Deathwatch Terminators

They're technically my third batch after the initial set of 10 marines from way back, not to mention the recent Overkill set. Well, fourth, because I painted up Artemis and two other bits-box veterans to experiment with greys (how much and highlighting). I'll post those next time. 

Wait, did I never post the old-school ones with the metal bits? I could swear I did. Hmm.... 

Well, anyway, Terminators. I do love working on Terminators.

What I really like about painting Deathwatch stuff is that it allows you to use all of those chapter-specific bits that sit around for ages, and since they're all basically unique, the army gains a lot of character rapidly. The downside is that since they're covered in detail your speed slows down dramatically, but oh well. I've since taken to painting the Deathwatch in smaller groups (Kill Teams, if you will) with this one being probably the largest batch. 

Einar here (right)  joined the DW along with his brothers, the assault cannon-toting Wolf Guard Thorvald  (left) and the regular armored Svein (you'll meet him later).  Would you believe I found a set of Space Wolf terminator pads after I finished these guys? Yeah. 

I'm rather proud of how Thorvald's melt-fist came out. That bit is courtesy of the Calth set, as I gave those sergeants combi-plasmas. 

Einar's frost axe got a new bluish metallic treatment I'm trying out. 

It involves mixing blue airbrush paint with mythril silver at the mid-stage, which is then highlighted with silver. I used the same technique on Artemis' sword and Svein's axe, and I rather like it. Whether I'll use it on the other power weapons.... well, maybe, maybe not. It seems rather specialised to the Space Wolf frost weaponry (or other like specials) to me.

Epistolary Astinus of the Deathwing (left) bears Litanies of Hatred on a back-mast that came with a Bugman model. I like the new Librarian models, but this had been sitting in a bits lot for some time. This way my Deathwatch also has a little psychic firepower, to boot.

Brother Dagmar of the Emperor's Scythes echoes the combat loadout of Branatar; a heavy flamer and a melta-fist (courtesy of the Calth combi-bits). I decided on the Scythes after reading a bit of their background, which details them being nearly wiped out by who else but the Tyranids (their homeworld was entirely lost). If anybody knew how to fight the malignant cockroaches (not to mention having an axe to grind) it'd be a Scythe. The background material I found doesn't say whether they carried any actual scythes, though. I guess the Death Guard have the lock on those.

Brothers Claudio and Siegmeyer of the Ultramarines and Imperial Fists snagged some old cyclone launchers on their way to life. I prefer these to the newer big-box launchers, which are more dreadnaught than termie-sized. As I was out of chainfists, they each gained a custom bits box one (chainswords are plentiful).

Brother Fulgis of the Salamanders came about solely because I had that Storm Shield in my bits box forever. Also, I liked Branatar's back-torch and wanted to replicate it with another terminator.

Brother Seknar of the Iron Hands has those big, unshielded lightning claws from the Assassinorum Chaos Lord sprue. I thought their exposed workings were especially Iron Hands-y, so I ordered a FW shoulder pad to go with them (along with Fulgis' FW Salamander one). The fiery-gold effect on the Salamander logo was made by building up through the gold-ish metallics range and highlighting with Auric Gold mixed with Mythril Silver. 

I'm rather proud of the way these two turned out. I think they're my favorites out of the bunch. 

Next up, their power-armored brethren, in waves-- oh crap I just found another metal Terminator. Oh well. Plenty of spares.

Next time, some regular grunts.