I’ve always wanted to play Thousand Sons all the way back to 2nd edition, and these days it is a definite possibility. With that in mind, I recently acquired a couple of Thousand Sons Rubric Marines to join into the Kill Team and Grimdark Future fun at the club.

Those that know me well know that I don’t play with unpainted miniatures. I also like simple colour schemes that I can use to quickly paint large numbers of models. You can blame the fact that my first real army was Skaven back in 1998.

After assembling the plastic, I placed pins in their feet since I have plans for their bases I will document in a future article. I then went down to my local hardware store and picked up a tin of gold spray paint.

After I stuck the models onto an old box, I proceeded to undercoat the models in gold of all things. Yes, we normally uncoat in white, black, grey or with advanced techniques like zenithal undercoating. I had as Baldric would put it: A Cunning Plan.

I was going to undercoat my models in gold. Something that you need to look out for when undercoating with a gold spray can is that the paint is a lot thicker than non-metallic colours. Do a couple of test sprays on your newspaper or box if you use one like me. You will find you need to spray a little further than you’re used to.

Once the basecoat is dry you can start painting.

First up is a heavy wash of Citadel Reikland Fleshshade and light drybrush of Vallejo Gold.

Next up we start on the blue. Citadel Talassar Blue contrast paint gives a great finish. Make sure you get into all the blue detail. I quite like the slight sparkle that shows through the layers of paint.

Next, I painted Citadel Thousand Sons Blue over the base coat and tried to leave a thin line of the Citadel Talassar Blue behind to get that signature colour scheme of the Thousand Sons.

The cloth and any bone bits got a base layer of Vallejo Skeleton Bone, covered with Citadel Apothecary White contrast and a highlight of Vallejo Ivory. One of our previous chairs pointed out to me that white is rarely as pure in the real world.

All the areas I wanted gun metal like the body of the bolter, got Army Painter Gun Metal and a wash of Citadel Nuln Oil.

Finally, I touched up the gold where I messed one of the other colours on it.

There you have it. A simple paint job ready for the table. It isn’t a professional-level job, but not all your models have to be. Sometimes effective is all you need.

Next time, I’ll cover how I built the bases, the decals and show the final product.