Now defunct I did once start a Krieg army for Warhammer 40k
Sorry to say this project is no longer on going
Well as some of the you folks around here know I’m quite the fan of military history and a avid player of Warhammer 40000 (40k) produced by games workshop,
So with the release of the Death Korp of Krieg figures last year I knew I just had to collect a army of them, being a cross over between World War I German troops and the gothic sci-fi setting of 40K.
So a plan was forming in my mind to build a Apocalypse size army, starting with the basics of a HQ and two troop choices from the standard 40K organization charts and building up the force from there....
Just before Christmas I started planning out my buying schedule and writing up a army list, I really wanted to maximize my buying power by getting free shipping from Forgeworld so that would mean spending at least £250 on each order, so a cunning plan worthy of Black adder would need to be dreamt up, also I’m scouring e-bay daily looking for bargains to be snapped up to cheaply extend the Korp.
21/01/2008 - Let the recruitment drive begin !
Referring to the DKOK army list in Imperial Armour 5 I would need four squads of troops, two platoon command squads and a command HQ squad just to fill the mandatory slots and to form the base of a legal 40K army, so calculator in hand I went onto the Forgeworld website and started browsing to see what I could get for about £250 (yay free shipping!) which includes the basic units I need to get going.
After a lot of decision making I settled on the following
- 1 Command HQ squad
- 2 Platoon HQ squads
- 2 Infantry squads with grenade launchers
- 2 Infantry squads with flamers
- 3 Las cannon teams
- 3 Auto cannon teams
With the pre Christmas rush Forgeworld have been over whelmed by orders so I didn’t hold out much hope of getting anything until the new year let alone in the week before Christmas, but alas Forgeworld works in mysterious days having ordered on a Friday I was more than a little shocked when at 7 am Saturday morning the posty was banging on the door with a large brown parcel for me.
Checking the contents they had part shipped my order the platoon HQs and heavy weapon teams were missing and would follow on some time in the future.
Get Scrubbing you……
After checking everything was in order and I had no major mis-casts it's important to give everything a thorough cleaning before glueing a single thing.
I set about the age old routine of scrubbing the models with a tooth brush in a mix of hot water and plain old Fairy Liquid to get rid of any mould release agents that often lurk on resin figures, as a plus they now smell lemony fresh!
I have to say the level of detail that Forgeworld pack into their figures is pretty amazing, just looking at the bayonet and entrenching tool harness I’m astounded as to how they manage to cast loops where all common sense says it is impossible, I suppose that’s the joy of silicon moulding that it has a lot of flexibility allowing for a lot of undercuts on the figures.
Construction was pretty easy on the infantry, just glue on two corresponding arms (these are marked on the sprues they come attached on), I decided not to attach the backpacks as they would hinder painting, every Korpsman had a entrenching tool added , a bayonet was also attached to the las-gun if one was not present on their webbing, a random sprinkling of grenades and ammo packs were also glued on at this point.
Once the glue had dried and gaps between bodies and arms were filled in with a small amount of greenstuff, actually on the subject of green stuff DON’T but it from GW as they are massively overpriced, from GW you get a bout 6” strip for £5, I buy mine from Heresy Miniatures and it’s a damn sight cheaper as 36” strip is only £10!
Problems!
I only encountered few issues while assembling the infantry, the first was not realizing the arms are in matched pairs which lead to a lot of head scratching as I tried to figure out what was the best fit from the pile or appendages I had cut from the sprues.
Next was a large amount of flash on one of the las-guns which required a lot of trimming up and the lose of a little detail on the cooling rings at the base of the weapons barrel, nothing to major and it won’t really be noticed mixed in with all the other troopers.
The last issue I had was that the brass rod provided for the standard bearer was to short but a little rummaging in the garage provided me with a alternative, so no real biggie there.
Basing the figures was pretty much a no brainer, with my planned trench table I had to be a muddy quagmire type of setting, easily accomplished by using the following items and steps
You will need
- Some Polyfilla (or similar product)
- Sand and gravel
- PVA glue
- Some match sticks
- Some fine wire
- Superglue
First of is to mix up a batch of Polyfilla with a little PVA glue added to the mix, I find this helps with the adhesion to bases, slop this lot onto your base and squish it around with whatever you have to hand (cocktail sticks are hand here) try to make a lot of little depressions, once happy with this sprinkle a small amount of sand/gravel over the top the aim being to add a little texture to the base and not to completely cover it.
To add some variety to the basses some extras can be added such as discarded equipment (Dk sprues have some lovely las gun ammo packs), larger rocks, or my favourite is home made barb wire on posts this is easy to make as I’ll later demonstrate in a modelling article.
All the back packs got glued onto paperclips in preparation for undercoating, once I had based up all the models they were then given a undercoat of Halfords matt black spray, I’ve found this stuff to be the best spray paint I have ever used as it adheres to anything and gives a great base to paint upon.
Laying down some Colours
I already knew what colours I wanted my infantry to be painted in going for a look very much like WW1 German infantry, I settled upon the following colours
Helm and armour –
Trousers – grey
Weapons – grey
Webbing – light tan
Equipment packs – us field drab
Rebreather box – grey
Gas mask – reflective green
Trench coat – Leather brown/English uniform
All the paints used are from the Vallejo model colour range (I'll get the correct names and colour numbers soon), I switched over to these a couple of years ago and find them to be fantastic paints with a better colour selection than GW, superior style dropper bottle and economical with more in each bottle for less cost so all round winning situation
I won’t really add much to the painting about the figures as I intend to do this in a separate article, large areas received a few highlights and everything else received washes to add depth, one thing I will add is that I have become a great fan of a floor polish called Klear made by Johnsons, mixing it 20/80 with water makes a great bases for washes and using straight from the bottle creates super shiny effects.
