Grey Knights Strike Squad WIP - Part 1

 

Greetings!  With the recent release of the 9th Edition Warhammer 40K Grey Knights Codex, I decided to paint up a Grey Knights Strike Squad.  Well, two five man squads, really.  I'm painting them so they can be played as a single squad or broken into two separate squads as needed for games (that I currently don't play 😂).

I have a decent number of Grey Knights models resting comfortably in foam trays on my hobby shelves from releases prior.  These lads were all mounted on the original 25mm bases with custom cork and all.   When marines went to 32mm, I swore I wasn't going to redo those bases.  I had just based the whole army, after all.  But time heals old wounds and it was now easier to consider re-basing.  I pulled them off the old bases and built new 32mm bases for them to stand on, using the same cork and railroad ballast method as before. The squad leaders got a skull with Sergent getting the largest skull to single him out in a 10 man unit.

I drilled holes and pushed the models into the bases so I could texture the cork with Vallejo Black Lava.  This allows the models to look like their weight settles them into the earth, rather than having them float on top of the texture.  After spreading the black lava around their feet, I pulled them back off and cleaned their feet before the texture paint dried. You can see the results above. Once the texture was thoroughly dry on the bases, I primed the bases black before gluing the models down permanently using 2-part 5-minute epoxy.

Then the individual five man units were separated and the painting began in earnest. Since I had already base coated the armor years (?!) back, I could get right into shading with 60:40 GW Nuln Oil and Lahmian Medium.  The shading mix was brushed all over starting at the top of each model and working down to the feet. Then things had to sit over night to be sure everything dried well and didn't get messed up with finger prints, etc..

When painting resumed, I started with black on the weapon shafts, grips and casings. I followed that with the parchment color on cloth, purity seals, and book icons.  The full recipe is available on the appropriate tab above, if you are interested.

The second squad was treated similarly.  I'm batch painting both squads at once as a single group of 10 models.  I have a couple characters done already, so these will add a couple troop choices for a small detachment. 

At some point I'll continue with Purifiers, Terminators, Paladins, Dreadknights, etc..  That's a far distant future though. Kill Team 2.0 gives me hope that I can put some painted models on the table for a game soon, though.  It seems very easy with the new rules to simple pluck a couple models from a collection and put them right into Kill Team games, since the rules favor building models out of a basic troops box. 

Next time I share these models there should be some color to break up all the silver and black.  The 2021/22 hobby season is under way! I had to go back and add a Grey Knights unit to the season To-Do list, though, since I was going off list first thing otherwise! 😁

Stay safe out there.

Cheers and Happy Gaming!