Painting Blood Angels Tactical Squad Tutorial

This Blood Angels painting tutorial is based off of my new, darker, colour scheme (although it's not too dark - they're still 'bangles' after all!). You had a taster of my next generation BA army with the Scouts, well here is a fully blown Blood Angels Tactical Squad. Sorry about lack of detail in the photos, I desperately need a new camera!

Blood Angels Tactical Squad

I don't confess to be an expert on painting, but I hope this little tutorial will help a few people get started without the experimentation I had to do first. I've tried to write this for beginners, but assume basic knowledge of painting (i.e. you know how to highlight, what a wash is, etc).

What you will need if you want to follow this tutorial exactly (although you don't have to follow my method to the letter if you don't have all the paints):

Models (duh) Chaos Black spray Mephiston Red spray Base: Mephiston Red Base: Mechanicus Standard Grey Base: Leadbelcher Base: Rakarth Flesh Base: Zandri Dust Base: Averland Sunset Base: Abaddon Black Base: Steel Legion Drab Base: Warplock Bronze Layer: Warpstone Glow Layer: Moot Gren Layer: Evil Sunz Scarlet Layer: Wild Rider Red

Layer: Runefang Steel Layer: Ushabti Bone Layer: Flash Gitz Yellow Layer: Dawnstone Layer: Pallid Wych Flesh Layer: Gehenna's Gold Layer: Auric Armour Gold Shade: Carroburg Crimson Shade: Nuln Oil Shade: Seraphim Sepia Shade: Biel-tan Green Shade: Agrax Earthshade Shade: Reikland Fleshshade Technical: Lahmian Medium Transfers A refreshing beer

Step 0: Construction

You know what to do here, but I just wanted to interject and say its really useful (especially if you're spraying the basecoat) to leave the boltguns detached. Leave the guns on their sprue if you want an easy time with painting too, although you should chop at least one out to use as a guide when assembling. It's useful to cut out the bits highlighted yellow in the image below before you undercoat the sprue, this will give you only two points (one of which will be covered up anyway) to touch up.

Boltgun sprue - bits to chop out.

Step 1: Undercoat and Basecoat

The easy bit, spray Chaos Black and leave to dry for ages. Spray Mephiston Red. These coats need to be really light, and make sure you hold the can more than 30cm away to prevent bobbling or it going on too thick (the red spray is especially touchy). Make sure the black is completely dry before you move on to the red.

Step 2: Base Colours and Washes

Wash the entire model with Carroburg Crimson and wait for it to completely dry. Paint the armour joints and chest eagle Mechanicus Standard Grey, and metal bits Leadbelcher. Wash both of these colours with Nuln Oil. Now you need to do the base and wash for the following things:

• Parchment/Cloth: base Rakarth Flesh then wash with Seraphim Sepia.
• Skulls: base Zandri Dust then wash with Seraphim Sepia.
• Wax/Eyes/Plasma: base Warpstone Glow then wash with Biel-tan Green.
• Gold: base Warplock Bronze followed by Gehenna's Gold then wash with Reikland Fleshshade.

Try and be neat with these but if you slip don't worry as we'll be touching them up.

Step 3: Basing

It may seem weird to be basing your model at this stage, but I've found you can get a much better drybrush if you don't have to worry about ruining your paint work, and you'll be touching up stray brush strokes in the next step anyway. Different people have different ways of basing, but for these models I've gone with a 'dead ash world' style. Water down some PVA and paint it onto the base. Dip the model in sand and leave it to dry for a few hours. Wash the sand with Nuln Oil, this also helps it stick. Once the wash is completely dry heavy drybrush Rakarth Flesh over the sand, then a very light drybrush of Pallid Wych Flesh.

Step 4: Layer Colours

Layer on Mephiston Red (water it down!), leaving the recesses and bits no one is going to see anyway. Layer the base colour back over the bits you washed in Step 2, leaving the recesses:

• Parchment/Cloth: Rakarth Flesh.
• Skulls: Zandri Dust.
• Wax/Eyes/Plasma: Warpstone Glow.
• Gold: Gehenna's Gold.

Step 5: Highlights

The time consuming step, but arguably the most important as it just makes your painting more 'real'. Highlight the edges of the red with Evil Sunz Scarlet. Have a beer (maybe a nap) to help reduce the pain of RSI. Then highlight just the corners with Wild Rider Red (this makes the armour pop). Then highlight the following:

• Grey: Mechanicus Standard Grey.
• Metal: Runefang Steel.
• Parchment/Cloth: Pallid Wych Flesh.
• Skulls: Ushabti Bone.
• Wax/Eyes/Plasma: Moot Green.
• Gold: Auric Armour Gold.

