Painting Warhammer Alliance Miniatures

 The Challenge

My local school signed up to receive the Warhammer Alliance Resource Pack, a box with a collection of Warhammer goodies to get school kids into the hobby. It includes 12 each of marines, necrons, stormcast and kruleboyz, a simple selection of the current flagship factions. It also has some brushes and paint palettes along with the following paints:

• Abaddon Black
• Corax White
• Mephiston Red
• Macragge Blue
• Averland Sunset
• Steel Legion Drab
• Orruk Flesh
• Rakarth Flesh
• Leadbelcher
• Retributor Armour

These are all Base paints, designed to apply an even, opaque coat. They include the primary colours, two metallics and three others: Rakarth Flesh (pale beige), Orruk Flesh (pale green) and Steel Legion Drab (pale brown). This is a pretty good basic set if you're trying to cover all options but they're a bit too wide ranging to really paint any one model well.

And that's the challenge. How do we use the contents of this pack to paint the models supplied? I'm looking to do more than just block in the base colours, but the absence of colour sequences (mid level base, dark wash, light highlight) is going to make this tricky!

Undercoating

Applying an undercoat is the first step after assembling the miniatures … and there's no way to do that with what's supplied. This is not surprising as it is usually done with a spray can or air brush. And I'm going to break my own constraints here and do this properly as I think it's a really important step.

These days I mostly paint using Citadel Contrast paints which are applied over a white or off-white undercoat. You could try that with these paints, and it would be better than applying the paint supplied directly to the plastic, but it's not optimal.

Fortunately, I do have some alternatives. I used to paint (pre-Contrast) exclusively with a black undercoat and that is a good option for many minis. It's still commonly used and even regular spray cans can be used, so long as it has a reliably matte finish. I've used Citadel's Chaos Black for the kruleboyz.

I also have Citadel's Leadbelcher, matching the Leadbelcher pot supplied. This will be a much more suitable colour for the necrons, and I've chosen to use it for the marines and the stormcast, too.

Citadel's Retributor Armour and Macragge Blue would also be good, if you have them, for the stormcast and the marines if you want to follow their default colour scheme. Personally, I'm not a fan of either of those schemes: the gold is just too gaudy and the blue is too toy-like.

Finally, I do have a brighter silver spray that I use for my own stormcast and necrons, but it's not a Citadel paint; it's Vallejo's Silver. I would prefer that, but wanted to try using just Citadel paints for this exercise.

Necron with Leadbelcher undercoat

Metallic Armour

I've painted the marine, necron and stormcast minis with a simple dark iron scheme. The Leadbelcher undercoat gets us off to a good start and I've then applied a black wash in the joints that emphasises the textures there. A wash is done by taking a small amount of Abaddon Black on the brush and mixing it with quite a bit of water. This creates a very thin mixture, thick enough to darken the creases and crevices but thin enough not to just colour the whole joint black. This takes a bit of practice but you'll soon get a sense for when you've got it right. (This is also why Nuln Oil is such a popular paint – it's custom designed for this purpose, does it better than a black paint, as is ready right out of the pot.)

Necron after black wash on joints

Necron Gauss Flayer

The necron only has one other component to paint: its weapon. I've tried to paint the coils and barrel in a nice glowing colour. Traditionally, that should be bright green but the green we've got is too pale and I don't think it would work even with the supplied yellow mixed in. Instead, I've watered down the red and applied it in a similar way to the black wash. This has worked really well on the coils, but I think I've been a bit heave-handed on the barrel. Probably would've been better letting more silver show through.

The rest of the weapon has been painted with a patchy coat of Retributor Armour, going for an aged brass look rather than a bright gold. I've emphasised that with a second black wash, then picked out some cabling and the necron's eyes in red.

Completed necron

Necron (and Marine) Base

Both the necron and the marine have a nicely textured base with sand and scattered rocks. I've painted these with Steel Legion Drab, washed them black, then dry brushed with Rakarth Flesh. Dry brushing is cheating a bit as it requires a bigger, softer brush than the ones supplied. Fortunately, they are very cheap to get – mine's from the local dollar store and is just a small makeup brush!

Makeup brush. Bristles are about
the size of my index fingernail

Dip the tip of the brush in the paint, then use a piece of paper, tissue or cloth to wipe most of it off. Then, when you brush the paint over a textured surface, only the upper surfaces catch the paint and are highlighted, leaving the darker paint underneath.

Marine Base Coat

Having learnt from the necron that I'm going to just apply the black wash to almost everything anyway, I started the marine by painting all the components in their base coat. The smooth surfaces of most of the marine mean you have to be careful to apply an even coat. This is best done by watering down the paint slightly and applying it as evenly as you can; this won't cover the surface perfectly first time around, so you do have to wait for it to dry, then go back over with a second, thin coat.

I've kept the blue to a minimum, just pauldrons, knee pads and helmet stripe. Weapon casings are yellow, chest Aquila is gold, leather and base are brown, eyes and seal are red, with flesh on the seal paper. 

