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

[Bonehead]

Thanks for saying so mate! Much appreciated.

To be fair it doesn't make a lick of sense to be going into such detail for such low-value models (in game terms anyway) but it's really therapy when you get right down to it. All the messing around with files, clippers and a pin vice is just a way of decompressing. It is nice that you get the end result too, of course.

I think the chief ingredient for success is just giving up on getting things perfect, honestly. That and experience. I was really annoyed that I couldn't get one of these to be aiming down his lasgun properly but I just reminded myself that he'd still look good once he was just another faceless chump in the mob and got on with painting them. And the end result is they look perfectly fine.

Run out of finished models to paint now, so I suppose it's time to go back to building. I just bagged a few more mismatched autoguns and lasguns so it's more rifle-cultists I reckon.

[Dr. Clock]

On 8/29/2023 at 11:50 AM, Bonehead said:

Run out of finished models to paint now, so I suppose it's time to go back to building.

Please dive in on those Mordheim Possessed soon! Honestly I'd recommend only slight conversions on them, if any. Even if only a third of a melee cultist unit has modeled pistols, that seems fine - and for Khorne sometimes even less than that lol.

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.

[Bonehead]

Well, the possessed will come pretty soon I think, but that's in relative terms: I've found myself also building more loyalist guard so the pace has slowed a little.

I haven't stopped completely however, although it's been tricky coming up with new ways to convert the same models without ending up with a load of figures that are still all the same, just not in the way they were all the same before.

I finally got round to some paint stripping: I can strongly recommend methylated spirit as it just chewed through the massed layers of paint on one of the eBay redemptionists I picked up. The dude with the flamer was just about gone under it all, but the meths brought him back perfectly.

Then seeing as I already had one of these guys finished (albeit with a different gun) I had to cut his head off and give him a different one. The other guy was more trouble by far: I thought it would be easy as pie to bend his arm down but it turned out to be impossible. So I cut it off, edited it, and pinned it back on.

I need to green stuff both of them so that's as far as I'll talk about them now. I just wanted to keep the log alive and show I've not forgotten it!

And I love the big dude at the back, although I'm not 100% sure where I got him. And that was a recent buy, too. Oh dear. Whatever, he's going to be part of the inner circle of definitely extremely bad baddies who are up to no good.

 

[Bonehead]

Action shots!

The following exerpt is from the archives of 10th army intelligence, Mid-period, Augustine Crusade. Authorisation cleared.

++++++Data Inload spooling++++++ Data received ++++++ Corruption detected | Message fragmentary +++++++ Displaying +++++++

......... -embedded with the 45th as you requested, my lord. The rumour was true, as you projected in your #################### (data corrupted)######## - will allow that the proximity to Bract should have clued us in earlier, perhaps, but the lanes between the two systems are.... well.... little-used is an understatement. We############### (data corrupted) ####################################################################################-ones calling themselves 'Immortals' were all over the tertiary starport and supply yards. The 45th were in essence seizing our own supplies, intended for the push through the Bract system. They were successful, of course, made short work of it, but the HC staff were all completely put aback by the surprise of it. On the staging world, no less, and they were locals, to top it off. Not even from out-system! More than a few heads rolled in the 10th army intellig############ (data corrupted) ############ .............

+++++++ Spooling +++++++ next retrievable fragment queued ++++++ Displaying +++++++

.......... -manage to get a good look at some of them before the Eblans pulverised them. They were still indentured Imperial enough not to even suspect a servo-skull in the vicinity of the port. No slight to the 45th but it's not a surprise they didn't offer much threat. The only reason I thought them worthy of y######### at all was the sheer number, and the location. There was useful intelligence to be had despite the low threat. The next pict-capture is particularly useful as far as their armament goes.