Step 6: Squad Markings (optional)

It depends on how you want to paint your squad, but I've chosen to detail squad markings on the knees in accordance with the BA codex. The pad is painted with watered down Averland Sunset and given a highlight of Flash Gitz Yellow. I've also used these colours to paint the blood drops on my Sergeant. The blood drop on the knee is Mephiston Red with a slight Evil Sunz Scarlet fleck. A good trick to painting blood drops is to paint an upside down cross, connect the tips, then fill it in.

Step 7: Boltguns

With the main model mostly done it's time to paint the weapons! Base the gun with Leadbelcher and give it a wash of Nuln Oil. Paint the 'case' of the gun with Abaddon Black. Highlight the metal with Runefang Steel and the black with Mechanicus Standard Grey. Finally, give the black corners a highlight of Dawnstone. Paint the rest of the gun (i.e. the hand and any skulls/purity seals) with the same colours you did in previous steps. Once your guns are dry, chop them out the sprue and tidy up the barrel end with Leadbelcher (or drill it out like I've done). Give the wrist a drop of super glue and stick it to the model.

Step 8 Transfers

My previous Blood Angels used sculpted metal pads, but as I didn't fancy the idea of the new finecast version (and didn't want to fork out £11.50 for a single squad's shoulder pads) I opted for transfers. I've heard great things about Microsol when working with transfers but I ended up trying the simple GW method.

Cut around the transfer as close as you can with a knife, leave to soak for 30 seconds then brush off the baking paper on to the shoulder pad. Once the transfers are dry, paint over them with a layer of Lahmian Medium to bring the gloss down and keep them stuck. Touch up the areas around the transfers with Mephiston Red. I also like to add 'battle damage' to the transfers to blend them in (see the second image below especially).

Step 9: Celebrate!

Finally, give the base rim a few coats of Steel Legion Drab. Pop the cork on a bottle of bubbly and wish yourselves well done!

Blood Angels Tactical Squad - FINISHED!

Sergeant Armand

If you found this tutorial helpful (or incomprehensible) leave a comment below!

Darth Meer

Blood Angels Honour Guard Kit Bash

I received a few sets of the new marine boxes over Christmas, and as I didn't really need a Sternguard squad I though I'd kit bash it up and build myself a proper traditional Honour Guard for my Blood Angels (i.e. one with all the trimmings, not just 4 special weapons).

Blood Angels Honour Guard Kit Bash

I've used a combination of Sternguard, Vanguard, Sanguinary Guard, Death Company and a few bits from my bits box with these models. I've purposefully gave them static poses to match with the plastic Chaplain and Librarian models (which I also received for Christmas and will be building soon!) The heads are blu-taced on at the moment, as i want to spray/paint these separately (being gold and all).

I've also built up a Vanguard and Sanguinary Guard squad too. Used both of them in my last game and they actually did fairly well, even against my friends Iron Warrior Terminator list... The Vanguard Vets survived a crash and burn from the Stormraven thanks to their fancy storm shields.

Can't wait to paint these up!

What a difference 5 years painting makes!

What a difference 5 years makes to your painting! The model on the left is from 2008 (I was 21, fresh from uni), the model on the right is one I've just painted - although I've yet to apply transfers.

If you need proof that practice makes perfect, here is is.

Blood Angels painting tutorial coming soon :-D

Darth Meer

Blood Angels Scouts with Sniper Rifles Painted

With the new marine dex hitting, my enthusiasm for marines has come around again. Originally I had planned to start a wholly new chapter (Iron Hands) and start an army from scratch. But then I remembered all those other, unfinished, armies I have and re-thought that plan... If you read my last post you'll see the Blood Angels supplement I've been using.

Blood Angels Scout Squad

So, I'm going to be painting a few new Blood Angels units to scratch that power armour itch. Using a new colour scheme with the new citadel paints. I'm working on a Tactical Squad painting tutorial (using Mephiston Red spray) as well, so keep an eye out for that. The new scheme is a bit darker, a bit more realistic than my old 'ARGH RED!' style.

Blood Angles Scouts - Back

These Scouts are the first unit I've painted of my Blood Angels: The Next Generation. I've tried to do a little conversion work on them as well. I fully admit I'm not the best at sculpting with green stuff but hopefully it's not too obvious...

