Category: Leviathan

Imperial Fists Apothecary Biologis

On By Chris B.In Imperial Fists, LEDs, Leviathan, Social Media, Space Marines, Technical, Warhammer 40,000Leave a comment

This week I’m showcasing a very special project – an Apothecary Biologis of the Imperial Fists. I am donating this miniature to The Apothecarion project, a fundraising effort for a charity that supports survivors of childhood cancer. Members of the online Warhammer community are donating Apothecary miniatures, and anyone can buy tickets to enter the raffle for a chance to win one of four ‘reliquary’ display cases full of donated miniatures. If you enter this raffle then this is your chance to not only own this miniature, but also raise money to a great cause!

Modelling

When I was asked to take part in this fundraising project and donate an Apothecary, my mind immediately went to the Leviathan Apothecary Biologis. Until recently I had no clear plans for this miniature as it didn’t really fit in with my Flesh Eaters. But with this community project to inspire me I suddenly knew exactly what I wanted to do with this kit. This Apothecary includes three LEDs to create its effects; one in the helmet, one in the task lamp, and one in the Vivispectrum sample chamber.

The glowing helmet eye lenses were created using the techniques detailed in my LED Eye Lens Tutorial, including the TruOpto 1.8mm Red LED.

The task lamp was created following the same principles as the helmet, in the sense that it’s a resin cast. The lamp uses a 3V yellow 0805 SMD chip LEDs connected to a 47 ohm resistor (also available pre-wired from Small Scale Lights) to provide the illumination.

The Vivispectrum sample containment chamber was the most complex part of the conversion. Thankfully it is hollow, but I had to carefully cut out and file the chamber windows. The ‘xenos sample’ is made from the tentacled maw of a Ymgarl Genestealer. I painted the sample and the inside of the chamber before proceeding to the resin pour. Will the chamber with resin was intended to give the impression it was filled with liquid. I used PVA glue to temporarily fix a thin piece of plastic over each of the four windows, then poured UV Resin from Green Stuff World into each half of the chamber. I then cured the resin with a UV Torch.

The final touch on the Vivispectrum chamber was adding the 3V Flickering Green 0807 SMD chip LED to the inside of the top of the chamber, facing downwards. The connecting wire runs up through the arm and then down through the torso and legs. I chose a flickering LED to give a sense of motion to the sample, and hopefully the impression that whatever it is, it’s still alive!

Each of the three LEDs described above are connected in parallel to a single 3V CR2032 coin cell battery and miniature switch hidden under the base.

I did originally also plan to illuminate the wrist-mounted computer screen. The wrist unit is actually cast in resin in preparation for this. But I decided against it in the end as I was concerned it would draw the eye away from the much more interesting LED effect in the sample chamber.

Painting

When it came time to paint this miniature I went with Imperial Fists as they are of course one of my favourite chapters. This was quite a complex miniature to paint, both in the amount of detail and the range of colours used. There’s a little too much info about all the paints used to include in a single blog post, but I’ve listed my recipes for the off-white and yellow armour below. The whole miniature was undercoated with Chaos Black spray prior to painting.

  • Yellow Armour
  • Averland Sunset basecoat
  • Yriel Yellow layer (2-3 thin coats)
  • Casandora Yellow shade
  • Fuegan Orange shade in darker areas (slightly watered down)
  • Mournfang Brown shade in deepest recesses
  • Yriel Yellow edge highlight
  • Flash Gitz Yellow fine highlight
  • Dorn Yellow fine highlight on sharpest edges
  • White Scar dot highlight on sharpest edges
  • Off-White Armour
  • Administratum Grey basecoat (two thin coats)
  • Apothecary White Contrast shade
  • Corax White layer
  • Skull White highlight

So there we go, something slightly different this week. Don’t forget to follow The Apothecarion project for updates, and please buy tickets to enter the raffle for a chance to win this miniature! As always, thanks very much for reading, and please remember you can also find me sharing my work on Instagram, Threads, 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.

Hive Fleet Cerberus & New Year, New Army

On By Chris B.In Hive Fleet Cerberus, LEDs, Leviathan, Painting Recipe, Tyranids, Warhammer 40,0005 Comments

Hive Fleet Cerberus

We’re in ‘New Year, New Army’ season, so now is the perfect time to introduce my next big project – the Tyranids of Hive Fleet Cerberus! I already have a Tyranid army that has been plaguing the galaxy for decades. In fact, they’re the only army I own that has – in some form or another – consistently seen the tabletop in every single edition of Warhammer 40,000. They took part in the global Ichar IV campaign back in the 1990s, so it has always been my ‘headcanon’ that Hive Fleet Cerberus was a splinter of Hive Fleet Kraken, skulking off to terrorise the Eastern Fringe in the aftermath of that epic conflict. The name Cerberus is intended to allude to the “multi headed” threat of the splinter fleets.

