# The Quest for Perfection- Heresy Era Emperor's Children



## Barnster (Feb 11, 2010)

Dedicated Plogs alway seem to inspire me, so I'm going to do one to try and keep some painting momentum.

At the moment these will be the figs I've painted for the army painting challenge (A current grand total of 2!) but will hopefully grow over the next couple of months 

The Army itself will be made from a mix of GW, Forgeworld and 3rd party bits, I'll try to keep up as I post a unit to explain where all the bits have come from. I have a lot of units built, but will wait till its their painting turn before posting them. As a couple of units were built pre betrayal lists the champion/ sergeant may not be perfectly wysiwyg

I will be aiming to update this plog at least once a week

Right picture time, out of habit, and because I like pre-post picts I'll add them 

1st 

HQ Primus Medicae Fabius

Parts - All GW - Bile's backpack, Chaos champion power sword, Eldar guardian head, Apothecary nartcarium & shoulder pads, Eagle wing from Dark angels Vet box, and a set of regular marine legs 



















2nd

Elite Ancient Rylannor 

Parts - All FW - Relic Contemptor with Kheres and power fist (+ a piece of slate)








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3rd Troops

A WIP on my legion Tactical squad

Parts - Mix GW, FW, Maxmini and Anvil Industrys. Maxmin, heads on a couple, FW Red Scorpion upgrade set (MK IV chests & helmets) GW marine legs and arms Anvil head plume and leather straps 




















Plan for next step is to finish the tacts and then move on to Lucius


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## Boc (Mar 19, 2010)

Looking great so far, man. Love the contemptor. What model of bolter are you going for with the tac squad at the bottom?


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## Barnster (Feb 11, 2010)

Thanks Mate.

The Marines in this squad, and most of the army will have Umbra pattern bolters. I toyed with them having Tigrus pattern but thought they looked too "modern".


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## Barnster (Feb 11, 2010)

Yesterday afternoon rather than finish the tactical squad I sat down and painted Lucius

4 HQ, Legion Champion, Lucius

A quick note the conversion on the arm went wrong and he was meant to be pointing straight ahead, but I cut the pistol wonky. The slight downwards pointed finger does seem to suit Lucius' supreme arrogance so I kept it, so an accident that worked out then! 

Parts - all GW Sanguinary Guard sword, Chapter champion torso, GK hand, Bolt pistol arm, Marine legs




























Going to try and stay focused and finish the tact squad now...


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## spanner94ezekiel (Jan 6, 2011)

lol, that finger makes lucius look a bit camp...


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## Khorne's Fist (Jul 18, 2008)

I'm liking the character conversions. The gold on Ryllanor looks great as well. Looking forward to seeing more.


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## Barnster (Feb 11, 2010)

@Spanner94ezekiel of all the characters, in all the legions in the imperium you say a captain in the Emperors Children is Camp? Lucius Camp dear? Him dear? No dear, he totally is not camp dear! :grin:

Thanks Khorne, next few characters will be a Master of Signal and a Vigilator, based on Telion (Turns out you need to order him direct now?) But I think I should get some troops and tanks finished before starting one of these. I have several sets of PH tracks on order from the US will hopefully be cool

That said my next set of posts will be a step by step construction "tutorial" for a legion fellblade, mainly because the instructions that you get from FW are somewhat lacking. I thought some people may find it handy to look at, those considering picking one up can have a look at it, and I wanted to try to write a step by step. As a slight preview, I am currently dealing with serious warpage and track issues. I'll start posting formal pics and write up tomorrow


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## wingazzwarlord (Jun 11, 2011)

looking great so far. love the concept


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## Barnster (Feb 11, 2010)

Fellblade Construction tutorial Part 1 incoming 

Things you need to build one - Fellblade kit (obviously) Sharp knife, clippers, Needle Files, Super glue and some Greenstuff 

1) First few step, as with any Forge world kit, is to thoroughly wash the parts, and allow to dry. This removes any excess mould release (They always have this on, the parts feel greesy when handled). At this stage I also tend to remove the larger excess resin blocks. 

2) Next step is to trim and clean all the parts to remove excess resin, this takes some time but be patient 

If your patient and do this to all the parts you end up with a bag of bits that looks surprisingly empty 










3) Construction starts. The main undercarriage of the Fellblade is from the Baneblade kit, so glue the 2 main side panels together, for both the left and right side. These are key parts so be generous with the adhesive. No one sees these but you don't want it to collapse mid build 



















4) The next part is installing the floor 

WARNING This is the first part of the FW instructions which isn't good

Attach the two floor panel to one side of the side panels








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The Instructions say to now glue the other side on as well but DON'T! I made this mistake

Don't Do This!!










The problem is this small part needs to be added in before the other side is joined.










So when this added and both sides are glued in place, leave to dry. I used the large turret plate to ensure that all parts dried straight


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## Barnster (Feb 11, 2010)

5) This is where we did the (1st) time warp










Fairy major warp issue. I heated and straightened this until it was the right shape. This was fairly tricky due to how thick the plate was and included a lot of dry fitting 

6) The next step again is poor in the instruction, The large turret plate and smaller gun plate have to be glued in at the same time or they will not fit. Apply glue and fit both pieces.










