Author: Chris B.

Silver Stars Vox Operator

On By Chris B.In LEDs, Silver Stars, Space Marines, War of the False Primarch, Warhammer 40,0006 Comments

This week I’ve added to my small squad of Silver Stars with a new vox operator. The Silver Stars are the mysterious chapter leading the Partisan forces in the War of the False Primarch. Although I’m fighting on the side of the Orthodox forces in this campaign with my Flesh Eaters, I have been slowly putting together a small force of Silver Stars to add a bit of flavour to my army display boards. This marine was intended to join his brothers on my ‘Ambush at Pipeline 13’ Armies on Parade board, but I ran out of time to finish him before the deadline.

Modelling

My aim with this model was to show a lit auspex screen. Readers who have been following my work for a while may remember a similar miniature in the past which was my Lamenter Comms Specialist.

When compared to my standard LED tutorials, this is closest to my Simple LED Muzzle Flare tutorial, only with an auspex screen instead of a muzzle flare. The LED wires run through the hand, arm, torso and left leg to join up with the resistors, switch and single CR2023 battery hidden in the base. The LEDs used are two Green Stuff World 1mm ‘Warm White’ LEDs connected in parallel. Two adjacent LEDs are intended to give the impression of two separate ‘pings’ on the screen. After hollowing out the auspex and inserting the LEDs, I used the ever-reliable Acrylic Splash Gel to fill in the screen. Once this was dry I painted two coats of with Citadel Spirit Stone Red, as this is a slightly gloss glaze and helps the screen to look good when the LEDs are switched off. Finally I added some additional lines to the screen using Citadel Wild Rider Red.

As with the previous Silver Stars, this marine is built using a Primaris marine body and legs. The arms, pauldrons, backpack, bolter and holstered pistol are from the previous version of the plastic Legion MkIII Tactical Squad set. To give the legs a more “antiquated” look, I added Mixed Micro Glass Balls from Green Stuff World as armour studs. The head is from the Legion MkVI Tactical Squad sprue, as are the antenna and vox elements of the backpack. This all helps to make the provenance of the Silver Stars armour intentionally unclear.

Painting

With the time pressure of Armies on Parade out of the way, it was nice to actually take my time over painting a Silver Stars marine! If you’re interested in the paint recipes I used, you can find a detailed list in this previous post. As I had more time, I refined my freehand process for the insignia. Details are below, all paints are Citadel unless specified otherwise.

  • White Insignia on Rose Band
  • Thinned Administratum Grey layer to produce rough outline of insignia
  • Corax White layer
  • 3:1 Screamer Pink:Lahmian Medium thin glaze
  • White Insignia on Blue Field
  • Thinned Administratum Grey layer to produce rough outline of insignia
  • Corax White layer
  • 3:1 Sotek Green:Lahmian Medium thin glaze
  • Dark Insignia on White Field
  • Slightly thinned Rhinox Hide layer
  • 3:1 Ulthuan Grey:Lahmian Medium thin glaze

This vox operator is from the unit dubbed ‘Squad Antimony’ by Orthodox codifiers during the War of the False Primarch – their actual squad designation remains unknown! The Silver Stars heraldry is quite different from other chapters, and they make use of alchemical and astrological symbols, as well as cuneiform numbers. You are very unlikely to find conventional High Gothic text or numerals on their armour. If you’d like to read more on this then Apologist has an excellent article on Silver Stars markings and heraldry.

That’s all for today, I hope you’ve enjoyed this insight into my latest Silver Star marine. I have a few more Silver Stars on the way soon, so stay tuned! As ever, thanks very much for reading, and please remember you can also find me sharing my work on Instagram, Threads, Twitter/X, Bluesky and Mastodon.

Nighthaunt Spirit Swarm

On By Chris B.In Age of Sigmar, Grand Alliance Death, NighthauntLeave a comment

In this week’s blog post I’ll be talking about my recent Nighthaunt Spirit Host project. This miniature and its LED effects have been specially commissioned by the team at Green Stuff World to show off some of their 3D printed accessories and LED kits. This is my fourth Green Stuff World commission after Sergeant Khons, Custodian Kalden, and Genestealer Clamavus Voval Kreen that I posted earlier this year.

