210th Army IG Blog, All Female Alarian 740th & Valhallan 5th

[emptyhat]

The new squad is looking good. It make me want to see a picture of them all as an army, either as an 'armies on parade' set up, or partway through a battle.

[RedsandRoyals]

Sept 26, 2019 3:31:30 GMT -5 emptyhat said:

The new squad is looking good. It make me want to see a picture of them all as an army, either as an 'armies on parade' set up, or partway through a battle.

Having seen the full array set up myself, I can say it's extremely impressive, especially when set up on a winter mat (and when there's a knight backing them up).

Excellent work as always, R & T. I'm enjoying the behind-the-scenes on the Vallhalans.

[borkies]

emptyhat Yeah, I'll post them out once I get a few more squads fully completed

RedsandRoyals Thanks, glad you're enjoying the armies, especially as someone who has faced off against/ seen them in person. -R

Made some progress on the Valhallan Autocannons, I've always liked to make the heavy weapon bases to inform on the unit/theme of the army. For my Valhallans I'm looking for a Kursk style trench/dugout for the heavy weapons, with planks and sandbags plus various crew items. I've gotten lucky that the old autocannon/heavy bolter are styled similar to the Soviet Maxim heavy machine gun, so the old heavy weapons fit the Red Army theme

Hopefully I can get something nearly matching R's Alarian heavy weapon bases, though she has set a high bar. I do still need to add another layer of sand and glue to some bare spots but these are largely how they'll appear in the end.


The start, with foam, sand, rocks, a small drum and thin wood board for the base.


Second phase added GS sandbags, some crates/stowage and removed sand for the guns/crew


Gun pit one with Autocannon for scaling


Gun pit two with Autocannon, added crate/bucket


Gun pit three with Autocannon, added bags/bed rolls and a GS Valhallan helmet from a helmeted head I cast in Blu-stuff Silicone rubber, consider this foreshadowing for several future projects you'll be seeing later


Let me know what you think of the bases, I'm trying to keep the limited model range for the heavy weapons interesting with good basing, but let me if they're too much or scaled weird.


I'll have the bases/gun crews finished this week and hopefully some sergeants if timing works out -T

[Walk]

Ok I'm already in love with this thread, I will definitely be following your shared progress. It's awesome you two can share the hobby together. All the conversions are top notch and painting looks great as well but my favorite part is your hwt based! Keep it up!

[judcottrell]

The basing is coming along great, definitely telling a story.
Those old Autocannons really do look the part!

[cheminhaler]

Those autocannon pits are looking great, T. Another more basic way of getting the boxed in look is to glue lots of small pebbles and bits of slate into a makeshift wall - so that it looks like the Guard just piled lots of stones in front of the HW teams. The only problem is the horrendous amount of superglue and searching the streets/ garden for the right sized tiny pebbles.
GS sandbags look great.

[borkies]

Walk Thanks, we both enjoy 40k and have played/collected for a good amount of time so its a fun past time we share. I'm glad you like the weapon bases, I've always enjoyed making the bases into emplacements as it adds to the guard's character. 

judcottrell I'm glad you like the bases, I've always felt that the Valhallan WW2 soviet feel works great with the Maxim machine gun styling that the 2nd edition Heavy Bolter/Autocannon, it matches extremely well.

cheminhaler Yeah I've debated using more rocks as walls, I think I might use that style for the Lascannons as their larger frames won't allow for the same built up "dirt" look. If you're looking for good rocks for basing I'd suggest getting a bag of "river rocks" from a gardening/hardware store. Around here you can get 5lbs (approx 2.35 Kg) for $5-8 which are excellent for 25mm/60mm bases, with the smaller rocks scaling well to guardsmen.

Valhallan Project update- I've completed the lasgun troopers section (19 out of 18 troopers painted) for my 1st Valhallan Battalion and I've finished my first Valhallan Sergeant. This is one of the rarer sergeants who I trimmed down his hand flamer and swapped in a lasgun barrel in order to keep the unique weapon profile. 


Finished lasguns, again I've learned that painting goes much faster if you paint them by pose.


Finished Sergeant, I like the look of the black Sashes and yellow shoulder set


I have the Valhallan Plasmaguns being primed and the Autocannons are in the works, I'll post something dealing with them before the end of the week. I also have a test lasgun trooper that I'll use to try out some layering/dry brushing on to finish out these troops. I'll try to post results later.

Thanks for the continued interested, let me know what you think of the troopers so far. -T

[judcottrell]

Troopers are looking great!

