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Post by: FeistyRips
Hello there!
First off, many or almost all character ideas and designs I will show you here were heavily inspired (not to say shamelessly stolen) from a very creative gentleman named Kenton Kilgore who runs (or ran, as it has been replaced by a newer site) a website called the Jungle. There, he showed off -among many other things- his inspiring and huge collection of space Marines with accompanying, extremely interesting fluff and fiction. His website has inspired me to recreate at least a part of his homebrew chapter, the "Fighting Tigers of Veda" to start my own collection of them.
So this place is where I can, after receiving permission of Mr. Kilgore, post all of the minis that were inspired by his work. I definitely recommend you check out the original Jungle website ( http://www.fightingtigersofveda.com/index.htm) if you haven't already, especially if you are interested in extremely well-written fluff (Kenton is also the author of several books), cool models and conversions and exciting battle reports. There is also a new website and a facebook page that are definitely worth checking out!
Automatically Appended Next Post:
So without further ado, let's start with some pictures!
To start things off, let me show you some basic units: A tactical squad and a basic HQ choice, Captain (Kshatriya) Sudra Patel. Patel was slightly modified by exchanging the Stormbolter the mini usually comes with with a normal Boltgun. Also, his sword and the hilt were bent in such a way to resemble an eastern scimitar. For those of you who don't know the fluff of the Fighting Tigers of Veda: they were inspired by indian/vedic culture and religion and have (as their name would suggest) got a very strong tiger theme going. For this reason, you will see marines with darker skin tones wielding eastern-looking weapons and sporting many tiger stripes on their uniforms
Next up, just a basic Tactical squad (Marines dedicated to the god Rudra).
To tell the sergeants and veterans apart from the rest of the rank-and-file troops, the Fighting tigers use a different method to that represented in the Codex Astartes. As you can see in the image above, sergeants and higher-ranking soldiers are denoted by additional tiger stripe patterns on their greaves, which lower-ranking soldiers don't have.
Looking forward to your C&C! Until next time!
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Post by: 416_SpaceWolves
Terrific that you're doing this. Kenton's original website was one of my favourites in my younger years. Excited to see what you do with this!
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Post by: FeistyRips
Hey 416_SpaceWolves! Glad to see there's other fans of the Jungle here on DakkaDakka! I really enjoy expanding this collection because I have a lot of opportunities for very flavourful conversions with this army. Also, it helps that I kept the paint scheme simple and that I can get the minis done a little quicker! Stick around, there's loads more to come and the army is still growing!
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Post by: amazingturtles
That's one of my favorite sites (blogs? i guess it's a blog now) too!
They're looking nice, the power saber is a nice touch. I like the old school bases and the skin tones too. I'm looking forward to more!
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Post by: FeistyRips
Hello again!
Time for an update! This time, we’ll take a look at a command squad. In the Fighting Tigers of Veda chapter, command squads are known as Singh squads. They are led by a Kshatriya (Captain) and consist of several veteran Space Marines. Usually, they include an Apothecary, a Standard Bearer and a Company Champion, but I don’t have these minis painted up yet. I do, however, have some character models (inspired by Kenton’s Marines) ready to show you that I may either use as a command squad, or as replacement sergeants for my tactical squads.
To start off, a sergeant/veteran equipped with stormbolter and chainsword. On his left shoulder pauldron is the crux terminatus, denoting him as a veteran with terminator honors.
Next up, a special character inspired by one of Kenton’s sergeants:
This cool dude dual-wields plasma pistols and totally looks like a gunslinger imho. I liked the mini so much I had to replicate it myself. Here’s the result:
The next character was created to use up some leftover bits from an old regiment of WHFB chaos warriors. I took the legs and body, added some Space Marine bitz like a Beakie helmet, Backpack and arms, and sculpted some hose details onto the front of the body. I used a Beakie helmet because the Fighting Tigers are said to have many suits of Corvus armor left over, being an older chapter in the fluff. I tried to achieve a dynamic pose with the upper body as well, to mirror the dynamic stance of the legs. Take a look:
When I saw that the legs of the WHFB chaos warriors worked well for Marines, I decided to make another character using those. I liked the fact that the fantasy bitz, with their overlapping armor plates and chainmail areas, gave the mini an archaic, grimdark and rogue-trader-esque appearance.
The inspiration for the next miniature came from a very specific model in Kenton’s army:
To replicate this classic mini, I used the legs and body from the chaos barbarians. I added the head of a Catachan soldier, as well as regular SM arms, pauldrons, a knife and a backpack. The shuriken catapult and extra ammo are from some old Eldar sprue. Maybe this guy looted it from a defeated Eldar, or traded for it on some forbidden xenotech black market... who knows? Finally, I used greenstuff to add a gorget and a beret to the Marine to complete the look. I hope I captured the character of Kenton’s mini!
The gun was painted bronze to make it stand out from the usual weaponry, seeing as it’s a Xenos artifact.
Finally, let’s get to the Captain (Kshatriya) herself: Jirbu Ghosh! The mini was created using many bitz from various sets. The body, legs and head are actually one solid piece of white metal, so all I had to worry about were the arms and backpack. The former were taken from a Khorne berzerker set, the latter is just an older, standard Space Marine backpack. To create the weapons, I took the axe head of a WHFB chaos warrior and pinned it onto the shaft of a Khorne berzerker chainaxe. The axe head was reconfigured to look more like a historically accurate Indian battleaxe with the help of some google reference images. The bolter was taken from an older plastic Plague Marine and painted to emphasize the wood texture on the casing. Who says only Nurgle Marines can have fancy wooden decorations on their guns?
Being a female Marine (shocking, I know, but don’t complain to me ), the colour scheme on Jirbu Ghosh is different from the rest of the squad. Female Fighting Tigers are dedicated to the goddess Kali and sport different colours from the rest of the chapter to reflect that. These female soldiers are trained from the day of their initiation to become experts in close quarters combat.
So that’s all for now. I hope you like the minis in this update and I am very much looking forward to your C&C! Until next time!
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Post by: amazingturtles
I'm not going to complain about female marines, that's exactly the kind of heresy i prefer.
I really like how the bearded guy with the eldar gun turned out, i think you definitely did justice to it
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Post by: FeistyRips
Thanks amazingturtles! Glad you like him! I still have to come up with a name for this chap
Here's another shot, the whole squad this time:
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Post by: Ragsta
This is a cool project, the tribute figures are very nicely done and it's a refreshing take on painting/ modelling GW stuff in general! I vaguely remember the original stuff back in the day, very cool that you're doing this.
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Post by: FeistyRips
Thanks Ragsta! Cool that you also remember the Jungle! Yeah, I'm a little different that way... I usually don't jump on the bandwagon right away when new minis come out. I usually get used stuff off of ebay or similar sites and see what I can come up with. It's a great way to get a hold of a lot of conversion bitz, and also it's fun to see how I can salvage damaged minis and create something new from them Stay tuned, more Tigers to come
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Post by: 416_SpaceWolves
I'm fighting a serious urge to copy you and start a third SM army.
Kind of upset with myself that I didn't do this when I decided to get back into the hobby!
You're doing the idea great justice!
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Post by: FeistyRips
416_SpaceWolves wrote:I'm fighting a serious urge to copy you and start a third SM army.
Kind of upset with myself that I didn't do this when I decided to get back into the hobby!
You're doing the idea great justice!
Thank you for the kind words! Kenton's website is very inspiring, isn't it? Hey, one can never have too many SM armies I say go for it!
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Post by: Boss Salvage
Unexpected return of the Fighting Tigers! But you're really doing a great job of it. I have fond memories of that army and website back in the day, excellent to see the chapter given new life
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Post by: youwashock
Love the homage to the old shuriken-Marine. Turned out great.
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Post by: insaniak
Woah, that's a blast from the past.
Nice work so far. I quite like the subdued orange you've gone with.
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Post by: Olthannon
I absolutely love these, super characterful. I never realised those old chaos warrior legs would fit so perfectly. I have a few of them dotted about the place, would be perfect!
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Post by: FeistyRips
Wow you guys! Thanks so much for all the nice comments! I'm so glad you like them!
insaniak Hmmm I tried to make the orange vibrant but apparently I didn't succeed Unfortunately I have no way of making the orange as bright and flashy as Kentons. I think he used a very vibrant, non GW paint for that.
Olthannon go for it! I'd be interested to see what you come up with!
Yesterday I finished Chaplain Daksha Ram btw! Will post pics once I get back to my lightbox! In the mean time, what would you guys like to see? I got some dreadnoughts, more tacticals, characters, assaults, Terminators, devastators, Bikers and a few Rhinos to show you, but where to start?
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Post by: insaniak
It does look brighter in that last pic (the jungle, group shot) so it might just be the white background dulling it down in the individual shots... but it does have a very brownish tone in those.
GW's oranges did get somewhat more muted over the years. Although I found that shading with red instead of brown can help.
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Post by: FeistyRips
insaniak wrote:It does look brighter in that last pic (the jungle, group shot) so it might just be the white background dulling it down in the individual shots... but it does have a very brownish tone in those.
GW's oranges did get somewhat more muted over the years. Although I found that shading with red instead of brown can help.
Yeah I noticed that the white background does some weird things to the photos. I'm taking pictures with my phone camera (which does have a decent resolution) in a lightbox, and somehow the phone seems to have problems with the exposure, which my older phone didn't have. Might have to fiddle around a bit with it.
Also, thanks for the suggestion, I'll try shading with Reikland Fleshshade instead! Although I do only use pinwashing techniques, it migth help the overall look.
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Post by: FeistyRips
Time for an update! Today I want to show you various units I finished a while ago. Lets start off with tactical squad Rudra 2. I'm going for a relatively cheap army points-wise, so this squad again has a flamer/missile launcher combo as it's pretty cost effective.
The sergeant has a painted Tiger claw on his pauldron, as some of Kenton's sergeants do.
The second combat squad, with missile launcher. I chopped the damaged head off of one of the Black Reach monopose Marines and stuck a Beakie helmet on as replacement
Next up, another character: I got this one from a large collection of used minis and figured I might as well add it to the army, although I do not know who this guy might represent. For now, he's just a nameless Libby I'll have to make up fluff for
Just ignore the ugly unfinished banner for now. You might be able to see that I tried to put some freehand icons on there. I ended up overpainting them however, because I didn't like them. Now, I'm unsure what to put on there. Maybe another Tiger claw I'll have to think of something interesting that fits a Librarian.
I'll have to go back and redo the banner at some point. But there's so much other stuff to paint as well
Next up: A dreadnought! Finally something bigger than a regular Marine!
This guy, like most of my miniatures, is also from a collection of used stuff. The heavy bolter arm was already partly built by the previous owner, so I can’t take full credit for that! I thought it was a cool idea though, and, lacking any other dreadnought arm options, I decided to keep it. I did add a box magazine and some ammo belts for realism though.
I think the Tiger scheme works really well even for the dreadnoughts. I know Kenton painted his vehicles and dreadnoughts in stripes all-over, but that seemed too flashy and time consuming to me
And last but not least, the man himself: Raja Shamshir Talatra! Well, at least, one version of him. This version is supposed to depict a younger Shamshir Talatra, from before the storyline of “A Traveller of both Time and Space”, back when he is still Raja and commands half the Fighting Tigers chapter.
To recreate the mini, I decided on a head with rebreather, as that’s what Kenton used for his bike-mounted Shamshir. A chapter of the story mentions him using a plasma rifle, so I figured I’d equip him with a combi plasma.
The suit is equipped with an iron halo as well. To create the ring, I had to remove the skull that sat in the center of the icon, which was quite fiddly but I think paid off in the end.
In the other hand, Shamshir holds a power saber. This could be a generic weapon or the chapter relic called the “Ebon Blade” which he is said to wield in the story.
So that’s it for now! I’d love to hear your feedback! Until next time!
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Post by: FeistyRips
Update time! Today, I want to show you a Devastator Squad. This squad is actually the whole reason I started this army, about a year ago. I got some extra Space Marine miniatures in a cheap used lot and didn’t know what to do with them for a while, so they sat in a box. At some point I decided to paint them in Kenton’s Tiger scheme just for the heck of it (I was reading through his fiction and got inspired by the accompanying images). This is what the first squad looked like when I started:
After this first test squad, I quickly realized this was a fun and relatively fast paint scheme, at least compared to my previous Ultramarines army . I bought more used miniatures and hey presto, here I am, about a year later with a sizeable, already painted Tiger army, and at least 40 more Marines and several vehicles desperately awaiting their paintjob It still takes me some time to get stuff painted, but I’ve improved a lot since the time I finished about one Ultramarine per month
The great advantage of this paint scheme is that a lot of the miniature is just painted plain black and quickly drybrushed with grey. As certain areas are picked out with orange and tiger stripe details however, the eye is drawn away from the darker, sloppier areas and the paintjob appears more involved and high quality as a result. Nowadays, I rely heavily on washes, which also helps speed up the painting process.
As you can see, the whole squad is equipped with missile launchers. I used them because I have loads of them, and they are a good option in regards to cost-effectiveness. Also, I like to think that the Tigers are a very frugal chapter that does not have access to large quantities of expensive toys like lascannons or plasmacannons. Instead, they make do with what they have, and cleverly employ simple weapons like missile launchers and flamers to great effect through the use of sophisticated tactics.
The sergeant in the squad is an older metal veteran miniature from the command squad. I stuck a Devastator plastic backpack with a targeter on him which I think goes very well with the miniature and the pose.
Reading through some battle reports, I noticed that Kenton sometimes uses Autocannons in his Devastator squad. I got inspired and started converting a Marine with autocannon just for the heck of it. Take a look:
Most of the bits are from the plastic tactical squad set. The left arm is a CSM arm with some details removed.
Sorry for the blurry image, but it’s hard to get the whole thing into focus as the barrel is so long
The right arm is from a rather old plastic devastator sprue I think. The gun I converted to create the autocannon was an old OOP lascannon bit I believe. I chopped it apart (oh, the humanity!!), removing the original barrel. This was replaced with an iconic autocannon barrel from the cadian heavy weapon sprue.
I love the shoulder mounted heavy weapons for Space Marines, so I am very glad to have at least one of these classic, unconventional types of guns in my army now. I had to chop away a lot of the pauldron to get the gun to fit properly, but was very satisfied with the result. To finish the look and add some realism, I added an ammo belt/feed to the back of the gun (created by chopping up some missiles for the launchers).
Some final details were added to the back: A few grenades and a pouch for storing ammo or other items. The backpack is an older one, from 2nd edition I believe. Now let’s look at the painted dude:
A look down the barrel! I think the paintjob managed to tie in the different parts very well. Like I said, although the miniature is mostly black, it seems detailed because of the details on the orange parts.
The paintjob nicely separates the armor from the gun and hides where the parts were joined together. One final shot from the back:
I think this dude came out quite well. I will include him with my Devastators in some games and try out different playstyles. His gun could be counted as a heavy Bolter, Lascannon or whatever.
I’d be glad to hear your feedback on my Tigers! Hope you liked the update and keep coming back for more, because I still have lots to show you! Anyways, catch you later!
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Post by: FeistyRips
Hey there! Another quick image dump incoming! This time, some transports for my tactical squads!
Rhino number 1 is a regular classic Rhino from the earlier editions. I got this vehicle in a used lot (like most of the minis in this army) and thus, some parts were broken from years of use and the ensuing transport to my house. In the case of this Rhino, I had to replace the curved exhaust pipes because most of them had broken off (as they tend to do on these older Rhinos). I decided to replace them with straight, shorter, but wider pipes I cut off from some sprues. The headlights needed fixing in some places as well. I also attached some custom smoke launchers to the top of the vehicle. These are just two halves of a chaos smoke launcher. The vehicle was then painted in the usual Tiger paint scheme.
Rhino number 2 is the same, older Rhino kit, but it proved a little trickier to repair. Again, the exhaust pipes needed replacing, but additionally, it was missing the headlights and also the smaller, round top hatches with the bolters attached to them. I had to make a mold of the piece to replicate it and create more headlights this way. Also, I made some casts of my own, custom top hatches and added them to the vehicle. Finally, I had to cut up some boltguns to fit the hatches since I didn't have the older, original boltguns the vehicle came with. I think the newer guns are an adequate substitute and they don't look too out of place on the Rhino. I added smoke launchers and a hedgerow cutter bit to the vehicle and then started painting.
I really like the way the black and the orange complement eachother and how they can be used to highlight certain details or armor panels on the vehicles. I hope you like the results as well! I'd be glad to hear your opinions down below! Until next time!
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Post by: amazingturtles
I really like that autocannon conversion! And the rhino's look very crisp. Such snazzy stripes.
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Post by: Mr Nobody
This definitely feels like a space marine chapter from the rogue trader era of the hobby. Great job.
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Post by: FeistyRips
Thanks amazingturtles and Mr Nobody! Glad you like them!
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Post by: Stevefamine
I haven't seen these marines since I was a kid during 3rd edition! Awesome work!
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Post by: Ancestral Hamster
These are brilliant. Keep it up!
As for your Librarian, Vishnu is the 2nd member of the Hindu trinity, and is the Preserver. Alternately, Saraswati is the goddess of Learning (and an avatar of Vishnu). If there is a symbol associated with either deity, that could go on the back banner. The other two members of the trinity are Brahma, the Creator, and Shiva, the Destroyer. Not knowing what psychic powers the Fighting Tigers of Veda prefer, one of those two may be more appropriate.
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Post by: FeistyRips
Thanks Stevefamine! I’m glad I could inspire some nostalgia in you! And thanks, Ancestral Hamster for the nice words and the suggestions! Many of the names you gave are already in use in the Tigers fluff: the Emperor is referred to as the sleeping Brahman, whose dreams shape the universe, and Shiva used to be the Chapter Master of the Fighting Tigers before he became entombed in a Dreadnought sarcophagus and became known as Shiva the Destroyer. Librarians are referred to as Tigers of Brihaspati, so I may use some of his symbology for the banner! Thanks for the great idea. Another idea I had when thinking about the banner was to add a Tiger claw like usual, but in this case add some fancy, henna-like scribbles and decorations to the “palm” of the paw, if you will. I’ll see what I can come up with!
Furthermore, I got some minis to show you: Today, I want to show you a Captain (Kshatriya) I finished a while ago, as well as some Assault Marines. Let’s start with the latter:
As I have already explained in a post above, Assault Marines in the Tigers fluff are always females (gasp) and they are dedicated to the death goddess Kali. Since the Vedic colour of mourning and the symbolic colour for death is white, the Tigers of Kali have adopted this colour for their armour instead of the usual orange found on the armour of male Tigers.
The minis were acquired from a used lot I bought cheaply from a private seller. The marines were assembled and painted, and I didn’t mess around much with them except reposition the heads on some of them if the poses looked too awkward. Also, I gave the sergeant a new head (I think this one came from a set of Ravenwing bikers) and an arm with a power fist. Other than that, I didn’t change much and got straight to painting. Like I said, this time, I replaced the orange with white. The stripes were applied with a light grey, so the contrast between the white and the stripes would not be too stark. The rest of the paint scheme stayed the same as on the regular Tigers.
