Eternal Crusade

The approaching 9^th edition of 40K convinced me to get into 40K again. Last time I played it was 5^th edition, about 10 years ago. I’ve ordered the new Indomitus Box Set. I will paint the entire space marine force as Black Templars.

In the mean time I’ve already bought some easy to build primaris marines because I couldn’t wait for the box and to try out painting Black Templars.

These marines have been lingering around my hobby space for about a year. They’re finally painted. 21 years after I first got into 40K I’ve painted my very first Space Marines!

When painting these I didn’t have any water transfers yet, so I painted the crosses on their shoulder pads freehand. It took a while, but it can be done.

After finishing them, I discovered you need at least 5 intercessors for a unit. ☹ I guess I will have to buy a few more.

Since I painted my Intercessors I bought water transfers from The Mighty Brush (www.themightybrush.com). They have large sheets with strong transfers. I used the sheet with crosses as well their “Imperial gothic script” sheet. On the photo’s below, you can see both sheets.

For quite some time I didn’t know what to do with the bases of this army. Eventually I went for a red desert theme (like on the planet Mars). A good opportunity to try out crackle paint for the first time.

In tutorials they say, you need to put on a thick coat. I tried it out on some test bases below, using Martian Ironearth form Citadels Technical paints.

Hmm, on the test bases there are hardly any cracks. Looks like when the say a thick coat, they mean a THICK coat. I gave the one below a second thicker coat.

That looks better. Now I felt confident to try it out on the bases of my miniatures.

Above you see the base of my Redemptor dreadnought. The thicker the paint, the bigger the cracks. In the future I should try a more even thick coat across the entire base. On this base you can clearly see where I put it on thick and where I didn’t put it on thick enough. And I should be more careful around the legs, the crackle paint sticking to the dreadnoughts feet, looks unrealistic.

Pigment powder

With the base painted, the dreadnought (and the marines I painted earlier) look to clean for a big machine marching through a desert and kicking up al lot of dust. I dug op some dark red pigment powder (MIG Old Rust P230) and brushed it on the legs. This looks better. It creates a transition between the red desert colour of the base and black of the dreadnought. Looking slightly weathered looks more realistic too.

I started to look for Black Templar characters, but all those on offer are still the smaller classical marines. Since my entire force will consist of primaris marines, such small characters would look strange among them. Looking at the primaris characters, I came across a lieutenant holding a sword in the air, carrying a pistol and with laurels on his helmet. Just like… an Emperor’s Champion.

The first miniature from the Indomitus box!

I quickly bought another box of the push fit intercessors before they were sold out. These two will join the intercessors I’ve painted earlier to form one unit.

To make them look somewhat different, I’ve bought new water transfers from Mighty Brush with fancier crosses than the standard crosses.

I won a golden button for this project! Thanks OTT!

Because of the bad weather in this part of the world. Varnishing these miniatures was delayed by weeks.

The water transfers on the side of the bikes, aren’t my usual water transfers from Mighty Brush. Their water transfers are either too small or too big. These are from Green Stuff World “Water Decals – Heraldry” on the photo below.

This time I didn’t have to wait for good wheather to varnish. 🙂

And this is the last miniature of the Indomitus box. I really enjoy painting Black Templars. I’ve already ordered some more Space Marines, so it won’t be too long before I continue this project.

In every project you reach a point where you can’t postpone taking a decision on storage of the miniatures any longer. This project has reached that point.

First attempt

At first I wanted to put my Black Templars in boxes from KR Multicase, like my Imperial Guard army. I bought a box for Primaris Marines. It can store 120 marines!

Once arrived, I wasn’t entirely happy with it. The spaces for the primaris marines are meant for regular intercessors. Assault intercessors with their dynamic poses don’t fit in that well. Furthermore, many primaris marines, such as characters, blade guards and eradicators have a larger 40 mm base and certainly won’t fit in. And off course I would need another box anyway for large miniatures like the dreadnought and the bikes. I didn’t think this through very well before buying this box… ☹

Second attempt

Then I saw this video from Duncan Rhodes.

The idea of gluing magnets in the bases of your miniatures and gluing rubber steel sheets to the bottom of boxes isn’t new. I store my fantasy armies like this.

What’s new is to use boxes with a bottom the size of an A4 page. This corresponds nicely with the size of the rubber steel sheets. So I bought boxes from Really Useful Boxes: 4 liter as my standard boxes and one 8 liter boxes for large miniatures.

TIP: put the magnets in the bases before you assemble and paint your miniatures. Not afterwards like I did!

All my primaris marines fit in the 4 liter box except for the blade guard ancient with his banner. In the 8 liter box I have plenty of space left for more dreadnoughts or even a tank.

_