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I will likely make two Astartes armies, ideally one Loyalist and one Traitor. But I am having a tough time deciding on which two.

What Legion or Legions are you going to paint up?

IXth for me as always. I am making the same army in both scales basically, the Epic scale one will just be a larger force.

Was thinking this will allow for HH campaigns utilizing 4 or 5 different games (AI, AT, LI, HH, KT21 with the Heresy rules). Not even sure we will ever be playing anything like that, i just like the idea of being able to

Well, I'm painting IWs and IFs ^^

I play Iron Hands in 30k, but I'm tempted to do something 'brighter' for LI.

I already have a sizeable World Eaters force so am going to do Dark Angels, but for a Great Crusade-era project

Death Guard here, as that matches the full sized HH force I'm working on.

once thats up to about 5k, so I have options at a 3k game, I'll probably add a detachment or two of Sons of Horus, again as planning to do a SoH allied force for the full sized stuff

no idea how well either will work, suspect the ability to denote bits of terrain with objectives in as "dangerous" maybe a laugh though

Tentatively blood angels but as locally loyalists seems to be "bit" overrepresented considering sons of horus.

But I do like the red and black...

Not buying the game but I'd still like to collect an Emperor's Children & House Devine force. Something about the purple scheme that is visually pleasing.

Cthonian Headhunters

Loyal Emperors Children
Heretic Dark (Space) Wolves
Loyal Luna Wolves
Solar auxilia models being split between:
- Nurgle Traitor Guard
- Space Vermin (Space Skaven)

I'm being 'commissioned' to also do a few extra projects for my group:

Loyal Thousand Sons
Ice world themed Tyranids & Genestealer Cultists

Haven’t started my HH army yet (still have the box) but both will be Dark Angels.
Already completed one infantry sprue, plus a rhino and pred.

I'm doing Son's of Horus and Blood Angels initially. Others in my group are painting the remaining legions from Siege of Terra series as we're planning on a narrative campaign.

I have come to realise that my choice changes each day that I come to look at this list

 Pacific wrote:
I have come to realise that my choice changes each day that I come to look at this list

the trouble with HH is you are, in theory, limited to the 18 legions, though obviously there is the chance for "campaign specific camouflage" if desired

the real trouble is all 18 look so damned good

Real trouble is li makes darn easy to use them all...

tneva82 wrote:
Real trouble is li makes darn easy to use them all...

well yes, I mean nine formations could easily be from nine different legions, and heck if you assume a few more fighting for the other side could actually use all 18

quite clever really, and since the models are small and storage is less of an issue damned tempting

I've definitely decided against black, as picking out some of the small detail on that scale mini in black is a recipe for eye strain! Younger eyes may be OK.

I suspect also that choices might change once people realise the Legion traits. There is a fairly big disparity I think between some of the Legions and others, and Space Wolves in particular (unless they get some mega legion-specific units) have been really short changed and will look in enviously as World Eaters absolutely wipe the floor with them in melee.

 Pacific wrote:
I've definitely decided against black, as picking out some of the small detail on that scale mini in black is a recipe for eye strain! Younger eyes may be OK.

I don't know how to make black look good at this scale.

I kind of want to do dark angels, given the high pigment paints available these days I don't think it'd be too hard to paint bone or red over black at this scale, but the black itself I dunno how to do.

But yeah, I dunno, I already have an 8mm Ultramarines army, so maybe I should just expand that, though I kind of want to try something different. At this scale, punchy colours are a real boon, so as much as I like Dark Angels and Space Wolves, probably not them.

Maybe I was thinking of Alpha Legion, using a technique not dissimilar to this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rne2uWLBoMc

...so blue/teal drybrushed over a purple base, but I dunno if that will look good at Epic scale and it needs to scale well from basic infantry up to aircraft and superheavies like the Falchion.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 tauist wrote:
IXth for me as always...

