Progress Log: Alpha Legion Warband: "The Last Surprise"

[hd3]

I finally started on all the flesh on my possessed, the varak jal to my original two gal vorbak.  First doing a cost of bugman's glow then cadian flesh tone. Next I'm going to do a wash of carroburg crimson with just a dash of lahmian medium to thin it and then a little druchii violet. I have no idea how to paint the carapace tendrils in the possesed with the crab claw hand though alas. I want them to look different from the softer fleshy parts, maybe a black/grey type protrusion with a purple wash like in the box art? 

 

I also finished the stone hydra on the sorcerer's powerpack which I think is far more appropriate than the demon snake. I went with a very faint ulthuan grey highlight because the fenris grey wasn't contrasting enough with the space wolves grey.

 

Finally, I filled in the blue on the chest of the terminator next to the chains. I also did the leather straps on the arms with xv-88 then gore grunta fur and a light agrax wash. Finally Vallejo old gold with a little metal medium to make it extra pale for the metal tips and a drop of nuln gloss to add definition. 

[hd3]

Finally made some more progress on my possessed. In the end I didn't get too far and spent most of my time on the Lernaen Terminator test model but I did the crimson and violet washes fine and a few highlights with Kislev flesh. For the tendrils I went with mechanics grey with a druchii violet wash that I may even double down on. I want these tendrils to look absolutely repulsive. And finally black legion for the ribbing on the armour seals and the pipes except for the one I overlooked. I deliberately left a fair bit of the washes more than usual to ensure the flesh looks bruised, ideally like the sinews are straining to crack the epidermis.

 

 

Finally, the Lernaen Terminator. I went with runelord brass and agrax on the icons. For the volkite charger, Abaddon black for the gun casing, and Vallejo gunmetal for the rest to help differentiate it from the silver on the armour. Finally I used the same volkite formula I did on my blood ravens lieutenant, white with gryph hound orange and finally a highlight of canoptek alloy in the ridges and more orange. 

 

And next runefang steel on the many, many rivets in the armour.

 

The last thing I'm still not sure about. I added runefang steel and warp lightning on the chains decorating the armour. I really like the aesthetic this dash of green adds the armour and it harkens back to the very very old first artwork of the lernaens. I'm worried it's making the model too noisy though. Which do people prefer for the chains? Silver or green?

 

Edited May 12 by hd3

[hd3]

I finally finished my first Lernaen Terminator! With the exception of the base rim.  I redid the chains in stormhost silver and painted the tabard with corax black, then eshin grey and admin grey highlights. 

 

The tabard was surprisingly tricky to attach annoyingly. It was really hard to get it to fit snugly with the gun arm obstructing my reach. Im actually reconsidering if I should attach the tabards in advance and just try to deal with the difficulty of painting the legs around the tabard anyway.

 

I'm not completely happy with the eye lenses here. I think the flesh tearers and evil sunz scarlet are too close together . I think next time I might try mixing the evil sunz with a little white or pink to bright it further.

 

Edited May 16 by hd3

[hd3]

Tidied up the possessed a bit, adding Vallejo squid pink with a cartoburg crimson wash for the tongues and filling in the bone details with ushabti, agrax then flayed one highlights.

 

I'm worried I made the highlight on the  purple tendrils too bright though. It's too sharp a transition. And corax black with ushabti bone for the protruding spikes. I might thin the highlight later with more corax. 

 

For the handle on the accursed power axe, I used mechanics grey and athonian camoshade which gave me the exact colour I wanted but came out way too glossy. I think I need to dul it down with either matt varnish, lahmian medium or Tami xf clear. Not sure which gives the most matt finish though.

[Tallarn Commander]

I like the bold purple edge on the tentacles. But maybe a darker wash or glaze would help the highlight look more gradual. As for toning down the gloss, I suspect good ‘ol Testor’s Dullcoat, or a similar matte varnish, would look great.

[hd3]

I finished up my possessed, sans the casualty on the third one.  Fixed up the spots on the armour where I spilled and added iron warriors to the teeth if the axe and the gladius.  For the flames on the lead possessed, I  did casandora yellow over the white, Tamiya xf bright orange and mephiston red on the very top and finally a wash of carroburg crimson.  Finally some warp lightning on the main armour panels which only occurs on the truly warp tainted members of my warband. I did this on the talons and obliterators too but more subtlely which honestly is barely visible in the tabletop. So I went much stronger on it with these ones to make it easier to see. 

 

The final possessed is perched upon a dark angels casualty which I may need some outside help with so that will have to wait a while.

[hd3]

So I finished highlighting the last possesed's power pack and attached that to the model. I also based the other possessed with my necron casualty, decorated here in the colours of the sautekh dynasty and painted with Vallejo steel. I'm going to dry brush the stirland later. 

 

Finally, the bulk of my night was spent at last tackling the cultist commissar. I wanted this guy to look untainted which is hard when the model has s face that is half demon. So in the end I just painted it all as normal flesh and decided the guy is just very ugly. 

 

I went with bugman's glow, reikland fleshshade and finally progressive light layers of cadian flesh tone for the skin. I plan to go back sometime and add another round of light highlights of Kislev flesh. For the hair I just used a thin cost of gorthor brown and two heavy agrax washes. 

 

The commissar great coat is black templar, nuln oil and eshin grey highlights. While the shot gun and blade are Vallejo gunmetal with duralumin highlights. 

 

I'm mostly happy with the face for s first try but getting the pupils on the eyeballs is not easy. I think ill have try the right eye again. 