A shot from the back. I decided to paint the fuselage of the jump packs in white as well, to make it pop a little more and make the unit stand out from the tactical troops. I gotta admit I really like the contrast between the white jet engines and the black of the armour. Otherwise, the paintjob is relatively simple and easy to do, with large areas simple left black with a quick grey drybrush.
I got another 9 of those in the pipeline, plus another customised miniature that will become a special character/leader. I’m looking forward to spicing up my army with more white Marines to contrast with the others However, I still have lots of other stuff to finish as well. We’ll have to see what I decide to tackle next.
Now, let’s move on to the Captain:
This guy is just a regular Captain from the Assault on Black Reach box, but with a little twist. The right arm, where the Captains power sword would usually go, was removed and a magnet was inserted in its place. I magnetized a right-handed power fist to match and so now I have a modular Captain with exchangeable armaments.
I think the power fist works well with the pose of the AoBR Captain. If I feel like it, I can still make an arm with power sword to swap out as well. For now, I have already prepared a magnetized, right-handed Lightning Claw that will fit this guy. This should prove as a very flavourful conversion appropriate for the Tigers, and hopefully might also be effective on the tabletop.
Another tiger-stripe cape to denote this guy as a leader. It took me a while but I think it paid off as it’s cooler now than just a regular, plain cape seen on many other captains.
So that’s it for this post! I hope you enjoyed and will let me know your thoughts. All C&C welcome Until next time!
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Post by: tzurk
I am so in love with this army - it gives me the feel goods every time there's an update! Great job on the autocannon dude - funny how little changes that you might not even notice on first inspection can make a mini "yours"!
The jump pack guys look great - I love the little variation in the scheme and I think that picking out the jump pack vents to be striped was a really good idea.
Nice weapon swap on the captain - the power first definitely fits the pose, and he's just a cool mini. The stripe pattern looks great on the cape.
And it would be remiss of me not to mention the bases! They are a bit like baby elephants - you just have to smile when you see them.
Great work, please keep posting!
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Post by: FeistyRips
Thank you so much for the nice words, tzurk! I'm so happy to see there are long-time fans of the Jungle out there who enjoy seeing the Tigers given new life! I will definitely keep posting since I have a lot more stuff to show you guys!
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Post by: cerealkiller195
Great stuff really brings me back to when I first started playing the game around 3rd edition!
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Post by: FeistyRips
Thanks cerealkiller195 for the kind words!
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Post by: FeistyRips
Hello friends!
Got some more stuff to show you!
Today, I want to share with you one of my personal favourites: my Terminator squad! Well, at least, the first of several squads. Man, do I love Terminators Anyways, here we go:
These guys came in a set called “Space Marines Heavy Assault”, which is part of the Build & Paint range sold on Amazon. You know, this one:
Oh man, how awesome is this cover art?? Just such a cool picture IMO. Anyways, the cool thing about this set is that it A) is relatively cheap for what you get B) contains a dreadnought as well as 5 of the OOP, classic Terminators C) also comes with some scatter terrain to spruce up your table. Therefore, I just had to get one.
When the package arrived, I got right to assembling the models. What I found out however, was that the Terminators came with smaller, 25mm bases. Ah well, there had to be a downside with such an amazing deal, but no biggie. I decided to order bases from GW and put the Terminators on them instead, so the base sizes would match among all the Terminators and so they would have the space they deserve!
Another issue I had with these older Terminators was that they somehow lacked an abdomen. Seriously, their Thorax seems to attach directly to their pelvis. Take a look:
Luckily, this issue was easy to fix: I added a spacer between their chest and pelvis and smoothed the gap over with some greenstuff. Et voilá, their abdomen was restored! To add some further character to the minis, I decided to ignore how they are supposed to go together (very static, boring and repetitive pose) and attached the arms at dynamic angles to the body. The bodies were also attached to the legs in different, dynamic angles, to add some variety to the squad.
The Terminator sergeant came equipped with a regular power sword. However, seeing as I try to make my Tigers distinct by giving them an eastern look, I decided to chop the blade off and replace it with a different one. I found exactly what I was looking for in a bag of used “Dark World” board game minis I got from a flea market: the set contained a beautiful, 28mm-scale golden scimitar! After some cleanup and conversion work, the scimitar was ready. I attached it with superglue, adding a pin to the hilt to make sure the thin piece wouldn’t snap off again immediately.
The spacer between the legs and body of the miniatures allows for way more dynamic poses than the regular kit would, and ensures that no two models need to be the same. When I was happy with all the poses, I started painting them in the tried and true Tigers paint scheme. To embellish the larger bases, I added a little bushel of a plastic plant to each one, breaking up the empty space and adding some visual interest, while also firmly placing these Terminators in their favoured jungle environment.
I had also received some newer Terminator sculpts in one of the many used lots I bought. These were integrated into the squad. This Terminator’s assault cannon was slightly damaged, so I decided to remove the bit below the rotating barrels and keep the weapon like that. This way, it also looks a lot like the older, OOP version of the assault cannon, which is a welcome side effect of the conversion. The chest piece was a leftover bit that a friend of mine had converted with some deep scratch marks. Who knows, maybe a giant vedic Tiger took out his anger on this marine’s chest plate?
This squad was also a great opportunity to use up some of my leftover Terminator bitz, such as the aforementioned assault cannon & chest piece. A great benefit of the classic Terminator sculpts, at least IMHO, are their way-cool Stormbolters with the double, side-by-side box magazines, as well as their open-handed power fists. Also, they have quite pretty chest eagles.
The newer Terminators are cool as well, and by far the superior/more realistic kit, but seeing the old and the new side by side here, I actually prefer the converted classic ones.
A little issue the older Terminators have is that they are a little shorter than the newer models. However, the size difference was easily rectified with the abdominal spacer I mentioned earlier.
I added a simple glowing effect to the lenses of all the Terminators as it was quick to do and added a lot to the look. I think it makes the squad as a whole appear way more intimidating.
Though the helmets of the older models are all fixed in a straight position, the dynamic poses make the whole model appear in motion and help hide the fact that the torso part is always the same. Finally, here’s the guy with the flamer. It’s also an older style weapon, but I must admit it still looks pretty decent when painted.
That’s all for now! I hope you enjoyed this update, and I look forward to your comments! Until next time!
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Post by: youwashock
The Terminators are fabulous, as is the assault squad from the previous page.
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Post by: gobert
Those are really neat conversions! The spacer really does improve their proportions and seems to have allowed a great amount of dynamism to otherwise static poses. The blue glow really adds the finishing touch to a cool paintjob too
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Post by: Grenb
What a blast from the past, great tribute!
I'm loving the selection of older models and basing, really staying true to the originals. And the OOP Terminators with spacers are nearly indistinguishable from the newer ones, nice job.
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Post by: amazingturtles
Great work with the buff little guys and also with making them not quite as little and more buff! And nice freehand work with the tigers on his chest guy
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Post by: 416_SpaceWolves
Really well done on the Termis my friend. Great eyes.. and you're doing black well.
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Post by: FeistyRips
Thanks youwashock, gobert, Grenb, amazingturtles and 416_SpaceWolves for the nice comments! I’m overwhelmed by all your guys kindness! Also, I wanna say sorry for not checking back in here for so long! I shall try to make up for it with the following picture dump!
On the list for today are some Scouts and the third of my tactical Marine squads. Also, I wanna show you the progress on the magnetized Kshatriya (Captain) I posted here a while ago. So let’s get right into it and start off with the scouts!
In the lore, Fighting Tiger scouts are called Tigers of Puchan, taking their name from the vedic god of guides which they dedicate themselves to during their training. Contrary to many units in my army, this squad (let’s call them Squad Puchan 1?) was made from a fresh box of minis I bought myself (can you believe it? ). Initially I had planned to use them for my Arbites force, but then realized I already had a sniper squad, which meant they went straight onto my considerable pile of shame. No matter though, as I knew they might come in handy at some point, and they finally did when I decided to expand my Tigers army.
I decided to go with a rather dark, subtle paintjob on the fatigues and armor, staying true to my usual Tigers painting recipe, but reducing the amount of orange to prevent them from being too striking or flashy. Instead, I wanted these scouts to look more toned down and camouflaged. The lenses received a blue glow as usual.
The faces were painted in different colour schemes. Some use the brighter, caucasian-style recipe (Bleached Bone, followed by two layers of Ogryn Fleshshade) while others use the darker, indian-style recipe (Graveyard Earth, followed by one layer of Agrax Earthshade), to give the squad some variance and show that the recruits were taken from different gene pools on Veda itself as well as some Tigers recruiting worlds.
The main focus of this paintjob was not going to be the usual orange or white highlights as with the power-armored Tigers. Instead, I wanted to draw the eye to the camouflaged areas of the scouts wargear, namely their camo cloaks, their rifles and the sergeants combat blade. To achieve the jungle camouflage, I used only three colours: At first, the areas were basecoated with Catachan Green. After this layer had dried, I added patches of Goblin Green (yes, I still have half a pot of that ancient, blessed, opaque liquid). Finally, after some more drying time, the recesses were pin-washed with some Athonian Camoshade to add depth to the green areas. I quite like the resulting vibrant green camouflage pattern, as it is a great contrast to the orange and also places the scouts firmly in their favourite surroundings: the jungles of Veda! (or any other densely forested planet, really ).
Alright, moving on to the Tigers of Rudra! It’s been a while since I showed you the last tactical squad, but I figured I’d spread ‘em out a little so it doesn’t get boring!
These are just regular tactical guys in the usual paint scheme. Only difference here is the sergeant: To give the squad some Tiger flavour, I equipped him with a Lightning claw This squad once again came from a used lot of Space Marines, and as such, most models were unchanged except for certain characters like the sergeant and flamer-guy.
I stuck with the cheap loadout of flamer & ML as with the other tactical squads. The other Marines are just regular dudes, mostly multipart, some push-fit.
Finally, let’s move on to the magnetized Kshatriya: As I already explained, this mini was created by magnetizing the right arm of the AoBR Captain, leaving me with a customisable mini with a multitude of loadout options.
You may already have seen the guy, but I wanted to show him again since I went back and redid the face of the mini to add detail. He now has grey hair and a brighter glowing lens. I also touched up his power fist, adding some detail to its skull.
The image below shows the right arm removed, revealing the magnet underneath, located in the elbow joint. The two arm options I have so far are laid out at the minis feet. Let’s see what he looks like with the lightning claw, shall we?
Once again, I think this is quite a flavourful conversion that nicely gets the Tiger theme across IMHO. I really like the look of the LCs and intend to use them more throughout the rest of the army to reinforce this. I hope you like them as well!
Anyways, that’s all I have to show you for today! As always, I hope you liked the minis I showed you in this update and I’m looking forward to hearing what you think about them! Until next time, take care!
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Post by: Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll
Those scouts are gorgeous, I love the jungle camo. The "stripes" on the camo still tie them strongly into the Tigers.
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Post by: FeistyRips
Thank you Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll! Glad you like the camo, it was the most time consuming part of the scouts!
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Post by: youwashock
Great new additions. The lightning claw fits perfectly, and looks cool, too. The camo on the scouts is fantastic. Absolutely love the knife.
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Post by: FeistyRips
Thanks youwashock! Happy to hear that you like the conversions & paintjob! I must admit, the scouts do blend in really well when placed in some of my jungle terrain. Hopefully I will be able to take some action shots soon when I get back to my house. I'm glad I managed to pull off a decent camo pattern even though this was my first time trying it.
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Post by: FeistyRips
As promised, I managed to snap a few action shots this weekend. Here's the scouts in some Terrain:
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Post by: ph34r
I remember the fighting tigers from way back. A decade ago? More?
Very cool stuff.
EDIT: This is kind of random, but I know your site had/has a lot of unique armies hosted on it, was one pictured army some sort of steel/bronze colored successor chapter who used storm bolters and thunder hammers all over the place? Very much a "stormy thunder" theme
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Post by: FeistyRips
Hey there ph34r! Thanks for your comment, but I don't think I'm the guy you're thinking of. I'm just a fan of Kenton's site and I borrowed some of his ideas and lore!
Also, I don't own any chapter painted bronze that's equipped with thunder hammers & storm bolters, although now I wish I did, as this sounds pretty awesome
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Post by: FeistyRips
Hello again! Got some more pictures!
First off, here’s another shot of the scouts in some terrain:
I will definitely take more pics in terrain as I think it makes the minis pop really nicely! Now on to some new stuff:
This squad of scout bikers was assembled from second hand miniatures. As such, some of the bikes had various issues (like crooked part attachment, broken or missing parts, too much primer, superglue mishaps etc.), but I tried my best to salvage them. Bear with me if you find any mistakes
The bikers were mounted on bases. I prefer that look as it ties them in with the rest of the footsloggers. Two arms were missing, but I replaced them with bitz from my box. To mix things up a little, I took parts from the Khorne Berzerker kit again, as they are visually interesting and their fur pendants/charms also work well with the Tiger aesthetic. All it takes is to paint on some Tiger stripes
This chap also got a Berzerker arm with a Bolt pistol.
This angle shows some of the detail a little better. The display between the handlebars was painted to have a slight blue glow. The tyres of a bike going at assault speed would definitely tear up the ground beneath them, so I painted the base brown in their tracks and left off the flocking there.
The sergeant of the squad. Nothing too exciting. His bike was missing the floor plate, so I had to slap one together using cardboard, but hopefully it’s not too noticeable.
With the bikers done, let’s move on to something bigger! Today I have another Dreadnought to show you. I still have three more Dreadnoughts in the making (one of them a VIP) which I will show you later when they are ready. But now, let’s start off with the Dreadnought Aruval Rajiv Rama:
Rama is equipped with a TL Autocannon and a CCW. This dreadnought also came from an AoBR starter set, just like the first one I showed you in this thread. Like his brother, this dread already had a converted right weapon arm, so I can’t take full credit for the autocannon conversion! All I did was fill some gaps, clean up some glue spills and drill out the barrels.
I actually thought the previous owner did a really nice job and decided to keep the autocannon pretty much as-is. However, I did want to swap the standard CCW arm for something more interesting.
Luckily, I had a Contemptor-pattern powerfist lying around from some other conversion, and I thought this would be the perfect occasion to use it. I chopped off the original powerfist, filed the joint flat and removed the underslung Storm bolter. Then I was able to attach the new weapon. The cool thing about the Contemptor’s powerfist is that it incorporates the Storm bolter on the inside of the CCW housing, where it is much more protected from the wear and tear of battle. I always thought it makes little sense to attach an underslung gun onto what basically equates to a wrecking ball, so I appreciate the Contemptor CCW for its reasonable design.
Here you can see some more detail of the left CCW arm. Luckily, the powerfist joints of the two dreadnought types have the same diameter, which made this conversion possible. I think this arm looks a lot “smashier”, if you will, with the Storm bolter tucked away inside.
Okay, so that’s all I got for now. I hope you guys enjoyed and as always, I am looking forward to your comments and criticism! Until next time, take care!
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Post by: tzurk
What an awesome update!
I think your stripes are getting even crisper & cleaner as the army grows, the dread is a fantastic example of a neat paintjob on a cool mini coming up aces. Fist conversion was smart and I agree it looks super punchy and a bit more dynamic!
The old school bikes are just beautiful. Love the work on the displays and the arm swaps.
Really looking forward to more pics in terrain - and by the way, your photography is excellent! Makes it really easy to see the details of the mini with good lighting. I still struggle to take decent photos so I am almost as impressed by that aspect of your blog as the painting and converting!
Great work mate, keep it up!
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Post by: FeistyRips
Thank you so much for the very nice comment, tzurk! Happy to hear that you like the new models!
Considering the photography: I'm by no means an expert, but there's two simple tricks that helped me improve my pictures a lot. First, use a lightbox. They go for very cheap on Amazon and they are really great to get proper lighting for your minis. Second, get the free smartphone App 'Pixlr'. This is great for postprocessing. I for example always have to turn up the brightness in all of my Tiger photos by a lot (despite using my lightbox). In combination, you can get decent pictures using just a Smartphone (like me). Hope that helps! And thanks again for your input!
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Post by: FeistyRips
Hello again!
Today, I want to share some new pics of my assault terminators with you! I had this squad finished for quite a while, but finally have quality pictures to show you. The Terminators in this squad are the newer ones from the regular terminator box set. I got the parts for them still on the sprues in a used lot, so I was able to assemble them more or less like I wanted to. Let’s jump into pictures:
The squad started out with just a single leftover Space Wolf Terminator that I attached some lightning claws to. At that time, I had just begun test painting some of the old Devastators I showed you in an earlier post, and as I’d had a lot of fun with them, I decided to paint the Terminator as a female Fighting Tiger just or the heck of it. Back then, I didn’t plan for this to go any further than a small display set or maybe something the size of a kill team, but as you can see, the army evolved from there and started growing way beyond my initial expectations. I have to admit that this project has really helped me to push the scope of what I can achieve in a given amount of time and has enabled me to find faster and more efficient ways of painting, and it all started with this small group of leftover, jumbled together minis given tiger stripes The initial Terminator is the one in the back left. I really like the SW bitz because the fur decorations go nicely with the Tigers as well. All you have to do is adjust the paintjob accordingly. This bitz similarity also fits thematically, as in Kenton’s lore, the Space Wolves are among the very few chapters the Tigers call friends and who they regularly do training exercises with.
I tried to give all the Tigers interesting poses. I messed around with arm positions, looking for the few that would not look static or silly. I tried to make them look like they just delivered a mighty slash with their claws. When I was happy, I attached a head to the body accordingly to reinforce the impression of a dynamic stance. Only when the complete torso was done did I add it to the legs, which helped me gauge how the stance should look in the end.
I also have some closeup images of the squad’s sergeant. She was made from bitz from the assault terminator box. I tried to make her look as if she was pointing out the next target to her squad using her armored fist.
One thing to note about the terminator squad is that, when buying the sprues, I didn’t notice that all the left pauldrons were already missing. As a result, I had to cast four left pauldrons with the crux terminatus myself. The casts aren’t the best, but I just wanted to have some simple and quick replacements, so I just hoped the paintjob would hide most of the imperfections. With the Tigers being covered in stripes which distract the eyes from other mistakes, my job was a bit easier. I hope the imperfections aren’t too noticeable.
I think the female clawed assault terminators are a very iconic part of the Fighting Tigers chapter, and I’m glad to already have a small squad of them in my army now. I also have a transport planned for them, plus another one for the tactical terminators. However, I’m still a bit intimidated by the prospect of painting huge war machines in Tiger stripes Anyways, there’s lots more other stuff to do and I will probably wait with the vehicles a little longer.
