Painting Space Wolves Space Marines Part 3

Greetings Brothers, and Welcome to the third part on how to paint a Space Wolf Space marine. We will continue using the methods and principals shown on the previous two segments of this tutorial.

1. Keep in mind the importance of contrast on a miniature and its three levels, dark/standard / bright

2. Always water down your paints

3. Use the minimum possible quantity of paint on your brushes

4. Stabilize your hand before painting

5. Have a good light source

6. Paint areas of the model one by one using gentle & small moves

The next thing we have to do after shading the model, is basecoat It’s trophies, armor decoration, weapons, furs and in general all the details that make a space Wolf so unique. Like we did with the armor, after painting a basecoat on all the above we will shade them with wash. I like to start by painting with Badab Black the joints between the armor. They are already shaded by the wash , but they still need to be pure black.

Next , I will use tin bitz to paint all the metal decoration areas on the armor. I am using this choice of color because it can be a good base for gold or bronze, plus it is strong enough to stay on its own if I choose so. When painting thin small areas like these, you have to be careful not to water the paint too much, because it may be harder to control it.(1-2 drops of water for every drop of paint will be enough).

After that, I use dheneb stone to basecoat all the skull and wolf teeth trophies on the model. While painting all these details, try not to touch the armor and leave a small gap where the previous wash has settled. This is important to create contrast on the final result. You don’t have to be too worried about avoiding the eye sockets and nostrils of the skulls. Keep in mind that all these will receive a good wash with Devlan mud later.

Personally I use the paint cup as palette as I find it to be quicker and more practical to do so. I always keep them clean though and water down the paint on it.

Use Bestial brown to basecoat the purity seals and the ropes and knot-works or any equipment holsters on the model. I basecoat the rune stones with hawk turquoise, because I like them to have a glowing effect (I will highlight with ice blue later).

Basecoat the eyes with mechrite red. Use as less as possible paint on the brush. It has to be diluted with two drops of water. Then you need to paint a small red line inside the eye socket using just the tip of your brush. Don’t attempt to fill the eye socked with red. It is harder to do so, but also there needs to be that small space between the lens and the edges of the eye socket.

This is a preview of what the final result will be, so you can have an idea.

Moving on, its time to paint the weapons. The holy Bolter and the mighty chainsword. These will be metal & black. I choose to paint the metal areas first because they are for the most part under the black parts. Using watered down boltgun metal (in order to be applied easier and because I want this coat to be thin as more coats of wash and black will follow on top of it) , I basecoat all of the chainsword, and the lower parts of the boltgun. Make sure to spread the paint evenly everywhere and try to avoid letting it swamp on any part. After the metal has dried, it is time to paint the black parts which are the upper part of the bolter, and the most part of the chainsword blade.

After the model dries, don’t worry too much if you have missed some spots, it will all be covered nicely by the badab black wash that follows. Wash the whole weapon, from hilt to top with badab black. This wash doesn’t need to be diluted that much, just make sure that it spreads evenly. The purpose is of this coat of wash is to darken the metal parts, but also to fill any gaps, and cover any mistakes. Make sure to apply some between the blade’s teeth!

After the wash has dried you can paint the detail on the bolters.

Finally we have to paint the shoulder pads. This will take at least two coats. First we will start with the right pad which will be painted red as the model is a grey hunter. I will paint a thin coat of mechrite red. (By saying a thin coat I mean coat of diluted mechrite red. 2-3 drops of water, 1 drop of paint. I am making this clear for those who are not familiar on what a painter means when mentions thin coat. The more water you use, the thinner the coat is) With this first coat the purpose is to mark the painting area and create a base for a second smooth coat. Try to apply paint on the pad, avoiding the part where it meets the armor edge, and leave that area darkened by the wash untouched. Don’t get carried away and try to paint a full solid coat , as this is not the goal, and because this could lead in making a very thick coat with brush marks. The second coat could be blood red, red gore, or any mix you like to use depending on what the final shade of red you want your model to have. I just use a second coat with mechrite red. The second coat is more diluted than the first by one more drop. It has to be more watery because I want a very smooth and soft finish. This time I am not afraid to use a very watery paint, as I have already marked the limits on the pad and I don’t have to go near the edges (I have the previous coat reaching there. (in the photos the paint hasn’t yet dried and you can see where the second coat is reaching the first coat.

