In case you missed it, I'm building this army for a small paint and play escalation league being run locally. Since the Dragon Warriors are basically as close as you can come to fallen Salamanders (they are led by a former Salamanders Librarian Nihilan, check out the wiki), I wanted to use lots of meltas and lots of vehicles, preferably walkers. So I decided I'd start with a Warpsmith, and a Helbrute, and when I looked around, I decided the Black Legion book would serve me the best, since I could take Chosen as troops, and load them out with Meltaguns. I know the Chosen are not going to be cheap, so a couple units of cultists would provide some cheap objective control in my back field.
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| The inspiration from an old codex. |
I was inspired by a bottle of metallic red paint that my girlfriend had picked up quite some time ago. I looked at it and was reminded of the Dragon Warrior scheme from an old Chaos Space Marine codex. It wouldn't be easy, but I could probably pull off the scales now; I was never confident, or patient enough in my painting to think I could do it before.
So I did a quick test pattern on some cardstock, and liked the way it looked. So a quick basecoat of the Helbrute, some paint and lots of dabbing later I had the guy pictured below.
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| Camera loses some detail at this size, CLICK IT! |
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| Top view of scales. |
Overall, it turned out pretty good. I think next time I'll try and do smaller scales all over.
So with the Helbrute done, I was decided on a similar scheme for the Chosen, but I had to wait on some bits. So I moved on to the cultists. I had wanted something a little more different, so I got some of the Wargames Factory Shock Troopers, and put Cadian arms on them. This gave me a great militaristic feel that reminded me of the Death Korps a bit.
At first I tried doing the entire trench in red with black trim, and putting scales across all of the red areas, but it looked too busy. So I tried reversing it, black trench with red trim, and then just do the armoured bits in red with scales, shoulder pads and helmet.
They are all going on custom lava bases made from corkboard. The first batch turned out a little too digital in the transition, so I'm working on more of a wet blend on the second batch of bases.
Overall I like the way they look, certainly much more eye catching in person, but at least it gives people another idea on what they can accomplish with some practice.
I just got the bits order in to work on converting the Chosen, I'll probably do a quick review of the bits in the next few days.
That's Awesome! I love the scales... I may borrow this. ;)
ReplyDeleteLooks better in person, it allows the light to pick up as you move. Maybe they'll show for Apocalypticon this year.
DeleteMy only advice is make sure you have the metallic colour before you start. There aren't a lot of good metallics out there. We have a green that is just terrible for some reason.