WIP: Crimson Fist Ironclad Dreadnaught

For my Planetstrike game on 11/14, I've decided to field an Ironclad Dreadnaught in a drop pod.  I've been using a regular AoBR dreadnaught proxy in games and I've really liked the Ironclad's performance so far.  Slightly better than a standard dread and well worth the extra points.

I have the Ironclad set from GW, but decided to also kitbash up my own dread.  After trolling various websites for inspiration, I came across an amazing model on Cool Mini or Not by Talarion.  I loved the head piece and the bulky bunker-like look of the model.  So I grabbed my bits and saw and knives and sticky tack and decided to give this conversion a try for my Crimson Fists!

The Dreadnaught shape, of course, is an AoBR model I picked up from The War Store.  I then sawed off most of the front of the model (after much dry fitting and determining best fit and the like).  I haven't glued on the front plate yet as I need to figure out what I want to do with any gaps, but so far, so good.

I used some old LR sponsoon bits (from my LRC) to form the front plate, cutting and fitting as needed.  For the head-lens array, I used a Chaos smoke launcher (at least I think it's a smoke launcher), much like the original inspiration.  Plasticard forms the helmet as well as the armor plate on the model (I don't know why I have black plasticard instead of white...the bag I bought had a large mix of colors and textures).  For the Chainfist, I used an old Epic Titan arm and a plastic tube tacked onto the AoBR arm.

I'm going to detail it up with some pipes and wires and the like.  And the pic makes it clear that I need to smooth out that arm immensely!

For the HK missile, I didn't really like the ones the Ironclad comes with.  It really doesn't makes sense to me that the HKs on Rhinos look so different from the ones on Ironclads, so I just took a normal Rhino HK and cut it down to fit under the dreadnaught.

Lots more to do:

Bulk out the legs with some more armor plates and detail.  Bulk out the body and arms as well...I'm not completely sure about the exhausts on the front...I like it but I don't know if it'll look good painted. And I haven't even touched the back engine!  I also need to assemble the other arm and add in the melta gun/flamer options. 

What do folks think?  Any advice?  I've got a ways to go yet and I may wind up proxying my Ironclad again on 11/14 if this beast isn't done yet.  For fluffy reasons, I'm saying that Pedro Kantor had to reactivate some of the older dreadnaughts after the disaster on Rynn's World…the loss of their armory has left the Fists using whatever they have on hand!

ANFSCD*: Andira Runehand

I saved the Andira Runehand post for last as she was actually the second the model I painted in this ANFSCD series and I had delusions that I would go back and correct all the tiny mistakes on her that add up to a mess of a model.

But then I remembered that ANFSCD isn't about obsessing over mistakes.  It's about trying new things, seeing what went wrong and then trying again on a new model (in this case, Silo was the model I did better on!).  It was also about keeping up with the hobbying despite having burnt out on Crimson Fists.  At least I had some success there!

Runehand has been a staple mage in our group since day 1.  Her focus has been on AoE type spells, both Breath and Blast runes to wipe out the little enemies so Lord Hawthorne and Silo can handle the big threats (while my guy ports around grabbing treasures and supplies).  She's a neat character, though her base ability to pierce 2 armor has become slightly less useful as the monsters we're facing have advanced to Silver/Gold levels...they have a lot of armor to pierce now!  Her player is brilliant though and has done a great job of rapidly building an attack plan and getting us on-board for the killing and the looting. Sometimes he bites off a bit more than he can chew and winds up getting beat up and sent back to town, but his sacrifices are always well-calculated for the overall team win. 

This model is easily the weakest model in the set.  Her fingers and head are mediocre sculpts and there is no rational explanation for her to be carrying a banner through the dungeon.  It doesn't even connect to her power (which is a Runehand presumably.)  Along with this, her drawing demands a gold trim and a highlight on the hand, both of which I failed at!

Many tiny mistakes add up to an angry Andira

I started with a black gesso base and then painted all her armor bits with the foundation paint Adeptus Battlegrey.  In a moment of inspiration, I then decided to give her armor a wash of Asurman blue instead of using any regular paint...so what you see here is just straight blue wash over a grey-white basecoat.  It actually came out looking rather nice for her...makes for shiny armor without using any metallics!

I then tried to use sunburst yellow along the edges (or is it golden yellow now?) and here is where I flubbed it.  Lots of fat lines that should be thin and I feel like I should have used a different yellow to act as gold.  Live and learn, I guess.  Not much time lost though as I finished her in a night (not counting the gessoing that I let dry overnight).  You'll note I didn't bother trimming every bit of armor as I didn't want to continue compounding the error...as stated, I was going to go back and fix it.  But now I'm not.  Take that, perfectionist tendencies!

She looks much better from the back...

This little trip into ANFSCD really worked to keep me painting and as of Sunday, I'm back to fists in preparation for Planetstrike on Saturday. Huzzah!

*And Now For Something Completely Different: A sporadic post about my exploits outside the WH40K hobby.  I paint and play with other minis too!

ANFSCD*: Silouette

In my continuing series of ANFSCD posts, I bring you Silouette!  She's the rogue in our group, armed with a bow that she has come to use with great effect!

One of the neat aspects of the Descent: JitD Road to Legend expansion is the customization you can really put on your character.  In the normal play version, you'd draw your abilities and play them out.  In the RtL version, you start with a single ability, but then you can choose to buy your next few.  Which means you can really tailor your character to do some ridiculous stuff.  As is the case of Silouette here!  As an archer, she has the ability to re-roll misses, draw LOS from a hex away and ignore the first LOS blocking terrain in her way...along with this, she has two kinds of bows...one for killing normal mobs and another that pierces the strongest armors.  She's become a beast nearly as strong as Lord Hawthorne!

It wasn't always that way though.  She started off very weak basically pinging anything tougher than a beastman for 1 point.  I don't know if that was fun for her player, but I know it isn't fun for me (now that I'm the weak link in the party).  So as a party, we invested in her gear and abilities and now she essentially carries the group.  That and we're all having much more fun!

Anyway, here is the finished shot of her:

In the pits, she grew strong!

I'm most proud of the trim on her leather tunic. It matches the picture and doesn't look sloppy.  I'm going to be posting Andira Runehand soon who has similar trim on her armor and I didn't really pull it off.  But on Silo...I totally nailed it.

I also wanted to try freehanding a tattoo to match the picture.  It was much easier than I thought it would be and I'm kind of glad I tried:

It's not a perfect match, but for tabletop play, it's close enough! For a night's work painting (After painting 3 other ones in as many nights), I'm fairly happy with the results!

*And Now For Something Completely Different: A sporadic post about my exploits outside the WH40K hobby.  I paint and play with other minis too!