This has been a pretty damn productive week for hobby time. This post is gonna have it all: Painting, conversions, fluff, workspace! Lets not dilly dally any further with introductions and jump right into it.
To begin with, I promised I would paint some Centurions. This promise has been 80% kept.
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| BAM! |
For instance, a lot of the exoskeleton that is just beneath his armor plating gets covered up with, well, armor plates.
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| The Man Inside Me |
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| Where dem pistons go at? |
I did the extra smart thing and did a color guide to figure my shit out before ruining a model.
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| You can see how dumb these things start out |
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| Knuckle sammich, anybody? |
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| Brush yo shouldas off |
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| Work that. |
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| Where my guns at? |
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| Hullo. |
I probably could have gotten it done this week if I wasn't so distracted by my favorite thing: building models! But who cares? Its all progress, baby.
Up first: Grav Gun Marine.
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| Mine's bigger than GW's. |
I'm furious that the marines have a dope new special weapon option this edition and that I have in excess of 100 space marines sitting around unpainted or waiting to be built. I cannot justify buying a new box of marines for one gun. Instead, I'm representing these weapons with the tesla cannon bits produced by Max Mini.
I think its a pretty good looking substitute and I can justify it with my Chapter's fluff (more on this further down). The only problem is that it is such a pain in the ass to get a model to hold the damn thing! I had to do quite a bit of arm repositioning and to get it to sit.
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| Sup now? |
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| I got grips. |
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| God help me if this breaks off. |
It doesn't help that this model literally shattered into every component piece as I was trying to do all these crazy adjustments. I think I got this one as a bits trade a while back. Either I or its original owner attempted to plastic glue it together after it was primed. This does not work. I'm back on super glue and nothing will ever change that again.
Anywho, I got to play with one of my new tools this week while building this dude. I used my Tentacle Maker by Green Stuff Industries to create the ribbing between the adjusted arms and torso.
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| Underwhelming in appearance, invaluable as a tool. |
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| Little teeth. |
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| Textured. |
I made these little texture pads, cut them to the right shape and applied them between the arms and torso. I had already slightly filled the area with green stuff.
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| Texture applied to the left |
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| All textured out. |
I made them a little small so I had to use a few pieces to cover the area's height. It wasn't to hard to fill the gaps and make one smooth piece.
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| All that for just a peak. |
That was a super fun model to make and a great use of the tentacle maker but I know what you're thinking: Where the tentacles at!?
Onto the good stuff:
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| Sup. |
My Captain got the full tentacle maker treatment as well as a bunch of cosmetic and functional upgrades from the last build I made. I previously had some old guitar string I was using for cabling on this model. I couldn't stand looking at it any more so I ripped them out and added in these dope new cables. I'm really impressed with the different looks I got with this one tool.
You can also see I set him up a new bionic leg and some magnets so I can load him out with different toys.
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| No pits, just chesty. |
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| A purely cosmetic faux Techmarine servo arm/pack. |
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| Cabled out since Cub Scouts. |
I ended up retooling his lightning claw arms to magnetize and added in cabling to make them look more complete.
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| "You there, boy in the street!" |
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| To the window. |
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| Back it up. |
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| To the wall. |
I also made a new set of arms for when the gloves come off. Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield, I summon thee!
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| Behold: Face Wrecker, Wrecker of Faces. |
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| "I got this." |
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| Coteaz aint gon' need dis. |
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| Shielded. |
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| Arms back, chest forward. |
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| Wepz. |
I'm super pleased with how he cam out. I can't wait to paint him.
Lastly, I worked a little on the fluff side of this army. As I may have mentioned, I started the idea for this army 2 codices ago when the Chapter Traits system was still a thing. I was using one called "Scions of Mars" which has now effectively been rolled into the Master of the Forge's special rules. In broad terms, it puts emphasis on the war machine side of the Marines list.
I've always loved the tech cult/mechanicum lore and iconography in 40k. I also love the Techmarine models and dreadnoughts and heavily armed/armored troopers as well. I wanted to build a chapter centered around these ideals and models while telling a story with the army.
