Children of Carrion - Lord Ephialtes, The Thrice Curse

+++ Thought for the day: Be strong in your ignorance. +++

To fight your enemy, you must first know your enemy. That is basic truth, and the purpose of the Inquisition.

Ever since my first sighting of the forces of the Children of Carrion, and my subsequent hunt for them across the Segmentums Pacificus and Tempestus, I have endeavored to learn all I can about my foe. Naturally, their leadership was the first choice.

And yet… I find myself stymied. This is not an admission of failing, but an admission of fact.

To explain; the leader of the warband has been identified and is known to me. He is known as Ephialtes, the Thrice-Cursed, the Carrion King, the Lord of Corpses and the Father. He is enigmatic; in the fashion of the followers of Nurgle, he is shown to have amassed a large following of those afflicted by the pestilence of the Chaos deity of plague. He openly refers to them as his ‘children’ for those who are, or were, human, mutants and abhumans included. To other fallen Astartes, he lauds them as ‘brothers’. In the dead warzones of Argollis, he was sighted to be present at every major breakthrough attempt by Militarum forces against the warband (although it be right to call them a ‘legion’ now, given their size), loudly extolling his followers to fight on in ‘Father Nurgle’s name’, and also, for him. Not him as a leader of men would, or an officer directing loyal troops, but like a father giving praise and support to a child.

But in combat, even wearing what can only be called a decrepit suit of ancient Cataphractii Tactical Dreadnought armour, the Traitor Astartes identified as Ephialtes is akin to a Leman Russ. He’s slow, loud and ungainly in his approach, especially when accompanied by his retinue of fell Terminators, but once engaged in combat, using his large Plaguereaper-class scythe (See appendix: Weapons and Wargear of Warband ident. Children of Carrion), he is a monster, to use no small a term. Plasteel, adamantium, ceramite, flak armour. He will cut through all. The last pict recording I was privy to showed him felling a trio of Primaris Reivers from the Blood Angels Adeptus Astartes chapter alone. The Astartes gave a good accounting of themselves, as I said so in the missive I sent to their respective chapter command, but they were but wheat before the reaper’s scythe.

But, while his wargear marks him as one of the Traitors that laud themselves as ‘Veterans of the Long War’… I feel that may not be the case. Through my own study and several proxies acting on my behalf studying restricted archives on Holy Terra on the subject, I cannot find any Legionnaire of the Death Guard legion that used the name ‘Ephialtes’, either Terran-born or born of Barbarus. Several names come close, but due to the fragmentary nature of the information from the Heresy, it is hard to verify whether any of those names are in fact connected to the warlord calling himself Ephialtes. Which raises several questions: is this a legionnaire from the days of the Heresy who affected a name change to destroy an old connection of the Imperium, or is this traitor from a Renegade chapter and became lord? Does the name belong to another warlord and is simply passed from successor to successor?

I don’t feel that I will know until the traitor is brought to heel.

In any case: I judge the Traitor Astartes identified as Ephialtes be judged as ‘PRIMARIS LEVEL THREAT - VERMILION’. Use extreme caution when engaging.

-----

Lo and behold! He is finally done!

TWO YEARS! TWO fucking years this guy has been sitting on my shelf in various stages of painting and now he’s finally done. And he looks glorious!

I really do like the Lord of Contagion model, since to me, it really encapsulates the ‘decaying knight’ aesthetic the Death Guard have about them. Like this guy could have easily been something noble and inspiring to see back in his heyday, but now, all he brings is fear, disease and death.

I mainly used a washes over drybrushed layers for the armour (Steel Legion Drab base, then Flayed One Flesh drycoat, wash with Biel-Tan Green). The bronze and metal bits were regular paint jobs, although I did use Vallejo Mecha Light Rust Wash to rust up the Leadbelcher bits, and the censors were done with a Deepkin Flesh (I think?) basecoat, then a wash of Biel-Tran Green, and I went over that with Hexwraith Flame technical paint. The cloak was Rakarth Flesh base, then a wash of Agrax Earthshade and a layer of Ulthuan Grey.

The helmet is an ode to the first battle I used him in against a force of Blood Angels. He did kill three Primaris Reivers by himself, but I don’t have any Primaris Reiver helmets, so I had to go with a regular Primaris Marine head instead.

