Building a Diorama: Forge World Death Korps of Krieg - Before the Push

I've already written an article about my intentions when building my Before the Push Diorama, but I thought it might be interesting to look at the process I went through... with pictures.  

My original concept of the commissar giving last instructions to his men had been intended to be delivered from a low stage but my mind quickly jumped to doing something in a trench. But how to do that without forcing the viewer to look down on the tops of the heads of the miniatures???

I decided to go with a cross-section of a trench and hope to God that viewers knew what it was supposed to be.

I needed a base, which caused me a lot of trouble as I couldn't find one of the fancy display bases you see in Golden Demon anywhere! In the end I found a handy cake stand which fit the bill perfectly.

I made the wall of the trench using a block of cheese insulation foam which I cut to match the edge of the cake stand. At this point I laid out the men to see how it would look (very important).

Now it looked far too rigid obviously so I cut away at the foam to blend it down into a more natural trench-top. I wanted to have a look-out post so he needed a shelf to stand on high enough to give him a view.

To give an impression of depth I thought it would be nice to have a bunker entrance. I built the entrance from balsa wood then hollowed out deep enough so that, painted black, it would look like it went somewhere.

 To give the earthy texture, I add %£&"^ loads of multi-purpose filler mixed with gravel and PVA glue. I stuck razor wire in so that it went under the surface of the mud.

 Then dried it under a table lamp with Wilma keeping watch.

At this stage I worked towards making it a bit more "trenchy." The walls were made from fabric that I planned to paint with metallic colours. I cut them into small enough sections to make them look like sheets of metal. I had the "mud" overlap the tops of the barriers.

Now how to suggest the opposite wall of the trench without it actually being there...?

I went with piling up some barrels. It isn't perfect. But seeing the models clearly was a higher priority than perfectly representing a trench.

 And after adding a little rat amongst the barrels that was about it. It was time for painting!

 The mud was done in greys and browns and I also added some water effect for puddles. I did the metals in boltgun metal with the now unavailable Flesh Wash for rust.

Finally came the trickiness. I'd painted the Death Korps of Krieg separately with Adeptus Battle Grey, black wash, then up through the greys with bestial brown webbing, inked dark then highlighted up.

My friend Joao gave me some tough love, telling me my previous Death Korps weren't as well painted as I thought they were (bastard). But he was right and I went the extra mile on these guys.

The trickiness was positioning all the men so they were realistically listening to the commissar or getting on with making preparations. This took a while and I had to flatten a couple of spots on the ground to give some of them a good support where before there had been potholes. I used sand and glue for this.

Last of all I added a stub gun to the look-out position to look like it is off its stand, ready to be clipped into position.



It seemed rather criminal to me to "waste" expensive Forge World Death Korps models on a diorama and for a while I toyed with placing them on it on bases.. or maybe dismantling it after the competition.

Now I'm glad that never happened. this is probably the best piece I've ever done. My Tyrannosaurus Rex and Alpha Level Psykers, Goliath and Golgotha come close but I think they probably lose.

Comments and feedback will be gratefully received.

Please.

Spotlight On... Golgotha, Space Marine Alpha Level Psyker

A while ago I wrote a little blog about my Space Marine Alpha Level Psyker, Goliath... Well now it's time to meet his brother, Golgotha.

Like his brother, Golgotha is a member of my Crimson Blades Space Marine Chapter who developed incredible psychic powers and wound up being put in suspended animation until recent events required him to be resurrected.

 

He possesses incredible psychic might, far in excess of a Space Marine Librarian. Here we see him using the strength of his mind to lift balls of magma up from far underground before hurling them forward to explosive effect.

 

 

As I mentioned in my previous article, although both Psykers make nice display pieces, they function in the game as Baneblade Super Heavy Tanks - the armour representing psychic force fields and the weapons representing psychic blasts.

 

The large fireballs are made from ping pong balls, painted with a ripple effect from dark red up to orange and then yellow. The base is made from a mixture of gravel, sand, all-purpose powdered filler and PVA glue.

The smaller fireballs were made from little polystyrene balls I got from Hobbycraft. The smoke trail is made by a piece of stiff wire with clump foliage (basically tree foliage) glued onto it. I bought from a railway model shop. This was then dry brushed a few shades of grey.



Golgotha is actually standing on a levitated rock - it isn't that easy to tell.

I was going all out with this model because I was hoping to get a look-in at the Best Army award at a Tempus Fugitives event at Warhammer World. I didn't win.

But I did get nominated.

It's a pool of water at the front of the base. The idea is that bubbling steam is surrounding another magma ball being brought up from below. I like it (although the steam - made from clump foliage - doesn't look quite as I would have liked). Unfortunately three out of four people asked aren't sure what that part's supposed to be.

For Golgotha himself, I wanted a different look from his bare-chested brother - more regal and Librarian-like. He's made from various Dark Angels parts and was quite parts-expensive.

