Showcase: Stormcast Eternals Lord-Vigilant on Gryph Stalker (inc. painting guide)

Saving the best til last, this week is the fourth and final week of painting a Stormcast Spearhead and I get to share with you the main man, the Lord-Vigilant on his Gryph Stalker. In this post there’s the usual stunning photography of the miniature, a full paint recipe guide and the completed group shot showcasing the entire Spearhead force.

Models were kindly sent to me by Games Workshop. My thoughts and opinion are my own.

Brooding in the Bleak Citadels, the Lord-Vigilants wait for the call of war so they can sally forth at the head of the Ruination Chambers ready to crush Sigmar’s enemies. Sat atop a Gryph Stalker, they use these mysterious beasts to absorbs the enemies life force and bestow it upon themselves in a move that would make Nagash envious.

As I mentioned recently on X/Twitter, I’m really focussing on using realistic colour schemes (as realistic as I can be for a warrior made of lightning riding a giant feathered lion bird). Instead of magical green or blue fire, I’m painting the fire in yellows and oranges. All the armour is painted with metallic like a suit of armour (with a little splash of blue for creative flair) and I carried this design ethos over to the Gryph Stalker, basing his colours on a Bald Eagle. Traditionally, I think Griffins have always been based on eagles, so I think this is the reason this scheme looks so nice, it’s pulling on some nostalgia strings for me.

How to Paint the Lord-Vigilant on Gryph Stalker

I couldn’t really find a way to paint this model efficiently with sub-assemblies so I painted it as one single model. I did leave the shield off and I painted that separately. Maybe I should have left the head separate too. He’s quite in depth with lots of bright, light colours, but I still chose a black undercoat, in this case I felt it was easier painting the armour and the body of the Gryph Stalker on a dark undercoat. This did mean having to paint the cape and the head of the Gryph Stalker with a few layers of thinner Corax White. I love Corax White, I know it has a bad reputation because the first impression is it’s a lumpy mess, but when you thin it, it covers so well and is a great base coat for light colours.

The above guide covers everything apart from the base. Check out this tutorial for painting Sandstone Ruins.

Ta-da! in all it’s glory my finished Vigilant Brotherhood Spearhead! I absolutely love this tiny force of models that I could take my time and try to make this gaming force look as good as I could. I love how all the units look so different but their colours tie them altogether like the blues and the orangey fires. I think the fire may have accidentally become my theme for this force, I’ll have to be on the look out for fire model bits, or get good at sculpting flaming weapons.

There is of course something missing from this Spearhead and that’s the terrain you need to play. Skaventide does come with the terrain you need for the game, so maybe I need to paint that up in sandstone to match my models bases. I think I also want to paint the rest of the Stormcast models from the Skaventide set. Watch this space for more updates, whilst it’s the end of my Spearhead project, it’s only the beginning fr the Hallowed Knights… “Only the faithful!”