Raptors 3rd and 10th company

[WAR]

 

Hate to point this out, as I love what you've done, but isn't chapter symbol supposed to be on the models left shoulder pad?...

Yes, I know. But the only source for shoulder pads besides shapeways is the deathwatch sprue (wrong side), which I happen to have already. Or the FW oop terminator pads, but thats the same side. So I copy what I can get my hands on, freehanding it is awful at that symbol complexity.

 

a little late but you could message the seller at shapeways and see if he could reverse the image. I had him make me a few custom sprues on shoulder pads for my death watch. It may take him little bit tho.

 

yeah, the fact FW discontinued the decal sheet was a gross disservice to the Chapter they basically made manifest.

 

 

I found an ok alternative.....you have to paint it but ginfritter gnomish workshop had eagle heads that work with some paint to modify them.....

 

 

 

Yes, I know. But the only source for shoulder pads besides shapeways is the deathwatch sprue (wrong side), which I happen to have already. Or the FW oop terminator pads, but thats the same side. So I copy what I can get my hands on, freehanding it is awful at that symbol complexity.

 

 

That's fair play then - I didn't realise Raptor Shoulder pads / decals we're such a problem

 

Have you looked into the Decal resources on B&C? 

 

Otherwise, rock on. I still love the wet blending, and the 10 minute paint time. I'd love to see a video of that in action

 

 

Raptor stuff is always hard to find

[MajorNese]

Yeah, raptors stuff is quite hard to find, at least the official stuff. But eagle heads are everywhere on imperial models (like on the custodes weapons), finding the right ones and using them to convert stuff works out well enough. A good thing that raptors are rather pragmatic, not running around in the most ornate stuff anyway. If someone is more badass, just give him more pouches, grenades, gun optics and daggers.

 

a little late but you could message the seller at shapeways and see if he could reverse the image. I had him make me a few custom sprues on shoulder pads for my death watch. It may take him little bit tho.

Nah, works this way too. Might be the wrong side, but now I have enough GW deathwatch pads to build half a company, and can always make more.

[RedJoker]

Googled. First link that came up.

 

https://www.shapeways.com/product/XPUBZUF56/raptor-20-28mm-shoulder-pads

 

They are clear, i think they are the ones you are using already. But other than that, yeah your pickings are slim to none.

 

Also, bell of lost souls posted a "print your own" decal sheet in PDF format.

 

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2009/02/raptors-logo-sheet.html

 

 

ALSO

 

Ebay

http://www.ebay.ie/itm/Deathwatch-Kill-Team-Veteran-Raptors-Mentors-SHOULDER-PAD-H-Space-Marine-40K-/401226367882?hash=item5d6af4838a:g:sPYAAOSwo4pYK3h0

 

http://www.ebay.ie/itm/Raptors-Shoulder-Pad-Deathwatch-Killteam-Space-Marine-Warhammer-40k-/391687276385?hash=item5b32618761:g:QakAAOSw-0xYiUyD

Edited February 1, 2017 by RedJoker

[MajorNese]

Moar raptors!!!

 

First off, the new Issodon and a chaplain. Issodon got quite a bit of converted bitz, from the Custodes dagger over knight's eagle decorations on the backpack to a fully converted gun. The gun combines a custodes spear's bolter, an IG sniper rifle barrel and scope, scout bolter sling and scout bipod converted to look folded down. The claws on Issodons shoulder pad still need paint, but I'm still waiting for the painting recipe of a friend's genestealers to get it right. The chaplain got a skitarii pistol for the ornate look and skeletal looking bionic, but just counts as regular bolt pistol.

 

 

 

Except for the shiny guys, the first tac squad plus plasma gunner is finished, and a second scout biker. The latter serves as visual reminder that bikers can use LM too, by showing how that would work. Taking out one of the bike's bolters and aiming manually.

 

[jpwyrm]

Now that is a cool Lias Issodon MajorNese! I realy like the conversion for Malice, it combines the look of assault and sniper rifle quite well.

