40k Genestealer Cult - The First Curse complete!

Been a rather busy week but I have managed to sneak in a little brush time here and there and the First Curse rears its chitinous head!

There's actually a few more than 20 'stealers in the bunch, but figured I may as well paint 'em all up at once, for those times when I may want to run a couple smaller packs. Went with some yellow accents on the eyes and bases to help tie them in with the yellow to come on the hybrids, and went with the Space Hulk standard Blood Angels terminators, as the red gives a nice contrasting pop to the models. One detachment done!

In other news I sold off the Deathwatch almost immediately after the previous weekend's Armies on Parade event (must get those pics uploaded) and with the British Pound exchange being so favorable I couldn't help but place a good sized Forge World order to take advantage of both the exchange rate and the free shipping. For the most part the box of joy contained several (albeit non-photoworthy) special- and heavy weapon squad upgrade kits, a couple sheets of the lovely new Thousand Sons transfers, and or course I had to pad out the order with something big, right? A Knight Lancer it is! It'll be part of the Forge World Zhao-Arkkad force that will be accompanying the Thousand Sons once the Inferno book is released, but for now the bits got a good scrub & soak and are now drying on the counter. Looking forward to building it!

40k Genestealer Cult - The First Curse painting begins, and a Cult Leman Russ built!

Trundled out the painting servitor, filled the pigmentation application dispensers with the appropriate colors and set it to work on the Cult - built up quite the tidal wave of grey plastic, it's time to get cracking! I plan to work my way through the army painting process one detachment at a time, starting with the primogenitor of the Cult and the First Curse detachment.

Going with a muted version of the 'classic' genestealer blue and purple paint scheme, and so far the purple is more or less complete and the very first of the blues have been blocked in. I'm planning on adding some tattooed/painted spirals to them in white so wanted to keep their basic colors dark for a good contrast.

Added a bit more highlighting on the blue on the Patriarch to see how it looks, brightens it up a little bit but not overpoweringly so - pretty happy with the recipe so far!

 

In other news, a little package arrived on my doorstep yesterday containing some excellent conversion bits I'd ordered up from the always-awesome Blood and Skulls Industries. The package included the alternate turret, armor plating and plow to convert up a Leman Russ variant for the Cult. Still immediately identifiable as a Leman Russ but different enough to mark it out as a local PDF variant. I've always wanted to do a "more dakka" Exterminator, with three heavy bolters in the hull, a pair of autocannons in the turret and a heavy stubber just for that little extra overkill against horde armies.

 

Of course, when facing off against more heavily armored targets the cult needs a more robust weapon, so the turret weapon is magnetized to swap in a Vanquisher cannon instead! Rather dig the V-plow dozer blade as well, I think it ties in nicely with the similarly-angled plows on the Rockgrinders.

40k Genestealer Cult - Brotherhood of the Argent Coil build begins!

After the marathon painting session I felt it was only proper to get some build time in! I've been kicking around ideas for the Genestealer Cult, and have picked up a number of the new kits as well as pillaged the Closet of Doom for old un-built models which of course means the "small boutique army" has already bloomed up to 2500 points. We'll see if I can maintain at that point level!

Naturally when the army is completed it's going up on the auction block, so I wanted to try to balance a reasonably scary list that's also got a lot of fun units for me to paint. Decided on doing an Insurrection Detachment, picked out some fun-looking formations (and a couple scary-looking ones) and then started building!

I definitely wanted to do a Demolition Claw for the fun aspect of it - a trio of Rockgrinders careening around with dynamite-chucking hybrids holding on for dear life, and knowing my dice luck, blowing themselves to smithereens just as often as the enemy? Yes, please! While I quite like the new Goliath kit, holy throne were they fiddly to assemble! Tons of tiny delicate railings and a couple number mismatches between instruction book and sprues made them pretty challenging - they are rather neat once they're assembled though!

On the scary side of the formations is The First Curse, which is the Patriarch (not yet assembled) and 20 Purestrain Genestealers which, when accompanied by the Patriarch, gain one of several nasty upgrades as well as furious charge, fearless and a couple other special rules to boot. I had a spare copy of Space Hulk in the Closet of Doom, and thought the 'Stealers from that set should do the trick nicely!

Still have to sort out what I'm going to do for the army bases as a whole - Thinking it'll be a mix of mineshaft and rubble, need to rummage through the plasticard and tubing box and see what I can come up with!