Modelling

This miniature was intended to demonstrate what could be achieved by combining the Green Stuff World 3D printed Resin Candles and miniature LED sets. When brainstorming ideas for how to include these in a miniature, I went to the Nighthaunts almost straight away. I did originally consider having the ghosts holding the candles. While that is definitely possible, it makes the process a lot more complicated and I was trying to keep this tutorial as accessible as I could.

Once the idea of having the spirits holding the candles had been eliminated, I decided to have them on the base instead. At first I was going to have them sitting on and around the grave in at random as though they were memorial candles left by mourners. Then it occurred to me they might look better arranged in a circle around the grave as though they were being used in of a necromantic summoning ritual.

As part of the commission I filmed all the stages of the build process, some clips of which you can see in the video below.

A full PDF tutorial for this build will be released via Green Stuff World soon. When it is, I’ll add it here and link to it from my tutorial section. In the meantime to get you started here’s a list of all the components and consumables I used.

You may also find my older LED Nighthaunt Candles Short-Form Tutorial interesting, which shows a similar process applied to a Nighthaunt Chainrasp Dreadwarden using slightly different techniques and components.

Painting

The paint scheme on this miniature was very simple and (I’d like to think) quite effective. I largely followed the technique I’d used with my previous Nighthaunt. The only difference was a slight change in approach to the green ‘ectoplasm’ which dominates the Spirit Host miniature. This time I thinned the Hexwraith Flame with Contrast Medium instead of Lahmian Medium. I don’t think Contrast Medium actually existed when I painted my previous Nighthaunt! I also made the layers and highlights thinner and more subtle. The updated key colours are listed below:

  • Green Ectoplasm
  • Grey Seer undercoat
  • 50:50 Hexwraith Flame:Contrast Medium
  • Thin Ulthuan Grey glaze on raised detail areas (faces, hands, etc.)
  • White Scar dot highlight on sharp points in Ulthuan Grey glazed areas

That’s all for today, I hope you enjoyed this miniature and the demonstration of the Green Stuff World kits! Thanks very much for reading, and please remember you can also find me sharing my work on Instagram, Threads, Twitter/X, Bluesky and Mastodon.

“Ambush at Pipeline 13”, Flesh Eaters Armies on Parade 2024

On By Chris B.In Armies on Parade, Flesh Eaters, LEDs, Silver Stars, Space Marines, War of the False Primarch, Warhammer 40,0003 Comments

“The War of the False Primarch was a dark and bloody episode of the Imperium’s history, now largely lost to myth and purged from all records, that plunged the Segmentum Pacificus into anarchy from 780.M33 to 860.M33. The conflict was finally ended when the High Lords of Terra convened the Pentarchy of Blood and tasked five loyal Chapters to destroy eleven others that had been declared Traitoris Perdita for their actions during the war.”

IMPERIAL ARMOUR VOLUME TWO – SECOND EDITION PG. 17

Concept

The Flesh Eaters space marine chapter, a key member of the Pentarchy of Blood, bring the will of the High Lords to the followers of the False Primarch in Segmentum Pacificus. Early in the war the Flesh Eaters scoured civilian population centres for clues to the False Primarch’s whereabouts during ‘The Pacification of Logan’s World’.  The following year Brother-Chaplain Uriah Grimm set the world of Interlude Quay aflame during the ‘Interregnum at Interlude Quay’ as he assaulted hidden bases belonging to the Silver Stars chapter. 

Sent reeling by the ferocious Flesh Eaters assault, the Silver Stars attempt to regroup and retaliate, beginning a guerrilla war on Interlude Quay. Geothermal Pipeline 13 is sabotaged, and a Flesh Eaters patrol is ambushed. The Flesh Eaters take casualties, but are able to deploy their teleport homer. Brother-Captain Caedes and his Terminator honour guard arrive to lead the counter attack!

