My new Age of Darkness project continues this week with the second member of my Imperial Fists Heavy Support autocannon squad.
Painting & Modelling
The LED effects in the helmet and the autocannon muzzle are achieved using the techniques outlined in my LED Muzzle Flare tutorial. There was a slight alteration; instead of the yellow 0805 SMD used for the muzzle flare in the tutorial, I used a larger TruOpto OSHR7331A-KL 1.8mm Yellow LED and a 20 ohm resistor. I chose this LED to make the autocannon muzzle flare larger and more impressive than a bolter muzzle flare, which is what the tutorial is focused on. Otherwise, all the methods used are the same.
This miniature was painted using the recipes described in my post last week. While I do want to keep the markings and insignia fairly uniform in this army – they are disciplined Imperial Fists after all – I also want to include a small amount of quirks and customisations to their armour to give the impression they’ve been on campaign for a long time. This miniature was created to give a baseline as the ‘stock’ member of the squad, but you will see some additional customisation creeping in for the next three marines.
That’s all for today, thanks very much for reading, and please remember you can also find me sharing my work on Instagram, Threads, Bluesky and Mastodon. Or if you prefer you can subscribe to my website by entering your email in the box below to receive updates whenever I post a new blog article or tutorial.
This week I’m looking at the start of a new project – Imperial Fists in the Age of Darkness! I’ve had various iterations of Horus Heresy Imperial Fists armies over the years (plus Golden Demon projects), most of them heavily converted with resin and incorporating some of my early LED experiments. However, besides individual display pieces, this is a theme that I haven’t touched since around 2019, although I’ve long promised myself yet another Imperial Fists full army reboot with modern plastics.
Earlier this year, as we started to hear rumours about a third edition of the Age of Darkness rule set, interest in Horus Heresy gaming began to grow in my games group. So I decided this was the perfect time to start planning this project. Since then we’ve seen the preview of the Saturnine box, which has only stoked interest further.
The First 500 Points
A few weeks ago I planned out and purchased the first 500 points of this new force, as set out below. My favourite armour mark is MkVI (as long-time readers will know) and thankfully these were readily available. This force is based on the Age of Darkness second edition army list, since at this stage we don’t know what the new points costs will be. But I can’t imagine they will change dramatically.
Centurion (Castellan Consul)
10 Tactical Marines
10 Tactical Marines
5 Heavy Support Marines (Autocannons)
This is my initial plan. After that, well, we’ll see what’s in the new Liber Astartes! But I am looking forward to getting my hands on the Saturnine Terminators…
In terms of lore, I’m picturing a force that initially remained behind with Dorn on Terra and so weren’t part of the Retribution Fleet at Phall. But after news of the Dropsite Massacre spread they were then sent out far and wide within Segmentum Solar to assist in battles like Mars, Cthonia, Beta-Garmon, and generally shoring-up the defences along the road to Terra.
Heavy Support Sergeant
I started with a Heavy Support squad on the reasoning that they were likely to be deployed at the back of the board, so this was the perfect place to get back into my stride with painting yellow. The LED effects on this miniature were created using the techniques exactly as described in my LED Eye Lens tutorial.
The pointing left hand is the open left hand from the Legion Melee Weapons Upgrade Set, but with the lower fingers bent into a closed position and the gaps re-sculpted with modelling putty. Using this hand meant that I needed to cut the sculpted hand from the upper handle on the autocannon and replace it with a short length of plastic rod.
I wanted the sergeant to be posed as though directing his squad towards their target, while the other marines in the squad will be in more traditional firing positions.
Painting Imperial Fists in the Age of Darkness
If I have a bad habit as a painter, it’s that I have to always try and apply my highest standard to every miniature I paint. This isn’t necessarily compatible with painting the 50 – 70 infantry miniatures that you might expect to see in an Age of Darkness army. The recipes below represent a compromise that I’ve settled on between a high standard, and a technique that won’t take forever.
The miniature was undercoated with Colour Forge ‘Sunset Yellow’ spray. All other paints are Citadel unless specified otherwise.
That’s all for today. I do have quite a few miniatures for this project at various stages on my workbench, so hopefully it won’t be too long before my next update. Thanks very much for reading, and please remember you can also find me sharing my work on Instagram, Threads, Bluesky and Mastodon. Or if you prefer you can subscribe to my website by entering your email in the box below to receive updates whenever I post a new blog article or tutorial.
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 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.
Sorry, I know that regular readers are probably tired of seeing this diorama by now, but yesterday I was lucky enough to have my work shown on the Warhammer TV Twitch channel again! “Burn traitor!” featured alongside the work of other hobbyists on this Friday’s ‘Hang Out and Paint’ episode on Warhammer TV (Friday 12th February episode, at around the 5:30 mark, if anyone would like to see it).
It’s always an honour to have had my work exhibited in this way, and a big thank you to Em, Alex and the rest of the Warhammer Community Team for their kind words about this miniature!
I’m back from Golden Demon 2023 and Warhammer Fest! After 48 hours to rest and decompress, I’m ready to share some thoughts, feelings and photos!
