The Albigensian Crusade

[SCOTT_FRANCIS]

I looked into this a while back, after reading Helsreach for the first time. I ended up with Grimaldus, an apothecary and Sword Brothers armed as follows, a bolter, a chain sword and bolt pistol, a banner bearer with Bolt Pistol and a Power Sword and Bolt Pistol.

 

After reading your posts Brothers, I was well off. 

[Honda]

Welcome to Episode VIII of Witch Wars Ladies and Germs!

Gar, Jefe, Mo and I took another plunge into 7th edition using my favorite scenario, "Carnage". We're still using the old WD version because we're a sentimental lot or something.

Well, well, well, lookee here

The forces lined up for today were:

Silver Witches

The "Good" Guys

The November Warriors (aka other "non" witches)

Flesh Witches

Yeah I know, two pictures of the DE, but it's such a magnificent looking army that I couldn't help myself. I will do penance for my transgression.

The early turns involved a fair bit of maneuvering/kibitzing/razzing while we all got a feel for the general dynamics of 7th, plus the fact that there were witches about.

DE are not particularly fond of Orbital Bombardments. I am a little more forgiving a personality and felt obligated to share my bounty with the flesh witches, much to their chagrin. Note the absence of a few DE vehicles. Some of the riders didn't survive either. Some of the more perceptive observers might even have detected a trace of wetness in my eyes.

They were, of course, tears of joy.

While the Templars and November Warriors were amassing, both witch factions began to fall upon themselves, though they were surprisingly ineffective against each other. The Psychic phase was of minimal impact early on because most of the silver witches efforts focused on blessings. They would become more aggressive later on.

The Silver witches sent out their big brute to take the objective and for three turns he stood out in the open taunting anyone to come and take it from him. Fate however, is a fickle mistress and would later share her displeasure in a most inconvenient way.

As forces began to concentrate and edge themselves, tensions rose and the various factions natural characteristics began to come to the fore. Nothing good was bound to come from this.

A Hunkamunkanunkalus stands outside a building in front of the the November Warriors and exclaims, "You want some of this?"

Unfortunately, the NW would discover that they did not want any of "this" as "this" was rather nasty in hand to hand combat, despite the NWs best efforts. Much like Tim Roth in the movie Rob Roy, flouncy looking characters are not necessarily wimpy characters. We also discovered that despite being in drag, Asdrubal Vect is a nasty bit of kit and two squads of assault troops were handed their heads.

The Templar flash mob waits for the opening notes of their song

The tall witch looked down on the objective and exclaimed, "Hey, If nobody wants this thing, I could use it as a shin guard!"

The Sons of Dorn were not even remotely amused.

[Honda]

With the music suddenly issuing from various hidden vox units, the Templar flash mob bursts out of the ruins and begins their excellently choreographed maneuvers towards the objective.

Envy is a terrible thing. The Silver witches railed at the incredible performance by the Templars and attempted their own flash mob. Fortunately, an orbital bombardment interceded and scattered most of their troupe over large distances and into little bits of shiny metal, though the core dance leaders continued on, determined to show their moves.

The leaders of the two mobs square off, the Silver witch master daring the Templar's Master of Hip Hop to beat his latest pirouette and moon walk combo. The Templars Master, quickly eliminated any doubt as to who owned the floor with multiple strikes of his legendary thunder hammer, "Boom Stick". In the mean time, the rest of the mob rushed over to the objective and beat the giant silver witch to a pulp, letting their newest member of the troupe score the winning point.

Victory to the Templars.

Observations

1. The Psychic phase did not have a huge overall impact on the game, but towards the latter stages things got pretty hot. Jefe switched from blessings for his troops, which were very difficult to stop considering that none of the other factions had psykers, to more painful spells like Psychic Scream. Thankfully, they weren't that easy to get off, but my Master of Sanctity did take a wound from some dirtbag headache causing spell. However, he did get revenge on the Grand Master by beating him down in a challenge, though it did take two rounds.

2. Bound vs. Unbound - NIX chose to go unbound with his list and took an all jump pack list. He was using Fire Hawks CTs and it looked like fun. Unfortunately, they didn't match up well against the DE, but then who does when you have characters that have I9? Where the unbound really hurt was that at the end of the game, both NIX and I had a unit on the objective, but since I took battle forged and he didn't, I won via Objective Secured. At least that's what we think happened.

