Warhammer Legions Imperialis Presents Their Argument for Sprue Painting

I won’t make fun of your pastime. Well done if you enjoy painting your T’au a vibrant pink. I see you if all of your Tyranids resemble the Xenomorph. I understand that not everyone has the time to meticulously highlight a hundred plastic warriors, but I might sigh if you play a grey army of unpainted plastic.

When it comes to painting, the Warhammer community can be a little gatekeepery. Some believe that painting with True Metallic Metals is cheating, or that contrast and “slapchop” are too simple and should be seen as quick cuts. I say go ahead and paint your miniatures anyway you choose, and as long as you don’t paint objectionable symbols on them, I’ll encourage you to pursue your artistic interests.

Having said that, I’ve never understood why some people paint their miniatures on the plastic sprue—the section of the model that ties the components together inside the box. Purchasing, building, painting, basing, and fighting Warhammer models is the usual operating procedure. However, some people approach this incorrectly.

Advice: Sub-assemblies, which are partially constructed and aid in painting details in challenging regions, are used by many painters to paint their miniatures. It seems excessive, but a friend of mine paints the engines on his Aeldari jetbikes before gluing the bonnets on top.

You can paint each and every part when painting on the sprue. Simple on the sprue are all those armpits and neck joints that are unreachable on a constructed model. However, after that, you have to cut off the sections, leaving ugly, unpainted, and unprimed grey patches. I’m not sure what on-the-sprue painters do in these circumstances; I suppose they go back into a wet palette to find the ideal complementary tone, but I could be wrong. This is particularly problematic with Space Marine kits, as parts can be awkwardly angled when attached to the sprue, making them very noticeable when assembled.

However, Legions Imperialis may have convinced me otherwise for a variety of reasons. The first is the most basic: they’re quite tiny. Considering that a Space Marine is just 8 mm tall, are these outdated eyes meant to simply depict that? So you’re saying that even after painting the ones in the back, I still have to put five of these on a base? It’s a nightmare, this.

I guess I’ve never played an Epic-scale game before, but these miniatures live up to the hype. The powerful Warhound Titans are not even as large as a contemporary Dreadnought, and contemptor dreadnoughts are around half the size of a typical 40k Guardsman. These miniatures have an amazing amount of detail, however they are really challenging to paint.




However, it was a single realization that inspired me to paint Legions Imperialis on the sprue. Even with his huge flag behind another soldier on the 25mm base, I attempted to paint the Astartes Banner Bearer. I was able to obtain a basic color and wash down, but I could not try a freehand design. I then concluded that I had to paint each miniature separately. I then encountered another issue.

I hold the base of ordinary Warhammer models while painting them, or I insert it into a painting handle. This guarantees that your model appears flawless and that you don’t smear any wet paint. As was already said, the issue with Legions Imperialis is that each little base has five models vying for space. Holding a model without a base that is less than a centimeter tall is a challenge.



The quality of the sprues itself was the second reason I began painting Legions Imperialis on them. For most footsoldiers, their feet are the only part of the sprue to which they are attached. The portion that was cut from the sprue will be entirely hidden as soon as you glue it down because each one comes with a little mound of earth or debris to glue them onto the base with. The dreadnoughts, titans, and vehicles in the package do not fit this description; but, because they are (obviously) larger, they should be slightly easier to paint. Another aid is that the titans and dreads have their own bases to cling to.

In my decades of painting Games Workshop figures, no other kit has caused me to adapt the way I paint like Legions Imperialis has. Although I’ve enjoyed painting these small figures on sprue, I’m still not sure why people choose to paint in 28mm scale. Getting a magnifying lens is the only additional advice I could give for painting Legions Imperialis.