Finished: Test Scheme for Horus Heresy Iron Warriors

As you might have noticed, I'm a sucker for big Starter Boxes, but unfortunately most of them just land on my pile of opportunity and wait for the right moment. Since I've heard of the incoming 3rd edition of Horus Heresy I knew that I want Saturnine and that I'll paint the contents as Iron Warriors. So today I present to you my idea for the scheme. Keep your fingers crossed that my FLGS manages to snatch me a copy of the box (hopefully I asked them to do so early enough).

The Model

The model here is a 3d print from a creator that was nuked by GW. I kitbashed it from a couple of their sets. The only thing that didn't print ideally is the backpack, but I think I just had the version before the supports were fixed.

The Scheme

1. Black primer
2. Overbrush with Heavy Metal
3. Drybrush with Iron Hands Steel
4. Ironclad Grey for the elements that we want to be black
5. Sunburst Ochre for the elements that will be yellow
6. Averland Sunset for the yellow elements
7. A liberal coat of Streaking Grime -> removing the excess
8. White for the visor
9. Bloodmoon Red for the visor
10. Satin Varnish
11. Light Drybrush with Iron Hands Steel
12. Base: Dark Earth + Brown Tone + Leather Brown + Camo Sand

It's possible that I'll refine the scheme a bit in the future, like adding some edge highlights to the black areas with another dark grey. And I really have to get better at painting Hazard Stripes. Still, I'm super stoked with how my first time with reductive techniques turned out!

Painted: First sprue of old Warriors of Rohan painted

 

Here we have another faction taken out of my MESBG backlog. As I also have the Battle of Edoras box, I decided to paint the old sculpts in a scheme that I'll be able to apply to the new ones as well. The colours are a mix from Warhipster's tutorials on the old and new sculpts.

The Models

Typical old MESBG sculpts. Sometimes you have to take an arbitrary decision what is what or where one detail ends and another begins. But generally they are not as bad as one might think.

The Scheme

1. Slapchop underpainting

2. Grey Seer for the skin

3. Dark Angels Green for shields and cloaks

4. Wyldwood for leather clothing, belts and wood

5. Cygor Brown for the leather armour pieces and quivers

6. Black Legion for the boots

7. Blood Angels Red for cloth

8. Skeleton Horde for the hair

9. Corax White for the motifs on the shields (and then AP Soft Tone wash, diluted a bit)

10. Guilliman Flesh for the skin

11. Flesh Tearers Red for the wrap around the bow

12. Gore-grunta Fur for the fletchings of the arrows

13. Iron Warriors for the metal bits

14. Retributor Armour for the "thingies" on the shields and other decorative elements

15. Targor Rageshade for the metals

16. Iron Hands Steel drybrush for the metals

Hobby Summary: June 2025

 

Painted (54)

• 20 Night Goblin Spearmen (Battle for Skull Pass)
• 1 GrimCorp Elder (StationForge)
• 12 Dunland Hill Tribesmen (War of the Rohirrim - Battle of Edoras)
• 4 Uruk-hai Berserkers
• 1 Common Troll (Battle for Skull Pass)
• 1 3rd Death Division trooper (DakkaDakka.Store)
• 1 Lancelot, Duke of Gallia (Highland Miniatures)
• 6 Warriors of Rohan (old)
• 8 Test Termagants

Even though I had to reset my streak again as I had a bachelor's party in Finland, I still managed to paint more than one miniature/day on average! This month I also finished the last minis for the goblin "half" of the Battle for Skull Pass box (only the terrain pieces remain), tested out a couple of schemes and started testing out colour combinations to find my Tyranid scheme (the picture for the post is the first scheme I tried... out of 32 to come).

Finished (43)

• 5 Stormtroopers (Darkfire Designs)
• 20 Night Goblin Spearmen (Battle for Skull Pass)
• 1 GrimCorp Elder (StationForge)
• 12 Dunland Hill Tribesmen (War of the Rohirrim - Battle of Edoras)
• 4 Uruk-hai Berserkers
• 1 Lancelot, Duke of Gallia (Highland Miniatures)

Printed (32)

• 4 3rd Death Division (DakkaDakka.Store)
• Iron Lords mk2
• Hydra Legion mk 6
• Necron Immortal
• Gomorrah Idolaters Hateki (DakkaDakka.Store)
• Relic Vendor (Print Minis)
• 3 GrimCorp Bountry Huners (StationForge)
• 20 Termagants

Most of the minis were printed to test out colour schemes!

