[WIP] 1905th Solar Auxilia: Rust Scorpions

[Leman Russ SW]

Wow you are a machine.  looking great.

[Brother Pheidias]

You know, I never had much interest in the Solar Auxilia originally, but yours are truly wonderful. The Rotor Cannons are magnificently done, and the sheer volume of fire is a beautiful thing to think of :D

Subscribed!

[The Pounder]

 

Do it. God wills it.

 

I did it, I've sent the unpainted version to them and will send the full painted squad to them as well.  I've finished half the squad so far, see pics below!

 

God wills it! 

 

If the God-Potato of Mankind states it must be done, who am I to argue?

 

Those rotor cannon guys look amazing!!!

 

Thank you very much for the compliment!

 

 

 

 

I am seriously considering swapping 10 out of my 40 Veletarii to have rotors just to add volume of fire to the choomspam.

Soooo considering.

 

You fiend :|

 

I am quite devilish, it's true, but I will say this...the conversion, while easy as hell on some of the poses, becomes a monster of a job on other poses.  I still want to make my second squad but it's going to have to wait for the moment if only because the squad, without tax or shipping, is already $97 and I wasn't joking when I said I constantly knicked my fingers trying to hollow out the tiny hands.  I'm going to need to freaking heal before I attempt another one of these squads. lol

 

 

Dude, I feel you. The amount of manicures I have jacked up trying to shave down a conversion bit just so... my nail tech hates me a little. But I prolly put one of her kids through college, so I suppose it balances out. 

 

Always remember, the Dark Gods of resin ask not for your soul or your loyalty... 

 

just your finger tips and your credit card info.

 

 

Yeah no kidding but the work paid off, as rough as the green stuff may have looked before being painted...below you will find the first half of the squad looking quite stylish.

 

 

===

 

Alright, I did half the squad first because quite frankly I was testing some color schemes and testing across 10 men is insane when you have to change something mid-assembly line.  So I downsized the assembly line and increased the speed at which I could test things.  I'm really happy with how the paint covered almost all of the green stuff, the models came out looking like they were intended to be put together with the rotor cannons...which is what I was going for.

 

1905th 'Rust Scorpions' - Veletaris Rotor Cannon Half-Section

 

http://i.imgur.com/LblE8aD.png

 

State of the badass art!

They just look so right, seemlessly done!

It's been said before but this is the best 30k guard thread in town!

[Dantay VI]

Wow, these guys look supreme. Can't wait to see the rest of the squad done.

 

Btw did you see the new design WIP rotor cannons at the FW weekender? Like mini punishers.

 

You could do 1 squad liie Aliens and one squad like predator :D

 

Back left, picture from Atia..

[Soldier of Dorn]

Wow, these guys look supreme. Can't wait to see the rest of the squad done.

 

Btw did you see the new design WIP rotor cannons at the FW weekender? Like mini punishers.

 

You could do 1 squad liie Aliens and one squad like predator :D

 

Back left, picture from Atia..

Yeah, I'll be using those as Assault Cannons for my Blood Angels.

 

EDIT: Thought I was in a different thread, sorry for the OT.

The Auxillia look awesome, by the way. Between this thread and Flint's newest project, I'm seriously considering starting an army of them.

Edited February 7, 2016 by The Psycho

[Olis]

Lovely little half-section, brother. Keep up the good work. :tu:

[Audemus]

Wow you are a machine.  looking great.

 

Thanks!  The last 5 took an extra day primarily due to thinking out ways to do my nods to Aliens, getting Apone's skin tone right was difficult but I finally got it and then I had to go dig through my bitz box for one of the non-hand attached veteran Elysian shotguns for Hudson.  I really wanted to do a bandanna on Vasquez but I'm just not good enough with green stuff yet to sculpt things properly.  I opted for making her inner helmet padding a clearly discernible shade of red.

 

You know, I never had much interest in the Solar Auxilia originally, but yours are truly wonderful. The Rotor Cannons are magnificently done, and the sheer volume of fire is a beautiful thing to think of

 

Subscribed!

 

Awesome!  Now if only my Arvus, which shipped 2 days prior to the Rotor Cannons, would show up.  That's part of another crazy strategy I'm working on...I swore I'd never even contemplate one of those flying deathtraps but the strategy should work, albeit at a cost.

 

 

State of the badass art!

They just look so right, seemlessly done!

It's been said before but this is the best 30k guard thread in town!

 

Thank you so much for the compliment!  The feedback I receive in this thread really helps drive me to complete each piece of the army. 

 

Wow, these guys look supreme. Can't wait to see the rest of the squad done.

