All posts tagged: troops

Mentor Legion Scout Squad for Combat

Mentor Legion Combat Scout Squad

Published by Joe B

So the scout squad has been sitting around waiting for pictures for a few weeks now, so its about time I post them up here. I present the finished combat scout squad for my Mentor Legion, armed with bolters, bolt pistols, and of course a big-arse heavy bolter. The are meant to support the sniper squad and provide a bit more mass to an otherwise small Mentors army. You can check out the WIP shots here if you like, but since then I have managed to finish the highlights, weathering, and a good deal of gore – well more so on the combat guys further down. The first half of the squad is to add a bit of mobile fire power with their bolters and the infernal bolts blasted out by the heavy bolter. Plenty of gear for these guys, and a couple of extra ammo packs for the heavy. The combat squad received an extra bit of gore as I figured these guys would be the midst of it and haven’t showered in a few …

Mentor Legion Scout Squad WIP Squad

Mentor Legion Scout Squad WIP

Published by Joe B

As I mentioned in my last post when I finished my Librarius squad, I plan to mix in ‘required’ painting with the fun projects. As the librarians were my fun conversion, I am working on finishing my Mentors Scout Squad as my required choice. I had these guys nearly base coated a long while back and decided they would be a great unit to finally finish. While scout squads are not everybody’s cup of tea, I like the diverse look they bring to the Space Marine armies, especially since I tend to always put helmets on my Mentors (they are smart guys after all). Unlike my other scout squad which was armed as snipers, this squad was built for close up action with half armed with close combat weapons and the other half with bolters. The idea was that I could combat-squad them into a ‘hold position and shot’ squad, and a ‘take out the soft targets’ squad. As with the sniper squad, I am keeping the colors a bit more muted than my traditional Mentors, …

Tyranid Hormaguants

Tyranid Hormagaunts of Hive Fleet Behemoth

Published by Joe B

After finishing the Warriors brood, I realized that I didn’t have any pictures of the Tyranid Hormagaunts that so feverishly leap forward into the enemy. Obviously this isn’t run as a single brood, but rather two smaller ones, but I just lumped them together for the pictures. The actual models make up a combination of an old army box and a pile of sprues that I had given my brother in law. He then mashed up as many bodies and arms as he could assemble from the old bits so some of the Hormagaunts are actual Termigant bodies or Genestealer arms. The difficulty with the leaping forward nature of the Tyranid Hormagaunts is that they tend to tip over at the slightest breeze. To prevent this as much as possible, we glued down layers of washer both under the base as well as on the top of some of them. The ones on top then got covered with thick layers of sand to hide them. Overall this made the models much more stable. You may have noticed …

Traitor Guard Veteran Squad Sarg Harker

Traitor Guard Veteran Squad

Published by Joe B

Next up in my picture re-take experience is my Traitor Guard Veteran Squad. I really wanted to make these guys stand out a bit from the standard traitors so I added a number of extra bits, conversions, and mutations to the group. The bits includes an array of parts from the Cadian and Catachan Imperial Guard kits, the ever wonderful Flagellant kit, and Chaos Marauders. I also used a good deal of Green Stuff to add mutations including a complete new arm to hold one of the Catachan blades. Some of the conversions were subtle, such as the extra tentacle on the first snipers trigger finger while others were a bit crazier, such as the eye-stalk head. Ever squad of note needs a fancy banner to guide them and encourage the troops. While not a real upgrade for veteran squads, it looks so darn cool I had to find a place for it somewhere. His sword army I actually think comes from the Zombie box, so now I’m up to 5 product lines. For the …

Hive Fleet Behemoth Broodlord

Tutorial: How to Paint A Broodlord from Hive Fleet Behemoth

Published by Joe B

So after a good reception of my tutorial on painting a Hive Fleet Behemoth Carnifex, I’ve put together how I painted the Broodlord from the Shield of Baal box. My goal with these tutorials is two fold: first to document how I painted the model so I can repeat it for additional units in the army, and second, is to give back to the community. I’ve learned so much from my fellow bloggers that I want to contribute my little piece to the greater whole. So if you are looking to paint up a Behemoth swarm, or just looking for ideas/inspiration for your own army, check out the steps below and see how straight forward it is to paint a decent looking army. Broodlord Step 1 – Primer The first step I have been doing with all my models is a two-stage primer. First I give it a nice coating of black followed by an top over-spray of white. The black undercoat provides a first level of shadows, any time I have tried to prime just …

Tyranid Warriors Banner

Tyranid Warriors of Hive Fleet Behemoth

Published by Joe B

Next up from the Deathstorm box is the three Tyranid Warriors. This is the second Tyranid Warriors brood that I’ve painted, with the first being armed with scything talons and death spitters, I decided to give this squad a venom cannon and devourers for shooting, and bone swords and lash whips for close range. I really like the new Tyranid Warriors kit with all the great weapon options, it was actually a bit difficult to decide on what to go with. I liked the idea of the bone swords for marine killingness and the lash whips give an interesting look as well. The devourers were just because they looked cool and were different from the death spitters in the other squad. I based these just like the Carnifex, using bark to add some rock formations and leaving bare spots on the base for water areas. I think it adds a nice green organic contrast to the alien blue and red. It also helped that the bases used in the Deathstorm box were a bit bigger than the typical …