So fucking glad this model is finally finished. Now I just have to do the other 200+ models…

The Children of Carrion

++ INQUISITORIAL REPORT: GAMMA TC-239 ACCESSED ++

++ MAGENTA LEVEL ACCESS RECOGNIZED ++

++ CAUTION: REPORTS OF PRIMARIS LEVEL THREAT CONTAINED WITHIN. PROCEED WITH CAUTION. PYSKERS ARE ADVISED TO RECITE THE RITE OF PROTECTION BEFORE ACCESSING MAIN LOGS ++

++ ACCESS GRANTED ++

++ THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: A SMALL MIND IS A TIDY MIND ++

Greetings fellow member of the Ordo Hereticus or Ordo Malleus. Or even the Ordo Xenos. The information I present is not one I believe should be kept solely to one order, for the threat it could pose is one with too much potential to become something far more malignant if left unchecked.

This is the report of Inquisitor Theodore Cabello, of the Ordo Hereticus, and my investigation into the forces of one of the many myriad foes of the Imperium of Man. I talk of a warband of the Heretic Astartes that I encountered at the border of the Segmentum Pacificus and the Segmentum Tempestus in 456.M39. Several Inquisitors will be familiar with the Fall of Pontefex Secundus, I am sure, for the loss of a world devoted to the worship of the God Emperor is not something that can go amiss, even if it is our mission to keep such information away from the ignorant masses. I feel, however, that the information about the atrocity’s perpetrators must not be kept solely to myself and those I consider to be close allies.

The threat I talk of is not some mere band of Renegade Astartes; piratical raiders acting on their own whims. This attack shows a coordinated strategy, between many elements of a greater host, led by a leader capable of such planning. Having visited the site and seen the devastation wrought upon the planet, and having gathered what evidence I could before the sub-sector was subjected to exterminatus and quarantine, I can estimate the force that attacked the planet stood at Legion strength, containing a mix of Heretic Astartes, renegade elements of the Astra Militarum and, I hate to even suggest this, but also a Lance of an, as yet, unknown Knightly House.

The destruction I found was total: not a living being was left alive. No human or animal was spared. Nine billion souls, lost. Monuments of the Ecclesiarchy were defaced and destroyed wholesale, from the smallest shrine to the mightiest cathedral. The very earth was tainted and befouled by the foul energy of Chaos, specifically, of the Chaos deity that is known as ‘Nurgle’. While there was no evidence of daemonic manifestation on the planet itself, I have no doubt that such unholy rituals took place.

Through meticulous research through the archives and investigation of the surrounding sub-sectors and systems around Pontefex Secundus, I have found a pattern begin to emerge: minor and frontier worlds were subjected to piratical raids, to capture slaves, or attacked to silence Imperial waystations and posts, before capital worlds in important sub-sectors had the same level of destruction wrought upon them as on Pontefex Secundus in campaigns of rapid dominance and wholesale destruction.

Through my research, and the research of my fellow Inquisitors and Astra Militarum analysts, I have finally placed a name to the force that laid low an Imperial world.

The Children of Carrion.

-------

So, yes, I've been very much away from this blog (I don't really seem to have any serious followers, but still), and I've got fairly good reason for that. Work and life has been getting in the way, both in a major and minor way.

But I've managed to find some time to actually do some work on my Chaos Space Marine army; the Nurgle dedicated Children of Carrion.

More work will follow. Decided that doing some sort of backstory, or in this case an Inquisitorial report, would be a good way to condense things down.

The Children of Carrion and Chaos Mutants

So, like many people across the world, I bought the Dark Imperium boxed set. Admittedly, it was a spur of the moment thing when I preordered it, and I really only bought it for the Primaris Marines (since I was mainly toying with doing a Raptors Space Marine army, which I still plan to do) and I was just going to paint the Death Guard models in the most basic colours, or perhaps even sell them. I had no idea what to do with them really.

But then I looked at them, and they. Were. Gorgeous! In a rotting, decayed and disgusting way, but still. Needless to say... I got hooked. Hard. What started as a force of the 31 models from the Dark Imperium boxset has now expanded to encapsulate just over 100 models.
It's horrifying.

If my life was bit less lacklustre because of work screwing me over by not giving me a good amount of hours during the week which would give me enough money to buy more stuff as well as enough time off to paint said models, I'd probably be more along the line with how my army stands. But I digress.