 

Have you thought about adding some edge highlights to the raised area of your models? Somehow I think it would give them that little something to make them pop. And yes, I know it is counter intuitive for a Raptor player to have their marines pop on the table, but you know what I mean!

[MajorNese]

Now that is a cool Lias Issodon MajorNese! I realy like the conversion for Malice, it combines the look of assault and sniper rifle quite well.

 

Have you thought about adding some edge highlights to the raised area of your models? Somehow I think it would give them that little something to make them pop. And yes, I know it is counter intuitive for a Raptor player to have their marines pop on the table, but you know what I mean!

Thank you. Regarding the highlights, I personally don't like edge highlights, especially the hard line ones. They just look too comic-like to me, or point towards direct light sources. I prefer emulating diffuse lighting, with soft shadows simulated by blending. More obvious pops are not the goal of these guys, but there's a reason they still use bright grey as secondary color and don't stand on identically coloured jungle ground, to add at least a certain amount of contrast.

[MajorNese]

Well, had my first 2000p tryout game, as written down on the AdMech hard data thread. 3/4 of the army was AdMech, so I'll boil the report down to the relevant part, and insert more conclusions for this army. For comparison, grav kataphron are comparable to grav centurions, onagers to laser predators, vanguard to scouts.

 

Raptors CAD:

Lias Issodon

Cawl

10 tacs (bolters only)

5 scouts, LSS

3 scout bikers, grenade launchers, snare mines

 

Allied cult mechanicus:

Dominus with memento morispex and eradication beamer

3 grav kataphron

 

Skitarii maniple:

2x10 arc vanguard

10 vanguard, 1 plasma

10 vanguard

2 neutron onager + stubber

1 phosphor onager + stubber

2 dragoons

 

My opponent wanted to try stuff himself, and proxed the full Tau cheese range. Not going into detail, as I'm not familiar with all the formations. Hunter Cadre, Riptide Wing, Stealth Cadre, basically "everything is better than it should be".

 

4 Riptides

1 Stormsurge

ghostkeel + ghosts

2x5 fire warriors

2 piranhas

drone commander with 7 marker drones

 

Fixed warlord trait for Issodon solved Carl's transport problem, while Carl was the single huge deterrent my list otherwise lacked. Downside, can't take Issodon if he isn't warlord, effectively making Carl a secondary HQ, and giving Slay the Warlord more easily.

 

The maelstrom mission was the one where holding objectives gives maelstrom cards. Which turned into a good start, with keeping the skitarii part in the regular maniple granting Scout and infiltrating effectively 2 units + attached HQ through Issodon, to get more missions from the start.

 

Downside, except for Carl, everything dies to Tau shooting if they manage to get markers. So Issodon's sabotage took out 4 out of 7 markers before the game started, effectively limiting Ignores Cover to one unit and some formation cheese. Issodon's ability to Infiltrate got Carl and the grav servitors into range for a turn one Riptide kill on one flank, which led to everything except for the Stormsurge to flee that entire flank.

 

The stormsurge tried to openly attack 2,5 squads of vanguards, and died to mass Radium. Would have taken more than one turn if not for the morispex relic (grants tank hunter, monster hunter, skyfire or BS2 snapshots to his unit). The relic was intended as impromptu anti air just in case, but it worked a lot better in this role. Radium auto-wounds double on 6s, no matter the toughness, so it's the same conclusion for LM.

 

From then on, my opponent entirely deserted that flank. A long board and lots of terrain, combined with a lot of jetpack moves, led to Carl and his servitors not getting anything into range besides fire warriors until the end of the game. My opponent feared Carl and refused to target him, but everything else was fair game. From then on it turned into any game involving Tau, just massed riptides and stealth units shooting up everything, and me trying to score objectives while not getting tabled. Nova reactor to shoot missiles twice, riptide wing to shoot twice in one phase, Mont'Ka rerolling to hit and pen against a different target each round, and stealth units using their weird "hit rear armour with frontal hit while ignoring cover" rule to kill an onager per round.

