# Turnip's CSM's - I'm Spartac....err...Alpharius!



## Turnip86 (Oct 7, 2011)

A new army, a new plog!

Last time I was back home I found myself practically living in the flgs down the road from my parents house and while there I got in a few games of 40k with my nids. Now, I've always been more of a fantasy player but the fact I can easily find pick up games makes 40k more appealing to me, especially when I only really get chance to play when I'm in the UK. I love my cute little bugs but I think it's time for a change and I happened to be flicking though the new CSM codex and I decided I'd turn the the slightly lighter dark side and start an army! 

The first choice was what kind of army? I play my nids in a variety of ways but usually with lots of bodies so with this army I'm going for a medium sort of body count with a couple of 10 man CSM squads with rhinos, a cultist squad of between 10 and 20, a large-ish bike squad, some predators, maybe a vindicator a helldrake or 7 and a havok squad. I may also throw in a winged demon prince for shits and giggles. 

The next choice was a colour scheme! My focus will be slaanesh but I'm not a fan of the noise marine models or post heresy Emperor's Children in general but after reading up on fluff and deciding I liked the blue and green and hydras in general I went with Alpha Legion. Funny thing is I'd just finished Descent of Angels as I made that choice and Legion happened to be the next book in the series so I ended up reading up about them more. I like the fact they use advanced tactics even when it's totally unnecessary which is kind of how I play with my nids, lots of units that can threaten but my opponent always has to guess where the killing blow will come from. 

Anyway, it wouldn't be plog without pictures so here's the start of the army! So far I have a 10 man CSM squad, one bike and 20 IG which will be used as cultists (well, operatives) for now until I get a full army together at which point they'll be used as traitor guard allies with a couple of Leman Russes and Vendettas  









And here's my colour scheme on a test IG model. I didn't start with the CSM's purely because they'll be my army for the army painting challenge so wanted to paint a whole squad up at once 

























The currently red IG are from the army I was going to start a while back but lost interest after I decided 2 horde armies would be a bad idea (4 if you count all my fantasy stuff too). They'll get resprayed and painted over as the paint that's already on them is thin enough to not be a problem.

Anyway, comments welcome - especially on the colour scheme 

EDIT: iPod pics suck but it's the best I can do at the moment as my other half decided to leave the camera in Warsaw a couple of weeks back >.< The left shoulder pad does actually have a scaled pattern and generally the whole model has green edge highlighting!


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## Turnip86 (Oct 7, 2011)

Ok, lots of views so far so taking that as a good sign xD

Small update with bits I've worked on so far along with MUCH better pics of the tester model. 

First up a WiP shot of the next 3 traitor guardsmen operatives I'm doing.









And here's the test model:

















And now a _slightly_ better shot of the 10 CSM's I'll be painting this month for the monthly painting challenge.


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## Turnip86 (Oct 7, 2011)

Here's some WiP pics of the CSMs. As you can see the blue is done... mostly. I started with Kantor Blue then put a few layers of thinned down Alaitoc blue over it but trying to layer it slightly so it's shaded in the recesses and corners. 


































The next thing to do is the silver trim. I'm not sure whether or not to bother with a rusted effect - part of me thinks it would look good but another part of me thinks why would ceramite rust? So I I'll either start with a base of tinny tin or Ironbreaker - just need to decide which!

One the trim is done I'll then move on to the blue again and touch up any areas I messed up and then give it a Drakenhof Nightshade wash then start on the green extreme highlights and scaled effect on the left shoulder pad. Depending how comfortable I feel freehanding the scales I might extend it to the leg armour on a few of them too 

Any thoughts, especially on the rust effect, are very welcome


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## Gothic (May 12, 2008)

Great work so far...I can't wait to see the marines painted.


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## Turnip86 (Oct 7, 2011)

Gothic said:


> Great work so far...I can't wait to see the marines painted.


Cheers Gothic 

Small progress update. Silver is done but is in need of a wash, I just decided to make a start on the green highlights first so here's where I am at the moment.


