Moving on to the next set of pictures. Up next is another special character. With the Fighting Tigers being a very fleshed out chapter with lots of history and lore behind them as well as a very distinct appearance influenced by indian culture, it’s important to me to capture that character by finding suitable bitz and miniatures to reflect that. When browsing ebay for useful stuff to incorporate into the army, I came across the 30k Legion Praetor Tribune in Tartaros armor. Back then I didn’t consider actually buying it. While I liked the model quite a lot, I wasn’t going to shill out 50-60€ for a single miniature plus shipping, so I quickly forgot about it.
A while later I was searching Wikipedia for different types of historical indian weapons (research for the Tigers), and lo and behold, I found this:
It’s a historical indian Bhuj, also known as an axe-knife or elephant knife for the elaborate engravings on the mount and knob of the weapon. I instantly recognized the weapon: it was the one the Praetor tribune carries! When this realization hit me, I knew I needed to have the model in my army. I decided to just go for it and buy him on ebay despite the price tag.
Few weeks later, the box arrived at my house, and as usual, I couldn’t help but start converting and hacking the mini apart as soon as I got my dirty paws on it The iconic indian-inspired power weapon would of course remain unchanged, but I had to get rid of some of the decorations on the pauldrons to make them smooth and more suited for the application of the obligatory tiger stripes Also, I decided to change things up a little and give the mini a helmet instead of its bare head, so as to tie it in with the rest of my tactical terminators it would invariably be leading into battle at some point. Here’s the painted result of the conversion. Let me introduce you to ”Kshatriya Veer Mudaliyar”:
I really like the way this guy turned out and I think the weapon is such a unique piece and it really makes this guy stand out, while also reinforcing that indian flavour I was trying to evoke. Apart from adding the helmet and smoothing out the pauldrons, I also converted the miniatures left besagew (the small shield bit on the front of the pauldron, protecting the armpit) to be round, like on the other side, to make the armor more symmetrical. The two small, round besagews also gave me the perfect excuse to add a tiny chapter symbol, a Tiger’s claw, to both sides as additional decoration
Only thing I regret about this miniature is that the greaves have these vertical details on the inner sides, which ruins the tiger stripe patterns a little bit. However, I wasn’t going to fill in these inaccessible areas because I thought it would only make the mini look worse, so I decided to just leave it as it is. In this side shot, you can see how the terminator helmet nicely slots into the armored collar of the suit, and I think it looks pretty slick
The back of the miniature. This mini has an incredible amount of detail. In keeping with the Tiger’s colour scheme, I decided to keep most of it black anyways, and it really helps to tie him in with the other terminators in the squad. Some of the greebly bitz like pipes, cabling and vents were picked out in metallic however, to break up the black a little. Considering the pauldrons, I have to admit I had a bit of trouble deciding which way to make the stripes go. I decided on placing them vertically around the edges, because then they would be perpendicular to the arms, just like the stripes on Tiger’s legs.
Another shot, now from the left side. This angle really lets you appreciate the cool dynamic pose of the model. As usual with my larger bases, I added some tufts of plastic foliage to break up the grassy surface.
Now, as I know you guys like action shots … here is one of Kshatriya Veer Mudaliyar in some terrain:
Alright, so that’s it for now! I hope you guys liked this update and you enjoyed the minis I showed you. I’d very much appreciate your feedback and I’m looking forward to reading your comments Until next time!
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Post by: tzurk
Woohoo, more Tigers!
Great job on the Assault terms. Interesting way to pose them, by assembling the torso first - it just makes total sense! I would not have noticed the pads if you hadn't pointed them out (in fact, I can't pick which ones are casts from the photo at all), and I think going with grey stripes rather than black is a very clever artistic choice.
I love the beefiness of the Praetor, too. I think as a model he really conveys a lot of the power and confidence of the tiger as an apex predator. Again, i wouldn't have noticed the vertical details running through the tiger stripes on my own. And great OSL on the eyes ++ bonus points for the action shot in the jungle!
Always love seeing this blog updated - it's really fun to see the pics and read your thoughts/processes - looking forward to more!
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Post by: Ancestral Hamster
Great job, and what a serendipitous discovery of the ancient Indian weapon.
Incidentally, should you need more bits, there are a number of shops on Shapeways that make 3d printed bits. The shop I've linked to below is one I've saved as it has a good variety of minor or obscure chapter shoulder pads, and I want some for my Deathwatch. However, I have not ordered from any shop on Shapeways, so I have no idea how reliable the shops are or what is the component quality.
https://www.shapeways.com/shops/popbits?section=--+Crosses&s=0
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Post by: youwashock
Big, big props to those Terminators. Both the Assault squad and the character. Just awesome. The bikes and Dread deserve a round of applause, as well.
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Post by: gobert
The regular head on the Praetor works really well. From the right hand view it even looks tiger like! The lady Assault Termies look great, especially with them all having power claws. The white and grey works really well together with the dynamic poses you’ve managed to achieve.
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Post by: FeistyRips
Wow! Thanks everybody for your very nice comments! Glad you enjoy this kind of stuff! There's still loads more to come!
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Post by: Ragsta
Can I just say that I love the style of this project? The paint scheme is strong - the units using white rather than orange add a great slice of variety.
The vibrant green bases bring a reminiscent year to me eye so they do! The latest Scouts look excellent- I really like the camp cloaks and camp on the weapons. I’m taking note of your skin recipes for future use - I only recently added a swathe of black faces to my painfully pale faced Flexberg so more variety is very welcome!
And finally the use of old kits and using up what you already have - kudos to you sir! I sold my old Brazen Guard force but I would like to reinvent them at some point - perhaps using second hand old timers like yourself
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Post by: FeistyRips
Hello there!
Thanks Ragsta for the kind words! Hope the paint scheme for the faces works out for you as well! Alright, time for another update! Today, let’s take a look at one final tactical squad and a chaplain. Also, I wanna show you some WIP pics of stuff I am currently working on. Alright, let’s start off with combat squad 1 of Rudra Squad 4:
Another squad of Marines from a large used lot. The guys in this squad are mostly multipart plastic miniatures. I made some changes to the models when I got them to give them some extra flavour and different loadouts. Most notably, the sergeant was completely redone. He got a bolt pistol and a lightning claw, and was repositioned to have a more dynamic pose, as if he were in the middle of a strike. Furthermore, the beaky marine in the squad was given a bayonet for his boltgun. The knife was donated by an old plastic Plague marine. Moving on to combat squad 2:
This is the second half of the squad, focused on ranged combat capabilities. The squad contains a Marine with ML. There’s also two marines in there that were given scopes for their boltguns, which gave me the opportunity to paint gem effects on the lenses Finally, an action shot of the squad taking position in a jungle:
Next up, let’s take a look at a chaplain. If you are familiar with the lore of the Fighting Tigers you may have heard of “Tiger of Varuna Daksha Ram”. He is one of the senior officers of the chapter and appears in some short stories written by Mr. Kilgore. As I was lucky enough to receive the exact same miniature he used for his army (an old metal BA chaplain) in my used lot, I just had to do my version of Daksha Ram to add to my command squad. Here he is:
To replicate Kenton’s version, I had to remove the crest/halo thing on the helmet that BA chaplains sometimes have. That was surprisingly easy to achieve with the GW sprue clipper, but then the skull helmet had to be filed smooth. With a combination of x-acto knife, sandpaper and file I achieved an acceptable result. Another thing I had to do was alter the BA iconography. I chopped off parts of the BA tear/drop symbols on the chaplain’s chest and boltgun and rounded them off, so they would pass for regular round gems. Other than that, the mini remained unchanged, and so it was on to painting.
For this miniature, I applied my usual Tigers recipe, but deviated from it in two points: Firstly, the helmet had to be painted in bone white of course. Secondly, I decided to use a bronze colour for the crozius arcanum instead of the regular metallic I use on my weapons. This was done to reinforce the idea that this crozius is an ancient relic weapon and was crafted from a special material by master artisans. I really like the look of the bronze metallic, and you will see this theme repeated a few times in other squads of the army that have access to special wargear or relic weapons.
I decided against swapping out the boltgun for a plasma pistol, as Kenton has on his Daksha Ram, because I was reluctant to cut up the whole right arm trying to remove the gun. I think the old bolter looks pretty cool, anyways Sorry for the blurry image btw, the camera seems to have focused on the crozius.
Despite this being an older model, which stands a little short of regular Marines, I really like it because of the cool pose. The bronze crozius held aloft really makes the chaplain pop I think Finally, the obligatory action shot:
Alright, moving on to some WIP stuff! I don’t have any more painted images to show you for today, but let me share some of my recent conversions with you. First off, another Terminator sergeant. Like I said, I love Terminators waaayyy too much to stop at just one squad, so you can look forward to at least five more coming up
This sergeant got a chainaxe this time, just to add some flavour and get rid of the very standard, boring sword he used to have. I also tried to give him a cool pose, raising his weapon arm up and adding the usual spacer for his missing abdomen. I am currently working on getting some paint on him and his squad
Next up, a special character. I will post a quick summary of his lore when I post pictures of the painted mini. Until then, let me show you the basic build in its unpainted state (well, slapped together from several painted minis, that is):
This miniature was actually meant to go in the command squad as a veteran, but then I made an interesting discovery and decided to promote him to special character status instead: My army will contain two command squads. These are supposed to represent the two halves of the chapter, based on the two continents of Veda: Mahaduyana and Ghuyarashtra. One will be male, featuring orange marines and focusing on ranged combat. The other will be female, featuring white Marines and focusing on close combat. This Marine was supposed to become a CC veteran for the latter. I had the idea of giving [her] a great axe, and decided to google for some indian great axe inspirations. In doing so, I stumbled upon an indian deity called “Parashurama” who is known for wielding just this weapon. This character was so cool, I decided to repurpose this miniature and give it a new identity.
During the research I also found out that indian great axes can basically have the same head as smaller ones, so I decided to reuse the axe head of my Jirbu Ghosh miniature by making a recast. This axe head also had the advantage of looking exactly like the axe wielded by Parashurama. The second casting attempt was usable, and I attached the axe head to the haft of a Grey Knight force hammer with a pin and some super glue. I had to get creative with the Marine arms to find two that matched the pose of the hands on the haft. I’m pretty happy with the overall pose now
To complete the miniature, I added a CSM pouch with a holstered bolt pistol to the Marines belt, to give him some ranged capabilities as well. Soon, I will post some finished pics of this guy painted up, so stay tuned for that
I have one last miniature to show you before I end this post. If you have been around on Kenton’s website a few times like me, you may have checked out his gallery of terrain. There, he shows off a custom built Imperial Bunker of the Fighting Tigers, featuring a statue of Chapter master and Founder of the Fighting Tigers, “Maharaja Shiva Nagordarika”. Here’s the building I’m talking about:
While I wasn’t planning on making my version of the chapter master Shiva Nagordarika at first, I started experimenting with some bitz at one point, and because I had fun with the conversion, I decided to go all in and do him justice. First off, I had to gather some source material. For this purpose, I needed to get the closeup image of the statue:
Furthermore, I also found clues leading to Kenton’s chapter master in his army gallery. In the fast attack section, Kenton shows off his vanguard veteran units. One contains a miniature with a striking resemblance to the statue seen on the Imperial bunker above:
The figure in the center, possibly from the rogue trader days, could potentially have been the one supposed to represent the chapter master on the tabletop. And while Kenton uses him as a sergeant now, I think it is highly likely that this used to be the Founder of the Fighting Tigers, especially because of his blue skin tone, alluding to ancient paintings of the indian god also named Shiva. With that final clue, my job became very clear. This was going to be the guideline for my version of “Maharaja Shiva Nagordarika”:
While this model (anybody know its real origin/purpose?) is rather old and outdated both size-wise and because of the kind of awkward pose, it still has some cool features. I liked the idea of a gauntlet-mounted weapon, as well as the blue face and the raised power fist. So I started my conversion. To add a little twist and give the Chapter Master some additional beefiness, I decided to use a Primaris Marine body as the base for this conversion. This way, Shiva will stand proud of all the other Marines he leads into battle (if he gets used for some fluffy battle, that is). Here’s what I came up with:
I tried to stay as true to the original as possible, but had to build all bitz myself. The most simple job was the right arm with the claw. While the original miniature had just a powerfist, I decided to double down and go “full on tiger”, so to speak, by giving him a lightning claw. The pose is pretty much the same though. Then, I had to adapt the shoulders to receive a standard SM pauldron, as well. Next up, the left arm with the gun. This went through another iteration before, which I wasn’t happy with at all, however, and which got scrapped. Before, he used to have a lightning claw left arm, with the claws removed and the barrels of a multimelta attached instead. This looked silly and unbalanced, however, so I chopped it off again. My second attempt was built from a GK terminator arm, two plasma pistols, The muzzle of a plasmagun and a fusion cell from a plasma cannon. I was much happier with this version, as it was closer to the original and looked far less unbalanced.
This was all well and good, but now I had a different problem: I needed a head that would fit the look of Shiva on old paintings. While the bare heads of SM leaders are cool, the don’t convey the youthfulness of this god all that well. Also, I wanted to add a special touch to the chapter masters backpack by adding four additional arms, once more alluding to indian gods. Luckily, I found exactly what I needed in Reaper Miniature’s Snake Demon Avukavali. She had the youthful face and the additional arms I needed for the conversion, and gave me an excuse to order some other stuff I needed from the site (while at it, I also grabbed two different tiger models, a tiger demon/rakshasa, as well as Samantha, the lady warrior that will lend her face to my own Raja Khandar Madu one day). So the snake demon lost her head to my chapter master, but remains otherwise intact. I will rebuild her with other bitz so I can use her for our DnD campaign one day.
Finally, the last step to complete this mini was to add the four extra arms to the backpack. I chopped off the round vents off the Primaris backpack and attached the arms in their stead. They will be painted up to look like metal ornaments of his armour. Maybe they should be bronze as well, what do you guys think?
I know that Shiva is supposed to have a jump pack according to my own chosen guide picture, but I’ve thought of a solution to that. That’s why this backpack is magnetized and can be removed. One day, I will order some extra jump packs and magnetize one for Shiva as well. Anyways, I’m very much looking forward to painting him up now, giving his face a nice light shade of blue, adding some OSL to the plasma gauntlet etc…. I will keep you posted on the progress on the Marines I showed you today. In the meantime, I am looking forward to reading your comments and feedback Until next time, take care!
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Post by: Kid_Kyoto
Loving this blog, I remember the Jungle and the Fighting Tigers too! Great to see Indian culture used for inspiration.
As for the RT guy, he's an old Rogue Trader marine, you can probably find him on Stuff of Legends or the Collecting Citadel Minis wiki. A buddy of mine used him a Pedro Cantor back in the day.
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Post by: Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll
Shiva is going to be absolutely amazing! I'm super excited to see paint on her!
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Post by: FeistyRips
Thanks Kid_Kyoto for your nice comment! Also, thank you very much for showing me those awesome sites. I actually found the mini there:
An old RT catalogue depicted this mini as "Brother Sawyer", equipped with a powerfist and a hand flamer. Aha, so that's what that gun is supposed to be! Here's a better image of the mini (not mine):
Very cool stuff, and I'm very glad you showed me that site Kid_Kyoto, so I can identify older minis more easily now! Thanks again!
Thanks Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll! Glad you like Shiva! Stay tuned for painted images!
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Post by: FeistyRips
Hello again!
It’s been a while since my last post, and I’m sorry for the long wait! I wish I had a good excuse like “real life getting in the way of the hobby” or something like that, but no. What I actually did in the mean time was get distracted by video games
Anyway, since I don’t want you guys to think I died, and to avoid keeping you waiting for more tigers for too long, I’m back tonight with some pictures to show you and some updates on my hobby stuff in general. I may have been slacking a bit, but It’s not like I got nothing done at all, either! Rest assured that there’s still loads of tigers in the pipeline. I have some finished stuff ready for uploading, some converted stuff that’s awaiting a paintjob, and even some more stuff coming in the mail. So there’s no need to worry yet, I won’t run out of minis to post for a looong time Another part of the reason for me not posting stuff recently (apart from gaming too much) was that I started a new job in january. While I like it much more than the previous one, it is also a little more time-consuming. This might mean I won’t get around to posting as frequently, but we’ll have to see. I hope you guys are still around and interested in seeing the stuff I’m making
While I didn’t get much painting or converting done in the weeks since january, I still made some hobby progress: Last year, I started work on my very own, first gaming table. I recently ordered some stuff to complete this project. For a long time after making the basic board, I contemplated how to do the surface. I didn’t like the idea of painted sand, because it can be very destructive to finished miniatures. I went back and forth trying to decide, eventually settling for a grassy surface. Then, I had trouble coming up with a suitable technique of flocking a whole table surface without spending a fortune on flocking material. A youtube video (by Bard’s craft, he’s cool, check him out!) suggested using the herb dill, but even that was not cheap and could possibly lead to a funny smell during games… Unable to come up with a good plan, I even considered buying battlemats from an online seller, seeing as these could at least be switched around if needed. The price tag was just too hefty for my tastes, though. Finally, I came up with another idea after watching some more youtube videos on the subject. I decided to order some large textile sheets for the table surface in different colours. These would receive extra detail, painted on by hand. This idea proved to be viable, and I purchased 6 different colours of textile off amazon, for the price of what a single game mat would have cost me. A nice compromise if you ask me. These textile sheets already arrived at my house, and I’m confident I can turn them into great battlefield surfaces with some wall paint and a big brush. The colours I ordered are:
- Dark green (for jungle/grassland etc)
- Tan (sandy desert)
- Dark tan (for earthy ground)
- Dark gray (for cityscape/urban terrain)
- White (for snow/ice worlds)
- Crimson (for red planets like Mars)
The big advantage of the textiles is that they are very soft and smooth. This will mean playing on them will both feel god, but also the textile will protect minis that fall over from getting scratched. Right now, they are still very bland and monotone, but I think with some painted on terrain detail like rocks, pebbles or grass tufts, they will look pretty cool.
Apart from working on the table surface, I also finally decided on how to hold the board up at gaming level. Instead of simply placing it on another table, as I had planned on doing before, I recently ordered some simple table legs off amazon to complete the table. These are removable, so this means the table will be easy to store when it’s not in use. With all these new additions I’m very excited to finish this project, and I will definitely show you what it looks like when it’s done.
