Eagle Knights Vanguard Vets

Lastly for the Eagle Knights updates we have some Vanguard Vets. These are second hand models that I go off eBay for a bargain. The plan is to convert them by switching the heads for skull helms, add jump pack, similar to the Sanguinary guard but without the wings, and add some weapons or shields, depending upon what squad they will be in. The plan is for five with shields and five with pistols, probably plasma pistols or hand flamers.  

Full squad

There are some strange tentacle objects on many of the bases, plus many have been given a cobble stone base. 

Tentacles and cobble stones

Standard

There is also a standard, although there is no need for this in game. I  may have a look at removing it but i will have to look through my bits box to see if I have an alternative arm that I can use. 

Shield bearers

Five of the models, the five above, will probably get shields, as their poses lend themselves for shield and spears. 

Pistols

The other five will get pistols, probably wrist mounted some how, due to the arm mounting for the shields needing covering up. As mentioned, I'm not sure if they will be all plasma, for some additional elite hitting power or hand flamers for horde control. I have enough plasma pistols but don't think I have many flamers, so they may get plasma pistols simply due to availability. 

I got all the shields with these models as well, so if I don't use them all, then I will have some spares for another project. 

Eagle Knights sanguinary guard

Here we have my Sanguinary Guard and Captain with jump pack. 

As you can see they are not resplendent in gold but rather black and foreboding with bling! 

The captain, not being part of the Guard itself, still wears his orange armour, just with winged pack and black robes and the familiar skull mask of the elites. I really like this model and while he hasn't had much in the way of conversation, I don't think he looks like an AoS model with a gun at all.

Jump pack

Deathwatch shoulder pad

Next we have the Sanguinary Banner. Unlike usual banners, this is a brazier or torch. The model is obvious as there are no other models with models carrying anything other than axes. 

I probably could have spent more time on the brazier to give it some depth and colour but I don't think that it would make a massive amount of difference here. 

Here are the two Infernus pistol guard. I wasn't sure initially if I would actually include Infernus pistols in the squad but I decided that they might be useful against vehicle and especially monsters. Being able to chip a few wounds off before charging or, if they survive long enough, in subsequent shooting phases, could be very handy.

Again, there isn't a lot of conversion work on these models, mostly the addition of a shoulder pad, heads, jump packs and the weapons in place of the shields, but with how detailed the models are, I didn't want to cover anything or stick something on that would look out of place.

Scroll on left model snapped off, a minor issue with thin resin parts.

Lastly, we have the three remining Sanguinary Guard. The isn't much more to say here, they have the same minor conversion work as the others.

Overall I am very pleased with these models, both how the original AoS models have transformed in to very nice 40k models with out much effort and also the final product with the skull heads and jump pack. I really do think these are significantly better than the GW official Sanguinary Guard. I just need to finish the bases off now.

Eagle Knights characters

I though that I would start off the Eagle Knights with some of the characters, important for running the Angelic Inheritors detachment. Here we have a Combi-weapon Lieutenant, Librarian and Ancient plus a Sanguinary Priest seen further down. All four are conversions of AoS models, some more so than others. 

The three amigos 

The Combi-weapon Lieutenant is based off of a underworlds model, Farasa Twice Risen of the Ember guard. The Librarian is based off another underworlds model, Averon Stormsire, of the Curse breakers. 

Both had had some conversion work done, with new heads and power packs, plus some other minor work, like removing some iconography and the like. 

The Combi-weapon Lieutenant got some extra work done, to remove the weapon on his back and replace it with a combi-plasma from the bits box. It's not overly obvious but it makes the model more complete. He also gained some additional bits and pieces, mostly grenades.

Along side the Ancient we also have a Sanguinary Priest. 

The Sanguinary Priest is a conversions of Stormcast Knight Arcanum. He (or she as it originally was) needed a bit more conversion work doing to remove various bits of.kits and fill in the holes. The Chain sword for example came from an assault intercessor Sgt. He also gained a aquilla on his chest plate. 

The ancient is a proper mash up, with the body of a stromcast, not sure which one, just one of the standard models, the standard itself is from a Brentonian Knight of the Realm, on a Stormcast arm.

He also gained a rifle and various other packs and grenades. I liked this banner as it already had the shield sculpted in, making painting up the symbol quite easy. 

I may well add some additional details to the banner, some extra symbols or number, or I may just leave it plain, I haven't quite decided yet.







 

Eagle Knights characters

So, as usual, I was browsing eBay and came across a model, the Stormcast Eternal Knight Arcanum to be precise, and thought, Librarian, so I brought it. Now I already have a librarian but he's got wings and is flying (ala wings of sanguinis) which is now not a thing. So I wanted to build a new one. While I was at it I thought I'd see what other models I might be missing, and one that popped up a few times in videos was the Lieutenant with combi weapon, so a quick hint around lead me to the Underworlds Emberguard Emberwatch, a bit of a mouthful that  and Farasa. I did initially think about using Ardorn and I'm still thinking I might get him too, but I went for Farasa for the twin blades.

Then I came across Stormsire's cursebreakers and specifically Averon Stormsire. This threw a bit of a spanner in the works as I had already brought the Knight Arcanum as the librarian but after a bit of thought I switch the Knight to a Sanguinary Priest and will use Averon as a librarian.