Slowly but surely getting there. 

I'm not sure what colour to go with on the weapon front so I blacked them out. I experimented with a green diagonal stripe over black but I didn't really pull off the effect I was going for so will probably scrap that idea. Any suggestions welcome


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## forkmaster (Jan 2, 2010)

You got some interesting start here!  Will be looking forward to more.


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## Turnip86 (Oct 7, 2011)

forkmaster said:


> You got some interesting start here!  Will be looking forward to more.


Cheers  

Here's the finished CSM squad, rushed a little at the end because I'm going away for a few days over the long weekend and leave tonight so had to get them redy for the monthly painting competition 


















































Feedback welcome!


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## forkmaster (Jan 2, 2010)

Oh nicely done!


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## Turnip86 (Oct 7, 2011)

It's been a while! But since summer is well and truly over I'm back to working on my chaos marines.

Here's the raptors I've been putting together. 










5 man squad, Champion with 2 LC's, 2 Melta guys and 2 Bolt pistol/CCW's 

I've made a second melta gun out of a bolter, the end of a flamer and some green stuff - it's currently drying and needs a bit more work but this is what it currently looks like:










I'll update with some more progress once I've started painting which should be fairly soon if things go at the same rate as they have been going. 

Feedback, as always, is appreciated. Especially suggestions regarding the melta and if it looks ok


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## neferhet (Oct 24, 2012)

Well done, Turnip! The Alpha legion colours, you made it very well!


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## Turnip86 (Oct 7, 2011)

neferhet said:


> Well done, Turnip! The Alpha legion colours, you made it very well!


Thanks  

A small update on the raptors - I managed to get them sprayed and I've put the base coat on a couple of them but frankly I've been getting distracted by other projects and keep flitting between them, I think I'm in more of a construction mood than painting which is why I've picked up some stuff that I've had hidden away over a year - progress on that stuff is in my other plog 










And a close up of the melta that I kitbashed 









As always, apologies for the iPod pics but it's all I have for the time being (and one of the reasons I'm not even bothering entering any of the heresy painting comps) And other than comments on general quality of the pictures, critique of the models is welcome


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## Turnip86 (Oct 7, 2011)

Done a bit more work on the raptors - or at least have the blue base coated on 4/5 rather than 2/5... it's progress right?

At the moment I'm still in more of a construction mood than painting so I couldn't resist getting a box of chaos bikers the other day and have the last day or so putting them together.

Because my raptors are a 5 man 2x melta unit I've gone with plasma on my bikers. It was actually kinda fun kitbashing the guns. I took the plasma gun from both the chaos marine box set and the raptor box set, cut out the grip and most of the back then cut off the tops and barrels of the right bolter of each bike and put them together. I ended up with:









And a close up of both:









The third biker from the set is currently being pieced together as he will become my Slaaneshi lord. He's gonna be equipped with a LC and the Burning Brand - the LC is already attached - I used the raptor LC that has the open hand and Wolverine-like claws so he can still hold the handlebars. The rest of him is just the body of the biker with the Slaaneshi champion head from the CSM box as well as a few additional parts. Hopefully he'll look "lordy" enough and if not Alpha Legion are all supposed to look the same anyway  (although granted they tend not to have patron gods either but meh)

I'll post up more pics once I've gotten a bit further on the lord.


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## Nordicus (May 3, 2013)

Oooh Alpha Legion. You don't see many of those around!

I will keep an eye on this. It's always good to see another Chaosmonger in the making


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## Jacobite (Jan 26, 2007)

Awesome plasma gun conversions, it took me a second to realise what you had done there, thought for a second they were part of the kit. +Rep.


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## Turnip86 (Oct 7, 2011)

Nordicus said:


> Oooh Alpha Legion. You don't see many of those around!
> 
> I will keep an eye on this. It's always good to see another Chaosmonger in the making


Thanks  Alpha Legion look awesome, I'm surprised more people don't do them to be honest - I'd love to see more people's takes on them.