First Coat

Second Coat

I will do the same steps with the left shoulder pad which in this case has to be yellow as this brave marine is member of Ragnar’s great company. Yellow is a lot tougher color to deal with. I will use Iyaden Darksun. The first coat needs to be watered by 2 drops.

 

First Coat

Corrections

Second Coat

If while applying the first coat you accidentally make a mistake, you can recreate the line of shade between the armor and the yellow part by using chaos black. Don’t worry if it shows at this point. After the model is finished and varnished it will be ok. When this coat has dried, paint another coat, this time diluted with 4 drops. Now, this second coat can be tough to achieve without mistakes. And mistakes tend to be visible on yellow smooth surfaces like the shoulder pad. Don’t get frustrated though. Varnish, transfers, and the better look of the rest of the miniature will be able to hide everything, and you will learn how to do this better by the next time you try it !

Now it’s time to paint the pack markings on the right shoulder pad. The first time I did this, I used this technique: Use a pencil to mark with dots the tips of the pack markings, and then draw lines from there to complete the design. Start painting with chaos black from top to bottom the inside area of the lines you drew.

You can then use an eraser to clear the pencil lines that are still visible. (Gently, not to take the color off too!) A different way to use this without the use of pencil is draw a thin black line on the center of the pad, then create the angle and paint it, and then start drawing a second elliptical line to create the next part and so on.

When all the above step are finished, we need to wash again almost all these details, in order to hide mistakes and shade them a little bit. The parts that will be washed are the eye lenses, teeth trophies, skulls, metal parts, chest details and eagles,purity seals and the rune stones. All these parts will be washed with devlan Mud. The advantage to not having painted the armor yet is that we can wash generously all these parts without the fear of spoiling the clean parts of the armor.

Two last things for today. After this step of the painting procedure, I like to base my model. My basing technique is plain simple so I won’t be giving it much importance on this tutorial, as I am sure that most of you have your own basing techniques that you prefer. The other important thing is the way I paint wolf pelts and furs. Unfortunately this model hasn’t had any so I couldn’t add this technique on the tutorial. In short I will tell you that I basecoat the fur with bestial brown, wash it with badab black, drybrush with khemri brown to bring up the detail, and light drybrush with dheneb stone the edges to open it more. I will do this in more detail on other tutorials that I will make, but for now you need to know that this procedure needs to be done along with the painting of the other trophies, prior to painting the final coat of the armor, as drybrushing will dirt the armor parts and they will need cleaning afterwards.

That’s all for now brothers, Let me know what you think at the comments section .

Read Part 1 of the tutorial

Read Part 2 of the tutorial

How to Beat Death Guard with Space Wolves

When it comes to beating a Death Guard army with Space Wolves, you'd think things would be pretty straightforward. But you'd be surprised at just how tough a Toughness 5 Chaos Marine with Feel No Pain, etxra close combat weapons and Blight Grenades can be!

Much like when facing Thousand Sons, Grey Hunters cannot go toe to toe with Plague Marines in a shoot out or a punch-up. So in order to overcome one of the toughest units in the game, we need to think strategically.

Based on my gaming experience, I'm going to explain how to beat Plague Marines with Space Wolves while explaining what to look out for (like Blight Drones!) and how to best utilise your units to deal with each threat.


DEATH GUARD ARMY STRENGTHS

Tough
With Toughness 5, a 3+ save and a 4+ Feel No Pain save, Plague Marine units are unsurprisingly tough to kill.

Any non-Plague Marine units will of course have the Mark of Nurgle, boosting their Toughness by +1. So that means Toughness 6 Daemon Princes and Toughness 6 Chaos Bikers too.

A simple bit of mathhammer shows us that it takes 180 Imperial Guard firing lasguns to kill 10 regular Space Marines. But Toughness 5 Space Marines require 360 lasgun shots. And if those Toughness 5 Space Marines have a 4+ Feel No Pain save, it takes 720 lasguns! So you get an idea of the scalability.

