Fresh Blood for the Long War

[spiros14]

Fellow Warsmiths, hear me!

 

For years I have toiled under the eyes of the corpse god, and after so many thankless campaigns, I have finally turned to the true powers of the galaxy!

In reality, I got a little bored of painting so many red space marines and tried painting the Chaos Lord from the Blackstone Fortress box I had lying around. I had really liked the painting tutorial on the Iron Warriors made by Duncan Rhodes Painting Academy, so decided to give it a spin.

 

With the exception of the head, topknot, and cloak, which took the colours from WHTV's Abaddon Video, and some highlights on the black hazard stripes where needed, I followed the scheme to the letter, and am very happy with the result.

 

As I had assembled this model long before deciding to paint it, it still had the Black Legion's icon instead of the Iron Warriors. Instead I painted the shoulder pad in the familiar Black and Silver of the Legion, reasoning that this particular lord had foolishly pledged himself to the Warmaster (perhaps while on a bender in the eye of terror) for a quick power trip, but still holds himself true to the Sons of Perturabo.

 

I had quite a bit of fun painting the hazard stripes, as well as the orb in the middle of his shoulder pad, which I'd like to think is some sort of device with the similar properties of a normal captain's Iron Halo.

 

After what I thought was such a fun paint, I got a little hooked to the scheme, and am certainly considering branching out to a fuller army. I haven't told my hobby group of these plans (they still believe me to be a loyalist) and when the Chaos Space Marines 9th ed. codex releases, I shall show my true colours like the legionnaires on Istvaan V and slaughter them where they stand (Either through a group trip to a hobby event, or by hosting a crusade campaign myself!)

I have since finished off a unit of Terminators, and am currently waiting for the base rims to dry before showing them here. I've also assembled a Chaos Sorcerer who is waiting to be painted.

 

Honoured Warsmiths, What else should I add to my slow-grow (very slow, for the others must not realise that I am two-timing them with the dark powers) warband, and with what loadouts?

 

+Spiros14; Aspiring Champion+

[Tallarn Commander]

Spiris, Welcome to the forces of Chaos! While you can easily fit any Chaos Marine unit into Iron Warriors, units like Daemon Engines, Obliterators, and Havocs certainly fit the fluff.

 

Over the years optimum loadouts for units have varied greatly. For example, for Havocs autocannons were effective at glancing vehicles to death from 5th to 7th edition. In 8th and 9th glancing is no longer a thing and lascannons (with Veterans of the Long War and Endless Cacophony) strip wounds off of vehicles. So I'd recommend modeling upgrades you find fun. Or use magnets.

[Brother Nathan]

Welcome brother. Iv recently rejoined the hobby and picked my wip iron warriors back up intending to restart them but realising their current position I'll put them on back burner and slowly work on them. Currently best looking thing for iron warriors seems to be the demonic machines combined with the robot lord. That with slannesh obliterators... theccurrent things I'd also consider cultist troops as chaos marines are poor compared til this wounds update comes. And probably a rhino with something choppy. I probably will convert up some form of throw away smash captain. Tbh you probably wanna maximise on heavy support andthink troops cheap and everything should be aiming to chop up the rest. If doing havoc mark of slannesh...double tapping a full squad of anything is nice but heavy... oblits we've a few useful stats.

[TrawlingCleaner]

Fantastic looking Chaos Lord, Spiros!

I use the same paint method for my Iron Warriors, Duncan's tutorial is so quick and easy to get great results.

 

For units, as others have pointed out: heavier firepower with IW really shines. We've got strats to do reliable damage with weapons and units that are very unreliable normally like Daemon engines, Oblits etc. I also find 5 Terminators with a lightning claw and bolter do work against pretty much anything, they do work for any legion but it's good to have a bit of counter punch in a force that uses a lot of shooting. Helbrutes are also great, I give mine plasma cannons as 3damage is incredibly handy and consistent.

 

 

Looking forward to seeing more of Perty's finest

[spiros14]

Thank you very much for the quick advice. A havoc squad was on my to-do list, so I am glad that I'm on the right path, so to speak. I also have plans to eventually get the start collecting boxset for those obliterators and venomcrawler. I think I'll leave off collecting cultists for the moment, as the rumour-mill suggests that we will be getting a (long awaited) kit with the new release. I had not considered a Helbrute, though I do think that will be a good challenge to mix up the steel plates and daemonic flesh, so I will add it to the list.

