As we reach the end of January, I can finally unveil my “New Year, New Army” project for 2022. This year I plan to expand my Flesh Eaters Kill Team into a small army in time for Armies on Parade in November. This is the first member of a new Intercessor Assault Squad, Brother Kane.
Brother Kane is depicted charging into the fray, bullets ricocheting from his armour. He carries the squad’s “Terror Banner”, an evolution of the vexilla carried by Legionaries in millennia past. 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 “Prey For Death” message is a homage to the slogan painted on the shoulder pad of the Flesh Eaters marine depicted in the colour section of the Warhammer 40K first edition ‘Rogue Trader’ rulebook.
Design, Building & Painting
I had a number of different design goals with this model. Firstly, I wanted to convert the base Primaris model to look like he was wearing Mark VI armour to help him fit more closely with the War of the False Primarch M34 setting. I achieved this by removing a lot of the distinctive Mark X armour details – ankle stabilisers, knee pad rims, etc – and adding chest power cables made from guitar strings. The shoulder pads and backpack are from the Forge World Mark VI armour kit.
The base model is an Assault Intercessor from the Indomitus box set. The left arm is in its normal position, and I repositioned the right arm and wrist to form a straight line with the other hand to allow the model to carry the flag. The flag pole is 1mm wire and the flag itself is a Tactical Marine banner turned on its side.
The LED effect bullet ricochets were achieved using the techniques described in my Simple LED Muzzle Flare tutorial, only with the “flares” coming from the armour rather than a gun barrel. Both LEDs are powered from the same battery. They are connected in parallel with each other and in series with a single 100 ohm resistor. You can see and On/Off comparison picture on the right of the gallery above.
The paint scheme is exactly the same as described in this post about my Flesh Eaters Kill Team.
That’s it for this week. One Assault Intercessor down, nine more to go! See you again soon for more Flesh Eaters space marines, and maybe even finishing some of the other projects I have on the go as well!
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!
Debate the Tyrant’s cause if you like, but it’s hard to argue with 1200 rounds a minute.
Brother Salvio, Lamenter heavy weapons specialist
This is another model that has been living in my head as a nebulous idea for well over a year. In fact, I’d say my failure to settle on a way to execute this concept for my ‘Heavy’ specialist is why my seven-man Lamenters Kill Team project has currently been running for a year and a half! But now he’s done, so let’s have a big round of applause to welcome Brother Salvio!
Influence
There are a number of sources that I’m ‘riffing’ off with this member of the Kill Team, many of them from video games. The Team Fortress 2 Heavy is an obvious one, as are Halo Spartans carrying turrets (particularly Jorge-052) and even the Call of Duty Juggernaut. What is boils down to is a heavily armoured soldier carrying a large gun that you might normally expect to find on a vehicle! To help sell the theme of heavy armour, I decided on MkVIII ‘Errant’ armour for this marine, particularly as this has the enhanced face and neck protection seen in many of the characters linked above.
If you haven’t been following along with my Lamenters Kill Team project, then I should explain that it is intended to be Badab War era, so these are ‘true scale’ Marines rather than Primaris Marines. Every member of the team so far has been wearing armour appropriate to the era, which so far means MkVI, MkVII and MKVIII. So how did I go about turning MkX armour into MkVIII to match the reference images shown above?
Used modelling putty to increase the height of the neck gorget.
Selected up-armoured shoulder pads with elbow joint protection.
Replaced the skull on the chest with a jewel.
Filled in the detail on the wrist bracers to create a smoother armoured feel.
Removed the additional protection from the top of the MkX knee pads.
Left the MkX ankle joints intact – this was the first time I noticed MkVIII armour also uses them!
Replaced the Primaris backpack with a Tactical backpack.
I also added extra ammo pouches and grenades to enhance the impression of bulkiness.
That’s it for this week, I hope you found that interesting. Come back again soon to find out if I ever finish this bloody Lamenters Kill Team, haha! Hopefully I will be able to finish them soon, as it looks like we might possibly be in for a new edition of Kill Team.
Here is Brother Quartus, the latest addition to my long-running Lamenter Badab War kill team project. If you’d like to look back on this project then you can search for posts tagged with either ‘Lamenters’ or ‘Badab War’.
Influence
When designing this Marine, my question to myself was “how can I make one of the team’s “filler” tactical marines with bolter interesting?”. In the end I hit upon the idea of loosely copying this classic Mark Gibbons art. I haven’t copied it exactly – for one the marine in the art is a Blood Angel – but I hope I’ve captured the feel, both of the art and of that era of Games Workshop history. Of course Brother Quartus has grown on me over the building and painting process so now I think I might promote him to sniper specialist in the kill team.
“Downgrading” Mk X armour to Mk VII
All my Lamenters are ‘true scale’, that is to say they have Primaris stature but wear period-appropriate armour marks. There was no Mk X used during the Badab War (as far as we know), so I wanted to “downgrade” the base Primaris Intercessor model to Mk VII power armour. The most important thing was to remove the elements of the armour that are distinctly Primaris features. For me this is the ankle ‘stabilisers’, the rim above the knee-pad, the armoured stomach, the forearm bracers, the wide backpack and of course the helmet. An argument could be made that the thigh-plates don’t belong on a Mk VII either, but I think I can make my peace with that.
To remove the unwanted leg and stomach detail I simply hacked off anything that I didn’t want with a craft knife and then smoothed over any gaps with modelling putty, sculpting detail in where necessary. The arms are from Primaris Reivers, which are in scale for a marine of Primaris stature but less armoured than the standard Mk X arms. The helmet and the backpack were straight component swaps for their Mk VII equivalents.
Effects
For the LED effects I simply just followed the steps in my own LED Muzzle Flare tutorial to the letter, using the exact LEDs and components listed there. My Lamenters paint recipe can be found in this post if anyone is interested in how the yellow is achieved. As for the mid-ejection bolt shell casing, I think that’s worth talking through as this is a new technique that I was playing around with for this model.
I started with a 1mm diameter plastic rod, painted the end in Retributor Armour, and then cut off a 2mm length to form the ejected bolt shell casing.
Next I built up the “smoke” around the ejection port using Water Splash Effect Gel, available from Green Stuff World. This gel is white and opaque when applied (as seen in the picture) but dries transparent.
Once the splash gel had dried, I used a tiny dab of super glue to attach the shell casing.
Next I applied another layer of the splash gel around the shell casing to continue the smoke effect.
Once the splash gel was dry I gave it a thin watered-down glaze of Ulthuan Grey. This helps it to retain some transparency while also appearing smoke coloured.
Finally I applied a coat of Lahmian Medium to dull down the shine of the splash gel.
That’s it for this week. I’ll end with a group shot of the kill team so far (minus the Mk VI, who has returned to the chapter forge for modifications). That’s four down, three to go! My aim is to have the team finished by the time face-to-face gaming is allowed again in the UK, so please visit again soon to see how I’m getting on with that!
Chris Buxey Paints 