The Oppo: Bonehead's Lost, Damned and in all likelihood Disappointed

[Gnasher]

I suggest trying a really dark grey like Tamiya NATO BLACK for the dark bits as an alternative to actual black

[Tallarn Commander]

Hello Traitor Guard Regiment Number Two!  

[Dr_Ruminahui]

I find for blacks (particularly with blacks with folds), starting with a farily rich gray (like GW's The Fang - ridiculous name, good colour) and then giving it a black wash gives you some a colour that looks black but has its own natural highlights and is much more visually interesting - and still lets you see the details (like the folds on the cloth) of the part painted.  That's what I did with my traitor commissar and rogue psycher - unfortunately, my camera desaturated the contrast out of the photos, so they aren't very good examples of the effect.

 

The effect also works okay with smaller flat surfaces - but on larger ones, it can come out as looking a bit blotchy (like vehicles, for example).  So it should also work if you did the armour black rather than the fatigues - though you would probably still want to do some edge highlighting.

Edited January 2 by Dr_Ruminahui

[Bonehead]

Shulgin and his platoon pelted down the street, the patter of their boots nearly as loud as the swirling echoes of frenzied chanting and heavy engines growling. One or two of them were practically sobbing as much as they were panting. The plan had definitely gone much too well, so far. It hadn't been his platoon when they started the operation, to put it bluntly. Being led by a lowly corporal was a measure of how serious the mauling they'd taken was, and how close the pretend rout had come to being a real one.

Shulgin gave up on trying for a head count while running flat out and decided to settle for being glad for every trooper that made it, no matter how few. He turned his attention to the junction ahead, and the line of half-destroyed buildings. If they could just make it that far, they might be able to mount another defensive stand and cost the throne-damned traitors a few more dozen of their seemingly endless expendable thralls.

But if that damn great missile-proof monster chooses this street to rumble down, he thought in the private honesty of his own head, we've all had it anyway.

'This line!', he half-shouted, half gasped. 'Whatever of the blasters we have left, we'll take cover here with them and fill the street with bolts!'

Shulgin waved separately to two separate low walls still standing amongst the rubble, and headed for the left-hand one while hoping half of the platoon would pick the other. Yantari guardsmen and women gratefully dived for the cover of the partially demolished row of - shops, possibly? Shulgin supposed it didn't matter much. Once he'd led his column to their target he turned and watched the stragglers come in, directing them to positions and noting with relief that a few of the wounded had been able to drag themselves or been dragged.

Demitrova and Lesek were the last two, carrying Maksimenko between them. The sound of the engines was louder already.

'Get him to the rear, give him whatever meds you've got, and then find firing positions,' he ordered them as they passed. 'Good job.'

They nodded and staggered for the rear of the building. Mere seconds after they passed through a half-demolished doorway, Demitrova limped back.

'Shulgin! You need to see this, now' she hissed through her mask.

Shulgin tried to dismiss the sudden sensation of the bottom dropping out of his stomach. If Demitrova was whispering through a gas mask, what the hell was on the other side of that wall that she didn't want hearing her?

She gestured frantically for him to come over, and he steeled himself and followed her through, lasgun ready.

The view out of the building's rear window was so much of a relief, he almost collapsed to his knees on the spot. He made the sign of the Eagle and breathed a long, rasping breath.

No wonder the engines were louder. Behind the row of demolished shops was open ground, filled with what looked to be the vehicles of an entire Eblan mechanised company, including several assault tanks and a few of their armoured basilisks. Heavily armoured guardsmen in grey, black and white camouflage waited by their vehicles by the dozen.

They'd made it. The trap was being sprung.

'Just you?' an unfamiliar voice asked.

Shulgin snapped his lasgun toward the voice and managed to turn the movement into a graceles salute before he shot the voice's owner. The commissar occupying the rear doorway steadily returned his salute with an entirely untroubled ease.