Unless Death Guard are being shot by high strength, low AP weaponry, shooting attacks are going to be farely ineffective. But due to their sheer toughness, Death Guard are equally intractable in close combat.

Close Combat
Just like Space Wolves, Plague Marines carry a bolter, bolt pistol and close combat weapon, making them formidable opponents. Could this with their Blight Grenades which negate any charging bonuses and they are seriously tough to budge.

They will take everything you throw at them and then hit you back every bit as hard! The only thing that seems to kill them are power weapons and power fists. But when they are certain to have a Powerfist in each of their squads too, ithe success of basic attacks will decide who wins close combat -and more often than not it will be the Plague Marines.

Forge World Units
In some tournaments Forge World units are permitted. This means that packs of 3 Plague Ogryns and Blight Drones are common sights at these sorts of tournaments. Blight Drones in particular, because they're like an Armour 12 Chaos Land Speeder with a Reaper Autocannon, Heavy Flamer and a Battlecannon!


DEATH GUARD ARMY WEAKNESSES

Range
Like most Chaos Space Marine armies, Death Guard need to rely on their Heavy Support choices to provide long ranged firepower. Typically these take the form of Obliterators, Defilers (Blight Drones) or Land Raiders. But overall, this gives them a distinct ranged disadvantage compared to the loyalist Space Marine Chapters.

This lack of heavy weapons means that they struggle against armies made of numerous lightly armoured vehicles. However, the sheer tenacity of their Plague Marine troops can often make up for this.

Price
A Death Guard army is always quite expensive from the Plague Marines themselves to the Heavy Support choices needed to back them up. As a result, this kind of army is typically small and easily outnumbered. But with their Toughness of 5, 3+ saves, 4+ Feel No Pain saves and plethora of equipment, being outnumbered seems to mean very little against other Space Marine armies.

Low Initiative
Plague Marines only have an Initiative of 3, which means Space Wolves will be striking them first in close combat every time...not that this seems to make a huge ammount of difference.

But where this counts is your Rune Priests casting Jaws Of The World Wolf, which has a 50/50 chance of removing any Plague Marine from play that the 24" line touches. So use this to your advantage.


TYPICAL DEATH GUARD ARMY LIST
This is what mostof the Death Guard armies I have faced have been like. A mixture of big stuff with lots of wounds and high toughness, backed up by plenty of Plague Marines, Obliterators and Blight Drones...and of course, a Slaanesh Sorcerer to 'lash' units out of cover and into the open for all those high strength, low AP weapons. And remember that the sacred number of Nurgle is 7!

Daemon Prince
Mark of Nurgle, Warp Time, Jump Pack

Greater Daemon

Sorcerer
Mark of Slaanesh, Lash of Submission

(X3) Plague Marines
Champion with powerfist and combi-melta
6 Plague Marines, Meltagun, Plasma gun

(X2) 7 Lesser Daemons

(X2) Blight Drone

3 Obliterators


Death Guard Army Strategy VS Space Wolves
Because Plague Marines do what Grey Hunters do, only better, because they are so tough, the Death Guard army will advance quickly and occupy the middle ground before putting on the pressure with the Daemon Prince and Greater Daemon who will get into close combat and probably tag team up to start fighting their way through the Space Wolves.

Meanwhile the Obliterators will provide the usual covering fire or may be used to Deep Strike in next to a pack of Long Fangs and gun them down with massed Plasma fire.

The Lesser Daemons are there to tie up units so that the Plague Marines can also get into close combat (which is where they really excel) and of course the Sorcerer with 'lash' will join one of these squads, adding to its close combat killing ability while 'lashing' units closer to it in order to charge.

As for the Blight Drones, they are likely to fly around at the back of the board, well out of heavy weapons range and aim for clusters of Grey Hunters or Long Fangs that a well placed Battle Cannon shot can eliminate. After all, they have only have a BS of 2, but with something as large as an Ordnance blast and as accurate (yes, accurate!) as a scattering blast, they really excel in this role.

So against this army, close combat is not somewhere that the Space Wolves really want to be.

Space Wolves Strategy VS Death Guard
Having learned that Plague Marines are incredibly tough to kill in close combat and that basic weapons fire does very little, the Space Wolves player needs to use their strengths against the weakness of the Death Guard - and that's the vulnerability to high strength, low AP weapons.

