Kill Team - Tempestus Aquilons

Admittedly it's taken me a while to get to the rest of the Hivestorm box despite very quickly knocking out the terrain. The Sisters of Battle combat patrol took me longer than I expected. Better late than never I suppose. 

Tempestor

In any case I was keen to get into them as I have been wanting to get some Inquisitorial Stormtroopers for a while now. And the inclusion of the Tempestus Aquilons was one of the main reasons that I picked up the Hivestorm box. The other reasons being it included Vespids I could add to my Tau army, a truck load of terrain and of course the solo rules that I can use for my upcoming narrative campaign. 

Grenadier

Assembly

Gunfighter

To be honest my delay in getting these done as soon as possible served me well. It turns out there is only one right-handed laspistol in the box, so if you give it to your Tempestor then you can’t build a Gunfighter. Likewise, if you give it to the Gunfighter then the Tempestor can’t have a power weapon, as their loadout options are laspistol and power weapon, bolt pistol and chainsword, or lascarbine and fisticuffs. The solution touted online is to give the Gunfighter the laspistol and then equip the Tempestor with a bolt pistol and power sword, That way you get a Gunfighter and the bolt pistol can be proxied as a laspistol. As I’m unlikely to play against a real person this was the option I chose and to make sure I got it right I assembled the Gunfighter first, then went back and built the Tempestor. 

Gunner

From there assembly was fairly easy although getting the tiny grenades attached to the Grenadier was more difficult than it should have been. I chose the Plasma carbine as at the time you could only take one Gunner specialist. The Marksman and Precursor went together nicely, as did the rest of the Troopers. For the heads, I chose helmets for nearly everyone aside from the Tempestor and Precusor, as I liked the bare heads. When I got to the Servo-Sentry I trimmed down and filed smooth the connection between the main body and the guns. I stuck down a magnet each to the body of the Servo-Sentry and the three weapon options, being careful with the polarity. 

Marksman

Last thing I needed to do before priming was to give the metal debris on the bases a coat of Typhus Corrosion. This gave them a nice gritty and rusted texture that I could take advantage of later with paints. 

Painting

I had learned from painting the White Dwarf that using a darker basecoat for my painting style gives a greater contrast between the lights and shadows.  With that in mind I primed the models with Colour Matt Black and then gave them a basecoat with Army Painter Air Raven Black. I then painted the faces of the Tempestor and Precusor with Two Thin Coats Dwarven Skin. All the models except the Servo-Sentry were then given a zenithal highlight with Liquitex Titanium White acrylic ink through my airbrush. 

Precursor

With my lights and shadows sorted I could break out the contrast paints and Speedpaints for the main colours. As the traditional colours for Inquisitorial Stormtroopers are red and black I grabbed my pots of Flesh Tearers Red and Black Templar.  I used the former for the undersuit and gloves, and the latter for the armour, boots and weapon casings. To help tie them in with my Inquisitorial Agents, I used Garaghak’ Sewer for the leather straps and Scale75 Dwarven Gold for any trim. For any silver details such as the working parts of the guns and Servo-Sentry, I gave them a coat of Army Painter Broadsword Silver. 

Servo-Sentry (with Hot-shot volley gun)

I finished off the basecoats by painting the skull of the Servo-Sentry with Army Painter Skeleton Bone, rim of the beret with Army Painter Matt Black, and the Precusor’s commando knife with Scale75 Black Metal. Said knife, I assume, is a nod to the Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knife issued to commandos during the Second World War. I therefore found it mildly amusing that the stealthy black-bladed stiletto had a golden skull displayed prominently on the crossguard. Form over function abolutely sums up the Imperium to a tee. 

Trooper

It wasn’t so much an issue on the Aquilons but for the Servo-Sentry to bring out some of the texture of the silver details I gave it a wash of Army Painter Dark Tone. For the faces of the Tempestor and Precursor, I gave them a wash of Reikland Fleshshade. 

Trooper

To finish things off I basecoated the plasma coil and any lenses with Army Painter Matt White and then gave them a coat of Warp Lightning to make it seem like they’re glowing. 

Bases

Trooper

To match in with the rest of my Imperial forces the Tempestus Aquilons would need to be based in a tundra scheme. Difficult given the amount of rubble and scrap metal that a lot of them are leaping off. But not impossible, I had planned ahead by giving the metal scrap a coat of Typhus Corrosion before priming, which I could now capitalise on by now painting the metal with Garaghak’s Sewer. The basic idea being that the Tempestus Aquilons are leaping through a scrap field. I reinforced the metallic aspect by using a sponge to dab on Scale75 Speed Metal. And to make them look rusted I first gave the scraps a drybrush of Ryza Rust followed by running some heavily thinned Two Thin Coats Dry Rust Brown into the recesses. For the bits of masonry, I first gave them a coat of Army Painter Speedpaint Gravelord Grey followed by using an old ratty brush to stipple on Dawnstone. 

Trooper

With the oddballs out of the way, the rest of the base could be done in the same manner as the rest of my Imperial forces. To do this I covered the empty space with Stirland Mud texture paint. Which I then washed with Army Painter Strong Tone and drybrushed with Tyrant Skull. I then dabbed on PVA glue and sprinkled on some Geek Gaming Scenic Base Ready Patchy Plains. I then sealed this down with Geek Gaming Scenics Matt Sealant. The final touch was to add Valhallan Blizzard in patches, like clumps of snow. Lastly, the rims of the bases were painted with Steel Legion Drab.