“Don’t talk to me or my sons ever again”
After the race of painting my Mechanicus and Knights for this years Armies on Parade, I am finally able to share my painted Armigers who shall serve as squires for Lord Grevan when he pilots Ferrous Maximus.
I have a bad habit of painting things according to the box art and web store pictures because when considering purchases I generally end up falling in love with the scheme shown as I look at it again and again. This, combined with my adoration for House Raven and the design of Ferrous Maximus, has led to the paint scheme on these Warglaives.
I had a fair amount of difficulty getting the hazard stripes to look clean, and they have turned out slightly janky. As with my Ferrous Maximus Knight, I found the most helpful tool to be a long lining brush that helped the lines be smoother despite my shaky hands.
The reaper chain-cleavers seem to be calling for a good spattering of blood for the blood god, however I thought it would be nice to keep them clean and tidy as though their weapons have not tasted flesh since their last clean and service/rituals and prayers of function for the machine spirit.
Something that I do enjoy doing on these larger small unit size models is putting a one and a two on with transfers to help distinguish them when talking about them on the tabletop.
I tried using foam off cuts instead of the cork for the basing to get a less obvious cork shape. As a way to make the blend in a bit more, I opted to put them on before the lava basing crackle paint stuff, so they have a little bit more interest to them. I think I will try highlighting the edges of my next lava rocks, and see if that looks better/more defined (Thanks Alexis West!)
My only wish for these is that I had thought to magnetize the carapace weapons when I assembled them, all the way back in March when I got them in the Forgebane box. I may go back and do this in future when I get around to assembling my Armiger Helverins box.
Overall, I am very pleased with how these models turned out, and how good they look charging down a table ready to reaper chain-cleaver some xenos apart!
Also, as a side note, I found this image from when I was painting my Knight that I took after realizing the faceplate magnet was strong enough to hold the cannon magnet on:
Lavender Miniature Painting and Gaming 
Like you I find it difficult to ignore the box art, it is after all what attracts us in most cases to the figures in the first place.
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I have the opposite issue for painting where I like to deviate some how to give my own things a unique spin. Unfortunately that makes completely nailing down the scheme not that simple. I’m very jealous, I have two unbuild armigers that will have to wait. Excellent work on these, looking forward to seeing the rest of them, are you gonna do a write up of your armies on parade?
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I am currently starting to paint some tyranids (I really want to do something organic) and I am trying to come up with a custom hive fleet theme for them but nothing looks as nice as I want it to, I totally feel you.
I plan to do a write up, that should be my next thing I think. That or skitarii 🤔
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The 3rd Ed Tyranid Codex had a great spread with tons of ideas for different Hive Fleet Colour Schemes. I wish they still had that in the current one.
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Oh that sounds cool, I only came in around 5th Ed. That was the codex that had nice black and white line drawings.
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Luckily almost all of the box art is amazing 😉
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Looking great! Nothing wrong with following the colour schemes on the box. I don’t do it often, but it’s more because I have a bit of a compulsion to be different than any actual problem with the colour schemes GW uses*. I love the memeing, too 😀
The foam offcuts do look more like boulders here. I need to get around to doing a “how to base with cork without making it look like cork” tutorial post I can point people to, because it’s really hard to describe what I mean in just words.
The hazard stripes came out great as far as I can see. Far better than any I’ve attempted for sure. The nice thing about your situation with the carapace weapons is that the little pegs that they attach on are thin enough that they should be pretty easy to slice through cleanly if you do want to go back and magnetize them.
The Knight Codex actually has a bit about how the Sacristans make a point of getting a Knight not only functional, but completely cleaned up (e.g. of the blood on the Chain-Cleavers**) and repainted and everything any time there’s enough of a gap in the fighting to allow it. So I’ve done mine all pristine, with no weather at all because of that. It’s kind of fun to roll that way and not have to worry about weathering and stuff.
The last pic made me think of GotG2. Cannonface would be a much more imposing name than Taserface 😉
*Well, with a couple of exceptions where GW, for whatever reason, chose something absolutely awful for the box art. Some of the Nurgle stuff over the last couple of years has suffered from that.
**Also, they’d have to hack through something pretty big to leave much of a stain. A human-sized foe doesn’t have that much blood in them. And I’d expect them to get used more on Vehicles and stuff anyhow.
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I would love that tutorial post! I think the foam lends itself to more organic shapes with its ease of carving
The carapace weapons should be pretty easy, I just have to work up the motivation to go back instead of to the piles of unpainted models I need to get through 😵
I love that they care for the knights so well. Pristine knights look so glorious! They should be respected to the highest degree
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They look really good. The hazard stripes especially. I love the contrast of placement on the smaller knights. That may be the same as the box (no idea on that) but it works really well.
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Super painting; I love the bases. I’m especially impressed with the straightness of the lines on the hazard stripes. Do you freehand them or use some tape to ensure a straight line?
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Thank you!
I tried using tape but I found the masking tape I used allowed a small amount of bleeding or smeared paint when pulled off (I probably should have waited for it to dry)
I ended up using a long lining brush like these https://www.kolibri-pinsel.de/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/lining-brushes-long-sable-imitation-hair-sabeline-kolibri568.png
I found they allow for a lot more control when used almost horizontally on the surface as the bristle length keeps the whole things from waving around and being wonky
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These look fantastic – and there’s no shame in painting things like the box art or in an “official” scheme. Those ones are typically good to excellent, and GW have an entire art department who are paid full-time to come up with striking and aesthetically pleasing designs and colour combinations.
I should point out that your hazard stripes look particularly amazing, though!
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