[hd3]

Finally got the blue and undercoats on my terminators. These ones are 3:1 talassar blue to kroxigor scale, to control the green. I also put Abaddon black on the leather straps before I put white on to try and dull the shine on those parts.

[hd3]

So I've finally made some progress on my Lernaen terminators. The formula is the same as the prototype, with the exception that your these ones I used 3:1 Talassar Blue to Kroxigor scale. I've done the power axes with a thinned castellan green for the handle and hydra head, rune lord brass for the rings and brass scorpion for the wires and edges of the power pack and iron hands steel for the blade. Then washed it all with nuln oil. My plan right now is to highlight the sharp edge with runefang steel (along with the rest of the terminator armour honestly). 

 

I used the same colours for the volkite culverin as the volkite charger save for Vallejo gunmetal replacing the silver details. For the conversion beamer it was Abaddon black for the grip, gunmetal for the silver details, black legion with nuln oil for the cables, runelord brass for the actual converter with nuln and thinned castellan green over the supports. Next it's highlighting, then bases and finally the dreaded tabards.

 

I also started on my legionary with vexilia (he will be playing the role of legionary with chaos icon) to give me those valuable dark pact re-rolls. 

 

Someone also asked me about the scale of the Lernaens. These ones are printed to be roughly the same scale as modern CSM terminators, since primaris marines wear regular terminator armour since it's so huge. 

And of course, Alpharius was the smallest primarch but had some if the biggest baseline marines so I wanted these guys to look like they could (from a distance and in the midst of battle at least) plausibly double as their primarch. 

Edited July 20 by hd3

[hd3]

Picking out all the rivets (including on the leather over the arms) took a while. Ive also started using thicker highlights on the arms etc when I realized the thin highlights were basically invisible on the tabletop. I've tidied up the bases with a little Leadbelcher and put Abaddon black down over the non metallic parts to hopefully dull down the shine a bit.

[hd3]

Just wanted to share these light box photos I was able to get today if my growing army.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Your growing force is awesome, but I feel your light box photos don't really do them justice and leave them rather desaturated - though on the close ups, they do a really good job on showing off your highlighting.

[hd3]

While I'm finishing up my terminator tabards, I decided to finish my Legionary with Vexilla. This time I used different colours for the Vexilla, karak stone with ushabti bone highlights. This guy is going to be my chaos icon bearer in 40k too to give my Legionaries dark pacts re-rolls.

Edited August 3 by hd3

[hd3]

On 8/1/2025 at 9:24 AM, Dr_Ruminahui said:

Your growing force is awesome, but I feel your light box photos don't really do them justice and leave them rather desaturated - though on the close ups, they do a really good job on showing off your highlighting.

 

I don't think it's a proper lightbox for models, I think the owner got it from a laundry that closed down.

[Firedrake Cordova]

I'm really liking the colour you're getting on the power armour  

[hd3]

17 minutes ago, Firedrake Cordova said:

I'm really liking the colour you're getting on the power armour  

Thank you! It's gotten much easier since I standardized the formula and switched to kroxigor over aethermatic. I've also switched to a brighter silver zenith highlight spray.

[hd3]

I finished the base on my Legionary with icon using my normal formula but this time I used a much larger amount of Vallejo rust wash to make the colour of the metal more bronzed.

 

I finally finished painting and gluing the tabards on the Lernaen terminators too. I made sure the two tabards with chains on them went went on the heavy weapon guys but otherwise the tabards are chosen based on personal preference of the marine wearing the terminator armour in question. Does the more older outmoded aleph - null have greater significance over the Hydra symbol? What does that mean? Who knows. I'll take some proper photos in the lightbox next game day.

 

Finally, to help get ready for Fabius Bile's grand return once Grot finished his tender ministrations, I started work on the surgeon acolyte. I began with the space marine casualty and elected to go with an Imperial Fist ( those who have read Angel Exterminatus will understand). I decided to paint my spare assault intercessor the same colours at the same time as a painting exercise. The intercessor is on my terrain log at (

.

One difference I noticed is that yellow base colour seems to work much better with a white primer over a black one.  It took SO MANY coats to build up a decent colour on the casualty. It was much easier on the still living intercessor. Anyway, I went with yriel yellow for that rich imperial fist yellow. I plan to do a recess shade with averland sunset and then a light wash in the recesses with reikland flesh shade next. While Gal Vorbak red is going to go on the chest Aquila (or is it a caputmori from Death of a Rubricists' Silver Stars???) .

 

[hd3]

Added the award/sergeant mark on the wrist and for a judicious touch of levity, some hazard stripes on the chainblades. I think these guys served with the Iron Warriors at some point.

 

I also added squad and legion decals to my new icon bearer.

Edited Thursday at 12:24 AM by hd3

[hd3]

So I asked my Greek friend Vic, how would you say 'Hydra' in Greek (ΥΔΡΑ) and added that to my Vexilla.

[hd3]

Finally made some progress on my Imperial Fist casualty for the surgeon acolyte. I did gal Vorbak on the chest eagle, mephiston red for the shoulder trim to indicate he's from the fists third company, a dorn yellow edge highlight and mounrnfang brown for the dirt colour base with runelord brass for the spent shells and the pipes. 

 

I think this looks ok for my first time doing a colour so far removed from my usual but at the same time there's something about the paint job here that really puts me off that I can't explain. Maybe because I didn't do a nuln oil wash all over the armour.  Or maybe some rattling grime in the recesses to make him filthier?

 

I'm also going to do stirland battlemire around the edges once the acolyte is glued in place and do my green eye lens formula of tesseract glow and warp lightning.

Edited 1 hour ago by hd3