Centurion Annihilator, Rexus

For a little while now, i've thought that the Inquisitor Tyrus model from the now defunct 50mm Skirmish-roleplay-em-up game Inquisitor would make a great 40k model, but obviously with it's sheer size it would have difficulty coming off as any of the regular infantry sized models, as it's way more huge than even a beefy Terminator suit.

And then the Centurions came out and i painted a squad up for the Marines Exemplar, they weren't far off the size, but still a little too small.

Anyway, i was selling off some old Inquisitor bits and bobs on Ebay that i will never have a use for and typically i did some searches to see what the models were going for, and then i saw a slightly damaged, child-painted model of Tyrus, complete with horrific head conversion with elongated neck.  But the Basic body was intact even if the shoulder pauldrons were missing. 

I managed to win it for next to nothing ( i don't think most people could be bothered with the renovation work or trying to find alternate parts. ) But for me i was intending to convert it anyway, and when it arrived i searched in my gargantuan bits box of ages past and managed to find a complete set of two Tyrus shoulder Pauldrons even though i didn't have the rest of the model ( i believe i ordered them when such a thing was still possible for a conversion that never materialised.)  But after that stroke of good luck i got to chopping the model and adding parts to make it look like a marine inside a massive warsuit.   And i think the end result is quite good!

I'll use him as a dreadnought (he's on a 60mm base) and bulk-wise he is probably most similar to a dreadnought (and the generic dreadnought models just look a bit bland nowadays, in my opinion.) In terms of background i imagine him to be in a similar vein to the "Punisher Attack Bikes" that the Marines Exemplar have, a lone marine in search of glory, but only able to attain access to the heaviest equipment once he has proven himself.

Big Guns Never Tire - The Devastator Corps of the Marines Exemplar

Marines Exemplar 1st Company Devastators

As i've said before, one of my favourite parts about collecting an established army with no canon is that i get to add it myself, and most of the time this works out great as Games Workshop generally never round out the background for 2nd founding onwards Chapters.

I find that thinking up this background helps me to envision the army as i build it and reason what would "fit" into my army selection, i've become more and more defined for my vision of the Marines Exemplar and wanted them to have a strong vein of Imperial Fists Character running through them, but with their own twist.

Where Daemons tread... - Inquisitor Coteaz Conversion

Lord Inquisitor Geralt Oviron, of the Ordo Malleus

I recently picked up (downloaded? acquired?) the new Codex: Inquisition, after slight initial disappointment at the lack of new toys (i don't really know what people were expecting, they were hardly going to release a new line of Inquisition models when there are so many weird old ones sitting around doing nothing.) i quickly grew to love the book though, it's infinitely closer to my idea of Inquisitors in the background of the 40k universe than any of their other appearances so far (well, apart from maybe 2nd ed.?)

Arrogance as a Virtue - The Chronicles of the Marines Exemplar

1500 Point Marines Exemplar Army, ready for battle

The Marines Exemplar are going strong!   One of the most rewarding Hobby projects i have had in a long time, i can't stop painting units for them!

I guess i've always been a huge fan of Space Marines and with that, 2nd and 3rd founding chapters in particular.

The best part of collecting these guys has been thinking up my own background for them as the army takes shape, all from the original picture i saw in the 6th edition 40k Rulebook when it first came out!

Marines Exemplar Attack Bikes - The Punisher Biker Corps.

"Punisher" class Attack Bike

Within my Marines Exemplar army, throughout the games i have been playing lately, it became more and more clear that the force was lacking in smaller "support elements", units that while not costing a ton of points or being the most effective in terms of decimating entire units in a phase, would be vital to shoring up any weaknesses in my battle line.  Speed is also an important element as they need to be able to react to the enemy battleplan.

