23rd Steel Legion Regiment – for Epic Armageddon

So, not done by that wednesday. I finally finished today. I overestimated my ability to paint whilst at the same time teaching from home.

Finished the markings and nunbering on the vehicles. I decided my companies would have each 3 platoons of 2 squads each, for added tactical flexibility, though in game terms it doesn’t really work like that in Epic Armageddon. So, now two of those companies I finished just prior to starting the project are mechanized. I may eventually 3d print the vehicles to mechanize the rest of my infantry (I’ve got 5 infantry companies in total).

Let’s transport guardsmen to their… I mean the xenos’ doom!!!

So, I tend to place unit markings in vehicles like GW used to do, inspired by the markings in British Tanks in WWI and WWII. In my case, I like the White/Red/White or variants thereof. So, this is a very brief rundown on how I do it.

So, I first add a white bar, that will serve as an undercoat for the red as well. Any white will do.  I did 2 thin coats [tm Lord Duncan] 🙂 of GW’s White Scar, followed by a thick line of red – I used AK Interactive’s 3rd Gen Matt Red, which is and awesome paint. Job’s a good’un!

Maybe I’ll finish these guys by wednesday. We’ll see. Today is definitely not the day they’ll get finished, as I want to put numbers into them as well

So, after I started these right after finishing the previous Bombards and Shadowsword, but things have been slow in progressing.

The picture shows how the Chimeras are after giving them  all the base highlights. I will now be reinforcing shadows and then moving on to details, such as writings and markins. One of the Chimeras will have a red turret, so as to serve as a Regimental HQ commander transport.

I will be trying to finish these guys by tomorrow, so they count for my January numbers – maybe I will be able to actually do it! I’ve already painted more than last January (which was zero :)), but I want to paint more this year than the last one (which were 252 models/stands)

Cheers!

So, after doing the metals I went for some blue in the viewports and decided the big bombard howitzer needed some sort of rust effect in the recesses, to break up the blue black. I did this last one with heavy rust and medium rust paint by Ammo of Mig.

Afterwards I painted in some markings in red and white text (the red is for a dropped uppercase letter) – the text is simpley some  straight horizontal lines to represent something that’s written down.

I went on to freehanded some numbers on my vehicles. I’m numbering the support vehicles in a sequential manner, beginning at numbers 11, IIRC. In either case, these are numbers 29-31.

The numbers may have to be different in the future. I may have overhighlighted the tanks and the upper portion is perhaps to light. I therefore painted the numbers in white and then went in again with a black lining in the interior portion.

I also did some recognition markings, which I usually do on the front side of the vehicles. Simply paint it white, then go in with any red and paint a red line and widen it a little bit on a few further passes.

Whilst I was with the red paint on the brush, I decided it was a good idea to paint some red lights here and there.

The tracks were a simple case of Doombull brown, followed by a stipple wash of agrax earthshade. Matt varnish and done!

And the Shadowsword took much the same approach as the other vehicles. The main difference is here I tend to go a little bit more overboard with turning it into a book for guardsmen to read while they’re def… advancing!

I painted the headlights with some green and highlighted it and the engine exhausts were painted doombull brown (GW), then highlighted up with red and orange.

The black on my vehicles has

1. a base tone of Secret Weapon’s Tire Black, which is a fantastic color (though it does take 3-4 thin coats to go in solidly)
2. and is then highlighted up mixing in Secret Weapon’s Rubber Highlight
3. and then P3’s Frostbite.

The treads on the Shadowsword are

1. Ammo by Mig’s Gun Metal:Silver (1:1)
2. Stipple wash with Reikland Fleshshade (GW)
3. Stipple wash with Agrax Earthshade (GW)

The hardest thing to do, as I’ve never done it, was freehanding the scroll design with the “Victorum” name tag for the vehicle. I started the scroll by following more or less this video’s tips: https://youtu.be/5wLxu_JxnLs?t=83 and then went in with a Series 7 000 brush and wrote in the thing. You have to have thinned down paint to do this. I decided to paint in the letters V and M first, to delineate the ends of the word, then the middle “TO” and then went for the rest. Should you mess up the letters, just paint it over and do it again (I had to do it 4 times…)

And that’s these boys done and 450 more points to my force (200 for the Shadowsword and 250 for the Bombards)