At this stage you can fix the heavy bolter turret and covering into place. I haven't glues these pieces as it will make painting the beast more challenging, but they look like this when placed on










7) Next step is the demolisher cannon and covering. The instructions suggest that the cannon can be left as a moveable piece but I glued it in place as there is very little motion possible, just a slight up down it wasn't really worth leaving the motion 










8) The engine. Really easy stick the 4 exhausts on the main body of the engine 










The note about the engine is however on the back. My engine was slightly damaged when it arrived as the area of model where the gate is connected was snapped, removing a slight bit of the hull. This is not a big deal as its easy to fix with a bit of greenstuff later. The gates however are huge on the back and have to filled off a fair bit. so it will fit flush to the main hull.










Eventually it fits nicely on the back of the tank










9) side armour skirts. These are large resin pieces that just have to be lined up to fit. I used some elastic bands to hold it together as it dried










Next stage (I'll upload tomorrow) is the part of this kit which I hated - :ireful2: The tracks :ireful2:


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## Thomas Mondrup (Nov 25, 2008)

Thats just awesome mate, looking forward to see it assembled and what your take on the paint will be


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## Barnster (Feb 11, 2010)

Thanks! I can help with more assembly, but I probably won't be painting the behemoth until March/ April time, partly due to work commitments and partly because I want some marines finished and leave this as a bit of a painting treat.

So 

10) Wheel hubs, here we take the plastic wheel hubs from the BB sprue and clip all the outer "nubs" off and file until flat and smooth, you do this for all 4 pieces.










Once silky smooth attach to the hull/ armoured skirts










RANT IMO this was a poor design decision. They could have likely automatically incorporated these (in resin) by casting them with the skirt. It is next to impossible to get a perfect line on both sides with the wheels lining up. Although unnoticeable, (unless you look for it) there is a 1-2mm slight misalignment on one of mine 

11) The Track 

So we start the tracking (Who remembers the pain of tracking your VCR? This is worse..)

First is easy enough attach the track (conveniently labelled RI, RII, LI, LII etc) to the body of the tank. These were very warped when they arrived to me so needed a lot of heating and flattening and straightening. 

The issue is that even though they fit like a charm, mine were a couple of mm too short(!) I don't know if I was just unlucky with resin shrink or if this is a fault of the kit but this stage caused hell.

Once the first couple of track bits are in, you have to add hull extensions to attach the front wheel to the main body of the tank, easy enough to do










As you go round follow the numbering guid and try your best to make sure that there are no gaps on the visable parts of the tank. The large bottom pieces of the track however caused grief when regardless of what I did there was still a gap on both sides at the front










Track joint "extenders" will have to be either greenstuffed or plasticarded for this. Its barely noticeable when the tank is the right way up but very annoying. As you can see on one side this gap is particularly irritating. Considering they are identical I struggle to understand why both sides were different. (NB The big tack piece has to go there due to way it lines up underneath so could not have just pushed it up and recoved it from the wheel barrel base at the the end) 










I will say I have heard many complaints (From experienced FW modellers) on the tracks for the LR Spartan at not fitting properly, although I don't have a Spartan (yet) to say which is worse, it seems the track curse follows the astartes.

12) Once the tracks are in place you are left with a rather large gap which needs a new armour plate




























The fuel barrels sit on the top of these plates, I've not glued them for ease of painting










RANT I really don't like the fuel barrels, everything about the kit screams marines except the barrels. I may just use a piece of placticard to cover the indent and have it as flat armour in the future. Also (again this could just be the one I got) but their not that well sculpted/ moulded. They are not flat but rather angle very slightly into the middle and a huge gate was on the only tiny bit of detail. So not impressed with the barrels. I would have preferred a squarer boxier engine extension. Also the amount of fuel they would get in the barrels means that in 40k you get excellent fuel economy. (I know sci-fi, future but if you put things like fuel barrels we judge them under modern eyes as regards what looks right + wouldn't have had this with a square box extension...) 

I'll hopefully add the next part of this (Finishing the hull and the turret) when I get back from work tonight..

Thanks for reading!


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## Loli (Mar 26, 2009)

Like it so far dude, loving the Bile conversion best though. Actualy prefer it to the current Bile model if im honest.


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## Barnster (Feb 11, 2010)

Thanks. I think my problem with the current bile miniature (Which bear in mind is probably close to 15 years old) is that he looks too Igor/ Dr Frankenstein like, they really wanted to hammer home his crazy geneticist look. I also think rather unfortunately that mini has shaped his 40k character development. I really like what I have read about him in 30k, as the scientist rather than the fighter, who is one of the few astartes that challenges the work of the Big E and says we can better this. Forward thinker, Pioneer. 




Also sorry its taken soo long to update the construction series just haven't had the time to sit down and write it up with work. 

So easy part to pretty much finish the construction, The Turret

Before we do it though tiny bit on the hull I missed, Theres a part by engine where the plastic sprue still is visible, so we attach some armour over the top 










Easy huh!

Ok So the Turret, its pretty much a solid chunk of resin, a solid chunk of hefty resin that could hurt if you drop it on you toe (just saying).

