Cornelivs Maximvs Allied Regiments

[GreenScorpion]

I managed to finish a batch of 5 light tanks today based on Meng's World War Toons tanks.

 

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Only 12 more of the World War Toons tanks to paint to finish the full lot.

[GreenScorpion]

I have been working on more infantry conversions to spend the spare parts.

 

First a batch of 6 special weapon/command squad soldiers to spend the last spare legs of the raumjagers (box comes with 2 different left legs for the kneeling pose):

 

Secondly, I had mentioned some posts ago that I was going to make some heavier trench fighters based on the arms of the WW1 germans and the stargrave trooper bodies, so today I bring you the first batch of 5 soldiers in this style (GreenScorpion always delivers, sometimes later than planned  ).

 

More trench fighters to come over the next few days, with the typical rifles, grenades, shotguns and entrenchment gear.

[GreenScorpion]

Another update from the front, more heavy trench fighters, as well as an unarmed recovery vehicle (the soldier accompanying the driver is armed but the vehicle itself is not).

 

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[GreenScorpion]

I managed to finish another batch of 5 light tanks over the weekend, bringing the total painted vehicles to 55 (59% of the current amount of vehicles).

 

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I also primed the 7 remaining tanks from Meng's World War Toons (5 churchill tanks and 2 king tiger tanks), which are equivalent in size to leman russ tanks.

Hopefully the Toon tanks will be completed before the new year and then I will move to different stuff (I am not running out of stuff to paint anytime soon  ).

[GreenScorpion]

Although I have a background in engineering, I still find lots of surprising stuff from time to time.

I often see containers from something my family bought and think about cool things to do with them.

After seeing something that could be used as a howdah for a large beast, I decided to hunt for a large animal plastic toy that I could use as the base for a conversion, with something like this in mind:

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Strangely enough it is difficult to find large animal plastic toys that are not dinosaurs, so I decided to search for a dinosaur toy that fit the intended role, meaning I would get something like exodite eldar in the end.

After searching on several stores I managed to find one large dinosaur with a wide body that could be used to attach the cardboard container I already had saved for the purpose and that wasn't extremely expensive.

The fully assembled dinosaur is roughly 50 cm (~20 inches) long from the tip of the tail to tip of the head and the body itself is roughly 7-8 cm (~3 inches) wide.

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One of the arms and the tail have to be attached for the model to be fully operational.

 

I noticed that the dinosaur seemed to have some remote controlled functionality, but given the price point and the size, I wasn't expecting anything other than some noises and some weird movements of the body parts.

The instructions were not very clear about the full functionality, beyond some indication that it walked, turned and made some noises, so I wasn't really prepared when I clicked on the buttons with the music notes on the controller (which is the egg shown on the picture once you open it in half) and the dinosaur started to dance in a well coordinated manner.

Still surprised to see a dinosaur dancing like it was in a disco/club, I checked whether the body would be stable enough to allow placing a howdah with soldiers on top while moving.

The movements are extremely well coordinated (I must say the programming and design seem great for a toy), so soldiers on the howdah should be safe for the most part, as long as they are strongly attached to the howdah itself.

 

In what relates to the conversion I am planning, the idea is to make a howdah with either something like a 10 men infantry squad on top or a smaller crew but with heavy weapons added on the howdah. Based on how the howdah sits on top of the dinosaur I will decide which way to go with the concept.

To anyone wondering why I would want to build a large beast with a howdah on top for guardsmen, I say only this: If the home world of your soldiers has huge lizards that you somehow managed to domesticate, why wouldn't you use them for war?

[GreenScorpion]

I managed to paint a few more things around Christmas and the new year and the total of painted models is currently at 1300, with 790 of them receiving paint in 2022 (slightly over 60% of the painted models). I have already started 2023 right by finishing 14 models, so things will hopefully be even better this year and the overall status will be closer to completion.

 

The current overview of the status:

 

As can be seen above, vehicles and buildings are getting closer to completion, so the focus for the first few months of 2023 will likely be on infantry (including the last 3 batches of raumjagers I still have to paint) and cavalry (mostly the dwarvish spider riders for rough rider equivalents). Once those are done and we are talking about several hundreds of models (72 raumjagers and 48 mounted dwarves for example) I will likely move on to paint my 4 large tanks for super heavy equivalents and 2 helicopters for flyers. If things go well, my painting queue should be significantly reduced in 2023, bringing it closer to the rhythm at which I have been converting stuff out of spare parts.

 

 

And now some examples of the things I finished around Christmas (some Meng tanks around the size of a leman russ):

 

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[GreenScorpion]

The first of 3 batches of raumjagers has been finished today. If things go similar with the other 2, I should finish them before the end of January

 

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[GreenScorpion]

Another week, another batch of Raumjagers finished. Only one more to paint and I will have finished my current Raumjagers batches.

These 24 miniatures bring the current total for January to 92 painted miniatures

 

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I have also built 5 of my stargrave crew models to check some of the options and I will be using these to complement my current pirate forces with some irregular crew members that are less pirate like in behaviour (currently the pirates are represented by traitor guardsmen from Blackstone Fortress and chaos cultists ).

