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

[Tallarn Commander]

Definitely snag the Salamander Scout.

 

I love my two Tallarn Scout Salamanders. They are fun to use. I always put 'em in reserve to take advantage of their Legends outflank rule.

Spoiler

 

 

 

As you can see, I like to outflank Salamanders with sentinels for added firepower.

 

 

 

[Bonehead]

Nice painting on those salamanders, commander! Also, that's a lot of autocannons. Hard to dislike that many big guns on a flank.

I think you've got the names twisted, Doctor- the Mari are the regular traitor guard, the white ones are the Kur. 

The theme of the Yantar is light infantry- so only very light vehicles like the tauroses for them, Gnasher. It's a light tank, but the salamader is still an actual treads-and-all tank so it's off the cards.

I kind of like the salamander for the Mari armoured; a scout vehicle that's still a tank, to emphasise their general heavy feel.

Meanwhile, I think the good doctor has the same thought as me about the white traitor guard; they're assault troops, basically, nasty up close. The Mari are regular heavy infantry and armour, and the light infantry role is filled by the swarming cultists. I'm toying with the idea of making them mechanised, but I need a vehicle that's not a chimera for them. Not sure I like the taurox. Valkyries do fit the Star Wars storm troopers feel, but they seem a bit too good for traitor guard.

Edited March 7 by Bonehead

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Yep, I did get the names reversed - I think the salamander would be great for your actual Mari.

[Bonehead]

Missed out on an eBay lot of 6 more 2nd ed cultists this week- and they went for just £27. Simply forgot about them. Kicking myself.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Ouch!  Better luck next time, hopefully.

[Bonehead]

I got over it once I remembered I'm on holiday this week.

I set myself very modest goals for the day, and once I had them done I finally got round to building the last members of the 2nd platoon at last.

I've run out of empty cadian helmets, so I'm having to fall back on my regrettable plan b; drilling out helmets that come with heads in. This is, to put it mildly, a pain. If anyone happens to have any of the empty ones knocking around, do let me know. My gratitude will be sincere and immense.

Anyway, just got to do bases for the last three guys and then they're finally going to be ready for paint. So far the damn rough riders for the loyalists have eaten up three weeks' sparse painting time and none of them are near finished. Might need to have a break once I get the riders done.

Considering I managed to knock out about thirteen Mari guardsmen in two weeks last time I painted some, with a bit of luck we could have the entire platoon  done by mid-april.

No flash, but a rather distasteful yellow tint form the bulb:

Flash, washing out the detail a bit:

Pretty happy with this unit: the poses are very consistent and sit well together.

I was also able to bag another severn autoguns for the Mari lads- that's enough for an entire extra squad. I might end up with four platoons plus stormtroopers at this rate.

Oh, and I have a second vanquisher turret now that the eBay guy must have forgotten he had. Just need to rustle up an actual tank to go under it now...

[Bonehead]

Had a quiet period today so I got some more searchlight nonsense up and running:

This time I'm being at least moderately competent and getting the drilling and soldering sorted before I paint them or detail them up.

Still need to find a hull for the second vanquisher- and another one of those stubbers, come to think of it.

[Bonehead]

Alright, so the damn rough riders for the loyalists are taking so preposterously long that I got bored and put them aside for a bit.

Meanwhile, I've been thinking about the question of transport for the Mari Landsknechts. I want something suitably brutal looking, something as low-tech looking as the russes and malcador. The Taurox is too lightweight-looking, the chimera's not brutal looking enough and also looks a lot more modern than the russ to my eyes. The valkyrie's way out. I think the answer's been staring me in the face this whole time.

The Dracosian exists, right? It looks good next to the Malcador, and it's a great big brutal of a model. I mean, there's also the Crassus, if it comes to that, but while I think that's a dramatically better looking and cooler model in every way, it's also ruinously expensive and I'm saving Macharius chassis tanks for the RT guard army.

I think I might be getting a Dracosian, to be honest. Not for a while yet, but it just feels like the obvious choice now I'm thinking about it.

Meanwhile, I actually got some paint on some models for once. I'm going to put proof up, obviously, but they are at the worst looking stage right now. Still I've been here before, and every stage after this they just get better. I bet they won't take a month and a half and still not be finished like the rough riders, either...

Flash:

No flash:

Different angle:

Bosh. Should have the second platoon done by the end of the month, if not sooner.

Edited April 10 by Dr_Ruminahui
Removed swear dodges

[Tallarn Commander]

Yes, a Dracosian would definitely fit the armies' style. 

[Gnasher]

Agree, but with the lascannon not the demolisher cannon. It looks absurd IMO, I just cant envision a seige gun on a APC/IFV, not right, no sir.

 

Liking the notStar Wars lads BTW.

Edited April 13 by Gnasher
crap spelling

[Bonehead]

Have to agree that a massive seige gun on a transport vehicle is kind of stupid.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

That is all true, but there is still something ridiculously 40K about it.  So go with whatever you think looks best for your guys.

