The Depth Guard

The Depth Guard began their existence as a way to practice weathering. Most of the references we found were old boats, so we lent into the nautical theme. That led us to painting all of the exposed flesh to resemble blue-ringed octopi, designing the bases to evoke the sea floor, and, inevitably, a pun name.

Because of who we are as people, this simple painting practice on a couple of models rapidly spun out into creating the backstory for an entire faction, including a bespoke organisation structure with ranks and squads named after mythical sea monsters. At time of writing, Killteam Kraken is undefeated on the tabletop! 

The messy nature of Nurgle makes them perfect for painting experimentation, and the Depth Guard have continued to be where we practice new techniques. To date, they have been the testbed for enamel washes, chipping, custom transfers, streaking grime, and recasting parts (there are never enough hooded heads for our needs!).

We’ll be updating this page with more Depth Guard as we finish them, so watch this space!

The Dagon Terminators

“Dagon” is the name that the Depth Guard give to their Deathshroud Terminators. So far we’ve completed two of these scythe-wielding monstrosities - Aylith and Gyradus.

Aylith is a slightly modified Typhus using a hooded helm to better tie him in with the rest of the squad. The name follows the squad name in drawing from Lovecraft’s works. His accompanying Nurgling, although omitted from the legend on the base, is named Giggles.

Gyradus is one of the few models in our collection that has had no conversion work done at all, and is named after one of our favourite pokemon. Can you tell we were running out of names at this point?

These two are somewhat emblematic of the experimental nature of the Depth Guard’s colour scheme. While they both have the same overall look, that of white paint chipping away to reveal rusted iron beneath, Gyradus was painted using chipping medium to flake away the white paint, while Aylith was painted white first and got his chips from a combination of sponge and brush after the fact. Of the two, I prefer Aylith’s effect over all, although I think the Gyradus approach is better for larger areas. Expect to see more development of these approaches in future models!

The Shathak