=][= Prot's Deathwatch Thread =][=

[Prot]

Yes but how many hours have you put into those guys? :)

 

I spend so much time painting stuff I hate selling it to be honest, but I try to raise funds for other projects. But if I broke it down into an hourly wage it would be lethargic.

[Jolemai]

Thanks Vel. I am such a slow painter.... I can't fathom further 'challenging myself'. lol

 

If you want a challenge, how about painting some Blood Angels and winning with them in your meta?   

[Prot]

 

Thanks Vel. I am such a slow painter.... I can't fathom further 'challenging myself'. lol

 

If you want a challenge, how about painting some Blood Angels and winning with them in your meta?   

 

 

Haha... well about 6 months ago I almost did that. The problem is I have a few too many Blood Angel players in my meta and it just felt like no one was playing Deathwatch (which is largely true here).

 

It was very close though, I almost did it!     

[Vel'Cona]

The fact that Prot wins any games in his meta with his DW is pretty impressive to me. 

[Prot]

^Yea right. lol

 

The saying, "Even a broken clock is right twice a day" comes to mind. ;)

 

So here's some new content for my thread; these models/army belong to a friend of mine. Sadly he has been forced to move back to the U.K. but he shall return to Canada in a few years.

 

He was HUGE on Deathwatch when they were just trickling out in box sets starting with Overkill. He gets through painting his units very quickly and they look great. He was getting a little disheartened by the army, but still we bounced ideas off of each other and often tried to make units we liked to be a little more functional.

 

I snapped these pics at the store before he left the country:

 

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y6/Protilious/Prots%20Deathwatch%2040K/Prots%20Buddys%20DW1.jpg

 

^I was always jealous how quickly his turn around time was on his stuff. He also used the new bases which aren't that bad really. I think it probably also speeds things up a bit which is good.

 

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y6/Protilious/Prots%20Deathwatch%2040K/Prots%20Buddys%20DW2.jpg

 

As you can see he pretty much has at least one of everything and as of this picture still had boxes of stuff (like the rest of us.)

 

At this time we were trying hard to get the Corvus to work, and it wasn't so we were both experimenting with them as a Flyer Wing from the flyer supplement (which we do use). Even with +1 reserve rolls, it was too point heavy to make it work.

 

We were also experimenting with using the named characters from Cassius (you can see he's got them all painted!) in our CAD's, but I had to convince him to drop the BSSF to do so.

 

Anyway, I wanted to document his army here. Unfortunately I think he threw in the towel and is back working on his Dark Angels' Lion's Blade Detachment.

[Sheesh Mode]

 

At this time we were trying hard to get the Corvus to work, and it wasn't so we were both experimenting with them as a Flyer Wing from the flyer supplement (which we do use). Even with +1 reserve rolls, it was too point heavy to make it work.

See, the Corvus is not a problem. It is how flyers themselves operate which make it unreliable. 

[Captain Boyle]

They are some finely painted models. I need to get mine all done before I can play with them, I'd really like a fully painted army for once.

 

Incidentally where abouts in the UK has your friend moved to? If they're in the North West, specifically the Merseyside area, tell him to find the Mersey Scythes. It's a huge group of players and we're always happy to have more people join, especially if they're another Dark Angel

[Vel'Cona]

Definitely some great Deathwatch, and I'm really surprised he could get such results quickly!  Here's hoping we see your friend around on the forums so he can tell us how he manages it.  I may try out those fancy new bases on my next project . . . they're just so pretty!  

[Silas7]

Those Purple power weapons reminds me of how a Vorpal sword would look. Very cool.

[Echelon]

I am nearly at the point of throwing in the towel myself. But I will invest and test those twin star lists I want to build. 

 

Also, those models look amazing! A shame your friend dropped Deathwatch.

[Prot]

Well how many games have you played?

 

-My- reality is the codex was very phoned in, and rested on a strong following, and strong models for sales. Ruleswise, there's no way to sweeten it up... the BSSF is largely ignorable, and useless. The codex was written (ruleswise) around a single weapon which does not equate to grav, and puts you in a horrible position.

 

But on the table, the army is most certainly 'playable'. Everyone has a different take on the word 'playable' so I'll leave it at that.

 

For fun games, this codex is certainly fine. For competitive environments I've never had more difficulty getting a 7th edition army to work. I've seen a lot, and I mean a lot of players around pick these guys up, try some tournament test lists, and their up on ebay. 

 

That being said I have beat the mighty Tau/Surge/Riptidewall/Drone'mander list ITC style with Deathwatch. But it took a fairly conservative Skyhammer ally. 

