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Legions Imperialis – Painting Tiny Tanks is EPIC!

Posted by johnnya10 on 18/11/2023
Posted in: My Painting and Modelling, Product Reviews. Tagged: , , . Leave a comment

Hello hobby pals! Games Workshop were good enough to send me a copy of the new big box full of tiny toy soldiers – Legions Imperialis (and some smaller boxes of equally tiny toy soldiers), and I have been having plenty of fun painting the miniest of minis. So today, I’m going to show you some of the mini-projects I’ve been working on.

legions imperialis box

I could take you through the rules and the like, but others will be doing that who are far better than me at such things. And aside from a few Nostalgia pangs, I don’t know what I’d really comment on. It looks like a really solidly worked game to me. I love that it brings Aeronautica Imperialis and Adeptus Titanicus together with the tanks and little people, and that its name gives my spellchecker as much of a headache as those previous titles. It even comes with whippy sticks, just to give your nostalgia feels an extra bit of excitement. Therefore, I shall leave the rules to the experts and focus on putting brush to plastic with a selection of fun things that I’ve been putting together. Now, where to start…

The Glorious IXth Legion

Well, I wasn’t going to not paint some Blood Angels, was I? I had lots of fun working on this small force, but I certainly have plans to expand it. And if you’re interested in how I painted them, I have an article on How To Paint Blood Angels ready for you.

legions imperialis blood angels

The tiny Contemptors were a highlight for sure. Long time fans of the blog will know that the bigger versions of these are among my favourite miniatures ever, and the tiny ones had me grinning and sawing “Awwwwww…” quite a bit. You need four of them for a full talon and honestly, it was a treat to work on each. Alongside those, a full 20 man tactical squad and 10 terminators rounded out the Infantry element before I started work on the command squad.

legions imperialis blood angels command squad

So can you do freehand work on such a small set of models? Damn right you can. And did I give my captain here a leopard skin cloak? You know I did! All of the tiny men were so much fun to paint, and what I really like about this is the sort of instant gratification you get. If I were painting 10 terminators at Heroic Scale, that would take me more than a month, most likely – maybe even two. These guys took me less than an afternoon, and I’m happy with them. That is one of the true joys of Epic scale painting.

legions imperialis blood angels tanks

And for a bit of armour, I’ve got a couple of Kratos tanks armed with their plus-size melta guns, and a lone rhino to help the command squad get around. The tanks were so much fun to put together and as fast to paint as the infantry too. They look amazing as well. Am I tempted by a full on Battle of Tallarn build? You better believe it.

What About the Leftovers on the Sprue?

legions imperalis shattered legions

As I was building and painting my Blood Angels, I noticed that I was left with quite a few spares – a nice touch that allows you to do alternative builds. But what to do with the leftovers? I decided to have some fun and put together a little base of Shattered Legions marines. It gave me a chance to paint some different colours, and I might use them as a fun little addition to some narrative games. I painted the base for these a little different – to represent the Dropsite Massacre, but if you liked the bases I did for my Blood Angels, I’ve got a tutorial on how I based my Legions Imperialis miniatures for you to enjoy too.

A Bit of Nostalgia

For many, many years now, I’ve kept hold of my ancient Citadel Combat cards. They’re a fantastic resource of Oldhammer paint schemes and ideas, and the miniatures remind me of my childhood too. When I found out that I’d be getting the new Legions Imperialis Baneblades, I knew exactly how I wanted to paint it up…

retro baneblade paintscheme

It’s such a treat recreating the old with the advantages of the new. I had to make my own little flag (plasticard and paperclips are versatile things), but otherwise, it was pretty easy to map the whole thing over. I updated the painting style a bit, but it’s again mainly just drybrushing and contrast paints with a few minor details picked out here and there. As more bits and pieces come out for this game, I may well do a few more of these.

legions imperialis baneblade

And speaking of old models, as I have a small but growing force of old-fashioned epic Blood Angels, I thought I could give you a good sense of the scale shift. The older stuff is a lot smaller than the new things, and yet those old bases seem to be a lot more intrusive in size, but that might just be the Goblin Green and flock. It’s interesting to see though, and you can rest assured that the quality of the new stuff is lightyears ahead of the older bits and pieces.

old and new epic scale warhammer

If you want some tips and tricks to painting miniatures at this smaller scale, I’ve got an article on that too.