Assembled (28)

• 4 Uruk-hai Berserkers
• 12 Dunland Hill Tribesmen (War of the Rohirrim - Battle of Edoras)
• 12 Warriors of Rohan (old)

I cut my fingers in a couple of places while dealing with assembly and operating my FDM printer, so I had to wait for them to heal.

Bought/Received (111)

• The War of the Rohirrim - Battle of Edoras - 56 miniatures (24 Warriors of Rohan, 24 Hill Tribesmen, Haleth on Foot and mounted, Hama on foot and mounted, Wulf on foot and mounted, General Targg on foot and mounted)

• German half of Bolt Action: Band of Brothers - 13 miniatures (12 infantry, halftrack)

• Kill Team: Typhon - 25 miniatures ( 10 admech, 5 raveners, 10 hormagaunts)

• Black Templars Combat Patrol - 17 Miniatures ( 10 Crusaders. 5 Intercessors, 1 Marshal, 1 czołg)

Kill Team fomo box and the nou OOP Black Templar Combat Patrol were bought because of fomo. The War of the Rohirrim as the reward for the completion of a Painting Goal was not bought because of fomo and I do believe that if I didn't cut my fingers I would have assembled and probably painted at least the rest of the Dunlendings. Alas, it is the first month when I bought more models than I painted! I hope that it won't happen again and that I'm able to at last keep the current tempo of painting!

Unlocked Achievements:

• Painted a unit (WFB)
• Painted a monster (WFB)

Finished: Second unit of Night Goblin Spearmen from Battle for Skull Pass

 

Not much to say about this one. The scheme was my usual one for Night Goblins. This is the last unit form the Battle for Skull Pass box, so the only thing left to be able to say that it is complete are the terrain pieces. I will get to them in due time, hopefully sooner than later.

Finished: Lancelot, Duke of Gallia

This is another Highland Miniatures model that I paint as a gift for one of my parents. This time it is a Father's Day gift for my dad, so he chose the heraldic colours for the knight (chosing the coat of arms of one of the most famous Polish knights) and the horse colour. My own input here was the fact that I tried to emulate hawk's wing pattern on the wings of the pegasus and I think it worked out pretty well.

The Miniature

The miniature comes from a Frontier campaign that was about medieval knights fillers and had a lot of really nice models as well, obviously including this one.

The Scheme

1. Slapchop underpainting
2. White on all the elements that will be yellow
3. Ancient Honey for the yellow elements
4. Blood Angels Red fur the red elements
5. Gore-grunta Fur for the horse fur and parts of the wings
6. Skeleton Horde for parts of the wings, and any lines
7. Ratling Grime for the hooves, tail and horse hair, as well as the tips of the feathers
8. Wyldwood for all the wooden elements
9. Garaghak Sewer for all the straps and leather
10. Basilicanum Grey for the fur
11. Guilliman Flesh for the skin
12. Black Templar for the hair
13. Leadbelcher for the metal elements
14. Retributor Armour for the decorative elements
15. Nuln Oil on all the metals
16. Stormhost Silver drybrush on all the metals
17. Base: White Drybrush on black primer, Frostheard for the water, Wyldwood on the roots, Forest Sprite on the rest

Finished: Uruk-hai Berserkers

 Here we have a finished blister pack of resin Uruk-hai Berserkers. They were painted in exactly the same way all my previous uruk-hai were (scheme available here). 

But damn, now I understand why people call the material these dudes ware made of "failcast". It's awful to work with, there were some bubbles and the resin "ducts" were in very weird places. But apart from the material they are made of, I loved painting them!

Finished: Troll from Battle for Skull Pass

The troll (or maybe Common Troll?) is the penultimate unit left for the goblin side of the Battle for Skull Pass set. I remember that on the box art the miniature was mostly grey, but I've seen the photos on GW's website and decided to change the scheme a bit.

The Miniature

Old, monopose and chunky. Big, textured and awesome. Just the right amount of detail, a quick and fun miniature to paint.

The Scheme

1. Slapchop underpainting
2. Blinding Light, Ashen Stone, Bony Matter and Speedpaint Medium in 2:2:1:2 ratio for the belly, chest and lower part of the face and ears
3. Desolate Brown for the rest of the body
4. Burnt Moss for the pustules and scales
5. Skeleton Horde for the bones, teeth, nails and rope
6. Basilicaum Grey for the stones and statues
7. Retributor Armour for the gold
8. Volupus Pink for the inside parts of the wounds and scars
9. Mephiston Red for the eyes
10. Cygor Brown for the loincloth
11. Leadbelcher for the metals
12. Magic Blue for the shield nad necklace
13. Dark Tone for the metals