae arm/Honour Guard axe idea at work:

Detail needs cleaning up etc. but I quite like it, gotta get the angles of the arms right and pin it all properly, but he looks pretty good. Might bring the axe blade a little towards the camera too :sweat:

Since the photo was taken I've brought the hands a little closer together and squared up the shoulders a little, still needs work to tidy up the joins etc.

And tonight's efforts so far:

The original bolter equipped arm was bent as all get out so has been snipped off and replaced with a bionic arm and BP. The bionics have had an extra rod added to the side facing the camera and still need some GS to fair the elbow to the forearm properly.

I've also Dremelled off the fancy-work on the shoulder pads and hips. RG etch brass will be placed on the hip parts and shoulder pads. Purity seals and GS will smooth out the worst of the damage to the pads.

I also need to fill in the Dremelled area on the glove, I didn't like the wreath and Crux, the detail was poor and bulky. I'm considering 'XIX' for the back of the glove - the RG Legion number of course.

I really wish this guy had been Finecast though, it was stone cold you know what to do all this...