Introducing Librarian Rorschach, fresh from the dropship!

What do you see in me?!

Left side!

Right side!

Rorschach was started earlier this year and I finally dusted him off and finished him up this week.  The core of the model is a Terminator Sergeant from the Black Reach box.  The banner is from a Command Squad, spliced into a Terminator arm.  Both arms are magnetized so I could attach them for play before he was painted, and for easier transport now that he’s done—no re-gluing that banner every time I open the box!  Other details and photos from construction are in the WIP post.

My arms! My arms! What have you done?!?!

I think the paintjob came out a bit more gritty and dark than I wanted, as well as a bit sloppy, but overall I think he looks good and interesting.  From most angles and lighting the banner puts his entire body into a shadow so he doesn’t really stand out well and the details are lost, but to a large extent that’s intentional.  He’s supposed to be a dark, brooding, introspective danger.

I ignored the standard Librarian coloring because having a little Ultramarines blue in every army is great to let all those other guys know which chapter’s the boss, but I don’t think it looks good.  Despite being awesomely painted technically, I think a lot of the GW Librarian paintjobs outside of the Ultramarines really don’t work well within their armies.

Rorschach also differs from the standard Kingbreakers khaki/blue/green because he’s part of the death mindset that’s settled in the chapter since the Exterminatus of Forestway, their home planet. The Librarian and many others, notably the Kingbreakers’ Ghosts (Sternguard), have painted their armor black and helmets white to reflect the attitude that they’re all already dead and fighting on borrowed time, purely for revenge.

Librarian Rorschach, Sgt Harmon, and a few of the Kingbreakers’ Sternguard.

That narrative is important to me and well established in the chapter’s background and history of play.  They originally got this story because Kingbreakers’ Sternguard are known for hurling themselves into almost certain death, sacrificing their lives for tactical or strategic advantage.  Rorschach is no different, and even more overtly effectively a high stakes gambler.  His disconnect from reality and those around him leaves him unable to fully process consequences and thus he never hesitates to throw around the Vortex of Doom and other highly perilous spells, even within close quarters.

In terms of actual gameplay though, Rorschach most often deploys with my Sternguard.  Those guys were given a variant paintjob to differentiate them from Tactical Squads on the table without actually breaking the cohesive, muted look of the whole army.  Rorschach got similar styling in order to fit in with his usual fighting companions.

The Kingbreakers’ Ghost variant compared to the standard paint scheme.

Up next for painting at some point is probably a similar Ghost color-variant Drop Pod for these guys, and then moving on.  I kind of want/need another five Sternguard painted up, but after doing all this black I’m actually a little eager to do some standard Kingbreakers.

Walter was quite rightly giving me (friendly) flak at the tournament on Saturday for my counts-as Sternguard combi-meltas.  Between that and the great time I had, I was finally motivated yesterday to knock out some guys I’ve had kicking around for a stupid long time now in various stages of progress.  Introducing Sergeant Harmon and the Kingbreakers Ghost Squad (Sternguard):

The conception here is that Kingbreakers Sternguard are made up of the last standing survivors of other squads, nearly all of which were devastated after the fall of Forestway, let alone their ongoing campaigns against Chaos.  These marines view themselves as already dead, so they’ve painted their armor black and are even more willing than regular Kingbreakers to drop into the maw of doom, following their creed:  Without hope, without mercy, without fear.

Eventually I’m going to have ten guys in this style for a full squad of Sternguard.  There are three combi-Xs in this combat squad and there’ll be another three in the next one, a loadout I’ve been regularly running for a long time now.  Two of the combi-guns are a standard plasmagun conversion.  Sgt Harmon is rolling a Kopena-pattern combi-gun, a combination of a bolter, plasmagun, and a fuse from a Christmas tree light…  It’s not the most complex thing, but I think it looks fine in practice (there’s one or two in my army already) and it stands out a bit.

