So to be fair, I don't intend to do a deep dive into the lore, there are others no doubt whom are far more invested in it than I am, so they would be a better source of discussion on them. Never the less, I've completed a pile of Cygnar that I bought and painted for the purpose of gaming with one of my local buddies. Now that I'm done, and the models are sitting on the shelf I feel it is time for a bit of a discussion of the projects.
First of all, I love the aesthetic of the Trencher infantry models. They capture a look of steampunk soldiery that I definitely appreciate. With this in mind I knew they would always be the center piece of my army. My first Cygnar army did this, this new one is no exception. I've got one full unit of Trencher regulars and another of Trencher Commandos to fill out the rank and file. I mostly like the models for the regulars, but like the entire range they are fairly busy in terms of painting detail. Generally I start on the inner most detail, which is the armour in the coat and under the arms and around the chest. One of the advantages of the models is that they generally the conceal the faces, which mercifully minimize the amount of flesh that you have to paint. Unfortunately the Commandos don't have this advantage and will generally take a bit more effort to get a good result. The metallics also turned out fairly decent after discovering the combination of P3 Pig Iron layered over with the P3 bright brass colour. This means you don't have to layer up as much to achieve an even colour.
The Warjacks were hard work, thankfully they had their nice share of large curved surfaces that take two brush blending quite well. The downside to this is the tendency of P3 blues to take many, many layers to achieve an even base coat to work off, combined with the long drying times it makes the staging of these models take an interminable amount of time to dry. A weird complaint indeed, but I am a weird person, and this entire thing is basically stream of conscience about the experience anyway. The metallics were a lot of hard work as well, which blow out the time even more. In terms of model, I don't actually like Warjacks that much. They make sense from a steampunk aesthetic better that other products in this space, I guess it ultimately isn't for me.
In terms of model and material I'm not much of a fan of their plastics. I find them a bit too soft and they don't sand down very well, which makes trying to achieve and even fit and finish quite time consuming.
Finally, the Warcasters themselves are the best quality models of the entire run that I painted, though of varying quality. The two casters I painted were Striker and Sloane, first point I was much happier with the quality of the Striker model way more than the Sloane model. It went together far better than Sloane and the final paint result turned out way better. Sloane on the other hand didn't turn out that well due to a combination of difficult assembly and ultimately an unenthusiastic paint job on my part. This was also another attempt at doing the whole cork slate base thing for my HQ figures and I'm fairly meh about the quality of the final result. I'm particularly unhappy with how badly the flesh work came out for Sloane, which was my attempt to do a lighter, more feminine skin tone. Lately I've been achieving better results with non-P3 paints with more home made glazes, so I think my habits as a painter are beginning to shift in terms of my flesh painting techniques. The rest of Sloane's paint job was fairly standard stuff, layering and highlighting for the blue armour and washes, re-layering and highlights for everything else and washed metals for the metals. In terms of model quality I found that the Striker model was way better in terms of fine detail than the Sloane model, which I found very, very soft and kind of boring.
Overall, I think my somewhat mediocre paint job reflects my middling enthusiasm for the project. I originally intended to do way more for this project, I have additional models for some of the larger Warjacks, but no desire to paint them. The only thing I need to do for making my Cygnar competitive is re-painting my Grenadier Warjacks due to their current effectiveness in the meta. I'm planning to add them to my roster in the next cycle but that is it for Cygnar, unless the meta changes out from under me of course. That being said, Warcasters may make for some nice single model projects that could supplement my current line up, so we'll see what the future holds.
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