 

So it can be done. I've hung in there and won a share of those levels of games I just can't post them all as much as I'd like. 

 

At the end of the day there is strong disappointment I think, but it can still work. It's just sad to have all these... Kill Teams that are just too inflexible or fail compared to vanilla Astartes equivalent. It's hard to see extra fun weapons that won't see too much play time, a Detachment as well. 

 

Still it can work. You just have a LOT of fat to shed to get to the meat of it all. And you still realize it's an incredibly unforgiving army. No room for errors, no free stuff, no FnP, nothing like that, just very expensive models that have to pull a lot of weight. They die just as easily as any marines.

 

I think if I played ITC all the time I'd move away from this army entirely, but it does work.

 

Playing counts for a lot... it really does. Get some games in, and you start to realize where you can win/lose with small decisions. 

[General Strike]

I honestly fee like it's a failing on the other codices and not DW that it's like this. I feel like handing out FNP, D str and Str 10 willy nilly is a failing on the game, because it makes options outside of the all powerful useless. I do think DW should've gotten more formations, but I feel like we've had a major let down for points vs usefullness.

[Prot]

So I thought for 2017 I should show some of the stuff I'm working on with my Deathwatch.

I absolutely hate working on Drop Pods, and I'm still trying to replace the sold arm a piece at a time. It's pretty hard redoing models you've done before. I find you want to do a better job, but it does feel like revisiting something is hard for me to keep motivated with it.

We've got some Pods, some Sisters of Silence, a Watchmaster and finishing a Chaplain and the Watchblade box set Rhino....

Funny thing is I bought the Watchblade Task force in part to have the formation sheet, and I lost it. lol

If I recall it was only a half piece of paper and there's a great chance I threw it out. Regardless the box is a great deal. :)

[Vel'Cona]

Not a big loss in my opinion

 

Glad to see your next DW force is well underway, Prot! 

[Irbis]

Looks nice.

 

Sigh, I really should start painting my new DW squads (that finally arrived after 2 month delay...) but my painting skills are so rusty I feel I'll just botch very nice models

[Prot]

Thanks for the kind words guys!

 

Not a big loss in my opinion

 

Glad to see your next DW force is well underway, Prot! 

 

I know the formation is very mediocre, but believe it or not I was going to play it tonight. lol (this goes towards my personal rule of trying to implement everything no matter how bad, from the codex for testing purposes. ) :)

 

 

 

Looks nice.

 

Sigh, I really should start painting my new DW squads (that finally arrived after 2 month delay...) but my painting skills are so rusty I feel I'll just botch very nice models

 

You just gotta do it. Literally start painting. I personally hate colour changes, and I came from Ultra's not really getting how I was going to tackle black. I feel it takes probably 10 models before you start to find your groove and it becomes more a method to the painting. Just start working on it, get some games in with them! It's amazing how the two really feed off each other and it  has a snowball effect.

[Prot]

Hey guys, small update.

8th Edition experimental pictures.

Here I went for speed, and quality in equal measure. What I mean by that is I wanted to see if I could finish some models (originally for Shadow Wars) at a good pace, cutting some corners, without it showing!

The idea was to have these models 'challenge' my Thousand Sons for appearance even though they are black.

I fine tuned a version of the black highlighting, and these models are about 90% done so they wouldn't look that differently if finished.

I did the chapter pads off the model, but everything else on the model and tried to do a higher table top with 8th edition in mind I decided it was time to finish an Infernus Heavy Bolter too! lol

[Silas7]

Wow Prot this pic makes me wish I could commission you or had the fortune to buy your last DW force :D

 

Those are fantastic!

[Prot]

Thanks! I can see now the pics are just too dark.

 

My hope is that these two 'experimental' guys are going to make for a better looking DW army than my previous ones.

[mjrwaud]

Your previous Deathwatch looked very sharp already! How has your technique changed?

[Prot]

Your previous Deathwatch looked very sharp already! How has your technique changed?

 

Well although I highlighted a lot and did airbrush zenithal highlights, I stopped short of going to strong in the shading.

 

With these figs I went a degrees further into the zenithal air highlights, then taking very watered down Dawnstone, watered down Space wolves Grey, and created larger banding of highlights on legs, knee caps, etc. Then I'd wash it down (Nuln Oil) and rebuild it with pure Space Wolves Grey, pure Ulthran grey (quite bright, very little of it.)

 

This creates a lot more area light reflection, but it is obvious as I look at those pics it's mostly washed out because of the very low light. I don't even know if it makes enough difference if I had better pics. I don't even know if it's worth the amount of time I'm putting into them.