After painting up all the troops I realized something was missing, yes you guessed it MUD! Now mud is a very interesting thing to model worth of a article all on its own (at a later time) .
But for the time being I’ll skim over how I applied mine.
First of go and buy some MIG productions weathering powders, yes they are a little pricey to get a decent selection to start with but once you start using them you will never look back, for simulating mud, dust, rust, smoke stains and dirt nothing else comes close to them.
First of I mixed up some dry mud coloured pigment with matte varnish and applied this with a nasty old frayed brush to all the lower parts of the infantry, aiming to create splatters where mud had dried on their coats, after this had dried I then mixed up some wet med with Russian earth pigments plus matt varnish and applied this to the lower areas of the figures simulating fresher mud that is starting to dry.
Next I mixed up some plaster, Russian earth pigment and MIG acrylic resin, the resulting gloopy mix was added to the very base of the trench coats and all over the models feet as it is very dark mix and dries to a semi gloss finish it’s perfect for fresh wet mud.
The bases where painted with a mix of browns and once dried received some special treatment, I mixed up some PVA glue with a little water and a tiny drop of brown paint, this was liberally applied to most of the base to simulate pools of rank water once set Johnsons Klear was applied in a thick coat and left to dry to make everything look wet.
Expanding the Korps
As I have a existing Hellhound has been added to the first phase of this project bringing me up to about 980 points and fulfils the force organization charts, not a bad start and I can add some equipment here and there to beef out the HQs.
The Hellhound was painted in only a couple of hours, once undercoated it was airbrushed a two tone grey camo pattern, some details picked out by hand such as the bedroll, flamer nozzle and ID marking. I then applied random chips using a scouring pad dipped in Vallejo Hull red, some of the chips then had a small streak of gunmetal applied where the paint has completely been worn away down to the bare hull.
I then literally went crazy with the pigment powders in the same manner as the infantry and left it all to dry, all I have left to do is apply a coat of matt varnish and its ready to hit the battlefield.
Onto EBay
I have been lucky enough to nab a bargain on eBay of a infantry squad with flamer and three heavy stubber teams and three las cannon teams, they’ve only recently arrived so still need constructing.
28/01/2008 Update
Well the Las-cannon and Stubber teams are assembled, unfortunately I do not have enough large bases to mount all the stubber teams on so will have to order them direct from GW (more expenses) as the local store doesn't have any either.
On a positive note my two new earthshakers should be arriving tomorrow from netmerchants, two shiny new AFV club M115 8in Howitzers along with a box of AFV155mm & 203mm Howitzer Rounds & Stowage Cases. I've also ordered two artillery crew sets from Forgeworld so this little lot should keep me busy for a few weeks.
30/1/2008 Update
Well a few nice surprises yesterday my M115s have turned up along with my last 3 las-cannon teams from Forgeworld so that’s everything from phase one, I just need to order two artillery crews and I'm set.
Also picked up a new camera a Nikon d40x and gave it a test drive, the following are some test shots taken in low light last night and just cropped from the original images without any further manipulation.
Tonight I'm going to start work on building the two earth shakers along with a my three las cannon teams, I'll be taking a lot of shots along the way with to test my camera and to post up here in a new article about converting the M115s and how I paint my Death Korps troops.
04/02/2008
Placed another order from Forgeworld last night for 3 commissars, 2 artillery crew and a quarter master, gives me some beautiful character models to spruce up the painting schedule.
I have managed to build one complete M115/earthshaker and will start the other tonight, I just need to add some imperial iconography.
On a more annoying note seems like GW have stopped the parts ordering service so I am going to have to cast up some basses for my heavy weapons teams (and need some for my angels dreadnoughts) quite why they have done this is really beyond me!
So I'll have the following complete in the next few weeks
- 1 command squad with commissar
- 2 platoon command squads with commissars
- 1 quartermaster with retinue
- 3 squads with flamers
- 2 squads with grenade launchers
- 3 heavy stubber weapon teams
- 3 auto cannon teams
- 6 las-cannon teams
- 2 earth shakers with 10 crew
- 1 hellhound
That's 104 fully painted infantry 2 artillery pieces, 12 heavy weapons and one vehicle a pretty respectable force to start with coming in close to 1700 points.
29/05/2008
Well it's been sometime since I update this log but I have been busy, last week saw the arrival of some new equipment for the growing Korps, The rather large box that the postman delivered (well that I picked up from the post office actually) had the following crammed inside
- 3 Quad launchers and crew
- 1 bombard
- 1 manticore
- 1 squad of engineers
- 3 Heavy mortars and crew (to follow on)
I've also added two bren gun carriers from Tamiya that I will be converting up as centaurs to carry my grenadiers.
Also picked up a resing kit of a German WW2 mortar to count6 as a heavy mortar.
Ebay has been kind to me and I have picked up the following in the intervening months
- 1 grenadier squad
- 1 grenadier heavy flamers
- 2 troops squads
Pretty much completing the army for the time being, I currently building all this lot and then plan to have a mammoth couple of weeks painting and see how far I get
19/05/2008
I have posted up a couple of shots showing 360 degree views of some miniatures under much better lighting conditions than earlier shots.
