Progress Log: Alpha Legion Warband: "The Last Surprise"

[hd3]

1 hour ago, Grotsmasha said:

Looking great so far

Thanks grot! Any tips for how best to attach it?

[hd3]

Finally finished my aspiring champion for my havocs. Or as he is in warband, "Sergeant Archivist/Lord Propagandist".

 

Wielding his plasma gun, Venomspitter and his power mace, WorldDenter, the rejected prototype of World-Breaker both of which were forged by the Emperor himself. His other role is to bear the Vexilia, the record of the warband's history. 

 

I wanted to make sure all the different major icons of the alpha legion were represented here. 

 

The only thing I'm worried about is the head. I believe this is the old mkiv head if I recall and I'm just worried it looks too small in scale for the slightly bigger model. Does it look right? Or is the high collar of the armour enough that it's not noticeable?

Edited June 20, 2024 by hd3

[Grotsmasha]

Everything about that look great, particularly the Vexilla

 

The head looks fine to me too.

[Dread]

He s looking great. Nice work with t he blue and the flesh looks perfect.

[hd3]

2 minutes ago, Dread said:

He s looking great. Nice work with t he blue and the flesh looks perfect.

Actually grot did the head for me. 

[hd3]

Finally have a chance to upload some pics of my lascannons havocs! I gave them the heavy weapons markings from AL in 30k but mucked up the markings to look more degraded.

[Firedrake Cordova]

That armour colour really does look great

[Brother Christopher]

I will echo what Firedrake typed. The way you paint the base colour is great - an excellent choice for Alpha Legion dudes. The metallic finish is very striking.

 

I browsed your thread and, while a bit late, I must say that I particularly like the Master of Possession from many posts ago.

[hd3]

 

I will echo what Firedrake typed. The way you paint the base colour is great - an excellent choice for Alpha Legion dudes. The metallic finish is very striking.

 

I browsed your thread and, while a bit late, I must say that I particularly like the Master of Possession from many posts ago.

 

Thank you, I'm quite proud of my MoP. Especially the flame effects and my alternate take on the helmet.

[hd3]

It's funny to hear people speaking about the base colour though because I was debating switching from aethermaric blue yo korixigor scales for a more blue finish

[hd3]

My next batch of talons and two legionnaires with mk III and mk vi armour. Ive added some imperial lightning claws and mk IV torsos for a bit more visual variety.

 

The talon with the mkvi helmet started when I put the warp talon wings on upside down. And I thought to myself "what kind of idiot grows his warp tainted jump pack rings backwards??!" And I realized the answer is "one who wasn't trained well". So I decided to make him an inductii marine who survived and was rushed through training during the heresy. Painting white with just corax white and white scar took a while for just  the shoulder. I see why people complain about painting white at scale.

 

For the other shoulder pad with the studs and the helmet, I dunno how best to match the look of the inductii in white dwarf. Maybe runelord brass with tonnes of nuln gloss to darken it a bit? Or maybe retributor gold with gloss?

 

I've decided the heraldry will be slightly different colour because he can't remember the correct colour for inductii is a gold hydra. It's definitely not because I can't afford a bunch of custom decals for a single model.

[hd3]

I took a break from the talons to finish up my mkvi marine who will be replacing a now rule breaking legionary. (Thank you outdated 8th edition weapon load out). 

 

I think my experiment in making the primer darker to give more focus to the zenith highlight worked too well on this and the others. I'm going to go back to a wider spray with the bright silver can because the overall look is closer to the alpha legion blue tone I want. 

 

Otherwise I'm really happy with this except for the right eye lens. It's just so hard to control tje flow in that tiny crevice, even with my smallest edge brush. I'm also thinking if switching to a brighter red to make them pop out more.

 

 

[hd3]

My bonus legionnaires are finished. It was really nice to try different armour marks instead of the chaos modified mkiv. In retrospect though, I wish I'd posed the MK.VI head following the gun sight instead of looking straight forward. I also really enjoy having legs clear enough to put knee decals on, I realized.

 

For the MKIII marine, I think I might redo the brass cables in Balthazar gold for a stronger contrast. This was my first time doing MK.III armour so I was expecting more details to pick out then there were. Also picking out those tiny rivets with runefang silver and not touching the surrounding blue is really hard.

 

I also used the Alpha/Omega for the shoulder as its the oldest sigil for the alpha legion and this guy is clearly a veteran with older power armour.

 

If GW ever gets around to making MK.IV and MK.V in the new consistent size scale, I'd love to add one more legionaries for each armour. I actually found a really nice STC(STL) file for MK.II armour the other day. If I ever get any extra arms and shoulders from a MKIII marine, I might use those to expand my collection.

Edited August 25, 2024 by hd3

[Firedrake Cordova]

They look good.  I think you're right on the posing, but they work as they are.

[hd3]

Now my second unit of Warp Talons is almost finished, I thought it was time to make a start on my cultists. These are the first non metallic models I've done since my first practice Ultramarine. 

 

For the cultists, I decided to use the dark vengeance models since they look more like a armed rabble the Alpha Legion would use for Cannon fodder, rather than the Slaaneshi cultist look of the current cultist models. I also scraped off all the overt 8 pointed star symbols. Hydra first. Except for the helmet of the heavy gunner since that's almost impossible for me to do neatly.

 

For the colour scheme, I decided that since a huge theme of 40k is the stagnation or decline of institutions, I'd paint the cultists in the  colours of the Sparatoi Vindicta: the Solar Auxilia detachment assigned to the Alpha Legion during the great crusade. Grotsmasha was kind enough to help me work out the details :

 

"...

think the most important aspect of the scheme is the Black extremities, the hands, feet, and head/shoulders.

