A vision of golden celestial light, a living embodiment of the God-King’s might, the Stormcast Eternals are messengers of vengeance armed with the might of stars. Bold raiders and expert scouts, the Farstriders are Vanguard-Hunters, the elite infantry of the Vanguard Auxillary Chambers. Dispatched to the ruins of Shadespire by the Sigmar himself in a bid to seek a way to overcome the rising incidence of flaws during the Reforging of the Stormcast by unlocking the secrets of Shadeglass. Led by the grizzled Sanson Farstrider, more than once has a thought-unassailable position been scaled and destroyed by this veteran band of heroes.
Like the other Stormcast that have been dispatched to the Underworlds, the Farstriders are an 'elite' warband with only three fighters. Sanson Farstrider and Almeric Eagle-Eye both wield a shock handaxe while Elias Swiftblade prefers a storm sabre for melee combat and all three of them are equipped with boltstorm pistols with which to visit their wrath upon their foes from range. They were the second Underworlds warband that I painted up, way back in 2018 and coincidentally they won me second place in a painting competition at my local Warhammer store.
I decided to paint The Farstriders in a clean style that echoed the Citadel studio painter's scheme shown on the box art as I loved the look of the models when they were released and was inspired to paint them after seeing a "quick and easy" recipe for gold shared by Forge World's Mark Bedford that he'd used to paint some Custodes for his personal collection which seemed like a great way to get a nice consistent gold over multiple miniatures:
Prime Retributor Armour
Drybrush Silver (I used Ironbreaker)
Shade with Seraphim Sepia
Apply edge highlights with silver (I used Runefang Steel)
Although the edge highlights took a wee while to work through, it was an incredibly quick way to get the minis stared that gave a really nice burnished gold and the time saved meant there was much more time to work on the details. As the armour was done before everything else, it also encouraged me to paint more carefully when completing the other elements and this has been incredibly useful in the years since as I used to be much more of a messy painter but these days I prefer to 'tidy as I go'.
One of the wee touches I'm particularly pleased with was having used decals to add the blazing comet symbol to Elias and Almeric's pauldrons, I was able to carefully paint an off white into the centre of the design so the icons matched the tones of sculpted hammers on the opposite shoulder.
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I also really enjoyed working on was the leaves that are scattered across the Farstriders bases and it was great fun working up a variety of autumnal tones to add to the 'faded glory' feel of the bases. These were painted individually painted using Mournfang Brown, XV-88 and Steel Legion Drab before being shaded with Agrax Earth and carefully highlighted up. I also used some green glazes over and around the flagstones on the base to make them look like they're being slowly claimed by algae and lichens.
Sanson Farstrider
Almeric Eagle-Eye
Elias Swiftblade
Looking back at them now, there are a few things I'd do differently, (which I suppose is always the case!) such as adding more texture to the bark of the tree stumps on the bases, increasing the contrast on the pelts on their backs and giving the plumage of Farstrider's Star Falcon some more attention, but overall I'm pretty happy with how they came out and pleased they were able to scoop me a prize to boot!
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