When Dominion dropped earlier this year, I was hype as hell for the new range of Stormcast. In place of the big fat babymen of AoS’ launch, we had these statuesque spearmen, chariots, and big honkin angel ladies. These models screamed “Ancient Greece” to me, and not just because I’m going through a Greekaboo phase with Goonhammer favorite Hades and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. I also wanted to get away from the typical blue and gold of the Hammers of Sigmar to really make this army my own.
To start, I wanted to hammer out (pun not intended, but I’ll accept it) a weathered bronze. I wanted to get something I could paint quickly with a varied, subtle patina. I would accomplish this with a number of thin washes, some extremely thinned down layer paints, and a heaping helping of drybrushing. If you’ve got one, a wet palette will help immensely for this. All paints are Citadel, and I started over black primer. I’ll be showing some WIPs of these techniques on Bastian Carthalos, as he’s pretty representative of the range.
Weathered Bronze Armor:
- Base Balthasar Gold (2 thin coats, this stuff clumps)
- All over wash 1:1:1 mix of Lahmian Medium Nuln Oil, Agrax Earthshade
- All over wash 2:2:1 mix of Lahmian Medium, Druchii Violet, water
- Black Templar Contrast in the eyes
- Extremely thinned Sotek Green around rivets and deeper recessesÂ
- Extremely thinned Temple Guard Blue around rivets and deepest recesses
- Drybrush Sycorax Bronze all over
- Highlight Stormhost Silver on the most raised edges and rivets
The two washes shade the metals and provide some natural color variation, and you could just use really thinned Druchii Violet instead of mixing something bespoke. You’ll definitely use that Nuln/Agrax/Lahmian mix more later though. You might notice there’s a lot of thinned layer paints in there. I’ve taken to keeping the mixed washes premixed in empty paint pots, while I thin the other paints on my wet palette. I didn’t like the results I got from Nihilakh Oxide, so started with thinned Sotek Green instead. The thinned Temple Guard Blue gives the weathering a bit more depth and natural variation which makes it look more realistic. Black Templar could easily be subbed out for a thinned black paint, I just wanted it to be a little more subtle. That drybrush of Sycorax Bronze unifies the armor color again and also smooth over any messiness from the verdigris steps. Picking out just the sharpest edges with Stormhost Silver will define a lot of the edges of the model, and keep it from getting too muddy.
Similar to the weathered bronze, I wanted a weathered silver for the other metals. I figure these guys are in the field in the Realm of Life and it probably rains a lot, and I wanted to sell a theme of antiquity for the army.
Rusted Steel:
- Base Leadbelcher
- All over wash 1:1:1 mix of Lahmian Medium Nuln Oil, Agrax Earthshade
- Extremely thinned Skrag Brown around deeper recesses
- Highlight Stormhost Silver
The Skrag Brown wash represents built up rust without going too over the top. With this, highlight all the edges with Stormhost Silver instead of just the sharpest points. That extra definition will help distinguish the steel and bronze, but still look unified.
Where I really leaned into the Greek theme was with my red accent color. Blame 300 coming out in my formative years, but I thought going with a Spartan-adjacent theme would really sell the ancient Greek aesthetic. I used a very similar process for the plumes, shoulders, shields and capes here, with the only difference being what wash I used.
Red Armor/Capes:
- Mephiston Red
- Hard surfaces (shields, pauldrons):
- Recess wash 1:1 Agrax Earthshade/Nuln Oil mix
- Soft surfaces (cloth, plumes):
- Recess wash Agrax Earthshade
- 2:1 mix of Mephiston Red and Evil Sunz Scarlet, leaving the darker color in the recesses
- Gradually mix in steadily more Evil Sunz Scarlet and layer up each time until it’s nearly pure Evil Sunz Scarlet, gradually getting further and further from the recesses
- 2:1 mix of previous mix and Wild Rider Red
- Final highlight of pure Wild Rider Red on the sharper edges
- Hard Surfaces (shields, pauldrons):
- Paint thin scratches in slightly watered down Rhinox Hide
- Highlight scratches Stormhost Silver
If you don’t have a wet palette or just don’t feel like blending up highlights on your rank and files, you could just get away with the base color, recess wash, and Evil Sunz Scarlet and Wild Rider Red highlights. Plumes also are often pretty small so you could just take that same edge highlight approach on them. The scratches are also optional, I just wanted to tie in the worn, beaten look.
