The Ultimate Siege Challenge (Project Thread) - Back on the horse

[Dr_Ruminahui]

You are hitting it out of the park with your emperor's children - frankly, they are among the best that I've seen.  The only quibble (and its very minor) is with the plasma pistol coils - I think they are too close in colour to the tabards, and could be brought up to a brighter colour to differentiate them more.

[TrawlingCleaner]

Holy Moley, these are wonderful spiros! The pink is especially amazing

[spiros14]

Thank you for your kind words.

 

On 6/26/2024 at 10:04 PM, Dr_Ruminahui said:

You are hitting it out of the park with your emperor's children - frankly, they are among the best that I've seen.  The only quibble (and its very minor) is with the plasma pistol coils - I think they are too close in colour to the tabards, and could be brought up to a brighter colour to differentiate them more.

 You're right about that, it's the exact same technique as the cloth. At present I don't have that large a collection of bright blues, but I'll likely revisit it when it comes to painting the gunner, who will have a plasma gun. 

 

On 7/1/2024 at 12:25 PM, TrawlingCleaner said:

Holy Moley, these are wonderful spiros! The pink is especially amazing

Thank you. It starts out as a 3:1 Darkoath:Volupus mix over wraithbone, and then from there it's a very gradual blending process with Kislev, Flayed One, and Pallid Wych flesh (and some shading with more Volupus Pink). The sutures are painted on with Darkoath flesh after that first kislev blending, and then given the highlights to integrate it into the armour. I think the fact that the other areas are relatively simple (the metallics are literally a base, wash, and highlight) helps make the pink stand out more, which is exactly what I'm after!

 

I've gotten my third member of the Kill Team, Janus Twinsoul, painted up and waiting for a backpack. This is the most pink I've done on a single EC so far, and I wasn't crazy satisfied with it until I started adding the other details. 

You can't see it here, but the model's left eye was painted as a normal eye with pupil.

 

What I am most happiest about however is that my work has inspired my hobby group into action. I won't go into too much detail, but I've written a small narrative crusade campaign between the Ynnari and Emperor's Children, with the Eldar attempting to kill a daemon prince and retake a lost band he had stolen during the shattering of Lugganath. With the idea being to start whenever either faction gets their codex update to celebrate the release. The first mission would be a kill-team game representing the initial shattering, with the winner being allowed to add the unit (or a similar one) to their crusade roster as a blooded veteran during the main campaign, to represent them being an embittered warrior with experience fighting this particular foe. 
Anyway, my group has been so inspired by my EC that one friend has made it his goal to make up a Harlequin list (with painstaking diamond pattern tights) and another has begun work on an actual Lugganath army to use in some of the smaller point games of the campaign. I'll be looking forward to showcasing that as a separate thread either here or on the Eldar sub-forum when the time actually comes!

 

I'll see how far I can get to into my next EC model (and only remaining built model so far) - the Shrivetalon, Kresh Painbringer, before the fated Apocalypse game this Saturday!

 

Until then!
+Spiros14+

 

 

[Volgon]

Just wonderful ECs you have. I had seen the Juan Hidalgo tutorial before and thought he did such an amazing job at it so it's great to see a similar look out in the wild. You've done some great glazing/blending and the sutures are especially impressive! For my own kill team I have a few members I plan on painting with flayed flesh and I am unsure whether I want to attempt to paint them on or try green stuffing/jeweler's chain.

[spiros14]

3 hours ago, Volgon said:

Just wonderful ECs you have. I had seen the Juan Hidalgo tutorial before and thought he did such an amazing job at it so it's great to see a similar look out in the wild. You've done some great glazing/blending and the sutures are especially impressive! For my own kill team I have a few members I plan on painting with flayed flesh and I am unsure whether I want to attempt to paint them on or try green stuffing/jeweler's chain.

 

Thank you, I've just taken a look at your Lichborne kill team and I'm really impressed by your truescale conversions. While I'm sure you'd be able to use your GS/Jeweler's chain to great effect, the painting method is actually a lot easier than it first appears. Contrast is a perfect tool for sketching out freehand, and I've used it a great deal for both the sutures you see above and the stripes for my Iron Warriors. 

In addition, the suture lines are still raised up a little bit from the rest of the armour, meaning when you start adding the highlight layers, the paint is a little resistant to covering your sutures (provided the highlight paint is thinned down enough). I guess it's a water tension thing.
In fact, I'd say the hardest part is adding the stitches, as you need to be able to fit a small thin line of Rakarth flesh into the suture line you made earlier, but with a steady hand, thin paint, and a little bit of gaslighting (It's no different than painting eye lenses, trust me, it's the exact same) you should be A-OK.

