Right. I’ve been contemplating building a heresy era force for ages, but being the type of avid modeller who regularly gets sidetracked by shiny new conversion ideas, I’ve not yet got round to it.

Fortunately I’m at the stage now where I’m happy to leave my Deathguard and Sons of Malice armies for a while, and as my only other projects are both small, and long-term (Renegade Squats & True Scale Lamenters) I’ve got the time to put into an army project.

I’ve acquired as many bits of as possible to build a solid core of 20 MKV marines, they’ll be arriving from the various ebay and other online bits stores in the next few days, so unfortunately, no photos yet.

Later I plan on getting some Forge World MKIVs, and attempting to convert a few MKI – MKIII. I’m somewhat confused by the lack of an actual MKVI plastic torso front – it would appear the only one is a Space Wolves piece with talismans?

Anyway, besides the tactical squads I also have in mind the following:

Terminator squad
Spartan variant Land Raider (if anyone has/knows where I can find the original Modelling Workshop article, please point me in the right direction)
MKIV Dreadnought(s)
Jetbike squad.

I’ve not yet committed to any particular Legion, but I’m leaning towards either the Alpha Legion or the Salamanders. When I get round to reading Battle for the Abyss I’m sure the Word Bearers will tempt me – but I don’t like the grey colour scheme.
Mind you, there’s reference to them changing to their more familiar red in one of the HH books, I think.

Well there it is, I’ve joined the heresy era club.

Looking forward to building my first few marines and bloging my life away!

See you out there. ;)

Oh my, I must have just spent an hour adding studs to a single marine, what have I let myself in for? :o



Being the first one the studs are a little off here and there, but the overall look is deffinatley what I wanted; a squad or two of these guys will look brutal!

To save time, money, studs and my sanity I think I'll only be doing the front of the legs, and perhaps less on the head.

Haven't tried the shoulder pads yet, but I'm almost certainly not going to remove the trim because i) it's time consuming, and ii) it some how makes the shoulders look 'weaker'.

Still no firm decision on a Legion. I started Battle for the Abyss last night and immediatley started getting excited about the Word Bearers, but I don't know...

My test Alpha Legion scheme went ok, Necron Abyss + purple glaze for the most part, but finding a suitable highlight eluded me (neither Liche Purple, tiny amounts of Bleached Bone, nor any of the blues seemed to work).

I'm sure once the copy of Collected Visions I ordered shows up an image will grab me and set me on a path to glory, or insanity.

Right, back to drilling, gluing minute bits of stuff to my fingers and swearing alot :lol:

P.S. I've noticed i missed an 'e' in the topic title, would one of you lovely mods correct that for me? Ta.

Looks like a promising start Mabrothrax. You get extra points for placing all those studs individually; I don't think I have it in me to do something that tedious. The mix of armour marks sounds good too (something I wish I'd planed out for my own army, but oh well). Anyway, keep up the good work, and hopefully you'll be able to figure out a Legion for these guys (personally, I think lots of Mk.V suits the loyalists a bit better, so my vote would be for Salamanders, but Word Bearers would be nice to see too).

[Fixed] No problem

You definately have more patience than me, I would of been running around yelling "I'm a teapot, I'm a teapot!" after spending 20 mins doing the studs. :D

With the highlighting for your Alpha's what undercoat did you use?
If you used black, have you considered putting a light grey highlight on this, prior to basecoating it?

Otherwise I can't wait to see which way you go from here.

Thanks for that ;)

I've got four of the blighters done today, which between the shouting and swearing, drinking large amounts of tea (quickly moving on to boozage), and breaking 3 micro drill bits (my 0.4, 0.5 & 0.55!) took about two hours of actual working time.

I need to find something to do towards this project in between 'studding' each model. Other wise I'll properly lose it and turn my dog into a working gargantuan squiggoth in a manner that'd make a Blue Peter presenter jealous.

Regarding the Alpha legion scheme, I used a black u/c. Given the solidity and flatness of foundation Necron Abyss, I'm not sure how much of an effect a pre highlight will have, but I'll give it a go - thanks for the tip!

I think I need to find an article or two on paiting violet as that seems to be the best description of heresy Alpha Legion armour.

Searching for 'purple' and 'highlight' on various forums brings up a multitude of conflicting and mostly inappropriate info. :unsure:

Mabrothrax, having suffered the pain of trying to studdify models, thought I would offer some advice where I can and perhaps save you the bleeding fingers and tears of frustration

First of all, not sure if you have noticed it but there is a great tutorial by Bigwill and Anodyr in the tutorials section here.