Base coats for everything.
Looks good, but very flat without a wash.

Marine Wash and Final Details

I've washed everything in one go. However, I've taken care to avoid flat plates of metal, any yellow or red. The blue is washed around the edges, leaving the centre clean. I've also applied flat black paint to some parts of both weapons, and around the base edge.

Black wash in all the joints and crevices,
as well as around the edge of the blue.

Finally, I dry brushed the base, edged the seal with white, and washed the venting on the pistol with red.

Stormcast Base Coat

The stormcast figure is painted in a very similar manner to the marine. Careful, smooth coats, especially of the red. Brown for leather and base, Rakarth for the skull, gold for the scale armour and other details.

Clean base coat colours.
You can see how flat the model looks.

The base doesn't have the texture of the marine and necron so washing won't be effective. Instead, I've used my soft brush to dab on some Rakarth Flesh in uneven patches and dry-brush the rock under the left foot.

Stormcast Wash and Final Details

Again, the wash is applied to creases and crevices, around the edges of the red, and all over any leather to darken it down. I've also painted the cloth that shows through behind the knees and elbows in black. Finally, the skull was washed black then highlighted white.

Black wash has really brought out the details.

Kruleboyz Base Coat

Finally, we have the kruleboyz orc. The only one with exposed flesh, and lots of cloth besides, means a metallic undercoat is not ideal. The black undercoat does come with some advantages, however. You don't have to get into every nook and cranny because just leaving it black is fine. Likewise, colours can be applied with a fine gap between each other, leaving a black line separating the two.

The green goes on first, and needs two thin coats to get an even cover. The red does pretty well, and you really only need a second coat around the edges and high points as a highlight; letting some of the black show through the thin red shades the cloth well. I've used Rakarth Flesh on the lower half, then lots of Steel Legion for wood, leather, stitching and base. Finally, I've broken out the Leadbelcher paint for the first time to paint all the metal, including the front and back of the shield.

Green and brown look flat, but red
looks good by allowing some of the
dark base show through.

Kruleboyz Wash

Before spreading plain black wash over most of the model, I washed the flesh with about an equal mix of blue and black. This produces a darker green in the creases, especially around the face, hands and feet. 

Then the black wash once again does most of the work. Didn't need to wash the red, but I have used it to dirty down the Rakarth Flesh.

Blue-black wash on the skin appears
as a darker green.

Kruleboyz Highlights and Details

Finally, this model actually requires a bit of mixing and highlighting on the flesh. I've used a mix of about 2:1 green to yellow, varying it to either blend gently or emphasise with contrast. Pay particular attention to the face, as it's always a focal point. Teeth are Rakarth followed by white; eyes are white followed by red. 

Then, last of all, I coloured the shield. Again, as with the red, this can be done with a thin layer all over showing the dark base colour through, then carefully applied second layers around the edges and nose and mouth to reinforce the shield's sculpting.

Next Steps

The end result on all of these models is surprisingly good. It really all comes down to the black wash turning models with simple colours blocked in into neatly shaded and defined miniatures. Could we go further? Even with the paints supplied we could certainly add more, mostly in the form of highlights:

• All of the metal, but especially the marine's and the stormcast's, could be edge highlighted with a mix of leadbelcher and white. This isn't as good as a lighter silver colour, but would suffice.
• The marine's weapons could be edge highlighted with yellow and white and/or black and white. You could also add black hazard stripes or toothed triangles along the chainsword's length.
• The blue and red panels on the marine and stormcast could be touched up to push the black wash back and blend it more carefully. And you could try highlighting those colours, using a bit of white with the blue and a bit of yellow with the red.
• Any leather could get an edge highlight with a brown and yellow mix which should bring out a richer leather colour. Or you could try mixing in read for a more chestnut colour.
• Try free-handing a chapter badge and various symbols on the marine's pauldrons and/or knee pads.
• Add basing materials: coarse sand, flock, tufts, etc. Painted or not.

If we wanted to expand our paint collection, what would be best? Sticking to a broadly useful collection, I'd recommend:

• Nuln Oil - this is the black wash, all ready in a pot!
• Agrax Earthshade - another wash, this time a rich brown.
• Stormhost Silver or Runefang Steel - for highlighting metal.
• Moot Green - a bright green, either as a base or for highlighting.
• Evil Sunz Scarlet - a bright red, as above.
• Yrrial Yellow - a bright yellow.
• Lothern Blue - a light blue.
• Skrag Brown - a warm, red brown, good for leather or for rust.
• Cadian Fleshtone - if you ever have to paint Caucasian skin.
• Agrellan Earth or other basing paint.

That's ten paints, which will give you one free at a GW store! However, that's to keep things general –you'll be better off focussing on colours that will work with your collection: do you need a variety of metals? Shades for a particular colour scheme? Orc or human or tyranid flesh? Pick those that fit your needs.