Welcome to Conflict Valorax, an open-ended narrative campaign for Warhammer 40,000 set deep within the Ultima Segmentum on the Eastern Fringe of the galaxy and close to the limit of mankind’s domain. The purpose of this campaign narrative is to richly detail the setting and history of the Valorax star system in order to bring a depth and storyline to ongoing games set within the Warhammer 40,000 universe. Games of Warhammer 40,000, Epic, Inquisitor, Aeronautica Imperialis, Space Crusade, Space Hulk and Battlefleet Gothic are all set within this greater context, each conflict adding detail to the ongoing plot.

Monday 2 May 2011

Painting Space Marines: A Change in Philosophy

Periodically I go through each of my armies, repainting the whole army and upping the quality, and I must say, my Space Marines are past due for theirs. As a matter of fact, the army really does need a bit of an overhaul.

One problem I'm facing at the moment, is that I'm more into Fantasy, with 40k coming up a lot further down the list, hence why I post a lot more frequently on my Warhammer fantasy site, Last Chance War. Having said that I have been giving a little bit of thought to colour schemes for my own Space Marine Chapter: The Crimson Blades.

Historically I always painted them Blood Red then gave them a gloss varnish (apart from some black shoulder pads and gold bits). This of course violates my number two rule when it comes to painting: ALWAYS USE AT LEAST TWO SHADES OF EACH COLOURS - PREFERABLY THREE.

I've been wanting to dull down my marines and make them look a bit more real and professional, without changing the basic colour scheme. I'm not turning cartwheels over the red gold and black but I'm a bit nostalgic about it and they ARE called the Crimson Blades.

Check these out.


Apart from being annoyingly blurred, you'll see the one on the left is painted using my old method. Now this isn't an old miniature I just carried on using my slightly amateurish method with my marines even after I'd graduated to better things with other armies.

The on on the right is from my Dinosaur Space Marine army. Same principles really but at least I made a bit of effort on the weathering. My old style base (which doesn't match the war board completes the picture to tell us something needs to be done.

These two guys are prototypes of my more recent aspirations.


They aren't finished but you'll see I'm using a range of reds to get the look I'm going for... which I feel I haven't quite mastered yet. What I want to achieve is to have a pretty extreme overhead lighting effect, with the upper levels red and the lower parts very much in shadow.

The one on the left was done with the whole thing getting a dark red coat to start. The right one still has l=plenty of black in the lower areas.

It's one of these funny things where I'm really not sure. Neither model is getting me excited and without the excitement I tend not to get on with anything.

I think I'm going to need to think longer.

But watch this space. Things have to move forward sometime...

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