They are essentially irregular units which are not supposed to see combat on the battlefield in most cases, but would be part of fights inside the ship or perform repairs and other stuff inside the vessels commanded by Cornelivs.

 

 

My picture does not do them justice, but the stargrave crew is a nice kit for lightly armoured or civilian based forces and should kitbash nicely with the more recent sculpts from GW in terms of proportions.

[GreenScorpion]

Another week passed and the final batch of Raumjagers got painted, bringing the full 120 Raumjagers to the fully painted stage.

This means that I have painted 116 miniatures this month, with 72 of them being Raumjagers.

 

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Next I will be working on the dwarvish allies of the forces under Cornelivs (although dwarves they still count as imperial guard for all aspects), with the batches of 24 soldiers including 12 soldiers on foot and 12 soldiers mounted on giant spiders (essentially rough riders). Due to the extra painting work for the spiders, I suspect this batch and the following ones will take a bit more than 1 weekend to get done, so the speed will likely drop a bit.

[GreenScorpion]

I haven't ordered directly from GW in a while but it seems GW is investing some effort in getting customers to return as I got an email with the following subject "We've missed you, 'InsertCustomerNameHere'".

The email itself makes some references to the current conditions of the store and limited time stuff like the made to order commissars, followed by a "Chosen for you" section which is certainly not personalized for me in particular as it is all brushes and a water pot (I have bought exactly one brush directly from GW in 2018).

 

I was wondering if anyone else is getting similar emails related with your accounts and whether or not the contents seem to be a bit more customized based on your purchases.

[GreenScorpion]

Another week passes and another batch of miniatures ends up painted

This time it was a batch consisting of 12 dwarves on foot (guardsmen equivalents) and 12 dwarves mounted on giant spiders (rough riders for the dwarves).

 

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3 other batches to go to get all of the dwarves painted. The next batch is already primed and hopefully it would painted next weekend.

[GreenScorpion]

Similar to last week, another batch of dwarvish allies have been finished (12 mounted and 12 on foot).

 

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The next batch is already primed and ready to be painted next weekend

[GreenScorpion]

Another batch is ready and only one more batch of the dwarvish allies is pending
If things go well, the final batch will be finished next weekend, allowing me to focus on other types of infantry next.

 

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Current total for February is 72 models

[GreenScorpion]

Today I reached an important milestone in terms of infantry that I have built over the years, passing the barrier of 2900 models

 

 

With what I still have left to build out of the box (~90 models pending) and with the conversions that I still have to do in order to spend all of the spare parts, I should have at least a few more hundreds to build, but likely not as many as I have assembled already (which is good as I am running out of adequate storage space already).

Still need to improve the painted numbers, but I think currently the rate at which I am painting models is as high as it gets since I only do it on the weekends and such, so I think that it will continue as it is for the foreseeable future. Regardless, I have painted 188 models in 2023, not just infantry but overall, which is not that bad.
The last batch of dwarves and spider riders is currently missing the corrections and shading, so tomorrow there should be 24 more painted models for the current year.

[GreenScorpion]

Another weekend, another batch of miniatures painted

The last batch of the dwarves and spider riders has been finished, allowing me to focus on different things next.

The total painted models for February ended up being 96! The current total for the year is 212.

 

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[GreenScorpion]

Since I have been painting historical stuff I have refrained from posting some updates from the painting side, but I have been making progress on my zero bits challenge that I wanted to mention.

After converting over 200 infantry soldiers based on grognards from Wargames Atlantic, I spent all of the arms and gear from the boxes I had bought (still have hundreds of heads though, so many heads), so I have moved on and started to do the same with the space dwarves from Wargames Atlantic (einherjar) and here are the first few batches:

 

 

 

 

Some feet were hurt during this process as you can see from the first picture and they still need some clean up along the sides or between the legs, but they are quite nice.

I should be able to do at least twice this amount with just the first box of these, so my expectation is that there will be lots of these ones when I reach the end of the fifth box.

Although the bodies of the stargrave crew are taller than the bodies of the dwarves, I think the proportions of the heads and arms work nicely.

[GreenScorpion]

I have been focusing on making more conversions to spend the extra parts and the soldiers based on the dwarves parts and the stargrave crew bodies have already reached a total of 85, but since I have only recently spent the parts from the first box there will be a lot more work to finish the full 5 boxes, which should be when I reach 360 (72 per box), although that would still leave me with 40 spare heads. I am thinking I might be able to do some sort of servitors/cyborgs/cybernetically enhanced soldiers to spend the other 40 heads, by making some robotic arms and using the shields for the other arm.

 

I have been thinking for a long time about expanding the fortress built with Mantic parts that I painted during the last Astra Militarum event, so I decided to buy a second Military Compound box and also a Landing Zone box, which should help me get enough parts to make some additional wall sections with a closed top/walkways.

