Daemon Hunting

Well, I am finally starting to dive into building up my Grey Knights. I find it kind of funny that the first army I played, and the one I used to learn the basics of 5th, is going to be built after I get myself a solid base in an entirely different army, and now in an entirely different edition.

Right now these are just test poses held together with ticky-tac, helps me see what the crap I am doing, and prevents me from loosing bits when I move my station elsewhere.









The armless dude is simply awaiting another Incinerator.

When looking for weapons packs down at the Den, hoping to score some Flamers or Incinerators, I came across the Dark Angels frame. I liked the look of a duster over power armor, thinking to make an Inquisitor in power armor out of it. Later that night, I realized that there are five full dudes in there, and great bases for me to milk out the bits from the Grey Knights box with. That, and hoods. Freaking love the hoods. Also, it is hard to tell from the photos, but each of the Purifiers here have their left pauldron from the DA frame, and their right one from the GK frame, allowing me to still have additional GK pauldrons for the second set of bodies which I am going to use as Strike/Interceptors (magnets!).

The current plan for the fabric is red, to go well with the heraldry, and play nicely off of the cool toned metallics I plan to use.

Use the robed bodies w/ GK heads and spare arms. Or kust give them the bolters and use them as an SM ally.

Honestly they're sweet.

I was looking at decking out the robed ones with three sets of falcions, a cannon, and a great sword for the leader person, and then having swapable back packs via magnets.

While the hooded guys are getting based with the metallic I plan to use for the armor, the robed ones are going to get based Red, as metallic paints can quite easily overpower any pigmentation they go on top of.

Robes time!









I still have a bunch of purity seals and the like that I could put on, but I am going to wait until things are actually glued, as the ticky tack does take up a notable amount of room, so I want to know where things will be a bit more precisely before gluing them on.

Never seen someone using robes for grey knights but after seeing it I wish i did that for some of mine. looking good.

damn, robed interceptors. those look good!

Robes keep the warp muck off of the power armor!

On a side note, I'm starting to think "screw the magnets" and just build them as interceptors. I can always just field them as a strike squad, as they have the same restrictions on weapons, I believe.

So, who likes Psycannons? I know this guy does!

I had a rather unexpected yield from my bits trading this weekend. Not only did I get all the Incinerators I was looking for, I managed to get my hands on the better part of two HQ choices, meaning I no longer need to have to have my Dreadnought stand in for an HQ.

First up to bat: a Librarian with a "custom" Storm Bolter. It may yet need some Green Stuff to help keep it in place.






The other unexpected appearance in the trade was one Mr. Crowe. While only his body was present, I have enough bits to get him fieldable, and unique in appearance at that.





He is going to need a touch of Green Stuff in his right wrist to help with his sword hand, along with a ball on his left shoulder to help pose his "new" arm such that it does no hide some of the nice details on his body. Fortunately, I have noticed that the arm's pauldron can be attached in a rather "free form" manner, allowing me to entirely hide the ball-o-Green-Stuff once I get to that step.

Thats a Stern you got.. Crowe just has power armour.

Whats he using for a sword . Were you making the daemon blade?

*flips through the codex*

Well, I suppose that is a Stern after all.

I was indeed trying to make the daemon blade there, using Hormagaunt tails to produce a daemonic double sword (every part of the space buffalo, after all).

All in all, though, I might just continue to turn him into a really boss looking Crowe, as I like the idea of having Purifiers as a troop choice, along with having yet another instance of Cleansing Flame on the table (FIRE!). I can put him on the back burner for the time being, though. I still have a Libby that can go for the Pyromancy Primaris power for a flamer that lingers.

When you said at Dark Heresy you were making a sword out of hormogaunt tails, I was skeptical. In fact I was also not sure how mix n matching dark angels and grey knights would come out.

But I totally dig what you are doing here. Very nice poses, and OMG I LOVE THOSE ROBES!!

Something seems off about this guy, not sure what...



BY FIRE BE PURGED!



Snickity snickt!

I did most of my basing today.

