Emperors Children The Judgment on Kadeth - Dr. Ruminahui's Emperor's Children

[TrawlingCleaner]

The Defiler and the Guardsmen both look absolutely incredible, Dr! I know exactly what you mean about the WIP stages of a paint scheme, it's always a bit nerve wracking to get over the "I've severly messed this paintjob up" stage and just need to trust in the process

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Thanks TC, glad you like them!  Actually thinking of doing my other renegade models (those have too much paint on them, the others are just primed) for my future CtA vow(s) when my defiler is done.

 

Despite it being a long weekend (Canada Day), that didn't mean as much painting time as I would normally have as I was busy from 9-4 all 3 days.  Luckily, I knew that ahead of time, so focused on painting in the evenings during the week, so was able to able to make good progress.

 

So, here is where the bulk of my work is - I finished this side of it (I'm considering the mouth part of the centre, so it isn't yet done).

 

 

So, this gives a pretty good view of what the finished model will be like.

 

Some other details that I finished:

 

One of my 2 eye clusters (well, I have 3, but one has wandered off somehow)

 

 

The reaper autocannon (missing the fleshade wash on the skulls so they are a bit darker and richer than here)

 

 

And the fleshy bits on the underside of the track and legs.

 

 

I'm guessing I have 2-3 weeks of work left on it.

 

[Volgon]

Liking the flesh color of the legs you're going with, looking very raw. Are you planning to paint the pustule area in the rear (with the mouth) the same color or going a different route for contrast? And well done on the freehand Chaos star!

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Thanks! 

 

And yes, all the flesh will be done the same way - its the standard way I do my mutated flesh on all of my chaos models (I tried other colours at first, but this one looks best).  The only part that won't is the gums, which are already in their near final colour (they will get a wash in the same colours as the rest).  I'll be doing the big fleshy blob on the back (the "pustule area" as you put it, a fancy but not inaccurate description) last as it's one of my main gripping points when painting- you can see in the bottom picture how that has rubbed some of the paint from the bottom, which has also occurred to a lesser extent on the top.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

As you might have guessed with my last post being 3 weeks ago, life happened.  Had a really stressful and busy week at work the week before last, and between that, some other general stress, and really struggling with the stripes on this side, I didn't make a whole lot of progress until this past week.  That said, when it started to come together, it came together pretty quickly.

 

So, I finished the side I was struggling with:

 

 

And the front:

 

 

And the back:

 

 

Which included finishing the mouth.  Tongue isn't yet glued in place - there's a final technique I need to practice and, if it works, I'll do it and glue the tongue in place.  I should have that all done this weekend.

 

 

Finally, some details of and around the front eye stalk -

 

The face I sculpted into the front plate - not bad.

 

 

A close up on the eye - I'm really happy how that turned out.

 

 

Anyway, next pictures you'll see of it should be the finished deal, and probably this weekend or early next week.  Just have the final work on the tongue, the turret, the 2 turret hatches, the 2 hatch gun options and the havoc launcher left.

[Dr. Clock]

Hey Doc,

 

Is 'Kadeth' a reference to 'Kadath' by chance? Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath is among my fave Lovecraft just for sheer weirdness...

 

Sorry to hear about your stressful times - hoping things even out for you soon.

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Thanks, Dr_Clock - yeah, life is quieter now and I'm just about to take a week's vacation to spend time with a good friend.  That will also get in the way of my painting, but in a good way. 

 

That would have been really cool if that's how I had gotten the name, but no.  I haven't read any Lovecraft, though of course I'm peripherally aware of him and his work, but not to the extent that I recognize that title .  Like most of my names for things, its just something I settled on because it sounded right in my head.

 

(Perhaps) Interestingly, my Kadeth is a person rather than a place - more specifically, Arch-Cardinal Kadeth of the holly see of Bellemonde, a shrine world.  When Bellemonde was invaded by orks as part of a waagh, he was the theatre commander, with disastrous results.  This led to the various odd marine units (and various other forces, including my Knight house) that were in the theatre launching a coup in which Kadeth was tried and executed for gross incompetence (and gross hedonism).  This was the culminating event that snowballed into these various marine detachments coalescing into a joint force and falling into to slannesh and, ultimately, becoming my warband.

