The Justice Keepers - Dr. Ruminahui's heretic guardsmen

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Thanks!  I'm really glad to be done, very happy with the results, and looking forward to getting my "Defiler formerly known as Leman Russ" on the table.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Got some work on my traitor guard - I'm painting 16 plus sorcerer, enforcer and bodyguard orgryn for Call to Arms.

 

Done blocking in their armour, flesh, shirts, pants, and the black base for the metals.  Just need to do the various cloths, leathers, woods and the actual metals, plus touch ups, before I can proceed to the brown wash over the fatigues and leathers.

 

 

Also got my defiler on the table for a couple of games, where I was quite happy with it - I'm thinking of posting some brief battle reports, and will post a link here when I do.

Edited August 7 by Dr_Ruminahui

[Bonehead]

Nice. Looking good already!

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Thanks Bonehead.

 

For those who are curious, I've now fielded my defiler twice - click below for my brief battle reports for those games.

 

 

Edited August 9 by Dr_Ruminahui

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Painted up my first group of traitor guardsmen, as well as the enforcer.

 

 

My camera stopped taking readable pictures (thought it was the SD card, but it was not - still I got 15 years or so of mini photos out of it), so these are on my phone.  At least with the purple background, the colours are rather muted - so these are actually more vibrant in person, though I had given the pink a brown wash to make it less bright than on my marines.

 

Here's a picture of them with my defiler, to show how they tie in with it - also allows you to compair it with my earlier photos of it to see how my camera is desaturating things.

 

[Bonehead]

Mate, those look amazing! The extra effort you put into the enforcer shows but they all look really good, and the bases work a treat.

Seriously good work!

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Thanks!  Glad you like them.  Other than the scars on the face and the extra highlighting on the black, there really wasn't any extra work on the enforcer - its just the only one I took a closer up on.  One of the disadvantages of my paint style/level of ability is that I really only have 1 quality level and can't really amp up for special models - that said, I'm generally happy with my models in general, so its not a huge drawback.

 

Bases are really simple - just sand on a tan coloured base, but the sand is varied enough that it adds some visual interest (and contrast to the minis) with very little effort on my part.

 

Looking at the last picture again, it occured to me that it is an interesting combination of figures and conversions - the two on the left are blackstone fortress minis with arm swaps, the 2 in the middle are kriegmen legs/torsos with Blooded heads and torso fronts (back one also has traitor arms and trophy rack), then right two are fairly stock - one is cadian with catachan arms, head and radio and the last one is all Blooded parts.  The Enforcer is also stock.  Its kind of a microcosm of the conversion work I did on the whole group of 30 minis.

 

It also shows the mix of uniform colours I used - a variety of tans, browns, greys and greens (including the prison stripes on the coats of a couple of them) - but the differences are pretty muted by the common dark brown wash, but I still feel that, even if not immediately obvious, it helps give them a more motley look.

Edited August 23 by Dr_Ruminahui

[Dr_Ruminahui]

After an evening experimenting with different settings on my phone and different backgrounds, I've found that the settings don't really matter and a dark non-matte background works best to prevent the desaturation problem.  We'll see how long it takes before I get fed up with this kind of kludgy solution and buy a new camera.

 

Anyway, on track and finished the next 7 guys for my Call to Arms vow - just 7 left.

 

 

And here are some close shots:

 

Except for the bottom radio guy (who is a kriegsmen with a blooded front torso and head) these guys are pretty much stock, though the cadian has a fantasy battles head and some scratch built shoulder spikes.

 

Interestingly, while the final products look fine, I did not like painting the enforcer and orgryn.  Despite their being character models, they are far worse sculpts than both the blooded kill team models and the original Blackstone Fortress guardsmen - they used cheaper molds with much "muddier" details.  I guess I shouldn't be too surprised, as originally they were a niche add on to a already niche product, but I am still kind of shocked from the drop in quality from the original blackstone models, which have really good detailing for being monopose snapfits.

[Bonehead]

Well, you did your best with the material you had; and it's a damn fine standard. Once I read your comments, I looked back at the ogryn and enforcer and I see what you mean. the details seem shallower and almost have a slightly 'sucked sweet' sort of softness. The other models are sharper and more focussed looking. Bizarre.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Yeah, I think its a cheaper mold they use, which makes sense in the context that the model was originally release.  Its just a bit of a shame because it leaves us with a character without character level details.  At least with the enforcer/ogrynn combo they are including them in with another set so you are kind of getting them for "free" - its a bit bigger of a let down when they actually charge character level prices for them, like the thunderhammer chaos lord whose details (and  lack of customization) aren't to par with other characters despite the higher price.