This army has soldiered on with many of the original Tyranid models for many years now, as shown above. These were among the first xenos models I ever purchased, and they will always hold a special place in my nostalgic gamer’s heart. But the arrival of the Leviathan boxed set last summer convinced me that it was time for a long-overdue revamp of this force. I will be adding the Hive Fleet Cerberus tag to my blog, if you want to follow search for any posts relating to this project as it progresses.

If you’re a regular reader, you may also recall I made a ‘soft start’ to this project back in July 2023 with my Leviathan Screamer Killer.

Paint Palette

When it came to picking the colours for this revamp project I wanted to stick fairly close to my original Hive Fleet Cerberus scheme, which was also the “official” Games Workshop scheme back in the day. So this meant red for flesh and bone for carapace. After some thought on what colour bioweapons should be I eventually settled on blue. This forms a triadic colour harmony with the red and the yellowish tint of the bone. I find this free Colour Wheel website a useful reference for choosing complementary colours schemes for painting projects.

You can see some examples below of the classic Tyranid colour scheme from the 1990s. This is my main source of inspiration for the colours of Hive Fleet Cerberus.

Images © Games Workshop

When I list my painting recipes on this blog, I’m not only recording them for those of you who are interested in using them, but also as a reminder for myself. Below are the paint recipes for Hive Fleet Cerberus, and I’m sure I’ll be referring to this post frequently throughout the project. All paints listed are from the Citadel range and are applied over an undercoat of Citadel Wraithbone spray.

  • Red Flesh
  • Contrast Blood Angels Red
  • Wild Rider Red highlight
  • Troll Slayer orange dot highlight on sharp points
  • Bone Carapace
  • Contrast Skeleton Horde
  • Screaming Skull highlight
  • Skull White dot highlight on sharp points
  • Blue Bioweapons
  • Contrast Talassar Blue
  • Lothern Blue highlight
  • Blue Horror dot highlight on sharp points
  • Black Claws
  • Contrast Black Templar
  • Eshin Grey highlight
  • Dawnstone dot highlight on sharp points
  • Head Mottling
  • Naggaroth Night irregular dot
  • Genestealer Purple layer inside dot
  • Yellow Eyes
  • Averland Sunset base coat
  • Agrax Earthshade shade
  • Yriel Yellow layer
  • Abaddon Black pupils
  • Urban Ruins Base
  • Mechanicus Standard Grey base coat on rocks
  • Warplock Bronze base coat on metal debris
  • Contrast Skeleton Horde on skulls
  • Nuln Oil shade over rocks and metal
  • Dawnstone drybrush on rocks
  • Administratum Grey drybrush on rocks
  • White Scar drybrush on rocks
  • Retributor Armour highlight on metal debris
  • Screaming Skull highlight on skulls
  • Skull White dot highlight on skulls
  • Citadel Middenland Tufts (used sparingly)
  • Abaddon Black rim

When I’m painting a display miniature or a small model count army, then I prefer the traditional painting methods of base coat, shade, multiple highlights and glazes. But if I was to try and apply that to the Tyranids I don’t think my sanity would hold out (although that would be fitting)! So I’ve decided that Contrast paints and one or two highlights are the best compromise between speed and acceptable quality. You can see the first test Termagant above, and I’m pleased with the results.

LED Palette

Since my Crimson Fists project I tend to specify a limited LED colour palette for new armies. This is to ensure they don’t look like multi-coloured Christmas decorations when the force is fully assembled on the tabletop. Hive Fleet Cerberus will use the following limited LED colour palette:

  • Blue for bio plasma, psychic weapons and psychic abilities.
  • Yellow for bullet impacts and fire.

I expect to use less LEDs in this project than in my space marine armies. My first rule of LED miniature design philosophy is “follow the art”. What this means is that I won’t put effects like LED muzzle flares on bio weapons that launch their projectiles through muscle spasms rather than gunpowder, as that wouldn’t make sense. Pyrovores on the other hand…

My painting desk is swarming with Tyranids!

Army List

Below is the initial 1000 point army list that I’m aiming for. I hope to have this done by the summer so I can start playing some small games with this force. This list uses the ‘Invasion Fleet’ detachment.