The Long Fangs (and any Razorbacks) will start by focussing on the Death Guard transports to keep those Plague Marines at bay.

Next on the 'hit list' is the Daemon Prince, or Greater Daemon if it's already too close.
Then it's just a case of focussing your firepower and eliminating one threat at a time.

Anything that gets too close to your lines will then be dealt with by a focussed attack from packs of Grey Hunters, with a Rune Priest casting Jaws Of The World Wolf to take down as many of the Plague Marines as possible.

And if the terrain is sparse, do your best to take out those Blight Drones, but only if you have plenty of turns before the Plague Marines, Daemon Prince or Greater Daemon reach your lines.


CONCLUSION
In order to beat Deathguard with Space Wolves you need to stay out of close combat until you can bring 2 Grey Hunter packs to bear against 1 Plague Marine squad. Otherwise you will lose.

Use your ranged firepower and heavy weapons as your greatest strength to limit their mobility, knock out the big stuff, then clean up with the Grey Hunters.

One unit that's great for 'mopping up' is a pack of Wolf Guard Terminators with combi-weapons and power weapons in a Land Raider. Their guns will cut through Plague Marines with ease and their power weapon attacks should inflict plenty more wounds in close combat too.

So be sure to focus your firepower and your advance in order to annihilate one key threat at a time.

And don't even bother about developing any strategies around basic weapons fire. Only special and heavy weapons are going to take down Plague Marines or have much of an impact on any units with the Mark of Nurgle.

Painting Space Wolves Space Marines Part 2

Greetings my fellow wolf brothers!

In this part of the guide I will go through some rules and principals that will come handy when  painting a miniature.

Usually tutorials instruct the reader on which colors to use, on what ratios to mix them and things like that. Before doing that myself I decided that I want to give you a few important details and tips on tecnique: how to use brushes and paints. Let’s start from that. What brushes to use? Most of you already know that a variety of brushes is needed when painting miniatures. What I mostly use are the following:


1. Insane detail brush from Army Painter. This is the main brush I use. It is significantly smaller than the Citadel high detail brush ( which is the thinner brush of GW’s range) Its size is approximately 05 in case some of you are using brushes from other companies. I have found that this brush is ideal for painting space marine armor, freehands, highlights and insane details on a miniature. I use this on most parts of the model.

2. Detail brush from Army Painter. Similar to Citadel’s high detail brush this is a thicker brush that can hold more paint on it and therefore I use this to paint larger surfaces on a model, mostly pelts, and often to apply wash to small areas.

3. Small & Medium drybrushes by Citadel. These brushes are used for … drybrushing as their names indicate. Wolf pelts, highlight effects, bases, are some of the jobs I used for .

4. Finally the big wash brush by Citadel, this is the oldest brush that I own, I think it was in the same lot with the first brushes I ever bought when I got into this hobby. A most valuable tool, I use it to wash, basecoat and sometimes even drybrush large surfaces.

How to use paints? First of all paints need to be watered down in order to be used easier and to a better result. Also when using paints, you need to have small amounts on your brush because this way it is easier to control the amount you put on the surface you are painting. To achieve both these goals, professionals use palettes to dilute and mix the paint on. A palette simply needs to be a clean flat solid surface ( plastic, glass, metal ) You could also use the inside part of the cup from the bottle of paint you are using if you use a citadel color, but it is important to keep it clean before and after the use.

So let’s start. Take an amount of paint with your brush, and place it on the palette ( or the cap ) Then you start dipping the brush with any paint left on it inside the cup of water taking drops of water with it. Mix the water on the brush with the color you have left on the palette , and repeat two –three times until you see that it is watered down to your liking. The more watered the paint is, the easier it is to apply it on a surface, the smoother the result will be. I think it will need 2-3 drops (1-3 ratio) Be careful though. If you see small bubbles appearing on the diluted paint, this means that you overdid it. Keep in mind that if you are using a very watered paint on a surface, you may need to apply a second or third coat to achieve the finish you need on the miniature. This will guarantee a soft smooth look on the area you are painting.

