Nemesis Chapter Primaris Intercessor Sergeant Space Marine
I painted my first Primaris Space Marine! He’s Nemesis Chapter – an Ultramarines successor chapter with origins in the dark days of the Horus Heresy.
Sergeant Glaucon, 2nd Battle Company, 3rd Squad, Nemesis Chapter. His banner reads ΝΕΜΕΣΙΣ – “nemesis” in Greek capitals.
This Intercessor Sergeant, from Games Workshop’s Dark Imperium starter set, is largely indistinguishable from the squad he leads. Traditionally, Space Marine sergeants have a different weapon configuration (something Napoleonic like pistol and swords), bare heads and big banners to mark them out. I originally finished painting the mini, but was uneasy with how he looked alongside the rest of the squad. Only thing to distinguish him was the helmet being red.
The eagle-eyed amongst you will also spot the checks added to his right pauldron since this photo was taken.
So I added a dirty great banner. This one is from the Space Marine Ironclad Dreadnought, which matches the swollen proportions of the 2017 Space Marine iteration. Here’s Glaucon next to some classic Space Marines with flags to show the scale creep over the last 30 years.
Left to right: 1987 Blood Angel; 2013 Ultramarine; 2017 Nemesis Marine.
Yeah yeah, I know you’re gonna say “Marines got swole cos of Guilliman’s super-seed”, but I reject your fluff-led view of Games Workshop’s miniatures and state flatly that Primaris is the new de facto Space Marine and is directly comparable to the other two Marines above. Nurrr.
Glaucon leading his little brothers from Ultramarines Squad Varenus.
The Dark Imperium box is overwhelming with the amount of Marines in it, and I’m going to trick myself into thinking it’s one of the smaller starter sets so I’m making better progress through the purchased model pile. Next off – the rest of the Intercessor squad!
That colour scheme, the patterns , the painting, everything is glorious in this guy, I love him way too much.
Thanks Jaybee! More coming soon.
Lovely work, the Nemesis marine looks great. All the edging…
Though I do love me some beakies, the primaris look like marines should always have looked – giant seven foot superhumans that could beat up the contents of a rowdy nightclub single handed in their underwear.
What are the contents of a nightclub doing in the Space Marine’s underwear?!
Every chapter has it’s dark secrets.
Great work on that Primaris. I agree that it is hard to see Primaris marines as anything other than the new Space Marines. Though… the Grey Knights codex includes no Primaris whatever… and it will be interesting to see what happens with Chaos as lore-wise at the moment they can’t have any Primaris Marines, but the Nurgle marines have been made so if you squint a bit they’re basically the same size….
That’s a shame. I imagine it’s because none of the Grey Knight kits come as accessories you add to the standard Marines, like the Deathwatch did.
Thanks for comparsion photo, supercool paintjob!
I want to do another comparison photo once I’ve painted more Space Marines with banners, to fill in the gaps.
Lovely, crisp work as usual! Nice colour choices too.
I agree that in a year or two, Primaris will be the standard size marine and we’ll have the next round of mm escalation on our hands.
Yeah. I’m already anticipating the year when bigger Primaris start to creep in, with longer legs and beefier shoulder pads.
Curis simply wonderful work! You really have a great style that is vastly different then mine. Very easy on the eyes. That scale creep is ridiculous. LOL
Cheers! I really notice the time different between painting an old one-piece Rogue Trader casting and a modern Primaris.
I’m with you on the scale thing. I never used to care too much about the scale discrepancy with the fluff in gaming terms, but since a bunch of decent quality fan films have shown Imperial Guard footsloggers fighting and marching alongside giant supersoldiers, I’ve had a real hankering to see that on the table too. Which is why I have a bunch of Primaris now…
I always used the idea that scale in 40K is meaningless and that there was a “infantry scale envelope” and a “vehicle scale envelope” that models fell in. As long as the model was the right size to look like an infantry or vehicle on the tabletop everything else was meaningless.
He looks absolutely impressive. I love the colours and the paintjob itself. The back banner is just ace -I love it all!
I have been toying with the idea of RealScale Marines for years, and these are going to save me a lot of work!
Thanks! I imagine there are a lot of tru-scale marine modellers out there how have had their unique modelling angle shot out from under them by Games Workshop, and are now adrift in the hobby dimension.
They’ve still got Terminators to scale up appropriate dimensions.
Yeah, the Aggressors and the Gravis Armour aren’t quite there in terms of Terminator bulk.
The early Horus Heresy books and subsequently the “Space Marine” video game cemented marines as ~7′ tall to me. Primaris may have new background patched in, but now they are really exactly what marines should always have been.
It may not make much sense, but I’m glad that the new Chaos marines are keeping pace, for that reason.
In addition to the paintwork – which is sharp enough to set a watch by – the iconography on this fig is beautiful and really well conceived. Seeing the Nemesis project expand will be a treat.
Cheers! Did it not come earlier than the early 2000s for you, Space Marines being so tall? The discrepancy was sold by the 54mm Artemis model in the Inquisitor range, and how he towered over the regular human characters.
Can I enquire as to the colours used for Glaucon please? I think it is stunning!
Thanks Grey! It’s black undercoats, Incubi Darkness basecoats, then highlight with successively lighter mixed of Incubi Darkness and VCG Bluegrey.
Great work on that Nemesis sergeant. It’s going to be a beautiful looking squad when you’re done.
Thanks! Challenge will be to have the Squad Veteran’s veteran painted with the identical design. But I’ve got four more Intercessors to worry about before that.
Do you have a blog or anywhere where you can lay out how to repeat this paint scheme? Great Work!
Thanks John! I get asked this a lot, I think I’ll put up a tutorial for it some point in the near future once I’ve worked out Patreon.
Let me know when you do!