Space Crows project log

[longjohnsilver]

 

Hello again. Its time to show off my WIP command Razorback with t/l assault cannons.

Actually I need advice. I was thinking about writing '4th company' on the banner somehow but don't know if this will ruin it. What do you think? Is it enough that 4th company has the green spot colour?

The banner was downloaded from Wargames Foundry, in the free downloads section. It's actually a Viking standard but I repainted the background green and filled in the internal lines on the raven image.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Apothecary is one of my favourites. I'll refrain from retaking pictures of my ETL units until I've painted a few more details on about 16 marine infantry, like that missile launcher tactical marine in the last picture. Until then I'm more in the mood for painting tanks or drop pods.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

I think the flag will look better if mounted directly on the Razorback turret, allowing the weapon to traverse a full 360 degrees.

[longjohnsilver]

You're right. Luckily it was pinned into a small milliput cube, rather than being drilled into the chassis.

 

I snapped it off and cut a bit of plastic off the left side of the turret and then realised that I have no superglue to hand. *facepalm*

 

Just going to bluetac it in place until more painting gets done or I might drill it in place temporarily.

[Brother Quixote]

I like the banner as it is, if the colour obviously matches the heraldry on your marines it probably looks fine. The big question is are YOU happy with it

 

If I was to put in a numeral, it'd be a small unobtrusive IV in one of the corners so as to not distract from the rest of the image.  Why not make another and test out a few things if you're unsure?

[longjohnsilver]

Thanks, Brother Quixote. I was thinking of putting a '4th co' in the top corner, so as to avoid confusion with tactical squad IV, who are in a rhino (I think). Problem is the flag is two sided so it needs to look good. Good idea with printing myself another set.

 

Not much progress, I had 5 days of painters block so I need to break that chain tonight.

 

 

Quite happy with the command skull, which I drew with a 0.1mm art pen, although it looks wobbly really close up. Having new pens and brushes is so good. You should have seen what my finest 0000 brush looked like in the last days of the ETL.

 

 

And then *drum roll* I realised that I put it on the wrong side, and I've done the one on the back as well, so its too late to change it now.

The pencils are sharpened so I'm going to try to draw the crow symbols on 5 empty spaces, even though its slightly heretical that 2 are on the wrong side..

[Bjorn Firewalker]

I commend your painting skills.

[longjohnsilver]

Thanks, Bjorn. The flag was by Kevin Dallimore; its a free download under the title 'Viking flags'(on the Wargames Foundry website).

Also I might name a techmarine Mr Firewalker if that's OK with you. It's now much easier to transport my Razorback wit h the banner on the turret.

 

Oh, and here it is, madarms and monsewers:

 

 

 

 

 

Some other stuff recently assembled:

 

 

Props for guessing which game the librarian terminator came with..

 

Objective markers (wip):

 

Edited September 14, 2018 by longjohnsilver

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Great job on the Razorback.

Also I might name a techmarine Mr Firewalker if that's OK with you.

I'm flattered, but I already created a "Bjorn Firewalker" for a fanfic. (He's a Space Wolf-turned-Wolfbrother who earned the name "Firewalker" for charging across a lava stream to reach the enemy. He moved fast enough to NOT lose both legs in the process.) Edited September 15, 2018 by Bjorn Firewalker

[Brother Quixote]

I like how the Razorback has turned out, looks good.

 

That yellow plastic reminds me of some genestealer hybrid models I saw in someones tyranids in the 90's but I haven't seen the librarian model before. So I'm guessing one of the space hulk expansions.

 

Now I'm going to have to look it up, curse you.

[longjohnsilver]

Hah! Well it's close enough. It was from Genestealer which was the second expansion to the original Space Hulk. I did get the original game when I was about 15 but the rules and a handful of the models from the expansion were given to me at school. In a terrible state. I was shocked to see the bone coloured plastic as the original terminators (awful models) were blue.

 

 

I'm flattered, but I already created a "Bjorn Firewalker"

Maybe just Bjorn then. I only ever give marines one name in deference to the Soul Drinker novels.

Space Wolves are fun - I love sculpting hair and beards. I've done a few sculpted hairstyles for this army but nothing as hairy as SW conversions I used to do.