Furthermore, I’ve been messing around with some ideas in my head while I was gone. I thought about what I want from my collection of fighting tigers, how the army should be set up, and what units I still want to add. I began thinking about this as I was building a few converted models for a command squad. While converting these leader characters, I reflected upon the command structure of the tigers. I decided that, seeing as the tigers are split into two castes, there would also have to be two command squads in my army. Regarding paintjobs, I have already deviated a little from Mr. Kilgore’s original theme: while he had four (or even more) colour schemes in his army, I decided to limit my army to two different colours to keep at least some form of army cohesion while still adding variety. One half of the chapter became orange, comprising only male marines, and situated on the continent Ghuyarashtra. The other half became white, comprising only female marines, and situated on the continent of Mahaduyana. The male, orange marines should be focused on ranged combat, while the female, white marines would focus close combat. So too, would the command squads have to reflect that difference in combat style. Since I will have two equally viable and equally large command squads representing the two castes of the chapter, it is only fair that both halves of my tigers chapter should be roughly equal in strength. I already have a lot of male, orange marines, so now my main task will be bolstering the ranks of the female marines a lot to compensate this! On the male side we have:
- Command squad (ranged)
- 40 tactical marines
- 2/4 rhinos completed
- 5 sniper scouts
- ~10 tactical terminators
- Dreadnoughts, landspeeders, bikes etc
To even this out, I came up with the following to-do list to increase the female half:
- Command squad ( CC)
- 14/40 female assault marines (Some will have jump packs, some will have transports)
- 0/10 or more female assault scouts
- 5/10 assault terminators
- Dreadnoughts, assault bikes etc….
As you can see, this means I will have to get a lot of female marines to fill out the ranks of the Tigresses! I have already started though. Some of the female assault marines are done, but there are still 2 and a half squads I have to make. One is already at my house, and it will be marines on foot without jump packs. The rest, I will have to order online. In fact, another squad with jump packs is already on its way to me. Other than that, I would also like to add some special units for flavour, like some bikes with added CC goodness, maybe some assault bikes, a female dreadnought etc.
Alright, now you know what I’ve been up to in the past few weeks (apart from playing to many video games ). I hope I didn’t bore you with this text-heavy update, and I hope you are all still excited for more stripey goodness! To make up for my lengthy rambling, let me close with some pictures of actual painted minis!
Tonight, it’s character time again! This guy, you already know, in his younger iteration: that’s right, I’m talking about Raja Shamshir Talatra! I really liked that Kenton has two versions of this guy, one earlier version on bike, and one later version in terminator armour. This inspired me to also create two different versions of this character in different time periods.
To recreate this character, I used a standard terminator body, a head from a landspeeder pilot, a standard marine combi-plasma and a pelt from the space wolf terminator sprue. The sword is from an orc from the board game Dark World, and the minis from that box (which I got from a flea market for a steal!) are a very nice resource for scimitars to use in my Tigers army.
The combi-plasma in the right hand is just from a regular SM set. I wanted Raja Shamshir to stand out equipment-wise. Also, I wanted to reference my earlier version of this character with this mini.
The cape, once again, is where the tigers paint scheme really shines. I had a huge surface to go wild with tiger stripes on. The great thing about this cape is that, since it came from a SW set, it features a large pelt. Of course, this was meant to be a wolf pelt originally, but by removing the wolf head and giving the pelt a different paint job, I turned into a tiger pelt instead. I really like the way this two-part cloak turned out, and I’m especially fond of the tiger claws on it. This cape could also be a very suitable representation of the “pelt of the great maneater”, an artifact discovered by Samshir Talatra in the story written by Mr. Kilgore.
The Iron halo on top is again made from a decorative part which used to have a skull in the middle, but I drilled it out and cleaned it up with my x-acto blade. It’s the same as on the previous version of this character. The head came from a landspeeder pilot, and I used it because Kenton had it fro one of his versions of raja Shamsir, as well. I think it works well together with the other miniature, because it’s still visible that it’s the same guy, but a bit older and more grizzled.
Alright, that’s all I have for now! As I said previously, I hope I didn’t bore you with my rambling, and I hope you will check back here every now and then if there’s an update! Until next time, take care!
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Post by: youwashock
The new guy rules. And Shiva is going to be quite the mini when finished. Keep up the awesome.
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Post by: Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll
Love the Terminator character! That tiger pelt really did come out amazing, give yourself a pat on the back for that.
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Post by: Boss Salvage
That's one helluva cloak!
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Post by: The Riddle of Steel
I love the tribute to the Tigers! I remember reading that site quite a bit back in the early 2000s. A great inspiration to many. Your stuff captures the feel and style very well. I give you credit for all the effort to recreate this retro project for all of us.
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Post by: Tyranid Horde
These are just awesome, I love how retro the scheme feels and you are nailing the clean tiger stripes.
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Post by: kavika0311
This is an awesome army! I really liked the white tiger Assault Terminators.
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Post by: FeistyRips
Thanks for all the nice comments, glad you like this kind of stuff! Stay tuned for more
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Post by: FeistyRips
Hello again!
Just wanted to share some pics of my gaming table with you! I came home over the easter holidays, and so I was able to finally complete the table yesterday afternoon, since it was nice and sunny outside. I attached the legs and also sanded down some uneven filler spots and sharp edges to finalize the board. I'm pretty happy with the result, as it is very sturdy and durable, but relatively lightweight for what it is. The board can be carried alone if necessary, and is super easy to carry for two people. The legs just screw in with some large screws inserted from the underside of the board, and they can be removed for storage, which is a very good thing because I am storing this table at my parent's house. Like I mentioned in the previous post, I also ordered some coloured textile sheets to act as impromptu "gaming mats". Here's what the table looks like with a grey sheet on top:
This sheet will be detailed with some painted-on debris, stones and rocks to make it look less "flat", break up the surface and make it more visualy appealing. Next is a pic of the board with a green sheet added:
This one will need some toning down with more muted shades of green, to make it less vibrant and blend it in better with my homemade terrain. I will add some brownish-green areas, some lime green highlight splotches and maybe paint on details like twigs, branches and rocks here and there to break up the monotony. Next up, a sheet of tan/beige textile:
This one will be used to act as sandy desert terrain. Seeing as it has a nice muted beige and a smooth surface, I might just leave this one alone for now, because it already makes for a decent, believable desert surface if you ask me. Now I will have to reorder some of the other sheets, since some of them unfortunately arrived in too small sizes because of a typing error
Let me know what you think about this table please! Is using textiles a good idea as a cheap substitute for "proper" gaming mats? I'd be intersted to hear your opinions. Oh, and stay tuned for more tigers to come in this thread!
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Post by: FeistyRips
Hello friends!
I’m back again, this time with some more pictures to show you! Tonight, I want to show you my converted Sternguard Veteran squad. I think these are a very cool and fluffy unit, and they offer some great possibilities to add character to an army by giving it a certain twist. Little details added to the Sternguard Veterans can give some flavour to the finished army as a whole. This is what I tried to achieve with this squad by using some interesting and unusual bitz. Without further ado, let’s get to it!
While Kenton’s original FTOV Sternguard units contained many Astartes using special weapons like plasma- and meltaguns, or even heavy flamers, I decided to go for a more uniform equipment with my squad. I had obtained enough minis from yet another used lot to make a full squad of ten Marines, and I decided to arm every single one of them with artificer boltguns capable of firing special issue ammunition. The idea was that, if I wanted to use some different guns in my Sternguard units (plasmaguns, meltaguns, flamers or even stormbolters), they could be substituted with surplus Marines or sergeants from tac squads. I tried to make the veterans very distinct from my standard tac Marines by putting way more effort into giving them extra dynamic poses and adding special wargear and pouches to them. Now, let’s take a look at the Sternguard Veteran Sergeant first, shall we?
I put some extra effort into giving this guy a cool pose, to make it obvious that he’s the guy in charge. I had a very specific idea what I wanted the pose to be like and I had to dig deep in my bitz box to pull it off. I actually managed to acquire a rare, white metal, pointing right arm that would be perfect for the conversion. For the head, I decided to use a special helmet with extra lenses and targeters to show the sergeant is very teched-out. To emphasize the importance of the mini, I added a decorative imperial eagle to his backpack which was taken from the top of a SM banner pole. The final piece to complete the pose was the boltgun. Now, avid collectors among you might recognize this boltgun. That’s because I stole it from the ubiquitous AoBR Captain and heavily modified it to fit a standard marine torso. This piece was actually left over from my “Raja Shamshir Talatra” character conversion, and it proved perfect for this Sternguard Sergeant. I carefully trimmed the arm down to be able to attach it to the shoulder. I also had to smooth out certain areas to allow a regular SM pauldron to fit onto the shoulder joint. This was great for hiding some ugly seams of the conversion process, and now it’s not noticeable anymore I think. As you can see, the boltgun has also been converted. I attached a scope from a scout bolt pistol to the top of the gun. Furthermore, I carefully trimmed away the standard sickle magazine to make some room for a large box magazine, as seen on most artificer boltguns.
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The mini was further detailed with some additional bitz like a holstered pistol and some grenades. I really like how the pose turned out, and I’m happy that I basically managed to pull off 100% what I had envisioned for this guy.
This shot nicely shows the Crux Terminatus detail on the left pauldron as well as the AoBR Captain’s arm holding the converted boltgun.
A cool thing about the artificer boltguns is that they all have scopes, which gave me a nice excuse to paint all those pretty lens effects on them Alright, moving on to the next Veteran Marine of the squad:
This time, a Beakie Marine. Kenton’army has lots of Beakie Marines because he bought many of them back in the RT days. Using Beakie helmets is a nod to his inspirational army. This guy was converted to have a different pose, kind of holding his boltgun in a lower “at-ease” position. The right pauldron was smoothed out by removing its trim, and for the left pauldron, I used one of the classic studded ones. I also attached an extra cartridge belt slide to the right pauldron to get the Sternguard theme across. The boltgun was converted in the same manner as the Sergeant’s: it received a scout scope and the magazine was replaced with a large box magazine, sourced from some leftover Terminator Storm Bolter.
Again, this dude received some extra details to make him more interesting and more kitted out. Apart from the aforementioned cartridge belt slide, I attached a combat knife and some grenades to the mini’s belt.
The boltguns were painted bronze to emphasize that they are very valuable, ancient and irreplaceable relic weapons. I used the same painting recipe as I had for the Crozius Arcanum of the character “Daksha Ram”, which is simply a solid layer of GW Dwarf Bronze, followed by a wash with GW Reikland Fleshshade. Moving on to Veteran no. 3:
I tried out a slightly different pose for this guy. He has actually drawn his combat blade and is ready to engage the enemy close up. The boltgun was made using a trimmed-down Storm Bolter magazine and a boltgun scope. The knife arm was actually taken from a Chaos Space Marine, but is hopefully not too noticeable with some detail removed and given the right paintjob.
Again, the Marine received additional details: a holstered pistol and some grenades on his belt. Also note the small cartridge pendant on his right pauldron. It’s a special form of SM marksman honours, denoting this Marine as one of the best shots the chapter has to offer. Only fitting that he should be in a Sternguard squad, right?
Alright, moving on to Veteran no. 4:
Nothing too unusual or spectacular here, this guy is pretty average pose-wise. His boltgun is different though. Seeing as my bitzbox is not an infinite well of awesome parts (much as I wish it were), I sometimes had to get creative to get the loadouts I wanted. In this case, I decided to use some leftover boltguns from scout bike kits to create custom Sternguard bolters. They work well because the already have a scope and box magazine modelled onto them. Only thing I had to do was make a fitting, straight end cap for the magazine (which normally ends in a slanted angle). I think this conversion creates a nice-looking, unique artificer boltgun without too much work.
To spruce up the mini a little, a cartridge slide, some grenades and a knife were added.
Time for Veteran no.5, which means we’re almost done with the first half of the squad:
This guy’s pose turned out quite nice I think. He received a boltgun from a tac squad which was converted as explained above, as well as some extra bitz like grenades, marksman badge, spare cartridges and even some pouches with a knife taken from a sprue of Cadian Shock Troops.
And now, time from a group shot of the first five members of the squad:
With all the members of this squad being Veterans, everyone received the orange painted greaves which I use in this army instead of different coloured helmets. This is a nice touch as it easily let’s you tell apart the veterans from my regular tac Marines. However, sergeants and other high-ranking warriors can be integrated easily into the squad without looking out of place because they share the same markings. Seeing as all Marines have the painted greaves, I had to give a little extra attention to the Veteran Sergeant, to make it obvious he’s the leader. That’s why I gave him the backpack decoration, the extra-fancy boltgun and the pointing pose. I think there’s no mistaking him anymore now. Alright then, time for the next Veteran, nr. 6:
This is one of my personal favourites in the squad because once again, I managed to pretty much nail the pose. This guy is aiming his boltgun one-handed, but has also drawn his combat knife in his offhand and is ready to strike.
This shot let’s you appreciate the pose a little better. The arm holding the knife was actually one of a pair used for holding a boltgun, but I cut and repositioned it at the elbow. I removed the small trigger guard bit between his fingers and then attached the knife. I’ve done this a couple of times now and I’ve developed a trusty technique that creates a sturdy bond even though the knives are rather flimsy. The trick is to cut the knife grip in half and shave down both sides to make them a little shorter and pointier. Then, I drill matching holes into the appropriate spots on the top and bottom of the closed fist, where the fingers would close around the knife grip. I then dab a droplet of crazy glue in these holes and stick in the knife part on one side and the pommel part on the other, making sure to align them properly. It’s basically a kind of pinning technique, but using part of the bit itself instead of separate pins. So far, this has worked out great and all the knives I have attached in this way are as sturdy as if they were a single, solid cast.
The helmet on this mini comes from a tac or assault marine sprue I believe, and is supposed to be a sergeant helmet I think. I removed an extra targeter/lens from it though.
Like the other veterans in the squad, this guy also received extra pouches and grenades on his belt.
Many shots of this guy... can you tell I really like him?
One final angle on this guy. I used a leftover DA pauldron on his left arm. The bit was changed a little by removing the blade from the DA icon. Now, it’s just a winged skull, which could go with pretty much any chapter. Also, you can see the extra cartridges on his belt in this shot. Alright, moving on to Veteran nr. 7:
Only difference on this guy is that he received a boltgun with a lanyard. I think it came from a DA scout box.
The knife on this guy came from a box of Catachans. I like that they have some knives in sheaths in that set. These look great and they can be totally be used for Space Marines, because they are a little on the big side anyways.
Moving on to Veteran nr. 8:
One of the first minis I made for this squad. I tried to give him a very dynamic advancing pose, like he was leaning up against some cover, checking for enemies around a corner. I’m not sure I succeeded, but still, the pose works and looks at least a little exciting. This guy also received the cartridge belt slides on his left pauldron. The boltgun is once again a converted bit sourced from the scout bikers boxed set.
This guy got some extra pouches and a grenade from the Catachan set, as well as some SM krak grenades added to his belt.
Next up, Veteran nr. 9:
Another Beakie Marine. You can see that I tried to stay as true as possible to the original design of full Mk. VI Corvus armor by giving this guy the breastplate with exposed cabling, the non-articulated greaves, the flat right pauldron and the studded left pauldron in addition to the obligatory helmet.
This Marine also got a Scout Bike bolter. Furthermore, the right arm was converted to hold the gun at a lower angle.
This Marine received a pistol sidearm and some grenades as extra wargear.
Time for the final Veteran in the squad:
This guy is once again pretty similar to his squad mates. His arms are from as CSM set and had some of the details removed to hide that fact.
A notable difference is the combat blade on this guy, which I believe came from some CSM set as well. I like the serrated, curved blade, as it goes well with the eastern aesthetic of this army.
Alright then, time for a group shot of the second half of the squad!
Alright, that’s it for tonight! I hope you liked this update and enjoyed the pictures. I’d be very interested to hear your thoughts on this squad and I’m looking forward to your comments. Until next time!
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Post by: Ragsta
Greetings, my chum!
Special units like this certainly do deserve that little extra effort and they like awesome as a result. Digging the poses and use of bits!
The lens effect really compliments their tiger pattern and artificer weapons - I feel like the guns would benefit from a bit of OSL in the same shades under each lens for that extra zing?
You’re going to make me do some Marines eventually. I can feel it...
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Post by: FeistyRips
Thanks Ragsta for the nice comment! I'm not entirely sure about adding OSL to a metallic shiny surface like the bolters though. I think the shiny bronze might clash with the dull blue, so I'm reluctant to try. Anyways, I'm calling this squad done. Since there's so many units still left to paint, I don't think I'll be going back to tinker with "finished" minis
Hey, I'd love to see you do some Marines man, go ahead
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Post by: youwashock
Awesome looking vets.
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Post by: The Riddle of Steel
Nice vets. The simple, bold, high-contrast scheme works well. I bet it looks great on the tabletop. And you’ve really kept the feel of the original Tigers (which was a fantastic site and a huge inspiration).
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Post by: FeistyRips
Hello there! Update time!
First off, thanks The Riddle of Steel and youwashock for your kind comments! Glad you liked the vets! Now, today I want to show you some characters I finished a while ago. To those of you who have been around on the original Jungle website, these may be familiar to you, although I have decided to do my own take on the models so as to use up some bitz and to prevent me from having to buy the exact same models Mr. Kilgore used back in the day. This way, the army appears a bit more cohesive with similar, more up-to-date miniatures as well, so I think it’s all good. Let’s start off with a Librarian:
Let me introduce you to Tiger of Brihaspati “Chandramatie Bahl”! Chandramatie Bahl is one of the younger Librarians in the Chapter. In the original story, Raja Shamshir Talatra is cast out of the Chapter after his ego caused him to make a bad leadership decision. At this point, Chandramatie Bahl, who accompanied him on that mission and relayed his failings back to the chapter, is promoted to acting Raja of Shamshir’s half of the chapter in his stead. I’ve tried to make the model similar to the one used by Kenton, which is this old Rogue trader librarian with force sword:
I decided to use the sword from the older metal Mephiston model (I got two of these in two different used lots) for the force sword. To make it more obvious that she is a special character and a Librarian, I used a body from a plastic Dark Angels set to give her a robe. Other than that, it’s just regular SM parts.
I painted her in the same colours as the assault marines I already have, but gave her a deep, rich blue coat to mark her out as a Librarian. The sword was slightly modified by filing down the pointy bits towards the tip as well, just because I thought they looked a bit OTT.
I gave her a larger, 32mm base to give her some room and make her stand out more from the rank-and-file. I weighted her base with a coin, just like the other assault marines. This really helps them to stand firmly and they’re much less likely to fall over now. Also, it adds a nice weight to the model, which feels really good in your hand.
Now, let’s take a look at her with her squad of Assault Marines:
I think she blends in well while still standing out as their leader. I could have gone the extra mile and added an aegis cowl and some purity seals to her armor. However, with this project, I have decided to embrace Kenton’s philosophy of “finished, not perfect”, and I must say it has really helped me get things done and, most importantly, get way more enjoyment from painting again, which was sorely needed. Alright, enough of my rambling, on to the next character:
This is Tiger of Varuna “Talwar Chakram”, the most senior Librarian of the Fighting Tigers of Veda. Because of her rank, she gets to wear Terminator armor in combat. In the original stories, Talwar Chakram was killed during the infestation of Hive fleet Ravana on a mining colony. However, her acolyte Anhurada Chawla took her place and was granted her mentor’s armor after her death, so the model can be used to represent either of these characters from the fiction.
Ever since I saw this chaplain model in White Dwarf so many years ago, I knew I would have to get one someday because of its sheer awesomeness. Now, this character build has given me the perfect excuse to do just that and try my hand at painting this amazing sculpt. The detail on it is mind blowing. I got mine directly from GW, so it’s finecast and was actually relatively okay price-wise for a character model.