89-4520C got some very close captures before it caught a bullet. This one's particularly relevant because it conforms to what we've seen all accross the theatre when it comes to the disorganised elements. You can see that the sheer number of different styles of lasgun alone tell us a lot. Most importantly, in the centre the lead provocateur or demagogue of this particular knot of traitor scum is clearly waving a Blenheim-pattern lasgun; the profile is unmistakeable. We recovered several hundred in a################one. It's finally some concrete proof of what became of the 23rd. After seven years! But there's more to it than simply that. The Blenheim uses those thrice-damned cylindrical cells instead of the standard pack. The heretic in the facemask in the foreground is hefting a Triplex-pattern lascarbine under all that strapping- they take a laspistol charge in the stock. And to the far left you see a real relic. That long las is a pattern that hasn't been common in millenia. It must be some kind of heirloom or relic. They recharge, fully, on their own. She must not know what she's carrying. There's only two lasguns in this pict-capture that take a standard pack, and one has been postively identified as coming from Necromunda. One of the manufacturing hives has their own insignia, apparently. That's not even in the next sector over. The only even remotely commonplace gun here is the catachan-pattern one.

Their supply situation must be all but impossible to manage. You were correct, my lord; they can't possibly possess the wherewithal to organise or strategise on their own. There's simply ###########(data corrupted)######################################################hind them, but no sign yet.

They resorted in the end to fairly desultory attempts to destroy the fuel reserve they'd tried to seize, but they made no better a job of that either.

I am minded very much of one of your most oft-repeated wisdoms on the subject of the heretic, my lord, and will not shirk. Where there is one, there wi#########################################################################(data corrupted) ################################

++++++no further readable fragments+++++++++

 

Got myself down to WW this afternoon and took some action photos. I think they came out pretty well!

 

 

[Bonehead]

Got some more baddies built this weekend. There's half of a paintworthy batch- while I seem to be able to knock out eight in a week, I'll try to- so hopefully my modelling time this week will give me another four. Paint-wise I've got four more Rogue Trader guardsmen queued up and I generally take more time with them, so no cultists being painted this week, but I can show you the modelling progress at least.

I've got some initial green stuff done on the far-left bloke but now that his head's in place he'll take a little more. The flamer bloke's done and ready. The two on the right are the most recently finished and I'm very happy with them if I do say so myself. In particular the lad on the far right was very satisfying to get done as I more or less started converting him before I really had much of a plan. I had a vague idea of turning the shotgun-holding donor model into one with two pistols, but the more I tried it the less I liked it. I got lucky by finding that the arm I'd cut off would fit back in a different way both to how it originally was and my first idea and then the autogun just fit in really nicely.

I like how the new head with it's lack of expression and the gun being down gives the guy a much less frantic pose and more of a hesitant one. Variation, that's the name of the game. Obviously the head came from the flamer bloke; his head in turn came from a different model which itself recieved the head of our original guy.

I think that worked out pretty nicely too. Needs green stuff, but  the pose itself is complete and I like it just fine.

Finally we have this flail-waving bloke who got a head from the Frostgrave Cultists set. it's quite expressive, which is a neat trick for someone with a mask over most of their face, and it gives a little of the fanatic energy that some of the other models are missing. I'll finish up the green stuff work by giving him some kind of collar to hide the neck joint, I think.

Finally another angle of the four together. I'm happy with these but I think for my last few redemptionist-based cultists I'll try and go for a bit more manic energy and maybe some more minor mutations, but subtle ones. These are the bread and butter cultists, after all. The entry level chumps.

Shouldn't take long to do the green stuff necessary to make them ready for paint. Then hopefuly inspiration will strike for the last few conversions. Suggestions or requests wouldn't hurt, even if I can't carry them out precisely they'll be a great way to start in on some new ideas.

Thanks for looking guys!

 

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

They look great - I agree, the new head on the (now) autogun model totally changes the demeaner of the model.

 

My only quibble is the hooded head on 2nd guy from the right looks too big for his body, while the head on the guy on the far left too small.  Any thoughts on swapping them?

