Doghouse's WIPs

[batu]

Are the new Scouts usable with the new MKVI HH kit? I mean do they scale nicely or are Scouts too much Primaris to be used along side First Born Marines? 

[Doghouse]

The new plastic Scouts are a lot bigger than the Mk VI models. They are more in line with the Primaris models and are pretty much the same size as the Mk X guys.

 

I'll post some comparisons when I get the chance.

 

I managed to use the new Mk III bolters on this test guy but it meant altering the position of the arms to do so. It wasn't really a clean swap but the hands on 40K guys tend to be oversized compared to 30k so in this instance the smaller hands actually work in favour of cleaner proportions. It wasn't a massive amount of work if you have have experience but I had to do some GS work that you can just make out to make it work.

Edited January 14 by Doghouse

[MoriyaSchism]

23 hours ago, Doghouse said:

 

I'm really happy to see that the Primaris style reactor piece can easily be modified.

[Doghouse]

Yeah it's pretty easy to cut it flush with the pack then fill in with GS.

 

One really nice touch they added was making the hosing on the front into a proper rebreather that goes over the Scout's mouth. One of the optional heads and torso fronts has it covering the face.

 

Update

I will try and get some pictures up but I'm toying with making a Horus Heresy hero unit. The idea will be to use the Recon Company rules to create an elite commando type unit. For those that are not in the know Scouts and Recon marines are what is known as support squads, this means you can only take one support squad per line squad you have such as tactical or assault squads. Recon company allows instead you to take Scouts and Recon as compulsory troops options meaning you ignore the support squad part.

 

My plan is to use a Proteus explorer (the Land Raider without the front ramp) and basically have it as home for eight Astartes. This would be a six man veteran unit that are armed with Nemesis Bolters (sniper rifles), a medic and a First Sergeant (using Praetor rules) with a nemesis bolter.  

 

I'm thinking of loyalist Death Guard because they get the remorseless army rule which means they can move through cover and difficult terrain without penalty and also move and fire heavy weapons. The idea being these guys are old school grizzled Dusk Raiders with a few newbies thrown in, a sort of 40k Bad Batch.

Then I can just throw in a Recon squad and a Scout squad and mini-force is complete.

 

Although there are no 30k rules for Aeldari I may make them as a sort of enemy force they are sparring with and tie them together. 

 

 

[MoriyaSchism]

Your loyalist Death Guard idea is pretty good. Resupplied veterans teamed up with fresh recruits is always a cool theme and it fits loyalist remnants trying to rebuild.

[Pearson73]

Looking forward to seeing you tackle the Eldar, full magnetisation is a brave choice!

 

Digging the idea of a grizzed force of loyal Dusk Raider survivors, trying to regroup and initiate fresh blood whilst also striking back at their traitorous brethren (or Eldar raiders for that matter!). 

[Doghouse]

MoriyaSchism: Thanks mate, yeah to be fair it is a bit cliched but the way I personally see 30k is lots and lots of faceless troops and the idea of a sharpe's rifles/saving private ryan/band of brothers style focus on a single characterful unit really appeals to me.

 

Pearson73: Thanks mate. I'm really enjoying magnetising a bit too much and I am carrying this over to the recon vets. As it's a small unit what I am working on is being able to swap out all their weapons so I can have them all bolters or missile launchers or turn one into a herald, etc. I'm also toying with doing colour variations so maybe reverse the colours so it's green armour with white shoulder pads.

I'm itching to get started on the Aeldari, I have forty guardians, some warseers and other bits I would love to build and just got the winged Autarch today for extra bits.

 

 

 

 

Got the bodies mostly in place but I need to clean up the GS work in places, they're all made from Intercessors with the front half of the firstborn assault marines torso to recreate the cabling of the Mk IV. Like I say once I have them all magnetised (which is pretty quick) I'll clean them up and start painting. I do have the Proteus built but I seem to be having trouble remembering where I put it. 

[Firedrake Cordova]

Nice work

[Pearson73]

Looking solid! And great that you've got the winged Autarch, love that model!

[Blindhamster]

looking cool man, they're going to be a pretty great unit once finished!

[batu]

They look amazing so far! 