'Second platoon, eighth company,  8th Yantar!' Shulgin managed to report, despite his frantic unease and short breath. 'We took a battering at the first position, sir, and we've been taking one at every position on the way here,' he admitted and gave a guilty start as he realised he'd just admitted a retreat from the enemy. It was all in the orders, but you never knew with one of the black-coated bastards.

'No officers?' the commissar drawled, as if he were discussing a marching order and not the loss of half a company.

'No sir!' Shulgin confirmed. He found his nerves had settled, to his surprise. I suppose we've all faced death just plenty already today, he thought to himself. If I'm done here, then I'm going with my head held high after doing my damn job, and to hell with this stiff bastard and the stick up his arse.

'We faced at least twice the numbers the briefing suggested, and armoured support too,' he rasped. 'We lost our lieutenant and the captain at the first position, and the casualty rate kept up at positions two and three. I thought I saw first platoon keeping pace with us at the cross-streets since position three, but the streets to third platoon's side were choked with rubble and we saw nothing of them.'

The commissar nodded.

'Go on.'

'It's those Mari bastards again,' Shulgin stated. 'They came tearing straight at us with a couple of those defiled Leman Russ tanks. The CP took a shell in the first minute and we lost the company master-vox right there. Then something even bigger turned up and it just crawled over all the broken ground that was supposed to stop the Russes. It just drove straight into our line and started tearing us up. Infantry were pouring after it, and those mad robed fools were everywhere.'

Another nod.

'We mortared it. We hit it with missiles,' Shulgin continued. 'I think I saw someone from third take a melta shot at it. Didn't make a damn bit of difference.'

The commissar was beginnning to look ever so slightly less than completely at ease.

'The only good thing I have to report about it is that whatever it is, it's slow. Slower than the Russes, and they really got hung up on the rubble piles. Preparing those was the only thing that let any of us get back here. The Russes had to wait for the big monster to batter through while the robed ones just kept on coming at us.' Shulgin finished. 'There must be hundreds of corpses in robes all over the city between here and position one. They just scream and run at you,' he added.

The commissar glanced back through the doorway toward the ambush troops, and made a gesture Shulgin didn't recognise. He turned back to Shulgin and steped forward, raising his chin.

Shulgin straightened himself as best he could. Done it now, he thought. Too familiar by half, you were. That'll be the end of that.

'A two-klick tactical withdrawal through hostile territory against a superior force,' the commissar said. Shulgin blinked behind his goggles, caught entirely off balance. 'Well done, corporal,' the commissar continued. 'Dismissed. Your unit is waiting for you and your men in the allotted sector. We'll take it from here.'

Shulgin numbly stared as the commissar turned back through the door and strode out of his view. He came back to himself as Demitrova shook his shoulder.

'I said, they've ordered us out,' she said. 'Now! just listen, for the throne's sake!'

Abruptly, he was aware of the sound of nearby small arms fire, and the return of the Emperor-forsaken chanting.

He turned, to find the remainder of second platoon looking to him for direction. Somehow while he'd been debriefed, all twenty three - no, twenty four of the survivors had joined him.

'Throne take it,' he burst out. 'Let's get the hell away while we can. Let these fresh lads do all the heavy lifting. Someone pick up Maksimenko, and move!'

He took the same doorway the commissar had, and headed for the rear lines. As the last man cleared the building, the thundering impact of a tank shell rang out, and second platoon broke into a run as Eblan vehicles crunched into gear and began to move out. Mortar shells began to detonate on their hulls by the time the Yantari platoon hit the rear of the staging area. The sound of more tank shells detonating chased them. Shulgin dodn't look back.

 

Army shots! (Edited better ones in)

I counted them. Sixty-one in the Immortals cult, including the leader and herald, and twenty five completed Mari Landsnechts- or one platoon, if you prefer.

The damn camera really wasn't in the mood to play along, but I did managed to get some half-decent shots.