[longjohnsilver]

Only really managed to finish a plasma gunner in the new scheme for my power armour. The other 16 that are almost painted can stay in the old colour scheme. Also touched up my furniture, the texture paint is still drying on the armchair base. The sofa and armchair are both made out of milliput.

Other than that I got a command squad and a few Conquest magazines. I'm using primaris bare heads on regular marines more so the magazine helps with the conversion bits. I used the ltd edition LT Calsius bare head on a grav cannon gunner for instance and got the Primaris librarian, assembled it helmeted and kept the bare head for a future librarian conversion hopefully.

 

 

 

 

 

If I make more furniture they could be sentient psychic alien sofas with their own profiles.

[Brother Quixote]

What made you make sofas?

 

Now I want one with my own 'armchair general' to sit on the sidelines at games.  Maybe a Creed model...

 

Or a tzeentch daemon sitting back with steepled fingers.

Or an unclean one with a remote control.

 

See what you've done? I'll be thinking about this all day.

[longjohnsilver]

The Armchair of Questionable fluids was an extra for a painting competition in 2012. It won me a pack of resin heads from the wonderful people at Mad Robot miniatures so I chose one of the personality packs with - bald Jason Statham, bald Sly Stallone, Arnie, Robert Duvall with the cavalry hat from Apocalypse now and R.Lee Ermey with the drill instructor hat from Full Metal Jacket. So far I've only used Stallone's head and he's now a genestealer cult sentinel driver.

The armchair was used as a Relic once. The orks got it and my opponent made an Ork looted armchair which had been upgraded and savaged by orks. It even had a big choppa sticking out of its back.

 

The 2 seater sofa was made in 2013 in response to a campaign my Soul Drinkers were fighting against Orks on the furniture world of Doofus (DFS), which the orks won. They renamed the world Orkea and I lost most games. The only victory I had was in destroying a Stompa and winning the last game with my lascannon heavy gladius. Stompas are killer - those 2 games with the gladius VS the FW dread mob list with a Stompa were the toughest games I've ever played and the free transports made it very interesting.

 

I might need to make another with someone sitting in it.

[spessmarine]

make one and call it the Golden Chair

[Race Bannon]

Orkea ... man, that's bananas in concept.

 

I love narrative campaigns.

[Jacques Corbin]

Only really managed to finish a plasma gunner in the new scheme for my power armour. The other 16 that are almost painted can stay in the old colour scheme. Also touched up my furniture, the texture paint is still drying on the armchair base. The sofa and armchair are both made out of milliput.

Other than that I got a command squad and a few Conquest magazines. I'm using primaris bare heads on regular marines more so the magazine helps with the conversion bits. I used the ltd edition LT Calsius bare head on a grav cannon gunner for instance and got the Primaris librarian, assembled it helmeted and kept the bare head for a future librarian conversion hopefully.

 

 

 

 

 

If I make more furniture they could be sentient psychic alien sofas with their own profiles.

By the throne!!! I want 3 of those chairs for a unit of Inceptors. Imagine them zipping around the board reclined in comfy chairs.

[longjohnsilver]

 

 

 

 

 

Took ages to paint a tactical marine. So long that I painted a Revilers marine in a fraction of the time. The Space Crows are descended from Revilers geneseed and the Chapter was originally founded by Revilers veterans in M37. The Revilers try to check in on their wayward sons every now and then but for a 2 thousand year period between M39 and M41 (the end of Space Crow history) they suspected there was something wrong with their sons. For starters they stopped looking like Raven Guard successors.

 

The Space Crows have one in every fifty marines that look like RG but the Chapter leadership has tried to cover up events of the desperate past, when they were running low on geneseed, like a careless driver runs low on gas, and with the help of their Mechanicus allies they raided a geneseed storage vault on a remote world and stole a whole Chapter's worth of geneseed. The Mechanicus owed them for helping them to discover AI robots from the Dark Age of Technology.

(At least this is what I came up with only yesterday to explain why the SC don't look like RG. Is it too heretical?)

 

 

By the throne!!! I want 3 of those chairs for a unit of Inceptors. Imagine them zipping around the board reclined in comfy chairs.

It could probably be done but the couch would interfere with the jet pack thrusters and the plastic flying stand looks too weak because milliput is quite heavy.

I got lots of unwanted Conquest magazine Primaris so I might stick them in the prize pot for the next RG painting event.

