Imperial Guard

Painting a Steel Legion Imperial Guardsman

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Paints Required:

Citadel:

  • Agrax Earthshade (Shade)
  • Baneblade Brown
  • Celestra Grey
  • Dawnstone
  • Evil Sunz Scarlet
  • Gorthor Brown
  • Leadbelcher
  • Mephiston Red
  • Rhinox Hide
  • Runefang Steel
  • Screaming Skull
  • Ushabti Bone
  • Zamesi Desert
  • Abaddon Black
  • Eshin grey

Trench Coat

  1. Basecoat the coat with Zamesi Desert.
  2. Wash the coat with Agrax Earthshade, ensuring it gets into the crevices while avoiding heavy pooling on flat surfaces.
  3. Layer the raised areas using a 50/50 mix of Zamesi Desert and Ushabti Bone, leaving the shaded recesses showing.
  4. Highlight the coat with a mix of 2 parts Ushabti Bone to 1 part Zamesi Desert, focusing on the raised folds.
  5. Highlight Ushabti Bone onto the brightest high points of the coat to transition away from the yellow tone.
  6. Apply a final fine edge highlight of Screaming Skull along the sharpest edges and folds.

Leather & Mask

  1. Basecoat the gloves, boots, gas mask, and belts with Rhinox Hide.
  2. Wash the leather areas with Agrax Earthshade.
  3. Highlight the raised leather folds and boot reflective points with Gorthor Brown.
  4. Apply a fine highlight to the sharpest edges and highest spots with Baneblade Brown.

Helmet, Casing & Sword Grip

  1. Basecoat the helmet, bolter casing, and sword grip with Abaddon Black.
  2. Apply an edge highlight to all black areas using Eshin Grey.
  3. Apply a final extreme edge highlight to the sharpest corners using Dawnstone.

Metallics & Sword

  1. Basecoat all silver metallic areas, including the sword blade and pistol details, with Leadbelcher.
  2. Wash the metallics with Agrax Earthshade, focusing on the mechanical crevices and the base of the sword blade.
  3. Edge highlight the sharpest metallic edges and blade with Runefang Steel.

Shoulder Insignia

  1. Basecoat the Steel Legion shoulder emblem background with Celestra Grey.
  2. Paint the central lightning bolt symbol with Mephiston Red.
  3. Apply a subtle wash of Agrax Earthshade around the outer edges of the logo to create depth and separation.
  4. Layer White onto the emblem background, leaving a thin line of shade around the red symbol.
  5. Highlight the lightning bolt symbol with Evil Sunz Scarlet.

Recipe Notes:

Since the whole model will get a wash of the same color, I recommend base coating the whole model before washing.

I used the old Agrax Earthshade recipe for this model. If I was painting it now I would use Battlemud Wash from Two thin coats as a substitute.

Painting an 8th Cadian Shocktrooper

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Paints Required:

Citadel:

  • Abaddon Black
  • Agrax Earthshade
  • Bugman’s Glow
  • Cadian Fleshtone
  • Castellan Green
  • Dawnstone
  • Eshin Grey
  • Kislev Flesh
  • Leadbelcher
  • Loren Forest
  • Nuln Oil
  • Reikland Fleshshade
  • Runefang Steel
  • Stormhost Silver
  • Ushabti Bone
  • Zandri Dust
  • Ulthuan Grey

Prime & Undercoat

  1. Basecoat the entire model using Citadel Zandri Dust Spray.

Fatigues

  1. Basecoat all cloth fatigues with two thin layers of Zandri Dust.
  2. Wash the Fatigues with Agrax Earthshade.
  3. Layer Zandri Dust, avoiding the shaded recesses.
  4. Edge highlight the upper ridges and sharpest fabric folds with Ushabti Bone.

Armor & Helmet

  1. Basecoat the helmet, shoulder guards, and chest armor plates with Castellan Green.
  2. Apply Agrax Earthshade into the armor panel lines.
  3. Layer Castellan Green back over the flat armor surfaces to clean up any pooling.
  4. Edge highlight all sharp armor plate borders and helmet rims with Loren Forest.

Leather, Boots & Weapon Casing

  1. Basecoat the lasgun casing, boots, belt, and webbing straps with Abaddon Black.
  2. Wash the black casing and leather areas with Nuln Oil.
  3. Apply a neat edge highlight to the casing edges, belt straps, and boot creases with Eshin Grey.
  4. Apply a final sharp highlight to extreme corners and edges using Dawnstone.

Weapon Metallics & Hardware

  1. Basecoat the gun barrel, receiver mechanism, bayonet lugs, and belt buckles with Leadbelcher.
  2. Wash all metallic elements thoroughly with Nuln Oil.
  3. Edge highlight the metallic edges, barrel tip, and buckles with Runefang Steel or Stormhost Silver.

Aquillas

  1. Basecoat the aquilla on the helmet, gun and canteen with Dawnstone
  2. Highlight the raised surfaces with Ulthuan Grey

Skin & Face

  1. Basecoat all exposed skin areas including hands and face with Bugman’s Glow.
  2. Wash the skin completely with Reikland Fleshshade to settle in the features.
  3. Layer Cadian Fleshtone onto the raised facial features, fingers, and nose.
  4. Highlight the highest points of the cheeks, brow, and knuckles with Kislev Flesh.
  5. Carefully paint the eyes with Ulthuan Grey
  6. Carefully dot the pupils with Abaddon Black

Recipe Notes:

Wargaming Update: End of August Edition

Swansong0930Leave a comment

¡Hello and bienvenido! it’s been a pretty wild August for me. I’ve been on the road for over half of the month which has been a real roller coaster. Taking some time hanging out in Orlando airport to write up some of my hobby accomplishments this month and put some goals for September out into the world.