 

Btw did you see the new design WIP rotor cannons at the FW weekender? Like mini punishers.

 

You could do 1 squad liie Aliens and one squad like predator

 

Back left, picture from Atia..

 

Thanks for the compliment!   The rest of the squad awaits you below!

 

Also, I...really dislike that rotor cannon. lol  Which is odd since everyone seems to like it, maybe I'm just partial after staring at this one for so long now. 

 

I have to say the current rotor cannon fits with the Veletaris style extremely well and barring them discontinuing it, I'm going to use it in the future. 

 

 

Yeah, I'll be using those as Assault Cannons for my Blood Angels.

 

EDIT: Thought I was in a different thread, sorry for the OT.

The Auxillia look awesome, by the way. Between this thread and Flint's newest project, I'm seriously considering starting an army of them.

 

 

Flint's Solar Auxilia are great; the amount of research and subsequent detail work that went into replicating that winter camo scheme is stunning.  Flint is usually my first point of contact when I come up with some hair brained idea like the Rotor Cannons, albeit I'm usually stubborn and plow along with the idea.  I still appreciate the invaluable feedback! 

 

Lovely little half-section, brother. Keep up the good work.

 

Thank you!  It is no longer a half-section, below is the full section!

 

=====================================================

 

These guys really took it out of me, primarily because I've never actually attempted a modification project of this magnitude before.  My gf, needless to say, is relieved to see them completed as I am no longer becoming bound by green stuff and super glue while trying to keep the model in the right position...cussing the whole way! 

 

The three nods to Aliens are all present, as I noted above I had to do Vasquez with a red inner-padding rather than a bandanna because I couldn't sculpt it right and the green stuff was getting dangerously close to becoming embedded in the models face.  Hudson's shotgun is an Elysian Veteran shotgun that I had in my bit box with the stock removed and then painted to match the original movie shotgun.  Apone is obviously Apone and if you had any idea how hard I worked to get his mustache and cigar right, you'd probably cry.  I don't even know if you can see them in the pictures but damn it they are there, I promise!

 

Thanks for all the feedback and support for this project; everyone posting here kept me going even when I was so irritated I wanted to walk away. 

 

Alright, so diorama followed by angles!

 

1905th 'Rust Scorpions' - Veletaris with Rotor Cannons

 

http://i.imgur.com/E2hs2KZ.png

 

http://i.imgur.com/psMoWiF.png

[Legio Draconis]

 So much Dakka! these guys look great. 

[Brother Pheidias]

I can just make out Apone and Vasquez, great job, and totally worth the effort!

[Reyner]

Looking awesome man!

 

"All right, sweethearts, you're a team and there's nothin' to worry about. We come here, and we gonna conquer, and we gonna kick some, is that understood? That's what we gonna do, sweethearts, we are going to go and get some. All right, people, on the ready line! Are ya lean?"

[Audemus]

 So much Dakka! these guys look great. 

 

Indeed!  Even with only 10 of them that's a BS4 squad with 40 shots at 30 inches and misses on 1 are re-rolled.  Sure the strength isn't all that but that's quite a few bullets!

 

I can just make out Apone and Vasquez, great job, and totally worth the effort!

 

Someone on Reddit asked for close ups of the named characters, so you're in luck!  Here's a a zoomed shot on them that I just look a little bit ago, it's really high res if you click on it:

 

http://i.imgur.com/XQ98fZE.png

 

 

 

Looking awesome man!

 

"All right, sweethearts, you're a team and there's nothin' to worry about. We come here, and we gonna conquer, and we gonna kick some, is that understood? That's what we gonna do, sweethearts, we are going to go and get some. All right, people, on the ready line! Are ya lean?"

 

Thank you sir!

 

I'm pretty much going to be hearing this in my head every time he's on the table:

 

"Another glorious day in the Corps! A day in the Marine Corps is like a day on the farm. Every meal's a banquet! Every paycheck a fortune! Every formation a parade! I LOVE the Corps!"

 

[Reyner]

Now I have a dilemma. Originally my Solar Auxilia were going to be painted like the mighty 501st Legion (little blue bits to tie them into my Ultramarines) but now I may have go to the Colonial Marine Corps route... Little bits of graffiti on their gear and all... Bugger.

[Audemus]

Now I have a dilemma. Originally my Solar Auxilia were going to be painted like the mighty 501st Legion (little blue bits to tie them into my Ultramarines) but now I may have go to the Colonial Marine Corps route... Little bits of graffiti on their gear and all... Bugger.

 

I actually used a lot of the art from the old Colonial Marine Corp book that I had when I was 15-16(?), I don't know the 90's are one big blur for me.

