Looking for help characterizing some Grey Knights figures.

[80Maxwell08]

Ok recently a local game shop had a sale for $10 off any one item in the store. I was looking to buy some Warhammer 40000 figures for a while (not to play the game just for something cool on my desk since I like the universe) and decided to buy a set of Grey Knights Terminators since they looked the coolest to me and I know the background of the Grey Knights and like them the most of all the Space Marine chapters (please don't hate me I don't know everything about every chapter). However buying these put me into debt with my parents (I'm 18 without a job just graduated high school a few months ago) so I can't afford the paints or tools to put them together so right now I have a very awesome looking box with very awesome pieces in it. So I decided before I would put them together I would try to characterize them for the fun of it and so pieces could be put into place that would fit their personalities (like having a guy who hates close combat getting the heavy weapon versus a guy that hates a lot of gore getting the thunder hammer). However I decided that leaving all of them to be characterized by me would probably leave them all being very similar and then boring so here I am asking you to do the work for me. I'm going to try to define one of them myself but I'm unsure if I want to do the leader or just one of the group. So here you are so if any of you want to help write the characteristics of one of my figurines (I would prefer one per person so it stays diverse if possible) then it would be appreciated. They tend to be very militaristic even among the Space Marines such as their recruits getting a number instead of a name and exist solely to hunt the forces of Chaos. For those of you who don't know their weapon load-outs I'll post them under this but I am going to have limits for what I have. I'll try to explain what the more confusing sounding weapons do so hopefully that won't be an issue. Also if I miss anything in describing them (also I just meant to give enough details to get a general feel of them) then please post it below. Thank you for all of your time and characters.

The Incinerator is just a very powerful flame thrower but like the Sisters of Battle the Grey Knights view flamethrowers as purifying evil so its treated as cleaning something of evil when using it.
The Psilencer is a weapon that is fired entirely through the power of the user's mind and it also does more damage to daemons.
The Psycannon is the most powerful (in raw power I think its hard reading game information without the actual manual to judge) of the heavy weapons. Unfortunately they are not described much in the Grey Knights codex so if anyone has more info it would be appreciated.
Krak grenades are meant to deal with enemy vehicles and Psyk-out grenades are used to stun daemons of psykers.
The Warding Stave is a defensive weapon which ups the wielder's resilience against his enemies' attacks.
The Brotherhood Banner increases the morale and damage of the squad and they are usually fanatic about holding it to the point where even slightly dropping it could be considered a sin among them.

All units can carry a combo pack of Frag & Krak grenades, Frag and Psyk-out grenades, or Krak and Psyk-out grenades.
All units have storm bolters equipped automatically from the beginning but one can choose to equip a Incinerator, Psilencer, or Psycannon.
All of them can choose between a halberd, sword, or dual falchions for melee weapons.
One unit can choose to wield a Daemon hammer for a melee weapon.
One unit can choose to wield a warding staff (more defensive) for a melee weapon.
One unit can choose to hold a Brotherhood Banner.

 

[SckizoBoy]

GREEN STUFF!!

Actually, I hate the stuff... but seeing as how you don't have much by way of other kits, I can't really recommend what I usually do, which is snip up 'bitz', cannibalise other kits and pose my guys (standing on Ork heads, blowing an Eldar's head off etc.).

Battle damage is generally an easy one to do, though.

 

[Thaluikhain]

They have numbers instead of names now? Gah, no wonder I gave up on GW.

IIRC, terminators each get their own heraldry, on shields attached to their armour, that might be something to look into.

Maybe sticking some Bretonnian bits in, or maybe those fancy Blood Angel honour guard.

 

[Phyaran]

Guys I think he means characterise them rather than customise them, i.e. come up with some ideas for who they are, which then influences how they should be posed/armed.

What I always like to do when posing my models is try to challenge stereotypes/intuitive characters. When I made my custom Blood Angels honour guard for example, I gave the medic a snarling aggressive face (medics stereotypically are the caring, less blood-thirsty types), and the squad champion a defensive pose, with a face with measured expression and fairly static feet. Once again, where others may decide their champion is the best fighter and the most aggressive I went the opposite direction and made him cautious and careful. This kind of thing is a lot easier to do when you have helmetless heads with expressions (I made the full squad without helmets), but you can get around static poses by positioning parts appropriately - tilt a torso forward to give the impression of impetus or imbalance, tilt back to give the impression of recoiling.

Also when it comes to sergeants I try to break the mould again. I don't like when the sergeant always has the most dynamic pose, the most ornate armour and the fiercest expression. I like to spread the poses and fancy bits around, because realistically given the way armour is maintained and only replaced when lost, there's no real reason why sergeants would always have the better kit. Of course with grey knights this is tricky again since pretty much everything is ornate and fancy, but consider giving your sergeant (/justicar) a helmet and giving the helmetless head to someone else. Almost all my sergeants wear helmets.

