Brother Castor's WH40K P&M Blog

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**dreadblade**

Well I've been back into WH40K for 3 months (after a 25 year break) and I've already dropped about £200 on miniatures, rules, paints and accessories

I now seem to have quite a backlog of built and primed miniatures that need painting:

Including a 500 point Ultramarines skirmish army:

And the Death Guard and Ultramarines units from First Strike:

Previously I didn't paint my miniatures but I'm up for the challenge this time around having done a painting session at the GW Manchester store and watched a lot of Warhammer TV tutorials. My plan is to paint the First Strike Death Guard units according to the painting guide in the box (i.e. no highlighting) to get my hand/eye in. After that I'm going to paint the Ultramarines, but this time do some dry brushing too.

I've already played through all the First Strike missions, and with everything primed I'm now in a position to start playing skirmish games, so painting is going to be a slow burner. I'll upload photos as I complete units (but as a newbie to painting expect tabletop standard rather than ‘Eavy Metal).

**Sinful Hero**

Good luck on your backlog! After you finish painting your current UM and Death Guard, are you planning to expand either faction?

**dreadblade**

Good question.

I don't anticipate buying any more Death Guard or Primaris Marines, they just happened to come with First Strike.

As for my Ultramarines skirmish army, I'll expand as long as I get to play regularly.

**Captain Brown**

Brother Castor,

Good luck and make certain you show us your progress.

Cheers,

CB

**dreadblade**

Thanks.

I'm hoping to paint the Plague Marines this weekend...

**GamerGuy**

Brother Castor, welcome to the 13th!

I've sent you a DM, gotta make a recommendation though brother if I may?

Your prized bolter marine would make a stellar lieutenant given the markings, add either 2 intercessors or 5 tactical marines and you'd have your first battalion!

as for the tactical marines you've built so far.... they're not ideal in terms of loadout, but far from difficult to optimise? hmu if you want some teeth adding to that list.... I can work on economy too if you've already invested heavily

GamerGuy

**dreadblade**

GamerGuy wrote:
be sure to check out the blogs of Nevelon and LDP!!

I've seen LDP's work - something to aspire to!

GamerGuy wrote:
Your prized bolter marine would make a stellar lieutenant given the markings, add either 2 intercessors or 5 tactical marines and you'd have your first battalion!

That's not a bad idea - I've been wondering how to paint Castor given that he's essentially the 11th member of the TAC squad. I've been toying with the idea of painting him as a veteran (white helmets look the best).

**lipsdapips**

Subscribed! This is a solid start - there's something really satisfying about following a good basis from start through to the end. Eager to keep tabs, give encouragement and feedback where necessary. May the Ultramarines do you proud Brother Castor!

**dreadblade**

As I said, I'm starting simple - no highlighting, just following the First Strike painting guide before I move on to more complex techniques for my Ultramarines.

I'm fairly pleased with the result for a first attempt, although it's amazing how many mistakes you can spot when you take a photo! It did take 5 hours so I'm hoping I might get a bit quicker as I build up experience

**GamerGuy**

Nice work man; how'd you get that basing effect? looks ace against the green of the armour!

Gotta say I agree on white helmets looking the best on Ultramarines, all my guys have them because of how striking the contrast is!

Will be keeping tabs on this; also consider the geedubs technical paints for exposed areas on death guard; they do a fast and easy "wet/sore" one that I've seen used a few times

GamerGuy

**dreadblade**

GamerGuy wrote:
Nice work man; how'd you get that basing effect? looks ace against the green of the armour!

The base is Armageddon Dust. The armour is Death Guard Green shaded with Agrax Earthshade.

**Nevelon**

Nice start to a Ultramarine force there. (and some filthy heretics) What company are you building?

You get 3 of each primaris in the first strike box? That’s a bit rough as you need 5 men for a min squad, unless you want to deal with the understrength unit rules. I guess that’s GW’s plug to buy more guys to flesh out the unit.

As you get more painting practice your quality and speed should improve. Just keep at it. Sounds like you are on the right track.

Always good to see more Ultramarines about. We march for Macragge!

**dreadblade**

Nevelon wrote:
Nice start to a Ultramarine force there. (and some filthy heretics) What company are you building?

Another good question. It's got to be the 2nd hasn't it?

Nevelon wrote:
You get 3 of each primaris in the first strike box? That’s a bit rough as you need 5 men for a min squad, unless you want to deal with the understrength unit rules. I guess that’s GW’s plug to buy more guys to flesh out the unit.

True - although they're just going to be practice for my 'proper' marines

**Nevelon**

Brother Castor wrote:
Nevelon wrote:
Nice start to a Ultramarine force there. (and some filthy heretics) What company are you building?

Another good question. It's got to be the 2nd hasn't it?

I’ll guess that the painting guides are doing the yellow/gold of the 2nd. But if you want to branch out a little, you could go red, green, or black and still be fielding marines from one of the battle companies. More options open up if you want to include the reserve companies.

**dreadblade**

Question moved to the Painting and Modelling sub-forum:

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/759109.page

**dreadblade**

I'm hoping to paint the Poxwalkers this weekend...

**dreadblade**

And that rabble concludes the heresy for this thread

I enjoyed painting the Plague Marines, but the Poxwalkers were a bit of a chore if I'm honest (fiddly and I'm really not interested in them as miniatures). Still, it's all good practice.

Next up, Primaris Intercessors and Reivers - I now paint for Macragge!

**dreadblade**

**Nevelon**

Nice looking batch of Ultras.

The one thing is that they seem very muted. Which is not a intrinsically bad thing, make them more realistic. But I’d worry that from an arm’s length table-top view, there isn’t going to be much to grab the eye. The white markings on the shoulder might help with that, but we don’t get a good view of them from the front. I might consider putting something on one/both knees to add a little detail to the front view.

**lipsdapips**

I second what Neve's said. You might be surprised at what picking out their eye lenses will do to make the finish all the more uniform. I think it'll bring the level of everything together and pop alongside the well applied transfers and gold trimming!

**dreadblade**

Thanks for the advice - both good suggestions.

The Primaris Marines (both the Intercessors and the Reivers) are supplied with enough transfers for one knee each, but my TAC squad isn't. In fact the GW photos of the TAC squad don't show any knee transfers.

As for the eyes, I deliberately avoided going into that much detail. I guess I could use Mephiston Red and Agrax Earthshade but I'd probably need a new brush.

**Nevelon**

One simple thing to try for the eyes is the gemstone paints. I use those for all my lenses these days. For green I put a base down of an old metallic green, but silver would work, and then the soulstone paint. Fairly simple, fairly easy. Not like painting normal human eyes, which is irritating and hard.

**dreadblade**

I've just started dry brushing and shading the Reivers, so expect another update in a few days...

**dreadblade**

Same approach as before, although I mixed Bugman's Glow with some Corax White for the skin this time and did a second round of dry brushing on the masks after shading. I think the base spray of Macragge Blue didn't adhere properly on the leftmost marine, hence the mottled effect. Perhaps it was too humid or I held it too far away when I did that one? Whatever, I'm pretty happy with the results again and I'll use this approach on my skirmish army. Time to buy some more paint

**dreadblade**

Well I did say I was aiming for tabletop standard, so here's a photo of the fully painted First Strike miniatures on the tabletop!

**Nevelon**

Looking good! Purge those filthy heretics.

**Captain Brown**

Nice solid work Brother Castor.

Cheers,

CB

**dreadblade**

Cheers guys

I'll be starting the Dreadnought this evening...

**dreadblade**

**lipsdapips**

That's something to be proud of! You're making strides already Brother Castor.