Blood Angels Scout Sergeant - With green stuff trim!

I wanted to give the Scout Sergeant an armour trim to make him more spangly (I don't think that's a proper word) and gave him a hand and head swap to mark him out as more of a veteran than his squad.

The previous generation of my Blood Angels.

For those of you not following my blog, you can find posts of my previous generation of Blood Angels here (scroll down). They were painted using the old GW paints so expansion is impossible really. Also, I started to paint them a good 5 years ago now and my painting has improved somewhat since the heady days of yore (well... Uni). Hopefully Blood Angels Gen 2 will be an improvement!

Darth Meer

Homebrew Blood Angels Supplement - Warlord Traits, Chapter Relics

Learning that the soon to be released Blood Angels digital codex is literally just an errata update was very disappointing. So I had a quick brainstorm and gave the Blood Angels the 'Adepta Sororitas' treatment with warlord traits, relics, etc. I also wanted to update their points costs to 6th edition standard, the simplest way of doing this was to write a mini-supplement for the new Space Marine codex. The Blood Angels follow the Codex Astartes pretty well so it made sense. My usual gaming buddies are usually pretty happy with me trying these thing out so I'll report back once I've had a few games.

You can download a slightly prettier pdf version here.

BLOOD ANGELS

AN UNOFFICIAL CODEX: SPACE MARINES SUPPLEMENT

To use this unofficial supplement you will need both Codex: Space Marines and Codex: Blood Angels. A Blood Angels army is chosen using the army list presented in Codex: Space Marines. There are a number of supplemental rules found below, including rules that will dictate which units you may or may not take in a Blood Angels army.

CHAPTER TACTICS

When creating a Blood Angels army, all models with the Chapter Tactics special rule must use the Blood Angels Chapter Tactic with the following special rules:

Descent of Angels

A unit that entirely consists of models with Chapter Tactics (Blood Angels) with Jump Packs can re-roll failed reserve rolls if arriving by Deep Strike. Also, due to the precision of their descent, it scatters D6" less.

The Red Thirst

After forces have been deployed, but before any scout moves are taken, roll a D6 for each unit with Chapter Tactics (Blood Angels). On a 1 the unit gains the Furious Charge and Fearless special rules instead of the And They Shall Know No Fear special rule for the duration of the game.

WARLORD TRAITS

When generating his Warlord Traits, a Blood Angels Warlord may either roll on the Warlord Traits table in the Warhammer 40,000 rulebook or on the table below:

1. Blood of Sanguinius: The Warlord and his unit have the Fleet and Fear special rules whilst equipped with a Jump Pack. If your Warlord is not equipped with a Jump pack, re-roll this result.

2. Accuracy of Angels: The Warlord, and any unit he joins, does not scatter when arriving by Deep Strike. If your Warlord cannot Deep Strike, re-roll this result.

3. Champion of Baal: The Warlord may re-roll any To Hit rolls while taking part in a challenge.

4. Visions of the Primarch: All units with Chapter Tactics (Blood Angels) in the Warlord's detachment will succumb to its effects on a roll of 3 or less, rather than a roll of 1.

5. Masters of the Sky: The Warlord, and any unit he joins, gains the Skyfire special rule

6. The Rage Consumes: One use only. Declare your Warlord is using this ability at the start of one of your Assault phases. For the duration of the phase, the Warlord and his unit have the Rage special rule.

BLOOD ANGELS ARMOURY

The Blood Angels use a number of Chapter-unique items, and have access to their own Chapter Relics.

Add the following to the Ranged Weapons list:

   - Hand Flamer 10 pts

   - Infernus Pistol 15 pts

Add the following to the Melee Weapons list:

   - Glaive Encarmine 15 pts

Replace the Chapter Relics list with the following:

   - Blood of Heroes 20 pts

   - Wings of Saronath 25 pts

   - Standard of Sanguinius' Bane 50 pts

   - Spear of Telesto 60 pts

Blood of Heroes

It was during the first battles of the Greyhell front against the Tau that the Blood of Heroes was created. The Chapter records that a single Blood Angel, outnumbered and alone, stood against an entire cadre of alien warriors, blessed by a single drop of blood from each of his fallen brothers gathered in a vial. The Battle-Brother claimed his brothers spoke to him through their blood and strengthened his will to survive against his foes. 

A model bearing the Blood of Heroes gains the Adamantium Will and Fearless special rules.

