Two years and ten months after posting my first LED Primaris Crimson Fist from the Dark Imperium boxed set on my Instagram, I’ve finally finished painting a minimum sized Battalion of two HQ choices and three Troops choices! I felt that this momentous occasion called for a group photo and a quick retrospective.

I was on something of a roll with my painting last week and completed Brother Isario and Brother Merius (don’t forget, LED helmet eye lens tutorial can be found here).

Traitors are a cancer, and cancer requires a blade to excise. – Brother Isario

I relish the dry click of an empty magazine. It tells me another thirty Orks are dead. – Brother Merius

With these two Intercessors complete and added to Brother Lyrast, Comms Specialist Cleulis and Sergeant Galvéz, this in turn completed Squad Galvéz…

…which in turn, when added to my other two squads, Lieutenants and Captain, completed the minimum-sized battalion!

I’m pleased with how they’ve turned out, and I hope you’ve enjoyed the journey so far! So what next? Well that’s not the Crimson Fists finished by any means! It’s probably time to start thinking about the Elite and Heavy support slots so I have a little more firepower on the tabletop. Plus there’s the Reiver and Hellblaster squads to finish, and ‘Armies on Parade’ to think about in the autumn…so plenty more to do!

I’ve now completed the last two Intercessors from the second Dark Imperium squad. Both of them are wearing relic helms; a Mark III Iron helm and a Mark VI Corvus helm respectively. I think I’ve written about this before, but I imagine that Pedro Kantor, Chapter Master of the Crimson Fists, would have been keen to find a way to integrate the fresh influx of Primaris Marines with the weary survivors of the recent battles on Rynn’s World. What better way to do this than to share some of the Crimson Fists’ illustrious heritage with the newcomers? Or at least any heritage that has survived the recent disasters! That’s where the relic helms come in.

These Intercessor were built using the techniques described in my LED eye lens tutorial. While building the Mark VI, I had the first ever case of an LED breaking once I had a fully assembled and nearly completely painted model! I’m not sure exactly what happened – a dry joint I think – but I had no choice but to open it up. This was a bit of a pain as I had to essentially break the model apart with a pair of clippers, replace the LED, reassemble and then fill in the gaps with putty. Back in school, my electronics teacher once said you me “your soldering is the worst I’ve seen this side of the war!”. I like to think I’ve improved somewhat in the intervening twenty years, but I can’t help but think back whenever something like this happens…

The resin Mark VII helmet the model had was unfortunately destroyed in the repair process, but I think I prefer the Mark VI that replaced it, so it was all for the good in the end.

So here are a couple of photos of the second Intercessor squad (click to enlarge). With 14 models now complete, my Primaris Crimson Fists are slowly but surely starting to feel like a coherent army.

 

I should really be concentrating on the Genestealers at the moment, what with the pressing October deadline, but I was in the mood to tackle another Crimson Fist this week. Presenting: the first of the Dark Imperium Hellblaster squad.

I’m very pleased with how this turned out. I’ve tackled plasma pistols before but never a full size plasma rifle. If you’d like to know how it was done then you can check out my Plasma Weapon tutorial in the LED Tutorials section here.

I’ve made a start on the second Intercessor squad from Dark Imperium.

Nothing particularly special to note about this one, although I am pleased with how it turned out. I’ve just noticed that none of the models in the second Intercessor squad are in firing poses, so unfortunately I don’t think there will be the opportunity for any LED muzzle flashes in this squad.