 

If you look at the ones who are using the bracing handle you'll find that they are all being held in a similar manner to this:

 

http://i.imgur.com/iSTzFWe.jpg

 

I couldn't do that for the ones with the hands out but the implication with the guns positioning is that there is a motorized component at their waistline bracing them.

 

If that wasn't enough to drive you crazy, keep in mind the Tarantula is effectively just a two-barreled Sentry Gun from the movie!

 

http://i.imgur.com/MI5xous.jpg  http://i.imgur.com/4uYosyK.jpg?1

 

I'm a horrible influence, I know!

[Reyner]

Tell you what. I will paint one as a 501st trooper and one as a Colonial Marine to see which is better to paint :P 

[Flint13]

If you've ever played Alien vs Predator (the older PC games from the early 2000s) you actually get a really good look at a ton of the technical specifics of the SMART gun, as well as a ton of the other Marine equipment.

 

Essentially, the idea is that the SMART gun is a whole weapon system including targetting software and a mini-exoskeleton, all designed to boost the users reaction times and accuracy. 

[Knight of the Raven]

You made sardaukars! You made sardaukars! Sexy, delicious sardausdflvlehcfnr-

 

KotR has stopped working. Would you like to reboot?

[Audemus]

You made sardaukars! You made sardaukars! Sexy, delicious sardausdflvlehcfnr-

 

KotR has stopped working. Would you like to reboot?

 

Haha I totally forgot about those guys, that's awesome!

 

 

===================

 

 

So I got to put the Rotor Cannons on the table yesterday but it was a short game, we only had enough time to do 1 and a half turns as my alarm clock failed to wake me up.  In their only firing turn though they decimated an entire space marine squad, leaving 3-4 of them standing, and then absorbed point blank incoming fire from another squad which included a flamer and only two of them went down.  The ammo dump accounted for 2 dead marines, allowing 4 shots to be re-rolled from 1's to hits and I'd say the give/take there is not bad at all since they still had more turns of firing left in them.

 

As we were rushing, I didn't get a huge amount of pictures off but lets see if I can't post them for you in some semblance of chronological order.

 

2,000 Points - Space Wolves vs. Solar Auxilia

 

==Turn 1==

 

The Space Wolves took the initiative and moved forward on me, I knew for a fact the landraider was going to be an issue but I couldn't crunch my force enough to get the Stormhammer into play to handle it.  We were rushing for time so I made a judgment call that probably wasn't the best but given the time it was the easiest to get us playing...I strapped hunter killers to all my vehicles.

 

The initial delay, besides my late arrival at the store was due to my opponent completing the building of his Wulfen as he had just bought a box set and wanted them in the battle.  They were inside of the Landraider as well so it was not a great feeling for my Dracosan on that side of the board.

 

http://i.imgur.com/UnqmioN.png

 

On the other side of the board, things were looking better for me...

 

He had advanced with his two squads along the ridge-line and brought a Rhino up moving toward my team.  I opted to keep the Household Retinue with the Lord Marshal out of a Dracosan to keep the two I had equipped with demolisher cannons, also with the board being so small the transport seemed redundant for them as they were deployed with plenty of armor covering their advance.  Luckily I had shrouded myself via Warlord Trait Blind Barrage, protecting me from any first turn shenanigans that I faced against the Tau.

 

http://i.imgur.com/mn3rwrU.png

 

 

My first turn, resulted in my Incinerators staying still and the Dracosan on the far side of the board moving into a position to keep its sides outside of the firing arc of the rapidly approaching Landraider and Vindicator Demolisher (Think that's the right name).  Shooting phase rolled in and that's when things finally felt like they were going as planned.  The Incinerators opened up on the ridge-line squad and when the CHOOMIN! stopped there was not much left of the squad and it failed leadership checks, sending them running for the border.

 

The Rotor Cannons took center stage though as they targeted the second squad on the right side of the board and, despite having two of the Veletaris blocked by the intervening building, mimicked the slaughter brought about by the two Incinerator tanks and shattered the morale of the second squad as well; sending them running for the table edge post haste.

 

I made a mistake with the Dracosan and opened up on the Vindicator, forgetting about my hunter killers, and glanced the space marine tank for 1 hull point and held back on the HK's due to the demolisher being ordinance, I didn't want to lose the HK's on a 6 only roll.  In retrospect, I should have just shot them.