I basically always roll combi-meltas but meltas are way more precious, so the plasma look will have to do.  Anybody that has an actual problem with that, especially since I don’t mix combi-types, is probably not someone I want to play with.  I didn’t add oversize ammo clips because I couldn’t make satisfying from scratch and didn’t have enough unused storm bolters to convert from those.  One guy though is carrying a spare ammo box, and Harmon has a ton of pouches on him in traditional Kingbreakers fashion—you never know how long you’ll be in the field.

All of the arms and heads were painted separately before being attached and then washed.  This means they’re not playable while in progress, but makes a lot of the detail work easier.

The dudes were spray primed white like I always do for infantry.  The Grey Knights helmets add a really nice, mean looking flair to the guys.  They actually took a lot of time.  Originally they were going to go on some actual GK painted white, so they were built up pretty slowly in layers from a deep blue base to give a very solid white.  On these guys though they were way too clean looking so I had to wash them black.  That lost most of the blue shading, but it’s still a nice smooth white (which is tougher to get than it sounds).

The robes and top armor are just Chaos Black drybrushed pretty heavily with Codex Grey and then washed heavily with Badab Black (rest in peace!).  The wash took away the highlights a bit more than I wanted, but especially in the photos they actually come out really ghost-like.

The legs are standard Kingbreakers Hammerfall Khaki, Bleached Bone highlights, and Gryphon Sepia wash.  Arms are Ordic Olive highlighted with Snot Green (I think), washed with Thraka Green. I think they’ll fit in well with the other Kingbreakers through the common legs, arms, and shoulder pad trim (Mechrite Red, designator of Kingbreakers First Company), but the black top armor will distinguish them nicely on the table as the Sternguard.

Next up is Librarian Rorschach in Terminator Armor.  I worked out his arms this morning, he’s going to be super super sweet.  Then these guys will get their own Drop Pod in this ghost color scheme.  Somewhere along the way I should probably make or invest in a decent lightbox, there’s not been a ton of sunshine  lately, with no sign of that changing soon.

Fear the Kingbreakers!

Some time ago, my buddy Matt gave me a half-complete conversion project. He’d taken a Landspeeder, cut up the cab, and added some bedrolls, smoke launchers, and a Storm Bolter type thing on an extra wing frame. His aim was to build some sort of IG recon vehicle, but he decided it wasn’t going anywhere and handed it over.

With all the bedrolls and such I started thinking of it as a Long Patrol Landspeeder. The fluff notion became that the Kingbreakers employed a number of these on extended solitary patrols around Forestway, their home planet, and later in other systems as well. ‘Speeders intended for this purpose were grafted with extra sensors, lights, small weapons, comms gear, and provisions stores in order to sustain themselves for long periods, detect anomalies and enemies, and report back. Given the small size of the chapter and the reconnaissance oriented mission, these were manned with semi-automated guns so that a single Marine could take up the duty and potentially be unavailable for a good period of time. That practice only became even more important when the chapter was decimated in the tragic undoing of Forestway, a tale for another time. After that, many such recon units were further converted to have an armored cab so that a Scout could undertake those long range patrols and recce flights with relatively assured survival, helping to free all full battle brothers for deployment in front line combat.

Back in reality, at the time I finished putting the model together I didn’t have a ton of extra Marines to convert into pilots, and Matt’s were largely missing. I also liked the idea of a lonely Marine out on patrol; it fit in with the somewhat outdoorsy, quiet, solitary background mood of the Kingbreakers. Given that Matt had already added some packs, searchlights, and so on, it also only made sense to add some more doo-dads and really push it in that direction. In the end, I built up a little cab out of clay, a gun turret out of a Devastator squad Multi-Melta and the cone of a dead laser pointer, a nose mounted Heavy Flamer from a bits bag Jason traded me for some magnets, and a bunch of gribblies from random bits.

Last week I finally got around to painting that Long Patrol Landspeeder:

Kingbreakers' Long Patrol Landspeeder

I’m pretty happy with how this turned out. For some reason it’s a little shinier than I expected, even after dull coating, but not too bad in real life. Most importantly, the cab fits in with the body and with the narrow vision slit is even vaguely reminiscent of the official Tempest model, so that worked out reasonably well.