Shots such as:

And not forgetting:

Ah, you've noticed the differences then. Yep, I finally got started on painting platoon number two, and gave the demolisher's commander a paintjob at last. By my own terms, that was the threshold required to get the army shots done, so here we are. I had been hoping to get the shot in what you might call 'focus', I believe it's called, but the camera really isn't up to much without daylight. And I used up all of that painting.

Right, time for the cultists to get a closer look:

I left in as much of the margins of this shot as had models in them, because it's the only one that came anywhere near a decent focus. As I did with this one too:

So you get at least a few cultists in something approaching actual visibility. I'll redo the shots tomorrow in the day and edit the post, probably.

Right, the models. I've organised the cultists by armament. There were 22 melee-armed cultists, so I split them into two groups of eleven each- each with a leader and two models with great big weapons of some kind, be it an axe, a flail, a chainsaw, whatever. Then there were 31 rifle-shotgun cultists so I split those 15/16 with a leader and a flamer in each mob. After that, we're down to Engil Mornum, his banner- henchman, and the weapon teams.

Then come the Mari Landsnechts, behind their disposable shield as is appropriate.

Platoon hq:

Squad one:

Squad two:

And the start of the second platoon:

Finally, the tank commander, in all his extremely plain glory:

 

There, only a couple of months late, and completely out of focus.

What?

Edited Thursday at 05:28 PM by Bonehead
Better photos

[Bonehead]

I did exactly as I predicted I would- instead of painting more of the models I already have, I started practical experiments on an entirely new set. Expensive, unsuccessful experiments.

Turns out the new cadians aren't up to the job of supplying torsos. The way they fit together, it's just too much of a pain to get torsos out of them. Not much armour on their arms either, although the shoulders are perfect.

And they're too damn tall to use their legs:

They just don't look right as part of the Oppo collective. Not to mention, the detail on the VM legs is better, in my opinion.

So, it's off to eBay I go, looking for old cadian torsos. And probably Anvil for some armoured arms and shoulder pads. At least I already have enough guns.

 

[Tallarn Commander]

What a wonderful collection. Each force has great individuality and really connotes the feeling of, respectively, a bunch of crazed bastards and a cadre of professional soldiers.

[Gnasher]

Yeah I agree Cadians really don't look the part, or baddies even for that matter! They just don't feel evil at all. That's before go get to scale....but that's not the problem here....

 

Check out the Anvil site for the Republic Greandiers & Amoured stuff, these may be some of the the bits you're looking for, different heads, some baddy shanks, a few chaos symbols (from somewhere like greenstuff world) & you've got your apple baccy that you can stick in your pipe & smoke it! (side note: that is really a thing, apple baccy,  I tried it in some sleazy hookah bar in the Middle East). Both those I suggested have raised & recessed areas that I could imagine looking good as white over back

 

As for the Cadians, I suggest using them in a kitbashed loyalist force & call them local PDF from some world where they're all big, well fed, & probably a bit up thier own backside. Give em some Bonehead love helmets, maybe no Cadian lasrifles etc, also explains the size difference?

[Bonehead]

2 hours ago, Tallarn Commander said:

What a wonderful collection. Each force has great individuality and really connotes the feeling of, respectively, a bunch of crazed bastards and a cadre of professional soldiers.

I love this description, Commander. It made me laugh the second I read it. I really couldn't have hoped for a better review.

43 minutes ago, Gnasher said:

Yeah I agree Cadians really don't look the part, or baddies even for that matter! They just don't feel evil at all. That's before go get to scale....but that's not the problem here....

 

Check out the Anvil site for the Republic Greandiers & Amoured stuff, these may be some of the the bits you're looking for, different heads, some baddy shanks, a few chaos symbols (from somewhere like greenstuff world) & you've got your apple baccy that you can stick in your pipe & smoke it! (side note: that is really a thing, apple baccy,  I tried it in some sleazy hookah bar in the Middle East). Both those I suggested have raised & recessed areas that I could imagine looking good as white over back

 

As for the Cadians, I suggest using them in a kitbashed loyalist force & call them local PDF from some world where they're all big, well fed, & probably a bit up thier own backside. Give em some Bonehead love helmets, maybe no Cadian lasrifles etc, also explains the size difference?

