Well, I am a lucky boy. I was thrilled when Games Workshop decided to send me the new Black Templars box because, well, what a box! What a range. After all that time in the wilderness for Black Templar players, their faith has been rewarded with a killer set of miniatures and this box contains the first of them. That’s why I decided to focus more on the miniatures than the book (though don’t worry – that’ll get a look too). But I didn’t have much time on my hands, so the question was; could I paint up the new Emperor’s Champion to a nice standard in two evenings. Effectively six hours. Well, here’s the answer:

That’s not bad, right?! I knew I couldn’t aim for “display quality” (which is a phrase I hate – if you painted it and you’re proud of it, it’s display quality; don’t listen to the haters) so I leaned into ‘simple but effective’ and saved the special stuff for a couple of small spaces. These are the basic steps, but if you want more detail, just pop a note in the comments. 🙂

Building and basing went quickly and a black undercoat went on (obvs). Then, when that dried, a thin layer of Abaddon black went down all over. I didn’t have the time to spend hours doing fades and intensely accurate edge highlighting, so I went for a fast and freer approach. I also went down the Rhinox Hide/Mournfang route to make it a bit warmer and the browns lend themselves to the look of the Templars (that cover art was very fresh in my mind). When that was all done, a layer of thinned down Black Templar all over the model to a) soften those highlight transitions, and b) give the armour a ruddier look (I knew I’d be doing a bit of weathering here and there so this would tie in nicely).

I then did the reds, which started as a Rhinox Hide/Mephiston Red mix, then moved through Mephiston Red and eventually up to Evil Sunz Scarlet. I would have done a bit more work on the texture but I had no time so once I was done, a glaze of thinned Blood Angels Red went down.

The leathers happened next, followed by the white. The latter started off as Celestra Grey, and then once a couple of coats had gone down, I started blending in White Scar until a pure highlight was applied to the tops. Seraphim Sepia helped to grime them up a bit. And that was night 1 done – it was a whirlwind!

Night two started off with the metallics. The benefit of my system is that all metallics are painted using the same paints (Leadbelcher, Iron Warriors, Iron Breaker and Abaddon Black) in a sort-of TMM style (usually a lot more care goes into it) and then you use contrast paints to stain these. So for both gold and silver areas, it’s the same thing until the last step. Before that though, the sword got my customary weathered bronze look.

That was the busy work done and now I got to have some fun. First up, using Altdorf Blue and blending it gradually with White Scar, I created the glowing areas – his eyes and the lantern at his waist (which I wish I’d taken a better picture of but hey ho – it’s not that pretty). It’s not the most perfectly blended out OSL, but considering I had about half an hour, that’s not bad. Then, I decided it would be a good idea to keep up my skull-painting practice as I decorated the tilting shield. Maybe it’s a bit of a cop out for me, but I think it fits the theme quite nicely, and again, time was an issue.

Now I needed to do a bit more of that weathering. I sponged on some Skavenblight Dinge across the the armour which gives a nice, subtle effect. I then accentuated this with a few delicate scratches using the same paint. Then, just for some variance and to help the weathering stand out more, I applied some more light scratches using Dawnstone.

That was the model done, but then the base needed doing. I used greys initially to build up some character and then a thinned Flesh Tearers Red was applied all over to give it this its Red Velvet colouration. Then some skull painting, a couple of little tufts, a quick clean up of the base rim and it was done in record time!

I was exhausted at the end of this. Sure, if I’d had a week with it, maybe things would be a little more fancy, but given that I can take a month to produce a mini sometimes, I was very happy with how this came out. 6 hours! Usually by that time, I’ll have done half of one leg!

A word on the miniature itself too – it’s a stunner. I love the He-man pose, and because he’s Primaris now, he’s a proper beast in terms of size and scale. And it’s a refreshingly simple miniature in terms of sculpted detail. Often, important minis get bogged down with 9 billion fetishes and blemishes but I love how simple this piece is and it’s up to the painter how much detail to add. Love it. And the rest of the box is pretty special itself. Maybe a squad of Sword Brethren would have been better than the Dreadnought, but who doesn’t love Dreadnoughts? All in all, I’d call the whole thing a massive win.

I hope you liked the whistle-stop tour through my last two nights of hobby painting. It was a blast and you can look forward to seeing more about this box on Heresy & Heroes soon. Onwards!