I’d been looking for an excuse to use the Knights Cenobium kit from Forge World in some capacity for my Dark Angels army. Since I don’t dabble in Horus Heresy games any more, they needed to be 40k legal which didn’t leave a lot of options considering their standard loadout of power sword and plasma caster. I’d mulled over using one as a Deathwing Strike Master and others for Terminator sergeants, but didn’t feel that made the most efficient use of them. Then I figured, what’s better than a Terminator squad? Two Terminator squads. I found that mixing the Knights Cenobium with a Cataphractii (Relic) Terminator squad meant I could get two squads without wasting any bodies. Even better, two of them could keep the sword and plasma combo. Be aware though, that there aren’t enough shoulder plates to kit out two full squads. The trading pages sorted me out but you may need to explore other options like 3D prints.

The loadouts were simple. Both squads got a sergeant with power sword and plasma blaster. The first squad then got combi-bolters and power fists, while the second squad got lightning claws with no converting needed. No chopping, nothing complicated, just arm swaps.

Painting these followed much the same process as my Deathwing Strike Master tutorial. The one element not covered in that blog is the brassy trim. There’s a quote in Codex Supplement: Dark Angels that says, ‘The sons of the Lion covet no baubles, for they are meaningless to us.’ I’ve always taken that to mean they’re not so big on all the gold that other chapters wear. I see brass or bronze as more fitting to the Dark Angels, hence the colour choice on the trim.

This is achieved by base coating with GW Warplock Bronze, then washing all over with GW Nuln Oil. Finally, give it a heavy drybrush of Sycorax Bronze. I’ve found this final paint tends to come more as a dry compound than a layer paint, but that’s fine for our purposes.

Here’s how they turned out.

I decided against adding the iron halo and wings on the sergeant, mostly because my Deathwing Strike Master uses a similar style of wings, and I wanted something to make him stand out against other Deathwing since there’s no official miniature for it. Given that the sergeant has more than his share of bling already, I don’t think he loses anything for it.

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I was even fortunate enough to have one of these shown on the Hobby Roundup show on Warhammer TV.

There you have it – something a bit special, yet fully game legal for 40k. Drop me a comment if you have any questions, have some interesting Deathwing of your own, or if you try any of the tutorials here.

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