 

At first, my main concern about the dracosan was all the trim, but then I realized that's just because most of the paint schemes done by GW are done to emphasize it - I'm sure you can paint the trim in such a way as it just looks like a regular part of the vehicle, in which case it will fit right in with your malcador and russes (and maybe salamander?).

[Bonehead]

Yeah, you won't catch me painting that trim all fancy. Whole thing in camouflage, rust effects, wierd rebar chaos stars. Crates all over, some kind of working headlights, job done.

[Bonehead]

Built a pedal for a recording session. Pedal didn't work. Couldn't make it work. Session got cancelled. Session then unexpectedly un-cancelled, went ahead. Good drum take achieved, re-record session for bass appointed.

Built second pedal, worked first time. Now comparing first pedal to second pedal in order to find fault.

That's the gist of why I haven't posted anything in two weeks, in case you were wondering.

Now, progress, of a minor sort. you know the drill, flash/no flash:

Second platoon now at maximum stage of messiness before beginning to neaten up.

Cheers everyone

[Garrac]

Well, so the latest codexes got me excited, so Im now starting 3 new projects set to 1000 points (me and my friends dont usually play more anyway):

 

-Cult of blood

-Shamblerot Vectorium

-Brayherd (gonna give a birdgoat detach for certain)

 

Now Im just missing a Slaanesh project here, which lack saddens me a lot because Emperor's Children dont have any cultists at all. Praying for that to be solved in the near future...

Also, I did message GW asking for more cultist kits (slaanesh ones amongst them) so if we get more cultists in the near future, you know who to blame.

Edited May 1 by Garrac

[Bonehead]

I also don't really have a plan for a Slaanesh cult; to be honest, there don't seem to be a lot of suitable models that I could use for them without veering into the crass and sexualised. I ain't got no problem with sex in general, but sexy models always seem even more pathetic than the norm when it comes to toy soldiers. I know old big S stands for degenerate, hedonistic overdoing it in general as opposed to just sexually, but to be honest, it's bloody hard to think of a way to do a wargame model chasing sensation to excess at all. I mean, Nurgle has the fat guys covered, so that rules out gluttony, Khorne has the violence covered, Tzeentch has the scheming; what does that leave? Sound? Models don't make any noise. And I think the noise marines look monumentally stupid and always have. Vision? What, do I model up a bunch of trainspotters or bird-watchers? What are the other big sins? Jealousy, envy... lust for money. How the hell would you model those? It's beyond me.

So I'll stick to the other ones until some kind of good idea turns up.

Meanwhile, in our regularly scheduled programming, I got the second half of the second platoon fully done with the camo unforms and blocked in the black again. Next it's drybrushing the armour and guns, then all that'll be left is the brown bits and the minor details. And I never did put an icon on the banner for the first platoon, so I guess I'll do both at the same time.

[GreenScorpion]

You could always use vanity as a base for a Slaanesh cult if you ever wanted to do one. Something like warriors with perfect hair and a few portable mirrors to look at their own reflection during battle could do that trick. Although I do reckon in general modelling Slaanesh stuff would go towards paths that wouldn't match your other troops and tastes that well.

[Garrac]

On 5/3/2025 at 3:13 PM, GreenScorpion said:

You could always use vanity as a base for a Slaanesh cult if you ever wanted to do one. Something like warriors with perfect hair and a few portable mirrors to look at their own reflection during battle could do that trick. Although I do reckon in general modelling Slaanesh stuff would go towards paths that wouldn't match your other troops and tastes that well.

This is why I want GW, and more concretely, Kill Team, to do their take on cultists of Slaanesh. Because every other 3d print doing Slaanesh models allways goes into the oversexualized cringe stuff.

Edited Monday at 05:05 PM by Garrac

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Your latest squads of (traitor) guardsmen are really coming along!

 

BTW, I hadn't thought you were taking a "collect them all" approach to the gods with your force - I had thought all of them were khornate flavoured, to one extent or another.

 

If you were to go slaanesh, the current cultists in the right (vibrant) colours might well look the part - I had bought two boxes a year or so ago intending to use them for my Emperor's Children whenever they got a codex, only to find that EC don't have cultists.  Still, at some point they'll get done up in pinks, if for no other reason than to allow me field more cultists without having to use the legends rules to field my autogun cultists.  That said, I do recognise that the cultist models would make poor guardsmen.

Edited Tuesday at 04:36 AM by Dr_Ruminahui

[Bonehead]

Well, I've been taking my sweet time to get to the denominational cultists and traitor guard, it's true. But I have some necromunda scavvies for nurgle cultists and some Cawdors for the Tzeentch ones- they'll need some pretty heavy conversion, but that is of course exactly what we do here at Bonehead Long Term Enterprises. The various 2nd ed cultists and the other guys I have that fit with them will be the Khorne cultists - along with the Kur Guards regiments. 

The Mari Landsknechts are staunch non-denominationalists worshipping the undivided as the 'Four Winds'- which I got from some colour text thing decades ago that I couldn't name the actual source of with a gun to my head. Some codex, some WD, some FW book, who knows.

