Showing posts with label dark angels. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dark angels. Show all posts

Monday, June 15, 2015

quick "in progress" paint update

Been spending some time on these, so I decided to post up some pics - they aren't the greatest but at least show I have not been idle. I have broken out the ravenwing into 5 chunks of effort.  I still plan to put these on a display base as I think it will really make them look fantastic.  Next up I have 5 ravenwing black knights and a bike mounted chaplain already on the painting table.
squad 1 (flamers)
Chunk 1 is a ravenwing squad and a bike mounted techmarine.  They are complete as far as I intend to take the entire army at this point - which is one level of highlight for everything bar the bike line highlights (bikes get two) and characters will get an extra level of highlight for their "colour" (ie. red for techmarine) and coats of nuln oil which I am really pleased in terms of it's type of "dirtiness" - which suits the bikes well.
techmarine
What I have left out is the headlights and screens.  I think some OSL will look really good on them but want to get them to a playable point.  With a new DA codex dropping sometime within a month or so, it might be nice to get a game with them or even (gasp!) take them to astronomi-con (don't mention to SWMBO!). If that doesn't happen I could also consider selling them off at that point, need to see if any final stuff should be added to the army or not.

Sunday, January 27, 2013

Ravenwing Week - last day

Call it 5 or 7, this will be the last post about the ravenwing until I either start painting or sort out the bases/display base.  I plan to use the laser cutter like I did for my goblin team, but with a basic plywood sheet.  The bikes bases will be a very simple dirt mix.  Just a couple final pics because I hope you find them interesting.
black knight grenade launcher
I've just used some scout bike grenade launchers bits for my ravenwing black knights.  I do like the new grenade launcher bits but I probably won't be dropping $60 on 3 bikes plus bits.  I'll need to score one more set of these bits to fix up a couple more bikes.
stripping station
Here is my stripping station.  It's an old brita water filter tub, which I filled with simple green.  The aquarium pump I will leave running for several hours at a time when I am sitting in the hobby room.  Keeping the simple green circulating helps with stripping the figures I find.  Still takes a few rounds of scrubbing with a toothbrush, especially depending on what paint was used.

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Ravenwing Week - day 4.. I mean uh.. 6?

Sorry for the delay, got caught up and didn't have any photos of the standard bikers.  I still need to get three sergeants done as well as a couple more basic marines on bikes to bulk up the flamer squad.  I did rip off the basic front flaring from the attack bikes I picked up and replaced them with the feathered ravenwing flarings. I've got a bunch more bikes sitting in simple green to strip the old paint off them.

I'm just going to show off some of the dark vengeance bikers I plan to keep using as standard ravenwing assault squads.  A friend convinced me with a bunch of plasma on the black knights which includes twin-linked (thereby decreasing their chances off taking "gets hot" wounds from 16.7% to 2.8%) that I should include some more melta in the list to have a better chance to deal with vehicles.  So I have 2 squads with 2 meltaguns and 1 squad with 2 flamers.  I have converted a few of the plasmagun wielding bikers to flamers/meltaguns and mixed it up a bit converting a bolt pistol biker to meltagun and plasmagun biker to bolt pistol to mix up the poses a bit.
squad with meltas
Am not sure how I plan to show sergeants for my standard bikers.  All the robed bodies will be my black knights/command squad members, so am debating a simple red stripe on the helmet or even a full red helmet to distinguish the sergeant.  This differs from the usual dark angels paint scheme but I don't think I mind that much, it will be nice to have some differences from everyone elses ravenwing.  I am keeping the sergeants arms pretty basic, though they will all have melta bombs (even though they have hit & run, they could still fail their initiative check if I don't have the ravenwing banner) so this should ensure they can do damage to things like dreadnoughts and not (frequently) get stuck in combat.
squad with flamers
I saw some nicely painted ravenwing the other day - am not a fan of the green bike body for standard bikers, but I did like that he used green for the feathered flarings and such.  Am debating doing something similar with red to make my ravenwing look a bit different. Thoughts?