Am I the only person who has never been able to memorise the different legion numbers? Other than Dark Angels, Emperor's Children (because they're the first 2), and Alpha Legion (because it's last) I'm lost, even after having read 2 or 3 dozen of the HH novels (I hate it when the novels use legion numbers instead of the name and I have to pull out my phone to google it, lol).

leopard wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Real trouble is li makes darn easy to use them all...

well yes, I mean nine formations could easily be from nine different legions, and heck if you assume a few more fighting for the other side could actually use all 18

quite clever really, and since the models are small and storage is less of an issue damned tempting

As is if you have enough points you can legally field all 18 in one force

Alas does open room for legion bonus minmaxing like in 40k 8th ed.

Planning to do Ultramarines & Word Bearers, and play many games in the settings of the Betrayal at Calth and the Crusades of Shadow and Iron.

I may later add some small formations of allied Legions for both main forces, such as Dark Angels & Blood Angels for Loyalists, and World Eaters for Traitors.

Sad to see no option for “your own legion,” but that’s always where I end up

Well we have the 2nd and 11th Legions

There are also some people talking about doing Badab war, as that is effectively just Marines against Marines it should translate fairly well. And you could probably map some of the Legion abilities to the Chapters that took part in that conflict as well.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
I've definitely decided against black, as picking out some of the small detail on that scale mini in black is a recipe for eye strain! Younger eyes may be OK.

I don't know how to make black look good at this scale.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 tauist wrote:
IXth for me as always...

Am I the only person who has never been able to memorise the different legion numbers? Other than Dark Angels, Emperor's Children (because they're the first 2), and Alpha Legion (because it's last) I'm lost, even after having read 2 or 3 dozen of the HH novels (I hate it when the novels use legion numbers instead of the name and I have to pull out my phone to google it, lol).

I know the 2nd and 11th as missing Legions, 20th for Alpha Legion (as they're 'XX') and that's it!

But yes I am in the same boat with Dark Angels, I have tried a test miniature and it just looked like a tiny ninja :(
At the moment i am thinking between Blood Angels, Night Lords and Death Guard. But it will probably come down to whichever one I like best on the day I physically put brush to miniature

tneva82 wrote:

leopard wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Real trouble is li makes darn easy to use them all...

well yes, I mean nine formations could easily be from nine different legions, and heck if you assume a few more fighting for the other side could actually use all 18

quite clever really, and since the models are small and storage is less of an issue damned tempting

As is if you have enough points you can legally field all 18 in one force

Alas does open room for legion bonus minmaxing like in 40k 8th ed.

Fortunately a lot of the Legion traits seem to only apply to the units in question, with the exception of Death Guard, Emperor's Children and some others I think? (Does it allow a few units of Raven Guard or Alpha Legion to move forward and claim objectives? I can see that being pretty popular).

What we can be reasonably sure about is that no-one is going to get a detachment of Space Wolves just to power game with them..

In 30k, there are three black-armored Legions, right?
>DA
>IH
>RG
For Epic-scale, Black Templar contrast over Grey Seer is probably the way to go.

For me, here's the list of ones I am pretty confident I do NOT want to paint/collect:
>DA
>WS
>SW
>UM
>WB*
>AL
* still thinking about it ...

That leaves for Loyalists:
>IF
>BA
>IH
>Sallies
>RG

And for Traitors:
>EC
>IW
>NL
>WE
>DG
>1ksons
>SoH

For Loyalists, I just don't know

For Traitros, thinking of SoH with an allied EC formation.

Some of these posts got me thinking…

How will you be painting the marines?

For instance, I was thinking prime, base color, trim color (shoulder pads etc), weapon color

But I’m starting to second guess and think that contrast paints might be the way to go for the base color as a quick way to deliver some color depth I wouldn’t get out of a regular base/layer paint.

Thoughts?

Yeah, been wondering what the most efficient way of painting tiny marines might be. Im inclined to believe that contrast paint may not work well on the lil guys as they may be too small to get the desired results of that type of paint. I've been thinking prime, base color, trim colors (to include weapons), wash.

