Last weekend I published an article about my new Flesh Eaters ‘Kill Team Caro’. During the week I’ve been sharing some extra close-up images and background snippets about each member of the unit on my Twitter and Instagram. Now that I’ve covered them all, I thought it would be nice to compile the images and information here on my website as well.
First up we have Sergeant Caro himself. The honour markings on his helmet indicate he is a veteran of the Flesh Eaters famous “Jaws of Doom” assault squad. He lead his kill team to infiltrate Partisan space and target key assets during the so-called “Sorrowful Years”, the period during the War of the False Primarch that saw mainly retrenchment and small scale skirmishes between Orthodox and Partisan forces.
Next we have Brother Orr. He is equipped with an Umbra Ferrox pattern bolt gun with autosense-linked scope. This weapon has similar range and stopping power to the much later marksman bolt carbine and was the bane of Partisan counter-insurgency forces throughout the War of the False Primarch.
Then we have Brother Holman. As the unit’s Helix Adept his medical skills keep them in fighting shape while behind enemy lines. He also carries the squad’s “Terror Banner”. Used by forces on both sides during the War of the False Primarch, they were unfurled at the moment the shooting starting, leaving their victims in no doubt as to who had come for them!
The fourth member of Flesh Eaters Infiltrator ‘Kill Team Caro’ is Brother Amos. Like the rest of his unit, Amos wears ‘Imperial pattern’ power armour, a rare archaic variant of MkVI ‘Corvus’ armour, characterised by its narrow greaves and external cabling. Brother Amos is proficient in the use of bolt weapons, as indicated by the circular tactical marking on his right pauldron.
The fifth and final member of Flesh Eaters Infiltrator ‘Kill Team Caro’ is Brother Stern. His bolter is equipped with a close combat attachment, an upgrade popular with the Flesh Eaters during the War of the False Primarch. These weapons were valued for the psychological damage they inflicted on the foe as much as the gruesome physical injuries they caused.
I think that’s enough Flesh Eaters for the moment! If you like what you’ve seen here and would like to make your own LED miniatures then I used the techniques detailed in my LED Eye Lens tutorial and my Simple LED Muzzle Flare tutorial. If you need electronics supplies and consumables, you can buy them here. That’s all for this week, see you again soon!
Kill Team Caro’s modus operandi is simple. Steal in, explode out.
Chaplain Urias
Allow me to introduce ‘Kill Team Caro’, a Flesh Eaters Infiltrator kill team and my latest LED Space Marine project. This kill team was built with two things in mind; firstly, the new edition of the Kill Team game. Secondly, Apologist’s ‘War of the False Primarch’ community project. If you’ve never heard of the ‘War of the False Primarch’, then you’re not alone. This little-known piece of Imperial history takes place in the 34th Millennium, and is described in very few official sources.
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
As Apologist was already building Silver Stars, a chapter linked with the False Primarch, I decided to join the so-called ‘Pentarchy of Blood’, those chapters who enacted the will of the High Lords of Terra on the wayward Partisan chapters. Of the five chapters who form the Pentarchy, the Flesh Eaters were the ones that appealed to me the most (and we know I already have a thing for off-beat Blood Angels successors). If you’d like to read more about the ‘War of the False Primarch’ community project, then check out the ‘Some Things Are Best Left Forgotten’ blog. You can read a battle report involving Kill Team Caro here, although you may notice their paint job was still a little “WIP” during that game!
Design & Building
From the start my intent was to alter the MkX Phobos armour type of the Infiltrators to more closely reflect the retro look of the so-called ‘Imperial Marine’. This was the very first Space Marine model produced by Games Workshop, pre-dating even the venerable RTB01 plastic Space Marine kit. The ‘Imperial Marine’ received an update in 2016 with a special anniversary plastic remake by Games Workshop. I adopted this aesthetic for my kill team to help them fit in with the early-Imperial period setting, and also to satisfy my love of “Beakie” Space Marines. To get the correct look, I made the changes listed below.
