[40k] Alpha Legion, First attempt at a fully painted army Options

[Waggerz]

Well here we go...

Since registering here I've browsed the Modeling Diaries section almost daily. I love the work that others are doing on their legion and I felt it was about time I posted one of my own. I did however wait until I at least had something painted before posting. I warn you my painting is bad but everyone starts somewhere.

Before I get to the pictures, I'd like to mention that despite the fact I have been collecting GW products since late rogue trader era I have NEVER finished an army. I find that once I've constructed an army, I end up playing games with it and never actually painting it. Alpha Legion will be where this changes. This is a huge problem for me and something I need to beat. Hopefully this diary will keep me on track.

I've taken alot of time to get the look and feel right for what I want in this army and tried as hard as I can to stick to the background that I know. I actually started the army before I read legion and was happy to learn my interpretations were not wrong.

These are some of the guidelines I started with:

1. No spikes! (or at least minimal spikes) this helps point 3
2. Strong Infantry base. Alpha Legion are spread around and not hugely into the whole daemon thing and vehicles make alot of noise and make it hard to be sneaky
3. Good or Evil? Minimal chaos icons and no mutations.

The idea being that the oponent should be able to recognise the force as an army of chaos, but at the same time chaos should not be a leading attribute of the army. I probably just confused you all, but then most people will just skip to the pics anyway.

It Begins
Missing terminators, bikes and forgeworld doors and dread.


First Squad
All horns shaved off, some loyalisy heads.


Dreadnaught
And a few other models. Not sure how much I'll use the dread, but I had to get it anyway.


Rhinos
Forgeworld doors, nothing really special here


Terminators
No spikes or horny helms. I had no way to get enough loyalist terminator helms so I had to improvise. I think it worked well.


At this point everything is rather standard, but chosen are really where alpha legion gets their fluff from to I had to go overboard on them.

Chosen
Based on a cheap set of pre-assembled Dark Angles I got from a mate (cheers Cave). They needed alot of cleanup and destruction to get right.


Chosen Characters
To link with my idea that my Alpha Legion still function in a standard manner, I've added a techmarine and medic to my chosen squad which I can use to represent either standard non special chosen or perhaps powerweapons or even a powerfist for the Mech arm.


I also had a problem that I wanted to use my chosen in many different ways. Which either means I make alot of variety models or create a weapon / icon change system for my games. Fun with magnets!

Chosen Icon
Icon based on an old warhammer fantasy shield and a chaos vehicle icon behind it. Most icons are circular about this size so it actually looks really good (see above for squad pic with slaneesh icon attached). Also note the greenstuff imprint work on the chest.


Chosen Special Weapons


Bikes
I never liked the space marine bikes really and always thought they were too cruser looking to be riding around a battlefield. So I removed the scooter foot rest and added pegs instead. In addition, after I did that it was rather easy to stand some of them up on the pegs to give them some variety and a sense of action.


Guess I broke the 10 pic limit.. tbc

This post has been edited by Waggerz: Sep 17 2009, 11:01 AM

[Waggerz]

Weapon changes
The icon and special weapon arms are changable with the chosen squad to cut down on the arms I need to make.





A few characters
Figure I need a few people to lead this mob, and if I want I can also field them as chosen


Sorcerer I am quite proud of


The next step was the painting... Always the part I least enjoyed I needed to find a color scheme that was both decent and within my abilities.

[Waggerz]

Painting

This is the part if the project I usually get discouraged on and find excuses not to do. I managed to paint half a Chaos fantasy army once, but thats the closest I have ever gotten to a painted army.

As a consequence my painting skills are low but I know that I just need to sit down and get some painting done before things get better. With that in mind I settled for the colour scheme below.
First Pic


Second Pic


Surprisingly people seemed to like them (huge victory over my painting daemons)

So I kept painting and this is where I am currently up to. I noticed taing the pictures there is alot I can do to fix up these minis, and a few things I missed entirely.

First Squad


Second Squad


Bikes are WIP (in the middle of being black washed)
Bikes


Again, comments and criticisms are welcome, but please keep in mind I am a painting nub. I figure the more I paint the better I'll get but I need to start somewhere.

Thanks for watching, tune in next time

[Smorg]

me like

[LordXeb]

Bout time Waggerz...looking good.

