Chaos Renegade Militia - Infantry Build Redux 15 and 8th Edition

Well.

It's been over a year since I last looked at finishing my CRM Infantry off.

But finally, unbelievably, it is done.

The final models - namely six Lascannon teams are built, based and undercoated.

I've kept the lascannons unglued for ease of painting. Below are them once the undercoat was done, with the las in place.

I also got the eight artillery crew finished off along with some extra lasguns which will get added to the HW bases once painted.

So they all join the mortar and missile launcher teams already finished, along with Hooky the Scanner Guy.

Next job will be packing them all up to send to Sheep to paint.

I will be glad to see them go.

The final update to the tracker sheet has been done, just look at all that red. Joyous.

My attention now turns to how to field these in 8th Edition.

I have the Index book from Forge World and I am more than a little unimpressed. It really seems to have been a rush job converting the IA13 list to 8th edition and much of what made it a great army list is lost. A post about IA13 can be found HERE.

We have lost the awesome Demagogue Devotions. These were the jewel of the list, it allowed you to tailor and theme the force in so many different ways. Some of these options can still be done in some ways as all the army options have now been opened up and you just select units you want.

My force has taken a real hit and frankly it has sucked all my enthusiasm of getting them built out of me.

The biggest loss for me is that the Devotion I used to use was 'Bloody Handed Reaver'. This turned my force into a traitor Guard regiment, just what I wanted. A professional Chaos army, with proper training and equipment. It also allowed me to take what was basically Storm Trooper squads with hot shot lasguns and carapace armour.

But my force has lost: Militia Training, Storm Trooper squads, Flak Armour, Vet squads as Troops (same as Guard list), mixed Ogryn and Beast units and being able to have different Covenants through out the army - you now either have nothing or everyone follows the same Chaos God.

A run down of the new force is below...

With only three troop choices but now 10(!) Elite choices I am limited with what I can do.

My Storm Trooper squads are now all armed with non-legal weapons.

My force has gone from a professional organised killing machine to an army full of conscripts who can't hit the arse of a Gargantuan Squiggoth and have armour that drops off in a light breeze.

I just don't understand why FW didn't put some of this in the 8th list, it is hardly game breaking and makes the list far better.

Meh. Buggers are built now. Fingers crossed by the time they are all painted things will have changed.

I can tell you now I am not re-organising them again or breaking them apart to change what they are armed with.

Chaos Renegade Militia - Infantry Build Redux 14

The heavy weapon teams are progressing, here we have the three finished Mortar teams.

I made a new ammo box for the mortar shells. Below you can see (left to right) the original I made and cast up, the 3D print I had done and then the new case I made and cast.

The 3D print was unusable unfortunately. Even with using liquid GS and sanding the surface was just horrible. Hence making a new one from scratch. As you can see I kept the original idea of having one of the tubes open and empty (as on all three bases I have the teams modelled with one shell in their hands). But with the new case I also had a second tube open with a shell inside.

I would rather have gone with the 3D print but alas until high quality prints are available at an affordable price it is going to be limited use for me, which is very frustrating as there is a lot of other pieces I would like to model up and get printed.

Once I had the ammo boxes cast up I could put the three teams together.

For the first team I covered up the one open tube with a lid. I did think of adding tops from the open tubes but couldn't be arsed. My thinking is the guy would just toss it out of the way.

For the final team I dremelled out the one tube, these guys have either lost a shell or got in a shot while the other two teams were still sorting themselves out.

Having that hand hold the wall was a bugger.

Next up will be the six lascannon teams, below is a look at the first of the lascannon casts which I have cleaned up. Quite happy how they have turned out. Just the rest of them to do now, and the crew, and the bases. Joy.

Chaos Renegade Militia - Infantry Build Redux 13

Bit more progress.

'Rictus' Pattern Lascannon. Now waiting for the mould to cure.

Decided to redo all of the bases. I wanted to keep the same idea but I wanted to maximise the room on the base for the HW team.

So I ripped apart one of the bases, cut the front off and built a new wall.

I built up the ground behind the wall.

I got a mould done and cast up three bases, which I have put to use with the mortar teams.

Still plenty to do on them, had to re-build some crew members and the weapons themselves (they aren't in a great state). Waiting on same mould to cure for the mortar ammo boxes as the lascannon.

One base has had the sand added as the ammo box will be sitting on the rock at the back.

As you can see I went with the 'They are over them, fire it over there, not over there, over there' pose.

I have ripped apart the original Lascannon bases as well. The bases will go towards other things (I'm short of 60mm bases). Just need to cast some new walled bases and some lascannon now so I can start putting the new teams together.

The crew below need a lot of work cleaning up and rebuilding in some cases.

Alas I'm almost out of resin, so I will need to wait for some new stuff to arrive before getting all of these guys done. I have enough resin to get a couple of sets cast so I should know soon if the new lascannon and mortar ammo boxes turn out any good.