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Ravenwing Week - day 3

For today I am going to post a few black knight conversions.  With the new dark vengeance box having a sweet set of ravenwing bikers, there was no way I was going to pay $60 for 3 black knights.  I knew this before I even knew the price!!  Through trading and some purchasing off bartertown ($11 a set of 3!) I have 6 sets of DV ravenwing.  Some will be actual standard bike squads but most of the sergeants will be converted into black knights - simply by chopping the barrel off their bolters and cutting out a rectangular piece from the bottom of a bunch of plasma pistols and gluing them on top.  These are the first three I've converted.
banner guy, will leave hole open for a banner or a corvus hammer
First one I was debating between making him a command squad standard bearer or using my cheapo corvus hammer conversion from the ravenwing feathered banners.  I've been reliably told that using that as a corvus hammer looked like crap so I am going to revert to him being the banner.  I haven't glue the weapon so I will just make a few banner poles.  I am debating how to do the banner, currently I'm thinking of printing something out on sticker paper (and also debating having a plain white space to write what banner it is) - thoughts?
using the dark vengeance captain helmet
Second one I started to convert a basic "captain on bike" for which I used the captains helmet from the DV figure.  Unfortunately dark angels can't take a standard captain on a bike, so I proceeded to convert his bikes weapons to plasma talons as well so he can at least be a ravenwing captain/huntsmaster.  Using the helmet worked really well, and I just used a robed body from the ravenwing sprue mounted on a DV sergeant bike with robed legs.  Will need some green stuff to fill in gaps, but he looks really good IMO.
dark vengeance sergeant converted to black knight
Third one will just be a standard black knight, whatever I end up finding to use as corvus hammers will probably just get glued onto the bikes siding somewhere with some simple straps made of plasticard or
something.  I don't want every black knight to be wielding the corvus hammer, might make it awkward to get into tight spaces.

Does anyone have any suggestions for suitable "pick" like weapons to use as the corvus hammers?  Only requirement is that they be plastic.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Ravenwing Week - day 2


Here's a character model I decided to build just because I wanted one.  I especially don't see any issue since a techmarine doesn't take up an HQ slot, you are allowed to purchase for for every HQ you purchase (barring command squads) so he's easy to include as long as points are available. He also has access to special issue wargear which is very interesting. There's also no option for artificer armour in special issue wargear so barring 3 special characters he is the only other 2+ save and is the only one who can be customized.  He does only have 1 wound, but considering he's on a bike (in my army at least) that's T5/2+, he could be better equiped to withstand being rapid fired to death.

To build him, I took a torso from the standard rhino vehicle sprue, and used standard biker legs, along with the techmarine helmet from the ravenwing sprue and a couple shoulder pads with mechanicum icons.  This was all pretty standard and still has me contemplating adding some more "techno-bling" to his armour - maybe with some thin plastic card.  Opinions?  His armour does look pretty basic.
view from left, some decent mechanicum icons, but armour is very flat
The cool/fun part of modeling this guy was converting a servo-arm backpack out of plastic bits.  Thankfully I had remembered to bookmark an excellent tutorial posted by Mike (devised by a second Mike) over at Constantly Risking Obscurity. It involved using a backpack, 2 flamers and 2 combat knives which would result in one servo-arm backpack and a couple hand flamers. As I started to work my way through the tutorial, I found a melta bomb and thought it would make a good replacement for the fuel canister from a flamer.  So then I figured I could avoid chopping up a second flamer if I could find something else to replace the second "arm" portion. So I plucked the landspeeder antenna bit from a ravenwing sprue and voila - servo arm complete and only one flamer chopped up.  It's also nice that the two arm pieces look different.
plastic servo-arm goodness
Finally, as I was assembling all the pieces into the final model, I was debating what to put in his hand, I didn't want to arm him with anything that cost points so if need be he can be as basic as possible.  A bolt pistol wasn't filling me with excitement though.  While reading through the new FAQ, I spotted that he technically was also armed with a boltgun, so upon review of the wargear list I saw I could replace that for free with a chainsword.  Chainsword it is!!
view from right side
If anyone is planning to run a techmarine on bike in their Dark Angels list, please share what your thoughts are.  Do you plan to use him as a roving repairman? Just a 2+ save ablative wound for a ravenwing command squad?