Thus it follows that the cult they foster and encourage, the Immortals, are also undivided worshippers. Not that the Mari trops would particularly give much of a flying damn who they herd into the oppo's line of sight, honestly, but it's just useful for the really great big horde of cultists to be thematically able to stand beside any of the others.

I've mostly been painting rather than building, the last few months, so I've only built about four more Kur Guards. I have a finite plan for my green loyalist army so I came round to thinking that I'd really better get that actually finished before starting another gaurd army properly.

Plenty more Mari to build too, mind you. I won't be pausing that enterprise.

On which subject:

No Flash

Flash

Really good progress on these twelve. Armour and guns done, and the brown undercoated, all in one day. Highlights on the brown, then metallics, and it's just detail and basing after that. I've obviously missed my optimistic April target, so I won't name another, but they're coming along nicely.

And with two platoons nearing completion, I'm thinking about extra hangers-on for the command squads like the one psyker lad I picked up. I'm thinking about baddie commissars- enforcers, as they were named in the Vraks books. Can anyone think of other similar types of 'flavour' models I should add?

Edited 8 hours ago by Bonehead

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Looking good!  You ever get to doing the symbols on your Kur?

 

As for command squad guys, I can see the following in such a squad (note, many of these aren't "hangers on", but its easier for me to just list possible members without differentiating them):

- a commander

- an aide-de-camp / general flunky

- a map guy

- a binoculars guy

- a radio and/or megaphone guy

- a flag guy

- a medic / doctor

- a priest

- a psycher (you could actually have different psychers - a defensive one, an offensive one, a telepath, a seer, etc)

- a commissar / enforcer

- body guards (maybe with shields?)

- a runner

- a book keeper/scribe

- a mechanic

- a fleet/air force/artillery liaison

- some "camp followers"

- a chef

- a butler / manservant / maids

- porters / guys with luggage

 

Plus obviously any number of squaddies and weapon guys.

 

Edited 8 hours ago by Dr_Ruminahui

[Gnasher]

Looking forward to seeing some of those red hands on these banditos, I had to do a double check, the curved baddy shanks are what signify your chaos boys no?

 

They look promising whatever, keep up the good work & keep on fighting the good fight!

 

I'm currently umming & arrghing  about a chimeara, cant decide whether to make it pact or sons. I like painting sons more, but the pact army really needs more taxis for them.

 

It will be a Blood & Skulls conv kit whichever. What do you peeps think?

 

Pact with Autogun?

 

Or Sons with Multi Laser?

 

 

Let me know whatcha think, & sorry for hijack.

 

Have you ever considered using the B&S Chimeara Conv kits for your armies Mr B?

 

Be so cool if GW supported Traitor Guard & made some conversion stuff to corupt the AM units for use in the game.

[Bonehead]

I was thinking about using chimera for the platoon command squads to make them different from the dracosans. But they're a bit big, and I think they look too modern next to the dracosan. There is a smaller solar auxilia transport model that looks right, but it's damn costly. I might get one anyway, but we'll see.

I have been using the B&S kits on my rogue trader guard- not the track kits though, the one that changes the chimera body into a tank chassis. They haven't featured in the log because I've let myseIf get distracted with the baddies, but they'll be there sooner or later, with working headlights.

I kind of like the idea of different regiments having signature vehicles. The RT guard get centaurs, chimera chassis vehicles and macharius chassis vehicles. Only one macharius so far, but it's not exactly cheap. Mari get russes and malcadors. I might pick up one or two of the solar auxilia basilisks for them at some point. Not for a while though, car tax and MOT is coming up. The green loyalists are light vehicles only. Kur Guards, I'm mulling over the choices. Some kind of alterna-russ, maybe.

As for your chimera; I'd say if you can't do both, do the one you most want to. Life's short. you're going to make it look great, regardless, if these two are any indication.

3 hours ago, Dr_Ruminahui said:

Looking good!  You ever get to doing the symbols on your Kur?

 

As for command squad guys, I can see the following in such a squad (note, many of these aren't "hangers on", but its easier for me to just list possible members without differentiating them):

- a commander

- an aide-de-camp / general flunky

- a map guy

- a binoculars guy

- a radio and/or megaphone guy

- a flag guy

- a medic / doctor

- a priest

- a psycher (you could actually have different psychers - a defensive one, an offensive one, a telepath, a seer, etc)

- a commissar / enforcer

- body guards (maybe with shields?)

- a runner

- a book keeper/scribe

- a mechanic

- a fleet/air force/artillery liaison

- some "camp followers"

- a chef

- a butler / manservant / maids

- porters / guys with luggage

 

Plus obviously any number of squaddies and weapon guys.

 

Well now I want to make every single one of them. Damn it.

[Gnasher]

9 minutes ago, Bonehead said:

Well now I want to make every single one of them. Damn it.

Oh noes, me too! My poor wallet...

[Dr_Ruminahui]

And to think I missed bugler / guy with bag pipes.