From ByronM: 30k Death Guard Breachers (50 points)

One of the things in my painting queue for the challenge is a pile of 30k Death Guard to expand my force so that I can contribute more to our gaming groups large 30k battles that rage at least monthly over at Fawcett Avenue Conscripts (Curt's original gaming group and blog from when he lived in Winnipeg).

I have a pile of figures to get done for the 30k version of the Death Guard this year, including several transports as my force so far has been almost exclusively foot based with little mobility.  However, before getting onto that, I needed to get some more infantry done (mainly due to the fact that I want to do all the vehicles at once and ran out of chipping solution so am waiting for it to arrive).

So here are 10 Breachers, which are heavy boarding troops.

When I first started the 30k Death Guard, I decided to go with a very battle worn look, as I had just re-read the Horus Heresy series of books and really wanted to capture the feel of the stoic Garro and his men that tried to hold out and Istavan IV and stop Horus when he first betrayed the Emperor.

They were trapped on the planet as it was bombed from space and barely survived. Then they had to fight against the might of several legions of Space Marines that had sided with Horus and they fought to escape and warn the Emperor.

While I was initially very happy with the look I came up with, which involves chipping, several washes, grimes, powders, and more, over time I am getting less sure of it.  At first I thought it was cool, but now it just feels like a lot of work to get something that looks like a beginner slapped paint on it, especially compared to some of the stuff that Greg has been turning out for 30k.  I am kind of stuck with it now, but am really not sure if there is something I could do that is close to it and would still mesh with everything else but look a bit more like an actual paint job.  I do still like the look on vehicles, and think they look pretty good, but it's the infantry that I am losing confidence on.  I may have just overdone the effect as I lose the highlights and everything to the damage and rough effects.

Thinking I may need to go back and clean some of my infantry up a bit, but looking for opinions on them.  I got the look I was going for, just not sure it does my force any justice looks wise... 

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I think you're being too hard on yourself, Byron. These guys look great.  I really like the worn white armour, with its chipped edges and dirty panels. 

While you might think they are not worth the time, I think instead you need to determine what you want them to be first and then take your approach from there. If they are to be battleworn, then don't kill yourself on the detailing, but instead think of how the battle damage will tell the story. Perhaps the shields need to be more scared and pocked by impact strikes, the shoulder guards sliced and gashed with close-combat damage - stuff like that. 

All that being said, I still think they look terrific - try not to overthink it too much. They're still going to get slaughtered by the Loyalists. :)

50 Points for you, Byron!