 

 

Orkea ... man, that's bananas in concept.

 

I love narrative campaigns.

Thanks Race! Now we're slowly playing the Fall of Cadia so I have a repurposed Eiffel Tower / Cadian pylon.

 

 

make one and call it the Golden Chair

Thinking about making a chair. The 2 sprues of poxwalkers in DI have a suspiciously chair shaped bit in them..

[longjohnsilver]

 

 

Ahoy there again mateys. I thought it was time for a group shot of the almost done and battle ready. Still a long way to go for the full battle company and various other formations.

Working on my jump shadow captain, a hammernator, a Japan Heroes Reviler tactical and more assault and tactical marines but there are lots of details. An eviscerator assault marine from the squad without jump packs got done at any rate.

 

Group shot

 

 

Eviscerator marine

 

 

The assault symbol

 

 

 

I've also witnessed a lot in the last few weeks. The carrion crows in the park have an elite 'Pizza Recovey Squad', as I discovered when an opportunistic speckled gull tried to take one of two slices of Dominos Pepperoni Passion pizza from them. The other crows casually blocked all aerial escape routes while the elite squad lined up a couple of metres from her, each spaced 3 feet apart and totally unmoving, just facing the seagull. The gull recognised the threat and kept putting the big slice of pizza on the ground to squawk out a warning to her chellengers. On the third time the crow furthest to the right (or the gull's left) flew right at her, took the pizza slice right out of her beak and flew backwards in a tight loop and landed about ten metres away where other crows were waiting to tear the pizza apart.

The thing is the other four crows were still facing the gull, unmoving, unflinching. It was only when I burst out laughing that the other members of the 'Pizza Recovery Squad' dispersed, as the gull's attention was then fixed on me, a mere 3 metres away from all this.Wish I'd got it on video now.. And that is military precision born of a life of drilling...

 

There are a lot more stories but that will do for tonight.

[longjohnsilver]

Ye Olde Space Crow History

The Wars of Piracy (M38)
 
Towards the end of the 38th Millenium the Space Crows became embroiled in a long 500 year series of 3 wars, aimed at reducing the space piracy of various renegade warbands that were attacking Imperial worlds from the Maelstrom. The Space Crows had been instructed by the Revilers veterans at their founding to spot the signs of the hated Alpha Legion infiltration of worlds, and to root out their cause before the seeds of Chaos grew and tainted them. In the early days they were successful and rooted out many tainted planetary governors, taking much treasure from the corrupted worlds within their purview.
 
Eventually they came to the attention of a large group of renegade Chaos marines known as The Syndrome in a series of early skirmishes in M38. The Syndrome were first thought of as a splinter group of the hated Alpha Legion but they might also just have been their own loose group of warbands that fled the Scourging in the aftermath of the Horus Heresy, eventually finding new worlds within the Maelstrom and in various other parts of the galaxy to hide in and colonise. From these new bases they raided the Imperium at large, usually painted with the colours of Imperial Space Marine chapters or using their corrupted cultists disguised as Imperial Guard.

 

The Space Crow fleet astropaths had seen visions of an artefact: The Spear of the Emperor, and it was hidden in a world between the Quaver Cluster and the Kaseri Rim within the Maelstrom; on a hidden moon base of The Syndrome. Although travelling within the Maelstrom, in the Warp Storms, was very risky the Space Crows had advanced ships and had slowly learned the routes through the Warp Storms by capturing notorious space pirates and interrogating them before the usual execution by crucifixion aboard one of the Prison ships.

 

In a thirty year interim the Space Crows amassed the largest fleet in Chapter history, swelled by their allies from the lost Adeptus Mechanicus twin Forge world of Alhex-Zandringham, allied Imperial Guard regiments, privateers drawn from many worlds known to the Chapter, who were promised a share of the plunder provide they survived. The Chapter Master, Corvus Corone Adelar, applied for permission to take his Crusade into the Maelstrom, from both the Administratum and the Space Marine Chapters who operated in the area, and were eventually granted permission to take their battle to the Syndrome, to uncover their hidden bases, to reveal their secret infiltration routines, to chase them back into the Maelstrom and to raid the heretic worlds within; putting them to the chainsword, the bolter and the macro cannon.