Three new characters

The combi weapon lieutenant was the most fun to build. There were a couple of issues with switching the AoS weapon across to a combi but it worked out quite icely in the end. 

Pouches, pouches and grenades, that was the main order of the day. This guy is supposed to be a one man army kinda guy, so makes sense he would want to carry everything he might need on him. 

Next we have the sanguinary priest. I wasn't really planning on building one of these but I'm happy I did. The pose is not perfect but I do like it. This model took the most amount of work, as I had to fill some holes in the body that were left when I didn't add the original parts to the waste. You can just see some of the green stuff on the left hip of the model. Additionally, the hands both required some work, the left to attach the pistol and the right to swap the hand from the original arm to a new arm to give a better pose. 

Lastly, for now, we have the librarian. As soon as I saw this model I knew it had to be the librarian, why? Well, smite is a witchfire power and see that in his hand? Yes, this model has fire in thier hand! I trimmed a few bits off and added some other details plus a quick head change on the staff (which is a little wonky) and we have a librarian. 

 I said he was the last "for now", as I have one more model in mind and I now actually have some of the bits. The last model I need, or as it actually is, would like, to build is an Ancient. I have a spare body and now I have a suitable standard, a Brentonian standard. Now all in need is to find a way to combine them in to a suitable Ancient. 

Drop pod

 So, I have also been catching up with a number of models that have been sitting around primed and waiting for a proper paint job and this is my latest one, a drop pod, just in time for the new version to be released! But more on that later. 

Overall, this is a very simple paint scheme, partly as I think the Eagle Knights would view these things as pretty disposable. Recovered if they can but not spending to much time and effort on them. I have also tried to go for a more weathered and battered look to the pod, not as clean cut as the marines or other vehicles. I was planning on painting on some chapter symbols, just some small ones on the doors but I'm not sure I'll bother now with tue new pods.

One of the main issues between the new and old, it that I have glued the doors shut! This was partly because two of the doors had broken off and another one was on at quite an angle that it would leave a large gap around one side and top. So, I decided to glue them all shut and not worry about it. Until this happened!

Yep, new pod, with doors open! Now I'm a fan of the new pod, basically just upscaled with extra details but I'm not a fan of door open all the time! I hope that you will be able to do.sething with the doors for transporting the models otherwise it's going to be a behemoth to move around.

The other issue is going to be placing this thing down on the field. I have always gone with doors closed as it makes it easier to place and defines the measurements better as well. However, with this one being locked to doors open, it will be interesting to see what the rules are. There are apparently going to be rules for placing and measuring listed on the data sheet, some will see what they say but I'm leaning away from pods now and towards an Impulsor.

Sanguinary Guard

 As I mentioned in my last post, I picked up some AoS kits while in Orkney. The kits I picked up were the Lord-Terminos, Knight-Questor and 3 Reclusians alongside 3 Memorain squires. The initial plan was to buy an additional model and build the them all up as Sanguinary Guard with some third party jump packs, however, 8 decided to.modify the plan slightly and brought two extra models and made the Lord Terminos in to a Jump Captain to join the 6 Sanguinary Guard for a full squad.

The conversions were fairly simple and involved building the models minus their shields and converting up some.bolt pistols to wrist mounted guns by chopping off the mag and pistol grip before mounting the gun to the wrists. I then reattached the mags so they faced down, giving a much nicer wrist mounted gun look. I also did two as melta pistols because you always need the melta. 

Apart from the bolt pistol, they were all pretty much stock at this point, only one received a shoulder change and a marine style shoulder pad.

The Knight Questor also received a arm transplant, loosing his sword for an open hand with wrist mounted pistol. This model will also represent the banner or in this case, the holy light of the emperor. Burn heretic, BURN!

Last up we have the jump captain. He will relic weapon and pistol. This model is mostly still AoS except for the left shoulder pad, which is a deathwatch pad 

These models now have their jump packs and head attached, but I think I made a mistake leaving the thing behind the head on (no idea what it's called). I think I should have removed this, as it's a bit much. I may well try to remove it from the completed models but it may not be easy. 

Another models that I have thought about getting is the Lord Veritant. I was pondering this as a either a psyker or even a Chaplin with jump pack, to give the option for taking two 3 man Sanguinary Guard, one with captain and one with chaplain. 

Hope with the improving weather I might be able to get some models primed and painted!

Company of heroes

So I had a few days of peace and quiet while the wife and daughter were away at a swimming competition. I decided to try and knock a few bits off my to do list for 2024, namely varnishing vehicles or quickshading and basing my infantry. I managed to get quite a few units done and sorted. I plan on posting up the completed models over the next couple of weeks but I will start with the Space Marine Company of Hero’s. These were a recent addition to the force and it wasn’t until I sorted these guys to put in their case with the other Eagle Knights units that I haven’t based the other models, so I’ll have to get on and do that sometime soon. 

 

Full squad

Ancient and Champion 

The champion and ancient have fairly plain bases, with the ancient having the crate to give his foot something to rest on. 

Veterans and Captain

Shiny trees

The only issue I have is the shiny trees, I could easily sort this with some matt varnish, such as citadels Stormshield. It was also at this point that i realised that in my haste to get these models finished i have failed to paint on the chapter symbols on the shoulder pads! I’m not quite sure how I can rectify this issue at the moment, maybe I’ll have to look in to custom transfers at some point!