My plan with this year’s Armies on Parade board was to continue the story of my Flesh Eaters space marines, as told in 2022’s Pacification of Logan’s World and 2023’s Interregnum at Interlude Quay. The hunt for the False Primarch continues! I mocked-up several concepts for this board, including a multi-level bunker and a ruined plaza. In the end I settled on something a bit more ‘open’ so I could capture the army in its full glory. In hindsight, I think the way last year’s board was split between two levels didn’t do the army justice. Eventually I hit upon the idea of an ambush around an isolated pipeline crossing a wasteland. This seemed like the ideal concept for an open board that allowed the army to be viewed together, while also adding points of interest and something to focus the ‘battle’ around.

Designing & Building the Board

As in previous years, the board is built around a large picture frame with the glass removed and a texture applied to the wood backboard. The pipes are simply plastic drainage pipes bought from a local DIY store and glued together. You’ll notice they have some extra gothic details – like Imperial Eagle buttresses – to add some 40K flavour. The pipes were sprayed silver, then lightly sprayed dark brown in selective areas. I tried to target areas where rust would logically gather due to rain and weather. Further rust effects were applied to these areas using Typhus Corrosion and Ryza Rust. Various extra bits of scenery – such as a chain-link fence and small industrial building – were planned but eventually fell by the wayside as I realised just how much the pipes dominated the board.

I knew from early in the process that I wanted to include ‘smoke’ effects this year, as I thought it would really enhance the look of the LEDs and the smoke concept seemed to fit really well with the industrial pipeline idea.

The smoke was achieved with an ‘Ultrasonic Mist Maker Atomizer DIY kit’ purchased from eBay, and a small reservoir of water at the bottom of one of the vertical pipe sections. The ultrasonic atomizer, as well as the miniatures described in the next section, were all controlled by batteries hidden under the board.

The explosion at the back of the board was made from flickering LED tealights covered in soft toy stuffing. The stuffing was given a spray of Chaos Black to make the smoke darker. This was included to help sell the concept of a pre-prepared ambush by the Silver Stars.

Silver Stars, Flesh Eaters & Servo Skulls

The Silver Stars space marines from my Armies on Parade 2023 board returned to the fray this year. As the Flesh Eaters include so many LED muzzle flares and bullet impacts, I always think it’s important for them to have an antagonist on their display boards to help give some context to the effects.

At some point in the design process I thought it might be fun to have a little vignette playing out of a Silver Stars sniper and a Flesh Eater silently closing in with their combat blade drawn to deliver vengeance. Below you can see the initial reposing of the sniper (left), a test on my workbench (centre), and the final product in situ on the board (right). Both these miniatures will eventually find their way onto their own bases and join their respective forces as regular models.

The Flesh Eaters casualty on the right of the board is intended to represent the victim of the sniper – but he did at least manage to activate the teleport homer before he fell! The casualty is mounted on a 40mm base and will eventually be used as an objective marker. If you look closely, there is a ‘1’ on his pauldron, for missions where numbered objectives are relevant. The servo skull with its LED eye was made in exactly the same way as Brother Nikko’s servo skull. I glued a triangle of translucent green plastic to the LED eye to really emphasise the scanning effect.

There was another servo skull flying around the board, minding his own business. This was just meant as a fun extra detail, but I think I might have mounted him too high on the pipeline, as he doesn’t appear in most of the miniatures eye level photos!

Conclusion

So that brings us to the end of another ‘Armies on Parade’ project! As is traditional, I only finished assembling and painting everything on the evening of the deadline. But at least this year I sent that submission email with 40 minutes to spare, rather than the 10 minutes that I had last year! Last minute rush aside, I’m pleased with the outcome, especially the smoke and all the little extra details like the sniper, casualty and servo skulls. I’ll aim to start earlier next year, but I’ve been saying that for five years now – although in my defence Space Marine 2 dropped right in the middle of the prime board prepping season this year!

Given more time, would I have done anything differently? Not significantly. I would have mounted the second servo skull lower on the pipeline, as mentioned above, and probably would have included a few smaller extra pieces of small scatter terrain. There was also an additional Silver Star that I didn’t quite finish in time (I’m sure we’ll see him soon) and of course the large Flesh Eaters tank that I’ve been working on for a long time and still haven’t finished…

What’s Next?