 

http://i.imgur.com/ksK8m7U.png

 

Turn 2

 

The Landraider disgorged the Wulfen and they came running at the Dracosan like bats out of hell, during the subsequent assault phase they would tear the Dracosan apart inflicting exactly 5 glancing hullpoints to the transport.  Now had the game continued, I would have found myself with an entire very irritated Veletaris Storm Section with Volkite chargers primed for a point blank encounter of the Vulpine kind.  As I noted above, I never got to retaliate for this and it would have been a short lived moment as the flamers mounted on the Land Raider were going to scorch them all to kingdom come.

 

 

http://i.imgur.com/ErzdOoD.png

 

On the other side of the board the Rhino disgorged more Space Wolves right in the face of my Rotor Cannons and they hurled themselves to the ground to utilize the 2+ cover save.  This worked with miraculous levels of effectiveness as the plasma and bolter rounds pinged off the armored shields and then the Reinforced Void Armor absorbed the flame thrower for all but two of the Veletaris.

 

That brought an end to the shooting phase and as I was beginning to counter punch we were notified that time was going to prevent another turn so we'd have to stop where we were.  I had intended to assault the Rhino during my turn using the Household Retinue and then cut down the marine squad with the Rotor Cannons and Incinerators before wheeling around to deal with Bjorn (think that's his name) and his squad.

 

Table Shot of the Stopping Point

 

http://i.imgur.com/QrKPw35.png

 

 

This fight was difficult because 2k points was not fitting properly into any of my models, as I left the Atrapos at home due to the bulk it adds to carrying things in and the Stormhammer being outside of the 25% range of 2k points.  I should have brought the Malcador Annihilator out and just dropped the Dracosans in retrospect; using the Malcador w/ Leman Annihilators as my anti-landraider weapons but regardless 14AV is hard to overcome.  The Atrapos would have shined dealing with that little problem but bringing 4k points worth of models to the store is a bit daunting, so I'm not sure how I will need to handle that in the future.

 

One thing is for certain, I need those Tarantulas and Rapiers to fill out my sub-1500 point list range so that I can get some heavy firepower in for relatively low costs.  Anyways, I wish I had a full battle report for you guys but time killed us on that, I really don't know where this fight would have gone as my Lemans were all armoured ceramite and that was the only anti-vehicle weapon he had on the table.  It would have been amusing to have watched them fire back and forth attempting to glance to death the opposing tanks. 

[God-Potato of Mankind]

Squeee. Battle reports with Auxilia, just what I wanted. I'm on a SA painting binge and really want to throw down the gauntlet at my FLGS.

 

Good to see the Rotor cannons mulching a squad too :D

[Flint13]

Wow, those rotor cannons were hella more effective than I would have given them credit for. Great work man!

 

Can't wait to see them take to the table again. 

 

Oh, a little tip versus Wulfen. It always pays to have a super cheap unit to work as a speed-bump. Their charge range is stupid long since they can disembark, run, then re-roll a failed charge, but they're just as vulnerable as any other combat unit to being stuck sitting around in the open if they massacre the unit they charged in their own combat phase. Plus they're only T4 with a 4+ save. Not even power armor :D

[Pearson73]

Nice seeing your force on the table, they look great.

[Audemus]

Squeee. Battle reports with Auxilia, just what I wanted. I'm on a SA painting binge and really want to throw down the gauntlet at my FLGS.

 

Good to see the Rotor cannons mulching a squad too

 

Awesome!  I really could have played the game better if I had more time to put together my force, I have a really bad habit of just piling stuff on my Lord Marshal when I'm not hitting the right point value as he can take an absolute stupendous amount of wargear.  I am *very* sad I did not get to use the vaunted grey goo gun on that space marine squad, as I picked it over the Archaeotech Pistol for the first time ever, but time was not on our side.  The only really frustrating thing about my store is that no one plays games on any day but Saturday. 

 

I went in there on a Sunday once and waited 6 hours without getting a single game, no one seems to be interested in playing outside the store either so I'm not sure if there is anything that can be done to fix the issue.  It does suck though.

 

Wow, those rotor cannons were hella more effective than I would have given them credit for. Great work man!

 

Can't wait to see them take to the table again. 

 

Oh, a little tip versus Wulfen. It always pays to have a super cheap unit to work as a speed-bump. Their charge range is stupid long since they can disembark, run, then re-roll a failed charge, but they're just as vulnerable as any other combat unit to being stuck sitting around in the open if they massacre the unit they charged in their own combat phase. Plus they're only T4 with a 4+ save. Not even power armor

 

The rotor cannons were downright frightening with the ammo dump in place and BS4 they unleashed an unholy amount of hell on that space marine squad.  My opponent wasn't to concerned until I counted up the hits and was at roughly 29 hits then 4-5 more rerolled 1's for a final tally of 32 hits.  It was something else watching the space marines drop under the sheer number of hits as the dice failed saves one by one.  I can't describe how good that moment felt, watching a complete on-paper concept come to life and wreck the enemy; now if I just had the 3 Tarantulas dropping out of the sky to cut off the Space Marines retreat and mow them down while they were in flight... 