Peace through Superior Firepower

Marines Exemplar Devastator Squad

I've mentioned my lack of love for standard Devastator load-outs before (well, that might be a bit harsh, i just think they could look cooler.) and after having a gander at the new Marine book i was thinking that seeing as i was heading into Imperial Fist territory, i was thinking a Heavy Bolter devastator squad would be totally sweet, with all those re-rolls and the ability to annihilate light-medium tanks with tank hunter.  After having already assembled and painted a "stock" Heavy Bolter for one of my Tactical squads i decided 4 of those would be WAY too boring, and something that has always annoyed me is the way Assault cannons have never made it onto the basic infantry of the Space Marine army, any hot blooded male was weened on the film Predator and as a result has an unhealthy love for Miniguns.  Well WYSIWYG be damned, i thought, i'll just convert some Assault cannons onto those suckers and use them like the totally sweet Premium Heavy Bolters they will be in the game anyway.  And if anyone doesn't like it they can SCRATCH.

Marine Exemplar Devastator

Paragons of Obstinacy

Marines Exemplar Tactical Squad

The release of the recent 6th edition Space Marine Codex has fuelled me to a frenzy of painting what i paint best, power-armoured badasses.

I'd been wanting to do a new Successor chapter army for a while what with the veritable new odds and ends released for Marines since selling on my last Iron Lords army (all gajillion points of it.)  and being a long-time hobbyist i have plenty of disowned marines from various chapters in various states of painting sitting in various figure cases and various bits boxes.  One of the things i really like about doing a non "Stock" Space Marine army is the ability to just throw random touches of iconography from different ranges at models and use them in interesting ways, there are lots of winged shoulder pads and touches from models like the Blood Angels Sanguinary Guard for example, that would look a touch out of place on an Ultramarine, but not a model with a less established Canon.

Memory Lane - The Iron Lords

Librarian Furioso Dreadnought

Honour Guard Standard Bearer

The Iron Lords were a long-time project of mine, i played with them as my main 40k army for about 3 years, going through a combination of guises, from 5th Edition marines through to Blood Angels, i had a lot of success with them and won several Best Painted army trophies with them as well as a 2nd Place Generalship trophy.

The last 40k tournament i visited i used them in their Blood Angels Incarnation, and i had been painting them up until the night before the tournament (believe it or not, a first for me!)  and i didn't really get many practice games in with them, the weird thing was, i realised i didn't really like the army much.



I tend to be a fan of shooty armies, more specifically, i like an army that packs a bit of a punch at range, and then delivers a killing blow in close combat.

With Blood Angels i just never really found my feet, i know they are a great army, i've played against them enough times to fret whenever i see them over the other side of the table, but i decided, for now, they are not for me. 

I tried an army centered around priests as, at the time, i found the whole Feel no Pain thing pretty exciting, but i think i went too gimmicky, i sold out.

my counts-as Gabriel Seth

I went with what people told me was good and not what i really wanted to see on the table, not entirely, the lynchpin of the army was my version of Gabriel Seth, a monster wearing a Hockey Mask with an Eviscerator (shown left) everyone said Gabriel Seth was rubbish, yet when i played games with him, i thought he was awesome, and i had several games where he somehow managed to trash 500 points worth of stuff on his own.

But after taking them to the tournament and performing hideously i thought it was time to chuck them in, i put them up on Ebay and they now belong to a very nice chap in Germany i believe, i enjoyed painting them a lot, and when i started the project the main idea for me was to take an "Official" Chapter (The Iron Lords are one of the featured colour schemes in the Space Marine Codex) and build upon the theme ,

My counts-as Corbulo

I took snippets of information and fleshed them out to whatever was in my liking at the time, It was quite refreshing, not a bog standard "Oh a new codex is out, better try and use it" thing, when Blood Angels came out, i painted up new and obvious models for anything exclusively from the codex, and it was fun to try and think up what they might look like in my colour scheme and what possible background reason i would include them from, My Gabriel Seth for example was "Captain Elderon" of the Assault Company, a grim beast of a marine who's tactical acumen fell second to his martial skill, his combat detachments constantly followed by an extra allocation of Apothecaries to oversee the Assault Marines under his control who followed his blood thirsty lead.