Swapped the helmet for a resin cast of the 2016 ‘Imperial Space Marine’ helmet
Swapped the shoulder pads and backpacks for the Forgeworld MkV/MkVI equivalents
Added 1mm wire antenna to MkVI backpacks (since Infiltrators have antenna on their backpacks)
Swapped the bolt carbines for Forgeworld Umbra Ferrox pattern bolt guns
Added power cables to the chest armour made from guitar strings
Re-sculpted the kneepads using modelling putty to match the distinctive ‘Imperial Space Marine’ angular kneepads
Removed the circular ankle stabilisers
You can also see my earlier take on this armour type with my Ultramarine Veteran. I was amused to see references to the ‘Imperial’ armour variant coincidently appear in a recent White Dwarf article about Space Marine armour types. My head-canon is that ‘Imperial’ armour is just a variant of MKVI armour, perhaps a lighter recon version.
For the LED effects, the helmet eye lenses followed the technique described in my LED Eye Lens tutorial, except using a TruOpto 1.8mm Green LED instead of the red one used in the tutorial. Sergeant Caro’s muzzle flare used the methods described in my recent Simple LED Muzzle Flare tutorial. If you’re going to give this a go yourself then please don’t forget that you can buy electronic supplies and consumables here.
I also made an effort to make the helmets and muzzle flare still look acceptable when the LEDs were switched off. I applied two thin coats of Citadel Biel-Tan Green shade to the helmet eye lenses. This gives them some colour and definition without detracting from the brightness of the LED. The muzzle flare was painted using used the techniques mentioned in the tutorial, which is basically a Citadel Fuegan Orange shade and a Lamenters Yellow glaze.
Painting
As ever, when I list my painting recipes on this blog, I’m not only recording them for those of you who are interested, but also as a reminder for myself! All paints listed are from the Citadel range.
Red ArmourRecipe
Chaos Black undercoat
Mephiston Red base coat
Agrax Earthshade wash in recesses
Evil Sunz Scarlet edge highlight
Wild Rider Red fine edge highlight
Chapter Symbol, Helmet Stripe & InsigniaRecipe
‘Sketched’ in with Administratum Grey
Filled in with Corax White
BasingRecipe
Sand, slate and PVA glue
Chaos Black undercoat
Rhinox Hide base coat on sand
Skavenblight Dinge base coat on slate
50:50 Rhinox Hide:Zandri Dust drybrush on sand
50:50 Skavenblight Dinge:Zandri Dust drybrush on slate
Zandri Dust drybrush on sand and slate
Middenland Tufts added
Rhinox Hide on base rims
Personalities & Insignia
Attempting to stick the the ‘retro’ aesthetic, I went ‘old-school’ with the insignia. Every Marine has their name on their shoulder pad, as well as the Rogue Trader-era black and white ‘bolter’ symbol. Space Marines used to have a symbol on their shoulder pad denoting which weapon they were equipped with! You may also notice the honour markings on Sergeant Caro’s helmet, which indicate he is a veteran of the famous ‘Jaws of Doom’ assault squad.
Brother Holman is a Helix Adept, basically an apothecary in training. I gave him a “Terror Banner” that he can unfurl once the Infiltrators have revealed themselves and the shooting begins. The Partisans shouldn’t be in any doubt about exactly who it is that has come for them! This is also a nod to the classic Blood Angel apothecary who carried a large banner in one hand. The banner is made from a Tactical Marine back banner turned on its side.
That’s all for today, I hope you enjoyed it. I’m really pleased with this unit, and think I may have caught the Flesh Eaters bug (metaphorically, not the actual one)! I’ll probably be posting more individual pictures of these models throughout the week on my Twitter and Instagram. I’ve had to stare at these guys for hours and hours, so now so does everyone else, haha!
Next from the Octarius Kommando Kill Team Orks we have Kaptain Gron, Kommando Nob. This is a fantastic sculpt and originally I was going to leave it untouched. However I have been mulling over the idea of attempting to create an “crackling electrical surface discharge” effects with LEDs on a power fist or power klaw, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to give it a whirl! I did also consider making the backpack radar dish rotate, but in the end decided that would be a little too much effort!
Painting & Assembling
So how did I make the crackling electrical discharge effect on the power klaw?
I drilled through the model’s leg, torso and arm to add three Blue Ultra Nano SMD Chip LED (3V) from the website Small Scale Lights. They are all connected in parallel with a 3V coin cell battery, 10Ω resistor and switch in the base. For more information on hiding batteries in miniature bases, see my LED Eye Lens tutorial.