[MoriyaSchism]

Great use of Primaris bodies and classic parts. The use of the older power packs makes them look far better proportioned while keeping the classic silhouette. I'm looking forward to seeing more of your Eldar too.

[Doghouse]

Firedrake Cordova: Thanks mate 

 

Pearson73: Thanks, yeah it's a really nice model. I'm still waiting on a few bits but I am looking at putting together a Guardian squad, maybe in orange and white as the Craftworld colours.

 

Blindhamster: Thanks mate, I'm really enjoying these and learning lots about magnets at the same time. I'd like to do this veteran squad then some recon squads and scout squads then ally them with Solar Auxilia to save having to make tons of Astartes. 

 

Batu: Thanks mate!

 

MoriyaSchism: Thanks mate, yeah the older Mk IV parts work nicely. I expect they will redesign it all when the new Heresy Mk IV set comes out.

 

Bit more done. I'm working on a design for the Scouts now. In Heresy they are not amazing and Recon can basically do everything better for 20pts more so I would be surprised to see many using these. As my little force is lore based I'm including them as it really fits my theme, unlike in 40k Scouts are more like Wolf Scouts and made up from the more experienced members of a company so I am leaning more into using the bare heads with rebreathers from the new Mk III tactical squad.

 

 

To de-primaris-ise the armour I've removed the chest Imperialis as you can see more clearly on the right and added the Mk III bolters because they feel a bit more realistic than the older versions. As usual I'm taking the historical wargaming approach to Heresy out of preference but little details like that help separate them a degree further from 40k. 

 

This is a close up of the back where I removed the Primaris disc so that you can see how little needs to be filled after. If you do try this be careful not to clip off the little buttons on the right as these add much needed detail.

 

 

I've also been using Procreate or Grey Stuff instead of Green Stuff for the armour to rework the Astartes. The GS guys were made a few years ago now and have been sat in a box doing nothing which is why I had decided to do these.  I've also gone for the Mk III bare head because it scales a lot nicer in my opinion and are less cartoony than the modern marines. One of the biggest issues I have with the Heresy heads is that they are really nice sculpts but scale is all over the place, some are huge and others like the mohawk rebreather head from the Mk VI kit is too small.

 

 

I also found their ride, the Proteus Explorer I had misplaced. To be honest this isn't too badly scaled for what I need as it could credibly carry eight Astartes but I doubt I will use Rhinos because they are small even with regular Mk VI.

 

 

Then lastly I dabbled with a Primaris Phobos Captain. I'm quite vocal about not liking 10th Edition or the current state of the game's lore but I managed to get 40 scouts for Heresy before realising their rules kinda suck and was toying around with a small 40k force for a new chapter that is being founded. So it would be purely scouts with stuff like a few Infiltrators as Tutors who might be from the Mentors. It's a nice themed project but I'll see what happens, right now I want to focus more on the Heresy and my Aeldari. I have a couple of Night Spinners coming in the post but would like to go with a guardian heavy force. I'm not sure I understand the Aeldari of the Heresy era because according to the novels the Shrines came into being within two hundred years of the great fall but Fulgrim fights several different aspects in the novel. So what I am thinking is maybe Guardian army with some Scorpions because I think they were the first shrine. Not that I want to deny the other shrines but it seems more plausible to me and I'll have to do some research. Last time I seriously played Eldar was 2nd edition so I'm a bit rusty.

 

My logic on these Astartes would be an existing Chapter fleet that got lost in the warp but a few members survived because they were serving with the Death Watch and now have returned aided by the Mentors to train the new batch after crossing the Rubicon. Their secondary mission would be to locate their lost fleet based Monastery. The Captain below is a heavily converted Phobos Captain model with the left leg replaced with one from an Infiltrator and the should pads swapped over to accommodate the Death Watch logo. Originally the plan was to make a Death Watch force and I made quite a few DW Primaris marines but I lost interest.  

 

 

Edited January 21 by Doghouse

[Firedrake Cordova]

They look great. Interesting idea for the background, too

[Doghouse]

Thanks, I'm quite enjoying coming up with stuff for them. 