[Bonehead]

Good point. I have done some more green stuff on them since I posted them and they look somewhat better now. Not totally though.

It's odd really, the new head on the lasgun guy is actually no bigger than the head that he had originally, but it does look like it's too big.

I think some of it is due to me having cut away so much of the material that went along with the head. His new arms are bare so they don't have bulky robes and the shoulders are much smaller without the hooded mantle. Swapping them round wasn't really ever on because the big head is very clearly sculpted looking to his right; and I hate models that have been posed with a pistol pointing in one direction and the head looking in a different one. You see it a lot and it always bugs me....

Some of the problem is alleviated with the mantle reinstated on the big head guy and a hood modelled onto the little head guy.

It's not perfect, but it is an improvement. If I'd read your comment before I did the green stuff I probably would have gone and got a different head for little head guy but now I've done the sculpting I really don't want to go back. Maybe we can just say the small head is his mutation. I'll try to learn from my mistakes, at least.

They're not brilliant but I think they're good enough to keep. And it has given me an idea; You know, I might try and deliberately do some cultists with odd proportions, to add to the culty-ness. Maybe some really long arms. Or maybe a left hand on the right arm and a right hand on the left arm. Subtle but very wrong. Yeah, that could work....

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Yeah, that really helps.  Indeed, its kind of weird in the first place that they might have looked better proportioned on the other body, as both bodies are pretty much the same size.

[Bonehead]

My big order from victoria Minis has arrived. And it contains lots of great stuff to suit my nefarious purposes. In the photo you can see the 'Sister Preacher' model- she's getting cultified right off the bat.

Also there's enough parts to round off a small platoon of my loyalists, to be fair, but relevant to this log we've got most of the necessary parts for a platoon of traitor guardsmen; I did forget to order enough legs, but never mind. I'll just put in a little order after payday.

There are also lots of the ever-useful 'bare arms' set: these are going to be very handy when converting the Cawdor models down the line a little way, as well as for the current non-denominational cultists and traitor guards too.

No heads though: I've finalised the design for the traitors' helmets and I'm pretty pleased with the look; it doesn't include VM parts, but it's going to look great. They're a total pain to put together but they're going to be worth it, I think. They make a good counterpoint to my Yantar loyalists, with more full-face masks but definitely more of an unsettling feel. Well, to my eyes, anyway. I'm going to go with the classic baddie signalling of black armour and guns, but the rest of the scheme isn't decided yet. I think some kind of urban camouflage will be in order, but I need some red accents in there too. Maybe a sort of autumn/urban? Hmm. It's got to be easy to paint reasonably quickly, too. Suggestions welcome.

At this stage I'm basically ploughing on with three separate armies but the cultists are the quickest to paint by miles so we should see the most of them. The next little set up for paint will be cultists: I've got one particular conversion idea percolating that I've nearly worked out how to get right. Fingers crossed...

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Really looking forward to seeing what you do with these.

[Bonehead]

What he did with them

 

To be honest it took me an entire day's hobby time just to get the mould release washed off them.

Once I did though, I already had a plan for the sister preacher model, so I took care of that. And once I did, the idea finally clicked of how to finish off the other cultist model I was working on. I need to strap a couple more grenades to his chest to hide the detail I cut away, but the basic pose is done.

Little bit of green stuff called for to smooth out all the damage to the detail here and there, especially on the ex-preacher, but I'm pretty chuffed with both of these. They came out basically just the way I imagined them, and they both have a manic energy that's needed for the mob to look right. Hopefully I'll be able to give all the remaining models a bit of that. I have one more of the base model for the big club dude and I'm thinking.... tentacles. Maybe just one tentacle. I'm thinking, anyway. Just had a great idea for one of the others; the classic yelling flamethrower nutcase. Still not sure what to do with my spare 'massive chainsaw bloke'....... no wait, I have it! he should be waving a shotgun in the air. Perfect! Yesssss, it's all coming together. And maybe a possessed cult model can have his own absurd chainsaw. Ideal for murderizing the living piss out of khorne's enemies. Bam! It's a plan.