 

As to the Wulfen, I was playing sacrificial lamb with that Dracosan.  I needed the Wulfen to kill the Dracosan, not the Landraider or Vindicator, as they were only landing glancing blows and that would leave the squad inside dismounted and ready to bring the CHOOM! in my coming part of the turn.  I knew I wasn't going to be able to cut through the landraiders armor but I wanted the Wulfen removed so my infantry could play cat and mouse if need be.  I had a mind to go bring the Lord Marshal and his Household Retinue over to play a game of "who hits harder" with them but they were all equipped with cold claws and from what I could tell AP2 + Shred was going to hurt really badly. 

 

I'm not convinced that the Lord Marshal Marcalius couldn't have brought the fury grey goo gunning them down on approach and shroud bombing to prevent them grabbing the initial charge, when I tell you he was kitted up to the gills...I mean he would have made Ironsides blush with the amount of tomfoolery I had on him.  My points were just not lining up to 2k properly and I actually will need to sit down tonight and come up with a 1k, 1.5k, 2k, 2.5k, 3k army list just to avoid this in the future.  To give you an idea of silliness on the LM, I had 3 different saves to choose from.  One for ranged shots (warp shunt field), one for standard melee attacks (artificer armour), and one for my Get out of Jail Free card (displacer matrix)...yeah, I was trying to fill in points in silly ways but god I was going to laugh if the Lord Marshal rolled up and started culling the Space Wolves in their bread and butter assault phase home.

 

Nice seeing your force on the table, they look great.

 

Thank you!  It's always a relief to see that they all look uniform on the table as, despite my best efforts of lining the models up side by side, I still worry I'm not replicating the tone due to the weird reaction of Nuln Oil on Skavenblight with the Stormvermin Fur/Dawnstone dry brush.  If you ever get bored try it out and you'll see initially they will look to bright/chalky...then if you leave them without any interaction for about 2 hours suddenly the final color appears and it's smooth dark grey with a hint of underlying green/light grey depending on lighting.  It's really cool!

 

===

 

I'm currently working on my Arvus as it finally showed up and I think I officially hate this model.  It has to many closed edges that block you from painting it properly and you have to leave the entire ship unassembled if you're going to paint it properly  as the rear hatch requires the two halves of the ship be loose to attach it.  It makes the Valkyrie seem like a well-thought out model and after painting 4 of those in a little over 2 months, I never want to do one again!

 

Oh well, back to painting!  Thanks again for the kind words everyone.   

[Audemus]

While it is not the most exciting model in the world...it may very well be the most annoying to paint!  The Arvus Lighter is most likely an old mold so I'm willing to give it some leeway but it is not the most thrilling of models, yet being able to deliver my Lord Marshal and his Household Retinue via deep strike into the thick of it without chance of stopping them as they cross the field.

 

With that being said, I present the...

 

1905th 'Rust Scorpions' - Imperial Navy Arvus Lighter

 

http://i.imgur.com/pNMbd7z.jpg

[The Pounder]

You may have found it a bit dull but it looks good!

[Audemus]

You may have found it a bit dull but it looks good!

 

Thank you!  I think the part that bothered me the most is the pilot has probably the best face I've ever painted and once I got the film into the canopy it's pretty much impossible to see.  I also painted the entire cabin but unlike the Valkyrie there's no way to really see inside besides looking into the hatch on the back when it's open.  I'm just glad I didn't do the ceiling lights because I noticed the shadows completely hid them, as that would have been a ton of unnecessary work. 

 

My next models are for WHFB/AOS unfortunately but I might try to get an order in on some Tarantulas or Rapiers in between completing them and the release of the Medicae (whenever they decide to do that).  The Arvus can seat 12 so the Household Retinue, Lord Marshal, and Medicae can all fit into it; which is exactly what I needed.  Now the intent is to have Tarantulas deploy in a triangle around the Arvus drop zone and provide cover fire while the squad mobilizes.  I just wish that I could find a multilas tarantula, as it appears I may need to mod the tarantula model with my Valkyrie multilas guns to simulate them!

[Brother Pheidias]

I for one really like the Arvus, though of course never having painted one...

Yours look great though. And Multilas Tarantulas and dropzoning sounds great and fluffy, very much showing the difference between Great Crusade/Heresy Era Imperial Army tactics, and the sluggish inflexibility of most modern Guard Regiments :D