Miniature Ordnance Review looks at the world of historical and fantasy miniatures wargaming and model building. From 15mm Flames of War, to Warhammer 40K, to 1/35th scale tanks, with some potential surprises on the horizon - you'll find them here!

Wednesday, August 21, 2019

Genestealer Cult - First Vehicles!

The new Genestealer Cult forces for Warhammer 40K can take a variety of vehicles as a part of the core Codex list. Some of these are new and unique to the Genestealer Cult army list, and I plan on detailing those in a future blog entry. Others, however, represent Astra Militarum (AKA "Imperial Guard") forces which have either been infiltrated or co-opted by the cult. I'm working on several vehicles of this type, and have a couple done so far.



The venerable Leman Russ battle tank has been a staple of Guard armies for years. This particular example is one I've had lying around for... well... a while. I'd built it for a Guard project I was working on in the early to mid 2000's and never finished it. After a quick garage clean out I found the languishing tank and painted it up for the new force. For the regular "army" forces in my cult list, I'm going primarily with Soviet military colors from World War II to the present. This particular one was painted using the Black and White method using Ammo of Mig 4BO Russian Green (AMIG0019) and their Transparator thinner to make the paint translucent.


I had a spare commander figure from another in progress kit (doing Death Korps vehicles leaves you with several spare vanilla commanders - more on that in another blog entry!) to which I added a head from the Genestealer Cults Upgrade Frame. The oil streaks were done with Ammo of Mig Oilbrusher Dark Brown (AMIG3512) and the black wash was done with Ammo of Mig Enamel Black Wash (AMIG1011). The paint chips were added with AK Interactive Chipping Color (AK711) applied with open cell foam. The decals are a mixture of Games Workshop decals with sprayed on cult symbols from Scumb4g Kustoms - I heartily recommend their decals as they've been excellent! I'm currently working on my first video painting tutorial on another venerable Russ variant, and will post a link when it's done!


As Soviet greens went through several variations and was subject to weathering (see photo of a BTR graveyard above!), I'm not sticking to any single formula for my vehicles, and am actually trying to provide some variation in color. This is allowing me to play with several different Soviet greens from the Ammo of Mig Mythical Russian Green Colors 1935-2016 (AMIG7160). Stay tuned for additional vehicles using other parts of this palette!


The Imperial Chimera is the infantry fighting vehicle of the Guard, a role similar to the M2 Bradley or BMP. This is a new Chimera kit (no worries, I have some old soldiers I discovered in a box in the garage that are going to get painted as well!). For this vehicle I used the old AK Interactive 4BO Russian Green modulation set, which is now the Russian Green Modulation Set (AK553). It comes out just a tad bluer than the Ammo of Mig version and provides some interesting contrast on the table. The other weathering (streaks, black wash, decals, etc.) were all done the same way as the Leman Russ above.


On this one in addition to the decals, I'd added some plastic cult icons which were then painted with Alclad Pale Gold. The scroll was painted with Vallejo white and then washed. I used technical pens to write "helix" or "spiral" in Russian, "спираль" to sort of tie the whole Soviet theme together.


The Genestealer Cult can also take both Armored and Scout Sentinel Walkers in their main codex, and I have three of those in progress. I'm also planning on giving them some Armored ones as well. I also have several Astra Militarum vehicles I'm working on that will be co-opted by the force, so watch this space!

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