[stuff]

Thousand Sons - Pyrae Warband - Armies on Parade

This year I am going to enter the "Armies on Parade" competition in the UK. I am going to complete a Thousand Sons army based around the Pyrase cult. Here is what I found about them on Warhammer 40k Wiki:

"Pyrae - The Pyrae were pyrokinetics, meaning that they had developed the ability to both generate and control fire, the power for which was drawn from the Warp. The Pyrae could both generate lethal bursts of fire from their bodies that they could shape into a number of different forms, including projectiles fired from their hands as well as fire shields that could hold back foes and melt away incoming weapons fire. The Pyrae could manipulate existing or standing sources of fire and with their connection to the Warp could lower the temperature of flames striking their own bodies or the bodies of others, effectively making them immune to the effects of fire or great heat. The Pyrae also developed secondary psychic abilities that allowed them to control and manipulate mechanical automata like the robots of the Legio Cybernetica and even the massive Titans of the Collegia Titanica. These secondary abilities were known as technopathy. The Cult badge of the Pyrae was a phoenix wreathed in flames."

So... Guys that can control fire are generaly total badasses. My army is going to be a warband containing members of the Pyrae cult and hence there will be a theme involving flames etc throughout and use of the cult badge, a phoenix wreathed in flames (excellent opportunity to develope my freehand skills).

As the army has to be displayed on a 2ft. x 2ft. board, I am also going to use this as an opportunity to make some kick ass scenery. Here is the picture I uploaded on my other log with a quick idea of what sort of thing I am going for with the board. The egyptian theme will stick but I will definitely be adding some more fire or lava somewhere given the cult idea.

As it is a Thousand Sons army my "obliterators" are going to be some kick ass sorcerer terminators. Here is the picture from my other log. Think the new grey knight halberds might be of some use here! Or maybe even something from the new Tomb Kings...

Pyrae Warband

HQ
- Daemon Prince (saw a cool idea involving the island of blood griffon somewhere online...)

Troops
-Thousand Sons + Sorcerer
-Thousand Sons + Sorcerer

Heavy Support
-3x Obliterator/sorcerers
-Predator

Summoned Daemons
-Horrors

Might add another tank of some sort if I have the cash or time before the whole project needs to be finished.

So far I have modelled a sorcer to lead one of the units of thousand sons and the predator. The sorcerer has the sword from my (very)old abaddon model and the predator has parts from the OOP chaos predator, all of which had been stripped.

For the sorcerer, i cut the left thigh section out and repositioned it more dramatically with greenstuff. The cloak was made from greenstuff. The rock is just a stone from my garden. Backpack has the vents cut off and replaced with gargoyle type heads from the chaos vehicle accessory sprue. The hands were repositioned and pinned and the sword was drilled and pinned through both of the models hands. Think I need a pommel of some sort for the end of the sword...

The sponsons and turret were mounted on 2mm plasticard. Think I may add some flaming torches or something to the pred.

What you all think?!?!

 

[Muffinman]

I really like what you've done so far with the the tank and I love the GS work on the Sorcerer. Though I do find that the sword looks a little awkward, I don't know if it's the pose of the size but to me it it just doesn't look right.
Keep up the good work though and I'm lookin forwards to seeing this finished.

 

[Dave T Hobbit]

Good work on the repositioned leg. I especially like that you have moulded a joint at the hip.

 

[The Wraithlord]

Woot another Thousand Sons player

I like the conversion work so far, certainly nothing to complain about. What colours are you thinking of using for the army?

 

[StalkerZero]

I really like the converted robe/cape. It'll definitely give them a bit more of a distinct look on the table.

 

[123]

Consider these for the obliterators:

http://sciborminiatures.com/en_,shop.php?art=910

 

[stuff]

Quick update.

Thanks for the positive comments!

@ The Wraithlord: I am still testing the colour scheme but I have a couple of schemes to choose from. First one i had was a regal blue basecoat, blending up to ice blue, looks pretty nice but takes a very long time for me, time which I don't really have. Other options are either necron abyss or mordian blue with enchanted blue then ice blue highlights (much less time consuming!). Gold for the armour trims of course! Will be posting pictures of the different schemes this week hopefully!

@123:unfortunately the rules for the Armies on Parade competition state that all models have to be citadel miniatures of scratch built. Although I might get some of them anyway for later.

 

[forkmaster]

It looks like your Predator is sealed off from the outside world, is it kinda the same idea with the tanks like the Astartes? Sealed off and only dust within?

 

[stuff]

@forkmaster: hadn't actually thought about it like that, but I think that idea works pretty well so I will go along with it!

