Last week I announced that I was going to switch from the Tau army I had planned to bring to the GT to instead run my Word Bearers army. The more I thought about this decision the more sense it made. I am very familiar with the Chaos codex as I have played it many times over the past year, plus the army is pretty much all painted and has a lot of conversion work and details added to the models. This decision alone gives me plenty of breathing space to add more details to my chaos army plus I gain time to work on terrain and my display board. Over the past few days I started working on my display board for the Word Bearers. So let's take a look at what I have done...
What the heck grubs, I thought you said that you were going to play a Word Bearer's army. That sure looks like an Ultramarines board to me????
The idea behind the display board is that the Word Bearer's have overrun an Ultramarines world and are in the process of corrupting a sacred temple and attempting to summon a daemon into the material universe.
In the image below I have added the next layers that will represent a hallway with columns and eventual stairs that will lead to a platform that will overlook the summoning process. I also plan on hanging tattered and ruined ultramarine banners from the columns.
The next step was to carve out a hole in the middle of the Ultramarines symbol. Then I carved a Chaos star from foam that will sit over the whole. I plan on using flickering tea lights underneath the symbol to make it look like a hole is opening underneath the Chaos star.
I will be taping a layer of waxed parchment paper underneath the star so that the viewer will not be able to see the lights underneath the star but the lights will be able to shine through the holes and cracks.
Here you can see that I have added foam board layers to the columns and I have added stairs to reach to the upper level.
Here is how the board will look with some of my army on it. Note that the Belakor model will be placed over the center of the star to make it look like he will be coming up from the ground.
Here is a shot of the board under dim lighting. The candle effect really shows here.
Besides the display board I have also been working on my Dark Apostle model. In the past I have been using the Space Marine Champlain in Terminator armor as my Dark Apostle but since the new starter set came out I have always like the look of the Chosen model wielding the power mace so I decided to start painting him up.
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| Another shot of the Apostle |
Very inspiring. Word Bearers were one of my favorite armies to play over the past 22+ years. The 3.5 Chaos Codex allowed for so variety that it made for an extremely fun army to play. I'm glad to see someone finding a way with the new codexes back to light. It is such a characterful army. I'm willing to be once you dig into the Demons Codex, you will be able to construct a fun to play yet fairly competitive list. Looking forward to seeing how this developes.
ReplyDeleteAlso, how do you get such exact cuts on the insulation foam. Also, the UM symbol and Chaos icon are a complete mystery to me how it was performed. Would you elaborate how this was performed?
@Charlie, for the Omega symbol and Chaos star I simply went to google images and found a large image of both items and scaled them to around 8 inches and then printed them out on heavy paper stock. From there I cut out the symbols and traced the pattern onto the foam.
ReplyDeleteAs for cutting the foam, I use a variety of different sized exacto knife cutters. The large blades are for cutting large sections of foam to form my shape and then I use the hobby knife to make precision cuts and form details. Check out some of my earlier posts on creating city terrain to see examples. Also, I keep sand paper and cheap emory boards around for smoothing and shaping edges. It's hard to tell in these images but for the chaos start I also took a fist-sized rock and rolled it over the surface to give it an uneven and rough texture. I plan on painting it in either a silvery-iron color or bronze. I guess it depends which way I go with the color selections for the floor of the temple.
Thanks for the feedback. I think I just need more practice with foam cutters as my cuts are great for ruins/hills, but haven't nearly as exact as yours turned out.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate the tip on the symbols. I'll definitely keep that in my tool box.
I will go back and check out the older articles. I read those months ago, but forgot about them. Thanks again.