Brother Kortmer's LaTD Kill Team

[K0rtmer]

Brothers,

I'll be keeping this thread as a place to share my (glacial) progress on my Lost-and-The-Damned Kill Team and to discuss what I have, and what's on next. Neither have I progressed as fast as I meant to over the last couple weeks, nor have I worked out as much background as I would've liked. But with the Daemonic Pact 2 event going – and me having been reckless enough to vow the squad leader to be completed by September 25 – I need to start this now. I plan to deliver though.

Here's what I have at the moment: the squad leader, built, save minor modifications as I go.

Over the course of Daemonic Pact 2 I'll provide background for this particular model as well as for what's going to be the, um, army – a Kill Team of like 8 counts-as Tempestus Scions and their ride.

For the moment I only have the picture to share. A few parts don't fit exactly as they will because I'm planning a sub-assembly paint job and have only blue-tacked the arms and backpack. I'm considering to drill some damage into his gun and backpack to blend everything together more nicely. I'm also considering to cut off the two remaining spikes as I think he's actually large enough already ... Any comments or advice are welcome and greatly appreciated.

I'm off to get to know my new airbrush now. I guess I'm having a bit of a challenge ahead.

[Dark_Apostle_XVII]

Got to say mate, I really really like that conversion. It looks ever so slightly creepy with the little head on the bloated body (and that flagellant head is just sinister anyway) but that just makes it cooler. Really great job, looking forward to seeing this painted with the rest of the squad :)

[K0rtmer]

I set it up and am doing reasonably well blowing, well, air at up to 40 psi. I'll move on to water and thinner tomorrow and hopefully shoot some paint around mid-week.

[Bernard The slayer]

Wow That's nice! What torso did you use - herald of nurgle?

[Kriegsmacht]

Awesome squad leader. His face reminds me of the sneer on the word bearers face on the word bearers omnibus by Anthony Reynolds.

 

Seeing his left arm makes me miss getting that mutation sprue in the chaos marines box. :(

[K0rtmer]

Hi all, and thanks for the feedback in this little corner of the B&C.

Bernard The slayer, yes, this is the WFB Nurgle Lord.

My life turns out to be ridiculous. I'm suffering a rather extraordinary teaching load lately, starting a new job in like 4 weeks time (where I can only expect things to be worse), and would ideally be shifting house before then because commute in Auckland sucks hard. I guess I'm finding excuses for not finding as much painting time as I'd like.

Well, I made my airbrush spray paint. I admit defeat in trying to thin Citadel paints – it either turned out much, much too thin, or of reasonable consistency but clogging my airbrush after like a minute – but had success with a random white acrylic paint I've had lying around. So I got a halfway decent pre-shading done on a random tester model. It's far, far from perfect and I can see a number of mistakes on the picture. But it seems to be the best I can pull off at this stage.



So I decided to move on and got my squad leader only a white pre-shading with the airbrush. I'll paint him with an actual brush. I also got my order from bitsofwar.com shipped to my place in the meantime and decided to give him another backpack – not the CSM one I've had before, but a Kromlech Orc Tank Hunter backpack, basically a bag full of random improvised explosives.

Painting him is slow. But I'm working towards it. I'd like to see some more pronounced highlights on the skin and a somewhat lighter, paler skin tone in general ... and I'll get there eventually. Up to this point I can only show some WIP as proof of life.



Any comments or suggestions are most welcome!

[K0rtmer]

It's next to impossible to get a somewhat decent picture with the lighting at my place this time of the day ...

But I see it's 8:34 New Zealand time and I'm running out of options. Here's the best I can pull off. It should go as a proof that my squad leader, Tiitus Demeter Vuspusiaam, The Firstborn, The Far-Sighted, is painted and based. I'm not absolutely happy with it. But it's to the best of my standard – given that my life is basically all over the place, and that I wasn't really expecting to finish in time. Here we go:




I've also cobbled together what I could from the many ideas in my head. I leave it up to you if this counts as a 140-word fluff piece for the purpose of the Daemonic Pact 2 mini-event. One way or the other, it's all I can come up with up at this point in time. There's more to follow, much more. But I'll leave it for now.

