In Service of the Death Lord - DuskRaider's AT Project

[General Zodd]

That is an inspirational collection, well done! You must be very chuffed!

[DuskRaider]

And BAM! Just like that I've primed the board.

 

Thanks Zodd! I'm extremely excited to have this all done and I can't wait to move on to painting this behemoth.

 

[Mendi Warrior]

Sublime, simply sublime! I love what you did.

 

The bases are great. For the ruins, did you used Zandri Dust, Ushabti Bone, Screaming Skull or similar colours? These are the ones I am planning to use as primary colours for my terrain.

 

Eager to see the FW tiles completed.

[DuskRaider]

Thanks man!

 

The ruins are Administratum Grey washed with undiluted Agrax Earthshade then drybrushed with Rharkarth Flesh and a light brushing of Pallid Wych Flesh on the upper one to two thirds. When I'm done I give add some FW Grey Ash pigment toward the bottom for dust

[Mendi Warrior]

I had forgotten, you explained it for the objective markers. Very cool results!

[DuskRaider]

Yeah, I did them differently than my first batch of bases which is a little annoying but I like them more like this. It'll be my recipe for all future structures for the most part.

[Rabenga]

Beautiful work man!!!

[Cpt. Bannockburn]

Oh boy, your legio looks amazing! 

[DuskRaider]

Thank you, brothers! It was a delight and I'm REALLY hoping Death of Molech turns out to be good so I can continue with the models.

 

I started assembling the buildings today... I hate these things. The modularity is nice but they're so damn fiddly that they're testing my patience. I also realized I probably don't have enough to cover a 4'x4' board so... off to eBay!

[Sherrypie]

That group picture is sweeeeet. That's approaching what, 5000 points? Now get them on the battlefield in full :D

[DuskRaider]

By the gods, could you imagine? I don't even know what size table we'd have to use, probably over 6'x4' to accommodate 5k vs. 5k, not to mention the resource cards, lol

[DuskRaider]

First big building assembled... Holy crap, this took a lot of parts. It's a bit off here and there because these kits hate me but it's good enough.

 

I think I'm going to limit the huge ones for the sake of quantity. I don't know. We'll see. It's nice to have some grand architecture on the board, a plethora of dinky ones is kind of lackluster.

 

I ordered an Imperialis Sector box so that should give me more to use as well. I'm unsure if I'll purchase more or wait for the Spire boxes to come out (someday).

 

 

Edit: and now I realize I just built the whole damn thing wrong and the tabs are to go into the bottom row. Bloody hell.

Edited March 18, 2019 by DuskRaider

[Master Ciaphas]

Beautiful work, DuskRaider! Can you provide a closer picture of the name tags and how you painted them? I really like the weathered look!

 

Also really looking forward to seeing the tiles painted; they will look grand! As for the building, yeay, they are difficult to put together; my "big building" is also a bit wonky. I would hold off buying more until the spires drop for release!

 

Faithfully,

Master Ciaphas

[Chaeron]

Incredible collection DR - looks amazing when all arrayed! 

 

I'm also a massive fan of the big building - looks great! Enough room for a Warhound to walk under?

[DuskRaider]

Thanks guys.

 

@Ciaphas: I'll take a few pics and post them up so you can get a better idea of how they look. It looks as though the spires sit on top of the normal buildings so it shouldn't be a big problem, although I need to learn how to assemble them right in the first place.

 

@Chaeron: Yeah, they're a bit crowded in the lightbox, lol. I tore the whole damn thing apart to rebuild but at the time of (improper) assembly a Reaver could walk under it sans the carapace weapon.

 

I started making another grand building, one based one what looks like a giant warehouse with receiving docks based on photos from FW (you can see it in the photos of the train they had shown) and by God it's so part intensive I'm blown away. At this point I'm only making it one sided which is a little sad, but it uses so many pieces from the smaller frame that in order to complete it with six full docks it would probably take a further 4 or so boxes. It seems I should probably plan these out before I just start slapping things together...

Edited March 18, 2019 by DuskRaider

[Mendi Warrior]

Very cool building. Don't worry too much for the small mistakes.

 

Large buildings eat lots of components, very fast. I strongly suggest you look for possibilities to use foamboard, plasticard and other stuff for some parts, it helps saving a few components. There are a few examples in my project log, including some receiving docks based on the giant warehouse building you refer to (see bottom of page 3 http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/350487-mendi-warriors-adeptus-titanicus-project-log/page-3)

 

To have a near perfect alignment I worked on a flat surface, carefully positioning the components before gluing the joints. I also sometimes use sprue bits or plasticard glued on the back to ensure a better alignment.