The rock he's standing on, by the way, is made from insulation foam.

I'm interested to hear any comments if you have any views...

Spotlight On... Goliath - Space Marine Alpha Level Psyker

Wanting to take my Dinosus Space Marine Battle Company up to 3,000 points for Apocalypse scale games, I decided to add two Baneblade super heavy tanks... with a difference.

What if, I reasoned, I built a diorama that was the same base dimensions as a Baneblade and had all the same abilities but was something else... something kind of cool.

Alpha Level Psykers are beings in the background to Warhammer 40,000 that possess dangerous and lethally powerful psychic abilities. One man could be as powerful as a super heavy tank...

Goliath, a simple Space Marine from the Crimson Blades chapter develops these incredible powers and is put in suspended animation until he is needed. Here we see him levitating in a lightning field he has generated.

He moves like a Baneblade and can shoot out a vast number of psychic blasts each turn equivalent to the weapons on a Baneblade: Battle Cannon thingie, demolisher cannon, lascannons and heavy bolters.

The psychic shields he can throw up are equivalent to the armour and structure points of the Baneblade.

And if he gets killed? A roll on the Catastrophic Damage table is equivalent to his powers going wildly out of control in his death throes.

Best of all, because he is the same size as a Baneblade and uses all the official rules, my opponents tend to let me use him without complaint. He isn't some uber character whose stats I've invented; he's a perfectly legal miniature!

Watch this space to see my other Alpha level Psyker... Golgotha... coming soon.

Incidentally, it's crossed my mind to build these and sell them for people on order. If anyone is interested then let me know...

Now, if you liked this guy then take a look at his brother: Golgotha!

Spotlight On... Felix Wulf & Rex

Quite a few years ago I decided that I wanted to do something particularly different with my space marines. It took me some time to come up with the idea and a few years more to clean it up until it was presentable. Then a couple more years before it was a legal army. Take a look at the centrepiece model:

The Dinosus Second Battle Company was born with Space Marine Commander, Felix Wulf, and his faithful Tyrannosaur, Rex.

Here's Felix with he Quake Clubs. I used Ogre clubs on Terminator Power Fists. In the game they count as lightning claws if I take him off the base (he's on pins so he can fit on a normal base). I wanted the look of the diorama to be Felix running up this big plank thing while Rex looked round to see what was coming.

Rex was bought at a toy shop in Oxford. He cost over £18 but he was so much better than the bheap one I'd been using before I had to splurge out. That plume of his is made from a plastic flying stand and loads of tiny pointed strips of paper. The armour plates are made of thick cardboard bent into a curve. Believe it or not, he came with a fully posable mouth!

It was on this base that I pioneered the colour scheme that went on to be the colour of the bases in all my armies and on my war board: Overlapping patches of slack, scorched brown, bestial brown, bubonic brown and bleached bone. You'll notice there's razor wire round Rex's ankles. All the better to prevent those pesky assaults.

Click on the picture to make it bigger and take a close look at what's between his toes...

I used quite a few parts from different kits to add detail to these guys. I'm quite pleased with the cybernetic attachment on Rex's eye. That was the sensor from a Landspeeder.

Quick question for you: What's that red area near the bottom left there? It's meant to be a light but the number of people who haven't guessed that was a bit disappointing. Ah well, what can you do?

The only question remaining is how can this guy possibly fit into a Space Marine army...

Well, I used the rules for Chaos Space Marines for my feral Dinosus Battle Company. This guy counts as a Daemon Prince. Although to be honest the base is preposterously overszed and works against me tactically. And if I have Felix on foot using the rules for a Chaos Lord he's actually a better miniature to have and much harder to kill.

But hey! I didn't do it to be good in the game. Sometimes you have an idea and you just have to follow where it leads...

Spotlight On... Before the Push

The manager of my local Games Workshop store told me they were running a unit painting competition. I was never one for competitions really but I thought, what the heck! I had just bought the new Tyranid Trygon and thought I'd do that for the competition. But bad luck, the entry had to be a unit of infantry!

Deciding to do something special - the best I possibly could do - I ordered a unit of Forge World Death Korps of Krieg models standing at ease and Before the Push was born!

The idea here (hopefully obviously) is that the infantrymen are getting a last minute pep talk from their commissar before climbing out of their trench going over the top.

The punch line to the story is that they cancelled the infantry painting competition and replaced it with a Trygon painting competition.

I had to wait for the better part of a year before they ran another infantry competition and handed it in to win first prize!

Ah the glory! Would that there had been more than one entry in my category!

The diorama has been on display in the local GW since April and now, finally, I’ve got it home to where it belongs.

The bulk of the diorama is made out of insulation foam covered in multi-purpose filler. I used GW razorwire, a GW ladder and barrels & petrol cans from a military model shop. The metal braces holding back the trench wall are actually fabric that I got from The Range.