How to Paint the Iron Sultanate (Trench Crusade)

The Iron Sultanate is Trench Crusade's great walled power of the east - a civilisation that has sealed itself against the infernal tide and sends out disciplined, superbly equipped warriors to hold the frontier. On the table they are the colour relief in a game of mud: deep turquoise armour, warm gold ward script and layered white cloth. The trick is keeping that richness believable in a WW1 hellscape - clean, but not pristine.

The signature look

Three elements carry the scheme. The turquoise armour is the identity colour - the recipe above gives you the ramp for it. The gold is not bulk trim but calligraphy: fine protective script, seals and inlay that catch the light against the deep green-blue. And the cloth - robes, wraps and sashes - is a warm off-white that stays lighter and cleaner than anything else on the battlefield. Together they read as faith expressed through craftsmanship rather than filth.

Painting the armour

1. Basecoat the plates with the deep turquoise and shade the recesses with a dark green or blue-black wash - see washes and shades for the technique.
2. Re-layer the flat panels with the base turquoise, leaving the shade in the recesses.
3. Edge highlight with a lightened turquoise, pushing towards a pale aqua only on the sharpest corners.
4. A final thin glaze of the base colour will smooth any chalky highlights and deepen the finish.

Ward script and gold

The gold work is fine-detail brushwork, so thin the paint and use the tip of a small brush. You do not need legible calligraphy - rows of small dashes, dots and hooked strokes at a consistent size read as script from tabletop distance. Place it along armour borders, helmet rims and weapon flats. Basecoat a mid gold, wash with brown to settle it, then touch the highest points with a pale gold. If freehand is not your thing, a single gold seal or medallion per model still sells the theme.

White cloth

Basecoat the robes a warm bone-white, shade the folds with a thinned sepia wash, then layer back up towards off-white on the raised cloth. Keep the deepest folds warm brown rather than grey - it makes the cloth feel like linen rather than plastic. The Sultanate's cloth should be the cleanest thing in your collection, so weather it only at the hems.

Weathering, with restraint

Trench Crusade rewards filth, and even the Sultanate walks through mud. The difference is where you put it: dust and dried earth on boots, greaves and the lower hand-span of robes, and nothing above the knee. A light drybrush of dusty buff over the lower third - see the drybrushing guide - plus a properly built trench base from the basing guide grounds the model without ruining the discipline of the scheme. Skip the rust on their weapons; these blades are maintained.

Tips and common mistakes

• Deep, not bright. The turquoise should sit closer to the dark preset tone than to a swimming-pool blue - shade it hard and highlight sparingly.
• Script at a constant scale. Wobbly size is what makes freehand look like freehand; small, even marks read as writing.
• Warm whites. Sepia-shaded off-white against cool turquoise is the engine of this scheme.
• Weather low, never high. Mud to the knee, clean above it - the contrast with the rest of the battlefield is the point.

When you are happy with the palette, open this scheme in the generator to swap paints between brands, nudge the mood or add a secondary colour.