3. There was a lot of laughter going on throughout the game. One of my favorites was when the Templars rushed the Dreadknight and assaulted him with 3 x TH termies, 1 x LC termie, 3 x Initiates bp/cs, and 3 x neophytes with extended chainswords. When it came time for the Dreadknight to swing, I asked, "Who are you going after? I've got some guys here with blankets for armor (i.e. flagellants/neophytes)". Jefe wisely scoffed at me and then took out the LC termies. Funnily enough, it was one of the flagellants that took the last wound off of the Dreadknight.

4. The GK are going to be a brutal army. Jefe is still figuring out things and "fun" combos, but at a 1000 pts, it seemed like he was always rolling around 15 WC dice until we were able to start killing some of his stuff, so he really didn't have any trouble getting spells off. I still think we Templars will be Ok as Adamantium Will did stop one spell, but we certainly will have to plan this aspect wisely and the spells aren't "freebies" anymore, so we all liked the new risk aspect associated with spell casting.

So, a very fun game and many thanx to Gar, Jefe, and NIX for the great time.

Cheers,

[Grand Master Iapetus]

It was a truly epic battle, and could have gone any way at the end.  The first 3 turns everyone played pretty cagey - shooting and positioning to take advantage of cover.

 

I think the psychic phase was uneventful for a couple of reasons.  I failed to manifest the powers i was hoping for at the beginning of the game - even though i had 8 rolls to do it in.  Even worse, the Purifiers failed their roll for "Cleansing Flame" that would have done 2D6 S5 AP4 wounds to every unit within 9" (see the picture of the furball at the end).

 

By turn 4, we had some great furballs.  It literally came down to Honda rolling 15 dice, inflicting only one wound on the dreadknight, and the dreadknight missing an armor save with a "1" and losing his last wound.  Fantastic story and cinematic ending...well done Templars !

[Brother Talon]

..... Honda.... I love your bat-reps.... I really do.

 

You could literally make fluff out of them. Comedy, yet fluff all the same.

 

 

In the words of a famous captain: "Make it so."

[Honda]

In the words of a famous captain: "Make it so."

 

 

Thank you brother, I am glad you were entertained.

 

As far as Captains goes, my favorite always said, "If you don't like the rules, then change the game" as well as "To boldly go..."

 

All very Templar flavored actions. :)

[Brother Talon]

I'm glad we have the same taste in Captains.

[Honda]

Ok, here's the first two members of Squad Grimaldus, Nerovar and Priamus. After thinking about them all a bit, these two seemed the easiest to take on first. As I think about the project more, I'll focus on getting the squad done to the first stage, then do Grimaldus.

In this case, "first" stage means basic model together, prior to green stuffing. In stage two, I'll add the tabards and any additional details, like chains. Also, I'll attempt to make Grimaldus crozius. Thankfully, I found a left handed plasma pistol with a scope on it, so one less detail to concern myself over.

So here's Nerovar. The idea behind him is that he is blocking a strike from the right, protecting the recovered geneseed in his Narthecium. Also, I knew that I wanted the right hand to be in a blocking position and considering how funky the fit between the Apothecary front torso and the Narthecium is, I had to come up with a story. :)

Also, I'm leaving off the backpacks till after the painting is done.

Priamus is running to attack. I decided to go with the company champion's shoulder pads because I like how they look and I'll figure out how to get the crosses on them later. The right arm was a pain in the neck to fit together and I ended up having to chop it into 3 pieces.

Cheers,

[greggles]

Love your careful attention to the posing.  Makes them very dynamic and full of character!

[Firepower]

Huh...why exactly is the narthecium so awkward?  At first I thought "Oh, he's using the terminator narthecium, so it doesn't fit."  Then I looked again, and saw that it was from the Command Squad, so now I'm just lost

 

But unless you're looking him right in the eye, it looks like he's having his arm broken.  I'd reconsider it, personally.

Edited July 24, 2014 by Firepower

[Honda]

If you look at the second pic, those "bottles" on his belt/hip stick out an inordinate amount. I could cut those out, except that I like how they look. So either the left arm sticks up at a 45 degree angle (looks really weird) or I put it back behind his side and make up a story.

 

So given that, there aren't a whole lot of options. I could have replaced the front torso, but it had stuff on it that I wanted. <shrug>

 

I think it will turn out Ok, but it does look a tad odd, hence my "story". :)

[Honda]

Time to get some wrath on...

As advertised, here is the rest of the squad.

Cador. Bionic head, and left arm. Don't get into a head butting contest with him. To add a little history to him, I gave him one of those "master crafted" bolters from the...command pack or the commander pack. Not sure. Also, as a former Sword Brethren, I thought it reasonable to give him terminator honors. I'll probably give that shoulder pad a red rim as a nod to his SB days.

