PURGE!!!

I’ve concentrated on painting Menoth this year and haven’t really got that much done, though the few bits I’ve done have come out quite well.  I have recently been dabbling with some dirty Cryx, I’ve tried a couple of games now with Deneghra1 and Scaverous.  I decided to try and get some more mileage out of my existing Mercenaries collection by adding these to the Cryx army.  Well that’s my excuse for using Nyss Hunters, Croe’s Cutthroates and Gorman Di Wulfe…

I had to think long and hard over how I wanted to have the army look and at present still aren’t 100% on the colour scheme, specifically the main colour.  I’ve mused over brownish red, purple and green so far.  What I am looking for is a colour that will be dark and foreboding to complement the ‘evil’ Cryx, fit with the Necrotite green glow associated with all Cryx ‘jacks and complement the swampy bases I am making a significant feature of this army.  I would also like to bring this colour through into the clothing or armour plates of the infantry, so quite a difficult choice…

In the meantime I have used a unit of Bile Thralls several times and their purge *action affects every model within 6” and their LOS.  Not having the miniatures painted or LOS markings made gaming with these awkward so I decided to get them painted; as they don't really have any armour or clothing they'll not affect the choice on army style.  Below are some photos and details on how I painted the unit:

Bile Thralls - front view

Bile Thralls - rear view (check out that lard-ass in the middle)!

 Bases

As noted above the bases for all my Cryx are swampy and the following is a step by step of how I made these.

Firstly the miniature was set in place, as per the slot or if I decided to have a foot or whole miniature stood on a branch or rock it was glued with this insitu.  Each base has the potential for some slate and or a branch.  The branches are basically twigs cut to fit on a base with a modelling knife.  Some of the standing up branches are pinned through the plastic of the base for extra strength.

Once the macro pieces are fixed I used Polyfiller mixed with PVA to make a thick paste, which was sculpted with a sculpting tool to represent mud.  I also left some of the plastic base showing for deeper water.  Finally I added a sand/PVA mix sparingly to select areas.  The idea being that the mud and empty base would be covered in Water Effects and represent the wet areas of the swamp whilst the sand/slate represented drier areas where tufts would be placed.  The branches would add some interest to the base and define this style.

Regarding choice of colours and technique, the following is how I did it:

Base - close-up

Black undercoat (Chaos Black Primer)

Painting 1:

Sand/mud/branch:

*Heavy Drybrush (Citadel Scorched Brown)

*Drybrush (Citadel Bestial Brown)

*Drybrush (P3 Menoth Base)

Slate:

*Basecoat (P3 Bastion Grey)

*Drybrush (P3 Trollblood highlight)

Washing:

Sand/mud:

Base - close-up

*(Secret Weapon Washes Baby Poop)

Slate:

*(Secret Weapon Washes Baby Poop) heavily watered down

Branches:

*(Citadel Chestnut Ink) watered down

Deep water:

*(Citadel Badab Black)

Painting 2:

Sand:

*Re-drybrush (Citadel Bestial Brown)

*Drybrush (P3 Menoth Highlight) very light

Slate:

*Re-drybrush (P3 Trollblood highlight)

*Drybrush (P3 Menoth Highlight) very light

Finishing:

Mud and deep water:

*Apply Citadel Water Effects, additional layers in deep water areas

Sand:

*Apply Army Painter tufts

Bile Thralls

Metals:  These were done with a variety of drybrushing and washing, then re-drybrushing lightly.  I used Citadel Boltgun Metal through to Citadel Chain Mail and Citadel Badab Black for the armour.  The guns were Citadel Tin Bitz through to Citadel Dwarf Bronze and a Citadel Sepia wash.

Flesh:  I followed the guide in the Cryx faction book regards painting the flesh of figures, adapting a few colours and stages to fit with my paints.  Suffice to say it involved a basecoat of P3 Thrall Flesh followed by two very thin Badab Black washes.  Next I washed the flesh with Citadel Laviathan Purple (thinned), once dry I re-washed the flesh with Citadel Thrakka Green (thinned).  After applying the washes I re-highlighted the flesh with the base colour, then I added P3 Menoth White Highlight to the base colour in a thinned 50:50 mix using some mixing medium, this was applied to the top highlights.

I was pleased with the way the Thrall flesh came out, the successive washes added subtle shades and I was quite intrigued with the guide’s method of washing with purple ink and then green ink, but I think it adds quite a bit of depth to the model.

I'm looking forward to fielding these naughty fellows on the gaming board, though they won't last long I suspect!