Walter was quite rightly giving me (friendly) flak at the tournament on Saturday for my counts-as Sternguard combi-meltas.  Between that and the great time I had, I was finally motivated yesterday to knock out some guys I’ve had kicking around for a stupid long time now in various stages of progress.  Introducing Sergeant Harmon and the Kingbreakers Ghost Squad (Sternguard):

The conception here is that Kingbreakers Sternguard are made up of the last standing survivors of other squads, nearly all of which were devastated after the fall of Forestway, let alone their ongoing campaigns against Chaos.  These marines view themselves as already dead, so they’ve painted their armor black and are even more willing than regular Kingbreakers to drop into the maw of doom, following their creed:  Without hope, without mercy, without fear.

Eventually I’m going to have ten guys in this style for a full squad of Sternguard.  There are three combi-Xs in this combat squad and there’ll be another three in the next one, a loadout I’ve been regularly running for a long time now.  Two of the combi-guns are a standard plasmagun conversion.  Sgt Harmon is rolling a Kopena-pattern combi-gun, a combination of a bolter, plasmagun, and a fuse from a Christmas tree light…  It’s not the most complex thing, but I think it looks fine in practice (there’s one or two in my army already) and it stands out a bit.

I basically always roll combi-meltas but meltas are way more precious, so the plasma look will have to do.  Anybody that has an actual problem with that, especially since I don’t mix combi-types, is probably not someone I want to play with.  I didn’t add oversize ammo clips because I couldn’t make satisfying from scratch and didn’t have enough unused storm bolters to convert from those.  One guy though is carrying a spare ammo box, and Harmon has a ton of pouches on him in traditional Kingbreakers fashion—you never know how long you’ll be in the field.

All of the arms and heads were painted separately before being attached and then washed.  This means they’re not playable while in progress, but makes a lot of the detail work easier.

The dudes were spray primed white like I always do for infantry.  The Grey Knights helmets add a really nice, mean looking flair to the guys.  They actually took a lot of time.  Originally they were going to go on some actual GK painted white, so they were built up pretty slowly in layers from a deep blue base to give a very solid white.  On these guys though they were way too clean looking so I had to wash them black.  That lost most of the blue shading, but it’s still a nice smooth white (which is tougher to get than it sounds).

The robes and top armor are just Chaos Black drybrushed pretty heavily with Codex Grey and then washed heavily with Badab Black (rest in peace!).  The wash took away the highlights a bit more than I wanted, but especially in the photos they actually come out really ghost-like.

The legs are standard Kingbreakers Hammerfall Khaki, Bleached Bone highlights, and Gryphon Sepia wash.  Arms are Ordic Olive highlighted with Snot Green (I think), washed with Thraka Green. I think they’ll fit in well with the other Kingbreakers through the common legs, arms, and shoulder pad trim (Mechrite Red, designator of Kingbreakers First Company), but the black top armor will distinguish them nicely on the table as the Sternguard.

Next up is Librarian Rorschach in Terminator Armor.  I worked out his arms this morning, he’s going to be super super sweet.  Then these guys will get their own Drop Pod in this ghost color scheme.  Somewhere along the way I should probably make or invest in a decent lightbox, there’s not been a ton of sunshine  lately, with no sign of that changing soon.

Fear the Kingbreakers!