Before putting any paint on the model, consider these; Important Rule; SMALL AMOUNTS OF PAINT ON THE BRUSH The smaller the amount of paint on the brush, the easier the application will be, and it will be harder to make a mistake and mess the miniature. Another important rule; HAVE A GOOD HOLD OF THE MODEL You must hold the model in your hand in a way that is comfortable to you , and helps you brush hand be steady. This may need a bit of practice. Try to keep the brush hand touching on the table, or even extend some of the fingers you are not using, to touch the hand that holds the mini. This will help the brush hand keep steady while painting the mini. Example

I use three fingers to hold the brush extending the last two to touch my other hand where I hold the mini, while my wrist rests on the table. Important Rule #3 USE A GOOD LIGHT The need for a good light is more important than the use of a magnifying lens. A rich light will help you see clear the details on the model and is strongly advised to have one. Don’t let it too close to disturb your eyes though, because it can make it harder for you to focus. It needs to be on an angle that lights the model, without creating shades by your hands, while avoiding going to your eyes. Now, it is time to put a bit of paint on the model. Following all the above tactics I will basecoat the skull trophy on the model. The paint I use to basecoat skull trophies is dheneb stone. Using a small amount of paint on my brush, I make small, steady moves applying the paint on the skull, avoiding the rest of the model.
 

These are the techniques I will be using on these tutorials. I hope this article has been helpful to all of you. I will be glad to answer any of your questions and add more details that I forgot on this one to the next parts of the guide.

Read Part 1 of the tutorial

Read Part 3 of the tutorial

How to Beat Thousand Sons with Space Wolves

How to Beat Thousand Sons with Space Wolves

Beating Thousand Sons with Space Wolves isn't as easy as you might imagine, because amost every model will be carring an AP3 gun of some sort, cutthing through your 3+ Power Armour save like a hot firsbee through butter!

And take make matters worse, once you make it into close combat, your Power Weapons, Power Fists and Rending attacks become weaker thanks to the Thousand Son's 4+ invulnerable save.

So open ground is to be avoided where possible and so are basic weapon shoot outs, because the AP3 Inferno Bolters will beat you every time.

Based on my gaming experience, I'm going to explain how to beat Thousand Sons with Space Wolves while explaining what to look out for and how to utilise your units to their best effect.


THOUSAND SONS ARMY STRENGTHS

AP3 Bolters
Thousand Sons exist to lay waste to everything in power armour! AP3 bolters are absolutely devastating against Space Marines of any colour. Even Blood Angels with their Feel No Pain save take an absolute beating when rapid fired by AP3 Inferno Bolts.

Provided the Thousand Sons keep their AP3 Bolters in the next edition of the Chaos Codex, I can see them becoming the Legion of choice in 6th edition when cover saves are lowered to 5+.

4+ Invulnerable Saves
Who needs cover when you have a 4+ invulverable save? Even better, who needs a storm shield in close combat when your entire unit has a 4+ invulnerable save.

So in the past, if you relied on your power weapons and power fists to carve through whole units of Chaos Marines, think again. Now they're only half as effective. This makes Thousand Sons very difficult to wipe out in close combat (although they are Fearless) and the Sorcerer leading them is likely to kill off any Independant Characters with his Force Weapon very quickly too, while being safely hidden in the squad.

Slow & Purposeful
Being able to move and fire at full range with those AP3 Bolters is pretty amazing too. They should move 3-4" on average per turn, but they are likely to be riding around in a Rhino transport. But they can simply disembark and open fire up to 24" away.

So a 12" Rhino move, followed by a 2" disembarkation, 1" to the front of the base and a 24" basic weapons range gives them an effective reach of 39". Owch!


THOUSAND SONS ARMY WEAKNESSES

Slow & Purposeful
The flip side of being Slow & Purposeful is being sloooow. So if a Thousand Sons unit loses their transport and has to slog it forward on foot, they may not advance very quickly. Similarly, if they lose their Sorcerer leading them (most likely due to wound allocation), they only roll 1D6 for their Slow & Purposeful movement instead of the usual 2D6 and pick the highest.

Range
Like most Chaos Space Marine armies, Thousand Sons need to rely on their Heavy Support choices to provide long ranged firepower. Typically these take the form of Obliterators, Defilers or Land Raiders. But overall, this gives them a distinct ranged disadvantage compared to the loyalist Space Marine Chapters.