When you see them in mass formation really gets across the WW2 theme.
Infantry waves ftw!

Keep up the updates, really nice to see your progress.

[nutty]

The sergeant's sidearm looks great, did you just swap out the barrel? It's hard to imagine it being a flamer.

[borkies]

I've been working through some more squads and I thought I'd take the time to detail how I make my standard trooper. I wanted an army that looked very visually distinct, so I used primarily rare/nonstandard bits. Below is a step by step process, feel free to take whatever you want from this



1. I start with the following parts:

-Anvil Industries short greatcoat legs

-elysian torsos/arms

-cadian shoulder pad from the vehicle sprue

-statuesque miniatures beret head

-cadian lasgun stock

-escher autogun

-various pouches and equipment packs




2.




3.



4.




5.




6.



7.

[judcottrell]

Nice!

Thanks for the insight into your methods!

They really do look good.

[borkies]

judcottrell Thanks! I'm glad you like it, each model takes a good amount of customization and I'm glad you enjoy seeing the full process -R

Sorry for the gulf in updates, my brother recently found a stash of Valhallans I had collected from a years past and I've been busy working through them. 
The box arrived this past week and I've been stripping paint/rebasing the combined collection that includes the following:

26 lasguns
12 mortar crew
7 Heavy bolter/Autocannon gunners
8 Lascannon crew
4 Autocannon loaders
6 Flamers
3 Meltaguns
4 Grenade Launchers
4 Sergeants
2 Vox casters 
several mortars/heavy bolters/autocannons/Lascannons in various states

This added to my current stock puts the total around 140 valhallans of all types, with nearly 6 of each heavy weapon, in various forms of the hobby process. 


I think this picture of the lasgun troopers will convey the scale best, painted troopers are off to the side, 81 models in total

I've made some progress on the Character and Squad Autocannon teams for the 1st Battalion

2nd Company Commander- Finished. I used a minor conversion of "Hero" from the Last Chancers, I merely added fur cuffs to bring him into theme. Oddly enough this simple addition with a paint job really ties him in as a Soviet style officer.  



Ministorum Priest- Finished. This is just a standard Preacher model, but the crazed imperial priest in a burlap robes swinging a board with nails in it really matches the Valhallan theme. I also love the character added by the missing teeth, seriously the missing teeth on the Valhallans and this guy are such a clever way to inform the hardened Soviet soldier theme, GW needs more of this kind of tiny details.  



Autocannon crews- I'm still painting the guns and bases, those will follow shortly. I went for a diverse crew set to break up the same loader/crewman this collection runs into, fortunately the size of my collection now does allow for minor conversion and model swapping to keep the crews interesting.


I've started work on some more heavily converted Valhallan officers and I've finally made some winterized Soviet Psykers, I'll be posting the Wip shots later this week -T 

[scabbs]

Aug 30, 2019 16:39:28 GMT -5 borkies said:

Hey all,

This is a shared blog with my s/o detailing our guard armies, together they form the 210th Imperial guard Army with various other models and troopers in our collection.

I'm a relatively new player and I play a custom regiment, the all female Alarian 740th Mountaineers "Markov's Marauders". This is a unit from my custom planet, Alar, a frozen mining world that recently fell to chaos. My troops are fully converted from a number of sources, namely OOP Elysians and a few other sources. I'll sign the end of my Posts with a -R

My s/o has played since second edition and he's going to post about his Valhallan regiment, the 5th Valhallan "Black Guards". He'll be rebuilding and expanding on his first army from back in the day, so most of his models with be metal GW with some 3rd party. He'll sign the end of his posts with a -T

I'll start off with a few pictures of my recently finished Mountaineers to start the blog off.



Company Commander- Lieutenant Sonia Bolton




1st Squad, 2nd Platoon led by NCO Sergeant Kamarov


Cpl. LaHain and 2 other troopers


Troopers Lanete and Nitzkowski ready for Close Combat


Trooper Nitzkowski racking the slide

these are so nice love the heads and the camo plus the snow bases with bloody spades excellent and the brown russian esque paintjob is sick the old metal 40k are the best figures

[borkies]

Alrighty y’all, sorry for the lack of progress updates over the past couple months. I’ve been super busy in my personal life, especially with work--the holiday season is always a busy time of year in healthcare and with all the craziness going on overseas it’s been an eventful couple months for me. I haven’t forgotten about the hobby though and I’ve made a lot of progress with my Alarians, finally getting to the point where I can field a majority painted army lol. So, without further adieu, here’s what I’ve been working on:

First and foremost, my pride and joy: The Tempest Pattern Leman Russ, Mk. II : P
I am totally freaking out about this thing, over 40 hours of conversion work, modeling, and painting went into this tank, more time than I’ve spent on any single model, including my imperial knights. I revised my design based on all the wonderful feedback so graciously given to me in my last Tempest post, where I talked about wanting to design a tank better suited to mountain warfare. I gave it some side paneling and swapped out a few of the GW bits for some good ol’ fashioned plasticard.


