The 8th Grand Blog, Laboured Title, I Know...

Seeing as my new incarnation of the 8th Grand Company is taking shape a bit faster than I thought, I decided to post some pictures!

Just two pictures for now, as I've only got the two squads! The reason this is in Muster Your Forces is because later on I'll be posting WIP photos of the more involved conversions!

Omata Leandros


The Aspiring Champion has a bit of conversion to him, the Powerfist is originally a Dark Angel one, with the icons scraped off, and transplanted onto another arm entirely to have something different. The helmet is one of the Terminator Lord heads, with the spires cut off, and a Guardsman rebreather placed on the front (kinda looks like a twisted Mk IV helmet, ish). A feature of the squad as a whole is that every model has chevrons somewhere, the backpacks have been cut down a bit (something I did when I did my Heresy-Era Night Lords and loved the look). And any pipes left over from weapons or the backpacks have been stuck on to imply bionics. Also every model is WYSIWYG, so have combat knives and holsters for Bolt Pistols, bar the Champion himself, who's missing his Bolter, because you tell me where I was supposed to put that?

Exaleipsi Phyrros


Converted Terminators! I don't like the look of the actual Obliterator models, and I found some Terminators I wasn't using. These ones pictures are all representing the twin-linked options, one shows twin-linked Plasma Guns, one shows twin-linked Meltaguns, and the last shows twin-linked Flamers. Although each has three barrels. The Plasma Gun and Flamer both have a third barrel on the Powerfist. All the weapons have been glued on, then green stuff over it to look like flesh. They are still clearly Obliterators, but it looks like they are more in control of the Techno-Virus than the actual Obliterator models. Again, each model has chevrons, although on one of them, it's pretty small, but the need for a spot colour is a lot less because of the flesh.

I went for a much darker scheme that I've done in the past, I don't like my Iron Warriors too bright! I've used the yellow on the chevrons as a spot colour, and green for the plasma. The basing is the GW fine slate (found here). I'm not entirely sure how I'm painting it, as you can see, what I've gone for doesn't look that good. When it's pale, like they are on the Obliterators, it feels like Medrengard, so I might keep it pale, but wash it with black, maybe watered down Boltgun Metal, or the new equivalent anyways, because it's said that Medrengard's surface has iron filings for dirt...

I like them blackcell! They're nice and gritty!

One thing though, please drill out the barrels of weapons when you can.

The Dark angels powerfist does look like it would make a good conversion bit. Kudos on the obliterators. Just because Iron warriors like their guns doesn't mean that they're going to let them take over. Iron within, Iron without truly stands for these.

That's something I've never really thought about doing, never had an appropriate drill... However, I might start, it does look better with them drilled...

Thanks for the comments guys! Yes, they are dark. I want them to look dark, gritty and restrained. They are Iron Warriors, you should fear them on that basis alone, not because they have horns and spikes jutting out of every orifice!

they are so cool but please do something to the Obliterators they just don't quite look right but still very cool

hmmm... welll hmmmm....(gets magnifying glass) well hmmmm. those orks look horrible!! hehehe they look great man i love the look of the champions helmet. nice dirty and grimy.

Quick, image-free update.

I spent today putting the finishing touches onto the models above! I've redone the bases, neatened them up, washed the chevrons on the Marines, and painted on the Iron Warriors icon onto all of them. I think I'm going to leave it there, any more and it's going to get silly. So, what I'm doing, for my sake as much as anything else, is list how I paint my Iron Warriors.

For the paints, I'm using the old ones, but I'll use the WD Conversion Chart to provide what new paints I'm using. This is all based on a Chaos Black/Imperial Primer undercoat.