Next up will come the rides for 2 of the infantry companies 🙂

For the above, I went with the following approach:

1. Metallics
   1. Silver (Ammo by Mig, which has a crazy good coverge) + Lead Belcher (GW – to tone it down a little) (1:1)
   2. I applied this mix all over the crane and claws, as well as some of the rivets all over the vehicle (including the Shadowsword)
2. Big Ass Shell
   1.  Mem green + Greenskin flesh (Scale 75, 1:1) – watered down (2 thin coats 🙂 )
   2. I applied this in the main part of the shell
   3. Mojave White (Scale 75 , but any warm off-white will do) for the top of the shell
3. Big Badaboom
   1. Reaper (GW)+ Tire Black (Secret Weapon) (1:1) – 3 thin coats

After these base coats were laid down, I went with a Nuln Oil Wash (GW) all over them, reinforcing it in the hydraulic pistons of the crane.

I then gave an agrax earthshade wash (GW) in the crane pistons again, as well as the shell.

I usually tone down the washes by mixing them 1:1 with Lahmian Medium (GW)

Finally, I went with an Agrax Earthshade + Nuln Oil + Lahmian Medium (1:1:1) wash that was applied like a pin wash to all the metal rivets, panel lines and was added to the vertical focusing more on the bottom of the models.

So, what is my starting line for this project?

Currently, the 23rd (Steel Legion) Regiment stands at

• Regimental HQ (1 HQ stand + 12 infantry stands + 7 Chimera IFV’s + 1 Hydra)
• 4 Infantry Companies (each with 1 HQ + 12 infantry stands), with one of them having a reinforced component of an additional 6 stand platoon

So this is a total of 5 command stands and 66 infantry stands and 8 vehicles

Then, we go to the armoured component:

• Leman Russ Company – 1 Vanquisher, 9 Leman Russes, with an additional 3-tank squadron
• 2 Baneblade Companies of 3 Super-heavy tanks each – both of these companies have an attached hydra AA vehicle

This comes to a further 15 vehicles and 6 SHT’s

The support component of the force is

• 1 Fire Support platoon (4 Thudd Guns)
• 1 Stormtrooper platoon (8 stands)
• 1 Vulture Squadron (4 skimmers)
• 3 Basilisk Batteries (9 SPG’s in total)
• 2 Manticore Batteries (6 MRLS)
• 4 Sentinel Squadrons (16 Sentinels)
• 4 Rough Rider Squadrons (6 horsemen and 18 bikers)
• 1 Leman Russ Destroyer Squadron (3 TD’s)
• 2 Ratling Sniper stands
• 8 Ogryn stands
• 1 Mobile Command Center (Leviathan)

So this is a further 22 infantry stands (including the thudd guns); 4 skimmers; 15 SP-artillery; 16 walkers; 24 cavalry stands and 1 SHT

And finally, some air support

• 2 fighter-bomber wings (4 aircraft)
• 1 Marauder wing (2 aircraft)

This is my starting force, which comes up to more or less 8,000 points, 117 infantry and cavalry stands, 7 SHT’s, 45 vehicles and skimmers and 6 aircraft. The models that I’m currently painting add an additional 450 pts, and I plan to mechanize 2 of the remaining infantry companies (15 Chimeras in total) for 300 more points. After that, I’m a bit undecided. Maybe an additional Leman Russ company (I have at least 4 more unpainted of these)

In the meantime, tomorrow I’ll put up another stage in my current models’ painting process. Thanks for reading!

So, the first things I’m adding are these 2 army list entries

• Shadowsword Super-heavy Titan hunter [200 pts]
• Bombard artillery squadron [250 pts]

For now I’ve only painted the base tones and highlights:

1. Corax White Primer
2. Averland Sunset undercoat (2 thin coats ;))
3. Reikland Flesh Shade : Lahmian Medium wash (1:1)
4. Highlights
   1. Averland Sunset
   2. Averland Sunset + White (2:1)
   3. Averland Sunset + White (1:2)
   4. Previous Step + White (1:1)

Next step will be reinforcing the shadows down the side panels with some pin washing of Agrax Earthshade + Lahmian Medium (1:1)

Probably will be doing that tomorrow!

Cheers