[DuskRaider]

Ugh... Yeah, I put it back together "correctly" and because of the dried glue it's all dilapidated (despite attempting to file it down). What a waste of money and time...

[Mendi Warrior]

Can you turn it into a battle damaged building? Or plunder it for ruins for basing and destroyed buildings. Just thinking about a couple ways to avoid a complete waste.

[DuskRaider]

I may turn it into ruins or damaged but I'm unsure. Maybe I'll just leave it as-is, it will still work as a building. It doesn't look horrible from a distance, I guess. I don't know, the whole thing leaves me completely demoralized.

[Mendi Warrior]

I know how it feels but, truly, don't let it demoralize you. Put it aside for a couple of days, don't rush into anything.

Any pictures of it? No paint on it yet I suppose?

How skilled are you with greenstuff? Thinking along the line of maybe turning this into a possessed building, or warped building. Still early in terms of timing but as Legio Mortis dedicates itself to Nurgle, why not having some "Nurglified" terrain? Just thinking out loud.

Found this thread on 40K daemonic terrain on dakka a while ago, very nice work, could give ideas for AT Terrain https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/350137.page

Edited March 18, 2019 by Mendi Warrior

[DuskRaider]

I can take a photo of it thus far. I still need to take one of the nameplates too.

 

No warp stuff here, I want to keep it fairly generic if you know what I mean. I am warming up to the idea of ruins, though. Maybe down the road make an intact one as well.

[Mendi Warrior]

Cool, I'll have a look once you post it and tell how I would likely tackle the challenge if I were faced with it.

 

Understood. With regards to ruins, the plastic of the civitas imperialis components is quite hard to cut (at least with the cutting pliers I have), so having the right tools definitely helps.

 

In any case, take your time and have a look at all the examples you can find.

[DuskRaider]

Here we go...

 

[Mendi Warrior]

I imagined something much worse. I don't know how the other faces are looking.

 

To me the main issue is the bridge which doesn't align perfectly. You can easily rationalise that the building has been shaken by nearby bombardments and that the bridge has become unstable as a result.

 

The tower on the right seems allright, imho no need to rectify anything there (unless one of the other faces is really different).

 

The tower on the left still has some alignment's issues. I think this starts with the second row which gives a slight V shape when looking at the left and right panels. The problem amplifies with the two upper floors.

 

What I would do if this piece was mine, and I emphasize this as I don't want to push you doing it, is to try to first separate it into 3 blocks: left tower, bridge, right tower.

 

If you used super glue, one night in the freezer before trying to separate the components should help. It should be relatively easy for the bridge part, using a cutter and patiently carefully trying to separate them. Success would depend on how many glue points there are. If only glued to the 4 support pieces, I think it would not be difficult. If the faces are glued too, then a bit more tricky and that would leave scars.

 

The right tower, I would not touch. Of course, subject to the other faces being similar to the one in the picture.

 

The left tower seems a bit more tricky. I would likely look for a fine saw, and use it at the points where there are "gaps" between the floors, and a cutter elsewhere. Cutting and sanding the excess. The idea being to slice it horizontally floor by floor. If successful, I would also try to separate some of the panels not aligned correctly. If too tricky, I would try to rectify alignement using plasticard, cardboard, … adding appropriate thickness here and there to improve alignment. It is time consuming and would impact the other faces as well. Or alternatively, replace with new panels.

 

On the corners, where there are gaps or excess glue, I would use the joint column elements to mask.

 

Scars on panels, I would borrow brother Ciaphas' idea of adding banners to buildings to hide them.

[DuskRaider]

Hmm... yes, that may work. Perhaps I'll give it a night in the freezer and see if that helps.

 

Another I idea I had was scrapping the bridge completely and making the two towers standalone. The one on the right is definitely in better shape and would probably stay in tact while the left hand tower would probably be best carved up as ruins. I could even add some of the roofing as floors to give it extra detail. Perhaps slice it at an angle starting at the rear right and coming down to the front left, removing the problem areas.

 

I should also mention I purchased two Sector boxes, so hopefully I can build more pieces that will fill the board. Between this tower bridge (failed) project and my ongoing receiving warehouse I've used up pretty much all of the smaller sprues (the ones that hold everything above the foundation tiles).

Edited March 19, 2019 by DuskRaider