A custom Devastator marine

I have a terrible feeling i will always be a Marine player for 40k, if it doesn't at least have "And They Shall Know no Fear", a 3+ save and a Boltgun, i don't see much use for it in an army.

I also converted up some Oversized Field Mortars for a squad of Devastators (See pic on right) on the battlefield they counted as a squad with 4 missile launchers, but that way i wasn't just taking a squad of 4 missile launchers because they are cheap in a Blood Angels army, i thought of some unique quirk of character i could give the Squad to make them more interesting.  And i worked a treat

Veteran Sergeant

Also, i would be entirely remiss not to mention the fact that i had an Iron Lords thread over on Warseer that i attempted to update regularly, a lot of people would comment and give me feedback (Astraeos wherever you are, your steadfast advice was always appreciated, as well as many others.)

I think online in the gaming community there is a lot of potential to be either a "Watcher" sifting through threads and articles to gain inspiration but that is all and "Trolls" (well we all know what those are, in both senses of the word) but those people that commented on my progress were very helpful, so if you are looking to gain an extra bit of "oomph" with some painting i would definitely recommend taking pictures of your models, no matter how horrible you might think you paint (or good for that matter), the feedback i've received in the past has improved my skills tenfold in addition to my practice with the brush.

The Sons of Mortarion

Forge World Contemptor Pattern Dreadnought

I have a client that has commissioned me to paint various models for his Forge World Death Guard army here and there, he's a lovely chap and he's one of these folks that loves him some 40k, but breaks out in hives whenever he goes near a paintbrush. 

As a result he's not too fussy about the paintjobs (which seems nuts to me spending £20 on every five marines, but hey, not my army not my business!) so he asked for me to do just "Tabletop Standard" Paintjobs on them, which is just as well, because the first commission from him consisted of over 100 models!

One of the really great things about painting a lot is that every once in a while you get something across your desk that you really wanted to paint or try out, but you don't necessarily have a place in your gaming army for right now, this army is full of little gems like the Contemptor Dreadnought on the right and various bits of Forge World Crusader armour that i will probably get around to picking up some of once the new Marine Codex rolls around (whenever that may be, i'm a staunch Imperial Player to the end.)

He tends to use the army as Space Wolves on the tabletop, which in turn leads to odd things cropping up to paint that you wouldn't normally see in a "regular" marine army (like Terminators with crazy wargear, representing Wolf Guard Terminators)

This army gave me a real headache when i started painting them, "Over 100 white marines?!" i was thinking to myself, but as ever, a bit of browsing the 'ole google for some white marines generated some interesting models from different painters that had started with White as the main colour, and then proceeded to just "dirty it up" with weathering powders, which is actually quite effective in the flesh even if it translates badly in photographs.

Strangely enough, around the same time my Mother was throwing out some old eyeshadows/mascaras (i'm a dude, i don't know the difference!) and in typical Mom fashion she asked me "Can you use these for your little men?" and for once i replied "why yes, yes i can!  Thanks!" 

So with a spare brush with good quality bristles that was quite unsullied by the grime of ages, i had a go at stippling it onto the models and it didn't work so well at first, but i quickly cottoned on that if you breathe heavily on a model (bear with me here) the condensation of your breath clings to the model and subsequently holds the powder in place, this can only be done once it's fully painted of course but it works a treat!  And i've seen his army months after i painted the first batch and the powder has held on just fine!  It's weird the little things you come across eh?

He also commissioned me to paint this Rhino, which i absolutely love, based on the old Rogue Trader/2nd Edition Chassis, it's actually built off a modern day rhino with the addition of Plasticard, the result is so effective i think i'll be giving it a go myself some time!

I'm a complete sucker for anything harking back to the older days of 40k as i first developed an interest in it when i was about 12 in 2nd Edition so i have fond memories of lots of different models.

My first model ever was actually an Eldar War Robot though woefully, throughout the years it has disappeared entirely.

And as you can see from the Rhino, the weathering effect of Powder even works brilliantly on Large surfaces of vehicles (much to my relief.)

I'll no doubt have more Death Guard goodies to post in future!