Budget Warhammer Empire Project – Marienburg Painting Guide

Part 1 – Introduction & Missile Infantry
Part 2 – Melee Infantry
Part 3 – Cavalry
Part 4 – Leaders & Special Characters
Part 5 – Artillery & Misc.
Part 6 – Using Discontinued Empire Units in AoS
Part 7 – How it Looks
Part 8 – Marienburg Painting Guide
Budget Bretonnia Project

When I started thinking about my budget Empire army, inspired by my time playing Total War: Warhammer, I wanted to create a retro army, but also paint it in a largely retro style inspired by Games Workshop’s red period. I spent some time looking at the Uniforms and Heraldry of the Empire book, as well as pictures from old Games Workshop catalogs and White Dwarfs before settling on a paint scheme inspired by the colors of Marienburg, the wealthy trade hub in the far west of the Empire. Marienburg uniforms feature a lot of primary colors; red, blue, and yellow, as well as whites, so this will make for a very colorful and bright look. Here’s how they came out.

Every figure has all four of the main colors somewhere on the figure (a few minis have a color hiding on their shirt in the back). To save time, I think I will try my next unit with less yellow, saving it for accents and accessories. This will let me use the Dark Tone Wash on much more of the miniature without having to be careful about getting the black wash on the yellow (does not come out well).

In addition, my current method of painting white (see below) is also very labor intensive and I’m not 100% happy with it. I’m going to test out the new contrast paint, Apothecary White, on my next set of models, with some pure white highlights as well.

Painting Guide

Equipment	Base Color	Wash	Highlight 1	Highlight 2
Blue Uniform	Dark Blue	Dark Tone	Dark Blue	Crystal Blue
Red Uniform	Pure Red	Dark Tone	Pure Red	Scarlet
White Uniform	Spaceship Exterior	Dark Tone	Spaceship Exterior	Matt White
Yellow Uniform	Daemonic Yellow	Strong Tone	Daemonic Yellow	Daemonic Yellow/Moon Dust
Skin	Barbarian Flesh	Flesh Tone	Barbarian Flesh	Barbarian Flesh/Basic Skin Tone
Hair	Monster Brown	Flesh Tone	Monster Brown
Leather	Leather Brown	Dark Tone	Monster Brown
Boots/Bracers	Necromancer Cloak	Dark Tone	Uniform Grey
Metal	Plate Metal	Dark Tone	Shining Silver
Base	Goblin Green		Goblin Green/Daemonic Yellow (drybrush)

Color Matching Key

Paint	Manufacturer	Color to Match
Dark Blue	Vallejo Model Color	Dark/Medium Blue
Crystal Blue	Army Painter	Medium/Light Blue
Pure Red	Army Painter	Medium Red
Scarlet	Vallejo Model Color	Red/Orange
Spaceship Exterior	Army Painter	Very Light Grey
Matt White	Army Painter	Pure White
Daemonic Yellow	Army Painter	Yellow
Moon Dust	Army Painter	Light Yellow
Monster Brown	Army Painter	Light Brown
Leather Brown	Army Painter	Medium Brown
Necromancer Cloak	Army Painter	Very Dark Grey
Uniform Grey	Army Painter	Medium/Dark Grey
Plate Metal	Army Painter	Steel
Shining Silver	Army Painter	Silver
Goblin Green	Army Painter	Medium/Light Green
Dark Tone	Army Painter	Black wash
Flesh Tone	Army Painter	Reddish/brown wash
Strong Tone	Army Painter	Brown wash

Final Thoughts

I’ve really enjoyed writing this guide to creating a budget Empire army, but this time it really is the end. I still have my budget Bretonnia posts in the works and will start posting them next week. I’ll also make updates as I finish building the non-infantry models in my own Empire army and continue to paint them. Hope everyone enjoyed this, and good luck with your own projects!