The Astra Militarum are the human armies of the Imperium, and you need a lot of them. The whole approach is built around batch painting: a simple, practical scheme applied quickly across ranks of infantry, with tanks as the occasional centrepiece.
The signature look
The iconic Cadian look is military green armour and fatigues, with metal weapons, brown leather and webbing, and flesh faces. It is a grounded, realistic palette - no bright heraldry, just soldiers.
Batch painting infantry
Speed is everything with guardsmen:
- Undercoat, then basecoat the largest areas (armour/fatigues) across the whole unit at once.
- One all-over wash to shade everything in a single step.
- A quick drybrush or single highlight on the armour, then pick out metal, leather and faces.
Contrast paints shine here - a contrast over the right undercoat shades guardsmen automatically and gets a platoon done in an evening.
Tanks and regiments
Leman Russ tanks and Chimeras give you a canvas for weathering - mud, chipping and stowage. Swap the green for other regiments: Death Korps of Krieg (field grey), Catachan (olive and bare muscle), Tallarn (desert tan), Valhallan (greatcoats).
Tips and common mistakes
- Keep it simple. A guardsman should take minutes, not hours - save detail for tanks and characters.
- One wash to rule them. A single all-over shade is the fastest way to make ranks look finished.
- Weather the tanks. Mud and chips turn a flat green tank into a war machine.