Once the initial application of gel has dried – which may take several hours – I applied the next layer, increasing the length of the “arcs”.
I continued to apply layers of gel until I was happy with the shape of the “arcs”. As you can see, I joined them up to make it look like the electricity was arcing between different points on the power klaw.
Once the final layer of gel was dry, I applied a thin layer of Citadel Guilliman Blue glaze, just to make the electrical effect look a little more interesting when the LEDs are switched off. Unfortunately this colour is discontinued now, but a thinned-down coat of Citadel Contrast Talassar Blue would have the same effect.
Jobs a good ‘un, boss!
I’m not sure if the crackling electrical discharge effect I was picturing in my head has fully translated to the model, but it was a fun experiment anyway! In terms of painting, I stuck to the retro-inspiring Blood Axe Kommando scheme I mentioned in my previous post. Even though Kaptain Gron is the leader of the team I still stuck to the limited colour palette. I think this helps to give the whole unit a more cohesive look on the tabletop.
That’s it for this week. More Octarius Orks soon, plus some more Badab campaign, Armies on Parade revisited and something a bit different! See you all again soon.
Az killy az a sack of Catachan Face Eaters, and twice az hard to catch!
Warboss Grimzod on Gron’s Kommandos.
For the past few weeks I’ve been working on the Ork Kommandos that came in the Kill Team Octarius boxed set. I’ve taken a narrative approach to this project and decided to base the team members on the characters in my Ork Kommando short story The Dark Stabba. Now I’m halfway through the ten Ork team this seems like a good time for a blog post!
Bomb Squig
The first model I tackled was the Bomb Squig, just because it’s such a cool miniature! I wanted to give the impression of burning fuses on the dynamite, just like in the Kill Team cinematic trailer. To achieve this I used the materials and techniques detailed in my LED Nighthaunt Candle tutorial to creating the fuses, only this time I used yellow glaze rather than green.
Snatchit, Kommando Grot
As soon as I saw the Grot I knew I had to give him proper glowing infrared goggles! I used two 3V Red Ultra Nano SMD Chip LEDs available from Small Scale Lights. The LEDs are wired in parallel with each other, then in series with their supplied 100Ω resistor. Rather than recast the head in resin as I often do for LED eyes, in this case I decided to drill out the eyes and fill in the lenses with the ubiquitous Splash Gel. This was mainly because I thought the very fine details of the tiny head might loose a bit too much definition during the recasting process.
Snikbad, Slasha Boy
There are no LEDs on the Slasha Boy, but it didn’t need any. The colour scheme is based on the classic Blood Axe Kommando colour scheme, as seen in my Kommando ‘proof of concept’ model post. As with all non-LED models in LED units, I’ve raised the top of his base slightly with modelling putty, as though there were a battery holder in the base. This is so he doesn’t look shorter than his comrades!
‘Eadrekka, Kommando Boy
This Kommando Boy uses my brand new technique for producing simple LED muzzle flares. Check out my new Simple LED Muzzle Flare tutorial if you’d like a full step-by-step guide.
Dakkagor, Dakka Boy
The Dakka Boy uses the same new Simple LED Muzzle Flare tutorial that I referenced above, except that I used three LEDs of the same type instead of one! The three LEDs all share the same connections and the same battery. The three LEDs are wired in parallel with each other, but then still in series with the resistor, battery and switch.
That’s it for this week, I hope you’ve all found that interesting. I’m really enjoying painting the rag-tag Orks as a nice change of pace from neat power armour. Hopefully I’ll be back again soon with Gron’s Kommando Kill Team – Part 2!
So, almost two years after starting this Badab Kill Team project, how are things looking for Kill Team Lugeo? Quite good I think! I had originally planned seven members for the squad, and the seventh is already on the workbench. But I’d like to see the upcoming new Kill Team rules and find out exactly how many models are in an Adeptus Astartes fire team and what specialists they can have before finalising the squad. Once I’ve read and understood the new rules, I might even get a game in with them!
If you’d like to read any of the previous articles about individual members of the Kill Team and how their LED effects were made, you can either search my blog for articles tagged “Lamenters” or click the links below.
Chris Buxey Paints 