Some reference on what the boxes might represent on the table:
 

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My plan is to build them into sections of different purposes that I can use together on the table, for example a small wall section with a gate on both sides or a regular wall section with firing positions. They will likely be one full tile in width/height and 2 full tiles in length, allowing me to have sections that are large enough to be quite sturdy and solid, but also small enough to be easy to prime on my usual paint box.

 

For reference here is an example of what I have done with parts from the Military Compound box:

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[duz_]

Those kits would work nicely 

[GreenScorpion]

Although I have not shown much lately, mostly because what I have been painting is not particularly relevant for this thread, I have been extremely busy on the painting front.

Today I have finished a batch of 30 WW1 Germans which I am using as light trench fighters and I intend to place on some of the terrain I have built or am going to built to have as display or diorama setup, with that being the main reason for the square bases.

 

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I already primed another batch of 30 trench fighters and have another 30 to prime with the spray can tomorrow.

If things go well I should have another 30 finished on Sunday and 30 more fully primed to work on next weekend.

 

Currently I have painted a total of 439 models in 2023 and I am close to finishing everything until October 2020, which means my oldest models waiting for paint are less than 3 years old in my possession.

[GreenScorpion]

Yesterday I finished another batch of 30 trench fighters.

 

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2 more batches of 30 and the trench fighters will be completely painted

[GreenScorpion]

I had mentioned before that I was going to get some more terrain kits to build some wall sections for a somewhat modular fortification:

https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/366624-cornelivs-maximvs-allied-regiments/?do=findComment&comment=5924628

 

They actually arrived quite fast (less than a week from Germany which is not that bad) but I forgot about mentioning in the previous posts.

I haven't started on them yet because I need to reorganize my storage space first (mostly add a few more shelves to some cabinets and such to increase the amount of stuff I can store in one place), but here are some pictures of the box and the respective content:

 

The larger box is equal to the one I had purchased previously to make the fortifications I painted during the last event, although the outside of the box looks different because of the new edition of Mantic's game.

The full order also included 2 stargrave boxes (male and female mercenaries) to be used in conversions, but those 2 small boxes were only small fraction of the roughly 4kg of plastic parts I received

 

 

The only negative thing was that I was thinking about ordering one of these instead of the stargrave boxes:

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But someone ordered the last one they had in stock like a day or two before I made my order

Wanted to check the wolverine in person, but it seems I will have to wait until the store gets it in stock again.

[GreenScorpion]

Another week passed and I managed to paint another batch of trench fighters:

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Only one more batch to go to get them all of the original trench fighters painted

Since I am currently at 499 painted models in 2023 I am a bit tempted to just paint one more during the week to reach 500, but I think I will wait for the next batch.

 

 

If you notice orange splatters along the background, those are just minor leftovers from the big "orange explosion" that occurred last Saturday.
Please spend a minute in silence in honour of the victims of this "chemical" incident (mostly my pride, but also some curtains and clothes).

[GreenScorpion]

I have been experimenting some things to help me spend some of the extra heads as part of my zero bits challenge and so I made a few test models with a circular saw attached to what would be the elbow to make something similar to melee servitors.

 

I have also created some ranged weapons which still need to be copied with moulds before I try the ranged versions on the actual miniatures.

 

--

 

In an unrelated topic, I have been thinking about whether I should go ahead with another Astra Militarum event and when to do it, but with 10th in the horizon and people turning back to marines and potentially tyranids for the new edition, I am not sure if an event in the coming months would be adequate, so I am considering postponing it until after the initial 10th releases and related forum events or potentially cancelling it altogether.

[The Pounder]

I applaud your “zero bits” policy! I think recycling or reusing the piles of plastic we all produce is of importance!

 

 

As for another event, I reckon with the release of 10th it would be the perfect time as we’ll all be reworking our lists in line with the new rules! I for one am waiting to see what to work on next.

 

Ultimately it’s up to your good self as we all appreciate the hard work you put into the last one!

 

Keep us posted on your projects and any developments on another painting event.
 

 

[GreenScorpion]

@Jud Cottrell Thanks I always felt like all those extra spare parts in the sprues were a bit of a waste, so that is why I decided to attempt the zero bits challenge as my own personal objective. While I am far from finished I seem to be on a relatively good path.

In what relates with the astra militarum challenge I am thinking that waiting for the initial 10th releases to pass and then schedule the event would likely be the best approach, since many will focus on space marines or tyranids for at least a few weeks/months and waiting for that initial phase to pass would likely be the best to make sure we have significant participation as my fear is that attempting to have an event in parallel with the period when people are busy with the initial wave of 10th releases would attract only a couple of participants.

 

 

In what relates to my painting efforts, this weekend I reached 529 painted models for 2023, as I finished the last batch of my trench fighters (ww1 germans), so the last 30 soldiers of a total of 120 in 2023 (I had already painted 1 batch of 30 before of the complete 150 I purchased back in 2020). The main colour chosen for this one is something called tropical turquoise, which seems to fit the trench fighters nicely.

 

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One more batch and I will have finished painting everything bought until October 2020, so getting closer to reaching 2021