Not just been doing that though. Also put together my first two traitor guards. I'm starting with the most conventional looking ones just to give myself a baseline of what the regiment would have mostly looked like before turning full baddie:

They're getting autoguns and the odd shotgun from the same sprue that the cultists have been getting them. I'm happy for the shotguns to look comically oversized- my loyalist guardsmen these are the oppo for are carrying a couple here and there- but I drew the line at the autogun. Unedited, the autogun reaches shoulder height on a 28mm figure. A rifle that's about five feet long is just a terrible idea, and more importantly, it looked daft. I cut about the equivalent of a half-foot or 15cm out of it and it really just looks about right to me. It's a recognisable assault rifle now and I think it matches the rest of the look well. Plus of course it helps that I have enough of them for two three-squad platoons, plus a few extra, especially if I mix in some shotguns.

You can see from the side angle a little more detail; I've gone with german-type stick grenades for the obvious 'bad guy' vibe. I already have a VM army using their webbing pouches so to distinguish these they get pouches from Anvil Industries. They have a style of arm from VM that has more armour plating than my other army, and the same goes for the torsos; they'll be more on show in other poses. The curved knives have a cruel sort of look to them so on they went.

My favourite bit is the heads though. I've always liked how the old cadian helmets looked without the badge on, and they are very much 40k design language shorthand for 'the same ones everyone has'. I wanted imperial issue-looking gear, and they also nicely look right next to the GW traitor guard models.

The facemasks are from Anvil and come with an ushanka-type hat that needs cutting away, but fortunately for me Anvil's resin cuts very easily indeed. Having to litterally put a helmet on every single head isn't precisely ideal, it's fair to say, but there's something irresistably bleak and not-right about the gasmask and monovisor sculpt. When you put them in the helmet they read as very 'faceless sci-fi villain' to me. There's something from some video game or film or other that they remind me of.

Overall they're quite a messy mix of influences and design styles, but I think a strong paint scheme should really pull them together.

My main concern is that I probably chose wrong when I picked the legs for them. They're the same as my VM loyalists and that just doesn't seem right. It's a good thing that I messed up the order and only ordered 5 pairs instead of 30, really. When I order more I'll get different ones.

Hopefully a scheme with very prominent black should distinguish them from these loyalists:

Anyway, thanks for looking!

[Bonehead]

Well the shotgun idea turned out pretty well, I reckon:

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Your traitor guardmen look great - fantastic job de-imperialising the cadian helmets and fitting them with the rebreathers.  The weapon choices are also good and it was a good call to cut down the autogun - its one of those conversions that works so well, I wouldn't have known you did it if you hadn't said.

 

Not a fan of the priestess, despite her holding my favourite laspistol sculpt.  Nothing wrong with your work, I just really don't like the sculpt - wonky pose, ugly head, weird shoulders... it just doesn't work for me.  Be interesting to see if your paint job improves my opinion of her any.

 

Your former chainsaw guy is also good, though the shotgun looks massive on him.  Which is kind of funny, given how big his original weapon was.

[Bonehead]

Yeah, I wasn't much of a fan of the priestess model either to be honest, but they give you free models when you spend a certain amount on VM and at this point I've had all the good ones. I just picked her because she would go in the cultist mob pretty easily. The pose is very wierd, isn't it? Whatever, she's one of the mass of mad losers now. It's my favourite laspistol too- been using it on the loyalist VM guys in green so it's not cropped up much in the cult; that and the ak lasgun are the only ones off the sprues I've not been using here, but I think I can spare a couple of each.

Thanks for saying that about the autogun- I really reckon that's a choice I'll not regret. If nothing else, because I have loads of them.

