Greetings Terrans, I hope this finds you all well in these increasingly bizarre and worrying times. I’ve got a bit of a photo dump to share with you today – as some of you figured out from my last post, I’ve started working on some old school Legion of the Damned, (first described in WD99 back in 1988), but re-imagined in new shiny Primaris-shaped plastic. Why Primaris? Because I have a metric ton of the smug little pricks from my Conquest subscriptions, and boy, am I glad of that! Can’t have too much to paint in these days of lock-down if you ask me…
Why Legion of the Damned? Well, because they are cool as hell, not pristine, not uniformed, and are about as (little ‘c’) chaotic as you can get without being (big ‘C’) Chaotic, and that suits my current state of mind just fine. Oh, and for the record, I know the LotD fluff moved on over various iterations of 40k, but I’m keeping it old school RT on this project – think ‘zerker zombies rather than the later spectrally flaming skellies version, ok?
That said, I am moving on from the whole historical ‘Fire Hawks lost in the warp’ schtick – I see this as a second occurrence of the LotD phenomenon, with modern Primaris that have been lost in the warp & thus I see these as being contemporary to the current 40k timeline and narrative. I think that this raises interesting questions about the events – a single event can be passed off as a freak occurrence, but two identical events? Unlikely… It also raises the spectre of whether or not there is some design behind the LotD… It is described as a disease, so maybe it’s a Nurgle thing, or maybe one of the lesser chaos powers perhaps? I would love to think Malal is involved 😉
Anyway, here are my first efforts – a trio of… well, I’m not actually sure what hip and cool name GW gave them, but they are some kind of scouty recon types I think:
I’m pretty pleased with how they came out to be honest! They were a nice painterly challenge, not too fussy, and relatively quick to do… What do you guy think?
Leadballoony - It's a lead thing 
That’s a wonderful modern take on a classic theme, love it! They look a lot more menacing than older marine minis too, which fits the LotD thing really well.
Cheers matey, these versions do look pretty sinister – far more so than the regular Primaris types, so it’ll be interesting to see if I can repeat the trick with them! 🔥😎🔥
Lovely, lovely freehand! The skull on the shoulderpad is my favorite!
Thanks mate – mine too!! 😊
I need a bit more practice doing flames, but it’ll come 🔥💀🔥
Lovely work, Alex – especially the freehand flames and bones. I think after seeing this I’ll have to do a few of my own Primaris in the classic LotD scheme eventually!
Cheers dude, I enjoyed doing them tbh! I’m enjoying being able to zero in on one mini at a time at the moment 😊
I reckon you should do a few mate – I’d love to see your take on LotD! 🔥☠️🔥
I’ve got a fair few of them done using old-school RT marines, as well as the seperate-arm MKVII armour. Adding some Primaris only makes sense!
Freehand work takes a painted figure to a new level. It makes the figure unique and that is what you have produced here. Excellent stuff mate and looking forward to seeing more.
Cheers dude – I’ve got another bunch to share, so you won’t have to wait long 😉
Brilliant! Have to really echo what the guys above have said! All the freehand stuff really does give their character! :-)
Cheers John, that’s exactly what I like to hear – that’s a tough thing to do with GW Marines!! 😊
Dude, I’m always so impressed with your freehand skills! These guys are a great take on a modern classic, looking forward to playing some Kill Team or something against them :P
Cheers brobeans, can’t wait either! You’d better get yourself some Plague Marines painted 😉
Oh cool, I feel giddy with excitement for this heheee. Love the freehand flames and the heads a positively evil man. Looking forward to seeing more man. I hope you and yours are doing ok.
Cheers dude, plenty more to come 😊
🔥💀🔥
Awesome
those look great and quite spooky,
Cheers mate 😊
That is great- an interesting take on things.
Cheers,
Pete.
Thanks dude 😊
Oh, most interesting! I like your approach, it’s a different take on these. It works better than I could have expected!
Cheers dude – hopefully it is much more in keeping with the original fluff than later editions 😉
That is some outstanding freehand mate, they’re looking very sinister indeed. I must admit that (to me) Primaris marines look about right in terms of size and bulk for normal marines so really these look like I’ve always imaged them to.
That said I like the idea that Malal is involved somewhere. Alternatively if the Legion of the Damned are a manifestation of either the Emperor’s will or humanity’s cry for help echoing against the Warp then as Primaris marines become the norm then that is what people will perceive as coming to their rescue. Or perhaps there was simply an administrative error and some poor sod was given the unenviable task of heading out from Terra to deliver Primaris reinforcements to the Fire Hawks.
Cheers dude, they were a fun and painterly thing to get stuck in to – LotD is about the only way to make ‘loyalist’ Marines interesting in a painting sense! I’m definitely favouring Malal’s influence in all this… ;-)