[tintaman]

Wow, they look great. Nice effort.

[The Dentist]

good to see more alpha legion, tho i started them back in third edition before they became "secret agents of the emporer" which i think sucks. it was much cooler when they were evil sneaky nasty bastards.

[tintaman]

They're not really undercover Imperium troops, it's kinda left undecided whether they still retain loyalist roots or whether 10K years has left them as much traitors as the rest of the Traitor Legions. It's a mystery1 just like whether it's Aplharius or Omegon who died! Or whether both died because they're twins and couldn't function without each other. ????

[The Dentist]

well the new chaos codex killed my vision for my alpha legion anyway. separating CSM from daemons sucks. just makes CSM boring space marines really. but i dont want to hijack this thread. nice work with the models mate

[Bren1974]

Cool models, really like where this army is headed. Great work.

[Iago]

Well done on slaying the painting daemons...as someone who suffers from Painting block 90% of the time, it's been my impression that it's more the lack of peer input and feedback rather than lack of ability and effort that influences how much one paints.

The more you gain confidence from feedback, the more you end upo painting which then leads to the more improvement you see...and so on. Good luck. Nice work so far.

[Waggerz]

Latest update is 20 cultists armed with hand to hand weapons which will count as summoned daemons. I tried to mix in as many 40k looking weapons to drag them away from their fantasy flagellant background.

Let me know what you think, I think they look suitably chaosy and make perfect cultists. Also a few of the conversions will make great Redemptionists for my Necromunda gang.

Cultists








EDIT: In addition, I don't mind this thread getting side tracked into an Alpha Legion discussion. I like to think that the Alpha Legion are the Dark Angles of the forces of evil. Sure, they say they are evil, but they tend to do their own thing. Perhaps they no longer follow the directive given to them when they changed sides. Perhaps they are trying to destroy chaos through the destruction of the human race entirely. Perhaps they've embraced chaos entirely. Or maybe they're just pirates and flip a coin to figure out who they will help out in any situation.

This post has been edited by Waggerz: Apr 14 2009, 09:56 AM

[Mortus The Corrupter]

What do you mean your a bad/average painter?!? These models are awesome! Keep at it -trust me, the road ahead looks long and difficult, but once you have a whole army painted it definitely feels worthwhile.

Off topic: I found the end of Legion confusing....did they turn traitor or not? During the attack on Mon Lo harbour they were using psykers...wasn't that already going against what the Emperor decreed? Legion was an epic book though, better than half in the series.

[Cave]

Lookign good. Photos don't do them justice. I'll have to help you play test next time your at WGoL.

Cheers

Cave

[Comrade]

Me likey much.

[Wobbie]

wow you are realy motering through this army. You will have a painted army in no time if you keep this up. I can't wait to see these up close...

This post has been edited by Wobbie: Apr 17 2009, 10:50 AM

[Waggerz]

I have the bikes done now and a 5 man missile launcher havoc squad done.

Still having trouble deciding on how I should base them all, I though I had decided but it looks horrible on the bikes. (black->grey->white base seen on the middle guy in the first squad pic).

List of things I still have to paint:
~15 marines with a variety of weapons, some heavy some special some bolters etc etc
5 terminators
12 Chosen
20 cultists

Thats not too bad, although its not including vehicles.

I was looking through the Arc photos I took and I think I'll go for a paint scheme like the one used in the objective marker of Adam's Ultramarines. Pic below:


I wonder if I can paint anything like it.

[ageis]

looking good Waggerz. keep it up

[Drazah]

gogogo! more pics!

-well done man, looking good, neat =]

[Waggerz]

Well... I haven't succeeded quite yet with my fully painted army but for the first time last weekend I was able to field and entire army I had painted myself at a small club tournament!!

YAY

OK so the Chosen and my Sorcerer weren't finnished, they only had a base coat and edging/weapons picked out....

...and the bases still needed work...

...and most things weren't cleaned up...

...and I had no vehicles painted...

But still, it was painted and in more than a base coat!! I was really pleased how the cultists turned out... Their role as summoned daemons leaves something to be desired though.

Anyway here are some pics of this small achievement

The Force


The Faces


The Faithful


The Fine Scenery


Feedback and advice on what I could do for vehicles would be great.

-Wagz

This post has been edited by Waggerz: May 31 2009, 07:09 PM