The Future…

Well, I’ve still got a lot of Blood Angels to paint, but I’ve got a few other things I’d like to try too. I’ve been playing around with some test paint jobs for other legions already, and as mentioned, I’ve got some retro-inspired paint jobs I’d like to try out as new models get released.

legions imperialis rhinos

Other than that, well, I have about six Warhound Titans now so I guess I should start thinking about those at some point. And I have no idea what I’ll do with my Solar Auxilia, so I’ll have to have a think there.

What I want to leave you with is that I am having so much fun with these models. The scale is challenging, yet freeing and easy to work with. The game looks like a tactical dream, and I can’t wait to see folks playing some truly massive games with all the planes and titans… This feels like the first really “Fun” with a capital “F” games that have come out for a while, and with the miniatures being so much fun to paint, I can’t wait for more of it. Onwards!

How to paint Legions Imperialis Blood Angels

Posted by johnnya10 on 18/11/2023
Posted in: Tutorials. Tagged: , . 1 Comment
blood angels for legions imperialis

Hey friends! As GW were kind enough to send me the new Legions Imperialis boxes, and because I’ve been very much enjoying painting up some Blood Angels, I thought I’d put together an article all about how I’ve been painting them. If you’re looking to paint up some extra-tiny IXth Legion, I hope this little walk through will help you out!

I should also point out that this is a basic tutorial – this isn’t going to win you any awards, but it should help you have a lot of fun getting your army done quickly. So let’s get to it…

Prep the Sprue

prepped legion imperialis sprue

Ok, so painting on the sprue requires some minor prep work. Before starting with the paints, you need to remove the mold lines, if a tiny mini is connected to the sprue anywhere else than the base, you’ll need to snip and clean that, and if any minis come in two parts, it’s worth actually building them on the sprue. For that last one, think of the heavy weapons support squads on the Space Marine sprue – stick the Missile Launcher onto the Devestator before undercoating. Once all of that is done (it really doesn’t take long), you’re ready to start spraying.

Black Then White Spray

undercoated legions imperialis terminators

I started off with a light spray of Chaos Black, Spraying up the sprue from below. You don’t want a thick coat – you just want to fill in the shadows really. Let the black dry and then hit them from above with a healthy coat of White Scar. You want to cover over 90%(ish) of that black, but keep it in those shadows. Let that dry, and get your brushes ready!

Blood Angels Red

base coated legions imperialis terminators

You’re going to want that magical “one thick coat” of this read all over the miniature. Don’t worry about trying to avoid anything – we’ll use thicker paints for later steps and they’ll cover this easily. So get that appropriately named paint all over.

Fire Dragon Bright

And once the red is dry, crack open the Fire Dragon Bright, work some into the bristles of your favourite dry-brushing brush, and give the mini a light dry brush all over. And the red is done!

Block in the Black

I wanted black knees, bolters, and shoulders on these terminators, so I blocked those in here with Abaddon black. Once the black was dry, I added some highlights with Dawnstone on the edges. And we can call that done!

Silver and Leather

For any areas that were going to be metallic, I simply applied a coat of Leadbelcher, and for the leather straps on their arms, I gave these a covering of Rhinox Hide, before putting down some tiny lines of XV88 to highlight these. I then gave the leather areas a thin wash of Seraphim Sepia, and the Leadbelcher was given a thin coat of Nuln Oil.