Front view, you guys like my high tech lightbox?


Side View


Closeup on the track guard freehand, getting that stupid shield symmetrical hurt my sanity.


And finally, the opposite side.

I’ve been busy on the infantry front as well, converting and painting well over 100 individual guardswomen, each one entirely unique in posing and styling.


Pictured here is roughly a Mountain Rifle Company, minus the support vehicles. It contains a Mortar HWT, Lascannon HWT, 3 Infantry Squads w/ flamers, 3 Infantry squads w/ plasma guns, and 3 Infantry squads with Lascannon teams and snipers. Each squad also includes a vox operator, a medic, and a bolter/chainsword sergeant. The heavily armored gas mask donning ladies to the rear of the formation are Alarian Combat Engineers, the assault specialists of the Regiment. They’re comprised of a plasma command squad and a demo pack toting special weapons squad. Better pictures taken in my lightbox to follow.







Pictured below are some of the special characters I’ve modeled/painted up, the first two being my stand in for Rein and Raus, Lt. Rita Sokolov and her dedicated spotter, Levi. I love these two. this is probably the most wholesome thing I’ve modeled for WH.





Next up is Lt. Silva of the Alarian Blackwatch. As a Mountain Recon unit, the 740th is often one of the first units to touch down during a planetary assault, making information on the local culture, terrain, and hostile force distribution especially valuable. Blackwatch troopers land days ahead of the main force, mapping out landing zones, carrying out night raids, and gathering information on the local culture and terrain. They’re capable navigators, survivalists, and fighters, operating without support and friendly contact for often weeks at a time. I’m fielding them as scions for the time being, and they’ve done well my past few games.





Finally, my eversor assassin, Larentia, or as my gaming group has taken to calling her, “Tiffany”. I’d imagine this is due to her finger blades, which I have to admit really do complete thar “freshly manicured” look. Not sure where the model is from, it was a generous gift from a friend (thanks Reds!). I’ll admit, these photos didn’t turn out as well as I’d’ve liked, and they don’t do her justice. She’s done me proud, catfighting her way through hive tyrants and chaos lords alike.





I’ll try to post more often from now on, starting with some of my commanders and some lore snippets I’ve written up this coming week. Thanks again for supporting my blog, you guys are a great source of motivation. Take care hobby friends,

-R

[nutty]

That's a lot of cool stuff; your army is really taking shape. Are you planning to do more vehicles?

[Major Downer]

That's a great update, and the heavy armour is a great addition to your force.

Please correct me if im wrong but that Sniper is converted from the below?

Vostroyan Sniper
ForgeWorld Chimera Sniper?

[judcottrell]

Looking fantastic!

That tank is something else! Well worth the time and effort you’ve clearly put into it.

[borkies]

nutty Thank you! Yes, I've got several more Vehicles in the pipeline.

Major Downer Thanks, yes that sniper is a converted Vostroyan Sniper with a head swap, 3rd party sniper rifle and an old Chimera stowage backpack

judcottrell Thank you, the tank has become the center piece of my army

More updates to come

-R

[cheminhaler]

The custom infantry Mountain rifle company are really amazing all together like that. Great conversions, and well done with that LR Tempest - the weathering and painting are astounding.

Was going to comment on this a couple of weeks ago but RL intervened.

Did T get in on the Made To Order Valhallan stuff from the one week window of opportunity?

[borkies]

cheminhaler - Yes I was able to grab a squad, I originally wanted to get the platoon but they deal was worse than originally reported (25 guardsmen and 3 autocannons for $100 went to 21 guardsmen and 3 autocannons for $125, thats no deal for me). So a few guys were added but not the windfall I had hoped, but I still have legions of valhallans to fill out. 

Hope everyone has been doing well, I've hand to place the Valhallans on hold to build out my urban warfare Cadian 110th army for a campaign battle series. After that died due to recent events I've started spending the down time expanding my Valhallans and finally knocking out several minor projects with the Army.



