[WH40k] Alpha Legion Chaos Marines; 9-Sept-2012: new starter box plastics

[Westfalia Chris]

Hi all,

having been quite quiet for the last few weeks (apart from the occasional snappy remark and the Alice in Wonderland figures), I wanted to show you what I've been working on since mid-December.

You may recall me revamping my Imperial Fist Space Marine army over the course of the year, and in the last few months, my brother and I played a mini-campaign, in which I got soundly trounced (have to play the final battle, but it's going to be a bloody last stand, so not really in a hurry). That said, my brother (by chance and reasonably cheaply) came across an assembled Death Corps of Krieg army second-hand, and got the first "Siege of Vraks" book, too. I got a little bored with being a loyalist after almost ten years and decided, after reading "The First Heretic", to start a Chaos Space Marines army.

As I won't be playing tournaments anytime soon, I figured I could skip both daemons and cult troops (which, for my taste, tend to be a bit boring, if not ridiculous - yes, yes, I know, power armoured guys decked out in skulls and horns, I'm quiet already). I wanted to do an "unaligned" army, which left me with the Black Legion, Night Lords, Iron Warriors and the Alpha Legion. I discounted the first three because I had already done them in the 90s (the first), didn't like the "evil emo" approach (the second), and didn't just want to do "Evil Imperial Fists" (the third), so I went for the Alpha Legion, which also allowed me to do a force that focuses on power-armoured infantry, and not required painting a motor pool (in the fluff, they are supposed to be insidious infiltrators and raiding rapscallions). That said, the current army list isn't that great to play this kind of army, but it is okay in a friendly environment - and as with the 'Fists, I mainly did it for the looks.

So I set out to paint some units, and now have a playable force assembled. Not too expensive, as I got a whole bunch of metal Chaos Marines from LAF member Infelix (great deal and well handled, so if you want to buy the Sororitas he wants to sell, I'd say he's reliable and prompt). Those sorted out a lot of the specialists and heavy weapons, but the core of the army are the current plastics, some of which are really good, some could do with a mould overhaul.

Now for some pics!

For characters, I currently have a Lord in power armour, and two Sorcerers in power and terminator armour, respectively.







Elites currently covers a squad of Traitor Terminators and a Dreadnought, and will be filled out in the next days with a squad of Chosen (Veteran Chaos Marines, used in an actual infiltrating role).







The dreadnought actually is a conversion of the "loyalist" venerable dreadnought, which is a really nice kit with lots of options - I really like that one. The thumbs below show some of the modifications I added to the basic kit.



For troops, I'm a bit short, currently, but will eventually field three squads of Marines.





For heavy support, I'm aiming to predominantly field Havocs (Chaos Marines with lots of heavy and/or special weapons), although I couldn't resist getting one of the Defiler daemon engines.









You can see more pictures in the respective Photobucket Gallery.

That's it so far! I hope you like them. It was quite a nice change to paint blue and metals for once, and while I won't add too many more units (the force will probably top out at 1850, 2000 points max), some more stuff will come. At the moment, I am torn with an idea I had been tossing around - either add some traitor guard à la Vraks, or paint up a large-ish mob of Beastmen, using the cultists rules from the early 2000s, to have a meatshield horde of mutant slaves to charge the Death Corps' trenches. I would probably get some of the new beastmen, but convert them with explosive collars and stuff, to evoke some of the old metahuman slave battalions from the Rogue Trader era.

Suggestions, comments and critique are welcome! I realise it is pretty much run-of-the-mill stuff and not as interesting as the retrofied Fists (or the all-RT-minis Salamanders, which I plan to do with the minis I bought off Colin Baillie), but it may still be of interest to some.

[Chaos Wolf]

Interesting indeed!!

Nice work. I like the old raptor body repurposed as a champion; I've had that idea rolling around in my head for a while, so I'm glad to see an example that looks good, and proves the idea.

I love the dreadnought, awesome job on that!!

[Dr.Falkenhayn]

chris i normally dont post anything in GW related Threads-Evil Empire and all that (says the Guy who bought the Black reach Orcs from you  )

but these are very nicely done,like yr Imperial Fists aswell 

[Doomsdave]

Nice work.  I've wanted to do an AL army for awhile, but I want to do pre-heresy that matches the description in the novel Legion.  Your color scheme is great and I really enjoyed seeing the Defiler.