This isn’t the end for the Flesh Eaters. I still have the tank to finish that I mentioned above, plus I’d also like to add some Scouts and Death Company into the mix. Will I revisit the Flesh Eaters for Armies on Parade 2025? Possibly, but I’m also tempted to rest them for a year and have a go at something else. Time will tell!

That’s all for today, I hope you’ve enjoyed this insight into my 2024 Armies on Parade board. Thanks very much for reading, and please remember you can also find me sharing my work on Instagram, Threads, Twitter/X, Bluesky and Mastodon.

Brother-Captain Caedes, Terminator Captain

On By Chris B.In Flesh Eaters, Leviathan, Space Marines, War of the False Primarch, Warhammer 40,000Leave a comment

The False Primarch will perish by my hand – or my fist!

Brother-Captain Caedes, Third Captain of the Flesh Eaters

It’s back to the Flesh Eaters project this week with Brother-Captain Caedes, Captain of the Flesh Eaters third company and Master of the Armoury during the War of the False Primarch.

Modelling

One year on, I’m still slowly working my way through the contents of the Leviathan box. The base miniature for Brother-Captain Caedes is the Terminator Captain from the Leviathan boxed set (also seen in the Space Marine Combat Patrol set). I’ve tried to modify it to fit the aesthetics of the Terminator Captain included in the metal RTB9 ‘Terminator Squad‘ box. This is one of my favourite classic GW models, and the style fits perfectly with the ‘Rogue Trader era’ aesthetic I’m aiming for with my Flesh Eaters army.

The head for this miniature comes from the Horus Heresy Character Heads Upgrade Set 2, which I feel may have been an intentional homage to the head of the original Terminator Captain. If not, it’s coincidentally a very close match!

I wasn’t trying to recreate every detail of the original Captain exactly, but just capture his general aesthetic. I positioned the sheathed sword on the other side of his waist as this was a better fit with the pose of the Leviathan Captain. I also thought that it made more sense being on that side so he could draw the sword with his storm bolter hand rather than the power fist – although I think I do remember an old piece of artwork with a Terminator Captain holding a power sword in his power fist!

Another feature of the original that I didn’t replicate was the grenade launcher built into the power fist. I would have been happy to add that, except that it would have interfered with the LED power fist effect.

With the LED power fist, I was aiming to give the impression of an active ‘disruption field’, with lightning crackling over the surface of the fist. If you’re interested in the details of how the LED power fist was made, I have added a full LED Power Fist Tutorial to the LED Miniatures Tutorials section of my website.

Captain Caedes’ rank as Third Captain of the Flesh Eaters granted him the title of Master of the Armoury during the War of the False Primarch. The chapter’s arsenal received a massive influx of materiel during the conflict, both by direct order of the High Lords of Terra and as spoils of war. This put more resources at Captain Caedes’ disposal than any other Master of the Armoury has had since the founding of the Flesh Eaters – resources that he did not hesitate to deploy.

EXTRACT FROM ‘A TREATISE ON THE WAR OF THE FALSE PRIMARCH’ BY SCRIBE HOWTOPHER BUXCRAFT

Painting

At this point in the Flesh Eaters project my colour schemes are well established. If you’d like to know what paints I used with this miniature, then you can find my paint recipes for red armour, Terminator iconography, Space Marine pale skin, and freehand checks in the linked articles.

I did consider giving Captain Caedes grey or white hair, but settled for brown because I wanted to give him a more youthful appearance to feed into the “young hothead” narrative – he has sworn to defeat a Primarch in personal combat after all! “Young” is a comparative term for a Space Marine Captain though, he’s still over 100 years old!

Captain Caedes’ heraldry is inspired by the heraldry of the RTB9 Terminator Captain, which is checks in opposite quarters, a skull, and a Crux Terminatus. My original plan was to reproduce this directly, but I decided it needed the third company numerals in there somewhere, so I replaced one of the check quarters. Then I wasn’t happy with the tiny Crux Terminatus that I painted, so I replaced that with a second skull.

