A New Chaos Iron Warriors Test Theme.

The new Chaos codex is officially released as I write this. The sheer amount of combo’s and interesting army ideas buzzing around my head make me feel like Huron with that Hamidraya constantly nattering in his ear.

Here’s what I’ve come with for the new look Iron Warriors. I used the new(er) Warpsmith model of course, and a couple of the Legionaries models.

Look into my eyes, and repeat after me: I will make Landraiders great again!

So with the first full face on shot, there’s a lot more going on that meets the eye. I’ve never been great at taking photos so you’ll have to trust me when I say this model is a bit darker in person.

The method is much heavier than my original (8-10K points worth) of Iron Warriors. This involves Army Painter Dark washes, going over some Vallejo silvers, and even using a VERY heavy does of AK Rust Streaks to get a very stained appearance. The problem with working with metallics is there is this very, very fine line between bright and boring, and simply caked in mud.

Mechatendrils have many uses; one arm can collect 10 dollars, while another commences your oil change!

The Mechatendrils require some attention or they just simply fade into the model. What I did was thin down GW Contrast paints and use them to wash the various appendages which, if you look closely, feature all these cool little ‘snapping’ daemon jaw heads, and tools of nefarious design. By making some purple/blue, or red/copper, this gives a muted, but important sense of marking the various tools.

In the future of Grimdark 40K, vehicle repairs and great, but being able to perform dental work with mechatendrils can really pay the bills.

Unfortunately I can’t find my photo of the back view which shows a blue/black wash to really bring an oily look to the tendrils and they don’t blend in with the overall armour appearance.

Sometimes simply threatening to hammer a Venomcrawler into submission does improve gas mileage greatly.

The hammer and Plasma Pistol do have some airbrush work but the thin glazes help a lot with the overall appearance of a glowish hue. The Warpsmith’s eyes are done with multiple, very thin glazes of red contrast, orange paint for eyes, with a yellow dot to finish.

Here we can see the oil, grimy appearance the AK streaking grime brings to the model. A home made ‘verdigris’ mix I like is also used on the copper/gold parts for additional aging.

Finally after highlighting the metalllics back up to a bit of brilliance, I use black Oil Paint, combined with some mineral spirits to ‘black line’ all the armour plates and get that final, sharp definition on the model.

Hanging out with the crew.

Here’s the two troops I wanted to start the process on so it would feel a little more refined by the time I got to the Warpsmith.

Overall I love the appearance. My concern was not seeing the amount of labour put into the model because it is largely metallic. However, I think these look quite a bit better than my original Iron Warriors. I hope you agree.

The AK streaking rust is something I get asked about a lot, so it’s really simple. You brush on the Enamel paint right over the entire model. I don’t like to quite let it dry. I let it have a few minutes to ‘stain’ the acrylic paint, then I like to use a q-tip and/or make up sponge, and slowly remove the Grime. Any area that gets too stained by the AK Grime may require a light dose of Mineral spirits to simply thin. You’re left with this great, natural looking aged product.

One of these Iron Warriors is not like the others….

To show the difference from the process I use…. in the middle above, we see the start of the process for all the Iron Warriors I’ve done. Primed black, and then Vallejo silver to start. Then we go down the rabbit hole of washes, stains, grimes, etc. It is time consuming, but a fun way to paint models.

So that’s it for the Iron Warriors’ test theme! I hope you liked it. -prot