Help with my Night Lords

[DoomLucky]

Hi all, after following 40K for years I've recently decided to finally pick up a brush and try my hand. The new chaos models that came out with the release of the Shadowspear set and Vigilus gave me the perfect excuse to start gathering a collection of models for my favourite army in the 40K universe; the Night Lords. They are among the grimmest of dark, with awesome characters like the Night Haunter and Sevatar. They stand out among the chaos forces due to their unwillingness to embrace chaos as a deity and their extremely violent terror tactics. So far I've amassed a collection of 15 marines separated into 3 squads of 5 through various eBay purchases. 

 

I'm really enjoying the painting I've done so far (I am AWFUL but I'm learning, that's an isse for a different thread) but there's something missing for me so far with these guys. When I picture the Night Lords in my head I think of bloody talons, cloaks of flayed skin, grisly trophies, skulls, wings, teeth. When I look at the Night Lords I have, I see some blue marines. I haven't tried anything fancy with them; I don't have a bitz box apart from maybe a few things my brother could have lying around (Grey Knights, probably not much use) and have no experience sculpting with green stuff, but I'd like to jazz my models up a bit and give them something that really makes them stand out. 

 

So, I'd love to see what other Night Lords players have done with their models. Hit me with anything you've got. 3rd party bits, useful YouTube videos, amazing green stuff work, literally anything that could help inspire me or that I could use in my own collection to make it stand out and better represent the terrifying force that's so feared across the Imperium. Anything you guys have at all would be very much appreciated. The problem with having followed along for so many years is that I've got plenty of ideas and expectations but my ability is nowhere near far along enough to put many of them into effect and I don't know where to start, so I'm looking forward to seeing what you guys have done with yours.

 

Side note: If anyone has any novels or anything they'd recommend reading that might spark up some inspiration please do suggest it.

 

Side note 2: If anyone has any tips for getting to grips with painting please feel free to get in touch with me. Obviously I haven't posted any of my work here as that's not what this thread is about, so I'm not expecting specific feedback or anything like that. Just maybe some recommendations of a video series or website or something that I can follow along to or a general guide, stuff like that. Again, any help much appreciated. 

 

[Gederas]

Well, I've got a couple. This is my Master of Possession and Obliterator (Mark of Slaanesh on the oblit)

 

 

 

 

The intention is the bases will be dark cityscape/industrial to compliment the Night Lords' darker colour scheme, with a lot of blue-greys and cool steel.

[Zeke]

Ave dominus nox!

 

As for novels, the go to for most Night Lords fans is Aaron Dembski-Bowden's Night Lords series.  I'd start there.  He also has some other short stories written about the Lords that are really good.  

 

As for brutalizing units, a quick example:

 

Adding chains on models really, at least in my opinion, gives them character.  For the dreads, I added just regular chain jewelry that I got from Walmart, an example here.

 

Also, I wanted to add some flayed skin since they love it so much, and did some research online.  To make the flayed skin on the dread, take some PVA (Elmers) glue, put it on a plate or bowl, microwave it for 20 seconds, and let it dry a little.  Once it cools down, you can rip some off and trim it and slap it on a model.  Give it a wash and some blood if you like, and you got yourself an improvised skin cloak.

 

Lastly, think about what the current state of your army is.  Do they fight with Abaddon and the Black Legion?  If so, they may be well equipped and have newer armor.  Are they on their own and scavenging to survive?  Then maybe model them with various loyalist bits.  Maybe they just recently dropped out of the warp and what seemed like only a few months has been 10,000 years, and most of the marines are still clad in heresy-era armor.  

 

Just find what you like, and the rest will come.

[NecroShadow]

Unfortunately I don’t have any night lords of my own to give inspiration (not for lack of interest in the midnight clad), but on the book and inspiration front I’d recommend “a lesson in darkness” by Ian st Martin. It’s a heresy era set audiobook, definitely on the black library audio app but possibly available elsewhere, but it’s such a beautiful look into the night lord mindset. No spoilers for what they end up doing, but the planet they’re bringing to compliance does not have a fun day at the end of it.

[Tallarn Commander]

Zeke, Gederas, and Necro have all posted good ideas.

Most of my Night Lords are also just blue Chaos Marines more or less. But a few of them evoke the Night Lords themes of terror, intimidation, etc.

Some things I've done to create Night Lords that are a bit more fear and terror oriented:

Mini Dioramas, this squad is coming up behind a squad of IG sentries and killing them

Skulls, my Chaos Lord Hatred travels with his own wall of screaming skulls

Abstract Mutations, spawn can look fairly nightmarish

And, unlike most CSM Bikers, the old OOP Doom Rider model looks rather terrifying

And, on a lighter note, if all else fails to terrify there's always cultists with nunchaku or pro-Nighthaunter propaganda :)

Night Lords "The quick and the dead"

[Dwango]

Hey doomlucky! I don't collect nightlords myself but I happened upon an interesting conversion and painting tutorial. I took the ice base idea from it but the rest may fit for you....

 

Nightlords conversion - https://youtu.be/qNw15A8sO2M

 

Nightlords Painting - https://youtu.be/_vDiP3bZmoM

[helterskelter]

Here's my lord discordant, i feel the model suits the NL pretty good

 

[ElDuderino]

I'd go through these threads to start:)

 

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/323130-darkvens-octavia-obscura-30042017/

 

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/286791-augustus-thread-necromunda-goliath-online/

 

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/172506-night-lords-18th-battle-company-treadhead/

[Doom Herald]

Bike Lord, not yet painted.