Tiitus Demeter Vuspusiaam, The Firstborn, The Far-Sighted –

emerged as one of the key figures from the ashes of the First Secession War in the Peccatus system. While Tiitus’ formal associations with any one of the nomadic warrior houses of Peccatus II cannot be reconstructed from fragmentary pre-war Imperial records, such records do indicate that Tiitus was navigating the warring tribal societies long before Imperial planetfall and the post-war Peccatian cargo-cult.
​
During the war, Tiitus implemented traditional Peccatian partisan tactics with scavenged Imperial hover technology and gathered a respectable force of hovercraft pirates, mostly fighting for Secessionists. More recent Imperial intel suggests that it was pirate and Secessionist forces that made contact with (what is believed to have been) an expeditionary splinter of the Disciples of Sol warband of traitor Astartes eight years into Imperial planetfall. Details of the incidents that ultimately led to the end of the First Secession War – seeing the single Imperial space bridge on Peccatus II’s moon in ruins and the Navy’s commanding cruiser boarded and under Secessionist control – remain unclear; it is known, however, that the Disciples of Sol disengaged from the Peccatus system for a number of years to come, leaving the Peccatian spear-tip of Tiitus’ pirates decimated after turning their weapons on them. It is believed that Tiitus was resurrected from the casualties – receiving what geneseed Secessionist-loyal Genetor Vuspusiaam could recover from the single fallen Disciple left behind.

At present-day, Tiitus Demeter Vuspusiaam has been reported to take tribal Peccatian warfare to space in and around the Peccatus system, mostly – but likely not exclusively – for the Secessionists of the Black Harvest.

Thanks for watching.

[Son of Barbarus]

Looking good mate!

[Forté]

Outstanding stuff :tu:

[K0rtmer]

Son of Barbarus and forte, many thanks for the compliment.

I've felt burned-out for a few days until I gave in and admitted that I'm just not happy with the model above. A meditation over my feelings taught me that I don't like it on many levels, not for what it is, but for what it's not: it's just not a primer for the army I'll be building. It just doesn't carry the Undivided Chaos feel that I'm after. In hindsight, I guess it wasn't a smart move to start off with a model built on a dedicated Nurgle model. The faint green and heavy rust tones do work together reasonably well, I think, but scream Nurgle just too hard for me here.

I want to achieve an overall Undivided feel, ideally using a somewhat limited and muted palette. KrautScientist has pointed in Darth Mustard's thread that this isn't exactly straightforward. There is, as he puts it (or rather as I understand it), just no single, simple, strong visual leitmotif to tie everything together. I guess I couldn't agree more – and this helped me very much to understand my problem.

So I went back to the drawing board and started all over again. Eventually I've narrowed it down to this:

This is basically dark (and maybe subtly blueish) gray tones and bone for armor plates and other features like, for example, face masks, and bronze for most metal components. It's not too complicated to paint and seems to be reasonably straightforward to weather too. It should also be transferable to vehicles without too much hassle. At the same time, however, it's probably bland and mute enough to avoid association with anything particular.

I'm actually rather happy with it at the moment and plan to let it settle for a few days. I'd be curious what the more seasoned and more skilled contributors to this little corner of the B&C think. Any comments or suggestions are most welcome.

[KrautScientist]

While I really like your Nurglite Traitor champ posted above, this new paint scheme is really something else: I just love the way this came out! The off-white mask is an incredible touch. Please paint a whole army in this style: I'd just LOVE to see it!

 

What an amazing recipe! You should post it in the Traitor Guard inspiration thread as well!

[Son of Barbarus]

A very grubby mini there, well done!

[K0rtmer]

Gentlemen,

many thanks for the compliments. Please accept my apologies for not having posted any updates this long. Although I'm struggling to find hobby time lately, I did make some progress – but didn't make it back here to update.