Legio Tempestor Reaver Titan epic scale

First up, we start small. This was my first mini in this scale, I’ve always enjoyed the Reaver titan and this was a great introduction to the scale. I’m looking to pick up some transfers before I add some weathering details so expect to see this guy again.

Little disappointed that the rest of the minis for new Epic are delayed but realistically I was never going to find the time to paint anything in the meantime.

Next up we have the bulk of my painting progress this month. I’ve had the below Valkyries sitting in my display waiting for me to find the time to paint them all year. Well I finally got tired of looking at the three unpainted aircraft.

Flight of the Valkyries

The first of the three planes had been finished to a tabletop standard but not yet based as I, as typical, could not make up my mind on how I wanted to set the scene for my project. First thing I did then was get my bases sanded and then painted. I’ll try to grab some better pictures in my next update as I’m quite happy with the desert feel these bases portray.

Valkyrie #1

I snagged a couple more pictures of the first two completed Valkyries above and below, as you can see I stuck with a very basic khaki color for the hull. I utilized my airbrush to spray zandri dust over a grey primer. This yielded a more worn look to the paint, perfect for sand blasted metals.

Valkyrie #2

You cannot tell as well in the pictures but I worked to create a transition on cockpit glass but I think I’m going to increase the vibrancy of the blue, hopefully bringing out the effect even further. Stay tuned for more updates for these planes as I still have one more flier to add to this squadron.

Next up we have the beginnings of a Horus Heresy White Scars army. Big fan of these guys in the novels and I wanted to challenge myself to paint some white miniatures.

Starting the building process, I decided to build a squad of tactical marines, always a good choice. Led by Qin Xa, a beautiful model that I picked up from the Warhammer Cafe at the demand of my girlfriend- a real keeper she is.

To finish off this month’s building efforts, I started with the real meat and potatoes of a White Scars horde- Bikes! Three of the awesome plastic jet bikes and 6 resin outriders to start. I’ve got 21 total outriders so stay tuned to see those as I’m sure I will be working on this force off and on to finish up the year.

Spring Wargaming Updates: Adepticon, old friends and Titanic Tales

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As march fades into April, and April into summer I look back at this year’s building, painting, and gaming. Catching the blog up for what promises to be an exciting year for my tabletop wargaming career.

This Year So far

Let’s start with a recap of this year’s progress:

Last year Gamesworkshop (GW) made the decision to remake their whole Imperial Guard product line… a line that some of you may know is what got me into the war gaming scene. This, combined with my discovery of the old Imperial Armour campaign books, proved disastrous for my saving account as I quickly became inspired to build, and paint an airborne desert recon force. This force’s main objective being to participate in a campaign against my longtime hobby-homie Mike (you’ll hear about and from him a lot I reckon). This army was quickly assembled and promptly wiped off the table at every game they fought in. No matter, guardsmen are meant to die.

As the new edition of Warhammer 40k looms in the not distant future, expect to see these guys often as I bolster their ranks in the coming months.

The Tallarn so far

The second, and more important project was the completion of my Ultramarines Horus Heresy (aka Warhammer 30k, or 30k for short). A labor of love over the past 2 years I managed to finally compile the 3000 points necessary to participate in all of the Adepticon events I was interested in.

My Completed Adepticon Ultramarines

I’ve got a feeling there will be a large addition to those ultramarines coming in the next couple weeks…

Adepticon: The big show

For those of you that don’t know, Adepticon is the largest wargaming convention in the world. Widely regarded as a holy pilgrimage for the biggest nerds in the country. This was my second time making the trek to Chicago for this massive event, and while I lost my usual gaming partner due to work commitments, I was determined to make the best of it.

Day 1

The opening night of the con is always exciting, Games workshop again bringing an exciting preview of the months to come. Whereas last year we got to see the trailer for the new edition of Horus Heresy, this year’s headliner was 10th edition 40k. The crowd was absolutely electric this time around, and as an added bonus I ran into a group of guys from Philly that I ended up spending most of the con hanging with.

The first vendor as always, always a good place to score rare models

Day 2

Day 2 was my big game day, with 2 Horus Heresy games and a massive game with dozens of titans on the table-only problem was I had no titan of my own… In steps my main man Mike. His first, but not last, legendary act of weekend being his purchase of the below Reaver titan.

Absolute beauty, the first of the two Reavers that would be headed home with me this weekend.

Day 2’s games proved to be as fun as previous cons, the event organizers doing a bang up job with the event.

Game one, my massive Falchion tank chewed through his armor with the highlight play of the day.
That’s a lot of titans!

Day 3

While days 1 and 2 were fun, day 3 proved to be the high water mark of the convention.

Restarting his own wargaming Journey, one of my oldest and best friends Sam came by to see what Adepticon was all about. After taking a couple laps around the convention floor, we settled down and had our first 40k game in nearly 10 years.

I can confidently say that Sam used his decade to prepare for our rematch a lot better than I did. The game was a total slaughter, wiping my Imperial Guard right off the table.

The setup.
This brave Guardsman held the line for 3 turns against Sam’s Chaos scum

With almost perfect timing as our game ended. In flew my main man Mike. Escaping from the prison of his old job, he made his way straight to Chicago. Once our twosome was upgraded to a threesome, the night only went uphill from there. With the drinks and stories flowing, we tied one off. I even managed to muster the courage to challenge Sam to a rematch -which I promptly lost. Better luck next time!

Look at these Studs

I know this was a total ramble but I just wanted to get everything down before I forget it

PS- Mike’s Reaver Titan will NOT be the only Reaver we see on this blog this year