AoS Death bits work pretty well. I'm a fan of painting bits of chainmail like bone and chaos vehicle sprues have a lot of hooks and chains. My green stuff work is terrible so I haven't tried sculpting stuff. The Master of Executions has some nice bits that might fit well.

[Isengrin]

First of all congrats on choosing the best legion of them all.

To give my minis the typical Night Lords vibe I mostly stick to the following: skulls, trophies, chains, and flayed skin. The citadel skulls box for example provides you with a sufficient supply for your marines, which you can put on backpacks, shoulder pads or wherever you like. I also often use leftover trophy spikes from the terminator sprues. For other trophies there's not really a way around buying full kits for cannibalizing or taking a look at bitz sites. A box of zombies or skeleton warriors probably offers the most bang for your buck and if you want to add a few less ostentatious bat wings, you can get some grave guard. Using a banner from one of those units as an icon works well too.

Chains have already been mentioned and I absolutely love them on Night Lords. The Forgeworld helmets are another good option. Lastly, making flayed skin might sound daunting at first but it's actually pretty easy to do with a little bit of practice. I think Augustus has a tutorial for that in his thread.

Here's a look at my humble terror squad. When it came to painting them I skipped the lightning because I just don't have the patience to pull it off, but it's another tool in the tool box and a few frater have fantastic examples of how to do it. But I think painting a very dark shade of blue helps to distinguish them from other blue marines and is just as fine.

An inexhaustible source of inspiration is the great John Blanche with, among many other images, this good old piece:

And definitely take a look at the threads ElDuderino has posted. They're excellent.

[DoomLucky]

Thanks everyone, incredibly helpful responses. I especially love the chains idea, and the flayed skin from PVA sounds like it could be neat too. The pics you guys have posted are just awesome, I love both the leviathan dreads, the squad slaughtering some unsuspecting guards are fantastic. The master of possession and obliterator are really well painted, as is the lord discordant, and that bike lord is just kickass. The terror squad is just perfect in every way. I'll have a look through the threads that were posted and check out those youtube videos, thanks everyone!

 

P.S. Feel free to keep the pics coming, I love seeing other peoples' takes on the army and what you've done with your models. 

[Doom Herald]

I will add, if you are using cultists, theres the Corvus Cabal from AoS Warcry that would be could for conversions. Some bits might even be good for marines ornamentation. I'm planning on getting a few.

 

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Warcry-Corvus-Cabal-2019

[Midnight Brotherhood]

Ave Dominus Nox brother and welcome to the brotherhood. To be honest I think the Night Lords paint scheme alone already enchances the stock models a lot. I myself don't do a huge ton of conversions but I've done some and added things here or there, but mainly I let the paint job and blood effects do most of the work for me for portraying the terror we spread. Skull faced helms, flayed skulls, rune markings, skeletal bones and horns and of course our iconic lightning. Equipment choices can be thematic too, particularly lightning claws.

My ground marines are mainly stock with some weapon conversions here and there, but really I let the paint job do the talking.

For some of my HQ units I have done conversions. In particuarly I converted up a jump pack Lord using a model from Dark Vengeance plus raptor bits. I also made a Dark Apostle by converting a Primaris Intercessor and add bitz from the Terminator Sorcerer and generic CSM bitz.

For my Raptors I converted some plasma guns and combi plasmas and added an Icon of Despair, but apart from that they are mostly stock. I used a lightning claw and a power sword for thematic weapons.

For my Tartaros Terminators I just added a few bits from the old CSM sprues to give them some more character, but to be honest the lightning and runes did a lot of the work. I wanted them to have Terminator armour from the heresy era to show how ancient they are.

For my Defiler I went with the skull face and used a piece of the vehicle sprue to make a sort of spiky halo around the face. I also put a vox speaker on the body chassis underneath for obligatory daemonic vox screams that Night Lords love to do.

For my Helbrutes I just let the natural body horror of the model inspire fear, I just used the power scourge as it looks terrifying.

My Rhino was covered in flayed skulls and hooks and iconography.

So most of my stuff is stock with bitz here and there to push a certain theme, so don't be worried about using stock models. Our paint jobs does ALOT of the work. I hope this inspires you.

[DoomLucky]

Wow, your paintjob is absolutely stunning. I particularly love the bronze trims and your simple yet incredibly striking and effective lightning patterns. The hellbrute is just beautiful. I see your point, the paintjob alone does do most of the work. Thank you for sharing!

[Lay]

I'm really enjoying the painting I've done so far (I am AWFUL but I'm learning, that's an isse for a different thread) but there's something missing for me so far with these guys. When I picture the Night Lords in my head I think of bloody talons, cloaks of flayed skin, grisly trophies, skulls, wings, teeth. When I look at the Night Lords I have, I see some blue marines. I haven't tried anything fancy with them; I don't have a bitz box apart from maybe a few things my brother could have lying around (Grey Knights, probably not much use) and have no experience sculpting with green stuff, but I'd like to jazz my models up a bit and give them something that really makes them stand out.

 

If you don't have the right bits at hand, you could just paint the metal trim on some helmets white for a skull-like look and some loincloths skin-colored with some bloody edges to look like flayed skin.

 

Side note: If anyone has any novels or anything they'd recommend reading that might spark up some inspiration please do suggest it.

Lord of the Night

The Night Lords Omnibus

Red Tithe