The Death Watch assemble

So I've got the infantry members of the Death Watch like 95% complete. I can do more work on the paint jobs, highlighting and picking out details, but as far as table top worthy go they are such.

The first Death Watch Squad

The Second Death Watch Squad

The Death Watch Captain

I tried to build each marine to be diverse and different but still part of a unit. That's the big appeal of the Death Watch RPG game. You might have a Dark Angels Marine playing alongside a Space Wolves Marine along side an Iron Hands Iron Father being commanded by an Ultramarine. But they are still a unit. So there are lots of little conversions like the addition of a strap to some bolters, or the use of pieces to give some marines the Marksmans honour. I did something with the paints to mark out each squad. Can you see what it is?

I have decided to expand the force by adding a Dreadnought and probably 2 rhinos. The Dreadnought I've been working on by dipping through my bitz boxes. It sometimes shocks me when I manage to find nearly complete kits in there.

The Dreadnought thus far.

I've followed a similar approach to building the dreadnought with what I did for the infantry, subtle conversions to change the model but not re-design it to be something else. In this case I wanted to give the dread some dynamism and reposed the legs to better adjust to the terrain of the base. It's a bit difficult to see from the front the conversion work on the legs, so here's a different angle of the model:

A side on view of the dread on the base

The base by the way is from Dragon Forge Design's Ancient Ruins series. If you're looking for super high quality bases with fantastic detail I would recommend you check out his sight. I have never been disappointed by his bases.

The Dreadnought is going to be the Dreadnought version of Brother Quintus. Yeah, remember him from way back when? So in order to carry the story of Brother Quintus forward I'm going to arm the Dreadnought with a heavy bolter and explain it as being master crafted so I can play it as being twin-linked. If my opponent raises an issue with Dreads not being able to take Heavy bolters out of the current regular codexes, fine. I'll let it count as an assault cannon.

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The Deathwatch detachment

So I'm continuing to work on the Death Watch Detachment for the upcoming Apoc game. All of the models are at least primed, all but five of them have the silvered arms of the Death Watch armor, and some of them even have the shoulder pads for their chapters painted!

Group 1 of the Death Watch detachment

The Three hands. Get it? Crimson Fist, Iron hand, and Imperial fist.

A crimson fist, an Imperial Fist, and an Ultrmarine

I've also found the parts and pieces to build most of a dreadnought to dd to the Detachment. I might go all out and build an army level Death Watch detachment. Toying with the idea. I'll already have 2 Sternguard squads, a Dreadnought and a Captain. That's a fairly sizable starting core.

Anyway, the Dreadnought. I wanted to keep the Dreadnought in an similar design to the marines so I wanted to add the lettering to the left shoulder guard.

The Death Watch Dreadnought's shoulder guard

Reasonable success I would say. I had to file down the surface enough to leave a slight 'burr' so that the the layer of green stuff had something to adhere to. I then used instant mold to make reliefs of the letters on the various parts of the Venerable dreadnought kit. Using those reliefs I could then press mold the lettering on the shoulder guard. I'll need to add the Inquisitorial sigil to it later. But one step at a time.

As an aside I am putting together an online Death Watch RPG game. If you are reading this and are interested in joining in, drop me a comment with you email address and I'll send you the info for it.

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Iron Clad Dreadnought

So I'm building a new Iron Clad dreadnought for my army. But I've already got one of the GW Iron Clads in my army and I like variety. I've ordered a Forge World Iron Clad as well so that's 2 different models. But the army is going to have 3 Iron Clads. So... what can I do? Simple: Convert one!

So I've got a Space Marine Ven-dread kit from GW that I'm going to convert into an Iron Clad.

The converted Iron Clad so far

I took the more angular armored front section so that it had a flat front and then added the thick strip of Styrene around the gorgette. Took some green stuff, put a base down and attached the piping to it and then added the vent from a Space Marine back pack. The tubes are Dragon Forge designs medium power cables. I built up an armor paneling similar to the Forge World dreadnought style.