 

As promised, here is a squad of Terminators I finished painting last night.

 

With loyalist chapters, I often have trouble cutting around the transfers so that they rest on the pauldron correctly. I was pleasantly surprised that the Iron Warriors logo, with it's overall round shape, only needed two small cuts along "the brow" to sit nicely.

 

I tried to get a bit of a lava glowing effect on the Reaper Autocannon terminator, just to cement that what he's carrying is a power axe.

 

I also had fun adding combi-weapons to the terminators, something that loyalist counterparts don't have access to. One slight misstep I made however was using this "gun aimed down" pose with this configuration, which would make it difficult for me to see from the back to see who was armed with the combi-plasma. To offset this, I decided to add hazard stripes to the small square panel on the top of the armour, so I can pick the model out from above.

 

Finally, like any good Iron Warrior, I made all of the trophy-rack helmets Imperial Fists. I have a member in my hobby group that plays the hated sons of Dorn, and it's my hope that seeing all of his battle brothers dead on my trophy racks will provoke him into using his weakling astartes in battle (and not the scary loyalist titan collection he's slowly building up)

 

I hope to have a newly painted unit by the time of my next post, until then!

 

+Spiros14; Aspiring Champion+

 

[spiros14]

I went and got the start collecting box this week, and managed to finish up five of the space marines in the box.

 

I'm pleasantly surprised that every member of the start collecting squad is an individual model. I was expecting one or two of them to be identical twins, similar to the infiltrators in the Start Collecting Vanguard box (as they both shared the Shadowspear box set).

 

I went for a cream loincloth rather than the brown leather ones I've used on the Terminators. I also went for a hazard stripe pattern on only half a leg each, both because it is a lot easier and these guys are just grunts to the legion, so shouldn't be too embellished anyway.

 

I am enjoying painting the glowing eyes on these marines.

 

I have everything else in the Start Collecting box built as of last night, and I'll probably try painting one of the obliterators next.

One thing I wanted to ask about was the Master of Possession. I've heard that he's quite good for Iron Warriors because he synergises well with daemon engines. Is that through select psychic powers? and if so, which ones?

 

I also got myself a box of havocs, though they'll remain unbuilt until I get the Start Collecting stuff painted. I'm sure this isn't an original opinion, but I'm a little disappointed with the weapon options and posing. The fact that you are stuck with two anti-infantry (heavy bolter, autocannon, chaincannon) and two anti-tank (lascannon, missile launcher) marines in the same squad is a bummer when you kind of want such squads single-tasking (all anti-tank, or all anti-infantry).

 

Until then!

+Spiros14; Aspiring Champion+

[WarriorFish]

Nice and gritty scheme, perfect for IW :tu:

[TrawlingCleaner]

The glowing eyes look fantastic and the cloth contrasts really well with the overall dark model. Great stuff!

 

 

I have everything else in the Start Collecting box built as of last night, and I'll probably try painting one of the obliterators next.

One thing I wanted to ask about was the Master of Possession. I've heard that he's quite good for Iron Warriors because he synergises well with daemon engines. Is that through select psychic powers? and if so, which ones?

 

Master of Possessions are great if you use a lot of Daemon Engines, Obliterators, Mutilators, Possessed or Spawn.

 

Out of the 6 powers they can take, 4 are pretty useful and of those 2 are incredibly useful:

 

Sacrafice allows you to take a MW on a unit and give a Daemon Engine D3 wounds back, or if you take a MW on a Warpsmith the Daemon Engine gets 3 wounds back. A great combo if you've got a Warpsmith, but usually Chaos forces are heavy on HQs

 

Mutated Invigoration does a load of different stuff depending on the units you take. Generally as IW you'll have some Oblits, Invigoration allows you to reroll one of the 3 profile dice. As IW we have a stratagem that allows you reroll all 3 profile dice, which makes this power useless for us generally

 

The two best ones:

Cursed Earth gives you +1 to your invulnerable saves for anything with the Daemon keyword, excellent for Daemon Engines and Oblits which we specialise in!