 

It's getting close to breaking my cardinal rule which is to keep the per model time down to a respectable amount on each fig to allow for a full army to be painted. 

 

I was saying elsewhere my Thousand Sons seem to just steal the limelight. I thought this might work, but perhaps not. I don't think my Ultra's even did the trick either though.

 

Thanks for having a look though!

[Silas7]

Hey Prot when you build your Vets with 1h bolter and sword do you just ignore the combat knife at the hip for loadout and just say the sword is a combat blade?

 

I'd say the best part is the NMM on the sword.

[mjrwaud]

Your previous Deathwatch looked very sharp already! How has your technique changed?

Well although I highlighted a lot and did airbrush zenithal highlights, I stopped short of going to strong in the shading.

With these figs I went a degrees further into the zenithal air highlights, then taking very watered down Dawnstone, watered down Space wolves Grey, and created larger banding of highlights on legs, knee caps, etc. Then I'd wash it down (Nuln Oil) and rebuild it with pure Space Wolves Grey, pure Ulthran grey (quite bright, very little of it.)

This creates a lot more area light reflection, but it is obvious as I look at those pics it's mostly washed out because of the very low light. I don't even know if it makes enough difference if I had better pics. I don't even know if it's worth the amount of time I'm putting into them.

It's getting close to breaking my cardinal rule which is to keep the per model time down to a respectable amount on each fig to allow for a full army to be painted.

I was saying elsewhere my Thousand Sons seem to just steal the limelight. I thought this might work, but perhaps not. I don't think my Ultra's even did the trick either though.

Thanks for having a look though!

Thanks for the tips!

I haven't jumped into using an airbrush (yet) so just sticking with the brushes and warming up my painting skills after ~15 yrs away from the hobby. My own technique has been similar to the broad ideas from this post: http://massivevoodoo.blogspot.ch/2017/01/tutorial-deathwatch-space-marine.html but you've given me some food for thought, especially about the balance between time invested vs. noticeable improvement.

Basically the following for the armour:

- Prime black

- Drybrush thinned ceramite white in a few light layers to build up zenithal-ish highlights

- Several washes of Nuln oil + Abaddon black, slowly decreasing proportion of Abaddon and increasing focus on the recesses

- Maybe a highlight on the sharp corners with grey (Ulthuan or Fenrisian)... still workin on the fine brush control and whether I want them to look greyish-black or bluish-black.

Here's how they look so far in case you're willing to comment / critique:

(Sorry about the potato camera and hope this isn't considered thread-jacking!)

Edited April 30, 2017 by mjrwaud

[Prot]

Hey Prot when you build your Vets with 1h bolter and sword do you just ignore the combat knife at the hip for loadout and just say the sword is a combat blade?

I'd say the best part is the NMM on the sword.

Thanks. Yup, I pretty much do as you said, and call it a combat blade. Power swords in 7th aren't so hot anyway. But I just wanted to get more dynamic poses and one of the things I like about that sword hand is it allows you to add more colour to the model without taking away from the blacks on the main body.

Thanks for the tips!

I haven't jumped into using an airbrush (yet) so just sticking with the brushes and warming up my painting skills after ~15 yrs away from the hobby. My own technique has been similar to the broad ideas from this post: http://massivevoodoo.blogspot.ch/2017/01/tutorial-deathwatch-space-marine.html but you've given me some food for thought, especially about the balance between time invested vs. noticeable improvement.

Basically the following for the armour:

- Prime black

- Drybrush thinned ceramite white in a few light layers to build up zenithal-ish highlights

- Several washes of Nuln oil + Abaddon black, slowly decreasing proportion of Abaddon and increasing focus on the recesses

- Maybe a highlight on the sharp corners with grey (Ulthuan or Fenrisian)... still workin on the fine brush control and whether I want them to look greyish-black or bluish-black.

Here's how they look so far in case anyone's willing to comment / critique:

(Sorry about the potato camera and hope this isn't threadj-acking!)

Hey potato-cam aside those look great. :)

If I had to pick one change that would make the biggest difference, it would definitely be a brighter base. Those figs would pop off of a brighter base... metallics, brown wasteland, green foilage, rocks... anything to keep the black on top of a colour.

You have a great look going there. The fact you're using bare heads helps a lot. This is one of those armies I try to mix in a lot of bare heads (even though I do prefer helmets). I like that you've done that as well. It's extra work but certainly pays off.

[Silas7]

Yeah I know P-swords are in a lame place between Axes and Claws, but i was curious because I strive to be WYSIWYG as I can and I know how impractical it is/was to slap power weapons on every bolter vet. Maybe 8th will adjust this somewhat.