Step 1 - The Basics
Basecoat Armour with Tin Bitz/Warplock Bronze.
Drybrush Armour with Boltgun Metal/Leadbelcher
Basecoat Gold Trim with Shining Gold/Gehenna's Gold
Basecoat Cloth, Pouches, Flesh and Holsters with Scorched Brown/Rhinox Hide

Step 2 - Darkening
Wash model with Delvan Mud/Agrax Earthshade
Basecoat Metals (not armour, stuff like tubes, chains, bionics, grills, etc) with Chainmail/Ironbreaker
Basecoat Bolter Ammo with Dwarf Bronze/Hashut Copper
Wash model with Badab Black/Nuln Oil

Step 3 - The Details
Fill Shoulder Pads with Chaos Black/Abaddon Black
Layer Flesh/Bone with Elf Flesh/Kislev Flesh
Basecoat Plasma Coils with Hawk Turquoise/Sotek Green
Wash Plasma Coils with Thraka Green/Biel-Tan Green
Layer are for Chevrons with Iyanden Darksun/Averland Sunset
Paint Chevrons in with Chaos Black/Abaddon Black
Wash Flesh/Bone and Chevrons with Ogryn Flesh/Reikland Fleshshade
Paint Icon with Boltgun Metal/Leadbelcher, highlighted with Chainmail/Ironbreaker, detail with Chaos Black/Abaddon Black

Step 4 - The Base
Basecoat with Dheneb Stone/Rakarth Flesh
Wash with watered down (3 parts water to 1 part paint worked for me) Boltgun Metal/Leadbelcher
Wash with Badab Black/Nuln Oil
Paint rim with Chaos Black/Abaddon Black

I don't know how it works with the new paints, as soon as I paint one up using this method, I'll post a comparison picture.

cant wait boss, but ermm, thought they looked great before. they werent finished?

the termie-oblit conversions are pretty darn sweet
and i dare say cheaper than the current oblit models aswell!
looking good there guv'nor

This post has been edited by Thanatos Ares on Apr 23 2012, 08:37 PM

Got my second squad painted up! I'll try and get pictures up tomorrow, Saturday at the latest! Oh, and a fourth Obliterator, which will be in my second squad, but until I get the last 2, I'll run them in 2 squads of 2 Oblits.

Looking forward to it!

I like very much your color scheme, and even the obliterators 'not so muted' conversion!

Very impressive force, Blackcell! I particularly like the look of the rank-and-file Marines, both the paint-job and the conversion work. I can't wait to see more!

Thanks for the comments guys!

I'm fairly happy with how the rank and file are turning out. The main thing is I'm not including any helmets with horns, and cutting down the backpacks. Reason for both, the horns, more because they're Iron Warriors, they shouldn't need horns to put fear into the hearts of my enemies! And the backpacks have always bothered me, why do you have to have bat-wing backpack vents if you're evil? Made no sense, so I've cut them down.

Anyway, without further ado, my latest reinforcements!

Omata Myron


Fairly simple, nothing major. I'll say now that the Aspiring Champion is my entry for the Spring Conversion Contest, and one of the marines (I already know which one) is my entry for the Spring Painting Contest.

Exaleipsi Servius


The first Obliterator for this particular squad. For now, I'm running this with one of the Obliterators from the other squad to have 2 of 2. I've got another half built, and when I buy a box of Terminators for the army, I'll have the last one done too.

I'm now getting fairly confident with the scheme, so now I'm feeling it's time to get a bit more ambitious, maybe the Terminators (which will be notably different to the Obliterators, trophy racks, helmeted, more scenic bases, etc.). Think though, I need to aquire my Warsmith, so time to find the easiest way to have a servo-harness attached to a Terminator...

Oh, totally unrelated, but I remembered I built and painted this guy a few years ago, only just found it. On occasion I use him in an Apocalypse game

Sweet stuff, blackcell!

I do agree about the horns and the back pack vents. The horns are sometimes too much and when every other third marine has the same horns, it doesn't seem right. As for the back packs, the only thing I dislike is that they do not easily fit into foam packs (depending on the pose). As well as taking up space, imagine being crammed in a rhino when your battle-brother's vent is in your face or it blocks your shot in tunnels or corridors. I have been very interested in the Heavy Weapon set from forgeworld because they have nice backpacks. I really want those for Astral Claws Ship Boarders.

I also like Servius. I am working on an Obliterator now with a mutated arm with plasma gun, flamer, and chainsword on an arm. The next one I want will have a sentinel plasma cannon...and I think it will work having seen your recent Obliterator.

and Hellboy...must be a Daemon Prince of awesomeness! Now I have seen him and Ghost Rider (Doom Rider conversion/kitbash, sculpting job). I wonder what I will see next.