For the list of what I currently have (as of February 26th), I have:
[Models from Dark Imperium will be marked as DI]
Lord of Contagion w/Plaguereaper [DI]
Malignant Plaguecaster [DI]
Noxious Blightbringer [DI]
Foetid Bloat-drone [DI]
Lord on Contagion w/Manreaper (Lord Felthius)
Chaos Lord in Terminator Armour
Aspiring Champion
Foul Blightspawn
Biologus Putrifier 
Tallyman of Nurgle
5 Chaos Possessed 
8 Blightlord Terminators
27 Plague Marines total (mix of DI, regular kit and Easy to Build kit)
20 Chaos Space Marines
26 Poxwalkers (mix of DI and Easy to Build kit)
13 Chaos Cultists
Myphitic Blight Hauler
1 Chaos Spawn
1 Beast of Nurgle
5 Chaos Mutants

Ugh... I'm not going to be stopping anytime soon with this. I'm already working on a unit of Chaos Chosen made with the left over bits from the kits used, and that unit of Chaos Mutants is going to need expanding in a massive direction.
Still! No-one else to blame but myself. 

So let's get cracking with this.
First, I want to show off my Chaos Mutants. Lorewise, my Chaos army, which I realised I should have given the name which is The Children of Carrion, is made up of several segments, ranging from Long War Veterans of the Death Guard at the top to the lowest dregs being made up of mutants, beastmen and Spawn. And here I'll show some of the mutants!

First up is the 'leader' of the group. Since I imagined that in a mutant rabble, then they would most likely follow a 'might makes right' mentality. So their leader is a large, imposing beastman armed with a chainaxe and a plasma pistol. 
The torso and head are obviously from a GW Beastman (a Gor specifically) while the arms and holster are from Victoria Miniatures Broolian Beast Guard Officer sprue, with some extras added from some left over Guard bits. The arms are a bit skinny compared to the torso, but it does look better in person, I swear. I just need to do some greenstuffing to cover up the shoulder joints.

Next up is mutant #2. Made using a GW Flagellant as the base (since I just like the look of it) with a pistol arm from Victoria Miniatures Bare Close Combat Arms Male and a clawed tentacle from the Maxmini Mutation Set. This guy is kind of the more bogstandard concept of a Chaos Mutant I feel. (Boy I wish GW hadn't discontinued their Chaos Mutation sprue. Man I should have brought that when I had a chance)

Just a little size comparison between the two models. The beastman is definitely an imposing figure.

Mutant #3. Again, practically the same fair as before, but with a switch between the arm holding the pistol and more of claw mutation than just a tentacle. I like how this guy looks just that bit much wilder than the last guy. It's definitely the beard.

Mutant #4. Went with the fly head from the Maxmini Mutation Set this time, while the arms and lasgun are from the Victoria Miniatures Penal Guard 5 man squad. I like the look of the lasgun and arms since it says two things: that this guy was recently released from Imperial detention and and was given probably THE SHODDIEST rifle that exists in the armory. Perfect for Chaos Mutants.

Mutant #5. Bits wise, this guy had more going for him, since he was made up from a leftover Cadian Shock Troop torso with the Aquila scraped off, a head from the Genestealer Cult Upgrade kit, and arms and legs from the Victoria Miniatures Penal Guard kit. The model I feel kind of tells a small story, since he's wearing a scrappy penal outfit and still has his chains on shows that he's been recently freed from Imperial detention, given the same shoddy lasrifle as the mutant above, then has killed an Imperial trooper and looted his flak armor for his own protection. The arms and legs are a little bit skinny compared to the Cadian kit, but I feel that it make him seem undernourished/underfed, which kind of fits with the narrative I feel.

And now a group-shot. Ready to bring death and destruction to the Imperium, for the Dark Gods!

Stay tuned for more pics of this work in progress army.

Frostgrave Chaos Cultist

Now, I know that I'm not alone in the wide world of wargaming to think when the Frostgrave Cultists were released that they'd make brilliant Chaos Cultists.

I bought one of the single frames from North Star a little while back for a Game of Thrones project I'm working on (that will appear later on, trust me), but I only used two of the bodies, so that left me with three left over bodies, and I also had a box of Cadian Shock Troops lying around too, so I put two and two together.