 

I've also found as I'm painting these that I need to remind myself to trust the process a lot. The pink armour looks a little goofy until after I've done the sutures, at which point it all looks too much until I've framed it all with the black armour panels, and then it looks a little too disjointed (it is essentially pink and blue at this point) until I've started the other details, at which point it magically becomes great. So if you feel discouraged as you paint, you aren't alone by a long shot.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

On nice thing about doing a killteam is that diversity is to be expected - so even if the balance between pink and black ends up looking off on one model, throw him into the squad and chances are not only does he fit in but the variation makes the whole squad look more interesting.  Personally, I think each model gets better and better (so, this one's the best so far) so would encourage pushing the boundaries as to variance from the norm... for example, maybe now try a model with as much more black as this guy has more pink than your "standard" model.

 

Its always so satisfying when you can inspire your fellow players to work on their armies.  I once had a group with a semi-regular player who was playing the same army as I was (this was in the 4-5th ed when I was playing Guard), who was a much better painter than I was but much less dedicated - it always made me happy when some unit of mine inspired him to complete some of his own... I seem to remember being part of why he completed a converted Griffin heavy mortar and a unit of kroot auxiliaries.  Unfortunately, that isn't how it works with my current gaming group, where my projects don't seem to spur or inspire their work at all.

 

How do you do the silver-purple for the guns?  Is it just purple contrast or ink wash over a silver base?  Whatever it is, its particularly fetching.

Edited July 3 by Dr_Ruminahui

[spiros14]

It's a happy cycle. A good chunk of the time my friends will inspire me to paint something or write a campaign, and usually my campaigns will inspire my friends back.
I'll take that pink/black ratio in mind for my other squad warriors. I think I'll try it on the likes of my plasma gun and Icon bearer. To answer your question for the gun casing it's just Ironbreaker with a Nuln Oil wash (as with all of the metal) and then a Druchii Violet wash around the casing only, followed by a Stormhost Silver highlight. Very simple, but quite good at breaking up the gun a little bit.

 

I did get my stabby-knife man all painted and ready to go, which puts me on half of the Kill Team (in terms of the six members a basic team can use) painted and ready!

There is no marine happier than one with two knives.

 

The skinned loincloth trophies is Darkoath Flesh over a Corax White basecoat, with two highlights of Ionrach Skin and Deepkin Flesh. I then stippled Blood for the Blood god on the skin (and knives), which was an effect I took from the recent Flesh-Eater courts release.

 

The Apocalypse Game is coming up on Saturday, so my next post will likely be covering that. From there I'd like to pick back where I left off painting my boarding action terrain for the actual siege challenge I want to play, with some room on the side for more of the Emperor's Children kill-team. 

 

Until then!

+Spiros14+

[spiros14]

Greeting brothers!

 

As promised, I have a lot of pictures of my Iron Warrior's first Apocalypse Game in 10th that I wanted to share. I'll be splitting these out in multiple posts. 

 

This apocalypse game was organised to celebrate a player's birthday. This player, who is the Imperial Fist the siege challenge is designed for, also owns a Warlord Titan that we were really excited to play with and against. We had a total of seven players, each with 3,000 points, except the birthday boy, who had 6,000 points to spend. We then randomly determined sides so we had two teams of 12,000 points a side.

 

Our Salamanders Player was fielding a mostly Horus Heresy Legends list. He put a lot of effort into getting the whole army painted for the day.

 

Our World Eaters player was fielding three big players today, including the Kytan, Greater Brass Scorpion, and Angron himself!

 

Our Astra Militarum player went above and beyond to get his tank brigade painted for the event, and includes tanks from seven different regiments, including the mysterious regiment of the four-armed Emperor!

 

The table was set out as evenly as possible, with ruins scattered across the table to help block line of sight and prevent a catastrophic turn 1 salvo. We used seven objective markers across the field. three in No-Mans land, two each in deployment zones, all roughly 20 inches from each other,

Table was set up the night before the game to allow for a quicker start time.

 

With lots drawn, it was myself, the Salamanders, the Titan, and a smaller contingent of Iron Hands (no-one mention the drop-site incident!) against Necrons, Astra Militarum, Imperial Knights, and World Eaters!

 

[spiros14]

By a bit of birthday boy luck, we received the first turn, and lost little time in advancing up the field with haste. Everything but the Warlord itself moved up to engage the foe and where possible capture the objective.

 

There's something very cathartic about being a part of a predator convoy as you advance toward an enemy

 

During the opening Salvo, the Falchion blasted Angron with both barrels, hitting the primarch with a whopping 24 damage, causing the beast to explode and wound the carpark of vehicles surrounding him. An incredible first shot.

