I Could Finish the Plaguebearers ...

... or I could start a brand new project. "Should" has no place in this conversation.

Thanks, Games Workshop! Good-bye, project discipline!

Knights are super-cool. Big stompy robits? Oh, yes please. I have a FW conversion kit I bought second hand, but until recently I wasn't really in a position to drop $150 on a plastic robit, no matter how fracking amazing it was. But then this dropped, along with an even bigger, burnier robit kit (and a steal at only $170 United States!), and my new job started up ... and here we are.

Partially assembled legs for Knight Dominus Valiant. The base is in-box stock,
cork board, and a Forge World scenic base for Perturabo.

I was frankly far too eager to start this project, and I suspect I'll have to do some retroactive fixing so this model is a little more stable — the robot legs are perhaps a fifth as heavy as the base itself, meaning that you're asking for trouble if you pick the model up by the crotch. Since that's the natural place to reach for ... well, I'm sure that's going to result in sadness at some point.

Model above, but with partially complete torso and carapace.

(Apologies for the rough photo quality. I was so happy to be throwing this together that I didn't take enough photos to make sure that my tremble-sensitive, auto-dumb-focus smartphone got a few decent shots. I did get a Casey, though, looking pensively into the middle distance.)

I'm doing minimal alterations to this guy for three reasons: First, my fluff for this guy is that Nurglings infested his knight's machine spirit, and they've been slowly haywiring the voices of his ancestors. He's still convinced that he's a loyalist, which means it'd be a stretch to justify stretched skins, chains, spikes, bells, etc.

Second, I know myself well enough to know that I'd go absolutely berserk on a full conversion of this guy (see my decimator). I'm not looking to get into a 4-month project right now; I'm still sure I can paint an entire army by the end of the year, and a full-Chaos dominus detour would destroy the viability of that goal. I can always pick up a second Valiant if I really want to go to town at some point.

Third, I have a paint technique I want to try out that'd achieve a good 80% of the Chaos-style effect that I want on this guy. Having tons of gribblies would both dilute that effect and make it more difficult to pull off.

I will be getting a standard knight at some point, mostly to use the Chaos conversion kit I have lying around. A friend of mine is offloading a fully converted Nurgle knight, as well, so I fully expect to have a separate talon, converted and painted, by next July (the one in 12 months from now).

But looking at the present:

Fully assembled, primed, and — if you look carefully — gribbled ever-so-slightly with a splash of fine sand and PVC glue.

Next time: Teal.