Sizewise, the Cultist bodies are close enough in scale to the Cadian bodies, although the body I chose is a bit lower because of his posing. The arms fit up nicely to create a nice dynamic pose for him. The body is plain enough that you can really paint the clothing as belonging to nearly any sort of environment/group/whatever you can think of, and I do like the capirote since it will always have that unknowable vibe to it. If I had planned it better in advance (or had more money earlier in the year), I would have ordered some of the heads from tabletop-art.de with the gasmasks. Hindsight, eh?

If I do any more, I'll either use the arms from the Genestealer cultists kits, or the arms and guns from the Renegade Militia Weapons kit, or the arms and guns from Victoria Miniatures or Mad Robot Miniatures to create a seriously disparate force.

My only real critique, and it's mainly because of my own folly, is that I could only attach the ammo pouches and grenade to the model instead of them and the other accouterments I had in mind.

Progress is made.

Work has been kicking my ass, and my creativity's ass. I have made some small progress though, like buying the Dark Imperium boxed set (pictures of that will come) and also a new light box for photography. Still getting the hang of it, but I think I'll get there.

So anyway, onto the models!

All right, first things first. I've been working on the the crew for the first heavy bolter team in my Morphean Highlanders army. So we've got the assistant gunner below, made from a mix of GW Cadian bits, Forge World's Cadian Respirator upgrade kit and Victoria Lamb's upgrade kits, both some of her old metal and newer resin bits. The idea I had behind the posing was for him to be rushing back from the resupply truck/half-track with a fresh box of bolter shells for the main gunner.
He's recently been undercoated and so needs to be painted.

Next up is probably my most extensively converted model to date, the commander of the First Platoon for my Highlanders 101st Regiment of Foot. Again, made from a mix of GW Cadian bits, both the standard infantry box and the command kit, and Victoria Lamb bits too. The sword though is made from one of the Executioner Greatswords from the Sisters of Silence kit which I bought online from bitzbox.co.uk.
I was originally a little bit worried since, obviously, the Sisters of Silence are female and generally, women have smaller hands than men, so the fear that the hand wouldn't sync up with the arm was there. And I was proven right too. It was far too small. So I had to basically cut off the hand, then the grip and the sword while also cutting off the hand off one of the banners and then do a bit of filing and shallow drilling to get it all right, but overall, I'm pleased with it.

Then next we have a Ministorum Priest, one of the old ones which I bought from my 'local' (it's about 20 miles away from where I live). I am a little annoyed that these guys have been swapped from the Guard army list to the Adeptus Ministorum list in 8th Edition, but beggars can't be choosers. Plus, I've still wanted to paint one and I've never been able to find the actual one that I want, but still. The plan for this guy is to paint him up like a priest/vicar that followed the Scots Covenanters during The Wars of the Three Kingdoms, so basically just plain black all round, but also adding a little bit more stereotypical Scots flair with him (ginger hair and blue facial tattoos).

Then my last model, my scratch built Recon Salamander. Now, it's nowhere near the same as the actual Salamander model, especially since the official model had sloped armoured around the crew compartment, but in all honesty... I like my version. It kind of brings to mind the Universal Carrier from WW2.
Still currently adding some bits to the outer hull, like the fuel drum at the back along with the pannier full of jerry cans on the other side. I do need to buy the Astra Militarum Tank Accessories kit to cover the tank treads at the front since having just one track guard is just... daft. The crew is currently at a mix of being built and being painted, but I'm quite happy with the result so far.

Morphean Highlander #1

And I have finally finished him. After having him sat unbasecoated for nearly three years and unpainted for one year, lo and behold, here is one of my Morphean Highlanders.

Built with a mix of Victoria Lamb bits (kilt legs, bayonet sheath, which you can't see because of the shadow from the lasgun, and the lasgun barrel), vanilla GW Cadian Shock Troop bits, a few Space Marine Scout biker bits, Forge World's Cadian Respirator kits and Anvil Industries weapon sights.

Another WIP

Well work has been a pain since it has cut my creativity to a huge degree.
But I finally pulled my thumb out and did something.

One of my Morphean Highlanders in... some of his painted glory.

