The other day I was passing through the canteen when I got chatting to Christian Byrne - one of the Studio book design team and a regular face in the pages of White Dwarf. Over the course of a sausage bap (that's a cob to you northerners, a roll to most people and a bun if you're odd), we got chatting about his latest creation - the Blood Wolves - a renegade chapter of Space Marines themed around Chaos Space Marines and Space Wolves. We thought the army was so gorgeous that we just had to show it off, regardless of whether they're good or evil. Here's Christian to explain the method behind the madness:
Christian: Some people might know that I like to paint the odd Chaos Space Marine from time to time. I've always been a fan of the villains of the 41st millennium, ever since I was a lad. I remember playing games of Warhammer 40,000 2nd edition on the living room floor with an army made up of models from the first boxed set (Orks and Gretchin) and Chaos Space Marines from Space Crusade. Around about this time we all started eyeing up the various codex's that were around at the time and I remember liking the Space Wolves the most, even more than the Chaos Space Marines!
However, I was soon off to university and it would be many years before I would return to playing. When my interest in the hobby was renewed in my mid twenties I automatically went for Chaos, then Dark Eldar, but I always wanted a Space Wolf army of my own but never seemed to get around to it. Fast forward to the latest release of Space Wolves and the gorgeous boxed sets created for them and I could no longer hold back, I was going to do an about face and declare allegiance to the Imperium after years of heresy. As you can probably see, corruption runs too deep and the warping powers of Chaos (particularly Khorne) managed to sneak into my plans yet again. Some colleagues in the studio were confused by my project, but I didn't care, I like kit-bashing miniatures and I love Chaos...
I used Lord Zhufor, a Forge World model, as the basis for my Wolf Lord conversion, throwing Wolf Guard Terminator parts into the mix to give him a more Space Wolf vibe. Note it is a count-as Logan...
I found interesting components all over the place to use on my miniatures, such as the hammer and shield that I borrowed from a Chaos Champion model. For those curious the shield is from this champion and the hammer is from this lord. These fit perfectly with the Space Marine plastic kits.
As you can see, many of the models are essentially Space Wolves with the odd Chaos Space Marine or Khorne Berserker piece thrown in to give it a savage twist. I found plenty of useful components lying around in my bitz box to add to the models, such a Korsarro Khan backpack and the spear of the Necromancer from the Corpse Cart kit.
For those warriors marked by the Wulfen, I used Chaos Possessed. This helped them to stand out from the crowd and make them look unique (as well as slightly deranged). The conversions to the Drop Pods were really simple stuff - I just stuck wolf heraldry on the doors and used a couple of spare shields for variety.
Painting was straightforward, I opted for Khorne's colours: Brass and Red, with a bit of bone for contrast. I used Dwarf Bronze highlighted with Chainmail as the main armour colour and plenty of Mithril Silver to give everything a battered look, as these guys should look like bloodthirsty barbarians.
For the most part, I used a lot of Devlan Mud wash to shade the armour, followed by a watered-down Hawk Turquoise for the verdegris. For the skin I mixed Dark Flesh and Tallarn Flesh for the basecoat and added in Bleached Bone to highlight it. All the reddy-brown leather areas were done with Scab Red mixed with Vomit Borwn and Bleached Bone.
As part of the 1500-point army, I knew that I had to include a Land Raider. Not only is it a powerful tank, but it's also the only way count-as Logan should ever travel into battle. I spruced it up with a few Chaos icons and Space Wolves symbols.
The final touch was to paint some stunning/amazing/jaw-dropping freehand artwork onto the Land Raider - bloody-mouthed wolves and the like, and to give the army a name...The Blood Wolves. I'm off to get on with my painting, as I've got plenty more miniatures to get done.
Dan: Much like Christian, if you've got a beautiful army and you'd love to show it off, send us an email and we'll gladly take a look. Who knows, if it looks great, it could be your army featured on the blog next time. To see more of Christian's Chaos Space Marines (there's quite a lot of them), why not check out this article with them all in - that should satisfy the Chaos fans amongst you (and silence the voices in my head for the time being). Can see some of the Iron Warrior warband from the old White Dwarf series in the back row such as the Basilisk, Vindicator and Obliterators.
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