Warhammer 40K: Conquest Challenge

The next batch of mini’s received for the Space Marine forces are a mix. They include reinforcements for an existing Intercessor squad, another 3 Reivers, 2 Hellblasters and a single Inceptor.

As usual primed and based on the sprue, assembled then given washes to shade. Tidy up the damage and I’m at this stage:

I say “overdone” highlights above as I prefer very thin highlights on the armour. It’s basically edge highlighting… but not right around the whole piece like GW does.

I started by pre-base coating and shading this mini on the sprue, in order to get to all the layers that would later be difficult to reach.

I then went ahead and assembled the mini. However, when I did I found that the cloak front and rear halves of the cloak didn’t quite meet properly…

This is the Conquest Magazine exclusive Primaris Lieutenant, Calsius. Or Calcium as I like to call him.
Anyway… since the marines in this set are supposed to be Ultramarines, the lieutenant has the appropriate heraldry and iconography all over him. Not the ideal for a leader with any other Chapter. A little conversion was in order, but I didn’t want to change the miniature completely from the original.
I decided that a couple of little fixes would solve the problem. I removed the UM icon from the backpack. A little shave with a hobby knife took care of that easily.

Initially I wasn’t going to use the pauldron with the UM chapter heraldry on it, but then had second thoughts. I decided I’d swap the left and right pauldrons and use it as a character feature. As an Easy-Build miniature they had keys to locate them. I shaved the keys off each of the shoulders and applied a good amount of plastic glue, simple!

Clearly this still leaves more than a couple of UM markings. This is easily explained by crafting a history for this new Blades of Vengeance Lieutenant, Calziel. The current DA Codex states of the Blades of Vengeance:

“They aided the Ultramarines Primarch Roboute Guilliman during his Indomitus Crusade, serving with distinction” 

So Lieutenant Calziel served alongside Ultramarine forces, perhaps the big man himself. For his work, he has received awards and recognition from his blue-armoured battle-brothers. What the Inner Circle make of this is their own council to keep… for now he serves well in the position that he holds.

Beginning work on the Agressors and Lieutenant

Final steps to be complete: Squad markings and Chapter Heraldry (Transfer and paint combination). To be done with others in a final step later.

A second squad of Primaris Intercessors. Mild conversion donce, since they’re the exact same miniatures that I’d done already. I’ve used the Dark Angels Primaris Upgrade sprue to change the head of the Sergeant. I also lowered the pointing arm to match the direction the head was looking.

Painted: 25/ 47

I thought I was going to catch up… then the next package arrived… two weeks early.

So either they’ve moved the schedule forward, or it’ll be six weeks until my next bundle. In any case a quick update to show some of what I’ve completed so far.

The colours on this guy are the same as the Plague Marines. To recap:

• Primer: Army Painter Leather Brown Spray
• Armour: Citadel Iyanden Darksun
• Flesh: Citadel Fortress Grey
• Steel Trim: Citadel Boltgun Metal
• Bronze Trim: Citadel Dwarf Bronze
• Pustules: Citadel Foundation Mechrite Red
• Eyes: Army Painter Black

Shading:

• Glaze: Citadel Baal Red. On each side there are three hooks pulling taut the flesh behind the weapon. The glaze was limited to those areas.
• Wash: Citadel Leviathan Purple. Across all the fleshy areas including inside the mouth.
• Wash: Citadel Baal Red. Inside the mouth only. I did this twice to really differentiate inside the mouth from the rest of the beast.
• Wash: Citadel Devlan Mud. Everywhere. Wait ’til dry!
• Wash: Army Painter Dark Tone. Everywhere, again. Really grime that guy up. Wait again…

Highlighting and Details:

Not much highlighting done here, keeping it dark and grimy. But a couple of details:

• Drybrush: Vallejo Model Colour Khaki. The Chitin around the mandibles, the teeth and the vents on top.
• Drybrush: Army Painter Skeleton Bone. A lighter drybrush on the same areas.
• Wet Blend: (My first attempt!) AP Black/ AP Skeleton Bone. The central eye on the front. Painted in black to look like a Crab/Lobster type eye. With more Black at the top, graduating towards grey at the bottom. A small spot of pure Skeleton Bone at the top of the eye.
• Shade: AP Dark Tone. In the very back of the mouth, and at the little spout right at the tip of the tongue. (It’s a bile spurter… how very Nurgle)
• Mid-tone: Citadel Mechrite Red. The small missiles in the missile pod.
• Mid-tone: AP Skeleton Bone. Two thin layers on the tips of the large missiles in the missile pod.

BwaaaHH!! I’m running behind!

Right now: Collection: 35, Completed 15.

Fortunately this month’s bundle only included the two Plague Marine characters and the terrain. This gives me a chance to catch up.

Characters for the Plague Marines

3 more Primaris Intercessors and 3 Primaris Aggressors. All to be added to the Blades of Vengeance.

Trying to work quickly, I’ve limited my palette.

Base spray: Army Painter Leather Brown

Armour: Citadel Iyanden Darksun
Trim and details: Citadel Boltgun Metal
Cloth: Citadel Deadly Nightshade
Fleshy bits: Citadel Fortress Grey
Weapon casings: Citadel Dwarf Bronze or Armpy Painter Skeleton Bone
Pustules: Citadel Foundation Mechrite Red

Shading:

• Citadel Devlan Mud across the whole mini.
• Army Painter Dark Tone across the yellow armour, bone accessories and flesh.

This gave a nice two-toned dirty, grimy look to the minis. I found the Devlan Mud on its own wasn’t strong enough.