After much trial and error, I've found the best combination to be using the #154 Smooth Rivets 0.043 (1.1mm) from Antenociti's workshop

For the drill, I've found an 'achimedes drill' to be the best, which you can get from the same website. I normally cut off a rivet, hold it inbetween my fingers, and then dip it into a pool of plastic glue (which is one I had already prepared earlier!) then stick it in the hole I have drilled. To begin with I was losing 2-3 rivets to every 1 I was successfully fitting, but the rivets are so small they seem to evaporate the moment I drop them!

To make it look more like mk5 armour, and less like 7, I shave the 'crest' off the top of the helm, the raised edges of the pauldrons (so they are completely flat), and add some extra cabling to the chest piece (mk5 armour seems to have a lot of cables!)

Hope this is some help, unfortunately I'm not very coherent had only a few hours sleep on top of several slippery nipples from last night (just the drink unfortunately!) and I'm currently sweating kebab juice so finding it v hard to cnncentrate!

The choice is made!

With the new codex about to hit it has to be the Salamanders :D

Unfortunately progress on the MKVs has ground to a halt as I await the replacements for all my broken micro drill bits. However I have begun putting the basic colours on a few marines (sorry abotu the dark photos, but these are just 'quickies')







Two coats of Knarloc Green and a wash of Thraka Green so far, next comes the many layers of Snot green.

I'm really charged and excited about this project now that it's underway.

Great things lie ahead :)

Looking gnarly so far :D

The weird thing is that they match your sig :blink:

Interesting to see some more PH salamanders. The mkV suits look great so far.

Well as usual I got side tracked a bit by life (something to do with finishing an album).

I returned to the Salamanders to find my initial enthusiasm gone. It's green. I can't bring myself to paint anymore of the damn colour. What's more my brother's Aurora Chapter over there, and my other brother's Dark Angels, not to mention my Orks & Nurgle/Deathguard stuff are really putting me off.

Fortunately I'd only partially painted three models.

I while ago I ordered some Vallejo Sick Blue, which is a direct replacement for the now out of production GW Nauseating Blue, which in my opinion is the perfect violet colour for heresy Alpha Legion.

I've started work on these models, with Necron Abyss over Black, followed by a 1:1 mix of Necron Abyss & Sick Blue, then pure Sick Blue. I'm figuring out the highlights using mixes of Liche Purple and Bleached Bone.

Here are some photos, which unfortunately due to the light don't really show the colour off too well. And yes, the models are untidy, but I tend to neaten up as I go along.









Having just read through the Tempus Fugitive's campaign pack I'm very excited by the prospect of converting and fielding both Alpharius and Omegon.

I think I'll need to re-read Legion soon, with notebook in hand!

loving the power maul with the beak helmet dude. looks awesome

cant wait tae see these dudes finished

Well first of all, I have to say very brave of you to change your objectives. I know how painful it can be trying to paint up batches of stuff when you don't really enjoy it, and if thats the case then why bother? Similarly I have a whole bunch of marines, normally 2 or 3 of each, painted in different chapter colours, but as they say its better not to flog a dead grox.

But these guys look very promising, would love to see a more accurate photo of the colour you have decided upon for their armour!

It took me a few days to convince myself that changing Legions was the way to go, but as soon as I did my enthusiasm went though the roof. I must say I've never really been much of a fan of the ever-changing blue/green (with or without scales) modern renegade Alpha Legion, and having access to cultists did nothing for me either.

However the arguments over their original colours interested me greatly - a not so blatantly Purple army! (no offence to an EC players out there but I've had my fill of lurid pink/purple armies)

The Legion Novel, even though it was more an IG tale, had me champing at the bit to at least attempt a squad of Alpha Legion. Furthermore, I've seen plenty of people accross the net proclaiming they'd be doing AL, but so few followed through.

Enough rambling.

It would appear the ellusive violet is harder to photograph than paint; hopefully these pics give a better representation of the colour.







After a bit of messing around I decided that simply using Bleached Bone to higlight the Sick Blue works best, adding in any of the purples just confused the colour.

Also the champion took a bit of a tumble, hence his bent hammer and bare-metal understain :o

I invoke my dark powers and ressurect this blog...

Hmm, nearly eight months since the previous post. Bad boy, dirty boy, in your bed!