Jacobite said:


> Awesome plasma gun conversions, it took me a second to realise what you had done there, thought for a second they were part of the kit. +Rep.


Thanks  I picked up the idea from a melta conversion I saw plus the grip on the plasma guns are perfectly shaped to be hollowed out and slot over the trimmed down bolter snugly.

Quick update on the Lord conversion. I think I'm finished!


































So I used parts from a few places. As I mentioned in a previous post the body is of the chaos biker although the front of the torso is from the CSM sprue. Right arm is that of a warptalon and is positioned to wrap around the handlebars. 

The right arm is from the CSM sprue and has half of a flamer from the same place (in fact the one I cut up to make the melta for my raptors - just goes to show how leaving left overs lying around can be beneficial  ) I then added the barrel of an Imperial Guard flamer for some extra length and to top it all off (literally) A small dragony sort of thing which is actually from the Empire cannon set and is supposed to be some sort of ornate handle... well I chopped it up and stuck it to the top of the flamer to make it stand out more. The icon on the backpack is also from the CSM sprue, as is the head which is that of the slaaneshi champion.

Anyway, do you think he looks "lordy" enough? Or should I add more? Feedback appreciated


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## Squire (Jan 15, 2013)

Nice work man, but I'd recommend not fully assembling your guys before painting. With space marines the backpacks and guns (if they're carrying two handed weapons like bolters) really get in the way of the chest and back areas and make it difficult to paint them. It's not much fun assembling most of a model but not getting to see it fully assembled until it's completely painted, but you'll almost certainly get better results by painting some of the parts separately. Give it a try!

Anyway, I always like seeing Alpha Legion; I'll keep an eye on this thread!


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## Turnip86 (Oct 7, 2011)

Squire said:


> Nice work man, but I'd recommend not fully assembling your guys before painting. With space marines the backpacks and guns (if they're carrying two handed weapons like bolters) really get in the way of the chest and back areas and make it difficult to paint them. It's not much fun assembling most of a model but not getting to see it fully assembled until it's completely painted, but you'll almost certainly get better results by painting some of the parts separately. Give it a try!
> 
> Anyway, I always like seeing Alpha Legion; I'll keep an eye on this thread!


Yeah I do leave certain bits off before painting but only if it's really hard to reach - raptors are pretty plain underneath the guns and there's still room to get in to paint. The bikers aren't attached to the bikes yet for instance because I wanted them painted first. Things like the khorne lord in my fantasy (and other random bits) plog for example had the shield left off but it's pre pinned so I just need to glue it once it's painted


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## Ddraig Cymry (Dec 30, 2012)

Good work! I like the shades of green and blue you're using


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## Turnip86 (Oct 7, 2011)

Update time again. And yet again it's been a while but December was frankly kinda crazy and I didn't have much time to do anything but work and then fly home for Christmas. So now I'm kicking back a bit with a slow January thanks to so many school holidays over here so had time to get more done on the raptors. There's a tournament coming up in a week which I'm considering entering although it's 1000 points and I'm at about 750ish at the moment so need to get everything painted plus buy some new plastic crack in less that a week... doable right?  I doubt I'll go but either way there's a new 40k night starting in the FLGS so I'll be headed down there sometime soon with these guys.


































I'm getting a new phone in the next few weeks and one of the main features I'll be looking for is a decent camera so this might be the last of the shitty iPod pics I'll post - I did use photobucket's edit tool on these to make them at least viewable but I know they're not ideal.

Oh, one other thing - I actually broke these guys in at the end of November/Start of December in a 750ish point game against tau and I actually won! Mostly because I had 2 units of 10 cultists camped on objectives and the tau player left it too late to move in to claim or contest them - but a win's a win  

More updates soon!


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## whittsy (Feb 8, 2013)

*whittsy getting given DV set from a mate* 
"OH Chaos, i really like Alpha Legion. Hell YEAH!"
*sees colour scheme*
"fuck that."

+rep for alpha legion!