• Devlan Mud only on the Bronze surfaces.
• Citadel Leviathan Purple wash on the flesh.

On the first batch I think I put the purple wash on first then the Devlan Mud and Dark Tone later as glazes. On the second batch the Purple went on after the darker colours. The result is that the second batch flesh looks more purple than grey.

• Old Citadel Waaagh Green Ink as a glaze on Skulls and grenade head.

Other details:

• Citadel Nurgle’s Rot on all of the Fly icons.
• Typhus Corrosion on Boltgun coloured weapons for rust weatering
• Nihilakh Oxide in small patches on Bronze coloured accessories for weathering.
• Pustules highlighted with Citadel Blood Red
• Eyes and gun sights are Citadel Kabalite Green with a Waaagh Green glaze.

Fungus is painted using a variety of colours using Vallejo German Camo Brown, Vallejo Khaki, AP Skeleton Bone as the bases, then mixing in other colours previously used.

Basing: same as others in this project, with a couple of added details. To represent the spreading corruption of the marines, they have a slime trail behind them.

• First drill a hole or two into the base and add hand-made fungus, glue into position.
• A coat of paint-on gloss varnish behind the minis.
• Patches/ trails of Nurgle’s Rot.
• Tidy up the rim with a matt black.

Varnish all with a spray matt varnish (Not done yet). I might paint on a gloss varnish to the flesh to give it a slimy/wet look.

The second batch of three Plague Marines is a second set of the same three Marines as above. So I wanted to take the opportunity to get some conversion practice.

If you compare with the three above, I planned to swap the front pieces of the Leader and the Heavy Weapon miniatures. I also took the grenade off the Bolter armed Marine to move it to another Marine.

Marked in Red are where cuts were made to the minis. The Gas Masked torso was cut at the hose at the front of the mask. The front half of the pauldron was cut away to put with the other half on the body it came from. The three hanging details were also separated from the piece to move back to the original body. Heavy cuts were made to to the body to allow this torso to fit neatly, though there were still gaps. These were filled with greenstuff, and this was also used to re-join the gas mask hose at the face.

The Bare head was cut away from the torso front that has the gut-mouth. The gut-mouth torso was cut in to the body that had been the Gas-Mask marine body. Again gaps were filled with green stuff. The hanging details were added along the waist line to help cover gaps and voids present in the miniature. Initially I was going to use the bare head n this body, but decided to move the Helmet head onto this body to further differentiate it from the original. The picture with blue lines shows where all the pieces were joined to make this conversion.

The bare head was to be placed onto the standard boltgun marine body, but I wanted to make it different somehow. I cut the face off from the head, and replaced it with one from the old GW Zombie regiment. It looked suitable rotten and gross. The join isn’t neat (Again some greenstuff to fill gaps) but they’re rotten and decrepit, so I think I can get away with this in the paint stage.

Painting begins on the Poxwalkers

Flesh: Citadel Bugman’s Glow
Green Flesh: Citadel Kabalite Green
Purple Flesh: Citadel Hormagaunt Purple
Pustules: Citadel Iyanden Darksun
Cloth: Citadel Deadly Nightshade
Wood, Fungus Stalks, Claws/Spines: Vallejo German Camo Brown

Shade

• Citadel Brown ink
• Army Painter Quickshade Dark Tone

Use Army Painter method to quickly get the unit done.

Highlights

Flesh: Citadel Bronzed Flesh
Face: 2nd Highlight with AP Skeleton Bone
Purple Flesh: Citadel Warlock Purple
Pustules: Citadel Golden Yellow

No highlights to Green Flesh, Cloth, Blacks or leathers.

Details
Metals: Citadel Boltgun Metal. Then hit with Citadel Typhus Corrosion.
Light drybrush with Citadel Blood Angels Orange to add rust.

Pus: Citadel Technical Nurgle’s Rot added to any burst pustules/ holes/ exposed guts/ vomit.

Eyes: Citadel Skull White, shade with a red ink/wash.

Base with Citadel Martian Ironcrust in the same fashion as with the Intercessors earlier.

The final steps on batch 2 (not pictured here) will be to paint the rims black and matt varnish the minis. Done 🙂

Reivers for the Blades of Vengeance chapter.

The first bundle received in the mail following subscription was received. Issue 1 was left in backorder in my set, so I received:

• 1x set of Poxwalkers
• 2x sets of Plaguemarines
• 1x Primaris Lieutenant
• 1x set Primaris Reivers.

I got started in with the Poxwalkers.

Now with added Fungi!

I topped the spines with toadstool tops, to make them look as though they are sprouting some kind of daemonic fungus.

I then took this through to the Plague Marines as well.

Green stuff used for the fungus. Rolled into cones mostly. The shelf fungus was built off the three spines already on the miniature. The top of the fungus is textured using a small brass wire brush that I’ve had for ages. It was actually part of a soldering tool kit that I bought thinking it could be useful for greenstuff modelling.

I picked these guys up in early April, when I found the first issue of Conquest Magazine at a local newsagent.

They’re painted in the Blades of Vengeance colour scheme. According to the DA Codex they were the first Primaris chapter created from the DA gene seed.

The basing texture is Citadel Martian Ironcrust. I’ve given it a two stage drybrush highlight with an orange (old Citadel Colour Blood Angel Orange) and then a bone (Army Painter Warpaints Skeleton Bone). Redo the rims of the bases with black, and done.

They’ll receive Chapter Badges in the future, since there are no transfers for the Dark Angels successor chapters at all.