I have to admit something to the 40k community… I have a crush on lightning claws. I put them on my Chaos Space Marines, I put them on my Mantis Warriors when possible… I love the fluff about them and they look so cool. Thunder hammers are amazing in game (when paired with a storm shield) but they don’t look nearly as cool as lightning claws.
I have been thinking about making a Mantis Warriors chapter master for a long time. I had a chief librarian, a chaplain, a captain (not painted yet) on a bike, and a terminator librarian (not painted yet). I wanted a character in terminator armor with a storm shield so he could be paired with my terminators.
I decided on a chapter master. You hardly see them since they’re so expensive and really not all that great. I wanted to try him out anyway just to see what he could do. Putting him in terminator armor makes his orbital bombardment semi-useless as you want him in combat, but perhaps I’d get a use out of it sometime. I was pumped to see that he could use a storm shield AND a lightning claw so that is how I built him. I added a piece for an auxiliary grenade launcher just in case I wanted to use that at some point.
Following my prime directive that every character needs a back banner he was given one. I tried to use the new paints on this new model – I still primed him Army Painter green however. This makes painting marines a lot easier.
I made sure to add enough purity seals so that everyone knew he was a chapter master. I also had to use a helmet-less head because he’s a space marine – they don’t need no damn helmets if they’re a chapter master. For the highlighting I went with Moot Green. I like the extreme highlights on terminator models.
For the lightning claws I started with a base of Calgar Blue. I then layered that with Lothern Blue, then drybrushed on Temple Guard Blue and White Scar finally. I then hit it with a glaze of Gulliman Blue. The glaze really helped the claws pop. I’ll be using that for all my lightning claw terminators now.
Finally I based the model in my jungle scheme. I really like how he turned out and look forward to finishing my 10 lightning claw terminators this month.
Next week I’ll be placing a Forge World order and definitely getting at least one of these kits.
Combined Arms Podcast 