As for the shotgun guy- thanks! As soon as I had the thought I knew it'd work. You're right that it looks super big on him, but again as you say, so did the chainsaw. I like it overall because it's got the right 'pitchforks' energy. Guns waved overhead is bang on for a mob of fanatics. Bit of greenstuff yet to go, but I'm looking forward to painting him already.

Thanks for the nice words about the traitor lads too. Now a question- I've got to do the weapons and armour black, I reckon, but what would you suggest for the uniforms? I need a camo pattern and I've not settled on anything yet. I'm thinking urban with some sort of autumn brown in it, but if you have a good idea I'd love to hear it.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Yeah, I can't fault your trying to make a go of it, especially when you are always on the hunt for new sculpts - even if the sculpt itself has issues.  And I think you are right - its the pose that does it - its kind of like a pin-up "hips out, butt out" pose, which doesn't really fit with what the rest of the model is trying to do... maybe the sculptor was going for a "slutty nun" look, but then why the bald head?  Its just weird.

 

And yeah, huge shotgun guy has a whole "Jimbo, get my shotgun - we've get heretics to hunt" vibe.... though in this case I guess its "deluded followers of the corpse emperor" instead of heretics.

 

As for your traitor's camo... I guess there are a few things to think of when deciding.  In no particular order 1) How do you intend to base them?  2) Do you want camo that matches/blends in with the base, or that contrasts with it?  3) Do you want camo that matches their armor, or contrasts with it?  In either case, you may want to think about how extensively/how brightly you want to highlight the black armor.  4) Do you want realistic coloured camo, or simply a camo pattern with colours that might not be practical for that purpose (for example, red and black "camo")?  5) Do you want stripe or blotch camo (your guardsmen are what I would describe as "blotch", while stripe is a main colour combined with thin lines of anoter) or a mix of both?  6) Do you want them to look like they might be fighting on the same battlefield as your guard?

 

My own thoughts if I were to do it is that I would want the fatigues fairly light coloured to contrast with the armor.  It think either a pale green or a brown colour would look nice with the bases of either your cultists or if you were to base them like your guard.  Whether you went with striped or blotch is a matter of taste, but stripes might be a good way to differentiate them from your guard.  Either way, I would limit it to 2-3 colours and keep all of them subdued as to keep the contrast with the armour.

[Bonehead]

I held off answering until I had some progress photos. So here's where the first batch of traitor guard are up to: basically, a stage where I can try some experimenting.

They're a little washed out from the flash, but the light had gone from the day so I had to make do. And there's very little colour on them anyway, they are mostly greyscale.

Spray undercoat with black, then a drybrush on the armour, gun and knife sheath with Skaveblight Dinge then a lighter drybrush with Mechanicus standard grey. I'll probably give them a black wash and pick out final highlights with more MS Grey.

That grey is the darker grey I used on the road sections of the cultists' bases and the rubble on these bases is also that grey. Both types of base get liberal washes of black then splotches of brown and green washes. The red bricks hopefully recall the colour palette of the cultists: there will also be red detailing on the gasmasks and armour. The visors will be the same teal as the sashes and extra detail pieces on the cultists. I will also do some traitor guard on the same bases as the cultists, and a final batch of cultists on rubble bases-or transitional rubble/street bases.

As you can see, I've gone with an olive green fro the webbing and grenades to make them look like standard military supply. I thought about that for the guns too but it didn't have the right baddie energy.

The bases are essentially going to be this, but neater, and some spot colour for the little pipes and other wreckage where they appear. I'll probably add larger rubble pieces to them from this point on, or sections of textured plastic as with the cultists. These ones look a little too flat and level.

My first thought for camouflage was to do a basecoat with whatever the foundation equivalent of Mech standard grey is, then stipple in a yellowy brown and a reddish brown, and lay some dots of a very light grey over the top. Then probably try a thinned red wash and a grey wash. Maybe a purple wash. I might try a yellow wash on one part, because I'll be able to go over it with red easily. I think yellow would work as part of the camo palette, but probably not with the model overall.

