Emperor's Spears! WiP Army Log

[Rathamanti]

Looking great, how did the games go?

As usual I lost; I’m a horrible player... but nothing can go wrong with a Knight and Guilliman, I’m sure...

Edited October 30, 2017 by Rathamanti

[Rathamanti]

My wife, daughter and I have just moved, so I haven’t done a lot of hobbying the last month. Good news is we moved to a small house, so I have finally realised one of my biggest dreams: a hobby room of my own!

 

 

I thought a squad of Custodes would be a festive first painting project. I know they probably doesn’t fit at all in my Emperor’s Spears army, lorewise, but I like the models, and I tried to make them fit in by painting spear-blue accents wherever I could. I went through several different colour schemes only to end up with a pretty traditional one...

 

Edited December 2, 2017 by Rathamanti

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Good job on the Custodes.

[Pulse]

You are an inspiration, it has been a while indeed, so pumped that ADB replied and gave you some valuable information as well!

 

Good to see you back!

[Brother Callidan]

Good to see you back. I was thinking that it has been awhile since I seen some of your work the other day. Your gold is looking awesome man great job. And congratulations on the hobby room

[The Mad Hermit]

Brilliant work.

 

All of it is top notch.

 

I am in love with that Knight.

[Rathamanti]

Thank you all for the kind words; it’s really appreciated and motivating!

 

And finally, the Knight is done, I think?! It is magnetised to be able to use all weapon combinations, but I have only finished the crusader version, since I need that one for a game tomorrow.

 

I hope you like it. It took way to much of my time :)

 

And again, the empty blue spots are for Spears chapter badges. Still haven’t found out whether the badge is a black trident with a white skull or just a black trident. Aaron?

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 8, 2017 by Rathamanti

[The Mad Hermit]

I love that blue.

 

Forgot to mention that the other day.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

The Knight looks great! As for his badge, I think you should pair the skull with a trident- the skull alone will look passé. Just justify the trident as a sign the Knight mastered [insert three skills of your choice], the way the trident on US Navy SEALs unit insignia is a sign they mastered operations on sea, air, and land. Edited December 9, 2017 by Bjorn Firewalker

[Rathamanti]

The Knight looks great! As for his badge, I think you should pair the skull with a trident- the skull alone will look passé. Just justify the trident as a sign the Knight mastered [insert three skills of your choice], the way the trident on US Navy SEALs unit insignia is a sign they mastered operations on sea, air, and land.

Thank you! The Knight is bedecked in official Emperor’s Spears-colours and icons. Aaron said I could! Unless GW miracously begins offering print-on-demand decalsheets, I will have some made including knightly-sized tridents.

 

My confusion about the skull comes from the 40k wiki, where two different versions of the spear badge exist. One with a small white skull in the middle, one without. Both are mainly a black trident, though.

Edited December 9, 2017 by Rathamanti

[Elzender]

Considering skulls are a quite common symbol in the Imperium armies, I think you could go for the skull and trident. If it turns out that the official symbol is the trident alone, you could justify the skull as a mark of a specific campaign where the knight slayed a monstruous creature or walker and earned thus the Spears recognition.

[obsidian quacker]

That is a very nice clean blue on the night and the custode shoulderpads. I'm not too sure on how much the custodes can vary in colour but they do look nicely different from what I've seen.

[SkimaskMohawk]

Really love all the primaris, counts as guilliman and knight. Really nice and clean paint job and the blue isn't overpowering. Only thing I'm not the biggest fan of is the blue on the custodes. Maybe it's how it looks with the red

[Rathamanti]

A D-B on FB:

 

A word on research, as I reach the last lap on SPEAR OF THE EMPEROR:

 

The theme/vibe/central conceit of this novel is: "What is it like to be a human in the presence of Space Marines?" To live every day surrounded by that impossible focus, mindset, and insane physicality.

 

Over the course of this novel I've talked to firefighters, cops, soldiers, scientists, a priest, a doctor, a paramedic, a pilot, and a prison guard. I also drew on a bunch of stories once told to me by a deck gunner on the HMS Belfast.

 

I want to say I hope all of this shows in the final novel, sure. But it's so humbling to hear these perspectives and memories offered up with such emotion and clarity. I've never been on a sinking ship, but I bloody well feel like I have, after hearing about in such scary detail.

 

You sort of just... assume stuff, especially because of exposure to movies. You assume you know what you'd do in a burning building, and what it would be like. Then people with experience tell you the real deal, and it looks, feels, and sounds like nothing you thought you knew.

 

The same with a baby that stops breathing as soon as it's born. You know the fear from imagining the worst when your own kids were born; you know what a doctor can do to fix it. But the emotion. The minutiae. The options. The feeling of doing it in front of panicking parents.

 

I worked in a bar in my late-teens / early 20s, where several of the regulars were WW2 vets. PoWs who'd spent time in Japanese camps, describing their treatment. The aforementioned HMS Belfast deck gunner, talking about the sound, feel, and smell of the guns.

 

This book is personal, maybe because of there being so many of people's memories and experiences in it, and how I tried to do them justice. I don't pretend it'll be perfect and awesome - it's not about famous characters or grand events. But it's been a weirdly personal journey.