 

Needless to say, until end of 6th round, nothing but Carl, 2 servitors and a cover-camping vanguard squad was left. Killing anything worthwile of the Tau list was impossible, with going either against 2+ armour or 2+ cover, and the scout LSS/scout biker outflanking just vaporizing against a suddenly invisible ghostkeel. In the end, I won 13-9 by always claiming 3-4 objectives, and sacrificing units to fulfill those requirements.

 

Main takeaways:

Tau with all their formation cheese is hard as nails, especially considering it was a beer and prezels tryout game. The stormsurge was fielded 1st time and started off with a suicide run, otherwise I wouldn't have seen the end of the game. Everything else will just shoot skitarii to bitz, stay out of range by jetpack, and survive anything not AP2 and/or ignoring cover.

 

Raptors might be fun, but can in no way stand up to that with my current plans. Issodon at least keeps his squad alive for a while, but he's auto include anyway. Scout bikers' mines were nice too, having deterred my opponent from using the Fortress of Redemption stretching across his deployment zone. And killed a further 2 marker drones, getting them below ignores-cover threshold.

 

I'll need a lot more AP2 on them and stack up on any formation possible, otherwise I fear they end up as cannon fodder. A stormraven with lascannon turret and typhoon, grav centurions, grav bikers, and plasma LotD are in planning. Anything else to reliably kill riptide would be appreciated, though I prefer not to fall back to Skyhammer grav devs or pods in general, as it just doesn't fit my fluff.

 

The Memento Morispex relic is great. Having to take Carl makes it awkward to include, but I bet it would work great on LC devastators. Tank hunter, monster hunter, skyfire and BS2 overwatch pretty much solving all their problems, and making them a lot more versatile.

 

Carl might be nice, but really short-ranged. I made the mistake of not planning too far ahead, leaving him in a (fighting wise) useless spot for most of the game, just clearing and claiming 2 objectives and deterring any riptide from entering grav range. With Infiltrate, his servitors at least overkilled the first riptide before it could jetpack away like the rest and decimate the skitarii from the back. With centurions being effectively the same as the servitors (but 6" less range), the conclusion is the same for them. I might convert FW Corax to serve as a more fluffy Carl model, as a result of the Raven Guard's geneseed experiments during the heresy.

Edited February 11, 2017 by MajorNese

[MajorNese]

...and a few more guys. Scoutbikers are up to 3 models, scouts are added (need more scion heads though), and 2 flamer, plasma and melter guys. A snare mine marker made of ork mines (those are the same model as in DoW2), and a forgeworld LandSpeeder Tornado filling in as a less ridiculous looking stormtalon. Another is on the painting table, a corvus blackstar will be converted to a stormraven, and that'll be my Storm Wing.

 

[Race Bannon]

Aw snap ... a Land Speeder Tempest as a Stormtalon?!    That is brilliant!

 

You just made my hobby day :tu:

[WAR]

man now you are going to make me make mines for my future scout bikers.......

 

love the army shot so far

[MajorNese]

Aw snap ... a Land Speeder Tempest as a Stormtalon?!    That is brilliant!

Just looks better, though it needs some conversion to fit a flyer base. Same with the thunderfire cannon, I'm painting up a rapier quad launcher for style reasons instead. The original is a statical nightmare, the FW one is just more technically plausible. Which reminds me of...

 

[Race Bannon]

Yeah I gotta get those heads for my scouts too.

 

I thought about using the rapier version to replace the TFC as well but I am a bit tired of FW prices. Looking for alternatives but either they are uglier or just not ... right. I may just convert my own and have a plan. Just need the right launcher parts.

[WAR]

Very nice MajorNese!

 

If I didn't have so many Damn scouts I would consider doing that head swap on mine

[MithrilForge]

Yeah I gotta get those heads for my scouts too.