Bastilan. I was going to go with a bare head on him, but I already had one for Cador, so ended up going with a Mk. IV.

Artarion. I opted for a Mk III helmet as an indicator of some "veteraness". I'm still working on how the banner looks like, so that will show up later. If anyone knows of some images of a Grimaldus banner, I'd be appreciative.

Once I get through the gs phase, I'll be dressing them up a little more. I worked up a gladius for Nerovar, some bolt pistols in holsters for Bastilan and Priamus, and I would expect a fairly liberal sprinkling of purity seals on them as a visual cue to the enemy that they are about to experience awesomeness up close and personal.

Now I'm off to start on the Big G.

[Honda]

http://youtu.be/ef-4Bv5Ng0w

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then...to continue the theme (see ref link), he will have been caught reading Codex: Space Marine :)

Ref: http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/293735-forbidden-pleasures-caught-in-the-act/?p=3744828

[Honda]

It has been quite awhile hasn't it. First a little mood music

https://youtu.be/DsMZKD2sW8c

Now that we have got the right vibes going, let's get caught up.

I committed to painting a Land Raider Prometheus for the ETL and despite significant Real Life interruptions, I will keep my commitment to my brothers.

The construction of the chassis was for the most part fairly straight forward, though I did a couple of flavorful mods inline with the purpose of the Prometheus.and...eh? Drat, I don't have a primer shot yet. I will rectify that shortly.

However, that wasn't the big deal. The big deal was coming up with a conversion that didn't require a FW kit and that might be duplicated at some point in the future, since the LRP is a dedicated transport in the Siege list.

So, the first step was to collect as many heavy bolter guns from LR front turrets as possible. Since the LRP needs 8 (2 x twin linked heavy bolters in each sponson), I had to scrabble around to find that many heavy bolters. Thankfully, I had enough hanging around from previous conversions to get the job done.

1. The first step was to construct the LR Crusader sponsons per the instructions. No big deal there.

2. Initially I was thinking that I was going to need to build a harness or something to hold the bolters, but after fiddling around a bit (technical term) I came to the conclusion that I could sort of wing it because the bolters fit together and that was a join that I could work from.

3. After I got the first set of bolters (uppers) done, then it just became a matter of trying to figure out how to attach the lower units. In the end, I settled for "simple" and used some plastic spar to not only brace the upper pair, but give me a section to anchor the lower units to.

4. Once the braces were in, I then attached the lower units onto the sponson.

On of the things that I will do is test the strength of the joins and if it needs a little more bracing I'll add some before doing the primer coat.

So that's about it for now, but I will get a chance to do some more this weekend...and take the chassis shot.

Cheers,

Also, I just wanted to pay tribute to Chris Squire, the amazing bass player from Yes. Rest in Peace Starship Trooper!

https://youtu.be/DKftiJS30Cs

Edited June 30, 2015 by Honda

[Honda]

Here's a quick update before the weekend. With kids heading off to internships and whatnot, it already feels like summer is almost over. Very weird.

What follows is a progression of shots of the LR Prometheus, which I think I am going to call "Occulus Rex", due to it's capabilities and battlefield role. I'm not sure if "Occulus" is the correct...tense/context or whatever it is in Latin, so I'll post that question in Amicus. Anyway, it's nice to see that this beast is starting to come together.

Primed vehicle

Masking

Unmasked

Bits and the front

First off, the grey isn't as light as it looks, nor is the white cross that white. That seems to be an effect of the flash. The white in the cross and shield is a tad brighter than I would have preferred, so that will get toned down a bit. Initially I was going to go with the light grey primer as the base, but then opted for add some Vallejo off white to bring it up just a tad. You'll also note that my masking wasn't perfect, so I'll need to clean that up along the way.

After I clean up the shield, I will endeavor to put the Crusade of Wrath badge on both sides, though I am going to run with one of the earlier versions we came up with which features a white shield, a red Maltese cross dominant, flames on the lower portion of the shield, the number 23 on the upper left, and a small Maelstrom Warders icon on the right.

I think that's it for now. For those of you celebrating the 4th, remember to come back with the same number of fingers you left with. :)

Cheers,

[Marshal Mattias]

Looking good! Masking looks like a really good way to achieve some interesting designs (always wondered how you folks managed those gigantic crosses over such complex surfaces!)

