The new edition of Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team is nearly here, but a whole team of people were working hard to make it look incredible long before it was even announced – the ’Eavy Metal and Army Painter teams.
We spoke to Drew and Chrimbar from the ‘Eavy Metal team, and Grant, Harvey, and Tangui from the Army Painting team to find out how they went about the work.
Warhammer Community: Tell us about the new Kill Teams – the Vespids in particular have received a visual overhaul.
Chrimbar: It was an opportunity to really identify the key visual elements that make them stand out as a unique race within the setting.
In previous iterations, we have shown them in a variety of bright colours with vivid markings that contrast well with their T’au Empire counterparts and foregrounded their organic nature. We know that they are extremely deadly insectoid creatures capable of tearing you to shreds with their sharp claws and so we wanted to focus on these key elements when deciding on the colour scheme. Brightness in nature, especially in insects, usually indicates danger so drawing from this as reference felt very natural.
We also knew we wanted to develop the palette to fit alongside the existing T’au Empire and Kroot mercenaries, so we decided on orange as the natural compositional choice within this narrative. Drawing from nature meant we could present something very alien but also something that you know, innately, you shouldn’t mess with!
Columns of shiny black eyes, colour fades on elongated legs segments, and the contrasting green of the razor sharp claws showcase the deadly nature of the Vespid.
One of the coolest parts for me as a painter was adding all of the carapace and antennae markings across the squad. Each one is subtly unique and gives them some measure of identity – it is a great place to add a layer of personal expression. I’m excited to see what interesting schemes the Community comes up with given all the inspiration that can be drawn on.
Tangui: Part of our job in the Army Painter team is to spend time on painted variants to widen the pool of potential for players and painters. For the Vespids we did some variants but we decided to take a different approach to the box art versions. Because they’re not wearing uniforms beyond the T’au equipment we have a chance to go really out there with some really interesting ideas.
Grant: We wanted to just pluck something wild from our imaginations, to try and complement the grounded and realistic work that the ’Eavy Metal team had done, so there are some more extreme colours that feel extra alien.
WarCom: How did you approach the Tempestus Aquilons, given they are far more regimented and uniform than the Vespids?
Drew: We always approach decisions from an in-world perspective. The Tempestus Aquilons are an ultra-elite part of the Astra Millitarum, merciless killers who are specialised in rapid insertion, sneaking around, and covert operations. Any colour scheme would need to use those as key points of focus.
There’s an old supplement that focuses on the Tempestus Scions, so we used that to get into the headspace, and dial in on the small subtleties of this unit. We started out our exploration of a colour scheme with over 50 different samples for directions that we could go with, and ultimately a darker more subdued scheme won out.
These are the 17th Thetan Dragons. The split between these more dark and gritty combat troops versus the more “on parade” style of the 55th Kappic Eagles (seen on the Tempestus Scions) gives painters in the community a real opportunity to explore the range of these elite Imperial troopers.
All of their equipment is the best quality available. The straps are a rich leather, and the polished brass trim on the armour combined with very little weathering on the armour shows how meticulously this equipment is maintained for a squad that regularly goes on high pressure deployments.
There are lots of little details that help bring them to life. I wanted to capture the vibe of the covert operatives with the eerie glow from the night vision goggles, which contrasts well with the more muted colour across the body. One extra detail is the red and green lights on the vambrace – on the miniatures that are sculpted with their grav chutes lifting them they’ve been painted with the green light on, and when grounded the red light. We’re always thinking about these details when we’re painting them, trying to make sense of this Warhammer 40,000 technology and make it feel real.
Out of all of those variants we worked on, we wanted to capture one of their most iconic appearances as part of the Inquisition’s forces in the Daemonhunters codex, with a red and black colour treatment.
Grant: Because there are five colour variants for each Kill Tam team in the Hivestorm book, we ended up having a different brief than for the box art miniatures. While they have to both stand out, we had a brief that tasked us with exploring Scions who had been deployed to different environments for combat.
Tangui: That gave us the chance to show something very different than the covert ops style, and as result we’ve got a jungle, snow, and desert camo versions that almost blend into their environments, supported by some excellent photography that is extremely atmospheric and experimental and really beds the miniatures into the terrain.
WarCom: While we’re on the topic of terrain, there is a new Killzone: Volkus set first available in Kill Team: Hivestorm – how do you go about painting terrain for these releases?
Harvey: Alongside working on some of the Aquilon variants, the Army Painter team was tasked with doing the terrain itself. We started with five or six colour tests on terrain, which were enforced by lots of research from the City Fight and Cities of Death supplements.
Apart from making sure that the colours looked good on their own, we also had to ensure that it complemented the miniatures, as there will be lots of photography with the Kill Teams and we don’t want there to be any clashing or blending.
I remember showing the rest of the studio a box full of different colours of walls and putting models up against them to work out which one would work best. For some pieces the Vespids stand out fine against them, but the Aquilons sort of blend into them – ultimately it is about finding a perfect balance between the two without losing the identity of the terrain.
Grant: The rules team wanted the key parts of the buildings to be easy to pick out. In the instructions they’re digitally highlighted but when we were painting them we tried to make the delineation between areas like doors, walls, and windows a little more obvious so that it helps define certain elements of the terrain, but at the same time in a wider shot we wanted it all to melts together naturally.
Tangui: To differentiate rubble terrain from other types we went a lot harder on the weathering, it helps define it more but it doesn’t break the in-setting view of this area.
Harvey: For the boards in the box themselves, we make the actual terrain boards, paint them in, and then photograph them before digitally altering parts to make the board you play on. Some of the pieces were then used in the terrain shots and the narrative photographs across the book, including piles of rubble and risers for the terrain itself. It helps make sure everything feels really consistent across Hivestorm.
WarCom: One last unique part of the box is the equipment sprue which features all of the generic equipment Kill Teams can take on missions – how did you approach this?
Tangui: These were a particular challenge because we don’t often paint tokens or measuring tools, so we don’t have any hard or fast rules. We wanted the measuring tools to look like pieces of equipment that you would use for directing these teams as a commander. There’s a big skull one one and we tried it in a traditional bone colour which just didn’t sit right. Changing it to metal worked much better.
We had to walk the line between making the equipment into tokens that were easily visible in game, and into pieces of equipment that make sense in the setting. There are sections of the ladders painted to look oiled to represent the mechanical function. The barricades as well need to be clear, but we want them weathered to convey use. The smoke grenades were fun to work on, but at the same time we had to be careful to make sure we didn’t paint them with the same casing as a krak or frag grenade – we want everything to feel like it could fit right onto a miniature.
Warhammer fans will soon be able to put their own schemes into practice on the Tempestus Aquilons, Vespid Stingwings, and all the terrain and accessories – Kill Team: Hivestorm is available for pre-order on Saturday.