The armor panels are sheets of styrene cut and glued. So far I'd say it's off to a good start. 

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New Drop pod for a new list

So I've managed to get a couple games in against a friend and I think I'm getting a better handle on how I'm going to run my Space Marines. I've come up with a 2k list I'm calling the Iron Wind fall.

HQ-
Space Marine Captain on Bike with Relic Blade, HellFire Rounds, Melta Bombs

Troops-
10 man biker unit with a Multi-melta armed Attack Bike

10 man biker unit with a Multi-melta armed Attack Bike

5 Man Scout Squad W/ Telion
-4 Sniper Rifles
-1 Missile Launcher

5 Man Scout Squad

Fast Attack-
2x StormTalon Gunship armed with Skyhammer missile launchers

3x- Landspeeders W/ 2 heavy bolters each

Elite-
3x Iron Clad Dreads with Seismic Hammer and Meltagun, 2 HK missiles and Hurrican Bolters in Drop Pods.

Fortification-
Aegis Defense Line with Icarus Lascannon

My plan is to put the Telion Scout squad in the Aegis defense line, that way I can use Telion to control the Icarus and thus get BS 5 against enemy flyers while his Camo cloak will give the Scouts a better cover save. My biker squads and Captain move forward hitting the enemy in concentration. As the Dreads become available I'll drop those in behind the enemy lines causing a pincer between the bikes and the dreads while the 2nd scout squad follows behind to grab another objective.

At least that's my plan anyway. We'll see if I can actually pull it off.

In the mean time I am building the list. I've already built the Bike Squads, the scouts, one Ironclad and one drop pod. Now I'm working on the second Drop pod.

The base, painted and assembled.

 Thus far I've been working on the internal sections of the drop pod. A solid black base coat followed by a healthy dry brushing of bolt gun metal with a wash of Nuln oil works well as a machine base for the drop pod. I tried to paint the center console like it was glowing red indicating that it was time to deploy. I figure as a drop pod comes smashing down from the sky, the indicators inside it will flash red when it his ground and the marines come charging out.

The upper section of the drop pod.

 I picked out some of the details in the upper engine in Runefang steel and then back and washed those details with nuln oil.

The parts of the new drop pod next to the previous drop pod.

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Hell Brute conversion

I'm going to taking a little brake from the thunderhawk, for a couple reasons. Firstly because I simply don't have the time to commit to it for the next few days. Secondly because I have to wait for several shipments to come in before I do much more. Next step is exploring the electronics part of that particular project. First thing is going to be wiring up a Shadow Sword. I've got the model kit, just waiting for the electronic parts to show up.

In the mean time I'm beginning to rebuild my Chaos Forces, and with the Chaotic contents of 2 Dark Vengeance sets, a squad of Chaos Terminators and a box of Chaos Marines I'd say I'm well on my way. I have to say as far as snap fit models go thes models from the Dark Vengeance set are excellent! I quickly traded the Dark Angels for more chaos models. So now I have 12 Chosen, 40 Cultists, 2 lords, and 2 Hell brutes. The Cultists I don't have any particular plans for converting. The Chosen I'm looking at for conversion possibilities and likewise for the lord. The HellBrute however... I've already got plans for him and have begun on it.

Got it all cut up, and ready to be rebuilt.

I've going to re-possition the entire model so that the Brute is smashing it's fist into the ground and rather then being armed with a Multi-melta it'll be armed with a Twin Linked lascannon. So you can see I've busted the major components of the model up good and proper and already set to work on the arm. To further differentiate this from the run of the mill Hellbrute I'm also going to changing a lot of smaller details. Rebuilding the arm with different details, changing the head. Removing the chest tendrils and replacing them with deterioration marks.

So, I've got the fingers on the fist cut and repositioned.

I mentioned I was going to replace the head with another one. I was originally going to use a screaming zombie head, but I couldn't find one in my bitz box. Which of course means it'll turn up right after I finish the model.

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