First Update of 2017

So I'm back home now. It was quite a fun end to 2016. Made some new friends at Debenhams, met some very nice people, had a job most of all.
But now I'm back home, job hunting again. *sigh* I hope that this year goes better for me than last year.
Anywho, on to the models.

Now, there was a little drama for me early in January. Basically, since I was away, my parents decided that I would switch from my old bedroom to my sister's old bedroom (a nice switch to a bigger room). Unfortunately, that means putting a lot of my stuff in to storage in a pretty narrow but deep cupboard. Wherein they also put my box of paints and brushes. So, understandably, I got a might bit panicky since I couldn't find them right away. But luckily, after moving some stuff around, I found my box of paints. Huzzah!

First up, I'll give a list of models that I got when I was in Liverpool but not able to do.
I bought:
Legion Primus Medicae in Cataphractii Terminator Armour
Ultramarines Legion Herald
Space Marine Librarian
Imperial Guard Basilisk
Horus Heresy Mark IV Space Marines
Adepta Sororitas Sisters of Battle Canoness Veridyan
Airfix British Forces Helicopter Support
and lastly, Team Yankee British Mechanised Company.

Quite a list. And I plan to do even more stuff this year. If my budget allows me.

So let's get cracking.

First up is a model that I've had sitting on my desk for well over a year now. It's a freebie model I got from The Assault Shop when I ordered some metal sandbags from them last year. Since I bought the sandbags from their WW2 US range, they sent me a model of a WW2 US Marine Corps trooper with M2 Carbine.

Much better quality photos with my new camera. I'm proud of the camouflage on his helmet (even though you can't really see it that well in this light) and also the stubble I gave him, which is basically watered down Eshin Grey applied to his face. Simple.

Next up is the first Space Marine of 2017.

These pictures were shot a little later in the evening, hence why the flash was on in the first one. I had a little problem when he was being sprayed (as in, the wind knocked him off his perch and knocked some of the sand off of his base). But I've got some foliage that I can use to cover those bits. Unfortunately, the model is not 100% finished. I don't know where my sheet of Raptor decals are or whether they have been binned (I fucking hope it's not the latter). So... yeah.
I do love the Mark IV kit though. It's such a nice kit, so sleek and easy to use. And the pieces REALLY fit together well with other Space Marine armour kits.

And last but not least, some WIPs.

The first one is the Basilisk kit which I am converting in to a Recon Salamander for my Imperial Guard army.
And the second one... well. I'm keeping that one under my hat.

Thanks for reading guys. See you next time.

Morphean Highlanders WIP and a few painting WIPs

I shall get this out of the way first: my laptop fucking sucks!! I really hope that if I get this apprenticeship (for lack of a better phrase for it. It's complicated) then I can save up money to buy a new one. 

Anyway, between job searching, the lack of money from being jobless and the general feelings of not being good enough to have anything good happen (thank you, anxiety and stress), I have not been as productive as I would have liked, but over the last few months, I have had sporadic moments where I've been able to accomplish things. Some things.

First up: We have the a group shot of the Imperial Space Marine model, painted in the colours of the Raptors chapter, on the left, the sergeant for my first squad of Morphean Highlanders, with torso, legs, head and sword from Victoria Miniatures, while the laspistol is from the Forge World Cadian respirator upgrade kit, and the trooper on the right with the legs and bayonet from Victoria Miniatures (again) and the torso and arms from the vanilla Cadian Shock Troopers kit and the head and backpack from (again) the Forge World Cadian respirator upgrade kit. 

As of now (September 5th), I have painted two more models for my Morphean Highlanders, one carrying the vox-caster and a normal Guardsman. It is a pain when you try and paint tartan but put the wrong colour for the stripes first. So... blegh.

 Next up is my retinue for Lion Rampant, made from the Perry Miniatures 15th century Mercenaries box and the Mounted Men-At-Arms box.
The composition is as follows:

• 6 Mounted Men-At-Arms, with my leader (6 points)
• 6 Men-At-Arms (6 points)
• 12 Foot Serjeants (4 points)
• 6 Handgonnes, the official rules of which are included in Wargames Illustrated issue 330 on page 62 (4 points)
• 12 Crossbowmen (4 points)

So 24 points overall. Still yet to play a game with them though. Plus, since the date of this photo being taken, I have started painting them.