I've finished building a Chimera for my Kill Team. Given that my paint scheme tester came out good enough for me – and given approval by KrautScientist, which means a lot to me! –, I thought I'd next try to transfer the paint scheme to a tank. That turned out to be somewhat more difficult than I thought. I'm not quite sure if I'm sold on it. But have a look first:









The last picture has my first tester model on it as well. I think the two give a reasonably coherent appearance, which is, I guess, like, necessarily so because I'm working with the same paints from a very limited palette. (I like limited palettes.) Note that the Chimera isn't at all completed. I've painted the sides first because I'm feeling a bit unsure where I'm going. As I said, I'm not entirely sure if I'm happy with it. I like it, I like it really, but I can't help myself and think that the verdigris I painted into the recesses – because I figure that's where humidity is drawn to, and I understand that's what causes the corrosion in the first place – looks like it's glowing. I'm afraid this is somewhat exaggerated on the picture. I'm still working with my phone. I'd very much appreciate people's opinion and advice on this. What do you reckon? Am I pulling off the worn down, Undivided renegade feel that I'm after?

Along the same lines: I feel I need to enhance my palette by at least one more color for accents and a bit of variety. I'm toying around with the idea of green OSL effects from the eye sockets of the metal skulls on the side?

In the meantime I've also made some progress with some renegade Scions.





These guys are still missing a fair bit of details, extra grenades and gadgets, and most notably green stuff cabling to the hellguns. The Scion with the Hot-Shot Volley Gun will (of course) be Relentless, hence the overly dynamic posing. I don't know how many more I need to build. I've lost my initial list, but the idea was basically to run a Chimera with as many Scions as fit into 200 points; I guess I'm having 3 or so more to go, including the squad leader.

It'll be some time before I have more material to share. Until then your feeback is very much appreciated. Thanks for reading this far.

[Castellan Cato]

Your scheme looks amazing.  It scales up to the tank really well too.  I can see waht you mean about the "glowy" corrosion effect.  My solution for it (although I havent had the painting time to try it myself) is to put a light layer of the typhus corrosion technical in on it before the oxide.  This should give it other raised areas and texture to grip to besides the sides of the tank.  Idk. thats my thoughts.  Maybe try it on a small test piece first.

 

I love the scion conversions, but they feel a bit too lightly armored for the 4+ save. 

 

Keep up the good work though!!!

[Augustus b'Raass]

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d185/mkruijff/eoqs2_zpsa115f343.jpg

 

Helluva paint scheme you've got there Brother Kortmer. Also, hotdamn on the chimera, the nurgle lord conversion and my personal favorite: the flamer shield. Lot's of props for the originality man. Wow.

[K0rtmer]

Thanks for your kind words, Castellan Cato and Augustus b'Raass! I really appreciate!

 

You have a good point regarding the 4+ armor save and how light my models feel. To be honest, I remember having had a similar idea when I started to think about putting them together. But I must have forgotten about it over the process. Maybe it's possible to add a bit of extra weight by using heavier helmets on the two cultist- and flagellant-based models. The flamer Scion can maybe get away with the shield ... I don't know. I make sure I'll think about it.

 

I won't be updating anything until after Christmas. My new job's demanding 100% of my energy and I haven't held a brush in 4 weeks. I hope I get to find hobby time over the holidays ...

[K0rtmer]

Hi people,

here's an incremental update on a short note:

After having hardly been home since mid-November I did actually manage to find a few hours of hobby time over the weekend. I did take Castellan Cato's advice very seriously – and thought a lot about how to make the renegade Scions look more like a 4+ armor save. I've rebuilt the guy with the Hot-Shot Volley Gun completely and went for a head swap for the other guy (which wasn't exactly easy working from the cultist model, but a great exercise for me anyway). Here's where I am at the moment.

I like to think they look less like cultists, or at least less like armored like cultists. I'm trying to keep the ragged overall look to some degree – and that's why I'd be hesitating to just go for the stock Scion models and a renegade paint scheme; it's just not what I'm after. I've decided to paint the cultist-based guy in exactly the same color as the scenic base (that I'll build at some point) and run him as the Kill Team's sniper. I'll try to get away with the excuse that he's wearing camo over his armor. The obvious question is now: does it work? What do you think? Is this going anywhere – and, if not, where else to go?

At the same time I've thrown together a first iteration of the squad leader too. It's just a squad leader, a single-wound T3 model with close-combat weapon and Bolt Pistol. I have the feeling that I got a bit carried away with the CCW? I'm also not quite sure about the head? Maybe a bare head would be more appropriate? But, then, about that 4+ armor save ...

