Arx Tyrannus

The First 500 Assemble – Painting Crimson Fists

There is only the Emperor, and he is our shield and protector.

Battle cry of the Crimson Fist

Yesterday I talked about how DIYing my Marines was not working for me, and I delved back into my childhood to pick a Chapter I was already really into and it came down to the Crimson Fists. Beaten and bloody after the devestation of the Rynn’s World incident they are in the midst of rebuilding their chapter. So in this spirit I picked my first 500 points with an aim to not use anything fancy, keeping it to basic models and equipment to represent the sparse surviving equipment available to the chapter, while also making use of unpainted miniatures I already own.

Naming characters and squads is one of the more interesting parts of building a list for me, as it changes a bunch of text and toys into little people with their own stories. So here we have Captain Huron Grimm, as I would like to think that the former first sergeant of the 2nd company would have been granted a command of his own following Rynn’s World, so I’m promoting him. The rest of his force will have to get new names however, and considering the Portugese, Greek and Roman origin of many of the official Crimson Fist names I will have a wide pool of available surnames to work from.

Picking through the piles of sprues and half built models in my bitz box, I’ve assembled the component parts of the entire force ready to be put together. It’s now just a case of waiting for my next day off, and hoping that the humidity drops off a bit so I can use a spray primer. I find that painting an army is one of the more difficult parts of the hobby, I’m more a gamer and a modeller, so one of the most important things I try to get done when painting is to have clear set of instructions of what I want to get done.

I would work out how to paint my models by trial and error, back when I were a lad before all this new fangled technology came along. These days though you can find hobbyists out there who have provided the recipe they have used, for my Crimson Fists I’m going to use the recipe posted by The Hammer over at KANTOR BASE, which I have included below.

Preparation

1 – Clean and assemble models.
2 – Glue sand to the tops of the bases.
3 – Spray with Black Primer.

Blue
1 – Start with a basecoat of Necron Abyss.
2 – Then liberally highlight with Regal Blue. Be sure to cover all edges while doing this. I covered abut a third of the blue armour in this stage.
3 – Carefully pick out all the edges with Ultramarines Blue.
4 – Pick out the most pronounced edges with Space Wolves Grey.
5 – Wash all over the blue areas with Asurmen Blue.

Crimson
1 – Start with a basecoat of Mechrite Red.
2 – Carefully pick out the edges with Blood Red.
3 – Wash with Gryphonne Sepia

Khaki
1 – Basecoat with Khemri Brown.
2 – Highlight with Kommando Khaki, leaving the previous colour only in the recesses.
3 – Make small highlights with Bleached bone.
4 – Wash with Delvan Mud.

Black
1 – Basecoat with Chaos Black.
2 – Liberally highlight with Adeptus Battlegrey.
3 – Carefully pick out the edges with Codex Grey.
4 – Pick out raised edges with Fortress Grey.
5 – Wash with Badab Black.

Metal
1 – Basecoat with Boltgun Metal.
2 – Liberally highlight with Chainmail
3 – Pick out raised edges and wing tips with Mithral Silver
4 – Wash with Badab Black.
5 – Lightly Drybrush blades with Mithral Silver

Flesh
1 – Basecoat with Dark Flesh
2 – Highlight with Tarllan Flesh, leaving the previous colour only visible in the recesses.
3 – Make small highlights with Elf Flesh, focusing on nose, eyebrow ridges etc.
4 – Make tiny highlights with Bleached Bone.

These instructions are invaluable, they break down a nicely painted model into basic steps that prevent the end result from feeling out of reach. Tomorrow is Saturday which means I will be home in the hours of daylight, so if I can put down MW3 for a bit I should be able to get some spray primer on a couple of test models and make a start on that tactical squad.

Tags: A Tale of Warmasters, Crimson Fists, Wargaming, Warhammer 40000