One, it fits the established fluff (and even some of their original rules) that pretty much no one will ally themselves with the Relictors (bar the occasional radical Inquisitor). The rule has gone away, but I’m one of those weirdoes who believes in making an army that matches their history. So while even the Legion of the Damned might forsake the Relictors, the recently-annihilated Squad Marle might come back to fight another war with their battle-brothers.
Two is that it fits so well with the idea of the Relictors themselves. Veteran brother-Sergeant Marle had meditated, purified himself, and been anointed with all the proper seals and oils before he took up the warp-twisting weapon known as the Axe of Tchar. Who could have foreseen the twisted fate that would befall him and leave him and his men as warp-bound spirits?
See? Sounds good, doesn’t it?
So, these first two models were already blue from a half-hearted attempt at an Ultramarines army. I painted them with a solid coat of goblin green. That got a heavy drybrush of scorpion green on top of it, and then a lighter drybrush of bilious green. I did about a 60/40 mix of bilious green and skull white for the next layer of drybrushing, and finished them off with a very light dusting of skull white. I tried to avoid the shoulder pads for most of the drybrushing, except for the trim. Since Relictors are a dark gray with black shoulder pads, I wanted the pads on these spectral Relictors to be darker, too.
Just before the skull white, I also gave the multi-melta barrels a light drybrush of sunburst yellow. It helps them stand out amidst all the green. I might give the plasma gun something similar.
Anyway, there's a cheap way to do a “counts as” Legion of the Damned. I’m going to try to do those Defiler weapons sometime in the next week or two. Still hoping to be back up and running full time just after Thanksgiving.
