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Always looking for an excuse to postpone real work, I've decided to start a new army. Once the first Grey Knight rumours began to percolate in January 2011, I began purchasing odds and ends to create a new GK army. The initial inspiration for the army's theme was a Spartan miniature from Scibor Miniatures.



I started a sample paint job to see how it would look. It is still just the beginning of a NMM gold. I think I will use this model as my Librarian.

Liking the basic look, I decided to get a few more pieces and theme a whole new army around it. So I purchased some Spartan torsos, heads, and shoulder pads from Scibor Miniatures. I then decided I would add them to knight legs from Micro Arts Studio. I also purchased some cool Spartan shields, but then no storm shields showed up in the codex. :(

Once the Grey Knight minis appeared in the stores, I started to construct my first squad, a squad of purifiers. BTW, a dremel and mask was a necessity fitting those torsos onto the legs (there was a lot of resin that had to be removed).

Unfortunately, the scale of the Scibor shoulder pads was totally wrong: they are scaled to fit terminators, not their own Scibor torsos!

Luckily, my FLGS had a number of metal shoulder pad blisters, and low and behold, the Genesis chapter pads have a lambda symbol on them, much like the Spartans!

Here are the first squad of eight purifiers (1 daemon hammer, 2 psycannons, 5 halberds).









The nice thing about a closeup is that it allows you to see the flaws. I see a few places where I didn't remove the flashing. And of course, I haven't glued on the ammo to the stormbolters yet.

For my daemon army, I spent a ton of time on my bases. This time around I'm just using bases from Scibor.

My plan is create an army with Inquistorial elements. Like everyone else, I'll be running Coteaz. I don't have the official Coteaz mini so I'm deciding to use this one. Coteaz has a big hammer as so does this chap.


At present, I'm not completely sure about whether my two HQ will be Coteaz and a Librarian or Coteaz and a Xenos Inquistor. Several years ago I found the ForgeWorld Inq Solomon Lox model in a cutout bin but never did anything with it. Now it will be my Xenos Inquistor (with grenades).


After some playtesting with my son, I've found the Death Cult Assassins (DCA) to be the best close combat element in the army. We have found that Grey Knights are not really a close combat army, but a good midfield shooting army that are uncomfortable (for the opponent) to assault. However, the DCA are a great counter-assault unit and can be paired with Crusaders or perhaps just cheap ablative acolytes.

I'm not a real fan of the GW DCA models. Even worse, there are metal and have only two poses. If I ended up running two squads of them, it would look pretty silly. So I need an alternative model. Now, I have a couple of models I used as Eviscerator-armed zealots for my old WitchHunter army. Perhaps I can use them.




That would be a bit ragtag I think as each model would be completely different. Instead I'm going to use Doom Reavers from Privateer Press, since there are four different poses, and the unit will look more cohesive.

Looking good, can't wait to seen em painted.

I'm struggling a bit with the paint scheme for the purifiers.

Now I've quickly base coated a few regular GK troopers that I will use for my regular GKSS troops, just to get a visual sense of the look.


While I'm not planning on running with terminators, I did paint up the squad I bought years and years ago (but never painted) back in March.



So, while the metal approach is awfully easy and fast (base coat with metal paint thinned with medium, use a couple of washes, highlight with a brighter metal, paint up details, matte spray finish). For instance, I was able to paint up an entire squad of 10 terminators in a single day in which I was too sick to go to work (but clearly not too sick to paint). They do look quite a bit nicer than the flash photos shown above: on the gaming table they look very good, but not so great with a zoom lens. So, the metal approach is fast and pretty decent tabletop quality.

However, to be honest, I'm not certain I really like the metal everywhere look. Sure, I'm fine with my GKSS troopers having the metal look, but not so keen to have my elite Spartan Purifiers with a straightforward metal look.

So with what colors should I paint my purifiers if I avoid metal paints?

WOW! that mini is pretty cool! a spartan SM army......wonderfull!

"300" jokes aside, interesting idea indeed. I'd say the helmets need some additions in order to make them a bit more high-tech, and the gorget pieces would benefit from studs or other decorations. Besides... well, I am strongly reminded of Adeptus Custodes.

The first model strongly reminded me of custodes have you ever thought about doing an army of them?

Very nice indeed. Keep up the good work!

I'm a bit fluff-challenged, so I had to do some background research, but I think the Custodes angle might make sense from a paint scheme perspective. That is, red cloaks, gold armour, perhaps some free-hand yellow/orange detailing on the bottom of the cloaks.

As for the idea of the studs on the gorgets, that is an interesting idea, but I'm a little skeptical in my ability to add the studs evenly enough. I will think about it some more, however.

So if I go with gold, I have to decide between NMM (looks good, takes a long time, I'm not tremendously good at it) and regular metallic gold paint (fast, easy, can be difficult to get gold smooth and even). For a comparison, here are two partially completed gold models of mine. (Does anyone else start painting an army and then get completely sidetracked by the latest new army/models? My son was keen on a DOA blood angels list but I never got much further than a partially completely sanguinary guard unit and an even less completed Sanguinor.

Perhaps it's the light, but the metallic gold looks more like brass to me. Definitely too dark. The Sanguinor is much better... although I admit, I am not exactly fond of non-metallic metal, being spoiled with realistic metal finishes military modelers seem to whip out without too much difficulty.

Yes, I think you are right about the brass look: it's not quite gold enough. I think I will try to finish one these sanguinary guard to a brighter gold and then compare.

My guard army uses a lot contemporary military modeling techniques (hairspray weathering, filters, oil washes, pigments, etc) and I love how (relatively) easy it is to get great and realistic results. But on the table top, the effect was kind of underwhelming, in that when tournament judges and fellow players were evaluating for best painted, it was overlooked. When I bring my brighter, more exaggerated armies (Daemons, Sisters), then they are always in the running for best painted.

Awesome conversion's man btw were did you get those robed marine legs from?

randyc9999 wrote:Yes, I think you are right about the brass look: it's not quite gold enough. I think I will try to finish one these sanguinary guard to a brighter gold and then compare.

My guard army uses a lot contemporary military modeling techniques (hairspray weathering, filters, oil washes, pigments, etc) and I love how (relatively) easy it is to get great and realistic results. But on the table top, the effect was kind of underwhelming, in that when tournament judges and fellow players were evaluating for best painted, it was overlooked. When I bring my brighter, more exaggerated armies (Daemons, Sisters), then they are always in the running for best painted.

Well, that's the specific of tabletop wargaming miniatures for you, although I used to see pretty realistic looking things a few years back. Guess the fashion has shifted towards more, dare I say, garish approach.