Edited July 25 by Dr_Ruminahui

[Volgon]

Looks like life can't stop you! The skin is looking great and I especially like the eyeball. You did a great job on the veins and such at the rear of it.

Edited July 26 by Volgon

[Tallarn Commander]

Darn. I always thought Kadeth was a Lovecraft reference too. I love his works that are set in the Dreamland. 

 

:)

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Yeah, sorry.   That said, it might have sounded cool to me because I had heard the Lovecraft title at some point - so indirect influence, maybe?  Certainly the connection seems appropriate.

 

Does anyone need anything that needs defiling?  Because I have just the unit to do that, now.

 

In other words, my defiler is now done (well - almost - I'll get into that).

 

First, here are all the painted magnetised options - 2 hatches, 2 weapon options for the armed hatch (combi bolter and combi weapon),, 2x lascannon, 2 heavy bolter, reaper autocannon, 2x eye plates and the flail.

 

 

Then some pictures of the various options grouped together into "variants"

 

Flail variant:

 

Havoc variant - I suspect this is mostly what I will field, with havoc launcher, lascannons and combi-bolter:

 

Heavy flamer variant:

 

And some just other assorted pictures:

 

Flail from the side:

 

Havoc from the side

 

Note, I decided to go without the tongue - I tried working on a technique using a hot glue gun) to create droopy saliva between it and the sponson but that didn't work (I didn't work on the technique on the model, so didn't mess anything up).  Then, looking at it both with and without the tongue, I decided the model was busy enough without out it and looked better if I left it off.

 

The back

 

The other side

 

The "almost done" bit is that I learned that the eye plates don't actually fit on the left side sponson - when I twisted the side plate to fit the legs, I must have warped the sponson such that the plates are now too big to fit.  This is only an issue for the reaper autocannon build (where the sponsons have the eye plates on them and the gun is on the front), which I am unlikely to field, but it will bug me until I fix it.  Not sure if I will try to cut down of the eyeplates to fit (only need to take about 1mm off the top or bottom) or build a new one - probably the later, as they are easy to build and paint.

 

Anyway, its the end of a rather amazing journey of discovery and development in terms of my own skills as a modeller.  I want to thank you all once again for all your comments, advice and criticism - they both helped me keep going through the hurdles of the construction, and helped me produce a better model overall.

 

[INKS]

Boy is that really coming together.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Thanks - though, its come!  All done except the one eye plate correction.

Edited July 29 by Dr_Ruminahui

[TrawlingCleaner]

Absolutely wonderful work Dr, the green especially is lovely! A really creative project through and through and cool to see it finished

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Thanks TrawlingCleaner!  I'm glad you like the green - I've found its a really nice contrast to the purple I use, so I use it every chance I get (or at least so it seems sometimes ).  I'm really happy how its turned out - though, after about 9 months work, I'm sure glad to have it done.  If we are ever in the same part of the world, we'll have to have a "defiler off" with it against your own wonderful defiler conversions. 

[TrawlingCleaner]

I'd definitely be down for that, it'd be the only other Defiler I've seen on the table!

[Cryptix]

Oi, I'll have you know I regularly take 2-3 on the table! They're some of my best anti tank while I work on my normal vehicle pool. They are very versatile units both as distractions and a main threat.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Yeah, I agree with that - I've now had mine on the table twice (against the same marine list both times) and it performed pretty well but was ultimately destroyed both games.  Its got a bunch of decent shooting and a pretty good melee punch - I foresee it making it into most of my lists for a while (just like my possesseds) as it seems to perform well and I'm really happy how mine looks.

 

I'm thinking of doing some short battle reports, which I'll post here if I get them done.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

As per my last post, got a couple of games in with a long time buddy of mine who hasn't really played 40K since 4th edition - which, combined with me being unfamiliar with the space marine rules, led for some, well, very loose games.  Still, they were a lot of fun for both of us.

 

For my list, we took turns choosing units off of my shelf until we had the required number of points - I did this because I didn't want a too powerful list (which might happen if I chose all of what I thought were the best units) but also wanted a workable list (which might not work if he chose all the units without any knowledge of list synergies).  Both lists are 1500 points.