With the armor and spot color so bold, I leaned into neutrals with the various ropes, scrolls and leather in this scheme. The black covers the weapon hafts, leather straps, and clothing under their armor. I also forget to use Black Templar half the time, so you can probably skip that step if you don’t want or need that extra bit of lower-case-c and upper-case-c c/Contrast.
Black Cloth/Leather:
- Corvus Black
- All over wash 1:1 Agrax Earthshade/Nuln Oil mix
- Recess shade Black Templar
- Highlight Skavenblight Dinge
Scrolls and Ropes:
- Celestra Grey
- Recess wash 1:1:1 mix of Lahmian Medium Nuln Oil, Agrax Earthshade
- 2:1 mix of Celestra Grey and Ulthuan Grey, leaving the darker color in the recesses
- Gradually mix in steadily more Ulthuan Grey and layer up each time until it’s nearly pure Ulthuan Grey gradually getting further and further from the recesses
- White Scar edge highlight
The basing is where I really had fun with this army, and to represent the lush, rainy lands of Ghyran, I took inspiration from the forests of the Pacific Northwest. For rocks I use broken up treebark, pebbles, and cut up corks. I glue down any basing materials I would need to paint before priming, then afterwards paint my bases with texture paint before moving on to the rest.
Basing Dirt:
- Stirland Mud texture paint
- Drybrush Steel Legion Drab
- Drybrush Karak Stone
- Wash certain spots with Athonian Camoshade to represent moss
Rocks:
- Dryad Bark
- Drybrush Eshin Grey
- Drybrush Dawnstone
- Wash Nuln Oil
- Recess wash Athonian Camoshade
- Drybrush Dawnstone
- Drybrush Celestra Grey
White Stone:
- Celestra Grey
- 1:1:1 mix of Lahmian Medium Nuln Oil, Agrax Earthshade
- Use small amounts of Druchi Violet in random sections of stone for interest
- Recess shade Athonian Camoshade
- Drybrush Celestra Grey
- Drybrush Ulthuan Grey
Skulls:
- Rakarth Flesh
- Recess wash 1:1 Agrax Earthshade/Nuln Oil mix
- Edge highlight Flayed One Flesh
Sculpted Grass/Moss:
- Loren Forest
- All over wash Athonian Camoshade
- Edge highlight Straken Green
Finally, I glue on all the sundry vegetation, as I don’t want to get paint on it. The key to this stuff is layering it and slowly building it up to look overgrown. I use some slightly thinned PVA glue for all of it.
Vegetation:
- Army Painter Battlefield Steppe Grass, usually close to rocks and such.
- Army Painter Lowland Shrubs, which are nice little neutral tufts.
- Shadow’s Edge 6mm Deep Yellow Flowers. I think the grass on these look a little fake but that’s why I build up so much stuff around them.
- Tear up some Woodland Scenics Light Green Foliage Clusters and build them up. You might need to squish these down to get them to glue properly, or saturate them with a bit of glue to stick.
- Woodland Scenics Forest Blend Bushes, torn up smaller and stuck at the bottom of the light green clumps. I often glue these to both the base and the other foliage clumps.
- After this, paint the base rim. I chose black, but you do you.
With that, you should be ready to hit the field with your high fantasy Spartan-adjacent stormzaddies. As for the animals, mounts, and other attendant critters, I usually go for naturalistic schemes drawn from wildlife. I can’t say I’ve really written these down since I didn’t standardize them, but browns and tans will get you where you need to go. I’m real excited to get to grips with the dragons soon and paint them up like Stellagama or Ground Agama lizards.
You could also probably use this to paint an ancient Spartan army, but it’s probably the wrong shade of red for the Battle of Mantinea in 418 BCE or whatever.
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