Well, life and other stuff gets in the way, but I must say I'm surprised no one else has gone and done Alpha Legion since then. I guess the appeal waned again seeing as 4 HH books have been published since Legion.

Not alot has happened to my little army as such and I've only just dusted it off (again).

At present, in various stages of paintedness and (un)assembly i have:

1 ten man tactiacl squad - all MKIV inc fistychamp and a plasmagunner
1 ten man tactical squad - 8 MKV & 2 MKVI inc meltagunner & heavy bolter
1 ten man tactical squad - all MKV in bits in a box waiting to be rivited
3 captans/heroes - based on the master of recruits (MKVI), master of the fleet (sort of MKVI) and master of the arsenal (MKIII)
1 RT Rhino with extra armour (from the old vindicator kit)
1 Alpharius/Omegon wip conversion

Not great photos but better than nothing...













I really want to go to the TF AoTE HH event, there are still 'warmaster' tickets, but I'm not sure
i) I can get 2.5k + painted in time
ii) justify the cost of the trip
iii) be arsed to by Planetstrike & a bastion (cos they're required and I'd rather be getting more models for the army)

Regardless of the event I intend to have an pair of Primarchs built using various truescale ideas/methods. One of the will be a representation of the cover of Legion

Other than that I'm champing at the bit to try and build a Spartan using the current LR & Rhino models. I think it can be done... watch this space.

With a little luck I'll get some more updates posted in the next 7 months, but I do tend to get easily distracted by Guinness and ladies :rolleyes:

The Alpha/Omegon conversion looks great!!!

Mabrothrax; A Spartan, as in this?



Pic's from my Blog. I've been working on this one for a while, but it's had to take a back seat to other current issues.

Very interesting Gagoc, I'll have a closer look at your blog. I do intend to have the land raider body upside down as an homage to Tony Cottrell's original... if I can pull it off.

Alot of pasticard will be involved! I also fancy giving it the MKII treatment with redards to the lascnnon sponson housing. With the incresaed length from the Rhino section/assault ramp, the added width from the built up sides should balance the piece nicely. It'll be a big bugger!

Will probably get the kits later in the week. In fact I might go for the Vindicator rather than a Rhino as I don't anticipate using much more than the front/top plate.

I wonder if I can get it built by the 12th for the vehicle comp? :o

Right, I've done some more work on my Alpharius/Omegon.

At present I've got three choices of head;

1 - Bare head. This is one of the few unhelmeted marine heads I actually like, if I had one my first choice would be the one from the Chaos Terminator Lord set. If I went for this I'd try and allude to the 'copper' skin tone mentioned in Legion.





2 - MKV (or VII?) This is simply a MKVII head altered to look like the cover art of Legion. It looks ok, but I think a few studs might improve the look. Having said that I always thought the studded heads gave a more 'chaotic' look. The bald MKV has a more ambiguity to it.





3 - MKVI I've already got a few MKVI heads on my commander models and a few amongst the troops. I really like the MKVI and don't think we see enough of it! Funnily enough there's a an early promo shot of the Legion cover art with a MKVI helm. Being so plain, it also has the ambiguity that I like.





Any opinions?

Thanks

The Alpharius conversion seems really cool, maybe try to bulk out the waist a bit though.
Being the mystery man that he was, I think a helmeted head would look better even though paintingwise the copper tone could give a nice contrast for the cold armour colours. It's also interesting to see resemblance in artwork, like the Legion cover for example. I don't know why, but I'd go with the beaky helmet, I think it fits the design a bit more. This is quite a pickle really. :D
Oh and nice use of the definately-not-a-space-viking shoulderpads. :)

Thanks! I'm pretty much sold on the MKVI head, it has a certain quality I really like, and it even resembles the promo/wip Legion cover...



The cool thing is that I get to make a second version for his twin, for which I'll have a bare head. Not sure if he'll be a clone of this one though... might have to go harass Iacton for a spare set of 'not Russ' pads, I think they work really well!

I've done a little work on the legs/kneepads to closer match the artwork and started working on the waist/belt. I'm not the king of Green stuff, but I'm very pleased with my progress so far :D

if you werent already sold: This is what i say to Alpharius "You can stab me and shoot me but, please don't poke my eyes out with your beak, Mighty Alpharius! PLEASE!!!!!!"

Been rather busy of late and haven't got an awful lot done, still a few things are in the works...

first up, I've decided to go for a slate theme and have been happily smashing bits of stuff with hammers and making pretty bases.