 

Vahn Kaldrus 

 

So I've been playing around with the back story centred firstly around the leader of this Recon Company. The rough idea I have so far is that his name is Vahn Kaldrus and was born on Terra in the region known as Albia, an area dominated by ancient Clans who lived in towering soot-blackened castram-cities. They had recently overthrown their tyrannical King just as the Emperor and his Thunder Warriors arrived. Not wanting to kneel before another despot they refused him taking on his Thunder Warriors in steam belching proto-dreadnaughts and the infantry of the armoured ironside soldiers. The Albians held their ground but at great cost so the Emperor went to them unarmed and unarmoured and persuaded them to join him by explaining his vision he had for humanity. The Ironside Clans of Albia provided recruits for several Legions including the Death Guard.

 

Very little is known of the region culturally in terms of actual in universe lore so Vahn will be from some remote southern territory that has it's own traditions and history away from the bit cities. Probably simple sludge farms where they harvest some sort of mutated vegetation that is sold to the big cities. But I wanted to add something to him that gives him a bit of a link to these traditions. The idea I have is that the thick belt that houses his sword belonged to his father who was part of a local Clan militia that would hunt chaos beasts that got too close to the settlements. This was worn across the chest and was called an Asharak Kryth Tether, cut from tanned Grox hide this sash was both a simple uniform of the militia and provided some additional protection. Vahn has modified this to bare his combat blade and attached this to his waist.

 

I also have some ideas for his colours that may stray from the norm but I will get to that once I start painting.  

 

[Doghouse]

So I'm nearly there, just need to clean up this guy then on with the painting.

 

I'm planning on something different for the colour scheme. I think there is a massive missed opportunity with the way that people approach painting their Astartes in taking advantage of incorporating potential Successors into a contemporary Legion colour scheme. A few seeds have been placed that show the origins of Successor chapter icons and colours within the Loyalist Legions, stuff like Fafnir Rann or the Templars are ideal examples that jump out. So while I intend to go mostly DG standard colours but to play around with it within the veteran unit. The first will be the Praetor, most likely actually a First Sergeant or lower rank Centurion with in game lore. I'm going to reverse the colours so that he's got the much later adopted standard green colour of the modern 40k traitors but with white shoulder pads, nice simple swap that makes him stand out while remaining within the lore. I'm also going to paint the right arm white, the Dusk Raiders painted their shoulder pads and right arm red over generic legion grey (images later show this as just the right arm) to show that they were the right hand of the Emperor. By doing this it acknowledges his past and could be interpreted with it showing he thinks of himself as the right hand of Mortarion or shows his loyalty to the Emperor in the pre-heresy era.

 

All the parts are magnetised now, the close combat arms picture is a really bad angle but I can redo that later. The reason why I am doing this is mainly because I don't trust the ways that GW are approaching individual options and constantly updating things. So should they drastically change things I can swap to an option that still works, we all spend a lot of time on our models and there is nothing more discouraging to see your favourite minis nerfed into gathering dust on a shelf. I'm only doing this with the Veteran squad though, the others can take their chances. 

My favourite is the bolter option, I think the newer model works really well creating a more credible scaled weapon rather than running around with a plank of a gun. In my mind the bolter is the stock weapon of the Astartes and by using the Mk III Phobos on all my models it is a focal hook for scale. 

 

Just got to clean up now then ready to go!

 

 

 

 

[Blindhamster]

looking cool mate, interested to see these painted up :)

It's interesting seeing how the scouts look beside these too

[Doghouse]

Thanks mate 

 

Yeah they work quite well. It's a bit of a gut punch knowing there are better options than scouts but I'm sticking with the narrative. For now I am firmly set on two five man units of scouts, one five man recon and the Praetor. The vets can wait for now as I really need bolter recon guys to tie in with the scouts visually, like I say the pattern of bolter is the visual hook.

 

I was going to get cracking with my Aeldari but got the following email today regarding my order of two Night Spinners that put a dampener on things:

 

"We have followed this up with our account handler at Games Workshop who has advised that they had the items missing from their stock and their inventory is not correct. They have since adjusted this and now put them as out of stock."
 

Big surprise there...

 

Next up should be Scouts and once they are assembled the painting begins.

[Firedrake Cordova]

Oof, that's annoying on the Aeldari parts.  Hopefully it's not a long wait for you!