Seeing as Talwar Chakram is part of the female half of the chapter, I had to paint her armor accordingly. Looking at her now, with all her amazing details plus the striking chapter colours, I am not sure if the paintjob is maybe a bit, “too much”, kind of like over the top… Despite using the regular recipe, there is just so much more detail on her that she almost seems a little bit out of place when with the rest of her squad… There’s almost not room to display the mandatory Tiger stripes on her armor, anyways… Maybe this model would have been better suited to just a regular black paintjob, without the stripes on the pauldrons and greaves? But hey, it’s the correct recipe, and I’m sticking with it till this project is done Let me know your thoughts please!
As with Daksha Ram, the previous chaplain I showed you, I painted the Crozius Arcanum in a metallic, shiny bronze colour, to mark it out as a blessed relic weapon.
Above is probably the best angle to look at this sculpt. Now, let’s see what she looks like with her squad mates:
Like I said, I feel like she has almost too much “bling”, if you will, which makes her look a bit off to my eyes. Could also be that she has a completely different weapons loadout than the other terminators. I’d be glad to read your thoughts on the squad’s visual coherency. And now, time for something BIG! Here’s another dreadnought, which brings the army up to three:
This is “Surya Ashoka”. He is one of two Fighting Tiger Captains (“Rajas”) who assumed command of the chapter after their Founder, Maharaja Shiva Nagordarika, was killed and became a dreadnought several millennia ago. This model was inspired by Kenton’s creative conversion of a rogue trader dreadnought, but for mine, I decided to go with a regular dreadnought instead. Luckily, I found a cheap, used one online who already came with the right armament. Thus, I can’t take credit for building this guy, I just gave him a new purpose by repainting him in my chapters colours.
With this guy being a deceased captain of great importance, I decided to step the paintjob up a little bit and give the greaves the old stripe treatment as well. This nicely marks him out as a more special mini, and he could arguably be used as a venerable dreadnought.
Unfortunately, the dread came with one of those weird bases with pre-sculpted detail. While they may look great in some cases, I really dislike the unevenness it has, and that it completely locks you into a specific rocky base style, which would have looked totally out of place with my other minis. I had no flat base of this size as backup, so the best I could do was give some of the rock faces a believable, greenish jungle paintjob, and simply flock the whole uneven surface to hide the stones as best I could. Maybe one day I’ll get a flat replacement base for him, but then again, this would go against Kenton’s mantra of “finished, not perfect” completely, so’ we’ll have to see
And that’s all for this update! There’s lots more to come, with some character models and primarily white Tigers next on the list, so if you are interested, stay tuned I don’t get to post nearly as often as I would like to, and I have to split my already limited hobby time between converting/building, painting stuff and writing posts, which doesn’t help me get stuff done or posted. However, I really enjoy your feedback and I really wanna get all my stuff uploaded here at some point in the future, so I will keep chipping away at the backlog of finished stuff ready to show off. I hope you stick with me and check back here (and in my other threads) every now and again. Thanks for checking this out. See you in the next post!
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Post by: Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll
Looking great! I think the flock on the dreadnought works well enough, the little bit of stone left actually works, it makes such a large base that little bit more interesting, while still being clearly tied into your army!
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Post by: FeistyRips
Thanks Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll! Glad you think the base works!
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Post by: FeistyRips
Hello again!
I have not forgotten about this blog! While I do keep getting distracted by working on waaay too many projects at the same time (Nurgle stuff, random kitbashes, Soul Drinkers, Heavy Gear Blitz stuff to name just a few), I still want to show you some finished Tigers as well! I have a little backlog of Tigers I still need to upload here, but I will have to do it piecemeal because it is a bit time-consuming! Anyways, let’s get to the miniatures, shall we?
Like I wrote in a previous post, I am working predominantly on bolstering the all-female Mahaduyana half of the chapter. To this end, I have added Assault Marines and a command squad to my to do list. And today, I want to show you some minis that fall into those two categories. Let’s start of with the Assault Marines:
Just four regular lasses with a single plasma pistol in there. Here’s a shot of the back to show off the snazzy tiger stripes on the thrusters :
Also, a detail shot of the squad’s plasma gunner:
But there’s more! Another set of four Assault Marines, again with one plasma pistol in there.
It’s not like I really wanted or needed all these plasma pistols, but as with nearly all other minis from this army, I got these models preassembled from a second-hand seller, so I decided not to fuss around too much and just keep the loadouts as they were. Once all Assault Marines are done, I will have so many models that I can make pretty much any combination I want. Another rear view:
And a detail shot of this squad’s plasma gunner:
Finally, here’s a shot of all the Assault Marines I have posted so far, being led by Chandramatie Bahl:
I like how the librarian blends into the squad but is still clearly identifiable by the blue robes.
But now, let’s get to the really cool stuff! The real star of the show, so to speak: Commander of half of the Fighting Tigers chapter and an extremely dangerous combatant herself, here’s ”Raja Khandar Madu, ruler of Jatis Mahaduyana”!
Khandar Madu commands 500 Fighting Tigers, half the strength of the chapter. Apart from being a ferocious warrior, she is also an incredibly sophisticated tactician, a seeker of knowledge and wisdom, a spiritual paragon to her peers, and a strong but benevolent leader and protector of the people under her command.
When building this model, I tried to stay very close to Kenton’s original figure. However, I took some liberties to add my own spin to the character. The legs, body and power plant backpack are just from a regular Marine kit. To that, I added some Lightning Claw arms from the Assault Terminator set that were cut down a little to better match the smaller scale. I added some regular power armour pauldrons which had their trims filed away before. Onto the left pauldron, I sculpted a Crux Terminatus, the honours which mark Khandar out as a veteran soldier. I added a small Iron Halo (or should I say a bronze halo ) to the backpack. Now I’m sure many of you will be curious about the helmet. It’s a part I ordered from Puppetswar.eu and I must say it is just perfect for this project. However, I didn’t want to limit myself with the head options for this mini, since I actually really liked the original head Kenton used for his mini, which cmae from a female Knight from Reaper miniatures. For this reason, I have decided to magnetize the head, something I have never felt the need to do before. This way, I will be able to swap between the helmeted head and no helmet as I please. I already have the miniature at how, but I am stuck trying to figure out a way to get the head of the metal cast in one piece. Hm… might even try to make a mould of the head alternatively so I can retry if I fail….
Another added benefit the magnet gives me is that I can now experiment with different poses for this model. You know how every model usually has a golden angle from which it looks best? Well, this mini can have very many of those!
I decided to go with bronze for some of the metallics on this miniature once again. This way, the weapons and extras seem more like special bits of wargear, maybe even relic weapons accessible only to the most experienced Marines in the chapter.
Below, you can see the left pauldron with the added Crux Terminatus. The skull was actually taken from some WHFB skeleton. I the sculpted on the cross bits myself. This was many, many years ago, and for a time, the pauldron belonged to one of my Ultramarines. I didn’t like it anymore and decided to rip it off, from which point on the smurf-blue thing was relegated to my bitz box for years. Now, I have finally found a use for the part once more, and this time, I like it a lot better than before. I think it fits this model a lot better than the previous one. It is nowhere near as detailed as an original GW part, but I think it works here.
Now as I mentioned, the head has been magnetized, which allows for some poseability after the fact. Check out this cool angle which works just as well as the previous one, wouldn’t you agree?
Finally, another shot of Raja Khandar Madu with her most trusted advisor, Kshatriya Jirbu Ghosh. She will most likely join her command squad and act as a bodyguard for Khandar Madu in battle.
Already, just these two lasses look like very fearsome close combat opponents for any army to face. Now imagine a whole squad of similar close combat monsters, being delivered right into the heart of the enemy army via a Land Raider Crusader! Well, that’s my plan at least. The models are finished already, but both the command squad and the Land Raider will need a paintjob before I can show them to you! Oh, just as an aside: I already showed you the commander of the other half of the chapter, Raja Shamshir Talatra, in a previous post. You might remember that I made two versions of him, one in power armour and one in Terminator armour and a little bit older. Well, I’ve done the same thing for Raja Khandar Madu as well! However, this post has already taken a while to write up, so I will show you the other mini next time. At least, you’ve got something to look forward to!
And that concludes this post for tonight. I hope you enjoyed what I showed you today and I am looking forward to reading your comments and getting some feedback. Until next time!
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Post by: Olthannon
Very cool, love the white tiger look.
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Post by: ph34r
10/10 retro feeling! Loved that old website.
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Post by: Ragsta
Looking awesome as ever, bro, latest stuff absolutely top notch.
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Post by: FeistyRips
Hi! I’m back with more pictures!
Thanks Olthannon, ph34r and Ragsta for your very kind comments! As promised, today we’ll take a look at Raja Khandar Madu in her Terminator armor. But first, let me show you some other minis I finished in the meantime. These are just some random veteran Marines from the two different parts of the chapter. Cool thing about them is that they were all made from parts from the resin White Scar Upgrade set. This comes with three torsos with weapons, and when I discovered this set online, I knew I had to get one because it is just too perfect of a fit for the Fighting Tigers chapter. Since these parts have distinctly eastern visual cues, they lend themselves really well to conversions of a chapter that is heavily inspired by indian culture. The set contains some really cool scimitars, and there is some nice extra detail on them like the asian faces. One Marine even has a few claws or teeth on a necklace, which is great for a chapter that glorifies Tigers. Let’s start with the first Marine, hailing from Jatis Mahaduyana:
The White Scars Upgrade set is really great because, although it is meant to go on a group of SM Bikers, it is also compatible with regular Marine legs and arms. So all I had to do to complete this figure was to add a bolt pistol left arm, a backpack and some legs. I had to shave off some White Scars iconography from the belt buckle, but other than that, the torso was left as is. The pelt/fur dangling from the scimitar is an added bonus that fits really well with my chapter. And just look at that blade!
Next up, let’s take a look at one of the Ghuyarashtran veterans. His torso came with just a bolt pistol, so I had to find a CCW for him myself. Looking at the lack of powerfists in my army, I decided that this would be the weapon I give him. Retrospectively, the powerfist taken from the Terminator kit might be a little on the big side, though.
A weird thing I noticed about this figure is that the bionic left eye is looking at a lower point than the organic right eye. However, this is only a small nitpick, and since there’s absolutely no way I’ll mess around with the detail on his face, I will just leave this as it is. In case you were wondering, the legs are a set of modified CSM legs with some detail removed.
Now for the final Veteran from this set. This is one of my favourites because it ticks so many boxes for me. The scimitar is awesome, the face looks suitably asian/indian, there’s some extra detail like fur tufts and even Tiger claws, and the overall pose just works. I decided to give this guy a boltgun to go with his scimitar, seeing as he will likely see use as a replacement sergeant for one of the tactical squads. Once again, this guy’s pair of legs came from a Chaos Marine, this time from a Khorne Berzerker to be precise. I also shaved off some of the extra detail to create a larger smooth surface to add some nice tiger stripes.
Using CSM legs on loyalist Marines is something you will see a lot of in this thread, because in my opinion, it is a great way to get some variation into an army. The main reason I use so many CSM legs however, is that I always have waaaay too many conversion ideas for my Marines, but never enough sets of loyalist legs to do them. So I make do with what I have, using pretty much anything that’s vaguely suitable, even incorporating old parts like from the WHFB chaos barbarians in some cases. I recently even managed to carve an extra set of legs from an old, push-fit, monopose 3rd edition tactical Marine which works really well with regular parts. But let’s leave that for another post!
And that’s it for the veteran Marines. Now, let’s move on to the main part, Raja Khandar Madu, as promised! This time, here she is in full Terminator armor:
As with the two models I made for Raja Shamshir Talatra before, I tried to replicate and mirror certain elements of the power-armored figures in the more heavily armored Terminator characters. Raja Khandar Madu here has kept her iconic twin lightning claws, the iron halo on her armor as well as the special Tiger helmet. Apart from the obvious upgrade to the heavier armor, Raja Khandar Madu received a cape, which came from the chaos Lord in Terminator armor set. The cape is a great fit, once again, because it has an additional pelt that was easily painted up as a Tiger pelt, which adds a lot of flavour IMHO. I was lucky enough to have this part just lying around from a previous bitz trade, and decided that this was the perfect opportunity to finally use it.
Note that the helmeted head (alas quite blurry in this picture) is magnetized. If I manage to pull it off, I will also make a bare head for this miniature to swap out, however it might prove a bit trickier than with the power armor suit.
The bulk of the cape of course received the obligatory, painted on tiger stripes. I might have to give the white tiger pelt some more attention though, as I’m not quite happy with how dark it came out in comparison to the other white areas on the model. We’ll see.
I was also fortunate enough to have a bigger, more detailed iron halo left over, and I added this to the miniature to clearly mark her out as a leader of the army.
Like the power-armored version, this mini received some extra attention to detail to set it apart. The aquila on the chest, which is usually left black on other Marines, was painted bronze, as were most of the other metallic details. As mentioned in previous posts, I use the bronze paint to mark out relic wargear or very special, rare equipment in my army, and as Chapter Master of (at least half of) the Fighting Tigers of Veda, Raja Khandar Madu has access to the most venerable wargear there is. Finally, let’s take a look at what she looks like with some of her fellow Terminator Marines:
Despite the slightly different colour palette, I think she still manages to fit in quite well with the other Terminators. However, the additional bronze detail does a good job of marking her out as a special character. Looking at the picture on screen, I just noticed that the shades of blue of the visors don’t match up 100%, which is another thing I will have to go back over and fix.
And that’s it for today! I hope you enjoyed the stuff I showed you, and I’m looking forward to reading your comments as always! Until next time!
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Post by: Boss Salvage
Both versions of Raja Shamshir Talatra are great, really love the PW head you've gone with Think I prefer the terminator version for the bulk of it, integrates the lightning claws better and that cape is very tasty.
Smart use of the White Scars torsos on those vets as well.
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Post by: gobert
Looking great feisty! The ex-chaos bits mesh nicely and give that extra variety that marines often need imho. Loving the helmeted heads on the Rajas, they suit the theme perfectly.
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Post by: youwashock
Much praise for Raja Khandar Madu. Both versions are awesome. That white tiger cape is killer.
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Post by: FeistyRips
Thanks Boss Salvage, gobert and youwashock! Happy to hear that you like the models of Raja Khandar Madu! Thanks very much for the replies and for your input on my work!
BTW, I'm currently working on getting Maharaja Shiva Nagordarika, founder of the Fighting Tigers of Veda, painted and ready for posting. I'm making good progress, the mini is nearly done save for the backpack power supply. Will post pictures once it is ready.
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Post by: FeistyRips
Back with some more pictures! Today, I will show you the finished miniature of a character I already introduced you to before. I’ve also come up with a bit of background lore for this character that was heavily inspired by (read: shamelessly ripped off from) vedic mythology and which I want to share with you in the following paragraphs.
Some of you might remember that, when I initially posted the conversion of this miniature, I claimed it was going to be part of the female half of the chapter, hailing from Mahaduyana and being a member of the command squad of that part of the chapter. After researching and writing some fluff and taking some of the vedic mythology into account, I decided to retrospectively reconsider this and instead make this Marine a male member of the command squad of the other half of the chapter, hailing from Ghuyarashtra instead. Hence this guy was painted in the traditional orange colour scheme. Now, let’s get started with pictures and the lore! Meet ”Kshatriya Chiranjiv Parashu”:
Kshatriya (Captain) Chiranjiv Parashu is a famous and well respected member of the Fighting Tigers of Veda and a devotee and student to Lord Shiva the Destroyer, the former Maharaja (Chapter Master and Founder) of the chapter. Kshatriya Parashu is notable for his aggressiveness, strategic talent and valour. He is a righteous and just warrior, aware of his duty towards the sleeping Brahman and the galaxy as a whole. Some outside the chapter rumour him to be a reincarnation of another famous member of the chapter, venerable Brother Aruval Rajiv Rama, who was interred in a dreadnought sarcophagus after being slain in battle and now serves the chapter in one of the few remaining, ancient war machines. How much of this rumour is true has, thus far, remained unclear to the outside world.
Kshatriya Parashu wields a great axe named “Vidyudabhi” into battle, a name which roughly translates into “Bringer Of Shocking Enlightenment” in the less nuanced, gothic tongue spoken in the Imperium. He received this axe after long askesis, prayer and penance from none other than his mentor, Lord Shiva himself, who then went on to train him personally in the arts of warfare and philosophy. The axe is one of the most lethal weapons in the Tiger’s arsenal. It is said to be indestructible and can only be wielded by Captain Parashu himself, due to the gene-lock integrated into its wootz haft.
Kshatriya Parashu has sworn his life to the destruction of the ruinous powers, the malevolent forces of chaos that threaten the Imperium both from within and without. Furthermore, he also earned many honours defending the nearby worlds of Konkan, Malabar and Kerala from the sudden invasion of the Tyranid Hive Fleet Ravana, which struck the sector during the reign of former Raja Shamshir Talatra, who is now in exile.
Kshatriya Parashu’s greatest feat was to kill the Daemon Prince “Arjuna the Thousand-Armed”. This daemon was capable of wielding countless weapons simultaneously, but Parashu destroyed each and every one of them in turn. In frustration, Arjuna hurled many weapons, rocks, and trees at the Astartes, but Parashu parried and evaded all of these. As the battle reached its greatest intensity and Arjuna’s fury grew beyond comprehension, Parashu attacked and managed to hack off the daemon’s arms one by one, dismembering him with his axe and ultimately taking off its head in one final, powerful blow.
After his victory, Kshatriya Parashu returned to Veda and once more began a long period of askesis, meditation and penance, awaiting a time when events would call him back to arms…
After that little bit of fluff, here’s some more pictures for you:
And that’s all for today! I hope you enjoyed the stuff I shared with you, and I’m looking forward to your comments and input. Stay tuned for more, as there’s still lots to come. Until next time!
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Post by: FeistyRips
Hi there! I'm back with more stuff to show you! This time, let's take a look at a Techmarine I made a while ago. Let me introduce you to "Tiger of Tvashtri, Parvin Sreedhar"!
This model is just a regular pewter Techmarine model from the older range. I got it in a used lot, and I think it’s really cool, despite its age. There a lot of detail on the model and it’s got everything a Techmarine needs IMHO, and I really enjoyed painting this guy up.
As Mr. Kilgore described on his website, Tigers of Tvashtri (=Techmarines) of the Fighting Tigers do not paint their armor any different than the other members of their Jatis, so I painted him up using my regular Tigers recipe. There’s still a lot of extra detail like the many cables, wires, tech gubbins and of course the servo arm that let this model stand out on the tabletop, so I think it works I also gave him a bit of a darker skin tone, like many of the other marines in this army.
Only things I had to do on this guy were drilling out the pistol’s barrel and rebasing him.