 

Anyway, here's a picture of my army:

 

 

It was:

 

Lucius (my choice - wanted to try him out)

Dark Apostle (his choice)

10x traitor guardsman squad with flamer and grenade laucher (his choice, these used to be cultists before cultists lost their non-CCW options)

2x 10 man cultist squads (both my choice)

10x noise marines with sonic blasters and blastmaster (my choice)

10x legionaires with pistols and swords, with heavy melee weapon and plasma pistol (my choice)

10x Possessed (his choice and the last choice, otherwise I would have taken a MoP to lead them)

Hellbrute with power fist, heavy flamer and scourge (his choice, and how I'm fielding my 2x scourge model so that its legal)

Forgefiend (his choice, though I swapped its autocannons for ectoplasms)

Defiler (I think this was my choice, but he would have chosen it if I hadn't)

Venomcrawler (his choice)

 

Interestingly, I chose Lucius intending to stick him in the legionaires - but when he then chose the Apostle, I quickly picked up the noise marines to put him in there instead.  Also, pointing up the list now, it seems like my math was off at the time and I was over by 70 points so shouldn't have fielded the guardsmen.

 

I used the renegade raiders detachment.

 

Here is his army - this is the army I painted for my late friend and one that hasn't seen the table since 4th edition.

 

 

To my recollection (I'm not familiar with the space marine codex) it was:

 

Captain with master crafted bolt rifle and power weapon (the tallarn guy in the front - my late friend's on table avatar)

Librarian Tiburius (the guy with the sword in the front)

4x 10 man tactical squads, with the following squad weapons: a) flamer and missile, b) gravgun and multimelta, c) plasma and gravcannon and d) plasma and missile.

10 man assault squad

5 man terminator squad with heavy flamer

Autocannon predator with 2x lascannons and stormbolter

Whirlwind

Dreadnought with assault cannon - not sure what his weapon on his fist was, I think we mostly forgot about it.

 

HIs detachment was the one from the Index that gave the choice of doctrines which let you do 2 things you couldn't otherwise (run and shoot, run and charge, fall back and shoot).

 

Both games were generated using the Leviathan cards, with its secondary scoring system.

 

First game was a weird one, where only the no mans land objectives were scoring but were movable - and scored based on how close they were (within 12", within 6" and within) to your opponent's deployment zone.  Deployment was in the two opposite table quarters.  Here is a picture of deployment - the central terrain is LOS blocking.

 

 

I got first turn and was able to dominate the game, in part by getting a 6" run with my venowcrawler with denied him use of his teleport homer.  As such, I was in first contact with all three objectives and was able to move them to score.

 

Some pictures of memorable moments:

 

 

First turn, through use of the run-and-charge raiders stratagem, my helbrute got in with the one tactical squad and ate most of it first turn.  In response, his various tac squads blew it off the table on his turn.

 

 

Second turn, my defiler was down to 4 wounds remaining from my enemy's shooting, but finished off the whirlwind (which it, the forgefiend, the venowcrawler and the noise marine blastmaster had been shooting at for both turns),  got in with his dreadnought and munched it, but....

 

 

Was in turn taken down by Librarian not-Tigirius after having been reduced to 2 wounds by my opponent's shooting.  I think the predator also killed the venowcrawler that round.

 

On (my) left flank, my possesseds dominated, largely eating a squad of tactical marines (which they finished off turn two with the help of my legionaires), then largely wiping out the assault marines turn 2 despite being charged by same and reduced to 1/2 size.  My forgefiend inflicted 8 wounds on itself in 2 rounds of shooting between a failed dark pacts test and hazardous rolls, before being taken off the table by my opponent's tac squad doing a further 6 wounds, of which only 3 were needed to finish it off.  My friend deepstruck his terminators, wiping out my cultist squad, but it was too little too late.  Here's a picture of that part of the table at the end of turn 2.

 

 

We called it at the end of turn 2, as my friend felt he didn't have enough left to turn things around (based on the photo, I seem to have killed his predator as well, though I don't recall exactly how).  The score was 44 to 10 in my favour.

 

Second Game was the same lists, but my friend swapped out one of his missile launchers for a lascannon, which was a good choice.  Mission was that characters on objectives in no mans land scored an extra 3 points per objective.  I let my friend have first turn.  Here's initial deployment from his side of the board.

 

 

In this game, while I was able to dominate the game tactically, he was able to put the hurt on me and the game went all the way to end by which point I had only a couple of units left.