[Honda]

@MM: Yes, masking/reverse masking is a very good technique for getting those big designs over large surfaces. The masking does the heavy lifting for you and then it's usually just a little clean up and "Bob's your uncle!"

In the above effort, you can see what happens when you don't run over the edges of the tape to ensure that the edges are solid. Also, I may have sprayed the paint on a tad wet, which combined with the raised edges allowed for under the tape flow. Usually, it comes out better than this (I used the same technique on my Storm Ravens and Caestus).

That being said, sometimes there's an easier way to get what you want.

In the above pic, I drew the lines of the cross on the model with a straight edge and a mechanical pencil, then painted the colors on. In this case, the flat surfaces on the rhino made this approach viable.

Cheers,

[ThatOneMarshal]

Oooooh I like the masking idea, since we don't have those forgeworld transfers anymore then that would be great for vehicles. I'm liking how the Prometheus is coming along.

[Honda]

Thus completes my ETL vow for this year. I present to you, Occulus Imperator, "The Emperor's Eye".

I'm going to look at it awhile and decide what the level of weathering will be. I'll post updated pics when the model is done, which shouldn't be too long down the road.

Oh and this...

Cheers,

[Metic]

Your land raider variants are always such an inspiration, the customization that goes into each one is truly a work of fine craftsmanship.

[Honda]

Thank you Brother Metic for your kind words. I think one of the things that makes the BnC special is how inspiring other people's work is. I'm always checking Hall of Honor and WIP to see what people's creative juices are up to.

 

That being said, there is some of the best modeling talent around in this forum and I continue to be inspired by everyone here.

 

There is nothing like our "Band of Brothers".

 

Cheers,

[Honda]

After being inspired by Marshal Barbarossa's Vanguard, I felt like it was time to return to this squad and move them farther down the field. One of the nice things about getting the base minimums done for your crusade is that you can then explore ideas that you find interesting.

In this case, I wanted to create Grimaldus' Command Squad from the novel Helsreach to use in games. You'll probably note that they aren't all tooled up with the latest grav/plasma/super beatstick/ultra weapon combos because that isn't how they appeared in the book. I want these guys to be as close to what little descriptions we have of them and I don't care if they are a deathstar, they have a history to me that deserves table top representation.

So I present to you, the "G-Men" in all their green and grey splendour.

Priamus

I'm very happy with the energy he seems to possess. The tabard turned out decently and seems to support the direction he is moving in.

+++ PHOTO DEGRADATION IN EFFECT +++

Apologies upfront, some of these pics are fairly wonky and even through two rounds of shots, still didn't come out as sharp as I would like. However, it is a little better than having to use your imagination. :)

Cador, Bastilan & Artarion

Banner pole

The idea behind these shots is that Artarion has taken an oath to carry Grimaldus banner and that to demonstrate that his oath is not broken, he has had his hand secured to the pole with purity seals to demonstrate his faithfulness. I know I could have chained the pole to him, but to me, the "act of faith" seemed more powerful to me.

I still don't know yet what I am going to do for the banner itself, which is why I haven't started applying paint on these guys yet. Also, it is safe to assume that once I finish the "G-Men", I will need to build my "G-Man" to accompany them.

And just because the above isn't enough of a challenge, I offered to build one of these for my friend, because of the kit's...reputation. So I have that going on as well.

More on that later.

Cheers,

[The_Chaplain]

Honda, if you have any problems with the storm eagle-- can you please take some pictures and detail how you addressed them?  I am very keen on purchasing a fire raptor in the future-- and have hear it has a similar "reputation". 

[Honda]

Honda, if you have any problems with the storm eagle-- can you please take some pictures and detail how you addressed them?  I am very keen on purchasing a fire raptor in the future-- and have hear it has a similar "reputation".

 

 

I will definitely document the steps and solutions as I go along. I will offer though that what I have heard about the Fire Raptor is that FW redesigned how the fuselage is built and that it is a significantly easier kit to build.

 

Quite awhile back, I read somebody's thread on...Dakka or Warseer, who on a scale of 1 to 10 in modeling skills is somewhere around a 17, document everything he did, just to get the kit together. He was then able to spend some time talking to the guy who made the SE, who listened to his challenges and then adjusted accordingly for the FR.

 

I can remember reading his thread (it was amazingly detailed and thorough) and thinking, "Hah, you'll never get me to build one of those!"