Right, the other day my island of blood griffon I ordered of ebay arrived. It is basically going to form major parts of my daemon prince. I am using the head, wings and legs from the griffon and the arms, torso and tabard from the plastic daemon prince kit (which I haven't actually bought yet...). I am replacing the pawed feet from the griffon's hind legs with the bird-like claws from the front legs.

Hope this gives you an idea about where this conversion is going!

I have done a wee bit of work deciding about the colour scheme!! This one is just regal blue blended up into ice blue with a pure ice blue highlight.

I tried a second one with mordian blue and ice blue highlights but I don't like it much. I am going to try the necron abyss with enchanted blue highlight and a more extreme ice blue highlight once i have the paints... should be a lot quicker than blending every single model in my army.

 

[forkmaster]

@forkmaster: hadn't actually thought about it like that, but I think that idea works pretty well so I will go along with it!

Youre welcome! Glad I could be of service. ^^

 

[wombat_tree]

The paint scheme looks great, if you can paint the whole army like that you'll have a very cool force indeed!

 

[imm0rtal reaper]

This is a great start. I'm really looking forward to seeing it progress.

 

[stuff]

As much as I like the previous colour scheme it is way too time consuming for the amount of time I have for the hobby unfortunately..

Here is how the pred is turning out so far! The rest of the army is probably going to be painted in a pretty similar scheme.

 

[Dave T Hobbit]

TRON!

More sensibly, that is impressive dedication to edge-highlighting.

I am not sure about the highlighting on the chips in the front plate; it looks a little odd being lighter than the surrounding areas.

 

[Hammer49]

The edge highlighting looks very good. I have to agree with Dave T Hobbit that the chips at the front look slightly odd. Maybe you could make it alot darker inside the chip.

Look forward to seeing more.

 

[stuff]

I darkened down the chips and added some boltgun metal too them as mentioned! Cheers guys!

Just finished the "A Thousand Sons" black library book, makes me think the Pyrae are even more bad ass!! According to the novel and what I have found, the cult's symbol is a "phoenix wreathed in flames" so I have made my first attempt at some freehand and painted my interpretation of the symbol on my predator. I followed Xenobiotic's method for painting the free hand on his tanks. I am pretty pleased with the result so thank you very much Xenobiotic! So here we go, first (maybe) finished model! The predator!

Painting the blue:

• Basecoat of Necron Abyss. Applied in a couple of thin layers.
• Enchanted Blue edge highlight.
• Ice Blue edge highlight.

Painting the metal parts:

• Boltgun Metal basecoat.
• Heavy wash of Badab Black.
• Chainmail highlights.
• For the tank tracks, the Chainmail highlight was drybrushed due to my laziness.

Gold/Brass trims and details:

• Dwarf Bronze basecoat.
• 1:1 mis of Dwarf Bronze and Mithril Silver to all but the recesses.
• Heavy wash of Devlan Mud.
• Pure Mithril Silver was used for very fine highlights.

Green lights:

• Basecoat of Dark Angels Green.
• successive layers of Dark Angels Green + Goblin Green, adding more goblin green each layer.
• Pure Goblin Green.
• Goblin Green + Skull White.
• Skull White with a tiny miniscule volume of Goblin Green.

I think my edge highlighting could be neater and a more consistent thickness over the whole model. I was originally intending to go for the same slightly OTT edge highlighting across the whole army but I'm not so sure I will anymore as the necron abyss paint isn't as dark as I thought and I didn't really quite achieve the look I was originally going for but overall I am pretty pleased with the way it all turned out!

One thing I am considering is purchasing some forgeworld weathering powders to dirty it up a bit. I haven't decided entirely what sort of board I am going to have the army on so will wait until I have decided on that for sure before choosing the weathering powder.

So what you guys all think?!

 

[Maidel]

All looks really nice - only thing I can say is that the phoenix isnt central to the armour plate...

But I am sure you already knew that.

What did you use as a referance for that phoenix - ive seen a really similar one on an art website.

 

[stuff]

Yeah I was going to mention that the phoenix wasn't central but forgot. It was central originally but it's right wing didn't look quite right so I painted over it with the blue and re-did it and now it is much closer to the edges and makes it way off centre unfortunately.

I just googled phoenix and it came up! not sure what the site is. It isn't identical to the image but you can tell it is where I got the idea

 

[sanguinius noob]

that looks amazing! good to see its not all revision right now..

seriously though it looks ace, and the off centre thing is barely noticeable. keep painting!

 

[jlaughter001]

Awesome. I absolutely -love- the Phoenix, very nice. Also, excellent work on the conversions for your sorcerer guy...makes me want to get some green stuff and experiment. But not today. No...not today.