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

[Bonehead]

Heh. VM do actually do arms for both of those. But I made the guy with his flamer up in the air using the bugler arms, and I couldn't work out a use for the bagpiper set so I never bought them..

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Well, you have plenty of other guys to add before you get to them, so maybe you'll be in the place to be making another VM order when you do. 

 

Another one I missed was native guide / interpreter.

Edited May 10 by Dr_Ruminahui

[Bonehead]

I like the 'interpreter' idea. Just someone who translates daemonic howling into simple words. 'Gnashy red anger man says make baddies dead'.

I should model a guy with one of those big flip-over pads for brainstorming in meetings.

Meanwhile, a measure more progress:

Browns done and metallics on, although I ran out of time before I could give them a black wash.

Coming along nicely.

[Bonehead]

Got a lot done today, relatively speaking. Some people can paint whole armies in weeks. I am not one such.

I can however paint lots of small bits on twelve models in a week, and today those bits were basically just washing the metals and browns with nuln oil, then doing all the red bits, and finally getting a grey drybrush on the bases, followed by a bit more red for all the brick rubble.

Decent progress, we'll call it that.

The no-flash photo came out horrible.

For a bonus, here's the whole platoon now that the second half are good enough for a tabletop:

I organised them into themed units. I like to do my squads in three flavours, by and large: firing line, advancing, and 'action', because I don't have a better word for the last one.

Firing line should be pretty obvious. Generally I organise the models into a firing line with everyone or nearly everyone sighting down their guns, reloading or chucking a grenade. Sergeants and officers either shoot or shout orders. 

Advancing should, again, not trouble your imagination. Everyone should be moving forwards. I like to break it down into sub-flavours; advancing warily and advancing loosely. Wary advancers have their heads up and guns up; maybe a one is throwing a grenade, a couple of models may be crouching to cover the others or gesturing. This description fits a squad on patrol or making an aggressive effort to take a position from the oppo. Loose advancers have their heads and guns down by and large, and may be carrying gear instead of holding guns ready, or just standing, looking around. This is more for a squad moving to an unoccupied position, or reinforcing one.

'Action' is a bit more undefined. I find when posing models for photos, especially on good scenery, that they miss out if all you have is advancing or shooting poses. What if you want to pose a squad about to breach a door, or gingerly sidling down an alley? These are the hardest to build because a lot of model makers don't provide a lot of different arm poses, and the oversized guns of 28mm heroic scale make the modelling harder. But this is the category I'd put squads in with models posed standing, leaning to one side or the other with guns ready, usually with their heads the furthest away from looking directly ahead. It's the category you'll fit most troopers in who have their guns pointed to the sky; either as they wait to follow a comrade through a doorway or as they free a hand to give a silent signal. These ones make for the best photos, in my book, because they give an immediate sense of narrative beyond 'green team shoots white team'.

Broadly the two squads either side of the command unit in the shot above are 'firing line' on the left and 'advancing warily' on the right. The command unit are also in that category.

What I usually do is build a bunch of models for the first fifty-odd troopers that just give me the right loadout for a bunch of squads and not worry about grouping the poses. Then I'll see what I've got and group them like for like, and that should tell me the kind of poses I ought to build next. So a model from the very first set of five may yet end up in the third platoon, when I'm filling out the corners. That's happened in my green VM army and my Rogue Trader army.

There, that's some free rambling for you.

Enjoy.

 

[Tallarn Commander]

Thank you for the detailed comments on squad assembly. I enjoyed reading them.

[Bonehead]

Hell, if literally one single person will thank me politely for my egocentric jabbering, then I'll keep it right on going. Glad you liked it!

Next, the finished platoon, plus a bonus banner guy from the first lot. Not today though, I don't have time. It's become traditional to do a short story when I finish a big chunk of the collection, so I suppose I'll need a while to come up with that.

And absolutely no-one thanked me for writing any of those, so it just goes to show life's not fair. You're getting the short story whether you like it or not.