 

I suppose the question is, was it a misbehaving troll, servitor, or cogitator...?

[Doghouse]

It was the abominable intelligence!

 

Just a quick update. I've got the bulk of the first ten made now and really cannot state how much I did not enjoy making the legs and torso for these guys. The legs are split into single legs but the hips are hollow which makes fitting to the torso a major pain. I will however persevere as once past this part I quite enjoy making the rest.

 

I have lots of the rebreather heads which work really well I feel, firstly for the look of trench raiders but also because of the nature of Death Guard warfare. I want to add another ten more and maybe split them into fives. The only real advantages they have is infiltrate and shroud bombs, the latter being add 6" to range of anyone one trying to target them but they can't hold objectives. I had hoped they could use an augury which would turn them into the equivalent of 40k Infiltrators but to be honest you can get 5 Recon for 20pts more or pay 35pts more for ten tactical marines both of which have the line special rule that lets them capture objectives.

The only other thing I can use them for really is objective denial off the top of my head or maybe as a meat shield for a Legion Vigilator. I'll probably pair them with Recon squads to be honest but luckily I have a ton of armour vehicles to back them up which may in this case be a Kratos and two Sicarians.

 

 

[Firedrake Cordova]

They've come out well - hopefully the result was worth annoyance of dealing with the legs!  

[Pearson73]

They're looking good, worth the pain I'd say!

[MoriyaSchism]

On 1/21/2024 at 4:52 PM, Doghouse said:

I've also been using Procreate or Grey Stuff instead of Green Stuff for the armour to rework the Astartes. The GS guys were made a few years ago now and have been sat in a box doing nothing which is why I had decided to do these.  I've also gone for the Mk III bare head because it scales a lot nicer in my opinion and are less cartoony than the modern marines. One of the biggest issues I have with the Heresy heads is that they are really nice sculpts but scale is all over the place, some are huge and others like the mohawk rebreather head from the Mk VI kit is too small.

 

 

 

I'm curious about how much work goes into splicing together classic chest plates with Primaris bodies. Did you remove the Intercessor front plate entirely? Were parts of it used as an armature for the old parts and the sculpting putty? On Instagram I saw a post by Green Stuff Flu, he made a couple of Death Eagles for the False Primarch project. He had used a Reiver body and fused it with the top portion of a Mk VI style Chaos Marine chest plate. I was wondering how close your method was to this type of conversion.

[Doghouse]

Firedrake Cordova: Thanks, I'm hoping the next lot will be easier. 

 

Pearson73: Thanks mate, besides the legs I am actually enjoying making the so not all bad. 

 

MoriyaSchism: It's a little bit of an illusion, I will show how it's done in a later post but what I do is use the 40k Firstborn Assault marines torso front and add it to the back half of the Primaris torso which is attached to the legs. I use the Assault torso because the cables make it look a lot bigger and fit with the Mk IV aesthetic. I did look at other armour mark torsos and have done Mk II in the past but this was the easiest for mass production. Like I say I will probably do a step by step over the next few days so I can show you. There is a little bit of GS work but to be honest nothing hard.

[Doghouse]

So here is a rather rough and ready demonstration using white tac instead of GS.

 

First off I remove the 'buckle' (technically part of the rebreather...) as you can see on the right. This extends the torso adding a gut area, I would later sculpt the Mk IV stomach plate over this at the end of the process but as this is white tac you'll have to use your imagination a little.

 

 

Then I add this to the front of the Primaris, the legs and rear torso being one piece at this stage, leaving the Primaris torso front off completely. I make a small nick in the bottom edge of the torso so that it fits snuggly on top of the Primaris buckle.

 

 

When doing this I line up the top of the of the chest cables with the shoulders of the Primaris back torso making sure it is flush. You can also line up the lower cables on the front first born torso with the cables on the back of the Primaris as well which helps.

 

 

 

The white tac here is filling the gap that will be there on the side of the torso in place of GS but gives you an idea of how much there is to fill.

 

 

Then lastly I clean up the sides, this one is a little rough as I did it a couple of years ago but gives you an idea what it should look like.

 

 

Hope that gives you some insight.