 

Infernal Power gives all Daemon units with 6" re-roll ones to hit and wound. Excellent for making Daemon units more reliable, you'll likely be using Daemon forged every turn for one of your engines, so making the others more reliable is very handy

 

 

 

The Havoc box is very underwhelming, if you're looking to have the entire box with one gun, it may be worth looking into Forgeworld upgrade bits, looking for bits on eBay or looking into 3rd party bits
 

[spiros14]

Nice and gritty scheme, perfect for IW

 

Thank you! Usually I have trouble getting models in a batch done, as I'll get bored of repeating the same step and focus on a single mini just for completion's sake, but the simplicity of the colour scheme I'm using on these guys makes batches of five much more tolerable.

[Kythnos]

Awesome stuff! I really like the look of your IW, very similar to how I am doing mine :-)

[spiros14]

Awesome stuff! I really like the look of your IW, very similar to how I am doing mine :-)

 

Thank you. One of the things I do like about the Iron Warriors is that even among different players, it all looks fairly uniform. I would suppose that is because most other chapters/warbands are made up of colours that can be painted in different shades (Do you use Khorne Red or Mephiston Red as a base for Word Bearers, for instance) the silver form of the iron warrior can only be painted as being brighter or duller, which would be difficult at a casual glance.

 

If there ever comes a time where there's an Iron Warrior vs. Imperial Fists event, you could guarantee that the Sons of Perturabo will look unified like a true legion of old, while the pretenders of Dorn will be arguing over whether they should be all Averland Sunset, or all Yriel Yellow.

[spiros14]

After quite a bit of work, I managed to finish one of the obliterators. I love the look of the model, how it's been made to be reminiscent of a scaled down hellbrute rather than the fleshy terminators that were the originals. They also remind me of Bane from the Batman Arkham series, with their hunched over poses, slabs of muscle, and mechanical implants.

 

The flesh took some work to do, I used the daemonflesh video made by Warhammer TV (link below) but because I had painted the armour first, I had to be really careful with painting the flesh. Still, I'm happy with the finished result.

 

 

I have the sorceror currently on my painting table. I think I will try to rotate the order into Character, Infantry Unit, Big Thing until I've gotten all the models from the start collecting kit, the sorceror, and the havocs painted.

 

On another note, I had a moment while in my LGS where I was being signed into a tournament. When they asked what army I was going to play, one of my friends exclaimed "Blood Angels! Spiros14 always takes Blood Angels!" 

For now, my friend, but the soldiers of the long war are biding their time, awaiting the perfect moment to strike when you least expect it.

 

Until then!

+Spiros14; Undercover Champion+

Edited October 25, 2021 by spiros14

[Dr_Ruminahui]

He looks great!  I think the darker flesh tone was a good choice - it looks great and is different from the paler flesh tones more commonly used.

[spiros14]

Managed to get the sorcerer model finished after a few days.

I do like the look of this model, and I knew I wanted it in my collection, even if he doesn't get used (though I'm sure he will find himself in more than a few games.

I wasn't fully sure what colours to paint the robes, so went with the classic comic-book villain colours of green and purple. Another great thing about painting Iron Warriors that I've learned is that because the armour is a neutral colour, the sons of Perturabo look good in anything! 

I'm also happy with how the fire came out. I do enjoy painting flames, as it only takes a few glazes and drybrushes to get a great effect.

 

For the back of the cloak, I made an attempt at a NMM pattern, which was done with mainly contrast paints, and made the rest of the material a simple black, which should let the pattern stand out more.

 

Next on the painting table are the rest of the chaos space marines from the start collecting kit, which hopefully will not take long.

 

Until then, brothers!

+Spiros14; Aspiring Champion+

 

[Khornestar]

Very well done! Love the dark shading and choice of colors for the robe.

[TrawlingCleaner]

Love the Sorcerer and the Oblits! the scheme is coming out amazingly! Looking forward to more! 

[spiros14]

Thank you, the robes were a very simple colour scheme. I used Barak-Nar Burgandy and Incubi Darkness as a basecoat, followed by a Basilicanum grey contrast wash before being highlighted with Emperor's Children for the purple robes, and Kabalite then Sybarite green for the green robes.

[spiros14]

I'm happy to report that four out of the five remaining chaos space marines have been painted. I found a slight bit of moulding flash on the leg of the fifth man that needed to be addressed, so as is typical of chaos warrior energy, I left him behind to finish the other four.

 

One thing I realise now is that the set is seperated into five "shooting marines" and five "combat marines" which include the aspiring champion. Though I think I'd still prefer a uniform loadout for a squad, I can see how half shoot, half combat can be versatile in games. Allowing you to be effective in charging an objective held by an enemy, and holding an objective. 