Let me know what you think. Feedback in this little part of the forum has been very valuable to me up to this point (although I haven't really found any time and am still building the same models as a couple of months back). So, yeah ... let me know.

Thanks for looking!

[RolandTHTG]

The hot-shot guy looks much better. I think the sniper works too. It might be a little light if you were doing the whole force that way, but as a one-off it works fine. I'd say you should make sure that the boots, forearms, etc match the rest of the force so it looks like he's just wearing a cloak over the armor.  

[Castellan Cato]

They look great!  Even though the armor is subtle, I think it makes them look much more tough.  And they definitely don't look like "chaos colored" scions!  The backpacks you have are also really well done.

[KrautScientist]

The armour really works for me -- but then I wasn't too bothered about the earlier versions either. Explaining that cloak on the cultist based model as some kind of sniper suit is an excellent idea!

 

I am not at all sold on the champ's polearm weapon, though: It's well converted, no doubt about that, but it just seems too unwieldy for this particular model. I would probably just use the blade (from a Skaven spear, right?) as some kind of vicious cleaver/combat knife -- just get rid of the plasticard parts and glue the blade to the shaved down handle. It will look excellent!

 

I am really looking forward to seeing these guys painted, because I am quite in love with your traitor colour scheme! :)

[Augustus b'Raass]

I love those very subtle conversions, man. Really cool. I for one do not agree with Kraut - I think the pole arm weapon looks awesome and realistic. It would require a special weapon skill to use IRL, but physics-wise think this dude would be able to wield it (as long as the staff itself isn't made of metal).

(WOW I disagree with Kraut on something! That's a first )

[K0rtmer]

@RolandTHTG: Thanks for your input, mate. I'll look into changing the boots for Cadian ones, that's a great idea. I won't be swapping forearms though. It'd be rather difficult with this particular model and I think the forearms it does have still work for a sniper.

@Castellan Cato: Cheers, good to hear you like armor.

@KrautScientist: Thanks so much, and I hear you re the close combat weapon. Perhaps you're right and it's too unwieldy for the model ... I don't know. I just think it looks too, like, threatening for just a simple squad leader (who does, after all, just have a close combat weapon, a pistol, and I believe A2). I'll definitely see what it looks like without the plasticard bits, just the blade glued to the handle, and compare the two.

@Augustus b'Raass: Yeah, looking at what some people seem to be handling in martial arts I could imagine somebody using a weapon like that. I wouldn't have any idea what kind of material you'd use 40,000 years in the future. (I guess I would've painted it in a metal color though.) But, again, I'm just not too sure whether it's a bit OTT for a model that isn't exactly a threat in close combat. I'll look into what KrautScientist has suggested and compare the two ... and go from there.

Unfortunately I don't see myself having a lot of hobby time over the next couple of weeks. My new job has hit hard and I'm far too busy for what's comfortable. I'll build two more models to have a squad of 8 – and only then will I paint them. I don't have any idea when that will be, but I'll keep you updated here.

Again, thanks for your valuable suggestions! Enjoy your hobby!

[RolandTHTG]

Oh man, I just meant painting the limbs &stuff the same colors as the other guys, but if you think you can pull off a leg swap go right ahead!

[KrautScientist]

@KrautScientist: Thanks so much, and I hear you re the close combat weapon. Perhaps you're right and it's too unwieldy for the model ... I don't know. I just think it looks too, like, threatening for just a simple squad leader (who does, after all, just have a close combat weapon, a pistol, and I believe A2). I'll definitely see what it looks like without the plasticard bits, just the blade glued to the handle, and compare the two.

 

Maybe I can make your life a bit easier -- this is basically what it looks like without the plasticard:

 

http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2014/10/12/654258-Chaos%2C%20Conversion%2C%20Kitbash%2C%20Renegade%20Militia%2C%20Renegades%2C%20Traitor%20Guard.JPG

 

I coincidentally used the same blade on one of my own traitors a while ago. Hope this helps! ;)

[K0rtmer]

LOL, it does. Thanks!

RolandTHTG, ah, I see, no worries. I should have a couple of spare Cadian boots lying around so I'll look into it. But I won't get carried away with it and will leave it as it is if it turns out to be too troublesome. I'll keep you posted here.