 

To the side, My Warsmith and his bodyguard perhaps acted too aggressively, moving as far forward as they could, gunned down a Callidus Assassin hiding in a ruin on top of an objective, and then charged into a murdered an eversor assassin further down the field. Destroying two of the false Emperor's most heavily invested weapons in a single turn is something of an impressive feat, but had left the terminators completely exposed for the turn 2 counterattack.

Years of academy training and drug treatments don't prepare you for a stampede of terminators breaking through a wall and smashing you into paste.

 

During my teams opening Salvo, the Warlord Titan managed to down the opposing team's Stormsword. We had made a mini-competition before the game to beat back some of the salt of losing your big thing turn 1: You secretly wrote down what you didn't want to lose round 1, and if you did, you won a share of comfort sweets. Two players ended up "winning" that prize - one from each side - proving that you're never alone in the bad luck ring.

Losing the Stormsword left a large gap in the enemy lines.

[spiros14]

For the opponent's turn 2, On the Iron Warrior's flank, the Knight household advanced forward, destroying the terminators and land raider. Three of the four predator tanks in the squadron were also blasted apart. Joined with them were two C'tan, who polished off the forgefiend.

 

Following turn 1 we had a quick cake break. 

A little treat for your warlord titan every now and again is okay.

 

Turn 2 saw more advancement up the board. In the middle of the table, Terminators and Chosen made it to the centre of the table to take the objective marker for themselves.

The guys on top of the ruins are actually on the ground floor for ease of movement's sake 

 

For my reserves, a full ten man squad of terminators teleported in the back lines, intent on breaking up the tank gunline further.  Two obliterators also teleported behind the Knight Household, being the only things that stood a chance at properly hurting them. Unfortunately, they weren't all that successful, though the terminators did manage to charge and destroy the Necron Doomsday Ark my Falchion failed to kill (whoever gave vehicles access to 4+ invuln saves needs to be banished to the cruellest depths of the warp) 

 

Hidden by the building, the lone surviving predator tank lined up a shot against the knight right on top of it at point blank range and wrecking the infernal machine!

[spiros14]

The Opponent's turn 2 is where it all went wrong. The opponent put an incredible amount of pressure on one flank, breaking it utterly and without remorse. The Knights and World Eaters continued their terrible advance, and were closely followed by their own reserves: Another knight, a monolith, and a newly resurrected Angron.

 

The opposite flank, while holding ground, were on the back foot, especially with a Kytan moving ever closer toward the Warlord Titan. Things then looked dire as Lokhurst Destroyers teleported onto the field in the back lines.

 

The Shooting phase was horrific. All Iron Warriors with the exception of the chosen (who were "safely" stowed away in a building) were destroyed by all players in a brutal dogpile, followed up with Angron destroying the Kratos, leaving a full half of the table under sole control of the opposing team.

 

Despite the gravity of the situation, the Iron Hands fought on against all odds.

[spiros14]

The final turn we played was pretty brief. Needless to say I was out of the race, and while I was still able to help my team by completing a secondary objective (we had everyone draw one card that only the could accomplish) and could say that I was technically wasn't tabled (by a whole four chosen and their attached lord and champion), I was feeling pretty low about the whole affair.

he Salamanders made a valiant attempt to push back against the broken flank's advance but were unable to do lasting harm to the knight, and were doomed to failure once the Exalted Eightbound had hit them.

 

Angron, having no decent targets on the table, took out his rage on the only assassin on the table, mulching the sniper.

 

Our final game shot

You're going to have to trust me when I say all of my friends just have emojis for faces.

 

Ultimately it was a pretty fun day for the most part, and I got some well deserved praise for organising it all and for baking a delicious birthday cake for the occasion, which I consider amongst the highest honour a warhammer player can receive. I think the heavy terrain did work out as planned, and may try it again in the future.

To be frank, I will also need to try an apocalypse game without the knight player. He's a very nice guy, but he plays far above the rest of the group's league with an inability to pull his punches, leaving most games to be quite one-sided affairs, even when part of a team. Another couple of reasons I would like to play my ultimate siege challenge is to play a one-on-one apocalypse game (something that is a novelty for me) and that should the knight player want to try it for himself as attacker (a very real possibility) he will need more than overpowered vehicles and an encyclopaedic knowledge of the matched play system to help him.

 

Speaking of my Siege challenge. With this game over, I am pleased to announce that I will pick up where I left off and get working on the fortress! By the will of Perturabo I so swear that my next post will have some finished walls and perhaps some interior design! I'm also very appreciative of your kind words about my Emperor's Children, and will be sure to post any members of the kill team I paint in the meantime!

