Space Marine Librarian

I've been off the painting wagon for a while, but now that I'm fully moved into my new digs, and I have my hobby desk fully set up, it's time to start putting in some work.

One of my many outstanding tasks was to complete the Space Marine Librarian I picked up when the new codex came out. I put a solid few hours into him during a painting day at Gunzhard's Attic Wars mega man-cave (not to be confused with the gay porn of the same title). Since then he's languished in a box, waiting patiently for me to get my shit together.

First of all, the new plastic librarian kit is tits. I know, it comes with a weird, creepy diaper-less robo-baby sidekick. I'm not sure what the deal with that thing is. It's still sitting in my bits box if some registered sex offender/gamer has a pedo-mechanicus army they want to kit bash together (I may beat you up before I give you the bit, FYI). Aside from that, the model has fantastic detail, and is in a cool pose. It is clearly intended for use as a potential Tigurius stand-in for anyone who doesn't already have that model. The old version is showing its age, in my opinion the new one is far superior.

I tried two experiments with this dude: (1.) using Caliban Green as the base for the blue librarian armor, and (2.) creating a glowing skull on his force weapon that uses object source lighting (OSL).

The green base for the armor looks great. In the past I used reds or just black as to create a shadow that contrasted with the blues that make up the rest of the armor. I think the green works a little bit better, and ties him in with the scheme for the rest of my marines--although my army is painted as Dark Angels I've use the Space Marine Codex since I started with the army back in the beginning of 5th edition (except for a short period after the new 'dex came out, before I figured out that it is a total piece of dog shit).

I'm pleased with his force weapon as well. The glowing effect is one I've wanted to try for some time. On the skull I blended pure white, to ice blue, fenris gray, and finally black. It took a bit of back and forth to get the effect I wanted, but that is usually the case with wet blending. The glow itself is pure white. I may expand it a but further down the weapon shaft and onto his armor.

WIP: Grey Knight Librarian

To follow on the heels of the Dr. Ew's Archon, I've got some shots of my favorite HQ unit from the Grey Knights codex. I love the flexibility of the Librarians (in all marine codex's) and I especially love the synergy he provides to a Grey Knights force.

So without further ado...

I loved the pose of the classic Terminator Librarian from GW but I preferred the style of the Grey Knight Terminators so I tried to mimic the pose that was so interesting to me.

(image property of Games Workshop)

Since he's just a composite of Grey Knight parts I wanted to add a little classic Librarian iconography to make look the part a bit more. I followed a tutorial Ron posted on From The Warp a while back and after a few trial runs on the side of an old Leman Russ I had a pretty successful result.

I also tried to add some gold touches to the Stormbolter to make it look like his wargear is a little more embellished than the rest of his battle brothers.

You can see his book of Secrets he keeps on fanny pack, and the skull of a daemon that he's attached to his shoulder since he's a show-off.

Finally, here are a few shots of the current progress on his force weapons. So far I've only begun work on the halberd since that's how I normally run him on the table, but I have a warding stave that's in progress too. I put a small magnet in his wrist on the arm as well as in each of these to weapon hands. The piece of brass rod prevents the hands from falling off if he gets bumped in the course of moving him around the table top.

(Sorry some of these are so blurry, I used my phone)

I've got some more details to finish up on him but I'm really happy with how he's coming along. Now just the small task of painting 20 more terminators and 40 more marines and I'll be close to done.

Iron Hands Terminator Librarian

Just a few work in progress photos of my terminator librarian (with storm shield).  He accompanies my shooty terminator squad and Lysander and acts as their ride using Gate of Infinity.

As you can see he's the first terminator that I've done hard line highlighting on, and I like it.  It will probably cause me to revisit all my older terminators to make them match.  I'll probably go ahead and base him so I can call him done.

The weapon is from the Grey Knights, and the storm shield is from Space Wolves

Iron Hands Battle Report

I recently played a NOVA Open practice game against Joe.  It was a great game with a total of 10 dreadnoughts on the table.  The rest of his army was a bunch of Raven Guard bikers, which was a good match against my more static shooty Iron Hands.  Instead of writing a battle report I decided to refer you to the excellent report he wrote: http://www.joesavestheday.com/2011/08/more-nova-practice-raven-guard-vs-iron.html

End of turn one, the Librarian and Terminator Squad used Gate of Infinity to jump right in front of the opposing force

Unfortunately his Ironclad wiffed the back shot on my plasma cannon dreadnought

Birds-eye view of the battle

The Terminators took the shooting from most of his force leaving the Librarian standing alone, so he assaulted the scouts solo

You can see his bikers behind the hill on the left and my other tactical squad in the woods on the right

There were lots of dreadnought on dreadnought assaults

His Captain in the bottom right managed to run my tactical squad off the board after a couple of crack shots by Telion took out the Master of the Forge and Sergeant

Iron Hands Progress

Well it's starting to look like these guys will actually be done for the NOVA Open in August.  It's a good feeling. Here are some photos to back it up...

Counts-as Master of the Forge

aka "The Terminator"

Showing off his forge world power fist

Librarian

He's also got some forge world bionics

The librarian blue is on the cape

I think I'll call him Sergeant Awesome

Sporting a forge world combi-flamer

He's actually backup - in case I want to swap a flamer for a meltagun

Accessorize!

The Librarian needed a little something to set him apart so I decided to give him a psychic hood/roll-bar.  He may get an "It's a Jeep thing" bumper sticker if he's not careful.

Libby

I also upgraded one of my terminators to cyclone duty.

Can't have too many missiles...

Iron Hands New Recruits - Librarian and Sergeant

WIP photos of a couple new Iron Hands recruits.  He'll round out the HQ, now I just need a few special and heavy weapons tacticals and the troops will be complete too.

Iron Hands Librarian

Librarian

Tactical Sergeant

Tactical Sergeant