Wings of Saronath

The Wings of Saronath is the jump pack of the legendary Sanguinary Guard Saronath. Saronath was killed by unknown alien attackers on Baraspine, in the Adrantis Nebula. When he was found, his body was a dry husk, his golden armour shattered into thousands of fragments. Only his winged jump pack was salvageable. 

The Wings of Saronath is a Jump Pack (and therefore may not be taken with a Space Marine Bike or Terminator armour). In addition, its wearer gains the Fleet special rule and may use its Jump Pack in both Movement and Assault phases if it wishes.

Spear of Telesto

The Spear of Telesto is said to have been wielded by Sanguinius during the Great Crusade. Its blade is shaped like an elongated tear with a hollow in the centre to represent the single drop of blood Sanguinius shed when he swore fealty to the Emperor. The haft is sculpted to show the primarch as a hooded angel of blood and beneath that is a Purity Seal handwritten by the Emperor.

The Spear of Telesto is a weapon with two profiles:

                Range S AP Type

Melee           - +1 3 Melee, Two-handed, Master-crafted, Primarch's Wrath

Shooting Template 5 3 Assault 1, Blood Memory

Primarch's Wrath: The bearer of this weapon has the Rampage and Fear special rules.

Blood Memory: The Spear of Telesto will never cause Wounds against a model with the Chapter Tactics (Blood Angels) special rule, and the template may be placed over friendly models with this rule in contradiction to the normal template rules.

Standard of Sanguinius' Bane

This Standard of Sanguinius' Bane is an ancient banner that usually resides within the Fortress-monastery on Baal, it depicts the fateful duel between Sanguinius and Horus during the Horus Heresy. All Blood Angels that look upon it are driven to near blood lust with anger.

Friendly units within 12" of the bearer with Chapter Tactics (Blood Angels) gain the Fearless, Rage and Hatred special rules.

BLOOD ANGELS UNITS

A Blood Angels detachment may use the following units from Codex: Blood Angels in addition to those found in Codex: Space Marines:

• Commander Dante
• Chapter Master Gabriel Seth
• Astorath the Grim
• The Sanguinor
• Mephiston
• Captain Tycho
• Sanguinary Guard
• Furioso Dreadnought
• Sanguinary Priest (and Brother Corbulo)
• Death Company (and Lemartes)
• Death Company Dreadnought
• Baal Predator

A Blood Angels detachment may not use the following units from Codex: Space Marines:

• Chapter Master (and therefore Honour Guard)
• Master of the Forge
• Ironclad Dreadnought
• Legion of the Damned
• Thunderfire Cannon

UNIT ADJUSTMENTS

A number of units in Codex: Space Marines are adjusted in the following ways:

Librarian

Librarians taken in a Blood Angels detachment must generate their powers from the Biomancy, Divination, Telepathy or Telekinesis disciplines instead of those stated in Codex Space Marines.

Chaplain

Chaplains are moved to the Elites section and gain the Blood Rage special rule. The Blood Rage special rule grants re-rolls to Wound in the first turn of combat for any Death Company unit the Chaplain/Reclusiarch joins. A Chaplain may be upgraded to a Reclusiarch for 40 points. A Reclusiarch is an HQ choice instead of Elite and gains +1 to his Wounds, Ballistic Skill, Initiative, and Attacks. A Reclusiarch may take an option a Chaplain can take.

Assault Squad

In a Blood Angels detachment, all Assault Squads are Troops choices instead of Fast Attack choices. Remove the 'Up to two Space Marines may replace their bolt pistols with one of the following:' option and replace with 'For every five models in the squad, one Space Marine may take one item from the Special Weapons list.'

Stormraven

A Stormraven replaces its Stormstrike Missiles with Bloodstrike Missiles.

Lucifer Engines

All models with the Tank unit type in a Blood Angels detachment, except for all variants of Land Raider, may purchase Lucifer Engines for 10 points. Lucifer Engines grant a vehicle the Fast unit type.

Land Raiders
All variants of Land Raider gain the Deep Strike special rule for free and are moved to the Dedicated Transport section. You may not take Land Raider variants as Heavy Support.

Blood Angels Army Background Document

Bit of a random one today. I thought I'd share a little background document I've been working on today for my Blood Angels army. I've added the screenshots below, but you can download the PDF here (its only 6 pages). I'm planning to spend time on each of my armies background over the Chrimbo period as I doubt I'll have much chance to paint (we're here, there and everywhere next week). I think putting together a document like this really brings you closer to your models, and the background of the 40k setting. It also makes a neat 'leaflet' to give to your opponent before a game.

