Reposing Imperial Knight Legs

After endless amounts of cutting and bending, I have a set of Imperial Knight legs in a unique pose. My intent was to use a current edition rhino instead of a 20+ year old model, but I could not get the range of movement I needed out of the knight. With all of their cad work, I had expected the knight to be re-posable with minimal effort. I was wrong!

I may try to embed a current edition rhino into the display base a bit to get the extra height I need. Alternately, I could fix up this old rhino, adding enough detail that it looks good again. Any suggestions?

NOVA Charitable Foundation And My Second Imperial Knight

My second imperial knight is nearing completion. I have loads of little touch up work, as well as smoke stains, additional chipping/grime,  and leaking oil to add, but I felt it was time to break out the light box and practice some photography.

Like the first knight, this guy is attached to the Sons of Horus expeditionary fleet seconded to a the Legio Astorman. I was hoping the ad-mec army list was going to treat knights like their 40k counterparts. I don't think I would buy a maniple of these guys to fill my lord of war spot, since there are so many other interesting options.

So the title of this post mentions the NOVA Charitable Foundation.  Last year the NOCF raised over $10,000 dollars donated to Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres, The Fisher House Foundation and The Breast Cancer Research Foundation. The three charity armies from 2013 were shipped from Washington, D.C. to winners in Washington State, Missouri and as far away as Tasmania, Australia!

As you may have guessed, I will be painting an Imperial Knight to go along with the Ultramarines army.

It is an honor to once again be included in the army build. Dave Taylor is leading our intrepid team which again includes Justin McCoy (SWM), Chris Dubuque(Jawaballs), Marc Raley(whose blog I've been stalking), Alex Landing, Brian Ballard,  and Dan Withers. If you've followed my blog for a while, you might have noticed my largish Ultramarimes army. That army was inspired by Dave Taylor's army once on display in the Maryland Battle Bunker!

Knight Errant WIP 2: Family Photos

Despite the Knight Errant not being complete, I decided to pull out his colleague and get a group shot. I distressed the shield with white spirits by accident, so a bit more battle damage than expected! I'll break out the photo booth and take some better photos when the knight is completed.

So as you can see, I decided against chevron's and instead went with black and white stripes on the middle of the carapace. This leaves me in a lot of options for the last knight in the formation. One thing is certain though, the last knight needs to have his legs reposed. I chickened out on reposing the legs with this one, but I just won't look good if they are all striking the same pose. Plus, I really need a way to work in some Emperor's Children purple on the base.

Knight Errant WIP 1

I got a little ahead of myself last week and went ahead and made this knights base first. I couldn't resist making a base that had a ruined building and propaganda posters on it that I had start painting from the ground up. If you could see my browser cache you'd see that I found a neat little tutorial on making to scale crushed beer cans. expect to see litter on these bases in coming days.

Back to the knight!

The very first layers of paint are now down on the support structure. This knight is being kitted up as a knight errant. Even so, I had to paint the battle cannon. I love painting heat damage and wanted to see what it looked like when I extended it further down the barrel.  The fun part of the paint job is just starting. I think this knight will have either chevrons on the middle carapace, or the mid section painted white. The benefit there is that all of the battle damage stands out so nicely, and the grime streaks look better. Shall I flip a coin?


2000 Pts - Codex: Imperial Knights Roster With Ultramarine Allies List

: Knight Paladin (1#, 375 pts)
   1 Knight Paladin, 375 pts

: Knight Paladin (1#, 375 pts)
   1 Knight Paladin, 375 pts

: Knight Errant (1#, 370 pts)
   1 Knight Errant, 370 pts

Troops: Scout Squad (5#, 89 pts)
   4 Scout Squad (Troops) [SM], 56 pts = 4 * 13 (base cost 11 + Camo Cloaks 2) + Sniper Rifle x4 4
      1 Sergeant [SM], 33 pts = (base cost 11 + Plasma Pistol x1 15) + Camo Cloaks 2 + Melta Bomb 5

Troops: Tactical Squad (11#, 255 pts)
   9 Tactical Squad (Troops) [SM], 146 pts = 9 * 14 (base cost 14) + Meltagun 10 + Multi-melta 10
      1 Sergeant [SM], 34 pts = (base cost 14 + Melta Bombs 5 + Power Sword x1 15)
      1 Razorback [SM], 75 pts = (base cost 55) + Lascannon and TL Plasmagun 20

Heavy Support: Stormraven Gunship (1#, 231 pts)
   1 Stormraven Gunship (Heavy) [SM], 231 pts = (base cost 200 + Searchlight 1) + Hurricane Bolters (each side) 30

HQ: Chief Librarian Tigurius (1#, 165 pts)
   1 Chief Librarian Tigurius (HQ) [SM], 165 pts

Fast Attack: Stormtalon Gunship (1#, 140 pts)
   1 Stormtalon Gunship (Fast) [SM], 140 pts = (base cost 110 + Twin-Linked Lascannon 30)

The Next Knight Titan Base

My knight errant is underway, so I paused to put together a base. I am thrilled with how it came out, except for the slight measuring mistake I made when placing the rubble. I guess I have to repose the legs now! :)

Completed 30k Imperial Knight

I posted teasers of this guy on the 30k forum, but here he is, the completed Imperial Knight seconded to the Legio Astraman (Morning Stars) supporting the Sons of Horus. I haven't found good transfers for Legio Astraman, but when I do I will eventually add their symbol somewhere. As far as the original knightly house, that is yet to be determined. The fact that knights can be oath sworn to Space Marine Legions, or seconded to Titan Legions is simply brilliant. GW put all the hooks necessary for people to get as creative as possible with these units.

I loved every minute building and painting this model, and have two more on the way.  I couldn't resist the chance to do some more carapace designs. I think white chevrons with black outlines would look good on one of the knights. The other may get white checkers, or have the center segment with the door painted white. White is such a great base color to add weathering to! With three of these guys I can use them as a primary detachment.  This may even get me back into regular gaming since the force will be really easy to transport.

Sons of Horus Rapier Battery

I owned one of the original rapiers from Rouge Trader days, so I had to pick up the new incarnation. For this model I tried my hand at painting the battery to match the Sons of Horus original colors back when they were Luna Wolves. I chipped the paint using a toothpick, and then followed that with oil washes. The models have a lot of damaged detail. These casts were not very good from FW, but I've had this piece so long returning it was not worth it. A few scratches later and one can hardly tell. Two more Imperial Knights have arrived at my house, so stay tuned for more of them.

Clearly I don't know how to take photographs using the booth! You'll have to imagine these less washed out. :)

Weathered Sons of Horus Drop Pod And Legion Praetor

I finally committed to weathering my drop pod today. Sometimes so much work goes into color modulation that it feels horrible covering up all the effort. Today I sponged on battle damaged, sprayed dust, and then added soot streaks to the pod. I am on the fence with the results. I may switch things up when I complete the storm eagle. Sometimes a technique works really well on a model ala my Imperial Knight and then just does not translate well to another one.

Since the photo booth was out I decided to capture some higher resolution shots of my Legion Praetor as well. I am still getting the hang of using the booth.