Tyranid Ripper Swarm

Tyranid Rippers for Hive Fleet Behemoth

Published by Joe B

Just because they are small, tinny, bitey things don’t make them less scary en masse. Today I add some Tyranid Ripper Swarms to the growing hive fleet. I love the fact that these guys come on the various sprues because buying a box of just rippers would be a bit lame to open and ‘assemble.’ Having them as a freebie gives a nice surprise instead! For the coloring on these guys, I purposely left the red a bit darker except for the face to help emphasize it a bit more. I left the extreme blue contrast through which helps brighten up the otherwise dark mass. While only three ripper bases may not accomplish much in a game, since they come in each gaunt box they will continue to grow as the horde expands to consume the universe!

Tyranid Warrior of Behemoth

Tyranid Warrior Brood

Published by Joe B

Ok so that teaser post was a while back now, blame it on Real Life ™. But anyway, here are some more units for Hive Fleet Behemoth, this time a (now old) Tyranid Warrior Brood to lead the little gaunts into battle. Each is armed with the classic scything and death spitters to give a well rounded battle field role of longish range shooting with an extra attack in close combat. While the lack of the special weapon gives it a lack of punch, it also helps cut down on the point cost – which makes this a great throw-away leader unit if needed. This is one of my favorite aspects of the Tyranids, in that you can see the hunger and drive in each of the units. From the snarling faces to the forward lunge it is clear they are trying hard to get forward into the enemy. This view shows the contrast between the deep, smooth(ish) red and the high-contrast blue of the carapace. I really wanted an army that sticks out from the table top …

Mentor Legion Scout Squad with Sniper Rifles

Mentor Legion Scouts with Snipers

Published by Joe B

Finally finished off another Mentor Legion squad – holidays were a bit busy! This time it is a scout squad equipped with sniper rifles and camo cloaks. These were a good diversion from full power armour; the cloth and flesh were a nice change up. I kept the colors a bit more muted than their full brethren figuring they wouldn’t want to stick out too much as they did their scout thing. They followed my normal painting flow: base coat, devlan mud everything, highlight. The Mentor Legionnaires I do two layers of green and three white, but to keep the scouts muted I did a single highlight. The “white” comes out more tan colored, but still fitting with the rest of the army. To add a bit more interest to the large cloaks I did a simple camo pattern using the stippling brush. It consisted of light green, light ochre, and off white, finished off with another layer of devlan mud wash. I’m happy with how they turned out – especially with how simple it …

Mentor Legion 2nd Company Squad 2

Second Company Squad Two of the Mentor Legions

Published by Joe B

Here is my second fully finished Space Marine Tactical Squad for my Mentor Legion army. The squad is built up from my collection of grey plastic from the Assault on Black Reach, Dark Vengeance, and Tactical Squad. By combining the different kits you can make them unique and change-up the static poses from the starter kit. This squad is led by Brother-Sergeant Iani Tulrosi which is from the assault on black reach set with an arm swap to give him the power axe. This helps create a unique look from the start set and more natural than the straight up sword. I also added a thin piece of plastic to his collar to create a Mark VIII look. As with squad three, many of the squad member are from the starter sets and required hand painted legion markings. You can see below on Brother Cith Cheven’s amour the final outcome of using the transfers as a starting point. I then added yellow stripes and marking to identify them as the Second Company. Here again is …

Mentor Legion Tactical Squad Three of the Second Company

Published by Joe B

Well it’s been a while since I’ve posted but I haven’t given up on my marines. Here is Squad 3 of the 2nd Company Mentor Legion Tactical Squad led by Brother Sergeant Strel Jokin. The models are a mix of the Assault on Black Reach and the Tactical Squad box. To mark them out as second company the knee pads and shoulder pads I added yellow markings including personal markings and individualization. Half of this squad was done over a year ago as a test/something new to do (here). Other than finishing the remaining five squad members, I also added battle damage to the original to make them all a bit worn. The damage was mostly done with a small sponge and dark grey to creating the chipping effect. Since many of the additional troops were from the starter sets, I had to add the Mentor Legion markings by hand. I did cheat a bit though since I bought a Raptors transfer sheet from forge world (more on that in the future). After applying the decals …

Green Marines of a Different Kind – WIP Mentor Legion

Published by Joe B

Although I have been much busier as of late with grad school and health goals for the year, I am still making slow and steady progress on the Mentor Legionaries. As you can see i the pictures below, I have a good chuck of the army built and primed. The first up to receive paint were 15 tactical marines (I had the first 5 already done), and the librarian and the chaplain from the Dark Vengeance box. At this point I have the base colors, wash, and the white are now done. First up is the chaplain, I really like this model from the limited edition set and with only a few minor modifications will make a great chaplain for any other chapter. The white base was started with Zandri Dust, followed with a wash of Earthshade. The white was built back up with the dust and finally pure white.   Next up is the librarian. A simple arm swap with one from the Chaos terminator lord, removal of a few of the dark angle markings, and a …