I thought about using the rapier version to replace the TFC as well but I am a bit tired of FW prices. Looking for alternatives but either they are uglier or just not ... right. I may just convert my own and have a plan. Just need the right launcher parts.

i was looking at Anvil industries to make cheaper Kataphron's ,i guess you could use their tractor base with their hvy mortar and call it a thunderfire...

note* (this unit taps out at about $8.00 USD) cheap thunderfire if you ask me...

oh also, sorry for hijacking the thread

Great work here Major

Mithril

Edited February 25, 2017 by mithrilforge

[MajorNese]

Tempests count-as stormtalons done. One pilot head didn't show up when basecoating, will do that next time.

 

 

[Claws and Effect]

Probably what I'll end up doing with my eventual Tempests.

 

Looking good, Major!

[Race Bannon]

Really well done.  Very sharp paint job :tu:

[WAR]

very nice

[MajorNese]

Moar stuff, rhino number one. Rhinos are called bunkers in tactics discussion, so I figured it could look like one. Sandbags to protect those shooting from the hatch, or the mechanics of a razorback turret. Also accessories like readied bolters and spare magazines just in case. Upside of using the razorback plate, the embarked squad can be marked with one model being placed in the hatch, instead of a model standing on the top of the rhino, that always looks bad.

 

[WAR]

War Ready rhinos......just like the Raptors would have!

[MajorNese]

More vehicles done:

http://abload.de/img/aimg_2922ltlnc.jpg

[jpwyrm]

Ooooh! Pretty awesome Stormraven there MajorNese. Was it a pain to get the Raptor doors to fit the Corvus' hull? Are-you really playing with the Typhoon or is this an artistic choice? (25 pts is a lot of points for what it adds it seems).

 

Very cool motor pool brother. One last question : do you paint the vehicles by hand too?

[MajorNese]

Well, getting the Raptors doors to fit the hull was a bit of work. The deathwatch doors are slightly different size, so I needed to cut off the narrow door frame from the deathwatch ones, and cut down the frame to fit the rhino doors. There are some flaws in my reassembly of the frames, but it's okay.

 

And yes, I'm playing them with the typhoon, for both gaming and artistic reasons. My intended Raptors list lacks anti-tank and anti-MC, so the stormraven will just be a gunboat to blow up big stuff. Either the target has 2+ armour, in which case the lascannon/missiles shoot the target and the typhoon shoots something else with PotMS. Or the target will be shot by 2x one-use missiles, 2x typhoon missiles, and 1x lascannon. Either way, enough range on all weapons to always target something, and enough strength to damage anything. Multi-melta would be okay, but the low range and only one shot isn't that useful. And with all those locator beacons I can add, any embarked squad can just exit in full flight via Skies of Fury.

 

Everything is painted by hand. Every time I'd invest into an airbrush, I buy more models instead.

But with wet blending, I can at least paint color gradients on straight lines, which is 95% of Astartes vehicles. Round stuff (hatches) is a challenge though. Vehicles like the rhino just require a larger brush, not more time. It took me around 15min to get the gradient of a rhino, by using GWs largest drybrush. Secondary colors (accessories and stuff), washing only the recesses, add blue lighting, done.

[Race Bannon]

That's by hand ?!

 

Wow, very impressive.

 

So, what's next, a Land Raider? :yes:

[WAR]

 

Everything is painted by hand. Every time I'd invest into an airbrush, I buy more models instead.

But with wet blending, I can at least paint color gradients on straight lines, which is 95% of Astartes vehicles. Round stuff (hatches) is a challenge though. Vehicles like the rhino just require a larger brush, not more time. It took me around 15min to get the gradient of a rhino, by using GWs largest drybrush. Secondary colors (accessories and stuff), washing only the recesses, add blue lighting, done.

 

 

      

 

That's by hand ?!

 

Wow, very impressive.

 

So, what's next, a Land Raider?

 

 

you in your land raider requests