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## SwedeMarine (Jun 3, 2013)

Nice to see someone taking their time with these. I unfortunaetly have very little Patience for the fiddly bits. Especially digging the purple lightning claws


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## Turnip86 (Oct 7, 2011)

SwedeMarine said:


> Nice to see someone taking their time with these. I unfortunaetly have very little Patience for the fiddly bits. Especially digging the purple lightning claws


Cheers  Taking my time really isn't by choice though - I'm just slow and get distracted easily :grin:



whittsy said:


> *whittsy getting given DV set from a mate*
> "OH Chaos, i really like Alpha Legion. Hell YEAH!"
> *sees colour scheme*
> "fuck that."
> ...


The colour scheme was what attracted me to them in the first place  And the scheme isn't that difficult to do to be honest it just seems that way because of the contrasting colours  All it is is dark blue > lighter blue > blue wash > highlight edges heavily in dark green > Light highlights of light green... easy


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## Turnip86 (Oct 7, 2011)

It's only been 18 months since my last update! I've been getting back into the hobby after another break thanks mostly to moving back to the UK and meeting up with old friends and acquaintances for games.

With the excuse of needing them for future games I've finished the first set of cultists for my Alpha Legion. The idea is that because Alpha Legion are all about their spy networks and corrupting loyalist forces from the inside, all my cultists would be guard models which would then be able to cross over into my future renegade army once I expand on what I already have enough. All of the imperial eagles are supposed to be very subdued on the models and I still haven't decided which scenic bases to get for my chaos so I've held fire on painting bases yet so I can get them looking similar colour-wise. I'll most likely be getting some Micro-art studios bases as they're awesome and a local company (well, they were 5 minutes down the road when I lived in Gdynia) but I can't choose between these or these.























































Anyway, comments, as always, are welcome. As are votes on which bases


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## Turnip86 (Oct 7, 2011)

Because the world needs more silly ideas. Here's my next little project.










Also, I'm sure it's been brought up before but seriously the arse-end of a heldrake looks like a mouse and a weird cha-octopus thing


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## Mossy Toes (Jun 8, 2009)

Ah, Alpha Legion are my passion and joy, fluff-wise. And I mean one of the two warbandsI collect is them, too, so... my passion on the tabletop and painting desk too, I suppose, for all that my painting style is rather lower quality input/output (that is, blue basecoat-> lime green drybrush). Honestly I rather like the effect you seem to have achieved here: a sort of "soft pastel blue-green," or at least slightly more so than most AL warbands I see. And I'm there with you with the slaanesh-leaning, too (my other warband of silver and bone being my Khorne-leaning one).

Good luck with the Heldrake. I hope you're looking forward to spending 10+ hours painting wing trim. I jammed a longer bony tail into that sphincter-jet myself (woo-er, missus!) and the added tail really helped balance out the mini's aesthetics, I think.


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## Turnip86 (Oct 7, 2011)

I do like your extended heldrake tail but I'll be doing lots of work on the inside of it so it wouldn't probably have the space to attach one to mine. It seems I hid my silly idea in plain sight 










I'm just waiting on a set of battery holders to arrive from China and I'll start building it properly. I've already dry-fitted the main body and head/neck and I might magnetize the weapons too as the hades autocannon looks way cooler than the bale flamer but I see myself using the flamer in more games.

I'll also upload pics of the 2 rhinos I rescued soon


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## Kreuger (Aug 30, 2010)

Somewhere on here somebody posted a file for getting a replacement tail 3D printed.


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## ntaw (Jul 20, 2012)

Just for you @Kreuger, I did some research and BAM!

Just in case you were wondering, I'm finding it a lot easier to search Heresy using 'heresy online <thread topic>' on Google since our search function is a joke...though it helps that I also remembered the thread and knew what I was looking for.

Great plog so far @Turnip86! I look forward to seeing this Helturkey lit up :drinks:


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## Kreuger (Aug 30, 2010)

@ntaw thanks man. So @Turnip86 grab that tail model send it of to shapeways or another mail order 3D printer and you're in business.


