Marked by the Changer Of the Ways for their cunning and devotion, these warrior cultists fight with blade, sorcery and terrifying zeal. They are the chosen mortal warriors of Tzeentch, and with the proper chants and rites they are able to combine their gestalt magical might before unleashing it in crackling bolts of unnatural flame.

So I picked up the new Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower the day it came out. For me it's been one of the most exciting releases of the year as I was a massive fan of the original. It was the only box-set I ever got round to painting up. Inside the box there are s lot of great look miniatures you can't get elsewhere, just as I'd expect after the Deathwatch Overkill release.

The game itself looks pretty good too, but a lot less of a hardcore time-consuming game compared to the original. However, I don't really have the time for hardcore games now anyway so if anything it's a good thing for me. I get a day or two a week to give some board games a go, so I'm hoping to pull this out in the next few weeks and see how it really compares. I've heard games can go on from 30 mins to several hours so if you want long games it's certainly still possible.

I thought I would take a break from my Grey Knights and see how fast I could get the whole box set painted up. It started well, but things have really slowed down over the last few weeks as I've had less free time for painting. However, I finally managed to get these Kairic Acolytes completed, and I've started work on another couple of units. Having painted the Kairic Acolytes I think they are the most complex to paint of any of the units in the box, with only individual characters being more complex.

Miniature Review

The Kairic Acolytes are very different to anything I've painted or any miniatures I've really seen. I love the masks, and the curved armour plates. They make me think of the Carnival of Venice with the Venetian masks. I also think it's great how they appear human but have their feet slowly mutating towards their Chaos God Tzeentch. The stances give the real interest to the miniatures, reaching out, on the run. It adds movement that can be rare and often difficult to convey. My only real complaint is that you get the same sprue twice, so there aren't 8 individual miniatures. They can't really be kit-bashed either resulting in 4 clear doubles which is a shame, but not entirely unexpected, when the box has a £100 price tag.

Painting Techniques

Skin

I always really enjoy painting skin and when painting Grey Knights you very rarely get the chance. Around half of these miniatures are skin, probably the main reason I started with them. Having base-coated them with Corax White I washed the skin with Reikland Fleshshade. After 2-3 layers that was the skin pretty much complete, producing a great effect for such a simple technique. I then added several layers of Carroburg Crimson to the feet to help emphasise the mutation.

Armour

The armour plates were painted Sotek Green, then washed with a mix of Guilliman Blue and Biel-Tan Green. I highlighted the armour Hawk Turquoise. I then lightened the turquoise with Lothern Blue for the edge highlights and other bright areas. Finally, I added a layer of Ardcoat to give the armour a magical shine.

I wanted to give the Kairic Acolytes a regal look, so I painted pretty much everything else gold. The gold was really simple, a base of Retributor Armour followed by a wash of Seraphim Sepia. It was then re-highlighted with Retributor Armour and finally highlighted with Runefang Steel. The swords were given an Ironbreaker basecoat, followed by a Druchii Violet wash, and a final Runefang Steel highlight.

Leather & Cloth

The black leather was painted Abbadon Black with Rush Grey highlights. The white cloth was painted Ceramite White with a thinned down wash of Guilliman Blue. The bags were painted with several patchy layers of thinned down Scorched Brown.

Eyes & Gems

The eyes on the golden armour plates was painted Ceramite White, then lightly washed with Biel-Tan Green. A final Abbadon Black pupil was painted down the middle like a snake eye. Finally, the gems were painted Abbadon Black, then the bottom half highlighted with Khorne Red, up to Mephiston Red, then Evil Sunz Scarlet, then finally Troll Slayer Orange. A dot of Ceramite White was added to the top of each gem. Finally, I coated the gems with a layer of Ardcoat.

Basing

The bases were painted Regal Blue, then a layer of Ardcoat applied. I then cut out plasticard into shapes found on the board tiles and added a thick layer of Agrellan Earth. The Ardcoat helps to create a stronger bond to the base and create bigger cracks. Once dry I added a thinned layer of Ardcoat to really help bond the earth to the base. Next was a heavy drybrush of Hoeth Blue, then a wash of Guilliman Blue and Nuln Oil. Once dry a finer highlight of Lothern Blue was added with the most focus around the biggest cracks. The plasticard shapes were painted with Retributor Armour, followed by a wash of Druchii Violet, then a highlight of Sycorax Bronze.

Roundup

I was tempted to by Secret Weapon - Alien Temple bases as they look great and save time, but I was a bit short for cash at the time. Fortunately I'm really happy with the results I've created myself. I started off getting the skin and armour painted very quickly, but then got sucked in to trying to add too many colours (those listed above aren't everything). In the end they really didn't add that much more and ended up being a massive time sink. Hopefully I can keep things simpler for the rest of the box and start pushing out completed miniatures faster. All in all I think the unit looks great, I'm happy with the colour choices, and I'm looking forward to starting on the next unit!