That'd be the brown option.

Green, i'm not sure how I'd proceed. I'm going to let that percolate for a while. Probably a base of a very light grey then several greens over it, but they have to be different greens to the ones on my other VM army. Those are very dull military greens. Maybe some lively spring colours? regardless, the olive green webbing would have to go. Just a note, not a complaint. I'd probably change it to a red-brown.

Anyway, I really appreciate the advice, it certainly helped me start thinking.

 

[Bonehead]

Just a quick little update: I got an undercoat and zenithal white spray on another batch of 7 cultists while my ideas bubble under for the traitor guard camo. Or more honestly, until I can get to a shop and buy some more paints.

I think they look pretty decent. Priest lady stands out a little, but not too much, and while the pose is stupid, at least it looks energetic.

This might be the extent of my painting activity until next week, so I thought I'd get it posted up; I've got a lot of guitars in to fix and mod at the moment so it's going to be a working weekend.

Cheers!

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Your primed guys look good - the priestess does look better as part of the whole group then on her own, as her movement seems more natural in that context, for some reason.

 

Your thoughts on camos sound good, but I can't comment on them more specifically without seeing them.  More generally, though, my own opinion on camos on minis is that less is more - its best to have a pattern that looks like camo but doesn't actually serve that purpose.  And by that, I mean that camo is meant to break up the patterns that make the person/vehicle look like an identifiable person/vehicle, which they do by making them blend into the surroundings and but breaking up identifying details.  Done on a mini, the later effect obscures the details on the model and can make it look like a coloured shape, which is great from a camo perspective but less so from a modelling perspective.  So my opinion is that one wants to avoid that effect but instead have a pattern that looks like it would do that but doesn't - which is usually by using as few colours or patterns as you can get away with.

Edited October 2, 2023 by Dr_Ruminahui

[Bonehead]

I've taken the plunge and tried my first 'camo' experiments.

Taking on board your advice, I've kept the camouflage itself to the legs and sleeves of the models- the armour occupying the whole front of the torso presents a nicely brutal frontage. I'm going to need to remember to model the traitors in more open poses than the loyalists to show that off. I'll add in some melee weapons- the most brutal I can find- and that should do some good. More grenade throwers, too.

I'm pleased with how the cold blue of the visors both recalls the cultists and also contrasts the warm colours of the uniforms. They're right at the hard edge of my ability to do small detail, so I'm glad they work alright. I also like how the breather masks look- cold blue eyes above a sort of comically mournful gaping mouth. I just noticed it visually relates to the loyalists' gasmasks in a similar way to how khorne berzerkers' power armour helmets relate to ordinary marines. The mouth area is exaggerated and everything is pushed away from it.

This view shows my first small experiment: the bloke int he middle had a green wash on his uniform and the others had a brown wash. I feel the green isn't dark enough, but the brown is too dark. The brighter colours of the not-camouflage are too muted on the brown washed blokes, while green wash bloke doesn't have deep enough shading. I'l have to find something in between the two. It could be as easy as tipping some brown and green into a pot of wash medium. We'll see.

I put that view in just because the colours are a little truer in it. Captain shotgun there is about perfect in terms of how they look in real life: just a bit too muted.

It also shows more clearly that the boots and gloves are unpainted. Those will be the same brown as the cultists have on their various hoods, boots, sleeves and strapping which should hopefully tie them together a little more. The webbing and pouches will be that colour too, I think, the green is just visually messy.

This one shows the true reason I was able to get eight cultists done in a week: the first stage can be messy as hell because all the other colours cover the burgundy in one coat.

Next go the brown, blue and black and they're basically done at that stage. Just faces and metallics after that.

Ok, one more shot of the traitor guard for no better reason than because I have it, and I'm done. Let me know what you think.