[Bonehead]

Fellow Travellers

Ogheara adjusted his helmet again. It kept slanting to one side, no matter what he did. He sighed. He didn't mind growing horns, of course. There was no clearer sign of the Winds' favour than the gift of a step closer to perfection, and few more well regarded for a soldier than a pair of sharp, strong horns.

But they were more traditionally found either side of the head, as opposed to both on the same side, he did have to admit. The winds will blow the way they wish to blow, he mused, and it is on us to accept their will and be thankful. 

He caught himself sighing again and shut it down before it became more than the ghost of an action. These damn steel-stiff discipline fetishists have you second-guessing yourself, he thought. You're letting them get to you. Stamp the very thought back into the earth. No frogstepping Kur dog is half a match for a true son of Mari, and you should never doubt it. Let them count the notches on your axe haft and learn your real measure.

'Right boys,' he shouted, 'Open the damn doors and let's get these sodding freaks out of our wind-blasted hair.'

The team he'd rousted out from down-time jumped to obey. Sort of.

Hoszhu and Cerbhallarn roughly kicked open the double doors, one of which rebounded and required a second booted impact before it got the message and stayed open. They drew back and Ogheara's four ad-hoc pairs of porters heaved the bulky crates into the open air of the post's loading yard.

The heavy loads were unceremoniously dropped at the feet of the waiting Kur crew, who were, both ridiculously and yet unsurprisingly, still standing at full attention. In full armour, spotless except for the spatter of clinging dirt thrown up by the crates as they landed.

Small victories, lads, Ogheara thought as he stepped out onto the loading dock. They add up to large ones eventually.

'As requested, and so ordered, there are your transponders and all the associated equipment,' he barked. One of his men handed the officer a checklist.

The Kur officer cocked her impassive helmet at an angle that was surprisingly easy to interpret as expressing deep scorn for anyone who'd stoop to stating the mind-numbingly obvious. Several of Ogheara's men visibly bristled at the implied insult.

Ogheara ignored them.

'You want them loading?'

The helmet made a half nod, leaning at a sardonic sort of angle that made the gesture less of an acceptance of a favour offered than a haughty statement regarding the natural order of things. When Kur wanted things loading, Mari loaded them.

'Forklift's over there.' He pointed.

The long, silent standoff that followed was punctuated by an occasional low coughing snicker from Cerbhallarn, in the shadow of the doorway. Gera's monstrous face slowly contorted through a series of gurning scowls, clearly visible seeing as how his mask wouldn't fit over his fang any more. One of the Kur troopers was clearly appalled and fascinated in equal measure. You got to learn how to judge a man's thoughts straight through an armoured gasmask pretty well, fighting through an operation in a dustbowl like Ardent's equatorial desert. The trooper was gratifyingly worse than he thought he was at hiding his inner monologue.

Ogheara enjoyed the officer's subtly expressed fury with her subordinate for long enough to truly savour the taste. It was barely there, just showing in the faint tightening of her fingers, rigidly held at her sides. Glorious, he crooned inwardly. Enjoy the taste of that, you pompous ramrod.

When he'd had his fill, he made a curt gesture behind himself, toward the storeroom.

'Only joking,' he deadpanned. 'Racz, you're up. Load the crates for the nice Kur lieutenant.'

Ogheara stepped aside and Racz lumbered past him, slinging his shotgun on his shoulder.

Racz wasn't that much bigger than anyone else in the regiment, truth be told. He just had a way of moving that suggested more... mass, than anyone else. Ogheara figured it was the arms. Racz' arms were uncomfortably long, knotted with muscle, and terminated in a pair of massive hands that boasted a pair each of clawed fingers and thumbs.

Even the officer recoiled as Racz, grunting softly, hauled each heavy crate up and slung them into the bed of the Kur truck, its suspension drooping appreciably with each successive load. When the job was done, Racz turned to Ogheara and made a louder grunt. The low bass note came through his gasmask heavily distorted, almost like a distant heavy engine.

'Good work, Racz,' Ogheara replied, savouring the Kur crew's discomfiture. He stepped down from the dock to join Racz behind the truck and waved a dismissal to the rest of the men.