 

*to be continued/ revised at random. Please feel free to comment on any aspect of the Chapter history, although it's still quite thin on the ground.*

Edited February 3, 2019 by longjohnsilver

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Your models look great! Love that camouflage pattern.

 

The details on the Wars of Piracy are well-written. I can't help but wonder if the Syndrome is named after the antagonist of The Incredibles- the war band's MO of disguising its members as Imperial loyalists, is similar to the 2004 film's villain's plan to make himself look like a hero.

[Brother Quixote]

Nice work on getting all those minis painted and on going for all the freehand markings, so many people don't even try.  I see you like the bare headed look. Helmets are more my thing.

 

I like the investment you have in your army from the backstory all the way up to naming individual models, now that's dedication!  I guess that's why there are so many different skin tones and hair colours too.

 

I'll be smiling to myself all day now at 'Brother Pointer'.

[Race Bannon]

I've missed it somewhere: what basing is that?

[thewarriorhunter]

Your freehand is on point.

[longjohnsilver]

Your models look great! Love that camouflage pattern.

 

The details on the Wars of Piracy are well-written. I can't help but wonder if the Syndrome is named after the antagonist of The Incredibles- the war band's MO of disguising its members as Imperial loyalists, is similar to the 2004 film's villain's plan to make himself look like a hero.

Thanks Bjorn.

 

Yeah I think my main opponent said something to that effect. His Syndrome army are made with Chaos Space marine models, although his lascannon havocs with the Mark of Nurgle are made from Mk 3 armour. I like Mk 3 almost as much as Mk 7.. They use Nurgle/ Death Guard rules (from the 7th edition Traitor Legions book) rather than Alpha Legion rules, although the Crows probably think they're AL.

 

This image from the setup of our last game shows the Syndrome on the left.

 

 

Nice work on getting all those minis painted and on going for all the freehand markings, so many people don't even try. I see you like the bare headed look. Helmets are more my thing.

 

I like the investment you have in your army from the backstory all the way up to naming individual models, now that's dedication! I guess that's why there are so many different skin tones and hair colours too.

 

I'll be smiling to myself all day now at 'Brother Pointer'.

Thanks Brother Quixote.

 

Originally there were more helmeted models but I made a few tactical marines with bare heads and started exchanging them over with the CAD army. Actually Pointer has a Primaris bare head. I got a few from a bitz site, including a Dark Angel and Blood Angel upgrade sprue head; I think they look OK; slightly bigger than a standard marine head.

 

I've missed it somewhere: what basing is that?

It's just the Citadel Texture Paint; Martian Ironcrust. (Be careful not to get Ironearth, which looks the same)

There's the Agrellan Badlands paint as well, which is a similar crackly effect textured sand paint but in standard desert colour.

Actually I found a White Dwarf with the basing colour chart but don't know if it's legal to take pictures of the magazine and post them..

 

Are you thinking about basing something with texture paints Race?

 

Your freehand is on point.

Cheers thewarriorhunter. Actually I keep seeing bad mistakes and have seen so much better, especially on this forum..

I just use art pens; a 0.05, 0.1 and 0.2 mm. At the end of last year's ETL my old art pens were out so I just usd a sharp pencil. I'm sure I have a WD magazine that shows freehand Ultra symbols on a shoulder pad using a sharp pencil.

Have you painted any more flower shoulder pads lately?

[Bjorn Firewalker]

 

Your models look great! Love that camouflage pattern.

 

The details on the Wars of Piracy are well-written. I can't help but wonder if the Syndrome is named after the antagonist of The Incredibles- the war band's MO of disguising its members as Imperial loyalists, is similar to the 2004 film's villain's plan to make himself look like a hero.

Thanks Bjorn.

 

Yeah I think my main opponent said something to that effect. His Syndrome army are made with Chaos Space marine models, although his lascannon havocs with the Mark of Nurgle are made from Mk 3 armour. I like Mk 3 almost as much as Mk 7.. They use Nurgle/ Death Guard rules (from the 7th edition Traitor Legions book) rather than Alpha Legion rules, although the Crows probably think they're AL.

 

This image from the setup of our last game shows the Syndrome on the left.

 

I see a passable Omnidroid. Will you counter this menace with Primaris Librarian Frozone and the Imperial Knight "Master Incredible"?