Chaos Renegade Militia - Infantry Build Redux 12

Made some progress on the Militia.

Artillery Crew (note I stuck with doing eight in the end):

Missile Launcher Teams.

Infantry Command Squad Teams:

 

Infantry Squad A Teams:

After a grey coat:

Current State of Play:

Note I have removed the Cyclops Crew and Rough Riders.

Next up to get the new Lascannon built and cast so I can get those six Lascannon teams done.

Chaos Renegade Militia - Infantry Build Redux 11

Oh the fun I'm having.

The heavy weapon teams are progressing, slowly, but progressing.

Above we have the new bits for the Missile Launcher teams. Bottom left is the original GW missile, then we have the 3D printed master and next to it a cast missile.

Centre is the first ammo box I did, to the right of that we have the 3D printed master of the new box and below that a cast example (also insert top right showing the handle in place).

As a reminder here are the renders of the 3D models:

The first two teams based:

When the PVA has fully dried I'll add the other bits to the bases (lasguns, ammo box etc).

"Are you going to give me the damn missile Dave or just sit there like an idiot?"

The other teams are proving a pain in the arse. Trying to find arms for the second crewman so I can having him carrying the ammo box is making me want to do bad things.

I spent a good hour or so last night just searching through bits boxes, trying out different options and at the end of it got nowhere.

Any suggestions?

Meanwhile I did a bit more making the new Lascannon. This will hopefully end up as a master I can recast to do all of the teams I have. So far I've spliced together a standard HW team lascannon and a lascannon from the Sentinel kit.

Still a lot to do on it.

I started to pull apart the original lascannon teams. They will need a big overhaul.

Another update on them in a couple of days probably.

Chaos Renegade Militia - Infantry Build Redux 10

Have I said how much of grown to hate these buggers? Probably, but it's worth stating again.

So now the room is finished I don't have any excuses left to not get on with trying to finish the Militia infantry build off so I can send them to Sheep.

In summary I have the following to do at this point:

1. Artillery Crew (8 No.).
2. Cyclops Crew (3 No.)
3. Missile launcher Teams (4 No.)
4. Mortar Teams (3 No.)

Today I made a start. Again. No idea how many times I've made a 'restart' on this force.

At the end of the day I've made progress on the artillery crew, however I thinking of revising the army list so that I only need the minimum of six (seriously, this is how fed up I am of them, I'm now doing what I can to cut down on the numbers I need to mess around with).

The one guy is originally from the command squad from FW. Had the usual casting issue with the cables so cue a good hour cutting, drilling and Dremmeling to replace them. I also had to replace the end oft he barrel as the sodding thing broke off.

What a smug bastard.

I've also decided to drop the Cyclops units from the force. Partly because it makes life easier as they aren't actually an option in the IA13 list and partly because that is three less models I need to build & convert.

I've started pulling apart the missile launcher teams so I can re-base them on 50mm bases. I've also started the mould for the new bits for the teams.

Unfortunately I've also given myself more work to do by deciding to convert the lascannons. I've never liked the plastic lascannon due to it being so bloody huge. It's meant to be a man portable support weapon but it's nothing like it.

As such I've decided to cut them down and remove the separate power unit, I reckon it is big enough to have an internal power unit. The barrel is now shorter and I've moved the mounting point back. In the pic it is just blu-tacked together. Still needs more work before I move onto the others.

Thankfully the crew can stay as they are, so it won't be a complete pain to change them all.

Hopefully.

Not a lot I admit, but I mainly did the post so Sheep can see I really am working on them again.

Chaos Renegade Militia - Infantry Build Redux 9

So, the first models I have touched in a while (apart from the bunker).

This isn't much of an update, but it is a milestone of a kind.

First thing I did was repair two infantryman who broke in the game I played not long ago. I pinned them at the waist (doubt it will make much difference if I dropped them on a hard floor again).

Not great pics I know as I used my phone for this update,

Next up I finally finished the member of the command squad who didn't have a left arm.

It's not great, but frankly at this point I don't care - I just wanted him done ASAP. After reading something on Mordian7th's blog I cut down some Guard binoculars to make a scope of some kind. I didn't want a full pair of binoculars as there is already someone in the squad with a pair.

The reason I need these done now is that they need to be packed up so I can ship them to Sheep to paint. I'm not sending the HW squads yet as I need to redo those, plus the Cyclops and Artillery crews are yet to be done as are the Rough Riders (if I do them at all).

Everything I am sending in this first batch...

Last minute I remembered Sheep asked me to send a couple of sample bases so he can more easily replicate them. So I knocked up a couple quickly.

Tomorrow I need to arrange collection and shipping. Joy.

I suppose I better update the State of Play:

As you can see all of the HW teams are now marked as unfinished.

I need to clean up the 3D prints I had done before I can do moulds. They are pretty rough but I should be able to sort them so they are usable.