Mordant 13th Bonner's Reach Campaign Color Scheme

John Shaffer of the US Promotions Team converted and painted Hardened Veteran models to give away as prizes for 13 fortunate individuals that completed the 2008 Lucky 13s Campaign. John was kind enough to document the process for those of you interested in collecting a Mordant 13th army of your own. This example uses a conversion as the basis, but these colors and techniques translate easily to Cadian Shocktroopers and other Imperial Guard infantry.

1) Begin with a black undercoat. Apply a thin layer of Chaos Black to the model to ensure you cover any spots that the primer missed. Drybrush the base with Charadon Granite followed by Codex Grey. Apply a final drybrush of Skull White lightly to the highest areas.

2) Paint the fatigues and face mask with Charadon Granite. Be sure to get an even coat and get in all the recessed areas.

3) Layer highlights to the fatigues and face mask by adding increasing amounts of Skull White to Charadon Granite for each successive highlight. Highlight the boots, gloves, and bolt pistol casing (or lasgun casing in the case of Shock Troopers) with Fenris Grey. Keep the highlights slight and concentrated on the very edges of the raised areas. Use Chaos Black to touch up any mistakes.

4) Paint the armor, helmet, bracers and boot armor plates with Calthan Brown.

5) Wash the Calthan Brown armor with two coats of Devlan Mud. Paint the center of each armor plate with thin coats of Scorched Brown, leaving a little of the Calthan Brown showing on the edges of each armor plate. Alternatively, you could paint all the armor with Scorched Brown and edge the plates with Calthan Brown, but I've found the wash method provides a more subtle transition from the dark areas to the light ones.

6) Paint all the metal areas like the sword, badges, buckles, grenades, gun barrels, etc. with Chainmail. Paint any metal areas on the base with Chainmail as well.

7) Wash the metal areas with Badab Black and re-highlight the edges of the metal with Chainmail when the wash dries. Areas in particular you should highlight are the bevelled edge of the sword blade, and the hard edges of the bolt pistol and grenades.

8) Paint in all the details. This will vary from figure to figure, but this example uses the following colors. Use Liche Purple for the lenses and gems on the power sword. Paint the rope with Bleached Bone and wash with Gryphonne Sepia. Paint the rocks on the ground with Bleached Bone and wash with Devlan Mud. Wash any metal on the base with thinned Vermin Brown for a rusty look. Paint the base rim Scorched Brown.

9) The Mordant 13th have a spade insignia on their left shoulder pad. John painted in the design with Codex Grey and highlighted the upper edge with a thin line of Skull White. Afterwards, he carefully painted in a tiny 13 over top. If you are unskilled with freehand techniques, we've provided a sheet you can print out on transfer paper to make this process a little easier. This sheet is at the bottom of the page.

10) Like most Imperial Guardsmen, the Mordant 13th have a three-digit number on their right shoulder pad as a unit marking. Much like the spade insignia, John painted this design with Codex Grey and highlighted with Skull White. The Cadian Transfer sheets that come in every box of Cadian Shocktroopers has transfers for these numbers if you prefer.

11) The lenses and gems are painted with Liche Purple first then highlighted along the bottom edges with a 50/50 mix of Liche Purple and Skull White. A darker section is painted along the upper edge with a mix of Liche Purple and Chaos Black. To finish the lenses and gems off, John applied a tiny dot of pure Skull White to the upper edges.

12) This image shows the conversion before painting. If you are interested in duplicating this conversion, the components are as follows:

a) Forgeworld respirator head and backpack
b) Space Marine Scout assault weapon arms
c) Archive plastic power weapon blade (glued in place of the scout combat knife)
d) Space Marine Scout grenade bundle
e) Scenic base made by sinking various bitz into putty then texturing the putty with sand
f) Lengthened coats sculpted from greenstuff