However, I don’t plan on sending this guy onto the battlefield all by himself! Of course, he needs some extra support, some additional firepower, in the form of a Thunderfire cannon! I do not own an original GW Thunderfire cannon, since I don’t like the model enough to buy one and there wasn’t one in any of the used lots I bought off of ebay. However, I thought it would be cool to build I custom one using scrap parts, like so many hobbyists out there have already done. Here’s the result:
When the idea of building my own Thunderfire cannon first came to me, I did not have enough parts to pull it off. However, I was lucky enough to find exactly the stuiff I needed on one of the local flea markets. I rummaged through lots of boxes of old plastic army men, and piece by piece, I was able to gather a cheap collection of bits that would allow me to create a Thunderfire Cannon. I bought some kind of Howitzer from some plastic army men, a small, low quality plastic tank as well as ome other, techy, greebly bits.
Back at home it was time for assembly. I flipped the tracks of the tank (probably a Sherman or sth similar) upside down to make the self-propelled carriage of the cannon. Then, I removed the barrel from the Howitzer and attached it on there. I also glued a headlight from a space marine bike to the front to add some detail and break up the large flat surface. The rest of the Thunderfire cannon is just bits of cardboard cut to size, attached in a way to make armor plates or support struts.
The underside was detailed using some of the techy bits, and I also added some washers in there to give the thing some weight and make it more stable (sorry, forgot to take a pic of the underside)
Once again, the paintjob is exactly the same as on the other Tigers, extremely straightforfard, simple and quick. Some black, some metallic and some orange, add Tiger stripes and I was done
Now, let’s take a look at both miniatures together:
I really like how both of them came out despite the quick and easy paintjob. I think they work well together, like a cohesive fighting force. What do you guys think? I’d love to hear your opinion on these two minis, and I’d also appreciate if you check out the character I posted last time and give me some feedback if you’re interested!
Now I know I’ve let the Tigers fall a little by the wayside in the past few months, since I’ve been working on my Soul Drinkers chapter and doing other stuff, but I still want to finish this army at some point and there’s still a little backlog of stuff I have to show off. However, there is still loads of stuff to paint, especially vehicles, and I don’t know when I’ll get around to it or if I will even be able to make them look decent. Still, if you like the Tigers, stay tuned, there’s still more stuff to come! Thanks for checking this out! Until next time!
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Post by: youwashock
Stripey goodness, as always. Nice work building the cannon. We need a team-up of the cat-themed Marines on Dakka. Your Tigers, gobert's Panthers, and ListenToMeWarriors' Lions.
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Post by: gobert
That’s one cool looking techmarine! The black and orange suit him well. The cannon came together great, certainly fits the bill nicely.
I like the idea of teaming up the Cat Marines, I’d need to get a travel case to get the Panthers to Austria though!
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Post by: FeistyRips
Hey youwashock and gobert! Glad you like the Techmarine and his cannon! Sounds like an awesome idea to join forces youwashock. Maybe one day we'll get everybody in one place an the Kitty Konklave can become a thing I'd love to see gobert's and ListentomeWarriors' amazing stuff in person
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Post by: Guardling
Haha and then they can have a cat fight these Tau?
Pretty sure there's also some necrons somewhere...
Edit: there is...
Plenty of cool and creative models here by the way
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Post by: FeistyRips
Thanks for the compliment Guardling! Haha, there's some crazy cool cat themed stuff out there apparently I especially like the Hello Kitty Tau
BTW I'm currently working on a Land speeder and it's shaping up nicely. After that, it's on to my second squad of Devastators. Will post pictures eventually!
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Post by: FeistyRips
Hello there! Long time no see! Sorry but I was kinda busy with other stuff, but since I have a few days off now, I figured I'd quickly hop on here and get some new stuff posted This time, I'd like to show you my second squad of Terminators which have been sitting on my shelf finished for quite a while. I hope you will enjoy. Let's get right to it! First of all, here's a shot of the whole squad together:
These guys are once again miniatures from the older range, and compared to the more recent kits, they have the aforementioned problems of being a little short in comparison, as well as being a little static in their poses. However, as I did with my previous squad of Terminators, I converted these with custom abdominal spacers which give them some much needed height as well as a little more poseability. Now let's take a look at the Terminators individually:
First off, there's the squad's sergeant. To make him a bit more distinct from the other Marines, and also different from the first squad's sergeant, I converted this guy to hold a chainaxe instead of a powersword. I think it works really well with the miniature, it's an eyecatcher and it makes him look a bit more visceral than the stock miniatures. I posed him so that he holds the axe raised high above his head, as if he was bolstering his squadmates' morale. To make the weapon look like it was special and plausibly comparable in strength to a power weapon, I decided to paint its teeth a different colour in order to give the impression that they are made from a different, tougher material.
Next up, we have a series of regular Terminators, armed with stormbolters and powerfists. They are pretty much standard, but they have had an abdominal spacer added and their arms were attached in varying, a bit more exciting poses to change things up a little.
The eye lenses were painted in a light blue, and a darker blue was painted around them to give a quick and simple glowing effect, which is however quite effective when viewed from regular tabletop distance. I also drilled out all the gun barrels of the weapons to add a bit more realism and detail to the models.
With the additional spacers and the more dynamic poses, these guys actually don’t look too out of place next to the newer Terminators, which is great because that way it’s cheaper to amass a large collection of them. However, I think I’m done with the ‘tactical’ Terminators for this army. I might have room for another squad of assault terms, though, but only after I’ve caught up on my huge painting backlog We’ll see.
Finally, here’s the last member of the squad, the one carrying the heavy flamer. I actually kind of like the old heavy flamers. With drilled out barrels, they do look pretty decent. Now that you have seen all the individual models, I have a one more group shot to show you. As usual, I have assembled a simple background with some terrain to create a scenic action shot of the squad:
And that wraps up today’s post! I hope you guys enjoyed checking out my stuff, and I’d really appreciate your comments and feedback! As always, stay tuned for more stripey goodness because there will be a lot more Tigers to look at in the future. Until next time!
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Post by: gobert
Nice one Feisty! The extra spacers work well on the terminators, adding a little bit more dynamism. The “in the wild” shots at the end are really cool, I’d love to see the whole pack in the wild!
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Post by: Boss Salvage
gobert wrote:The “in the wild” shots at the end are really cool, I’d love to see the whole pack in the wild!
That shot really does show off the squad wonderfully
Speaking of, great termies, the axe is a nice touch and I forgot you were adding spacers until you mentioned it
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Post by: youwashock
Nice work, yet again. The chain-axe is a great bit of character.
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Post by: FeistyRips
Thanks gobert, Boss Salvage and youwashock for all your kind words! Glad you're enjoying the Tigers so far
Gobert, I'll try getting them all into one shot next time, however space inside my lightbox is a bit limited when I also put terrain in
But your comment just gave me an idea: I could build a special terrain piece with less depth to make a better backdrop, kind of like a thin layer of jungle for taking pictures. I might also print out some jungle artwork to use as backdrop. I'll have to look into that! Thanks again gobert!
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Post by: gobert
Sounds really cool feisty, can’t wait to see it!
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Post by: Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll
Great unit of Terminators! Those spacers do a lot to make those Terminators look that little bit more modern.
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Post by: FeistyRips
Hello there! More Tiger pictures incoming!
First off, thanks to Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll and gobert for commenting! You are too kind!
Now today, I got some stuff for the female half of the chapter for you: a squad of Assault Marines (this time without jump packs) as well as their dedicated Rhino transport! Let’s start with the vehicle:
This is another older Rhino from the RT era. I really like this style with the rounded side hatches and seperate Bolters. Again, this vehicle came from a used lot and had lost almost all of its attachments and fiddly bits. I had to recast the headlights, add some custom hatches with newer boltguns and replace the broken exhaust pipes. I used the same methods as in the previous Rhino’s I converted to make this one match the others in my army. However, since this vehicle is a dedicated transport for the female Marines, it was painted in their black and white paint scheme instead of the orange.
To give the tank some visual interest and retro style, I decided to add a little antenna with flag to the rear of the vehicle, reminiscent of the flags seen on the classic RT Rhino’s in official GW stuff. However, I could tell beforehand that this bit would not last long if I simply glued it down. So to prevent myself from inadvertently breaking it at some point, I instead drilled a small hole and inserted a magnet into the tanks hull. I attached a matching magnet to the antenna’s base and this way, the antenna has now become a flexible, removable part which should withstand handling and transport much better. Also, I can simply remove it if I feel like it. I covered and painted the area with the magnet so the tank doesn’t look silly when I leave it off. Take a look:
Alright, so that’s the transport done! Now, let’s take a look at the corresponding squad of Marines:
The first five ladies of the squad, including the sergeant. Again, all of these came from one or more used lots, and most were left the way they had been initially assembled by the previous owner. Only on the few Marines with the weirdest poses did I go in and change the position of an arm or maybe a head, but other than that, I left most of them as-is.
I noticed a bit too late that the blue I used for the glowing effects was a bit too dark, so now the glow looks a bit off. I might have to go in and fix the eyes on some of the minis at a later stage, as this is really bothering me, especially in the pictures.
Back of the same five Marines, just to show off the backpacks.
Here's a closeup of the sergeant. On this mini, I really went to town with customisation, essentially rebuilding it from the ground up with a custom selection of parts and making sure to create a dynamic pose. I really like how she turned out, having her arm cocked back and charging at the enemy. I also added a melta bomb to her belt for some additional anti-armor capability.
I think the rear view also gives a better idea of the general pose. I’m amazed how all the random bits came together and created a cohesive miniature in the end, despite being jumbled together from a multitude of kits.
Here's the other half of the squad. Nothing too exciting here.
Another rear view, showing off the variety of backpacks in the squad.
Now, let’s take a look at the whole squad together:
And of course, here they are with their dedicated transport:
That’s it for this squad so far! Oh, but I do have one more random thing to show you: I also built a raised base extender/display base… thingy:
Well, actually, I built it years ago when I was but a wee lad, and only recently rediscovered it in one of my many hobby boxes. So, I decided to repurpose it for the Tigers by painting it a garish green and adding some jungle foliage. I might add some more bushes later on using moss. The base extender has a magnet in the center, so If I use for one of my fancier miniatures with a penny on the underside of their base, it will stick to it nicely and actually keep the mini on against gravity.
Here’s a comparison with a regular 25mm based miniature. It does add quite a bit of height, and in width it is somewhere around the 50mm mark I believe. Now this little thing wasn’t really a big or important addition to my army, but I figured I’d just drop it in here since I had some pictures.
By the way, I also recently finished a squad of Devastators and a group of 15 female Assault Scouts, but we will take a look at these at a later date! There’s some other stuff I wanna show off first, so stay tuned for that! Thanks for checking out my stuff! Feel free to leave a comment! Until next time!
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Post by: youwashock
Great work on the ladies and their ride!
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Post by: muette
Man, such an effective colour scheme, I had to go back and check the whole blog. Amazing stuff!
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Post by: gobert
The white tiger stripes never cease to satisfy! They’re such a cool scheme, really well executed. If you’re not happy with the eyes I think a lighter smaller highlight might make the glow work still?
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Post by: ph34r
Really amazing army, great stripes, great nostalgia kick for The Jungle.
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Post by: FeistyRips
Thank you all for your very nice comments! So happy to hear you like the White Tiger paint scheme!
gobert wrote:If you’re not happy with the eyes I think a lighter smaller highlight might make the glow work still?
Thanks for your suggestion, I agree. I'll have to add a highlight to make the eye lenses clearly brighter than the surrounding glow, but I'm guessing that this alone won't completely fix the issue. I'll probably have to go in and repaint the glow a slightly lighter shade as well, at least on some minis. I'll see if and when I get around to it, but there's still so much other stuff waiting for a paintjob tbh
Have a pic to tide you over till the next update:
Raja Khandar Madu leading Assault Marines into battle
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Post by: Olthannon
Great work Feisty! I love the starkness of the white tigers.
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Post by: gobert
I often have plans to go back to minis, but rarely get around to it, especially when there’s a fresh mini to paint
Cool extra pic, I love the helmet on Madu! Which one is it from puppet wars? It looks like the bear one to me, but did you modify it?
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Post by: FeistyRips
Olthannon wrote:Great work Feisty! I love the starkness of the white tigers.
Thank you very much for your nice comment!
gobert wrote:I often have plans to go back to minis, but rarely get around to it, especially when there’s a fresh mini to paint
Cool extra pic, I love the helmet on Madu! Which one is it from puppet wars? It looks like the bear one to me, but did you modify it?
Haha, yeah, exactly. Lots more stuff planned which I'd rather finish than redo older minis. I find myself sticking more and more to Mr. Kilgore's mantra of "finished, not perfect" these days
Also, props for recognising the head! You are absolutely correct, it is one of Puppetswar's "bear helmets". I did not modify it, but maybe the paintjob makes it seem that way? Anyway, thanks again for your comment!
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Post by: Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll
That white tiger scheme is just so good. Also, so rare to see non-jump Assault Marines, so that's also very fresh!
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Post by: FeistyRips
Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll wrote:That white tiger scheme is just so good. Also, so rare to see non-jump Assault Marines, so that's also very fresh!
Thanks for the compliment! Yeah, I also thought having some Assault Marines on the ground would be a nice change for once. I really loved Ben Counter’s depiction of these kinds of troops in his Soul Drinkers novel series. Here, the non-jump-pack Marines were used in assaults inside space forts and other confined locations, which made sense. Since reading those books as a teen, I always wanted to own such a squad. Looking at the mass of troops I have for my Fighting Tigers, I decided I could spare at least one squad for this purpose
Speaking of Soul Drinkers, I also have some non-jump assault Marines planned for my own, custom Soul Drinkers force. Check out the beginning of this army if you are interested
Today, I want to share some pics of another dreadnought with you. Meet “Shrendi Vashtar”:
Shrendi Vashtar is the second of two Captains (Rajas) who assumed command after the chapter’s founder, Maharaja Shiva Nagordarika, was killed and became a dreadnought. Shrendi Vashtar took over the Mahaduyanan half of the chapter while Surya Ashoka ruled the Ghuyarashtran half. Together, these two captains would take on the daunting task of rebuilding the chapter after it had almost been wiped out in the attack by “Warband Bloodcomet”, the same chaos raid which cost their chapter founder’s life.
The reign of these two captains saw the introduction of sweeping changes to the chapter’s recruitment methods, some of which (like the forbidden practice of cloning and the alteration of the gene-seed to enable the creation of female Marines) would be viewed as unforgivably heretical by the rest of the Imperium and inevitably unleash the full wrath of the Inquisition upon them. Hence, these methods are kept a well-guarded secret, unknown to all but the highest-ranking members of the chapter and a handful of friends and loyal outsiders.
Shrendi Vashtar is armed with a Multimelta and a dreadnought CCW. Note that I moved the arm-mounted stormbolter to the torso. Once again, I’m not a fan of the idea of putting small arms on what essentially amounts to a weaponised wrecking ball, so I decided the stormbolter would probably make more sense in a cowling beside the sarcophagus instead.
I painted the dread in the traditional White Tiger scheme. Also, I forgot which name I was supposed to put on it, so please ignore the incorrect inscriptions on the scrolls of the sarcophagus and leg. I will have to go back and correct those mistakes at some point
Here’s the two captains together, just as a reminder:
Finally, I have a scenic shot of Shrendi Vashtar in some jungle terrain for you here:
… aaaaand that wraps it up for today! I’m very happy I was able to share this stuff with you today and I hope you enjoyed the update! Feel free to leave comments and criticism below, I always love reading your opinions! Alright then, see you soon! Until next time!
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Post by: youwashock
She's a brick...house!
Love it. Great idea with the storm bolter.
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Post by: FeistyRips
Thanks youwashock! Haha yeah she's pretty hefty
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Post by: Ragsta
You know I love your stuff, mate. Great seeing older school models getting pumped out like this - that stormbolter idea is excellent. Love the alternating colour schemes too!
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Post by: gobert
I was watching an arbitorIan vid on YouTube yesterday and there was some fighting tigers art which made me think of this plog. So I was pleased to see it pop up with a new update, and what an update! Shrendi looks fantastic. The white stripes scale up well for Dreadnoughts and the scenic shots to finish are always winning!
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Post by: FeistyRips
Ragsta wrote:You know I love your stuff, mate. Great seeing older school models getting pumped out like this - that stormbolter idea is excellent. Love the alternating colour schemes too!
Aww thanks mate! Yeah, I'm trying to build this army on a budget (sorta) so using old school models adds some retro flair while keeping the cost down Thanks for your kind reply!
gobert wrote:I was watching an arbitorIan vid on YouTube yesterday and there was some fighting tigers art which made me think of this plog. So I was pleased to see it pop up with a new update, and what an update! Shrendi looks fantastic. The white stripes scale up well for Dreadnoughts and the scenic shots to finish are always winning!
Oh man, thanks for mentioning that! I checked it out and I was thrilled to see that he included one of my favourite fan arts in his video. I wasn't even aware that ArbitorIan does YT videos as well, that's so cool! Gotta check out more of his stuff now, thanks for bringing it up! Glad you like Shrendi and the action shots! Thank you very much for your nice comment!
Tiger scout taking aim at his prey
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Post by: Guardling
Great pic of terrain there, no mini to share today?
Joking of course but it did take me a while to spot them on my tiny phone screen
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Post by: FeistyRips
Haha, totally got me there Guardling! Seems like the camouflage is working as intended Thanks for your comment!
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Post by: gobert
Spot on camo, certainly hides him well! Guardling stole my joke though
Enjoy arbitorIan’s videos, they’re really informative and he has a good presentation style. His Necromunda and Horus Heresy vids are my favourites
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Post by: FeistyRips
Thanks again, and I will! The Necromunda vids sound especially interesting!
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Post by: FeistyRips
Hello friends! Time for an update! You may remember the mini of Chapter Master (Maharaja) Shiva Nagordarika I shared with you a while ago. Today, it is finally time to show you the finished, fully painted miniature:
As the founder of the Space Marine chapter called the “Fighting Tigers of Veda”, Maharaja Shiva Nagordarika wore highly ornate armor which featured an almost exclusively orange paintjob corresponding to his high rank. Therefore, there is almost no black in the paint scheme to clearly distinguish him from the rest of the troops in my collection.
As you can probably tell, the mini for Shiva is based on a Primaris Space Marine body to let him stand out from the rank-and-file with its size and bulk. Canonically, Shiva was the founder of the Fighting Tigers of Veda back in M38, and he was an outstanding individual even by Astartes standards. Due to mutations in his gene-seed, Shiva was of superior size and strength compared to other Space Marines. Furthermore, his mutations caused an unusual, blue skin tone as well as a vestigial third eye on his forehead. While his third eye was incapable of normal vision, it was said to enable Shiva of prescience and receiving visions directly from the sleeping Brahman. The eye was blind, bloodshot, and had an intensely red colour, making it appear to the uninformed like a polished gem set into his forehead, a fact that only served to heighten the mystery around the Tiger’s leader.