Ogheara matched his unvisored gaze to the Kur lieutenant's blank helmeted regard, and waited. I can wait all day, genius, he crowed inwardly. I'm already at my home base, and you can't afford to sit around playing who-blinks-first when you have an order from your HQ and a time limit. Do the damn maths.

He enjoyed the moment some more, letting Racz' grating breathing provide a suitably abrasive accompaniment to his own gloating silence. Again, once he'd drank sufficiently deeply of the woman's visible anger, he spoke.

'You going to wait for me to drive the sodding truck for you, too? You actually do anything besides stand still? Your sector's three klicks west. Get out of my yard, you're in the way. I have actual soldier work to do, so get lost. No one gives a damn how still you can stand.'

Abruptly, the Kur liuetenant cracked and snapped a parade-ground about-face. The head of the chain-axe on her back whirled inches past Ogheara's face, its blade suddenly and menacingly active and making the kind of rattling, hissing noise that promised ill times indeed. Ogheara blinked.

'Load up! Bishin, you're in the back. To your duties, dismissed!'

The twitchier trooper and two others spun about and marched to the truck's cab, followed by their officer.

The remaining sergeant stepped forward and set a foot on the loading stirrup on the back of the truck, and took a grip on the rear gate.

Then his helmet turned back toward Ogheara and Racz, and he spat out a stream of insults in a hissing stream, his voice a guttural snarling whisper.

'You filthy animals wouldn't dare talk a second of that pathetic stomach bile you're so clearly and so laughably proud of if I was free to give you the rejoinder you deserve, you worthless amateurs!'

He waved a gloved hand in Ogheara's face and continued, 'That misshapen dung-ball you call a head would be grounds for sending to the punitary corps for the last miserable weeks of your life if you served in a real regiment,' and he gestured at Racz, 'and the state of this ambulatory slagheap would be a disgrace to your entire division!'

Ogheara was, despite himself, impressed. The Kur dog hadn't even sworn once, but for a second there he'd felt almost as if he was on the wrong end of a melta-blast, such was the force of the sergeant's spite.

The man continued, 'the results of the slack weakness of will that you comical halfwits are prepared to flaunt as if it it were some kind of badge of honour are a shame upon your units, your gods, and yourselves, and you Mari nothings will-'

Racz' left claws abruptly sheared through his throat and he toppled messily to the ground, twitching and burbling, hands clenching spasmodically.

'Wind of mercy, shut your bleating mouth!' Racz grated. He turned to Ogheara.

'I'm sorry sir, but I just couldn't take another second of that swill off one of those stuck-up creeps!' he burst out.

'No, no, it's entirely fair to me, Racz old son,' Ogheara replied. 'I was only wondering how long he could keep it up before he had to draw another breath, to be honest. I can't say I can find fault in your behaviour. Can't let some jumped up little pissant from Kur crap all over the name of Mari and live to tell the tale.'

'What I thought, sir.'

'Good. That's exactly the kind of thinking this regiment needs. I'm going to put in a recommendation that you be made sergeant after today, Racz.'

'Thank you, sir!'

'No more than you deserve, Racz.'

Ogheara squatted down, took one of the Kur sergeant's arms and threw it over his shoulder, then stood and heaved the bloody corpse into the truck bed. He lifted up the rear gate and slid the right-hand catch into place, gesturing to Raczs to do the same for the left. He noted with approval that one of his men had found time, while the Kur team were waiting at attention, to stealthily scrawl an obscene symbol in the mud and dust on its surface. Finally he drew his bolt pistol and slammed the butt end down onto lip of the gate heavily, twice in succession.

Clearly the noise was loud enough to carry all the way through to the cab, because the truck's engine loudly crashed into life, and the gears were audibly engaged.

Ogheara took a rapid few steps backward, and was pleased to note that Racz possessed enough initiative to copy the manoeuvre.