Stripy Fists

Next up, I went to work on those power/chain fists. I carefully painted on a couple of thin coats of Averland Sunset, and once this was dry, I did a couple of thin lines of Abaddon black. Remember; at this scale, you don’t need to be hyper-accurate to get things looking good.

Clean the Bases

The last little step is to clean up the little bit of base that’s actually on the model – the bit between the feet. My bases start off with Grey Seer, so I just painted these over with a couple of coats of that. And once this is dry, you can stick your minis to their base and get ready to finish them off. But we’ll save the basing for another article…

painted legions imperialis terminators ready for basing

That base was pre-painted with Grey Seer before the terminators were stuck down – that makes things soooooo much easier.

There you have it! I hope this was fun and enjoyable to read through, and that it’s inspired you to tackle your own teeny termies with some added confidence. These models and this scale is very forgiving, so I really suggest just diving straight in. Onwards!

Legions Imperialis – Marble and Rubble Bases

Posted by johnnya10 on 18/11/2023
Posted in: Basing. Tagged: , . 1 Comment

Hey folks! Continuing in my series of new Legiones Imperialis posts as I try and revive the output of this blog, I’m going to show you how to create a marbled base with a little bit of rubble on the side. To do this, I’m going to be basing one of my itty-bitty, teeny-weeny Contemptors (they’re so cute!) and I’ll be taking you through all the steps.

blood angels legions imperialis contemptor talon

And as ever, thank you to Games Workshop for sending me this miniatures, and thank you to those of you reading this article – I hope it proves useful. Now with that admin out of the way, let’s get cracking!

basing step 1

So here’s our base. The Contemptor is done to a standard I’m happy with for gaming and a little has been done to the base already. I’ve put down some fine sand and some tiny gravel pieces to help represent our rubble. The tiny stones were put in place first with some thin super glue, and then sand was drizzled over the same areas before the glue dried. It’s the perfect way to give a little bit of something to your epic-scale bases.

how to base legions imperialis tutorial step 2

Next up, I painted the base up with a couple of thinned coats of Grey Seer. I left the model on the base, but you could take it off if you wanted to spray it. Honesty though, as long as you’re careful, it dries so quickly, I just did like this because I had a pot to hand and it was no bother. 

Apologies for the out of focus Contemptor (if you thought my photography was bad before, Epic scale has given me some real trouble!), but you should be able to see that I’ve added a coat of Aggrax Earthshade to the rubble areas. Allow this to dry completely before moving on to the next step – seriously, it can go very bad if you don’t!

Next up, we have a heavy coat of Space Wolves Grey all over our base, and the rubble. My tip for this would be to dab it on rather than brush it on – more chaos (not that sort of Chaos), means a more organic look, so don’t try to apply it too neatly, except in terms of keeping the paint off the dreadnought.

Allow this to dry and then we move on to drybrushing. Using very small amounts of Grey Sear/White Scar (1:1 mix), I focussed my drybrushing efforts on the areas of the base with some detail, but don’t go overboardyou really want almost no paint on the brush. And for the rubble, I just used Grey Seer for the drybrushing.

Now, you want to make a mix of Skeleton Horde and Contrast Medium, in a 1:3 mix (so 3x as much medium) and you’re going to put a thin coat all over that base to help make this scene look more like a dirty warzone.

based

Finally, using a steady hand and a straight brush, paint the rim of the base black. You’re done!

And here’s the same basing technique done with some tiny dudes – just for something different and vaguely in focus. 😉

I’ve painted all of my Blood Angels’ bases like this and I really enjoy the effect it gives me. Sure, I was tempted by doing some Goblin Green rims and simple sand/flock green bases, but I think this looks better. If you have any good recipes for bases like this, let me know in the comments below, and until next time, Onwards!