 

 

 

[Bonehead]

Just a quick update to prove I've not forgotten the baddies:

The latest set of cultists are looking much more themselves with almost all of the base colours on. I'm really pleased with how this set of conversions are coming out with a bit of paint on them. Definitely getting away with it, I reckon.

Work in both jobs is very busy at the moment and should be for a fair while yet, so progress will be slow. But it will happen.

Cheers all.

 

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Looking good!

 

I meant to comment on your traitor guard, but then forgot - I really like the camo with the green in it (I'm looking at the kneeling guy in the middle of pics 1-2 and on the left of 3-4), as it makes it more visually interesting.  As for the pouches, I think doing them in brown would look better, as they are a bit lost at the moment.  Black with very bright highlighting might also work, but maybe not if that is too similar to the guns.  Oh, and the teal visors look great!  Don't know if I like the red mask filters though, but I'll reserve judgment there until I see how they look on the overall model.

Edited October 12, 2023 by Dr_Ruminahui

[Bonehead]

Thanks mate! I've decided you're dead right on all counts so I went and bought a slightly darker green wash. I think that should solve my problem for me. I've already gone over the pouches and boots with brown- as soon as I saw you'd written that, I knew you were right.

I also bought a cadian heavy weapon squad so I can nick the lascannons. While I was there I should have picked up some more 50mm bases cos I'm definitely getting more than one squad of guns from this set. Next time, I'll remember. Hopefully.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Thanks!  I'm glad I helped.  I look forward to seeing them.

 

As I said in your Catachan thread, its not too hard to get all 5 heavy weapons out of that kit, you just need to buy extra bases and have extra models on hand.  Let me know here or message me if you want pictures of what I did.

[Bonehead]

A few photos would not hurt at all mate! I did think I might just buy a few tripods form Anvil but if you've got a cheaper option I'm all ears

[Bonehead]

I think I'm more or less happy with these now- accepting that the wash on the uniform will be different in the future. For the moment I brightened them up by just going back over the lighter orange-brown again.

I gave the black areas one final pretty light drybrush of mechanicus standard grey and I'm pretty happy with the result there. They need a bit of something else to add a bit of pop to them, so I think I'm going to give them some symbols daubed on their guns or armour- but instead of the cultists' chaos star, they'll get a hand symbol. Just need to practise that a bit. I think the right side of the helmet might not be a bad place to put something too, but it's not enough on its own. It needs to be on the front of the model too.

The idea is they're part of the 'red hand dominate' which you can find more information on here: https://apologentsia.blogspot.com/p/augustine-crusade.html

The Augustine crusade setting inspired my recent getting back into the hobby and while it seems to have petered out somewhat among its original creators, I'm just getting more and more into it. It's the setting I'm pinning all my 40k projects on- it seems to help to have a framework I can fit things into.

You can see I've redone the pouches and webbing in brown. I very much over-highlighted it, I forgot it was supposed to match the brown on the cultists and went one shade higher. They're still the test batch so it's no big problem, so long as I remember in the future. I kept all the grenades in olive green to provide a bit of interest here and there. In small bits it generally adds to the scheme rather than complicating it for no reason.

And the new legs arrived! The set I went for is VM's 'penal guard' legs, mostly because the trouser/pant legs are different. There's a kneepad instead of a thigh pocket. It's probably a difference only I'll notice, but little bits add up. Annoyingly, one pair of legs in the set is sculpted barefoot. The chains are easy to carve away but I can't let myself have every guardsman in the same leg pose have bare feet. I'd go nuts. So i think there's some moulding in my near future.

I got a free model so I chose the 'human bomb' one. Not because I intend to use it as is- current events and past ones have mde the very idea just a little too unacceptable to me to ever treat it trivially enough- but the thing is, the model comes with running legs, and they match the 'penal guard' sculpting style. So he's getting cut in half and the legs will go in the big bag of legs with the others.

Oh and I know the yellow pipes look awful- they're not finished...