 

Here's a picture at the end of the first turn:

 

 

As it shows, I shoved everything up the board - my venomcrawler is already dead by this point, but I already control 3 of the 5 objectives through the "sticky objective" ability of the cultists (that's what the scales token next to the objective in my deployment indicates) - didn't quite make it to the central objective on the hill, and my character wasn't in range yet of the objective at the bottom of the photo.  Note the assault troops deepstruck in the back - they lost 1/2 their numbers to the noise marines, who were the only ones who could see them and were within range.

 

Here's the end of the second turn:

 

 

I am now on top of the mountain, and hold both that objective and the one to its right (in the photo) with my two characters (Lucius on the hill, Dark Apostle on the one below). 

 

On the right, you can see my hellbrute has made its charge into the woods (again thanks to the run-and-charge stratagem) with my possesseds right behind. 

 

On the other side of the hill, however, I basically only have a few cultists left, who between the terminators coming down there, the assault squad, some tac marines with not-Tigirius and other assorted shooting have all been wiped out.  My defiler appears to be allergic to librarians (or not-Tigirus in particular) as that's what again killed it, though this time in shooting. 

 

Following my opponent's shooting, Lucius and his squad takes fearsome casualties and are down to 4 noise marines.  My opponent has now learned that the whirlwind is optimally designed for killing marines and is no longer shooting it at cultists and possesseds, like he did in the previous game and the first turn.  Here they are looking very lonely and exposed.

 

 

Here's a picture of the end of turn 3:

 

 

On my opponent's turn, he shifts much of his fire into the possesseds and helbrute, killing the helbrute and taking out some of the possesseds.  This reduces the fine on my central noise marines, which combined with some poor rolling by my opponent, sees them surviving with only 2 casualties.  Here's a picture of them still feeling very lonely in face of the amassed forces - in the back you can see the cultist champion still somehow alive against the assault marine sergeant.  The last cultist would then  finally die in my melee phase.

 

 

We then had a short pause as the table was visited by the local furry monster Grace.  Fortunately, there were no casualties, but she does seem to be admiring my dead pile.

 

 

On the next turn, my opponent finally wipes out Lucius and friends, but only after a ridiculous amount of matrix-style dodges from Lucius - I swear, he soaked up about half my enemy's firepower before finally being felled by the tac squad by my possesseds, who then lost a few marines to Lucius' "mortals on death" ability - I was actually hoping to be killed by the whirlwind, as the mortals might have killed it (which would have brought Lucius back - his rules are weird) but that was not to be.  My possesseds would munch his tac squad, and then in my enemy's melee phase my opponent's Captain.

 

Here's a picture at the end of the game showing my 2 surviving units:

 

 

Final score was a closer 63 to 40 in my favour, though I think I missed counting my sticky objective for a turn or 2 - my opponent's score was largely from secondaries, though he did hold his deployment objective for about half the game.

 

My take aways:

 

1)  Whirlwinds are really good at killing marines and should really prioritize that.

 

2)  I like Renegade Raiders - run and shoot is really good, especially good with an army like mine that wants to be in the enemy's face.  Don't know if I ever attacked an enemy unit on an objective, if I did I forgot the AP improvement.  The run-and-charge stratagem is also brilliant and basically means that even my melee units will almost always be running.

 

3)  The list my friend and I chose for my army, in addition to having 70 too many points in it (entirely my fault) was probably too vehicle heavy for my opponent's list - as my friend found, missile launchers just don't cut it in 10th.

 

4)  I like the defiler - its solid in shooting (its big gun is actually decent if not spectacular antitank) and solid in melee.  I see it as an auto include this edition - helped, of course, by my loving my new model.

 

5)  Possesseds took a hit in the new codex but are still good - my friend was amazed at the damage they soaked up, though he probably didn't have the best list to deal with them.  I would put them as a very solid choice for a terminator type unit that absolutely wrecks marines in melee, even with the devastating wounds ability only being once per game.

 

All in all, some fun games with a good long time friend against an army that might not be the best this edition but has a load of sentimental value.

[INKS]

old school whirlwind, love it. looks like it was a fun time!

[Tallarn Commander]

Sounds like a very fun game. Grace is adorable! Thanks for the batreps.
 

Which of the 2 game’s terrain setups did you enjoy more?

 

I am also enjoying Renegade Raiders and I’ll be bringing my Deffy in my next game.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Thanks, @INKS and @Tallarn Commander.