Then there's the Land Speeder project - I've been trying for ages to get the metal 90s land speeder but keep missing out on ebay, besides, I'm not sure they're reall worth the £20+ they go for.

I had a rather sad looking typhoon sitting gathering dust, so I've attacked it with cippers, plasticard greenstuff etc in an attempt to make it look more like the 90s version...





I'm pleased with the results so far, and am considering a trio of Land Speeder Storms (for my scouts/insurgents) which'll recieve a similar treatment.

Then there's this:



One mangled Iron priest, a plasma cannon backpack and a plastic space crusade conversion beamer; with a bit of time ad a lot of swearing I'll have a rather swanky Master of the Forge.

Last, but by no means least, an attempt at a sculpted shooulder pad. Transfers aren't for me, and I find freehand painting of geometirc shapes over a curved surface abt of a pain.



Gonna try making a simpple GS mould and pressing a few of these soon.

Ah swearing, the secret ingredient to many a successful conversion. :D

The slate bases look rocking (pun intended), and I can imagine provide adequate stress release when you smash them up. I'm loving the look of your new old style Land Speeder, tis fab. You'll have to do us all a tutorial as you make the next one. ;)

The Legion icon's looking very promising too, should work nicely as a push mould and give you a lot of nice looking icons very quickly.

lovely im likeing alot, but one question how did you get the knee pads right

I assume you mean the MKIVs above? Simply use a pair of MKVI legs and score a line to show where the kneepad ends, and deepen to a groove with a needle file.

I started work on some Terminators over the weekend...







still a lot of work to be done, but these shall be finished in time to be entered into the squad competition.

Better get back to work on them!

Slowly but surely I'm making progress with my Alpha Legion.

The Terminators are in the rivet stage, which drives me mad - but looks great, need to get my skates on if they're to be done on time for the Squad competition!



A lot of swearing and some blue-tak has the Master of the Forge looking like this...



Then there's the Land Speeder Storm.



This was a bastard to put together, and the scouts are a bit fiddly to balance on it. I considered adding magnets to them but quickly dismissed the idea for the sake of my sanity (and there are few suitable 'touch points' between the scouts and the Storm)

I know it's debatable, and probably unlikely that the Storm was a round during the Heresy, but I think the Alpha Legion at least would have used a similar anti-grav transport for their insurgents/operatives/scouts.

Besides the possibility of another Storm, I'm thinking a Scout Bike unit would fit in, and with various teleport homers/beacons zipping around, drop pods seem the ideal transport for my tactical and command squads.

It all depends on my time and budget between now and Gedren Prime!

Bring it on :D

Very nice! I like the use of the Mk8 torsos on the termis. Their wasteline seems a bit narrow though...

The Forge master looks suitably epic as well. Presumably there will be a load of wires, etc... running to the backpack?

Great stuff, I like the conversion you've pulled off with the old Iron Priest model!

The LS storm is looking good as well - if you're having trouble balancing the scouts on top, perhaps we should bring back that old rule from RT that if a mini falls from the model during play then it actually counts as falling in the game? :)

Very cool stuff, I like where this is going. The terminator conversions are ace.

Things are coming along slowly but surely.

Alongside all the painting to get done (Terminators, tactical squad, LS Storm) I've started on the second 10 man MKV squad (yet more rivets are in the post), and I've been bumbling around the 'Mad Lab' putting together a Dreadnought...





Thanks must go to Anodyr who I got the Tyrus model from, and, to Whitehorn, whose idea I've blatantly stolen :P

My conversions tend to be more of a bang it together and see what happens affair, and this is no exception. Tyrus + bits of SM dread + random bits + insanity = Pre Heresy Venerable Dreadnought!

Still lots to do - cables (bass strings), green stuff, a heavy flamer, shoulder pads, alternative feet etc.

Should look pretty damn sexy when done :D

All looking great - that last Terminator in particular (with the rivets) looking very cool.

Mr Happy the Dreadnought is getting there, I've almost finished gluing on random stuff...





:)

That is looking spanky! You all set for the event?

More or less, I'm trying out various lists. I'm also waiting for some (Red Scorpions) Vanguard Vets to show up... FW are being slower than normal.

Fortunately my force has reached that happy 1500pts level and has all the basics covered, so anything I do next will give me more choice.

I'm currently deciding whether to go down the scout/operativeroute (another LS Storm or two, Scout bikers & more scouts), or, focus on the marines - I'm itching to have a bash at a Spartan LR.

With less than six weeks to go, I need to make some decisions!