The Xian Guardians | Fall of the 2nd Legion

[TheAshenCrow]

The Xian Guardians

A legion of highly disciplined warriors proficient in the hand to hand combat and diplomacy. They dedicate their lives to protect any innocent living beings, using their diplomatic talents they have been able to save millions of lives from the suffering of war.

Their home world is covered in mountains each one home to different temples dedicated to the "Xian", a belief that through the respect of all things, you leave behind a legacy of peace and prosperity.

Here's my first rough idea for the 2nd missing legion. A legion based on Shaolin monks and Chinese Mythology. The legions kind and overly optimistic attitude towards others has allowed them to be very successful diplomats.

This is defiantly going to extend towards peaceful xenos and results in them denouncing the imperium for their genocide against any thing not human or those who don't aline with the imperial truth.

(New Colour Scheme)

(Old Scheme)

The colour scheme for these guys is based around Shaolin temples rather than the monks. I felt the orange and black of the robes would be to obvious. Though I may integrate these colours into legion units. The original colour scheme had to much green on it and it clashed with red to much, by simply adding some gold to it to replace some of the jade it's really improved it.

Rather than use the standard roman numerals I decided to use Chinese symbols. The 2 lines meaning 2.

[Pearson73]

Really liking the green, however I worry the new scheme places them too close to Word Bearers in appearance.

[TheAshenCrow]

They are similar in away but the legion iconography will make it stand out. I mean there are 3 black legions that all stand out from one another.

[Vairocanum]

Cool concept for another lost legion! I think having the hands or feet in that jade color could look nice too. Definitely looking forward to seeing more, especially character models cause your Ashen Crows were awesome!

[TheAshenCrow]

Cool concept for another lost legion! I think having the hands or feet in that jade color could look nice too. Definitely looking forward to seeing more, especially character models cause your Ashen Crows were awesome!

The Ashen Crows are still being worked on, just had a large break from them to do some AOS stuff. This project will be going along side the ashen Crows. It will stop me getting fed up of painting 1 type of space marine.

[TheAshenCrow]

Test Commander

My Xian Guardians commander test model all built.

I decided to use Tartarus terminator shoulder pads as it is similar to that of ancient Chinese armour. I couldn't get hold of a halberd unfortunately but the mk3 power swords looks very similar to Chinese swords so I settled with that. The leaves on the cape fit with the legions lush home world.

Annoying I'm still waiting on some basing materials but until then I will just get the model painted up.

Edited June 29, 2017 by TheAshenCrow

[Vairocanum]

Nice kitbash! The tartaros shoulderpads and head work really well! Looking forward to seeing this painted up!

[The Traitor]

Sorry to have missed this, it surely looks like and interesting project but, does it means that you're putting the Ashen Crows on hold???

[KrautScientist]

That commander kitbash is extremely inspired! Excellent job!

 

What kind of halberd were you looking for, by the way? I must have something knocking about in the old bitzbox that might help.

[TheAshenCrow]

Sorry to have missed this, it surely looks like and interesting project but, does it means that you're putting the Ashen Crows on hold???

No no, I will be working on the ashen crows along these guys. Though my current focus is these guys until I can get some more interesting units for them.

That commander kitbash is extremely inspired! Excellent job!

 

What kind of halberd were you looking for, by the way? I must have something knocking about in the old bitzbox that might help.

I was trying to get hold of a the grey knight halberd that's held in 1 hand.

[TheAshenCrow]

Master Tieguai Li of the Xian Guardians.

Here is my test commander all painted and ready for basing. I'm starting to get comfortable with the colour scheme and and super happy with the free hand on him.

I wanted to integrate Chinese patterns into the armour if possible, but the only one I could do was swirls on the chest. I like how the gold doesn't stand out to much from the red and the glimpses of the pattern when the light hits it.

[KrautScientist]

Ah, right, I sadly don't have one of those -- I thought you meant a more medieval (WFB) halberd design.

 

That being said, your finished commander is looking excellent with the sword! Lovely stuff!

[Pearson73]

The gold looks good, especially when contrasting against the black of the cloak.

[TheAshenCrow]

Test Vexilla

My legion vexilla test model is done for the Xian Guardians.

I tried to do some traditional Chinese art on the banner but it wasn't easy haha. It's come out alright though.

I'm also in love with the Tartarus shoulder pads on mk3 armour.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Beautiful work on the models.

 

With regards to the Chinese characters, I notice you're using the simplified characters developed after the Communists won the Chinese Civil War (intended to improve literacy), instead of the traditional characters. It should be noted traditional Chinese is written as vertical columns, and reads right-to-left; the Communists adopted the Western way of writing (horizontal lines, reading left-to-right), presumably to ease foreign language education (no one will go far in business or government without a modicum of English literacy nowadays).

[The Traitor]

Yeah, the Tartaros shoulders look phenomenal, do they fit as well as they seem or did you had to greenstuff a gap? As usual you made an excelent choice of bits ;)!

[TheAshenCrow]

Yeah, the Tartaros shoulders look phenomenal, do they fit as well as they seem or did you had to greenstuff a gap? As usual you made an excelent choice of bits !

They fit really well on mk3 armour. no need for green stuff.

[Vairocanum]

That is looking fantastic, you should find a caster and get tartaros pads for the whole army! Looking forward to the next model!

[Brother Michaels]

I love these ! always interested in chinese culture and this fits the theme so well

[Halandaar]

These are absolutely excellent; I've been pondering MKIII with MKIV helms for a separate project myself but the Tartaros pads just take it up another notch. Feels like sourcing a lot of them might be a pain/expensive though!

 

Loving the scheme as well 

[MikhalLeNoir]

Not a fan...really....

 

A whorshipper^^ nicely executed although I could understand thosewho critisigze the closeness to the wordbearers. But the rule of cool always win.

 

Now WE have China, Japan and Korea covered in the work in project section.what's next?

[TheAshenCrow]

These are absolutely excellent; I've been pondering MKIII with MKIV helms for a separate project myself but the Tartaros pads just take it up another notch. Feels like sourcing a lot of them might be a pain/expensive though!

 

Loving the scheme as well 

the mix of mks can work well but tartaros helmets work best with mk3. As for the shoulder pads I plan to use them for characters, sergeants, vets and upgraded troops. Helps makes them stand out more and would be much cheaper than giving everyone them.

 

Not a fan...really....

 

A whorshipper^^ nicely executed although I could understand thosewho critisigze the closeness to the wordbearers. But the rule of cool always win.

 

Now WE have China, Japan and Korea covered in the work in project section.what's next?

They have similar schemes the iconography, gold and jade helps make them standout. and during the timeline the word bearers would have been in their grey scheme so.