As for which legions, definitely Raven Guard and Alpha Legion - as the primary users of Corvus Armor they are my first stops with the current infantry kit. After that I will lean into building out forces for Emperors Children, Sons of Horus, and Imperial Fists (and Blood Angels if I decide I need to balance out traitors v loyalists) as heavy users of the armor mark. Beyond that, we'll see what happens - theres other legions I'd really like to do, but I'd rather wait and see if GW releases mk2/3/4/5 minis in future waves of releases before working on them. I might give it a go with a few of them as vehicle/dreadnought heavy forces, etc. so I can avoid the use of power armored infantry if I get impatient, but I'm really hoping to eventually see other armor marks represented.

I think there are different ways of doing it. Certainly washes, contrast paints, dry brushes help to get some detail without needing to strain your eyes too much (which is a priory for me!)

I did these guys a while ago (Vanguard miniatures MK4 proxy, hopefully gives the idea) these were very light grey undercoat, dark/black wash, then white dry brush. Shoulder pads and other blue bits were a dark blue just with one highlight. I would say you can knock out at least a detachment in one evening if you get a production line going.

Pacific, unless that’s a blur, you painted OSR on that tiny plasma gun? Great job and probably more patience than I can muster.

I’ll probably have to try a couple of different approaches on a few test marines and see what works best.

Nice pic and thanks for sharing.

I am doing imperial fist, which is out of my comfort zone', I struggle with yellow.

Marxist artist wrote:
I am doing imperial fist, which is out of my comfort zone', I struggle with yellow.

At this scale, yellow is super easy (barely an inconvenience). Prime white or bone, yellow contrast paint, done. You can add more steps like a pre shade by spraying brown first and then zenithal white/bone, or do a brown wash first and then drybrush white, then contrast, and maybe finish off with a pale yellow drybrush for more texture, but really not that hard.

I considered doing imperial fists because I thought they might be one of the easiest ones to batch paint.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Manchu wrote:
In 30k, there are three black-armored Legions, right?
>DA
>IH
>RG
For Epic-scale, Black Templar contrast over Grey Seer is probably the way to go.

I feel like that's not going to look good at this scale? Like, not punchy enough.

I was thinking maybe go the other way, prime black and then wash with a light grey, so you end up with something like dust/grit in the crevices, and maybe a bit more contrast than a black "Contrast" paint would give.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Fugazi wrote:
Some of these posts got me thinking…

How will you be painting the marines?

For instance, I was thinking prime, base color, trim color (shoulder pads etc), weapon color

But I’m starting to second guess and think that contrast paints might be the way to go for the base color as a quick way to deliver some color depth I wouldn’t get out of a regular base/layer paint.

Thoughts?

chaos0xomega wrote:
Yeah, been wondering what the most efficient way of painting tiny marines might be. Im inclined to believe that contrast paint may not work well on the lil guys as they may be too small to get the desired results of that type of paint. I've been thinking prime, base color, trim colors (to include weapons), wash.

Contrast type paints work really well at this scale IMO. Albertorius has a lot of nice models painted with Contrast type paints over on his 3D printing thread.

There's a few techniques I've been using on models of this scale (not just LI, but also Warmaster stuff) and I think a good starting point is...

Prime black <optional depending on what the final colour will be, maybe not black for some legions, IF might be better off purple or brown>

Zenithal white from a few angles (or bone/grey if that better suits)

<optional> wash with either black or a colour that contrasts your primary colour

<optional> drybrush either white or a light colour that compliments your primary colour (e.g. bone for red or yellow)

Hit it with a heavy coat of contrast

<optional> Drybrush your mid tone

Drybrush a highlight

All of those steps are super fast, so an army will come together quickly.

Bonus points for armies that have a light base colour so that details can be picked out with a contrast also.

Not 40k, but about the same scale using contrast. I think it works really well