The Purifiers and Librarian were first based with a mix of 3 parts Flat Aluminum, 1 part Flat Blue, 1 part Thinner, and 2 parts Water. I then added 2 parts Flat White and 1 part Water to the remaining mix after drying the models a bit with the air brush, and applied this new mix lightly from a high angel to the front, thus trying for a shadowed effect underneath and behind. In retrospect, it should have been 1 part Flat Aluminum and 1 part Flat White instead, as the resulting color that came out was simply a Light Blue to my eyes. Once the drying is complete and I get the models into a better light, it might look different.




For the Interceptors, I went with a mix of Flat Red and Gloss black, but I seem to have thinned it down to much, resulting in a scabby red wash on the models. After pondering this for a moment and drying them off a touch with the air brush, I made up a second mix with Flat Red and Bronze, and lightly applied it to the whole shebang. Again, I have yet to see what the final dried result looks like in good light, but I think this should provide nicely worn down/stained robes for the Interceptors. Their armor should mostly be clean, though.

With the Tornado warning going, I have a great excuse to be in the basement at the painting station. First time trying to use rubbing alcohol as a thinning/blending medium. I am using a mix of Runefang Silver and Lothern Blue to pull this off. I think the bit of blue in the metal helps push the color further away from the rusty cloth and give it some more pop, and with it thinned a bit, any of the rust color that shows through can be attributed to battle damage and the like. Hunting daemons is messy business after all!

You're using rubbing alcohol mixed into your paint for brush painting? Can I ask why? Did you pick this tip up from someone? I strongly reccomend against it. I'd advise sticking to water man.

I heard it as a tip for air brushing, actually, but I figured I would give it a shot for a small mix to see what would happen. I did notice that the mixture thickened as I went on, likely due to evaporation. I saw a bit of clumping when I first put some of the blue into the alcohol, but afterwards it seemed to behave itself. Over all, I didn't really see anything bad happen, but nothing terribly useful came out of it, either. The bottle will probably just find it's way to the back of the supply shelf again.

These four Interceptors are pretty well done now, though I still have 6 more of them to do. I will wait until a later date to finish the force weapons, as the paint seems to want to fight against me on the concept of doing a slow gradient from the base of midnight/navy blue, up through mid tone blues, and into white. I still need to figure out what to do for basing on the Interceptors.

I have found that it is really rare to see any kind of actual color being used on Grey Knights, almost like it is some kind of taboo or something. Giving something for all the "clean" colors to play against just gives them way more oomph, in my opinion.






Now having a desire to field a named HQ other than Bird-man or Chair-dude, I opted to kit bash together Mr. Crowe, using Green Stuff to build the one piece I did not have available to me (the rear torso half). Painting his sword should be easier than all the force weapons, as it is just a black blade with golden runes, to my understanding.

Having gotten a handle on the minis themselves, I switched gears over to basing. Incidentally, if you want to make giant space vines on a base, Willow works quite well. I opted for a modern ruins feel to the bases. While I had hoped to get a "blue lava" effect going for the Purifier's bases, it didn't take me long to realize "blue lava effect" is synonymous with "water effect".





These four Interceptors have now also found their way onto their respective bases and are ready to be fielded.




Somewhat ironic how much attention I am giving to the Interceptors when it is the Purifiers and Crowe that I really want to field.

The Interceptors look like they were fun to work on.

I'm impressed with your speed, Tom. You're banging those out and they look good.

The ones with faces have me a bit worried. One Interceptor, four Purifiers, and the Librarian all opted to confront the Heresy sans helmet, and it is a super tiny area to work on. Ideally I would like to have the Purifiers done enough to move them over to their bases by Saturday morning.

Thin your paints a touch more and you'll be passing me in quality very soon, at this rate. Very well done.

I have a pretty detailed WD article on painting faces somewhere. Didn't do me any good but might help ya. Want a copy?

Sure. As it is, I gave the faces a pair of thin passes with Tamiya Flat Flesh, and I am going to leave them alone like that for the moment. Still lots of other stuff to do on the Purifiers.

Trying out a "new" camera on these guys, seeing how it works. Have a Purifier.





I tried to get a bronze effect going there on the horns by bending a brown with a gold, then I nailed it with a wash of Nuln Oil to tarnish it up.