Monday, January 21, 2013

Ravenwing Week - day 1

Just for fun I've decided to put up a bunch of posts about my modeling of my ravenwing army this week. Since posting helps keep me motivated and there are a number of items I would love some comments/feedback on, I thought why the hell not.

So first up is my Librarian on Bike.  Dark Angel librarians have already been earmarked as a great HQ choice in the new codex; they have the standard 2A/2W (+ force weapon/psychic hood obviously), but are only 65 points base compared to 100 points for vanilla marines and an additional mastery level is only 35 points compared to 50.  This is quite a lot for very little points.
right side, I really like the book mounted on the front
Basically I chopped up the Dv librarian figure to just use the torso & sword arm.  I cut off his "casting" arm and replaced it with a bike/handlebar arm.  I glued him onto a bike with a set of robed legs, and then I mounted the big book from the ravenwing sprue on the front of the bike, and used some rope bits I cut off some decorative pieces from the same sprue to complete the "securing" of the book to the bike.  I really like how this looks.  I also glued on an auspex since of anyone who I want to give up their shooting attack to use the auspex, it's him.

The best "value" that was immediately touted around the internet is taking the divination disciplines primaris power: prescience.  Most people are looking at this as a way to add twin linked to giant IG squads through allies, and I can definitely see that benefit, but for my ravenwing army, pretty much every weapon - except for a few special weapons in standard bike squads and the multi-meltas on attack bikes - already has twin linked so I don't see that as being very strong in this list.  I have absolutely zero experience with the new psychic system though, so am looking for a bit of help.
left side, shows the force sword arm from the DV fig
I have been considering adding the mastery level (with bike a total of 120 points) giving me 2 chances to score the telepathy power "invisibility".  Combined with the Jink skill on a large block of ravenwing black knights, they would get a 2+ cover save without even requiring a turbo-boost! The telepathy primaris power "psychic shriek" is pretty decent and I would definitely take it over "mental fortitude" or "terrify".

Does anyone have any suggestions for better powers to combine with a large squad of black knights?  Especially something to add some protection?  Or, say I do manage to score "invisibility" with my first
power roll, is there a different discipline you would suggest I am to get the second power from?

Saturday, December 29, 2007

Dark Angels (Ravenwing)

army value: 2,300 points
background: n/a
condition: 14/48 models complete tabletop standard (29%)
record: 0/0/0 w/d/l
awards; none
related links;
army composition;
Sammael
Chaplain on Bike
Librarian on Bike
Techmarine on Bike
Command Squad (Champion, Apothecary, Standard)
8 Black Knights
Bike Squad (Sergeant, 2 Flamers, 3 Bikes)
Bike Squad (Sergeant, 2 Graviton Guns, 3 Bikes)
2 Bike Squads (Sergeant, 2 Meltaguns, 3 Bikes)
Attack Bike Squad (3 Multi-meltas)
Landspeeder Squadron (3 Assault Cannon & Heavy Bolter)
Landspeeder (Heavy Bolter x2)
Dark Shroud (Heavy Bolter)
Nephilim

to-do;

* paint sammael
* finish painting librarian
* finish painting meltagun bike squad
* paint meltagun bike squad
* assemble & paint graviton gun bike squad
* paint attack bikes
* paint landspeeders
* assemble & paint dark shroud
* assemble & paint nephilim

painting chart;
12-29-2015

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