Strength in Purity

So this post should have been about my new Genestealer Cultists and how simply fabulous they are darling.  You can see some half finished Neophyte Hybrids in the background.  They have great rules, fantastic models and a new edition to play in. I got busy painting with a view to trying them out in a game or two.

My attention started to wander almost immediately.  This is a bad sign.  I kept glancing at one of my posters on the wall as I vacillated.  It was a picture of Veteran Sergeant Zhyr, one of the most bad-ass looking Space Marines ever to grace the pages of Imperial Armour.  He's the commander of the 6th Tactical Squad, 6th Company, Red Scorpions.  A chapter I'm well acquainted with since they have had a few run-ins with the Tyranids in the past. The Anphelion Project is one of my favourite 40k books (never actually played the campaign but the artwork is stupendous and the story is straight out of Aliens).  Sergeant Zhyr is sometimes cited as 'The Perfect Space Marine' since he actually looks like an anatomically correct (post) human.  A fine figure of a man with a big sword and a robotic arm.  The fact that the Red Scorpions chapter are an isolationist bunch of Space Nazis with the battle cry, 'Strength in (genetic) Purity!' and may well be a successor chapter of the Word Bearers is irrelevant.

I'd just built a load of well proportioned Space Marines from the 8th ed starter set and they have armour which is very reminiscent of Mk IV. So what happened next was inevitable.  I ditched the GSC and painted a test model for a Red Scorpions Primaris Marine.

Given my failures in the past I decided to seek help and Google informed me that Duncan Rhodes of Warhammer Community fame should be my mentor.  His explanation of 'wet brushing' left me a little confused but it turns out I've been using a similar technique for ages.

I duly followed the instructions apart from the colours; I didn't have the correct paints for Red Scorpions and I'm not even sure what they are. I decided to use my Tempestus Scions colour scheme i.e. Mechanicus Standard Grey, Thunderhawk Blue and Fenrisian Grey.  I also had no yellow (well I thought I had yellow but it turned out to be an empty husk) so I rummaged around in a drawer and found an absolutely ancient pot of Iyanden Darksun.  When I opened it, there was actually a dark blue, milky film on the top but with a bit of judicious stirring it turned out just fine.

The finished result looked nothing like the marines on GW's website or the box art.  No surprises there and it happens to us all.  A little crestfallen, I decided to research further and discovered that if you want to get serious with Space Marines then you have to develop an edge highlighting obsessive compulsive disorder.  Jesus, when they say edge highlighting, they mean highlight every edge on the blasted model until your eyes shrivel, dry up and fall into your skull!

Undaunted, I modified one of my paint brushes so it was basically the thickness of a butterfly antennae and set about it.  I was pleased with the result.  So I carried on and started doing 'recess shading'.  And that was good too.  So I painted the weapon. And added detail.  And free-handed the Red Scorpions logo. And put a decal on it. And a decal over the decal. And based it. Holy shit, I think I'm falling in love with Spesh Mreens!  This means I might be starting a fourth army.  Duuuurrr! Wrong answer!  Hopefully its just a passing phase and I'll go back to the cold unity of the Hive Mind given time.  But first I think I'll finish the squad.  I think I'll call it 'Squad Dauntless'.  I sincerely hope I am not reduced to naming individual models.