Like their forebears, the noble Blood Angels, the Flesh Eaters also have a great respect for artisan work. Brother-Captain Caedes is said to have hand sown the embroidery on his own cloak. Like so many others in the war, the Brother-Captain had sworn to kill the Abomination by his own hand, and the black of the cloak was a constant reminder of that solemn executioner’s vow.

EXTRACT FROM ‘A TREATISE ON THE WAR OF THE FALSE PRIMARCH’ BY SCRIBE HOWTOPHER BUXCRAFT

That’s all for today, I hope you’ve enjoyed this insight into the latest addition to my Flesh Eaters army. Thanks very much for reading, and please remember you can also find me sharing my work on Instagram, Threads, Twitter/X, Bluesky and Mastodon.

Voval Kreen, Genestealer Cults Clamavus

On By Chris B.In Genestealer Cults, LEDs, Technical, Warhammer 40,0001 Comment

This week’s blog post I’ll be talking about Voval Kreen, my recent Genestealer Cults Clamavus project. This miniature and its LED effects have been specially commissioned by the team at Green Stuff World to show off some of their 3D printed accessories and LED kits. This is my third Green Stuff World commission after Sergeant Khons and Custodian Kalden that I posted earlier in the year.

Modelling

This miniature was intended to demonstrate the Green Stuff World 3D printed Hacker Screens set. When I was asked to incorporate these effects into a miniature, I spent a little time thinking about what would be the best choice. I knew I wanted to specifically use the 3D “hololith” effect, and in the end I settled on the Genestealer Cults Clamavus.

Although the base miniature doesn’t actually include a hololith, the Clamavus is a master of propaganda and the information war when the Genestealer Cults rise up. I thought it would be cool if the Clamavus was portrayed receiving orders from the Cult Magus via hololith – it really helps that one of the components looks like a Magus! Or perhaps the Clamavus is simply amplifying a pre-recorded propaganda speech from the Cult’s spiritual leader. Either way, I thought it would give some awesome battlefield presence to this cool specialist.

As part of the commission I filmed all the stages of the build process, which you can see in the video below.

A full PDF tutorial for this build will be released via Green Stuff World soon. When it is, I’ll add it here and link to it from my tutorial section. In the meantime to get you started here’s a list of all the components and consumables I used.

You may also find my older LED Hololith Tutorial interesting, which shows a similar process applied to a Space Marine using slight different techniques and components.

Painting

I’ve gone back and forward on my preferred Genestealer Cults colour scheme over the years. But after sitting down and looking through various pieces of artwork and ‘Eavy Metal models from back in the day, I think I’ve finally settled on a scheme I’m actually happy with. The key colours are listed below.

  • Light Grey Armour
  • Grey Seer base coat
  • Apothecary White shade
  • Nuln Oil Shade in deepest recesses
  • Ulthuan Grey highlight
  • White Scar dot highlight
  • Blue Robes
  • Macragge Blue base coat
  • Nuln Oil shade
  • Hoeth Blue highlight
  • Fenrisian Blue fine highlight
  • Purple Robes
  • Screamer Pink base coat
  • Nuln Oil shade
  • Pink Horror highlight
  • 50:50 Pink Horror:Cadian Flesh fine highlight
  • Cadian Flesh dot highlight
  • Gold Equipment
  • Retributor Armour base coat
  • Reikland Fleshshade
  • Runefang Steel highlight

The skin was a slightly simplified version of my Pale Skin recipe. I skipped the three glazes in the recipe and instead glazed 25:25:50 Xereus Purple, Bugman’s Glow, Lahmian Medium from the eyes downwards. I also added some mottling using Naggaroth Night and Genestealer Purple. The base follows the ‘urban’ scheme used for my Tyranids and detailed in this post.

That’s all for today, I hope you enjoyed this miniature and the demonstration of the Green Stuff World kits! Thanks very much for reading, and please remember you can also find me sharing my work on Instagram, Threads, Twitter/X, Bluesky and Mastodon.