Here are some results of my efforts over the past two weeks:



First up, I've finished up all the Sergeants for my first Valhallan Battalion, I tried 3 different styles, one with a converted laspistol, one with a laspistol hand swap (cadian pistol) and 1 keeping the original hand flamer





Next is a critical piece of my Valhallan Blog efforts, finally filling in the "missing" Plasmagun special weapons. I've found that the 3rd edition plasma guns fit the scale exactly for the Valhallans, so I've swapped some Grenade launchers over to Plasmaguns. These troopers will be the special weapons for my 1st 3 squads. Please let me know what you think on these as I have a few other ideas floating around for other versions. If anyone has spare Metal Space Marine plasmaguns, the ones with the hand attached, I would love to get them in a trade/sale



Valhallan Plasmagun! *I like that the sculpts are leaning back from the guns, they know the danger themselves but use them anyways, lol*







I found that the 2nd/3rd edition Commissar coats are EXACT matches to the Valhallan trench coats, thus I've decided to pick up several left over Commissars to use as Valhallan officers. This will greatly resolve the issue of only 2 officer options in the Valhallan Range. Thus I painted a Commissar that gained a new hat from an old Chenkov model I had to serve as a commander, plus a Shotgun Sgt/LT conversion and a spare Vox caster.



Converted Valhallan Officers- Wonder where Chenkov's Body went?




Finally I have several models I've been converting after finding that similar to the Commissar coats the metal Delaque model's have trench coats that also match the Valhallans. I'm going to take advantage of these similarities to open up a world of new SGT and officer conversions to inject some diversity of sculpts while keeping the overall theme intact. If you have any unwanted metal Delaques, I'd be happy to work out a sale or trade!



1st Sgt- I won this guy as a brutalized ebay bid for $3, I changed his weapons, added a sash/collar and added a Victoria minatures head to "Valhallan-ize" him

Pre-conversion



Post Conversion







I got 2 further Delaques, these are Juvvies I believe, that I've swapped into Sgts to further expand the ranks(one bolter, one laspistol/autopistol and CCW). In addition I've converted a loose rocket launcher loader to into a medic, after adding a few minor details I think he'll do alright for the time being.



The middle model sports a valhallan head I've cast from green stuff, I've been experimenting with them to help expand modeling options while keeping conversions in theme. I placed a GS cloth wrap over his mouth to cover a molding error.







Finally I have two other officers, one uses the Body from the Chenkov I cut up earlier, to give the Valhallans a Powerfist officer (the tempestus powerfist fits the Valhallan style perfectly). The other Valhallan officer uses another Commissar body that I converted with a scarred head from the Cadian command squad, adding a GS papakha. I do need to fix the collar as its a bit too high and smooth.



Valhallan Powerfist officer- Converted from Chenkov, I wonder where Chenkov's Arms went...




Valhallan Officer- Converted from Commissar




Please let me know what you think of the conversions and any feedback would be appreciated!

I'll be posting more updates in the coming week! -T

[nutty]

That's a good fit with the old style delaques.

[judcottrell]

The plasmaguns look seamless and fit really well, all your conversions are bang on (especially considering you’re using metal!)

Looking forward to more of your work.

[Walk]

Definitely agree with nutty and jud. Plasma guns slid into the style well. And im poving the gs work on the last model. Keep em coming!

[Major Downer]

Here is the original GW Plasma guy they unofficially released.
They swapped the flamer out for the Plasma, you can find them on ebay from time to time.



I love the Shotgun guy, he's like 'Bring it on!'

[borkies]

nutty - Yeah, I found that using these models with minor changes and head swaps using either Valhallan GS recasts or Victoria miniature Soldat heads. I'm looking to grab all the old metal Delaques I can find after getting these results and having them match the Valhallan troopers when side by side.

judcottrell - Thank you, working with metal is a bit of a challenge but the results are real promising. I've found that using the 3rd/2nd edition weapons matches the scale extremely well.

@walk- I'm glad you like them, I'll post some updated GS pics of the commissar based officer when his collar is reworked. 

@major Downer- I've actually gotten a few of those models, I'm certain they're recasts as I got them 3 for $25 and the models are notably thinner than the other valhallans. I'm planning to convert around other sculpts into plasmaguns to add some variety, I already have designs on a meltagunner conversion and a Flamer based conversion one once I finish my current project load.

One thing I can say when collecting Valhallans, you'll end up with piles of flamer, chain sword sgt and mortar team models thanks to the squad box. Getting any more mileage out of them will go a long ways towards expanding your collection. 

The shotgun sgt is a minor favorite of mine, his style matches that gun so naturally. -T