His decision was vindicated as the truck suddenly lurched backwards several yards with enough speed and force to severely injure, if not kill outright, anyone unlucky enough to have been standing directly behind it. The violence of the motion was severe enough that one of the dead Kur sergeant's bloody hands was jerked above the level of the rear gate and hung there for a few seconds in a grotesque parody of a departing gesture. The gears crunched again and the truck ground forward and away, accelerating as best a heavily laden goods vehicle could.

'No hard feelings, then,' Ogheara remarked. 'On me, sergeant,' he ordered, and stepped forward, dropping to a crouch and then prostrating himself in front of the pool of blood remaining on the yard between the truck's tyre tracks. Belatedly, Racz copied his action.

No sooner had Racz laid himself down than Ogheara through slitted eyes saw the truck make the right turn to leave the supply post at a hundred yards' distance and pause, the helmeted heads of the occupants turning in their direction. Even through the plasteel and pristine white paint they radiated satisfaction in the scene they beheld. The engines gunned and the vehicle pulled away again, passing through the gate and out of sight. A distant crunch heralded the loss of the yard's barrier. 

Ogheara picked himself up and reached a hand down to Racz. As the newly-made sergeant hauled himself upright, Ogheara heard the sound of the gate sentry opening fire on the departing truck.

'Go and tell him to lay off that shooting, will you sergeant? No sense wasting ammunition.'

'Yes, sir.'

'And don't be long, I'll have a tall drink waiting for you when you get back, sergeant.'

'Yes, sir.'

'What's your pleasure, uische or plinke?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Noted. At the double, then.'

A fine day's work, he thought to himself. I wonder what the hell they'll tell their CO when they find out what's in those crates.

 

 

Edited May 16 by Bonehead

[Bonehead]

Alright, I've had my fun.

Here are the actual models:

First, the most recently finished

And with flash to see the lenses better:

As abonus, the first platoon standard I did, this time with an actual design on the banner:

And some shots of the whole platoon:

And to round it off, some of the more notable models:

Not going to pretend even for a second that I'm unhappy with this lot. They came out great.

Cheers everyone, have a good weekend!

 

[kabaakaba]

It's heresy any way I looking at this, but really great work. Very consistent paint job. You should build or buy lightbox to photoing that guys with quality they deserve. Also how many bodies do you have?

Edited May 16 by kabaakaba

[Dr_Ruminahui]

1 hour ago, kabaakaba said:

It's heresy any way I looking at this [...]

 

I think that's kind of the point. 

 

Great work as always, they look particularly good together.  Really like your banners, and keeping a narrower pallet by having an iron (rather than the warmer bone) skull on top is an inspired touch that probably wouldn't have occurred to me.  Another standout to me is the shotgun ammo carrier, both because his huge mutant hand and how his pose really conveys (to me, anyway) that he doesn't want to be there.

[Tallarn Commander]

I know I shouldn’t, but I feel kind of bad for the Kur in this story. Your Mari Landsnechts are looking excellent, as always.

[Bonehead]

On 5/16/2025 at 9:49 PM, kabaakaba said:

It's heresy any way I looking at this, but really great work. Very consistent paint job. You should build or buy lightbox to photoing that guys with quality they deserve. Also how many bodies do you have?

Do you mean, how many have I got left to build, how many have I got in total, or how many have I done? I'll just answer all three. I have thirty armoured torsos in my Mari bits box exactly, plus four unarmoured ones for vehicle crew. I won't count those. I also have one lascannon team built and six stormtroopers built. Painted, precisely 50 Mari Landsknechts. So in total, that's eighty seven. VM torsos come on sprues of 5 so that doesn't add up- but I had some torsos with ammo bandoliers left over from my other projects.

Thanks for the kind words, I appreciate it! I could make a light box, I suppose, but I'd not have any space to keep it in. To be honest I'd be better advised getting a better camera, but again, I can't afford it. Maybe one day.

On 5/16/2025 at 11:12 PM, Dr_Ruminahui said:

 

I think that's kind of the point. 