Basically what I'm saying is my preference is to break the preconceptions as to how each model should be posed - stereotypes are often unrealistic and therefore a unit which breaks the stereotype has more character - whereas units assembled in the way which first comes to mind ends up being very similar to every other unit out there.

Obviously I'm not saying you'd *have* to do this, just providing you with ideas.

 

[80Maxwell08]

Guys I think he means characterise them rather than customise them, i.e. come up with some ideas for who they are, which then influences how they should be posed/armed.

What I always like to do when posing my models is try to challenge stereotypes/intuitive characters. When I made my custom Blood Angels honour guard for example, I gave the medic a snarling aggressive face (medics stereotypically are the caring, less blood-thirsty types), and the squad champion a defensive pose, with a face with measured expression and fairly static feet. Once again, where others may decide their champion is the best fighter and the most aggressive I went the opposite direction and made him cautious and careful. This kind of thing is a lot easier to do when you have helmetless heads with expressions (I made the full squad without helmets)

Also when it comes to sergeants I try to break the mould again. I don't like when the sergeant always has the most dynamic pose, the most ornate armour and the fiercest expression. I like to spread the poses and fancy bits around, because realistically given the way armour is maintained and only replaced when lost, there's no real reason why sergeants would always have the better kit. Of course with grey knights this is tricky again since pretty much everything is ornate and fancy, but consider giving your sergeant (/justicar) a helmet and giving the helmetless head to someone else.

Basically what I'm saying is my preference is to break the preconceptions as to how each model should be posed - stereotypes are often unrealistic and therefore a unit which breaks the stereotype has more character. Obviously I'm not saying you'd *have* to do this, just providing you with ideas.

This is exactly what I meant actually. I thought I made it clear but apparently not. Thanks for your suggestions by the way I like the one of giving the helmetless head to someone else a lot.

 

[Phyaran]

By the same token it's equally valid to find parts which give the same impression and combine them to contribute to the overall feel of the model - for example, books and staves have an association, so you might consider finding one or more accessory pieces featuring books and put them on the model carrying a staff of warding.

As a side note, consider that these soldiers are consummate professionals with hundreds of years of experience. They're unlikely to take time to do things such as hold the head of a demon high as a trophy, or another similarly unnecessary action. These men have killed thousands of demons and this last one isn't special enough to warrant holding his head up .

(I'm just adding thoughts as they come to me by the way, no particular order here - I also updated my first post to include a few more lines, before I discovered you'd already read it.)

 

[Aurgelmir]

I would suggest looking at all your pieces and mocking them up before you put glue on them.This way you avoid weird poses if two pieces don't go well together. (I have a Space Wolves Termi who looks like he is hugging his sword due to this...)

Anyways. Since these guys are for show rather than play, I suggest looking at youtube tutorials of how to paint (when you get paints) and don't forget to remove mold lines!

 

[WarDialler]

go into your local gw store. ask for a painting introduction. somebody in a blue shirt with a crux terminatus on the sleeve will be happy to accomodate you.

 

[80Maxwell08]

go into your local gw store. ask for a painting introduction. somebody in a blue shirt with a crux terminatus on the sleeve will be happy to accomodate you.

There's actually not a single GW store where I live. I bought these from some game store at a shopping center because I don't think there's a single other place that sells them around here.

 

[Orks da best]

hmm best bit is making a story for the model, often best forge in a tabletop game.
Ex: Kaptain Titankilla, my Ork Warboss, hes called Kaptain titankilla for two reasons.
1. Hes a Kaptain, warboss title for Ork freebootas warbands (ork pirates)
2. in a game he was charge by a warhound class titan (scout class by still taller then an average building.) took two str 10 hits, but made both saves, and did two struture pts of damage to it in return, and next turn finish it off, earning the title of Titankilla, since then he done many a great deeds (or evil from other standpoints.)
But since that be hard since ye just plan to have them look fnacy on ye desk, just give them traits, like ye said one hates melee combat, another hates gore getting on his suit, etc.

But the best thing is to convert, I done with most of my models, I am rather creative, I made a mekboy with tripod legs, each of my big shoota boyz is different, most of shoota boyz have scopes, shoulder pads, and baynet of some sort (either blade or stikkbomb {ork grenade}) but my Kaptain Titankilla model is awesome, haveing a power klaw make from a horus talon, posed to give the foe the middle finger, his gun arm is made from a skorcka and big shoota taken from an ork killa kan kit, has axes in place of horns on his hat, and has a highly detailed base and body.

Think of the pose, and try to make it as best as ye can.

 

[WarDialler]

There's actually not a single GW store where I live. I bought these from some game store at a shopping center because I don't think there's a single other place that sells them around here.

Dude that sucks. In Europe they run a "I WANT A STORE!" Promotion where if you pester them and they open up a GW near you then you get some free goodies. Evidently GW America are a bunch of [EXPLETIVE DELETED]. Come to think of it, GW UK are a Bunch of [EXPLETIVE DELETED], and I should know, I worked for them!

Oh well, feel free to PM me if you have any painting questions.