Finally working on my Druid Influenced army

[Rizara]

Hey guys. Finally starting to work on my druid Influenced army. Yeah it has taken me two years or more to finally nail the idea down.

I am not good at writing fluff or ideas, so bare with me. What I do have is a name finally, and a direction.

This is what the army will be.

-It will use the space wolf codex.

-My army will tend to favor psychers, hence the druid idea, so will always be fielded with a rune priest.

-Army name will be the White Stags. I know someone else had mentioned the name on the forums, he had a thread back in 2009, i have sent him a PM several months ago when I had narrowed down a name but no response, almost like the user fell of the forums.

Anyways, I was trying to think of something that relates to the druidic culture and in irish celtic mythos, and since they do have the horned man as one of the dieties and white stags were seen as omens I decided to use that animal for the chapter. It also allows me some use of pelts and helps relate it some to the use of the space wolves codex. I have plans to add some dear antlers as mantles for my rune priest-druids. For the army icon, I am going to use a side profile design I am still working out, and going to actually try to work out a caste to make it easier to apply it to the armor. I could paint it but trying to make my painting work a little easier. As for stag pelts they will all be painted in a white stag look, which is a little off white. I will only include pelts really on characters as i want it to be rare. I do plan to have my wolf guard either have pelts or cloth tabards. The cloth will be done also in an off white bone like color.

I really need to work on the background, but more of that to come I guess as I start working on character sketches for my versions of the special characters. Eventually I will try to work on a sketch and model for each of the special characters, i will be starting with my version of Njal.

Anyways, with such little information I am needing some feedback on paint scheme choices. My previous irish celtic influenced armies have all been based around green, black and bone in some way. This one i am trying to limit the bone color tothe robes and fur, and using white icons. I am only using red for eyes and purity seals. As my last post someone mentioned using a sea green color and I am going to try to use a similar color.

Anyways, this is the fall back, it sticks to black halved scheme with the green I am wanting to use. It is the one I tend to favor, but It may be too overdone. My last rendition was a quartered scheme of black and jade green, so it might be best to avoid it, but I do like it alot.

This next one using something along the lines of a goblin green, either way i like it but I don't like the color. It might look vastly different when painted just here I am not 100% sold on it.

This last one is a brown/green scheme. I like this one alot, yet I have never been good at making brown look good as armor, it seems to work better for me as leather, not polished marine armor. The brown contrasts pretty well against the green.

Anyways, the idea behind using a halved scheme is to represent the dual nature of the druid, as representatives of death and life. All of the chapter marines consider themselves to be druids, based off their home worlds culture, although not all of them are psychically attuned. Because of the life and death aspect I am more drawn to the black/green scheme. Also because of the aspect of death, and being that they are druids, the black works in my culture today as death but in many cultures white also was a symbol of death, so I am also throwing up this one scheme as well. It is a white and green scheme, but if i paint it, it will most likely be a very light grey, not true white. All of these schemes are going to be done in a minimum highlight as I want to do a more battle damaged approach to the armor this time around and have lots of metal showing from their armors paint being worn from combat. The white scheme also means using black markings on that half of the armor.

Also all the black shoulder pads are just black because honestly that is where the coven(pack) markings will go. That leads me into the next issue. How should I go about marking the units. I thought about using ogham markings on the knee pads to mark the company they are from, and probably using an ogham marking in the corner of the shoulder pad to mark the squad number itself, with something similar to the spacewolves for marking unit type, like grey hunter, long fang, wolf guard types. That then leads me into what marking to put on them, and if so, should i use similar color patterns that the space wolves use while avoiding red. I was going to keep it more simple instead of having each squad having a different variation in pattern. I just want say my wolf guard to have a black background with off white or yellow triskele. Perhaps just use the triskele for all of them, but give each unit type a different color, like grey hunters use green on black, yellow on black for another, white on black, and then blue on black for a forth and just give the scouts a white on black as well since they will be in scout armor.