 

Great work as always, they look particularly good together.  Really like your banners, and keeping a narrower pallet by having an iron (rather than the warmer bone) skull on top is an inspired touch that probably wouldn't have occurred to me.  Another standout to me is the shotgun ammo carrier, both because his huge mutant hand and how his pose really conveys (to me, anyway) that he doesn't want to be there.

It's odd that you should say it didn't occur to you to have the skull be metal- it never occurred to me to have it be bone. Funny how minds work in totally different ways, eh. I see waht you mean about the mutant hands guy, yeah. His pose has come out looking really uncomfortable, hasn't it? Even with no face he clearly is not at ease at all.

21 hours ago, Tallarn Commander said:

I know I shouldn’t, but I feel kind of bad for the Kur in this story. Your Mari Landsnechts are looking excellent, as always.

Well, they don't come out particularly well, it can't be denied. I was trying to portray both sides as unsympathetic, to be honest. We'll see more of the Kur lore as I build and paint more of them (until I get another russ hull, they'll probably be next. It's going to be special K season so I'll get back to a bit more of the meat and potatoes of this log, converting metal cultists, too). The Kur's generally unlikeable character is going to read pretty clearly. A cross of all the blood pact's worst tendencies with the most fascistic scumbaggery of the loyalists thrown in too. It's important to remember that while that's certainly a nasty brew of character traits, the Mari Landsknechts are pretty much irredeemable psychopaths in their own right; Gleefully murderous, cruel, ruthless and cynical, and to a greater or lesser extent not entirely human any more.

In 40k the chaos-corrupted humans, both marine and normal, stand as a metaphor for all that's worst in real-world humanity. They allow their sefish greed, ambition, bitterness and pride to rule them. Of course, that's also true of the imperium. But it's not even remotely subtle on the chaos side.

That's why every Mari model without a gasmask has a monstrous face -albeit I've only done three or four so far. I wanted a straight chaos baddie force, and they're it. Conventional corrupted guard, mutated, evil, and allowing some strangeness to infect their everyday goings on while not allowing it to affect their professionalism. Except as it regards dealing with the Kur Guards. I just think the whole lore situation is much more interesting if they're on the same side but hate each other's guts.

Basically, soldiers need something to hold onto to distract themselves from the horror of their death-stalked existence, especially in a nasty hostile universe like the 40k one. For the Mari, it's their contempt for pretty much everyone else, be it the duped cultists they use as cannon fodder, the arrogant Kur rivals, anyone up the chain of command all the way to Xia Hesh himself, or especially the stupid, blind loyalists they fight, and also revelling in the gifts of chaos.

Meanwhile the Kur are named the Guards as an easy choice. In the 2nd world war, Soviet and British units with 'Guards' in their titles were generally elite forces. The british Guards Armoured Division are a good example. That's reason one; reason two is that 'Kur Guards' has a nice ring to it.  Both that and 'Mari Landsknechts' sound pretty good out loud. At least, I think they do.

The Kur revere Khorne in his soldier aspect; so discipline and competence are their most valued ideals. They deal with their situation by pride. They consider themselves elite, and have chosen their name to reflect that. As troops they are steadfast, obedient, and viciously effective. While the loyalists hate the Mari because they're just as well equipped, supported and led as the loyalists themselves, which makes them the toughest overall regular opponents in the whole of the Augustine Crusade, the loyalists fear the Kur as much as the dreaded Vrag-Rana commandos because they're more what you might call horrific to face. We'll get into it as we go on, but mere months into the crusade, loyalists troops in their millions knew it was better to kill yourself than let the Kur or Vrag-Rana take you prisoner.

All of which is a way of saying that, as I go on in this log, I hope you'll come to see that any sympathy for the Kur is entirely needless. You might as well feel sorry for a great white shark, or an angry grizzly bear. They don't care, and they'll kill you just the same.

Edited May 18 by Bonehead

[kabaakaba]

I'd asked  an overall count of your heretics traitorous scums *calling for sanctio extremis* really love horde armies especially if they well build and have strong lore for them. And especially when army is have idea and motivation that not to be a homicide murderous bloodthirsty maniacs or shiny perfect warriors of good as many players who cares about it's army lore.

