Doghouse's WIPs

[Doghouse]

Yeah I tend to just use micro sol on it's own, they are really good. 

 

Something a little bit different.

 

I was hunting through my bits boxes for parts and came across this old project I started years ago but forgot about. I may well go back to it at some point but for now just wanted to share some pics.

 

The idea was to create a RT force in the style of the more military dioramas of WW2 tanks and infantry. The dreadnoughts I got from an STL file that I heavily converted to add new weapons and detailing but the infantry I sculpted in Blender based on the original RT era models for the Imperial Army.

These were Army Dreadnoughts because back in the day they could be taken by Imperial Army and these original dreads could be piloted like a vehicle rather than having the pilot surgically attached. I converted the original file to turn the top of the dread into a door then flipped it open so the pilot could be seen standing in the cockpit. Unfortunately the door has broken so I will go back at some point and fix it. I also sadly can't find the STL files so when I do fix them up I can't really make any more of them.

Like I say I am not touching them for now but thought some people might be interested to see them. I started to paint the lead dread but never really got much further than this.

 

 

 

 

 

[Rusted Boltgun]

Was there a piece of art in the Compendium that related to this? I sold my copy as I was coming back into the hobby thinking it wasn't relevant any more. Whoops.

Great looking Dreads and a decent size!

[Doghouse]

Thanks mate. 

 

The posing and the way the cockpit hatch opens is something I created but the colour scheme was based on this image from the compendium.

 

I wanted something like a tank commander popping the hatch and at ease. The infantry captain takes some inspiration from the guy in this image as well, 3d modelling isn't something that I massively enjoy so unfortunately I stopped at the pilot, Captain and Guardsman.

 

I did learn enough to start working on my own model range I'll be bringing out next year with any luck though.

 

[Doghouse]

I've been thinking a lot about the 4th edition army as I dig around for bits. As some may know I really am not a fan of corporate 40k for a multitude of reasons. I find myself wanting to return to a far more gothic and archaic vision of the setting.

 

What I always loved about older 40k was the sense that humanity no longer truly understood the empire it inhabited. Technology felt ancient sacred and half remembered. Machines were not simply manufactured objects churned out on demand by an endless industrial machine but relics that had survived across thousands of years. They were maintained through ritual superstition and inherited doctrine rather than true understanding.

 

Modern 40k often feels too clean in that regard. The Imperium appears capable of producing whatever it needs whenever it needs it while the significance of STCs and technological loss has drifted into the background. For me the setting loses something when every problem can simply be solved by rolling another tank off an assembly line.

 

I much prefer the idea that a suit of power armour might genuinely be ten thousand years old. Not untouched of course but repaired and rebuilt so many times over the millennia that almost none of the original remains. More Ship of Theseus than manufactured wargear. Layer upon layer of replacement plating rewired internals substituted mechanisms and devotional repairs carried out by generations of Tech Priests who preserve the machine without ever fully understanding it.

 

In that version of 40k technology feels mythic. A boltgun is not just another weapon issued from a stockpile but something entrusted to a warrior. A warship is not simply constructed but maintained across centuries by entire bloodlines of labourers priests and serfs. The idea of the machine spirit works best to me when it comes from a civilisation terrified of losing the last fragments of knowledge it still possesses.

 

That atmosphere of decay reverence and superstition is the side of 40k I miss most and it is something I want to reflect in these Space Wolves. I will be adding skulls relics charms old campaign markings and artefacts wherever possible so each warrior feels ancient and storied rather than factory produced.

 

I also really like the idea that each warrior exists between two identities. Within Imperial records they may carry a formal designation such as Brother Lucius Aggamon while amongst themselves and in battle they use their Fenrisian names such as Skorri Blackmane or Hakon Icevein. To the wider Imperium they are recorded as assets warriors and gene-lines catalogued within endless archives. Amongst the Rout they are remembered for sagas deeds rivalries and the names earned beside the fire or upon the battlefield. The Imperial title belongs to the bureaucracy of the Imperium while the Fenrisian name is the identity known to their brothers and carried into war. I think this ties in well with the concept of the Space Wolves being known as the Vlka Fenryka on Fenris.

 

So what this may mean is that I lean far less into the wolfy mcwolferson trope and more into an Imperial theme.