 

As for the "flat" (in that some models don't have details from a particular side) and "soft" (as you decribed) sides, that's a feature on a number of pieces that I've that are intended to be single release.  For example, the ork barracdes and rubbish piles from the Speed Freaks game (and later reissued in the ork mech workshop kit and in the terrain in the orks v krieg killteam big box) were really bad for that - the sides of the rubble piles essentially have no details, but they are pretty clever about it in that viewed from a high angle they look like they do.  Its not as big of a problem with terrain though, which is kind of expected to be less detailed and/or painted to lesser standard.

 

And really, the detail problems are largely on the back with these two models, so it was more of an annoyance than a hindrance to making them look nice.  Still, I appreciate the compliment.

[The_Worker]

These are great - that Defiler is absolutely wild, what a fantastic conversion and build. I love how flexible it is with all the magnetising, and those Traitor Guard look the business too! Top stuff.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Thanks, @The_Worker - glad you like them.  I must admit, I am particularly happy with the defiler.

 

Finished painting my second CtA vow, which means I've gotten my last set of 6 guardsmen with character done.

 

Here's the guard:

 

 

And here is the rogue psycher - an outside shot, since I couldn't get a good picture indoors.  I'm really going to have to get a new camera rather than continue to try to work around my phone's weird desaturation issue.

 

 

He's not quite so buck-tooth in person.  He's done in enforcer colours so I can field him non-legends as another enforcer, as soon as I get him a big buddy bodyguard for him (I'm thinking this guy after he's available and I can de-niddify it a bit).  Incidentally, the rogue psycher's legends rules are really good, but oddly it can only attach to cultist squads and not traitor guard (probably because its legends rules predate those being an official unit) and I don't think paying 60 points to make 50 (or even 100) point cultist unit more survivable are points well spent.  That said, I'm not sure making him an enforcer is either, but it gives me more options, which is good, I guess.

 

And here is a shot of both of my CtA vows together.

 

 

Next up are the remaining 12 guardsmen I had already started painted and couldn't vow for CtA.  After they are done, I'll have 3 completed squads, which will be plenty given I have no immediate plans to expand into a bigger chaos guard force or the mortals-based CSM detachment.

[Tallarn Commander]

Ruminahui,

 

Both your Traitor Guard and Rogue Psyker look great! They will really gel alongside your Emperor's Children CSM. I like your plasma, grenade launcher, and sniper rifle configuration. That's how I plan to run my Traitor Guard Squads.

 

In addition to using your Rogue Psyker as a Legends unit, you could also use him as a Mind Witch in a Dark Commune Squad. That's where my 2 Renegadescand Heretics Rogue Psykers, WarpRend and Horned One, have been moonlighting lately.

 

[Bonehead]

Love the effect on the rogue psyker's head. Looks really unnatural, which is what I assume the intention was. Nice going doctor!

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Thanks, @Tallarn Commander and @Bonehead.

 

TC - Yeah, I'm pretty happy how I've tied them into my marine army while also having them their own distinct thing, though I have yet to set them up besides each other to fully evaluate.  I do feel the defiler is really the linch pin tieing the two forces together.

 

As for the load out, it was originally a squad with 3 of a given special weapon (so, a plasma squad, a sniper squad, and a GL squad) but the codex nixed that idea and so now the squads are all the same (well, one does have a bolter armed sergeant).  On the bright side, that rearrangement occurred prior to my painting them, so I didn't need to repaint their squad designations.

 

As for putting the psycher into a Dark Commune squad, that's unlikely as 1) I've already bought a box, but am unlikely to field it let alone 2 and 2) I don't have any ideas as to who I would field as the other Commune members.  So the enforcer backup plan will have to do for now. 

 

Bonehead - The effect on the head is an attempt to show him using his psychic power - both it and his staff have orange and yellow "glow" effects and highlighting.  Didn't really pull that off that well (I tend to be too subtle with such effects, and definitely was here - and the photo certainly doesn't help).  Still, unnatural is a pretty decent consolidation prize. 

[Gnasher]

Very nice use of Cadian & Keig bitz, thay look top!  

[Bonehead]

 

Bonehead - The effect on the head is an attempt to show him using his psychic power - both it and his staff have orange and yellow "glow" effects and highlighting.  Didn't really pull that off that well (I tend to be too subtle with such effects, and definitely was here - and the photo certainly doesn't help).  Still, unnatural is a pretty decent consolidation prize. 

On the contrary, I think that's exactly what it looks like; eerie unnatural powers manifesting. For my money you hit the bullseye.