Beaktory is vengence, the XIX Legion strikes back

[Beaky Brigade]

Hello,

As you can see from my post count I'm pretty new here, though I'm not new to online forums or the hobby, though I really have not played a proper game of 40k (or 30k) maybe ever, something I hope to change this year, and maybe get some of my legions (pun partially intended) of unpainted minis painted.

I remember my first proper introduction to the Raven Guard was an old WD where they introduced Shrike possibly for the first time, though I can't be certain. Although I was always more of an Imperial Guard fan, reading Imperial Armour Volume Eight got me interested in the Raven Guard, and some of their Heresy stories including Raven's Flight got me hooked (It seems to me RG fans are relatively small in number, but are very 'enthusiastic'). I'm not alone in taking inspiration from this great log.

The announcement of HH1 from FW made me determined to start a force of RG legion, the idea being by the time their rules were out I would have a full army, I would also do MKV conversions and minimise the use of FW parts to do Heresy on a 'budget' (this was during the dark times, before the B@C).

Well HH3 has come and gone, so has HH4, 5, 6 and now 7 seems imminent... Clearly I had built an army of Shadow Masters because there is nothing to see... Until now! As you can see the minimal FW rule has sort of failed, but most of these parts were acquired individually from bits stores rather than me splurging on whole sets, in theory there will be less as time goes on and I have to 'scrape the barrel' of my bits collection.

Fluff wise this is going to be post dropsite massacre and post Deliverance Lost army, with plenty of beakies and MKV armour, but obviously I'm not going to not play them in battles set before then if someone is running them.

A couple of Tactical Marines WIP I do have a lot of running legs I've acquired over the years, but most of them are MKVII ones, which require some serious work to make them look like MKV, it might be better to just sell most of them at this point and get some more MKVI legs. B@C has swayed the time/ money dynamic in favour of buying instead of converting. The Sgt is using a B@C lightning claw and plasma pistol, I acquired one B@C tac squad to 'top up' my bits collection, and I may end up getting the whole set as long as I get round to it before it is discontinued and sold in separate kits.

As you can see I'm using some scout bits to make the tactical squad look more... tactical. In most of the background space marines just jump, but I like the idea of them abseiling down buildings. Failing that the ropes could be for dispensing summary justice to captured traitors, but maybe that's a bit too dark for Corax, and more of a Terran XIX legion predation fleet tactic.

My attempt at MKV legs from a few years ago, I'm pretty pleased with them, though they do take a while to do (I have materials for the cabling, but lost interest). I have a great method for producing rivets that does not involve water filters, sculpting, chopping up plastic rods or buying them, and it does not require special equipment beyond standard hobby tools. I am happy to do a mini tutorial if there is interest.

My efficient working area. I keep trying to arrange them into piles for each Legionary, but that always lasts five minutes.

At the moment I probably have parts for 20 to 30 infantry (I really don't know! I've just bought too many bits over the past few years), I have a lot of decorative parts, but less of the useful parts such as legs, and equipment, and also have 3 Forge World Outriders.

I would like to produce 2 10 man legion tactical squads and a squad of 5 Mor Deythan (mor death and... now you can't unread it!) as well as the bikers. The Dark Furies or an assault squad would be next. I would convert my own Mor Deythan, as the FW ones are ludicrously priced (and I don't like the boltguns with tubes on the end sniper rifles they come with), a premium on top just because of the 'badass' status the shadow masters have acquired. The Dark Furies are arguably better models, but being a FW invention are cheaper.

The Raven Guard decapitation strike rite of war seems powerful, but I just want a legal nice looking army at this point, rather than min maxing. I may do Kades Nex just because his portrait in book 3 was pretty sinister and I have good head I think looks a bit like him. As for painting, I've got a long way to go, but am going to experiment with some Lifecolor military armour modelling paints as they produce a very matt finish. Don't expect dozens of Forge World gunships, titans and stormbirds for now, though I have a bit more disposable income than when I envisioned this a few years ago, I'm still saving money .

Enough prevaricating, to the Legion forges brothers!

[Soric]

Welcome to the forums brother, looking forward to seeing more of your Ravens taking shape. I am also of the opinion that the Mor Deythan are overly expensive, makes me think of the days when a space marine combat squad used to be £5, how times have changed. Regardless, here's to seeing you bring vengeance to the Ravenlord's enemies :D

[Beaky Brigade]

@Soric

Thanks a lot for the welcome, I think a combat squad may have been my first purchase many years ago, though it may have been more like £7.00 or £8.00 then, seemed like a lot of pocket money at the time.

My construction ability may have improved a lot since then, though my painting ability remains to be seen...

I did a bit more over the weekend, though my time off is over for now so It might be a week or two between updates normally.

3 Members of the Tactical Squad in more final mocked up poses, the Sgt is effectively glued down apart from his head and the brass etch.

Tactical Legionary with bionic arm, hopefully it does not look like he's duel wielding digital lasers and the boltgun though that would be awesome now I think about it.

A grey knights teleporter backpack with the rods cut off and replaced with rivets, I bought these before B@C and thought it would be a good way to have non standard looking backpacks, The round dome at the back can be an advanced air filter for the stealth systems or something like that.

MKV Marine hopefully looking menacing.

I felt unhappy with the Sgt for some reason. In retrospect I would not have used the legs he has as the pose is a bit awkward, but I liked him a lot more when he was tacked together, and remembered I used a different helmet before. Doing a comparison it seems the early FW Mk VI helmets are a bit smaller and slighter than the GW plastic ones, and FW have now corrected this with their newer CAD based ones. It sucks for me as I have about 8 of them .

