Cool Stuff on Tanks.

Hi guys, Not a big thing to add today. I've been looking back over my tanks as I've been waiting between paint stages on other stuff and been thinking how much more "real life" kit vehicles of the legions would have on them. I'm pretty with legions being a larger and more supported war machine that such things like crew baggage and such would be less, though not totally absent.....but i got to thinking about other little details i could add aside from weathering that might add to the realness of tanks. Comms relays and aerials is one of the first that springs to my mind so i knocked up a few comms aerials to add to my vehicles. I magnetised them too to make transport simple and reduce the risk of snapping (even though they are made of flexi plastic)

What are some other "real life" details you'd expect to see on legion vehicles?

The Spark of Heresy - Guest post by Deano

Good evening all,

Today we have a special guest post from a long time friend, Deano, who has done up a book review of the very first of the HH novels, Horus Rising. Although this novel has been out for a while, it ages well and this review still serves good for those looking to get into the heresy world - it will certainly leave a hook in and leave you for want of more. 

Enjoy!

~Keepy

The Spark of Heresy

G'day all,

By way of introduction, my name is Deano and I share the uncontrollably rampant resin addiction that infects my fellow friends in the AGIF crew. I've been in the hobby on and off for 15 years now, my brother and I first going halves in a third edition 40k starter set a few weeks before the Sydney Olympics at the turn of the millennium. When you compare this to the preserved Space Crusade box sitting in Keepy's hobby cupboard and Spraggy's war stories of "genestealer cults" in the "Rogue Trader days," it goes without saying that I am betraying my age (mostly the sheer lack of it) in comparison to these long fanged (and tea addicted!) veterans.

However, my enthusiasm for the hobby was massively revived at the tail end of 5th edition. Throughout the process of moving to the far north in 2011 and integrating into the local hobby community, I individually met what would later become the AGIF crew, both past and present

Test templar WiP

Test Templar

Just finished....i think, the first of my templar brethren. Just learnt black is not such a simple colour to work with and make look right. I went with the metallic detail and laurel wreaths instead of the FW typical lacquered green as i wanted a metal armoured look and the less pastel colours the better i thought. used a heap of gear from other kits to add to the standard templar kit to make them look a little more choppy and dynamic, adding in a few two handed poses, with riposte and parries. Trying to make them look more martial rather than just fancy kits with arms and weapons out at silly positions.

The new 32mm bases allow me to go to town in terms of extra detail. I made up some barbed wire and scattered spent shells plus a little blood splatter over the barbed wire. That idea came from my Iron Warrior playing girlfriend.

Ancients of the Legions: Dreadnoughts in 30k

Dreadnoughts in the Legions

Pretty much every 30k (and 40k) gamer loves the story, look and effectiveness of marine dreadnoughts on the the table. These machines boast an exceptional stat line and can pack a vast array of potent weaponry making them a potential game changer when used in the right way. I'm going to give my views and experiences on some of the best ways to utilise and deploy your dreadnoughts in 30k

The Dice Wizard looks at AK Interactive Products Part 1

Hello Dice Wizard, 

VIIth Legion WIP: Castraferrum Dreadnought

Ancient of the 32nd Assault Chapter

I am happily churning out units for my legion and this guy is the latest. He is the first of a talon of three Castraferrum dreadnoughts i am doing with the aim of magnetising and converting one of them to sub as a Mortis if need be. Below is the first of the talon, bearing a plasma cannon and power claw. This guy will ideally be trudging along with a breacher unit to give a little threatening cover fire and assault assistance. 

Alpharius.....or maybe Omegon? But probably just a regular marine. Very pic heavy

G'day all,

It's been awhile since my last post so I decided to do up my version of Alpharius and whack him into a series of WIP.

I'm reading the Legion novel at the moment(slowly) and love the idea that Alpharius could be any one of the marines, changing his name and identity at will.  So I decided to convert him as just that, a 'regular' marine armed like any one of his comrades.  I used the two following pictures as my main inspiration for the conversion.  A quick disclaimer, I'm using these pictures in good will, and with no ulterior motive.

The first pic has fairly standard power armour, but is clearly an important fella, and the second one I like because of the flowing cape around him something I tried to emulate.

So to start with the materials I used are:

- A FW AL torso
- A FW AL head
- A set of Tartaros termi legs
- A left and right arm from the termi set along with left and right hands to go with them
- A left and right arm from the mk3 power armour set
- A bolter (Phobos I think)
- Greenstuff
- Sculpting tools (clay shapers, scalpel, pin)
- a junior hacksaw
- a little bit of 2mm plasticard

We'll start off with the legs.  I sawed them off at the hip (as per my earlier tutorial on mk6 marines) and then pinned them back on reducing the cowboy like stance a little and adding about 2mm extra height to the upper thigh while I was at it.  I made sure the stance was how I wanted it and started to greenstuff.  The purpose of the greenstuff on this part of the leg was to heavily bulk out the thighs, which on humans are naturally a lot larger than the calves, something that's a little lost in translation on space marines (not the only anatomical anomaly).  The end result is quite a change from normal marine legs:

But it's grown on me and I like the bulkiness of them.  As you can see I also added a belt buckle and inserted a pin into the legs for the torso to attach to.

I then took a torso and cut it in half with the hacksaw, gluing a small 2mm spacer in between, making sure the front and back lined up before the glue dried:

I attached the torso like this to the pin on the legs and made sure to leave a few mils of space between the two:

I used a bit of greenstuff as gap filler, ensuring that it didn't protrude out past the body and let it dry to add a bit of structural support before I started the actual putty work.






Greenstuff was then used to add a bit more size to certain part of the armour that needed to enlrged to meet the new scale of the model.

The ribcage:

And the waist, a little bit of detail can be seen here, I didn't go overboard though, it'll all get covered up soon:

His arms are made from the upper section of mk3 and the forearm of tartaros joined at the elbow, a fairly easy changeover that allowed the 2 handed bolter hold utlising the angle of the mk3 arms:

As you can see the skinniness of the mk3 is covered up by the shoulder pads, making a nice natural pose:

His backpack is a combination of the mk3 chassis with mk4 vents, I love the mk3 backpack but wanted him to have newer equipment so went with the new vents.  The pack on the left is the finished product:

His cape would be covering his arms partially so I had to glue them in place before continuing.  I also attached the backpack.  I wanted the cape to be a ragged one like in the source pic above so wasn't worried about keeping the putty smooth and consistent.  I wet my fingers well (to stop the putty sticking to them) and took small balls of putty flattening them out between my fingers and pulling them into position on the mini.  The cloak is meant to look like its blowing in the wind so I pulled the sheets of greenstuff out to the right a little.  I also lapped the left hand side of the cloak around the front of him to create the wind effect.  At this stage the cloak looks a little rough on the back but I fix it up later.  After leaving it to dry for 20 minutes or so I took a pin and teased out a few edges on the cloak to make it look torn..

The next day after the putty has completely cured I added some waves in the cloak.  I took sausages of putty and using photos of how material flows I laid the sausages on and smoothed them into the cloak with the clay shapers.

It took a little bit of trial and error but I eventually got a look I was happy with.

Finally I added some brand new fingers holding the bolter and gap filled any spaces left behind at joints like the wrists and shoulders

And there we have it my interpretation of Alpharius, father of all marines, for we are everywhere.  I think he looks important while still maintaining that ambiguity of the XXth.

A scale shot:

And a little action shot:

Thanks for reading.

HYDRA DOMINATUS

-Ded