Monday, 15 December 2008

The Dark Oppressors


I have my first batch of 'beakies' painted up. No mk7 Imperator armour for me, no sirree! These are the first nine (not sure why I painted nine instead of ten but there you go) of about 50 beakies I have waiting to be painted. Most of the plastics are stripped down from my old Blood Angels army I played under RT rules, before there were rules for death company and blod sucking librarians. The metals I have scrounged off ebay, mainly on the cheap but it seems there is a bit of a racket on oop minis nowadays, probably because of people like me.

I have a sketched out background for the chapter- the Dark Oppressors. Founded from Dark Angel geneseed 250 years ago, the chapter has struggled to gain its honour and recognition. Their combat doctrine is characterised by swift and brutal action (nothing new there for Astartes then) and they have seen much action in suppressing mutant hordes and rogue psykers, often being used as an internal force of subjugation. So for 40k v5 this means they will have the traits of 'cleanse and purify' and 'have faith in suspicion'. This stern and zealous practice has got the chapter into trouble, and during a recent pacification in the Damocles Gulf the third battle company got a 'little' over zealous in rooting out the xenos threat and launched a purge of Imperial citizens considered to have fraternised with the Tau invaders. The casualties that resulted almost caused further insurrection in the politically sensitive climate.

The Dark Oppressors have thereby identified themselves as a blunt instrument of warfare. By way of apology the Master has seconded the third battle company to the next Rogue Trader expedition to the Eastern Fringe, and they await orders....

2 comments:

Admiral Drax said...

If you don't mind me asking, mate: I've had some trouble stripping old plastic (beret-wearing) stormtrooper models - they went a bitt too melty!

What did you use, please, to strip these bad boys?

- Drax

Eggmarine said...

Thanks Drax, for metal i use Nitromors, very effective and pretty unpleasant stuff which obliterates plastics. For stripping old plastics I expiermented and have found the best thing is 'pine' type disinfectant.

In the UK there is a brand of 'Savlon' disinfectant but generally the cheaper the better (I got my last bottle from a pound shop) generic brand. It's a yellowish brown fliud and stinks of pine trees/ hospitals. I think in the States there is a brand called 'Pinesol' which is the same stuff but coloured green.

I normally soak the minis for a few days then wash the gunk off with warm water and a tooth brush, I have left some plastics in my stripping bath for 14 months as an experiment and there is some discolouring but the plastic is ok, so this stuff is good enough to remove acyrlics but benign enough to save your Stormtroopers :) If the first application is not enough, simply repeat the process.

One word of warning, this method used on enamel paints tends to make some disgusting greasy gunk that is hard, but not impossible to remove, so enamels on plastic can be tricky.

Come to think of it i should do an article on this.

ps thanks for being my first commenter, nice to know someone is reading my ramblings :)