And lastly, we have the best example ever of me pulling my thumb out of my arse: I have put the greenstuff for the plaids on my Morphean Highlands. After sitting for almost half a year half done on my desk. The ones at the bottom are for my first infantry squad while the one sitting in the pin vice is for my Heavy Weapons team. He'll be the loader for the heavy bolter since, if you can't see it clearly, in his left hand, he's carrying an ammunition box.

The soldiers are, once again made from a mix of parts from Victoria Miniatures (the legs, weapon barrels (curse me desire to have a unique force) and heads), Anvil Industries (weapon sights), Secret Weapon Miniatures (the backpacks) and Games Workshop and Forge World.

Expensive for one squad, I know. But goddamnit if I don't want them to look great in the end.

So goodbye until next time.

An update and Morphean Highlander Taurox WIP.

So... it's been nearly four months since my last update. I'll cut a long story short on the reason why: life. I've just not had a good time of it. Between loosing my job, having money stolen from my account, falling sick and not being able to get any news on whatever job I apply for... it's just not been the best combination for my mental health. *sigh*

Anyway, on to the models!
When I had a reasonable amount of money in my account, I went out and bought an Astra Militarum Taurox kit. I'll be honest, I think I was one of the few people who actually kind of liked the model when it came out. So I bought it, while at the same time ordering some very cool resin kits from Zinge Industries' (zinge.co.uk) resin APC range to swap out the Taurox's caterpillar tracks for a set of wheels (along with other bits) to turn it into a 40k MRAP.

 (no idea why the top one came out blurry but the bottom one didn't)

So, I think it turn out quite well. This also marks the start of the colour scheme I'll be using on the vehicles for my Morphean Highlanders: basically a drab green colour with a red invasion stripe down the middle for easy identification from the air. I obviously based this around the orange IFF panels used by Coalition forces during the Invasion of Iraq, and the idea I had behind this particular regiment, the Morphean 101st Highland Regiment of Foot is that they're engaged in a war against anti-Imperial secessionist forces in the Karisol system. Obviously, particular vehicles such as command tanks and vehicles will have a simple camouflage scheme in place of the drab green while other vehicles will have camouflage netting on them.

I also have an idea for quick identification flashes on the flanks of vehicles such as the Taurox or Chimeras, but that's still a work in progress so I'm not 100% on them yet.

So yeah, that's all I've got for now, but I hope to have something up before the end of the month.

Morphean Highlanders Heavy Weapons Squad WIP

Well, I hope everyone had a nice and productive Christmas and new year. I myself binged on too much chocolate and cracked a tooth (they are not related incidents, trust me). But as I said, I'd be more productive after the new year and I have.

After a trip to my 'local' hobby store (I stress local since my position in Wales puts me pretty far away from any official GW store or hobby stockist outside of using the internet), I came home with the Cadian Shock Troops Heavy Weapons Squad.
So I got to work (don't mind the camera quality. I took the photos with my phone):

First up is the first crewman for heavy bolter crew one. He's made using a mix of parts from Victoria Lamb (the kilted legs and the lasgun barrel), Forge World bits (the arms) and standard GW parts (the body and the ammo case in his hand).

Secondly is the heavy bolter herself. Almost a standard fair with this, except for the inclusion of a box from the Italeri Modern Battle Accessories box and metal sandbags from The Assault Group to help beef up the base. I plan to have the whole model look like it's being used in the middle of a pitched battle, so I plan to include a fair bit of battle detritus, but not too much so I don't overburden the model. Maybe just a few 'empty' ammo boxes.

So that's it for now. See you later.

Painting Imperial Guardsmen - Rhodesian style!

I know that for a first post, this is quite a stretch, but I tried uploading this tutorial up to my Tumblr page and... well, to put it bluntly, Tumblr just went "Nope!" and never let me upload it. So I'm doing it here. Actually, this is the reason why I created this blog in the first place.

Now for a bit of background on the reason for this tutorial: I've been heavily in to military history for a long time now, ever since I was a young(er) lad. But ever since me joining Tumblr, my love of history has been expanded by being introduced to a conflict that is very rarely ever mentioned but can be considered to be quite important in terms of modern warfare: the Rhodesian Bush War. I won't go in to much detail on the war, since I've provided a link and it would make this post quite a long one. Plus, I also do intend to paint up some models for the Rhodesian Bush War in the near future.
To cut a long story short, the Rhodesian Defence Forces created a new camouflage scheme, a variant of the British 1959 pattern Denison Smock, more suited to the warmer environments of the Rhodesian bush. This was simply called Rhodesian Brushstroke.