So many choices and I haven't even begun all the fluff background yet.

[Erasmus of Baal]

-It will use the space wolf codex.

-My army will tend to favor psychers, hence the druid idea, so will always be fielded with a rune priest.

-Army name will be the White Stags.

Looks good so far. If you're going with that name for sure, though, then I suggest the white half out of your options below.

 

Anyways, I was trying to think of something that relates to the druidic culture and in irish celtic mythos, and since they do have the horned man as one of the dieties and white stags were seen as omens I decided to use that animal for the chapter. It also allows me some use of pelts and helps relate it some to the use of the space wolves codex. I have plans to add some dear antlers as mantles for my rune priest-druids. For the army icon, I am going to use a side profile design I am still working out, and going to actually try to work out a caste to make it easier to apply it to the armor. I could paint it but trying to make my painting work a little easier. As for stag pelts they will all be painted in a white stag look, which is a little off white. I will only include pelts really on characters as i want it to be rare. I do plan to have my wolf guard either have pelts or cloth tabards. The cloth will be done also in an off white bone like color.

Also good.

 

I really need to work on the background, but more of that to come I guess as I start working on character sketches for my versions of the special characters. Eventually I will try to work on a sketch and model for each of the special characters, i will be starting with my version of Njal.

For me, it often works better the other way around - figure out what your chapter's history is, and then it's easy to place your characters in that context. Whatever works for you is good, though, as long as we get a great IA out of the deal. :)

 

Also all the black shoulder pads . . . since they will be in scout armor.

Ogham is, to be frank, boring. There really isn't much to it. Try using this as a great place to apply concepts from your druidic background - I'm not very familiar with most of the concepts that you're talking about, though, so I can't provide examples. Your triskele idea, by the way, sounds wonderful; to apply it well, consider what the Blood Angels use, as they just use variations on a blood drop (which, in my head, sounds like a similar system).

[Madwolf Shadowmane]

Sounds good so far. Please don't use the goblin green scheme. The only thing I would recommend against is allowing a codex choice to dominate your fluff development. The two things (rules and fluff) should be developed separately. Fluff first, then adapt rules to bring the fluff to the table top.

 

Madwolf

[Rizara]

as for the codex, it is the fluff in my head of course and previous discussions that have me leaning towards the space wolf codex. Part of me thought about using the grey knight to make them all psychic druids but I opted out of that because I still wanted them to feel something like a marine army, not a specialist all spell slinging druid army.

 

As for the characters, and rules, well I do need the characters to be legit, as I don't get to play many games at all so when i do get to play it will mostly be tournaments for schedule games. This means I will be using rules so want the army to fit. Also I am plan to create characters that are unique in their own right to the chapter that happen to use the rules in the dex, not base my influence off the characters. The only things I am keeping in mind are weapon options, then I think how I will be able to use those weapon options or give my character a similarily functioning weaon. The only two characters I have ideas for right now are my Njal based character and a ragnar based character. I haven't even started looking into the others yet.

 

Most of the fluff right now is in my head and is mostly tied to the origin world. I am not good at fleshing out these AI articles like I want, but I was actually thinking about going a little all out for the chapter this time and making my own mini dex with fluff for each unit type. Again I have big ideas but very little time to flesh things out, hoping to get some time to start building the army and painting soon. Only time will tell.

[Kristoff]

I agree with Erasmus' points. If the titular name of the chapter includes white, it would be odd to not see it as part of their colors. However, if you do that, the bone robes, cloaks, and furs may not stand out sufficiently, so the cloaks and robes may be better as a woodsy/earthy brown or death black. The furs are a little more difficult, because it would be assumed that the deer are white, correct?

 

 

Also as a thought, if you're concerned about the White Stags name, go for similar with something like the White Harts.

[Lysimachus]

I quite like the black/green option, it's a nice contrast and then you could do the chapter badge/squad markings in white, thus fitting with their name in the same way as the RED Scorpions (who aren't red at all) or to a lesser extent the Crimson Fists, who are mostly blue.