 

Inks, it sure is an old school whirlwind - hopefully you share your love with the even older school predator.    And yeah, it was a good time.

 

TC, thanks for the Grace complements.  Your Greater Fur Demon is also very cute - I always enjoy when he/she shows up in your photos. 

 

The terrain setups in both games was the same, except the industrial terrain was replaced with the hill and the short table edges (as opposed to table quarters the first game) made the central terrain go from maximum to minimum blockage.

 

As to which I prefered, I think the later setup, despite leading to a more boring "battleline" deployment on my part, led to a more interesting game.  First game, if my opponent had gone first, he wouldn't really have had many targets.  As it was, I went first, so that didn't really matter as I gave him plenty to shoot at come his first turn, but also put a serious dent on his units.  Against a shootier opponent (say, my other friend's necrons), I suspect the first terrain setup would have led to a better game, as I'm not sure how much I would have had left with the second game's deployment and terrain, especially if he got first turn.

 

I look forward to reading about how your defiler plays as a raider - IMHO, the defiler is particularly well suited to the raider rules, as it combines good shooting with pretty good melee and the ability to shoot while in combat.

Edited August 13 by Dr_Ruminahui

[hd3]

 

As you might have guessed with my last post being 3 weeks ago, life happened.  Had a really stressful and busy week at work the week before last, and between that, some other general stress, and really struggling with the stripes on this side, I didn't make a whole lot of progress until this past week.  That said, when it started to come together, it came together pretty quickly.

 

So, I finished the side I was struggling with:

 

 

And the front:

 

 

And the back:

 

 

Which included finishing the mouth.  Tongue isn't yet glued in place - there's a final technique I need to practice and, if it works, I'll do it and glue the tongue in place.  I should have that all done this weekend.

 

 

Finally, some details of and around the front eye stalk -

 

The face I sculpted into the front plate - not bad.

 

 

A close up on the eye - I'm really happy how that turned out.

 

 

Anyway, next pictures you'll see of it should be the finished deal, and probably this weekend or early next week.  Just have the final work on the tongue, the turret, the 2 turret hatches, the 2 hatch gun options and the havoc launcher left.

 

 

I know I am showing my ignorance here but what vehicle is this?? Did you really sculpt all the fleshy growths yourself? By the throne, this is incredible. I mean, I thought I was differentiating my army well with extra decals here and there. This is a whole other level.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Thanks!  I'm quite proud of the results, myself.

 

As for what the vehicle is, it's a my take on a chaos defiler.  Parts wize, its mostly a leman russ with some tervigon parts.  Not really a fan of the original model, its almost impossible to get anyway, and I've had this conversion (the general concept, anyway) kicking around in my head for decades.

 

For the most part, no, the fleshy bits aren't scupted, but are from the tervigon kit - so the fleshy bulge on the back and all the legs/arms are all from that kit.  There was some limited sculpting in relation to those parts -  to remove some of the more disctinctively tyranid details, to meld them into the model as a whole (on the back bit, and the legs to their shields) and to add some chaos-style trim (on the front claws).  Other than that, the only major sculpting was the eye clusters, between the tracks, and the face on the front around the eye-hand.

 

I also built the leg shields out of plasticard and the various teeth and spikes using tooth picks, but I don't really consider that "sculpting", at least not in the sense its normally used in this hobby. 

 

I set out the build process earlier in this thread, but perhaps the easiest place to follow what I did is here: 

 

 

Edited August 18 by Dr_Ruminahui

[Dr_Ruminahui]

A nice boost for my army has come out of the Fantasy Battles rerelease - with the old ranked formation chaos warriors back on sale, I've taken the opportunity to order a set of them so that I have capes for any future infantry I might want (with 32 in a set).   I was going back and forth with myself as whether to get 2 sets, but ultimately decided not to - with no projects currently planned, I shouldn't run out, though if I ever do I'll be kicking myself, of course.

 

Thought about getting the chaos sorceror as well be didn't, which while a really nice model is probably too small and lightly trimmed to fit in with the rest of my models, so I feel safer about that decision.

[Tallarn Commander]

I always enjoyed your Chaos-Warrior-to-Chaos-Marine/Noise-Marine conversions. I'm glad that I'll get to see more in the future.

 

I am pondering whether to buy some of the re-released Old World terrain. Those kits were brilliant.