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## Turnip86 (Oct 7, 2011)

One rescued Rhino. When I got this it was so badly put together with gaps the size of a heldrake's ass between parts of the body. Luckily being badly put together meant I could rip it apart easily so I did just that and then dunked it in dettol for a day. After stripping it I started on the repair. Part of that was sticking on Alpha Legion FW doors as well as filing down the bits of gunky glue that were on the flat areas... have I mentioned it was badly put together? 

At that point I reassembled and primed it so I could better see what needed more work. I went over any of the remaining small gaps with milliput and then a layer of liquid green stuff to smooth things out. I also had to fill a massive gap in the havok launcher, no idea how the guy that built this thing managed to fail to put those 2 pieces together but there were a lot of large sticky-outy bits from where the model was attached to the sprue so that probably has something to do with it.

Anyway, this is it ready for another fine layer of primer and then ready to paint. Possibly for the competition next month considering it's free for all and I'm not gonna have time to start it before that... I get to go to insomnia for 4 days!


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## Turnip86 (Oct 7, 2011)

Finished the Rhino


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## Turnip86 (Oct 7, 2011)

Helchicken is on the backburner because I was sorting a few models I needed for a small points event I ran last weekend which turned out really well... or at least the 9 other guys that showed up said they had fun and we're all pretty blunt with each other 

Because it was small points I wanted to try something I hadn't used before in my chaos army so I paint stripped one of my ancient metal terminators and began the repaint to turn him into a sorcerer!









Next up was something I use in most games at the moment but it rarely survives past turn one (Not much you can do about devastators drop-podding in next to you on turn one or dune crawlers getting a single pen and rolling a 6 after you fail your save) but it's an awesome looking model regardless and I think I managed to make it look even more awesome thanks to a guy at our local games evening that bought Skarbrand and had a bunch of spares he was handing out to people, I got my hands on a spare bloodthirster head and proceeded to rip off the original one from my second-hand defiler and used miliput to attach the new one.


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## venomlust (Feb 9, 2010)

Very cool use of a spare bloodthirster head.


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## Turnip86 (Oct 7, 2011)

Thanks 

Sorcerer is done but I need to wait until it's not so crappy outside for better photo-taking light.














































I'm pretty happy with the force sword but the scales on the shoulderpad probably need seeing to again at some point and I might black wash the bronze on the combi-bolter too.


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## Turnip86 (Oct 7, 2011)

Some WIP pics of the Defiler. I'll be doing either scales on the leg plates or some hydra freehand depending on my mood and how it looks once I'm done.


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## Mossy Toes (Jun 8, 2009)

*sighs* Defilers. I wish they held a candle to Soul Grinders, rules-wise. Otherwise I wouldn't have torn up both of mine and replaced their turrets with gribbly monster torsos...


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## Turnip86 (Oct 7, 2011)

Well maybe they'll get recosted in the new codex whenever that may be. Or at least improve a few things to make it actually worth taking. Honestly I got the model cheap, tidied it up and and it looks cool so I'm happy 

Getting closer to finishing him as well, tried out some hydras on each leg which need a bit of tidying up. Unfortunately they didn't quite come out the right shape as painting them on is a lot different to simply drawing one - basically I can't follow my own sketches xD 














































All that's left is the purple needs highlighting, I need to go over some parts of the metal like the leg spikes to tone down the black wash, I also need a brighter silver to use on the pistons for more variety with the metal tones and finally use some weathering powders to rust up the non-moving parts which will also help make him look less mono-tone in places.

If anyone has any other ideas for things I could do to make him look more awesome then feel free to let me know!


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## Mossy Toes (Jun 8, 2009)

Hmm. Perhaps try sketching the hydra onto the armor plate, then following the lines of your sketches with paint? As it stands, it had sort of ended up looking a bit like a WHF lizardman totem (which is not a bad thing per se, but also not, I imagine, what you're aiming for).