[DFlynSqrl]

Those are really looking sweet Westfalia Chris.  Really like the placement of the scales on the armor and the Defiler looks awesome! 

I'm actually in the process of painting up a 1500 pt list of Alpha Legion too.  So definitely enjoy the inspiration!

[aircav]

Lovely work 

Nice to see some one doing Alpha Legion 

[Blackwolf]

Always liked the Alpha Legion (enjoyed D. Abnettts book too),you are doing a cracking job Chris

[Westfalia Chris]

Hi all,

been quite a while since I posted here, but I finally managed to build a flier for my Alphas, a Storm Eagle Gunship. I bought a Storm Raven (aka Chibihawk) before the annual price hike and converted it using PVC and Plasticard to resemble the Forge World model.

It's a 20-Marine assault transport with a bunch of rockets and twin cannon in the nose. Worked out nicely, and is much more usable than a Thunderhawk gunship.











Also, a couple of months back, I already did some APCs and a Predator tank which I did not yet show here...











Toodles!

[Westfalia Chris]

Hi folks,

last week, I purchased one of the new Warhammer 40k starter boxes, mainly because I really liked the turn the new rules have taken, and also because the miniatures looked really good in the promotionals.

Turns out, they are indeed rather well done for plastics. Easily assembled, although cutting the sprues takes a lot of time (took me four nights to assemble everything).

Obviously, I'll be focusing on the Chaos stuff as reinforcements for my Alpha Legion force, and painted the Hellbrute dreadnought thingie first, cultists to follow over the next week(s).







This is quite an excellent kit. The single pose, of course, gets a bit old after time, but the design is a nice throwback to the old RT dreadnought, with a touch of Disney's Dinosaurs!' B.P. Richfield thrown in - excellent casting quality in my case, too, and the mould lines are very cleverly hidden; I didn't have to use putty in a single place, although I admit that the scales on the organic parts help to hide the few visible ones.

I'd be interested to see (and probably buy) a new chaos dreadnought multipart kit in that style. Maybe a bit less organic, but that remains to be seen. The marines are also very nice, with a good mix of the new clean style and RT gigeresque wackyness. Very pleasingly to my taste.

I'll probably also paint the Dark Angels; the Terminators in particular are remarkably yet believably dynamic for their fluff image.

[Prof.Witchheimer]

very cool stuff, Chris, like your colours. That colour scheme also for cultists?

[Westfalia Chris]

very cool stuff, Chris, like your colours. That colour scheme also for cultists?

I'll adapt it - the base tone is a dark redbrown overall, used for the leathers and gloves as well as a base for the skin, and on top of this, I'll add Prussian Blue pieces (such as coats and hoods) lined in the bright green seen above. Maybe some wavy flames, too, on the cult leaders, although the "shooty leader" will get a looted commissar's coat. The idea is to make them look more irregular, but tie them in to the "cult of the Hydra".

[obsidian3d]

That is an awesome color scheme on the hellbrute. I really dig it.

[Westfalia Chris]

That colour of blue is a total pain in the arse to work with in my experience. It always seems to come up blotchy no matter what you do. To do an entire army in it is the last word in sheer guts and determination in my book. Well done. Really nice subtle highlights on said blue as well.

The following may sound really snotty, so please don't take it that way but rather as a painting tip - it was actually extremely easy to paint this blue. I basecoated white using spray primer and then painted on two mild coats of Vallejo Model Colour 'Dark Prussian Blue'.

 On the vast majority, that's it - the whole model gets a coat of gloss brush on varnish, and a coat of Vallejo matte varnish, once I'm finished, but it is basically just a flat coat of blue as I am no big fan of sharpish highlights on Space Marines - tends to come out rather 'choppy' and disjointed, so I let the varnish and coherent flat blue do the work of producing 'natural' reflections, even if they turn out more subdued than they 'should'. On some of the very large models, mainly vehicles, I did add a single layer of very thin highlights on the edges, as I did on the chipped parts of the brute's armour, but the vast majority is just blue with varnish.

I suspect the method will not work as well with lighter tones than prussian blue, but I have also used it for reds and blacks with decent-enough results.

[Tacgnol]

Love the Hellbrute: half-dinosaur, half-dreadnought, all awesome.