On that note, sometime earlier this winter I also painted up a standard Landspeeder model:

Kingbreakers' Standard Combat Landspeeder

On the construction side of things, I like the Landspeeder models a lot as they’re fairly straightforward to assemble, and quick to paint. Between these two I didn’t find a huge difference in painting before versus after assembly, but would probably do the former in the future. Really the slowest parts are the two Marine pilots, but they’re not too bad if done before assembly. The Kingbreakers icons are done with custom decals I made up. Like all my vehicles, these were base coated with cheap black spray paint. The main paint components in the Kingbreakers’ scheme are Privateer Press Paints’ Hammerfall Khaki, Ordic Olive, and Exile Blue, respectively washed with GW Gryphon Sepia, Thraka Green, and Asurmen Blue. The washes highlight the shapes of the components and provide a little bit of a weathered look I like, with basically no effort. I’ve found so far that really edging the lines on vehicles takes a ton of time and doesn’t really stand out on the gaming table, so for both these models I skipped that step in favor of getting them done.

I’m also pretty happy with how the bases on both came out. Given the large size and relatively visible nature of these on Landspeeders, they’re definitely worth spending a minute or two on:

Standard Combat 'Speeder Base

Long Patrol 'Speeder Base Front

Long Patrol 'Speeder Base Rear

Both bases were done quickly and easily. I built up the Standard Combat base with some greystuff blobs to give it a little bit of a smoothed rock texture. The Long Patrol base is textured with some hacked up balsa wood and bits from a toy race car. Both were sprayed black with the rest of their model, then painted Scorched Brown. They were then drybrushed to a greater or lesser extent with Snakebite Leather. The Standard Combat base was then also drybrushed with Bronzed Flesh, and the metal bits on the Long Patrol picked out in Boltgun Metal. The Standard base was then washed in Devlan Mud and the Long base in Gryphon Sepia. On both bases I then glued on some green flock, fake wheat grass, and fake lichen. Those elements were then randomly brushed again with the same wash as the base to darken them, tie them into the base, and add some color variation.

Finally, both have been constructed to disassemble, enabling easier storage, representation of battle damage and destruction, and swappable nose weapons:

Disassembled Standard Combat 'Speeder

On the Standard Combat model I cut off the tip of the flight base and simply glued on a 1/8″ magnet, with a corresponding partner sunk into the hole the base usually inserts into, after it had been slightly enlarged. The standard ‘Speeder model is light enough that this basically works if set level—it swings around easily, but is super stable when picked up or set down on the table. The Heavy Flamer similarly has a 1/8″ magnet sunk into it, and a matching one in the nose gun mount.

I had no base for the Long Patrol speeder, so I used a wood dowel rod supported by a balsa chunk on a cutout piece of plasticard. With the extra weight of the cab, the model was too heavy to sit readily at the somewhat more dynamic angle I cut the support rod at with just the magnet holding it together. To counter that, I added a sheath around the magnet on the ‘Speeder body that the base dowel fits into. Between that and the magnets it’s rock solid, even when set to pretty crazy angles. The Heavy Flamer was done similarly as the Standard model, just offset to the side a bit on the body.

One note about magnetizing like this is that it’s really hard to bind magnets to most surfaces with glue, so I usually wind up using greystuff or greenstuff to set them in place.

In game terms I play both of these simply as standard Landspeeders, usually outfitted with a Multi-Melta and Heavy Flamer in an all-comers list. All in all, I’ve come to view Landspeeders as one of the bright stars in the Marines’ lineup, and one of their definite advantages on the battlefield. More thoughts on their tactics will have to await another day, but suffice to say it’s become pretty rare for me to leave home without these, even for very small games, and I expect to build more for this summer’s ‘Ard Boyz.

More and higher res pictures of both models are available in the Flickr gallery.