To actually achieve the scheme, I'd be painting the Grey in Mechanicus Standard Grey and the Black in Corvus Black. Then wash entirely in Nuln Oil. Restablish the Mechanicus and Corax as your first layers. Then hit the black with Eshin Grey and the Grey with Ulthuan Grey as highlights..."

 

Though I have used Abaddon black so far. For some reason none of my local shops stock corvus black despite having ostensibly every other citadel paint. The one change I made is the shoulder pads. When I realized the cultist shoulder pads had a similar trim and shape to the chaos marine, I decided the Sparatoi cultists would naturally paint it in the same colours as their masters. 

 

P.S I really need to clean my workstation up before I take photos in the future.

 

 

[Grotsmasha]

They're turning out nicely

[hd3]

I changed my flesh formula because I wanted these guys to look healthier. First bugmsns glow, then kislev flesh for base and rikelabd flesh wash for toning. I can't decide if cadian flesh or more kislev would be better for finishing it up.  Ive also started using rhinox hide for belts and harnesses which I plan to wash with agrax.

 

Then I'm gonna use white for undercoat and gore grunta fur on the pouches to get a lighter brown. 

 

To help differentiate the heads, I was debating using black legion for gas masks and head shrouds and then the gauss blaster green from the Sparatoi Vindicta colour scheme to edge highlight just the heads like the stripe on the Vindicta helmets. 

 

One thing I'm not sure about is how to do the eyes on the faces.

 

I was also going to copy the colour scheme from the sector imperialis box for the 25mm cultist bases, incubi darkness over black and then successive green highlights along the edges.

[hd3]

Ok, I've been so busy at work I never got around to uploading this but I present: my finished cultists! Painted in the colours of the Sparatoi Vindicta. The once great solar Auxilia of the Alpha Legion have fallen on hard times but are still devoted and recently win my last match at my 40k club.

 

 

 

Edited November 1, 2024 by hd3

[hd3]

This also marks, with the exception of the traitor commissar, my warband reaching completely battle ready status. Behold! My guys!

 

The commissar needs some special done on commission that is beyond me so I need to send him away for a bit first. But otherwise! I am one of only 3 people at my club with a 1000 points fully painted.

[Firedrake Cordova]

They definitely look good as a group

 

Hopefully the 3 painted armies will encourage the other members ...

[hd3]

In a surprise for me, an associate at my 40k club gifted me the praetor with axe from 30k. Do he's going to be pulling double duty in 40k as my Master of Executions since he's a 40mm base astartes with a huge axe.  I decided to drop a couple of parts of the decorations for a marginally less ornate look, abanding the top medallions on the front torso and the pouches on his back right leg. Mainly this is for ease of painting. Alas I didn't get the cool aquilla trophy rack for the power pack so that's gone too. 

The cape I'm going to have done white with off green on the trim outline , to match the colours of the cape of Alpharius himself but for now, just the body. For the base,  I had to scrape off one of the skull icons to make space for the debris the praetor is standing on which I hate but it doesn't obscure any of the other nice base detail this way. 

My main issue here is the head, because of the shape of the torso and the pose, it's really hard to swap in  heads from other kits. So while I do have several heads that would fit scale wise, none of them have the special raised angular neck to fit the body. As you can see the bald marine with rebreather kind of fits but his face is looking downcast. Which admittedly looks cool if you hold the model from believe but isn't as nice looking from the tabletop down view where he'll be most observed from.

The raw face with the kit really doesn't suit the Alpha Legion so unless I can devise a way to make a more Alpha Legion head fit right, I'm gonna have to settle for the mkvi helmet head. Alternatively I can use this Scylla Legion helmet I have which is slightly bigger scale wise so fits slightly nicer. I'm not the biggest fan of this design but it fits and it's different.

 

 

Edited November 12, 2024 by hd3

[Grotsmasha]

There's a few ways to tackle it, if you have so greenstuff, add the smallest blob into the neck socket and add in your preferred head, position and allow to set.

Next is basically the same, but with sprue goo.

Last is a little more intensive, but cut the neck piece off the original head, and glue it in place. Then cut the neck piece of your preferred head, making small trims and comparing to the original neck to get the desired position glue in place once satisfied.

[hd3]

1 hour ago, Grotsmasha said:

There's a few ways to tackle it, if you have so greenstuff, add the smallest blob into the neck socket and add in your preferred head, position and allow to set.

Next is basically the same, but with sprue goo.

Last is a little more intensive, but cut the neck piece off the original head, and glue it in place. Then cut the neck piece of your preferred head, making small trims and comparing to the original neck to get the desired position glue in place once satisfied.

 

Would greenstuff work then? I wasn't sure because the torso has a pretty wide and deep recess beneath the colour compared to most chests. Honestly I was worried green stuff would fall through or not br string enough to hold the head in place. I'll take a photo of the socket when I get home.

[Grotsmasha]

The putty GS, not the liquid GS, but yeah, absolutely. If your concerned about it falling through the hole, put the blob on the head, and damp your finger to smoosh it a little to be larger than the hole, then push the head into place and position and let it set

[hd3]

2 hours ago, Grotsmasha said:

The putty GS, not the liquid GS, but yeah, absolutely. If your concerned about it falling through the hole, put the blob on the head, and damp your finger to smoosh it a little to be larger than the hole, then push the head into place and position and let it set

 

That sounds good but I've never used green stuff before. Is it difficult? I really want this particular model to look perfect