  • Hive Tyrant
    • Heavy venom cannon
    • Monstrous bonesword and lash whip
    • Warlord
    • Enchancement: Perfectly adapted
  • Termagants x 10
  • Termagants x 10
  • Termagants x 10
  • Barbgaunts x 5
  • Neurolictor
  • Screamer Killer
  • Tyranid Warriors x 3
    • Melee bio-weapons
  • Von Ryan’s Leapers x 3
  • Zoanthropes x 3

Once the initial 1000 points are finished, what will be next? Tyrant Guard and a Biovore will be high priority, as I think they are awesome models. I’ll probably also need more fire power in the form of either Hive Guard, Exocrine or a Tyrannofex. A second Screamer Killer would be great too, as would some Lictors! My army list choice is always based on what I think looks cool, not what makes any tactical sense. I just can’t bring myself to paint miniature I’m not enthused about.

Like all my armies, I’m sure Hive Fleet Cerberus will be a slow-burn project. The Crimson Fists took about three years to complete, and the Flesh Eaters are also coming into their third year. So don’t expect to see a new unit of Tyranids every week! Having said that, here’s a preview of a another Tyranid miniature that is currently on my workbench…

What Else This Year?

It won’t just be Tyranids all the way down in 2024, I’ll also be continuing to expand my Flesh Eaters, painting a small Age of Sigmar force, plus working on a couple of one-off display projects.

That’s all for today, I hope you’ve enjoyed this introduction to my Tyranid project. 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 Minos, Hellfire Dreadnought

On By Chris B.In Flesh Eaters, LEDs, Leviathan, Space Marines, War of the False Primarch, Warhammer 40,0002 Comments

This week I’m taking a closer look at the Brother Minos, Hellfire Dreadnought. If you’ve been following my recent Armies on Parade project, then you may have spotted Brother Minos providing fire support at the back of the display board. I finished him in parallel with the board, and in my rush to meet the Armies on Parade submission deadline, I didn’t have a chance to give him his article at the time.

“Brother Minos was a former captain of the Flesh Eaters 3rd company. Laid low in combat against vile greenskins, his injuries were severe enough to require interment in a dreadnought. Methodical and with little patience for fools in life, in near-death he was more than willing to answer the Chapter’s call to battle against the False Primarch and his misguided followers.”

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

Modelling & Painting

Brother Minos is based on the Dreadnought from the Warhammer 40,000 ‘Leviathan’ boxed set. Technically this is a Ballistus pattern, but I’ll always think of a Dreadnought with two different ranged weapons by the old ‘Hellfire’ pattern name.

The primary LED effect on this model are the missiles in mid-launch. I did also consider lascannon effects, but I’m already planning lascannon effects on another vehicle, so I decided to just focus on the missiles. I used  Yellow/Amber 0805 Chip LED (3V) from the website Small Scale Lights, as detailed in my LED Rocket Launcher tutorial. All six LEDs are connected in parallel to a single battery in the base. I only made two slight deviations from this tutorial. Firstly, I used two LEDs (back-to-back) per rocket to make the effect brighter, since this is a centrepiece model. Secondly, I added a quick spray of Chaos Black to the stuffing used as missile smoke. This gives some texture and contrast to the stuffing, otherwise it’s just a large monotone cloud of white. It’s worth noting that the stuffing was sprayed before it was added to the model!

As with my Crimson Fists Redemptor Dreadnought, LED searchlight as that should obviously be illuminated, and an ‘active’ sensor on the other side to visually balance the model. The searchlight is a resin cast, and the active sensor is a hole filled with Water Splash Effect Gel from Green Stuff World. Both have a single TruOpto 1.8mm LEDs behind them – yellow and green respectively – and are connected in parallel to a battery in the base. This is a separate battery and circuit to the missile LEDs, but both circuits are operated by to a single sub-miniature Double Throw Double Pole (DTDP) micro switch.

Purely as a matter of personal taste, I chose not to illuminate the sarcophagus vision slit. I made this choice because the vision slit is rarely illuminated in art, and personally I think it detracts from the concept of a sarcophagus and the near-death state of the marine inside. The rest of the machine is alive, active, and illuminated, but the sarcophagus itself is a cold and silent tomb. That’s not to say lighting the vision slit is wrong – and I know plenty have – it’s just not for me.

The design philosophy for my Flesh Eaters army has always been that of a Rogue Trader era (i.e. 1st edition 40K) aesthetic. This tends to mean no excessive decorations – space marines were a lot plainer back then and chapter identity tended to be expressed via paint scheme, rather than trinkets on the armour. However, for this Dreadnought I was very influenced by the picture below, which can be found in the Rogue Trader rulebook (pg. 22). Please excuse the poor-quality picture, the image was right on the gutter. If you’re newer to the hobby and having trouble working out exactly what you’re looking at in the picture, then this is what the original Space Marine Dreadnought looked like.