Shiva’s highly ornate suit of armor proudly displayed the chapter’s heraldic colours and iconic Tiger stripes all over it’s surface. Shiva’s preferred weapon loadout was a selection of rare, extremely powerful relics (even at the time of his reign around M38), equally ornate and decorated with beautiful bronze inlays created by the most skilled of the chapter’s artificers. On his right hand, Shiva wore a gauntlet with a set of artificer lightning claws, capable of rending flesh and armor without effort. On his left arm, he carried a unique, special weapon known and revered by the chapter as the “Searing Claw”. The Searing Claw is a powerful relic plasma weapon, said to be gifted to the Fighting Tigers by the Brahman himself and mounted to the left vambrace of Shiva’s suit of power armor.
In its regular configuration, the Searing Claw is capable of delivering devastating blasts of superheated plasma energy at range, melting through armor and vaporising flesh with ease. The weapon can also be overcharged, further increasing its destructive capabilities and allowing it to effectively attack and destroy large targets like vehicles with ranged fire. In the most dire circumstances, the Searing Claw can even be used as a devastating close-combat weapon. Upon the user’s input, the main muzzle of the weapon is sealed shut, and the energy created by overcharging the internal fusion core is redirected into four distinct, curved and elongated containment fields located along the weapon’s main heat vents. This creates a set of superheated, glowing plasma claws emanating from the user’s wrist, capable of being used to terrifying effect in close combat. This secret function of the Searing Claw has rarely been witnessed on the battlefield, only used as a last resort when faced with overwhelming odds because it quickly overheats the weapon as it unleashes its destructive potential on its enemies. The claw’s destructive capabilities are unmatched by any other contemporary portable weapon of similar size, and have been known to turn the tide of battle when all hope was lost. Unfortunately, the complex and arcane mechanisms allowing this weapon to function have been lost to time, making the Searing Claw a highly sought-after artefact in the rest of the Imperium.
Shiva’s armor also featured an ornate backpack with four decorative, humanoid arms protruding from the top section of the unit which allude to the paintings of the many-limbed, ancient vedic gods. Each arm was equipped with a characteristic vedic weapon which is said to have been wielded by the gods in their battle against the evil forces of Chaos thousands of years ago.
The backpack’s reactor core, highly decorated and covered in bronze inlays, produced enough power to supply Shiva’s suit and all the sophisticated and power-hungry weapon systems at his disposal.
After Maharaja Shiva Nagordarika was slain in battle by a Bloodthirster during the attack of Warband Bloodcomet on the Tiger’s homeworld, he was interred in the sarcophagus of a venerable Dreadnought. Since that day several millennia ago, Shiva’s suit of artificer power armor has been stored deep within the catacombs of the Tiger’s fortress-temple on Veda, its hull maintained by none but the best craftsmen and its vengeful machine-spirit appeased with blessed oils and incense. There, in the thick, heavy air of the fortress’ lowest levels, the suit stands motionlessly, impassively awaiting the time of its master’s return, or maybe even the advent of a new great hero worthy of taking it into battle once again.
Maharaja Shiva Nagordarika during the battle of Veda
Alright, that’s it for today! I hope you enjoyed the pictures and fluff! I would love to read your comments and feedback on today’s post. Seeing as the main “Jungle” site is currently down for maintenance after some kind of cyber-attack (oh no!), I can only hope that the fluff I came up with is canonically acceptable and that you guys still like it despite me being unable to check with the “official” lore on the original site. Please leave your comments below and let me know what you think Until next time!
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Post by: FeistyRips
Hello friends! I’m back with some pictures!
Sorry I made you wait so long! I’m having trouble splitting my time between real-life stuff, painting and uploading posts, and I’ve not had as much hobby time as I would have liked in the past few months. But like I said, I have at least been able to finish some more Tigers that I can share with you for the near future.
Some of you may have seen that the original Jungle website crashed. Mr. Kilgore is now working on recreating the homepage in its third iteration. There’s already some stuff on there, so definitely head on over and check it out here. While the loss of all the inspirational material has been devastating to me personally, I’m looking forward to seeing where Kenton will take the new Jungle and I’m convinced that, whatever he comes up with, it will be top-notch as always. However, the unfortunate demise of the old website has had a positive side effect for me: In search of material and pictures to “reforest” his Jungle, Kenton has contacted me personally and asked if he could use some pictures from my Dakka thread on his own site! Needless to say, I was incredibly honored by his request and gave him permission to use anything he wants. Maybe, we’ll see some of my Tigers on the official website soon, so keep your eyes peeled when you’re over there!
Anyways, some stuff to look forward to in this thread will be a group of female assault scouts as well as a second devastator squad, but for today, I have something else for you. Without further ado, let’s get to the pictures!
Today, I want to share another vehicle with you: this Land Speeder!
This vehicle was another salvaged mini from a used lot, so it was a little banged up and some parts had been broken. I fixed it as best I could, and removed some of the flimsy details that would just get broken off anyway myself.
To prevent going overboard with the paint scheme, I decided to keep large sections of the vehicle in the standard black and only add orange paint to a few, selected areas where it would look good. In case of this vehicle, I chose the fins as well as some other parts for these orange highlights. This really helps the vehicle blend into the rest of the army.
Above you see a closeup shot of the pilot. Sorry but I didn’t realize how dusty the mini was until I edited the pics later Hope it isn’t too distracting!
The greebly bits like the engines were painted metallic. The previous owner had really globbed the paint on, and you can actually see some cracks that formed in the thickest parts when the paint dried. Unfortunately, some of these imperfections were impossible to fix without ruining the mini, so I painted over them and hoped for the best.
Another detail shot, this time of the vehicle’s gunner. He is also a victim of the overly enthusiastic basecoat, but I hope that my tiger stripe paintjob helps hide some of the worst problems.
Some of you may have already noticed a little difference in this models flight stand. As you all know, these Land Speeders usually come with these annoying, flimsy clear plastic rods. Of course, these are the parts that break first on these kinds of miniatures. Instead of fiddling around with another plastic replacement part, I decided to take Kenton’s example and replace my flight stands with metal nails. I used a very thin wire nail/pin to suspend the miniature.
This thing is extremely sturdy and very low profile. That way, it was really easy for me to hide it from sight by adding a green paintjob and placing some plastic plants around it. I’m kinda proud of the illusion this has created, because you really have to get very close and actively look for the rod to find it amongst the foliage.
But that’s not all! Looking at Kenton’s army, I saw all is Landspeeders were Tornados, so I figured I had to find a way to source some assault cannons for my own army. Check this out:
This assault cannon used to be available from puppetswar.eu, and I really liked the design. I decided to get four of them for my own army to make magnetized upgrades for my Speeders. They paint up really well IMO, but I did have to do some repairs because parts of the rubber mold seem to have been a little damaged. Nothing major though.
A shot from the top. Here you can see the two magnets used to hold the gun in place, as well as a greenstuff connector I added to make sure the gun sits flush against the hull of the vehicle. Let’s attach it now, shall we?
I think the extra gun really adds a level of coolness to the vehicle, and I like that the Puppetswar gun is a little larger than the regular GW one because it gives it a more powerful appearance IMO.
The gun also blends in pretty well with the silhouette of the vehicle.
One more shot for good measure:
Don’t leave yet, there’s more! Another thing I finished was this FTOV Deathwatch veteran. The idea just crossed my mind at some point, and I liked it so much that I had to start kitbashing right away. This guy was a fun little project, and since it’s just a single miniature, I managed to get it from start to finish pretty quickly. Let’s take a look:
This guy is equipped with a bolt pistol and lightning claw. I really liked the idea of a veteran with a silver left arm which had claws mounted on it, so I couldn’t keep myself from building him right away. I think the stripes and claw nicely tie him into the Tigers, while the silver of the arm and pauldron also clearly mark him out as a Deathwatch Marine.
I decided to keep most of the mini black because that’s what colours would be required in the Deathwatch. He gets to keep his right pauldron in chapter colours though, as mandate by the Ordo Xenos.
I kept this guy fully in Mk 6 ‘Corvus’ plate, because that’s what many of the classic models in Kenton’s army have.
The left pauldron shows the typical Deathwatch ornamentations, with the ‘Veda’ inscription painted onto the scrollwork.
Finally, another action shot:
Alright, that’s all I have to show you for today! I hope you enjoyed today’s update and you will visit again soon. I’d appreciate your feedback on today’s stuff. I’d also love to hear what you think about stuff in the previous posts if you haven’t checked them out yet. Thanks for looking, Stay tuned for more Tigers! Until next time!
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Post by: gobert
That’s a serious assault cannon! It reminds me of the A-10 Warthogs nose gun, it means proper business. I love the tiger stripes in the recesses panels, they’re a good place add a spot of colour.
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Post by: Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll
Yeah, that Warthog-speeder is quite something. It's at least 50% cannon!
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Post by: FeistyRips
You're right gobert and Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll! Now that you mention it, they do look very similar! Assault cannon go brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt
Thanks to both of you for your nice and funny comments! Glad you like it!
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Post by: FeistyRips
Hello friends! I’m finally back!
First off, I want to apologize for the slow progress on this thread. Between my job, various real-life tasks and my hobby ADHD pulling me between countless projects, I’m struggling to find time to work on my Tigers. Furthermore, I had unfortunately run out of some of the paints I needed, which also made me hit a speed bump. However, I am currently working on finishing up some Tigers of Kali (Assault Marines) and a second Land Speeder, which means I can soon share some new stuff with you.
Also, I have some good news to share: Last time I visited the Jungle, I found that Mr. Kilgore has used some of my pictures in one of his posts, and I am incredibly honoured to have my miniatures featured on the official website. I noticed there may be some subtle changes to the lore of the Tigers (or at least some good old imperial disinformation), but I will stick to my more traditional, classic interpretation for the remainder of this project. For example, it is stated clearly by Inquisitor Varman Kumar that all accounts of female Space Marines are blatant lies. I’m interested to see where Kenton will take this. Maybe, it's true, and there never were any female Tigers. Or, maybe, it’s all just a clever ruse by Kumar to distract the imperial authorities, knowing that it would costs billions of lives (including his own, most likely) if the higher-ups got wind of some of the Tiger's secrets he is privy to. Either way, I’d definitely recommend you check out the official Jungle website when you find the time.
Now, let’s move on to some pictures. Today, I want to show you some Scouts I finished before I took a break:
These were made from the previous version of the scout kit we used to have for many years. I guess I have to call it the ‘old’ kit now that GW has released an even newer box…
As you know, most, if not all, of the Tigers of Kali are females. For that purpose, I ordered some female ranger heads from Mad Robot Miniatures with which to replace the goofy original heads. Additionally, I made sure to shave down the ‘bulges’ of the codpieces on their armour so they wouldn’t look weird.
When painting, I made sure to create a mix of different skin tones, trying to pick the right tone for each sculpt. I like how some sculpts reflect different ethnicities and allow for more diverse squads.
The sergeant gets the only chainsword in the box to make her stand out as the leader.
Notice I removed the scopes from the scout’s bolt pistols. I think they make the pistols look too busy and way too clunky for a sidearm. Besides, I think it makes more sense to forego scopes on these rather short-ranged guns anyway, so I got rid of them. I think it gives the pistols a more compact, sleek appearance which I really like.
Of course, I had to add a ferocious redhead to the squad, as a nod to Raja Khandar Madu.
Here's the first part of my scout force, together in a group shot:
Let’s move on to the second part:
This Scout has a prominent set of scars across the left side of her face, and I made sure to accentuate them with some diluted red paint to give them a fresh appearance.
I love the variety of hairstyles in the set. This lady, for example, is sporting some sick dreadlocks, reminding me a bit of Michonne from “The Walking Dead”.
I gave this sergeant grey hair.
This lady seems to have dyed her hair red.
I also like this head sculpt a lot. The haircut is really cool. You will see I used this head again for one of my company champions, and it looks really badass.
Time for the second group picture:
And of course, let’s not forget the obligatory action shot:
Alright, that’s all I have to show you for today! I hope you enjoyed the update. I’m looking forward to your comments and feedback, and I’d love to get your opinions and suggestions. Thanks for looking, and stay tuned for more Tigers! Until next time!
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Post by: youwashock
Awesome looking scouts! And welcome back!
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Post by: Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll
So glad to see the Tigers return!
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Post by: FeistyRips
Thanks youwashock and Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll for commenting!
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Post by: gobert
Always a pleasure to see the Tigers make a return Feisty! The lady scouts work really well together, and it’s some serious attention to detail to shave down their cod-pieces!
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Post by: FeistyRips
Thanks a lot for your kind words gobert! Happy to be back as well
Quick update on the project: I recently finished the remaining Tigers of Kali (Assault Marines) as well as the second Landspeeder for my squadron. I'll take some pics and post them, but it might take a while to get there because I still have other, older stuff I want to show you first. Stay tuned as there will soon be pics of my second Devastator Squad and a bunch of converted Veterans with specialist loadouts. After that, there will also be a shot of the whole collection so far, something I realised is long overdue for this army. Hope you will enjoy
Next up, I'll start working on a Dreadnought character model. I'll also have to make a bigger board to display my army on, as I am slowly running out of space on my shelf. I'll keep you guys posted on progress!
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Post by: FeistyRips
Quick update once again: I created a list of which Tiger models are done and which I still need to finish painting. Put it in spoiler tags cause it's kinda long:
Fighting Tigers of Veda
I was planning on completing the remaining models on this list and then moving on to other projects. However, I recently ordered a Combat Patrol box which I will be painting up as Fighting Tigers as well, so I guess I won't be done with them for a while still I decided on picking the Space Wolves Combat Patrol box. Now I know it might not be one of the most meta boxes, but I had two distinct reasons for choosing it: First, I prefer the selection of models in this box and all of them look cool to me. Most of the other sets contain at least one unit I can absolutely NOT stand and WILL NOT paint unless I absolutely have to. Second, the Space Wolves synergise well with the Tigers, both from a lore perspective (the two chapters have been known to cooperate on many campaigns and share a bond of comradery and friendly competition) as well as from a modeling viewpoint, using pelts and others symbols that can easily be modified for my purposes. Besides, my gaming buddy and I are not super competitive players, so it should be fine to pick a casual list. I'll keep you guys posted on the progress. Thanks for checking this out and stay tuned!
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Post by: gobert
That’s a mighty impressive list with plenty of cool stuff to come. Hoepfully we get an Army shot or two
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Post by: FeistyRips
gobert wrote:That’s a mighty impressive list with plenty of cool stuff to come. Hoepfully we get an Army shot or two
Thanks for the comment gobert! Still lots to do but I'll get them all done eventually! And yes, there will be an army shot!
Quick update: Since my last post, the SW Combat Patrol arrived, along with some conversion bitz and replacement paints. This means I was able to finish building the entire box relatively quickly. Here's the result of my work:
I gotta say the minis were quite fun to build and convert. The quality of GWs kits is really superb, as everything went together perfectly. I also started painting as well, and the leader miniature (a conversion of the Haldor Icepelt SW character) is already finished. Also, the squad of Reivers is about 70% done I'd say. Pics to follow. I've put the older models aside for now as I want to finish the CP box so I can maybe get a test game of combat Patrol in before the end of april. Will keep you guys posted on the progress Thanks for looking!
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Post by: Eilif
How did I miss this before? Nice work all around!
Great to see the tigers return and a new player also carrying the banner.
I remember the fighting tigers website back in the days of Terragenesis and Yahoo groups.
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Post by: gobert
Looking good! Are these the first tigers to cross the rubicon Primaris?
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Post by: FeistyRips
Eilif wrote:How did I miss this before? Nice work all around!
Great to see the tigers return and a new player also carrying the banner.
I remember the fighting tigers website back in the days of Terragenesis and Yahoo groups.
Thank you very much Eilif for the kind words! Very glad to have you on board now! While I certainly won't be able to match the original Tigers regarding the amount of battle reports or the quality of the writing, I will however try my best to at least continue their visual style and flair as best I can
gobert wrote:Looking good! Are these the first tigers to cross the rubicon Primaris?
Thank you so much! Indeed, these are the first Primaris Tigers (unless you count my conversion of Maharaja Shiva Nagordarika in a much earlier post). Don't get your hopes up too high though, because they will probably be the last as well. The Tigers crossing the Rubicon Primaris was never something I intended for. I dislike much of the new range of models, I hate the lorebending GW did to include Primaris, and most importantly, Primaris Tigers don't really make much sense from a lore perspective, either. They are a chapter that is quite remotely situated, not very well supplied and mostly cut off from a large portion of the Imperium in their region of Space. This has allowed them some freedom in how they handle things, but if the Imperium or the Inquisition should ever find out what they are up to on their homeworld of Veda (i.e. the use of female Marines and cloning or "reincarnation" technology), they would be in a hell of a lot of trouble, and certainly wouldn't be granted the Primaris upgrade. However, my reason for making them anyway is quite simple: Since my gaming buddy asked if we could dip our toes into 40k Combat Patrol and I really liked the idea of a converted SW box, I couldn't resist the urge to make at least a few non-lore-friendly Primaris Tigers for my collection. Again, thanks a lot for your comment, gobert!
Update time! As stated previously, I will be focusing on my Combat Patrol box for now, to get it ready for a potential game in april. Therefore, I want to share my progress on that with you before we get back to the older, classic Marines. Let's get jump right into it. May I introduce you to "Kshatriya Kalinda Chopra":
As you can probably tell if you are familiar with SW, this is a conversion of the 'Haldor Icepelt' character model, a lieutenant I believe. I replaced the axe the mini came with with a scimitar, added a special helmet from Puppetswar, removed most of the SW iconography and added a few little bitz here and there to round out the look.
Regarding the paintjob, I mostly followed my tried and true recipe for the White Tigers. The pelt was a special piece and thus received a bit more attention. Of course, I had to add stripes to turn the wolf pelt into a tiger pelt. I also had some fun with the cute little kitty paws on it, giving them a lovely pink color.
The scimitar was painted with a gradient from dark to light blue, as I do with all of my power weapons for this army.
The pelt was a bit of a chore to paint, as I had to go back and individually pick out single strands of hair after the wash had dried. However, I'm quite satisfied with the result, considering white fur is a little more difficult to do IMO.
This models base is rather big, so I had room to experiment with some new details. Here, I added a green static grass tuft for a change.
Gotta say I like the pose on that mini, and the conversion bitz work quite well with the existing model. So this will be the leader for my small Primaris ' SW' Combat Patrol. Hope you liked her! As mentioned above, I'm in the process of painting the Reivers from that box, and they are also well on their way to being done. As usual, here's a final pic with the model in some terrain:
And that's all I have for today! Hope you enjoyed it, and will stay tuned for the next update! Until next time!
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Post by: Boss Salvage
Amazing work on this unexpected Primaris Tiger! Appreciate the conversion - great helmet! - but the painting is really smooth and satisfying as well. Looking forward to more of the patrol
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Post by: gobert
Kshatriya Looks awesome! The puppetwars head works great on the white tigers and fits the Primaris scale well.
