Milmaa’s Black Legion

The first half squad of marines are complete! I like doing things in fives so that it breaks things up a little, while giving me a sense of completion. I think its important to see your army progress, I find that motivating.

Pretty happy how they are on the bases, and in all my years collecting this hobby they are the first non-GW bases I’ve ever used.

Finally settled on these “Concrete” bases from Micro Art Studio, very pleased with the quality and with how they turned out!

I followed Sam from WGO’s method that he used for my Abaddon base.

• Grey spray primer
• Paint the metal work
• mix of Nuln Oil, Agrax Earthshade, and Medium
• Dry brush rubble with Dawnstone then Karak Stone.
• Good covering with AK Interactive’s Summer Kursk Earth.
• After 5-10 minutes remove some of the Kursk Earth with a cotton bud and some white spirit
• when happy with the result let dry
• Add tufts
• Spray varnish and done.

Simple and a great way to get a batch done. He has a video on their site as a tutorial. Very happy with how it turned out! 🙂

On to the next stage… painting some marines to fit on the bases!

So far I have built up 2 units. The first is a unit of 7 Rubric marines, the second is a 10 man Chaos Space Marine unit. This will be the first time I have attempted to pin my models to a base, as I plan on using some kind of urban bases rather than the GW ones. That way they will fit in with the Abaddon model.

First thing for pinning I drilled small holes in the bottom of the marines feet, making sure I used a foot where the drill bit would sink well in the the leg, giving the pin some good depth. Next I used paper clips that I had snipped to size as the pins, super gluing them in place. I then attached them to a bunch of cork holders so that I could paint them with out holding the model. I did have to attach some weight, and in this case value, to the bottom of the corks to make sure the models were stable when drying.

Once these models are all dry and set, I’ll airbrush some black primer on to them so they can be ready for paint asap!

If anyone has read the Talon of Horus or The Black Legion books, by Aaron Dembski-Bowden (Amazing books) they will know of Iskandar Khayon. I wanted this character to be a part of my army, a specially built model to be a focus point.

I’ve started by using one of the models from the Exalted Sorcerers kit, one with a two handed staff. Iskander in the first parts of the story wielded a Space Wolves axe called Saern that he had converted to a force axe. This axe was later destroyed but for the purpose of my model I wanted him to have it.  I used the axe head from the Space Wolves Wulfen set and glued it to the shortened haft of the force staff. I also attached the wolf tail from the remains of the wulfen axe to the bottom of the staff, just to give it a bit more wolfyness!

The head I have chosen is just a standard marine head. Thats just the way I envision the character. The cloak and back pack were from the Exalted Sorcerers set.

A simple little conversion so looking forward to seeing how he turns out. I plan to have him mostly in the black armour of the legion, but want to add a little blue and gold/yellow to show his roots in the Thousand Sons.