The image above shows a Blood Angels Dreadnought wearing a necklace of skulls and bones. Pretty badass! I decided to replicate this, although initial mock-ups with the necklace across the aquila made the front of the Dreadnought look very visually cluttered. So, I decided to turn the necklace into a belt. It also made more sense for the trophies to be at eye-level with the opponents they are intended to intimidate. The necklace chains are made from a Chaos vehicle accessory sprue, and the various skills and heads are from my ‘bits box’ and the Citadel Skull set (this is the kit that keeps on giving!). I added extra purity seals to the lower front of the torso, just to emphasise this isn’t heretical, but “sanctioned” trophy taking.

I took some other visual cues from this image, such as the ‘Nil Desperandum’, i.e. ‘Never Despair’, banner, and the laurel wreath banner top. I didn’t try to copy it exactly, as the Dreadnought’s banner had to fit in with the style of other banners in my army. But hopefully I’ve captured the ‘feel’ correctly. You may have also spotted the ‘Ferrum Et Ignis’, i.e. ‘Iron and Fire’, graffiti from the image reproduced on the lascannon arm. I’m not sure who was brave enough to graffiti a Dreadnought? Maybe it was Brother Talon, he does have a death wish after all!

You may have also noticed the black symbol on the Dreadnought’s body above the Crux Terminatus. It might be slightly hard to make out in the photographs, but this is the ‘Rose of the Pentarchy‘, an Orthodox campaign badge from the War of the False Primarch.

I don’t much new to say about the painting recipes used on this model. I followed the same paint scheme as for the rest of my Flesh Eaters, which you can find detailed in this post. I followed my rules for Terminator iconography and freehand checks patterns to visually link Brother Minos to the Terminator squad and help suggest that he is a storied veteran.

That’s all for today, I hope you enjoyed this detailed look at Brother Minos. Thanks very much for reading today’s post, and please remember if you’re on Instagram, Threads, Twitter/X, Bluesky or Mastodon you can also find me posting my work there.

Flesh Eaters Terminator Squad ‘Naismith’

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

Terminator Squad ‘Naismith’ is complete, just in time for Armies on Parade 2023. So now is a good chance for some group pictures and a look back at the design and development of this unit.

Design Philosophy

I’m very pleased with how this unit turned out, especially now I’ve seen all of the models together. I wanted to continue the ‘Rogue Trader’ era aesthetic and the ‘War of the False Primarch’ army theme of my Flesh Eaters with this unit. Thankfully the Leviathan Terminators are still very close in aesthetics to the original RT09 Terminator squad, so I didn’t feel the need to convert how they looked. With a little retro iconography, they fit right in with the look of the army.

If you’re seeing my Flesh Eaters space marine project for the first time and you’re interested in how the LED effects are achieved, then you can find detailed explanations on my LED Miniature Tutorials page. My painting recipes for Flesh Eaters armour, freehand checks, and Terminator iconography can also be found in previous posts.

Squad Members

Brother-Sergeant Naismith is the leader of the terminator squad. He likes to look his enemies in the eye as he cuts them down with his power sword. You can read the full article about this model here.

Brother Lazarus is widely believed to be one of the best shots in the 1st company. Whether serving in the sternguard or the terminators, his marksmanship is beyond reproach. You can read the full article about this model here.

Brother Furian has an unerring ability to identify the weak points of any obstacle, whether that is an armoured bulkhead, xenos vehicle or fleshy Partisan during the War of the False Primarch. You can read the full article about this model here.

Brother Rephas is a zealot of the High Lords cause. He is equally happy blasting Partisans apart at range or pulling them to pieces in close combat. You can read the full article about this model here.

Brother Erasmus is known for lacking a sense of humour. The task of liaising with the machine spirit of his assault cannon to monitor ammunition levels and barrel wear takes his full concentration. You can read the full article about this model here.

Last, and probably least, is the squad teleport homer with flashing beacon! You can read the full article about this model here.

Now the squad is complete I have to ask myself, should I have done anything different? If I were to go back and make any changes, it would be to add small variable resistors under the bases of the sergeant to tweak the power sword brightness, and the assault cannon to tweak the motor rotation speed. I might also have made the assault cannon muzzle flare slightly larger. Other than that, I’m extremely satisfied with how this squad turned out!

I hope you’ve enjoyed following the progress of this unit over the last couple of months. That’s all for today, but I’ll be back again soon for more Flesh Eaters, plus a few side projects.  In the meantime, thanks very much for reading today’s post, and please don’t forget you can also follow my work on social media at Instagram, Threads, Twitter/X, Bluesky and Mastodon.