 

Next up is the last obliterator and final chaos space marine with chainsword. I'm happy with how quickly these marines are being painted, and I'm hopeful that I can finish the start collecting box by either the end of the year or shortly afterwards.

 

Until then, battle brothers!

+Spiros14; Aspiring Champion+

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

I don't think "half-shoot, half-melee" is actually a very good load out... it means your squad really doesn't do anything very well.  Instead, I think it was a matter of GW wanting to represent both load outs in a small number of mono-pose models.

 

I would be more inclined to field them as 2 units of 5 ("promoting" one of the basic models to aspiring champion of one of the squads - maybe the one with the bolter and knife), with the option to expand them to larger squads as you paint more models.

 

That said, your models look great.

Edited November 4, 2021 by Dr_Ruminahui

[spiros14]

I don't think "half-shoot, half-melee" is actually a very good load out... it means your squad really doesn't do anything very well. Instead, I think it was a matter of GW wanting to represent both load outs in a small number of mono-pose models.

 

I would be more inclined to field them as 2 units of 5 ("promoting" one of the basic models to aspiring champion of one of the squads - maybe the one with the bolter and knife), with the option to expand them to larger squads as you paint more models.

 

That said, your models look great.

Thank you.

 

I agree with what you're saying. What I am planning on a little further down the line is getting a couple more Chaos Space Marine boxes and mixing them up to make two ten man squads with ranged in mind, and one ten man squad with melee in mind. While I know that the five man squad game works very well in games (more room in your list for better stuff, harder for units to lose morale, etc.) I've always been a ten man squad man. There's nothing quite like filling the board with thirty space marines eager to kill.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

That makes sense - I too like larger squads, and have building mine as 12 man (because slannesh likes multiples of 6) rather than doing them minimum sized.  And I didn't mean to suggest that I thought that they should stay as 5 man squads, just that when you have only the 10 done it makes more sense (in terms of game effectiveness) to field them as separate squads rather than lump them together.

 

I too have used multiple boxes to flesh out the shadowspear marines - I've basically combining the models from 2 boxes + models from the CSM box to make my current project, which is 12 melee noise marines - if you are curious, you can see the assembled squad here: http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/346143-the-judgment-on-kadeth-dr-ruminahuis-emperors-children/?p=5715978

Edited November 8, 2021 by Dr_Ruminahui

[spiros14]

That makes sense - I too like larger squads, and have building mine as 12 man (because slannesh likes multiples of 6) rather than doing them minimum sized.  And I didn't mean to suggest that I thought that they should stay as 5 man squads, just that when you have only the 10 done it makes more sense (in terms of game effectiveness) to field them as separate squads rather than lump them together.

 

I too have used multiple boxes to flesh out the shadowspear marines - I've basically combining the models from 2 boxes + models from the CSM box to make my current project, which is 12 melee noise marines - if you are curious, you can see the assembled squad here: http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/346143-the-judgment-on-kadeth-dr-ruminahuis-emperors-children/?p=5715978

 

That's some real impressive work with the capes there. 

 

I haven't done much Iron Warrior painting since my last post, as I got side tracked with another project. I did however get that last Chaos Space Marine (Brother Unicorn) done, making the whole start collecting squad complete!

 

I did have a conversation with a member of my hobby group who is considering an Emperor's Children army once the new Chaos Space Marine book releases. I gave him the same advice I'm following ATM: get a start collecting box, get models that you know won't be released next year. I realised a little later that I'm being a bit specific with the Chaos Space Marine release stuff - I hope I haven't blown my cover. It doesn't help that I'm looking to write a Chaos-centric crusade campaign, but as far as my group knows, it's because we have plenty of Chaos and Imperial players already, and I, a steadfast Loyalist, just enjoy the glory of surpassing a challenging fight against a big bad.

 

As said previously, I have the last obliterator to complete, which I hope I can get done before the end of the month.

 

Until then!

 

+Spiros14; Aspiring Champion+

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Thanks, I'm glad you like them.  Rhe capes actually aren't that hard to do, though they do make the models a bit pricier (as you are essentially buying 1 1/2 kits for 10 models.  You can see my tutorial using the old chaos space marine kit, which should work with the new marines with two slight tweaks - you cut the back half of the marine torso to fit the warrior back piece (which has the cape) and you don't need to cut the legs at all, unlike the old method.

