It Is Considered A Bad Omen..."

 "...To march to battle with less than a full veteran company."

These three 15mm metal miniatures are from "The Ion Age" range by "Alternative Armies", and come from their IAF008 Retained Knight Post Charlie multi-figure set. Super-glued upon a couple of wooden sticks for a good handful of years, I recently dusted them down and decided to paint them as part of my small(ish) scale "Rogue Trader" era Crimson Fists space marines.

To begin with the trio were simply undercoated with a couple of layers of "Vallejo" Heavy Blue and shaded using plenty of "Citadel" Nuln Oil. I then picked out their Angis Rifles with a combination of "Vallejo" Gunmetal and (more) "Citadel" Nuln Oil, before applying a lick of "Vallejo" Heavy Red to their hands. This palette has served me well over the past decade in capturing how I perceive Chapter Master Pedro Kantor's Anti-Ork Warfare specialists to look.

"Games Workshop" WIPs - This Sons of Horus Praetor's left side is predominantly now done 

However, I did want to mark this particular unit out as a Sternguard formation, so decided to apply some "Two Thin Coats" White Star to their helmets, wash them with some heavily watered-down Carchardon Grey, and dry-brush them with (a tad extra) White Star. I decided upon this colour scheme primarily because I felt it made the Adeptus Astartes stand out on the tabletop, and also having perused a Warhammer 40,000 thread on "Reddit", came away with the opinion that I had already inadvertently 'marked' my entire Crimson Fists Chapter out as veterans by previously pigmenting both of their gauntlets red instead of just one.

With the actual models finished, I subsequently set about super-gluing to a medium-sized plastic "Flames Of War" base by “Battlefront Miniatures". This was actually much more time-consuming than it might first appear, as each model is sculpted standing upon a thick metal stand - so I needed to use several sausages of Green Stuff to create a reasonably soft slop around each space marine so I could later successfully sprinkle them with PVA-soaked grit and grass flock.

"Athena Miniatures" WIPs - These Russian NBC Troopers still need to be tidied up

In addition to finally concluding this long overdue mini-project, I have also managed to make some more progress on a genuine defender of Humanity by "Games Workshop". This 28mm Praetor with Power Axe is largely comprised of plastic components from the Nottingham-based manufacturer's Warhammer: The Horus Heresy - Age of Darkness boxed set, and due to its insane amount of detail, is quite slowly becoming the leader of my Sons of Horus traitor legion.

Lastly, I am still working on the final three Russian NBC troopers I own by "Athena Miniatures". To be honest these 28mm metal figures should reasonably soon be ready for a coat of varnish, so I'm already looking forward to polishing off a second Soviet unit - which will consist of fourteen members of the Russian Spetsnaz Special Forces, armed with AK47s and an RPGs...