Great minds, Gnasher, great minds. I went to eBay and a few other sites, and while I don't doubt there's plenty of them out there, finding the oop plastic cadian torsos was a bridge too far. So I turned, exactly as you suggest, to Anvil. And what do I find but 'light armour torsos' that have almost the exact same detailing as Star Wars scout troopers. Bosh, bought a test set of male and female. Went looking for arms. Bosh, immediately I find the 'high tech commando arms', i think it was, male and female. Again, bang on the right detailing. In the shopping basket they went.

Meanwhile, I think I'll go for VM's 'conscript' legs. There's another VM set called something like 'devils legs' that gets a knife at the hip and more poses but is essentially the same thing. So that's a win, and it decides what knife to buy for the regiment too. Naturally they also come in male and female. VM do some good shoulder pads too- I'm going to get a bunch. I think they'll look good on both the new regiment and the Mari Landsknecht storm troopers. Talking of which, I'm going to order a few more of those and all, so I can have a full squad of ten.

Meanwhile, to be honest I think I'll just move on the cadians and get most of my money back. All the parts are back in the box, so I'll just see if anyone local wants them at a discount.

And also I love the apple baccy callback gag. Perfect timing.

[Bonehead]

On 1/1/2025 at 9:59 PM, Dr_Ruminahui said:

I find for blacks (particularly with blacks with folds), starting with a farily rich gray (like GW's The Fang - ridiculous name, good colour) and then giving it a black wash gives you some a colour that looks black but has its own natural highlights and is much more visually interesting - and still lets you see the details (like the folds on the cloth) of the part painted.  That's what I did with my traitor commissar and rogue psycher - unfortunately, my camera desaturated the contrast out of the photos, so they aren't very good examples of the effect.

 

The effect also works okay with smaller flat surfaces - but on larger ones, it can come out as looking a bit blotchy (like vehicles, for example).  So it should also work if you did the armour black rather than the fatigues - though you would probably still want to do some edge highlighting.

Doctor, apologies for not replying- I think your reply got posted while I was typing up my short story.

Once again, great minds think alike. I was planning to use skavenblight dinge as my grey- I want a good dark shade.

That's goign to have to wait until my parts arrive, so in the meanwhile, I used my last bit of holiday time this afternoon to do a bunch of different things- most relevantly here, getting some camouflage painted on the traitor guard. To be fair, I also got a bunch of loyalists done, and wired up an FX pedal, so it was a busy time. Fun though.

They're coming along, albeit that they're at the messiest, ugliest stage of painting:

Things'll start getting tidier as we move on to the armour and webbing. But a decent bit of ground covered here: half the surface area of thirteen models in an hour or two isn't too shabby at all.

Cheers

[Bonehead]

The thing about not having a deadline is you can get distracted and not mind very much. I had a couple of spare hours today so I thought I'd make up the two missing heavy bolter loaders. Then I realised I only had one remaining heavy bolter ammo box. With five loaders yet to be modelled for the army, that wasn't going to cut it. So I decided to use it as a pattern and make some more. Seriously, having a pair of lockable calipers was a real help; just get them clamped on your pattern piece, lock them down, then transfer the measurement to your material.

In this case the material is some 1mm and .5mm plasticard and a big lump of resin from a forgeworld turret's feed- that is, the big pyramidal lumps you get on resin models that need cutting away. I usually save them for making tank traps, but this was about the right size and easier than gluing together a bunch of individual squares of styrene. Real one on the right, obviously:

With a bit of paint on them, they'll do. Did take the entire available time I had spare though, so no more loaders yet. No deadlines! Also can be a negative.

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Those are really slick - good call on using the resin scraps.