Late Heresy / Scouring-era Salamanders Project

[Deus de Mortalis]

I have finally committed to a new hobby project since my last DIY marine chapter from 2019-2021. This is the logical conclusion of what has been brewing in my mind for several years now. I will try to make a 30k army of Salamanders using a lot of stuff mixing both current and older 30k models and older pre-primaris 40k models. It will feature lots of castraferrum dreadnoughts and lots of MkVI beakies. As far as units go, I will be sticking pretty closely to things that were available to Space Marines in the 3rd edition of 40k. Space Marine lore and units at the end of 3rd edition was my favorite.

 

Click if you want to read a little backstory about how I ended up at this point in 2026:

Spoiler

It's been a long road since I got into 40k in 2001. I read the 3rd edition Space Marine Codex cover to cover about once a week for an entire year. The lore that really stuck with me was about the Horus Heresy. I thought it was so cool and wished I could model stuff based on that and older marks of power armor. My favorite was Mark II armor, followed by Mark VI armor. I also liked the aesthetic of Rogue Trader marines. I saved all of the beaky helmets I could for some future project. When Forge World released their pre-heresy armor, I saw it in person at Games Day Baltimore 2010, but they sold out at the event before I could get some, but I ordered some immediately. I was very disappointed with the proportions of some things, such as the thighs. I bought a bunch of MkII and MkIII, along with accessories, but I ended up never using any of it and sold it all on Ebay. Later when their improved "Legion" armor came out it was an improvement, but I was already disillusioned. I bought some of the Horus Heresy characters which I thought were cool, but I never painted any as I thought my skills to be lacking. It stayed at that for a while until plastic Mk IV armor was released for the first edition of Horus Heresy. I was excited by the models, but not the game. I used the models in 40k. With the release of Primaris, it worried me about the future of 40k. I did not like the aesthetic or lore at all for the armor or vehicles. All the while, 30k kept expanding and releasing more things in plastic and resin. I kept collecting more stuff that I liked, but it was always first born marines. I tried to go Primaris with a boxed set in 2021, but I couldn't do it. This left me in limbo as all the models I liked in 40k were disappearing (scouts and terminators are still here though), and I didn't have any more time for the hobby with my young children. Something has been gnawing at me for a long time and finally the lore and models of 30k has won out over 40k. It took me a long, long time to decide on a legion, but the least bad option for me is the Salamanders. It seems like the natural option and they are growing on me.

 

The aesthetic I'm going for is late-heresy, early post-heresy period. I want to make the Salamanders have a semi-codex compliant paint-scheme. I really like blue librarians, black chaplains, white apothecaries, red techmarines, and different helmet colors and helmet stripes! I also heavily favor plastic over resin, and decals for symbols. I also need to be careful with not showing the crux terminatus, purity seals, or 40k aquila from any models that have them. We should show some stuff that is pro-Emperor and pro-Vulkan.

 

The lore is that they were obviously not present at Istvaan. Some of them missed out for whatever reason either being preoccupied, stuck in transit, or didn't hear the message soon enough. The other half are newly recruited. The army should be heavy on infantry mostly in Mk VI armor, light on tanks, with also a significant number of veterans and castraferrum dreadnoughts.

 

I haven't painted anything yet, but am in the planning and model prep stage for some dreadnoughts. Those will be the first things I post within the next couple of days. I just wanted to get this post up here ASAP before I get any further along and keep putting off sharing it.

[Deus de Mortalis]

The project isn't starting with painting, but de-painting and un-painting! I have never stripped paint from old models before. With old vehicles I either sold them or painted over them. Because most castraferrum dreadnoughts are out of production, they cost a lot and are hard to find, so I need to conserve them. I also am not very happy with the results of adding more layers of paint. I also bought an old painted dreadnought to strip.

 

I have tried 99.9% alcohol, Dettol, a toothbrush, wooden toothpick, and a sonic cleaner. Here are my thoughts:

 

Rubbing alcohol / methanol, works well on most paint. Citadel paints On some primers it just isn't strong enough. You don't want it to touch your bare skin as it dries your skin out instantly removing oils and moisture. The smell can get pretty bad though and you need good ventilation. The smell goes away very quickly and doesn't linger on the parts. For me, the biggest problem is that it dries too quickly, meaning you have to work quickly and wet it again with rubbing alcohol.

 

Dettol is able to remove primer that alcohol cannot affect. It costs more than rubbing alcohol, but seems more re-usable. It also has a strong smell and you don't want it on your hands, but it isn't nearly as bad as alcohol. The smell lingers for a long time on your hands and the parts, and this smell can be difficult to get rid of entirely. If all the paint is gone, putting the plastic in a sonic cleaner with water can remove the smell.

 

A toothbrush is great for getting surfaces clean, but the deeper the detail, the more difficult it is for the toothbrush. 

 

A wooden toothpick is good for picking out detail. It doesn't seem to damage the plastic.

 

A sonic cleaner is good for removing the final traces of paint. If the alcohol or detail has done its job, sonic cleaner can remove it. The problem is that dettol is not compatible with water. The detail-infused paint will just turn into sticky goop. I haven't tried alcohol or dettol inside the sonic cleaner yet.

 

Here are some photos:

 

One time I had the great idea of first painting on the sprue and then putting the model together. Once I realized that it wasn't a good idea, I stopped it entirely, but I was left with a number of models on the sprue in various stages of paint.

 

I have bought some OOP models too. I need to break them down and remove the paint. Luckily most people don't glue their models as strongly as I do!

 

These are my own models I painted before. Alcohol was able to remove all the paint besides some suck in some deep recesses from the regular dreadnought. A few hours with alcohol, a toothbrush, and then a toothpick only got the venerable dreadnought to the point you see here. Now they are in dettol, which removed almost all remaining paint.

 

 

The sonic cleaner putting the finish touches on cleaning up a blood angels dreadnought sprue I painted 7 years ago!

[Firedrake Cordova]

Looks like a good result.

 

I've found that BioStrip 20 can be pretty effective, although it can also "melt" some plastics (it should be fine on GW plastic, but I lost some Bolt Action "pin" markers that way). AK makes a stripper that works well on Forgeworld resin and GW plastic, too (video). Don't know if that's any help to you.

 

I do like the idea of your army, but obviously I'm biased due to my liking of the Salamanders chapter