All you have to do is attach the crew, (if you want to). I say this as technically despite being legion astartes, the fellblade is still crewed by the imperial army, and you have to pay some points to upgrade it. I'd say go for it pay the points, (Equiv to about 1.5 marines in points cost).

The crew are wearing a set of MK II armour. Fluffwise it is suggested that the ECs had phased out older armour types in favour of the MK IV, with modified MK III being reserved for breacher squads, (Possibly veterans as well, the whole trust your wargear approach) I like to think that they gave the remaining MK II to tank crews 










The annoying part of the turret is the stowage at the rear. Mine require a lot of greenstuff to fit right. 










The Accelerator Cannon can simply clip in. There is no need to glue this in. Then the turret simply fits in to the large hole at the top of the tank.










At this stage I also attached the side door. In the Fellblade kite you get 2 (very warped) plain Rhino sized doors, but I order the EC ones for it. Obviously change to suit whoever you want. As an aside I really like chapter/ Legion doors, though I still wonder why FW never released a Blood Raven set 










The Final piece for the main hull is the Sponson connection and shield. The internal connection is made up of 2 pieces. an inner segment and an outer doughnut shaped piece. If you want the sponson to rotate up and down, you must ensure that not glue goes on the inner section. The outer piece locks the inner piece in and plugs into two holes

The Outer shield lines up with a series of pegs on the hull, its thin enough to bend into place. All thats left is to apply the top three armour extension to attach the body to the sponson shield










And that is the main hull all built!










I'll add the sponsons later As I haven't had time to build them yet, mainly because they are very warped. This was the least warped lascannon pairing










Though to be honest you probably want to attach the sponsons once they and the tank are fully painted

Thanks for reading. Next will be my first 5 (finished) Legion Tactical Marines and possibly a review of a very nice kit which arrived this morning from the US...


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## spanner94ezekiel (Jan 6, 2011)

That is one beastly-looking tank!


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## Barnster (Feb 11, 2010)

It is rather large, here's a size comparison with a Rhino...











Also finished first half of my first legion tactical squad, only 5 more to go. 




















Final bit for today, a parcel from the US arrived. It contained some tank tracks and ....Jet Bikes! You can find these from Blood and Skulls Industries on ebay, Also known as Machinator, Also known as Tom McBride 

These came super fast with minimal flash. Very nice models, and very similar to those shown in the collected visions. Here's one straight from the bag 










Far cleaner than a lot of the FW pieces I've dealt with.

Honestly The only flaws I can think of for these is the handle bars are a bit of a pain, and they don't come with any rider legs. That said anyone with any spare marine biker legs (looking at you DA Players!!!) and would consider a trade let me know!

Here's one dry fitted.










I will likely add some Sanguinary guard wings to the side to spruce it up a little. Overall very happy with these figures. They look like the Jet bikes we are accustomed to, rather than the strange offspring of the monopoly man and the turboterrific from Wacky Races that FW gave us


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## Hellados (Sep 16, 2009)

The issues they have with your tiny tank (sarcasm off) is that they stole the under carriage from the Baneblade... not really an excuse as I have 2 Baneblades and have the same issue with the tracks on both of them. 

As for the barrels I agree on that too, again they're off the Baneblade and I can't see why they did that either, maybe just to add detail and a lack of imagination on there part. Some kind of coms relay would work better there.


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## Barnster (Feb 11, 2010)

The strangest thing with the barrels is they are resin, and not the plastic baneblade ones. This suggests that either 1) they were reused from the very old FW Baneblade, or more likely 2) Sculpted deliberately for this. At which point I really don't understand why. Barrels work with the imagery of the Guard, but not the Astartes (with the possible exception of the Death Guard) 

Overall this tank does look a lot better and more "Astartes" than the Baneblade, it just seems that they cut a couple of corner which could have made it perfect.


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## Barnster (Feb 11, 2010)

Finished the 10 man Legion Tactical squad - Backpacks seem to take ages to finish




















Not a legal force yet and only 13 model strong but here is a current group shot












Next figure will likely be Chaplain "count as" Charmosian. 

I really like legion Consuls and want to have one of each in the force


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## Barnster (Feb 11, 2010)

Painted my Chaplain this week. I think this model was originally a death company chaplain, but can not be certain, picked it up on eBay in a terrible state, stripped it, and added a new arm. The arm and pistol is from a Khorne berserker rather than an Umbra pattern one as the Chaplain Charmosian pic in collected visions has a rather brutal looking gun, which looked more akin to the berserkers. 

This is the first miniature I painted solely with GW "new" paint range, and I have to say I really like then 




























Not sure what to add next, too many ideas!


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## Barnster (Feb 11, 2010)

So I ended up painting a techmarine for the army painting challenge

I wanted him to look darker and grimier than the rest of the children to show engine grime and general mechanical muck. The muchy look on the pipework is deliberate

I may touch up bits later, maybe add some extra detail to the shoulder pad, may just get a transfer. Now he just needs a painted vehicle to fix (and the independent rule) 

As an aside Techmarines + Fellblade (or Legion Artillery on a budget) are evil


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