[Arendious]

Rathamanti - I noticed you asked about an in-universe rationale for an affiliated Knight being painted in the chapter colors, but I didn't see anyone answering yet while I skimmed the thread. I've noted that it's fairly common for Legions and Chapters to "adopt" things like tanks, robots, etc. (And honestly, it's not unheard of today.)

So, given the long service of your Knight alongside the Spears, it would entirely reasonable for the chapter to have "inducted" the Knight itself as a chapter-member and therefore expected (or allowed) to wear the chapter colors. 

[Rathamanti]

Rathamanti - I noticed you asked about an in-universe rationale for an affiliated Knight being painted in the chapter colors, but I didn't see anyone answering yet while I skimmed the thread. I've noted that it's fairly common for Legions and Chapters to "adopt" things like tanks, robots, etc. (And honestly, it's not unheard of today.)

 

So, given the long service of your Knight alongside the Spears, it would entirely reasonable for the chapter to have "inducted" the Knight itself as a chapter-member and therefore expected (or allowed) to wear the chapter colors.

Thanks for the tip! I certainly think this will be my excuse :)

[Rathamanti]

Really love all the primaris, counts as guilliman and knight. Really nice and clean paint job and the blue isn't overpowering. Only thing I'm not the biggest fan of is the blue on the custodes. Maybe it's how it looks with the red

I see what you mean, but I couldn’t for he life of me get another topknot colour to work than red. And I wanted as much blue as possible to tie them in with my spears. I am not to fussed though; I do not plan on adding more Custodes at the moment. Just needed a little break from baby blue...

That is a very nice clean blue on the night and the custode shoulderpads. I'm not too sure on how much the custodes can vary in colour but they do look nicely different from what I've seen.

Thank you! I’ve only seen all-gold and all-black when it comes to official custodes schemes, but I’m a rebel...!

[Kelborn]

It's been a while since I last checked your project.

 

Really inspiring work! Well done is not enough for your effort.

 

Awesome that you are working with A D-B. It is a very good example of everyone of us being part of a greater community.

No separation between fans and authors. Only common Fraters. :)

 

Would love to see more authors joining the communities. But hey, I can understand their abscence as well. ;)

[Rathamanti]

It's been a while since I last checked your project.

 

Really inspiring work! Well done is not enough for your effort.

 

Awesome that you are working with A D-B. It is a very good example of everyone of us being part of a greater community.

No separation between fans and authors. Only common Fraters. :)

 

Would love to see more authors joining the communities. But hey, I can understand their abscence as well. ;)

Thank you! The positive comments really means a lot, and they’re very motivating!

 

I wouldn’t call it “working with A D-B”. More like him throwing me large chunks of delicious pieces of rump steak that I decidedly do not deserve. But it is of course very kind of him!

 

I have a silly demon themed tournament thing going on i February for which I need a 1000 point list of Khârn leading a bunch of Khorne demons (I love Berzerkers but not their models), but hopefully they’ll be done relatively quick so I can get back to the spears. Next up will be some Hellblasters I think, and I really need to look into decals (when we finally find out whether the spear badge has a skull or not on the holy trident).

Edited December 28, 2017 by Rathamanti

[Rathamanti]

The baby is quite time consuming, so painting is a little slow at the moment.

 

I was tempted enough by the new Custodes to buy some Jetbikes, but after my first mono-Custodes 750 point battle, I immediately missed my spears.

 

We are starting a kind of escalation league in our local club, so ideas for 750, 1000 and 1250 point lists would be appreciated. Imperial soup including a large portion of spears! I am not really a huge fan of the gun line with Guilliman. Has anybody got any experience with melee focused vanilla marine lists?

 

Actually, I would prefer to only use marines, Custodes and sometimes my Knight. I would like to keep it pretty elite - no IG...

 

Edited February 15, 2018 by Rathamanti

[Panzer]

Still love seeing your spears. The blue is so nice!

[Rathamanti]

Still love seeing your spears. The blue is so nice!

Thank you! I hope I’ll manage to increase my painting tempo, and my local club’s escalation league should help with that. At least 250 points per month! I’ll go with Ultramarines, but I keep having naughty wet dreams about ‘Spear of the Emperor’ revealing, that the parent legion of the spears is Space Wolves or another exotic legion... But I still love the clean and orderly ‘standard’ marines, so I think I’ll be happy no matter what A S-B has chosen to do. At least I’m happy that I chose to model my own Primarch (well, three marines in a 60mm base), so I’m ready no matter who’s the father to my toy soldiers...

 

I accidentally bought three Custodes Jetbikes (damn you, 'Master of Mankind'), so now these three Vertus Praetors from the Aquilan Shield have arrived to protect my bumbling Spears Captain that keeps loosing every battle he partakes in...

 

 

Next project is these five Hellblasters.

 

Edited February 17, 2018 by Rathamanti

[Panzer]

Any idea for the plasma coils? I imagine the traditional blue wouldn't work as well with your colour scheme due being so similar.

[Rathamanti]

Any idea for the plasma coils? I imagine the traditional blue wouldn't work as well with your colour scheme due being so similar.

The plan at the moment is to paint the coils the same way as the energy on the power weapons (green-blue). I hope the big guns adds sufficiently large areas of black and silver to work as separators of baby blue and turquoise.

 

What colour would you suggest?

 

In any case, the first thing I’ll do after the first test is to post it here to get you guys opinion.

[Dantay VI]

What about purple for the plasma coils?

 

Custodes look great