In terms of camouflage schemes, it's quite high on the list of schemes that can be quite daunting to paint. I don't doubt that at all. I think it's got to be up there with the modern digital camouflage schemes (ACU, MARPAT, MTP, etc), so it doesn't really strike me that it's only seen on miniatures that are used for the Rhodesian Defence Forces. But I was really shocked to see that hardly anyone in the Warhammer 40k community has attempted it for the Guard.

So, I decided to rectify it and give it a go. Now I admittedly did not look around the internet for any tutorials on how to paint it. This was due to two things:

1. I wanted to have a go at this myself just to give it a go.
2. I am admittedly quite a lazy little bugger. Heh.

I was bit stuck on what colour paints to use, but a trip to my local Games Workshop in Chester helped me with that conundrum. I would like to thank Matthew for giving me the starting point with what paints to use for the camouflage.

Anyway, on to the tutorial proper!

Paints Needed.

I wanted to keep the practice scheme as close to the original scheme as shown in the first photo, so I went for mainly muted brushland colours. I've also got a lot of the older Citadel colours left over from before the change (a curse from being in this hobby for over 10 years), but the conversion chart is readily available on the GW site.

So for paints, you'll need:

• XV88
• Bleached Bone
• Seraphim Sepia
• Straken Green
• Catachan Green
• Chaos Black
• Mournfang Brown
• Lahmian Medium

I will say this upfront: I did regretfully not water down some of these paints enough and it does show on the models. But hey, practice makes perfect, no?

For the models, I used the £6 box of five snap-fit Cadian Shock Troops. They're simple to build and not that difficult to paint so they make good practice models. For ease of reference, I'll be showing both the front and back of the models. I do have to apologise about the varying qualities of the photographs.

The Painting.

Step 1: After undercoating the models in Chaos Black undercoat, I basecoated the areas of cloth with a layer of XV88.

Step 2: Over the XV88, layer on Bleached Bone. Do one or two layers, depends if you want to try and keep it as clean as possible. I applied roughly two layers to my models.

Step 3: Over the layer of Bleached Bone, apply a wash of Seraphim Sepia. Now regretfully for the next phase, I think that I overdid the next layer due to not being able to see the shading through the paint. Again, it's all practice so live and learn. I also did unfortunately mix up the placement of the models, so sorry about that.

Steps 4 and 5: Now this is one of the reasons why I didn't go with any online tutorials, since I wanted to a bit of experimenting. Originally, I was going to layer over the shaded Bleached Bone with Straken Green, but I found that the Straken Green was a bit too bright, so I decided to try mixing it with some Bleached Bone. The model on the left was done with 1:1 mix of Bleached Bone:Straken Green while the model on the right was done with a 3:1 mix of Bleached Bone:Straken Green.

I did forget to take pictures of the models with the third layer applied, so I apologise about that, but it doesn't really make much of a difference since you can still see the layers. Anyway. For the first layer of the camouflage patches, I used straight Catachan Green and applied it to the Bleached Bone:Straken Green mix using the side of the fine detail brush. One of the things that I should stress is that when you're applying the patches to the cloth, make sure the patches on the jacket don't spill over on to the trousers. This shows that the Guardsman is wearing two separate pieces of clothing and it also helps break up the outline of the model.

Step 6: The next step for the camouflage is to apply some more patches with a 1:1 mix of Mournfang Brown:Lahmian Medium. Now I cannot stress how brilliant Lahmian Medium is for painting. Essentially, it's a thinning agent for paint in lieu of watering the paint down. If you thin paint down with water, you also water down the pigment which essentially turns the paint in to a water-colour. But with Lahmian Medium, the strength of the pigment is kept pretty much the same, meaning you can keep the strength of the paint you mixed it with, in this case brown.

Step 7: And you're done! Apply your chosen colours for the armour, skin and other equipment on the model, and you'll be gold.

My examples are a bit plain, I know. I'd have liked to include some fully painted examples of the models, but work and preparing for Christmas has been hell on my schedule. I'll try and get them done soon.
Still, if this helps any of you, I'm perfectly happy.