I started digging into the character of the army by creating a chapter name and badge. I give you the Red Scholars chapter icon:
And of course, some quality fluff:
Founding
Hundreds of thousands of years of human innovation and knowledge have been cast to every corner of the galaxy, buried beneath the sands of time and the fallout of war. Between Old Night isolating man from each other and the Horus Heresy nearly causing the Imperium to devour itself, incalculable amounts of technological power have simply disappeared from our collective minds. Through the Red Scholars, the Mechanicum hopes to restore mankind to its lost technological superiority thereby securing our place above all other races among the stars.
The Red Scholars' founding was a clandestine representation of the bond between the Adeptus Mechanicus and Iron Hands Space Marines. The Iron Council in concert with the highest Magos of Mars forged a chapter of Marines with the express purpose of acquiring and securing mankind's scattered technological secrets. By pairing the superior arms and closely guarded secrets of Mars with the indomitable might of the Space Marines, the Red Scholars are the perfect soldiers to undergo this quest.
The Red Scholars' founding was a clandestine representation of the bond between the Adeptus Mechanicus and Iron Hands Space Marines. The Iron Council in concert with the highest Magos of Mars forged a chapter of Marines with the express purpose of acquiring and securing mankind's scattered technological secrets. By pairing the superior arms and closely guarded secrets of Mars with the indomitable might of the Space Marines, the Red Scholars are the perfect soldiers to undergo this quest.
To carry out this mission, the Red Scholars were founded with gene stock of the Iron Hands' most skilled artificers. Their aspirants were taken from only the acclaimed clan foundries and forges of Medusa. After the initial founding, Red Scholars Forgefathers and Apothecaries also select aspirants from Mars and other prominent Forge Worlds. By employing such great minds of metal, the Red Scholars hunt down and decipher technologies that have not been in use for millennia.
The Path of the Scholar
Red Scholars also seek machine perfection in their bodies as well as their minds. The Forgefathers of the Red Scholars share the belief in the weakness of flesh with their parent chapter. They consider the grueling and often lethal process of becoming a Marine only the first iteration of becoming an ideal weapon. But just as steel must be heated and tempered lest is shatter, so too must the marine be slowly melded into something just as unbreakable.
Upon acceptance into the chapter, Red Scholar marines are given the rank of Apprentice. They prove their mettle and cold, calculating battle mind by performing forward operations and covert missions to locate and secure tactical objectives. They are also used as long range support as they have yet to undergo the augmentations that would put them on par with fully indoctrinated marines.
The core of the chapter is formed by the Journeymen. The art of Space Marine Augmentation was a dual effort between the Mechanicum and Forgefathers to create machinery that enhances the near-perfect trans-human physiology of Marines. After surviving the Apprentice program, Red Scholar Marines are given their first round of battle augmetics. Often these are simple augmentations of limbs or sensory organs like eyes and ears. Over time, the Journeyman is expected to continue modifying his body, replacing his weak flesh inch by inch with designs of his own devising.
Once a Red Scholar has achieved an 80% augmetic form, they enter the brotherhood of the Twice Forged. They perform all further self augmentation under the tutelage of the chapter's Forgefathers. They are slowly taught greater and deeper secrets left from the dark age of technology. If he survives the compulsory 100 years of service as Twice Forged, the Journeyman will now be forever encased in his power armor as what little organic components he has have now been fully integrated in the suit.
Those of the Twice Forged whose minds can visualize the schematics of battle are raised to the rank of Master. Although this is a lesser honor than that of Forgefather, Masters still hold a great deal of influence in the Chapters macro goals. Although their directives stem from the Forgefathers quests for technological secrets, Masters are allowed full autonomy in execution of their wars. They are given access to the chapter's full strength of arms and technology to aid them in their mission.
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And thats all I've gotten down so far. There is a lot more to flesh out but I'm excited with the Chapter's origins so far. I'm hoping to incorporate more references to the lore in the miniatures as I progress through the army.
Oh, before I forget, I too have a new hobby workstation, Steve!
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| The Anvil and Forge. Just came up with those right now but they're totally officially called that. |
Man thats a lot of hobby for one post! Before this gets any longer, here are my goals for this week then thats it, dammit.
1. Finish Centurion 1's weapons.
2. Paint Centurion 2 and weapons.
3. Finish bases and prime my new Tac Squad.
Those Centurions are a lot of work but hopefully they'll go faster now that I have the process down.
...And its another technically Monday post. Screw it, my official posting day is Monday now.