5 Tips For Painting Legions Imperialis

Posted by johnnya10 on 18/11/2023
Posted in: Thoughts and Comment. Tagged: . 1 Comment

Hello hobby fans! G-Dubs were good enough to send me a copy of the New Legions Imperialis and I thought I’d give you a few tips for painting your tenny tiny Space Marines. As someone old enough to have played Epic in a GW store (where are my Werther’s Originals and dentures…?), I have a little history with painting very small minis, and I wanted to pass on a few pearls of wisdom that might make your first forays into extra tiny dudes go a little easier.  

Paint The Little Dudes On The Sprue

legions imperialis sprue prep

I remember this trick from years gone by – painting the mini-marines (and other factions) on the sprue is the best idea. Take the Space Marine sprue here as an example. You do need to do a little prep – most models are just connected at their feet, but some have a few other connections to the frame that you need to remove. I also put the Missile Launchers on the marines that heft them, and tidied up a few of the more obvious mould lines, but with all of that done, it was way easier to paint them like this. If you base them before painting, you will have issues getting them completely covered, and taking them all off to paint is inviting the black hole beneath every hobbyist’s desk to eat up at least a few of these teeny minis. This is actually why, those of use old enough to remember, really liked the long thin bases from the Epic 40,000 era, but in the era before that, with square epic bases, on-the-sprue painting was really a must.

Contrast Paints Are Your Friends

gw contrast paints

When Contrast Paints came out, we were all told that they didn’t work best on Space Marines. They were at their best on flesh, cloth, or other organic materials. Well, at this tiny scale, they work great on Marines! With the tiniest amount of preshading (I literally sprayed them black, and then gave them a quick spray from above of White) they look amazing. What’s more, one quick drybrush over that, and you’ll be down to picking out those tiny details. It feels like Contrast Paints were really made for this scale, and even using them to paint the larger tanks works a treat. It saves a hell of a lot of time too! I really wish we’d had these around all those years ago. I have used them on some of my older models, and they look great on those too, but for the new stuff, they are just perfection.

Magnifiers Help

magnifier glasses

Now, I happen to have excellent eyesight, so when I say a pair of magnifying spectacles is a worthy investment, I relaly mean it, especially if you’re planning to do any freehand at this scale. But even just picking out the finer details, it’s a good idea to have some of these to hand, even if it’s just to give you a confidence boost. By the same token, I’d recommend some of those tiny brushes that we all go through a phase of using – the ‘000’ sort of brushes. These are really only useful when your vision and hand movement is limited at 28mm scale, but at Epic scale, when you’re trying to hit tiny things, they genuinely have their place. Just get yourself prepped to deal with teeny, tiny details.

You Can Go One Step Less On Metallics

metallic paints on legions imperialis tanks

So the normal Citadel method for doing metallics is Base – Wash – Highlight. Honestly, at this scale, you can just go Base – Wash and leave it to that. Now if you do want to highlight, I would recommend using the base coat you used again, but really, I don’t think there’s any need. if you tried to put in a highlight of a really bright silver, I think it will look out of place unless you spend a lot of time blending it and glazing over it, but honestly, unless you’re trying to win a painting competition, it’s not worth that amount of hassle. Those bright highlights work great at 28mm/Heroic scale, but at Epic scale, they look a little too cartoonish and overbearing.  

Don’t Fear The Freehand

alpha legion space wolves freehand examples
Blood Angels freehand legions imperialis

Now if you know this site, you know I like to talk Freehand a lot. And yes, I’ve done some relatively elaborate freehand at this scale already. I couldn’t help myself. 😉 But if you’re just getting into freehanding, this is quite a nice scale to try things out at. You can be a lot more “representitive” than “exact”. You can focus more on getting the right shapes and colours than the perfect blends and finer details, so I do urge you to give it a go. What’s more, because you can do things as more abstract, it can save you from having to worry about transfers and I have many memories of using those back in the day on Epic things. Those memories are usually full of swear words and tears, so I’m happy to avoid that with this newest release.

I hope that this has given you some useful advice and/or ideas. If you have any other pearls of wisdom yourself, do pop them in the comments below – I look forward to reading them. Onwards!