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Post by: FeistyRips
Boss Salvage wrote:Amazing work on this unexpected Primaris Tiger! Appreciate the conversion - great helmet! - but the painting is really smooth and satisfying as well. Looking forward to more of the patrol
gobert wrote:Kshatriya Looks awesome! The puppetwars head works great on the white tigers and fits the Primaris scale well.
Thank you both very much for your nice comments!
Time for another update! Today I want to finally show off my Reivers from the Combat Patrol box. They have been finished for a few days, but I didn't get around to taking pictures any earlier. Let's start right away! First off, we have the Sergeant of the Tigresses of Kali:
As you can see, I also used a custom head option for these minis. This time, they came from Anvil Industry, which I can only recommend. Apart from the different head, the mini is pretty standard, except for some added decorations that came from the SW upgrade sprue as well as the Tactical Marines. In combination with the paintjob, I think this mini manages to convey the Tiger aesthetic pretty well. Moving on to the next model:
Again, I tried to incorporate different skin tones with this squad, as I did with my female assault Scouts that I showed off in a more recent post. Another thing I'm doing slightly differently now with the Primaris Combat Patrol is that I paint the pouches a dark brown leather color, to add a bit of visual contrast. Since this is a smaller force, I can afford to add at least a little more detail than with my larger collection of regular Firstborn Marines. Moving on:
As you know, there always has to be a redhead in those types of squads who happens to bear a striking resemblance to Khandar Madu, Raja of half of the chapter of the Tigers.
For this young lady, I used the left arm with an integrated cogitator and display. This gave me a nice excuse to paint some quick and dirty OSL on her forearm. Moving on to the final mini of the squad:
This lady has a sprinting pose and is in the middle of drawing her combat blade. I had some fun with the parts that came in this Combat Patrol, trying my best to create some dynamic and thematic poses for the minis. I especially like how this gal came out.
Alright then. Since you've now seen all the members of the squad up close, I think it's time to look at some group shots! Here we go:
Next, there's the squad with Kalinda Chopra, the Captain of this Combat Patrol, for reference. I know, this character can technically only attach to the squad of Intercessors. Still, I think the ladies look good all set up together like this!
Oh, and of course, let’s not forget: Here’s the Tigresses in their natural habitat, the deep jungles of Veda:
Aaaaaand that’s all I have, for today at least. I’m working on my squad of Intercessors atm, and I estimate they are about 50% done. I got most of the base colors done, which is at least half the battle. I’ll let you know how things go, and I’ll keep you updated on the progress. Stay tuned for more Tigers in the near future! Thanks for checking this out! Until next time!
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Post by: FeistyRips
Hello again! Good news: I finally finished my Combat Patrol box! I’m super proud I that managed to finally complete a project (and not let it sit for years on my table waiting to be painted…). It seems I have gained at least some measure of discipline when it comes to buying and finishing stuff. Let’s hope I can keep the streak going Anyways, I will be showing off the remaining models over the next couple of posts, and today, we’ll start with the Intercessor Squad. Let’s get right to it!
First guy, a regular bolter (or whatever it’s called now) dude. Of course, I painted him in my established orange Tiger recipe, however with some minor tweaks. As I mentioned previously, I decided to make the leather pouches on the Marines a brown colour to add some more visual interest to the models. Also, the Primaris Marines received a little more attention to detail by picking out some glowing bits with a quick OSL effect, namely some buttons on their vambraces and the visors of the helmets.
The next guy has his Bolter slung over his shoulder and his sidearms ready. I really like that you can get the Intercessors to look a bit more ‘CQC-ready’ if you will, and I enjoy the options the Primaris Intercessor Squad box gives you for that. It’s something I wish we could have had for the Firstborn Marines as well. That’s why I always enjoyed converting the older models to make them look a bit more tactical, too.
The next Marine is just reloading his weapon. Another cool thing you can do with the Intercessors IMO.
Next is just a regular guy firing his bolt rifle. He does have one of the shoulder pads with a Marksman’s badge on them though, so you can assume he’d be pretty good at it
Then we have another guy with his knife drawn. I made sure to add a few Marines to the squad that look like they are in close combat. Seeing how they will most likely join the Combat Patrol leader in her ferocious assault, I think it’s fitting. Note this guy also has one of the tiger fur decorations on his belt.
Next, we have another marksman. This guy however, is really committed. He’s ditched his helmet for the added awareness and instead rocks a bionic eye to assist him in aiming and acquiring targets. To enhance his long-range firepower, he’s using a suppressed Stalker pattern bolt rifle with a powerful scope (do note however, in game terms, all the Marines of this combat patrol are using the regular bolt rifles). Of course, this guy also has the Marksman’s honours attached to his pauldron.
The next Marine has drawn his sidearm and is firing it at the enemy at point-blank range.
Another guy with a knife:
One final, regular dude:
And now finally, it’s time for the sergeant! This guy is equipped with a bolt pistol and a chainsword, so that’s all the equipment I gave the model. Why this guy wouldn’t also carry a rifle to add to the firepower of his squad is beyond me, but hey, the rules are the rules, right? I really like this chainsword from the SW upgrade sprue. It’s very reminiscent of the older styles of chainswords, with its double-sided edge and the knuckle duster handguard.
On the sergeant I spent a little more time to make him look special. His chest aquila was picked out in metallic, he has the striped shinguards denoting him as a high-ranking officer as well as the crux terminatus on his pauldron which symbolizes his veteran status. I added a tiger fur and an eagle standard to his armour, and for his head I used one with a respirator from the BA Terminator box set. The different paintjob helps tie him in nicely with the rest of the tigers, IMHO.
I decided to go the extra mile for this guy, painting the chapter’s tiger paw symbol on his right pauldron. I’m pretty happy with how it came out, and it’s a nice throwback to one of my older tactical marine sergeants who also has this decoration.
So that’s the whole squad! However, I still have one final pic to share with you:
Well, that’s all I have to show you for today. I thank you very much for checking this out! I’d love to hear your thoughts on these new models (*cough* or on the Reivers in my previous post which have not yet received any comments *cough* ). Looking forward to your inputs, as always! Also, stay tuned for the next post, in which I will share with you the piece de la resistance of this combat patrol, if you will. That is the ‘big stompy robot’, aka the Primaris Invictor Tactical Warsuit. Boy, that’s a mouthful. Of course, eventually, there will also be a group shot of the whole combat patrol force set up together. Just gotta figure out how to squeeze them all into one shot for that first Anyways, thanks again for reading through my ramblings and taking a look at my stuff. Until next time, see you soon!
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Post by: Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll
I know you didn't plan on any Primaris marines for the Tigers, but the scheme really does look great on them. Having that bit of larger model for the extra canvas suits your scheme.
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Post by: Cap'n Facebeard
The patterns are so good, almost mesmerising. Never seen such an idea done so well.
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Post by: muette
Great result seeing them all together, they look like a professional unit of killers. Are they lorewise related to the Raven Guard, for the stealthy style?
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Post by: FeistyRips
Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll wrote:I know you didn't plan on any Primaris marines for the Tigers, but the scheme really does look great on them. Having that bit of larger model for the extra canvas suits your scheme.
Thanks Gwyn for your comment! Indeed, the larger models give some nice, flat surfaces, perfect for adding tiger stripes. Wait till you see the Invictor!
Cap'n Facebeard wrote:The patterns are so good, almost mesmerising. Never seen such an idea done so well.
Thanks Cap'n, you're too kind!
muette wrote:Great result seeing them all together, they look like a professional unit of killers. Are they lorewise related to the Raven Guard, for the stealthy style?
Thanks muette! Glad you like em! I think in the lore, it is not defined what chapter the Tigers are successors of directly, at least it is not sure. There has been some guesses that they might be related to the White Scars iirc, but I'd have to check.
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Post by: youwashock
Excellent work on the last two units. That white tiger pattern is always so good. Any chance of a shot of everything together?
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Post by: FeistyRips
youwashock wrote:Excellent work on the last two units. That white tiger pattern is always so good. Any chance of a shot of everything together?
Thanks so much youwashock! I definitely want to take an army shot, but I need a proper backdrop first I'm afraid. I'll try to find one as soon as possible!
I’m back with more pictures! Today, as promised, we’ll take a look at the final piece of the combat patrol, the Invictor Tactical Warsuit. I’m really happy with how it turned out, and I’m looking forward to sharing the pics with you. Let’s start right away!
This robot was really an exciting build. There’s so many parts to assemble, and you have to be very careful with what you glue and what pose you want to end up with before assembling everything. I ended up doing the build in several sub-assemblies to make my life easier when painting and to ensure I would be able to get the pose just right during final assembly. The sub-assemblies in my case were:
- Legs w/ base
- Body/cockpit
- Pilot
- Fragstorm grenade launcher
- Left arm
- Right arm
I made sure not to glue down the moving parts of the cockpit (the lower cowling and the roll cage) to be able to paint inside and add the pilot in at a later stage. While I was going to glue them eventually, I decided against it, as you will see later on. I think it’s kinda cool to be able to move certain parts on the model. I also kept the arms unglued, allowing for a limited amount of poseability.
Since this Warsuit is more of a ranged combat unit, I decided to give it the colors of the Ghuyarashtran half of the chapter, namely orange. As I really liked the look of the Tiger paw chapter symbol on the Intercessor sergeant from last time, I decided to add that to this model as well. I had a nice, big and flat surface on the left shoulder armour plate to paint that symbol, and I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. I might add some shading later on to add a bit more contrast and make it pop a bit more, but for now, it’s done.
In this shot, you can also see the heavy bolter the warsuit uses as a sidearm. While I think this is a bit silly for a dreadnought and very much reminiscent of movies like ‘The Matrix’ and ‘Avatar’, I must admit it does look cool.
The base was done in classic goblin green (now warboss green, but oh well) and flocked with the coloured sawdust I always use for my tigers. However, seeing how I had so much room on this enormous base to play around with, I had to add some visual interest to break up the large, flat surface. I added lots and lots of grass tufts, greenery and shrubs. There’s even a dark eldar casualty on there. Now I might have gone in and added some different terrain and elevation on the base before painting and flocking, but I guess the flat base does the job too.
In this back view, you can see the fusion reactor core of the Warsuit that powers the entire machine. I went in and painted up the Mechanicus symbol to add some detail to the back area as well.
The twin Ironhail autocannon, the main armament of this suit. I find it a bit weird that Primaris Space Marines make extensive use of Stubber weaponry and similar less advanced guns. I always thought the Astartes were supposed to be the ones with the better equipment, likely replacing these weapons with storm bolters or something like that. Still, the Autocannon does look nice all painted up I guess.
In this pic, you can see the how the cockpit can swivel open to reveal the pilot. I like that little detail. While it can be a bit difficult to to get unstuck sometimes and it was certainly quite fiddly to assemble in the first place, I still think it adds a lot to the model.
In this shot you can also see the Drukhari casualty on the ground. This Eldar is part of the Cabal of the Ozone Scorpions, the mortal enemies of the Fighting Tigers. This cabal has been in the possession of the planet of Veda long before the Imperium of Man ever arrived there, and thus believe the planet to be rightfully theirs, seeing the humans as invaders. After being driven out of their secret underground city by a joint effort of Astartes from both the Fighting Tigers and Space Wolves chapters, the Ozone Scorpions have staged many raids through their webway portals to try and reclaim their territory. While these attacks have been small and easily crushed by the garrisoned Space Marines, it is only a matter of time until the Drukhari gather their strength to launch an all-out assault on the planet.
Here’s a closeup of the pilot. I really like the details such as the optics and the seat belt across the chest on that sculpt.
Also, let’s take a closer look at the Drukhari on the base cause it’s just so nice and gory:
I modelled the rtorn stumps of the limbs using green stuff, just pulling at the fresh putty to give it a realistic, chunky and sinewy appearance. I had to be careful when painting to keep all my steps in order. First, I painted the base green, then I painted the casualty as I normally would, but without the blood. I painted the torn flesh a nice, juicy pink colour. Then, I had to flock the entire base. Only then did I add the blood effect (Blood for the Blood God), liberally splattering it all over the bloody stumps, the body glove as well as the grass flocking. I also put some blood on the Eldar’s remaining hand to make it look as if he had touched his bleeding wounds.
Now you may get the impression that this mortally wounded Ozone Scorpion is raising his remaining arm, instinctively trying to shield himself from the impending doom that he will suffer by being crushed beneath the Warsuit’s giant, metallic foot. However, this is not how the Dark Eldar are wired. Instead, this Drukhari’s faceplate is hiding a huge, disgustingly wide grin as the creature revels in the immense, torturous pain it finds itself in. The Eldar is reaching up, stretching its fingers, beckoning the gigantic death machine towering above it to hurt it… MORE.
Ah. Lovely grimdark, don’t you think?
Finally, I got one more shot of the Warsuit for you:
And that’s it! I hope you enjoyed this post and liked the Warsuit! As mentioned, I will try to get a good “army shot” of the Fighting Tigers Combat Patrol as a whole, but first, I need to find a suitable backing mat to do that. Until then, I want to thank all of you for checking this out, and also for your continued support, comments and input. Stay tuned for more! Until next time!
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Post by: gobert
Congrats on finishing the Combat Patrol! They look great in their Tiger stripes! I really love the OSL you’ve achieved on these guys, it really looks to be glowing
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Post by: Boss Salvage
Great work on the Patrol! Warsuit is a grand capper on the project, and a neat way to scale up the Fighting Tigers aesthetic, like with that extra large badge. Props on the smashed, ancient DEldar
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Post by: FeistyRips
Thanks gobert and Boss Salvage for your comments! Happy to hear you like the Combat Patrol! Now, as promised, I finally got around to taking some pics of the group as a whole:
And with that, I think I can finally call this combat patrol project done! As stated previously, I will now be focusing on finishing the older minis for the Tigers. However, I have to admit that my interest in painting the rest of my Heavy Gear: Blitz Southern Starter Kit has been rekindled, so I might get distracted with that for a while. If you are interested in that, you can check out my thread here.
Thanks for checking this out, see you in the next post!
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Post by: youwashock
Awww, yeah! Looks great! The battlesuit makes a good centerpiece.
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Post by: Olthannon
Great work, the warsuit looks fantastic in the Tigers colour scheme.
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Post by: Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll
Radical work, love it.
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Post by: gobert
That’s a good looking bunch of guys and gals!
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Post by: tzurk
I love this project! Something about it is so wholesome and it just fills my bucket to read about the way you've taken the idea and run with it.
Grats on being mentioned on the OG page too - art imitates life imitates art all over again and the cycle continues!
The minis themselves are gorgeous too. I'll always have a soft spot for Goblin Green bases, but the tiger stripes and the spots of OSL all work together to make a really striking force.
Thanks for sharing!
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Post by: FeistyRips
Olthannon wrote:Great work, the warsuit looks fantastic in the Tigers colour scheme.
tzurk wrote:I love this project! Something about it is so wholesome and it just fills my bucket to read about the way you've taken the idea and run with it.
Grats on being mentioned on the OG page too - art imitates life imitates art all over again and the cycle continues!
The minis themselves are gorgeous too. I'll always have a soft spot for Goblin Green bases, but the tiger stripes and the spots of OSL all work together to make a really striking force.
Thanks for sharing!
Thanks everyone for your lovely comments! I was super happy about all the positive feedback I got on the combat patrol Sorry for not responding in such a long time, but I keep bouncing between different projects and trying to get stuff done, which takes time away from actually posting here and showing off what is already finished! However, now I’m back with pictures today, so hopefully I can make up for it
Before we take a look at said photos, I want to draw attention to Mr. Kilgore’s website once more. He recently posted another issue of his in-character reports by Inquisitor Varman Kumar on the Fighting Tigers of Veda. I really love what Kenton is doing with the fluff in this one, debunking persistent myths about the elusive female Fighting Tigers while still leaving some room for interpretation for those of us who are willing to read between the lines. Of course, I’m also super stoked and honoured that, once again, he used pictures of my miniatures to accompany his outstanding writing. I’m very excited for future updates on this series and hope he keeps it going.
Alright, so let’s get to the fun stuff! Today, I want to share with you my second completed squad of Devastator Marines:
In this pic you see the first half of the squad, containing some regular Marines, a Heavy Bolter gunner as well as the squad's Sergeant. Let’s take a closer look at him:
The Sergeant is a classic mini from 40k’s 2nd edition, albeit with some modifications. I gave him a Storm Bolter as a ranged weapon, which is another old part that I stole from one of the classic metal Captains in my collection. It’s a pretty hefty bit, so I had to add a washer underneath this Sergeant’s base to keep the heavy gun from constantly tipping over the mini. But hey, at least it looks cool.
The other noticeable alteration I made to the miniature was to add a sort of target designator, as I had on the Sergeant of my first Devastator squad. However, I did unfortunately not have the original backpack with this special attachment, so I had to improvise. My target designator was made from half a SM vehicle Storm Bolter if I remember correctly. I sculpted on a cowling and gave it an appropriate paintjob to sell the illusion. Next, let’s take a closer look at the Heavy Bolter gunner:
This guy is special in that he doesn’t use the regular Heavy Bolter variants you would usually find in SM or CSM kits. Instead, I improvised again to make use of some leftover bits I had lying around.
The keen-eyed among you may recognise this guy’s Bolter as part of an Astra Militarum heavy weapons kit. I had a pair of previously chopped-up Missile Launcher arms available, so I used those to attach the gun to the Model.
To make the model read more clearly as a Devastator, I added one of the large Backpacks from the old plastic Devastator kits, specifically the Plasma cannon pack I believe. Using green stuff, I also created a connection from the backpack to the gun to represent a sort of ammo feed for the Bolter.
Alright, moving on to the other half of the squad now:
This five-man combat squad goes very heavy on the Missile Launchers as you can see. Again, I use these weapons for a multitude of reasons: 1) They’re very iconic and a classic weapon for SM that has been around since the earliest days of the tabletop game 2) They’re cheap points-wise 3) They’re very versatile with their different ammo types 4) They’re pretty ubiquitous in the lore and represented as a simple, cheap and widely available heavy weapon in the lore, something that fits well with the situation of the Fighting Tigers in their knack of the woods.
Now, let’s take a look at the full squad set up together in one (recklessly crowded) blob:
Would surely make a juicy target for one of those large pie plate templates we used to have in the game, right? Oh well…
Anyways, that's all I have to show you for today! I hope you enjoyed this update and that you stick around for the next one, which I'm already working on and which is hopefully soon to follow. Thank you all very much for checking this out, and stay tuned for more! Alright, guess I'll leave you with an action shot as I eagerly await your feedback! Until next time
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Post by: Cap'n Facebeard
Its such a good scheme and so well executed here. You could make another army similar with white and black stripes and call it the Zebra Chapter
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Post by: gobert
Looking good Feisty! That heavy Bolter conversion worked really well. I love maximising the use of a kit or two. No part left behind!
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