 

Blood Angels 3000pts Painted Army Photo Dump

Its been a long time coming, but I've finally taken photos of the completed army. Over 3000 points of Blood Angels. This is my first time taking photos with a swanky SLR so quality may be dodgy (probably due to the flash, more probably due to my lack of knowledge), but you get the idea. I'll also include some of my background text for flavour.

Blood Angels 2d Company - Full Shot

"Known as ‘The Blooded’, the Blood Angels 2nd Battle Company is commanded by Captain Donatos Aphael, a veteran of hundreds of years of war. Strike Force Raging Demise represents Armand's command in the Blood Angels reinforcements in the Vardian campaign, their main aim to drive back the Chaos Lord Titus' latest Black Crusade."

"Brother-librarian Armand is Chief Librarians Mephiston's prodigy, studying under the Lord of Death for many centuries. Armand's most famous battle was against a mighty Avatar of Khaine. Almost crippled and his squad defeated, Armand channeled all his psychic might into Velorix - a force axe bestowed to him by Mephiston himself. With one last effort, Armand buried the axe into the Avatar's spine, releasing its tortured soul back into the warp."

"Khayman is a 1st Company Veteran that fought in the 13th Black Crusade, and distinguished himself during the assault on the Imperial Guard stronghold Victory Bay. It was also in this battle that Khayman lost many of his fellow 1st Company, which forever soured his vision of Guardsmen as traitors and weaklings."

"Avicus is a close friend of Captain Aphael, having met during the chapter trials when they were both aspirants, and battled with him for countless years. Although Librarians are usually not assigned to one specific company, Avicus accompanies the 2nd whenever possible."

"Sergeant Tarquin's tactical squad ascended to the rank of honour guard in the 2nd company while serving in the Midas campaign. The severely depleted squad managed to defend Codicier Avicus against a large number of Necron Immortals with their signature plasma weaponry. Avicus has proceeded to request Tarquin's squad as his personal honour guard on numerous occasions."

"Originally from Cretacia, the homeworld of the Flesh Tearer chapter, Sergeant Tanis was sent to Baal as part of a tithe of novitiates to supplement the devastating losses caused by Arkio's army on the planet Sabien. Cretacia is a planet to rival any Death World, and as such Tanis is regarded as brutal, even amongst his fellow Blood Angels."

"Brother Corvinus is a young Sergeant who served with his Assault Squad in the Vardian campaign. He is armed with a thunder hammer, the field generator of which failed during a pivotal battle against traitor guard on Vardia IV. Corvinus received a battlefield commendation for fighting on, destroying enemy tanks though sheer physical strength alone. The thunder hammer, now named Traitors Bane, was later repaired with the blood of the traitor being preserved forever beneath the field."

"Assault Squad Mael suffered heavy losses to the ork Waaagh Gitstompa, after their position was overwhelmed by hordes of greenskins. Still not back to full strength, Sergeant Mael eschews specialist weapons within his squad, and insists his marines carry only a chainsword - the perfect anti-infantry weapon. He has named his relic chainsword The Purgator."

"Killed in battle aboard the Space Hulk Buteo Imperialis, Brother Viktor once had the honour of being part of the Archangels, the 1st Company. Almost destroyed by a Tyranid Broodlord, Viktor managed to detonate a krak grenade within the monsters gullet before he succumbed to his wounds. His mortally wounded body was brought back to Baal and encased in the sarcophagus of a Dreadnought."

- Darth Meer

Blood Angels Vindicator and Land Speeder Painted

Blood Angels Vindicator and Land Speeder

Another couple of vehicles done! A good session this coming weekend and we'll have a fully painted army. Just in time for the Chaos codex to come out and me to start another one!

Here's a closer look at the Siege Shield:

Also, a quick question for readers. I found this in the new FAQ:

Page 22 ¬ Charge Move, Charging Through Difficult Terrain. Change the first sentence to read “If, when charging, one or more models have to move through difficult terrain in order to reach the enemy by the shortest possible route, the unit must make a Difficult Terrain test (see page 90).”

Er, why?... This is quite a big rule change. Why did the FAQ dramatically change the way charging into cover works? I thought 3d6 drop the highest was fair, 2d6 pick the highest just downright nerfed assault armies! Any ideas?

Darth Meer