I took some snaps of him with different helmets and think changing does improve things. The other thing is the resin torso has quite a deep well for the neck, so the heads sit lower than on plastic marines, so I might correct this with greenstuff. Those torsos are a bit crazy, I'm slightly obsessive over getting things lined up, and realised the mounting point for the backpack is a couple of mm to the left of centre instead of being in the middle! Bring on soulless CAD I say! You can see where I've repaired the broken chapter badge with green stuff... That was fun! The original idea for the pose was an implacable advance.

The current helmet.

His original helmet, I really like this but I want to save it for a sniper or Recon/ Mor Deythan.

I think the Laurels are too big and chunky for a line Sgt, even one with artificer armour.

Probably the best option.

Any opinions on the best helmet are welcome, but non binding

Thanks to everyone who takes the time to read my ramblings.

As a little addendum this airfix box art (and plastic soldiers who have that pose in general) were sort of my inspiration for the Sgt, in an ideal world my minis left leg would be forward as that would be more balanced, though Astartes don't need balance, when they have glue instead. Please tell me if this link is in breach of the rules.

[Beaky Brigade]

Well I've done a bit more, its been quite time consuming but hopefully worth it. I've worked out how to do larger pictures, but perhaps these are too big now?

These chaps are almost in the same state as last time except they are nearly all glued together instead of of being tacked together. It would have been a good idea to not stick the boltguns on yet, but I'd already stuck them onto the arm and I realised attaching the arm while it was semi painted was going to be quite tricky in terms of not messing everything up and filling any gaps.

I learned from this and the next lot will be sans boltgun.

I'm quite proud of this etched brass shoulder symbol, it was a real pain to attach, despite the alleged 10-20 second set time of my glue it sets instantly with the small amount you are using, and I got it at a wonky angle about 5 or 10 times in a row and had to remove it, despite all kinds of fancy positioning next to a ruler and using tiny rods to attach it.. Next time I'm using 48 hour epoxy!

I found out the best way to get it to bend over the curved surface was to put the symbol on a very soft, wine or sparkling wine cork and press the shoulder pad into it in the position it will go. A lot better than trying to manually bend it into shape. With such a complex symbol you are not going to get every bit stuck down at once without coating it in glue and making a mess.

It's best to put a small dot in the middle to stick it in place and then put a tiny bit of glue on a knife blade or pin and let it flow into the gap between the edges of the symbol and the surface of the mini, use a plastic or wooden tool to press down to stick it in place so you don't scratch it.

Last picture is deliberately small as it's not very good, but it shows the current squad progress. I've taken a few beakies out of it and replaced them with some decidedly unbeaky MKIV marines as I realised I will have to spread them out so they are just not in one squad! I'm going to have to get the calculator out later to work out if it is cheaper to buy forgeworld MKVI, hunt for individual bits, or just buy a load of regular tactical space marine boxes and sell the other bits!

I decided to take the plunge and get the B@C set while it was still available, this was a good idea as that helped convince my younger brother to rejoin the hobby (for now touch beak, as he is as fickle as the dark gods) and start his own small white scars legion force! I'm glad I steered him away from doing the Blood Ravens 'Missing Legion' as while it's a good joke it probably would get tiring after a while. He will be getting two Tactical Squads and the Cataphractii as I don't feel like including any 'Deliverers' terminators in my force. He's pretty skint so I won't have to worry about massed jetbikes for now .

He's putting me to shame with the speed of his building, ok he may not be doing conversions, much of a clean up of mould lines or arm pinning but he's nearly got his first squad together while I've been sanding the rough edges off ammo pouches!

[Count Douclar]

Cool looking models, I like the advancing look. Can't wait to see more.

 

Also, I am interested in how you make those rivets without filters or rods.

[Olis]

The sizes of the pictures are fine, brother - keep posting them that size, please. Happy to see SCC and his Shadow Force Dragomir still inspires years after the last post was made. :tu:

[SCC]

The sizes of the pictures are fine, brother - keep posting them that size, please. Happy to see SCC and his Shadow Force Dragomir still inspires years after the last post was made.

Trust me, I'm happier than you are to see that!

Army looks like it's off to a great start Beaky, looking forward to seeing some paint on these sons of Kiavahr...

[Beaky Brigade]

@Count Douclar

Thanks, I've actually decided to keep this squad all running as I could not think of a way to include the normal B@C legs without it looking odd. In reality half the squad might be covering the other half's advance, but on the tabletop you would never deploy or move your minis like that. I may save the legs for an assault squad as the FW MK IV assault squad is already quite sedate, and being wide legged while sword fighting might make sense. I'll definitely include a rivet tutorial in my next major update as I can't find the model railway website I got the technique from originally (and it took me a long time to find it back then!).

@Olis Will do! Thanks for dropping by!

@SCC Thanks for visiting, I'm glad your still active here, I really enjoyed reading your log in my lurking days, I may still have the bookmark! I'll have a new space cleared in a couple of weeks so that is realistically when you will start seeing some paint on miniatures, need to get my airbrush set up again...

Here are a couple more mocked up legionaries, as the best way to finish half built minis is to start new ones...

Even with the running poses to make your marines look like they are aiming they have to be firing to the left all the time or walking sideways, so I'm trying to increase the variety with one handed poses. My only real disappointment with B@C is probably odd to most people, as I think the contemptor is ok when you understand they had to get it onto two sprues, I wish they had included FW style bolt pistol holsters instead of the standard tactical marine set holsters, as you can actually fit a pistol with a magazine in the holster with the FW one, and the FW ones don't seem to dominate the leg they are put on as much.

Anyway I may try and reverse engineer some in the future.

[Lucerne]

I'm interested in a mini tutorial for the rivets, yeah.