I like the balance of brass and silver, though I think there could be a bit more brass out near the ends of the legs, rather than all so centrally locate.

What are you intending to do with the darker blue faces?


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## Turnip86 (Oct 7, 2011)

All finished. I left the freehand as it is in the end, knowing me I'd only end up over doing it and making it worse so barring a fresh start on it I think that's the best it'll look for now. The main problem with the freehand is that the armour plates are actually a little too narrow for the design I wanted and the positioning of the spikes on the legs made it difficult to fit the pattern in completely. 

Regarding the rust effects I'm actually very impressed with the effect I got using GW paints. Typhus Corrosion is actually really easy to work with and looks great but looks even better once you lightly drybrush Ryza Rust over it. I'm less impressed with Nihilakh Oxide but maybe I just haven't been using it properly. It just doesn't look quite right in my opinion so I might go back and repaint the brassy areas in the distant future.















































Next on my projects list is the Heldrake which needs to be painted and the electronics finished off (Which I can't do until it's painted) At least it's all sprayed. 

Then I have some Noise Marines I need to paint strip that I bought off ebay the other day and rhino for them to ride around in which I've had sat around for a while. Also my Havok unit needs painting with the 4 forgeworld autocannons so plenty more month's worth of army painting challenge material. 

After that I'm on to Renegades and Heretics! I have a bunch of stuff I've acquired over the last couple of months. 10 Kasrkin that need a bit of chaos love in the form of milliput/greenstuff. I won't be going overboard with converting them, just a couple of horns or protruding spikes and maybe doing something with the masks. I also have 10 scions which are half built so I can build them how I want, probably magnetizing the arms on at least 5 of them so I can use them as a command squad if necessary. These 2 squads will be my Grenadiers riding around the battlefield or deepstriking in with hotshot las guns for the lulz. I also have a scout sentinel currently sat in a plastic box of dettol, I wasn't planning on getting any for the army but I won it with a bid of £1.20 on ebay so why not right? I'll be looking out for other cheap sentinels because I feel having a squadron of 5 sentinels would be hilarious considering it's 10 hull points worth of vehicles for 140 points (I'd have to upgrade with militia training as I'll be using Bloody Handed Reaver as my Demagogue's devotion) which will either direct fire away from my other stuff as 5 multilasers is actually a threat, or they'll be ignored and they become the best tarpit unit ever.
There's also a Basilisk which I'll probably be attempting to convert so I can use it as either a Basilisk or Medusa. Firstly I'll be filing off all the imperial insignia and replacing it with plasticard chaos symbols. Which is actually something I'll be doing to my other purchase, a Baneblade. I do need to paintstrip the baneblade before I do anything else to it though. 

So yeah, lots of projects to get through


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## Roganzar (Feb 16, 2014)

Turnip86 said:


> Regarding the rust effects I'm actually very impressed with the effect I got using GW paints. Typhus Corrosion is actually really easy to work with and looks great but looks even better once you lightly drybrush Ryza Rust over it. I'm less impressed with Nihilakh Oxide but maybe I just haven't been using it properly. It just doesn't look quite right in my opinion so I might go back and repaint the brassy areas in the distant future.


I had not considered drybrushing Ryza over the Typhus. Judging by the pics the effect is a perfect rusty effect. Though I may consider a wash of Riekland and then another light drybrush of Ryza for a, possibly, more older looking rust effect. Though seriously, what you have there is awesome looking rust effects.
:good:


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## Turnip86 (Oct 7, 2011)

The whole idea of Ryza Rust over Typhus Corrosion was actually from GW's website. They have some pretty good tutorials for using the technical paints now. And yeah, I may well dull it down for some more ancient-looking rust but probably on the models on my to do list - Defilers are supposed to be kicked out of the demon forges at a fast rate so wouldn't have had time to rust up for long. Plus it gets blown up so often my army replaces him after every battle 

The baneblade and other renegade armour will probably get some slightly different rust treatment but I need to get around to making some plasticard chaos insignia for them first.


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