 

Apparently Xactos, Bane of Modelers, a rarely discussed and yet powerful minion of the chaos gods, does not understand the meaning of "never". :P

[Honda]

Sturm und Drang (German pronunciation: [ˈʃtʊɐ̯m ʊnt ˈdʁaŋ], literally "Storm and Drive", "Storm and Urge", though conventionally translated as "Storm and Stress")^[1] is a proto-Romantic movement in German literature and music taking place from the late 1760s to the early 1780s, in which individual subjectivity and, in particular, extremes of emotion were given free expression in reaction to the perceived constraints of rationalism imposed by the Enlightenment and associated aesthetic movements.

Ok, now that we have some commonality of what we're engaged on, let's get to the modeling shall we?

As you may have guessed from a previous post, I am building a FW Storm Eagle for a friend of mine because the kit is not something that you should undertake lightly and I would say that it is certainly a model that will require a tad more patience and skill level than any standard GW plastic kit.

I won't talk too much to working with resin kits in general as there are plenty of videos and tutorials on this thread to help with you in that regard. However, I will say that before I got started building there was a fair bit of prep work.

What I did to prepare was:

1. Soaked all the resin components in liquid dish washing soap to clean off any mold release agent (usually something like vegetable oil). That took around 3 or 4 days.

2. Wrapped all the resin bits in paper towels, surrounded by a regular bath towel. Let sit for 3-4 days. The purpose of doing this drying phase is to make sure that all the little beads of water that tend to hide in very annoying places get plenty of time to evaporate.

3. After this, I took all the bits out to the garage, put on my heavy duty paint mask and dremel'd off all the flow channels from the model bits. One of the things you have to be aware of is that you can't just snap/clip off the channels, the resin is too brittle. Well, you can but then you take a chance of breaking important parts of your very expensive toy airplane.

So grind them off. Also get used to the idea of filing, sanding, and lightly carving. It's just what it takes to work on resin models.

Then the fun started.

I began by trying to assemble the fuselage sides, plastic top, and the bottom to see how bad the resin warpage was. Be prepared for this because warpage happens. It ought to be a bumper sticker.

Anyway, I had a fair bit on the sides and bottom. In fact there was no real way to get those bits together "as is", so another concept to embrace is that you will need to heat up these components and bend them back.

There's a number of ways to do this (hair dryer, boiling water), I ended up running hot water out of our kitchen tap over the various parts and bending back to something resembling what the piece should look like. I will say here that I wasn't really trying to get it perfect for reasons I will elaborate on later.

I then came back to the hobby table and attempted to put the pieces together. I eventually did, but would describe the process as akin to trying to put plaid socks on a large greased pig.

Eventually I got the assemble stable enough so that I could put rubber bands around the whole thing and close down the gaps. Note that it's not perfect at this point, but not too bad. That's all you are going for, the "not too bad". Yes, you could go back and heat things up and try to get some of the gaps to fit better, but the reality is you are going to have to fill and smooth some gaps, so just get the bits to fit together reasonably well. They will never line up perfectly.

You can already see that in the front, the gaps between the resin and the plastic ramp just don't come together. Now you can accept this and move on or go look for a bus to stand in front of. I recommend the former because the solution isn't as difficult as you might think.

That's right, I cheated*.

I used plastic rod to cover over the gaps and before you can start hyperventilating, the issue is no longer an issue. Next up is the body.

This turns out to be a big deal. As I saw it, if I just used regular super glue or modeling glue, the brittleness and lack of strength in those types of adhesives just are going to cut it.

So I cheated. Again.

Quite awhile back while in Hobby Lobby, I got a box of Milliput White thinking that I would sculpt something with it. I tried something simple, made a mess and irritated with the material, posted a question in the PCA forum about "what is this stuff good gor?"

The answer I got back was, "the trash can". Well as it turns out, it has two uses. Because it is so freaking sticky when you first mix it up, it turns out that it does an amazing job of holding two things together, like two resin things together.

I was just going to use it to reinforce the body parts like I did for my Storm Ravens (using green stuff), but this stuff is just awesome, so I learned something new and now have a great tool for my hobby tool box.

So I mixed up some batches of white stuff and jammed it into the joins for the body.

Et voiila!

Now this may not seem like a big deal, but it's actually a huge deal. I didn't have to fight with the resin and slow drying super glue, I just had to rubber band things the way I wanted, apply the white stuff and then let it dry. That is incredibly easy.

Now just so that you don't think this is all rainbows and unicorns, I do have some gap filling to do.

However the magnitude of gap filling is significantly reduced using this technique. At least that's what it looks like to me.

Ok, I think that's it for now, but I will be doing more work on the beast this weekend.

Cheers,

Edited August 22, 2015 by Honda