 

Would also make the white pelts stand out more.

[Messor]

I agree with Lysimachus, the black and green would be my choice, or that green with just a few bits of black, like the knees, shoulders, one leg or one arm. That's just because I, personally, am not big on bisected/quartered themes. That's a great concept, though, I'm looking forward to see how it plays out.

[Rizara]

Been rethinking the schemes a little based on the feedback so far. I agree I do rather like the black as well because it does help the white pelts stand out. The cloth colors i can easily change as need be, but the pelts I planned to use white stags, and who knows, eventually if I feel like sculpting some stags from scratch, maybe I can do some thunderstag cavalry models. So here are some updated black and light grey schemes I toyed around with, ditching the whole halved schemes all together. I do prefer painting solid helm schemes, as the split schemes are tricky getting the line in the middle straight.

Both still look good, its hard to say. I could always make sure that the pelts have a brownish tint to the coloration and they can still stand out against the light grey, just not as strongly against the black. The more I look at the light grey and green I do rather like it as it isn't a coloration often seen together.

[Erasmus of Baal]

I tried doing that exact pattern (just with different colors) for one of my DIY chapter attempts, and, well - you'd be amazed how little of your off-color (white/black in your cases) it is. If you're anything like me, you'll want more - put it on the shoulderpads, too.

 

Also, I maintain that you should use white. Your pelts will still be quite visible, especially if you shade them well.

[Rizara]

yeah your right, it does show your secondary color with little variation, however if the army icon is in white and i use white pelts, then I should have to actually add more white areas, which actually the white areas shown in color scheme will actually be a very light grey. I am planning to use a misty grey with white highlights, then of course the weathering affect which will allow me to not spend as much time weathering. I normally spend to much time painting each figure, that this time around, I just want to have an army fully painted, so looking at ways to speed the army painting up without sacrificing the overall look of the army. I think I will go with basecoats for the most part, battle damaged armor weathering, and maybe some weathering effects on vehicles and around the boots, and spend most of my time adding highlights to cloth sections, and making sure what little fur pelts the command get are well executed, then of course adding some knotwork patterns and celtic influenced design in the icons. I may just come up with 4 different runic designs to use as squar markings with just some simple way denote unit numbers, maybe a number on the knee instead, basically in the order I paint the squad of that unit type.

As for the black, i will limit that to maybe the unit numbering and weapon casings, and leave brown to leather parts as I normally do. Now to start working on some sketches today for converting that first character or 3 that will be in the army. I plan to start off like I said with a Njal stand in, and then a rune priest of no special significance and a battle leader. Need to work out how I want the rune priests to look with the stag pelts.

 

Also try to get some fluff on paper so I can begin working on an IA article. Never actually did one in the past on the boards, but came close once on a DIy chapter.

 

The more I look at it, the more I like that white and green scheme.

[Erasmus of Baal]

if the army icon is in white and i use white pelts, then I should have to actually add more white areas, which actually the white areas shown in color scheme will actually be a very light grey.

What happened to the pelts only being for officers and higher? Remember, the majority of your Marines (at least fluff-wise) are your typical rank-and-file, and your pain scheme really needs to allow for that.

[Rizara]

The pelts are going to be for the veterans and leaders mostly due to having to sculpt them which is a bit tedious with my mediocre sculpting skills.

 

On the topic of pelts, I am looking at my first runepriest conversion which will be off the Dark Vengeance model. Would you guys think it better to give him a headdress with the head and antlers, or just add an antler ornamentation to his backback. This is where I am drawing a blank is how to give the Runepriests the Stag antlers which helps single them out as characters, but also gives them some of the feel of the chapter. I wont have the stag antlers on probably the lords, but was thinking, doing a skull dear head with horns for my wolf priests which are more like the bards of the chapter, and the rune priests having antlers either as backpack additions, or in the case of my njal conversion which will be in terminator armor, having a pelt/headdress over the back/top of his termie armor.