[Bonehead]

Finished, it's 118 infantry and three tanks, including the seven Kur Guards models so far. Not finished, all I can really say is 'more than that'. It'll be multiple hundreds in the end, although it's probably fair to say a collection like this is never really finished. And I haven't done any of the inner circle baddies, or any deamons yet.

So keep coming back, there'll be more for a good while yet!

I thoroughly agree that the only thing more boring than a shiny spotless hero with no depth to their character is a villain who's bad because they're bad. All the shades of grey in between, that's where the interesting stuff lies. That's what real life is like, so it's more compelling.

Edited May 19 by Bonehead

[Bonehead]

Man, what idiot decided that the heads should be GW helmets with Anvil gasmasks in them? I'd like to get my hands on that clown...

[Dr_Ruminahui]

I think you might find that clown is already at hand.    That said, my sympathies to you and the clown - we've all made hobby decisions where in restrospect we've thought "why did I ever think this was a good idea?"

 

At least this particular decision looks great, so the 2 of you have that going for you.  

Edited May 28 by Dr_Ruminahui

[Bonehead]

I do take some comfort in that. Unfortunately my decision making boneheadery hasn't been limited to modelling; I had the brilliant idea to use my week off constructively by going to the gym every day, to show the nasty anaemia flare-up I've been suffering from this last month who's boss around here. Turns out it's not me.

Nevertheless, I have persevered, and finally worked out which one of my vices best holds the cadian heads without ruining the detail so I can drill them out. And as a little positive, it does make it marginally easier to fit the Anvil gasmasks in the helmets. On the other hand it adds at least ten minutes per head. And it was already taking more than that per head to fit the masks in, so realistically calling myself an idiot for deciding to do this in the first place just gets more valid by the month.

I did manage a small amount of progress, and as I said, now that I have 50 models done for the Mari regiment, I've started posing them more deliberately. I made a pretty decent stab at a 'guy holding his gun ready in a way that'll work next to a doorway' pose that fits in the previously mentioned 'action' category, and got all the accessories on my stormtroopers.

Camera died after this shot, so it's all I got for the moment, sadly. 

The Kur guards are still at the 'just making up lots of numbers' phase of construction so I've built a good few more of those, too.

[Bonehead]

A strange, almost unimaginable thing has occurred. There's an actual, I believe it's called, 'game' going to happen in a month or so. Never would have believed it, but there you go.

And it's happening at mine, so I need scenery. So things might slow down in this log for a minute, in favour of building scenery.

I thought I'd start with something simple, before I get into scratch building, although I have been and picked up some sheets of foam that I'm planning to make modular tiles out of, as well as hopefully a highway overpass (because no-one ever seems to build those, but they seem like an easy way to get lots of elevation in a table).

Anyway, I can include a photo or two of them here, because they helpfully show what I was thinking when I built the shotgun bloke in the previous post. 'Action' poses make for better photographs:

Specifically, this one in particular:

As a side note, I like how this close-up absolutely removes all trace of doubt regarding the frontage of the old GW chapel building set: Those pipes 100% came off a first edition rhino. 

But also, because I can't help myself, I spotted an opportunity for a bit of atmosphere improvement. Specifically, the bottom of the doorway has little lights mouded on, and low-level lights make for great atmosphere, with all the shadows and whatnot.

Thus:

Obviously, it can use a bit of paint, but if that doesn't improve the feel of a game, I'll eat my hat.

Meanwhile, I have actually managed to remember to photo all the new Kur Guards I built:

The Kur's signature heavy weapon will be the missile launcher. I want them to have an 'elite' sort of feel, so they get a modern-looking one. VM are looking like they might release some heavy weapons of their own as .stl files soon, so I think I'll hold fire on any other guns until I can see those. It's very tempting to just get Anvil ones, but that'd be expensive by comparison. I think it's not reasonable to put together an infantry collection without at least some kind of machine gun among them, so I'll need heavy bolters at the very least.

We shall see how it goes. I can wait a while yet, I think.