Adding to my slowly growing Crusade backlog, I’ve kitbashed some Bladeguard with parts from the new Sword Brethren squad and upgrade sprue. New weapons, backpacks, helmets, and helmets help to integrate the unit into the army a bit better.
I’ve made a start on my Black Templars Crusade forces – the first Crusader squad, Marshal, and Emperor’s Champion have been assembled. Tentatively, I’ve got another Crusader squad, some Intercessors, and 2 Dreadnoughts to build, then I can start thinking about how I want to expand. This is going to be my main project for the foreseeable, and you’ll see one of the ways I’m planning to add some flavour to the army in the pictures above.
Each unit is going to receive a squad banner of some description, reminiscent of regiments standards from older editions of Warhammer Fantasy Battle. One of the things which struck me from a lot of the Black Templars artwork was the amount of banners, standards, and pennants visible. This one below in particular caught my eye:
So rather than just do “regular” back banners on sergeants, I figured I’d turn things up to 11!
Of course, if every unit has a standard, I’m going to have to do something extra special for the Ancient carrying the banner representing the entire Crusade…
Nothing much exciting; just getting the initial zenithal priming done on these Aggressors I’ve had sitting around. Half are from the Imperium part work, the other half are from the older Conquest magazine.
The initial layer is Zandri Dust, then I come in from above with Wraithbone… but after reflection I think Wraithbone is too light for what I’m going for and I’ll need to find a more suitable spray.
I’ve had loads of sprues kicking around my backlog which came from starter sets, Conquest magazine, and now, Imperium magazine. Some of those I want to do something with, but the question has always been “what?”
Recent issues of White Dwarf have been diving into new chapters of space marines, and also including transfer sheets for those chapters, and the scheme for the Tome Keepers caught my eye as potentially very quick to paint – so it felt like I’d found my answer.
First up are a combat squad of Intercessors, and a full squad of Aggressors. So a small number to kick things off. I’m planning to add the space marine half of Imperium that isn’t chapter-specific to this project, so it should grow quite a bit over the next year and a bit.
Adding more from the Indomitus set to my Ultramarines – a squad of Eradicators, and a slightly converted Chaplain. I originally started these at the tail-end of March, and they’ve sat on my desk ever since, waiting for me to get some motivation to make even a little progress on them. Today I finished the main armour colours, blocked in other areas, and made a start on some gold details.
The last Reiver from my mini-of-the-month paint-along, and possibly my favourite!
The painting process was very simple for this one! Starting from the Mechanicus Standard Grey primer, I airbrushed very thin layers of Tamiya Flat White to build up the transition and gradient. Once I was happy with the progression from grey to white, I pin-washed the model with Paynes Grey. Red details and markings were painted with Flesh Tearers Red Contrast paint.
Almost done with the Reivers! Today is a Dark Angel, and the painting process is largely the same as before, just changing the colours:
Zenithal white over the primer; from below, spray thin layers of Dark Angels Green Contrast paint. The idea is to build it up so it’s very dark in the shadow areas, but fades into the white as you reach the upper surfaces. Then, Warp Lightning Contrast paint is sprayed from above, covering the white and mixing in the other areas to create the transition. Finish off with a black oil wash in the recesses.
Another day, another Reiver. This time it’s an Ultramarine, and I went with a variant colour scheme, rather than the standard Chapter colour. I wanted to try out something I might do with any Phobos units I want to add to my small Ultramarines collection.
This time there were no Contrast paints involved, although the process was very similar: zenithal white over the primer, then apply a thin layer of Dark Reaper. As an experiment I used Nighthaunt Gloom Technical paint through the airbrush to get the highlight. Then I pin washed with black oil paint. The shoulder pad was painted to match my existing Ultramarines, and the basing also matches.
Another Primaris Reiver for mini-of-the-month, this time an Imperial Fist. I was tempted to go with a black or dark grey scheme, like some of the old Heresy variations, but the idea of a “terror troop” in bright yellow armour was a dichotomy I couldn’t resist!
As with the Blood Angel, the method is quick and simple: zenithal white, airbrush Iyanden Yellow Contrast paint, lightly zenithal over that with Phallanx Yellow, then recess shade with Burnt Umber oil paint. The base was given a coat of dark brown texture paint, then had random splodges of pigment powders swirled and blended over it.
The GW “miniature of the month” is the Space Marine Primaris. I have somewhere around 40 of these built, primed in grey, and sitting in a box waiting for me to do something with them, so this seemed like the ideal reason to use up a couple of them.
This was a suuuuper quick paint job. It’s a zenithal spray of white over the grey, followed by thin coats of Blood Angels Red Contrast paint. Then, from below I sprayed thinned Flesh Tearers Red Contrast paint into the shadows. All the other details were given a simple basecoat of a relevant colour, then the everything was given a recess shade with an oil wash (I think it was Burnt Umber) Transfers were applied, then it was varnished and based. The whole thing only took a couple of hours.