 

Until then!

+Spiros14+

[spiros14]

Two weeks and some progress brothers!

 

To start with, I've done a chunk of wall painting, getting six of my eight remaining walls painted and put together, so just a set of two more walls to paint (and a scattering of pillar tops) and the walls section is complete and ready to use!

All six walls were made up of these two designs. Batch painting FTW!

 

What I'm starting to do now is work on my interior designs. I want this game to be very immersive, and giving this fortress a lived in appearance and some cover is the best thing for that. I have shown before that this map design uses six rooms made up of three identical pairs, so I'll be trying to work with one pair at a time.

Left: The Armoury/Medicae; Bottom: Mess Hall/Strategy Room; Right: Library/Supply Room

 

I've shown the library layout in a previous post. To help speed up board setup, I've gotten rid of the desks in my previous layout and mounted the grouped up shelves onto cardboard bases. I'm planning on doing that with a lot of my mantic terrain that I have for this project, as they're made up of a lot of little pieces. 

I've used two layers of food packaging cardboard PVA glued together with the terrain superglued on top. The base isn't very rigid, so I'm going to need to be careful not to bend the base by accident, but for an expendable dungeon piece, I think it will do the job.

The familiar layout, with Legionnaires protecting the collection of daemon engine owners manuals with their lives.

 

For the supply room I was originally going to add a group of boxes to make walls, but it felt pretty phony to me. Instead I took a look in my existing terrain collection and found a munitorum container and a pallet of goods. I also have two tubes of something (with an electronic panel) from another mantic terrain set. Who knows what the Iron Warriors have in those tanks, or why they've just bunged it in the store room to deal with later, but I thought it a fun little detail to add to the room.

My havocs will be defending this room. The Terminator Coin will be one of the three entrances into the fortress.

 

I'm hoping for my next post to get the last two walls done and dusted, and for my mantic terrain shown above to be at least undercoated (I'm just waiting for a sunny day!).

 

Until then!

+Spiros14+

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Really like your terrain, and you are doing it in colours very similar to how I intend to do mine, when I get to it.

 

Some thoughts on your scatter terrain - I think its a great idea, though be careful of how much you use and how it affects the balance between shooty and melee forces. 

 

As for basing the shelves, I'm not certain they need it, but if you do base them I would recommend rectangular bases - round, IMHO, are too "organic" in feel and are likely to stand out, especially if they don't exactly match the board they are on.  Rectangular, on the other hand, look much more industrial and will fit in much better with the sci fi feel of the board - meaning that, even if they don't match the section of board they are on, they are less likely to stand out as the eye is more likely to pass off the differences as merely a different set of plating on the floor.

 

As for basing material, I would recommend 1mm plasticard - thick enough to be stiff, I think, but not so thick as to stand out or to impede model placement.

 

I also think, if you can source them, the tops of the shelves could really do with some half burnt and dripping candles for that gothic feel.  I know there are some 3rd party shops that sell sprues of them, but I"ve never bought any so the particular retailers don't spring to mind.

[spiros14]

On 7/25/2024 at 6:22 PM, Dr_Ruminahui said:

As for basing the shelves, I'm not certain they need it, but if you do base them I would recommend rectangular bases - round, IMHO, are too "organic" in feel and are likely to stand out, especially if they don't exactly match the board they are on.  Rectangular, on the other hand, look much more industrial and will fit in much better with the sci fi feel of the board - meaning that, even if they don't match the section of board they are on, they are less likely to stand out as the eye is more likely to pass off the differences as merely a different set of plating on the floor.

 

As for basing material, I would recommend 1mm plasticard - thick enough to be stiff, I think, but not so thick as to stand out or to impede model placement.

 

I wish I had read that before doing my mysterious substance tube! Still, I have plenty of other obstacles to do, so I will be taking that advice to heart for the next ones.

 

In other news I have finished the last of my walls, so it is literally just the interior furnishings to go! I feel the obstacles I have should work pretty well as defence chokepoints and as visual worldbuilding, so I am very happy with that.

 

I also did some snapshots on how I plan on filling this dungeon with baddies. The Imperial Fists should be hard pressed to get to the objective, though I'm sure a few units of first company bladeguard, sternguard, and terminators should keep from making it impossible.

Science room/Armoury (Havocs); Library (Ranged Legionnaires); and Mess Hall (Combat Legionnaires)

 

Control Room (Chosen); Storage Room (Havocs); Medicae/Objective Room (Ranged Legionnaires).

 

I have contacted my opponent and let them know that I should be looking for a game sometime in October/November, giving me some months to get my interior terrain sorted out. 

 

+Spiros14+