Sure, Thousand Sons squads have a 'reach' of 39", but their lack of heavy weapons means that they struggle against armies made of numerous lightly armoured vehicles.

Price
A Thousand Sons army is always quite expensive from the basic Thousand Sons themselves to the Sorcerers leading each unit and the Heavy Support choices needed to back them up.

As a result, this kind of army is typically small and easily outnumbered. But against Space Marine armies, the sheer volume of AP3 weaponry more than makes up for this if they are allowed to get into range.


TYPICAL THOUSAND SONS ARMY LIST
Few people seem to run Thousand Sons army nowadays, which is surprising considering the number of Space Marine armies out there. So this example is based on James' Thousand Sons list which has mercilessly made short work of Blood Angels, Grey Knights and given me a serious run for my money against my Space Wolves. Remember that the sacred number of Tzeenthc is 9!

Chaos Lord with Temrinator Armour, Daemon Weapon and Mark of Tzeentch
4 Chaos Terminators with Standard of Tzeentch and combi-weapons

Thousand Sons Squad:
1 Sorcerer with Bolt of Change and 8 Thousand Sons
Rhino with extra armour

Thousand Sons Squad:
1 Sorcerer with Bolt of Change and 8 Thousand Sons
Rhino with extra armour

Thousand Sons Squad:
1 Sorcerer with Bolt of Change and 8 Thousand Sons
Rhino with extra armour

2 Obliterators
2 Obliterators

1 Defiler with extra close combat weapons


Thousand Sons Strategy VS Space Wolves
Blow up the Space Wolves transports with the Obliterators, then advance with the Thousand Sons effective reach of 39" and wipe out packs of Grey Hunters with AP3 bolters.

Thousand Sons can confidently survive in the open while Space Wolves Cannot.

The Defiler provides long range Battle Cannon support to keep the Space Wolves spread out while being a counter-charge unit against anything that gets too close.

Meanwhile the Obliterators and Chaos Lord leading the Terminators Deep Strike on to the board and Lascannon or mass combi-weapon any key targets into oblivion while holding their own with a 2+ save and invulnerable save.

But the key to success is staying just out of assault range while popping the transports and gunning down any Space Wolves with AP3 weapons before they can get close enough to charge.

Luring Space Wolves out into the open or forcing them to cross open ground in order to fight or win a mission is an equally cruel, but effective method of wiping them out.

Space Wolves Strategy VS Thousand Sons
Get across the board as quickly as possible and start beating face! It really is that simple. Grey Hunters cannot compete in terms of basic weapons fire, so they absolutely have to get into close combat.

However, the Space Wolves are certain to take a lot of casualties, so any transport based assault needs to be focussed on a particular point in the Thousand Sons battle line.

Meanwhile the Long Fangs will focus fire on enemy transports to limit mobility and stop any Thousand Sons squads evading your armoured spearhead of Rhinos.

Long Fangs are also ideal for taking out Defilers and other units which can pose problems for your Grey Hunters in close combat or wipe out clustered troops with Ordnance blasts.

Space Wolf players will also be trying their best to ensure that close combats are resolved during the Thousand Sons player turn. This way the Grey Hunter packs can move from combat to combat or jump back into their transports or cover and better avoid another round of fire from the Thousand Sons army and all those AP3 Inferno Bolters.


CONCLUSION
In order to beat Thousand Sons with Space Wolves you need to get across the board and into close combat as quickly as possible, then turn the game into one huge punch-up!

Despite their lack of popularity, right now Thousand Sons are a very good anti-Marine army thanks to all those AP3 Inferno Bolters. Once you break cover to close with the enemy, they are going to gun you down in short order. So expect to take heavy casualties.

But be sure to focus your firepower and your advances in order to annihilate one key threat at a time while allowing your Grey Hunters to leap from combat to combat. If your Space Wolves are exposed to concentrated Thousand Sons firepower out of cover, they will die in droves. So get stuck into close combat in order to stay safe.

Many marine players are taken by surprised when they first face Thousand Sons. So I would recommend play testing a game against them to understand how they work.