Trench Crusade is the grimdark alternate-history skirmish game from Mike Franchina and Tuomas Pirinen - an eternal Great War where the armies of faith hold the trenches against the forces of hell. For painters it is a gift: small warbands of ten-odd models, an aesthetic built on mud, rust, blood and bone, and a setting where weathering and filth make models better rather than scruffier. If you can wash, drybrush and stipple, you can paint this game well.
The aesthetic
Everything in Trench Crusade sits on a muted, earthy base - khaki, charcoal, bone, dried mud - with violence supplied by small, saturated accents: wet crimson gore, tarnished brass, gold icons, the occasional startling turquoise. The finish is matt and dusty except where something is deliberately wet or precious. Two habits carry the whole range: shade everything generously (see washes and shades), and weather from the ground up - dust and mud on the lower third of every model.
The warbands
Heretic Legion
The damned rank-and-file: scorched near-black uniforms over rusted iron and heavily tarnished brass, with glossy gore at blades and mouths. A warm charcoal base, earth-tone dusting and layered rust make them the archetypal grimdark trench soldiers. Full walkthrough: how to paint the Heretic Legion.
New Antioch
The faithful defenders, and the most historical-looking warband - khaki drab uniforms, dark webbing, steel helmets and stark off-white crosses weathered back into the cloth. An excellent first project because it is a classic WW1 uniform scheme done carefully. Full walkthrough: how to paint New Antioch.
Iron Sultanate
The colour relief of the setting: deep turquoise armour, fine gold ward script and warm white cloth kept cleaner than the battlefield around it. Disciplined weathering - mud to the knee, nothing above - preserves the elegance. Full walkthrough: how to paint the Iron Sultanate.
The Black Grail
Body horror incarnate - putrid olive rot, pallid flesh, wet gore and grave filth caked over everything. The most forgiving warband in the game: pooled washes and rough stippling read as corruption, so lean into the mess. Full walkthrough: how to paint the Black Grail.
Court of the Seven-Headed Serpent
The infernal aristocracy: battle-worn deep crimson set against ornate gold that stays immaculate no matter the filth. The temperature contrast - cool red, warm polished gold - is the entire scheme, and it rewards slow, careful metal work. Full walkthrough: how to paint the Court of the Seven-Headed Serpent.
Trench Pilgrims
Ragged processions of zealots in bone-coloured cloth, carrying relic wood, rope, candles and shrines, marked with blood and dribbled votive wax. Almost the whole warband is washes and drybrushing over pale rags, with tiny glossy details doing the storytelling. Full walkthrough: how to paint Trench Pilgrims.
Core paints for the whole range
You do not need a large collection for this game - one set of muted earths covers every warband, and the faction identity comes from a handful of accents:
- Earth browns and khakis - a dark chocolate brown, a mid earth, a khaki drab and a dusty buff cover uniforms, mud, leather and wood.
- Bone and parchment tones - a bone base and an off-white for rags, heraldry, wax and highlights.
- Blacks and cold greys - a warm black-brown for cloth and a cold grey for edge work.
- Rust and gore reds - an orange-brown for corrosion, a deep crimson, and a gloss blood effect for wounds.
- Metals - a dark gunmetal and a warm brass/gold; almost every metal in the game is one of these, heavily shaded.
- Shades - a brown wash and a black wash will be your two most-used pots in the entire project.
Pick your warband's colour in the scheme generator to turn any of these palettes into an exact cross-brand paint recipe, or start from the presets on the faction pages above.
Techniques that do the heavy lifting
- Washes and shades - the single highest-impact step on cloth, flesh and metal alike. Trench Crusade models are texture-heavy and drink washes beautifully.
- Drybrushing - dust, rust, bone, wood grain and dried mud are all one flick of a drybrush away.
- Basing - churned earth, duckboards, wire and standing water. In this game the base is half the model, and a consistent muddy basing scheme unifies a warband instantly.
However you paint them, err on the side of filth. This is the rare setting where a pooled wash, a heavy-handed stipple or an uneven layer is not a mistake - it is the war.