Class Photo - Royals

The first Chaos warband has been completed - the Royals.

A group that considers themselves a notch above the rest, they have adopted a regal colour scheme, including gold leaf, to demonstrate their superiority.

They have turned out pretty well, but the gold metallic was a pain, and I am totally over it. These paints are built on a yellow base which doesn't cover well and the metal particles are quite large. There wasn't a lot of room to swing the brush properly for dry brushing, so I tried washing the metallic on, but it was too easy to get it wrong. If I was not careful the paint got a bit thick and grainy looking, which was/is super irritating.

You will notice that there are two bases with gold edges in the photo. The right-most one is the results of 4 or 5 washes of Burnished Bold. Looks pretty good in the photo? In real life it looks grainy. Frustrating.

So the search continues for the master class technique for painting golds (and brass, bronze, etc).

The Royals. A Plasma Gunner Warband

Chaos Beckons

The new codex for the Chaos Space Marines has inspired the need to start a new force, something different from my Necrons.

I really like the new background of Chaos warbands, so I decided to work along those lines - a group of warbands, temporarily united under a warleader.

The core of the force will be two squads of CSMs. One prefers plasma guns, and the other melta-guns. An example of the first squad is included below. They are based on the Warriors of Mayhem - and for now are known as "the plasma gunner group". :)

They were supposed to be like the Night Stalkers in the new codex, but I could not figure out how to replicate the look. So instead I just worked with the original purple shade colour and did some highlighting and further shading.

"Plasma gunner" Warband

Boys in Blue

I got interested lately in the idea of playing some Kill Team in WH40k, particularly the Space Hulk variant.

So partially to do something different and to bring a classic team to Space Hulk, I went and got some Space Marine Terminators. After some decision about colour schemes (as usual), I settled on the Crimson Fists. In GW terms the colours are Regal Blue and Red Gore for the fists. The highlights use the typical GW approach - lighter shades of the same colour. The skull ornaments are Snakebite Leather - Bleached Bone - Skull White.

The force field glow technique is thanks to this guy. I haven't attempted the full light casting effect on the model (which looks awesome) - I just went for the power effect.

They turned out pretty well considering I only spent a week or two on them. I am pleased with the basing - I make up some styrene tiles to look like decking plates. Two of them have hoses running in the floor and there are some with floor grills. All very atmospheric for a squad of spaceship clearing specialists.

Anyway here they are - take a look:

Brother Nilius

Brother Nilius - Power Sword


Brother Pain

Brother Pain - Autocannon


Brother Pain - Power Fist


Brother Flame


Brother Flame - Heavy Flamer


Brother Flame - Power Fist


Brother Primus


Brother Primus - Power Fist


Brother Secundus

Hivefleet Itsumaden

I decided to go my own way and create a custom hivefleet for the combat patrol.

Keeping with the "monster" theme for Tyranid fleets (they are really just misunderstood, honest) I hunted around for a suitable monster. I decided to go for something a bit different than the usual and went for looking for monsters from Asian mythology.

The result is the Itsumaden. It looks the part and is easy enough to say - could you imagine someone trying: Negoro-no-ushi-oni. :)

The image comes from the Obakemono Project, which is a great resource for Japanese mythological creatures.

I haven't bothered with any background fluff for these guys yet, though that might be getting a bit carried away...

Scrubs up ok

The combat patrol has been essentially completed now.

This last stage was all the fine stuff - the striations in the skin (what are those things?), weapons, teeth, eyes, toxin sacs and so on.

The skin bits were done with Enchanted Blue to give a strong contrast to the red skin. The toxin sacs were done GW style - approximately. Snot Green, Scorpion Green, White.

The barbed strangler (leader's gun below) was painted to resemble the plant it is supposed to be. The result looks pretty "treey", but not quite what I was after there - perhaps more alien next time. I spent a bit of time with the ammo sac (or scrotum as some have suggested :). This was Bleached Bone base, Elf Flesh broadly dry-brushed, with a careful highlight of White. The skin colour was then washed with a red wash. Looks suitably gross.

Basing still needs to be done, but may take some time to materialise... When finished the whole patrol will be photographed.

I finally got the exposure settings right - it only took till the end of the project! :) The colours below are pretty accurate.

The patrol has their first run at the May BIG club day. They got walloped by Space Marines and Necrons. Wasn't until I got home that I realised that my costing spreadsheet was broken and I had diddled myself out of a heap of points. What a wally. :)

Next game they will be tougher...