 

The full squad looks great together... any chance on getting some close up on the minis individually, as even with the photos of just 3 models its tough to make out the details. 

 

As for your pal, one thing to be cautious about is that if/when Emperor's Children get their own codex, they'll likely be loosing things like obliterators, venomcrawlers and the master of possession - none of those are in the Thousand Sons or Death Guard codexes.  Which doesn't matter if he's okay fielding his marines using the Chaos Space Marines codex, but likely won't be with the Emperor's Children codex.  Myself, I fall into the former camp - I'm Emperior's Children more by virtue of the colour scheme than anything else (I chose the colours before the legion), so would probably be fine with fielding them as a non-Emperor's Children slaneshi following war band if the rules were okay and that let me field all my stuff.

Edited November 26, 2021 by Dr_Ruminahui

[spiros14]

Thanks for the tip regarding the Emperor's Children. My friend has decided to focus on Militarum Tempestus for the moment, but I have a strong feeling he'll either switch back to the sons of Fulgrim as a "casual" army when the opportunity strikes.

 

I've just finished my second obliterator today, and I will try to get some pictures of both him and some individual Chaos Space Marine models tomorrow.

 

I currently have the Master of Possession on the table, however, I may find myself slowing considerably with the Iron Warriors project, owing to an AoS tournament I'm looking to join in March, and I need to finish off some monster sized units for that.

[spiros14]

Alright brothers, the weather cleared up enough to take some reasonably lit pictures, so here is a picture dump!

 

First, as requested, here are some individual shots of the chaos space marines from the start collecting kit.

I have the champion, of course, always a favourite of mine.

 

Next, the plasma gunner. I went for a darker skin tone for this marine, and will be trying to dot some different ethnicities throughout the warband as I go through it (I did feel quite restricted limiting myself to just the pale skin and blonde hair the Blood Angels are depicted with, so painting a marine army made up of different skin tones is a breath of fresh air)

 

The autocannon, a gun I again was looking forward to paint (loyalists don't have access to them on tac squads)

 

It's a bit of a geek thing to say, but I did like how, for the vigilus ablaze books, we got a couple of artwork templates showing the colour schemes of the traitor legions and other warbands. I didn't realise before I got the start collecting kit that they were based on two of the bolter models in the kit, and I just find that kinda neat.

 

Finally, the last model I painted of the squad was this guy with the fabulous unicorn horn, so there aren't any pictures in my gallery of him yet. Another thing I'm liking about the current Chaos Space Marine range is that it isn't just viking-esque horned helmet, and that some marines just want to rock a cool shark fin to intimidate their enemies.

 

Up next is the second obliterator from the start collecting kit. I'll be honest, I found this guy a slog to get through. I wasn't into the pose, or the weapons, or all of the cables jutting out, or where metal and flesh meld together; but I am happy that he's done, and for me, that's all that matters. I'll probably be holding back on getting any more done, but I will be trying to keep an open mind with other daemon engine models, like the venomcrawler.

 

 

By contrast, I greatly enjoyed painting the Master of Possession. I wasn't originally sold on the floating body (in my mind, it looks like he's skipping more than anything) but it was when I compared him to the sorcerer that I really got the energy he's conveying. The sorcerer is an evil wizard, but the MoP? He's a shaman. He's got the rams head hat; four different kinds of fetishes over his body; and unlike the sorcerer, who uses his power to conjure a flaming omen in his hands, the MoP flys through the air lighting everything, even the skulls on his trophy rack on fire in a bold act of behold my power!

With that in mind, I went for a red robe, always the aggressive colour, which would also help compliment the flames on his backpack and hands.

 

 

I also had a bit of fun doing some weathering along the hem of the cloak, for this I washed the bottom half with agrax earthshade; before stippling with baneblade brown and dryad bark, to represent dried up and still wet mud.

 

 

As I've said in a previous post, I'll be taking a (reluctant) hiatus from the Iron Warriors for a spell to focus on my Age of Sigmar army for an upcoming tournament. I currently have the havocs, greater possessed, and the venomcrawler built; but they haven't been undercoated yet, nor will they for what will likely be a couple of months. 

 

Until then, brothers!

+Spiros14; Aspiring Champion+

Edited December 14, 2021 by spiros14