Golden Demon 2023
I’m very pleased to say that “Burn traitor!”, my entry to the Golden Demon ‘Duel’ category, made it through the first cut and took home a Finalist pin, as seen above! I’m really happy with this result. As mentioned in my previous post, I wasn’t seriously expecting a trophy – and I’m not certain if an LED miniature could ever win one – but it was lovely to have my hard work acknowledged in this way. There was nothing for my Ultramarine Veteran Sergeant, but I’d be the first to admit he was the weaker of the two entries, so I wasn’t overly surprised by that.
I feel like I learnt a lot from this year’s Golden Demon, both in terms of viewing other entries and listening to other competitors. Many people around the cabinets certainly had plenty of lovely things to say about “Burn traitor!”. One thing this outing confirmed for me is that 12V LEDs are the way to go if you want your lights to be clearly noticeable in the brightly spot lit cabinets. The 3V LEDs in the Ultramarines Veteran Sergeant were still visible, but only if you were nearby and looking directly at the model. The 12V filament LED was clearly noticeable from a distance, even in such a well lit space. After the first 24 hours the LED had lost a lot of its brightness, but the Golden Demon staff were very helpful and understanding, and kindly took the diorama out of the cabinet so I could perform a quick battery change. I didn’t bother to change the battery in the Ultramarine, as that one was under less strain and held up well for the entire weekend.
In the images below you can see my two entries displayed in the Golden Demon cabinets, along with Apologist’s Catachan Jungle Fighters command vehicle, and a selection of other entries that caught my eye. The cabinets were surrounded with admirers all weekend, so it was difficult to get close enough to take good pictures, but of course you can see the professional photos of the winners on the Warhammer Community site.
Right now, I feel like I will probably enter Golden Demon again next year, although it will of course be slightly dependant on where Warhammer Fest is and how long you have to be there to submit your entry and find out the results. This year it was a minimum of two days (Sunday to Monday), whereas at Warhammer Fest 2019 it was all done in a single day.
Warhammer Fest
So, what about the rest of Warhammer Fest? Overall, it was very enjoyable. There were lots of cool things to see and plenty to do.
Much of the event was understandably focused on the upcoming Leviathan boxed set release, and we got to see the ‘Eavy Metal versions of the box content in display cabinets (see above). The Screamer Killer was a bit bigger than I was expecting, and the Neurotyrant quite a bit smaller!
We also had a chance to a play the upcoming retro FPS Boltgun. It delivered exactly what it promised, which was a “boomer shooter” experience in a Warhammer 40K wrapping. A lot of the advanced marketing has pitched it as closest to Doom, but from the short section I played, it was a lot closer to Quake 2 in both feel and level design. Only the enemy sprites were in that classic pixilated 2.5D Doom style. In any case, they will get a guaranteed purchase from me!
We managed to make it into several preview sessions – spaces were limited – and we also braved the queues to play a demo game of 10th edition using a portion of the Leviathan box. It was actually only one turn for each side due to the time limits imposed by the high demand, but it was very smooth and easy to play, and overall, left me feeling very positive about 10th edition. They had Warhammer TV presenters running the demos, people like Simon, Nick and Ben, and they did a wonderful job at clearly and enthusiastically explaining the game to use – for what was presumably the 50th time that day!
There were plenty of other things to see and do. We played Orks vs Astra Militarum laser tag, got to have a go on a squigapult, and I even managed to take my Ork Kommandos out for a spin in a friendly game of Kill Team. Our group also bought tickets for the ‘Mega Warhammer Pub Quiz’ on Saturday night, and did very well, coming in third place overall, only two points behind the winning team! We were given a load of cool prizes to split between the team members (centre picture above), so now I need to start thinking about how to put LEDs in the McFarlane Blood Angels Primaris Lieutenant!
So, was it all good?
Overall, it was an incredibly positive experience, and I’m very glad I went. That’s not to say there weren’t issues. We had to queue for around two hours for the 10th edition demo game, and we heard that at some points the queue waiting time was well over three hours. There were lengthy queues for many other things too, including the computer game demos and the shop on Saturday. It feels like the queuing for the demo games could have been managed better, with perhaps a wristband or ‘take a ticket’ system that called you up when it was your turn. The shop was a bit strange too, there wasn’t enough event merch and exclusives to go around, and the Forge World section was arranged like a jumble sale, with items piled into hand labelled cardboard boxes! It would have been nice to see more availability of the event merch and items that you can’t normally buy in a Warhammer store, and less of the generic stock that you can buy anywhere.
For me, one of the biggest omissions was a lack of design studio staff, ‘Eavy Metal painters or Black Library authors carrying out meet and greets or signings. This is something I remember from Warhammer Fest 2019, and it seems a shame to have left that out this time. Another issue was that all the previews took place in an auditorium that was separate from the main hall, and only had a capacity of 750 people. What would have been better was a large stage and screen area in the main hall, where as many people as wanted to could have gathered around for the previews. As it was, the auditorium required joining the queue about an hour in advance to guarantee a seat.
All those niggles aside, I had a great time this weekend. It may have left me burned out on queuing and walking around exhibition halls, but my Warhammer enthusiasm is higher than ever! I’m already looking forward to the Leviathan release, and forming nascent ideas for Golden Demon 2023, so watch this space. As ever, thanks for reading, and please don’t forget you can also follow my work at Twitter, Mastodon and Instagram.
Chris Buxey Paints 